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Face all made up, living on a screen
A pretty blue scarf appeared on the ground outside my apartment, and after it had been a day or two and nobody had come to reclaim it, I took it inside and threw it in my washing machine. Unfortunately, the fabric turned out to have a lot of small runs in it, and what I thought at first was dirt turned out to be weird brown shading. Thought I could maybe save the less brown flowers on it for applique or something, but it also smelled strangely like oil even after going through the machine twice, so alas. I tried.
Been playing someHarvest Moon Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns lately - I picked it up a while ago and then forgot about it - and I think it might be my favorite farming sim ever already. I like the mechanics, usual boring fishing aside, the character events have almost all been really fun so far, and I enjoy having multiple festivals and multiple towns with different themes. The two things that have impressed me the most so far are:
1) You have a family!!! Not just a blank-slate 'your dead grandpa owned a farm' backstory family, but one with personality and presence. They write you letters, and you can write letters to them. Your mom and sister even come to stay over once in a while!
2) As you gain reputation with the towns, you end up making actual changes to the infrastructure, and the characters' dialogue changes to recognize it. It really makes the world feel less static and like you're more of a part of the community, even if you character has only been there a few months, haha.
You can also have a pet capybara :D All the game needs is gay marriage and less Wayne.
I finished a YOI AMV that has been sitting on my brain for a couple of years. Probably devoted too much time to it this week, but it was a lot of fun to make, and I am quite happy with how it ended up. Editing it also had me ruminating a lot on what Victor might have been going through pre-canon and what parts of that could continue even after his romance with Yuuri, which is pretty relevant to the fic I'm writing.
(And editing in the younger Victor clips also made me think of how parts of FS fandom are weirdly - not necessarily that kind of weirdly - into kids who aren't even old enough for juniors and the way that coaches and parents can now push very young kids on social media in a way that just couldn't happen twenty years ago. I'm not against posting the occasional video, but there's a difference between celebrating your child and trying to build a brand off of them. And it's almost always jumps that get the real attention; people will repost a video of a nine-year-old girl trying ultra-hard jumps all over the place, which comes with its own issues, but how often do you see 'wow, look at the skating skills on this kid'? Sasha Trusova's parents started selling her biography when she was what, 15, 16? When she still hasn't won any championships yet? TBH, sometimes I even feel a little concerned about the junior GP videos when the participants are on the younger side; 13 still seems young for having thousands of strangers on the internet critiquing and stanning you.)
Speaking of figure skating! I watched some of the Lombardia Trophy this weekend when the stream stopped going out every thirty seconds, and while I am sad for Ivett Toth (I wonder if she's still struggling with post-Covid issues?), Katya Kurakova is looking good! There were some other interesting programs and music choices, too. The only thing I've watched out of Russian test skates was Misha's SP (okay considering they just switched it, but I wish Mishin had let him keep the Nutcracker program) and T/M's SP, which I saw praise for beforehand that I don't understand after watching it. Half the choreo is basic 'turn around and wave your arm on the ding', the other half is stolen from someone else, they at least took out the WE music so it's not a total Recycled Janny Music show but the music cut is both terribly done and terribly placed, and I guess the Pygmalion theme matches their emoting abilities but seemed kind of sexist. It made me feel like it was trying to be S/M's magical Olympic FS. I also saw Kanadai's new performances, and wow, I don't know much about ice dance, but they improved a lot from last year's Nationals. Really hoping they keep the matching ponytails/buns, too, because it's adorable *_*
Been playing some
1) You have a family!!! Not just a blank-slate 'your dead grandpa owned a farm' backstory family, but one with personality and presence. They write you letters, and you can write letters to them. Your mom and sister even come to stay over once in a while!
2) As you gain reputation with the towns, you end up making actual changes to the infrastructure, and the characters' dialogue changes to recognize it. It really makes the world feel less static and like you're more of a part of the community, even if you character has only been there a few months, haha.
You can also have a pet capybara :D All the game needs is gay marriage and less Wayne.
I finished a YOI AMV that has been sitting on my brain for a couple of years. Probably devoted too much time to it this week, but it was a lot of fun to make, and I am quite happy with how it ended up. Editing it also had me ruminating a lot on what Victor might have been going through pre-canon and what parts of that could continue even after his romance with Yuuri, which is pretty relevant to the fic I'm writing.
(And editing in the younger Victor clips also made me think of how parts of FS fandom are weirdly - not necessarily that kind of weirdly - into kids who aren't even old enough for juniors and the way that coaches and parents can now push very young kids on social media in a way that just couldn't happen twenty years ago. I'm not against posting the occasional video, but there's a difference between celebrating your child and trying to build a brand off of them. And it's almost always jumps that get the real attention; people will repost a video of a nine-year-old girl trying ultra-hard jumps all over the place, which comes with its own issues, but how often do you see 'wow, look at the skating skills on this kid'? Sasha Trusova's parents started selling her biography when she was what, 15, 16? When she still hasn't won any championships yet? TBH, sometimes I even feel a little concerned about the junior GP videos when the participants are on the younger side; 13 still seems young for having thousands of strangers on the internet critiquing and stanning you.)
Speaking of figure skating! I watched some of the Lombardia Trophy this weekend when the stream stopped going out every thirty seconds, and while I am sad for Ivett Toth (I wonder if she's still struggling with post-Covid issues?), Katya Kurakova is looking good! There were some other interesting programs and music choices, too. The only thing I've watched out of Russian test skates was Misha's SP (okay considering they just switched it, but I wish Mishin had let him keep the Nutcracker program) and T/M's SP, which I saw praise for beforehand that I don't understand after watching it. Half the choreo is basic 'turn around and wave your arm on the ding', the other half is stolen from someone else, they at least took out the WE music so it's not a total Recycled Janny Music show but the music cut is both terribly done and terribly placed, and I guess the Pygmalion theme matches their emoting abilities but seemed kind of sexist. It made me feel like it was trying to be S/M's magical Olympic FS. I also saw Kanadai's new performances, and wow, I don't know much about ice dance, but they improved a lot from last year's Nationals. Really hoping they keep the matching ponytails/buns, too, because it's adorable *_*
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Ending live chat and blocking comments on JGP videos is the best thing the ISU has ever done. People can act up on other socials, but at least now kids from small feds don't have to live with "lol fat" permanently affixed to the official video for one of their only big competitions. I'm not looking forward to this season for the Russian girls. It already feels like it's going to be a Grand Prix series of Kostornaia skating her butt off to keep from getting thrown under the bus for Valieva. How many 17-year-old burnouts is it gonna take before something changes here?
I also don't know a ton about ice dance despite it becoming [or maybe that's why it's] my favorite event over the last few years. I'll never be able to see things like RD key points, but it looked to me like Kanadai's lifts this season have greater complexity and ask more of Daisuke than staying upright and not dropping her. They seem more in tune with each other overall. One thing I really appreciate about them is they're a partnership of equals, choreographically speaking, when so many teams in the partnered disciplines are like, "Here's the beautiful, charming woman and the faceless robot who exists only to lift her." A ballet program where the guy also leaps and twirls? Impossible! They don't have a snowball's chance for Beijing unless something goes very, very wrong for the Komatsubaras, but I want them to stick around for as long as they're able. They should be at 4CC, at least!
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The one time I tried to watch the JPG before I decided that it was not at all for me was when they still had live chat, and yeah, it was pretty bad and needed to go immediately. I seem to recall seeing racist comments in there as well :/ You get the occasional weirdo when Challengers stream with chats, but IME the people in them tend to behave better. (At least in English/Japanese. I tried copy-pasting some of the Russian chat at Lombardia into Google Translate out of curiosity, and there was some weird wank about the existence of puberty?)
Lol, I remember seeing some people who were absolutely convinced that the evil JSF would instantly hand over all of their international ice dance spots to the evil Kanadai the second they paired up. (I am far too out of tune with ice dance drama to understand why either they or team KoKo have hatedoms. I like them both? It felt like more domestic competition was good for team KoKo?) My impression was also that their lifts were way more solid, though the one-foot one still seems shaky, and that Daisuke was performing more and spending a lot less time visibly concentrating on the basic partnering aspects. Even at the level I've done dance, that stuff has been pretty hard to learn, especially for my partner. I saw a comparison with their FD from Nats last year, and the choreography was improved and has more nice touches to it now. Excited to see more from them!
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うん、そうみたいね。オリンピックやワールドに出場できなくても、観客を楽しませる演技をしたり、新しい経験をしたりできれば、それもいいなと思う。