#← btw if you would like to spotlight it with me i’d be incredibly greatful absolutely no need to reach out beforehand at all.

[dykesbat]

i really really wish i had the ability if not the reach to fill the gfms up. if you a re able to spotlight a campaign on any social media account of yours that has a following please do so! don’t hesitate to spotlight one you already know is being spotlighted!!! having a community supporting the same campaign as you can be both incredibly helpful and relieving.

[justa-sadjellyfish]

Also I’d love to hear your thoughts on which songs you prefer from each version!!! I can share my own opinions if you’d like too!!

YEYSYSYEYEYSYSYES THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME YAP ABOUT THIS!!! 

Just a heads up, this is going to be a VERY long post. VERY VERY long. Hopefully anyone reading has enough patience 💗

Btw I am not going to be comparing the songs visuals, because if we were to do that the WE would very easily win every single one. I will also not be mentioning Candyman, as it is placed pretty weirdly. This is simply a comparison of the two cast recordings, West End, and Broadway. There are some other songs you won’t see mentioned, like A Little Me, Charlie, you & I, and The Amazing Fantastical History of Mr. Willy Wonka, either because it’s pretty self explanatory, or because there’s nothing to really compare it too. The random is so small so this very long ramble is prob gona go nowhere lmfao 

First off; 

Almost Nearly Perfect/Willy Wonka! Willy Wonka! 

Yeah this one goes to ANP. WWWW is good for telling the story, and showing the dynamic between Wonka (in disguise at this point) and Charlie, but takes away from the bonding time of Charlie and his family. ANP is also far better at introducing the character of Charlie, and showing that no matter how poor he is, he finds enjoyment in all the little things, while also showing his infatuation with Wonka. 

A Letter from Charlie bucket 

I’m bouta be rlly honest, I dont know for this one. They’re both very similar, besides the fact that Charlie’s father is dead in the Broadway, so I’m gona call this one a tie. 

More of him to Love

Again, more or less the same. This one’s probably a tie too. Although I will mention I actually do prefer the dynamic between Augustus and his mother in the Broadway, even with WE being arguably the superior version. 

When Veruca Says 

Ah yes, one of the most iconic original songs of this musical. Personally I find the Broadway more enjoyable to listen to (specifically because of the Russian accents lmfao) but honestly, the girl as Veruca in the WE recording did arguably better at showing Veruca’s extreme personality. Gotta love Emma Pfaeffle tho. 

Queen of Pop/ The Double Bubble Duchess

Oh my god this is a hard one. They’re both SO CATCHY OH MY GOD. And the actresses are so fucking talented it’s crazy. Although I listen to Queen of Pop more frequently, TDBD is arguably more impressive specifically since Violet is played by a child in this version. So yeah there’s things like that to consider. I enjoy listening to both though.

What could possibly go wrong?/ It’s Teavee Time! 

Yeah this one obviously goes to WE. Mike is easily my favorite character in all adaptations of Catcf, which is why I personally prefer Teavee Time, because it does a great job at introducing Mikes character. WCPGW is funny and all, but it barely tells us anything about Mike. A very common problem with the musical (in both versions) is that they focus more on Mikes mother (this was mainly a problem in the broadway bc she was played by Jackie Hoffman who’s a legend). That’s js my opinion tho.

If your Mother/Father were here 

This one’s actually a lot different from each other, hence Charlie’s father being dead in the Broadway version, so the meaning of the song is sort of shifted. As much as I adore the dead dad ballet sequence in the Broadway, I think the message of If your Mother were here is a little more intriguing, because while IYFWH is reminiscing of a dead husband/father, IYMWH features both the parents and seems to be saying that because of the Buckets family/social situation, it’s very easy for Mr and Mrs Bucket to feel incredibly distant from each other. That’s all I will say about that 

I’ve got a Golden Ticket/ Doncha Pinch me Charlie

I’m going to be so honest I’m not really a fan of either songs, but if I had to choose it would be Doncha Pinch Me Charlie, because it gives Charlie the same spotlight that the other golden ticket winners did in my opinion.

It must be believed to be seen 

Friendly reminder this is NOT about visuals. I actually prefer the Broadway version of the this number. Maybe it’s because of my love for Christian Borle, but for some reason the way he sings it just feels more smooth to me. Also, in the West End, there was like… no backing from the ensemble which I personally enjoyed that aspect of the Broadway a lot, especially the harmonies. I also find the timing of some of the things in the WE (reminder I’m referring to the cast albums) version of this song to be a little bit weirder? If anyone wants further evaluation I can give it, but for now I don’t think I need to. In the end it’s js a certain something about the Broadway that makes it sound better to me ears if yk what I mean. 

Strike that, reverse it 

I think this song does a great job in both musicals!!!! I don’t really have a preference for this one honestly, I feel like both do a very good job at expressing the dynamics between the characters, and Christian Borle and Douglas Hodge both do a great job with this song. Although I’m not a fan of listening to songs with dialogue constantly being interchanged with the music, I think these shows did a very good job with it, and I do actually enjoy this song a lot!!

I do not wanna express my opinion on the placement of Pure Imagination in both versions rn bc I don’t want this post to end up being WAY too long (it alr is but I’m doing what I can, okay? Also yes this means I wont be discussing any of the ending songs bc uhhhh I js don’t rlly feel like it rn. I’ve alr expressed my opinions on a lot of the ending songs before as well) 

Auf Wiedersehen Augustus Gloop

I mean… I’m not really a fan of the way this is done in either version, so I don’t rlly know what to put here, but something I will say that doesn’t rlly have anything to do with my preference is that the little lines Augustus has in this song in the WE has me even more convinced that Augustus barley did anything wrong. 

Juicy/ When Willy met Oompa

Juicy is better I don’t even feel like this needs discussion at all. 

Verucas Nutcracker Sweet 

Okay. Attack me all you want but…. I actually prefer the Broadway. Like storytelling and visually wise I prefer West End, but idk there’s js something about the Broadways more menacing tone that I actually sorta like. I do think tearing Veruca apart was a weird addition, but i don’t really hate it. I mean, Violet  supposedly gets her limbs sold to her fans in the WE version and I don’t ever hear ppl talk abt how dark that is. 

Vidiots

The catchiest song in both versions. One of the best songs in the show. It’s literally so funky I love this song so much you don’t even know. The Broadway actually did pretty great with this one visually in comparison to their other sets. I do prefer the lyrics of this song in the WE, bc it sorta has more of a point, but I like the key Broadway did it in a lot, I think I prefer it higher. Ik it doesn’t change much but there’s smth about it. 

[todaydreambelievers]

TDB’s Final Bow

Every journey has an end... 

There’s a joke out there that reads - Bilbo Baggins was abruptly awoken to his alarm clock playing Don’t Stop Believin’.  It was an Unexpected Journey.  :D  I especially appreciate that joke because Bilbo has always been one of my fictional character kindred spirits.  :D :D 

Four years ago, Glee ended, and I was a little at a loss for what I was going to do with my life.  I knew that I had more Glee thoughts, and things I wanted to say, and I had just met so many great people in fandom, that I feared that without Glee to hold us together, I’d be left alone in the wastelands that are the internet.  So, after talking it through with a good friend (@multsicorn​ - this is a shoutout to you) I decided to start To Daydream Believers.  (And in case you’re wondering - no I didn’t spell ‘to’ wrong, it was meant to be a celebration - a toast! but also a pun.)  

My intention was to give a safe space for people who enjoyed both Kurt Hummel and Blaine Anderson - because way back when, there wasn’t one.  Either you liked one or the other, but if you claimed you liked ‘Klaine’ then you were a 12yo who counted kisses and whose opinion didn’t deserve recognition.  I tried to make this space as welcoming and positive as I could - and today, it amazes me that I ever had to give such stipulations because this community has grown and learned from each other, and we have become a place where you can enjoy Kurt and Blaine equally.  I am incredibly proud of that.  And I’m grateful that I’ve had a small part in trying to heal a very splintered and angry fandom.  

Amazingly, TDB started as just a fic prompt blog.  It was meant to keep the creative spirits going and the fic flowing.  But over the years it blossomed into so much more.  We began to add in Author Spotlights and Tournaments and Polls and meta discussions (all of which you can find on the main blog site, btw).  And then - I’m not sure how it happened but I decided I’d try a podcast and then - y’all talked me into doing the rewatch.  And here we are! 

I was advised early on to only keep going as long as I was having fun, and I did! But projects aren’t meant to last forever.  I knew the podcast would have a finite date - Glee is, after all, a closed canon, and there is only so much one can bring to the table of a story that had long finished.  I purposely timed the end of the podcast to go along with the end of the rewatch.  I knew when the end would be a long, long time ago.  

In truth, running this blog and doing a podcast is almost like a second job.  And while I’m grateful for the experience, I was beginning to get a little worn down.  I knew that it was time for me to move on with other endeavors - but I’m incredibly proud that I was able to see the project to its end.  We discussed and watched every episode of the show, looked deeply into every subject, talked about every aspect of Kurt and Blaine and Glee that I could come up with.  I feel like this is an extensive look at a show and characters who’ve touched so many of our hearts.  And the fact that it’s now complete is amazing to me.  

They say go out on a high note - and I really feel that I am.  

I don’t really know how to express how much this blog, this podcast, this community has meant to me.  You guys have taken me through some dark times, through some hard personal things, and brought me through us living in what is probably not the best time line (lol).  But you’ve also helped me grow as a person and expand my horizons.  I’ve met so many wonderful people whom I’m grateful to now call friends.  

I’m no longer scared that once I wrap up my own chapter on Glee, that I’ll lose the community we’ve built.  Sure, we’ll be in new, different places in our lives, talking about new obsessions and exploring new things and god I’ll say it - going into new directions.  But sharing Glee will always be a bond that connects us.  And that is special.  

I want people to know that even though TDB is coming to its natural conclusion - fandom doesn’t have to end here.  

There are still parts that will always be going.  @todaydreambelieversfic​ will always be active as long as someone has a new fic to share.  There’s the Discord Channel that will continue to be up as long as someone wants to talk about anything.  And of course, you can always find me on my personal blog @spaceorphan18​ to chat about anything you like! You know I’m always up for a conversation.  As long as Kurt and Blaine remain in our hearts - fandom is always alive.  

TDB’s end is here, but know that I’m never saying goodbye to any of you.    

Glee is about opening yourself up to joy.  And all of you have given me so much joy throughout the years.  Thank you for being on this journey with me.  <3

Much love always,

~SpaceOrphan18 xoxo

[sqsupernova]

Rave Reviews for Guardian Queen by NikiFrost ​!

Literally sat down thinking I'd read a chapter or two before sleeping. Welp, I may be insanely tired in the morning, but I'll have zero regrets because every single thing about this fic was so freakin' fabulous! All of the characters' personalities, the consistently supportive friendships, and the just generally solid writing made this such an entertaining and crazy enjoyable read! … Niki, this fic was amazing. I loved the different layers and all the side stories moved along smoothly not taking the spotlight from Emma and Regina. Thank you! … I am absolutely speechless. This was incredible! I don't even know where to begin to wax poetically. Everything about this was superb. From the pacing and the vivid characters to the well-timed humor and sentimentality, this work was just hit every mark. … While I know Emma and Regina are the focus (and I really loved the reluctant protagonist that Emma was in this. Such a great narrative!), I must say that Henry completely stole the show. Ruby too! This makes me sound like I'm 102, but what rascals! Just was a fun dynamic. It was so refreshing to see meaningful moments between all the characters. This makes the prose so vivid and natural, which is something that can be quite hard to nail down. It also makes the characters and their connections so much richer. God, dude, I could talk about character all night...you just did a remarkable job! … I, honestly, could go on for the rest of the night about this. I loved it that much. It was fun, harrowing, and with just the right amount of angst to balance it out. Lovely all around. Thank you for writing! … This was such a fun read from start to finish!! Bodyguard AUs are one of my fave AUs and I loved how you integrated it with Emma becoming part of the show too! I enjoy reading reimaginings of what Could Have Been for sq in real life A LOT, and they always give me so many emotions as it hits so close to home and this was no exception! I really loved seeing the progression of their relationship over the years, and the fans reactions to Kavalan and Reina (which btw SOUNDS LIKE A SHOW I WOULD 100% BE INVESTED IN). Really great fic, thank you so much for it!

Enjoyed this fic? Be sure to give back and feed the author! A happy, appreciated author is one who’s going to be more motivated to gift us all with more of their words.

[miximax-hell]

As always, it’s been a hot minute. But, uh, hey! I hope you’ve all been fine!

Can you believe that this is actually my 20th reference sheet? That’s crazy. I am hecking slow, but I honestly thought I’d have stopped doing this (way) before I reached the double digits. But, hey, I’m still kicking!

And, to honour such a number, it was about time to add another Raimon baby to this blog, so I’ve gone for one of my very favourites. Shishido is very dear to my heart for a variety of reasons (that I will make sure to explain thoroughly when the time for it comes) and I’ve had this miximax in mind for a very long time. In fact, I’ve been ruminating on it since @raynef-art (btw, today’s Raynef’s birthday, so go and wish her a happy birthday if you can!!) and I talked about Shishido on Skype years ago. When was that, even? 2016? 2017, perhaps? In any case, it sure has been extremely long. But, thankfully, all of that ruminating led to one of my favourite pairs in this whole project! Katrielle Layton is a fantastic fit for Shishido, and I will do my very best to explain why this is the case in this post.

So, for more on ShishiKat, please check under the cut!

As always, I like to use this first paragraph to talk a bit about random stuff, so feel free to skip it if you want. Long story short, I’ve spent the last few months (since mid-May or so) job hunting like a beast. Big ol’ companies from all around the world, like Rockstar, Revolution, The Creative Assembly/Sega or Build A Rocket Boy have shown interest in me, but it’s led nowhere so far, which is extremely frustrating. Heck, there’s a company who contacted me first and they still didn’t give me the job in the end. >:| But I did an interview last Thursday and I should get an answer soon, so let’s hope that goes well...! It’s an awesome job, close to where I live (so I wouldn’t have to move), the company is super successful and two friends are already working there. It’d be incredible to join them and keep progressing in my career. And, well, money doesn’t hurt at all either. Gotta get into the wheel of capitalism. Anyway, job matters aside, I’ve recently finished some games that have become personal favourites of mine, like Valkyria Chronicles and Hatoful Boyfriend: Holiday Star (even if the first one was arguably better), but the one that undoubtedly takes the crown is Marvel’s Spider-Man, which shaped up to be a game as brilliant as Insomniac’s previous titles, if not even more so, and has become one of my favourite games of all time. Sadly, Spider-Man isn’t originally a videogame character, so I won’t be including him in this project (as much as that pains me). So we’ll have to take other routes if we want to have a Marvel miximax here... I’m on it, but suggestions are still accepted.

So, Shishido! Who doesn’t love Shishido? He’s just so lovely. Look at him! Look at him right now! How can someone without visible eyes be so PRECIOUS? Don’t you just want to channel the annoying aunt within you and pinch his cheeks and nose? Well, we still can’t do that, but we can try and do him justice by giving him a truly awesome miximax. (The quality of the art that accompanies said miximax may vary in quality, but that’s not Shishido’s nor Katrielle’s fault--it’s entirely mine for not being better.)

So, friends who have been here for a while and have a good memory may be thinking, “Hold on a minute, you! The Professor Layton franchise has already been represented within this blog--you miximaxed Fudou with Hershel Layton himself!” And you’d be right. You might even be thinking I’m betraying my own rules by using two characters from the same franchise. Well, that isn’t the case, as PL is a Level-5 franchise and I may (and tend to) use up to two characters from each franchise made by L5. It’s all here. But, even with all of that, there’s still a question that remains and that I figure many people might have in their heads: if Fudou is already miximaxed with Hershel, isn’t Shishido basically a copy? Does Katrielle really add anything to the table?

I’m glad you asked. Well, I’m glad I asked, because that’s what led to all of this. ww And, thankfully, yes. Yes, she does. But before answering that question, we have a much more important question to ask:

Who is Shishido Sakichi?

Hino, that lovely piece of work, is actually really fricking good (when he actually tries) at something I’m unable to name, hence why I will refer to it as “scattered storytelling.” It’s similar to environmental storytelling in the sense that we’re never directly told many things, but we can still figure them out thanks to the looks of a character, the scenarios we see, audio queues, etc. Video games offer many resources to build up rich environmental storytelling, but what Hino (and probably many others--it’s not like he invented the wheel!) does is give us hints scattered across different pieces of media to try and figure out what some of his undeveloped characters are all about. And let’s be real: original Raimon is a lovely collection of undeveloped characters. So let’s check out a few things about Shishido and see where they take us.

Shishido was one of the first members of Raimon, being one of the 7 players the team had before they were forced to look for more people to have a match against Teikoku. He was, however, replaced by Kidou when he joined the team, and he stayed as a benchwarmer until he got injured by Gemini Storm. Then, as he joined the Dark Emperors, if you talk to him in the game before the match, he mentions how he’s been pushing himself past his limit for a long time, only to keep feeling like he’s mediocre. Finally, during the match between Raimon’s older and newer members, he is shown facing Kidou and getting past him despite how afraid he was of engaging directly with such a big rival.

On top of that, his in-game descriptions go like this: “He is becoming the team’s key-man by developing his own pace,” (IE1) “His laid-back personality can make him the butt of his team-mates' jokes“ (IE2) and “The Aliea crystal has given him an invincible self-belief“ (IE2 DE). Let’s admit that it’s not a lot to go by, but maybe we can get something out of all of this.

As usual, I explain this better in the heat of the moment while talking to someone who’s ready to listen, so Raynef or my girlfriend probably got the better version of what I’ll be trying to explain now. However, those conversations are so old that I'm having trouble retrieving them, so... welp. ww Let me try anyway.

Judging by what we know about Shishido, we can try to figure out what his character development has been like. We get his first in-game description as soon as we can see him in our in-game menu; that is, before the first Teikoku match even takes place. At this point, aka at the very beginning of the game, Shishido is a player that is “becoming the team’s key-man.” Slowly, perhaps, but he is on his way. However, this process is halted abruptly when Kidou joins the team, as he replaces him as a regular first-team player. Now, a valid question would be, “why did Kidou replace Shishido and not any other midfielder?”

It would make no sense to get rid of Someoka or Kurimatsu to let Kidou in the pitch, as he’s not a forward nor a defender. But, among all the midfielders in the team, why Shishido? Why not Handa, Shourin or even Max (who is technically a forward, but has been playing as a midfielder, so it’d make a lot more sense to bench him)? The most obvious answer would be that everyone else has abilities that Kidou can’t properly replace/mimic/make up for; or, in other words, that Kidou is like an upgraded version of Shishido more than he is an upgraded version of any of the other characters. And what is Kidou, exactly? A brilliant midfielder with incredible control over the ball and a great strategist overall. It’s this last part that we’re most interested in: he’s a strategist. A game-maker, that is. What one could easily call a vital part of a team or, even, in more poetic words, a key-man. What Shishido used to be, or was going to become, before Kidou showed up to steal his spotlight. Not to mention the incredible pain one must feel upon being replaced like that... (This was best explained by @mimiflieder on her fic, Change of pace--it’s about Handa and Ichinose, but the same thing applies. I totally recommend checking it out!)

This theory is further supported (in sad ways) by his in-game description in IE2. His personality remains the same (laid-back and doing his at his own pace), but he has gone from being a key-man WIP to the butt of his teammates’ jokes. Sure, the jokes are blamed on this laid-back personality, but something doesn’t quite add up. Check out his quote while he’s a Dark Emperor: he’s been pushing himself too hard to achieve nothing. Is that really what you’d call ‘laid-back’?

In the best case scenario, everyone sees him as being laid-back and chill to the point of being funny: he’s not making a fuss about being replaced in front of his teammates. However, he’s been trying as hard as possible in secret to become the best he can possibly be... only to still be eclipsed by Kidou and the other talented members of the team in every sense.

In the worst case scenario, his attempts to improve are very much obvious to his team, and the lack of results or the gap between the two key-men not becoming any smaller is what makes him the butt of jokes (but I hate this scenario because Raimon babies are all sweet and supportive boys who’d never do this. I DON’T CARE IF TEENAGERS ARE CRUEL AND STUPID BY NATURE. RAIMON BABIES ARE BETTER THAN ACTUAL TEENAGERS, OKAY, AND THEY’D NEVER DO THIS. THEY ARE PRECIOUS LITTLE ANGELS.)

In either case, he was destined to be--heck, he might have already been in non-spoken parts of the game--Raimon’s game-maker, but when Kidou came around with his superior skills, Shishido became, simply put, obsolete. That made his self-esteem sink and eventually threw him in the arms of Aliea in a desperate attempt to finally be better and stand up to Kidou. That’s why his in-game description as a DE talks about his boosted self-esteem, much like Handa’s talks about how that jack-of-all trades is using the meteorite to become master of all.

And, of course, this makes that scene during that final match ALL the more relevant: not only does it signify the triumph of hard work and resolution over sheer talent, fleeting as it might be, but it’s also the end of a long, long journey of self-deprecation, self-improvement, guts and sheer fear. Shishido was literally SHAKING when he saw Kidou running towards him, but he pulled himself together and won. He was no longer the inferior one, the replaceable one, the laughing stock. Little and unexplained as it may be, it’s a truly emotional finale to his personal and unspoken journey.

(Another and more positive way to look at it is that Shishido is meant to become Raimon’s game-maker and key-man AFTER KIDOU LEAVES, so all this time by his side has been a massive training camp of two years to learn his ways and then add his own twist to everything he’s learnt. This leaves some issues hanging, but it will at least let me sleep tonight.)

What we have here is a pretty solid theory pointing at Shishido having what it takes to become a game-maker. But, hey, that’s just a theory! A GAME THEORY! ...And what this means is that there’s evidence supporting it, but we have no way to confirm it unless one of you guys can go and casually interrogateview Hino (and if you do, that’d kind of come in handy, actually). However, the pieces fall together a bit too well to be just a coincidence, right? At least, I think so. And even if they don’t, we don’t have much more to go by, so... it’ll have to do.

Anyway, we’ve (somewhat) answered the question about who Shishido is. It is, therefore, about time to answer the main question this post laid on the table: is Katrielle a good aura to use when her father is already part of this project? And, even if she is, why would Katrielle be the best match for Shishido? Let’s start by explaining what makes Katrielle non-redundant despite bearing her father’s surname and being very similar conceptually.

In essence, Katrielle and Hershel fulfill very similar roles: a smart person who likes puzzles and is hired to solve mysteries no one else can solve. But anyone who knows anything about these characters will know that, really, they are absolutely nothing alike.

Hershel is the perfect gentleman: well-behaved, modest, calm and cold-headed regardless of the situation, polite to a fault, boasts perfect manners, and he manages to get along with even the most unfriendly people in the world thanks to his infinite patience, unwavering kindness and the smile he has on his face whenever he greets someone. Not to mention that his investigation process is long-winded and meticulous, and keeps telling Luke to not make quick assumptions when he jumps into conclusions ahead of time.

Meanwhile, Katrielle is pretty much the polar opposite: proud (heck, the first episode of the anime has her saying her skills are better than her father’s!), funny, dramatic to a fault, jumps to crazy conclusions so fast that everyone around her is always surprised by it and doubts she even put any thought into them, has a quick temper sometimes, she works as a detective just for funsies (and glory, to some extent, as she’s constantly struggling to be taken seriously by people who’d rather talk to her dad), she’s easily swayed by yummy food, instinct and imagination move her much more than hard evidence... This alone is enough to make the personalities of ShishiKat and FudoLay totally different, but, of course, this train doesn’t run on personalities, but on powers and skills. So let’s discuss not what Kat offers, but what Shishido needs.

We’ve established that Shishido was a game-maker in progress. Now, let’s keep in mind that this project includes all of the main characters from IE, IEGO, IECS and IEGalaxy, and they could all potentially be sharing a side of the field with Shishido, so let’s see whom he is competing against.

Of course, we have Kidou, the genius game-maker, the absolute commander of the pitch and, well, a living legend trained by another living legend: Kageyama. He has a miximax too, but you guys have not seen it yet. In due time.

We have Fudou, whose natural intelligence is (arguably) on par with Kidou’s and has received some training by Kageyama as well, even if he didn’t reach the same level of legend nor acted as a game-maker nearly as much as Kidou did. Fudou is, however, enhanced by Hershel Layton, whose influence upon mixitransing helps Fudou stop being such a little shit. That allows him to focus enough on the game and on his teammates to surpass Kidou as a serious and cold-headed strategist who is able to treat every situation as a puzzle and find the precise moves needed to solve it. Not to mention that, of course, Layton boosts Fudou’s intelligence as well.

Shindou has his miximax, which turns him into a "gamemaker of truth who can appraise people and the general situation, while combining both stillness and motion." Pretty self-explanatory.

Taiyou and Hakuryuu, upon mixitransing, become "midfielders of unparalleled accuracy, who can see into the future and attack the enemy's weak spots with their analytical reasoning." These two aren't technically game-makers in Chrono Storm, but Zhuge Liang was a frigging strategist and these two are given analytical reasoning through their miximax. Not to mention they were probably game-makers when they were part of their original teams.

The way the canon tried to keep Shindou and Taiyou/Hakuryuu from overlapping was by casually disregarding Zhuge Liang’s strategist side and focusing on her Keshin and ability to see the future/what no one else can see, so we can scratch Taiyou and Hakuryuu, as they won’t easily be taking the role of game-makers anymore. We can also discard Kidou, as FudoLay completely outclasses him for the time being. (Look at me, I sound like I’m writing an article on Electrode for Smogon--) So, ShishiKat’s only real challengers are FudoLay and, uh... does Shindou’s miximax have any kind of fandom name? I heard people refering to Kirino’s miximax as Kirino d’Arc, but that’s about it. Anyway, to keep it simple, I’ll call it ShinOda until someone brings up something better.

So, yeah, ShishiKat is competing against ShinOda and FudoLay. ShinOda focuses on a complete control over when to move and when not to move, arguably to preserve his teammates’ and his own stamina and maximise what everyone can do with their natural reserves of energy. FudoLay, on the other hand, uses analytical thinking to find the most efficient moves in any given situation. As I mentioned, he treats every situation as a puzzle, and, as Layton would say, “every puzzle has an answer.” One specific and perfect answer that FudoLay excels at finding, using the minimum number of steps necessary and turning the solution into pure art. He is, however, still Fudou, so he’d probably push his teammates to the limit in rough ways in order to achieve that perfection he is aiming for. And it’s still Layton, so we can expect some long-winded thought processes that take long to pay off--but when they finally do, HOO BOY.

It's good being analytical and smart, but perhaps, just perhaps, Shishido could use a little something to make him different and stick out among his peers. Something that is a bit more... proactive. Unpredictable. Slightly impulsive. But still as witty as one can ever be. He needs to combine the brains with the brawn, and blend it all together with much-needed cheerfulness, since all the game-makers we’re dealing with here are cold or outright pricks.

Shishido needs to improvise to the point of making things up for no reason and eventually making them work in almost miraculous ways. Focus less on what’s in front of his eyes and more on what other possibilities could be there. Act more on instinct than on careful observation. Give commands that are a lot more roundabout that those of Shindou, Kidou or Fudou, but end up paying off in ways that not even he could always predict. Jump into the problem head-first and solve it in-situ instead of looking at it from afar and pondering for long periods of time. And, of course, among all of that, he needs an enormous self-confidence to pull it all off, as his premises may seem utterly ridiculous and he must believe in them whole-heartedly to convince everyone else.

Katrielle Layton checks every single one of these boxes. It’s Katrielle, and Katrielle alone, who can turn Shishido not just into a replacement for the times when Kidou and Fudou aren’t around, but into a true force of nature that can assist the team at all times. It makes Shishido useful and non-redundant--which is, of course, much more than the anime did for him. Let alone the manga, where Shishido didn’t even appear. (I mean, the manga gave us Tamano bby, but still--)

And the best part is that they don’t step on each other. ShinOda is fantastic (and I won’t comment on my own ideas), but no one is objectively better at being a game-maker than the rest. Different situations will call for different approaches, so their relevance will shift as the rivals change or as the rivals adapt to one style or the other. Or, heck, they can simply all work together to keep their rivals guessing and come up with even greater strategies that combine everyone’s fortes.

Also, I’m watching Katrielle’s anime with my girlfriend and that is what made me consider her for this project in the first place, so props to her! (But sorry for butchering the design, dear ww)

[atomic-lexa]

Hi there! I love your writings so much btw x if you’re still taking requests could I please request 10, 33, and 55 with MacCready? Thank you so much lovely

Baby, Baby

(MacCready/Sole Survivor)

Prompt #10: “I might have had a few shots.”

Prompt #33: “I’m not going to stop poking you until you give me some attention.”

Prompt #55: “I fell in love with my best friend.”

Mac was a lightweight. No surprise there, despite his long-term love affair with alcohol since he was the Mayor of Little Lamplight. Tonight, the Third Rail was alive with red lights and music you could get lost in- and he’d hit his limit. His limbs were heavy, but his head buzzed pleasantly. Hancock was at the other end of the bar telling his “is the human fresh” one, which surely everyone in the bar had heard at least a million times. Mac set down his glass on the counter. Sole had said they were going to join them, but as minutes turned to hours, they were still nowhere to be seen. The cigarettes in the room created a smokescreen for Mac to slip away from his friend’s flamboyant and grandiose spotlight, and up the staircase.

The air in Goodneighbor was jarringly cold, and pungent of its impoverished patrons, but it was clearer than the bar. Huffing a breath that turned to wreathing smoke in the night, and shoving his hands in the pockets of his duster, he followed the string lights to the Hotel Rexford. It was quiet inside, save for creaking wood. Claire didn’t even look up upon his arrival. Almost tumbling down the stairs at least twice, he finally made his way up to Sole’s room. Knocking as lightly as he could with compromised motor skills, he opened the old door to find Sole at their desk, tinkering with their Pip-Boy. They looked over their shoulder at him.

“Oh! Shit. Sorry, Mac. My Pip-Boy started acting up, and I totally forgot about meeting you guys..” They said, flashing him an apologetic look.

“I’ss fine, i’ss fine. We had fun w’thout you.” He teased.

They grinned at him. “Done in already? That didn’t take long.”

“I might’ve had a few shots. What c’n I say? Nothin’ like a Gooooodneighbor party.” He replied, sauntering over and plopping on the bed. Sole chucked and screwed something into their Pip. He waited out their following silence as they returned to their work for a few minutes before sitting up. Twisting his lip and furrowing his brow, he leaned forward. The movement drew no notice. He hummed a little. No response.

He rose to his feet- albeit with some difficulty- and moved over to inspect what they were doing over their shoulder. They didn’t seem to take notice of that, either.

He poked their shoulder. And again. And once more, for good measure.

“Can I help you with something, Mac?” They sighed lightly.

“I’m not going to stop poking you until you give me some attention.”

They snorted. “I’m busy here.”

“Well, I need t’talk t’you.” He crossed his arms.

“About what, pray tell?”

“Need some.. advice.”

“I’m listening.”

“Well… If, hypothetically… I had this friend, who was kinda ‘mazing in a lotta ways. And we were friends for a while- but then I started t’like… like ‘em a little more than friends… but I didn’t wanna ruin it. What would ya do?”

Sole looked up at him, curiosity washing their eyes. They thought for a moment, standing up, and leaning on the desk.

“Well… The call is yours. But it’s worth remembering that life- especially life out here- is short. I think we all know that first hand. I think that sort of thing has to be worth it. If you don’t make it past tomorrow, the people you love should know you love them. So, if I were you, I’d go for it, tiger.” They said, tilting their head. Mac’s eyes lingered on theirs. The depth of their words reached even through his blurred mind. “So, this hypothetical situation isn’t hypothetical, is it?”

He looked down, and swallowed. “I fell in love with my best friend.” He admissed in a low voice, the gravity of saying it out loud almost too heavy.

“Mac,” They moved forward and put a hand on his shoulder, eyes soft and sincere on his.

“I think he feels the same way about you.”

“Wa- you what? Who?”

They gave him a confused look. “Hancock.”

“I- no, no! It’s not Hancock!” He exclaimed, shaking his head.

“Damn! I totally thought that was it.” Sole put a hand to their chin. “Daisy?” They guessed.

“No! Not even close- she just helped me out with Duncan, I-“

“Well, it has to be someone in the city… Not Marowski, god willing-”

“It’s you.” He blurted out, whether it was by grace of their advice or the alcohol. They paused, blinking at him. They didn’t say anything, so he figured he’d say his piece if they decided to never speak to him again.

“I- I think you’re great. All the shi- stuff you’ve been through, but y’still come out of it a good person; the kinda person I wanna be for Duncan. It’s… incredible. You’re incredible. So, that’s all…” Despite the coldness of the room, his face burned fervidly. He didn’t meet their eyes. He wondered why it was called liquid courage if he was still scared shitless.

Sole moved forward, putting a cool hand on his cheek. Then, with deliberance and affection, placed a kiss on his forehead.

“You know, I think I feel the same way about you, Robert Joseph. But you’re drunk. How about you get some sleep and we talk about it in the morning?” They said sweetly.

“M’kay.” He whispered, without really thinking, on account of the closeness of their faces. Sole urged him to the bed, and gave him a smile, before sitting back down at the desk chair.

He watched them for a little while before his eyes grew heavy.

If you don’t make it past tomorrow, the people you love should know you love them.

She did it everybody ! She cleared one of the oldest asks in her box ! Three cheers for Lex ! Now if only I could do the rest lmfao. Also cards on the table, Hancock and Mac would totally b in love

[o-dasaku]

i was wondering if you could explain the descriptions on your fgc posts and how they relate to the characters? i'm v interested

oooo for sure

don’t you (forget about me) > don’t you try and pretend, it’s my feeling we’ll win in the end. 

this one’s kind of obvious, the back half of the lyric is my brot3 tag for blamtina - they’re altogether hopeful kids that go through some (a lot of) shitty times. they’ll come out on top in the end, they’re sure of it.

here comes the sun >  here comes the sun and i say, it’s all right.

it’s a metaphor!!!!!!!! dani’s the sun, you fools!!!!!!!!!!! i don’t want to say that santana spent all of s4 hung up on brittany, but santana spent all of s4 hung up on brittany. i have no doubt she hooked up with her fair share of beautiful ladies, but she definitely didn’t date - i don’t think it’s because she was waiting for brittany to dump sam (okay she was, but not so they could be together again), i think she genuinely just didn’t feel super comfortable with it - she never really dated brittany, they were best friends and then they were girlfriends too and santana doesn’t want to leap into that minefield for the first time with just anybody.

enter: daniella perea, struggling musician who picks up a job at spotlight to help pay the bills and gets along with everybody, which is fucking rare because 90% of that diner’s staff are broadway divas in waiting (and santana) so people take notice and santana doesn’t want to like her, but she does. she really does.

so moving on from britt is hard and it’s scary, but it’s alright. she has dani. they’ll figure it out.

creep > i want a perfect body, i want a perfect soul.

i almost picked like twenty different lyrics here because it’s a Very Them song, but i feel like this speaks very well to their characters: this lyric is rachel in a nutshell, she doesn’t just want to the best, she wants to be perfect. it speaks to brody because it’s the antithesis to him: he doesn’t care to be perfect, he just wants to be himself (who, lucky him, happens to be very talented).

sidenote: i think brochel really work on that level, rachel challenges brody to want to be better while brody can remind rachel that being less than perfect is perfectly okay. i’m still sad about how they treated him.

never can say goodbye > though i try and try to hide my feelings, they always seem to show.

listen, i hate to draw riverdale/glee comparisons, but quinn’s veronica lodge. you want fire, cheryl bombshell? sorry, but my speciality’s ice. quinn wants to be cold, wants to be this untouchable ice queen but-

she just isn’t (just like veronica, funnily enough). quinn fabray feels so much and isn’t that just the worst? i don’t think quinn wears her heart on her sleeve the way so many characters on this show do, but she feels things very strongly, much to her own annoyance. whether or not the world sees isn’t really up to her either, as much as she wishes it was.

(on the riverglee comparisons: santana is cheryl, puck is reggie and sam is archie. i know people cast finn as archie but ehhhh. i don’t have anything super solid on anyone else, but rachel is probably betty and kurt is probably kevin (i’m not saying that because they’re both gay, more “i exist solely to prop up betty/rachel when needed”). jbi is evelyn from the farm and i will hear No Arguments on that.)

being alive > i’ll always be there as frightened as you to help us survive being alive.

i’ll be honest, there is an infinitely more kurt line in this song (someone to crowd you with love/someone to force you to care/someone to make you come through) but um, this is literally one of my top 3 musical theatre songs and that lyric is one of my absolute favorite lyrics ever, musicals or otherwise. 

but this line does relate to kurt (and blaine, i guess- this song is clearly meant to implicate him- for the first time, i really know what it means) well enough. i know there’s a fuckton of kurt and death meta but i don’t claim to know him well enough to make sense of any of it so we’ll look at this very shallowly - i think kurt experiences life quite differently to the normal person, and we can owe that to his mother’s death or the long term bullying or whatever tickles your pickle, but he does seem a little... removed, i think. i don’t think he’s afraid to be alive, but i do think he has a long list of reservations about being alive. i think that’s where blaine generally works for him, because blaine is so alive - even if he’s scared to death about it (see: sadie hawkins, the slushie incident, literal depression), sometimes. 

i’m not here to shit on any ships, but i do wish i shipped klaine more. oh well. i’ll always have s2.

i feel pretty/unpretty > i was told i was beautiful, what does that mean to you?

i know this is a quinn line (and a very good one at that), but i find it interesting when i apply it to both of the girls. quinn and rachel are both very beautiful, though in clearly different ways - and they both have trouble believing that. or more accurately, quinn finds herself beautiful but not her self. 

anyway. i wonder if quinn’s parents ever called her beautiful, before she was quinn. they seem incredibly shallow, even if judy develops away from that - i have a headcanon that lucy was very close with their pastor (not...in a creepy way jdsdlaks) and he was pretty much the only positive interaction she had with any elders until after quinn was a thing but ANYWAY he always told lucy that she was a beautiful person but only tells quinn that she looks lovely. that informs a lot of this performance (especially this line) for me. anyway. whatever.

so to rachel: her brief interactions with her fathers make me think that she grew up being told she was beautiful quite often, but then her peers are always telling her differently - i have no doubt that places more esteem in her father’s opinions, but i’m sure that being told two different things would confuse the fuck out of a kid. quinn was likely spearheading the “crazy berry is ugly” craze in their freshman year, so. i don’t know. the what does that mean to you? is an interesting question for that line of thought.

being good won’t be good enough > i’ll be the best or i’ll be nothing at all.

please, she said emphatically.

everytime > every time i try to fly, i fall; without my wings, i feel so small.

listen. what a marley mood.

it’s all coming back to me now > there were things i’d never do again, but then they’d always seemed right.

rachel Fucks Up A Lot. we been knew. i do think she learns from a lot of her fuck-ups (not all, see: leaving nd for cabaret and then leaving funny girl for that’s so rachel), but she did genuinely think she was doing the right thing a lot of the time (see: telling finn about drizzle’s true paternity and robbing puck and quinn of that opportunity) and i don’t think she’d change much, if she had another chance - she just wouldn’t go repeating the bare majority of fuck ups.

hand in my pocket/i feel the earth move > and what it comes down to, my friends, is that everything’s just fine, fine, fine.

listen, considering this is their proposal song, i would’ve hoped for something a bit more meaningful. but i do think that there is something to the simplicity of this song, - brittany and santana are happy. they have no issues this season (outside of britt’s bridezilla tendencies) and as much as they’ve always been the type to get their feelings out via song (see: landslide, songbird, mine), they’re definitely at a point where they can just. talk about their feelings.

their song is simple because they are too, finally. what it all comes down to? they’re fine, fine, fine. :P

human nature > see that girl? she knows i’m watching, she likes the way i stare.

another song i almost picked like, five different lyrics for lmao. while the others spoke nicely to characters, this lyric is quite indicative of their mid-s3 relationship (mercy is still w shane, sam’s trying to push in on that) and uh, i think this is an unpopular opinion. so. hang tight, kids.

while mercedes and sam were certainly attracted to one another, i think there’s a few more things at play here: sam likes being in a relationship, knows that he and mercedes could be good together and he’s trying to recapture being sixteen again, so dating the girl he’d been embarking on something with is a pretty great way to do that. mercedes? i think she likes the attention, likes actually being noticed. she likes the way he stares, basically. (i’m dropping lyrics into explanations now, sue me.)

crazy/u drive me crazy (you guys are all on notice for letting this flop, btw) > tell me i’m not in the blue, that i’m not wasting my feelings on you.

marley’s spent all episode being warned against jake, but i think it’s interesting that she’s basically seeking him out here and asking are they right? his response leaves something to be desired (tell me i’m the only one you’ll see) but at least it’s a conversation they’re having? it does speak well to marley for the rest of the time she’s on the show - she’s best when talking her issues/concerns out (see: her eating disorder v her wanting to stay abstinent, neither end well for her but she seems more at peace with the latter) while jake is. jake.

(i love jake always!!!!!!!!!!)

and finally, need you now > guess i’d rather hurt than feel nothing at all.

i changed this like, twenty times. the alternative was their ship tag (and i wonder if i ever cross your mind/for me it happens all the time), but i think this speaks a lot more strongly for their characters than that does to their relationship. puck and rachel are both very all-or-nothing characters, but 99% of the time they’re going to pick all. it fucks them over a lot of the time, but i don’t think they regret it much.

[shoushatohaisha]

report: haikyuu!! summer week day 5 part 2 (hajimari no kyojin)

(sorry for the delay! i moved home from japan to the states the day after… technically the day of posting the last report so obviously it's been. Busy. last one tho!! ♥)

previously: day 1 (shoen) day 2 (itadaki no keshiki) day 3 (karasuno, fukkatsu!!) day 4 (shousha to haisha) day 5 part 1 (shinka no natsu)

guests: kenta, keita, funaki masahide, yanagihara rin

Hoo Boy this was by the most outright emotional of all the screenings so far. like, shousha to haisha was intense, but the content was intimately familiar by now. the impact of this was fresh -- and we all knew it was the end, you know? the end of our happy little week, obviously, but also the beginning of the end for karasuno. over the week all those showings had built up this tidal wave of Feelings it then unleashed here, aha. so that the cheering was right on the edge of desperate, like there were real results on the line. self extremely included. this was our last chance, in all kinds of ways.

(i, aware that i would be leaving the country in two days, was perhaps a little more desperate! but it sure as hell wasn't just me. cheering along at the top of our lungs to the opening/closing karasuno jog i described here… it was. a lot.)

of course the reaction to certain parts were as you'd expect. there was dead silence for ennoshita's big scene(s). the cheers for his receives were like nothing else. when ennoshita tells yamaguchi "let's fight together" kenta reeled backward like he'd taken a physical hit. (my son, i love you.) and of course kenta and kt were emoting all over the place for that whole storyline – kt was wiping his eyes after daichi had to leave the court, and then they both teared up over "thank you for coming back" and "captain ni tsunagenakya!"

and of course when it came to rin and funaki they had their own moments – rin obviously got misty-eyed when all of wakutani started losing their shit, lol, and funaki surprised me by wiping his eyes after misaki's goodbye to johzenji. (my guess from daisenshuuraku was right, btw, momo was crying irl during that scene. awww.)

OK BUT BACK TO THE BEGINNING sorry.

once again kt was tricked into dashing out before everyone else. XD kt: um this is not how rehearsal went. kenta: what are you talking about? :( funaki: this is just like we practiced. rin: (nods furiously) kenta: isn't it? kt: …��…yes. fine.

so they accidentally grabbed the afternoon's MC script, whoops. which i'm sure kenta noticed as soon as he glanced at it, but didn't turn a hair until it was time for their self-introductions. "playing kageyama tobio, i'm kageyama tatsuya—" kt: playing nishinoya yuu i'm fuchino yuuto ^_^ funaki: hahahaha PLAYING KUROO TETSUROU IM KONDOU SHOURI audience: (CHEERS) rin: (squints at script) playing konoha akinori im… (mutters) ….azuma… takumi…? kenta: ….you were IN A PLAY WITH HIM rin: is that wrong kenta: what have you been calling him all this time rin: …………azuma…..kun………. kenta: and what did he say to that rin: …"yes?" funaki: well he does seem like he'd just roll with that kenta: IT'S HIGASHI HIS NAME IS HIGASHI

kenta: i was the MC for the shoen screening, but earlier this week, rather than do it twice himself, ryoutarou turned it over to yamagiwa kaito-kun-- audience: (bursts into giggles) kenta: …yeah so i thought maybe tonight i'd give someone else a cha-- funaki: ME I WANT TO kenta: --ok here you go funaki: wait what kenta: you looked like you really wanted to so funaki: I SUPER DO :D funaki: so uh (flips pages) next uh -- kenta: r u srs

i was SOOO fond of funaki omg what a friendly bro ahhh. so cheery and good-natured. :D (can u tell i like em dumb and smiley, apparently.) whereas rin-kun was… endearingly ditzy. XD (is he an ex-johnny's? he kind of had that air. it was like looking at ueda tatsuya circa 2005. in no small part because of the wakunan towel tucked into his waistband, which draped to the floor.)

funaki: don't forget to call the player's names during the starting order, like "terushima!" or "terushii!" or "yuuji!"

funaki: so next we'll practice cheers! i, the MC – yeah yeah yeah (rapper pose) -- kenta: masakki! kt: masakki! (like. funaki + masahide = masakki? apparently? i was unfamiliar with this nickname.) funaki: ok now yanagihara-kun's gonna lead the cheer practice rin: nice to meet you i'm MC rin ^_^ rin: where were we again? kenta: rin: wait right. this is. a cheer screening. so we want you to cheer! kenta: they know that. rin: kenta: rin: wait ok i remembered!! audience: GANBARE rin: :D;;

it took SEVERAL MORE FALSE STARTS before we actually got to the cheer practice. poor rin-kun. XD but he wasn't like, shy or embarrassed like takumi-kun he just. was kind of a ditz. "NO WAIT :D lemme try again :D wait where are we? :D"

kt: ARE YOU FIRED UP audience: WHOO funaki: ARE YOU READY TO GO audience: WHOOOO kenta: WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE FOOD audience: tamago kake gohan!!

the screening: abovementioned emotions aside, plenty of dancing and choreo as you would espect, especially from funaki. rin apparently was young terushima in the flashbacks! so he and funaki did all the double terushima scenes together. and rin did all of his white coat dance choreo as well.

during the opening, kenta joined rin so he wouldn’t have to do the wakunan choreo alone. XD and funaki and rin played kiyoko-san and yachi ahahaha. then when hinata and ushiwaka begin to turn on the revolving stage, kenta started scuttling around stage trying to "revolve" himself with limited success.

yamaguchi: (snubs shimada's high five) kenta: don't mind!!

despite kenta's gleeful delight in audience comebacks, there were understandably few of them from either him or us because it was everyone's first time watching the show since daisenshuuraku! the demon elementary school children did get this massive cheer that made kenta almost fall out of his chair laughing. ditto akaashi's "michi wo tsukurimasu no de" – that was one of the most full-throated mass "KYAA"s i've ever heard (again… self… included…) and kenta thought it was HILARIOUS.

i myself was reminded all over again what a great show this was, ugh. blah blah I Love Kawahara Kazuma digression aside, please take it as read, IN ADDITION i know i briefly talked about the, like, emotional sensitivity kouhei brought to playing tanaka but fjkdlajfd the close ups on his face made it so much worse, ffffffff. GOD. dude's emotions were A Lot. just. please. gimme the dvd already.

i was also so caught up in nekoma vs fukurodani the first time i watched that i didn't notice how well kuroo and kenma's final scenes onstage functioned as a goodbye for takato and shouri. when you've been in four consecutive shows, you deserve to go out on a meaningful note. (yes ofc we don't know what the future holds etc etc but.) shouri's delivery of "you're our brain, and our spine, and our heartbeat." fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff murder me.

ahem ok. the aftertalk:

funaki said that he was used to watching videos of himself on stage to review and practice with, but it was the first time watching from a normal spectator's perspective. "oh, THAT'S how that came across." and that the effect made him cry.

rin had a really nice thing to say about how watching really impressed on him how haikyuu stage in particular is a work that is dependent on everyone's contributions combined – i.e. it's not just the lead characters, it's the combined effect of the characters in the spotlight and the characters in the background and the white coat ensemble and the technical staff that make haikyuu stage the unique production it is. (this was hard for rin to express in japanese, tbh, so idk how well i'm getting it across in english but his point was that when he says "it's a show we all create together" he's not referring to ideas or feelings but quite literally saying that everyone's contributions on stage are necessary to make haikyuu stage what it is.)

and kenta talked about how (attending every single screening as he did, lol) it was great preparation for saikyou no team to have had the chance to look back on each different production -- especially to look back on the schools and characters that appeared in just one show and carry their feelings forward to the next play.

…then they discussed how quickly rin's hair had grown back since daisenshuuraku. XD rin: tbh… i was emotionally moved when i first looked in the mirror and saw myself with hair.

then as soon as keita prompted them for backstage stories kenta was like GOKU. DEFINITELY GOKU. apparently at daisenshuuraku he started crying before wakunan even huddled up for their pre-show cheer. "I CAN'T HANDLE IT, IT'S TOO MUCH." kenta: i was watching this like R U KIDDING ME WE HAVEN'T EVEN STARTED YET rin: ahaha during the show as well, idk if this is good or bad, but he was always crying, like – there's a bit where hanayama calls "takeru!" as he makes a toss rin: and goku was always like "(sobs) TAKERU!!" kenta: ONE TIME HE CRIED SO MUCH HE SHORTED OUT HIS MIC audience: EHHHHH? kenta: how did that many tears even GET there funaki: probably the sweat plus the crying rin: incredible. kenta: that's haikyuu stage. so much sweat and tears we destroy our mics.

rin also told us about the wakunan red bull rule. they did a lot of team practice on their own, and people were chronically "just barely" late – i.e., never more than a few minutes, but it was enough to throw off practice. so they instituted a rule that whoever was "just barely" late had to buy the rest of the team red bulls. to this day, as they're preparing for their august 25 event… whoever's late has to buy everyone else red bulls. rin: we also took a lot of purikura together kenta: yeah they had such a reputation that whenever they were late karasuno would be like YOU WERE TAKING PURIKURA AGAIN WEREN'T YOU

then for johzenji funaki told the story of "The Take Two Incident", in which during johzenji's ad libs he fucked up his lines two shows in a row – and the second time was so bad he thought "what would terushima do???", straight up yelled "TAKE TWO" and started over. after which kenta collared him backstage like "did you seriously fuckin do that???" funaki: i reflected deeply on my actions.

johzenji also had iizaka, who's a pretty reticent and quiet character. but he had to do something on stage when johzenji was… being johzenji. so karasuno came up with a quirk for him: every time johzenji successfully scored or blocked he would pump his fists and happily yell "MAAA." (5 foot nothing suga kenta reenacting this was delightful, fyi.) kenta: he played the nakashima household's father too. nakashima masayoshi. nakashima… MAA… sayoshi…

THEN, UGH, keita talked about how he gave the post-curtain call greeting for maeraku (i.e. the second-to-last show, the one before senshuuraku). and of course in the greeting he talked about leaving and coming back – and as he did, suga kenta appeared on stage behind him with exactly the same staging/lighting/sound that daichi does during the play, and said daichi's line, "tanaka keita, thank you for coming back." at which point (in the greeting) keita broke down in tears. he somehow managed to relate this story to us without more than a suspiciously husky voice, haha.

(PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD INCLUDE THIS ON THE DVD)

final messages:

rin started off by talking about what a warm atmosphere haikyuu stage has – not only is the production itself good, the people involved in the production are good. this is particularly notable because of the number of people involved. productions with this many people are usually difficult in all kinds of ways – and in his opinion this production is as welcoming and smoothly run as it is thanks to suga kenta. rin: i mean, we're the same age, so as a goal -- well he's not my goal but— kenta: excuse u?? rin: WAIT NO kenta: U COMPLIMENTED ME AND THEN rin: no that's not what i meant!! kenta: WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME HUH (mock flounces off stage) rin: PLEASE LET ME DO IT ONE MORE TIME

(takeru's line, "mou ikkai yarasete kure yo" XD)

he then nicely cleaned it up into what he meant to say about how much he respects kenta and how grateful he was to be part of haikyuu stage.

funaki: WELP JOHZENJI LOST so. that's. my first and last appearance in haikyuu stage. but. tbh. watching this. i really. want to be in it again. i want. to go back. BUT I CAN'T. but all of us in johzenji will do our best in our different venues so maybe we'll meet again. thanks for loving our play so much.

keita: (deep breath) lone audience member: okaeri <3 keita: tadaima :) keita managed to get through his without tearing up… i think. (i love him!!!!) he talked about how of course during a normal show one gets energized and encouraged by the audience's applause, but the energy from these screenings were different and even more direct. "it was like we were all a team." ;___;

and kenta talked about how enjoyable it was to share the emotions of a match directly with everyone, and that looking back on all the productions so far, he was reminded of all the friends and companions that got them this far, including of course the audience. :)

and that's a wrap for the summer week screenings! as i said before, i'll write up a little report about the haikyuu day event – they did an aftertalk after the livestream ended just for the theater – but it should be relatively short compared to these monsters. thanks for tuning in, everyone! ♥♥♥

[cdyssey]

Saw Great Comet yesterday (7-30-17), and I just wanted to share some of my experience with you guys! I was sitting in the rear mezz, which I highly recommend!

*I'mma skip over a lot of the main details just because they’ve already been covered, but I’ll try to include things that were particular to this show/not often talked about.

“Prologue”

• There’s a little vignette right before the show starts where Andrey is leaving for war, and it begins with Natasha screaming the most heartbreaking no you’ve ever heard in ur life. • When Oak came out, there was thunderous applause. Like, it went on for at least a full minute. I was so happy. • Also, hearing that first accordion note reduced me to tears bc I’m sensitive™.

“Pierre”

• So lemme talk about Oak’s voice real quick. Someone noted that it’s this perfect blend between Groban’s smoothness and Malloy’s roughness, and I have to wholeheartedly agree. It’s absolutely beautiful. He’s a beautiful Pierre. • Also, he plays Pierre with a lot of melancholy. It’s almost as though he’s always on the verge of tears. • “He’s charming; he has no sex.” While the ladies are skipping around him, Hélène is conducting them, and it’s hilarious. • “I pity you. I pity me. I pity you.” — Oak sings these lines so gutturally. His agony echoes off the very walls of the Imperial. • “Pierre” received a long applause as well.

“Moscow”

• GRACE MCLEAN DESERVED TO BE NOMINATED FOR A TONY AWARD!1! HOLY CRAP. HER VOCALS BRING THE HOUSE DOWN!!!!!!! • The moment she belts her first lines, you know exactly what kind of personality Marya D. has, and that’s a tribute to her actress. Srsly. • During the song, Marya will sometimes act maternally to Sonya, but the moment Natasha comes back into sight, she’ll roughly push Sonya away, and it’s hilarious. • Natasha’s humming is absolutely heartbreaking. It’s one of the many moments in the musical when you realize how young she is.

“The Private and Intimate Life of the House”

• There were understudies for both Mary and Bolkonsky/Andrey, Courtney Bassett and Ken Clark respectively. They were wonderful. Ken’s performance especially stood out to me. • “People enjoy me, though…” Before he sang these lines, he held eye contact with a person across from him for, like, five seconds, and it was incredibly funny. (Same goes for him patting his wig and powder flying into the air.) • “BRING ME MY SLIPPERS! YES, FATHER. YES, FATHER. BRING ME MY WIIIIIIIIIIIIINE.” • The audience interaction in this one is A+. Mary’s suitor and Bolkonsky’s cheap French thing draw huge laughs from the crowd. • “They are there upon his head.” I’ve seen a few posts where people lament that the audience laughs at this line, but I truly think it’s supposed to be laughed at. Mary is kind of coy when she says it, like she’s laughing at it herself. After that, though, her mood dips, slowly sinking into this utterly palpable reproach. • The audience was completely silent. • While she’s singing her final lines, Bolkonsky is slowly making his way back to his chair, and your heart shatters as you watch. He’s clutching his back and using the railing for support. When he finally collapses in his chair, he kinda puts his head in his hands.

“Natasha and the Bolkonskys”

• Towards the beginning of the song, Natasha and Mary hoist chairs over their heads and join a table of people on stage. It’s hilarious. They really milk the awkwardness of the moment. • “Constrained and strained” is so frickin’ good. When Courtney and Denée sing it, it’s really low and creepy. • “Says the mean, old man in his underthings” drew huge laughs, especially bc of Bolkonsky’s hand movements. He kept gesturing towards his entire body.

“No One Else”

• Honest to God, I could write essays on how perfect Denée Benton and her performance of this song is. She emotes so beautifully. Her voice, her movements, her facial expressions all come together to create Natasha, a young, lost girl who wants nothing more than to see Andrey again. • I cried (obviously). • The blue light is absolutely gorgeous in this song. (The blue light is meant to be the moon.) • At one point, Andrey shows up, and snow begins to lightly fall on him. He reads one of Natasha’s letters, brings it to his lips tenderly before walking away, and just behind him, almost able to reach him, is Natasha, her face the perfect picture of despair. • Denée Benton. • The applause after this song was long and well-deserved.

“The Opera”

• Just for the record, songs like this one, “The Duel”, and “The Abduction"—where all of the cast members are out—are absolutely electric. The energy is incredible. • “The opera, the opera…” Marya D. belts these lines so loudly, lololol. • On one side, you can spot Heath Saunders as one of the opera goers, and lemme just tell you guys, that long, black coat suits him. • “Hélène and Dolokhov arm-in-arm…” They aren’t so much arm-in-arm as they are passionately making out on stage. Omg. I love them. • “Noooo, I’m enjoying myself this evening.” Pierre pumps his fist and smiles this absolutely giddy smile. • When Marya sees that Natasha is talking to Hèlène, she runs up and pushes Nat behind her. • To indicate that the “curtain rises,” some of the light bulbs retract. It’s a cool effect. • I know the literal opera part of the song sounds incredibly weird on the recording, but in person, it’s more hilarious than you’d think. The actors are doing ridiculous things and making animalistic noises, lol. • When it’s over, the spotlight turns to Natasha and Sonya. Sonya’s asleep, lolololololol. • Right before Anatole comes in and around the time Natasha begins to “pass into a state of intoxication”, she hallucinates Andrey being injured during the war. The two circle each other around Pierre’s salon, simply gazing into each other’s eyes, and it’s intense. • Anatole’s entrance is frickin’ ridiculous and amazing all at once. • You know those measured beats at the beginning of his introduction? During each of those, he sharply turns his head in a new direction, ostensibly to show off his head. • Also, his walk is literally a swagger. • Either in this scene or during “Natasha and Anatole”, he caught a lady unaware and kissed her on the cheek. She jumped so badly, lolololol.

“Natasha and Anatole”

• During the intro of the song, Anatole checks himself out in a mirror before posing himself perfectly for the moment Natasha turns around to see him. • Also, let’s talk about Lucas Steele for a hot minute. He is Anatole Kuragin, from his almost exotic voice to the way he walks. Out of the cast, I’d say that Steele is the one who plays the crowd the best. • Throughout this number, Anatole and Natasha play the roles of pursuer and the pursued. Natasha tries so hard not to be wrapped under his spell. :( • When he takes the flower off her head, Natasha makes a perfect :O face. I love Denée Benton. • “And kiss me on the neck.” He does manage to get this kiss, and it’s really rough-looking. • “How do you like Moscow?” Lolololololololol. • For the most part, the two are roving around the stage (mostly bc Natasha is running away from Anatole), but at the end, they sit down next to each other, and it’s played as a really significant moment.

“The Duel”

• “The Duel” is epic live. Holy freakin’ crap. • The moment Dolokhov, Pierre, and Anatole clink their glasses together, the strobe lights come on and the real party begins. There’s intensely sexual dancing, half-naked people, and glow sticks everywhere. • Y'all, I saw Marya D., in a skin tight, black costume no less, whip several people with a riding crop with my own two eyes. • Also, in the very back of the rear mezz, there was, like, a threesome going on. • The energy during this song was absolutely nuts. • Sonya’s party outfit is so cute. It’s an almost innocent looking dress, and she’s wearing bright sunglasses. • The ensemble echoing back “corpulence” is really frickin’ funny. • Nick Choksi really highlights the psychopathic part of Dolokhov, especially in the “Here’s to the health of married women” sequence. His movements are jubilant but also shark-like. He and Hélène make out for a loooooong time.

“Dust and Ashes”

• Oak’s “Dust and Ashes” is an absolute privilege to hear, and if you have the chance, I would go and listen to it while you can. His voice could have shaken the entire foundation of the theater. • While he’s singing, the entire cast lines up in the rear mezz to provide backup vocals, and it’s incredibly poignant. (Also, tho, Lucas Steele stood in front of me, and I died.) • “Don’t let me die while I’m like this…” During these lines, Oak starts crying, and it guts you. • There was a two minute applause for “Dust and Ashes”, and I was on the verge of crying just bc he was getting such a huge applause. • Oak is perfect, okay?

“Sunday Morning” / “Charming”

• “Everyone sees a man!” Ingrid delivers this line so well. It got a huge laugh. • AHHHHHHHHH, now here’s a symbolic moment for you. When Natasha says that she can see a shape in the darkness as she’s looking into the mirror, Pierre is standing up right behind her. Pierre is her future. • (The moment Nat leaves, he sits back down.) • Amber Gray can slay me, tbh. “Charming” is everything I could have ever asked for. • When she walks in, the lights are bright behind her, and her hood is over her head, effectively masking her identity. It’s a really neat moment. • The lights dim when she takes off her hood. • Natasha is in her undergarments throughout the song until Hélène gives her her cloak. (Btw, Natasha looks gr8 in said cloak.) • At some point, Natasha starts mimicking Hélène’s movements, and it’s adorable but also a really nice character touch. Same goes for Hélène snatching Andrey’s necklace off of Nat’s neck and exchanging it for her own pearls.

“The Ball”

• This number was enchanting. I had a hard time focusing on the main stage bc the dancers in the rear mezz. were so mesmerizing in their movements. • Also, tho, the ensemble dancers mimicked what Anatole and Natasha were dancing at times. • When Natasha tries to run away from Anatole, he pursues her up the steps and forces their first kisses. She’s surprised at first, but gives into it with abandon a few seconds later. The kiss lasts a very long time. • At the end of “The Ball”, Natasha and Anatole run through the doors together and then turn to face the audience. They’re holding hands. The lights are bright behind them.

“Letters”

• “Letters” is such a frickin’ jam, y'all. • When it starts, the cast members spill out of the double doors singing. • At the beginning of “Letters”, just as Pierre is addressing Andrey, Andrey appears at the top of the stairs. Pierre faces him. • “I see nothing but the candles in the mirror.” For one of the very few times in the play, Natasha and Pierre face each other. • The geometric symmetry in the choreography is really wonderful all around. For instance, at one point, Mary, Natasha, and Pierre are all positioned in a triangle, taking turns facing one another. • Anatole’s love letter was an absolute showstopper. People were whistling, clapping, and screaming when he started holding those really long notes. Holy crap @ Lucas Steele!!!!!

“Sonya and Natasha” / “Sonya Alone”

• “Sonya and Natasha” is intense. I was on the edge of my seat for their fighting. • “I’m soooooooooooooo happy, and sooooooooooo frightened.” Kill it, Denée!!!! (When she’s singing about her happiness, her arms are extended widely, and when she’s singing about being frightened, she withdraws into herself.) • “I have no will. My life is his.” During these lines, Natasha is wrapped around an increasingly agonized Sonya. • “Sonya Alone” is one of the most powerful numbers in the show, and you really don’t recognize it until you see it live. • The theater is almost completely dark with the exception of a spotlight on Sonya. Throughout the entirety of the song, Natasha is ambling about, tightly clutching Anatole’s letter. • Sonya never takes her eyes off of Natasha, and your heart can’t help but ache for both of them. • Ingrid Michaelson is truly a wonderful Sonya—maybe not as sure as Brittain but she definitely doesn’t lack heart. • On the first “I will protect your name and your heart”, Natasha stumbles on a stair, staggered by the weight of her friend’s words. Then, she walks to the opposite side of the stage, only to be completely stopped by Sonya’s, “I know you’ve forgotten me.” • For the rest of the song, Natasha is still, her head inclined towards Sonya.

“Preparations” / “Balaga”

• When Pierre greets Anatole at the beginning of this number, it’s almost as though he’s caught Anatole out. Anatole had been trying to sneak past unnoticed. • Anatole shaves in front of a mirror during “Preparations”, lol. At one point, he turns to the crowd with shaving cream still on his face. • Dolokhov sings his arguments at Anatole very fiercely during this song, even more so than he does in the recording. • I looooooooooooove “Balaga”. It’s such a wild performance. Paul Pinto moves with such agility and manic energy. The ensemble hands out the egg shakers during this one.

“The Abduction”

• “THE ABDUCTION” IS SO GOOOD. HOLY CRAPPP. • Anatole singing “WHOOOOA” while swinging his green jacket cleared my skin, watered my crops, and cured my depression. • The whole theater is absolutely alive with commotion. There’s a dance off between a guy in the rear mezz and a guy on stage that’s frickin’ amazing. • People are doing backflips. • Natasha smashes a painting on Balaga’s head. • Marya and Hélène are making out. • Pierre is doing a cute jig. • It’s beautiful, beautiful chaos. • When Pierre screams his “WHOA” part, everyone collapses on the floor, absolutely exhausted, and then, then, the most wonderful thing happens. • Pierre giggles. • “Hee-hee-hee.” • God, I love Oak. • “Wait, wait. First we have to sit down.” Anatole made room for himself next to a girl, which was hecking funny, but what was even funnier was that the girl leaned her head on Anatole’s shoulder. The whole theater dissolved in laughter. Anatole held the quiet for a comedically long period before getting up, and when he did, he kissed the girl on the cheek. It was really cute. • When Marya entered at the end of the song, surrounded by this harsh, red light, there were audible gasps in the audience. People weren’t expecting her, lol.

“In My House”

• GRACE MCLEAN DESERVED A TONY NOMINATION: PART TWO. • She acted her butt out through this entire song. I’m serious. • Her voice is dangerously quiet until, “YOU LISTEN TO ME WHEN I SPEAK TO YOU. YOU LISTEN TO ME WHEN I SPEAK TO YOU.” • The tension in the room was palpable. • Also, all of the yelling you hear on the recording? It’s so much more intense live. It’s fierce enough to make you flinch. • “Don’t touch me!” At one point when Natasha screamed this, she physically pushed Marya away, and Marya wasn’t angry so much as she was stunned. • “Natasha’s whole body shook with noiseless, convulsive sobs.” She was literally bent over, grasping the railing like she couldn’t breathe. • “And she threw herself down on the sofa.” Natasha stands erect with her arms crossed and her head buried in them. The spotlights focus on her, and that’s when Marya softens. • You can see the fight leave Grace McLean’s body. Her voice is incredibly tender.

“A Call to Pierre” / “Find Anatole”

• GRACE MCLEAN DESERVED A TONY NOMINATION: PART THREE. • Her face is absolutely devastated as she’s talking to Pierre. Like, I still have chills thinking about it. • Also, Pierre is waking up from a nap at the beginning of this number, lol. • “I have been… studying.” He glances quickly at the place he had been napping. • The sheer power in Oak’s voice really comes out in these next songs. Anger and fear simmers behind the way he sings. A+++ • At the beginning of “Find Anatole”, he truly sounds out of breath. His body is fully bent over for a couple of seconds. • “He can’t be married!” The absolute horror in Denée’s voice nearly slaughters you, tbh. • When Pierre discovers Anatole and Hélène and gets mad, they start to run away. • Pierre is livid when he finds Anatole and Hélène. I mean, livid.

“Pierre and Anatole” / “Natasha Very Ill”

• Pierre nearly throttling Anatole is a sight™. • “Amuse yourself with women like my wife!” The spotlight shines on Hélène as she stands up and bristles indignantly. What an amazing character touch. • During that long pause before Pierre apologizes to Anatole, Natasha walks right between the two and drinks the arsenic. A few moments later, it begins taking effect, and she starts screaming. It’s a terrible, convincing sound. She runs off stage. Marya and Sonya follow her. • “FOR PETERSBUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURG!” :’))) • There was a pause between “Pierre and Anatole” and “Natasha Very Ill” while we all wildly applauded that C#. Holy crap @ Lucas Steele!!!!!!!!!!!! • “Natasha Very Ill” is sad. Everyone is devastated, especially Sonya and Marya.

“Pierre and Andrey”

• Ken Clark is an amazing Andrey. He has a v. human approach to the prince. • When Pierre and Andrey are trading insults, there’s a lot of affection between them. It’s really as though the two haven’t seen each other in quite awhile. • Andrey’s somewhat tender tone continues until he asks Pierre to confirm whether the rumors he had heard were true, and when Pierre replies in the affirmative, that is the very moment when Andrey assumes his colder exterior. • It frickin’ breaks your heart. • #PoorAndrey • “If you wish to be my friend, never speak of that again.” During “If you wish to be my friend,” Andrey’s voice breaks seemingly on the edge of tears, and then it hardens at the end as he jabs a finger in Pierre’s chest. The moment he does so, though, he immediately looks horrified. Did I really just threaten my friend? • “Well, goodbye” is soft. • #PoorAndrey • CRAP. I FORGOT THE WORST PART OF THIS SONG. Behind Andrey and Pierre, Natasha and Sonya are standing in a darkened corner. Whenever Andrey refers to Natasha, she flinches and buries herself into Sonya. • :(

“Pierre and Natasha” / “The Great Comet of 1812”

• “Pierre and Natasha” broke me. • At the beginning of the song, Natasha slowly makes her way down the staircase, entirely dependent on the railing to get down. It tears at your heart. You can’t help but remember how lovely and vibrant she had been at the beginning of the play. • The nightgown she’s in makes her look so small, and with her braided hair, she looks just like a little girl. • Oak emotes his lyrics so tenderly, so gently in this one. His voice is always on the verge of breaking. • “She began to cry…” Yeah, no. She sobbed, and you sobbed with her. Her whole body was shaking. She had to hold on to the rail. • An interesting tidbit: Hélène is sitting right behind Natasha, and she has her head in her hands like she’s reacting to the sadness of this scene, too. • “All over…” At this point, Natasha is walking back up the staircase, and the theater is absolutely silent. You could have heard a pin drop. Oak says the written line to her back. • I’ll never forget the way Oak delivered it, and I will never want to either. • His voice simply broke on “if I were free”. • Pierre turns away from her, and then she turns towards him, slowly making her way back to him. • During her last lines, Natasha touches his cheek, and it is sincerely one of the most beautiful moments of this very beautiful play. • “The Great Comet of 1812” was moving, too. • The theater very much looked like a beautiful night sky. The comet prop was stunning, too. • Pierre sat down at the end of the song and gazed reverentially up at the comet.

This play was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life, and I recommend it with all of my heart and soul. Please, please support it if you can.

[easyobsession]

DWTS24: WEEK 6 (LO RECAPS)

I have got shit to do. Term papers to write, end of the semester shit to finish up, major family stuff going on, my newfound obsession with Sons of Anarchy, and a WWE Payperview this weekend. I DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THIS.

And yet here my ass is typing this up for all of you at 1Am. Because after what went down tonight, I’m hot and ready to go all Lima Heights up in this shit and I gotta get it out.

So here we go. This recap turned rant starts right fucking now.

*I’ve given up listening to the judges. I don’t even watch their comments 99.9% of the time anymore. At this point they could replace them with monkeys and I’d be cool. Just an FYI. Though I do adore Nick Carter and wish he’d won his season. (See my season 21 recaps)

SIMONE AND SASHA. SAMBA. 9899=35/40.

As far as costuming goes, I think this is the best she’s looked all season. Absolutely stunning. The boots took away from the footwork though. Technically it looked good, though she messed up a few times. To me it looked more like a dance you’d see the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders (shoutout to Melissa Rycroft- haaay!) do at halftime though. She was too smiley and struck her poses too hard.

BONNER AND SHARNA. RUMBA. 8877=30/40.

HIS FACE DOESN’T CHANGE. I DON’T UNDERSTAND. IT’S ALWAYS THE SAME. HAPPY, SAD, SEXY, ANGRY, STRESSED- IT’S ALL IDENTICAL. But aside from that… he did better than I expected, tbh. It wasn’t great. Worth a 7. Stiff, his hands looked like they were trying to hold her head like a basketball, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought. And Nick and Sharna’s friendship (DO NOT GET ME STARTED OR ASK ABOUT A FIC, I’M TRYING TO LIVE MY LIFE) always makes me beam. But the cowboy needs to go.

NANCY AND ARTEM. PASO. 9888=33/40.

Okay. First of all, a few notes on set and aesthetics: the flashing lights were distracting as hell. The color of her dress didn’t work at all, and the cage thing at the beginning sucked. It seemed like she got a little flustered this week- I didn’t see the package for this one btw, and overall it was just… okay. I know she can do better. It just felt more like everything got too hectic in the arrangement.

NICK AND PETA. JIVE. 7777=28/40.

He tried. Peta looked fucking gorg. I don’t even know what happened in the middle. Too slow and boring. Next.

NORMANI AND VAL. SALSA. 1010810=38/40.

I’m sitting here typing this up and watching these videos back and I literally am about to stand up. THAT IS A FUCKING DANCE. FIERCE AND ATTITUDE AND POWER AND THOSE HAIR FLIPS. She was fluid and her movements all connected- it didn’t look like she was doing a series of poses like Simone. This is what I’m talking about. This is what we want. THIS IS A GODDAMN DANCE. EVERYTHING. ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING. I AM SO DAMN PROUD. Also, Len can see himself out. BYEEE.

DAVID AND LINDSAY. ARGENTINE TANGO. 7877=29/40.

Couldn’t see the package for this one either. Goddammit Youtube . But I’m in a hurry so whatever. Loved the choreo. Lindsay = a star. Obv. What I like about David is that he seems like the most relatable of the stars this season. It’s like watching your dad or your uncle or your neighbor- he seems like a regular dude. He’s not incredible, but he does his best. Almost dropped Lindsay, but otherwise the tricks looked good. Is he ever gonna be incredible? No. But I like watching him anyway. And I think he did just fine.

RASHAD AND EMMA. TANGO. 91099=37/40.

Didn’t see the package. I want his jacket. Love Emma’s bangs. Pretty good, though instead of looking away from her it looked like he was staring at the ceiling, which was distracting. But overall pretty good. I’m 95% sure at this point he’s going to win the season. We’ll get to that later.

HEATHER AND MAKS. RUMBA. 10101010=40/40.

“Played like a star, danced like a champion.” That says it all. I saw it. I saw the story in front of me. She looks like a fucking professional. That is it. Done.

TEAM BOY BAND. FREESTYLE. 8988=33/40.

The package was gold. I was dying. I want to hang out with them. As for the routine… it started off less than impressive. Then they got to the chairs and my jaw actually dropped. Literally. I was a little uncomfortable to be perfectly honest. It looked like a strip show. Carrie Ann is actual garbage but what else is new and I’m pretty sure Rashad was the only one to get a minute on his own. Overall it was out of sync and kind of a mess. They tried, but it flopped and the costumes didn’t look good either. I liked the end though. Oh, and RNB+D? Seriously?

TEAM GIRL GROUP. FREESTYLE. 8989=34/40.

“Simone, put your hands on my ass.” Oh my god. “At this point I could put on a tutu and you could call me Mary. …Don’t call me Mary. And I’m not gonna put on a tutu.” Oh MY GOD.  And now to the dance. I’m going Grey’s Anatomy here. ….seriously? SERIOUSLY? SERIOUSLY. WHO CHOREOGRAPHED THIS? What the hell? The beginning was awful and way too staged and awkward, the sexy part was almost cringe worthy, and then suddenly they’re doing kicks and getting into hold? Also, the mix of both teams songs was downright deserving of imprisonment, because they both sucked. I appreciated each duo getting a second in the spotlight but… This was NOT GOOD. I’m shocked and so disappointed. Oh my lord. An actual mess.

THE ELIMINATION:

I mean… I’m beyond words. Like, there’s red hot fire and then there’s white hot. Blistering. That is where I’m at. Not pissed, not upset- it’s fury. Like, I’m still in shock.

Let’s talk for a second.

I’m going all the way back. I’m starting at season One. Oh yeah, that’s how bad I’ve lost it.

Joey McIntyre. Drew Lachey. Mario Lopez. Monique Coleman. Joey Fatone. SABRINA BRYAN. Mel B. Mario. Marissa Jaret Winokur. Lance Bass. Lil Kim. Mya. NICOLE SCHERZINGER. Brandy. Roshon Fegan. Zendaya. Elizabeth Berkley. Corbin Bleu. Amber Riley. MERYL DAVIS. ALFONSO RIBERO. Nick Carter. Wanya Morris. Normani.

All dance experience. I’ll excuse a few like Nick and such because while they did dance, they weren’t “dancers.” And Meryl and Charlie technically didn’t dance beforehand though they were trained by Derek for a period of time. Whatever. A good portion of that list made/makes a living dancing as part of their lives.

This show, believe it or not, is not based 110% in reality. It is a television show. It is for celebrities that have never ballroom danced before to pair up with a pro and learn a routine each week to perform for America. We have people like Geraldo Rivera and Kenny Mayne who couldn’t find a beat if it ran them over with a car, and we have the Alfonso Riberos and Corbin Bleus who grew up moving to music.

It does not fucking matter.

Despite my continued long ass rant, I have no words.

She didn’t deserve this.

I love David. Bonner, meh. Nick has actually impressed me though I’m still positive he’s a douchebag. Nancy is great. But they’re not better than her.

Rashad is a contender I didn’t see coming. We knew Normani and Simone would be lit.

Those are your final four.

I didn’t expect her to win, if I’m being honest. And now more than ever, since that Contemporary, I’m pretty damn certain it’ll go to Rashad. Which, I mean, good for Emma.

But I am honest with these reviews. I have no reason not to be. All I wanted was for Val to get his overdue win and he and Rumer earned it, but Riker and Allison were by far my favorites. I wanted Nick to beat Bindi even though she was the better dancer. And while I wanted Laurie to take the title, James and Sharna stole my heart.

Heather is the best one there. And the fact that she doesn’t get to at least make it to the end and experience this entire journey, even if she got fourth, really says something.

If this is as unfair as everyone keeps saying, fine. If she’s as good as Allison, then bring her on as a pro next season. Let’s go.

I don’t know if it’s America or TPTB, but… I’m in awe.

I’m in awe.

(This is my metaphorical mic drop)

-done

[kofodlarkin10-blog]

How To Get A Arctic Wolf Pet For Gems! (No Codes No Cheats No Nothin!)

I get requested quite frequently about in which to discover Arctic Wolf codes for Animal Jam so I thought I'd make a put up about them! There are so numerous responses simply because it actually just depends on what your wolf is donning. Animal Jam has brought the amazing tigers to us, and even even though Animal Jam hasn't exactly created them the way they need to be, they are nonetheless the remarkable wild cats that live in the wild! Jazwares' portfolio Includes: Minecraft, Experience Time, Peppa Pig, Chuck and Pals, Crops vs. Zombies, Animal Jam and Teenager Titans Go!, amid other people. I feel they must adjust the tigers dance and enjoy and alter there huge fat legs to regular size in true life I really like tigers they are my preferred animal like horses and I think they need to set the tiger glitch again on. With an avid curiosity in visible arts, she enjoys producing and editing for The Licensing Guide and The Toy Ebook, leading trade journals about toys-the 1st artwork kinds we encounter as children. Otters are the Diamond Shop's adorableness collected in a solitary animal (together with owls)! A mask that seems like a skull, comparable to the Cranium Helmet and the Skeleton Mask , is worn on the pet's confront. P.S. animal jam hacks no human verification Email me or come to my weblog for any animal jam demands including scammers and even far more! As each and every song plays, the silver disco ball hanging earlier mentioned commences to rotate and two LED spotlights positioned diagonally will shine on the Animal Jam figures. At that second, the silver disco ball will begin spinning, and place lights positioned diagonally will glow LED lights on kids' collectible Animal Jam figures. Hi I am Nora, I have played Animal Jam for so lengthy, if you are new, and located this website, this is the Animal Jam internet site, /house. On your storage, you ought to be capable to see the new snowflake colors (magenta and what ever colour you changed the sample of the regular animal to) Then, reload the web page and tada! Some fitting names for Arctic Wolves (in my opinion) might be Admiral Arcticmaster, Colonel Berrybear, Countess Canyonbelle, Creature Cleverfox, Dancing Coolgirl, Duchess Cottonpaw, Empress Fancypaw, Enchanted Fieryrose, Eternal Rainymoon, Fairy Roundpalace, General Scarypirate, and Beautiful Snowyspirit. In engage in, the wolf gets down and rolls around on it is back again, then will get up and shakes by itself off. Btw that very last response is called Purchasing a membership witch Value Income if you want a artic wolf just go on Google and kind in ''How to get a totally free artic wolf on animal jam'' then scroll by way of the responses till you discover the site or vid you want! Nationwide Geographic Animal Jam is an exciting online playground for children who really like animals and the outside. Colourful detailed layout: This Animal Jam Playset functions an Arctic Wolf determine with equipment. They are the seventeenth animal to be introduced in Jamaa , and the 2nd animal unveiled as part of a present card bundle. Expandable Playset or Collector's merchandise: Even though this engage in established only will come with an Arctic Wolf, it can be expanded with other Animal Jam figures. The notion behind this Club Geoz Playset is to allow little ones envision a celebration of their favorite Animal Jam pet people. Now it might search great on this well-liked animal, but I assure you that's not what wolf ears appear like. Arctic Wolves in the match are larger than standard wolves, but in reality, they are smaller sized. Not to be concerned however, you can use individuals diamonds to buy an Arctic Wolf from the diamond store in Jamaa Township! The set also comes with an exceptional on-line sport code and two weeks of free membership. The Animal Jam Geoz Playset is a entertaining fake enjoy toy for little ones aged five several years and previously mentioned. But I feel animal jam just took a wonderful proud animal and created it search like a joke! And again, if you had been attempting to go for the practical style, wolf ears are rounded, not pointed. Everything about the wolf from the snow-white fur, and icy blue hoofs, to its cute eyes, nose, and pink ears is intricately made. Arctic Wolves are much more or much less like normal wolves, except they have a thick collar of fur about their neck to hold them heat. The Arctic wolf is relatively unafraid of men and women, and can be coaxed to strategy folks in some areas. The llama is a domesticated South American camelid, commonly utilised as a meat and pack animal by Andean cultures since the Pre-Columbian period. You can get them on Animal Jam Outfitters or at Toys R Us, Safeway and Very best Acquire. Arctic wolves do search a lot more reasonable, and are typically employed for roleplaying and adopting. You will most likely locate them at Walmart till they (if they) appear out in Animal Jam Outfitters, Animal Jam's shop. But, I do want for there to be a lot more accesories, as effectively as becoming in a position to make your own wolf. The wolf also wears a pretty little crown on the heart of its head, which has stars and swirl-like designs all above that resemble frozen snow. On my Arctic Wolf, I am putting on a Turkey Hat, Leaf Necklace, Let Armor, and a Royal Blanket. The ideal and safest choice for discovering Arctic Wolf codes is just to acquire the cards in stores or purchase an Arctic Wolf from the diamond store. Snow Leopard present playing cards are available at Animal Jam Outfitters or American Target areas. Anyhow, this put up is drawing to an finish, so I just have to say'”have a excellent rest of your day/night! I would definitely suggest this item to anyone who enjoys animal jam other clever anyone who enjoys everything entertaining, incredible, and vibrant. I am sorry that I will not have any diamond codes, but I have gem codes: winter season-five hundred gems: explorer-100 gems: ajbday5- animal jam's fifth bday cake: ngkjammin-1000 gems: beano- one thousand gems: picsou-a thousand gems: animals- a thousand gems. The Club Geoz Playset also arrives with an distinctive Arctic Wolf determine with snow white fur, icy blue hoofs, and two adorably lovable pink ears, and kids can transfer the wolf's head from facet to aspect. There is a glitch exactly where the Cosmic Necklace displays the incorrect pendant when worn by an Arctic Wolf, but it displays accurately in the Modify Your Search menu. If you have concerns receiving your electronic mail, go to the pursuing webpage to accessibility your acquire: Enter your electronic mail handle utilised to buy on , your billing ZIP code and your Get Variety (your buy amount can be located on your affirmation electronic mail from or in your Account Buy Heritage on ). Item will come with scratch code that unlocks additional content in the Animal Jam on the web game and offers two-weeks of cost-free membership. If you have sufficient diamonds and nonetheless do not know which animal is for you, then the snow leopard is the very best option.

[izloveshorses]

Alrighty so while I’m thinking about it here’s basically every element from Beauty and the Beast that I adored

can I say how surreal it was to be in a theater packed with young girls of all ages wearing yellow dresses with their Belle barbies 

not to mention all the adults and people my age who’ve been singing Be Our Guest for eternity were all so excited 

it was almost like when The Force Awakens came out and Star Wars was alive again and everyone, old and new generations of fans, gathered together.... ya know what I’m talking about? where everyone in the room is buzzing with anticipation

the CGI wasn’t as terrible as y’all thought, y’all need to have a little faith sometimes lol

the casting was excellent!!

i know people have mixed feelings about Emma Watson playing Belle but I honestly wouldn’t have casted it any other way. She’s always been a women’s rights activist, a bookworm and a thinker, and a strong role model for young girls. and her favorite princess was always Belle I mean come on. and her singing voice was so incredible!! that was what I was most looking forward to in this movie and it did not disappoint

she also said in a buzzfeed interview that she imagines Belle would open the Beast’s library to the public and start a school!!! How rad is that?? HEADCANON ACCEPTED 

shout out to Dan Stevens for waltzing in 10 inch stilts while wearing a 40 pound body suit 

ok Luke Evans and Josh Gad must’ve thought they were in Dirty Dancing because they had the time of their lives

and Luke was pretty attractive. just sayin

overall, the cast was really diverse! not one but two interracial couples! and in general there were a lot of poc in the village featuring a wonderfully sweet librarian dude

Everything about Belle’s character was fantastic I’m not kidding

i think the town had such a consistent routine that she could precisely time when the morning rush started?

despite the village blatantly gossiping about her she was still so nice and polite to everyone

so??? much??? sass??? it was unreal??? When Gaston asked why she wouldn’t go out to dinner with him he assumed she had plans but she was just like “No...” and she didn’t even explain further how freakin savage she shot that boy down

(a few more examples bc this girl was on fire) “Why would I be startled? I’m talking to a candle” and “Is that a joke? are you making jokes now?” and my fav “’Maybe you just haven’t met the right man?’ ‘It’s a small village Gaston, I’ve met them all’”

this is Elizabeth Bennet level Jane Austen would be proud

they touched on how women were expected to have kids in their late teens/early 20s and she’s like “screw that” yeah girl smash that patriarchy

how on earth did it take me 17 years to realize she’s considered odd because she’s the only literate girl in the whole village???????? how did I, a history buff obsessed with the French Revolution, never make that connection before???? this isn’t specific to the new film but still I applaud it good job disney

she was an inventor!!! i don’t know if i’ve ever been happier than when i saw her solving equations and tinkering and making a washing machine so she can read and get chores done simultaneously. emma totally had something to do with this decision absolutely no doubt

she doesn’t ride her horse sidesaddle and that was like a huge faux pas for ladies back then (again, smashing the patriarchy one step at a time)

SHE WAS TEACHING ANOTHER SMOL GIRL HOW TO READ!!! THAT’S SO IMPORTANT AND PRECIOUS I’VE BEEN UNABLE TO THINK OF ANYTHING ELSE SINCE THAT MOMENT

she planned to escape the castle from the beginning and was really creative about it, and no matter what she always found some sort of weapon lying around lol (a random stick, a chair, a pitcher Belle what would you do with that) but she was always prepared to defend herself with somewhat of a plan and attempt at thinking ahead

She was really curious about the curse and asked questions about it to figure out this mystery herself

she was always problem-solving and trying to find a solution to situations and that was so cool girls need to see that strong female leads aren’t always the ones that can fight, but girls with wit and bravery

there was lots of nice background info on characters that otherwise wouldn’t exist, like Belle’s mom’s death, why Maurice chose to stay in that boring village and Adam’s dad being a jerk and turning him into a monster (no pun intended)

Mrs Potts giving us a reason why the entire castle was cursed, not just Adam. They didn’t do anything to stop Adam’s dad from corrupting him and man that’s some heavy stuff

I feel like each character, especially the servants, were so much richer and stronger and more complex, and the stakes were higher bc each time a rose petal fell they became less and less human

even the enchantress had a name and she was gorgeous?

they went pretty dark in this one... like something caused that tree to fall in Maurice’s path and back into an upright position. the wolves wouldn’t cross the gates because of some boundary. the way the whole castle shuddered with each drop of a pedal. i could go on... and the added character depth really helped that dark stuff too

THE MUSIC!!!! WAS SO GOOD!!! I’ve had the album on repeat for.... four days now and I’m not sick of it yet?? please send help

seriously, they did an amazing job. it was perfectly balanced w both old an new songs, and neither of them overshadowed the other. each song got it’s spotlight, they honored the old ones while including new original ones that were awesome (cough forevermore cough cough)

Gaaaaaastonnnnnnnnnnnn omg that sequence was awesome. honestly i think everyone in the theater tapped their foot when he was stomping and dancing on the tabletops

Belle was really good too to me because i’m a nerd for that set design

Days in the Sun is extremely underrated!! but yes, Forevermore is breathtaking it’s growing on me more and more each day

lots of rotating cinematography and spinning i’m a nerd i love it

the costume and set design.... holy crAP it’s stunning

i read somewhere that Belle’s casual getup has large pockets for her books and she has part of her skirt pinned up so she can ride Philipe easier and that’s beautiful

each scene was packed with tiny details that most movie makers overlook and I’m so impressed???? not just visually but there were so many sounds that truly made it feel real like in the village I’d occasionally hear a crying baby or a dog barking or just constant chatter and that’s stuff you’d expect to hear in a crowded village square

the little twinkling lights during the ballroom dance was probably my favorite i may have cried

No one ever say anything bad about Belle’s dress again IT WAS SO GORGEOUS it floated across the floor like a bundle of sunshine

and there were so many details in that scene? did anybody notice her gold earrings she wore they were wonderful

her hairstyles throughout the whole movie were so cute (esp at the end with that updo!! and that pretty flower dress I need it)

the historical accuracies??? unreal??

so much baroque architecture with all of the elaborate gold designs ahhh i love it

half of it looked like a rococo painting, the other half a neoclassicism painting

girls weren’t allowed to be educated so that’s why Belle was hated so much--and so cool--and ohhhh my mind is blown why did i not understand this until now

lol a giant chunk of France was illiterate at the time too so LeFou realizing that halfway through trying to spell Gaston was hilarious

actually the mob song in general is scarily accurate. what starts with a small discomfort turns into irrational fear which turns into extremism in crowds and they did the stupidest things like “hey there’s a monster that we’ve never seen or heard of and it’s never attacked us before but LETS KILL IT” seriously the French loved mobs

they included a lot more intimate moments w Belle and the Beast to build up their relationship more carefully 

Belle almost in tears when she was in that library because honestly same girl

my favorite moment in the entire movie, although small, was when they were in the library during “Something There” and she just kept grabbing book after book and he was walking behind her holding this massive stack that was so cute

honorable mentions: when the Beast shook his head like the horse omg. and I freaking cackled when he threw that giant snowball at her face

when they were in Paris, and Belle figured out that her mother died of the plague and she said “let’s go home”

she just rode off while still wearing her ball dress

“no time to change gotta go save my pa i’m keeping this btw”

and then she strips down to her undergarments because they’re about to go after Adam and that’s the final straw nobody messes with him under her watch she has to save him and, sorry, but she won’t let a big bulky dress get in the way of that despite how beautiful it is

Belle participated in the climax fight scene she was not taking any of Gaston’s crap

and then Adam was like “stay there I’m coming” and she completely ignored him so she could step in if he needed her

“I am not a Beast”

the transformation scenes were amazing

LeFou’s character arc was surprisingly great! and I support him and his boyfriend

that one growl at the end... you know the one... I’m very confused why was that so sexy is that bad

there were so many moments where i got goosebumps and sudden tears from the swelling of the orchestra or a certain chilling line and i was just so moved by this movie

in every showing that i went to there was a massive applause from the crowd and i love it you deserve it disney

I'm running out of adjectives

There was hardly an aspect that I disliked. Maybe more of Mrs Potts would’ve been nice, maybe Belle asking Adam to grow a beard was a little strange, maybe Ewan could work on his French accent a little more (don’t get me wrong I love this man but it could use a little more work... other than that his acting was superb). my complaints stop there! I honestly loved this film so much and I’d been pumped since I first heard about it back in 2015. It didn’t disappoint! that means a lot coming from a person who had insanely high expectations for it.