#(altho' I got so tired in the end that about half the background is a very crunchy photo of The Real Clifton's...)

[chiropteracupola]

historically accurate trip to clifton's cafeteria!!!

[progress shots under the readmore]

[rqs902]

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I’m not completely sure if I have a good grasp on what happened to blackace but let’s just say their management seems to have kicked pinlin under the bus, but I do think it was irresponsible of pinlin to just leave suddenly. 

I am not surprised pinlin and naicha clashed and I am also sad that pinlin’s behavior of just leaving after things got heated reminds me of how he acted on super idol. If i remember correctly, he went through rough times during season one, and there was a part where he seriously asked “can i quit?” and pretty much almost did. i think there was also a time when he got into a disagreement with someone during practice and just stormed out of the room because he was so frustrated. it seems like he has a tendency to just exit the situation when he gets mad and i am sad that he left behind the rest of blackace to rearrange their performance with only 2 days left. 

after reading his long weibo explanation, I believe I can understand why he got mad, and I am not saying he wasn’t justified in his feelings, because he and his fans have worked hard to get him to where he is today, and it sounds like he wasn’t feeling respected or valued. i do not invalidate his feelings, but i’m still sad with how he handled the situation. not being him, i obviously can’t say if there was a better way to approach the problem, but maybe he could’ve at least tried talking it out with his group mates. if naicha wasn’t listening, maybe someone else would have. But all this speculation from me is pretty meaningless. I just hope blackace can somehow make amends. the influx of hate comments from pinlin stans is quite daunting to read. 

im sad that WAB went from being a shining opportunity for blackace to a disappointing ending. i guess this is what happens when it’s your group has zero group chemistry or experience working together and you shove them into a high pressure situation for weeks on end with minimal emotional support. 

Im happy to see that the rest of the blackace members liked their last stage. i still appreciated naicha’s choreography. I also appreciated xia zhiguang’s comment about being envious of their dances. I wonder what it’d be like for zhiguang to share the stage with AJ or dance to AJ or naicha’s choreography. Maybe he’d get to free himself as a dancer in ways he’s never been able to before, being in xnine and r1se. id like to see zhiguang taking on new styles of dance. but anyway i’m curious but also kind of dreading what news we’ll hear about blackace next. 

on a separate note i did watch the first ep of snzm (i’m probably going to drop wab now that blackace has been eliminated...) and im sad mr tyger seems to be like one of the only “hui guo rou” kids that they didn’t feature on the first ep.... and tbh in the past, being featured on the first ep vs the second can make a difference..... but hopefully lin mo has enough fans already that it’ll be alright >< im really hoping mr tyger shines in ep 2.... altho ive also noticed none of them did super well for the theme song evaluation (again T_T) i wonder if something happened to lin mo again... but it doesnt seem like the show cares about him tooooo much yet, compared to some of the other hui guo rou kids, but at least he got to be on 少年营业中 bc im SO HAPPY to see him happy and smiling and being silly again. im hoping the contrast between silly lin mo and serious lin mo will help him stand out again. 

im sad zuo qibo got eliminated so early... just for being old??? hes not even thaaattt old.... literally he has the worst luck with survival shows... im here for cui shaopeng and li xikan getting recognition tho!! im also looking out for lin ran and all the other kids im already familiar with... oof it was so awkward to see su xunlun and yang bingzhuo tho... and i wasn’t expecting to see kids even from mrzz! ngl i don’t remember seeing su er before??? but I will say yang chaowen, xu zhaohao and FAN YU (oof) caught my attention too. ill keep an eye out for zuo linjie too, to see how this yixing fanboy wins center. 

overall this first ep was pretty good! mainly just disappointed mr tyger didnt get to perform but that aside, i appreciated the kids they did feature, and I appreciated that they had some background videos for the kids to help us get to know them (although it’d be nicer if everyone got an intro video...) i wonder if they’re able to have time for these intro videos because theyre eliminating almost half the kids immediately, so theyre not wasting camera time on them lol rip...... one bright side about less contestants is just more screentime for everyone. 

but i do really appreciate the focus on the kids as individuals. I really think that makes a big difference in how enjoyable these survival shows are to watch. if i remember correctly, produce camp ep 1 was a mess and there was so much going on and i felt like I didnt get to know the kids enough before stuff started going down. and a lot of the judges’ comments felt harsh and negative. there are still some harsh comments on snzm, but it felt like it was def a warmer, more uplifting tone overall. maybe bc they started saving kids already and they freaking gave fan yu so much time and encouragement even though if this was any other survival show he’d probably just have been edited out of existence and ignored as if he’d never been there in the first place. so for now, im cautiously optimistic about snzm.... although afo was a disaster. and i just remember watching qcyn and just being so mad and so tired and so done with the show by the latter half of the season... I really hope that doesn’t happen again. ip was the only show that was seriously enjoyable to watch the entire way through, and it’s proven to be really hard to recreate.