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andrewmoocow · 5 years ago

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Steven Universe Alternate Future chapter 4: Bluebird (originally published on December 28, 2020)

Author's note: We're at the halfway point of Part 1 here, two antagonists return for vengeance on Steven, but is there more to this than just screwing with him? We'll just have to wait and see!

Synopsis: A pair of old foes return, and Steven learns that he can't change everyone.

Cast:

Zach Callison as Steven

Estelle as Garnet

Michaela Dietz as Amethyst

Deedee Magno-Hall as Pearl

Larissa Gallagher as Bluebird Azurite

Della Saba as Aquamarine

Charlyne Yi as Eyeball

Shelby Rabara as Peridot

Jennifer Paz as Lapis Lazuli

Uzo Aduba as Bismuth

Tom Scharpling as Greg

Michelle Maryk as Larimar

Kimberly Brooks as Cherry Quartz

Martha Higerada as Topaz

Ted Leo as Steg

"Hello there, all you Gems out there in the universe!" Steven announced as he warped into Little Homeworld as part of a commercial for Little Homeschool. "Has this new era for our universe gotten you all lost and confused? Well, come on down to Little Homeschool!"

"Are you used to destroying things?" Steven continued speaking as he walked in on Lapis making a sculpture, and Lapis just turned her head to him. "Then try learning to be constructive instead!"

Next, Steven stood with Peridot in a cornfield. "Are you used to plotting? Then come tend to this big plot of land!"

Finally, the camera closed in on Steven's face. "Feeling lost without the Diamonds telling you what to do?" he asked as the camera zoomed out to show him doing a yoga pose with Garnet. "Then we can help you find your inner center!"

As the ad concluded, Steven posed with Peridot, Little Larimar, and Angel Aura Quartz at Little Homeworld. "Everyone deserves an opportunity to grow, so come on down to Little Homeschool today!" he exclaimed. "And cut! Thanks for helping out everyone."

"I'm an actor." Larimar said.

"I'll get home and get some editing done." Steven said, preparing to walk away with the camera when Peridot stepped up from behind. "Anything you need now, Peri?"

"Steven, you smell good." Peridot innocently complimented Steven with two thumbs up, much to his confusion.

"I'm sorry, what?" Steven asked the green Gem.

"That's what your back told me to do." Peridot explained before she took a crudely written note with that exact message off Steven's back. "See, you wrote this yourself!"

"No, I didn't." Steven claimed as he took a sip from a box, but realized too late what he was drinking. "Tomato soup?!" he gagged.

"I thought you loved that stuff!" Peridot assumed.

"Yeah but, where did my juice go?" Steven wondered. Suddenly, a roll of toilet paper rolled away from the Dondai Supremo, and it was covered in more rolls. "Oh no!" Steven yelled in surprise. "The Dondai's been….covered in toilet paper?"

The mystery prankster was nowhere to be seen, with only their cheeky laughter as a calling card.

"Okay, whoever's pranking me, you got a really weird idea of how to do it!" Steven called out for his new opponent. "Where did they even get this much toilet paper?"

A little while later, Steven drove his now toilet paper-free car back home, where he noticed the front porch all decorated and music coming from inside.

"Another welcome party?" Steven muttered while noticing the welcome banner above his front door. "Oh, a new Gem must've come!"

As Steven walked inside, another banner saying 'Welcome Bluebird' hung over him and a piñata in his image were not too far away. Speaking with Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl was an unknown Gem with a burgundy bowl-cut, four legs, a pair of wings, and a suit jacket that was red on one side & blue on the other.

"Oh, hello Steven, our new friend here really wants to meet you." Pearl greeted Steven.

"Yeah, come over here and introduce yourself!" Amethyst added.

"Welcome to Earth." Steven greeted the new Gem politely. "My name's-"

"Of course I know who you are. Everyone does!" the new Gem interrupted him in a Cockney accent as she turned around to reveal that she was a fusion and had both her components' gems on her face. But they were two Gems that Steven recognized a little too well. In place of the fusion's left eye was a Ruby, and beneath it was an Aquamarine. "The old Gem savior himself, Steven Universe. Bluebird Azurite at your service." she declared before hugging him. "Come on now, give us a hug!"

"Cute." Garnet grinned.

"Oh, you like food, yes?" Bluebird asked a very unnerved Steven.

"Uh, yeah?" Steven replied sheepishly.

"Well sit tight then, I'll be right back!" Bluebird said before she flew away.

"What?!" Steven yelled.

"Yeah, she's just got here and already knows what she wants to do in life." Topaz said as she appeared next to Steven. "Isn't that great?"

"Don't you find this weird that the Gem who treated you like trash is suddenly all nice now?" Steven asked the big yellow fusion. "Why are you so chill?!"

"That was the past, Steven." Topaz assured Steven. "This is now, all thanks to you."

Just then, Bluebird returned to Steven with a plate of food. However, all of them were known to cause allergic reactions in people, as he observed.

"What's all this?" Steven asked.

"Why, it's food, of course!" Bluebird said as she presented the platter. "Clams, peanut butter, with a side of grass! Go on, try it."

"Yeah, don't wanna keep her waiting." Amethyst convinced Steven to try the dish.

"S-sure, I'll just dip this here." Steven reluctantly obliged, and took a bite of the grass. "Mmm!"

"Is it good?" Bluebird asked him.

"Yeah, I love it!" Steven fibbed in an attempt to keep their guest happy.

"Brilliant." Bluebird added with a cheeky grin.

"Can I see you guys in the bathroom?" Steven asked the Crystal Gems.

Greg was busy combing his hair in the bathroom when his son knocked on the door.

"Dad, it's Steven." Steven called for his dad. "We're gonna need you to let us in, emergency meeting."

After Greg let his son and friends in, Steven sat the Gems down to tell them what he thought of Bluebird. "Gems, I don't want to alarm you, but I think Bluebird may be a fusion of Aquamarine and Eyeball!"

"Uh, duh!" Amethyst exclaimed.

"It was incredibly obvious." Garnet added.

"Well, why are you guys so blasé about this?" Steven asked his guardians. "Did you suddenly forget when Aquamarine & Topaz came down to capture all my friends, and I had to surrender myself to save them? Or what about when Eyeball tried to kill me when we were stuck in space together? She also ratted me out during my trial!"

"Like Topaz said, that was then, and this is now." Pearl calmly assured him. "Besides, aren't you contradicting yourself a bit right now? I mean-"

"But I'm pretty sure they pranked me earlier at Little Homeworld." Steven explained. "They put a sign on my back saying I smelled good, switched my drink with tomato soup, and covered my car with neatly-stacked toilet paper."

"None of that seems particularly malicious," Garnet said. "Heck, Amethyst probably did one of those things at some point."

"It's true!" Amethyst responded. "There was this one time before you were born where Rose and I threw toilet paper all over town because Greg told us about it!"

"Besides, don't you like tomato soup?" Greg asked his son.

"Yeah, but don't you find it weird that she knew where I lived?" Steven asked.

"Steven, you've literally invited all problematic Gems across the universe to come to Earth and learn a better way of living." Pearl bluntly said.

"Listen Schtu-ball, if you don't like this new Gem, that's perfectly okay." Greg stated. "Just don't be so upfront about it and hurt her feelings."

"No, you're right guys." Steven agreed. "Everyone deserves a second chance."

"But if she really is more than she seems," Garnet declared. "we'll come in and squash her!"

"Thanks Garnet." Steven smiled at his favorite fusion before returning to the living room.

As Steven walked out of the bathroom, while the other Gems and Greg poked their heads outside, he found Bluebird chatting it up with Topaz by the couch. "Hey Bluebird!"

"Oh, hello Steven!" Bluebird cheerfully greeted him. "I was just reconnecting with an old chum and thought 'Hey, I should've given him something to wash all that food down with!' Want a drink?" she asked, offering him a soda.

"I'd love one." Steven accepted Bluebird's offer. "Y'know, maybe you two have changed." Just as Steven opened the can, soda squirted back in his face.

"Oh my, how did that happen?" Bluebird cheekily asked.

"YOU obviously shook it!" Steven accused the fusion of his old foes, when Garnet cleared her throat behind him.

"Chance to change." Garnet told Steven.

"You obviously shook it," Steven grumpily corrected himself. "By accident."

A while later, the party was over and everyone had left the beach house. As Steven walked downstairs to the living room, he discovered Bluebird holding a knife while Pearl was looking for something in the fridge.

"Pearl, watch out!" Steven cautioned Pearl. "Bluebird's got a knife!"

"Of course I did." Bluebird menacingly answered, but then immediately changed her tune. "Because I wanted to help cut this cake Pearl made for you!"

"Surprise!" Pearl exclaimed, presenting a cake with vanilla frosting that she got out of the fridge. On top of the cake was Steven's portrait, but his facial features were replaced with a butt. "Bluebird chose the design for me. You like it?"

Steven glared suspiciously at Bluebird as he stuck his finger in the cake, and licked the frosting off it.

Later on at Little Homeworld, Steven walked around to collect his thoughts when he discovered Bluebird grabbing Garnet and putting her in a wrestling hold. "Oh no, someone help! Bluebird's got Garnet!" he shrieked. "You let Garnet go this instant!"

"Don't fret Steven." Garnet calmed Steven's nerves as she was let go. "Bluebird was helping me do some stretches before I could teach her some yoga."

"Always important to stretch." The other fusion informed, eliciting an angry moan from Steven.

Back at home; Steven was angrily eating some Chaaaaps when he felt something that wasn't a chip inside the bag in his lap. In the bag, Steven discovered a poorly-drawn purple sketch of him with stink-lines surrounding him. "Ugh."

"What's up dude?" Amethyst asked him.

"Bluebird's really getting to me!" Steven complained as he showed the drawing to Amethyst. "I mean, look at this terrible drawing of me!"

"Steven, I-" Amethyst recognized the drawing as Steven scooped out more of them from his jacket.

"All of these too!" Steven cut Amethyst off. "I've been finding these awful scribbles all over!"

"Steven, these were all my drawings of you!" Amethyst began sobbing, and she ran away in tears.

"Amethyst, I'm sorry!" Steven tried apologizing to his Gem sister when Bluebird walked into the house.

"Aw, dry those tears, love, and tell me what's wrong." Bluebird comforted the bawling Quartz.

"Steven killed my art career before I could even get it off the ground!" Amethyst cried while Bluebird picked up her drawings.

"I don't know what art is," Bluebird said as she examined Amethyst's art. "but these are really good! They do need a little work, but I can help."

"Awww, thanks Bluebird!" Amethyst immediately cheered up. "In fact, I'm gonna do some more art right now! Wanna come?"

"Lead the way Amethyst!" Bluebird agreed, and the two left the house while Steven dropped his bag of Chaaaaps to the floor and angrily crushed it flat.

"Come on you flying rat; you can't be far." Steven growled as he searched Beach City for Bluebird, looking for something that would expose her components for being more than they seem, when he came across his father's car wash. "Oh, hey Dad!"

"AAAAAH!" Greg screamed from his Mister Universe van, catching Steven off-guard as he raced to the van.

"Dad, are you okay?!" Steven cried, finding the source of Greg's screaming to be him and Bluebird watching movies together.

"Hey Steven." Greg calmly greeted him. "I was just showing Bluebird my old-timey sci-fi horror flick collection."

"It's hilarious how poorly made they are!" Bluebird cackled at the flick she was currently watching. "Some of these 'special effects,' as he calls them, are so old-fashioned!"

"So what's going on, son?" Greg asked Steven, who forced a fake smile on his face. "And what's with your face? You're kind of creeping me out."

"I'm fine, Dad." Steven assured him as he walked away with creepy fake smile and all. "Everything's fine."

"And to make matters worse, they think those two have changed even after all the horrible things they did to us!" Steven later vented his feelings on Bluebird to Peridot, Lapis, and Bismuth at Little Homeworld. "Please, you guys, I need someone to be on my side for once!"

"Oh, we're on your side Steven." Lapis assured her half-human pal, much to his relief. "After what Navy pulled, I don't really trust those Rubies all that much, especially her and Eyeball! Those other three working for the mayor, they're just meh."

"I don't trust Aquamarine either." Peridot added. "That blue runt's high and mighty attitude just keeps rubbing me incorrectly!"

"Don't you also hate Aquamarine because it's basically because of her we separated for a bit?" Lapis asked Peridot, who was just silent as she nervously looked away. "It's okay, you can open up to me."

"No way, she's not that petty!" Peridot said as she tried to hide her distress. Despite what the little Gem was saying, her body language told a whole different story.

"I just find Bluebird really creepy." Bismuth stated. "There's just something about that voice combined with her facial expressions that really give me chills."

Just then, a very loud clanging came straight from Bismuth's forge, and Cherry Quartz rushed out to see the four. "Bismuth, it's your forge! Someone's made a huge mess of the place!"

"Oh no!" Bismuth cried as she rushed to her forge to discover that the whole floor was now covered in all the weapons she helped build. "How could this have happened?! I was so careful to organize everything today!"

"Maybe Bluebird didn't like that you called her creepy." Peridot guessed.

"Well, I know something I hope they really won't like." Bismuth growled with determination. "Of course those little runts realize, this means war!"

Later that day, Bluebird had returned to Little Homeworld and was currently being given a tour of the town by Lapis, yet the fusion was unaware she was being led into a trap.

"Y'know, I'm feeling pretty parched." Lapis remarked sneakily. "You want a drink too?"

"Golly, I thought Gems didn't need sustenance." Bluebird wondered aloud.

"They don't really need to, but some Gems on Earth just like to eat." Lapis answered as they walked up to a conspicuous cooler filled with soft drinks. "Now then, which would you like? We got soda, OJ, purple stuff, two kinds of this other type of orange juice."

"I'll have the purple stuff!" Bluebird cheerily answered. Lapis took a purple soda can from the cooler and gave it a good shake, giggling all the way, before handing it to Bluebird and then turning away from her while plugging her ears.

After a few seconds, nothing happened, and Bluebird didn't drink the purple stuff. "Where's the kaboom?" Lapis wondered as she turned back to Bluebird. "There was supposed to be a big carbonated kaboom!"

"Oh, there seems to be something wrong." Bluebird observed the can slyly before handing it back to the terraformer. "Do you think you can help?"

But as Lapis realized, Bluebird didn't even open the can at all. "What the?!" she stuttered while taking the can from the small fusion. "You didn't even open-" When Lapis opened the can of purple stuff herself; she got a face full of the drink squirting directly in her face instead. As Bluebird laughed heartily, Lapis angrily crushed the can and glared back as Bluebird flew away.

"I already tried that trick Lazuli!" Bluebird cackled. "Try something original next time!"

Lapis's eye began to twitch as she dropped the can to the ground, fighting the urge to just launch Bluebird into space with a water fist.

"This is something humans like to do with their disposal units." Peridot explained to Bluebird as they stood by a metal trashcan atop the hill where the lighthouse sat. "You just insert yourself into the unit and just roll it down this hill. Now then, would you like to go first?"

"No, maybe you should go first." Bluebird suggested while offering Peridot a pair of rather unusual looking gloves from one of her gemstones. "And take these too. Safety first!"

"Where did you get these gloves?" Peridot asked as she put the gloves on. "They seem like old Homeworld equipment."

"Just found them lying around one day, nothing too important." Bluebird fibbed just as Peridot entered the trashcan. "Okay, are you ready chum?"

"Let 'er rip!" Peridot yelled from within the can before Bluebird kicked it, and it rolled down the hill with Peridot inside it. "ISN'T THIS FUN BLUEBIRD?!"

"Oh yes, plenty of fun." Bluebird snickered and walked away backwards from where the trashcan once stood.

"Wait, where are you going?" Peridot called as the can continued rolling. She tried to stop it with her ferrokinesis, but they didn't seem to work. "My stars, these old gloves are nullifying my powers!" she realized, and turned her attention to Bluebird in anger. "I'LL GET YOU FOR THIS YOU CLO-"

However, Peridot couldn't finish when the can finally collided with a wall, and her head poked out in a daze. "You're despicable." She hissed hatefully while stars danced around her head.

"Well, guess it's all up to me now." Bismuth declared to herself with Lapis and Peridot's failures to prank Bluebird. She now stood alone at the Warp Pad at the center of Little Homeworld where the barn once stood, in front of a mixer filled with lava. "She ain't ever gonna know what hit her."

"Who isn't going to know what hit her?" Bluebird asked rhetorically before she poured the lava in the mixer on Bismuth, though Bismuth barely felt a thing.

"You know this literally does nothing to Bismuths, right?" Bismuth asked as Bluebird took her leave.

"What happened to you guys?" Steven asked the soaked Lapis, dizzy Peridot, and mildly irritated Bismuth as they reported back to him on their efforts in the prank war.

"Bluebird saw my prank coming since she already tried it herself." Lapis answered.

"My mental powers were nullified by these old Homeworld gloves." Peridot added as she presented the gloves. "I think I'll keep them for further study."

"I barely got to do anything before Bluebird turned my own prank against me!" Bismuth whined in defeat.

"Oh, come now, put a smile on your face." Bluebird said as she landed behind the four. Peridot, Lapis, and Bismuth turned around to see the little fusion before them, and immediately dropped to their knees with hands out and heads bowed. "Now, what's all this for?"

"We now recognize you as a superior prankster." Lapis declared.

"And now we must grovel in your presence!" Peridot theatrically added.

"We shall concede from this prank war, in recognition of the superior tricker." Bismuth stated.

"Guys, you can't just give up this easily!" Steven yelled angrily before he noticed his body taking on a slight pink hue. "That's four times now." He said to himself. "This can't be healthy."

"Oh, well, thank you all for the compliments!" Bluebird thanked the other three Gems. "Hopefully we can get up to more mischief together someday!"

As Bluebird flew away, Steven stomped to the Warp Pad and used it to return home with barely a word.

"Steven wait, we're sorry!" Peridot cried as Steven vanished from Little Homeworld.

"He's right. We gave up a little too easily." Lapis agreed with her Beach Summer Fun Buddy. "Maybe we should go apologize to him in the morning. You wanna come with Bismuth?"

"Sorry, I got a whole day of cleaning up the forge ahead of me." Bismuth rejected the chance. "But be sure to tell me if things turn out okay."

The next morning, Steven woke up in his room, the events of yesterday still fresh in his mind. From Bluebird's arrival, to almost no one believing him when he claimed that she was up to no good, and finally the help of the B-team proving pretty much useless, it was a very hectic day for him.

When Steven went downstairs to the bathroom, he discovered Bluebird's gemstones drawn on his face in the mirror. "Oh, haha." He muttered. "Very funny Bluebird."

Just then, the Warp Pad activated, followed by the sound of tires screeching. As Steven rushed out of the bathroom, he found Greg's van somehow in his living room, a trail of tire tracks left behind in its wake. "How did the van?" Steven asked himself in sheer confusion. "Oh, gotcha. I guess Bluebird and Dad must be having a ball." Just then, he heard someone cry out. "I guess they're watching another of his horror movies. I'm sure everything's fine."

Greg's cries for help proved otherwise, and Steven bolted outside to search for his human father. "It's okay Steven. Bluebird is cool." Steven assured himself. "Dad?"

"Up here son!" Greg screamed as Bluebird dangled him by the ankle on the roof.

"Are those screams of fun?!" Steven called.

"No they ain't!" Greg exclaimed. "Please help me, you were right!"

"An era ago, there were two Gems worshipped on Homeworld for their attempts on the life of their greatest traitor!" Bluebird declared. "But when he brainwashed everyone into worshipping him, those two were cast out and now have come to Earth for revenge!"

As Bluebird leaped into the air, she began to unfuse. "And now he shall rue the day he ever crossed-" To cap off her speech, Bluebird's components finally revealed herself.

"Aquamarine!"

"And Ruby!"

Steven and Greg didn't have anything to say to the two old foes.

"Well, it's us!" Aquamarine cried impatiently.

"Yeah, it was us all along, and no one ever knew!" Eyeball added.

"I always knew. Everybody knew." Steven replied. "You were really poor at hiding it."

"Well if you knew, why was everyone so nice to us?!" Eyeball yelled.

"Because we're nice!" Steven argued. "Something you don't know about!"

"Nice people, my facet!" Eyeball shouted. "You left me to rot in space!"

"And it's because of you that I'm a disgrace to our kind!" Aquamarine agreed. "Ugh, enough of this!" she groaned angrily before grabbing Greg again, this time by the hair, while Eyeball pulled her chisel from her gem.

"Hey, careful with my dad!" Steven cautioned the pair of angry Gems as he summoned his shield. "If this is another one of your pranks, then I'm not laughing, so you better cut it out!"

"That was just something to soften you up." Eyeball declared menacingly. "Now, the real torture begins!"

"We learned so much about you and your life Steven," Aquamarine taunted. "especially how you love My-Dad so much! But if you want him alive, you'll have to agree to our demands. Like destroying your home!"

"Yeah!" Eyeball added.

"Bubbling your friends and handing them over to us!" Aquamarine continued.

"YEAH!" Eyeball began getting more sadistically pumped up.

"And burning that silly Little Homeworld to ashes!" the little blue Gem stated.

"DO IT!" Eyeball shouted.

While Aquamarine and Eyeball were threatening Greg's life, they were caught off-guard by a few water droplets from above, coming from Lapis's wings as she and Peridot flew to see Steven.

"Oh crack, those two." Eyeball growled at the barn-mates while Lapis touched down to where Steven was standing.

"Hey Steven, we wanted to stop by because we didn't get a chance to apologize for yester-" Lapis began explaining to Steven, but immediately got distracted by the current situation. "Um, did we miss something?"

"It's Aquamarine and Eyeball!" Steven panicked. "They're out for revenge and they want me to do horrible things or else Dad gets killed!"

"Of course you'd sink that low, you filthy outcasts!" Peridot snarled at the other short Gems. "First, you took Steven away Aquamarine, and that led to some of the worst days of my life! Now, I'm gonna make you pay dearly!"

"Oh, here are some friends you can poof boy." Aquamarine told Steven. "Go on, listen to us for once."

"Never!" Steven rejected.

"Then My-Dad gets it!" Aquamarine threatened, but Eyeball was a little confused.

"Gets what?" the Ruby asked quizzically.

"Gets it!" Aquamarine scolded her partner. "It's like in those movies he showed us."

"Oh right!" Eyeball realized with a malicious laugh, and prepared to kill their human captive. However, Greg wasn't going to take this lying down.

"That's enough!" Greg yelled as he snatched Eyeball's chisel from her hand and used it to free himself by cutting his hair short, causing him to fall from Aquamarine's grasp.

"No!" Steven yelled.

"I got you!" Lapis exclaimed, summoning forth a water hand to catch Mr. Universe with. "Are you alright?"

"Just bereft of my glorious locks." Greg said mournfully when Aquamarine dropped the remainder of his hair next to him. "Oh my baby!" he cried before rushing to comfort the clump of hair.

"How could you let this happen, you meager soldier?!" Aquamarine yelled at Eyeball.

"You were distracting me!" Eyeball argued.

"I was directing you, My-Dad just caught us by surprise!" Aquamarine talked back.

As Steven, Peridot and Lapis watched the two enemy Gems bicker, Steven turned to his mourning dad. "Father, get inside."

"I'm sorry, Steven." Greg said boldly. "But after how they dangled me off the roof and made me lose my hair, I want in!" Just then, he got an idea. "In fact."

After whispering something into his son's ear, Greg fist bumped Steven, and it caused the two to glow right before everyone else's eyes. And as a result, the father and son fusion Steg was reborn, this time with a mullet in addition to his massive pompadour.

"He can fuse with humans?!" Aquamarine shrieked in surprise. "We were never told this!"

"Oh my stars!" Lapis and Peridot gasped in unison.

"This one goes out to all awesome hair across the stars." Steg boomed while summoning a double-necked guitar that he began playing. "I call this one, 'We Ain't Gonna Let You Get Away With This!'"

"Three against two?" Eyeball said nervously. "Y'know, I think maybe it's time we-" She was cut off by Steg braining her with his guitar while he turned pink.

"If you're saying we should run or surrender, you are sorely mistaken!" Aquamarine yelled while dodging attacks from Lapis. "They fused just now, somehow, so we must fuse in order to win!"

"Fine, whatever." Eyeball groaned as she noticed Peridot scampering into the house and racing back out with a kitchen knife to match the Ruby's chisel.

Eyeball raced away from the green Gem in fright and grabbed onto the fleeing Aquamarine's hand in an attempt to fuse, but it was cut short by the combined forces of their disharmony and Steg throwing Steven's shield between them that sent them flying face-first into the sand.

"What was that?" Eyeball asked.

"That was bad form you corun-dummy!" Aquamarine insulted. "Try again!"

The two of them attempted to fuse again, and again, and again, but every time resulted in failure. "That's it!" Eyeball yelled. "I've had it with you!"

"Tsk tsk tsk." Steg tutted smugly as he returned to his normal self and approached the arguing duo. "You guys only fused to get revenge on me, didn't you?"

"Yes, that's exactly it!" Aquamarine replied. "The only problem is she's too much of a moron to keep us together!"

"Me the moron?!" Eyeball shouted. "You're way too much of a bossy-boots!"

"If that's the reason, then I can see why you can't keep it together." Lapis stated from experience.

"What are you three talking about?!" Aquamarine asked scornfully.

"There are so many other reasons to fuse." Steg explained. "Like friendship, responsibility, maybe even love."

"Imagine how much better your lives would be if you fused to support each other instead of wanting to ruin someone's life." Peridot agreed with the massive fusion.

"She's right." Steg continued. "Your life would be filled with so much love and joy and friendship and warmth and-"

"Yes yes, blah blah blah!" Aquamarine rudely cut Steg off. "Ugh, love is so annoying!"

"I hate it as much as I hate Steven!" Eyeball agreed, but then the two realized something they had in common.

"Yeah, me too!" Aquamarine and Eyeball declared to each other as they fused back into Bluebird, much to Steg's irritation.

"This is bad comedy." Steg facepalmed as Bluebird triumphantly returned.

"Ah-ha, back in business!" Bluebird announced before summoning a cutlass made out of ice to attack Steg with, but he blocked the sword with his shield.

"En garde!" Bluebird cackled with a swing of her sword, spawning ice projectiles that turned into smaller cutlasses landing on the ground.

"Steven, why is the van inside the house?" Pearl asked while she, Garnet, and Amethyst emerged from the beach house as the fusion fight went on.

"Whatever Greg did, can you tell him to stop?" Amethyst asked before she let out a loud scream at what they were seeing. "Hey, is that Steg?!"

"We can explain everything, honest!" Peridot tried to apologize for everything that's happened.

"No need." Garnet boomed stoically while glaring daggers at Bluebird, continuing to swipe at Steg's shield.

"DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!" Bluebird shrieked violently when she noticed a certain group of three angry Gems. "Oh, if it isn't my favorite trio!" she exclaimed while innocently hiding her cutlass behind her back.

The Crystal Gems responded by fusing together into a very grouchy Alexandrite who towered over Bluebird Azurite and raised one hand forward.

"Oh no." the rogue fusion whimpered before she was squashed flat by Alexandrite. As Alexandrite un-fused back into Garnet, Amethyst & Pearl, Steven & Greg un-fused and gazed at the groaning Aquamarine & Ruby.

"Are you two okay?" Steven asked while Greg raced to collect his cut hair.

"Oh no, we have been defeated!" Aquamarine theatrically declared. "Now we'll be forcibly indoctrinated into your lifestyle like every Gem before us!"

"Yep." Eyeball replied as she rubbed her head.

"I've completely learned my lesson." Aquamarine stated. "I'm sorry Steven. Please accept my apology so that we may become defenseless pacifists just like you." When she extended a hand to Steven, Steven brought his out too, expecting to give her a handshake, but she childishly snatched her gloved hand away. "GOTCHA!"

"Don't you run away you runts!" Peridot yelled while Aquamarine took Eyeball's hand and they flew away.

"You rebels may have gotten us this time, but we'll be out there!" Aquamarine declared haughtily.

"Hating you!" her Ruby partner added.

"Forever!" Aquamarine concluded as they flew far away from the Gems, presumably never to be seen for a long time.

"You smell!" Eyeball jeered as loud as she could.

"Think we'll really see them again?" Lapis wondered.

"Who knows Lapis?" Garnet replied. "But if they pull off what they did just now, we'll be there."

"I guess there are Gems out there who still hate your guts." Amethyst contemplated.

"Well, I'm not the only one they wanted to hurt." Steven replied while looking at Greg, sitting by the ocean with his hair in his arms. "I'm really sorry, Dad." Steven apologized to his father while sitting by him. "I never should've given Bluebird a chance."

"I love how you believe in everyone." Greg sighed to his son while drying his tears. "You stuck to your principles, and that made me proud. But sometimes, some people don't want to change."

"Yeah." Steven sighed as well, before Greg let his hair drift in the water.

"See you around, old friend." Greg bid farewell to his locks. "You're finally free."

Later that day, Aquamarine and Eyeball continued giggling as they found somewhere safe to hide in the woods close to Beach City.

"You have to admit, it was hilarious how that My-Dad was so attached to his hair." Eyeball admitted to her blue cohort.

"I mean, it's just hair!" Aquamarine agreed. "But enough about mocking others' misfortune, give me the communicator."

"You got it." Eyeball obeyed and began searching around her person for what her new friend requested. "Uh, where is it again?"

"In your gem you dolt!" Aquamarine yelled.

"Oh, right." Eyeball realized, pulling a black, octahedral object from her gemstone and handing it to Aquamarine. After Aquamarine gave it a few turns, the object slowly rose above the two and transformed into a screen displaying a coded message.

"Your clarity, we have garnered some minor success on our espionage mission." Aquamarine announced to the screen while positing her arms in a rectangular salute. "Though our cover was blown, we now know that he can somehow perform fusion with humans. Tell us, do you have any further orders?"

The screen replied by giving a coded message to Aquamarine that Eyeball couldn't understand. "Uh, what's it saying?" Eyeball asked.

"It's saying we must return to headquarters and await further instructions." Aquamarine translated the message. "A craft is being sent to our current location to bring us back."

As Aquamarine declared, a small, orb-like white space pod with a single red window at the entrance instantly warped to Earth via lightspeed and opened its door for the two Gems to board.

"Haha, just you wait Steven!" Eyeball shouted to the sky. "Your precious little family will soon be done for!"

The two little Gems cackled evilly as they entered the pod, and it blasted off back into space. But they didn't realize that a certain orange Gem was watching close by, and had a disgruntled look on her face all the while.

And so ends Bluebird. Fun fact, Steg was completely last minute as I thought it would be cool if he fought Aquamarine and Eyeball. Speaking of which, if you couldn't tell by now, Aquamarine & Eyeball will have a much bigger role than in Regular Future going forward as they now answer directly to our mystery villain from Cracks and Buds. So first we had Holly Blue Agate, and now these two? What could this ne'er-do-well have planned with these old villains? We'll just have to wait and see. Speaking of which, I should really get back to a certain other Steven Universe fanfiction.

#steven universe #steven universe future #fanfiction #steven universe alternate future #steven quartz universe #garnet #amethyst #pearl #bluebird azurite #eyeball ruby #aquamarine #lapis lazuli #peridot #bismuth #greg universe #steg

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msjr0119 · 6 years ago

Text

Forgive me

Part 7- Goodbye for now

A mini series, includes suicide and abuse.

Based on true events but using TRR characters who are owned by Pixelberry.

@annekebbphotography @burnsoslow @drakesensworld @ladyangel70 @kingliam2019 @bbrandy2002 @butindeed @bascmve01 @drakewalker04 @pedudley @captain-kingliamsqueen @duchessemersynwalker @insideamirage @of-course-i-went-to-hartfeld @kozabaji @texaskitten30 @ibldw-main @kimmiedoo5 @nikkis1983 @dangerouseggseagleartisan @gnatbrain @walker7519 @lodberg @cmestrella @hopefulmoonobject @addictedtodrakefanfic @angi15h @liamxs-world @rafasgirl23415 @notoriouscs @yukinagato2012 @dcbbw @qammh-blog @nz1091 @beardedoafdonutwagon @cordonianroyalty @custaroonie

******

The Derby had ended, Liam was relieved as he couldn’t concentrate watching it with his father and Regina by his side- constantly asking questions regarding his relationship with Riley. Thoughts constantly repeated in his mind debating whether or not his father was being sincere with his previous words that were said. Drake came by to see him - to check on how his best was doing.

“Hey. I’ve got us a drink. Riley and Max won. Them two together are acting like excited puppies. It’s slightly annoying.”

“Drake come in.” Liam shouted sounding relieved to have some proper company by his side. Constantine and Regina excused themselves leaving the two men alone. Drake passed Liam a beer, as Liam was about to thank him- he noticed something on Drake’s neck.

“Erm, have you been sneaking off with Ella again? Or has Bat-sien had a go at your neck?”

“Damn! I might have to ask one of the girls for some make up. Is it bad? How are you and Riley? Have you kissed and made up yet? She wouldn’t tell us anything.”

“It could be worse. Leo used to literally have blood dripping down his neck. Yes, we are fine. My father is insisting that she should be Queen. Leo is inisisting that I should be Lucas’s father.”

“Leo? You’re as bad as Riley.”

“He’s here Drake. We are not crazy. I wanted to ask you something. A favour really.” Drake suddenly felt a cold shiver down his back- assuming it was just due to the grief he ignored it, wondering what type of favour a prince would require from a commoner.

“Shoot.”

“As there’s no social season, we won’t be doing all the usual events. I know you don’t like all the noble events anyway... so I was going to ask if you could go back to New York with Riley. With Ella too. Then come back together.”

“But you need me here. I go to those events because you are my best friend- my brother.”

“I need someone I trust to keep an eye out on Riley and Lucas. I just thought you’d, what do they say? ‘Jump at the chance’ to see Ella more.”

“Okay, I’ll do it. But you owe me some whiskey.” The two friends laughed at Drake’s bribery techniques. Liam knew he would owe him a lifetime of whiskey for protecting his family.

*****

It was Saturday morning, a week since the gentlemen had first met Riley. A week since she had informed them of the news that nobody would want to be hit with unexpectedly. Walking over to Lucas’s cot, Liam admired his nephew. A fusion of emotions hit him whilst looking adorably at the boy; happiness that this little miracle could carry on the Rhys name, sadness that Riley and he was leaving in the morning and guilt that Leo wasn’t around to celebrate this first milestone. Picking Lucas up, he held him tightly- in a week he had fallen in love with Leo’s mini me.

“Happy first birthday buddy. Your mommy has done a brilliant job of raising you. I love you so much. I hope to spend the rest of your birthdays celebrating with you. Are you going to be a rebellious prince like your father or the ‘goody two shoes’ prince like your uncle?”

“Hopefully a bit of both?”

“Ri... I... I didn’t know you was awake.”

“I felt cold once you got out of bed.” Riley smirked at him, her eyes pleading for him to join her back in bed, with the young prince. Liam carried Lucas over to the bed, witnessing the unconditional bond between a mother a son as Lucas wrapped his arms tightly around her neck.

“Happy birthday my baby. You are so loved. I am never leaving you, you mean so much to me. You may not remember today when you’re older, but this is such a special day.”

“I’ll leave you both to it.” Liam began to walk towards the door, Riley was confused as to why he would disappear- she knew he had no meetings today.

“Why? You’re family. We’re family.” Feeling relieved that Riley wanted to include him in this special occasion he smiled fondly at the two of them. The two people who at this moment in time meant the absolute world to him. Clearing his throat, he couldn’t wait to show Lucas what surprise he had for him.

“I asked Drake to pick me up a present for him from me.”

“You shouldn’t have. The greatest present you could have given him is being present in his life.”

“I’ll always be there for him and for you too.” Kissing her on the forehead he meant every word and had hoped that she would understand that he was being sincere. Sitting Lucas on the floor, he opened Riley’s presents from her first, and then Liam’s. The little boys eyes lit up.

“It’s a bit sentimental to me. Myself and Leo always used to play with trains. I hope he likes it. The royal family tend to keep children’s birthdays private, with just close family and friends attending. I wasn’t sure if you had anything planned seen as though it was an impromptu trip coming here. We could take him for a walk around the grounds? Have a picnic?”

“Sounds perfect Liam.”

******

Riley, Liam and Lucas spent the day just together- allowing Lucas to play with his new toys. Liam had built a train track that travelled all around his room- Riley wasn’t sure who was having more fun. The adult Prince or the young prince. The picnic was brief but simple- all feeling over faced after a while. Once bathing Lucas and reading him a goodnight story, he fell asleep immediately - Riley and Liam spent the remaining time they had together wrapped up under the quilt- their limbs intertwined. Both feeling content in each other’s embrace, surrounded by a calm atmosphere- Liam began to have hope that this was a premonition of what his future was going to entitle.

The morning after; Riley, Lucas, Drake, Ella and Rob were preparing for their flight back to New York. Liam had insisted that they used the royal jet suggesting that he would escort them there- but Drake disagreed, making a valid point that it would be harder and more emotional for Liam to let go of them.

“Drake will look after you both in New York, I will ring you every day. I’m going to miss you both so much.”

“We will miss you too. Won’t we Lucas.” Lucas snuggled into Liam, unable to keep his emotions hidden- Riley walked over to him, caressing his cheek and wiping away his tears with her thumb.

“I’ll be back before you know it your highness.” Liam didn’t care who saw his affections towards Riley, his lips brushed hers not in a teasing way but in a passionate and demanding way instead. Losing theirselves in each other, neither wanted to pull away. “Riley...” he whispered quietly yet slowly, her heart began fluttering at his voice.

“I’ll be waiting for you, always. Nothing will prevent me from seeing you both again.... Riley?”

“Yes?”

“I love you.” Riley hesitated at first, not knowing if to say those three little words back with an audience watching them.

“Liam, I...”

“Riley, come on. Say goodbye. I’ll look after them Liam. Can’t say that I’m going to miss the balls these next couple of weeks.” Drake laughed at his own sarcasm- slightly grateful that he didn’t have to put himself through those events. Liam didn’t feel like attending all the royal events. It was time to say goodbye. The goodbye he knew was coming sooner rather than later but also dreaded. The goodbye to the only person that he had ever felt content with. The only person that he had felt happy with. Without her he would feel like he had lost a limb. The last week, consisted of times that they would just talk, laugh, do normal things that normal people would do. Gaining a bond, learning about each other- sharing memories about Leo. Wishing he could turn back time, so he could have supported Leo when he was alive, saving everyone from all this continuous heartache. Already knowing that his chest would feel empty the minute she left- the only way he could get through this pain was knowing that she was going to return with Lucas.

“I’ll ring you once we land.” Liam nodded before kissing her with one lasting lingering kiss, attempting to hold back the tears that were forming in his baby blues. Watching the SUV drive away, it was as if it was in slow motion. Once it was out of sight, he headed straight to his quarters pushing past everyone who was shouting his name in a concerned manner. Entering the room, the scent of Riley was still lingering. Laying on his bed, he smelt the perfume she wore. Everything reminded him of her, crying uncontrollably into the pillow- he felt more alone now than ever before.

*****

A week had gone by, Drake had kept his promise always checking in on Riley and Lucas. Whilst also getting to know Ella- slowly falling in love with her. Debating on whether to return to Cordonia or to give love a chance. Riley and Liam had too had kept to their promise, always talking on the phone at every opportunity given- both always feeling devastated when they had to hang up. Much to her surprise, she had sold her apartment quickly- now it was a waiting game for the deal to go through. Riley was working, it was dead as if she was stood in a morgue- most of the shift was spent daydreaming about Liam and their discussions over the phone, during this excruciating time apart. Thinking about her last call with Liam, knowing it was only going to be a matter of days before she could see him again.

“Hey.”

“Hello. Are you okay?”

“I’ve got some news. I’m homeless.”

“What do you mean?”

“The apartment sold. The couple loved it and are eager to move in as soon as possible.”

“That’s great news Riley.”

“Isn’t it? Also, I officially only have another week to work. Because I didn’t use all my annual leave- my manager has let me use that towards my notice.”

“So you’ll be back sooner than expected?”

“Yes. It’ll just be myself and Lucas though...Drake is taking an extended stay in New York.”

“I gathered when I spoke to him before. I’m thrilled that you’ll be coming back earlier. I have to go, I don’t want to but I have to. Another ball. I’ve missed you both so much- it’s not the same without you both.”

“We’ve missed you too.”

Unexpectedly Drake and Ella stormed through the door, looking panic stricken unbeknown to her. Before Riley could read their expressions, she poured a whiskey and a cocktail. Whenever her manager wasn’t around she would sneakily give her closest friends a drink on the house. As the two of them arrived at the bar, neither touched their drinks which was unusual- instead just looked at each other with sorrow in their eyes, holding back the tears, they didn’t know how to explain to Riley the news they had just received.

“Are you two going away for a kinky weekend away? What’s with all the bags?”

“Riley... Erm... I don’t know how to tell you this....”

“Drake don’t worry- you’re not my babysitter. I won’t tell Liam. It’s our little secret. Enjoy your time together.”

“Riley, you can’t tell Liam anyway.... he... there was an explosion and an attack on the palace....”

Riley’s brain faltered for a moment, every part of her froze as if her life was on pause. Realising that her brain needed to try and absorb the words that Drake had just said- maybe she misunderstood what he said, but looking at the two people in front of her realisation hit her, waking her up from the trance immediately.

“I... I... oh my god... I didn’t say that I loved him back... Drake you didn’t give me chance to... I can’t... breathe...” Feeling guilty that he had forced to abruptly end their painful goodbye- he needed to think positive even though he was dying deep down. Placing his hand on her shoulder, he told her to breathe- following his instructions and advise she felt slightly better.

“Riley, he’s alive. He’s fine. Well not fine but he’s alive. We have to go back to Cordonia now.”

“What happened to him?” She asked, barely able to ask that question. Tears were now uncontrollably running down her cheek- her mascara was smudged. Drake lent towards her holding her hands after wiping her tears.

“He had a forceful blow to his head, attempting to protect Kiara, who was stabbed.” Looking at the time, he knew Bastien would be here with Maxwell within the next few hours travelling on the the royal jet. “They think he may have become blind due to the explosion and the trauma. I’m so sorry Riley.”

#theroyalromance #choices trr #riley brooks #drakewalker #liam rhys #riley x drake #riley x liam #trr forgive me

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dailytechnologynews · 7 years ago

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Top Ten Predictions FOR 2050

Autonomous vehicles become widespread – this should happen well before 2050 in developed countries (perhaps by 2030). The global road toll, currently over one million deaths a year, will eventually decline by 90% or more. Car ownership will continue for rise for a time (especially in poorer countries) then eventually start to decline. More efficient, autonomous, Uber-like taxis come to dominate road systems. Owning a personal car will eventually be much more expensive (especially as human drivers become increasingly hard to insure). ‘Flying’ versions (of the sort recently trialled in places like Dubai, like small electric helicopters) slowly emerge as well, albeit reserved for the very wealthy.

Other wealthy people and car enthusiasts will continue to own (regular) cars a long way into the future (like horses today). However in many countries, humans may eventually be banned/severely restricted from driving on public roads due to safety concerns (despite how unimaginable this may seem today). In the developed world at least, one of the last holdouts will be the US, as conservative politicians trumpet the rights of law-abiding car owners.

The space program takes off, but slowly – given current plans (especially by private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin) I would give at least 50% odds we will have a man on Mars by 2030 (only 12 years away). In just the last few years SpaceX in particular has proven the feasibility of reusable rockets. Pretty much all the requisite technologies are now here and the pace will slowly pick up as costs come down.

By 2050 several countries/major companies are likely to have space stations in Earth orbit, bases on the Moon and even Mars. Like bases in Antarctica today, these will mainly serve research and tourism purposes (plus a purely geopolitical one in staking out future territory i.e. the US and China build separate bases on the moon and then each claim a hemisphere). More probes will continue to be sent to the outer solar system. The earliest human missions to Jupiter or Saturn space may be in their early stages by 2050. Early efforts to mine the resources of the asteroid belt may be under way. Space-based solar power might have become a reality around Earth (though I suspect that, like nuclear power before it, the public will be sufficiently terrified by the thought of giant space lasers that plans will be stymied even if the experts say the safety concerns are greatly exaggerated). Space elevators remain impractical.

The world successfully finds new sources of energy and copes with climatic changes – for decades many people (some of them highly educated) have predicted that something akin to ‘peak oil’ was imminent and that shortly afterward the world might plunge into a Mad Max-style dystopia. This is unlikely. Not only have the world’s oil, coal and natural gas reserves proven to be vast enough to likely last us generations, but even if all fossil fuels vanished tomorrow, the world has enough uranium to supply our energy needs for thousands of years. CO2 levels will continue to rise and with it global temperatures will continue to tick upwards. However, the industrial capacity and ingenuity of the human race rises much faster. In 2018 your odds of dying from a natural disaster are an order of magnitude less than in 1900. This trend will continue.

The world’s urban population doubles between 2010 and 2050 (from 3.5 to 7 billion). Major coastal cities eventually construct elaborate flood levees as sea levels rise maybe two or three feet by the end of the century. Even in poorer countries, better infrastructure majorly cuts down on deaths due to disease, famine, floods, storms and other disasters (in the long run earthquakes remain the most unpredictable and thus the most dangerous). The predicted ‘climate refugees’ largely fail to eventuate, though millions are always seeking to enter the first world to find higher paying work, especially as automation ramps up and ‘cheap labour’ is no longer the powerful driver of growth it once was.

Fossil fuels remain the primary source of energy in 2050. However, solar, wind, nuclear and now fusion power plants are rapidly coming on line. By 2050 several record breaking tunnels, including from Sicily-Tunisia and Korea-Japan, have been constructed. A number of buildings over 1km tall have been built, with the highest (likely built in a prestige-hungry African country) surpassing 1.5km.

Major confrontations between the US and China over Taiwan and the South China Sea – there will almost certainly be at least one more (and possibly several) sequels to the 1st, 2nd and 3rd ‘Taiwan Strait Crises’. This could take many forms. It might start with a Chinese blockade of the island, or an attempt to seize another, more minor Taiwanese asset (Taiping Island in the Spratlys stands out for instance, or possibly Kinmen and Matsu closer to the mainland). One such scenario is depicted here

Hard to be specific but I would predict better than 50% odds you will see Chinese and US warships shooting at each other at some point. However, I also think the odds are very low it will escalate into WW3. As both sides have nuclear-tipped ICBMs and the American and Chinese homelands are sufficiently far apart battles are likely to be confined to sea, air and fairly remote islands (though space and cyberspace are also likely). Other countries like Japan and Australia could easily get involved.

Hostilities may last for years but the eventual death toll will probably be in the thousands rather than the millions. More dire scenarios see a physical Chinese land invasion of Taiwan (though it is hard to see this succeeding) or a major escalation whereby one side tries to shoot down the other’s satellites, causing a chain reaction that destroys more or less everything in LEO. This, or a China-US trade embargo (10X worse than the current ‘trade war’) plus a prolonged shutdown of seagoing trade in the S. China Sea would cause severe economic disruption. However, again, probably no nukes and no WW3. My ultimate guess is that the US Navy prevails and in 2050 Taipei is still independent of Beijing (indeed – probably openly so).

Global politics will realign as demographic change and economic growth sees the rise of certain countries – in broad strokes this is fairly obvious, but we can take a stab at a few specifics. Despite earlier fears of runaway growth the global population is expected to increase from today’s 7.5 billion to maybe 10 billion in 2050 and thereafter stabilize. Also, despite much misinformation and fear-mongering the world today is much richer and healthier today than ever before.

The existing western world will maintain its dominance for some time yet. The United States in particular is projected to have healthy population growth well into the future. The US population should be around 400 million by 2050 (albeit increasingly diverse) and still third in the world (though Nigeria might overtake them towards the end of this century).

China since 1980 is the obvious model for other poor countries (though worth noting their streak of ‘10% annual GDP growth’ burned out in 2010, they have averaged 6-7% since). India’s economy is now growing faster than China’s and its population will overtake theirs by 2025 but it is starting from a much lower base. Despite many predictions, I suspect the US will remain no.1 in GDP at least until 2030 and will still be 1st or 2nd in 2050 (with China the only real competitor).

A complete implosion of China is possible. This could be caused by an economic crisis or a failed military venture abroad which destroys the legitimacy of the communist party and sparks a revolution calling for democratic and other reforms. Perhaps in tandem with this, North Korea implodes and is reunified with South Korea (this is unlikely to occur without a major change in China first, given their status as essentially a buffer state with the US-backed south).

One possible state that stands out as a future superpower is the ‘East African Federation’, an intended evolution of the existing ‘East African Community’ that now includes Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda and South Sudan. At present these states are very poor, with a combined GDP smaller than New Zealand. However, they are now growing at 6% a year. Linked by Swahili as a common lingua franca they are expected to have a population of 410 million by 2050 and 800 million by 2100 – not far behind India and China. If their political integration succeeds and their economic growth continues, the EAF could emerge as a major world power by mid-century.

Population declines and changing resource markets will cause the decline of other countries - on the flip side to the above, countries like Japan and Russia have a bleak demographic outlook. Russia in particular with anaemic economic growth and a growing Muslim minority may face substantial internal instability. The decline of oil (either due to the spread of new technologies or simply a global shortage) will also contribute. The country could even collapse entirely as depicted here

Individual European states face demographic and (relative) economic decline. However if the European Union survives as an institution (I would give better than 50% odds) its combined population of 450 million (even without the UK) and historical economic strength should help it remain a major world power well into the century. The anglosphere countries will continue to benefit from the rise of English to the global lingua franca.

In 2050 I suspect the Middle East, as in 2018 or indeed 1950, will continue to be something of a war-torn shithole. The brewing cold war between Sunni-Saudi Arabia and Shia-Iran is just beginning. Both could eventually get nukes (and then things get real interesting). The decline of oil, increasing calls for democracy/secularism/modernisation and ongoing ethnic tensions will all ensure continued chaos. An independent Kurdistan is likely to become a reality eventually. Turkey, now resurgent and by far the strongest country in the region, could take advantage of the weaknesses of the Arab states to advance south into its historical realm of influence (the entire region having been controlled by them until 1918).

On the whole Africa’s economic outlook is now improving and its demographics indicate that 40% of the world will be African by 2100. However, they still have a long way to go. Major wars, revolutions, epidemics and other disasters are likely to strike numerous times before then as they have in the previous 60 years since the withdrawal of the European colonial powers. I suspect in the next decade or two racial tensions in South Africa will also come to a head and the white minority will be forced to flee the country, i.e. Rhodesia in the 1980s.

Neural implants evolve from today’s smartphones – As we went from room-sized computers to PCs to laptops to smartphones (and maybe smartwatches and smartglasses as well) the ultimate result will be unobtrusive brain-computer interfaces that will quickly become universal (if not exactly mandatory – but trying staying employed without one). As with past computer technologies, the earliest adopters (from maybe the late 2020s) will be tech enthusiasts, time-pressed businessmen, and the young. Over another decade or so they will spread to the rest of the population in developed countries (with some inevitable holdouts, generally the elderly with little appetite to embrace more technologies and those with religious or other objections). Poorer countries (though now catching up) will be another decade or two behind. However, even in darkest Africa neural implants will probably be arriving by 2050 or so, as electricity and the internet already are today.

So what is a neural implant? Think of a smartphone but one that bypasses your ‘traditional’ senses. Rather than looking at a screen or listening via speakers, information will be beamed directly into your neocortex. Images/text/sounds and possibly other sensations will simply appear in your vision/hearing. This would apply to everything. When you walk down a shopping strip advertisements will flash up in your vision. When you want to communicate with someone, text/audio/video messages can be wordlessly exchanged via a little box popping up in the corner of your field of view. You can browse the global internet, check the weather, etc simply via thought commands. You can set a morning alarm that will wake up nobody but you! It’s at least as big a revolution in our lives as everything internet-related since 1990.

Of course, all this would come with staggering privacy concerns (i.e. the government or someone else being able to hack into your very nervous system and observe what you sense/observe – or perhaps even being able to ‘take control’ themselves depending on the nature of the implant). However, society finds ways to deal with these concerns, as we already have carrying smartphones around in our pockets. Expect to see a few neural-implant-Edward-Snowdens.

Major enhancements to the human body, either through gene therapy or surgery, start to become possible – neural implants are one thing, but just one element of our shift into what are essentially cyborgs. Artificial organs are already on the horizon. Designer babies are well on the way. Genetic doping in sports is probably already around. Genetically modified crops are already decades old.

Want to guarantee your kids will grow to be at least six foot? Have perfect vision and teeth? Such gene therapy will eventually not only be permitted, but calls will abound to make it free and universal (like education or healthcare today). On the plus side, our children and grandchildren will increasingly be free of the heavy burdens of genetic disease. On the other hand, if everyone’s kid has a perfect smile and can learn to play the violin with ease – how else does one stand out? Major social problems typical of a ‘modern’ society, such as obesity and drug abuse, will finally start to reverse after decades.

Of course, inequality will be a problem. Just as it is the world’s wealthy offspring who have access to braces or laser eye surgery today, the poor will have to do with their ‘natural’ bodies until such breakthroughs spread. A heart attack will prove fatal to an old man in Africa. In Europe it may mean the installation of a new heart and another decade of life. However, this is just the beginning.

Anti-aging efforts start to bear fruit – this one has many question marks attached, but I would expect that substantial progress will eventually be made. Global life expectancy is now 72 years, up from 67 in the year 2000 or 48 in 1950. Most of this has been as the ‘low-hanging fruit’ of vaccines, improved sanitation and nutrition and other changes have finally spread to the third world.

Modern medicine tells us the human body is an immensely complicated machine. Slicing and dicing our DNA is still proving immensely hard. Nonetheless, aging doesn’t seem to be an immutable law (like breaking the light barrier or time travel or anything). Once our understanding of the human body is sufficiently advanced, reversing every aspect of the aging process seems very possible. Maybe I’m falling into the usual trap of hoping for such developments before I get old (I will be nearing 60 in 2050) but I suspect we might finally be getting close. However, for a task of this magnitude, we might have to wait for the next step – the breakthrough to end all breakthroughs.

The singularity – this is the biggest question mark of all. While I feel the world until 2050 is relatively foreseeable (barring a nuclear war, solar flare, etc) the rise of superintelligent AIs is an event so overwhelming as to put all other predictions in doubt. Even if Moore’s law slows it is unlikely to stop, and current trends put the capabilities of silicon computers well ahead of anything our puny human brains can do by mid-century.

Suffice it to say I think the worst predictions about the singularity are unlikely to come to pass. Most apocalyptic scenarios about an AI taking over the world see a massive divide between that AI and the puny humans of 2018 (or earlier). By 2050 many humans will already be well on their way to becoming cyborgs. AIs of all shades will have been developed, doing everything from playing chess matches to playing the stock market. The gap between a ‘superintelligent’ AI and the rest of the world won’t be nearly as great, decreasing the odds that a single rogue entity will be able to hold the rest of the world hostage to its pre-programmed whims.

Nonetheless, the proliferation of superintelligence will strain every institution of our modern world. Major, apparently unassailable concepts like democracy and capitalism and the superiority of human life will come under question. Why bother with the cumbersome nature of a democratic legislature or the chaos of a free market, if a perfect AI can make better decisions? Why respect the world’s existing governments, if all their armies and weapons have suddenly been made obsolete by some godlike alliance of AIs? Why even bother with the ‘real’ world at all, if you can transfer your brain patterns to a hard drive smaller than your thumb and inhabit whatever virtual reality you please? In a world where humans as we’ve known them for the past 100,000 years have suddenly become obsolete, whatever will our silicon offspring do next?

#Futurology #Technology #Tech #Studies #Humanity #Development #New #Gadgets

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generoustalelight · 4 years ago

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CORNUCOPIA

he was hiding in the back alley of his favorite restaurant. he was holding the knife drenched in blood, both of his hands are on the shaft making it more grotesque. he's restless, shaking and nervous, he's both scared and confused. he left his friend inside the restaurant, he totally forgot that he's with someone, because frankly, he doesn't know what to do anymore.

he's still standing from the far left of the big red door, his back facing the wall. on his right is an industrial garbage bin. he's thinking of ditchng the knife in it, but he's too conscious. he thought that that would be such a dumb move. then his eyes shuttered, he's still breathing heavily.

his hands losing grip, he felt that his whole system is deteriorating, his mind's crumbling.

someone tapped his shoulder, waking him up, it was very sudden, all his senses are heightened, he thought to himself, 'im dead meat', he doesn't care anymore. the moment he turned to his left, his eyes are met with a pair of hazel marbles looking from the deep ends of his soul.

the boy in front of him is neither aloof or frightened by all the blood. the boy's just looking beyond all his demons and doubts. it was a transition. they've been standing there for a good minute, and no one's saying a word.

he hardly noticed the boy's light skin complexion and the soft kisses of the freckles from both of the boy's cheeks. the boy is the same height as him, medium built, jet black hair, wearing a black pants and a plain white shirt. the boy's face is a perfected masterpiece, he was captured for a second, dazed by the unearthly beauty.

the boy double tapped his shoulder again, bursting his bubble, opening his eyes to the murky alley that they're in right now.

"come on,'' the only word that transcended between them, keeping him warm and safe, setting the emptiness, of every sense, enveloping his fragile self. the boy's tone is suggestive. he immediately dropped the knife, smothered the excess blood against his dark blue jeans. he forced a smile. he prompted a big sigh and sandwich his face with a loud slap from both of his hands. he continued smiling, though it is visible that some nerves on his face are still hurting, in addition his cheeks are blushing hard.

he held the boy's hands like he knew him for the longest time. his hands are shaking but the hands of his new found companion is reassuring enough to calm him within a snap.

he woke up, on an unfamiliar large brown couch, from his deep slumber. the whole room is a mystery for him. the flat is mildly lit. the walls are blank off-whites. adjacent to the couch is a turned off 32 inch flat-screen television. right of the television stand is a japanese calligraphy, wherein for him is an unknown beauty even though undesirable, that inside a black-gold accented expensive frame, and infront of it is a circa '70's vintage copper telephone. it is standing atop an ivory colored wooden mini-table. a breeze is blowing lightly on the draped white sheet of curtain behind him. on the far left side of the room is a division and what seems to be a room, the crease of the room's door and the floor is casting a light. a light that signifies life condraticting to his dead face, full of questions and irritatingly nonsensical insights.

he got up and walked toward the room. he grabbed the knob, it was cold, and before he knew it, he's already in front of the boy. the door is wide open. he's stunned. for a quick second, he thought that this entity in front of him is not human, that this must be an angel suggesting that there is peace at the end of every tragedy. the boy in front of him held both of his shoulders, exerting force, pushing him not too hard, making him move backwards, back to the couch, he wasn't able to object or to raise any reaction.

the next thing he knew is that he's already sitting with his hands clasped together. he's bowing down for some reason that even he, himself, cant seem to find logical or worthy of announcing on the open.

what he don't know is that the man beside him is already staring at him intently.

"what's your name?", he then looked up to check the source of the voice. all of the blood on his body rose to blush his cheeks. he don't understand why's he feeling this way. just by this boy's pure and innocent gaze, he was already falling into a deep rabbit hole, and he likes it.

"my name's leo, you?", he added.

"kian," after replying, a long pause pressed the air, and word after the other fought its way through, "my name is kian," his voice is shaking, he's anxious.

leo let out a chuckle. kian looked at him puzzled. he's thinking that maybe he's laughing because of the awkwardness his voice has exhibited. he was now shy, he cant seem to use words to defend himself from drowning into this pit of embarassment full of hand grenades that can be triggered by any word possible to man.

"why were you laughing?," his nervous tone never left him.

"nothing," leo replied, "why? did it bother you? don't worry i just find you really interesting , and hilarious!' he answered after pausing. his voice is very masculine, its as if like god had adjusted all the vocal chords he has and made it to fit his physique.

"no, i was just wondering," kian answered.

"so can you tell me now what happened?," leo asked.

all of it consumed kian, all the unfamiliar feelings has started creeping up. he was very scared, you can see it in his face, he seemed empty. the aura of the room shifted and made a dark turn. he started caressing his own arms. he's already crying softly, his sobs are suppressed, kian don't want anyone to see him weak or powerless, he's already stood his ground and became a man on his own.

"it's ok, everything's ok," kian reminding himself that no matter what everything will turn out fine. it's a sad scene. he's hugging himself tight, curving into a ball, shutting down slowly by slowly.

leo reached for him, like a light venturing into the depths of pain, the hug is a warm affectionate cleansing touch. all the noise in kian's mind have been voided, they were proved invalid at the moment. pain is peeling from the wounded flesh of a weak child. a heart of the soldier is being salvaged amidst a war. leo mended everything that's wrong. kian is safe, kian's on the nest of serene. leo's arms guarded him from all the worldly things they're dipping into;

ANOTHER PROSE.

I'm broken hearted.

everyday we are given a chance to change, change for the better, we always had the hand to throw, landmines to walk on, and choose what we really wanted for ourselves.

ANOTHER PROSE.

in the same parallel universe,

the last switch is all that's left, the doctor is still clueless whether to press it or not, the bright red tint of the you-know-it-will-destroy-earth button is the most tempting fuckery ever created and made available to human.

it is an excerpt of a game show that will decide the fate of the world, the humanity, and yourself.

presenting, the game show master, an anti-christ ex-convict that was nominated because of the perfect apathy to inject to the world. he has a commercial face, clean and crisp, perfect for television. his charm is incomparable. definitely the definition of sophistication; a godly incarnation of class and elegance.

he has the perfect voice to entertain millions and billions of people. he's a very likable person omitting all the vile things he did. his persona is on a different level than any mortal that has walked on the planet.

he starts every episode with a close-up. a full walkthrough of his gorgeous face. the light will flicker. red to blue to yellow to white to red to violet to yellow to red to white. the exchanges of the colors is prenotioned to hypnosis ergo to condition the cognitive.

the whole set of "the game show" is themed intergalactic, it is overly futuristic, few of the prop design are high-technology devices that can only be imagined by tens and thousands of lightyears away. but it is evident that they still attempted to capture the mediocrity of the simplest things like the buzzers, the lights, the clappers, the audience seats and the camera, it feels like a crazy-fusion of a 1980's tv show and a tv show set on a fucked up future. the set is worth a fortune, the luxury and the euphoria, and whenever they send invites it is like willy wonka spreading the golden tickets again to lure children and children-at-heart to devour life's essence. everything about it is enchanting.

the whole premise of the programme is surrounding the trials and tribulations of all the strands of beings on earth. just thought of it as the most inhumane thing you could possibly see or hear.

usually each episode is presented by the game master and a guest female assistant that will stand by as a symbol of sex and weakness. this will attract the male viewers, to make them feel powerful and more dominant. it never happened that the female guest would appear twice, it was speculated that after an episode the female guest will be brought to the game master's house, allegedly they were drugged into this, and that they were raped and tortured to death. the whole fiasco is ignored by the masses, the black market created a movement to cover up the whole thing.

today, tons of casting and auditions for the role of female asisstant for the game show has been commenced. all the top female actresses, models, pageant royalties and all the kinds and types of women in every nation of the world competes on an extensive screening for the spot. all of these girls aspiring to be slandered, this is the american dream.

going back to the one in a million chance of destroying earth, the doctor is now torn if he really wanted to save his whole family, he's thinking that all this is for his son that meant everything to him, and for his wife that gave meaning to his life.

on the other hand, he's thinking of the bribe that the game master has set him up with. the bribe is made of a lengthy letter from his mistress, an album of all their intercourse, a video, and his mistress herself strapped in an electric chair. not really a bribe, but a threat, the game master promised that he will let everything out, every nook and cranny of his dirt.

the facade of the doctor is quite amusing he's smiling while he's looking at his family sitting on the audience bawling their eyes out, hoping that the doctor would turn out to be sane and fully aware of the right and wrong, the morale, the rightful, the ethical. while, they are clueless of the failing mental health of their father- figure. his hair is turning white, riddled with stress, he's slowly dying while masking his breathing to a relax and calm tempo. he's bid farewell to himself.

life is unfair.

the doctor couldn't decide, he don't want to toss the dice. he don't want to come clean, what he decided is to end everything then and there. 'he will not be a man', that's what he has decided. he mentally prepared wrapping his balls into a thin foil full of gun powder ready to be set on fire in front of everyone, on international television. but don't worry, of course he wouldn't do the latter because it's much easier for him to slit his wrist with a shard of glass from the table that he shattered with his fist, while tapes are rolling, bleeding his life force, in front of his family, while his son is watching the whole thing bare, realizing that his hero is taking suicide as ananswer. nevertheless, their lives are assured to go down form here on, they will be shamed and ridiculed by everyone, they will hate each other and they will die hating on themselves. the world wins.

in the same alternate universe,

1st scene

the first shot includes gem with a pink back drop. gem is wearing a white shirt with scribbled letters, embossed. the soft pastel vibe of everything in this scene is so innocent and clean. her shoulder-length hair is braided, placed on just above her right collar bone. she's holding a bottle of water, with the word 'safe', printed on it. she has put down her for-colorblind glasses, put it on the stool just beside her, she wasn't sitting, she's just resting her right hand on it to support her weight.

the second frame is a sharp cut of gem's eyes and up. the rest of the screen is just a blank pink canvass that screams softness.

she looks annoyed, tired even. she's anxious that this might take a while. her mother's away for just two days, and she's thinking that this is her punishment for not going with her on the camp.

gem is staying in the room for approximately an hour now. the ventilation is not bad, but it's not good either.

gem is strictly instructed to stay in the room, not do anything, and she can't go out until further notice. she don't know why is she obeying these lunacy. she just thought that when she was forced to sleep through ammonia, that this is her farewell to her mother and all her pending chores, as well as the boring life of high school. she accepted everyhting then and there.

she didn't try to escape or object to any of it, she's out of energy, and she don't want her glasses to get caught up with the commotion and be the cause of its sweet destruction.

gem thinks that she's on an abandoned building and she thinks that the room that she's staying in is the only one who has a full renovation. she can smell the faint odor from the newly painted walls, and she reckon that it's still wet, since the dripping form the floor is gradually filled with a pink puddle of paint.

you can see gem trying to fight the ticking of the clock, she's trying to beat the unbeatable, she's trying to sabotage time.

gem heard the heavy footsteps of the men walking toward the room. or is it the same hooligans who've abducted her? she immediately acted as if she has fainted, she fell on the floor without hesitation, her body felt the impact. she's a great actor. her insides are screaming hallelujah-fuck-you. she then sensed the presence of the people who barged in, unannounced. they lifted her up, they clutched her limbs. gem is scared, these people are slimy, their arms are gooey and it smellt like rotten fish and tomatoes. her eyes are shut, she don't want to open them, she's already guessing that whatever it is that she will see, will forever scar her and give her nightmares.

gem, is different from everyone, NO SHE'S NOT. end scene.

2nd scene

inso is a native japanese from hokaido, venturing into the concrete jungles of brooklyn, new york. he's the strangest thing to ever walk in the asphalts of the pioneering city. he's always wearing that combat boots that is honest to god, bigger than him. he always carry his bright yellow duffle bag with all his belonging in it, his round cobalt blue tinted shades and his oversized grey trench coat completes the hobo man inside of him.

inso did not know the english language, he never knew how to read or write in english. his mother's tongue is pure in all his means. he never communicated to anyone until his ninth day in the city, he never really talked per se. it was only with a hotdog stand vendor that he first initiated a non-verbal conversation; at first the man was clueless what was it with all the flailing and waving of inso's hands. he thought that this flamboyant beggar has a loose screw, and is just trying to piss him off, until inso pulled out a dollar and started handing it over to the man preparing all the hotdogs. he then pointed to the regular hotdog-in-a-bun, the hunger is evident in all his next gestures. he's holding his dear life to the railing on the hotdog stand, the scene is comical and hilariously exhausting, and that's the story of his first hotdog, and how he did not die of starvation.

inso has been working in a bowling alley where he was recommended by the same hotdog vendor that he met. he's studious and an outstanding overseer of the whole place, inso manages the bowling alley; he attends to customers' on their hours of stay. he's in charge of the maintenance, the rolling pins, the bowling balls, the neon retro signs, the snack bar (even though he's just sally's assistant), the welcome rugs, the tiled columns, the light bulbs, the bathroom, the toilets, the glass doors, the tables, the gums sticking beneath the tables, the drinking fountain, the bowling gloves, the back of the bowling alley, and the red back door.

he's been living in the bowling alley for almost two months until he's decided to move out to get an apartment. within the span of two months he learned how to speak in english, but not fluently, and definitely not with his accent gone. he started taking a bath on a daily basis. he started eating normal food, like a normal human being, and fully left the hotdog diet. he can now save for his future, to plan for his own house, to start his new life, his days are better.

everything's turning out fine, or so he hoped.

on the way to work inso was stopped by a road block, in front of him, a whole street on a riot, garbage and blood and a dead body lying comfortable in the heated up cement, even the path walk is closed, the crowd is wild on murmuring and added gibberish on the scene of the crime.

police investigators and press are there, covering for the whole event. police tapes are tied from one light post to another and from the metal gate of the blue apartment to a tree from across the street.

inso is forced to walk on the alley located beside the city boutique. even though it is early in the morning, the darkness from the alley way is menacing, scaring him not to take that trail. but he remembered that it's almost 10 in the morning and he has to get in the bowling center as soon as possible.

inso is hugging his duffle bag, removed his glasses, and scurried over the alley, but not an inch away from the main road, he was struck by a hard thing on the head. he remembered that the last thing he saw was a metal baseball bat pointing to the ground. it was pointed towards the ground, stained by blood, he thought that it came from his head. the blow from the back of his head fully paralyzed him and shocked his nerves, he was lying on the ground helpless, no one can hear him, no one will hear him.

inso heard a truck door being opened, he deducted the latter because of the metal rustling noise it made, the heavy footsteps of the men walking toward the alley, alarmed, he tried to get up immediately his glasses are shattered . he's basically on a vegetative state now. he can see his duffle bag being searched and emptied by two men, wearing a flat- ironed suit and high-end slacks. they lifted the whole bag and threw it after. their faces are covered with traditional japanese masks, big eyes and sculpted fangs. his eyes are closing on him, and the last thing he saw he passed out is his home.

on-break

as i grew older, i also realize that i am slowly losing all my white shirts.

i have 10 white shirts when i was on 1st grade, i always wore a white sando beneath my plain white shirt beneath a crisp-and-clean white polo tucked into my above-knee khaki shorts. i go to school with that and a pair of shiny black shoes, carrying my red power rangers bag. i also wore white whenever i'm home, i just loved that color when i was young, it feels clean, it looks clean, it is like a canvass ready for all the scribbles i can make.

when i was on 3rd grade i only used nine, my tenth white shirt became too tight, or maybe im becoming too big, well the point is that it never fitted me anymore. i am really eager to learn about the kid-spirit of our elementary school, that's why i would go ahead and abandon my polo to explore the psyche of my peers, and also to explore the garden behind the sixth graders, and find some worms, and ants, and plants that retreats by the slightest of human touch. i became a lot bigger, it feels like all the knowledge i gather helped me grow faster.

the following year my mom replaced all my white shirts, she noticed how fast i grow physically, and replaced it with eight new ones, same color, same fabric, same price range. this time she bought eight pieces of large to extra large white shirts, just to make sure we have that allowance. the eight new shirts felt comfortable and familiar.

i've had one of my new shirts pulled out of my closet, i wanted to dye it with different colors, like that one shirt with blots of red, blue, green, and yellow and orange, all over it. I have seen it in an art show on the television,"Art Angel". this part of my childhood is where i've started experimenting. i'm trying to understand myself, i'm trying to look at trends, that can never better me, my friends are becoming greedy and they've stopped talking to me. i'm left with seven shirts, and a flamboyant one, late grade school.

one of my shirt's got wrecked when i got in a fight outside school, there was this stupid boy on my class who kept bothering me, and kept provoking me to start this petty fight with him, afterschool, just because he thought that i find him irritating, which is accurate, and that he thought that this problem can be solved by a traditional-outdated fist fight. i never acknowledged this barbarian, even though by that time i let him have it. when i got out of class, i removed my white polo, because i need to get this home white and clean.

i waited for him at a nearby lot, for this to get over with, as soon as possible. he showed up and he had some friends come over to speculate. as soon as he got there you can definbitely see his face is all red and you can easily decipher that he was properly fueled with hatred before going on here, he ran towards me and grabbed me by my shirt, my shirt, mind you this is one of my favorite shirts, i immediately pinned him down, i exerted all my force with my fist struck a blow on his vertbrae as explosive as i could.

i heard him groaned, and all the spectators jumped on me, they were punching me while on ground, kicking me with their spiked shoes. after three minutes they left me, my shirt is ripped. i fucking hate this soccer gang.

white shirts remaining: six

a couple of years later, i replaced two of my white shirts with two black staple tees. black is now my new favorite color. it just represents my brand that time. an emotional teen, bad personality, bad attitude, mediocre fashion.

at the time, i feel troubled, even though i certainly know i am not. i seek attention so hard i can barely read which character i wanted to play, what i am, and what i wanted to be. black just represented the void that i am feeling on that critical days of my adolescence. i still wear my white shirts, just not that often.

peak of my adolescence, one white shirt became the bearer of the intensity of my raging hormones. end of phase.

the last three white shirts that i have is burried beneath all the garbage that i have in my closet. i realize that i cannot wear them anymore, or rather i dont want to wear them anymore. my white shirts reminded me of the innocence that i have back then. but in all fairness, everything that i have right now is something i owe to those white shirts that help me and watched me grew up. i realize that as one age nothing can be permanent but most importantly I've learn that time will change you and will eat you up alive, so as soon as now grab that white shirt and wear it with pride.

3rd scene

gopshi is an indian national that grew up in america. as soon as you see him, you'll assume that he's fluent in speaking his national language. his skin is fair and deep. his eyes are a mix between almond brown and happy, a pair of expensive marbles. gopshi's hair's a shiny jet black, it's length is proper for a boy going to a prep school on whales. his teeth are porcelain white, he's not short, but not really tall.

gopshi was adopted by a couple that intends to save everyone by every means that can result to death, both philantrophist, seeming to tour the world for world peace.

gopshi, has three brothers and four sisters, each of his sibling came from a different race.

there is, sana, a japanese girl that was adopted when she was six. her parents are both unknown by the time of her adoption, even though she was legally adopted and brought out of japan. her foster parents have to fight the yakuza's just to take full custody of her. sana is a smart kid, finished reading and disserting all books varying from ancient literature, scientifical theories and related researches, computer programming, art, philosophy, international languages and so on.

next is, lance he's a british lad that was abandoned when he was six moths old, lance has the charm of kings and emperors, lance is the very best public speaker there is. no one knows where did he get this gift of eloquence, but on thing's for sure, lance can convince, persuade, question and overpower anyone, by only using his words. lance has also a strong morale compass and is very passionate in valuing one's perspective of a certain matter. he's very composed and reliable and he's the most likely to rule the world one day

then there is, arnauv, out of all the adopted children arnauv is the most distant to everyone. he's very secretive and always incognito. arnauv loves planes. he's really interested on aeronautics, and you will know it, you can always see him at somewhere high, he's either seen sitting on the ledge of the mansion's roof or at the top of their humungous tree. arnauv has always been like this. he's s walking question and it was paired with his appearance, he has a platinum blonde hair, crew cut, his eyes are blue, his skin is pale and lips are salmon pink. he's the most good looking out of the bunch, but his timid personality makes it seem like he's untouchable he only has one friend and it is his brother key.

key is african. he's everyone's friend, having experience the brush of poverty at an early age. he was adopted when he was ten, rescued from child trafficking bust and brought to the house. key is the kindest, he's polite and respectful. key stands with people on their shines and storms. key has a very high EQ. he's fond of animals and plants, he cares for the living things and their betterment. key's charm relies on his honest gesture and kind words. the only flaw key has is his naivete, he can be easily manipulated because of the trust he give to everyone. but his strength lies within the goodness of his heart that everyone seems to fall for. everyone seems to love him, regardless.

next in line is phirayatta, or as they call her phir. phir is from thailand, she's a miracle child of the king, but wasn't really acknowledged because of the controverisies of her biological mother. the king didn't really wanted phir, that's why when she was little her father wanted her to be assassinated, the king has hired, murderers, assassins, executioners and hitmans all over the world to end her. but, the catch is she won't die. phir was cared by the world. no one can harm her. ever since she was a little girl multiple attempts of murders have failed in causing her death, which lead the king to abandoning her. it is when she was adopted. phir has the gift of luck.

sinai is the youngest among all them, she was brought in the house by their foster parent sinai has a unique rich skin color, neither pale nor, deep, her complexion is changing, but most of the time it's blue. every feature of sinai seems normal, except her skin. with no words sinai was introduced to the family, their parents never really talked about sinai's ancestry or race. sinai was just always the happy pill, she's impulsive, and jitterey, she's naive because of age, but she's tactical and reliable. sinai's information is unavailable as of the moment.

then we have sky, sky is the last israeli on the planet. the whole country of isarael has been annihilated. it has become the enemy of the world. there is a long war that happened involving the said country and the new world. the government has decided to put an end to israel's existence by dropping nuclear missiles to its territory, all of israel has turned to ashes and dust. after three years, the philantrophists visited the ruins of israel and to their surprise there roams a child barefoot, hiding and binging on the shadows of the ruins. her eyes are as green as an emeralds. sky's real name is unknown. sky was raised to be like a normal child, a dream israel, her old country, would dream to have.

5th scene

dear you,

let this be known.

"i would carve my heart just so that it will still fit your hands."

hi, i am just a nobody but i really hope you're reading this, i truly wish that you're taking time to insert this to your crunched up schedule, not minding the hassle that this might cause, and not really minding to whom this came from.

well, this is just another letter, one of the thousands i have already sent you. this is very likely with the same weight as the other writings you've already received. this has the same feels, with the same undying message. but what seperate this from all letters you've already got is that i know that this is such a stretch, because, lucky you, this will be the last one.

hi again, i just wanted to say that i love you. and for god's sake i am devoting my life to every sense of that phrase. sacrificing all the truth there is just to show you how sincere i am.

i really do love you. i love you so much that i am actually losing my sanity, i love you so much that i can promise that your name will be my last words, i love you so much even if you would hate me, i will still love you unconditionally. i love you so much that i'd ignore my joy, for your own pleasure. i will love you even if i know that its the cause of my depression.

i would carve my heart just so that it can bleed your color.

very rare that i will forget how you actually smell, how your gaze has the immense effect on me, how you taste from the navel up, the sensation of your kisses, how wonderful your lips taste. i will never forget how you grasped my wholeness and swallowed all me. i love your dirt and riches, and lunacy.

i love you so much that i wanted you to know i am always by your side. looking from afar. breathing the same air. counting every move you make, noting every person you encounter on a daily. i am just an inch away in grabbing you and making love to you. i am just insanely in love, i could die any moment. i am itching form holding you here in my arms i will never let you go, i am dying just thinking of devouring all the good things that you are. i wanted to end you, i wanted to make you happy, i will make your everyday as remarkable and thrilling as possible. i will not stop loving you, i will not stop thinking of you, i cannot stop thinking of how can i murder you, in your sleep, while you're floating from acid, waiting for me, or so i believe.

i can still remember all the good things we've shared and all the good times we've had. we're much truthful, we're kinder, we're gentler for the world. we're polar opposites but everyone can clearly see how totally inlove we are with each other. we have set aside our differences, we are respectful and understanding. we've let ourselves change each other's hearts. we became the best versions of ourselves, we've helped each other grow and learn each and every day we're together. we trusted each other that we will not draw blood, or hate, or envy towards one another. we're so inlove at the time we forgot that evil do exist, we're so inlove we forgot about sinning. we're so inlove we never thought of our failing, of our falling, of our flailing. we're never able to prevent it, that's why we bled too much. that's why i am so close in losing my life, that's why i never had imagined another world that you're not beside me.

i would carve my heart so that you would have two, and you can destroy mine, happily.

i am very sorry that this is so sudden, but i am ecstatic because finally, finally, i have finished carving my heart, but why am i still alive, love? why am i still breathing? why am i still here?why are you not moving? why are you not breathing? why are you bleeding? love, where is your heart?

6th scene

I don't know if I like hospitals or not.

I can't remember all my encounters with hospitals thats why i have a minimal amount of knowledge in regards to the latter. I just used to think that its a place for sick-dying type of people. Its generally a sad place for my young self. I can't remember how all the hospitals that I've been to looked like visually, but I can clearly remember how they've smellt. It smelled like used cotton balls that's dripping of alcohol for sanitary purposes of some sort. It also smelled like clean flasks and glass tubes and new aluminum door knobs. I based the smell of death to that same smell of a familiar hospital.

When I was young I can clearly remember that I really wanted to be a doctor. I can't remember what kind and why, but, I just strongly feel back then that I should be one.

on-break

DISCLAIMER: This is a subjective opinion about my third team on my first job. All the statements and opinions that will be made on this narrative, is strictly personal and does not reflect the truth on the subjects. Every team mate will be given a pseudonym to protect their privacy.

Let's start.

Skyflakes. has a personality of a white, thin, salty papery biscuit. one of the nicest person in our whole team. skyflakes has greeted me once, i never greeted back. the greeting ended there. we rarely talk, but once we were forced to do so because of a common work-friend. skyflakes is very preserved. i never hated skyflakes, but i am uncertain if the feeling's mutual.

Moon. moon doesn't get me at all, shocker. moon is like my counter part on an alternate universe, the receptiveness on moon's personality never worked for me. moon pretended that i am an open book that can be easily deciphered. I totally murdered moon's psyche by literally knowing everything that the workplace has expected on me, including moon's assumptions. but i liked moon very much, i don't know if it is because of the pretenses or is it because i am fascinated by the fact that i can toy with moon's feelings.

Strip. is a so-so character. strip realize everything that i talk about but it is very often that strip talks to me about them. strip is an open letter that you can read on a twitter page of an angsty adolescent

4th scene

let's talk about the creation of the keyboard, where did it really came from. do you think it came hand-in-hand, a plus-one, a done deal package together with the first computer? do you think the first known computer is as useful as it would be if it will come with a ready made keyboard? who invented keyboard? who decided that this piece of 3D plastic boxes of numbers, letters and symbols should be called as it is? is the word keyboard technically acknowledged.

7th scene

this is an account of all the things i would've done if the world will end tomorrow, assuming i have exactly 26 hours to live before the world will meet its fate for some reason.

for the first two hours i would try to murder whoever will talk to me about their own itenerary in this situtation. just ki

8th scene

words are fascinating. words made me love the world, even though it's unbearable. words found me, more than i found them. it is introduced to me as a friend, as someone who i can turn to. someone that can always take me to perfect places. someone i can truly trust. someone that i can whisper my secrets to, someone that can be my secret, someone that can share secrets with me. then it grew on me. it became a parental support, it guided me. it helped me. it taught me things. it straighten my back, words released me from slouching, from boredom, from restrain. it molded me to the person i am today. it made me realize things, i've ingested it and its essence. i mimicked it like a whole stage full of actors. words are just releasing the good and the beautiful, without shying away with its ugly and distastefulness. words are flexible, they can make or break, it can be a weapon for sympathy and apathy, it can end or start war. words fly and swim and they climb, they will run if needed and walk for intensities.

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iinfinityturtle · 8 years ago

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So I had this for a while, but was unable to scan it in until now.

Inspired by @pk-freezer-burnt and @twinkens-art, I drew a fusion between Frank Fly (post-Earthbound) and Leo. His name is Morpheus.

So here be some headcanons about Morpheus:

- He mainly goes by “He” and “Him”.

- He’s usually called “Morphy” by his friends.

- He’s very intelligent and a very powerful fusion; his psychic attacks are incredibly strong. He’s also the sleepiest, LAZIEST fusion around.

- He often sleeps on the floor in “nests” made of pillows and blankets because he’s too lazy to ACTUALLY GO TO BED.

- He likes “easy” foods, as in whatever can be made quickly (sandwiches, soups, buttered toast, etc.), but also has a huge sweet tooth.

- The picture above is his default outfit, but usually he wears dark blue sweatpants, white socks, and over-sized band shirts.

- He can sleep up to...... almost two weeks if he wanted to.

- He has four eyes; Leo’s the top pair, Frank’s the bottom pair. Frank’s eyes are usually closed. This makes Morpheus look extremely tired. If all four eyes are open and looking at you, RUN.

- He has powerful future vision. This is because I headcanon that Frank gained psychic powers after Earthbound and future vision was one of them. However, Morpheus almost never acts on his visions unless it’s extremely bad.

- His future vision also manifests in constant streams, and he’s often muttering predictions in his sleep.

- He constantly REEKS of psychic power, so much that weaker enemies would git rekt just from the sheer aura he projects.

- Frank’s usually the dominant personality, so much of Morpheus’ existence is 99% sleep and 1% being productive. If Leo’s the dominant one, then Morpheus is more productive....... but he has to drink LOTS of coffee to stay awake, because Leo is fighting Frank’s sleepy influence. Morpheus often drinks espresso, the strongest coffee.

- His relationship with the Mom kids is like a sleepy, often cranky older brother dealing with rambunctious younger siblings. He is best pals with Travis, though.

- He’s mainly tired and apathetic, shutting out his surroundings so he can sleep. He’s also indifferent to the present because of his future vision; he’s seen it all. He cares for his friends, though, even if he doesn’t show it often, and will forego sleep for a little longer to protect them if they’re in danger.

- His hair is really long and SUPER SOFT. It’s also so shiny that it twinkles like stars whenever it moves, giving it a “Sun in space”-like effect. Meryl loves braiding his hair.

- His voice is somewhat deep, and tired-sounding. It has a slight echo due to his power.

- He doesn’t tolerate being disturbed while sleeping. He’s more forgiving if you woke him up for something important, but he just prefers to sleep, guys. Anyone he deems the worst offenders will automatically get PK Beam’d in the face if they wake him up.

- Pouring ice-cold water on him while he’s sleeping will also earn an instant PK Beam to the face.

- His special ability as a fusion is dream manipulation. He can enter your mind and give you some fucked up nightmares.

- The only reason why Frank and Leo fused is because their friends were curious what would happen if they fused. Because Frank and Leo had a good relationship (close friends who just started dating), Morpheus turned out stable, but no one predicted his constant tiredness.

- He and Floyd don’t get along at all. Floyd’s really salty that Morpheus is a lazy bum instead of the cool and badass fusion he imagined him to be, so he’s always trying to wake him up. PK Beams, PK Beams everywhere.

- Morpheus’ tiredness mostly comes from Frank, who often stays up late tinkering with machines. So when he and Leo fused, his exhaustion carried into the fusion. Morpheus’ (involuntary) repeated use of his future vision tires him out, too.

- His music aesthetic is soft rock and relaxing jazz.

- He usually uses psychokinesis to get things instead of just getting up, walking over there, and getting the things himself.

- Travis often naps with him whenever he appears.

- Like Frank, he loves sharks. Great White sharks fascinate him the most.

#my art #morpheus #frank fly #leo #mother 4 #EarthBound #fusions #his hair was a bitch to color #but I love this guy so much

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blueeyeswhitegarden · 8 years ago

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5, 15

5: Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?

I don’t think so. The closest to that would probably be just when a pairing that I already didn’t like or was indifferent towards gets a lot more attention among fans. That usually just turns me off further from the pairing, but I don’t think that would really qualify as ruining them either.

15: Unpopular opinion about the manga/show?

I don’t think that the Arc V finale was bad at all. I can understand finding it disappointing or unsatisfying, but I wouldn’t say that it was flat out bad or the worst finale. I’m honestly not sure if I’d consider any of the other series finales bad either. As nice as it would have been for the counterparts to unmerge from each other, I felt like it was fitting in a way that they didn’t. It showed that some of the damage from the dimensional war couldn’t be healed. There were long lasting consequences to the war besides the counterparts being merged. Heartland was still in ruins and while the people there were starting to move forward, I doubt that they’d be able to play Fusion monsters anytime soon after what happened. Standard was soft reset into the Pendulum dimension and the dimensions merged together as a result of Yuya’s duel with Reiji. Reira effectively sacrificed himself, was reborn as a new infant and neither Zarc or Ray could be brought back as they once were exactly. There was a lot of damage from the war that couldn’t have been undone completely. The last few episodes showed that they were starting to heal and take actions to prevent another Zarc revival, but that didn’t mean everything could go back to the way they were. All of the main characters were affected in one way or another by their war and their worlds were drastically affected by it. It’s one reason why I was so confused when I found out that there are people who find the last stretch of episodes to be pointless. It’s one thing to not like them or find them boring. That’s fine, but these episodes are important for providing closure to the characters and the storyline. It’s how they were able to ultimately resolve the conflict with Zarc instead of potentially starting the cycle all over again when Reira grew up again.

Plus, they never mentioned a way for the counterparts to get their bodies back. They always treated it as a bad and permanent thing. I know a lot of fans hoped/assumed it was going to happen, which was perfectly understandable, but they didn’t even question it when Yuto started to talk more with Yuya. They were usually fighting against someone from Academia by that point, but one would think that they’d bring it up at some point if either Yuya or Yuto thought it was possible for Yuto to get his body back. I’m sure everyone would have been happy with the counterparts getting their bodies back, but I thought that it worked. It might have been even a way to foreshadow the dimensions coming together in the finale too.

While they didn’t really focus on how sad the situation was for the other counterparts, I don’t think that they were presenting it as the most ideal/happy ending for the series either. Everyone smiling at the end was to show that they were happy to be together again, even if it wasn’t in the most ideal way, and that they were able to move forward in this new future. Or at least that’s how I took that part of the finale, especially with Shun’s reaction. He was clearly broken up over just the thought of losing Yuto and Ruri, but believed that he would see them again after his duel with Yuya and he did. It kind of gives a bittersweet yet hopeful tone to the finale. They were all together again, could possibly still interact if they could switch places like what happened with Yuya and Yuto before and would walk into this new world’s future with a smile on their faces.

It wasn’t a perfect finale. I really wish we got some time with Yuzu talking to her counterparts. Yuya had his duel with Reiji that partly dealt with his counterparts. Working together with the dragons and getting their upgrades was kind of a way of accepting the counterparts within him and it helped that they had been trying to merge together throughout the series. So the idea that they’d be okay with being merged kind of made sense, even though I still don’t like that they didn’t really deal with Yuri’s actions prior to the merge. I can see why Yuzu didn’t get a chance to duel, even though Yuya vs. Yuzu would have been awesome for the final duel, since I’m not sure if the girls’ different decks/aces would have mixed well in one deck, but showing some scenes probably before the finale showing how they dealt with being Ray or how they were during the whole aftermath mini-arc would have been nice. I do still wish that they could have somehow dealt with Yuri’s actions since it felt he got off too easy for what he did. Leo definitely shouldn’t have gotten even a chance for a happy ending since he started the dimensional war, effectively caused all of the damage in the first place and didn’t have any second thoughts when it came to abandoning his new family the moment he remembered Ray. There also should have been some kind of connection between Yuri and Serena to make their moment in the finale have more weight to it too. An epilogue would have been really nice too just to see how the characters and world dealt with these changes after a few years, but something like that would required more time than what they would most likely give an epilogue too.

I can still understand why people wouldn’t like the ending for various reasons, but I thought it was fine. It was fitting for the series and worked with the general tone too. It wasn’t bad and it certainly didn’t ruin the series for me. Even if I didn’t like the ending, I don’t think it would have been able to change my opinion on Arc V as a whole. I love the series so much that I’m not sure if that would have been possible by that point. It is still my favorite series in the franchise by far.

Thank you for asking. ^_^

#Asks #Arc V #Arc V Spoilers

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mandibierly · 8 years ago

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'Broadchurch' series finale: Chris Chibnall and David Tennant on the perfect parting shot

Miller (Olivia Colman) and Hardy (David Tennant) in the final scene of ‘Broadchurch’ (Photo: BBC America)

The finale of Broadchurch‘s final season brought viewers an unexpected conclusion to the investigation of Trish Winterman’s rape, a sad but loving end to the marriage of Mark and Beth Latimer, and in closing, the perfect encapsulation of Hardy and Miller’s relationship. To break down the episode, Yahoo TV spoke separately with creator Chris Chibnall and star David Tennant.

Leo (Chris Mason) calls out Trish’s name as Michael (Deon Lee-Williams) is still clueless (Photo: BBC America)

The case

The hour focused on three key suspects: Ed Burnett, who finally admitted that he’d been sleeping near Trish’s home each night because he “failed her” (once news broke of her assault, he realized that was what he’d overheard from across the lake, not drunken sex as he’d assumed); cabbie Clive Lucas, whose DNA was on the sock used to gag Trish and whose account of his whereabouts that evening kept changing; and “swaggery little s**t” Leo Humphries, who, thanks to some great detective work by Miller, was revealed as the person who planted the bag of bloody twine on Ed’s property.

The big twist came when phone records revealed that Clive’s stepson, 16-year-old Michael, had phoned Leo the night Clive was arrested — and that all three of their phones were in the same location on the night of Cath’s party (because Clive had stumbled upon them walking away from Axehampton and gave them a ride).

What we saw unfold in flashback: After watching Clive raise a hand to Michael while playing soccer (remember Leo is in charge of the uniforms, which explains why he’d have Clive’s socks), Leo — whose difficult relationship with his own father had been established — took Michael under his wing. He gave him porn. He got him drunk and took him to the cemetery to lose his virginity to Leo’s girlfriend (“I’m lettin’ you borrow her. … She does what she’s told. … It’s only sex,” Leo said).

Michael thought they were just going to crash Cath’s party that night, but Leo came prepared with his “party kit.” When Leo knocked Trish unconscious from behind with the cricket bat, Michael was horrified, but he still helped Leo move her and watched him tie her hands behind her back and gag her. Leo said he was doing this for Michael: “You’ve had a young one, now try something else. … She’s ready.” Michael knew it was wrong, but after Leo smacked him when he said so, Michael succumbed: “Go on, Michael, be a man,” Leo insisted. He filmed the assault on his phone. Leo filmed all four of his rapes, one a year when he came home from university.

Leo (Chris Mason) explains how he groomed Michael (Photo: BBC America)

“It became very clear, the more we storylined and the more I wrote, that this is a story about the next generation,” Chibnall says. “The issues of the proliferation of technology, of porn, of the attitudes to women that seem to have taken a step back in the last 20 years, the sexualization of society — all issues that are swirling around and were things I wanted to write about seemed to come to a kind of a fusion in the character of Leo. The sense of entitlement that that character has. He’s talking about a sense of loneliness, a kind of pointlessness. Those things all ganged together into that character very, very early on. I think if you re-watch all eight episodes, thematically and narratively and character-wise all roads are always leading to Leo.”

Miller (Olivia Colman) can’t believe what she’s hearing come out of Leo’s mouth (Photo: BBC America)

The statements Leo made in his confession were chilling: “They’d all had sex before. Why does one more time make a difference?” (“They did not get the choice. Their bodies are not yours,” Miller told him.)

“That scene absolutely draws from real life — not from one person’s assault, but from a lot of research our team did across a lot of areas,” Chibnall says.

Hardy: “He is not what men are. He’s an aberration.” Miller: “I hope so.” (Photo: BBC America)

In the end, Clive tried to get Hardy and Miller to say he did it instead of Michael, because he knows he should have been there more for him. Miller knew that Michael was giving porn to her son Tom, and Hardy knew that Michael was one of the boys harassing his daughter, Daisy. Is one of the season’s messages the importance of parents being present in their children’s lives? “I think that the whole show is about community, and responsibility, and family, and the trickle down of that,” Chibnall says. “It resonates with Mark Latimer’s story, it resonates with Hardy’s story, it resonates with Ellie’s story. It’s a show about how we’re all connected, and we all have to help each other through the difficult things in life. All three [seasons] with these crimes, it shows the tragedy of them — not just for the victims, but the terrible ripple effect.”

Mark Latimer (Andrew Buchan) accepts that his marriage is over (Photo: BBC America)

Mark and Beth’s marriage

Neither Beth nor Mark was able to sleep when they returned home after his suicide attempt. Their conversation about their future — she needs to move on, and he needs to sort himself out somewhere where the memories don’t surround him — was calm and rational. “I love you,” she said. “Yeah, I love you, too,” he answered.

“Again, so much of this is based on research of real-life cases, and the parents of murdered children very rarely stay together is the terrible tragedy of it,” Chibnall says. “I wanted to dramatize the slow burn of that, and to show two people who were still in love but couldn’t be together because of the differing ways that grief has affected them and they’ve dealt with it. So that was why, particularly in this episode, we sort of stopped the whole investigation to have this two-hander between Andy Buchan and Jodie Whitaker. I always knew what that scene was, and I always knew that they would absolutely knock it out of the park. That was just utterly wonderful, and heartbreaking, and warm, and emotional. David and Olivia [Colman] rightly get a lot of praise for their amazing work in the series, but Andy and Jodie have always been equally the heartbeat of Broadchurch, and remained so until the very final images.”

No, Miller (Olivia Colman) and Hardy (David Tennant) will not be going to the pub (Photo: BBC America)

Hardy and Miller’s final scene

Our last moment with Hardy and Miller found them sitting on a bench, in front of the series’ iconic cliffs, decompressing after a job well done. “I could do with a drink. Do you want one? We could go to the pub. We’ve never been to the pub,” Miller said. Pause for Hardy to consider it. “No,” he replied.

“I wanted there to be a laugh in there. That felt very important after a very dark episode, and I wanted it to end with hope,” Chibnall says. “But also, I wanted it to end with everything you love about Hardy and Ellie’s relationship still in play. So there was the refusal to go to the pub, which harks back to his reluctance to come to dinner in the first series in that amazing scene where she asks him and he’s really stubborn and rude about it.”

So instead of a pint, we got this final exchange.

Hardy: I should get back to Daisy.

Miller: I should get back to my boys… So you and Daisy then, you’re gonna stay, properly now? You don’t hate it that much?

Hardy: I’ll see you tomorrow, Miller.

Miller: Fine. See you tomorrow.

And they walked away.

Chibnall says he knew that would be the final line of the series before he even sat down to begin writing Season 3. “I absolutely had the final image and that final line in my head, and that sense of somewhere out there on that coast road, in that car, those two are still out there bickering, and talking about work, and driving into the sunset,” he says.

Tennant more than approved. “I think the journey that Miller and Hardy go on is so beautifully summed up in that final scene,” he says. “They’re both broken people, really. They’re people who don’t have anyone other than each other. They’re sort of the closest thing to best friends that the other one has. They’re both kind of disconnected from their families, and they’ve been through some terrible, bruising experiences. They feel like slightly incomplete human beings. They found each other in this world, and yet even then they can’t quite connect.”

That moment would also seem to definitively dash the hopes of those fans who ship the detectives. “I don’t think anyone on the show has ever conceived that Hardy and Miller would get together. It’s just not who they are. It’s not what they do,” Tennant says. “They’re sort of diametrically opposed human beings, and yet, at the same time, they become mutually dependent on each other. I think that’s why that relationship works. I think if you started having some sort of Moonlighting-style will-we/won’t-we, you break the series immediately. It’s funny — it is brought up in interviews now and again. You sort of go, ‘What? Eh? How? Have you seen the show?'”

For the record, Tennant doesn’t believe Hardy continued to see the woman he met online in episode 4: “We received the scripts just before we shot them, so we filmed that date scene and I had no idea if it would be followed up. I did wonder, ‘Is this Chris setting Hardy up for a happy ending?'” he says. “But it never transpires, and I think it would be wrong, actually, if we saw Hardy walking off into the sunset hand-in-hand with anyone. I think there’s an inevitable misfire when Hardy tries to get his personal life on track.”

What does Tennant picture as Hardy’s future? “In the short term, he’ll just come to work the next day, and he’ll probably go back to dealing with small-town crimes that will infuriate him and make him annoyed that he’s not in some bustling metropolis. Although on one level, of course, he’ll be delighted and relieved because it means that there aren’t any more terrible events going on in this town that’s had its fair share,” he says. “I think he’ll settle back into a life of complaining about his life, probably. And rolling his eyes at the small-town mundanities of it all. But as we find out in this series, he’s clearly decided that this is where he’s meant to be and that that’s where he’s going to stay. Unless something changes. I guess much will [depend on] Daisy and where she goes and what her life becomes, because I think that’s his final salvation, really — his daughter. And probably his Achilles’ heel as well.”

yahoo

That brings us to our final question: Could we ever see Hardy and Miller reunite again on screen? Chibnall is, of course, taking over showrunner duties next season on Doctor Who (which will feature Whittaker as the 13th Doctor), and Tennant and Colman are never not in demand. “One should never say never to anything because when you do, it’ll only bite you in the bum. But there are certainly no plans. That’s not anything we’ve considered or imagined,” Tennant says. “I think you’d have to be so careful to do something like this. It’s been a delicate modulation to make sure that Broadchurch is about the community as much as it’s about the whodunit or the thriller aspects of it. I think you have to make sure that you own the voracity of what that community would be. If you keep going back and you keep telling stories about more terrible events that happen in this small town, it just becomes implausible quite quickly.”

Now it’s Chibnall’s turn to concur. “I said this was gonna be the end because I don’t have another story in that world. We’ve told one story of a murder, one story of a trial, one story of a sexual assault — I wouldn’t want to go back and repeat things,” he says. “So it’s difficult to think of what other story to tell. But if, years in the future, I’m walking down the street and one pops into my head, I’ll be sure to get on the phone to David and Olivia straight away.”

In the meantime, Chibnall wants to leave fans with these words: “Thank you to everybody who has watched this show from the start to the finish. To see it go around the world this way, and for people to take it to their hearts, has been an incredibly emotional, meaningful experience for all of the Broadchurch family. And it really did become a family. So it’s been wonderful.”

Read more from Yahoo TV: • ‘Broadchurch’ S3, E7: Creator on Mark’s fate, Hardy’s tirade, Trish taking back the night • ‘Broadchurch’ Season 3, Episode 6: Creator Chris Chibnall on Mark’s Big Moment • ‘Broadchurch’ Season 3, Episode 5: Creator Chris Chibnall on Cath’s Chilling Line • ‘Broadchurch’ Season 3, Episode 4: Creator Chris Chibnall, David Tennant on Hardy’s Date • ‘Broadchurch’ Season 3, Episode 3: Creator on ‘Seeing Hardy in a New Light’ • ‘Broadchurch’ Season 3 Episode 2: Creator on Season 3’s Growing List of Suspects • ‘Broadchurch’ Season 3 Premiere Postmortem: Creator Chris Chibnall on the Final Case • ‘Broadchurch’ Final Season: David Tennant Previews Hardy and Miller’s Slight Role Reversal

#news #_revsp:wp.yahoo.tv.us #_uuid:04e786ad-f2c3-34ab-9d85-358fedfc74e6 #bbc america #broadchurch #_author:Mandi Bierly #olivia colman #david tennant #_lmsid:a0Vd000000AE7lXEAT

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lovehaswonangelnumbers · 6 years ago

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New Post has been published on https://lovehaswonangelnumbers.org/sunday-aug-11-18th-2019-forecast/

Sunday Aug 11 - 18th 2019 Forecast

Sunday Aug 11 – 18th 2019 Forecast

By Hare in the Moon Astrology

“Impermanence (noun) – the way change falls in love with you ” Andrea Balt.

A heads up! This week is not going to be business as usual-not even recent 5D business as usual! The frequencies are so intense that all our systems-physical, emotional, psychic, not to mention our power grids-are going to blown wide open. Volatile, unpredictable disruptor Uranus is plugging us all into the mains and we’ll either be electrified, woken up and supercharged or totally fritzed.

This feels like a turning point of the highest order when we’re sensing that the world behind the world is about to change everything yet again. Today Sunday August 11th, both threshold planets Uranus and Jupiter are changing direction simultaneously-Uranus in reverse throttle and Jupiter full steam ahead-churning up the ethers along with your energy field.

Expansionist, extremist Jupiter on the karmic Great Attractor super Black Hole magnifies whatever he touches, so high stakes situations such as the Iran/US, the Hong Kong/China and the India/Kashmir conflicts are going to be intensified.

On Wednesday 15th , the eccentric futurist Uranian Full Moon at 22 Aquarius opposes inflammatory Mars, Venus and the Sun in Leo. A fire breathing dragon comes to mind- best not to provoke it, no matter what new shocking information hits the airwaves on the 16th.

Wherever 5 Taurus (Uranus),14 Sagittarius(Jupiter) and 22 Aquarius/Leo sit in your chart, are going to be ultra- sensitive hot spots. Refuse to engage in personal dramas.

The key to channeling this supercharged energy is to keep your attention on the meta picture, beyond the 3D events ”out there”, noticing where your options are expanding, where new possibilities are presenting. Noticing all the ways in which your old limiting metaphors are updating; your old frames are widening; your inner compartments and separations between what you think you believe and what you do are coming down.

As the esoteric ruler of Aquarius, Jupiter the Magus or Hierophant creates fusion through expansion and synthesis, blending the head and heart, mind and love, in order to produce Wisdom. Jupiter pushes you out of your comfort zone to explore far horizons with confidence, optimism and bright faith. It’s time to become an explorer approaching all aspects of life with reverent curiosity, allowing everything to tell its story. It’s time to learn the power of honouring, questing, learning, teaching, travelling and celebrating.

The Chandra Symbol for Jupiter Direct 15 Sagittarius: A Tidal Wave Approaching “The momentum of collective events runs toward floodtide when there is a major transition from one whole cycle to another. The personal life stream runs in similar patterns. When you’re getting ready to take off in a whole different direction, there is first a transition that is both immensely exciting and fantastically disturbing. You feel just about swept away by the oncoming changes and just before they really get going, the tension, the pressure, and the strain can tear you apart. You want to go with it, yet you yearn for sanctuary. The mix is volatile Mastery or bust. The infinite future or wipe-out. A spine tingler all the way.”

Uranus the Sky God operates by delivering unpredictable shocks, reversals or insights that electrify you out of your comfort zone, teaching you to collaborate with the inevitable. It’s a time in your life when something new – something eccentric – needs to break through into conscious awareness. Uranus is the lightning that strikes the circle of habit and turns it into a spiral- the God of uniqueness, intuition, innovation, ingenuity, and rebellion. It’s time to let the Maverick within see the world through the lens of possibility.

The Chandra Symbol for Uranus RX Taurus 7: A Large Ruby Inscribed with a Prayer “Knowing in your heart that a fresh life current is here to be met in the physical. You feel deeply drawn to give yourself over completely to what the new life-wave asks. Sensing acutely that this is all that counts and suffering for all of those who are shut off from the bounty. Knowing how hard it is to feel dejected and forsaken, and never forgetting the ache, the longing, the distances, and what it takes to seize new life and realise you will never again be out in the cold.”

For much more on what’s ahead, buy my Survive + Thrive Guide to Uranus in Taurus 2019-2026 in the Shop at: www.hareinthemoonastrology.co.uk

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the-evolving-falcon · 8 years ago

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PLOTTING CHEAT-SHEET

Want new-and-exciting plots for your character? Long to reach out to more of your followers, but don’t know where to start? Fear not! Fill out this form and give your RP partners both present and future all the of juicy jumping off points they need to help you get your characters acquainted.

Be sure to tag the players whose characters YOU want more cues to interact with, and repost, don’t reblog! Feel free to add or remove sections as you see fit.Template here.

Mun name: Elly, though I don’t identify that strongly with this nickname, meaning I am always open to suggestions on what’d you’d rather call me lol

OOC Contact: IM on any of my blogs, Skype, potentially Discord

Who the heck is my muse anyway:

Shun Kurosaki ~ The sole survivor of the Heartland invasion still opposing Academia and Akaba Leo; a war hardened soldier driven by his determination and deep hatred alone after losing everything he held dear. Forced into a set of circumstances detrimental to his nature of a far-sighted strategist, he had no choice but adapt by pursuing one suboptimal solution after another, a fact he is painfully aware of, but with no time to prepare, no reliable access to information, and almost no resources at his hand, he rather quickly recognized the act of sticking to one elaborate strategy to be a futile endeavor posing a risk to his survival on top of it. Having traveled to Standard to continue his onslaught, he has formed an alliance with Akaba Reiji, ultimately becoming his right-hand man and equal in rank.

Ruri Kurosaki~ One of the four girls representing the will of Nature itself, thus becoming Akaba Leo’s target as her existence and the workings of her bracelet prevent the four dimensions from merging. After the invasion of her home, she, too, picked up arms and fought, though her personal rebellion was cut short by Akaba Leo’s most trusted agent capturing her after having been enabled to do so by a spy infiltrating the Resistance’s ranks and getting close to Ruri. From the very first day of her captivity, she’s been plotting to break free lowering the guard of Akaba Leo and her watchdogs in an elaborate scheme ultimately failing as a result of an unlucky coincidence alone. Upon being freed by Shun, she’s been working towards the improvement of Leo Corp.’s image and public relations.

Serena~ Another of Nature’s four girls, born in the Fusion Dimension and raised as an Academia warrior, but never deployed to an actual battlefield due to her role in Akaba Leo’s plans, a weapon gone berserk as a result of disuse and a lack of guidance. In an act of rebellion, she escaped to Standard, aiming to prove her worth by slaying the final Xyz survivor. Having learned about Academia’s true colors from Yuzu Hiiragi, Shun Kurosaki, and Reiji Akaba, she changed loyalties and became a Lancer. Her flawed perception of her surroundings and herself brought upon by years of being exposed to Academia’s propaganda, however, are causing her to still strive for the idealized image of a proud and honorable Academia warrior without her being aware of it, making her particularly susceptible to manipulation and deceit.

Points of interest:

Shun Kurosaki

Highly intelligent

Cynical misanthrope and pessimist-realist

An interior almost equally harsh and cold as his exterior

Worst Civilian your muse will probably meet

Skilled at making delicious meals from scraps

Exhibits an adorable blinking tic when perplexed and/or flustered

His ‘Nii-san game’ is incredibly strong, though your muse’ll have to first get on his good side for him to treat them as an older sibling would - a task about as difficult as to move a mountain

Ruri Kurosaki

Manipulative and cunning

Sharpened silver tongue

Deep love for myths and tales

Tends to conceal her true self behind a variety of masks, only removing them once a strong bond has been formed

Her interior is colder than what some of her masks suggest

Carries a crushing amount of guilt within her

Desires to temporarily escape the harsh reality without denying it

Serena

Child soldier desperate to prove her worth on the battlefield

Severe lack of social skills

Easily angered

Likes to see herself as an independent thinker when she’s anything but

Prone to idealization and oversimplification

Stubborn and strong willed; capable duelist

Unconsciously seeking to be guided by someone making use of her skills in an effective fashion

What they’ve been up to recently:

Shun Kurosaki

Preparing for the impending war with Fusion alongside Akaba Reiji and working towards his goal of freeing Ruri

Gradually reconnecting with his nature of a thorough planner, becoming slightly less pessimistic in the process

Dating Akaba Reiji

Semi-grudgingly putting up with his boyfriend attempting to teach him the ways of a civilian

Freeing Ruri

Ruri Kurosaki

Working towards her escape

Gently bullying Reiji into liking her

Contributing to Standard’s war effort by strengthening Leo Corp.’s public image

Gradually developing a crush on Fuuma Tsukikage

Serena

Running into high-ranking Academia soldiers

Trying to respond to Yuzu’s attempts at improving her social skills

Getting used to the life of a civilian

Throwing around baseless accusations

Where to find them:

Shun Kurosaki

Ruins of Heartland

LDS

Darker alleys of Maiami City

Potentially Synchro

Ruri Kurosaki

Ruins of Heartland

Academia quarters serving as her first ‘Golden Cage’ prior to her complete isolation in the Western Tower

LDS

Potentially Synchro

Serena

Academia quarters serving as her ‘Golden Cage’

Rest of Academia’s grounds, together with her watchdogs

LDS

Potentially Synchro

Current plans:

Shun Kurosaki

Training an improved second generation of Lancers, as well as Standard’s general army

Learning the truth about Akaba Leo’s plans, as well as his sister’s and best friend’s role in it

Planning Standard’s assault on Fusion alongside Reiji

Ruri Kurosaki

Recovering from the aftereffects of months of solitary confinement and complete isolation

Supporting Shun and Reiji in their plans

Contributing to Standard’s war effort

Serena

Honing her combat skills

Fighting on a real battlefield

Finding meaning in her newly-acquired freedom

Desired interactions:

Shun Kurosaki

Non-familial sibling interactions with the bracelet girls other than Ruri, Masumi, and maaaybe one of the Fuuma ninjas or Reira

Reluctant allies (potentially developing into something genuine)

Mentor-disciple bonds

Coincidental encounters

Ruri Kurosaki

Romantic relationships

Platonic relationships

Reluctant allies

Enemy interactions

Serena

Romantic relationships - particularly of an unhealthy nature

Platonic relationships

Allies

Manipulator - manipulated interactions

Offered interactions:

Shun Kurosaki

If your bracelet girl character plays her cards right, she can gently bully Shun into liking and accepting her as his younger sister

As the one responsible for forging Standard’s inhabitants into capable soldiers, Shun can supervise your character’s training

Academia characters can be captured and interrogated by him, with the possibility of a memory wipe turning them into a soldier fighting for Standard’s cause

Various AU scenarios

Ruri Kurosaki

Fighting alongside Ruri in the Heartland war

Ruri can be visited in her imprisonment and either taunted, befriended or, under very specific circumstances, freed

In Standard, Ruri can be accompanied to or encountered at various social gatherings hosted by important people

Interactions with brainwashed!Ruri (with the brainwashing being far more thorough and permanent, and a direct modification of her memories, rather than the result of a parasite controlling her)

Various AU scenarios

Serena

Interactions with the purpose of either convincing her of Academia’s true colors or making her become loyal to the Professor again

Helping her see through her flawed thought patterns or shamelessly exploiting them to your character’s advantage

Visiting her in her ‘Golden Cage’

Interactions between fellow Lancers

Gaining her trust and loyalty by effectively using her skills

Various AU scenarios

Current open post/s:

None at the moment. May make one or more upon request.

Anything else?:

I strongly dislike what has become of Arc-V after season one, meaning my muses’ characterization and backstory is almost solely based on season one as well, and I’d like for my RP partners to play along with my alternate worldbuilding and timeline created for a war story, rather than a Sakaki worshipping fest.

All of my muses are free of the egao-plague, and my Kurosaki muses in particular are completely immune to childish ideals and oversimplification, none of which will work to resolve their personal issues.

Shun is season one Reiji’s equal in every way and war veteran on top of it, so I ask you, the other mun, to treat him accordingly.

Zarc and Ray don’t exist in my muses’ verses, meaning if you RP as one of them, careful plotting and lots of tweaking will be required to make a particular thread idea work.

Threads with a combination of my muses are perfectly possible, just ask :)

Tagged by: @kitameguire

Tagging: @tsukikagc, @kansuigyo, @ardaemon, @piiante

#arc v rp #arc v #out of options #self-promo of sorts? :P #muse info #RPing info #long post

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ethanalter · 8 years ago

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HBO Oz 20th Anniversary Oral History

(GIF: HBO)

In today’s Peak TV landscape, television creators have a multitude of content-hungry outlets eager to attract an audience for their wares: Streaming services and premium cable compete alongside basic cable and network television, while viral video-generating Internet hot spots like YouTube and Funny or Die are cranking out original programming as well.

It’s a brave new world, one that began to take shape 20 years ago on July 12, 1997. That’s the date that Tom Fontana’s sprawling prison drama, Oz, premiered on HBO, setting a channel best known for replaying movies and the occasional cult comedy series like The Larry Sanders Show on a course to becoming a dramatic powerhouse that lived up to its famous tagline: “It’s Not TV. It’s HBO.”

And Oz was the kind of bold, provocative experiment that only could have aired on a restrictions-free cable network looking to shake up its image. Set in Emerald City, an experimental incarceration unit inside the fictional Oswald State Correctional Facility, the show offered an addictive fusion of gritty prison drama, dark comedy, graphic violence, and even a touch of soap opera romance. Oz‘s serialized storytelling and ensemble cast — J.K. Simmons, Eamonn Walker and Dean Winters were just some of the future stars who passed through Emerald City’s glass cells — attracted the attention of critics, as well as those within the industry. Two years after Oz premiered, HBO debuted a new show from David Chase called The Sopranos, and the rest is Peak TV history.

To commemorate the prison drama’s milestone anniversary, Yahoo TV talked with 13 key players in Oz‘s groundbreaking premiere and eight-episode first season. (Sorry, Keller and Beecher ‘shippers, that means no Chris Meloni, who joined in Season 2.) Read on to discover which famous hip-hop star played the role of narrator Augustus Hill before Harold Perrineau, how Simon Adebisi acquired his name (and famous hat) and the unsung heroine behind both Oz and the premium cable boom.

The Participants (In Alphabetical Order) Kirk Acevedo (Miguel Alvarez) Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Simon Adebisi) Chris Albrecht (CEO of Starz; Former CEO of HBO) Jean de Segonzac (Director of Photography; Director) Tom Fontana (Creator/Showrunner) Ernie Hudson (Warden Leo Glynn) Terry Kinney (Tim McManus) Darnell Martin (Director) Tim McAdams (Johnny Post) Jon Seda (Dino Ortolani) Lee Tergesen (Tobias Beecher) Dean Winters (Ryan O’Reily) Luna Lauren Velez (Gloria Nathan)

‘Oz’ creator Tom Fontana (Photo: Getty Images)

Chapter One: The Wonderful Wizards of Oz Tom Fontana never set out to be a premium cable pioneer. The Buffalo-born writer was a creature of network television, getting his start as a writer and producer on the beloved NBC medical drama St. Elsewhere, before collaborating with Barry Levinson and Paul Attanasio on NBC’s acclaimed police series Homicide: Life on the Street. It was during the making of Homicide that Fontana found himself contemplating what happens to criminals after they entered the penal system. That germ of an idea eventually grew into Oz, which he developed in collaboration with Levinson. As Fontana quickly discovered, his show never stood a chance at making it onto a broadcast network.

Tom Fontana: I grew up watching cop shows where at end of the episode the bad guy traditionally got arrested and went to prison while the cops sat around in the last scene and did a funny little joke. Then we all went to bed feeling [satisfied]. While I was doing Homicide — where the bad guy didn’t always get arrested — I thought, “Maybe the more interesting story is what happens to these people when they go to prison.” In David Simon’s non-fiction book [that inspired Homicide] there’s a section about a prison riot in Baltimore, and I decided to expand on it for an episode, [Season 5’s “Prison Riot”] and bring back some of the murderers we had seen in previous seasons. That was my first swing at seeing what writing a prison show might be like.

While developing Oz, I spent about two years going to prisons all over the country, and I saw that there were two kinds — these old Gothic horror chambers, and new, experimental prisons. But there was never a place where the two were together, and it was important to me that you had the old and the new butting up against each other. When I talked to prisoners who were in places like Emerald City, they were very clear that it was worse for them because they had no privacy. I found that very moving, and so that’s where Emerald City came from, and the idea of glass so that everybody could see everybody else at any given moment.

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Back then there were only four networks, and none of them were the least bit interested in my version of a prison show. I sort of pathetically adapted it as I got each rejection. I can’t remember which network I pitched which version to, but one of them was set in a juvenile detention center, and another was a Club Fed, where it was rich white collar guys who been sent up the river. Once I really started to examine what I wanted to do, I went back to the idea of that Homicide episode, which was a down-and-dirty prison with all sorts of crazy characters.

I was lucky that Chris Albrecht at HBO was looking to start doing original material. At that time, HBO had a comedy side — they had Dream On and a few other comedy shows — but they hadn’t really had a drama side yet. Chris had the vision to say, “We need to expand the reach of our network.” He told me that the [network] had had success with prison documentaries, so he had an instinct that a prison show might appeal to his subscribers. He said, “I’ll give you a little bit of money to shoot a presentation, about 15 to 20 minutes, and let’s see what it looks like.”

Chris Albrecht: The show had been in development for quite a while before we were really even contemplating doing a lot of original programming. There was a change in management, and we wanted to ramp up our originals. We hadn’t ever done an hour-long drama before. I went to Tom and said, “Look, we’ve put you and Barry [Levinson] through the ringer here. I’m not going to ask you to make any more changes, but we need to shoot something, so, here’s a million dollars. Shoot as much of this as you can.”

Fontana: I probably shouldn’t say this, but I will — it wasn’t enough money! We shot it in Baltimore while we were shooting Homicide, so we would book a location and I would say, “Okay, we’ll shoot the Homicide scene here, and then we’ll shoot the Oz scene.” So, in a way, NBC paid for it a little bit, if you know what I’m saying.

Darnell Martin: I had directed a feature, [1994’s I Like it Like That], but Homicide was my first television experience. They gave me the script for “Sniper: Part 2,” and it was written like a film, with helicopter shots and blockaded streets. I kept trying to figure out how to do that for the budget and time that we had. Maybe that was a seller for Tom. He asked me to direct the Oz presentation.

Fontana: The cast of [the presentation] was different. Jon Seda and Terry Kinney were in it, but the part that Lauren Velez [now Luna Lauren Velez] played, Dr. Gloria Nathan, was played by Jennifer Grey. The reason I later made the change was I really felt like the cast was [too] white, and I also liked the idea of a Latina woman in the midst of all these men. And there was a different guy playing Augustus Hill than Harold Perrineau.

Martin: I cast Mos Def as Augustus. He was amazing. Amazing. He was recast. It was crazy! I begged and I fought — not with Tom. It was above Tom; Tom couldn’t change it. Harold is wonderful, but you know, Mos Def had something really special.

Harold Perrineau as Augustus Hill ‘Oz.’ The role was played by Mos Def in the original presentation (Credit: HBO)

Terry Kinney: Tom had cast me in a Homicide episode, [Season 4’s “Map of the Heart”] and he said that he’d always wanted to make up for that, because it was an indecipherable episode. I played an NSA mapping guy, and to this day don’t know what it was about! I remember meeting Tom and Darnell for the Oz presentation, and they were talking about a character that was a die-hard liberal in a way that seemed extremely naïve. I basically played the warden, whose name was still McManus.

Jon Seda: I worked with Darnell on I Like It Like That, and she raised the bar for me. I told her that anything she ever does, I’m going to say yes to it. Sure enough, they said, “Hey, listen, there’s a script that’s called Oz. It’s a presentation. Darnell Martin’s directing.” I said, “Okay, I’ll do it.” I didn’t even know what the role was. What a lot of people don’t know is that at the same time that I was shooting that, I was also shooting the movie Selena. So when I met with Darnell, I said, “You’re going to have to help me, because I’ve been living as this sweet guy Chris Pérez for a couple months already, and now I have to play this ruthless Dino Ortolani.” I didn’t know how I could do it, but she said, “Just trust me. Put everything in my hands and it’s going to be great.”

Jon Seda in ‘Oz’ (Credit: HBO)

Tim McAdams: I had built a pretty strong relationship with Pat Moran, who was the local casting agent for Homicide. When they decided to do the presentation for Oz, I auditioned and got cast. Nobody knew what Oz was or really thought anything of it; I just knew it was a show I got hired for and I was a young actor trying to work. We shot this presentation, and Mos Def and Jennifer Grey were in it, so I was like, “Wow! We got some names in this thing, and maybe it’s gonna get some traction!” I was honored to work with Jennifer Grey; I remember how excited I was and how friendly she was. And growing up in that era, having a chance to spend time around Mos Def and watch him transition to becoming an actor was really exciting. Sometime later I got a phone call about the show being picked up by HBO, and they said, “They’re gonna be doing a lot of recasting, but they’re going to allow you to play Johnny Post.”

Fontana: That initial presentation was more tonal; it was a real attempt to say, “This is the kind of subject matter we’re going to cover, and these are the kinds of characters we’re going to see.” You have to remember, this was before we built the Emerald City set, so it was all hallways and rooms, but it wasn’t what the show eventually looked like. Though, if you watch the first episode of Oz, there are a couple scenes that are from the original presentation, like the shower scene where Seda gets the s**t beat out of him by the COs. And I think the hospital scenes are from the original presentation.

Ernie Hudson as Warden Leo Glynn and Terry Kinney as Tim McManus on ‘Oz.’ In the pilot presentation, Kinney played the warden. (Credit: HBO)

Kinney: Jon Seda and I were two of the survivors of that 15-minute presentation. I didn’t think that I was going to make it to the series. I remember that I was in Los Angeles doing something else, and I called Tom and he said, “You know what, you’re my guy. Let me work this out.” What I think they’d done is they wanted the warden to be African-American. They wanted Ernie [Hudson], and they had a relationship with him. So Tom made me the keeper of the Emerald City section of the prison. I was grateful [for] his loyalty.

Albrecht: At the end of the presentation, the lead guy, Dino, gets killed in his cell. I said to Tom, “He comes back next episode, right?” And they said, “No, he’s dead.” I go, “What do you mean, he’s dead? He’s the lead in the show!” They go, “That’s what’s happening here.” That’s when I realized that they were gonna change the rules.

Seda: What’s funny is that I remember that the death scene wasn’t supposed to carry over [to the pilot]. I was expected to come on and be a regular on the show. I think what happened was that HBO just really loved the idea of the lead guy actually dying. That kind of set off the trend on Oz.

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Fontana: We got an eight-episode order. I was literally yelled at by friends of mine and peers of mine on the drama side of television. They said to me, “Why are you going to work over at HBO? It’s a movie channel. Nobody watches it.” And I said, “Well, who cares if nobody watches it? They’re going to let me make the show I want to make.” Literally people thought it would kill my career, that I made the wrong tactical move and that I should be doing Touched by an Angel! I’d like to tell you that I’m the visionary who had this incredible sense that cable would someday dominate the television world, but it wasn’t that. It was simply that there was an open door and I went through it.

Chapter Two: Populating Emerald City Having walked through that open door, Fontana’s next task was assembling his prison population. At the time, and still today, Oz stands as a model og diverse casting; it’s large ensemble encompasses a multitude of races, religions and sexual orientations. And shooting in New York, Fontana tapped into a deep reservoir of veteran actors and fresh faces.

Fontana: Our feeling about the penal system in America is very cyclical; you go through periods of “[Prison] should be about redemption” and then “[Prison] should be about retribution.” At that time, it was about retribution and there was this sense that prisoners were bad people, and there were no heroes in those stories. The truth is, I wasn’t interested in writing heroes per se. And that was the great thing about Chris. I’ve often quoted him as saying, “I don’t care if the characters are likable as long as they’re interesting.” That was what I needed to hear because I wasn’t planning to make likable characters — I was planning to make interesting characters.

J.K. Simmons in ‘Oz’ (Credit: HBO)

Throughout the life of the series, we were able to get some wonderful, brilliant New York theater actors. We’d used J.K. Simmons in an episode of Homicide, so I gave him the part of Vern Schillinger because I knew he could do it. Dean Winters had done Homicide episodes, and was my favorite bartender before that, so I wrote Ryan O’Reilly specifically for him.

Dean Winters: Tom had come up with the idea of Ryan O’Reily by watching me bartend. When I was a bartender, I was a real hustler. My motto was, “If you leave my bar with cab fare, then I failed.” I would try and drain you of every dollar you had. I quit my bartending job and was in Los Angeles doing my first movie, Conspiracy Theory. It was a real leap of faith. Tom came out to visit, and we had a long talk. I told him, “You know, I really don’t think this acting thing is for me, it doesn’t feel right.” And he goes, “Listen: I was doing a little presentation for HBO about a prison, and I think it might turn out well for all of us.”

Dean Winters as Ryan O’Reily on ‘Oz.’ (Credit: HBO)

Ernie Hudson: The first time I heard of Oz was when I got a call from Tom. I did a six-episode arc on St. Elsewhere [in 1984], where Tom was a writer and producer. I got to know him a little bit on set, and when he called me about Oz he said, “Do you remember we talked about working together on a project?” I didn’t remember that conversation, but I pretended that I did. I based Leo loosely on Robert Matthews, the first black warden of Leavenworth prison in Kansas. I read a book where he talked about how father was a minister, and wanted him to go into the ministry. Later on, he said to his father, “This is my ministry.” I thought of it that way. He was a guy who finished college, but probably started at junior college, and went to night school. He’s worked his way up. He’s the guy who loaned money to the friend and never got paid back.

Luna Lauren Velez as Dr. Gloria Nathan on ‘Oz.’ (Credit: HBO)

Luna Lauren Velez: My first film was I Like It Like That, directed by Darnell Martin. She called me and said, “Do you want to do this show, Oz?” And I said, “Well, I’m doing this other show, [the Fox drama New York Undercover].” She said, “It might be a one off, I’m not even sure what’s going to happen with the character,” and then she said, “Jon Seda is doing it.” Jon and I had done I Like It Like That together, so I came onboard and they just kept asking me to come back. My understanding was that Jennifer Grey played Dr. Nathan in the [presentation]; everyone had glowing things to say about her, but said, “We decided to go a different direction.”

Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje: I went in and read for the casting director [Alexa L. Fogel]; there were only two lines and I read them in a British accent, an American accent, an African accent and a Jamaican accent just to show what I could do with it. She told me to wait, auditioned a few other people and then closed up shop and took me over to Tom’s office. He was in the middle of writing, and she told me, “Okay, he’s going to give you two minutes.” He didn’t even look up; I performed the lines in those various accents, and he said, “All right, stop. That’s enough.” That was it! He didn’t say I got the part — he didn’t say anything.

Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje in ‘Oz’ (Credit: HBO)

Alexa called me the next day and said, “Tom liked the African character, the Nigerian one. He doesn’t have one of those in the show, and he’d like you to play that.” I was a little bummed, because I wanted to play an American. Then she said, “What he wants to do is he’s going to write it as an American and he wants you to be able to translate it into the African character,” which was freaking great. When I met Tom again, he told me that he had a Nigerian friend he went to college with whose name was Bisi. So he said he would use part of my name and part of his friend’s name: that’s how Adebisi was born.

Fontana: Eamonn Walker was someone I didn’t know until he came into audition, but he was so incredible that it was a foregone conclusion he’d be part of the cast. I was obsessed with getting that character of Kareem Said right. And Eamonn was equally obsessive about getting it right. Some of the extras in his Muslim Brotherhood prisoner group were actual Muslims, so he would go once a week to the mosque, and pray and experience the whole religious side of what it is to be an Imam.

Eamonn Walker as Kareem Said on ‘Oz’ (Credit: HBO)

Kirk Acevedo: Originally Tom wrote Miguel Alvarez for someone else, and then I came in and I got the gig. I remember the exact audition: there were five actors ahead of me, and the scene was an emotional scene where you had to go in and scream and yell about some s**t. Every actor who went in before me screamed and yelled, and I was like, “Well, I can’t scream and yell, because no matter how good I can do it you’re gonna get tired of seeing the same fucking thing.” So I played it just the total opposite, and I stood out and got the gig.

Lee Tergesen: I had been doing a show for USA called Weird Science, which had just finished up, and I was working on Homicide for a couple of episodes. I was down in Baltimore and Tom said, “When you’re done, can you come up to New York? I want to talk to you about something that I have in the works.” So I went up and he and I started talking about something that ended up being Oz. We talked about a couple of different ideas he had for parts, one being a guard and the other one being this guy who ends up being in jail as sort of a fish out of water. I was like, “That sounds more interesting than a guard.”

Fontana: Initially HBO didn’t want me to cast Lee as Beecher. I was like, “Well, what’s wrong with him?” And they go, “Oh no, he’s a brilliant actor. It’s just not who we had in our head.” I said, “Well, he’s who I had in my head, because I wrote the part for him. So you’re stuck with him.” And then, of course, they were [ultimately] thrilled with him. But at first they were a little nervous, because he didn’t look like who they thought Beecher should look like. I never understood what that meant.

Albrecht: I do remember talking about that, because Lee was such a prominent character in the beginning. We were kind of new to it all. I had worked pretty closely with Garry Shandling on The Larry Sanders Show and Marta Kaufman and David Crane on Dream On, but this was really the first time that we had this size of a show, and this kind of serialized drama. So I think we were just babbling at Tom and Barry, who obviously had a lot more television experience than we did.

Lee Tergesen as Tobias Beecher on ‘OZ.’ (Credit: HBO)

Tergesen: In retrospect, I know that happened, but Tom didn’t make me aware of it at all in the beginning. But yeah, my understanding now is they [thought]: “This character is so important, and this guy has just being doing Weird Science.” And Tom was like, “Well, don’t worry — you’ll see, you’ll see.” I wonder what they think now!

Fontana: I had met Rita Moreno at a party at Elaine’s that was marking the end of The Cosby Mysteries, which she had been a regular on. I went up to her and said, “It’s such an honor to meet you — I’m such a big fan of your work.” And she went, “Well, if you’re such a big f***ing fan of my work, why didn’t you f***ing write me a part?” I went, “Okay, I will!” So years later, I took her and her husband to dinner and was talking about Oz. She goes, “It all sounds fantastic. What would I play?” And I went: “You would play the nun.” Well, she laughed for about a half hour and then said, “Tom, I’ve played hookers, I’ve played bandits, but no one’s ever had the balls to ask me to be a nun.” I also talked to her about my sister, who is from a very liberal order of nuns. In the summers, she would run the hospitality house at a prison near Buffalo. I always thought it was so incredibly ironic that my sweet sister was scheduling conjugal visits for prisoners. I told Rita all that, and she said, “Okay, just as long as I’m not going to be in one of those habits.”

Martin: Tom was fabulous in the way that I could say, “Tom, check this guy out. Is there a place for him?” And he’d say, “Yes, I’m going to write him into it.” There were some people that were just out there in the world, and not necessarily actors yet. He was really open to bringing people in, looking at them and trying to find the place for people who had this very specific New York vibe. With a network, you try to get someone hired and it takes so long. With HBO, it was fabulous: if Tom and I liked an actor, we would go to the one person over there and it turned around real quick.

Rita Moreno as Sister Peter Marie Reimondo on ‘OZ.’ (Credit: HBO)

Fontana: I was very clear in the auditions, and when people signed the contract that they might be asked to be nude, and that there would be violence. I didn’t want people who were going to be skittish.

Akinnuoye-Agbaje: Tom made it clear that this was going to be groundbreaking, and that he was really targeting authenticity, so that meant that it required certain actors and certain characters to go in places that may be uncomfortable personally. There were rape scenes and all kinds of complications that weren’t going to be comfortable. He made it clear that if you don’t want to do that, then you’re not the actor for the part.

Acevedo: No, he never warned us! I think there was a nudity waiver because there might be nudity. But every week it was like, “Alright, Kirk, today you’re gonna eat s**t out of the toilet.” Every week we were just like, “Dude, as long as I don’t get raped, I’m alright.” It wasn’t a scary thing, it was kind of titillating. It wasn’t like we were all nervous about it, because we would do it. It was more of like, “What’s he gonna have us do?” I don’t ever remember him warning me, but then I’m pretty sure there were people he didn’t have to warn because we were all game to do it.

Kirk Acevedo as Miguel Alvarez on ‘Oz’ (Credit: HBO)

Winters: I was there from the inception of the show, and I told Tom, “Look, I’ll do anything you want.” And I did. The smart actors knew that we were doing a show about a prison, not a show about a prep school, and it’s cable television. If you had half a brain you knew that this was not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, and it was not going to be a walk through the daisies. So that’s the way that I approached it, and obviously there were people who had a hard time with it. Some guys didn’t want to do this, some guys didn’t want to do that, but that’s the nature of the beast, I guess.

Kinney: I remember in the first episode that Edie Falco [who played a correctional officer] and I were supposed to have a love scene during an execution. As someone was being electrocuted, we were supposed to be having sex in a cell. As much as everybody took their clothes off on the show, both Edie and I felt it wasn’t the right choice, and asked if we could do it in a way that was less graphic. From that point on, that’s how my character was treated. I wasn’t one of the people who had to do [anything graphic].

Edie Falco as Officer Diane Wittlesey on ‘Oz.’ She later was cast on ‘The Sopranos’ but made occasional appearances on ‘Oz.’ (Credit: HBO)

Fontana: I have to say, over the course of the series, there was only really one actor who lied to me and said he would do whatever I asked him, and then when it came time he said, “No, I’m not going to do it.” But he wasn’t a regular and I was able to kill him off fairly quick. Let them guess who that was!

Chapter 3: Getting Into ‘The Routine’ Some TV shows take a little while to find themselves, but Oz‘s series premiere lays down the law about what viewers could expect from their time inside Emerald City. Written by Tom Fontana and directed by Darnell Martin, “The Routine,” swiftly establishes all the elements Oz would become infamous for, including densely-intertwined narratives, a parade of compelling characters, shocking acts of violence and a pervasive sense that nobody is safe within Oswald’s walls. Especially not the person you think is the main character…

Fontana: In terms of the writing of the first episode, Augustus was the first voice I heard in my head. In terms of the design of the show, Beecher was the first character that I came up with, and then McManus. One is there as a prisoner, and one is there as a warden. It just seemed like, for the audience, Beecher’s our Dante coming into the Inferno. He’s the one who’s guiding us into this world where we’re going to be exposed to these different cycles of violence.

Jean de Segonzac: The very first scene we did was in McManus’ office where he tries to put the glass on top of the cockroach. That was the very first shot on the very first day.

Kinney: I hated that scene. It was a trained cockroach; there was a cockroach handler, and back-up cockroaches. That’s a delicate area for me, cockroaches. We did endless angles on it, because Darnell did a lot of angles.

Winters: I knew no one on my first day besides Lee Tergesen. So it was like the first day of school at a juvenile delinquent reformatory. Everyone’s kind of looking around going, “Oh yeah, so you’re Alvarez, alright. I got to keep my eye on you.” Or “You’re Adebisi, alright, you’re big and scary, okay.” Or “You’re playing Said; okay, you’re kind of cool, but what’s up with the English accent?” In the first couple of days, it was just like, “What the fuck have I gotten myself in to here?” But in a good way, obviously.

Tergesen: Nobody really talked to me in the beginning. In the first four or five episodes, the extras would not talk to me. But once Beecher went crazy and attacked Schillinger [Episode 7, “Plan B”], all of a sudden everybody was like, “Hey Beecher, Beecher, Beecher, oh hey Beech!” It was so weird. It was like high school.

Fontana: This is a little piece of backstage history: we shot the pilot and the first season in Manhattan at what is now Chelsea Market, and what used to be the old Oreo cookie factory. The cafeteria had really high ceilings because the stoves had to go up to those windows to let out the smoke from baking the Oreos. We always had to cut if somebody left the cafeteria, because there was no way they could walk to the next set. It was all a bunch of different rooms.

McAdams: I’ll never forget the first time I arrived on set. You’d get off the elevator, and it would be like a normal office with people going about their duties. Then you’d turn the corner, walk down a little bit and you’re in prison.

Akinnuoye-Agbaje: We were about five floors up; the first four floors were offices, and then when you got to the fifth floor, it was literally Emerald City. At any given time, there were 300 or 400 extras in there. The cells were real cells, with the right size and proximity. It was hot, sticky and you felt claustrophobic, like you were in prison. In between takes, there were waiting room areas where we could go, but I chose to stay my cell for the whole time.

Seda: It was scary when the reality hit you that this is the life for so many; at least we were actors and able to walk away at the end of the day. All the details were incredible, and it just really added to making it just so authentic. The set itself was probably the biggest character of the show.

Hudson: It was like being transported to another world. I’d walk to work from the Upper West Side down to where we were shooting, and the contrast of being on the streets of New York and then going in and being on the set of Oz was cool.

Winters: People used to ask: “How did you prepare for the role?” It was very easy. You just got off the elevator, and walked down to the set. It was a f***ing prison! With the glass cells, you realized that everyone was being watched all day long. It was very unnerving. I remember Vincent Gallo came by the set one day, and he was looking around and goes, “Man, this set’s the f***ing cream.” Meaning, they really nailed that set. And my brother [Scott William Winters, who joined the cast in Season 2 as O’Reily’s brother, Cyril] actually spent the weekend on the set by himself, just to get that feeling of incarceration.

Adebisi and Beecher get to know each other in ‘The Routine’ (Credit: HBO)

Akinnuoye-Agbaje: For my scene with Beecher in the first episode, Lee and I were meeting for the first time as actors. It was kind of organic because his character was entering the prison, and it was a new world for him, whereas I’m a lifer. The thing for me was to establish that I own him. I own his life, I own his physical body; he was going to be my bitch and do exactly what I told him to do. I had the luxury of sleeping in my cell, and I would not wash. I became one with my own odor to stake my territory [despite] the complaints of the DP and the crew. Quite often they said, “Perhaps you should shower.” But I told them I was going to stake my claim. Whatever feeling I would evoke in the crew was exactly the feelings that were intended when the actors would come in my cell: repulsion, fear and disgust. It was lovely!

Tergesen: I don’t remember that! I do remember Adewale being ridiculous. He was so f***ing good in that part. I used to say that being in that cell with Adebisi was like being on a date from hell that lasted a month. I mean, he literally grabbed my penis more than women I had dated for a month.

Akinnuoye-Agbaje: I had two scenes in the first episode, and was meant to die in the second episode. But Tom liked what he saw [in the premiere], and kept liking what he saw. I’ve lived a life that gave me an insight as to what it was like to be in a gang in my teenage years, so I just brought that rawness to it. I wore my hat in the way that I used to wear when I was a teenager on the street myself. I knew that the tilt of the hat represented defiance. The costume and production were very much against me wearing the hat initially, because they wanted everybody in prison to be uniformed. I had to respect that, but I just knew that I needed to put my stamp on the character. That scene with Beecher was the first scene I shot, and when they said “Action,” I pulled the hat out of my pocket and put it on. When we wrapped and moved onto my next scene, the director said, “Wait a minute — he had the hat on. Now we have to keep it.”

Tergesen: I was so happy to get out of [Adebisi’s cell], but then I go to Schillinger’s cell. We didn’t rehearse at all on that show, so J.K. and I just met when we started shooting. The funny thing about him is when we’re playing those initial scenes, it’s like he’s the nicest guy on the planet. You know, he’s always smiling. It’s like, “I can trust this guy!” And then it just devolves. The branding thing ends up looking like I’m getting f***ed in the ass, which I didn’t realize was going to happen. Not that I minded, but when he was burning my ass it was causing me to like buck like I was getting f***ed. That was my ass, bro! No stunt ass.

De Segonzac: One image I have, which I can’t get out of my head, is Tergesen’s ass two inches from my face while Simmons is branding him. I’m just going, “This is the weirdest way of making a living that I can ever think of.”

Fontana: When it came to shooting the first episode, moments like the swastika on the ass were defining moments for the show. And the moment when Dino is naked and getting beat up in the shower was, at the time, as brutal, a scene I’d ever seen on television. Those are, to me the moments that said to people this isn’t your father’s [TV show].

Seda: The shower scene was wild. It showed how quick things can happen in prison. Dino wasn’t afraid of anyone, and I was so into being that guy that I carried that with me. I literally walked onto set butt-naked. I walked right up, and stood there talking to Darnell as if I had clothes on. I said, “Okay, let’s go. Let’s shoot this scene. What do you want me to do? You want me to do this? Want me to be here? Want me to do this? Okay. Great, let’s do it.”

Velez: The storyline with Dino and Emilio [a prisoner dying of AIDS] really resonated with me because I have friends and a family member who are HIV positive. I also loved working with Jon. There��s one scene where I could barely keep a straight face because we had done that movie together, so there was something delicious about watching him play this wise-ass character. It’s really one of the few times in the pilot that you see Gloria engaging with one of the inmates in a fun, slightly flirtatious way.

Seda: Jose Soto did such a fabulous job as Emilio. What I love about that scene was how well it was written. It wasn’t that Dino just didn’t like Emilio because he had AIDS; Dino actually found compassion for him. The fact that he honored his request to take him out was done from compassion. That was a way for Dino to be in touch with his heart. It was just brilliant.

Fontana: When I talked with Chris Albrecht, he said, “What’s the one thing you’re absolutely not allowed to do on a broadcast television?” And I said, “Kill the lead in the pilot.” And he said, “Well, then go ahead and do it.” So I hired Jon and told him this is what’s going to happen. He was cool with it, and then I hired him on Homicide, to sort of compensate for the fact that he was killed off.

Seda: For Dino, there’s a point where what was keeping him afloat was the fact that he still has his family out there. There’s a scene where his wife comes to visit him and the kids are there playing and that’s when he makes the decision that it’s never going to happen. The reality of the fact that he’s here for life really hits him. Darnell and I added a moment where Dino taps the glass, kind of like he’s touching her for the last time as a family. I don’t know if a lot of people realize or catch it, but that tap on the glass to her is basically saying that’s the last time she’s ever going to see him. From that point on, it’s just a matter of time for Dino.

Winters: I remember reading the script and going, “Oh, Dino’s a badass!” And by the way, Tom named the character after me, because my nickname is Dino. Then all of a sudden he’s dead, and I’m the one who has him lit on fire. My first thought was, “I feel pretty f***ing good, because I’m not the one dying!” But I was also blown away that this was what Tom was going to do.

McAdams: To say I was excited [to kill Dino] would be an understatement. At that point, I didn’t realize that I would be the first inmate to kill somebody on Oz. That didn’t connect until way later, what I realized the show had a reputation for killing people off. The idea that I was going to be killing someone was just a thrill, and I knew that it was going to be memorable. The fact that they were killing Jon off in the first episode told me how edgy the show was going to be. No one’s safe, and episode to episode, you don’t know what’s going to happen, who’s going to die, and how it’s going to happen. You just don’t know. You have to tune in and watch.

Seda: Talk about going out in a blaze of glory, right? That’s what he did. It was pretty wild how it was shot. I remember seeing the dummy that they had made up in the makeup trailer, and I said, “Oh my gosh, that dummy looks just like me!” When we were shooting it, I remember just looking up and telling Tim, “Hey, hey, hey, don’t actually light it.” A couple times, he kept forgetting and actually lit it. I’m like, “Wait! You’re going to drop this on my face, dummy!”

McAdams: Dropping that match under the camera and watching those flames come up was the most exciting and invigorating feeling. To this day when I see it, I still get excited. Because that wasn’t CGI, it was a glass plate. Also, being given the creative autonomy again to just go in there and have fun with it. Johnny Post wasn’t wired right, so just dropping the match would’ve been one thing. But dropping the match like, “Boom, you’re gone,” was so fun as an actor, because we were so deep in the character at that point.

Fontana: I wanted to do a show in which the audience never relaxed, because I these men who are in prison don’t get a chance to relax. So if I’m really going to try to convey what they’re going through, then the audience should never be able to kick back.

Winters: I’ve never seen this before or since: the scripts would come out, and people would take one and rush to their dressing room, a corner of the set or go in a jail cell, and read the script and see if they’re still alive at the end. It was nerve-wracking.

Seda: I don’t remember any [farewell] party. I think it was just, “All right, you’re dead. Goodbye.” But Fontana came to me and said, “Don’t worry. I’m going to bring you on Homicide.” So that worked out great! [Seda played Detective Paul Falsone on the final two seasons of Homicide.]

‘OZ’ director Darnell Martin (Photo: Getty Images)

Chapter 4: The Future was Female When the histories of cable’s rise have been written, they tend to dwell on the accomplishments of male showrunners like David Chase, Alan Ball and Shawn Ryan. While Tom Fontana is certainly part of that group, both he and Oz‘s cast are quick to note that one of the show’s key creative architects was a woman. As the director of the original pilot presentation, and then the series premiere, Darnell Martin established the innovative visual language that distinguished OZ from anything else on TV at that point. Having gotten her start as an independent filmmaker before landing television gigs, she sought to infuse the series with some of the same spontaneity and energy that defined that era of indie movies. Martin continues to alternate the occasional feature film, like 2008’s Cadillac Records, with a diverse slate of TV credits that includes such series as Grey’s Anatomy, Grimm and Blindspot. If Tom Fontana is among the founding fathers of the premium cable boom, than Darnell Martin is its founding mother.

Fontana: I’m not a director. I never aspired to be a director, and I have no real interest in it. So I rely very heavily on directors to create a visual style that goes with the storytelling, and I trust directors that I hire to bring their best game to the playing field. Darnell was there from the beginning. She and I had worked on Homicide together, and I thought, “Oh, she’s really got some stuff going on here.” I suppose back then the idea of a woman directing a male prison show didn’t make sense to some people, but it made sense to me because of Darnell.

Martin: The funny thing is, I didn’t want to do it at first! I had brought another project to Tom, and we brought it to ABC and ABC ended up not making it. I really didn’t want to do this show. Not because I didn’t like it, it was just because I had a thing about people in jail. I grew up in a very rough place, and I know a lot of people that really needed to go to prison because the neighborhood was a lot safer with them not there. I had my own very real and personal reasons not to want to glorify that. Then I said, “Let me go visit some [prisoners].” So I visited prisons, and said, “You know what? People in jail are human beings, and there but the grace of God go I.” I didn’t want to do it if they were going to be other than me. [But when I] saw people in prison and how they were living, that helped me emotionally get around dealing with the show and made me want to do it.

Albrecht: Darnell was such a critical part of setting the tone and the style; she worked with Tom on the production design and how to shoot this. I think we all set out to do something different visually. Drama has been a staple of network television obviously, and the fact that we [at HBO] were now entering that arena, the one thing that everybody felt was we really needed to differentiate ourselves. I don’t think if any of us on the HBO side had any idea that Tom and Darnell were gonna take that so literally, and just make something that startlingly different.

Winters: Darnell Martin is no joke. She came in with a vision, and her vision just happened to match Tom’s. I think she’s kind of left out of the conversation a lot of times when it comes to Oz, and she should really be part of the conversation, because she came in there as a woman, in a hyper-male environment and she laid down the law in this jail. She really did; and people took notice.

De Segonzac: She’s someone with a real vision. Tom was always telling me, “Just do your thing.” And I, of course, was trying to do Darnell’s thing. The [visual] theme was us being in these tight quarters, just participating. Basically, we just did whatever we felt like within the moment. As you’ll see, some scenes are all on a dolly and laid out, and others are completely handheld. For one shot, I remember being on a foot dolly, and going around the edge, while Jon Seda is trying to force feed a guy who’s dying of AIDS.

Jose Soto as Emilio and Seda as Dino (Credit: HBO)

Martin: There’s an idea in television that I don’t think makes the best television, and that is you have a plan before you get there. If you’re new at doing this, that’s probably helpful. The bad thing about it is that you can have a plan, and then all of a sudden the light is over here so you have to deal with shadows or maybe an actor has to go to the hospital. There’s always some kind of issue in this business. What you need to do, and what I like to do, is go to a place, sit in that place and come up with all the ways I could shoot it. I think shot lists are so reductive, because you can go through every scene [ahead of time], but in reality, you didn’t even work with the actor. You have an idea of blocking, but it’s only you know that knows exactly how you’re going to block it, and then you’re going to make that actor a puppet. That’s a big problem. These actors were very passionate about their characters, and had very strong ideas about their characters, and they all had their homework done when they came in. They were all willing to rehearse and find it and they were generous to one another.

De Segonzac: We had to go fast, fast, fast because there was so much to do. I remember that the dolly guys would just be sitting on the dolly [between takes], and I was like, “What the f**k are you doing? There’s not sitting around here.” At 7 a.m. all the cameras were built, the sound cart was ready and the actors were on set in costume. There was one time where we were running out of time, and Tom happened to be visiting the set. Normally, he wouldn’t be there, but he showed up and he was angry that we were going to go late. So I’m saying [to Darnell], “We’ve got to go fast, so if I do this and this, will you be happy?” And she was angry at me. Tom pulled me by the arm and said, “Why are you talking to her? Just do your thing. Just do whatever you always do.” 15 minutes later the scene was done.

Kinney: Sometimes somebody would be late, and that was a bad thing, because we had to start at 7am and finish at 7pm. If somebody showed up for the first scene late, then that person had sole responsibility for killing our day. We all understood that. For the most part, there was never a hitch in any of it. Darnell had a very specific shooting style; it was a lot of pushing in. The camera was its own character. It was cool to be a part of, but at the same time, you had to hit marks a lot in terms of your acting with that style. You had to turn at exactly the moment the camera arrived. She did a lot of things as one-offs, and that saves some time, but it also makes for very complicated shots. We used to get into little dust-ups about it, but it wasn’t anything that was bad. I would just say, “I’m trying.”

One of Martin’s signature push-ins (GIF: HBO)

Tergesen: She was a very strong personality, but I got along with her pretty well. Every once in awhile there would be something camera-wise [that was tough]. I remember I had a scene with Terry Kinney, and I thought, “Why would I stand right here in a place where he can look at me?” And she’s not letting up or even letting me have an idea about what I wanted to do. She’s rolling the crane across the big main room, and I’m like, “Is this about a crane shot?” She said, “No,” and of course it was about a crane shot. It was a cool shot! Sometimes you have to give up to the people who know what they’re doing.

Hudson: I like Darnell. I did not like the fact that she really liked Eamonn Walker more than me. That really annoyed the hell out of me. She kept praising him, and didn’t have a damn thing to say to me. Since then I’ve gotten to know her. In fact I did a series called APB for Fox, and she directed one of the episodes. I really like her a lot.

Velez: I can put any episode on, and say, “Darnell shot this.” She’s got a great eye; it’s the specific way that she’ll shoot something. Or those unexpected, beautiful tracking shots that Darnell does. It’s almost like a dance with her, and theatrical as well, because it has to be seamless.

Akinnuoye-Agbaje: Darnell would do these sweeping moving shots where she would literally introduce about 10 characters at the same time. There was a lot of movement, and you just had to do all your dialogue on the move, and interacting with other characters. It was very fluid style, which was tricky because as an actor you just have to be very ready, and very much engaged in your character so that you don’t miss a beat. You had to be in rhythm with the flow of the camera, because it moved a lot with Darnell. It was alive, and I think that’s what it was meant to capture.

De Segonzac: We shot everything on 16mm; there was never any question of going 35mm. Back then, the 35mm cameras were immensely huge, and very heavy. For the spaces we were crunching ourselves into, it never would have worked. We were just constantly doing stuff you could never do with a big camera or a huge dolly. At one point, I got enamored with the Dutch tilt [a canted camera angle], so I’d start my shot at a Dutch and then move back and straighten it out, or maybe even Dutch it the other way. I wanted to have fun. After a week of doing that, somebody tapped me on the shoulder and gave me a phone message from Tom, and it said, “Enough of the f***ing Dutch tilt.”

An ‘Oz’ Dutch tilt (Credit: HBO)

Fontana: The cube that Augusts is in was her idea. I kept saying to her, “We’ve got to find some place where he’s isolated, but I don’t want him to be in front of black curtains or something.” She was at some museum, and there was some kind of cube there. She told me, “You’ve got to see it, because that’s what I think we should use for Augustus.” Every director after her hated that cube! But I insisted that they had to use it in some way, shape or form because it was so expensive to build that I wanted to amortize it over the course of the series.

Martin: I was at the Whitney Biennial, and I saw this box in a room that was tilted on its side. I wanted to utilize something like that, and I brought that to the production designer [Gary Weist] who was phenomenal. From there, we started to riff; we riffed about 2001: A Space Odyssey, the way they’re kind of under this glass. We started talking the tricks we could do with the box and really show this idea of isolation, and no longer having any privacy. You can’t even go to the bathroom without the world videotaping you and watching you.

De Segonzac: I saw the same show at the Biennial. The box just looked like a silver box with windows; some kind of construction art. I was not impressed by this thing at all, and it didn’t occur to me to think twice about it. But she came while we were building the set, and she was talking all about this box that she saw. Perrineau’s character was supposed to be in a wheelchair, so he had to be able to get into so that his wheelchair would be latched down and the whole box would turn and move. We built a box that had a crank and a motor on it, and we could put Harold in there, strap him down, and send him upside down.

Seda: I got a chance to be in the box in one of the episodes where Dino comes back as a ghost. [Season 6, “A Day in the Death”] It was pretty wild. Harold had so much dialogue, and [I loved] the way he made it flow in that setting. I’m sure Harold would say he loved it because it made him become one with the character. That cube just became his M.O.

Tergesen: The crank made so much noise that you couldn’t shoot sound with it. So Harold had a lot of looping to do. I did a few things in the box, and, of course, J.K. and I did that Barry Manilow song, “The Last Duet.” [Season 5, “Variety.”] That was a song I was gonna do in the 10th grade with my girlfriend, but we never did it. As soon as I thought of it [for the episode], I knew Tom was going to love it. And then two years ago, I was sitting next to one of the guys who wrote the lyrics for that song. He said, “You used one of my songs in your show.” And I was like, “No s**t. I picked it!”

Kinney: I really liked the cube. In the two episodes I directed, [Season 3, “Cruel and Unusual Punishments” and Season 4, “Wheel of Fortune”], I did some very fun stuff with it. In my first episode, I remember making Harold be in smaller and smaller boxes, until he was inside a little dark thing. I didn’t find it an entirely successful exercise; I would have needed production values that we just didn’t have at the time. For the second one, I made the cube a big lottery thing. We spun it around with all the balls inside. I strapped myself in and tested it out before I put Harold in there to see if he was going to be able to talk and hang upside down a lot. He was amazing, that guy. He’s an acting machine. Every time he gets to the cube, he’s not only super-prepared with those monologues, but ready to take on any challenge to get it done.

Fontana: Where I get nervous is when a director creates a visual style that isn’t telling the story, because then I think they’re just showing off. But if you have a director who stages a shot like that great shot that Darnell does in the first episode where we see Emerald City for the first time, and the camera moves wide? That to me is excellent visual storytelling.

Martin: What’s great about Tom is that he understands filmmakers; he’s not trying to prove anything, and he’s really open to being collaborative. The problem now is that that we’ve dumbed down the idea of directing episodic TV. On a lot of these shows, anybody can walk in and do it. Directors like working for Tom, because Tom doesn’t consider them idiots. He created these wonderful stories, he had a great vision, and then he put it in the hands of other artists who gently put it through themselves and added new colors to it. I think he set a tone because he was not a dictator or micromanager. No one knows I directed the premiere. It started with a female director, and that was only possible because it was a forward-thinking man who thought that was important.

Chapter 5: Life in the Big House As Oz’s first season unfolded, the cast and crew became comfortable inside this prison of their own making. Largely left to their own devices by HBO, a familial atmosphere flourished on set that was nourished and encouraged by Warden Fontana. As with all families, tensions occasionally arose, but nothing like the prison riot that closes out the first season.

Fontana: What was important for me, and what I always worked very hard to do, was take a character who was despicable and turn him into a sympathetic person. And then, just when the audience was rooting for that person, have them do something despicable again. So if you watch the series over all the seasons, you’ll see character like O’Reily who do the worst possible thing and then have this incredible moment of vulnerability. And then as a reaction to that, he does something worse! The other thing I promised to myself was that every character in Emerald City belonged there. I didn’t want to do the wrongfully convicted story. Not that that isn’t valuable; it’s just that I met so many men in prison who told me they were innocent that it felt like almost like a joke. It would also feel more mainstream to suddenly have a character in there that was innocent.

Kinney: In the first episode, Darnell saw McManus as one of those misguided, but well-intentioned educated white guys. He thinks everybody can be rehabilitated, and put back out onto the streets. But the prison system itself teaches you otherwise. Given that conundrum, this character was an anomaly in the prison. In the first episode, I was campaigning with Tom to change that. I said, “We’ve seen that guy, and he’s going to wear out. You’re going to lose interest. Let me change. Let the prison system seep into me. Let me become more and more one with it.” Slowly but surely, Tom agreed to start shaving my head a little more, to grow the beard, and to start to look a little more like a prisoner.

Hudson as Leo Glynn in ‘Oz’ (Credit: HBO)

Hudson: I thought Leo was as balanced a guy as you can get under those circumstances, but I’ve heard people say, “He was the worst. He was an awful guy.” I’m like “Really?” There was a website in the late ’90s where fans could give their comments, and I remember going online and some guy had said, “Leo seems to have a stick up his ass. That actually broke me of the habit. Even now, 20 years later, I don’t go online to find out what people think. The thing I take away from my character is — and I’m sure Tom would hate me saying it — but he was the dumbest warden! He was a well-intentioned warden, and he could be stern, but he never got to the bottom of anything. He had a murder a week and he never figured anything out. I’m like, “Can I just solve one of these frigging cases?”

De Segonzac: During the first season, there was only one accident, which I was the fault of. We were doing the riot scene in the Season 1 finale [which De Segonzac directed], and with 150 guys running around, you had to find someone each of them could do. Tergesen had the fire extinguisher and was spraying it all over the place. He was like, “Really?” and I said, “Yeah, it’ll be great, you’ll see.” There was this one young guy — who I think in real life was a violinist and he somehow got a part on the show — the guards beat him up, and they put the cuffs on him behind his back. The scene felt like it was about to lose energy, so he screams at the guards, “Get them off!” They grab him by the arms, but he’s handcuffed and that’s exactly the wrong thing to do. Now the guy is squealing, and I thought, “Wow, that’s pretty f***ing good.” But it turned out that the cuffs had cut him to the bone! I was very embarrassed.

Velez: I wasn’t in the riot episode at the end of Season 1, and that’s because Tom said, “I don’t want you to be in that episode.” Because the prisoners talked about Dr. Nathan a lot, and would be like, “Oh, Nathan’s hot.” He said, “I’m afraid it would have to get graphic. They’d wind up raping Gloria, and I don’t want that.” Which I thought was very interesting. In some ways, it would have been predictable; you would expect that to happen to the character. But then she could never go back there and I think there were all those considerations as well. We’d have to lose her, because there’s no way she would come back to work in this prison. No way at all. Tom had the wherewithal to think about the totality of the show, and being able to see it going beyond what we saw.

Velez in ‘The Routine’ (Credit: HBO)

Acevedo: At the end of every season, what Tom would do is sit down with you and say, “How’d you feel about your arc? Where do you feel that you could’ve gone or that you maybe want to go next season?” I’ve worked with everybody, and no showrunner has ever done what Tom Fontana has done. The whole storyline in the third season about Miguel being too white, and not Latino enough was something I brought up with Tom, because it was a big issue for me growing up in the South Bronx. He put all of that into the show.

McAdams: I just remember not wanting Johnny Post to go out like a punk. So I loved reading my death scene, and realizing they set him to go out in all his glory, cussing and fussing and telling people to kiss his ass. The fact that they decided they were going to chop his penis off and deliver it back as their message meant that I knew I’d spend the rest of my life being laughed at. My only request was that it was delivered in a big box, not a small box.

Velez: Tom was always really great about discussing where he thought something was going to go, and it was always in a very off-handed manner. At one point, we hung out and had steak and whiskey, and he said, “I’ve got something I’m thinking about, and tell me if it’s crazy. Would this woman ever fall in love with a prisoner?” And I said, “Absolutely.” He said, “I’ve spoken to other women and they said no.” I replied, “When you fall in love with somebody, sometimes you can’t help who that is. The more complicated the better. Please make that happen!” So she fell in love with Ryan O’Reily. I’ve never had a woman tell me that they didn’t buy it or that they thought it was inappropriate.

Fontana: Initially, we had a consultant who had been in prison, but he wanted to be a writer and he just would have preferred if I had just handed him the pen and said, “You can write everything.” So that was very short lived. All I can say is I that did two years of research, and I continued to read and talk to COs and ex-cons, so I kept having conversations about what was going on in prisons. The thing about prison is that no two prisons are the same, so I had a lot of room to make up s**t. But I also took my responsibility very seriously; I didn’t want anything to be salacious or sensationalistic just purely for that. Anything that happened had to come out of character. On the other hand, you also find out stuff that really happened, like a guy who worked in the prison cafeteria hated this other guy so he fed him broken glass. My attitude was if something was real, then it was fair game. Oddly enough, as the series went, I would get yelled at for something I didn’t make up, but people assumed that I had made it up.

Albrecht: We were certainly put back on our heels a few times [by the content], and I don’t remember if we ever actually asked Tom to change something or just voiced our concerns about things. We really were charting new territory here. We had no idea what was possible to do, and the content of Oz was certainly beyond any of the content of the movies that were on HBO.

Winters as O’Reily in ‘The Routine’ (Credit: HBO)

Winters: I’ll tell you one thing: I had two friends in prison during Oz, and they were like, “You motherf***ers got that s**t right.” Prison is a microcosm of our society, and a lot of bad s**t happens in our society every day. I’ve been on panels where I’ve heard this question from some white guy whose face is melting into his khaki pants, blue blazer and red tie: “Oh, is this really [accurate]?” It’s like, go f**k yourself. Have you ever been in prison? Have you ever even visited a prison? Because I’ve visited prison, and it is not a cute place. There is some horrific s**t that happens there. I don’t think Tom went deep enough. He could have gone so much darker, because the stories that we heard while we were making this show, would never even pass the HBO censors. So, you know, suck on that.

Akinnuoye-Agbaje: In terms of the sexuality and sensationalism, there were occasions where I felt it was not always necessary. But then there are occasions where it would go there because it was written from an authentic place. I think there’s a wonderful balance, and Tom was always open to that collaborative dance. We all trusted Tom. We didn’t necessarily like him, and I mean that in the best possible way. He’d done meticulous research so you knew it was not just some flippant, sensational kind of thing.

Martin: There’s a scene with Schillinger after he’s branded Beecher where he’s just talking to him. I said, “You know what I want you to do? I would like you to have your shoes off and your foot in his lap, and you’re making him give you a foot rub.” For some reason, that just seemed right. The branding had nothing to do with sex; it was about power. There’s such an intimacy to the foot rub, and J.K. just ate it up; he was tickling Lee with his toe. That scene explains to me, in a weird way, how I handled [the sexuality]. Sex, in general, is not an empty thing to me, and sex scenes are not about, “Lay on top of this person and bounce harder, and then it’s over.” It has to be about something. Beecher probably massaged his wife’s feet, you know what I mean? So that scene is about something other than power, because we just played that beat with Schillinger tattooing the swastika on his ass.

Kinney: When the romance between Beecher and Keller started [in Season 2], here were two straight guys that were being asked to engage in a graphic depiction of a gay prison couple. They were a little bit shy going into it; one of the things that happened was that everything was out in the open. Everything was shot in a wide open space, so there was no sense of, “Hey, this is a private set.” We would all stand at the monitors and watch this stuff. And they went for it. The whole dynamic in that building was “Go for it,” and that’s what those guys did. What was surprising was how it caught fire. That was one of the first things that became a really popular element of the show. There were a lot of viewing parties for those two.

Chris Meloni joined ‘Oz’ as Chris Keller in Season 2 (Credit: HBO)

Tergesen: I loved the part of the show. In my opinion, it was never about them being gay, it was just about them being in love. If you can find love in a place like that, you’re lucky. My first memory of Chris is that he came to set for a costume fitting, and he was wearing a Tool shirt. And I was like, “This guy seems like a tool.” I told him, “Listen man, let’s go have dinner.” So we went out to dinner, and I said, “You’ve seen the first season, so you know we’re trying to push the envelope. I know the tendency is for two guys who are not gay to try and skirt around it, but I have a feeling we’re going to be doing a lot of this and I think we should try and make it sexy.” Chris looked at me for 10 seconds and then said, “Wow.” But I feel like we did that; there were some amazing moments of tenderness [between them], and I love that it was just about the love. The funny thing is, just as an aside, he and I went to a Tool concert the other night!

Acevedo: We worked together twelve hours a day, and then we would go out four to five nights a week with each other. We were all in our twenties, and we saw each other at work and after work. We all hung out with each other in general, but there was a devious mentality with the inmates. Adewale would get these scenes where it would be like “Adebisi rapes this guy,” and we would be like, “What you going to do?” He would say, “I don’t know,” so we would give him [advice]. Like, “I think you should grab him by the hair or rip his pants.” That was the best part, because the material was so heavy and emotional. You can’t walk on set and be like that the whole day; you’d be so burnt out. It was easier to joke around during those moments.

Akinnuoye-Agbaje: There were several times when we had extras on the set where altercations would break out. They would! They were quickly broken up, but it was just the nature of the beast. When you’re being pushed to be as defensive as you can without actually being the actual prisoner, there were times when it would spill over. I know for myself, certainly with the guards or the warden, I wouldn’t mix with them. Because they were guards, you know what I mean? Many times there were blurred lines, and in the heated scenes you’d go overboard sometimes. That’s why you got such great chemistry and great work coming out of it.

Hudson: I knew Adewale [before Oz]. We shot the movie Congo in Costa Rica together and we became, I thought, really good friends. When I first got the show and found out he was going to be on it, I was like, “Great!” Then he became Adebisi and suddenly I go, “Who the hell is this guy?” He maintained that character for years. Towards the end, in the last couple of seasons, we went, “Okay, we can let our characters go. We do know each other.” There was about four years there where I don’t think I could even speak to him.

Velez: I remember the first time I met Adewale on set, he literally almost skipped towards me! He took my hand, and with the most incredible smile said, “I’ve been wanting to meet you.” I was like, “What?” We just walked hand-in-hand across the stage just gushing about each other, and this is this guy who plays Adebisi! Take your pick between him and Schillinger about which is more reprehensible. I had the same experience with J.K. when he was in the infirmary. At one point, he was sitting there and he had the most beautiful, glowing smile. It was interesting. Sometimes in the beginning I couldn’t put two and two together between the actors and the characters.

Kinney: I went out with Adewale all the time. People would recognize him immediately because of that little hat and everything else. He’s a beautiful man. We’d go to bars, and he was quite popular. I hung out with everybody, especially Tom and his posse — Lee and the Winters brothers.

Adebisi abiding in his cell in ‘The Routine’ (Credit: HBO)

Winters: At the end of the day, we were all just a bunch of kids, even the guards. Most of us were new to this. You would want to think that there was animosity on the set between the guards and the prisoners, and there might of been a little tension off set here and there. But the truth of the matter was that we were just a bunch of golden retriever puppies in a storm box going bananas. In between scenes and during down time, there were guys break dancing, having a push-up contests, working on their one-man shows and reading poetry. It was really like the Royal Fontana Company, a kind of theatrical experience during the day. Tom and his crazy roving company of just insane bandits, just going, “What the f**k just happened?”

Chapter 6: What Oz Hath Wrought By the time Oz ended its six season run in 2003, HBO’s ranks of original programs had swelled to include such era-defining shows as, The Sopranos, The Wire, and Sex and the City. The larger cable landscape had changed as well: Showtime had ramped up its originals slate with Soul Food and Queer as Folk, and in 2002, FX premiered The Shield. In several cases, these descendants overshadowed their ancestor in terms of ratings and awards. Still, 20 years later Oz remains a singular TV series, and a foundational experience for everyone involved in its making.

Fontana: HBO didn’t bother us with ratings. If they did marketing or demographic research, they didn’t share it with me. The thing that Chris said to me was, “I don’t care if this show is talked about in the TV section of the newspaper. I want it on the op-ed page.” So anytime somebody on an op-ed page made a reference to the show, he considered that a 40 share of a Nielsen rating. He wanted HBO and the show in places where people who don’t watch television are looking. I had no idea what the ratings were; all I knew is that he said, “Let’s make more of them,” and I said “Yippee.”

Albrecht: I got a lot of comments [about Oz] from people who were my peers in the entertainment business, so I knew that people were paying attention to it. I think that was the first step towards having it be an impact. I don’t know how many subscribers we had at that time — 15 or 17 million maybe — but the fact that we were getting that kind that kind of attention for something that we had done for our programming strategies [told us] we were in uncharted territory. There was a bridge here we could continue to widen and build as long as we were prepared to make the investment.

Winters: Back in 1997, who had HBO? I didn’t. Did you? And given the content of the show, we were going to work thinking, “Are these people f***ing crazy? No one’s going to watch this.”

Tergesen: Right before it started to air, a bunch of us had this thought, like, “Oh my God, what the f**k are people gonna say when they see this thing?” And there were definitely some people like that. One of my favorite reviews was a review that said, “This show offends God and it offends me.” But then it came on, and it was such a great show. And it was a great show to be in New York doing, because people were so verbal. When the show was on, there was always a bunch of stuff happening with people on the street. People who had been to jail would be like, “Yo man, I love that show you’re doing, but I just gotta tell you — the sex stuff, it’s not like that.” Like really bro? You need to tell me this on the street? I wasn’t thinking about whether or not you had sex in prison until you just brought it up now.

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Hudson: I got a call on to be on some talk show on MSNBC; the Monica Lewinsky thing was going on, and the wanted me to come on a panel to discuss Bill Clinton. I didn’t know why they asked me, but I go on the show and I say, “Well, you know, we all make mistakes.” The commentator said, “That is not what you said on the show.” Then it occurred to me that they actually thought I was a warden! They were dealing with it like I was this authority having worked in prison. I don’t know who did their homework, but I’m like, “I’m an actor. What I say on the show comes from Tom Fontana and the writers. It’s nothing to do with me.”

Velez: There was some strange fan mail about outfits they wanted Gloria to wear. I was like, “Wow, this is just a little bit too much.”

Acevedo: All of us would get mail from prisoners. I would get mail constantly. “You remind me of me. You remind me of my brother.” Or, “Hey, can I get a job? Because I was really in prison and I know what’s up.” Stuff like that. The one complaint that people did say was, “Goddamn, everybody’s so handsome in prison!” All of us were too good-looking to be in prison. We’re actors, though. I think probably none of us would survive in prison.

Fontana: I took the responsibility of doing the first drama series for HBO very seriously. Because when you’re given unlimited freedom in terms of language, sexuality, and visual storytelling, it’s very easy to go, “I’m free at last! I can do anything I want!” It was a real lesson for me to try to truly use the violence and the sex when I felt it was necessary for character stuff, and not just to put it in because I could. Not knowing who the next people at HBO doing drama series would be, I felt a responsibility to them. If I f***ed up, Chris would say to them, “I trusted Fontana and he f***ed it up, so I’m not trusting anyone after that.” Fortunately, I didn’t f**k it up too much, and David Chase was the next guy in the door.

Albrecht: First and foremost, OZ was an “Open for Business” sign for HBO. But it wasn’t like all of a sudden the floodgates opened; it was still a growing process. Even The Sopranos was brought to us through Brillstein-Grey, because Brad Grey had been a dear friend of HBO for a long time. The idea that he was going to pitch a show to us was not unusual, but what was unusual was that it was an hour-long drama instead of Fraggle Rock or a comedy special.

Winters: When HBO got wind that hour-long programming could work, they greenlit The Sopranos and Six Feet Under, and then Oz kind of got lost in the conversation a little bit. I’ve always looked at that as a little unfair to Tom, because Tom really needs to be credited as the guy who literally broke down the walls of late night [original] programming for cable television. It’s not sour grapes at all, because those shows were amazing. All I’m saying is that Oz was the guinea pig, and guinea pigs usually get left out of the equation. But you’d have to be really academically bankrupt or just stupid to watch OZ and not see the bigger picture. In mean, in 1997, one of our lead characters was a Muslim. People are talking about Muslims on TV now, and we did it 20 years ago. Tom was so ahead of the game that it frightened people, and they’re just figuring it out now.

Kareem Said talking to his Muslim brothers. (Credit: HBO)

Kinney: All of us were resentful; that’s just the truth. The Sopranos came on, and we loved that show. I still do, obviously. We just really felt like the bastard cousin. We kept wanting recognition; we kept wanting marketing and publicity to put us out there more. We kept wanting to be put into at least the mainstream of cable, since we were the first cable drama ever. We were all working under the radar, and we were all wanting the radar to find us a little bit.

McAdams: Twenty years is a long time with multiple generation gaps, so there are a lot of people who just don’t really know the value of what this show meant to cable television. They don’t know how it set the foundation for all these other shows that came on HBO that everybody loved. Not just The Sopranos; I’m talking about shows like The Corner and The Wire. I was blessed to work on The Wire for a number of seasons, and people get more excited about me mentioning that then they do when I mention Oz. That’s because they don’t remember Oz

Albrecht: I think maybe from the subject matter point of view, Oz was a tougher show to watch than a lot of the others, even though the others were groundbreaking in their own way. Oz was more violent, and that’s saying a lot compared to The Sopranos. Even in The Sopranos, you didn’t see people get killed a lot; they god killed off-camera. In OZ, the violence and stuff like that happened right in front of your face. The other shows were maybe easier on the stomach for people.

Tergesen: You now, whether Oz gets included in a list [of influential shows] or not, it doesn’t matter. I know what it was, and to this day, I find people are always stopping me and talking about it. So was The Sopranos a major hit? Yes. But it was part of a process. There wouldn’t have been a Sopranos if there wasn’t an Oz.

Akinnuoye-Agbaje: I think the very reason that we’re talking about it today shows that it’s not overshadowed. We were first, and Oz was probably an uncompromising show that was always going to be a hard pill to swallow. But what it has become as a result is a cult phenomenon. The Sopranos was slightly more commercial, and a little bit more palatable but Oz was uncompromising.

Martin: I think Oz was so far ahead its time, because it didn’t have a Tony Soprano. That was deliberate on Tom’s part, because he really wanted an ensemble piece and he loved this idea of the guy you love might die. In a weird way, Oz shot itself in the foot, because there’s nobody for you to hold onto. Tom would kill them off so quickly. You watch for the performances, but not for any one performance. That couldn’t work for a very long time, and now where do we see it working? Game of Thrones also has no Tony Soprano. Oz is the one that started that. It’s a very forward way of thinking, and now everyone’s thinking that way.

Fontana: Even though they were both about criminals, The Sopranos was so different from Oz that it wasn’t like it a copy of something we did. It existed in its own universe. I’m glad Oz worked for HBO, and gave them the courage to keep pushing the boundaries that it did with The Sopranos and Six Feet Under and all the shows that have come since.

Albrecht: I learned a tremendous amount by doing Oz Tom was a consummate showrunner and supportive friend. There’s a real bond that’s made when you go through something like that. I’m incredibly proud of the show, and I always talk about it like Tom and Barry were a little like Lewis and Clark, looking down at the Pacific going “Holy crap, we made it.”

De Segonzac: What I like about the show is that it’s completely timeless. Re-watching the first episode, it could be happening today. It’s also just a great memory of what filmmaking can be about, and the kind of feeling that happens if the people involved are given free rein.

Tergesen: Oz changed me in a lot of ways, and most of the time work doesn’t, you know? I learned a lot about myself as an actor, and I have a career that’s largely based on the fact that I did this show 20 years ago. I’m so happy that I got that chance, and the relationships that I still have to this day. When J.K. won the Oscar for Whiplash, I texted him, “Wow, I just realized I licked the boots of an Oscar winner.” And his return text was, “If memory serves you also shit in the face of an Oscar winner.”

Future Oscar winner J.K Simmons as Vern Schillinger on ‘Oz.’ (Credit: HBO)

Akinnuoye-Agbaje: No matter where I go in the world, people will always call me Adebisi, and that’s cool with me because it’s been the foundation of my success. Whatever role I play is a result of writers, directors and producers watching Oz. And I think it made people aware of what goes on behind those bars. I was invited to Rikers to speak to some of the younger offenders in there, because the prisoners were some of the most popular viewers of the show, and felt that it was an authentic voice as far as it could be.

Seda: Every now and then, someone will be like, “Hey! I love Dino, man. It was the best character. Why’d they kill you?” I’m like, “Aw, thanks.” It’s great to be a part of something that when you pour so much into and you get so much passion in your heart. It was just a great project to be a part of.

Acevedo: This is gonna sound so mushy, but Oz was the truest sense of an artistic family that I could ever, ever have. I was in New York two months ago, and I had drinks at Tom’s house. I still talk to most of the guys. So there’s that sense of family, and other actors looking out for you. This whole business is really not forgiving, so for that to be one of my first jobs spoiled me. When I go on any other show, and I see a guest star come on the set, I think about how nervous I was [on Oz]. So I try to be as welcoming as possible. I go, “If you want to ad lib, throw it at me.” I make them feel that it’s okay to f**k up.

Velez: This truly was a family. You hear people say that, but I just remember hanging out watching people’s scenes, and I remember the level of commitment to the work and to the collaborative spirit. You don’t get that often in your career. It made me a better actor and gave me something that I’m proud of to be a part of. And I met some great people that I love.

McAdams: Oz set the foundation for what my career is today, working as a professional stuntman. That only happened because of the exposure I had to the stuntpeople that I met on Oz. It changed my family’s life, too, because when I left New York and went back to Maryland, the dream was real at that point. Oz showed me what was possible in life, and the belief system and faith that I gathered built my confidence for everything else I’ve been able to accomplish.

Hudson: For me, Oz brought a certain integrity and honesty that touches you on a deeper level. It was the most amazing cast I think I’ve ever worked with.

Winters: I’ve been on a lot of great shows, but Oz is the biggest, baddest motherf***er I could ever have been a part of. That was a period of time that will never be repeated, and for that I’m eternally grateful. Plus it was where I got my chops: I learned how to fail, and I learned how to succeed. Nothing will ever come close to it, ever.

Kinney: I have two personal legacies that really shaped my entire being as an artist. One is my theater company, Steppenwolf, which shaped the way I see the world through art. The second thing is Oz. Tom gave me the language for filmmaking and that side of things, and the idea of having one person be the captain of the shop. Tom was the great decider for all of us, and that really shaped so much of how I treated everything after that as an artist. I don’t do anything unless I think it has that kind of vision now. Because of Tom, my standards were raised, and I think all of ours were.

Fontana: As a writer, Oz liberated me in a way that I didn’t know that I needed to be liberated, in terms of how to tell stories and how to develop characters. On a personal level, being friends with the cast has enhanced my life. I get asked every couple of weeks when I’m bringing the show back. But the sets are gone and the actors are all too expensive, so there’s no chance of it. I couldn’t afford Dean Winters or J.K. Simmons anymore! So I can’t say that I sat up night cursing the darkness that we didn’t get the recognition [at the time]. What’s funny is that it’s taken 20 years, but now everybody’s saying that. You know what I mean? I lived long enough to hear it.

Oz can be streamed on Amazon Prime and HBO Go.

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