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alternativemiraculous · 5 years

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About Potions.

As I explained in the former post, I like to headcanon that Potions were created by a sorceress who tried to adapt Kwamis to each area. The seven main potions are the ones Fu has, but I like to think there are some minor ones. Currently we have information about two and some clues about four more (if they’re still based on the pearls concept). So I’m gonna show my theories.

Orange potion- Air adaptation.

Based on the Stone of the Sun, which was said to grant flying powers. So this potion let’s users develop wings or wing-like extensions. For example, Ladybug would develop ladybug wings, and Queen B bee wings. Chat maybe bat wings or simply bird-like wings. New suits may also include air-like design with some transparent clothes.

Red potion- Lava adaptation.

Completely theorized one. This would adapt user to great heat and lava (desert and volcano themed areas), and let them swim through lava withouth melting. I don’t know how would the design be, maybe less clothes because heat or maybe more because lava protection? Either way, probably mirrors Aqua transformation.

Purple potion- Energy adaptation.

Based on the Pearl of the Mysteries, which was said to grant infinite Lucky Charms. This could grant the user the power to never detransform, meaning they can use their superpower as many times as wanted. Design would look like something flashy and powerful, maybe more animal like. Maybe it can also upgrade weapon.

Blue potion- Ice adaptation.

The second one we’ve seen. This lets user adapt to cold temperature and ice areas, developing skates to improve movement. The design has toned-down colors, ice crystals, some fur and quite a skater-like design. Maybe it adapts them to snow, meaning they could resist freezing and getting trapped under snow.

Green potion- Water adaptation.

First one we’ve seen. Based on the Pearl of the Sea, which was said to let user breathe and move underwater. With this, user can swim really fast, talk normally underwater and never drown. Design is fish-like, with fins and scale-like suit. Suit’s colors are quite brightened. User’s tool is modified to let people breathe while holding it.

Yellow potion- Space adaptation.

Based on the Stone of the Moon, which was said to let user fly and breathe in space. So, this basically provides user with air in space and lets them float around controlling their movement. Design could be like astronaut’s suits, with a crystal-bubble like helmet to let them breath. Maybe it has some Moon references.

Pink potion- Feel adaptation.

Last pearl we have is Pearl of the Heart, which was said to “cure the akumatized”. But Ladybug already has purification powers. So maybe it is to permanently cure someone problematic? As if, emotion control or something on that lines. Perhaps it would be used on Lila to stop her being Akumatized. Maybe fairy-like design?

By following this, we would have five potions adapting to different terrains and two potions being power ups. We can also have the possibility of an earth adapting potion, which could let the user dig in the ground? Or a dark adapting potion, which could let the user see in the dark or produce light? Pink and purple are the less clear ones for me. What do you think?

~alternativemiraculous.

#miraculous potions #ml potions #ml season 2 #ml season 3 #miraculous upgrades #miraculous power-ups #miraculouses #master fu #miraculous spellbook #aquabug #icebug #miraculous theory #alternative miraculouses

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axelsandwich · 6 years

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They may not get as much praise because they’re not as popular or people are not as emotionally invested in them. That’s just...the reality of the world. There’s no minimum level of praise required of any skater for any phenomenon and fans are not hypocrites for being more excited about their fave than someone else. I find it troubling, this tendency to feel like everyone has to show equal amounts of excitement for everything that happens or it’s somehow not ‘fair’ (I saw it with people claiming fanyus were hypocritical for liking Boyang to TCC news over Evgenia too). The policing of subjective feelings is pointless and kind of rude and tbqh often seems to happen only to yuzu fans.

Yuzu is far more popular, have more accolades to his name that he earned through hard work, he will naturally get more attention if he lands the 4A first. And the person who lands the 4A first has the satisfaction of making history that can’t be taken away and you can bet will get the relevant news coverage (and is prob not only doing it for fan praise). I hardly think a slightly less enthusiastic fandom (only sections of it) is going to be a big deal.

I’m aware there’s a time and place to voice criticisms and there are people I wish could perhaps voice valid concerns with more tact so it doesn’t come across as dismissive and harshing on people’s buzz, but I will talk to those people directly or in private. I care far more about hypocrisy and double standards in criticising behaviour.

I’m not naive - if it’s a borderline UR or something and verified as a 4A, there may be backlash. If that’s the case, the only problematic behaviour is how people criticise the judging. And making sure people aren’t attacking the skater personally.

There may be some bitterness from some quarters no matter what happens and that’s sad to see. What I’m not going to do is generalise an entire fandom.

On a personal level, I’m going to make sure I give whoever lands it first the proper credit and acknowledgment because it’s fair sportsmanship and they deserve praise.

But I owe no one an apology for being more excited as a fan if yuzu lands it over someone else, or hoping that he does.

#lae answers #asks: 2018 2019 season #asks: yuzuru hanyu #sorry this became a bit of a soapbox

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vspirit8 · 7 years

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Call me an easy-to-please dumbass but...

All the decisions Hanyu’s made in his career thus far have turned out to be practical, and sound ones (even when they didn’t seem like it at first) while remaining exciting. This one is no less so, even if it might seem disappointing at first. Why is this, you ask? Let’s put a few things (28, to be exact) into perspective (I’m not blindly positive, y’all):

Hanyu’s winning pattern has always been one problematic skate, and one redeeming and/or explosive one.

Prior to 2012, his SPs were almost always uh-oh! while his FSes were what saved his ass (even if they weren’t super clean).

Post-2012, but pre-2015, when he skated clean, it’s almost always only in the SP.

When he finally skated *both* programs clean in a single competition, he did it with Ballade No. 1 in its second season and SEIMEI in its 3rd competition–more than a decade since he first started skating competitively.

SEIMEI is also the first FS he’s ever skated clean, like *truly* clean, and the first time he skated it clean was also following a clean SP performance. To date, it remains the *only* FS he’s skated clean more than once, and the only one he’s skated well *twice* despite following a clean SP.

Skating it clean following a clean SP means he wasn’t simply chasing, but he was utterly and purely dominating—that was his very first taste of it and methinks the boy man Likes the Feeling Very Much.

In the 2016 WC, after two clean sets of performances in prior competitions, he reverted to the clean-SP-problematic-FS pattern.

And in WC 2017, he flipped the switch and it’s now back to his whoops!SP and explosive!FS pattern.

If there’s anything he wants more than a second Ollie gold, it’s two clean skates on the Ollie stage (preferably preceded by clean skates in prior comps). Especially so since he’s pulling double duty in going for that 2nd gold *and* proving to the world that he rightfully deserves his first one.

So based on his pattern all these years, he’s only been able to pull off complete dominance for part of a single season, and that’s with a recycled SP and the only FS he’s skated clean twice.

Chances of him skating clean next season, the most crucial one, with two brand new progs: next to 0 (not with his anal retentive fusspot tendencies)

The feelings for SEIMEI he has are so strong, he’s apparently already decided it was gonna be his Ollie program after GPF15, a decision he’s stuck to despite his poor showing of it in WC 2016. I think his fanboyism of Mansai and all the lovely input he’s gotten from the man himself prolly also played a critical part in his choice.

So it’s a good program in his mind that’s left him with unfinished business with it, since he’s essentially never skated it clean in a major championship, national *and* international, a development that basically told him it’s still too early to pack the program in and consider it a perfectly done piece with no more room to grow. Sides, he’s put in so much effort in the making of the program, from the music to the choreography, it stands to reason he’d want to get some more mileage out of it, if he could.

So his choices, as of end 2015, were a brand new SP and SEIMEI or a repeat SP and SEIMEI. Depending on how he performed LGC in the 2016/17 season, it would either be his Ollie SP or it would be something else.

If it leaves him with good feelings, he’ll either use it again or chance a new SP.

Sadly, that didn’t happen and instead, he was left with negative feelings and mental impression for both the program itself and SPs in general, so no repeat of LGC and his mind is telling him his mental focus probably won’t be able to handle a brand new SP in the Ollie season. Not especially if he wants to up his tech further while increasing even more bells and whistles.

At this point, (end of the 2016/17 season), everything is telling him to reuse Chopin and SEIMEI.

But because he is Hanyu and he’s already upped his tech last season, he has to either maintain or up it further.

And because he’s reusing both programs, he’s left with no reason to not raise his tech content level and it’s gotta be way bigger than last season.

All in all, if we want him to skate clean on the Ollie stage while still doing what he always does, well, we’re getting it.

But if we want him to skate clean with one new program just to please us fans despite all the above, then I think we’re asking for the impossible, even from the guy who’s been giving us the impossible all these years.

We’ve got two new and beautiful programs last season. If this were another season, and not an Ollie one, I’m willing to bet we’d have at least one new program.

So let the guy do what he thinks will allow him to win in the way he wants to on a stage he’s been looking to deliver his best on since he was 7. I think he’s proven himself enough to deserve unconditional support in getting there.

Delivering his absolute best is one but, let it be said that we *still* don’t know what his absolute best can amount up to, only the promise of it and that’s already so far above and beyond what everyone else in the field is capable of delivering right now, it’s not even funny anymore.

If there’s anyone who can build something that’ll make the world’s collective jaws drop even further than they did before with the same programs but *better*, it’s Yuzuru Hanyu.

And remember, if he skates clean at the Ollies, for most of the world, it would be their first time going slack-jawed. Especially amidst all the warhorses. SEIMEI is definitely going to make them sit up and pay attention. Because not only is it different (being definitively non-Western), it is bold, it is powerful, and it is fierce. Plus, it oozes a sort of masculinity most have never seen before in men’s FS. And it appeals to a wider range of audience, no matter their culture, because it’s just such an obviously damn cool program. So people who’s always made fun of men figure skating will have to STFU.

If it’s any other skater, this might be seen as lazy and playing it safe, but then I ask myself this: has Yuzuru Hanyu *ever* been lazy? And since when did 5-quads start being considered as safe? All he’s doing is entrusting his ultimate dream and desire to a *program* he trusts. Not a layout. A program. So that he’d be free to chance a high-flying layout packed to the high heavens with transitions and exquisitely performed elements–without having to kill or maim himself in the process. Which means, the only thing disappointing about it is that it isn’t a brand new program. That’s it. And if I have to sit through an entire season of watching a program I like again to see it taken to never-seen-before heights, as opposed to a brand new program I may not like as much and watching him struggle and make compromises in order to simply *deliver*, and during Ollie season at that, it’s a no-brainer which I’m going to go with.

What Hanyu wants to do isn’t just to win and to wow. He wants to completely dominate and he wants to go down in history doing it. He’s gotten a taste of it two seasons back and wants to make damn sure he gets to relive it again, preferably for a longer stretch this season and most definitely covering the Ollies and perhaps even the WC in Milan. And these two programs are his best chance at achieving just that next season.

Really, there’s just way too much at stake for him to not do this. Our brains know this, but some of us still can’t help but feel just a wee bit disappointed in our hearts. Still, as long as we know where he’s coming from, those of us who are disappointed will likely come around sooner or later, because we know what truly matters this season and would conclude that we’d have made the same choices if we were in his shoes. If we’re even the teeniest bit invested in him, we won’t even have a choice about it, I guarantee it.

As for me personally, I’m just fawning over the fact that the whole world is finally going to get to know SEIMEI, not just the FS one. And it’ll stand out so beautifully among all the warhorses. SEIMEI is an Olympic-worthy program and in hindsight, no amount of new programs has a more rightful place, especially since it’s proven itself more than worthy once before, and even left its skater room to develop it further.

And get this, it’s not even my favorite program from him. LoL. It’s #3 on my list at best, so I was neither hoping for it nor against it. But now that we’ve got it, I can now see it so clearly for what it really is. Plus, there are bonuses that only SEIMEI can afford. If he skates it clean with higher tech content, he’d be able to corner the judges into giving him scores that at least match what the 2015 judges gave him for the same program. Because imagine the kind of questions they’ll have to answer if they don’t. And with this, he’ll be able to surpass his old scores with his BV. It is the one surefire megaweapon he has against his younger rivals that was cultivated long before they are the threat they are today as well as iffy judging (in a way, I feel that his hand was forced) and it’s time he reaped and harvested the fruits of his foresight, talent and hard work.

So there is everything to celebrate and absolutely nothing to feel disappointed over. Not for friggin’ SEIMEI as the Olympic program for the Yuzuru Hanyu.

(Admittedly, I was a tad disappointed back when he announced he’d be doing Chopin for the third time, but knowing the mess LGC left behind in his mind, I forced myself to accept it and after what he’s shown us of it in FaOI, I’ve come to wholeheartedly embrace it.)

I don’t know if all this will result in gold still, seeing as there are still very human factors involved in the judging, but if he delivers everything clean in PC, I’m going to consider it a win in my books.

And yes, I’d still like to see him make more history with new programs so hopefully he’ll stick around for at least one more season after this and we’ll get to see him doing that.

One thing though…the guy is now a confirmed LIAR. Cos he’s said right after WTT that he has no plans for the Ollie season and here he is claiming he’s already decided SEIMEI would be his Ollie program right after GPF15.

I get that he wanted to dodge those interview questions, and what he said was very obviously a lie (because only a bigger dumbass than me would believe anyone hoping to make it to the Ollies the next year who says they have no plans at least 2636351 years in advance, much less him) and I’m not sure if there’s anything else he could’ve done but flat out lie but it amuses me to no end to be able to loudly call him out as a big fat liar. xxxxD

#yuzuru hanyu #that lying sack of...#...star dust #and bird feathers #and molten lava #men's figure skating #figure skating

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handsingsweapon · 7 years

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the st. petersburg rules

a03 wasn’t cooperating so i got this whole thing copied out until it finally posted, whatever, have it here too anyway. or: watch sim procrastinate because she’s dreading work tomorrow and making poor life choices. - - - two people who live together always make rules. these are some of viktor's and yuuri's. (in which we consider: the dishes, the laundry, the terrible things the refrigerator has seen, and how viktor wins all the important fights without ever making yuuri lose them).

Living with Phichit in Detroit, there had been certain rules established, either swiftly or over time: roommate norms and boundaries (yes, even for a person like Phichit; especially for a person like Phichit), the borders of the nations of two separate people working through the circumstances of living together. These are things like an unspoken agreement that Yuuri will open every bottle Phichit cannot conquer, but he’s only allowed to twist lids off after Phichit’s been at it for a solid thirty or forty seconds. Or: a months-long battle waged over the miracle of the dishwasher, and proving, once and for all, to Phichit, that he did not, in fact, need to wash the dishes clean before putting them inside. That the words power scrub were not false advertising and did, actually, mean precisely what they said.

In Phichit’s defense, nobody in Bangkok uses a dishwasher.

In St. Petersburg, the rules are different, and the stakes are different too, and so when Yuuri notices them taking shape he celebrates with private smiles. Yuuri has been living with people for a very long time, either in Detroit or back at home, and Viktor’s the one who’s having to cede ground, who’s cleaning out dresser drawers and closet space.

That’s the first rule, actually. The first rule is that Viktor’s flat is not to be treated like the Katsuki onsen. Yuuri learns that it does not have an open door policy the first time he haphazardly invites the rest of Yakov’s skaters home for lunch, in the way Mila hesitates and looks across the rink at Viktor, arguing with Yakov, the way she says let’s ask Vitya first. It’s in the way Viktor hesitates, too, when Yuuri skates over to ask him, in the way Yuuri has to get creative when he realizes after cooking that Viktor only has plates for four, and eats his lunch out of a bowl with chopsticks so that the others can use all the flatware.

It strikes Yuuri as odd, because he’s so used to the thrum of guests at Yu-Topia and Viktor’s apartment is so big, too big for one person to have spent all this time in alone. They talk about it later, while Yuuri does the dishes, after Mila’s dragged Yurio and Georgi out on what even Yuuri recognizes is an excuse, because the rink won’t finish public skate for another four hours. Even Viktor realizes it’s a bad habit:

I was still pretty young when I got this famous, Viktor admits, sitting at the island in the kitchen on one of his nice, industrial-designer stools: the kind that look like they came out of a magazine but which aren’t that comfortable for guests. It was nice to have a place to retreat.

Viktor doesn’t admit these sort of things around just anyone. Yuuri smiles a little at that and then hits Viktor with a dishtowel after he’s done wiping down the counter, because he’s gotten comfortable enough here, is at ease enough to instigate a little trouble of his own. It’s another one of their rules that Yuuri always does the dishes. In fact, Yuuri does most of the cooking. Yuuri has already marched Viktor into a store to replace his terrible quality knives and to buy a proper wok. He’s added at least a dozen different spices to Viktor’s pathetic collection. This is a norm that shifts sometimes, though; on their one morning off, Viktor sneaks into the kitchen and proves he can manage a proper breakfast, tells Yuuri as he shambles in blinking away sunlight about all of his mother’s Russian recipes. Rules three and four. The dishes. The cooking.

Yuuri pretends to be interested but he’s not human before he’s had coffee, the one cup he lets himself drink in the morning — but no more, because it’s too strong, and it interferes with his anxiety. Viktor drinks tea. Rule five is about which mugs are their mugs and the way that Vitya always has them ready in the morning, no matter how early it is. Rule five has an appendix about the tea Yuuri drinks when he isn’t having his morning coffee; it’s hard to get in Russia, and his mother sends it in care packages that come once a month from Hasetsu. Rule one gets a similar footnote, eventually: Viktor lets him buy an extra set of plates and eventually there’s a schedule, some predictable, known quantity he can tolerate, with Georgi and Mila and Yurio and Yakov gathered around the kitchen table on Tuesdays, Yakov pretending that he doesn’t know that Viktor knows he’s sneaking Makkachin scraps.

The kitchen, though: Viktor’s also terribly fond of pinning Yuuri against the refrigerator, which has had to endure some obscene things that have nothing whatsoever to do with refrigeration, and for that matter, so has the kitchen island, but Yuuri’s certain this has nothing to do with the kitchen itself. Viktor has all kinds of ideas about the couch, for instance, and sometimes he feels a little sorry for Viktor’s maid, who is better off not knowing about the things that happen in the bathroom. Rule six: Viktor Nikiforov can’t keep his hands to himself.

Rule seven is actually one of their earliest rules. Viktor doesn’t do laundry either. This is entirely different territory than the dishes, for which Viktor has the excuse of a pile of menus in Russian in a kitchen drawer, evidently the means by which he’s been feeding himself for years, and his busy schedule. They discover rule seven when Viktor catches Yuuri doing his own laundry, not because Viktor cares that he does it.

It’s how Yuuri is doing it that Viktor objects to: he’s thrown his slacks in with his whites and Viktor is positively horrified by the treatment one of his sweaters is receiving. Later when the clothes come out of the dryer after Yuuri forgets to fold them for a day, Viktor eyes him with a subtle twitch in the corner of his left eye. Viktor’s got a laundry service because Viktor’s shirts hang neatly pressed in his closet, mostly dry-cleaned but certainly meticulously cared for. Rule seven is that Viktor promptly signs Yuuri up for this service and they don’t have a fight over it, even if Yuuri thinks it’s ridiculous to have his sweatpants coming back from this place looking suspiciously like they’ve been steamed. Somewhere someone is doing their laundry for them, convinced that Viktor Nikiforov is absolutely fucking insane.

Yuuri discovers the eighth rule when he gets sick in the winter. He catches a cold and suffers through it like a tragic Russian hero and Viktor babies him; wraps him up in blankets (corollary: Yuuri is a blanket hog, which would be problematic if Viktor wasn’t always so eager to spoon) and feeds him soup, insists Yuuri take cold medicine to feel better and argues with him about still going to the rink. Yuuri does this, even when the whole right side of his face feels like it’s leaking and when working on his full-rink footwork leaves him winded and wheezing. Viktor stares at him disapproving the whole time they train but by the time they’re back home he’s got Yuuri in the bath, and then back to bed, and it’s so sweet to be so cared for, even if Yurio has nothing but derogatory remarks to make about how pathetic Yuuri is and how whipped Viktor is.

This is absolutely nothing like how Viktor is when he gets the same cold three days later. When Viktor gets the flu, he thinks the whole world is ending and he makes sure everyone knows it, and he’s so melodramatic in his misery that Yuuri contemplates whether or not he ought to ask for even stronger medication. Viktor is a Russian, after all, the cough syrup barely phases him. When they move on to codeine he’s a little less sensible, and he forgets to talk to Yuuri in English, which would be irritating if it wasn’t so cute.

There are other times Viktor forgets to talk to Yuuri in English, too, but Yuuri understands those more readily. There are some things which can’t be said in your second language, maybe not because there aren’t the words (though there is that, sometimes) but because it’s the way of those words, when they’re spoken in secret, in deepest intimacy. Yuuri is precisely the same way, in fact, on those nights when Viktor’s taking him apart and then putting him back together, like a glued together vase leaking light at all its seams. Yuuri only ever curses in Japanese, and it’s not a curse in the traditional sense when he does it.

Ah, and fuck, spoken in precisely the right way, can be prayers in any language, and sometimes sex with Viktor is an offering, he doesn’t know to what.

To love, perhaps.

The ninth rule is about how they fight. Yuuri wins all the fights that don’t matter, like the one time he got mad about finding a pot of leftovers in the fridge, Viktor’s idea of cleaning up, or the way they argue about what jumps to put into his program in the first competition of the year. Yakov is telling Viktor to keep it simple and Viktor is telling Yuuri to keep it simple and both coaches know their students have no intention of complying. In these fights, Yuuri deploys Makkachin as a weapon: Makkachin, who is the world’s most cuddly poodle and who seems to believe he’s actually a lap dog, who Yuuri can hug when he’s giving Viktor the cold shoulder but still hungers for warmth.

Viktor wins all the fights that do matter, like whether or not Yuuri’s going to retire, or whether or not coaching Yuuri is taking away from his own training, or how they’re possibly ever going to manage to have an actual wedding in the midst of two professional training schedules. Viktor wins them without winning them; that is to say, there’s no moment of defeat, and sometimes there aren’t even apologies, just the patience with which he waits for Yuuri to get to where he is and then the open arms he always has whenever Yuuri finally makes it there.

In the fights that don’t matter Viktor has so much fun apologizing that Yuuri sometimes thinks he starts them on purpose.

It’s rule ten that is his favorite, though, above all the others. Ever since the Grand Prix Finals they’ve never gone to bed angry; Viktor never lets them. Viktor makes sure he falls asleep at night with a kiss: on the temple, on the cheek, on the back of his hand where the ring never comes off.

Viktor wakes up earlier than Yuuri does every time and gets those mugs ready; Yuuri’s the one who’s already packed their gym bags, the night before. By the time he comes into the kitchen that same kiss is waiting. Yuuri always responds by leaning in with a flex of his fingers and a deep inhale, breathing in the traces of Viktor, cologne and coffee, soap and shampoo. They do this softly, and absently, and it’s so fixed a habit that Viktor probably isn’t even thinking about it anymore (he never does, and Yuuri overthinks everything, even this), the way he doesn’t think about breathing, and how sometimes he doesn’t think about skating either: just glides through Yuuri’s whole universe, the brightest star he’s ever wished on and easily the best thing in it.

#victuuri #yoi

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thrashermaxey · 6 years

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Capped: Reviewing Hits and Misses from the Last Two Years

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I have been writing for DobberHockey for over a year and a half now, and it has been a wonderful experience. Looking back over the last 20 months, I have put out about 80 articles, and haven’t really taken the time yet to go back over them, sorting out the hits, the misses and the passes. If you can’t learn from both your mistakes and your victories, what are we really here for anyways?

Having sorted through some of my highlights and lowlights, I will be featuring the player thoughts today, and the contract/salary cap-related ones next week.

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The Hits

It seems as though a lot of my player prediction hits come in the evaluation of buying/selling at the right time after players pass through free-agency. Typically, the strategy of passing on the fancy names, and grabbing the rebound candidates, or others with something to prove will pay off in spades over the long run.

Here are a few examples.

Eric Staal

Article link

One of the hits I am most proud of is pegging Eric Staal for a bounce back in Minnesota, granted I didn’t expect him to average 70-points the last two years. Staal has been revitalized playing out of the spotlight, with a skilled crop of forwards, and a coaching system that plays to his strengths.

From that same article, we’ll call the Tomas Vanek blurb a hit too, as he certainly was revived in Detroit. He was pacing towards an excellent season before an untimely injury derailed his resurgence.

Darren Helm/David Backes/Matt Martin

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Unlike Eric Staal, this was a hit for me, but a miss for the players. All three of the above had just signed new contracts in July of 2016. All three have gone on to post disappointing results and continue to be problematic for each team’s cap situation. None of these three were expected to go out and suddenly score a point-per-game, but they were expected to contribute much more than they have to date. Consider yourself lucky if you got out in time.

Buy/Sell – John Klingberg/Duncan Keith

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Some of the other names in this article didn’t fall too far on either side of the expectations, however two nails were hit directly on the head as well. John Klingberg (the buy) finished two above the 65 points I had him pegged for here, due to internal growth, confidence in his own game, and the addition of Alex Radulov to the already lethal powerplay.

On the flip side, Duncan Keith (the sell) royally disappointed this year, almost setting the all-time mark for shooting percentage futility – with two goals all season. With his contract stretching out longer than a piece of gum in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, this is certainly one I hope you got out from under before this point.

Yanni Gourde

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Maybe even more so than Eric Staal in the summer of 2016, Yanni Gourde may be the best call I have had to date. I managed to acquire him in every cap-league I play, and boy did that feel good. Nestled in the buy-sell feature (returning later this summer), Gourde was positioned as the potential next Jonathan Marchessault with the Lightning. As was written in that article, Ondrej Palat indeed missed a large chunk of time, Tyler Johnson struggled, and Yanni Gourde seized his scoring opportunity.

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The Misses

As with everything in life, the good comes with a balance of the bad. I have had my fair share of falling on my face with some of my thoughts in these articles. Time to own up to it:

Vegas-Related Talk

Article Link

Let’s just give everyone a pass on Vegas. No one saw this coming and we are all still trying to underrate them while all they do is prove everyone wrong. Not much more to be said here.

Skaters at the Trade Deadline

Article links: Forwards / Defencemen

Unless you were looking for a very cheap option to just fill some roster space, I didn’t help you out much here. Of the players listed, some have years left at bargain rates, where they may still help, but on the whole, they were a disappointing bunch of names. Looking back on these two articles hurt, as I targeted a handful of them in my leagues. Had I been a little more aggressive and gone for the bigger fish at the deadline, perhaps things may have been different.

Late Free Agents

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For all of my talk above about having a good track record with bargain free-agents, sometimes that can be taken a little too far. With this article from last summer, trying to find some later unsigned bargains in free-agency, I got carried away and overlooked that there were reasons these players were still unsigned three weeks into the free-agency period.

Andrei Markov signed back in Europe after I said he could give the 40-point plateau a run in the right situation.

Jaromir Jagr played through injuries and then had his contract terminated, again after I mentioned the 40-point plateau.

Cody Franson needed a tryout offer from Chicago, and then still only played less than half the season.

Woof.

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The Lessons

No one has a perfect crystal ball, that’s about all that we know for certain. Hopefully what we can take away from this, is that opinions are just that. Mine are based partially on numbers, partially on the eye test and an understanding for the game. However, I do miss some things, so doing some supplemental research to validate what you find in articles online can make a big difference.

What I am going to take away from this, is that there are always bargains to be found in free agency, but just because they are there, doesn’t mean everyone signed for under $3 million will be. There’s usually a reason why they are being paid less.

I also plan to put some good research into the Buy/Sell feature that is a Capped staple later in the summers. It is one of my favourite sets of pieces to get out, and it can be such a great way to start the season off on the right foot. Many times in cap leagues, when trying to get ahead on players such as Marchessault and Gourde, by the time you are aware they have arrived, they are already owned.

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Recent Capped article: Candidates to Rebound Next Season

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That caps off another Thursday. Stay tuned for the salary related Capped review next week.

If you want to talk hockey, salary caps, or anything even remotely related, you can find me on twitter any day of the week @alexdmaclean

from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-home/capped/capped-reviewing-hits-and-misses-from-the-last-two-years/

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nofomoartworld · 7 years

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Hyperallergic: Cloud Blossoms

Paul D’Agostino, “Cloud Blossoms 1” (2017), watercolor, ink, felt marker, graphite, and charcoal wash on paper, 12 x 9 inches

Disclaimer #1:

In a very real way, these “Cloud Blossoms” drawings are about as vapid as they look. Frivolous eye candy for some, perhaps, and maybe relatively pleasant as such. For others, idiotic visual treacle, more or less, and likely several drops too much. I’m fine with either take on them, really. I’m also fine with a regard of complete indifference. At the same time, some of the drawings do just happen to engage in joyously silly dances when looked at through 3D glasses. So, there’s that to consider. Oops!

Those are a few possible takes on my “Cloud Blossoms,” takes that might well have been made more resolute following the note about 3D glasses — the likely effect that note had on the treacle-seers. Speaking of treacle, and while I’m still here disclaiming, I might as well also acknowledge that it’s abundantly possible that looking at my “Cloud Blossoms” brings to mind the Care Bears, because that’s what happened to me at one point as I was photographing them — which did seem an almost exaggerated act to perform on works like these.

But it is true that I thought, with mixed chagrin and delight, ‘Care Bears!’ And then, an instant later, ‘Care Bears.’ You know, because sometimes one thinks with punctuation. The more I thought about that, and the more my thoughts went back and forth in punctuation, the more resolved I became that there must be something about a certain mix of blues and pinks that causes the brain to conjure an entire spectrum of colorful little teddy bears who live in the sky and shower love, happiness, peace, well-being, and other 80s myths all over the place. Right?

Well, I suppose this would require being of a certain age, which I am, and having a certain slightly-less-than-passive awareness of Care Bears, which I do. All the same, I did think the Care Bears were a mushy drop of treacle too much even way back when I was a kiddo — long before I would’ve used the word treacle, obviously, which was also a time when no amount of exaggerated sweetness was ever ‘too much,’ particularly with regard to breakfast cereals — in part because I was much more a fan of Transformers, WWF wrestling, Garbage Pail Kids and, very soon thereafter, Thrasher Magazine, among other things that weren’t very Care-Bear-like. This is back when Thrasher’s inner pages were still printed on newsprint, by the way. It had a smell; it sullied your hands; it advertised mostly skateboard decks, wheels and other parts, and hardly ever shoes; and it would even feature round-ups of contest results, which were interesting and important to the sport back then. You bought Thrasher and sometimes TransWorld at local surf and skate shops, where you’d also leaf through the concurrent mix of surfing magazines, in no small part because of the significant presence of girls in very slight bikinis in those periodicals, a tendency which didn’t filter into skate mags with real consistency until the early 90s, most notably with one called Big Brother.

Paul D’Agostino, “Cloud Blossoms 3” (2017), watercolor, ink, felt marker, graphite, and charcoal wash on paper, 12 x 9 inches

Big Brother, oh my, what a magazine! Visionary! Transitional! Transcendent! Excellent skate photography, a somewhat oversize format overall, lots of raunchy humor and, yes, copious soft porn. Come to think of it, some of it was actual porn. On a magazine shelf, at your local skate shop! What a coup! It was also a definitively problematic skate mag to look at in school. I’m pretty sure a skater or two was beaten up for snagging someone else’s Big Brother.

Back to the Care Bears, though. They were out there too, or perhaps up there, in the Zeitgeist, right there alongside so many other broadly propagated falsehoods about the better angels of government, commerce and society at large, or about alleged improvements in equality and opportunity and so on. This is not to say that the Care Bears were part of some massive 80s conspiracy to dupe the distracted masses into waving American flags and pledging allegiance every day (remember that?) while overlooking the incipient dismantling of all manner of generally supportive sociopolitical structures and democratic mores. The Cold War hadn’t quite yet come to its supposed ‘end,’ after all, so such superstructural shifts, probably so subtle at the time as to be nearly imperceptible, were often obscured if not subsumed by the greater narrative of The United States of America versus The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. And so on.

No, the Care Bears were (probably) not part of some conspiracy like that. Although if they were, then the Cabbage Patch Kids were in cahoots with them, along with professional sports and soap operas, sitcoms, and talk shows, Saturday morning cartoons, minivans, and home improvements, and enough soda pop to fuel many a journey to space.

Those Care Bears, though, were very much a part of the popular consciousness — relevant to the ‘kindness and might’ of the USA and the evangelical movement alike. At least, they must’ve been, because they were everywhere — all over the place in toy stores and department stores, not to mention at the homes of most all of your friends who had younger sisters, and just generally visible on everything from TV to t-shirts to some kid’s Trapper Keeper. And you know, visuals sink in. So those visuals sunk in. This is also because, you have to admit, the quality of those graphics was more than passable. A few simple lines. Entire personalities conjured out of belly-bound emblems and colors. The Care Bears were also quite fun to draw—because sometimes you drew them getting ripped in half by Transformers, Voltron, or the Powell & Peralta ‘Ripper’ guy.

There were good cartoons back then. There were great cartoons back then. There might also be great cartoons now, but I don’t really know. What I do know is that gems like Ducktales are obscure to college students these days, as I recently learned from some of my students. Do they also not know Muppet Babies? What about Ren & Stimpy, who really carved the way for so much newfangled cartoonery thereafter, along with The Simpsons? I do believe they’re aware of The Simpsons.

Paul D’Agostino, “Cloud Blossoms 5” (2017), watercolor, ink, felt marker, graphite, and charcoal wash on paper, 12 x 9 inches

Well, before this first disclaimer gets any more out of hand, I’ll move on — because if I don’t, I’ll soon get on a ‘useful’ tangent about the joys of certain breakfast cereals, especially those high-octane sugar-fests that had the best graphics and most lovable ‘mascots,’ and that your parents would almost never let you get.

And so, in sum, the thrust of Disclaimer #1: My “Cloud Blossoms” are insipid drawings, and easy to like, hate or ignore (with or without 3D glasses). They might also be reminiscent of the Care Bears, icons, and associative memory-conjurers of an entire era.

Disclaimer #2: There’s not much of anything interesting or justificatory to say about these drawings, and they’re not in any fundamental way ‘about’ our times, these times, strange times.

Disclaimer #3: You’re still here? There’s not even a third disclaimer.

Well, no matter the content of my disclaimers, my “Cloud Blossoms” drawings, however devoid of concept or active sociopolitical commentary, do exist for a reason. They’re the result of wanting to make — starting one weekend afternoon, on a whim and while listening to a basketball game on the radio — some corny drawings in a variety of media.

That desire to make some corny, mindless drawings had its partial impetus in a need to get away from the cerebrally crushing news cycle that day, because it was a day in 2017, and nearly every day of the news cycle has been like that this year.

That’s also why these drawings don’t have any words on them at all, which is somewhat atypical for me. I tend to relish merging texts of various sorts with drawings of various sorts, especially when working a bit insouciantly with simple materials on paper.

This was also around the time I had written quite a long treatise on ‘the difficulty of words’ this year, thanks to the caustic nature of debate and the generally shocking or harrowing nature of the news. I wrote that as a cover letter for a job, actually, knowing quite well it wouldn’t really ‘do the trick,’ as it were, of getting me the job. It certainly didn’t.

However, I did think it might ‘do the trick’ of somewhat counterintuitively making ‘words’ thereafter ‘less difficult’ — to receive, to read, to write, to process — which it did. A catharsis of sorts.

Paul D’Agostino, “Cloud Blossoms 6” (2017), watercolor, ink, felt marker, graphite, and charcoal wash on paper, 12 x 9 inches

But I still didn’t feel like putting words on these drawings. I just felt like toying with the image of thick ‘happy’ clouds having flowers blooming out of them. ‘Better than silver linings,’ I thought.

I also thought, ‘What if ‘cloud seeding’ could do this!’

And now I’m wondering if perhaps 2017 has been a particularly great year for questions beginning with ‘What if…’.

These times do feel very hypothetical, conditional, conjectural, if in fact ‘times’ can ‘feel’ that way. They’re also not awfully different — although it’s possible they’re relatively more awful — than the ‘times’ a few decades ago, as described in Disclaimer #1.

It’s all very weary-making, even for the most fearless and thickest-skinned among us. The fellow below is a testament to that. He loitered on my block for a few days a couple weeks ago, then simply disappeared.

Ah, to disappear!

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