#LIKE ARE WE GOING FULL META MODE OR IS THERE SOMETHING BIGGER GOING ON??

[pikolswonderland]

SPOILERS FOR CHAPTER 6!!

I HAVE NO CLUE WHO THEY ARE BUT I LOVE THEM 💕💕💕💕💕💕💕

[bump1nthen1ght]

Deep Blue Sea (Shark Merman x Reader) Chapter 1

Pairing: Gender Neutral! Reader/Shark Merman

Genre: Urban Fantasy, Soulmate AU

Warning: None

Word Count: 2682 words

Summary: You have a chat with your soulmate

Prologue

“So, you want some?”

He  takes your stunned silence as no, checking that the crab is fully dead before pulling off a leg and biting the meat inside. His teeth catch the light of the setting sun, glinting white in between chunks of crab.

“So were-”

“Soulmates? Yeah, looks like it.” He, your soulmate, cracks off another leg and begins to chew. You find yourself transfixed watching him, mind reeling with questions. He uses the sharp claws on the tips of his fingers to dig out more meat. You’re not even sure where to begin.

“What do we do know?”

He shrugs, sucking out the last of the crab leg and tossing it aside.

“Dunno, guess this mystery is solved though.” He taps his wrist and you get a closer look at his soulmate mark.

It loosely resembles a human compass, yet alien in it’s design.There’s eight large symbols, none of which you recognize, and the arrow is slightly misshapen before straightening to a point.

“I always assumed my soulmate was in the Atlantic or something, maybe even a selkie. When that thought always drove my ma up the reef.” He sighs, pressing his chin against his palm as he lays against a rock. “Wonder how she’ll take this. Maybe she’ll turn a whole new shade of blue.”

His chuckle is low, rough against your ears, but not entirely unpleasant.

You can see more of his backside as he scoots closer into the tidepool. The first thing you notice is just how big he is, his tail stretching from his hips to the open ocean. The second thing you notice are the defined muscles which stretch and flex along his back.

Okay, what the fuck.

There’s a pressure building in your temples and you think you're beginning to overload. Your fucking soulmates eyes wander, looking nonchalant as can be beforeperking up when he sees another crab. His body slithering away from you to snatch it up snaps you out of shutdown mode.

“Uh, I guess….what’s your name?” He doesn’t take his eyes off his soon to be snack, only humming to acknowledge he even heard you. “I think that’s a good place to start, don’t you?” That at least gets you a chuckle, followed by a tiny crack!

“Cruz, you can call me Cruz.” You make eye contact as he takes a long, languid bite of crab. Your furrow your eyebrows, face unimpressed. He lights up with a mischievous grin.

“Is that your real name?”

“Nope,” Cruz says, popping the p and breaking open a claw, “But I don’t think you could pronounce my name so…..”

The tension in your jaw tights as he turns away from you once more,humming to himself and letting out a soft “Oh!” as the other leg reveals quite a bit of meat. You rub your brow and sigh.

“My names _____”

“Neat.”

In high school, your mom got the yearbook epithet “biggest social butterfly.” Your dad, however, was barely presentable on picture day and a social circle consisting of the three fellow chess-club members. You were a lot like your dad in many ways.

The conversation, to say the least, seemed to float on the water like a dead fish, and you had no idea how to resuscitate it. It wasn’t easy, it wasn’t natural, it wasn’t that missing piece yoru guidance counselor said it would and dammit, it’s kind of pissing you off. You’re pissed off that it’s pissing you off, because when has making first impressions ever been easy for you? Did you think this was going to be different, because what, a stupid mark on your wrist? That has no basis in logic, not even a little bit.

You refuse to dignify any emotions similar to disappointment which begin to well inside you, because it’s ridiculous. You worked hard to get to California, you’ve worked hard your whole damn life, what's stopping you from working now?

“Welp, seems I scared away all the other crabs.” Cruz huffs and places his hands on his...hips? “Been nice chatting _____, but I got dinner to catch.” Cruz looks back at you as he slinks into the water, sending a salute and a wink.

The words bubble up in your chest before you can catch them as he begins to swim away.

“Wait, but, um, I-” Your commands fall clumsily out of your mouth and barely leaves a ripple on the water. Cruz doesn’t turn around.

You feel the heat sizzling up your neck and face as you look at his back. Flashes of him, the arrow, your mom, that stupid guidance counselor paint the inside of your eyelids.

No.

“Will you wait a second!”

The scream barely echoes in the small tidepool, but it’s enough to catch Cruz’s attention. He whips back to you, eyes slightly wide. You realize just how hard you’re breathing.

“I-, just, can you meet me here? Tomorrow?” Cruz's expression stays still, only the slightest bit of confusion crossing his eyes as he raises his brow. “I want to get to know you better.”

“Oh, um, okay.”

….

….

“What time….. do you want to meet up?” Cruz looks far less mischievous and much more sheepish, rubbing the back of his neck with a clawed hand and looking up at you from under his eyelids.

“How about 5PM?”

Cruz narrows his eyes.

“I don’t know what that means.”

Ah, right, merman.

“About three hours before sunset. I mean, do you know how long an hour-”

“Yes, I know how long an hour is. I’m not a pup.” Cruz rolls his eyes

Well, the sass returns.

The two of you stay in that position for a little too long. You begin to rub your arms as the cold of the sea breeze and your social anxiety slowly come back to you.

“See you tomorrow, I guess.” With a hesitant nod, his black-blue eyes looking pensive, he submerges. Your breath comes back to you in a wave as your soulmate swims into the open ocean.

The walk back to civilization is a blur, the pounding voice in your head drawing out all other noise yet barely making sense itself.

You’re not sure what you expected of the first meeting with your soulmate, but it certainly wasn’t that.

---------

The next day, Cruz is waiting for you at the tidepool by 4:55 PM, shucking an oyster with one of his claws. He looks up as your feet splash into the tidepool. You wave.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

It’s an understatement to say the silence is uncomfortable. You take a beach towel out of your bag and begin to lay it on a large rock. The task helps keep your mind distracted, but you feel Cruz’s eyes burn into your back.

“So, I guess, what are you exactly?” You say, sitting yourself down.

“Merman’s best word I’ve heard you humans use, so that.” Cruz has shifted his focus  back on his oyster, which he then downs with one swallow.

“I see, I see. Are all mer-folk as big as you?” That catches Cruz’s attention. A self-satisfied smirk grows on his face as he puffs out his chest.

“Not at all. I’m a Great White and we’re one of the…” Cruz extends his arms art in front of him, flexing his fingers and his biceps in a decidedly braggadocious manner, “bigger species out there.” He finishes his statement with a playful wink. A tiny smile crawls on your face.

Interesting. Male Great Whites are typically around 12 feet, but Cruz is only about 9 feet. I wonder why that is?

“I can see that.” Cruz shifts, ego now lifted, and lays his weight on his right elbow, facing you. “You mentioned a mother, do you have a clan?” Cruz nods.

“Yup. It’s my ma, my dad, my two older sisters, and me. Plus two other families. My ma’s parents were from this reef.”

It’s difficult for you to fight the instinct to whip out your notebook and jot all this down.Your inner scientist screams to pry into the complex social hierarchy and behaviour patterns of this new species. But the more sane part of you knows that would probably be pushing some boundaries.

“Wow, so you’re a true Californian, huh?” Cruz squints his eyes at you. “Uh, that’s where we are. The territory Santa Cruz lies in.”

He gives a low hum, reaching for another oyster  nearby. This movement is far more natural than his earlier show, but you still get a full glimpse of his cut shoulder muscle and tight abdominals. It stirs something in you.

Would he have the swimmer’s V? Okay, stop, focus.

“Yeah, I guess I am.” He pries open the oyster, staring at the soft meta inside. “A member of the clan, born and bred.” Cruz brushed the pad of his finger on the shell, his voice holding a quiet bitterness, tinted somber.

Should you comfort him? He’s within touching distance, but the thought of grabbing his hand feels too intimate, soulmate-ship be damned.

Before you can make a move, Cruz throws his head back and gulps down the oyster. He shakes his head and lets out a small “Ah~”, then pushes his short hair back against his skull. Whatever emotion that was there before, it’s gone.

“Where are you from?”

“East Coast, bordering the Atlantic. So you weren’t too far off.”

“Well, I’m not just a pretty face.” Cruz winks at you, but his eye catches a scuttling crab nearby. He gets low in the water, moving slowly to catch it by surprise. You don’t hum the Jaws theme, despite how much you want to.

“No siblings, just me and my parents.” Cruz doesn’t look away, even as he kills the crab.

“Lucky. How big's your clan?” The familiar crack of the shell follows.

“We don’t really,” crack “...have those. Humans can-” crack “We typically live near each other-” crack “but don’t get that-” crack “....close.”

Cruz hums contently, but you can clearly see it’s from the crab and not your one sided conversation. He sucks juice off his fingers. Seems you’ve lost him once again.

I didn’t expect this to be so difficult.

“Have you ever had cooked crab?” Cruz perks immediately, slowly turning back towards you.

Got ‘im.

----------

You return with two warm lobster rolls, a bag of crab legs, and some shrimp scampi. Cruz’s black-blue eyes just peak out of the water, suspicious.

“So these two are lobster, actually, but this,” You shake the crab-bag, “is all crab. I thought I ‘d get you a couple things to sample.”

Cruz’s nose (Is it a nose? There’s a ridge but you’re not sure if the slits count as nostrils. Questions for later.) just breaches the water as you set the crab-bag down and settle on your rock. You grab a couple of legs for yourself before nudging it  closer to him. “Have at it, it’s pretty self-explanatory.” You say midst a large bit of your lobster roll. The whole meal was not cheap, so you decided to indulge in this treat as much as you can. You’ve had a stressful couple of days.

Cruz slowly approaches the plastic, snatching it up quickly before looking inside it. His eyes widen and there's a small smile on his lips as he pulls a long leg out. His smile only grows bigger.

“Oh, also!” You clap, pointing towards the bag and jolting Cruz out of his food-induced joy. “There’s sauce, garlic butter, shit like that in those little plastic containers at the bottom. You dip the crab meat in them.” You take another large bit of lobster roll and hear Cruz break into a crab leg. Cruz gets his mouth ready to take a big bite before pausing. His eyes flit between the lef and the garlic butter, before he slowly pulls the lid off and dips the meat in. Cruz then takes the tiniest bite possible.

His eyes, black as they are, light up. He quickly takes another, larger bite. It’s quite adorable, like a baby trying ice cream for the first time. Cruz devours the leg quickly before snapping into another sauce.

“You like it?” Cruz nods, cheeks stuffed with crab meat as you giggle.

“What kind of craf is fiss?”

“Dungeness. That’s commonly eaten by humans. They’ve got some of the highest meat value and they're all over  the West Coast.” Cruz nods, though you’re not sure he understands parts of your sentence. “They’re also pretty sustainable to fish, although ocean acidity is kinda fucking with their babies. It’s also been fucking with Red King Crabs, which sucks because their only found in like, four places and are so beautiful and also sustainable and-” Cruz has stopped eating and is staring at you. After a big, long breath in you realize how fast you were talking. You feel the what of your blush on the base of your neck. “Sorry, I’ll let you eat. I just...really like crustaceans. A Lot of aquatic animals, but crabs especially are… I’m doing it again. Sorry.” You take a large bite so you won’t have to talk for a couple of seconds, avoiding eye contact with Cruz. You’re sure your chest and arms are bright red; It’s an embarrassing symptom of when you get too excited.

Cruz just keeps staring at you. Frankly it’s the longest he's looked at you and not a nearby snack. You chew the slowest you possibly can, the brioche bun becoming mush in your mouth, to fill the silence.

You don’t see it, but a small smile widens on his face. He picks at his empty crab shell.

“I think those facts are crab-tastic.”

You immediately choke on a bit of lobster roll, pounding your chest as you sputter between mouthfuls. When your eyes stop watering, you see Cruz has moved closer to you, hand outstretched and a couple inches from resting on your calf. He jerks it back when you look down at him.

“Wow, thanks, but puns aren’t really part of my vocrabulary.” You obnoxiously wink, scrunching up the left side of your face. Cruz laughs. Not a chuckle, but a full, belly laugh.

“Well I find them quite crab-tivating.” A larger laugh bursts from your chest as he mimics your wink and shoots you another big smile.

The sharp teeth are beginning to grow on you, adding to Cruz’s boyish charm. You feel the hot blush in your chest crawl up your neck once more.

Oh fuck.

Cruz reaches for another crab leg but hits the bottom of the bag, a playful pout now on his chin.

“Here, try this next.” You hand him the second lobster roll. “Probably don’t want to get this one wet, it’ll be soggy.” With no hesitation Cruz digs in, perking up once more and going to town. His teeth serate through the bread like butter. Within 4 bites, the entire roll is gone.

“Dang, I’ll make sure to bring some more food next time.”Cruz pauses, mid-lick of the butter on his claws and looks up at you.

“Next time? You want to meet up again?” You raise your eyebrow.

“Well yeah, don’t you?”

Cruz stays quiet, no sassy comment or a sarcastic look. Just staring, mildly shocked.

Your embarrassment bubbles back, screaming you’ve misread this whole situation and the last few minutes. “I mean, we are soulmates. Shouldn’t we meet up again?”

Cruz's eyes narrow as a barrage of thoughts seem to flit across his head. His smile recedes back into a straight line, that little spark leaving his eye.

“Yeah, I guess we have too.” He crinkles up the plastic bag, shoving it against your calves. “See you tomorrow.”

A pit rolls in your stomach as he quickly moves to leave.

Did I say something wrong?

“Uh, I’m actually busy tomorrow. Can we do Thursday-er, 3 days from now?” Cruz nods, not turning around to face you before slipping back into the water and swimming away.

The pit doesn’t leave your stomach, an empty sauce container rolling across the rocky shore.

What just happened?

[deonideatta]

Alright it's Vincenzo and fire meta time! I dont know if this is super obvious and I'm just repeating what everyone's already picked up on, but Solar's version of Adrenaline gave me the push I needed to write down my thoughts (Italian version >>> tho imo) so here goes. I apologize in advance for the length sflds this is my thoughts straight to the page so it went on for a while :')

We associate Vincenzo with fire almost from the first episode. From the get go, the first major thing we see Vincenzo do is burn down a vineyard, pretty nonchalantly. Then we establish his habit of fiddling with lighters, and to round it off he blows up Paolo's car. The fire imagery is there from the beginning. When he loses his temper he's fiery, he fights fire with fire, his birthday is on bonfire night, it's a pretty clear link. Yet, interestingly enough, as we get to know more about his character, it appears like he is mostly a very level-headed person when it comes to high stakes conflict, as seen in the court scenes and in scenes like the ones where he threatens Choi Myung Hee. In fact, his cool-headedness is one of the things Cha Young lists as one of his charms in ep8. He doesn't come off as hot-blooded as quickly as a character like Father Kim in The Fiery Priest, for example.

Besides the times when he's just annoyed angry over things like being robbed or the drama with Geumga plaza, we see him get seriously angry only over the emotions from seeing his mom (he yells at her, he lights a cigarette) over Hong Yu Chan's insistence on pursuing Babel despite the danger (he raises his voice on multiple occasions), and over the death of HYC (he throws a wine glass and then he has syringes stuck in JHS's pillow and he organizes the warehouse arson). Note how most of these things are accompanied by some use of a lighter (more on that later). Yet, times when he yells and cusses in Italian aside, in doing most of these things he's not very visibly aggressive? If you get what I mean. He's still almost cold/mechanical in the way he goes about it. Like the result of his anger is an inevitability; if you light a lighter you start a fire. This is seen when he gets angry over the vineyard owner's attitude (he doesn't lose his cool, he just burns down the vineyard) and Paolo's attempted assassination of him (he shoots the assassins calmly, he blows up Paolo's car and threatens him, he leaves italy). Even the actual act of the Babel arson isn't very fiery on Vincenzo's part.

The thing about Vincenzo though is that, much like the lighters which he constantly opens and closes without lighting, most of the time he's not always very openly fiery. As mentioned above the only times we see Vincenzo actually light a lighter are when he's truly angry. He opens and closes them to calm down, but occasionally instead of calming down he lights the lighter, and he burns down a vineyard or lights a cigarette. He says in ep 2 that being weak and feeling helpless make him angry, and perhaps that's why opening and closing a lighter helps him calm down, because it reminds him that he can do something, he can light the lighter if he chooses to.

A lot of his anger/bitterness goes back to him being abandoned by his mother, and we see that it's still a big deal for him because some of only times we see him lose a grip on his anger and have outbursts of emotion are in scenes related to his mom (when he comes to tell her no one will come visit her now, when she doesn't want to get treatment, early on when he's in the courtroom for her case). We see that momentary crack in his level-headed personality when it comes to his mom, and the cracks get larger the worse her condition gets. (I wonder how it will go if she dies? It seems like she might. Perhaps that'll push him over the edge). Being someone who doesn't like feeling helpless, the scenes where he's angry about his mom become all the more impactful because there's nothing he can do, he can light the lighter but all he can do with that light is light a cigarette. Notably we also see him get emotionally angry/agitated worrying over Hong Yu Chan's perseverance in fighting Babel, perhaps since he also comes to see HYC as a mentor/father figure. He was helpless again, he couldn't do anything to help his mother's sentence and he couldn't do anything to stop HYC and his eventual death. In all this we see that there is a marked contrast between fiery emotionally engaged angry Vincenzo and cool-headed business minded angry Vincenzo. The more dangerous of the two is arguably cool-headed angry Vincenzo, because this is the mode he enters after the initial burst of emotional anger, after which he hatches and executes another high stakes plan.

Which brings me back to Adrenaline. The lyric about wanting to leave so as not to cause hurt is there in both versions, but in english it's "Fire, rising up (to) higher, I'm burning up it's dire, I don't wanna hurt you so leave" (According to this translation of the Italian version the equivalent part in that one is "The fire (is) rising upwards, I'm burning slowly, Please leave me, I don't want to hurt you", more or less the same thing). At this point we're aware that Vincenzo has a lot of unresolved internal anger, but we aren't clear on the full extent of it yet. He effectively hides it behind smooth words and well thought out plans, but that doesn't change the fact that he's "burning up" with all that pent up anger (over his mother mostly, and now also over Babel to an extent), which is also "rising up" as he's reminded of his past and faces new challenges. It's only a matter of time until he hits burnout, or an explosion of some kind. If you think of it like a water balloon (idk i'm bad at coming up with metaphors), over time more and more things (abandonement issues, having to kill so many people, having to leave italy, frustrations surrounding the tenants, BabelTM, the death of Hong Yu Chan, meeting his mother again, hearing the truth about his mother's case first hand, his mother potentially dying, and so on) fill it up until bANG, it's too much and it bursts. Pent up anger is a ticking time bomb, and it's anyone's guess when he'll stop clicking the lighter open and shut and set the world on fire again. We'll either have Vincenzo overcome and learn to let go of his anger, or we'll get to see him truly snap and cause some real damage to his status as a non-fugitive and/or his relationships. Maybe some combination of both.

Interestingly though, we haven't seen him get directly really angry at Cha Young before, though they were very passive agressive in the earlier eps. This shows a difference in the way he sees her now and the way he saw Hong Yu Chan, she's willing to get her hands dirty and so even though they're still fighting the same Babel he's not as worried about her safety because she's a lot like him. And yet, assuming that Adrenaline is from Vincenzo's POV and the person he doesn't want to hurt is Cha Young, we can infer that Vincenzo knows full well the potential danger of his pent up anger, and that he cares enough about Cha Young to want to still keep a certain distance from her so as not to hurt her in the event that said anger leads to bigger trouble/more illegal high stakes plans/things she wouldn't approve of i.e hurting or killing people. We see that he is drawn to her (very obviously), and that he likes her (VERY OBVIOUSLY), but he doesn't want to burn her, hence scenes like the "villains don't deserve to love/love requires qualifications" scene. Fire can warm people, it can be a force for 'good' (for example, the revenge on Babel for its victims and Cha Young via the arson), but it can also destroy people. It looks like it is definitely eating away at Vincenzo, and he doesn't want the fire consuming him to burn those close to him.

He's done things that may or may not haunt him, and he may not deem himself worthy of love because of those things, but deep down I do think he wants to be loved, to have a home, to let go of his anger and be allowed to live without it. His initial plan was to get filthy rich and then run away, but like the monk said, unless he faces his anger, it'll follow him wherever he goes. Forests burn down and regrow naturally, but unnatural forest fires are hella destructive, it's all about how he handles his anger. Harness it and overcome it, or let it control him and eventually destroy him. Rn it looks like it torments him but he uses it to his advantage, as a driving force, but how sustainable is that? Each of the arsons are preceded by gasoline, what will serve as Vincenzo's gasoline and what will be the spark that sets him alight? Will Cha Young be the bucket of water that settles Vincenzo's flames, or will she be the bucket of gasoline that burns him to the ground? We'll just have to wait and see.

Pls interact it took me like a week to write all this :')

[hollymcinallyba3photo]

Lost and Found evaluation

This project was called “lost and found ” we researched different artists and photographers who have used creative manipulation techniques and locations within their images . We used our research as a foundation for our own project/concept for this brief. We where to pick a object that we use everyday or that was bizarre. That we could composite into a location this was a challenging brief but I enjoyed it and loved being able to push myself future

We had to make sure that we matched

• The lighting direction

• Quality

• Perspective Of the location to the object.

The location and object images were to combine in photoshop to create a composite.

I think my submission have worked well with the outline of the brief as I was able to match the lighting, quality and direction across both images to create an uncanny/bizarre image.

Some techniques I utilised throughout this project are as follows

Matching lighting direction and quality

• Building a concept from scratch

• Creating a composite

• Using different photoshop techniques including blending modes, pen tool and vector masks

• Working with colour match

I would like develop the concept of using vector masks and the pen tool as I feel that I haven’t fully explored what it does. I also think that I could learn easier ways of using the pen path tool as I think that I made it harder on myself and restarted everytime I got a little bit wrong.

I researched a mixture of photographers throughout this project including

• Jean-Charles Debroize

• Evgenij Soloviev

• Erik johansson

• Andric Ljubodrag

• RichMcCor

By researching these photographers, I was able to delve into different approaches on creative manipulation and locations how each photographers approach changed their attitude to this subject.

The technique I enjoyed the most was creating the composites as I felt like this is what I learned from the most during this.

The feedback I received from my peers and lecturers helped me to find better ways of creating composites and ways of lighting a object in different and more dramatic ways. The feedback also helped inform my location shooting aswell.

I think that the part of this project that I found most successful and enjoyable for me was the planning of my concept and editing of my images, as I feel that I revisited each of my shoot and composite attempts and improved on something each time. I believe I also improved on my ability to recognise what I can improve on.

Some of the problems I encountered within the project were what time I needed to go out at to shoot my location also I think having to depend on weather. Was really hard as I wanted to get a nice location picture. I think I learned from these as I made sure that I planned in advance to make sure I had someone to go out with me.

Some Habits of mind and meta skills I used where Persistence(as I stuck with my idea and work even when I found it hard. taking risks( as I tried different composites and locations that I wasn’t sure would work.

I think I could have possibly improved upon my planning within this brief as I think that though I had a good concept. I needed to work on how it would work in the composite. I also think I could improved on the end result of my composite as I think it is the strongest due to the height of the doll( I wish I'd made her slightly bigger like she was in my previous attempts)

I believe I was able to learn from this by making sure I check all my images and also create a full plan in my head before doing any shoots

If I was given the chance to do this project again. I would concentrate on my editing and post production.

[thattimdrakeguy]

Just to let you know, you’re one of the best bloggers I met in this thrice damned site and I admire you a lot. Honestly, you give me a lot of hope, and your metas are fucking amazing. Sometimes I come here if I want to calm my obsessions down and be rational. I’m the kind of person who ends up easily fixated on a character if I identify with them, so I end up focusing on them and daydreaming about em, and Timmy is my latest fixations which makes me gloss over his flaws pretty easily 1/2

2/2 so coming here and reading your analysis about him and seeing some of his flaws makes me more rational, ya know? Like, Timmy is a great character and pretty fucking badass but he’s still human. He makes mistakes, he judges, he has flaws and all that shit. And idealizing him and shitting on other characters, like I see some extreme stans, is pretty shitty. Honestly, shitting on any character is Shitty, tbh. Let people enjoy their stuff. Anyway, sorry for rant, I’m maniac so eh 🤷🏼‍♀️thnx!

--

As far as how I think, I feel as if that’s a perfectly normal thing to happen, at least to people that have a habit of getting hyperfixated. And even I had the problem for a little while.

When you feel so connected to something, it hurts that there could be any flaw about the character. You want to ignore it, bury it, pretend it’s not there.

But in my case I learned to realize that it would be very very boring without character’s having flaws. The mark of a good character isn’t in how little flaws they have, it’s about how well-written they are.

Timmy’s just a kid. While he’s smart, caring, naive, cute, dweebie, sensitive emotionally at least internally, things that make you really really like him (at least for 90s Tim who is my jam, later Tim feels like a total different character to me so I don’t quite like him). He still has flaws, he can be a little insensitive since he’s new and naive to the bigger world and how people can feel to the point it’s probably hurtful, he can be quite passive aggressive to people he’s not enjoying being around him at which ever moments he’s not enjoying it, can be way too trusting even (at least at the start), as well as have his temper come out when he’s completely overwhelmed.

He’s not a perfect person, but the way he and his world is set up, as well as his likable traits. If you’re into his type of character and world, you can’t help but love him. Because all good characters have something likable about them, and struggles and problems that make them feel real. Not being a perfect person given the fact he is just a kid and therefore is expected to not be Mr Maturity.

Sadly I think another great reason why people are so sensitive over their fav’s flaws is just how other people use it against them. I’ve seen a few people now use panels of Tim having a fit to act like as if his natural mode is being an angry shouter, when no, that isn’t the case, and it is very dumb to act otherwise.

It’s why I think, in another way, people just need to realize that character’s having flaws mean nothing. It’s the quality of the writing and especially at the least how you just like him that matters.

At this point it ends up in people making completely new character’s in the desire to keep them looking pure or at least have this nice shiny complexion. Just look at Damian or Steph, they’d have you believe they’re just sensitive and sweet people that only made simple harmless mistakes that they’re past now. When, if ya actually read and pay attention to their comics, is obviously not the case.

Steph had a whole few issues showing how emotionally abusive she could be, and it was all brushed aside because her creator that was still writing Robin at the time didn’t want her to look bad. Same stuff with Damian and Tomasi, or even Taylor at this point.

But in my eyes, it means nothing that they do such bad things, because that doesn’t make them bad characters, it’s how they’re written that makes them poor characters in my mind.

Jason had a bag full of decapitated heads one time in his best and most well-known story, you think that’s going to make him a bad character? That’s ridiculous, he was so well-written in that story. That story is why he’s still popular to this day, given so many people haven’t really liked any story he’s been in since. Look at his sales recently, they’re so garbage or mediocre at best for years now. Yet so many people still like him, because he was just so well-written at one point. Same for Tim, who has sold and has been written like garbage for years. His fanbase may not be as active anymore given how long his garbage writing been going on for, but when he was written well, he was so so popular.

Using character flaws, or using character flaws in a false context, to use as reasons to call a character bad is ridiculous. Or even just using their flaws to act like that’s the whole character. That makes no freaking sense to me. How awful media would be if every character was flawless? Where would the drama and character come from then? Now imagine if a character flaw that sometimes barely even happens represented their whole character or should be used to change your whole opinion despite how it’s not actually that bad in context. How depressing would that be.

It’s so bland.

Every character has their flaws, and everybody has their own opinion on those characters or relationships good or bad, and I feel we should be allowed to say them.

But people’s unwillingness to keep it rational and easy going has created this toxic unhealthy environment for people. I’m not happy with it one bit.

--

And also I’d like to thank you so so much for being an absolute sweetheart. Knowing that I’ve actually gained admiration and hope from someone gives me satisfaction that I never felt like I’d actually reach ever in life. It’s a little butterfly feeling in my stomach, but not in an anxious way, just a genuinely happy way just to here it. That little smile that pops up without you even meaning to do it.

Thank you so much. <3

[peachymess]

On Eren

If it’s not one thing, it’s another. Snk, you keep me up at night. It’s 7am and I can’t sleep. It just hurts too much. All the fears hitting me at once. I need the next chapter, just to further the in-verse present time. Yet at the same time, I can barely read another word or I might perish.

Listen, Eren might have had a very black-and white sort of tunnel vision all his life. He may always have been rash and headstrong and quick to decide what he deems as right and wrong. And he might come down on what he deems “injustice” very hard. But that’s not all there’s been to him. He’s also always cared about strangers in need, his friends, the freedom we’re all born with and deserve to have. He cries for people’s fates, he smiles at others’ joy.

He felt hate, yes, but he also felt love. I’m just gonna go ahead and pick a side. I refuse to accept that we’re meant to land on the far-evil side of his spectrum. If his plan is exactly what he says it is, I actually accept it as IC, because given Eren’s circumstances, we can understand what lead him to become this consumed with hate and misguided action. However, even so, I don’t think that’s where he’ll be by the end of this story. He’s swinging, and he’s gonna land somewhere closer to the middle. I’m not talking redeemed, I’m just talking understood and hopefully reawakened from his hate-consumed state - unless we’re just gonna have a straight up “this had to be done for best ending” twisteroo.

The thing is. If his plan is what he says it is, it’s nuts. But it’s *so* nuts that it’s... almost cartoony. Because not only do we get the plan like he says, it also means that the bleak as hell narrative Mikasa gave this chapter, is meant to be correct. Paraphrasing to a dangerous degree, we can sum it up like this: “Eren is a monster and I’m starting to realize he didn’t become one; he’s always been one”. This, canonized, would erase the weight of any smile, care and love Eren’s shown to give from earlier years. It would mean that beneath care for his friends and laughter at the dinner table, his thoughts and goals were so ugly and selfish that it even at that point outweighed the “shallow” good he projected into the world. Not only does that set the bar extremely low for what people we are meant to consider “evil”, but it also flips the script of the entire story to be one of hatred and fake beauty from start to finish. If we’re told Eren’s meant to be evil masked as good from the get-go, 1. If we accept it, every happy interaction looks empty and pointless as hell and strips the story of its stakes to some degree, or 2. We realize it honestly doesn’t fit because his “good” feelings being genuine is why entire plot points work and the story developed in the way it did.

What I’m trying to say is this: Mikasa’s temporary conclusion that Eren might have been a monster* all along, isn’t correct (and it’s meant to be seen as a wrong read imo). But if his plan is what he says it is, he IS one, thus her conclusion would be correct. Which it isn’t.

Side note: while I believe Eren’s plan and Mikasa’s conclusion need to coincide (plan true = M conclusion true VS plan fake = M conclusion fake), there is an argument to be had that Mikasa could be wrong about Eren always having been a monster while Eren still truly having become one by this point in time. But I don’t believe so. For instance: if Eren wasn’t a monster before but has become one now, Mikasa’s closing conclusion (him being one NOW) is still correct - but the reasoning/buildup used to arrive at that conclusion, is wrong. It would be like solving a mathematical problem incorrectly but arriving at the right answer by luck. She’s asking herself if, looking back, she can actually see the seeds of his true form, where she previously saw him through rose tainted goggles. But if he truly was a good boy before, it would be unfair (and a waste of time) to put on the table, a plot point that’s synthetically explained/constructed, when there is a true calculation/formula to the conclusion since (if) it’s correct. And the other way around, if her conclusion is right, but the plan is fake, the “monstrosity” she’s caused to reflect on, is fake to begin with, so how can she still be right he’s a monster?

So, back on track, I don’t feel like Eren is meant to end on this 100% villain note. His plan of genocide, his on-the-nose villain final titan face, PLUS Mikasa’s “sike, he’s ALWAYS been a monster”... it’s just too much evil. Especially for a story like SNK. It feels to me, like this is the “the night is darkest before the dawn” part of the story, where we go from “he’s a pure boy”** to “my god... no... he’s actually a demon boy, god help us”. Mikasa’s narrative says this, and Armin is having that exact themed melt-down when his desire to see Eren as good, physically stops being compatible with what he sees around him. They’re both so scared of acknowledging Eren’s flawed, that having to accept it, initially feels like a much bigger deal, a much longer fall from grace. So we swing with them, from one outer point to the other. Panic mode... but it won’t end there. It’s too cartoony, too black/white still. Looking back, the good times they shared, they were real. And the pain he’s later caused, is also real. But he’s not setting out to do damage for the sake of damage. He’s not evil to the core. I refuse to believe that’s what we’re meant to be left with at the end; redeemable or not, his goal isn’t pain. A lie is best wrapped in truths, and Isayama is fueling our own fear of Eren’s monstrous side by making us do callbacks to things in the past that could be seen as seeds of evil. And to a degree he’s right. Eren is violent. To be honest, it never say well with me how he killed those men at age nine. I understood the “the end justifies the means” aspect of it, and I think that’s why I was able to let it slide despite the discomfort. Yet it never quite... fell to rest. A nine year old being able to stab other humans to death with no remorse and such violent words... should a nine year old child be able to do that, even if it’s for the greater good? I’m sure I’m not alone. And Isayama intended it this way, to be able to do this callback. It spreads uncertainty. You start to buy into it... Becayse it’s true to some degree: it’s messed up. Your regular kid couldn’t do something like that... But it’s not proof that Eren is evil through and through. It’s just presented in such a way that it makes for a compelling argument. And in the heat of the moment, it provides the “holy shit fuck” the story needs to make the stakes as severe as possible. Taking a step back, I refuse to believe it’s a true revelation, but an intensional gaslighting of his person, presented so we’ll swallow the bait. Eren having always been a monster incubating, is too cartoony to be the final note.

So the question becomes: is the plan true or false? Depending on the answer, we’ll have three different proceedings. In neither scenario, he’s means to be the evil monster he’s seen as right now, though. If the plan is true, he’s become this way through being misguided and lost in perpetual hate and pain caused by all the knowledge and visions. With this backdrop, EMA/SC will have to either take him out despite realizing/finding out the pain that corrupted him - so not hating him but having to end him all the same. Or, they manage to win through to him by countering the hate with love (he could still die though, we might be past the point of no return, ngl).

On the other hand, if Eren’s been playing the long game and about to throw them for a loop, the cast members will all learn this in time and come to accept the bittersweet outcome that after all will be the best ending they can ask for in a world with so much hate. Eren can still die, I’m not delusional (but here’s hoping he won’t).

*when I use the term “monster” - and “evil”/“villain” - I’m pinning that to a personality that intends harm with the end goal of harm. Just because he’s not a monster (if this turns out to be the case), that doesn’t mean he isn’t still in the wrong, antagonistic, irredeemable for actions done in the name of good, etc. This ramble meta is about Eren being a conscious agent of pain versus a bringer of pain yet an agent of “good” (not considering his performance as an agent of such).

**He was already tainted from the attack in Liberio, so while I say “pure boy”, I mean in terms of us/the characters still seeing him as originally good (possibly - but “I refuse to believe it” - bad).

Edit: while I say at the start that if the plan is true, he’s a monster, and later say it could be true and he’s still not a monster for it, what I mean is this: if the plan is true in the sense that he knows how evil and selective it is, and will fight for it till the end, then yes, he turned out to be the monster that Mikasa correctly realized him to be. If, on the other hand, erens goal isn’t the pain but the greater good, he’s a misguided “good boy” who caused more bad than good out of mistake. If this is the case, I also believe he will realize it before the end, to swing that morality pendulum back towards the middle. Hope that clears it up. It’s about intent.

Thus concludes my late night/early morning rambles. I’ve said it before, I’m fine with anyone calling me a naive idiot for still holding out hope, but I’m just not accepting that Eren going full Satan and us accepting that “surprise, he always was Satan” is what Isayama wants to leave us with.

Isayama say sike right now.

[writingonjorvik]

Can We Discuss Passive Cooperation?

Another topic I can mostly discuss before the interview. Y’all, I promise it’s coming out soon. We’ve got one more person to hear back from, but with the recent outbreak and work from home situations, things will continue to get backed up. I promise it will be out soon, hopefully within the next week or two so you can listen while you run around doing Soul Riding. With that said, let’s get into this actual topic.

So if you’ve been following WoJ for a while, you know that I think SSO is lacking in providing on that MMO experience. And I also know statistically that that isn’t necessarily a popular opinion that folks want to see more. However, I think a lot of folks think when I say I want more multiplayer experiences, they mean content that’s locked behind having to PUG, and that’s not it.

Again bringing up GW2, one of the reasons I love it is because of its passive cooperation. There are a lot of ways that game encourages you to interact with others without needing to be in a group. Did someone die? You get experience for rezzing them. Is there a big event going on? Everyone participating gets experience for jumping in and helping. Want to do a meta? Just follow the one commander willing to give instructions and you’re good. That doesn’t mean GW2 gets it perfectly. There are plenty of folks who can be standoffish in more difficult content, but overall, the game has a really solid passive cooperation built into its PvE and reward players for playing together, without locking off a lot of its content by forcing them to.

And that is what I want to see more of from SSO. Right now, the only really supported co-op mechanics are all PvP, which in a lot of ways goes against the laid back vibes of SSO. Other co-op activities, like picnics and the disco, have only gotten minimal updates over the years. By in large, the only other co-op scene is role plays, and that’s got its own can of worms. Not that it’s bad, but it can be a little bit to get into. There are very little incentives to interact with others, to include that a lot of players want a block all option, something I hope doesn’t get added outside of maybe a reduce players loaded bar of some kind. This is supposed to be an MMO after all. While it would be nice in photo mode, it’s supposed to be multiplayer.

So, what are some ways SSO could bring more cooperation without forcing people to interact? Well, here are just a few suggestions to get folks already in groups and out of groups to interact more:

1. Quest Support

I think while SSO’s story should always be soloable, I think having extra dialogue options for bringing a group with you, particularly for people who like SSO canons where there are multiple chosen ones, is fun. It also adds a much easier way to help other players find hidden objectives if you can actually see their quest goals too, even if you can’t complete it for them. Things like being able to catch hens with friends or help them get their fish for the day are all options that would make some more grindy options more tolerable. Also, with the new quests building in this “candidates” potential, I think there’s more room in the narrative for other powerful druids.

2. Championships

I know I just said we don’t need more PvP content, but championships really need an update. I’ve talked about this before and in the interview, but I really feel like these need an update to feel rewarding again to do, and also combat small groups of players dominating these races.

3. Kudos

Something else that got brought up in the interview, so here’s your little sneak peak for now. Was suggested there is some kind of system where you can give kudos to a player for being helpful. This would be particularly helpful for encouraging players to help out newer players, to host events, and generally be a chill person. Potentially could be linked to some kind of reward, like the team can review players who got a lot of kudos in a month and give them rewards, or as a recommendation for future ambassadors and moderators.

4. Dungeons

I am only going to talk about this very briefly, because I have a full post planned on this topic and it’s in the interview, but I think some kind of escape room dungeon system would be amazing, particularly if some kind of instruction pinging system were added to the game.

5. Team Competitions

Ok, again with a PvP suggestion, but I know folks had hella fun in the old SML meet-ups where we did team competitions or club competitions. Even if it’s just 2v2 to fit in the current group system, that would be great. And I imagine clubs would have so much fun with that system, or dressage teams if we could ever make our own courses in game.

6. Events

I already talked about this in events and I’m sure the system is catching up, but what if during the Yule Goats, everyone collecting the goats built towards closing a portal? Like, there are still the basic ones as there were before, but repeating the whole day, every 15 minutes, another group portal opens up and everyone in the area needs to bring 10 babies as a whole effort. There’s no talking required, and it adds another source for a relatively grindy currency.

7. Other systems I’ve already suggested

Imagine getting to collect crafting supplies as a group. Imagine running around with friends to find the things you need to finish your home. Imagine a neighborhood system in Jorvik City for housing and getting to go see your friends’ homes in game. Imagine a daily login rewards system where doing group races is an option. Imagine these systems in game.

8. Co-op collection

Combined with the pinging section mentioned above, I think there should be a collection you can only get with friends, like that one star near Forgotten Fields. I think it should be separate from the stars, so there are these soloable collections, but there’s also this one you can do with your friends. Maybe they’re a little more challenging, or precursors to a bigger system (like a dungeon system), but I just think it would be cool. Even better if it’s replayable, so you can play it again every day for a small reward, and also so you can go back and help new folks gather them too.

9. Club Collections

Riding clubs so desperately need an update. But like, what if there was something to do while you’re in them? What if there were club only collections to unlock and/or upgrade the club hall? What if there were tools for making club races? What if riding clubs just got an actual update after SIX years? Look, I think this is just an underloved feature and I want to see it updated.

10. Community Objectives

I loved the “get to this many races” social media thing SSO did. I think they should do that more often, though with a variety of challenges that can be measured in game and don’t require social media. If there was a bi-weekly or even monthly goal like that, to get the community to get on and engage on something frequently, it’s more likely then that people will connect. It is technically co-op, on the biggest scale and I just think that would be amazing to see more of. 

11. More Fox Hunts

Another topic I recently brought up, the fox hunt. Y’all, I loved this and doing this was the most engaged I felt with the community since the first batch of stars. I want to see more of this moving forward, with loads of hidden achievements put in to encourage the community to get out there and look for secrets and work as a team with different skill sets. Just, there’s something amazing about seeing the community come together for something like this, and I love it.

12. Incentivizing Co-op

I think another thing SSO doesn’t do well is actually encouraging people to play co-op. Doing races in a group doesn’t provide any reward outside of achievements and champ rewards. There’s no reason to go back and do races in a group outside of maybe getting pictures in the circus. I know this gets into balancing economy, but having some kind of reward for actually doing group races would be a great way to encourage people to actually do those over just soloing the races with a group, like how most people will do group training. Like double horse exp, or a shilling reward, or something that makes doing a race in a group worth it outside of...bragging rights? Even if these were like, temporary tonics you could buy, like lures in Pokemon Go, but for horse exp, that would be something. I guess this depends on how competitive you are, but there’s not really a reason mechanically to get you to do races this way.

13. New Race Modes

I know this is another big system one, but imagine the Cloud Kingdom race with friends. Imagine the chaos of everyone bringing Shires to block everyone’s view of the race. Imagine a very basic item system with like a knockback, a stop, and a speed boost (all things already in the Cloud Kingdom race) as magic items. I suggested a full on 5v5 magic training race in the finale of SSL’s map which I still think would be amazing to teamwork out closing the seals and getting out while the other team hunts you down to run out the clock. Just like, these things would be amazing.

14. PUG Menu

I think a PUG menu is vital to not only easily finding groups to say do collections with or get help with quests, but also to get club and role invites out of Global. Why advertise in Global when you can just open the PUG menu and find or make an open group? It just organizes it a lot better, and it would probably cut down on spam.

And I’m sure there are a dozen more, but until I think of them, what are some of the things that would encourage you to play with others? Do things like the Chaos Stampede encourage you to hang out with the community? Is there some kind of co-op content that would get you to engage more with new players? Be sure to let me know!

[zydrateacademy]

Current Activities in Gaming #222 (and life in general)

Do I even have anyone left to read my stuff? Alright, I’m gonna be real here. There’s a few variables that led to my inactivity on Tumblr. Let’s break down a few. 1) It’s not as fun. And not just because nudity was removed, though let’s be honest that’s certainly a variable. Ever since the Tumblr company shuffling of leadership there’s been a few choice updates that just don’t lend well towards the community. My activity feed is mostly just memes at this point. Also, I love blogging but I’ve yet to find a different platform to do so on, but I’ll be sure to google some alternatives soon enough.

2) I’d rather just be playing. These bigger CA posts typically take an hour or two to write up. I don’t plan them, I just open the post up and let my thoughts just get dumped. An hour or two is a lot of time, and that’s plenty of time to make some headway in certain games. Maybe pausing during an MMO during a dungeon queue or a raid party reset, but I don’t think I’ve touched an MMO in a couple of years so that window has closed.  As a 2a, you could also just say I just very simply haven’t been in the mood to dedicate an hour or two every couple of days.

3) Schedule switchup and fatigue. A few months ago I transferred out of front end at the grocery store I work at, and into the produce department. There was more than one chance. For one, I no longer work morning shifts (often was 7am to 1pm or noonish). That’s 5-6 hour shifts and that gives me my day to play around with. However the produce department needed a closer, so now I’m up to 8.5 hour shifts, typically 1:30 to 10pm (EST, in case that matters). I was getting 40 hours a week but I asked my boss to downgrade me to 32 instead, which is still a few more than what I was getting on front end in addition to a raise, because front end is typically the “bottom” of the retail totem pole for some reason, despite them being pretty damn important to customer experience. Regardless, at the end of almost 9 hours, I typically just come home, turn on an ASMR video on my second monitor and basically shut my brain and body down as I mindlessly plug away at whatever game I’m playing. And yes, apparently I’m ‘essential’. So I’m still working during the pandemic.

Now then. Let’s get to what I’ve been up to, and none of this is in any particular order since I’ve last posted. I must have hopped to two or three different Conan Exiles servers while ultimately settling on Oasis of Pleasure, a very ERP driven place. I spend a good month or two being active and then I just gotta wait for the next server reset and let my personal CE batteries recharge.

I’ve gotten back into Skyrim, and I really should do some scrolling to find my last CA number for that. I’ve more than doubled my hours on the special edition, and apparently it’s been just under four years since I touched it last. Right now I’m playing a sort of nonlethal thief. The Ordinator perk overhaul (which is a must have, honestly) gives the light armor tree some big bonuses to hand to hand and makes it incredibly viable even in higher difficulties. She keeps a bow and knife around for “monsters” but ultimately uses her fists against most humanoids. I’ve been trying something different during the thieves guild questline: Actually sneaking by everyone and not murdering the fuck out of every humanoid you run into. Which is an option, fun enough. You can fail the radiant quests by murdering the homeowners but most of the questline is filled with mercenaries and you can’t really ‘fail’ the main missions (though I wonder what happens if you kill that argonian?) otherwise players could block a shit load of content from themselves.

I’ve also played a hot barbarian werewolf girl, some kind of Nazgul looking woman, and some other stuff.

Hilariously I’ve yet to get a decent screenshot of my current nonlethal thief. Her kit is pretty damn basic, wearing a custom set of the guildmaster armor with the black bandoleers. Honestly she looks pretty unassuming, which is kind of the purpose. Maybe I’ll go take her hood off and get a screenshot. Some day.

After that, I will say I’ve done some preorders. I still await Bloodlines 2 and Cyberpunk 2077. Delays notwithstanding, last time I checked they’re being released at roughly the same timeframe. I also preordered Horizon Zero Dawn which I am enjoying but must admit that some elements of it are a tad underwhelming. Maybe it’s because I played a good chunk of AC:Odyssey again recently, but I grow tired of the random garbage pickup game for basic crafting. Games just can’t really stand on their own two legs anymore, and open world games seem to be stuck on a few trends they can’t shake. Running around mining for ore and picking at tree branches is not fun. It’s a side effect of HZD indeed being four years old already, but I’ll still probably get a good few dozen hours on it. Not sure if I’ll bother beating it, but I do like Aloy and her story, though I’ve been treated with some spoilers since its release so I kind of know where it’s headed. After that... Let’s check my ‘recent’ list on Steam.

So we got some Town of Salem, which has become my go-to night closer before bed most nights. Last time I made a post on it I probably only had 10-20 hours played, of which I now have over 200. I’m sure as hell a lot better than I used to be, but the All Any gamemodes still manage to make my headspin, but they lead to some hilarious moments. All other modes makes it very difficult because of the “no claim space” meta, so I like hitting AA so I can claim whatever the hell I want. I’ve wanted to get back into Dying Light but it does something dirty to my computer that always demands a hard restart. You basically can’t tab away at all, even in borderless mode. And when I try exiting, I can no longer click any tabs. So hard power button it is. It’s such a good game and it feels really good to play, but I just can’t let it force me to do hard restarts anymore. I’ve dabbled into many others and some aren’t worth mentioning too much. We got Star Wars Battlefront 2, which I was approaching with some level of skill. I like the Co-Op modes but it feels like there’s only like three maps for that. Was fun with my brother for a while but that mode needs like ten new maps. But I believe development has stopped (a while ago, too), as the team is probably working on the next thing. I’ve already posted my dealings with the likes of Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord and Generation Zero. I never got around to beating GZ’s Alpine expansion. I got my 40 hours of it and frankly... that was enough. Good game, just lacks some depth. Some reviewers mentioned that the loop became too shallow and I can kind of agree, even though it took me 40 hours to get to that point.  As for MNB, I’m sort of waiting on the more final phases of its early access. It’s basically getting patched every since week and I had trouble keeping up with all the mod downloads. So I’m thinking of doing a full uninstall (mods and all) and waiting longer down the development line. Maybe with workshop support, playing and updating will be more stable. That’s about the last I have within the last few months. I’ll probably get around to finding my last Skyrim post and pick up from where I left off.

[astralshipper]

1,2,3,4,7,8,10,11,13, and 15 for Sammy from the meta asks?

OKAY this is a long one and I’m on mobile so I can’t do a read more, sorry!! My laptop won’t connect to the internet so we goin down mobile mode

1 How did you discover your f/o’s content?: I discovered SPN through the other kids at school! My whole friend group kinda passed around things to watch and I hadn’t been interested by anything at that point (I didn’t really watch any tv or anything back then, yikes) until I heard abt this show about two brothers that hunt monsters, and I was like hell yeah that sounds rad!

2 How old were you when you discovered your f/o’s content?: I was like... either 11 or 12. I don’t remember exactly when I started it, but it’s probably more 11 leaning.

3 Describe the first time you watched your f/o’s source content: I was supposed to be doing math homework. It was 2 AM. I was sat at my old desk with my sick as hell two screen set up bc I was a sick gamer. I turned the lights out to get the full effect, and then I realized like, oh my god, I actually really like this. Also, Sam sounds cute and smart and yeah boy! But my mom wanted to watch it as well, so I had to wait to watch the rest of the series. That’s what got me through school that year was knowing I had spn to watch!

4 Who was your first favorite character when you initially got into your f/o’s source content?: the first thing I said to my mom about this show went something like, “sam is really cute and he has a nice jawline and he seems really sweet” to which my mom replied “Dean is cuter” and I established myself as the sole sam girl of the house. I reign supreme. I fall in love with Sam Win.chester with a single glance.

7 Are there any specific moments you find yourself going back to more often than others?: season 1 sam was really smiley, I like season 1 sam. Bad day at black rock from s3, ghostfacers! also s3. Season 5 gets a lot of replay bc it’s my fave!! French mistake, Frontierland (cowboy!sam au thrives), then quite a few from newer seasons! Ask Jeeves, fan fiction, about a boy, THE BABY EPISODE!!!!, thin Lizzie bc fanboy sam!!! Rock never dies has edgy band member sam and that’s. Good shit. Season 13 is dad sam and the start of season 14 is good Beard Sam Content. So, a lot of it, yes I rewatch a lot

8. Are there any moments your f/o is in that you skip?: don’t wanna spoil too much, but I skip a lot in season 8. Not necessarily bc I think a certain character is bad, but just because it didn’t feel like a good characterization choice for sam. Plus later in the season sam makes me sadddd :(((( also can’t watch 2x22 bc I’m a wuss that can’t watch him die the first time

10 If you could change one thing about your f/o’s source content, would you? What would you change?: it’s not a matter of if I’d change something, it’s narrowing it down to one thing that’s the problem... I love spn, we all know that, but I also think spn has. Many issues. Season 7 was a rough one, there are continuity errors through the whole series, but if I had to choose one thing, it’d be how they treat minorities and women. A lot of the women part is the fan base attacking any woman on the show just for breathing, but also like, the writers do minorities and women SO dirty in this show. Where is the representation

11 Do your friends/family know you’re into this content or do you keep it to yourself?: I used to be really open abt it. I’m no longer open abt it. If I end up going to a convention I’ll def post it, but I try not to talk about it to anyone. I only watch it when I’m alone and I try my best to plan my watching when I know my parents won’t walk in on it. It’s just like... one of those things that used to be cool but everyone else stopped and I’m still here enjoying it but if I’m too loud everyone will look at me weird and just- hhh. So that’s why I talk abt sam so much on here bc this is! The only place I get to even MENTION spn

13 Do you have a favorite line your f/o has ever said?: there are 14 seasons of incredible sam lines but if I had to choose one? Agh okay I’m disqualifying all soulless sam quotes bc they’re too GOOD, so other than that either “after we kill it we can go to Disneyland!” or “I’m not using this ID, it says bikini inspector on it!”

15 Do you own any merchandise from their source content?: hell yeah! I used to have a lot more but I have sam and dean funkos, a Misha funko from french mistake, a poster, a Jensen autograph and a Jared autograph I got for Xmas one year, Dean’s ring replica, a bracelet with a bunch of charms, and a replica angel blade that’s literally bigger than my arm lmao. I used to have a samulet but I think I lost it bc I wore it too much :(((( need a new one!

[cosmotographer]

The Leica M10 Review

…yes I know it’s 2020 and it’s late

This review was a long time coming since I had originally planned on writing this review last Spring. It was during that time when I was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to pick up a second-hand Leica M10 in black from a fellow forum member in exchange for two of my lenses at the time (Summilux 35mm FLE and the Summicron 50mm V5). Was it worth selling my M240 at the time and trading off two lenses for the M10?

Before I continue with this review, I should caveat by saying that this is my second M10 as I sold the first one during the first draft of this review last year after my trip from Miami and Key West. I had sold it over the summer because I didn’t feel the premium wasn’t worth it to me, therefore I had sold it off and picked up a mint silver chrome M-P 240 which I loved and took it several trips with me.

Fast forward to 2020, an opportunity had come up for an M10 while I was at the gym one morning. I was catching up on Leica things during a break (as you do) and I had found a silver chrome M10 for sale for a price that was hard to pass up. A price so good, that I had completely stopped working out and went into full-time stalker mode with the seller on securing the purchase via text message. After less than 5 minutes of communicating back and forth, we had agreed on a price and a successful transaction was made.

I said farewell my beloved M-P (Typ 240) as it sold in less than a day to a gentleman in Texas. You were the best iteration of the best value digital Leica M camera, but how does the M10 compare and do I still think it was worth the money to upgrade?

My first Leica M10 in black

“Minute changes like these is what legendary products need. Nothing drastic, but incremental improvements.”

Introduction

When the M10 was first introduced in January 2017, it was a cause for celebration as reviews sang their praises as the ‘best Leica yet’ while commenting on its new 24 megapixel sensor paired with the latest Maestro II processor, a bigger viewfinder magnification with better eye-relief, a body that is as slim as the M7 film camera, a new manual ISO dial and what is this?

They’ve removed video recording!

Nobody cared. Moving on.

Not only did Leica giveth and taketh away with the M10, but they had also made the camera significantly more simplified compared to its predecessor. Leica’s new devotion to minimalism that could be seen back in 2015 with the introduction of the Leica Q, transferred over to the M10 as the camera now has less buttons, removed any superfluous menu options which led to a more structured and cleaner menu system. They even changed the power switch so that it only does one thing now: On or Off. This is a big deal as the Leica Q had a problem with some users accidentally switching to “Continuous” as the power switch had the tendency to go full-auto. Minute changes like these is what legendary products need. Nothing drastic, but incremental improvements.

Look at every new iteration of the the Porsche 911. It’s not the same car, but just improved.

As the difference in technology between the M240 (2012) and the M10 (2017) span 5 years, the improvements of the M10 can be noticed instantly with its new slimmer profile when you pick it up for the first time. While the M240 wasn’t a big camera compared to other full-frame cameras, but if you compared Leica’s other rangefinders, the M240 was a thicc boy. After a few weeks of getting reacquainted with the M10 again, I felt that the M10 is just like any other Leica: it’s more than the sum of its parts and more about its evolution rather than revolution. That’s why, at least currently, it’s the best digital iteration of Leica’s fabled rangefinder (until the M11).

My new Leica M10 in silver chrome

“…it’s more than the sum of its parts and more about its evolution rather than revolution.”

Build & Design

The M10’s new slimmer body and lighter weight compared to the M240 was very obvious and noticeable to me. As your right thumb rub against the right corner of the body next to the exposure dial, you’ll also notice the new paint finish as Leica had decided to use matte/chrome treated paint compared to the previous “black paint” finish in the previous gens. I personally prefer the black paint finish as the lacquer paint would fade over time, showing the dull gold glow of the brass underneath. This brassing gave the camera a nice patina, like a worn leather jacket after years of use.

Brassing on a Leica M240

I believe that Leica did this intentionally to give the camera a more timeless look as the brassing would give the camera an aged look over time, but I feel that the patina brings out the character of the camera. With each worn paint on different parts of the body, there is a story that comes with it. The new chrome paint finish will not age as gracefully, as it will just dull over the time, losing its matte luster to just a shiny sheen of metal.

Leica M10 Cutaway | Courtesy of Leica Camera AG

Tough as Nails

Just because the M10 doesn’t brass like its predecessors, doesn’t the camera feels cheap. The components are still machined from solid brass and magnesium alloy chassis, holding in all the components in such a small body. Nothing about the build quality is different with the M10 and they are still built to same high standards. Don’t let the smaller size of the M10 fool you either as the weight between the M240 and the M10 are almost identical (1.46 lbs vs. 1.50 lbs).

Width: 33.7mm

Weight: 1.46 lbs

Leica may not openly advertise this, but the body is weather-sealed against light precipitation and dust.

Refined Shutter

The shutter sound is definitely quieter and more refined than the M240, but the feel is about the same. Half press locks the exposure and full press releases the shutter with a refined “click”. I can’t explain the sound, but it feels slightly muffled compared to the M240. It’s definitely quieter than the M9’s robo-sex doll shutter cock sound, but I kind of like that as that’s part of the M9’s many charms.

I can’t speak for the shutter feel on the M10-P or M10-D as I don’t have any experience with them yet, but they have the quietest mechanical curtain shutters. Maybe one day I’ll pick one up (actually I know I’ll have one in the future).

Diamonds are Forever

Most of the back panel is dominated by a 3-inch TFT LCD monitor which has 1,036,800 dots and can display 16 million colors in addition to providing 100% frame coverage during live view. The difference in resolution between the M240 and the M10 may not be noticeable, at least to me, but the difference in contrast is very apparent. It’s also years ahead of the M9, which is only useful for checking exposure as it has the same screen quality of a GameBoy.

The LCD glass screen itself deserves its own paragraph as it’s sporting the latest Gorilla Glass, specifically developed for this camera by Corning. While the glass feel strong and strudy, I personally question its durability compared to the Leica M-P’s (Typ 240) more robust and exotic sapphire glass. Something that Leica had also omitted from the M10-P and M10-D. This is a big difference as sapphire glass is borderline industructible by conventional means, which is why it’s used on high-end watches that can only be scratched by diamonds. I wouldn’t be surprised if the M10’s screen is very similar to the Leica Q.

Balanced

Lastly, the body feels more balanced due to better weight distribution between the front and rear of the body if you hold the camera up by just the strap with a lens attached. This is one of the major benefits of the M10’s slimmer body as it pairs perfectly with compact lenses like the Summicron 35mm ASPH or the Voigtlander Ultron 35mm. This may not seem like a big deal, but weight distribution is counts if you want to pull some weight off your left hand, relieving some pressure off your fingers as you focus.

Miami, Florida | M10 + Summicron 35mm ASPH

“…body is weather-sealed against light precipitation and dust”

User Experience

There is something to be said about the user experience of a thinner, faster, and more accurate Leica rangefinder, especially with its improved eye relief for people with glasses. Compared to the M240, there are some noticeable improvements.

Pin-Point Accuracy

The new viewfinder has a magnification of .73x compared to the M240’s .68x magnification. This may not seem much, but that is a big difference when you’re looking inside a tiny window and you’ll notice it right away when you’re focusing your lenses. It’s much easier to nail a sharp focus and with fast lenses, this is a big improvement. By just walking around with the Voigtlander Ultron 35/1.7 ASPH I had at the time, I noticed that I was nailing focus with very little to no micro-adjustments to get a sharp focus patch. That means there is one less thing to worry about on getting a sharp focus. The second one being the quality of your eye sight to see the patch clearly.

This new viewfinder can also be a double-edged sword for those that wear glasses as composing with 28mm or 36mm lenses will have a more difficult time to compose since the eye-relief, while is improved, it’s still not ideal for glasses.

New Viewfinder | Courtesy of Leica Camera AG

Simplified Menu System

Leica had released a firmware update in 2018, which introduced the Favorites Menu that was brought over from the Leica Q. A very handy upgrade since it no longer required you to dive into the 2.5 pages of menus to change something as simple as White Balance. These are mostly quality of life improvements and once you set up your menu settings, you will very rarely ever go back in terms of shooting experience as I have everything that I need on the body of the camera: ISO, Aperture, Shutter. The dials feels solid and tactile, as you would expect from a Leica.

Carry Spares

The battery life will be a hit for people as the Leica M10’s BP-SCL5  battery has 1300 mAh of charge, which is noticeably smaller than the M240’s 1600 mAh battery. The difference of 300 mAh may not seem much and you should be able to hit 300 photos on one battery if you don’t use Live View (or EVF), but this is a far cry from the M240’s BP-SCL2 battery as a single one of those guys would last me all weekend.

Thumbs Up

The exposure compensation dial is just where it needs to be like the M240, but the Leica M10 has a slight curvature on the left side of the dial that acts as a pseduo thumb rest. Doesn’t seem like much, but it makes a noticeable difference in ergonomics, especially on a slimmer body like the M10. I still ended up buying a OEM Leica thumb grip and I recommend it wholeheartedly as we all know that Leica cameras were built for Lego people.

Controls at your finger tips

“…you will very rarely ever go back in terms of shooting experience as I have everything that I need on the body of the camera.”

Big Brains

The MAESTRO II processor is quick and depending on the Read/Write speed of your SD card, it’s as quick as the Leica Q on writing those DNG files. It’s capable of taking 5 shots per second on continuous which is impressive for a M camera. 

Wi-Fi is Lo-Fi

The built-in Wi-Fi feature is nice to have, but I doubt I’ll ever use it as my dedicated source of raw transfers since I prefer to use the SD card to transfer photos via iPad Pro or on the PC. The app itself is cumbersome and the transfer speeds are abysmally slow. To make matter worse, using the Wi-Fi feature absolutely destroys your battery life.

A Bakery in Richmond, VA | Leica M10 + Voigtlander 35/1.4 MC II

“…thumbs up grip is crazy expensive at $240 a pop”

Things I Don’t Like

Despite all these improvements, not everything is perfect with the M10. This may be the best digital Leica M camera to date, but there are a couple of issues I want to point out as they were noticeable that prevented the camera from winning over me completely.

Double Thumbs

The buttons on the back are big and easy to use, but it will take some time to get used to getting around the menu system if you’re coming from the M240…especially when you want to delete a photo.

You first have to press the “PLAY” button, which is one of the three primary buttons on the back, then press “MENU” to bring up the delete option since there is no dedicated delete button anymore. Then once you do that, you have to use the center button on the D-Pad to confirm your choice (what would be the INFO button on the M240). It’s not very intuitive but neither was the M240’s use of the “SET” button on the left. This is a minor issue as you’ll get use to it after a couple of days.

That ISO Dial

The new ISO dial on the left of side of the camera was one of the defining features of the M10 and while it is nice to have, I personally think it’s highly overrated. To change the ISO, you need to lift the switch up to unlock it (which surprisingly takes a bit of effort with your left fingers) and then turn the dial to your desired ISO settings, then press the dial back down until it snaps in to lock the ISO dial. I’m not of fan of this effort of using the ISO dial and practically impossible with gloves on.

I personally leave the dial unlocked and upright position while I’m shooting without the fear of accidentally bumping the dial to the wrong settings since theres enough resistance to stay in place. The constant adjustments to the ISO dial will require you to alter your grip a lot when it’s in locked position.

Also, good luck using the ISO dial in the dark as you can’t see anything. At least on the previous M240, you could easily manipulate the ISO on the LCD screen while turning the exposure compensation dial.

Overall, I think they just should have made the dial more tactile to reduce the chance of accidentally bumping the dial, a la Fujifilm X-Pro3. It’s a cool feature but I hated using it and I promise you that this feature will either be revised or removed in the next generation Leica M11 body.

The Options List

This should come to no surprise to anyone as Leica anything is expensive, but I want to point out that the accessories for the Leica M10 are noticeably more expensive than the M240. Par for the course, but here is the breakdown in costs for my recommended accessories.

Leica Thumb Grip – $240

Leica BP-SCL5 Batteries – $190 (however, cheaper than the M240 batteries)

Periscope

This is a WTF moment for me and for those that need GPS coordinates baked into their DNG files. If you want this feature, it’s only available if you use the optional Leica Visoflex EVF which costs a cool $600, which is odd to me. I never used or cared about this feature but it made me raise an eyebrow.

Image Quality

It’s strange to categorize the quality of the image output from a camera body, so I guess you can call this part the sensor’s characteristics.

The overall fidelity and tonality produced by the Leica M10 is excellent and while it may not win any DXO scores because Leica couldn’t give a shit about winning sensor awards, the overall output is absolutely beautiful. This is also very dependent on the type of glass you put in front of the sensor, but to keep things consistent, I’ve used both the 35mm and 50mm Summicron lenses to get a good reading on how the M10 likes to paint its pictures.

The M10’s DNG files have noticeable bump in saturation, and contrast straight out of camera when you upload them into Lightroom. Compared to the DNG files from the Leica Q, the output from the M10 is consistently more “colorful” with a hint of warmer tones. Another underrated improvement over its predecessor is the the white balance. How the M10 figures out its white balance is a big improvement as it is definitely more accurate compared to the M240’s yellowish tint.

The dynamic range is actually pretty good based on my experience in Lightroom. You can pull several stops on both highlights and shadows without destroying the file, and it should be satisfactory as long as you don’t expect Sony levels of dynamic range.

This doesn’t mean that you should be lazy on setting your exposure before taking the photo because a good baseline photo in RAW is much more preferable than trying to salvage your mistakes in post. A good rule of thumb is to underexpose my photos just a little bit to save the highlights during your tricky in/out lighting situations.

Expose for those highlights

This photo was heavily underexposed but the dynamic range headroom on the M10 allowed me to pull up the shadows while maintaining micro-contrast. The windows are actually looking inside the factory floor with the flood lights and not actually looking outside.

In Summary

What Leica had done here was to take a successful formula and make minor improvements to an already successful camera, but doing this also risked alienating fans. This is a known problem with any manufacturer that have a rabid fanbase with a long history (a la Porsche 911). When Leica developed the M10, it took some risks with some of these changes, but it’s easy to see that Leica went back to what they were very good and just made improvements to their existing core strengths. They understood who their base customers were and listened. It simplified the camera to its basics (it has three menu buttons for crying out loud) and took video out. While most DSLR and Mirrorless photographers will laugh at the idea of taking stuff out but charging the same price (if not more) for such a “low-tech” camera, this is not what Leica is about.

They cater to the niche and not the masses – something they’ve been doing for a long time and longer than any manufacturer.

M10 vs. M240

Now, some of you on the fence of purchasing a Leica M10 may be asking yourself if this camera was worth the upgrade over the M240?

Yes and No. Let me explain.

I came from a background of owning the following Leica cameras chronologically.

Leica M9 (Black),

Leica M9 (Steel Gray),

Leica M240 (Silver),

Leica M10 (Black),

Leica M-P 240 (Silver),

Leica M10 (Silver).

So I’ve been around the block and back and I feel as though I have some experience on this topic and for the most part, I would say no, it’s not worth the upgrade in my opinion. While the M10’s improvements are tangible, I don’t feel as though the incremental improvements are worth the premium. For example…

While the ISO dial is great, M240 owners can just as easily change their settings using the rear LCD and rear dial.

The improved viewfinder is wonderful and the magnification is great, but if you shoot between 35mm-50mm lenses, you won’t really notice it too much.

The battery life is worse on the M10.

The M240 is thicker than the M10, but I don’t think you’ll notice the difference when you’re out in the real world taking photos, especially if you use a thumb grip for both.

The improved LCD screen is nice, but I never looked at the M240’s screen and thought it was crap in 2020.

ISO Performance – if you’re not Batman and prowl the street at night often and don’t shoot a lot in low light, this is hard to justify.

This is how I feel after owning the two cameras (twice) back to back, but it’s ultimately up to you if you feel that it’s worth it to you. Otherwise, the M10 is the best digital M camera that you can get right now. With the predictable upgrades without changing the primary formula of what made the Leica M so great, it makes you wonder what the future holds for the next Leica M as we’re going to be due for an upgrade in 2022.

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[eafl id=”5679″ name=”Leica M10″ text=”Leica M10″]

[eafl id=”5419″ name=”M10 Battery” text=”Leica BP-SCL5 Battery”]

[eafl id=”5421″ name=”Leica M10 Thumb” text=”Leica M10 Thumb Grip”]

[eafl id=”5267″ name=”Leica Summicron-M 35mm f/2 ASPH II” text=”Leica Summicron 35mm f/2 ASPH II”]

[eafl id=”5282″ name=”Voigtlander Nokton 35mm f/1.4 MC II” text=”Voigtlander Nokton 35mm f/1.4 MC II”]

[eafl id=”5285″ name=”Voigtlander Ultron 35 f/2 Vintage” text=”Voigtlander Ultron 35mm f/2 ASPH”]

  I finally review the Leica M10 and wanted to share my experience and if it's worth the upgrade over the M240 The Leica M10 Review ...yes I know it's 2020 and it's late This review was a long time coming since I had originally planned on writing this review last Spring.

[life-love-geekculture]

SPN 14x20: a few (i.e. many) thoughts

Writers lie.

But, they lie in order to tell a greater truth.

At least, that’s how the proverbial wisdom goes anyway. After this episode, however, I’m not entirely sure I know what Chuck’s truth is supposed to be.

“Endings are hard. Any chapped-ass monkey with a keyboard can poop out a beginning, but endings are impossible.”

That’s my all time favorite quote from the series. Along with the addendum endings are a raging pain in the ass. Ever since his introduction, I’ve always felt an affinity for Chuck’s character. He’s a writer. So am I. He vocalized a not insignificant part of that experience. Reconciling the pain characters you create and love have to go through to get them from point A to point B. The difficulty in wrapping up a story. Hell, critics. It’s one of the reasons Metatron always drove me a bit nuts during his play at godhood. All of the technique, but none of the artistry.

I guess what I’m trying to get at is Chuck’s turn to villiany hurts a little. It’s brilliant beyond all belief, don’t get me wrong! What better way to get across the theme of free will on a meta-narrative level? But within the SPN universe it just feels anti-thetical to the story he’s been “telling”. An honest to god betrayal of it.

Don’t get me wrong. I can buy the avoided apocalypse (the first one at least) was Chuck’s intent all along. He wanted Sam and Dean to choose family. He created free will so it could be used. It plays seemlessly into the parental metaphor they’ve also attached to him. The kids have got to grow up sometime. And part of growing up means cleaning up your messes on your own. Which the Winchesters do...a lot.

This sudden shift in attitude,though, just doesn’t make sense to me. It’s less writing an ending as crumpling the document and throwing it away. If the multi-verse is supposed to represent drafts, then Chuck is the kind of writer who keeps ahold of them because some element in one could make another better (and now bringing all the alt-hunters back make sense on a meta level and my head hurts). The point is, if SPN is his final draft or his favorite why destroy it?The characters’ didn’t do what you wanted ? That’s half the fun of being a writer! The unexpected twists of creation! Inspiration turned to life! It makes no sense.

And so I tried to look at it from the God-angle perspective and it still doesn’t make sense. Chuck doesn’t change. Like he told Lucifer he’s pretty much the same as he’s always been. Yes, there’s the Old Testament’s wrathful side. The fire and brimstone and punishment, but even in the Bible that’s balanced with compassion and forgiveness. There’s the Chuck whose solution has always been: build a bigger box. The one who fought for creation to be born. Not made, born. The one who could be reasoned out of apparent wrath because the point was the lesson (the truth) he was trying to get across. And then I remembered his exchange with Castiel...

Chuck: See this is why people need to lie. It’s good. Keeps the peace, you know?

Castiel: Seems like an odd stance for...you.

Chuck: Is it? I’m a writer. Lying is kinda what we do

Chuck is God’s lie.

That is, it’s the mask he wears to keep the peace. It’s his way of walking away and letting the kids learn (and in many ways blossom) for themselves while still supervising. It’s something Metatron calls him out on when they meet in season 11 to discuss Chuck’s autobiography. Specifically, Metatron notes the emphasis on time spent in the Chuck persona was being used to hide the truth. And, it’s a truth Chuck readily confesses to Sam in the Bunker.

Jack told the universe to stop lying. Chuck comes back immediately in full father-mode. The father who demands obedience over the growth of the children (hello, season 1 & 2 parallels). These are not coincidental. Now, sure Chuck could fix creation, but could he do the same for himself? Evidence suggests...not so much. And, based on the look Billie gives Jack in the Empty, the kid done fucked up something. That was not a happy look.

So where does this leave us?

Well, with a zombie apocalypse in the immediate future and lots of ghosts to deal with next. More importantly, though, it looks like the boys may be on a mission to stop or save God himself. It’s...it’s a hell of a way to go out. The writer in me is very proud.

Before I wrap this up, though, a few thoughts on TFW 2.0:

First, I called it with Dean. Again, not a surprise. As I said, he needs to get to the edge before he can back off from it. That said, this episode wasn’t without some painful moments for him. As some of you may know, I’ve started rewatching and reviewing old episodes of SPN in preparation for the series finale. A bit serendipitous given recent events, but as part of that I rewatched episode 1x03 recently. Dean’s speech about Mary being his hero is so similar in tone to the speech he gives Lucas (the kid with the psychic link to the lake ghost) about his belief in Mary wanting him to be brave. It physically hurt to watch. The facade hiding the pain of Mary’s second death publicly cracking in a way similar to the facade hiding the pain of her first. But it also made me really excited to complete this review series and pull out those hidden parallels. Also, don’t think for a second I won’t point out how much of a nerd Dean really is. I have said it for years and now I feel vindicated!

On a more serious note, I don’t know what to say about Jack. Seeing him dead hurt (the only tears I shed in the finale to be honest). But this season left off with so many unanswered questions. Just how powerful is this kid? What are the Shadow and Billie planning? What is with Halucifer 2.0? How the fuck do souls actually work? And I’m still trying to get my head around his self-prophecy to Cas. A perfect world has always seemed, again, anti-thetical to the point of the story. The power of choice means things can’t be perfect and the only way to bring about perfection is to rob creation of choice. It’s a constant battle the Winchesters have had to fight. I’m cautiously intrigued to see how this storyline is going to be fulfilled.

So let’s talk about Sam. I knew the kid was in a bad place going in to this episode, but...DAMN!

I’m pretty solidly in the camp he wasn’t intending to kill Chuck with that wave of multi-dimensional hoo-haa. Sam’s only ever been that bad of a shot during the trials when he was sick. Still the fact he even tried it...This might be the one thing I can’t forgive Dean for this season. Even when the boys have been at their worst, Dean still allowed Sam to talk.To get his grief out. There’s been no relief since Mary’s death and Sam’s journey has inevitably played into a point I made reviewing Absence(14x18). The boys are used to dealing with death as a matter of consequence, not an accident. Which is why Sam is currently blaming himself for what happened. While it’s true Jack’s storyline for the season contributed towards Mary’s death, it’s something that could have happened regardless of if he had a soul or not. There’s no cosmic choice involved. But add it to the list of things that have gone wrong this season, and it makes sense for Sam to shift the blame to Chuck when he realized he’s been watching and apparently not doing anything (something we’ve known about Chuck for practically forever).

It’s something people do when bad things happen all the time in the real world. Chuck could have been less of an ass explaining why he couldn’t help, but he’s sorta not...wrong. Assuming he didn’t interfere with Jack to kick this mess off (and I hope to God that is not the case), it all goes back to free will. Sometimes bad things just happen. Sometimes Someone makes a stupid mistake in the heat of moment, and you just have to live with the aftermath. That said, I just kind of want to wrap the moose in a bunch of blankets and keep him protected in the Bunker forever and...

And so finally, we come to Cas. My sweet, awesome fucking angel/best dad in the whole universe. Cas wins the whole season! Give him all of the awards! The poor angel has been putting out fire after fire and I love him for it as much as I’m still terrified for him. It does crack me up a little that everyone got so pissed at the boys last episode for the Ma’lak box, and yet Cas is literally thinking of putting Jack in the Cage this episode. Like father, like son I guess. Yet, it’s clear his intention is to save him. Cas isn’t blind to the danger Jack poses, but his aim is to just contain him till a cure can be found. Not a great solution but the only one we have at the moment. And can we talk about that scene in the graveyard! Perfect imagery of a father being strict but compassionate towards his son who screwed up. All of the awards! All of them!

[sulietsexual]

What do you think about the transition between platonic Delena and romantic Delena? Their dynamic was always about repressed emotions and small and big gestures that expressed affection, trust, etc. When they started dating, Delena became more dramatic and explosive, yet very domestic too. If Elena hadn't been turned, and had chosen Damon instead of Stefan, how differently do you think their (romantic) relationship would've been?

Ahhh, loaded questions. I’m going to address the two questions in this ask separately.

What do you think about the transition between platonic Delena and romantic Delena? Their dynamic was always about repressed emotions and small and big gestures that expressed affection, trust, etc.

With the exception of Isobel claiming that Damon loved Elena in Season 1 (because, IMO, his eyes were still too full of Katherine at that point for him to be in love with Elena) I think that the progression of Damon and Elena’s feelings for one another was done in a really organic way, one which made sense to me and which I really enjoyed watching.

I’ve said it before but Damon genuinely likes Elena. He admires her spunk and her spirit and he enjoys her company. He’s taken by surprise by her compassion, especially when she expresses sympathy towards him with regards to what happened with Katherine but this compassion opens him up to feelings of affection, which re-spark his humanity and open his heart up to eventually falling in love with her. Re-watching Season 1, I’ve come to believe that Damon had his humanity switch off at the beginning of the season and his friendship with Elena (and re-connecting with his brother) helped to turn it back on.

While Elena doesn’t initially like Damon (with good reason) she recognises that he is Stefan’s brother and that means that she will have to learn to tolerate him. As she is forced to co-exist with Damon, she comes to see that there is good in him and she starts to recognise traits in him that she herself shares, such as the capacity for deep, dark love and the yearning for something bigger in life. She also views him more favorably as she comes to understand how much he loves Stefan. As I said in a previous meta, I think that the main reason that Elena and Damon bonded in Season 1 was due to their shared love for and worry about Stefan. If you love someone as much as they both loved Stefan it would obviously endear you to discover someone else loved them that much as well.

I think that Damon did start to develop an attraction to Elena during Season 1 and was even starting to fall for her but I don’t think he fell in love with her that season, mostly because he was still so focused on Katherine. The one, big moment they share in the season is the dance during Miss Mystic Falls, where you cam clearly see the very first, tiny seeds of attraction spring up in Elena. 

Season 2 is a much rockier season for the pair and I think that’s fitting. Damon is a pretty terrible person, so it would be unrealistic for Elena to never see or acknowledge that side of him and his actions over the season are questionable at best and downright awful and worst. Season 2 really forces Elena to confront a lot of unsavory aspects of Damon’s personality and she really has to dig deep to forgive him for some of his actions. But this season definitely deepens both of their feelings, Damon in particular. At this point Elena is still too in love with Stefan to consider Damon as a romantic option but Stefan leaving with Klaus at the end of the season and going into Ripper mode opens the door for her feelings for Damon to develop.

Season 3 is really where we see all those feelings come to the surface and it’s probably my favourite season for the pairing, because I remember really feeling Elena’s slow fall for Damon, starting with her birthday party and him returning her necklace. I loved watching them grow closer over the season and seeing Elena’s feelings for Damon start to rise to the surface and build until she can’t contain them anymore and they finally succumb in Heart of Darkness. That kiss is my favourite Delena kiss because it’s built on two years worth of repressed emotion and attraction and it happens so organically and in such a way that I could fully believe that Elena had let go of Stefan enough to let Damon into her heart. Which brings me to your next question …

If Elena hadn’t been turned, and had chosen Damon instead of Stefan, how differently do you think their (romantic) relationship would’ve been?

Okay, this may be unpopular but I don’t think that Elena could have sustained a relationship with Damon if she hadn’t been turned into a vampire.

Elena cared for and was attracted to Damon but as a human she couldn’t understand the darkest parts of his nature. Her human conscious was always going to get in the way of being with him because she wouldn’t be able to reconcile his more violent and selfish actions. I really think that she needed to turn into a vampire in order to understand the bloodlust, the darkness and the violence which come with being such a creature. When her humanity was switched off and she hurt and killed people, she was finally on the same level as Damon, so she could be with him without guilt because she herself had gone over to the darkness where Damon lived. Her becoming a vampire allowed her to fully open herself up to her love for Damon and I don’t think she would have discovered that capacity to love him while seeing the worst part of him without that.

Becoming a vampire also severed Elena’s attachment to Stefan when she realised that part of him couldn’t accept her as a vampire. As Stefan himself realises and acknowledges, he just isn’t able to help her when she turns, as he doesn’t quite understand or empathise with what she’s going through and every time she hits a new hurdle of vampirism it’s actually Damon who comes through and helps her. Elena needed to detach herself from her feelings for and dependence on Stefan in order to open herself up to Damon and becoming a vampire is the catalyst for that.

If Elena had chosen Damon (and remained human) at the end of Season 3, I think she would have regretted it. Not because she didn’t love Damon but because at that point she still loved Stefan more, or at the very least, she felt more tied to Stefan. She may not have been thinking about forever but Stefan was still very much in her heart and if she’d chosen Damon that would have been a betrayal against herself and Elena probably wouldn’t have been able to reconcile with that, which would have affected whatever kind of relationship she was trying to build with Damon.

[itsthejuggernautbitch]

Dissolve - Colossus/OC

Chapter two is up here!

Taglist: @marvel-is-perfection  @emma-frxst  @this-that-and-every-thing-else  @ptite-shit  @lesbianyondu  @chromecutie  @ra-ra-rasputiin

Negasonic’s date went well. It wasn’t the kind of date where you stay the night, and everything is nice and warm and cuddly, and you get to walk-of-shame it back home. No, Yukio lives at the mansion, too. The date was in the kitchen, so it was pretty public. The only downside was that they couldn’t get the other residents of the mansion to stop walking through and peeking in (Colossus), but they did at least get to lock the playroom door and watch a movie.

Now, Negasonic just had to figure out what to do with herself for the rest of the weekend. Yukio left that morning to go on an assignment for a couple of days with her mentor, so Negasonic’s weekend was pretty free. That meant lots of time in front of the television, ignoring her own mentor when he tried to get her to come do the morning workout with him. It was her weekend off, so yeah, not happening. No physical activity.

Despite using every bit of determination within her body to remain in bed and asleep, Negasonic woke up early on that Saturday morning. She made the trek downstairs to the kitchen - still in her pajamas and sporting the most magnificent bedhead - with the intention of grabbing some cereal and going straight back up to her room. She wouldn’t be going back to sleep, but she could at least relax with her cereal for a while.

To her surprise (and joy), she found Metanite at the kitchen counter when she walked in. Always a good sign.

“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty!” Metanite said, beckoning her in. She was painfully cheerful in the mornings. Negasonic was pretty sure that she was actually made a sunshine. “Want pancakes?”

Negasonic yawned. “That sounds great.”

“And coffee?”

“Please.”

Negasonic had honestly forgotten that Metanite had come home last night. She hadn’t seen her for the rest of the evening, and she wasn’t one of the X-Men who kept wandering through the kitchen, so she’d let it slip her mind. Good thing Metanite was home, though; she always made the best breakfast.

Metanite poured two cups of coffee, one for Negasonic and one for herself. She handed Negasonic a cup, then turned to add sugar and milk to her coffee. “How was your date? I heard everyone kept trying to sneak in.”

“It was nice. Your boyfriend kept trying to supervise.”

“Not my boyfriend, but yeah, that sounds like him,” Metanite snorted, taking a sip of her coffee. It was still too hot, but the taste was just right. She poked Negasonic’s shoulder, laughing when the teen shrugged her off. “You’re still his widdle trainee, you know. He’s got to make sure you’re not up to no good.”

“I’m old enough now that I’m going to have to drop the ‘Teenage’ in my name pretty soon,” Negasonic said, cracking a smile. “Besides, what kind of trouble could we cause in this daycare?”

“You’d be surprised what some of the X-Men used to get up to.”

“Kind of want to know, kind of don’t.”

“You really don’t. My room used to be next to Beast’s,” Metanite said, staring down into her coffee. “I know more about than man than I ever wanted to.”

“Jesus.”

“Jesus was definitely not in that room sometimes…”

“So, when are you gonna tell Colossus?” Negasonic asked, sipping her morning coffee. She'd slipped a ton of sugar into the cup when Metanite wasn't looking (she told everyone that she liked black coffee - had to keep up appearances). “You know, make an honest man out of the giant boy scout?

Meta flipped a stack of pancakes onto a plate and slid the plate in front of Negasonic. “I'm still waiting to see if he'll say something first. It's kind of a game now.”

Negasonic accepted the plate of pancakes happily. God, she loved when Metanite was home. “You know there's a betting pool, right? Some people are betting down to the day.”

“Yeah, I’ve already got my bet placed.”

“What?” Negasonic said, grinning. She reached for the syrup with the intention of drowning her breakfast in it. Colossus wasn’t here to bother her about her dietary choices, so she was taking full advantage of the Mrs. Butterworth. She poured an ungodly amount of syrup on her pancakes, then topped it off with butter.

Metanite sipped her coffee. “Yep. I'm the last slot.”

“What are you going to do if it passes your name?”

“Well, stipulations state that if he hasn't said anything by June, I have to tell him, and I still get the money.”

“I bet on May…”

Metanite laughed, and began attacking her own pancakes. “I bet you did.”

“Couldn’t resist,” Negasonic said, mouth full of syrup and sweets. Colossus also wasn’t around to bother her about manners, either.

“I fully expect you to pull something sneaky that month.”

“Yukio bet on April, so really, we’ll be working on it for two months.”

Planning would begin immediately, Negasonic decided. She would clue Yukio in as soon as she got back from her assignment with her mentor. It would be a fun date project, playing matchmaker and being sneaky. Besides, she was always down to find something to distract Colossus from morning workouts. This would probably help.

And, you know, Negasonic wanted Colossus to be happy, too. She really did like her mentor.

Metanite was about halfway through her stack of pancakes, probably because she wasn’t scheming. “Good to know. Luckily for you, this isn’t the kind of bet where I’d try to stop you just so I could win.”

“Not like you need the money anyway.”

Metanite shrugged, mouth full of pancake. “No, the benefit of never being home is that you can’t spend any money.”

“Look on the bright side: now that you’re home permanently, the big guy might finally admit it.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Especially now that he has to teach me to be a teacher.”

“Oh, really?” Negasonic asked, the cogs of her brain turning. Scheming. “Colossus is your mentor, now?”

“Yeah, he’s stuck with me.”

“Well, it looks like you’ll be getting some alone time… Yukio and I will make sure you’re not interrupted.”

“Your definition of ‘alone time’ needs some work. He’ll be babysitting and I’ll be learning how to train whoever my mentee is, if I can even be assigned a mentee, and probably dragging you around everywhere with me.”

“I can take care of any distractions.”

“You know, I’m almost tempted to see what you two can come up with. Tomorrow is the beginning of April, after all…”

“Is that a challenge?”

Metanite winked at her, swallowing the last bit of her breakfast. “More like an assignment… My first assignment given as a teacher.”

“We’ll make sure to turn it in as early as possible.”

“Good girl. Now finish your pancakes before the Tinman comes downstairs and catches us conspiring.”

Metanite was glad to finally be home for good. She could count on one hand the number of times in the past ten years that she had been home for more than, maybe, a month at most. Her team was always cleaning up someone else’s mess, and there were definitely a lot of messes where the X-Men were concerned. And not just the X-Men; her team cleaned up behind everyone else, too. The Avengers had been particular pain-in-the-asses the past few years. (The Fantastic Four had been oddly quiet as of late…)

Needless to say, she was happy to be home. She liked to call it a very special form of retirement.

Her duties would now include: (1) Changing diapers. (2) Wiping snotty noses. And (3) handling teen angst.

She’d cleaned up bigger messes before.

The main thing that she was concerned about was whether she would get her own mentee. She knew that she’d be co-teaching a couple of classrooms at first with Colossus, but there was no word yet on whether she was going to be specially assigned anyone. In fact, she was interested to know if anyone could be assigned to her.

In any case, her first task for the day was to go down to the field and join Colossus for the morning workout. She mentioned it to Negasonic before she’d gone back upstairs to her room, and all the teenager could do was cackle. Metanite was pretty sure she’d never heard Negasonic laugh like that.

She hadn’t been worried about it before breakfast, but now she was just a little bit concerned what this workout was going to be like.

Metanite stood out on the field waiting for Colossus. It was just late enough in the morning for the summer heat to really start beating down, and she was already sweating. Yeah, Colossus had told her to wear her X-men uniform to morning workout, but it was almost a hundred degrees outside, and Metanite didn’t do well in the heat. Comes with the territory of being smudgy, jet-black, and reptilian while in defense form. So she’d worn some old gym shorts and a t-shirt that she was pretty sure wasn’t actually hers, but she’d washed it so it didn’t matter.

Colossus finally strode out onto the field, fully clad in his uniform. Metanite had gotten there a bit too early, particularly if she’d beaten Colossus out onto the field.

Metanite shielded her eyes against the sun. She was hard to look at in defense mode, but Colossus was hard to look at in the sun. Even with sunglasses on, she had to made sure not to look at his glinting silver skin for too long, which was a terrible tragedy as far as she was concerned. Staring at his biceps was one of her favorite hobbies.

She squinted at him, hand over her eyes. “So, gonna teach me how to be a teacher, big guy?”

Colossus nodded. “That is the idea for the next few weeks.”

“Gotta make sure I’m not leading any of the impressionable youth astray?”

He smirked. “You will be a great teacher. I just have to show you basics.”

A trickle of sweat trailed down her back and slipped down into her underwear. “Any reason you can’t show me the basics inside a classroom rather than out here on the field?”

Colossus’s grin was just about as sadistic as he could manage, which was impressive because he’s generally a giant boy scout. “You have to do morning workout, too.”

Colossus walked over to the middle of the field, Metanite talking behind him, where stacks and stacks of stuff were thrown haphazardly to one side. Most of it looked too light for him to even bother using. Most of it looked just right to be a significant form of physical torture for Metanite. A looping dirt track surrounded them on all sides.

“I hope we’re not doing cardio.” She stared warily at the dirt track surrounding the stacks. “Have you ever seen me run? There are several reasons why I’m part of the clean-up crew, and cardio one of them.”

“No running,” Colossus replied, gesturing at the multitude of stuff littering the field. There were an awful lot of chains and tires lying around. Too many medicine balls. Too many kettlebells. “Weights.”

Metanite nodded. She couldn’t very well chicken out. “Weights… I think I can handle weights.

Spoiler alert: She could not handle the weights.

She was not trained for the type of workout that Colossus was used to doing. She didn’t run or lift heavy things on a regular basis. She rarely had to do more than move around at a brisk walk, much less throw shit around or punch people. Her skill set wasn’t exactly equipped for action-packed adventures.

One thing was for certain: she was going to be sore.

Metanite’s cheek rubbed the soft green grass that one of the plant-kids lovingly grew out on the field for them. There were several upended tires - her small car tires, Colossus’s tractor tires - littered around her prone body like sentinels in a graveyard. Colossus stood over her like the undertaker.

“Why do you hate me?”

“Far from it, my friend,” Colossus said and held out his hand to lift her up. “You must always do workout with your trainee. Better for morale.”

“I haven’t done a workout like that since I was a trainee. Did you do this with Negasonic?”

Colossus looked almost offended by her question. “Of course I did, Suraya! I would not teach you what I didn’t do myself.”

“Fair enough.”

Metanite took his hand and let him lift her to her feet. She felt - and probably looked - rather like a small kitten being picked up like that. Her legs shook as they trekked back over towards the mansion, every step sending stabbing pain up through her legs. Being hit by a car would have been kinder than throwing car tires and swinging chains around.

Colossus seemed to take pity on her, though. “Go shower. I’ll make lunch.”

“My angel.”

Metanite could have sworn she saw Colossus smile at that. She watched him walk into the house ahead of her, enjoying the way his muscles stretched every time he took a step. She’d come to the realization that this was going to be a long three months. 

[incarnateirony]

Nodependency

This is sort of a gloss-over condensed-packet to make a point; lots of authors have covered these episodes independently, but I’m more trying to waterfall drill home a point.

I’m watching every author on the show independently take a chisel or sometimes just a deadass icepick or hammer to the toxic codependency this season every single episode.

By episode 5, Dean could not continue to live with only Sam around; he loved Sam, Sam was still in his thoughts, but not enough to continue their toxic relationship until he got his win. And by episode 6, he was beaming again.

Buckleming are rarely masters of the art, but even they made a point to show Dean outwardly engaging Castiel to the point of question and concern in episode 7, rather than focusing purely inward.

Episode 8 was largely a filler, but still functioned the Winchesters largely independently on their respective ends of a mission. Episode 9 was climactic lead in to 10 that barely featured them, but all focused purely on the extension of other family. Episode 11 continued the Wayward roll and tied us off with the differences of focus - Dean’s completion in his current win despite still pursuing Mary versus Sam’s losses, and the flip of their general receptiveness. 

12 took it a step further flagrantly mocking the codependency with the witches as an offset of “why this is bad.” 13 gave us a full reunion and apologetics across the board while reaching across lanes between the parties to rebuild strained relationships.

14 gave us more independent patterning of their case handling through the entire episode. 15 was wholy brotherly but not codependent, instead focusing on healthy healing and hope from beyond.

16 is kinda a nonsequitor in development, just fun, but did have lessons about letting go.

17 mutually handled the effect of lovers separated across worlds, but also the potential toxicity of binding forces. Yes, Dean goes on a rampage to get Sam back - but all things in order guys. /And/ an element we get in 13x21 is missing. This is the plot breaking Dean in on a decision. In fact, cages and bindings and shackles just kind of resonate through EVERYTHING.

By 18, we’re in BuckLeming territory again but even they plink at the individualism, if rawly. Dean continues to show independent parental mode without the need to stay immediately vortexed around Sam and Sam is encouraged on other tasks. The end result is the agreement to all work together. ALL of them.

At 19, the fandom is met with letting go. And the near-death of Sam, which starts becoming a recurring theme.

20? Everyone over-reacted to the final line and I kept enforcing, that’s not what that was - not what that was at all. Dean spends the entire episode disagreeing with Sam’s processes, revenge kicks and everything else, and doesn’t even - be it verbally OR physically - concur with Sam’s final line, instead pushing him further into individual protection mode.

And then in 21 we get hit with a hard truth. I mentioned it here in an appended reblog to someone else’s commentary. Unlike 13x17, Castiel was there to be Dean’s grounding force and prevent the impulsive codependent dumbs that would have sank everything. 

To repeat that post:

We get to see Dean literally processing that Sam IS exsanguinating. Dean is a warrior. The horror was already on his face. He knew what that moment meant. Due to the type of wound, Sam was likely dead or unconscious-just-before-death before even hitting the tunnel just due to basic anatomy. They’re hunters. They’re soldiers. They know these things.

When Dean ran towards the tunnel to “get Sam,” he wasn’t thinking with his head. He WAS thinking with his heart. It’s not that Sam didn’t matter, it’s that he was working outside of his better mind. The codependency issue almost kicked in, but Castiel stepped in as Dean’s grounding rope, after already assessing the situation. He saved Dean from himself, in what would have been a fight of futility - likely not just Dean dying, but the fact that Bobo VERY WISELY assigned them two relative innocents to take care of that would be lost in this mess.

At one point, while Sam and Dean were still codependent in early seasons, Dean thought bigger pictures. You know what’s real? People. Families. That’s real. Saving people.

There was literally no good to be gained in vanishing down that tunnel. Castiel, an important anchor in Dean’s life and fellow warrior stopped him from his impulsive reaction long enough to click into warrior’s mind. They had innocents to see off, the need to replan. The need to find Mary, Jack, and anyone else. Hell, silent implications that may even be there; maybe Jack could even bring Sam back. But there was nothing to be gained in charging that tunnel and everything to be lost.

We see here that Castiel serves as the grounding mechanism to put Dean back in his own mind, something we witnessed him without in early season 13. Dean intended to go back and Castiel no doubt knew that, but they could go back prepared, and maybe even with options to get Sam back, long term, rather than just some vainglorious “and everybody dies because, I don’t know, bronly fanfiction romance tropes.”

And that’s not even MINDING the episode opening with Sam’s vision of a perfect life being Sam, Dean, Cas, Mary, and Jack having fun; Sam focusing on his mother, and Cas wife-ing at Dean over how much pizza he’s ingesting while Jack, the new addition, watches on charmed.

This season has gone legitimately out of its way to break in again and again that while there’s always that survival reactionism in them due to years together, there is something beyond that, and they actually NEED to think beyond that to continue to be successful, much less what they outright WANT, such as Sam’s dream. 

Sam doesn’t want to live alone with Dean.

Dean doesn’t want to live alone with Sam.

They both want something more, and right now, Dean has his something more with Cas.

While I’m not a Mary fan, the show is increasingly painting her to be Sam’s Something More, though I hope better anchoring with Jack too. And no, that’s not a romantic suggestion because I am not a crazy incest nut, but Sam just needs... more. He WANTS more, he CRAVES more. 

I once again hold, as I did in my 13x20 mini meta, that this season is going to end with Dean making a choice to let go for /everyone/. They’ve been beating that into us again and again. No matter who is the Immediate Focal Point Of The Moment (Sam, Cas), the ultimate venture is in the interest of full family and realizing that dream Sam had, even if Dean doesn’t see himself able to be in it. Or maybe he’ll know he’ll come back - because he has Faith.

[basklin]

A love letter to Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number

or how I learned to stop worrying and love the game.

Hotline Miami 2 turned 3 yesterday, I thought I’d write something up for it!

The following contains spoilers for both Hotline Miami and Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number. I'm going to put it under a read more seeing as I got carried away.

I didn't get to play the game on its release date, I was busy with real life. My sister was playing a part in her university theatre troupe and had a role as Miss Prism in The Importance of Being Earnest, it coincided with the date of Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number's release and I was going to go back to the house me and my family were staying in at the time. It was a moment of respite during a time of year where I was working on my final art presentation for my school and I had worked non stop on it. I wanted to play the game since its announcement and having finished the first Hotline Miami less than a year before, I had waited so long, I could wait a day longer, my time was my own to work with. The comics by Dayjob Studio had gotten me really excited for the game at the time as well, more than happy to see my favorite medium put to use in promoting a game I was looking forward to.

I got back to my student flat in the early afternoon and made myself lunch, downloaded the game (updates and bug fixes included) and happily started it up. I'm ashamed to say now that I was expecting most of what the first few levels had to offer, since I'd spoiled myself on a leak that came out a few months before the official release of the game. I originally wasn't going to watch it, but a friend who'd watched before me said there was a character with my name in it, seeing as that was so rare to me, I caved in really fast. (Fun fact: it was the direct inspiration for one of the first comics I did for that game)

I have to point out that I'm thankful that the game's slasher style tutorial wasn't spoiled in the leaked gameplay footage, as it was a genuine joy to see the amount of details in the level design at my own pace. There was a big buzz around that level when journalists were framing it as an unwanted shocking sexual assault scene in a game about senseless violence and cartoonish gore. The game's meta commentary about sequels and how that kind of scene is used in horror movies for upping the shock value was lost on me too, but we can't be expected to get the point of a moment in media the first time. The presentation in most cases for this is frankly overblown and lasts around 3 seconds, a pair of pixellated buttcheeks over a woman I didn't even know the name of yet wasn't going to put me in a catatonic state, but a trigger warning  asking a player if they want to be spared from that kind of scene before the start of the game is always a worthy inclusion.

Even today the first 5 levels of Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number are the perfect representation of the rest of the game: big sprawling detailed areas, a diversity in those locations, playstyles associated with named characters, and an actual commentary on violent video game protagonists.

As mentioned before, I was very much looking forward to the game's release and getting around to playing it. I had gone cold turkey on playing the previous installment, wishing to discover the gameplay anew and making my patience feel like a reward when I got around to playing it.

I wrote “named characters” because giving them a name makes them more real, part of the world, with motivations unique to them. Not just an avatar the player can slip into and mirror back what the little amount of pixels with a human shape might be beginning to feel when committing violent acts. That also means there are more stories that come bundled together, they're more present than ever and harder to ignore for a player who wants to skip to the next action set. The arcade game format of the first game alongside its simplicity is lost, but more story is what I wanted in the sequel, so I can't complain.

Playstyles and characters were a joy to discover and experiment with these characters comprise of:

The Fans, covered in colourful war paint with their individual animal masks and expertise, all set out to go on a vigilante murder spree, chainsaws and guns in hand.

Manny Pardo, the detective whose motives remain unclear, with a more gun oriented gameplay.

Evan Wright, the writer with the one with the most unusual playstyle of the lot, seeing as he tries to do non-lethal takedowns of people he chooses himself to be around needlessly putting him and his family in danger in pursuit of the truth behind the first game's phone calls. This unique gameplay can be made into the default one by going too far on ground executions, making him go into a blind rage and seeing red.

The Soldier, limited to a single gun of your choosing whose ammunition must be replenished through carefully placed boxes throughout the level and an army knife for close range combat.

The Mafia, comprising of the Son of the former leader of the Russian mafia and his Henchman. The former wanting to reinstate the dominance of the Russian mafia after the Colombian cartel took over and the latter wishing to break free of this cycle. The Son has the same array of skills as the Fans, exception made of the chainsaw and gun combo, making him a reckless one man army, and a cool parallel between the Russian mafia and the vigilantes in animal masks.

And the last playstyle, what feels like the default way to play the game, is the one found in the first game. Simultaneously not making you feel contrived to play a certain way, but not making you feel overpowered either. It's shared between a handful of characters in the game: the Henchman , the Rat, the Pig Butcher, and the Snake. (although the latter is able to play in a fists only way with one of his masks)

Guns only, dodge rolling, fists only, a chainsaw and gun at the same time, double MP5s, and even non-lethal gameplay help to define everybody really well, beyond words and appearances.

Getting to explore levels that are massive and open was the biggest game changer, being tunnel visioned and sticking to melee weapons became a death sentence for some levels with frustration quickly rising. I remember reading the advice that guns made too much noise in Hotline Miami, the result was sticking to a melee weapon and executing fallen enemies; which rewarded you with more immediate points than firing with the different array of guns, but rising combo counters and being wary of cover definitely became the name of the game in the sequel, for better or worse.

Gone were the collection of small colourful appartement buildings, what felt like cardboard boxes with “Miami, Florida” scrawled in felt tip pen on them; instead we have unique looking buildings, that feel inhabited, grubby at times, and more unwelcome than ever for a gunfight. More windows, and getting shot from offscreen, and enemies for which you have to use a specific kind of weapons on to progress through the level, all at the same time.

Multitasking is asked from the player, being aware of the enemies in your surroundings along with the abilities and limitations of the character you are playing. Not to mention hard mode which you unlock after finishing the game for the first time, with more reaction time and ammunition conservation playing a bigger role by then. Hotline Miami's puzzle side could expand to its full potential and the developers have truly made a better game. More thought, more gameplay, more amazing music tracks from a variety of indie musicians, and more story was put into Wrong Number, it was everything I was hoping for and I wasn't disappointed by the game at all... At first.

This isn't going to relate to a few people, but I try to finish games as fast as I can. Not speedrun them mind you, I like playing games too much for that, but finish it from beginning to end in a timely fashion. In the past, my interest dropped very fast for games that require time, knowledge of all its controls, or reflexes to beat and will get frustrated if I can't get back into the groove of it after a few months of not playing it. I tend to start over because I've either lost track of the story or of the rhythm of later chapters. On top of that, I didn't want to be spoiled accidentally or put it off too long. I remember finishing Hotline Miami's main story in one sitting only coming back the next day to finish the Biker levels, why not do it with Wrong Number?

To this day, I regret playing Hotline Miami 2 in one sitting. After 3 hours without a break, I had a slight headache, by the time I had finished the game 6 hours later, I had a migraine. By playing it the way I had, I'd successfully completed the game, but gotten a feeling of disgust by the end of it. I've had hangovers that felt better.

On a side note, that day I got a call from a classmate who wanted my opinion on the direction of his end of the year comic presentation was going. He came round when I was in the middle of Deathwish, on the level with Corey, what felt like the ultimate test of skill at the time. And I definitely gave vibes that I wanted to get back into the action, despite taking the time to answer questions and discuss his comic project (if you're reading this Jean, I'm really sorry, come round for tea sometime!). Time feels very fuzzy for this, as I seem to remember spending too much time on that stage, listening to the track Roller Mobster by Carpenter Brut over and over and slowly growing to resent it. I've gotten better since then and like the song just fine now, but I still have trouble with that level.

The assault on the Russian Mafia's headquarter by the Fans is a 4 floor action packed romp, where they all have their own floor for themselves and aim to meet each other on the roof of the building. Things don't go as planned for reasons that weren't explained immediately. Only after Deathwish do we realise that the Fans we had played as had fallen in battle one by one and died during their siege as we were playing the next floor. Now, characters whose gameplay were unique at that point got killed offscreen, with one onscreen by the police, rightfully so as they had only themselves to blame for their demise. I felt drained by the time I had come to what I thought was the end of the game. It turned out that it was the midpoint of the whole story. A pit in my stomach was slowly forming: there was going to be more after all this?

More of everything is both a blessing and a curse, more music leaves room for tracks I'll have a hard time liking, more violence means I'll slowly be apathetic to the character's struggles, and more characters is forgetting the levels that features only one of them, wondering why they were even there in the first place and if they could have been cut in favour of a smaller cast with their unique gameplay. Excitement had passed and doubt had settled in: character driven stories are what I love most of all and the cast was slowly thinning down. Those who had died weren't seen again in the story, was it going to keep my interest? I certainly expected it to.

I finally took a break to have dinner and a stretch before coming back to continue Casualties, the final level featuring the Soldier. The stages between that one and Deathwish are wonderful, great even, but they felt as thought they don't fit into the main story, I remember later trying to rearrange all the levels, keeping in mind which levels concluded each chapters and found that everything fitted really well together as it did. I was still getting over the previous levels so maybe I wasn't enjoying them as much as I should at the time.

I'm going to be honest when I say I forget the Soldier is in the game every time. An actual wartime setting, in an alien looking Hawaii none the less, with a gameplay that's really enjoyable and prepared me for hard mode's ammunition conservation gameplay very well should be memorable. It may be due to the fact that his inclusion was to give a background to the protagonist of Hotline Miami and give the origins of the secret organisation behind the phone calls of the first game, with parallels to mission euphemisms over walkie talkies, commando style hits, and sense of loss to a cycle of violence that doesn't care for its victims or its players. The character's final moments didn't bite as hard this time, even though that one felt the most undeserved out of the whole cast.

The next four levels featuring Richter the Rat are some of the best I've experienced, by that point we were focusing on a new character we'd met in the previous game and of which I didn't think much of at the time. Seeing him was an unexpected surprise for me, a really good one because of all its touching cutscenes and tight levels. Even in his last chapter, with the track Le Perv by Carpenter Brut, reminiscent of Deathwish's nauseating track, was honestly a joy to play through, despite the difficulty. It also was a nice conclusion for the Writer's story, who instigates the Rat's recollection of the events, with a final choice between continuing the book about the vigilante group and its mysterious phone calls or reconnecting with his estranged family while there is still time and discontinuing the cycle of violence, neither choice affects the outcome of the finale, but there is definitely an obvious conclusion in there, for me at least.

Nowadays, I know all the elements and numerous characters were included in Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number so that everything would be done in one game. Everything Dennaton wanted to experiment with, characters that tied different storylines together and both made sense of the first game and concluded its story for good. Hotline Miami didn't have room for flamethrowers or more storylines with other operators, it was an overarching story for the player, to be in the shoes of a hitman in an animal mask, with room to interpret the story for ourselves. The sequel doesn't stand on its own from a narrative sense: I'd be utterly confused by some of the stories of Hotline Miami 2 if I hadn't played the first game, since everything stems from the events of Hotline Miami. The result is that it all feels very heavy to take in all at once.

I really didn't care for Jacket's background, or why he did anything in the first game. He doesn't have a name, or a voice, or a personality, he's really boring in a story sense, but he's the perfect game protagonist. If he can be anything you want him to be, there's no room to dislike him, aside for his violent actions which he doesn't justify to himself in any way, he just does as he is told, like the soldier he once was. We feel what he feels during the violent missions, the sense that we get better and better at the game, the character doesn't improve, as there's no character to improve, we as the player are improving level by level.

So when the sequel explained that he was a veteran that fought in a war we never get the context for or care about, my first thought was that “he was just Rambo”. I hadn't watched Rambo at the time and only ever saw that character in old Atari games where you kill nameless soldiers. He'd always seemed like the generic action movie soldier that looks cool shooting away at his enemies. But since then, I've sat down to watch the first Rambo and saw the tale about young man coming back from war without education, aside from how to kill, back to a country that doesn't need him, and even despises him. It's an incredibly sad thing to watch a character broken by committing and being the victim of violence only to be rejected by the society they served.

The personal interpretations about Jacket is one of the best parts of Hotline Miami, as much as its gameplay, graphics, and music. Wrong Number builds upon that foundation by taking multiple interpretations of what Jacket could be and extends it to the cast of the sequel: he could be a jingoist with a burning hate for Russians (Jake the Snake) just as much as he could be scared for his life and willing to protect a person he loves (Richter the Rat). He's the now unwanted soldier of a war that is long lost (the Fans) just as much as he is the patriot in service of a minority struggling for his rightful place in a hostile environment (the Son). He's also a serial killer in an animal mask (the Pig Butcher) just as much as he is a killer with his own motives that don't have to be revealed to the player (Manny Pardo the Detective). And Biker’s search for answers is mirrored by the Writer, it was only fate that they would eventually meet up.

After the levels with Richter, we have the final 5 levels featuring another one of my favourite characters: the Son. He's the de facto leader of the Russian mafia, a scarred one man army with what feels like the strongest desire of the cast of characters: taking back Miami from the Colombian cartel, the new organised crime network in charge. His Father, the final antagonist of Hotline Miami, felt like a strong businessman with the plan of gaining power over the city through assimilation: striking a deal between the Colombians and their cocaine distribution, owning methadone clinics for the new addicts to heroin and cocaine, and gaining the favour of local politicians. The Son is nothing like that. He has a more aggressive show of power and control, separating himself from organically made drugs in favor for more potent artificial ones produced locally and actively killing his competition through violence, being in a revolution similar to the masked vigilantes in an attempt to undo the damage caused by Jacket in the first game.

As an aside, Manny Pardo has his final level in the middle, throughout the game we are teased with his personal investigation, the one of a serial killer called the Miami Mutilator, separate from the main plot of the game. It all comes to a head in his last level when it's revealed that he is the one behind the murders of the Mutilator, in an attempt to overshadow the media's attention of the masked vigilantes. The interpretation I developed over time was that his story arc was a meta commentary on sequels having their own story and an inevitable lack of interest from fans of the first game, curious instead about a continuation of the first game's narrative.

I remember originally thinking from the game's trailer that Manny Pardo was Jacket and getting really curious about how the story was going to go about, until I realised that he was in fact another character with his own motives and losing interest almost immediately in favour of the Fans revealed alongside him in the video. When it emerged that he was a detective, it seemed immediately more interesting than Jacket ever was, that it would be a character in search of answers, similar to the likes of Biker from the first game. The expectation was subverted, as it turns out that he has more current things to worry about and masked vigilantes are a thing of the past, crime doesn't stop happening and random violence is the norm in the world of Hotline Miami.

After the Detective's final level, we have what has to be one of the hardest challenges of the game: the final showdown between the Son and the Colombian cartel's Boss in his sprawling villa. Even after having been playing the game for almost 8 continuous hours, it really felt like what the game was leading us up to, from random street thugs to the drug army in Miami. And yet, even when the level was all said and done, there was yet another level after that. We are back to what felt like the finale a few hours ago: Deathwish, only this time it's the Son's side of the story, overdosing on his own artificial drugs and going on a overcoloured haze of hallucinatory violence.

Apocalypse is the name of that level, and it's a beautiful boss rush, where all the Fans are turned into monstrous animal shaped fever dreams that the Son has set himself out to destroy in his terrible drug trip, alongside his own men, turned into unrecognisable demons. It all leads to the rooftop, where a rainbow bridge invites us off into the void as the game's credits show up on the screen. The credits fade in favour of the rest of the cast, alive and unperturbed by the finale we as the player went through, only to realise that events offscreen trigger the end of the world, nuclear bombs vaporise them all and...

I didn't get it.

It took a good night's sleep and a bit of thinking to understand what Hotline Miami 2:Wrong Number was about: deconstructing Hotline Miami. The first game's conclusion had a hopeful tone to it, with mocking comments by the developer's stand-ins if we came back looking for more answers by playing Biker's additional levels, with actual answers that feel forced if you actually manage to find all the clues within the game. The sequel ends the world with nuclear clouds and if we start a new game, we get a new introduction at the start of the game essentially asking: “why are you back?”. There were no more answers the game could provide.

Violence is at the core of both of the games and it never seemed to stop. Hotline Miami left us wanting more, Hotline Miami 2 left us with the most violent thing known to humanity. I remember thinking that it was a deus ex machina ending, an answer to problems that seemed unsolvable. But inside the game there’s all this rising tension, focusing so much on the characters distracted me from the fact that it was culminating towards the end of the world. All the characters were trying to solve all their problems through violence, but the world wasn't going to get better through those methods. It was the only conclusion a game like that could have and I love it more than ever.

I cannot thank Dennaton enough for the incredible time I had and keep coming back to with Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number. It has made me explore media I never would have discovered otherwise and draw things I never imagined I would come to draw. Happy 3rd anniversary to an incredible game, and I look forward to the future.

[hollymcinallyba3photo]

Recycle - Evaluation

This project was called “Recycle” we researched different artists and photographers who use painting with light techniques within their images . We used our research as a foundation for our own project/concept for this brief. We where to pick a object that was old, used or discarded and build a set relating to the object within our home studio . These images were to combine in photoshop to create a composite of images that showed the character of the object and materials that we where photographing. When this brief was issued I was originally unsure what materials/ objects I wanted to use. Once I’d chosen my idea. I found it very cathartic and comforting to be able to work on this project.

The visual impact I want to show within my images was familiar and comforting. I think my submission have worked well with the outline of the brief as I was able to emphasise the character of my old object using the painting with light and compositing techniques. I think my approach showed this. my concept/idea was very personal to me as I wanted to showcase the comforting feeling of happy memories, I used my papas watch , a photo album and pictures of myself and him within the final image.

Some techniques I utilised throughout this project are as follows

• Making sure the image looked seemless together

• Building a concept from scratch

• Creating a composite

• Using different photoshop techniques including blending modes, layer Masks and selection tools

• Learning how to painting with light effectively

• Using different light sources and painting with light techniques to emphasise the character of an object

I would like develop the concept of using layer masks mode as I feel like these first two projects are only the start of what possibilities layer mask have to offer.

I researched a mixture of photographers throughout this project including

• Harold ross

• Raina Stinson

• David Lebe

• David Travis

• Alex Koloskov

• Man Ray

• Julie Balfour

By researching these photographers, I was able to delve into different approaches on painting with light and still life and how each photographers approach changed their attitude to this subject.

The technique I enjoyed the most was creating the composites as I felt like this is what I learned from the most during this project.

The feedback I received from my peers and lecturers helped me to find better ways of creating composites and ways of lighting my set in different and more dramatic ways to get the best details out of the objects and materials I was shooting

I think that the part of this project that I found most successful and enjoyable for me was the planning of my concept and editing of my images, as I feel that I revisited each of my shoot and composite attempts and improved on something each time. I believe I also improved on my ability to recognise what I can improve on.

Some of the problems I encountered within the project where having to be in a complete darkened room with this it presented its own challenges. I sometimes knocked over the tripod which meant that going into post it was harder to composite them together. This allowed me to learn more about my limitations and how I adapt to the situation

Some Habits of mind and meta skills I used where Persistence(as I stuck with my idea and work even when I found it hard.) trying something a different way( as I tried a lot of different positions of my objects and materials to see what difference it made ) taking risks( as I tried different composites that I wasn’t sure would work) feeling( I think this was what my project was based on. I had put such a personal object in my project but I think it definitely paid off)

I think I could have possibly improved upon my planning and my workflow within this brief as I think that though I had a good concept. I didn’t have a full idea on how the final composite would look until I had done the test shoot. I also felt my workflow could of improved as I had moved images into a lot of different folders and lost track of them.

I believe I was able to learn from this by making sure I check all my images and also create a full plan in my head before doing any shoots

If I was given the chance to do this project again. I would find a bigger place to do it to give myself an easier time while doing it. I would also make sure that I would try and not budge the tripod as this would then allow for me to create a composite easier.