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theradioghost · 5 years

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...ok what's up with corsets?

I mean, mostly just a lot of misconceptions about how they worked and what they were for. I’m going to ramble a lot here, but please know that I am not by any definition an expert on any of this, just a 19th century lit major who’s studied a lot of historical context stuff for research and fun purposes.

One clarification is, to simplify the complex and annoying evolution of language over centuries, if it’s from the early 1800s or later, it’s a corset. If it’s from the 16th-18th centuries, it’s “stays” or a “pair of bodies.” (I think bodies was an earlier term more commonly used for outer garments while stays were undergarments, but don’t quote me on that.) Stays were basically conical with quite a long torso, and you couldn’t lace them particularly tight because metal eyelets weren’t invented until the 1830s and the fabric couldn’t take that strain. Depending on the fashion at the time, their basic function was to create a perfectly smooth, very long silhouette, push your boobs up, or both. Typically their structure came from cording, reeds, whalebone, or layers of paste-stiffened fabric; steel stays from this period are essentially orthopedic devices (or, and I’m obsessed with this idea: fakes created by 19th century fetishists. There’s a reason the 19th century is my favorite historical period and it’s because everything was absolutely nuts, all the time). They also fell in and out of fashion at times – if you look at the naturalistic, Grecian styles of European dresses in the 1820s, for example, many women were wearing either very light stays just to push their bust up, or none at all.

Some nice examples of stays from this period are this, this, and this, from the V&A’s collections. Looking at most portraiture of women from the 16-1700s also pretty clearly displays the conical silhouette that stays produced, but I’m going to refrain from adding images to this post because I already suspect that it’s going to be incredibly, frustratingly long.

Women basically weren’t wearing structured undergarments before the Renaissance, so medieval stays are not a thing.. Although on a fascinating side note, a few years back someone found a bunch of medieval bras, which we had no idea were a thing until then, so that’s really cool.

Regardless of whether you’re talking stays or corsets, two important things. First of all, they were not worn directly against the skin what the hell, firstly because that is incredibly uncomfortable, and secondly because in periods where most people owned fairly little clothing and a lot of that was wool, having a linen or cotton undergarment under all your clothes helped keep them cleaner by separating them from your skin. Historically most often that was a shift, basically just a big long undershirt thing.

The second important thing is whalebone, historically always the number one material for corset boning. Whalebone is an incredibly misleading name, and I hate it, because it took me forever to learn that “whalebone” is not bone but baleen, the bristly stuff that filter-feeding whales have instead of teeth. It’s made from keratin, same as our hair and fingernails. It’s light, flexible, and becomes bendable with warmth, meaning that over time, the boning of a corset would conform to your natural body shape as it was warmed by your body heat, and would stay in that shape. All-steel boning only really became A Thing in the last couple of decades that corsets were an everyday garment for most women, and that wasn’t because of superior structural properties. It was because it was cheaper, given that after centuries of whaling, there were a lot fewer whales to hunt, and acquiring baleen became more expensive and difficult. Even then, a lot of manufacturers just moved to things like featherboning (made from the shafts of feathers), coraline (made from a plant whose name I cannot remember), cane, or just cording (often cotton or paper cords), rather than steel. They also tended to use spiral steels, which can flex more, as opposed to solid steel bones. The main use of steel in corsets was actually to reinforce the closures, the front busk and the back where it laced.

(Most modern corsets are either all-steel waist training corsets or “fashion corsets” boned with flimsy plastic, but there’s actually a modern product called synthetic whalebone which is a plastic designed to replicate the properties of baleen as closely as possible.)

Then we get to the Victorian period, and that’s where pop culture really kind of loses its shit over the idea of corsetry? All the fainting and shifting organs and women getting ribs surgically removed (what) and generally the impression that Corsets Are Horrible Death Garments.

Tightlacing is one of the big things here. Yes, there were Victorian women who tightlaced to reduce their waists to dramatic extremes, and it was not healthy. There are also women today who put themselves through dangerous, unbelievable things to achieve the most fashionable body possible (tw in that link for disordered eating, self-harm, and abuse), and that article only covers the extremes of the professional modeling industry, not everyday things like high heels, for example. Most women who were tightlacing were young, wealthy, and fashionable, not worrying about being healthy enough to work as long as they could achieve ideal beauty – the same people who do this kind of thing now. And part of the reason we know so much about it is that it was extreme and uncommon even then. Medical experts ranted about the dangers of tightlacing, people campaigned against it. It was definitely not the case that all women were going around suffocating in tightlaced corsets all the time.

It’s worth considering our sample of evidence. You see a lot of illustrated fashion plates, which don’t look like real women now, and didn’t then either. By the late 1800s, photographers had already figured out plenty of tricks with angles and posing to make a model look as wasp-waisted as possible. They would also just straight up paint women’s waists smaller in a lot of pictures. And when you consider surviving garments, a disproportionate number of them are from rich young women who hadn’t yet married and had children, because for a variety of reasons those tend to be the clothes that are preserved and survive. The constantly-swooning women of Victorian literature are for some reason presumed to be representative of real life and the constriction of corsets – let me tell you, as someone who studied 19th century literature specifically, everything is exaggerated and melodramatic, especially extremes of emotion (and men also swoon a lot too). It also seems weird that we nod along unquestioning with the most extreme claims of 19th century panics about the medical harm of corsets (rib removal? with 19th century surgery???) and then just mock those silly, stupid Victorians when we read about things like bicycle face or the claim that fast vehicles would make women’s uteruses fly out of their bodies or whatever.

In fact, corsets were a pretty sensible garment in a lot of ways. They seem really restrictive to us now, but historical garments in general didn’t stretch the way modern knit fabrics do. In addition to supporting the bust just like any modern bra, corsets could actually make moving and breathing easier by helping to support the weight of ridiculously heavy dresses. Women did in fact live everyday, active lives wearing them, including lower-class women who worked physically demanding jobs. Late-Victorian women actually started doing a lot more sports, including cycling – that cyclist at the top of the bicycle face article is definitely wearing a corset, for example. They were used to them, too, and used to the specific ways you move in those kind of clothes, which most modern folks who try to wear that stuff one time are not. One interesting thing I’ve heard is that while corsets helped posture a lot – a lot of people today use them medically to help with back pain and support for just that reason – over time that understandably means that if you’re always wearing a corset, your abdominal muscles won’t be very strong because they’re not doing as much work keeping your posture straight. No ab crunches for Victorian women I guess.

Looking at extant Victorian-era clothing, the fashionable wasp-waisted silhouette actually had a lot more to do with the optical illusion achieved with extensive padding, which widened the hips and turned the upper body into a smooth, Chris-Evans-esque triangle. In comparison, the waist looks smaller. (Seriously, look up some photos of late 19th century ladies, their whole front upper body is this perfectly smooth convex curve. That’s all padding.) Silhouette was what the Victorians really cared about, and padding is a lot more sensible and comfortable than tightlacing.

My basic point here is just I guess that there’s a common and weirdly moralizing perception now that the historical corset was, invariably, this horrible constricting heavy steel cage thing that damaged your health and was a Tool Of Patriarchal Oppression. There’s also a lot of really bad costuming in historical dramas. I just think the reality is a lot more interesting. Also that modern steel waist training corsets kind of terrify me?

If you want more info and some good primary and academic sources from people who actually study and recreate historical garments and Actually Know Things, I recommend Bernadette Banner’s videos (here and here) on corsets – also just her stuff in general, I’ve been incredibly happy to see her gaining a lot of attention lately because she’s delightful – this video by historical costumer Morgan Donner wearing a corset daily for a week and talking about what it feels like, and this article, which cites among other things a really interesting late-19th-century study by a doctor trying to actually gather data on corsetry and its effects. Also for that matter, the aforementioned YouTube costumers have respectively made 17th-century stays and a late 19th-century corset, and seeing how these garments are put together is really interesting.

(I feel like I heard somewhere once that S-shape corsets from 1900-1910ish might have been more potentialy harmful because they did weird things to your back posture, but honestly my historical knowledge and interest drops precipitiously when you hit the 20th century.)

#this. is probably more than you wanted. sorry.#regicidal-defenestration #asks #my posts

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blackkudos · 4 years

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Charles Drew

Charles Richard Drew (June 3, 1904 – April 1, 1950) was an American surgeon and medical researcher. He researched in the field of blood transfusions, developing improved techniques for blood storage, and applied his expert knowledge to developing large-scale blood banks early in World War II. This allowed medics to save thousands of lives of the Allied forces. As the most prominent African American in the field, Drew protested against the practice of racial segregation in the donation of blood, as it lacked scientific foundation, and resigned his position with the American Red Cross, which maintained the policy until 1950.

Early life and education

Drew was born in 1904 into an African-American middle-class family in Washington, D.C. His father, Richard, was a carpet layer and his mother, Nora Burrell, trained as a teacher. Drew and three of his four younger siblings grew up in Washington's largely middle-class and interracial Foggy Bottom neighborhood. From 1920 until his marriage in 1939, Drew's permanent address was in Arlington County, Virginia, although he graduated from Washington's Dunbar High School in 1922 and usually resided elsewhere during that period of time.

Drew won an athletics scholarship to Amherst College in Massachusetts, from which he graduated in 1926. An outstanding athlete at Amherst, Drew also joined Omega Psi Phi fraternity as an off-campus member; Amherst fraternities did not admit blacks at that time. After college, Drew spent two years (1926–1928) as a professor of chemistry and biology, the first athletic director, and football coach at the historically black private Morgan College in Baltimore, Maryland, to earn the money to pay for medical school.

Drew attended medical school at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, where he achieved membership in Alpha Omega Alpha, a scholastic honor society for medical students, ranked second in his graduating class of 127 students, and received the standard Doctor of Medicine and Master of Surgery degree awarded by the McGill University Faculty of Medicine in 1933.

Drew's first appointment as a faculty instructor was for pathology at Howard University from 1935 to 1936. He then joined Freedman's Hospital, a federally operated facility associated with Howard University, as an instructor in surgery and an assistant surgeon. In 1938, Drew began graduate work at Columbia University in New York City on the award of a two-year Rockefeller fellowship in surgery. He then began postgraduate work, earning his Doctor of Science in Surgery at Columbia University. He spent time doing research at Columbia's Presbyterian Hospital and gave a doctoral thesis, "Banked Blood," based on an exhaustive study of blood preservation techniques. He earned a Doctor of Science in Medicine degree in 1940, becoming the first African American to do so.

Blood for Britain

In late 1940, before the U.S. entered World War II and just after earning his doctorate, Drew was recruited by John Scudder to help set up and administer an early prototype program for blood storage and preservation. He was to collect, test, and transport large quantities of blood plasma for distribution in the United Kingdom. Drew went to New York City as the medical director of the United States' Blood for Britain project. The Blood for Britain project was a project to aid British soldiers and civilians by giving U.S. blood to the United Kingdom.

Drew started what would be later known as bloodmobiles, which were trucks containing refrigerators of stored blood; this allowed for greater mobility in terms of transportation as well as prospective donations.

Drew created a central location for the blood collection process where donors could go to give blood. He made sure all blood plasma was tested before it was shipped out. He ensured that only skilled personnel handled blood plasma to avoid the possibility of contamination. The Blood for Britain program operated successfully for five months, with total collections of almost 15,000 people donating blood, and with over 5,500 vials of blood plasma. As a result, the Blood Transfusion Betterment Association applauded Drew for his work.

American Red Cross Blood Bank

Out of Drew's work, he was appointed director of the first American Red Cross Blood Bank in February 1941. The blood bank being in charge of blood for use by the U.S. Army and Navy, he disagreed with the exclusion of the blood of African-Americans from plasma-supply networks. In 1942, Drew resigned from his posts after the armed forces ruled that the blood of African-Americans would be accepted but would have to be stored separately from that of whites.

Academic career

In 1941, Drew's distinction in his profession was recognized when he became the first African-American surgeon selected to serve as an examiner on the American Board of Surgery.

Drew had a lengthy research and teaching career, returning to Freedman's Hospital and Howard University as a surgeon and professor of medicine in 1942. He was awarded the Spingarn Medal by the NAACP in 1944 for his work on the British and American projects. He was given an honorary doctor of science degree, first by Virginia State College in 1945 then by Amherst in 1947.

Personal life

In 1939, Drew married Minnie Lenore Robbins, a professor of home economics at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, whom he had met earlier during that year. They had three daughters and a son. His daughter Charlene Drew Jarvis served on Council of the District of Columbia from 1979 to 2000, was the president of Southeastern University from 1996 until 2009 and was a president of the District of Columbia Chamber of Commerce.

Death

Beginning in 1939, Drew traveled to Tuskegee, Alabama to attend the annual free clinic at the John A. Andrew Memorial Hospital. For the 1950 Tuskegee clinic, Drew drove along with three other black physicians. Drew was driving around 8 a.m. on April 1. Still fatigued from spending the night before in the operating theater, he lost control of the vehicle. After careening into a field, the car somersaulted three times. The three other physicians suffered minor injuries. Drew was trapped with serious wounds; his foot had become wedged beneath the brake pedal. When reached by emergency technicians, he was in shock and barely alive due to severe leg injuries.

Drew was taken to Alamance General Hospital in Burlington, North Carolina. He was pronounced dead a half hour after he first received medical attention. Drew's funeral was held on April 5, 1950, at the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church in Washington, D.C.

Despite a popular myth to the contrary, once repeated on an episode ("Dear Dad... Three") of the hit TV series M*A*S*H, Drew's death was not the result of his having been refused a blood transfusion because of his skin color. This myth spread very quickly since during his time it was very common for blacks to be refused treatment because there were not enough "Negro beds" available or the nearest hospital only serviced whites. In truth, according to one of the passengers in Drew's car, John Ford, Drew's injuries were so severe that virtually nothing could have been done to save him. Ford added that a blood transfusion might have actually killed Drew sooner.

Legacy

In 1976, the National Park Service designated the Charles Richard Drew House in Arlington County, Virginia, as a National Historic Landmark in response to a nomination by the Afro-American Bicentennial Corporation.

In 1981, the United States Postal Service issued a 35¢ postage stamp in its Great Americans series to honor Drew.

Charles Richard Drew Memorial Bridge, spanning the Edgewood and Brookland neighborhoods in Washington, D.C.

USNS Charles Drew, a dry cargo ship of the United States Navy

Parc Charles-Drew, in Le Sud-Ouest, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Drew as one of the 100 Greatest African Americans.

Numerous schools and health-related facilities, as well as other institutions, have been named in honor of Dr. Drew.

Medical and higher education

In 1966, the Charles R. Drew Postgraduate Medical School was incorporated in California and was named in his honor. This later became the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science.

Charles Drew Health Center, Omaha, Nebraska

Charles Drew Science Enrichment Laboratory, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan

Charles Drew Health Foundation, East Palo Alto, California, 1960s-2000, was the community's only clinic for decades.

Charles Drew Community Health Center, located in Burlington, NC near the site of the old Alamance County hospital.

Charles Drew Pre-Health Society, University of Rochester

Charles R Drew Wellness Center in Columbia, South Carolina

Charles R. Drew Hall, an all-male freshman dorm at Howard University, Washington D.C.

Charles Drew Memorial Cultural House, residence at Amherst College, his alma mater

Charles Drew Premedical Society at Columbia University, New York

K-12 schools

Charles R. Drew Middle School & Magnet school for the gifted, opened 1966 Los Angeles Unified School District https://drew-lausd-ca.schoolloop.com/

Charles R. Drew Middle School Lincoln Alabama operated by Talladega County Schools

Charles R. Drew Junior High School, Detroit, Michigan

Dr. Charles R. Drew Science Magnet School, Buffalo, NY

Charles R. Drew Elementary School, Miami Beach and Pompano Beach, Florida

Bluford Drew Jemison S.T.E.M Academy, Baltimore (closed in 2013)

Bluford Drew Jemison STEM Academy West, a Middle/High School in Baltimore, Maryland

Dr. Charles R. Drew Elementary School, Colesville, Maryland

Charles Drew Elementary School, Washington, DC

Charles R. Drew Elementary School, Arlington, Virginia

Dr. Charles Drew Elementary School, New Orleans, LA

Charles R. Drew Charter School opened in August 2000 as the first charter school in Atlanta, Georgia. This is the setting for the 2015 Movie Project Almanac.

Dr. Charles Drew Academy, Ecorse, MI

Charles R. Drew Intermediate School, Crosby, Texas

Dr. Charles Drew Elementary School, San Francisco, Ca.

Charles Richard Drew Intermediate School / Charles Richard Drew Educational Campus, Bronx, New York

#06/03 #04/01

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companionjones · 5 years

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Friends Made Along The Way

Requested by: @damedevon

Request: This is the second request in case you don't want to do the first one :) NCIS universe: Reader, genius level IQ that is a talented artist (painting, sculpting, all the things) is brought in to consult on a case. (S)he meets Spencer and they hit it off, talking about cultured literature and time period specific art and history.

Fandoms: NCIS, Criminal Minds

Pairings: Spencer Reid x NCISAgent!Reader, Platonic!BAU Team x NCISAgent!Reader, Platonic!NCIS Team x NCISAgent!Reader, Specifically Platonic!Gibbs x NCISAgent!Reader

Warnings: Extreme descriptions of blood and gore

Author’s Note: This takes place around season 5 for both NCIS and Criminal Minds. Idk if that lines up chronologically, sorry if it doesn’t.

*******

“We got a case,” informed Gibbs as he headed to his desk for his gun and badge.

Yourself and the rest of your team moved to gather your individual things and meet in the elevator.

Gibbs gave more details about the case. “A former marine was found dead outside a Cheesy Cheese.”

Timothy McGee asked, awkwardly, “Uh, Boss? Don’t you mean Chuck E. Cheese?”

“Does it look like I know the difference, McGee?” Gibbs returned.

The younger agent was clearly uncomfortable. “No, Boss. It’s just...I didn’t--”

Ziva’s voice was as sly as ever. “It’s best to stop now, McGee.”

As you headed out of the bull-pen, you opened your mouth to say something.

DiNozzo cut you off instead. “L/n, I swear to God, if you make one more Shakespeare reference today, Ziva’s driving to the crime scene.”

“Tony,” you rolled your eyes, “How could I possibly make a reference to the Bard from this?”

All DiNozzo had to do was give you a look.

“Fine, I’ll shut up,” you sighed, exiting your team’s area.

Abruptly, Gibbs turned and stopped you. “Not you.”

“What?” You were shocked.

Gibbs gruffly explained, “Fornell called. Apparently, a friend of his wants you on his case. It’s ten miles out.”

Forgetting your usual respect for your superior, you groaned.

Again, all it took was a look.

“Yes, sir,” you childishly agreed.

***

“Excuse me, Agent Aaron Hotchner?” I’m Agent Y/n L/n, from NCIS.” You stuck your hand out when the man confirmed his name.

He took your offer, and shook your hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m sorry it had to be under these circumstances.” The senior FBI agent spent the following few minutes explaining the details of the case to you.

So far, three murders had been committed. The odd thing about the murders was that the killer was recreating paintings by an artist from the 1800s by posing the victims how the muses were posed in certain paintings. You had read about the strange murders in the paper.

“Gustave Courbet,” you named the original artist. “I realized that after the first murder. I didn’t think it was going to take you guys this long to figure it out.”

Hotchner knew not to take your words personally. “That’s why we called you in. We need an expert on Courbet on this case.” He noticed an agent from his team walking up to where the two of you were in the living room of the apartment/crime scene. “This is Dr. Reid. He’s the one on our team who recognized the pattern in the first place.”

The younger man greeted you by giving you his first name. “Spencer.” He then admitted, “I don't shake hands.”

“Oh, okay. Call me Y/n,” you politely offered.

Another agent was making his way to the three of you. Two female agents and an older male agent were trailing behind him.

The darker-skinned agent smiled. “We’re very proud of our Dr. Reid, here. Kid has an IQ of 187.”

“You’ve got me beat, then,” you admitted, turning back to Dr. Reid. “My score is 186.”

Everyone seemed pretty blown away by that. You could tell it was rare that the team came across anyone that was as smart as their resident genius.

You never liked the term ‘genius,’ especially when it was used on you. On the contrary, you mostly kept your skills under the radar. Except for a few literary references here and there, you rarely talked about your smarts. Actually, you never really got the chance to.

The rest of the agents on the team introduced themselves, and Hotch explained, “We’re the BAU at the FBI. It stands for--”

“Behavioral Analysis Unit. I know. But here’s an acronym you guys probably don’t know-NCIS. It’s where I work.”

Hotch obviously knew what it meant. He was the one who called you in. You got a marine vibe from Rossi, so he probably knew, too. They weren’t the kind of men to just blurt out the answer, however. The rest of the team seemed to be having trouble with the acronym.

Spencer was different. “Naval Criminal Investigative Service,” he said almost immediately.

“Good! It’s rare someone just knows that. I’m assuming you don’t have any prior connections...Maybe you do know what you’re talking about.”

You noticed a prolonged look Agent Morgan gave Spencer. Spencer furrowed his eyebrows, and moved his gaze elsewhere. You didn’t understand the exchange.

Hotchner began, “Okay,. Now that introductions are out of the way, we were hoping you could take a look at this crime scene.”

Two minutes later, you were two inches away from a body. The poor woman was a hunched over in a chair. She was a brunette, and looked to weigh about 200 pounds. Like the other victims, she was dressed in middle class mid-1800s clothing. The chair she was in was next to a spindle. She had some raw wool wrapped around a distaff sitting on her lap. You swallowed hard when the thought crossed your mind that it almost seemed like she was sleeping.

Agent Jareau (she preferred the nickname JJ) informed you, “She was found early this morning by a mother and daughter returning from a trip. This apartment is theirs. They don’t own a spinning wheel.”

Rossi continued, “We got a positive I.D., her name is Suzanne Welling. No relation to the family that live here.”

“I hope the daughter is young. There’s more of a chance of her forgetting this tragedy when she gets older,” you quickly added that last part when you realized how harsh you sounded. You never broke your studying of the remains.

JJ confirmed, “The girl’s 4 years old.” It was a tone you could tell clearly was a mother’s. You wondered how many kids she had. You also hoped your words weren’t too harsh.

“The painting this is based on is The Sleeping Spinner, painted in 1853. It looks like he’s going in chronological order.” You dragged your index finger over your bottom lip. It was a thinking habit you had.

Emily Prentiss, the other female agent on the team, inquired, “Why do you think he’s male?”

“The first painting--er...murder.” You straightened up onto your feet. “The Wounded Man, originally painted in 1844. It’s a self-portrait. A lot of Courbet’s early works were. The killer sees himself as Courbet. The first muse--victim probably looks like the murderer.”

A new voice entered the room. “Unsub.” It was Spencer. “Unknown suspect. We call our suspects unsubs. You can, too...if you want to.”

“...Unsub.” You smiled slightly while you tested out the name for Spencer.

He expressed the same sentiment to you.

The rest of the day was spent working the case. It was explained to you that the team would usually split up with some of them heading to the local police department when first arriving for an assignment. It was just how things worked out in that particular instance that the whole team went straight to the crime scene.

Soon enough, you found out Spencer was the agent who spent most of his time in the local police stations. You were the agent who spent most of your time with Spencer.

“What’re you up to, Agent Reid?” you asked with a somewhat playful tone.

He had been pinning a map to the board you and the BAU team had borrowed for the case. He started marking it up. “I’m making a geological profile of the area. We usually see if the locations of the crime scenes give us any clues to where the unsub is living or where he might kill next.”

“At NCIS, we do the same thing to see if we can find out where the killer lives--”

Spencer distractedly corrected you, “Unsub.”

“Unsub. But we don’t really have cases where we have to predict where the unsub may strike next.”

The young FBI agent reasoned, “It’s crazy, but you get used to it. Soon, it’s just another part of life.”

“I don’t think I would want to get used to this kind of stuff.” You couldn’t help your mind from drifting to the deceivingly peaceful form you had observed earlier that day.

For a moment, Spencer stopped his efficient actions. He was thinking. “... ‘Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me. The Carriage held but just ourselves And Immortality.’ Emily Dickinson.”

“She looked at death like it was such a peaceful thing. Like it was a new beginning.” Your tone was more bittersweet than you had ever heard it sound.

He turned toward you. Spencer headed for a seat next to yours at the conference room table. “Maybe that’s what it is: just another part of life.”

“We investigate death everyday...but we never talk about what comes after.”

The young man smirked slightly, “They obsessed over it enough in the 1800s. Is there even a need to think too much about it anymore?”

Surprisingly, that got you to laugh. You and Spencer Reid sat there in the conference room, laughing about your elders’ morbid curiosities.

***

“Happy Monday,” you greeted as you descended the stairs into the basement.

Gibbs looked up from his fifth boat-in-progress. “Happy Monday, L/n.”

Similar to everyone else on the team, Gibbs had a unique relationship with you. You hadn’t known Gibbs as long as he’d known Ducky, but the two of you were very close. However, you didn’t think you’d ever be as important to him as Abby.

Anyway, you and Gibbs had a standing arrangement for dinner every Monday night. It was never anything fancy, nothing with Gibbs ever was. Dinner with the senior agent usually consisted of two orders of Chinese food in his basement.

“Making slow progress with this one, aren’t you?” you questioned, referring to Gibbs’ latest woodwork.

He responded, “Doesn’t matter how long it takes, as long as it’s done right.”

“Yes, sir,” you chuckled. You pulled out the meals while Gibbs set up a makeshift table and chairs.

About ten minutes later, your boss interrupted what you though was your usual, comfortable silence. “You seem preoccupied.”

“I am,” you admitted, “It’s the FBI case.”

He looked you over, then went back to eating. Then, Gibbs easily stated, “It’s not just that.”

You stared at him hard, trying to come up with something else to say besides the truth. You sighed and repeated him, “It’s not just that, but this isn’t your area of expertise.”

Once more, all it took was a look.

“It’s a guy, Gibbs. A cute, kind, and smart guy.” You met his gaze because you expected that that would be enough for him to back off.

Jarringly (for you, anyway), Gibbs didn’t give up. He continued to stare is Gibbs stare right into your soul.

“Agent Spencer Reid,” you gave in, revealing the boy’s name. “Has a higher IQ than me...Eh, he has 187. I have--”

He gave your score for you, “186.”

“So, it doesn’t really count.”

Gibbs chuckled, then agreed, “No, it doesn’t.”

After about an hour, dinner was done. You headed home, but not before mulling over the fact that you had just talked romance with Leroy Jethro Gibbs. Maybe you were closer with him than you had previously thought.

***

The next morning, you were woken up at 5 A.M. with a phone call from Hotch. At first, you were concerned as to why you weren't notified earlier. You launched out of bed and began to quickly get dressed. Hotch grew hesitant. He didn't seem to want you to go to the crime scene. You didn’t know why. You insisted that you were a federal agent just as he was, and that you had every right to be at any crime scene that had to do with a case you were legally working.

On your way to where the BAU was, you continued to think about the team. They apparently took you in as one of their own after just one day of working with you. It reminded you of your connections with your almost-family at NCIS. You didn’t mind it, and you were actually warming up to the idea. The only thing you had a problem with was when it interfered with your job. Hotch did that when he tried to keep you from a crime scene. You knew he was trying to protect you, but you were wondering from what.

The newest crime scene was an abandoned warehouse. Spencer was standing outside, on the phone with someone as you pulled up. When you got out of your car, he handed the phone to Agent Morgan.

Morgan smiled to himself as he walked away. “Baby, how you always bring such beautiful light in this world is beyond me...Love you, sweetheart.”

“Who was that on the phone?” you inquired.

Spencer answered, “Penelope Garcia...Our technical analyst.”

“Co-workers are allowed to date each other on your side?”

That last question made him smile. “Nope. And they’re not dating.”

“...Huh.”

“Huh indeed.”

Sighing, you then cracked your neck. “Alright. In we go.” You brushed around Spencer and headed toward the entrance of the warehouse.

You were surprised when Spencer took hold of your shoulders and stepped back in front of you.

He seemed as concerned as Hotchner, if not more. “Listen, Y/n. Remember that conversation we had yesterday? You said that you didn’t think you ever wanted to get used to the death that we see. Y/n, there’s a lot of death in there.”

“No one in this hemisphere can tell you what the unsub is aiming for in there besides me. If we catch this guy, it’ll save everyone from more death than what could be in there.”

Still, Spencer didn’t let you go.

“...Please, Spencer.”

The boy gave you a look that reminded you of a puppy. He stepped aside.

A few steps later, you were inside. Turns out, a few steps were all you could take. Fifteen people. Three of them were children. It was a long time before you were able to breathe again.

When you did take a breath, JJ and Emily were at your side. Not that you were complaining. You would need someone to steady you if your knees buckled.

Hotch came up to the three of you. “This is why I didn’t want you coming here, L/n.”

“...I’ve never seen a massacre like this...” You still weren’t sure you could remain on your feet.

Rossi approached. “Do you need to leave for a second?”

“The Preparation of a Dead Girl...and/or Wife...all the public knows is that it was released sometime in the 1850s,” you slowly breathed out the words after you swallowed. With your knees shaking, you made your way closer to the scene. “He put rods in them to pose them correctly compared to the painting...They were still alive when he put the rods in place.”

It was hard for you to understand how, but you made it through the rest of the day. Everyone in the BAU could obviously tell you continued to be affected by the most recent crime scene, and you hated that they were all walking on eggshells around you. The bottom line was that you didn’t let it affect your job, and you didn’t see why everyone was treating you differently. Okay, maybe you did see why. It was the same reason why Gibbs let Abby ramble on about the little things sometimes. Family. You were already part of the BAU’s family.

***

Later that night, you were back home. Your apartment was small, but you didn’t mind. You still found a way to fit all the books and art supplies you wanted in your home.

There was a knock at your door.

“Hiya, Spencer,” you softly greeted. You left your door open for him to enter through. You returned to your seat at your pottery wheel. “I hope you don’t mind if I keep working on this while you’re here. It centers me.” You got quieter. “...It calms me down.”

For a moment, Spencer was silent. “How long have you been in the field?” His question was gentle, unaccusing.

“Do people get annoyed when you profile them in social situations, Dr. Reid?” Your tone didn’t hold any malice, either.

He smirked, “All the time.”

It was your turn to be silent as you resolved to answer Spencer’s question. “Gibbs and I first met when he and his team were working a case at the University I taught at. He came to see me for some time after that. Most of the time it was to use my intellect on other cases he was working...I’m quite proud to say I was one of the few friends he had outside of the agency. Well, until I joined the agency.” You paused as you chuckled. “He recruited me back in ‘03, and I’ve been with the team ever since.”

Spencer waited. He could tell you weren’t finished.

“Only...,” you sighed, accepting that you couldn’t hide the following fact from him. “I’ve only been allowed at crime scenes for about a year or so. Gibbs is fiercely protective of me, and it took me years to get him to let me into the field...Man, I hope he doesn’t find out I acted today. He would never let me see a dead body again...not even in Ducky’s autopsy.” You said that last part more to yourself.

He smiled at you from his chair. “I think you acted perfectly fine today, Y/n.”

“Betcha Agent Rossi didn’t think so,” you chuckled, “He was read to dodge my vomit when I showed up today.” You stopped talking for a moment when your mind jumped back to the bloody warehouse. “...Your team doesn’t think I’m fit to be in the field.”

Spencer almost matter-of-factly stated, “They don’t think that.”

“Well, what do they think?” The vase you had been working on was thrown off balance on the pottery wheel. You set to work fixing it.

The male agent never moved his eyes from you. “They care about you, Y/n...I do, too.”

You were thankful you had your craft to focus on, it helped you hide your smile. “I know that, Spencer...I know that.”

Spencer stayed for the next few hours. Nothing physical happened. You eventually put away your pottery and broke out some wine. The two of you spent the night talking about arts, literature, and maybe other things that the two of you needed to discuss.

***

The following day, you made it to the local police station by 7 A.M. You first stop was the conference room where Spencer was already studying the map as closely as the last time the two of you had been in that room.

“Did you even sleep last night?” You inquired as you set your things down in one of the chairs.

As expected, Spencer barely glanced in your direction as you found a seat for yourself. He was already too immersed in his work. “I actually kind of slept in today...I have you and Walt Whitman to thank for that.” Surprising you, Spencer glanced over his shoulder and caught your gaze.

His inside joke got you to throw your head back in laughter. “Alright, Spencer. Here’s what I want you to do.” You hurled yourself out of your chair, and moved to stand next to the young agent. “I want you to explain this map to me. You don’t even have a key for it.”

Spencer shrugged, “It’s easy enough. These are parks, these are obviously areas of water, and this right here is a Chuck E. Cheese, so these marks mean places entertainment--”

“What?”

He pointed to a part of the map that was less than five blocks away from the second crime scene. “This mark right here is a Chuck E. Cheese. Which means--”

“No Spencer, you don’t understand. NCIS had a body at a Chuck E. Cheese. There can’t be too many of these in this area. This is very close to the second crime scene, but not close enough that it would make sense for the unsub to still be on foot. What if the unsub was walking home and the former marine saw the weapon? The unsub has used the same gun in every killing. He would have to take it home with him. The unsub could live in this area!” You drew a circle with your finger of a quarter mile radius around the second crime scene.

Spencer didn’t agree. “I don’t know, Y/n. All of this seems highly circumstantial. Couldn’t this all be a coincidence?”

“There are no such thing as coincidences,” you shook your head.

It was enough to get Gibbs and the rest of the team to work with the BAU on the case. Within the hour, most of your NCIS family were present in the local police department.

Hotch greeted Gibbs with a handshake. “Pleasure to meet you, Agent Gibbs. I wish it could be under better circumstances.”

Gibbs nodded, “The feeling is mutual, Agent Hotchner.”

“Your Agent Y/n has proven to be very impressive.”

There was a blink-and-you-miss-it twitch of the lips for Gibbs. For half of a moment, he smiled. “That’s why I recruited them.”

Meanwhile, you were still in the conference room with Spencer. Tony, Ziva, and McGee had joined the two of you. You were explaining the details of he case to your three coworkers.

As usual, Tony got off topic as soon as he could. “So, Agent Reid” Tony was nose to nose with the uncomfortable FBI agent, “you’re just a hybrid of McGeek and L/n, aren’t you?” He sniffed the air. “I think I smell a bit of Palmer on you as well.”

Spencer looked anywhere but Tony. “I don’t know who Palmer is.”

“He’s our medical examiner’s assistant, Spencer,” you clarified, “Tony, what the hell are you doing?”

Ziva tried to help you out. “Leave the poor kid alone.”

Suddenly, Gibbs entered the room with Hotch. The rest of the BAU were behind them. Before Tony noticed their presence, Gibbs was already behind the movie expert. Tony received a slap to the back of the head.

Gibbs leveled voice suggested, “Yeah, Tony. Leave Agent Reid alone.”

Tony grimaced, “Yes, sir.” As he moved to the conference room table, Tony passed by you. He whispered in your ear in his usual, quick way, “You’ll be the dominate one in the relationship.”

Naturally, you were mortified by his words. How had he figured out so quickly what was going on between you and Spencer? Was it really that obvious? Was it distracting from the case? You hoped it wasn’t. You glanced around. No one seemed to notice Tony’s exchange with you. Except for maybe Gibbs, whom you could’ve almost sworn that he’d shot a knowing smirk in your direction.

Hotch directed, “Agent L/n, could you tell everyone what you’ve put together?”

"NCIS’s victim was murdered less that five blocks away from the BAU’s second crime scene. Eleven of the fifteen victims in the fourth crime scene were taken from the same quarter mile radius.”

Emily Prentiss added, “All of our earlier victims were from all over the state. Do you think our unsub is devolving in that he can’t wait long enough to go too far to find his victims anymore?”

“Yes,” you agreed, “It would also explain how Colonel Wilfred, the victim from NCIS connects to the other murders without reflecting any of Courbet’s paintings.”

JJ, suddenly got a notification on her phone. “There’s been two more reports of missing individuals in the same area. Both were white women in their twenties...about 220 ponds...they look like our second and third victims.” She looked worriedly from her phone to you.

“The Hammock and The Sleeping Spinner...,” you whispered the second and third crimes to yourself in order. “...He could be going after Young Ladies on the Banks of Seine. It makes sense with his running chronological theme. The reason why they look so alike with the previous victims is because it was rumored Courbet used his sisters for a lot of his portraits. Out unsub might be trying to replicate the likeness in Gustave’s muses.”

Hotch directed, “Alright. We may have some time to save these two women. Spencer, stick with the geographical profiling. Rossi, Prentiss, canvass Jones Avenue through Tenth Boulevard. JJ, Morgan, take Damien Road through Johnson Street. I’ll stay here and run point.”

Gibbs instructed his own team, “Y/n, stay here and work with Reid. McGee, Tony: Dischem through Clark. Ziva, you and I will take Harren to Williams.”

With the whole police department, along with most of Gibbs and Hotch’s team canvassing, it was likely the unsub’s house would be found within the following few hours.

Meanwhile, you and Spencer were back in the nearly empty police station. The two of you were in separate conference room chairs, and you both were staring at that map. It had delivered an extremely helpful break in the case, but it seemed to have done all it could. Hotch was in another room with the police captain, so you and Spencer were left to your own devices.

That was, until a secretary came running into the conference room. “Help! We need help!”

Both you and Spencer launched out of your respective seats.

“What’s wrong?” Spencer asked, alarmed.

The secretary elaborated, “A girl called the tip line. She sounds terrified. She claims to be Samantha Hawford, one of--”

“the missing women,” both you and Spencer finished with the secretary.

“Connect us, please,” you requested as calmly as you could.

She silently nodded, and quickly left the room.

Seconds later, a line lit up on the phone in the conference room. It turned out to actually be Samantha. She was hysterical, but you eventually got her to calm down enough to communicate.

Earlier, she had stolen the unsub’s phone, and she was waiting for a safe time to call the tip line she had seen a lot on T.V.

While you encouraged Samantha to keep talking, Spencer called Garcia. She traced the phone call for the two of you.

A minute later, you knew where Samantha was. You were on your way out with Spencer when Hotch gave you his blessing to go. It was obvious neither you nor Spencer were going to wait for Hotchner’s agreement.

You and Spencer were able to get to Samantha's location in fifteen minutes. Which was good because five minutes into your journey, the unsub found Samantha and hung up the phone. You prayed the unsub kept her alive long enough for you and Spencer to get there.

When the two of you did arrive, the unsub was about to stab the other girl with the first metal rod when you and Spencer found them. He had both the girls tied up as he prepared to stab them with the metal rods and shoot them in the heart.

At first, Spencer tried to talk him down. It was obvious that it was going no where.

“I can make sure the world knows of your works of art,” you suddenly lied, surprising yourself. “People took pictures of your crime--masterpieces. They could be hung anywhere and everywhere. You could become even more famous than Corbet. But let me tell you: if you hurt these two girls, no one will ever know who you are. Not your name, and not your face.”

Chillingly, there was hope in the killer’s eyes. As you’d guessed, he looked a lot like Gustave Courbet himself. You could see why he wanted to use Courbet’s image to make himself famous.

Eventually, you got the killer to turn over his weapons, and turn himself in. You cuffed him yourself. By then, your team, the local police, and the BAU had arrived. You turned the killer over to the local P.D. The two girls were crying as they thanked you profusely for saving them. You tried to push their attention away from you. It didn’t work too well.

Once all the chaos was over, you were back at the police station, gathering your things.

Hotch addressed you, making you turn around. “Agent L/n.”

“Uh...Yes, sir?”

His whole team was with him. “We would like to thank you for your work on this case.”

Morgan complimented, “We couldn’t have done it without you.”

“Oh, I don’t think that’s true,” you reasoned, “I mean, you guys have Spencer. He probably would've figured things out just as fast as me.. Well, almost as fast as me.”

Spencer smiled in a way that was contagious. “Don’t try to brush this off, Y/n. You know how important you are.”

Hotch continued, “That’s actually what we wanted to talk to you about. You’ve shown promising capabilities as a profiler, and we want you to know that there’s a place for you on our team.”

“Wait. On your guys’ team? In the FBI?” You were nearly in shock. “I...I don’t know what to say.”

JJ offered, “Well, we would really like it if you agreed.”

“...I can’t. I’m sorry guys, but NCIS is my home. They’re my family there. I mean, honestly, in these past few days, you guys have kind become my family to, but I don’t think I could leave NCIS. At least not right now.”

For the first time, you saw Aaron Hotchner truly smile. “It’s alright. The job’s here for you whenever you want it.”

“Thank you.” You were sincerely grateful.

Thee rest of the team left, but Spencer hung back.

“You know,” you sweetly took his hand in yours, ”my not joining has nothing to do with you.”

He squeezed your hand in his. “I know, but it would’ve been nice to see you more often.”

“I guess we’re going to have to make it work as is,” you smirked.

Keeping his gaze on your intertwined hands, Spencer chuckled. “Yeah, I guess we are.”

Slowly, you leaned in to kiss the boy.

At first, Spencer kept his hand in yours. Then, he moved both arms around you, pulling you in close.

Your hands were o his chest, but you soon snaked them around his neck to get lost in his hair.

Okay, so you were beginning to regret your choice not to join the BAU just a little bit.

***

Before you went home that night, you went back to NCIS. Spencer had to go back to Quantico to get some paperwork done, so you couldn’t spend the night with him. You decided to go back to NCIS to do the same thing.

“Y/n! Y/n, Y/n, Y/n!” Right outside the elevator doors, a certain adorable forensic scientist was waiting for you.

Practically catching the incoming woman, you tried to keep her steady on her feet. “Hi, Abby! How’ve you been?”

She was almost vibrating with excitement. “I’m completely fine. It’s you I wanna know about! How were Fornell’s friends at the FBI? Were they mean? They treated you nicely, right?” Abby continued on with the onslaught of questions until you got to your desk.

When you sat down, you looked up to Abby as you searched your mind for a way to tell her you needed quiet right then.

Gibbs beat you to it. He had been sitting at his desk. You only noticed him when he gathered his few things to leave. He stopped by your desk and explained, “Abby, it’s late and they’re tired. Leave them alone.”

With a quick, slightly intimidated glance to Gibbs and a “Sorry, Y/n,” and wave to you, Abby was gone.

However, Gibbs stayed behind a bit longer to knowingly ask, “So, you didn’t take the job, huh?”

“No,” you tiredly smiled, “I’m staying right here, boss.”

It was then that Gibbs did something that he very rarely did. He returned a smile. “Good,” was his final statement before Gibbs left for the night.

***

In the end, you made sure the killer’s name was never released to the public. You didn’t want anything to be given to the distributed criminal mind. However, you knew that some name needed to be given to the person behind the painting-based murders. You just expected it to have something to do with Gustave Courbet himself. You didn’t expect the previously unknown subject to be called The Chuck E. Cheese Killer. The nickname ended a pizza franchise.

*******

Author’s Note: Thank you for reading! Fill up that heart and reblog if you liked it! If you would like to read more, I have more fics over on my page. You should go check it out. Also, REQUESTS ARE OPEN. I take requests for one-shots, multi-chapters, headcannons, and preferences. No smut, please. I write for a variety of fandoms. If you’re wondering if I write for a specific fandom, please ask me. Have a nice day, night, or whatever time it is for you.<3

*******

(Behind the scenes stuff)

Proofreader: @girl-of-many-faces

Crime scene #1 here

Crime scene #2 here

Crime scene #3 here

Crime scene #4 here

What would’ve been crime scene #5 here

#ncis #ncis x reader #criminal minds #criminal minds x reader #spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #gibbs x reader #hotch x reader #friends made along the way #companion jones #Matthew Gray Gubler #mark harmon

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nedtully11731287-blog · 7 years

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Providing Blue Slate Floor Tile With Photoshop 7.

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twdmusicboxmystery · 8 years

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Why the 7b Promo Pics are Giving Me TD Tingles ;D

Good morning Everyone! How was everyone’s weekend? Good, I hope. Mine was fabulous! So for those who don’t know, AMC has released promo pics for 7b. As always, they’re terribly interesting. I’ve had lots of questions about them over the past few days, so I promised I would do a post analyzing them. Right off the bat I need to thank and acknowledge my FB group. We talked about these a lot and all hashed out ideas for what they reminded us of and what we thought they meant. Special thanks to @boltthrutheheart, @birdiehaven (IG), @lilly.loup (IG), @katkhaos, and @thegloriouscollectorlady for their genius input.

Remember that images used for promo pics generally will show up somewhere in the plot, but also have deeper, symbolic significance as well.

Let’s start with the pics that don’t do much for me.

First, the cantaloupes. Of course they’re something that grows, so they could be synonymous with “green,” but even for me, that’s a stretch. They have some symbolism in Eastern cultures, but nothing that jumped out at me. The only thing we came up with in our group is that maybe they’re for practice killing (chopping heads like melons). But, who knows?

Then this picture. It’s just very generic and nothing especially jumps out at me. Looks like a reference to the junk yard community, but I’m not seeing much else. Moving on.

Overturned bucket with seeds. The gardening experts in the group tell me these are either tomato or paprika seeds. Either one would have potent symbolism, but personally I think they’re probably tomato. Not just from the way they look but because we’ve seen this symbol so often entangled with Beth symbolism. We saw tomatoes at Grady, and again around Morgan in 6x04, which had tons of callbacks. I think they’ve mentioned growing tomatoes in more than one place. And the most common thing tomatoes symbolize is solidarity. Remember Tara’s line from 5x07: “Solidarity. Band of brothers.” It’s something TF is constantly striving for and we see it a lot in the show.

Peanuts. Peanuts are a very potent symbol and I think it’s interesting that they’re included here. The biggest thing peanuts represent in western culture is mystery. Like, what’s under the shell? So the whole point is mystery. The fact that something is hidden. The shell needs to be broken to find it. I think we can all relate that to TD without help, yeah? And another interesting thing? Peanuts are specifically equated with the Christmas season. I know Christmas is past for us, but that’s super-interesting to me for two reasons: first there’s Daryl’s “I never got nothing from Santa Clause,” which we haven’t seen fulfilled yet. (I’m always wondering if maybe we HAVE seen a few of these and just missed them, but at this point, I kind of don’t think so. The symbolism is still being employed.) Plus there’s that December calander behind the obvious Beth-walker in 5x10. We hoped it meant she would return in December (the s7 MSF) Obviously we interpreted that wrong, but the “Christmas” symbolism is still around. And I suppose it might be a western Christ thing. In reality, Christ was born in the spring but all of western culture celebrates his birthday in December. But I digress. My point is, very interesting peanut symbolism.

The bike. I don’t have much to say about this. Don’t know what it means. But it does bring one very specific thing to mind. In Daryl’s/Norman’s opening credit, we see Daryl’s vest through the spokes of a bike. And we’ve always figured that was about his motorcycle, even though there aren’t spokes on the wheel of a motorcycle. Doing the spokes just made it possible to put two symbols of him in the opening credits. But we’ve seen bikes elsewhere. The instance that always comes to mind first for me is when the camera focuses on one outside the house Rick breaks out of when the Claimers show up in 4x11. That was a super-obvious Beth/Grady parallel, and part of the reason I formulated my bike theories. (X, X, and X). Now we have a pic of a bike that includes spokes. Again, not sure what it means, but I’m sure it’s important. ;D

Then we have more nuts, this time walnuts, I believe. The biggest callback I’m seeing here is to The Grove. In that case, the nut was different. It was pecans. But Lizzie, Mica, and Carol cracked and cooked tons of them. It was a big part of the episode. Also notice that he nut cracker in this case is a hammer, not unlike the one Tyreese always carried. He was also a big part of that episode. So what does this mean? Well, on the one hand, it may have nothing to do with Beth. I’ve said before and my group has talked a lot about that we think part of Carol and Daryl’s arc in ep 9 and 10 may be Carol finally talking to him about what happened with the girls. This could be a sign of that, if it turns out to be the case. But I’ve talked plenty of times before about how Lizzie especially is tied to Beth as an anti-parallel. I’ve kind of come to associate Lizzie and Mica becoming relevant again with Beth becoming relevant again. And also remember that Lizzie, Mica and Beth all showed up in Ty’s death hallucination. It’s all connected, folks. ;D

But there is another picture that makes me think tptb are specifically invoking Ty’s death. This one:

Skeletal corpse. Not only does it look just like the one in Ty’s death episode (5x09)

but as I said in my analysis of the S7 opening credits, there’s one there as well.

And this one in the opening credits, just like the flash of Beth running in the yellow shirt, happens so fast that you can’t see it unless you slow it down. It’s like something the show is hiding in plain sight. That’s very significant to me, guys. And obviously whatever we’re seeing in the credits will probably become relevant in 7b. And I think it’s tied to…um, Ty. ;D

Dynamite. We’re hoping Daryl gets to blow up more shit. That’s always great. But remember the matches Daryl used to escape. He didn’t light them, which means they were completely useless plot-wise, and therefore unnecessary. Which means they’re symbolic. Jesus gave him one and then a box of matches held the door open. Sounds like fire is the gateway to escape, which is in line with what we saw in Still. They burnt down the moonshine shack to free themselves from the shackles of their past. Now we’re seeing dynamite. I’m kind of excited. :D

Lantern. I won’t say much about this one because it’s fairly obvious. It’s an agent of light and fire, which we see around Beth a lot. (Lamp post here.) We also saw a lot of these particular types of lanterns in the manor house at Hilltop. And there were a lot of them in cabin in The Grove too. So another symbol we’ve seen a lot of in past seasons, often associated with TD-type symbolism. There’s also a hanging drill with a sinister looking drill bit. Yeah, that’s creepy.

Bloody handprint. We saw something very similar to this in Ty’s death episode. So another tie back to what happened directly after Coda. And I’m sure we’ve seen bloody hand prints more than once in the series. Ty was just the first one that jumped to mind for most of us.

Okay, let’s get to the really good stuff.

The rubber duckies. I love saying that word. Rubber duckies. It’s fun. ;D So apparently Richonne will come across some kind of defunct carnival at some point (which btw is like Stephen-King-level creepy). We’re thinking these ducks may be associated with that. But @boltthrutheheart, genius that she is, made some great associations here. We’ve seen/heard of ducks twice before. The first time was actually specifically around Beth. In S2, after Beth goes catatonic, Maggie tells Andrea. *cough, cough* ANDREA about a time when she returned from college and Beth had a meltdown about her birth control and the two of them and their brother ended up screaming at each other in the duck pond before Hershel broke it up and Beth played innocent. So ducks specifically associated with Beth early on and specifically having to do with seeing Maggie for the first time in a long time, after them being apart for a specific period of time.

The other time also has to do with Maggie. In 3x06, Hounded, she and Glenn go on a run and Maggie specifically tells him to pick up a rubber duck for Judith. That scene didn’t have much to do with Beth, but that was when Merle took the two of them captive. So basically that led to Merle, who had been gone for 2 seasons, reuniting with TF and his family (Daryl).

And one more thing? We saw a clock somewhere (in the Sanctuary, I think? But can’t remember where. I’ll find it and add it later) pointing to 3x06. I remember doing a post about it. So we now have two different references to Merle reuniting with his family after two seasons of being gone. Hmmm. ;D

I also feel like there’s slightly more color in this pic than in the others. Like the yellow of the ducks is being emphasized. Just saying.

And finally my two faves.

First, the open grave. Do I really have to explain why this one is awesome? The empty grave/tomb is the most widespread and potent symbol of resurrection that exists in the Christian world, my friends. I’ve been hearing versions of this symbol at church ever since I was just a kid. We’ve over-analyzed promo pics since Coda aired, but we’ve never seen an open grave in any of them until now. That makes me super excited.

Another thing this puts me in mind of are those three fake graves in Alexandria. We never learned what, if anything, is in them, or what exactly FG had to do with them. So in terms of symbolism, the open grave means resurrection. Plot wise, I’m thinking those three empty graves are coming back into play.

Finally, I think this is my favorite one.

Shadows of people pointing guns at someone. Now, in terms of plot, this will probably have to do with the junk yard community. But does this remind you of anything. I instantly recognized this stance:

Eh, eh?

Overall, they seem to be place mostly in the junk yard, with a few exceptions, which means that’s gonna be a huge story line in 7b. (Given all the TD symbols around Boots, that makes me happy.) And even though the pictures are quite washed out and colorless, there is actually a lot of green in them, or would be if the color hadn’t been messed with so much.

Bottom line, these images will all be relevant in the back 8, guys. Can’t wait. ;D

#td #beth greene #beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #td theory #td theories #team delusional #team defiance

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lovehardenemycollector · 5 years

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(Bloomberg) -- Lawmakers peppered Federal Aviation Administration officials with questions about how the agency approved the now-grounded Boeing Co. 737 Max jet and kept it flying after the first of two deadly crashes despite doubts about its safety.An internal FAA risk assessment conducted after a Lion Air flight crashed off the coast of Indonesia in October 2018, predicted another 15 of the jets would crash over the next 45 years without a fix, according to documents released by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.FAA Administrator Steve Dickson, appearing for the first time before the committee, had refrained from criticizing the agency’s actions before his swearing in in August, saying officials acted in good faith by not grounding the plane until after a second fatal accident March 10.“The FAA failed to ask the right questions, failed to adequately question the answers they received from Boeing,” Representative Peter DeFazio, an Oregon Democrat and chairman of the committee said as he opened the hearing.The committee’s months-long investigation “has uncovered a broken safety culture within Boeing and an FAA that was unknowing, unable, or unwilling to step up, regulate and provide appropriate oversight of Boeing,” DeFazio said.But under questioning by California Democrat Julia Brownley, Dickson said he would have grounded the jetliner after its first crash had he been FAA administrator at the time. “With what I know now, yes,” he said.In the nearly six-hour hearing, the agency received some of the strongest criticism it has faced over the 737 Max crisis that grounded Boeing’s best selling jetliner and has sullied the once-sterling reputation of U.S. aviation regulators.Dickson acknowledged that improvements were needed and revealed that the agency was considering unspecified enforcement action against Boeing. Another FAA official told lawmakers that an investigation is underway of a whistle-blower’s complaints about Boeing manufacturing practices.But the agency decided a warning to pilots was sufficient to keep the plane flying. In March, an Ethiopian Airlines jet crashed after a similar failure involving its flight-control system. A total of 346 people died in the two disasters.Boeing said Wednesday that the company and the FAA decided to “reinforce existing pilot procedures” and that releasing the warning to pilots after the Lion Air crash was sufficient to allow flights to continue until changes to the 737 Max’s flight control system could be made.The FAA’s own analysis showed the plane had unacceptable safety risks and shouldn’t have been allowed to continue flying without a broader fix, DeFazio told reporters after the hearing.“That should have rung alarm bells and it apparently didn’t,” he said. “We’re going to be getting into that.”The risk analysis performed last December, known as Transport Aircraft Risk Assessment Methodology, was done to validate the agency’s decision almost a month earlier to alert pilots to the issue while allowing the plane to continue flying, the agency said in a statement.The analysis predicted there would be 15 fatal accidents killing 2,921 people over a 45-year period with a fleet of 4,800 of the aircraft. The results were based on what would happen if the agency had taken no action -- and at that point the FAA had not only alerted pilots but was working with Boeing to redesign the plane, according to an agency official briefed on the matter who wasn’t authorized to speak about it.A committee staffer disputed the FAA’s characterization. FAA technical experts who briefed the committee last week said that the analysis had taken the initial FAA actions into account, and still predicted additional crashes over the plane’s lifetime. The staffer wasn’t authorized to speak to reporters and asked not to be named.The agency also came under fire from a pair of whistle-blowers.G. Michael Collins, a former FAA certification engineer, told the committee that the agency’s safety culture has become overly deferential to industry, saying it has shifted over the last 15 years “to where the wants of applicants now often take precedent over the safety of the traveling public.”Edward Pierson, a Boeing production manager who retired in August 2018, criticized the FAA and other federal agencies for not doing more to examine the potential role that production issues may have played in the two 737 Max crashes, despite having provided them detailed information about conditions on Boeing’s assembly line. He had also reported his concerns to Boeing management which he said weren’t adequately addressed.“The U.S. regulators’ investigation of these crashes has been as disappointing as Boeing’s insistence that it had no systemic quality or safety issues,” Pierson said.After several lawmakers cited Pierson’s concerns, Earl Lawrence, the FAA’s executive director of aircraft certification, said “we do have open investigations.”Enforcement ActionIn addition, Dickson said the FAA may take enforcement action against Boeing for actions related to the 737 Max accidents and grounding. Dickson didn’t provide details, saying only that he has expressed displeasure to high-ranking Boeing executives. He added that his chief concern at the moment is ensuring the safety of the plane as it’s returned to service.“I reserve the right to take further action and we very well may do that,” he said, responding to a question from Representative Stephen Cohen, a Tennessee Democrat.DeFazio said that committee staff recently completed a seven-hour interview with Ali Bahrami, the FAA’s associate administrator for aviation safety, who said that he wasn’t aware of the analysis issued after the Lion Air crash that predicted the additional 737 Max crashes without a fix.Lawmakers quizzed the FAA on its decision to not name Boeing’s faulty automation system in its emergency directive, issued days after the first 737 Max crash. The system, Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System or MCAS, pushed the nose of the planes down until they crashed.Pilot ManualsLawrence said the agency didn’t mention MCAS because it wasn’t included in Boeing’s own pilot manuals and adding it to the directive would confuse pilots. The FAA issued the emergency airworthiness directive after the Lion Air plane crashed.“In addition to failing to include MCAS in the flight manuals, training that provided actual experience in detecting, diagnosing and responding to failure conditions was not provided,” said Mica Endsley, a former chief Air Force scientist called as an expert witness.DeFazio plans to introduce legislation to address the shortcomings at the FAA that have come to light since the two 737 Max crashes. He suggested during the hearing break that the legislation would increase the number of personnel assigned to scrutinize manufacturers, though he didn’t provide additional details on how a bill would do that.“We don’t just fine them for noncompliance, we say, by the way, we’re going to put a lot more people on you,” DeFazio said.To contact the reporters on this story: Ryan Beene in Washington at [email protected];Alan Levin in Washington at [email protected];Courtney Rozen in Arlington at [email protected] contact the editors responsible for this story: Jon Morgan at [email protected], John HarneyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

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teeky185 · 5 years

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placetobenation · 5 years

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A commentary on the Best Picture Nominees for 1994.

1994 was a great year for movies. Through the coarse of this retrospective on the year 1994 in movies the most difficult part will be deciding which movies not to cover. Though the best place to start would be the movies considered by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to be the best for the year. A wise man that I recently spoke to put it like this “ There were three all timers and two how the hell did they get nominated.” The movies in question are Four Weddings and a Funeral, Quiz Show, Pulp Fiction, Shawshank Redemption, and Forrest Gump. While all five are excellent films in their own right, three certainly stand out as having stood the test of time. There will be spoilers ahead as these movies are twenty five years old. If you haven’t seen these movies, I recommend all of them and they are their easy enough to find. I am going to try to not dig too deep into the meat and potatoes of the plot details, instead focusing on the elements that made these movies exceptional, the culture impact they had at the time, and their lasting legacy. So with no further delay, let’s get started.

Quiz Show

Quiz Show is a historical drama about the rigging of a 1950’s game show and the scandal that followed leading to a congressional investigation. The movie stars John Turturro, Ralph Fiennes, and Rob Morrow also is directed by Robert Redford. In the early days of television, game shows became popular programming which made household names out of its contestants. NBC had a show called Twenty-One. To sweeten the ratings, the producers gave the answers to a contestant Herbert Stemple, played by John Turturro. People tuned in to see just how much he would win as the prize money grew from week to week. When his ratings plateaued, they asked Stemple to take a dive so they could replace him with a more attractive star, Charles Van Doren played by Ralph Fiennes. Stemple takes this pretty hard and happily does his part to blow the lid off the whole thing when congress decides to investigate the quiz shows. Rob Morrow plays Dick Goodwin, the person asked to investigate the case and it’s remarkable how close he became to Van Doren. Van Doren plays a long with the scam for as long as his conscious will allow it. He is a Columbia professor from a family of intellectuals so this whole matter puts his reputation and family honor on the line.

It’s going to be hard to comment on the legacy of this film or its cultural impact since I don’t think Quiz Show has much of either. The movie was loved by critics but it bombed at the box office. Reading some of the reviews, I think the critics were reading too deep into the material. The story is a curiosity at best. It is interesting how much people cared about whether or not game shows were on the level, so much so that congress would get involved. All I could think is if they cared this much about quiz shows why didn’t they investigate wrestling, which was also very popular in the early days of television. The movie plays with the quaint notion that people on television would be admired for their intellect, something that even by 1994 was no longer the case. Quiz Show received several nominations by various organizations for Best Adapted Screenplay which I call bullshit on. I found the writing to be the weakest part of the film. There are clunky lines of dialogue like “He’s famous like Elvis.” or “Sputnik will land right on your head!” They had to keep reminding you in the dialogue that this movie takes places in the 50’s and every film student knows that is a screenwriting faux pas. Structurally, the writing is sound but unlike films like Pulp Fiction, Shawshank Redemption, or Four Weddings and a Funeral, the film doesn’t do anything out of the ordinary. I hate to engage in conspiracy theories but the praise Quiz Show receives from the critics and Academy can only best be explained as a love affair they have with Robert Redford.

With everything I just said, I don’t want it to sound like Quiz Show is a bad movie. It’s a perfectly acceptable film but definitely the weakest of the bunch. What the movie does do well is capturing the 50’s. This movie is an example of some excellent acting. John Turturro was particularly exceptional as Herbert Stemple, a nebish trivia expert who has difficulty dealing with taking a dive and being in on the fix. He is awkward and excitable. Turturro’s performance really is the strongest of a strong crop. Ralph Fiennes as the WASPy intellectual Charles Van Doren was also particularly well done. Robert Redford did an excellent job getting the best out of everyone down to the extras in terms of making these people feel authentic. I was born in 1980 so I don’t know for sure what people in the 50’s were like but all of these characters felt to me like what people in the 50’s acted like. The other remarkable aspects of Quiz Show to me were the production design and cinematography. This movie also looks authentically 50’s or rather my perception of that decade. If I were instructing film makers who were interested in making a period piece on the 50’s, Quiz Show would make the list for study material.

Four Weddings and a Funeral

I am so glad I got to rewatch this movie as part of this project. At first glance, one might remember this movie as one of the many Hugh Grant romantic comedies. That was a genre that ran its coarse by the mid-2000’s. I don’t like rom-coms. But Four Weddings and a Funeral is an exceptional romantic comedy. It casts the die for this type of movie and simultaneously breaks it. The movie follows Charlie, played by Hugh Grant, and a group of his friends as they attend four weddings and a funeral over the course of a year or so. We know little about these characters and their regular lives but that doesn’t really matter. All that does matter is how they interact in these type of social settings. We have all had to attend weddings and funerals and most of us know that we become different people in these settings. The only story connecting these events is Charlie meeting Carrie, an American played by Andie MacDowell, whom he falls in love with but can’t have. They meet and the only time they see each other is at these gatherings. Somehow they manage to have a type of relationship that is very touching. What makes this movie better than most of it’s genre is the writing, the comedy, the acting, and how it is structured. Comedy doesn’t always have to be loud and over the top, although sometimes that helps. Sometimes comedy can be just a look from the actor or a look away. It can be a subtle tick or body language. The supporting cast is very strong and whether they are giving a one- liner in passing or taking part of an entire scene, everyone invests into their character something to make them unique. The way the story is laid out is quite good too. Gareth, the character that is most full of life is the one who dies. The speech his lover Matthew makes at his funeral feels incredibly real. The funeral in this movie isn’t part of the comedy. It is played completely seriously. We don’t get the Big Show Daddy’s funeral here. You would think having an entire sequence that changes the tone of the movie would derail it but instead it adds to the experience and makes everything about the movie more authentic. Like most romantic comedies, the third act has a lot of surprises and turns where everything works out for the best in the end. But unlike most rom-coms, the ending feels earned. Hugh Grant says I do but the results are completely unexpected.

Four Weddings and a Funeral is an incredible accomplishment as an independent film. Made on a budget of roughly $3 million, this movie took in $245 million in worldwide box office. Today people could spend $3 million on four actual weddings and a funeral much less make a feature film of this quality for that much. Part of this movie’s success has to do with a press tour Hugh Grant does in America that charms the nation. That coupled with the movie would make Hugh Grant a star. He would go on to be a romantic lead for years to come. The other legacy for this movie is the string of romantic comedies that would come. They are less common now than they used to be but for many years that would follow 1994, it seemed you would get at least two rom-coms a month. The writing for romantic comedies became formulaic and the plots contrived. For a while, they would be the easiest money a studio could earn. Much like the slasher trend of the 80’s, studios rarely lost money on a rom-com and they kept pumping them out. I am sure there are examples of romantic comedies before this movie, Annie Hall comes to mind. But Four Weddings and a Funeral started an explosion in this genre.

Shawshank Redemption

Based on a Steven King story, Shawshank Redemption is the story of Andy Dufresne, played by Tim Robbins, making the best use of his time. Told through the eyes of Red, a convict played by Morgan Freeman, this is about how Andy quietly escapes from prison. By the end of the movie you see how Andy bides his time, used his remarkable intellect, and carefully planned his escape from the first day he arrived at Shawshank Prison. The storytelling is so masterful that by the end of the movie you see everything Andy does through has a purpose with the focus of getting out. Also you see the friendship between Red and Andy grow over time. You see how Andy plays the Warden and the head prison guard, brilliantly played by Clancy Brown, putting together a money laundering scheme that makes everyone rich. There is so much that can be said about this movie, it really is a masterpiece. The acting performances were amazing. The setting and production design was incredible. Shawshank Redeption brings this environment to life and the prison becomes a character itself. All of the characters have the feeling of real people. Even Tommy, who we barely see for an act of the movie, makes you feel heartbroken when he is shot. Brooks is another character that we meet for only a brief moment in the movie. He has a hard time adjusting to life on the outside. The way they told his story was so good that you can identify with a man who feels more comfortable in prison than out of prison. Really, all I can say about Shawshank Redemption is that it’s about hope and living with purpose. Hope is a good thing, maybe the best thing. And no good thing ever dies.

Shawshank Redeption did not do well in the box office. Once awards season rolled around, it started to gain some buzz. It became one of the top rented movies for 1995. Once TNT started showing the movie almost daily, they had found their audience and people began to appreciate Shawshank Redemption for the great movie that it is. It’s hard to say that if this movie or Seven was the film that launched Morgan Freeman into being a bankable actor in a supporting role but it certainly helped. Putting this film into the context of what it meant in 1994 is kind of difficult because it didn’t have much box office success at the time. However, what the movie does have is a timeless quality. People born in 1994 are finding this movie and enjoying it today. Somewhere on cable, this movie is being played as you read this. Every streaming service I can think of has Shawshank Redemption available. That is the mark of a truly great film, that it will be around forever.

Pulp Fiction

A landmark film of the 90’s, Pulp Fiction follows three separate stories, told out of order, surrounding a group of criminals, over the course of two days. Structurally, Pulp Fiction is unlike an other movie we have seen. There are seven different sequences that tie together tangentially. We start at the diner at the beginning where two robbers that we can affectionately call Honey Bunny and Ringo are plotting to rob the restaurant they are in. Then we meet Vincent Vega, played by John Travolta, and Jules Winnfield, played by Samuel L. Jackson. They discuss cheeseburgers and go on a mission to retrieve some propriety for their employee from some small timers who only had the best of intentions. The third sequence is Vincent having to take his bosses wife on a date. After what can best described as a successful date, Vincent’s date Mia Wallace, played by Uma Thurman, has an accidental overdose and Vincent finds a way to discretely have her revived before anyone can find out. The next sequence is Air Force Captain Koons, played by Christopher Walken gives us the significance for a gold watch being given to Butch, who will grow up to be a boxer and played by Bruce Willis. The next sequence shows the after match of what happens when Butch doesn’t throw a fight he was suppose to throw for mob boss Marsellus Wallace, played by Ving Rhames. Butch has to return to his apartment where gangsters will be waiting. Butch gets the watch back and then things get weird. If you didn’t know what a gimp was before, then you will now. From there, we go back to what happened after Vincent and Jules retrieve the briefcase. Jules has a spiritual experience and while discussing theology in the car with their friend Marvin, Marvin gets shot in the head accidentally. Jules has a friend in Toluca Lake named Jimmy who can hide them for a little while until his wife comes home but they have a serious problem driving around in a car soaked in blood with a headless dead body in the back seat. Mr. Wallace calls in Winston Wolfe, played by Harvey Keitel. Mr. Wolfe may be one of the coolest characters in the history of movies. He cleans up messes and does so with such style, you really have to see it. With the situation cleaned up, Jules and Vincent go to lunch at a diner, the one that was going to be robbed at the beginning of the movie. When Ringo and Honey Bunny decide to rob the place, Jules puts the breaks on it by gaining control of the situation. Jules breaks down his interpretation of Ezekiel 25:17, which is terribly misquoted and out of context in any bible translation you might have. Regardless, Jules puts a bow on the movie with what he tells Ringo before making a quiet exit.

Quentin Tarantino has made so many great films over the years but this one still is considered by many to be the best. To make a movie that is as popular as Pulp Fiction is with such an unorthodox structure is an achievement in itself. Every single character pops and comes alive. Even Christopher Walken’s character, who makes a brief cameo and gives a roughly two minute speech, feels lived in and authentic. Holding an audiences attention with a monologue like that in a static shot with nothing visually taking place is one of the most difficult things to pull off but here it’s done masterfully. I think I have heard every line from this movie quoted or referenced at some point in my life. Royale with Cheese, Ezekiel 25:17, What does Marselles Wallace look like? Say what again! I am sure you have your favorite line. Point is, no one else can pull off this kind of wordy, clever dialogue but for Quentin Tarantino. I have seen attempts to copy this style,whether it be in movies, tv, or comic books, fail time and again. That is what makes Tarantino a master amongst directors. Also, this movie makes the characters likable, relatable people. Almost every character in the movie is not what one would call a good person. They are criminals, remorseless killers, dregs of society, lowlifes the whole lot of them. But through the writing, directing, and acting these become characters that we like, enjoy spending time with, and even want to see succeed. While Tarantino broke many of the established rules and conventions of film making with Pulp Fiction, there is an obvious love for the craft that can be seen in this and all of his movies. I could probably write a book on Pulp Fiction but to sum up this part of the article, Quentin Tarantino made a masterpiece with Pulp Fiction. It’s considered by some critics to be the greatest film ever made.

The effects of Pulp Fiction on the culture were wide and sweeping. This movies success launched the career of Quentin Tarantino and gave him the creative license to do whatever projects he wanted, which he has for the last twenty five years. The success of this film had a great effect on how people in and outside the movie business saw independent films. No longer were indie films reserved simply for the art houses with a limited appeal and a niche audience. The career of John Travolta was revived because of this movie. The Simpsons joke about a bartender looking like John Travolta was not far off from the truth. A series of critical and commercial bombs throughout the 80’s left Travolta at the lowest point of his career. This movie put him back on the map and made John Travolta cool again. Pulp Fiction elevated the careers of Samuel L. Jackson and Uma Thurman. Both had been respectable, working actors prior to this movie but Pulp Fiction made both actors leading role material and marketable entities. Bruce Willis was also helped greatly by his performance in Pulp Fiction. Bruce was pretty well established as an action hero but this movie helped him be taken seriously as an actor that can do a lot more than most action stars. As I have stated before, Pulp Fiction has been referenced and quoted countless times throughout pop culture. When Fall Out Boy made a song about wanting to dance like Uma Thurman, they weren’t talking about her performance in Batman and Robin or The Avengers (1996). Movies from Space Jam to this years Captain Marvel have fit in references to Pulp Fiction. The sountrack was fantastic. Many of us remember the ECW interview segments with the surf guitars in the background that most fans simply call “Pulp Fiction.” There are few movies that can be called game changers but Pulp Fiction is most certainly one of them.

And the Oscar goes to…. Forrest Gump.

Forrest Gump is about a simple man with an extraordinary life. Forrest, played by Tom Hanks, is a character that is slow but wise. He finds himself in the middle of almost every major cultural event from the last half of the 20th Century. Somehow he is oblivious to the significance of these events. He teaches Elvis how to dance, plays football for Bear Bryant, fights in Vietnam, meets Presidents Johnson and Nixon, invests in Apple Computers, runs a few laps around the United States, founds a successful shrimp company, and so much more. Forrest Gump doesn’t see any of this as impressive. His main focus is the love of the first girl he saw on kindergarten, Jenny. They have moments where they pass through each others life. Forest is smitten. Jenny has other priorities in live and while she finds Forest to be sweet, she doesn’t take him seriously. That unrequited love is at the center of who Forrest is and no matter what happens, he loves Jenny. In the end, Jenny dies but not before giving Forrest a son.

Forrest Gump was an unexpected blockbuster that captured the imagination of the country. I remember being taken to this film along with the rest of my school under the pretense of a history field trip. The most remarkable thing about that field trip is how this movie held the attention of my entire 8th grade class. Even the small town junior thugs sat still and paid attention to Forrest Gump. The movie manages to not be overly schmaltzy in it’s nostalgia but also not cynical about the past. Seeing these events through the eyes of a man like Forrest Gump helps. He is the kind of guy who can meet John Lennon and not know who he just met. That keeps this movie from being the sort of thing that is laughable like in Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. My Dad saw this movie in the theater and my Dad never goes to the theater. This movie took the country by storm and I don’t believe the producers could have seen the success of this film coming. On a budget of $55 Million, Forrest Gump made $677 Million at the box office, second highest grossing film of the year only behind The Lion King. This was a film that almost everyone saw and the line “Life is like a box of chocolates.” was quoted frequently.

One of the last legacies of this film is what it did for Tom Hanks career. He was launched from a fairly popular comedic actor having worked on films like The Burbs, Dragnet, The Money Pit, and Joe vs the Volcano. With Forrest Gump, Hanks went to become one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, a wave that he is riding to this very day. Tom Hanks came to be taken seriously as a dramatic actor with a lot of versatility. When you look at the wide range of characters Hanks has played over his career, all of it is owed to what he did with this film. The very humorous line in Tropic Thunder about “not going full retard” is very amusing but actually really good acting advice. The way Hanks plays Forrest with so many layers, it really is an amazing performance. Also a lot of credit should be given to the writers as well as director Robert Zemeckis. Together, they crafted an amazingly rich character. The way this character behaves is consistent through the years. He is unchanged while the world around him keeps on changing at a rate that may have never been seen in human history. Forrest Gump is an example of a protagonist who effects the world around him but has no traditional character arc. With his performance, you see a person who impacts those around him and makes them better, particularly Lieutenant Dan, played by Gary Sinise. Lieutenant Dan has a character arc from when we first meet him to where he ends up at the end of the movie. Forrest is more or less unchanged. Thanks to what Tom Hanks showed in this movie, he became a bankable star that has been given a wide range of roles over the last twenty-five years and he has to be considered one of the greatest American actors there have ever been.

Speaking of Gary Sinise, the impact Forrest Gump had on his life has been long lasting and powerful. Lieutenant Dan is Forrest’s commanding officer in Vietnam. He has a long history of the men in his family dying in the battle field in all our wars. It looks like Dan will proudly follow in his fathers footsteps when Forrest Gump steps in and saves his life. Dan is not at all happy about this. Not only did he fail to live up to his family legacy but he also will live the rest of his life without legs. Dan pops in and out of Forrest’s life in the coming years, struggling hard to adjust to life outside the military and without legs. He eventually finds peace and a purpose thanks in part to the friendship of Forrest Gump. After this movie came out, the character really resonated with veterans and many gave their touching stories to Gary Sinise in person. He has talked about this at great length and even to this day he gets very emotional when discussing the conversations he has had with veterans over the years and just what the character of Lieutenant Dan has meant to their lives. This led Sinise to doing a lot of work with veterans groups over the years, helping people out with trauma. You can look more into the work for yourself he has done over the years but the point is that it has meant a great deal to many people and he has really came through for veterans. All of this because of a movie. That is the power of films and how they can touch the lives of many people.

It’s worth discussing the soundtrack to this movie. The two disc set for Forrest Gump containing hits from the 50’s to the 80’s along with the score is in many ways the soundtrack for the Baby Boom generation. It sold over 12 Million copies and reached number two on the Billboard charts. This is unheard of for a movie soundtrack. Using popular music was an important aspect of Forrest Gump and clearly it resonated with many people. The right music used at the right times can really make the movie feel authentic. It’s hard to equate it to anything today. I suppose Guardians of the Galaxy might be the closest comparison. I was shocked to find out how well this soundtrack performed on the charts and it’s a sign of the long reach this movie had.

Did they get it right?

So those are our five films that the Academy deemed to be the best of the year. So did they get it right? Well, in my opinion, they could have done better than selecting Quiz Show. I think movies like Ed Wood and The Lion King were worthy of consideration for Best Picture. Prior to rewatching Four Weddings and a Funeral I would have said that movie had no business being nominated but my opinion has changed. It was going to to break through this crowded field but it certainly was worthy of consideration being that it is the best example of a genre that had not yet been played out.

Having watched all five films this week, I will say that Pulp Fiction was probably the best movie in 1994. That being said, I can see why they went with Forrest Gump and it wasn’t a grave error. Forrest Gump was the safe pick. Everyone had seen the movie. It was a fantastic film, worthy of Best Picture in any year it could have conceivably been released. Most importantly, the subject matter was safe. A nostalgia film about the baby boom generation vs a movie about criminals filled with sex, violence, and foul language. The Academy is going to go with a film like Forrest Gump every time. There are plenty of other years where one can criticize the Academy for not picking the right film for Best Picture or nominating a bunch of movies no one has seen or cares about. 1994 was not one of those years. Picking between Shawshank Redemption, Pulp Fiction, and Forrest Gump was not an easy task. These three films will be watched and talked about forever.

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aaljakni · 6 years

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Important Facts To Know About The Consequential Accessibility Of Personal Assistant Services

By Gregory Morgan

Extremely among healthcare specialties, palliative care created within the non reflex sector, outside the National Wellness Service. Within 1967, Saint Christopher hospice in southern London, usually considered to be very first modern the hospice in United Kingdom started. It started the development of current hospice motion like in personal assistant services. By the end from the century there have been many charitable organization run aisle across the region, with their concentrate primarily upon providing fatal care in order to cancer sufferers. The Nationwide Council with regard to Hospice as well as Specialist Palliative Care Solutions was established regarding England, Wales and North Ireland 20 years ago. This grew to become the Countrywide Council intended for Palliative Treatment in 2004, highlighting the developing focus on the actual delivery associated with palliative treatment across almost all settings and also diagnoses. The particular Scottish romantic relationship was furthermore established 2 whole decades ago. The particular hospice, along with 2 nationwide charities, Jessica Conceal and also Ryder also provide played important role inside providing particular care for succumbing people and also the families. The specific movement substantially developed the specific specialism concerning palliative good care worldwide, along with attracted several government funding from later on 1970s onwards. Primary dependence upon nearby volunteers plus charitable money were seen because leading to regional variation inside services and even consequent inequities in supply. These were resolved by the Colman Hine statement. It decide a preparing and having framework to get cancer solutions, a platform that was gradually extended to incorporate, at least throughout principle, some other diagnoses. In any case, disparities dependably been distinguished. Commons Health Panel, inside its 2006 report, referenced that, suppliers were excessively required with zones of relational hardship. Commonly the report kept on expressing which administrations offer overwhelmingly alongside malignant growth people and show up not to wind up equipped to normally the palliative prerequisites of extra illness associations. Solutions tend to not be adopted through all those around grayscale group cultural interests. Providers prefer a few age ranges more than other people, plus they could be difficult to accessibility through individuals with complicated requires. Likewise, often the Regal University regarding Doctors described the dependability on nonprofit funding. Within recent years, there were renewed initiatives, driven simply by national techniques on end involving life attention in all 4 countries in addition to nations in the region. This really is to extend the exact aid for everyone who are able to benefit from this. In a fairly short period of time, this has produced from becoming viewed as associated with port care for malignancy patients, for you to being considered having importance at early stage within the disease procedure for anyone in whose death could be medically expected. The region, using its established the hospice movement plus statutory participation in finish of living care, rates at top of forty countries calculated in a high quality of demise index produced by Economist Intelligence Device. This is to become applauded. Still as talked about in the previous area, there possess remained broadly acknowledged issues and spaces in its dotation. Like the ending living strategy, the actual delivery technique up to 2017. These techniques promotes the provision depending on need instead of diagnosis, tensions the importance of taking into consideration the approach with the point together with onward diagnosis envisages a long role related to generalist businesses, supported by a substandard group of specialists who have acquired high quality expert training. Usually the 2008 method in England integrated additional purchasing into obligations, adopting the particular then Government manifesto commitment to double the financial commitment.

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junker-town · 7 years

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Joe Morgan’s letter reminded us how silly it is to keep PED users out of the Hall of Fame

That wasn’t his goal, but he did a great job.

On a list of living Hall of Famers with a right to be incredibly annoyed at the thought of performance-enhancing drugs, Joe Morgan is close to the top. He’s listed at 5’7”, 160 pounds, which means there’s a strong chance he’s actually smaller than that. And he had to use all of it to become one of the greatest baseball players the sport has ever seen. His strength was a compact strength, like 100 bouillon cubes stacked atop each other, and he built his legacy with a grace and athleticism that defied all expectations.

I’m not mad that he’s mad. Really, it’s understandable. Morgan wrote a letter to Hall of Fame voters imploring them not to consider players who took performance-enhancing drugs. It was an earnest letter from a baseball legend. It’s also completely unhelpful.

We’ll start with the required disclaimer for anything related to PEDs:

PEDs can have adverse effects on a person’s health

Not everyone is willing to risk their health to improve their performance at work, which is their right

The players who took PEDs gained an unfair advantage over peers who were exercising a basic right

The use of PEDs is ethically suspect and always has been

Think of it as a workplace issue and not something more dramatic than that. Let’s say my job is taken by a baseball writer who drinks a potion that makes him or her write better than me. This potion also causes his or her pinkie toes to fester and burn off. I have the right to be angry that my livelihood was affected because of someone taking shortcuts and physical risks that I was unwilling to take.

This scenario assumes I’m alive and active at exactly the same moment in time as the mystery writer, though. This is the problem with Morgan’s letter.

Morgan has a right to be annoyed, but even though he’s a baseball great who played the game, he can’t consider himself an expert on the PED era. He didn’t play in it. He wasn’t presented with the choice. He didn’t have teammates who felt energized and fresh in August after 17 games in 17 days, acting as human infomercials for the Cream or Clear, and he wasn’t playing in the shadow of two beloved, adored players who were widely praised for saving the sport. He thinks he knows what he would have done. But he really, really doesn’t.

I’m always reminded of Mike Schmidt’s sage words.

"I'm not saying I definitely would have, but I'm not going to sit here and tell you there's no way," he said. "Who knows? I truly can't make the statement, 'I wouldn't have gotten caught up in it.' "

This is the only correct take. You can tell yourself, “Oh, I would have told those British jerks what’s up and taken up arms with General Washington,” or you can realize that you’ll never understand the context of every individual decision made during the Revolutionary War. You’ll never understand what motivated about half of the country to oppose the war. It’s a subject worth studying and debating, but there’s nothing more useless than mentally traveling through time and inserting your 2017 (or 1968) self into the argument. It’s like trying to jam an external hard drive into an ancient computer that uses punchcards.

What you have, then, is a choice.

The first choice is a Hall of Fame that’s a museum that celebrates and acknowledges baseball’s varied, human history. This is Cap Anson, the first player with 3,000 hits and a virulent racist. This is Ty Cobb, one of the most complicated, poisonous men to play the sport. This is Juan Marichal, who committed assault with a deadly weapon in the middle of a game. This is Kirby Puckett, domestic abuser. This is Pete Rose, an amazing player who committed baseball’s gravest sin. This is Barry Bonds, who was already a Hall of Famer before taking PEDs but evolved into a baseball freak after using.

The second choice is a combination Hall. One wing is the Hall of People Who Never Had the Chance to Use Steroids. They might have, or they might not have. But they didn’t get the chance, so they’re in. Good for them for never having to make the choice, I guess?

If you’ll go down that hallway and take a left, you have the Hall of People Who Played After We Were All Very, Very Clear That Steroids Were Off-Limits. They saw the culture of shame and resentment that came with getting caught. The benefits were just as alluring, but now there were penalties and stigmas attached.

What this combination Hall assumes is that all of the people who don’t fit in either one were Bad People. Those were people who were ethically defunct, and they were entirely contained within a period from 1986 and 2006. There were no bad people who would have used PEDs before then. There were no bad people who used after.

It ignores the context of the PED era. It ignores how feted and revered Mark McGwire was. It ignores that he felt comfortable giving interviews with a massive jug of the still-legal androstenedione in plain sight. It ignores that everyone — yes, writers, too — pretty much had an idea that there was a correlation between baseball’s new class of bodybuilders and the drugs traditionally used by real bodybuilders. It ignores that baseball was slow to act because it was still drunk off the 1998 wine and happy the sport survived the strike.

It ignores that amphetamines are really, really bad for the human body, and that for years, the players who were willing to hurt themselves by taking amphetamines held an unfair advantage over the players who weren’t willing. If you think that’s a false equivalency, you’re underestimating either the positive effects amphetamines can have on a tired player’s performance or the negative effects they can have on a human’s heart.

This combination, revisionist Hall ignores that the only thing all of these eras have in common is that they’re stuffed with people. Actual living, breathing people responding to the choices presented to them. The people from the PED era weren’t ethically shakier. They were just playing in an era with unique, specific choices that were considered radioactive with the benefit of hindsight. And I don’t want my story of baseball to have pages ripped out because of the sanctimonious, self-assured morality of the flawed people who look back at flawed people throughout history and think, “Wow, look at how flawed those people were. Thank goodness I’m not flawed.”

Future generations will think we’re really, really weird. Because of everything. But when it comes to baseball and the Hall of Fame, specifically. Morgan has a right to be annoyed. But we have the right to demand a Hall of Fame that accurately reflects history. Pretending like the people who used PEDs have souls that are more corroded than the people who never had a chance, well, that’s revisionist history.

I’d like less revisionist history in my museums, please.

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