#i have no qualifications ! like i vaguely like the idea but my entire brain is going Um you know nothing and it would be a scam

[milkweedman]

Helped bottle some honey today. Observed the comb uncapping and de-honeying processes which were very cool. Ate a little honeycomb. Haven't had any since I was very small, it's good.

They also had an indoor beehive. Which I love.

[katytheinspiredworkaholic]

WIP Wednesday Thursday

Title: Extraordinary

Pairings: HotchReid (side pairings Morcia, WillxJJ, others in flirtation)

Summary: League of Extraordinary Gentleman/Vampire AU;

Within the FBI there is a specialized team full of an elite selection of people. Unique individuals with very particular skill sets. And their job is to take the unusual cases: the ones that need to not only be solved, but are undetermined if the unsub is human, or something else entirely.

In a world filled with Vampires, non-human creatures, and subspecies unknown, there is only enough information to have them vaguely regulated. Rules that are so easily, and violently broken, all while hidden in plain sight among the unsuspecting public. Unrivaled for eons.

That’s where the BAU comes in.

Official Posting Date: Now posted on tumblr and Ao3, Click Here

Links: (Masterpost) (Snippet 01) (Snippet 02) (Snippet 03) (Snippet 04)

(TW/CW: This is pretty tame, Emily is just a little intense and eager because Spencer is... well, Spencer, and when she realizes all he can do? Oh she is chomping at the bit. Some trance-like things and witchy stuff and Hotch being territorial without being able to admit it.)

(the story so far/what you need to know for this clip at least: this takes place in chapter 02, what you will all see on Saturday evening, and this version is insanely unpolished (I’m about to go through and fix it up and give it a good make-over) but basically this is the first time Spencer is meeting Emily Prentiss and it makes... an impression. Also, Emily has been at the BAU for about 0.2 seconds and Hotch is already done with her. The sibling energy I love to see. It’s also hella long, as an apology for missing last week and being a day late. All you’ve missed is Spencer about ran into Emily turning a corner and she saved him from spilling his case files and coffee all over the floor. Now they are talking)

–

.

“I apologize, I thought you were an intern or still in the academy.”

“It’s alright, everyone does,” Spencer says without taking offense. He wouldn’t have gotten where he was or lasted very long if he did; however, if he had a nickel for every time someone had been surprised by his age, he’d be as rich as Father Rossi. His full hands actually aids him as he mentions, “I don’t usually shake hands with people, so don’t think me rude. I’m Dr. Spencer Reid.” He offers her a smile in exchange, and it is mirrored on her face just as her surprise kicks up another notch. 

“Doctor, my my I am in for a trip on this team, aren’t I?” she laughs, and it’s a melodic thing that stretches over an expanse of time and history. Ballrooms in Russia and palors of France, Elizabethan and the roaring 20’s and everything in between all rolled into one. He’s not sure how he sees it, an impossible thing, but he can read it like a book and that must have something to do with what she is. “Emily Prentiss, it is a remarkable pleasure to meet you Dr. Reid. Now, I have to ask--” her tone is so charming and playful and probing he barely notices the nuance, “And I’m sure it’s taboo around here, but I have to know -- your regeneration process. Tell me what it is or what you do. You look so young.”

“I am young,” he states simply, finally stunned by a question he’s not usually asked. 

“Yes, yes, we all can’t be a thousand years old like your fearless Vampire leader,” she waves off and Spencer’s eyes widen because… he hadn’t known Hotch was that old. Sure he’d said he’d been alive for the better part of a millennia, but he always said it like a hyperbole. A turn of phrase that’s off by a couple centuries. But --

 A thousand years old. 

That would put him… 

God, that would put him alive, as a human, just before the start of The Crusades. 

“Oh, did he keep that to himself? Oops, my bad. Pretend you don’t know. Anyway -- so are you a Shifter? Or use a particular spell? Oh, or is it a curse? I’m fascinated by curses, I don’t use them often myself but the rigidity of terms using a power so chaotic is just such a fun juxtaposition that I--”

“No, no, I’m… normal, human,” Spencer interrupts her, still the smallest bit shell-shocked, but now connects a few dots himself as she speaks. Realizes very suddenly that Ms. Prentiss appears ageless because she is ageless. She’s also a Witch. One of the broadest terms for subspecies categories, which really doesn’t do it justice. A Witch could be a number of things. Someone who uses magic and science and the very Earth itself paired with the spiritual planes to do impossible things. Witches are beings so powerful they should be uncategorizable. Something Spencer is fascinated by as well. He’s never met anyone like Emily. “I look young because I am young. I’m 27, I’ve only been with the BAU for the past three years. I’m a little excited to not be the newbie on the team any more,” he tries to joke, but Emily’s gaze has gone distant and sharp all at once.

“You’re only 27? And you’re a doctor?” She asks in clarification, Spencer nodding along each time. “You’ve been a doctor, since becoming an FBI agent?” 

“Um, well -- I’m not a medical doctor. I do have three doctorates, though; in mathematics, chemistry, and engineering,” he finds himself shrinking a bit under her intensely interested gaze. “What?”

“Chemistry?” she asks, vaguely more distant.

“That was my first doctorate,” he murmurs back, not sure what has her looking so contemplative. 

“You’ve achieved all of this: three doctorates, FBI agent, BAU -- in 27 years?” she questions, a grave yet wondrous sound.

“Technically I did all of that in 15 years. I graduated high school when I was 12,” he manages to do more than mumble, and Emily’s wide-eyed stare has him spewing forth information like it requires an explanation. “I have an eidetic memory, and I can read 20,000 words a minute, and my IQ is 187 so by human standards yes -- I’m a genius, and borderline on the advanced brain developments scale. But I’m still human. Nothing paranormal or extraordinary.”

The pause that follows is palpable.

“Oh,” she says in an exhale, “Oh, you young soul. You have no idea, do you? What you are capable of...” She tilts her head as she steps closer and Spencer is very suddenly aware that he’s not sure she’s blinked since they started speaking about his qualifications. What he can do, how he got to where he is. No one usually shows this much interest, he makes them uncomfortable for reasons he doesn’t always understand. 

Emily doesn’t look uncomfortable, she looks… hungry. 

“You are so very, very extraordinary. Exceptional, really. Look at all of what you’ve accomplished with just 15 years of life.” That astonished sound again, like she can’t believe her luck--

And then she’s in his space, gaze boring into his, and Spencer can see galaxies in the depth of her eyes. His breath stolen from him and feet rooted to the floor. So he doesn’t step away as she leans just the smallest bit closer, words resonating with echoes across ages.

“Imagine what you could do with a thousand.” 

“Prentiss,” the deep voice of Hotch’s monotone (edged in something vaguely aggressive, and more than a little aggravated)  breaks through their moment. The trance fading like a fog from Spencer’s eyes. “No recruiting. It’s in your contract.”

“You have such a gift, it’s a shame to waste it,” Emily whispers in a rush as Hotch approaches them from down the hall. More earnest than intimidating, now.

“Prentiss!” 

“Think about it,” she winks, and then turns to give Hotch a smile that’s all teeth so sharp she resembles a shark. “Oh, what a sour face. What’s wrong? Were you planning on asking him first? You snooze, you lose.” 

“Conference room,” he instructs, pointing the way Spencer had just come. “Team meeting in 20 minutes. Try not to summon anything between here and there.” She sticks her tongue out at him childishly as she leaves, and sends a quirk of a smile Spencer’s direction that shifts her whole expression into something comically entertained. He’s never seen Hotch interact with someone like this, like they were… familiar, even exasperatingly so. The closest in comparison is probably Father Rossi. But this is less like old friends and more like sibling rivalry. 

The space Emily had just vacated is suddenly filled with Hotch, an overwhelmingly welcomed presence and it eases the tension out of Spencer’s spine and shoulders that he hadn’t even realized was there. 

“Are you okay?” he asks, low and quiet. They’re the only ones in the hallway, but secrecy is a hard habit to break.

Spencer nods, still gaining his bearings once more. “I think so. That didn’t feel like hypnotism. I don’t know what that was.” 

“Prentiss doesn’t manipulate minds or the wills of other people,” Hotch tells him, which is soothing if not for the foreboding question of what just occurred. “She doesn’t need to. She can do a lot of things: change her face, her voice, make illusions and talk circles around anyone -- even you.” Spencer looks up to him at that, aware that his level of intelligence is the only thing that keeps him safe from JJ or Hotch’s influence. His mind can’t be bent, or tricked.

“Then what was she doing? I felt compelled but… not against my will. What was that?” he asks, also quiet but much more high in pitch as his confusion turns his voice to a winded sound.

Hotch’s thin, stern frown does nothing to alleviate the apprehension caught up in his chest like a bad cold. 

.

“Possibility,” he states, grim and not liking that Spencer had fallen prey to such a short moment with Emily Prentiss and her promise of what her craft could do for him. Hotch is well aware that Spencer’s gift of soaking up every speck on information he’s given like a sponge isn’t something to let wither and die like so many before him. There’s so much he could do with an infinite life, such as his and Emily’s, but the curse of living forever alone is not something to be taken lightly. And not to be decided by someone who still has so much more life to live unaided by other forces.

However, Emily was right about one thing. Hotch can’t deny that he’s thought about it. More than considered it as a definite possibility. 

An offer, all his own.

–

Tagged list so far: @physics-magic​, @thaddeusly, @ssa-noa, @ssa-sarahsunshine, @tobias-hankel, @reidology, @mintphoenix

[tsarisfanfiction]

End of Blue: Chapter 1

Fandom: Thunderbirds Rating: Teen Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Angst Characters: Gordon Tracy, Scott Tracy, Tracy Brothers

Thunderbird One’s dead in the water.  Scott Tracy isn’t responding.  Rescues never feel the same when it’s one of their own they have to save.

~~~ Once again, you can all thank, or blame, the wonderful @gumnut-logic for this thing.  Two seemingly unrelated vague conversations have ended up culminating in one of my specialties - yup, another Scott!whump, as though I haven’t written enough of these already (no such thing as enough!).  Not sure how frequently this is going to be updated - or how long it’ll be.  I know what Chapter 2 is going to do and I know there will need to be at least one more chapter after that, but muses do weird things.  Title has been snaffled from Beast in Black’s “End of the World”, make of that what you will.

“Gordon!”

John appeared in front of him, looking not quite his usual calm self.  For John to be showing that, even to a brother who’d learnt to read his nuances, meant that something was very, very wrong.

Gordon’s hands inadvertently tightened on the controls of Thunderbird Four as he held the sinking ship steady while Alan did the evac in Thunderbird Two.  This sounded like terrible timing.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, skipping all the quips he’d make if it was just a regular check-in.  The loss of John’s fantastic poker face and resulting prickles down his spine told him it was far from one.

“How long until evac’s done?” his space-residing brother asked.  An unusual question from their Eye In The Sky, but with Thunderbird Five under annual maintenance, the ginger didn’t have all his usual data.  Not even half of it.  Maybe that was causing the panic, but it was just that – annual. Nothing unusual, if universally disliked.

“Alan’s clearing the last of them now,” he said.  “But I’ve been asked to hold the ship steady until the GDF get here; they’re suspecting something’s-”

“Screw the GDF,” John interrupted, and woah something was really niggling him if he was getting that obviously frantic.  “The first instant you can let go of that ship, get the hell back to Two.”

That was not John-typical at all.  Gordon’s squid sense almost exploded.

“What’s happened?” he asked. “John, where do I need to be?”  He was running through scenarios but he couldn’t think of a single reason John would be hurrying him like this.  Not unless-

“Thunderbird One’s down.”

Shit.  “In the ocean?”

“North Pacific.”

That was the other side of the world.  Two hours, easy, until they got there, and they didn’t even have Virgil to get all the juice out of his ‘bird, what with the collection of broken bones he’d acquired on the last rescue.  Gordon forced his hands to relax before he inadvertently gave Four a command he didn’t mean to.

“Scott?”  Thunderbird One was watertight, she should be able to hold out as long as she wasn’t too deep.  As long as whatever had taken her down hadn’t compromised that… What the hell even took her down?

“Not answering.”  John always looked a shade or two off through the holograms, but Gordon suspected that this time the too-pale skin wasn’t entirely a trick of technology.  “Too much of Thunderbird Five is still offline; I don’t have telemetry.  Brains and EOS are working as fast as they can, but it’ll still be a few more hours before she’s fully back online.”

Gordon was just grateful enough of her was online to register One’s crash.

“Have you told Alan?” he asked.

“He knows you need to get to the North Pacific yesterday,” John answered.  “Not why.”

Alan was going to be furious at being left in the dark, but Gordon understood why.  He’d have to fill him in on the flight over.

“We’ll get there,” he promised, because there wasn’t another option.  They had to.  “Give me updates as you get them.”

“F.A.B.”  It was a reluctant acknowledgement, but they both knew John was almost useless until Five was fully online.  “I’ll update Tracy Island.”

Gordon did not envy him that task one bit.  Virgil was going to freak out.  Badly.

“That’s the last of them, Gordon,” Alan broke in.  “John says-”

“On my way,” Gordon interrupted – okay, so he was a little frazzled, too.  Sue him.  It wasn’t every day he had to rescue his eldest brother from an unplanned watery landing.  “John told me.  I’ll fill you in on the details when we’re on the way.”  He released the ship and shot back towards his floating module as fast as Thunderbird Four could handle.  “Don’t wait for me to get out of Four.  Grab the module as soon as I’m docked and go.”

“What about the crew? We need to drop them off, remember?”

Gordon had forgotten about the crew.  “Any of them need the hospital?”  A high-speed spin and he was in position for the cable to draw Thunderbird Four up the ramp.

“No, but-”

“Then they get a joyride in Two.”  Clunk, and the docking began.  Maybe he shouldn’t be authorising a nice round trip for a bunch of sailors, but it was already a two hour journey and they had no idea how badly Scott was hurt, or what sort of damage One had taken.  Gordon had salvaged downed planes before.

They weren’t pretty.

“Gordon, what-”

“Module’s ready for retrieval,” he interrupted, mostly because he didn’t want to answer the inevitable question just yet.  “Haul me up and punch it.”

“F.A.B.”  Alan sounded far from happy, but the familiar noises and rocking sensation of module retrieval began.

Despite his instinct being to run straight to the cockpit and fill Alan in, thereby making sure he was indeed going as fast as Two could go, Gordon took his time with his post-dive checks.  Thunderbird Four needed to be in top condition for the next rescue, and he refused to jeopardise Scott’s safety by fluffing the checks on the ‘bird that was going to save him.

She was, thankfully, just fine.  No warning lights, no errors, scratches or scrapes.  Thunderbird Four was more than ready for the rescue.

Now they just had to wait until they got there.

“Explain,” Alan ordered the moment he entered the cockpit.  The rescued crew were also looking at him attentively, although thankfully none of them seemed to mind the detour.  Gordon ignored them as he sidled into his seat and began checking their flight data.

Alan was a good kid; he’d heard punch it and taken it for the order it was.  Thunderbird Two was travelling at top speed, hurtling through the skies towards her drowning sister with everything she had.

Still, there was always room for a little more, and Gordon flicked a few switches.

“Gordon!”

“Thunderbird One’s down,” he admitted.  Behind them, he heard the unified gasps of shock from their passengers.  “John can’t raise her, and we have no telemetry.”

“In the ocean?” Alan asked. He didn’t sound like he believed it. Gordon just hoped he wasn’t going to go into shock when it sank in.  Hell, he hoped he wasn’t going to go into shock when it sank in.

“Yup.  No more data, no idea why, no contact.  We just know she’s down.”

Despite already reportedly being maxed out, Thunderbird Two sped up.  Gordon knew Virgil hated it when Alan or Scott treated her like their own ‘birds and pushed the limits, but he suspected they might get a pass this time.

Speaking of their grounded older brother…

“Gordon, Alan!”

Virgil looked awful. The pyjamas and general ‘injured person’ vibes – including at least one visible cast and general mummification by bandages – aside, it was entirely too obvious that he’d been filled in on what little they knew.

“Receiving you, Virgil. Any way this girl of yours can go any faster?” he answered.  “Alan’s trying, but he’s not you.”

“Hey!”

“Make sure you get there in one piece!” Virgil demanded.

“That’s the plan,” Alan promised.  “Anything from Scott?”

Virgil’s face tightened, panic and frustration both clearly etched onto his face.  It hurt to look at – Gordon knew he wanted nothing more than to be where Alan was right then, getting every last scrap of speed out of his ‘bird.  Gordon wanted him there, too, and not just for piloting.  Virgil would have a plan, but most importantly, Virgil had the best medical knowledge.  If Scott was hurt – not really an if if they weren’t getting any contact from him – Gordon wanted the best man for the job.

The best man was currently stuck in the infirmary with too many broken bones to be of any practical use even once they got Scott home.  Gordon and Alan were just going to have to make do with their lesser qualifications.

“Nothing,” Virgil growled, as though the word physically pained him.  It probably did.

“Maybe he’s just out of range while Five’s down?” Alan suggested hopefully.  They all knew that wasn’t likely, but Gordon wasn’t going to be the one to shoot it down.  Not when he wanted to believe it, too.

“I’ll try pinging him from Two,” he said instead, both for something to do and in the vain hope that Alan might be right – never mind that geographically they were further from Tracy Island than Thunderbird One was and their comms were working fine.

“Is there anything we can do?” the ship’s captain asked from behind them.  “I know we’re not you guys, but if there’s anything…”

Gordon was so glad they weren’t kicking up a fuss.

“Accept our apologies for the extended trip,” he shrugged.  “Otherwise, there’s not much anyone can do until we know more.”  He opened the line to Thunderbird One.

It connected.  Normally, he’d call that a good start.  Now, it just filled him with dread, because it meant comms weren’t down.

“Thunderbird One from Thunderbird Two,” he called.  “Scott, are you receiving?”

Silence.

On the other line, Virgil looked almost as pale as John’s normal holographic visage.  Whether that was the pain from his injuries, or something less physical, Gordon didn’t dare guess.

“Scott!” he tried again. “Thunderbird One, do you hear me?”

Nothing.  Not even a flicker of visual or a semi-conscious groan of pain. Nothing at all.

The thought crossed his mind that Scott wasn’t even in her.

“John, how soon before you get the cameras back online?” he asked.  The ginger head popped up to accompany Virgil’s over the dashboard – Gordon’s earlier observation had been right.  Their faces were both the exact same pallor.  It wasn’t a good look on either of them.  Beside him, Alan wasn’t looking too hot, either.  He didn’t dare think about his own appearance.  “If we can’t raise him, we can at least try and see what we’re dealing with.”

The line had connected, and he hadn’t heard water.  Hopefully that meant she wasn’t leaking and Scott was still comfy and dry, but Gordon wanted to be sure.

Needed to be sure. The rescue would be a lot more complicated without that sort of information.

“Cameras are online, but Thunderbird One’s are turned off right now.”  John’s face was the picture of frustration, and he wasn’t doing a very good job at hiding it in his voice, either.  “It’ll take a little longer before I can access them to turn them on, but EOS is making it a priority.”

Scott never let any of the rest of them turn their internal cameras off.  From now on, Gordon was going to enforce that rule for Thunderbird One, too.  If John and Virgil didn’t beat him to it.

Beside him, Alan was sitting in silence, staring ahead as though if he glared at the world hard enough, he could discover the secrets of teleportation.  Gordon really wished it worked that way.

Sadly, teleportation didn’t exist, and they were having to do things the slow way.  Not that Two was slow, but she certainly wasn’t fast enough.  Not today.

The minutes crawled past like hours.  With Alan firmly in control and channelling Scott’s inner-speed demon as much as the big green ‘bird would allow, there was little for Gordon to do except periodically try to hail Scott, getting ever more concerned as silence persistently responded. He could understand a black-out for a few minutes, but it was – he checked the time – at least an hour since John had contacted him and there was still nothing on the other end of the line.

Virgil was still there, hovering in his bed-bound state and periodically throwing his own frantic calls Scott’s way. Gordon hadn’t even tried to tell him to leave it to them, reminding him that there was nothing he could do.

No-one knew that better than Virgil, after all, and his frustration at his helplessness was steadily mounting the longer the silence persisted.

With no solid information on what they were going to find – external access cameras, which Scott hadn’t turned off, were merrily showing nothing but water and the occasional sea life investigating the strange intruder – Gordon turned his time towards planning.  Plans for an intact Thunderbird One, plans for a leaking Thunderbird One, plans of extraction depending on the severity of Scott’s condition.  He might be going in blind, but he wasn’t going to be going in unprepared.

“Coming up on the co-ordinates now.”  Alan broke through his planning – this scenario involving Thunderbird One somehow stuck and unable to be airlifted – to give him the heads’ up.  His younger brother had been far too subdued the entire flight, and Gordon just hoped he’d be able to keep it together a while longer.  Thunderbird Five wasn’t online enough to have remote control access yet.

And she still didn’t have telemetry, which John was panicking over more and more as Scott continued to be non-responsive, or control over Thunderbird One’s internal cameras.

“F.A.B.,” Gordon responded automatically, getting up from his seat and heading straight for the module and his Thunderbird.  She was just as he’d left her – fully prepared for the next dive – and he settled into the cockpit with ease of experience.

This was just one more rescue.  One with limited information and a brother’s life on the line, but still just one more rescue.  He could do this.

He had to do this.

Pre-dive checks were completed, all systems green and raring to go.  He wondered if she was as anxious to get to her sister as he was his brother.

“Ready for module deployment,” he reported, and barely a moment later they were falling, crashing into the water and rocking for a moment before they stabilised.  “Alan, see if you can get a scan of Thunderbird One’s condition.”  It wouldn’t be as good as a Thunderbird Five scan, but immediately overhead, Thunderbird Two should be able to get something.

Thunderbird Four slid out of the module and under the surface to the tune of his brother’s “F.A.B.” Nose pointed down and sonar active, he pushed her as fast as he dared towards the location they had for the downed Thunderbird.  It wouldn’t be exact – Thunderbird Five’s maintenance downtime crippling the accuracy – but Gordon had enough faith in it to trust that he was at least in range.

Sonar registered the craft just as Alan called him.

“Scans show one life sign,” he said, and Gordon knew he wasn’t imagining the relief in his younger brother’s voice – mostly because he felt it, too.  One life sign meant Scott was alive.  Whatever state he was in, he was alive.  “But Thunderbird One’s been taking on water.  Scans suggest she’s half-flooded.”

That was not such good news. It had to be a small leak, if it was only half after two hours, but with Scott still not responding, he had no idea if his brother was wearing his helmet.

Flooding also meant she was going to be heavier to lift, but the amount of water meant it would be too risky to deploy the tube to link the two craft and attempt to evac Scott into Four. He sent one more ping at the downed Thunderbird, hoping against hope that Scott would answer this time.

He didn’t.

Getting visual on her was a muted sort of relief.  On the one hand, Scott was found, but on the other, Thunderbird One was not supposed to be nestled on the seabed.  It just wasn’t right.

Her wings were still closed, implying she’d been supersonic, and the nose cone was crumpled from the impact with either the water or the sea floor.  Perhaps both.  Gordon suspected that was the source of the leak, but he was more interested in the way she wasn’t entirely belly-down.  Rolled ever so slightly on her side, he should be able to get some sort of visual through the viewing window.

“I’ve got eyes on her,” he belatedly reported.  “Her nose is damaged but otherwise she doesn’t look too bad.  She’s not quite belly-down, so I’m going to go EVA and see what I can see through the viewing window.”

He just needed to see Scott. See that he was okay, see if he had his helmet on and if it was intact.

“Be careful,” John warned. “Your suit won’t hold for long at those depths.”

That was normally Virgil’s line, but Virgil had gone silent.  Gordon would worry about that later, once Scott was safe.

“I just need to check his condition,” he said, tipping backwards into the airlock.  “I won’t be long.”

Compared to Thunderbird Two, Thunderbird One always seemed small.  Somehow, in the wide expanse of the ocean, she looked big.  Crashed machinery instead of sleek ‘bird.  The thought made him shudder as he pushed through the water, heading straight for the panel of window he could see.

Thunderbird One’s emergency lighting was on, dim and shrouding most things in shadow.

It was enough to see that Scott was slumped in the pilot chair.  Definitely unconscious, and also not wearing his helmet, because that would have made Gordon’s job too easy.

It wasn’t enough to see why.

He banged on the glass, in case the vibrations could do what persistent comms couldn’t and rouse his brother.

Nothing.

The water was up past Scott’s boots; Gordon couldn’t see how far but his brother was at least partially submerged.

“Alan, we’ll need the lifting bags.”  There was no way he could safely get Scott out until they were on the surface.

“Coming down to you now.” It was Virgil who responded, deep voice full of determination.  Gordon suspected he’d demanded the remote controls for them.  “How is he?  Can you see him?”

“I can see he’s still in his seat,” Gordon answered.  “Not wearing his helmet, so I can’t evac him until she’s lifted with all that water in her, and still not responding to anything.  It’s too dark to see anything else.”

“Any sign of what brought them down?” John asked.

“Nothing,” Gordon admitted, and that concerned him, because what could bring One down – especially with Scott piloting her?  “Only damage I’m seeing so far is from the landing.”

“Lift bags incoming,” Virgil warned, and he looked up to see the yellow bags descending.

With one last look at his unmoving brother, eerie with the emergency lighting playing over the water inside, he peeled himself away from the viewing window and swam up to meet them, making sure they were firmly attached to the Thunderbird.  No room for error.

“Ready to deploy.”

He swam back to Thunderbird Four, slipping back inside and into the cockpit to watch as the bags inflated and slowly, slowly, peeled the downed ‘bird off of the sea floor.

The ascent seemed to take forever, and Gordon kept pace the entire time, peering through the viewing window as best he could to keep an eye on his brother.  There was no movement at all, no reaction to the way his Thunderbird was rising back up to the surface.

If not for Alan’s report of a life sign, he would have been fearing the worst.  As it was, he was still terrified that something was badly wrong, although with Thunderbird One mostly intact, he wasn’t sure what. There shouldn’t have been anything to knock him out.  Certainly not for this long.

The moment they breached the surface, he latched on to her with Thunderbird Four’s arms and once again left his ‘bird.  Gecko gloves gave him the grip he needed to scramble up to Thunderbird One’s dorsal hatch, and with a quick manual override – that thankfully worked – he dropped down into thigh-deep water inside the Thunderbird.

“Scott!” he called, ignoring frantic demands from his brothers that he update them.  He’d update them when he knew what was going on himself.  Thunderbird One rolled gently with the water she was floating on, somewhat stabilised by Four but not entirely.  Not until clanks told him Alan had fired grapples to lock on.

He waded his way towards the pilot chair, eyeing the way Scott was slumped and already mentally running through all the possible reasons for his unresponsiveness.  A hand on the shoulder of the seat – not his brother until he knew injuries – and he pulled himself the rest of the way until he was in front of Scott, and-

Oh shit.

He must have said it out loud, because suddenly there were three brothers in his ear – loud and frantic – but he only had eyes for his white, white brother.  None of his theories, his suspicions, had been right. Not even close.

Blood-soaked bandages wrapped around Scott’s abdomen, but it wasn’t those that had Gordon’s teeth grinding in a mix of fear and fury.  No.

It was the knife buried hilt-deep.

tbc...

[bam-monsterhospital]

some early morning thought-ramblings on this fine february friday thursday ( i don’t know why i thought it was friday) morning... 

every so often over the past year, in the midst of living in this worldwide pandemic, i think back to 2018 when i got hugely into Thucydides’ chronicling of the plague that hit ancient Athens, and his extremely human recounting and reasoning of noting all the symptoms he lived through so future generations might be able to identify and deal with the disease.  

I think about how much I loved that aspect of his historicizing. I loved reading about how human beings have always been human beings.  I loved the practicality behind his chronicling.  My love of biology and medicine adored the detail in his descriptions of all the stages of the illness (and y’know, how badass it was that he got the plague, miraculously survived, and then immediately afterwards thought ‘i gotta write this shit down so peeps can be better equipped than we were’).  And it gets me wondering about how future generations will look at this period, where the entire world experienced this plague.  Are there going to be diary-like bits of information detailing this event for the future to look in at?  What medium will hold this information?  Will paper last?  What about typed up documents and internet posts?   And y’know, the adhd-brain ponder-trails-and-fractals eventually curl on back to “Am I going to chronicle this for the future?” and “Should I chronicle this? is that a thing I should be doing? Especially given my previous Thucy obsession?”  

I don’t know.  Something feels vaguely egotistical about me feeling as if I myself have any qualifications (y’know, pushing aside an argument about what would those qualifications even be) or claim in the universe to think this could be some sort of responsibility of mine.  And then, also, the idea of writing out diary-like the day to day happenings of this time steers too close to regular thought-emotion inner-turmoil diary writing, which is something i’d rather avoid right now.

[spillingtheteasis]

Can you be a hero? Lets find out

The first thing that comes to mind when thinking about heroes is someone strong or flash with cool powers beyond our reality. Or maybe you think about soldiers in the government that fight wars doing things that many don’t have the stomach for. And by no means do I want to express, somehow, that soldiers are not heroes, because they are and I respect the things they have done to keep this country safe, but what does it mean to be a hero?

My answer can side with your opinions or maybe not. This post is merely my take on what a hero should have and why. These are my opinions and not everything present is the only qualification to being a hero, simply some I believe are needed. Although to be warned that I will be using various anime’s for reference so possible spoilers ahead!!!

1. Simply because

 My Hero Academia is a manga/anime that follows the story of protagonist Midoriya Izuku to become the best hero in the world. Born without powers, or “quirks” in this universe, Midoriya has a chance encounter with All Might, the #1 hero in the world, and later is given All Might’s quirk of incredible super strength that can change whether momentarily.

Facing many villains, Midoriya comes across a prominent hero killer: Stain. Stain kills heroes calling them all “fakes” and believing that All Might is the only worthy “true” villain. To Stain “fake” heroes are heroes who only became heroes for fame, fortune and other selfish reasons, not because they simply want to help and want nothing in return.

Stains ideology, that heroes should help for the good of their heart, is interesting because in a way is true. In spin-off series MHA: Vigilantes a hero from America named Captain Celebrity who favors attention and showing off instead of helping during crises. Take the manga panel below and how Captain Celebrity is waiting for cameras to appear before taking action to save lives. That type of thinking is what leads to bigger problems and higher rates in casualties; exactly the thing Stain hates within heroes.

Same could be said for people who become heroes for the money. In the MHA universe the government mandates cash flow for heroes. Horikoshi, the creator, does not delve too much into how the payment is processed but the vague idea is that heroes are paid by how many villains they take down and what type of villain they take down. If that second factor is involved then heroes who aim for fortune are more inclined to take higher ranking villains than lower ranking villains or regular crimes.

Imagine this scenario: a girl is surrounded by shady people in a desolated area. Nobody is around to help however a hero just happens to be nearby and sees the situation. Heroes who are focused on money only will likely leave the scene or do a half-assed job because it doesn’t pay as much as higher ranking villains. If they do that they may turn a blind eye to other crimes or risk harming civilians for doing their job half as well.

That is the problem Stain sees with heroes who became heroes for other reasons than just because. Becoming a hero just because or simply doing it to help without wanting anything in return (like All Might and Midoriya) keeps them from being biased to any crime happening and helping everyone feel safe and feel that someone is looking out for them

(Although that isn’t to say heroes who do look for fortune are not entirely bad. Uraraka Ochako, a classmate of Midoriya, wants to be a hero for fortune because she wants to pay back her parents for everything. It’s a noble cause in whole especially when told that her parent’s construction company has left them nearly broke).

2. Kindness

Heroes have to be kind because they are celebrities. Just like the real world, fans of celebrities will follow them about anything: what they like, what they dislike, who is cool, who should be hated, etc. Because of this heroes need to express kindness as civilians, many who are learning children, watch them with wide eyes.

Take this at hand: if a hero were to be rude towards a certain group others are inclined to follow hating that group as well. If that group is hated they are isolated, isolation leads to various reactions one which is violence and crime rates increase.

In MHA: Vigilantes there is a group who have criminal backgrounds and one that looks very much like a criminal. The protagonist in that spin-off, Koichi, is kind towards them. His kindness is what ensures they don’t slip back to villainous ways and even helps them open a cafe where other people who appear “villainous” can go in without face of judgment. That act of kindness is a domino effect because that cafe is a safe space for people in that universe who are constantly judged for their quirk or their appearance. If they have a safe space with others who understand they are less inclined to commit crimes and thus reduce criminal rates.

See how kindness pays off in the long run? If heroes show kindness in their own way then others will follow suit and eventually small problems will be resolved without bloodshed or violent conflicts.

3. Strength

Heroes gotta be strong to lift people out of trouble like All Might did during his debut.

Or be able to receive and throw back punches/hits. Though what exactly counts as strength? Plenty of things really but there are three that come to mind: physical, mental and emotional.

Physical strength is covered for and anyone with brains knows a hero has to have some strength to be a good hero. However mental strength is not as well covered yet as essential.

Mental strength can be defined as having that mental fortitude to bounce back from any situation no matter how dire. Mental strength can also be turning any bad situation into one that can help despite how many obstacles are directed towards you. Perhaps the best example of this is anime/manga Fullmetal Alchemist.

Fullmetal Alchemist is set in a universe where alchemy is an advanced natural technique revolved around equivalent exchange. The series itself follows the Elric brothers Edward (Ed) and Alphonse (Al) in their search for the all powerful Philosopher’s Stone to restore their bodies after failing to revive their dead mother via alchemy.

Both Edward and Al face many trails throughout their search that rely heavily on their mental strength. For example, when attempting to revive their dead mother Al, the younger brother, has his entire body taken away and lives solely because of a transmutation circle that was written in Al’s blood in a body of metal armor. Meanwhile Edward, the older brother, has his arm and leg taken away.

Both boys are faced with deep despair. One lost his entire body while the other blames himself for initiating the foolish idea without knowing the full consequences. However, instead of wallowing in despair or doing nothing about it, Edward decides to search for all powerful Philosopher’s Stone that can cast any alchemy without consequences. That ability to bounce back after something heavily traumatizing, and the ability to still help others and keep people safe and put their own mission aside for others, is some next level mental strength.

*SPOILER COMING UP*

Other instances of these boy’s mental strengths are tested throughout the anime/manga. There was the time that the Elric Brothers were unable to save a little girl, Nina, in forcefully becoming a chimera by her own father and then later unable to save her from a brutal death.

*SPOILER COMING UP*

There was the time Edward was impaled by a metal rod, yet despite bleeding out he moved to save two people who were his former enemy because they were in danger. Another time has Al choosing to give up his hold on the metal body in order to return Ed’s arm and leg to defeat the main villain. There are other instances with other characters in the anime that reveal how strong their mental strength is.

When it comes to mental strength a hero needs it because they need to keep bouncing back no matter what has happened. They cannot allow people to see them defeated or lose hope because if heroes lose hope the people will fall into despair and should they fall into despair society can be thrown into chaos. Not to mention, having the ability to keep level headed while in a stressful situation is a must for heroes otherwise they will be overwhelmed and effectively harmed or killed while in battle. 

The final type of strength is emotion. Emotional strength is the ability to not allow emotions to control a hero’s decision. In some instance that rush of emotion can be useful; ie. Midoriya rushed in to save Bakugou from the sludge villain in MHA.

However if one allows their emotions to control their actions then the feelings such as anger can lead to rash, unthought actions. Take Eren Jaeger from Attack on Titan as an example of emotional strength. He would allow his anger to take action and go into a fight without planning ahead. There was a source I once read/heard (and sadly don’t remember where I read/heard it!!) that explained how Eren originally allowed his emotions to control his actions. He would go into fights without planning ahead or cooperating with others but as time went on Eren began cooperating with the people around him in order to effectively take out their enemy with minimal deaths.

One example of Eren allowing his emotions to interfere would be during a scouting mission that involved several soldiers with one squadron of soldiers protecting Eren, the target of the enemy. What occurs during this scouting mission, however, is everyone in that squadron is killed by the enemy, by a female titan. Eren has become familiar with that squadron and while they didn't know each for too long he still got attached. Seeing them die for his sake sends Eren into a rage and decides to fight the female titan instead of running away as instructed.

What ensues from that emotional decision is Eren getting captured by the female titan and almost kidnapped. The only reason Eren has been saved was due to the best fighter arriving on time.

Emotions can be good in some instances, it can push a person past their limits giving them superhuman strength or reflexes, but they can equally harm a person by acting rashly based purely on rage or negativity.

4. Intelligence

 Being strong is not the only thing that makes a hero a hero. Being strong is half of the equation with intelligence being the fall component. If a hero relies only on strength then casualties are through the roof. Heroes need to make strategies, create plans with other heroes and figure out how a villain might move or what their power can be.

Although intelligence can also be used to weed out traitors. Erwin Smith, captain of the scouts in Attack on Titan, is an incredibly intelligent man that the anime gives little credit toward. Admittedly I had not known how intelligent Erwin was until coming across a reddit post  that I will be linking to. Though to sum up what the Reddit post stated one must know the basics of Attack on Titan.

In the Attack on Titan (AoT) universe, a small number of people live behind these walls to keep man eating titans away from them. One day the outer wall falls because a titan taller than ever recorded appears and a titan with armor crashes through the gates that ordinary titian’s cannot break through. Many people die by the protagonist Eren witnesses his mother being eaten by a titan and thus wants to become a Survey Corps soldier to kill titan and avenge his mother.

What comes from this is Erwin believing there are spies within the soldiers of the enemy. Without any prior knowledge Erwin is able to weed out the soldiers to narrow down that the spy is in the Survey Corps, a team that not many soldiers want to join as death rates are the highest there. From there Erwin brings a new round of weeding out who he can trust and who he cannot (the Reddit post explains in detail how Erwin does this). The end regular is Erwin suspecting three members of the Survey Corps who, spoiler alert, are actually the spies.

Erwin deducting and weeding out the spies and the loyal soldiers takes a long process with many acts at play. In one instance Erwin takes away Eren, the target of the enemy, while calling a meeting for the Survey Corps new recruits. The meaning of that meeting was to see who would be there and who would not; if someone were missing then they are the spy because they went to find Eren, however if nobody is gone and no act to kidnap Eren is pulled then that solidifies that the spy is within their ranks. Another instance has Erwin doing background checks on everyone and discovering that three members were in the same town the same day the outer wall had been taken out.

If not for Erwin’s intelligence in believing there are spies and for finding out who it might be the possibility of Eren’s kidnapping would have been higher as well as a higher death rate.

5. Inspire Others

I wholeheartedly believe that heroes need to have the ability to inspire others. Consider this, in the real world after watching a video of people saving others from committing suicide or even starting traffic because a dog or other animal on the road inspires you right? It inspires you to want to do the same should the situation arise. I know I’m right, or close to it, because I feel the exact way.

Heroes that inspire civilians to be heroes can make society a whole lot better because little acts can make a world difference. In a way it trails back to kindness. If civilians are inspired by heroes to do good and such then they will extend a hand to those who feel awful and lift them back up into the light.

In MHA Midoriya Izuku inspires almost everyone he meets. Saving Bakugou from the sludge villain inspires All Might, #1 hero who is on a time limit for how long he can maintain his hero form, to go beyond his limit because he is inspired by Midoriya’s rush to save Bakugou despite having no quirk/power of his own.

Midoriya inspires Todoroki Shouto, so of the #2 hero of Japan, to be a better version of himself after yelling that Todoroki’s other half of his quirk, his flames, is his own power and not his fathers. His father is not Todoroki and will never have control over Todoroki.

Even Midoriya’s homeroom teacher, Aizawa Shouta (Pro hero Eraserhead), told another teacher of another school that his class is constantly being inspired by Midoriya as well as Bakugou.

Inspiration even goes into AoT where Erwin gives a powerful speech to his soldiers inspiring them to ride out knowing fully well they are most likely going to die in the process.

“Everything that you thought had meaning: every hope, dream, or moment of happiness. None of it matters as you lie bleeding out on the battlefield. None of it changes what a speeding rock does to a body, we all die. But does that mean our lives are meaningless? Does that mean that there was no point in our being born? Would you say that of our slain comrades? What about their lives? Were they meaningless?... They were not! Their memory serves as an example to us all! The courageous fallen! The anguished fallen! Their lives have meaning because we the living refuse to forget them! And as we ride to certain death, we trust our successors to do the same for us! Because my soldiers do not buckle or yield when faced with the cruelty of this world! My soldiers push forward! My soldiers scream out! My soldiers RAAAAAGE!” -Erwin Smith’s charge speech

Inspiration is a cornerstone for heroics that anyone can do and anyone can act on. It can inspire someone to be nice towards kids who are alone as well as inspire others to extend a hand to those who are feeling down. It may be small, perhaps insignificant with how small it is, but the end result can go a long way including continuing to go on past the person of inspiration.

Conclusion:

Everything presented of what are qualifications needed to be a hero are not everything that is needed but things I believe are of the most importance. There are several other things that are needed to make a hero aside from what I presented. One big take away I want anyone reading this is that you can be a hero too. You may not have super powers like you’ve seen or read about but a hero can be someone picking up trash or helping the homeless by giving them food. Aside from MHA the other anime/manga references used have protagonist that are never called heroes yet they can be considered ones. Me pointing that out is to prove that you can be a hero despite never being called one. As long as you do actions for the good of others then you already are a hero.

[leiascully]

Fic: An heni a vez e grass ar merc’hed 5/?

Taking a leap here.  WWII AU, PG-13, wartime trauma and injuries, mentions of Nazis.  French puns.  Names changed to reflect the time and place.  The Syndicate are Nazi-adjacent but working for a different new world order. Title is from a Breton proverb, but I just used the part that means “he who has the grace of women”.

Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four 

He graduated after a week or so to washing the dishes and wiping down the kitchen tables, although he still had to sit sometimes.  He liked it best when they were all in the kitchen together after dinner.  Émilie had usually been put to bed.  Marguerite relaxed with a glass of chouchen while the rest of them prepared for the next day.  The clientele of the White Whale had been reduced by the war, but there were still regulars, and some still traveled the roads.  They'd had all kinds of soldiers, Marguerite said, all the better reason to have changed the name of the place.  These were fraught times; they couldn't afford to lose business over partisan concerns.

 "If I'm a cousin, I should know more about the area," he said, up to his wrists in soapy water.  "Even as the cousin of a Parisienne.  Any local legends?"

 "They say the ghosts of King Arthur and his knights roam the woods," Monique said, scrubbing one of the tables.  "He was king of the Britons once upon a time, and it was a golden age of peace and wisdom.  His knights were the finest in the land, and they fought against the forces of darkness and brought prosperity to all, as far as that went in the feudal system.  Now they haunt the quiet groves of Bretagne, or so the stories go, ready to take up arms again against whatever endangers this place."

 "Really?" Mulder asked, fascinated.  He picked up another plate to wash it.   

 Dana snorted.  "They do say that," she conceded, drying a few glasses, "Especially the old-timers.  But they also say that rubbing garlic on a wart will cure it, or that the moon can change a man into a wolf."

 Mulder and Monique exchanged glances.  She gave him a tiny nod and went back to scrubbing.  

 "Arthur and his knights only appear before a battle," Marguerite corrected.  "They were seen before the Great War, and again a few years ago."

 "Mother, you don't believe in these things," Dana chided.  

 "It's a wild strange world we live in, my little mouse," Marguerite said with a smile, and Mulder saw a hint of the girl Dana must have been in the gentle expression that crossed her face.  

 "I love a good ghost story," Mulder said, letting hope tinge his voice.

 "See, he really is my cousin," Monique said.  "We're both tall, we both have dark hair, we both have strange accents, we both love ghost stories."

 "There are no ghosts," Dana said firmly.  "I swear Émilie has less stomach for these stories than you do."  

 Maelice was counting the bottles of cider.  "There's an energy here.  Surely you can sense that, Dana."

 "I can sense that there's a lot to do before any of us gets to go to bed," Dana said stubbornly.  "And I can sense that morning always comes earlier than I'd like it to."

 "There's no harm in a story," Marguerite said.  "They say that the ghosts ride at the edge of the woods on the eve of great battles, to warn the village.  They say that the brave and the pure of heart can see them."

 "People have lived here for thousands of years," Maelice said.  "There are druidic menhirs all over Bretagne.  Why not Merlin?  Why not Arthur?"

 "Arthur is a story," Dana said.  Her eyes flickered to Mulder for support, but he shrugged.  She rolled her eyes and took out a bowl, measuring flour and salt into it.

 "Lots of things that people believe in are stories," Monique said, warmth in her voice.  "Glory.  Victory.  Royalty.  All of it."

 "Believe what you want," Dana said with a sigh.  She turned the dough she was making out on the clean floured table. "I believe in bread.  I believe in Mass on Sunday.  I don't believe in ghosts."

 "I'll help you with the bread," Marguerite said.  "Kneading eases my arthritis."  She nudged up next to Dana and they worked on the dough together.  

 "They appear before a battle?" Mulder asked, looking at Monique.

 "Only a great battle," Monique said, clearly enjoying herself as Dana ignored them.  "A battle between good and evil that might change the world."

 "Are they solid?  Are they spirits?  Are they forms of light?" Mulder asked.

 Monique laughed.  "You do love ghost stories."

 "My sister loves them," he said, a pang of missing her shooting through him.  "She always insisted that I read them to her."

 "And now you have an encyclopedia of ghosts in your brain," Monique said.

 "Ghosts, spirits, monsters of all sorts," he said.  "Anything that goes bump in the night, Sanne delights in."

 "I like to think they're forms of light," Maelice said thoughtfully.  "Shining like stars to show us the way."

 "That's enough," Dana said, and there was a strange firmness to her tone.  The others quieted.  Mulder glanced between them.

 "Did you hear what old Jean said?" Marguerite asked as she continued to knead the bread, and everyone relaxed as she relayed the gossip one of the regulars had been spreading.  

 The Arthur story wound itself deeper into Mulder's brain as he worked on the dishes, leaving them to dry on a towel at the side.  He vaguely remembered reading the stories in his childhood.  Sanne's interests tended towards the occult; she had read to pieces all the books of legends he'd gotten as a child.  He wished he remembered more now than a handful of names and an ache in his heart for a true chivalry, a selfless devotion to a worthy higher cause.  Once upon a time, his whispered, in a golden age, there was a king more noble than any other, and his knights were brave and true and wise and kind.  He wished that were true.  He had encountered few soldiers who fit the qualifications for the Round Table.  The causes espoused by the commanders of the German Army were reprehensible; the ideas of the Allies might be nobler, but the methods of war were cruel no matter what philosophies underpinned them.  Perhaps the Knights of the Round Table had struggled with the same dilemmas.  

 The bread dough set to rise and the dishes done, they all said good night and went to bed.  Mulder tapped his way down the hall and changed his clothes, but after he'd found his pyjamas, his stomach growled.  He remembered the leftover soup in the small refrigerator and made his way back to the kitchen.  The electricity was sometimes unreliable, but the service hadn't been entirely cut off.  He heated the soup in a small pot and sat at the table he had wiped down earlier.  It was peaceful in the kitchen, the presence of the women of the house almost palpable.  As he was eating, he heard someone in the cellar, climbing the stairs.  The door pushed partway open and then stopped.  

 "Why did you say anything?"  It was Dana's voice, sharper than usual.

 "He can help us," Monique said, in a tone designed to soothe that clearly wasn't working.  

 Dana laughed bitterly.  "In what way can he help us?"

 "Even his presence will make people look the other way," Monique said.  "We shelter him openly.  Whether he's my cousin or a Nazi soldier, they will assume we have little to hide.  A houseful of women looks innocent."

 "There are no innocents," Dana said.  "Not anymore.  Not since the Great War.  And we all hear the whispers of worse atrocities."

 "Which is why you and I do what we do," Monique said.  "However small our impact."

 "You and I and the rest of the hens," Dana said, sarcasm thick in her voice.  "Just waiting for the men to return, no one to crow an alarm."

 "Not everything is so straightforward, Dana," Monique said.  "Sometimes we must let people believe what they want to believe."

 "I hope you're right," Dana said.  

 Mulder stood and moved as quietly as he could, holding his bowl as if he were just coming back into the kitchen, and then he coughed.  Dana and Monique fell silent, and the cellar door opened all the way.

 "Good evening," Dana said, her posture rigid and formal.  

 "Oh, good evening," Mulder said.  "I didn't think anyone was awake.  I got hungry."

 "Working will do that," Monique said, pressed close behind Dana in the doorway.  "Did you find what you needed?"

 "Yes," Mulder said.  "Next time I won't take it to my room, though.  The cane and the bowl don't work well together.  I thought I would bring my bowl back and wash it.  No one needs extra dishes to do."

 Dana relaxed a small amount.  "I appreciate that, although it's yourself you're saving from the effort later."

 "I like to make the most of the moment," he said.  "Good night, ladies."

 "Good night," Dana said, and left abruptly.  Monique lingered as he washed his bowl and the pan and set them out to dry.  

 "Will you take me to the woods one day?" he asked.  "I would like to watch for the lost king."

 Her eyes appraised him.  She nodded.  "One day," she said.  "They say too that only the worthy will see him."

 "I try and fail and try again," he said.  "Worthiness is a journey and a destination."  He thought of his father, and of his father's work, and of his mother's bitterness.  Sometimes it seemed as if there were a wasteland between him and the hopes he had of being better, kinder, stronger than the generations before him.  He thought Monique understood that.

 She nodded.  "I'm going to have a cigarette before bed.  Would you like to join me?"

 Scent memory coiled lazily up from the packet she held out: his father's colleagues smoking, the one who used the cane always wreathed in vapor and reeking of tobacco.

 "No, thank you," he said.  

 "Suit yourself, cousin," she said.  "Good night."

 "Good night," he said, and made his way to bed to dream of heroes.

[trendingnewsb]

6 Ways Movies Fool You Into Ignoring Bad Reviews

Terrible movies will always exist. They’re one of those unavoidable annoyances, like stubbing your toe or getting picked last during an orgy. Unfortunately, even when knowingly faced with a dud, studios still have to pretend they’re sitting on the Holy Grail of eye-blasting family entertainment — at least for the duration of the marketing.

So how does one polish a brawny turd in an age when resources like Rotten Tomatoes have made the average moviegoer hyper-aware of mediocrity? It’s not easy. And in a way, the ability to spin a piece of terrible entertainment as the next big Star War is an art in itself. Only instead of ink and light, these modern-day Rembrandts (had Rembrandt gone to Emerson and was nicknamed “The Donk”) are painting with beautiful lies.

6

Shitty Films Have Used “Joke” Reviews In Their Ads

Film studios want nothing more than the power to write their own reviews … something Sony actually got caught doing back in 2001, when it was revealed that fake quotes from a nonexistent critic named David Manning were used to praise masterpieces like The Animal and Hollow Man — the latter film featuring invisible gorillas and Kevin Bacon’s CGI dick muscles.

It was a ruse that would end up costing the studio over a million dollars in lawsuits, and so no other studio attempted such a blatant teabagging of the public’s trust. Instead, they did find a way to more gently dab our foreheads with technically-legal jest: They use fake critics under the excuse of “humor.”

Take the recent Lynchian abomination that was Nine Lives, a film about a rich and powerful Kevin Spacey being turned into a cat via Christopher Walken voodoo. The movie features all the things we’ve come to expect from a children’s film, such as existential torture, a cat getting drunk, and a fucking suicide fakeout. Needless to say, critics weren’t on board with it. And so TV spots opted to sprinkle the feline romp with hilarious joke reviews from places like “Vanity Fur,” “Meowsweek,” and the “Catfington Post.”

It’s exactly the kind of incredible wordplay you’d expect from this film about cat possession. And while there’s nothing wrong with including bullshit pun reviews as a joke, when you watch the ad in real time, it becomes apparent that chucklefuckery wasn’t the only motivation.

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5 Criminals With The Worst Luck In The Entire World

That’s right, each “review” flashed on screen for a nano-second while the voiceover quoted the fake praise without any context. Meaning that unless you paused your television, most people watching had no idea it wasn’t really a quote from Vanity Fair. But if anyone calls them out on their colossal horseshit (like right now), the producers are able to shrug and say it was all in good fun. It must be a coincidence that the only other film to use this technique was the exhausting Vampire’s Suck — a spoof “comedy” which, according to ads, were given standing ovations by such critics as “Hugh Jass” and “Oliver Klozoffe.” Jesus, you guys, could you at least think of bad vampire puns for your terrible film, like David Edelstake or Gene Siskill? It would have only taken a minute.

5

Studios Use (Misquoted) Reviews From Total Randos On The Internet

If incredulously scrolling Rotten Tomatoes fan reviews have taught me anything, it’s that audiences tend to be way more forgiving of shitty movies than critics. You could argue that critics are heartless pedants soured by their own career failures, or maybe accept that it’s possible to enjoy a film that also happens to be garbage. There are no villains here, but the important takeaway is that critics are hired and respected because most of them are able to judge a film from an objective perspective. This is why studios put their quotes on posters and trailers instead of those of some random jerk on Twitter, right?

Oh no. Turns out that’s no longer the case. It seems anyone can be a prestigious movie critic now, even @zoidberg95 talking about the unbridled joy King Arthur brings him. This isn’t an isolated incident by a long shot, as evidenced by the recent pullquote in the trailer for Broken City, a Mark Wahlberg film with a 28 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

Sure, we can all agree that Mark Wahlberg is “bad ass” in the sense that assaulting a middle-aged Vietnamese man is both “bad” and an “ass” thing to do. And sure, there’s nothing technically wrong with giving the man on the street a voice of support. But here’s the thing: According to the source of that quote, he hadn’t seen the film. The studio used a tweet made about an entirely different Mark Wahlberg performance and used it in their ad. And they are somehow allowed to do this as long as they ask the author of the tweet beforehand. That’s it. There are no qualifications or confirmations beyond a polite message and digital contract.

Thanks to the crowdsourcing power of the internet, you can literally find anyone who is into any crazy thing. Studios know this, and are able to make a film seem like it has word-of-mouth appeal by scraping the bottom of the Twitter barrel to find faceless folks saying the right things. Or failing that, they find faceless folks saying the wrong thing and simply make it seem like they said the right thing.

After Batman v. Superman‘s Twitter account told us about the high praises of @raniaresh, someone pointed out that the now-banned account was only an egg icon with the profile: “I did NOT enjoy Batman v Superman.” The tweet was then pulled and replaced with yet another rando with the same basic praise.

Notice how it’s the same reworded “whoa my mind = blown” quote, only now attributed to someone else? Warner Bros. didn’t care where they were getting the quote; they just wanted some vague sentence calling their disjointed film “mind-blowing.” Chances are they tasked some hungover intern to scour social media for any kind of evidence of exploding brains and slap that shit on a promo shot, regardless of who said those words or what context they were said in.

But if you think this dirty process is safe from critics, you are not correct …

4

Advertising Perpetually Cherry-Picks Critic Quotes To Make Them Seem Positive

Writers write a lot of words, and it’s pretty easy to change what those words mean if you only take a few of them. For example, I earlier described the plot of Nine Lives as “rich and powerful,” if you ignore everything around those two adjectives. In the way Rock Bottom can turn Homer Simpson into a pervert, so too can studios make terrible reviews seem complimentary. For example, this glowing phrase about Rock Of Ages from a Guardian reporter …

… was in truth pulled from a one-star review quote: “It’s a very peculiar show indeed, with an unvarying and unpleasant tone of careless sexualisation. Rock’n’roll debauchery is presented as the pure and innocent way of dreamers.”

Seriously, they fucking did that. And the reviewer in question wasn’t too happy about it at all. And amazingly, this isn’t the only time The Guardian‘s deep disdain was twisted into cheerful praise, like a laughing clown puppet made from a child’s corpse. Check out this poster for Legend and its collection of four-star reviews:

Except that Guardian review in the middle? It’s a two-star review they made to look like four stars that had been obstructed. That’s honestly hilarious and brilliant and hard to be mad at, but the act of taking someone’s out-of-context words and slapping them on your poster or DVD case can go from cute trolling to downright infuriating very fast.

For example, the movie Accidental Love (which has a flatlining 6 percent on Rotten Tomatoes) underwent a horrendous production which resulted in a cobbled-together shitcircus disowned by its director. When reviewing it, The AV Club noted that the original version probably wasn’t all that great either, saying “there’s little reason to believe that the ideal, untroubled version of the material would have been a comedic masterstroke.”

And then this:

Yeah, that’s the back of Accidental Love‘s DVD case using The AV Club’s unfavorable description of a (still better) hypothetical movie as their review quote. You can imagine how that kind of insidious tangle of bull angered the original writer … or you can read his response here.

It comes down to this: Never trust a review quoted on a movie’s promotional material. Ever. The only information you’re getting is that those combination of words were somewhere in the writing, but in no way were they necessarily meant to describe the movie being advertised. Which puts a whole new light on posters like this:

3

TV Networks Will Misspell Their Shows’ Names To Avoid Bad Ratings

In the age of streaming, being a TV executive has the life expectancy of a docile classroom hamster. Their entire job can be summed up by a picture of a stargazing dinosaur on a suspiciously bright night. It’s totally understandable that networks would claw and gouge their way to profit in these uncertain times, and yet their sleazy resourcefulness still manages to surprise even me, an undercover diamond thief working the long con as a internet writer who broadcasts his diabolical intent all across the land.

To quickly set this up, you have to understand the Nielsen ratings. Every show undergoes the same measurement using a sample audience being monitored for what TV shows they watch. That data is calculated into a rating for each show, and the ratings are averaged into monthly or quarterly reports. Advertisers then look at these reports and decide what time slots to buy for their sexy burger or cartoon shitting bear commercials. Therefore, a show with a better average will get more money for advertising. With me still? It’s all a big wet fart of intrigue for your average consumer, which means few people pay attention to Nielsen ratings. But once you start to read daily reports on TV industry sites, you’ll start to notice something bizarre in the footnotes:

That’s right, in what seems like playground-level cheating, television networks can deliberately change or misspell their own shows if they anticipate bad ratings for that night. By doing this, that episode won’t be calculated into the shows’ overall averages, and their quarterly ratings won’t go down. And so shows like NBC Nightly News become “NBC Nitely News,” so that marketers don’t pull that sweet, sweet commercial dough.

How could such obvious semantic trickery go unchallenged? Well, it turns out you can do all sorts of amazing hogwash with human language. Ever heard of the show Bull? It’s a CBS courtroom drama co-created by, and inspired by, the life of Dr. Phil which exists for some unimaginable reason. It also airs something called “encore” episodes every now and then.

That’s not just the wording of the article, but the official CBS classification of a repeat episode of Bull. You see, a show’s ratings are calculated based not only on their first run, but also on (typically lower) rerun ratings. But if you call your rerun an “encore” episode, then it doesn’t get categorized with the original episode, thus avoiding a lower score. Yep, apparently you can change the words of things to completely redefine their importance, like calling bags of Funyuns under a co-worker’s desk “diamonds” and then telling everyone you’re a “jewel thief.”

2

When In Doubt, Simply Block Critics From Reviewing It Ahead Of Time

It’s the perfect crime. Critics can’t say your game or movie sucks if they can’t see it. So studios will simply prevent critics from seeing their work before it comes out. It’s like throwing bleach in your date’s eyes so they won’t know how ugly you are. And while sounding excruciatingly transparent, this technique works way more often than you think. It’s called an embargo, and it’s what Ubisoft did before Assassin’s Creed Unity, which ultimately received lukewarm reviews for being breathtakingly glitch-filled. Like, so glitchy it was a work of sinister art — like something the Joker would conjure up.

Ubisoft “How am I supposed to enjoy a carefree romp of clandestine murder after THIS?!”

Unfortunately for gamers, those reviews only came in after the midnight release — as ordered by Ubisoft when they first sent their early copies out. But it could be worse. You could go a step further, like Wild Games Studios did when they trolled through YouTube sticking copyright violations on any video which spoke badly of their new release. Or Sega, which used the same tactic to shut down bad YouTube reviews that didn’t even contain footage from their games.

In the end, this technique usually causes a huge and understandable backlash, on account of YouTubers being wicked blabbermouths about such injustices. But critic embargoes are so common that they’re considered normal. And most often, this isn’t nefarious at all, but rather a measure against premature spoilers or judgments before a film is locked down in post. Only every once in a while is this tool used to cover up true garbage. Pungent, salty garbage — the kind you can taste through your nose. Like, I’m talking alien-chasing-a-school-bus-driven-by-Judd-Hirsch level of garbage here.

Independence Day: Resurgence is a film I happen to enjoy that is also objectively terrible. And 20th Century Fox knew it was terrible, hence their American critic embargo lasted up until the day it was released — causing most audiences to buy a ticket without knowing its quality. Similar measures, which include completely skipping press screenings altogether, have happened for similarly bad work like Alien Vs. Predator and the G.I. Joe films.

Yes, you could argue that these films “weren’t meant for critics,” as a lot of executives often say. But that’s kind of like saying an apartment complex “isn’t meant for safety inspectors” or that your basement “isn’t meant for homicide detectives.” People deserve to know in advance if something sucks. But that doesn’t mean we won’t still enjoy it or flock to see it. And if all else fails, you can always do what China does and completely circumvent the pesky audience altogether …

1

China Will Hold “Ghost Screenings” To Make Films Look More Popular

As previously mentioned, China is quickly becoming the dominating money-maker for blockbusters. So it stands to reason that the country would also become the industry leader for blatantly fudging a movie’s popularity. But instead of relying on embargoes or misleading ads, Chinese studios have taken a much more direct approach: just buying tickets to the movie they made.

The Wall Street Journal “‘Best thing to ever happen to movies!’ raved one translucent women in a bloodstained Victorian wedding dress.”

It’s as brilliant as it is illegal. Instead of pouring money into television spots and bus stop posters, simply use that marketing money to buy out theater showings, and watch the popularity snowball. And to ensure profit, those purchased tickets can then be resold online to discount ticket retailers. It’s like stealing your own car for the insurance, and then selling that stolen car for a second profit.

Unfortunately for those cheating marketers, I wouldn’t be writing about this if people didn’t figure out it was happening. Ghost screenings were recently brought to light thanks to the film Ip Man 3, a martial arts biopic which bafflingly includes Mike Tyson playing an evil property developer who ends up fighting the hero in an epic battle of kung-fu vs. boxing vs. child endangerment.

Pegasus Motion Pictures Why this movie felt the need to artificially inflate its popularity is beyond me.

After the film’s release, a local news site posted screenshots of theater websites claiming to have sold-out screenings for showings that started within ten minutes of each other … in the same auditorium. Meaning that, save for some kind of multiple-dimension scenario caused by Mike Tyson punching time itself, someone was brazenly cheating in the laziest way possible.

When The Wall Street Journal dug deeper, they found it to be a regular (albeit short-term) strategy for film distributors to buy out fake screenings in the hope that sold-out shows would encourage audiences to assume the film is popular and therefore go see it themselves. It’s not very imaginative, but if studios were more creative, they wouldn’t need to do all the bullshit on this list to begin with.

David is a writer and editor for this very website that you currently read. You can follow him on Twitter.

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Brain-Dead Hucksters have Hijacked Colin Kaepernick’s Protest

Last August, during the NFL’s preseason, Colin Kaepernick started sitting down during the national anthem.

When a reporter finally noticed what the quarterback was doing, Kaepernick gave a clear justification for his peaceful, 90-second protest: he could no longer turn a blind eye toward the brutality suffered by people of color at the hands of law enforcement. He wanted to open a dialogue about oppression, inequality, and the fact that some police officers avoided consequences after killing innocent, unarmed people in the United States. He believed the lives of those human beings were more important than him or his job, and personal and professional consequences would not stop him.

An extremely vocal portion of the country reacted by asking, But what about the song? That sentiment morphed into gripes about respect for the flag and then, finally, the absurd logical end of this nonsense, Why do you hate the troops and, by extension, America?

Kaepernick wanted the spotlight focused on powerless Americans having their rights trampled and lives taken; the disingenuous right countered with a year-long campaign to discredit Kaepernick and anyone who joined him by pushing a false narrative about disrespecting the troops, who apparently specifically died in every war for a song and a piece of cloth and not the right of Americans to take those knees, or the right to live in a country where police officers don’t get to murder citizens without repercussion.

It’s heartbreaking to say, but this past Sunday shows that brain-dead argument perpetrated by brain-dead hucksters and embraced by brain-dead people is serving its purpose, by deflecting attention away from the protest’s original meaning.

The response by so many athletes to President Sentient Egg Avatar’s “Get that son of a bitch off the field right now” statement during a speech in Alabama on Friday was wonderful but also indicative of our current reality: that the stupidest, most duplicitous people have hijacked the conversation Kaepernick started and placed NFL players in a reactionary position. It’s no longer about the unchecked police violence and widespread inequality that drove Kaepernick’s protest; it’s about (almost entirely) black athletes responding to the words of arguably the dumbest person to ever occupy the Oval Office and how much more than half of America hates him.

The unity was inspiring and the support of teams that mustered the backbone to condemn the inflammatory words of the President through a press release was commendable, but what are we talking about now?

Sound bites from those who kneeled, stood together with interlocking arms, or remained in the locker room were seemingly required to include a statement from the player about how much he loves the troops or the flag or America because God forbid he doesn’t make that clear for the underhanded snakes ready to pounce from the tall grass and scream about disrespecting a soldier that gave his life, as if that proclamation of love from the players matters to the cretins who would scold them anyway.

Kaepernick capitulated to no one, and it’s a likely reason for his current lack of an NFL job. Meanwhile, players who are still employed are now compelled to satisfy the Tammy Lorens of the world when the reality is nothing short of total subordination will ever make people like her happy.

Here’s what Patriots wide receiver Brandin Cooks said about standing arm-in-arm with his teammates during the anthem:

It’s one of those things, you’re going to stand with your brothers, kneel with your brothers and be by your side. One statement I’d like to make, a lot of people think we’re disrespecting the flag and the military but my father was a Marine, my uncle was a Marine, my family fought in the Vietnam war, I have the utmost respect for the men and women who fight for our freedom … The message we’re sending is, we just want respect and unity and there’s only so many ways you can do it.

And here’s what Kaepernick said the first time he was asked about taking a knee:

I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder. This is not something that I am going to run by anybody. I am not looking for approval. I have to stand up for people that are oppressed…If they take football away, my endorsements from me, I know that I stood up for what is right.

The difference in tone is all the evidence required to see that those who would undermine Kaepernick’s original purpose have been successful. Cooks took a brave stance but spent more time talking about how much he loves the troops than he did about respect and unity, two vague and nebulous ideas; Kaepernick’s message offered no qualifications about flag love and had a clear, sharp point from which he never wavered before being blackballed out of the league.

What if Cooks’ father was a teacher and his uncle a janitor? What if no one in his family fought in the Vietnam War? What if members of his family protested the Vietnam War? Would that make Cooks or anyone else less worthy of respect? No, of course it wouldn’t. The people who pretend that it matters are the same people who want to treat him as less than a person in the first place.

At best, Kaepernick’s specific protest has morphed into a more wide-ranging one about race in America and standing up to a leader of the free world who believes there are good and bad people on both sides of a fight between white supremacists and those who would stand in their way. At worst, though, any movement started by Kaepernick has been stalled by a spin machine��and a President—that clearly cares more about symbols and vague notions of patriotism than people of color.

Kaepernick’s protest was a forceful and specific statement that, for people of color, America is not all it’s cracked up to be. This weekend’s dramatic expansion of athlete protests was reactionary, with many players feeling the need to include a new caveat that they loved America. Disingenuous political leaders, talking heads and media members, and craven opportunists have shifted the conversation from calling out injustice and inequality to offering up patriotic bona fides and asking for unity.

The opportunity is there for players—all players—to recapture control of the narrative Kaepernick authored last August. If this was nothing more than a one-week response to President Wasn’t Loved As A Child, he and all the people like him win. He will have fractured and fragmented one of the most important athlete movements in years and rendered it unrecognizable.

But if players create and claim ownership of a new narrative that comes out of this weekend, one that results in an awakening in this country about race and inequity and is more than just holding up a middle finger to a fat old man, Kaepernick’s original movement can become more powerful than anyone ever dreamed.

Brain-Dead Hucksters have Hijacked Colin Kaepernick’s Protest syndicated from http://ift.tt/2ug2Ns6

[flauntpage]

Brain-Dead Hucksters have Hijacked Colin Kaepernick's Protest

Last August, during the NFL's preseason, Colin Kaepernick started sitting down during the national anthem.

When a reporter finally noticed what the quarterback was doing, Kaepernick gave a clear justification for his peaceful, 90-second protest: he could no longer turn a blind eye toward the brutality suffered by people of color at the hands of law enforcement. He wanted to open a dialogue about oppression, inequality, and the fact that some police officers avoided consequences after killing innocent, unarmed people in the United States. He believed the lives of those human beings were more important than him or his job, and personal and professional consequences would not stop him.

An extremely vocal portion of the country reacted by asking, But what about the song? That sentiment morphed into gripes about respect for the flag and then, finally, the absurd logical end of this nonsense, Why do you hate the troops and, by extension, America?

Kaepernick wanted the spotlight focused on powerless Americans having their rights trampled and lives taken; the disingenuous right countered with a year-long campaign to discredit Kaepernick and anyone who joined him by pushing a false narrative about disrespecting the troops, who apparently specifically died in every war for a song and a piece of cloth and not the right of Americans to take those knees, or the right to live in a country where police officers don't get to murder citizens without repercussion.

It's heartbreaking to say, but this past Sunday shows that brain-dead argument perpetrated by brain-dead hucksters and embraced by brain-dead people is serving its purpose, by deflecting attention away from the protest's original meaning.

The response by so many athletes to President Sentient Egg Avatar's "Get that son of a bitch off the field right now" statement during a speech in Alabama on Friday was wonderful but also indicative of our current reality: that the stupidest, most duplicitous people have hijacked the conversation Kaepernick started and placed NFL players in a reactionary position. It's no longer about the unchecked police violence and widespread inequality that drove Kaepernick's protest; it's about (almost entirely) black athletes responding to the words of arguably the dumbest person to ever occupy the Oval Office and how much more than half of America hates him.

The unity was inspiring and the support of teams that mustered the backbone to condemn the inflammatory words of the President through a press release was commendable, but what are we talking about now?

Sound bites from those who kneeled, stood together with interlocking arms, or remained in the locker room were seemingly required to include a statement from the player about how much he loves the troops or the flag or America because God forbid he doesn't make that clear for the underhanded snakes ready to pounce from the tall grass and scream about disrespecting a soldier that gave his life, as if that proclamation of love from the players matters to the cretins who would scold them anyway.

Kaepernick capitulated to no one, and it's a likely reason for his current lack of an NFL job. Meanwhile, players who are still employed are now compelled to satisfy the Tammy Lorens of the world when the reality is nothing short of total subordination will ever make people like her happy.

Here's what Patriots wide receiver Brandin Cooks said about standing arm-in-arm with his teammates during the anthem:

It's one of those things, you're going to stand with your brothers, kneel with your brothers and be by your side. One statement I'd like to make, a lot of people think we're disrespecting the flag and the military but my father was a Marine, my uncle was a Marine, my family fought in the Vietnam war, I have the utmost respect for the men and women who fight for our freedom … The message we're sending is, we just want respect and unity and there's only so many ways you can do it.

And here's what Kaepernick said the first time he was asked about taking a knee:

I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder. This is not something that I am going to run by anybody. I am not looking for approval. I have to stand up for people that are oppressed...If they take football away, my endorsements from me, I know that I stood up for what is right.

The difference in tone is all the evidence required to see that those who would undermine Kaepernick's original purpose have been successful. Cooks took a brave stance but spent more time talking about how much he loves the troops than he did about respect and unity, two vague and nebulous ideas; Kaepernick's message offered no qualifications about flag love and had a clear, sharp point from which he never wavered before being blackballed out of the league.

What if Cooks' father was a teacher and his uncle a janitor? What if no one in his family fought in the Vietnam War? What if members of his family protested the Vietnam War? Would that make Cooks or anyone else less worthy of respect? No, of course it wouldn't. The people who pretend that it matters are the same people who want to treat him as less than a person in the first place.

At best, Kaepernick's specific protest has morphed into a more wide-ranging one about race in America and standing up to a leader of the free world who believes there are good and bad people on both sides of a fight between white supremacists and those who would stand in their way. At worst, though, any movement started by Kaepernick has been stalled by a spin machine—and a President—that clearly cares more about symbols and vague notions of patriotism than people of color.

Kaepernick's protest was a forceful and specific statement that, for people of color, America is not all it's cracked up to be. This weekend's dramatic expansion of athlete protests was reactionary, with many players feeling the need to include a new caveat that they loved America. Disingenuous political leaders, talking heads and media members, and craven opportunists have shifted the conversation from calling out injustice and inequality to offering up patriotic bona fides and asking for unity.

The opportunity is there for players—all players—to recapture control of the narrative Kaepernick authored last August. If this was nothing more than a one-week response to President Wasn't Loved As A Child, he and all the people like him win. He will have fractured and fragmented one of the most important athlete movements in years and rendered it unrecognizable.

But if players create and claim ownership of a new narrative that comes out of this weekend, one that results in an awakening in this country about race and inequity and is more than just holding up a middle finger to a fat old man, Kaepernick's original movement can become more powerful than anyone ever dreamed.

Brain-Dead Hucksters have Hijacked Colin Kaepernick's Protest published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

[readbookywooks]

Rincewind swallowed. 'Tall man?' he said. 'Fair hair, looks a bit like a ferret?' 'Now that you mention it —' 'He was in my class,' said Rincewind. 'They always said he'd go a long way.' 'He'll go a lot further if he opens the book,' said one of the wizards, who was hastily rolling a cigarette in shaking fingers. 'Why?' said Twoflower. 'What will happen?' The wizards looked at one another. 'It's an ancient secret, handed down from mage to mage, and we can't pass it on to knowlessmen,' said Wert. 'Oh, go on,' said Twoflower. 'Oh well, it probably doesn't matter any more. One mind can't hold all the spells. It'll break down, and leave a hole.' 'What? In his head?' 'Um. No. In the fabric of the Universe,' said Wert. 'He might think he can control it by himself, but —' They felt the sound before they heard it. It started off in the stones as a slow vibration, then rose suddenly to a knife-edge whine that bypassed the eardrums and bored straight into the brain. It sounded like a human voice singing, or chanting, or screamfng, but there were deeper and more horrible harmonics. The wizards went pale. Then, as one man, they turned and ran up the steps. There were crowds outside the building. Some people were holding torches, others had stopped in the act of piling kindling around the walls. But everyone was staring up at the Tower of Art. The wizards pushed their way through the unheeding bodies, and turned to look up. The sky was full of moons. Each one was three times bigger than the Disc's own moon, and each was in shadow except for a pink crescent where it caught the light of the star. But in front of everything the top of the Tower of Art was an incandescent fury. Shapes could be dimly glimpsed within it, but there was nothing reassuring about them. The sound had changed now to the wasplike buzzing, magnified a million times. Some of the wizards sank to their knees. 'He's done it,' said Wert, shaking his head. 'He's opened a pathway.' 'Are those things demons?' said Twoflower. 'Oh, demons,' said Wert. 'Demons would be a picnic compared with what's trying to come through up there.' 'They're worse than anything we can possibly imagine,' said Panter. 'I can imagine some pretty bad things,' said Rincewind. 'These are worse.' 'Oh.' 'And what do you propose to do about it?' said a clear voice. They turned. Bethan was glaring at them, arms folded. 'Pardon?' said Wert. 'You're wizards, aren't you?' she said. 'Well, get on with it.' 'What, tackle that?' said Rincewind. 'Know anyone else?' Wert pushed forward. 'Madam, I don't think you quite understand —' 'The Dungeons Dimensions will empty into our Universe, right?' said Bethan. 'Well, yes —' 'We'll all be eaten by things with tentacles for faces, right?' 'Nothing so pleasant, but —' 'And you're just going to let it happen?' 'Listen,' said Rincewind. 'It's all over, do you see? You can't put the spells back in the book, you can't unsay what's been said, you can't —' 'You can try!' Rincewind sighed, and turned to Twoflower. He wasn't there. Rincewind's eyes turned inevitably towards the base of the Tower of Art, and he was just in time to see the tourist's plump figure, sword inexpertly in hand, as it disappeared into a door. Rincewind's feet made their own decision and, from the oint of view of his head, got it entirely wrong. The other wizards watched him go. 'Well?' said Bethan. 'He's going.' . The wizards tried to avoid one another's eyes. Eventually Wert said, 'We could try, I suppose. It doesn't seem to be spreading.' 'But we've got hardly any magic to speak of,' said one of the wizards. 'Have you got a better idea, then?' One by one, their ceremonial robes glittering in the weird light, the wizards turned and trudged towards the tower. The tower was hollow inside, with the stone treads of its staircase mortared spiral-fashion into the walls. Twoflower was already several turns up by the time Rincewind caught him. 'Hold on,' he said, as cheerfully as he could manage. 'This sort of thing is a job for the likes of Cohen, not you. No offence.' 'Would he do any good?' Rincewind looked up at the actinic light that lanced down through the distant hole at the top of the staircase. 'No,' he admitted. Then I'd be as good as him, wouldn't I?' said Twoflower, flourishing his looted sword. Rincewind hopped after him, keeping as close to the wall as possible. 'You don't understand!' he shouted. There's unimaginable horrors up there!' 'You always said I didn't have any imagination.' 'It's a point, yes,' Rincewind conceded, 'but —' Twoflower sat down. 'Look,' he said. 'I've been looking forward to something like this ever since I came here. I mean, this is an adventure, isn't it? Alone against the gods, that sort of thing?' Rincewind opened and shut his mouth for a few seconds before the right words managed to come out. 'Can you use a sword?' he said weakly. 'I don't know. I've never tried.' 'You're mad!' Twoflower looked at him with his head on one side. 'You're a fine one to talk,' he said. 'I'm here because I don't know any better, but what about you?' He pointed downwards, to where the other wizards were toiling up the stairs. 'What about them?' Blue light speared down the inside of the tower. There was a peal of thunder. The wizards reached them, coughing horribly and fighting for breath. 'What's the plan?' said Rincewind. 'There isn't one,' said Wert. 'Right. Fine,' said Rincewind. 'I'll leave you to get on with it, then.' 'You'll come with us,' said Panter. 'But I'm not even a proper wizard. You threw me out, remember?' 'I can't think of any student less able,' said the old wizard, 'but you're here, and that's the only qualification you need. Come on.' The light flared and went out. The terrible noises died as if strangled. Silence filled the tower; one of those heavy, pressing silences. 'It's stopped,' said Twoflower. Something moved, high up against the circle of red sky. It fell slowly, turning over and over and drifting from side to side. It hit the stairs a turn above them. Rincewind was first to it. It was the Octavo. But it lay on the stone as limp and lifeless as any other book, its pages fluttering in the breeze that blew up the tower. Twoflower panted up behind Rincewind, and looked down. 'They're blank,' he whispered. 'Every page is completely blank.' 'Then he did it,' said Wert. 'He's read the spells. Successfully, too. I wouldn't have believed it.' 'There was all that noise,' said Rincewind doubtfully. 'The light, too. Those shapes. That didn't sound so successful to me.' 'Oh, you always get a certain amount of extradimen-sional attention in any great work of magic,' said Panter dismissively. 'It impresses people, nothing more.' 'It looked like monsters up there,' said Twoflower, standing closer to Rincewind. 'Monsters? Show me some monsters!' said Wert. Instinctively they looked up. There was no sound. Nothing moved against the circle of light. 'I think we should go up and, er, congratulate him,' said Wert. 'Congratulate?' exploded Rincewind. 'He stole the Octavo! He locked you up!' The wizards exchanged knowing looks. 'Yes, well,' said one of them. 'When you've advanced in the craft, lad, you'll know that there are times when the important thing is success.' 'It's getting there that matters,' said Wert bluntly. 'Not how you travel.' They set off up the spiral. Rincewind sat down, scowling at the darkness. He felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Twoflower, who was holding the Octavo. 'This is no way to treat a book,' he said. 'Look, he's bent the spine right back. People always do that, they've got no idea of how to treat them.' 'Yah,' said Rincewind vaguely. 'Don't worry,' said Twoflower. 'I'm not worried, I'm just angry,' snapped Rincewind. 'Give me the bloody thing!' He snatched the book and snapped it open viciously. He rummaged around in the back of his mind, where the Spell hung out. 'All right,' he snarled. You've had your fun, you've ruined my life, now get back to where you belong!' 'But I—' protested Twoflower. 'The Spell, I mean the Spell,' said Rincewind. 'Go on, get back on the page!' He glared at the ancient parchment until his eyes crossed. 'Then I'll say you!' he shouted, his voice echoing up the tower. 'You can join the rest of them and much good may it do you!' He shoved the book back into Twoflower's arms and staggered off up the steps. The wizards had reached the top and disappeared from view. Rincewind climbed after them. 'Lad, am I?' he muttered. 'When I'm advanced in the craft, eh? I just managed to go around with one of the Great Spells in my head for years without going totally insane, didn't I?' He considered the last question from all angles. Yes, you did,' he reassured himself. 'You didn't start talking to trees, even when trees started talking to you.' His head emerged into the sultry air at the top of the tower. He had expected to see fire-blackened stones criss-crossed with talon marks, or perhaps something even worse. Instead he saw the seven senior wizards standing by Trymon, who seemed totally unscathed. He turned and smiled pleasantly at Rincewind. 'Ah, Rincewind. Come and join us, won't you?' So this is it, Rincewind thought. All that drama for nothing. Maybe I really am not cut out to be a wizard, maybe — He looked up and into Trymon's eyes. Perhaps it was the Spell, in its years of living in Rincewind's head, that had affected his eyes. Perhaps his time with Twoflower, who only saw things as they ought to be, had taught him to see things as they are. But what was certain was that by far the most difficult thing Rincewind did in his whole life was look at Trymon without running in terror or being very violently sick. The others didn't seem to have noticed. They also seemed to be standing very still. Trymon had tried to contain the seven Spells in his mind and it had broken, and the Dungeon Dimensions had found their hole, all right. Silly to have imagined that the Things would have come marching out of a sort of rip in the sky, waving mandibles and tentacles. That was old-fashioned stuff, far too risky. Even nameless terrors learned to move with the times. All they really needed to enter was one head. His eyes were empty holes. Knowledge speared into Rincewind's mind like a knife of ice. The Dungeon Dimensions would be a playgroup compared to what the Things could do in a universe of order. People were craving order, and order they would get – the order of the turning screw, the immutable law of straight lines and numbers. They would beg for the harrow . . . Trymon was looking at him. Something was looking at him. And still the others hadn't noticed. Could he even explain it? Trymon looked the same as he had always done, except for the eyes, and a slight sheen to his skin. Rincewind stared, and knew that there were far worse things than Evil. All the demons in Hell would torture your very soul, but that was precisely because they valued souls very highly; evil would always try to steal the universe, but at least it considered the universe worth stealing. But the grey world behind those empty eyes would trample and destroy without even according its victims the dignity of hatred. It wouldn't even notice them. Trymon held out his hand.

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6 Ways Movies Fool You Into Ignoring Bad Reviews

Terrible movies will always exist. They’re one of those unavoidable annoyances, like stubbing your toe or getting picked last during an orgy. Unfortunately, even when knowingly faced with a dud, studios still have to pretend they’re sitting on the Holy Grail of eye-blasting family entertainment — at least for the duration of the marketing.

So how does one polish a brawny turd in an age when resources like Rotten Tomatoes have made the average moviegoer hyper-aware of mediocrity? It’s not easy. And in a way, the ability to spin a piece of terrible entertainment as the next big Star War is an art in itself. Only instead of ink and light, these modern-day Rembrandts (had Rembrandt gone to Emerson and was nicknamed “The Donk”) are painting with beautiful lies.

6

Shitty Films Have Used “Joke” Reviews In Their Ads

Film studios want nothing more than the power to write their own reviews … something Sony actually got caught doing back in 2001, when it was revealed that fake quotes from a nonexistent critic named David Manning were used to praise masterpieces like The Animal and Hollow Man — the latter film featuring invisible gorillas and Kevin Bacon’s CGI dick muscles.

It was a ruse that would end up costing the studio over a million dollars in lawsuits, and so no other studio attempted such a blatant teabagging of the public’s trust. Instead, they did find a way to more gently dab our foreheads with technically-legal jest: They use fake critics under the excuse of “humor.”

Take the recent Lynchian abomination that was Nine Lives, a film about a rich and powerful Kevin Spacey being turned into a cat via Christopher Walken voodoo. The movie features all the things we’ve come to expect from a children’s film, such as existential torture, a cat getting drunk, and a fucking suicide fakeout. Needless to say, critics weren’t on board with it. And so TV spots opted to sprinkle the feline romp with hilarious joke reviews from places like “Vanity Fur,” “Meowsweek,” and the “Catfington Post.”

It’s exactly the kind of incredible wordplay you’d expect from this film about cat possession. And while there’s nothing wrong with including bullshit pun reviews as a joke, when you watch the ad in real time, it becomes apparent that chucklefuckery wasn’t the only motivation.

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5 Criminals With The Worst Luck In The Entire World

That’s right, each “review” flashed on screen for a nano-second while the voiceover quoted the fake praise without any context. Meaning that unless you paused your television, most people watching had no idea it wasn’t really a quote from Vanity Fair. But if anyone calls them out on their colossal horseshit (like right now), the producers are able to shrug and say it was all in good fun. It must be a coincidence that the only other film to use this technique was the exhausting Vampire’s Suck — a spoof “comedy” which, according to ads, were given standing ovations by such critics as “Hugh Jass” and “Oliver Klozoffe.” Jesus, you guys, could you at least think of bad vampire puns for your terrible film, like David Edelstake or Gene Siskill? It would have only taken a minute.

5

Studios Use (Misquoted) Reviews From Total Randos On The Internet

If incredulously scrolling Rotten Tomatoes fan reviews have taught me anything, it’s that audiences tend to be way more forgiving of shitty movies than critics. You could argue that critics are heartless pedants soured by their own career failures, or maybe accept that it’s possible to enjoy a film that also happens to be garbage. There are no villains here, but the important takeaway is that critics are hired and respected because most of them are able to judge a film from an objective perspective. This is why studios put their quotes on posters and trailers instead of those of some random jerk on Twitter, right?

Oh no. Turns out that’s no longer the case. It seems anyone can be a prestigious movie critic now, even @zoidberg95 talking about the unbridled joy King Arthur brings him. This isn’t an isolated incident by a long shot, as evidenced by the recent pullquote in the trailer for Broken City, a Mark Wahlberg film with a 28 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

Sure, we can all agree that Mark Wahlberg is “bad ass” in the sense that assaulting a middle-aged Vietnamese man is both “bad” and an “ass” thing to do. And sure, there’s nothing technically wrong with giving the man on the street a voice of support. But here’s the thing: According to the source of that quote, he hadn’t seen the film. The studio used a tweet made about an entirely different Mark Wahlberg performance and used it in their ad. And they are somehow allowed to do this as long as they ask the author of the tweet beforehand. That’s it. There are no qualifications or confirmations beyond a polite message and digital contract.

Thanks to the crowdsourcing power of the internet, you can literally find anyone who is into any crazy thing. Studios know this, and are able to make a film seem like it has word-of-mouth appeal by scraping the bottom of the Twitter barrel to find faceless folks saying the right things. Or failing that, they find faceless folks saying the wrong thing and simply make it seem like they said the right thing.

After Batman v. Superman‘s Twitter account told us about the high praises of @raniaresh, someone pointed out that the now-banned account was only an egg icon with the profile: “I did NOT enjoy Batman v Superman.” The tweet was then pulled and replaced with yet another rando with the same basic praise.

Notice how it’s the same reworded “whoa my mind = blown” quote, only now attributed to someone else? Warner Bros. didn’t care where they were getting the quote; they just wanted some vague sentence calling their disjointed film “mind-blowing.” Chances are they tasked some hungover intern to scour social media for any kind of evidence of exploding brains and slap that shit on a promo shot, regardless of who said those words or what context they were said in.

But if you think this dirty process is safe from critics, you are not correct …

4

Advertising Perpetually Cherry-Picks Critic Quotes To Make Them Seem Positive

Writers write a lot of words, and it’s pretty easy to change what those words mean if you only take a few of them. For example, I earlier described the plot of Nine Lives as “rich and powerful,” if you ignore everything around those two adjectives. In the way Rock Bottom can turn Homer Simpson into a pervert, so too can studios make terrible reviews seem complimentary. For example, this glowing phrase about Rock Of Ages from a Guardian reporter …

… was in truth pulled from a one-star review quote: “It’s a very peculiar show indeed, with an unvarying and unpleasant tone of careless sexualisation. Rock’n’roll debauchery is presented as the pure and innocent way of dreamers.”

Seriously, they fucking did that. And the reviewer in question wasn’t too happy about it at all. And amazingly, this isn’t the only time The Guardian‘s deep disdain was twisted into cheerful praise, like a laughing clown puppet made from a child’s corpse. Check out this poster for Legend and its collection of four-star reviews:

Except that Guardian review in the middle? It’s a two-star review they made to look like four stars that had been obstructed. That’s honestly hilarious and brilliant and hard to be mad at, but the act of taking someone’s out-of-context words and slapping them on your poster or DVD case can go from cute trolling to downright infuriating very fast.

For example, the movie Accidental Love (which has a flatlining 6 percent on Rotten Tomatoes) underwent a horrendous production which resulted in a cobbled-together shitcircus disowned by its director. When reviewing it, The AV Club noted that the original version probably wasn’t all that great either, saying “there’s little reason to believe that the ideal, untroubled version of the material would have been a comedic masterstroke.”

And then this:

Yeah, that’s the back of Accidental Love‘s DVD case using The AV Club’s unfavorable description of a (still better) hypothetical movie as their review quote. You can imagine how that kind of insidious tangle of bull angered the original writer … or you can read his response here.

It comes down to this: Never trust a review quoted on a movie’s promotional material. Ever. The only information you’re getting is that those combination of words were somewhere in the writing, but in no way were they necessarily meant to describe the movie being advertised. Which puts a whole new light on posters like this:

3

TV Networks Will Misspell Their Shows’ Names To Avoid Bad Ratings

In the age of streaming, being a TV executive has the life expectancy of a docile classroom hamster. Their entire job can be summed up by a picture of a stargazing dinosaur on a suspiciously bright night. It’s totally understandable that networks would claw and gouge their way to profit in these uncertain times, and yet their sleazy resourcefulness still manages to surprise even me, an undercover diamond thief working the long con as a internet writer who broadcasts his diabolical intent all across the land.

To quickly set this up, you have to understand the Nielsen ratings. Every show undergoes the same measurement using a sample audience being monitored for what TV shows they watch. That data is calculated into a rating for each show, and the ratings are averaged into monthly or quarterly reports. Advertisers then look at these reports and decide what time slots to buy for their sexy burger or cartoon shitting bear commercials. Therefore, a show with a better average will get more money for advertising. With me still? It’s all a big wet fart of intrigue for your average consumer, which means few people pay attention to Nielsen ratings. But once you start to read daily reports on TV industry sites, you’ll start to notice something bizarre in the footnotes:

That’s right, in what seems like playground-level cheating, television networks can deliberately change or misspell their own shows if they anticipate bad ratings for that night. By doing this, that episode won’t be calculated into the shows’ overall averages, and their quarterly ratings won’t go down. And so shows like NBC Nightly News become “NBC Nitely News,” so that marketers don’t pull that sweet, sweet commercial dough.

How could such obvious semantic trickery go unchallenged? Well, it turns out you can do all sorts of amazing hogwash with human language. Ever heard of the show Bull? It’s a CBS courtroom drama co-created by, and inspired by, the life of Dr. Phil which exists for some unimaginable reason. It also airs something called “encore” episodes every now and then.

That’s not just the wording of the article, but the official CBS classification of a repeat episode of Bull. You see, a show’s ratings are calculated based not only on their first run, but also on (typically lower) rerun ratings. But if you call your rerun an “encore” episode, then it doesn’t get categorized with the original episode, thus avoiding a lower score. Yep, apparently you can change the words of things to completely redefine their importance, like calling bags of Funyuns under a co-worker’s desk “diamonds” and then telling everyone you’re a “jewel thief.”

2

When In Doubt, Simply Block Critics From Reviewing It Ahead Of Time

It’s the perfect crime. Critics can’t say your game or movie sucks if they can’t see it. So studios will simply prevent critics from seeing their work before it comes out. It’s like throwing bleach in your date’s eyes so they won’t know how ugly you are. And while sounding excruciatingly transparent, this technique works way more often than you think. It’s called an embargo, and it’s what Ubisoft did before Assassin’s Creed Unity, which ultimately received lukewarm reviews for being breathtakingly glitch-filled. Like, so glitchy it was a work of sinister art — like something the Joker would conjure up.

Ubisoft “How am I supposed to enjoy a carefree romp of clandestine murder after THIS?!”

Unfortunately for gamers, those reviews only came in after the midnight release — as ordered by Ubisoft when they first sent their early copies out. But it could be worse. You could go a step further, like Wild Games Studios did when they trolled through YouTube sticking copyright violations on any video which spoke badly of their new release. Or Sega, which used the same tactic to shut down bad YouTube reviews that didn’t even contain footage from their games.

In the end, this technique usually causes a huge and understandable backlash, on account of YouTubers being wicked blabbermouths about such injustices. But critic embargoes are so common that they’re considered normal. And most often, this isn’t nefarious at all, but rather a measure against premature spoilers or judgments before a film is locked down in post. Only every once in a while is this tool used to cover up true garbage. Pungent, salty garbage — the kind you can taste through your nose. Like, I’m talking alien-chasing-a-school-bus-driven-by-Judd-Hirsch level of garbage here.

Independence Day: Resurgence is a film I happen to enjoy that is also objectively terrible. And 20th Century Fox knew it was terrible, hence their American critic embargo lasted up until the day it was released — causing most audiences to buy a ticket without knowing its quality. Similar measures, which include completely skipping press screenings altogether, have happened for similarly bad work like Alien Vs. Predator and the G.I. Joe films.

Yes, you could argue that these films “weren’t meant for critics,” as a lot of executives often say. But that’s kind of like saying an apartment complex “isn’t meant for safety inspectors” or that your basement “isn’t meant for homicide detectives.” People deserve to know in advance if something sucks. But that doesn’t mean we won’t still enjoy it or flock to see it. And if all else fails, you can always do what China does and completely circumvent the pesky audience altogether …

1

China Will Hold “Ghost Screenings” To Make Films Look More Popular

As previously mentioned, China is quickly becoming the dominating money-maker for blockbusters. So it stands to reason that the country would also become the industry leader for blatantly fudging a movie’s popularity. But instead of relying on embargoes or misleading ads, Chinese studios have taken a much more direct approach: just buying tickets to the movie they made.

The Wall Street Journal “‘Best thing to ever happen to movies!’ raved one translucent women in a bloodstained Victorian wedding dress.”

It’s as brilliant as it is illegal. Instead of pouring money into television spots and bus stop posters, simply use that marketing money to buy out theater showings, and watch the popularity snowball. And to ensure profit, those purchased tickets can then be resold online to discount ticket retailers. It’s like stealing your own car for the insurance, and then selling that stolen car for a second profit.

Unfortunately for those cheating marketers, I wouldn’t be writing about this if people didn’t figure out it was happening. Ghost screenings were recently brought to light thanks to the film Ip Man 3, a martial arts biopic which bafflingly includes Mike Tyson playing an evil property developer who ends up fighting the hero in an epic battle of kung-fu vs. boxing vs. child endangerment.

Pegasus Motion Pictures Why this movie felt the need to artificially inflate its popularity is beyond me.

After the film’s release, a local news site posted screenshots of theater websites claiming to have sold-out screenings for showings that started within ten minutes of each other … in the same auditorium. Meaning that, save for some kind of multiple-dimension scenario caused by Mike Tyson punching time itself, someone was brazenly cheating in the laziest way possible.

When The Wall Street Journal dug deeper, they found it to be a regular (albeit short-term) strategy for film distributors to buy out fake screenings in the hope that sold-out shows would encourage audiences to assume the film is popular and therefore go see it themselves. It’s not very imaginative, but if studios were more creative, they wouldn’t need to do all the bullshit on this list to begin with.

David is a writer and editor for this very website that you currently read. You can follow him on Twitter.

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Brain-Dead Hucksters have Hijacked Colin Kaepernick’s Protest

Last August, during the NFL’s preseason, Colin Kaepernick started sitting down during the national anthem.

When a reporter finally noticed what the quarterback was doing, Kaepernick gave a clear justification for his peaceful, 90-second protest: he could no longer turn a blind eye toward the brutality suffered by people of color at the hands of law enforcement. He wanted to open a dialogue about oppression, inequality, and the fact that some police officers avoided consequences after killing innocent, unarmed people in the United States. He believed the lives of those human beings were more important than him or his job, and personal and professional consequences would not stop him.

An extremely vocal portion of the country reacted by asking, But what about the song? That sentiment morphed into gripes about respect for the flag and then, finally, the absurd logical end of this nonsense, Why do you hate the troops and, by extension, America?

Kaepernick wanted the spotlight focused on powerless Americans having their rights trampled and lives taken; the disingenuous right countered with a year-long campaign to discredit Kaepernick and anyone who joined him by pushing a false narrative about disrespecting the troops, who apparently specifically died in every war for a song and a piece of cloth and not the right of Americans to take those knees, or the right to live in a country where police officers don’t get to murder citizens without repercussion.

It’s heartbreaking to say, but this past Sunday shows that brain-dead argument perpetrated by brain-dead hucksters and embraced by brain-dead people is serving its purpose, by deflecting attention away from the protest’s original meaning.

The response by so many athletes to President Sentient Egg Avatar’s “Get that son of a bitch off the field right now” statement during a speech in Alabama on Friday was wonderful but also indicative of our current reality: that the stupidest, most duplicitous people have hijacked the conversation Kaepernick started and placed NFL players in a reactionary position. It’s no longer about the unchecked police violence and widespread inequality that drove Kaepernick’s protest; it’s about (almost entirely) black athletes responding to the words of arguably the dumbest person to ever occupy the Oval Office and how much more than half of America hates him.

The unity was inspiring and the support of teams that mustered the backbone to condemn the inflammatory words of the President through a press release was commendable, but what are we talking about now?

Sound bites from those who kneeled, stood together with interlocking arms, or remained in the locker room were seemingly required to include a statement from the player about how much he loves the troops or the flag or America because God forbid he doesn’t make that clear for the underhanded snakes ready to pounce from the tall grass and scream about disrespecting a soldier that gave his life, as if that proclamation of love from the players matters to the cretins who would scold them anyway.

Kaepernick capitulated to no one, and it’s a likely reason for his current lack of an NFL job. Meanwhile, players who are still employed are now compelled to satisfy the Tammy Lorens of the world when the reality is nothing short of total subordination will ever make people like her happy.

Here’s what Patriots wide receiver Brandin Cooks said about standing arm-in-arm with his teammates during the anthem:

It’s one of those things, you’re going to stand with your brothers, kneel with your brothers and be by your side. One statement I’d like to make, a lot of people think we’re disrespecting the flag and the military but my father was a Marine, my uncle was a Marine, my family fought in the Vietnam war, I have the utmost respect for the men and women who fight for our freedom … The message we’re sending is, we just want respect and unity and there’s only so many ways you can do it.

And here’s what Kaepernick said the first time he was asked about taking a knee:

I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder. This is not something that I am going to run by anybody. I am not looking for approval. I have to stand up for people that are oppressed…If they take football away, my endorsements from me, I know that I stood up for what is right.

The difference in tone is all the evidence required to see that those who would undermine Kaepernick’s original purpose have been successful. Cooks took a brave stance but spent more time talking about how much he loves the troops than he did about respect and unity, two vague and nebulous ideas; Kaepernick’s message offered no qualifications about flag love and had a clear, sharp point from which he never wavered before being blackballed out of the league.

What if Cooks’ father was a teacher and his uncle a janitor? What if no one in his family fought in the Vietnam War? What if members of his family protested the Vietnam War? Would that make Cooks or anyone else less worthy of respect? No, of course it wouldn’t. The people who pretend that it matters are the same people who want to treat him as less than a person in the first place.

At best, Kaepernick’s specific protest has morphed into a more wide-ranging one about race in America and standing up to a leader of the free world who believes there are good and bad people on both sides of a fight between white supremacists and those who would stand in their way. At worst, though, any movement started by Kaepernick has been stalled by a spin machine—and a President—that clearly cares more about symbols and vague notions of patriotism than people of color.

Kaepernick’s protest was a forceful and specific statement that, for people of color, America is not all it’s cracked up to be. This weekend’s dramatic expansion of athlete protests was reactionary, with many players feeling the need to include a new caveat that they loved America. Disingenuous political leaders, talking heads and media members, and craven opportunists have shifted the conversation from calling out injustice and inequality to offering up patriotic bona fides and asking for unity.

The opportunity is there for players—all players—to recapture control of the narrative Kaepernick authored last August. If this was nothing more than a one-week response to President Wasn’t Loved As A Child, he and all the people like him win. He will have fractured and fragmented one of the most important athlete movements in years and rendered it unrecognizable.

But if players create and claim ownership of a new narrative that comes out of this weekend, one that results in an awakening in this country about race and inequity and is more than just holding up a middle finger to a fat old man, Kaepernick’s original movement can become more powerful than anyone ever dreamed.

Brain-Dead Hucksters have Hijacked Colin Kaepernick’s Protest syndicated from http://ift.tt/2ug2Ns6

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Brain-Dead Hucksters have Hijacked Colin Kaepernick's Protest

Last August, during the NFL's preseason, Colin Kaepernick started sitting down during the national anthem.

When a reporter finally noticed what the quarterback was doing, Kaepernick gave a clear justification for his peaceful, 90-second protest: he could no longer turn a blind eye toward the brutality suffered by people of color at the hands of law enforcement. He wanted to open a dialogue about oppression, inequality, and the fact that some police officers avoided consequences after killing innocent, unarmed people in the United States. He believed the lives of those human beings were more important than him or his job, and personal and professional consequences would not stop him.

An extremely vocal portion of the country reacted by asking, But what about the song? That sentiment morphed into gripes about respect for the flag and then, finally, the absurd logical end of this nonsense, Why do you hate the troops and, by extension, America?

Kaepernick wanted the spotlight focused on powerless Americans having their rights trampled and lives taken; the disingenuous right countered with a year-long campaign to discredit Kaepernick and anyone who joined him by pushing a false narrative about disrespecting the troops, who apparently specifically died in every war for a song and a piece of cloth and not the right of Americans to take those knees, or the right to live in a country where police officers don't get to murder citizens without repercussion.

It's heartbreaking to say, but this past Sunday shows that brain-dead argument perpetrated by brain-dead hucksters and embraced by brain-dead people is serving its purpose, by deflecting attention away from the protest's original meaning.

The response by so many athletes to President Sentient Egg Avatar's "Get that son of a bitch off the field right now" statement during a speech in Alabama on Friday was wonderful but also indicative of our current reality: that the stupidest, most duplicitous people have hijacked the conversation Kaepernick started and placed NFL players in a reactionary position. It's no longer about the unchecked police violence and widespread inequality that drove Kaepernick's protest; it's about (almost entirely) black athletes responding to the words of arguably the dumbest person to ever occupy the Oval Office and how much more than half of America hates him.

The unity was inspiring and the support of teams that mustered the backbone to condemn the inflammatory words of the President through a press release was commendable, but what are we talking about now?

Sound bites from those who kneeled, stood together with interlocking arms, or remained in the locker room were seemingly required to include a statement from the player about how much he loves the troops or the flag or America because God forbid he doesn't make that clear for the underhanded snakes ready to pounce from the tall grass and scream about disrespecting a soldier that gave his life, as if that proclamation of love from the players matters to the cretins who would scold them anyway.

Kaepernick capitulated to no one, and it's a likely reason for his current lack of an NFL job. Meanwhile, players who are still employed are now compelled to satisfy the Tammy Lorens of the world when the reality is nothing short of total subordination will ever make people like her happy.

Here's what Patriots wide receiver Brandin Cooks said about standing arm-in-arm with his teammates during the anthem:

It's one of those things, you're going to stand with your brothers, kneel with your brothers and be by your side. One statement I'd like to make, a lot of people think we're disrespecting the flag and the military but my father was a Marine, my uncle was a Marine, my family fought in the Vietnam war, I have the utmost respect for the men and women who fight for our freedom … The message we're sending is, we just want respect and unity and there's only so many ways you can do it.

And here's what Kaepernick said the first time he was asked about taking a knee:

I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder. This is not something that I am going to run by anybody. I am not looking for approval. I have to stand up for people that are oppressed...If they take football away, my endorsements from me, I know that I stood up for what is right.

The difference in tone is all the evidence required to see that those who would undermine Kaepernick's original purpose have been successful. Cooks took a brave stance but spent more time talking about how much he loves the troops than he did about respect and unity, two vague and nebulous ideas; Kaepernick's message offered no qualifications about flag love and had a clear, sharp point from which he never wavered before being blackballed out of the league.

What if Cooks' father was a teacher and his uncle a janitor? What if no one in his family fought in the Vietnam War? What if members of his family protested the Vietnam War? Would that make Cooks or anyone else less worthy of respect? No, of course it wouldn't. The people who pretend that it matters are the same people who want to treat him as less than a person in the first place.

At best, Kaepernick's specific protest has morphed into a more wide-ranging one about race in America and standing up to a leader of the free world who believes there are good and bad people on both sides of a fight between white supremacists and those who would stand in their way. At worst, though, any movement started by Kaepernick has been stalled by a spin machine—and a President—that clearly cares more about symbols and vague notions of patriotism than people of color.

Kaepernick's protest was a forceful and specific statement that, for people of color, America is not all it's cracked up to be. This weekend's dramatic expansion of athlete protests was reactionary, with many players feeling the need to include a new caveat that they loved America. Disingenuous political leaders, talking heads and media members, and craven opportunists have shifted the conversation from calling out injustice and inequality to offering up patriotic bona fides and asking for unity.

The opportunity is there for players—all players—to recapture control of the narrative Kaepernick authored last August. If this was nothing more than a one-week response to President Wasn't Loved As A Child, he and all the people like him win. He will have fractured and fragmented one of the most important athlete movements in years and rendered it unrecognizable.

But if players create and claim ownership of a new narrative that comes out of this weekend, one that results in an awakening in this country about race and inequity and is more than just holding up a middle finger to a fat old man, Kaepernick's original movement can become more powerful than anyone ever dreamed.

Brain-Dead Hucksters have Hijacked Colin Kaepernick's Protest published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv