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pattercakebakersman · 3 years

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Time is a slippery devil

Today (March 10th) is the anniversary of Lemonhope part 2 airing for the first time and Lg3 making his debut as a character so happy birthday Lemongrab! I wanted to write something nice for his birthday so here we are :) I hope yous like it. ff.net link. word count: 4.5K MASSIVE THANK YOOOUUU TO @mikelokison for beta-reading for me!!! Your comments gave me SOOO much life! :)

Summary: Lemongrab 3 celebrates his birthday with LSP for the first time, and comes to appreciate the life he’s been given slightly more. Cw for character death (lg1 and 2), as well as the effects of trauma, and also for fatigue negatively affecting a character, plus some internalised ableism.

"When's your birthday, Lemongrab?"

Lemongrab looked over at where LSP was lying on the floor of his bedroom - she was reading a magazine while he was doing paperwork for the Lemon Earldom's first ever census. They normally did their own things when they hung out together. It was pleasant not to have to talk if he didn’t want to, or even look at her facial expressions, but he wasn’t sure how normal it was. She'd left her magazine open with her purple hand resting on a glossy page, and her other hand propping up her cheek. Her usually orange star was grey because she'd turned off her power to fly.

"Pardon?" He asked.

LSP made a face as she realised what she’d just asked of him and mentally kicked herself. "Do you have a birthday?” she rephrased. “Like I guess it'd be complicated for you, but do you have one?"

Lemongrab crossed his arms with a hmm and leaned back in his chair. He was still holding the fountain pen he used for paperwork, and twirled it with his fingers as he spoke. "I had not given it much thought. I suppose I was never truly born so I cannot have aaaa birthday. My predecessors had birthdays, but not meee…"

"What about the day you got brought back to life? I mean, it's basically a birthday. Also you can still celebrate their birthdays as your own, right?"

"Nnngh no. The day of my activation is the same day that my predecessors died. I do not seeeee anything to celebrate,” Lemongrab said grimly. He didn’t like their anniversary. He was never sure how he should feel about it, and each year that he still couldn’t make up his mind about his emotions, another year had passed, and they were still gone, and the pain never went away. He was still waiting for it to get easier, but it didn’t.

He normally went down to the cemetery to place some flowers on their graves - Lemongrab 2’s would be covered in lilies and lemon blossom by the lemon people, while he was the only one who put flowers on the first earl’s grave. Mainly because he felt sorry for his older brother. He’d created the lemon people so he wouldn’t be alone, and they’d all decided they didn’t love him anymore. Even if he deserved it after all he did, it was a cruel fate. His worst fear came true. The lemon people avoided him, the third earl, as well. He had few things in common with the first lemon person, but that seemed to be one of them.

“Besides I am not a particularly… noteworthy creature. I do not believe a birthday is necessary,” he added.

"Dude you're worth a ton of notes! But if you don't want to have a birthday then I get it. I just thought…” she trailed off, sounding almost sad, “Anyway, doesn't matter. Sorry. Hope your census stuff is going math." LSP turned her attention back to her magazine.

Lemongrab was now intrigued. "Whyyyy did you inquire as to my birth?"

"I dunno I don't wanna like- make it into a whole thing if you don't like birthdays."

"Tell me."

She fiddled with one of the pages. "I just thought that you might like a birthday present or something," she said quietly.

Lemongrab’s eyes widened and his pupils briefly narrowed. "Aaaaa present? For me?"

"Yeah! Like… maybe you don't think you're a big deal but I think you're totally great and acceptable. So I thought maybe you’d like it if I got you something.” LSP slowly raked her claws through her hair, looking flustered. “But I get that it's difficult and I don't want to make you feel bad by like, bringing you a something-something when you're grieving. I understand if you just want to be left alone. I wanna be alone too sometimes," she said the last two sentences softly, gently in a way that sent a tingle down his spine.

Lemongrab looked down at his paperwork and reread the first lines of the formal clauses to calm down his hammering heart. It always made him feel giddy when she worried about him. He still wasn’t used to someone thinking about his feelings (would he ever be used to it?) so each time she revealed how much she cared about him, it was overwhelming. "I-Iiiii see. Hm. I have never been the recipient of aaaa gift before…” he admitted awkwardly. “A present would beee acceptable. But do not force thineself!" he added quickly.

"What sort of present would you like?"

"O-oh. Hm. Let me seeeee… hm. I do not know. Nnngh… surprise meeee?" he said uncertainly. That was something people said about presents, right? He added his signature to another piece of paper, but could barely control the shape of the line as he wrote his name and drew a neat lemon. It was the same signature his predecessors had - no point changing it, he’d have to redo all his paperwork. He turned the sheet over and stopped, smiling to himself. His own birthday…

"My birthday is the 10th of March. This is the day I was reanimated," he told her.

"Awwww you have a Spring birthday! I guess that fits your personality."

"It does?"

LSP nodded. "Yeah you're kind of curious about things and like, you're sensitive, you're nice- I dunno it just feels right I guess? Ha ha.” she coughed awkwardly. “I have an autumn birthday so that fits how I'm kind of moody and sullen."

"I do not believe you are moody!"

"Eh. Count yourself lucky you haven't seen me in a bad mood yet.” There was the papery sound of her leafing through her magazine, looking for something. “Also apparently you're a pisces - that's the fish constellation."

Lemongrab smiled, "I like fishing!"

"I'm a Libra, which is the scales. I was born mid-October, so I narrowly missed being a Scorpio. But I think it still rubbed off on me. Lol. I don't really believe in that stuff though," LSP said as she checked to make sure their signs were romantically compatible in her magazine. They were. Lemongrab made a hmm noise and the soft scratch of his pen resumed. She liked listening to him writing, or turning pages as he was reading while she did her own stuff. She liked that they could hang out without looking at or talking to each other, but she wasn’t sure how normal it was to enjoy it as much as she did.

She worried a lot about stuff like that: she didn’t want to mess up. She’d messed up with people she liked before in the past, very badly, and she was determined to be better. But being better was hard. At the time when she’d gotten easily upset over every little thing and lashed out at people, and lied about living in the woods until she couldn’t hide it anymore, or when she’d stood people up that she really, really wanted to be close to just because it was easier to leave than to slowly watch them drift away from her like all her friends in Lumpy Space had - she’d thought it was all fine to do that. She’d been so sure. How could she trust herself to know that what she was doing now was the right thing? And Lemongrab was a strong person - much stronger than he’d ever give himself credit for, but he was also so, so very fragile and he didn’t even realise.

LSP nervously stroked her fingers through her fur again. "Are you sure about me getting you something for your birthday though? I don't wanna do anything uhh, unacceptable. I don’t wanna overstep if you're gonna be like, mourning and sad all day…"

"That is precisely why I would appreciate a present from you."

"Oh. Okay." LSP turned back to her magazine but the words were unreadable. It always made her feel giddy inside when she realised how much she meant to him.

Lemongrab had set up his cane seat in the cemetery grass. It was waving in the breeze around his ankles, with a few flowers dotted through the green around the three graves. They read Lemonblombo, and then the same name twice. As he’d expected, Lemonblombo and Lemongrab 2 had been buried in flowers as lemon people came in and out of the cemetery to pour their grief onto the stones. Some of them placed lilies, others roses, and most of them dropped lemon blossoms. Lemonlamb and Ploptop both came up to him to hug his legs when they visited, and he patted both of them on the head. Maybe some of the Lemon People did like him after all? In the corner of his eye he could see the grave laid out in the darkest tree shade, with no flowers anywhere near it.

He tapped his fingers on the underside of his seat and looked down at the mourning display. White lilies, blue forget me nots and white roses, with a few dark red ones thrown in. A dark red rose meant enduring, undying love for the departed. An oriental lily meant eternal life. A life that carried on being lived after death. A soul not allowed to rest, but forced to go on alone. But at least he got to go on…

“It is myyyy…. Birthday today.” The word tasted foreign on his tongue, like he’d taken a bite out of a cake meant for someone else. That same stale taste of guilt, no matter what you’d eaten. The grave he addressed didn’t say anything. But that was to be expected. He didn’t know why he’d even said that.

There was nothing else to do in the cemetery, and he was beginning to grow tired. Some days the fatigue was better, other days it was worse and he felt overwhelmed by lethargy. It seemed today was one of those days- he felt exhausted though all he'd done was sit in the cemetery for a while. It wasn’t shaping up to be much of a birthday.

Lemongrab shakily got to his feet, picked up one of the dark, brooding roses and tossed it on the first earl’s grave before leaving. Just because he still loved his brother didn’t mean he had to like it, and it didn’t mean he’d ever forgive him for anything. But if it was him buried, he would want flowers, gifts…

Lemongrab hadn’t actually given LSP a time to show up. Maybe she was waiting for him right now? The thought made the corner of his mouth twitch. He’d felt empty all day but the thought of seeing her made his heart prickle with feeling again. He realised he'd been mistaken when he said no one had ever given him a gift before. LSP had given him a parting gift once…

“Oh my glob… is she going to kiss me again?” He’d asked her to surprise him. And he got the exciting, tingling feeling that she was going to do just that. “It would be nice if I got given another kiss. Oh goodness. What am I thinking? Maybe she will just get me a pair of socks. Shameful thoughts- my predecessors are dead yet I am preoccupied with courtship. Unacceptable.” But as unacceptable as it might be, Lemongrab kept guessing what his gift was going to be.

Back up in his room, he leant his cane seat by his desk and rang the servant bell.

“Squire,” he addressed the lemon subject who scampered into the room. “Has anybodyyyy visited three castle since my absence?”

“No, my lord.”

“Oh. I see. Yes. Yes, of course. Mmmm you may go, BUT-” the lemon subject turned and looked at him over its shoulder, “call for meee if you seee… anybody purple.” The subject looked confused and left.

Lemongrab sat on his bed. Now that he took a moment to notice it, his body felt heavy. Like he was full of lead, or weighed down by the chains Lemongrab 1 had kept in the dungeon. Unacceptable behaviour from his body. Didn’t it know it was supposed to be his birthday? Of course not. It didn’t mean to hurt him, it just did.

He changed into his pajamas and lay under his bedcover, his eyes closed. Sleep didn’t come for him anymore the way it once had. He used to be able to sleep in the afternoon, but now he couldn’t sleep even at night. No matter how tired he was, or how much he wanted to escape into the nice dreams he sometimes had. Where nobody was dead, and they were all together again in a way that wasn’t a stitched together mess.

He was jolted from his misery by something tapping on the glass of his small window.

“Nnngh WHAT?” he called. He sat up slowly and swivelled around to see who’d distrubed him. LSP was floating at his window, waving at him. “Oh my glob!”

It had slipped his mind that she was going to visit him. He hobbled over to the window and fumbled with the clasp. She floated in like an awkwardly smiling, huge balloon and sat on his bed. She was holding a wrapped present (though it was mainly strips of wrapping paper cellotaped together, it seemed) and a flower bouquet.

She’d clearly combed her purple fur and put some hair clips in. Her eyelids were a pinker purple than the rest of her face, and her lips were shiny and glossy. Lemongrab realised he was in his pajamas and bowed stiffly at her.

“Pleeease most gaciouslyyyy forgive me for myy, ahem, unacceptable attire. I was… abed. The tiredness- I apologise.”

She waved her hand dismissively, and he realised she’d painted her claws a lovely, pretty pink colour. “It’s fine. I think you look sort of cute in your pajamas.”

“O-oh… I see…” Standing up was starting to make him feel dizzy, so he crawled back into his bed. Her weight pressing down on the mattress meant he slid down towards her ever so slightly. “I am sorry for myyy improper conduct. You see… I am fatigued due to myyyy condition…”

“Hey it’s okay! You told me ages ago.” He had? He really was becoming forgetful. “It's fine. Whatever makes you comfortable.”

“It is a breach of conduct… You are a princess…. Iiii am an earl,” he fretted.

“Yeah but it’s your Earldom, under your jurisdiction. So it’s fine because you’re in charge over here. Plus I come from another dimension where we don’t have any formality rules anyway, so since I’m a foreign dignitary you have to respect my customs or whatever. Plus you’re my boyfriend so it doesn’t even matter. And it’s your birthday.” LSP smiled at him and extended the flowers.

Lemongrab took the bouquet from her, trying not to smile too hard. The flowers were shaped like upturned tear drops and each had a speckle of orange nestled inside. Crocuses, purple and yellow. He’d seen a few white ones blooming in the fields when he went out on his camel, and more blossoming in the cemetery, but he hadn’t taken notice of them. Spring had come without him even noticing. He thought about what LSP said about how it fitted him to have a Spring birthday.

There was something about the earth coming to life again after the cold dead winter, and the sun starting to shine a little more bravely each day that he felt connected to. But it was hard to keep going on like that. Recovery wasn’t linear, and even though the Earldom was prospering and he’d never been happier, he was still so tired all the time. And so weak, and so sad. How did the saying go? March comes in like a lion, and leaves like a lamb. One day so strong the next so weak. He supposed it was something like that.

“They are nice. Thank you,” he said eventually, and rang his bell so the lemon squire could put them in some water, and set them on his desk. LSP grinned to herself.

She pushed the gift towards him. “Open it.”

“Aaaa command?”

“Nah. But y’know, it’s for you so…” Lemongrab took the wrapped present gingerly. It was much lighter than its size would suggest, and softer too. Lemongrab tried to peel the wrapping paper off without tearing it, but the huge amount of cellotape made that impossible. He made frustrated noises and ended up ripping it off to reveal-

“Aaa…” Lemongrab picked up the curious object and held it up to examine it. “Toy?”

“It’s a shark!” LSP said quickly. “I learned how to sew so I could fix my own clothes and my sleeping bag and stuff when I lived in the woods, so I thought I’d try and sew a plushie for you. And you said you like fish and I thought that sharks sorta have teeth like you, plus there’s a species called a lemon shark!” LSP rambled on and then asked desperately, “D-Do you like it?”

Lemongrab looked into the lemon shark’s face. It had two black button eyes, and an open mouth full of sharp felt teeth. He ran his tongue over the back of his own fangs as he turned it over, noticing that she’d sewn gills on - he did like sharks, so the attention to detail made him happy. “Hm! I do!” Lemongrab hugged his new doll and stroked his hand down it. Real sharks had sharp dermal scales on their skin, but he liked that this one was soft.

“It will not break if I drop it. What a lucky lemon I am.” Lemongrab set his shark down next to him, so it’s head was resting on the pillow. “Hm! Thank youuu princess. I was not expecting toys…”

“Oh my glob do you not like dolls anymore?” LSP panicked. “I thought you said-”

“I dooo! I dooo! I simply, hm. It is a rather frivolous and- and silly past-time. I am after all aaaan adult. Not to mention a government official…” He scratched at his cheek, feeling slightly embarrassed.

“I think you can still like dolls and toys as an adult,” LSP said, “I mean… I like plushies and furbies and stuff. They’re really cute, and they just make me feel nice, y’know?”

“Yes. Iii also feel nice, because of myyyy shark. Hm!” Lemongrab patted his shark like a pet. “Iiii shall name him LSP.”

LSP looked flustered. “W-what after me?”

“It stands for Little Shark Playmate,” he explained. “But also… it is named after you I suppose. Thank you. I shall cherish my new boy.” Lemongrab smiled at her and she smiled back. It was early evening outside, so the hazy, fading sunlight glinted off her star prettily and her fur was speckled with shine. She looked soft, and glossy, and so pretty. His hand twitched as he thought about stroking her, but then thought better of it.

Lemongrab looked down at his hands to avoid looking at her any longer. No matter how many times he saw them, they never quite looked like his. He had one hand from each predecessor. His left hand had silvery stretch marks around his fingers and wrist, with a sewed on thumb. Lemongrab 1’s claws were sheathed inside each of his fingertips, and he had to be careful with them. The second Earl was made in a hurry in a pantry, so he didn’t have some of the less necessary lemon features - so no claws. His teeth had been blunter too. His hand had lost each of its fingers in the explosion, so Lemongrab's right hand looked like it was wearing five strange rings with red stitches instead of jewels.

He pushed his hands under the covers to hide them. While it was obvious even without knowing anything about Lumpy People and their beauty standards that LSP was very beautiful, it was equally obvious that he was the ugliest candy person to ever exist, even without being told this was the case. He often wondered exactly what she saw in him. It was easy to make a list of all the reasons someone might hate him, but like him? Love him? Bring him flowers and gifts and sit with him, comfort him? It was unusual. It was unexpected. It felt almost unreal.

LSP took one of his forearms in each hand, and he realised he must have been silent for a long time. She seemed concerned. Her black eyes were shiny with worry, and he liked it when she looked at him like that. Like he needed to be looked after. “Do you want to talk about it?”

By it she meant the three graves buried under the lemon trees. He felt quite ashamed that actually, on the anniversary of the death of the only family he’d never had, he’d been worrying about whether she found him attractive enough, of all things. It was a frivolous concern. He’d never told anyone about these feelings, because vanity was ridiculous. And also because he hadn’t felt like he could talk about it, or had anyone who would listen. That meant he hadn’t realised that it did matter to him that he didn’t feel worthy of love, or that this was an important thing to tell the person he loved.

Sometimes he would randomly remember his mother standing in a stone mirror in the place of his forlorn reflection, smiling at him. Come Earl of Lemongrab, let us enjoy the game of catch. I am eager to relate to you. But it wasn’t her voice coming out of her mouth. It was his way of speaking, his strange, formal, awkward way of addressing people. It hadn’t been real. It had just been his reflection. But when he remembered it, it was like a cold, clammy, corpse-like feeling came over him, because she would never say anything like that to him in real life. Because she didn’t love him, and that was what was real.

“LSP…”

“Yeah?”

At other times he would remember when it was real. The sound of bird wings and the distant smell of smoke. The war was right next to them but for the moment, things were quiet. They were going to die, but they were alive then. And they were together. Oh tender lad, I give you the parting gift of my lips. That was his way of speaking, but it wasn’t stiff and formal, coming from her it was like poetry. His heart had been practically banging against his armour. The adrenaline and the fear of dying, and the danger, and her hands touching him without flinching from how disgusting he was had all felt dreamlike. It had been like a dream. A dream come true. She’d kissed him, but it hadn’t been a dream. It had been real. He kept reminding himself that this - all of it, was real. She did love him. She did.

But it was one thing to love an earl in shining armour, and another thing to love a grieving, fatigued, neurotic mess who still played with dolls and was hanging on to life by one red thread.

“Even though I am… not a knight, or a hero,” he began sadly, bending his head over so she couldn’t see his face, “or aaaa prince, or even someone who has a place among theee living. And I am lemoncholy, not to mention I have aaaaa difficult personality. And I look weird.” he glanced up at her, pleading, “But despite all this- am Iiii still your tender lad?”

LSP’s hands moved up his arms and around his torso. She was warm and the fur against his face was soft. “Of course you're still my tender lad! My dearest chuck. My fine fellow. My glory of the morning and my- Is that too much?”

“Oh no not at all!” Lemongrab did an anxious dance over her back with his hands as he tried to figure out where to put them. “Anyone would like hearing such sweet things. No one has ever made me feel so okay inside as you do.” He finally rested his hands on the back of her top lumpy, stroking the curl of fur under his right thumb slowly.

“I like you too, Lemongrab. Happy birthday.” she pulled back and kissed him on the cheek, leaving a clear smear of lipgloss behind. He let out a short scream, because a lemon cared by yelling. And he cared. He really did.

Lemongrab’s mouth split into a sharp toothed grin, and his pupils narrowed into two thin slits. That meant he was happy. She’d always loved how expressive he was. But all this was probably tiring him out and he'd already been exhausted when she came in.

“You should probably go to sleep now, yeah?” LSP said pleasantly.

He nodded and looked like he was trying to muster up the courage to say something. “Princess… if you are tooo leave…” he fidgeted under his bedcover and moved his hand to rest on her arm, “may I offer you aaaa parting gift?”

“Yeah?”

“The- the parting gift of myyyy…” Lemongrab paused before mumbling; “sour kiss…”

LSP looked surprised and then she nodded, blushing. “I accept.”

Lemongrab leaned forward. He’d never actually initiated a kiss before, so he was scared he wouldn’t do it properly. But once she kissed him back, and let go of him to put her hands on his face so she could hold him there the fear all melted away like it had never mattered. He still wasn’t sure what to do with his hands but she didn’t seem to notice. When they pulled away he leaned his forehead against hers and nuzzled her gently.

He realised how tired he really was. The realisation had been creeping up on him, and now that he felt safer than he’d ever felt in his life, he wanted to rest. LSP pulled the covers up over him when he lay back down, pulling his soft toy close to him. He flopped one arm on top of the blanket, so she could hold his hand.

“Goodnight dearheart,” she said to him.

“Good night, Princess,” he closed his eyes and gave her hand a final squeeze, “My Princess…”

The thing about the seasons was that they were always shifting. Winter started on a different day each year, due to the tilt of the Earth’s axis and old pre-Mushroom war calendars. Spring normally started in March, sometimes on the 20th, sometimes on the 1st, sometimes it would even start on his birthday. But until then, Spring and Winter could share.

The hands may have belonged to other people, but the sensations were all his.

#lemongrab #lumpygrab #lsp #lumpy space princess #adventure time #my writing

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radramblog · 3 years

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Radiohead Retrospective Part 5: I forgot what I was gonna call this one

The previous few entries in this retrospective have had a big old lead-in, about where the band was and how the next album came to be. This gets somewhat awkward now, as we discuss Radiohead’s fifth album, Amnesiac.

The issue is, this tracks on this album were recorded in the same session as Kid A, and it was released just over half a year later, so there isn’t as much to talk about. Kid A was, obviously, huge, but its success wouldn’t affect Amnesiac that much. I guess it got a bunch of music videos? Like, Kid A didn’t have singles, so it didn’t have either those or B-sides.

Regardless, despite being recorded simultaneously, Amnesiac is not truly cut from the same cloth as Kid A. It’s a titch more traditional and less electronic, bringing in jazz influences and classical stuff in addition to the electronica the previous album debuted. It also apparently has krautrock influences, but I don’t really know what that means, so perhaps we should just dive into it and find out.

Much like Kid A and Everything In Its Right Place, Amnesiac opens on an electronic line, albeit one that is slightly less iconic. Packt Like Sardines In a Crushd Tin Box (the spelling errors are not mine) is a substantially more muted introduction, driven by a scattered electronic percussion and a very low melody. The lyrics are pretty simple, but “I’m a reasonable man, get off my case” is kind of just a great, memeable line I’m sure people have had fun with.

Packt Like Sardines does unfortunately introduce us to a problem surrounding Amnesiac, and the discussion surrounding it. It is extremely often considered an outtakes album, a smattering of disconnected tracks, and I consider that completely unfair to the album’s design. However, Packt does inevitably invite comparisons to Everything, and it doesn’t compare favourably. I still really like the song, it’s soft and somehow comfortable in its coldness, but Everything is, well, everything.

This theme may continue.

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It is exceptionally frustrating that a higher-quality copy of this video isn’t available, because it’s really good.

There was a solid period where I considered Pyramid Song my favourite Radiohead track. It is impossibly deep, and beautiful, and above all else evocative. I have no idea why it’s called the way it is, a name echoing either geometry or the ancient past, but the little piano loop Pyramid Song is built upon is just…so much. The lyrics aren’t especially complex, but they manage to capture a very specific emotion of loss and grief, but of absolution, and just hnnng.

If you didn’t watch the video, by the way, go fucking do that. It might have the graphics of an early 00s video game cutscene, but it is genuinely as evocative and tragic as the song itself. Although according to the comments, Pyramid Song was apparently in Cyberpunk 2077, which on the one hand is cool it exposed a bunch of new people to this baller song, on the other hand it deserves so much better than being in that of all games.

I’m just going to say this ahead of time, I don’t think Radiohead captures beauty so well again until two albums from now.

We go from the utterly iconic Pyramid Song to the significantly less so Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors. I…really don’t know what there is to say about this one. It’s kind of an electronic soundscape more than a piece of music. It technically has lyrics, but they’re so heavily affected that it’s hard to see them as separate from the tune itself. I’ve spoken before about songs that are driving towards a point, that have a clear sense of forward motion from a repeating instrumental that feels like the consistent rattle of a train car. This song sort of has that, but without as much of the energy as those songs often have- it’s like a ride you have no control over. It’s basically fine, but I have no idea when I’d ever go out of my way to listen to this.

Also, what the fuck is a Pulk? That’s actually a word, I’m not getting a red underline like with Crushd, but I’m not sure if it’s an intentional misspelling or not.

The next song, You and Whose Army?, is something I remember as being way less subtle than it is. I mean the lyrics are very clearly directed at a person, and spoilers, it’s UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, but if you don’t know the period, or the band’s politics in general, it’s probably going to go right over your head.

It’s a song with two clear halves. One of them is quiet, muted even, subtle instrumentation over muffled vocals, and the second is swelling, and triumphant, powerful instrumentation over muffled vocals. The second half is a lot of fun, but it wouldn’t feel as paid off were it not for the first, so fair enough. I think I used to like this song a lot more than I do now, unfortunately.

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I Might Be Wrong is probably the most traditional song we’ve seen from this band in a minute, huh. A bass-driven track that is unquestionably a rock song, even with more electronic percussion and effects on it. Try listening to this with headphones, by the way- it’s extremely heavily panned, something I picked up on in high school since every pair of earphones I’d get would break in one ear eventually.

Despite the previous track’s eventual energy, I Might Be Wrong conveys the general mood of the album- that is, it’s pretty mellow? Even as the bluesy groove keeps going, the track never gets as intense as even say No Surprises. It’s a bit of a vibe, isn’t it? I especially enjoy the little Afterword the song has, it’s not much but I feel like it really adds to the track as a whole.

Wait how the fuck is You And Whose Army? more popular than this? What 23 million people pop that song on the reg? I don’t understand.

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Considering the subject matter of this song, and that I’d never watched it before, I was somewhat apprehensive clicking this music video. And…..yeah………..it sure is like that…..

Anyway so Knives Out is about eating people. Probably? That’s the text of it, the subtext is probably a fair bit deeper than that. Like taking advantage of what people leave behind in their absence in a more general, non-cannibalistic sense. Maybe.

I think this song is the most acoustic/least electronic song on the album? Save for one we’ll get to later, maybe. Its lyrics are kind of gross, but that’s allowed.

I’m somewhat frustrated by the lack of things I can think of to say, because I really like this song. It’s a lot like I Might Be Wrong, in that it’s a more chill rockier song than most of the album, but with a different sort of vibe. Uhh…yeah? Shrug? 8/10, would listen to again.

Anyway, we now hit Morning Bell/Amnesiac as track number 7, and it’s the least subtle reference to Kid A I guess you can think of. I mean, it’s a different version of the same song, much louder and more discordant. Bits of it sound like they could be comforting, but juxtaposed with some of the more distressing elements it’s a bit of a whirlwind.

I can comfortably say that Morning Bell/Amnesiac is A Good Song. However, I can’t really appreciate it as such, for a very silly reason. Since I thought the pun would be good, I had this track as my morning alarm for a very long time, and as a result, I cannot stand listening to it. Let this be a warning, never use a song you like to try and get out of bed, if you want to keep liking it.

Dollars and Cents is another sparse, low rock track that eventually builds into a bigger deal as it goes on. Honestly, it’s kind of hard to make out the instruments, a low cymbal line and loose guitar folding in on each other in the background. It, regrettably, doesn’t quite land on the same stick as many of the other tracks on the album, being basically fine but not really notable? And I think that’s the biggest difference between Amnesiac and Kid A, Amnesiac actually misses. Like, I always forget about In Limbo, but it’s unquestionably a good song. Between many of Amnesiac’s more experimental tracks not living quite up to snuff, and Dollars and Cents being largely okay, it’s no wonder why the album is often seen as the inferior follow-up.

This is not particularly helped by the ninth track, Hunting Bears, a loose guitar instrumental that doesn’t work nearly as well as Treefingers. It doesn’t have the vibe, and it doesn’t fit as cleanly in the middle of the album like that one does. It’s just, kind of, there. I genuinely usually skip it when I listen to this album, but I figured it wouldn’t be fair to do that here. It’s just, kind of, a miss. Pretty short, though- I could believe this originally having been part of Dollars and Cents, like a longer version of the end bit from I Might Be Wrong.

youtube

While I know this is a video for both Pulk/Pull and Like Spinning Plates, I associate it more with the latter. Not only is the version of Pulk/Pull very different from the album, well, you’ll see why I think the LSP bit is more memorable.

I think Like Spinning Plates is extremely cool. If nothing else, it’s super interesting how they got this to work. The vocal effect for the first verse was achieved by getting Thom to sing the lyrics, reversing that recording, having him memorise how that sounded and perform that, and then reversing that into the final results. How cool is that? I think it’s cool. Also at some points in the second verse, they’re playing a forwards and backwards vocal track simultaneously, which is a really neat effect.

The instrumental is…hard to describe. Apparently, it was a result of trying to make I Will (which would release one album later), which they reversed and played with to get this track. If you’re very familiar with that song, I suppose you could hear that, but I can’t. I just sit back and appreciate the music.

Amnesiac’s final track is Life in a Glasshouse, easily its most bombastic and jazzy. This sounds like a cabaret closer, a swaggering tragedy, an exploratory rehearsal of a final track. It also kind of sounds like a mental breakdown, which, mood.

There’s like, a whole band on this thing. Horns and woodwinds, a piano and probably more than one percussion element. The clarinet (?) noodling on the song is incredibly fun, giving it an almost playful edge, undercutting the downtempo mood of the song, and keeping it from being such a dirge. Especially as the track builds towards its finale, it’s clear that there was a bit more fun going on here. Of course, it can’t end on such a climax, as that little stitch of paranoia that ends up being the album’s closing word manages to sneak through.

And that ends Amnesiac. Now, obviously, it isn’t as good as Kid A. It’s less consistent, it doesn’t have Idioteque, et cetera. But I don’t actually think the comparison is as one to one as often it appears people do. The styles of the albums are completely different- Kid A incorporating so much ambient and electronic noise while Amnesiac has more of the acoustic and jazzy stuff going on. The two albums may have released closely, and recorded even moreso, but they are extremely different beasts at the end of the day.

It’s far from my favourite album of Radiohead’s, but I wouldn’t fault anyone for having it as theirs, you know.

We’ll get to my favourite album next week, where we will also see if I can either defend or maintain that opinion. Hail to the Thief beckons.

#ramble #music #radiohead #amnesiac

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sometipsygnostalgic · 4 years

Text

Adventure Time Reviewed: Season 1 part 1

As promised, I’m going through the Adventure Time series. I’m going to write brief reviews for each of the eps as I watch them, in groups.

Slumber Party Panic to Prisoners of Love

S1E01: Slumber Party Panic

This made an outstanding choice for a first episode, even if it wasn’t the intended premiere, because SPP shows you a brief package of what themes the show would keep through its run, rather than just a brief adventure. It’s really funny that the first appearance of Princess Bubblegum in the series is her raising the dead, it being a big mistake, and her lying to the candy people to protect them and describing them as ignorant, then making a 12 year old keep a royal promise. This ep shows Finn’s early season character - an amped up, anxious kid who wants to keep everyone happy but sometimes can’t. And it has Jake trying to pry the information from him, because from Jake’s perspective it is out of character for Finn to keep secrets, and he is also messed up after finding Dead Mr Creampuff’s sock with Finn. (Mr Creampuff and Manfried are both in this ep, and they will continue to be the funniest retcons of all time to me) What was absolutely retconned after this ep was the brokenness of the Gumball Guardians. It’s hilarious that Bubblegum programmed them to go apeshit if someone breaks a promise to her. If only they could have frozen time during the final battle against GOLB. I liked the part in ETDBIDK where you have to answer a maths question while dodging their attacks, even if it went on a bit too long. The ep also subverts its message. Bubblegum asks Finn if he learned about the consequences of breaking promises, but Finn says that if he breaks promises he can go on AWESOME ADVENTURES and REVERSE DEATH ITSELF, and PB goes whatever, youre too cute to yell at.

The music in SPP is surreal. Seriously, listen to this ep. The tension it creates when Finn is told to make a royal promise because the zombies will explode, and how the music so naturally swings with the mood of the ep. Excellent score!

As Jake said,“This is messed up, but cute!”

S1E02: Trouble in Lumpy Space

This is the introduction to LSP and to Lumpy Space. Lumpy space is a beautiful if rather barren environment. I do think more could have been done with it in AT, because there are not many episodes that take place in space. One design choice I found SUPER COOL in this ep is the sun has a green halo around it. I can’t actually find the sun again, I even looked on the wiki but there are no images, so it must have appeared for a brief instance. But it looked great!

LSP as a character was always incredibly selfish, but she also has this vibe of being a teenager who dwells far too much on teenager feelings. She NEVER takes anything seriously, unless it’s teen drama. And you can see that in full effect here. I love LSP. I love how much of an asshole she is, yet she has this sort of charm, because she’s so spiteful but in the teenage idiot kind of way rather than in a genuinely malicious way. It’s like she doesn’t understand right and wrong and is driven by pure instinct. And she’s voiced by Pen Ward! His LSP voice is the best.

I love Finn and Jake getting lumpified. There is some great voice acting on behalf of Jeremy Shada to pull this off.

Favourite joke: When Jake talks about how he might get lumpified, and if it happens Finn says he’ll bury him next to the treehouse, but Jake is alarmed and says he just wanted to be accepted, what did Finn think he was going to say? LMAO

Other good one: “We were drawn back by your directionless fury. Here! PCHOO! Get your girl back!” “Yeah there’s no girl.”

Finn in this ep is having some issues communicating. He ends up having an outburst at LSP, even though it wasn’t entirely her fault that the smooth posers took away the orb, it was theirs too. Finn was having a bad day.

I wish Jellybeans Have Power started with PB and SP bouncing on marshmallows like in this episode rather than having tea in her room. That would’ve been a nice callback.

Anyway, Trouble in Lumpy Space is great. These two eps are really good introductions to the series.

S1E03: Prisoners of Love

I love the joke with the snow golem’s cat head. There is an immediate callback to the Pilot, with Finn and Jake having fun in the snow. I always liked how fun these scenes looked, they are very very rare later in the series. There’s even a homage to penguin surfing, but the penguins are surfing on Jake this time. Finn and Jake act like jerks to the Ice King for like no reason. “Do you know what Ice King means?” “A big nerd!” “Oh, holy cow!” *fistbump*

“There’s a big sleepy lava man in our front yard, and he is SO hot.” “Mmmhmm....” “Nonono I take it - I mean, not like SEXY hot--” “No, no you DO mean sexy hot!” “NO! I mean---” Oh Adventure Time. Gay jokes on episode 3, and these would continue throughout the show. But as soon as you imply two of your main girl characters are or were in love, suddenly the network hounds onto you like dogs :/ Rebecca Sugar herself said that it’s much more likely you’ll get gay content in if it’s presented as a joke, or Wrong somehow, like Jake and Ice King getting married later in the season.

“Now now, I brought you a baby! And a PUPPY!” In his twisted way, Ice King thought the princesses would want to have Finn and Jake there. It’s also a good thing Finn and Jake got kidnapped because otherwise they wouldn’t have discovered Ice King locked up a bunch of princesses.

Ice King himself is a fun character already. He’s not shown as doing outright evil stuff to Finn and Jake for the sake of it. He seems heavily misguided, and idiotic, trying in his weird way to make friends. Then again.... “IceKing - let the girls go! They don’t want to be here.” “Of course they do! I’d have killed them already if they didn’t want to be here! Right ladies?” Ice King I’m increasingly certain the only reason you haven’t been dissected on Bubblegum’s lab table is because of your connection to Marceline, but that is some late series lore. As for the early seasons, wtf dude!

The flute song Finn plays in this ep is very similar to the one he plays in Lemonhope part 2. The Lemonhope version is more complete. “You broke it when we tried picking the lock to that sad ogre’s heart!” Oh my god that is such an AT line, you can imagine an entire emotional adventure based on that.

Ice King has a drawing of Bubblegum on his keyboard...

I love how the princesses are clearly quite traumatized by this affair, having been held for weeks, but the most Ice King did was ask them about their favourite sports, while threatening to kill them if they didnt play the keyboard..... it’s like a parody of a twisted serial killer. AT’s dark humor is my favourite.

Finn is a hot headed kid. He knows that the Ice King needs some kind of help but doesn’t know where to start. He knows he’s probably too young to understand. But Jake hasn’t got the patience to help.

Cosmic Owl’s first appearance!!!!!

#adventure time #adventure time reviewed

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problemon · 4 years

Note

give us the trans lore bro...

Earl and lana in unison: down with cis

Also having read through this to spell check… I now realise that me writing these characters is just a combination of “this is me” and “I WISH this was me”. I decided to leave in my commentary purely because I think the art and the author is always interesting to see but for the love of god…. @ cis ppl me being somewhat open about my trans experience doesn’t give you the right the ask invasive questions.

Anyway

Earl came out when he was 6. For the first four years of his life his dad was around, Gumbald was still around, Bonnibel was still a closeted lesbian, and so it was very much expected that Earl and Liam would be cishets.

Why yes… Both Liam AND Earl are trans. I mean… None of the Lemongrabs have “male” psychical characteristics and they all identity as male so… ALL human Lemongrabs should be trans. Fella cannonically has no junk. Translate that to a human context: epic transgenderisms.

Anyway (2!)

But after bio dad left Earl and Liam started doing various… Early (ha) onset dysphoria things and showing a clear preference for male clothing and such. By this point Bonnibel was out and started engaging with her local lgbt+ community, (which is how she met Marceline) and started befriending adult trans people who’d come over and see Earl being like:

Earl: I am playing my favourite game. I am re enacting the war of the roses with my brother. I am playing the Earl of Leicester who is also my favourite historical figure. You have to use his title and he for me or I bite you.

Bonnie’s friends and Earl’s whole family who know what being trans is and that this kind of other gender role playing is typical of trans children: 🤔hm…

(I also used to do this lol)

So Aunt Lolly took them to see a doctor as Bonnibel was way too busy and also had complicated feelings about the whole thing. Doctor asked them a bunch of questions, interviewed lolly and was like “I diagnose them with boy”.

Earl’s mothers kinda grieved for a while and were like “we don’t have daughters anymore 😔” so Lolly kinda… Took over as their main caregiver for a while while Bonnie buried herself in work. So Lolly was the one who chose their names and they’ve always had a close relationship. Earl’s name comes from his fave historical figure and he loves his name a lot (me too fam) while Liam belongs to that group of trans people who just… Saw a name on a box and were like “lol that’s me now.” Liam’s name comes from a fucking doll advert he saw aged 5 in a newspaper. (You laugh but my name backstory is no better. I also know a trans girl who named herself after a pun like a true icon. YES I’m trans YES my name backstory is fucking funny as fuck. WE EXIST)

Anyway Bonnie snapped out of her cis grieving, Earl and Liam moved schools and as teens were put on blockers and hormones with no problems and now we’re here!

The one family member who doesn’t know about his trans status is Earl’s biological father, who sends him letters every few years asking for money like “my dear daughter I am once again asking for your financial support as I have lost all my money on the stock market” which Earl finds really funny.

Earl hasn’t had a hysterectomy so he still has hormone injections and Dr Minerva provides his needles (our boy self injects) so… Finn and his family know he’s trans and they’re fine with it.

As Earl + Liam never went through “female” puberty they haven’t needed to undergo top surgery and such. Though I imagine Liam underwent bottom surgery at 16 due to extreme dysphoria while Earlie never does.

Anyway that’s them. On the whole they’ve had a pretty good time.

…Lana did NOT have a good time.

Lana came out age 14 when she wasn’t ready to. She clocked she was trans age 13 and went through a very difficult questioning phase but eventually decided she was a girl.

Bit of background: The advtime episode “The Eyes” shows LSP celebrating a Quinceañera party. In particular she seems to be celebrating a Mexican Quinceañera as she has a bouquet of white flowers (these are apparently left on the altar as an offering to Mary), a tiara, and is dancing with her father- which my albeit brief research tells me are typical features of a Mexican Quinceañera, and as LSP is thus implied to be a Mexican girl I think human LSP should similarly be Mexican. Now a Quinceañera is a rite of passage ceremony and party girls have when they turn 15, and you can imagine what it feels like to know you’re a girl but that you’re never going to have one of these, and that you’re going to be denied this affirmation of your womanhood. And as Lana really really really wanted to have a Quinceañera she forced herself to come out so she could have one.

Her family were initially quite upset. Her parents were supportive but how best to put this… I mean like “supportive”. Like LGBT people know what I mean when your family is fine with you being queer until you talk about it too much or correct them too much and they… Just don’t. Anyway Lana has a solid case of that going on. So her parents are nice enough but also… Could be a lil better. And having that experience of very conditional and flimsy support was uck traumatic.

Moving on:

She transitioned a lot later in life so poor girl lived with bad dysphoria for a long while and still has low self esteem about herself bcos of it. She has very bad voice dysphoria so she overly emphasises her speech (me me I do this! This is also why I would rather die than record myself speaking lmao) so she also has a kind of… Valley girl way of speaking, though she slips into a more comfortable voice when she’s around people she feels safe with.

And thanks to trans healthcare™️ she didn’t get on E till like… 16. (Wish this was me lol…) But she’s a lot more comfortable and happy now so it’s all good. Lana’s probably… on the fence about genital surgery. I know this is a taboo topic but anyway, binary trans people who don’t get srs for whatever reason are so so valid and powerful and it’s funny how “are you gonna get the surgery” is the one thing people want to know about trans people until we start talking about it on our own terms lol.

In terms of other stuff, Earl’s more or less private about his trans status. Very few people know and that’s just what he’s comfortable with. Plus he’s been living as male from a very early age and BARELY remembers anything before it, so for most of his life being trans didn’t form a huge part of his identity. But I imagine that changes as he grows older and starts dating Lana and has kids and is generally… Put in more situations where Not Being Cis changes things quite significantly. For Lana it’s a much bigger part of her identity and always has been. Like she includes trans themes in her literary work and would go to pride and meetings.

Cis ppl can interact but please stay in your lane…

#earl bubblegum #liam bubblegum #lana perciville #transing my gender #cw surgery #cw transition #cw injections #cw needle mention #cw transphobia mention #ask to tag

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fyrapartnersearch · 5 years

Text

~ will you let me deceive you ~ (fandom cravings search)

greetings be careful who you trust, the devil was once an angel. ~ lowercase is purely for aesthetic purposes

~ feel free to call me deviation, dev, d, or lexi

~ i am a 22 year old female, meaning that i'd prefer to rp with people 18+ not only to be closer in age to me but also because my rps can venture into dark topics

~ central standard time

~ you can expect an average of four responses a week although i strive to daily respond, if possible.

~ my replies range from 400 - 4000 words, and i try to mirror my partner

~ third person, present tense although i will rp with people who write past tense (to each his own)

~ doubling is required for all fandom roleplays to keep everything fair. please do not contact me, asking if i can just play who you would like.

~ sucker for ooc chat although it is not required what I want in a partner (yes, we like to break the rules, but these aren't meant to be broken) it is not a shame to be deceived; but it is to stay in the deception 1| activity is fairly important to me because if i go two-three weeks without a response, i will likely lose interest which I don’t want to do! i would prefer if my partners could get me, at least, two responses a week.

2| because i am literate, i am looking for partners of the same! i would prefer, at least, two hearty paragraphs per response, although i am more than happy to receive more. would you like to basically create a book with me? i'm totally down!

3| please help me build our universe, and our story. i don’t want to do it all by myself. i want to make sure that we both enjoy it.

4| please don’t godmod my characters, and no mary sues or anything like that! nobody is perfect or without weakness. we love originality!

5| please be able to write in third person because first person makes it a bit weird for me, and way more personal than i'd like to go. i write in present tense myself although i am more than welcoming to those who write past tense.

6| i am ghost friendly, just please let me know if you decide to drop the rp, if you can, so i don’t find myself waiting for a response that will never come.

7| please let me know if you will be unable to respond for a week or longer, just so that I am aware and don’t think you have dropped the rp.

8| this isn’t a rule, but a preference. i love to get to know my rp partners, so ooc chatter is always welcome!

9| please have a good grasp on grammar and spelling. no text talk.

10| be willing to double if you decide to do canon x oc just so that it makes it fair to everyone.

11| please do NOT (see the caps) just send me a message, asking whether or not I’m still looking, or giving a measly sentence about yourself. i would prefer if you would tell me about your writing style, what you want to write with me, etc. give me something to go off of! let me see who you are!

12| i will rp smut, but it needs to be apart of the story and not overtaking it

fandoms belief is the deception you play upon yourself now, let's move on to the fun part, and what i'm sure you guys are waiting on... the fandoms! because of all of the television i watch (is that a bad thing...?) i have fandoms all over the place that i'd love to rp! unless it is crossed out then i am still looking to do it, so feel free to contact me about it! i will have the fandoms divided up and under each, i will include characters i'm willing to play, and who i'd like to play against. again, just a reminder that doubling is mandatory although it doesn't have to stop there. i'm down to double/triple/quadruple, whatever you want. i also am down for au's and using the universe but using ours ocs. just shoot me ideas of what you want. tv shows we often shed tears that deceive ourselves after deceiving others 1| arrow i'm currently in season five of this television show; meaning that i am not caught up although it does not mean that i won't rp it, just no spoilers, please! (characters i'm willing to play: anyone) (characters i'm looking for: oliver)

2| flash i'm currently in season three of this television show; meaning that i am not caught up although it does not mean that i won't rp it, just no spoilers, please! (characters i'm willing to play: anyone) (characters i'm looking for: barry)

3| vampire diaries i'm currently in season five of this television show; meaning that i am not caught up although it does not mean that i won't rp it, just no spoilers, please! (characters i'm willing to play: anyone except enzo, kai, vicki, april, kol) (characters i'm looking for: kol, damon, elijah, klaus)

4| glee i'm completely caught up with this show! (characters i'm willing to play: anyone) (characters i'm looking for: noah (puck), Jesse, brody, jake, ryder)

5| game of thrones i'm currently in season six of this television show; meaning that i am not caught up although it does not mean that i won't rp it, just no spoilers, please! (characters i'm willing to play: anyone except gregor, eddard, sandor, oberyn, brienne, melisandre, jorah,) (characters i'm looking for: gendry, ramsey, joffrey, khal drogo, jaime)

6| pretty little liars i'm currently in season three of this television show; meaning that i am not caught up although it does not mean that i won't rp it, just no spoilers, please! (characters i'm willing to play: anyone) (characters i'm looking for: wren, alex, ezra)

7| outlander i'm currently in season two of this television show; meaning that i am not caught up although it does not mean that i won't rp it, just no spoilers, please! (characters i'm willing to play: anyone) (characters i'm looking for: jamie)

8| 13 reasons why i'm currently in season two of this television show; meaning that i am not caught up although it does not mean that i won't rp it, just no spoilers, please! (characters i'm willing to play: anyone except hannah baker, tony, sheri, skye) (characters i'm looking for: bryce, zach, tyler)

9| elite i'm currently caught up with this television show (characters i'm willing to play: anyone except valerio, fernando, christian, marina, omar) (characters i'm looking for: polo, ander, guzman)

10| shadowhunters i'm currently caught up with this show and have read the books! (characters i'm willing to play: anyone except lucian, jonathan) (characters i'm looking for: jace, magnus, sebastian)

11| the fosters i'm currently in season two of this television show; meaning that i am not caught up although it does not mean that i won't rp it, just no spoilers, please! (characters i'm willing to play: anyone) (characters i'm looking for: brandon) movies it is more tolerable to be refused than deceived 1| mcu (characters i'm willing to play: anyone except strange, peter parker, peter quill, thanos, ant man)

(characters i'm looking for: tony stark, thor, loki, steve rodgers, clint barton, bruce banner) 2| after (characters i'm willing to play: anyone) (characters i'm looking for: hardin, jace)

3| twilight (characters i'm willing to play: anyone except emmett, james, sam) (characters i'm looking for: seth, embry, paul)

4| matched (not a movie, technically, but it is in my heart) (characters i'm willing to play: ky, xander) (characters i'm looking for: ky, xander)

5| divergent (only the first one) (characters i'm willing to play: al) (characters i'm looking for: four, eric, peter)

6| the host (characters i'm willing to play: jared, ian) (characters i'm looking for: jared, ian)

7| disney (special plot, shh, it's a secret. message me if you're interested) asian dramas it is amazing how complete the delusion that beauty is goodness 1| crash landing on you (characters i'm willing to play: anyone) (characters i'm looking for: junghyuk, seung-joon, kwang-beom)

2| boys over flowers (characters i'm willing to play: anyone) (characters i'm looking for: jun-pyo)

3| i need romance 1/2/3 (characters i'm willing to play: anyone) (characters i'm looking for: sung-hyun, seok-hyun, joo wan)

4| heirs/inheritors (characters i'm willing to play: anyone) (characters i'm looking for: kim tan, choi young-do)

5| good morning call (characters i'm willing to play: anyone) (characters i'm looking for: hisashi uehara, daichi shinozaki) anime time will inevitably uncover dishonesty and lies; history has no place for them 1| devil’s line (characters i'm willing to play: anyone) (characters i'm looking for: anzai)

2| vampire knight (characters i'm willing to play: anyone) (characters i'm looking for: zero, kaname)

3| amnesia (characters i'm willing to play: anyone) (characters i'm looking for: toma, shin, kent, ikki)

4| dragon ball z (characters i'm willing to play: goten, gohan, krillin, android 17, yamcha) (characters i'm looking for: trunks, vegeta)

5| kuzu no honkai (scum's wish) (characters i'm willing to play: anyone) (characters i'm looking for: mugi) cartoons life is the art of being well deceived; and in order that the deception may succeed it must be habitual and uninterrupted 1| teen titans (characters i'm willing to play: anyone) (characters i'm looking for: robin)

2| young justice (characters i'm willing to play: anyone) (characters i'm looking for: superboy)

3| adventure time (characters i'm willing to play: anyone except ice king, lsp) (characters i'm looking for: marshal lee)

4| avatar: the last airbender/legend of korra (characters i'm willing to play: anyone except toph) (characters i'm looking for: zuko, bolin, mako, iroh (younger)) last words deception may give us what we want for the present, but it will always take it away, in the end thank you for reading through to the end of my thread, and i do hope that you found something you liked. just a reminder that all fandoms can be changed to use ocs or au's, i'm very open to those kinds of things! in addition, if you would like to contact me about a fandom, please send a message as opposed to posting on this thread (so i can keep it clean). i am only looking for a few partners, but i'd love to hear from as many of you as possible! thank you lovelies!

contact me

feel free to email me ([email protected]) to talk about rping with me!

#oc rp #multiple paragraph #para #long term #email #messenger #marvel rp #avengers rp #tvd rp #smut rp #mcu rp #dc rp #submission

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imagine-lumpygrab · 5 years

Note

I see you reblogged a writing prompt list so if possible may I request... Number 3 for angst or number 14 for fluff... Take your pick whatever inspires you more

Surprisingly, in spite of my natural leaning towards fluff, I was inspired by the angst prompt: “Why are you awake right now?”

It did turn into fluff after a while though, so... oops :D

––––––––––––––––

The Storm Cloud

(for @charliecharlo)

The city full of lemonpeople was very quiet during most nights. Most citizens of the earldom had similar sleep patterns and went to sleep at the same time, after all, but there were exceptions. A small boy in a house on the outskirts was finishing up his new sculpture. Elsewhere, a mother of two was checking on her children (who she’d planted, grown and raised herself, mind you) for the last time before going to bed.

Just like the city, the castle towering over it was, too, very quiet. The earl of Lemongrab himself, though, was wide awake, and the longer he stayed awake, the more suffocating the silence around him seemed to be. He’d grown accustomed to being around people in these last few months, he spent some time with Fern after they both got candified, he appointed several meetings with princess Bubblegum in an attempt (made on both sides) to fix both their personal relationships and ties between the kingdom and the earldom, and he was planning a small reunion tour with a music band his first predecessor used to be in, The Unacceptables. So far he’d only texted with them but tomorrow they had a band meeting planned and he wandered how it would go.

Would they even come? Weren’t like two of them dead? What are they going to say about him being dead for a while?

As the night progressed, he decided to at least be productive if his anxieties wouldn’t let him sleep. He could try and write a new song, at least he’d have an offering for the band meeting. So, not really knowing if there was even anything to write, he took a small notebook and a pencil he kept in his nightstand’s drawer and ventured out into his castle. Wherever he went, gentle light of lanterns appeared seemingly out of nowhere, lit up by the servants living in the walls. On other nights, he had a tendency to notice a small delay as those in charge of night lights were only starting their shift and he would probably tell them to be more responsible when on duty, but tonight he couldn’t find it in himself to care. He had more important stuff to overthink.

Finally, he settled with sitting down to the empty dining table in one of the biggest rooms in the castle. He remembered Lemongrab the Second’s proposal of getting rid of it and turning the hall into a ballroom once. He also remembered Lemongrab the First’s hesitant agreement, as the “original” earl of Lemongrab didn’t particularly like the crowds at the time. Later, the idea almost turned into a fully planned project when the older brother started a band and grew to love the attention their fans showered them with.

So ironic that he’d been destroyed by music only months later, along with his clone.

Lemongrab shuddered, at times he could swear to have heard Lemonhope’s harp again, echoing through his home, through his mind, soft melody piercing him and tearing him apart bit by bit. It took a while after he was stitched together to muster up the courage to start listening to any sort of music again, and whenever there was a harp in the room he needed desperately to be anywhere else. Thank Glob most people who knew him understood that.

He tapped the flat end of his pencil against a blank page of the notebook. What did he feel like writing about?

His mind went blank.

Now that he had decided to write something, he didn’t know how to start.

Any given word he could think of felt wrong.

He couldn’t even start the first verse.

“Well this is annoying,” he spoke out loud, partly to fight against the silence wreathing around him, but that only seemed to draw it closer to his skin, embracing and crushing him, why did it feel like that, why did the silence feel so… tangible? Why wasn’t he asleep, he should be asleep, was it bad that he wasn’t asleep? Was he doing something wrong? Was something wrong with him – again??

Lemongrab gripped the pencil tighter and shut his eyes tight. His annoyance slowly but surely morphed into something else, something darker, anger, most likely. Yes, that was it, anger was the right word. He had survived the end of the world and he survived the elemental powers of Ooo getting out of hand and he had survived his own death, why did it feel like he shouldn’t have, why did he feel like he was doing everything wrong, what was the meaning of this?!

A tap on his shoulder wrenched him out of the panicky state he was slowly succumbing to. As he opened his eyes, he realized he was pressing his forehead against the blank paper and the pencil he held was moments away from snapping in half.

Next to him was standing one of the servants who lived in the walls. He was holding Lemongrab’s phone, which was at the moment buzzing. The name on the screen made him sigh in relief: it was Lumpy Space Princess. Just the person he needed to talk to. She’d recently movies back to the Lumpy Space for her official coronation and to deal with paperwork and administration related to the process, and even though they called each other all the time, it couldn’t quite compensate for her absence.

Trying to compose himself as to not sound like he just almost had a mental breakdown, he took the phone and picked up. “Hi–”

“Why are you awake right now?” his girlfriend’s voice came through, sounding a little scolding and more than a little worried.

The question caught him off-guard. He squinted his eyes in confusion: “How… how do you even know I’m awake?”

He heard her make the quiet “psh” scoff she made whenever she was about to state the obvious. “Well, you don’t sound like you’d just woken up. You sound like you’ve been up and about for a while before you picked up the phone.” She paused for a second and then added: “Also Bubblegum texted me saying she saw light in your castle with one of her new drones.”

Lemongrab sighed. Of course she did. “That’s mother princess for you, I guess,” he mumbled while standing up from the desk and walking over to a window, trying to spot the drone. He saw nothing, however. Either it was far away or gone already, but it didn’t help his mood any.

“Yeah.. but she cares, LG,” LSP offered, trying to soothe his annoyance. “I think she’s just been on edge since experiencing the actual end of the world and her own family declaring war on her.”

“I’ve been on edge too!” Lemongrab exclaimed, throwing his hands up even though she couldn’t see the gesture. “And you don’t see me stalking the candy people! …not anymore at least.” He groaned, the lack of sleep was getting to him and princess Bubblegum spying on him, even if from afar, was only worsening his already fragile state.

And even if she was in a completely different realm at the moment, he knew LSP could tell he wasn’t feeling well. “Lemongrab, why don’t you tell me what’s keeping you up?”

“You should be sleeping too, though.”

“Eh, I’d spent the next three hours watching cat videos, talking to you is always cooler. Now, what’s on your mind? Spill it.”

So, he decided to spill it. “I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d write a song for the band meeting tomorrow, but instead I had a meltdown, I think.”

“What?!”

“I’m fine now though!” he rushed to assure her, but it didn’t seem convincing even to him. Is he really fine? He didn’t feel fine. But he didn’t want her to worry, either.

“I know you don’t want me to worry,” she spoke up, and for half a second he wondered (not for the first time) if lumpy space people could read minds. “But you know it helps to talk about stuff.”

He let go of the pencil, giving up on song-writing. Obviously, his muse decided to evade him for the evening. Instead he wrapped his free arm around himself in an attempt to chase away the impending feeling of loneliness. How could he feel so alone when all around him there were the lemon citizens and how could he feel like he was missing more than a few pieces when he was out together with more pieces than he dared to count? How could he feel so…

“Wrong,” he admitted to her. “I feel wrong.”

She kept silent. She knew there was more to it.

He continued, if only to protect himself against the silence. Also because he really wanted her to know. He wanted her to understand, and he knew she would. She always did. “I was… I was okay earlier today, I was okay yesterday, I was okay a week ago, but tonight I feel horrible, I feel stupid and I hate everything.” Mostly myself, he didn’t say out loud. “And I feel wrong for being annoyed and tired and angry when I don’t have anything in particular to be so annoyed and tired and angry for, you know?”

“Oh, baby,” she said softly. She desperately wanted to be there, to hug him and kiss him and hold him until he fell asleep. But she couldn’t. So she settled for the next best thing. “Most people have these intrusive thoughts from time to time, that we’re somehow broken. Let’s face it, most of us are. But that’s good.”

“Is it?”

“Yeah. Scars and imperfections show that you’ve lived. Having a writer’s block is normal, and being in a horrible mood from time to time is normal too. You know, I really miss you, and sometimes I catch myself lashing out at mom and dad because of it. But I think they know I’m just irritated, because they’re always chill about it.”

Lemongrab couldn’t help but smile a little. He did have an opportunity to meet her parents already and they were the sweetest people he’d met in a while. And as much as she tried to act cool and tough, LSP had proven to him on numerous occasions that she could be just as sweet. Like now. Now, she was making him feel better. “I love you,” he informed her, because even if it was out of nowhere, it just… seemed appropriate.

“I love you too,” she responded and he could almost see her gentle smile. “Don’t worry about anything, okay? You’re strong, I’ve seen it, I know it. But even the strongest people have to take breaks. What I’m trying to say is, if you can’t write anything, don’t force yourself into it. Go hang out with the camel or the pegasus if you still don’t feel sleepy,” she offered.

He was about to follow her advice, honestly, why not? He told her once how the second earl came up with that idea a while ago and Lemongrab still spent time in his stable sometimes when he was feeling down. He suspected he wasn’t the only lemoncreature to do so, too.

But his eyes wandered down to the table, and the notebook, and the pencil, and he blinked. And just like that, the exact words he was searching for popped into his head. “Wait, stop,” he spoke up to interrupt LSP as she was still trying to think of more stuff to calm him down. “What rhymes with ‘us’?”

She hummed, pondering the sudden question before answering: “Maybe ‘thus’?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, setting the phone down and catching the pencil like a hawk snatching up its prey. “Yeah, that’ll work!”

“What, what will work?” Her voice was laced with excitement as she realized: “Did you get an idea for a song??? Oh my Glob am I your new muse? I’m a totally awesome muse.”

“Hold on for a second.”

“Sorry, I’ll stop talking. Write your heart out.”

And as he wrote the lyrics down verse after verse, he believed he might have done just that. When finished, he read the lyrics back to LSP and the sheer excitement in her voice as she gushed about how wonderful his work was melted away his remaining discomforts.

“It’s not exactly our band’s genre…”

“It’s not set in stone, you can come back to it later. Or make it the special song for the end of the night, you know, a goodbye song after a good concert. Whatever you do with it, it’s gonna be awesome,” she assured him. “Am I right or am I right?”

He grinned. “Both.” Just then, he let out a yawn.

“Aha! I heard that! You’re going to bed right now, mister!” she said half-jokingly.

He chuckled softly and complied. For whatever reason, he suddenly felt like he could doze off right then and there, but he’d done that a few times before and when Bubblegum found out, she scolded him for hurting his back that way.

Before settling back into his bed, Lemongrab wished LSP a good night and thanked her for being there for him. She replied with a smug “always, my dearest lemonboy,” and hung up shortly after.

And before he fell asleep, a melody of the song he’d just come up played softly in his mind, for once bringing not bad memories, but a sense of ease and warm, gentle embraces.

Little drops of blue

Keep falling down and touching you

It’s the sky weeping

Over the tragedy you’ve been through

Little broken heart

Keeps getting ripped and torn apart

No ugly strings of yours

Can fix what never had to start

Little broken us

The rain will keep on weeping thus:

“Go touch the strings now”

And ugly turns vibrant, just because.

Little drops of blue

Keep falling down as I kiss you

It’s the sky weeping

Over the truth that I love you.

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deliriumbubbles · 6 years

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So, I’m awake somehow. Here are some potential interactions after CWM for our little academic in the land of OOOOOO

Simon is going to have to face the people Ice King fucked up... Meaning some of the princesses are going to want to beat the shit out of him, some are going to find it incredibly awkward, and some of them are weird and will come onto him after being angry with him. I’m imagining Slime Princess in particular making things pretty weird. LSP would, but I think now that she’s got a boyfriend, she’d find Simon kinda shrimpy. All of this makes Simon uncomfortable, but he’s determined to help them and work to build trust.

Ice King’s wizard friends/secret cult buddies aren’t going to know how to react now that he’s cured. He’d still know a lot about magic but would understandably be very avoidant of it if possible. He did get cursed for 1000 years. But his friends knew the IK and some of them LIKED the IK (especially LGM) even if the guy didn’t always know their names (and they all went by magus titles anyway), and they think, hm, maybe we could turn him back into the guy we knew. It backfires.

Marceline is happy to have Simon back, but the last time he was cognizant of her for more than an hour or so, really the last time he knew her, she was a pre-teen. He raised her. Their dynamic is new and uncertain because Simon still feels he should protect her, Marcy knows that Simon is vulnerable without his magic, a lot has happened that Simon just doesn’t remember, and both have unresolved guilt about not being able to be there for the other. Lots of talking and singing. And probably sharing sweaters. <3

I don’t know what this would be like, but at some point, Marcy is going to be dealing with both of her dads at once. At least when Simon is human he’s tolerable. Hopefully, Hunson doesn’t try to suck his soul out.

PB getting super excited and smug because Simon sees magic the same way she does: It’s science, and you just have to figure out how it works. Research shenanigans.

While I’m thinking of that, I also imagine what it’ll be like when Marcy explains that she and PB are together. Did Simon guess after her laugh in the crown labyrinth, when she and PB were definitely dressed up like Date Night? He’ll be so happy she has someone. <3

General Professor Dad vibe around characters who haven’t had that kind of presence. Young Man Finn having a solid older dude presence for the first time in forever.

#simon petrikov #adventure time #simon and marcy #marceline

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animation-recaps-by-sean · 6 years

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Adventure Time-Come Along With Me Recap

The fun will never end it’s adventure time! Spoilers below.

After Sym Bionic Titan wasn’t renewed for a second season, a coworker told me that Adventure Time better turn into something great. Little did he know. Adventure Time came right when we needed it. This is bittersweet for me. My first review for this blog was for the season six episode “Breezy”. It’s still my least favorite episode. And the rest of season 6 didn’t really help matters. But the show bounced back, next season. And was still one of the best on tv to the end.

Due to a series of circumstances involving Aqua Teen Hunger Force, a lightbright, and the city of Boston, Cartoon Network got a new head executive who wanted to move the channel in a new direction. He greenlight a series of reality shows and launched CN Real in 2008 planning to move away from cartoons completely. This move was universally hated by everybody and cost the channel millions. Fast forward to 2010 had Cartoon Network premiering it’s first cartoon since the failure of CN Real. It didn’t just save Cartoon Network it saved cartoons. Cartoons were kind of fading from television. Nick and Disney didn’t have a lot of animated shows at the time. And there was a lot of stuff like Adventure Time at the well... time. It’s hard to image since how cartoons have built off it’s style, but Adventure Time really was a breath of fresh air. If we didn’t have Adventure Time we wouldn’t have had Gravity Falls, Steven Universe and so on and so on. It showed everyone that cartoons could be funny and smart too.

It did have issues. Particularly in season six when the show started to by its own hype. And the gave everyone daddy issues. And I mean everyone. Finn, Marceline, Lemonhope, Jake, Jake’s kids, Jake’s brother, Jake’s grandkids. But they did improve season seven going onward by grounding the lore and the story based on the characters. I think deciding ending the series forced them to address interesting lore points.

Speaking of the ending, let’s talk about the finale. It begins a thousand years in Ooo’s future, seen in Lemonhope and Graybles 1000 +. We join Shermy and Beth, who looks like a decedent of Jake and Ladycorn, as they try to topple a Prize Guard Guardian. They fail but gain the ire of a futuristic banana guard. The duo also find an old metal arm. Finn’s metal arm. The return to their house, which is Marceline's house. The two decide to find the King of Ooo to see if he knows anything about it.

The duo travels up a mountain to the King’s house, who turns out to be BMO with a crown and a sheet tied to his face to mimic a beard. Shermy and Beth look around the room breaking a lot of stuff. BMO asks them to leave but the show him Finn’s arm. BMO remembers his old friend and how he lost his arm at the end.

We go back a thousand years. Finn and Jake see King Man and Betty doing something with the unconscious Maja. The three disappear. They report it to Bubblegum who is planning a defense against Gumbald and his army. Both Finn and Marceline warn Bubblegum about the war. The show is framing them in the right but I disagree. Look, war is bad, I get that. But you gotta defend yourself. This isn’t a cold war equal power kind of deal. Gumbald is gunning for Bubblegum. Ask Neville Chamberlain how well appeasement works.

Bubblegum discovers a spy forcing her to launch the attack now. Gumbald, who knows his spy was caught, knows what she would do launches an attack himself. Before the two forces duke it out Finn throws a potion he got from Nightmare Princess back from that episode set between the island and elementals mini series. Finn, Jake, Gumbald, Fern, and Bubblegum are hit and trapped in a shared dream. Finn tries to get Gumbald and Bubblegum to talk it out but the two fly off to dream fight. So Finn tries to get Fern to listen to him, but that’s not working out for him either. Jake meanwhile, conjuring up his brother, goes looking for something in there shared minds. He finds what he’s looking for. Finn’s vault. Finn tries to explain that he has issues just like Fern but Fern insists that he’s the only one who angsted. Trust me Fern, Finn have angsted plenty, just watch season six.

Jake comes in with the vault and opens it releasing a bunch of bad memories. Fern sees that Finn does suffer and Finn and Jake are transported into Fern’s head. The episode does rush past the bad memories without much thought. But I get they only have so much time for the episode. They find that grass octopus holding Sword Finn. Finn kills the grass ocotpuss and frees his time displaced counterpart.

Meanwhile, Gumbald gets to experience running the candy kingdom while Bubblegum lives turning into a candy person. The two get a better feel for each other.

The five of them meet up at the beach. Fern starts to distagrate but Jake assures him it’s just a dream. They wake; but Fern is still disintegrating. Can I just say I love LSP’s “Oh no, there dead! Oh wait there fine.” It just really cracked me up. Gumbald and Bubblegum go to hug it out but at the last moment he pulls out the candy juice. But Lolly trips him and it spills all over Gumbald turning him back into punchbowl, saving Bubblegum. Guys, I feel so validated.

We cut back to the future and Beth thinks that BMO meant the end of the war, but no BMO meant the end of Ooo. Because as soon Aunt Lolly and Bubblegum makes peace, King Man comes crashing down, telling everyone he donked up. Bad. The chaos demon Golb comes down with an unconscious Maja and Betty in a trance. Somewhere deep in Ice King, Simon flashes back to him and Betty discussing GOLB. Back in the present, GOLB turns a bunch of people into a giant monster. The army Gumbald had recruited flees. Boy they were pointless to bring back. Bubblegum turns to the banana guards. She asks them if the will obey her orders. When the yes, she orders them to run away for their lives. Which they do.

King Man and Finn bring Ice King to Betty hoping he can snap her out of trance. Ice King sings the Fiona song. We never got an answer for that Fiona transmision plot line did we? Betty is not happy but that frees Maja who laugh at her chance of revenge. She is promptly overloaded by GOLB’s power and explodes. GOLB than eats Betty, Ice King, and Finn. Biting off Finn’s robot arm in the process.

The monster goes on a rampage and smashes Bubblegum, sending Marceline into a rage. She knocks back the monster and attend to Bonnie. After the two talk, the girlfriends kiss. Good for them. It was never my ship but it was a huge part of the fandom and they deserve to be canon.

Jake fights the monster, who smashes the tree house and BMO’s face. BMO picks up a smashed tiny Jake and sings ‘Time Adventure’ the last song Rebecca Sugar wrote for the show. While singing the monster couldn’t attack them. Bubblegum realizes that creatures of GOLB are creatures of disharmony. And thus are hurt by harmony. So the cast begins to sing.

Meanwhile, trapped in his stomach, Betty and Simon are reverted to their premagic selves. The crown itself also switches to it’s prewish state. Betty and Simon are finally reunited, only to have to face of death. Finn fruitlessly punches the walls. But the song gets through and opens up GOLB’s stomach. Simon and Finn escape while Betty ops to stay behind to use the wish crown. She wishes for what she always wanted, Simon safe. Betty fuses with GOLB and disappears. The crown falls with a clang. I feel the show was a little harsh towards Betty’s quest to save Simon. It’s not her fault that Magic Man transferred his insanity into her.

Gunther picks up the Ice King’s crown and Jake reminders everyone that Gunther is a powerful space demon. But the crown just turns him into a smaller version of the Ice King head from the Garybales episode. Fern distagrates for real and Finn and Jake planet him were the tree house was.

BKO finishes his story. Beth and Shermy thought it was a story about the end of Ooo. BMO tells them it was. They asked what happened to everyone. BMO says they lived their lives. As the two leave and giant Sweet P can be seen walking in the background. They walk to the giant tree and Sherny pulls the Finn sword at of the top.

We cut back to Finn and Jake at the song hole, who sings the ending theme. We see flashes of everyone. Gunther marries Turtle Princess. LSP is crowned queen of Lumpy Space, Simon tries to find Betty, Marceline and Bubblegum cuddling on the couch, Susan and Frieda are still exploring, and Minerva leading the humans to Ooo.

I am bummed that we didn’t get anything with Finn and Huntress Wizard. I thought they worked as a couple and we spent a good chunk of the series dealing with Finn’s love life and would have liked some resolution to that. Also, why are the candy people in stasis in the future?

I think the final episode could have used another 15 minutes to flesh some stuff out. Other than that it was a great ending. I was a little worried we were gonna get a bad or strange ending, but I was happily wrong. It was bittersweet in some ways but did right by most of the main cast.

3 ½ out of 4

#adventure time #adventure time spoilers #adventure time finale #come along with me #the ultimate adventure #finn and jake #princess bubblegum #Marceline the Vampire Queen #ice king #cartoon network #animation recaps by sean

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2n2n · 6 years

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Im really suprised you and 2Finns aren't angrier at the way Finn/Marcy's relationship got so underutilized as the show went on since you love it so much. after season 5 or so they literally never have any big grand moments, it's all small talk from then on. even in Stakes Finn and Marcy get like three or four short interactions that feel meaty. it feels like they went from "best friends in the world" to acquaintances and it's the thing I hate most about AT as a whole.

awe I honestly appreciate your fire. Someone should feel like that. I’m very easily pleased, I guess; I rewatch stakes all the time ‘cuz I just like, love that. She asks Finn to look into her eyes to read her... and Finn tries to outrun the sun... and she asks FINN to burn her DIARIES..... (I like to think she’d exclusively trust him to do that and not read em anyway) .... and they go on a walk together... I get enough of the impression they’re close friends through these little interactions.

The complete absence of anything at all, in the finale, even a glance, between them, DOES make me pretty sad and feel like there’s no active thought devoted to ‘em, esp when even marcy/LSP get something in the finale fkdlfjdlfl;df and she’s not exactly lasting loyal friend material.... or meaningful to marcy....

I’m honestly not the type to focus toooooo hard on what I don’t like. I mean, here, people ask me about it, SO i talk about it when requested to expand on the unappeal, but on my own I just kinda rewatch the seasons I like best and don’t rewatch the arcs I cared less for as much. Though I do give the whole series a rewatch now and then, I try to just zero in on what brings me joy. I can’t get too mad at the show having different priorities; my priorities are highly specific and highly personal, so of course they won’t be catered to. I’m honestly very very very used to series not caring about its own platonic relationships. I’m so used to it. I had to get used to it or else I’d be depressed all the time. Everything will eventually focus on its romances and what have you. Friends will always be less important to writers than lovers. Oh well.

#Anonymous

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the-a-factor-fs-blog · 7 years

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Kiss & Cry - Episode 8

As usual, sorry for the delay, but technology issue decided to make our updates even slower than usual ;)

Better late than never, here you are the translation of the eight podcast of Kiss & Cry, recorded after the fifth event in GP Series.

As usual, in the following translation, (M) indicates when Max Ambesi is speaking, (A) when Angelo Dolfini is speaking.

Translated by The A Factor Team, please do not repost without permission.

Table of Content

Ladies. The Ladies Free Program has been the “must-see” event in France.

Evgenia Medvedeva. Ladies’ current World Champion added her name to the list of injured skaters. What happened and what could happen in the next few weeks? How does that change the race for the Grand Prix Final? A sum up of all other injured athletes, starting from Yuzuru Hanyu.

Men. Javier Fernandez wins a disappointing event in France. Tech talk time.

Ice Dance. Papadakis/Cizeron score a new World Record. Unlucky Weaver/Poje have to bid farewell to the Final.

Pairs. Nicole Della Monica and Matteo Guarise win their first grand prix medal in France. Italian skaters’ season continues to be a positive one.

Questions & Answers

Part 1: Ladies

(M): Let’s start with what happened in the ladies’ competition in France: a slightly disappointing SP, followed by a remarkable FP. The last group’s average score was almost 140 points, something that probably has never even happened in a GPF. The ladies are clearly raising the bar and, at this point, the race for the Olympic podium might be more open than we expected. Twenty skaters in the ladies’ field have already reached 125 points in the FP [at this point in] this season. It happened last season as well, but only by the end of the season.

(A): We have already seen many ladies’ competitions of extremely high level. It almost seems as if we have to repeat ourselves every week. In general, the ladies’ competitions have shown to be of a very high level so far - CoR, IdF…NHK as well. The competitions were very exciting, and as you said, we saw many girls skate their best in the FP in France. And even though the SP was a bit disappointing, it still made for a very exciting competition: they were all very close after it, therefore the door was open in the FP. The SP itself had six girls over 60 points, and there was a rather small margin between them, which made the whole competition quite thrilling.

(M): Zagitova won with another comeback from behind, just as it happened in China. Although this time her performance in the SP was definitely below our expectations. There were rumors of her having some small physical problems, but in the end she once again managed to make a stellar comeback. Her FP made history already: it’s difficult to do better than 80 points of TES. She reached almost 70% of the max GOE she could have achieved, and nobody has done better than her during this season. Medvedeva reached 58% of the max GOE she could have gotten at CoR. This is proof of the fact that Zagitova truly is a credible rival for Medvedeva; and let’s not forget that history tells us that very young skaters usually grow a lot throughout the season: she has already improved if compared to CoC, and it seems like she might get 70 points in PCS rather soon. If she gets close to 72-73, she will be very difficult to beat: beating someone who might reach 155-156 points in the FP isn’t trivial.

(A): Very few ladies could try. That kind of score would probably get her on the podium in every competition: it might not be enough to beat Medvedeva, but the others all have lower scores so far this season. We must say that she showed to have problems in the SP though, which is why her total scores aren’t as impressive in the end, for example Kostner herself has reached a higher total score this season. And Kostner wasn’t the only one – Osmond too, which makes it three [with a higher TSS] with Medvedeva. But we’ve never seen Zagitova skate a clean SP – what did she get here, 62? That would mean that skaters like Kostner, Osmond, Medvedeva would have like, a 14 points margin in the SP. She will skate this SP clean at some point – it seems to me that her physical condition is great, she definitely has the possibility of doing those elements at her best – and then she will be scary for the others. And they have to watch out for Zagitova, while we wait for SA to see Tsurskaya once again, because she does have the potential to reach very high scores as well. We’ll see if she is able to improve, because so far, Zagitova has reached higher scores on PCS – she hasn’t reached 70 points yet, but she was very close this week.

(M): I think Zagitova could reach…82.5-83 points of TES and around 72-73 of PCS, for 155 points.

(A): In the FP.

(M): Yes. A clean SP might reach 72, even 74 points maybe – we’ll have to see when she manages to skate it clean. The total would be scary, it would mean she could be well over 220 points, actually close to 230. And only Medvedeva reached 230 so far – but we’ll talk later about Medvedeva and her physical problems. Zagitova reached the highest scores when it came to the jumping passes, but she was also the one to reach the highest GOE for her spins. The max number of points you can reach through GOE for your spins is 4.5 points, and Zagitova got 3.85. Medvedeva was the closest to Zagitova this season, with 3.21 points – we’re talking about GOE only – which means that Zagitova is the one with the highest quality on spins. Someone told me it’s due to the fact that she executes them at the start of her FP, but that’s not how it is: in fact she got the highest GOE for her last spin, the CCoSp. And she got the highest possible GOE for it.

(A): Yes, 1.5 points. All +3s. Well, there was a +2, but it was eliminated – the highest and lowest scores don’t count. So the CCoSP was her best spin, in spite of being the last one. Although it’s not like she didn’t get high GOE for the others as well. In a way she’s helped by her strategy, although if you recall she did struggle with it at the start of last season – in the FP though, not the SP. When she adjusted, she ended up dominating the season among junior ladies.

(M): Well, she’s already adjusted to this FP (t/n: it’s her old FP), while the SP is more like a work in progress. But is Zagitova the one who gets the most points for her spins in the ladies’ field? No. And it isn’t Medvedeva, nor a Japanese skater, not a North American skater. It’s Kostner, who reached the highest score for her spins by having the highest BV when it comes to spins. Can Zagitova lose 0.8 points in BV compared to Kostner? And here people might tell us that we’re nitpicking, but this GP is proof of the fact that you can’t lose points on details. And if we sum spins BV and GOE, Kostner has reached 13.34, while Zagitova got 13.25, which means that she makes up for the difference in BV with her GOE. But wouldn’t it have been better to take out the LSp and put a spin with a higher BV?

(A): It would have been better. As you said, we might be nitpicking, since we are talking about hundredths of a point when she can reach 81-82 points of TES, but well, Zagitova got 213.80 at IdF, while Kostner got 215.98 and a little less than 213 at NHK, so it’s not like there’s a 7-8 points difference between them. Even small details make a difference – then of course, you could tell me that Zagitova got 213 with an SP with a fall and a step out, but you can never know how a competition will go; and how many times have we seen athletes lose or win a medal for three hundredths of a points?

(M): Kostner has also reached more points for her StSq and ChSq, while Zagitova is 0.9 points behind her. 0.9 tenths there, some hundredths on spins and Zagitova ends up losing a little over 1 point to Kostner on steps and spins. Then Zagitova clearly has a big margin over Kostner when it comes to jumps, but Kostner’s strategy is interesting and GPF is quite open. We already know the names of five out six finalists: Medvedeva, the first seed – if she manages to compete, but we’ll talk about this later – Zagitova, the second seed, Osmond, who has a 1st and 3rd place, then Kostner and Sotskova with two 2nd places. Sotskova has been on the podium in every GP she’s ever been in, and she seemed doomed before IdF, but with two great performances she broke her PB and reached the final.

(A): Yes, with an amazing performance. She could have afforded not to reach the final, but going to GPF might give her an advantage in domestic competitions, especially towards Nationals. She managed to keep up with Osmond and Mihara Mai, in a competition in which she also had a potential rival in Tuktamysheva - who risked a lot with her strategy and didn’t do well - but anyway, it was a complex situation. Sotskova came 2nd and deservedly so, showing to be also quite clear headed in a competition that was crucial towards the final.

(M): She’s apparently thinking about putting some more elements in the second half of the program, because she executes Flip and Lutz in the first half – which are the jumps of the highest BV in her FP. She’s thinking about making her FP a bit more challenging, to get those few points that could make a difference. We’ve mentioned five of the six athletes that will go to GPF and none of them are Japanese or American. In the history of the GP series there��s never been a final without a Japanese and an American lady. At the moment it’s definitely possible, because it would happen if Tsurskaya won SA.

(A): Yes, because she would eliminate Higuchi and Wagner would be out as well.

(M): Heading into SA, Tsurskaya is the favourite, but looking at how rough last season was for her we need to wait and see. She did very well at NHK, but it would be difficult to reach the final with a 2nd place, as she would need to be 2nd with around 210 points and she would need Wagner not to win. That said, it’s also true that if she reaches 210 points she will win. Daleman has done better than 210 before, but in peak condition, and I doubt we’ll see her on the same level as she was at Worlds last season.

(A): But even if we saw Daleman in that condition…if Tsurskaya was 2nd –

(M): If Tsurskaya reached 210 points she would win the tie against Higuchi. But looking at the what the other athletes who are at SA have done so far, we think she would win with 210 points. Wagner and Chen aside, Daleman skated a good SP at CoC, but she struggled in the FP.

(A): And she skated a good FP, reaching 196 points, after struggling at the start of the season.

(M): Osmond was 3rd at IdF: she was 1st in the SP, although she lost quite a lot of points there, and then struggled in the FP, as she fell on the 3Lo, as usual – she never completed it in her FP last season – and then had a mistake on her last jumping pass, the 2A, for the third time this season. Sometimes she fell on it, sometimes she popped it, anyway she hasn’t completed it. It seems trivial, but maybe they need to think it over at this point.

(A): And that 2A costed the Japanese ladies the (certainity to be in the) final, because Osmond lost the 2nd place for around 2 points, and a between a 1A and a 2A in the second half there’s more difference than that.

(M): Yes, at that point [with Osmond in 2nd place], Higuchi would have probably qualified for the final, considering her scores. So the most likely scenario is that two Japanese ladies who reached more than 200 points in both their GPs probably won’t reach the GPF. Before this season every athlete who had reached more than 200 points in the GPs qualified for the GPF; the fact that it didn’t happen this season is proof of the fact that ladies have raised the bar.

(A): Yes, and it isn’t even only one Japanese lady, but two. We’ll have to wait for SA but it is plausible, which is noteworthy. The best thing of these competitions in the ladies’ field is that we saw amazing performances not only when it came to technical elements, but we also saw programs with great choreography and clean – or almost clean – skates. Kostner skated four programs with one fall and a pop for example; Medvedeva had more mistakes than expected, but that’s another matter; Zagitova skated two clean FPs and struggled more in the SP; Higuchi was very solid, and yet she risks being out of GPF. Anyway, we saw many programs with few mistakes and great choreography, which means the ladies’ field was spectacular in this GP.

(M): We received a question about Zagitova, one of our listeners asks us whether we think that Alina is truly worth 70 PCS, because TR aside, she thinks Zagitova’s skating is still immature, as she sees a big difference between her and Higuchi when it comes to speed, edges, flow and IN. This is a very complex topic, because they’re extremely different skaters.

(A):Yes they have very different characteristics. Zagitova’s FP is built very well, with a lot of attention to details and the music’s crescendo and how it evolves throughout the four minutes. That aside, I agree that Higuchi should have a clear advantage on SS – she’s got much more speed, great knee bend, as is usual with Japanese skaters – and a program that I really like. True, it doesn’t have as many TR as Zagitova’s but it has those two or three memorable moments that truly stay with you. In terms of IN she probably “feels” the program more, but we also have to remember that at some point, the judges’ subjectivity can play a role into this as well. I can’t hide that I really like Higuchi myself and therefore I agree with what our listener said, but I can also recognize that Zagitova has lots of quality on other elements.

(M): Talking about subjectivity, there’s something interesting to take note of here: Zagitova and Higuchi competed against each other at Lombardia Trophy and at Cup of China. In Bergamo, Higuchi got slightly more on PCS, in China it was the opposite, so that’s where subjectivity played a role. But what is it that we ask from the judges? A bigger differentiation among the marks for PCS. Because I don’t think there’s a doubt that Higuchi, as you said, is objectively superior on SS. And at this moment she’s probably superior when it comes to choreography too. While Alina definitely has quite a margin when it comes to TR – then again, Alina has a big margin over almost all the ladies on TR, her teammates aside. One of her teammates aside actually. Other marks, like IN, are more subjective, even though Higuchi might have something more there. PE is more difficult to judge, because if we look at these two girls and how connected they are to their music and how they use their upper body, I think we are looking at two skaters who are very advanced for their age.

(A): Yes, I agree, their movements are sharp, there’s good intensity and they have started to be more conscious about what they do. And it isn’t easy to judge in this case, because subjectivity does play a role in it: if I like programs that show great speed, I will like Higuchi more, while if I like precise upper body movements that go well with the music and attention to details, I might give Zagitova a higher score.

(M): Yes. Although if the question is if she can get 70 PCS, the answer is…probably yes, considering the direction in which skating is going.

(A): Probably yes.

(M): Regarding PCS, we have a question about Mihara Mai. They ask us if Mihara Mai wasn’t judged too harshly, considering Tursynbaeva’s scores.

They both skated two clean programs; we’ve come to expect that from Mihara, not for Tursynbaeva, who finally went over 200 points for the first time. It’s not easy to compare, but it is quite incomprehensible how Mihara was judged, because in my opinion, her FP is one of the best in terms of CO this season, and there are many TR. She probably doesn’t [connect with] the judges [in her performance], which is an explanation that disturbs me, because I hate this kind of thinking, but it’s the only one I have.

(A): Yes, it happens, and it has already happened in the past: we saw skaters who struggled to get in the judges’ favour and their scores puzzled the fans. Which is probably what is happening to Mihara Mai. But I agree that isn’t easy to understand why her scores are so low, considering what she does on the ice – if compared to the others, but also in general. We should consider that every skater should be analyzed on their own, which is impossible, but it’s what this new system was meant to do. But even if we consider that, I think she’s quite underrated, she isn’t the first and won’t be the last but…

(M): And it frequently happens with the Japanese ladies. Miyahara for example; she struggled a lot to get higher PCS. The only explanation we ever came up with was that the judges didn’t give her high scores because they saw her as someone who didn’t fill the rink. Her PCS improved with time, she improved as a skater as well – then she started to do that 2+7 in the FP and she got higher PCS. The news is that Tursynbaeva managed to skate a FP with two 2A and seven triples, although an “easier” one, with two 3T and two 3S. Anyway, her strategy paid off, because she did Lutz and Flip at the start of the program and then her easier triples in the second half. Tursynbaeva’s problem is that she has changed strategy a lot of times in the last year and a half. But we need to keep an eye on her, because if she will take a risk with the quad – since she completes the 4S in practice – she will become dangerous.

(A): Yes, and she almost got 140 points for her FP, which means she’s already quite competitive. Let’s not forget that she does 2A3T two times in her FP which is very interesting.

(M): Yes, that’s the most interesting thing.

(A): And it gave her quite a lot of points, because in the end she got more than 20 points with those two elements.

(M): And 2A3T gives her the possibility of reaching a higher GOE than the others.

(A): Exactly. Considering that she got all level 4s – well, she got level 4 on steps, and missed level 4 only on the CCoSp. She reached a competitive TES, and she got it with only one Lutz and one Flip, which means that this strategy really fits her, probably much more than when she tried to do 3Lz3T but struggled throughout the program. Talking about the quad…where could she put it?

(M): At the start of the program, although she would have to be able to plan a layout with seven triples and a 2A even with the quad. There are ladies who might be able to do a quad and still plan a 2+7, but it’s difficult and the program itself would be extremely laborious.

(A): If she added the quad she could take out the second 3S and put a 3Lo in its place, and then do 3S3T instead of one 2A3T, keeping only one 2A. She wouldn’t do two 2A and seven triples, but one 2A, seven triples and a quad. That would be a possibility, although it’s clearly a very difficult program.

(M): “It’s not out of the question that she might try it at the Olympics. She will be a dark horse in Pyeongchang, she has nothing to lose.

(A): Yes, she probably can’t be a contender for the medals anyway, but she could go in without pressure.

Part 2: Evgenia Medvedeva, injuries & olympics

(M): The biggest news of this week regards Evgenia Medvedeva’s injury. She injured her right foot, and it seems that she skated with this injury at CoR and NHK – the situation itself probably worsened at NHK or right before it. She still won both GPs, but she can’t train at the moment because they found out she has a crack in a bone of her foot and she has her foot in a cast – which should allow her to get back to practice…but we don’t know when. Although the situation is quite complex, because this kind of injury is very delicate – see other skaters’ before her, like Polina Edmunds, who struggled for quite long with it. One must never underestimate a right foot injury.

(A): Yes, it’s the landing foot, it supports the skater’s weight and it is also the foot that she uses in toe jumps – the Flip and the Lutz. She must let it heal completely, because it’s essential to perform at her best.

(M): She said she still wants to compete – as a matter of fact she’s never skipped a competition since she was a kid, and she even competed when she wasn’t at her best in some occasions. We’ll see what they will decide. Maybe withdrawing from GPF would be less problematic if Tsurskaya were the 7th seed in the GP standings.

(A): Because one of her teammates would get in in her place.

(M): Exactly. Truthfully, it seems like Higuchi will be the 7th seed – and while Medvedeva and Higuchi have always been good friends, it would be more complex. The real question is whether it’s worth to take this in the Olympic season.

(A): It isn’t worth it in my opinion. She needs to heal, because while it’s true that she has a margin over her rivals, there are girls who are improving, and she needs to go to the Olympics in her best condition in order to win.

(M): Yes, she has a big margin, because she was the only one who reached 230 points, but it’s obvious that a great physical condition is essential to skate a great performance. I think she’ll try everything to be there and that she will manage to participate, although I don’t know in what kind of condition.

(A): And we wish to see her there, but I hope that if she decides to participate she will do so being completely healthy, because even though this GPF has already been impoverished by the absence of many great skaters, I would rather see them all healthy in Pyeongchang than Nagoya. There’s a GPF every year, and Medvedeva will have the chance to win it again in the future if she keeps skating.

(M): Regarding Yuzuru Hanyu, according to recent news, he has 3-4 weeks of rehabilitation. What we do know is that he is back in Toronto, where he is exercising so as not to lose muscle mass, which is extremely important, but it’s all very secretive. For what we know, he could be back on the ice already; anyway, his purpose is to take part in the National championships that will be held two weeks after GPF. I believe that Hanyu and Medvedeva would still get selected for the Olympics, even if Hanyu were to skip Nationals or if Medvedeva had to rest for, like, a month and a half. Because the Russian Federation could make her compete at the European championships and then bring her to the Olympics. There isn’t even a problem in Hanyu’s case, because the JSF criteria leaves the door open for him. In this case, I think what you said is correct, why take a risk?

(A): It would be folly from Russian Fed not to call on Medvedeva - if she is well enough to compete, but that’s another matter - and it would be the same for Japanese Federation regarding Hanyu, who needs to recover from his injury, but once he is back being healthy, you can’t leave him home just because he missed Nationals. We are talking about athletes who showed time after time that they put up a fight for the title. Then it could happen that they don’t win – although in Medvedeva’s case, “not winning” is something that has not happened since quite a while – but you can lose one competition, because it’s a sport, a very difficult sport, and surprises can always arise, especially in the men’s field but the ladies have had their fair share of surprising results too – just ask Slutskaya. So in a single competition, anything can happen. But you have to send those skaters to compete there. They are winning cards.

(M): About Russia, there’s a problem linked to those allegedly doping cases from 2014. The topic is complex and it’s not the right occasion to go in-depth about it here. What’s happening is that it has been raining bans in other disciplines. Bans for doping in 2014 that automatically excludes those athletes about to compete in 2018. At the moment, there is no ban for the whole nation. Some would like that ban. And those “some” are the national olympic committees of strong nations. The situation is really intricate. There have also been rumors of alternative solutions, such as to allow clean athletes to compete but under no national flag. How would they determine who the “clean” athletes are? Through controls done before the Olympic Games. I think such a scenario is an offense toward those athletes and Russia. If someone has the courage and the proof to exclude Russia from the 2018 Olympics, then he should go the whole nine yard; otherwise I think it would be fair for Russian athletes, tested clean, to compete at the Olympics for their own nation. If we look at Figure Skating, at the moment it is not involved in any of the ongoing trials. It would be really detrimental for Russian skaters to be disqualified from the Olympics and to be forbidden from competing for those medals they have been working for, for so many years. I hope there will be a decision based on common sense, and that Russia won’t be completely banned from the Olympics. For Figure Skating itself, it would be tragedy. I know that others think differently, and that they are counting how, without three spots for Russia, they may end up near podium, but I think we should go beyond this. These are athletes who have ruled in the field since junior and novice categories. They are not athletes who came out from nowhere. And don’t tell me that, in Russia, 8-year-old kids are subjected to doping treatments. Not to allow Medvedeva, Zagitova, Kolyada, Tarasova/Morozov, etc to compete would be a crime. In my opinion, it would be an insult to the sport. I read different opinions - also from insiders or relatives of other skaters - I do hope for the decision to be fair and rational and dependent on each discipline’s particular scenario. In FS, there hasn’t been a doping scandal in recent times, Russia had some cases in the past…

(A): A Russian pair at Europeans, but it was a different case, an anti-flu treatment that wasn’t declared. Which doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be punished, but it was a doping case of a different level than systematic doping.

(M): Indeed. What is certain is that these Russian athletes are competing with a lot of pressure on their shoulders. In Russia, this is an everyday topic, outside Russia, articles pointing fingers against Russian athletes are getting more and more numerous; and even when you go and compete abroad, questions are behind every corner. Questions to which they probably don’t even know how to answer, since many of the athletes who should compete at Pyeongchang weren’t even there at Sochi.

(A): The team changed radically.

(M): We hope common sense will prevail in the end.

(A): If there were irrefutable proof, then a ban would be right. But even if it were demonstrated that what happened in Sochi was doping and that athletes involved in FS were among the culprits, it would still be unfair to punish other athletes who are clean and weren’t even involved at the time.

(M): We’d have the paradox of athletes suspended without ever having failed a test.

(A): I don’t think it’s even necessary to explain why it wouldn’t be fair.

(M): And before closing this topic: it seems many test vials have been tampered. This tampering would be evident due to some marks on them. But where is it even proven that an athlete was conscious about this? Where is the proof that these vials contained positive samples? From a legal point of view, we are in front of a “strict liability” debate. Appointed authority will judge and rule, I can only say again I hope common sense will prevail, and if common sense prevails, Russian skaters will be present in Korea. It would be a huge loss for the discipline not to have them in the field.

(A): Without doubt.

Part 3: Men

(M): Let’s go to the Men’s Event at Grenoble. An overall disappointing competition. Javier Fernandez, in a much better physical shape than in China but still not in his best condition, won the event. He did well in the short program, a performance without mistake that scored the second highest score of the season behind Hanyu’s SP at Autumn Classic, but he struggled with his FP, especially in the second half, where he made mistake after mistake. The others committed even more errors – at least the one who got into second place – so in the end, his win has been legitimate. The only one who skated a free program without flaws was the one in third place: an athlete who had never before finished amongst the top three in a GP Event.

(A): Misha Ge.

(M): Indeed. He found an amazing technical consistency in this season, a consistency that he lacked in the past. To be honest, he always got better, year after year. This season, the news is a very solid 3A that allows him to put it as a first jump in the 3-jump combination. In the past, it would be unthinkable (for him): so kudos to him for his improvement.

(A): I think that maybe to say he was inconsistent in the past is a bit harsh. We can count on one hand the falls he had in the last 5 years. What he lacked was the technical content, though. His technical content was really weak - relatively speaking and compared to the big names of the discipline. He was a good athlete, worth the top 15, top 16, in a World Championship, but he lacked the content to even think about a podium in a GP. He had his strength based on his 3F, 3Lz, and 3-3 combo, but there was always that missing 3A. Then, when he started to understand how to do it, how to land it on one foot and with the full rotation, he basically never missed it anymore. He is a very consistent skater, he makes few mistakes, he has great interpretative qualities. If he is put against 3 or 4 exceptional quad jumpers, he has no chance, but against all others, he can play his cards.

(M): Here we can open up a very delicate topic. I’ve read from different corners a sort of rejection of quads. Quads are part of the game. Sport also means to challenge your own limits and to evolve. In 2018, it’s okay if many athletes do try 3, 4 or 5 quads in a free program. I don’t see anything wrong with that. If someone wants to eliminate quads or to limit them to 2 per program, I think those people have a weird conception of “sport”. Because this is a sport. Figure Skating is a sport. Those wanting to see art, they can go to Opera on Ice, to see galas; events that exploit that side are many. There you can have only art, many do love those event, go there. But what I want to say is that, taking away quads, the same skaters would still always be ahead of others. Because, would you defeat Hanyu? No.

(A): No.

(M): Fernandez, would you defeat him? No. Patrick Chan? No. And then, what are we even talking about?

(A): You wouldn’t defeat even Uno Shoma.

(M): Indeed, not even him.

(A): I do believe the issue is not to take away or limit quads, but to evaluate with fairness what we see. So when you have an athlete like Fernandez, who does 2 different quads in SP and FP, and who has complex programs, you give him what he deserves. Hanyu, the same. But also – although not all at the same level – Uno, Chan, Chen and all the others too… one, two, three, four or more quads, but to each one of them the valuation they deserve.

Then you see athletes who have the same high numbers of quads, but who have completely different programs; you can see it looking at Zhou, for example...

(M): Well, Samarin, Bychenko, Aaron…

(A): Exactly, so there are many… and if they do much less than a Misha Ge on PCS, you must highlight this difference. If they deserve 10 points less than Ge on PCS, they should get 10 points less. Zhou deserves 5.5, 6.0 on Skating Skills? Then, let’s give him that. He will get the points with quads and, at the end, everybody will play his own cards to get the highest score possible. Because if he does a 4Lz3T-tano, he deserves to bring home those 20 points, then maybe he deserves to have less on other things, and it’s fair he gets less.

(M): So the problem isn’t the presence of quads. It’s fine they are there, following a growing path (of the sport) that’s been going on since a long time ago. Growing path that had some stops on the way, but lately it’s been going very fast.

(A): And it’s not to be excluded that some steps back could happen, going forward.

(M): No doubt. The real issue is always the same, and I do believe we have spoken about it in many podcasts. The problem is linked to PCS, and we are the first to say the factorization needs to change, allowing them to reach 120. But, maximum score achievable, the issue is on the evaluation of those components. If someone is worth 4.5, he shouldn’t get 8 just because he does four quads. All there. Judging fairly, there would be no issue to have a standing that puts ahead complete skaters and then, according to each performance, could put ahead the one without quads or the one with two quads, et cetera, et cetera. Sadly, at the moment, it isn’t so. Because we see athletes going near or over 90 on PCS who should maybe get 82, 83, 84.

(A): Or less.

(M): Exactly. By doing four quads, they are automatically considered athletes worthy of 9s on all components. And speaking of skaters in this category, there’s a question about Shoma Uno. It asks if we thought his technique on quads – especially those takeoffs from the toe – relies too much on prerotation, resulting in jumps with less than 3.5 rotations in the air (t/n: per rules, a jump that misses more than half a rotation upon landing is to be downgraded. In the same vein, a jump with a takeoff in the wrong direction” – backward for an Axel, forward for all other jumps – has to be downgraded as well). Plus, our listener says, the Flip in France was landed forward, basically barely a triple Flip. Personally, I think I spoke about this issue at least 3 or 4 times in the past two seasons. I’ve no more to add to what our friend wrote here. Your turn.

(A): The problem is that it’s not so easy to evaluate. Let’s take out [from this discussion] his Flip at Grenoble. That was a downgrade, not even up for discussion. But let’s begin with the best 4F Shoma Uno does. Yes, it is prerotated. But you know who would win the ladies’ competition [if we judge and penalize prerotation]? Kostner. I often speak about Miyahara, but look at a replay of Zagitova. Look at a replay of great part of athletes in the ladies’ field, and you’d see strong prerotation in the Flip and Lutz toe tap. Miyahara is a very evident example, I do believe she takes off more than half a turn at takeoff. And in real time, it’s very difficult to see, because women are much faster than men. For Shoma, the even bigger problem is another one, and the same as Fernandez on the Flip and Lutz, in my opinion. Their jumps are pretty much not a Flip nor a Lutz, but Loops: those jumps are prerotated and they also take off from an edge instead of the toe, almost to the point it’s hard to call them “toe jumps,” losing the technical features that define a Flip. So I think we can have a discussion about the Flip, but then if we go to check on the ladies’ field, the ones doing a real Flip are Kostner and a very few others. So it’s a topic that’s hard to get into (t/n since it has big impact on a whole discipline). And there’s also the question: how much should we allow? How should we check it?

(M): For sure there is a hole in the rules, that’s the first thing.

(A): Lutz and Flip technique allows for minimal prerotation on the pointing. The question is: how much? And in my opinion, it’s almost impossible to have a definitive decision on this.

(M): So in your opinion, Shoma’s quads are to be considered quads?

(A): Eh… Umh… I told you, my biggest issue with Shoma’s Flip is the takeoff using almost the whole edge. And I find it very debatable technically. But with current rules, you can’t call that jump a Loop, while for me it’s basically a Loop. And with that call, a lot of things would change, but that’s another matter. To be honest, I wouldn’t know if the decision [on the prerotation] should be left to the technical panel, giving them greater responsibility, or if it should be left to be judged at the judges’ panel. But at the same time, I don’t know if the judges have the competence to analyse it.

(M): You should have technical specialists among the judges as well [to have that competence], with judges also being certified specialists.

(A): But that would bring other problems, because specialists usually lack the eyes to see a program in its entirety, because the specialist is used to looking only at the technical detail, while a judge should have the ability to judge a program 360°. But of course, when you evaluate a jump, you should also have the ability to understand if it’s technically well done or not, to distinguish on the quality of a takeoff. I do understand that [this ability] is not something easy to acquire. Is it a quad? The one in France, it wasn’t. The underrotation call was generous, I would have called it downgraded. And I do agree this problem on takeoff does indeed exist. But I have to be honest, I struggle to determine what is the right way to address the issue. Because we have Shoma Uno’s case, in which we can clearly see the issue. We have Flip and Lutz for Fernandez, in which, again, the technique on the takeoff is incorrect. We have explained in the past where [this technique] comes from: an extremization of Russian, or more precisely, Mishin’s school’s technique on it. And in both cases, the issue is very visible. But then we would need to look in slow-motion also at all the others, and then how long would the competitions last? 4 hours? And again, in the ladies’ field… look closely at Miyahara’s takeoff and let’s talk about how much she takes off on ice.

(M): In her case, it’s also the only way for her to rotate her jumps.

(A): And even so, in some cases, she is often borderline on the landing, too. So in the end, what is it? A double?

(M): But in the end, it is the same thing with a 4F that in reality is a triple.

(A): I do agree, it’s the same thing. I agree with you, it’s exactly the same thing… but then we would risk to see many, many calls about it. I don’t know… it’s not easy [to come up with a rule]. My point of doubt is in the extent to which it should be allowed, and when it should not be not. And I think it’s a difficult decision to agree upon.

(M): In any case, an intervention and a regulation about it is needed.

(A): Yes, it’s something that needs to be regulated. Because what is the other problem we want to raise? That those who actually do these jumps correctly and with a cleaner technique – well, those skaters are penalized. And clearly this is something that is not good. It’s obvious.

(M): And then we also have the usual topic about the solo jump in the short program, which should be preceded by steps.

(A): That’s another very interesting topic. Instead of saying “let’s limit the quads”, let’s start by giving -3 to those who don’t put steps before a quad. We would see a lot fewer quads in short programs.

(M): To those without steps all together, and to those who put a step 2 seconds before the actual jump.

(A): No doubt.

(M): Because there’s also this group of athlete. Skaters who then go and get +2 on GOE for the element.

(A): Look, an athlete like Patrick Chan, who has few equals when we speak of skating technique, is honest enough not to do 4T from steps, because those steps wouldn’t be enough to meet requirement.

(M): It means something different to others. Because he often [ended up] leaving that quad alone if the landing wasn’t good enough to put in the combo, and yet, because something was there, that quad was judged with a positive GOE.

(A): But that something wasn’t enough [for him] and so he prefers to do the combo there. Then, let’s judge strictly on [this rule] and, automatically, there is no longer a need to put a limit on quads – because those unable to put in those steps, they’ll do the quad in combination only.

(M): And why not invalidate the element, instead? After all, those steps are a requirement. Steps or choreographic movements plus jump. If there’s the jump but there aren’t the steps, the requirement is not met… so, no value.

(A): You are saying so because, with -3GOE, there is the risk that a quad with the lowest GOE is still worth more than a good triple, especially if we are talking about 4Lz.

(M): Another listener just wrote this about this topic: “In the men’s field, Uno and Fernandez are almost the only ones who prerotate so much on toe jumps. Chen, Jin, Hanyu, Kolyada, etc, don’t prerotate” – that is without doubt – “while in the ladies’ field there are also others and not only Miyahara, Medvedeva, Daleman, Pogorilaya, Osmond” – less in her case – “Wagner” – more.

(A): Osmond less, Wagner a bit more.

(M): Pogorilaya a lot. I can’t say about Daleman.

(A): Daleman is more powerful, she does a bit, but she is not one of the worst.

(M): And Medvedeva… Yes, on Lutz especially. Flip a bit less.

(A): But you know what’s the point? Women are really quick. You don’t notice it at normal speed. But if you watch them in slow-mo… then, almost everyone of them does it. And it’s especially common in those athlete like Miyahara, Medvedeva, Zagitova, whose quickness of going into rotation is one of their strengths. Compared to men, they lack power, especially the young girls. And those with a bit more power, they have much less rotational speed. In both cases, that greater prerotation is pivotal in the ladies’ field compared to the men’s. And I repeat, a bit of prerotation is technically correct. The point is up to how much? So Medvedeva does, but less than others. Miyahara is more pronounced, but I repeat again, I did [only] notice during the slow-motion we see every competition, because at normal speed you don’t notice it.

(M): I think [for toe jumps] the tolerance should be on the quarter, the same degree of tolerance you have on landings.

(A): Then I ask you a question, okay one quarter tolerance, but if I take a quarter on tak off and a quarter on landing… do I sum them?

(M): Indeed, it’s something to consider, too. For this reason, an intervention on rules is needed, to find a line of judgement that can be used in the next quad. On Shoma Uno we also have this question: “Looking at his Flip, you can notice how deep his inside edge” – true, and this always makes you notice how his toe-pointing slides [into an edge take-off]…

(A): Indeed.

(M): The question is: “is this linked to prerotation?” Partly, yes.

(A): Partly yes, exactly.

(M): Going back to Grenoble’s Event, we talked about the first three. Max Aaron and Vincent Zhou didn’t manage to reach a placement good enough to get the pass for the Final, making both more mistakes than in Cup of China. I’d say that - looking at the standings now - four of the six finalists will probably come out from Skate America field. Skate America, where 5 athletes have still a chance to make the final. Han Yan needs to win, no plan B for him. Voronov, Chen, Jin and Rippon can make it also through lower placements. Rippon and Boyang both, for example, with a fourth place would be into GPF. To be precise, there would be a tie-break with Brown, but one of the two total score Jason got was very low. If everything goes according to the plan, we’ll see Uno, Kolyada, Chen, Voronov - and that’s a big surprise -, Jin and Rippon - he is quite a surprise too - in the Final. Let’s not forget that Chan, Hanyu and Fernandez are out of competition for different reasons. Fernandez still has the smallest of chances, but SA results would need to be quite crazy: like Kovtun winning SA and Han Yan second, or things like this one. Fernandez is currently fourth in the standing, so even behind Jason Brown. From a “race to GPF” point of view, Skate America men’s event is the most interesting, along with pairs, I’d say. But probably only two spots are up for grabs for pairs, not four.

Part 4: Ice Dance

(M): Let’s go on speaking about Ice Dance. Papadakis/Cizeron improved their own recent World Record: their free dance score was close to the maximum score achievable, just 4 points away. For the first time in history, someone broke 120 points; their GOEs have been a total consensus of +3. To see a +2 (in their protocol), it was an exception. So the usual question: Can Virtue/Moir defeat Papadakis/Cizeron?

(A): We’ll have an answer only once they compete in same competition. Right now… right now, scores say no. It will be interesting to see them one after the other, especially in Short Dance, where at the moment Virtue/Moir still have a slight advantage.

(M): And that margin could allow them to end in first place after Short Dance.

(A): If you are first after SD, you can still play your cards; even if P/C showed to have a margin in FD, so far. It’s close, so the performance of the day will be the key. And, I repeat, the chance for the jury to compare them one after the other.

(M): In previous head-to-head, V/M always won the SD, they also won the FD twice and lost it once. They won the first five times, and lost the last one – the FD at Helsinki. There’s a lot of curiosity about what will happen in Nagoya. Probably, the most interesting fight for first place will be the one in Ice Dance.

(A): But I’d say also for the third place.

(M): Yes, but in that case, we don’t know yet who will be there. Weaver/Poje won’t be there. They have been really unlucky. After an accident during warm-up, he skated with a knee injury. If I’m not mistaken, she had a cracked rib. It was stoic of them just to stay until the end of the whole competition. Probably they could have withdrawn after the Short Dance. They finished FD in third place, but it wasn’t enough to get on the podium. So they have no chance to qualify now. Who gained from these results? Chock/Bates, who ended in second place with two average performances, are now mathematically in; and Cappellini/Lanotte, who with a second place in the USA and around 181 points, will be in, too, overtaking Bobrova/Soloviev in the tiebreak. Cappellini/Lanotte went easily over 185 points at NHK, the impression is they have a good gap (to go over the threshold). Russia is a strong and powerful nation, true, but honestly, C/L seems to have something more than B/S, especially in the Free Dance.

(A): I think they (C/L) are a superior couple (than B/S). I’ve been a fan of various russian ice dance couples in the past, and I don’t think B/S are one of the great examples of that school. That said, B/S skated good programs in this GP, they strengthened their domestic leadership, but I don’t think it will be enough to reach the final. They would need some help from their countrymen, but it won’t be easy. Because even if we count Shibutanis as the winners, C/L seem to have quite a huge margin over Sinitsina/Katsalapov and Gilles/Poirier both.

(M): And those are the couples who will fight for the podium at SA. The scoring gap between C/L and S/S wasn’t big if we compare the first event they participated in. So, on paper, anything can happen. In the final we will have P/C as top seed, then V/M. Probably S/S as number three. C/B number fourth. H/D as fifth, and probably C/L as sixth; with B/S first in line, following by W/P and Stepanova/Bukin, who were amongst those showing the biggest improvements in this GP Series.

(A): No. They are currently the second russian couple, but their scores are not far from B/S’. I think the seedings will be as you listed, but scores obtained say something a bit different: waiting to see S/S’ improvement, H/D are behind C/B in terms of placement, but ahead in points, and probably with something more than Madison and Evan to fight for that bronze medal. The Shibutanis may have an even bigger margin, but it’s not something that we are so sure about. H/D scores have been very high.

(M): Indeed. This fight among USA couples is becoming really interesting and also not so easy to read.

(A): It’s a very interesting theme inside the already interesting scenario of ice dance.

(M): Guignard/Fabbri put up a good performance in France, too. They obtained the same score they got in Moscow, more or less. They have been listed into two events with a very strong field, with 5 couples that are aiming for a top-10 finish at the Olympics. They could have had more luck in their assignments. The performances have been good, though. They had a point deducted for time violation; without that, they’d have done better than at the Rostelecom Cup. But it isn’t as if that 0.8-, 0.9-point gap makes an [overall] difference. I do believe they can be satisfied [with their own performance], and maybe next year, if they have easier assignments, they can manage to finally reach podium in a GP.

(A): You know, as starting point, they obtained very satisfactory results in France, being fourth after the SD, ahead of Weaver/Poje, who had all the issues they had but technically only made a mistake on twizzles – something they are known to do even when they are healthy.

(M): Not with that glaring a mistake, but it happened.

(A): Yes, the loss of points had been remarkable, but it means they (G/F) were there, ready to seize the chance. And it’s a confirmation of [the results from] the first event, where they weren’t so far behind Stepanova/Bukin.

(M): A question about Papadakis/Cizeron: “Don’t you think that their recent FD music choices have been quite similar to each other?”

Ehm… yes, without doubt. But it’s a winning strategy. This is a sport, let’s not forget this, and they found their winning key. Others have tried to walk the same path, but the results have not been comparable; probably because the original is superior to the bad copies. And I do believe that, at least for this season, it is a correct choice to pick music from the same range. And then, yes, I hope that they can broaden their horizons for the next quad cycle.

(A): Yes, it’s undoubtedly so and it’s also the main criticism that you hear about them. They are amazing, they are excellent, they have these choreos in which they can express incredible flow, with great interpretation. They are skaters of superior skating skills, the quality they have is outstanding, but they have found a winning style and they are struggling to leave it behind and change; and we’d wish that a couple of their level could try and challenge themselves with different styles. They are still young, with a long career ahead, but that’s the main thing they’re criticized about, right now.

(M): To rephrase that criticism: it’s not them who adapts to the music, it’s the music choice that adapts to them. Considering their age, they have time to debunk this, but being that this is the Olympic season, it makes sense to go ahead on the trusted path.

Part 5: Pairs & Italian Skaters

(M): I’d say we can go on to Pairs. Grenoble Event marked an important milestone for Italy. Della Monica/Guarise took home a medal in a GP, and they didn’t reach that goal because others messed up, but by virtue of their own merits: skating two great programs and showing once more to have found great technical consistency; and they have been over 190 points [in total score] this entire season. They are getting closer and closer to 200, which is really a realistic goal.

Italy have gotten other GP medals in the past in pairs, but all of them with one couple – Berton/Hotarek, who also managed to win Skate Canada 2013. Back to DM/G, we must remark on some clear improvements. On twists – Triple Twist, Level 4. When has an Italian couple gotten a level 4 on a Twist? By memory, never or almost never.

(A): Indeed, their twist has greatly improved. In terms of level, but also in terms of Grade of Execution. They are also finding consistency on side by side 3S.

(M): The only mistake was on the 3T, and had they nailed it, the 130 points wall [in the FP] would have been easily broken. Without considering the boost in PCS that a clean skate brings you, either. It shouldn’t exactly be the case, but it is what happens, so they can aim for a 206/207 overall score as their goal. They still need to improve a tiny bit on the SP, and to clean their FP. It’s not an easy result to reach, but it’s within their range.

(A): It won’t be easy, but probably it’s what is needed to reach top-10 at the Olympics, where breaking the 200-point wall is probably a must, if everybody manages to bring their best. We can only wish and hope for them to reach that goal; in the meantime, we can enjoy this podium. And as we have already said, they and Marchei/Hotarek both can plan their season towards the Olympics without [the] additional pressure [of worrying about their spot in the team].

(M): M/H who won a competition this weekend, going over 190 points, too. 190 which is becoming a standard for Italian pairs.

(A): The medals contenders are far ahead, but to have two different pairs that can play their cards to aim for a top-10 finish is really nothing to snub at, and it’s another sign of the good state of the Italian figure skating movement.

(M): We’ll see if Monica and Matteo decides to go on after this season. At the moment, they are not part of any “Gruppo Militare” (t/n: in Italy, high-level elite athletes in non-professional sports are often enrolled in army/police/etc. They compete – in national competitions – for those institutions and they receive a salary that helps to cover training costs), and who knows? Maybe with their recent results, they can be picked up by one and maybe go on for another full quad. All decisions will be made at the end of the season, but I do believe these results could be a good incentive to go on.

Generally speaking, all Italian figure skating is doing well. We talked about M/H’s win in Warsaw. There, Matteo Rizzo won, too: with his new PB and the new Italian record for the FP. A FP in which he didn’t make any mistake, successfully landing 2x 2A and 8 triples, a very good results.

(A): We got a lot of good news from Warsaw. We spoke a lot already (in previous podcasts) about Matteo, and this is another confirmation: getting near 160 points in his FP, which is an important score.

(M): And about this we have a question: “Rizzo vs Righini competition for the Olympic Team is picking up. Who do you think can do better in South Korea, where the goal could be to enter top-15?”

I think the real question is not who can do better but who will go in S. Korea.

(A): Personally, I think that if they skate at their best, the result they can aim for is comparable. Their actual (scoring) potential is very similar; how much difference can there be (in score) between the best Rizzo and the best Righini?

(M): If that’s the rationale, Angelo, if I were the Federation, I’d always pick the younger one, never the elder. This is the basic rule they teach you in sport management classes. If, for example, the 30-years-old can aim for 200 and the 20 years old can aim for 195, and the goal is to be in the top-15: you always pick the younger, without any doubt. (t/n: Righini is almost 27 and Rizzo just turned 19 at the time of this podcast) That in theory. In reality, there’s a ranking (t/n: Italian Olympic Team qualification rules is based only on the internal ranking system), in which Rizzo is slightly ahead, so the Italian Championships will be key to deciding who goes to Pyeongchang. That said, personally, I would also take age into consideration if I were a Federation manager. But it is also clear that once you set some criteria, you need to follow those criteria – one way or the other.

(A): It’s correct that there are criteria, and that those criteria are flexible enough to consider not only highest scores, but also average ones and consistency. Personally, I think if we look at consistency [of results], Rizzo has something more. On highest peak in performance, they can be considered to be on the same level. And I do believe that if you are aiming for a medal, then it’s obvious that you pick the one with the highest scoring potential, but for Italy, a medal is totally out of contention and even a top-15 finish is optimistic, albeit possible, so the age criteria should be considered, too. Or, considering that Italy will also participate in the Olympic team event, I’d calibrate the decision making in consideration of that, too.

(M): Let’s finish up on pairs, before starting to answer to all the other questions we received.

The IdF event was won by Russian Tarasova/Morozov, who showed again their issues in the FP. Historically, they are very competitive in the SP, less so in the FP. And speaking again of the Olympic team event, Russia could opt to have them do the SP and Stolbova/Klimov for the FP. Second place for James/Cipres, with a very solid FP. Their place in the finals isn’t secured, though: there is a not-so-plausible combination of results that could have them out of GPF. What we can say is this: T/M seems not to be a match for S/H, if the latter doesn’t make mistakes.

(A): They seem to be ahead of everyone else, at the moment. It’s not that S/H can’t be beaten or that they never make mistakes, but they bring a lot of quality onto the ice and they are the ones to beat.

(M): Why do we say, clean program vs clean program, S/H have something more than T/M? The elements they do are very similar – the Chinese pair has a slightly higher BV on throw jumps – but S/H has better quality on all elements. Even on side-by-side jumps - the weak point for both of them - S/H are a bit better. Of course, there are also other pairs that can try to join the fight for first place, starting with Savchenko/Massot, but we can’t forget Duhamel/Radford, who can put out SBS 3Lz and a Throw 4S… although without a Quad Twist, their technical margin is decreased.

(A): The twist is indeed a problem for them. Even triple vs triple, in the SP, they lose a lot of ground, let’s not even talk about FP (t/n: Pairs can’t do quads in SP, in FP they can).

(M): Let’s not forget that S/H not only do a Quad Twist, but they also try to get a level 4 on it.

Part 6: Q&A

Let’s see the remaining questions, now!

[skipping first one about Eurosport Skate America TV schedule]

[skipping question about Bruno Massot’s problem regarding citizenship, since has Bruno gotten citzenship at the time of this translation’s posting, and there will be no problem for Aliona and him to represent Germany at the next Olympics, contrary to Tkachenko who didn’t get Israeli citizenship and won’t be able to skate for Israel.]

What happened to Italian skaters who did well in past Ladies Senior Nationals? Casella, Tagliapietra, Rodeghiero?

(M): Casella and Tagliapietra had many injuries and they lost themselves as years went by. Rodeghiero had physical issues this summer and she is struggling to get back on ice. Today, 22nd November, Cristini seems the most plausible lady to be on the Italian team, alongside Kostner. Everything will be decided at Nationals, but her (point) margin on others is quite consistent, at the moment.

(A): It’s a pity, especially for Roberta who had good results at Nationals, but also internationally, a podium on GP included – albeit it was a peculiar event (t/n TEB 2015, Bordeaux in which only the SP was skated). Sadly, physical factors are a key in sports, and she basically couldn’t compete at all, this season.

(M): Another question: “Who will be the three Russian ladies on the Olympics Team? Is Pogorilaya without a chance to be in?”

Pogorilaya is in a difficult situation. She won’t take part in Skate America to focus on Nationals, she didn’t start the season at her best, her body language wasn’t the best either, and many of her mates proved to have high scoring potential. Medvedeva, Zagitova, but also Sotskova, Tsurskaya, Radionova. They all seem ahead. There would also be Tuktamysheva, who came out quite badly from the Grenoble event, but her chances are, if not zero, very close to it.

Medvedeva and Zagitova - if healthy - are in without a doubt, in my opinion. For the third spot: Tsurskaya or Sotskova, but let’s not forget Radionova often managed to do her best skates at Nationals. She is the only one, among all skaters we mentioned, to have won Nationals in all categories: Basic Novice, Advanced Novice, Junior, Senior.

So we can’t count her out. Then, if we only speak of talent and potential, the third name is Tsurskaya, no question.

(A): I do agree, I do agree. Radionova has experience, she is very competitive, she would be a good third skater, but if we speak of potential… But Russia doesn’t choose based on potential, they usually send whoever is the strongest (at nomination time). I’d go with Medvedeva, Zagitova and Tsurskaya, too. Sotskova… I see a lower potential there, compared to the others. She is one of the athletes who improved the most in the previous seasons, and maybe she will go to GPF and do better than Tsurskaya or Zagitova, but I see a lower potential still.

(M): It was demonstrated at Grenoble. Zagitova, with an SP with mistakes, finished ahead of an almost flawless Sotskova.

Next question: “Who’s better: Charlie White or Guillaume Cizeron?”

Well, they are very different.

(A): Very, very different.

(M): In terms of speed and edges, I think there is no doubt about the answer.

(A): Charlie’s twizzles were otherworldly.

(M): Really different, different skaters.

(A): Probably Guillerme is ahead on upper body movement and interpretation. In terms of pure flow, they are on the same level, in terms of speed, power, and skills in using his edges, maybe Charlie has something more. Tough comparison!

(M): Another question: “Since P/C are fighting for gold with V/M, I think it should remarked that even at a younger age, V/M showed much more versatility on music and style choice. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think versatility should be awarded, especially in ice dance and pairs.”

I do agree with this analysis, it is what history says (that V/M having more versatility than P/C), but P/C’s style and approach are awarded by judges, so lack of versatility is a non-issue for those who are judging.

(A): No doubt, and P/C were right in going ahead on this road until it rewards them. The analysis is correct, and versatility is a virtue, but where do you see that “versatility” must be rewarded in components? You don’t see it.

(M): There isn’t.

(A): Exactly. So say, next season we give them 9 instead of 9.5 because they do the same thing. Perfect. Why? It’s also hard to justify.

The analysis [of the situation] is correct, but it’s hard to quantify it in a score, to translate it into a score. We will see what judges do in the future. But… where would you dock out points? Interpretation? Why? Performance? Why?

(M): You can’t.

Another question… “Can Miyahara win Skate America?” We haven’t spoken about Miyahara, but if she is healthy, she can have her say. She may be the first ally for Higuchi [to qualify for the finals by getting ahead of Tsurskaya and Wagner].

(A): She has the scoring potential to win SA and Tsurskaya needs two flawless programs to get to 210, which is not a given either. If she is able to skate without mistakes, I believe she has a margin over Miyahara, but it’s not an easy thing to do. And at the same time, Miyahara herself may have improved much since NHK.

(M): Another question about SA: “How will Polina be treated on PCS at SA, since Wagner, Chen and Daleman will be there too, and since, in my opinion, she is better than Chen and on same level as the other two?”

Well, in my opinion, in terms of Skating Skills, she is ahead of them all. Flow, edges… it’s not even up for discussion. Maybe on some other aspects she is less mature, but I think her PCS should go up from Osaka, especially for the SP. In the FP, there are several issues to resolve still, but a clean Tsurskaya can’t be behind Karen Chen or Ashley Wagner. And even Miyahara. But there’s a question mark: the technical panel. If the tech panel is generous in judging rotation on jumps, a skater like Polina may be disadvantaged, there.

(A): Probably the game will be won or lost there, because yes, you can put her behind on some PCS components, although none of the others skated great up till now. But generally speaking, Ashley can be ahead on some of the components – interpretation, for example. Chen is behind Tsurskaya [on all components], that’s how I see it. She has good quality, she is powerful, she has good speed, but if they both skate as they can, Polina is clearly ahead. With Daleman, it is different again. Polina is better on SS, that’s true. But Gabby has completely transformed herself since she started working with Orser’s school. She improved a lot, and even if on Skating Skills she is behind Tsurskaya, the improvement she had there was amazing. Congratulations are in order for Brian Orser and his team. Plus, her programs are built very well and in a smart way, they manage to highlight her strengths and to hide her weak points.

(M): We expect Polina’s FP to grow (from NHK to SA). I’m not speaking about the execution of the elements, but the program itself. It seemed to be still a work-in-progress at NHK. A program not as complete and competitive as her rinkmates’.

(A). It’s true, it’s true. She was low on PCS (at NHK), but her talent and skills aside, it was a less refined program than her SP. Especially on CO and IN.

(M): From the same listeners: “Polina can underrotate the second jumps in combos. But if her jumps get UR calls, then Miyahara’s should get downgraded.”

It’s something we already talked about, a long topic that starts with prerotation, and that is and should not be focused only on Miyahara. If you look closely, Ashley Wagner underrotates more and more often than Miyahara, probably. And Karen Chen is another one who is at risk… I say it again: key is the tech panel.

Last question: “What happened to Nicole Gosviani?”

Umh, Gosviani already had many injuries before arriving in Italy. She tried to come back to competitive skating; it’s not easy to come back after a long stop. To be honest, I lost track of her development, in recent times. I do think she is coaching… do you have news, Angelo?

(A): No, I don’t have news either.

(M): Nicole is a skater of great elegance, a skater who managed to win a (Russian) national championship – basic or advanced novice – defeating Sotnikova and Tuktamysheva.

(A): Not a small feat.

(M): Something that she will remember forever, having been ahead of the first Russian lady Olympic champion and the skater who brought a world championship title back to Russia after a very long time. And being a very good skater, a very elegant one, with great quality in basic skating, I think she can have a successful career in galas and shows. More than this, I have no info and I’m regretful for not having it. I’m not prepared on the topic [laughing].

And that’s all for podcast #8.

Podcast #9 has been already translated and it’s going through proof-reading process. Due to ongoing technical issue, we are not sure when we will be able to share it, tho. Hopefully it won’t take too much time :)

Thanks again to wonderful Gladi for her help into polishing our translation!

And since it’s already New Year Eve in some part of the world, a very Happy New Year to you all!

The A Factor Team

#fs translation #podcast: kiss & cry #idf 2017 #shoma uno #javier fernandez #yuzuru hanyu #alina zagitova #mai mihara #evgenia medvedeva #papadakis/cizeron #tarasova/morozov #della monica/guarise #russia at olympics #figure skating #tech talk #and much more

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shwoo · 8 years

Text

Time for an Adventure Time everyone-is-teenage-humans-in-high-school-also-they-have-superpowers AU! Or a list of characters. I don’t know, I’m not a draw... person.

Kids Who Form A Superhero Group

Finn Mertens: A young man with grass powers that he has trouble controlling. Was adopted by the Madden family when he was very young, and has no information about his birth parents other than his surname. Wants to help people so much he starts a club about helping people.

Jake Madden: Finn’s older brother. A shapeshifter, and a furry in denial. Likes dogs a lot, and is aware that his surname comes from a word meaning “dog”. Supportive of Finn, but not as interested in helping people.

Simon Petrikov: An ice elemental, and Finn’s roommate. Has severe undiagnosed bipolar disorder; he thinks he has willpower issues, while his parents think he’s either acting out, or sulking, depending on what symptoms he’s currently showing. Also wants to help people, but not as strongly as Finn.

Bonnibel Bubblegum: A supergenius (That’s a power in this universe), and a latent candy elemental. Candy powers run in families; hence her surname. Interested in protecting people, but not above manipulating them.

Marceline Abadeer: The daughter of a human and a powerful demon, and Bonnibel’s roommate. Initially only seemed to have soul-sucking powers, which weren’t enough to get her into superpower boarding school, but later developed the ability to float off the ground. She got it from a vampire whose soul she ate, but that’s a secret. The fact that she’s fighting vampires is also a secret. Wants to protect a humanity that despises her from the shadows. (Humanity does not actually despise her)

Some Other Kids

BMo: A powerful reality warper, and much younger than the others. In school anyway because he’s a prodigy. Jake’s roommate. BMo is a nickname; his birth name is Byeon Woo-Jin. The B is from Byeon, but I don’t know where the Mo part came from yet. Fluent in English and Korean.

Sin Min-Ji: Lady Rainicorn, but Jake’s the only one who calls her that. A colour manipulator. Her parents dumped her at boarding school right after they moved from South Korea, and she initially doesn’t speak any English at all, which is very distressing to her. She learns to understand English eventually, but prefers not to speak it because it makes her anxious.

Lumusi-Sovanna-Princess Jones: Goes by LSP. Can float, but not very high. He name comes from her parents wanting her to have a very unique first name, and hitting the random button on a baby names website a few times. Basically just Lumpy Space Princess only not purple.

Phoebe Flame: The youngest and most powerful in a long line of fire elementals. As much a prodigy as BMo, but her father dealt with it by putting her under house arrest and not letting her talk to anyone outside the family. He was eventually convinced to let her go to school. Phoebe has poor social skills and a lot of repressed anger. Dates Finn for a while, then they break up under similar circumstances to canon.

Peppermint Butler: First name Peppermint, last name Butler. It’s a common name for candy elementals to give their children. A candy elemental like his parents, but also does some occult stuff on the side.

Earl Lemongrab: Candy elemental, and Bonnibel’s same-age uncle. Doesn’t get along with other candy elementals, and feels like he’s failing someone because of it. Angry, lonely, and easily overwhelmed.

Betty Grof: Random, unpowered teen from the nearby town. Becomes fascinated with superpowers after getting together with Simon. Wants to help him with his mental issues because his parents are in denial even after he’s diagnosed. Eventually apprentices herself to reclusive reality warper Magic Man, which doesn’t end well.

Gunter: Mystery student with cloning and mimic-shapeshifting powers. Quiet and a little terse. Friends with Simon. Secretly an amnesiac space monster from before time.

Gunther: No powers. Apprenticed to great ice elemental Urgence Evergreen, who he believes will give him powers. Evergreen has no intention of doing that, but he likes to string Gunther along so he’ll keep doing his laundry.

Tiffany Oiler: No powers. A childhood friend of Jake’s. They grew apart, but Tiffany is obsessed with regaining Jake’s friendship, to the point of posing as a slime elemental to get into Jake’s school.

Sweet Pig-Trunks: Has sporadic radioactive fire powers, but too young to be in school. His skeleton is made of the personification of mass extinction, but most people don’t know that.

Actually Not Kids in This AU Either

“Prismo” - Extremely powerful reality warper. Doesn’t like to use his powers on a large scale unless he really needs to. Friends with Jake.

Marion “Tree” Trunks - Older lady with no powers. Works at the boarding school as a cook. Generally well-liked. Sweet P’s mother.

“Magic Man” - Reality warper who messes with people for fun. Constantly on the run from the authorities, and likes to take assumed names. His real name is unknown. Sad about the time his wife got erased from existence; he’s the only one who even remembers her.

#Adventure TIme #atimers #Finn the Human #Jake the Dog #Simon Petrikov #Princess Bubblegum #Marceline the Vampire Queen #I'm not tagging the rest #I don't know if I'll actually write any of this but it's fun to think about #I guess that's all the characters I can think of for now #The other elementals we've heard about are there too but I couldn't think of much to say about them #Same with Mr Pig

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cryptobrief · 5 years

Link

To Bitcoin or Not to Bitcoin

During the “scaling debate” before the SegWit2X user-activated soft fork (UASF), Bitcoin businesses were getting their first bitter taste of Bitcoin’s censorship resistance. They wanted change to be easier. They wanted their influence to be effective. They wanted to take shortcuts. Unfortunately for them, Bitcoin was created to resist control. Entities that seek to position themselves against Bitcoin are choosing a path of perpetual hypocrisy and frustration.

Those who follow me in interviews might be tired of hearing this, but each Bitcoin business has the choice of making Bitcoin its best friend or its worst enemy. The signers of the New York Agreement chose to make Bitcoin their biggest problem and, to this day, most of them have only gotten worse in this regard.

How can you tell the difference between a genuine Bitcoin business and an enemy? It’s simple! Sincere Bitcoin businesses focus on providing utility to Bitcoin and Bitcoiners, whereas antagonistic businesses maximize their ability to exploit their customers by securing as much of their value into their own custody as possible. That is the battle line. They are actors that want to compete with the old system, but there are true Bitcoin entities that work to delete the old system instead.

Back then, the big blockers claimed they merely wanted lower fees to make room for the billions of people clamoring at the imaginary gates of Bitcoin. But most of these businesses waited forever to activate SegWit, and some major ones still don’t even batch properly. They pollute our blockchain, withholding these efficiencies from their customers. Instead, they barrage new entrants with traps upon arrival, literally bribing them to learn about useless shitcoins and tokens.

Custody-preferring KYC businesses are wolves in sheep’s clothing seeking to liberate you from your BTC, but they should be seeking to liberate you from custodial banking.

Bitcoin is here to delete custodial trust and provide a new circular economy.

We’re Gonna Eat Their Lunch

Exchanges and other custodians basically acted as Bitcoin’s primitive second layer. They added central efficiencies, but the risks were exchange hacks, exit scams, closed accounts, censorship and surprise-KYC requirements.

Fast forward to the present and we have a new paradigm that has grown on top of Bitcoin. The Lightning Network anchors onto Bitcoin, providing a new way to transact. It is faster, less expensive, and capable of handling higher capacity. This is the first time we can truly use Bitcoin in a peer-to-peer fashion, instantly, within a much, much different protocol environment, an environment where you simply do not need to give trusted custody to receive centralized services.

But the former NYA SegWit2X players are mostly ignoring Lightning, with the most notable exception being Bitfury and their Peach project. More than 50 businesses supposedly wanted better Bitcoin scaling and supported forking Bitcoin. Now the great majority of those businesses aren’t helping with development, funding, products or services for the Lightning Network.

I’m not convinced fiat businesses like Coinbase can convert from being enemies into allies of Bitcoin. They are deeply invested into the State and traditional finance, employing strategies that leverage their relationships with them. They don’t understand how to design a new type of business that can actually profit from providing utility to Bitcoin. Thankfully, some of us do get it, and we’re gonna eat their lunch.

I’m so excited about all the ways we can build on Lightning. The fact that most Silicon Valley, VC-backed businesses aren’t interested in Lightning is embarrassing. We have a huge head start, but we need to start behaving more intentionally and strategically to capture it.

Dude, Where’s My Revolution?

Big blockers like to taunt Lightning supporters by pointing out how Lightning Network completion seems to perpetually be 18 months away. It’s an unfair perspective considering how far we have come. It’s probably silly to think programmable money will ever be “done” at all.

However, we have to be careful not to prove them right. In my opinion, Bitcoin and Lightning are at a turning point, and it is finally time to begin the Bitcoin Revolution. We have to ride the line between endlessly making tech and endlessly making toys. It’s time to start solving problems for people with actual products and stop making features for the sake of demonstrating tech. It’s time to start helping people break the rules with Bitcoin and to make Lightning irresistible to businesses and consumers.

The war to delete custodial Bitcoin as a concept has begun. The foundation for a circular Bitcoin economy is being laid out as I type. Pick up a hammer and get in here!

We keep saying that blockchain-not-Bitcoin is stupid. We keep mocking ICOs. But these projects keep getting all the investment dollars! That is about to change.

The Agile Bitcoin Business

In this new economy, a new type of Bitcoin business is emerging that will address following product cycle: Trust > Hybrid Trust > Trustless.

Until now, many businesses focused on providing trusted services that require or encourage the customer to relinquish custody of their coins. Lightning expands business opportunities to enable hybrid, or momentary, trust, as well as trustless services.

I believe this will result in an environment where smart entrepreneurs can identify products that people need in the interim between now and when all commerce can be trustless, advancing their products to require less and less trust over time with new technologies.

The Center for Decentralization

Lightning removes the trust aspect of centralization and creates new dynamics to leverage trust, reducing risks to mere inconveniences. This is a design tool for us to utilize. This is what Bitcoin commerce has been waiting for.

Familiarize yourself with the concept of hybrid trust: the temporary trust a business earns via reputation and their incentive to maintain it. This might sound like babble upon first reading it, but you can look at Bitrefill’s Thor Turbo channels for a great example.

People need to trust that Bitrefill will actually deliver the turbo channel when they purchase it, that Bitrefill will deliver the correct amount of Bitcoin in their channel, and that Bitrefill will relay any attempts to use the channel. But all of that happens in a moment. Then, Bitrefill delivers the channel instantly, and lets you spend your coin instantly. If you get skittish or Bitrefill doesn’t relay your spends, you can close the channel. You are free to opt out or in at any time, and Bitrefill only has custody of your BTC for the brief moment when you are purchasing the channel.

Thor Turbo channels can also follow the product path I mentioned earlier by going from a service purchased within the Bitrefill.com platform, to a Bitrefill white label API service, to a native protocol service in every node that could also be mapped when routing to instantly open new paths. Still with me?

Bitcoin was always a push payment system, but Lightning allows businesses to get creative with it because we don’t have to break the protocol to change rules for new products and services.

Consensus Is Not Required in the Lightning Network

The landscape on the Lightning Network is such that it allows for subnetworks and external networks to be interoperable. While there is a BOLT specification process, it is only necessary if you want to get a feature into the consensus of cooperating developers, not the consensus of users.

The nature of the Lightning Network being truly peer-to-peer allows for you to have special rules with any peer or set of peers. This is a feature Bitcoin’s base layer isn’t very good at. Use it.

The Lightning Network Protocol Is Market Driven

Here is an example of a recurring question I overheard at the New York Blockchain Week conferences last week:

“When do you think they will raise the Lightning channel size limit?”

“When Lightning Labs is ready, I guess.”

I have tons of respect for Lightning Labs and everyone on that team. I met many of them for the first time last week, and it was truly a delight to talk shop with them. I have so much to thank them for, but I cannot allow this misconception to grow.

There is no such thing as consensus on the Lightning Network; instead, we have compatibility. That means you can literally break the rules of the majority, as long as there are other people that have an incentive to break the rules with you.

If you want bigger channels, make them bigger. You do not need permission, you need cooperation. You do not need consensus, you need incentive.

Let me let you in on a little secret. Objectively speaking, Bitrefill is running the most economically relevant nodes on the Lightning Network and demonstrating the concept of a Lightning Service Provider (LSP) in its early stages by creatively leveraging hybrid trust to provide utility to real consumers.

Lightning payments are currently at 5 percent of unique payments received by Bitrefill, growing at a rate of ~35 percent monthly.

People are asking a lot from us and putting some pretty big expectations on our shoulders. A little bit of that is our fault for being Lightning cheerleaders in the media, but most of it is just pure natural market-demand behavior. Users are using our platform to secure real utility.

I am surrounded by all of this every day, and now all kinds of cool observations are becoming apparent to me. We don’t have to perform acrobatics to route transactions because everyone already likes being connected to us. We don’t have to question whether to do more with Lightning because the market is quite literally demanding it.

We don’t have to wait for permission to make new Lightning products.

It sounds scary, doesn’t it? Bitcoin has a playground now, and it’s kind of a big deal.

While decentralization is very necessary to make Bitcoin work, it is not necessary to advance Lightning’s usefulness.

Competition, Cooperation and Consolidation

I see a LOT of Lightning projects, wallets, games, labs and businesses popping up, but I’d like to see some consolidation and cooperation, both for efficiency and for the users’ sake. I do not want to use a different app for everything, nor do I want any of my favorite apps to be abandoned.

If Lightning is a marketplace of implementations and services, that means there will be winners and losers. Entities are competing for funding, users and overall uptake within the network.

These dynamics are evident at Bitrefill already. Some of our nodes use the Eclair implementation because the other implementations don’t support the tech necessary to provide Thor Turbo channels. Turbo channel buyers have to use Bitcoin Lightning Wallet on Android for the same reason. Should Bitrefill lobby all wallets and implementations to add support? Should we submit a BOLT when we already know some developers don’t appreciate this feature? Should we wait for Bitcoiners to complain to their favorite wallet providers to implement support? Should we make our own wallet and skip these concerns?

I’m not sure if cooperation will merely result in consolidation or if it can transcend competition in this environment, but I’m sure everyone will try all angles to stay agile.

Now that Bitcoin and Lightning can actually advance in a path that the market demands, we should be more strategic about the projects we choose to invest our time and money on. Start thinking like a product manager, UX designer and business development person all at once. Zoom out, plan and be intentional.

I hope no one sees this post as hostile to Bitcoin or anyone involved in Lightning Network development. I’m trying to share my observations in hopes they will accelerate Bitcoin’s inevitability.

If I have time, I will do a follow up post going deeper into the interesting kinds of products you can create if you leverage a little centralization and some of Lightning’s unique qualities.

… Or, I will keep the ideas to myself and get back to work!

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

#briefs

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davidmkelly · 5 years

Text

New Post has been published on David M. Kelly

New Post has been published on http://davidmkelly.net/2019/04/30/lunacy-back-in-style/

Lunacy-Back In Style!

Last week China announced its intention to establish a base on the Moon within ten years. Exciting news for sure, conjuring up images of a lunar colony (dare I say Moonbase Alpha?), and certainly an idea set to warm the cockles of any sci-fi fan.

The timeline would have to be described as aggressive, though. Certainly, NASA’s Apollo program managed to land astronauts on the moon in that time-frame, but that was only a “simple” land-and-return mission. Still, China has demonstrated many times that it is willing to spend money to achieve big results, so they probably have as good a chance as any.

Launcher

And now, barely a week later, we hear that under direction of the Great Cheeto, NASA plans to do the same, and they’re going to do it in five years. This timeline isn’t aggressive, it;s insane and quite possibly suicidal. There are three things necessary to envision a lunar mission, and here’s where things start to falter right-away.

First of all, you need a launcher capable of taking a large payload (by space standards) to the moon. In the Apollo days, this was the mighty Saturn V rocket. But now? The US doesn’t have anything currently capable of such a mission. NASA says it’s looking for partners in the industry, which basically means either the United Launch Agency (ULA), the SpaceX Dragon Heavy, or Boeing’s Space Launch System (SLS).

ULA Delta IV Heavy

The ULA currently has the Boeing-built Delta IV Heavy rocket. This is probably NASA’s best option as it is NASA Launch Services Program (LSP) certified (but only for non-crewed launches). The SLS hasn’t carried out a single launch yet, and delays in the program presently put the first launches in 2020, at the earliest and, according to some observers, the program may even get scrapped entirely.

The only other possibility would be SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy. This rocket has only launched once, and future launches are all listed as TBD. Plus, the system has no LSP certification (crewed or uncrewed). The Falcon Heavy program is also suffering from delays, and the company recently had to defer what would have been the rocket’s first commercial launch.

So, for any of these options to be viable, they would have to go through NASA LSP certification–not an easy or short program, although possible given the five-year timeline, if resources were thrown at it.

Capsule

SpaceX Crew Dragon Capsule

To get people to and from the moon, you need some form of capsule. Again, the US doesn’t have one. SpaceX has the Crew Dragon, and Boeing is developing the CST-100 Starliner, but neither is close to being ready. The Crew Dragon has a slight advantage because it’s based on the Dragon capsule used to deliver cargo to the ISS, but it isn’t LSP crew certified and recently suffered a setback when it exploded uring ground testing, seriously delaying its certification chances.

So the question here becomes “Is NASA going to rush testing both the launcher AND capsule?”

Lander

Lunar Lander (visualization)

Now we get to the real kicker in all of this. Forgetting the issues of the launcher and capsule, the US has no lander–not even a design on the table. And here, even the commercial options fail. Neither SpaceX, Boeing, nor the ULA has a lander even on the drawing board. The only people who (maybe) do are the Chinese, and I’m pretty sure they won’t be rushing to help the US. It’s worth remembering that it takes somewhere around three years to design, certify, and build a new car–and all that has to do is sit on the ground. Building a craft capable of landing a crew safely on the moon is several orders of magnitude more difficult.

Bigelow Moon Habitat (visualization)

So far I’ve not discussed the idea of creating a station for the astronauts on the moon. Both Bigelow and Sierra Nevada Corporation have expandable units that might work, but again, none of these have been tested or validated for crew use, plus they’re more designed for operation in orbit rather than on the lunar surface. And if the plans don’t include setting up some kind of station, that would make the whole exercise pretty much a win for the Chinese efforts. Let’s face it, we don’t need another mission to the Moon just to leave dusty footprints.

Sustainability

Lunar Orbital Gateway (visualization)

There are no new funds for this project. NASA is already operating at a shoestring level compared to the Apollo era and in fact their funding peaked in 1966! The Apollo lander alone cost $11 billion–half the current estimated allocation for 2020. So, in order to do this, NASA would have to cut back on almost every other program it operates, and that would include the planned Lunar Orbital Gateway.

The Gateway is an international project with the goal of building a space station in lunar orbit. Building this would offer untold scientific opportunities and also act as a staging post for lunar operations, as well as missions to other planets such as Mars. I talked about this idea in a previous post discussing sustainable approaches to space travel. Essentially, any mission that works on the idea of traveling directly from Earth to another celestial body can only ever be a glorified publicity stunt.

The cost in terms of resources and hardships involved make such ventures so risky and unsustainable that they really aren’t worth contemplating. So, returning to the idea used on the Apollo program to rush through yet another badly thought-out lunar flag-waving exercise is not only a step backward, but also, given the potentially disastrous short timeline, precipitates an unconscionable risk.

Unfortunately, this is a continuation of the space pissing contest that has plagued NASA from its early days. First, they were in a competition with the Soviets. Now its China (or maybe Space ISIS…). All its major programs and missions were designed to push political goals with any scientific ones entirely secondary, and sustainability and safety have always been compromised. As a result, less viable missions have been pushed forward, while better ones that would have supported sustainable strategies have been notoriously underfunded or defunded entirely.

Certainly the certification process could be rushed, but I hope that won’t happen–that kind of approach almost inevitably costs lives. As my character Joe Ballen says “space is always dangerous, and a single mistake can easily kill you.” The big problem with all of these systems is that this is rocket science, and that isn’t easy.

I’d love to see the US pull this off. I’d be overjoyed to see humanity developing its first permanent off-world base. But with this timeline, such a program will only likely puts people in danger, and no one wants another tragedy in space. It will be interesting to see how this story develops.

#5 years #china #critique #landing #moon #NASA #safety #space

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investmart007 · 6 years

Text

United States | Previewing Sanctions Under Section 231 of the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act of 2017 (CAATSA)

New Post has been published on https://www.stl.news/united-states-previewing-sanctions-under-section-231-of-the-countering-americas-adversaries-through-sanctions-act-of-2017-caatsa/173153/

United States | Previewing Sanctions Under Section 231 of the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act of 2017 (CAATSA)

United States – MODERATOR: Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining in today’s call regarding the President’s executive order on the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act as well as other actions. Today’s call will be on background, and it is embargoed until the end of this call.

For your reference purposes only and not for reporting, we welcome on the call today [Senior Administration Official One]. From now on he’ll be known as Senior Administration Official One. We also have [Senior Administration Official Two], Senior Administration Official Two. Then we have [Senior Administration Official Three], now going to be known as Senior Administration Official Three.

Again, this call is on background. The contents are embargoed until approximately 1:30 or when the call is over. I will now turn it over to our senior administration officials, who will open our call with some brief remarks, and then we’ll move to your questions. So Senior Administration Official Number One, please proceed. Thank you.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everyone, and we are grateful for you joining us today. Back in January of this year, many of you may recall we held a background briefing for reporters on the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, which is also known, at least in U.S. Government circles, as CAATSA for its acronym.

Some of you may have been involved in that briefing or been following this issue otherwise in the press, so you may be familiar with CAATSA. But for those who may not be, it is legislation that Congress passed in – well, at least the Russia portions of it were passed by Congress in response to a range of Russian malign activities that include meddling in the U.S. elections.

Part of the statute includes provisions that mandate the imposition of sanctions upon anyone engaging in what is called a “significant transaction” with any entity that appears on a list of persons associated with the Russian defense or intelligence sectors.

There are a couple of developments which we’d like to bring you up to speed on today, two sets of actions. The first is one with which you may be familiar from – just from the website, because today the Treasury – excuse me, today the President signed a new executive order authorizing the State Department to implement certain sanctions that are set forth in the CAATSA statute. That is already public knowledge. The second bit may perhaps be news to you.

The second thing that happened today is the Secretary of State took two actions. First of all, he added 33 additional persons to that list that I mentioned before. It’s the so-called “List of Specified Persons” that are acting on behalf of the Russian defense or intelligence sectors. So that so-called LSP, that list, it got longer today by 33 names.

In addition to that, however, the Secretary, in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury – so Secretary Pompeo and Secretary Mnuchin – imposed sanctions on a Chinese entity, the Equipment Development Department, otherwise known as EDD, and also upon its director, Li Shangfu. EDD and Mr. Li are being added to the Treasury’s Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List, which is a complicated way of referring to what we usually just informally call the SDN list. This list has now been updated on the Treasury website.

We want to stress that the legislative standard here is a significant transaction with an entity that appears on the List of Specified Persons. We took these actions because China took delivery of 10 Sukhoi fighter aircraft, specifically Su-25s, in December of 2017 – of course, after the CAATSA statute came into force. And it also took delivery of a batch of S-400 – sometimes known as SA-21 – surface-to-air missile systems or related equipment in January of this year.

Both these transactions, which I repeat occurred after the CAATSA sanctions statute came into force, were deals that were negotiated between the Equipment Development Department, or EDD, on the one hand, and Rosoboronexport, which is Russia’s main arms export entity. And it, Rosoboronexport, is on the List of Specified Persons.

I want to emphasize that the ultimate target of these sanctions is Russia. CAATSA sanctions in this context are not intended to undermine the defense capabilities of any particular country. They are instead aimed at imposing costs upon Russia in response to its malign activities. And of course, those malign activities are many that it’s undertaken in its attempt to compete with the U.S. and our allies and our partners.

The array of sanctions the United States has imposed against Russia and those who material support – materially support its malign activities are undertaken in direct response to Russia’s aggressive actions against our country, our allies, and our partners.

This is also the first time that we have ever sanctioned anyone under Section 231 of CAATSA, which focuses upon, as I’ve been explaining, those who engage in significant transactions with entities that appear on the LSP. We have not done this before; we are doing this now. We want to stress that our enforcement of Section 231 is an ongoing process.

We’ve been engaging with our partners and our allies for quite some time on this, because the ultimate goal of this legislation is to prevent revenue from flowing to the Russian Government. Russia uses its arms sales not only to raise revenue, moreover, but to build relationships which, of course, it then attempts to exploit in furtherance of its interests and almost invariably in ways that goes against ours.

So we’ve been using the CAATSA – the possibility of CAATSA legislation to deter arms transfers for many months now. We’ve had a – done quite a bit, actually, and had some good results in probably preventing the occurrence of several billion dollars’ worth of transfers simply by having the availability of this sanctions tool in our pocket.

But since China has now gone ahead and, in fact, done what is clearly a significant transaction by acquiring these Sukhois and S-400 missiles, we feel it necessary – indeed, we are required by the law – to take this step today.

So I want to stress again: This is the first time we’ve ever sanctioned anyone under Section 231 of CAATSA, so it is a significant – this is a significant step. And we have some experts on hand here who can help explain to you many of the details as best we can should you have questions about this. Thank you.

MODERATOR: All right. Thank you very much. I think now we’ll go to our first question.

OPERATOR: Thank you. And once again, on the phone lines, you may press * and then 1 for your questions or comments. Our first question will come from the line of Emily with Energy Intelligence. Your line is open.

QUESTION: Hi, thanks for doing the call. Could you all help me understand some of the other sections, not 231, but that are outlined in the executive order? I mean, specifically I’m interested in Section 232, “Sanctions with respect to the development of pipelines in the Russian Federation.” Is what you’re doing today sanctioning specific projects – like Nord Stream 2, for example – or is it effectively just laying legal groundwork so that that can happen later?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: I think it’s probably best to keep this discussion focused upon the step that we’re actually taking today under Section 231. The executive order that was signed does create a framework under – by executive order for implementing CAATSA sanctions, but I think it’s best if we keep this particular talk to – simply to the step that we are taking today so that we have the chance with the time – the brief time that’s available to explain this step to anyone who has specific questions about it.

MODERATOR: Thank you. We’ll go on to our next question, please.

OPERATOR: That will be from the line from the line of Nick Wadhams. Excuse me. One moment. That’ll be from the line of Nick Wadhams with Bloomberg News. Your line is open.

QUESTION: Hi, thanks. Could you give us a little more information on the 33 people who were added to the List of Specified Persons acting on behalf of the Russian defense LSP? Who are they? Where do they work? Are these government officials? Are they all Russian nationals? Thanks.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: I think perhaps some of my colleagues can provide a bit more of the buildout on that perhaps, but there are a number of – they fall into clumps, if I might sort of broadly summarize. There’s an addition to – there are additions to the list with respect to the Russian defense sector, listing a number of – three entities, actually, there.

There are also – most of the bulk of the additions today relate to filling out the list with respect to actors associated with the Russian intelligence sector, which is a bit of a – again, a bit of a new thing here. They come from a variety of sources. Some of you who perhaps will look these names up when you check them out on the website will find that a number of these names correspond to people who have been indicted in connection with Russian election meddling.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL TWO: And I would just add that we will be issuing a fact sheet from the State Department with further information with these names, so you’ll be able to see them. But it is indeed a mix of people from the defense sector, from the intelligence sector, and various others who have been associated with Russian malign activities.

MODERATOR: Thank you, we’ll move on —

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Hold on. If I might just also quickly – sorry – add a little bit of additional gloss, and that is that, of course, the List of Specified Persons is not itself a sanctions imposition. Nothing specifically happens to someone by virtue of being on that list.

The implications of it, however, are that if anyone else engages in what is deemed to be a significant transaction with such a person, the person who engages in that action may well be subject to mandatory sanctions pursuant to Section 231.

So partly this – the signaling involved and the list is teeing up such sanctions, should someone be engaged with these folks. But it also, we hope, will be something of a signal to avoid engagement with those folks for that very reason. We work very closely with people around the world to minimize their exposure to sanctions for engaging in significant Russian arms transfers.

And with this new build-out of the list to cover the Russian intelligence sector to some extent as well, we are sending a signal that dealings with these people may well subject one to sanctions, and therefore we hope that people, if they come across that opportunity, will think twice.

MODERATOR: Thank you. And we’ll go on to the next question now.

OPERATOR: Thank you. We will go to the line of Ian Talley with Wall Street Journal. Your line is open.

QUESTION: Hi, yes. Thanks for doing this. Can you hear me? Hello?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Yes, I can.

QUESTION: Okay. Great. So a little bit of housekeeping. Can – do you have any details on the cost of those two transactions, the Su-25s and the S-400s? And then does that give us an idea of what the threshold is for a significant transaction? And finally, does – do U.S. entities that have Sukhoi parts, therefore, should they be concerned that their supply chain has a – product have – products from their – from a blacklisted entity?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Okay. I’ll try to take those three elements in the order you asked them. First, with respect to the costs, I am not in a position to provide information to you all at this point about the specific costs of the transaction. And I certainly understand your interest in trying to decode from an understanding of those costs what it might mean to be a significant transaction, but I think that is an – that would be an unwarranted conclusion.

There are a lot of factors that go into deciding when a transaction is significant. Cost is certainly part of it. The significance of that transaction, both in terms of its security impact upon us and its – frankly, its security benefits to the Russians as well as any other circumstances that may be relevant at the time —

QUESTION: Okay. That’s helpful.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: — go into this. So there – it is not quite so simple an algorithm as the question might seem to suppose. So I have no doubt the cost of this fancy equipment was rather significant, but that is not necessarily the determining factor, and I couldn’t tell you what the number is at this point on this call anyway.

With respect to your question about parts, we have been pretty consistent in our messaging throughout the process of enforcing – or implementing, I should say – Section 231 of the CAATSA statute that we are not targeting things such as simply the provision of spare parts and maintenance.

That is not of particular concern to us at this time. We are focusing most of our efforts upon the much – the bigger ticket items, the items – transactions that involve significant qualitative changes in the nature of military equipment shipped abroad or things of that nature.

I mean, there are a lot of pieces that go into determining significance, as I said, but we have not hitherto spent any time worrying about merely the provision of parts or maintenance in order to keep existing systems that have already been acquired going, for instance, which goes to my earlier point that we are – the purpose of doing this is not, of course, to undermine the defense capabilities or the aerospace capabilities or really any capabilities of any particular country.

The objective here is, of course, to impose costs upon Russia. And we generally take a – we look at things rather differently if there’s a large shipment of new, fancy, qualitatively significant stuff as opposed to simply the provision of things that keep existing systems going.

MODERATOR: All right. We’ll go on to the next question now, please.

OPERATOR: Thank you. Next we’ll go to the line – excuse me – of Joel Gehrke with the Washington Examiner. Your line is open.

QUESTION: Hi. Thanks for doing this. Wanted to go back to the 231 sanctions. I think under the law there are 11 different options for different sanctions under Section 235 that you can apply. Which particular sanctions have you imposed over these Sukhoi and S-400 transactions, and what do you think the practical impact of that will be? And then a little more broadly, does this mean – there have been some debates, some ambiguity about whether the law covered transactions that were agreed to prior to passage of CAATSA.

If they were agreed to on paper but they hadn’t accepted delivery yet, is that transaction a violation? Can you say – does – did you end up adjudicating that in your own minds?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Okay, yeah, let me offer a little bit more on the specific sanctions in question. Under the law, once a determination of a significant transaction is made, we’re required to impose at least five from a menu of – I think it’s actually twelve options that are set forth in the statute.

One could impose five, six, eleven, twelve, what have you, depending upon the circumstances, and that is itself a complicated question, as part of our decision-making process.

In this case, the sanctions that are being imposed upon EDD – and I would certainly turn to – I believe it’s Senior Official Number Three to correct or fill in anything that I get wrong here – but we are imposing sanctions on EDD – that is to say, the Chinese entity, Chinese company – a number of these things, although not all of them and there are indeed some carve-outs and waivers. We are denying U.S. export licenses to EDD. We are denying – or, in fact, we are imposing a prohibition upon foreign exchange transactions under U.S. jurisdiction; also imposing a prohibition on transactions with the U.S. financial system.

We are blocking all property or interests in property within the U.S. – within U.S. jurisdiction. And we are imposing sanctions on an EDD principal executive officer. That’s the fellow, Mr. Li Shangfu, who we mentioned before. And these sanctions include a prohibition on foreign exchange transactions under U.S. jurisdiction, a prohibition on transactions with the U.S. financial system, and blocking of all property or interests Mr. Li’s – in property within the U.S. jurisdiction, as well as a visa ban.

OFAC has also placed both EDD and Mr. Li on its SDN list, and as a result of that in itself, all property and interests in property within the U.S. jurisdiction are being blocked and U.S. persons are from here forth generally going to be prohibited from transacting with them.

Did I miss anything, Number Three?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL THREE: No you didn’t, Number One. I will just note that the OFAC will be implementing these sanctions by the conclusion of this call, scheduled to go out at 1:30.

MODERATOR: All right. We’ll move on to the next question now.

OPERATOR: Thank you. As a reminder, for any questions or comments, press * and then 1. And we will go to the line of Gardiner Harris with New York Times. Your line is open.

QUESTION: Can you just tell us what the effective outcome of the executive order is? It sounds like it’s an executive order that’s just sort of telling you to go ahead and do what you were already doing or what CAATSA the legislation already required you to do. Am I missing something? Does the executive order sort of give you any greater authority or any new abilities to sort of carry out CAATSA that you didn’t already have?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL THREE: This is – let me jump in here. This is – I’m [Senior Official Three]. The EO specifically is allowing us to implement the sanctions that we – that – in the State – the actions that the State Department has taken today under CAATSA.

First, it delegates the listed sanctions menu – so that was earlier referenced, the menu of 12 in section 235 of CAATSA, and also the separate menu in the Ukraine Freedom Support Act of 2014 – it delegates those sanctions to be implemented.

It also authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to employ all powers granted under IEEPA. Some of those powers that this executive order now allows us to take will be to do things like promulgate regulations, issue administrative subpoenas, issue licenses, and take the full range of civil enforcement actions that we can. So what the executive order does today is it amplifies and makes implementable the good authority that Congress has given us in the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, or CAATSA.

MODERATOR: Think we have time for one last question.

OPERATOR: Thank you, and that will be from the line of Nicole Gaouette with CNN. Your line is open.

QUESTION: Hi, thank you for making the time. I apologize that I missed the top of the call. I am – I have two questions, and one is: What has prompted today’s action? You mentioned that the Chinese purchases took place in – at the end of last year and in January. We’re nine months into the year.

The second is that Turkey has been quite forthright about S-400 purchases itself and I’m wondering if there’s been any communication with Turkey that they might be next or whether you’re looking at them, if there’s been any communication with them about their intent to purchase the S-400.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Okay. The – as I indicated, the driver for this was the delivery of the Sukhoi fighters in – at the end of 2017, and also of a batch of S-400 missile system-related equipment in January of 2018. These are about —

QUESTION: I’m just wondering why it has taken so many months. I mean, it’s been – it’s been – CAATSA has been in existence for a while and that’s nine, ten months ago.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Well, we wanted to make sure that we were doing our job responsibly, making sure that we have evaluated all of the circumstances and understood the facts surrounding these particular transactions, making sure that in evaluating the standard of significance in light of those facts, and of course, not just deciding what is a significant transaction, but then thinking through the process of what sanctions it is appropriate to apply from the menu of sanctions.

Which ones to impose, what carve-outs to have, which ones not to impose, to make sure that we’ve done an appropriate job as stewards of the interests of the American people and the intent of the Congress in passing this statute, and making sure that we’ve appropriately balanced all the equities.

The CAATSA was not intended to take down the economy of third party countries. It’s intended to impose appropriate pressures on Russia in response to Russian malign acts, and we have it on very good authority from the office of the statute itself that they expect that we will implement it in ways that are appropriate in light of consultations with all of the parties involved.

So we think this time was necessary in order to do the homework that we needed to do to make sure that this action was measured and appropriate, as well as being stern and responsive to a real challenge presented by facts on the ground.

As to other potential recipients of the S-400, we haven’t made any determinations yet with respect to what to do about those, but you can be confident that we have spent an enormous amount of time talking about prospective purchases of things such as S-400s and Sukhois with people all around the world who may have been interested in such things and some who may still be. We have made it very clear to them that these – that systems like the S-400 are a system of key concern with potential CAATSA implications.

Members of Congress have also publicly said that they believe any transfer of an S-400 to anybody would constitute a significant transaction, and of course that’s something we have to bear in mind in these as well. So while decisions on other cases have yet to be made, and indeed other transactions have yet to occur, we hope that at least this step will send a signal of our seriousness and perhaps encourage others to think twice about their own engagement with the Russian defense and intelligence sectors, which would of course be precisely what we hope Congress intended, and what we are required to do pursuant to the fact.

MODERATOR: All right, thank you very much. I’d like to thank our speakers for taking the time today and our journalists for joining us. The embargo on this call is lifted. We will be issuing a statement from the spokesperson as well as a fact sheet on this that will be coming out shortly. Thank you very much and thank you for joining our call today.

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SOURCE: news provided by STATE.GOV on September 20, 2018.

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