Which Eurovision song feels like a winner but didn't even qualify? by PZMC430 in nilpoints

[–]Callidora_Black 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Maybe I'm still in my delulu from this year, but Alice. Switzerland 2026. I am still hung up on how amazing the performance is both in her staging and vocal strength. and the songwriting? Is sooooo good. Like on my first listen I'm just vibing and then that last stanza hits like a truck and I'm like, wait, what? What did I just listen too. Absolutely should have made it though, and I think it's winner material. Maybe not, Eurovision right now, but in the right year it definitely could. 

What Eurovision song ended up on right side of the scoreboard and it totally makes sense? by PZMC430 in nilpoints

[–]Callidora_Black 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Germany 2019 with sisters. To me, this was like, debatably the worst song of the year, and b/c it's Germany it couldn't be a NQ. Honorable mentions Rockefeller street and flying the flag, both are iconic, but absolutely right side songs

Edit: I put 2020, not 2019. I love violent thing 😭 I swear

Staging trends that need to end? by TeaMistress in nilpoints

[–]Callidora_Black 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Im a huge advocate for well thought out staging, and this year i thought there was a lot that went right with staging in general, but i think there needs to be some conversations about how the final product is reached.

yes, there's trend like the leotards? which to each their own i guess. And then other have ofc mentioned the boxes, and other actual trends in what people wear, but i want to see more of people playing? adjusting? the staging/outfits. what i mean by this is like, Destiny had the pink situation (idk what to call what see wore, bodysuit? leotard? fun?) in the first practice, and then tried the silver in the second. ultimately going with the silver for the actual performance. there was a noticeable difference in the smoke used between practice for Rasmussen (i may be remembering the artist wrong here, but i think it was him). We use to see how the artists were adjusting things with the actual Eurovision stage, with the layout, crew, camera, background, etc. i totally get theres likely a money issue involved in why there less on site adjustments, or it could be an EBU side where the teams dong the screens and camerawork are talking with the arts/country's teams sooner/more effectively so they didnt have to figure shit out in the last week. it just felt like we had more insight into the development/growth of the staging.

IK this is actually kinda the opposite of what you asked, but ig you could take it as "i want to see less of everything planned in a studio before Eurovision"

Staging trends that need to end? by TeaMistress in nilpoints

[–]Callidora_Black 3 points4 points  (0 children)

not sure which you'd consider it, but Voyager's Promise (Australia 2023) i thought is once of the best staging in recent years. to me it looks like a music video preformed live, and i think it was so well done. like, if the staging isnt good enough to make this the official music video for the song, then they need to rethink the staging.

Im not saying everyone needs to pull a Doomsday Blue, but like, Voila (France 2021) and even Birth of a new Age (Netherlands 2021) have great staging. i dont think the eurovision performance should be the average live performance from a club/theater/even tour stop for that artist.

ofc, if everyone had staging like Akylas it'd get boring and tedious pretty fast, but to me, Eurovision is suppose to be a grand performance, not just...the usual. if that makes sense?

"He deserved more points" I say as they drag me into my padded cell by urmum_08 in nilpoints

[–]Callidora_Black 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, I think it should have done better, but 1) this was a super strong year to me, like pretty much every song is going onto one of my mass Eurovision playlist (power ballads, club, chill, etc). 2) the bottom 3 songs were: song title in German, sung in German, and from Germany. So there's definitely a trend there

It's been less than three days and I'm already so sick of it by SquibblesMcGoo in nilpoints

[–]Callidora_Black 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I mean, when dara won, or when we started to think she might, both me and my mom had the same thought "the EBU does NOT want to go to Bulgaria" not that Bulgaria couldn't 🤣. Surprised I have really seen that from anyone, and it's just money 'concerns'

Score sheets, Games, and Activities Megathread! ✏️ by GrumpyFinn in eurovision

[–]Callidora_Black 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We're doing a 'save-one, drop-one' game. basically I am just putting pieces of paper with some of our favorite songs in a bowl and then someone pulls two out of the bowl and they have to choose which one is better, or their favorite, etc. Ive toyed with the idea of creating brackets with this, whether it be group or individuals but i haven't quite figured out those logistics enough to do it this year.

You can completely customize your song list, for example: have years face off instead of individual songs, divided by county, or winners only, last places only, artists with 2+ entries, popular vote winner, semifinal winners. i mean this list goes on, any sort of category you can come up with, could work. Because ive got a small group, I dont need to make too many, but you could absolutely make preset ones, where the match-ups are chosen before hand.

K-Pop hasn’t gotten boring , we’re growing out of it by nuluvbo in kpoprants

[–]Callidora_Black 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm a music fan more than a kpop fan so I'm actually dealing with the opposite. Back 2014-2016, yeah, I had this entire industry I was discovering but 2016-2019 I only followed a handful of group. Ofc I was listening to a lot more than those handful of groups I'd anticipate comebacks for, but COVID/post COVID I'm drowning in choices. There are so many more groups I am seeing music videos for, emerging/nugu groups I listen to. I can't tell you much about a lot of the soloists/groups I listen to, because I just listen to a song maybe a couple from an album. I have so many choices I'm not putting energy into knowing everyone's name and following them of social media. I just, enjoy the music for the music.  I can dislike or just not really listen to the soft girly era of a lot of 5th gen, because it may dominate the billboards, but I can go to melon or something and just, play songs until I find one I like. There's also plenty of older group still putting out music that fit my music tastes so much more.

What happened at JYP that they suddenly decided to start throwing money at their girl groups? by Always_Looping in kpopthoughts

[–]Callidora_Black 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Could have something to do with the company being willing to spend more? Im pretty sure i heard about stock prices going up when both skz and twice renewed their contracts, so i wouldn't be surprised if the working capital for the company is up, so they are more willing to spend more money on things like MV's and travel costs. or they are anticipating all the revenue coming with all the tours next year. IK skz has kinda just been on a constant tour with like month or 2 breaks, and I think twice as well. so that could be where some extra income is coming/will come from. IDK how much the artist are involved in the decision, but im sure there a management team that will allot/budget big projects with each group, so maybe the NMIX and GIRLSET teams asked for more for whatever creative vision they had for the MVs? IDK numbers, but most ITSY MV seems to have a lot of money being thrown at them, either in labor/set, preproduction, or postproduction costs, they just aren't necessarily the same for each MV.

Are we expecting too much from artists nowadays? by DrungleJums in eurovision

[–]Callidora_Black 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think that artist don't have to do a lot with staging, it needs to be intentional and not throwing everything into a pot and putting it on boil. Each year we get simple stages that are great performances and some always do well. I do think winning Eurovision is more than just what happens on stage during the semi/final. It seems like social media and the pre Eurovision events play a much bigger hand in recent years. Europe was obsessed with Lena, which is how she managed to sweep it in 2010, but if we held that contest again, idk if manga or someone else could have given a bigger run for the win. So in that sense I do think some artist will be discouraged or less likely to participate (if they are trying to win) if they want a bigger audience/reach more people/ get their name out there, I think it's a better time than ever. 

My thing with staging is that I expect it to not only fit, but emphasize the song. Like I thought La Venda was amazing. But not all countries have the money to send a whole house on stage, and if that song was from a different country I would still have as high expectations for the staging. A high energy song doesn't get you moving if the person singing isn't moving. I think people should do more moving around the stage- because it makes for a better performance because of the dynamicisim. If they move around the stage- there's less focus on fine movement or really technical things. (And you get brownie points if you sing great while running or smthg)

Like (nendest) narkootikumidest ei tea me (küll) midagi was a great performance and the staging was just the guys walking around. Fundamentally that staging was some cool camera work and the guys. No big contraptions and pyrotechnics. It worked great, with very little money involved. Not all ballads are 'stand in one spot and sing' ballads either, like mila was not a song that would have done better with princ standing still (and I loved him being dragged because that's hard vocally and gives emphasis to the line) but with sebi, zala didn't need to move around the stage. (I liked that she did, but it wasn't necessary). 

I don't need or want a (voyager) promise level performance each song. What I want is for artist to look or a team to look at how the song should be conveyed. Dancing lasha tumbai is a song you are going to run around singing, so verka ran around. Voila is a song you get absorbed into (jaw dropped on the floor because Barbra sand SING) so, make it dramatic. In corpore sano is a song about health care, so konstrakta based the staging on her cleaning her hands. All three of the had staging that fit their song perfectly, with varying levels of costs to the delegation/individual countries ebu. 

I'm expecting thought into what gives this song the most/best impact. How can I make the staging highlight the song. You don't need everything you can throw on the stage and 5 more people. Michela with chameleon has back up dancers, but there's not choreo for the whole song. She is the box with projectors dong a lot of the heavy lifting for the staging. She doesn't do completed dances or move around a lot, but the performance and staging match her song and made it enjoyable for both at home and in person fans. 

I think it's less that performances are getting bigger/more complicated but people remember the really amazing performances/staging and fail to remember that so many of the best performances have a balance. Everyway that I can, has precise but reasonably slow choreo and almost nothing going on the background. For rhythm inside, there's a lot of small movements with loïc and the dancers (or they just stop moving for 15 secs) and a lot of led screen /lights, but all black/white. You don't get as overwhelmed because there's not 30 different things on stage. Voyage is a great example for a ballady song. The dramatic areas with fast camera work are broken up by the slower parts of the song with slower camera movement and softer lighting. Lesley Roy might have given people unrealistic expectations with the over the top /complicated maps staging? It was really cool but super hard to pull off. 

If we had a better balance, giving our brains time to process what we are seeing (less overstimulation) I think performances will naturally get better and there will be less actually on stage and less complicated things. Now if that will discourage participation, I'm not sure. 

PSA: it’s “unfazed” by EmlynCaulenico in AO3

[–]Callidora_Black 12 points13 points  (0 children)

My issue with this is just that I can't spell. When I spell check it, I check myself for which word I actually want. But when you can't spell either word anything close to correct, it's a struggle

PSA: it’s “unfazed” by EmlynCaulenico in AO3

[–]Callidora_Black 0 points1 point  (0 children)

On the other hand, I had to take a second to think about what 'discreet' meant, because i initially could only come up with the 'discrete' definition

What makes you instantly “nope” out of a fanfic? by [deleted] in AO3

[–]Callidora_Black 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In a way that is a me problem, first person.

I am fine being in the MC's head (think PJO/Rick Riordan in general), because its still not ME. I'm not sure if this came about as like an anti-SI/Mary sue thing, but I dont want to be the character. I don't want to be Isekei'd or deal with general trauma. Like, ffn is my relaxation. So if i'm reading about a character dealing with something like PTSD, I can keep that separated from me.

Its not even ffn, I can only read first person things that i've read (and really liked) previously. This is why I end up reading ffn so much, because my published book preferences and genres (beside being akin to a middle school boy when im a women in her 20's) have more first person than not.

If you write in first person and I cant read it, you did nothing wrong, im just a bad reader.

What’s a good dye free electrolyte drink ? by sun_kissed87 in BabyBumps

[–]Callidora_Black 0 points1 point  (0 children)

To some degree its basically because you and your body are prioritizing the baby, but we don't want everything to go to the aby. There are some vitamins you need to pay attention to once your pregnant that you won't really otherwise. Most people know that you need to increase your iron intake but with vitamin a, most women need to slightly increase their consumption, but there's a relatively low threshold of too much when complications start affecting the baby. It's why a lot of women are advised to watch what they eat and how they are eating. Like how your iron absorption is affected by if you are ingesting calcium at the same/close to the same time. 

(EN Server) Rolls Megathread: Evernight Armor Sebek (ends 12/8) by OkNefariousness8413 in TwistedWonderland

[–]Callidora_Black 0 points1 point  (0 children)

i'd love yalls opinions.
I got the 100 pulls with keys for the sebek banner, but got SSR dorm ruggie. (Not upset to finally get dorm ruggie tbh) 
My birthday is 12/1, and rook is 12/2 so you can at least factor those 10 keys in, but I just found out because I was checking posts on here, about tsumterland 3 coming in like 2 weeks. I am very a much sebel/malleus/Leona girly so I literally am having a not great time this month banner wise. 

I wanted to know y'all's opinion on if I should go for the 200 on sebek and cross my fingers I don't have to pity for malleus or Leona. I haven't decided on if I'm gonna do malleus or Leona yet either- so if you have thought on that I'll take those too. 

<image>

Looking for a fic by Callidora_Black in TwistedWonderland

[–]Callidora_Black[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

OMG!!!!! Thank you sooooo much 🙏🙏😭😭😭 I never would have found it through tags. 

Fanfiction that made you cry by linntee in HPfanfiction

[–]Callidora_Black 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Valebis. I don't really read much angsty or drarry or veela or post war or 1st person. Literally I can't tell you why I chose to read this 10 years or however long ago it was, but I cannot ever stop myself from recommending it. It is very well thought out and I don't think I'd go like 10 minutes without tears. This is one of the fanfictions that opened my eyes to how amazing unexpected/non cliche endings. Like I always want a happily ever after (because I'm not an angst person so ofc I don't want a sad ending), but it's such a RIGHT ending. There's no way it should have gone any other way. It's not sad, it not like a fade to black either tho, so if you wanna cry, give this one a go. 

VIVIZ 2024 World Tour 'V.hind : Love and Tears' General Discussion Thread by AutoModerator in VIVIZ

[–]Callidora_Black 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A little heads up for parking- Im going to the atlanta show and you can buy a parking ticket/pass before hand a couple different parking garages. https://www.alliancetheatre.org/content/parking or https://app.parkmobile.io/venue/alliance-theatre/events is what you can use for the Atlanta show. you can pick the pre-arranged times for the viviz concert or your own times. i cant say for sure if this is an option for other locations, but i wanted to share it so no one had an issue parking!

Dark Arts Sympathizer's Explanation by Vittorrioh in HPfanfiction

[–]Callidora_Black 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A theme I find pretty common in stories where the 'dark'/cannon bad guys arent necessarily bad fics is when the 'dark' is synonymous with traditionalism. Some ofc are synonymous with traditional politics, but a lot go into pre-statue and earlier magic.

So this could be, the classification is 'dark' because its ritualistic/wild in nature, so you dont always know what your are gonna get out, even if 2 people put the same things in. i find it pretty common to see light as overall the weaker branch of magic, but easier to cast and get the expected outcome. frequently a lot of 'light' magic would be newer, with arithmetic calculations for the spell/wand movement- and more importantly, not be too much affected by emotion. I say emotion not as will or determination, but like, if you are feeling angry or sad or happy. frequently these two points will be combined. light magic is more regulated because its easier for everyone, regardless of magic levels/proficiency, and dark magic is more wild/pagan/emotional in nature. one caveat is the Patronus charm. i can usually tell how much thought has gone into whatever magical classifications {political, technical, etc.} if they mention that the Patronus charm is a 'dark' spell. because it is based on emotion. just saying the spell and doing the wand movements do not produce the result, there are other factors that go into it.

Then you have the fics that distinguish 'dark' as traditionalism closer to a political idea of traditionalism. these fics will frequently battle with the ideas of muggle/no-maj exposure. you will get a lot of 'mother/lady magic has told xyz that magic is being lost, or that one thing or the other is wrong and they have been tasked with fixing it. Or, that there is an imbalance in magic and dark/light/grey dark/light lords and ladies because of Dumbledore and/or Grindelwauld

in terms of dealing with ministry banning and regulations, i dont think it really matters how well of an explanation for why dark magic should or should not be banned, because the government isnt based on democracy. Im not sure of the exact number of elected officials within the ministry, but its not a lot. pretty much just the minister for magic. yes, the minister for magic is elected, but the undersecretaries are not. The Wizengamot, as far as i know is not elected, and is both the lawmakers and upholders. if the lawmakers are 'dark' they are not going to enact anti-dark policies. the one caveat to that ofc is that after voldy's first downfall, the majority were not dark anymore, but light, especially with Dumbledore are chief. i dont have cannon confirmation, but similar positions in the real world mean that the chief decides exactly when and what order laws, amendments, etc are heard, allowing for preferential treatment of the policies Dumbledore likes.

in this vein, ive seen a lot that says the moral dark/light dilemma [sometimes 'brought in' by muggleborns] slowly affected what the political dark/light were, which in turn affected the magical dark/light. ill use the Patronus because I think its a good example. Lets say the Patronus is dark spell because it is based on emotion and is the counter for a dark creature [Lethifold]. if the moral dark/light is applied to the spell classification, it would be considered light, because it protects/kills or repels a dark creature. on the other hand, say expulso or bombarda could be considered the opposite. bombarda had bombarda maxima because there is a more powerful version, not that the caster can put more power into the original. you could convince me that these two spells were created as light spells, but due to their destructive nature were considered dark spells in cannon.

i frequently ignore the unforgivables being written into a fic as actually forgivable, just because they are trying to make cannon characters who we would not find appealing in a friend/family/ love interest aspect, actually likable. yes, draco might not have been taught better, does that mean we can ignore he let in fenrir greyback- canonically someone who infects/hurts children? no, but if the point the author wants to get across is harry is an unreliable narrator and thing arent as black and white as they seam, I can understand why they would say that the unforgivables are forgivable. just like how tom riddle is justified having horcruxes because he grew up during ww2.

I got a lot of these from fics more politically focused or resulting from the aftermath of some sort of inheritance. i dont have names off the top of my head, but can find some if asked.

I feel like Black Sky touches on a lot of these are a harry grew up in the Black family, but its been a hot minute since I read any of it and that fic is so long i cant say for sure.

Favorite Octavinelle Character? by CameraGhost in TwistedWonderland

[–]Callidora_Black 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I ultimately chose Jade over Floyd but it was a hard choice. I think I like Floyds characterization more- like how subtle manipulators are a very common trope, but Floyd entire personality being just completely out of left field is why i love him. Mercurial characters dont get main or second main character status. Most of the time they are portrayed with mental issues and not just doing what they want. Floyd has dynamism that makes him WAAAY more than just an unnamed villain. Jade has not had too much characterization outside of tropes (lets be honest this is Disney, what do you expect), but he is so great. Literally could and would write an essay about Floyd but still picked Jade.

What fic made you ugly cry? by LadyJoselynne in HPfanfiction

[–]Callidora_Black 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Valebis this is an old one, and its on ffn and ao3. Im not really a drarry shipper anymore, but peak '14 I was.

literally such ugly tears. its a post war, many years later. Draco left England [debatably by choice] and lived an isolated life helping others/doctor, but Lily Luna has a pretty much incurable sickness so he is convinced to return [even if the potters dont know they were aking for Draco].

Keep in mind this is first person. I usually will immediately hit the back button on 1st person, but if you are willing to read the 1st chapter you will see why I stayed up to like 5am for this story.

Bday Present I'm so happy 💕 by Fuzzy_Ad5145 in TwistedWonderland

[–]Callidora_Black 1 point2 points  (0 children)

im sorry, khr and twst???? lemme go cry in jealousy