ok, i have a thought
and maybe others have already had this thought but i just had it
Supposedly LBD foresaw her destiny, she saw and claimed without a doubt, that she would achieve her perfection.
we all know she wanted that perfect world where nothing bad happens, etc. And that's what she gets. Nothing.
To me then...her preminition, her destiny came true. She's in this "clean slate" state of being, this nothingness where, feasibly, this is the perfection she desired.
Can we talk about The Dying Swan moment in Coda? As someone who was once a very serious ballerina, I need to talk about the Dying Swan. Here's your context --
CHAKOTAY: Harry's clarinet solo was okay. I could have done without Tuvok's reading of Vulcan poetry. But the highlight of the evening was definitely Kathryn Janeway portraying the Dying Swan.
JANEWAY: I learned that dance when I was six years old. I assure you, it was the hit of the Beginning Ballet class.
Have you seen The Dying Swan? It is dramatic.
Here, take a minute:
youtube
First of all, this dance is much too advanced for a six-year-old, even if they’re doing it in demi pointe. (Six-year-olds emphatically should not be in pointe shoes btw.) The dance is almost entirely bourees and arm movements done to very subtle musical cues, not the foundational ballet moves typically taught in Beginning Ballet.
This is a very vulnerable, dramatic dance that is effective because of its subtleties. The performer would need to embody that vulnerability in some way for a convincing performance. It's short, but it's a solo piece -- all eyes on you. I mean, it was choreographed for a prima ballerina, BUT THAT'S NOT MY POINT
Can you imagine our unflappable Captain Janeway willingly getting in front of her crew to do this ballet? I get that it’s thematically relevant to the plot of Coda, but since Janeway is only vulnerable in front of her crew when it means putting herself in harm’s way, it seems like a wild decision. She tends to hold herself apart from her crew, maintaining the professional distance of the captain. Further, when she does any creative pursuit, it is almost always in private, since her sister was the artist in the family and she was the scientist. As a captain, she commands Voyager in a much different way than she would as a dancer with this piece. I'm not saying she never shows vulnerability because she definitely does, but not necessarily in this way. Then when she talks about it with Chakotay, she just casually brushes it off with a laugh like no big deal.
There’s also the question of costume – would she have gone full tutu? Done it in her Starfleet uniform? An impeccable yet flow-y white suit? She does get into costume and command a performance in Bride of Chaotica!, but Coda is still kind of early days for our captain. Arachnia aligns more with what we know about Janeway's character.
Granted, it is Chakotay laying down these complements about her dancing ability and he is clearly biased. To be fair, Neelix does too before they leave in the shuttle. If she did this dance and performed it poorly or amazingly, I feel like the crew would look at her a bit differently afterwards.
Canonically she did The Dying Swan, but I certainly have trouble picturing it happening.
Before: I do have some books that I’m hoping get chosen with this new spinner wheel site, but leaving it up to fate is my favorite pastime.
Starting off strong with the new wheel! Today’s read is going to be the most recent volume of 光が死んだ夏!This isn’t a series that I’m just starting, unlike the majority of options, but one that I’m keeping up with as it releases and had to include because I just couldn’t wait to read it. I initially expected this series to go in a completely different direction than what’s currently happening, but I’ve been really enjoying how it’s turning out, especially in the last volume (volume four).
Also, I plan on making some wagashi today so hopefully I’ll share some pics.
After: I made anmitsu today! I love it, but it's so much work to put each bowl together that I don't make it very often. The bananas are freshly homegrown from my neighbor's sister's tree! We're not here to talk about dessert though, we're here to talk about manga.
I did indeed finish my volume of 光が死んだ夏 today! I've been following this series since it was just one wee little volume and it quickly became one of my favorites. However, now that the series is getting a little longer, I think I'm noticing some pacing issues. I loved volumes one and two, but three fell a little flat for me. Volume four was fantastic, but this volume slowed down again, with the exception of one or two really great chapters. One thing that really intrigued me about that though was the あとがき where Mokmok Sensei mentioned that volumes one through three were part of one arc and volumes four and five were another arc, so the next volume will start a new arc for the series. Maybe I just don't like the way they end things? Depending on how long the series goes on for, I'm sure that Mokmok Sensei will improve over the course of the series so I'm still holding out that the series end as a whole still has as much of a chance as any other series to land on both feet. I think when the series is nearing its conclusion I might go back and reread the whole thing to see what I think of the pacing when its read altogether. This volume also circled back to something that was mentioned and dropped in volume one or two, which I was really pleased to see, but it was only in the extra chapter which just kind of miffed me. It certainly seemed like something that I would want in the main story, but I understand the constraints of serializing a manga, especially one as lore heavy as this one.
Anyways, I ended up reading 191 pages of manga today to finish my sixth read of the month! I'm honestly really liking this "method" (as if its on purpose lmao) of front loading my manga reads to the beginning of the month. Now I feel like I have the whole rest of the month to focus on reading novels without worrying about getting that manga count up, like what happened last time I did this challenge. Don't let me regret saying that.
I just wanna say thank you for the views and kind comments on my silly sprinkle unboxing video
I once tried to have a YouTube channel where I did baking vids and unboxings and taste tests/food reviews, but I got very little interaction and some negative feedback that hit me really hard. So that was the first such video I'd made in over a year.
Thank you for giving my little Baker in the Basement video a chance. Maybe I can keep trying
IA 2.0 voisona test with a short version of drag on dragoon's ending B song tsukiru/exhausted :) now i can hear Lia's beautiful dulcet tones sing scary scary songs
This might be a crazy idea but maybe instead of getting angry at myself for struggling to work on this thing because I'm too emotional maybe I should do something to calm down first
It's a bit late, but since I do yearly writing reviews, I thought it might be fun to do AMV reviews, now that I've started seriously editing with DaVinci Resolve.
This video collects a piece of every AMV I posted last year, from my very first Resolve AMV to the one I made right before my previous laptop broke completely. If I continue this in the future, I think I'd limit it to Top 10 or one per month, but since I only have 10 Resolve AMVs under my belt right now, it felt right to include all of them!
One of my biggest struggles with video editing—and with Creating in general—is doing Too Much, going way overboard and making things worse with the additional time and effort. It's a real struggle to cut back, but I think I'm slowly learning to limit my clip amount to make my videos (slightly) easier on the eyes.
But all that said, I've always admired AMVs but never felt like I could actually make them, so that I uploaded 10 in 2022 is amazing to me! I'm excited to start editing some more on my new laptop!
Do you think the Demon Bull Family will enter the plot again? I think a lot of parallels between MK and Red Son have come around this season and it'd be interesting to explore
Oh please share your Red Son and MK related thoughts with me! I'm not quite sure what you're talking about specifically, but of course the DBK - Wukong / Red Son - MK parallel is always fun.
I don't think the Demon Bull Family will ever be shoved out of the plot entirely, at the VERY least we'll get something like how they were integrated in s4, but with Wukong, Macaque, and DBK all being previous members of the brotherhood I hope we get to explore their relationship a bit more!
I hold onto my crumbs, and so I remember Wukong's little "I've honestly missed that guy" from Revenge of the Spider Queen, and maybe deep down I want that to be explored. It seems like we're going to get into why Wukong stayed up on flower fruit mountain for all that time, and part of that might involve why he sealed DBK away/his feelings on that whole situation. And honestly if DBK is involved, then Red Son is involved. Red Son's admiration for his father is very similar to the admiration MK has for Monkey King, so maybe there's something to be explored there!