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kemetic-dreams · 4 months ago

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Jamil Abdullah al-Amin (born Hubert Gerold Brown; October 4, 1943), is an American human rights activist, Muslim cleric, African separatist, and convicted murderer who was the fifth chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the 1960s. Best known as H. Rap Brown, he served as the Black Panther Party's minister of justice during a short-lived (six months) alliance between SNCC and the Black Panther Party.

He is perhaps known for his proclamations during that period, such as that "violence is as American as cherry pie", and that "If America don't come around, we're gonna burn it down." He is also known for his autobiography, Die Nigger Die! He is currently serving a life sentence for murder following the shooting of two Fulton County, Georgia, sheriff's deputies in 2000.

Brown's activism in the civil rights movement included involvement with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Brown was introduced into SNCC by his older brother Ed. He first visited Cambridge, Maryland with Cleveland Sellers in the summer of 1963, during the period of Gloria Richardson's leadership in the local movement. He witnessed the first riot between whites and blacks in the city over civil rights issues, and was impressed by the local civil rights movement's willingness to use armed self-defense against racial attacks.

Brown later organized for SNCC during the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer, while transferring to Howard University for his studies. Representing Howard's SNCC chapter, Brown attended a contentious civil rights meeting at the White House with President Lyndon B. Johnson during the Selma crisis of 1965 as Alabama activists attempted to march for voting rights.

Major federal civil rights legislation was passed in 1964 and 1965, including the Voting Rights Act, to establish federal oversight and enforcement of rights. In 1966, Brown organized in Greene County, Alabama to achieve African voter registration and implementation of the recently passed Voting Rights Act.

Elected SNCC chairman in 1967, Brown continued Stokely Carmichael's fiery support for "Black Power" and urban rebellions in the Northern ghettos.

During the summer of 1967, Brown toured the nation, calling for violent resistance to the government, which he called "The Fourth Reich". "Negroes should organize themselves", he told a rally in Washington, D.C., and "carry on guerilla warfare in all the cities." They should, "make the Viet Cong look like Sunday school teachers." He declared, "I say to America, Fuck it! Freedom or death!"

In this period, Cambridge, Maryland had an active civil rights movement, led by Gloria Richardson. In July 1967 Brown spoke in the city, saying "It's time for Cambridge to explode, baby. Black folks built America, and if America don't come around, we're going to burn America down." Gunfire reportedly broke out later, and both Brown and a police officer were wounded. A fire started that night and by the next day, 17 buildings were destroyed by an expanding fire "in a two-block area of Pine Street, the center of African-American commerce, culture and community." Brown was charged with inciting a riot, due to his speech.

Brown was also charged with carrying a gun across state lines. A secret 1967 FBI memo had called for "neutralizing" Brown. He became a target of the agency's COINTELPRO program, which was intended to disrupt and disqualify civil rights leaders. The federal charges against him were never proven.

He was defended in the gun violation case by civil rights advocates Murphy Bell of Baton Rouge, the self-described "radical lawyer" William Kunstler, and Howard Moore Jr., general counsel for SNCC. Feminist attorney Flo Kennedy also assisted Brown and led his defense committee, winning support for him from some chapters of the National Organization for Women.

The Cambridge fire was among incidents investigated by the 1967 Kerner Commission. But their investigative documents were not published with their 1968 report. Historian Dr. Peter Levy studied these papers in researching his book Civil War on Race Street: The Civil Rights Movement in Cambridge, Maryland (2003). He argues there was no riot in Cambridge. Brown was documented as completing his speech in Cambridge at 10 pm July 24, then walking a woman home. He was shot by a deputy sheriff allegedly without provocation. Brown was hastily treated for his injuries and secretly taken by supporters out of Cambridge.

Later that night a small fire broke out, but the police chief and fire company did not respond for two hours. In discussing his book, Levy has said that the fire's spread and ultimate destructive cost appeared to be due not to a riot, but to the deliberate inaction of the Cambridge police and fire departments, which had hostile relations with the African community. In a later book, Levy notes that Brice Kinnamon, head of the Cambridge police department, said that the city had no racial problems, and that Brown was the "sole" cause of the disorder, and it was "a well-planned Communist attempt to overthrow the government."

While being held for trial, Brown continued his high-profile activism. He accepted a request from the Student Afro-American Society of Columbia University to help represent and co-organize the April 1968 Columbia protests against university expansion into Harlem park land in order to build a gymnasium.

He also contributed writing from jail to the radical magazine Black Mask, which was edited and published by the New York activist group Up Against the Wall Motherfucker. In his 1968 article titled "H. Rap Brown From Prison: Lasima Tushinde Mbilashika", Brown writes of going on a hunger strike and his willingness to give up his life in order to achieve change.

Brown's trial was originally to take place in Cambridge, but there was a change of venue and the trial was moved to Bel Air, Maryland, to start in March 1970. On March 9, 1970, two SNCC officials, Ralph Featherstone and William ("Che") Payne, died on U.S. Route 1 south of Bel Air, when a bomb on the front floorboard of their car exploded, killing both occupants. The bomb's origin is disputed: some say the bomb was planted in an assassination attempt, and others say Payne was carrying it to the courthouse where Brown was to be tried. The next night, the Cambridge courthouse was bombed

Brown disappeared for 18 months. He was posted on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Ten Most Wanted List. He was arrested after a reported shootout with officers in New York City following an alleged attempted robbery of a bar there. He was convicted of robbery and served five years (1971–76) in Attica Prison in western New York state. While in prison, Brown converted to Islam. He formally changed his name from Hubert Gerold Brown to Jamil Abdullah al-Amin.

After his release, he moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where he opened a grocery store. He became an imam, a Muslim spiritual leader, in the National Ummah, one of the nation's largest African Muslim groups. He also was a community activist in Atlanta's West End neighborhood. He preached against drugs and gambling. It has since been suggested that al-Amin changed his life again when he became affiliated with the "Dar ul-Islam Movement"

On May 31, 1999, al-Amin was pulled over while driving in Marietta, Georgia by police officer Johnny Mack for a suspected stolen vehicle. During a search, al-Amin was found to have in his pocket a police badge. He also had a bill of sale in his pocket, explaining his possession of the stolen car, and he claimed that he had been issued an honorary police badge by Mayor John Jackson, a statement which Jackson verified. Despite this, al-Amin was charged with speeding, auto theft and impersonating a police officer.

On March 16, 2000, in Fulton County, Georgia, Sheriff's deputies Ricky Kinchen and Aldranon English went to al-Amin's home to execute an arrest warrant for failing to appear in court over the charges. After determining that the home was unoccupied, the deputies drove away and were shortly passed by a black Mercedes headed for the house. Kinchen (the more senior deputy) noted the suspect vehicle, turned the patrol car around, and drove up to the Mercedes, stopping nose to nose. English approached the Mercedes and told the single occupant to show his hands. The occupant opened fire with a .223 rifle. English ran between the two cars while returning fire from his handgun, and was hit four times. Kinchen was shot with the rifle and a 9 mm handgun.

The next day, Kinchen died of his wounds at Grady Memorial Hospital. English survived his wounds. He identified al-Amin as the shooter from six photos he was shown while recovering in the hospital[citation needed] Another source said English identified him shortly before going into surgery for his wounds.

After the shootout, al-Amin fled Atlanta, going to White Hall, Alabama. He was tracked down by U.S. Marshals who started with a blood trail at the shooting site, and arrested by law enforcement officers after a four-day manhunt. Al-Amin was wearing body armor at the time of his arrest. He showed no wounds. Officers found a 9 mm handgun near his arrest site. Firearms identification testing showed that this was used to shoot Kinchen and English, but al-Amin's fingerprints were not found on the weapon. Later, al-Amin's black Mercedes was found with bullet holes in it.

His lawyers argued he was innocent of the shooting. Defense attorneys noted that al-Amin's fingerprints were not found on the murder weapon, and he was not wounded in the shooting, as one of the deputies said the shooter was. A trail of blood found at the scene was tested and did not belong to al-Amin or either of the deputies. A test by the state concluded that it was animal blood, but these results have been disputed because there was no clear chain of custody to verify the sample and testing process. Deputy English had said that the killer's eyes were gray, but al-Amin's are brown.

At al-Amin's trial, prosecutors noted that he had never provided an alibi for his whereabouts at the time of the shootout, nor any explanation for fleeing the state afterward. He also did not explain why the weapons used in the shootout were found near him during his arrest.

On March 9, 2002, nearly two years after the shootings, al-Amin was convicted of 13 criminal charges, including Kinchen's murder and aggravated assault in shooting English. Four days later, he was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole (LWOP).He was sent to Georgia State Prison, the state's maximum-security facility near Reidsville, Georgia.

Otis Jackson, a man incarcerated for unrelated charges, claimed that he committed the Fulton County shootings, and confessed this two years before al-Amin was convicted of the same crime. The court did not consider Jackson's statement as evidence. Jackson's statements corroborated details from 911 calls following the shooting, including a bleeding man seen limping from the scene: Jackson said he knocked on doors to solicit a ride while suffering from wounds sustained in the firefight with deputies Kinchen and English. Jackson recanted his statement two days after making it, but later confessed again in a sworn affidavit, stating that he had only recanted after prison guards threatened him for being a "cop killer". Prosecutors refuted Jackson's testimony, claiming he couldn't have shot the deputies as he was wearing an ankle tag for house confinement that would have showed his location. Al-Amin's lawyers allege that the tag was faulty.

Al-Amin appealed his conviction on the basis of a racial conspiracy against him, despite both Fulton County deputies being black. In May 2004, the Supreme Court of Georgia unanimously ruled to uphold al-Amin's conviction.

In August 2007, al-Amin was transferred to federal custody, as Georgia officials decided he was too high-profile for the Georgia prison system to handle. He was first held in a holdover facility in the USP Atlanta; two weeks later he was moved to a federal transfer facility in Oklahoma, pending assignment to a federal penitentiary.

On October 21, 2007, al-Amin was transferred to ADX Florence, a supermax prison in Florence, Colorado. He has been under an unofficial gag order, prevented from having any interviews with writers, journalists or biographers.

On July 18, 2014, having been diagnosed with multiple myeloma, al-Amin was transferred to Butner Federal Medical Center in North Carolina. As of March 2018, he is incarcerated at the United States Penitentiary, Tucson.

Al-Amin sought retrial through the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Investigative journalist, Hamzah Raza, has written more about Otis Jackson's confession to the deputy shootings in 2000, and said that this evidence should have been considered by the court. It had the potential of exonerating al-Amin. However, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected his appeal on July 31, 2019.

In April 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from al-Amin. His family and supporters continue to petition for a new trial.

#african #afrakan #kemetic dreams #africans #brownskin #brown skin #afrakans #african culture #afrakan spirituality #h rap brown #Jamil Abdullah al-Amin #Black Panther Party #black panthers #kwame ture #fred hampton #civil rights #civil rights movement #malcolm x

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espionn · 8 months ago

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RainWing tribe sheet!

honestly i'm not 100% sure i like this sheet visually. its ok but not my best. i do like my more in-depth headcanon stuff for rainwings, though, so i hope people like it anyway!

fyi the next few tribes are giving me a bit of trouble so i might post these a little slower, but i still plan to get out all 10 tribes!! they just might be more than a few days apart.

Physical Appearance + Traits:

-RainWings live in the dense and tropical rainforest. Similarly to chameleons, they have prehensile tails and claws well-adapted to cling to branches; and, most strikingly, their coloration can be changed at will, to any color under the sun. This can be used for perfect and uncanny camouflage, for intimidation, for beauty and expression, and to communicate emotions. (Below is a chart of emotions corresponding with their colors; note, though, that they can be combined with each other, and patterned, to mean slightly different and more complex things.)

-Like birds of paradise, they are fond of bright and bold colors, but when they want they can also make themselves virtually undetectable. What exactly this skill is used for depends on the period of history; showing off, playing hide-and-seek, hunting, silent warfare.

-RainWings also have fangs that can be used to expel “venom” - called such for lack of a better word. It does not need to be injected to be deadly, unlike most venom, and rather seems to have a burning, warping and generally destructive effect on cells upon contact. Whether it is deadly depends on the level and location of exposure.

-Neck, chest and sometimes tail frills are used for expression and dance; the floatiness of these frills, and their color-changing abilities, make them hypnotizing. Neck ruffs in particular are commonly used for communication: perked up to show curiosity, drooping to show discomfort or sadness, and flared to show anger and to intimidate.

-Their fifth claw - the dew claw - is larger and more opposable than those of other tribes, more like a human thumb. This, and their extra (and also more dextrous) wing claw, lets them climb and cling to trees with swiftness and ease. It also makes it easier to use tools, and crack open fruits and nuts, while keeping themselves steady and balanced.

Life Cycle:

-RainWings are typically laid in clutches of 4-9 eggs. They take the longest of any tribe to develop within the egg; they incubate for nearly half a year, and still are hatched with pale and dull colors. As they grow, though, they get better control over their color-changing abilities through play under the watch of the rest of the tribe.

-RainWings do not form partnerships at all, and rarely mate with the same dragon twice. They also do not raise dragonets on their own; all dragonets are raised communally by the wider tribe. RainWings make friends and have positive relationships, but the idea of parental or romantic relationships are odd to the vast majority of them. Romantic partnerships are not completely unheard of, but they’re seen as unusual.

-Dragonets are naturally playful and learn to harness their abilities through games and competitions. This, though other tribes scoff at it, is quite effective, and other than a lack of structure and discipline in certain eras depending on the queen, RainWings are not less powerful than any other tribes, through nature or nurture.

-The oldest they usually live is to 90 -100. It's uncommon to go much longer than that, which makes RainWings one of the shorter-lived tribes. Old RainWings tend to live together in their own communities within the tribe, and likewise, younger RainWings prefer each other's company. These boundaries aren't strict, but social norms expect dragons to generally stick to their age groups.

Society and Culture:

-RainWings’ societal structure has varied through time. Their ranged venom and near-invisibility makes them excellent assassins and spies, and several times in history they have been organized or hired in this way. Their nature, though, tends to be easygoing and nonviolent on the whole, and their culture tends to drift in that direction in the absence of external pressure.

-RainWings are social dragons, and while they do not have a particularly ranked and organized society structure, like SeaWings, their social and personal dynamics are complex and important. Popular and well-liked RainWings are more successful in their tribe than those who are disliked and outcast. Their emotions are very openly communicated, and the idea of hiding thoughts and feelings is strange to them. That isn’t to say they lack subtlety and tact, but they rarely try to suppress their natural scale fluctuations.

-A lot of RainWing culture rests on colors. They use colors to communicate and associate objects with different emotions based on their color. They sometimes set distinct color palettes in order to appear a certain way in front of others, but some level of fluctuation is impossible to avoid.

-RainWings are the only tribe that has no written language. They are completely illiterate not out of laziness or inability, but because historically they have never had need for communication that isn’t direct and in the present. Their visual signals are so complex that they might be called a crude type of sign language, less refined than Aquatic but not entirely dissimilar, but the only RainWings taught to read and write are those involved in diplomacy or other inter-tribe interactions where it may be necessary. For their own tribe affairs, verbal communication is all they need.

-One of the ultimate staples of RainWing culture is performance - theater and dance. Their dances, often synchronized, with their agile bodies, floating frills and shifting colors, are famously breathtaking and mesmerizing. There was a time when RainWing dancers would travel and perform for different tribes, and dragons scrambled to watch them. For RainWings themselves, though, the performances take on their own meanings, as emotional expression comes through in the colors and some dances tell elaborate stories through these visual cues. Silent theater, similarly, relies on color to tell stories, and these shows aren’t as popular among other tribes simply because other dragons can’t fully comprehend the meanings of different scenes.

-RainWings don’t use facial expressions much, because their scales are so adept at showing emotion, and sometimes that causes communication issues with dragons from other tribes. Similarly, they struggle to separate different tribes from their color associations; for example, it’s hard to get over the subconscious assumptions that all SkyWings are angry, all IceWings are in pain/distress, and all NightWings are constantly overflowing with rage and hatred. (@puzzled-pegasus inspired this one - hope you don’t mind me adopting it!)

-Sleep schedules are loose to non-existent, best compared to that of cats; RainWings generally sleep at midnight and midday, and are awake at dawn and dusk, but short naps throughout the day are considered normal and acceptable.

-Because of the diversity of plant life in the rainforest, RainWings have a more in-depth knowledge of toxins and medicines than any other tribe, and their medics can cure a vast number of ailments. They also have access to - and use - a great variety of stimulants and hallucinogens, usually in a festive or celebratory context.

Diet: Selectively herbivorous. RainWings can eat meat, and sometimes do, but generally they prefer to put time and energy toward gathering rather than hunting. They eat just about every type of fruit under the sun, having adapted to a high-glucose and low-protein diet, and their dishes are elaborate and flavorful with spices and sweeteners; just about every other tribe that eats plants is happy to invite RainWing fruit merchants into their towns. RainWings were also the first Pyrrhian tribe to produce chocolate.

#wings of fire #rainwings #wof headcanons #wof art #my posts

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boinkingbattlemechs · 3 months ago

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Raven

The Raven is a light-weight electronic warfare BattleMech which, when it first debuted after the end of the Third Succession War, was one of the first truly original 'Mech designs produced in centuries. Originally the Capellan Confederation attempted to recreate the sophisticated technology once common during the Star League era, specifically the Guardian ECM suite. While the resulting electronic warfare device was a technical success, it proved too large and bulky to be installed on any existing 'Mechs. Desperate for any force multiplier, the Capellans decided to build an entirely new 'Mech around the electronics, creating the first prototype Ravens.

At first these experimental Ravens were meant as stand-off support units for 'Mech companies, designating targets for artillery and scrambling enemy sensors, but in most cases they were assigned at the battalion level as a temporary fifth member of the command lance. When it finally saw battle however, the Raven did not meet its lofty expectations; it simply could not provide a sufficient advantage to influence combat. Many were captured by the Federated Suns during the Fourth Succession War, and the design would languish as just another light 'Mech until the recovery of the Helm Memory Core allowed Hellespont to create a production version, the RVN-3L, equal to the prototype's ambitiousness.

While heavily associated with House Liao, the Capellans also sold a number to the Free Worlds League and Draconis Combine, the larger share going to the former. The Federated Suns and Lyran Alliance also acquired smaller numbers of Ravens through other means including salvage, and a large number of variants were eventually created.

The Raven carries a small weapons array that was nevertheless respectable for its size. The primary weapons are a pair of Ceres Arms medium lasers carried in the right arm, backed up by a Harpoon-6 SRM-6 mounted in the right torso, with one ton of SRM reloads placed within the CASE-protected left torso. Generally, the Raven was kept out of direct firefights as much as possible, since it was more valuable as a recon or electronic warfare asset than as a front-line combatant. Indeed, any mission in which the 'Mech was forced into combat was seen as a failure.

At the time of its introduction the Raven carried the most advanced electronic warfare equipment in the Inner Sphere, all produced by Apple Churchill. A Guardian ECM suite mounted in the left torso blanketed friendly units with electronic jamming, a Beagle active probe in the center torso helped locate enemies, Target Acquisition Gear mounted in the right torso and a Narc missile beacon in the left arm, with two tons of reloads in the left torso, helped call down accurate artillery fire. A Hermes 210 XL engine and four and a half tons of ferro-fibrous armor helped save on weight, provided good armoring and a respectable cruising speed of 64.8 km/h - features which allowed the 'Mech to survive combat encounters until reinforcements could arrive.

#battletech #mechwarrior #battletech smash or pass #mecha #tumblr polls

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usafphantom2 · 9 months ago

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IMAGES: Swedish and F-35 Danish Gripen perform first inter-ally exercises of 5ª generation

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 15/03/2024 - 18:16in Military

For the first time as NATO Allies, Danish F-35 fighters and Swedish JAS39 Gripen fighters flew air combat training exercises in Danish airspace on March 11 and 13.

The training missions showed close military cooperation between the Danish and Swedish air forces and also demonstrated efforts to integrate and interact with different generations of fighters in the Nordic countries. The exercises were mainly conducted in separate training areas on the waters of Kattegat. They consisted of one-on-one fighter maneuvers and coordinated flight of Danish F-35s from the Skrydstrup Fighter Wing and two JAS39 Gripen from 'Blekinge Flygflottilj' in Ronneby, near Karlskrona, in southern Sweden.

Cooperation is based on a mutual interest of the two nations through the Oresund, making use of experience and skills to strengthen the combined power of air warfare.

"Because we are neighbors and close allies, using each other's capabilities not only provides great training value for pilots and personnel, but is also visible proof of the ambition to be able to operate effectively together," says Major General of the Danish Air Force, Jan Dam.

The training exercises involving the JAS39 produced by Sweden and the F-35 produced by the United States highlight the need to ensure that existing and new combat aircraft fleets are able to cooperate and interact on the modern battlefield.

"The Gripen and F-35 belong to two different generations of combat aircraft and therefore have different characteristics to contribute to the battlefield. As a fifth-generation combat aircraft, the F-35 has the special ability to collect and process huge amounts of data, which it can later share with other allies and actors," explains Lieutenant-Colonel Casper Borge Nielsen, head of the Combat Flight Department of the Allied Air Command.

He went on to say that the integration between the F-35 and the Gripen increases the combined operational capabilities, because the F-35 is able to generate and share an unprecedented situational image, from which the Gripen can also benefit. On the other hand, the Gripen represents an advanced combat aircraft that brings more firepower to combat. This will benefit both fifth and fourth generation combat aircraft and, in a broader perspective, will give land and naval forces the opportunity to operate with more freedom and efficiency.

"Performing this type of exercise flying with another type of aircraft provides different challenges and experiences than when it is normally practiced against our own units," said Lieutenant-Colonel Erik Almquist, Commander of the 172º Swedish Air Force Fighter Squadron. “Cooperation with Danish pilots has been very easy and uncomplicated. The biggest challenge was to decide whether we should speak English or Danish/Swedish on the phone during the briefing and debriefing,” he said, adding that on the air, radio communications are made, of course, in English. "This week's exercises were the beginning of an increased cooperation where the proximity of the divisions in Skrydstrup and the simplicity of the cooperation provide good conditions for us to develop and strengthen our ability to fight together as a 'Nordic Air Force'," he concluded.

"We found our Swedish colleagues in Danish airspace to fly Basic Fighter Maneuvers (BFM), also known as 1-on-1 air combat training," says TRI, one of the Danish F-35 pilots of the Skrydstrup Fighter Wing in southern Jutland. He added that this creates different requirements and challenges when training against an unknown opponent. "Most of the time, we fly BFM against our own F-35 pilots. The Gripen and the Swedish pilots fly differently, so a 1-on-1 match against them is a professional challenge. We can test elements of our own tactics that we don't normally do. It's amazing! And of course it's great to meet the Swedes in Denmark," concluded TRI.

In the fall of 2023, Denmark received the first four F-35 fighters on Danish soil, while six aircraft are still located in the US for training flights. In total, Denmark has invested in 27 F-35 fighters, of which the remaining 17 are expected to be delivered in the coming years.

Tags: Military AviationF-35 Lightning IIFlygvapnet - Swedish Air ForceJAS39 GripenNATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organization

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Fernando Valduga

Aviation photographer and pilot since 1992, he has participated in several events and air operations, such as Cruzex, AirVenture, Dayton Airshow and FIDAE. He has works published in specialized aviation magazines in Brazil and abroad. He uses Canon equipment during his photographic work in the world of aviation.

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didanawisgi · 5 months ago

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#covid-19 #covid-19 vaccine #SARS-CoV-2 #CCP #fifth generational warfare #biological WMD

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cod-dump · 2 years ago

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Modern Warfare Bloopers and BTS

___

Laswell: Watcher-1 to Bravo-7, you in position?

Ghost: Nearly there- AH *Trips and smacks onto the ground hard*

Crew collectively: Ow!

Ghost: I'm okay!

Director: Someone move that rock! This is the fifth time he's tripped!

Ghost, giggling while still laying on the ground: This is embarrassing

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Ghost: I'm eyes on

Laswell: What do you see?

Ghost, holding up his gun to look through the scope only to fumble and drop it: Umm... Failure

___

(Between Takes)

*Shepherd and Laswell are sipping tea*

Laswell: This is... Not the best

Shepherd: They were supposed to get Milo's

Ghost & Graves: *sitting somewhere behind them taking turns chugging a jug of Milo's sweet tea after switching Shepherd and Laswell's tea for generic store brand tea knowing that they're dead if they get caught* 👀👀

___

Shepherd: Marines are loading in now. You and the sergeant are leading the way on this.

Ghost: The sergeant?

*Soap slips from the truck and falls onto another Marine. Ghost wheezes*

___

Soap after several takes of him falling/slipping from the truck: My ass hurts :(

Ghost: Slick like soap-

Soap: Oh shut the fuck up!

Ghost: *wheezes*

___

#cod mwii #call of duty #modern warfare ii #incorrect quotes #john soap mactavish #simon ghost riley #general shepherd #kate laswell #bloopers #behind the scenes #original quote

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geisterland · 3 months ago

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The promised Brazil in WW2 post! I did verify some information, but this is actually mostly based on my previous knowledge (from a Brazilian perspective) and my visit to a museum on this topic, so I always encourage searching about it yourself! :D This will be more general facts I find interesting than a complete look into our participation, as that is a bit complicated to speak about in a short post. But let's get into it, shall we?

So, the thing about Brazil's participation in WW2 is that it actually came in sort of late. We only started fighting in late 1944 in Northern Italy, after the fall of fascism there, but we technically declared war back in 1942.

The two reasons we entered the war (after a period of neutrality in which we still had a commercial relationship with the main three Axis countries as well as the Allies) were...

Getúlio Vargas' government striking a deal in which the USA would build military bases on our territory in exchange for them investing in our metallurgical industry (long story);

The German sinking of six commercial Brazilian ships (Baependi, Araraquara, Aníbal Benévolo, Itagiba, Arará and Jacira), which ended up killing 607 people, civilian and military alike.

Once we actually entered the war, I would say that our most important ally within the... Allies was the USA - with Brazilian soldiers (the Pracinhas) even serving in the US Fifth Army. We filled very important gaps, and eventually, once the USamericans turned their efforts elsewhere, we played a very important role in the fight against the Nazis in Italy.

A thing to note was actually the sense of connection that a lot of Brazilians had with Italy. Many of the soldiers drafted (and those who volunteered) were of European descent, with a sizable chunk being Italian, so they were both fighting for their homeland and for their ancestors' homeland. Not only that, but the Pracinhas were treated warmly by the Italian citizens, which nurtured an even stronger emotional bond and sense of duty.

The main battle fought by FEB (The Brazilian Expeditionary Forces) was the Battle of Monte Castelo - was a very important defense point for the Nazis - which lasted for three months and was considered the largest battle in the history of the Brazilian Army. Brazil also participated in the Battle of Castelnuovo, Montese, Collecchio, and Fornovo di Taro.

A big thing to mention is that there were actually Brazilians on both sides of the war. Which actually contributed to the psychological warfare by the Nazis to try and convince the Pracinhas to desert - there was even a radio program transmited by a Brazilian woman from Santa Catarina to try and reach that goal, although most of the propaganda was done through leaflets that would appeal to the conditions the soldiers were enduring (such as the extreme cold).

Interesting tidbit about the cold: the Pracinhas would stuff straw in their boots, especially when it was cold, which actually led them to have fewer cases of Trench Foot than the USamericans.

Women in the Brazilian Army acted as field nurses, about 73 iirc going to serve in Italy. I will attach a picture below of some of them.

At this time, Brazil was actually in a dictatorship, which restricted even what the Brazilians could write in letters back home. They were encouraged to never say anything negative, and even if they did, their letters would always be read to check for it. Interestingly enough, once the war was ending and the Pracinhas would come home, people began seeing more and more similarities between the way things were being run by the Vargas' regime and the nazifascists... Hm...

Let's get to the last thing I want to talk about this night - the symbols used by our soldiers!

The main one you may have seen around is the Smoking Cobra. But what does it mean? See, there was this popular phrase within the country that "if Brazil enters the war, the cobra will smoke", something akin to "when pigs fly". And so, when we did join the war, this symbol was used as a sort of cheeky nod to the saying. The Pracinhas had a really good sense of humor.

And the less known, but in my opinion just as funny, symbol for our Aviation group. Which was based on two things: the phrase "Senta a Pua" which was already used in the airbase of Salvador to tell people to hurry up, and the ostrich, a symbol based on soldiers' jokes that they needed an ostrich's stomach to handle the food the USamericans gave them on the boat ride over lmao. I put both symbols below.

And I believe that will be all for now! There's still a lot to be said, and a lot that I will want to talk about at some point, but for now, I hope you enjoyed this little snapshot I gave you. ^_^

#geisttalk #two long posts in a single day who could've thunk it #plus some museum photos :)#ok now I will go sleep gn

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justinspoliticalcorner · 1 month ago

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Marc A. Caputo at The Bulwark:

IS IT THE ECONOMY STUPID? Not for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. These days, its closing message on TV may as well be “it’s the trans, you fools.” In the past five weeks, Trump’s operation has spent more than $29 million on TV ads criticizing Vice President Kamala Harris for supporting transgender surgeries for inmates and illegal immigrants in detention, according to data from the media tracking firm AdImpact. That makes the topic, by far, the biggest focal point when it comes to Trump’s ad spending—one of the best barometers of messaging priority there is. By contrast, the campaign has spent $5 million over that same time period on TV ads on the economy, making that topic their fifth-most emphasized.

The campaign’s elevation of transgender issues above the economy constitutes one of the biggest bets in presidential politics. The former rates as among the least important to voters according to public opinion polls; the latter their top concern. The trans-heavy focus also seems to conflict with months of insistence—from the Trump campaign to the pundit class—that the ex-president will win because of inflation and jobs. Executing such a gambit at this late stage of the campaign represents a major roll of the dice: one that could either reset culture war politics for years to come in presidential races or, if Trump loses, go down as a major, even historic, tactical blunder. But Trump pollster John McLaughlin said that viewing the campaign’s emphasis on trans issues as a tradeoff with its focus on the economy represents a shallow understanding of “asymmetrical political warfare.” Presidential races aren’t as much battles over policy plans, he said, as they are character contests. “In that character contrast, these cultural issues become symbols of those characters,” McLaughlin said. “They don’t have to be the top issue, but they have to make a values-connection with a majority of voters, and this is symbolic of why her character doesn’t connect with a majority of voters.”

Trump has so far run three ads that each feature video of Harris in 2019 boasting about her advocacy as California attorney general for the surgeries for the incarcerated. The ads, which have been condemned by trans advocates as transphobic and cruel, are designed to reinforce the Trump campaign’s message that Harris is “dangerously liberal.”

They come as Trump is grappling with vulnerabilities of his own. The ex-president has repeatedly stumbled on abortion—a losing issue for him—and endured a withering assault from Harris and her allies who describe him as dangerous, unstable, loony, too old, a dictator wannabe, a crook, and a felon with a penchant for sexual assault.

On Wednesday night, those same attacks came to a head. At a CNN town hall, Harris called Trump a “fascist” and repeatedly noted that his former chief of staff said he praised Hitler’s generals. Earlier in the evening, the Guardian reported that a former model (with ties to a group supportive of the Harris campaign) had accused Trump of groping her after she was introduced to him 30 years ago by notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein in Palm Beach. Trump denied the accusations. Harris advisers believe that those attacks have blunted the momentum that Trump has built in recent days. But they’re more bullish on the gains that they’ve made on the economy, which they attribute, in part, to the Trump campaign’s decision to switch its emphasis to trans issues. Polls indicate Harris is closing the gap with Trump over who can better handle the economy, which a campaign aide highlighted Wednesday with the release of a new Morning Consult battleground-state survey. But Trump’s team has downplayed those findings. More generally, it is willing to cede points on the economy in return for driving up Harris’s negatives and driving down her topline poll number in her head-to-head matchup with Trump.

[...] IN CONTRAST TO HER 2020 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, Harris has been mum about trans issues in this race. But when pressed on the matter in a contentious interview last week on Fox News, she pointed to a New York Times story that detailed how the Bureau of Prisons during Trump’s presidency began offering “gender affirming care” under court order. “I will follow the law, and it’s a law that Donald Trump actually followed,” she said. “Now it’s a public report that under Donald Trump’s administration, these surgeries were available to, on a medical necessity basis, to people in the federal prison system.” Only two inmates have received transgender surgery in the federal prison system, starting in 2022, according to the Times. The Bureau of Prisons did not return a call or email for confirmation or comment. California’s Department of Corrections also did not respond Wednesday to a records request for the number of transgender surgeries it has provided. But advocates say one reason it’s hard to know how many prison inmates and undocumented immigrants in detention have received transgender therapies is because it’s such a small subset of people. The Trump campaign’s focus on trans issues is historic. As The Bulwark first reported last month, Trump is the first candidate in presidential history to run a trans-related attack ad in a general election. His decision has been mimicked by Republicans up and down the ballot, who have leaned aggressively on ads attacking their Democratic rivals for supporting transgender athletes in female sports or surgeries for minors. In all, since President Joe Biden left the race on July 21, Republicans have spent about $120 million on ads attacking their Democratic rivals over trans issues, according to AdImpact data. Of that, Trump and the two super PACs supporting him—Preserve America and MAGA Inc.—account for about one third of the spending, almost $40 million, in the past five weeks.

[...] Trump also mentions the issue repeatedly on the trail, often raising the specter of children are undergoing transition-related surgeries at their schools. U.S. Senate candidates like Eric Hovde in Wisconsin and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz have followed suit. Their opponents, Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Texas Rep. Collin Allred, responded with ads calling the Republicans liars. Curt Anderson, a Hovde adviser, said in a text message that Democrats’ response ads and Harris’s reticence to engage on the issue showed how damaging it is for them. He said the money Trump was spending on ads made sense because “you have to have massive throw weight to get any message through.” Democrats and trans advocates say Republicans are overplaying their hand, pointing to a 2024 GLAAD Voter Poll that showed 53 percent of voters said they opposed a candidate who speaks too much about “restrictions that target trans youth.” But the polling on transgender issues is generally nuanced, with voters largely opposed to discrimination while also favoring limits on transgender athletes in female sports and surgeries for minors. The issue of taxpayer subsidies for transgender surgeries for inmates has not been publicly polled.

The Donald Trump campaign’s decision to all-in on anti-trans scaremongering instead of an economics-first message could be the fatal blow to his campaign.

#Donald Trump #Transphobia #Economy #2024 Presidential Election #Kamala Harris #2024 Election Ads #2024 Elections #Transgender

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satellitebroadcast · 2 months ago

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The full text of the message of Hamas Political Bureau head Yahya Sinwar to Ansarallah Commander Sayyed Abdulmalik Badr El-Din Al-Houthi: Telegram

In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful Praise be to the Lord of the worlds, the Supporter of His loyal and pious soldiers. Peace and prayers be upon the Imam of the mujahideen and the leader of the victors, upon his righteous companions, and upon the followers of the faith until the Day of Judgment. To our brother, His Excellency Sayyed Abdulmalik Badr El-Din Al-Houthi, may Allah protect you: Peace be upon you, and the mercy and blessings of Allah. I am pleased to write to you on the occasion of the birth of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), as we are together waging the blessed battle of Al-Aqsa Flood. This battle has come to deliver a strong blow to the zionist project in the region in general and in Palestine in particular, and to inscribe the first pages of Allah's sacred promise of the liberation of Palestine, in accordance with His words: "So when the final promise came, We sent your enemies against you to disgrace your faces and to enter the temple as they had entered it the first time, and to destroy utterly all that fell into their power." I am also pleased to thank you for the sincere emotions, the overflowing sentiments, and the strong will that we have witnessed from you in the battle of Al-Aqsa Flood, whether on the field of resistance or in the communications you send us and the messages carried by your esteemed delegations. My dear brother, His Excellency Sayyed Abdulmalik, Today, Palestine awoke to the news of you launching the fifth phase of your participation in the battle of Al-Aqsa Flood. In this regard, I congratulate you on your success in having your rockets reach deep into the enemy's entity, surpassing all layers and systems of defense and interception, to reignite the intensity of the battle of Al-Aqsa Flood and its impact on the heart of "Tel Aviv" once again. The zionist enemy believed that the war of genocide it is waging against our Palestinian people, along with the efforts to contain and neutralize the fronts of resistance, overseen by the United States and its allies, would lead to its victory in its Nazi battle against our Palestinian people. However, your qualitative operation this morning came to send a message to the enemy that the plans of containment and neutralization have failed, and that the impact of the support fronts is beginning to take on a more effective and profound influence in decisively tipping the battle in favor of our proud and free people. In this regard, I send my greetings to the leadership of our brotherly Yemen, the leadership of Ansarallah, and to the heroes of the dear Yemeni army who have excelled in developing their military capabilities to reach the usurping entity's depth. I also extend my salute to the great Yemeni people, who have always stood by our Palestinian people and their just cause throughout history. The squares of dear Yemen continue to bear witness to this on a weekly basis since the beginning of the battle of Al-Aqsa Flood.

My dear brother, Our people in the Gaza Strip live between two states: a state of pain and severe suffering due to the Nazi aggression, genocide, siege, and starvation, which necessitates support and solidarity from all the people of the nation; and a state of valiant resistance led by the Al-Qassam Brigades, which skillfully executed the October 7th attack and fought a year-long defensive battle that exhausted the enemy. In this regard, I assure you that the resistance is in good shape, and what the enemy declares is mere lies and psychological warfare. We have prepared ourselves for a prolonged war of attrition that will break the enemy's political will, just as the Al-Aqsa Flood broke its military will. The unification of our efforts with you and our brothers in the valiant resistance in Lebanon and the Islamic Resistance in Iraq will break this enemy and bring about its defeat, paving the way for its expulsion from our land, by the will of Allah: "And they say, 'When will that be?' Say, 'Perhaps it will be soon.'" Your brother/ Yahya Sinwar Head of the Political Bureau of the Islamic Resistance Movement - Hamas Monday, 12th Rabi al-Awwal 1446 Hijri 15th September 2024

#hamas #palestine #yemen #ansar allah

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vomitdodger · 6 months ago

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Our country sure has fallen in a short 20 years. America’s Mayor arrested for protesting and speaking out about a commie-stolen election. That’s been proven to be stolen in dozens of ways.

Just imagine telling someone in 2001 where we’d be right now. Imagine NYC, those affected directly by 9-11, the World Trade Center cleanup crew, the military, etc etc that our patriotic country would do a complete 180 and destroy every fundamental, inherent, American example of exceptionalism we held dear. No one would have believed it. No one! Stealth coup and takeover. Fifth generation warfare. And people still don’t see it.

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mariacallous · 7 months ago

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As the presidential election approaches, and conspiracies about the integrity of the electoral system ramp up, election deniers and conspiracists have coalesced around a narrative they plan to push ahead of November: Blame the immigrants.

And not only that, election deniers are now advocating for a far-right sheriff’s group called the Constitutional Sheriffs to recruit an army of like-minded citizens to patrol polling stations and stop the “expected flood” of “illegal” immigrant voters.

Constitutional Sheriffs are a group of elected sheriffs around the country who believe that they hold the ultimate power in their county, and are not answerable to any federal or state authority. They also believe that all of their power stems directly from the constitution.

And the issue of immigration is currently igniting them.

“[Immigrants] have already disrupted the election because they are getting registered to vote,” Richard Mack, a former sheriff who is the founder of the far–right Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA), tells WIRED. “That is election fraud; these people are not qualified to vote. They are going to vote for whoever got them here and gave them a bunch of free stuff to get here, and of course that’s the Democrat Party, who are complicit in all of this.”

Mack spoke at the CSPOA conference in Las Vegas on Wednesday, where over 100 attendees listened to speaker after speaker on stage push the debunked claim that immigrants voting for President Joe Biden posed the greatest threat to the integrity of the presidential election.

Bob Songer from Klickitat County in Washington state, another Constitutional Sheriff who also spoke at the event, told the audience that he already had a “posse” of 150 deputized citizens. He also shared a guide with other sheriffs on how to build their own “posse,” including a 32-page guide on policies and procedures, reviewed by WIRED.

Speakers at the conference included a number of other Constitutional Sheriffs, people jailed for taking part in the January 6 Capitol insurrection, right-wing media figures, alternative health practitioners pushing debunked treatments like med-beds, entrepreneurs working along the US-Mexico border, and GOP candidates running for office in November. In the wake of 2020, bogus claims that the elections were stolen focused on ballot stuffing, mail-in ballots, and election machine malfunctions; but in 2024 and at the CSPOA conference on Wednesday, the focus for most of these speakers was on the border.

Leading the charge was Michael Flynn, former president Donald Trump’s disgraced former national security adviser, who has been one of the loudest promoters of election conspiracies since 2020, when many GOP leaders began pushing the myth that Trump actually won the election. In Flynn’s speech, he warned the audience about an “invasion” and claimed without proof that the number of “illegal” immigrants in the US today was the same as the entire population of 36 US states.

Patrick Byrne, former Overstock CEO and a major promoter and funder of the election denial movement, said that Constitutional Sheriffs would need to play a vital role in fighting the influx of “15 million military-age men.” He also claimed that a “well regulated militia is not a dirty phrase,” and urged sheriffs in attendance to “build some kind of surge capacity through auxiliary forces, or alliances with the militias.” (Byrne did not say which militias he was referring to.)

Boone Cutler, who has written a number of books with Flynn about “fifth-generational warfare”—military actions like social engineering, misinformation, and cyber attacks—described immigrants as “weaponized diaspora communities” who are being brought into the country to commit “terrorism.” Cutler announced, without providing any details, that he would be providing “irregular warfare training” to CSPOA officers ahead of the election.

John Ferguson, who owns an aerospace company that he claims tracks activity along the border, boosted the dangerous and untrue myth that immigrants are crossing the border with military training and could pose a serious threat to the US. “The problem is that a lot of these people, there's times where over 90 percent of the people that are being apprehended are all fighting-aged males, Chinese, Central and South Americans,” he said. “I have been south of the border doing missions in Mexico, and I have flown my unmanned aircraft over the training camps where they're training.”

The claim that “military-aged men” are being systematically brought across the border into the US is a conspiracy that has been around for some time and is increasingly gaining traction in mainstream GOP circles.

And though they appear to have reached a new pitch, these claims about immigrants voting have been around for years. Trump has been promoting bogus claims about “illegal” immigrants voting since 2016, when he said the reason he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton was due, in part, to many immigrants voting fraudulently.Trump repeated the claim in 2020 to explain the reason he lost to Biden in key swing states like Arizona—a claim he referred to in his speech ahead of the January 6 riot.

Trump hasn’t stopped: “Biden’s conduct on our border is by any definition a conspiracy to overthrow the United States of America,” Trump said last month during a speech in North Carolina. “Biden and his accomplices want to collapse the American system, nullify the will of the actual American voters, and establish a new base of power that gives them control for generations.”

There is no evidence to back up any of these claims, however, and research from the Brennan Center for Justice and other organizations has shown that the number of noncitizens voting in US elections is statistically insignificant. In one study from the Brennan Center on the 2016 election, researchers found that non-citizens were suspected (not even confirmed) to have voted in just 0.0001 percent of the 23.5 million votes cast.

Still, these assertions have continued to gain traction as tensions at the US-Mexico border escalate. Republicans have also continued espousing the belief that the US population is being systematically replaced by minorities, a conspiracy known as the great replacement. Despite the theory being widely debunked, the conspiracy has taken hold in MAGA and increasingly mainstream right-wing circles, with speaker of the House Mike Johnson recently announcing a bill to prevent noncitizens from voting in elections—even though that is not an issue.

Earlier this month, the far-right X account known as EndWokeness posted misleading statistics about a supposed dramatic rise in the numbers of migrant voters registering in the US to vote without IDs to its 2 million followers. The stats were quickly debunked by election officials, but the post, which is still on the site without a Community Note, has been viewed over 65 million times. Elon Musk, X’s CEO, shared the post with the comment: “Extremely concerning.”

At the CSPOA conference, Wayne Allen Root, a right-wing radio host who promoted the false conspiracy about former president Barack Obama’s birth certificate, repeated Trump’s claims about immigrant voters.

“The [2020] election was stolen in the six battleground states that would have given Trump a landslide win, instead of a landslide electoral loss,” Root said, without providing any evidence to back it up. “Those six states were decided by the votes of illegal aliens who came in through our open borders. That's who's voting. That's our elections.”

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the-masked-reviewer · 4 months ago

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Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief Comparison

Book v. Show

What Changed

There are jokes in the book that are completely left out and never even alluded too. The episode named “We take a Zebra to Vegas”, shows you multiple animals that the smugglers are transporting, none of them being a Zebra. They kept the book’s corresponding chapter name but not the actual Zebra.

The show’s focus is more on Percy and Annabeth and their relationship, but in order to accomplish that, they pushed Grover into a more side character position making it far harder to see Percy and Grover’s relationship as the platonic soulmates they are.

The books show Gabe’s behavior in fairly subtle ways, mostly through Percy’s internal dialogue and not through direct scenes with Gabe. I think the show actually did a pretty good job at showing just how bad of a person Gabe is, though they did leave out a few scenes that would’ve helped. I don’t think changing the way Gabe turns to stone really does anything other than take away Sally’s revenge and make a dumbass die by cause of being a dumbass.

Celestial Bronze is explained early on in the book at the same time most of the basic general knowledge of demigod life is explained to Percy and the reader. However in the show, they don’t even tell you this is a material that exists until the fifth out of eight episodes, taking away both Percy’s growing knowledge of his new world and the importance of the material.

In the books, Percy describes when he meets Hades like, “He was the third god I’d met, but he was the first that really struck me as godlike” (pg. 309) but the show introduces him as a weird fruity twink. It just takes away all the power the man is supposed to hold. He is literally the King of The Underworld and he is shown as a guy I don’t think anyone could ever reasonably be afraid of Even when Percy describes Dionysus, the first god he meets, “He turned to look at me straight on, and I saw a kind of purplish fire in his eyes, a hint that this whiny, plump little man was only showing me the tiniest bit of his true nature. I saw visions of grape vines choking unbelievers to death, drunken warriors insane with battle lust, sailors screaming as their hands turned to flippers, their faces elongating into dolphin snouts. I knew that if I pushed him Mr. D would show me worse things. He would plant a disease in my brain that would leave me wearing a straitjacket in a rubber room for the rest of my life” (pg. 70-71). It’s clear that these beings have an aura and could never not have a large powerful presence. But here Hades, the King of The Underworld, is just a guy. Comparing the two descriptions from the book makes it so clear how powerful Hades is supposed to be if compared to the visions of death and people turning into dolphins doesn’t register as godlike.

The show never once tells the audience what Tartarus is, not even after Percy and Grover are nearly dragged into it by Luke’s flying shoes. There was never any real foreshadowing for Luke or parallel to him a Percy until later in the season where you get flashbacks to Luke and Percy training. At that point it feels more like an afterthought to add in the evidence that it’s been Luke the whole time.

The show lets the audience witness scenes we’ve never gotten the chance to see before, and I can’t understate enough how much I love that. Getting to see Grover and Ares both attempt psychological warfare on each other in a dinner is peak Percy Jackson. However, the way the show is written takes away the audiences ability to truly see just how smart Percy is.

One of the changes I actually ended up liking far more than I thought I would initially was the change in the number of pearls the gang is given. By being given four pearls it shows that Poseidon not only cares for Percy and is watching him as he goes through life, but that he also truly cares for Sally.

The flashbacks are some of my favorite scenes. They’re written so well, and are great at taking advantage of the visual story telling techniques you have when you make a television show.

Not wanting your show to have a very exposition heavy introduction is understandable, but the show’s way of working around this problem is to put information right before or during the thing that’s being explained is happening results in a very exposition heavy, slow show where your characters, in this case Percy, are completely clueless at worst. For example, the gang not only knows but has a plan for facing Procrustes. The audience does not get to see the gang making this plan, just them executing it, having Percy explain to Procrustes (and the invisible audience) who he is and why he’s bad. This isn’t the only example of explaining things for the audience, like when they go over the entirety of Hephaestus’ story and his relationship with Aphrodite when clearly both characters in the scene know the story. The information these 12 year olds (Grover is technically 24 yes, but in human years he is also 12) is just inconsistent. They know who Medusa, the fates, Hephaestus all are, and yeah I’d honestly kind of hope they would. But they also know Crusty’s whole story, and details about how monsters hunt and generally act? Echidna literally spelled out who she was before the gang was able to figure it out (they then seem to understand perfectly how the Chimera hunts while simultaneously not knowing what kind of monster it is). Yet they seem to not only know but be intimately familiar with Crusty’s entire mythos.

When the gang is traveling with the animal smugglers, the book audience learns these guy are not good people from the description Percy gives of the inside of the truck and how the animals are treated, whereas the show has Grover tell Annabeth and Percy “the men driving this truck are not nice people” (Episode 5, 4:35). This would’ve been such an easy moment to take advantage of the media they are using and tell us this visually in the same way the book did.

The fact that the gang knows what kind of situation they are walking into practically every time does more than just take away the surprise. It takes away the viewers ability to try and predict what’s happening because it has already been explained. And what’s worse is it takes the tension away from the story. Without impending unknown doom, and always having a plan may paint your characters, primarily Annabeth because she is the one who always knows and makes plans, as smart and prepared but it also takes away most of the stakes and point of the story.

A lot of the story stayed mostly the same, and details and deliveries changed the most. But two of the changes that bothered me the most were the lack of explaining what Riptide even is and its importance, which for a show that likes to explain everything is awfully surprising, and how they decided to turn Gabe to stone.

Why Change it/Care

Dialogue is an important thing in storytelling, obviously. But there are some things that work better when shown. You don’t need to explain out loud all of the “you’re ___”s and “This is how your story goes.” In order to tell an interesting story you have to get a balance of dialogue and showing the story in order for it to be interesting. You have to trust the audience to figure out what isn’t explained.

The Thrill Ride O’ Love scene is one of the best examples of being to reliant on dialogue. Instead of letting the beautiful animation play out and leave the viewers using their brains to figure out what’s happening (which isn’t very hard, the animation is done wonderfully and tells the story of Hephaestus brilliantly) they have Percy telling the story over the animation (and “what is love” which is a crime of its own) and narrate the story. This is especially annoying because the only other person witnessing this (aside from invisible audience) is Annabeth, who’s been the one in the gang who knows and explains everything. I already don’t like how they’ve been using the “Athena’s kid” and “six steps ahead” things as Practically all of Annabeth’s character traits, but in this instance it’s only the two of them and Percy is telling the story. Who is he supposed to be explaining this too other than the viewer, Annabeth clearly knows the story too.

The flashbacks are so well written that while rewatching they kept tricking me into thinking the show wasn’t over explaining what was going on and was instead letting the story do all the heavy lifting. Then of course it would cut back to the current story and I’d be reminded that the flashbacks were in fact the exceptions and not the rule in this shows case.

The heavy exposition, read just straight up telling the viewer what’s going on, was used mostly in the side adventures and for world building things to do what feels like an attempt at saving time. While exposition is usually used for basic world building things, it wouldn’t have taken any more time to have so many of those things be shown visually. There are places where it may have added time but the show’s episode lengths are inconsistent and range from having content in anywhere from roughly 27-40 minutes depending on the episode, so even if there was a time increase from doing things visually there’s space to shuffle things around and make consistent episode full of visual story telling.

In the notes I took for this project I only used the word “explains” nine times to cover the entirety of the book. In the first three episodes of notes alone I used “explains” 14 times. Meaning, in less than half of the show something is explained 1.5 times more than the complete book.

Sometimes you just have to trust the audience to understand what is happening in the story. I understand media literacy is going down (which is an insane fact given how much media people have access to now) but if you continue to talk down to them, they obviously aren’t going to learn how to figure it out themselves. I know “kids show” and all that, but if the kids who read the book were able to understand, and love, the story without it being almost all exposition, why would they not get it when it’s in the form of media they do know and consume now?

When adapting a story, it’s expected that things get cut and altered to fit the new media and really take all the advantages of that media to show pieces of the story that wouldn’t have worked in the original source. But in the case of Gabe turning to stone, it’s only talked about and isn’t actually in the book. Where in the show you show Gabe turning to stone but make it something he brought upon himself. It would not have taken more time or been any harder to have Sally take care of Gabe like we know she does. They could’ve shown her doing it, or followed the books way and only show the outcome. It is astounding how hard they worked to not have the story play out visually in visual media. This feels like the show version of the “highlight everything, if it wasn’t important it wouldn’t be included” mindset.

I understand the source material is a first person book, so everything is in the form of dialogue or internal monologue but you’re working with visual media, everyone doesn’t need to always state what is happening.

Needing to condense and simplify the story to work for the form of media you’re in is the whole point of adapting. It’s supposed to take advantage of the different things you can do that you couldn’t do in the original form of media. Having people explain what things are and what’s happening is definitely something that could happen in a book, but it didn’t happen in The Lightning Thief because it doesn’t make for a good story. So why would doing that in visual media make for any better of a story?

Is it Good

The build-up to the show was full of Rick promising it would be far more faithful then the [REDACTED] movie. All that press really helped get everyone excited because the fandom, much like Rick himself, hate the movies and how much they changed the story. Then the show comes along and repeats the mistake of the movies in different ways, a fact made all the more worse with everything Rick had promised. The show is more faithful to the books then the movies, but that isn’t a very high bar.

I’ve seen a few people mention that they should’ve made the show animated, with the main reason of character congruency since real life people obviously grow up. A thing made more obvious with the timeline most streaming shows end up taking. And while that probably would’ve been a better show, I think if they had just treated this like a real television show and made it on a classic (read mostly outdated, unfortunately) timeline it would’ve ended up a much better, more consistent show. There were also the points of special effects and the gods all looking better animated, which again they would have, but if done right, would look especially good in live action. I mean imagine watching a real Percy Jackson come face to face with a well-designed, perfectly intimidating Hades, and it all looks as real as they can get with CGI.

A friend of mine, who had to put up with my ramblings about this the whole time, said “As someone who isn’t a dedicated fan of the books and just read the first book for 6th grade English… I can’t say anything about the show as an adaptation but as its own thing, I’d honestly say it was between ‘ok’ and ‘great’ and I think the fanbase deserves better than halfway between ok and good”.

The flashback with Sally and Poseidon talking about Percy and Poseidon just being there to support her does so much. It’s easily the best scene in the entire show, and my favorite, hands down. The final episode of the season let the story work. It’s probably my favorite episode, even if I don’t like how they ended up handling Gabe. Since it’s a post-credit scene I’ve decided to not let it affect this.

The behind the scenes documentary was a chance for me to step back and look at the whole show not just all those tiny details that drive me crazy. Solidifying that the only real complaint is the writing, which is important, because the acting, set design, casting, direction, just everything except parts of the dialogue are so good. It isn’t even all the writing, just the over explaining. It’s one of those things where everything was set up to be perfect but one tiny thing didn’t hold it’s weight and tainted everything else.

The frustrating thing is I don’t think it’s the show (or even Disney) that’s at fault for why it wasn’t great. I think this is just the direction tv media (and all visual media) has been heading towards. If they had more time for the story, they would’ve been able to show us the in between moments and more interactions between our characters. The documentary really shows how much everyone working on it, both in the cast and crew, deeply care about the project. The way everyone talks about their work in the documentary make it so clear how much love and care went into to show. I’m more mad at the industry and streaming corruption making the show into what it was then the show as a whole.

It feels like the show version of not planning out where to write you letters on a poster. You start out all big and bold and slowly everything just gets more and more squished.

It’s a good show, and I did enjoy it. But it didn’t stand up to the expectations that were built up for it. Those expectations were so high, primarily because of Rick continuing to say it’ll be close to the book, and the knowledge that he was involved and hates the movies as much as the fans, gave me, and all of us, hope for the story. Then we got the story and while it wasn’t hugely changed, it was still fundamentally different. The moment I found out how long the show’s season was going to be, I knew it wasn’t going to be quite what I wanted or what it deserves to be because so much would have to be cut and/or altered to fit.

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