#also so i refer to raphael as she because of that interview with raphaels actor

[adreamoverlife]

thinking about how out of all the Archangels Michael and Raphael could be happiest. Raphael could finally have her brother that she died trying to get back. Just imagine her and Michael and Adam all running around the world together. God really is dead and now it's okay now because they have each other. It's about abandonment, it's about letting yourself love again. It's about Raphael finally falling back in love with healing creation as she fixes the holy fire burn marks on Michaels wings from the cage. It's about Michael falling back in love with protecting as he once did back when the world was still forming. In a way it still is. Michael preens Raphaels wings in a way he hasn't for millennium and plays a plucky waltz for her to teach Adam to dance to. Adam tells her he was a pre-med student and she immediately presses him for all that he knows and then scoffs. She remarks at how behind humanity is and tells Adam things humans won't understand for centuries. Raphael works together with Michael to fashion Adam scalpels so sharp the cuts don't bleed. Michael makes them fruit tarts of the fruits from the Garden where all Gods creations once partook in the flavor and the joy that comes from biting into an apple so hard it drips down your cheek. They sleep in a bed with enochian symbols carving out a lullaby on the ceiling older than time itself with Michaels wings as shield from the world. The brothers sing with the wind and in the sky like they did so long ago and Adam dances to the tune. Michael tackles Raphael mid flight as they race to the nearest gala Raphael heard about on TV. She whines and complains but doesn't fight as he carries her as the way there. When Adam drags them back to a hole in the wall diner a women approaches Raphael and just has to know where she got that suit she's wearing. It's so beautiful, she actually has a job interview in a few days and is so nervous, an anxiety that tugs at the child standing behind the woman's leg. Angels were made to ease burdens, and healing isn't always physical. The bright eyed woman gets her job, Raphael will make sure of it. A day when they are walking outside a downtown area Michael jumps the fence into someones backyard and races over to the pool drain filled with mud and leaves and filth. Pulling up the disgusting plastic the Prince of Heaven dives his hands in and reveals a very large spider that wipes it's eyes clean of the mud with its front legs and shivers as Michael very gently whispers to it in a language long past waiting for it to get dry enough to move comfortably. When Raphael approaches he looks up at her and raises the oh so terrified creature and asks "Does she need healing?"

Raphael smiles at the meteor shower up above with her brother at her side. Michael snaps his fingers to change the color of the lights to match the wavelength of his grace warmed by the joy of having the two people he cares about most at his side. He doesn’t need to chose between his family and Adam they both chose him. Their days are as sunny or rainy as they desire. Their days are theirs and theirs alone. They are free.

[danidoesathing]

Can you list some of your favorite horror movies facts you know? :0

oh anon you have opened up pandoras box

-In Midsommar, the images of Dani's dead family is overlaid multiple times throughout the film despite her never seeing their bodies like the audience did

-X and Pearl were filmed at the same time!

-Miles Fischer, who plays Peter in Film Destination 5, is also a musician and made a music video with the cast of FD5 which was a parody of said movie and sitcoms like Save By the Bell. It's called New Romance and can be watched here

-Speaking of Final Destination, Mary Elizabeth Winstead (the star of three) actually produced a that single tear in the final scene all naturally. She had to do it twice because the first take was ruined.

-The Roller Coaster scene in 3 was also the last filmed!

-Tony Todd appears in every Final Destination movie except for 4 (In three he voiced the ominous devil statue in front of the Coaster). His character is named William Bludsworth (yes really).

-Scream had originally Dewy dying at the end, but the director made a decision (I mean literally while filming that scene last second) to change his fate

-You can tell who is Ghostface at any point in time by the way they hold the knife. Stu uses two hands with the knife, while Billy only holds it with his right hand. Billy also tends to strangle people for whatever reason.

-Wes Craven did not know about line about all the Nightmare on Elm Street's sequels sucking so he had no part in that.

-None of the Cloverfield movies were written to be in a connected universe, and two of the three were actually made under different titles that had both those and their scripts altered to fit the "connected universe" thing. So if you ever felt like those movies felt weirdly disconnected, congrats! you're right

-John Goodman actually makes an appearance in The Cloverfield Paradox in a brief news interview. Once again, he plays a character whose theories are 100% correct but sounds insane, but they are confirmed not to be the same character

-The first Cloverfield Movie actually had an ARG. Really. like a whole ass ARG for promotion. wild

-In the Hellbound Heart book, Pinhead and the rest of the Cenobites are written as gender neutral leaning towards feminine. Diversity win! the torture bondage demons are nonbinary!

-Hereditary was originally planned to take place during winter, but Ari Aster changed his mind once arriving on set

-The set of Hereditary was constructed in a way that had the walls and ceiling able to be moved/removed which allows for the more creative camera angles seen in the film.

-Tony Todd has played Candyman/Daniel Robitaille in every Candyman movie. Yes even in the sequels

-Prey is the first full lengthen film to have a full Comanche dub (which was all recorded by the originally actors!)

-The translator in Prey, Raphael, appears in the Predator comics (specifically, Predator: 1718) and is referenced in Predator 2

-Cabin in the Woods was obviously heavily inspired by Evil Dead. But the infamous betting board actually names Deadites as a monster. This implies that Ash's unfortunate adventures in the cabin was a successful ritual and the only reason he was allowed to live was because he played the role of the Virgin (this is obviously not canon, but its a neat idea)

-It also makes reference to the "Angry Molesting Tree" from Evil Dead. "Snowman" may be a reference to Jack Frost (killer snowman movie) and the Reanimated may be a reference to The Reaminator

-The dog in The Thing, Jed, was not trained to a lot of the odd behavior the Thing actually shows. For example, the brief moment where he looks into the camera and then looks away, which creates a very uneasy feeling of being seen in the audience. There are also moments where he dead still. He was not trained to do either of these things. He was just a very talented actor and I love him.

-The first victim of The Thing's shadow is not done by any of the actors of the movie. Its actually the director's, as it creates more ambiguity as to his identity

-Joe Hill is Stephen King's son. He is also a writer, and wrote the original source material for things like The Black Phone, Horns, Locke and Key, and NOS4A2. They both wrote In the Tall Grass

and now for facts about one of my favorite horror movies

-Nope originally ended with the deaths of both OJ and Angel. Even after OJ's fate was changed, they only changed Angel's fate after Brandon Perea (his actor) convinced Jorden Peele to change his fact. Angel's plot armor ascends even reality fr

-The track that plays during OJ's final scene is called "A Hero Falls" likely because it was written for his death. The song also has parallels to a track that played in the beginning of the movie during OJ and Em's car ride to the ranch

-OJ's actor, Daniel Kaluuya, mentioned having suffered an injury years ago due to a horse riding accident and developed a fear of horse riding from that. He had to work through that for the role.

-Ricky is referred to as "Jupe" through almost the entirety of the film, even in the subtitles. This has no meaning or symbolism for his character whatsoever im sure.

-Jean Jacket and it's alternate form was inspired by sea creatures like Jellyfish and Octopus, but it was also inspired by the angels in Neon Genesis Evangelion. Specifically Sahaquiel, the tenth angel

-Em performs the Akira slide during the climax of the movie

-There's a few alternate dialogue for scenes that can be seen in the deleted scenes. it doesn't make that much a difference in terms of themes/story/characterization/etc but we did learn that OJ had a thing for Oprah when he was younger which explains some of Em's jabs at him

-There's a deleted scene that has an alternate introduced to Em that revealed the reason she was late was because she hitting on a group of girls. cant say im surprised tbh but I find it funny the longest deleted scene is just another confirmation that Emerald gets the most pussy in the state of California

-Antlers wears a skirt for the entirety of the film

-While OJ was going after Ghost and sees the power going out during Ricky's practice for the Star Lasso Expereince, you can see the power line's lights going off which shows JJ's path back to the farm

-Brandon Perea was the one that insisted on expanding Angel's character during development past Peele's original baseline idea

-Michael Abels scored this film as well as Get Out and Us

and I probably have more but. christ this post is long

[felassan]

Highlights and insights from the N7 Day cast & crew reunion panel

[Rewatch link]

In case a text format is better for anyone. There are some NSFW references. Cut for length.

(Some paraphrasing.)

“Some of us are inebriated”

“Patrick Weekes, the killer of man and beasts, the breaker of hearts”

JHale put the whole thing together, it’s the biggest ME cast reunion to date

The cast had no idea that the remaster was a thing

Lots of ace discussion about what the magic of the MET is (“it captured lightning in a bottle”)

Lots of warm fuzzies between the cast, crew and community, and lots of fun behind-the-scenes anecdotes

Lots of great discussion on the diversity and inclusion in ME: on gender, sexuality, representation, empowerment, the core message in the MET that “we’re all in this together or we’re screwed”, the progress made in the portrayal of female characters in gaming, etc. “Everything behind what went into these characters was authentic, we [the VAs] could tell that so much research, texture, authenticity etc had gone into them. It really made a difference”. JHale: “I’ve spent my career kicking down ceilings [barriers and so on women actors experience] with my steel-toed boot. To get to be a part of this game that has now created the expectation that there now be a female PC, ‘duh’, is once of the great things of my life. BioWare listened and put her on the box. The first time someone dropped the box in front of me I held it over my head and screamed over the crowd, ‘Casey Hudson, thank youuu!!’ It was a divine moment. This game was the moment the boot finally crashed through the glass, pushed by millions of women.”

The panel received many messages from the question submission from fans expressing that MET really helped them through very dark places and periods in their lives. The cast have had a lot of interactions with fans over the years where the fans expressed similar sentiments to them

ME was one of the first games Keythe Farley (Thane) acted for that had branching dialogue/dialogue choices, and when he saw the script with that when he went in, he was like “wow”. ME was the second big game D. C. Douglas (Legion) ever did. In his first audition he didn’t know it was for a robot-type character as it was disguised as something else with a military-feel. The second time it was to do a speech/lament at someone’s funeral and he knew it was for a robot. He said playing Legion for him was a case of “wake up, drink some coffee and go to work”

Jack was really special to her VA Courtenay Taylor because she relates to her so much and had a lot of similar emotional problems and personal troubles in her past. Jack helped her become who she has became. The host added that in his interactions with Courtenay over the years, he realized very quickly that she is very much like Jack

AWR has two moms, something which she hasn’t talked about/expressly said publicly before. Talking about recording lines between Sam and Femshep made her tear up. She said that being raised by two moms in the 80s was tough due to societal attitudes at the time, and so to see a loving relationship between two women depicted in a game was a big deal for her. When recording the white picket fence conversation, she was actually crying (“and then I’m crying because of the lesbians”). It was a huge moment for her to represent her moms’ journey. When she went home she told them all about how her character is gay and wants a white picket fence and everything “just like we had”.

When PW was working on Sam’s arc, one of the things they did was show it to one of their colleagues, who is a lesbian, asking what things she’d like to see in an arc like that and what things she felt were missing from it. The white picket fence conversation came from the colleague’s feedback (“we wanna see the nice, healthy, happy domestic stuff”, as it’s often missing in portrayals of wlw relationships)

As the VAs got more into their characters, they sometimes had feedback and input to the process to offer, like “I don’t think she’d say [this] like [that]”. Sometimes they knew their characters even better than the crew did sometimes. JHale waxed lyrical about Caroline Livingstone’s awesome direction, with the host adding that he has interviewed a lot of the VAs over the years and they all talk about Caroline like she’s Gandalf the White coming to the rescue in LotR. AWR expressed that Caroline is really funny (“don’t worry it’s not you, PW was sick when they wrote this line that’s why”) and emotionally in-tune with them and this makes long hard sessions with her a joy

When Mark went into record for the Citadel DLC one day he asked Caroline “wouldn’t be great if Shepard’s clone had been made to be the opposite gender? Then the two Shepards could fight each other!”

William Salyers (Mordin) likes the way Mordin’s story ended and felt that it was wonderful to be able to play that. He feels like the luckiest person because as he wasn’t the original VA of Mordin, he got to come in late to something that was amazing. “Caroline helped me get to where I needed to be emotionally to play that final scene. It was one of the most moving things I’ve ever gotten to do personally for a piece of interactive art”. PW related that with Mordin’s writing, they didn’t realize how much they were asking for. They thought William was amazing doing all the science-speak/technobabble, as they themselves didn’t know what it meant, and then suddenly having to deliver emotional heartbreaking lines. William’s always been a secret science nerd and so he loved that fact about Mordin. “It was a real treat to say your words”

Karin: “I always claim credit for the Scientist Salarian song even though I had nothing to do with it. I opened that door for PW”

Steve Blum (Grunt) found it a real treat playing Grunt as Grunt is a tough soldier on the outside but a [babey] on the inside, while he is more the other way around (softer on the outside, fight-y inside). He isn’t a gamer and so didn’t know what to expect or what he was getting into. There was the big pile of words, they showed him the picture of Grunt, and he just ran with it. “Grunt was kind of a perfect character for me in that respect”. Side note: his wry comments throughout the panel were hilarious

“Casey Hudson, our glorious loving overlord”

Courtenay jokes about “interspecies snorkeling”

The women Courtenay met working on this game are her friends for life. Ali Hillis (Liara) gave her her number the night of the ME3 drop and was like “let’s hang out!!” “JHale is the shit. I go to England and there’s AWR and I have this friend for life”.

“We’re a family”. The host comments that you don’t see this kind of closeness between the people on a lot of projects

Kimberley Brooks (Ashley) thinks things have and are changing for the better in terms of roles for women, and roles for brown and black women. This year she has noticed increasing awareness of inclusion and of where it’s lacking. “The copies I’m being sent for auditions, it’s drastically changing, I’m seeing it change before my eyes. It’s really exciting, there’s more and more roles for me.” “Ash is such a strong character and I felt very badass playing her, it was life-changing”. She’s excited that the remaster is going to be a new way to see these characters that they’ve been so lucky to voice. Kimberley/Ash was the first female character Karin saw in the studio, when she saw her she was like “Wow, she’s so kickass and inspiring”. At this point Karin hadn’t been working at BioWare for all that long, and she wanted to thank Kimberley, because she saw her and heard her voice and had a personal ‘this changes everything’ moment

Raphael Sbarge (Kaidan) finds it very moving how many women were encouraged into gaming due to ME

Raphael: “Everyone here has awesome varied careers, but because ME was so collaborative [and so on], [it was something really rare and special]. Nothing else I’ve done has been so important or impassioned, it has almost a religious experience to it, which you can see from tears in fans’ eyes and tattoos and people talking about it 10 years later”. “I’m so grateful for it.” “Clearly we’re going to do this again next year! :D” D. C. added that it’s going to follow him for the rest of his career. Courtenay says it has catapulted her career

PW talked about how it’s great that the female chars in ME were allowed to have real, realistic flaws and dark periods (as opposed to nonsense stuff like ‘her flaw is that she’s clumsy’)

Having the male and female PC be voiced was a big, expensive commitment for the studio. Karin commented that at the time, it was a risk that the pretty-much almost entirely-male leadership of BioWare at the time decided was important to take, and so she was happy that these were the values her colleagues had

PW was “the junior baby writer on ME1. I’d just gotten to the studio and Mac Walters fell down a flight of stairs and hurt his back, and they pulled me in while he was healing”. Karin: “Mac was very understanding when PW fell on the ice and hurt themselves during ME2.” PW: “My job in ME1 was to come up with conversations between followers to pass the time in the elevator loading times. I was throwing stuff at the wall to see what would stick”

Steve turning his volume down before he shouts classic Grunt quotes down the mic

Caroline: “Do you know how many tears were shed in the booth? How many times have we all cried in the booth...” JHale: “We were recording the end of ME3, which I never call the end, because I’m always like I’M HERE! [wink] The goodbye Garrus lines” - these lines got right under her skin and when she went to say her lines she couldn’t speak because she’d burst into tears. “It was all I could do to say those words... and then there was silence... [and Caroline had gotten choked up too].” This was one of the last sessions they did. PW: “John Dombrow wrote Garrus in ME3 and I’m gonna tell him that he got you both to break.”

Caroline was also really teary during Keith David’s (Anderson)’s performance where he tells Shepard she’s like his daughter. This moment was one of JHale’s favorites to act

BioWare came up with a proprietary VA recording system which JHale describes as a secret sauce as-yet not widely-used in the industry

Lots of fun in the line-reading portion at the end. The lines/scenes were sent in by fans. This starts around timestamp 1 hour 50 mins. There’s a break where they discuss more anecdotes after a bit then some line-reading resumes at 1 hour 59 mins 18 secs

"Salarian Vorcha Conrad Verner simmering sexual tension scene”

One of PW’s fondest memories is of ME3 when JHale and Mark got to play off each other (which they naturally didn’t get to do very much), when PW had shoved the entire script of the Blasto movie into random ambience throughout the Citadel. They knew Mark was going to be Blasto as he voiced most of the hanar. PW: “We had to have Blasto’s elcor partner’s hot sister... And I was like could it be JHale?? Because they hardly ever get to talk to each other. It was one of my proudest moments”. Mark: “Not only that, we had a romance.” JHale: “Yeah, it was hot”.

“Think of the poor cold freezing Edmontonian hanar”

PW’s story about Sam’s toothbrush: They wrote it as a throwaway line but AWR did it so well that PW wanted to bring it back in the Citadel DLC, as that DLC was the action-comedy one. So they decided the toothbrush was going to save the Normandy. The art director at the time was in an early playthrough of the scene and in that version of the scene Sam held up her empty hand. The director was like “We gotta make the toothbrush? Really? It’s gonna be thousands of dollars to render the toothbrush.” It then got to the next few lines and the director deadpanned at PW “Okay that’s pretty good, we’ll make the toothbrush.” PW: “Good, I got my toothbrush.”

It was John’s idea that we find out that Mordin had been working on a crime noir novel. There was a period in the development of the Citadel DLC where PW was feeling like “Mordin’s gone, he had his big moment, I want to respect and honor that” and the entire team were like “I think Mordin needs a couple more songs dude”. “Well alright!” By that point William had shown them he could deliver literally any line

“Oh I need a shower that was so steamy hot”

PW got in trouble with Localization over Jack’s “Save some of your energy, we’re gonna do it on the pool table” exchange. Localization were like “Um could you explain what Jack means by this??” These lines were PW’s, Karin as an editor got the question about it and passed it on to PW like “nope this is your fault”. “The best part is it was France that needed PW to explain the joke while apparently Germany were like ‘Yes please confirm that this is regarding the possibility of oral sex-’”

Keythe on voicing Thane: “Thane was a real lesson in opening up to the character, allowing this beautifully conflicted character to exist. Each character in the MET has conflicts within themselves and a tragic flaw that is revealed through the course of conflict.” He also waxed lyrical about how the MET was akin to Star Wars and Citizen Kane, and about the interconnectedness and representation in it

D. C.: “I have a question for you guys. Was it a conscious decision to not have Legion as a romance? Because there are a lot of upset people out there!!” “Voltage problems.” “A lot of creative reuses of ‘There was a hole.’” PW: “It was a process of us figuring out what we wanted to do. If we had known... The number of people who were like ‘I don’t know, are people gonna wanna romance Garrus? Liara? She’s blue and has no hair. Are people gonna be okay with that?” Karin: “We were young and naïve, now we know BioWare fans are thirsty.”

Derek brought in the first picture of Thane to show Caroline and she was like “He’s really hot, that’s gonna be a killer character. People are gonna want to romance that gentleman”

Raphael asked the BioWare team if there’s ever been a point where they thought about doing more DLC content or some kind of revival. “Has that ever come up?” “We’re legally obligated not to say, sorry, we’re going through a tunnel right now, bad reception!!”

D. C.: “Does this country have a soul?” “It does.”

“An N7 Day to remember! Go forth and heal.”

[hippychick006]

5.03 - Free to be you and me

Or the one where Sam and Dean don’t share any screen time or even talk at all. Having said that, there’s some good scenes that switch between the brothers to show what each of them are doing.  I also like the juxtaposition of how awkwardly Dean and Castiel work together in this episode, with how seamless Dean and Sam worked together in the previous episode.  Jared has some great scenes with Adrianne Palicki, Mark Pellegrino and some guest actors that did a great job with playing hunters.  Dean’s primarily with Castiel, though I did like the Raphael scene the first time I watched.

It’s an important episode in terms of the myth arc and Sam finding out he’s Lucifer’s vessel, but on re-watch, I’d fast forward through many of the scenes now.        

The episode opens on Sam sleeping (or trying to) in a motel room.  I’m issuing a shirtless!Sam alert for this one.  He rolls over and sees Jess is beside him.  This scene is so sweet.  I love when they manage to bring Jess back in interesting ways. We see that Sam loved her very much.  Sam says he misses her so much.  She asks him what he’s doing running away.  He says it’s different this time, “Last time I wanted to be normal. This time I know I’m a freak.”  

Jess: Even at Stanford you knew. You knew there was something dark inside of you. Deep down, maybe, but you knew. Maybe that's what got me killed.

Sam denies it, but Jess says: “I was dead from the moment we said hello.”  Jess tells him she’s trying to protect him from himself, he can’t run, the past will always catch up with him and the people closest to him will die.    Sam says he won’t make that mistake again. Jess says things won’t ever change with Sam.   Sam looks down and when he looks back up, Jess is gone.  

After the title screen, we get taken back to one week earlier.  I like the scenes we get that switch between what Sam and Dean are doing.  Sam’s dropped off (in a different car than we saw him hitching away in last week).  He’s arriving at the motel we saw him with Jess in the opener, which is in Garber, Oklahoma.   When he opens the trunk to get his belongings, we switch to Dean, closing baby’s trunk and it’s clear from the way he’s suited and booted (not to mention the weapon he places under his coat), that Dean’s on a hunt alone.  Fyi, Dean’s in Greely, Pennsylvania, which google maps tells me is about a 21 hour ish, drive from where Sam is.

Sam gets a job at a bar and Dean’s killing vampires with one liners: “Eat it, twilight.”   Sam wipes his brow while he’s chopping lemons, Dean wipes his blood covered face after chopping the head off a vampire. Sam’s cleaning the bar, Dean’s cleaning baby.

We get the same effect as the last episode in that the soundtrack song – Lynyrd Skynyrd Simple Man – changes to be heard coming from the radio as Dean is driving.    He looks over to the empty passenger’s seat as he drives.

We next see Dean in a motel room and this scene is one of the ones Hellers always pull out when everyone else says they don’t see Destiel.  Castiel appears suddenly behind Dean.  Dean jumps and thumps the sink.  He’s clearly annoyed and glares, “Don’t do that!”   He turns around and Castiel is standing far too close.  Dean can’t look at Castiel, not because of attraction, but because he’s angry at having to tell Castiel the same thing over and over and it’s awkward that he’s too close: Dean: Cas, we've talked about this. Personal space?   Castiel does move back, but he again comes into Dean’s space during the scene.  I’m at a loss for how anyone sees these scenes as “romantic”.  There’s clearly a power imbalance and it’s uncomfortable to watch Castiel continually disrespecting Dean’s wishes. 

Long scene short, Castiel needs Dean’s help to trap and interrogate the angel that killed him (Raphael), to get God’s location.  

Dean: You're serious about this…  So, what, I'm Thelma and you're Louise and we're just going to hold hands and sail off this cliff together? 

Dean asks why he should do this and receives the answer that no angel will dare harm him.  Dean: “Oh, so I'm your bullet shield.”   Castiel says Dean’s the only one who will help him.  He even adds a please.  Dean agrees, Castiel reaches up to zap Dean’s forehead, which Dean vetoes because “last time you zapped me someplace I didn’t poop for a week...we’re driving.”

Back to Sam – or Keith, since he’s using a different name – Lindsey the bartender flirts with him, asking if he plays darts.  Sam says it depends what they are playing for.  Lindsey says when she wins, Sam can buy her dinner and tell her his life story.   Sam agrees.  He steps up and I think he scores 100, but then gets distracted by the news, which is freak hail, lightning strikes and fire, all affecting a single local town.  The older bartender (not Lindsey), turns the TV off and says:  Damn. Is it me or does it seem like it's the end of the world?

Dean and Castiel have arrived in Maine.  Dean asks why they’re here (not sure why he didn’t do that on the drive).   Castiel wants to speak to a deputy sheriff that saw the archangel and his plan consists of: “We'll tell the officer that he witnessed an angel of the Lord, and the officer will tell us where the angel is.”

Unsurprisingly, Dean does not agree with that plan.  He puts a fake ID in Castiel’s coat, then adjusts his tie to be properly done up (like you would do with a child), and tells him that when humans want something, they lie.  Long story short, this is the scene where Cass holds his ID badge upside down and Dean says, “He's, uh, he's new.”   This scene would be funnier if we’d got an explanation for when Castiel had a picture taken to get a fake ID done, otherwise the scene just doesn’t make sense as it stands.

They interview the deputy who witnessed the incident (which was a riot that turned into an explosion at a gas station).  Castiel “helpfully” interjects on occasion with things like “It's angels and demons, probably… they're skirmishing all over the globe.”

Sheriff (to Castiel): Come again?  (to Dean) What did he say?

I think what’s funny about this is that Castiel is sitting nearest the ear the sheriff can’t hear with (as it got damaged in the explosion), so there’s an element of, “am I really hearing this right?” at play here.

Dean and Castiel speak at the same time and it’s certainly not winsync. Dean: nothing, Castiel: demons.  They repeat this.  Then Dean covers with: Demons, you know, drink, adultery. We all have our demons, Walt.

Once they get past the awkwardness, they learn that one guy survived the explosion, not a scratch on him.

Dean: Let me guess, he just, uh, vanished into thin air? 

Sheriff: Uh, no, Kolchak. He's down at Saint Pete's.

I had to look up Kolchak reference.  This is from wiki: Kolchak: The Night Stalker is an American television series that aired on ABC during the 1974–1975 season. It featured a fictional Chicago wire service reporter—Carl Kolchak, played by Darren McGavin—who investigated mysterious crimes with unlikely causes, particularly those that law enforcement authorities would not follow up. These often involved the supernatural or science fiction, including fantastic creatures.  

Wasn’t this what Kripke originally wanted to go with, a reporter investigating urban legends? Glad he went with the brothers.

Castiel helpfully repeats “Saint Pete's.” to Dean and not for the first time this episode, Dean really wishes his brother were here.

Down at the Saint Pete’s hospital, the survivor – local mechanic Donnie – is catatonic.  Raphael has left his vessel in a terrible state.   Dean: So, is this what I'm looking at if Michael jumps in my bones?

Castiel: No, not at all. Michael is much more powerful. It'll be far worse for you.

Oh great, that’s just…

Sam’s researching revelations (in latin), presumably because of the issues happening in the local town.  He picks up his phone and scrolls past everyone to get to Dean.  His brother isn’t on speed dial?!  He has a lot of names, a couple I think we met.  Interesting that Brady isn’t among them. He ignores my shouting, “Just call your brother, you idiot” and scrolls back up to Bobby’s number.  

He tells Bobby about the omens he’s found. 'And upon his rising there shall be hail and fire mixed with blood.' He says they’ve already got the first two, so blood can’t be far behind.   Bobby asks why Sam’s calling.  Sam questions that Dean didn’t tell him (about Sam not hunting).  

Bobby: He told me.

Sam: Yeah. So, I just thought you might want to find out who's in the area and put a man on this.

Bobby: Okay, let me see if I can think of the best hunter who might be in the immediate vicinity—oh, that'd be you.

Sam says he can’t and that he’s got to go.  Bobby protests, but Sam hangs up the phone. Bobby looks sad.

Dean’s in an abandoned house, looking through his dad’s journal.  Castiel flaps in and Dean asks where he’s been – presumably Castiel just did his usual and disappeared without explanation.  Castiel responds: Jerusalem.

Dean (sarcastically): Oh, how was it?

Castiel (perfectly seriously): Arid.

I miss this Castiel that didn’t understand humour and took everything literally.  

Castiel sets a jug on the table and Dean asks what it is.  Castiel responds that it’s oil, very special and rare.  Dean makes a joke about trapping Raphael with a nice vinaigrette. Then asks more seriously “Isn't that kinda like trapping a hurricane with a butterfly net?”  Castiel says it’s harder.  Dean asks if there’s a chance of surviving this.  Castiel says Dean does (have a chance), implication is, Castiel doesn’t.  Dean: So odds are you're a dead man tomorrow.

Castiel confirms this and Dean seems completely unperturbed (I miss these days), He asks Castiel what his plans are for his last night on earth.

Castiel: I just thought I'd sit here quietly

Dean disagrees and suggests booze and women.  He quickly discovers through Castiel’s awkwardness that the angel hasn’t ever done the deed (why would he, he’s not human?).  Dean: There are two things I know for certain. One, Bert and Ernie are gay. Two, you are not gonna die a virgin. Not on my watch. Let's go. (no hellers, he’s not offering his own services, he’s taking him out to get laid with hookers).

Back at the bar, Sam sees hunters he knows walk in and turns his back, walking away to try not to be recognised.  No luck, the hunter calls after him and blows his alias by calling him Sam.  Lindsey calls him on it and Sam says it’s his middle name, which she laughs at.   Lindsey asks if the guys are his friends.  One (Steve) answers: Hunting buddies. With his dad. Samuel here is quite the hunter himself.

Lindsey: Wow. You killed deer and things?

Tim: Yeah… and things.

Awkward!  Sam gets them drinks and Tim apologises for busting him.  I like seeing hunters from around their dad’s time, but sadly these guys will turn out to be assholes.  They tell him about the demons and that Bobby told them Sam was off limits.  Sam confirms it, but Tim says they really could use all hands.  Sam say’s he’s sorry.  Tim tries again, but Sam’s not having any of it. They leave for the hunt, telling Sam he’s buying them beers when they get back.

Lindsey: So, your parents were drunk when they named you and you shoot Bambi?

Sam says it’s a long story, but Lindsey’s had enough, she’s buying dinner and they are going to talk.  Sam says he can’t, but Lindsey is insistent.  Got to say, I’m not respecting the boundaries with either Castiel or Lindsey in this episode or actually Dean in terms of Cass getting drunk and having sex.

I absolutely have to say kudos to Misha for this next scene though.  He looks absolutely terrified as he looks around the scantily clad women: “This is a den of iniquity. I should not be here!”

Dean: Dude, you full-on rebelled against heaven. Iniquity is one of the perks.

A hooker approaches and asks Castiel’s name.  He doesn’t answer so Dean has to answer for him, which makes Castiel jump.  Dean asks her name in turn, which turns out to be Chastity. Castiel downs half his beer then Chastity tugs Castiel up and leads him away. Dean stops him, giving Castiel money saying: “If she asks for a credit card, no. Now just stick to the basics, okay? Do not order off the menu. Go get her, tiger.”  Castiel doesn’t move.  Dean: “Don’t make me push you.” 

I’m can’t help wondering if this is something Dean also did with a young Sam.

Another hooker walks by and Dean turns to follow her.  He’s having a drink with her at the bar when they hear a scream.  He goes to investigate, Castiel is standing in the hallway, more disheveled than normal.  Chastity is pissed and shouts at Castiel and then also at Dean as she angrily stomps off, still grumbling.

Dean: The hell did you do?

Castiel: I don't know. I just looked her in the eyes and told her it wasn't her fault that her father Gene ran off. It was because he hated his job at the post office.

Dean rolls his eyes: Oh no man… This whole industry runs on absent fathers. It's, it's the natural order.

They have to exit quickly, and Dean laughs when they get back outside.  Castiel asks what’s so funny.  Dean: Oh, nothing. Whoo. It's been a long time since I've laughed that hard. It's been more than a long time. Years.

Back with Sam and it looks like Lindsey has finally worn Sam down as they are eating dinner. Lindsey’s still trying to get Sam’s story and asks again about the guys from earlier.   Sam says they used to be in the same business together. When Lindsey presses for details, Sam tries to change the subject.  

Lindsey: Witness protection, right? You're Mafia?

Sam (laughs): I'm not Mafia.  

He sees Lindsey is switching off and relents a little as he tells her “I used to be in business with my brother. Truth is I was pretty good at the job. But...I made some mistakes, I did some stuff I'm not so proud of, and people got hurt. A lot of people.”

Me having just re-watched the entirety of the last few seasons.  I’m going to need to see a list of the people that got hurt because of what Sam did.  Stat!

Lindsey asks what Sam was hooked on, because she knows the look.  Sam looks uncomfortable, I’m thinking drinking demon blood isn’t something he can easily fess up to at addiction anonymous groups.   Lindsey pulls out a medallion and says she’s three years sober. Sam: “You work in a bar.”

Lindsey: So do you. Look, Keith. I don't know you and I'm the last person to be giving advice, but I do know that no one has ever done anything so bad that they can't be forgiven. That they can't change.

Castiel and Dean are at the hospital.  Castiel is pouring the oil in a circle around Raphael’s vessel explaining that no angel can touch or pass through the flames (or they die).  Dean asks how they’ll get Raphael there.  Castiel says there’s something like a phone line between a vessel and his angel.  You just have to know how to dial. He leans down to Donnie’s ear and chants in Enochian.

Dean: Just out of curiosity, what is the average customer wait time to speak to an archangel?

Castiel: Be ready. He lights a match and drops it on the oil, which bursts into a ring of flame.

Much later (that it’s turned from day to night.  Dean and Castiel are driving back to the abandoned house. Dean: “Well that's a day I'll never get back.”  

He enters the house and Castiel grabs him and tells him to wait.  There’s bright white light and Raphael is there in Donnie’s body, impressive lightning display of his wings.  Dean isn’t so impressed, he says all Raphael’s done is shot the lights in the room.   Raphael responds: And the Eastern Seaboard.   He threatens to take Dean to Michael. Dean says he’s going nowhere with Raphael.  Raphael reminds him of the stomach cancer Zachariah gave him. Dean said it was hilarious.  

Raphael: Well, he doesn't have anything close to my imagination.

Raphael’s arrogance is his undoing though as Dean says they knew he was coming.  Castiel lights a zippo and and drops it.  Raphael is now standing within a circle of fire and glares at Dean.  Raphael glares at Dean who responds.  “Don't look at me, it was his idea!”

Castiel asks Raphael where God is, Raphael says he’s dead.

Back at the bar and Sam’s cleaning up.  Tim’s back and asks Sam if he’s got something to tell him.  Sam says no and asks where the other two are.  Tim answers that Steve’s dead and that the demons told them things about Sam.  Sam refuses to talk but Reggie arrives and he’s holding Lindsey hostage with a knife.

Raphael and Castiel continue to have daddy abandonment issues.  Though it’s nice as part of this discussion that Dean puts the blame for the apocalypse where it belongs:

Raphael: Careful. That's my Father you're talking about, boy.

Dean: Yeah, who would be so proud to know his sons started the frigging apocalypse.

Back at the bar, Sam falsely confesses to starting the apocalypse.  

Me @Sam, you’re doing great sweetie.   If only the others involved would take some responsibility for their own actions. Thankfully, before I can really get started on this topic, we quickly go back to Dean, Castiel asks Raphael that if God’s dead, then who brought him back. Raphael suggests Lucifer because he needs all the rebellious angels he can find.  Castiel realises Raphael truly believes God is dead so doesn’t know anything. He goes to leave.  Raphael warns him about just leaving him here, that he will find him.  

Castiel: Maybe one day. But today, you're my little bitch.

Dean: What he said.

Best part of the episode is back with Sam as this is a great scene.  Tim has a tube of demon blood and wants Sam to take it so he can go with them and kill the demons.  Sam refuses but Tim says they’ll kill Lindsey if he doesn’t.  Reggie has handcuffed Lindsey to the bar and advances on Sam. Reggie charges Sam who impressively tosses him onto a pool table and starts punching him, but Tim takes Sam down and together with Reggie, force the demon blood into Sam’s mouth.  They force his mouth closed until he swallows.  They retreat and Sam gets up, he spits the blood in Tim’s eye who can’t see to fight back now.  Sam gets the upper hand and the kick he gives Reggie is worth watching the episode for.  Sam hauls Tim up and looks as though he’s going to kill him with Reggie’s knife, but sees Lindsey watching and she’s terrified.  He stops and tells them both to leave.   They say they’ll be back, but I’m pretty sure we never see or hear from them again.  

Dean gives Castiel a pep talk about missing fathers.  “I mean there were times when I was looking for my dad when all logic said that he was dead, but I knew in my heart he was still alive. Who cares what some ninja turtle says, Cas, what do you believe?”  Castiel believes God is alive and Dean says then go find him. Castiel asks how Dean is.  Dean says he’s good.

Castiel: Even without your brother?

Dean: Especially without my brother. I mean, I spent so much time worrying about the son of a bitch. I mean, I've had more fun with you in the past twenty-four hours than I've had with Sam in years, and you're not that much fun. It's funny, you know, I've been so chained to my family, but now that I'm alone, hell, I'm happy.

Thankfully, when Dean glances to the passenger seat and it’s empty, we see from his face that all of that was just Dean’s usual bullshit where he puts his game face on to try to convince others of what he’s saying.  

Back at the motel room, Sam is sleeping (in a t-shirt this time – wth Sam?  Pick a sleeping attire and stick to it!).  He hears Jess call his name and he wakes abruptly. Jess is back and Sam kisses her. He tells her he loves her then sits up and faces away from her on the bed.  He tells her he misses her but she’s wrong about him.  “People can change. There is reason for hope.”  Jess tells him there isn’t and then morphs into Lucifer (Sam doesn’t see this).  Sam asks how Jess can be so sure

Lucifer: Because you freed me.

Sam gets up and moves away.  

Lucifer: You are a hard one to find, Sam. Harder than most humans. I don't suppose you'd tell me where you are?

That would be a nope as Sam asks what Lucifer wants.  Lucifer wants to give Sam a gift for freeing him.  Sam wants nothing from him.  Lucifer tells Sam he’s sorry, but that Nick is just a Plan B. He can barely contain him. Sam asks what Lucifer is talking about.   Lucifer: Why do you think you were in that chapel? You're the one, Sam. You're my vessel. My true vessel.

Sam looks horrified: “No. That'll never happen.”

Lucifer: I'm sorry, but it will. I will find you. And when I do, you will let me in. I'm sure of it.

Sam realises Lucifer needs his consent, which Lucifer confirms.  Sam: I will kill myself before letting you in. 

Lucifer:  I'll just bring you back.  He sighs and continues: Sam. My heart breaks for you. The weight on your shoulders, what you've done, what you still have to do. It is more than anyone could bear. If there was some other way...but there isn't. I will never lie to you. I will never trick you. But you will say yes to me.

Sam says he’s wrong, but Lucifer says he knows Sam better than Sam knows himself.  Sam asks why him.  

Good question, Sam, let’s listen carefully to the answer:

Lucifer: Because it had to be you, Sam. It always had to be you.

Hold up there sparky, “it always had to be you” Sam, until the writers wanted to bring Lucifer back and decided that anyone can be Lucifer’s vessel, including another angel, so your entire storyline this season is now a complete waste of time, which can be added on to last season being a waste of time since all that was required to free Lucifer is a witch and a spell.  Having said that, scenes like this one over the years are why they keep bringing him back. It’s a very good scene between Jared and Mark.

Poor Sammy, the hits just keep coming for him.  Up next, the End, or the one where Jensen works his ass off, doing double time and Jared comes in and steals the episode. (paraphrasing Jensen’s words).

[oselatra]

The Foilies 2017

Recognizing the year’s worst in government transparency. A thick fog is rolling in over Sunshine Week (March 12-18), the annual event when government transparency advocates raise awareness about the importance of access to public records. We are entering an age when officials at the highest levels seek to discredit critical reporting with “alternative facts,” “fake news” slurs, and selective access to press conferences—while making their own claims without providing much in the way to substantiate them. But no matter how much the pundits claim we’re entering a “post-truth” era, it is crucial we defend the idea of proof. Proof is in the bureaucratic paper trails. Proof is in the accounting ledgers, the legal memos, the audits, and the police reports. Proof is in the data. When it comes to government actions, that proof is often obtained by leveraging laws like the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and state-level public records laws—except when government officials seek to ignore the rules to suppress evidence. At the same time, this is also par for the course. As award-winning investigative reporter Shane Bauer recently posted on Twitter: For the third year, the Electronic Frontier Foundation presents “The Foilies,” our anti-awards identifying the times when access to information has been stymied or when government agencies have responded in the most absurd ways to records requests. Think of it as the Golden Raspberries but for government transparency, where the bad actors are actually going off script to deny the public the right to understand what business is being conducted on their behalf. To compile these awards, EFF solicited nominations from around the country and scoured through news stories and the #FOIAFriday Twitter threads to find the worst, the silliest, and the most ridiculous responses to request for public information.

The Make America Opaque Again Award

President Donald Trump

A commitment to public transparency should start at the top. But from the beginning of his campaign, President Trump has instead committed to opacity by refusing to release his tax returns, citing concerns about an ongoing IRS audit. Now that he's been elected, Trump's critics, ethics experts, and even some allies have called on him to release his tax returns and prove that he has eliminated potential conflicts of interest and sufficiently distanced himself from the businesses in his name that stand to make more money now that he's in office. But the Trump administration has not changed its stance. No matter where you stand on the political spectrum, the American public should be outraged that we now have the first sitting president since the 1970s to avoid such a baseline transparency tradition.

The Hypocrisy Award

Former Indiana Governor—and current Vice President—Mike Pence

Vice President Mike Pence cared a lot about transparency and accountability in 2016, especially when it came to email. A campaign appearance couldn't go by without Pence or his running mate criticizing Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton for using a private email server during her tenure as Secretary of State. In fact, the Foilies honored Clinton last year for her homebrewed email approach. But Pence seemed much less bothered by those transparency and accountability concerns when he used a private AOL email address to conduct official business as Indiana's governor. The Indiana Star reported in February that Pence used the account to communicate "with top advisors on topics ranging from security gates at the governor’s residence to the state’s response to terror attacks across the globe." That means that critical homeland security information was kept in an account likely less secure than government accounts (his account was reportedly hacked too), and Pence's communications were shielded from government records requirements.

The Frogmarch Award

Town of White Castle, Louisiana

The only thing that could’ve made reporter Chris Nakamoto’s public records request in the small town of White Castle, Louisiana a more absurd misadventure is if he’d brought Harold and Kumar along with him. As Chief Investigator for WBRZ in Baton Rouge, Nakamoto filed records requests regarding the White Castle mayor’s salary. But when he turned up with a camera crew at city hall in March 2016 to demand missing documents, he was escorted out in handcuffs, locked in a holding cell for an hour, and charged with a misdemeanor for “remaining after being forbidden.” What’s worse is that Nakamoto was summoned to appear before the “Mayor’s Court,” a judicial proceeding conducted by the very same mayor Nakamoto was investigating. Nakamoto lawyered up and the charges were dropped two months later. “If anything, my arrest showed that if they’ll do that to me, and I have the medium to broadcast and let people know what’s happening to me, think about how they’re treating any citizen in that town,” Nakamoto says. 

The Arts and Crafts Award

Public Health Agency of Canada

Journalists are used to receiving documents covered with cross-outs and huge black boxes. But in May 2016, Associated Press reporters encountered a unique form of redaction from Public Health Agency of Canada when seeking records related to the Ebola outbreak. As journalist Raphael Satter wrote in a letter complaining to the agency: “It appears that PHAC staff botched their attempt to redact the documents, using bits of tape and loose pieces of paper to cover information which they tried to withhold.  By the time it came into my hands much of the tape had worn off and the taped pieces had been torn. Even the wryest transparency advocates were amused when Satter wrote about the redaction art project on Twitter, but the incident did have more serious implications. At least three Sierra Leonean medical patients had their personal information exposed. Lifting up the tape also revealed how the agency redacted information that the reporters believed should’ve been public, such as email signatures.  The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada said it would investigate, but Satter says he hasn’t heard anything back for 10 months. 

The Whoa There, Cowboy Award

Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke

Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke rose to prominence in 2016 as one of then-candidate Donald Trump’s top surrogates, prone to making inflammatory remarks about the Black Lives Matter movement, such as calling them a hate group and linking them to ISIS. But the press has also been a regular target. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Political Watchdog Columnist Daniel Bice filed a series of records requests with the sheriff’s office, demanding everything from calendars, to details about an NRA-funded trip to Israel, to records related to a series of jail deaths. So far, Clarke has been extremely slow to release this information, while being extremely quick to smear the reporter on the sheriff’s official Facebook page. Clarke frequently refers to the publication as the “Urinal Sentinel” and has diagnosed Bice with “Sheriff Clarke Derangement Syndrome.” “I deal with open records requests with local governments and police departments, I do it at the city, county, and state level,” Bice says. “He’s by far the worst for responding to public records.” In May 2016 Clarke published a short essay on Facebook titled, “When Journalism Becomes an Obsession.” Clarke claimed that after he rejected Bice’s request for an interview, Bice retaliated with a series of public records requests, ignoring the fact that these requests are both routine and are often reporter’s only recourse when an official refuses to answer questions. “This lazy man’s way of putting together newspaper columns uses tax-paid, government employees as pseudo-interns to help him gather information to write stories,” Clarke wrote. Memo to Clarke: requesting and reviewing public records is tedious and time-consuming, and certainly not the way to score an easy scoop. If anything, ranting on Facebook, then issuing one-sentence news releases about those Facebook posts, are the lazy man’s way of being accountable to your constituents.

The Longhand Award

Portland Commissioner Amanda Fritz

A local citizen in Portland, Ore. filed a records request to find out everyone that City Commissioner Amanda Fritz had blocked or muted from her Twitter account. This should’ve been easy. However, Fritz decided to go the long way, scribbling down each and every handle on a sheet of paper. She then rescanned that list in, and sent it back to the requester. The records did show that Fritz had decided to hush accounts that were trying to affect public policy, such as @DoBetterPDX, which focuses on local efforts to help homeless people, and anonymous self-described urban activist @jegjehPDX. Here’s a tip for officials who receive similar requests: all you need to do is go to your “Settings and Privacy” page, select the “Muted accounts” or “Blocked accounts” tab, and then click “export your list.”

The Wrong Address Award

U.S. Department of Justice

America Rising PAC, a conservative opposition research committee, has been filing FOIA requests on a number of issues, usually targeting Democrats. Following Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s passing, the PAC sent a FOIA to the Attorney General seeking emails referencing the death. But America Rising never received a response acknowledging the DOJ received the request. That’s because the DOJ sent it to a random federal inmate serving time on child pornography charges. The offender, however, was nice enough to forward the message to the PAC with a note railing against the “malicious incompetence” of the Obama administration.

The Redaction of Interest Award

General Services Administration

One of the threads that reporters have tried to unravel through the Trump campaign is how the prolific businessman would separate himself from his financial interests, especially regarding his 30-year contract with the federal government to build a Trump International Hotel at the location of the federally owned Old Post Office in D.C., a paper airplane’s flight from the White House. BuzzFeed filed a FOIA request with the General Services Administration for a copy of the contract. What they received was a highly redacted document that raised more questions than it answered, including what role Trump’s family plays in the project. “The American taxpayer would have no clue who was getting the lease to the building,” says reporter Aram Roston, who was investigating how Trump failed to uphold promises made when he put in a proposal for the project. “You wouldn’t know who owned this project.” After pushing back, BuzzFeed was able to get certain sections unredacted, including evidence that Trump’s three children—Ivanka, Donald Jr. and Eric—all received a 7.425% stake through their LLCs, seemingly without injecting any money of their own.

The Fake News Award

Santa Maria Police Department

In 2015, the Santa Maria Police Department in California joined many other agencies in using the online service Nixle to distribute public information in lieu of press releases. The agency told citizens to sign up for “trustworthy information.” Less than a year later, police broke that trust. The Santa Maria Police posted to its Nixle account a report that two individuals had been arrested and deported, which was promptly picked up the local press. Months later, court documents revealed that it had all been a lie to ostensibly help the individuals—who had been targeted for murder by a rival gang—escape the city. Police were fiercely unapologetic. The agency has yet to remove the offending alert from Nixle or offer any kind of addendum, a direct violation of Nixle’s terms of service, which prohibits the transmission of “fraudulent, deceptive, or misleading communications” through the service.

The Stupid Meter Award

Elster Solutions, Landis+Gyr, Ericsson

In May 2016 several smart meter companies sued transparency website MuckRock and one of its users, Phil Mocek, in a failed attempt to permanently remove documents from the website that they claimed contained trade secrets. Some of the companies initially obtained a court order requiring MuckRock to take down public records posted to the site that the City of Seattle had already released to the requester. But in their rush to censor MuckRock and its user, the companies overlooked one small detail: the First Amendment. The Constitution plainly protected MuckRock’s ability to publish public records one of its users lawfully obtained from the City of Seattle, regardless of whether they contained trade secrets. A judge quickly agreed, ruling that the initial order was unconstitutional and allowing the documents to be reposted on MuckRock. The case and several others filed against MuckRock and its user later settled or were dismissed outright. The documents continue to be hosted on MuckRock for all to see. But, uh, great job guys!

The Least Productive Beta Testing Award

Federal Bureau of Investigation

The FBI spent most of 2016 doing what might be charitably described as beta testing a proprietary online FOIA portal that went live in March. But beta testing is probably a misnomer because it implies that the site actually improved after its initial rollout. The FBI’s year of “beta testing” included initially proposing a requirement that requesters submit a copy of their photo ID before submitting a request via the portal and also imposed “operating hours” and limited the number of requests an individual could file per day. Yet even after the FBI walked back from those proposals, the site appears designed to frustrate the public’s ability to make the premiere federal law enforcement agency more transparent. The portal limits the types of requests that can be filed digitally to people seeking information about themselves or others. Requesters cannot use the site to request information about FBI operations or activities, otherwise known as the bread and butter of FOIA requests. Oh, and the portal’s webform is capped at 3,000 characters, so brevity is very much appreciated! Worse, now that the portal is online, the FBI has stopped accepting FOIA requests via email, meaning fax and snail mail are now supposed to be the primary (and frustratingly slow) means of sending requests to the FBI. It almost seems like the FBI is affirmatively trying to make it hard to submit FOIA requests.

The Undermining Openness Award

U.S. Department of Justice

Documents released in 2016 in response to a FOIA lawsuit by the Freedom of the Press Foundation show that the U.S. Department of Justice secretly lobbied Congress in 2014 to kill a FOIA reform bill that had unanimously passed the U.S. House of Representatives 410-0. But the secret axing of an overwhelmingly popular transparency bill wasn’t even the most odious aspect of DOJ’s behavior. In talking points disclosed via the lawsuit, DOJ strongly opposed codifying a “presumption of openness,” a provision that would assume by default that every government record should be disclosed to the public unless an agency could show that its release could result in foreseeable harm. DOJ’s argument: “The proposed amendment is unacceptably damaging to the proper administration of FOIA and of the government as a whole,” which is bureaucratese for something like “What unhinged transparency nut came up with this crazy presumption of openness idea anyway?” That would be Obama, whose FOIA guidance on his first day in office back in 2009 was the blueprint for the presumption of openness language included in the bill. Perhaps DOJ thought it had to save Obama from himself? DOJ’s fearmongering won out and the bill died. Two years later, Congress eventually passed a much weaker FOIA reform bill, but it did include the presumption of openness DOJ had previously fought against. We’re still waiting for the “government as a whole” to collapse.

The Outrageous Fee Award

Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services

When public agencies get requests for digital data, officials can usually simply submit a query straight to the relevant database. But not in Missouri apparently, where officials must use handcrafted, shade-grown database queries by public records artisans. At least, that’s the only explanation we can come up with for why the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services estimated that it would take roughly 35,000 hours and $1.5 million to respond to an exceedingly simple request for state birth and death data. Nonprofit Reclaim the Records, whose name pretty eloquently sums up its mission, believed that a simple database query combined with copy and paste was all that was needed to fulfill its request. Missouri officials begged to differ, estimating that it would take them the equivalent of a person working around the clock for more than four years to compile the list by hand. Although the fee estimate is not the highest the Foilies has ever seen—that honor goes to the Pentagon for its $660 million estimate in response to a MuckRock user’s FOIA request last year—Missouri’s estimate was outrageous. Stranger still, the agency later revised their estimated costs down to $5,000 without any real explanation. Reclaim the Records tried negotiating further with officials, but to no avail, as officials ultimately said they could not fulfill the request. Reclaim the Records has since filed a lawsuit for the data.

The Dehumanization Award

New Orleans City Marshall

Public officials often dehumanize the news media to score cheap points, but can the same ploy work when fighting public records requests? That’s the issue in a very strange case between the IND, a New Orleans media outlet, and a city marshal. After the marshal lost his bid to keep records secret in the trial court, he appealed on the grounds that IND had no right to bring the lawsuit in the first place. The marshal, who faced fines, community service, and house arrest for failing to turn over records, argues that Louisiana’s public records law requires that a living, breathing human make a request, not a corporate entity such as IND. Make no mistake: there is no dispute that an actual human filed the request, which sought records relating to a bizarre news conference in which the marshal allegedly used his public office to make baseless allegations against a political opponent, Instead, the dispute centers on a legal formalism of whether IND can sue on its own behalf, rather than suing under the name of the reporter. The marshal’s seemingly ridiculous argument does have some basis in the text of the statute, which defines a requester as a person who is at least 18 years old. That said, it’s an incredibly cynical argument, putting the letter well over the spirit of the law in what appears to be a well-documented effort by the marshal to violate the law and block public access. We hope the learned Louisiana appellate judges see through this blatant attempt to short-circuit the public records law.

The Lethal Redaction Award

States of Texas and Arizona

BuzzFeed Reporters Chris McDaniel and Tasneem Nashrulla have been on a quest to find out where states like Texas and Arizona are obtaining drugs used in lethal injection, as some pharmaceutical suppliers have decided not to participate in the capital punishment machine. But these states are fighting to keep the names of their new suppliers secret, refusing to release anything identifying the companies in response to BuzzFeed’s FOIA requests. At the crux of the investigation is whether the states attempted to obtain the drugs illegally from India. At least one shipment is currently being detained by the FDA. The reason for transparency is obvious if one looks only at one previously botched purchase the reporters uncovered: Texas had tried to source pentobarbital from an Indian company called Provizer Pharma, run by five 20-year-olds. Indian authorities raided their offices for allegedly selling psychotropic drugs and opioids before the order could be fulfilled.

The Poor Note-taker Award

Secretary of the Massachusetts Commonwealth

Updates to Massachusetts’ public records laws were set to take effect in January 2016, with Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin tasked with promulgating new regulations to clear up the vague language of the law. But Galvin didn’t exactly take his duty seriously. Instead he crafted a regulation allowing his office to dodge requirements that public records appeals be handled in a timely fashion. But no regulation could take affect without public hearing. So he went through the motions and dispatched an underling to sit at a table and wait out the public comment – but didn’t keep any kind of record of what was said. A close-up captured by a Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism reporter showed a pen lying on a blank pad of paper. Asked by a reporter about the lack of notes, the underling said, “I was just here to conduct this hearing. That’s all I can say.” The Foilies were compiled by EFF Investigative Researcher Dave Maass, Frank Stanton Legal Fellow Aaron Mackey, and Policy Analyst Kate Tummarello. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is a San Francisco-based nonprofit that defends civil liberties at the crossroads of technology and the law. Read more about EFF and how to support our work at eff.org. The Foilies 2017