#but the editing this season has been pretty balanced and fair and mostly accurate to the feeds

[sophfandoms53]

Idk if production can rlly top the amount of vitriol that was in Cory’s whole bashing song zing from last year with anyone this season ngl even if Quinn was still there bc to a degree Quinn provided entertainment and his edit was decent. Cory’s edit did not have that luxury so

[letterstothemidnightsociety]

It's 2007 and somehow, miraculously, Supernatural survives yet another rocky (?) season of mediocre ratings to come back for a third season, or at least, half season, but that season starts out with a real bang! Like, just a real solid trio of an opener for season three. It reminds me of all the things I love about SPN and also it reminds us of all the things that frustrate the hell out of me on SPN. So where did we leave things off?

First up, there’s Dean, who sold his soul to the devil in order to bring Sam back from the dead. Sam, you’ll remember, was part of some overly complicated ponzi scheme to find the perfect vessel to open a door - yep, open a door - and lost to Aldous Hodge who just straight up murders Sam in the season finale. So Dean get’s Sammy back, but in exchange, he’s only got one year left before he permanently moves down south. Oh! And even though they got Sam back and Sam kills Aldous Hodge (RIP pal), they neglected to keep the door from opening. The door to Hell, that is, and now they’ve allowed a shiz ton of demons out to freely roam the earth. Way to go, boys, you lost again! They are two for two on these season finales guys!

OH but they DO kill the Yellow Eyed Demon, so that’s a plus, but not before he plants the most perfect seed of doubt in Dean’s mind - “How do you know what you brought back is all Sammy?” Like, ugh, UGH, ugh!!!! What a way to drive the knife in deeper! What a way to make the heart of this show slowly start to crumble! C’est Magnifique!! *chef's kissy fingers*

So with all that emotional baggage weighing us down, how do we start season 3? How else - with a threesome of course! And also some technicolor grading, it’s wild guys.

Oh boy guys, let’s talk about this opener for a hot sec. I got into it a little bit last season, but as much as I love Dean, you HAVE to admit that that boy is gross. Just like...he’s a little gross. I’m also old enough now to see exactly how many red flags he’s raising through the last 45 episodes. Like, sorry Little Me, but he is not boyfriend material. Not to mention that all this debauchery is 1,000% him distracting himself from the consequences of his own actions, but we’ll get into that later.

Meanwhile, Sam is doing something constructive and trying to figure out how to reverse the curse and save Dean’s soul. And here we have the culmination of two seasons worth of character development - faced with the imminent demise of Dean Samuel Winchester, Sam tries to step up and take care of his brother for once in his life; Dean parties like it’s 1999. There were two things I thought of during this episode - 1) isn’t this not unlike the sort of behavior you see in suicidal people who have finally decided to take their own life? Which is just, like, further held up by the fact that Dean’s big monologue at the end literally has the line “Truth is I’m tired, Sam. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel.” and like...dude, you are NOT ok! Why isn't??? ANYONE??? ADDRESSING THIS????? And 2) Dean is sharing a lot of similarities with the demons in this episode.

Because MEANwhile, there’s demons! So many demons! Specifically, the Seven Deadly Sins ones, but also, spoiler alert, Ruby, who is gettin’ reeeeealll into that ketchup.

All these baddies just really taking advantage of their time topside cuz Hell is, as they so artfully put it, it’s like Hell, so they’re just livin’ it up while they still can ~almost like foreshadowing or something~?!?!?

Real talk though, it being a real long time since I’ve watched this season, it’s these kinds of details that I’m impressed with this time around. There is so much character work that goes into this show and it’s something I definitely connected with the first time around, but not on conscious level. Now I can look at it through time and experience and articulate what I’m seeing, which makes this re-watch infinitely more enjoyable.

Episode 1 of this season continues what they started in season 2 and just keeps building out that Hunter Community. Like, there really is a whole Community out there that keeps in contact and works together and makes sure everyone’s up to date on the latest hot goss, and it all makes John Winchester come off like a real creepy splinter cell lone gunman type. And that in turn makes the Winchester sons look like total, unprofessional boneheads who managed to open a portal to Hell. “UGH Great Jorb Guys, but can we blame them? They’re John’s kids,” is a conversation between hunters that I am headcannoning, but also 100% support.

Honestly, I love the idea of the Winchesters being just these real, like, b-grade, Walmart Brand Hunters that other Hunters are just SO done with. We kind of see a little bit of that with Isaac and Tamara, but by the end of the episode, the Winchesters prove that they’re...better Hunters? I hope somewhere in the next 12 seasons I get an episode that is told from another Hunter’s POV who is legitimately better/more emotionally balanced than the Winchesters and the whole episode is them just, like, cleaning up a bunch of Winchester messes like, SONuvabitch, these two ASSholes. I think we see a fair amount of episodes from the POV of people who are less qualified than the Winchesters who end up being mentored by them, but I’d be stoked for them to run into just a group of people who hate them for totally legitimate, professional vs amature reasons.

Bobby does not count because Bobby signed up to be their Dad and so he agreed to take care of their messes when he took that job.

And then we get to “The Kids Are Alright” which showcases one of my fav changes for this season - BRIGHTLY! LIT! HIGH! SATURATION!!!! And of course, by fav, I mean, Most Hilarious.

I do walk a fine line on this one truth be told. Like, season 1 was definitely going for A Look. It’s super gritty and high contrasty and stylized. Now, I got what they were going for but I wasn’t always crazy about it, mostly because the quality on the DVD’s was terrible. Quick tip for everyone: in order to get 2+ hours worth of content on a DVD, you have to compress the final edit of the program to a pretty small bitrate. When we drop videos onto DVD’s at my work (it isn’t often, thank goodness), the discs themselves only hold, like, 2GB worth of content and that is NOT A LOT when it comes to video files. The more compressed a video file is, the less detail you’re gonna get in the visuals. Watching episodes on Netflix (where everything’s probably at a higher bitrate and therefore is a better quality visual), it’s not bad, but on my DVDs, the compression is so heavy that we get SUPER hot highlights and SUPER crunchy shadows - what a lot of people would called “crushed blacks” because you’ve lost all the detail in the shadows and you’re left with a grainy, noisy, black hole on the screen. Like I lost so much detail in the pilot episode guys, I could not make out this guy’s face.

A rough approximation of my DVD quality. Still recommend it over Netflix for the Accurate Soundtrack tho.

Season 2 SPN toned that Look down a lot, like, a lot a lot. Enough that you still got the general vibe they were going for but not enough that you couldn’t make out faces anymore. But through this whole process, the CW execs kept pushing for the show to look lighter, more colorful, less film noir more...well, CW. And in season 3 it finally happened!!!

I get what those execs were going for, but also, I feel like the colorists on these first few episodes just REALLY went wild out of spite. Lookit this shot from “Magnificent Seven” right before Envy causes some rando innocent bystander to beat a girl to death for her shoes -

GREEN GREEN GREEN GREEN!!!! I WONDER WHICH SIN THIS GUY IS????

Then in “The Kids Are Alright” the birthday party looks like everything is coated in day-glow neon.

The Winchester Bros look like they just got back from 3 weeks in Aruba - LOOK at the saturation levels in these skin tones! LOOK AT THEM!!

My screencap ability aside, only in SPN can a cemetery at night have brighter lighting than a diner in the middle of the afternoon.

This is definitely a thing I will be tracking the rest of the season because I have a distinct memory of a future episode where the brothers have been magically gifted completely different lives where they were never Hunters, they know nothing of Hunting, and they’re completely normal until the end when everything gets snapped back and the episode literally changes colors. V. Excited to see just how saturated this season stays through the end.

But maybe more importantly in “The Kids Are Alright” we learn that Dean does NOT, in fact, have a son. Not that he would be a good father...well...maybe? I mean, this Dean, this season 3, definitely-suicidal, completely-reckless, can’t-keep-it-together Dean, is not good Dad material. Later seasons Dean? Probably fine? Earlier seasons Dean might ALSO be fine? And if he’d found out that Ben was his legitimate kid, it could have made a WORLD of difference, who knows. I know he ultimately does become father-like to Ben and that gives me a lot of feelings. But this Dean is not in a good place to take care of anyone, including himself and really, someone ought to do something about that.

I gotta say, this is an actual bummer. I can’t remember if, in the later seasons, they do any clarifying on this or not, but I am legitimately bummed that Ben is not Dean’s kid and that as far as we know, Dean has no natural children floating around out there with surly attitudes and soft hearts. Dean’s motivation from Day 1 has always been family and despite what comments he may make in early seasons, Dean’s secret desire is to have the wife and the kids and the dog and the white picket fence. And honestly, we’re only 3 seasons in and I just want Dean to have nice things!!

And then guys, we come to “Bad Day at Black Rock,” and I just...WHAT a masterpiece. I had almost NO memory of ever watching this episode before and I don't understand why. What a glorious masterpiece this episode is. Let’s make a list -

More Hunters™, who should be really annoying but were actually kinda charming in a Marx Brothers kind of way

Gordon’s in jail, where he belongs, but also is masterminding a coup against the Winchesters which is A+ spooky stuff

Slapstick comedy that I didn’t know I was missing from my life

Bela F*cking Talbot

Guys, I think this is my fav episode so far purely because I felt, while watching it, that the last 10 years of my life were not in vain and that I had in fact grown as a human person. I remembered hating Bela Talbot. Like, I DID. NOT. LIKE. HER. To the point that I questioned if her British accent was even real. It is, her mother is from the UK and she lived there for a time, but like, honestly, the audacity of Little Me.

This time around? Oh she’s defs my new fav. Just everything about her is like, A+, Great Job, Why-Did-We-Cancel-Her??? Like, oh yeah, probably because somewhere in here they try to shoehorn a romantic side plot with Dean. I don’t actually mind rioting over shoehorned romance, but also, if they’d let this play out for a season or two and then got the two of them to bone? I’m on board. I’m 100% on board.

Maybe it’s just that she is unapologetically out for herself, maybe it’s the fact that she is definitely a match for the Winchesters in a non-murdery way, probably it is both of those things. She's smart, she’s crooked, she has impeccable taste, she’s honestly a helluva lot of fun and I am so excited to see more of her and so BUMMED that she will not make it past this season.

Despite the fact that I absolutely adore all three of these episodes, they also bring up the problem that I was starting to see in season 2 - WHO is this show about? Isn’t it supposed to be about the Brothers as a whole? But the majority of these first three lean pretty heavily on Dean’s emotional arc. Granted, it makes sense. I mean, of COURSE Dean’s demon deal is gonna be the BIG thing in a season where he is literally staring down the barrel, but knowing that there’s a side plot about Is Sam Evil?? seems like...something we should really explore more? I believe it comes up in season 4, or at least, Sam’s demon-blood powers become a bigger deal in season 4, but I would have enjoyed seeing Sam have a more active stake in this season. I can see planting some weird new ticks being planted for Alive-Again Sam that just get weirder and darker and then a mid-season finale or a run up episode to the end of the season where Dean (finally) decides he needs to stop his demon deal because he needs to stick around so he can keep Sam from going completely off the rails. As much as I love Dean 5ever, I do think the show works best when the emotional weight of the season is distributed equally is all. And to be fair to the writers this season, there could have been a bigger plan for something like that but they ran out of time - their season was cut by about a third due to the Writer’s Strike.

Still, all in all, a solid opening to the third season. I want to say that these episodes feel like Classic SPN, but then I remember that this is season three out of fifteen. These ARE Classic SPN. Mostly self contained with enough emotional drama to remind us of the overarching plot. Maybe a little heavy on the emotional drama, but Dean’s only got a year to live and the show’s only got 16 episodes to resolve that crisis, so it’s fine.

[jobsearchtips02]

2021 Ford Bronco: A Big List Of Alleged Options And Specs Has Been ‘Decoded’

Press image thoroughly futz with in Photoshop by the author

Image: Ford

Truck YeahThe trucks are good!

The 2021 Ford Bronco is scheduled to drop Monday, July 13, 2020, but eager enthusiasts over at the Bronco6G forum have been discussing a huge alleged leak detailing specifications and options all week. It can’t be confirmed with 100 percent certainty, but it’s certainly interesting enough to discuss.

In a forum thread that was started on Tuesday by Bronco6G user 72roadster, you can see a very long list of Bronco features and buyable options that most folks on the forum seem to think is legit. Another user, Toccoa, added some context and helped “decode” the list of options from a few Ford codes into plain English.

Everything here pretty much does track with what makes sense for the Bronco and what we know about Ford options, so I’m inclined to think this list is accurate. Or, at least, was at one point.

So first, I’ll just copy over 72roadster’s top-level summary from the forum:

Engines

2.3L EcoBoost

2.7L EcoBoost

Transmissions

7-speed manual

10-speed automatic

Axle Ratios

3.73 Open Style Rear Axle Final Drive Ratio

4.27 Locking Rear Axle Final Drive Ratio

4.46 Rear Axle Final Drive Ratio

4.7 Electronic-locking Front and Rear Axle

Tire Sizes

P255/70R16 All-Season (A/S) Tires

LT315/70R17 BSW Mud-Terrain (M/T) Tires

P255/75R17 All-Terrain (A/T) Tires

LT265/70R17 All-Terrain (A/T) Tires

LT285/70R17 All-Terrain A/T Tires

LT285/70R17 Mud-Terrain (M/T) Tires

P255/70R18 All-Terrain A/T Tires

Colors

Black Onyx

Shadow Black

Oxford White

Rapid Red

Antimatter Blue

Iconic Silver

Area 51

Carbonized Gray

Cactus Gray

Race Red

Cyber Orange

Velocity Blue

*unknown name (PN3XX)

*unknown name (PN4JR)

*unknown name (PN4JT)

Trims/Packages

Base – Standard Package

Big Bend – Standard Package / Mid Package

Black Diamond – Standard Package / Mid Package

Outer Banks – Mid Package / High Package / Lux Package

Badlands – Standard Package / Mid Package / High Package / Lux Package

Wildtrak – Standard Package / High Package / Lux Package

First Edition – Hood and Bodyside Graphic Package

Special Packages

Towing Capability

Mid Package

High Package

Lux Package

Sasquatch Package

Tops

Top – First Row Soft Top Conversion for Hard Tops

Top – Bimini Soft Top

Top – Bimini Soft Top and Canvas Soft Top

Top – Bimini Soft Top and Mesh Shade Top

Top – Bimini Soft Top, Canvas Soft Top and Mesh Shade Top

Top – Mesh Shade Top

Top – Canvas Soft Top and Mesh Shade Top

Modular Hard Top, Body Color-Painted

Modular Hard Top, Shadow Black-Painted

Dual Tops – Modular Shadow Black-Painted Hard Top – Black Soft Top

Dual Tops – Modular Body Color-Painted Hard Top – Black Soft Top

Dual Tops – Modular Body Black-Painted Hard Top – Black Soft Top

Soft Top, Black Cloth

Hard Top, Carbonized Gray Molded-in-Color (MIC)

On Wednesday even more info came through the Bronco 6G thread, including some accessories, but let’s zoom in on the important specs from the original post and see how they might translate to real-world performance if this alleged option sheet proves to be accurate.

G/O Media may get a commission

Again, while I’m fairly confident there’s truth to the claimed specs here, Ford’s people officially declined to comment when I reached out so we can’t say it represents the Bronco’s final form for sure. And, of course, the company’s not looking to scoop its own big reveal party next week.

Engines Discussed

A 2.3-liter turbo four-cylinder and a 2.7-liter turbo six-cylinder make sense for the Bronco since those engines should both be compact enough to fit in a medium-sized SUV and are both already made by Ford. The 2.3-liter I4 EcoBoost makes 270 horsepower and 310 lb-ft of torque in the current Ranger, while the 2.7-liter V6 has been in the F-150 for a few years now and currently claims 325 HP and 400 lb-ft of torque.

So I think it’s fair to figure the base Bronco will have about 300 lb-ft of torque while the bigger-engined option will step to over 400 lb-ft. Of course, Ford already offers a more powerful tune for the small-engine Ranger, so it should have no issue getting bigger numbers from the 2.3-liter if it wants to. I guess it will depend on what kind of mpgs are being targeted.

Transmissions Discussed

The seven-speed manual, as bonkers as it sounds, has basically been confirmed by photos of a shift lever. Folks are figuring it will effectively be a six-speed with an ultra-low gear for crawling, which is exactly the kind of cool gimmick this truck’s going to need to stand out.

A 10-speed auto makes sense, as these are already ubiquitous in Ford’s truck lineup. I’m not a fan myself. It’s a clunky transmission in town in the Ranger, but should help get some gas mileage back on highway cruising.

Axle Ratios Discussed

So you don’t have to scroll back up: The Bronco6G forum said the 2021 truck will get four different final drive axle ratio options: 3.73, 4.27, 4,46, and 4.7.

Axle ratios don’t seem like a particularly sexy topic… until you understand just how important they are to a vehicle’s performance. It’s a very big deal in the off-road world, especially once you start messing with big tires and need to put down lot of power at low speeds.

My colleague David Tracy did a great writeup explaining crawl ratios and off-road gearing, so please give that a peek to understand the science here.

To lay it out a little more expediently, the axle ratios written like “X.XX” mean “X.XX:1,” which means the vehicle’s driveshaft turns X.XX times for every one turn of the wheels. Even simpler: The bigger the X number, the more powerful the vehicle feels. Of course, you pay for it by burning more fuel.

So if the axle ratios posted above for the Bronco are accurate, the “3.73 Open Style Rear Axle Final Drive Ratio” would be the base, more-efficient option while the “4.7 Electronic-locking Front and Rear Axle” would be the most capable. The 2020 Wrangler Rubicon has a 4.1 final drive ratio, so everything else being equal, it seems that the top-end Ford might be more aggressive than the top Jeep on its power-to-efficiency equation.

There’s more to it, including wheel size and of course HP, that will dictate which setup is objectively “better” though.

Tire Sizes Discussed

Hot dang, tires, my favorite topic! I love tires because they’re the one piece you can change on a vehicle and change every aspect of said vehicle’s performance. When it comes to 4x4s, you want something big for ground clearance, but not obscenely big if you want to hang on to daily drivability and efficiency.

This alleged spec sheet claims that the Bronco will have seven stock tire sizes. That would be a lot for a Honda Civic, but it makes sense for a mass-market 4×4. There are four LT (“light truck”) options, and three P (“passenger”) options. The significance there is basically that LT tires are chunkier, more ply, harder to pop, heavier, use more fuel and handle worse. P tires are lighter, so they’re better for road driving, but may puncture more easily. They can still be knobby and be decent on dirt, though.

As for the difference between all-terrain and mud-terrain tires, the MTs tend to be the most off-roady road-legal option available with really deep knobs for paddling through thick mud. All-terrain tires are a little more balanced. All-seasons, of course, are road tires.

Tire size are usually expressed as “letter, number, slash, number, R, wheel diameter” but discussed in terms of overall diameter, so I used the handy wheel size calculator at tiresize.com to translate the coded sizes into overall diameter for you here:

P255/70R16 All-Season: 30.1-inch overall diameter

LT315/70R17 BSW Mud-Terrain: 34.4-inch overall diameter

P255/75R17 All-Terrain: 32.1-inch overall diameter

LT265/70R17 All-Terrain: 31.6-inch overall diameter

LT285/70R17 All-Terrain: 32.7-inch overall diameter

LT285/70R17 Mud-Terrain: 32.7-inch overall diameter

P255/70R18 All-Terrain: 32.1-inch overall diameter

There will be some variance in those diameters due to inflation level and tread life remaining, but that’s the baseline. For those of you unfamiliar with the off-road scene, 34.4-inch tire is pretty darn big. In fact, LT315/70R17 is the same tire you’ll see on a stock Ford Raptor.

The 30.1-inch option will be most efficient, and the 33-inch options should provide a decent balance.

Colors, Trims, Special Packages Discussed

Who wants to guess what the Sasquatch Package is?

This would be a good crop of colors if it turns out to be real. Hopefully, there will be a green and tan in the mix, too.

Tops Discussed

I’m really into the idea of a “mesh shade top” but mostly I’m just excited about the prospect of variety. From the teaser images we’ve seen so far, it’s clear Ford’s committing to open-air off-roading, which is huge.

I’ll state one final time that the specs and options discussed here are conjecture, and unconfirmed by Ford. But it’s all plausible enough to warrant the discussion I’ve presented here. I’m confident the Bronco’s final form will be pretty close, at any rate.

Now we just need to see some honest images of the thing throwing sand, already!

%

from Job Search Tips https://jobsearchtips.net/2021-ford-bronco-a-big-list-of-alleged-options-and-specs-has-been-decoded/