After a three year hiatus I am so very proud to announce that Hackwick Productions is back in business. And by that I mean I was all, "OMG! Must make mixtape before my head explodes! Must have artses!" and slodwick was like, "Yes, I will humor you because I am that awesome." (Which she is)

So, to celebrate the great occasion that is Inception (and in particular Eames/Arthur) we present unto you:



Something That's Impossible to Ignore


A hackthis & slodwick Production.

( Music can be found here )

Do y'all know the last time I was so inspired I had stories betad and *waiting* to be posted? NEVER. This story was at beta before Hotter Than Tales of Crack Peddlin' was even posted. That's right. Also? I love this story to no end.

Welcome to life post-Inception.


Inception
Eames/Arthur
PG-13

The Eames and Arthur Supervisory Hour


( This is a story about diamonds, McDonald's, persistence and the importance of a good travel agent. )

Dear Inception-

I had forgotten what it was like to always want to talk about something you liked. To yearn to write it. To want your characters to calm down because you only have two hands and can we please not be planning other stories when we're still working on the one in the open document. Thank you for that.

Inception
Eames/Arthur, Yusuf, Ariadne
NC-17

Hotter Than Tales of Crack Peddlin'


( They can't go on like this )

I am working on Inception fic. You know how it goes. And if you don't, well, I made a RSS feed for Fuck Yeah, Inception (fyinception), a few hours of that and you'll definitely know.

However, this is not about that. This is about what happened when I saw this video and said to antheia and maurheti: Is it wrong that now I'm really feenin for some Eminem/Rihanna RPF? I mean they've both been through so much, and they'd be so hot together.

This just sort of vomited its way onto my keyboard in 30 minutes. Un-beta'd. All errors are mine, obvs.

Rihanna/Eminem
RPF


Relapse. Rehabilitation. Rehabilitated.


( She could do worse. She already has. )

So. Inception. (That's the third time in three days I've started a post like that). This is clearly SRS BZNSS. Anyway, some fine upstanding AWESOME people made a tumblr for Inception, entitled whatelse but Fuck Yeah, Inception.

I, well, cannibalized it to bring you this post which has so much goddamn fucking hotness my computer is about to suffer meltdown. Seriously. If this does not entice you to watch the movie. To write some fiction. To perhaps contemplate the RPF/S angle on this. I... I cannot not talk to you anymore. You must go in the corner and say fifty times, "I am sorry I do not appreciate the hotass hackthis, please forgive me. I offer you Carlos Bocanegra naked instead."

And so I present unto you. ( SEX. SEX. AND ALSO? MORE SEX. And plz to be shipping Eames/Arthur. I will give you a pony. )

ETA: ATTENTION INCEPTION PEOPLE. maurheti popped her RPF cherry and wrote JGL/Tom Hardy. Yeah. I know. WHO'S THE MAN? Okay, she's the man. But who harassed her to make it happen? ME! That's who!

So. Inception. ( Here are my profound thoughts. )

So, first I was gonna post and talk about how proud I am that my girl got nominated for an Emmy! Yay for my girl! And thanks to snowybaby for being the first person to be all, guess what! And then I was gonna talk about Southland being ignored, but like, other shows getting recognition (you know who you are). For real, Walton Goggins was robbed. Hell, even Treme got a nom for best directing in a drama (you think I'm being facetious but the Emmys *hate* David Simon, so even one nom is kind of shocking), but then I was like no. No, today we must not be bitter, because today, ladies and gentlemen is the second to last day of the World Cup.

Oh, wait. We're not supposed to be sad. And so, no, we must not be sad. We must rejoice that for the last month we have been continually blessed with the best examples of manhood on the planet. In fact, WaPo has an article, "Field of Dreamy", that sums up why I prefer football (soccer) players and football (soccer) as a sport over every other sport known to man (save special ops training, because that kind of is a sport all on its own, but we'll save that for another day).

"There's a nice balance between the prissy, girly-looking male models in the Abercrombie & Fitch ads and the really burly football/hockey player. . . . They are the perfect middle ground."

It's our evolutionary hard-wiring talking: The way their speed and dexterity hits us says, This man can chase down a mastodon. My children will eat for a month!

"It's the legs," says Daniel Nardicio, vice president of marketing at Playgirl and default man-body expert. "Regular men tend not to think enough about their legs. They think it's about getting big and puffed out on top . . . then have these skinny little legs. Pfft."

In short? FOOTBALL. And so, I will now prepare for the closing of my favorite time of every four years (::sob::) and in a few hours I will say good-bye to my favorite piece of hotass discovered this year: Mesut Ozil, Germany.

And yes, I can hear you saying, "Really, hackthis? He's kinda wonky looking." To which I reply, "He's like the bastard love child of James McAvoy and SNAFU from The Pacific (which really was a dreadful miniseries. Emmy voters, is your failboat called the Titanic?). But he's got talent and spunk and I adore him and he's got legs like a motherfucking race horse."

Same goes for you Team USA. You can be kinda wonky looking, but you've got talent and spunk and legs like fucking race horses. Clint Dempsey, will you and Carlos Bocanegra and Benny Feilhaber get naked for me?

And then I come to you and ask: World Cup viewers of mine: who is your favorite World Cup hottie? Bring me photo graphic evidence. Here. I will start.

Sekrit aside to fantasticpants: I saw the movie. Wait for Netflix. (ETA: vague Predators spoilers in comments)

Other sekrit aside to those Lambert fans, If you don't get "Whadaya Want From Me?" out of my head immediately I'm sending my ninjas after you.

The Who's That Girl Mix

I feel I should state up front that the entire purpose of this mix, beside to provide awesome music for your ears, is to introduce you to the awesome that is Daphne Willis. She's from Chi town. She plays the guitar. She's not glam or glitz or Auto-Tune (praise Rudy), but she is most definitely talented and I really like her stuff. And y'all know how picky I am. If you like what you hear, please consider buying her CD, What to Say.

And now, on to the mix...

1. Daphne Willis 'Bluff'
2. Robyn 'Fembot' <-- I love the hell out of Robyn. Y'all don't know.
3. Gwen Stefani 'Hollaback Girl'
4. P!nk 'So What?' <-- For every woman who got tired of supporting her man and realized how awesome she is.
5. Sinead O'Connor 'No Man's Woman' <-- For antheia
6. Daphne Willis 'Everybody Else'
7. No Doubt 'Ex-Girlfriend' <-- Yes, Gwen again.
8. Mary J. Blige 'Be Happy'
9. Alicia Keys f/ Stephen Colbert 'Empire State of Mind, Part II'
10. Avril Lavigne 'Girlfriend' <-- For all my Ray people out there
11. Cher 'Believe' <-- For all my people who were club kids in 1999. If you were still in the single digits in 99 please don't tell me.
12. Daphne Willis 'Love & Hate'
13. En Vogue 'My Love (Never Gonna Get It)' <-- Old. Skool. In. The. House.
14. Beyonce 'Irreplaceable' <-- I don't even like Bouncy (as I refer to her), but this song is like ear crack. To the left, to the left.
15. Florence & The Machine 'Oh Darling' <-- Beatles cover
16. Robyn 'Who's that Girl?'

Can be downloaded here

Apparently there is a theme here. I did not realize that when I was putting it together, but there you go.

Also, I just have to say I know a lot of y'all love Lady Gaga and think she, like, shits gold ingots, but that latest song 'Alejandro'? Uh, I liked it better when Madonna did it in the 80s and called it 'La Isla Bonita.' And please don't try and tell me that those two songs don't sound the same.

In other unpopular opinions, have you ever looked at somebody during sex and thought "Wow, your eyes are so dilated with lust?" Yeah, didn't think so.

Landon Donovan, Baby Daddy. Do tell.

Last thing, maurheti why are your boys so hot? Netherlands, how do you do it? Are we taking flutters on Brazil v Chile?

For those of you not living in the USA or just too far gone in your World Cup haze a few days ago Rolling Stone magazine posted an article they will be publishing in their upcoming issue about Gen Stanley McChrystal. McChrystal, for those who don't know, is the man in charge of US military operations in Afghanistan.

The article, The Runaway General, was written by Michael Hastings, a reporter who embedded with McChrystal's team (Team America, no really, that's what they call themselves) for a month.

Now I know this sounds mighty familiar to Generation Kill people, or anybody who watches the nightly news, but something a little different occurred when this article was published.

Probably because this article took a rather different slant.

There is a fabulous line in the GK mini-series where Ray talks about being misunderstood by the liberal anti-war faction, or as he puts it: Dear Frederick, thank you for your nice letter, but I am actually a US marine who was born to kill. Clearly you have mistaken me for some wine sipping communist dick suck and although peace probably appeals to tree loving bisexuals like you and your parents, I happen to be a death dealing, blood crazed warrior who wakes up every day just hoping for the chance to dismember my enemies and defile their civilization. Peace sucks a hairy asshole. War is the motherfucking answer..

This is a bit extreme, but it goes to point about the potential difference in mind set between people who spend their lives protecting their country and someone who would be considered "a wine-sipping communist dick suck" who is most vocally against this war.

But let's be straight. Reporters are not required to be impartial. They are not required to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. They can say whatever they want as long as they've got the quotes to back them up. And Mr. Hastings did.

So when this article came out where McChrystal and Team America were reported to openly disagree and have derisory feelings toward his superiors, the people he runs OEF (Operation Enduring Freedom) with, to be unable to muster support in his troops and perhaps have gotten away with things other people wouldn't get away with. Well. Things got real ugly.

Andrew Exum is smart. Repeatedly.

Nate Fick and Tom Ricks discuss the situation.

The LA Times breaks it down.

And all of this lead to a meeting with the White House. You can guess how that went down.

Stars and Stripes has a round up, of like, everything.

( The below is a comment I posted in Alethialia's LJ, which I decided to post here, because I want to remember some of these points later and because I want to talk about this if people are so inclined )

Thanks to alethialia for inspiring me to actually get this down on print anyway and for providing the RS and NPR links so I didn't have to go digging through my email. Thanks to maurheti for being my sounding board in all things military related and thanks to serialkarma for being all, "Hey, your boy Nate is on my NPR."

I want to start this post by saying a) I do not participate in Supernatural fandom b) I am a black person c) I have not read the story that started this week's Race Fail Brouhaha -- and let's be honest, it is only TWF (This Week's Fail, because that's just how this works). But I did read the informative post made by bossymarmalade. And trust me. That was plenty.

I have also read subsequent posts both on my reading list and in the (very) wide fandom universe. Some have made me so blind with rage I've had to go outside. And some, like this one from tevere and the one she linked to by facetofcathy have made me go, "Thank you, ladies, you are better people than I, because mostly I think 'The more things change, the more nothing changes what. so. ever.'"

And I say all this to say:

I am a Person of Color. I am not your Racism Police.

Nor is any other Person of Color your Racism Police.

We were not put here to tell you when you are being a racist asshole. We are not here to be the back drop for your great romance. We are not a fucking background. We are PEOPLE. We are born, we live, we love, we die. We bleed just the same as any. body. else.

Just because you may not encounter a PoC in your daily life does not mean we are tiny people living in your TV that only start dancing around for your entertainment.

People of Color are not here for your entertainment.

We are not here to be your plot points or to be your One Minority Friend That Proves That You Are Totally. Not. A. Racist.

We are not birds. We are not exotic.

Our cultures. Not exotic.

So every time you ask to touch our hair because it looks different, or rub our skin as though the color might come off; and every time you ask what extraction we are, where our parents are from (implying that we obviously are "not from around here") or say we're pretty since we're mixed;

Every time you think, "These people are so *other* from me they must need a good white person to save them," -- and you know who you are (especially you, Hollywood) -- you are being a racist dick.

Point of fact, however, you don't have to be white to be racist. Anybody can be a racist. In fact, every time there's one of these Race Fail Tempests you inevitably get people asking, "Well, how am I supposed to know when I'm being racist?"

If you have to ask if you are being a racist, do I have to finish the rest of this sentence?

We are not small-eyed, thick-accented, Spanglish speaking or dark-skinned just to give you something to talk about. To give you something to compare yourself to and find yourself superior. We are not here for your artistic merit.

I don't care if your feelings are hurt today, I will still be a Person of Color tomorrow.

And yet, this still isn't going to change anything. It never changes anything. And why does it never change anything? Because people are making this into a theoretical discussion when it's not. These are people. Real fucking people. And these things really happened. And they caused a lot of fucking tragedy. The earthquakes? They happened. Colonialism? It happened. Blood diamonds. They happen. The wiping out of entire cultures by a bunch of greedy explorers. War in the name of oil or minerals (heads up, Afghanistan), the new land or spices or genocide. That shit happened. It keeps happening. It was not made up by six white guys in a air-conditioned office on the Warner Brothers back lot in Burbank drinking Diet Coke.

These things are happening now. And they will keep on happening. And just because they haven't happened to you in particular does not make them any less true, any less valid, or there to be exploited just for your amusement.


So I'm going to save the rest of my breath to cool my porridge and let Dave Chappelle say it best, because truly, "you ever have something happen that was so racist, that you didn't even get mad, you were just like, DAMN, that was racist."