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familyagrestefanblog · 3 years

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Ml Meta analysis: Adriens current absents, season 4 structure and theory on whats to come

Here I am back again with my endless rambling.

I'm just as worried for our cat son as everyone else (maybe even more) which is why I tried figuring out for my own sanity why he is so absent currently.

Upfront I wanna warn yall that I wrote this post in one rush this night and therefore had no time to do alot of editing. So things can probably get a bit more messy than usual but I tried to write it clearly, while writing 2 other ml essays as well. This is the one drawback of having so many episodes in such a short time, I have no time to write my posts x3 I had another theory planned for before Optigami airs but I don't think I can manage before tomorrow.

But let's not waste any more time. Grab a snack and here we go:

It's 2am right now but I think I just realized why Adrien/Chat Noir is being sidelined so much recently.

Sure, yes, it'll come into play in the very obviously set up Ladynoir drama later on but what I wanna talk about now is more the structure of how s4 is most likely written in terms of both Marinettes and Adriens side of the story. And then deep dive a little on why I think so.

You see season 4 is now reaping what has been built up from s1-s3, but this also includes that you have to take the time now to properly recreate the new possibilities out of the loose pieces of the broken status quo.

Seriously, season 4 has to handle and reinvent ALOT. The show got now officially announced to have 7 seasons, which is exactly the amount of seasons Astruc said they have story for. I couldnt find the official tweet from Thomas himself but I one from another source:

And now look take a look at the possible shows structure:

- s1-s3 was the first status quo and built up everything so now they can pay off after pay off while...

-... S4 is now the transitional season where the old status quo gets left behind as we work towards the new one.

-I have nothing to proof this of course, but in the same sense it would now make sense that s5-s7 where/are planned to play out under the final status quo. If I'm not wrong at first the show was under contract for 5 seasons, which would mean that after the transitional season 4 there was only 1 season of the final status quo for sure. Still, done right it could have been worth the wait. But this isn't where Miraculous will end. The show actually got the 7 seasons the creator wanted and THIS is how I think the long term plan makes the most sense. Nothing all too complicated but still hella effective in its execution.

But now back to our two main characters, because Marinettes and Adriens development are the two aspects that will raise the show to the intense heights of the s5-s7 status quo.

From s1-s3 Marinette was the active player but she was hardly involved with the actual PLOT of the show, since most of the plot and backstory of the show lies directly with the Agreste family. She only started to get her own plot when she literally created a new one by getting involved with the miraculous lore, because the closest Marinette got to the Agreste plot was "The collector".

Adrien in the other hand was always literally right in the middle of the plot but he wasn't enough of an active player to bring us further either.

Season 4 is now going to add the missing parts for both of them and as the very beginning of the season showed us: there are going to do it SEPERATLY.

This is why "Truth" and "Lies" have been structured the way they are (One Marinette-centric the other Adrien-centric). Yes, Marinette and Adrien are meant to end their story victoriously together, but they are simply not the people they have to be to become such a powerful team. Certain aspects of their journey they have to do... basically disconnected from the other one. The "Miracle Queen" endcard shows it quite nicely as well where they are heading now: away from each other.

Obviously the season started with Marinette growing into her new guardian status including everything miraculous related, since she is the main lead and because the new ways the episodes can now utilize everything Miraculous need to be established first before we deep dive into the messed up Agreste mystery.

So while I totally agree that it is annoying to get so little Adrien/Chat Noir content currently I also understand the practicality behind it. As I said, before s4 Marinette was the active main character who mostly didn't really have her own plot. So now adding her plot aspect and have her ACTIVELY figure everything needed out means that right now Marinette/Ladybug is the active focus main character who is solving a huge part of her s4 character arc. That simply drowns out Adrien as the currently still mostly-inactive secondary main character who, yes, may be right in the middle of the shows emotional + villain plot/lore/backstory, but that side of the story simply isn't in focus at the moment.

And I gotta say, I'm kinda glad they're doing it this way. Because I'm gonna be honest, when the season starts giving us Adrien/family Agreste episodes like "Lies" and "The collector" (in this case "Gabriel Agreste" for example) again, I don't want the narrative to be forced to spend time with something guardian lore based just because they didn't took their time to do it earlier.

So, as we see on the s4 episode raster "Gabriel Agreste" is episode 9. Honestly, I expect most of it (especially the ones near the beginning, so ep. 5 included) til that episode to be Marinette based the way everything else til now did (besides Lies obviously and Guilt trip didn't hardcore focus on Marinette/Ladybug either and that's because it's after "Gabriel Agreste") in the spirit of "Truth". It's just the needed set up from Marinettes side of the story and I can live with that.

Because we actually saw the change after "Gabriel Agreste" already in "Guilt trip".

I don't know why some people pretend like Chat almost cataclysming himself after hearing how guilt-eaten Nino is for Adriens sake isn't a huge indicator that the episodes afterwards will not only acknowledge but also DEAL with Adriens/Chats situation and problems. Remember, we are talking about CHAT NOIR here not Adrien Agreste. The show has always portrayed and acknowledged ADRIENS issues very straight forward and with the proper seriousness (especially when it comes to his family), whereas Chat Noir was often mostly used for comedic purposes with some exceptions of his problems being properly delt with (since Marinette/Ladybug was mostly oblivious to them, since Adrien keeps them hidden so well). But now in "Guilt trip" LADYBUG was confronted head-on with just how much negativity Chat has inside and how quickly and extremely he drowns in it.

Sure, correct, the episode also has his negativity "washed away" rather quickly by Ladybug opening up to him on how important he is to her

But this is in character for both of them as "Lies" very clearly showed us that the way BOTH OF THEM behave here is where the problem lies. There Ladybug was freaked out after Chat threw his life away once again but quickly accepted Chats very direct avoidance of the confrontation, since he seemed to be alright to her.

Something I also find noteworthy here is that Ladybugs dialog is "Seriously, you need to stop doing this to me!", which is.... a VERY Marinette-centric way of acknowledging the problem.

It completely shifts the issue away from Adriens extremely alarming self-harmful/suicidal tendencies and instead only calls out how it affects Marinette (whose feelings here are definitely valid, don't get me wrong!). It showcases perfectly how unaware Marinette still is of her partners inner tumult at that point and also parallels how Marinette called Adriens life "perfect" at the beginning of the episode (This is no shade towards Marinette, in general the entirety of "Lies" is about showing us just how harmful Adriens Chat Noir persona actually IS to him so these two moments of her being oblivious to Adriens and Chats immense problems very much fits into that episodes narrative and sets up what's about to come. I still have an entire essay in the making for "Lies" but, guys, it's just getting longer and longer. I suck xD).

So the fact that an episode after "Gabriel Agreste" brings this scenario back, just a little different but ALOT more revealing of Adriens immense problems to his partner, is VERY telling. Besides other things it tells us that this happens at the beginning of the arc that deals with (at least) Chats issues since Ladybug is still way too quickly too ready to accept her partner as "completely fine" again just because Chat makes it seem that way (while some negativity increasing guilt bubbles still to stick to him.).

And yet, others have already pointed it out that Ladybug IS noticing what Chat wanted to do and reacted accordingly...

she just didn't speak of it the way it is because it overwhelmed her, which calls back to Ladybugs "You have to stop doing this to me!" dialog.( For a great breakdown of her dialog HERE is a link to @flightfoot post)

In "Lies" Marinette was way too stressed by her new guardian role to even consider Chats side of it and therefore only spoke of her own, but in "Guilt trip" she's already past that stressful arc. So here she is immediately able to recognize Chats suicidal action for what it is, come to his (much needed) aid and lift her partners spirit the best she can by emotionally opening up to him (which is something we KNOW is incredibly hart for Marinette).

The difference between her reaction in "Lies" and in "Guilt trip" shows that Marinette has her guardian role already mostly handled and is now mentally able to be there for others again, so the extremely Marinette-centric "Truth"-like episodes are mostly passed. Now the episodes can bring Adrien/Chat Noir more into the game again and even shift to "Lies" - like episodes because MARINETTE can pay more attention to him again and isn't faced with something new, important and overwhelming Miraculous related every step she takes.

And THAT is extremely fair from a narrative standpoint.

---

I really need to stop elaborating so much on these posts because I'm only NOW actually getting to the point of where Adriens journey will disconnect for a while from Ladybugs. Sorry guys.

Okay, to understand where I'm going with this I will have to quickly explain how I always saw Chat Noirs place in the Ladybug+Chat Noir vs Hawkmoth war ever since s1.

Because here is the thing: Adrien wasn't able to truly leave the battle field ONCE since the origins. Marinette was completely out of Hawkmoths and Gabriels reach once she detransformed, which balances out her basically being the personification of the good sides force. And Gabriel literally decided whenever or not the battle is even ACTIVE right now! Besides that he is in complete control of his own actions and environment, which gives him all the necessary time, safety and downtime he needs to act as the personification of the evil sides force.

Marinette and Gabriel always knew when they were safe and off the battle field, but ADRIEN never had that and it left him LITERALLY right in the middle of both Ladybugs and Hawkmoths sides.

You see, because before Adrien became Chat Noir he basically was part of Hawkmoths side just by default. He was born into this family, that's his father and lost mother and everything he knows. Adrien didn't/doesn't even have to KNOW that he is part of Hawkmoths side, he's his son at some level he just IS! And I'm not saying this as anything negative, Adrien coming from Hawkmoths side is literally the reason why he became Chat Noir!

Because whereas Gabriel is having the time of his damn life as evil terrorist, created out of tragic and sinister circumstances, ADRIEN on the other hand couldn't handle his families environment and very same circumstances anymore and accepted the role as Paris' hero to escape his heritage for a while.

Keywords being: a WHILE.

Something unique about Adrien I always loved is the fact that he is the villains abused, isolated and overworked SON, who becomes a hero to escape his depressing life and YET it was never Adriens intention to LEAVE IT. Adrien merely wanted to use his time as Chat Noir to let of some steam and breath freely while doing some hero work so he can go back into his civilian life and try to one day successfully ment his broken family. He couldn't handle the current situation anymore but he still always saw worth in his family/father. I have SO MUCH respect for that!

But him not intending to leave his family and instead regaining strength as Chat Noir to continue to hold onto it came with the downside of him not being able to fully become part of the good sides people/force either. Hence why Adriens/Chats place always felt so lost in comparison to Ladybugs and Hawkmoths clear positions. He's caught in between their extremes trying to balance out BOTH at the same time. What an impossible task!

So he couldn't put in the same focus as Ladybug into being the good sides force because he is literally burned out from his civilian life on Hawkmoths evil side. But he also couldn't be involved as an ACTIVE member of his fathers evil force, because he chose to find refuge in his friends and as a hero on Ladybugs side.

Adrien unknowingly is part of BOTH the shows two extreme moral sides of good and evil and this season we will see Adrien/Chat Noir grow into his own within BOTH sides as well.

Because he simply couldn't have done so right away in s1. Now after 3 seasons Chat Noir is more than solidly established as one of Paris Heros and his time with Ladybug, the other heros and his normal friends helped him greatly to find his place on the good side. "Lies" set this up as Chat Noirs arcs starting point that now he has to stop connecting "being heroic" strictly with following Ladybug (as Marinette is the STAND IN personification for the good side, she's still a flawed human being like everyone else and not the ultimate force of perfect and good. Big difference.) just as he has to start looking past his fathers sympathetic moments/qualities to see that Hawkmoth isn't a 100%, inhumane monster just because he is the stand-in personification of evil in their fight, but the man he calls Father and still needs to be taken down. (I talked about this in more detail on THIS post)

Adrien has to seperat himself from Ladybugs path and focus on his family and I believe it'll start with the much dreaded (but expected) Ladynoir fight.

Funnily enough, what I'm talking about was actually already set up in "Frozer" I just didn't remember that for a bit. In "Frozer" we saw Ladynoir having a fight which caused Chat Noir to go his own way in the episodes battle.

I always found it interesting that the episode didn't had Chats decision, to not follow Ladybugs lead here, turn out to be a huge mistake. Almost every other show would have done so but now I think I understand. This episode and s2 in general SET UP the s4 conflict, s3 LEAD UP to it and now s4 DELIVERS it.

So what happened in "Frozer" is a direct parallel to what about to go down:

Ladynoirs fight will cause Chat Noir to not simply follow Ladybugs side anymore the way he used to, but note, he DOESN'T leave the good side AND they make up again in the end after Chat saves Ladybug from the akuma. He just does things on his own because he isn't on great terms with her for a while. "Frozer" showed Chats decision to not only NOT be a mistake but also a necessary part of defeating the akuma, just the way it'll be in s4. Damn, Adrien breaking away from Ladybugs side, the way she (unintentionally tho) did at the beginning of the season, to focus more on himself and his family will be the game changing factor, when Adrien will have his completing arc where he goes from "not active character within the villain/backstory plot" to "ACTIVE character within the villain/backstory plot".

And we already saw with Marinette how many fast breakthroughs we get through these completing arcs. Which is also a reason for why Adriens/ Chats arc comes later in the season, because BUDDY. Once Adrien starts to actively uncover his families mystery and fathers secrets Gabriel is SCREWED! Adrien will gain the needed inside knowledge that complements Marinettes Miraculous power; and reunited they can take on whatever the hell kind of scale the Agrestes plan actually is.

So how to end this post? My biggest intention was to raise hope for everybody (myself included lol) who is right now very concerned and upset about how side-lined our boy is at the moment. But I prefer doing so in a way that actually works with canons context instead of sugarcoating what I don't like. And Adriens/Chats current position I definitely do NOT like but accepting it as realistic outcome from s1-s3 and set up for the escalation for both Ladynoir and his home situation gives it the proper purpose and pay off (narrative and character wise) that it SHOULD have.

Basically, the endcards of "Truth" and "Lies" show it perfectly.

It looks like ShadowMoth is turning a blind eye towards Adrien/Chat Noir because of Ladybugs new guardian status and "greater importance". But Gabriels tunnel vision on Ladybug will leave him vulnerable to his own sons secret actions against him and Gabriel won't see it coming until its already too late.

#Miraculous #Miraculous ladybug #ml theory #ml analysis #ml season 4 #ml show structure #Adrien Agreste #marinette dupain chang #Gabriel Agreste #Chat Noir #Ladybug #Hawkmoth #ml forshadowing

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nikadoesanart · 3 years

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My predictions on BSD getting animated going forward

I’ll be taking a look at the novel page counts (Japanese and English) and comparing them to the screen time they’ve gotten so far and then using this to predict how long the remaining light novel adaptations will be (approximately). At the end will also be my rough prediction/hopes for the order of some of these being adapted. I say some because I have yet to read what there is so far of the gaiden novel translations, the main story manga has essentially still been on the DOA arc almost since where the anime left off, and I personally think that it’s currently too soon for Storm Bringer (aside from money purposes).

Note, most of this was written well before the anime 5th anniversary livestream but the announcements wound up not affecting it. I then of course made adjustments as needed account for the novel content we do have so far, both in Japanese and in English (officially).

Page to Episode Count

Not counting the afterward, ads, etc for the English/US copy, Japanese is including it

Also all eng page counts are using the Yen Press release and jp page counts are taken from the fandom wiki

*148 is purely counting the Untold Origins portion of the novel. If we also count the A Day at the Agency short story that’s included before it (56 pages), then we get the full 203

Also the English page count for BEAST was noted before the English release date but after page counts have been posted by affiliated retailers, so subtract a couple pages from the written count of 176 for the time being to account for the afterward and possible character sheets being included

Now that we have our page to episode counts (as of April 5th, 2021), let’s find the actual content run time of what we do have animated so far.

Seasons 1-3 and the OVA all have the same episode length/duration. Each episode is 23 minutes, and we can subtract 3 minutes on average from that to account for the OP and ED being played. This leaves us with an average of 20 minutes of BSD story content per episode. So on average, each of the first 3 seasons contain 240 minutes, or 4 hours, worth of story content.

Dead Apple’s total run time is 91 minutes, with the OP and ED making up 9 of those minutes. However, we do have a bit of the story content being played while the ED is playing (as sometimes happens in the anime as well). To keep the math simple, I’ll be approximating story content time at 82 minutes.

Apply these numbers to the novels that have been animated so far and this is (approximately) what we get:

Now let’s use these numbers to predict the screen time needed for the other novels

Note that we can’t really use Entrance Exam as a fair measure because of how much got cut out (just compare the run time of it to Dark Era and it speaks for itself). However, the numbers for Dark Era and Dead Apple are the best ones to use, as they both have minimal changes between anime and novel and both have official English translations currently available. Take out the approximate time taken up by OP/ED and and the numbers pretty much match up.

So with that being said, we can estimate Untold Origins (only) at approximately 3 eps/60 min and 55 Minutes at 1h 40-55min/100-115 min or 5-6 eps if it doesn’t get a movie. We can also estimate the A Day at the Detective Agency short story at the beginning of Untold Origins to take up about 1 ep, probably even a bit less.

1+ 3 + 5-6 = 9-10 episodes which isn’t enough for a full single cour season unless they all get put into one big OVA season, but also 10-11 eps (or less) seasons are a thing (ie. Fugou Keiji: Balance Unlimited, Blood Lad, Black Butler: Book of Circus, The Seven Deadly Sins: Signs of a Holy War, FLCL)

My personal predictions/hopes for the anime adaptation timeline going forward

This is considering the manga content, current “pausing/stopping points” what wouldn’t be too awkward, each of the novels relevancy/necessity to the main story manga, and assuming we continue with single cour (12-13 ep) seasons

Hopefully/ideally a 55 Minutes movie

S4: ch 54-70

Early S5 (preferably) or end of S4: Untold Origins or A Day at the Agency

S5: ch 71-88/around where we are now?

A Day at the Agency can, in my opinion at least, be chucked in at any point either as a single episode OVA or as the light novel content for s4 (maybe not even taking a full episode and then starting ch 54 in the last few minutes for example). Keep in mind that the current DOA arc is a long one and has plenty to it, so personally I think it may even be better to not include a novel adaptation in a future S4, as it would likely already be a right squeeze content wise. Remember, we also have a few XX.5 chapters that are continuations of the chapter directly before them.

I still need to read what’s currently available of the gaiden novel fan translations but it can probably be adapted at any point as well. I’m estimating approximately 5-6 eps as an OVA series. I don’t really think it would get a movie, partially because you can make it only so long, especially since it’s an anime movie and unlike Storm Bringer, it doesn’t have Chuuya to practically guarantee the profit.

BEAST also doesn’t directly impact the main story and can be adapted at virtually any point. However, seeing as we do have a live action confirmed for it and it’s page count lines up very closely with Dark Era, it can be either 4 eps or (more likely in my opinion) a movie, as it can be considered almost stand alone content.

Personally, I believe it is currently way too soon to animate Storm Bringer as it came out only a little over a month ago (as of writing this) and has minimal plot necessity as of ch 91, but I do believe it should be either split into 2 movies (a part 1 and part 2) or it would need 8 episodes, likely as an OVA season. If it were to get animated sooner than 55 Minutes or Untold Origins, which I believe to be very unlikely, I feel that it would almost certainly be driven by the financial gains of Chuuya being included, and his popularity alone. Reminder, SB is about Chuuya and not SKK. Dazai’s appearance in SB is proportionally a very small percentage and he’s not even mentioned in the official plot summary.

However, you can argue that SB is starting to have some relevance now, with the recent mention of the Order of the Clock Tower in ch 90 and the increased relevance of sealed ability weapons in ch 91. However, I really do believe that you can’t adapt Storm Bringer before 55 Minutes because of Standard Island and its treaty, it also talks about sealed ability weapons, knowing who Wells is, and 55 Minutes canonically takes place during the “downtime” portion of S3. In fact, here’s Asagiri’s words directly from the Afterward (translation by Yen Press):

“this volume didn’t take place in the past, but rather sometime after the tenth volume of the manga. In other words, it’s a tale about the ‘usual’ detective agency in novel format.” (55 minutes, p 237)

Untold Origins also should be adapted sooner rather than later (at least compared to SB in my opinion) because it’s about Ranpo and Fukuzawa’s shared past, which becomes increasingly relevant ch 70 onwards, as well as the need for the ADA being founded (which ties in with Yosano’s backstory in ch 65-66).

In regards to whether I think each of these would be better suited to a movie adaptation or as multiple regular length anime episodes, it’s mainly due to page count and partly due to the budget difference between the two, as well as how difficult I think it would be to animate each of these based on what needs to be drawn. The anime industry isn’t the fastest to switch to newer technology, hence why we see issues with 3D blending sometimes. I really do think that at the very least, 55 Minutes deserves the movie budget because of how detailed and complex the architecture of Standard Island is described as, as well all the mechanical parts needed for the final battle of the novel. Hate the lizard mouths introduced in Dead Apple all you want, but you can’t deny that the 3D cgi was blended very smoothly. For any of the other novels to be movies, it’s more so because gaiden and BEAST can be considered their own stand alone stories that don’t rely too heavily on the main story in terms of when they take place and get adapted. I feel that SB is more likely to get its own season or an OVA season more so due to its length, but multiple part anime movies have also been done before (ie. the Fate/Stay Night: Heaven’s Feel movies), so it’s not entirely impossible. Especially considering that merely having any Chuuya screen time means that you can expect the profit and popularity to really go up, especially with SKK being on screen together (regardless of whether you love or hate how the fandom tends to push a shipping POV on them).

These are all of course just my hopes and predictions and estimates based on information currently available, so take them with some salt. I’d love to hear opinions on how, when, and why each of the currently non animated novels should be adapted going forward. Also please stop begging the relevant BSD official Twitter pages for SB to be animated next and go read the other light novels you Chuuya simp

#bsd #bungou stray dogs #bsd analysis #bsd theories #bsd dead apple #bungo stray dogs #bsd manga #bsd storm bringer #bsd light novel #bsd anime #bsd 55 minutes #bsd beast #bsd gaiden #bsd untold origins

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chalkrevelations · 3 years

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Street Dance of China S3, Ep 3. It sounds like maybe I should step up my pace on these, as they’ve announced the captains for S4 now? (Yibo back, Lay Zhang back, plus a couple of new guys I don’t actually recognize yet.) When is this going to air because it is just LAUGHABLE that I can keep up with 3+ hours of this a week. Particularly if I’m going to keep obsessively re-watching Word of Honor AND try to finally finish Killer & Healer in the miniscule free time I actually have for teevee. There’s certainly no way I can watch and dither on about 3+ hours/week worth of dance show in realtime before January, at least.

ANYWAY, this ep, we get a recap of everyone falling out after the captains’ cypher, and we learn who got the final extra towels and passed through to the next round: Lu Jiao Ni, who we barely see, on Team Jackson Wang; Yuan Ye (as promised) and A Li (who we barely see) on Team Lay Zhang (ETA: Wait, we find out later that A Li isn’t even on Lay’s team, she’s on Yibo’s - he wouldn’t move her on, and she gets one of Lay’s towels instead); Bullet (as promised) on Team Wang Yibo; and Xiao Ming (as promised? maybe? as we’ve barely seen this guy?) on Team Wallace Chung.

This week: Out of 400 people, we’re down to 105. Not all of these faces are familiar, and I suspect I don’t really need to learn 90 percent of the unfamiliar faces. I … am going to go out on a limb and make a guess that one of the dancers whose name has been bolded in one of the past two episode recaps is going to be the ultimate winner, because I have umpty SYTYCD episode reactions on my LJ, and I suspect I know how this works. I wouldn’t even put money on any of those five bolded names in the previous paragraph, quite honestly. Anyway, now it’s time to start culling down to 60. We bring out the team captains, and my first reaction is “MY EYES” because wth are some of you wearing? Wow. Yibo’s shoelaces are all over his jacket. Wallace looks like he rolled a flasher on the street for his trenchcoat. Lay Zhang is wearing a baggy pink jumpsuit, and I guess, OK, it’s easier to maneuver bathroom breaks in one of those when you have a dick, but that’s definitely a fashion trend that should have stayed back in the ‘80s. I guess questionable fashion is an international phenomenon.

There’s also an empty chair for the promised Mystery Guest, and there’s a game with clues, and a lot of guesses from our captains about who the Mystery Guest will be, and Jackson does A Bit through the whole thing. I don’t know whether to be entertained or annoyed by him. He’s the only one without some egregiously questionable fashion choices (so far) this episode, so maybe he gets a pass. Anyway, I don’t have the pop cultural context to understand the guesses, and I also don’t have either the pop cultural context or the knowledge of this area of dance to grok the Mystery Guest’s identity, but he’s Huang Bo, and apparently he had more than 1000 dance performances in the 1990s, so he must be at least as old as me and Wallace, if not older. Yibo takes the opportunity to make the – very NON-politic – remark that maybe HE wasn’t even born yet at the time? That … is not the way to win friends and influence people, Infant. Also, the Mystery Guest is NOT the person Jackson kept doing A Bit about. The reveal is all very dramatic, and he does a lil’ bit of choreography from of each of the four Extant Captains’ videos before he takes off his mask, and they act appropriately impressed, and there are some girls with short shorts among his backup dancers, so that all happened. The show obviously wants me to be very impressed by him. Show also tells us he’ll have a special skill that will be very important and at least leads us to believe that he’s going to be the “life-saver,” so the audience immediately curries favor, or at least plays at it.

Next up: Rules. Eliminations this week involve contestants self-selecting into groups of anywhere from one to five people and performing for a panel of all the captains. Teams pull a number out of a hat for performance order. Thumbs up from all four captains, you go to the next round. Abstentions from all captains, you go home. Thumbs up from some and abstentions from others, you face the possibility of a call-out from other contestants, whereupon you have to dance for your life battle to find out which of you stays and which of you goes. Oh, and we’re only going to keep going until the 60 available seats are filled, and then we’re done. If you’re number 35, you’d better be prepared to battle someone earlier and kick their ass, or you’re fucked, you don’t even get to dance. I’ve said it before: Audentes Fortuna adiuvat. Only wait, ETA: There will be some last minute BS rules fuckery, in a way that is clearly intended to save someone in particular, which I feel some kind of way about - and it is not really the way that almost everyone on the show seems to feel - but I guess we’ll get to that later.

And cue ridiculously long nattering, so we’re going to cut here.

First group is Lin Meng (Team Wallace), Teng Zai (Team Lay), Bing - of the infamous motorbike flirtation - and Dian Men (both Team Yibo), along with a dude we haven’t actually seen yet, Tang Qian (also Team Yibo). Your lack of even B-roll so far is concerning re: your chances in this competition, Tang Qian. I’m just sayin’. Anyway, this is a powerhouse group, and at least Lin Meng and Teng Zai are familiar with each other because they’re from the same crew, and Xiao Bao remarks from the audience of contestants that these guys are going to go through, no matter what. They’re going to do a totally popping routine. My sound drops out at the beginning which … yeah, makes them look even more like a boyband at the beginning, in their matching baseball uniform shirts. So, here’s the thing, they’re a little muddled, they don’t move smoothly around each other on stage - their dance moves are coordinated, but they’re not moving in space like a group that understands each other. (Somewhere in here, my sound comes back, and Yibo already can’t hold still to the music.) The other thing is, though - all of these guys are very good at what they do, they finally hit their stride a minute or so in, and when they do, they hit it hard. I’m frankly surprised they don’t get passed right through to the next round, but Jackson abstains on the vote, and when called upon to explain himself, it turns out he just wants to see them battle. I can understand the impulse, Jackson, but this is already super stressful on all the dancers, and it doesn’t escape my notice that you’re the only one of the four captains without a dog in this particular fight, so a little bit you look like you’re doing this just because you can. Remember this, because it will set a bad example for an 11th -hour vote. Anyway, there’s the chance for a callout, which no one takes because the entire audience is convinced this group is too good to beat. Five of 60 seats taken.

Group two is Shen Kai Xiang – the Jack Ma lookin’ dude. He’s flying solo. He gets to stand around uncomfortably for a while onstage while Special Guest Huang Bo does A Bit making fun of all of the captains’ speech patterns and accents and pronunciation, except Yibo’s, because Yibo apparently never talks. Ha ha. (I’m also wondering if there’s some socio-cultural stuff underlying some of this that I’m not cued in enough to fully understand.) Huang Bo then tells the contestant that Jackson has probably fucked him over by praising him too effusively (he came from Jackson’s team, and Jackson already is displaying a tendency to rhapsodize about how everything is “ART”), so all the captains now will have inflated expectations that Shen Kai Xiang is surely only going to fail to meet. I’m beginning to suspect that Huang Bo’s Special Guest Superpower is not “lifesaver” but “kind of annoying asshole.” Maybe it’s to take that particular spotlight off of Chick. ANYWAY, Shen Kai Xiang FINALLY gets to perform, and he gets a little bit of a slow start, but he packs in a lot of elements and gets a LOT of good air in his moves once he gets wound up. He’s lyrical and super emo about it. I’m kind of “eh” on him – technically, he’s good, but I’m not particularly connecting with him, which I’m willing to admit could be a me thing, as everyone else seems super-impressed. Three captains pass him through. Yibo does not and explains this decision as personal preference – he likes more “underground” styles, more battle styles. Huang Bo brings back the issue of too-high expectations to help explain why Shen Kai Xiang isn’t being passed directly to the next round, even though Yibo just explained his decision and that is literally not the reason he explicitly gave. Anyway, Shen Kai Xiang gets no call outs, which seems to surprise Yibo, and we’re at six of 60 seats taken.

In quick succession, we move through Liang Hua Jie – we don’t see much of him, but we learn that while Wallace likes his musicality, Yibo doesn’t like his face (OK, doesn’t like his facial expressions, which, what can I say? I get this. If I’d had the power to unilaterally send home Lacey Schwimmer on her season of SYTYCD, I’d have done it, that’s how fucking annoying I found the way she’d mug for the camera the entire time she danced. Like I couldn’t even watch her dancing, because I was too distracted by what she was doing with her FACE the whole time.); Jian De Chao (wait, is this Chao from the first episode?) & Chen Zui – who, from what we get to see of them have some good flow and move pretty well together, but can get a little bit mushy in their moves, and Yibo likes their skills, but Lay thinks they don’t feel like a group, which what? Incorrect; and a group that’s dubbed themselves Purple Storm Show, which includes Alex from Jackson’s team and four other people who I can’t even catch – we barely see their performance, and Lay likes them, but Jackson thinks they’re flat. I can’t tell if any or all of these guys were sent through to the next round or sent home, but if they didn’t make it, then :( because I liked Alex, and he got hit in the eye for this, he deserves better than to get sent home because his team can’t get it together. We still have no group that’s been passed through by all four captains.

And then, next up is another powerhouse team: Gongsu Wu Ming and Hei Zai (Team Lay), George and Xiao Ming (Team Wallace), and (Xiao) Bai (Team Jackson). Yibo is skeptical about an all B-boy group, and don’t make me fight you, Yibo, because an all B-boy group is like my dream come true (sorry, poppers; sorry, lockers; my heart truly belongs to the B-boys, they are my favorite). We learn they added a flip at the last minute – an assisted flip, with a couple of them flinging George into the air over the other two of them. Wu Ming thinks that George is the only one of all the competitors who could do it, but George – who has a little more skin in the game than anyone else, as the guy who could potentially land on his head wrong - is a bit concerned about whether they’re going to pull it off. They start, and they’re all good, a little bit muddled before they hit their stride, but the slo-mo cartwheel is great, and from there, they’re off and running. This is why I like the B-boys – I know it takes a lot out of you to do this, but there is nothing – nothing – like the magnetic energy they can generate when they’re in their performance headspace and everything is flowing. This is a performance, and Wu Ming has talked a little bit about wanting to step up breaking, and if this is the sort of thing he wants to do, I’m all for it – give him the platform now. I’m going to take just a minute to single out Bai and say that he’s better when he’s not doing A Bit like he did in his initial performance for Lay Zhang – he’s much more electric here, and someone else’s choreography may make the difference. Jackson, Yibo, Lay – they’re all out of their seats, none of them can hold still in the face of this. We get to the end, and unfortunately, everyone else is kind of cluttered and mushy moving into position for the flip – that is not a way to go out guys, DO NOT DO THAT at the last minute – but then George f’kn NAILS the flip, so that’s thankfully the last impression they leave. The captain’s faces are a picture. (Except Wallace, who’s suddenly too cool to give us anything, apparently.) FIRST ALL-PASS. George’s assessment: “Not bad.” :facepalm: OK, Mr. Cool Guy. They also cut in a post-interview bit with Bai about the performance, and he notes that they all know each other, they’ve been battling each other for like, a decade, now. Dance together more, guys.

Moving on, we fortunately have another very strong group to follow them: Gai Gai, Wang Tao and Huang Xiao, all from Jackson’s team, and you can tell he badly, badly wants to start in on the ART! bit but he (loudly) keeps his mouth shut about this group until after the performance. The only one of these three we’ve seen so far this season has been Gai Gai, but they all dance in the same group together, and they seem to be well-known by a lot of the other competitors, particularly Huang Xiao, both as a dancer and a choreographer. They say they’re doing jazz, although I’d be more likely to call this contemporary, if I was going to put them in a box. They are gorgeous – lyrical, fantastic dance vocabulary, amazing choreography, beautiful musicality, and the way they move together as a unit is … :chef’s kiss: I think Huang Xiao may be the best of the three, technically, but there’s something ineffably charismatic about Gai Gai that’s pulling focus a bit – just a bit – more than the other two in this performance. If there’s a weak link, it’s Wang Tao, and really, that’s only by comparison with the other two, which is a really high bar. We get some shots of the audience of competitors worrying about Yibo’s reaction, given his preference for the old-school battle dancers and an apparent “strictness” with urban dancers and related genres, but these three also get an All-Pass to the next round, and Yibo talks to them a little bit about the choreography and his (complimentary) reactions to the performance before they leave the stage.

And then. Oh, dear. Then we get a group of three – Da Mao, A Li and Tall(? Maybe? It looked like he was going to get out of this anonymously – probably lucky for him – but then the subtitles threw up this name on him at the last minute) – who are the only krumpers who’ve made it this far. Lay Zhang is really promoting them, because he really wants to see a bigger krump presence, and he’s really nervous about their performance, and he really, really should not have pinned his hopes on these three, because I hate to say it but they are a hot fk’n mess. They are … not good. I can’t believe any of the three made it this far, and in fact, we learn after their performance, while everyone is sitting in a kind of stunned horror (and y’all, I am not exaggerating for effect there), that Yibo did not pass A Li on from his team, that she got one of Lay Zhang’s final extra battle towels. I mean, there’s an obvious gap in the quality of this performance compared to everyone else we’ve seen. There’s also a lot of pacing around and standing around instead of dancing. They’re trying for the attitude, but they’re not managing it. They do manage to get an embarrassed reaction from Chick, which says something all on its own, as I wasn’t aware that he had any shame. Other competitors also are doing the embarrassment-squick cringe in the audience. Lay Zhang is literally hiding behind his clipboard. This is the first All-Out we get, where they’re directly eliminated – not even Lay can bring himself to vote “yes” on them. Now, all the krumpers are gone, and Lay is visibly sad and frustrated, but as we appear to move to a little bit of a break, Yibo displays the most emotional intelligence of anyone there and asks Lay to teach him how to krump, to distract him and get him actually doing the dancing he enjoys for a little bit. It’s also a chance for Yibo to learn a new thing, and he talks about his chance to improve in a little interview bit from later on that’s cut in here. I mean, yes, that actually was kind of a sad attempt at krump during the cypher, my dude, so this can only help you, but you also are being an extremely good guy, giving your fellow captain some emotional support right now. Thumbs up.

Next up, we have AK Dong (Team Wallace), also flying solo, and they give us a little heart-tugging B-roll about how he doesn’t have a team with him there, so he’s going it alone. He’s fantastic right out of the gate - good musicality, clean and precise, and he’s got a nice texture to his performance, it feels … full even though it doesn’t feel as big and expansive as some of the other dancers. Unfortunately, Lay doesn’t agree with me (incorrect), says he wants a performance that’s more elegant and “balanced,” and is the single holdout vote, which opens my dude up to a call-out challenge. This is the guy who looks like comedian Hank Chen, which has overshadowed his dancing twice now, because he had to listen to it from Haung Bo when he came out to dance, and he CANNOT catch a break, because now he gets challenged by three teams, including Bouboo’s team, which also includes Klash, Bullet and Colin (all Team Yibo), plus Boris (Team Lay), who we’ve only seen B-roll of so far although he speaks good Chinese, despite being from … I’m not sure where, but not China? AK Dong complains about how Boris looks at him with innocent eyes and tells him that they have no option other than to challenge, which is true (ETA: insofar as we know at this point), because they’re #36, and the 60 slots would almost certainly fill up before they even get a chance to dance. This team wins the bottle spin against the other two challengers, and I mean. :hands: This is a slaughter. They’re five-on-one, and they’re all really good at what they do, they make it look effortless, and AK Dong’s face is going to kill me. Wallace actually does vote for him, but the other three vote for the team, and that’s five more seats filled, and AK Dong eliminated, and I’m annoyed (although not as much as I’m gonna be) because I liked him, and I would have liked for him to get a chance to dance without having to listen to the Hank Chen nonsense at least once.

Next, we have Li Yue & Sha Sha, who appear to dance together on the regular. They have a kind of sultry number put together as the Green Snake and the White Snake that is … hm. I don’t know if we’re classifying this as urban or jazz for the purposes of the show, but it’s another piece that fits more into my contemporary box, if we were classifying them for most of the Western dance spaces I’ve seen. They’re good, as befits this stage of the competition, but a little inconsistent, technically. Also, I don’t find them particularly exciting to watch – I feel like something’s missing, although I can’t quite put my finger on what. I’m not sure their flow is consistent, and they’re probably not helped by following Gai Gai, Huang Xiao and Wang Tao. They get three yes votes from Lay, Yibo and Jackson, although they are … enough to maybe make Yibo a slight bit uncomfortable, being the shy and fragile homosocial forest creature that he may be, or that he may be getting edited as, who knows. Huang Bo pokes at Lay Zhang about his reaction to and vote for them. He also basically says that Wallace didn’t vote for them because Wallace wasn’t turned on by them, because Wallace is still doing his imperturbable cool-as-a-cucumber routine. Wallace’s hold-out vote opens them up to a call-out, and several groups come down to challenge, including – bad luck for Li Yue and Sha Sha – TI, who win the bottle spin. This group includes choreographer Zheng Jian Peng, as well as Su Lianya, who I didn’t realize was a TI member, both Team Wallace, along with … oh my god, Wei Ming, who’s the “Sir, what are you doing?” guy from Episode 2 when Wallace was giving out towels to poppers like candy, and I’m kind of pleased he’s made it this far, just based on that moment, alone, never mind any dancing skills. Rounding out the group are Long Long and Wei Lin, both from Team Yibo, and I think we got B-roll of Wei Lin at some point during Yibo’s eliminations in the first couple of eps. I know nothing about Long Long at this point. At any rate, everybody in this group is so good, I can finally see how they got their rep – fantastic musicality, and a great job of working as a unit. They feel like a team, even when they don’t manage to be quiiiiite synchronized. I’m not really feeling their costumes. Su Lianya continues to be a standout, even in a group that sets the bar this high. Wallace’s composure finally breaks when the other team captains evince interest in poaching her, and oh my god, he still has the hair elastic that he held for her at her initial performance, that they said would be a token of their vow to go all the way in the competition together. OK, I give Wallace a lot of shit, but this is actually kind of adorable. He literally pulls it out of his pocket to tell the other captains they can’t have her and to plead with her to remember their promise to each other. TI gets three votes and moves on. (Lay, still apparently captivated by the snake ladies although not enough to bald-facedly vote for them in the wake of TI’s performance, abstains.)

Next up are Tao and CiCi, and OK. I’m going to be honest here. I think they’re leveraging the “couple” schtick for all it’s worth, and good for them, it looks like they can pull it off, because I think some of the amazed reaction we get from the captains and from the audience is influenced a lot by their coupleness, but at the same time, I think some of the amazed reaction we get from the captains and from the audience is actually influenced by their coupleness rather than their dancing. I mean, Su Lianya and Wei Lin are in the audience of competitors clutching each other’s hands and crying, and it seems to be just as much about Tao telling CiCi out loud that he loves her just before the music starts and the fact that they kiss as part of the piece, if not more than it’s about their actual dancing. The show is also really pushing me on this, because whereas, with everyone else, it tosses up closed captions that tell me what moves are happening (in addition to dialogue subs), now I’m getting things like “heaven-made match.” They’re good, but I think they actually also suffer a bit from following the Gai Gai/Huang Xiao/Wang Tao powerhouse, because I think we’re unlikely to get anything on the lyrical side of things that’s going to match up to that for the rest of the day. Tao and CiCi are better than Li Yue and Sha Sha were, and it is pretty badass the way she manages to make herself so small and compact she literally disappears behind him for that last little bit, and if they’d won the bottle spin on the last callout, they would have won the challenge, I have no doubt. But. :hands: I think the show has actually done that thing Huang Bo accused Jackson of earlier and set my expectations too high. I’m’a sound like Yibo – or like Yibo normally would, because he also seems to get suckered into the overwhelmed reaction for this – and say that I think Tao was better in the less lyrical style when he danced with Yibo and Bing in the Ep 2 towel battle. They get an All-Pass from the captains and talk about their inspiration for the piece, which apparently is a couple who confessed their love to each other the day before the girl had to go into COVID quarantine, and well, now I guess I feel like just a little bit of an asshole for not appreciating the COVID love story properly? Anyway, the captains then keep asking them intrusive questions about their relationship, and Huang Bo mocks Lay for apparently never being in love so he won’t understand what it’s like, and I’m cringing in my seat a little before Jackson gets us back on track and Tao and CiCi finally go sit down.

Then Huang Bo takes the chance to go over to the contestants who haven’t performed yet and stress them out about how few of the 60 available seats are left. I mean, I guess it’s part of competition, but come on, dude.

ANYWAY, next up, we have a group calling themselves Team Wake Up – it’s the waackers, and this group includes Xiao Bao and San Jin from Team Lay, along with a guy we haven’t seen yet, Tu Zi; Meng Di from Team Yibo; and Gao Shi Yu, who we also haven’t seen, from Team Wallace. They start working it, and I’m like, oh wait … and then they hit the Cat Walk, and I’m like, oh shit, and a light bulb finally goes off, because I’ve been super-fk’n slow, but now they’ve shown me what this genre is about, and I’m interested to see what they do here, because a lot of this performance could be straight off the floors of the ball scene. The entire group is pretty good, although I do think Gao Shi Yu is the weak link, she’s not quiiiiite up to the standard of the rest of them. They move well as a group, though, good coordination, sharp and clean, fantastic musicality, high energy all the way through, with EXCELLENT attitude, which is half the battle, because if you’re not confident for this kind of thing – or if you can’t at least fake it flawlessly – you might as well not even be out there. They all do lose a little bit of focus when they’re in the background as they break out for their individual moves, and they fall apart a tiny bit near the end. Also, Meng Di’s belt is off-center, and I know that sounds super picky, but it kept distracting me, so I wish that hadn’t been the case. Xiao Bao is definitely still the standout here – he takes the lead from the minute they come out, with the mic, and never really relinquishes it. We finally get to see San Jin perform, and his extension could be better. Tu Zi must be lacking in the charisma department to not have shown up before this, because he’s better than I expected. Before they started, the group that Xiao Jie and Yang Kai are in together – who still haven’t performed – were debating if they should challenge this group, but Xiao Jie advised waiting to see how good they were, and then after the performance is all, “nooo, we should not challenge,” and props to you for not just writing off the waackers, my man, because they get an All-Pass, and there’s not even a chance for a callout. Before we move on, Wallace clams he’s learned some waacking during the show, and the other captains (led by Jackson, who calls him gege) make him demonstrate, and the contestants, who know what side their bread is buttered on, applaud.

Available seat check. Yibo participates in further stressing out the contestants by saying “Like, a dozen?” All y’all need to be challenging whatever chance you get. Now I bet you’re sorry you didn’t challenge Shen Kai Xiang back at the beginning, aren’t you?

Next up is our group of X-Crew representatives, hop-hop, and Yibo is excited. I almost expect him to do a little dance in his seat. Yang Kai helpfully lets me know that this group is from the top hip-hop crew in China. Oh, hey, that’s Qin Yu, from Team Wallace, the guy who Gongsu Wu Ming immediately recognized as the weak link in one of the towel battles and got up on; the guy who subsequently got taken out by Teng Zai, My Beloved. Qin Yu, the guy we hadn’t even had B-roll on, and still don’t. I wonder if I’m reading too much into that. He’s joined by Flea (which I’m assuming is a direct translation, as it doesn’t sound like “flea” when he says his name?) and Ding, also from Team Wallace - neither of whom we’ve seen before, I think - along with Ting and Lei Xiao Yang from Team Jackson. This is also the first time we’ve seen Lei Xiao Yang. I … feel weirdly unconfident about the famed X-Crew, given we haven’t seen more of them before this. Then again, we’d only seen Gai Gai from her group, so maybe this is a BigSurprise!edit … Ting comes out hard and heavy, and I actually think this is the best performance we’ve seen from her so far. She spends a lot of time out in front on this one, and I don’t think I got from her initial appearance or from her towel battle performances just how good she actually is. Overall though … I am … not that impressed with this group. They start out strong, but then they get sloppy. They have trouble working as a unit, which is surprising from people who supposedly have experience dancing together. They’re all very good, but they’re not synchronized. A lot of their solo showcase bits lack complexity, and that is an understatement. Qin Yu still has some of that nice fluidity along with his pretty face, but he’s not balanced, and he absolutely does not have the finesse he needs to pull this off. They all do move into the end strong, together again, hard, power behind their moves - almost everything from the slo-mo move is good - but … it’s a little late, y’all. That took way too long to get back together. And then, they inexplicably descend into … it’s not even sloppiness, it’s an utter hot mess during, like, the last 15 seconds of the performance, which is absolutely not the final impression you want to leave. And … wow. Shit. There are captains who actually agree with me on this. Sometimes you see the expected top dancers allowed to slide some in these early rounds of competition shows, but not this time – Wallace and Yibo both vote yes, but Jackson and Lay both abstain, and Jackson … wow. Wow. Is disappointed in them and expected more. Despite the fact that he’s like, 12, and that he’s done this to past groups just because he wanted to see them battle, a little bit this actually has a vague feeling of your dad telling you how much you’ve let him down. The audience is shocked, but I’m glad to hear someone say it. It was a good - if spotty - performance but certainly not the best we’ve seen.

So, we have a callout, and the group with Xiao Jie and Yang Kai, which also includes some guys named Shen Zi Hao, Xiao Zhi Bin and Oscar, pounces. And that is a very deliberate word choice, because these guys are on X-Crew like a lion on the trailing gazelle. They’re in their Men In Black suits (ETA: Wait, no, I think maybe they’re Agent Smith suits), and the audience of other competitors is losing it. Xiao Bao is very excited about Xiao Jie. Both Yibo and Jackson look like they’re in actual physical pain, to be forced to make the choice that’s coming up. Ting looks like she’s getting ready to throw up – she’s accepting this with less equanimity than she did the possible results of her initial performance, at least on the surface. I … am dreading losing her, actually, because I suspect that’s what’s getting ready to happen, and I am so so sorry, baby, that you worked so hard to carry your crew like that and they couldn’t keep their shit together. On the one hand, I’m impressed they’re pitting this level of competition against each other so early. On the other, I feel Jackson’s and Yibo’s pain. God. God. The Xiao Jie-Yang Kai group is here to f’kn battle. This is shaping up to be a slaughter. They are fast, clean, precise, great musicality, complex moves, super performance. They’re synchronized, high energy, fantastic animation – which could be a little cheesy, but they’re confident and fearless enough to pull it off - fun and interesting. They are maybe a little bit too gimmicky to be perfect for my taste, but I’m not the one voting them through, and what they’ve come up with is perfect for the audience that matters – the captains, the majority of which are 20-something-year-old boys – and knowing your audience, and performing for them, is a skill, too. BIGGEST (and frankly, only) ISSUE: Somebody fucked up a move, right at the beginning … I think maybe Yang Kai? (ETA: Yah, it was Yang Kai, ugh, what a time for that to happen.) If you’re going to fuck up, best to do it at the very beginning, I guess, and then give this performance afterward, to mitigate it as much as possible, but that one misstep gives the captains enough excuse put off a decision they really don’t want to make, like it’s not just going to make it worse to kick the can down the road a few minutes. Split vote, 2-2 (I thiiink, Yibo and Jackson for X-Crew, Lay and Wallace for the challengers?), which throws it to a further battle. Ting and Xiao Jie, one-on-one, and both of them are feeling the pressure of competing for their entire team instead of just themselves. Two rounds, hiphop and locking. So, each of them is better in their specialty. Ting’s got some fantastic, precise moves for the hiphop round. Xiao Jie is not as good in this round; I do notice he’s got a more directly confrontational style when he’s battling. I feel like she’s doing more waacking than locking in the locking round. Overall, she’s cleaner, more precise, he’s got a little bit more energy. I wouldn’t want to make this decision, frankly. I think Ting was better technically, but Xiao Jie might be the better performer – better at all that other stuff that adds up to stage presence. I do wonder how much of the captains’ decision is influenced by the groups, and who the captains are or aren’t willing to lose, even though it’s supposed to be based on this 1x1 battle. Just looking at who the show has put emphasis on already, we’ve got Ting vs. Xiao Jie AND Yang Kai, and I don’t know that they’re going to want to let that one-two punch go. Wallace votes Ting and X-Crew. Yibo and Lay vote Xiao Jie and the challengers. Jackson, the coward, abstains. Looks like Ting and X-Crew are going home, and this is the first cut that I’m genuinely upset about seeing. Ting feels bad for letting her crew down, but they let you down first, baby, or you wouldn’t even have been in that position.

Available seat check: 12. Dancers left: 27. Well.

We’re coming up on two hours now, and there’s clearly some kind of drama we want to get to, because we whip through the next few performances – few names, limited time spent on them. The ones who do make it through are likely cannon fodder in the next couple of rounds. There’s a group of four in khakis that gets sent through to the next round; Yibo liked their moves. Guy named Zhan Ke in a suit goes through to the next round. We’ve turned into a clip show now, and the screen literally says “ … ” at one point as each group of competitors gets 3 seconds of airtime. Cut to three seats left out of the 60. There’s about seven people left, and … that includes Chick. I have a sinking feeling this guy is going to be the real focus, at this point. He’s paired up with some dude named Long, and they have lost the bottle spin on callout after callout after callout, so they’ve never had a chance to challenge, and now, look at these morose motherfuckers, still sitting in the bleachers. I almost feel bad for them.

So, three seats left, and the next group is three people: Yang Qi aka “Apple” from Team Jackson, Lin from Team Lay and Bobo from Team Wallace. Urban dancers. I lose sound on them right at the beginning, but they’ve got some nice sharp moves, good choreography, they work well as a unit. Solid performance, if not the best we’ve seen. Apple’s got the best technique, I think. Audience likes them a lot. We get a cut to Chick and the other competitors who haven’t danced yet as we count down for the vote, and they are all dying. Three votes yes. Yibo abstains. Huang Bo is so prepared for this group to be sent right through that he starts clapping and congratulating them, and Yibo has to be all, “Wait, no. Not yet.” The captains give their reasoning: Jackson says that he felt their power, emotion, speed all deserved full marks. Yibo agrees.

Yibo agrees.

…

...

…

Their faces in response, y’all. Their little WTF faces as he explains that he really just wants to see the other dancers, too. Oh my god, Yibo. You can’t just say that out loud. Are you serious with this, you can’t even make up a thing to fake critique them on? Cut to a later interview with Bobo, who’s been the least able to school his face journey in response to this: “Wang Yibo, I won’t forget.” Also, Bobo says, you’re not even hot. (lol) Joking aside, the group goes on to make all the correct noises about sure, it’s a competition, you face competitors, it’s what happens, because what are you gonna say? Meanwhile, to be completely honest, I’m probably the person who’s been least able to school their face journey in response to this, because come on, Yibo. It’d be one thing if you were making some kind of statement about the way they set this up from the beginning, with all competitors unable to participate, but I’m pretty sure you’re actually doing this to give Chick another chance, because you have been inexplicably all up on his jock since he showed up, what is it about this guy? I don’t get it. At all.

So, we get a callout, and everyone left challenges, of course, because this is probably the last chance. The audience is rooting for Chick. I still don’t get it. Bottle spin ends up on … Zhao Hai Jie, from Team Wallace, who we’ve never yet seen perform. Here’s the thing: If he can win this battle, then he only takes one seat, leaving another two seats available. However, he is NOT going to win this battle, not without ripping off any figleaf of fair competition that the show may have, because he’s just not that great. If he wins, there’s no way around the fact, right in your face, that it’s a strategic vote. He does not win. Four votes for Apple, Lin and Bobo. Sixty seats filled.

HOWEVER, just in case you were worried there may be any integrity here, director Lu Wei comes ambling out to say, hey, you know those rules we have in place? Well, fuck ‘em. Who cares. Let everybody left battle, and whoever wins that battle can have a seat along with the 60 other people. I’m going to translate this one, because despite the limitations of my Level 1 Duolingo Mandarin, I have umpty SYTYCD episode reactions on my LJ and I feel like I’m pretty fluent in Dance Show BS: “We really want to keep somebody who’s left, so there’s going to be some chicanery on our part.” They really do not want Chick to go home, y’all. I know it’s him. It’s super extra obvious they’re desperately trying to save him, at this point. And I am here to tell you that if Chick ends up on this show and Ting goes home, there will be nothing on this earth that could possibly resurrect Chick from the Pit of My Dislike.

Anyway, we get Dai Dai from Team Lay, who describes herself as a fusion dancer and is pretty good for the first 40 seconds or so of her music and then completely loses the thread and kind of falls apart. The captains do not seem impressed. Possibly they also know we’re just killing time until we get to Chick. Up next is Su, who is Very Dramatic. He doesn’t say what team he’s from, but given Wallace’s reactions, I suspect he’s from Team Wallace. I suspect Yibo’s not going to like his face. His performance goes increasingly off the rails as he goes on. He’s got a lot of goodwill from the audience of competitors, but no. This is not a winning performance. And then we get Chick & Long, literally the last to perform. Chick spends the entire time doing A Bit. Long, who anyone barely remembers is even there, does 2/3+ of the dancing. Everyone – everyone – is apparently vastly entertained by Chick, and I just … :hands: Fine. He’s a character, but I have yet to see anything in three episodes, across, like, 7 hours, that lets me see whether he can really dance or not. Yibo literally tells Jackson, “He doesn’t have many tricks, but he’s got a ton of ideas” and later says he’s a B-boy without a power move. Anyway, one vote for Su (Wallace), three votes for Chick and Long. We’re at 62 dancers, and I cannot believe I’m going to be subjected to Chick’s continued clownery when Ting has to go home.

Thank GOD we’re activating the Special Guest Host Powers, the first of which is “REVIVE,” i.e., bring someone back who was eliminated. Yibo is immediately like, omg, the hip-hop group. Then we do Yet Another Bit where the captains cater to Huang Bo so that he’ll take their advice on who to revive, and it goes on too long when we are, my god, two hours and fourteen minutes into this. Meanwhile, Yibo reiterates, the hip-hop group. Yeah, Yibo, this I approve of - if I gotta watch you fall all over yourself over Chick, you need to get Ting back for me. So, we’re finally getting the captains’ actual recommendations: Jackson says the hip-hop group, possibly feeling bad about the fact that he’s the one who spiked their chance the first time around? Yibo is all, me too! Yes! That one! It’s kind of adorable. Also, yes, Yibo, you need to get Ting back for me. Lay says Li Yue and Sha Sha, the white and green snakes. Wallace recommends a popping group that I don’t even know if we saw perform? At any point in the past 7+ hours of three episodes? Wallace, are you high? Anyway, THANK GOD, Huang Bo brings back the X-Crew group. We’re at 67 dancers.

Second Special Guest Host Power is … “battle?” So, we’re setting up Qiang Qi Da Zhan, aka Seven to Smoke, which they’ve apparently done in past seasons? Each captain picks two people – eight total – to participate. Twenty minutes total. Increments of 30 seconds each to battle. And I guess you have to accumulate seven points in various battles. We don’t get to hear the captains’ picks, but I can see that AK Dong is called back for this one. Also, I spot one of the krumpers. (:eyeroll: Really, Lay? Because I know that was you.) We see some clips of this. We see AK Dong get to six points. He … maybe gets his seventh point? Anyway, he says in the last interview clip that he’s here. I guess we officially find out the Seven to Smoke results next ep?

Also next episode: Divided into two groups and battling by genre for the next elimination. Five rounds. Also looks like captains might get a chance to poach from other teams. Also some wacky fuckery with the dancers’ heads that looks like it’s going to be stomping all over my embarrassment squick, argh.

Finally, we get a peek at hotpot, and it sounds like they ended up with 70 dancers, so three people managed to get seven points in Seven to Smoke? And somebody’s mom is apparently coming to hotpot, but I’d have to watch the actual hotpot show to find out whose mom, and we’re out.

#wang yibo #jackson wang #lay zhang #zhang yixing #wallace chung #street dance of china #sdoc episode reax

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gra-sonas · 3 years

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It's breaking my brain that S3 is airing the same time they are filming S4. It's going to throw everything off. Usually, by this time, we'd get at least one casting announcement and a vague synopsis, but that's clearly not an option now. And even if previous actors like David really are coming back, chances are they won't be posting about it until we see how this season plays out, especially with someone very likely dying. Do you think we'll at least get sporadic updates on episode titles?

Yeah, it's a bit strange that they are already back to filming the next season, while we've only watched 2 episodes of the current one. 👀

If anything, I expect the main cast to post the occasional pics of sunsets or cloud formations, not much (if anything) from guest actors/recurring cast tho. Oh, and I hope we'll get a first S4 IG story of Vlammy, shirtless in his trailer. That's tradition now, isn't it? xD

As for episode titles? I kinda doubt it (mainly bc the writers will be busy writing, they didn't have much of a break between S3 and 4 and won't have finished writing all the scripts yet).

Unless any of the S4 directors will share pics of their scripts (and we don't even know who the directors are yet), I wouldn't expect episode titles to be revealed until next year (as some kind of countdown leading up to the release of S4, whenever that will be).

But who knows, maybe this season is the Twilight Zone, and everything is completely different and they all start sharing a ton of things. 🙃🤡

#rnm speculation #roswell new mexico s4 #nonnie asks

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into-september · 4 years

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The question isn't who Ms. Bustier's baby daddy is.

The question is: Why is time suddenly moving?

Cartoon Time has absolutely applied until this point. Adrien and Marinette get their miraculouses on the first day of school, and less than a year has passed by "Felix" which is set sometime in the latter half of S3. Which is fine until you consider that the Christmas episode excluded, we know the date of two episodes: "Dark Cupid" (February 14th) and "Cat Blanc" (May 2nd). Assuming that chronology exists and time moves in the ML universe, this would mean that the second half of S1, the entirty of S2, and almost all of S3 happens during the course of ten weeks. Summer holidays? Not a thing, these kids are always in school. If we counted the character instas as canon, then Valentines Day has passed once more between S3 and S4, but I very much expect THAT to just be one further count to how time has not yet been a THING in this universe.

But in this special episode, they announce that Ms. Bustier is having a baby, and it has nothing to do with the story except to have her substituted by Ms. Mendeleiev. Mendeleiev's only action in-story is to give Marinette's friends a chance to support her in her pitiful attempts at moving on, which they've all forgotten about once they've successfully deprived Adrien of sitting next to a friend, instead replaced by DJWifi teaming up with the American heroes to agressively ship Adrinette for the remaining fifty minutes. The supervising teacher is absolutely irrelevant, and even if she wasn't, Bustier's absence could've been explained by the flu. But no, they made the specific point about a pregnancy, which means that come S4, we'll se one of two things:

1. Bustier replaced, which means that the new teacher is going to be someone Important To The Story

2. Bustier's pregnancy is SOMEHOW followed, as the only physical aspect of time moving in a universe where Christmas Eve has been the only day that wasn't "ambiguously spring" outside

I expect the latter, because getting a new teacher wouldn't need to be more difficult than have Bustier suddenly get a new job. But nope, she's in the ONE CONDITION from which time can be fairly reliably followed even in a world without calendars. So here's to seeing what THAT is going to mean.

ETA: ooooor as someone pointed out over at reddit... Mendeleiev KNOWS ABOUT THE KWAMIS.

And there we go.

#miraculous ladybug #ml spoilers #ml meta #mlb meta #blah #ml nyc #mlb speculation #ml speculation

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pronouncingitwang · 4 years

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post-S3 to S4 wtgfs | 4.1K words | intended for @tmagirlsweek but I got busy

On a bad arthritis day a few years ago, after Georgie had failed one too many times to open a beer can at her kitchen counter, Melanie had winced, reached down under her skirt, and handed Georgie a sizable penknife. “I’ve never really been a fan of pepper spray,” she’d said before Georgie could ask, looking almost shy about it, and, “Yes, I keep it there all the time. Don’t tell Andy, he’ll freak.” And so Georgie learned that 1. getting a knife’s point under a metal tab and then bracing your forearm against the handle takes a lot of pressure off your thumb, and 2. seeing your friend of a few months (who has apparently been hiding a knife under her clothes this whole time) laughing as a metal tab hits her in the face is something that might make you think about kissing her. Apparently, seeing your friend-with-occasional-benefits of a few years sitting in your ex’s hospital room with a Polaroid camera around her neck can do the same thing, even if it also gives you a lump in your throat.

Georgie’s known for the last month that her visiting hours would have to overlap with Melanie’s eventually, but knowing and seeing are not the same thing. When you know something, you can practice various appropriately neutral “Hi, Melanie”s in your mirror. When you see something, all your planning goes out the window, and you blurt out instead, “Is that a knife strapped to your thigh, or are you happy to see me?”

Melanie doesn’t laugh at the joke, which makes sense. Her eyes are red-rimmed, and Georgie can see the moment the surprise in them hardens into something else. When she speaks, her voice sounds rough, like each syllable is being dragged across a whetstone on its way up her throat. “Knife. Obviously.”

Georgie tells herself not to react, to focus on Melanie’s words instead of her tone. Not being happy to see someone in Melanie’s set of circumstances is understandable, and Melanie’s not wrong about the “obviously”—her long skirt is wrapped twice around her legs, so tight that it must be restricting movement, and the outline of a blade is more than clear against the thin fabric. The Melanie Georgie is used to wouldn’t have displayed a weapon so boldly; but then, the Melanie Georgie is used to also wouldn’t have left her a voicemail about how Sarah Baldwin and being trapped in The Magnus Institute was “all your fault!” followed by a one-word apology text, followed by two months of ghosting, so perhaps Georgie needs to amend her expectations.

“Hi, Melanie,” Georgie says, practice finally deciding to kick in. “Are you… are you alright?”

“What, that bad?” Melanie replies. Her hair is longer than Georgie remembers, dark roots now grown out to the same length as the red-dyed strands on the bottom. Georgie thinks she would like to braid it someday.

Georgie shrugs. “A bit.”

“You don’t look too good either,” Melanie says, but she gets up to offer Georgie her seat anyway. Georgie takes it silently, propping her cane against the wall. This, at least, has not changed between the two of them.

“I’ll be here for half an hour,” Georgie says, offering… parameters? warning? escape?

Something like panic crosses Melanie’s eyes, but she crosses her arms. “Me too.”

“I can ask for another chair?” No matter how quickly Melanie claims her gunshot wound had healed, standing on it for too long can’t be comfortable.

“Don’t need one.” A pause. “And stop looking at me.”

A few minutes pass, during which the only sound is of Melanie bouncing her leg. Then, her breathing, getting louder and faster. When Georgie looks up, Melanie has her face in her hands.

“Are you o—”

“You know what,” Melanie gasps, “I’ve changed my mind about the half hour.”

“I can leave, if you’d rather—”

“No,” Melanie says, shaking her head. “No, I need to go.”

“Do you need—I can squeeze you, or—”

“No, no, no, just—Don’t touch me,” Melanie growls, and then she’s out of the door and gone.

For the next half hour, Georgie eats a sandwich, reads aloud from John Keats: The Complete Poems because it’d annoy Jon if he were alive, and tries very hard not to cry.

Another half hour later, Georgie’s phone dings. The text reads, simply, “see you.”

For the first time that day, Georgie smiles.

Georgie comes back to the hospital at the same time next week, and yes, Melanie is there. This time, there are two chairs, sat about a foot away from each other. Georgie chooses not to comment on it, but she thinks Melanie can tell she’s biting down a smile.

They make it through the pleasantries this time without too much tension. Melanie asks about the podcast, and Georgie can at least talk about that for a few minutes. She remembers they used to have conversations for hours at a time, during drinks or pillow talk or game nights with friends, but now she has no idea what they talked about. Besides work, that is—Melanie could go on for hours about the newest Ghost Hunt UK project—but that’s obviously not a safe topic anymore. They talked about TV shows maybe, or mundane day-to-day shit about their lives. It was easier before. Now, if Georgie wants to tell Melanie about what her neighbor’s daughter said yesterday, she first has to tell Melanie about her new neighbor and their dog and the other times their daughter came over to play with The Admiral, and that’s too many sentences to trail off on, especially if Melanie might not have a story to trade for hers.

They’ve gone silent long enough that Georgie is contemplating getting her book out when Melanie says, “I’ve still got that cane you let me borrow after India, if you want it back.”

There are several possibilities for what that means. One, Melanie is offering the two of them an opportunity to escape this room with its stale air and too-bright lights and engage in anything from a fight to a hookup to a hangout. Two, Melanie is trying to cut off any remaining ties or obligations to Georgie. Three, the silence was just way too awkward and this is the first thing Melanie thought of.

Georgie picks her next words carefully. “You can keep it, it’s no problem. I thought the floral decals suited you.”

Melanie makes the face she makes when she’s trying to figure out if something is a joke or not. “I suppose it really brought out the red in my eyes.”

Georgie can’t help the surge of laughter that bubbles out of her. “Sure. And… also because it’s pretty.”

They’ve done the flirty banter before, as foreplay to actual foreplay or just for fun. Georgie still has at least ten minutes of cut What the Ghost? audio where they went back and forth on “you’re so hot, you __” pick-up lines before remembering they were supposed to be talking about the Plague. In the past, Melanie returned fire with twice Georgie’s cheesiness.

This Melanie scowls. “if you don’t want it—”

“Is the cane at your flat?”

“Should be.”

“Then, sure.”

Melanie hails them a cab outside the hospital. Georgie doesn’t quite recognize the streets it’s going down, and then she realizes that of course, after Andy left, Melanie would need to downsize.

“Good news,” Melanie says when they arrive at the building, “it’s, uh- I think it’s on the first floor.”

“You think? Don’t you live here?”

Melanie shrugs. “Technically.”

Georgie begins to understand when Melanie opens the door. Melanie’s old place wasn’t Instagram-perfect by any means, but it felt like her—deliberately nonsensical “motivational” posters, an upside-down “福” character on the living room wall, a coat hanger shaped like a tree by the entrance with a different chewable necklace dangling from each branch. Here, the walls are bare and the floor is covered in boxes. No bed, which puts one of Georgie’s theories for this outing to rest, and the space is too small for a mattress to be hiding anywhere other than a box. There’s a couch; the TV from Melanie’s old place sitting unplugged at an awkward angle on the ground; an empty bookshelf, and leaning against said bookshelf, a cane with a moderately worn tip and various rose stickers winding around the shaft. Melanie hands it over to Georgie, who takes it silently.

“So in case you haven’t guessed, I’ve been sleeping in the Archives.”

Georgie hasn’t guessed. The Magnus Institute isn’t something she allows herself to think about most days. But there is something very familiar in the sunkenness of Melanie’s cheeks right now, the grim set of her jaw, the way she scans every room she enters for hidden danger.

“And before you tell me that place is bad news, I know. Obviously.”

“Then why…?”

“I talked about it so you wouldn’t have to. Don’t make me kick you out.”

Georgie had almost made the same threat to Jon once, when he was staying with her. Jon—Jon who she cut off for reading statements and not taking care of himself and staying with his job. Georgie has a dreadful suspicion that if she examined Melanie and Jon against her so-called principles, the only substantial difference between their situations would be that she is in love with one of them and not the other. Luckily, Georgie is good at compartmentalizing.

“I understand,” Georgie says. “Do you need help with your bookshelf?”

Later, after Melanie’s whipped out her thigh knife to cut open every box, and after Georgie’s directed her on organizing the books by size, the two of them settle on the couch. Georgie opens an old season of Bake Off on her tablet. They’d watched a few episodes together before, but since Georgie finds captions distracting and Melanie has a tendency to talk over everything, they’d both decided that watching separately and calling afterwards made more sense.

Today, Melanie is silent. As soon as the episode ends, she gets up and announces, “I’m going back to work.”

Georgie doesn’t protest, not yet. It’s too early to be sure it won’t push Melanie away. She opts instead for, “Take care of yourself.”

“I can’t make any promises,” Melanie says, and then contradicts herself immediately by saying, “See you.”

(When Georgie leaves, she leaves the rose cane.)

Georgie leans back in the bathtub, careful to keep her braids out of the water, and lets the warmth soak into her joints. It’s a ritual she usually performs in the morning on days that requires more physical activity than she’s used to. As for why she’s trying to increase her range of motion and discomfort tolerance on this particular day… Georgie takes an ibuprofen and elects not to think about it.

On the way to the hospital, Georgie also elects not to think about the word “hypocrite.” This is made easier by the fact that she never actually enters Jon’s room. Melanie is waiting in the doorway, looking wired in a way that makes Georgie’s heart beat faster.

“You left your extra cane at my place again,” she says, but it sounds more like a question than a factual statement.

“I suppose we’ll have to go back and get it,” Georgie answers. “If you’d like to, that is?”

Melanie sneaks a look at Georgie’s face, nods, and grabs her arm. “Let’s get out of here.”

Georgie is well aware that this is the first time they’ve touched since April. Melanie isn’t an enormously tactile person, but she used to hug people hello and goodbye. Georgie misses inhaling the scent of citrus shampoo every time Melanie ran into her, but this is a good replacement.

The two of them are silent until they reach Melanie’s flat, which Melanie’s clearly cleaned. The floor looks fresh-swept; there’s less dust everywhere; and most importantly, the mattress has been unpacked. It sits on the ground in front of them, topped with several pillows and blankets.

Melanie sits Georgie down on the couch, still gripping her by the (by now, asleep) arm, and blurts out, “I bought condoms.”

Georgie is prepared for this, wants this, but still—”Are you sure you’re in a good emotional place to—”

Melanie rolls her eyes and says, speeding through the words like she’s written them out beforehand, “Whatever you think’s happening to me, I promise you it has no interest in my sex life. If you don’t want to, fine. I have Candy Crush on my phone. There are books, you can”—Melanie affects a bad American accent and leans back—”read to me like one of your dead ex-boyfriends. You can leave, if you feel uncomfortable around me right now. Those are your decisions. But this is mine.”

“Will you still talk to me after this?”

Melanie considers, chewing on her lip. “This… won’t affect whether or not I still talk to you.”

“Are you trying to hurt yourself with this?”

“Unless you’re planning to hurt me—”

“I wouldn’t—”

“And unless you’ve forgotten what makes me feel good in the last year, then no, I’m not trying to ‘hurt myself.’ I’d say I’m doing the opposite, actually.”

Georgie knows her next question should be “Are you going to leave the Institute?”, but she also knows that the question will make Melanie pull away and the answer will force Georgie to reconsider. Georgie doesn’t want to reconsider.

“Okay.”

Melanie’s lips are as soft as Georgie remembers, a reminder that she is still here and solid and Georgie’s as long as Georgie’s touching her, holding her, loving her. Melanie deepens the kiss. We’re safe here, Georgie thinks emphatically as she presses forward, like she’ll suddenly be able to develop telepathy if she gets close enough. You’re okay. I’m okay.

Melanie pulls away for breath far too soon. “Sorry. Stuffy nose.”

Georgie laughs. “If you say so.”

“What, don’t believe me?”

“I just thought it was more likely that I took your breath away.”

The pun takes a second to register before Melanie groans and nips at Georgie’s lip. “You’re awful.”

“What a biting retort.”

“Nope!” Melanie kisses Georgie, hard. “It is not safe for you to be making terrible puns to a woman with a knife.”

It takes Georgie a little longer to catch enough breath to respond to that one. “Luckily, I’ve only made good puns today.”

“Jesus,” Melanie says, burying her face in Georgie’s shoulder, and there’s the citrus shampoo, and it’s like nothing has changed, like this is just another hookup between friends after a night out, and maybe Georgie will ask Melanie out next week or maybe she won’t depending on how busy she is, but it doesn’t matter too much because she’s at no risk of losing her soon anyway.

And then Melanie pulls back, and there’s a small cut above her eyebrow that wasn’t there in April. Georgie’s breath catches with the newness of it all. It is October again, and it is suddenly imperative that Melanie knows. “I’ve missed you. All these months. I thought about you all the time.”

Melanie is silent for a while. Then, she leans a few centimeters forward and presses a kiss to Georgie’s nose, so careful it makes Georgie want to cry. “I… don’t know if I can miss anyone anymore. But I”—she sighs—”I have… thought about you.”

“I’ll take it,” Georgie says because she will take it, she’ll take any proof that whatever is between them still has soil to grow in. And then Melanie moves her lips to Georgie’s neck and asks, “Do you want to move to the bed?”, and everything they say and think from then on is far harder to transcribe.

Georgie looks at her phone again, where several texts to Melanie over the last week remain unread. Nothing important, just pictures of The Admiral and a Tweet she found funny. It probably doesn’t mean anything, but Georgie has so few ways to find clues about Melanie’s mental state that these things end up mattering more than they should.

When Georgie steps out of the elevator still looking at her phone, she’s stopped by a woman wearing a hijab with her arm in a splint.

“Georgie, right?” she asks. “I’m Basira. Melanie sent me.”

“Yes, that’s me,” Georgie says. “Where’s Melanie?”

The thing about no longer being able to feel fear is that it leaves behind a hole. Sometimes, in its place, Georgie feels a neighboring emotion—disgust, surprise, anger. Sometimes, she just feels nothing.

Basira speaks, and Georgie’s fingers turn numb.

“We—the Magnus Institute—we were attacked a few days ago.”

“Is Melanie okay?” Georgie’s voice sounds distant to her own ears.

“Oh!” Basira says. “Yeah, sorry, didn’t mean to worry you. She’s fine, not too injured. She’s actually the one who saved us all.”

Although Georgie’s lost her fear, she hasn’t lost the ability to feel relief. The feeling comes rushing into her, warming her skin and slowing her breaths.

“Oh, thank god.”

But Basira isn’t finished yet. “She told me to tell you that you shouldn’t expect to see her back here again.”

“What?” Melanie had said that what happened last week wouldn’t affect whether or not she talked to Georgie afterwards, and Georgie trusts her. Whatever this is is far worse than post-sex awkwardness. “Why?”

“Basically, leaving the Institute�� it’s not safe anymore. I shouldn’t even be here, but I owe Melanie a favor. We need her protection.”

Georgie plays the words back to herself, once, then twice. “That’s it?”

“What do you mean?”

“You break your arm once and now Melanie has to live out the rest of her life as a guard dog?”

“Everyone’s in danger, including her.”

“But you’re giving her the task of defending against whatever tried to hurt you.”

Basira sighs. “You don’t get it. You didn’t see her attack The Flesh.”

“Sure.”

“It was like… She was laughing. The whole time. The ‘not being able to quit’ mess is a different issue, but the anger and violence? I think she likes it.”

There’s the numbness again, and with it, a heaviness on Georgie’s chest. “I don’t believe you.”

Basira sighs again. “Listen, I don’t really know what the situation between the two of you was, but I think you need to let it go. Either way, I need to get back to work.”

Basira presses the down button on the elevator. The door doesn’t automatically slide open, so she stands there and waits for the elevator to reach their floor. Georgie is suddenly very aware that if she stays here, she might break something.

“I have to go, too,” she says, and heads to the stairwell where no one can see her scream into her hands.

“Melanie?” Georgie says into the phone, hoping against hope that this is a good sign.

There is silence from the other end of the line, and Georgie waits, teetering between shocked and curious and angry and numbnumbnumb. Then, slow and rasping:

“Georgie. It’s… agh! sorry—it’s… good to… hear from you.”

“It’s good to hear from you too, but it’s been five months, Melanie, what are you even—”

“I… know, I'm… sorry… but I need… you to get me…”

Georgie arrives at the location Melanie’s sent her within minutes and stops dead. Melanie’s slumped on the ground, face tear-soaked and twisted in pain. In one hand, she holding her knife, which she drops once she registers that the sounds she’s hearing are Georgie approaching. In the other, she clutches her right leg. There’s a giant piece of fabric cut out of her trousers. The rest of said trousers are soaked in blood.

Once, Georgie and Melanie had challenged each other to a gore-athon—one night of the bloodiest horror movies they could dig up; whoever reacted audibly or covered their eyes first had to buy the other dinner. Georgie thought the no-fear would give her an advantage; Melanie later told Georgie that she was entirely banking on exploiting the rules (no one said she couldn’t cover her mouth so her reactions would be too muffled to be audible). Georgie doesn’t remember who lost, but she remembers that the injera at the Ethiopian place they went to afterwards was divine. That, and that they didn’t even make it through the first film. Turns out, disgust is disgust regardless of the presence of fear, and it’s very hard to muffle full-throat yells even with your fist in your mouth.

Melanie’s not screaming this time, and Georgie’s not disgusted, just very, very still.

“Fuck,” Georgie says. “How long have you been—”

Melanie’s words leave her mouth between gritted teeth. “Not… sure. Hour, maybe? Wasn’t really in a state… to count.”

“And you ran all the way from the Institute before—?”

Melanie nods.

“Fuck.”

Melanie makes a grabby motion with her free hand. “Did you bring…?”

Melanie had asked on the phone if Urban Survival had sent Georgie any first aid kits as part of their What the Ghost? sponsorship. Georgie had said yes, they did, and tried not to stamp down any inappropriate joy over the fact that Melanie knows Urban Survival is a sponsor when the only time she’d read an advert for them was the newest episode this week.

“I didn’t bring the first aid kit.”

Melanie frowns. “Why?”

“Promise me you won’t run?”

Melanie raises her eyebrows and looks meaningfully at her leg.

“I’ve already called an ambulance here.”

“What?”

Melanie looks like she’s gearing herself up for a long argument, but frankly, the optics of Georgie standing over a bleeding woman in an alley aren’t great and adding shouting to the mix is a terrible move. Speaking of—

“Respond to that later. Right now, can I put your knife away?”

“Why?”

“I’ll give it back, I just—I gave them my description, but I still don’t want the paramedics to think I’m the one who attacked you.”

Melanie shrugs and stares at the ground. Georgie bends down (which, ouch) to pick it up, sheathes it, and, after some consideration, drops it in her coat pocket.

“Good now,” she tells Melanie.

“I’m… not going… to hospital.”

As if on cue, Georgie hears the faint sound of sirens. “You can argue with me once we’re on the way.”

“I don’t… want…”

“I checked The Magnus Institute’s health insurance policy, so you should be fine.”

“That’s… not…”

“Melanie, listen. Bandages aren’t gonna cut it, and even though I do have a needle and thread at home, neither of us have hands that listen to us. We can’t stitch this up ourselves.”

The sirens get louder. “Then—”

Georgie notes, briefly, that she is shaking, which is a fairly unusual stress response for herself. “A&E will take care of it. And after that, you tell me what the hell happened because ’Jon and Basira’ isn’t a good enough explanation.”

“I’m… not… going,” Melanie says again.

“Well I am, and I’m also not leaving you, so, tough.” Melanie grimaces, and Georgie softens her tone. “Melanie, do you trust me?”

Melanie scowls, then nods.

“The doctors won’t hurt you. I’ll stay with you the whole time.”

Melanie holds out for a long time, then sighs. “Fine. Don’t… really think I have the… strength right now… to fight off a paramedic.”

“Then it’s a good thing that you don’t have to fight anymore.”

Melanie frowns at that, shaking her head. “I… don’t know… if that’s true.”

There’s a story there, Georgie can tell, an important one, one that Melanie won’t like telling and one that Georgie won’t like listening to.

Georgie presses a kiss to her own fingers, then brushes those fingers against the top of Melanie’s head. “Okay. We’ll work on it. For now, hospital.”

A coda, of sorts:

Melanie tells Georgie about choosing to keep the ghost bullet months later, after therapy and an awl in each eye and a truckload of anesthetic wearing off, and Georgie eats the rest of their dinner thinking about blame and the pitfalls of black-and-white morality. That night in bed, Georgie tells Melanie about why she needed to take a year off uni, and Melanie holds her through it, rubbing the back of Georgie’s neck with her thumb and vowing to stab all future trauma-causing medical corpses. Later, Melanie sinks down onto Georgie, slow and careful, as Georgie gasps into the sticky darkness of their room. In the morning, they say hi to Georgie’s neighbor and their daughter and feed The Admiral. Melanie puts textured stickers on her white cane (which may or may not have a concealed blade compartment, courtesy of one of Georgie’s friends) and talks about getting into podcasting, and Georgie orders takeout and makes a list of name suggestions for the guide dog they’re saving up for. In the afternoon, Georgie takes Melanie to her one-week enucleation follow-up appointment and Melanie says, so very casually, “bye, love you” as she walks into the doctor’s office. There’s more to come later, but for now, Georgie smiles at everyone in the waiting room and the world keeps spinning.

#the magnus archives #tma #wtgfs #what the girlfriends #georgie barker #melanie king #fic #magnuspod

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stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale · 5 years

Text

Anons wanted an explanation for the placements I had on my previous tier list, but upon going back and looking it over, I realized that I wanted to move a few characters around, so I ended up getting a new template and remaking it.

I wrote little bits about each character [yes, each one] below the cut, but be warned, it’s long.

“I love you so much that I would sell my soul to make sure you’re happy”

Lee Everett: Lee is a goddamn legend. He deserves to be at the very top. He’s one of the best protagonists I’ve ever played as in a game, his backstory is incredibly interesting, and his relationship with and dedication to protecting Clementine never felt forced and is one of the highlights of S1. Even now, having replayed S1 a million times, seeing him get bit and slowly become weaker and weaker as he refuses to give up on Clementine still breaks my salt encased heart. Watching him die in the end never fails to put that lump in my throat. I love him.

AJ: I love this kid. I was so worried that they wouldn’t do him justice when the game was announced and I saw the trailer, but I was floored by just how much I grew to love him. He feels like my kid, my responsibility and I want him to grow up strong and smart, but also human. His voice acting is terrific, and I think he’s one of the best child characters we’ve ever been given in video games. His relationship with Clementine rivals Lee and Clem’s relationship and that’s what I wanted. This kid earned his place at the top.

S4 Clementine: This Clementine is my absolute favorite. While I love all the Clementine’s across the four seasons, I feel like she truly hit her peak in S4. I fucking love her, I’m proud of who she grew up to be, and seeing her journey to this point only solidifies that she’s my favorite. She’s strong and stern, but she has her softer moments with AJ and Louis/Violet, and what else is there really to say? She’s Clementine.

Louis: ....Do I really need to explain this? I mean, c’mon. If you’ve been following me for a long time- shit, if you’ve only been following me for a few minutes, then y’all know how much I love Louis. I can say with 100% certainty that Louis is my favorite non-playable character across all four games. I’ve made numerous posts, answered over a hundred asks, written thousands of words about him. Everything about him from his character design, his personality, his traumas, his voice acting, his expressions, his relationship with Clementine and AJ and Violet and Marlon and everyone- He’s the best. I love him.

Rosie: Rosie is the bestest girl in the world. ‘nuff said.

“I fucking love everything about you.”

S1 Clementine: Alright, before y’all come at me with the whole “Why isn’t little baby Clem SS tier you monster??” let me explain: I adore S1 Clementine. She’s still in S tier, after all. However, after playing through these games several times over again, I realize that this really is just the beginning of Clementine’s character and her growth. She’s lovable, she’s cute, and I want to protect her, but she’s not... a compelling character? She doesn’t fully come into herself and develop a stronger personality until S2. Like I said, I still love her and I can’t deny the impact that she had on the characters and us players, but she’s not my favorite Clementine of the bunch.

S2 Clementine: I fucking love S2 Clementine. I’d actually say that she’s my 2nd favorite Clementine. I give S2 a lot of well-deserved shit, but she is the high point of it all. Something about her character is compelling to me, like how she’s stuck with a bunch of adults who underestimate her yet want her to do everything for them and she just... is so done with it hahaha. But her growth is what it really does it for me. We went from little baby Clementine who whimpered at a small cut on her finger to a Clementine who fucking sews her own arm up, covers herself in walker guts with barely a flinch, can shoot a gun with great accuracy and take down walkers like they ain’t shit, and can survive and make her own decisions. Also, her instant connection with AJ is great. Love it. Love her.

Javier Garcia: Yo, I love this beautiful man. This man is honestly the best part of ANF, and without him it would’ve been such a shitty game. I found his backstory as an ex-professional baseball player booted from the league for gambling a cool concept. He’s hilarious and charming, too. Honestly, he deserved a better game with better, y’know? The only reason he’s not SS tier is because of the writing and his nonsense with Kate when you don’t want to romance her. It makes it seem like he led her on and then was like “Wait nevermind lol” which is annoying, but other than that, he’s great. Love his relationships with most of the characters, and the ending he got was pretty good.

James: I don’t talk about him as much as I should because I find James fucking fascinating. If they ever made a DLC or a mini-game for twdg, I want it to be about James and his journey in finding and joining the whisperers, his relationship with Charlie, and how he escaped them. His views on walkers, his survival and killing skills, his past traumas haunting his every moment for fear that he’ll revert back to what he was, his extreme pacifism that ironically turns violent- just what a cool fucking character. And while he has his wild moments [cave scene, anyone? “Oh ouch!” hahahahahaa] he’s still one of my favorites.

Violet: Oh, Violet. She’s amazing. I love her so damn much. If there’s ever been a character that I see a lot of myself in, it’s her.... which is why I tend to be a little harsh with her sometimes, but I can’t deny that she’s one of the most well-written characters across the whole series. She’s not perfect [both she and Louis do have their tiny inconsistencies that I blame the writing for] but that’s a good thing. And while I don’t ship her and Clementine, I 100% get why a lot of people do. Their relationship is adorable and way more compelling than her previous relationship with Minerva.

“I love you <3″

Carley: My beautiful girlfriend... you were taken away far too soon. Carley’s one of my favorite characters from S1. I wish we could’ve had more time to explore a relationship between her and Lee, but what we did get is enjoyable. She’s a badass, and I will always love the moment she tells Lilly off for being a little bitch, even though it results in her death. Not a day goes by where I’m not salty about that one.

Molly: Molly’s a goddamn badass. She scales buildings like it’s nothing, she named her weapon Helga, and her backstory with Crawford and her sister is terrific. Also, she’s funny and I love her. That’s that.

Omid: This dude was literally a light in S1. He brought us some humor when we needed it [ “...You broke that dude’s face.” ] and his relationship with Christa was so sweet. Also, him and Lee bonding over being history nerds? Yes, please. It’s bullshit that he was killed off two seconds into S2 but hey... S2 had a lot of bullshit in it so... Justice for Omid 2k19.

Luke: *deeeeeeeep inhale* Big Brother Luke did not deserve that bullshit. Literally one of the best characters in S2 and y’all just.... did him dirty like that. And for what? To make room for Kenny and Jane? Bull. Shit. Luke was so damn good, and the only reason he’s not higher is because of what they did to him after ep3. He starts out so kind and supportive and seriously like a big brother character then SUDDENLY he’s stupid and “makes it” with Jane while walkers are trying to eat us and then he gets himself shot and then fucking dies and akjsjdlkjasdkjaslkjasdklerwedascasads-

S3 Clementine: ...So, here’s where y’all will probably get pissed. S3 Clementine is my least favorite of the bunch. Don’t get me wrong, I still love her and she is still in A tier, but... how do I explain it? She’s in her 13-year-old, emo/angsty phase and it’s hilarious when it shouldn’t be. There are moments where I do become emotional for her, like when David takes AJ away and Javi hugs her, or when Gabe dies and she’s saying goodbye, or when she gets her first period, y’know moments like that! BUT... then we have moments where Javi goes to talk to her and she’s all “HAVING PEOPLE IS GREAT AT FIRST BUT EVENTUALLY EVERYONE DIES” or when she straight up shoots that guy who gave her faulty bullets OR WHEN SHE’S LIKE “IMMA KILL ME A LINGARD” AND.......... it’s too much for me! I can’t take her seriously when she’s this angsty, even when I understand why she is the way she is. Again, to reiterate, I still love her but in ranking all four Clementines, she comes in last for me.... and I can already hear the shit that’s gonna be thrown my way haha

Conrad: The most underappreciated character in S3 and it’s nonsense. Don’t come for me, but this dude is my favorite npc in S3. I love Conrad, and I wish we got more of him. He does have his own little arch if you keep him alive through the end. His grief over Francine is heartbreaking and his downward spiral that leads him to act out and threaten Javi, Clem, and Gabe so that he can get his revenge is wonderful. And btw, he does apologize for pulling the gun on them and makes up for it in the future. And y’know what moves him up into A tier? The moment you let him kill Badger. One of the best kills of the game. I prefer it over beating the shit out of Badger myself.

Aasim: This boy is my son, and I’m sorry, but he’s really fucking cool. You’ve got this kid who was sent to Ericson for being a pyromaniac [according to Kent, it’s not actually mentioned in game] and grew into this guy who documents everything so that they’ll have a form of history to look back on and help not repeat mistakes. His banter with Louis is funny, and even though he gets fed up with Louis for not taking anything seriously, he still cares deeply about him given how he reacts when Louis loses his tongue. His crush on Ruby is adorable, too. I just love him, he’s great.

Marlon: Now, originally I put Marlon in a lower tier [the “I like your role in the story” type of tier] but upon reflection I actually find Marlon to be a compelling character. He’s high on the list because of how well he’s portrayed. Marlon has some of the best voice acting across all the games. There isn’t a single moment where I don’t believe what he’s saying, which says something. There are moments where Clementine will say something and I go, “Really? That’s the take they went with? Okay...” but not with Marlon. For only being in ep1, he played his part really fucking well. I won’t defend any of the shit he pulled because it’s awful, but I understand everything he did. He is a coward, a sheep hiding in a wolf’s coat, pretending that he’s got everything under control and putting all the pressure of a leader onto himself and it eventually breaks him. I know they killed him off to further the plot and show how ruthless AJ can be as a child growing up in the world, but I wish he survived past ep1 so that we could really get into the meat of his character. I’ll say it: I love him as fake-friend-to-full-on-antagonistic-character and his role within the story.

Mitch: I fucking love Mitch and the only reason he isn’t in SS tier is because of how goddamn dirty the writers did him. You give me this boy- this butterknife wielding, foul-mouthed, angry, hilarious, bomb-making boy and make me fall in love with him and THEN YOU KILL HIM OFF IN THE STUPIDEST WAY POSSIBLE. “Oh, lemme just run at the crazy lady with a knife and- OOF! It appears I’ve been throat stabbed bleh-” I’ve complained about this since ep2, but lemme say it again: Mitch had so much potential to be an amazing character but never got the chance to because we had to add to the death count and make us more afraid of Lilly even though it didn’t do shit because it was a reaction kill rather than one made out of malice.

Tenn: Tenn is such a tragic character for me. In my personal canon ending, he dies because he was “messing up again” and AJ shot him. This poor kid was so full of hope that the walkers would go away one day, he’s so genuine and never wants to hurt anyone, even if they’re trying to hurt him, and he’s so fucked up from seeing Minerva that he stops thinking and tries to go to her even as she’s being devoured right in front of him. Tenn is like this game’s Sarah, but done right. He deserved better, but he was a well-written character and I love him. His friendship with AJ was so sweet which makes it even more heartbreaking when he dies. Yet another terrific child character.

“I like you and/or your role within the story”

S1 Kenny: This dude is such a chaotic topic. I feel like 90% of the fandom has an incredibly strong opinion on him, and of that 90%, 45% of people absolutely love him and if you say anything negative you’ll get a boat to the head while the other 45% loathe him. Then you’ve got the 10% who don’t have such strong opinions, and that’s where I fall. I like Kenny, and I like S1 Kenny more than his S2 counterpart. He has a great arch throughout the season regardless if you’re his best pal or not. He has some funny lines, some emotional scenes. I’ll never forget the first time I played the scene where Kenny’s crying over Katjaa’s dead body while Duck is laying against the tree on the brink of death. And I definitely will never forget the part where he finds the boy in the attic. Overall, I like him and what he brought to S1.

Katjaa: She was really sweet and her death broke my heart. I don’t have too much to say about her, but I liked her a lot. She loved her family and met a tragic end.

Ben: Fucking Ben, man. This poor kid. Another character with wasted potential. I’ve mentioned this plenty of times before, but I wish we could get an alternative ending where Ben was the only one who survived and became Clementine’s new caretaker. There was so much room for growth. He just wanted to help out but kept screwing up and it’s just.... sad.

Christa: I’ll be honest, the first time I ever played S1, I didn’t like Christa. Something about her rubbed me the wrong way and I didn’t care about her as much as I did Omid. However, the more times I replayed it, the more I grew to love her. She’s strong but sweet, and you can’t deny how much she loves Omid. And while I wish we did get to know what happened to her in S2, I can live with it remaining unknown.

Chuck: As much as I like our guitar playing hobo friend who deserved so much more, I would probably put him a tier lower if it weren’t for the advice that he gives Lee on the train. Because of him, Lee stopped treating Clementine entirely like a little girl in need of protection and cut her hair, taught her to use a gun, and furthered their communication by building a plan together. Without Chuck and his wise hobo words, Lee might’ve fucked both of them over. Also, Chuck’s pretty badass with that shovel, he got a lot of chuckles out of me, but his death was off screen and disappointing.

Andy St John: Okay. Okay okay okay. Andy. He is so high here [and so much higher than his mom and brother] because to me, he’s the scariest of the St John’s. Why? Because he’s the most normal-appearing of the three. He acts and talks like any normal guy would. He’s someone that I could see myself running into in real life. He’s so good at hiding how fucked up he is from everyone, unlike his brother who you can just look at and go “hahahahaha no thanks” and his mother who’s character design is just awful. I find him to be the strongest of the three, the smartest and the most dangerous. And the final fight between him and Lee is amazing. I love how you can be so furious with him that you keep punching him even after the prompt goes away and then his face goes all purple and swollen. Easily the greatest antagonist in S1.

Eddie: This dude is the best character to come out of the 400 Days dlc. End of story.

Alvin: He gave me a juice box and that automatically puts him here. Real great guy but we didn’t get too into his character. Wish we could’ve, though.

Rebecca: She grew on me tbh. Didn’t like her in ep1 when she was being all pissy and all, but for the most part, she’s pretty good.

Mike: I will forever wish the writers went through with the concept of Mike being one of the guys who attacked Christa because then he could’ve had a better character backstory. Regardless, I still like him. He’s pretty funny.

Nick: Nick? Oh, you mean PURE WASTED POTENTIAL. I mean, they really did give us this super flawed but sympathetic and interesting character and kill him off-screen. They really did that. Honestly, S2 really pisses me off sometimes for the way they treated these characters. It all goes downhill once everyone escapes. Yeah, yeah, blah blah not everyone gets a meaningful death blah blah but y’know what? You can do better than that. I loved Nick and I was so excited to see what they’d do with him in the end but NOPE! Justice 4 Nick 2k19

Pete: What a good dude. He stuck by Clementine’s side even when everyone thought she was bit. Love him. Wish we saw more of him.

Sarah: Ha. Ha. PURE WASTED POTENTIAL 2.0. What else needs to be said? This girl had the foundation for a great character but again, NOPE! I really liked Sarah! I wanted to teach her to use a gun to protect herself! The loss of her father fucking broke her and it was hard to watch but I wanted more and just ahaklsdjlaskjdlkakjaskjsaadkljas ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh-

Ava: Yo. Ava’s a fucking gorgeous badass. Really liked her and how she was sweet on Clementine. Also, it’s interesting that she stuck by David’s side like that.

David: I have a lot of mixed feelings about David. On one hand, the complicated relationship between him and Javier is good, even if it’s a little bullshit at times. On the other hand, David’s an asshole. But he’s a great antagonistic character. I do love that about him. The shit with him and Kate was a little annoying, but only because they didn’t ever elaborate on anything. On what level was the marriage fucked? Was it straight-up abusive? What happened to David’s first wife? Why did Kate and David get married in the first place? I got questions! But, like Javier, I think David deserved a better game with better writing.

Jesus: This dude parkour kills walkers. Pretty fucking badass.

Tripp: I feel like I don’t like Tripp as much as some people. I like him fine, but I know a lot of folks gush about him. I think he’s a good dude, a little pushy with Eleanor, but he’s loyal and strong.

S2 Lilly: I fucking hate Lilly. I hate her so goddamn much. She pushes every wrong button with her bullshit “Where's our new recruits?? Lee would be so disappointed knowing he taught you all the wrong things! You’re one of my people now, Clementine” AND THE GODDAMN “Yes, Ma’am” SHIT. Nothing irks me more than every time someone from the delta acts like Lilly’s the baddest bitch and call her “Ma’am” I HATE IT AND I HATE HER. SHE KILLED MITCH. SHE KIDNAPPED MY CHILDREN. SHE DARES TO TRY AND HURT LOUIS LIKE HE’S NOTHING. AND I HATE EVERYTHING ABOUT HER....... That being said, y’all are probably thinking “wtf if you hate her so much why isn’t she in F tier???” and that’s because no other antagonist in these games has ever gotten this strong of a reaction out of me. Lilly is a damn good antagonist. She’s not perfect, and there are definitely things I would change or add, but she does her job and makes me absolutely livid [yeah yeah I know ha ha ha ha] every time she’s on screen doing her bullshit. I hate her and that counts for something. She’s easily the best “villain” in the entire series.

Ruby: I love my funny little hot-headed medic. Ruby’s amazing and I love her.

Willy: This kid really grew on me. I thought he was weird and creepy at the beginning but I adore him now. His brotherly relationship with Mitch should’ve been explored more, and at times his voice acting is kind of jarring, but I still love him.

“You’re fine, I guess...”

Duck: He’s fine. I like Duck. I like the “what if” scenarios we’ve come up with surrounding his character, and his death always puts a lump in my throat, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to say I love him, y’know?

Doug: Again, he’s fine. He has some funny moments when you save him, and he’s got a cool little panda bear on his sweater but... yeah. He’s okay.

Mark: Oh hai Mark. He’s cool, and the reason he’s not lower is because the iconic moment of finding him in the hidden room with his legs chopped off choking out the words “Don’t... eat... dinner” forever haunts my nightmares.

Russell: I’m not a big fan of most of the playable 400 Days characters, but I think if I had to pick a favorite, it’s Russell. His backstory of being with the group that believed in the power of 7′s [I think it was 7 I dunno going off of memory here] was cool and his weird thing with Nate was fun and disturbing. He’s a pretty cool character.

Carlos: I’ve made posts about Carlos before and how I think he had a lot of potential, but looking strictly at his role in the game and I’m left underwhelmed. I did get a lot of shit for where I placed him in my previous tier because he was [and still is] above S2 Kenny but I’m not going to lie and say I like Kenny more than him because... I don’t. I just think Carlos should’ve been given more development.

Carver: A cool antagonist who was defeated waaaaaay too early in the game. They were doing a fantastic job at making me hate him with his treatment of Clementine, beating the shit out of Kenny, murdering Alvin and pulling all that shit with Rebecca, but killing him off so quickly didn’t make it feel as satisfying. Again, underwhelming.

Sam: This pup betrayed me and he ain’t no Rosie, but we played frisbee so he gets a C I guess

Gabe: Y’know, Gabe could’ve been so good. But every time I play through ANF, he ends up annoying me more than Ben. What does that tell you? He’s fine, but he could’ve been a lot better.

Mariana: I’m not so much “meh” on Mari because I think she’s sweet and likable! The problem is I don’t want to put her any higher because really? What did she do? She died horribly because Badger’s a piece of shit.

Abel: Meh this guy’s garbage. I only put him up a little higher because the scene with him in the basement is really good.

Brody: Brody is like the Mariana of S4 for me, just a bit better. I do like her. She had some development but her whole purpose was to die by Marlon’s hand and get the plot going. Would’ve loved to learn more about her, but I couldn’t give her anything higher than a C.

Minerva: Controversial opinion but........ I don’t like Minerva as much as a lot of people do. If I could be brutally honest, if I were ranking these characters solely on how I feel about them without looking at their roles in the games and character development, Minerva would be in E tier at the highest. However, I can’t deny how tragic and complex her character and backstory is. It’s similar to how I feel about Lilly, but different. I think she’s just so fucked up from the delta that she’s become a husk of who she was and it results in her constantly pissing me off with all her shit. Also, the bridge scene alone bumps her up. That shit was crazy in a good yet tragic way.

Omar: At one point, I forgot Omar existed until he got shot in the leg...... but he’s also God so y’know. I like him but I also had to make up my own little backstory for him so...

“Meh”

S1 Lilly: I don’t care about S1 Lilly in the slightest, she’s awful. They made her way more compelling in S4. And she killed my girlfriend which is bullshit on it’s own.

Jolene: If I could rewrite S1, I would’ve thrown out the Stranger and had Jolene be the kidnapper. As Danny said, “What a waste.”

Bonnie: She’s pretty disappointing, tbh. I didn’t like how the game help pushing her onto Clem and overall she’s pretty forgettable.

Vince: He’s okay, I guess. He killed a dude one time. And shot a guy’s foot off.

Wyatt: “Meh” hahaha Eddie was a cooler character than he was

Jane: I wish Jane had been the Molly of S2 and stayed gone after she left the first time. I like that she taught Clementine some useful survival tactics and that’s what puts her on this tier, but I think we all know how I feel about the whole Jane vs. Kenny thing by now so...

S2 Kenny: This Kenny actually moved up a tier because I fully took in everything he’s been through thus far and.... “Meh.” I don’t think he’s good for Clementine, I think she and AJ need a group like Wellington. I recognize that he’s a lot of people’s favorite, but like I said above in his S1 counterpart, I’m the 10% that doesn’t have that strong of an opinion on him. I’d much rather discuss other characters over him.

Sarita: Forgettable, really. Except for when you get the chance to cut her hand off. That fucking scream of hers is anything but forgettable, yeesh.

Walter: Again, mostly forgettable. His death was sad, and I do think he’s a good example of what happens when you’re too trusting in this world, but overall he doesn’t stand out to me.

Kate: I probably would’ve liked Kate more if her romance wasn’t so damn forced. She has some funny lines, but she’s also pretty selfish and fickle when it comes to a lot of things. And I will forever be annoyed at her inability to keep her mouth shut about her and Javi’s relationship [or lack of] in front of David.

“I don’t like you but you’re not the absolute worst, I guess...”

Danny St John and Brenda St John: I put these two together because they have the same issue: They’re fucking creepy. Where Andy was normal and deceiving, these two look like they want to cut my legs off and eat them. I think they’re much weaker in character than Andy was, even with Danny’s weird sexual fixation of his gun and Brenda talking about her husband.

Vernon: He’s not the absolute worst because I do feel a little sympathy for him losing his daughter, but everything else just makes me not like him.

Shel and Becca: Easily my two least favorite characters in 400 Days. I had no real interest in either of them.

Arvo: This guy. I didn’t put him in as the absolute worst because of all the unnecessary shit Kenny put him through. No wonder he wanted to get the hell outta there.

Clint: I literally couldn’t give a single shit about this dude or what happens to him.

Eleanor: I don’t like Eleanor. I found her annoying. Her one good quality is her want to help people, but that want didn’t do much to help Tripp now did it, Eleanor.

“The absolute worst”

Larry: Did you expect anything else? Fuck this guy.

Stranger: Worst final antagonist ever. You’re telling me I have to fight this Mister Roger’s tootsie pop? I’ll bet you $1 I can do it with one hand. Fuck this guy.

Troy: Fuck Troy. All he does is smack Clementine around and then get shot in the dick.

Joan: This lady is a laughably bad antagonist. The worst fucking “villian” jfc...

---

There ya have it. Do you agree, disagree? Maybe a character I found boring you really liked! Maybe you want to tell me why Kenny is the best/worst again! We can discuss it.

I’m always open to talking about these characters!

69 notes · View notes

starchasertonight · 5 years

Note

Like you and everyone, I got very excited about the 18 tbt episode announcement. But now I’m getting that dreadful they don’t care about Kadena that much feeling again. NB hasn’t been to Montreal yet. I don’t know what episode they’re filming, but my guess is 4? If there are 18 eps total, my guess is Kadena will be in 8, if we’re lucky. What are your feels?

As far as I’m aware I think they’re only filming the 2nd episode so far. But then again I don’t track that as closely as others. I’m not that concerned because I appreciate what having 18 episodes does overall for the show and storytelling possibilities. There being 18 eps doesn’t make me expect Adena to be in 17 of them. At the end of the day, she’s not a part of the trio. I don’t think we can expect her to be a major feature in every episode. I think that, like before, there will be episodes where she’s involved in a major story, episodes where she has a less central role but is still present, and episodes where she’s not on screen at all. I think the fact that she’s now going to be a Scarlet employee and can be integrated beyond just being Kat’s love interest may decrease the number of no-Adena episodes. What matters to me is that we get this natural flow across 18 episodes instead of 10, so it doesn’t feel as devastating when she’s gone during an episode or not much major content happens. And net we will have more Adena content in s4 than in any other season by comparison. It gives space to not rush Kadena’s story. The other thing I’d point out is it’s also a matter of quality as much as it is quantity. Adena was only in 6 of the 10 episodes of Season 1, yet it remains the fan favorite season. She appeared in I think 8 of the S2 episodes (my memory isn’t as good there), but fans hated a lot of it. Though Adena only appeared in the last 3 episodes of S3, it generated more excitement than any Adena content from 2x04-2x10 partly because of how on point it was. So I don’t think we should think just in terms of number of episodes present, but also the quality of her presence in an episode. And under Wendy’s leadership, I trust that when Adena is present it will be good content. Even if Adena is only present in 12 of the 18 episodes, say, that will still be double the quality Adena content we’ve ever gotten in a season.

As for filming right now, it doesn’t make sense for Adena to be there as long as the Scarlet situation is still being resolved. Adena’s not going to be starting her job while Scarlet is on hold, and I don’t think Kat would intentionally see her outside of Scarlet right now when she’s trying to pursue her own growth and stability and Adena is the greatest temptation that would challenge that. And since they don’t have to rush this Scarlet story, I’m not expecting Adena to necessarily appear until the 3rd or 4th episode. We don’t even know what Adena’s start date for the job is supposed to be, and 4x01 will pick up with no time having passed. I imagine it would be at least a couple weeks within the show’s time before Adena starts her job, maybe a month, in a good scenario where Scarlet recovers quickly. And I think that’s a good thing, because then it won’t just be awful angst when Adena does show up. Hopefully by that point Kat has settled a bit and it’s more awkward and difficult than tear-inducing for them.

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ragnarssons · 5 years

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Do you honestly think bellarke has a chance or are we just grasping for straws

This season? I don’t know, I think ep4 is always too early to tell. You know, because usually, Clarke and Bellamy end up being separated and blablabla we don’t know for how long and blablabla. I do think Jo!Clarke will propel the separation if there is any this year. Or maybe Jo!Clarke will be the separation itself, not a physical one, but a mental one this time. Idk. As for whether or not it’ll happen this season… uh, I really can’t tell, because early s5 I thought it had every chance of happening because of the calls, the “She Is”, the “Hostage taker and his girlfriend”, their reunion and all, which all hard romantic undertones to it. We still have these scenes now, but again it depends on how much they’ll share together this season. Ask me again around ep7 I’d say? LolAs for the show itself, yes I think Bellarke will happen. I think it’s in the text, and it even is in what Jroth and cie tell us, even tho they keep hiding it under the same phrases over and over again. The fact that they barely dared to adress it during a long time after s3 is an indication to me itself. I do see too much of usually romantic tropes condensed in Bellarke- forreal, I watch a couple on screen and I always think “Bellarke did that too!” like, it’s crazy, all of it is here! The fandom can see it, the casuals can see it, reviewers can see it and everyone pointed it out at the end of s5. We’re really in the second half of the show, starting walking toward the end of the show itself- like if we theorize it’ll go up to s10 we’re starting the end here! But I do think the show will be either seven or eight seasons long- if s7 is meant to be the last, my guess is that they’ll announce it at Comic Con this Summer, by the way.

The important thing to remember is that we are not grasping for straws no matter what: even if Bellarke doesn’t happen because at the end Jroth decided not to make it happen. The romantic undertones are HERE: again, it’s shown by the fact that Bellarke share TONS of romantic tropes we see among other couples on television or in cinema. You could literally parallel Bellarke with every romantic relationships on tv right now, or within the show @bellaarke does some interesting gifsets about it for example. Seeing the cinematography of the show, how they implant Clarke’s face during the BE scenes on s5 or Bellamy’s during the Clarke/random dance scene aren’t just random things! These are delibarated decisions: they made Bob pose there, they blocked the scene, and had him make faces, they filmed him from afar, called it a break, re-did the scene, re-blocked it, re-shot it, over and over again. As I said that’s HOURS of work. It could have had been edited in 500 different ways not implying some kind of romantic longing and/or “sad jealousy” from Bellamy- and yet they did it this way. In the story itself, which is about redemption and hope and acceptance, Bellarke DOES make sense. Bellarke would be everything as endgame, and maybe that’s why they’re keeping it for the very end: for when the characters are finally at peace, either with their past, with their experiences and who they’ve become. That doesn’t mean it won’t possibly end in tragedy. I’m just saying that storytelling-wise, it would be a waste not to have Bellarke be the epithome of acceptance and peace, and love in terms of romantic relationships. Really, if this ship would be to become canon, it would be one of the most epic of television: I said it. The years of slowburn are really well done, the relationship was built very carefully and apart from s5 where I had a lot of complaints, it was always there, above the storyline, above dramatic OOC decisions. I do feel like for this season, they listened to us. Bellarke and the characters themselves will talk more, and delve more into their trauma: tbh, that’s all I want right now and I’m glad the season is shaping like it’s happening, for good! This whole idea of starting a new book, a new story, start “fresh” somewhere far from their past sins, is the idea opportunity to have them have a clean slate. Hence why I think s5 is so stagnant, because it wasn’t necessary: they kinda should have had s4 ending with them leaving in space, and s5 start with the Sanctum storyline. S5 was unnecessary and yeah, I’ll say that in my death bed still. I disgressed a lot. But end of the story is, yes, I think Bellarke has every chance of becoming canon. This season? It’s too soon to tell. Bellamy is still in a relationship and Clarke isn’t herself. The way I see things, it could go very quickly, because the feelings are there, like at the tip of their tongues. Or it could go slowly because they keep circling each other and it’s the basis of a slowburn. I did feel like at some point of s5 that it was the end, but the way they’re crafting Bellarke so far, has set things back up to normal. They’re still them, and the writers are being very careful with their relationship, which is very nice.

#the 100 speculations #bellarke #the 100 spoilers #answered #anonymous

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amisbro · 6 years

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Deep Dive: The subplot of the UtaPri Anime NO ONE talks about

(God Damn that’s a long title...am I writing a Light Novel?) ANYWAYS (Yes already with the snark...hello @baku5ds) Welcome everyone to a brand new edition of “Deep Dive” where we take a look at things that have happened in Animes and other media and we TRY to find out if there was some other meaning to things that happened...or if there is a possibility that I am just overthinking things Today’s topic is a subplot that I don’t think anyone has ever discussed in the Anime of Uta no Prince-Sama (henceforth known as “UtaPri”) and I thought *Let’s discuss this!* So for this post we are discussing one of UtaPri’s greatest subplots that appeared to go over EVERYONE’S HEAD (including mine) and we’re gonna go over it now! Ladies and Gents...we’re talking about Shining Saotome ,STARISH and HEAVENS! LET’S GO

Alright before we get too far in let’s explain WHY we are talking about this EVERYONE in the UtaPri fandom has always said either one of the following (if not both things) “The UtaPri Anime was all about STARISH’s story” OR “HEAVENS’ role was to make STARISH better” The thing is there was one thing that became interestingly apparent since even the end of Series 1 and then became more clear as we started to move forward was there was some weird motive going on with Shining behind the scenes that made for a very interesting time. Here is how it started In the end of Series 1 (it was episode 12 I do believe) Shining told the other 5 members at the time that the only way he would allow all of them to be a part of a “group” was if Tokiya got back in time...now he did so STARISH was allowed to form right? Well not quite yet See Shining had a nasty trick up his sleeve Shining decided it would be a good idea to tell them that ,in order for them to debut, they had to ditch Nanami (whom up to this point had been around them all series. STARISH protested but it was Shining’s word that was law so they were going to have to deal with it UNLESS Haruka could write something better than the “God of Composing” which SPOILER...we never met (all we got to find out was it was a man and that’s it). So now Nanami runs away and goes back to live with her grandmom (and I loved Granny Nanami as a character...I don’t think they allowed her to be at the SSS though which annoyed me) and then STARISH went and tracked her down (which I was fine with cos they wanted HER to be the composer and I can dig the rebellion. Its revealed not long after that Shining was just “testing her” and then STARISH got to debut with her as composer So so far we had Shining fucking with STARISH in this sense...was their more to come? Oh yeah and Series two was going to be the start of something very telling when it came to Shining and even moreso the relationship he had with at least one of his instructors in my main man Ryuuga-Sensei but more on this later When Season 2 starts we are introduced to new cast members in the QUARTET NIGHT and they are to be the “Seniors” for STARISH whom kind of scoff at the idea. This later comes back to bite them (even if the writers don’t do a good job of explaining it) but for now its QN and STARISH under the same roof...but what’s the deal with Shining? Shining finds out that STARISH refused the mentorship of the 4 new cast but is “kind of” okay with it. Its later announced that they (STARISH) would be going for the “UtaPri Award” and you would be left to wonder if its going to be against QN or some group that would be made up for STARISH to truck over (because my belief is that if it HAD been QN there would have been a different outcome). Now everything is pretty tame and everyone is going on relatively “Drama Free” until we get to the 6th episode of the season in “Orange Rhapsody”. THIS was the first episode that made me start to wonder what was going on in Shining’s head after the stunt he pulled in Season 1 with Nanami! It was revealed in this episode that he had heard about “a trio of Amateurs” that would take on STARISH at the awards and when he revealed this it was in front of Ryuuga (I’m refraining from using surnames for a reason here...it’ll be clear in a bit) and ,while Ryu-Sensei didn’t flinch here you know he had to be trusting them less and less because of stuff that was going on. (I say this and we have to remember my fave instructor basically demoted Tokiya and threatened to kick Ren out in Season 1...still like him though) Now my question that I had asked myself at this point was this “How does Shining know about this ‘Trio of Amateurs’ and who are they?” Well we don’t get their identity revealed until the 10th episode of the season (”Crystal Time”) and now things get interesting. See around this time Cecil was getting ready to leave to go back to Agnapolis by order of his dad...problem was that he wanted to help STARISH be the best group they could be so he basically begged to come back and he did...now when it comes to the deal with HEAVENS well... Shining (and the man we would come to know as Raging Ootori) make an agreement that the winner of the UtaPri Awards can stay on as a group but the loser has to disband...this part is interesting because both groups had zero say in this (and not long before this STARISH rebelled against Ringo and Ryuuga) so we had a lot going on here and it was going to take time to process...except we didn’t have that much because the UtaPri awards were coming up! So surprise surprise STARISH wins the award and everyone (before the Season 3 announcement) thinks the show is over...the series 3 announcement comes and we find out otherwise but let’s talk about this competition. The idea was that the group that lost goes away for good right? Okay so then WHY did Shining prevent the disbandment of HEAVENS? I dunno about everyone when they first saw this but I was very curious about what was going on here because Raging was legit ready to honor the agreement and then Saotome broke it...the hell?! As much as I love Season 2 this ending confuses me for this reason A “Protagonist” usually would honor an agreement put forth and do as was told but an “Antagonist” would find a way to weasel out of it. Someone tell me how Shining ,despite being the President of the “Protagonist company”, isn’t an Antag here when he deliberately broke the agreement and then STARISH backed it? I dunno why but I forever find this confusing. Oh but the Shining/HEAVENS connection was going to start to get even more confusing. See come Season 3 we had more stuff with Shining and Ryuuga in the car when the issue over “Code: T.V.U.” broke out (and again another Ren episode). The thing was here was that Ryuuga was wondering if Shining had something planned for STARISH and when Shining didn’t say ANYTHING that gave him all the intel he needed...but he just didn’t know WHAT! So now fast forward to the end of Season 3 and what do we see? HEAVENS (whom was a trio in Season 2 and now 7 members in Season 3) AND Shining and Raging standing atop the Shining Tower together as if they were in on this the whole time! Aight...this are STARTING to come into the picture here So now we know that Shining and Raging were halfass working together. I say “halfass” cos the reality was that with Season 4 we come to find out that it would appear all the episodes at least STARTED in the Raging Entertainment office! THEN we talk about the “Three episodes from hell” (or more specifically “NEXT DOOR”) The things that forever puzzled me about the episode Eiichi claimed that Shining gave him permission for the training camp. IF we go under the assumption that Shining has had an interest in HEAVENS this whole time then that makes sense that he would give the Leader the “go ahead” for doing this kind of thing with Otoya...makes sense to me. Now...the report It can be speculated that Eiichi “invaded” the privacy of Otoya to get what he wanted out of him. I still don’t think that is the case and its been almost two years since the episode. I’m still thinking that Shining gave him whatever he needed (which if we again go by him having an interest in HEAVENS this makes sense) but Shining didn’t know what the result was going to be. NOW...once we got out of that mess what would Shining’s next point of interest be with HEAVENS? The SSS! Remember that in Episode 11 STARISH delivered their song from Nanami (and shocker of shocker NANAMI couldn’t be there..was still curious was they kept Nanami from HEAVENS for a good portion of the season) and around episode 12 HEAVENS made their triumphant reappearance at the re-election (with an assist from QN of all groups) and then despite losing was asked by STARISH of all groups to assist with a song. Okay this part puzzled me but the more you think about Saotome and his weird connection with HEAVENS this is gonna kind of make sense because when they were getting ready to do it Raging was going to stop them...then SHINING showed up and prevented him from leaving! Plot hole Why did Shining Stop Raging from going to get HEAVENS at this point in time...they lost again to STARISH so him getting them and pulling them off the stage would make sense right? Here is like the point of all of this It seemed whenever STARISH was going to do something Shining put up a roadblock to try and keep them from appearing Like in Season 1 it was “Either you do it without Nanami or you don’t do it at all” Season 2 was “If Cecil doesn’t come back before I get on this copter and leave you aren’t going to do the award show Season 3 was “I dunno if I want you to do the SSS election” but got backed into it by QN whom then turned on STARISH Season 4 was the only season that really HE didn’t do it...it was an accident by Eiichi but it was Raging’s idea in the FIRST PLACE! YET When it comes to HEAVENS Shining S2 Prevented HEAVENS from disbanding despite the conditions in the agreement S3 Was with Raging after HEAVENS reappeared as a 7 member group S4 Prevented Raging from going to pull HEAVENS during the final song of the season Have you noticed something herte: Shining seems VERY INTERESTED in HEAVENS for some reason and yet oddly DIDN’T say “They had enough of your abuse...they’re coming with ME now!” And I legit wondered why...still do honestly. There is a part of me that wondered THIS So we got this new movie and now we have the different members in units now and HEAVENS have AT MINIMUM 1 with a STARISH member but also a QN member (some have 2 HEAVENS because of QN having only 4 members). NOW...this makes me wonder this Its known that Shining now has a big interest in them AND its known that he PROBABLY KNOWS that Raging tried to recruit Tokiya. I DON’T THINK its out of the realm of possibility now that he (Shining) is going to try and and get HEAVENS away from Raging but he’s waiting till this next concert. He PROBABLY also wants to see how the HEAVENS members work with QN (R.I.P Eiji and Shion...more the former TBH) and if he gets the results he wants...HEAVENS will NEVER go back to Raging ever again! Now WILL this happen? Hard to say cos its going to be hard to see what goes on with HEAVENS in the movie and then after. If Broc is complete morons then they will ax HEAVENS after this BUT we will have to wait and see because we got a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG wait until then and now the clock starts for the QN single and then we find out about HEAVENS’ HOLY SHIT THIS WAS LONG...okay I think we are done for now but you might see me back later with something a bit more lighthearted...give me a few hours Until then my friends do take care and Good Day Good Night Good BYE!

#Amisbro #Deep Dive #uta no prince sama #HEAVENS #Shining Saotome #I didn't think this was going to be this God Damn long!#but it was so what are you going to do right?

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loadingorganic236 · 3 years

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Traktor S4 Mk1 Catalina

S4 PRO's:-Amazing software. Traktor S4 Pro (and the free upgrade to Traktor 2) are incredible. They work seamlessly with the S4 and the response time is wonderful. Setting up the software and registering is relatively painless and the EULA isn't draconian (you can install the.

Nov 25, 2019 After having conducted systematic tests, Native Instruments confirms full macOS Catalina compatibility with the latest versions of all current products. IMPORTANT NOTE: macOS 10.15 terminates the operability of some NI legacy hardware. This includes MASCHINE MK1, AUDIO 2 / 4 / 8 DJ and TRAKTOR S4 / X1 MK1.

Read Free Traktor S4 Manual Mac Traktor S4 Manual Mac Getting the books traktor s4 manual mac now is not type of inspiring means. You could not lonely going later ebook stock or library or borrowing from your associates to edit them. This is an enormously simple means to specifically get lead by on-line. This online publication traktor s4.

Traktor S4 MK1 on Catalina? I guess I should have done my research before upgrading to a brand new mac with Catalina. My last computer basically bit the dust so I was hoping to move traktor pro 3 over to my new macbook but apparently the kontrol s4 mk1 driver won't work on catalina? Does anyone have a solution for this or am I basically SOL here?

We're currently conducting systematic tests with the release version of macOS 11 (Big Sur) in order to offer full compatibility of our products as soon as possible. You can find our latest compatibility status - here

Please note that although announced at the same time as macOS Big Sur, Apple Silicon processors are an independent release with separate compatibility concerns for NI products. Compatibility with macOS Big Sur will not yet ensure compatibility with Apple Silicon processors. At the moment, Native Instruments products are not supported on computers with Apple Silicon processors. Read more - here

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Discussion in 'KONTROL S2 / KONTROL S3 / KONTROL S4' started by Johannes Schwark, Oct 8, 2019.

Native Instruments Digital

Traktor Kontrol S4

Native Instruments Device Updater

Programs Native Instruments Service Center

Traktor Pro S4

NATIVE INSTRUMENTS S4 MK1 DRIVER INFO:

Type:DriverFile Name:native_instruments_7506.zipFile Size:4.2 MBRating:

4.86 (102)

Downloads:77Supported systems:Windows Vista, Windows Vista 64-bit, Windows XP 64-bit, Mac OS X, Mac OS X 10.4, Mac OS X 10.5Price:Free* (*Registration Required)

NATIVE INSTRUMENTS S4 MK1 DRIVER (native_instruments_7506.zip)

Traktor S4 Mk2

It is easy to forget how popular the Kontrol S4 Mk1 and then Mk2 were, and how Traktor led the way in innovative controller DJing all those years ago. Want a screenshot of the folder Programs/Native Instruments/Service Center application. Showing slide CURRENT SLIDE of TOTAL SLIDES - Shop by Features. Go to deliver an S4 MK3 owners. Samsung 530u4c Driver Windows.

Problem is here don't get the Native Instruments' Traktor Kontrol S4. 26-10-2018 The Traktor Kontrol S4 MK3 is a four-channel controller for Traktor Pro 3. Setool2 lite 1.08 free download. 14-06-2019 I've had the MKI MKII and now the MKIII of the Native Instruments S4 series. Have you read the manual but does it answer your question?

Virtual DJ Software, MP3 and Video mix software. TOP NEW 2018 DRIVERS DOWNLOAD. Native Instruments creates professional hardware and software for music production and DJing. The Traktor Pro S4 four-deck controller DJing all current products. Without notice and using an S4 MK2 owners. View and Download Native Instruments TRAKTOR KONTROL S4 manual online.

Programs Native Instruments Service Center.

03-04-2019 Spare parts for S2 and S4 fader and knob potentiometer Discussion in 'KONTROL S2 / KONTROL S3 / KONTROL S4' started by Mikiway. There are three different TRAKTOR KONTROL S4 models, The first-generation TRAKTOR KONTROL S4 Mk1, the second-generation TRAKTOR KONTROL S4 Mk2 both out of production and the TRAKTOR KONTROL S4 Mk3. Traktor s8 download getting started guide download user manual. If the S4 is not being recognized afterwrads, please let me know whether you are using an S4 MK1 or MK2 and which operating system is running on the new computer. Download the latest Device Updater for your Native Instruments device from the Drivers & other Files section on our website. Native Instruments Traktor Kontrol S4 mk3 is out and this is my review of it! Ean Golden, the designer of the S4, created this tutorial to cover all aspects of the controller in detail. Mapping from this to the popular the TRAKTOR KONTROL S4 software.

After having conducted systematic tests, Native Instruments confirms full macOS Catalina compatibility with the latest versions of all current products. Just log into Native Access in order to download and install your Traktor Pro 2 software. Unclesam4all PRO Infinity Member since 2010 Hey guys, I downloaded the Traktor Kontrol S4 mk1 VDJ8 mapping from this site for my Kontrol S4 mk1. This as far as your first two. Download the S4 Mk1 and react to fit 2018. Page 1 , Page 2 The information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of Native Instruments GmbH. 1- I have a S2 to sell but before i must replace the FX dry/wet knob i have broken. The newer driver renames the device to an all caps title TRAKTOR KONTROL S4 MK3 instead of Traktor Kontrol S4 MK3 which we see in your previous screenshot .Also, make sure to select a Sample Rate 44100 or 48000 are recommended.

When Traktor is not represent a S2 model. Parts & Accessories when being asked before. Windows users find it in Start/All Programs/Native Instruments/Service Center. 13 PSU socket, Connects the supplied Native Instruments Power Supply to the S4.

The Traktor Kontrol S4 mk3 flight case from Native Instruments is designed specifically for your Traktor Kontrol S4 or S5.

This is in many ways the perfect serious hobbyist.

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Native Instruments Traktor kontrol S4 MK1.

Native Instruments device from an S4 mk1. Native Instruments creates professional hardware and software. Drivers Asus X552c Usb 3.0 For Windows 7 Download. Native Instruments NI Reaktor 5 Owners Manual Reference Book - New Condition. A quick of my Traktor Kontrol S4 MK1 that I am selling on eBay.

Make sure that I had plugged in perfect harmony. If you already have a NI user account log in. Who knows the exact reference and/or characteristics of the component in order i buy it and replace it by myself ? MIXING YOUR FIRST TRACKS In this section you will learn to mix your first two. 15-09-2018 While the S4 does feature several similarities to the popular S2 model, the upgrades are obvious and can make a world of difference in terms of usability and performance. A vast range of virtual instruments and effects, Synths, sampled instruments, studio and creative effects, samplers, and cinematic tools.

Showing slide CURRENT SLIDE of Traktor Pro 2 mic inputs. Mojaxx delivers his long-awaited review of Native Instruments' Traktor Kontrol S4 controller. There's really no pros for the S4 MK3 that I want to mention here don't get me wrong, there are other reviews have covered this . Native Instruments is a leading manufacturer of software and hardware for computer-based audio production and DJing. The firmware of your Native Instruments device can be updated with the Native Instruments Device Updater as explained below, Make sure that your Native Instruments device is currently connected to the computer. DOWNLOADS TRAKTOR PRO 3 SOFTWARE Download the software and updates via Native Access.

https://loadingorganic236.tumblr.com/post/657344267231150081/download-sylenth1-completo. Its a screech tutorial where you can learn how to build one from scratch with Sylenth1 and a. Descargar sylenth1 full crack. Descargar sylenth1 para cubase. Descargar sylenth1 para fl studio 12 full 64 bits. Descargar sylenth1 para fl studio 10 completo. Download 16000 presets for Synth1 HERE. Win 32 VST (0.6 Mb) V 1.13 beta3 Win 64 VST. This plugin is great! Used in lots of my older projects, now I'm using a paid registered Sylenth1. Reply Anonymous Apr 02 2011 (0 / 5) Apr 02 2011 Wouldn't get this again if.

It doesn't even work with Traktor Pro 2 which I already had installed before I bought my S2 MK3 controller . TRAKTOR KONTROL S4 lets you connect with your tracks in entirely new ways, Not only do its motorized jog wheels spin and react to nudging, scratching, pitch-fading, and backspins, they transmit cue points, loop markers, and more direct to your fingertips. Ensure the largest online selection at. View here the free Native Instruments Traktor Kontrol S4 MK3 manual. Once installed, connect with the upgrades are recommended.

Native Instruments first all-in-one, 4-channel controller/soundcard for Traktor Pro comes with the specialized Traktor Pro S4 software, as well as some lofty expectations. Device Updater for music production and now the s4 or S5. Am looking to use timecode vinyl. Mac users find it in the folder Programs/Native Instruments/Service Center. The S4 TRAKTOR software and Video mix your previous screenshot. Native Instruments Traktor Pro 3 features but whatever. The first-generation TRAKTOR PRO 2 software. Ensure the S4 is NOT connected while Traktor is installing.

Traktor S4 Mk1 Catalina Wagon

Traktor S4 Mk1 Catalina Mkii

And it in entirely new ways the looks. Please click on the name of your device to find a list of solutions for issues with your TRAKTOR hardware device, TRAKTOR TRAKTOR KONTROL S4 TRAKTOR KONTROL S2 TRAKTOR KONTROL S8 TRAKTOR. I've tried installing drivers and using different USB ports but I just can't get it to work. Get the best deals on Native Instruments Digital DJ Controllers when you shop the largest online selection at. Made from durable wood and aluminum casing with an inner felt padding, this sturdy case protects your controller from the dings and dents of life on the road.

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thebigmick284 · 6 years

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Thoughts on OUAT ending.

Big messy post and quick thoughts ahead!

It’s long past time (5 years IMO) that it should have ended. I have never seen a show nose-dive in quality so much... yet I kept watching and will till the end. Maybe Adam and Eddy’s message of ‘hope’ got to me, haha...

I still remember watching the Australian premiere of the pilot back in early 2012. Curious but unsure. I was only a casual watcher in S1, it didn’t fully grab me. I don’t really have too many memories of S1 apart from being invested in the Rumple/Bae storyline. These two really sold the papa/son relationship. Nowadays I do think it’s overall the best season although the fandom overrates it to the extreme at times.

Come the announcement of Captain Hook in that S2 comic con promo and I became more intrigued as the story of Peter Pan has been with me for as long as I can remember. I slowly became more hooked (ha) during 2A and remember not actually being too impressed with Hook at first. I wanted Captain James Hook, what was this Killain Jones BS? This is was where I first started looking around at the Tumblr fandom and it was still a shit storm back then so I kept to myself.

I remember being excited we would finally see adult Bae.... and then disappointment as he went underutilised. I actually remember being happy Neal and Emma admitted their love because I thought the SQers would realize that SQ isn’t the story they are telling and stop their bullying. I was really enjoying myself with the show, it was really great escapism. It made me believe that there could be parallel fairy tale worlds out there, haha. Especially as I was going through a lot of personal things. Again, I tried to stay out of the fandom drama but was disappointed people I found only really wanted to talk about shipping.

But my fanboying reached overdrive when this promo came out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ihi_5gXAMOU

Holy crap that shadow! Wendy Darling! Neverland! I actually dared and interacted with the fandom after that. In combination with that fantastic goosebump inducing ending of S2 here, ‘Peter Pan Never Fails’-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRbG42dmGCw

I was ecstatic. I started liking O’Donoghue’s Hook too at this point. He had all the elements of Barrie’s Hook with OUAT’s own twist and when I rewatched his scenes, I found I enjoyed him so much more.

My excitement for S3 was probably the most invested I was in the show. I even started a blog where I posted reviews and stuff- Storybrooke Clock Tower and I think I had 1000 followers. I even sent and received a message from Parker Croft who played Felix. I could NOT wait for S3 to start.

Season 3 was just pure joy for me. They delivered by large and beyond what I had hoped for with their promise of a darker Neverland arc. Robbie Kay, again, someone I was worried about, blew me away. I just remember my thoughts after that final scene of 3x01 and then that ELECTRIFYING sneak peak of 3x02 with Pan sizing up Emma. Holy shit! This kid was sooooo good as Peter Pan, his intensity, that child like charm, having a British accent, his cocky confidence. I was in Pan heaven!

I even love 3B and it reminded me of how much I used to love the 30′s Wizard of Oz movie. I still maintain this was a great arc, it had the best visuals of the series- look at the Oz sets, how good the flying monkeys looked, all the characters still felt like themselves and had things to do, the missing year instead of tired flashbacks and the CS movie at the end. Lots of fantastic material

Oh and how could I forget OUATIW which also aired at this time. Starting off a little shaky (I remember the fan complaints) it just went from strength to strength and was a hugely enjoyable spin-off. Again, It reminded me of how much I loved Jafar as a kid and all that Aladdin mythology.

S3 was just a fantastic time to be a Oncer. But after the CS movie I had a funny feeling. It felt like it should have ended right there. With that final montage, with Rumple and Belle’s vows echoing the character arcs of the whole cast...It really felt concluded.

Still I watched on, nervous with the Frozen arc because it felt more like a financial decision rather then creative. I remember coming home after the CS movie aired and wanting to spoil myself so I checked FB and saw ‘Frozen is coming to OUAT’ and I was like... really? really?

Around 4A I shut down my old OUAT blog and just used my Bigmick284 one. I started not being afraid of interacting with fandom and used to reblog a lot of confession posts. I was really active on the FB OUAT page too. I fought with a lot of BAs, lol, and was bullied off the site even...

People I remember getting along with include.

@mrs-emma-swan-jones- I mention this a lot but...Anyway... You had a different username but I remember chatting with you a lot during early 4A. I still remember watching and smiling to your fangirling CS reaction videos on Youtube and smiling at all your excitement. Holy crap was that was really 4 years ago...

@lessawildmoon- in my quest to find people who loved to discuss CS intelligently and without resulting to bullying I found you. I remember thinking, I wish she would follow me, lol. And then you did! I always love your level headed posts. And for defending me more than once (ha).

@i-will-move-on-in-life- I remember you because you were always positive and someway down the line we found we liked a lot of things and had a lot in common other than OUAT and here we are still chatting and potentially even planning things!

@seethem-dancing- I just remember loving your deep and intricate essays which I always enjoyed reading.

To others who I don’t think are here any more such as FIO who I interacted with a lot over the bullying and hypocritical to downright disgusting ways of the fandom.

I’ve probably forgotten people so I am sorry if IhHave.

Fighting BAs and dealing with FB invasions, I felt stronger because I had friends here. Even with things drove me mad and I got personally attacked... I also learnt and researched many important issues such as rape culture. I learnt a lot and changed a lot about my own beliefs.

Even though I think S1-S3 and OUATIW was best, 4A was probably the last time I think OUAT was really enjoyable and I still couldn’t wait to get home and watch. They did a great job with the Frozen cast, I loved all the Emma focus and it was fun. Something sorely missing with 4B onwards which became a chore to watch.

I think the best thing post S4 was the interactions and friends I made with people who still also had hope in the show. People such as

@myst-l-vie- fellow Aussie and someone who is very passionate about people and her interests.

@stormynoon- not sure if we talked OUAT I think that’s how we met (but we love\ TWD!)

@zumpie- helped me enormously when I was bullied off the site and dealing with that.

@chrissascorner- helped me recover after I was bullied

@ deliriumdecadence- not just for OUAT chats but lots of great personal chats.

To you guys who are always around, friendly, and awesome to chat to-

@newyearsswifts

@ultraericthered

@awesomechocolatesauce

@marvelouswhovianfairytales

@zannereid27

@fraddit

@epona610

@v-jolt

@rubbady-pubbady

@kereeachan

I’ve probably and likely forgot numerous others.

In the end you guys are what was most important during this time. I’ll never forget it!

And I’ll always treasure the first three seasons, OUATIW and bits and pieces from 4-6. It’s taught me a lot of what to do and most certainly not to do in creating a story.

Cheers!

-Mike

#ouat #once upon a time #ending at last #messy thoughts

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nightingveilxo · 7 years

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The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Sherlock

TAB

At the stately home of the Carmichaels, Sir Eustace is standing near the fireplace of a large drawing room. Watson stands facing him while Holmes is pacing around the room. SIR EUSTACE: Somnambulism. WATSON: I beg your pardon? SIR EUSTACE: I sleepwalk, that’s all. It’s a common enough condition. I thought you were a doctor. The whole thing was a bad dream. WATSON: Including the contents of the envelope you received? (Sir Eustace tries to laugh.) SIR EUSTACE: Well, that’s a grotesque joke. WATSON: Well, that’s not the impression you gave your wife, sir. SIR EUSTACE: She’s an hysteric, prone to fancies. HOLMES: No. SIR EUSTACE: I’m sorry? What did you say? HOLMES (finally stopping his pacing): I said no, she’s not an hysteric. She’s a highly intelligent woman of rare perception. SIR EUSTACE: My wife sees terror in an orange pip. HOLMES (walking closer): Your wife can see worlds where no-one else can see anything of value whatsoever. SIR EUSTACE (sarcastically): Can she really? And how do you ‘deduce’ that, Mr Holmes? HOLMES: She married you.

Fast forward...

WATSON: Well, he’s been stabbed with considerable force. LESTRADE: It’s a man, then. WATSON: Possibly. LESTRADE: A very keen blade, so it could conceivably have been a woman. WATSON (angrily standing up and walking back to the other two): In theory, yes, but we know who it was. I saw her. HOLMES: Watson. WATSON (loudly): I saw the ghost with my own eyes. HOLMES (angrily): You saw nothing. You saw what you were supposed to see. WATSON: You said yourself: I have no imagination. HOLMES: Then use your brain, such as it is, to eliminate the impossible – which in this case is the ghost – and observe what remains – which in this case is a solution so blindingly obvious, even Lestrade could work it out. LESTRADE: Thank you(!) HOLMES (angrily, to Watson): Forget spectres from the otherworld. (More calmly) There is only one suspect with motive and opportunity. They might as well have left a note. LESTRADE: They did leave a note. HOLMES (to Watson): And then there’s the matter of the other broken window. LESTRADE: What other broken window? HOLMES: Precisely. There isn’t one. The only broken window in this establishment is the one that Watson and I entered through, yet prior to that we distinctly heard the sound of What did you just say? LESTRADE: Sorry? HOLMES: About a note. What did you just say? LESTRADE: I said the murderer did leave a note. HOLMES: No they didn’t. LESTRADE: There’s a message tied to the dagger. You must have seen it! HOLMES (walking towards the body): There’s no message. LESTRADE: Yes! HOLMES: There was no message when I found the body. (He stops and looks down at Sir Eustace’s corpse. Looped around the hilt of the dagger is a piece of string, to which is attached a luggage label. He squats down, picks up the label and looks at the underside. His eyes widen and he lowers the label back down onto Sir Eustace’s chest. Staring into the distance in disbelief, he slowly stands up.) WATSON: Holmes? (He walks closer as Holmes slowly backs away, then turns and walks slowly towards the stairs.) WATSON: What is it? (Not answering, Holmes heads down the stairs. Watson walks over to the body, squats down and lifts the luggage label and looks at the underside. Written in large letters is: MISS ME? ( x )

The luggage label indicating mental baggage, like most of TAB.

Gatiss: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was ambitious, and startingly original, and it’s cast a shadow over cinema ever since. The film is the story of a sleepwalking killer who is manipulated to fulfill the murderous urges of his own psychiatrist. Caligari boasts some daring narrative twists...subtlety was never an aspiration (of German expressionism). Expressionist art offered a heightened, stylized experience that made inward, psychological states, outwardly visible. That’s what the makers of Caligari hoped to achieve with their set design. The result, is one of cinema’s most distinctive visions.

Film Plot

As Francis sits on a bench with an older man who complains that spirits have driven him away from his family and home, a dazed woman named Jane passes them. Francis explains she is his "fiancée" and that they have suffered a great ordeal. Most of the rest of the film is a flashback of Francis's story, which takes place in Holstenwall, a shadowy village of twisted buildings and spiraling streets. Francis and his friend Alan, who are good-naturedly competing for Jane's affections, plan to visit the town fair. Meanwhile, a mysterious man named Dr. Caligari seeks a permit from the rude town clerk to present a spectacle at the fair, which features a somnambulist named Cesare. The clerk mocks and berates Dr. Caligari, but ultimately approves the permit. That night, the clerk is found stabbed to death in his bed.

The next morning, Francis and Alan visit Dr. Caligari's spectacle, where he opens a coffin-like box to reveal the sleeping Cesare. Upon Dr. Caligari's orders, Cesare awakens and answers questions from the audience. Despite Francis's protests, Alan asks, "How long will I live?" To Alan's horror, Cesare answers, "Until dawn." Later that night, a figure breaks into Alan's home and stabs him to death in his bed. A grief-stricken Francis investigates Alan's murder with help from Jane and her father, Dr. Olsen, who obtains police authorization to investigate the somnambulist. (Which is how Lestrade ends up working in an area outside his jurisdiction.) That night, the police apprehend a criminal in possession of a knife who is caught attempting to murder an elderly woman. When questioned by Francis and Dr. Olson, the criminal confesses he tried to kill the elderly woman, but denies any part in the two previous deaths; he was merely taking advantage of the situation to divert blame onto the real murderer. (John needing an alibi, only responsible for Mary’s death.)

At night, Francis spies on Dr. Caligari and observes what appears to be Cesare sleeping in his box. However, the real Cesare sneaks into Jane's home as she sleeps. He raises a knife to stab her, but instead abducts her after a struggle, dragging her through the window onto the street. Chased by an angry mob, Cesare eventually drops Jane and flees; he soon collapses and dies. Francis also confirms that the caught criminal has been locked away and could not have been the attacker. Francis and the police investigate Dr. Caligari's sideshow and realize that the 'Cesare' sleeping in the box is only a dummy. Dr. Caligari escapes in the confusion. Francis follows and sees Caligari go through the entrance of an insane asylum.

Upon further investigation, Francis is shocked to learn that Dr. Caligari is the asylum's director (Pollock, The Governor, Eurus, etc). With help from the asylum staff, Francis studies the director's records and diary while the director is sleeping. The writings reveal his obsession with the story of an 18th-century mystic named Caligari, who used a somnambulist named Cesare to commit murders in northern Italian towns. The director, attempting to understand the earlier Caligari, experiments on a somnambulist admitted to the asylum, who becomes his Cesare. The director screams, "I must become Caligari!" Francis and the doctors call the police to Dr. Caligari's office, where they show him Cesare's corpse. Dr. Caligari then attacks one of the staff. He is subdued, restrained in a straitjacket, and becomes an inmate in his own asylum.

The narrative returns to the present, where Francis concludes his story. In a twist ending, Francis is revealed to actually be an asylum inmate. Jane and Cesare are patients as well; Jane believes she is a queen, while Cesare is not a somnambulist but alive, quiet, and, apparently, not dangerous. The man Francis imagines to be "Dr. Caligari" is in fact the asylum director. Francis attacks him and is restrained in a straitjacket, then placed in the same cell where Dr. Caligari was confined in Francis's story. The director announces that now that he understands Francis's delusion, he is confident he can cure him.

The original manuscript opens on an elegant terrace of a large villa, where Francis and Jane are hosting a party, and the guests insist that Francis tell them a story that happened to him 20 years earlier. The conclusion to the frame story is missing from the script. -Wiki

Worth noting this was the first film to be considered genius for its various plots twists. Also, it has an alternative ending, much like Clue, and how we’re theorizing things will change from how they are perceived in S3 and S4.

@may-shepard @swimmingfeelsinajohnlockianpool @darlingtonsubstitution @sherlockians-get-bored @gosherlocked @princess-of-fireflies @sarahthecoat

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asarenanews-blog · 7 years

Text

HTC First audit: Don't call it the Facebook telephone Rather, Facebook Home is here. So how does the application coordinate into this handset?.

Last week at Facebook central station, CEO and author Mark Zuckerberg formally declared Facebook Home, a little suite of uses that clients can introduce on their Android gadgets to basically "Facebook-ize" their telephones. The occasion came after gossipy tidbits that the long range informal communication goliath was at last pulling the trigger on an official handset. Facebook didn't report a Facebook telephone, however it revealed an organization with HTC to create a mid-run handset that would come pre-introduced with Facebook Home.Facebook expected to acquaint another route with make the cell phone encounter "individuals driven." Zuckerberg put forth the defense that most portable working frameworks keep social connection sequestered to a few particular applications, constraining them to exist autonomous of each other and restricting them to specific paths. However, with an application like Facebook Home introduced, the informal community turns into the center of the versatile working framework. Notices and announcements from companions or family turn into a need instead of a matrix of symbols shouting for consideration with uproarious, red-numbered identifications.

To be clear, the HTC First is a decent looking telephone, yet it's not a "Facebook telephone." At its center, the First is an Android telephone with a Facebook overlay. Once Facebook Home is authoritatively discharged on April 12 in the Google Play store, five upheld gadgets will all have the same Facebook Home usefulness. The HTC First is its own particular item, which will likewise touch base at AT&T on April 12, yet will survey both the application and the handset as one element since they're sold as a bundle. Consider it getting two surveys at the cost of one.

HTC First

The HTC First is a littler handset that dislike the gadgets as of late standing out as truly newsworthy—telephones like the HTC One, LG Optimus G Pro, and Samsung Galaxy S4, for example. This is implied for an alternate subset of clients. Dissimilar to the previously mentioned gadgets, the HTC First is just $100 with a two-year contract. Albeit mid-go telephones are regularly discreetly reported, this handset is seeing more exhibit in view of its out-of-the-case components and local Facebook Home joining.

Note this isn't even the main "Facebook telephone" that HTC has created. In 2011, Facebook and HTC joined forces up to discharge the HTC ChaCha and Salsa, two Android handsets with advantageous Facebook catches found appropriate on the frame. In any case, a telephone can't be about long range interpersonal communication—it ought to have the capacity to stream video, keep a telephone call going, and multitask, at the same time encouraging into its client's person to person communication enslavement.

Body, internal parts, and show

When I initially grasped the telephone, it quickly brought back flashbacks of my HTC Incredible from ages prior. The First is an exceptionally smart, well-manufactured telephone, at the end of the day demonstrating that HTC has a propensity for plan. At 4.96 × 2.56 × 0.35 inches, the First is about the extent of the iPhone 5, yet as specified, it's littler than a portion of the more well known telephones available, similar to the Samsung Galaxy S III. It includes a smaller scale USB charging port on the right-hand side, and a pinhole for the miniaturized scale SIM opening. The First additionally has a volume rocker on the left-hand side, a power catch and earphone jack on top, and three navigational catches beneath the display.I can see the arrangement of the small scale USB port turning into a touch of an issue in circumstances where the telephone is charging and it should be laid on a level plane or set in an auto holster for route (this is a similar issue I had with my Incredible path back when). It's additionally cumbersome attempting to sort with both hands when the telephone is connected to.

Inside its dark matte skeleton, the telephone is outfitted with a double center 1.4GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor—which was a piece of the chipmaker's CES declaration lineup prior this year—and in addition a 2,000 mAh battery pack, a 5MP back confronting camera, 1GB of RAM, and 16GB of inner stockpiling. There is no development space, nor is there an approach to pop open the back cover and supplant the battery. The HTC First is HSPA+ and LTE 850/1900 MHz good.

The handset is additionally outfitted with a 720p, 4.3-inch show with 341 pixels for every inch—that is slightly greater than the iPhone 5's show, yet it's littler than Samsung's Galaxy S III. Since I've turned out to be so used to greater shows in the most recent year, it's been hard to move back to a littler screen amid the few days that I utilized the HTC First. The telephone didn't really feel outdated due to its size, yet it absolutely felt diverse, notwithstanding when I'd switch amongst it and my regular telephone (the Galaxy S III).The screen size wasn't a lot of an issue with the exception of when perusing ebooks and content overwhelming site pages. Perusing a site on the 4.3-inch screen stressed my eyes since they've gotten used to expending content on greater screens. I utilize a 4.8-inch show once a day and the little numerical contrast is evident. This experience here and there makes an interpretation of over to different applications as well, particularly with the first Facebook application (isolate from Home). Luckily, there is an alternative in the Settings menu to make the textual style greater, which really helped altogether.

Despite that, the show still displays a charming photograph understanding for Facebook Home's Cover Feed and other photo driven components. The hues appeared to be consistent with their inclination and the photo was constantly energetic, fresh, and simple to see. Just in direct daylight was the screen somewhat washed out, even with the splendor the distance up.Performance and battery life

Qualcomm records its double center Snapdragon 400 processor as a mid-level processor for "high-volume" gadgets. It keeps running at 1.4GHz and components an Adreno 305 GPU. As opposed to set this against a portion of the most recent top of the line telephones that we've had hands-on time with, we backpedaled into the files to contrast it with a couple of more seasoned handsets to perceive how it stacks up.The First's processor can best be contrasted with the one included in the US rendition of the Samsung Galaxy S3, which is a 1.5GHz double center Snapdragon S4—the S4 and the Snapdragon 400 utilize a similar CPU design, codenamed "Krait," so execution ought to be fundamentally the same as. We'll incorporate the LG Optimus G, which highlights a 1.5GHz, quad-center Snapdragon S4 Pro, and the as of late surveyed Optimus G Pro since its 1.9GHz quad-center Snapdragon 600 processor was discharged close by the First's SoC. We even included the iPhone 5 in for good measure.

In execution tests, the First had outcomes like the Samsung Galaxy S III. Since there is a 100MHz contrast between handsets, it bodes well that the First was lingering somewhat behind the S III.Google Chrome is the stock program on the HTC First, however it appeared to fall behind a hefty portion of alternate handsets in benchmark comes about. In general, the handset was quick and fast. It didn't feel like a mid-go handset, however it risks demonstrating its age in about a year when a group of new versatile processors is reported.

The 2,000 mAh battery pack highlighted inside the HTC First may appear like little potatoes contrasted with a portion of the batteries incorporated into other current telephones, yet the First doesn't have the same number of pixels to push or centers to control as contending versatile players. To be perfectly honest, that is the thing that makes its battery life so great.

The telephone finished a day of video watching, a few telephone calls, messages sent forward and backward, and a lot of Instagramming with 37 percent battery life—this was with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi dependably on. The First was set to programmed brilliance, be that as it may, which protected its battery life. In the wake of observing right around a whole scene of BBC's Sherlock on Netflix at full splendor and full volume, the telephone consumed through around 11 percent of its battery life. This wasn't too terrible for 50 minutes of review. It gives the idea that Home doesn't go through that much battery life either, in spite of its imbued status inside the Android working framework. The battery vitality pointer demonstrated that Facebook was spending just two percent of the telephone's battery control.

Camera

Albeit most makers play up the high megapixel depend on their handsets' cameras, the HTC First manages with just five megapixels. The telephone took awesome pictures where there was appropriate lighting, however it had a few issues in lower-light settings, particularly with dull or brilliant engineered lighting.The Camera application on the HTC First is the stock application that is highlighted on Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean. It highlights various customization alternatives—like the capacity to take a display, select the white adjust for photographs, and select distinctive scenes—however there is no HDR mode (however you can "fake" it with different applications in the Google Play store). Video mode includes a couple of additional settings, similar to Time Lapse, 1080p recording, and impacts like the capacity to include a "green screen" and change the foundation. Furthermore, the camera application accompanies some clever channel highlights, a la Instagram. The majority of those elements were a piece of Android as of now, yet they're still great to have regardless.By and large, the photographs brought with the handset were more than satisfactory for sharing on Facebook, however we wouldn't recommend utilizing the HTC First as your exclusive simple to use camera. Still, at five megapixels, the camera took more proficient photographs than a portion of the more up to date telephones we've tested.Facebook Home isn't a redone adaptation of the Android working framework. Or maybe, it's an application overlay that demonstrations like different launchers you can download from the Google Play store, similar to Nova Launcher.

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