This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/hobbydrama by /u/Lemon_Lime_Lily on 2025-10-14 19:23:31+00:00.
TW: Kinda incest and discussions of homophobia
Here are a few things to note. The Social Media posts from Just Dance are still up, but some have been deleted. I will link to videos of maps throughout this writeup and recommend you watch them for added context.
Aah… Just Dance. The video game everybody knows and loves- even Obama.The game of sleepovers and birthday parties. I remember playing it in my middle school pe class when they didn’t have anything for us to do. However, Just Dance has and continues to evolve to this very day. Even though the title of this may send people into a coma, I hope to explain this fascinating drama the best I can.
A quick glossary of terms
Map- The actual dance and song. Sometimes called songs or routines.
Coach- The dancer’s official term.
Just Dance ± Just Dance 2023-26’s official subscription service. You can play songs from older games and some special, exclusive ones.
Previews- Snippets of maps posted online to generate hype.
Playlist- a group of songs that you can play one after another that share a similar theme, such as fitness or party.
Season- an event in Just Dance. Usually has a theme and provides new songs and legacy maps.
Beta Jail- Maps that were created but never released.
This Is How We Do (this game)
Just Dance (or JD) is a series of dance-themed motion games published by the French game company Ubisoft. The basic goal of the game is to correctly mirror a dancer or “Coach” as they are called during a song or “map”, and the game scores you based on how well you do. The game uses a motion controller to track your movements. The series was a huge hit and is now one of the top selling game franchises with over 90 million copies sold, despite not being a critical darling. It has had some iconic dances including Rasputin and Can’t Take My Eyes Off You, which went viral on TikTok a few years ago.
The general gameplay loop hasn’t changed much since the first games. Despite looking drastically different from the first game (2009 vs. 2023) Minus a few modes added, removed, and modifications to the dancers and scoring design, it generally follows the same vibe as the original. The major changes came from adding gold moves in JD 2, adding faces and lip syncing to coaches in JD 2022, and the transition to Unity’s engine in 2023. However, starting in 2021, the Just Dance team decided to try something a little different that they hadn’t done before with the game. They decided to add lore.
Previously, Just Dance games had no lore or overarching story. Beyond a few references to prior maps and coaches, each game and map was standalone. In 2021, Just Dance created the characters The Traveler and Si’Ha Nova. They had been dropping hints of the traveler in previous season trailers. They had their own separate maps in the base game but the traveler could be seen in the background of other maps in Just Dance 2022. During a dance to Save Your Tears by the Weeknd, the two collide and fall in love. I believe this was Just Dance testing the waters of lore. The added lore was positively received by the community, who had become attached to the coaches over the years. Then they decided to step it up a notch. They added solid lore.
How You Like That (lore)
The first teasing of the story mode started in May of 2022, when Just Dance dropped a comic to celebrate Mother’s Day. This revealed two very important things- Si’Ha has a purple cat, and she’s pregnant. This shocked people because just dance hadn’t ever had coaches fall in love and have a kid together. In August, a cryptic post about Si’Ha Nova giving birth was shown on the Twitter page. The kid, Wanderlust, was announced as a coach later on and confirmed to be the Traveler and Si’Ha’s kid. He has his father’s ability to open portals and a disco ball friend. We also received a story trailer narrated by a new character named Sara.
The story follows a young woman named Sara who gets transported through her TV to the Danceverse. She is having a good time with Wanderlust, when an evil lady named Night Swan pops up and kidnaps the dancers in the background. We learn she has the power to mind control and corrupt people, and she also has a son, Jack Rose, who is very important to this story. The backstory we get for her is that she was a failed ballerina who let her perfectionist tendencies turn her evil. However, the backstory wouldn’t stay the same.
Deciding to fight back against Night Swan, they assemble a team of dancers, including Brezziana and Mihaly, an influencer and shaman, respectively. Eventually, they battle Night Swan. Even though Jack appears to be on his mom’s side, he joins the good guys and helps to save the day. They celebrate using a Just Dance original song and send Sara back home. A pretty basic but solid story, for a game that never had any solid lore before. The Just Dance fans really like the story despite super-long cutscenes and praised Just Dance for adding lore and storytelling to the game.
Love Me Land (of Jacklust fans)
This was all well and good, but, of course, people love to ship and they had two perfect candidates- Wanderlust and Jack Rose (or jacklust/wanderrose). I personally don’t know exactly why this ship gained so much traction, but I have a few ideas. First of all, this. It seems to mirror the gold move during Save Your Tears which was in a romantic context. Secondly, both have appealing designs. One thing Just Dance is really good at is character design and this applies here. Jack Rose had that sexy man suit, and Wanderlust had that pair of shorts. Third, Jack Rose from his map appeared to have some big mommy issues. This can create some nice hurt-comfort fanfiction and make a lot of people relate to him. Finally, the Just Dance community has a lot of gay people in the fandom. The series didn’t have a lot of romantic representation beyond hugging and love songs so there wasn’t a of queer representation before 2023 beyond musical artists and a male dancer portraying a female coach. This led to a shipping storm full of fan art, discussions, and fanfic. Currently the Just Dance category of AO3 has 500 works. 120 of them are Jacklust so about 24% of that work is focused on them.
Another common thing was speculating on who Jack’s father was. The most popular theory was that it was Cygnus, a coach from the 2023 Eurovision season (yes, they had a whole Eurovision event) because of his name being similar to the term for baby swans, cygnet, and his color scheme of red, and a similar suit. Generally, he was figured to be the most likely candidate.
Don’t Stop Me Now (from adding lore)
Because of the positive reception, JD decided to continue adding lore to the games. Then, in the fall of 2023, Night Swan took over the JD Twitter account, teasing the new story mode. It was basically the social media manager being sassy in the replies but it also teased the story would be darker. This time, the [story mode](https://www.youtube.com/wa…
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