#so i can get some of that sweet sweet HD footage

[drabblesandimagines]

Dove (part seven)

Leon Kennedy x female reader (bodyguard trope and the slowest, slow burn I swear)

Part one. Part two. Part three. Part four. Part five. Part six. Part seven.

---

A tense knot has formed right between Leon’s shoulder blades – can feel it pull when he tilts his head side to side, but it doesn’t seem to be loosening. Can’t even blame it on sleeping on the sofa cos he hasn’t laid down to sleep since the call with Hunnigan, stays sat up right. He’s athletic, he can jump up to his feet from horizontal but it’ll add a second or so to his reaction time and he’s not taking the risk.

He's on edge and he doesn’t like it. The ball of anxiety in his gut has saved his life more times than he can count, but it shouldn’t be necessary in this situation, should it? He’s set up in a safe house, literally off some beaten track in the middle of nowhere – location chosen and distributed by encrypted software so, technically, no-one in the DSO knows where he is either. It’s rigged up to the heavens with security measures - cameras, alarm systems, motion detector - explosion-proof windows, reinforced doors, all topped off with his favourite array of weapons in the duffel bag, currently resting by his still booted feet.

The objective of his mission hasn’t changed after the intel he’s received, that some foreign agency has had access to the CCTV feed for who knows how many hours before they were cut off. He should feel reassured that the quality of the footage was awful – it was only by how many times he’s encountered Lickers that he could even tell that’s what the creatures were when he’d be presented with the grainy images. He didn’t see the footage of you being rescued, but it would be a cruel kick in the gut to find that feed had been HD.

He lifts an arm – his left, keeping his right arm free, his accuracy is better by millimetres with his right – and rubs the knot, hoping to relieve the tension. It's not 100% confirmed they are looking or will be looking for you either, but why would anyone link up to the CCTV circuit if not to check on the outcome of their operation?

His immediate thought had been to up the frequency of his perimeter checks, one every two hours. He could do that at night, sure – military training taught him the correct and most efficient techniques to power nap – but in the day it would be harder without worrying you about what’s changed.

You wanted updates. Hell, you were entitled to updates. But he wants to give you good news, doesn’t wanna add to the weight on your shoulders with what could be nothing. It’s stupid, he knows it’s stupid, but in these sweet domestic moments the two of you have been sharing, he’s been pretending it’s something else – friends watching television, cooking a meal together – the sweet smiles the two of you exchange, but it’s all ripped apart the moment he has to do his checks. He can see the worry settle on your face then, a reminder of where you are with the flick of the safety off his gun and the twist of the lock as he goes outside to conduct surveillance.

Speaking of, his phone beeps for his next circuit on the building and he’s up on his feet in the blink of an eye. He pats his cargo pocket out of habit for the keys on the walk over to the garage door, but finds himself pausing outside your bedroom, his eyes focusing on the handle. You should still be pretty under with those sleeping pills – note to self, he’ll need to start weening you off them from now on, far too easy to get addicted. It wouldn’t hurt to just… check you were okay, would it?

No – that’s what you’re here, why he’s here – to protect you.

It would just be doing his job.

He presses down on the handle and slowly opens the door, breath caught in his throat. It takes his eyes a moment to adjust to the dark, the lamp in the living room not quite reaching as far as your bed, but eventually he can make out your face – as peaceful as he’s ever seen it.

You’re on your side. The position doesn’t look like it would be comfortable with your arm still strapped up in the sling, but it’s testimony to how well the sleeping pills are working. Your other arm is up by your face, hand clenched in a tight fist around something. He steps forward without thinking, curious what it could be.

Your fingers are gripped tightly around his watch.

And there’s a pain in his chest that feels like they’re gripped around his heart as well.

That settles it - he’s not gonna tell you about the hacked CCTV feed. He will tell you that Hunnigan hasn’t searched your place yet, that they’ve restarted the surveillance department – she’d asked him to ask you if you knew anything about the servers since they were appeared to be working from square one – but that was it.

Leon steps back with unnecessary caution, leaving the bedroom as silently as he entered and shuts the door with a soft click. He takes a deep breath, pats down his pockets again and heads out to circle the perimeter.

And, just like after you kissed his cheek, he does it twice.

--

You wake up after another peaceful and dreamless sleep, though it still takes a moment to remember where you are as you stare up at the unfamiliar ceiling. You wonder if tomorrow you’ll not experience that flicker of panic, just get up and accept that you’ll be picking today’s outfit out of a selection of clothes that you’re not sure if anyone’s worn before you.

You feel sore, as seems to be becoming the norm, but with unusually stiff fingers on your good hand. It seems you’ve clutched Leon’s watch all night. You’d fallen asleep quite quickly – all thanks to those sleeping pills – but you remember looking at it when you’d first got in the bed, the seconds ticking by lulling you to sleep. The fact that you’ve held it for so long reminds you of when you were a kid and snuggled up with a stuffed toy for comfort, except instead of something soft and cuddly, it’s what appears to be a top of line timepiece. There’s a lot of information contained on the face of the dial but there’s the time is the only one you really care about – 0906.

You get to your feet, raising your good arm to a grunt of protest as you try and run your fingers through your hair in lieu of a mirror. Huh, that pain’s new. Your hair is definitely due a wash now, but that’s an issue for later. You pull on a pair of sweatpants one-handed – you’ll be a pro soon, you’re sure of it – and put Leon’s watch in the pocket for safekeeping. It’d be difficult to try and navigate the door handle with it still gripped in your good hand and you’d hate to scratch it up.

You open the door cautiously – you hadn’t seen Leon asleep yet, but he must do at some point. Maybe you should offer to alternate the sofa and the bed? Though you have a feeling that he’s far too much of a gentleman to accept.

Or there’ll be something in the rules that prohibits that.

There’s no danger of waking him though - the agent in question is performing sit-ups in the middle of the living room floor, facing the other way. Muscular arms behind his head as he lets out little puffs of exertion at the exercise, alternating sides as he twists.

Wary that you don’t want to be caught staring, you shut the door with more force than necessary behind you and greet him with a smile when he looks over his shoulder.

“Morning, Leon.”

“Dove!” He doesn’t even sound out of breath. “Morning. Sleep okay?” He jumps up to his feet before taking a couple of steps over in your direction. There’s a grin on his face at the sight of you – makes you feel giddy.

“Yeah, thanks. How about you?”

“That’s good. Yeah, I slept fine.” He nods. It’s not a lie – he did sleep fine for the position he forced himself to maintain all night, despite the slight crick in his neck.

“Is that how you usually start your mornings?”

One of the arms you’d been admiring goes up to rub the back of his head again. “Kinda. I usually go for a run, but…”

“But you can’t leave me on my own.” You finish, smile dropping a little. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be - I’m not.” He drops his arm back down, casting an eye over a watch that’s not there. “Hey, you hungry? I can get breakfast started. Oatmeal again?”

“Sure.” You nod, fishing his watch out of your pocket and holding it out to him. “Thanks again for this. It was nice to wake up and know the time this morning.”

“Don’t mention it. You can, er, you know, keep it. If you like.” He can’t get the image of you fast asleep last night, clutching it close to your face. He knows it was most likely the sleeping pills meaning you’d just passed out with it in your hand more than anything deeper, but, hey, a guy can pretend.

“I’ll be okay, I can get the time off the TV during the day.” You hold it out again with insistence. “But maybe… maybe I could have it for the night again?”

“Deal.” Leon hastily agrees, his fingers brushing yours as he takes back the watch before fastening it around his wrist. “Breakfast coming right up.”

You take the opportunity to duck into the bathroom as he heads towards the kitchen – your heart warmed once more by the sight of the blob of toothpaste sat ready and waiting on your toothbrush.

--

“And, finally, oatmeal.” He places it down on the coffee table, alongside your coffee, a glass of water and your morning dose of painkillers.

“Thank you.” You lean forward to pick up the spoon, smiling back at the face that Leon’s drizzled in honey atop your breakfast again.  

“Nah, pleasure’s all mine.” He calls over his shoulder as he picks up his own bowl from the kitchen. He hesitates for a second, before choosing to sit the other end of the sofa to you, rather than the opposite one.

“You know, I don’t get to do this very often. It’s nice.”

“Mm,” you swallow a spoonful of oatmeal. “Thought you said you’d been in lots of safe houses.”

“A fair amount. But, no, not that part. I mean, eating breakfast with someone.” “So…” You stir the spoon around the bowl, hoping it might prove a perfect segway into something you’d been wondering. “..there’s no-one at home for you?”

“Me?” He seems to scoff at the idea. “Nope.”

“Me neither.”

“Yeah, I figured.” He replies casually, before his blue eyes widen in alarm at how it might come across. “

“I mean, just by the fact that you hadn’t mentioned anyone at your apartment that morning and you hadn’t asked any of those sorta questions, you know, if they’d been told about what happened, where you are...”

He’s flustered, feels like he’s really putting his foot in his mouth this morning. He can take the lead in the interrogation of some of the world’s most despicable humans, for goodness’ sake, he should be able to talk to a pretty girl.

“Yeah, I figured.” You tease back and he swears he feels the weight lift off his shoulders.

The two of you eat in silence for a moment when curiosity gets the better of you. “So, you didn’t eat breakfast with the… others?”

“Nope.” His tone is firm as he recalls some of his previous charges. “Certainly didn’t make them it either. Trust me – they were nowhere near as nice or as deserving of my protection as you are, Dove.” The comment makes your head tingle.

“It’s all been people ‘realising’ how deep they’d sank but only grew a conscience to save their own skin. Hell, you might have even performed surveillance on some of them. A lot of criminals finally show backbone when they realise their time is running out.”

“Well, I’m glad to make a change – both for sharing breakfast and …safe house occupancy with.”

“A nice change,” he mumbles, but you still hear.

--

After breakfast, you go to shower and Leon sets himself to task with the dishes once again, says he did his last perimeter check before nine. Removing the sling proves trickier than yesterday – when you go to tug off the Velcro your opposite shoulder smarts with a similar pain of that morning, causing you to hiss through your teeth, something which the painkillers from breakfast don’t seem to have alleviated.

You step into the cubicle after undressing – the hot water immediately somewhat soothing on your bruised shoulders but you still struggle to get what you now deem as your good arm high enough to even entertain the possibility of washing your hair.  

You try and avoid your reflection in the mirror when you dress, though you know you’ll have to confront your hair at some point. Unfortunately, you catch a glimpse – a greasy mop sat upon your head that makes your heart sink.

There must be a trick to it – other people must wash their hair one-handed all the time, but maybe they can lift an arm above their head. If you were home, you’d go to a salon, you think – an expensive you would deem necessary for your sanity.

A thought flashes across your mind – a ridiculous one. Leon is already doing so much for you, surely this would be completely over the line.

But you could… ask, couldn’t you? The worst he could do was say no, it would be awkward, and maybe there’s a hat in the duffel bag you’ve yet to discover.

You open the bathroom door, but don’t make to step over the threshold. Leon looks over from the sofa – dishes now drying in the rack besides the sink - and clocks your hesitation.

“Need a hand with the sling?”

Are you really going to ask him this?

You’ll break at some point - you know you will, so why not get it over with now? You’re a regimented two-day wash kinda girl and it’s day three. Not to be completely vain, but you’re covered with bruises and cuts, dressed in less than flattering clothes that aren’t yours and it would be nice to feel somewhat decent about something in your appearance.

Especially with the handsome company you’re keeping. Hell, Leon could be a model, a hair model too. There’d been shampoo and conditioner in the shower and you certainly hadn’t used it.

“Dove?” You’ve taken too long to reply again, getting stuck in your spiralling thoughts.

“I know this isn’t what you’re here for.” The words tumble out of your mouth before you can think further.

“Okay…” Leon's eyebrow is raised, a curious smile now fixed on his lips as he gets to his feet.

“And say no, obviously. Please. Just… I’d like to wash my hair.” You drop your eyes then – maybe it’ll be easier if you talk to your feet rather staring into his kind eyes?

"Right."

“And I’d… You know, I’d go to a salon and get it done there if we weren’t… here.”

“You’d like me to help you wash your hair?” There’s a tone of amusement or maybe disbelief in his tone.

Hearing him say it aloud makes you doubt the entire exercise, your heart begin to pound at your stupidity. “Sorry. No, I don’t know what I was thinking. It was stupid to ask-“

“Hey, no, it makes sense.” He soothes, immediately wanting to ease your frustrations. “You can’t lift your arm above your head, right? My fault for not thinking about that.”

You look up then, seeing the sincerity on his face – like it truly was his fault that you couldn’t wash your own damn hair.

“I can do that, Dove. I don’t see why not.”

“Are you sure?”

“Mm-hm. As you said, if you were anywhere else right now, you could go to a salon and whilst I can’t promise their quality, I seem to do all right with my own.” He shrugs. “You thinking over the sink?”

He doesn’t know why he asks – it’s hardly like you’re going to ask him to get in the shower with you.

Is it?

“I think so.” You look around the living area, though you’re well acquainted with what feels like every square inch of it now. “Though it might be a little awkward since we don’t have any chairs.”

He snaps his fingers. “Nah, there might be one in the garage, actually. Lemme check.”

He barely makes it into the garage when his cell vibrates in his pocket – one new message from Hunnigan.

Any server information for me?

Leon finds the folding chair nestled at the side of the washer and dryer and hesitates over the text back.

He’ll wash your hair – seeing how torn up you’d been about even asking him had made him feel awful - then he’ll give you the updates and ask about the servers.

He picks up the chair and tucks it under one arm, swiftly typing out a message on his cell and clicks send.

Not yet – Dove’s still asleep.

---

Masterlist . Requests welcome . Commissions/Ko-Fi

Comments, follows, likes and reblogs make my day!

Part eight.

#ghostdogwrites #leon kennedy x reader #leon kennedy x you

[akfamilyhome]

The history of my video capture woes

(This post was originally released exclusively via Patreon on May 23, 2019, and is now here as a test for long-form text content! This post also contains links to old archived videos from my YouTube channel. Most of these videos were made when I was of a young age, and do not reflect the current quality of my videos or any of my views and opinions today.)

Everyone probably has that one system that shaped their childhood or teenage years. My childhood systems are the Wii and DS, but the 3DS is probably the most important and influential system I've ever had so far, both to my teenage years and for my YouTube hobby.

Since I got my very first 3DS on July 11th, 2011 (I THINK that was the date), I've been being to make videos with it on my then barebones YouTube channel.

I've captured game footage before this though, and it was...bad. Holding a camera up to a TV looks and sounds substantially worse than sticking it in front of a 3DS screen and speakers.

My first 3DS related video was released on July 14th, 2011 and was just the QR Code of my Mii and my friend code. My Mii has barely changed since then (and tbh probably isn't the most accurate representation of me but I've gotten too used to it).

Also I'm pretty sure my 3DS friend list is already full so you probably don't need to try entering it, sorry

[Continued after the break!]

My first video that actually used footage from a 3DS is a gameplay video of Super Mario Bros. back when the 3DS Ambassador Program dropped:

I just balanced a small digital camera we had on a pencil sharpener as a support. I think I still have that camera, but it's probably buried in a closet somewhere with a dead battery I can't find the right charger for. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

At that point, I don't think I've even heard of the concept of capture cards yet. In 2011 they were still in the prototyping phase, and a few well-known YouTubers at that time (cobanermani456 comes to my mind just now) simply stuck HD cameras in front of 3DS screens to capture footage.

So with my dingy little digital camera, I couldn't really do much with the setup. Of course, at that time I was just holding my 3DS in front of the camera resulting in some shaky screen images (often also angled so I could see the screen clearly and my reflection wouldn't show) This lasted ALL THE WAY until September 2012. Oof.

Around the end of 2011 I switched to a different camera which apparently made things worse because now my videos ended up in 240p. I have no idea what is up with that. That's also when Super Mario 3D Land came out which I played the hell out of and made some tips & tricks videos about (that was probably the niche of the early years of my channel if I had to describe that period.)

Check out this video for some sweet 240p-upscaled-to-480p goodness and the first semblance of game footage coupled with actual video editing.

Also at one point I tried capturing direct audio by using an aux cord but the headphone jack of the main computer I use for editing at the time was broken, so it didn't really end up well.

By August 2012 I figured out a way to stabilize my 3DS footage: stacking 3DS game boxes and putting my 3DS on top. Over the years I've used different other items to hold my 3DS up like smartphone boxes and stuff, but 3DS cases are pretty reliable. I think at that point I've also internalized how many 3DS game boxes to stack up in my mind like they're a unit of measurement. You can see this in action in one of my first videos on Pushmo:

By now you've probably noticed the wacky wave effect you get when you put an LCD in front of a low res camera. That'll stick around for a long time.

Anyway, this stuck around for a while as I pumped out some random NSMB2 videos and posted my first ever Let's Play of Super Mario 3D Land. In terms of video editing, 99% of the time I just uploaded the raw footage because the videos were fine without editing at the time.

I got a 3DS XL on around September 2012, but was still stacking it on top of game boxes and other stuff. It resulted in the screen placement never being consistent, but I was content with it at the time. Sometimes I also managed to capture both screens at once.

Then came everyone's favorite game, Paper Mario: Sticker Star. I keep saying the game's an integral part of some of my channel's very early growth, because I churned out quite a few GameXplain-like tip videos about it, such as how to get the Barrel sticker (you have to get it exclusively from Broozer enemies that show up in some airship enemy encounters). Arguably my biggest 'hit' at that point came when I beat Bowser without using Kersti:

This video is super grainy looking because I was recording my 3DS XL screen with my 3DS cameras. I have no idea if my regular camera was out of commission or something but it happened. A bunch of people liked it.

At this point I'm just super used to this method of recording 3DS footage now. It was certainly a lot easier to set up, record and post videos more regularly, but looking back, it didn't really make my channel stand out too much. There isn't really any incentive to watch a guy stick a small camera in front of a 3DS for video guides over a professional Let's Player using capture cards.

On March 28th 2013 I posted this video of some Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon footage in 1080p! I believe this footage was recorded with a smartphone that belonged to my parents at that time. The high quality was able to get rid of the wavy patterns on-screen but I never adopted it, either because it was too much a hassle to set up or I wouldn't always get access to it that easily.

I went back to my tried-and-true regular method and a bunch of people were asking me what I used to record footage. So I recorded this video with my 3DS:

Yeah I set my camera (a PowerShot S95) on an iPhone box and my 3DS XL on a dictionary. Those were the items that just happened to have the perfect height. Sometimes in life you gotta improvise.

In May 2013 I uploaded some stereoscopic 3D videos of 3DS games. This required...yes, putting the 3DS XL in front of a 3DS with the 3D effect on. (It wasn't the other way around because the 3DS screen was smaller and more suitable for recording purposes). It sorta worked, but y'know, low quality and everything. It was a neat idea though seeing as not a lot of stereoscopic 3D videos of 3DS games existed at that time.

I also tried direct audio recording again with another video!

I have no idea how I managed to get this to work, seeing as I record footage in my own room then edit the footage on the home computer in my living room outside, but I guess the method was to record the direct audio through a notebook computer situated next to me, then taking that audio and combining it through the camera footage on my home computer. It was probably too much work for me at that time.

Alright, it's fast-forward time, you've seen me do this recording setup for far too long now. 3 years to be exact.

In 2014, after watching Chuggaaconroy's Let's Play of Kid Icarus: Uprising, I picked up the game and it included a 3DS stand! I then tried to incorporate it into my recording setup so I would no longer have to memorize what specific combination of everyday household items I can use to prop my 3DS up. Here's the first video using it:

And then that's just what I basically used for the next 3 years as well. If it ain't broke (?), don't fix it.

Small interlude: We got a new camera during 2014, which is actually the one camera I still use today in core videos! [2022 editor's note: I've switched to a smartphone camera since.] In October, during a small event I did called Sakurai Month, I gave it a whirl in recording 3DS footage with a Kid Icarus: Uprising video.

And it looked REALLY good! The downside is I had to use a tripod to stand the camera up, which took away a lot of space for me to sit and see the screen properly, plus I wasn't able to record the bottom screen due to size constraints, and (I'm not 100% sure if this was done for the KIU video, but) the audio recording on that camera is a bit crappy, so I had to use my regular digital camera alongside it just so I can get the best audio. Even now in my core videos, the voices for the off-screen footage is recorded with my smartphone voice recorder.

Improvise. Adapt. Overcome.

But other than that, I've just used the ol' trusty PowerShot S95 for the rest of my 3DS videos. Occasionally I do some editing to get both screens at a decent size such as for my Smash 3DS videos, but that's about it.

And yeah, I used this method all the way up to early 2017. By that time, I was finishing up my high school finals, and did some reorganization in the apartment. I've also started covering topics other than 3DS games, such as other Nintendo hardware like the Game Boy systems (and the Switch was on the horizon as well!) so I felt that the quality of those videos clashed a bit with videos where I stick a camera in front of a 3DS screen.

Still, I had a running LP series at the time (Rhythm Heaven Megamix), and I tried using the new camera I got to record some footage as well, but it just wasn't cutting it for me. I felt that using these high quality cameras to do more comprehensive videos like filming hardware shots and the like was a better idea than using it to just do what I did for the past 6 years.

And thus the idea of the core videos were born!

I also got a used Elgato Capture Card on October 2017, allowing me to grab footage from the Switch and even some older systems. But to think I was done covering the 3DS would be dead wrong, as there was still a lot of potential topics I wanted to cover for the 3DS, just in a more sophisticated manner instead of just pointing a camera at a screen.

This gave birth to ideas for videos such as 'How Super Mario 3D Land Saved The 3DS', but to make those videos a reality, I would either have to nab footage by other people from the Internet (which I generally try to avoid unless absolutely necessary), or use a homebrew-enabled New 3DS which had a method of recording gameplay footage to a PC application over Wi-Fi.

While that sounded reasonable, it wasn't the best solution, as the video was often very choppy and had a few visual artifacts depending on your connection speed. The best videos I could get out of it were around the 20-30fps range. You can see a sample of homebrew 3DS capturing in this tweet:

But still, it was better than off-screen footage in my opinion, so I did my footage recording with homebrew and went on my merry way...

Then I learned that Katsukity, the sole provider of 3DS capture cards at that time (since Loopy had stopped orders) had a price drop.

I took the hit and grabbed a 2DS from their store with a capture card pre-installed for 300 USD. Compared to using homebrew, using capture cards allowed for me to capture both a higher resolution and framerate, as well as allowing for capturing DS games (which isn't possible with homebrew). To sort of alleviate the cost, I sold the 2DS I had at the time to a real life friend who coincidentally didn't have a 3DS and wanted to get into its game library.

And since then, I think it's served me really well! Of course, as of this post there's really only like two core videos that are DS/3DS-focused, but there are still plenty of topics I want to talk about. The recent Photo Dojo video is also possibly the first ever non-Nintendo YouTube video about Photo Dojo in which footage was recorded with a capture card!

It has its downsides, such as the direct audio capturing being a little wonky unless you use an audio cable (which would be a bit of a hassle with my current setup), but I feel like it will still be serving me for quite a few years to come. [2022 editor's note: still going strong!]

Since then, Katsukity has gone bankrupt (sadly unsurprising given the REALLY niche market of their products), and there isn't really a new source of 3DS capture cards at this time. Hopefully the resale values for them won't skyrocket like crazy, but if you're dead set on getting one no matter the cost, aside from second-hand listings, Merki (the European distributor for 3DS capture cards) still have old 3DS XL capture cards in stock, but you'll have to ship your system to them, so the shipping costs might add up.

But for creators who are starting out, if you want to make content using the 3DS, you can either go the homebrew capture route (if your 3DS is of the "New" variety) or just use a smartphone camera, since most can do at least 1080p nowadays. I mean, I got by with using a crappy camera for 6 years. :]

But anyway, hope this gave you a fun little insight into my history of struggling with capturing handheld footage! I think it's a nice example of equipment quality not being the most important thing for creators, even with simple tools and software, you can still make content that's pretty dang good. Even now, my setup is still evolving, and your support means I will be able to improve it through things such as better tripods and microphones, as well as more things of interest to cover, so I must thank you all once again!

If you have any further questions about footage capturing, don't hesitate to ask me. :)

#akfamilyhome words #nintendo 3ds #3ds #3ds capture cards #3ds capture

[socialwicked]

Matt Smith Has Thoughts About House of the Dragon’s Sex Scenes

Screenshot :  HBO 

     For those of you worried about the   Colin Farrell  -led TV  series,  The Penguin ,  don’t be . For those of you worried about HBO’s  Strange Adventures  TV series, do be.   We also have a sweet little teaser for new episodes of    Cuphead    on Netflix. Forth, spoilers!

               Insidious 5    Deadline   reports Patrick Wilson will personally direct the fifth film in the  Insidious  franchise, which will see his character Josh Lambert “head east to drop his son Dalton off at an idyllic, ivy-covered university. However, Dalton’s college dream becomes a nightmare when the repressed demons of his past suddenly return to haunt them both.” Rose Byrne, Ty Simpkins, Sinclair Daniel, Peter Dager, and Hiam Abbass are additionally attached to star.

   Madame Web   Footage from the set of  Madame Web  reveals Dakota Johnson’s version of the character works as an FDNY paramedic. 

   G/O Media may get a commission

             Don’t drop them   Feature a custom acoustic platform for unique and powerfully balanced sound, can use either active noise cancelling or transparency to fit your needs, have three soft ear tip sizes to make them comfortable, and have a battery life of up to eight hours on one charge.  

            The Munsters    Herman and Lily make beautiful music together in a new photo from Rob Zombie’s Instagram.

  T.G.I.F   Time to crank some spooky tunes for the young Munsters in love.    themunsters #robzombie #sherimoonzombie #jeffdanielphillips

        Scoob! Holiday Haunt  Relatedly, producer Tony Cervone revealed his canceled  Scooby-Doo  movie will still record its score.

  So what do you do when the movie is canceled, but you’ve already paid for the stage and the musicians? You record the damn score! #scoobydoo, #scoob, #scoobholidayhaunt

         Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Plantasm   Master Shake jettisons a mutant horde of Carls from an airlock in a new clip from  Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Plantasm . 

       Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Plantasm | FIRST LOOK | Adult Swim Festival 2022 

   Strange Adventures   On a recent episode of his  Hollywood Babble-On podcast (via   Comic Book  ), Kevin Smith confirmed the  Strange Adventures  anthology series at HBO Max has also been officially cancel ed. 

       Kevin Smith Gets Caught in this Week’s Warner Bros. Discovery Moves 

   The Penguin   However,   Deadline   reports  The Batman  spinoff series starring Colin Ferrell’s Penguin is still moving forward and plans to film next February.

   House of the Dragon   Matt Smith was openly critical of  House of the Dragon ’s numerous sex scenes featuring his character, Daemon, in a recent interview with    Rolling Stone    .  

  You do find yourself asking, ‘Do we need  another  sex scene?’ And they’re like, ‘Yeah, we do.’ I guess you have to ask yourself: ‘What are you doing? Are you representing the books, or are you diluting the books to represent the time [we’re living in]?’ And I actually think it’s your job to represent the books truthfully and honestly, as they were written.

  In the same interview, Smith revealed Daemon rides a dragon named Caraxes.

  My dragon’s called Caraxes. He’s a bit of an avatar of Daemon — he’s grumpy, sardonic, insular, volatile, chaotic. There’s a very strong connection between the dragon and the dragonrider.

    Tales of the Walking Dead    Tales of the Walking Dead  does  Naked and Afraid  in the synopsis for its fourth episode, “Amy; Dr. Everett.” 

  In a nature documentary set in the “dead sector” a naturalist who studies walkers encounters a spirited settler; an unlikely respect is forged between the two as the settler tries to argue in favor of people taking back the land from the dead.

  [  Spoiler TV  ]

   Westworld    Westworld  adapts a fatalistic attitude in the trailer for its fourth season finale, “Que Será, Será.”

       Westworld 4×08 Promo “Que Será, Será” (HD) Season Finale 

   The Cuphead Show!   Finally,  Netflix has released a new trailer for the second season of  The Cuphead Show!  premiering August 19. 

       THE CUPHEAD SHOW! New Episodes | Official Trailer | Netflix 

    Banner art by Jim Cook  

  Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest     Marvel     and    Star Wars    releases, what’s next for the     DC Universe on film and TV    , and everything you need to know about    House of the Dragon    and    Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power  .

https://socialwicked.com/matt-smith-has-thoughts-about-house-of-the-dragons-sex-scenes/

#robzombie #sherimoonzombie #jeffdanielphillips #scoobydoo #scoob #scoobholidayhaunt

[anakinh]

favourite music from soundtracks: final fantasy vii (part ii)

#ffedit #gamingedit #ffgraphics #ff7 #ffvii #final fantasy #final fantasy 7 #final fantasy vii #scrfave #mine #minegifs #mineff #birth of a god was supposed to be on pt i of this series but i foolishly wanted to wait for remake pt 2 #so i can get some of that sweet sweet HD footage #but e3 has come and gone and no new info sooooo lmao. i'm impatient #screw it #here ya go #and there might even be a pt iii. video game music peaked at ff7 and it's to my detriment #also i'm not a fan of cid but his theme slaps #making him the one exception to my usual 'if i like their theme i like the character' rule #last thing: The Summoned on part i is actually a remix of Fight On! so i guess it was so good i put it in twice #which is also true of JENOVA. and my entire gifset on owa so lmao #actually post script: technically this is spoilery but this game is a bit older than me so

[stormblessed95]

To me the open shirts tiny chair moment says so much. Tbh I can’t make my eyes see rose bowl as anything more than jk whispering in jm’s ear and then his chin bumping the ear no matter how many times I watch it but omg that bv behind the scenes moment I cannot explaiN as pLaToniC. I get nervous watching it bc it looks too private and romantic. In your opinion, why would editors/big hit choose to include such a scene?

Me side eyeing your rosebowl comment just a little bit. I mean you do you... see whatever you see. We don't all have to agree... but I mean.... honey, his chin? He had that whole ear in his mouth and we watched him drag his mouth off his ear. Lol I'm all about the original content, but I'll just drop this tik tok here that had a very nice zoom in on the ear moment for you....

This is Whispering, followed by ear sucking, followed by a kiss. Lol but I mean.... if you don't see it, I guess you just don't see it. And that's okay 💜

As for why they included the unbuttoned shirt moment? Well it was in the behinds footage, not the original and it was probably included for the sweet moment of Tae giving Jimin his gift he got for him. Nothing illicit happened on camera or was caught on film. It was just sus sus sus when all put together and if you really look at it. Otherwise, it's just a moment of gift giving. Also who knows why big hit includes half the shit they include. Probably because they know they can release rosebowl in HD and half of the fandom will insist he just bumped him with his chin and the other half will say its just because he was comforting him, that's the only reason you suck on ears.... for comfort. Or they think they weren't doing anything, boys will be boys, unbuttoned shirts and snuggles while trying to have alone time is peak bro behavior.... KM get away with doing a lot, they hide behind that ambiguity and they make liberal use out of their glass closet... people see what they want to see, and a lot of people don't want to see romance here for some reason.

#jikook #kookmin #jikook rosebowl moment

[retrosofa]

I know this is late, and I’m sure a lot of you know this by now, but last year I was featured in an episode of Why Did You Come to Japan?.

I went to Japan in February, 2020 for my 30th birthday, and the only thing I really had planned was to see the Cutie Honey Emotional stage play. The YOU crew approached me as I got off the plane. They interviewed me, thought I was interesting, and asked if I’d let them film me. I said yes, as long as they got me a birthday present. They agreed! And they got me a really cute Honey trainer!

The crew was very nice and the overall experience of being a “reality TV star” was fun. They filmed me for three or four days, but only used about eight minutes worth of footage. They filmed me at Nakano Broadway and a couple of other places that they didn’t show in the episode. 

The director originally asked, “Why do you like Cutie Honey? Do you want a girlfriend like her?” and I went “Oh no, I’m gay”. This blew his mind. It was actually pretty funny. He kept asking me what type of man I liked, etc. Ordinarily I’d find this homophobic but it was actually kinda funny. The last day of filming he made sure to have a cute guy act as my interpreter. Hilarious.

Everyone was very respectful and polite. They kept telling me how good my Japanese was (it isn’t). The one interpreter was amazed at how much I knew about old anime. Every time she mentioned a show from her childhood she couldn’t remember, I was able to guess it correctly. They tried to get me to do a few goofy things (like yell “HONEY FLASH!”) but I was too shy. I think they were disappointed at how boring I was.

The coolest thing was that they brought me back stage to meet Kei Jonishi. She was extremely sweet and so pretty! Like an idiot, I forgot to ask for a photograph. The director later send me some screen caps of the footage he couldn’t use, but I had to promise not to show it on social media. I did get her autograph though:

During the meet and greet I was told Go Nagai was coming the next day to see the play. I was kind of heartbroken and almost asked the crew if we could come back. Haha.

Also if anyone knows where I can find an HD rip of my episode, I’d be eternally grateful.

#why did you come to japan #cutie honey #personal #me #I felt the need to story tell lol #I miss japan

[qitwrites]

⬅ Previous || 10 || Next ➡

Some people like to keep up with sports, others love reality TV with a passion, some people voraciously consume anime, and some don’t care much for television.

Kouda is a nature documentary fanatic. The Discovery channel and National Geographic is his shit, his domain, his absolute favorite. He follows plenty of nature related content on YouTube as well, and all the accounts he follows on social media are nature and animal oriented.

He cried so hard the day Steve Irwin died.

The thing is, he’s never met anyone that likes it as much as he does, and that’s honestly ok. He talks to animals and understands them and others don’t, or rather, can’t. They don’t know how sassy pigeons are, how much fish shit-talk amongst themselves, how bugs are actually really smart, or how dogs truly are too good for humans. They don’t know animals and nature the way he does, so he doesn’t mind being alone in this.

He’s used to watching documentaries alone, so when the common room is blissfully empty one weekend afternoon, Kouda pulls up a penguin documentary on Netflix and gets comfortable on the green couch. The documentary is super informative, and the visuals are stunning, especially on the big flat screen with it’s 4k HD resolution. There’s also a side story about a gay penguin couple that he thinks is really cute.

His phone vibrates in his pocket, and he pulls it out to find a message from Satou.

>> What’s up?

                    I’m watching the penguin documentary in the common room! << 

>> Oh sweet! I’ll be there in a sec

Kouda smiles at his phone and goes back to the documentary. He likes Satou, likes being friends with a guy that always smells like a bakery and doesn’t force him to talk or prod about his shyness. They often hang out in each other’s rooms, and it’s always super comfortable.

Satou is down 10 minutes later, a tray of fresh cookies in hand. Kouda offers him a wide smile when he plops into the seat next to him, and they watch the documentary in silence, munching on cookies.

A few minutes later, Kaminari happens to walk by. When he spies the cookies, his face breaks into a wide smile.

‘Satou, can I have one?’

Satou doesn’t even look away from the screen, simply picks up the plate and holds it in the relative direction of the voice. Kaminari grabs a cookie and bites into it, making an appreciative sound.

‘So good,’ he mumbles. He peers up at the screen. ‘What are you guys watching?’

‘Penguin documentary.’

‘Huh.’ Kouda distantly waits to hear the sound of Kaminari’s footsteps as he walks away, but to his surprise, the man takes one of the recliners next to the couch and gets comfy.

Kouda shrugs to himself and goes back to the documentary. When they start doing the migration bit, he gets really into it, and when the segment is over, and none of the penguins have strayed from the pack and died tragically, he releases a breath of relief, and startles when he hears several others.

When he looks around, he finds Tokoyami in the seat next to him. Sero is sitting by Kaminari’s feet, leaning into the blonde’s legs. Uraraka has taken another recliner next to them, and Aoyama is on the other long couch. He hadn’t even realized they were here.

There’s still an hour left on the documentary when Satou gets up and stretches. ‘I’m going to get some snacks, you guys want anything?’

Shouts of just some juice please and more cookies if you’ve got them and chips all the way bro are thrown around, and Kouda just watches everything happen. Satou looks over at him and grins.

‘And you?’

Kouda thinks it over. He finally makes a motion indicating he wants chips too, and Satou gives him a big grin and a thumbs up.

He comes back a few minutes later, arms full of food and passes it around. There’s chatter in the room now, but not so loud that you can’t hear the TV. Things eventually pipe down, and everyone watches the breathtaking ice, the eggs hatching, the penguins swimming and weaving between massive glaciers.

When Kouda looks around again, he sees Bakugou sitting next to Aoyama, Kirishima on the floor between his legs. Even Todoroki is here, sitting next to Sero, while Midoriya sits by Uraraka’s feet. They’ve all got some kind of snacks in their hands, and it’s all warm smiles and wide eyes and soft whispers.

The documentary reaches its climax with more impressive drone footage and some great music, and when the credits start rolling, everyone groans and sits up together, stretching out their joints.

‘That was awesome!’ Kaminari says with a huge grin.

‘Yeah, when you texted Guys gay penguins come to the common room on the group, I was really confused,’ Kirishima laughs.

‘I’ve read about the gay penguin couple in New York that are currently fostering a new hatchling,’ Midoriya pitches in. ‘They’re doing really well apparently!’

A few more people join in that conversation, and Kouda is just… baffled. He’s never had people talk so much about his favorite thing, never had people show this much interest in a documentary he watched. Because nature documentaries don’t have big explosions and fight scenes. They aren’t super romantic or filled with drama or very trendy. They were informative, and visually stunning, and calming.

‘Put it on the group next time,’ Uraraka says to him, ‘so we can all prep some snacks and join in from the beginning!’

Even Bakugou says, ‘Oye, send me the name of the documentary, I want to catch the parts I missed.’

Kouda nods and puts it up on the group immediately. Everyone slowly starts trickling away, and Kouda needs a minute to just process.

‘You good?’ Satou asks, holding up a glass of water. Kouda accepts it gratefully and takes a few careful sips.

Because for some reason he really wants to cry. For some reason his heart is so full.

And when he puts up a tentative message 2 weeks later saying There’s a new documentary on snow leopards on their group and Kaminari replies with Dibs on the single couch and half of Satou’s cookies his heart squeezes in a way he’s never felt before.

He thinks its honestly quite nice.

#boku no hero academia #bnha #my hero academia #bnha: thicker than blood #kouda kouji #satou rikidou #class 1a shenanigans #class 1-a headcanons #fluff #so much fluff dammit #this week on thicker than blood #lets talk about penguin docs #this was my friends idea #and i think its so cute honestly #i dont write kouda or satou ever so its a bit harder to envision their feelings but it was fun! #also i miss steve irwin guys #what a legend he made my childhood so much better

[heybaetae]

please, how do i make bright and colourful gifs not look ugly and grainy? when my gifs have that ugly graininess i prefer to make them darker instead of investing more time in other colouring, do you have any tips for that? please? also, what you're doing helping everyone just shows how sweet and nice you are. thank you so much for helping us ♡

sky, i think everything you make is so great!!!! i never see any grain in your stuff, but i'm assuming it's because you don't post it if there's too much. i get what you mean, sometimes the quality of something you wanna make bright just AIN'T IT. and since i personally don't use vapoursynth to make gifs like a lot of creators on here do, i don't have the luxury of using denoise if i ever need it (which definitely helps with that to a certain degree). i've tried using that program, but that method is just not for me. if you look really closely, all my gifs have some grain/noise in them. i personally like how that looks even if it means my gifs don't look as HD as someone who might have used denoise in vapoursynth. i don't mind a bit of that texture as long as it looks sharp!

but even if you still struggle with grain—what makes a gif look grainy can have a lot to do with the amount of brightening you're doing even if the footage is high quality. adding brightness adds noise no matter what, so in order to minimize that, i focus on darkening the black points in curves. and with selective coloring i always push the black slider (under the black tab) up a couple notches to darken any areas that might have grain when i go to save the gif later on. another tip is lowering the saturation of any colors that aren't prominent in your gif at all. in the hue/saturation adjustment, if you play around with the color tabs and lower the saturation of some of them that don't make any difference to your gif, that minimizes the amount of colors in your gif overall and reduces the grain when you go to save it. also! the exposure adjustment layer is an underrated tool. lowering the middle slider (offset) the tiniest bit will darken the black points even more. it's all about verrrry small adjustments to reduce grain. i hope some of these tips help you!! it's hit or miss sometimes

#ask #gif help

[d-nghy-ck]

tag game: the interview. 

tagged by: @neonun-au | @jaemxxi | @magicalara MWAH! 

tagging (I am not sure who has done this so if you have already, ily have a wonderful day): @hchan | @hotdogct | @hyuckdove | @hyuckles-chuckles​ | @infnteen | @jungwooisms | @kopikokun​ | @m88n​ | @nctsworld | @neocitycafe | @sunflowerforhaechan | @taeyongs-star-earring | @zhongriot | and anyone else!! would love to hear from ya 

1. Why did you choose your url?

I wanted something simple and sleek, and I have Donghyuck tunnel vision. It came easily :) 

2. Any side blogs? If you have them, name them and why you have them?

I will only talk about one two at the moment: 

@hy-ck , my new gif blog! 

And by extension, check out the new network! For visual content creators and those who are fans of visual content alike: @haechannet

I’ll just stop while I’m ahead hahaha I have 14 blogs that contain content :’) 

3. How long have you been on Tumblr?

Since 2009? It’s been a WHILE. 

4. Do you have a queue tag? 

Nope! Can’t be arsed. 

5. Why did you start your blog in the first place?

I was bored on the metro and had to express somewhere just how much the Coming Home MV made me want comforting, warm Hyuck hugs ahaha. Also, the “Up to You” collab by NCT Dream/Pretty Much got my brain revving. 

6. Why did you choose your icon / pfp? 

BOOM HYUCK HOT.... SO HOT god oh my god

I’m.... hhhhhhh I... ggggghhhh 

[ credit ] <-- seriously, do yourself a favor and visit. I go to this blog like monthly to remind myself that I’m alive. 

7. Why did you choose your header?

SEASON’S GREETINGS HYUCK HOT 

BLACK TURTLENECK HYUCK HOT

I also revisit the footage of this photoshoot monthly to remind myself that blood pumps through my veins. I got my hands on the HD footage of it and I just...... [holds hands to the sky] I think it’s my favorite content of anything ever. 

GOODDDD nothing will ever top it 

8. What's your post with the most notes?

[ Silk ] has 1.3k+ right now! You h0rny fuqers 

9. How many mutuals do you have?

I define mutuals as people I talk to privately and know by name, not necessarily including people I follow who follow back. We have to talk first! That being said, I talk on and off with maybe 20 friends here! I’m so sorry if I haven’t gotten to your DMs recently, life has been a lot and my brain is pudding and I am the perfect example of an introvert these days

10. How many followers do you have?

On this blog, about 1,800 ...!!!

11. How many people do you follow?

77 ... and half of them are old archives, so honestly my dash experience is so refined. Sweet bliss. Any friends I don’t follow, I prefer to check manually! My dash is just super geared towards visual content / NCT updates rather than writing these days. 

12. Have you ever made a shitpost?

Oh definitely, usually during comebacks at some point I have a mental breakdown over how badly I wanna kiss someone all over HAHAHA. I know From Home was a particularly rough time for me in that regard sjhfgasd 

13. How often do you use Tumblr each day?

All the time, but honestly, I’m never really on it, it’s just something I do with my hands while I’m multitasking while chatting with people on discord, giffing, cooking, etc.! Just pick up where I left off, scroll a little, laugh at something, realize I’m burning my stir fry, set it down, repeat. 

14. Do you like tag games?

I love being tagged so that I can read what my friends are up to! These days it takes me forever to do them, though ^^’

15. Do you like ask games?

I love talking, if I have the energy for it in the moment! I prompt one once per season, maybe, haha. But I LOOOVE participating when my friends have them!! 

16. Which of your mutuals do you think is Tumblr famous?

Tumblr fame doesn’t mean anything (and can be rather debilitating tbh), but I can guarantee my closest mutuals are incredibly quality people and I love them so much, regardless of how many clicks they get. 

17. Do you have a crush on a mutual?

Obviously ;) 

#thank you to everyone for always tagging me in games. i've just been an occupied / lost in my own world -introvert lately #ily all

[soviet-history-detective]

What is the cost of not respecting boundaries?

(For those who haven’t seen, Part 1 and Part 2) A quick rundown for the people who are wondering what’s going on: Hello, folks. I am one of the leading Chernobyl/Legasov researchers who runs this youtube channel. I found the audio fragments of Legasov tapes which became quite a hit and received praise from Craig Mazin. Legasov tapes, which the migty HBO couldn’t find with their Russian-speaking consultants and millions of dollars of budget. I found rare photos and pre-Chernobyl videos of Legasov, translated a substantial amount of documentary material on Soviet near history topics, a good chunk of that being on Legasov and Chernobyl.  I am a live and let live kind of person and I was willing to look the other way with the Valoris shipping business cause “they were shipping the tv show characters and fangirling about the actors” so I ignored it and posted historical information, answered questions, unearthed and translated documentary videos and text material.   Then I abruptly stopped and went quiet cause the shipper gang went too far and started writing gross shit, rape fantasies and dragging real people who weren’t even in the tv show into their godawful fics -one of them being someone I highly admire, respect and look up as an inspiration and role model notwithstanding. 

They didn’t stick to Valoris, they had to involve the people who were not in the script at all. People whose names they learned from me. They had the audacity to discuss their fucked up fantasies (which they call headcanons) right under my nose, they couldn’t control themselves since they are completely driven by base animal instincts and some of them are downright sociopaths with no boundaries: Rabid and depraved, driven only by the primitive sexual instincts, with a two digit IQ, no understanding of boundaries, ethics, morals, completely bereft of common respect and decency. It’s creepy as hell -run for the hills kind of creepy.  (When I say no ethics and morals I don’t mean only sexual perversions. One of them is notorious for plagiarizing other people’s content in multiple social media platforms and acting indifferent when called out.) So I got creeped out, grossed out, infuriated, disillusioned and went quiet. Blocked everyone who was associated with Valoris to avoid their gross thirst talks. Blocked the tag too. Stopped posting new finds after the last Legasov video compilation. Stopped translating videos and text material for a long while.

They are way past normal shipping. This is some seriously fucked up shit.  Here are a couple of examples (Warning: Gross content, rape fantasies, scroll past the images and continue reading below if you can’t stomach or are a minor)

Here is more rape:

Their biggest argument is “We are writing fics about the fictionalized tv show characters” which is total and utter bullshit, because:

Nikolai Ryzhkov was not in the tv show at all.

Neither was Vladimir Gubarev. Why are they in those fics?

This isn’t all, there are public posts here where they were bouncing ideas and coming up with the most abhorrent fantasies about a real person who was NOT in the tv show. I don’t have the time to search them, plus they are really gross, you are better off not seeing it. (A paranthesis here: I’m totally indifferent about explicit fics if they involve only fictional characters and not promote rape culture. Just to make things clear.)

If you are using the names of real people, you are shipping real people. Period. I can write a fic using the shipper gang’s names in an alternate reality setting where they are an evil gang of cannibalistic cunts who raid maternity wards and butcher all the babies then burn puppies ad kittens alive for fun. Or I can write a fic where they all get sodomized with saguaro cacti dipped in ghost pepper sauce by sadistic rogue KGB agents. It’s fictionalized versions of them in an alternate universe after all, so it’s totally ok. Right? Well, there really is no point arguing these things, and that is not even the point of this post. I’m just saying it’s fucked up, creepy and wrong in every way. 

Not to mention they bully and gaslight people who speak up against them. Grown ass women bullying a 15 year old and adding a transphobic comment after learning they are trans is NOT COOL. @ihatefandomsfuckyouall can testify as the target of their bullying. That’s wrong and creepy as hell. 

HOWEVER. Like I said in the previous post, this won’t be about a holy jihad against shipping or some big anti-shipper crusade.  Nope, nope and nope with nope sauce.

Ship away, ship all you want, ship till you drop, ship till you turn Fedex green with envy. I am not here to lecture sociopaths driven solely by primitive sexual instincts and bereft of any kind of boundaries, morals, common respect and decency. There is nothing I or anyone can do about it. Like i said, I have no intention of trying to talk sense into anyone or giving sermons. So rest assured that I am well aware it’s pointless and stupid to wage a war against shipping, however gross and vile it is. I can’t stop you from sexualizing anything that walks (or has been long dead) and spewing sick ass fantasies. I will repeat for those with two digit IQ: I know there is nothing I or anyone can do to stop you from doing what you are doing, absolutely nothing. So I will do NOTHING. Got it? Whoever claims otherwise is full of shit, I will do absolutely NOTHING, you got my word 100%.

Seriously I won’t hate on you, I won’t call for holy wars and witch hunts. So, rest assured, I will not make any move against any of you, nope. Besides I don’t have the time for that, I have a busy life and better things to do. No war, no hate, no screaming, no drama, nothing. Is that clear? Capiche? Comprende? Понятно? 

Well, now let’s get to the heart of the matter:

I have been quiet but not idle. I’ve been contacting people, sending queries, making phone calls, digging state archive repositories. I have been finding material and boy did I find material! I happen to be one of the very few people who are blessed with an extraordinary ability to find things no one else can find. You have seen what I can find by utilizing search engines and going through links. Even Craig Mazin himself was mighty impressed with my finds, the proof is out there in public view, I won’t bother digging it up now.

Anyway. It turns out I can find hell of a lot more than that by contacting people, sending queries, making phone calls and digging through state archive repositories. Some of it costs pretty penny but no matter, I don’t mind paying for never-before-published video footage that is not on the internet. Some of it is not even digitized so you gotta pay extra fee for digitization and it can be quite high depending on the video length and media.

We are talking about HD videos here. There is excellent AI video processing software out there which can turn even the most primitive 19th century videos to crystal clear 60 fps HD so we are good. (Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HbElEqm1TQ) I have photos that can’t be found by searching the internet. You’d drop dead if you saw some of them. I’m working on getting the full footage of Legasov’s IAEA presentation. It’s hella difficult, you have to personally go to Vienna and go through the seven hells and seven lower hells to obtain access. Also you need to be a research scientist with a reference letter. (All this info and list of requirements can be found on IAEA official site.) I won’t get into the details but I have it all sorted out, scientist and all. It wasn’t easy and it took a damn lot of time, effort, pulling family connections etc. Now the only remaining roadblock is this accursed coronavirus. As soon as the pandemic subsides a trip to Vienna shall be in order. The long Q&A session following Legasov’s report is unfortunately not available, but Legasov’s report certainly is (after fulfilling a laundry list of requirements.)

This is not all. There are photos (in addition to the publicly available ones I posted before) and video footage of Ryzhkov visiting Chernobyl, Legasov’s meetings, partial video of one Polituro meeting. There is this one precious footage where Legasov is laughing and drinking vodka. I won’t even say how many hours of work it took to find that. (Plot twist: I’m not the one who found it!) I have a pile of videos of Ryzhkov when he was the chairman of the council of ministers of the USSR, which are historical records of tremendous importance and not on Youtube. Buddies who have seen them had insta-man crush on him without even hearing my translation. Some of you would KILL for those, I know for a fact. For the Legasov drinking-partying video you would sell your soul to the devil (who wouldn’t?)

I have an IAEA report with an extremely rare photo you can’t find by searching. I won’t tell you who is in it cause I don’t want to supply anything you could use for your gross fics. Suffices to say one of them is someone you are drooling about and the other one is a big shot name that’s not on your radar and will unleash all kinds of fic ideas once you hear it. So nope. I ain’t giving you another Ryzhkov, I learned my lesson. I have video footage of that same man giving high praise to Legasov, talking with a tone of fondness, defending him against accusations. Such a sweet video. It put tears in my eyes. I can see you gang drooling a lake over that one so hell fucking no.  

Did I mention I started translating Legasov documentaries? Every single one on youtube. Including the entire Звезда Полынь. Also planning to convert some Legasov footage to HD using the aforementioned software tools. 

I have actually been posting videos and text material translations left and right, just out of your sight (nice rhyme, isn’t it?) 90% the material I listed above is either in the pipeline or in my hard disk.  @tryingtobealwaystrying can verify. She helped out a great deal with the IAEA business and I owe her one for that. We are both individually damn good at finding stuff but it turned out we can work wonders as a team. As a result, we have a treasure trove of the highest order in hand and in the works. 

And, here is the deal: YOU WILL SEE NONE OF IT.

N.O.N.E.

Not a shred. Not a pixel. Nothing. Ничего. Совсем нет. 

Get it now? “You didn’t see it cause it’s not there!” 

You won’t see it cause it won’t be there! 

So, this is it. I can’t do anything about your shipping scumbaggery but I can cut off your supply and deprive you of material and information. You will NEVER be able to find any of it on your own (let alone afford the fees for.) 

I will deprive you of the fruits of my labor. 

Indefinitely.

Of course that doesn’t mean I’ll keep it all to myself. I will share them but not in public. In fact I have translated and posted some videos you wanted real bad, one of them got 1000 views overnight but they are not public, for my work is not for the eyes of the wicked and unclean miscreants. I post them in shipper-free foreign forums you can’t find and send links privately to decent, wholesome people who are interested in Chernobyl and Soviet history for the passion to learn and admiration for the historical figures, not for spinning depraved fantasies and writing horrendous, projectile-vomit-inducing sex fics. And -as those of you who possess three digit IQ’s might have figured out!- I am not alone in that. (Plot twist FTW!)  Congrats, folks. You managed to alienate and drive away the top Chernobyl-Legasov researchers and translators with your hideous debauchery, extreme scumbaggery and abominable attitude. So, this is your punishment: NOTHING. This is the consequence you will deal with. This is the cost of your choices. 

A big nothing is all you will ever get from now on. 

See, told ya, there is absolutely nothing I can do about your gross shipping and scumbaggery so I will do NOTHING. 

Got the joke? LOL. I have awesome humor don’t I :) 

No more videos. No more photos. No more answers. No more translations. No more information.

You royally fucked up, people. You don’t get to eat the cake and the icing, especially not when you offend and insult the cooks, take a dump in the middle of the restaurant and masturbate while rolling in it. You could have kept it out of sight. You could have exercised some goddamn tact. But no, you had to behave like animals in heat. 

Well, you can continue obsessing over the TV show scripts until you get sick of it.  I will be posting translations of different parts of Soviet history like the WW2 era. You can ship Hitler and Stalin all you want. Get those headcanons rolling! I will even give you a prompt: Stalin cheats on Hitler with Mussolini. LMAO. 

You know what, I take back the not a pixel thing. We may post screenshots from the videos and low-res crops from the photos from time to time just to rub it in your face. 

Here is one where they are grilling Velikhov shortly after Legasov’s suicide. Oh boy you gotta see his face when they start bombarding him about Legasov’s death.... 

Here is the shot from a long video where the legendary Premier Ryzhkov is sporting the legendary 80′s Soviet glasses in all his superlative handsome glory. He is giving an interview about important historical turning points in this video and this isn’t even the best shot. You have to pay to get a copy but before that you need a superpower-like ability to find where it is in the first place. I scaled it up to 1440×1080 but not gonna put the high resolution version cause I’m such a darling.

  Here is Ryzhkov in the famous white work attire of the Soviet era. Looks familiar, yes? Do I need to tell WHERE he is and what he is doing? (Hint: The year is 1986.)

Oh man, oh man. How worried he looks, so heart-wrenching. The footage is only about 3 minutes but absolutely solid gold. I won’t say whether there is Legasov or Scherbina or BOTH of them appearing in this footage cause I’m such a sweetheart.

Unfortunately I am not at liberty to post any Legasov shots cause I am not the finder of the Legasov videos we currently have at hand. Too bad, so sad.  There you go. Enjoy your cold dish of nothing. Bon appetite. Adios amigas!  WHAT IS THE COST OF NOT RESPECTING BOUNDARIES? @tryingtobealwaystrying​ @the--arch @ihatefandomsfuckyouall​ @rarravai​ @weronikaisback​ @live-long-and-time-warp​ @tryingtobealwaystrying​ @chernobylgal86​ 

#chernobyl #valery legasov #legasov #boris scherbina #valoris #chernobyl nuclear disaster #Soviet History #soviet union #ussr #shippers take all the fun out of life #like cockroaches in the picnic #this is why we cant have nice things #ACCESS DENIED #NO SOUP FOR YOU

[muthaz-rapapa]

PreCure stock footage

More pointless ponderings.

This is a comparison count of all the recurring attack animation sequences (meaning excluding one-time attacks) we’ve seen so far in Precure’s tv series. Done mainly because I wanted the numbers all on one page. :P

Of course, as I haven’t watched all the seasons (Futari to Splash Star) and my memory is crap, this should not be considered accurate. So any help correcting would be appreciated.

Originally, this was supposed to focus only on sub-attacks but that term’s definition seems to vary widely from season to season. So let’s not confuse ourselves with what counts as a “finisher” and what doesn’t and just stick with the general words “stock footage”.

Futari wa [3?] - Marble Screw, Rainbow Therapy, Rainbow Storm

I’m reading here on the wiki that Rainbow Therapy is “hardly used”...I don’t really know what that means, hence the question mark if it counts as a recurring attack or not.

I also don’t want to include upgraded attacks as separate entries if there are hardly any significant differences between the original and the upgraded one (like StarPre’s) but when I compare it to Marble Screw...it seems okay in my book? Since I haven’t watched this season, I’m not confident enough to make the final call so I will leave it at 3 for now.

Futari wa Max Heart [2?] - Heartiel Action, Extreme Luminario

Alright, Marble Screw Max is pretty much the same as the original with a little extra tacked onto the end. So technically, if there’s nothing else I’m missing, the count for this season should be 2. But still gonna leave room for debate.

Splash Star [3?] - Twin Stream Splash, Spiral Heart Splash (2)

The two versions of Spiral Heart Splash are distinct enough from each other to count as separate.

Spiral Heart Splash Star is a one-time, final boss group attack so not gonna include it.

Yes! 5 [7]

Individual Attacks [6] - Dream Attack, Crystal Shoot, Rouge Fire/Burning, Lemonade Flash/Shining, Mint Protection/Shield, Aqua Stream/Tornado

Group Attacks [1]: Five Explosion

Yes! 5 GoGo [7]

Individual Attacks [6] - Shooting Star, Fire Strike, Prism Chain, Emerald Saucer, Sapphire Arrow, Milky Rose Blizzard/Metal Blizzard

Group Attacks [1]: Rainbow Rose Explosion

Fresh [5]

Individual Attacks [4] - Love Sunshine Fresh, Espoir Shower Fresh, Healing Prayer Fresh, Happiness Hurricane

Group Attacks [1]: Lucky Clover Grand Finale

Not going to include Triple Fresh since it’s just a mash-up of three individual attacks.

Heartcatch [10?]

Individual Attacks [7?] - Pink Forte Wave, Blossom Shower, Blue Forte Wave, Marine Shoot, Gold Forte Burst, Sunshine Flash, Silver Forte Wave

Group Attacks [3?] - Floral Power Fortissimo, Shining Fortissimo, Heartcatch Orchestra

This is where things start to get confusing with the introduction of sub-attacks. I’ve only included Blossom Shower, Marine Shoot and Sunshine Flash because it’s obvious they were meant to be shown as a set for the initial trio while everything else was done in real time.

And after debating about the Fortissimo ones, I decided that I’ll keep Shining as its own entry for now. Not quite happy about it (Shining is just old attacks laid out on top of one another with some minor new animation in between) but it doesn’t seem entirely right to call it just an upgrade either......I dunno.

Suite [10]

Individual Attacks [7] - Music Rondo (2), Miracle Heart Arpeggio, Fantastic Piacere, Heartful Beat Rock, Sparkling Shower, Shining Circle

Group Attacks [3] - Passionato Harmony, Music Rondo Super Quartet, Suite Session Ensemble/Crescendo

...I think Suite has everyone else beat on having attacks with the longest names.

also, it’s a travesty that there is no HD video of Session Ensemble uploaded to youtube.

Smile [7]

Individual Attacks [5] - Happy Shower, Sunny Fire, Peace Thunder, March Shoot, Beauty Blizzard

Group Attacks [2] - Rainbow Healing, Rainbow Burst/Royal/Ultra

Can’t remember how often the upgraded individual attacks were used but to my knowledge, there are no stock footage for those anyways.

DokiPre [17]

Individual Attacks [14] - My Sweet Heart, Heart Shoot, Heart Dynamite, Twinkle Diamond, Diamond Shower, Diamond Swirkle, Rosetta Reflection, Rosetta Wall, Rosetta Balloon, Holy Sword, Sparkle Sword, Sword Hurricane, Ace Shot, Ace Mirror Flash

Group Attacks [3] - Lovely Force Arrow, Lovely Straight Flush, Royal Lovely Straight Flush

*whistles* Quite a jump in number of unique attacks. Just wait till HaCha.

HaCha [20]

Individual Attacks [17] - Pinky Love Shoot, Passion Dynamite, Poppin’ Sonic Attack, Lovely Powerful Kiss, Blue Happy Shoot, Arabesque Shower, Hawaiian Alohaloe, Princess Windy Wink, Sparkling Baton Attack, Ribbon Heart Explosion, Maracas Rhythm Spark, Honey Temptation, Stardust Shoot, Starlight Ascension, Oriental Dream, Sakura Blizzard Dance, Emerald Illusion

Group Attacks [3] - Twin Miracle Power Shoot, Happiness Big Bang, Innocent Purification

Oh yea, if this wasn’t stock footage-restricted, HaCha would still go home with the prize and the cake because of the sheer number of sub-attacks not listed here.

Go!Pri [18]

Individual Attacks [14] - Floral Tourbillon, Rose/Lys Tourbillon, Sakura Turbulence, Mermaid Ripple, Frozen/Bubble Ripple, Coral Maelstrom, Twinkle Humming, Full Moon/Meteor Humming, Galaxy Chorus, Phoenix Blaze, Scarlet Illusion, Scarlet Spark, Scarlet Flame, Scarlet Prominence

Group Attacks [4] - Trinity Lumiere, Trinity Explosion, Eclat Espoir, Grand Printemps

A lot of the secondary attacks are essentially the same thing but with different effects. Scarlet Spark and Flame almost look identical but the movements diverge once the attack is released so I consider them distinct from there.

Trinity Lumiere and Trinity Explosion would’ve been under just one entry, too, but the CGI animation leading up to the attack are different.

MahoPre [9]

Individual Attacks [4] - Linkle Stone Spells (Miracle ver, Magical ver, Felice ver), Emerald Reincarnation

Group Attacks [5] - Diamond Eternal, Ruby Passionale, Sapphire Smartish, Topaz Esperanza, Extreme Rainbow

I’m glad that I changed it from sub-attacks to simply stock footage. Counting the same animation sequence thrice would just make my head spin worser.

KiraPre [10]

Individual Attacks [7] - Whip Decoration, Custard Illusion, Gelato Shake, Macaron Julienne, Chocolat Aromase, Un - Deux - Tres Bien! Kirakuru Rainbow, Parfait Étoile

Group Attacks [3] - Three-2-Wonderful A La Mode, Animal Go Round, Fantastic Animale

Hugtto [13]

Individual Attacks [9] - Heart For You, Flower Shoot, Heart Feather, Feather Blast, Heart Star, Star Slash, Heart Song & Dance, Macherie Poppin’, Amour Rock n’ Roll

Group Attacks [4] - Trinity Concert, Twin Love Rock Beat, Cheerful Attack, Tomorrow with Everyone

I know Heart Song and Heart Dance can be standalone attacks but since we didn’t get to see much of either of them before Macherie and Amour got their Twin Love Guitars not long after, then I count them as one. Also, Macherie and Amour are considered as one Cure split into two anyway so there’s that.

StarPre [8]

Individual Attacks [6] - Star Punch, Milky Shock, Soleil Shoot, Selene Arrow, Rainbow Splash, Cosmos Shining

Group Attacks [2] - Southern Cross Shot, Star Twinkle Imagination

Again, how ironic is it that the season that touts the theme of imagination has the least creative stock footage across all variations in their attack arsenal?

HealPre [tbd]

Individual Attacks [4?] - Healing Flower, Healing Stream, Healing Flash, Healing Hurricane

Group Attacks [1+] - Healing Oasis

Since the secondary elemental bottles barely have any animation sequence and don’t even include the Cures in them, they won’t be counted. 

That said, with the upcoming super form upgrade (new promo art has already been released), we know there will be one more group attack to be added. I suspect there might be another upgraded version of that super group attack as well so perhaps a total of 6 formal attack sequences for HealPre altogether.

Unless they plan to give the Cures individual attacks with that...needle arrow weapon whatever it is but I somewhat doubt it.....we’ll see.

~~~~~~~~~~

Season with the most attack sequences: HaCha [20] Season with the most individual attack sequences: Hacha [17] Season with the most group attack sequences: MahoPre [5]

Top 5 Seasons w/greatest total # of attack sequences: HaCha [20], Go!Pri [18], DokiPre [17], Hugtto [13], Heartcatch/Suite/KiraPre [10]

Again, if I’m missing anything, let me know.

----------------------

Updated 9/10/20

#precure #categorizing precure

[keelywolfe]

FIC: Reaction Shots, ch.3 (baon)

Summary:   Still in the aftermath of the events of ‘Any Other Tuesday’.

Notes: Time for another POV! This time we are looking from Red’s POV. Yeah, good luck with that. Lookout for the kustard in this one!

Tags: Spicyhoney, Original Undertale Characters, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Prejudice Against Monsters, Violence, Injury, Prejudice from Police Officers, LV issues, Kustard

part of the ‘by any other name’ series.

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2

~~*~~

Read Chapter 3 on AO3

or

Read it here!

~~*~~

Red

No one could’ve dragged it out of him, not even with pliers, but Red was exhausted and that was a fact.

Didn’t matter, not a fucking jot or tittle. Not like it was the first time he’d gone without sleep. Once this shit was finished, he’d go down but until then? He’d learned years ago how to use his magic to shore him up when he was flagging. Both he and the idiot twins had magic in spades, and if those two never bothered to figure out how to use it right, well, Red wasn’t interested in demonstrating. He had a handle on this.

After he returned the Blueberry’s car, keys left in the ignition for him to bitch about later, Red stopped back at his place for a coupla things. He made a point of walking, even if he was bitchin’ tired. Shortcuts ate up magic and he needed all he could spare. He already had another car lined up to borrow, that was next on his list.

Turned out that choosing not to teleport was a mistake, but what could you do? His hindsight had always needed glasses.

“so where do you think you’re off to?”

Red stopped, briefly closing his sockets. Sans hadn’t asked permission before coming into his house for a couple months now, not since their little spat.

Spat, yeah, that was a good name for it. More like someone forcing a choice that he hadn’t wanted to make, but Sans…well, Sans was a fucking asshole.

The real problem was that Red had a thing for assholes, hell, he’d mostly raised one. Assholes were handy dandy, so long as they were facing the other way.

Red didn’t need any fucking liabilities, thanks. It was enough of a pain in the ass to look after Edge’s and no matter what Sans said, trying to play it off like it wasn’t like that, didn’t change anything, did it.

That smirking asshole was his own personal albatross and now Red got to lug him around. The bitch of it was, that sometimes? He didn’t even mind.

Today was not one of those fucking times.

He turned, taking in Sans’s lazy sprawl on his sofa, for all the world like he was on the Titanic just waiting to strip off so someone could draw his nudey shot. But see, Red knew better than to believe that shit. Those pale eye lights didn’t miss much, Sans was a shit and an asshole, but he was on the ball.

Where was he off to? Please, like they both didn’t know where he was headed and what he had planned. Sans might not that the details but he knew, same way he knew that Red’s soul was cobwebbed with cracks, LV or no. He saw, like Stretch did. Like Red did.

They always knew too much when they wanted to; only difference was that lately, Stretch didn’t go looking very often. That was honestly okay by Red, kept him out of trouble.

But Sans knew, of course he fucking knew. Only question was whether or not he was gonna let Red play it off. “aw, you worryin’ about me, sweets? i’m heading in to work is all.”

“you can’t kill them.”

Welp, that was a pretty clear no. Red sighed and made a mental note to delete all of his living room recordings. They were locked down with triple redundancies, but no such thing as too careful, now was there.

“can’t?” Red said, lightly. “thought we were pretty clear last time about my cans and can’ts.”

That was the deal they’d settled on with pinkie swears and spitting in palms, the works. They could fuck exclusively, no outside players, and Sans didn’t have to keep it a secret anymore so long as he didn’t hire a sky writer or some shit. But that was it, there was none of that telling each other what to do bullshit, no fuzzy bunnies and matching outfits.

Well. Not more than they already matched, anyway.

Sans didn’t look particularly moved by that, and yeah, none of ‘em liked to break a promise. Didn’t mean they wouldn’t squeeze around it if they could find some wiggle room. “i get the urge, but you gotta let this one play out. last time, i get it. he was threatening a lotta people, that game needed called. these assholes though? it was just a few drunk guys pulling stupid shit.”

“stupid shit?” Red said, low. “that what we’re callin’ attempted murder these days?”

He looked hard at Sans, at that face, similar and yet not to his own. “it wasn’t just a coupla drunk guys, those fuckers aren't even from ebott. they came in from out of town special for this, all ready for dinner and a show. they were lookin’ for a couple of monsters to fuck over.”

Sans didn’t so much as flinch and yeah, that was how Red ended up in his pants to begin with. Stupid fucker, almost suicidal tendencies, really, ‘cause he didn’t get involved until he did, and when Sans was in, you better believe it was for 110%.

“yeah, and you need to stop planning some of your own stupid shit right now,” Sans said, cool as a drink of water. “they need to go to court. it’s shitty, but we need this publicity. i don’t want to wait for someone to get dusted before they actually make attacking monsters a real hate crime, with real consequences.”

“they would have killed stretch. they almost killed andy.”

That was the flat fucking truth of it, didn’t even get into the rest of the trouble it caused. He’d seen the cell phone footage, all of it. None of ‘em had a clear shot of Stretch healing Andy and the ones that came dangerously close were taken care of before they even hit YouTube. That had been the important part, making sure no one with an agenda and any mad scientist tendencies in ‘em got their hands on it…or on Stretch.

They’d all had their fill of that kind of shit, thanks, and the buffet was closed.

“would have. almost. didn’t. you can’t fix this that way. not yet.”

And wasn’t it chuckilicious that Sans was right? Because he was, Red knew he was. Antwan has been busting his balls for months on proposals for the criminality on hate crimes against Monsters, being that it was a fuckton more dangerous than a lil’ human on human action. Humans bled, Monsters died, and that was a fact. This was almost a fucked up blessing in disguise, really, but—

—that wobbly cell phone footage. The kid laying there, bleeding on the ground, the shock on his face, on Antwan’s face, and his bro, the cold fury in his sockets and he had it covered, he did, might have killed those fuckers right there if Stretch hadn't said something and he had LV, would always have LV, he protected what was his, shouldn’t have to but he did, and so did Red…

Sans only sat there like he was waiting on some tea and fucking scones. No pity on that face, no sympathy, only maybe a shred of understanding, but Red got the picture in crystal-clear HD. Sans wasn’t going to let him do anything; he’d put in the effort this time to stop him, and that…would not end well.

It took Red a sec to sort through his internal sarcasm files but in the end, he settled on grudging honesty. “i can’t just sit here.”

Neither of them had the capacity to not smile, but wasn’t nothing stopping their smirks from widening and Sansy’s did. “well, see, i knew that, dollface. why do you think i’m here?”

The way he licked his teeth made a lotta dirty promises and wet dreams seem like a possible raunchy reality.

Wellie, well well. Sans was a shit and an asshole, but he wasn’t half-bad as a distraction, too.

Beneath that bulky hoodie were sleek bones, not quite as stocky as his own, Sans wasn’t a battle-ready model. He was more delicate, more fragile. Almost pretty.

Fucking liabilities.

And as Red pushed Sans down on the sofa, most of his thoughts were on those bones and that mouth doing a damn fine Hoover impression. But there was a dark corner set aside, in the same place that Stretch kept his math brain and Sans kept his tech one. Red’s quirk was planning, yeah, and that never turned off.

All right, so he couldn’t kill them. But what no one could see wasn’t gonna be a problem. A little pain tended to build character and Red was in the mood for a little karmic retribution.

-finis-

#spicyhoney #papcest #keelywolfe #underfell #underswap #underfell papyrus #underswap papyrus #by any other name #kustard

[smartphonenews-blog1]

Now regardless what brand we’re talking about: there’s always this sweet spot. The place where price and quality meet in the right proportions. When the Umidigi Z Pro was launched, it was far from this sweet spot. In fact, eventhough it had a fast processor and two decent camera sensors built in it was a dissaster!

And it was a dissaster happening at anything but a convenient time. His predecessor the UMi Z was just getting horrible press due to swollen batteries, an OTA software update that led the phone to brick completely and the always absent customer support of UMi/ Umidigi. In short: Not a good year for the UMi Company.

In fact one might come to the conclusion it was such a bad year that they even decided to rebrand. The name Umidigi appeared and with it the newest (or first so you will) Umidigi “flagship” the Umidigi Z Pro. Launched just a couple of months after the UMi Z, there was hardly any change to notice from the outside. Except the UMi Z made it look like it had two rear camera’s when in fact one of the two was the (tremendously failing) laser focus lens.The Z Pro came with two actual rear camera’s. In fact it sports the very decent Sony IMX258 sensors which have known to produce stunning results…

But sadly, in other brands phones! Because the Umidigi software buffs and engineers somehow didn’t manage to produce similar quality pictures and videos. However it might have been, considering the high quality camera sensors, the Mediatek Helio X27 (one of the fastest processors out there those days) and the 4000 mAh battery Umidigi dubbed the Z Pro their latest “flagship” and slapped a price-tag between 250 to 275 euro on the device. Since they were obviously in a hurry to rebrand, the Z Pro had to launch quickly, thus leaving an entire first generation customers to be beta-testers. Paying beta-testers even!

  So much for the history of the Umidigi Z Pro. Now, like I said in the very beginning there is this sweet spot, when price and what you get for it are just in the right proportion. Well since Umidigi is launching a new “flagship” like every forthnight these days there has been a price drop. This means you can order the Umidigi Z Pro for anywhere between 129 and 150 euro now. But wait a minute? Why would I want to buy a bugprone phone that had the worst of press even if its half the original price now? If that’s the question you’re about to ask then read on. I will try to explain:

First let’s address some of the complaints about the original, first batch of Umidigi Z Pro phones. The battery life was terrible 3.5 to 4 hrs SoT, even though it was packing a 4000mAh battery. The camera had focus issues, and some customers were only able to use the monochrome camera if the wanted to shoot anything besides macro shots. It wasn’t able to view HD YouTube or Netflix feeds, which even last year, was rather sad. And the fingerprint scanner would respond randomly if at all. And ofcourse many cases of freezing. When we look at this severe list of problems we can conclude two things. The first obviously being the fact this phone should in NO WAY have been released already. And secondly: Given the quality of materials used (Sony Camera, Samsung RAM etc etc) and the mentioned list one can conclude the problem is in the software!

And this is the good news! Simply because most of those things can be fixed with software updates. And they did! Now let’s jump to 2018 and find that as soon as you start the phone up it offers you several OTA updates. Now truth be told it’s always a feeling like russian roulette to agree to an Umidigi update, but in the case of the Z Pro they were actually useful, and working flawlessly! So now, we have this light aluminium gun greyish body. A beautiful 2.5D screen with an oleophobic layer that’s running on Android 7.1, and that immediately impoved the battery life. So now it’s actually useable. Which is nice. They also improved the performance of the camera and some other bugs and glitches have been taken care of. So now, is it a perfect phone?

No, it’s not, but it’s a decent phone for a 140 euro price and it comes in this cool metal box, with this cool red charger cable. It’s got an iPhone 7 Plus/ OnePlus 5 vibe going on, and you can tell all your buddies your phone has a tencore chip. It might sound sarcastic and ofcourse I am, but truth is every thing looks slick and well build. The problem here was and remains the software. That being said with the updates installed, the Umidigi Z Pro is a pretty decent phone at it’s price. It runs on a Helio X27 decacore processor coupled with 4GB of RAM. Yet it’s impossible to get over 96K on the AnTuTu benchmark out of it.

Thanks to the update to Android Nougat the fingerprint scanner is flawless and fast and it’s able to hold the charge for 5 to 6 hours which again, is not what you would expect of a 4000mAh battery. But it’s almost twice as long as before the update, so definitely an improvement. Gaming is no problem on the Umidigi Z Pro and it can handle most of the games without any graphical problems. What I did notice though was the temperature of the phone is constantly very high. This hasn’t lead to any problems in the two weeks I used it. Maybe it can be related to the placement of the chipset.

Then, there is the camera. It certainly has improved after the update, but it still has some flaws too. Flaws that I personally would find inexcuseable in a 250-buck-flagship-phone, but are perfectly willing to deal with at a 130-140 euro price tag. The two main cons I consider to be the low light performance, that is … basically absent. Which might not sound like a big deal since a lot oof budget phones have trouble in low light. But here’s the thing: A) devices are getting better and anno 2018 even (some) low budget phones can shoot decent footage in the dark. And B) These phone don’t have a build-in camera option named “SUPER NIGHT MODE”. Correct me if I’m wrong, but that sounds promising. But the results are just migraine inducing, look at these examples:

These pics are supposed to be shot in “Super Night Mode” You judge….

  Another thing on the camera of the Umidigi Z Pro is the dynamic range. At moments it’s perfectly on top of things. Yet shoot a second picture just seconds later and it’s a proper mess. Another equally mysterious phenomenon is the bokeh- or portrait mode. In one picture it seperates subject from the background just perfectly, the next shot is a mess again. Luckily it has an option to refocus after the shot has been taken. This can make up for some of the software’s mistakes, but sometimes even refocussing won’t help you out. Let me show you some “highlights” of dual camera missers:

Here you can see the camera struggling. Dynamic range is not the best

Some examples of bokeh software not knowing what to do

So, what you are saying it’s an okay  phone for it’s price that’s well build, it just doesn’t have a good camera…right? Well… No. See and this is what did my head in reviewing this smartphone, it is able to shoot some incredible looking pictures. The monochrome mode is just stunning, and I was able to make some lovely shots with it. If the conditions are right it’s a great camera. Just make sure you’re always making more than one picture of whatever you want to save. It has a zoom-option that also is great to use. The shutter speed is absolutely fantastic and I was able to catch my kids jumping in mid-air on several occassions. So no complaints there.

Lovely Monochrome shot

Okay portait shot

And even a good one

  But as soon as the lights go low, you might as well forget you’re even carrying a camera. Unless your using the flash you can forget anything will turn out other than grainy and blurry. Video camera, same problems. The colours, the sharpness..everything looks great, but there’s no continuous auto focus meaning you have to tap the screen every time you move. And it lacks any form of stabilisation, so better not breathe or footage will be shaky. If you dont move and have steady hands however, the camera shoots lovely pictures. So you see my problem here? For every pro there is a con and the other way around. And that goes for everything. No joke.

Take the speaker, volume is way above average, great in a noisy environment, unfortunately the sound quality is below mediocre. The fast charger is a fast charger, yet it charges other 4000mAh phones FASTER than the phone it came with: The Umidigi Z Pro. That being said, it charges fast enough to not be annoying, but you know, it’s all those little tiny things together that still make me not sure. One thing I am sure of is the price drop was a great move and much more fitting to the phone. Would I recommend it? That depends on who’s asking. Are you not a heavy use but1.) still want a phone that has a good build and is not too slow? 2.) looking for a good, modern looking phone in the iPhone/OnePlus-look  The Umidigi Z Pro might be a great phone for you.

If however you are a heavy user and want more than a 50-60% succes rate when taking pictures, you might want to skip the Umidigi Z Pro altogether. After all  heavy use and a relatively fast heating chip usually aren’t the best of friends in the long end. Just consider the fact you might also get a Meizu M6S or a Nubia M2 for the same price, those might be better alternatives.  As always I conclude with some picture samples shot on the Umidigi Z Pro. Enjoy.

  The Umidigi Z Pro: Failing Flagship to decent Budget Phone Now regardless what brand we're talking about: there's always this sweet spot. The place where price and quality meet in the right proportions.

#Android #Dual Camera #Flagship #Price Drop #Sony IMX258 #Umidigi #Umidigi Z Pro

[ebestlaptop]

Acer Predator Helios 300 Review 2020

This is the acer predator helios 300. there's a lot of names in there isn't it so this is their mid-tier gaming laptop the nitro 5 in the 15 inch size would be the entry level model this one sits in the middle and then of course there are more expensive helios models like the helios 500 so this one has a lot to offer though for the price it starts around 1200 with an rtx 2060 and an intel core i7 10 gen cpu we have the rtx 2070 max q model which is around fifteen hundred dollars you might find it on sale for less but for that money you get a metal lid you get fast 240 hertz refresh display pretty good calling on this and it's quite relatively speaking for our gaming laptop thin and light we're going to look at it now and now a shout out to our sponsor wondershare and their demo creator and this is for windows and it's also coming for mac you know i tried it and i actually really like it what is it it's the screen capture and video editing utility so you know what a screen capture is so you need to record say gaming like we do a lot of gaming footage to show you how well laptops like this perform so you can do that but not just that the video editor is really very simple to use it's pretty intuitive it reminds me of imovie a little bit i think anybody can learn it so you record your clips and you can do things like split your clips put in transitions put in title screens you can change the playback speed you can crop it you can choose the resolution but you've got things like annotation or you can put a little fireworks going in the video which is something you certainly don't usually see in a caption utility also it's obviously great for things like training software demos if you're a teacher and you have to make lessons for school that sort of thing be sure to check out the link in the description to get a hold of it it's very affordable in fact there's even a free version that has a watermark on it unlike the paid version of it and now back to our video so confession i actually don't mind gaming laptops that look like gaming laptops as long as they look kind of cool well cool to my eyes obviously the predator tries to look a little more chill you've got anodized matte black aluminum on the lid but you do get those blue stripes hey instead of red anyway and the logo the logo the logo looks so cheap it looks like a piece of plastic just glommed right on there kind of takes away from the looks which is too bad but it's a little more toned down than the nitro which is also kind of a chill matte black but it has a reddish sort of reddish accents well you can see we'll put them both on screen for you now so you can compare the nitro is around a thousand dollars with an rtx 2060 and a core i7 so it is about 200 less than the entry level predator of course the nitro is all plastic and our predator helios has a more robust cooling system which is always important for gaming laptop and of course that 240 hertz ips map three millisecond refresh display there is a base model which is 144 hertz which is still nothing to sneeze at and speaking of the display actually the metrics are pretty good we checked it out with our colorimeter it's a little brighter than average for a gaming laptop they typically aren't very bright so it was over 300 nits by a good amount there and pretty good color gamut so that's a nice self for something that is again mid tier usually in gaming laptops the display is what takes the hit they don't get the greatest quality displays so this one's better than average which could be nice for those who are thinking of using this for content creation photo editing video editing doing some 3d blender work or something like that inside we have an intel 10th gen core i7 6 core cpu we have two ram slots so you could in theory you should be able to go up to 64 gigs though acer only mentions going up to 32 gigs this ddr4 ram rs has 16 gigs they sell dual challenge configurations in 16 and 32 gigs you have not just the m.2 boot SSD drive which is nvme and benchmark pretty well on ours but you also have a hard drive bay even if you buy a configuration that doesn't have a two and a half inch hard drive the brackets in place and they include the connector cable that you need to put that in for yourself which is sweet the cooling system on this is relatively speaking again in this price to your pretty robust and i think that helps because this is fairly thin and light acer says it's five and a half pounds which is 2.5 kilograms but ours actually measured a little bit less than that so yeah go then i when playing games yes if you're playing triple a titles on ultra settings or full hd resolution which is exactly what we do in our tests that you see running on screen well yes it will thermal throttle but a hundred millivolt undervolted using throttle stop no problem that brings it down eight degrees centigrade you can see the temperature difference right now in one game where i was actually under vaulting it but still for something this didn't like the temperatures are not that bad especially in this price tier and again for those who like to fiddle and tinker and all that sort of thing with things like under vaulting you can do that they have the acer predator sense app as always on this and you can do things like give these gpu a mild overclock set your fan speeds manually if you want certainly that could help with cooling speaking of the fans not terribly loud i mean it's a gaming laptop yes you will hear them when you're doing things like gaming or if you're doing a complex render in blender or something like that but not that loud so there is certainly thermal room there for going even higher they also have the turbo button built and keyboard deck there and that one basically does the gpu overclock sets the power profile to high performance and blasts the fans some probably most people don't want to get that loud either you might get about five percent more performance improvement by doing that but yeah if you get this play with the fan profiles on this and do a little under vaulting and good times especially for the price once again has a microsoft precision trackpad no complaints with that that keyboard is a four zone rgb backlit we don't expect per key rgb backlighting at this price point uh the keys are a little on the soft and mushy side pretty decent travel but i would like them to be a little bit firmer and a little bit crisper it's not a hideous keyboard or anything like that though but you know if you like that crispy kind of firm keyboard this one would not be it speaking of the internals again there is a second nvme SSD slot and it is possible to set up two drives in raid 0 if you want to do that acer mentions thunderbolt 3 for some of the configurations others i think just have usbc but the rest of the ports on here are pretty hardy you've got killer ethernet by the way you also have killer wi-fi 6 on board which is an intel based card so that's good but you've got plenty of usb a ports you got three of those you got your mini display port 1.4 in addition to the hdmi 2.0 so yeah it's pretty well equipped and obviously a headphone jack when it comes to the speakers they're average they're not so great they're not so terrible and again fitting for this price range there's dolby dts x ultra software there so if you're playing plugging in a set of surround sound speakers or something like that you can get some pretty nice audio out of it and even your headphone audio quality is quite fine on this but speakers you're right that's about it it has a 59 watt hour battery which is you know this is how they get them thin and they get them light folks in this price tier so that's not a very big battery it's a little bit bigger than you would see in an ultrabook but there's obviously a lot more horsepower going on here to consume it we do have nvidia optimus switchable graphics no g-sync by the way but so that's going to help if you're doing light work you're just streaming video or something like that or working in office then it's going to run on integrated graphics but still you don't expect a whole lot of battery life out of this you know about four hours on a charge doing light work i don't mean really pushing it hard and doing 3d renders or something like that our max q2070 card came with a 230 watt charger i assume that you probably get 180 watt charger for the lesser configuration with a 20 60 inside speaking of that 2070 max q yes the max q version of the car which does help us run less hard but the performance is exactly where you would expect it to be which is to say that 2070 max q is not mid-range it's getting into upper tier there so you can play any game on the market now on ultra settings and certainly have frame rates that exceed 60 frames per second on this and given that you have a fast refresh display if you're using it for something more like battle royale or apex legends you know those kind of things you can easily go into the hundreds in your frame rate with this which is sweet you're not going to overrun the 240 hertz display but maybe with something even lighter less demanding like overwatch you just might come closer to that so it punches above its weight there and if you're thinking about future games like cyberpunk 2077's coming out soon this should be able to handle absolutely no problem okay the bottom cover is plastic unlike the lid that is metal and that means real tight fit unfortunately phillips head screws to unscrew it that part's easy start at the front edge and notice that the front edge is a wraparound kind of thing so you see that so that's how that works so you have to get that off first and then you go around the size and then the back also wraps around so just so you can see where the separation point is because it might be a little confusing because of all the little grille decor so that entire thing comes off and then we finally get inside it's not much fun folks but you can do it we have speaker vents on the side plenty of ventilation over here for the cpu and gpu and the fans and uh so there's our battery again 59 watt hour not really terribly big two ram slots we have dual channel memory there 16 gigs in our model the speakers are flanking over here they're pretty small and that's why well the sound is pretty small on this and nice heat sinks see all this is not some teeny-weeny little thing we've got a lot of component coverage here so that does help it run relatively speaking for a gaming laptop with an intel 10gen cpu not too hot and here is our boot ssd we got a 512 gig in ours and right next to it is the killer wi-fi card that's the 1650i wi-fi six card based on intel hardware and there is a second ssd slot over here this is where the ssd would plug in it's kind of a tight fit there but hey and the hard drive bay visible and we've got the the mounting hardware there even though we don't have a drive and again the cable that's required to connect the drive to the motherboard is in the box so that's the acer predator helios the 2020 edition with intel 10th generation cpus and in our case the rtx 2070 max-q gpu but even if you get the rtx 2060 it's no slouch and you'll still be able to play games on high or ultra settings at the full hd resolution in this panel for the price it's not bad it competes obviously with things like the dell g5 msi's mid-range gaming laptops but as always i think acer really does a good job with the low to mid end the gaming laptop front

#Acer Predator Helios 300 #Acer Predator Helios 300 review #gaming laptop #acer gaming laptop

[productreviewsamazon-blog]

Stockocity 2 Review ֠25,000 Professional HD Stock Videos

Get your copy here:  https://reviewsarena.net/stockcity

Video Transcript:

Hi it’s sergio from solid web tools welcome to my Stockocity 2 to review in this video I’m gonna cover what Stockocity 2 – is and who it’s for I’ll go over all the pricing and the launch dates I’ll cover all the features and benefits and I’ll go over my exclusive bonuses that you’ll get when you buy a Stockocity 2 through my link below now before I get started with the review I recommend you stay through to the end because I have some exclusive bonuses that I’m throwing in specifically for Stockocity 2 – and you’re not gonna want to miss these one of them is a is normally a paid bonus you’re gonna pay for it to get it and I’m gonna throw it in for free I’ll get to those in a minute though let me go ahead and get through my review and I’ll go ahead and go over all not only although bonuses that I got from the vendor but also my exclusive bonuses ok so here we are on my stock off city to review page so what is stock off city – well stock off city – is the largest collection of stock videos available on the market today it consists of a full HD library containing over 25,000 stock videos that can be used for any type of video marketing whether it be for backgrounds intros and outros or video teasers this collection of stock videos has you covered not only does it contain every type of stock video imaginable but they all come in four popular sizes from web 426 by 240 all the way up to HD 1920 by 1080 so who’s this for this vast collection of stock video can be used by anyone who is doing any kind of video marketing from creating video reviews to incorporating a call to action in a promotional video to running video ads the sky truly is the limit with such an enormous amount of videos to choose from if you are currently running any type of video marketing or are considering it in the future then I would highly recommend you grab this offer while it’s still on early bird promotion these videos will definitely help you to maximize your profits through video marketing see my stock asana to review video to see the exclusive bonuses that you get when you purchase stock ah city 2 through my link below okay so pricing and lunch dates the product is stock ah city to and for 2495 you’ll get six thousand HD footage videos plus an early-bird bonus of five hundred videos so you want to get in there early to make sure you get those five hundred videos as soon as they launch there’s three different ot O’s oto one is for stock OCT 2 pro and for $37 they’ll give you an upgrade to 18 thousand HD videos plus an early-bird bonus of a thousand videos oto two is for a stock AUSA t1 plus time-warp and basically for 47 dollars which you get there is over 8000 videos from stock off CD 1 which was the original stock ah city and all of the front end and oto 1 videos and then there’s an OTO 3 and that’s for stock a CD 2 reseller so for $67 to 127 dollars depending on which package you get you basically get reseller rights first lock off city – with a hundred percent commission as follows so for 27 license they’ll charge you $67 for 50 licenses will charge you $97 and for 500 licenses that charge you one hundred and twenty seven dollars now as far as I can tell the best deal is the five hundred licenses not because it’s the most expensive but if you look at 50 licenses for almost 100 you get ten times that for just what thirty dollars more so that’s it’s much better deal if you ask me anyways the launch date is February 15th 2018 and the launch time is 10 a.m.So again you want to get in the early to make sure you get those early bird early bird bonuses for the extra videos okay so stock ah City two features and benefits well the first benefit is there’s no monthly fee all you pay is the one-time front end cost of stock off city two and you have access to the entire video library there will be a seventy five new full HD videos added to the platform every single month for the first 24 months that’s pretty cool so when you get into you got two years of extra videos coming into your your library which is which is nice let’s see stock video can be used with Camtasia videoscribe easy sketch Pro video maker FX PowerPoint ScreenFlow and many more so basically all of the popular video creation software is out there for a full list of features and benefits just click on the link below to be taken to the sales page where you’ll see also or you’ll also see a demo so you might want to click over to the sales page so you can see everything you get plus watch a little demo they have on there on the on the sales page as far as common uses for stock videos well there honestly there’s they’re used for pretty much everything as far as the video market is concerned but I got a little list here for you they’re used for video intros video outros explainer videos JV partner videos special offer videos testimonial videos real estate videos lead generation videos caught action videos tutorial videos promotional videos corporate brand videos lead generation videos sales videos affiliate review videos and many many more let’s see here let’s go down to the bonuses now basically and I’m gonna be I’m gonna be honest with you here there’s a bunch of bonuses here on my page let’s see here there’s eight and then there’s my exclusive ones the first eight I would imagine you get with pretty much anyone promoting stock OCT to because these bonuses were given to me by the vendor and i would imagine he gave give them up to pretty much anyone who requested bonuses from him so i’ll go over these first and they’ll cover my exclusive ones that you can only get when you buy through my link vendor bonus um and i enabled i labeled an offender bonus number one i don’t want to mislead anybody you know have anybody think you know wow you know sergio is giving out all these bonuses no you know honestly these were given to me by the vendor so i label them as such so anyways vendor bonus number one you get two hundred and forty extra HD video backgrounds for a limited time there including an additional two hundred forty HD video backgrounds so that’s video bonus number one sorry vendor vendor bonus number two youtube marketing made easy so it’s a complete training series to marketing success on youtube it’s actually pretty good i iced saw it myself and i was i was pretty impressed they got some really good tips on their vendor bonus number three they giving you YouTube ads made easy boost your traffic generation efforts and get the most out of YouTube advertising for your business that’s a whole course on YouTube ads vendor bonus number four social media income this thirty-six video training shows how to profit from the most popular social media platforms so if you want to mark it on social media it’s a good course to do to have video vendor bonus number five editing video for free and web video production for non professionals web video production for the rest of us and learn how to edit videos for free so basically it’s it’s a video editing software that they’re giving away for free and it’s web video production for non-professional it’s a little course to show you how to how to create how to produce your own videos vendor bonus number six they’re giving you 240 royalty-free music tracks for a limited time so you’ve got some music tracks to go along with your with your stock videos vendor bonus number seven they’re giving a thousand royalty free stock images so for a limited time you get a thousand royalty-free pictures images that you can use in your videos or on your advertising vendor bonus number eight they’re giving a designer developer rights so for the first time there including designer developer rights at no extra cost so those are the eight vendor bonuses you’ll get when you buy through my link and I would imagine many other marketers out there that are promoting this product however I wanted to give you something special when you buy through my link so I’m giving you an extra exclusive three bonuses that I think are pretty sweet deals the first one is Auto Video Creator now this software makes video creation easy no need for PowerPoint Camtasia or any other expensive video editors this has everything you need and it will even talk for you so the the software will you type up a script import it into the software and it will read it back to you so it’s kind of cool if you don’t want to actually read or talk into your videos you just right at the script you know say you have an accent or you know English is your first language then this this software will actually translate anything you you script up and type into it it will actually say it for you will speak it out for you so the reason I wanted to throw this in is because you go back up here on my review and you’ll see that you know the stock videos can be used on Camtasia video scribe easy scratch pro video maker FX PowerPoint ScreenFlow and many more however most of these are not free you’ve got a you know you got to get you’re gonna purchase Camtasia you got a purchase video scribe you got a purchase video sketch Pro and they’re not very cheap to be honest with you so I wanted to give you something free that you can use as an alternative hence Auto Video Creator my exclusive bonus number two easy video sales pages this is an easy to use software that creates high converting sales pages using a powerful method that turns visitors into customers every time so you can use the stock videos that you’re gonna get from a stock off city in this sales page creator very cool and it creates some really nice nice video sales pages by the way five you actually used it quite often and my exclusive bonus number three you’re getting videos now videos normally sells for thirty seven dollars or sixty seven dollars depending on the license you buy you can verify that up vidneos calm as a matter of fact let me go ahead and show you because I don’t like to I wouldn’t want you to think that I’m not being upfront with you okay so here we are on the videos whoa Todd here we are on the videos calm as you can see their webpage this is the sales page and you can check it out if you want it’s videos calm if you scroll all the way down you will see that for one license it’s thirty seven dollars you can only install one on one computer and for what they’re called the developer’s license or the VA license virtual assistant you can install it on unlimited amount of computers and that’s for sixty seven dollars so depending on the license you buy inside there’s thirty seven dollars or sixty seven dollars and I am giving it to you for free basically what is it well that you can research create analyze optimize and backlink your videos all from within one place this software will help you to rank your videos on page one of the Google and YouTube search results it’s a very powerful software I have used it a number of times and I really really like it I’ve had some great success with it I wanted to throw it in here as an extra bonus for you guys if you pick up stock off city to through my link I’ll make sure that it’s available I have to check out and that’s pretty much it so those are my three exclusive bonuses plus all of the other bonuses hope you enjoyed this video hope you enjoyed the review you have any questions or concerns reach out to me let me know otherwise I’ll go ahead and wrap up this video well I want to thank you for watching my stock off city to review go ahead now and click on the link below to purchase stock ah city to through my link and receive my exclusive bonuses and as always if you have any questions or concerns you can contact me at solid web tools comm forward slash contact. Get Stockocity 2 today!

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