#because their narrative beats are so in sync

[doortotomorrow]

cobra kai couples · robby keene and tory nichols

[lightning-and-sparks]

Over analyzing Swan Lake:

I’ve played Swan Lake to much because I’m genuinely terrible at it and I want to point out something cool…

Wander, Brezz, and Mihaly all have very unique dancing styles that contribute to the narrative of the song. Let’s break it down.

Wanderlust is the first “challenger” to face Sara. As we’ve seen in previous songs, he has a very fluid dance style. For most of his Swan Lake choreo he’s not very grounded and seems to be light on his feet. I see this being a direct translation to him being more “agile” in a fight. Of course he only lasts so long as he gets distracted by the corruption and is caught of guard by it. He gets stuck in a “stalemate” and Brezziana steps up:

Brezz’s moves are very similar to Wanderlust’s with one key difference. She is more planted. She isn’t moving as much as Wanderlust and takes a more defensive stance. Her moves are very rigid and powerful. She sees how Wander’s technique was holding Sara at bay so she adapts it. She is more focused on standing her ground than attacking unlike Wander. Eventually, she also gets overwhelmed by the corruption and when she takes her focus off Sara she also gets stuck in the “stalemate.”

Finally, Mihaly. Mihaly’s moves are completely different that Wanderlust or Brezziana’s. Instead of adapting the choreo they switch to their style in an effort to switch forms. Sara is caught off guard by the change of form and Mihaly gets the advantage. As Sara Switches tactics, Mihaly starts losing and gives up their form to send a warning to Jack Rose. Finally they are locked into the “stalemate” as well.

For the final stretch of Swan Lake we see all three of them switch to the corrupt forms and start to move in sync. This is important! They are all dancing together (even Sara) and they become more powerful. When we look back at the whole song you realize that if they fought together they could have beat Sara, Night Swan knew this and kept them apart. They are all very different dancers and that helps them but hurts them more. Even in “If you Wanna Party” not every coach is moving the same. They switch in and out for the spotlight which makes a great dance and map, but also shows this divide between five dancers across five dimensions; they can dance similar for a few moves but at the end of the day they’re different. The uniqueness helped them defeat Night Swan but it also divides them.

TL;DR: Wanderlust, Brezziana and Mihaly lose in Swan Lake because they can’t work together.

[crooked-wasteland]

Hazbin Hotel LiveBlog: Scrambled Eggs

So I’m watching Hazbin with my partner who has already seen the entire series. It took us 5 minutes just to get this episode to play from the beginning because it would just skip to episode 4 while the credits where playing before i could pause or rewind. That has nothing to do with the show, it just made me unbelievably enraged, so we ain’t going into this episode happy.

What is with the cat?

It’s been a week since the last episode and every ounce of progress Sir Pentious made last episode is just thrown out as an excuse to introduce yet another character in Carmella. Was there not another way to do this? Like I get Sir Pentious wouldn’t be reformed, but just having him be suddenly paranoid with no reason isn’t founded. Even just a background detail of Angel Dust watching him from a doorway would have been enough to found that suspicion. Especially when Pentious wasn’t shown to be paranoid as a trait. I get this is narrative utilitarianism, but it’s just weak and changing one character’s personality to establish a new one is poor writing.

Sir Pentious to his eggs just feels like fandom

“That’s a lot less hot” That feels out of character

So Trust exercises to tone down the sudden change in Sir Pentious’ character and also to give Vaggie a leading role. Got it. Very utilitarian, very disjointed from the previous episode.

Sidebar, I googled who wrote this episode and it wasn’t Vivienne, however I never would have known because the last episode was equally full of contradictions that it also felt like someone else wrote it. Now maybe that was because Adam had a hand in thing, but The fact I have to google this stuff to know for sure is a joke kin its own right.

I am so conflicted about Niffty. She feels less childlike here and I like find her demented fun, but last episode she was literally written as being child-like so the pain fetish going on is repulsive, despite it not being this writer’s fault. If I want to enjoy anything about this show, I really have to just see every episode as one singular complete entity without calling back on previous ones, however this is a series and thus needs to expand itself through subsequent episodes. To not do so is a failure of concept because this series is very serialized. So in a bubble I really enjoy Niffty. In the series she is a very uncomfortable character to give violent fetishes to and make them so overt. Vivienne ruined that for you all, don’t blame me. Someone should have said how this should have been scrapped before we got this far.

Zestial is suggesting that Alastor may have died at Heaven’s hand. Alastor looks away while laughing. So there is a connection between Heaven and Alastor.

Egg Bois are cute.

Carmella has a bad case of Character Design does not match vocal performance.

Velvette, please never speak again.

Velvette is now 5 inches tall

The yellow blood looks like piss

Can someone tell Lilli Cooper that a lot of British singers don’t have such strong accents when singing. Just please, it’s a great time top drop that bad accent.

James, hi, your singing voice lost the character

The kink shaming be real.

Even Charlie infantalizes Niffty. Geez

This scene in the Turf war was peak Angel Dust. I laughed.

I have to ask, was the music written before or after the singing, because for one, Carmella sounds like she is trying to be heard over it, and second the beat of the music is either lacking or there was an issue with the audio mixing because it just sounds wrong. Like there are melodies and harmonies to a score and one of those is missing. OR, the music is just out of sync entirely with the performer.

Again, just don’t have Vaggie sing. You directed the actor to perform out of her vocal range for her modal voice. Don’t do this to her.

They are not at all harmonized, this is the worst duet I ever heard. Don’t you usually have singers record duets together so they can harmonize their voices? Why didn’t that happen here.

So this big conflict for Vaggie was never a conflict. Best resolution ever.

I like Carmella’s concept. Her character design is kinda trash and the songs were terrible. There was a good idea somewhere in this episode, but from beginning to end every aspect was contrived to just make the story work for the greater plot, the dynamics between the characters be damned. There is a sense of someone wanting to have fun with it while Medrano’s stood behind them with a chokehold on the narrative. It’s disappointing and I feel the writing suffers from Medrano’s obsessive and frantic need for control. This writing feels so insecure and I can only imagine that comes from having a very narrow box to fill.

2/10

I’m taking a break.

[daily-hanamura]

I was wondering if you had any analyses on yosuke's dances in P4D, especially his partner dances wrt his character/personality... or even just generally what you thought of his moves. I think atlus/p-studio enjoy putting more than meets the eye into the choreography for the dances, but i wondered what the account that does really good yosuke analyses thinks. >:) Cheers

Oh wow you're very kind!! but this is also a very high level ask as I am not at all a dance expert and I'm still working my way through all of the dances, but I will do my best! o7

Long post incoming!

I remember reading an interview which said that Yosuke's dance style is very much inspired by male idols with a hip-hop flair, and I can definitely see it in his dance? iirc there was a pretty strong influence of hip-hop in jpop of that era - I'm thinking about Johnny's entertainment boybands which I think pretty much dominated the jpop male idol scene around 2010 - just look at Arashi's Monster dance routine, which imo is a super quintessential dance of that time. Like Jun's breakdance around 0:45, but also more generally, the sort of precise, rapid-pace footwork and moves that is also very evident in both Backside of the TV and Your Affection. I think it really suits him for a few reasons

Yosuke generally has the highest agility stat and tends to be the fastest char (for me at least? but i've also seen enough fics that reference how quick he moves), so it makes sense that this sort of high-pace dance suits him. Obviously Yosuke has a very good sense of beat listening to music all the time in combat and moving with it, so despite his real world clumsiness, he's well equipped to take on the kind of rigorous idol dance style that's typically very demanding to learn and perfect.

At the same time, it also matches his narrative - Yosuke in canon is very familiar with idol culture, both with Risette and Kanamin Kitchen, so it's not too surprising? But what I thought was kind of interesting was that there aren't really any references to male idol groups in world, and even his bedroom in p4au only shows female idol posters and some mainstream American albums. However, in the interview scene at the end of p4d, he mentions to Yukiko that he's tried to copy moves from stuff he's seen. But his dance style is more similar to boy idol bands - with the hip hop influence especially - as opposed to being similar to female idol bands - which tend to be preppier in dance style (see AKB48 for example). (Or just compare Rise's dance with Yosuke's.) So idk if this is a random oversight on Atlus/P-Studio's part, or if Yosuke is a closet male idol enjoyer (which would be very funny but also on brand for him, especially if he's still in the closet).

The other thing about idol music and group idol dance styles more generally is how much emphasis there is on harmony. If you look at the Arashi video again, there's kind of the expectation that all members are dancing in sync with each other. The thing about that sort of group dance is that you don't really have "leads" and "backup" dances, because no one member is really supposed to stand out or take centre stage since they're all equals. And I think that's a fun thing to think about because, you know, Yosuke Rank 10. But it's also in his partner dances with the others - I feel like Yosuke tends to harmonise with the others and their dance styles the most, maybe he's second to Yu? But Yosuke tends to match his dancing to the style of the other person when he joins them in Fever, like in Naoto's or Chie's (caveat, maybe I'm just Yosuke-biased LMAO). I think there's a lot to say about it because on the one hand, his captain ressentiment attitude means he sees his friends as better but he also wants to catch up to them and be their equals! but also, on the other hand, Yosuke doesn't want to stand out? And him keeping his head down is very much in character for him throughout most of the game, so :')

(but also souyo lens time his partner dances with yu is SO GOOD they mirror one another so well and it makes me so weak)

I think my final point is on how idol dancing is kind of on brand for him as well? Yosuke is kind of a vain person - he likes fashionable clothes! He likes to look cool! (and we love him for it!!) - and I think one thing that kind of marks idol dancing compared to, idk, interpretive dancing as an extreme example, is how idol dances tend to emphasize... looking good? The whole point of idols is to sell them on their aesthetics, after all, and good looks are kind of a minimum criteria to being in an idol group. The dances are choreographed to maximise the dancer's appeal, so it's all smooth moves that present them in the best light.

Those are my extremely long thoughts!! but yeah tldr I think his dance style really suits him on every level I can't imagine anything better for him ngl. Anyone with more expert knowledge feel free to pitch in though

[alfietalksaboutcomics]

So Let's Talk About X-Men #30 And Talon

Obviously spoilers ahead.

I've become somewhat a strongly opinionated person on the character of Talon. I've always defended the character because I thought she had potential to grow into more of her own character separate from the traditional Laura Kinney. However I've been a little disappointed as of late as to how little development and spotlight she has actually gotten. So considering all of this I was pretty excited for her and Synch to get some focus in X-Men #30, they have been largely on the periphery for the Fall Of X which is slightly annoying seeing as it is the perfect opportunity to give them a spotlight as the leaders of the X-Men.

So with the issue out I have some conflicted thoughts on it. For those who haven't read it let me recap the relevant events of the issue. Synch and Talon go on a mission to steal a device from the High Evolutionary, ultimately Talon dies during the mission but Synch is able to pull her into his mind by syncing with the powers of Jean Grey. So now Talon is a part of Synch.

On the one hand I think this is a potentially pretty regressive step for the character. A frequent accusation leveled at the character of Talon by many detractors is that she exists solely as a extension of the character of Synch that exists only to be a object in his story. I have disagreed with that in the past and thought people should give her time to grow more into her own character. However now Talon is literally a extension of Synch, a part of him and not quite her own person. So that I think depending on where the story goes could honestly be a pretty bad place to bring the character of Talon.

On the other hand I want to give some grace and not prejudge the narrative before this storyline is finished, it can always be pretty tricky making judgments on a single issue when you don't have the rest of the storyline in front of you.

All that being said this isn't really beating the "Talon exists only as a character to further Synch's story" allegations. I've given the story quite a bit of time but it hasn't dedicated the time needed to flesh out her character.

So yeah I feel conflicted about this issue, I did feel a emotional gut punch at the reveal but time will only tell if it was a gross way to handle the character or not.

[cowboyskeletons]

thinking about my au where after the trial the dads are actually just transported into another universe where jodie was transplanted and they replaced their alt-universe selves.

so there are small details that the kids notice (except for nicholas) that are kinda... off, but it's not big enough of a shift to notice until reminiscing about childhood memories and like it doesn't matter (it does matter but that's only half of the story)

point is that without them, their home universe kinda crumbles, as the narrative is about Them and why even exist if there's no purpose? so everyone kinda just fades away over a short span of time (thinking around a week) as the world loses its flavor.

....buuuut nick's still there.

because the dads are The Dads, right. it's their defining characteristic. they need to have children to be dads (if the child is dead it doesn't matter, just needs to exist in the universe). the children are... kind of like anchors.

so if their children stopped existing, what then? well, it was a simple solution-- they got linked to the new verse kids. done done. new anchor, continued existence, "forever" relevance, hoorah.

only problem is that glenn doesn't have a kid. and he's not a dad anymore. so like, what's the point of his being there? nicholas is technically completely unrelated to him. in the new verse, it's said that he's darryl's friend who's just. there. in-auniverse and in a more meta concept sense, he really shouldn't have been there.

(eventually, glenn won't need an anchor anymore because of the relationship he develops with nicky but for now he needs a weight to assert his existence in the narrative)

erasing him from existence kind of goes against the court ruling because then why all the shenanigans. so he still has an anchor, though the new universe is unaware of it

so nick is still there.

nick is... not fully what he used to be. he seems overall the same, but he's in a sort of... stasis? like the most obvious effect is not aging but there are mental effects too. his and glenn's relationship and place in the world can't really change, so he doesn't.

he's like an ice sculpture now metaphorically-- fading like the rest of the world, but his process is slower because he's connected to glenn and he's still important to the story. he has approximately until the s1 finale until he starts getting into the danger zone. the worlds aren't exactly synced up time-wise, but time shifts and flows and the universes drift so there's never a concrete ratio-- usually worlds sync by story beat but. yea

so he's just wandering the world as it breaks apart. he's the only reason that it's still there, actually-- it becomes weaker as he does, as it loses its purpose completely.

by some chance, nicholas manages to contact nick then Stuff Happens.

cue shenanigans, primarily with nicholas and nick but several other people come into play too like glenn and jodie and morgan

(yes nick still dies in the end but there is Closure with the family okay. can't spell closure without close. do you get it)

[givehimthemedicine]

❤️ Max is El's heart ❤️

Let's talk about El, Max, Mike, Vecna, and hearts.

For all the talk of Mike being the heart, do you wanna explain to me why there's a literal heartbeat sound effect used in Vol2, and it doesn't involve Mike whatsoever?

We hear it prominently when El finds Max tranced out in the void, takes hold of her hand, and commences piggybacking. And later when El spins the coke bottle and goes looking for Max in the void. (video down below because I can only put one per post)

The second one's like, ok sure, naturally El would have a specific interest in Max's heartbeat at this point, she restarted it herself. But why do we hear a huge heartbeat noise in the first clip, before it's relevant?

Which of their hearts is this supposed to be?

Is it El's heartbeat, like to illustrate that she's concentrating really hard? I'm not sold on that, because there was no heartbeat noise the other times she piggybacked.

Is it Max's heartbeat? Like, El literally feeling her pulse? If so, they passed on the most obvious applications for it (the heart-restarting scene, and the hospital scene where her heart is definitely beating again - El is touching her both times. In the coke bottle clip she isn't).

I think it's both. Like, their hearts syncing up when El is channeling her. If you listen really close in the coke bottle clip, this time the heartbeat is paired with a faint beeping - Max's heart monitor. It's an elmax heartbeat, both of them together.

That'd be a bit cheesy, these two are bffs and all, but why would they have some random special cardiac bond?

El and Max's hearts both stopped. Because of Vecna. On the same day.

When El uncovered her repressed memory of getting Vecna'd, it was so traumatic that she went into cardiac arrest.

It was that night that Max also suffered such trauma from getting Vecna'd that her heart stopped.

Narratively, Max had to die a death that El could fix (I don't think you can telekinesis your way out of exploded eyeballs). El evidently took a minute to combine realizations that Max was dead because of a stopped heart, and that that was something she could do something about. She remembered this happening to herself literally just hours ago, and that it involved not just mechanical intervention but love.

The elmax memory montage is not pure sentiment to pass the time while she does whatever hocus pocus with her hand - it actually plays a role (or at least El thinks it does).

Where else do we hear heart noises in V2?

El uncovers her full 001 showdown memory in which she's about to be killed, but then remembers um her own birth, where we hear baby El crying, the beeping of her mom's heart monitor in the delivery room, and her mom saying "Jane, I love you."

Love gives young El the power to "no u" 001 and yeet him through the wall, but the trauma sends present El into cardiac arrest and the lab folks fish her out of NINA and put her on the table and shock her heart back on. And now we hear El's heart monitor as well as a couple isolated heartbeats as she comes back to consciousness, crying a little bit, still thinking about the memory of her mom loving her.

In the void clip, we hear the heartbeat after El says "it's okay, I'm coming" and Max might be crying a little bit? Not sure if that's crying or just trance-distress noises idk but I'm trying to find a pattern here. In the coke clip, El is crying and there's both heartbeat and heart monitor beeping. And she's obviously thinking about how she loves Max in both scenes.

El got her heartbeat (love) from her mom and then gave it to Max.

Here's everything: (you might need earphones or good speakers, my phone misses the heartbeat completely)

This is a picture of familial and platonic love

the importance of which I think has been key to Max and especially El in 4, and which I think and hope will be the conclusion to El's arc, as she realizes romantic love isn't the end-all. Romantic love plays no role in El's heartbeat thing.

Interestingly, Max's Vecna escape does include romantic love, because that lesson isn't hers to learn. She already knows romantic and platonic are both important - besides including clips of the whole party, Lucas and El hold roughly neck-and-neck importance in her memories. Equivalent memories for El would have been of the party in general but especially Mike and Max, and... no, not at all. 100% Max.

During the monologue there's only one flashback (the party finding El in the woods), but it seems more likely Mike's memory because he brought it up. Anyway, what he says in reference to it is a lie, so even if that is her memory, she feels no love from it - in fact, when she's staked everything on those words, finally hearing them and knowing they're a lie has to hurt more than not being told in the first place.

So for El that's a win for platonic, a win for familial, and a fail for romantic. I don't think their point here is "platonic/familial rules and romantic drools" but rather that milkvan is not a specimen of true love.

Run to the light

Some very similar imagery of Max and El's visions as they escape Vecna.

Where is El headed? To the delivery room, being born, where she takes her first breath and starts crying, and there's someone there who loves her.

Where is Max headed? To the graveyard, deciding she doesn't wanna die after all, where she takes her first breath and starts crying, and there are people there who love her. Also, at moments, that hole is shaped sorta like a heart

Mike is the heart, but not for El

Will thinks Mike being the heart is a universal thing, when really it just applies to him, which is why this doesn't work for El. (I made the ultimate sacrifice and watched the monologue to make sure there was no heartbeat. if you're reading this you owe me a dollar)

If anybody is "the heart" for El it's Max, which is why she gets the power to fight only when she quits looking for love in Mike's speech where there is none, and looks over at Max where there is. Like how Max gets her breakthrough power predominantly from an El memory. ❤️

Speaking of hearts and old memories,

Can we talk about this moment real quick before we go?

Why did they have El say "your heart" here? because A) nowhere in that scene did anybody use the word heart and B) nobody has ever said "heart" to or in front of El in a non literal context and I would've been iffy about her being familiar with this use of it. It's almost like they really just wanted the word heart in there?

Anyway, El's only concern at the time is Mike, but you gotta love the visual hint that she has Max in the back of her mind.

So what happened in that scene El is referring to?

If El knows Mike was talking to Max that day at the cabin, it means she heard that entire conversation. In addition to Mike blurting out that he loved her, she also heard Max sticking up for her and caring about her having her own identity and agency and independence.

You know, the same topics that held a lot of emphasis in the memories El had of Max while she was restarting her heart?

There's more to life than stupid boys! (The fact is, she's not yours.)

Not Hopper. Not Mike. You. (She's her own person,)

Holy shit, this is insane. Is this really gonna work? (fully capable)

Which one? (of making her own decisions.)

Against the rules? We make our own rules. (I did not make her. It was her idea.)

El didn't just restart Max's heart to a "good times El had with Max" montage - it was a "reasons El loves Max" montage.

❤️❤️❤️❤️

[tanoraqui]

Some questions for you, for some day when you're looking for a mild distraction: WHO is the Middle Earth equivalent of Othar Trygavsen? AND ALSO Which force of narrative causality wins in a fight between Turin's curse and Othar's heroic plot armor? (I would also accept Luthien's plot armor vs Othar's plot armor, but I feel like that just ends in an overpowered team-up. Othar seems like a Power of Love kinda guy.)

I think Fingon best fulfills the tropes of a traditional Hero(TM)—rescuing damsels and fighting dragons! Valiant, generous, maybe slightly impetuous, and inspiring of loyalty! Alas, of course, he’s stuck being a second-tier character in an epic tragedy, rather than a story in which being a Hero(TM) actually gets you rewards. Fingon doesn’t quite have Othar’s attitude about it, Middle Earth being less genre savvy than Europa—not to mention having different tropes to be genre savvy about, most of which we don’t know!

I think Othar’s plot armor and Túrin’s curse would actually sync up in the worst possible way. Remember: Othar is a gentleman adventurer on a quest to bring peace and sanity to the world by killing all Sparks! (With himself last, of course.) So if he and Túrin met in the wild and decided to wander together, they’d probably find a city of sparks and/or Noldorin crafters (same thing) and save some civilians from orcs, get welcomed in and hailed as defenders, live there happily for a few weeks/months/years while roaming the countryside, fighting evil…

Then Morgoth attacks in force because Túrin, probably in conjunction with some mad science gone terribly wrong, and the city falls, everyone dies, Túrin’s latest, sparky romantic interest dies particularly terribly…

And as they’re standing in the ashes, Othar is like, “Well, that was terrible, but at least the sparks are all dead! Tally ho!” and walks off to the next adventure while Túrin falls to his knees and weeps.

Other and Lúthien combined could and would beat a Vala in a fist(/Song)fight in a parking lot, though probably not permanently destroy them.

[wtficedance]

Thanks for answering my ask- I was the one who asked about Ben Agosto. So basically if he's "supporting the narrative" he's fudging stuff like whether Lilah actually deserves her scores in favor of spinning what the ISU's peddling. Isn't that kind of bullshit then? He's looking for ways to justify what they're doing, even if it's really thin - like Charlene's back flexiblity vs. Lilah's skating - and doesn't account for what's actually happening? Thanks for explaining that - I can smell the spin in what he's saying and now I see why - he's not good as say Mark Hanretty at walking the line

Q #215:

Combining with another similar ask as well for conciseness:

“Don't you find it ironic that he can't say the truth because it'll "undermine viewer confidence in the sport"? Like you're literally saying that there's a lack of integrity in it. Viewers should not have confidence that it's a fair sport, basically lol”

Hi anons,

The short answer is yes it is ironic and of all of the things I truly do love about ice dance (the really cool artistic inspiration, the creativity, imagining new ways to incorporate movement, etc.) the integrity and fairness of the sport has never been notable. All sports which involve a judged component (even in the forms of an umpire/ref/linesmen etc.) will have controversies about officials inserting themselves into the game and affecting results, but sports which are purely judged will have significantly more of it.

This is especially true for ice dance since there’s less obvious mistakes that someone who’s never seen the sport before (falls!, clear stumbles, losing grip on your partner) can pick out and understand that it’s playing a role in the score. It’s why twizzles went from being a very insignificant part of the sport to its more talked about element, because while something like ONLY pirouetting isn’t obvious, being slow, not covering ice, falling out of rotation, lack of sync, are very noticeable no matter your experience watching ice dance. Meanwhile, step sequences are a huge part of ice dance scoring but apart from obvious mistakes like stumbles and falls, it can be hard for a first time viewer to understand why they're scored the way they are.

So yes, commentators have to choose whether they're going to fully buy into the narrative (more of a Ted strategy, and also one taken more by commentators who don't have ice dance background but are former singles skaters) or whether they're going to go more with the half-picture but mostly true lines. Because--at least on English-speaking channels--unless its homer/"we were robbed!" comments, people generally tone down the "this result is bullshit and actually the team who placed first shouldn't have even podiumed" stuff. ESPECIALLY, when its at a relatively low stakes event like a GP vs. the Olympics or Worlds where that at least generates interest/potential viewership.

But generally, post-SLC, you see a large reluctance of commentators to really play into the controversy. My general hypothesis is that it is because 2 things: 1) an increased awareness that it will be weaponized to say that FS isn't "a rEaL sPorT" and 2) because of the number of old timers who attribute it to IJS/the system. Elaborating on 2), a lot of the immediate reaction after Adelina won in Sochi by FS commentators was that she won correctly within IJS, and that under 6.0 Yuna would've won. Kurt Browning in particular comes to mind. Which... Adelina did not win because of IJS. She had a level 4 step sequence despite tripping, virtually tied Yuna in PCS, beat Carolina Kostner in SS, and got away with quite a few UR calls. All of those things SHOULD have been punished if IJS had been correctly applied. There's a tendency for people who dislike IJS to blame the system itself. A lot of it in ice dance comes back to not just IJS but also "well if we still had the compulsory dance" but I'm going to be quite honest and say a lot of the time teams who were in fact NOT the strongest skaters won the CD. AND while I fully concur that too much of the score in ice dance is now choreographic elements and step sequences have been devalued, a team like F/G should still not be in the top 8 if they were scored correctly in the current system.

All of this to say. Yes, F/G's results this season are rather absurd, they are not reflective of the skating on the ice, they've been way too high in the context of their ability and the timing of the quad, some commentators have been significantly more effective at addressing the absurdity of the scoring, and that their rise isn't particularly unique because ice dance has always been particularly susceptible to narratives and egregious politicking. And particularly this year, there's some interesting dynamics about pushing European teams and Russia as the traditional ice dance power being absent. Which I don't think will benefit F/G in the future if a particular team comes back.

But, in the end while I do wish the scoring was more fair, it is a reality I have come to accept because I don't watch competitions to see who wins but to enjoy some truly creative and special programs.

P.S. agreed on Mark :)

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 08/03/2024

Reach for the Submission, Immortal Fes

Season 5 Featured on: Bloodstained Bounties ~ The SiIvaGunner All-Star Summer Festival 2021 Collection [Event Side]

Ripped by minindo, Myeauxyoozi

Requested by crickqt! (Ask Box)

And so we reach the third installment of this, I guess "Trilogy" of Minindo Touhou rips. It's fascinating, especially as someone who doesn't really know much about the games, to see how Touhou music gradually became more and more prominent on SiIva over the years - it began as mostly just Princess Sylvyspirit's passion project on the channel back in Season 1, yet gradually grew into becoming one of the channel's most known sources for good ass rips. Touhou creator ZUN was featured in both King for a Day Tournaments, we finally got the long-awaited Touhou album right before Season 5 began, and as Season 5's big summer festival event drew to a close, it was a Touhou rip - Reach for the Submission, Immortal Fes - that co-signed its ending.

I've gone on record saying that Season 5 was the time where I was...least engaged in the channel's activity. I believe I described the Season as feeling "aimless" back in my rip :), which in hindsight I wouldn't exactly say is accurate, It's moreso just that it was a period where the channel was doing things I wasn't quite as enthusiastic about. In a way the change was to be expected: the team had put the main narrative of the channel on hold since Season 3 and spent both episodes of Season 4 specifically on building up to, performing, and celebrating the King for Another Day tournament. Season 5 (and the final months of Season 4 Episode 2) was then, in a way, the first time that the channel wasn't really tethered to any recently set-up beats to follow through on, with the Christmas Comeback Crisis already long on hiatus and the King for Another Day tournament officially wrapped up. As a result, we got a ton of interesting, out-there projects that we likely wouldn't have otherwise: The beginning of SiIvaGunner Fusion Records/SGFR in snow halation but it shreds and Running Through Cookie Country, the debut of Friday Night Funkin' and the ridiculously high-effort rips made for it such as Epic Rap Battles of History: Funny vs. Funnier; and of course the continued emphasis on voice acted side stories, with various audio dramas such as Curse of the Fallen Angel in Knowledge of the Depths and today's topic, SummerFes 2021.

SummerFes 2021 may not have had as much immediate emotional pathos as its predecessor in Season 4 Episode 2, but used its standalone nature to great effect - a super distinct western theming with some of the best art on the channel, tons of left field events like Christmas in July with Nostalgic Blood of the Gregg ~ Old Source and Dream's birthday with Five Dreams at Night 1.16, and so much more. In closing out this vast, varied fun time of rips, Reach for the Submission, Immortal Fes is more than just a meme medley mashup - most all of the jokes are, in chronological order, reflecting each part of this greater SummerFes event. The annual PSY Day, the Spirited Away anniversary event, the Dream event (synced with *Dream* Land's music from Smash 64 to also cover Super Star Symphony), Beatles Day...its a full-on journey, a trip down memory lane of the entire event and just how much fun it all was.

Minindo's ripping prowess is something I've emphasized before in the prior Touhou rips of his I've covered, particularly Beautiful Dreamer, but it absolutely bears repeating: a rip this varied and large in scope only works because the guy is exceptionally good at what he does. And while I definitely prefer Beautiful Dreamer as a listen due purely to how focused and refined it is, Reach for the Submission, Immortal Fes still manages to give me those same feelings that the smaller-scale Fusion Collabs on the channel have always done, of sending me on an audio journey through an super-event that, though less fondly than others, I do still hold very dear to my heart. A lot of people became fans of SiIvaGunner through King for Another Day and its subsequent celebration in the Season 4 duology, and SummerFes 2021 did an excellent job demonstrating just how good the team is at keeping you engaged even with seemingly so little to actually work with.

[djservo]

HI CAS you managed to beat me to it and remind me that i will also be away around our typical wrap up time! travelling gals. i've seen some of your goodreads activity too and i think we've managed to keep in line with books read which does make me laugh a lil. how was your buddy read? your august reading? new vibes for autumn? i want to know everything!

omg we're so in sync I love it and I hope your traveling went/is going well!! <3 first buddy read (out of a projected total of 4) went well, as did the rest of my august reads!!

A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf

the first of the buddy-read chronicles with my buddy and it was a success! fitting for these seemingly ever-changing phases of independence/womanhood/#HoningThyCraft that we keep morphing into and within. it was a bit of a slow start and made me think of jenny slate talking about books which I sent to me friend like 5 pages in like "omg please tell me it's not all like this" but we pushed through the initial slump and were pretty engaged with the rest of it. I highlighted so many passages to chew on, some favs being -

"the beauty of the world which is so soon to perish, has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder"

"What effect has poverty on fiction? What conditions are necessary for the creation of works of art?"

the iconic -

"a good dinner is of great importance to good talk. One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well."

and even some lil funny bits -

"the chief glory of a woman is not to be talked of, said Pericles, himself a much-talked-of man"

miss woolf has jokes!! but yes overall really ended up enjoying and connecting with this more than I expected at the start and it's short/low stakes enough to where I think anyone could give it a shot and end up resonating and/or taking something deep from it

High Blood/Pressure by Michelle T. Clinton

I forget who exactly posted it, but Someone whose taste I wholeheartedly trust had posted a snippet of Good Sense & the Faithless on their insta story which first put Michelle T. Clinton on my radar. devoured this one in an afternoon, I was so hooked and charmed by her prose and the way she sets up a scene!! not necessarily setting wise, but this sense of interaction/conversation that's both natural yet distinct in tone. personable yet frank, which isn't really easy for me to pick up on when I'm first getting into poets - like I feel like I need to read several poems for their voice to really click for me because I'm too focused on connecting more superficial dots of understanding, whereas this one clicked right away. fav poem was MANIFESTING THE RUSH/HOW TO HANG but I really did love each one + I've already tracked down a used copy of Good Sense & the Faithless online that's on its way to me now hehe very excited

Looking For Mr. Goodbar by Judith Rossner

similar to Secretary where the movie's been on my radar and I've been itching to watch but the purist in me wants to read the book first and then I read the book and don't watch the movie LOL 'when you give a mouse a cookie' ass situation!! I think the story's still too fresh on my mind and if I were to watch the adaptation right away, though it would make sense for the sake of comparison, it'd feel too much like homework ykwim like in college I took a class about film adaptions of literary works where we'd get this short window of time to read a book then watch the film in class and discuss/dissect + I guess it kinda spoiled that act of reading then immediately watching, or turned it into something very clinical whereas I wanna be able to watch the adaptation for what it is without being a hypervigilant critic... ANYWHO!!!! I actually had no idea this was based on a true story/crime? so I think most of my qualms, which are narrative-wise, are kinda irrelevant since that's like.. literally what happened! that's the truth! but I guess I felt there wasn't enough explanation as to how the protag's sexual appetite/curiosities developed the way it did (unless you wanna be an armchair psychologist and connect the dots to her childhood upbringing, but I personally don't think even that's enough). I read a good chunk of it at an airport bar and it felt very fitting + I think I should start scouting my reading settings according to the book I'm reading bc it does indeed add to the ambience of the story and DRAMA of it all !!!!

since the start of September I've finished 2 books, unconnected in vibes but still somewhat complementary. I'm reading Quarry by Jane White now which is our second buddy read/the start of our "dark childhood/boyhood" theme that I think will bleed nicely into October, I really struck gold at the used bookshops during my travels but they're all kinda meaty and require some supplementary reading/context (to me) and idk if that's the vibe right now. kinda wanna stay in a fiction bubble a little while longer and there's certainly no end in sight given some of my recent TBR adds on goodreads so!! we shall see!!!

[denizenhardwick]

also, in the anime, joshua IS separated from neku and the rest of his partners, both by the changes to the story and the cinematography. i’ve briefly mentioned how the scenes where neku makes a pact with shiki and beat use a very similar series of shots, while that scene with joshua is entirely different, which also means neku never holds joshua’s hand like he does with his other partners. this is really important because at the end of the anime, neku drops his gun and extends his hand for joshua to take--and he doesn’t take it.

joshua is also not present during the fight against draco cantus, meaning there’s no moment where neku syncs up with all of his partners at once, and providing further distance between him and neku and the others. plus it cuts out neku’s closing monologue, so we don’t get to hear him say, “trust your partner. and i do. i can’t forgive you, but i trust you,” or, “i have friends now. we’re getting together for the first time in a week. see you there?”

i don’t think neku ever calls joshua his friend in the anime, at least not after learning that he’s the composer, whereas in the game, he does it twice: once explicitly and once implicitly.

basically, joshua is effectively written out of the hachiko gang completely in the anime. he’s not neku’s partner in the same way that shiki and beat are, he’s completely separated from the others, and he seems to be fine with it--because for some reason, they changed his frown to a smile in the secret ending of final remix and have been rolling with that characterization of him ever since. thankfully, he isn’t as separated in neo (at least until the secret ending), but it’s still weird that they’ve consistently decided to make and maintain this change.

because the point of the first game’s secret ending is that he wants to be down there. he wants to be down there with neku and his friends! but he can’t, because he gave up his shot at life and at genuine connection with other people. he’s neku’s bad ending, who realized what neku did throughout the game too late and doomed himself to an eternity of isolation. he’s ultimately a very tragic character, and having him narratively isolated from the rest of the cast and totally okay with it takes away from that.

[concernedbrownbread]

I just realized Azula is determined to always be in control of everything while Zuko constantly aims to have as little autonomy of his own as possible.

Azula commands her ship-the tides don't, Azula (almost) always keeps her heartbeat steadily beating, she accounts for everything in her domain, down to tha tea bags. She remembers everything vividly. She wants to control whether Aang meets Ozai, or at least what Aang thinks of him.

Zuko dissociates whenever possible, letting "the Creature" handle things. He'd rather not remember or think about his past, his memories are fickle. He'd rather Ozai plan everything. The only thing he controls willingly is his fire, always keeping its precise white colour. He feels Ozai controlling him and minimizes his own autonomy; à la June, backing himself further into the corner.

And they get in the way of the others wish. Because of Zuko, Azula no longer has a domain to control and her heartbeat is unsynced enough for Toph to notice. Because of Azula, Zuko has to take matters into his own hands and things on his own in the colonies, he has to do things on his own instead of simply obeying Ozai.

Idk my brain is infested with LWPR fire sibling worms

YOU! YOU GET IT!

Warning, this will be a bit of a ramble:

You are abosolutely right, Azula has started to lose control thanks to Zuko, (but also due to the Gaang). In canon, Azula losing control led up to the Last Agni Kai: her hair was out of place, and she innitiated the Agni Kai (in an attempt to regain control). I knew my control-freak baby wouldn't change -- she still wants to be in control desperately. She ruled her domain with an Iron Fist, according to Maru. She has been controlling the narrative of having the Avatar on her side since the first chapter. But also like in canon, the situations the Gaang is put into is unpredictable and impossible to control. Especially thanks to Zuko. She's out of her depth, and she's panicking.

Arc 3 (this current arc) will try to explore Azula's relationship with control using Sokka my booyyyyy.

And then there's Zuko. Oh, Zuko. He sees himself as Ozai's tool, something for Ozai to control, but you are right: Zuko controls his fire. Completely unconciously, mind you, but Zuko's fire is his and his alone. I love his fire. His fire literally gets character development in this fic I swear.

But Zuko is losing control too. Zuko's sense of control WAS to let the Creature take over, to just not. think. To let Ozai take control. That was his own way of taking control, of making a concious choice to disengage, if that makes sense. But Zuko's fire, which I am trying to potray as his "true self" knows this: "In the moments he spent awake and aware, his chest hurt. Under his ribcage, between his lungs. // A steady rhythm, out of sync." (since fire comes from within etc etc.) His flame is out of sync with himself: he is losing control as well.

So Arc 3 is about both Azula and Zuko losing control in different ways. Arc 4 is about them regaining it in, in, uh, well. I'll leave that for Arc 4.

I put WAY too much thought into this silly fic, thank you SO MUCH for noticing. I'm so honoured someone is thinking on this!!!! Genuinely you made my day.

Keep 'em asks coming, I'm getting the worms too!

(Also idk why I did the colours I felt quirky~)

[janewaywatches]

Some super fluffy Berena fan fiction hope everyone is having a great day and if not then I hope this can be a bright spot and make your day a little bit better.

A little narrative about why Bernie loves Serena so much as she reflects on their relationship on their wedding day

When you live your life like you’re running. Your heart beat never slowing for a second. Your eyes constantly watching. Do you know? You do know what you’re running from. “Bernie you need to stop this.” Was the voice she heard inside her head. The tears told a different story. The denile the want to make everything right, she tried to write a different ending to her story. Marcus wasn’t a bad man, misguided maybe. He was justified in his anger in his bitterness. However, Bernie she needed someone to guide her too. When you live life repressed hiding under lies you tried to believe were true. When you ‘believe’ you love someone and try to hide the niggling doubts deep down inside you. You need someone to guide you. She had never truely lived in the way others talked about. Never her love for Alex was at best a desire for a different kind of life. Her first shot at really feeling. Then everything changed. Things tend to change, life is the most fleeting and beautiful of things. Even the state of dying is impermanent in itself. Love doesn’t belong to the holder love is in most instances in the most special of cases a shared experience. She found this to be true… after everything getting outted to the ward the argument over Cameron the lying to the police. The running… the running had stopped. She decided the moment she got back from her sabbatical. She had been avoiding the one heart that could ever beat in sync. The one person who saw her and all of her imperfections. The one… it hit her then as it always did. Except this time was special they were dressed up to the nines. Today was the day. The day the rings would be on both of their fingers. The day Bernie celebrated the fact that the woman she loved most in world had made it possible for her to stand still. That when they were next to each other there was no where else she would rather be. That she didn’t have to pretend to be perfect. She didn’t have to be the perfect wife the perfect mother because Serena would love her no matter what. No matter how much hurt how many things changed. Their love would always be a permanent fixture within the memory of their lives.

[powertaco]

Death’s WhiteRose

So for those of you who care DWR or Death’s WhiteRose is the pairing for Ruby Rose/Weiss Schnee/Maria Calavera (young). 

I’ve had some people basically ask why ship it at all and so here we go. Please of course remember this is for fun and my own interpretations of things.

Outside of the fact that they’re all pretty, which to be fair they are, I find that they work absurdly well as a trio and have a lot in common.

To start with they’re all huntresses with a missing/deceased mother. Ruby’s mother is dead (at least at the time of writing this) or missing, Weiss’s mother may as well be and hasn’t been her mother in over a decade and in fact is reduced to a laughing shadow in ice queen, and Maria only ever has mention of her father which is listed as unnamed. 

These losses have helped shape them into who they are. Weiss strives to be perfect, Ruby strives to help people, and Maria is an interesting mix of both. She helps people and eventually buys into her own hype of being the Grimm Reaper and is the perfect fighter who thinks she doesn’t need others. 

Much like Weiss Maria thinks she’s fine enough to stand on her own, but unlike Weiss, Maria didn’t have anyone to help show her that she needs others no matter who skilled you are.

Her hubris leads to her calling herself a failed huntress even after she still manages to kill her attackers but loses her eyes in the process. 

The idea of Maria feeling like she has to stand on her own only to be met by someone like Weiss who had the same idea but found solace in her team, and partner Ruby and decides that maybe that’s the thing to try and slowly opens up and starts trusting people and letting them in is a great narrative. 

Maria gets to trust and confide in others and see that teamwork does make the dream work, Ruby gets a silver eye mentor, and Weiss gets another silver eyed harem girl. A joke but she gets another person to rely on that has a vested interest in her as a person rather than as her family name as Maria much like Ruby just doesn’t seem to care about things of that nature and they both get a more experienced training partner to help them grow while Maria gets a pair of people who can teach her to work with others, and trust again to make her even better than she was alone. 

In another amusing note in music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more musical lines (or voices) which are harmonically interdependent yet independent in rhythm. 

And wouldn’t you know it the three share a counterpoint with their theme songs which at first seems highly improbably until you realize counterpoints aren’t as exact as you’d imagine. 

Maria doesn’t have an “official” song but we do have Grimm Reaper which I think we can all agree is basically a stand in for her at this time but if they want to release an official song for her then by all means gimmie. 

The first minute of the song is a gentle intro which fits and slots neatly into Weiss’s mirror mirror, and then at around the one minute mark is ramps up into an action beat that syncs well with Red Like Roses II aka Ruby’s song. After that at the end it transitions back to a more somber song. 

And of course if you listen to the lyrics much like has been said more openly in Ice Queendom Ruby and Weiss are both very lonely people despite being surrounded by others, and very clearly Maria is as well. She’s spent decades punishing herself for her mistakes and even before then lived alone going around fighting as nothing but a machine. 

The idea of the three of them getting a chance to be happy together, of filling in the holes each leaves to make a whole is a great one. 

Is it crack because Maria was born decades before them so young Maria isn’t really a thing outside of fanfic? Yes, but I write fanfic, and well who’s to say Weiss’s time glyphs, and Ruby’s semblance don’t have a misadventure and they end up back in time to save Maria from losing her eyes? (Yes I wrote that fic and no I feel no shame about it)

At any rate that doesn’t even get into all the other great ways their fighting styles mesh. With Maria’s up close and personal style and predilection for showboating something both WR have shown before, or birthday significance or the fact that Maria has two weapons (and two hands!)

And again have I mentioned how cute they are?

(Scene from Radio Grimm where Ruby and Maria are playing the Hunters trading card game and Weiss who is new to this is just kinda enjoying being there) Thank @amelia-yap​             For that one.    

So yes it’s basically a crack ship but remember this from the Vol 9 teaser

I’m not saying that has to be maria, but if it is she’s looking mighty taller than before, and the skin is about the right shade. 

So if young maria is on the island I think we have a real chance at making crack fic real fic. WHO IS WITH ME?

Write letters to your congressmen today and thank you for coming to my TED talk. 

[yuuana]

Music Monday #241: Chungha - Eenie Meenie (feat. Hongjoong (ATEEZ)) release: March 2024 genre: Kpop cw: flashing, mild lens flare, lasers

Who me, playing favorites? Of course I am. Are we surprised? Not if you've been here for more than a hot minute, I'm sure. XD Besides, this song has been stuck in my head, catching me off guard any time it wants, since the day of its release. And not just because of the featuring artist, dammit. XD

Amused that the captain who insists we should only have eyes on him is the first to feature on an outside artist's track. Not at all surprised though that from the moment she started talking about it, Chungha had nothing but praise for Hongjoong, crediting him with helping her step out of her comfort zone a bit on this song (he has writing and producing credits). I wouldn't go quite so far as to call it pirate pop, but there's a fun and slightly funky vibe to the beat, at least partly from that string bass syncopation that's the grounding for the whole song. Chungha alternates between sung and spoken lines, utilizing more of her vocal range in the process. How deep a read you want to do on the song is up to you - on the surface, it's a girl power bop about having one's choice in boyfriends. If we look a bit deeper, one finds a call to know yourself well enough to know what you want and to not settle for something less.

There's enough breaks away from the performance of the song's dance to keep this from being a performance video as such, but I wouldn't say the video has a particular narrative thread to it, either, and we are completely fine with that. Instead we get three minutes of Chungha and her dance team in a variety of settings, from a back alley to the middle of a street, a closed coffee house to an actual sound stage. The choreography is looks deceptively simple in the way that it flows like water to the beat.

There is a performance video, like the music show stages, it's just Chungha and her dancers, with Chungha doing lip sync to Hongjoong's rap. It better shows off the choreography for that part that isn't centered in the MV, since Hongjoong was directed to just go with the flow and do what felt right for the vibe rather than worrying about specific moves. This was likely in deference to the fact that they only had him for a few hours -- the reason the music shows have been Chungha only is that ATEEZ's schedule has had them in Japan for most of the last month and in fact Hongjoong flew in (and back out the same day) to shoot the video around his other schedules. Keen eyes will also catch both the Crazy Form bunny move the dance crew does during the rap section (a move the choreographer specifically put in to honor ATEEZ), as well as Hongjoong's own Bouncy reference. Some Atiny have been quick to jump on the silver chain mask of the masked dancer as another ATEEZ callback, though it isn't exactly the same as the Z lore mask, but hey, close enough? And if that was the intention, then it's another sweet gesture from a seonbae towards her hoobae.

Eenie Meenie (and it's c/w I'm Ready) is available via the usual streaming options. As much as I would love to have seen a live stage with both Chungha and Hongjoong, I know better than to expect it. Still, a jagu can dream, right? ;)

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