Shenanigans abound!
Has Alyssum been near the pups at all recently? Is she allowed to play with them?
She is *allowed*, the quotation is whether she wants to deal with a tornado of bitey puppies
To which her answer is "the floor is la(r)va"
Ilia fucking Malinin’s world record breaking free skate
Oh my God every bit of this is wild
-when he does the first big jump the announcers start screaming. I don't understand enough of what I'm looking at to get what about this is breaking records but the announcers screaming was a pretty big clue
-He's dancing to music from Succession????? I don't recognize all of it but some of it is definitely the theme from Succession. At one point the audience claps along to the music. And I'm not sure if it's out of support for the skater or because they like the song 🤣
-when he finishes he just lays down on the ice incredible
THAT'S MY BOY!!! I SKATE AT HIS RINK!!!
- That first big jump is a Quadruple Axel. It's 4.5 rotations in the air (you take off forwards rather than backwards, which is the extra half rotation). Nobody else in the world can do this jump it's so hard. He is the first and only person to ever land it cleanly, much less consistently. He had to land it cleanly here to have any hope of winning the World Champion title.
- Yes, he's skating to music from Succession! The audience is clapping in support because he was doing so well (also because it was hosted in Montreal and the audience was very supportive of all the skaters that evening).
- He lays down on the ice because he just broke multiple world records. He landed all 6 types of quadruple jumps cleanly, which no one has ever done at all (again, because he's the only one that can do the quad Axel), much less in a single program like this. This was an insane feat of athletic ability! If you go watch the other guys who competed against him, Yuma Kagiyama was in second place by 20 fucking points, and Yuma skated with no falls. This is Micheal Phelps / Katie Ledecky levels of smashing the competition (sorry the only other sport I know is swimming).
Some other notes for everyone:
- Ilia listed that first jump as a Triple Axel on the sheet you give to the judges, meaning that he wasn't committed to doing the Quad Axel. (Technically you're not committed to anything on the sheet but it's generally your "plan" for the program.) He also doesn't do a quad axel in the 6-minute warmup beforehand when he does go and do it in the program, so it was a complete toss-up as to whether he was going to go for it. It's incredible that he manages to land the jump so perfectly without warming it up first!
- He was 3rd coming into this skate from the previous short program. (All skating competitions require you to skate 2 different programs, 1 short and 1 long.) In order to win the title, he was going to have to skate without any falls, especially because his one strong point is his jumps and other skaters are stronger in other areas. There are many, many skaters who fall on their quad jumps, even when they're just doing one. It is so fucking hard to do even one of the 6 types of quad jumps. And he just does all 6! In one program! Insanity!
- He did a 4 Lutz - 3 Flip at the halfway point of his program. Almost no one puts a Flip on the end of their combos, it'll usually be a Salchow instead because it's much easier. The only other skater I can think of to put a Flip on the end of a combo is Shoma Uno (who was also at these championships but didn't have a good skate).
- His last jumping pass was a combo that was supposed to be a 3 Lutz - 2 Axel. He decided, in the moment, to change the 2 Axel to a 3 Axel. Nobody else has ever attempted this, much less succeeded. It is orders of magnitude more difficult to do another rotation to the second jump in a combo, at the very end of a 4.5 minute sprint no less.
In short, this kid is wild, had the performance of a lifetime, and I had the blessed opportunity to witness it.
bruh
everything about this… this statue, the choppy waves, the cliffs behind her, the echo, the drumming….. aesthetic
Lyrics in Faroese:
Trøllabundin eri eg eri eg Galdramaður festi meg festi meg Trøllabundin djúpt í míni sál í míni sál Í hjartanum logar brennandi bál brennandi bál
Trøllabundin eri eg eri eg Galdramaður festi meg festi meg Trøllabundin inn í hjartarót í hjartarót Eyga mítt festist har ið galdramaður stóð
English translation:
Spellbound am I, am I The wizard has enchanted me, enchanted me Spellbound deep in my soul, in my soul In my heart burns a smouldering fire, smouldering fire
Spellbound am I, am I The wizard has enchanted me, enchanted me Spellbound in my heart’s root, my heart’s root
Did anyone else just get the shivers? Cuz I’m definitely getting the shivers.
Btdubs, the singer is Eivør Pálsdóttir.
Reblogging again for the haunting wizard lyrics
shoutout to the faroe island for being the only real viking island left
I know the islands are owned by Denmark but this reminds me so much of Iceland
Fun fact this woman is trying to single handedly preserve this kind of singing in her culture by performing and making people aware of it because it’s been fading with time and she’s afraid if she doesn’t spread it it will disappear and be lost to future generations
Have you ever seen a volcano?
I have never seen a volcano
I have seen an extinct volcano
I have seen a dormant volcano
I have seen an active volcano
I have seen more than one of these
I’m not sure
There is some pretty shocking footage out there of the Baltimore bridge collapse early this morning. I've already seen some incredibly wrong, incredibly insensitive Hot Takes about how shitty the bridge was to have fallen after being bonked by a boat, etc
Please don't be that person.
The facts will come out. Speculation is silly. In addition to loss of life, the Francis Scott Key bridge was a major arterial in that region's highway system. Its loss will be felt for years, and not just to daily commuters.
Baltimore harbor is closed. No shipping at all. This will impact supply chains in ways we cannot even assess yet.
It's pretty fucked up.
Hey y'all, Baltimorian here.
- This is a huge fucking deal and if we can't get the harbor clear and operational and shipping contracts move to another city, they will never come back.
- That was an arch suspension bridge. What happens when you knock down one strut of an arch? You know, an arch, the engineering principal that relies on distributing force across a specific shape?
- That boat was 95 fucking tons.
- The boat put in a mayday call to the port, allowing them to shut down traffic on the bridge SAVING TONS OF PEOPLE.
- The construction workers are the ones we still can't locate and everyone here is furiously working to save them STILL so it's fucked up beyond belief when everyone from outside is wanting to talk about everything else first and I have hella respect for our mayor and governor for just laying that out when asked.
- There are legit critiques you can make about what kinds of engineering could have been done to shore up against this, like more dolphins (special piers that act like traffic poles to keep boats well away from the supporting struts of the bridge) or maybe bumpers, but unless your ass has an engineering degree and can show me your work on how you would keep a 95 ton object traveling at 9 fucking knots and knocking into one leg of an arch suspension bridge from destroying said bridge, you need to sit the fuck down.
- If you're worried about people here, there's not much you can do at the moment but you can sure as hell lobby your senators and congresspeople to support Biden sending money to Baltimore to fix this. This is a huge problem and we just do not have the money to fix it. It took from 1972 to 1977 to build the Key bridge and will take that long or longer to replace it. I'm sure there will be lots of talk about corruption and other bullshit but what I've seen so far is the people of Baltimore showing up and showing out for our own, lining up food trucks for first responders, church groups going with potluck food, local boats and helicopters helping in the search (which again is still active).
correction from the notes: 95 THOUSAND tons
A fantasy book where many characters have dramatic High Fantasy epithets, but for incredibly non-dramatic reasons.
An adventurer known as The Herald of Dawn, but it's because she tends to wake up naturally at 4 or 5 am and every single fucking time wakes up the whole damn camp before sunrise by banging pots and pans together while making herself breakfast.
A nobleman known as The Lord of Shadows, but it's because his land is shaded from all sides by cliffs and mountains and all the other nobility are roasting this guy for not being able to grow or farm anything on his shitty, shady, no-sunshine-having estates.
A courtesan known as The Emerald of [location], but it's because the county she was born in is known for manufacturing forged jewels and gemstones, and so far she is the fakest pretty thing to ever come from there.
An assassin known as The Kiss of Death, but it's because he has somehow acquired every single known and documented STD in his mouth.
The Dark Huntress, named so to distinguish her from The Blonde Huntress.
A prince known as The Raven Prince, but it's because he's autistic and can and WILL tell you everything that is known about ravens, for five hours straight.
Can you imagine how passive-aggressive this would get in families. The hero goes on a book-length quest to find the Heiress of Light just to find out that thirty years ago, somebody got really salty that their sister and not them got the antique lamp in Grandma's will
mr. gaiman, I made myself cry with my own work. is this what being an author is like?
On good days.
villains with curly moustache are the best
This a a reminder to not fall victim to the sunk-cost fallacy. Just because you invested time and energy into something, does not mean you should indefinitely waste more time and energy on it, if you decide it’s not what you want anymore. This goes for anything, from books, to relationships, to jobs, to hobbies, etc.
If it’s not serving you anymore, move on.
Every so often, I remember that like 80% of Tumblr (myself included) was completely enraptured by a show where the big twist was that the main character forgot his childhood friend was murdered by his sister, and for some reason only remembers his childhood friend ever existing as a dog.
And in that same episode it’s revealed that the same sister…..like…..hypnotized (?) the main character’s arch rival into hating him by, like, staring at him for a few minutes.
In our collective defense, this is when we all decided “hey we should probably stop watching Sherlock”
god i wish that were me
Wait What?
series 3 of sherlock: john marries mary morstan off-camera, the show mocks all the fans who kept the hype up during a two year hiatus, mary turns out to be an assassin who shoots sherlock, during which time he has a near-death-experience dream about his dog redbeard who was put down. also there’s a weird scene where john is revealed to be attracted to danger and so he dated mary because he was subconsciously picking up the fact that she used to be an assassin. also the series ends with sherlock committing murder in front of witnesses to save john and mary.
christmas special: sherlock goes on a bender where he hallucinates a victorian-era case, the episode ends with moriarty seemingly returning via social media and mycroft making a cryptic reference to “the other one.” oh, also any consequences from sherlock committing murder are immediately negated.
series 4: HOO BOY.
episode 1: mary is killed due to her assassin past, but no one really cares since she’s only been in the show for all of four episodes. she keeps coming back as a recorded voice/hallucination.
episode 2: john goes to a new grief counseler. also he keeps hallucinating mary. sherlock is told to solve a murder by the murderer’s daughter, but it turns out that while the murderer has a daughter, it’s not the woman who gave him the case to solve! eurus, sherlock and mycroft’s sister, has simultaneously masqueraded as john’s grief counseler and the murderer’s daughter and a random woman who keeps following sherlock because she’s a master of disguise! (to be fair, this is a legitimately cool reveal and I genuinely didn’t see it coming)
episode 3: HOO. FUCKING. BOY. eurus is sherlock and mycroft’s sister who’s been in a prison for the criminally insane for decades. mycroft has withheld this knowledge from both sherlock and their parents by claiming she died in a fire she started. turns out she’s able to hypnotize people with ???? her superior intellect ???????? and so even talking to her makes people want to do things for her like commit murder ????????? and so she’s somehow able to do things like escape from her scary island prison and then take herself back, blow up baker street, kidnap multiple people, and then pull Saw-esque morality problems on Mycroft and Sherlock and John where she just murders people for funsies with no apparent motive. IT IS DURING THIS SEQUENCE THAT IT IS REVEALED THAT SHERLOCK HAD A HUMAN BEST FRIEND THAT EURUS MURDERED BUT REWROTE HIS OWN MEMORIES TO IMAGINE IT WAS A PET DOG WHO DIED.
Y’ALL. IT IS SO DUMB. IT IS SO DUMB THAT THE FANDOM GENUINELY HAD A CONSPIRACY THEORY GOING FOR A WHILE THAT THERE HAD TO BE A SECRET FOURTH EPISODE - OF A SHOW THAT ONLY EVER HAD THREE EPISODES PER SERIES - BECAUSE THERE WAS NO WAY THAT SOMETHING THAT BAD COULD BE THE FUCKING FINAL EPISODE.
I am so grateful to this post for vindicating my decision never to watch s4