#(i picked synthesis btw)

[kiichu]

m... mass effect 3 ending.....

[the1975attheirverybest]

Halla, I get that you have to deal with lots of naysayers but wow… that was really not necessary. I'd actually be the first one who’d agree that most of the items in the house set bear specific meaning but, as my reply clearly showed, I'd already looked into the books a bit because I had the very same idea as you. Shocker, I know — there are others who think about those things!! That is why I had the link at the ready btw. I’ve just not found any deep/ convincing connections to the themes yet but I'm open to change my opinion if you find any. I also suggested that they picked the books for family connections/ sentimental reasons. I didn’t say "not that deep". And concerning Faust - I actually studied this play at university (in Germany btw) and teach it every year so that lecture wasn’t needed. I am perfectly aware that it’s about "selling your soul to the devil" duh. The themes that I named are perfectly correct. (ofc there's still more than that…) I'd normally be really excited to read your thoughts/ discuss how those themes relate to ATVB/ SATVB (and yeah, there’s plenty of cool things to talk about) but now I'm not that keen anymore. I get that I am just some rando on anon and maybe I didn’t express myself that well but you really didn’t have to bite my head off.

Excuse me? “Bite your head off” because I said to each their own??? What the fuck, man?

Just how stupid do you think I am? This is why I honestly should get off this fuckin app at this point. It’s not worth it trying to have a conversation with anyone anymore cuz all people want to do is be like you’re wrong and I’m right and how dare you even question me.

Idk you mentioned you’re a German teacher yeah? So i would imagine that as a teacher you are familiar with a middle ground??? That’s something we have in common. Teaching I mean. It’s all about synthesis of ideas. At least mine is. And when we have evidence that a) Patricia has helped to provide specific things to make the set look a certain way but also b) that books on the shelves are specific to Matty (he’s read infinite jest at least 3 times; the song “surrounded by heads and bodies” comes from a sentence in chapter 1 of infinite jest; he mentions David foster Wallace in 2020

In the video where he cries about not being able to perform cuz of Covid, I could keep fucking going but you get my point). Then the logical thing to conclude, as a teacher, is that both positions are valid? This is, after all, the 1975. So, while yes they’d build a set around a certain aesthetic, they’d also never not personalize it because the core of their work is about personal involvement???

I don’t know why any of that would threaten you and make you feel like he bitten your head off but that sounds like your problem not mine. Idk what you think you’re doing here but I don’t appreciate it.

Sorry I bit your head off or whatever.

Alright that’s it I’m done here.

I think I had the right idea the other day when I said that I will only use this blog to post fics from now on. Let me return to that.

Hope this helps. Peace.

[castle-dominion]

4x23 always

Liveblog

ooh <3 always, great title!

I can't believe it has been a whole season since the shot! Good recap sequence!

Ok lmao both my father & I have fallen down mountains before. You cannot catch yourself like that, & if you do then you are probably able to swing yourself to the side to land on that balcony there. Like you can see, she pulls herself to get a better grip there!

But once one arm falls, you need to pull it back up & grab a different (non-sweaty) part of the ledge. & while yes your fingers are strong, you would do better to Bring Up Your Other Hand

Ok def sounded like castle not "man" as the captions said, then it sounded like "someone" pretending to be castle, then it sounded somewhat like castle again. (first "beckett" might have been SD told to speak like castle, could have been a different person told so. Then it was def not castle, then it was someone pretending to be castle & then the "hang on" was castle again.)

Still tho, I don't much like the unrealistic hanging scene. Actually no I really did like it & I can find reasonable excuses for the stuff I find unreasonable. It's cool.

3 days earlier

no caps. I love it.

Alexis <3 <3 <3

oh lmao she is valedictorian. I sometimes relate castle & alexis to me & my mom, but in this situation mum is alexis (smart val) & I'm castle (barely passed).

or TWILIGHT! *blinks*

RC: You know, the most worthwhile things in life are often the most difficult. For example…

*phone rings from beckett*

RC: Wow, that really is a smart phone.

btw love the golden light

KB, with a bomb cute jacket: you're probably the guy who had nothing on but boxers underneath his gown.

Me: *ran away from my graduation & climbed my way on top of a giant dumpster/storage pod*

RC: That is so insulting. If you must know, I was naked underneath.

THEY ARE GOING ON A DATE A DATE A DATE

KB: You coming, Castle?

SDFHSKJDHF I LOVE IT

Hm, two shots...

Love a shoe thing

Ooh lockpicks. Nice. I finally picked one of my locks the other day. I was using my rake tho, not my feeling peg so I would not be easily able to recreate it. I want one of those clear locks that you can see through.

Cazadores, love it when they tap the r.

Ryan is not super pretty rn

lmao poor guy down on his luck broke af, goes into the military? Sounds about right. Screw the military, this poor kid.

Captions were missing the accent on the N

Marisol? parasol? paraplui? paranormal? paralysis? analysis? synthesis? Synthwave? Literally my little brother & I went down a thought path like this. we both have adhd btw. I can't remember what thoughts came after that but we got all the way to fruit-by-the-foot.

How old is she?

I believe her.

F yeah girl. They keep blaming him & you just want to get the one who killed him.

They are so wrecking the crime scene lol.

Love how he smells the gun to see if it was fired recently ugh so good.

MONTGOMERY'S HOUSE???

Love how beckett & espt know his address but ryan looks shocked & castle (who was friends, or at least acquainted with montgomery before the show) did not know.

That was ryan not esposito who said that. This time I could tell.

Doesn't he have three kids? These pics are so weird. Roy, his wife, an older daughter, some boy... oh maybe it is a boyfriend. The baby boy would be what like 5 by now?

Girl I hope it is Not Loaded. In canada you need to have your gun locked up, though on the farm we would only lock up the bullets not the gun.

Love her.

So he knew when they were out of the house.

Btw I love espt's scar on his forehead & beckett's mole on her cheek, both give a little bit of Character to them.

Well obv this is going to be a plot heavy episode, but now is about the time I'd say it has to do with beckett not just roy & his files.

It has been like a year, or almost a year, why would you still have his old work files? nvm a year is a really short period of time

Her handwriting right now...

also I like her turtleneck.

I mean it COULD be a coincidence & it could be just for their own personal gain like maybe some rando roy put in jail & it is not actually related to johanna (in fact it makes things harder for The Big Bad Guy bc now Rando has the files)

Castle is still here, he did not leave after all <3.

She is stirring her coffee so smoothly.

KB: Say something reassuring.

RC: There are thousands of break-ins in New York City every year.

He's right: "Montgomery worked hundreds of cases. Just because this guy was after files doesn't mean he was after your mom's case."

Castle now might be the time to tell her

Green intro. Remind me to take a pic of that

Martha <3

Ooh transition! Murderboard to murderboard!

Yeah no she looks tired af.

Holding hands & they are not quite together yet but aaaah

Esposito looks nice & ryan looks incredible. Must pic this.

They blamed gangs for johanna's murder too

A MONTH after mongt was killed!?

That door really WENT. they BLEW IT UP.

Finally! They are wearing helmets!

Esposito *gets file* *face goes*

Ryan *what???? what is it?* *takes file* *face also goes*

RC: Well at least that's something. What was the crime scene?

JE: It was a shooting.

Me: ...!

their faces upon telling her, you can see how much they love her

Ryan's hands dangling there like that.

You can see ryan feeling conflicted abt this.

RC: Maybe you should be off this case.

Me: So true bestie

He brings out the first name. He loves her so much & wants her to be safe. In fact, castle has confided in him, like that time he asked ryan to keep an eye out for stuff related to johanna's murder but didn't tell becks nor espt.

(that was a weird way of pronouncing "why")

Esposito is right tho in the sense that nothing will stop her. (Except maybe castle telling her that someone forced him into a deal for her life.)

(also ryan's hair & the way he avoids eye contact)

I think I remember seeing something in the s5 bloopers but this is s4... hmm weird. I'll clip it for u tho.

No the heck you do not hold all the cards...

Who is "they"?

tbh smith is kind of unhelpful with that. I mean the rest of it was good but... idk man.

also like, they just killed another person. a thief. How many more people are they going to kill if they don't get taken down? Beckett would SO be willing to put her life in (temporary) danger to take down this ring that not only wants to kill her but also other ppl sometimes. Is her one life worth more than the lives of so many others who die because of this? They are turning a blind eye on so many things to let her live...

Interesting lighting. like the scene with alexis.

Girl he is more afraid of Them than of you.

Oh or not or he's telling her stuff

"make him whole" interesting words

Same "they"?

He KNEW he would come back to the gang & he accepted that price? Even tho he literally said he just wanted the loan? & the wife said he would not get into that?

Vincente Delgado, being poetic: Caught a glimpse before the night swallowed him whole.

KB: Yeah, but how did they know [he was desperate for money]? How do they know his background?

Me: bc they can tap into police files?

JE: Because they knew him from the military. He was hired by somebody he knew.

Me: or that

RC, trying to keep everyone safe: But whoever's gotten close to that secret is dead. I think it's clear we're in over our heads here.

JE: Speak for yourself, bro.

of course she is. If you get a mysterious $10k & don't question it & then your husband ends up dead you too would run.

Oh no the poor son!

WHAT is going ON with the lighting?

Also this room needs to be brighter than the observation room.

GIRL NO. WE ALREADY HAVE ENOUGH NATIVE KIDS IN THE FOSTER SYSTEM

Captions come on, I want to read what she said! I'm hard of hearing but I am NOT monolingual! If hearing people can understand the spanish, I WANT TO SEE THE SPANISH.

Someone military.

Getting files from the dead cop's house.

Montgomery would DEF have duplicate files hidden somewhere of the important files at least.

I love a good church. We have a native church where I live & it serves as the base church for other ethnic churches. The huge & popular italian church got its start here, the eritrean church is still in here just getting started... Plenty of good programs. It is a great church. It is one of the few churches I feel comfy going to, as a queer fnmi christowitch.

They just happen to sit near the back of the church?

& he just happens to show his face?

You can just go through the files manually.

What does cid stand for btw?

KR: How are we supposed to investigate if we can’t investigate?

My little bro while I had it paused: "I work in homicide." 'YOU KILL PEOPLE?'

Nice zoom there, love it, going into her window murderboard.

Wow a lot of shots from the past there, love it.

Oh & now we see castle doing castle investigation at home!

& we also see esposito doing investigation at night in the precinct, which kind of sucks for him, he hasn't gone home yet. (Also they haven't made his apartment set yet lol)

What is that, a pair of pliars? A razorblade?

& we don't get to see ryan investigating?

Wow he shows up at her house & esposito called her & he was ABLE TO FIGURE OUT THAT IT WAS A KEYCHAIN?

But at least it's a haystack.

He's going to tell her!

& he is not talking about mental health.

Ok so now Tell Her!

RC: Before Montgomery went into that hangar, he sent a package to someone, someone…he trusted. It contained information damaging to the person behind all this. Montgomery was trying to protect you. But the package didn’t arrive until after you’d been shot. Montgomery’s friend…struck a deal with them. If they left you alone, the package and the information inside would never see the light of day. But they made one condition—you had to back off. And that’s the reason you’re alive, Kate, because you stopped.

He's crying he loves her he really does.

Ok chill! Also he was not the one striking the deal! He was a pawn!

Yeah I thought he was behind the murder too but he could not have been bc why would he SAVE kate? maybe he is NOT saving her but he is preventing her from looking into it.

Yeah bro now is not the time to bring it up

(but I always love a "because I love you" & it is always SO good)

RC: How are you s—? Because of everything we’ve been through together! Four years I’ve been right here. Four years just waiting for you to just open your eyes, and see that I’m right here…and that I’m more than a partner. Every morning, I—I bring you a cup of coffee just so I could see a smile on your face, ((AAA <3 <3 <3)) because I think you are the most…remarkable…maddening…challenging…frustrating person I have ever met. And I love you, Kate, and if…that means anything to you, if you care about me at all, just don’t do this.

KATE NO HE WAS NOT THE ONE WHO CUT THE DEAL LIKE YOU WERE A CHILD. MONTGOMERY DID BECAUSE HE LOVES YOU LIKE HE IS YOUR FATHER. AAAAAAAGH

Actually yk what? He should have told her ages ago that someone struck a deal & she would have to back off. Except she would not have listened, just like this conversation now.

KB: Let them come. They sent Coonan, and he is dead. They sent Lockwood, and he is dead. And I am still here, Castle! And I am ready!

Ugh I had to stop my watch (which was the plan in the first place anyway) but I had the opportunity to try on my computer, I wanted to finish watching the ep & maybe post some photos that I could more easily get, but the issue is the library DVDs we have are blue ray. My computer won't play them. So yeah that's fun. I ended up doing some recording for the audiobook which I have not worked on in over a year. (About since I've been on T.)

Ok good morning I have work at 16.00 (so I need to leave before 14.45) & it is only 10 right now so I have plenty of time. But ofc I am working until midnight so that sucks pine sap. Tho I will be let off 15 minutes early so I can get home w/o breaking the law.

sdfjkfdhdsjkhhdffdkash aaaaaaah hdskjhfdska;euvn

& alexis is graduating... I cannot believe it is 2012. I mean half of 09 (s1 was short), all of 10, all of 11, & "all" of 12 (tho it has kind of only been 6m of 2012 bc she is graduating now in june)

I put my graduation tassle on my bike helmet. I rode my back to school during the warm months & I had an extra year of high school after graduating so I got to bike to school boasting that I graduated.

AC: I have watched or read every graduation address ever written and compiled all the best advice into one speech,

Me: Good idea, you overachiever

AC: and then I read it out loud. And guess what I sounded like? A pompous ass.

Me: Yeah

AC: I’m eighteen years old. What the hell do I know?

Me: You are correct, you are missing a lot more life experience than you will end up with, but you have a lot of experience now & your current speech will be relevant to the people who are here in this situation.

That's one of the reasons I stayed in high school for an extra year, I did not feel ready. I mean I also was not ready in the sense that I needed to upgrade courses but other than that I also did not feel ready on a psychological level. As an adhder my brain develops more slowly so at 18 I had the executive functions of like a 12 year old. That last year was great. I was legally an adult, I had mstured since g10, I knew the people & teachers, I was willing to accept help but I had also grown more independent, & I had gained the respect of people/staff. I was not some baby googoo gagaa, they were not robot overlords, we were people. Equals as people, though they had authority over me.

Oof fidgeting with the ring hhh

The lighting again.

They don't know what happened last night to get castle off the team & they are thinking "he would NEVER abandon beckett like that" so they know smth bad happened.

Cole Maddox.

But they looked him up so don't They know they're coming for him now?

I like how ryan is watching beckett this entire time through here, he is not looking at the driver's license he is watching beckett

Also since the tiger don't they need to tell ppl where they are going?

(also ryan's sweater is great)

Becks used to be the goody two shoes & now ryan is arguing her to go the pro way

The ether?

Wow it has been 13 years!?

First names

IDK IF YOU DO GOT THIS

"or the entire graduation" I mean like it is fine lmao

WHO from the 12th?

RYANNNN

beckett SAID he was off the team but ryan didn't believe her, he knew castle would help, like that time beckett got montgomery to kick him out & then monty still got castle back to pick her up & take her away from the hangar.

But now ryan probably thinks castle truly is NOT on the team anymore

Y'all at least wearing vests?

"get out of the way" lmao

Girl grab it & go OR un-ass the place

Oof those sexy Xs on the place

I thought they said this place was clear

Wow that was way too easy. he just Took Down both of them.

So he comes in from the front door I think. Maybe the door to the kitchen actually bc becks falls in the living room it looks like. He grabs her & smacks her against the wall, then she falls the other direction & drops her gun, which slides over to where the doorman is lying too; then esposito comes up trying to attack the guy near the door again, arms out probably trying to take a gun or maybe maddox is the one who had the gun, Madx twisted espt to the side, then looks like he maybe kneed him in the gut & threw him down to the floor too. esposito is left reeling, doesn't look unconscious.

My little bro: Savais! ("know" in french) Javier!

back to the fight scene: becks then pushes herself on the floor to grab her gun. Madx is already running away. She gets up & runs after him, then he is already running up the stairs when she shoots at him.

You can tell they had multiple sets to film this here bc suddenly they are on a roof. Lighting is fun. I'd like to hear this episode commentary by the lighting one. (Sorry, I don't watch the credits most of the time.) Well, it is also plot heavy so I'd like to hear the writer & director but shush, I want Every episode with commentary, & I want some of my fave episodes commented on by several groups. I want to hear the actors, I want to hear the writer producer & director, I want to hear the DP & lighting one & the set designer & costume designer...

Also her gun. When did she cock it & turn the safety off? I would not feel confident running like that with a loaded cocked gun like that.

She could stop for a second & shoot him... I'm sure she could make the shot.

Oh wait she does.

Look up. He probably climbed it & is going to jump you from the top.

& he probably does climb it bc he managed to get behind u.

Why does he pick her up like that? If I were him I'd use my Cool Military Training to karate chop her shoulder & knock her out.

Ooh now that was a great scene, he flips her over his shoulder & she rolls & we see it from a bird's-eye angle of destiny long shot thing? So good.

There we go he finally kicks the gun away from her, but why kick with your foot? Kicks are not useful so high, they should always be low. Chi geuk or whatever.

She is really wailing on him & he is just Fine.

Kick him in the balls hun.

lol I slowed down the video & that kick was... well. Again, don't kick the face, kick the nuts. I cannot tell if he dodges it or if he gets kicked & doesn't flinch.

Also what happened there? She goes to attack him but the camera pans down & his hand is just kind of Out & she falls?

Solar plexus? Winded her?

XD the way he just picks her up

For a sec I thought they were going to kiss

Grab her gun & shoot her? Bro come on.

The people on the street was a good choice in filming this.

(why is he just waiting there?)

(I said that out loud & lil bro said "because he's Powafull!!")

btw where is eposito? Was he knocked out there? He didn't seem unconscious. If Becks got up & came out here, surely espt (even if he was unconscious for a few seconds) could be coming up to help... UNLESS MADDOX HAS ACCOMPLICES THAT ARE KIDNAPPING OR KILLING ESPOSITO RIGHT NOW AS WE SPEAK

KB: Just tell me who’s behind this.

As if there is One person, which doubtless there is not

CM: You’re wasting your time, Detective. You have no idea what you’re up against.

KB, hot af: Neither do you.

*tries a sort of double takedown which really just fails*

& now is the start of the episode. Why doesn't he kill her tho? Long live the king mufasa style?

Oh I see. She DOES catch herself for a moment on the big ledge, making her slow enough in falling to catch herself a second time.

Like you can see she readjusts her hand! She should start side-bar-ing to the balcony to her right.

Your fingers are surprisingly strong. She is doing all this flailing & readjusting & gripping that she should totally inch her way to the right

Ooh the music

Ooh a pushzoom

Maybe growing up with parents who rock climb made me too smart.

Losing one hand might make you swing which can be dangerous but girl Bring Your Hand Back Up. Hold on with TWO hands. Unless catching absolutely ruined your tendons so you can hold on as long as it is up there but as soon as your arm fell you can't pick it up again.

She is yelling for castle not esposito who is Actually There

I already went over the voices, but this time I went over them with my little bro. Whose voice did they use when? Was it Dever trying to sound like castle?

The wedding ring!

Also y'all, if someone is falling, you do NOT have the weight to keep them up. You need to anchor yourself.

See the only reason ryan did not also fall was bc ppl were holding HIM.

Again good music

(also upon slowing it down you can see the uh.. consistency in grabbing someone falling. Have you ever done that bar trick where you get someone to catch a bill? They cannot do it. In fact, we did a similar thing in biology class. They cut & zoom in a little bit. They make ryan's sleeve into beckett's sleeve somehow.)

Castle is not here babe. It sounded like castle bc you were on the brink of death.

& gates there. She looks mad, not concerned that becks almost fell off a building

At least someone else's hand comes in there too to help her up.

& NOW beckett reaches up her other hand.

See? they have ryan & the other one down low holding up beckett & then there are also (at least) two others who are holding THEM up.

The thing is, ryan would probably be too low to pull her up, he was just holding her up. The other one helped by taking off some of the weight & pulling so that ryan could reposition himself & use his weight to pull her up.

You can see tho that she stops *there* once her elbows are on the ledge. It is hard to lift someone up. They would need to lift her up enough that she can do a pullup & get her elbows on the ledge. Then they probably grip her shoulders/upper arms to help her up while she pushes up with her arms & gets friction with her feet. Then she would roll onto the ground. & THEN she would stand up & they would be face-to-face. I would honestly like to try out smth like this (in a safe environment) to see how it works for myself rather than my logic limited experience. I want more exp.

Ryannnnnn!

(again with the lighting)

I mean yeah communication is important babes. I'm surprised she doesn't fire them.

Also esposito looks so saddddd.

VG: Don’t you “sir” me!

XD idk why I find that so funny

they don't even wear uniforms tho lol.

Girl don't resign. Don't do this you're emotional.

btw esposito in the t-shirt is great.

She looked at the badge so fondly there before resigning.

Ooooof alexis' speech over this ending? immaculate.

Wow I really feel that.

oof she looks back at the chair castle sits in hhhh

(btw they took esposito's gun but not the extra magazines he has on his belt.)

*Esposito walks angrily past Ryan and grabs his coat.*

KR, sitting on his desk after watching beckett leave & now watching esposito get going too: Javi… I had to.

*Esposito leaves without looking at Ryan.*

(& then beckett takes the elevator but not esposito??)

*Ryan throws a book across the bullpen.*

(which like...??? we often see emotion here but he yote a book. What did it hit? Where did it go?)

Ugh the rain & Her SwingsSet! I looove the swingset location in this show. I read a fic after this scene recently & it was p good. ( https://archiveofourown.org/works/3122723 )

What song is this btw?

Self is a construct. You are a person made of all the people you surround yourself with. When mum & I make the exact same noise of sympathy at the exact same time, you know she raised me. When I adopt a new word into my vocabulary from a character on a show. When I make my tea the way a past friend taught me. When my brother gets a new fidget or display of physicality...

She ends it with always instead of putting the always first shfaskjdfhsdjkfhsjhf this episode aaaaaaahhh

"in our hearts that will be with us,, always."

See? Adults are meant to play too. xbox is not just for preteen to teenaged boys.

Eeeee he puts the tassle On His Lamp!!

Don't delete it don't delete it don't delete it at least send it to her before deleting it or smth hsdjhskjdh

(at least he still has the recycling bin lol)

Knocking on the door, it has been like one minute since she called. She was probably calling to say "tell your doorman to let me in"

(fun fact, according to that set design bonus feature in new york, caskett live a 5-10min walk from one another.)

YOU

FINALLY THEY ARE KISSING WHY DID IT TAKE FOUR WHOLE SEASONS.

Sorry for what?

YOU DIDN'T CARE?

yes YES this is GREAT

& the MUSIC

& the lightning+thunder & the closing the door

& HER SCAR (but no surgery stars from when they cut her open to fix her heart lol)

Oohhhhhh it is not the end!!

Wow man looks way younger

NOOO MADDOX IS HERE IN SMITH'S PLACE AAAAH ON NO

Why is there an obsession over kate beckett? She is surely not the only enemy of Them.

& that's the end of the season!

Ok I started at 10, it is quarter to noon, it took me two hours to watch like 15 minutes of show. Holy moly.

I need to get all the clips & bonus features I want & then I'm good to send this back to the library.

[moonykat]

So deancas reached 100k on AO3, as they are one of the three pairings I love with my entire heart, I think it's only natural to share my favorite fics here.

Btw, if you aren't in the spn fandom, or haven't read any of these I highly recomend to give them a try. They're amazing, could be books, and some of them don't require you to have any previous knowledge about the show.

Emojis for guidance:

😭 angst, please end this suffering. And happy/hopeful ending.

💟 fluff/humor/everything is nice.

💫 could be canon, y'know what they are canon.

🌏 Au / Not previous knowledge required

🌟 absolute favorite shdksjdkdkdjkd

💀 killed me, in the good way, but left permanent scars and haven't been able to read them again. Absolutely recomend, amazing writing, could be a book but they hurt <\3

The sawdust men by Linoresearch 😭🌏

Castiel Novak is an inmate at a labour camp. Life is brutal and no one ever gets out. Castiel’s only goal is to go unnoticed by the barbaric guards, and the violent inmates. Dean Winchester is a soldier without a purpose since the civil war ended. 

Hautley's bend by coldinthestudio 😭💀🌏 (check the tags)

[...]He's never felt this way about a bully, or anyone for that matter, before. Maybe something's wrong with him, that he could feel so attracted to someone who makes his everyday life hell. But then again, he sees the way Dean looks at him sometimes. And there's a lot more to Dean Winchester than meets the eye.

Any port in a storm by microcomets 💟💫

The angels have fallen, leaving Castiel graceless and Dean with, well, more of other people’s problems. When a string of couples goes missing on the east coast, Dean and Cas decide to investigate—and find themselves trapped and hunted on a couples’ counseling cruise. Although battling monsters at sea is dangerous enough, sorting through emotional baggage proves to be far more deadly. (And, in which Cas embarks to find his missing grace and Dean is put out. Not necessarily in that order.)

Then and now by komodobits 😭🌏

On Christmas Eve, 1988, Mrs. Novak's car stalled on an intersection and was hit by a truck. Her son, Castiel, was nine years old when he woke up the next day and realised that he wasn't going to have a Christmas anymore. Luckily for him, however, Mary Winchester across the road invited him over to have Christmas with them that year - and every year after. Traditions were formed, friendships were built, and Christmas would always be a time for love, even if life sometimes happened along the way.

So says the sword by komodobits 💫💫😭💀🌟🌟 (this definitely happened)

The briefing was simple: ‘Stand guard over the Michael Sword until the battle is ready to commence. Await further instructions.’ Castiel doesn’t mind working security duty; he was briefed shortly after the initial salvation of the Sword from the pit, and again before taking up his position. He knows what to do. However, it’s easy to forget that the green room isn’t real. Time moves differently there, the space ever-changing to make a prison of mountains, cathedrals, salt flats, orchards, and whatever Castiel was led to believe about Heaven’s greatest weapon—Dean Winchester is something entirely unexpected.

Ad astra - Latin; to the stars by nhixxie 💫💫😭💀🌟🌟 (and this too, this is canon all right)

One day Cas says, "Stars died for you, Dean Winchester", against ruffled hair perched atop sun kissed skin and sleepy eyes. Dean stirs, moving to spread his palms against the contour of Cas’ back, tips of fingers languidly strumming the indentations of his spine. One, two, three, four, he counts, the closest he could get to scientifically studying the anatomy of the human body. "Is this some physics crap again?" He frowns with eyes closed. Cas smiles softly. "Far from it." Dean’s fingers play at the base of his back, ninth thoracic vertebrae, Cas notes. "Then tell me all about it."

C-S-T-L by Komodobits 🌏😭😭💀💀🌟🌟🌟

(If you are not in the fandom, and want to try one pleaaaase this is the one, just holy shit it's fantastic)

LJ DCBB 2013. It’s been nineteen years since the beginning of the Last War [...] Their hope is the synthesis of Android Angeles, a series of humanoid machines designed without the capacity to feel, and thus enabling them to be the perfect super soldiers. In order to check their battle suitability, the first prototypes are sent down with a landing party of the men they will later replace, and Sergeant Dean Winchester is paired with Unit 5284-C-S-T-L for the assignment. Cas, as Dean nicknames him, is easy enough to work with - once you get past the emotional vacancy and blatant disregard for human life, that is - but as the squad's tour goes on, Dean gets to wondering whether the Android Angeles are really as unfeeling as he's been told, or if the fear of a reality in which malfunctioning prototypes will be shut down is too great for them to exist any other way.

By your ancient names by microcomets 😭💫

In the ancient days, he had no name. Not to humans, anyway.

And this, your living kiss by opal_bullets 🌏😭💟

Only a very few people in the world know that the celebrated and reclusive poet Jack Allen is just Kansas mechanic Dean Winchester, a high school dropout with a few bucks to his name. Not that it matters anymore; life has left him so wrung out he never wants to pick up another pen. Until, that is, a string of coincidences leads Dean to auditing a poetry course with one Dr. Castiel Novak. The professor is wildly intelligent, devastatingly handsome...and just so happens to be academia's foremost expert on the poetry of Jack Allen.

Turn on the earth by microcomets 😭😭🌟🌟🌟

Dean’s your typical half-orphaned, monster-killing 22-year-old until a trenchcoated stranger crashes into his back windshield one September night, claiming he’s an angel that knows him from the future and that he’s on the run. Frigging fantastic. (Or, in which Castiel gets stuck in Dean’s timeline preseries and Dean kind of hates it—until he doesn’t.)

Ninety one whiskey (series) by komodobits 🌏😭🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟💀💀🌟🌟🌟🌟

(My all time favorite supernatural fic, it's simply incredible, the writing is phenomenal, everthing, all of it. Could very easily be a book, it has two sequels. Just, wow, I am so glad I read this. Wow. It's not an easy read though, so check the tags but wow)

In the spring of 1944, the 104th Medical Battalion of the United States Army is disbanded, and its men reassigned to various infantry companies in preparation for their invasion of occupied France. For First Lieutenant Novak, this is less than helpful, as he has so far met his platoon’s designated medic a grand total of twice, and has both times found Sergeant Winchester to be the optimum combination of reckless, arrogant, and downright insufferable so as to make cohesive platoon function near impossible. When the time comes to move out, however, Castiel has to reconcile himself to the fact that men are going to go down and trust that Dean Winchester may well be the only person who can put them back together again. WW2 ETO infantry AU.

[mass-effect-galaxy]

Suicide Squatting

Some more blogging from my ongoing campaign with Jennifer Shepard. Base character description is here. If you had missed the previous blogs, just click on the #space sisters tag below.

Jennifer went into the Suicide Mission without Legion and with everyone but Miranda and Zaeed loyal. The plan was that Miranda dies, and maybe Zaeed as well and Mordin. Usually, I send Mordin back with the Chakwas’ group because of him often dying during the last stand. This time, I picked Garrus. That was the plan...

“No plan ever survived the first contact with the enemy.” (that’s by Prussian general Helmuth von Moltke from 1871; in case you have ever asked yourself whom Shepard is quoting during Thane’s mission)

I sent Tali into the shafts and gave the second team to Miranda. I recalled that a disloyal (or wrong) fireteam leader dies. I should have doublechecked because that does not apply to the first tour: in this case, the specialist dies.

Usually, I accept these “accidents”, but Jennifer is supposed to romance Tali in ME3. Maybe another time with a different Shepard because a Rannoch without Tali and Legion would be a new variation.

To make matters even worse, Miri survived the second assignment as a disloyal fireteam leader as well by simply spitting out this bullet (I love her, BTW). So, I had to use the save editor to trade with the devil Miranda for Tali.

And that concluded Mass Effect 2 for Jennifer Shepard. I have kept up the mixture of rude behavior with a good guy attitude (”helping the helpless”). 

Jennifer has a problem with authorities, so she didn’t even meet up with Anderson, leave alone Udina and the Council. This will be a bit difficult to keep up in ME3 because Hacket pops up after every mission. At least I can avoid the additional chatters with him and Anderson.

 I might have given Kasumi too much room. Jennifer would not be sharing her sense of humor. Kasumi also is more the hacker-freak-nerd tech type, Jennifer more of the oily-tanktop-fixer tech type. Jennifer Shepard should also be focused on two characters (ME1 and 3: Ashley & Tali, ME2: Jack & Tali) and not socializing with everyone.

Let’s move on to Mass Effect 3. I still haven’t decided on the ending. Everything, save for Synthesis, is a possibility.  

[bi-honor]

Why the “Batman should just kill the Joker” argument is stupid.

Pre-scriptum: This turned out a bit longer and a lot more complicated than I’ve expected. Please bear with it.

Sunday night, before heading back to uni, I decided not to sleep (like a sensible person would), and instead started watching Gotham.

And shit, son.

A show that actually understands the underlying themes of Gotham?

I can't believe it.

This realization reminded me of the million times, when I've been hit with the good ol’ "Batman should just kill the Joker, he is so stupid" argument.

Hearing this always drove me crazy, but now I can actually present a (somewhat) coherent debunking, so strap in for a little rant.

So the two main arguments, that come up are as follows: Killing the villains would more effectively reduce crime.

Batman’s presence is just worsening Gotham’s situation by creating/pulling supervillains into Gotham causing even more death and suffering in the process.

Now, depending on the exact iteration, these are correct observations, but they miss the goddamned point of everything.

Batman is not a person. He is an ideology. He is not a man, as much as the idea, that justice is real and is coming to kick your ass, in a city where major criminal offenses are justified with “this is Gotham, kid. Get over it”. It is not a coincidence that Bruce is commonly referred to as the mask of Batman and not the other way around.

He is trying to uphold the power of law and correct the system where it is goes to shit. This is the reason why many of his small scale opponents are corrupt cops and why several of his allies are people such as Jim Gordon (who is trying to fix the police from the inside) and pre-Two Face Harvey Dent (who does the same on a legal/political plane). How he uses his personal financial and political power reflects the same.

Now, the reason why I’m harping on about this is that one of the core tenets of human civilization is the “no kill” rule, which is also the most important element of Batman’s backstory. Killing is viewed as necessary evil by many people, but the end goal should always be minimizing it, and shifting the focus to rehabilitation. It is not a coincidence that Arkham is an asylum, not a prison. Due to writers wanting to use the same villains, and their relevant themes, they cannot be cured (long-run comics be damned), but that does not change the fact that it IS an asylum (a facility or rehabilitation), not a prison or the Phantom Zone (which are only for containment, and are linked to much more “wholesome” heroes).

Batman is often praised for his rouge’s gallery and for good reason. Besides packing style and AWESOME in troves, they are all (at least the good ones) defined by a single or a few overriding flaws and deviations from order. Here is a (non-conclusive) list: Wanting to demolish all order as a reaction to its flaws (Anarchy), declaring oneself above the rest due to outstanding intellect or some other quality (Riddler), wanting to abolish civilization and let nature take over (Posion Ivy), taking arbitrary laws too seriously (Two Face) or my personal favourite: putting one’s personal trauma above the rest of humanity (Dr. Freeze), they all represent real and understandable ideologies that are constantly up against the ideal of law and order. And don’t forget the antithesis of Bats and literal definition of LE, Joker, who quite literally represents men’s tendency to be evil just cause, and who also happens to be the ultimate cynic (more on that in a minute).

But the villains are not the main opposition of Batman. It is Gotham itself (thus the name of the show). Batman doesn’t become Batman because people are being abducted for experimentation or because the Joker is killing people. He becomes Batman, because he is living in a city, where two people are shot in front of their child for a necklace and everyone just waves it off as yesterday’s news. The real enemy is cynicism, the idea that things cannot and will not change for the better. He is one of the few, who faced with cynicism and neglect for such things, stands up and says ‘No. It does not have to be like that.” He is dead-set on bringing a better world to fruition and breaking the fundamentals of his beliefs would equal to ceasing to exist as what he is and the resistance he signifies. He can be cynical in his approach, but always within bounds, and never on an ideological level (barring deconstructions, but those are deconstructions for a reason).

(I don’t want to write an entire dissertation, so I swore I wouldn’t bring up paladins or Sanderson, therefore I assume the dear reader can make the connection)

In the faithful Batman stories, both his unrelenting realism and fundamental care for others are emphasized. He approaches situations with a level head, and almost always asks the villains to put the weapons down, before actually engaging in combat. For example, in the animated Justice League series (the be all, end all of animated superheroism) we see Batman tell the entire JLA that they can either kick him out or see why a contingency is needed for their own power, and we also see Batman sitting down on a swing with a little girl who might be a danger to the fabric of reality, so she wouldn’t have to spend her last minutes alone.

One could say that Batman himself is quite the broken and hypocritical character as he exhibits many of the traits which identify his villains. He is a vigilante (Anarchy), almost solely inspired by personal trauma and loss (Freeze), constantly imposes an arbitrary moral code on others (Two-face), and so on. However there are many reasons why this only betters the whole thing.

First and foremost, Batman is trying to create the synthesis of the ideal and the realistic and make it into a comprehensive and ordered system, which just so happens to be the fundamental challenge of legislation and governance. Secondly the best Batman stories and his meta villains (Arkham series, Red Hood) can very effectively bounce off of these “flaws” allowing for a further exploration of the themes. Thirdly, when his fundamentals are broken (the original Dark Knight) and it is not fucked up (LOOKIN’ AT YOU SNYDER) it makes for a very effective deconstruction. There is also a fourth reason, but let me get back to that later.

Now, on the show itself. In one of the first scenes we witness Gordon being ridiculed, after not shooting an obviously miserable junkie and taking a more circumvent approach, just so killing could be avoided. Later we see police applaud a serial killer for killing crooks, right up until he targets a policeman (who is also a crook btw), where they suddenly go all “we don’t kill a policemen, hurrdurr”. Said serial killer turns out to be a guy who worked with orphans for decades and thought the only way to change the city would be to start killing the corrupt. He doesn’t even have to pick his targets, because anyone, who has the slightest smidgen of power in Gotham would be a proper target.

The villains in the show are also shown to be evil, but also fundamentally broken as people, which is the cause of their villainy. Cobblepot is very obviously a bullied loner, Nigma is viewed as a loser by everyone while he just wants to share what he finds interesting, Selina’s only brush with authority was getting thrown into institutions and Ivy experienced an abusive family. Being broken doesn’t excuse their choices, but it does give rise to them, tying into the fact that there is a root cause for evil other than human nature and that it can be treated.

Now the final reason why Batman not being perfect is not a problem, is that he is not actually the ideal hero of the world of Gotham. Due to all his hypocrisies and nigh superhuman nature, he is not actually the best synthesis of order and Gotham. The real ideal is Jimmy Gordon himself.

Why? He shares, both the unrelenting idealism and humanity of Batman, but he does so without having to resort to terror tactics or vigilantism. And without access to ALL THE MONEY or superhuman intellect. This is the reason why he is the main of the show and not Bruce and also why in some versions of the story, Batman falls, giving rise to more perfect heroes and Gordon is the one who tidies up the GCPD and/or becomes mayor.

Take for example the pier scene from the show [mild spoliers]. Harvey (a different one) takes Jim and Cobblepot out to the pier and says that Jim must shoot the guy into the water or their ass is grass. Now, Jim is presented with two options here. Comply (give in to status quo) or Resist (and die shortly thereafter, also feeding into the status quo). Batman would choose Resist, which is a valid choice, but only for him and not the layman. However, Jim recognizes the false ‘agency’ inherent in the choice and breaks the system by coming to a third solution. This moment, in one scene summarized, what the struggle for a better Gotham is and how it can be achieved.

(Struggling not to bring Geralt into this)

Which ties us back to the main point of this whole thing. Killing the Joker or any other villain for that matter, does not solve the problem, because the Joker is not the problem. The problem is that Gotham is a place which produces people like him on a consistent and reliable basis and that its own habitants believe that this cannot be changed. Viewing killing as the only solution only strengthens the very core of the problem and at best momentarily cures some of the symptoms, but not the sickness itself.

In the spawn of 4 episodes, the show demonstrated, what is the problem of Gotham, how it affects everyday life and thinking, how truly superhuman Bruce is even as a kid, how the city creates its own broken people, what challenges someone has to face if they want to produce change and it managed not to be crowded to incomprehensibility or made into a cheese-fest. I hope it will not go off its rails, as I don’t know if anything ever inspired this type of positive excitement from me. Rant over

[pdamndiabolical]

While I agree that begging for scraps and hunting for subtext crumbs is kind of pathetic and people should move on to ACTUALLY QUEER (or actual whatever other marginalized rep) media by independent creators instead of putting a square peg in a round hole, really cool shit can come from reinventing and recontextualizing media through a new lens. It can be a very joyful experience, not an isolating or pathetic one. Some of my favorite (official!) adaptations have been massive tonal shifts and reimaginings. The fandom is an embarrassing pr/ship nightmare but Hannibal was a gay man picking and choosing from some weird cannibal horror novels and making them an awesome queer fever dream. Miyazaki and Yamamoto both did their own AU versions of Lupin stuff. The Venture Brothers is essentially "what if the world of Johnny Quest had real emotional stakes and consequences and way more canonically gay men?".

Sometimes people are just scrap hunting in an obsessive and arguably pathetic way instead of putting the work in to find independent media that would actually fit what they want, but other times they use ideas as a jumping off point to make a really interesting point or interesting fan interpretation. I have certainly seen fan interpretations (official or unofficial) that elevated the source material in a really fascinating synthesis. People have made headcanons interpretations of stuff I worked on as an original creator and I thought it was very cool. As long as people aren't miserable or deluded or hurting anyone (like harassing creators for the work not fitting their deluded headcanons) to me it's neat.

(I also don't mean this in a confrontational way btw, I think it's also neat to be able to have these discussions in the first place and feel free to ignore me)

at what point are you just consuming a shallow husk of the media? at what point have you stripped the media for parts and are obsessing over a twisted personal platonic ideal of the media? at what point have you assembled an entirely new identity for the media in your own mind?

[skincarejesus]

hi! I was wondering what your opinion on derma rolling is? I've cleared up my skin after using accutane but now I've got a bunch of ice pick scars from picking them before I went on it. (btw i love your blog and it's the main reason that I got more serious about my skincare)

Hi, and thank you!

I think dermarolling can be very helpful, just make sure you use the correct length needles. If the needles aren’t at least 0.5mm, they won’t induce collagen synthesis, which is needed to fix scarring. This is a good length to start at. Further reading.

Depending on the severity of your scarring, you may need to go to a professional for dermarolling treatments because it isn’t safe to use needles longer than 1.5mm at home. (x)

As long as you inform yourself first, I say go for it!

[olmopress]

Episode III: The Return of Manovich

week 11: Vincent Miller, “Key Elements of Digital Media” / Lev Manovich, “The Language of New Media”, Principles of New Media: 2. Modularity, 4. Variability, 5. Transcoding

Today I am very Happy. Even if yesterday night AS Roma lost to some unpronounceable and unspellable German team. You know why? No, it’s not because I am going out why someone I like. And neither because I decided I want to try and go to a rage room once. None of these romantics things.

NO

It’s because today, Hideo Kojima’s long-awaited and frankly strange-looking new game Death Stranding is out!

This is me being happy with the copy of the game I just bought from this pedantic guy at GameStop who really wanted to sell me their useless (and of course expensive) fidelity card. I do not fidelize. I do not permanently associate with the revolting logics of media capitalism. Btw yes that in the background is Patti Smith’s Horses signed by herself. I am so cool, I know. What can you do.

ANYWAYS

Why is this relevant? Well, for a number of reasons. First of all because a videogame is a digital object, a digital medium. So it’s important to us. Secondly, because the themes of this game are SOOOOOOO damn interesting and appropriate for what we are doing in this class.

BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY

Because I decided to have yet another theme-based post. So Ladies, Gentlment, and all the other 7456 genders out there in the wide wild world, let me introduce you to this week’s issue of my blog, which will be entirely

VIDEOGAME-THEMED

Yes, I will. Sorry not sorry.

OK so as it is now customary I will skip Miller because I don’t like riassunti and synthesis and also I want to continue my honeymoon with Manovich.

Here’s me with my boy Lev.

Today we deal with the last three of Manovich’s Principles of New Media. Today I also want to be reader-friendly so I tell all of you from the start that I am going to explain briefly the principle and then pick an example, of course from some videogame. OK fellas? Ready to go.

Principle No. 2: Modularity

Well, modularity is quite easy. Manovich uses it to explain how digital objects are assembled through independent parts, which working on their own constitute the totality of the aforementioned object. A good example from videogames is the phenomenon of pop-up textures: that thing that happens when you’re playing a game in 3D graphics which uses real-time rendering, but optimization hasn’t been done well enough (or you’re just pushing the graphics beyond your hardware capabilities) and so you get some textures to be rendered with a delay. And this sucks because, well, it’s not very realistic and it makes you realize you’re just playing a videogame.

:( this is extreme tho. Sometimes it’s just OK.

[Btw pop-up textures are essentially what Manovich is referring to at page 39 when he writes about “distancing” and “level of detail”]

Manovich refers to this also as the “fractal structure” of digital media, which very cool and very LSD-like. So, yeah, cool.

BUT EVEN COOLER THAN THIS

is how this made me think of Aristotle. Your friendly neighborhood Western-culture-generator philosopher loved to talk about how the whole of something is more than the sole value of its components. Which, in some ways, doesn’t really seem to apply completely to digital media.

SOMETHING TO REFLECT UPON

Oh. And I was also thinking that maybe, MAYBE

MAYBE

all this modularity in our daily lives is also affecting the way our minds work. Like we now struggle to create coherent, consistent (“hardwired” Manovich would say) arguments or chains of reasoning, but instead rely completely on modular frames of understanding. Like we now tend to see things as separate and independent from each other, and we have trouble in looking at the bigger picture.

“OF COURSE YOU MUST BE WRONG, WE’RE AS CAPABLE AS EVER IN UNDERSTANDING ISSUES IN THEIR TOTALITY. BUT NO KID CLIMATE CHANGE IS NOT REAL BECAUSE ADMITTING IT WOULD MEAN RECONSIDER THE PRIVILEGES I GREW UP AS EXPRESSIONS OF A POST-INDUSTRIAL COLONIAL SYSTEM OF EXPLOITATION  YESTERDAY SNOWED IN BERGAMO SO NO TROUBLE”

But let us not be distracted by such irrelevant issues.

Principle No. 4: Variability

Now this is obvious but still so cool. However, the question of variability is so multifaceted and complex that is difficult to pin it down to a single definition. I’ll try my best, though. I would say that

the concept of variability refers to all the ways in which digital objects can be modified, altered, or updated at the source of their distribution.

That is, without having to physically change anything. The only thing that variability needs is some form of the refresh button. It is a sort of physically invisible mutation, a “liquid” transformation, as Manovich says. And of course this has to do with Numerical Representation, Modularity, and Automation.

Before getting into the real interesting stuff about variability, Manovich makes seven examples. A couple of them will help grasp the concept better. So yeah, example three reads like this:

“Information about the user can be used by a computer program to customize automatically the media composition as well as to create elements themselves” (37)

In that unfortunately incomplete masterpiece that Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is, you get to play as badass Venom Snake aka (sort of...) Big Boss, a super amazing and incredibly skilled soldier who has to infiltrate military compounds and all sorts of other infiltrable things between Afghanistan and Zaire around the mid-80s. In this game, you can decide what kind of equipment to bring with you, and approach the mission the way you like best. You can bring big-ass noisy weapons and just have a crazy battles, you can use assault rifles of sniper guns with silencers and be very quiet, and you can also use guns with tranquilizers so that you don’t kill anybody. You just put them to sleep.

Now, the cool thing about it is that the more you progress in the game, the more enemy soldiers will adjust to your playing stile. For instance, I remember using only tranquilizers with pistols and sniper rifles. So I would get lots of headshots, because when you headshot someone, he instantly falls asleep. After a few missions, most of my enemies adapted and started wearing helmets! So it was much harder for me to get those headshots.

See? This is an example of automation and variability.

There is also of course example number six. The one about periodical updates. Again, for anybody who ever played a videogame online, this is usual business.

I remember I once was thirteen. Yeah I know that’s hard to imagine, but for a moment just please bear with me. When I was thirteen I was very much into multiplayer FPSs. At that time particular, me and my friends would spend entire days on Call of Duty: Black Ops. Now, the online multiplayer was constantly updated and amended, so that if someone discovered that a certain build for a weapon made that weapon totally over-powered and impossible to play against, the guys at Activision would correct the flaw and balanced the game again. But variability in the game also occurred when DLCs were released: new maps, new weapons, new elements would ‘enter’ the world of the online game and of course alter it. It was cool, really. Cause the game evolved throughout the season. But the you had to buy the new one and spend other money and start back again and… really, can we just say fuck capitalism? That game could have lasted decades. Damn.

ANYWAY

By far the most interesting thing to me came at page 40, when Manovich discusses variability in terms of interactivity and hypermedia. In particular, he distinguishes between two ‘versions’ of interactivity.

Open interactivity: an interactive object “in which both the elements and the structure of the whole object are either modified or generated on the fly in response to the user’s interaction with a program.” (40)

Closed interactivity: an interactive object “that uses fixed elements arranged in a fixed braching structure” (40) and therefore on which users have only ‘liberty of order’. That is, they can only choose in which order to interact with the elements.

Now, try to follow me for a second. I think this distinction opens up one possibility of categorizing videogames. But we need to add one more category. We have

Linear games (Super Mario, the first Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil 4…) which display a ‘limited’, ‘scripted’ interactivity. That is: you have to follow the path that has been chosen for you by the developers. You cannot decide in which order to do things. You go ahead with the game – interact with it, sure, but you basically witness the story unfold in front of your eyes passively.

Open world games (GTA, Spiderman, Pokémon games…), which essentially function on a principle of closed interactivity. You’re free to roam around and do whatever you want, to choose your own ‘order of interaction’ with the elements on the map, but you cannot act on the storyline, which is still linear and scripted for you. The story doesn’t change, no matter what you do inside or outside of the main missions.

pure RPGs (Fallout 4, Final Fantasy, Skyrim, Mass Effect…) which instead function on a principle of open interactivity. Your choices inform the way in which the game unfolds in terms of story, world, and sometimes even gameplay. The interaction is open because it allows to be formed in response to what the player does.

I should totally write a narratology of videogames.

I’ve already written a lot and I want to get to the last principle, but

I NEED

to point out something that comes around the end of page 41. Ready? So Manovich writes:

“The principle of variability exemplifies how, historically, changes in media technologies are correlated with social change. If the logic of old media corresponded to the logic of industrial mass society, the logic of new media fits the logic of the postindustrial society, which values individuality over conformity. […] In this way new media technology acts as the most perfect realization of the utopia of an ideal society composed of unique individuals. New media objects assure users that their choices—and therefore, their underlying thoughts and desires—are unique, rather than preprogrammed and shared with others.” (41-2)

Now, I am not sure precisely where Manovich stands on this argument, but this definitely rang a bell for me.

HEY LEV, EVER HEARD OF A LAD CALLED PASOLINI?

Because yeah, digital media gave us this fantastic possibility of escaping omologation because anybody can see, read, do whatever they want without any authority providing them with univocal content.

But are we really sure this is the triumph of individuality? Couldn’t this be just a new, and much more subtle and devilish form of conformity?

My bro and spiritual-granddaddy PPP believed so. And you, he was writing in the early seventies – not long before being brutally killed by neo fascists with the complacency of the State a Roman kid in Ostia – and virtually all of his predictions are becoming a terrible reality. Because Pier Paolo believed the (back then) new consumer society (which let’s face it gave birth to digital media the way we know it today) was only a new, horrible, de-humanizing form of fascism.

This is for anybody who understands a little italian and loves tragic heroes talking about the horrors of late capitalism on winter beaches.

BUT WE HAVE TO COME TO AN END, DON’T WE?

Principle No. 5: Transcoding

I’ll be very brief, this is easy. Manovich defines transcoding starting from the difference between the “cultural layer” (pretty much the visual, the interface) and the “computer layer” (basically code) of digital media. Using the example of videogames again, the cultural layer of a videogame is all that you see happening on the screen, while the computer layer is the code ‘behind’ it that makes it all happen in that way.

Fine, cool. Transcoding, Manovich says, happens everytime these two layers—these two languages, really—start to mix and mesh with each other.

The best example that I can come up with right now—and I am sorry if I can’t think of anything better but you know I have a graceful lady waiting for me, his date—has to do again with open world videogames.

SO HERE’S THE THING, I THINK

Open world videogames emerged and became the next big thing of gaming when the internet was already a big thing. And there’s a reason for that. It’s because the structure of an open world mimics, in many ways, that of the WWW.

THINK ABOUT IT

An open world is somewhere were you can roam around (I want to say navigate so badly!) pretty much everywhere you want. Most of the times you can jump from one places to another, sometimes using a nice menu/database of possible locations (reminds you of anything? Hyperlinking? Search engines, anybody?). You can’t really create much, but you can see everything. Well, that to me sounds like WWW.

COULD IT BE LOVE? TRANSCODING?

I think it is, baby.

We’re sadly at the end of our ride

:(

But don’t be afraid!

THERE’S STILL ROOM FOR MUSIC AND VISUAL ARTS

Today we celebrate videogames, so what’s better than a collection of some classics in videogame music history? Enjoy.

As for visuals, I want to come full circle. Hideo Kojima’s game have always been blessed with amazing character design and illustrations by his bro Yoji Shinkawa. Death Stranding is no exception. Except that there is an exception, because these times the characters are actors! Great actors! Like beautiful Lea Seydoux who I hope one day to marry. Or at least to hookup with, come on. Anyways, that’s beyond my point. I just wanted to introduce this beautiful promotional picture for Death Stranding.

It really is beautiful.

до свидания!

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[zenosanalytic]

A Murder of Gods Redux

Ok, so I’ve watched Ep 6 a few times now and I want to write more in-depth about my reactions to it.

Somewhere in America

The Somewhere in America intro was good, I thought. The US and Jesus/Christianity/God/the Divine mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, and this intro does a good job of both exploring that fact in the specific context of southern USian immigration, and establishing this difference, sometimes conflict sometimes synthesis, as a central theme of the episode.

To the Immigrants, the US is an aspiration, an opportunity, a place of salvation; to the Murderers, it is something they already have and need to protect from other people getting. To the Immigrants, Jesus is a guardian sharing in their suffering and giving aid at their worst extremity; to the Murderers Jesus is also a guardian of sorts, but as a patron and justifier of righteous violence. The Murderer with a rifle has a crucifix in his trigger-hand and another crucifix as the crosshair of his sight: symbolically, Jesus guides his killing-hand, and his murderous world-view is seen through Christ and the Crucifixion.

The view of the Murderers finds continuity in the citizens of Vulcan, Virginia; and I wonder if putting it in Virginia was, itself, symbolic. As a symbol of USian racism and white supremacy via its role in slavery, the confederacy, and Jim Crow, obviously, but also the name, Virginia, “Virgin”, and the way in which white concepts of virginity play into white USian racial, and sexualized national, anxieties. The people of Vulcan, as Wednesday says, want to keep for themselves “their America” and “their Town”, viewing the outside world(including the rest of America) as hostile and dangerous. That connection shows how easily the Murderers’  xenophobic desire to make the Nation inviolate(and therefore “virginal” in a misogynistic, property-relations conception of the term) morphs into egotistical sectionalism within the Nation(hint hint, the Southern revolt in defense of slavery). It shows how the mindset which vilifies and verminizes the outsider and immigrant quickly and easily turns to do the same to one’s neighbor, a connection strengthened by the visual callback to the Rifleman in Vulcan; right before Vulcan gives his benediction to the congregation, we see a close up of one of its members holstering his gun, a crucifix beside it on his belt.

While I can’t really articulate why at the moment, there seems something very Apt in this being the “home” and power-base for an Old God who has sold out to the New Ones. Maybe it is that the multiculturalism and racial “sensitivity” displayed by the New Gods in Ep 5 was so obviously the shallow insincerity of corporate image-control, that an Old God unabashedly promoting white supremacy and white Christian gun-culture seems philosophically aligned with them already. Or maybe it is that there are few ideas which have, historically, garnered more devotion in, and been more central to the Eurocolonial States of the American continents, than white supremacy making it, while unmentioned by the series, the oldest of America’s New Gods.

I don’t like how the Somewhere in America sequence fits, structurally, with the rest of the episode, though. I feel like it’d have been better, that it would make the argument more firmly and clearly, to cut directly from this SiA to introducing Vulcan, and either returning to the characters afterwards, or putting the two character sequences before, and having the SiA be an inter-ep interlude which blends back into the ep via the Vulcan intro. For instance: you do the intro scene, but take the bit where the camera lingers on a Vulcan bullet and put it at the end of it, after the crucifixion bit. The camera tracks the shell as it tumbles into darkness and then it lands on the factory floor in Vulcan, to be found by the “Boss”, who takes it from there. Maybe throw in a “wouldn’t want anybody to slip on this” line when he picks it up, so that his later death-by-factory-mishap is more ironic.

A Plot

I think the musical cues in S1E6 could have been seriously tuned back, which is weird because this series(and these show-staffers) typically do such a great job on sound and music. The cues used in L&Sw’s parking lot scene, and when Wednesday pulls the tree-homunculus out of Shadow, were distracting and dissonant with the action on the screen; I’d have preferred either leaving them out, or using something not so loud and jangly. Same thing for the music during Vulcan’s speech about faith in the study; it just didn’t FIT. Silence, punctuated at the moment of recognition of his betrayal by Vulcan’s pistol-shot, would have been a better accompaniment to the scene. The sort of sarcastically dirgey jazz march in Vulcan for the funeral didn’t work for me either. The shift to it from the more understated music before was too stark, the guitar distortions didn’t fit, and it sounded kinda... circusy is the only way I can describe it. I don’t think going that Metal with it worked well, though I understand the impulse given the industrial/volcanic subject matter and god it is meant to be themeing. I didn’t like how Wednesday’s monologue was woven into the march, either, and I felt it was kind of heavy-handed and obvious for the character. Maybe if it’d been done as a dialogue, with Shadow opening the discussion by commenting on the weirdness of  the uniforms and guns, or on how everyone, from the moment he entered the town, was watching him with such obvious hostility?

Which gets to another thing I didn’t like about this ep, which was the writing for Shadow. He’s been written as more talkative and emotive than he was in the book throughout the series, and necessarily as rather passive and reactive here at the beginning as he’s been introduced to the world it takes place in, but this ep just really seemed to sideline him into sidekick territory; into setting up and reacting to the speeches and actions of others rather than being a full character, equally as involved in the story as everyone else.

And at the same time he was being sidelined, the action the ep chose to focus on wasn’t really given the time or treatment it needed to sell it. There are, of course, signs that Vulcan has chosen the other side(his industrialization for one thing, the unreality of the manufacturing sequence for another, his comfort and wealth for still another), and that Wednesday wants that friendship to have held firm but is wary(the thundering at the end of their first meeting, his notice of and slightly offended tone at Vulcan not drinking the Soma[which btw, they really need to have introduced and explained before it played a plot-point in an ep, adding to the feeling the Vulcan sequence was pushed forward from where it was originally meant to be in the series]), but that interpersonal stuff wasn’t built up enough to justify the pay off. On further viewing, the Study scene works better than it did initially for me, and I picked up on smaller touches in Whittle’s acting which I missed the first time around which made the whole sequence at his House better to me, but it as a whole(and the performances of McShane and Bernsen) still felt too heavy-handed and rushed to me for the feeling of paranoia it’s meant to evince. I mean: Shadow’s discomfort and its sources are more than clear from the moment they arrive, as is Vulcan’s role in escalating them through his unstated aggression towards Shadow(though I wonder if this is not only racism, but also a reaction to Shadow’s demigod nature? Vulcan’s “so it’s true” statement to Wednesday on seeing Shadow, and his look to Shadow at the end before saying “oh Yes” suggests to me that Odin’s fathering a child and bringing him into play might be seen as an act of aggression by the New Gods, raising tensions), but Wednesday’s concern, and the things Vulcan did to set it off, were too in-your-face and fast-developed to be satisfying.

Also, while the noose-vision at the tree itself was not a bad idea, having it be a bone-noose was cheesy, and belabored Odin’s connection to bonfires and skeletal remains through the symbol of the noose, for no reason I could see. I mean, thinking about it now, maybe the point was to suggest and foreshadow Odin’s own destructive manipulation of Shadow and his emotions, or Wednesday(and the concepts/states of mind he represents)’s own involvement in the USian history of lynching, more directly than a rope-noose would have? To tie Wednesday, who in the scene is Shadow’s ally and sympathetic confidante(sharing a knowing look with him in response to Vulcan’s behavior), to the very history of racist “sacrifice” to white purity and supremacy which puts Shadow on edge about the town in the first place? But, if so, it’s such a small, esoteric, difficult to parse part of the scene, and so overwhelmed by the more immediate and visceral reaction to the noose and lynching itself, that I don’t think it really conveys that effectively, even if that was the idea behind it(which it might not have been. Maybe they just thought it would look “Cool”). And, honestly, lynching symbolism is kind of a tasteless place to hide what could only be an easter-egg for book-fans already in-the-know |:T

Also, and this is obvsl less important than that last bit, I felt like the God-Talk in the house scenes was really obvious, but that the show wanted us to react to it like it wasn’t? Which is just... Incomprehensible, quite frankly. Honestly, the show’s kinda done a bad job of managing Shadow’s entree to this world in a way that keeps pace with that of the audience. Though I come at it from having read the book, so maybe someone who hasn’t would feel like the syncing of the pacing isn’t so bad.

Also Also: the Laura segue from the House didn’t fit. Like: why? What was it in those scenes connecting them? Shadow and his relationship to Laura and Wednesday and his relationship with Vulcan? Trust and Betrayal? Faith and Doubt in one’s relationships? The nature of Gods and Shadow’s growing divinity? Houses and Homes? It didn’t feel well-established and it did feel like just a lazy reason and way to transfer back to the ep’s B story.

I have to say I liked the conclusion of the A plot a lot better on a second viewing, though, and the look on McShane’s face after beheading Vulcan, while watching him burn in his own fire, was Delicious >:] The pissing into said fire to “lay a curse”, and Shadow’s overreaction to it, was Excessively “edgy” >:T There’s certainly something primally human in pissing as a sign of disrespect and desecration, more so when it is done onto the thing, but it just didn’t work for me in that context here(I’m curious to know if it worked and felt justified in the scene for others, though. Maybe the move away from such casual vulgarity, and the increased social sanctioning of sanitary functions, in the US over the last 100 years or so makes it too difficult to connect to? Maybe I’m just too prudish on this subject to appreciate its intent here?? idk)

B Plot

On further viewing, my opinion on the first leg of Laura, Sweeney, and Salim’s journey hasn’t changed much. I liked it, I thought their performances were good, the dialogue writing was mostly good though too on-the-nose philosophically and too wrought(sounding like something someone would write and not like something they’d say is what I mean) here and there. Laura’s long-suffering reaction to Sweeney’s constant “Cunt” was satisfying, as was her distaste for his mockery and meanness to Salim, even if it is probably partially instrumental to her and meant more to build a rapport with her driver than sincere. It was fine, but nothing in it really grabbed me or blew me away.

I’m a bit more conflicted on the her wanting to visit home again, though. On the one hand it didn’t feel natural, on the other part of Depression can be not feeling you feelings most of the time, and then being overly sentimental when you finally, for once, do get to feel your feelings for awhile. That ambivalence of both wanting a connection and resenting it, appreciating people while also harboring very negative opinions about them sometimes(or most of the time) is part of being depressed so including that bit, and including it in a way that seemed out of the blue, certainly furthers that characterization of her.

I also like the bar scene a bit more, as I think there’s definitely a connection being drawn there between Laura’s “love” of Shadow, and Wednesday’s needs/plans for and befriending of Shadow. Sweeney’s obviously speaking more for Odin there of course, furthering Wednesday’s desire to keep Laura away from Shadow out of a concern that a variable like her could really throw a spanner in his plans for him, by sowing doubt in her mind about his continued devotion/love for her. But he’s right, in certain ways, about Laura’s feelings for Shadow, and more right than he could possibly know he is; that she doesn’t particularly care about how her love impacts Shadow, or their relationship and how he feels/felt about it, and only really considers their relationship, and Shadow, from the perspective of what it can do for her and make her feel. Basically that her relationship with him is Instrumental and fundamentally manipulative. This scene cuts directly to Shadow looking up at Vulcan’s hanging tree and seeing that bone-noose flop down. Which, now that I think about it, probably undermines my complaints about it a bit >:| That connection, and Laura’s parting rejection of examining her relationship to Shadow, casts Wednesday’s sympathy with Shadow in that scene, over Vulcan’s behavior and comments and the Neighborhood Watchman eyeballing him, in a more insidious and manipulative light. This suggests that that sympathy, and Wednesday’s later use of the common social justice refrain that neutrality in the face of oppression is siding with oppression, are performances for Shadow; attempts to manipulate and use him just like Laura did and still wants to.

Seeing that now, though, I’m still ambivalent about the scenes; they just don’t feel like, when watching them, they are handled as well as they could be, or that they make this as obvious as it needs to be given the subject matter and the importance of getting these racial politics immediately across to everyone in the audience.

The Ending of the B Plot returns to the central theme of this episode; Faith and Perspective, and how Big Ideas mean different things to different people. Salim prays and says God is Great. Laura, in typical Jerk-Atheist fashion, condescendingly corrects him with “Life is Great, Salim not Salim”. But he doesn’t take offense because he hears that as an addition, rather than the correction she meant. “Life is Great” he adds, to him nothing more than a recognition that God’s Greatness comes to people through the Life it gives them. With the Sunrise in the background, the examination of his prayer as a physical act, and the appropriate music, it’s an ending that manages to be thematically appropriate and beautiful without ignoring or editing away Laura’s egocentric misanthropy(her focus on Life, when that’s the objective she’s currently pursuing, is Telling), or Sweeney’s twitchy, dissatisfied sense of abandonment as he side-eyes and spits and kicks the dirt at a sun whose meaning for him has yet to be entirely revealed. And again, I just have to say Schreiber’s performance is amazing, because with those simple gestures he manages to convey that his constant aggression is somehow tied to his relationship to the Sun, beyond his need for the Coin and the ill-luck giving it away has brought him.

So I still feel pretty dissatisfied with A Murder of Gods, but with more looks I think there’s definitely Meat to dig into in it. The ideas and themes in it are interesting, but I didn’t find the execution of all of them satisfying.