#'no that was the babel guy. this one's from the queens'
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really tho, the implication that Vincenzo and Queen of Tears exist in the same universe and nobody bats an eye at the fact that the young male heirs of two separate problematic conglomerates have the same exact face is hilarious to me
#the press be like damn soocheol and hanseo look super similar. anyway#still going insane why didnt soocheol get to meet vin 😩#queen of tears#vincenzo#'wait wasnt he in the news bc of some scandal already'#'no that was the babel guy. this one's from the queens'
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What was that about AM being kicked off the rock category? 👀👀 Pls explain 🙏
okay so like i said on that ask, in this video (which i still highly recommend in its entirety!) at around 14:50 it's mentioned how in the mid-2010s one guy who was part of the comittee who voted in the rock categories said that one year the best selling rock album of that year got kicked out of the best rock album category bc one other person in the committee thought it was "too commercial" (do watch the video if you want to know better how this works, btw)
his actual quote: “A lot of the people in the room that year were either crusty old metal dudes or indie-rock guys who hate anything successful, and they took that year’s biggest-selling rock album and knocked it off the ballot because they thought it was too commercial. Then they added two [from outside the top 15], and one was a band that one guy on the committee brought up at the end of two long days of listening. Everybody was, like, ‘F— it, let’s put that on.’”
so i actually went to read the article mentioned in the video and basically narrowed it down to the guy talking about AM. we can never be 100% sure until he says so, but basically:
the article is from 2017, and the guy is a former member, so that places the year he's talking about as 2016 or down
they mention 1975 as an example of a "commercially successful act" and their first album came out in 2013, so this places the year between 2014 (since the ceremony is always at least on the following year) and 2016
they mention 1975 but they never had a best selling rock album of the year so it wasn't them
so let's break it down: in 2014 the nominees were led zeppelin, black sabbath, david bowie, kings of leon, queens of the stone age, and neil young+crazy horse; in 2015 the nominees were beck, ryan adams, the black keys, tom petty and the heartbreakers, and u2; and in 2016 the nominees were muse, james bay, death cab for cutie, highly suspect, and slipknot. idk about you, but to me all of those would very much please both the "crusty old metal dudes" and the "indie-rock guys who hate anything successful" as the guy in the article says
let's break it down some more: the best selling rock album of its debut year that could've vied for the 2014 ceremony was babel my mumford and sons (so let's discard this album and year bc to me this would please the "indie-rock guys"); the best selling rock album of its debut year that could've vied for the 2015 ceremony was (guess what??) AM by arctic monkeys (🚨🚨🚨 fresh sound ✔️ commercially successful so not exactly "indie" ✔️ definitely not old rock ✔️); and the best selling rock album of its debut year that could've vied for the 2016 ceremony was rock or bust by ac/dc (i'd also discard this one bc this would very much please the "old rock" bores)
not to mention 2015 seems like a year especially filled with some more-than-common obscure nominations (which would go along with what the guy said that two recommendations from two members were added last-minute)
and phewwwwwwwww this places AM as the most likely album that got kicked out for being too successful. does this makes sense? like to me am is the only album which ticks of all the boxes
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Vincenzo: Episode 16
the law enforcement in this show is so unserious like just move out the way atp 😭
Vincenzo fugitive era !!!
also exactly !!! like the law is pretty much babel at this point. might as well as skip the jail time
the contract killers and gangs they send to this building are so unserious like why do you pause everytime you bump into someone or give them time to throw a punch back at you 💀 0/5 stars service
but get him goon man !!!
help this dumbass contract killer is fighting with his mask off
get him goon man
ngl super worried about the mom
stop hitting my goon in the face??? I'm tired of seeing my man get punched
Get em park saeroyiiii
yes!!! punch him goon man
is that the goon's car lmaooo i love him
Vincenzo thinks he's beginning to like the goon?
I knew Mr. Oh was going to die after getting that life card
Vincenzo fugitive era over
you don't want to model but you did hold the globe! lmao sneaky model slay
AWWW they're getting a family portrait
does the mom already know? if not this portrait shoot should definitely have her picking up on hints 😭
the tears in their eyes. my babies fr 😭 that's family ❤️
please just face each other and hug my precious family
oh the actor really ate this up
the tone shift from that to the evil CEO brothers
the building's about to blow oh nooo, junior CEO brother if you wanted to stop the madness here's your chance. TELL THEM.
A baby on the way too. Oh if you do something now Evil CEO i will catch you through the screen. it's just episode 16 😭😭😭
Gas lady, count your days 😭
oh my god did the younger brother send fire brigade !?!!!
Ofc he caught the watch
it's the younger brother isn't it !!!
NOOO why didn't you duck
RUN BROTHER RUN
aaah fuck they got his mom
he looks so adorable in that jacket! cutie
someone love him a little omg 😟
the mom's gonna go oh lord.
GET AWAY FROM HER EVIL CEO GET AWAY. I'll kill you actually 🤩
he's looking at his mom's pictures with him while that loser talks to his mom
Aunty get away 😭😭😭
when i finally get to the fictional world him and the lawyer lady are first on my hit list (it's a long list but county your days)
junior CEO will never be accepted in this group 💀 get out of the country babe
Dobongsu, Mr. Queen and now this WHAT IS WRONG with KDrama hospital security I'm so serious ?!!!
oh no no no
neither of them got to say what they wanted to their parents
the audacity to smile and cackle i am so sick of these two evil bitches
they're slow dancing ?!!???
Little brother at least punch your brother like i hate him so bad i might cry out of sheer anger 😭
lmaooo the audacity to call out the Wusang guy when you were slow dancing with the other brother after orchestrating a murder 3 seconds ago
exactly vincenzo. one of these two needs to die TODAY
you're so brave and chill about killing people 😭 i hope both of you die soon <3
please tell me she's gone
#Vincenzo#episode 16#written update#my god 😭#i hate the ceo and lawyer lady so bad#my emotions are all over the place
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2, 4, 8, 14, 25 for the ask meme?
Album of the year?
oh god i dont remember what happened this year. uh big black deltas titular album is something ive listened to a lot. honorable mentions crawler by idles and songs for the deaf by queens of the stone age!
Movie of the year?
i feel like i started watching a lot more movies this year..well i guess everything everywhere all at once is probably still it though lmfao. honorable mentions american psycho, kajillionaire and kamen rider kabuto: GOD SPEED LOVE
Game of the year?
final fantasy fourteen baby!!! im pretty sure ive spent a thousand hours on this game atp. honorable mention to milk inside a bag of milk inside a bag of milk that was fucking crazy. its only 2 dollars would highly recommend if you care about narratives or protagonists or want to see someones brain sort of . couple jumpscares though
Favorite book you read this year? i finished t kingfishers what moves the dead recently, which has been on my tbr forever. SO SCARY. a lot of scifi/horror this year i think? also i read a lot of manga so i was thinking of writing up what i thought of some of the more memorable ones. notes of a crocodile by qiu maojin was really different from what i normally read, and really well done. um i have spent a lot of time thinking about dont pick up boyfriends from the trashbin by 骑鲸南去. OHAND BABEL
Did you create any characters (in games, art, or writing) this year? Describe one
yeah . uhhh here is the note i made about this guy
ty!! i loved answering these :3 weird how because of how school works the spring felt like an entirely different time
end of year asks
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👀
The Amberlough Dossier Trilogy by Lara Elena Donnelly | Literally my fave, I love the characters and their journeys so much. Set in a quasi-Weimar Berlin setting, it follows an undercover secret agent, his lover who's the emcee at the hottest cabaret club in the city, and one of the dancers. A fascist political party is threatening to take over and they work both alone and together to avert the coup! Books 2+3 deal greatly with the aftermath of things and I was crying such bittersweet tears at the end 😭
Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo | If you're up for something spooky, this one's a modern, queer, southern gothic horror with some dark academia stuff going on? Guy's lifelong best friend dies of an apparent suicide so he starts digging into things and uhhh... without getting too spoilery, he was being haunted by a ghost!!! The characters are so real and messy and the narrator for this audiobook is OUTSTANDING
The Binding by Bridget Collins | MLM fantasy romance set in a world where people can give up their memories by having them bound into books. It's so full of drama and angst 😩 This one's a little slow to start but at the end of Act 1 I was HOOKED and by the end I was just 🥲🥲🥲🥲 in the best way possible
The Midnight Lie by Marie Rutkoski | Fantasy with a WLW romance. Set in a dystopian society, the protag escapes the walled compound she was raised in and discovers the injustice and abuses of the upper classes living on the outside.
Jade City Trilogy by Fonda Lee | This is just like, a whole-ass intergenerational crime family drama but with the added fantasy element of ~magical jade that gives people super human abilities. Fantastic characters where no one is wholly good or bad, and the weight of the family legacy is explored in great depth and in different ways through each of them.
The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon | High fantasy with a little WLW romance. Follows three badass ladies: A queen without an heir struggling to defend her queendom from a dragon prophesized to destroy it. A mage assassin from a secret society with it's own interpretation of the prophecy. And a dragon rider from another part of the world where dragons are revered as gods. It all comes together so deliciously 🤌
Babel by RF Kuang | Fantasy where magic comes from cross-linguistic wordplay (I'm making this phrase up). Dark academia vibes, heavy exploration of colonialism and how its related ills get perpetuated by academia
My grandmother, bless her heart, has given me six months of audible for christmas. Anyone have book recs? I feel very out of the loop, all things considered.
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Becoming Mine (Vincenzo)
Summary: Y/N is working with Vincenzo and a loyal ally from Italy. Han seok captures her and tortures her for information. She holds out longer than he hoped and wants her loyalty for himself.//SMUT WARNING, MINORS DNI
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Jang Hanseok sent Ms. Choi to get her hands dirty and oversee the torture of Y/N for information. Y/N and Vincenzo grew up in the Mafia together. They taught each other everything.
He has asked Y/N for help with taking down Babel and she said yes without any questions asked. And now she has to suffer the consequences of loyalty.
First they started with electrocution. They tied her to a metal chair and put spark plugs on the back side of the chair. They would send a jolt, each longer than the last. "Go to hell!" She yells at Ms. Choi after the jolt that lasted 20 seconds.
Then they moved on to cutting with the thinnest daggers. Death by a thousand cuts, she always thought it was a cliche thing to use. But hey, to each their own torture method.
Her hair sticks to her forehead and the sides of her neck as he digs his knife across her collar bone. "Fuck!"
Ms. Choi walks into Hanseok's office with a grimace. "What's wrong?" "She's not breaking. She's a lot stronger than I thought." Ms. Choi says, linking her hands behind her back. Hanseok stands from his chair and rounds the desk.
"What tactics have you used?" He asks. "Electrocution, cutting, waterboarding, fire and even bludgeoning and she still tells me to go to hell." Choi rambles.
"I could use someone of her loyalty," Hanseok states. "I want to meet her," he adds. "With all due respect, sir, she'll never agree to that. She's endure days of torture for Vincenzo, she isn't going to give him up or betray him. She's willing to risk her life for him." "Will you risk your life for me?" He asks, searching her face for a response.
"I'll kill anyone you tell me to, sir," "That didn't answer my question. I still want to see her." He says. Ms. Choi drives him to the warehouse where they keep Y/N. She was currently unconscious from the pain she has endured. Hanseok's face grimaced and he says, "You took get your hands dirty a little too literally."
Y/N gasped as she regain consciousness and she groaned softly. She looked up to see Jang Hanseok and he smiles. "Who the hell are you?" She asked before spitting out some blood in her mouth. "Hopefully, I'll be your new boss." He says, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "In your dreams, tough guy." She snarks.
A man punches her across the face and she looked at him with pure annihilation and vexation. That look gave Hanseok butterflies in his stomach. The feeling was beyond the norm and he had no idea what the origin was. She opened her mouth to say something else but Hanseok intercepted.
"Touch her again, and I'll have you thrown off a building." He threatens. Hanseok watched as the man stepped away from her. "You, cut her loose," He adds, pointing to another man.
"Sir, are you sure about this?" Choi asked and he didn't answer. She was cut free and the first thing Y/N grabs is the man's throat before breaking it.
Another man came at her and she ducked under the punch before punching him twice in his armpit before punching his throat. She limps over to the table where her weapons were and grabbed her smaller knives.
She tossed them in the air and within seconds, three men dropped dead with the knives in their skulls. Which only left Ms. Choi and Jang Hanseok.
She grabs a gun from one of the corpses and aimed it at them. "Tell me why I shouldn't kill you both," "Do that and my men sets that entire plaza on fire with everyone inside."
"I'm calling your bluff lady, you're just trying to save your ass because you know that I'll put bullet in your head without blinking," she says as she cocks the gun and applies steady pressure on trigger.
"Wa-" she pulls the trigger and sends a bullet straight through Ms. Choi's head. Hanseok chuckles wryly before saying, "Now I'm in need of a new lawyer and strategist," he says, his hands still stuffed in his pockets.
"Who are you?" "The CEO of Babel," he answers nonchalantly. "So you're the one who started all this,"
"Well I can't take all the credit. She had her fair share," he says, referencing to Ms. Choi. Red dots appear on Y/N chest and she notices. "I have this place surrounded. One move to shoot me and you'll get shot to pieces. Just take the easy way and work for me. It'll be a lot of fun." "Right, like killing innocent people is fun,"
"It seems like you enjoy killing people." "Only those who deserve it," she snaps. "Regardless of your intentions, my guys wills drop you before you can fire. Question is, do you want to live and be treated like a queen?"
She doesn't respond and he adds, "Or I can kill both you and your mother. She loves to visit a little shop in.. Siena, right? What's it's called again?"
Her grip tightens on the gun before tossing it across the room. "Kill her and I promise to kill you and every single one of your sponsors," "Looks like you and I have more in common than we thought. Come on, let's get you cleaned up." He walks out of the warehouse and she hesitantly follows.
Y/N's POV
You sigh softly as you stepping into the cold, crisp in contrast of the warm, misty air in bathroom. You had pulled your hair into a loose ponytail before you put on Hanseok's shorts and t-shirt. You hate to say it, but his clothes were extremely comfortable. He promised to take me out shopping tomorrow for clothes.
"I didn't know what you liked so I bought everything," he says, referencing to the various plates of food on the kitchen counter. Your eyes settle on kimchi jiagae and you make your way over to the table.
You a grab a few bowls to try some of the kimchi jiagae, bulgogi, dakdoritgang, dakgangjeong and mixed rice. You set them on the tray sit on the pillow he prepared for you.
"You like spicy food, huh?" He says and you nod. "Yeah, my brother likes spicy food too." You wait until he comes back with his tray of food to dig in. You hum lowly as you eat your bulgogi and you feel a hand touch my chin. You pull away and look at him with confused.
"What the hell are you doing?" "I'm sorry, I just.. you look.. you're beautiful," "If you think that you can someone convince me into sleeping with you, you have another thing coming,"
"What? I can't appreciate your beauty without something in return?" He asks innocently. "Hell no," you sneer. He chuckles before saying, "I'm going to have some fun with you."
Over the next few weeks, he has bought you a whole new wardrobe, shoes and jewelry. He's even made sure my hair and nails are done with complementary spa days.
He's been pampering you ever since you were a part of his life. You've been enjoying it but you've developed a sense of waiting for the other shoe to drop.
It also raises questions. Why did he choose you? How long will this pampering thing last? Is your mom still held hostage? What is he planning on doing with Vincenzo?
"Hey, kitten." You roll your eyes at his new pet name for you. You have no idea where he got it from because you are nothing like a kitten. You were playful or adventurous, but you were high maintenance.
"How many times do I have to tell.." you trail off as you see him in a light blue three piece suit with white leather shoes. His hair was combed to the side with gel and you could smell his cologne from where you sat.
"Why are you dressed like that?" "Do you like it?" He say, nearing you slowly. "No," you lie and he smiles at you. "You sure about that?" He leans his hands on either side of you and ducked his head to be at your eye level. "I bought you a matching dress. Get dressed, we leave in an hour."
He nudges his nose against yours before leaving the room and leaving you hot and bothered. Ever since you walked in on him lifting weights without his shirt, your mind came up with various, filthy scenarios that made your panties soaked.
You stand up from the chair and walked into the bedroom to see a goregous silk, light blue dress with diamond seam around the midrange of the stomach.
You take a shower and apply your favorite lotion and perfume before you slide on the dress. You latch on the sparkly, light blue heels. You put on your robe and sit down to apply some foundation, highlight and mascara on to your face.
You were just about to clip your hair up and leave a few curls out but you hear Hanseok say, "Leave your hair down." You look at him through the mirror to see him leaning his arm on the door frame, pulling his dress shirt taught around his solid biceps. He eyes you with a soft smile on his face. "You look beautiful," he says as he nears you once again.
"I know." You stand up and meet him half way across the room. "Shall we?" He says , offering you his arm. "Let's just get this night over with,"
**
You two return at one in the morning and you were infuriated. He spent the whole night flirting with random women at the gala. "You make no sense to me, Jang Hanseok." You say, taking off your earring and tossing them on the dresser.
"What makes you say that?" He asks, sitting on the bed to take off his shoes. "You pamper me with all these gifts, clothes, jewelry to convince me to stay in your life and then you spend the entire night flirting with every one you could lay your eyes on." You snap.
He takes off his vest with a sigh and loosens his tie. "I wanted to see if you cared. Cared about me and my attention." "Well, do you?" He adds. "If I didn't care, do you think I would have said anything?" You snap.
He grabs the back of your neck and pulls you inches away from his face. He tightens his grip and says through gritted teeth, "I've had enough of your attitude, just answer the question."
"I just did." His fingers dig into you neck enough to cause discomfort but not enough to break skin. "Do you care about me?" He asks. "Unfortunately, yes." "Why unfortunately?" "It only makes it harder to-" "
"To betray me?" You push his hand away and say, "What the hell makes you think of something like that? I was going to say it makes it harder to say no but you always think everyone is out to get you. It should be me asking the qu-"
He stops your rant by slamming his lips on yours. One hand rests on the back of your head and the other smooths over the dip of your back.
Your fingers work on unbuttoning his shirt as you walk him onto the bed. He sits on the edge and pulls you into his lap. You pull his shirt off his shoulder and leave kisses up his chest in it's wake.
He moans softly and you could feel his hard on press against your inner thigh. You tug the rest of his shirt off and push his back on the bed. You buck your hips against him and a soft whine leaves his lips.
You quiet him by tenderly biting down on his bottom lip. His lips latched onto yours and presses your core harder against him.
He pulls your hair gently to evade your attention from his lips. He rolls you on you stomach and stands. "Han seok, what are you-" he rips the dress open from the back, making you yell out in surprise.
"Damn it, I liked that dress." "There's plenty more where that came from kitten," he smooths his hands up the back of your legs and squeezes your ass.
You pull off the rest of your mangled dress, leaving you in your white lace set. "And don't you dare rip-" he rips the lace underwear in two and pulls you so your knees are on the edge of the bed. "I'm going to kill you, Han seok."
"I've been wanting to get a taste of you since I set my eyes on you." You let out a squeak when you feel his hot breath agaisnt your core.
You've never been in the position before so you have no idea what the expect. He licks up the stripe with slow, deep licks, each lick lasting longer on your clit. "Oh God," you grip the sheets with a white knuckle grip when he curls his tongue along the upper wall and caresses a g-spot. Your legs started to shake and loud moans leave your lips when he slips in two fingers and curled them hard.
You tried crawling away from him, feeling overwhelmed of the pleasure but he holds you back by your thighs. With a few more licks, you release yourself on his tongue and he hums with satisfaction.
"You taste a lot better than I thought, baby." Your body already started to twitch and you could tell that this was going to be a long night.
You roll onto your back and chills roll down your spine when you see him licking your juices off of his fingers. Pushing yourself backwards, he pulls you closer to him by your ankles. "Han seok, please. It's too much."
"You're doing great, kitten. Just relax and let it wash over you." He says softly, pecking your lips before settling himself between your legs once again.
He spreads your legs wide before he sucks on your clit harder and faster than the first time, sending shock waves through your body. "Fuck! Oh my God!"
Looking down at him, he locks eyes with you and he completely devours your bundle of folds. He alternate between licking side to side and up and down with a curl of his tongue.
Your back arches and stars cloud your vision as you come down from your second high. He pulls away from you with his lower face covered in your juices. "Come here," he lifts your trembling body and dropping it into his lap. He smooths his hands over your ass before unbuckling his dress pants.
He pulls down his boxers and his erection stands up tall, making your whimper. He's going to destroy you. "I'll be gentle," he whispers, lifting your chin to meet his gaze.
You nod your head in agreement and lines himself up at your entrance. Throwing your head back as your walls expand and contract around him. You wrap your arms around him and bury your face into his neck and he bounces you in his lap.
Time slows a few seconds when you meet his gaze. "Oh God," you chant as the knot intensified in your stomach. "I'm close, Han seok."
His lips locked with yours and your boys jolts forward when his thumb rubs hard circles on your clit. Your entire body spasms as he cums inside of you but he continued to rub circles until you came.
He stayed buried inside of you while you sat in his lap as you both catches your breaths. Resting his forehead against yours, he says, "I love you. You believe me what I say that, right?"
You nod and holds the sides of your face. "Say it," "I love you," "Good girl," he pulls out of you and slides you both under the covers.
You lay directly ontop of him with a thin sheet covering the both of you, sighing as he draws circles on your back.
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Okay, i need to get this out of my chest because I need to move on with my life. I really think that ep 20 was the ending that previous ep (ep 15-18) demanded, BUT not the ending that the series, at least, at the beginning till ep 12 deserved aaaand the main reason, for ME, it's hong chayoung.
So I may be biased, because I love LOVE chayoung and jeon yeobeen it's amazing, show stopper, never seen before, etc, but they really kind of went nowhere with her arc, they really didn't follow the path that they put her in the beginning and I hate it,,, it's like they didn't know what to do with her character after ep 15.
At the beginning she is a bad guy. She is a corrupt lawyer working for an evil corporation. She is the ACE of the firm and to be that you can't be a good person, like,,, we literally see her bribing a victim to give false testimony. She hurts people, maybe not in a direct way, but her actions definitely do. She is in the path of becoming something similar to choi myunhee (ya, maybe not like her but in a bad guy similar way aaand myunhee's actress literally said something like that in an interview, like "in 20 years she will become me" or smt like that). And we have Hanseok working with her because he sees that potential. She choose this for some reason and she is okay with all of it.
It took her dad being killed for her to snap out of it, to be in the "good side of the fight" and bring justice. And it wasn't because it was "the right thing to do". It was because she wanted to avenge her dad, she is motivated by pure revenge. That's one of the main plots of the series: Chayoung's path of revenge and Vincenzo helping her in becoming the dark hero she needed to be to achieve that.
The really amazing thing with her character is how tenacious, stubborn, stable and strong she is, like, with her dad's death, her entire world collapsed beneath her feet, she was suffocating in a sea of guilt and regret, but she kept fighting through it all. So yeah, she kept fighting with the ways she knew, using the law and power in her favor. That is until ep 9 and that glorious ending happens. That is another turning point of her character.
I really thought that they were gonna make her sacrifice her morals, that she was gonna realize that justice could not be achieved by the law, but through action. And she kind of started doing that, right? she told Vincenzo that she wanted to have the last blow, she told him that she wanted to eliminate the guys that killed her father, she TORTURED the dudes that killed the relatives of the victims of babel (and my clown ass really believed that she had killed them but I guess not??? anyway). When one of the dudes tells them to give them up to the police, to be judged by justice, she says "and who are gonna benefit from that?", it's like she really embraces the idea the only way to bring justice is by their hands, that she is becoming a dark hero.
And then,,,, nothing really happens.
They really presented her like someone equal to Vincenzo in the first half. Like,, it would have been amazing to see her struggle with her decisions and morals, such a complex route for a character, especially for a FL, but they kind of backtracked on her plot. And I'm not saying that I wanted her murdering people right and left like Vincenzo lol, but, the way they presented the characters and the rivalry at the beginning of the story, she should have been the one who killed myunhee at the end, or at least participate MORE in the making of the revenge, not having her benched half of the final episode. Simply put, it was queen against queen, king against king. Chayoung vs myunhee and Vincenzo against hanseok....
The potential, the cosmic implications, the ANGST,,,,,,
Maybe, if they followed that way, they could have been together TOGETHER at the end. After all she belonged in the mafia ;-;.
Anyway, why they fear succeed so much.
#ENGLISH IS SO HARD I HATE IT#but yeah :/#chayoung bb you deserved so much better#vincenzo#jeon yeo been#writers its okay dont be scared of the fl succed pls women dont bite
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CARNIVAL DAY recaps [11/13]
Today’s recap: Dokuson’s lonely youth, a message from Meiru, and how to make your own Billion Killer.
[tw: suicide]
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FIFTY-TWO
02 Aug 1997 — 08 Aug 1997
TOWER OF BABEL
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[This is the last chapter, but it has around 270 pages and we still have A LOT to go through.]
(...Below is BOKU’s testimony. [Originally in first person.])
Dokuson and BOKU learned about the attack on Tsukumo Juku in the afternoon of February 7th. They rushed to the hospital at once. Inugami Yasha told them what had happened and that Gensoukan, Yasha’s black cat, and an old servant of the Inugami family had all disappeared.
Dokuson looked like he was intensely thinking about something he didn’t want to say out loud.
Thanks to quick surgical treatment, it looked like Juku was on his way to recovery; the doctors stated he had already pulled through the worst of it. Relieved, Dokuson and BOKU returned to the JDC headquarters. But then, around midnight, they got the news that Juku’s condition had suddenly worsened, and he passed away before they managed to get back to the hospital.
The same night, the Crystal Nightmare killed Desert Colosseum, and later in the day Ronely Queen died in the Statue of Liberty case. Three dead S-detectives in one day. That last case also claimed the life of Ushiwaka Gigolo.
BOKU remembers that tragic day well. Even Dokuson let grief show on his face, especially when told about Ushiwaka. After a few seconds of deep silence he told BOKU that Kirika would be taking over the representative duties that day, because Dokuson himself would spend the day secluded in the meeting room number six, mourning the dead. Only for one day, though, as humanity would suffer if someone as great as him rested any longer.
Seeing BOKU’s shock (the guy they call a Demon Lord showing feelings?!), Dokuson stated that it’s perfectly natural for him to grieve. A man who couldn’t even mourn the woman who was especially important to him could never become the world’s greatest genius, now could he.
Dokuson said that Ushiwaka had once been his ideal partner both at work and in private. The only condition he wanted a potential partner to fulfill was that they should understand him; Ushiwaka was the first woman he met who understood. (BOKU wasn’t sure how two people with such strong personalities could work as a couple—it’d be like mashing the same poles of two magnets together—but apparently they did.)
But that was many years ago. Dokuson was still young, just an immature boy with barely the glimpse of his current perfection, his heart filled with bright hopes for the future.
Dokuson stressed that what had attracted him to Ushiwaka was not her beauty or genius; the real value and beauty of a person was their soul and heart, their personality. Dokuson, as the self-aware narcissist, knew he possessed a dazzling heart and was because of it the world’s most beautiful person. The world’s second most beautiful person would therefore be someone who could understand and love him the most in the world.
As Dokuson had already explained once, all humans had a narcissistic part to them; without any degree of self-love, people would simply drop dead. Loving others more than yourself was extremely hard. Even the most dramatic declamations of self-sacrifice could be just empty words. People would say things like “I would die for you”, but from Dokuson’s point of view, someone who really understood and loved him should strive to outlive him; he wouldn’t stand for anyone sacrificing themselves for his sake. As far as Dokuson was concerned, those who looked at him and felt even just a little love were the true possessors of beautiful clear souls.
Once upon a time, young Dokuson had no hope whatsoever for being loved by other people. Who could ever love and understand him more than he loved and understood himself? But then came Ushiwaka. She was the first person who loved Yuiga Dokuson more than Yuiga Dokuson loved himself.
...but you could say that it was her love���and the frustration and regrets it led to—that in the end caused Dokuson to fully blossom into his narcissistic self.
Though they were young, Ushiwaka had already found her unique style of reasoning, which relied on falling in love with someone. Tragically, her feelings would disappear once she solved a case—this happened with their relationship too. It’s not that Ushiwaka had only pretended to love Dokuson all this time; she explained at length that she had genuinely been in love with him, but her feelings came to a sudden end along with a case.
Back then, Dokuson found this explanation hard to accept. He wanted to know more about Ushiwaka’s reasoning method and investigated on his own, full of immaturity and confusion about feelings.
And then, though he never meant to kill anyone, he pestered Ushiwaka’s new boyfriend with questions and cornered him psychologically so badly that the man committed suicide.
Ever since Dokuson was a small boy, he had a mysterious power of tragically manipulating others using words. When he was five and a police officer tried to reprimand him, he started lecturing the officer in turn, making the man completely break apart mentally and commit suicide soon afterwards. It seemed like just a tragic coincidence at the time.
Dokuson would only realize what he’d done much later in life, after his words had already taken the lives of many other people. The death of Ushiwaka’s boyfriend was the turning point. Now aware of the powers of his words, fully understanding his guilt, he consciously limited and softened his speech. No one else fell victim to his words since that time ten years ago. He decided to never use his power again unless it would be absolutely necessary.
The power to kill others with words wasn’t something unique to Dokuson; he was just an extreme case, but every person had the potential to wound others deeply. He would bet that even BOKU had unwittingly said something that indirectly led to someone’s death.
Dokuson didn’t intend on running away from his faults, and specifically because he was so deeply aware of them, he could keep growing. People learned by making mistakes. Even Dokuson, this shining beacon of the human race, had accumulated many horrible deeds throughout his life. After all, those called the great men of history were often “wrongdoers” who logically strode away from the common path, often seen as heretics or eccentrics by their contemporaries. Those who only followed what others did would never become great. If someone had to dirty their hands for the sake of erasing evil, then wouldn’t that role be perfect for Dokuson, the one with the power of a hundred million people? He was enough; he wouldn’t want to create a second or third “Dokuson”—for the sake of the world and humanity, and (most importantly!) so that his name would stay special and unique.
(...Dokuson was doing his confusing philosophical rambling again, but BOKU kind of understood what he was trying to say. Dokuson felt like a rehabilitated prisoner who would see young criminals that reminded him of past himself and want to guide them to a better way of living. He detested the past himself who killed Ushiwaka’s boyfriend, and took care not to create “another himself” with his actions.)
Dokuson had many enemies, but the one who truly hated him the most was himself. No one could possibly hate themselves more than Dokuson, maybe except for people about to commit suicide. In order not to be devoured from the inside by this burning self-hatred, Dokuson had to always maintain his narcissism on the highest level—if he didn’t, his state of mind could lead to another tragedy like with Ushiwaka’s boyfriend. In this way, Dokuson became the world’s greatest narcissist to atone for the past.
Another part of his atonement was the kunoichi detective Sarutobi Shinobu. A long time ago, Sarutobi, Ushiwaka, and Dokuson had decided to fight the evils of this world in remembrance of Ushiwaka’s tragic boyfriend. Sarutobi Shinobu, real name Sado Nawa, was the dead man’s sister.
The four Sado siblings were Hifumi, Shigorou (the one who died), Nawa (Sarutobi), and Kutou (involved in the Three Monkeys Killer case). The D-name “Ushiwaka Gigolo” came partially from Shigorou’s name. How Sarutobi came to work for Dokuson was too complicated of a story to be told now.
Dokuson said that love never lasted in the same shape forever, and it was impossible to continue loving someone for eternity. The Dokuson who talked to BOKU at the moment and the Dokuson who was once loved by Ushiwaka were two different people. However, all the memories still remained within him, and he would want to take some time to remember the golden past.
After saying all that, Dokuson closed himself in an empty meeting room.
--
Twenty-four hours later BOKU opened the door to the meeting room and found Dokuson in a strange pose: sitting motionless at the table with his eyes closed, holding a red rose between his teeth like a tango dancer. It seemed to be the same rose he always wore in his chest pocket.
Dokuson didn’t look angry at the intrusion, but BOKU still had a feeling like he’d just walked in on something no one was supposed to see.
Dokuson put the rose back in its proper place and said that he’d been meditating in order to rest his mind and body, “just like you all sleep at night”.
(That was… a strange way to phrase it. But now that BOKU thought about it, in all his days and sometimes nights at JDC he’d never once seen Dokuson nap, despite his job being so exhausting. He also never saw him eat or go to the bathroom. Not even once. Did Dokuson intentionally ignore all his needs until he was alone late at night or what? At least now BOKU could understand a bit where Dokuson’s atmosphere of a superhuman came from; things like eating or sleeping were necessary for people to seem human, but were absent from the concept of “Yuiga Dokuson”. That nickname of Demon Lord sure fit.
A lot of people perceived Tsukumo Juku in a similar way. Someone had even joked once that the God of Detectives was removed from the concept of mundane actions like eating or sleeping. But no matter how supernatural of an atmosphere a person had, they couldn’t just completely get rid of all their bodily needs… though they could probably limit them to as low as humanly possible. Probably one of the reasons why they both seemed so otherworldly?)
But back to the topic, Dokuson explained his rose meditation. He had been plagued by debilitating insomnia as a child, and even now couldn’t sleep like others did. When tired, he would just perform his rose meditation, which would clear his head as well as sleeping. And no, it wasn’t just a convoluted way of napping, as Dokuson stayed conscious of his surroundings the entire time, even though it could take him some time to come out of the meditation and respond to stimuli. (...that still sounded like napping to BOKU.)
As for why a rose or another long slim object was needed, holding it in one’s mouth would force the facial muscles into the same position as during a smile. Even a forced smile caused the brain to release chemicals acting like antidepressants and helping boost the immune system. And so, Dokuson would switch into “relax mode” and for a short time sleep while staying awake. He just had to remember to often swap the rose for a new one to hide the teeth marks.
So he did just nap after all… That’d be it for this mystery. Though it was still weird that Dokuson allegedly only meditated four times a day, one hour of sleep in total. His day was technically much longer than BOKU’s. Dokuson had said once that things that would take BOKU half a day could be done in his fifteen minutes, so maybe it’s that relative difference in day length he meant? BOKU made some calculations out of curiosity. He was twenty-one and Dokuson was twenty-six, and his half a day of work was equal to Dokuson’s fifteen minutes… then going by proportions, BOKU’s entire life work could be achieved in Dokuson’s four months... and going in the opposite direction, BOKU would need like a few thousands of years to achieve the same as Dokuson did in his entire life… Huh. Maybe that’s why Dokuson claimed he had a mental age of three thousand years and tended to talk like an old man.
Dokuson said that even though he was so “old”, the “generation gap” between him and other people could be crossed with enough understanding. This attempt to understand another person was the most important thing everyone should strive for, otherwise society would collapse. Dokuson personally treated everyone around him like great teachers (as even after he had become the best in the world, all those teachers would show him what not to do). From the point of view of Dokuson—the oldest person on Earth—everyone was his junior; it didn’t mean he looked down on them, but that he didn’t feel inferior to them and was glad they still had space to grow (as the perfection that was himself couldn’t grow anymore). He felt like an old champion of life looking at young trainees.
Dokuson stated it’d be good if BOKU also became the best in the world, which would simply require him to believe he was the best. As Dokuson knew for sure he himself was actually the greatest, he wouldn’t care if BOKU had a similar conviction.
(...so what Dokuson was trying to say here... was that it was fine for BOKU to just be himself. This actually made him feel a lot better.)
Asked about how he grew up (to be like this), Dokuson said that it could be summed up the easiest by invoking the feeling of loneliness tied to insomnia. Ever since childhood, his life had been full of endless futile hours spent alone in darkness, comparable to prolonged psychological torture. If sleep made people forget all the bad things in life, maybe that’s why sleepless Dokuson was so quick to grow up; he couldn’t just relax and move on at the end of the day. Endless monotony of the night, lying alone with just his thoughts, all of it was maddening—people naturally yearned for variety.
Staying awake for a few days had an interesting influence on one’s mind, and after a certain point allowed for better concentration and drawing on the body’s hidden power, similarly to how during an accident people can see events in slow motion or use amazing strength. As Dokuson couldn’t sleep, this tension of a crisis never had a chance to dissipate. Even at that tender age he had to deal with hell on earth, trying to adapt to the loneliness of the night without going insane. And so, with his abilities constantly pushed to the limit, with survival instincts taking lead, Dokuson managed to survive hell—and that’s how he came to be like this.
(BOKU didn’t know whether or not this tale was true or not. All that mattered was that Dokuson seemed to believe his own words, and that they allowed BOKU to get a better understanding of what kind of a person he was.)
--
A week after the Crystal Nightmare, on February 15th, Firannu Meirunesia died in the Billion Killer case in Venice. Meiru’s usual partner Somedaring Amagoi wasn’t there at the time, as she had gone missing shortly after the much earlier Tower of Pisa incident.
Right before the Venice case, Meiru had called Dokuson from St Mark’s Clocktower. They said that they may have just figured out something about the Billion Killer trick, and that Amagoi had been kidnapped by someone. If Meiru would survive the day, it would mean their reasoning was off, and if they died soon, it would mean they were correct. Meiru didn’t want to tell Dokuson everything, but gave him three clues. First, Amagoi was dead. Second, it wasn’t impossible for them to solve the Billion Killer if they were ready to put their life in danger. Third, the Billion Killer incidents consisted of thirteen unprecedented tricks mixed together.
Those three clues together implied that Amagoi’s kidnapping (death?) had something to do with the Billion Killer. But how would Meiru know that Amagoi was dead? Who killed her and how? Dokuson thought it interesting that Meiru hadn’t said anything about Amagoi being killed, just that she was dead.
Asked about why he hadn’t stopped Meiru from putting themselves in danger, Dokuson said it would be a disservice to an S-detective like them. You never stop an S-detective gambling with their life, just like you don’t stop magicians or stuntmen from dangerous shows of skill.
But how could Meiru get to the truth faster than the greatest genius that was Dokuson? Well, Dokuson had already told BOKU once [way back in Carnival] that no one could solve a case without the necessary data, which no one had yet… except for the members of the villainous group.
Just like Meiru had played out a persona during investigations, they also played out the role of being an S-detective; in fact, maybe that double-role reasoning method originated from having to work on both sides of the conflict. They had to be involved either with RISE or another organization that allowed them to get secret data.
Lemuria Sullivan had already shown that even S-detectives had less than perfect sides to them. Amagoi’s real kidnapper was probably Meiru. But even then, an important part of Meiru’s personality was being a splendid S-detective, so maybe they felt compelled to solve even their own crimes by giving Dokuson hints. Perhaps they were more afraid of losing their detective reputation (and thus a part of their identity “dying”) than of actual death.
What did Meiru mean by “thirteen unprecedented tricks”? Way more than thirteen Billion Killer incidents had already occured (twenty-eight at the time of this conversation), so those thirteen tricks would have to repeat, but then they wouldn’t exactly be “unprecedented”. Perhaps the word meant something else? Dokuson suspected they wouldn’t be able to solve the Billion Killer just yet, and Meiru could have been just taunting them.
--
Dokuson always seemed to think highly of Tsukumo Juku. He said he was able to pin down Tsukumo Jaki’s identity (Yakuma Suzume) with help from Juku and Sarutobi, and that Juku would be needed to end the Crime Olympics. Unfortunately, Juku was murdered before they could achieve that goal.
BOKU learned a few interesting things talking with Dokuson and Inugami Yasha (who had been working as the vice-representative of JDC ever since the Crystal Nightmare).
Juku had theorized that the Billion Killer tricks were the thirteen Miraculous Illusions of his father Saimon Ryuusui. Jaki / Yakuma could know them, as he was probably Endou Masato, whose father Naomasa (already dead) had once been Ryuusui’s thirteenth disciple. Naomasa coincidentally (?) was also a university teacher of Tousen Yomiko, a private detective that had been lifelong trusted friends with Juku. Yomiko was permitted to use the Endou family’s mountain house called Gensoukan, and it was on her recommendation that Juku and Yasha came to live there. Yomiko disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle shortly after telling Juku about Gensoukan.
Naomasa’s sons Naoto and Masato had both disappeared a few years earlier. It was more than possible that Masato disguised himself as Yakuma, manipulated his mother into giving Yomiko the keys to Gensoukan, and made Yomiko disappear to cover his tracks. It was unknown what relation Masato / Yakuma / Jaki had with Tamei Madoka, the writer who had assassinated Juku and died from Alive.
As for how Masato would be able to make himself look exactly like Yakuma, both brothers had once been known as genius surgeons.
The thirteen Miraculous Illusions had apparently been invented by Saimon Ryuusui, but were still unfinished by the time he showed them to young Juku. Dokuson had no doubt that Endou Masato had learned about the Illusions from Naomasa, stole their secrets, and eventually perfected them into the Billion Killer tricks. (It couldn’t have been Naomasa who stole and perfected them first, because then they wouldn’t be “unprecedented” like Meiru said; the word implied only one person had used the perfected illusions so far.)
It’s likely that Juku had been killed due to him being the only person who had seen the Miraculous Illusions in person. Many people close to him had also died or disappeared.
--
Whenever BOKU listened to Yasha and Dokuson discussing things, he always got a strange feeling that they were treating Juku’s death lighter than they should. Like they were too quick to stop mourning. It’s true that in the era of the Crime Olympics death became more commonplace, but still... it almost felt like Juku’s death had never happened at all.
BOKU had been there in the morgue when the white sheet was pulled back and he, Dokuson and Yasha were shown Juku’s dead face. It was quite striking how his face, although still extremely handsome, had become just beautiful in a normal, comprehensible, flawed way after his death. BOKU instantly thought that the body could have been switched, but both Dokuson and Yasha stated without hesitation that this was not the case and the body definitely belonged to Tsukumo Juku.
Even so, BOKU still had a strange feeling (was just deluding himself?) that perhaps Juku was still alive somewhere.
They had no idea how Gensoukan had disappeared. Endou Naomasa’s wife insisted that while the family let Yomiko access their grounds, there never had been any Gensoukan built there. Just like BOKU felt that Juku’s death had never happened, Yasha was starting to feel strangely like his memories about his time at Gensoukan, and even Kanaihidetaka and Sayo had all been just illusions.
Dokuson thought that Gensoukan had been removed somehow after the assassination, maybe by lifting and moving the entire blocky construction. If Tsukumo Jaki had been able to pull off the blooming sakura trick, he should have no problems organizing Gensoukan’s “disappearance”.
--
One day, Dokuson told BOKU and Yasha that he would no longer be JDC’s leader. Not because he was trying to escape responsibilities. On the contrary, this action would allow him to save humanity. He had had another plan once, but that one was rendered impossible by Juku’s death, so there was only one thing Dokuson could do now—become the Billion Killer. That is, become the one everyone thought was the Billion Killer, a comprehensible bad guy figure needed to allay some of humanity’s confusion.
That had been the plan even earlier—Dokuson would pretend to have been the Billion Killer, and Juku would pretend to expose his crimes to the world. Juku hated the idea of tarnishing Dokuson’s name, but in the end agreed to the plan seeing the other’s burning determination.
Now that Juku was gone, Yasha would have to take over the Heroic Detective role in the plan. Yasha wasn’t as known and beloved as Juku, but popular enough that people would believe him and the (carefully faked) proof he presented; he would become the hero who forced the Billion Killer to run away in fear and no longer manipulate JDC (which was except for “the Billion Killer” wholly innocent, of course). They didn’t have to worry about Dokuson—the world’s greatest genius would be able to hide even if everyone on Earth was looking for him.
And so, Dokuson left a recorded confession and fled on June 6th. Sarutobi Shinobu disappeared the same day. Manji Tawawa also left JDC, claiming she would pursue Dokuson on her own.
Yasha became the leader of JDC and presented their fake scenario as real to the world, claiming that he had infiltrated JDC as an undercover private detective to investigate and expose Dokuson. Just like planned, people seemed to completely believe him.
BOKU honestly wondered if Dokuson’s actual goal in all this wasn’t to get everyone on Earth to remember his name, with saving humanity as just a bonus perk.
When the Billion Killer cases stopped following Dokuson’s escape, BOKU and Yasha realized that maybe Dokuson actually was the real Billion Killer, and had only revealed his identity because he had wanted to stop the cases anyway.
Then again, no more cases didn’t have to mean the real Billion Killer was finished; it could only look like the cases stopped. The only undeniable proof that something was a Billion Killer’s incident was a skull left on the scene by the men in black. If Dokuson managed to hide the skulls or stop the men in black, then even though the cases still happened, the Billion Killer disappeared in the eyes of the public.
Well, whether or not Dokuson was the actual Billion Killer (and he always vehemently denied being a part of RISE), he certainly had suspicious knowledge of the scheduled cases.
Dokuson also hadn’t looked surprised at all when Kakuusan Kanke told them about what had happened in the Earth House—she ran into Nemu, Hyouma, and someone who looked like Unomaru. From what Nemu and Hyouma told her, Otohime was also held in RISE’s underwater fortress called the Sanctuary, and there would be seven “guests” in total (the three plus Yaiba, Christmas, Diana Hosey, and the Hantos that counted as one). Kanke also learned that apparently the higher-ups of RISE were six out of the seven S-detectives.
--
No Billion Killer case (or at least a confirmed case) occurred for a month after Dokuson had disappeared, but many horrible events still happened.
In the chaos before the Carnival Wave would come, three men in black showed up and led BOKU and Yasha to a nearby hotel, where to their absolute surprise they met Ajiro Souji. A lot of confusing explanations followed. Ajiro said the tsunami wouldn’t touch Kyoto, so they didn’t have to worry about survival.
RISE had changed their plans a little and now wanted to add Yasha, BOKU, Kanke, the writer detective Nakamoto Hiroya, and the editor detective Outa Katsushi to their final guest list. Yasha and BOKU should go with the men in black now, while Ajiro would return to JDC.
Yasha wondered whether Ajiro would be able to take care of JDC without them, but Ajiro assured them that wouldn’t be a problem—because as much as it pained him, he was going to suspend JDC’s functioning completely until August 10th. JDC as an organization couldn’t stop the Cosmic Bomb, so maybe at least the people could spend their last month in peace, without having to worry about work. If humanity would survive after all, suspending JDC now would allow for less people to die needlessly, so that everyone would be ready for re-mobilization after August 10th.
And so Ajiro stayed behind, while Yasha and BOKU were taken to the Sanctuary and learned many strange things...
--
[>>>NEXT PART>>>]
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MG - The Man Behind The Genius
(via Get Ready to Love Mark Gatiss)
“Can we just sit here and watch this Spider-Man cartoon?” Mark Gatiss smiles slyly but it’s not clear if he’s completely kidding. We’re sitting on a couch in The Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, New York where a small retro-TV is playing an appropriately retro episode of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. “I love cartoons,” Gatiss tells me. “Did you ever see the old Star Trek cartoon? It’s brilliant. It’s basically like season four.”
The guy sitting next to me might look like Mycroft Holmes, but he barely sounds like him at all. This guy is softer, more childlike, more down to talk about whatever, so long as those things are James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Who, superheroes, Star Trek… In short, if you meet Mark Gatiss, you want to be best friends with him instantly.
For the uninitiated: Mark Gatiss is the co-creator (with Steven Moffat) of Sherlock. He’s also an actor IN Sherlock as Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock’s snippy, brilliant older brother. He’s written for Doctor Who numerous times, including last season’s “Robots of Sherwood,” as well as the classic Dickens 2005 episode “The Unquiet Dead.” He’s got a recurring role on Game of Thrones as Tycho Nestoris of the Iron Bank, but has roots in the famous British comedy The League of Gentlemen. In short: he’s done some things that are beyond impressive.
Our chat is talking place two hours ahead of The Museum of the Moving Image’s special screening of the Doctor Who episode “Sleep No More,” which is the one Mark wrote for this season. And yes, I can call him Mark, because he told me to. Glancing over at my open-notebook, full of my chicken-scratch questions, he spies the word “Gatiss,” at the top of the page complete with a frantic double underline. “Don’t say ‘Moffat’ or ‘Gatiss,’” he coos. “Say ‘Mark.’”
To say Mark Gatiss is disarming would be an understatement similar to saying Sherlock Holmes is smart. It’s not that Mark is disarming, it’s like you and he have been exchanging dog-eared paperbacks for years and this conversation about the animated Star Trek from the 70s is old hat. After we talk about how great the writing is on that cartoon Trek, I ask him if he’d ever want to write for Star Trek.
“The new series?!!“I love Star Trek, so yeah, I wouldn’t say no. Simon Pegg’s writing the new one [Star Trek Beyond]. So yeah. You never know!”
Is there anything else—any other established universe—Mark Gatiss would like to write for other than Star Trek?
“Nooo…No. I want to do something new. But it’s so hard to get it off the ground. I’ve said this many times, and it’s absolutely true. That there is a reason why people revisit brands that are so familiar; it’s because they’re so familiar! And it’s getting harder and harder to try and convince people to take a punt at something new. So, that is absolutely vital. Otherwise, there’s no blood in it—and I say this knowing that I’m associated with two of the biggest reboots in history—and people will always revisit Sherlock Holmes. And I think that now that Doctor Who has really returned after its absence, Doctor Who is imperishable. It will probably stop again one day and then come back again, because that’s what it does. Like anything. But, I would love to do something that people look back on fondly, because it was a brand new thing. But it’s terribly difficult—A. to think of it! B. To get it off the ground. What is the new thing! Sherlock Holmes himself said there is nothing new under the sun!”
What if Steven Moffat left Doctor Who? Would Mark still write for Doctor Who?
“Of course I’d still write for Doctor Who! If they’d have me! It’s a continuing honor and thrill! I would say that unlike Russell [Davies] saying ‘that’s me, done,’ I think that if Steven were to leave, he’d still come back after a few years and do another one. Because he loves it. I mean, Russell loves it too! But, I think Russell saw it as his take on it and that was it. Which is a very grown-up way of moving on. But I can’t resist the urge.”
When you’re hanging with Mark Gatiss, who wants to be a grown up anyway?
Would Mark want to be the showrunner of Doctor Who if Steven Moffat left?
“The truth is I know how incredibly demanding it is. And one of things that makes it very difficult to see is the sort of casual attacks Steven has had to put up with over the past few years. It’s incredibly hard work and they care so much. It’s a 24 hour job. And when people say ‘why can’t you make more episodes!?’ I mean, the episode we’re watching tonight: I was sent the final effect shot the day before I left for New York. That episode is just complete and it’s on this Saturday. There are so many things to consider. But to answer your question, I know how hugely demanding [showrunning] is, but also how hugely rewarding it would be. It’s a huge, life-changing decision. I’m an actor and a writer. I couldn’t act if I did it. Because I wouldn’t have time. The only thing I could act in would possibly be Doctor Who. WAIT A MINUTE! I’ll DO IT!”
At this, Mark begins giggling like a madman, throwing his head back and repeating “I’ll do it! This will effect my whole life? HA HA HA HA! I’LL DO IT!!”
The comedian, the sketch-comedy writer version of Mark Gatiss has emerged! Fittingly, we switch our conversation to the importance of humor in his writing. How and why is he just so damn funny? Is Doctor Who and Sherlock nothing without humor?
“Humor is fundamental. I couldn’t agree with you more. There’s a fundamental misunderstanding of why we love these shows. Essentially from slightly humorless people who thinks it needs to be po-faced all the time. The man who created the Daleks—Terry Nation—was Tony Hancok’s writer. He was a very, very funny man who could also write great science fiction. That’s what Russell is. That’s what Steven is. What I am. Lots of people. Humor is bound-up in the DNA of [Doctor Who]. ‘Robots of Sherwood,’ for instance, is a straightforward romp. But, you should no more criticize a show for being too funny—what’s wrong with too funny, anyway? You hear that a lot. Someone says ‘it’s too funny.’ WHAT? Too funny? Would your prefer it was moderately funny? I’d go for much too funny any day. That doesn’t mean you’re messing with the format, that you’re spoiling it. And if you look back at the history of the show, that’s what it’s always been at its best. It doesn’t get much grimmer than “Genesis of the Daleks.” But of course there’s humor. Of course there is. It might be pitch black, but it’s there. And sometimes the level is pitched one way and sometimes the other. But to me, it’s absolutely quintessential to Doctor Who, it’s a fun show.”
Though I would have loved to talk to Mark for hours only about Sherlock Holmes and his favorite stories and which movies are his personally, secret preferences, I decide that since we’re already best friends, we’ve had that conversation in some alternate world. Instead, I’m interested in continuity. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle flippantly didn’t care about continuity. Does Mark Gatiss care about continuity?
“Because we live in such an overly-examined age, in which everything is easily consumed and spat-out, everything has taken on a ludicrous level of importance. If Conan Doyle hadn’t had his famously lax attitude toward continuity, we wouldn’t be able to have the fun we have. From speculating on the strange fact that Professor Moriarty and his brother have the same Christian name, that Watson’s war-wound moves about, that Mary calls John “James”! I’m sure people did write to [Doyle] and complain, because there were always fans! But the thing is, it’s fine. My attitude is this: get it right if you can because if you’re perversely getting it wrong, it looks careless. But. Absolutely frankly: if someone came up with an idea for Doctor Who that flatly contradicted something that happened in 1967, fuck it. Of course fuck it! Someone once said to me ‘six months ago is ancient history,’ in terms of television. That’s true, because you’re talking about the general audience and not the fan audience. AND if you flatly contradicted something that happened in 1967, the fans would find a way of explaining it. I remember—in talking about Star Trek—someone telling me that reason William Shatner has so much eye shadow on in “Journey to Babel”—more than ever—is because Star Fleet officers are allowed to wear a certain amount of make-up during formal ceremonies! WHAT?!! I mean you don’t have to explain it! The Master was a snake at one point!”
Looking smooth, and talking smooth are something Mark Gatiss knows how to do, and that’s partially because he’s a big Bond fan. Could secret government mastermind Mycroft exist in the Bond universe?
“He does exist in the Bond universe! We made an explicit reference. In ‘His Last Vow,’ I say ‘As my esteemed colleague is fond of pointing out, what the country needs sometimes is a blunt instrument. Which is M! From the books! And of course I’d love to write a Bond film. It’s the one that’s eluded me. Me and Steven we both wanted to do Bond. I did From Russian With Love on radio!”
As our time comes creeping up on us, and the Spider-Man cartoon winds down, I ask Mark if there’s a world for a gay Bond? What about a straight Sherlock? The last one gets a guttural laugh from him, and we launch into the territory of diversity among established characters and fandoms.
“The point is to me, none of these things should be done because anyone feels pressure to tick a box. A show like Doctor Who has brilliantly celebrated gay people, incidentally, which to me is proper progress. But I think personally, there should absolutely be a female Doctor, a black Doctor, an Asian Doctor, but it’s because someone comes along who is absolutely indisputably the person for the job. With James Bond, it’s a literary antecedent. If you were for reasons of box-ticking made James Bond gay, that’s not James Bond. By all means have a gay spy! I’ve written about one myself! [Mark’s Lucifer Box novels] If you want to do a gay British Spy, adapt my books! That’s my advice. Do a franchise based on my books!”
Will Mark Gatiss fulfill his dreams of creating the next “new” thing that we will all love and obsess over? What is the future for our beloved Doctor Who/Sherlock writer? In addition to a film, more Doctor Who and the three new Sherlocks, that is. What is Mark’s secret project he hasn’t talked about yet?
At this he narrows his eyes, pats my leg and says with a Mycroft twinkle and almost a sneer:
“Can’t talk about it.”
Mark’s Doctor Who episode “Sleep No More” airs this Saturday.
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epilogue (ha expose yourself way too chilled ice cube:p), princeps, literature, autobiography, book bosomed
Epilogue: What is a book that made you cry?
reread the song of achilles in november, still ended up sobbing all over the last 100 pages lol
Princeps: Popular author you don’t like?
hmm i don’t really have beef with authors that much....saying JKR would be cheating since she’s made herself into the most unlikeable person on the planet. in terms of an author who’s writing i like but dislike as a person: jeffrey archer. in terms of an author whose writing i dislike...maybe meg cabot? i remember hating the princess diaries when i was in seventh grade.
Literature: Top 3 books you want to read this year.
babel by r f kuang
portrait of a thief by grace li
the watch series by terry pratchett
Autobiography: Who is the protagonist you most relate to?
in terms of books i’ve read within the last six months: kamet from the queen’s thief. an overworked but ambitious secretary with delusions of grandeur. (this is a very uncharitable description, he gets a lot of character development i swear...)
Book-bosomed: what is a book you feel everyone should read?
another tough one....non-fiction: outliers by malcolm gladwell. there’s a lot of discourse about this book and the author’s methods but it helped me a lot when i was super depressed so 🤷🏽♀️ fiction: anything by pg wodehouse, his writing style is just, to quote some random guy “[like] drinking hot soup or stepping into warm sunlight”
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SHAK-IN-AH
I pledge the allegiance, to the flag, of the United States of Americkkka, and to the collapse, of the Republic, for which it falls, United Nations, under G.O.D., invisible, divisible, with Columbia, and false justice for all, for all governments, must murder and lie, d.v.r. now, and record the crime, within the Time of no time, with no representation, for the People, cuz it's just an Act, against the interest, of the people, government holding Power, is when they lie to the people, like the divison of religion, and the sheeple of the steeple, now get up, and get high, like Bill Nye, the Science Guy, and let's travel throughout the centuries of time, with Christ, Horus, Krishna, and the Crucifix, pumping Iron, like a Star, Heroin, War is just a fix, and if the Truth was told, they'd sell their soul, get high like Manute Bol, Falling Down, on the ground, get in, where you fit in, the needle and the sin, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning of the end, now let's have an Infinity War, to end all wars, so we can be reborn again, the Son of Man, flesh of the sin, accompanied by deceptions, and lies, like a cancer patient, spreading throughout your state, it's the season of the hate, sshh. . . no worries, Aminordarker will abate, like it never happened, you'll never be the same, now accrue yourself, kill yourself, I skin your cat like A.L.F., and get drunk off your blood, like top shelf, cuz you don't knoe, what I know, and you'll never no, what I understand, about the complex reflex of the rubberband, sshh. . . thats enough, I vow for my silence, lethal weapon, my mind, a Darkmyne, with the pen in my hand, while I stand in neutral, washed in the blood of the lamb, vomit on my teacher's shoes, for not chanting the allegiance, of the red, white and blue, cuz governments don't care about you, People in Power, devour you, with Satan's power, sprinkled with element 115 powder, mixed with screaming demons, inside collapsing Towers, Tara and Terror, O.K.C., Waco and O'Hara, W.T.C., Shock-n-Awe me, the image of mirrors, now open the Doors, for the 33 stragtegies of RaWWar, mixed with the fair and balance, of ex-military officials, and media whores, We Will Rock You, Queen checks the King, ante the score, for the clones and pawns, of Saddams in bunkers on cue, technical analysts use digital enhancement, check on vue, the master of puppets, B.E.A.S.T. of the 9-headed serpent, slained by Hercules, White House officials claim, Hail Hydra, killing Saddam, let the wars begin, inherited the winds, as the angels sing, how close to Hitler was he, to inflicting a holocaust again, the Muslim Messiah, the American Jihad, the tale of two wars, Yee-Haw, Carter of '79, the Manchurian Candidate, Dr.Z likes his coffee black, Iran-Iraq, Saddam hears voices, as if he's Nebu-chad-nezzar, like the white image of Christ, is really Cesare, the rebuilding of Babylon, Ish-tara the gate, Babel the Disneyland, with sex toys, terrorist and hate, the sacrifice of Miley Cyrus, to Nimrod, and the Egyptian Osiris, 2001, a terrorist odyssey, Bush of a Bush, born again, Katrina of the storm, F.E.M.A. sin, Prince of the Earth, Metatron, Megatron, now sing the songs, of the Psalms, America, the Old Glory, like Al Gore me, T-E-N-N-E-S-S-E-E, now call upon thee, the Gods of Liberty, evangelical cowboy, Rangers the halo, Republican party with the Astros, J.C. PennyBush, Moses, Marduk, and the Kingdom of Kush, the eyes of Ides, of Mars, apocalyptic Reganomics, and the War of Stars, preamble the gamble, They Live, E.T. and V, Bush 43, the Christian Crusader, pull it, like B.B.C., Shock the Almighty, whirlwinds of the Burning Bush, El, the Shining One, deceptions like Project Gemini, and Capricorn One, pillars of fire, by day, pillars of fire, by night, God takes the form, of the divine fire of light, Shock-in-ah, Shakina, Canaanite goddess, radiate like the city of Medina, exiled from humanity, and the Garden of Eden, as King Solomon worships her, over Yahweh, as God's people leaves him, the construction of the Temples, Holy of Holies, Ark of the Covenant, grey clouds over tabernacle, crosses the continent, Exodus 40:34-38, Golden Gate to Gulliver's Gate, Ground Zero, 9/11, America's Temple Mount, Never, Never, Forget, and Remember, America's Great!
#darkmyne#aminordarker#united states#america#midnight oil#the purge#dystopia#black and white#shekhinah#shocknawe#hiphop#lyrics
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Vincenzo: Episode 8
lmao is my man wearing a Christmas Santa hat in the thumbnail
I think they hug in this episode !!!
look at y’all having your little conversations in a corner 😏 his little smile lmao
macaron !!! 😭🤣
nooo does that monk have a tyre mark on his head
my little man is having a monologue moment about Vincenzo in his head 😭
walking someone home is so love coded
get that TV bag building peeps!
two evil people fighting each other is actually so fun to watch.
just laughing at the weirdest times
your lawyers get you funding too???
‘you need to get your shit together’ said with the most angelic faces ever 💀💗
LMAOOOO our villain’s notes include : I will kill him!!! son of a beach !!! Fook. so many of us could win from privately journaling our feelings
I hope my little brother doesn’t start hitting others with hockey pucks. It would break my heart and stomach to watch that
and he just did
Jang Junwoo!! you’re going to HELLL
why do you have a GUN
oh no are they going to kill those gang members for this. they’re… I mean live by the sword die by the sword but this is insane….
finally the fourth person that shows up when you google Vincenzo cast
who’s dying
oh his mom
all this time I thought babel guy (the dad who is dead) was the one who assaulted people but I guess it’s this bank guy’s dad who’s PRESIDENT!?! nasty.
get him aunty! and get him Chayoung
punch him sister
get him aunty !!! SHE IS SO REAL FOR THIS lmaoooo
did Chayoung just pull out his hair ! yes queen
the bodyguard looking like 😟😟😟
the impression guy is adorable 🤣
Mr Nam getting excited thinking he’s going to be the homme fatale he’s just like me fr !
Hogging the door with a cycle oh so slay !!!
both of them on his shoulder being 2 little devils I LOVE THEM 😭
Adrenaline finally playing
such an unserious time to be playing this song though 😂
why did this man have to be abusive BOOOO
Vincenzo is lucky he’s his type
2 versions of Adrenaline playing rn? 😭 to me it was always more badass than romantic but slay !!!
be as rough as you want, and the scarf wrapped on his shoulder 😭💀
I am so confused if she is beginning to like him or not 🤨 I guess horse riding is attractive
this random ass hug 😭 oh wait this was more of a #real moment. it is true though! I am terrified of horses for this reason. you get on the wrong side or startle them and you will be kicked out of this planet
Mr Nam with his Fedora 😭😭😭
Mr Nam is sweating for his life in that trench coat and fedora hat indoors
i hope his dad is being barbecued in hell
the way he has to hear this story about his mom 😟
veins of steel fr 😭
see you cannot deduct the fact that he’s super abusive and was unknowingly bragging about his mom framing Vince’s mom, otherwise their little date would’ve been adorable 💀
You could use your building zombie artist to terrify him!
their relationship moving at the speed of lightening
Oh he’s leaving!?
They’ve broken up in 2 dates 💀
the rainbow umbrella and the pining 😭
awww Vince has his hair out with a swoop
the power bank out in the water I am scared for his life
everytime I have a chance to get happy that Junwoo (evil ceo masquerading as intern) will suffer I remember his brother will be the one getting beat up when things inevitably don’t go his way and my chance at smiling is lost
there are like 15 people attending this event in this grand auditorium who is the little brother even waving to? 😭
Vince looking sleep deprived as hell but I love the swoopy bang so I will call it a win for me!
the bank guy being played real bad rn 😭
is that his mom? giving Queen Lizzie vibes with the dress and the corgis
I guess our lawyer queenie has finally gotten a win
help our building boys. they’re so funny like
oh the zombies are about to come out
came back to say the evil lawyer lady actress is so good because I despise her character so bad like I want to fight her THROUGH the screen I’m so serious. I’m so mad rn 😭😭😭
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If I Go Back In Time Part 2
I realized that were I to actually pitch the movie, the executives and producers would probably ask about more movies going forward. After all, this is supposed to be a cinematic universe to compete with Marvel. I've given it some thought- firstly, the casting of the heroes will be the same, because as far as I'm concerned they all did okay. Secondly, here's a list of possible films in my version of the DCEU:
Man of Steel 2
Plot: See the old post.
To Be Released: Given I said I'd go back to 2012, earliest release would probably be mid 2014
Marketing Notes: Keep it to a minimum. Maybe 2 trailers and a handful of tv spots. Around 4 minutes of footage total, all of it from the first half of the movie. Lower people's expectations a little so they can be surprised if it's any good.
Wonder Woman
Plot: Mostly the same as the one we got for real, but a few significant changes...
Lois Lane is the one conversing with Diana about the photograph, not Batman.
Ares did not kill all of the gods, they simply withdrew from the world of man once humans got too violent. They're in some pocket dimension version of Mount Olympus, waiting for future movies.
Diana does not think that Danny Houston's character is Ares. But she does think he knows where Ares is, because she has a very black-and-white view of the world right now, and Steve told her that Britain and their allies were the good guys. So obviously Ares is on the side of the 'bad' guys, the Germans.
Towards the middle of the movie, when Charlie the sniper is having his breakdown, Diana takes him aside and tells him that the older Amazons still have nightmares about battles from thousands of years ago. It's nothing to be ashamed of. It tends to help them when their friends are nearby. Now, they're not going to force him to fight, but they do want him to come with them. After all, if he stays, who will sing for them? I just think that having that conversation beforehand would be a bit more respectful of his condition. Also it comes back in the climax, Diana at one point has a gun to the back of her head in the middle of a fight, and Charlie shoots the guy first.
When Ares shows up towards the climax, he's actually a good guy who's been trying to end the war peacefully. Turns out, the mythology Diana was taught was wrong. The gods withdrew towards the end of the reign of the first Amazon queen, Otrera. Otrera according to the real world myths had a fling with Ares, which probably ended badly. Here, she would have lied about the reason for the gods' leaving just because she doesn't like Ares. And turns out, mankind really are just a bunch of warmongering assholes. Sometimes.
The real big bad is Doctor Poison. She uses Diana's discarded sword to stab Ares in the back, poisons Diana to weaken her, then huffs some of her own super-serum gas to make the boss battle a fair(-ish) fight.
When Steve comes up to Diana to tell her about his plan to destroy the plane, she can hear him and actually gives him her blessing. So no more 'hung up on her ex' version! It's just not possible if she told him to do it.
There are a couple bits of set up for the next film. First, at some point underwater ruins are mentioned, and Diana asks if Atlantis has fallen in the war. Steve asks if it actually exists, to which Diana replies, “Last time I knew...” The second part is a mid-credits scene where Lois sends Diana another message, asking her to look at a video. The video is exactly the same as the one we got in BvS, of Aquaman underwater stabbing the camera with his trident. During the clip, we hear a part of what will be Aquaman's theme, same as how WW's theme played in her pre-credits scene.
To Be Released: Probably late 2015, early 2016
Marketing Notes: Nothing is released or announced regarding this film until after MoS 2 has been in theaters for a week. I want people to go absolutely fucking apeshit in theaters when they realize that Wonder Woman of all characters will be the next film. Considering how she'd been regarded by Warner Bros. in the past.
The Aquaman
Plot: It's like a crazy Star Wars/Black Panther/Moana fusion. An Operatic Superhero Political-and-Family Drama based out of a futuristic Polynesian magitek version of Atlantis, with only a few scenes above the water.
To Be Released: Mid to late 2017.
Marketing Notes: Don't have a lot of action in the trailers. There will be action in the movie, including a badass final fight, but it'll be less than most superhero films. Focus on the drama in the trailers to accurately represent the movie.
Knight of Gotham
Plot: This movie will be the smallest scale movie in the franchise. It'll focus in on Batman's detective skills more than anything (though he'll still kick major ass).When the movie begins, all of Batman's more famous foes are locked up in Arkham Asylum. He hasn't been seen much lately. So smaller criminals are starting to think it's safe to operate in Gotham again. Mob boss Don Carmine Falcone wants in on it. So he puts out a hit on Commissioner Gordon, the only non-corrupt official in the city. The first taker is Deadshot (setting him up for you-know-what, but a better version). After that a couple of small-time killers. Then Ra's Al-Ghul shows up and tells Batman that every assassin not a part of the League will likely be heading to Gotham to try and kill James Gordon. However, there's only one to really be concerned about: a man named Victor Zsasz. The rest of the film is a cat-and-mouse game between Batman (plus Jim and Batgirl) and Zsasz, culminating in a boss fight that would rival both John Wick movies put together. At the end, Zsasz is a sore loser and blows up Arkham, releasing the villains for future films. At some point, Batman talked to Deadshot in prison and got him to give up Falcone as the one who put out the hit, so Falcone goes to jail and Deadshot is placed in lesser security, with his name marked under the Task Force X label.
To Be Released: Early to mid 2018.
Marketing Notes: Give a significant amount of focus to Batgirl's involvement. People will love that, so long as there's no hint of anything between her and Bruce (there won't be).
Justice League
Plot: We introduce The Flash and Cyborg as a comedic duo of superheroes from STAR Labs, with a dynamic not too dissimilar from Deadpool and Cable, or maybe Hawkeye and Scarlet Witch. The villain of the film is Abra Kadabra, a Flash villain from the distant future who uses nanomachines to do... a lot of different things. He styles himself after a stage magician. As a character in the film, he wants to shunt the Earth into a pocket dimension (make the whole world... disappear!) in order to save it from future disasters. However, the process would kill most of humanity, which is why the League have to stop him. It takes all five powered heroes to hold him down, while Batman delivers the disabling blow using one of his gadgets.
To Be Released: Day after New Year's, 2019.
Marketing Notes: In the film, Abra Kadabra will use his powers to shape shift into the heroes at multiple points. We can use this to run a “Who can you trust?” tagline, with emphasis on the fights, because this movie is spectacle incarnate. With a simple plot.
Man of Steel 3
Plot: This is the one where Lex Luthor reveals his true nature. The big fight will be Warsuit Lex vs Superman. Kryptonite will be introduced here. Other than that, I'm not sure.
To Be Released: Fall 2019.
Marketing Notes: Fake anti-Superman propaganda clips put out by Lex Corp.
Wonder Woman 2
Plot: Villain will probably be Cheetah, since she's the one of the most popular. Might be good to have Diana team up with Flash, just to bring that fun element in, and maybe some time travel stuff. Possibly bringing Steve Trevor back.
To Be Released: Late spring 2020.
Marketing Notes: If Flash is involved, focus on his and Diana's dynamic.
Gotham Sirens
Plot: Catwoman and Lady Shiva have been partners in thievery for a while now. They're hired by Silver St Cloud to steal a sacred amulet (it's actually magic), and they decide to team up with Arkham escapees Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn for the extra muscle. Ivy has her own plans, however, and it involves using the amulet to turn the whole city into a jungle.The reason they needed the extra muscle to steal the amulet is because it was guarded by a private security firm named Grayson and Sons. One guess to who the survivor of the Siren's attack is. Yeah, this movie introduces Nightwing (he skips the Robin identity). He teams up with Batman, Batgirl, and most likely our two thieves to stop Poison Ivy.
To Be Released: Mid fall 2020. Hitting a rhythm now.
Marketing Notes: One half of the material is about the all-girl villain team, the other half is about the growing Bat Family.
Fall of Justice: Tower of Babel
Plot: After Abra Kadabra's tricks, Batman realized how dangerous the rest of the League were and created weapons to stop them if they ever went bad. Unfortunately, someone (maybe Joker? Who would not be played by Jared Leto- I'm thinking Nicholas Hoult, considering his performance as Nux in Mad Max Fury Road) has stolen those weapons and the League is in genuine danger. If not the Joker, perhaps The Rogues came over from Central City and this is Leonard Snart's origin as Captain Cold (the cold gun is in the weapon cache).
To Be Released: Spring 2021.
Marketing Notes: This'll be the darkest entry in the canon so far. Someone will probably die, though who I don't know. Probably a supporting character, but an important one.
There will of course be more movies, but I'm not sure of the order or most of the details. Here's a really quick list:
Constantine (introduce the weird mythos of Dream and the Endless)
Dark Justice (aka, Justice League Dark- the villain will be Enchantress)
Titans (a second superhero team is started by Nightwing and includes Beast Boy, Starfire, and a couple others, and Deathstroke is the villain)
Crisis on Infinite Earths (eventually)
Fall of Justice: The Crime Syndicate (evil versions of our heroes from another Earth)
Flashpoint (without the major reboot aspect)
An Untitled Green Lantern Film (used to introduce planets like Thanagar and Tamaran, as well as the Manhunters)
Identity Crisis (without the “Doctor Light is a serial rapist” part)
Final Crisis (not the last movie)
Suicide Squad (alternately titled “Task Force X”, with a different villain)
Untitled Justice League Sequel (with the Legion of Doom as the bad guys)
Untitled Titans Sequel (with Brother Blood as the villain)
New Gods (I don't know enough about them to even speculate, but this oughta be cool)
Untitled Man of Steel Sequel (uses “Death of Superman” plot)
The Dark Knight Lives (at some point, probably in a League film, Bruce Wayne retired and Batman was believed to be dead. Now he comes back, because Gotham City truly does need him)
Batman Beyond (so it turns out Bruce needs to retire, too, so he finds a protege to take his place)
Justice League Kingdom Come
Man of Steel: Rising Son (deals with the “multiple heroes trying to be Superman” scenario from the comics, before bringing Kal-El himself back)
Shazam
Green Arrow
Untitled Flash Movie
Untitled Green Lantern Sequel
Untitled Justice League Dark Sequel
Blue and Gold (Blue Beetle and Booster Gold buddy comedy film)
All Female Justice League Film
The final film in the entire universe would be titled Fall of Justice: Blackest Night (the “FoJ” title is applied to all the truly dark entries). This is the finale because it would include every character ever introduced in all the films, at least as a cameo; even the dead ones would return as Black Lanterns.
#dceu#man of steel#fine i'll make my own#batman vs superman: dawn of justice#justice league#batman#wonder woman#aquaman#superman#flash#cyborg
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Fool’s Run, Patricia A McKillip
Published on 22 June 2016
Review by Guy
As my somewhat dog’s eared copy will attest this is a novel I have enjoyed quite a bit and read more than once. I first encountered McKillip’s work when I found Heir of Sea and Water, the second volume of the Riddlemaster of Hed trilogy in a drug store while attending an archaeological field school in Elk Point, Alberta. The Riddlemaster series now ranks right up there with Tolken’s Hobbit/LOTR books for me, and McKillip is really the only fantasy writer whose works I still buy as they come out. As far as I know, Fool’s Run is her only SF work.
From the prologue:
The static again. A different voice. “Jailbird. This is records. Name of prisoner?” “Terra Viridan.” The com whistled. “You’ve got her.” “Affirmative.” “Legal status.” “Her status-sheet is a mile long, can I give-“ “Give us a printout when you dock. Jailbird. Is she sane?” “Legally” “Off-record.” A break of silence. “You ask her. Look into her eyes and ask her.”
And so Terra Viridian who, as a conscripted recruit stationed in the Desert Sector of Earth, used her laser-rifle to kill one thousand five hundred and nine men, women, and children, has come to the Dark Ring, the Underworld, to spend, the rest of her life.
Chapter one starts in the Constellation Club on the Sunshine Coast, which includes the area formally known as Australia. The Constellation Club is owned by Sidney Halleck, a musicologist and promoter, who collects instruments and bands. His club contains 20 stages with the bands operating behind screens of light allowing the patrons to move from stage to stage. The Magician, the pianist and leader of a band called Nova, has just played Bach for four straight hours, after Nova’s last set, while in some kind of trance. This has been witnessed by Sidney and the Magician’s friend, Aaron Fisher a patroller (police officer) who works in the area. At the same time this is happening Jason Klyes the chief administrator of the Underworld, is fielding two requests. One is from his rehabilitation director Jeri Halpren who wants to work with Sidney to bring a band to perform a concert at Underworld.
The second is from a scientist Dr A Fiori of New Horizons, the mental health facility and rehabilitation centre that Terra Viridian should logically have been sent to, if there had not been so much political pressure to find her guilty. He wants to use a prisoner for Project Guinea Pig, a biocomputer (Dream Machine) which translates brain impulses onto the computer screen in an attempt to help understand and control criminal impulses. And of course the prisoner that Fiori has selected for the project is Terra Viridian. The last piece of the puzzle falls into place when Nova is selected to be the band will play a concert at Underworld.
Not all aspects of McKillip’s universe can immediately be ferreted out. There are no info-dumps and few lectures. She is a writer who shows rather than tells making the reader pay attention to the text they are reading. Which is not to say, she festoons her work with needless slang and in-jokes, to give it a false sense of depth. Any new words, cubers for drummers, sectors replacing countries and continents just supply a hint of the changes time has wrought but the language is straightforward. We find out enough about the world the characters inhabit, without slowing the narrative to add a lot of unneeded detail. The present culture some 5.2 billion people occupy the earth, the asteroids and some of the nearby planets. Regions are divided into sectors and the FWG, Free World Government is the overarching authority. As the Magician states,
“I wonder how long the FWG can keep its grip on the world. It’s part democracy, part tyranny, part socialist, part plain parental, and it has kept itself alive so far by our memory of near annihilation.” (p 101)
It is certainly not a perfect society, there are separatist movements, terrorist organizations, the patrollers must battle not only financially motivated crime but also random seemingly unmotivated crimes. Sounds a lot like today.
The characters themselves are nicely detailed. Despite the fact that McKillip has chosen to have the members of Nova go by nicknames, like characters in a western or medieval allegory, the Magician, the Scholar who is smart and plays the rod-harp, Questor the vocalist, who is or at least pretends, to be very French, the Nebraskian, the sound man who took the name from an old movie, and the cubers, the Gambler and his replacement (he does not fly, inner ear problems), the Queen of Hearts, become real people with obvious personalities before the end of the novel. I did notice that a number of the character traits that can be found in the Riddlemaster books, are also be found in Fool’s Run. One of the things I enjoy about McKillip’s characters is that conversation are often broken off, interrupted, that tone or body language is as important as what is said. Also even after years of working together or being friends her characters do not fully understand one another or know all the details of each others pasts.
I think this is best expressed in a conversation between the Magician and Aaron Fisher:
“Probably. Sorry I brought it up.” “You didn’t,” Aaron said helplessly. “You just pulled it out of my head. You just -“… “It was in your voice.” Aaron shook his head doggedly. “It was in the silence after my voice.” (p 75)
I find this to be a reasonable approach that mirrors my experience. In my experience we interrupt each other, conceal as much as we reveal, dwell on some topics and avoid others, repeat ourselves, tailor what we say to our audience. Sometimes even our closest friends surprise us and sometimes even we do not fully understand our own motivations and reactions. I think this gives McKillip’s work a maturity and nuance lacking in a lot of science fiction. Fool’s Run is very much a novel about language and communication. One of the longest discussions between the band members is about the meaning and importance of symbols. The language of the novel is beautiful and evocative, from the fragments of poetry introduced in the security challenges from the prolong, to all the sensory information we receive, about the light, scents and sounds that inform each scene. This is also a novel about how people act and react, many of the characters rely as much on hunches, intuition, even a slight precognition ability as they do on logical decision making.
If I had to compare Fool’s Run to another book it would be Delany’s Babel-17. Stylistically both deal with language and symbol, with visions, intuitions, short hallucinatory passages of poetry and bursts of sensory experience although otherwise they are very dissimilar works.
This review originally appeared on A Jagged Orbit.
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Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 Episode 1 Easter Eggs and References
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This Star Trek: Discovery article contains spoilers for the Season 3 premiere.
You’d think that a new Star Trek series set centuries and centuries beyond any of the shows and movies wouldn’t have that many references to the series and films that came before, right? Well, Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 might be set in a brand new time period — the year 3188 to be precise — but the narrative is built atop the layered history of Trek’s future history super carefully. Showrunner Michelle Paradise and Alex Kurtzman have mentioned several times that 930 years from 2257 puts them well past the constraints of canon, and yet, the debut episode of Discovery Season 3, demonstrates a meticulous understanding of where this show came from, and a desire to keep everything about the larger story of Star Trek, as tightly knit as possible.
In other words, there were a lot more Easter eggs and references in the newest Discovery episode than you might think. Here’s every Easter egg and reference we caught in the first episode of Star Trek: Discovery Season 3, “That Hope Is You, Part 1.”
The saucer of a Federation starship
The first thing we see as Book flies his impressive starship in an attempt to outrun Cosmo, is the wrecked saucer section of what looks like a Starfleet ship. The dead giveaway is the letters “NCC.” Was this a Federation ship from the 31st century? The 30th? Even older? We don’t know, and we probably never will. Every wondered what “NCC” stands for? Well, it’s never actually been established in canon, but in the early days of The Original Series it was designed as an homage to American ships having an “NCC” as part of their registry and Russian vessels using “CCC.” Some apocryphal books claim “NCC” stands for “Naval Construction Class” or “Naval Construction Contract Number.” Basically, the idea that Starfleet still views itself as a kind of Navy would support this theory, but since it’s not actually a Navy, that also doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Space-time anomaly detected
Book’s onboard ship computer tells him that a “space-time anomaly” is detected. This anomaly is the wormhole created by Burnham and the time crystals from the Discovery Season 2 finale, “Such Sweet Sorrow Part 2.”
3188
Burnham lands in the year 3188, which is actually one year further than most fans guessed. Discovery jumped from the year 2257, which means we thought 930 years later would be 3187. But, as we learn later, Burnham also didn’t land on the planet Terralysium, even though that was her destination. Terraylsium was first seen in the Discovery Season 2 episode “New Eden.” Book tells Burnham the planet she ended up on is actually called Hima. Terralysium was in the Beta Quadrant. We have no idea where Hima is.
Burnham is happy there is life
You might wondering why Burnham is so happy that the computer says “Multiple life signs detected.” Well, the whole point to jumping in the future was that in all other scenarios, both Spock and Burnham’s mom, Gabrielle Burnham, saw a future in which an A.I. called Control had eradicated all sentient life in the galaxy. Clearly, that didn’t happen. Which means Burnham’s mission was successful. This is why later, she says, “I saved all the things.”
The last Red Signal is for Spock!
As the computer tells Burnham the wormhole is closing, she frantically sends an energy signal through the wormhole. This is the last of the seven red signals from Discovery Season 2. In “Such Sweet Sorrow Part 2,” Spock waited for four months to see the Red Signal, which was a message from Burnham that the crew had made it through the wormhole safely. Basically, this scene happens “at the same time” as the final scene onboard the Enterprise in the Season 2 finale.
“Delta shield”
As Burnham goes through her inventory she mentions her “emergency ration pack,” her “phaser,” and her “Delta shield.” The Delta shield is her Starfleet badge. Fans have referred to this symbol as a “Delta shield” for years, but it’s never been uttered on screen.
New opening credits
The Discovery opening credits have changed again! Here are the most significant changes
The generic male-ish face now appears to be more female.
There is a line of Starfleet robots. Will they have a larger role to play later in the season?
In the first two seasons, the image of the Discovery-era phaser morphed into the TOS-era phaser. But now, it becomes a FUTURE PHASER.
Book’s ship is in the opening credits.
The new “future” Starfleet logo appears twice—nce by itself, and again, in the transporter. In season 2, a Section 31 badge appeared during this segment.
Michael busts out some Suus Mahna
While fighting Book, Burnham seems to employ at least a few moves from the Vulcan martial art known as Suus Mahna. This martial art originates in the prequel series Enterprise, but we first saw Burnham do it in “Context Is For Kings” in Season 1 of Discovery. We also saw two Synths practice Suus Mahna in the Star Trek: Picard Season 1, episode 9, “Et Arcadia Ego Part 1.”
The nearest natural wormhole could be a DS9 reference
Book mentions that “the nearest natural wormhole is 100 lightyears from here.” This could reference the Bajorian wormhole from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. After all, there aren’t that many stable wormholes. That said, technically, the Bajorian wormhole isn’t “natural” since it was constructed by the Prophets, but from Book’s point of view, that might not matter.
The Gorn destroyed subspace
Book says: “Wasn’t bad enough for you that the Gorn destroyed two lightyears of subspace?” This references two things at the same time. First, obviously, the Gorn, the lizard-race first seen in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode “Arena,” and subsequently referenced in nearly every new Trek series, including several references in Star Trek: Picard. But, the mention of the Gorn having destroyed subspace means that parts of the interstellar communication network have been obliterated. Subspace is how people get messages around the galaxy in Star Trek. If parts of subspace are destroyed, this could explain why, the Federation representative, Aditya Sahil (Adil Hussian) mentions that long-range sensors “failed, years ago.”
Book references Scotty….and Tilly’s other best friend
When Book says he wants to “whip-up a dilithium recrystalizier,” he’s referencing the idea of dilithium crystals being reconstructed artificially. In Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Scotty does this to help get a stolen Klingon Bird-of-Prey home. And, in the Short Treks episode “Runaway,” Tilly meets Po, the Queen of Xahea, who also invents this technology.
Benemite and Quantum Slipstream Drive
Book also wonders if there is some “Benemite lying around.” This references the Voyager episode “Timeless,” in which the crew tried to build a Quantum Slipstream Drive. Basically, if Book had a Quantum Slipstream Drive, he could get around a lot faster.
Tachyon Solar Sails
Book says “tachyon solar sails are slow as shit.” This references the DS9 episode “Explorers,” which sees Ben Sisko building an ancient ship that runs on tachyons solar sails.
Don’t Even Get Me Started On Trilithium
Book completes his rant on different types of Star Trek propulsion and fuel by saying “don’t even get me started on trilithium.” This seems to be kind of a joke. In the TNG episode “Starship Mine,” Trilithium resin was kind of a waste byproduct of the warp engines that could be stolen and turned into a weapon. But in the film Generations, trilithium was something described as a “nuclear inhibitor,” meaning it could make stars implode. So, which is it? Both? Also a form of fuel for space propulsion? Don’t get Book started.
Orions and Andorians
Burnham is shocked that the Orions and the Andorians are working together. The green-skinned Orions originate in the very first (filmed) Star Trek episode ever, “The Cage,” though their culture was later fully explained in the Enterprise episode “Bound.” Orions have appeared in the Discovery era in the Season 1 finale, and also in the Short Treks episode “The Escape Artist.” The blue-skinned Andorians originate in the TOS episode “Journey To Babel.” Why is Burnham surprised the Andorians and the Orions are working together in some kind of official capacity? Well, the Andorians are founding members of the Federation. The Orions, meanwhile, were, at least in Burnham’s time, never part of the Federation.
Burnham is basically selling Star Trek collectables
Book tells the Andorian that “there’s a real market for this stuff,” when he’s trying to sell Burnham’s tricorder. This seems like a wink to the idea that vintage props from TOS or TNG are worth a lot of money IRL. Basically, what Burnham has is a vintage Star Trek prop.
Portable Transporter!
Burnham is wowed by the personal transporters. In the TNG episode “Captain’s Holiday,” time-traveling aliens from the 27th century called Vorgons, appeared to have similar types of transporters.
Burnham says Tilly can’t do space drugs
While trying to get her to talk, Burnham is hit with some form of future narcotic that makes her a slap-happy. She says that the drug makes her talkative and then says “I have a friend with red hair, you cannot give her any.” This references Tilly, of course, but more specifically, the idea that Tilly did some space drugs in the Discovery Season 1 finale, “Will You Take My Hand?”
Aliens rebooted from TNG and DS9
The mercenary who is pursuing Book appears to be a Yridian. In TNG, these aliens were mostly thought of as “information brokers,” notably in the episodes “The Chase” and “Birthright Part 1.” Meanwhile, at least one alien who is in pursuit of Burnham and Book is very clearly a Lurian. The famous patron of Quark’s Bar in DS9 – Morn – was a Lurian. He’s the guy with the long face.
Book references the biggest plot arc from Star Trek: Enterprise
After Book and Burnham have a frank conversation about time travel, Book says: “All time travel technology was destroyed after the temporal wars. Outlawed.” The Temporal Wars references the Temporal Cold War in Enterprise, and probably, the outright Temporal War that happened at the end of Enterprise Season 3 and the beginning of Season 4 in the episodes “Storm Front Parts 1 and 2.” One fashion from the Temporal War Cold War came from the 31st Century, about a hundred years or so before 3188.
Aditya Sahil references Spock
When Burnham meets Aditya Sahil, a Federation liaison in this time period, they have a serious chat about just how long it might take for the USS Discovery to actually show up. He says: “By the laws of temporal mechanics, they could arrive tomorrow…” And Burnham says: “Or in a thousand years.” This references a similar speech from Spock in the TOS episode “City on the Edge of Forever.” Like Burnham and the Discovery crew, Spock and Kirk are separated by time travel wonkiness. Spock says: “There is a theory. There could be some logic to the belief that time is fluid, like a river, with currents, eddies, backwash.” But later, Spock points out that “we can’t be too sure of our facts.” Even the earliest Star Trek time travel episodes dealt with people arriving at their temporal location at different times than people who were “right behind” them in the time portal.
Federation Flag
The episode ends with Burnham and Sahil raising the flag of the United Federation of Planets. We already saw this flag in the trailers, but it’s worth noting that it does appear to have fewer stars on it than the flag from the era of TNG and Picard. Sahil tells Burnham he has been watching this post for 40 years, which seems to imply that this Federation flag is at least 40 years old, if not older. So, the question is, how accurate is the flag? Did the Federation start losing members before the Burn? Or is this flag pre-Burn?
At this point, we don’t know. But because Season 3 of Discovery is all about rediscovering the Federation, this flag might be the visual representation of not just the themes of the season, but the literal plot too.
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Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 airs new episodes on Thursdays on CBS All Access.
The post Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 Episode 1 Easter Eggs and References appeared first on Den of Geek.
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