#look its that dave guy... inconsistent but good enough

[arkarti]

What a nice 'n trustworthy security guy 😊

Twitter: X

[thequietmanno1]

TheLreads, Vigilantes ch 94, Replies Part 2

1) “OH WHAT THE FUCK HIS FACE”- Well, not all of it, but enough to say he’s not that ugly a dude after all, underneath all that. Got that Dave Baustra/Dwayne Johnstone look to his features.

2) “Oh jesus man you guys waited a whole day to remove the bodies and start investigating it? poor bastards, were left to rot in the open like that, I knew this society was rotten to the core #Stain was right”- Seeing as nobody actually died in this suppression incident, I’m not really sure what the body outlines are meant to indicate, especially since the only gunfire used in the fight was by Knuckles’ own hand.

3) “And I still want to see how that would’ve looked in an official hero report. “So I recruited a civilian fighting in an illegal ring and a non-licensed pro-hero in training also fighting in the same illegal ring to help me fight a villain. I also tried to pay them with law-enforcement funds but they refused””- I think Knuckles was working with the corrupt parts of the system long before he started working outside of it as a vigilante.

4) “Also completely bending the hero rules as he sees fit to protect elements that by intents and purposes were criminals and should’ve been arrested, but that’s too long so let us keep it at “cautious””- Knuckles sweeping this whole mess under the rug benefitted Him as much as it benefitted Mirko and Rappa, but it benefitted AFO in the end more. 5) “OH THANK THE FUCKING LORD THE BLACK BACKGROUND IS GONE THAT MEANS WE’RE OUT OF THE NIGHTMARE

WHERE IS KOICHI, IS HE STILL UP IN THAT BUILDING? IS HE EATING PROPERLY? TELL ME ABOUT MY BOY FURUHASHI

TELL ME”- No news on the best Boi yet, but the good news is we won’t be dragged into any further flashbacks now… 6) “that super secret ultimate showdown that was so secret that apparently everybody in the police force is aware of for some reason, since a completely unrelated nobody like you is thinking about it

oh my fucking god man”- I’m gonna take a guess that The higher-ups were made aware of the fight by necessity in order to account for All Might’s weakened performance, and those law enforcement who had been experienced in the job for a while were able to find out the particulars through their own investigating around the office, based on “detective instinct’ something was up.. If that’s too much of a stretch, don’t worry, the massive plot hole he just opened got sealed with a bang. 7) “the dots that show that the super-villain from back then is too similar to the ones that showed up at naruhata, and the ones at the sky egg??

HUH?! SOMEONE IS CONNECTING THE DOTS?!

WHAT”-

 Furuhashi: Well, we can’t have that! (kills him literally a few panels after he realises) Remember kids, competency kills!

8) “ DID THIS MOTHERFUCKER JUST FOUND THAT AFO WAS BACK YEARS BEFORE EVERYBODY ELSE?!

AND HE DIDN’T TOLD ANYONE?!

WHAT

NO, HE’S GONNA BE KILLED, ISN’T HE? THERE’S NO WAY THAT HE CAN JUST BRUSH THIS UNDER THE RUG, SOMEONE IS GONNA ICE HIM FOR SURE”-Well, it was a bit more of a fiery cover-up than a stone-cold cement shoes ending for him, but yep. Didn’t even make it to the chapter’s end. 9) “ITS HIM

IT’S FUCKING HIM FOR SURE

HES GONNA FUCKING KILL TANUMA”- The Nomura everywhere system strikes again! 10) “SORRY DUDE, BUT YOU DON’T HAVE MUCH TIME

DEATH IS KNOCKING AT THE DOOR RIGHT NOW, AND THEY REALLY WANT TO HAVE A CHAT”- Tanuma’s chat with the reaper was short, but loud.

11) “I CAN’T FUCKING BELIEVE IT

HE FOUND OUT THE TRUTH JUST FOR McBEE TO SHOW UP AND IMMEDIATELY KILL HIM TO KEEP THE TIMELINE STABLE”-Not the smoothest way to resolve plot inconsistencies, but certainly takes care of all the bumps in the road we’ve have had to deal with should Tanuma have lived. 12) “And out he goes, the say was saved once again thanks to McBee!”- When the Villain is the one saving the plot, you know something’s gone amis. 13) “Oh ho ho, I’m already liking where this is going. McBee is off his shits after that humiliating encounter with koichi, I can only hope this mean we’re about to see something magical happen

Now I’m excited to read what might come next, that’s for sure”- The chains of the past no longer restrain us, now the showdown of the next generation of vigilantes can commence! 14) “Which now, after properly finished and with all the information provided by it I can finally say:

why in the fuck was it even included here

Like, holy shit, I was already questioning how anything that could’ve come up in the flashback could benefit the plot in the present, since Koichi was not even involved in learning about what we saw it was a cop revisiting an old file, and then the chapter ends with McBee killing said cop and erasing all evidence

Net zero information gain for the story. Could’ve added those last five pages to a chapter as footnote and it would’ve been just as effective, perhaps even more effective. Like, no joke, what did we even learned there? And I don’t mean that Hoodie and Mirko fought before or that Rappa and Mirko helped a pro hero before going their separate ways, I mean, what information here was meaningful for understanding the Vigilantes manga itself.”- Given that the ending of the Manga was looming (which wasn’t announced to anybody until a few chapters away) I guess they wanted to show what Knuckles’ past connection to AFO was and how he got on his trail in the first place. That said, I do agree with the pacing issue, it felt like a filler arc that got added to pad out the runtime of an anime in-between adapting ongoing arcs of a manga. @thelreads

[notdirk]

A mini guide on Roxy’s ... ?

I’ll come back to the title later.

Oh look, a third, making this an official series that I’m going through with, seeing as writing is an art form too. (and because I like doing it). Feel free to check my Dirk and Jake guides if you haven’t already, they’re kinda cool and they have words.

I took a poll on Twitter and the people have spoken, it’s Roxy time (Jane is next).

Yet again, gotta preface, I’m no Roxy expert either, and if you wanna do your own thing then feel free. I’m not telling you how to live or fake drunk type. Slide your hands all over your keyboard, do what you gotta do.

They’re written differently as drunk and as sober, so count the first 3 as drunk Roxy and the last 3 as sober Roxy.

Roxy’s kinda catty and I dig that completely, they’re super fun to write due to the chatspeak which I think makes them seem a little less hard to write for. But it brings up problems too, because they’re more than that.

When I see Roxy in fanfiction where they aren’t the main character, they’re usually just yet another background guy who has nothing to do aside from listen to the main character’s woes and console them. Roxy’s just the awkward social wingman who honestly usually only appears via Pesterchum and doesn’t actually physically interact with anyone.

The usual mistakes I see people make when writing for Roxy as a whole are:

An overabundance of typos. Now listen, I know that’s crazy to say seeing as when you’re drunk you do kinda just go crazy on the keyboard, it’s harder to stay focused on things and typos are expected. (I’ve dealt with drunk people before, but have never been drunk myself so I kind of get it) but Roxy manages to send sentences lacking typos occasionally, you gotta be generous with your typo amount and not hamfist them into their logs.

Getting the typos wrong. Certain words replaced with innuendo and play-on words, they kinda inserts puns into their typos sometimes. It isn't JUST "ohhie i i guyy s simg durnk :3" The typos also vary on pronunciation, they’re accidental homophones. (e.g. horbible to whore bible, rudiculous to RUDEdiculous, etc.) They’re pretty clever with their typos, use it as a chance to be creative and insert puns into their speech.(Also correcting the typos too often, they do correct it but it’s inconsistent and follows no pattern, they don’t correct every single typo they make).

Roxy is occasionally flirty, but they’re always playful with what they say, even when the situation is heated. Roxy won’t pass up the opportunity to be playful and possibly even silly when it suits them, they know how to have fun and they’re even a little playful when annoyed.

Metaphors? What metaphors? Aren’t the analogies limited to Striders? A: No, oh hell no. Roxy uses a lot of metaphors and analogies in relation to what they’re talking about, not as much as Dave does but definitely more than 3 times. Enough for it to be part of their character. Don’t know how to explain how you’re feeling? What happened just sucked? Well, maybe it was like Shakespearean, makes you wanna weep softly and leave a bouquet somewhere. Someone plays a sad trumpet in the distance. It’s another good opportunity to get creative, you really can’t do a metaphor “wrong”, the idea is absurd.

Grammar and emoticon use. Roxy uses text emoticons more than the other alphas, the occasional :3, :( and even XD once, it adds extra expression to their text (not that it isn’t already expressive as is). The chatspeak consisting of “r”, “u”, and “2″ replacing “are”, “you” and “to/too/two”, etc is fun to play with, it’s inconsistent again so I don’t really think there’s a way to overdo it? But I’ve seen people under use it quite a lot.

They aren’t stupid, they really aren’t. Some people seem to forget that Roxy is a pretty smart kid. They like to write fairly often, play video games and they’re a pretty exceptional coder and hacker. They have interests outside of the occasional drink, don’t forget that, it’s important. 

This post is kind of long, I don’t know if it’s longer than the Jake one or not but here it is, in all of its glory. If you think I fucked up anywhere or missed something important, feel free to hit me up and I’ll update it.

If you’d like any personal critiques on your writing then I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to pinpoint everything wrong but I’d be happy to assist/see what you’ve got.

[dogbearinggifts]

Brothers in Arms, Part One

Umbrella Academy

Author’s note: This is Part One of the fifth installment of my Sheepdogs series. If this is the first time you’re seeing it on your dash, you can start with Part One, He Saw the Ghosts, a slight AU exploring what could have happened if a kinder vet had approached Klaus at the VFW. Dead Ringer, Tattoos with Better Stories, and Missing in Action follow the vets Klaus meets as they try to unravel the mystery surrounding his photograph hanging on their memorial wall. All installments are available on my AO3 account.

A quick warning: This installment features a character expressing homophobic attitudes typical of the era. 

1968

Humid air, heavy with rain, wrapped around Art’s skin as he sighted his target. 

Klaus never strayed too far, when he wandered, never went too near the edges of camp, but that didn’t make him easy to track down. For how high he could raise his voice and how loudly he could laugh, the guy could be quieter than Spurlock when he wanted to sneak around. 

Speak of the devil….

Art went over the story in his mind. His latest contribution to the Spurlock canon had brought laughter, sure, but most of those stories earned at least a chuckle. This one, though—this one had garnered a piece of advice, echoed and approved by every man who heard it: “You’ve gotta tell Klaus.” Being encouraged to share a joke with the rest of the group was one thing, but to hear your joke should be brought to the man who could make an entire tent laugh with a quip and a scowl? Well. There were greater achievements, higher honors, but none sent Art out in search of them. 

A few steps took him close enough to see Klaus wasn’t smiling. Nothing Art hadn’t seen before, but that just made him quicken his pace. The second he heard what Art had in store, that frown would disappear and he’d—

It was the finer nuances in the look Klaus wore that stopped him first. He’d seen Klaus upset before, of course, seen him distraught and nervous and plain old scared. He knew of no man who could make it through a war zone without having to fight through any of those things, and if one existed, Art wasn’t sure he’d like to meet him. 

But there was no gunfire nearby. There was only Dave, standing across and shaking his head as Klaus spoke. 

For a few seconds, Art could only watch. Klaus spoke at full tilt, hands upturned in a gesture resembling a plea, words inaudible from that distance. His lips moved too quickly for Art to read much of what he said, but any bozo could tell this was not the sort of conversation Klaus usually involved himself in. 

“That’s a sin, you know.” The warning came to mind with such speed and clarity that Art’s grandmother might as well have spoken directly in his ear. He could hear the rest of her lecture, too: Eavesdropping had no purpose aside from gathering information that was never yours to hear, and the only reason why one might want that information was to spread gossip, which was a big enough sin that Art’s grandmother had always pursed her lips and pointedly changed the subject whenever something resembling gossip entered her home or church. She might tell a white lie now and then, down one too many glasses of wine on occasion, but gossip was the one sin on which she never compromised. 

Art pressed his back against a nearby tree, trying to ignore that old pang of guilt. Even separated from notions of sin and damnation, even stripped of its connotations to old biddies quilting and shooting the shit, his grandmother’s disdain for gossip was far from baseless. Rumors never did anyone a bit of good, and he couldn’t recall a time when they didn’t do the opposite. 

But then, it was only gossip if you shared what you knew. 

Klaus was still speaking, words tumbling over each other in a rush too fast for Art to read. Dave shook his head, and Klaus spoke again, more briefly this time. 

Dave cupped a hand to Klaus’ cheek. Words followed, words so slow and clear Art would have needed to look away had he wanted to miss them. 

“I love you.” 

Klaus didn’t gasp. No confusion twisted his features, no apprehension made him take a step back. The statement was expected—and so was something else, something that didn’t follow even after a moment’s pause. “But?” 

Hurt and confusion, disbelief and heartbreak crossed Dave’s face, not warring for dominance so much as gathering into a force of their own, blending together and becoming something new. Without a word, Dave pulled Klaus into his arms. 

Neither spoke after that. 

“One tat doesn’t prove a thing.” 

“They share more than one tattoo,” Richard said. “You know that.” 

Art did know that. And a part of him wanted to be content with it, to take that fact and turn it into something resembling closure. “Look, Klaus—the Klaus I knew—he had ‘em on his hands, too. Hello on one, Good Bye on the other.” 

Richard and Jim traded glances, and Art knew what he’d hear before they spoke. “Our Klaus had those, too,” Jim said. 

There was no point in asking whether the locations matched; as best he could recall, the tattoos on their Klaus and the tattoos on the Klaus he’d served with were in the same places. Klaus, his Klaus, hadn’t been the only man to wear that Sky Soldiers tattoo—Art was living proof of that—but he knew of only one with an umbrella on his arm and pleasantries on his palms. 

“You said he looked like that picture.” 

“Just like it,” Jim said. 

“Like he’d stepped right out of the frame,” Richard added. 

Art drew a breath, but the small sip of oxygen did little to ease the dizziness threatening to tip him out of his chair and onto the floor. “So what are you saying? That they’re the same damn guy?” 

Again they traded glances. Art waited for one to speak, waited for some statement he could shoot down, but Jim looked at the table and Richard looked to the photo again. 

Art got to his feet so quickly the dizziness overtook him a moment, and he clutched the table for support. When his vision returned, he crossed to the photo and found Klaus in a second. 

“Fifty years.” He heard the scraping of chairs against the floor but didn’t turn from the photo. “It’s been fifty years since that photo, and you’re telling me he looks exactly the same?” 

“As best we can tell.” Richard’s words carried a sigh. “That picture’s not the clearest.” 

He hadn’t recanted what he’d said, but he hadn’t backed it up unequivocally, either. Art’s mind went frantically over the details he’d been given, the details he’d handed over, searching for any inconsistencies or alternate interpretations that might end this bizarre charade before he started to believe it himself. Yet all that came to mind were moments fifty years past. The time he’d heard Klaus humming to himself and recognized the tune, years later, in a Disney movie. The way he’d simply appeared one day, with no dog tags and no apparent memory of the training he would have received….

“You saw him crying over this picture?” 

Jim nodded, joining Art at the wall. Before Art could think of another question that might cut whatever Jim might say short, Jim pointed to the man beside Klaus, a man at the edge of the group. “Over this guy right here.” 

Dave.

“You sure?” 

“He was wearing Katz’s dog tags, too.” 

Another wash of dizziness threatened to take him, but this time Art steadied himself with a deeper breath. There was an explanation. There had to be. A logical, rational explanation. “Maybe—look, assholes pretend to be vets all the time. Maybe he just put more thought into it than most of ‘em do.” 

“Yeah, vets,” Jim said, leaning on the plural. “Not one vet in one picture.” 

“We didn’t even know that guy’s name until you came in.” He sensed, more than saw, Richard approach the wall. “And you can’t see his tattoos in the photo.” 

It was true, Art had known it was true, and yet hearing it made him want to whip out some fact that would bring the whole illusion crashing down in a second. He settled for pacing toward the nearest table and back again instead. “He tell you his surname?” 

“No.” 

“Did you ask?” 

“Didn’t get much chance,” Jim said. 

Bullshit. Art stopped short of saying it. He didn’t know if they’d had time to ask, how many chances they’d gotten or whether or not their conversations—if they’d happened at all—made such questions impolite and insensitive. Better not to assume. 

“Look.” Art wasn’t sure of exactly what he was about to say, but he plunged ahead, snatching up whatever words came to mind. “He went MIA fifty years ago. If he popped in here, there’s no way in hell he’d look just like that picture, unless time travel’s involved.” 

No derisive snorts followed those words. No chuckles, no rolled eyes, not so much as a smirk. It wasn’t until the silence settled over them, until Jim frowned thoughtfully at the photo and Richard opened his mouth as if to speak and shut it again, that Art realized he hadn’t simply expected them to scoff. 

He’d wanted them to. 

1968

Art’s instincts screamed for him to run for the first person he saw and spill everything. It would all tumble out in a flurry of words that might not swing anywhere near coherence, but it would be out and someone else would know, someone who could judge what to do with it better than he could. The secret would no longer be his; it would belong to whoever he found, and the decision would be in their hands. Knowledge would remain, but responsibility would not. 

It didn’t take him long to find someone, or for someone to find him. He wasn’t sure which and didn’t much care. He only knew George crossed his path, smile disappearing at the look Art couldn’t shake. 

“You okay, man? Look like you’ve seen a ghost.” 

Seen a ghost. That was more than an idiom—or it was now, anyway, now that Klaus was a part of their unit. Art was free to respond with some generic brush-off, but a failure to follow up an invite like that with a Spurlock story would be a greater indicator that something was wrong than any sort of honest answer. 

Art knew what he had to say, knew what he had to share, but the words wouldn’t surface. He forced a smile instead. “Yeah, Spurlock’s out there, edge of camp. Took the biggest shit I’ve ever seen, wiped his ass on a baguette.” 

George sighed. “Shit sandwiches again?” 

“C’mon, you try cooking with those hooves.” 

George’s snort wasn’t quite a laugh—nowhere near one, in fact. After the resounding approval Art’s last joke had earned, this reaction stung less like disappointment and more like failure. Then again, he wasn’t sure he’d have been able to come up with a better quip even if he’d had more than two seconds to prepare. 

“You seen Dave?” 

For one awful second, Art was certain the truth had bloomed on his face. Heat rushed to his cheeks; he had to remind himself to draw a breath in and let it out. “I know when you’re lying,” Grandmother had said on more than one occasion. That she’d said it when his lies were all in her head and the truth was all he’d given her had eroded his faith in her ability to pluck out his falsehoods on sight, but that didn’t make others blind to them. 

The second passed, and George did not react. No narrowed eyes. No concern. No questions. 

“Nope. Haven’t seen him.” 

George sighed again and continued on his way. His chosen direction took him toward the pair, technically speaking, though they’d have the advantage of a few minutes’ lead. 

Art had time to call after and steer George in the right direction. He had time to think of a way to mask it, to make the truth covert enough to fit with his earlier lie. He could do it. He should do it. 

Instead, he watched in silence as George moved out of earshot and out of sight. 

“Klaus Hargreeves.” Jim’s emphasis was not lost on Art. “Means he’s Reginald’s son.” 

“If he’s the same guy.” 

“If he is,” Richard said slowly, as though mulling it over as he spoke, “then it might explain some things.” 

“Like what?” Art spent a second resisting the urge to pace before walking the length of the memorial wall and back again. It wasn’t near enough to clear his head—but then, he doubted a jog around the city block would manage that. “All that explains is how he got the same name as the Academy kid.” 

“You read his sister’s book.” 

It wasn’t a question. When first published, Did you read it? had been the question on everyone’s lips. The book was mentioned by name only at first; before the publication passed its first anniversary, inquiries as to whether or not a friend or acquaintance had read it had become common enough that most anyone listening understood that it meant Vanya Hargreeves’ autobiography. The question wasn't asked so much anymore. Asking was pointless when you knew the answer would be Yes. 

“Yeah. I read it.” Parts of it, at least. As he read, the sense of discomfort had progressed from nagging to grating, and the cause went beyond the psychological torture that had been Vanya Hargreeves’ childhood. Something about the way she included no contemporary quotes from her siblings, no insight from their adult selves that he could see, had left him with the sensation that he was peering into their lives through the lens of assumption and hearsay, seeing moments and hearing conversations that they would have kept to themselves. No matter how he tried to shake it, no matter how he told himself that she must have consulted her siblings before publication or that she could tell her own story without their input, he’d eventually set the book down, removed his bookmark, and returned it to the library. 

“So you know what he’d do to those kids.” 

A pit formed in his stomach, not unlike the one that had been his companion while reading Vanya’s autobiography. She hadn’t known all the details, hadn’t been privy to them—and that was just as well. The word experiments only belonged in talk about children when the conversation centered on the project you were helping them build for the school science fair. “I figured he hadn’t seen his dad in years.” 

“Could’ve lured him back,” Jim said. “Hunted him down, sprung it on him out of the blue.” 

If Vanya Hargreeves’ account was remotely accurate, than what Jim proposed was a possibility, albeit one that came with a laundry list of assumptions. That time travel was real. That it had happened. That it could happen again, that it could snatch anyone from their life in the present and drop them in the past, or the future, or some unholy combination of the two, if those old cliches about tearing holes in space and time had any validity. 

But more than anything, it assumed Klaus Hargreeves—the one he knew—was alive. 

1968

Maybe he’d jumped to conclusions. 

Art had only seen a hug, after all. A hug prefixed by a cupped cheek and a rather unambiguous phrase, if nothing more. The notion they were only friends crumbled beneath the sheer weight of what he’d witnessed, but he entertained it nonetheless. Best to be sure before he leaped to action. 

He could see Dave from where he stood, offering Lawrence a smile and a few words—inaudible from where he stood, but knowing Dave, they weren’t the sort to leave the other man angry or despairing for the next hour or so. Sure enough, Lawrence’s frown became a smile before Dave clapped him on the shoulder and turned away. 

Art didn’t know  a man who wasn’t Dave’s friend. Even those he didn’t see every day, even those he’d only met in passing, were treated to the same smiles and warmth. Give him half a minute and he’d pull you into a quick conversation about things back home, things you’d forgotten you’d mentioned; give him longer and he’d make the worst snafu look solvable. 

He’d heard of men like that, from the stories his Dad sometimes dusted off and brought out for company, but he’d never understood what it was to serve with one until Dave had walked right up, chatting away as if they’d known each other since first grade. Never appreciated it until Dave had found him after their first firefight, brushed some lingering dust and rubble away with a shaking hand, and asked if he was okay. Herman, weaving in and out of Dad’s time in France, had been a favorite character, one who brought a smile to teller and listener alike each time he entered the story. Art wasn’t certain he had the proper word to describe what Dave was and didn’t want to seek it out at the risk of sounding too sentimental. 

Klaus wandered over. If he wasn’t marching, he didn’t walk or run. He wandered and ambled. The sight of Charlie sent a smile to his lips, and whatever he said brought a laugh and a response in kind. Dad had served with men like that too, men who could find a joke nearly anywhere they looked, but none like Klaus. None who would begin a meandering story, drop it at the first distraction, and deliver the punchline hours later, all the funnier for having been delayed. None who could turn a simple question about the mail into a humorously suggestive one. It was a different sort of gift Klaus possessed, one that brought laughter to a war in the business of silencing it. 

The image of that embrace, that cupped cheek and those words, resurfaced in Art’s mind. 

A part of him found a certain amount of sense in it. The way they always seemed to be together, when excuses aligned. The little smile Dave wore when Klaus spoke, the smile he never brought out for anyone else. The way neither seemed bothered by a brush of the skin, a chance moment that brought their faces too close. 

Another part of him, a larger part, would have cheered their match, had one been a woman. 

He didn’t have to tell someone. Just them. Find Dave or Klaus alone—probably Dave, he knew Dave better—tell him what he’d seen and watch his reaction. He wouldn’t need a renunciation, or an apology, or anything of the like; he only needed to let Dave know the cat had put a paw out of the bag. Let him know he’d been spotted, let him know he was accountable to someone, and the problem would solve itself. 

The impromptu battle of wits between Klaus and Charlie ended with chuckles on both sides. Klaus looked off in the opposite direction, then back to Dave; he didn’t begin walking until Dave did and then he fell in step. Art didn’t try to read their lips, but their easy smiles had returned. Whatever had led to Klaus’ impassioned pleading earlier seemed to have been, for the moment, resolved. 

“I love you.” 

“But?” 

Art tried to keep the moment from resurfacing yet again, but it bubbled up for the umpteenth time. He’d heard of people who witnessed things like that, secrets that could destroy the one who held it and everyone around them. People who had come forward, who addressed what they saw and made sure help was received and all was put to rights. He’d heard the glowing terms with which they were described, of the humble quiet with which they received whatever accolades were due them. “It was nothing,” they tended to say, with a modesty betraying the warm glow of satisfaction from within. “I was just doing my part, that’s all.” 

When Art thought back to what he’d seen, when he made up his mind to do what needed done, he felt none of the steely resolve such responsibility was said to provide. He only felt sick. 

He shouldn’t have been watching in the first place. 

Dave, Klaus—they were his friends. Brothers, even. Spying on siblings might be a time-honored tradition in families fortunate and unfortunate enough to have more than one child, but there came a point when things left the realm of friendly teasing. He wasn’t sure exactly where that line might be, but he knew he’d crossed it.

Even so, what he’d seen couldn’t remain in the dark. They were his friends, and they needed help. He could bring it up with Dave, word the question to offer him as many loopholes and escape routes and possible, and then never address it again. Pretend he’d seen nothing and move on. 

Yet the moment he revealed what he’d seen, even to Dave and no one else with nobody around, he’d acknowledge that something had happened. Something had happened, he’d seen it happen, and all the trust he’d placed in Dave and the trust Dave had placed in him meant nothing next to the chance to lurk in hopes of seeing something worth pouncing on. 

Klaus came back around. No Dave, but that was just as well. He raised a hand in greeting, Klaus returned it, and they met in the middle.

“Hey.” Klaus drew out the word. “Somebody said you were looking for me for something?” 

He’d made a decision, loosely speaking, but it lacked the peace and surety of a resolution. It felt like cowardice, like surrender. 

But he still had a good joke to tell. That was something. 

Art cracked a smile. “You hear why Spurlock never goes up on mountains?” 

They said Klaus Hargreeves was alive. 

Alive and talking and knitting and here, in the city, looking near identical to his photographic double. 

It was impossible. Art knew he shouldn’t believe it until he saw it with his own eyes, yet here he was entertaining the possibility on the word of two men who had been unknown to him days before. 

Two men who had gone out of their way to find him because of the soldier in the photograph. 

Because of Klaus. 

A dozen half-formed questions swam through his mind, circled him and fell away before he could snatch them out of the air. None of the theories or possibilities quite fell into place, but Art thought he could spot where they might fit; there were holes, of course, but the picture remained, incomplete but comprehensible. 

Klaus. 

Alive. 

In the city. 

Art tried to wrap his head around it. For as long as he’d held out hope, for as long as he’d waited for news and excused Klaus’ continued absence and clung to stories of soldiers who’d gone missing and resurfaced decades later, now that he had what he’d sought, it kept slipping through his fingers. He tried to picture Klaus ambling into the same VFW bar in which he sat, tried to imagine him wandering down the streets, but his memory remained tied to the A Shau Valley. Try as he might, Art couldn’t separate Klaus from Vietnam. 

He had to see it for himself. 

A question at last burst through the flurry in his mind, and Art knew before he voiced it that it was the only one that mattered. 

“Where is he?” 

[allhallowsreid]

just lots and lots of very long-winded, random thoughts about last night’s finale and the show itself...

so obvs no one has to agree with me on any of this, i just feel like there likely ARE ppl who feel like this and it’s easy to get shut down on tumblr for having different opinions, and i mostly just need to gather my feelings and thoughts in one place.

-ive seen a handful of ppl upset that the last ep centered around reid, but if you were to take 10 fans of this show, it’s a pretty good chance that 8 or 9 of them would say reid is their fave character. that isn’t me trying to insult any of the other characters, that’s just the way it is. whether it’s bc of his looks (and my lord was he gorgeous in this finale ep), or that he’s your typical cute white boi, or more organic reasons like he’s been there since day 1 and we were able to watch him change and grow, and he’s the opposite of the typical male characters we often see, especially on cop shows.. whatever the reason, he is a VERY popular tv character. and if it weren’t for that character, for better or worse, this show would have ended a long time ago.

-the ending itself.. i just feel like i don’t know what ppl were expecting?? this is not a show like supernatural or dexter or a show that has had a fluent overarching story to tell from start to finish. the story continues without us watching it. it’s another day at the office for them. was it a great ending? no, but it was fine. we see where all of them are headed. endings are so difficult, i’m just glad they didn’t kill anyone off or some garbage like that.

-so damn happy they hooked up luke and garcia. i have had such issues with garcia’s character since morgan left, i feel like she became a caricature, where she just overacts and i recently read an article with kirsten where she actually admitted that when shemar left she really didn’t know what to do with her character anymore. honestly? it showed. the obnoxiousness to luke was cute at first bc she obviously had a crush on him, but then it just became mean and out of character. this season i was happy to see her get a little bit more back to herself. all this being said, they were very clearly headed towards getting luke and garcia together this season with the overt flirting and one on one convo’s, i’m so glad they went through with it instead of leaving it open ended. and i will admit that of all the characters, i didn’t think garcia would be the one to leave, but it made sense. garcia is tough as hell, much tougher than she gives herself credit for, but like luke said, she can do this other job without the gore that she cringes over in literally every single episode of the show. also loved jj saying garcia was the glue of the team. so true, so well said. and side note, kirsten does a hell of a job writing these characters that she knows all too well, the other writers should’ve just let her take over in later seasons.

-prentiss... i love my emily so dang much, but man they give her the absolute worst dialogue. she gets stuck with all these long sentences that just.. they just don’t flow?? and it takes me out of the show so often. this has been since s12 when she became unit chief. there has been a handful of times since she became the boss that we have had flashes of old school smartass goth girl emily, and i cherished each moment, but it wasn’t enough. somewhere along the way they forgot how to write into the show that their characters had PERSONALITY. just as an example of the stupid dialogue she gets.. the end of the ep where it’s intended to look like rossi’s retirement party. then, idk who it was, emilys boyfriend maybe(?) says some dumb comment about oh gee i thought this was dave’s retirement! and then emily starts some awkwardly long line that could’ve been summed up in “dave decided not to retire afterall” and it was just soooo... weird?!!? if we are agreeing that A MONTH has gone by.. you are to tell me that it never once came up that dave said he was gonna retire and then changed his mind!??! that night, one month later, is the first that this discussion occurred!!?!?! and all of these dumb lines come out sounding so robotic, and i can’t blame paget, bc the lines are boring as hell. also unless i missed something i can’t rule emily out of being the next director, especially since their profile ended up being correct, lynch and the mom didn’t kill themselves, so i’m sure when that all came out, the next hurdle emily would have to clear is how they just blew up their very expensive jet right after having a budget meeting 2 episodes ago!!

- i’m gonna lump the newer characters together.. and just say that it was all too little, too late. they tried to give matt and luke more this season, and the ep’s centered on them were great, but it all felt forced to me. all this character development should’ve started as soon as they came onto the show. the relationships between the new and original characters also feels forced a lot of times, barring relationships like rossi and his boys, luke and garcia, tara and emily.. i mean that’s kind of all, right? we never saw much off-the-job, personal interactions between them and the rest of the characters, did we? and the way tara was treated on this show is inexcusable. aisha’s talents were so underused on this show it was criminal (pun intended). and actually, the above stuff i said about emily getting nonsense dialogue, you can throw matt in there too. his dialogue was friggin god awful at times on this show. in the words of early seasons reid, maybe try to be more conversational, writers!!

-man oh man was jj a badass and a half in this finale. tbh i always enjoyed liaison jj more than ssa jj, but when badass jj comes out i get all excited. i do feel like she would be the best fit to take over if emily left, she’d stepped into that role before and excelled. but she is another character that at times i think the writers just forgot how to write her personality somewhere along the way. i understand that the reality is that people change over time, but there were times that she was written like a typical high school mean girl, and that was just an insult to the character they created. the whole jeid thing was severely overblown and unnecessary. i don’t hate the idea of them being together, but why wait til s14-15 to deal with this? in the end i thought it was handled okay, i personally didn’t feel like it ruined their friendship or stayed awkward, which i appreciated, it was just a storyline that wasn’t needed and wasted time. also, ppl griping about “oh but she clearly loves will, if she loves spencer then she can’t love will!” i mean, actually, ppl are capable of loving more than one person at a time, hate to burst that bubble for ya.

-this seems like a good moment though to pause and just get this out about will lamon-fuckin-tagne jr... this guy is too good for jj lol, i am sorry but he is such a great guy. and can we review some things about will and his wife’s bestest friend, godfather to his children, spencer reid?? when will and spencer first met, it was during an unbelievably personal case to will, i mean his father died sending him a message about this case that the fbi was called in on. and his first intro with reid?? let’s see, reid spent that ep strung out on drugs, and full on abandoning the case to go hang out with his friend at a club/bar/lounge/whatever. ok, so that’s will’s first impression of jj’s bestie, and will STILL okay’d him being the godfather of his kids. not to mention, can you imagine your wife has been gone in the damn middle east for who even knows how long, then when she finally gets back and you think you’re gonna have her to yourself, but oh no, here comes jj’s friggin bestie again to come cry on the couch every night for several weeks!!!! and he gives zero indication of not liking spencer, in fact he seems rather fond of him. will is the most patient man ever, i swear.

-ok that was an unexpected side track. moving onto rossi. not sure why they were all like oh pfft this guy will never retire. the dude literally retired before the show started lol. if he retired once, when he was fairly young, why is the idea of it happening again so impossible? again, dumb dialogue. i loved the stuff with him and young gideon (i may be biased tho bc i’m just so damn proud of ben savage), i loved that rossi knew more about the jet than the others, however that was an inconsistency bc when rossi came back from retirement, he couldn’t believe the bau had its own jet. unless i just misunderstood what emily meant when she said it all started with rossi and gideon. i felt like lynch was a very underwhelming villain. super forgettable. there was no charisma like foyet or cat adams, there was no creep factor like mr scratch, there was no mystery like the replicator or the fisher king. his whole story just fell flat, and if there were anything interesting about him whatsoever, it’s bc of what rossi brought to the table, not the “chameleon”.

-my boy reid. he has several lifetimes of baggage to unpack, and i think of all the characters on this show, no one hates unpacking their trauma more than reid. i feel like it was so relatable that he could barely speak in this ep without sounding on the verge of tears, like every sentence was painful to even get out bc of how much hurt is stored up inside him. his trauma has defined him for years now, and if they had ended the show without addressing even some of it, the show would’ve been incomplete. i understand that actors schedules just don’t work out sometimes, but idk what the point was of having strauss and foyet be his devil and angel. and foyet’s long explanation of how bc he changed hotch, he changed the team was so convoluted that he may as well have just said “they couldn’t get james van der beek or the dude who played mr scratch, so im here instead”. i liked what they did with reid and maeve, and i actually don’t mind that there was no mention of max. they’re still very early in their relationship, and i feel like him coming out with some “wait i think i love max!” revelation would just be too fast and ooc. we already know that the relationship between them is growing, it doesn’t need to be said. and can i get an amen that maeve and reid didn’t kiss bc god that would’ve been weird as hell.

- i hate that we couldn’t have hotch or morgan or blake or elle or any of the main characters that helped make this show what it was, but i’m still grateful for the crumbs they gave us if the actors just couldn’t be booked for whatever reason. i’ve seen many shows at their end just try to pretend their previous characters never existed, so that we got some flashbacks with them was appreciated.

- RIP bau jet. i wiiiill reMEMber youuuuuuu.

-the song choice of david bowie’s Heroes was perfection. strangely, when i was driving home from work yesterday that song came on my playlist and i blasted it on repeat and performed a car concert for my fellow drivers on the road, and thought to myself that this song would be great for cm to end on. never thought they would actually do it since they had previously used the song in penelope’s ep. but what a great scene of all them dancing and singing and laughing like the bunch of nerdy idiots they are.

-i came late into the game with this show. ppl have been telling me for years to watch it and i only picked up watching in s13, after i read a spn/cm crossover fic and became super curious about who all these awesome characters were. with that said, i’m aware that since i haven’t invested years of my life in this show, that my feelings and thoughts about the ending will be different than those who have been hooked on this show for over a decade. i’m still just so thankful for the family portrayed by this show, and these characters i fell in love with, and episodes i’ll never forget.

[homespork-review]

Homespork Act 2: The Racism of the Conductor’s Baton (Part 3)

BRIGHT: Also, the prompts in John’s head are back and are making increasingly strident demands. Namely, they want John to follow Nannasprite to the cookies. John isn’t too keen on this idea. He’s so not-keen on it that he fails to notice Rose whacking him in the head with a box. Frustrated by his lack of compliance, the voice devolves into insults. I’m not sure why the Wayward Vagabond is so insistent on this? It’s not like he can eat the cookies.

On the whole this is a really good sequence, I think. It lays out some basic background information for the reader and John, and it’s paced pretty well.

Back in the future, an agitated slip of the finger causes a cupboard door to open in the Wayward Vagabond’s hideout. Out fall a few tins of food and a heavy tome of HUMAN ETIQUETTE.

Rose has updated her GameFAQs walkthrough with the new information from Nannasprite. We’re getting something of a motif here: Cut-aways to the Wayward Vagabond are followed by a walkthrough update. It’s a nice little pattern.

Rose also speculates on the prototyping process and on why the prototypings of other players worldwide have not affected John’s foes, and comes to the conclusion that each client/server pair -- or daisy chain -- spawns its own copy of the Incipisphere, or ‘session’. She’s also caught up in rewriting her work. Couldn’t the reader go somewhere else? Or somewhen else?

Why yes, the reader can. Namely the reader can jump back to Rose’s birthday, where she’s having a conversation with GG.

This conversation reinforces that there’s something funny about GG. She asks about John’s present the moment Rose opens it, and Rose isn’t surprised by this. GG also knows without being told that Rose’s dead pet is a male cat, and she’s been working on her birthday present for John for years.

Finally, she asks what Rose would say if GG told her she knew a game that could bring said cat back to life.

TT: If someone told me that, I would regard the remark with a great deal of skepticism. TT: If that someone was you, on the other hand, then I would have to ask preemptively: TT: Is that someone you? GG: yes that someone is me!!!!!!!! GG: i just thought you might find it interesting TT: So what is this game?

Whatever strange abilities GG has, Rose is familiar with her knowing things she shouldn’t, and trusts her even when she makes claims that sound impossible.

CHEL: Note, also, that here GG is the one who brings up the game, while in an early convo with John set chronologically after this one she asked “lol! whats sburb?” This is not an inconsistency. Again, it comes up later. We end up saying that a lot. Sorry.

BRIGHT: Also: Rose knows John well enough to guess that he was wearing a disguise when he talked to her earlier -- but still interprets his gift of knitting needles and yarn as a subtle jab at her habit of making analytical comments, much as her mother. GG points out that he probably didn’t mean it that way. Later, Rose says she’ll make him a gift with strong sentimental value as a dig at him, but admits she doesn’t really mean it that way when GG points it out. Then again, this takes place some months before the comic starts, and may show how Rose and John’s relationship has evolved.

Back in Dave’s home, the sun is beating down. Meteors pepper the city, and smoke is rising. Dave captchalogues his katana, and sets out in search of his brother’s copy of the game.

Dave elaborates a little on the concept of irony that he and his brother live by. His brother is awesome, apparently. Dave can only hope to one day reach those heights of irony.

The puppet theme from earlier continues, with puppets strewn around the living room where Bro lives and sleeps. Among them are a Mr. T puppet, which is wearing a leather thong and handcuffed to a pantsless Chuck Norris puppet. What makes it a little disturbing is that this is just lying out in the living room, which Dave presumably goes into all the time. Dave’s narration here sounds a lot like he’s trying to convince himself that these things are totally cool, no, really. He can’t see Lil Cal anywhere, though...

CHEL: Other puppets are the iconic Smuppets, possibly a portmanteau of “smutty puppets”, vaguely humanoid nude puppets with enormous behinds and phallic noses. There are implications that they are intended for non-PG purposes. Further implications are that the leaving of obscene material around the home has been going on for all of Dave’s life. For the record, intentionally showing pornography or sexual aids to children is classed as a form of sexual abuse. Casually leaving them lying around the house in front of kids long-term, well, the motive may not be malicious but I doubt a jury would care. It certainly counts as neglect. The popular fanfic Brainbent explored the damage this kind of thing could inflict on a kid in a realistic setting.

Also note, there is no hint of Dave having or ever having had parents, not even a photo in the background or something. The immediate assumption would most likely be that they’re dead, but Bro’s strangeness might also suggest estrangement - behaviour like that would probably result in one’s parents not talking to one anymore, though they most likely wouldn’t leave a child in a place like that if they were around. We find out the truth later, and it’s even weirder.

BRIGHT: Between one panel and the next, Lil Cal appears atop a speaker box. Dave is fine with this. Totally fine.

CHEL: For the record, this is Lil Cal:

Not something one would be very happy about finding behind one, is he?

BRIGHT: He plays a bit on the Xbox, gives Cal a fistbump, and then checks out his brother’s computer. It’s password-protected, but Dave knows the password, and Bro knows he knows it, and Dave knows this, and it’s all totally cool.

One of Bro’s websites is a puppet pornography website. Apparently this is popular enough to bring in thousands of dollars a month, and Smuppets are a multi-billion-dollar-per-year enterprise. Time for our next point:

Magic-onomics - wherein characters’ funds issue from nowhere Half-baked attempts to justify a protagonist’s mystery money can also backfire. Explanations should amount to more than “Somehow Rain had lots of money.” Giving Rain an inheritance, or explaining that she recently gave up her job at a top law firm to pursue her art, will work only where these things feel like part of the world of the novel.

Bro and Dave live in a crappy apartment in which Bro doesn’t even have his own bedroom, instead sleeping on the futon in the living room where he works. Yet they have the funds to spend on swords (not cheap) and expensive turntables. The Con Air bunny prop Dave bought for John sold in real life for almost $1,300.

And how the heck do smuppets bring in multiple billions of dollars a year? That’s a niche market, even if Bro is the only supplier. (Which he wouldn’t be — if it’s worth that much, someone else would want in on the market.)

CHEL: Even if said market is fairly disturbing. If there’s enough people who like it enough to buy it, there’ll be people comfortable with supplying it.

BRIGHT: Their income shouldn’t be anywhere near that high, even with puppet pornography adding to the revenue stream. If we grant that in this universe it is that high, then they should be living somewhere more comfortable.

HOW NOT TO WRITE A WEBCOMIC: 13

CHEL: In order for this to actually work as stated, not only would the puppets have to appeal to everyone on the planet, but there would probably have to be a lot more people on the planet than there actually are. I’m pretty sure it’s an exaggeration for humour, but considering the inconsistencies with their income status as presented, it’s still a bit shaky.

It’s also worth another count, because this is basically a handwave to mean the characters presented aesthetically as poor are still as financially secure as is necessary for writing the scenes Hussie wants to:

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 6

If the comic was presented as a non-serious cartoon for the whole story, this would pass without comment, but when one’s trying to be dramatic and include real stakes, I think one needs to apply real stakes to everyday things too.

BRIGHT: Then again, it’s possible that their financial status is higher than the apartment would suggest, and Bro just chooses to spend his money on katanas and expensive equipment rather than upgrading. (And/or is lying to Dave about their income.) That might not be out of character given what we see of him later. But overall, this is a mess.

FAILURE ARTIST: Maybe the Smuppets is a money laundering business.

CHEL: A lot of people would read that fanfic.

The theory that the guardians knew the game was coming might explain why he chose to spend so much on swords, at least. He’d know Dave would need them. Not so much of an explanation for everything else though. Considering the weirdness that’s going on, I could imagine Bro not wanting attention drawn to it, but wouldn’t hiding weirdness be much harder in a flat than in a house set off some distance from neighbours?

For that matter, where’s John getting the money for movie memorabilia? Later reveals show the Egbert family originally came from money but they don’t seem to have that much to throw around now.

BRIGHT: Remember how Rose said earlier that she quite enjoyed Bro’s websites? I think that counts as a point for CALL CPA PLEASE…

FAILURE ARTIST: I question how pornographic the site really is. It might just literally be puppets being mashed together with no human body parts. A thirteen year old can surely see that.

BRIGHT: Fair point -- the page we see is teen-safe, at any rate.

CHEL: If it isn’t actually sexual, that possibly makes the supposed popularity level even sillier. Fetishists need constant fresh material and there are probably people who don’t have a specific puppet fetish who would ignore the puppets to look at the guy, but to keep up that level of popularity the viewers who don’t have a puppet fetish would have to keep finding it funny long after most people would think the joke had worn off. Both options say disturbing things about the world this comic is set in and their tastes in either pornography or humour. At least Veronica Chaos appears onscreen with her puppet… (Link contains no porn but you probably don’t want it on a work computer.)

For the record, I think Smuppets would actually make pretty bad sex toys. Plush is a porous material, so it would be hard to clean sticky substances out of it properly, and the phallic noses seem to be too floppy to use for penetration of a human orifice. Maybe that first point is why he brings in so much cash - the smuppets are single-use? People do use plush toys for masturbatory purposes, but usually when they can’t find anything else to use, specific fetishes for them being rare, and generally don’t use the soft parts as penetration toys.

Personally, I quite like the theory the kinkmeme brought up years ago; PlushRumps is actually an elaborate multimedia webcomic a la Homestuck itself. Now that I can see bringing in that much cash. Or possibly it just looks like this, which was made by the guy who wrote Thirty Hs (warning for eye injury and surreality): "Jumping!" (Watch on YouTube)

I could see Bro being that dude.

BRIGHT: And Dave admits, again, that he finds the puppet thing unsettling.

This is a pretty good depiction of someone trying to convince himself to be okay with something that freaks him out. He pesters John to distract himself from the puppets everywhere, and when he doesn’t get a response, he pesters Rose. And Hussie once again repeats the entire blinking pesterlog we read fifty pages ago instead of just linking back to it.

GET ON WITH IT!: 6

CHEL: Just occurred to me; why is Dave so bothered by the puppets? I can’t imagine that Bro suddenly started leaving them around when he hadn’t before - in fact, I believe a later flashback shows infant Dave using a Smuppet’s nose as a pacifier (eww, god I hope it was a freshly-made unused one). Dave really ought to be used to the things by now. Then again, now he’s reaching his teens, he’s probably old enough to start realising this is weird and creepy on a deeper level. But then that brings up the same problem we had with John; doesn’t he have any local friends he could have learned this from sooner? Though I could picture Bro not bothering to send him to school, and we do later learn there is quite possibly magic afoot in hiding the oddness of the Strider household. That’s a complicated theory and requires much more setup than we have here, though, so pin in that for later.

Also, the puppets thing counts for a point of ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?, and Dave is in fact the reason we created that count. A kid in Dave’s situation in real life would be messed up, but so would a kid in the situations of the others (or at least the girls), and Dave’s situation seems to be taken more seriously than theirs, at least later on.

ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 5

BRIGHT: Back to Rose, who’s beating John over the head with a box in a futile effort to get his attention. She eventually gives up and deploys another piece of equipment called a Punch Designix, using the Shale John collected. Since she doesn’t know what it does, she pesters John and asks him to experiment.

Unfortunately John has bigger problems to deal with: His garden is by this point overrun with imps, who are climbing on his tire swing and wearing his disguises. This is enough to snap him out of his Wayward Vagabond-induced state and get him to respond to Rose. They need to get those monsters off his pogo ride!

Fortunately, Rose is able to help by picking up the piano and dropping it on the imp. Less fortunately, the piano does not survive the experience. Neither does the imp.

The pogo ride seems fine, though.

John is reluctant to risk Nanna’s ghost cookies to go retrieve the grist, so Rose uses the pogo ride to transport it up to his room. Then she tells him to go find out what the Punch Designix does, while she works on building the house up to the gate. Apparently stairs cost a lot of grist to build. John makes a SBaHJ reference while Rose recoups the grist she used to build the catwalk earlier, sending an imp tumbling into the depths.

In the kitchen, Nannasprite has produced a lot of cookies. An imp tries to sneak one, and is blasted into grist by Nanna as a result.

John sets out on a hunt for imps and useful items, grabbing some shaving cream and his pogo ride, and launching his telescope out of the window. Amazingly, this proves relevant only a few pages later.

CHEL: Dad apparently keeps an entire cabinet filled with nothing but shaving cream. Rule of Funny, I know, but how fast does this guy’s beard grow?

BRIGHT: His living room is full of imps, who have taken a shine to the Cruxtruder and left cruxite dowels lying everywhere. Armed with hammer and shaving cream, John mounts his trusty steed and pogos his way to victory, which works amazingly well (read: works at all), until he slips on a cruxite dowel and lands flat on his back.

This is incredibly dangerous!

Acting on a polite prompt, John absconds into his Dad’s study, and Rose covers his retreat with the refrigerator, which levels up to FIVESTAR GENERAL ELECTRIC and earns 285 Boondollars.

Further extremely polite prompts ask John for a can opener. Despite the presence of two imps in the study with him, John stops to consider where to find one, while Rose takes out the imps with Dad’s safe. I don’t think that counts as HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING, though, since it’s clearly supposed to be the joke.

Back in the future, the Wayward Vagabond munches on a few pages from the etiquette book. Rose updates her GameFAQs walkthrough with a series of images of John’s house in the Medium. She does refer to Colonel Sassacre’s as racist in one of these, but it’s not really much of a rebuttal.

CHEL: She experiments with building a bit more on John’s house; ladders prove cheaper to build than stairs, albeit harder to use safely. John eventually stops contemplating can openers to examine the Punch Designix, while Rose answers Dave’s angry rant about being buried in Smuppets. I think this may be another point for ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY, because in the context of a kid ranting about his brother’s annoying hobby and his friend snarking back it’s hilarious, and it seems at this point to be presented as funny, but as discussed above the nature of Smuppets makes this rather creepy.

ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 6 TG: i am enrobed in chafing, wriggling god fucking damned puppet pelvis TG: an obscenely long, coarse kermit cock is being dragged across my anguished face TT: Let's put this into perspective. You put up with the puppet prostate because you love it.

Okay, this I think could be a point for CALL CPA PLEASE. A child probably would make fun of another child’s discomfort with non-consensually being surrounded by sex toys on the grounds of not knowing better, but it’s unsettling to read.

CALL CPA PLEASE: 2

John discovers there are codes on the backs of his captchalogue cards, which can be entered into the Punch Designix to make punch cards. Punching the captchalogue card itself renders the item irremovable from it, but the punch card can, he guesses, be used to recreate the item via the Totem Lathe and Alchemiter. Before he can test this, Rose hurls a bathtub through the wall to kill some nearby imps; to be fair, when he checks his PDA, he sees he missed a message from her warning him about it. He messages her back and she says the precarious staircase up to the gate is ready. John is nervous and asks why she didn’t build straight up through the hole in his dad’s bedroom ceiling.

EB: oh come on. what's the big deal, i'll just climb up and go right through! TT: Will you? EB: yeah, why not? TT: Are you saying you've never wondered what's in there? Or why it's been kept a secret from you? EB: well, i mean yeah... TT: Then trust me. You won't be going "right on through." EB: wait, are you saying there's something, like... EB: troubling in there? TT: I don't know. EB: what do you mean? what do you see in there? TT: I can't see in there. EB: oh. TT: But I don't have a very good feeling about it. EB: pfff... EB: whatever! EB: i think i can handle a few more stupid clown paintings.

Well, that’s ominous.

Examining the destroyed safe, John finds a book about shaving, several old newspaper clippings about meteor strikes, and a much older copy of Colonel Sassacre’s book, possibly the one involved in the mysterious accident which caused Nanna’s death. Behind where the safe was, he finds an empty captchalogue card and a proud fatherly note from Dad, praising him for now being strong enough to lift the safe; presumably intended for several years in the future at least, since the safe is big enough to fit John inside it. The note further explains that John is now entitled to the contents of the safe, and provides the now-useless combination for the lock. Further sylladex shenanigans launch Sassacre’s book, killing an imp, and John heads up the stairs, but slips. As he precariously clings on, the hands and jester’s motley of something much, much bigger than the imps start to emerge from the chasm...

Cut back to Dave, still searching for the beta and/or his brother, finding only that one of Bro’s swords is missing. A brief shadowy flash takes the second sword from the wall too.

You know this drill all too well. Trouble's a brewin'.

Dave heads for the door, finding one of Bro’s “ironic” comics pinned to it. The comic in question:

Erm.

TIER: Now that is, as the folks would say, unsettling.

FAILURE ARTIST: This is another work that Hussie created pre-Homestuck and decided to add. It was part of this drawing battle on a forum.

CHEL: It took me an embarrassingly long time to realise that was supposed to be Kermit. I was seeing it as a teddy bear, with the spiral cheeks as eyes and the eyes as ears.

TIER: . . . I was “literally just now” years old when I realized that was supposed to be Kermit.

BRIGHT: Ditto!

CHEL: Me too, actually, it was after I saw it while posting it here. Before I thought it was Fozzie, drawn even worse than the rest of the comic.

Dave is fairly mellow about the comic as compared to his reaction to the puppets, but thinks that he “[doesn’t] need to see this shit right now”. It looks like something a kid his age would either draw themselves or like (I know I would have loved it), but having things like this pasted randomly about your house would definitely be unsettling even so. He understands it as further irony, and thinks Bro is trying to annoy him with it as “some weird gauntlet he's throwing down to see if you will "GET IT"”.

Worse than the comics, however, is what’s in the kitchen. Weapons are piled up on every counter and the sink is full of fireworks. Dave considers this “awesome”, the implication again being that this has been normal for his whole life. He’s really lucky he’s a cartoon character, there’s no way a real kid would still be alive here. When he turns on the blender, a green puppet in it is shredded to pieces, releasing fake blood; inside the eye socket of a Jigsaw puppet on top of the microwave is a webcam, broadcasting the incident. Okay, again, we need to consider how “pornographic” PlushRumps actually is to determine whether this is a problem. Videos of a kid shredding a puppet are harmless in and of themselves. If it’s actually being marketed as fetish material… ew. Dave appears just as unsettled by this as I am, enough so to behead the cam-puppet, so the implications aren’t good.

More Smuppets spill out of the microwave, and then we go back into fucking sylladex shenanigans as Dave tries to collect every dangerous object in the room

GET ON WITH IT!: 7

Distracted by same, Dave fails to notice a silhouetted figure which is presumably his brother appearing briefly behind him, dropping Cal on the stovetop, and disappearing. Dave’s expression doesn’t change on seeing it but he literally leaps a foot in the air. Poor kid, that is freaky. We also discover why Dave had juice in his closet way back; Bro uses the fridge as storage space for swords instead of comestibles, and cherry bombs in the icemaker.

… Okay, where does Bro keep his own food? Both humorously and actually abusive/neglectful guardians still require energy intake, you know. There are later hints that Bro himself is someone’s puppet, but only in the figurative sense.

TIER: Dude probably has spots around the apartment to stash stuff, like how Dave has apple juice hidden away in his closet.

Figuring out how seriously we're supposed to be taking things can get tricky, especially with the Big Thing way later on in the comic putting earlier events in a new light upon rereading (well, mostly just stuff related to Dave).

CHEL: And if we are supposed to take it seriously, how the fuck is Dave alive? A real kid in this situation wouldn’t have lived long enough to be traumatised.

[aion-rsa]

Lucifer Season 5 Episode 10 Review: Bloody Celestial Karaoke Jam

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This Lucifer review contains spoilers.

Lucifer Season 5 Episode 10

“We celestials are pretty much the same as you.”

It’s the bold series that takes on the demands of producing a musical episode that manages to not only seamlessly blend lyrically into the overall narrative arc but also give fans a peek into another side of the characters and actors. Like it or not, any attempt to blend singing and dancing with an active storyline will be somehow measured against Joss Whedon and Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s “Once More, with Feeling,” long considered the gold standard of musical episodes. “Bloody Celestial Karaoke Jam” more than holds its own, and Lucifer successfully continues its tale of familial discord and the universal, individual struggle with self worth.

It comes as no surprise that Tom Ellis (Lucifer Morningstar) and his glorious vocal talents help carry this delightful effort, but the rest of the crew displays a myriad of talents as we’re treated to renditions of everything from Queen to Les Miserables. Yes, the vocal dubbing could have been a bit tighter, and it’s somewhat disappointing that Laura German (Chloe Decker) chose not to sing, but from the opening scene in which Lucifer sits down at the piano amidst a tortured, sleepless night, it becomes instantly clear that the show has successfully gambled on the remarkably charismatic presence each character evokes. 

Of course, the episode’s strength centers on the lyrical tie-ins to the self-esteem battles the characters face, not the least of which is Lucifer’s contention that he lacks the ability to love because of the way his Father raised him. Any time we get Lucifer at the piano, good things invariably occur, and his haunting performance of Chris Isaac’s 1989 anthem “Wicked Game” set against a visual montage of some of the highlights from his relationship with Chloe sets a deeply introspective tone that culminates in God’s shocking revelation. When the Devil sings “I wanna fall in love with you,” his plaintive cry transcends more than just his connection to the detective. The cracks in the celestial family’s foundation have shown themselves for a while now, but the opportunity now presents itself for Lucifer, Amenadiel, and Mazikeen to settle their differences with the Big Guy. 

Perhaps the most surprising turn of events here is that Chloe refuses to accept Lucifer’s willingness to deprive them of the happiness they both know is possible. “All couples have problems,” she tells him as they begin to investigate the death of a high school football referee. She insists he’s capable of love, and this promising exchange fades when Ella briefs the partners on the intricacies of the man’s death by poison whistle. If you’re going to focus your murder on a high school football official, you might as well draw the cheerleaders and marching band into the musical mix. Perhaps a bit heavy handed but still amusing nonetheless, Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” emerges, and Aimee Garcia (Ella Lopez) and Kevin Alejandro (Daniel Espinoza) go front and center among the tightly choreographed uniformed teenagers. More importantly, however, God’s role in this musical theater reveals itself when Lucifer notices his Father watching from the sideline. “It’s not what people do at a crime scene.”

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Nevertheless, God’s presence at the murder scene gives Chloe the long awaited opportunity to confront Lucifer’s dad about his role not only in her life but his son’s as well. It’s one thing to hear Lucifer accuse his Father, but when she gets in God’s face and takes up Lucifer’s cause, we have to wonder whether she truly believes his side of the story or merely defends the man she loves in spite of the narrative inconsistencies. Dennis Haysbert continues to underplay an individual who’s often portrayed as someone to fear rather than someone who listens, and his interplay with his wayward son provides some of the episode’s best moments.

Dr. Linda often waltzes in and out of a story, yet never fails to leave an indelible mark. We’ve become accustomed to her sessions with Lucifer on the couch, and the image of Lucifer on one end and God on the other can’t help but elicit a smile. “It’s impossible to make him happy,” Lucifer tells the doctor who unexpectedly picks up where Chloe left off and sends God a similar message. With a wry smile firmly planted on his face, Lucifer’s Father agrees to unconditionally support the son who feels abandoned, abused, and misunderstood. Tossing a football to his son is another one of those sublime touches the series employs so well, and when it bounces unceremoniously off Lucifer’s chest, Dad’s response is classic. “Nice block?”

There are a number of other amusingly nuanced moments sprinkled throughout the episode, but my favorite may be Dan’s interaction with Lucifer’s dad at the precinct. “I know who you are. I believe you met my wife,” God tells the terrified detective before presenting one of his best zingers. “I’ll be seeing you later, or not.” Who says God doesn’t have a sense of humor. Wearing way more makeup than usual, Mazikeen seems determined to embrace her bad girl image as she brings a good looking biker boy to meet Ella. In addition to the dancing, we’re treated to an apropos mashup featuring George Thorogood’s “Bad to the Bone” and TLC’s “No Scrubs.” However, it’s the subtext surrounding Maze’s refusal to accept God’s prior admonition that she’s perfect as is. Past experience tells us that she’s on a self-destructive path that can only be stopped by those who love her. Unfortunately, like Lucifer, she feels she doesn’t deserve what others so willingly want to give her.

One the religious bedrocks is the acceptance, on faith, of that which can’t be seen. We can debate whether or not Lucifer makes a good faith attempt to reconcile with his Father, but it’s Chloe who sees through all of the baggage father and son have accumulated over millennia. “I have faith in you,” she tells Lucifer, and while that support might ordinarily be enough to continue the dialogue, at this point, we’re not certain. 

Though Chloe leaves the singing to the others, Laura German’s dance moves prove up to the task. Still, as the detective muses reflectively over one of Trixie’s refrigerator art pieces, it’s the child who erupts in song. And boy does Scarlett Estevez nail it. God watches off to the side as Trixie innocently sings Natalie Cole’s “Smile” whose lyrics offer the hope that Chloe has not only for herself but her child’s future as well. 

DB Woodside (Amenadiel) gets a nice moment with Dan as they contemplate their lives, but it’s the angel’s disappointment that his son is a mere mortal that hints at future conflicts with Linda. Mom is thrilled at the news that her son is mortal and enjoys a wonderful jaunt through the park as other moms push their strollers during a delightful performance of “Just the Two of Us.”

Ultimately, however, it’s the interaction between Lucifer and his Father that drives the episode and in many ways acts as a catalyst for the other relationships as well. Instead of the vengeful God Lucifer portrays him to be, his Father asks for a second chance with the son who feels he was rejected and banished to Hell. And in arguably the most poignant sequence in the episode, Haysbert and Ellis combine on a moving duet of “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Miserables. There’s no question Lucifer has a right to feel ignored and maybe even mistreated, and it’s up to his father to explain His actions. But in this case, actions speak louder than words, and when God tenderly places his hand on his son’s shoulder, his words belie his intended message. While the lyric “There are dreams that cannot be” appears to run counter to what Lucifer desires, God’s message to his son offers multiple levels of meaning. “I cannot fix you, Lucifer.”

And then the controversial bombshell makes its appearance. Lucifer’s mood shifts dramatically when, with tears streaming down his face, God tells his son that he feels he’s losing control of his powers. Fans of the show understand that Lucifer is not meant to accurately mirror the biblical figure on which his character is based but rather to present an entertaining, alternate take on the world’s most famous fallen angel. Haters of the show will never be able to see beyond their contention that the series elevates evil when nothing could be further from the truth. Still, presenting the Almighty in a weakened position could be a bridge too far.

For better or worse, this is not Jonathan Edwards angry God, rather one shown on a more human level. For some that may be a problem, but we really need to see this unexpected revelation more as a metaphor for the decision by many to abandon organized religion and by extension, a deeply felt faith in God. Will Lucifer’s father entreat his son to help disseminate a message of love, which ironically, Lucifer feels he’s incapable of expressing?

There’s a lot to consider, but the power of “Bloody Celestial Karaoke Jam” lies not in the marvelous theatrical conventions the episode employs but in the progress it makes highlighting the personal struggles the celestials and mortals face on a daily basis. Mortals experiencing a crisis of faith is nothing new; watching God’s family sort out its internal issues in much the same way imparts a sense of unease. But then, that’s what good television does.

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Lucifer season 5 is available to stream on Netflix now.

The post Lucifer Season 5 Episode 10 Review: Bloody Celestial Karaoke Jam appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[junker-town]

20020: Questions and answers

The world of 20020 is a very strange one, and people are right to have questions. Jon answers some of them here.

I don’t know if I’ve ever had more fun working on a project than I did with 20020. It was a long time in the making, as was this website, Secret Base. We intend this to be a place where we tell stories, whether they happened last night, a hundred years ago, 18,000 years from now, or some nightmarish video game realm that exists outside of time. In that sense, 20020 doesn’t define this place. Secret Base is the place where something like 20020 can actually live. I don’t want to get too overdramatic; Secret Base is a website where me and a bunch of of other jerks make shit we hope you’ll like. It’s a place I love nonetheless.

I started planning 20020 about three years ago, and I wanted to make sure I wasn’t just writing a sequel to 17776 for its own sake. This time I wanted to piece together a single, cohesive story, rather than a series of loose vignettes. I also wanted to explore certain themes more specifically. What happens to the concept of time if time becomes infinite? What defines a “good game,” and can it be laid out completely by accident? Who are Americans – specifically, these Americans, us? What the Hell is this place, and what was it? What would we do with ourselves if we actually got everything we wanted?

I tried to make something bigger and better than 17776, rather than just bolting on another installment. Personally, I feel like I did, but ultimately, those of you who have read it can be the judge of that. At any rate, thank you so much for reading. I know it was a big ask of you – not only is it roughly as long as a book, it’s a mashup of two things that typically don’t go together. A lot of you came in with zero interest in American football, and a lot of you came in without any particular inclination to read a work of science fiction where humankind never explored space because it was too boring.

A couple of people deserve an extra-special thanks here. Graham MacAree edited the piece from start to finish, and help me close as many logical loopholes as we could, picking out every time a player broke a rule, or one rule was inconsistent with another rule. Throughout the whole process, Graham was totally bought in, and was always in favor of making it more weird over less weird.

Meanwhile, Frank Bi engineered the entire thing so it could actually exist on the Internet. I’m still amazed that some of these pages weigh upwards of 50 megabytes, and yet they scroll completely smoothly without glitching out and slowing down. Frank also built an app on the back end that allowed us to easily format things like dialogue.

Anyway. Earlier this week, I solicited any questions you might have had about 20020 – why I made it, how I made it, how the game works, or literally anything else about it. I received a few hundred of those, and while I couldn’t get to all of them, I’ve answered as many as I could. Thanks so much for sending them in.

* * *

I haven’t read it yet - is it good?

– Anonymous

yeah

20020 feels a lot lighter than 17776. Why did you decide to go with that tone?

– hali

It’s interesting to me that it struck that tone with you, and I’m actually glad it did, because at some points the story actually felt slightly darker to me than 17776 did. I had a couple of priorities this time around.

The first was to continue to avoid what I hopefully avoided in 17776, which was writing some kind of morality play. I am tired of reading stories and watching shows that are trying to teach me some kind of lesson. I’m a grown adult! You’re a television, I don’t want to learn concepts like “right and wrong” from you! Fuck off, loser!

Instead, I mean 17776 and 20020 as open-ended explorations of themes and concepts. It’s so great to see people walk away from them with different ideas. Some people see this post-scarcity eternal playpen as Heaven, some see it as a completely nightmarish existence, and some see it as a sometimes-promising, sometimes-unsettling in-between. Far be it from me to call it one way or the other.

when designing The Bowl Game, how bogged down did you get in rules/technicalities? a game of this scale seems so hard to effectively govern, and many readers seemed to get stuck on rules technicalities that didn’t affect the plot much. i guess a better way to phrase this question is: did you develop the rules of the game first and then write a plot around them, or did the rules emerge naturally as you wrote?

– Victoria (@dirtbagqueer)

This was by far the toughest part of the whole thing. The field itself actually inspired the entire story.

Early in 2018, a few months after finishing 17776, I had a little bit of time in between major projects, and that’s when I started drawing up the fields. The geometry and weird aesthetic of it fascinated me. At the same time, I had absolutely no fucking idea what to do with it. I wanted it to make some sort of sense somehow. I wanted to design actual good, solid gameplay within it, but I just could not figure out how to do it. Over the course of two years, I would occasionally open it up and stare at it, practically begging for some kind of solution to present itself.

It never did, and my stupid ass finally got the point: this thing is a tribute to chaotic, senseless institutions. It’s a monument of the absolute nonsense that spews forth from ostensibly rational architecture. Like, imagine the most grating, insulting, senseless corporate drivel you’ve ever heard. To me, this that in the form of a football field.

It all clicked from there. Who would come up with such a bewildering and obnoxious thing? Obviously, Juice would. He’s amused by the literal interpretations of things and he delights in inanity and chaos. I needed Ten to hibernate, because she loves well-considered, intelligent gameplay, and she would have shot him down at every opportunity.

From there, I just wrote the rules in accordance with what I felt would be the most interesting story. After looking at San Diego State’s sad little field, I realized I wanted them to star in the A-plot, and I’ll admit to writing some of the rules in service of their story.

Chapter 4’s Georgia Quarterback is introduced to us by screaming into a phone for a pizza that never gets to him. It’s the funniest thing I’ve read in a long time and I have to know, was there something or some things that inspired it?

– @Kay_N_B

That guy’s ripped straight out of real life. I used to work at a call center doing tech support for an Internet service provider. Legend has it that if you simply yell REPRESENTATIVE or SUPERVISOR to an automated system enough times, it will get you off hold and talking to someone more quickly. This was definitely not true, but it didn’t stop people from trying.

On one occasion, I picked up the phone to a woman yelling SUPERVISOR! SUPERVISOR! SUPERVISOR! SUPERVISOR! over and over and over. She was yelling it so loud that she couldn’t hear me. Or, more likely, she was just holding the receiver to her mouth without actually holding the speaker to her ear. At any rate, I just could not get through to her. After about two minutes of that, I hung up. Sometimes I wonder how much longer she sat there yelling like that.

Is Lori from the Illinois chess chapter the same Lori who talked to the Durabos in the Koy Detmer chapter in 17776?

– Ale

She is! Not for any particular reason, other than that I liked the idea of bringing someone back. She’s named after my fourth-grade teacher and ninth-grade science teacher.

Why do trains still run on diesel fuel and how does this not affect the climate/environment?

– Vince

In this universe, humans have learned how to perfectly synthesize fossil fuels that are environmentally harmless. (That’s why I was fine with Nick just carelessly pouring gallons of diesel fuel on the ground while he was fueling the train.) In my optimistic view of the real-life future, I’m sure we’ll opt to solar power or some other environmentally benign solution, but these peoples’ insistence on fossil fuels reflects what does and doesn’t change about you if you live for thousands of years. If there are no coming generations to prod you along and find solutions of their own, how much would we really be compelled to change?

That’s a foundational theory of this story, however right or wrong: change happens generationally far more than it does internally. Once we grow up, the cake’s baked. With no generations to come, there are no more agents of change, and we’re the same old slobs. I’m going to want to smell gasoline when I mow the lawn.

What would happen if a team relocated its stadium? Or repainted the field within their existing stadium at a slight angle?

– Dave

Another fundamental theme of this story is that humanity, or at least America, is very, very preservationist. Architecturally, very little has changed, because there’s a sense that if things change, they’ll never truly get back what they once had. Whether or not that’s healthy is entirely up for debate.

Someone in the 20020 thread (apologies, can’t find the comment and don’t remember who it was!) had the idea of one school building an apparatus underneath their field that would allow it to rotate. This would be both fascinating and an absolute nightmare to calculate/write, but I loved that.

How did you create the animations and videos and such with Google Earth?

– @xyleb_

Google Earth allows you to import image overlays and slap them over the terrain. It took me a long time to figure out how to get 111 image files to stretch all across the country without the frame rate slowing to like three frames per second. In the end, it was a matter of making the field image files just about as small as possible (20x1 pixels) and stretching them from coast to coast. Given that Google Earth was never intended to do anything like this, I’m kind of stunned by how well it worked.

How do you choose the names for the players? Are they based off people you know or do you just make up names you think sound cool?

– Arp1033

When it comes to naming characters, my biggest screwup was naming the Georgia Tech quarterback Connor O’Malley. Conner is a very, very college football quarterback name, so I just bullshitted a last name that I thought would fit. Not only is Connor O’Malley an actual public figure, he’s actually a guy I’m a fan of and have been aware of for some time, and yet I somehow never connected those dots until a reader pointed it out.

I tried to give lot of consideration to the naming of characters. Since I prioritized representation, I did want to signal that certain characters were Black, or Hispanic, or Asian. Sometimes this was because I felt it was essential to their character, and sometimes it was just for the sake of representation.

In a couple of circumstances, such as the UAB Steamroller poster in which I named literally 125 characters, I partially relied on name generators. Even with those, you have to be careful. At first, I used one that allowed you to generate names that are traditionally women’s names, or more typically Black names, or Asian names. So I was like, all right, give me 50 women’s names, and it returned a bunch of names like Heather and Sally and et cetera. Yes, of course there are Black women named Sally and Asian women named Heather, but if they all have such names, that doesn’t feel entirely representative. So I requested 20 typically Black women’s names, and like six of them were Keisha. All right, cool, thanks! In that case and a few others, I just ditched name generators entirely and took first names from people I’ve known personally.

If I recall correctly, in the 17776 q+a, you talked about Nines identity a little bit and how you wanted to include an NB character in your stories. In this story, is Nine using they/them pronouns a decision they have made to identify as NB?

– Anonymous

Yep, Nine is non-binary. In 17776, Nine was non-binary simply by virtue of only having been conscious for a few days and not even having the time to examine or consider it. But now it’s been a while, and they actively identify as NB.

do you plan on bringing back any other space probes, like hubble in ‘76?

– scotty

Yes! I’ll spill the beans on that now. Hubble was originally going to appear in 20020, but there was just too much other stuff to get to. He’ll be seen in 20021.

how do you manage to find the “non-dull” part of each of the stories you write? like how do you find the newspaper clippings, names, etc?

– Carter Briggs (@carter1137)

Before I started writing, I spent two whole months just scrolling across every single field. If I hit a town, a lake, a mountain, or even a road with a weird name, I’d stop and search the newspaper archives to see if I could find anything interesting. This was definitely a test of Nancy’s sentiment in 17776 that you can’t walk ten feet in American without running into a story.

Technically speaking, it turns out that this is more or less true, but the vast majority of these stories are UNBELIEVABLY FUCKING BORING. As far as a lot of town are concerned, if anything interesting ever happened there, it sure as Hell didn’t make the papers. I’d say a good 10 percent of old newspapers are just, “Mrs. Hubbard took a trip here to visit her sons.” Just a 19th-century proto-Facebook check-in app. But one time out of a hundred, I’d find out about the James gang’s forgotten stash, or the Stannard Rock Lighthouse, or the escapes of Eugene Jennings, and it was all worth it.

I feel really, really gratified by those. I’m not so sure anyone has explored American history the way I did – by literally drawing lines across it and following those lines. It’s a very silly, stupid way to do it, but if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have found some of these things that would otherwise have been lost to history.

What do the probe’s voices sound like over the phone? Synthesized? Uncannily human? Like a Siri kind of thing?

– Anonymous

They sound human, yeah. How exactly they sound, I can’t say, but I can kinda hear Juice. Despite being French, I hear him as a fast-talking, hyper-charismatic, high-energy Southern dude, like some guys I grew up around. Think some weird amalgamation that’s reminiscent of Matthew McConaughey and Chris Tucker.

what is the answer to nines postscript(what happens when a ball is on a intersection)

– Anonymous

So when a ball is on Field A, and it crosses Field B at an intersection, the scoreboard doesn’t change. It still belongs to Field A, and only transfers to Field B if the player makes a turn.

What do video games look like in the year 20020? Do they still make new games or do they just kind of permanently update the old ones, like an MMO or something?

– Ben

This is not necessarily canon, and is just my real-world feeling on the matter seeping out: the real frontiers in gaming aren’t about graphics or technical ability or anything like that, they’re about creativity and art. Like, Breath of the Wild? That plays at 720p on my Switch, and while it’s artistically breathtaking, I think that strictly from a technical perspective, it could have been made 10 or 15 years ago. And yet it’s probably the greatest video game ever made.

Was there always an intention to do multiple parts (17776, 20020, 20021), or did that evolve as you wrote? What does the idea generation stage look like for a story as massive and out there as this one?

– @stxnmxn

When I finished 17776, I knew I wanted to write a sequel at some point, but didn’t always imagine it in two parts. As recently as this summer, I’d planned on writing it all at once before Graham and I decided to break it up. I’d just found too much stuff to condense it into one thing.

Did you have fun writing it?

– benfrosh

yeah

ballground & ballplay — how did you think to link them to this story? were you looking for them? when did you make the connection to the fields?

– @heysihui

That was an unbelievable coincidence! Clemson’s field just ran across both of them. I knew for sure I wanted to talk some about indigenous peoples, and I’ve long been fascinated with the seemingly far-flung concept of replacing war with sports. It was just the perfect opportunity.

I loved how in 20020 there are so many smaller stories being retold, some of which even affect the larger story. Of all the places big and small visited over the course of 20020, which location had your favorite historical event? I think mine was the 1910 Emory Gap runaway train.

– @jj_jjjjj_jjjjjj

The story of Eugene Jennings takes it for me. I was so profoundly touched by the story of a guy who had an incredible gift for escaping. He wasn’t an evil person, he was just born into a world he wasn’t compatible with. I think lots and lots of people like him have lived and died, and I hope we don’t forget them. You can barely find anything about Jennings on the Internet; his story could only be found in old newspapers. I’m honored I got to tell his story. I sure as Hell won’t ever forget him.

first of all, thanks for making an explicitly lgbt couple, one where the romance is directly shown, part of your main cast for 20020. did you really give much thought to it, or was it a decision that felt natural?

– jijo, @optikalcrow

Part of the reason I wrote 17776 in the first place was to take football, which I view to be this spectacular, fascinating thing, and imagine a world where it’s opened up to every single type of person. A long while back, a friend and I were talking about football. He’s gay, and he supposed that while football seemed like the sort of thing he’d like, he never got into it growing up because he “never got the invite.”

So I did that as a means of sending an invite. More generally, I really liked the idea of making a gay couple the main characters because I almost never see that anywhere, and if I do, it’s probably a story about them being gay.

As I did last time, I wanted to represent people completely matter-of-factly. I don’t delve into the experience of being gay, because I don’t have valuable perspective to offer there, but I did want to establish Nick and Manny as fleshed-out, imperfect, warts-and-all human beings. Sometimes they argue, sometimes they make a bad call, sometimes they say stupid things, and sometimes they’re unsure of themselves, just like everybody else.

who is your favorite character to write for?

– @mwuffie

It was a lot of fun writing Nick and Manny’s pointless arguments. Mimi was great too, since she was inspired by a few people who are very close to me. But Bryce, the new Troy recruit from Chapter 10, might be my favorite.

I grew up around so many guys exactly like Bryce. A young guy who’s not sad, really, just mopey. He’s an asshole in a mostly benign way. He seems to want to do nothing but just sit in a parking lot smoking menthols and leaning against his Nissan, and mumble something about wanting to challenge someone to a street race but never, ever actually doing it. He doesn’t seem to actually like or dislike or want anything. You have absolutely no clue what makes him tick or what ever motivates him to do anything, or whether he likes you. He’s just kinda there, but you get the sense that he’s perfectly content. He fucking rules.

I also enjoyed hate-writing Chess Guy. I never bothered to give him a name because he didn’t deserve one. When Graham first read that chapter, the first thing he told me was, “I fucking hate chess guy.” Mission accomplished.

juice mentions in ch 7 that he worked with indigenous tribes to get permission for fields/players to cross native land (which, of course, all of america is native land). some tribes said no — are these tribal lands OOB and/or handled in the rules?

– lily b.

Yep, for the indigenous peoples who did not grant permission, those portions of the field are out of bounds. Some also have special conditions – for instance, a limit on how many players can be on the field at the same time. These changes aren’t reflected visually on the map for two reasons: first, I couldn’t quite figure out how to do it from a technical sense, and second, I didn’t think it was particularly important or appropriate for me to guess which tribes would and wouldn’t grant permission.

Why hasn’t technology really developed that much? Besides the nanobots, there really isn’t anything else. They still watch/follow games through normal tv’s/radios. Just wondering how boring this must be for anyone not involved in the football games.

– permian triassic extinction event

I think old people just like what they like and don’t need much more, and these are the oldest people in history. Just like folks from decades ago were perfectly fine with their three TV channels and crossword puzzle, I think we’d be okay with an eternity of, I don’t know, online gaming.

Not to be a downer but at times I felt almost guilty about this future with nothing left that needs to be done while we live in this society that’s a total hell-hole for so many. Did you have any feelings like that while writing? Is there a message here linking our harsh reality with the immortal 20020 world that went over my head?

– Anonymous

These times are full of struggle and defeat. The thing I want most and believe in most for this country and this world are things I might never get to see for myself. But god damn it, I will imagine them. It’s practice for the real thing. I believe that one day we’ll actually have the world we want, and we’d better have a plan when that day comes. What are we gonna do with it?

Is it pronounced 20020 or 20020

– Mylograms

20020, yeah.

Any other questions? Graham and I will be hanging out in the comments sections for a while, so feel free to yell at us down there.

[torontoarenas]

stray thoughts on the fifth anniversary of the Phil Kessel trade

when i think back to July 1, 2015 - the day the Toronto Maple Leafs traded Phil Kessel to the Pittsburgh Penguins - the first thing i remember is the overwhelming sense of sadness i felt. in retrospect, it was such a silly way to feel. what does it matter to me if some guy i’ve never met no longer plays for some sports franchise in a city i have no connection to? how does that affect my life in any way? it doesn’t, but i couldn’t convince myself of that in the moment. it just hurt.

Phil Kessel was my favourite Leaf since Mats Sundin. it wasn’t just that he was the most talented player on the team, although he clearly was: he led the Leafs in points in each of his six seasons and led them in goals in five. my attachment to Kessel was also based in large part on his appearance and public image: he was a pudgy guy who looked more like a human teddy bear than a professional athlete. in interviews, he seemed uncomfortable with the level of attention that was paid to him as the star player on a big-market team. even as one of the greatest goalscorers of his era, it seemed like he just wanted to do his job, punch the clock, and be left alone. coaches would attest to his lack of confidence, his inconsistent play, his tendency to retreat into his shell when things weren’t going his way. but he was well-liked by many of his peers: he and Tyler Bozak were famously close. after the Leafs traded Kessel to Pittsburgh, Morgan Rielly called him one of the best teammates he’d ever had and Leo Komarov lamented the absence of a formidable euchre opponent. what i saw in Phil Kessel was a reflection of myself. he was extremely relatable to me as someone who is also a fat recluse who gives up easily on difficult tasks and finds it challenging to make conversation with people I don’t know well. the main difference between the two of us, i suppose, is that Phil Kessel is actually good at something. and also many thousands of people around the world know his name and he makes millions of dollars a year to play a sport. but other than that, we’re basically the same guy.

of course, the team itself was horrible across his entire tenure, but that was hardly his fault. he was only one player. he couldn’t do everything; he shouldn’t have had to. but he was saddled with most of the blame for the team’s issues by the dumbest and most vicious segments of the fanbase and local media. during his time in Toronto, he was subjected to persistent unfair criticism from people who didn’t understand him and didn’t care to. he’s defensively inept, it was said, he’s too lackadaisical, he’s a bad teammate, and that’s why the Leafs have been losing this whole time. Brian Burke and Dave Nonis’ unmitigated failure to surround him with sufficient roster depth never entered into the equation. no. it was all on that fat fuck Kessel, who didn’t backcheck enough or give good quotes in post-game pressers. and in truth, he was never good defensively and there were many nights where he looked unengaged. (I know I haven’t given 100% effort on the job every day of my life. have you?) at a certain point, a general manager has to be able to improve their team by acquiring players whose strengths complement their leading goalscorer’s weaknesses. neither Burke nor Nonis were up to the task. Phil Kessel had nothing to do with the Leafs’ abysmal roster construction. that wasn’t in his job description.

so it was absolutely cathartic to see him not only win a Stanley Cup in the season immediately following the trade, but lead his new team in playoff scoring. it proved definitively that Phil Kessel was not problem in Toronto; it was in fact possible for a team to win with him on the roster. Sidney Crosby may have been awarded the Conn Smythe as playoff MVP in 2016, but i know in my heart who really deserved it.

i realize haven’t actually discussed the trade itself. the full trade itself was as follows: the Toronto Maple Leafs traded Phil Kessel, Tim Erixon, Tyler Biggs, and Pittsburgh’s 2016 second-round pick to the Pittsburgh Penguins for Kasperi Kapanen, Scott Harrington, Nick Spaling, PIttsburgh’s 2016 first-round pick and New Jersey’s 2016 third-round pick.

and here are some rapid fire takes about it:

oh man! i forgot about Tim Erixon! Wikipedia tells me he’s currently playing for the Vaxjo Lakers of the SHL, and to that, I say: “good for him”

i remember being outraged that the Leafs had to settle for Kasperi Kapanen as the main prospect in the trade return. i wanted Derrick Pouliot instead, mainly because i envisioned Pouliot fulfilling their positional need on defence. Kapanen turned out to have been a much more impactful player in retrospect and i am an idiot whose opinions should never be trusted

with Kessel having become one of the worst defensive players in the league and his even-strength offence starting to dry up in recent years, his contract has become something of an albatross. the Leafs definitely sold low on him and i hate that they had to retain salary, but in retrospect, parting with him ultimately benefited the team’s salary cap position

that $1.2 million dollars in retained salary, though!! they really could’ve used that money this season and in the next two. i understand that the Leafs didn’t have much of a choice in the matter (as i recall, Pittsburgh was one of the few teams interested in trading for Kessel that was also on his list of teams he would accept a trade to), but that still hurts them

the Kessel trade tree included pieces that also helped the Leafs acquire Frederik Andersen and Jake Muzzin. Pittsburgh’s first-round pick was sent to Anaheim in the trade for Andersen, and Nick Spaling was traded to San Jose with Roman Polak for two second-round picks, one of which was used on Sean Durzi, who was included in the trade to Los Angeles for Muzzin. that doesn’t make the trade itself any better (on its own merits, it was “just fine”), but i guess that’s kinda neat

the passage of time has softened my stance on this trade. i no longer think it was an awful decision. other prolific goalscorers (and here I’m thinking of Ilya Kovalchuk and Jarome Iginla) were better players who were traded for much less valuable returns. those are imperfect comparisons since both Kovalchuk and Iginla were on expiring contracts, but honestly: it’s not as bad as it could’ve been. and when you’re a Leafs fan, that’s about the best you can possibly expect.

have a nice day

[flauntpage]

Should Scott Gordon be Next Season’s Coach? – Thoughts after a Successful Flyers Road Trip

Lost in the hysteria of Bryce Harper, his massive contract signed with the Phillies, his plane trip from Las Vegas to Clearwater, his press conference, his forearms, his reasons for wearing No. 3, his malapropism when saying D.C. instead of Philly, his not-so-subtle recruitment of Mike Trout to be his teammate in two years and Le’Veon Bell for the Eagles and his first batting practice has been something else brewing in Philadelphia Sports:

The Flyers are making an unprecedented playoff push.

There have been three road games the Flyers played amid Harper hysteria – an overtime loss to Columbus Thursday and convincing wins over New Jersey Friday and the New York Islanders Sunday.

With that successful little trip, the Flyers enter the final month of the season five points out of a playoff spot with 16 games to play. They trail both the Penguins and Canadiens, who are in those final two Wild Card spots by five points and Columbus, who is the first team on the outside-looking in, by three points.

Both the Penguins and Blue Jackets have a game in hand on the Flyers and all three teams have an advantage over the Flyers in regulation wins, which is the first tiebreaker. Pittsburgh and Montreal each have 33 and Columbus has 36 while the Flyers have just 30.

So, the journey is still steep. But not as steep as it was in early January when the team was 16 points out of a playoff spot and dead last in the league in the standings.

But we’ve been over this before.

We’ve identified myriad reasons why the Flyers turnaround has been so unexpected and, whether they ultimately get to the postseason or not, wildly successful.

Carter Hart was getting the brunt of the love, and rightfully so, until he hurt his ankle and has been sidelined for the past 10 days.

Improved defensive play was also identified – as the Flyers have been starting to see the real Ivan Provorov, Travis Sanheim has exploded onto the stat sheet recently but has been mostly excellent since being paired with Provorov, Radko Gudas, despite a brief suspension, has been rock solid on the blue line all year, Phil Myers is getting his shot now and so far has not done anything to make you think he doesn’t belong and despite a ton of inconsistency all season, Shayne Gostisbehere has been better in the past couple weeks.

Nolan Patrick, despite a scary injury that knocked him out of Sunday’s game against the Islanders, has been really good, even if he’s not scoring a ton. His all-around game has vastly improved, and Oskar Lindblom has become a productive staple in the lineup.

Claude Giroux is Claude Giroux, which doesn’t jump out at you, but is so consistently good that every once in awhile you have to say, “yeah, he’s still awesome.” Meanwhile Sean Couturier continues to show why he is the best two-way forward in the NHL this season.

So yeah, all of these things have had something to do with the Flyers resurgence. But the one thing that hasn’t really been identified as a reason things are moving in the right direction has been coaching.

Scott Gordon has done an excellent job with the Flyers, first putting out the dumpster fire and then helping the team out of the smoldering rubbish and back onto the pavement outside of it.

The Record Speaks for Itself

When the Flyers fired former coach Dave Hakstol, it was at a time when Chuck Fletcher didn’t want to make that decision.

He sort of had his hand forced. He wanted to be more patient. He wanted to figure out how best to proceed. He likely was going to look elsewhere for a replacement for Hakstol eventually, but until that time arose, there was no reason to part with Hakstol in his mind.

However, reports started to surface that Hakstol was going to be fired and that former Chicago Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville was going to be the new coach.

It turned out those reports were wrong in their timing, albeit not wrong when it came to the Flyers intent.

See, the Flyers wanted to pursue Quenneville, if not Fletcher specifically, his big boss, Comcast-Spectacor chairman and CEO Dave Scott wanted Quenneville bad. He could see the apathy with the Flyers fan base setting in and knew that bringing in a coach with cache, namely three Stanley Cups this decade, would stir their emotional interest in the Flyers.

The thing is, neither Quenneville nor Fletcher were ready for this possibility. Time was needed to see if it could eventually be a good pairing.

But Hakstol was no dummy. He could see what was going on around him and requested a meeting with Fletcher trying to get a sense on where he fit into the Flyers future, if at all.

Fletcher is a straight shooter. He was honest with Hakstol, and it left the team in a tough spot with a known lame duck as coach. Fletcher needed to make a change in that moment, even if he didn’t want to do it so soon.

With Fletcher having not even had a chance to speak to Quenneville yet, the Flyers had to make a change. They put their collective heads together (Fletcher, President Paul Holmgren and senior vice president Bob Clarke) and decided to name Gordon the interim coach for the rest of the season, a role that was originally going to be Hakstol’s to hold onto until the Spring.

There were no real expectations for Gordon. After all, his previous stint in the NHL as a head coach was relatively unmemorable. His time with the New York Islanders was brief and the team was bad. And, after two-and-a-quarter seasons, he was fired.

He took an assistant coaching job with Toronto, but he always seemed to find the most joy in coaching at the AHL level, where he had success teaching young players how to find their game so they can make it to the NHL.

Giving Gordon an interim title was meant to just take off the pressure for the rest of the season. If the Flyers continued to stink, no big deal. If they showed a pulse and a heartbeat, it would justify the firing of Hakstol and suggest to Quenneville that there was enough talent here that he would consider being wooed to take over a flawed team, even if it had some promise.

But no one saw this coming. Not Fletcher. Not Holmgren. Not Clarke. Heck, not even Gordon himself.

Since taking the reins, Gordon has led the Flyers to a 20-11-4 record in 35 games. It’s almost half a season now, so it’s starting to get close to a good sample size.

Even better than that, since losing in Washington back on Jan. 8 in D.C., Gordon has guided the Flyers to a 17-4-2 mark in 23 games. – which is more than a quarter of the season.

And the team doesn’t appear to be showing signs of slowing down.

Hart was a big part of it, sure, going 13-8-1 in 22 starts since getting the call up at the start of Gordon’s tenure. But, despite the mostly stellar play of the 20-year-old goalie, the Flyers also have points in 10 of the 13 games not started by Hart.

In fact, goalies not named Hart are 6-0-2 since that Jan. 8 date.

So yeah, credit Hart for some of the success, he certainly deserves it, but this isn’t just about good goaltending now.

The Players Believe in Gordon

This is more about roles and guys buying into them. This is more about communication and transparency with a coach who says he finally understands how to talk to younger players. This is more about creating an environment where the team believes in itself.

That’s all Gordon.

If the Flyers make the playoffs, he’s got to be a finalist for the Jack Adams Award as coach of the year, no? He’s not going to win it, not with the job Barry Trotz has done in New York with the Islanders a season after losing their franchise player, but notice needs to be taken as to what he has created with this team.

They still make mistakes – but not as many.

They still give up a lot of shots – but have taken away more of the higher percentage kind.

They are getting to the net and making things happen offensively.

Players are being told why they are playing where they are playing and what their expectation is in those roles rather than be forced to figure it out themselves.

Sometimes, it’s not a punishment. Sometimes, putting Giroux, Couturier and Jake Voracek together for a period is something that needs to be done to try and jump start the offense and is not an indictment of Travis Konency’s play.

Sometimes moving guys like Michael Raffl and Scott Laughton all over the lineup is worth it – as evidenced by a need for Laughton to fill in for an injured Voracek Sunday and delivering in a more featured role. This is something that a younger Laughton wouldn’t have bought into, but does wholeheartedly now, making him an incredibly valuable piece to this Flyers puzzle.

Sometimes giving a player more responsibility – like Sanheim on the top unit, or counting on Hart as the starting goalie, or not taking Myers out of the lineup once he’s in it – is the right course of action.

Sometimes dressing seven defensemen, while not ideal for rotations, is the best course of action for a team and its morale on a given night.

Gordon doesn’t make every decision alone. He has help from all of his assistants – Ian Laperriere, Kris Knoblauch and most importantly, defensively anyway, Rick Wilson – but he still has the final say.

And his methodology is working. It’s working far more than any coach since Peter Laviolette was punching his own players in the head with excitement.

In conclusion… 

Maybe, just maybe, this guy is the coach the Flyers need long-term.

Yes, Quenneville is still out there, and yes, bringing in a coach with such a glowing track record is enticing, but how he fits with the players on your team is a great unknown.

What is known is these players like playing for Gordon – and it shows.

I’m sure the hockey people see it. I’m sure they are willing to consider it beyond this season. And maybe Dave Scott is seeing that fans will buy in without a big name coach as long as the team is successful and competes.

He should, because the Flyers have something good going with Gordon and shouldn’t let that go while chasing rainbows so that another team can benefit Gordon instead.

The post Should Scott Gordon be Next Season’s Coach? – Thoughts after a Successful Flyers Road Trip appeared first on Crossing Broad.

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[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 10th February 2019

Nothing happened, at all.

Top 10

For its third week, Ariana Grande is at the top spot of the UK Singles Chart with her single “7 rings”, from the recently released thank u, next album – which I personally think was pretty mediocre. Regardless, I don’t see this going anywhere, especially since nothing happened.

“Sweet but Psycho” is staying still, with Ava Max’s song still at number-two.

Similarly at number-three, “Dancing with a Stranger” by Sam Smith and Normani doesn’t move from last week.

Neither does Calvin Harris’ and Rag ‘n’ Bone Man’s “Giant” for that matter at number-four.

Finally, some movement – up two spots is Mabel’s “Don’t Call Me Up”, at number-five.

This means “Wow.” by Post Malone is down a spot to number-six.

Now, our first new arrival, as Billie Eilish debuts at number-seven with “bury a friend”, becoming her first top 10 hit in the UK, and her second Top 40. We’ll talk more about it later, but I’m impressed by how she’s been able to debut this high; definitely shows that new album will do big numbers.

“Nothing Breaks Like a Heart” by Mark Ronson and Miley Cyrus falls down two spaces to number-eight.

At number-nine, up a spot from last week is Lewis Capaldi’s “Someone You Loved”

Also down two spaces is Post Malone and Swae Lee’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse soundtrack cut, “Sunflower”, now at #10, slowly making its way off the charts.

FEATURED SINGLE: “Kids Turned Out Fine” – A$AP Rocky

Now, to interrupt your regularly scheduled programming is Featured Single, the segment where we look at a great song that is getting a single push of some kind but isn’t charting and spread some light on it briefly. Now this song in particular just got a really high-budget music video that combined some of its elements with Rocky’s other song “Changes”, which is all flashy but otherwise kind of unremarkable – but the song itself is great. There’s a catchy, psychedelic guitar sample that starts it all off, showered by scattered vocal samples and seemingly field recordings of playgrounds, before it switches to a slick trap beat that Rocky croons over, before everything slowly gets pitched down and slowed down as he mentions the drugs on his mind as a teenager, who is curious about venturing into substance use without caring about the consequences, and man, does it feel like it. This is psychedelic and confusing, once Rocky starts spitting and the bass actually appears, it just kind of explodes with only distorted guitar to accompany it, before a couple random “Yeah! Yeah!” ad-libs that cut it back to the beat as it was, and the verse continues normally as if nothing happened. Yeah, the album this is from, TESTING, is kind of like that, all of the time. Some of my favourite songs are trippy, chaotic messes, with moments like that random Diddy skit on “Tony Tone” about how he said something while her kids were listening that was vulgar, I suppose, that just cuts the song entirely and the transitions aren’t smooth, it’s just a miniscule interlude that takes place for no reason other than experimentation, and honestly despite lacking substance (Ironically), I love this song (Even though it is just vibe and nothing else, really) and how smooth it is in its controlled chaos, definitely one of the calmer moments on TESTING, but I can never see it being a hit, ever, despite how nothing happened. I think “Brotha Man” with French Montana, Snoop Dogg and Frank Ocean could have a better chance, perhaps “OG Beeper” with BlocBoy JB at a stretch. So let’s just get to the Climbers, Fallers and such.

Climbers

Did I mention nothing happened? This week was so dry and slow that Pinkfong rebounded with “Baby Shark”, up another five spaces to #19. That’s sad. It is alongside Kehlani and Ty Dolla $ign though, as “Nights Like This” is up 10 spaces from last week to #30, which is good because this is a pretty great song from two great artists, one of which I’m pretty sure is also serving 15 years in prison for cocaine possession. Yeah, okay, let’s get to the fallers.

Fallers

Now there’s a couple more here, to an extent. As expected, J. Cole’s “MIDDLE CHILD” is down five spaces to #14 – without a music video I don’t think this is a great lead single, sorry, Cole, I am excited for your next album but this song’s pretty boring. “Lost in the Fire” by Gesaffelstein and the Weeknd is down five spaces to #24, next to former #1 “thank u, next” by Ariana Grande down six spaces to #28 (This will rebound though, the album’s out now), while “18HUNNA” by Headie One and Dave is down nine spaces to #32. That’s it, though.

Dropouts

“Baby” by Clean Bandit, Marina and Luis Fonsi is out from #29 (That’s been kind of a flop overall, I’m just surprised it lasted this long), while other than that, we have “Comfortable” by Yungen and Dappy out from #32, “Think About Us” by Little Mix featuring Ty Dolla $ign out from #34 and 15 years in prison for cocaine possession, “Psych Out!” by AJ Tracey out from #36 (I guess the album didn’t do all too well?), “Mo Bamba” by Sheck Wes out from #37, and surprisingly due to recent circumstances, “Advice” by Cadet and Deno Driz out from #39. Rest in peace to Cadet – tragic he died so young in a car accident, and just in his prime time to release more material, sucks that his life was cut short at this point in time, and we only have limited music from the guy, he was only 25. On a lighter note:

Returning Entries

Actually, this isn’t a lighter note at all, this song sucks. “Grace” by Lewis Capaldi is back at #40 (Who cares?). Maybe the new arrivals will be better, there’s four of them so there’s got to be something good there.

NEW ARRIVALS

#39 – “i’m so tired...” – LAUV and Troye Sivan

So, uh, LAUV’s back with another song, huh? I thought he’d end up a complete one-hit wonder but I suppose he’s attempting that second hit, and you know what, I’m not complaining, I loved his last one (More on that when I post my best list; it’s concerningly high). Troye Sivan is okay, I guess, none of his stuff except perhaps “My My My!” has really grown on me all too much though. Sigh, what do these boring pop dudes have to say? That they’re sick of love songs? That all these fairy tales are full of it? That if they hear one more stupid love song, they’ll be sick? That they’re at a payphone trying to call home? Yeah, alright, enough playing around. This is LAUV’s first ever Top 40 hit in the UK (Congratulations) and Troye Sivan’s fourth, and is it good? Well, I can agree with the title’s message on the surface, I guess. Not that I’m tired of love songs, I’m just tired. The song itself? I mean, it is generic, but it’s quicker-paced than his last hit, and it seems to have some more energy, but that guitar strumming just kind of gets on my nerves, same with that mind-numbingly repetitive hook. There is a lot of genuine groove in the production though, especially the janky percussion, and Troye Sivan’s melodies are sonically sound. I can see this growing on me like LAUV has succeeded in before, but I could equally see myself hating this after hearing it more than five times (Because you know the radio will play the most bottom of the barrel stuff after the rise of trap-rap). It’s okay, I guess. Next.

#36 – “a lot” – 21 Savage featuring J. Cole

It’s about time this appeared, and I know exactly why. Back in late December, 21 Savage dropped his album as pretty much a Christmas present, with i am > i was being slightly inconsistent but there’s still a lot of quality there, and fun to be had, especially with the powerful opening track. Now that there’s a music video and now that 21 Savage has been detained by ICE for overstaying his Visa (Apparently he’s actually from the UK, but he’s been freed now), I can only see this rising from now on, and that’s good because it was going to be my Featured Single for this week if it didn’t appear. This song is fantastic, all three versions of it. It starts with a few different 21 Savages just repeating ad-libs while that great soul sample croons in the background of the trap skitters, “I love you for so many reasons, I love you for all seasons”. The bass hits behind 21’s insanely catchy hook with that multi-tracked, “A lot” playing after every line, until 21’s verse, which gets fittingly, broken down, for an unidentified sample to repeat, “I break it on down”, with random vocal samples and sound effects playing in between. While 21’s meaningful subject matter is arguably more important, and the section is totally filler, I love those little touches that show the layers of the production. 21 is essentially playing the underdog who’s seen and been through traumatic gang violence and experiences with women, who has still succeeded. But then you hear J. Cole drunkenly and tiredly say, “Yeah”, before going on a ramble about how 21 Savage had his kids in the studio or something, I don’t know, and then he goes off.

Some n****s make millions, other n****s make memes

Yeah, it may seem like I hate J. Cole’s guts from how all his charting stuff is really boring and always gets negative reviews from me, but he’s definitely one of the best rappers out when he really wants to bother. This whole verse is essentially a complete ramble, but he did warn us, although he does keep a general theme in his rapid flow and charismatic yet calm delivery, which is how the new-wave rappers and overall new-wave black society in the modern Internet age should have more guidance, and now that the older legends in that society are getting older and more mature, much like 21, he feels they should have more responsibility and that he feels bad for the even newer, younger wave of SoundCloud rappers who will regret all their decisions, including 6ix9ine, who I may add he doesn’t defend – he just feels bad for him as he knows at some point, Tekashi’s going to look back at what he did and ask himself, “Was it worth it getting myself into prison for essentially life?” I wonder if Ty Dolla $ign is thinking that while he’s serving 15 years for cocaine possession. 21’s alternate verse on the physical, live and music video versions also discusses people getting blocked at the border, and that families in ghettos still don’t even seem to have a right to clean water and are constantly stuck in financial situations and struggles with no way to escape, and it honestly seems like an anthem for 21, who’s gone through all this, with his verses combined probably being better than Cole’s, honestly. This song is like six minutes (At least the best version of the song is) so I’m surprised it’s gone this far, but it deserves it. Check this out if you haven’t already.

#15 – “All I Ever Wanted” – Fredo featuring Dave

Now, back to some British stuff. Fredo and Dave are close friends, and honestly the chocolate frog and its mundanely-named partner are people I initially was just confused by, and you can tell during my review of “Funky Friday” months ago, which is a song I know oddly admire and adore for all its odd quirks. I didn’t think it was anything special at the time, but it’s slowly become one of my favourite songs of the past year. After listening to more stuff, though, as more from both has crept up on the charts, I’ve started to love them both, and seeing as this is the only song to enter the top 40 from the three Fredo album tracks entering on the top 100 this week from his album Third Avenue (That I’ll check out immediately after this episode), this is of course the one that left the most impressions on listeners. I’m really into British rap, especially the trap and the more low-key, soul and R&B stuff (Check out Tom Misch, he has some beautiful songs like “Good to be Home” and “Movie”, in fact the Free Form official Spotify playlist has some fantastic British hip hop, listen to some of it if you can and give these guys support), so hopefully this’ll be good, and, yeah, it is. It starts with a glittering piano and twinkling leads that are cheap but definitely symphonic and almost video game-like, with producer tags ham-fistedly appearing as the bass slowly creeps ominously. In fact, the whole song is really ominous as even when the hi-hats come in, there’s no real bounce and Fredo just yells at us. It’s pretty intimidating, and when the beat finally drops, we have that classic stock “Oh!” sound you hear in songs like “Leave Me Alone” by Flipp Dinero, “Dilemma” by Nelly and “3500” by Travis Scott, but here it has so much reverb that any other voice than Fredo’s troubled gang mindset feels distant. Dave is great here, referencing... Lil Baby of all people, with a more stable and serious flow, mentioning the people close to him who he’s lost to both prison and death, in a really long and fantastic verse. The emotionless vibe of this track makes it so much more full of emotion, and although it sounds slightly dated in its production, this is a dark and menacing yet almost sombre banger, pretty similar to one of Dave’s other songs, “Hangman”, and definitely deserves to be Dave’s sixth top 40 hit and Fredo’s fourth.

#7 – “bury a friend” – Billie Eilish

I’ve heard two other songs from Billie Eilish in full, and I love both of them; “when the party’s over” is a genius piece of songwriting from her brother Finneas, and “lovely” is a beautiful ballad with Khalid. Those were slow, minimalistic piano-lead songs, though, so what happens when she lends her voice to, uh... industrial funk? Yeah, this one is bouncier and this one is more danceable, and that’s why it debuted this high, especially with Eilish’s hype at an all time high right now, not because some British rapper cameos in literally less than one second at the start of the song. His name is Crooks, and I figured he would have an uncredited rap verse when I saw it had additional vocals from him,  but it’s literally just him whispering, “Billie”, and a couple ad-libs. Eh, okay, but how does the music stack up? It’s brilliant, of course. With Kanye’s “Black Skinhead” as a point of reference, the minimalistic 808s and claps only accompany Billie’s multi-tracked and pitch-shifted vocals, before the verse starts and sound effects are scattered everywhere, with pained shrieks, glass shattering and moans adding to the lyrics. Seriously, I love little details where musical elements actually relate to the lyrics directly, but then that bass hits slowly and that one 808 just keeps going on with a shrill synth, and then it just ends entirely, pretty abruptly. This song is eerie and honestly pretty scary, and Crooks’ ad-libs and backing vocals contribute to that greatly. Eilish’s sing-songy melodies make it even weirder, even, making the song feel like a possessed toy box. That intense moment where it’s just that ear-piercing synth and the 808 is such an interesting musical moment, man, this is pop brilliance. It’s creepy art pop not designed to be an indie darling, but designed for the radio (This is insanely catchy as well) and that hits a soft spot for me. The best art is made for mass consumption. That new album’s coming in March by the way, and I’m incredibly excited.

Conclusion

That was a really freaking good week, actually, so I’m only having to force Worst of the Week out on LAUV and Troye Sivan for “i’m so tired...” (The song’s not even close to bad, it’s just my only option), with Best of the Week going to Billie Eilish again for “bury a friend”. Tied Honourable Mentions go to the equally amazing yet only somewhat flawed songs, with 21 Savage, J. Cole, Fredo and Dave all picking them up for “a lot” and “All I Ever Wanted”, respectively. See ya next week, but it won’t top this.

[junker-town]

The 5 most fireable NFL coaches of this season

Jason Garrett’s days with the Cowboys are likely numbered after a disappointing 2019 season.

Whose seats are hottest after disappointing seasons? The answers ... probably won’t surprise you.

The NFL’s most embattled head coaches have just one week left to state their cases. Dec. 30 will be the last day of employment for most of the playcallers who wind up fired.

This year’s Black Monday may be a slower day than usual. While last year’s preferred firing day claimed six head coaches, some of this season’s least promising sideline generals have already earned support from team ownership. The Jets will keep Adam Gase around for year two. Matt Patricia’s done enough in his 3-11-1 season to oversee a third year in Detroit. Even Doug Marrone, now free from Tom Coughlin’s tyranny, could get another chance to restore the Jaguars to “not bad.”

Before we get to the list, let’s deviate from the way we’ve sorted these coaches in the past few weeks. Typically, “fireable” doesn’t mean a coach is necessarily going to be fired. It refers to how poorly those coaches performed in a given week and any recent trends working against them. For example, Frank Reich made last week’s list after the Colts allowed Drew Brees to have the most accurate game in NFL passing history. He’s not getting canned, but Reich’s team has failed to live up to its potential while coming off its fourth straight loss.

This time, in honor of the upcoming season finale, we’re looking at all-around resumes on top of what happened in Week 16. Let’s zero in on the five guys most likely to be looking for employment. That means coaches who probably deserve to be fired, but won’t (Gase, Patricia), escaped the final rankings. Secure coaches who brain farted their way to a loss on Sunday are safe as well ... until we come back to these rankings next fall.

So who’s on the chopping block after a trying 2019?

5. Dan Quinn, Falcons

Atlanta was 1-7 after Week 9, good enough to give Quinn the shortest odds of a midseason firing in the NFL. Since then, he’s gone 5-2, including wins over two of the NFC’s top teams (the Saints and 49ers). That hot streak added another victim Sunday when the Falcons dispatched a sputtering Jaguars squad.

It’s been a significant turnaround on both sides of the ball. The Falcons’ offense has become more efficient, while their defense has tightened up to create opportunities over the last seven weeks.

So what will team owner Arthur Blank do about his head coach? No one’s really quite sure!

Quinn has three factors working in his favor; the recent surge that shows off his ability to adapt, the continuity that comes with standing by a five-year veteran at the helm, and a locker room that, per a former Falcons’ public relations executive, still listens to, believes in, and respects him.

On a plane back to LA and just wrote this. I’m gonna share it bc a couple years back @ZachKleinWSB did something similar and this is my 2019 version to everyone who’s followed me over the years. I’m sure I’m gonna get a lot of great comments but I hope it gives you perspective pic.twitter.com/iCJ1zT3Et9

— Brian Cearns (@BKCearns) December 23, 2019

Quinn’s put in the work to keep his job over the back half of the season, even if 2019 will be remembers as a letdown for a talent roster. The question is whether his late-season progress will be too little, too late.

4. Doug Marrone, Jaguars

Will Marrone be held accountable for his team’s continued collapse from 2017’s lofty perch? Or will Tom Coughlin’s firing give him the leeway needed to earn another year in Jacksonville?

That’s the question owner Shad Khan will have to ask himself this week. Marrone got the Jags closer to the Super Bowl than all but one other coach in franchise history ... and that was Coughlin. The old-school disciplinarian oversaw a franchise that was responsible for one-quarter of the grievances filed by the NFL Players Association in the past year. He chased away talent like Jalen Ramsey (traded for two first-round picks) and had issues with Jaguars both former and current.

This limited what Marrone could do as a head coach, but Jacksonville’s issues go beyond mismanagement at the top. This year’s team has only been marginally more efficient through the air than it was in 2018 when Blake Bortles was playing his way out of Florida. Leonard Fournette’s stellar start to the season (791 yards, 4.9 yards per carry in his first eight games) has ground down to mediocrity without the threat of a high-impact passing game (361 yards, 3.5 YPC in the seven games since). A defense that had been a top-10 staple now ranks 29th in defensive efficiency, per DVOA.

Khan was mum on Marrone’s future after Week 15. That non-endorsement gave way to reports he’d be retained for one last go-round to see what he can do free of Coughlin’s influence.

From @NFLGameDay: There is a "good chance" #Jaguars coach Doug Marrone and GM Dave Caldwell return in 2020 following the firing of EVP Tom Coughlin, sources say... and Tony Khan could take on an increased role. pic.twitter.com/85Jw7YE4MX

— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) December 22, 2019

Marrone led the Jaguars within one quarter of Super Bowl 52. That bought him a redo after a disappointing 2018. Now he may get one more if Coughlin truly is the scapegoat he’s made out to be.

3. Pat Shurmur, Giants

Shurmur got what he needed from Daniel Jones Sunday: a historical five-touchdown performance and a win over Washington. Under his guidance, Saquon Barkley had the best day of his career and one of the most productive games of 2019 (279 total yards). So why is Shurmur back on the list despite a two-game winning streak?

Because ...

a) it came against Washington and

b) the Giants’ issues outside of their inconsistent offense may be too much for him to overcome.

New York gave up a 14-point fourth-quarter lead, allowing Case Keenum to go 99 yards on Washington’s final drive of regulation to tie the game at 35. While Jones was able to rectify that problem by leading his team to a game-winning touchdown, Week 16 failed to dispel the fatal flaws that could lead to Shurmur’s ousting after two years.

The Giants let Keenum and Dwayne Haskins — who left the game with an ankle injury — throw for three touchdowns and nearly eight yards per pass (a 125.1 passer rating). That undermanned defense has given up more points than all but three other teams. It also ranks 29th when it comes to opponent passing efficiency.

That’s all led to a 4-11 record lowlighted by a nine-game losing streak in the middle of the season. New York’s only wins have come against 3-12 Washington (twice), the 4-11 Dolphins, and the 7-8 Buccaneers.

On the plus side, Shurmur’s built camaraderie within the Giants’ locker room — he’s even got Jones and Eli Manning partying together in the dorkiest way possible — and appears to be every bit a players’ coach.

Shurmur on the Giants night of flip cup celebrations: “they’re grown men and they look after each other and they were celebrating a victory, they should have invited me!” *laughs*

— Madelyn Burke (@MadelynBurke) December 23, 2019

Though the team’s dream of adding Chase Young to its pass rush probably died with Week 16’s win, defensive help is still likely on the way. If the Giants believe they can patch up the blocking and secondary issues that have plagued them, Shurmur may get one more chance to prove he can turn Jones into a legitimate franchise quarterback.

Of course, owner John Mara could just look at his 9-22 record over the past two seasons and decide to gamble on a different quarterback whisperer instead.

2. Freddie Kitchens, Browns

Cleveland had the ball and a 6-0 lead at the two-minute warning in the second quarter against the Ravens. Kitchens found a way to turn that into a 14-6 halftime deficit.

Granted, some of that collapse was thanks to Lamar Jackson’s otherworldly play, but Kitchens did his offense few favors with too-cute playcalling and some regrettable clock management. His halfback pass on third-and-1 fooled nobody, and the fact it went for an 8-yard loss may have been the only thing that kept him from going for it on fourth down from his own 28.

Freddie Kitchens on the sequence at the end of the first half, throwing on third-and-10. (He also confirmed that the Hunt third-and-1 play the drive before was a halfback pass, and that they would’ve gone for it on fourth-and-short) pic.twitter.com/aiQ87JLdcm

— Jake Trotter (@Jake_Trotter) December 22, 2019

The Ravens, out of timeouts, scored on the following drive. And they scored on the drive after that because three straight incompletions only ate up 18 seconds of game clock, effectively daring Jackson to burn them once more. It was another brutal gut-punch in a season full of them for the erstwhile AFC North favorites.

Confusing clock management is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Kitchens’ problems. The first-year head coach’s promotion was predicated on his ability to turn Cleveland’s turgid offense into one of the league’s most dangerous units. He made Baker Mayfield look like a borderline MVP candidate after taking over as interim offensive coordinator. Then he took that team and added All-Pros Odell Beckham Jr. and Kareem Hunt (for half a season).

And the Browns have gone from ranking 12th in the league in weighed DVOA in 2018 to 23rd in 2019.

Beckham, still fiercely committed to the team that freed him from New York last spring, took notice — one week after Jarvis Landry had a similarly public discussion with his head coach over playcalling.

I'm sure OBJ is fine pic.twitter.com/o7t8hywE0l

— CJ Fogler (@cjzero) December 22, 2019

Kitchens is losing on the field and potentially losing in his own locker room. That all spells disaster for his hopes of returning for a year two. But maybe team owner John Dorsey will chalk this all up to rookie mistakes and give him the runway to learn from and fix those issues.

1 Jason Garrett, Cowboys

Garrett may have seen his last shot to keep his job march off the turf as the Eagles celebrated the 17-9 win that moved them to the top of the NFC East. The underachieving Cowboys, stuck in a feedback loop of botched calls and big, meaningless performances, dropped to 7-8 and out of the playoff picture.

That may signal the end of the Garrett era in Dallas. The 10-year veteran is staring down what could be only his second losing season as the Cowboys’ head coach, but the lingering sense he always could have done more will ultimately be his undoing. None of his teams embody that more than the 2019 edition.

Even though the Cowboys have all the talent of a contender, the combination of a tough schedule and a crippling inability to step up a big stage has dropped them to the periphery of the playoff race. By most metrics, Dallas should have clinched its division in a down year for the NFC East. It ranks first in the NFL in total yards, eighth in scoring, and eighth in yards allowed per play.

Advanced stats love the Cowboys. Not just DVOA. They're a top-ten team by DVOA, by @pfref SRS, by EPA. But the point of the game isn't to do well in advanced metrics. It's to win. And they didn't do that enough.

— Aaron Schatz (@FO_ASchatz) December 23, 2019

Instead, Jerry Jones’ team needs to beat Washington and hope the Giants upset the Eagles in Week 17 just to sneak into the postseason. Sunday’s loss in Philly dropped Garrett to 2-6 against teams with winning records in 2019.

Dak Prescott’s breakthrough season — he ranks among the NFL’s top five in passing yards, passing touchdowns, and QBR — is about to go to waste on the worst team, by record, of his career. A defense that got its best-case scenario in terms of injury (only Leighton Vander Esch has missed more than four games this season among the team’s starters) held the Saints, Patriots, and Eagles to 17 points or fewer this season and lost all three of those games. It hasn’t been all roses for that unit, which ranks 20th in defensive efficiency, per DVOA, but it still has given the ‘Boys several opportunities to win big games.

The gap between potential and production in Dallas is sizable. There’s one man who’ll shoulder the blame for that disparity, and it’s the same guy who has come under fire each time the Cowboys make an early playoff exit or struggle down the stretch. Garrett can still save his job by carrying Dallas to a surprising postseason run, though he’ll need the stars to align.

And if he does, all signs point to the Cowboys blowing it. That’s what they’ve done throughout 2019.

[junker-town]

5 reasons the Cavaliers are trash right now, ranked in order of urgency

Cleveland’s lost to some bad teams, but its problems are fixable. It’s only a matter of time.

With a 3-5 record and no answer in sight, the Cavaliers find themselves in an awkward position. We all wrote them into at least the Eastern Conference Finals and probably the NBA Finals before the season, but Cleveland has never looked this bad this early with LeBron James on the roster.

After winning their first two games, the Cavs lost five of their next six: Ls to the Magic, the Nets, the Knicks, the Pelicans, and the Indiana friggin’ Pacers.

Of those five losses, four of them have been by at least 17 points, with 21- and 22-point blowout losses to Orlando (at home!) and New Orleans. Any time you lose by 21 points, you’ve got to pass the sticks.

Those are not teams the defending conference champs should lose to, and we’re not gonna chalk it up to playing down to the competition.

The Cavs have a few tangible issues that can be fixed. Some start with their leader, others are more widespread.

Here’s what’s wrong with Cleveland so early into the year:

1. What the point guard?

LeBron James is the point god. Let’s be clear about that.

But James has been at his best with a sidekick available to take the offensive pressure off him in spots. With Isaiah Thomas still nursing a hip injury and Derrick Rose finding his way in the latest chapter of his career, he has had no such luxury.

We knew Cleveland wasn’t going to be 100 percent until their All-Star point guard/Brinks truck slides-wearing scorer returns to action. But the Cavaliers haven’t even been close to good.

Rose needs to be better. Yes, he’s averaging 15 points on better than 50 percent shooting from the field, but he’s been inconsistent defensively and is averaging fewer than two assists per game.

Rose played excellent defense on Kyrie Irving in the final moments of the season opener:

Derrick Rose with the surprisingly great defense on Kyrie in the clutch http://pic.twitter.com/xA7Bv4CzAf

— The Render (@TheRenderNBA) October 18, 2017

But he hasn’t attacked every defensive possession the same way. That, and he’s only shooting 20 percent from downtown. When LeBron’s on the court, the worst thing you can be is a liability from three-point range.

Bottom line: Isaiah Thomas, please come back.

Will this keep up?

This is a lingering problem until IT4 returns. And even when he returns, he still has to be hidden on defense. It’s a byproduct of his stature, not his willingness to defend.

But what Thomas’s return will bring is All-Star caliber firepower to the backcourt, something Cleveland traded away and hasn’t yet reclaimed.

Let’s give this a 9 out of 10 on the urgency scale.

2. They aren’t trying... yet

LeBron James is the leader of this team. Yes, Tyronn Lue is head coach, but this is LeBron’s team, and there’s no question about that.

And as the leader of this team, it’s LeBron’s duty to make sure his guys show up and compete with fervor every night.

Here are videos of a team not competing with fervor:

Dark days for the #Cavs defense. No rotation from anybody http://pic.twitter.com/15a3qCyGyk

— BBALLBREAKDOWN (@bballbreakdown) November 2, 2017

Another transition score vs Cavs. Their defense might be worse this year than last http://pic.twitter.com/CCVTbYJD2m

— BBALLBREAKDOWN (@bballbreakdown) November 2, 2017

And here is video of LeBron, not complaining about his team not competing with fervor:

LeBron doesn’t want to hear it about the Cavs lackadaisical defense and play thus far. http://pic.twitter.com/0QdbQILwgS

— Hoop Central (@TheHoopCentral) October 30, 2017

Sure, it’s early in the regular season. And sure, the Cavaliers will be much, much better in the playoffs than they are right now.

But Cleveland had similar defensive woes last season: they were a bottom 20 defensive team as recently as March, and those struggles trickled right into the postseason. Even though the Cavaliers almost swept through the Eastern Conference playoff picture, they were still not a great defensive team. They just managed to score enough that it didn’t matter.

They couldn’t do that against the Warriors, though, and ended up getting run through in the NBA Finals. If the Cavaliers don’t want a repeat of last year, they need to nip some of these issues in the bud early on. And that starts at the top.

Will it keep up?

Absolutely not. It’s all fun and games until LeBron gets mad, and nothing will make LeBron more upset than a lax approach to the game he takes serious. For now, the energy isn’t there. If that energy isn’t there in December, January or early February, LeBron will take out his second hat: the GM.

3. Dwyane Wade’s getting up there

And not in a good way, either. Wade is 35 years old and turns 36 in January. He’s averaging 7.7 points per game on a career-low 41 percent shooing. And his arrival moved Smith to the bench, only for Wade to volunteer to lead the second unit when his stint as a starter didn’t pan out.

Wade still has moments where he flashes his past brilliance:

Dwyane Wade's still got it. http://pic.twitter.com/1OSV6gvsBf

— Dime on UPROXX (@DimeUPROXX) October 29, 2017

But for the most part, he’s been a shell of the Hall of Fame player most know him to be:

Dwyane Wade can't shake off Frank Ntilikina's defense http://pic.twitter.com/nrRgnrip5L

— The Render (@TheRenderNBA) October 30, 2017

Wade’s defense hasn’t been any better, and how could you expect it to be? He’s in his mid-30s chasing around guys in their mid-20s.

Wade’s another guy who will raise his game when it matters most. Playoff Wade has always out-shined regular season Wade. It’s the stuff the greats are made of.

But if regular season Wade is only giving you 7.7 points on abominable field goal percentages while getting ripped up by Frank Ntilikina and ole’ing on the other end, it’s fair to question just how good Playoff Wade will be when it matters.

Bottom line: the Cavs need him to be better. LeBron needs him to be better.

Will this keep up?

Probably. At the end of the day, Father Time is undefeated, and Wade isn’t exempt from his wrath. While he likely won’t average 7.7 points all season long, Wade isn’t the same player he was during his prime in Miami. And that’s OK.

He’ll still have his moments of brilliance and hopefully some of those moments come in crunch time when it matters. Let’s give this a 7 out of 10 on the urgency scale.

4. Chemistry takes time

Eight new players is nothing to sneeze at, especially on a championship team that essentially took a stick of dynamite, lit the fuse, stuck it into its core, and watched it explode in the form of a Kyrie Irving trade. And without Thomas to fill that gap, the Cavs are left with debris until his return.

These things take time, and with the shortened training camp and preseason, the Cavaliers are learning on the fly. Playing with LeBron doesn’t make life much easier. Running with The King is unlike any other offense these guys have played in.

It doesn’t help that Ty Lue messed with the starting lineup early in the season, either.

He moved Tristan Thompson to the bench, Kevin Love to the center and Jae Crowder into the starting lineup with Rose filling in for an injured Isaiah Thomas. He began the season with Wade starting over J.R. Smith.

Then, the Wade experiment went south, so Lue put Smith back into the starting lineup. Then Rose got hurt, so James was moved to full-time point guard. Then Thompson was re-inserted into the starting lineup at center, and now he’s out for a month with a calf injury.

There have been way too many adjustments to the starting 5 for a team that has been to the Finals in each of the past three seasons. Much of that has to do with Thomas’s injury and the lack of a legitimate starting point guard, but Smith, LeBron, Love, and Thompson were four of the five starters who got Cleveland to the Finals year after year with regularity.

Bottom line: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Will this keep up?

Chemistry doesn’t form overnight. These things take time, especially when adding eight new players to the fold. But the Cavs’ chemistry will directly impact their success on the floor, and until they build it, they’ll have to talent their way to victories.

Without Isaiah Thomas, though, Cleveland really only has LeBron and Kevin Love to rely on for the offensive output. And when teams load up defensively on LeBron, and the chemistry isn’t there, his shooters won’t be ready.

Chemistry will develop at some point, that’s a given. But if it doesn’t come sooner than later, the Cavaliers could have some issues down the road. Let’s give this an 8.5 on the urgency scale, knowing how much it matters, but acknowledging sooner or later, it will come.

5. LeBron admits he has to be better

In Cleveland’s loss to Indiana, James coughed the ball up eight times. It was the second time this season he had that many turnovers. Through eight games, he’s averaging 4.5 giveaways a night.

LeBron admitted to ESPN’s Dave McMenamin he couldn’t continue to be as careless with the ball.

"Eight for myself, that's way too many," he said. "You know, [you accept] the three or four range, but you double that, it's not good ingredients for your team to be successful. So, I'll take [responsibility for] that for sure. I have the ball in my hands a lot, so I have to be very careful with my decision-making. So, I take full responsibility for all our turnovers tonight because it starts with me."

LeBron admitted after the first game that he was out of shape due to an ankle injury in training camp. He’s played 37 minutes a game to work his way back into tip-top condition.

James is averaging near a triple double on the season: 25.9 points, 8.9 assists and seven rebounds per game to be exact. But he has to — and will — be even better if he wants to demand excellence from his teammates. It was easy to say it’s only October, but it’s November now. It’s time to tighten up.

Will this keep up?

Nah. LeBron James is in the conversation as one of the greatest of all-time specifically because this does not keep up. He will turn it on, as he always does, and push his team to the promised land. On the urgency scale, this is about a negative-14 out of 10. That’s because LeBron knows what he wants, and that’s a championship. And the only way he’s getting one is if he sets the standard.

Even still, it’s only November

Cleveland has only played eight games. Yes, they have only won three of them, but the odds the Cavaliers finish 31-51 are slim-to-none.

History suggests Cleveland will be fine, especially once Thomas heals up and makes his return.

Three things are certain in life: death, taxes, and LeBron James in the NBA Finals. The King has been to the league’s biggest stage in each of the past seven seasons. Nobody else has run away in the East while the Cavaliers are struggling.

But LeBron doesn’t want to just make it to the Finals, he wants to win it all. And if he wants to win it all, he needs to tighten up his team — and that includes himself.

[junker-town]

Bret Bielema's Arkansas brand is strong, but where are the wins?

“How are the Razorbacks doing?” is one of college football’s trickiest questions heading into 2017.

How should we judge how a coach is doing?

We know how fans do it. It’s a combination of wins, rivalry wins, linear improvement, and how often his offensive coordinator calls the touchdown play. We don’t deal well with setbacks, and we don’t tolerate much context. And the short-term fan view probably isn’t something the long-term administrator should use.

(Of course, it’s hard to ignore this view when the richer fans threaten to remove their support if said offensive coordinator doesn’t call said touchdown play more often.)

I ask this because I’m finding it difficult to evaluate how Bret Bielema is doing.

Bielema has brought a strange stability to a program that lived in an all-or-nothing universe.

From 2004-13, Arkansas became one of the most volatile programs you'll ever see. The Razorbacks had three top-15 finishes and 10-win campaigns in this span; they also went 5-7 or worse five times. They averaged seven wins per year without ever actually winning seven games in a year.

Bielema has gone 7-6, 8-5, and 7-6 the last three years. The first seven-win season was unlucky, and the second was lucky, but steady it has been.

After a first-year reset, Bielema has fielded, per S&P+, a top-10 defense, a top-10 offense, and two top-20 teams. Granted, he hasn't gotten both sides of the ball figured out simultaneously — his defense surged while his offense occasionally labored, then his offense surged as his defense regressed — but the spikes have been impressive.

Bielema has established a true brand, which is hard to do in college football. He called one of his team’s best performances, the 2014 Texas Bowl romp over Texas, “borderline erotic” in the way that the Razorbacks dominated the clock (41 minutes of possession) and played impossibly physical football. He recruits the meatiest linemen and builds his team’s identity from there.

Actually, let’s back up. This is an identity he has sold.

He would be well-served to better establish it.

His identity has been one of a powerful run game that keeps the chains moving with efficient rushing and girth in short yardage. This style will supposedly wear teams down and allow you to control the late stages of a game. But practice doesn’t match theory:

In four years, Bielema's Hogs are 6-12 in games decided by one possession. They were 0-7 in his first two years and have improved to 6-5, a smidge over .500.

Last year, they ranked 74th in Rushing S&P+, and that was bolstered by explosive plays. They were dreadful at staying ahead of the chains on the ground: 102nd in rushing success rate, 109th in stuff rate, and 128th in power success rate. Out of 128 teams.

Dear lord, was Arkansas an awful second-half team last year. On offense, the Razorbacks were third in first-quarter S&P+, 14th in the second quarter, 119th in the third, and 57th in the fourth. The defense was below average in every quarter but hit rock bottom at 107th in the fourth quarter. They outscored opponents by 87 in the first half and got outscored by 100 in the second. They led Missouri 24-7 at halftime and led Virginia Tech 21-0; they lost both games.

Despite the identity, Bielema's best moments have come when he had an unstoppable passing attack (first in Passing S&P+ in 2015) and a reckless defense (seventh in Def. S&P+ and havoc rate in 2014).

If the Hogs end up really good in 2017, it could be because of those things. Quarterback Austin Allen returns for his senior season after flashes of brilliant play (22nd in Passing S&P+, 3,430 passing yards, 14 yards per completion).

Meanwhile, after watching his defense slip to the mid-60s in Def. S&P+ for two straight years, Bielema brought in coordinator Paul Rhoads. Rhoads couldn’t bring enough talent to Ames as former Iowa State head coach, but he had a few strong defenses at ISU and was a tremendous coordinator under Dave Wannstedt (whom I must point out was also awful in close finishes) at Pitt.

Will they be able to run the ball, though? They lost their best running back (Rawleigh Williams III) and best lineman (left tackle Dan Skipper), and while just about everybody else in those two units returns, it’s counterproductive to lose your best pieces while trying to restore a run game that slumped so thoroughly.

If the run game isn’t better, will the Hogs suffer the same fate as the last few years, putting themselves within shouting distance of great but settling for solid? And if that happens again, at what point does Arkansas decide that’s all Bielema’s going to do?

2016 in review

2016 Arkansas statistical profile.

The record has been steady, but that was about the only thing you could label with that word in 2016. The Razorbacks’ brilliant performances were as brilliant as ever — 97th percentile in a 31-10 win over Florida, 89th in a 42-3 win over Texas State, 84th in a 58-42 win over Mississippi State — but each seemed to be preceded or followed by a drastic letdown.

Following the Texas State win, the Razorbacks hit only the 33rd percentile in a 45-24 loss to Texas A&M. Before the win over Florida was a humiliating, eighth-percentile, 56-3 loss at Auburn. And following A&M was a 30th-percentile performance in a 38-10 loss to LSU.

At the end of the year, the Razorbacks squeezed both the brilliance and the letdowns into single games. The season had seen them blow a 13-point halftime lead against TCU before they rallied to win in overtime, and the A&M letdown happened all after halftime (it was 17-17 at half). But the first halves of the Missouri and Virginia Tech games were sheer dominance; the second halves were dreck.

If the Razorbacks end up strong again in 2017, we’ll say 2016 was a product of youth. Allen was taking over for his brother Brandon at quarterback, and the run game was learning to live without 2015 leading rusher Alex Collins and three long-term starting linemen. The defense was too experienced to get away with stagnation, but if the offense had a few more tricks up its sleeve, maybe that would have chased away the second-half demons.

Maybe they’ll have those tricks this year?

Offense

Full advanced stats glossary.

That chart almost couldn’t stray further from the Bielema brand. The Razorbacks were run-heavy on standard downs but awful at actually generating standard-downs yardage. Allen, however, was capable of occasional passing downs brilliance — he had a 170.7 passer rating on second downs, and while he completed just 43 percent of his passes on third-and-4 or longer, 28 of his 37 completions in those situations generated first downs.

If the run still hasn’t completely clicked, maybe Arkansas should give Allen more passes in friendlier downs and distances.

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Devwah Whaley

Granted, the run might click. As strong as Williams was, his per-carry production was almost duplicated by true freshman backup Devwah Whaley. The blue-chipper averaged just 3.5 yards per carry in his first four games and had just five carries for one yard in the bowl game. But in between that, he averaged 65 yards per game and 6.4 yards per carry. He carried 19 times for 112 yards in the shootout win over MSU.

If Whaley continues to develop (as most sophomores do), he could be tremendous. And in that way, the loss of Williams might be about the loss of Whaley as a second-stringer — do the Hogs have a decent backup? Bielema yanked South Carolina graduate transfer David Williams away from UConn at the last minute, but Williams has yet to prove himself to any major degree. And if he doesn’t stick on the second string, it’ll likely be high-three-star freshman Chase Hayden.

If Whaley gets hurt, the Arkansas run game is every bit as iffy as it was. But with Whaley perhaps growing more consistent (only 39 percent of his carries gained at least five yards, slightly below the national average), perhaps the line will take a step too. Six linemen return with starting experience, and young four-stars like sophomore Jalen Merrick and redshirt freshman Jake Heinrich are waiting for their turn in the rotation.

Those short-yardage numbers, though. Yuck. Even considering youth, there’s no excuse for a team this big, with this many former star recruits, to rank last in short-yardage execution. This offense can’t approach its ceiling if the Hogs don’t improve to at least average in this regard.

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Jared Cornelius

There’s another reason why Arkansas will need its run game to be more consistent: a brand new receiving corps.

Six of last year’s top eight targets are gone, including a pair of 700-yard receivers in Drew Morgan and Keon Hatcher. Hatcher and fellow departee Dominique Reed combined to average 16.6 yards per catch, and half of Hatcher’s 44 catches gained at least 15 yards.

I’ve written quite a bit on the effects of continuity in the receiving corps. Your percentage of returning production at receiver has as much of an impact on your overall S&P+ ratings as any other production category. But if you’re an Arkansas fan looking for a reason why the Hogs may be able to buck this trend, you’ve got evidence.

First, there’s Allen. He looked every bit as effective as his brother at times and could be ready for high-caliber play no matter who he’s throwing to.

Beyond that, you’ve still got senior receiver Jared Cornelius, who led the receiving corps with 10.7 yards per target and produced a solid 52 percent success rate. You’ve got some high-ceiling youngsters: Whaley could be a home run hitter on check downs, four-star sophomore tight end Cheyenne O’Grady had three catches for 63 yards over the last three games, and sophomore La’Michael Pettway and freshman Koilan Jackson have been early fall camp stars thus far.

So yeah, the potential may be as high as ever. But having this many new pieces is a recipe for massive inconsistency.

Defense

You never know for sure how a guy will do in returning to an old role. The game has changed enough that Rhoads is not automatically going to do great things for Arkansas simply because he fielded some fantastic Pitt defenses between 2000-07, and simply because he was able to drag a two-deep of low-three-star recruits to three straight Def. S&P+ top-50 performances (2010-12).

At the least, though, you know why he might do well. Lord knows the bar’s low at the moment.

After ranking seventh in Def. S&P+ in 2014, the Razorbacks slumped to 65th in 2015 and 64th in 2016. The 2016 unit rushed the passer pretty well (45th in Adj. Sack Rate) while doing a reasonable job of preventing big pass plays. They got their hands on a lot of passes — 39 percent of opponents’ incompletions were due to either an interception or breakup, 14th in the country. That Rhoads was Arkansas’ DB coach last year is maybe a good sign, then.

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McTelvin Agim

The biggest story for this defense in 2017 is not the change in coordinator; it’s the change in structure. Bielema requested a move to a 3-4 defense, in part because “you naturally become more athletic with eight guys on their feet.”

You could assert that he made the move because he has a lot more natural linebackers than linemen. Five of last year’s top six linemen are gone, though there’s plenty of potential among the returnees. Sophomore blue-chipper McTelvin Agim could develop into something spectacular, giant senior Bijhon Jackson is a decent play-maker for his size, and fellow sophomores Austin Capps and T.J. Smith combined for three tackles for loss in backup duty. Plus, there seems to be enough size to translate from 4-3 to 3-4 — at 339 pounds and semi-agile, Jackson is a custom-made two-gap nose tackle, and Agim, Capps, and Smith are all at least 286 pounds. Still, that’s a lot of turnover.

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Ryan Pulley

If the line holds up, you can see a lot of other pieces falling into place. Six of last year’s top seven linebackers return, including junior Randy Ramsey, who was maybe the Hogs’ best play-making linebacker. At 6’4, 228 pounds, he looks the part of a 3-4 outside linebacker. And perhaps a slight shift in responsibilities will create play-makers out of guys like Dwayne Eugene, Dre Greenlaw, and De’Jon Harris, who played lots of snaps but didn’t do a ton with them.

Arkansas also returns one of two disruptive corners — Jared Collins had 12 passes defensed but departed; Ryan Pulley had 15 and returns — and basically every safety. That’s could give Rhoads confidence to attack up front. And if the DBs only occasionally get burned, it might be worth it.

Special Teams

Arkansas had bailouts in place for its inefficient run game. Allen was pretty good on passing downs, and punter Toby Baker basically provided an extra half a first down with each punt. Baker ranked fourth in the county in punt efficiency, averaging 44.4 yards per kick and allowing returns on only 18 of 57 punts.

Baker’s now gone, which — combined with the turnover in the receiving corps — takes the training wheels off for Whaley and company.

Without Baker, Arkansas’ special teams were hit and miss. Connor Limpert’s kickoffs rarely resulted in touchbacks, and Deon Stewart’s kick returns were inconsistent, but Cole Hedlund was a decent place-kicker, and Jared Cornelius was strong in punt returns. They’re all back.

2017 outlook

2017 Schedule & Projection Factors

Date Opponent Proj. S&P+ Rk Proj. Margin Win Probability 2-Sep Florida A&M NR 54.4 100% 9-Sep TCU 21 -1.8 46% 23-Sep vs. Texas A&M 19 -4.8 39% 30-Sep New Mexico State 124 27.0 94% 7-Oct at South Carolina 36 -0.7 48% 14-Oct at Alabama 1 -27.9 5% 21-Oct Auburn 9 -8.9 30% 28-Oct at Ole Miss 26 -4.7 39% 4-Nov Coastal Carolina 114 23.6 91% 11-Nov at LSU 4 -17.2 16% 18-Nov Mississippi State 30 2.5 56% 25-Nov Missouri 53 7.2 66%

Projected S&P+ Rk 32 Proj. Off. / Def. Rk 29 / 51 Projected wins 6.3 Five-Year S&P+ Rk 9.0 (32) 2- and 5-Year Recruiting Rk 26 / 31 2016 TO Margin / Adj. TO Margin* -4 / 3.1 2016 TO Luck/Game -2.7 Returning Production (Off. / Def.) 57% (55%, 58%) 2016 Second-order wins (difference) 5.6 (1.4)

After rousing success in his first year at Wisconsin, Bielema hit a funk. His Badgers fell from 12-1 to 9-4 in 2007, then to 7-6 in 2008, and with the standard Barry Alvarez had set, there pressure was growing. Bielema responded with a 10-3 2009 and then went to three straight Rose Bowls, with two top-10 finishes. His record in one-possession games, meanwhile, oscillated drastically: 6-0, then 2-5, then 10-2, then 3-9.

Don’t count Bielema out just because he’s hit a frustrating patch, in other words.

Bielema’s timing hasn’t been right yet. For all we know, it might never be right, but it’s not hard to see Arkansas putting all the pieces together soon. The main problem: the prevalence of big-time underclassmen suggests a team-wide surge in 2018, but since Allen’s a senior, this surge would coincide with a new QB.

But we’ll talk about 2018 in 2018. For now, you’re looking at a team that is projected 32nd overall in S&P+, with two likely losses (at Alabama, at LSU), a probable loss (Auburn), three slam-dunk wins (Florida A&M, NMSU, Coastal Carolina) ... and six relative tossups.

S&P+ gives the Hogs between 39 and 66 percent win probability on half the schedule, which means close-game operation and the ability to finish will determine whether we’re looking at another 7-6 season (as S&P+ basically projects) or something greater.

Things have turned around for Bielema before, but it’s hard to assume it until we see it.

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