From the Apartment Above Lukes, Sunday Night

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"This sucks," Hardison grumbled from his couch where the bank of TVs against the wall were turned to something that was very specifically not the Oscars. "You know I've been to every single one of these since I was fifteen, right? Fifteen! Had to steal a damn tuxedo my first year just to be allowed in. All that tradition down the damn drain because some folks can't remember that it ain't 1956 no more."

He had been ranting about this for over an hour now and showed no signs of stopping.

"Bad enough they ignored Selma last year," he continued. "I mean, any movie about Dr. King is, like, instant Oscar bait. But to ignore Straight Outta Compton? That movie was amazing! Yo, that dude who played MC Ren was on point in every damn scene he was in. This is a damn travesty!"

The couch could no longer contain his frustration. Hardison flung himself up and started to pace, furiously downing bottles of Squeeze Orange soda, which wasn't helping his energy levels any. "You know, I can fix this. I can hack the hell outta those Oscars. We'll see how good their damn ceremony is with Hardison in control of the lights an' music an' the damn teleprompter!"

This would...probably not end well.

[Establishy, but open to the crew if they want in! Thanks to whoisalicewhite for reminding me of Hardison's canonical Oscar attendance. Which, combined with Aldis Hodge's role in the unfairly-snubbed Straight Outta Compton made this post a must]

Comments

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

"So you're going to hack Price Waterhouse and whatstheirface?" Parker was watching him pace with interest. "When you do that, I want to break in and maybe set something on fire."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"I'mma do it right now," Hardison grumbled sitting down behind his laptop. "Just they wait. You'll know I'm in when they all start thankin' the black folks that they walked over to get to where they are. I'mma set it on fire. Digital fire."

Please don't let him do this, Parker. Please.

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

Parker was completely the wrong person to talk him out of this, despite being Mastermind now. This was what Eliot was for.

"Their bank accounts to go to the NAACP?" she offered, brainstorming.

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"An' this is why I love you, mama," Hardison said, getting up to to press a kiss against the side Parker's head. "Cause you're brilliant."

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

"Yup," Parker said happily. "Next year, can Whoopi win something else? She's in a movie again, right?" She frowned. "Hey, who does the nominations? That's where you have to start...."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Next year, I'mma make it so that it's just black performers across the damn board," Hardison announced. "Nah, not just black folks. All folks of color. It'll be the damn Rainbow Coalition up on that stage, yo."

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

"Pink is a color. It's just a really pale color. And the pink people have all won for all time. OOOoooo!" Parker sat up even further. "We should finance a movie! And make sure it wins! Not for the money, but for leverage. We could steal a film industry!"

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"The whole industry, not just a single movie?" Hardison asked, intrigued. "That could be cool. We could fund an' back indie films an' stuff, stuff that wouldn't normally get made by the bigger studios."

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

"Yes!... I want a movie about a circus. And one about, oh. Chocolate? And this could be really, really awesome for a long project." Parker clapped her hands, and then said, "Well, part-time long project, at least?"

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"You know there's a whole move about chocolate already, right?" Hardison asked, before biting his tongue. He'd deliberately made the decision not to show it to her because Parker did not need any inspiration, but...ah well. Too late now. "Romance. It ain't bad. I got it on the hard drive somewhere if you wanna watch it some time."

In for a penny...And if they watched it together, maybe he could run interference?

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

"Ooooo!" Parker was so there. "We should do that! With chocolate from Wonka's! Or better, chocolate that Eliot would make." Guess what was going to get rewatched several times over the next few weeks?

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"We could have a chocolate feast an' watch that movie, yeah," Hardison agreed, already mentally scheduling it to Eliot's house. "Belated Valentine's Day celebration, maybe."

Since Eliot had turned into a damn wolverine on the holiday itself.

[vdistinctive]

"Coopers," Eliot offered idly, with all the great wisdom and attention of a dad at the dinner table with a newspaper. "Don't set anything on fire until you know everyone's been evacuated."

Setting people on fire instead of property was just nasty. Even Eliot hadn't gone for that in his full-on bad guy days.

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

"People don't burn well," Parker had to admit. "Also, creepy. So yeah, no. I was thinking more their terrible office art. Or those little cubicle walls they keep the hamster accountants in."

[vdistinctive]

". . . You know the accountants aren't actually hamsters, right?"

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

"They act like hamsters. Are we sure they're not hamsters that were turned into people?"

Parker's one or two forays into being undercover in office cubicle farms were very formative.

[vdistinctive]

"If they're from our universe than yes." Anywhere else and Eliot wasn't willing to swear to it. "And hamsters don't throw each other going away parties."

Eliot had listened in on a couple undercover-in-office-cube-farm forays. And most of what he took away from them was someone was always having a going away party. Or maybe a birthday party.

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

"Anyway. I'm sure they'd be happy if I set their cages on fire. Hamsters and accountants should be free to crunch numbers in sunlight."

[vdistinctive]

"Yeah, that'd probably just lead to them gettin' laid off or something," Eliot said apologetically. "And PwC has offices all over the globe, so you'd have to spend a lot of time settin' those fires."

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

Parker grumbled a bit, and said, "Okay, I don't want that. I'll work on Plan D. After we start our indie movie studio. And win some of those stupid Oscars. We can use them as gargoyles on the roof."

[vdistinctive]

"Why don't we just disgrace the Academy members and get 'em replaced by some folks who aren't creaky old white guys?"

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

"Hmmmm." Parker considered. "Okay, that can be Plan C, and if that doesn't work, then we go to Plan D. .. although really, how do you disgrace a bunch of publically embarrassing Academy members who are already making money off being ridiculous?"

[vdistinctive]

"Steal all their money and get 'em indicted for tax fraud?" Eliot suggested. "What're Plans A and B?"

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

"Plan B was the setting fire to things. Plan A was taking over the Oscars, but I think that might make us bad guys if we took all those actors hostage during the next live telecast." She paused. "Although we could probably get Denzel's autograph that way."

[vdistinctive]

"Pretty sure there are easier ways to get that."

[vdistinctive]

"Shoulda at least given somethin' to that guy from Creed," Eliot said from the couch, where he was reading.

Well. Where he had a book anyway. Even he wasn't good enough at blocking out extraneous noise to read in the face of this rant.

"Hell, actor or director. That movie was fantastic."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

And Hardison definitely counted as extraneous noise right now.

"Right, man? Right?" he demanded. "Hell, that even has the proper Oscar recipe for an award-winnin' movie about black people. You know, young black man into sports that finds an old white mentor. What's more Oscar than that? Unless we have a ol' black mammy dispensin' old-timey wisdom to innocent white children who're gonna grow up an' change the world for black folks forever."

Someone's bitterness was showing.

[vdistinctive]

To be fair, it hadn't counted when the rant started, but it'd been going on for a really long time now. Hardison was going to blow his voice out if he wasn't careful. Eliot would make him some -- decaffeinated -- tea with honey when he ran out of orange soda.

"I'm from the south and even I know that's bull." To be fair, Oklahoma was more west than south, culturally. Not that it didn't have its share of problems with race. "Trouble is, the Academy were all breast-fed with Gone With the Wind."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"An' now they don't know nothin' 'bout judges no movies," Hardison said, flinging himself back down onto the couch next to Eliot with further unconcern for his book. "Maybe we should be watchin' the All Def Movie Awards instead. I'm tryna figure out who's gonna win the Best Helpful White Person award."

[vdistinctive]

"Sounds like fun." Eliot had no idea what that awards show was or who would be nominated for such a category. "That, like, the Anti-Oscars or somethin'?"

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"New this year," Hardison confirmed. "I dunno if it's gonna be a regular thing, but this year it was needed. It was a response to the Oscar's bein' so damn monochromatic these past two years. Man, I shoulda got us tickets to that!"

[vdistinctive]

Eliot reached over to rub Hardison's shoulder. "If the Oscars are stupid enough again next year, we'll be sure to hit up this Mos Def Award thing."

Eliot no.

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Oh, they ain't gonna be that stupid next year," Hardison assured him, leaning into the caress. "I'mma make sure 'bout that. I'mma find every person of color in Hollywood an' make sure they're nominated for somethin'. We'll be drinkin' racist tears outta champagne flutes all night."

[vdistinctive]

"Drinkin' that much salt ain't good for your blood pressure." Of course, neither was racism. "I still say we just need to take out the whole Academy and replace 'em with a buncha folks who ain't old rich white men."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"I'm likin' that, too," Hardison said. "You think we can get a Mastermind on how to make that happen? I'm willin' to steal the Academy."

[vdistinctive]

"She's callin' it 'Plan C'," Eliot said. "Behind stealing the show and burning the place down. We're still workin' on her priorities."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Agreed," Hardison said. "Burnin' it down should clearly be Plan A."

Eliot, you knew your crew was bloodthirsty, right?

[vdistinctive]

He was never entirely sure how the stone-cold killer ended up being the voice of reason. "If you burn it all down you don't get to rub it in their faces when people of color take the whole thing by storm."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

Because they were tiny, innocent babies who didn't have the experience to back up the bloodthirsty?

"Point," Hardison grumbled. "But it would sure be damn satisfyin' to see. An' then we could build somethin' new an' better on the ashes."

[vdistinctive]

"Sure, while we watch 'em run around trippin' over themselves lookin' for a scapegoat to blame the fire on. I'm tellin' ya, man, we just gotta clean house. I promise we can set some smaller fires along the way."

Damn pyros, the both of them.

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"See, you do love me," Hardison said. "A'ight, I suppose we can shelve the idea to set the whole thing on fire, but only cause you promise that we can set little ones. I'mma hold you to it, too."