#ive seen mario in action…let him play with us!!

[maiteo]

bestie wdym no rui ?? are we talking about rui patricio ?? is there another rui ?? tou confusa agora FJSDHDGJ

nãooo desculpe amor absbsn they’re leaving mario rui in napoli😭 patrício is there tho!!💗

[chanbangblog]

ive only felt religion when ive lied with you- 5

A/N: (smut, Chan x reader, Canon compliant, fan/idol)

What the fuck. Wake up y/n. You can wake up anytime now because this shit CANNOT BE REAL. Am I in purgatory? Is this some way of helping me heal my fucked up soul before heading into the afterlife?

You shook your head, being completely still was suddenly making you very anxious. The elevator arrived at your floor and you walked back to your hotel room. You pulled out your key, being glad you had two, because you surely didn’t want to wake Robyn up if she was as tired as you were.

You quietly opened the door and found Robyn asleep holding her plushy once again. The same sight you had awoken to yesterday morning.

Whoa? Was that only yesterday? Has all this shit really went down in the past 24 hours?

Your mind began to spin at the thought, suddenly feeling very emotionally and physically exhausted, you took off your shorts and slipped into bed with Robyn, not even caring to put on pajamas. You were sure Robyn had seen worse things than you in your underwear and a shirt. You laid down next to her as softly as possible, you realized you were shaking as you settled down in the blankets, willing yourself to stop.

You picked your phone up to set an alarm so you didn’t miss check-out when you realized you had a message from Chris asking for yours and “Bluebird’s” information so he could buy your plane tickets. Thankfully you had Robyn’s memorized and you sent it back to him, wondering when he would ever get her name right and fighting the urge to chuckle as you read it again. You set your phone on loud so you wouldn’t miss his next message if you fell asleep.

You felt Robyn move, she turned over and realized you were there and shot up in bed.

“So! What happened?!” she demanded, way to energetic for someone as sleep deprived as the two of you.

“Um I’m wondering the same about you! But first, when do you work again?” you asked, cautious. There was no way you could finish this trip without her.

“Monday…why?” she asked, looking concerned.

“Well, Chris wants us to go to the Texas concert with him tomorrow…” you said slowly, “He’s buying us a hotel room and a plane ticket if we’re willing to go…” you cringed, waiting for her to tell you this was crazy and irresponsible.

“What did you do to him! Damn what the hell, y/n?! You must have pulled out some freaky shit to get him to fall for you this fast!” she screamed, grinning as wide as she could.

“He hasn’t fallen for me!” you said defensively, “I guess he just trusts me not to run my mouth to everyone, except you, obviously, and wants to enjoy it while he can? I don’t know!”

“Trust you not to tell what, exactly?” Robyn smirked. This was unlike her, she never wanted to know details about your sex life.

“Uhhhh…” you smiled and busted out laughing. You both laughed until tears streamed down your faces. You both loved these boys in a way that only a true fan would understand, but now it was taking a different turn for both of you. Then Robyn stopped and looked very serious.

“It feels like you know them, you get to know their personalities through their variety shows, you get to know their talents through their performances, you get to know their lives through their posts on social media. It’s so easy for fans to get lost in this, and feel like they’re closer than what they actually are. So you love and support them from afar, knowing that your lives will never intersect. But here we are, and it doesn’t feel real.” She stated, very calmly, looking in shock.  But her words resonated with you.

“I know Robyn, this was never supposed to happen. It’s like you ‘know’ them but then you actually meet them and realize you actually don’t. There’s so much that will never be portrayed on camera...” You said, trying desperately to articulate all of your emotions into words. Emotions you didn’t know you were fighting until now.  

“The odds of this happening were literally a billion to one, sorry, a trillion to one. So let’s just go with it. We’ve been given a once in a lifetime opportunity and we need to go with it.” She said, starting to smile again.

Your phone buzzed again then, it was Chris, he had sent you a link to your boarding passes, and your flight left at noon as well.

“Robyn, I think we’re on the same flight as them, we gotta get ready and get out of here ASAP.” You said with wide eyes.

You both sprang into action and prayed like hell you caught your flight.

  You stepped out of the taxi at the airport with your carry-on. Robyn lingering behind you. Somehow both of you managed to take a shower and make yourselves look presentable, not sure how long you’d have between getting off the plane and getting to your hotel. Which Chris had already sent you the reservation number for. Would your heart ever calm down and beat normally again? Probably not. You walked through the doors of the airport and started making your way to security.

You looked around and noticed an inordinate amount of people wearing Stray Kids merchandise around you.

Shit. Right. A lot of fans come see them at the airport. I wonder if they’ve arrived yet.

“Let’s ask one of them if they’ve arrived yet,” you mentioned to Robyn who shook her head in agreement.

You started walking toward a mass of Stays when suddenly you heard screeching and knew what it meant. They had begun running toward one of the entrances and security was already there waiting to protect the boys. Cameras started flashing and the herd of fans moved with the boys as they made their way towards security.

You caught a glimpse of Chris, he was wearing his signature black hat and it looked like black sunglasses. But there was no way he’d seen you through the swarms of people around him.

Both yours and Robyn’s mouths dropped. You couldn’t help it. It was odd seeing them like this now, after being so close to them the night before. It felt, cold. You couldn’t describe it. You were both glued where you were standing, helplessly staring at them as they moved past on the other side of the lobby. You didn’t like being this far away. You both were spoiled after hanging out with them once. You scolded yourself mentally for it. The chaos was still following them until they got to the line for security. You didn’t dare move until they had moved so far ahead in line, you couldn’t see them anymore.

“So did that feel…weird to you?” you slowly asked Robyn, turning to her.

“Weird…no. That’s the feeling of us being so fucked.” she announced, confirming your suspicions.

I’m so, so fucked.

 You and Robyn were seated next to each other on the plane. Both trying to sleep, but failing. You realized you had never gotten the details about her night with Jisung so you decided to probe her now.

“So, what did you and Jisung do?” you asked, trying hard not to sound nosy.

“Well we ate dinner and it was delicious. We talked and stuff. Honestly, I was so nervous but we started talking about what got me interested in kpop and other groups I like and it started to feel more normal. I made him watch a shit ton of Seventeen crack videos and I honestly think he enjoyed them.” She laughed.

“So you all stayed up all night?” you asked, their night seeming much more…tame, than yours.

“Yeah, eventually we started playing games, he had brought his Nintendo Switch and I kicked his ass on Mario Kart.” she said cooly.

“So you all didn’t…?”you questioned, knowing she would know where this was going.

“No, you know I don’t do that.” she giggled, “but we did low-key cuddle laying on the bed playing video games.” she stated, voice rising, almost to a squeal.

You couldn’t help it, you squealed back. That just sounded too cute for you to handle.

“I know, I know, I meant like did you cuddle or hold hands or anything. I know you, my dear Robyn.” You said, while grabbing her arm to hold on to her and lay your head on her shoulder.

“Do I want to know details about you two?” she asked, trying to sound stern.

“Probably not,” you said, smiling.

“Understood.” She said back.

You stayed like that. Holding on to your best friend, flying over god knows what state below, to a city you’d never been to, halfway across the country, to be with a guy you had just met less than 24 hours before. But somehow you knew you were making the right decision by going. You didn’t know if you had tickets to the concert, you knew you’d never see Chris again after you left Houston. But it felt right, and you found comfort in it. You clung to that feeling, praying it wouldn’t leave, as sleep finally found you.

[livmoose]

Va, Tosca!

I’ve been fascinated by ‘Tosca’ since three years ago, when I first heard it in Kiev opera. What motivated me to dig deeper was the stubborn anti-Puccini bias of music critics that started with the opera’s (nay, it's antecedent play’s) premiere and didn’t really cease by this day. Which I cannot understand at all: ‘Tosca’ is literally one of the most popular operas in the world, outperformed only by such eminent names as Verdi’s ‘La Traviata’, Mozart’s ‘Die Zauberflöte’, Puccini’s own ‘La Boheme’ and Bizet’s ‘Carmen’. So what gives?

‘Tosca’, original poster, 1899

The premise of this 3-act opera by Giacomo Puccini is rather simple: a villain wants a girl who loves a boy who loves her back and also helps revolutionaries. And also it’s a tragedy, like in a Shakespearean Everybody Dies kind of tragedy. You can pretty much guess the plot from there.

What I personally like about this opera is the combination of lightning-fast plot (the action takes place within several hours on June 17-18, 1800), finely developed character portraits, and music that explains and foreshadows everything you need to know.

Naturally, I don’t take the vague criticisms of ‘Tosca’ all that well.

Ha più forte sapore [bits of history and background]

Puccini’s opera is based on a 1887 5-act play ‘La Tosca’ by Victorien Sardou.

Puccini had seen La Tosca at least twice, in Milan and Turin. On 7 May 1889 he wrote to his publisher, Giulio Ricordi, begging him to get Sardou’s permission for the work to be made into an opera: ‘I see in this Tosca the opera I need, with no overblown proportions, no elaborate spectacle, nor will it call for the usual excessive amount of music.’

M.J. Philips-Matz ‘Puccini: A Biography’

I found this quote, and it instantly clicked: it’s exactly why I like ‘Tosca’.

In contrast to Sardou’s initial work, Puccini’s opera is much more succinct and direct. It has almost zero overblown dialogues and soliloquies that don’t promote the plot or develop characters (well, maybe there is this one lyric soprano-tenor duetto ‘Amaro sol per te m’era il morire’ [‘Only for you did death taste bitter for me’] in act III that’s a bit too long for my taste, but even this slow moment is essential because it gives the audience an opportunity to breathe as the final shockwave looms closer). But the rest of it is actually interesting to see and hear.

For me, ‘Tosca’ is one of the very few operas that are targeted at people who are not fifteen and overly dramatic adult audiences who don’t need same things repeated at them all the time and who can catch what is happening without seeing each and every small detail. Puccini squeezed Sardou’s acts II, III and IV into a single second act, and it works. We as an audience don’t need to see the whole scene at Cavaradossi’s house to understand what happened there. We can use our imagination to paint the rest of the picture.

Looks like the critics do not agree with me on this one.

Perché, perché, Signore [criticisms galore]

The infuriating part about the critical landscape of ‘Tosca’ is that the critics don’t seem to agree on a single point of reproof. Some complain that the opera is too wordy; others, conversely, are not satisfied with the plot rushness (the view that both librettists of ‘Tosca’, Illica and Giacosa shared). Critics called the opera ‘three hours of noise’ that lacks style and cohesion. Julian Budden [opera scholar] faulted the ‘inept handling of the political element’ while commending ‘a triumph of pure theatre’. Burton Fisher [opera writer] described the sensuous love duet ‘Qual’occhio’ as ‘an almost erotic lyricism’ and ‘pornophony’.

Is it just me, or do the critics dislike ‘Tosca’ precisely for the nuances I love about it: coherence of the plot, acute and restrained drama, absence of excessive political speculations (it was not meant to be goddamn ‘Les Miserables’) and, well, musical puns? More on that later.

Not to say ‘Tosca’ didn’t receive its share of praise. Charles Osborne [music critic] believed the plot of ‘Tosca’ was taut and effective while the characters had enough opportunities to shine both in terms of dramatic development and musical elaborateness. Some also praised the richness of Puccini’s score:

[Puccini] finds in his palette all colours, all shades; in his hands, the instrumental texture becomes completely supple, the gradations of sonority are innumerable, the blend unfailingly grateful to the ear.

Ippolito Valetta [music critic] ‘Rassegna Musicale’ in ‘Nuova Antologia’

The aspect of criticism that I did find explainable was based on ‘disconcerting vulgarities’ as put by Gabriel Fauré [composer]. To be honest, the opera really does not lack in violence: Tosca undergoes sexual assault, is broken by the need to defend her chastity with murder and by the death of a beloved, and finally commits suicide. For the public back in 1900 such developments truly could be regarded as a bit too much.

For modern audiences, however, the events are nothing to be shied away from. The opera aged exceedingly well, not losing a bit of its attractiveness in romantic and dramatic sense. Even more so, the criticism that ‘Tosca’ still receives today makes little sense. Joseph Kerman’s [musicologist] remark on ‘Tosca’ as a ‘shabby little shocker’ from the middle of the century, well after the actual real-life shock of two world wars and the brusque shift of public morale, was way off the mark. Thomas Beecham [conductor] bitingly responded that anything Kerman said about Puccini could ‘safely be ignored’ (it almost makes one thing something personal’s involved).

Besides, some modern scholars share my perception of ‘Tosca’s treatment:

Scholarly presses and journals still deeming [Puccini’s] operas too popular to be worthy of serious study continue to shoot themselves in their collective foot.

Deborah Burton ‘Tosca’s Rome: The Play and the Opera in Historical Perspective (review)’

By Burton, Puccini was often simply ‘snubbed by the musicological establishment’. The fun part? Puccini put on his Scarpia persona to cynically and kind of affectionately if you ask me describe ‘Tosca’ as ‘zibaldone’ [‘hodgepodge’]. He referred to it as ‘a vile opera’ and ‘quella putana di Roma’ [‘that Roman whore’]. If this isn’t love.

Già, mi dicon venal [quick glance at the initial play]

Similar criticism of abundance of violence was applied to Sardou’s play. Tosca’s behavior was deemed ‘unchaste’, and the brutality disturbed both critics and theatre fans. Jules Favre [statesman] even called it ‘cette pièce vulgaire, sans intrigue, sans caractères, sans moeurs’ [‘vulgar piece, without intrigue, without characters, without morals’].

The most offensive part of the play was, apparently, Cavaradossi’s torture. Even off-stage, his screams prodded the critics to warn women against seeing ‘La Tosca’ as the play could ‘inflict irreparable injury on persons yet unborn’.

Despite this, the play was an immediate success. It toured around the world, and even the harshest critics couldn’t ignore its dramatic effect:

As to the play itself, I will only add that it is offensive in its morals, corrupt in its teaching, and revolting in its brutality, and yet everyone who admires acting is bound to see it.

Cecil Howard [theatre critic] ‘La Tosca’, ‘The Theatre’

So. Let’s see what threw people in such a dismay, shall we.

Io de’ sospiri [plot and why it’s good]

Sylvester Feodosiyevich Shchedrin ‘New Rome. Castel Sant’Angelo’, oil on canvas, 1823

It all starts with Roman ex-consul Angelotti escaping the clutches of tyrannical justice. The fugitive runs into Mario Cavaradossi, painter and Bonapartist who agrees to help him. Two men are interrupted by Mario’s passionate lover and Roman opera celebrity, Floria Tosca. After a fit of jealousy she leaves the church, and Cavaradossi leads Angelotti away from the city to hide in his villa. Right afterwards, Baron Scarpia, chief of police and the embodiment of tyranny emerges on stage and, when Tosca returns, devises to use her jealousy to lead him to Mario and Angelotti.

Second act is all about torturing Cavaradossi (off-stage) and Tosca’s gradual breakdown. Scarpia demands the location of Angelotti, which she surrenders to save Mario from suffering. Then Scarpia tries to force Tosca to give herself to him, which she agrees in exchange for her lover’s life - only to stab unsuspecting Scarpia with a knife.

The rest of the main cast dies during the third act. Mario’s ‘staged’ execution appears to be not so fake as Scarpia promised. Tosca, inconsolable and heartbroken, jumps to her death as the soldiers, who discovered Scarpia’s body, corner her on the ramparts of Castel Sant’Angelo.

The plot pretty much follows Sardou’s play, although the action was tightened (mostly by avoiding obvious plot turns) and the list of characters sharply compressed.

Sardou’s act III features a scene that is not present in Puccini’s opera: Cavaradossi’s villa, the painter, Angelotti, and later Tosca and Scarpia. One of the things I liked about the opera is that it doesn’t have this scene. It’s excessive and basically tells nothing that audience couldn’t have picked up from the unobtrusive operatic dialogue in act II. Puccini - Sardou 1:0.

Obviously, Mario’s execution was not fake. In the play, Spoletta reveals this fact to Tosca. In the opera, he at first misunderstands Scarpia’s order (hilariously so, as he nearly confesses the whole thing to Tosca), which allows the audience to guess their scheme. 2:0 for subtlety.

In act II, Scarpia questions Mario with the backdrop of Tosca’s cantata performance off-stage, in the depths of Palazzo Farnese. 3:0, this whole piece is just gorgeous.

Puccini wanted ‘La Tosca’s plot stripped of everything excessive (which is, lamentably, a rare practice for operatic genre):

[Puccini] cut Tosca to the bone, leaving three strong characters trapped in an airless, violent, tightly wound melodrama that had little room for lyricism.

M.J. Philips-Matz ‘Puccini: A Biography’

Ignoring criticisms, Puccini also persevered in his clear vision of how the ending should be - by the way, nearly the single thing he and Sardou agreed upon. A good thing undoubtedly; I’d hate for this to happen:

Puccini’s librettists also disliked the suicide, and an alternate ending for the opera was (briefly) considered: rather than leap, Tosca would go mad, collapse, and die on the body of her lover (presumably of Sudden Operatic Death Syndrome).

Susan Vandiver Nicassio ‘Ten Things You Didn’t Know about Tosca’

Pure gold of a remark. Thank you, Susan.

‘Tosca’ is a very tight, succinct work, beautifully paced. I like how the acts are structured and developed. Act I, the longest one, was clearly meant to be expositional. Also, it’s the melodramatic one, with inclusion of comedic motifs that significantly lighten the mood (think the character of the Sacristan and continuous good-hearted mocking of Tosca by her lover).

Act II is unexpectedly macabre: there’s not a trace of the lightheartedness of act I. A real drama ensues, with torture, violence and grim ending (Tosca murders Scarpia in cold blood, which I, as a cynic, viciously enjoy every time). This act is also shorter while it still has enough room for Scarpia’s intricate manipulation and blooming deconstruction of Tosca. The characters are well-developed and nicely motivated (at least in part Sardou’s merit).

Act III is the shortest (just over 20 minutes), and it’s a full-on tragedy. The final plot twist was hardly intended as one. This act is an emotional roller-coaster. Combining hope and death, it is based on fragmented pieces, which makes the whole thing feel real, not operatic. The opera ends strong and loud, and it’s perfect that way. The audience is left with the sense of tragedy that is not undermined by unnecessary lyricism of long pre-death arias (like in Verdi’s ‘La Traviata’, I absolutely hate the last act). With the rush of events, the delay at this point would be unendurable.

‘Tosca’ is chaotic in its final scene, just as it should be. Tosca the character makes the (suicide) decision in a blink of an eye, and I absolutely love the impression that she makes it out of egotistical motives: she is to be captured by the soldiers - not because Mario is dead. This is the kind of nuance that defines the difference between real living people and operatic character embryos. When the opera ends, I always find myself speechless and anguished not irritated at how annoyingly long it takes for the characters to die (looking at you, Verdi).

E lucevan le stelle [characters breakdown]

Palazzo Farnese, 2018. Now French Embassy in Rome

First and strongest impression about the characters of ‘Tosca’: gosh, they are not dumb! So it is possible.

One of the major appeals of ‘Tosca’ is that the characters feel like real people instead of archetypal damsel in distress, knight in shining armor and flat cardboard villain. Although Scarpia bends a bit in that direction, being completely satisfied with his villainous villainy, he acknowledges it, giving off the air of a ‘connoisseur of evil’ instead. William Ashbrook [musicologist] recognized Puccini as a portraitist who honed lifelike characters. Even the smaller characters like the Sacristan (‘an avaricious hypocrite’), Angelotti (exhausted but proud-spirited escapee) and Spoletta (when Scarpia says ‘jump’ he asks how high a perfect minion) are miniature studies of human nature. ‘Tosca’, in his opinion, is a portrait gallery of real-life people.

Floria Tosca [soprano]

For some unfathomable reason, ‘Tosca’ is defined as a melodrama, which is totally different from how it feels with its darkness and the fact that everybody of significance dies in the end. Wiki says melodrama is ‘a dramatic work in which the plot, which is typically sensational and designed to appeal strongly to the emotions’ - basically, plot over characters. Instead, [scenic] tragedy (defined by Google) is ‘a play dealing with tragic events and having an unhappy ending, especially one concerning the downfall of the main character’.

The latter is literally the plot of ‘Tosca’, especially as the title character undergoes a whole set of the most traumatic experiences (concessions to conscience, attempted rape, murder in defense, witnessing torture and execution of a loved one) in a span of just several hours. This set of experiences naturally draws a basis for her downfall (literally): under stress and with no opportunity to think thoroughly, it is not surprising that Tosca commits suicide.

She is strong-willed and passionate, pure-hearted (which is probably why she doesn’t see through Scarpia’s schemes) but not stupid, loyal but also jealous. More out of habit, if we to believe Julian Budden [opera scholar]:

[Cavaradossi, act I, scene 5] Mia gelosa! [My jealous [Tosca]!]

[Tosca] Si, lo sento, ti tormento, senza posa. [Yes, I feel it, I torment you unceasingly.]

All in all, she is a harmonious character in dire circumstances, and it’s a true delight to observe how Tosca, despite how broken and devastated she is, finds the power to oppose her offender. This is the real plot twist (character twist?) of the opera - and I assume the reason that ‘Vissi d’arte’, Tosca’s major aria (an emotional plea of a character who is about to betray her very self) is so well-known and recognized.

Mario Cavaradossi [tenor]

In comparison with Tosca, Cavaradossi is a deceptive character. At first glance he might appear rather flat: nothing more than a loyal lover and a proud revolutionary. Upon closer inspection, however, the audience discovers liveliness and realism many male operatic characters severely lack: he jokes with Tosca instead of oh-so-common sickeningly sweet sighs of love. He knows her flaw of being prone to jealousy - but doesn’t take it too close to heart. He listens to her without interruption as she tells him about Scarpia’s advances (for sure, I was waiting for a hateful scene where he would scream ‘how could you’ at his lover and bang his head against a wall). And he actually knows how to appreciate that she willingly sacrificed her purity for his sake (and he sings an aria about it, too: ‘O dolci mani’ [‘Oh, sweet hands’]).

Besides the believable romance with Tosca, Cavaradossi has excellent dynamics with Scarpia. As the news of Napoleon’s victory arrive, Mario - once tortured - cannot resist the urge to relish in how stars turned for his nemesis:

[Cavaradossi, act II, scene 4] Vittoria! Vittoria! L’alba vindice appar che fa gli empi tremar! Libertà sorge, crollan tirannidi! [Victory! Victory! The avenging dawn now rises to make the wicked tremble! And liberty returns, the scourge of tyrants!]

Tosca tries to stop his prideful speech, aware of how this flows right into Scarpia’s intention to lock revolutionary Cavaradossi up. But Mario is lost in his surging emotions and forgets both himself and his lover at this moment - truly a detail each of us can relate to.

And also Cavaradossi seems to know that his death is not going to be faked - a twist that no one but pure-hearted Tosca is fooled by. He doesn’t believe in Scarpia’s generosity for a moment, and so he doesn’t even try to pretend he is surprised but ironically ridicules the mere idea of a magnanimous villain:

[Cavaradossi, act III, scene 3] Scarpia che cede? La prima sua grazia è questa… [Scarpia yields? This is his first act of clemency…]

Unbelieving but relieved by Tosca’s appearance and intoxicated by her hopeful rambling, Mario chooses to spend his last moments languishing in her presence: he doesn’t want to spoil this time for neither of them. Beniamino Gigli [opera singer, performed as Cavaradossi] wrote in his autobiography that ‘[Mario] is certain that these are their last moments together on earth, and that he is about to die’.

This interpretation of the character is common among the opera singers:

Unlike Floria, Cavaradossi knows that Scarpia never yields, though he pretends to believe in order to delay the pain for Tosca.

Tito Gobbi [opera singer and director]

However, instead of displaying understandable despair, Cavaradossi falls back to his original optimistic self and starts to subtly mock Tosca’s attempts to teach him how to die theatrically. She replies with ‘non ridere’ [‘you mustn’t laugh’], and he softly reassures her. They’re just so sweet together without the usual operatic mawkishness.

(I suspect Tosca is not entirely convinced of their unscathed escape from the clutches of now-dead Scarpia, as well. No wonder she feels uncomfortable at the prolonged preparations.)

Baron Scarpia [baritone]

The villain of this story was actually the first among the main cast to catch my attention. Scarpia is just so explicitly entertaining in his sardonic wickedness. Still, I can see how he could be interpreted as the least 3-dimensional of the three.

Scarpia is a clever interrogator and a talented manipulator. He knows where to hit and when to push to get the answers he needs. Pressing Tosca more and more, he breaks through her defenses until she is frustrated and annoyed to the point of losing her self-control:

[Scarpia, act II, scene 4] L’Attavanti non era dunque alla villa? [So, the Attavanti was not at the villa?]

[Tosca] No, egli era solo. [No, he was alone.]

[Scarpia] Solo? Ne siete ben sicura? [Alone? Are you quite sure?]

[Tosca] Nulla sfugge ai gelosi. Solo! Solo! [Nothing escapes a jealous eye. Alone. Alone!]

[Scarpia] Davver? [Indeed!]

[Tosca] Solo, sì! [Yes. Alone!]

[Scarpia] Quanto fuoco! Par che abbiate paura di tradirvi. [You protest too much! Perhaps you fear you may betray yourself.]

Tosca, with her passionate, fiery temperament, explodes - Scarpia knows about this peculiarity all too well and is able to use her outburst as a clue in his investigation. He continues the pressure all through act II: Mario is tortured, and Tosca is forced to listen to his agony. She eventually crumbles, unable to persevere in keeping Mario’s secret:

[Tosca, act II, scene 4] Nel pozzo… nel giardino… [In the well… in the garden…]

This confession is so succinct, just like the rest of the dialogue in this opera. Tosca doesn’t say ‘wait, I’ll tell you everything’, doesn’t try to play for time; she just betrays the whole thing in two short phrases, without specifying what she means. There’s no need: they’re on the same page.

And then Scarpia goes one step beyond and acknowledges his villainous ways, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but makes him a bit more caricature. Delightfully so, but still. While Tosca nurtures released Cavaradossi to conscience, Baron cunningly waits for the opportune moment, and strikes, ordering Spoletta to bring in Angelotti. He gloats at Cavaradossi, smugness dripping off of him: see, she betrayed your trust! Mario, tortured, exhausted, half-conscious, falls for it, throwing Tosca’s hands away:

[Scarpia, act II, scene 4] Nel pozzo… del giardino. Va, Spoletta. [In the well… In the garden. Get him, Spoletta.]

[Cavaradossi] Ah! M’hai tradito! [Ah, you have betrayed me!]

Cavaradossi picks this up from the dialogue between Scarpia and Spoletta - again, no one clarifies anything. Like you do in real life. Subtlety y’all.

Now that the villain has Cavaradossi locked up and preparations for his execution in progress, he is one step away from getting what he wanted from the start. Tosca consents to sleep with him but still cannot conceal her hatred, unavoidable ‘you can have my body but not my heart’ trope, which doesn’t stop his lust in the least - on the contrary, inflames him more:

[Scarpia, act II, scene 5] Che importa? Spasimi d’ira, spasimi d’amore! [What does it matter? Spasms of wrath or spasms of passion…]

Naturally, when Scarpia is finally killed by Tosca, the audience is bound to feel satisfaction and not regret. Even Floria, the established virtuous character, has no shame as she recognizes Scarpia as the ultimate threat:

[Tosca, act II, scene 5] Ti soffoca il sangue? Muori dannato! Muori! Muori! Muori! È morto! Or gli perdono! E avanti a lui tremava tutta Roma! [Is your blood choking you? Die accursed! Die! Die! Die! He is dead! And now I pardon him! All Rome trembled before him!]

But Scarpia is a disillusioned aristocrat rather than a one-dimensional villain. What lets him gain more flesh is his motivations - get rid of the rebels (for power rather than ideological considerations) and get the girl (personal gain), - his backstory and notoriety among the revolutionaries, working relationships with other characters and the fact that he continues to live through his actions (arguably the main theme of the opera). Even when dead, Scarpia continues to serve as a villain of the story: Mario dies, and Tosca shouts her curses at him:

[Tosca, act III, scene 4] O Scarpia, avanti a Dio! [Oh, Scarpia, [we meet] before God!]

This gives weight to the character as Baron doesn’t disappear as soon as he dies. His life and death both have consequences. His actions have lasting power - a feature that fictional villains far too commonly neglect.

Even though Scarpia possesses some cartoonish features, he is far from being as simple as Wile E. Coyote. Meep meep.

Vissi d’arte [finally, let’s talk music]

Riccardo Manci ‘Mario Cavaradossi singing ‘E lucevan le stelle’, inspired by the tenor Giancarlo Monsalve’, 2014

William Ashbrook described Puccini’s music as ‘telegraphic’ and ‘highly charged’. The reason behind such an impression is the combination of several major leitmotifs that interact, evolve and explain the story. Fugitive motif, love of Tosca and Mario, Scarpia’s theme, torture motif, Tosca’s theme and Cavaradossi’s farewell to life are used as a patchwork that tells the story. These leitmotifs - what Edward Greenfield [music critic] calls ‘Grand Tune’ concept - are memorable and unique, as well as quite distinct from their musical surroundings:

Puccini does not develop or modify his motifs, nor weave them into the music symphonically, but uses them to refer to characters, objects and ideas, and as reminders within the narrative.

Burton Fisher ‘Tosca: Opera Study Guide and Libretto’

Torture motif is one succinct example of how a single simple melody is used to pump up the mood. It first appears as a foreshadowing with Scarpia’s forming intention as he learns Cavaradossi was taken into custody:

[Scarpia, act II, scene 2] Meno male! [Not bad, not bad!]

It grows more and more pronounced as Cavaradossi is questioned - threatening but not quite powerful yet. On the backdrop, Tosca’s cantata also gains volume and solemnity - pure delight mixed with anticipation of terror:

[Scarpia, act II, scene 3] Questo è luogo di lagrime! Badate! Or basta! Rispondete! [Beware! This is a place for tears! Enough now. Answer me!]

And the theme finally loses its careful insinuative tone and thunders at full volume when Scarpia orders Mario into the torture chamber, right before Tosca’s eyes:

[Scarpia, act II, scene 4] Mario Cavaradossi, qual testimone il Giudice vi aspetta. [Mario Cavaradossi, the judge awaits your testimony.]

The melody elaborates with Mario’s torture heard from off-stage, reaching its breaking point as Tosca breaks and reveals Angelotti’s hiding. It repeats again after Mario is released - slow and woeful, intertwined with Tosca’s and Mario’s love theme that is now devoid of its previous light hopefulness.

Statue of Michael the Archangel, Castel Sant'Angelo, 2018

I love how music acts as a separate character in the opera. It talks to the characters, responds to them, inquires and leads the conversation. In act I, while Cavaradossi sings about his love to Tosca, the Sacristan reprovingly grumbles about obscene youth on the background. Besides, here lies the great benefit of veristic [realistic] opera that allows the characters to have duologues - Mario and Floria sing their lines separately in a conversational form rather than a boring duet.

Music gives the opportunities of quieter moments, to talk in phrases but also in gestures. During act II, Tosca uses gestures a number of times to answer Scarpia: a nod of the head, a wave; subtle yet expressive. They nearly don’t talk while Scarpia writes her a letter of safe passage. This quiet scene also allows Tosca’s character to unfold, her decision to feel earned. She sees the knife, she hesitates a moment; then she grabs it and hides behind her back: the decision is made. No words necessary; the score allows the characters to be silent while it tells and develops their story.

And it also allows the characters to talk all at once, without listening to each other. By the middle of Act II, as they learn about the battle of Marengo, Mario starts to shout about victory, Tosca tries to shut him up, and Scarpia reels about hanging the revolutionary. They clamor; chaos ensues, and music supports the flurry of eddying noises by playing disparate motifs. The best part about this scene is that it delivers the message loud and clear, on both levels of plot and emotions.

Talking about Puccini’s score, it’s impossible to ignore the musical cohesion and integrity: each of the three main characters has their theme and their own designated aria that allows them to shine. Moreover, as each of their arias happen once per act, I enjoy the interpretation of their dominance: Scarpia in act I, Tosca in act II, Cavaradossi in act III.

Act I. Scarpia’s ‘Te Deum’: lust, menace, church bells

The theme of the villain is played out in contrasts that reflect his character: cunning and smart - but ruthless and just on this side of crazy. Scarpia is also a figure of power, both literally and figuratively, and he is foreshadowed in the score long before the actual appearance of the character on stage. As Baron is first mentioned in the conversation of Angelotti and Cavaradossi, his dark theme abruptly breaks through the much less strident music:

[Angelotti, act I, scene 6] Tutto ella ha osato onde sottrarmi a Scarpia scellerato! [She has dared all to save me from that scoundrel Scarpia!]

Immediately, this menacing ascending theme is associated with the villain. Later, as he enters the stage, no one calls him by his name, yet the audience immediately recognizes him as Scarpia as he is accompanied by that same simple motif.

The appearance of Baron sobers and darkens the mood instantly, his leitmotif invading other themes unscrupulously. Establishing yet another contrast, his conversation with Tosca is escorted by the tolling of bells that lasts till the end of act I. Scarpia raves about his poison spreading through Tosca’s thoughts, and his unnerving, acrid soliloquy transforms into the solemn Adagio religioso in ‘Te Deum’.

This superposition of profane lust of a ferocious man and sacred sublimity of the Catholic chant is what makes the audience shudder. The final ‘Te aeternum Patrem omnis terra veneratur’ [‘Everlasting Father, all the earth worships thee’] should be the solemn virtuous hymn to God but instead the act ends with Scarpia’s theme reiterated in thunderous chords - an ominous admonition of impending threat. Brilliant. Act I definitely belongs to Scarpia.

Act II. Tosca’s ‘Vissi d’arte’: plea of a broken soul

Second act is all about tempo. The action rushes forward non-stop. Scarpia gives Tosca less and less time to think, to estimate her situation, pushing her to her into the abyss (count how many falling jokes I make through this post). However, he misjudges Tosca’s limits and pushes her just a bit too far.

The point of no return for Tosca is her aria where she asks God why she has to endure all this suffering.

[Tosca, act II, scene 5] Vissi d’arte, vissi d’amore, non feci mai male ad anima viva! […] Nell’ora del dolore perché, perché, Signore, perché me ne rimuneri cosi? [I lived for art, I lived for love: never did I harm a living creature! [...] In this hour of pain, why, why, oh Lord, why dost Thou repay me thus?]

The score is lyrical, slow and wailing as Tosca mourns her faith. The aria ends with a low sob that is nearly spoken with raw emotion instead of sang. (Fun fact: while today the opera is probably most well-known for this aria, Puccini didn’t really like it and wanted to cut it out of the opera altogether; in all honesty, it does lack the musical potency of ‘Te Deum’ and ‘E lucevan le stelle’ even though it’s a palatable piece that delivers the idea of character deconstruction rather well.)

Tosca is left completely broken. Modern sopranos commonly fall to their knees while performing this aria, and there’s a good reason: when Tosca finally finds the power to stand up, she is a different woman. For me, this is when the main plot twist happens: usually, heroines in operas are meek and hesitant instead of decisive and offensive. Tosca breaks the pattern and shoves the knife through her offender’s ribcage. She owns act II.

Act III. Cavaradossi’s ‘E lucevan le stelle’: I die in despair

This aria is so renown even people who dislike opera have heard it at some point. It starts with a subtle, tender clarinet solo (possibly the most well-known operatic clarinet theme of all times). The melody is forced up but then sags, losing its power. It’s the pace of destiny, dragging and sorrowful, measuring what little time Cavaradossi has left. This is Andante lento composed in minor key and slow tempo - something that Mosco Carner [musicologist and conductor] calls ‘Puccinian lament, reserved for a character in an extreme situation - death or suicide’. Perfect to denote present anguished dolor.

Mario meditatively recites the first two lines, which feels like an improvisation. The audience witnesses an extremely intimate although fragmentary memory that ends in a grieving ‘muoio disperato’ [‘I die in despair’]:

Puccini insisted on the inclusion of these words, and later stated that admirers of the aria had treble cause to be grateful to him: for composing the music, for having the lyrics written, and ‘for declining expert advice to throw the result in the waste-paper basket’.

William Ashbrook ‘The Operas of Puccini’

Bravo, maestro!

I dislike the currently popular hysterical sobbing at the end of the aria that can be heard from modern tenors (e.g, in staging of ‘Tosca’ at La Scala). It sounds as a ‘hoquet tragique’ [‘tragic hiccup’] that jumps out too much and is slightly out of character - such rendering is more appropriate for Tosca’s character not Cavaradossi’s.

Still, this is arguably the most beautiful, heart-wrenching lyrical aria I’ve ever heard; I’m literally still not over it, after 3 whole years of listening to it, sometimes on repeat. Also, Placido Domingo is the best  Cavaradossi, shut up I’m not wrong (1976 film starring him and Raina Kabaivanska is wildly enjoyable).

As a bonus, act III (specifically its beginning and ending) deserve an honorable mention. Despite where the plot says the most dramatic moment of the plot is, for me, it’s the beginning of act III. Here’s the pinnacle of the opera: the contrast between the serene aria of a shepherd boy accompanied by the love motif - and the grim, heavy, shuddering theme of Cavaradossi’s farewell that the orchestra splashes on you as if it is a bucket of ice cold water. The music swells - you wait for the volume to stop growing, but instead it just tears through your eardrums.

The timpani are impossibly good for this piece. Intruding the peaceful, pastoral Roman morning full of hopeful dreams and the colors of sunrise, they suddenly throw the audience into the pit of pure unadulterated horror. Trembling and vibrating on low frequencies, they gift you with the feeling of earth opening under your feet, sucking you into the dark depths you’ll never get out of to see light - say farewell to life.

Similarly, the ending is extremely powerful. The drums start slowly at first, setting the rhythm. Before Cavaradossi’s execution, the orchestra is subtle and insinuating; it accrues and thickens in its vicious predictions. After the shots, as Tosca discovers Mario’s death, the tempo breaks through the roof. The music is desperately, deafeningly loud, it screams of tragedy. And, well, I am aware of the plot of the opera by now, but I’m caught off guard every time. I blame this on music. It just so perfectly reflects the mood of the events; it’s pure gorgeousness that gets to my very core every time.

There’s another point of criticism I need to mention in regard to the final theme that ends the opera: against logic, it is Cavaradossi’s farewell instead of more fitting love theme or, even more appropriately, Scarpia’s motif. This I cannot disagree with as, plot-wise, using this theme would provide the dramatic closure for the opera. However, given my love for theme of farewell, I cannot find the heart to dislike Puccini’s choice after all. Act III is largely focused on Cavaradossi, and the finale acknowledges this.

...Undoubtedly, Puccini was a genius. It’s not easy to comprehend the mastery with which he weaved a handful of simple motifs into a powerful story I cannot stop listening to. But also, there’s this:

Puccini’s sense of humor was often of the schoolboy variety, and he found risqué musical puns irresistible. In Act II of the opera, after Spoletta has assured Scarpia that ‘everything is ready’ for the execution of Cavaradossi, the Chief of Police turns to Tosca and softly asks, ‘Ebbene?’—’Well?’ She says nothing, and the score tells us that she indicates her submission by nodding her head. But at her silent reply the orchestra, anticipating the two-note theme of the ‘execution’ motif, plays the two-note phrase, A and C, or in Italian solfeggio, La and Do. The syllables, in addition to being musical symbols, also happen to be words in Italian: the words ‘La do’ mean ‘I'm giving it,’ and it is the usual way for women to say, I'm ready to give ‘it’ (to you).

Susan Vandiver Nicassio ‘Ten Things You Didn’t Know about Tosca’

It is quite possible there’s more of such minutiae. I’m not sure how to feel about a piece that simultaneously cracks me up and throws me into a pit of despair. But I definitely like it - that much I know.

Castel Sant’Angelo, 2018

Recondita armonia [some fun trivia]

The tone of the dialogue was elevated quite a bit. Get this: comforting Cavaradossi after he was tortured, Tosca says ‘Ma il giusto Iddio lo punirá’ [‘But a just God will punish [Scarpia]’]. The initial line was ‘Ma il sozzo sbirro lo pagherà’ [‘But the filthy cop will pay for it’]. Far less distinguished, my dear.

Puccini visited Rome specifically to mimic the early morning bells. Kudos for authenticity. Also, initially, the composer spent an ungodly amount of money to cast the bells he needed for the performance of ‘Tosca’. The orchestras till today have difficulties satisfying the composer’s vision.

Sarah Bernhardt, an actress who became the prototype for Tosca in Sardou’s play, while performing in Rio de Janeiro in 1905, injured her leg in the final scene when jumping from the rampart. As a result of poor treatment, she lost her leg ten years later. Gory.

Two of the most famous opera singers chose this opera as their farewell: Maria Callas as Tosca gave her last performance in 1965, and Luciano Pavarotti as Mario Cavaradossi in 2004.

In one of the performances with Placido Domingo as Mario Cavaradossi, his son was featured as a shepherd boy.

Before Puccini got to write ‘Tosca’, Giuseppe Verdi expressed his interest. He didn’t like the ending though and wanted it changed - I think we’ve barely avoided another ‘La Traviata’ there, oof.

Oscar Wilde saw ‘La Tosca’ and believed the torture scene was great as it showed how far people can go (no wonder; he was working on ‘Salome’ that evoked indignant discontent of the critics in a similar fashion). George Bernard Shaw also saw the play and, while disliking it utterly, still predicted it would be great as an opera.

In Sardou’s play, Cavaradossi gained a reputation of a Bonapartist in large part because of his mustache. That’s the conclusion I’ve made after seeing these two quotes: ‘Even his mustache was suspect’ and ‘Tosca’s confessor told her it marked him as a revolutionary’. This is gold.

[sangriatimes]

Nintendo Switch saves Valentines Day

Can you believe that we are almost half-way done with January? Maybe it’s just me and the countless hours I put into reviewing the latest titles for the Nintendo Switch...which is our focus point that can change the tide if you hit a hard spot this V-Day. Maybe you don’t have enough money for that dinner, movie and gift. Maybe you thought that restaurant you made a reservation at is more expensive than you though. Maybe you just started a new relationship but you still have some awkward silences that seem to kill the mood. Whatever the situation may be a Nintendo Switch can get you to second base and home plate...trust me.

So let’s look at some of the titles for switch that are great to play with that special someone. (Games are listed in no particular order; games are not based on “)sales”; Games are mainly hidden gems)

1. Monopoly | 9.5 out of 10

Hear me out. I was one that grew up playing the original board game with my family and the overall appeal of the game was astounding, but I lost interest when I got older and noticed how long it takes to make everyone go bankrupt. ...but this is something...otherworldly. The first awesome thing you will notice when you pick up this title is the use of the Joy-Con controllers to shake the dice and throw them. Though this is still the same mechanic in spirit as its predecessor but with the newly animated boards populated by Mii’s and watching a living city grow as you play and add properties adds an entirely new respect for Money Bags. Our team lost track of time having so much fun with this one and before we knew it, we had seen 5 hours pass. (No one wants to play Monopoly for that long.) 

2. Uno | 8.5 out of 10

Uno is another one of those games I grew up playing with family. When I purchased the game, I was expecting some sort of controller mechanic similar to Monopoly’s dice...but with cards instead...but I was let down. None the less, going into this, I didn’t even know that there were so many ways to play Uno besides the normal rules. Once again, I was amazed at how much more fun this was than the physical cards themselves. Rules like “Stacking. Where Player 1 can play a “Blue Draw 2″ card and Player 2 can counter play a “Draw 2″ card as well. ...but if Player 3 doesn’t possess a “Draw 2″ card, Player 3 then has to pick all 4 cards from the previous turns” was so exciting to try and there are many other ways to customize rules and play styles. 

3. Super Smash Bros | 9.0 out of 10

I really don’t need to go into detail about this one. My only issue with the Smash series is I would really enjoy a multiplayer adventure mode or campaign. I was quite pleased with the full roster of characters though. Disclaimer: Make sure your partner isn’t a sore loser. We all know about SSB’s steep learning curve for beginners. “Don’t be a butt...”

4. Diablo 3 | 9.0 out of 10

I remember having this title on my old PS4 and being able to enjoy it on my PS Vita while I was in a relationship with someone who liked the game as much as I and we would both take our Vita’s to the restroom with us so we could keep the experience going. This title can definitely be used to understand the mindset your partner has by the way they customize their character and the actions they take in response to events. It’s a top-down action-adventure-role-playing-hack-n-slash (inhale.) It is a port of it’s original released on PS3 & 360...the price tag is still $59.99. That’s a deal breaker in my book.

5. NES Emulator | 7.5 out of 10

I honestly chose this one because of how many gamers I know and how 89% of them are males. This is something for those who don’t game to get their feet wet. The emulator is free on the eShop for a 7-day trial but comes with a subscription cost after. Pretty inexpensive for the titles they have. Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros, Metroid, and many more. It even comes with special versions of some of the games which gives the player the experience of playing with Game Genie cheats.

6. 99 Vidas | 7.0 out of 10

Your probably thinking, “ Why is this even listed?” Well, just in case that partner your with doesn’t dig the 8-bit look or the low-res adventures of the NES Emulator and desires a little more action and has a fetish for Streets of Rage and Beat ‘em Up’s. Simply. The available characters are cool enough to get players to find a favorite out of them. ...so...that’s good!

7. Oh Sir...The Hollywood Roast | 8.3 out of 10

After seeing the Samuel Jackson clone named “Bad MotherHugger” who’s personality is totally canon, I had to dig deeper. If you didn’t play the prequel, you don’t need to. I honestly only used the first title to learn how to play. In this installment, you and a co-star face off on a movie set where your scenario is to insult the other the worst. It plays like a fighting game, complete with health bars, special insults, tag team insults and so much more. For the price it is, I was expecting something way less entertaining. Oh, and one point or another you will joke against a Deadpool copy...a less funnier Deadpool but funny enough.

Consider this the American version of The Office.

8. Oh Sir...The Insult Simulator | 7.8 out of 10

Obviously, this is the European version of The Office. I won’t say this is better than the sequel and I can’t say it’s worse either but I will say “I am an American...” What this game does is teach you how to layer your jokes and how lay the foundation for repetition in your topics to create combo’ s. I like to let the opponent bombard me with little weak jokes and build a super mean and super long insult that grants victory for only one joke. I call it, “The Kamehameha Effect!”

9. No More Heroes: Travis Strikes Back

The third installment to the series hits the eShop and retailers in a few days and I am super excited to get my copy. If you aren’t familiar with the series, let me fill you in:

Travis Touchdown is the protagonist of all three games. In NMH1 we find Travis at his lowest moment in life. Jobless, hopeless and drunk, he runs into a mysterious woman who offers him employment with a sketchy syndicate group he knows nothing about. Luckily he had lost all his money by winning a bid at an online auction for a Beam Katana,  his main choice of weaponry. Not long after, you find out you were hired as an assassin in a shady game by her higher-ups. Travis takes the job after being promised some passionate TLC if he can take out all 10 of the already top ranking assassins all over the world. Travis is a pretty simple guy. He likes mecha anime, luchador wrestling, old school video games, porn, sex, and sleeping on the toilet.

In NMH2, Travis finds out that after becoming the #1 ranking assassin in Santa Cruise, he finds out that he actually has hundreds of more assassins in a new ranking system where Travis is the lowest ranking.

This time around, Travis is joined by the father of one the assassins he killed in NMH1, and the co-op option is something that would have been outstanding to have in NMH2 but none the less the developers always deliver great content in their titles and this one will not disappoint. Couples will enjoy the kinky nature of the series for sure. It has been proven many times.

10. Broforce | 9.5 out of 10

Every wanted to play Super Mario Bros on NES but with guns? Ever want to change Mario for, let’s say...any huge action movie star from the 80′s, 90′s, 00′s? Ever wanted it to be a co-op experience with up to 4 players with local and online co-op? As a mercenary for the USA, you are sent to 3rd world contries to liberate them from the evil control of Satan and his hell spawn. Before that, you will have to fight through waves of kamikaze soldiers, war dogs, giant helicoptors, aliens (...from the movie “Aliens”) and much more. Along the way, you will recruit an entire cast of badasses. From Rambo to Robocop, you will find Chuck Norris, Neo, Blade, Bruce Willis, Terminator, Preditor, Machette, Michelle Rodrigez, The Bride (Kill Bill) & so many more including Mortal Kombats Raiden.

Very easy to pick up, very hard to put down.

11. Nidhogg 2 | 8.0 out of 10

2D-Side Scrolling Fighter. You start of with a sword. When you die, you respawn with a dagger. When you die, you respawn with a bow and arrow. Die again and respawn with an ax. Die again and respawn with your fist. This cycle will continue until you our your opponent makes it to the opposing end of the map. Maps are relatively small and consist of about 2 to 3 different frames. Sounds easy on paper right? 

Tons of laughs to be had!

12. Tales Of Vesperia

If your looking for an in-depth RPG you both can play while she sits between your legs and you both focus on the Switch screen laying in front of you: this is for you two. The co-op system usually only functions when you enter battle. Player 1 will always be the one running around the world map but this is still fine if you keep an open-mind and communicate on decisions that impact the story and more. (Keep track of your own money.)

side-note: All Tales games are co-op in this sense, even the Super Nintendo picks.

13. Harvest Moon: Light of Hope

I’ve been a Harvest Moon fan since Super Nintendo and got my first copy on the N64. I know a lot of people see this game and hate the thought of a farming simulator but unlike it’s counterpart with the same name-sake; Harvest Moon is so much more. This can easily tame the craving for an adventure-rpg-dating sim with a very rich story and characters that actually grow on you. I have not had the chance to play this particular version yet, but I saw it was multiplayer and that sold me. If you want to try a good yet cheaper version, Harvest Moon: Back to Nature is by far, one of the best, next to Harvest Moon 64.

So there you have it, our picks of love for your love to love with their love! Honestly...I don’ t celebrate Valentines Day (poly-gang), but I love exposing partners to new things that they can enjoy together.

OUT!

[pixelgrotto]

Sega and franchise decay

Sonic Forces, the newest 3D game to star a certain blue hedgehog, is out now and receiving middling reviews. Rather than talk about it, I’d rather discuss the 2D Sonic Mania, which came out a few months ago. I never got the chance to blog about it until now, but you can read my Steam review for what it’s worth. I would’ve preferred that the game be composed of all new levels instead of a few new ones and remixed oldies, and in some ways I do believe that Sonic Generations did the “celebration of past and future” shtick a tad better, but overall, I had a good time with Mania. The most impressive thing about it, in my eyes, is how well it captures that 90s-2000s Sega “magic.” It’s hard to describe this in words, but during those years the company’s output, especially their in-house, exclusive stuff, just radiated coolness and creativity that was a little different from what Nintendo was doing. Whether it was the neon visual smorgasbord that encompassed all of the zones in Sonic’s games or the Moebius-inspired fantasy trappings of the Panzer Dragoon series, Sega’s games often seemed fresher and sexier, with dashes of unexpected punk and sophistication in them that the Big N could never really capture. I mean, the run ‘n jump levels and cheery tunes of the Mushroom Kingdom in the Mario games were wonderful, but hell, Sonic 3 featured snowboarding action and a soundtrack that Michael Jackson worked on.

Unfortunately, while the Nintendo of 2017 is kicking butt with the Switch and has upcoming releases scheduled for most of their classic franchises, the Sega of 2017 is in a much different position, and the changes began after the sad failure of the Dreamcast in 2001, when Sega killed off its hardware unit. In the years since, the company’s slowly morphed from a creative house that bankrolled a franchise of games starring an alien-fighting aquatic mammal (Ecco the Dolphin) into a conservative organization that does NOT want to repeat the monetary losses that were suffered during the Sega Saturn and Dreamcast eras, and is therefore highly selective with what it publishes and develops. And somewhere along the way, most of the older franchises that Sega was known for went by the wayside, because their most recent entries either underperformed or they were considered too risky for today’s gaming environment. If you look at the company’s website, you can see a list of what modern Sega considers to be their top tier franchises, and most of them are Western ones that were acquired fairly recently, like Company of Heroes. As far as notable in-house Japanese stuff is concerned, you’ve really only got the Yakuza and Hatsune Miku games (guaranteed moneymakers in Japan, which is why they keep getting made), and Sonic (a guaranteed moneymaker in the rest of the world).  What happened to all those franchises of the past, then? Sega let them decay. Shinobi got its last release - a pretty good 3DS game - in 2011, and there’s been nary a word since. Anything is possible with ninjas, since Capcom brought Strider back from a 15 year retirement in 2013, but for now, Joe Musashi is AWOL. Ecco the Dolphin died in the Dreamcast era, Shining Force seems to have sputtered out after several PS2 and PSP releases that barely resembled the series’ strategy roots, and Panzer Dragoon vanished after Sega’s short-lived flirtation with the original Xbox in the early 2000s. The Oasis series (Beyond Oasis and Legend of Thor) never survived past the Sega Saturn, despite featuring excellent top-down action RPG gameplay that had the potential to go up against Zelda, if Sega had only invested the resources. While we’re on the topic of RPGs, Phantasy Star *sort of* still lives on as an MMO, but the single player entries in the series have long been dead, and even after five years, Sega has still refused to localize Phantasy Star Online 2 outside of Japan. And then we have two really depressing ones - Streets of Rage has been MIA even though Sega went out of its way to issue a takedown notice for a popular fan remake that was released in 2011, and Virtua Fighter, despite being pretty much the earliest 3D fighting franchise, hasn’t seen a real entry since 2006, and only exists as a cheap mobile game now. (I realize there are plenty of other franchises I’m leaving out here like Jet Set Radio, but I decided to limit my focus to games I’d played.)

In the aftermath of Sonic Mania’s release, there were a number of threads on NeoGAF (before GAF, well, imploded), speculating on what franchises should receive a “Mania” type resurrection. And if you’ve read up to this point, you can guess what my answer will be - damn near all of Sega’s old series could use this treatment. New versions of Shining Force and Panzer Dragoon that respect their legacy by emulating the style of their forefathers while introducing just enough new stuff to appeal to younger fans would absolutely make me lose my mind. But I feel that we’re unlikely to ever get a “Shining Mania” or “Panzer Dragoon Mania,” because the circumstances that brought us Sonic Mania are unique. Sonic has always had a robust fangame and ROM hacking community, and it was Christian Whitehead, one of those fan engineers, whose mobile port of Sonic CD just happened to be good enough to get Sega to hire him to port other Sonic games to phones. One thing led to another, and eventually Christian got tasked to take the lead in making Sonic Mania.  Sega’s other old franchises don’t inspire fans and homebrew projects in quite the same way, and even though Streets of Rage came close with that 2011 remake, Sega swooped in pretty fast to nuke that one from the net, and I don’t think they gave any of the former devs jobs. This is because Sega just doesn’t care about Streets of Rage, Ecco the Dolphin, or even Virtua Fighter as much as Sonic. The blue hedgehog is a long-term mascot who’s managed to survive oodles of so-so 3D games (like the new Sonic Forces) to still be popular 25+ years after his birth. He’s not seen as a risk to the conservative Sega of 2017. A new Oasis game, on the other hand, probably is, and why should Sega stretch their lessened in-house production studios on what might be criticized as a Zelda clone when they can instead make another proven thing - a new Sonic, or perhaps a Yakuza or Hatsune Mika spinoff? No, I think the only way some of these franchises could be resurrected is if the original devs manage to grab hold of the license and take to Kickstarter, as is the case with Shenmue 3, a rare success story in this day in age. (Emphasis on the word RARE…and I’d actually rather not call Shenmue 3 a total “success” until the game is out, to be honest.) Franchise decay isn’t unique to Sega. It’s an affliction present in many other production studios, from Square Enix (I miss you, Parasite Eve) to Capcom (the mobile Breath of Fire 6 does not count) to Konami (Contra, Suikoden, damn near everything). Even Nintendo, who have generally done a fine job at avoiding this by bringing Kid Icarus and 2D Metroid back from the dead, have seemingly gone out of their way to not make a new F-Zero game for an awfully long time. But Sega is definitely the king when it comes to the sheer number of oldies that could stand to be updated for a new generation, but won’t be. And Sega are also the only ones to tempt us with Sonic Mania, a game chock-full of easter eggs to old titles that also offers a template which would be PERFECT for something like Shinobi or Streets of Rage…but one that likely won’t be used. Because the magical Sega of yesteryear, the one that got Michael Jackson to fiddle with Sonic 3 and used to be oh so fresh and oh so cool, is not the Sega of today.  RIP, Shinobi, Ecco, Shining Force, Panzer Dragoon, Oasis, single player Phantasy Star, Streets of Rage and Virtua Fighter. Somewhere, in the same alternate universe that Sonic Mania manifested from, the Dreamcast did super well and all of you are on your tenth respective entries right now. 

It’s a blast processing fever dream, but isn’t it a nice one? (Header Sonic Mania screenshot taken by me. All the other pics I jacked from Mobygames.)

[ecotone99]

[FN] Good Luck to Rodger

It all started when Rodger died nine years ago, three days before my ninth birthday. He was almost my dad’s brother they were such close friends, even through college and into their lives after they graduated. They were each other’s best man, and did nearly everything together. We could’ve been two generations of best friends, but his wife and child died in labor. His child and I would’ve been born on the same day, September 27th, 1999. After that, he became my godfather and second dad. He moved just down the road from us, so he was always there. He was my only babysitter, and one of my best friends growing up, even though he was my dad’s age. I was six when he was diagnosed with stage three cancer in his brain, lungs, and liver. For twenty-one months, he had extensive chemotherapy three days a week. On my eighth birthday, he called my house in tears. He had just come back from the doctor, and his tumors were gone. After that, he was the happiest and busiest man I had ever met. But even with his new life and full schedule, he always had time for me. But six months later, he collapsed while we were out at the lake. My dad drove him to the hospital to see what was wrong. It turned out he had lied about his cancer. The doctors told him he had just about a year to live, and that’s why he was in tears when he was on the phone. His new and busy life was him fulfilling his bucket list. The doctors said he had days to live, but his stubborn ass lasted three more months. His cancer had spread to his bones, both kidneys, prostate, colon, small and large intestine. My family visited him every week after we moved him to hospice. Now, I didn’t know that it was hospice, and no one ever told me what it really was. I just thought he moved into an apartment with a lot of old people and hospital workers. Rodger’s new apartment was a pretty dismal looking one. It was small, a lot smaller than his house. And there was nothing of his either. His old futon that he loved so much that used to sit in his man cave in front of his gigantic flat screen TV mounted over a beautiful cobblestone fireplace, was replaced by a ratty looking, worn down couch. It wasn’t too comfortable. The springs would almost poke through all layers of fabric between the probably rusted metal and the skin of your ass. Beige paint covered the walls instead of the royal blue I had chosen for his man cave. The tan carpet was torn and frayed around every door in his now tiny living quarters was a massive change from his grey, surprisingly thick and soft shag carpet I loved to roll around on. His main living room didn’t really have a large window, but a small window did shed some natural sunlight onto one corner of the room. The main light source was multiple lamps. One old looking, high hanging chandelier in the middle of the room that looked like a stained glass window, but it was made of plastic. Rodger lifted me up on his back to let me see the texture and examine the lamp. There was a floor lamp on one side of the ratty couch made of what looked like bronze. And a table lamp with a broken shade on a round end table with three feet. His bathroom was an odd room. White tile lined the walls, making what Rodger called “an easy to clean room”. The floor was made of sandy tile about an inch square, and really rough cement stuff keeping them on the floor. Right in front of the door, the normal size window gave a nice country-ish view of a lush green forest. To the left of the door was a linen closet filled with bed sheets and towels. Further into the bathroom, past the closet was the sink was built right into the wall, with a gigantic mirror, almost wall to wall, under a chrome light fixture. Opposite the sink and little cupboards under the sink was the walk in shower/bathtub with a foldable seat and little hand rail. The toilet was located behind the wall for the shower heads and faucet closer to the door. There was another door in the apartment leading to Rodger’s bedroom. His door was always shut, and Rodger never let me go in. I don’t understand why he never did, but I just brushed it off and obeyed my second, non-blood dad. I’m glad I did listen to him, because I knew it made him happy when I did. Little did I know I wouldn’t be seeing his smile in the near future. Physically he didn’t look like he was dying, but he had no energy to do anything. Every time we’d come to his room, he was sitting on the couch watching something on TV. When he’d see me, he’d stand up. Over time- as I think back on it- he stood up slower and slower, like he had no energy to at all. After a greeting and the normal smalltalk with my parents, they would leave for an hour or so and leave me alone with Rodger. All we did when we came to visit was play Wii games. His favorite was Super Smash Bros. Brawl playing as Mewtwo. He’d always beat me, whether it was lives, timed, with or without items, or with CPU. When my parents did come back, we’d play a few races of Mario Kart, which was my favorite. The adults talked about stuff I didn’t pay attention to because I was too engulfed by the game. Some lucky nights, Rodger would let me stay really late, and every night, he would tell me a story. He called it ‘The Existence Story’.

Long before even dinosaurs alive, there were only two of anything; Eternal and Mortality. Since Mortality knew one day her aura would be extinguished, she created another so Eternal would not be lonely. She called her creation a ‘child’, who they called ‘Son’, and together they were happy. They gave themselves roles to educate Son in all the things they knew, and they gave themselves titles along with their names; Father Eternal and Mother Mortality. But Son sought the companionship of someone aside from Eternal and Mortality. His parents knew of his unhappiness, and made him companions, one in the image of each of them. Son named his new companion shaped by his father ‘Lucifer’, and the companion created by his mother, ‘Evangeline’. After the three were very fast friends, Father Eternal and Mother Mortality created more and more companions, not just for Son but for the two of his companions as well. After a while, Son and Evangeline fell in love. Eternal wanted their relationship to be special, so he bonded their auras as one. Soon after their union, Mother Mortality’s time with her family had come to an end. Father Eternal named her end as ‘dying’. Son took his mother’s end very hard, and left his family, taking with Lucifer and many other companions. Father Eternal renamed his banished child ‘Death’, and his love, the woman he left behind, ‘Life’. As time went on, Life missed her love greatly, so she gave him gifts. Hundreds of thousands of gifts; living beings, creatures of her own devising. Together, they created a realm for her gifts that both could could see and visit. And all their actions went unknown to Father Eternal. But when he did find out, he was furious, and cursed the gifts with Mortality’s curse of ‘dying’. And when her beings did die, they wanted to join Eternal in his realm of what they called ‘Heaven’. He knew they would stain his realm, so as a compromise between his child and his love, they created a new realm for the souls of her beings to stay in after they die, leaving ‘Earth’ forever. I never knew about everything in that story he told me. But I always thought there was a big reason behind why he told it to me.

The last day I saw him, we didn’t play Wii, and he didn’t tell me the story. Usually, when we came to visit, he was waiting on the couch for us. But that day was different, he was in his room. Because of that fact alone, I should’ve known something was wrong, but my young, eight year old mind didn’t make a connection. I rushed in, and skidded on my heels when I saw him. He was laying in his bed connected to a heart monitor with about five IVs all over his arms, chest, and neck, and an oxygen tube going into his nose. At that age, I always thought those tubes that went into your nostrils went all super far into your nose, not just chilling there at the edge. But I had never seen one outside of someone’s nose, so I had no idea.. His face was ghoulish, all sunken and as pale as the sheets. The dark bags around his eyes gave me the creeps. He looked way worse than he did not eight days before. He asked the three of us, my mom, dad, and me, to see him privately one by one. First mom, then dad, then me. Mom took about ten minutes alone with Rodger. When she came out, I could tell she had been crying, but she put in a tough face and sat down next to dad. She said something to dad, and he went into Rodger’s room. He took closer to a half hour alone with his lifelong best friend. I didn’t understand what was going on, I was too young to. I just played Mario Kart while mom and dad went in to see Rodger. Finally, when dad came out, he was a little more composed than mom, but his face was clouded, like he had a million thoughts running through mind. “Hey, buddy,” he said through a sniff. “Rodg wants to see you now.” “Gimme a minute,” I said as I turned my attention back to Mario Kart. “I’m about to win Rainbow Road.” “He wants to tell you something really important,” mom said. “He’ll understand,” I kept my attention on the screen in front of me. “I’ll tell him,” dad opened the door to Rodger’s room and told him. He went in and came out really quick. He grabbed the remote and started turning up the volume. “He wants to hear you win.” He said through a laugh. “Why can’t he come out of his room?” I asked. “He’s really sleepy,” mom said through a sniffle. “And he can’t get out of bed.” “Oh okay,” I shrugged and kept steering my cart around the rail-less track. When the music played for me to finish 1st, I heard a loud whistle come from Rodger’s room. I saved the data and ran into his room. When I got closer, I slowed down and approached his bed very gingerly. “Heard you win!” He said weakly. At that, I perked up, grinning and smiling like a psycho. “Gimme some skin, my man!” He slowly and shakily raised his hand. Me being the idiot I was at that age, I slapped his hand as hard as I could, just like I always did. His hand fell out of the air and hit the bed with a depressing thump. “Wow, you’re really getting strong,” he smiled. Then he started coughing. It was a weak and sad cough, but his entire body shook like he was holding a live power line every time his diaphragm expelled the air from his lungs. “What’s wrong?” I asked. “You don’t look so good.” I looked at his face, but my eyes couldn’t meet his. His sunken eyes gave me the chills. I stared at the bridge of his nose between his eyes at the small horizontal ridge he said came from a football dad threw that hit the bridge piece of his glasses when the two of them were still in high school. Ever since I met him, I had never seen him with glasses, but he swore he used to wear them. And he never swore- until a few months ago… when he said he didn’t have cancer anymore… “Yeah, yeah,” he wheezed. “I’m just feeling a little under the weather, that’s all.” He gave me a smile and a wink just like he always did to get a smile out of me. But this time, no smile came. “Will you be better next week?” I kept staring at the bridge of his nose. “I finally unlocked Baby Daisy!” He laughed, but it sounded more like a cough, but not his body racking cough. “Heh heh. Kid, the next time you come over, we’re unlocking Daisy and I’ll kick your ass again in Brawl.” I looked down at my shoes. He used language I wasn’t allowed to say, and he knew it. My parents didn’t like him to say all those things around me, but he did it when it was just the two of us. He coughed twice more, and both times I winced at the sight. They looked like they hurt him so much. I crawled on the bed and gave him the best hug I could. “Whoa hey, careful about all my tubes,” He said, gently moving me to one side rather than right on top of him. I couldn’t tell if he was really trying to push me and was too weak, or just wanted me to get the idea I needed to move. “I wish I could make your cancer go away and you could feel all better. And we could go back to the lake, and we could build that gigantic sand castle we were going to,” I said as I rested my head on his bony shoulder. “Yeah… yeah me too, kid…” Rodger patted and rubbed my back. I could feel a tube or two on my back. It was creepy, like he was a puppet or something and the tubes were his loose strings. “You know, before you were born, did you know I had a girl just like Drake has Cindy?” He always called my parents by their first names. Except when he was being sarcastic or trying to let them allow something we could do. “What was her name?” I asked, rolling over and sitting on my feet. “Her name was Taylor,” He gazed up at the ceiling. “And she was the most beautiful woman I had ever met.” “Have I met her?” “Oh, Adrien… I really wish you could’ve…” “Why can’t I?” This time, it was him who sniffled. “She, ah- she died, Adrien. She died when you were born.” I got a little scared when he said that. “Did she die because I was born?” “No, no,” He laughed his cough laugh. “She didn’t die because you were born. She died because she was giving birth to our child.” “Did he make Taylor die?” I asked. He stayed quiet for a long time. In my mind, it felt like hours, but really it was probably only a minute or so. He just lay there, blinking away tears, his chest rising and falling quickly with shallow breaths. “I don’t know if he did or not,” his voice broke as he said it. “I’ve asked myself that question every day. Many times a day. But I can never know the real answer.” “I’m sorry, Rodger,” I said, petting his hand that didn’t have any IVs in it. “It’s cool, man,” he sniffed. “It’s alright.” He strained to sit up and move back on the bed so his back rested against the backboard. “Hey, I have something for you.” He flicked my hands away with a jerk of his hand and reached behind his pillow. “I got this a really long time ago. Around the time that you were born. I was going to wait for your eighteenth birthday, but I’m just too excited.” He pulled out a turtle pendant on a metal bead chain I had never seen before. It looked crudely made, not very symmetrical in the design. It was no larger than my thumb, and the hole for the chain went right through its neck. “What is it?” I asked as I took it. I rolled it around in my hand, studying its every detail. “It’s a necklace,” Rodger said with his cough laugh. “Was it Taylor’s?” “Nah. Just something I acquired from- someone you don’t know, right before she died,” He gripped my wrist and gently wrapped my fingers around the wooden turtle. “I’ve kept it safe for nine years. I want you to keep it safe for nine times ninety years.” I looked at him with a rather confused look, trying to do the math in my head, but my eight-year-old brain couldn’t multiply that high yet without a pad of paper and a pencil. “Can you do that for me? Look me in the eyes- and promise me you’ll keep it safe, no matter what happens. Can you promise me that, Adrien?” I knew he was being serious when he told me to look him in the eyes. He only said that when things were super important to be mature and very serious. “I promise, Rodger. I’ll keep it safe for nine times ninety years for you.” He patted my cheek. “Good man.” He sighed, a deep and painful sounding sigh. “I always thought of you as my son.” I didn’t know how to react to that. “Yeah, I know.” “I love you, Adrien. I’ve loved you since the day I met you.” “And I love you, Rodger.” “Gimme one last hug before you go, huh?” He slowly stretched out his arms. I gave him one of the best hugs I could trying not to crush his tubes like he asked me. As we hugged, I heard him softly crying. As I got up, I told him, “Don’t cry. I’ll see you again next week at my birthday party!” “Yeah- it is your birthday next week, isn’t it?!” Rodger said with what sounded like forced enthusiasm. “If I don’t see you on your birthday, happy ninth birthday!” “Thanks, Rodger! See you next week!” I waved behind me as I left his room. “Hey, Adrien,” Rodger called out. “Could you please close the door on your way out? I want to take a nap.” I shut the door behind me and held onto the handle for a second or so. I thought I heard Rodger say, “Have you come to take me to Taylor?” but I didn’t pay attention to it and went over to the couch where mom and dad were sitting. Dad had his head in mom’s lap, and there was a wet spot on her jeans by his eyes. I thought about showing them the turtle necklace Rodger gave to me, but I heard a voice in my head say, “Don’t show them. Just put it in your pocket for now. You can show them after you get home. Tell them you’re hungry.” It wasn’t my voice, and I had never heard the voice before, but I knew I could trust it. “I’m hungry,” I obeyed the voice in my head. “Can we go get McDonald’s?” “Not yet, sweetie,” Mom said, wiping at her red and puffy eyes. “Let’s- let’s go home before we go out anywhere, okay?” I shrugged. I was getting McDonald’s, so I was satisfied.

Rodger Inkren’s funeral was two days after my birthday. Out of respect for him, I even wore the tie he got me even though I hated ties. I wore the necklace he gave me under my shirt too. After his funeral, the necklace sat on my dresser, collecting dust until I was fifteen. I decided to wear it for the first time after Rodger’s funeral on my birthday. When my parents asked me where I got the turtle, I told them a friend gave it to me, and when my friends asked I told them a story about a crazy cashier in Florida. I don’t really know why I lied about it, maybe because of what happened the night after his funeral. I had one of the weirdest dreams I’ve ever had. It started out completely black, nothing at all. No light, no sound, nothing. Then, there was a brilliant flash of light, and all my senses went berserk. My eyes only saw white, my nose was suddenly filled with my favorite scents all at once; Rodger’s aftershave, blue raspberry, wintermint, the ocean salts, and so many others that got mixed together all at one blew into my nose. I heard nature, like crickets, crashing waves, and gusting wind shaking leaves. But also a guitar and piano playing the same melody, and a drum set playing along with a mellow beat. I pressed my hands to my ears, and squeezed my eyes shut, trying to give my brain a chance to process everything. I slowly pulled my hands away from my ears, and the sounds were the same, but much quieter, nearly a perfect pitch. I opened my eyes, and saw the most amazing sight I had ever seen. A beautiful reef, turquoise water surrounded by and endless ring of deep blue. A small island was in the middle of the reef, covered in a beautiful white sand. Suddenly, I was falling towards the island, but it didn’t feel like I was falling. I finally stopped, maybe ten or twenty meters above the ground. I looked down towards the island, and out of the sand grew a little sapling. It spun and grew into a gigantic tree. As it grew, I grew farther and farther away from it, so the whole tree was in the exact center of my sight line. It blossomed into flowers I had never seen before. Beautiful, rainbow colored flowers, similar to waterlilies. And I smelled a scent I had never smelled before and can’t even begin to describe, but I loved it, and always wanted to smell it. Slowly the petals fell away, littering the island in a beautiful blanket of now salmon colored pedals. Suddenly, a section of the tree grew brown and shriveled, all the leaves falling off and giving the salmon blanket a blemish of brown. The once beautifully blue sky turned dark, and a thunderstorm raged all around me. It calmed ever so slowly, to a cloudy sky. The tree bloomed again, giving the island the blanket of petals, all except for the patch with no leaves. Some pedals did fall on the sand underneath, but there was a clear break in the blanket. I heard a crack, and all the beautiful sounds I heard came to a sudden halt. The branches that had no leaves fell to the sand. I heard what seemed like a thousand voices screaming in agony as they fell in slow motion. The screams weren’t loud, but I could tell there were a lot of singular voices all screaming at once. When the branches hit the sand, it shook the entire island. The tree cracked down the middle, splitting the entire island forming a chasm. Down the center of my sight line, a purple border stretched where the chasm split the tree. On my right side, the tree continued to cycle through blossoming the sky staying a perfect blue and the sand as white as ever, But the tree on my left withered away and stayed a skeleton tree, growing darker along with the surrounding sand and water. Suddenly, I was flying up over the tree again, that purple border still splitting my vision in two. My right eye seeing the lighter side, my left eye seeing the darker. I stopped directly over the split tree. Towards the top of my vision, around the island, the purple border split at the island beach, creating a third section. This one was a muddy green, against the turquoise and black waters. A volcano came out of the water, creating an island. It grew and grew, then more and more islands came to life. They formed the familiar shape of Hawaii. Planes and boats came into view, passing through and around the purple border between the waters. At the bottom of my vision, I saw the purple border split again at the island beach. Between the new border, grey water appeared. Nothing else came to life in that section. Just an opaque ocean of plaster gray. As I stared, I fell towards the turquoise water. I closed my eyes and braced myself for the cold plunge into the water. Just before I hit the surface, I stopped. I opened my eyes and saw I was about three feet off the surface of the sea, about ten meters away from the beach. A large turtle the size of a pizza stone crawled up off the beach and towards the tree. From the other side of the tree, the dark side, a figure stepped out. A closer look told me it was a man, a tall and moderately built man. He wore a very fancy looking three-piece suit. It was the color of charcoal, with matching black wingtip shoes and socks. The most unusual part about his was that he had a tail. A scaly looking tail, not a lizard’s, but a scaly one. It swung back and forth as he walked, all curled up looking like a really stare, unglazed cinnamon roll. He walked over to the turtle and picked it up with a smirk. The ease and swiftness of the motion told me this man was unnaturally strong for his size. The turtle ducked into its shell, and the man ran back onto the dark side of the island and back around the tree. Then, my head was violently pulled under the water’s surface and slower but steadily dragged me deeper by ankle. It was freezing cold, I couldn’t see anything, and it got up my nose and in my mouth. I tried to swim up to the surface, but something was forcing me farther and farther down. I looked down and saw a bony hand gripping around my bare ankle. I gargled a scream and kicked at the hand, but my efforts to get it off seemed to do me more damage than the hand. I looked up towards the surface of the water growing further and further away, knowing I’d never be able to make it back up. I closed my eyes, and let the darkness of the water engulf me. Just as I did, the pressure of the water was gone, but I didn’t dare open my eyes. I heard multiple voices out of different conversations I didn’t recognize. First, a man’s voice, “The Master of Time has been stolen.” Then a woman’s, “No one must know, especially Father” Third, the man who told me not to show my parents the necklace Rodger gave me, “Take it, brother. Keep it safe.” And finally, a third man’s voice, “Whoever has taken him shall pay greatly for their transgressions to our family.”

I screamed as I woke up, nearly falling off my bed. As my eyes adjusted to the lack of light in my room, I could’ve sworn I saw Rodger standing in the corner of my room. I scurried away from him towards the corner of the room my bed is in. Once I hit the wall, I froze, not knowing what would happen next. He stood in the corner, not moving a muscle, but after a while of heavy breathing on my end, he put a finger to his lips and made a shushing gesture with his lips. He moved his finger from his lips and pointed to his chest, right about at his sternum. Right where his turtle necklace hung on my chest. I saw him mouth the words, “Keep it safe,” then he disappeared with a smile, and I fell asleep again with a similar smile plastered on my face, knowing I was the last person to see him, feeling satisfied with something that I couldn’t quite put my hands on. After that night, every month on the 27th, I would always get that same dream. And every time, when I would wake up in the middle of the night, screaming and sticky from sweat, I’d look to see if I’d see Rodger had appeared again. I never did see him again. But on the night of September 27th, 2017, something different happened. I had the dream again and everything was the same, except when the people started talking. “The Master of Time has been stolen.” “No one must know.” “Take it, brother. Keep it safe.” When it was time for the fourth man to say his line, he said something different. “The boy has it.” At this change to something so frequent, it shocked me awake. Again, I was sticky with sweat, but I wasn’t screaming. Everything was quiet. Too quiet. Even for the late hour. I sat in bed for what felt like hours, but in reality probably was a minute. Then, a gentle double knock came from my closed bedroom door. There was a bright light coming between the doorframe. Another pair of knocks. “Adrien?” the woman from my dream asked from the other side of the door. “Adrien? Can I come in?” I was just about to answer her when the voice of the third man from my dream came from my closet door with a knock. “Adrien, let me in. C’mon Adrien.” I looked over at my closet door right next to the door leading to the hallway. The edge of the doorframe seemed to be darker than the surrounding red and grey walls, like my closet was sucking in all surrounding light. I stood up and got out of bed, not know what to do. “Please, Adrien?” the woman asked again. “Everything is alright. Please just open the door for me.” “Don’t let the fancy lights of Life distract you, Adrien,” the man in my closet said. “That’ll get you nowhere. Listen to me, listen to-” The crystal tink of something striking a glass pierced my eardrums. It sounded so loud and shocked me so bad, I jumped and spun around to see what made the noise. A metal, grape Fanta lid from a soda bottle sat on top of my keyboard, next to the glass of water I had taken up to my room. It had been a surprisingly warm September, and my room would always get too hot, so I had opened my window above my desk to help cool off my room. I look outside and see Jackson, my best friend, jumping around and waving his arms in my driveway just out of reach of the motion sensitive lights. I looked back at my two doors, and both were dark. The door to my hallway is dark and the door to my closet looked lighter than before. Through my confusion, I turned back to my window and poked my head out, just to get nailed in the forehead by a small pebble. “Sorry!” Jackson hisses up to me. “Yo, midnight adventure with Audrey and Becky?” I stuck my head back inside and looked around. It was 1:37 in the morning. I stuck my head back outside. “Where are they?” “Down the street. C’mon! It’s gonna be cold soon! We gotta get the last of the warm ones in for the year!” “Give me five!” I yelled in a whisper down to Jackson. He gave me two thumbs up and started running down the road to meet back with Becky and Audrey. I put on decent clothes for the adventure and open the door to my room. But before I leave my room, I froze and stared at the hallways side of my door. On my door was a message written in glowing letters. They were left with someone’s finger because I could see the fingerprints where the writer stopped and pulled away. ‘Return to us the Turtle. -L.’

submitted by /u/Son_of_Discord [link] [comments] via Blogger https://ift.tt/2UdT32b

[this-blog-should-not-exist]

It’s a blog for a reason

Idk if i’ll keep up with this actually or not but its a blog for a reason, they’re places were you can talk about whatever the fuck you want. I said Id do the same thing with my personal blog but also I follow some friends on that blog and they probably don't want to hear about the stuff I get up to or my little depressive episodes. I mean sure they’ll show their concern but that only goes so far I guess. 

Idk I mean it’s just a place for me to talk, I once started a google docs document where I had the idea to start writing like a guide? i guess you could call it but where I would write the name of someone I knew, one of my friends, a family member, ex boyfriends, whoever then I would create an entry of who they were, their interactions with me, my relationship with them and what I thought of them or their like defining character traits or actions that stood out to me. The benefit with this though I guess is that I can just type whatever comes to mind as i type it. Sometimes it could be organized and tie into older posts if I keep up with it or it could just be on the fly stories and recollections of thing that have happened to me or what I’m feeling at the time. Ive meant or at least had the idea to actually physically write this or start a journal where I could do the same thing but that would take me much longer to do where typing I can do much faster and get more thoughts out. Plus writing for so long and about so much makes my hand hurt after a while and I can’t talk about all I wanted to because I can't keep writing. I don't have that problem with typing XD

I guess I could start with some recent events that have been on my mind. So I guess about like 2 months ago? I had gotten a Tinder. That in itself was an event XD Ive always been both curious and scared of it because in my mind meeting someone on tinder doesn't feel as genuine when meeting someone by chance or passing or words between friends to meet someone new. But I had gotten one and within a few weeks I had made quite a few matches, however none of them seemed really into it. Half of them never messaged me back and only seemed to be there for the sake of getting a match, others may have talked back but didn't seem interested in trying to start something or meet up for a date. I had finally gotten one guy to go on a date with me, I had never really talked to him but Ive seen his face around because we had some friends within the same social group but like I said, never really met or talked to him only seen him on like instagram before. We had gone on one date and texted a bit but he just wasnt for me. I called him a “real flower child” is the best way I can describe it. Now I don't mean to offend anyone but also who the fuck is gonna read all this, this is only my first like text blog post no one really cares its more for me to get this out. Anyway I call him a real flower child because he's very outdoorsy and loves nature and Lana Del Ray and has the whole nose ring piercing, curly hair, circular glasses, he actually said once “the world make me sad” as he took a bath with candles and a bath bomb, he also said “wine makes me cry” which I mean ok maybe wine does make people drunk cry but still its all about his aesthetic. Its a fun aesthetic but that’s just not for me.

After him I had an occasional match but I ran into the same problem where either no one wanted to talk and was just there for a match or they never seemed interested. I had given up on the app really but I kept it around because in the back of my head I'm thinking like alright, its all good, I'm a patient person it just takes some time, you never know I may meet someone actually, and then last week I matched with two guys. One that lives on the other side of Columbus and one that lives just outside of Easton. The one on the other side of Columbus is really cute and had a lot of the same interests and is just kinda quirky and fun, I just haven't met him yet but we both want to meet up. Now the other one I’ll just say J, he lives outside of Easton and I went on my first date with him on Sunday. It was a good day, we had wandered around Easton, gone out to eat and saw a movie. He also has a lot of the same interests as me, video games, some anime, youtube, but thats about it actually now that I think about it. He's a little rough, like more aggressive but in a sarcastic way I guess. But we vibe well together i feel. Shorter than me, has contacts, wears glasses occasionally mostly at home really. He's 21 as well which I mean sure Im 19 but I guess thats where Im also attracted to him because he's a little older, he’s more mature than some of my past boyfriends but also has a childish side like me. Thats where we’re similar. We went and saw Mother! which I guess was supposed to be a phycological thriller but it was really dumb to us, it didn't make much sense. I was during the movie where I first kissed him, I had wanted to earlier as well but I didn’t feel like it was right yet. It made me laugh though that that was the movie we saw and decided ah yes, this is a good movie to kiss and cuddle and hold hands to. 

After the movie I didn't quite want to leave yet because I was getting pretty attached to him that night so we went back to his apartment for the night. I watched him play Skyrim for a bit, he let me try out Overwatch while him and his roommate had gone to get her some pizza. Which I thought like alrighty, this is okay, just leave me alone at your apartment even though I literally just physically met you today. They came back after like a half hour, eventually me and him went back to his room, we made out for a good while on and off. He wanted to take a bath together which I had never done before. My last boyfriend had suggested it but I never really wanted to much. We got the water running for a second but I was really anxious, I had gotten my shirt off but I didn't take off my pants. He was already in his underwear, it took me a second but eventually he also kinda forced me as in getting close and kissing me then pulling down my shorts and underwear. I was really awkward at that point. It took me like 2 months before my last boyfriend had seen me naked and no one before him has seen me naked, its just not my thing its weird, I just don't like it much. But anyway so we had gotten in the shower instead, I was still pretty anxious. My legs were shaking I was hugging my body, it was just generally uncomfortable but within a few minutes I had mostly gotten over it. It just make me feel really weird. After the shower we got out and just laid on his bed for a bit still naked. I had gotten over it by that time but there was still some after feelings that I guess I didn't notice as much since we were making out again. Eventually we but our underwear back on and a t shirt and went to bed after about another hour or so.

The next morning we just stayed in bed really until I had to leave to go back home because mom was wondering where I was, I had texted her last night that I was staying there with him so that was taken care of. Eventually I got home and that was that. He had actually invited me to a party one of his coworkers was having that night but I had already stayed with him one night and I had to but up early the next morning for work so I told him no I couldn't which of course he was pouting over a little but in a playful way that you would when your flirting with someone. So that night I actually ended up going to a party at my other friends house till like 1am but THAT was ok because he only lived like 5 minutes away from home compared to an hour that J lived. That was  Monday night, the first date was Sunday and I stayed with J Sunday night. I worked early on Thursday morning but then he came out to my house that afternoon. We played some Mario Kart Double Dash at my house then drove out to my friends house Ive been housesitting for to technically grab some wires for my Wii but then we ended up taking another bath in their huge bathtub with jets for about an hour and a half which was nice. I was used to being naked with J by now. We watched some youtube while in the bath, made out for a bit again. Then we got dressed and drove back to my house. By the time we got back it was about 1am when I wanted to get to bed because between Sunday and Monday night I had gotten about 8 hours of sleep total. So he left and that was Tuesday. Now yesterday, Wednesday I worked again early in the morning, then I went back out to Columbus and saw J again for a few hours, we played some gamecube again, I went with him to get groceries, then me and him went out to eat. Came back and laid in his bed in our underwear again watching youtube and cuddling and kissing until it was about 11:30 then I went home again. 

Idk what to make of J, I like him, he's the farthest Ive been on a first date thats for sure. I enjoy his company but do I? Or is it just because I haven't had any sort of attention like this in almost 6 months? Like I had said we share some similar interests. Video games, some music, a little bit of anime and legos. He's pretty sweet with me but also he's a little more aggressive than me, which I mean Im okay with kinda. challenge me a little, don't be afraid to playfully challenge and fight me. But don't be an ass about it. Idk theres the other kid on the other side of Columbus who I've been snap chatting as well but Ive been giving J most of my attention.