#the early stages of slow burns are glorious

[livelovecaliforniadreams]

I Am All In Rewatch - Episode 1x14 (Part 2)

And this one it required a little it required another layer where it was sort of like, now you have to show that you're interested, that you really want her, but you know, be a little bit secretive about it, so it's not so super obvious and it doesn't turn her off. And and uh, that's what I enjoyed about it. It It was that sort of banter, that going back and forth. I mean he would go from dismissive to kind of relaxed and accepting to a little bit of a smile, like just like that, and then move in for a kiss and get interrupted and and then take you know, I liked that hit of beer I took when she left. I was like, jeez, I need a drink. I almost kissed her. It's like almost and denied again. I mean that's the second or third time he's been denied by an annoying town member...The universe conspiring against me. [The chemistry is so palpable. It's just so cool. And are you feeling that when you're acting those scenes, almost like you get pumped up by it? What does that feel like when you're just ping ponging and having those scenes? What is that like?] It feels great? It's fun it yeah, it feels like a couple of tennis players playing a nice point, you know, just like hitting the ball, hitting shots, hitting shots. But I think it's because I think that relationship works. And this is this is what is dawning on me a little bit here as I watched these episodes, is that Lorelai's a very rebellious personality. She just is and that's why we love her because she's unpredictable and she's rebellious and you never know what's going to come out of her mouth, but you know it's going to be something funny, or it's going to be something a little bit of reverend and that kind of a thing. And she does it in the in the in the beginning the dinner scene again, which I thought was just brilliant hysterical...When she encounters me, she's encountering somebody who is even more rebellious and more irreverence, so it almost makes her look and feel lighter. it's a good it's a good chemistry because I'm a sort of a darker, heavier presence, but still rebellious and irreverent with a heart not like her. She's got a heart for everybody. I've got a heart for her and Rory, and that's pretty much about it, you know. So I'm very limited in how I can use my heart. So it's like, you know, the chemistry is that she's going to be able to focus her heart maybe on me in a romantic way, and that she will open up my heart so I can lighten up and love other people as well as her. So I think that's the the sort of yang yin and the yang of it. -Scott

Um, but you know, it was just more of the tension, the sexual tension that was playing out. It's kind of the dance that they do before the consummation end. And that she convinced him to do it, and that she right, that was pretty major and it's such an excuse for them to spend all this time together. Had he not felt a certain depth of feeling for her, there's no way he would have agreed to that. And she handled it, uh, with real finesse. She was very careful about it, even to the point where she said, well, we're not going to paint over that that order that your father scribbled down. We'll do it the right way. So yeah, he was just like, man, I just want to kiss her. I just want to kiss her. I just want to kiss her. I just want to kiss her. I mean, he wants to kiss us so bad it pisses him off. That's probably why he's cranky all the time. You know, it's like he just wants to plant one on her. Man, he wants her. It's getting pretty good. Yeah, so we saw, you know, we saw, we got to see other parts of the diner in some detail and even talk about some of the things that were up on the shelves that he was in no way, shape or form going to give in on and getting rid of them at her request. There was no way. It was like, I'm I'm gonna let you do this painting thing, but you know, you're not going to change me completely. So it was like pretty much telling her, we get into a relationship, I'm willing to sort of compromise with you, but not 100%. So he's his own man. He's his own guy, you know, and he's i think entering a relationship or potentially in any relationship, you've got to establish the ground rules that yeah, I'll meet you halfway, but that's it, you know. So he's a he's a hardass. He wants her, but he's a hard ass for sure. He's as strong as she is. He's as tough as she is. I think she yeah, I think she likes the fact that he's never going to change and that she can't change him very much, you know, that's the that's this, that's how I approached it. I wanted him to be a rock of Gibraltar. He's got to be the rock he can't break ever. -Scott

[myoddessy]

LONG STORY SHORT | dream of the endless

pairing: dream of the endless x harmony goddess!reader

summary: contrary to your title and your legacy, your life before morpheus was one of strife. and now, with morpheus' hand in yours and his lips upon your skin, you finally allow yourself to reflect.

notes: i will not rest until the sandman with folklore and evermore songs is my official brand. i promised this fic weeks ago but i'm rlly burned out and stressed, ANYWAYS here it is, finally! i lowk hate the ending but i'm not going to fix it so sorry abt that

warnings: angst, people taking advantage of reader's gifts, lgbt!reader but it's only briefly mentioned so you can ignore it if you wish, love at first sight with morpheus 💞💞

word count: 1.5k

the playlist.

the lavish silk of your bedding dipped with morpheus' weight as he moved to sit beside you, shoulder brushing yours as you skimmed through a novel that morpheus had influenced in your honour.

"you must allow me to tell you how ardently i admire and love you." he read from over your shoulder, voice slow and sleek, like molasses sliding through the gentle air.

"good evening, mr darcy." you grinned with a teasing lilt to your voice.

"good evening to yourself, miss bennet."

his arm moved to wrap around your shoulders, pulling you even closer to his side. you closed your book on instinct, setting it down on the bedside table as you always did when his scent of home was close enough to haze your mind. you turned slightly, your head resting by the crook of his neck, hand easily falling into his. his thumb rubbed across the back of you palm. he pressed a lasting kiss to the crown of your head.

today it was cold in the dreaming, something that did not occur often, but openly reflected the stress of its creator. even without the chill of the outdoors, you could sense morpheus' distress and frustration in the way his hold was tighter than usual, and the way you felt him relax drastically when you lay down upon him.

he was troubled, and instead of running away, he chose to come to you. he trusted you, he felt safe with you. he had shared everything with you; the existence before you that could barely be called a life, the early stages of living that came with meeting you, the joys of eternal thriving that your love brought. and yet, no matter how much he had shared with you, you had never shared your past with him.

not out of distrust, or fear, or any form of anxious judgement, but out of avoidance. for if you had to disclose your history with morpheus, you would have to relive it yourself.

before morpheus, you had cried in the arms of poets, and artists, and bards alike, and they had all written off your suffering as an excuse for their grand masterpiece. they dedicated it to you, said their magnum opus was all thanks to the glorious harmonia, but none of them actually listened.

you'd been abandoned, realising after centuries that everyone you had ever known preferred the idea of missing you as opposed to actually being in your presence.

first to go was your mother. aphrodite was a kind and caring soul, and, even now, to say she abandoned you was impossible. in truth, the lack of her shadow around your light was a product of your independence. you challenged her, tested her patience in a fashion so contradictory to your moral ground. but instead of letting frustration take hold of her, your mother relished in your challenge and nurtured you until you grew to a goddess worshipped by the masses.

when she left, it was not of ill intentions. it was a testament to her pride of who you had become. her final gift to you was your freedom, even if her company was all you wished for over the coming centuries.

you couldn't remember the others. old friends turned enemies, lovers turned distant strangers, devotees turned assailants. each of them fled in similar fashions, they adored you, praised you as you tore pieces of your heart and soul and handed them over until you feared that your body would cave in on itself. that's when they turned, when they let the door slam on its way out, when they left you cold and alone.

but no matter what happened, you never faulted them. you were peace itself, so how could you bare anger upon those who sought it elsewhere. you did not fight, unless the battle grabbed you by your haunches and hauled you into the field.

it had happened before and you knew, even though you lay in morpheus' arms, that it would happen again. circumstance would betray you and you would be left with crimson seeping into the cracks in your hands.

you had watched lucifer fall. you dived to their aid and guided their descent and, in turn, gained an unwavering ally. but no matter how much you'd done to help the ruler of hell, your actions could not go unpunished. angels and once fell under your rule rebelled against you and pushed you from the precipice of virtue leaving you tumbling off of your pedestal. you could not fight your fate, it was not a path you had chosen, it chose you.

in distress and despair, you cling to whomever lay closest to you, their lips slotting against yours in the perfect distraction from your pain.

you once met an artist and he turned your suffering into a portrait that gained him eternal fame as he cast you to the shadows. after him, you crawled into the bed of a poet who truly loved you. she was kind and caring and looked after you. she nursed your wounds and kissed your scars and let her fingers dance across your broken and battered bones in a practiced ballet for every moment she spent with you.

to this day you consider her one of your purest loves. she was different. warm and welcoming, unlike all the others who would come to hold you, and those who already had. but what set her apart wasn't just the good she held inside, but in the fact that she wrote sonnets for you, where others simply wrote them about you. she art, her blood, her sweat, her tears, they were yours as much as they were hers.

but, as all mortals do, she passed into a world beyond the dreaming and you were left alone once more.

tired of the deceit and false hopes, you continued to trek through the worlds alone. lucifer would call you to their side every few centuries, usually with a request easy to complete, sometimes showing a sheltered side of them that begged for simple conversation from the one being their could call a companion.

when the angels swarmed again, enraged by one of lucifer's actions, you stood proud in their kingdom, wielding a sword gifted to you by the ruler themself and betraying your own name. yet again, the battle had chosen you and the fight left you seared and scarred.

you hadn't ventured to hell since. you often wondered if lucifer missed you, or if your old friend had simply moved on with the drive to build their empire higher and higher.

and then you met him.

fatefully, and wholly random, your shoulders brushed while entering a ball and later your hands met as partners for dance were spun around. his eyes soft and pupils dilated, yours much the same, the steady sounds of perfect orchestra gifting you an outro as he followed you blindly to the balcony for air.

for a few minutes, neither of you saying anything, wondering if the other would first. “you seem different to the rest.” he begins and you scoff, hopes of him standing out from the other madman who had lusted for your story, claiming you were ‘unlike anyone they had ever met — special’ until he followed up with a name you hadn't heard in eons.

“you're harmonia, aren't you?”

you turned to him sharply, confusion and concern etched onto your face but then something in the shadows that danced across his made everything fall into place.

“you're dream of the endless.”

“i much prefer the name morpheus, but yes.” he seemed amused by your confusion, prepared for an onslaught of questions but you only asked him one simple thing.

“do you wish to dance again, morpheus?”

he smiled, you mirrored it. he stepped towards you and took your hand in a light bow, you curtseyed in return. music flooded outside through the open doors and the moonlight guided your steps as you waltzed into midnight.

“where is it you've gone this time, my light?” his voice pulled you from your stupor, smile evident in his words.

you turned in his arms, chin resting on his chest and eyes batting up at him. “nowhere important. not when i could simply be here.”

his smile widened as he pressed another kiss to your forehead as you drew shapes on his skin and recounted your day, relishing in the peace the dreaming granted you.

here, you were free to lay down your sword without the worry of wielding it again to fend off threats to your love. here, you did not have to worry about a tug of war between heaven and hell for your favour. here, you were no longer subject to the cold words and cruel intentions of others.

here, your only duty was to love morpheus as deeply as he loved you, and in the steady rise and fall of his chest, you knew that role was as easy to fill as breathing.

existence before him wasn't easy, but still, you lay in a kingdom forged in the name of your sanctuary. you had survived, the notion made you smile.

[sheliesshattered]

Cataloging all the HotD Daemyra fic ideas floating around my head that I definitely have zero time to write right now. In no particular order:

-First Of His Name: Realizing that he murdered his wife in pursuit of a male heir that died only hours later, that same night Viserys tells Daemon to look after Rhaenyra and restore the glory of their house, then khs in front of witnesses by stepping out the window Tommen Baratheon style. Suddenly Daemon is King, and the last line of support to Rhaenyra who lost her entire family in one day. The political mechanizations of those who want to see the Targaryen dynasty fall, a brewing war in the Stepstones, and the need for one or both of them to marry and produce heirs complicate Daemon’s long-held dream of being King. Slow burn from grief-comfort to ruling power couple.

-The Bed Is A Battlefield: One-shot set between eps 7 and 8, Rhaenyra explains to Daemon that she’s always had to keep her lovers secret for fear of what discovery would mean. But now that they are married and settled on Dragonstone with their children, she would like him to actually share her bed and not slip away in the small hours of the morning. Domestic fluff by way of Rhaenyra demanding what she wants like the queen she is.

-Vanity and Frustration: AU where Daemon and Rhaenyra marry in ep 5, and early in their marriage Daemon decides to start growing his hair out again. And as anyone who has grown out their hair knows, there are awkward stages to endure. Harmless harassment between newlyweds as Daemon grumbles about the state of his hair.

-The Last Dragon: 15 years ago, shortly after Daemon took Caraxes and fled to Essos to avoid a forced marriage to Rhea Royce, a coup executed by the Lords of Westeros resulted in the murder of King Jaehaerys and Queen Alysanne and all their descendants, as well as nearly all of the dragons. There are rumors that a few Targaryens may have escaped, and some of the unclaimed dragons fled across the Narrow Sea to save themselves -- but all Daemon knows for certain is that he’s the last of his family he knows of, possibly the last living Targaryen anywhere in the world, the last dragon rider, and the rightful King of Westeros. 

But he knows he can’t take revenge all alone -- he needs heirs, he needs more dragon riders, he needs to rebuild the House of the Dragon to a force that can burn down all those who murdered his family. And for that, he’s in need of a wife. There are no legitimate Targaryens left, at least none living openly, but there are pale-haired violet-eyed descendants of Valyria to be found all throughout Essos. He simply has to find one he can craft into a queen and the mother to all future Targaryens.

After years of searching, his sources in Essos bring him “Neera”, an orphaned young woman raised in Pentos who has the right look and strength of will to fill the role, if only Daemon can convince her that she should want to be his wife and queen, that he is different from all the other men who have offered to pay someone else money for her maidenhead. Slow burn enemies to friends to lovers, to a complication as the truth comes to light -- the truth of Neera’s birth, and the mother who gave everything to save her from the fate that befell the rest of their family.

-Her Protector: A few years after Viserys marries Alicent, Rhaenyra is kidnapped from her bed in the Red Keep late one night. She is held captive by rough men who cannot seem to decide if they should ransom her or kill her or do something far worse, and in their indecision merely leave her locked up in a cell for long weeks -- until the glorious day that she hears the screeching of dragons overhead. Her uncle Daemon has come to save her, and kills everyone who took her, then carries her back to King’s Landing himself, never letting her out of his sight.

In King’s Landing, the people rush into the streets to see her, weeping to see the Realm’s Delight returned home alive, calling her Queen and throwing flowers at the feet of Daemon’s horse as they ride through the city with Rhaenyra curled in his arms, too weak to ride on her own, too anxious to get home to wait for a wheelhouse to be summoned. It is only then, at her insistence, that Daemon reluctantly reveals that Rhaenyra is in fact Queen -- her father was killed the night Rhaenyra was kidnapped, along with her step-mother and half-siblings. If only Daemon had been there, perhaps he could have stopped it, but he had been banished by Viserys yet again. Rhaenyra swears she will never banish him, and in fact she would make him her King Consort, if he will agree.

Years pass, and Rhaenyra recovers from her ordeal and grows into a strong, just Queen, with her husband Daemon always at her side. She has borne princes and princesses, the next generation of their house, and all in life seems to be exactly as she would want it. Until a sellsword, sentenced to death for his crimes, levels an accusation that it was Daemon who planned the kidnapping all those years ago that resulted in the death of King Viserys and Queen Alicent and their children. Who is Rhaenyra to believe? The convicted murderer seeking to gain her ear by spinning an unfortunately true-sounding story? Or her husband, her uncle, the father of her children, the man who rescued her all those years ago? And even if the sellsword’s story is true -- even then, could that possibly change how she feels about Daemon?

-Yet Another Mob Story: When the Targaryen mob family split over her father’s decision to marry outside the family, Rhaenyra sided with her uncle Daemon against her father and his new wife (her ex-best-friend). Years pass in a stalemate, until one day Rhaenyra sees Daemon’s new lieutenant Criston having lunch with Alicent and realizes that Criston is a spy sent by the Hightowers. She and Daemon devise a plan to get rid of Criston without letting the Hightowers know that they’re onto them. Really just PWP, with a little murder on the side, as a treat.

-Jane Austen Emma AU: The age gap is the same! I have no solid ideas for this one but that little detail makes me crazy!

-The Last of Us AU: I’ve posted about this once before, but the basic idea a modern apocalypse AU where Rhaenyra and her gay husband Laenor and their mutual husband Harwin (and their three sons) have to try to make it to the isolated bunker house of Laenor’s sister Laena and her husband Daemon (and their two daughters), and bad shit happens along the way but Laenor and Harwin are so determined to protect their sons and their wife that they sacrifice everything to keep them safe and get them to Daemon and Laena, up to and including their lives. Eventually Rhaenyra shows up on Daemon’s doorstep in half-feral mamabear mode, absolutely willing and able to kill anyone or anything that threatens her sons, only to find that Daemon has recently lost Laena and is similarly ready to murder to protect his daughters, and they have to come to a hesitant and wary understanding and then eventual partnership and co-parenting of their collected children. Maybe Targaryens naturally run hotter than most people, so are immune to the zombie fungus?

-Dragonriders Of Pern AU: Meleys, queen dragon of Weyrwoman Rhaenys, has laid the golden egg that signals the impending birth of the next queen dragon. Daemon (or D’mon for you Pern purists), rider of bronze Caraxes, is sent on Search to find young women to be candidates for the hatching of the new queen. In the company of other bronze riders, including Corlys and Laenor, he returns to the Hold where he grew up, where his older brother Viserys is now Lord. There he meets his niece Rhaenyra for the first time, a young woman of strong will with a natural talent for the telepathic communications of dragons. When she speaks to Caraxes as though his rider hardly existed, Daemon knows that Rhaenyra is destined to be the next weyrwoman. And as he trains her in the ways of being a dragonrider, it slowly dawns on him that he would allow none but him to stand beside Rhaenyra when Syrax’s first mating flight finally comes.

Edit: omg I forgot one! This one is so clear in my head but so difficult to describe in brief, so I’ll keep it short:

-An Eye For An Eye: The night Aemond loses his eye, when Alicent comes at Rhaenyra with the Conqueror’s dagger, her downward slash hits higher than it does in canon, striking Rhaenyra in the neck in a life-threatening wound the maesters scramble to stitch before the Crown Princess’s life slips away. With what she fears might be her last breaths, she commands Daemon to protect her sons, and he swears to hear he will protect her family -- or avenge them if he cannot. While the maesters try to save Rhaenyra, Daemon sits vigil with Rhaenyra’s sons and his daughters, watching over them while they sleep and talking long into the night with Laenor. But when Rhaenyra, only barely mended, asks for Daemon to be brought to her bedside, Aemond decides that his mother’s attempt at justice falls far short of his standards, and moves to exact his own revenge while Daemon is away...

[writtenonreceipts]

Heya, absolutely love your writing!😍I was just wondering when you have the time and all, would you consider writing something about rowaelin where basically the same thing happens to Aelin as it did Lyria, but only modern au (Lyria never happened).

Thanks so much, it means a lot that you like my stuff!  Thanks for the prompt.  It kinda got away from me… I got in pretty deep with plot points and stuff, haha.    Based on Characters from the Throne of Glass series.

Warning: don’t let the first half fool you, there’s gonna be tears and pain.

#

All My Love

It started at seven fifty-nine on a Friday night.

Rowan Whitethorn was hurrying through the City Park cursing at the crowds of people standing in his way.  He should have remembered that the city tradition of open mike night at the gazebo by the waterfront would have made the park nearly impassible.  But did people have to stand so close together?

He’d gotten of late from his at the police station and was a short walk away from his small apartment.  Or what would have been short had the park not been infested with tourists and and locals alike.

The sun barely began its descent leaving the sky graced with gold and hues of pink.  Heat from the record high day lingered, despite being so near the lake.  Normally Rowan might enjoy the view, but there were too many people invading his space.  At least he could be happy that he wasn’t assigned the shift to make sure things didn’t get out of hand.

He moved down the stone path that cut behind the gazebo and took a shortcut back to his apartment.  As he dodged a running child, however, something caught his attention.

Actually, it was someone.

She stood in the center of the gazebo; her long and willowy limbs were leaning against a white piano while she laughed at something her companion said.  Her long, golden hair swept down her back in soft waves.  Even a distance he could tell she was beautiful.  The woman patted her friend on the shoulder and moved to sit at the piano.  And then she started to play.

The notes were slow, soft, gentle.  A tune tumbling forth with careful measure.  The song wasn’t one Rowan recognized, granted he knew next to nothing about music.  Yet the longer Rowan listened the more entranced he became by the song.  Slowly, he picked his way around the gazebo so he had a better angle on the woman as she played.

The sight was indescribable.  In all honesty, it looked like the woman had become one with the music.  She moved with each caress of the ivory keys as though she herself were dancing to the song.  Her eyes shut softly and an easy smile moved across her sinful mouth.

It was glorious.

When the end of the song regretfully came, the park erupted into cheers and applause.  A man came forward and began speaking into a microphone setup.

“The ever wonderful, Aelin Galathynius,” the man called out, his words were eaten by another round of applause.

Aelin.  Aelin.  Aelin.

She offered the crowd a dazzling smile as she politely declined to play another song.  A small band replaced her, three guys and a rustic looking guitar.

Rowan watched as she descended the small steps to the gazebo.  She greeted a few people with a wave or a pat on the shoulder.  All too soon, in Rowan’s opinion at least, she was forgotten to the new beats of a guitar and low gravely notes of the singer on stage.

There was something about her that called to him.  Rowan didn’t know what it was exactly, but his eyes easily tracked her as she moved up the path that led away from the gazebo and up a boardwalk that wrapped around the lake.  Before he could think twice about what he was doing, Rowan followed her.

He caught up easily to her and his steps on the wooden planks caused her to turn around and meet his gaze.  Her wide blue and gold eyes snagged him immediately and Rowan wouldn’t have minded drowning in them.

A slow smile slid on her lips as she eyed him. “Hello.”

She was confident.  With that smile.  With that word.  With that stare.  And Rowan found himself dumbfounded.

“You don’t usually play on open mike nights,” he said.

Aelin quirked an eyebrow. “You sound certain of that.”

“I would have remembered,” he replied.

She laughed and rolled her eyes as if his words didn’t mean anything.  But Rowan noted the soft blush rising on her cheeks.  She was flattered.  Slightly uncomfortable, but that could have been from performing in front of a crown.  Everything else about her welcomed his advances and Rowan took care to read each and every signal she sent him.

“Dorian forced me into it,” she said, “told me it would be good business for the shop.”

The way she casually referenced the mayor didn’t go unnoticed to Rowan, but he found himself more intrigued by the second part of her sentence. 

“Shop?”  

“Queen’s Place,” Aelin replied, “my bookshop.  And where I teach piano lessons.”

Rowan found himself smiling at the image of her moving through a bookshop, of her sitting with children at a piano bench, at that smile brightening everyone’s day.  

“I walk by it every day,” he said.  He wasn’t lying, but to be honest he’d never given the shop a second glance.  What a fool he’d been.

“Well, now you have a reason to actually come in.”  

#

Waking up beside her was the one thing Rowan knew he would want to do for the rest of his life.

Curled on her side with her legs tangled in his sheets, Aelin slept soundly.  Her hair was a mess and that was entirely his fault.  As were the growing marks on her neck, her collar bone, lower, lower they descended.  

Leaning up on an elbow, Rowan watched her sleep as the early gray light of morning filtered through his bedroom window.  She didn’t stir.  He watched the rise and fall of her chest, how her eyelids fluttered, and the slight pucker of her lips.  

Those sinful lips.

Rowan reached a hand out and gently brushed her hair out of her face.  

They hadn’t been together very long.  Not when you considered how often Rowan worked and the fact that Aelin ran her own business.  They were often like ships in the night.  But each time they passed by Rowan was filled with inexplicable joy.

Aelin sighed softly and reached a hand out.  Rowan captured her hand with his and brought her fingertips to his lips, kissing softly.  A slow, lazy smile spread on Aelin’s mouth and she cracked an eye open.

“Are you watching me?” she asked.

“Naturally,” he said.  He grinned as she scrunched her nose and grumbled.  When she tried to regain her hand, he tightened his grip and pulled her closer to him.

Humming happily, Aelin tilted her head up to accept a kiss.  A long, deep kiss to be sure.

“I love this,” she murmured against his lips.

“What?” he asked, his hands trailing down her bare sides.

“Waking up with you,” she said.  She threaded her fingers in his hair as she pressed closer to him.  “Mornings like this.”

It was the closest they’d ever come to admitting their feelings.  Even though Rowan was certain he was in love with her.  He had been from the moment he saw her in the gazebo playing the piano.  He wanted to tell her of course.  Wanted her to know.  But he also knew what was keeping him from doing so.

His phone buzzed on the bedside table and Aelin cursed into his mouth.  Rowan swallowed the word, absorbing the disappointment it held before pulling away to check the message.

“Work,” he said.

“I know.”

Rowan looked down at her with her eyes closed and hair a halo on the pillow.  He wanted more than anything to make sure he’d always wake up beside her.

#

Maeve Valg was not the kind of person Rowan wanted to work for.  It took him a long time before he figured out what it was about her that made him so uneasy.  She was driven, dead strong, passionate--all good things.  It took him entirely too long to see her cruelty, her pride, her bloodlust.

“All I’m saying Detective,” Maeve said as she leaned across his desk toward him, “is that your skills and specialties are remarkable.  You’d make a difference to your country if you’d consider my offer.”

Rowan stared at the woman.  She had to be in her mid to late thirties--and yet her long dark hair framed a youthful face, full red lips, and devilish eyes.  This was the third time in as many months that Maeve had tried to recruit him for her independent security agency.  Mostly because his former sergeant Gavriel--damn him--had recommended Rowan for the position.

“I’ll think about it,” Rowan lied.

In all honesty, right now was not a good time to even consider changing jobs.  Not when there was a ring burning a hole in the side table of his dresser.  Not when he’d spent the last four months convincing Aelin to move in with him.  Not when he’d just left her side barely an hour ago and he was already craving her touch, her taste, everything about her.

It wasn’t until later that night when Rowan met Aelin at that fateful gazebo that he was finally able to push all thoughts of Maeve aside.  When he was finally able to smile freely at the sight of her in a pale blue dress that clung to each and every one of her curves.

“Hey,” she said as he approached.

Whatever else she’d been about to say was cut off when he pulled her into a kiss.  His mouth slanted almost urgently against hers and he couldn’t help the way his finger dug into her waist desperately.

“Hey,” he said when he finally pulled back.

Aelin grinned wickedly and he knew she was thinking about breaking into the nearest boathouse to continue that kiss.  But all too suddenly her expression turned serious.

“What?” Rowan asked, heart stilling.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked.

Rowan froze, terrified that she knew about the ring. “I don’t--”

“Lorcan told me about Maeve,” Aelin continued.  She rested a hand on his cheek. “Rowan...that job sounds amazing.”

Blinking, Rowan fought against the rising panic in his gut.  He really wanted to find Lorcan and beat his ass, but he was also concerned by what Aelin thought about it.

“I’m not taking it,” he said flatly.

Aelin scowled. “Yes you are.  It’s higher pay for one.  Better control over your work.  Most of it sounds like a security detail.”

“I’m not taking it,” he repeated.

“Babe,” Aelin insisted, “it sounds like a great opportunity.  Why not?”

Rowan shook his head and pulled away from her.  This wasn’t how he wanted to do this.  Not really.  But with the sharpness to her eyes, the determined tilt of her chin--he had to do it.

“Because of you,” he whispered.

“Don’t,” Aelin said, “don’t put this on me.”

Rowan reached out automatically and grabbed her hands tightly in his. “It’s always been because of you.”

And then he was down on one knee while fumbling in his pocket for the ring.  

Aelin gasped and whispered his name.

Rowan looked up at her, the ring in his fingers and tears brimming in his eyes. “I first saw you here.  And I knew then and there that I was going to love you for the rest of my life.  If you let me.  Aelin Galathynius, will you marry me?”

She let out a small strangled noise that was a cross between a sob and something else that Rowan couldn’t decipher but the frantic bob of her head was enough for him to understand what the answer was.

“Yes, yes, yes,” she whispered.

Rowan slid the ring on her finger and his lips on her mouth.

#

When Rowan took the job he still wasn’t sure about it.  But most of his friends were on the crew along with two kids who had just come back from Pakistan.  They were given weeks on end together to learn how they could become a team.

Aelin liked to joke that Rowan had gained five work wives now.  Rowan tried to tell her she was wrong but his words held no meaning.  Not when five out of seven days a week any of the boys in the crew ended up sleeping on the Whitethorn-Galathynius couch.  Usually Fenrys.

Unfortunately those nights grew few and far between as the year went on.

“How does Aelin feel about you spending your honeymoon with us?” Connall asked through an earpiece as they stood stationed around Senator Erawan’s reelection fundraiser.

Rowan could hear the grin in his voice.

“Yeah,” Fenrys added, “didn’t even have time to--”

“Stop talking.” It was Gavriel who spoke this time.  Rowan could see him across the hall walking behind the Senator and his wife. “Especially about my niece.”

The twins cackled.

Rowan shook his head and contained a smile.  As much as he’d been unsure about this job--it had given him some of the best friends he knew.

A gunshot rang out through the hall.

Immediately Rowan had his gun unholstered and turned to the source of the shot.  Out of his peripheral vision he saw Gavriel and Vaughn cover the senator and his wife.  Lorcan cursed over the comms.

“Lost him!”

“Got it,” Rowan replied.  Up on the second floor, a glass balcony overlooked the rest of the hall and a shape darted out of eyesight.  Running to the nearest stairwell, Rowan instructed his team on what he saw.

“Wait for backup,” Gavriel ordered, but Rowan was already gone.

#

He arrived home three days later to a royally pissed off Aelin.

Rowan knew it was bad when he walked into the kitchen to find three perfectly frosted chocolate cakes sitting out of the counter.  One had strawberries lining the top, another almonds, and the third a chocolate cookie crumble.  He was utterly screwed.

“Fireheart?” he called out hesitantly.

He heard the bathroom door shut down the hall and Aelin stalked toward him.  Her hair was pulled into a messy bun and bright red splotches colored her cheeks.  Tears rimmed her eyes.

“Baby,” Rowan said as he stepped toward her.

She shook her head and walked around him to the cakes.  There was already a piece missing from the one with strawberries and she cut another piece off and flopped it on a plate.  

“I am so mad at you,” she said as she stuffed a large bite in her mouth.

“I know,” Rowan replied.

“Fenrys told me what you did.  Gavriel told you to wait and you went charging after the man.”

“I know.”

“You could have died.”

“I know.”

Aelin nearly broke the plate when she threw it down on the counter.  Rowan stared into her brilliant eyes and waited for his next reprimand. “Stop saying that.”

“Alright, I’m sorry,” Rowan said quietly.  He set his bag on the floor and crossed into the kitchen until he stood across from his wife. “We both knew what the job entailed.  And I had to catch the man.

“I was terrified Ro,” Aelin whispered.  She ran her fingers beneath her eyes and sniffed loudly.  “We can’t lose you.”

“I know,” he said, moving so he stood just before her.  He was going to say something else when Aelin’s words caught up to him.  “We?”

Aelin let out a strangled laughing as fresh tears washed down her cheeks.  She looked up into Rowan’s eyes, one hand going to her belly.

“We.”

#

Despite the chaos of his job and despite the chaos of his pregnant wife--Rowan Whitethorn knew that everything was going to work out in the end.  

With Aelin being nearly eight months along, they’d decided together that it would be best to start over.  For Rowan to leave his risky job behind and find something closer to home.  They’d both spent weeks thinking about it, talking to each other, and they’d come to the same conclusion.  They needed their family to stay together.

Of course, Maeve didn’t understand why Rowan would want to leave.  Not that he could make her understand.  Not that any of them could.  Even the rest of the team had understood the decision.  Rowan needed his family.

“Fine,” Maeve relented one day.  She sat behind her desk looking absolutely bored one day.  Running her hands over her desk she sighed. “I’ll let you go, Rowan.  But I just need you for one more job.”

Rowan stiffened at the sheer pleasure in her eyes of what was to come.  She tossed a folder at him.  He opened it and frowned.

Archer Flynn.  

A high end hooker for hire.  Known especially for sleeping with Senator Erawan.

“I need him arrested,” Maeve said.  She sounded as though she were requesting he buy lettuce from the store.

Rowan continued staring at the picture of the man. “I thought we were keeping an eye on Cairn.”

“Don’t worry about Cairn,” Maeve said.  “Mr. Flynn is far more troublesome.  Besides, Cairn is going to be taken care of.”

Rowan didn’t like the dismissive way that Maeve addressed him.  Nor did he like the smile that rested on her lips.

“And just like that,” he said, “ you’ll let me end my contract?”

“Absolutely,” Maeve promised.

For some reason, Rowan believed her.

He left with Lorcan the following day, assuring Aelin everything would be alright.  It was only an arrest after all.

When he and Lorcan found the apartment that was serving as Flynn’s hideout, Rowan should have known something was wrong.

The door was broken in, wood splintered across the floor.  A pool of blood was rapidly growing beneath a form tied to a chair.  Rowan and Lorcan rushed to room to the young Archer Flynn.  His blonde hair was plastered over his brow with a mix of sweat and blood.  The stab wounds in his legs and side were less than ideal.  Looking at all the man’s injuries, Rowan knew there was nothing that could be done for him.

“I’ll call an ambulance,” Lorcan muttered while Rowan continued tending to Flynn’s wounds.

This wasn’t right.  This couldn’t have been right.

When Flynn began to speak, Rowan almost thought it was the man’s dying breath.

“S’lied to me,” Flynn rasped, his words to muffled to understand, “to all of us.”

Rowan lifted the man's chin. “What are you talking about?”

“Cairn was always the problem child,” Flynn whispered.  And then with a final breath--Flynn died.

Rowan let Flynn’s head fall.  What the hell was going on?

His phone rang in his pocket but he ignored it.

“Lorcan, he’s dead,” Rowan called out.  His phone continued ringing.

Lorcan reentered the room, phone pressed against his ear.  The man’s dark eyes were wide and a frown deepened his already deep scowl.

“Lorcan?” Rowan asked.

Clearing his throat, Lorcan shook his head. “We gotta get back home.”

#

Rowan had never liked hospitals.

They were death traps in his opinion.  Everyone he loved would always go in and never come back out.  So for the first time in a very long time, he found himself praying.  Praying that for once, he would be wrong.  That for once, something good would come of the hospital.  That for once, he wouldn’t be left alone.

“She was stabbed multiple times in the chest,” a doctor said, “they’re working on her now.  But you need to prepare yourself.”

They baby.  What about the baby?

The words never left his lips.  He couldn’t bring them too.  Or maybe he did say them and the doctor ignored him.  Either way, Rowan’s mind was churning too much.  Something had gone wrong.

“It was Cairn,” Gavriel said from beside him.

Rowan had no idea when the man showed up but he didn’t really care.  He stared at a wall advertising things for sale and brochures for various recovery programs.

“He got to her somehow.”

Maeve was supposed to take care of the man.  She’d said so.  Rowan didn’t say the words aloud.  They wouldn’t do much good.  Because as much as a bitch Maeve was, there was no way she could have predicted this.  No way she could have known that Aelin would be dying.

And where had Rowan been?  Off doing a damn job that didn’t even need him.

It wasn’t until three o’clock in the morning that Rowan learned that his wife was dead.  The baby too.

It wasn’t until three o’clock in the morning that Rowan allowed himself to cry.  Silent tears.

It wasn’t until three o’clock in the morning that Rowan heard the snip-snip of heels across linoleum.  Echoing through the halls.

“Oh, Rowan,” she crooned. “I am so, so sorry.  You have to know I never imagined this to happen.”

“Do you know where he is?” Rowan asked.

Maeve’s brows shot in the air. “What?”

“Cairn,” Rowan repeated, “do you know where he is?”

A smile spread over Maeve’s cherry red lips. “I promise, I will help you find him.  No matter what it takes.”

It wasn’t until three o’clock in the morning that Rowan said good-bye to his wife and made one final vow to her.

He would never forget.

#

as always, thanks for reading my dears!

tags:  @tottenhamboys20 @morganofthewildfire  @aelinchocolatelover @more-espresso-less-depresso-xx

[cryoculus]

Lunaris [7/11]

!! HEADS UP !! Trigger warnings for graphic depictions of violence and blood imagery in this chapter are put up as well, albeit minimal.

Navigation

Chapter Title: Eclipse Pairing: Yokai!Akaashi Keiji/Reader Word Count: 3,263

***

Going on an hour's worth of a jog is a staple for quiet Sunday mornings like these. You stuck by routine religiously, despite that ground-breaking revelation the previous night because...well, you didn't have a reason to remain idle. So what if you're the perpetrator for stealing a yokai's heart? The moment you opened your eyes at the first breath of dawn, you were unknowingly filled with a newfound resolve.

You weren't going down without a fight. 

"Oba-san, I'll head off now!"

Your grandmother was in the middle of her morning prayers, so the lack of a response was understandable. But even when you were already descending the steps from the foyer, you could still feel her gaze following your retreating form. For a moment, you had half the mind to go back and tell her that you were okay. That everything's fine. That you definitely won't let some half-dead creature get the best of you because you didn't have the blood of the Amatsukis running in your veins for nothing.

Each breath came out deep and smooth. After years of running across fields and ovals, it's only normal that you've got your breathing under reins. The temperature wasn't too sweltering for your taste either, and the comfortable feel of the wind breezing past your shoulders only egged you on to pick up the pace. 

Descending the hill in these runs granted you a view of the sun climbing up the sky once you passed the roadside overlooking the city. The waking dawn was slightly obscured by a thicket of trees and overgrown vegetation, but the daylight managed to pierce through the leaves either way—bathing your skin in warmth of the sun. 

The only thought that managed to surface in your mind was, "It would suck if I died and didn't get to see this anymore, huh."

"(Surname)?" 

You stopped in your tracks the moment you spotted a familiar face climbing up the hill. Bokuto, who also seemed to be going on a run from the clothes he's wearing, gaped at you, surprised.

"Bokuto-san?" you breathed, trotting over to the ace. "What are you doing here?" 

He grinned back at you, and it's hard to miss the way the morning light made the gold of his eyes glimmer even brighter. "I was just headed up the shrine to offer some prayers," he said, but his initial cheeriness faltered for a moment—regressing into quaint embarrassment. "And, uh, I kind of wanted to check on you. After what happened last night, and all."

"Oh," was all that you could manage, remembering last minute that you ditched him without any sort of explanation. You coughed out an awkward laugh, rubbing the back of your neck as you averted your gaze. "Ah, yeah. I'm really sorry for just leaving you like that. Did Sumi and Kazuto walk back home with you?"

Bokuto shook his head. "Nah, they were still watching the lunar dance. I had to go home by then, anyway, so it wasn't a big deal."

So he didn't know about your little delirious episode at the shrine. You felt the unease that you didn't know had been crawling beneath your skin dissipate, even a little. The last thing you'd want is to explain something so outlandish to Bokuto, of all people. From his reply, it seemed that Itsumi and Kazuto could have witnessed that, but were thankfully yet to corner you about it.

"Anyways, since you're here, do you want to grab some breakfast downhill?" he offered, a kind smile playing at his lips. 

You thought that, had you spent the previous evening like any normal high school girl dreamed—watching the fireworks side-by-side with the boy she likes—maybe you would have agreed. Maybe, if it was your own heart, and not a yokai's, that was keeping you alive right now, you could have indulged yourself in Bokuto's not-so-subtle advances. But that wasn't the case at all. These were the circumstances you had to live with. 

And you were going to see them through until the end.

"I'm sorry, Bokuto-san," you sighed, training your eyes back on the sunrise. "I'd...rather be alone right now."

Before he could even utter out any response, you were already running into a sprint, taking one of the off-road pathways where he couldn't follow you. Having spent your childhood aimlessly wandering the hill—committing each of the paths that ran like veins across the rich forests around you—you knew perfectly well how to hide in a way where no one could find you. 

Leaves crinkled under the weight of your running shoes as you slowed your strides, eyes fluttering shut as you let the glorious birdsong ring in your ears. But your moment of tranquility was interrupted by the steady beeps coming from your watch. With a sigh, you cast it an uninterested glance, seeing that your first twenty minutes were up and you haven't even burned half your required calories.

You let yourself lean on one of the tall trees in the area, chuckling breathlessly.

"Tonight for sure."

  Undoubtedly, Akaashi had been right when he said the moon shines brightest in the cemetery uphill. 

With each step you took as you ascended your usual path, it was as if Tsukuyomi favored only this patch of land across the country and nowhere else. But even though the moonlight spilled across the hill like it typically did, it was like its residents were in hiding. You didn't hear any small animals scuttling about. The cicadas seemed to have hibernated early for the night. And even your grandmother retired to her bedroom before the clock even struck at 8 P.M.

"Don't go outside," she had warned with a reproachful kind of sternness. "Remember what I told you."

But you wouldn't be able to move forth with your plans if you merely cooped yourself up in your bedroom. So, when you were sure she was already fast asleep, you grabbed one of her old oil lamps from the storage room, lighting the wick with a single match before you began your trek uphill. 

The gate to the cemetery was gaping wide when you reached the summit, and you let out a stuttering breath to somehow ease yourself. The small bottle containing the blessed water from the shrine's well felt heavy in the pocket of your sweats as you darted your gaze around for any sign of him. When you were met with nothing but the whisper of the stale wind, you gazed up at the sky—the moon overhead slowly, slowly being swallowed by the shadow of the sun. 

Your fingers coiled tighter around the lamp, forcing yourself into hyper-awareness. If Akaashi's identity as the lunar goddess' offspring was anything to go by, you were almost too certain that the occurrence of an eclipse will affect him somehow. Whether it will strengthen him or weaken him, you didn't know. But what you did know was that, if you were going to face him, it had to be tonight.

"Your penchant for making questionable decisions was entertaining at first, but this is just suicide, don't you think?"

Then and there, the charm that's kept you safe all these years glowed with its usual, telltale white. You grit your teeth when a whirlwind blew past, and you suddenly felt his hot breath fanning the nape of your neck. 

"Who said I had any plans to die?" you murmured, a challenge underlining your words as you faced him. 

Akaashi looked as infuriatingly normal as ever with his loose shirt, gym shorts, and volleyball shoes. The only thing that gave away his demonic heritage were his ruby red eyes and the sneer that gave you a flash of fanged teeth. 

"The fact that you came to me already seals your fate," he chuckled, animosity oozing from his words. "I am going to kill you."

But even if he could very much put a hand through your chest like he did in your dreams, you had an inkling that Akaashi wouldn't do it. Despite the menacing aura that enveloped him, your instincts were telling you that it was all for show. Was it his heart in your chest whispering all these little clues to you? Was that why, even though you definitely should have alerted the shrine of his presence, you couldn't bring yourself to do so?

"Are you sure about that?" you tested him, meeting his vermillion gaze head-on. "If you really wanted to kill me and take your heart back, wouldn't you have done it already?" 

"Who are you to question a yokai's timing, human?" he hissed, eyes shining with an anger you knew was staged. The words were curled around a growl, yet...you felt no fear. Just a wave of calm washing over you like how the moonlight swathed your form in its bright splendor. 

Shucking common sense out of the window, you stepped forward until you were directly in front of the yokai. His mask of hostility faltered for a split second, and that alone confirmed your suspicions. He didn't want to do this. Not at all.

And it's for that reason alone that you gathered the courage to take his still-human hand, placing his palm flat against your chest like an open invitation to murder you. Akaashi's gaze hardened. You could feel him straining against your grip, but you kept his hand in place, even if your charm glowed even harsher with the close contact.

"Can you feel that?" you murmured, casting a sidelong glance at your parents' gravestones just a distance away. "That's the heart that saved me when I was little. The heart that could've saved my mother's life, but instead she chose to give to me. Your heart." The tone of your voice nearly broke with the words, but you steeled yourself. You couldn't afford to lose face—not now. "You can take it back if you really want to. You have all the right to do so...but that's not what you wish, isn't it?"

For a moment, his form flitted between human and yokai, like he was keeping his control from slipping. Akaashi bared his fangs at you with a fearsome snarl, and at the same time, you noticed that the moon overhead had already been enveloped by the sun—painting its surface a bright red, much like the yokai's eyes. 

"Do not speak to me as if you know my pain!" he roared in a garbled voice before he lunged at you with breakneck speed, pinning you to the ground before you could even react. 

Pitch black darkness enveloped the cemetery, and the only source of light came from the oil lamp that was haphazardly knocked out of your grasp and the warding charm on your wrist. The fear that you should have felt the moment you practically offered yourself up to him was beginning to catch up. His hands, with talons now protruding from them, wrung around your throat, cutting off circulation with a single squeeze. You desperately gasped for air, blunt fingernails clawing at his hands, but to no avail. 

"I did not kill you on-sight because I was biding my time for when I'm most powerful," Akaashi spat, tightening his grip that you nearly lost your vision for a moment. "But a human like you doesn't need any further explanations. You're nothing but—argh!"

In the midst of his little monologue, you managed to fish out the blessed water in your pocket. It was a miracle, really, that you had the foresight not to seal the cap too tightly. The minimal drops that got on his skin sizzled in your ears, and when you felt his grip falter, you kicked him with as much lower leg strength you could muster. 

Akaashi rolled onto the grass, writhing from the pain of having been struck with blessed water. The sight sent an arrow of remorse flying straight through your chest. He could've ripped your—his—heart out when he had the upper hand, but he didn't. 

"Why are you holding back?" you asked, backing away cautiously as you picked up the oil lamp. "You told me the moment you found who it was that had your heart, you would take it back. Were you lying?" 

Asking a yokai if he was lying was a little laughable, really. They were creatures of darkness, so lying was right up their alley. But Akaashi...Akaashi had always been different from the rest.

As you walked closer, you held the lamp in front of you—the bright orange glow of the flame illuminating the sight of Akaashi's bloodstained face. Crimson tears lined his long lashes where they pooled at the edges of his eyes and cascaded down his pale cheeks. The burn marks from the blessed water had already healed, but it seemed that the agony was yet to ease.

"I just want it to end," he croaked, voice sounding all kinds of broken. "I am neither alive nor dead. Without my heart I can never know peace." 

Your gaze softened, heart rippling with pity at the sight of him. "What do you mean?"

Akaashi heaved a long, exhausted breath, hauling himself up to his feet before doing his habit of looking up at the sky—at the moon. And for a moment, you liked to think that the expression that shadowed his face was but a glimpse of the age-long suffering you couldn't even begin to comprehend. 

"I was the first of my mother's children," he began, his words coming out much more even than earlier. "Keiji, she called me. The name I was given was meant for a leader that would keep all the children of the moon in check. I was supposed to be up in the heavens, ruling alongside her. But that wasn't what happened at all." 

"The first time I descended onto the Earth, it was to bless the first worshippers of the lunar deities with prosperity. But..." Akaashi faltered for a moment, intently affixing you with his red-eyed gaze. "It was a trick. Their entire offertory was a ploy to get me to reveal myself so they could subject me into their godless experiments."

His tale had you frowning for a moment. You weren't very certain, but it was like you've already heard this before...

"Every thing and every creature should always have a counterpart. That was the philosophy they lived with," the yokai reiterated as he flexed his talons before his eyes. "It was the same for the gods they so-religiously worshipped. In order to maintain the balance in the world—"

"There should be a force that opposed even the gods themselves," you continued for him, lips quivering with horror when you finally realized what was so glaringly familiar about his narrative. "That's...that's from the origin story of the first yokai. He was created by delusional worshippers..." There was a pause in your response, like you couldn't quite form the right words, before you forced yourself to look back at him. 

"You're the first yokai?" 

For the first time in a while, you saw Akaashi's mouth quirk into a tired smile. "I'm glad you're not making me regret sparing you."

You ran a hand through your hair in utter disbelief, your mind spouting out questions you weren't even sure you want to know the answers to. Not only was he Tsukuyomi's eldest son, he was also the first yokai cursed to wander the earth for all eternity. If you cross-referenced your grandmother's story with Akaashi's, it would add up why he would want the shrine's help in reaching out to his mother. 

He just wanted to go back to his home in the skies. 

"My grandmother told me about the yokai who infiltrated the shrine years ago, whose heart they sealed away," you spoke again, half-wondering if you were even in the position to demand even more answers. "Why do you need your heart to ascend to the heavens? It's the crux of those worshippers' utter blasphemy. Surely, you don't—"

"Gods do not have hearts, yes," Akaashi interrupted, pressing his mouth into a thin line. "But the object that keeps my existence anchored to reality is hidden within it—the essence of the moon. When I said I would take back my heart, that was what I meant, and obtaining it does not require me to kill you."

Not even your grandmother's strict lessons covered that little tidbit of information. You found yourself ghosting a hand over your chest, feeling the steady thrum of your pulse beating underneath your fingertips. Akaashi's eyes roved over your much shorter frame, and the relief in his eyes looked much more genuine than the wrath he had bluffed with earlier. 

"This world is cruel, (Name)," he sighed, and you realized that it was the first time he addressed you as such. "I cannot converse with my mother in this form, nor can she personally interfere with the affairs of the earthly realm. If I were to return, it would be of my own effort alone."

"It took me centuries to find her sacred land right here, and just before I could finally go back, my heart, my essence, was taken away—and I was made to suffer once again by the same people who swore to worship us." The somber ring in Akaashi's voice made your heart sink with regret. Regret for ever questioning him. Regret for the shrine's cruel actions against him. 

At the same time, the cemetery was beginning to brighten all around the two of you. Sparing a quick glance at the sky, you saw that the sun's shadow was already receding, letting the moonlight rain down where it shone brightest once more. 

"If you're going to go back," you told him, seizing his hand and, mimicking your previous actions, flattened his palm over your heart, "it's not going to be tonight."

He gave you a tired look, like he couldn't believe you were still being stubborn after everything he's told you. "And why is that?"

You breathed in deep, suddenly made aware of how cold his fingers were and how your charm no longer glowed alarmingly. But you couldn't give them another thought when you stared at Akaashi dead in his now-gunmetal blue eyes. 

"I'm going to prove to you that the world isn't always so cruel," you told him, conviction lacing your tone. "And I'm also going to show you that the life your heart has given me won't ever be put to waste."

Akaashi could only stare at you with his lips slightly parted in muted surprise. "You know you don't have to do this, right?"

"But I will," you insisted. "And you're going to let me do so anyway."

There was another lengthy pause in your conversation when you saw the desolation on his face morph into something lighter, more at ease. For a fleeting moment, you thought that he looked more human in those few moments than he had in the entire time he pretended to be so. 

"Perhaps, I do have a weak spot for someone as persistent as you," he relented, pinching the bridge of his nose with exasperation. "But I have only one request before you go through with this madness of yours."

You cocked your head to the side as he withdrew his hand from your grasp. "What is it?"

Akaashi pulled his lips into a lopsided smile, his cold, porcelain fingers reaching up to tuck a loose tuft of hair behind your ear. 

"Don't make me lose faith in the human race a third time, (Name)." 

[storyunrelated]

Candidate for Completion - Run For It!

Run For It!

After all, the next best thing after actually being able to stand outside in the glorious sunshine is being able to gaze longingly out of the window at someone else who is. Yes? 

Yes.

WHAT

Up! Up! Always up! Never slowing for an instant!

Up! Up! Always up! Never again to befoul our eyes with the sight of what we left behind us!

Yesterday is dust! Tomorrow, the heavens!

Always up!

It is the future. Things are better now than they were because it is the future and in the future things are better.

There is a city. There may be other cities but they do not matter.

In this city life is perfect. All is provided. The city is vast. All anyone might ever want or need is held within. Without? Unimportant. The walls protect those who live in the city from the dangerous world beyond, keeping at bay the storms, the blizzards and those disgusting people who live just outside.

In the city there is an event. It is called the Run. It is meant to happen annually but the list of those who put into the Run (known as ‘Entrants’ while participating, ‘Participents’ once they’ve died and ‘The Winner’ if they’re the winner) is put together by a machine no-one understands, so it happens somewhat randomly.

The list of Entrants is thousands long.

The Run is a series of events wherein which the list of Entrants is whittled down. These events take many forms. All are lethal. All are recorded, broadcast and viewed. Events continue until there is a winner. Then the Run stops.

Then everyone forgets about it and moves onto whatever they can find to entertain them next.

And then it happens again.

And so it was.

WHO

We mean well, we’re just not heavily invested in the results. That’s all.

Originally, in my old version of this before it became longer, all of the characters were deliberately nameless. In this longer version this is not the case, and the idea is for the story - such as it is, being made up of lots of little bits - to be full of characters with odd, random names who are developed enough so that when they die (and they WILL die) it matters just that little bit more. And so it was.

In this the only two that really stick out for me in my mind are an old married couple who inexplicably make it right through all the way to the end and a grandfather and granddaughter who both got entered together, the grandfather making it his mission to ensure his granddaughter gets through alive.

Just so he can fail, obviously.

WHERE

“And here’s one of the Entrants now! So, you’re one event in - how are you feeling?”

The Entrant - a young woman - was wide-eyed, rocking backwards and forwards while staring at nothing, trembling like a leaf. She still had a little dried blood on her face that the hoses hadn’t managed to get off, but it didn’t look like it belonged to her, so it was probably fine.

“I have to go home,” the Entrant muttered, not having heard the question at all. “I have to go home I have to go home. If I win I can go home. If I win I can go home. I just have to win. I win I can go home. And so it was and so it was and so it was and so it was and so it was and so-”

She trailed off, but they’d heard enough.

Always good to see such enthusiasm and positivity at so early a stage.

So where exactly is this story supposed to go?

It actually does - in my head at least - have a beginning, a middle and an end. The beginning consists of some fairly slower bits that exist to convey the mood and function of the world, show the Run being setup, show some of the characters getting puled int.

The middle consists of the events, at which point the bodycount really kicks in.

The end consists of none of it having mattered at all. And so it was.

Bits and pieces of it are done (as evidenced by these quotes) it’s just a case of doing enough to give it structure, seeing what holes remain and then filling those up. Then standing back to, uh, admire the results?

WHY

“You’re a person until it no longer benefits us to consider you as such, at which point you are a problem. Problems are solved, at which point they are forgotten about. At which point we are all much happier.” 

Run For It! exists primarily as a vehicle for me to meditate on and articulate my disgust and contempt for the human race.

In it, people are at best a very basic level of benign and what benevolence does exist is completely smothered by a world run by the greedy on a foundation of the indolent. Most people are lazy, and most others exploit this laziness because exploiting it is easy and rewarding.

The suffering of those Entrants involved in the Run - the Entrants people are watching die - is not especially moving, not unless they’re someone personally connected to the viewer, at which point is becomes important. Otherwise it is not important. No-one cares anyway.

All problems are someone else’s problems and, besides, this is the future so, hey, all those nasty problems are in the past anyway. Things are perfect now and things are the way they are because they are the way they are because they are the way they are. Nothing should change, nothing can change.

The Run doesn’t happen for a reason. It’s not a show put on by the Powers That Be to keep the population distracted from their flagrant corruption - the population are aware of it and are also aware that it’s just the way things are.

The Run doesn’t happen to keep the population cowed or scared - the population doesn’t really care what happens to it, or at least doesn’t care as long as it isn’t happening to them directly.

The Run isn’t some futuristic attempt at poulation control or anything like that. The city continues to rapaciously consume what remains of the planet much like it always has. It doesn’t care.

The Run happens because the Run happens because the Run happens. One time they tried to stop it and people got upset. Because if the Run didn’t happen then it didn’t happen, and that can’t happen because the Run happens.

And so it was.

WELL

Willard did his best to try and disengage and open up his harness, to get out, but his harness had not been designed to do this, and so Willard got and went nowhere. That his efforts became increasingly frantic the closer the flames crept did not help him.

“Let me out,” he said to himself, fingers trying to twist a catch that had been welded shut, fingers cutting themselves when the catch abjectly refused to budge. “Let me out let me out letmeoutletmeoutletmeOUTLETMEOUT!”

I’m not the best judge of these sorts of things but even by my standards I kind of get the feeling that Run For It! isn’t exactly a story to fill people with sunshine and enthusiasm.

Given that the story includes:

 - Cannibalism.  - Weeping teenagers having to hack the heads off their significant others with machetes.  - An ad-emblazoned robot breaking every bone in someone’s body because they asked if they could go to the toilet.  - A man being unable to escape from a burning car because the safety harness is welded shut.  - People being shot in the face.  - Viewers gaining sexual gratification from watching the suffering of strangers.  - A machine that calculates how long the dying will take to die in a hospital so they can be thrown into the gutter and the family charged for whatever time they would have taken up otherwise.  - A man using a very expensive drone to fire very expensive missiles at people who have done nothing wrong and feeling a delicious thrill as he watches them get blown to bits.  - A lot of crying.  - People wetting themselves in terror/because they’re so engrossed by watching strangers suffer they forget to go to the toilet and end up just licking the screen and sitting in their own sodden underpants.  - A man mastubrating while being watched by the corpses of people he just had shot but finding it doesn’t make him as happy as it normally does.

I’m struggling to think of who the audience might be.

Other than, you know, me.

So this one is kind of a pet project more than anything else, really. Oh well.

And so it was.

[operafantomet]

SOME THOUGHTS ON THE POTO OSLO PRODUCTION (SEPT. 9, 2018)

PHANTOM: Espen Grjotheim

CHRISTINE: Mira Ormala

RAOUL: Carl Lindquist 

CARLOTTA: Solveig Kringlebotn

FIRMIN: Hans Marius Hoff Mittet

ANDRÉ: Arvid Larsen

MADAME GIRY: Jannike Kruse

MEG GIRY: Charlotte Brænna

PIANGI: Markus Bjørlykke

Warning: this is not a review. It’s a full novel. With photos. 

PRESET Absolutely gorgeous. Defined inner proscenium arch copied from Palais Garnier, and a huge-ass chandelier with a drape marked "Opera de Paris" and in a shape that looks like every child's idea of a ghost. In the back what could be a repaired wall, or the back of a set, or just an abstract wooden structure. What I liked about this preset, apart from the general beauty of it, is that it clearly establish you in the Palais Garnier, not burned down, and not in an abstract opera house. It places the story in a defined space.

AUCTION Unlike in the Romanian production, where the were auction audience sitting with their back to the actual audience, the auctioneer, workers and old Raoul faced the audience directly. Auctioneer to the right, and Raoul to the left. A bit slow-paced, without the eerie atmosphere of the original, but nice. Raoul reacted early to the monkey musical box. They almost made it seem like he was without words, and stretched towards the musical box without the intention of bidding for it, and by doing so he just kept increasing the bid. Which was an interesting take on it.

OVERTURE The candelier. Is. Fucking. Awesome. First gently lit under the drape, then the drape is slowly pulled off, upwards, and the chandelier comes to life. It stays put in its regular position all through, which of course is a better way of camouflaging that it's gonna drop at one point. With curtains down, a projection spelled out "The Opera, 30 years earlier". Second half of the Overture seemed 2004 movie inspired, with ballerinas rehearsing, workers pulling dress racks and carrying materials, and the Hannibal set slowly being assembled. This was a nice transition and a nice way of staging the overture when you can't rely on the movement of the chandelier. Also good use of "stage hands" (male ensemble) here and throughout the show, with them constantly sweeping floors and lighting lamps.

HANNIBAL Set in red, gold and blue, and with a stronger Roman/Victorian hybrid look, this too felt like it took a clue or two from the 2004 movie. But apart from that it had an independent nerve in staging, and a visually nice one. Carlotta and her maids, dressed in red and gold, was one formation. The ballerinas, in gold, red and blue, another (and with a very nice choreography too, en pointe and very varied). The elephant, Hannibal and the soldiers, with their armour and spears, a third. And then you had the old and new managers. The sets was made up of various mountain pieces, partly solid set, partly painted backdrops, which is a nice nod to Hannibal's journey with elephants across the Alps.

The ballerina costumes had "bellydance belt" embellishment with coins around the waist/hips, which gave them a nice sound when moving. It also felt like a classical Hollywood movie touch.

Here too progress felt a bit slow, maybe because the managers, Lefevre, Reyer and co didn't really milk the comic reliefs. But vocally it sounded glorious. Good classically trained voices, and lots of volume. Solveig Kringlebotn (Carlotta) and Markus Bjørlykke (Piangi) have splendid voices; it's a pity they are featured as presumedly bad singers, as was the case in the 2004 movie. To me, Carlotta's fear of Christine feels more poignant when it becomes clear that both are very solid singers, but only one pours her heart and soul into it. Always a pet peeve of mine. But there ya go. You could hear both singers were on top of their game, anyway. Another movie nod was that Carlotta was featured with a dog, a white one that frankly looked fake even from the back of the house, but which featured her as the perfect diva, and she sung a small part of "Think of Me" to the dog.

The accident part was a sand bag with landed just where she had serenaded the dog (no dogs were harmed in this show!). That worked very well. Her tantrum also included throwing a high-heeled shoe at one of the managers and then doing a "silly walk" when strutting out in anger. Very nice touch, haha. The build-up to Christine's small audition was wel very handled, with more and more people leaving stage, part angry about them not getting to audition too, and partly because they didn't bother to listen to her. Come her shiny moment they all returned to stage, which was a great touch.

THINK OF ME The good: Mira Ormala (Christine) has a grand and operatic voice with a light touch. Gorgeous. The scene was staged with the light darkened, the "Alps" kept and an added gate in front of a pathway with lit lanterns. And framed by the golden proscenium, karyatide boxes and the ever-present chandelier, it was visually very beautiful.

But also: so Mira Ormala is Finnish, meaning Norwegian is not her native language. And frankly, you could very much tell. Especially in the first couple of scenes she had a heavy accent, to the point where it was hard to tell what she was singing. As the lyrics in large is a merge of the Danish and Swedish libretto, I knew the lines. But I still had trouble hearing exactly what she sung, and people not already familiar with translated versions or even the English original can't have understood much. This will obviously even out, and it was less obvious in the second act, but as of yet it took away from the overall experience. And it's a pity, cause vocally and acting wise she is on top of her game. Also, still not loving the Elissa costume. The design sketch is gorgeous. But the actual stage costume looks disconnected in bodice and skirt, and the skirt screams for more details that would be visible beyond the first rows. I also wonder if there were a costume mishap that night, as she had to hold the skirt with one hand for the second half of the scene. She had a scarf too, which I think is nice for any actress as it gives the hands something to do in an otherwise immobile song.

When all that is said, she absolutely nailed the cadenza (Brightman version). I also liked how light has been used to signal moods and situations. Whenever the chandelier is lit, you're in the opera, probably seeing one of the mock operas. When the wall light in box 5 is lit, it's because someone is either sitting there, or lurking. Those small, well-thought out details.

ANGEL OF MUSIC / LITTLE LOTTE / MIRROR SCENE This was pretty much identical to the original staging, apart from the tilted mirror set being replaced by a large, round window. But as with the replica version, the dressing room was placed askew at right side, with a table with decorations, and the window acted as a mirror. To the left, in the back, you had the ballerinas in Degas costume doing a dance rehearsal. So technically very safe, but also one of the most beautiful and period looking scenes. Christine was dressed in her dressing gown, as was Meg, which was another nice touch. Charlotte Brænna (Meg Giry) has a solid and clear voice, and sounded nice with Christine. Lyrics here were part based on the Danish ones, and part original.

WHY OH WHY does everyone and their mother say "Christine" in English? We're talking a French setting and a French-Swedish character, which calls for either guttural R og rolling R. No-one in Norway pronounce "Christine" in English, and here we're talking a fully translated Norwegian libretto. It was absolutely distracting, especially since all in the cast did it, and the name Christine is said a LOT througout the show. Is it due to an English-speaking director? Either how, it reminded me of the Japanese cast albums, where they do the same. Everything in Japanese, except the name "Christine" and some apparently untranslatable expressions like "Angel of Music" and "I love you".

Carl Lindquist (Raoul) is Swedish, but has much less of an accent than his Finnish co-star, and he did an extremely solid Raoul. Grand voice, loving portrayal, backbone where needed. Also tall and handsome, in all ways such a likeable Raoul. Glad to see that side being maintained. The likeable side, that is.

Espen Grjotheim (Phantom) is... Ramin. Meaning, grand voice, volume, with some carefully selected milder moments, and that young and handsome flair. His first appearance in the Mirror scene didn't, I think, nail him as an absolute authority, but part due to the staging and part due to the translation it became a bit clearer that Christine was unsure whether he was directly sent from her father, the Angel of Music, or whether he was the Phantom. Here and throughout the show she seemed half in trance and half conflicted and awake whenever she dealt with the Phantom. The mirror scene was pretty much as the original, except Christine was more curled up like a ball in the window post, conflicted, confused, and then going out a window instead of through a "swinging" mirror.

TITLE SONG Loud, pronounced, and quite new in its staging. Cool. Large drum set, with a staircase spiralling down from left to right, and with a door in the middle. Slightly like the Restaged Tour set, except opposite direction and no "magic staircase". They took a long time descending, Christine being absolutely conflicted. And looking beautiful in flowing white dressing gown and the blonde wig. Then down to the boat, which lo and behold still is the rowing boat with oars. While they cross the "lake" (front stage with mist), the drum set turns to reveal the largest huge-ass organ in history. That said, not unlike the 2004 movie layout, but bluer, more torn, eerier. Grjotheim seems to have worked a lot with making the rowing trip believable, first spending a bit of time pushing it out from shore, then rowing, then docking and making a point out of the rope, tying it to a pole. Christine sings the cadenza from the boat, and stays there for part of the MOTN intro.

MUSIC OF THE NIGHT / STYDI The lyrics here too seemed to be a merge of the Danish and Swedish lyrics; the Danish ones in large. This scene was very well executed. The Phantom, being so eager to introduce Christine to his music, showing her vocal score after vocal score, and she reading it with great interest. Not a music lesson, not an absolute seduction, but a gradual surrender to the music of the night. Very well executed, and here also very well sung. Money notes spot on, and nice softer parts. Borderlining cheezy singing the top note standing on his organ stool, but OK. Visually impressive. At some point Christine also picked up the monkey musical box from a corner and put it next to her. The scene pretty much ended with Christine falling asleep on the floor, possibly exhaused from reading music and being introduced to "a strange, new world", and the Phantom sitting next to her, saying that together “they'll make The Music of the Night". Yeah, we all read between the lines there, but it wasn't done in a cheezy way. It was subtle enough.

The monkey musical box is quite small, which probably is more believable but it also means large chunks of the auditorium will never see it. You just see the cast relating to some kind of object, and it makes sound. But it's clear Christine wakes up by it playing. As this version doesn't have candles on the lake, the lyrics are changed to reflect that, commenting on how cold and damp it was instead, but otherwise the lyrics were probably 80% identical to the Danish ones.

Unmasking... effective, brutal, Raging, physical Phantom. Christine curling up like a ball again, into the wall/raw mountain in the grotto. The Phantom ends the rant (these time pretty much with the Swedish lyrics, with "Satan" and all) sitting at the stool by the organ, and Christine goes over to return the mask. Then back for a boat trip.

MAGICAL LASSO Beautifull staged, with curtain down, and ballerinas in Degas costume sneaking across stage, young girls being scared in the semi dark, and it doesn't exactly get better by Buquet popping out of box 5 with a noose and a tale to tell. The ballerinas here don't go screaming at the end, they just obediently strutt away when Madame Giry interferes. Not sure I'm a fan of people climbing in and out of the boxes directly to the stage, if you want the audience to believe it's the Garnier boxes... you'd kill yourself. But that's done throughout the show, so also here with Buquet climbing out to face Madame Giry. Jannike Kruse is an excellent Giry, by the way. Both vocally, acting wise and pure stage presence. She also very much looks like an ex-dancer.

NOTES / PRIMA DONNA The staging overall felt quite similar to the replica version, with people entering through a door at the back of the room, and the action taking place in center stage. But instead of a manager's office, we were here in an undefined backstage space, with elements of the same architecture as the Auction set. Not much to tell here, except Carlotta once again had brought her fairly fake dog, and that Hans Marius Hoff Mittet (Firmin) seems kinda overqualified for the role. But he makes a fine figure. Same With Arvid Larsen (Andre).There is less of "artistic André" and "money-making Firmin" interaction in this production, and again it feels like the comic reliefs are fewer or less pronounced. What I *did* like was the addition of two stagehands/sweepers which partly stood there to head the latest gossip, and partly got the manager's newspapers thrown at them.

The scene doesn't directly go over to become Il Muto, like in the 2004 movie, but the build-up is similar, with Carlotta being in center, and various characters, stage workers and ballerinas around her. The end of the scene is with her, with roses in her hand, climbing a spiral staircase, and when on top she is showered in rose petals, while rose-covered curtains come down around her. It's not borderlining cheezy, it IS cheezy, but in a tongue-in-cheek way. And I liked that during the applause Carlotta comes out to take her solo applause, with roses in hand, as a proper primadonna. Too bad, of course, she is nearly swept off stage by one of the workers.

IL MUTO Here the "Figaro's wedding" bed is gone, and instead there's a classicistic pink/golden Rococo interior with a golden fireplace mantle in front stage, and selected furniture and a screen. A fop group clad in bright candy colours, and Christine in a boy's costume, going into a maid's costume, and back to a boy, is the main players. Here too the skirt seemed to have a mishap, as she had to hold it in place much of the scene.

It was wonderful to get a scene where Solveig Kringleboth weren't restricted by "bad singing", but could go all in. She has a fantastic voice. But also a comical timing. They did the extended "addio" part, I can't remember if that stems from Vera Borisova in Hamburg or the 2004 movie, but it did get solid laughs. They also went for the Phantom messing with her voice with a spray, which is brought in by a maid, instead of the Phantom's ventriloquist skills, again something that felt like a nod to the 2004 movie. Not a fan of THAT. But Kringleboth delivered some awesome croacking.

DANCE OF THE COUNTRY NYMPHS Again so impressed by the pure beauty of this production. The Sylvan Glade costumes are mint fresh, feather light, and goes well with the forest landscape. The dance, featuring no shepherd only 6 ballerinas as Meg doesn't dance with them apart from Hannibal, features a nice and classical looking choreography, with added whispering, almost running of stage and gesturing. Then the backdrop suddenly rises to reveal the already-hung Buquet. Less dramatic but still absolutery eerie take on his death.

ROOFTOP "Why have you brought me here": There was a nice piece of symbolism here. Last time we saw the drum set and stairs, it was the Phantom part luring and part dragging a dressing gown clad Christine down into the darkness. This time, same scene, same costume on Christine, but with her heading for the Rooftop, out in open air, away from the Phantom, and Raoul trying to part persuade her and part physically trying to pull her down again. And it does make sense to have Christine wear her "in-between" dressing gown when she is going from one costume to another.

AIAOY was set at the very top of the dome, and that was visually very nice. It was yet another scene lit very blue, but at least here it gave the idea of moonlight and a nightly atmosphere. AIAOY was very well sung, to grand voices, and it was also quite gentle, with Raoul sitting down next to Christine and putting his jacket on her shoulders, and they both appearing kinda lost, kinda vulnerable. Beautiful.

"I gave you my music": More Danish lyrics. Luckilly I like them a LOT. This one was pretty much the Phantom walking around the bottom of the dome, singing his curse, and the scene ending in curtain down. Fairly underwhelming, but then again, I can see why a more dramatic follow-up could have felt overpowering given the more gentle AIAOY.

CHANDELIER CRASH Oh hell yeah. With the Il Muto cast taking their bows, that chandelier pretty much fell straight down, free fall, with flashes and smoke. The best part wasn't so much the people sitting right under it, as they probably didn't react in time. But the people higher up in the auditorium saw the chandelier fall, and the blackout made it unclear just where it stopped. The reactions were fun to listen to. Hahaha. It's also a HUGE and very glittering chandelier, so the threat is real. Kinda. Got lots of applause. And what a change from the skimpy chandelier they used in the Romanian production. Holy wow. Money well spent.

MASQUERADE I was excited to see this one. I mean, a masquerade. The possibilities! It opens with a curtain spelling out "Six months later". The managers sings in front of the curtain, and then it's opened slightly to reveal a glimpse of the inside, and some figures comes out, dancing like mechanical toys. This is followed up when the curtain opens, and we see an almost mechanical Christine dressed in a white angel costume (OH COME OOON), with tulle skirt, glittering heart shaped bodice and feather wings. Around her two or three other figures in their poses. Cue: music, and the whole gilded, mirrored room comes to life, with music, formations of dance, and costume sin large held in blue, gold/silver and black, complete with ornate masks and accessories. It exploded (literally) with metallic confetti. Two golden figures “broke loose” from the gold walls and started dancing.

Still... It lacked the oomph. I found myself missing... something. I cannot pinpoint what. A more threatening undertone. More figures resembling the Phantom. Something to keep the audience on their toes. It was lots of beauty and movements, various formations, but not that dark undertone I would have wanted. In that aspect, and in the use of the mirrored halls, it reminded of the Restaged Tour Masquerade.

That said, it was a well crafted scene, with cool choreography, and the room itself offered a gorgeous frame. It was even cooler with Red Death appearing and everything turning bright red (which was a welcome change after all the blue). I didn't quite get why the wall with the window he appeared from had to be pushed forward, as you couldn't really visually tell, and the machine pushing it being kinda noisy. He could very well have stayed put. But I do understand the need for some movement compensating for the lack of walking down the staircase. His disappearance was kinda meeh too - a smoke explosion and him running out the window behind him. With more smoke or mirrors (pun intended) it could have worked well, but the smoke was too concentrated and too little to hide his exit. So my favourite thing was the sets turning all red, that was very effective, but I would have boosted the overall mood and effects.

Raoul's backstage chat with Madame Giry took place in the now deserted mirrored hall. That both made sense and was a gorgeous backdrop. It also meant Raoul could refer to the Phantom through pointing at the window where he just was. Very good acting from them both, and a nice exit by Mme. Giry through one of the huge mirrored doors.

NOTES II / TWISTED EVERY WAY When the managers don't have an office, what do you do? Set the scene in the mirrored Masquerade hall... except... all the confetti was still on the floor. It was distracting, for one. It also made me wonder how long after this scene is supposed to be set. Seeing how they've featured super eager sweepers all through the show, you'd think one of them would be hired to clean out the ballroom. But no. At least everyone had changed their costumes.

Again very much the Danish lyrics in action, especially in "Twisted Every Way". Nice formations here too, especially a moment of Carlotta, Carlotta's maid and Piangi going in circles around Christine while the others were plotting in front stage. It's always so nice to have action even if the main action is somewhere else.

It's a nice little feature to present Meg as a very young ballerina, in ankle-length blue dress and a single side braid. The ballet rats were supposed to be young girls, probably between 10 and 16 somewhere, so also Meg. But I'm not sure I loved the same on Christine. If we're to go by Leroux or indeed even the original stage version she's somewhere between 18 and 22. She is also ENGAGED, albeit secretly so. Seeing here in a white, short young girl's dress therefore didn't sit right by me. Also, Carlotta wears the same costume here as in Notes I. She is the star of the opera, presumedly a fashionista. I think a second dress for her is pretty mandatory. Although her hat IS fabulous.

But the ballroom set served as a nice setting for the end of the scene. Instead of having Raoul curse the Phantom out towards the audience, surrounded by others, he is all alone in the mirrored room, and once again he is using the Phantom's mirror appearance spot to refer to him, or rather to curse him. That worked very well.

DON JUAN REHEARSAL Pretty much identical to the replica one, but in front of the curtain and with the candles exploding at the piano rather than "grills" lighting up in red. Wonderful mechanical movements and singing by the cast when the piano played. Oh yeah, and the Masquerade confetti was still around.

WYWSHA / WANDERING CHILD Christine running up the stairs again, and into the rooftop, with the scene taking place at the base of the dome. I have many questions as to why. But I guess this version features her eternally trapped in the opera, be it in the cellars, on stage or at the rooftop.

Extremely well sung by Mira Ormala, and also very well acted. She conveys a lot of feelings in small gestures. WYWSHA seemed to be more based on the Swedish translations. They also went for "Three long years..." in the second verse, as seems to be a common thing in non-replica productions.

Wandering Child have the Phantom lurking at the right side of the dome, gently singing, whispering, very much wanting to appear like her father. And once again we face a very conflicted Christine, in doubt of her father figure, her angel and her Phantom. Raoul emerges from the shadows too, at the top of the dome, in a version doing the graveyard (or rather dome) trio. He eventually slides down the dome to break Christine out of the spell she seems to be in, with her slowly walking towards the Phantom. Raoul is then in front of her, protecting her. With him interfering, the Phantom. Pulls a gun? Indeed. Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes we both, Oh yes we both, Oh yes, we both reached for, The gun, the gun, the gun, the gun. At this point Christine instead places herself in front of Raoul, as the Phantom wouldn't shoot her? and they slowly walk backwards until presumed safe. The Phantoms flungs another curse from the same spot where he stood at his first curse, and walks off. Again an anticlimax. AND WHY WOULD HE PREFER A GUN OF ALL WEAPONS? Why not the magical lasso? I have so many questions to this whole scene, and the choice of the dome and a gun.

BEFORE THE PERFORMANCE Again pretty much like the replica version, but with the sweepers/stagehands being handed the guns to shoot the Phantom, rather than policemen. Prerecorded sounds of doors closing and "I'm here..." was more extended and spread than usual, and worked very well. With box 5 also lighting up when the voice came from there, audience would instinctively understand that it meant the Phantom's presence - or him pretending to be there, anyway. Well played out.

DON JUAN / POINT OF NO RETURN A Moorish set, with several red curtains, and more stylistic 18th century peasant/worker's costumes. A Carlotta dressed in red and not even pretending to bother to act or sing properly. Her walking across stage in a "fuck all of this" manner was the best. Again great ensemble voices.

PONR was intense. A bit more tangoesque orchestration, with distinct beat. Christine appears to notice right away that it's the Phantom, and looks to the managers in the box for help. They don't notice anything. A Phantom and Christine spending most of the song at opposite ends of the table in the middle, and Christine slowly surrendering. You wouldn't think it would be such a tangible moment, but it really was intense and steamy. The repressed feelings and what is not shown is often just as effective as bluntly showing it. Here the Phantom is leaving it up to Christine to surrender - but at the same time he’s totally not playing it fair.

As all non-replica productions they do have Christine "table dancing". I still don't know why all productions are so eager to somehow feature Christine on the table, but at least here it wasn't dancing, rather slowly crawling across the surface. At this point, facing the Phantom, she looked hypnotized again. They both sang "...point of no return", where the last syllable is usually clipped due to the first unmasking. She instead "unhooded" him gently, and he went straight into "Say you'll share with me...", not moving an inch. At this point gunmen emerged was ready to fire, but stopped by Raoul in the box. But only when dead Piangi, solidly pierced by a sword, was discovered with a scream, did things pull into action, and with the Phantom pretty much carrying Christine out through a drape in the sets.

Oh yeah, and lyrics very much based on the Danish ones. Oh yeah 2, the Masquerade confetti was still around.

DOWN ONCE MORE / FINAL LAIR Down once more was literally so - down the drum set staircase now so familiar to the audience, slowly turning, removing the site of dead Piangi. Great singing from Grjotheim here, fab top notes. This time Christine both tried to physically flee out the door in the middle, and in trying to push past the Phantom, to no avail. Quite creepy then that Madame Giry and Raoul emerges through this very door shortly after. Did she lock it? Was it already locked? We'll never know.

Nice moment with the cast climbing the top of the stage, with lanterns, giving the feeling of closing in on the lair. Oh yeah, the Masquerade confetti was still around under the lake “mist”.

Again the boat scene, pushing off shore, rowing, carefully tying the boat to the pole. Christine spending the beginning of the scene in the boat, just like in the First Lair. First at the "This haunted face..." did she stand up and eventually climb out of the boat. By this time Raoul was climbing down a hithero unseen ladder at the right of the stage/organ set. How would he be captured by the Phantom? Of course, the boat's rope and the pole it was tied to. First a noose around the neck, and then tied to the pole. Serious tying up here. Not all that "magical lasso", maybe, but very efficient and it also made sense why Grjotheim made so much out of that rope in previous scenes.

Not all that much to tell in moments leading up to the kiss. Of course, with deformity on the opposite side, the kiss happened on the right side of the stage. A beautiful, tender and heartfelt moment. Then, the Phantom pulling a knife, and by one single cut he untied Raoul (OR DID HE? Seemed like a bit more hassle to get out of the rope, but anyhow).

And now for the plot twist and a serious dealbreaker: Raoul and Christine leaves. And it had me wonder - would she be coming rowing back alone? Would Raoul come with her? Hmmm. Nope. She doesn't return at all. And to be frank, that IS a dealbreaker. Very much so. Instead the Phantom lifts up the monkey musical box, and sings into the air, in the direction where she left: "...Christine, I love you..."

And now for plot twist number two: Instead of Meg sneaking in to find the mask, the stage went all dark. Then old Raoul in wheelchair at left side, spotlighted. Then Christine in Masquerade costume and the Masquerade opening pose at right side, slowly spotlighted. Then, far away in the back, the Phantom’s organ, empty, and the monkey musical box, spotlighted. And lights out. HUH?

OK... I partly liked it. Because it indicates that the whole show we've seen was old Raoul's memories, flashbacks he’s had at the auction. In sync with Leroux it's pretty much Raoul's story we’re told. And that I rather fancy. On the other hand, it was... a bit strange. Those three figures, no real ending. Maybe because it was so different. Maybe because it was strange. I dunno. But I DO like that they went for a completely different ending, not really changing the story, but very much changing specifc details seasoned audience would expect to see. It was, if nothing else, clever.

SO ALL IN ALL? A ridiculously beautiful production. The set design is, in my opinion, the most successful one of all the non-replica versions out there. Because it's intelligent, it's beautiful, it looks expensive and well crafted, and it adds to the storytelling. It's moody. A++++

It's a production not sacrificing the role of Raoul to highlight the Phantom and Christine. They still manage to steal the show, and their relationship is well told, Raoul doesn't have to be a bad dude or a fop in order to achieve that. And making sure it's a strong TRIO has always been the key, in my book. It explains the role of Christine better. I am very happy to see that underlined here. Grand voices throughout, with three super solid leads, great supporting cast, and great ensemble roles. Well put-together, well sung. It's so cool to see a cast where there are no obvious weak links. Strong througout.

I didn't dislike the costumes, but I didn't find them very striking either. They worked well in context, and closeup photos reveals lots of attention taken to details. But it's not really anyone I remember as interesting. I would want for more colours, and/or more Victorianesque flair to the ladies. And especially Christine. And more oomph to the Phantom. More cloaks, or hats, or swirly possibilities. Bling. Something. That said, a big exception was all ballet costumes, from Hannibal to Degas to Sylvan Glade. These worked very well, and were beautiful. Droolworthy. I also think the costumes are way more well-crafted and fitted in Oslo compared to Bucharest. The latter had the feeling of stock costumes and quick fixes, and maybe not surprising seeing they only did a handful of performances. Here they’ll play for months. So a big improvement since Bucharest, but there are still things I would have added or "oomphed". This production lacks its “signature costumes”, the ones everyone want to photograph, draw and copy, maybe apart from Christine’s white angel costume. Maybe.

I have little opinion on the orchestra. Everything sounded good and amplified, well timed and energic. But I'm glad they got a well-deserved bow on stage after the performance.

So yeah, very well worth seeing, and especially for the scenography and some unique takes on key scenes. And also for a very good cast. Warmly recommended from a seasoned fan. IF THEY COULD ONLY STOP PRONOUNCING THE NAME OF CHRISTINE IN ENGLISH!

[sinceileftyoublog]

Big Ears Festival 2019: 3/21-3/24

BY JORDAN MAINZER

While it’s easy every year to spot patterns among the Big Ears Festival lineup, the fest is one equally unconcerned with trends/scenes or purism and instead fascinated with rediscovering and redefining canon. Across the worlds of experimental/ambient music, jazz, and folk, the curators aim to spotlight both those with impressive CVs and ones taking advantage of their newly acquired musical platform. As I wrote last year, you can become as much of a festival curator, too, something that wouldn’t be possible if all of the performing artists didn’t have an equal seat at the table. 

But it’s not just that the festival is diverse in terms of genre, gender, and race. It’s that the sets--diverse within themselves--are born of organic collaboration. You could camp out to see various performances celebrating 50 years of ECM Records, about as established in the world of music as you can get; minutes away, you could catch someone like Lonnie Holley (who has been releasing music only for this decade) perform a one-time collaborative set with half of Fugazi. Perhaps a Big Ears Festival isn’t what it is for you without witnessing the artistic marvels of seemingly perennial participants like folk heroes Rhiannon Giddens, Abigail Washburn, Bela Fleck, and Rachel Grimes, or Knoxville music organization Nief-Norf. If that’s the case for you, they’re thankfully hard to avoid, unless for some reason you’re averse to simultaneously seeing them play with legends like Richard Thompson, Bill Frisell, and Harold Budd or contemporary genre defying masters like Mary Lattimore.

Rhiannon Giddens and friends busk in Market Square

As for this year, most sets had some elements of drone, if not deep listening, some more explicit than others. Alvin Lucier performed twice throughout the fest, joined both times by Stephen O’Malley and Oren Ambarchi and once by Joan La Barbara. Budd was featured three times--I caught his set with Nief-Norf and Lattimore, which started with minutes of ambient gong playing and eventually seeped its way into the crevices of the cathedral. Vijay Iyer and Craig Taborn, who just released an album together called The Transitory Poems, dueled on piano in the dark Tennessee Theatre, fast-paced, anxious, and monotone with some occasional typical flowery playing from Iyer. Rafiq Bhatia’s performance of his Broken English album combined his drone guitar picking with rolling drums and bass/synth and visuals, its peaks and valleys exuding the most exciting elements of post rock. This Is Not This Heat perhaps provided the most exhausting, exhilarating performance of the entire weekend. Multiple drummers, three-part chanted, breathy harmonies, woodwind shoved right into the microphone--it was the type of set that transformed you physically as much as mentally, probably the most at the festival since Swans in 2015.

Rafiq Bhatia performs Broken English

Charles Hayward of This Is Not This Heat

Experimental elements delved into even the ECM sets. Frisell and upright bassist Thomas Morgan toed the line between minimal and sterile, succeeding most when their songs felt like short sonic experiments. (The two have a great album out on ECM next month, Epistrophy, recorded at the Village Vanguard in NYC.) One of the surprise standouts of the entire weekend was the Mathias Eick Quintet. The Norwegian trumpeter created tones that were soft, somber, evocative, and weepy, a refuge from the rest of the band’s noise, and his rarely used singing voice was truly haunting, especially when harmonizing with violin. (It didn’t hurt that Eick was beaming on stage, grateful to be there and follow up Frisell, one of his idols.)

Mathias Eick Quintet

Mercury Rev

Normally, this experimental spirit pervades the entire lineup, so I was a bit surprised to see that two of the festivals headliners were full-on rock bands, even if ones pushing the boundaries of pop with their grand ambitions. You can’t deny that Mercury Rev and Spiritualized are gloriously uncool and maybe even a little corny, but their strict adherence to their artistic visions made their sets highlights of the weekend. To call Mercury Rev singer Jonathan Donahue “theatrical” is the understatement of the century; his Wayne Coyne-meets-Daniel Rossen coo is bested only by his miming of conducting an orchestra. The band provides instrumental fodder--half Wonka-esque chamber pop, half psychedelic glory--for Donahue’s sense of wonderment. Of course, the set was heavy on Deserter’s Songs, their opus that permanently shifted their aesthetic for the dreamier, and probably a good thing considering their more Big Ears-y album was their underwhelming latest, a Bobbie Gentry covers record. 

Jason Pierce of Spiritualized

As for Spiritualized, they’re touring off of a great new record, And Nothing Hurt, and they presented it in full during the latter half of the set. Jason Pierce sat perched on a chair for the entire set, donning sunglasses and reading off of a lyrics sheet. The hope that pervades the new record was actually bested by the song choices for the set’s older songs: “Hold On”, the glorious “Come Together”, early 90′s gem “Shine A Light”, the yearning “Stay With Me”, “Soul on Fire”, and the happiest version of Ladies and Gentlemen weeper “Broken Heart” you’ve ever heard, saddled with doo wop harmonies from the backup singers. Sure, the band delved into some noisy interludes and a strobe freakout during “On the Sunshine”, but for the most part, this was the new Spiritualized, pleasant slumbers and all.

Sons of Kemet

But to call Big Ears a festival for the mind and for the sheer listener is reductive; mobile music reigned supreme just as much as still vibrations. Perhaps this was perplexing to a crowd that tends to be older and very, very patient. A jazz fan I spoke to was perplexed by the currently thriving South London jazz scene, two of its brightest, Shabaka Hutchings-containing stars, Sons of Kemet and The Comet Is Coming, providing two of the most stimulating sets of the festival. The former’s combination of saxophone, tuba, and drums times two yielded a set that slows down only when the audience--not even the band--physically needed to do so, their latest album Your Queen Is A Reptile one of the most vital jazz records in recent memory. Yes, it’s also that neither Kemet nor Comet are jazz purists (more like rock-adjacent and jazz-inspired) that might have otherwise overwhelmed the ECM crowd, but by the end of both sets, even casual onlookers were hooked. The latter’s combination of King Shabaka’s saxophone, sort of hype man Dan Leavers (Danalogue) on Roland keyboards, and Max Hallett (Betamax) on drums was more primal despite their sound more electronic and space-themed, incorporating aspects of ambient techno into their funk jazz. Their latest record Trust in the Lifeforce of the Deep Mystery has established them and especially Hutchings as major players in the global scene, if they weren’t already.

Junius Paul (left) plays bass for Makaya McCraven’s (right) set

The Chicago area brought a couple scene-specific acts to the festival, though one was certainly more niche: Jlin’s pseudo-footwork was an admirable retrospective of her now untouchable three-album discography (though I’d love to see Big Ears book a collection of footwork producers). And Makaya McCraven, whose Universal Beings was a relatively global album (despite what he says) offered a blissful, nimble set of slow-burning grooves from that record and Highly Rare, with a band that included bassist Junius Paul and guitarist Jeff Parker of Tortoise.

Overall, what made Big Ears Festival special this year is what makes it special every year: that any one person can come away with an experience 180 degrees from another person. But that’s increasingly happening because the festival refuses to be pigeonholed into one realm of experimental music, sometimes acknowledging that you don’t have to be experimental at all.

[ancienthinduism]

Celebrating Our Goddess Supreme ~The Bengali way...DURGA PUJO !

FOR 5 days every year,KOLKATA city of the Eastern state of India - West Bengal ,explodes into a frenzied whirligig of devotion, hoopla and merriment.FEMALE POWER REIGNS SUPREME AS THIS FESTIVAL CELEBRATING THE MOTHER GODDESS AS KALI,SARASWATI & LAKSHMI IS VERY BIG .This is the ‘Mother’ of all celebrations : DURGA PUJA also known as DURGA PUJO.Here’s a peek into Kolkata’s own Mardi Gras - part religious,part cultural,wholly social.This year the ‘Pujos’ are from september 26 - 30,2017.

Durga Puja the biggest festival of ‘Bengalis’ ,is also considered as one of the social events of India. It is an auspicious festival of Bengalis which is also referred as a 10 days of carnival in the state of West Bengal and eastern state of India. In Kolkata the capital city of West Bengal and other neighboring states, magnificently created puja pandals are erected and are major attraction. Magnificent Pooja Pandals are unique in terms of their materials, theme and shapes. It is truly a delight for eyes to watch such magnificent Pandals of Durga Puja and amazingly carved goddess idols. For complete 10 days of celebration, a spurt of fanfare is easily sensed and that too especially on last 5 days of the festival. Bengalis consider Durga Puja as a wonderful festival celebration to reconnect with family and friends. In fact the air gets filled with the festivity during this time of the year. Read further to know more about Durga Puja in Kolkata.

THE HISTORY BEHIND THE ‘ PUJOS ’

 Since centuries, Durga Puja celebrations have been a significant affair for Bengal, however the community gatherings and para (neighbourhood) preparation dates back to 17th- 18th century A.D, when several zamindars and aristocrats would hold Lavish pujas bringing together the entire locality under one roof. For instance the Aatchala Puja in Kolkata, which was started by renowned zamindar Lakshmikanta Majumder in the year 1610 or the Shobha Bazar Choto Rajbari at 33 Raja Nabakrishna Road in Kolkata, which was initiated in the year 1757. Even outside of Bengal, the trend of hosting lavish pujas with artful Goddess Durga idol and extravagant pandals has become popular. We will now take through the Most distinct traditions of this “ GLORIOUS FESTIVAL of the Kolkata.

PART 1 ~ THE PREPARATIONS 

 Durga Puja festival preparations commences one or two months in prior to the celebration dates. Just like Diwali bonus offered to employees in North India, in Kolkata Puja Bonus is offered to employees of both government as well as private organizations. In fact, many Pre-pooja bargain sales are also offered by shops in Kolkata as they get huge amount of sale during the festival. The festival is in fact welcomed with great enthusiasm by every household.

PART 2 ~ THE MAKING OF THE IDOL 

Many years back, Durga Puja festival was celebrated within the families at home and now it has turned into a community festival which is celebrated at Puja pandals. Few months prior to the festival celebration in Kumartuli which is a place near to Kolkata, amazing idols of goddess Durga are given shape. It is a famous place for production of beautiful idols of gods and goddesses. Here the expert artisans show their talent in making idols of Goddess Durga, Lord Kartikeya, Goddess Saraswati, Lord Ganesha, Goddess Lakshmi and the demon Mahisasura which are required for the festival.

PART 3 ~ THE GRAND DECORATIONS

On Durga Puja, pooja pandals are the main attraction. Many people are much talented in developing Puja Pandals (huge covered stage for Puja) with use of wood, paper, bamboos, plastic materials, clothes and other amazing stuffs. Innovative ideas of making Pandal set ups and goddess idols are done with great devotion and a lot of money is erected in Puja Pandals which are all decked with mesmerizing art work. In fact many pandals are also built in shape of world famous monuments or structures.

PART 4 ~ THE CELEBRATIONS 

The major days of the celebration of Durga Puja celebration are seventh, eight, ninth and the tenth day. Basically, the celebration of Durga Puja gears its pace on the 6th day of celebration that is on Maha Shashti. The major rituals of Durga Puja start on the 7th day. The priest is called upon to chant the mantras, shlokas of Puja and perform aarti at the pandal of the Puja. Moreover, there are many cultural activities held such as dance and song competitions as well as games are also organized during last few days of the festival celebration. Many professional artists like singers, dancers, musicians are also called for singing bhajan and stuti of Goddess Durga. Apart from pandal decorations, the city is also illuminated and decorated with displays of colorful and sparkling lights. Also educational institutions as well as offices are closed during four main days of Durga Puja celebration. Indeed, Durga Puja is the biggest and most cheerfully celebrated festival of Kolkata or West Bengal state generally .

HOW THE BONGS CELEBRATE NAVARATRI ~

a. The Dhunuchi Dance 

Dhunuchi Dance is called Dhunuchi because it is performed with Dhunachi . Dhunachi is a native Indian incense burner used during Aarti. The Dhunachi has a flared shape and held by a stem and it has a large cavity at the top. Dhunachi is traditionally made of earthenware so that heat is insulated from the handle and it can be hold in arms for long duration without any discomfort. Dhunachi is lit by placing burning coal at the bottom, which ignites a layer of slow-burning coconut husk, on which incense (usually camphor) is sprinkled. In Eastern India especially in West Bengal, Dhunuchi Nritya is very common during Durga Puja.Dhunuchi dance is performed with two Dhunachi in hands (with single Dhunachi in each hand) along with the frenzy beat of Bengali country drums known as Dhak. In many communities, Dhunuchi competitions are organized and some dancers perform Dhunuchi dance with as many as three Dhunachi by holding third Dhunachi between the teeth. 

b. The Tradition of ‘SINDOOR KHELA’

It is an age old ritual that on the day of Durga puja, women apply sindoor/sindur on the goddess’s feet or forehead and then start smearing it to all the married women around. However, unmarried women or widows are not allowed to celebrate Sindoor Khela. Sindoor Khela celebrates the pride that Bengali wives take in having a husband and to wish a long happy life of her better half. The customary “Sindoor Khela” marks the end of the biggest festival of the Bengalis. It is the time when all the actresses in Kolkata get together and splash each other with the vermilion.

c. The Durga Puja of the ‘BONEDI’ families of Kolkata 

During Durga Puja festival at Bengal the star attraction are the different Barowari Pujas conducted by several clubs and associations. The themes of Pandal and idols of these pujas change every year. Latest themes of Pandals and idol are the talk of the town.Generally overlooked by the Pandal hoppers are the Durga Pujas held privately in several families some of whom were affluent and stalwarts in yesteryear, specially during the Colonial Regime. Although the financial condition is not affluent as it was in earlier days (mainly because the Zamindari system was abolished post independence), yet these families till date perform Durga Puja with dedication maintaining all the rituals. The Pujas are all of 100+ years, some even 200+ and 300+ years old. Everyone of the families gather to celebrate Durga Puja with pomp and show as an annual get-together.

On the Pooja days, devotees wake up early in the morning, and observe a fast until the Durga Anjali that takes place early in the evening around 6-6:30pm, after which they break their fasts with fruits and sweets. Soon after the cultural activities and programs kickstarts, and so does the joy of pandal hopping. With so many beautiful pandals lined up across the city, several families try to make it a point to visit as many pandals in a day as possible.The pandals are often lined with many food stalls, selling the best Kathi Rolls, kebabs, fried fish, biryani, other savoury and sweet snacks. The round of gorging on delicious food ends only on the evening of Vijay Dashami with a good serving of several Mughalai & Indian delicacies like,Mutton Biryani or some Mutton Kosha and loochi (a close cousin of poori).

                    ~ (The sumptuous traditional bengali Navaratri meal)

FIND BENGALI DURGA PUJO CALENDER HERE - OM SHAKTI - Om Krim Kali

May her blessings remove all obstacles from your path of life as she removes the darkness from the universe…. Happy Durga Puja

[battingforhours]

England’s win at Newlands

December 2019 — January 2020

A regret of mine is that I don’t spend time writing about sport in the immediate aftermath of matches – an optimist would say it’s a product of a sociable and busy life, but the reality is probably one of laziness – but this sporting impasse brought about by the concerning coronavirus pandemic does afford the conditions to reflect and relive some of those experiences.

Watching five days of cricket in front of one of the world’s most iconic backdrops, with England sealing victory with less than an hour to spare, was truly magnificent. Hindsight and recent events have only served to sharpen the memories, and accentuate the array of emotions that sport – and particularly sport like that – brings you.

The road to Newlands was a long one – not least because the five travellers decided to begin the trip in Durban, pre-empting an east coast Boxing Day series opener. When the schedule landed Centurion with the First Test, the logistical impracticality of a trip to the Highveld meant that a Garden Route extravaganza was planned in its place.

Despite it halving the amount of cricket we’d see, this was probably the best forced outcome of the trip, as it opened up a whole week to travel along one of the great coastal roads in the world, stopping off at some mesmerising places along the way. Playing cricket on the beach on Christmas Day in the humidity of Durban was fantastic, as were the wildlife tours which included monkeys, birds and the Big Five around Plettenberg Bay. Knysna’s idyllic lagoon and rugged coastline provided a particular highlight. And all the way from east to west, plates were full of meat and not at all expensive.

Of the five travellers, three had family members resident in the Western Cape. Hermanus provided the venue for the first of the encounters, which beautifully combined friends and family with nostalgia for past visits, and provided invaluable insight into (white) South African life – not least when the braai was fired up and covered with assorted meats.

The tour party split into two separate family bases for New Year and Newlands – the university town of Stellenbosch tucked beneath the hills half an hour’s drive outside of Cape Town, and the leafy suburb of Tokai to the south of the city. The motorway between the two offered a humbling glimpse of the other South Africa, with a vast township extending into the plains. It was hard to escape feelings of guilt and awkwardness as the still stark societal divisions played out around us in everyday life.

New Year was marked with a picturesque walk from Constantia Nek to Kirstenbosch and back, with an ascent of Table Mountain on foot the following day – Cape Town’s beauty was obvious. Over the course of these opening days we caught our first sight of Newlands itself, a quaint oval beneath the hills. We’d made it.

Whilst there had been some lively debate about how to get five of us from two separate locations safely to and from Newlands, once again it was a generous relative who solved our problem by offering two car parking spaces at their flat a stone’s throw from the rugby stadium. This provided five days of security, peace of mind and stress-free travel. The travel plan worked like clockwork on the opening morning.

England won the toss and elected to bat, and we took our seats towards the front of one of the many blocks brimming with Brits. Given that tickets for five days came under £60 per person, it was little surprise that the local support was disproportionately outweighed by the visitors. As play began, so did the Barmy Army’s dawn chorus – Jerusalem. A stirring way to start.

Newlands is one of the best places to watch cricket in the world. Modest stands and grass banks packed with spectators, competitive action in the middle, all set against a stunning mountain backdrop. It offered a view that did not get tiring at any stage across the five days of cricket. In the slower moments of play, you could sit back with a drink (readily offered to every spectator by an army of coolbox-wielding salesmen) and bask in the glory of its setting.

The atmosphere and the backdrop were enhanced even further by the personal subplot of having not one but two Kent players in the England side, with the remarkable possibility of seeing them both at the crease together. Zak Crawley was making his first appearance of the series, brought in to open the batting for the first time after Rory Burns had managed to ruin his ankle playing football. Joe Denly was never supposed to have a Test career, being more of a one-day player, but he has by no means disgraced himself through his application and bloody-mindedness at the crease. He’d also outlasted the fashionable but hopelessly misguided pick that was Jason Roy – a triumph for Kent over Surrey, and for the principles of the old school.

Unfortunately, the dream of seeing the two at the crease together was ended rather abruptly by Vernon Philander’s tireless accuracy. Crawley nibbled and nicked behind. Sibley also fell before lunch, with Denly playing a solid hand in his role of number three batsman. After lunch, Root was bounced out by the impressive Anrich Nortje – he possessed as good a bouncer as he did theme music whenever he returned to the attack.

From lunch onwards, a promising position slipped away from England in an all-too-familiar style. Denly had once again faced over 100 balls but somehow conspired to miss a stock ball from Keshav Maharaj and was bowled for 38. It was a deeply sad moment for him, and indeed me… Ben Stokes played with ludicrous fluency on a pitch that had proven somewhat difficult to score on, but conspired to drive aerially to cover when well set on 47. After Jos Buttler nibbled at the pedestrian Dwaine Pretorius, and Curran misjudged a leave which caused a lot of pain to off stump, the tail withered away. However, the ray of hope amidst the despair was provided by Ollie Pope. With the late afternoon sun glinting behind the mountains, he played some wonderful strokes to reach a half-century before the close of play.

England finished the day on 262/9, a poor effort but one that could have been worse but for Pope’s unbeaten 56. No matter how perfect the holiday and the scenery, it’s always possible to feel annoyed at English batting collapses.

Day two began with another British export to South Africa in the form of Zandvlei ParkRun. Again, much debate about logistics had finally yielded a plan, with two runners trusting an advanced guard of three to save sufficient space on the grass bank that would be our viewing position for the next two days. Alas, we followed a local runner who didn’t know the route, which meant a run of 5km became 5.6km… Even so, a liberating experience.

England added little to their overnight score before Jimmy Anderson succumbed to Kagiso Rabada with the total on an underwhelming 269. In reply, three early wickets fell to give England cause for optimism, but Dean Elgar and Rassie van der Dussen countered steadily over the course of the afternoon to provide South Africa with a solid platform of their own.

With the crowd relaxed by the slow accumulation, suddenly came a defining moment in the match. Dean Elgar’s attacking instincts against spin prompted a fatal mistake as he charged Dom Bess, spliced his shot high into the air, and was caught at mid-off. There was much joy, and indeed some personal smugness after earlier voicing of disdain for Elgar’s approach against spin, and the potential for it to cause his demise…

South Africa’s promising position deteriorated drastically after Quinton de Kock provided a gift of his own, playing a hopelessly lazy shot to a slower ball which floated to mid-off. A trademark lapse in concentration.

The obdurate van der Dussen was prised out by Sam Curran, edging to the cordon, before the timeless Jimmy Anderson picked up two more victims in the slips just before stumps. From 157/3, South Africa had slumped to 215/8 by the end of the second day, thanks to a self-triggered collapse of their own.

Hordes of English spectators poured onto a multitude of coaches to return them safely to their hotels as we walked back to our borrowed garage for our drives home. We split once more, ready to do it all again tomorrow. But first, a motorway cruise to Stellenbosch for a relaxing family evening and a delightfully meaty dinner. Fire up the braai, Deon.

Rabada edged the first ball of the third day to Buttler, and Stokes caught his fifth in the slips to give Anderson a well-deserved five-wicket haul. The display of catching by Stokes on a pitch that didn’t always have great carry was truly mesmerising, and it was a delight to applaud Anderson from the field as he continues to operate in the highest class of seam bowlers in defiance of his age.

For the second time, the potential for a Kentish duo at the crease together for England presented itself. For the second time, Crawley was dismissed first. He played positively, striking a glorious driven boundary down the ground, but a repeat of the stroke yielded an outside edge. He departed for 25.

In a war of attrition, England emerged victorious, as Dom Sibley and Denly ground the hosts down. A brief moment of optimism for the hosts came when Denly, who had faced more than a century of deliveries once more, pulled a short ball from Nortjie to fine leg to fall in the thirties once again. But Sibley continued stubbornly, joined by his captain Root who assisted in pushing the score along and cementing England’s hold on the game.

By mid-afternoon, South African skipper Faf du Plessis had resorted to slowing the game down as his bowlers struggled to find a way through. This prompted the odd word of dissent from those remaining on the grass bank, where early excitement at a TV appearance had given way to a desire to cling to the remnants of shade.

Root did his usual trick of reaching fifty, stalling and getting out before reaching a century. He was caught in the slips, while Bess semi-succeeded in his role of nightwatchman by preventing Stokes from having to bat before the close – he was dismissed in the final over of the day, for a second duck of the match.

Two late wickets and a new ball due the following morning gave South Africa the smallest glimmer of hope, but they were 264 runs behind with Sibley unbeaten on 85 – a patiently compiled innings which was clearly unfinished.

That remaining hope was extinguished on the fourth morning thanks to a brutal Stokes onslaught. His full-blooded strokeplay gave the innings energy, acceleration and adrenaline as the scoreboard ticked rapidly and ominously upwards. It also took the focus away from Sibley, who played his first sweep shot of the innings to Maharaj to pick up the boundary that gave him his maiden Test hundred. The ovation for Sibley’s hundred from the whole ground was wonderful to be a part of.

We were back in the stands on this fourth morning, experiencing a mixture of awe and terror as Stokes wielded his blade and rained sixes down upon us.  The contrasting styles of these two batsmen were working in perfect tandem. It was a morning where the sun shone on an ascendant England.

Eventually, Stokes holed out in the deep and ended his 258-throwback innings with 72 runs from a mere 47 balls. The rest would try to emulate him, but fail, as Sibley settled for red ink on 133. The acceleration had given England precious extra time to bowl South Africa out on a pitch that was slow but still offering some assistance, particularly to seamers bowling from the Wynberg End. The declaration came, with a notional target of 438, but more importantly a full five sessions for England to bowl at South Africa.

South Africa avoided the loss of early wickets this time, thanks to a successful review and some watchful batting. The partnership passed fifty, before a real ‘I was there’ moment occurred – Joe Denly took a Test wicket.

Substantial rough at one end of the pitch meant that spin operated from the Kelvin Grove and seamers rotated at the Wynberg End. Denly had been introduced after a period of passivity in the hope that this rough would prompt a mistake. The dismissal was a fuller ball, but Elgar pushed forward and the umpire’s finger went up with the appeal for a catch behind the stumps. Despite sending it to review, convinced he had hit the floor instead of the ball, the decision was upheld and the Man of Kent had his maiden Test victim. What a time to be alive.

Zubayr Hamza arrived into Test cricket with an excellent record but his performance at Newlands was unconvincing. He pushed forward at a fine Anderson delivery that left him and was superbly taken low down by Buttler behind the stumps shortly before the close. South Africa finished the day on 126/2 after 56 overs of obdurate batting, with Pieter Malan’s watchful innings and a successful venture as nightwatchman by Maharaj leaving England still requiring eight wickets to win the match on the fifth and final day.

To give the fifth day at Newlands its proper context, prior to the series there had been increasing noises about Tests being shortened to four days for financial reasons. It was reported that the ECB would be supportive of this – they denied as much in public, but their rigorous pursuit of the folly that is The Hundred meant that few trusted their intentions.

The match at Newlands had ebbed and flowed nicely, and the five days had allowed it to breathe. We witnessed a keenly fought opening salvo without time pressure, with England gaining the upper hand on the third day. A fifth day provides the time window required to push for final victory, and offers a tricky but navigable path to safety for the side hoping to draw the game. That fifth day is also a very handy insurance policy if the match is disrupted by bad weather, too.

On top of that, the fifth day is often released on general sale the night before, with tickets available on the gate, providing a level of access to people who are often shut out of the first four days. Although less applicable here, given how cheap the tickets were across the Test, it still remains true that a fifth day crowd is bereft of corporate ticket holders, and a real draw for the purist. Especially when a match goes down to the wire…

This (relatively) short report is incapable of conveying the long, drawn-out tension of that fifth day at Newlands. A quick scan of the subsequent paragraphs reveals all in a couple of minutes, whereas those six hours of cricket gave rise to a vibrant cocktail of emotions ranging from doubt, and dread, to dreamy delirium.

We’d picked a classical viewing position at long off for the final day, away from the Barmy Army as it belted out Jerusalem once again. It substituted the glorious backdrop of Table Mountain for a more practical view straight down the pitch.

Maharaj didn’t last long, blocking a ball bound for middle stump with his pad rather than his bat, but Malan and du Plessis reached drinks without alarm as England searched for a moment of inspiration to break the game open. As it turned out, it was a lapse in judgement that handed them the fourth wicket of the innings as Faf swept Bess hard, only to pick out Denly at square leg perfectly. The Man of Kent took the catch, turned to the crowd and gave it large in celebration. We responded in kind – given our patience in waiting for these breakthroughs, each wicket was celebrated with real vigour.

Malan remained a stubborn presence at the crease, ticking his score upwards slowly towards a maiden hundred of his own, but shortly after lunch he edged the new ball low to second slip where Stokes once again made no mistake. Sam Curran’s breakthrough reinvigorated the spirits of English supporters, but it was to be the sole wicket to fall in the afternoon session. Thanks to the stubbornness of van der Dussen, and the impressive restraint of de Kock, South Africa were 225/5 after 115 overs.

The brief break from the tension that tea granted afforded us one last opportunity to forecast the final outcome. Our nervousness was apparent, and thus the draw heralded favourite, but the predictions were barely authoritative The uncertainty surrounding the end result demonstrated how brilliantly the plot had unfolded across five full days of cricket. It was time for the final act.

English hopes diminished further in the opening overs after tea, as the tactical ploy of using Curran to bowl off-cutters into the rough merely fuelled de Kock’s fluency, and Anderson pulled up after two tame overs with what turned out to be a cracked rib. Denly returned to the attack, hoping that one ball landing in the rough might misbehave enough to break the partnership.

Denly dropped one short. De Kock’s eyes lit up. He pulled, hard. Straight to mid-wicket. Zak Crawley took the catch. Newlands erupted.

Just when it had seemed that de Kock had overcome his naïve instincts and avoided a catastrophic brain fade, he gifted his wicket away. Rather than combining with the bat, the Kent duo had combined with the ball and taken a crucial wicket. I could hardly hide my delight and amusement.

From the other end, a rejuvenated Stuart Broad pounded in as he has done so faithfully for his country for more than a decade. Finally, the pitch was offering the seamers some assistance, with a crack on the line of fourth stump threatening to cause deviation either way. Van der Dussen kept blocking, kept leaving, and kept resisting. Seeking inspiration, Broad moved Anderson into a leg slip position and angled his next delivery into the pads. Astonishingly, van der Dussen followed the ball behind his pads, edged, and was caught by the newly positioned fielder. Incredible. And as you can imagine, we celebrated hard again.

The game was well and truly there for the taking now. After one more searching Broad over, England’s talisman replaced him. His aggression with the bat and skill with his hands in the slips had set up a winning position. Would Stokes complete the three-card trick with ball in hand?

Stokes attacked the crease hard for his first two overs, eliciting the odd bit of assistance from the pitch without finding the outside edge. The fourth stump crack was ideally positioned for him in particular thanks to his wider release point on the crease.

The game entered its final hour, and still you couldn’t predict which way it would go. Thirteen overs remained, three wickets in hand.

Stokes kept charging in. Pretorius had looked vulnerable, and he succumbed to the pressure. The nagging line induced an outside edge which Root took superbly down low at first slip. Nortje walked to the crease, another potential thorn in England’s side thanks to his efforts as nightwatchman in the previous game.

Stokes attacked again. Nortje edged to a ludicrously close catcher at third slip. Zak Crawley hurled his hand towards the ball, palming it in the air. We gasped. It floated downwards, between second and fourth slip both thinking of diving after it, but landed safely in Crawley’s other hand. After the gasp, a cacophonous roar and limbs everywhere.

Two in two for Stokes, who could win the game with his hat-trick ball. Could England really do it?

The hat-trick ball was a full toss bunted back down the ground by Rabada for no run. Four more overs passed by. Surely not.

With nine to go, Stokes hammered his length again. The ball spat at Philander, took his glove and floated to gully. There was a brief moment of confusion as England anticipated a review, but Philander merely removed his gloves and went to shake hands. England had won by 189 runs.

The release of tension was extraordinary, giving way to giddy jubilation and a deep feeling of satisfaction. We had travelled to the southern tip of Africa to witness England’s first victory at Newlands since 1957, in the final hour of the final session of the final day of the game. “I swear you’ll never see anything like this ever again, so watch it, drink it in…”

England were worshipped as heroes as they lapped the ground and thanked the crowd. Philander was waved off on his own lap as he thanked his home crowd at the end of his final Test at Newlands. Stokes was announced as man of the match, and rightly so. It was a truly mesmerising performance, managing to have a transformative impact with all three disciplines at various stages throughout the match. As Mark Nicholas would say, he is some cricketer.

To think that some people want to get rid of the fifth day…

Reluctant to leave, we returned to our old friend the grass bank for a few final photos, and one last look at the wondrous view across the ground towards the mountains. Many others were doing the same, savouring the moment.

Upon our return home, the victors were treated to a celebratory braai. A chance to reflect on a wonderful time in South Africa, with camaraderie, exploration, family reunions and one incredible sporting occasion that we were lucky enough to be a part of. Cheers.

[danwebster37]

Newlands, Cape Town

December 2019 — January 2020

A regret of mine is that I don’t spend time writing about sport in the immediate aftermath of matches – an optimist would say it’s a product of a sociable and busy life, but the reality is probably one of laziness – but this sporting impasse brought about by the concerning coronavirus pandemic does afford the conditions to reflect and relive some of those experiences.

Watching five days of cricket in front of one of the world’s most iconic backdrops, with England sealing victory with less than an hour to spare, was truly magnificent. Hindsight and recent events have only served to sharpen the memories, and accentuate the array of emotions that sport – and particularly sport like that – brings you.

The road to Newlands was a long one – not least because the five travellers decided to begin the trip in Durban, pre-empting an east coast Boxing Day series opener. When the schedule landed Centurion with the First Test, the logistical impracticality of a trip to the Highveld meant that a Garden Route extravaganza was planned in its place.

Despite it halving the amount of cricket we’d see, this was probably the best forced outcome of the trip, as it opened up a whole week to travel along one of the great coastal roads in the world, stopping off at some mesmerising places along the way. Playing cricket on the beach on Christmas Day in the humidity of Durban was fantastic, as were the wildlife tours which included monkeys, birds and the Big Five around Plettenberg Bay. Knysna’s idyllic lagoon and rugged coastline provided a particular highlight. And all the way from east to west, plates were full of meat and not at all expensive.

Of the five travellers, three had family members resident in the Western Cape. Hermanus provided the venue for the first of the encounters, which beautifully combined friends and family with nostalgia for past visits, and provided invaluable insight into (white) South African life – not least when the braai was fired up and covered with assorted meats.

The tour party split into two separate family bases for New Year and Newlands – the university town of Stellenbosch tucked beneath the hills half an hour’s drive outside of Cape Town, and the leafy suburb of Tokai to the south of the city. The motorway between the two offered a humbling glimpse of the other South Africa, with a vast township extending into the plains. It was hard to escape feelings of guilt and awkwardness as the still stark societal divisions played out around us in everyday life.

New Year was marked with a picturesque walk from Constantia Nek to Kirstenbosch and back, with an ascent of Table Mountain on foot the following day – Cape Town’s beauty was obvious. Over the course of these opening days we caught our first sight of Newlands itself, a quaint oval beneath the hills. We’d made it.

Whilst there had been some lively debate about how to get five of us from two separate locations safely to and from Newlands, once again it was a generous relative who solved our problem by offering two car parking spaces at their flat a stone’s throw from the rugby stadium. This provided five days of security, peace of mind and stress-free travel. The travel plan worked like clockwork on the opening morning.

England won the toss and elected to bat, and we took our seats towards the front of one of the many blocks brimming with Brits. Given that tickets for five days came under £60 per person, it was little surprise that the local support was disproportionately outweighed by the visitors. As play began, so did the Barmy Army’s dawn chorus – Jerusalem. A stirring way to start.

Newlands is one of the best places to watch cricket in the world. Modest stands and grass banks packed with spectators, competitive action in the middle, all set against a stunning mountain backdrop. It offered a view that did not get tiring at any stage across the five days of cricket. In the slower moments of play, you could sit back with a drink (readily offered to every spectator by an army of coolbox-wielding salesmen) and bask in the glory of its setting.

The atmosphere and the backdrop were enhanced even further by the personal subplot of having not one but two Kent players in the England side, with the remarkable possibility of seeing them both at the crease together. Zak Crawley was making his first appearance of the series, brought in to open the batting for the first time after Rory Burns had managed to ruin his ankle playing football. Joe Denly was never supposed to have a Test career, being more of a one-day player, but he has by no means disgraced himself through his application and bloody-mindedness at the crease. He’d also outlasted the fashionable but hopelessly misguided pick that was Jason Roy – a triumph for Kent over Surrey, and for the principles of the old school.

Unfortunately, the dream of seeing the two at the crease together was ended rather abruptly by Vernon Philander’s tireless accuracy. Crawley nibbled and nicked behind. Sibley also fell before lunch, with Denly playing a solid hand in his role of number three batsman. After lunch, Root was bounced out by the impressive Anrich Nortje – he possessed as good a bouncer as he did theme music whenever he returned to the attack.

From lunch onwards, a promising position slipped away from England in an all-too-familiar style. Denly had once again faced over 100 balls but somehow conspired to miss a stock ball from Keshav Maharaj and was bowled for 38. It was a deeply sad moment for him, and indeed me… Ben Stokes played with ludicrous fluency on a pitch that had proven somewhat difficult to score on, but conspired to drive aerially to cover when well set on 47. After Jos Buttler nibbled at the pedestrian Dwaine Pretorius, and Curran misjudged a leave which caused a lot of pain to off stump, the tail withered away. However, the ray of hope amidst the despair was provided by Ollie Pope. With the late afternoon sun glinting behind the mountains, he played some wonderful strokes to reach a half-century before the close of play.

England finished the day on 262/9, a poor effort but one that could have been worse but for Pope’s unbeaten 56. No matter how perfect the holiday and the scenery, it’s always possible to feel annoyed at English batting collapses.

Day two began with another British export to South Africa in the form of Zandvlei ParkRun. Again, much debate about logistics had finally yielded a plan, with two runners trusting an advanced guard of three to save sufficient space on the grass bank that would be our viewing position for the next two days. Alas, we followed a local runner who didn’t know the route, which meant a run of 5km became 5.6km… Even so, a liberating experience.

England added little to their overnight score before Jimmy Anderson succumbed to Kagiso Rabada with the total on an underwhelming 269. In reply, three early wickets fell to give England cause for optimism, but Dean Elgar and Rassie van der Dussen countered steadily over the course of the afternoon to provide South Africa with a solid platform of their own.

With the crowd relaxed by the slow accumulation, suddenly came a defining moment in the match. Dean Elgar’s attacking instincts against spin prompted a fatal mistake as he charged Dom Bess, spliced his shot high into the air, and was caught at mid-off. There was much joy, and indeed some personal smugness after earlier voicing of disdain for Elgar’s approach against spin, and the potential for it to cause his demise…

South Africa’s promising position deteriorated drastically after Quinton de Kock provided a gift of his own, playing a hopelessly lazy shot to a slower ball which floated to mid-off. A trademark lapse in concentration.

The obdurate van der Dussen was prised out by Sam Curran, edging to the cordon, before the timeless Jimmy Anderson picked up two more victims in the slips just before stumps. From 157/3, South Africa had slumped to 215/8 by the end of the second day, thanks to a self-triggered collapse of their own.

Hordes of English spectators poured onto a multitude of coaches to return them safely to their hotels as we walked back to our borrowed garage for our drives home. We split once more, ready to do it all again tomorrow. But first, a motorway cruise to Stellenbosch for a relaxing family evening and a delightfully meaty dinner. Fire up the braai, Deon.

Rabada edged the first ball of the third day to Buttler, and Stokes caught his fifth in the slips to give Anderson a well-deserved five-wicket haul. The display of catching by Stokes on a pitch that didn’t always have great carry was truly mesmerising, and it was a delight to applaud Anderson from the field as he continues to operate in the highest class of seam bowlers in defiance of his age.

For the second time, the potential for a Kentish duo at the crease together for England presented itself. For the second time, Crawley was dismissed first. He played positively, striking a glorious driven boundary down the ground, but a repeat of the stroke yielded an outside edge. He departed for 25.

In a war of attrition, England emerged victorious, as Dom Sibley and Denly ground the hosts down. A brief moment of optimism for the hosts came when Denly, who had faced more than a century of deliveries once more, pulled a short ball from Nortjie to fine leg to fall in the thirties once again. But Sibley continued stubbornly, joined by his captain Root who assisted in pushing the score along and cementing England’s hold on the game.

By mid-afternoon, South African skipper Faf du Plessis had resorted to slowing the game down as his bowlers struggled to find a way through. This prompted the odd word of dissent from those remaining on the grass bank, where early excitement at a TV appearance had given way to a desire to cling to the remnants of shade.

Root did his usual trick of reaching fifty, stalling and getting out before reaching a century. He was caught in the slips, while Bess semi-succeeded in his role of nightwatchman by preventing Stokes from having to bat before the close – he was dismissed in the final over of the day, for a second duck of the match.

Two late wickets and a new ball due the following morning gave South Africa the smallest glimmer of hope, but they were 264 runs behind with Sibley unbeaten on 85 – a patiently compiled innings which was clearly unfinished.

That remaining hope was extinguished on the fourth morning thanks to a brutal Stokes onslaught. His full-blooded strokeplay gave the innings energy, acceleration and adrenaline as the scoreboard ticked rapidly and ominously upwards. It also took the focus away from Sibley, who played his first sweep shot of the innings to Maharaj to pick up the boundary that gave him his maiden Test hundred. The ovation for Sibley’s hundred from the whole ground was wonderful to be a part of.

We were back in the stands on this fourth morning, experiencing a mixture of awe and terror as Stokes wielded his blade and rained sixes down upon us.  The contrasting styles of these two batsmen were working in perfect tandem. It was a morning where the sun shone on an ascendant England.

Eventually, Stokes holed out in the deep and ended his 258-throwback innings with 72 runs from a mere 47 balls. The rest would try to emulate him, but fail, as Sibley settled for red ink on 133. The acceleration had given England precious extra time to bowl South Africa out on a pitch that was slow but still offering some assistance, particularly to seamers bowling from the Wynberg End. The declaration came, with a notional target of 438, but more importantly a full five sessions for England to bowl at South Africa.

South Africa avoided the loss of early wickets this time, thanks to a successful review and some watchful batting. The partnership passed fifty, before a real ‘I was there’ moment occurred – Joe Denly took a Test wicket.

Substantial rough at one end of the pitch meant that spin operated from the Kelvin Grove and seamers rotated at the Wynberg End. Denly had been introduced after a period of passivity in the hope that this rough would prompt a mistake. The dismissal was a fuller ball, but Elgar pushed forward and the umpire’s finger went up with the appeal for a catch behind the stumps. Despite sending it to review, convinced he had hit the floor instead of the ball, the decision was upheld and the Man of Kent had his maiden Test victim. What a time to be alive.

Zubayr Hamza arrived into Test cricket with an excellent record but his performance at Newlands was unconvincing. He pushed forward at a fine Anderson delivery that left him and was superbly taken low down by Buttler behind the stumps shortly before the close. South Africa finished the day on 126/2 after 56 overs of obdurate batting, with Pieter Malan’s watchful innings and a successful venture as nightwatchman by Maharaj leaving England still requiring eight wickets to win the match on the fifth and final day.

To give the fifth day at Newlands its proper context, prior to the series there had been increasing noises about Tests being shortened to four days for financial reasons. It was reported that the ECB would be supportive of this – they denied as much in public, but their rigorous pursuit of the folly that is The Hundred meant that few trusted their intentions.

The match at Newlands had ebbed and flowed nicely, and the five days had allowed it to breathe. We witnessed a keenly fought opening salvo without time pressure, with England gaining the upper hand on the third day. A fifth day provides the time window required to push for final victory, and offers a tricky but navigable path to safety for the side hoping to draw the game. That fifth day is also a very handy insurance policy if the match is disrupted by bad weather, too.

On top of that, the fifth day is often released on general sale the night before, with tickets available on the gate, providing a level of access to people who are often shut out of the first four days. Although less applicable here, given how cheap the tickets were across the Test, it still remains true that a fifth day crowd is bereft of corporate ticket holders, and a real draw for the purist. Especially when a match goes down to the wire…

This (relatively) short report is incapable of conveying the long, drawn-out tension of that fifth day at Newlands. A quick scan of the subsequent paragraphs reveals all in a couple of minutes, whereas those six hours of cricket gave rise to a vibrant cocktail of emotions ranging from doubt, and dread, to dreamy delirium.

We’d picked a classical viewing position at long off for the final day, away from the Barmy Army as it belted out Jerusalem once again. It substituted the glorious backdrop of Table Mountain for a more practical view straight down the pitch.

Maharaj didn’t last long, blocking a ball bound for middle stump with his pad rather than his bat, but Malan and du Plessis reached drinks without alarm as England searched for a moment of inspiration to break the game open. As it turned out, it was a lapse in judgement that handed them the fourth wicket of the innings as Faf swept Bess hard, only to pick out Denly at square leg perfectly. The Man of Kent took the catch, turned to the crowd and gave it large in celebration. We responded in kind – given our patience in waiting for these breakthroughs, each wicket was celebrated with real vigour.

Malan remained a stubborn presence at the crease, ticking his score upwards slowly towards a maiden hundred of his own, but shortly after lunch he edged the new ball low to second slip where Stokes once again made no mistake. Sam Curran’s breakthrough reinvigorated the spirits of English supporters, but it was to be the sole wicket to fall in the afternoon session. Thanks to the stubbornness of van der Dussen, and the impressive restraint of de Kock, South Africa were 225/5 after 115 overs.

The brief break from the tension that tea granted afforded us one last opportunity to forecast the final outcome. Our nervousness was apparent, and thus the draw heralded favourite, but the predictions were barely authoritative The uncertainty surrounding the end result demonstrated how brilliantly the plot had unfolded across five full days of cricket. It was time for the final act.

English hopes diminished further in the opening overs after tea, as the tactical ploy of using Curran to bowl off-cutters into the rough merely fuelled de Kock’s fluency, and Anderson pulled up after two tame overs with what turned out to be a cracked rib. Denly returned to the attack, hoping that one ball landing in the rough might misbehave enough to break the partnership.

Denly dropped one short. De Kock’s eyes lit up. He pulled, hard. Straight to mid-wicket. Zak Crawley took the catch. Newlands erupted.

Just when it had seemed that de Kock had overcome his naïve instincts and avoided a catastrophic brain fade, he gifted his wicket away. Rather than combining with the bat, the Kent duo had combined with the ball and taken a crucial wicket. I could hardly hide my delight and amusement.

From the other end, a rejuvenated Stuart Broad pounded in as he has done so faithfully for his country for more than a decade. Finally, the pitch was offering the seamers some assistance, with a crack on the line of fourth stump threatening to cause deviation either way. Van der Dussen kept blocking, kept leaving, and kept resisting. Seeking inspiration, Broad moved Anderson into a leg slip position and angled his next delivery into the pads. Astonishingly, van der Dussen followed the ball behind his pads, edged, and was caught by the newly positioned fielder. Incredible. And as you can imagine, we celebrated hard again.

The game was well and truly there for the taking now. After one more searching Broad over, England’s talisman replaced him. His aggression with the bat and skill with his hands in the slips had set up a winning position. Would Stokes complete the three-card trick with ball in hand?

Stokes attacked the crease hard for his first two overs, eliciting the odd bit of assistance from the pitch without finding the outside edge. The fourth stump crack was ideally positioned for him in particular thanks to his wider release point on the crease.

The game entered its final hour, and still you couldn’t predict which way it would go. Thirteen overs remained, three wickets in hand.

Stokes kept charging in. Pretorius had looked vulnerable, and he succumbed to the pressure. The nagging line induced an outside edge which Root took superbly down low at first slip. Nortje walked to the crease, another potential thorn in England’s side thanks to his efforts as nightwatchman in the previous game.

Stokes attacked again. Nortje edged to a ludicrously close catcher at third slip. Zak Crawley hurled his hand towards the ball, palming it in the air. We gasped. It floated downwards, between second and fourth slip both thinking of diving after it, but landed safely in Crawley’s other hand. After the gasp, a cacophonous roar and limbs everywhere.

Two in two for Stokes, who could win the game with his hat-trick ball. Could England really do it?

The hat-trick ball was a full toss bunted back down the ground by Rabada for no run. Four more overs passed by. Surely not.

With nine to go, Stokes hammered his length again. The ball spat at Philander, took his glove and floated to gully. There was a brief moment of confusion as England anticipated a review, but Philander merely removed his gloves and went to shake hands. England had won by 189 runs.

The release of tension was extraordinary, giving way to giddy jubilation and a deep feeling of satisfaction. We had travelled to the southern tip of Africa to witness England’s first victory at Newlands since 1957, in the final hour of the final session of the final day of the game. “I swear you’ll never see anything like this ever again, so watch it, drink it in…”

England were worshipped as heroes as they lapped the ground and thanked the crowd. Philander was waved off on his own lap as he thanked his home crowd at the end of his final Test at Newlands. Stokes was announced as man of the match, and rightly so. It was a truly mesmerising performance, managing to have a transformative impact with all three disciplines at various stages throughout the match. As Mark Nicholas would say, he is some cricketer.

To think that some people want to get rid of the fifth day…

Reluctant to leave, we returned to our old friend the grass bank for a few final photos, and one last look at the wondrous view across the ground towards the mountains. Many others were doing the same, savouring the moment.

Upon our return home, the victors were treated to a celebratory braai. A chance to reflect on a wonderful time in South Africa, with camaraderie, exploration, family reunions and one incredible sporting occasion that we were lucky enough to be a part of. Cheers.

[gottagetmeoneofthese]

Learning Curve - Story Time With Flynn Rider

Flynn Rider here to resurrect this glorious series. Oh, you thought I was gone, didn’t you, Gentle Reader?

How can I be when there was an entire episode dedicated to how glorious I am? I mean, seriously, did you see the end? And the beginning? And the middle?

(Also, Blondie, that painting was beautiful. As always.)

Now, I know what you’re thinking. ‘But Eugene (because that’s what everyone calls me now), why are you airing your own dirty laundry?’ For starters, I don’t even have to do my own laundry any more. (Seriously, what sort of softener do they use? It smells amazing!)

Of course I can’t take all the credit. The beautiful mind behind my Rapunzel’s beautiful mind, @runningracingdancingchasing, helped because, well, let’s face it. Even my own glorious story telling skills can get a touch rusty after awhile. Plus, she did the impossible and made the ending even better than it already was.

(Inspired by 1x04 Eugene P.I. 'I was great at school! Easiest three days of my life!')

(Cat here with obligatory stuff. It helps if you’re seen Eugene P.I. but it’s not really spoilery. It just helps because the episode is awesome (thank you Bexie for going ‘omg just watch the previous episode so you can watch this one you noob’) and dude, one of my headcanons was confirmed in that episode. If you want any more of these you can read other stuff under this tag here.)

It was dangerous to be in this part of town. People looked down at him, literally and figuratively, and none bothered to hide their disdain at a street urchin staining their streets with dirty little feet.

This was why he'd taken to the darker corners. Even the cleanest parts of Corona had alleys.

It was hot and muggy but this meant it was even more so inside. And of course this meant the window was left open to catch whatever breeze it could. The teacher's voice was bored as he repeated the same question a couple times. Eugene whispered the answer under his breath. Didn't those boys pay any attention?

"Alright since you're all bored with Language, take out your slates for arithmetic."

Collected groans met Eugene's excited little wiggle. While math wasn't his favorite it meant he got to use the broken piece of slate he'd found last week. Bits of chalk were easy to come by, but a slate?

His little fingers worked the numbers, still in the early stages of learning how to manipulate letters and numbers. His fours and sevens both were the hardest to decipher. (It wasn't his fault sevens were just ones without a foot. And how wide was a four supposed to be, anyway?)

His tongue poked out of the corner of his mouth as he concentrated. Writing and learning at the same time was hard. But that's also what made it more fun. He made a game of it, keeping tallies on the top. One side he would hash when he answered before a student inside. The other was for when a student would answer first. So far they had two to his ten. Last week they had seven to his four.

The afternoon wore on. He ignored the sweat and the grumble in his stomach. He was used to those anyway. The teacher ended the day with an equation for his students to work on until the next time. Eugene was too busy scribbling it down to hear the students gather their things and leave. He was too busy memorizing the numbers in case the chalk wore off the slate in his satchel, also found not long ago.

"What are you doing down there?" The sudden nearness of the voice made Eugene jump more than the haughty tone of it.

"I weren't doin' nothin'!" He scrambled to his feet and clutched the small slate to his chest, hoping he wasn't smudging the carefully drawn numbers.

The teacher let out a slow breath and pinched the bridge of his nose. "It's supposed to be 'I was not doing anything.' Preferably with a 'Sir' attached at the end."

Eugene rolled his eyes. This probably wasn't the smartest thing in the world but this man was a teacher. Didn't he know anything? "You've been covering proper syntax for the past month so of course I know that, Sir, that's just how we're supposed to talk."

The man looked at him for a moment with an inscrutable expression. His shoulders relaxed and the sharp edge in his face smoothed. "Well, be that as it may. If you're going to loiter outside my classroom I expect you to speak proper English."

The boy's cheeked burned as he forced his eyes to stay up. "Yes, Sir."

The man's eyebrow rose. "In fact, if you are going to loiter where you are not supposed to be anyway, what difference would it make for you to speak properly all the time?"

Eugene's eyebrows furrowed as he tilted his head. "Because we're not supposed to."

"And according to just about everyone, you're not supposed to want to learn, either." The teacher bent out of view for a moment before coming back up. He held a small workbook in his hand, the edges burned. His lips curled as he dusted it off. "Beauregard decided to protest his education once again. Most of it should still be decipherable."

The small boy's eyes widened and when the book was not pulled away he quickly snatched it away and clutched it tightly with his slate.

"Well. Enjoy your studies." The man pulled back before coming back to the window. "How old are you, anyway?"

Eugene's chest puffed at this question. "Almost ten, Sir."

There was a moment of silence. For some reason the teacher looked almost sad when he continued. "Right. Well, you seem to be paying better attention than the boys in here, and most of them are twelve. Just do your best to stay out of sight."

Eugene beamed at the man. "Thank you, Sir."

Before the teacher dared to change his mind, the young orphan was already out of earshot.

---

For the next several months Eugene would sneak back to sit beneath the classroom window. One day the teacher told him he had to stop because the headmaster found out that not only was there an orphan loitering on the premises but the teacher knew about it. The man was almost fired because of this.

Eugene was, of course, heartbroken. The orphanage school was just too slow and he was just so bored when they actually had classes. Fortunately the teacher would leave pieces of chalk, worn learners, and once even a slate with just a minor chip in it behind a wooden crate for Eugene to find.

Years later, Eugene found himself looking back on those formative days with an immense sense of gratitude. After all, if he hadn’t been given the chance then, maybe right now he wouldn’t be hob-nobbing it in Italy, casing this fine museum for a heist he was sure to get away with.

[phlegmasdelights]

Phlegma’s Delights (pt. 1)

Her penis was still completely covered in blood and pus. She continued plucking pieces of carpet and lint out of the protruding chunks within the pus, realizing as she pulled at the chunks that most of them were still connected to the flesh beneath. She stood considering severing the soaking wet member clear from her body (as she could always grow or scavenge another of course) and planting in her garden. The reddish violet succulents that grew from the mangled organs she buried there in the planters constructed from tiles of the bodies of various insects and small rodents’ skeletal fragments outside have off such a rancid stench that it reduced guests either to purging, thrashing fountains of vomit and diarrhea (which was only entertaining up to a point at which they exhausted themselves to death, leaving their messy carcass to fester in the front lines of the property) or becoming so uncontrollably aroused that they stripped nude and started thrusting whatever objects they could find within about a ten foot radius into any and all of their available orifices and suckling at any exposed flesh or remotely phallic pieces of matter abound. The latter reaction made them into excellent sex slaves, and surely she could get one of these blessed creatures to clean her leaking pus holes or at the very least she could could suffocate them within her prolapsed anus as it swallowed their heads whole.

Still in an intoxicated state of slux, Phleganthra Phlegmanocus, or “Phlegma” for short was her name. One part of her body she felt she could never rid of was her breasts, she was blessed with bulbous, veiny tits that could take more abuse than a steel cage. Other than her bulging breasts, everything from her encrusted, effluvium caked eyeballs to the blistered, leathery soles of her constantly battered feet had been constantly exchanged and swapped with the parts and organs of various men, women, or whatever beings she wished to rob the bodies of. Most recently she was pushing a large, purplish, swollen-head penis to its very limit, her spree through several local mortuaries and graveyards occupying the vast majority of her time the past week. Her massive elephantiasis stricken testicles weren’t quite producing enough gallons of ejaculate, coming out a murky green and yellow, writhe with tender scuttling parasites, a welcome change to the usual cloudy crimson of lifeless bloody cum she ejected on the average Tuesday.

She had assembled a massive guillotine using various parts of scrap and discarded junkyard cars, a rusty asymmetrical monstrosity perfect for self-amputation. The bodily fluids her body produced were endless it seemed, they continued to gush infinitely out of her always damaged, torn flesh, gouges and wounds decorating the length of her body, ligaments and even bone exposed in the most prime areas. Her protruding gut was consistently herniated and prone to growing mold and various species of fungus on the underside, adorning it with the moistest shrubbery and pitch black spots more pleasing than any painter could hope to replicate. She dragged her misshapen, scabby caveman feet (stolen from a male model vacationing in the area, blonde curls of toe hair creating little bushels that filled Phlegma with tingling nostalgia for the first time she ate pubic hair, attached to a hard boiled vulva she had cut out of the most attractive young business woman, Phlegma blushed as she reminisced the perfect crackle of the woman’s neck snapping, a bruised jewel from the naive times when Phlegma grossly underestimated the sublime importance of prolonged suffering and meticulous torture, rushing to the murder of a subject far too prematurely, losing the countless precious opportunities to rape and mutilate a creature before the chance escaped permanently as she was too enthusiastically anxious to get to the all powerful moment of confirming the death of a living thing. Phlegma sighed in acquiescence as she loaded her greasy fat cock onto the guillotine, wrapped her spindly dirty fingers around the rope, and pulled it down.

The guillotine’s blade, beaming with excitement to finish the job swung down with a thunderous shunt and a glorious shot of pure white semen shot out of the half erect meat log as it was lopped off by the jagged car-door blade across her crotch. After a loud moan of resplendent pleasure she muttered to herself “Now where was the white stuff hiding? I’d say it looks as effervescent as a fresh pearl.” As she began to cauterize the oozing hole with a bic lighter. She scooped some of the loose gore out of her dormant pussy beneath, almost forgetting in her furious fever dream of eating and fucking dead bodies for the past week the feminine exploits and womanly pleasures to be had. One second without a dangling set of balls and she thirsted once again for the other half’s capacity for penetration. Her lack of satisfaction melted away any reverie she had for the moment and angrily slapped the bulbous milksacs sagging from her chest. She thirsted deeply for new challenges, some way for her precious blashpeme of the despicable human form to be invigorated like it had in the early days. She sat in the lotus position prodding and poking at her fresh wound, plucking half a stitch leftover from the surgery she’d done to attach the lost organ and slipping it under her tongue to toy with, a long lime green streak of snotty tissue still connecting from her lips down to the burns, which she slurped up like a piece of spaghetti as she stroked her rather hairy, pimple punctuated thighs, squeezing a couple yellowish-white boils to a pop so she could suck up the zit jism treasures hiding inside, eager to complete their journey into the spots between her teeth. She contemplated where she could find a new body, one not so staggeringly beautiful, so she could do something other than instill thorough fear and dread into her new friends. She needed to downplay her grotesque and gruesome perfection so that she could “blend in” so to speak, perhaps even somewhere besides the rural area she had become so accustomed to. Her exquisitely sculpted, reeking bag of meat she used as a body was so breathtaking that it transcended her hedonism, the great hedonistic path that brings quality and purpose to all creation had began to lose its meaning. She had to create a smaller, softer body. One like a young schoolgirl, a church going daughter, ugly as the youthful were with their blank, untainted and undeveloped features. Her stomach turned as she considered being returned to the uselessly hairless and virgin-esque form. But these rare feelings of disgust she realized always precluded the most exalted and supreme of all pleasures, perhaps the rampant sex and considerate cannibalism taken up with such creatures was, old-hat at this point. The virulent decadence of murderous celebrations of violence were all too easy to come by in Phlegma’s current monstrous and ravishing form. She needed to regress in order to evolve. She even considered perhaps reconstructing her nigh-indestructible tits, her most valued possessions.

With her long, crooked, corpse-juice-stained fingernails she began to pull her skin apart, deconstructing her malignantly perfected flesh piece by delicate piece. As she flayed herself she moaned passionately, a hand creeping over to the discarded, already rigor-Morris stricken dick she had used so much already and shoved it into her unprepared blood encrusted pussy, fucking herself as she continued ripping later after of skin off of her body, tearing it apart more and more rigorously as she thrust the crooked cock into herself faster and deeper, tearing the lining on her insides and splitting already strained vessels in her guts until she was finished and squatting as a skinless, formless figure of hideousness, freshly fucked and ready for the next step in gore soaked, utter indulgence, replete and magnificent as it would surely be.

She burned a large pipe fashioned from children’s bones, inhaling the perfectly aged and dried, slow burning ovaries and uterine eggs of the virgin girl she’d slaughtered about a month beforehand. How time seems to melt endlessly into itself she thought to herself, as she squatted down and started to take a long and well-deserved piss.

The surrounding villages Phlegma frequented for food and thrills had grown so boring, the cities offering preferable, more developed seeds of the consumable. She dug underground until she had established enough fo a network of tunnels that allowed her to excavate a proper route into a bigger, more populated city than she had tackled before. She’d grown attached to her property, her taxidermy projects, her customized wallpaper made of the skins of so many families and passers-by, her furniture of teeth and bones, her finger lamps and sofa made of severed asses, the mutilated couple she had left alive sewn into it, shoving things up their rectal cavities, slicing and smacking their exposed cheeks as they screamed and begged in their nonsense tongues somewhere within the couch, and the liquidated body festering in her bathtub was starting to harden its oily muck into a black ice-rink she would use as a platform for her fetal circus, using several stages of abortions she’d collected (almost an even 100 by now usually harvested playfully from unsuspecting pregnant stomachs) but nonetheless all of her favorite toys would rot away soon enough, and she hardly had the time to preserve and embalm every piece she had. Phlegma hadn’t even worn a piece of clothing in years! And she could still be fertilized, right? She still menstruated at least 2-3 weeks at a time, but her frantic habits of self-mutilation made it difficult to discern one type of blood from the next. How much was even hers? Her newest infections were so fragrant she couldn’t even tell the difference between those!

After a few weeks of hunting, collecting and butchering she had assembled a perfect balance of voluptuous lips, hips, curves, a plump ass, soft arms and thighs, tiny feet and slender hands, the most desirable concoction of body parts she could muster until her self surgery amounted to the appearance of a rather tiny, college aged girl maybe 19 years old. It took her the longest to decide on a sensitive but small nose, with the perfect nostrils, and the best pair of tits was created from several pairs she had harvested. Her new vagina and anus were so minuscule she wondered how she was going to fit anything into them. She had often planned on preserving her now bodies as long as possible, but by a month or so they always ended up scarred beyond recognition and mangled to the point of needing an entire replacement. This body however, felt delicate, weak and sensitive. The feelings of vulnerability aroused her, and for what felt like the first time her body quivered to the point of collapse, the world was her oyster she was primed to crack open and rape.

She emerged from the dirt, naked and throughly dirty from her incessant burrowing. She wandered into the outskirts of the town and spotted a fountain, and the late, cold night kept it free of possible visitors, and she was able to leap in and cleanse her new body. Being clean was such an alien feeling to her, it caused her sex to swell and vibrate, she felt so luxurious, but needed clothing now so she could find a way into the locked homes of all the multitudes of gourmet creatures she could prey on.

She spotted a clothing shop nearby, and as she watched the presumed owner scraping some gunk out of the gutter, she had to resist leaping into it to slurp up the delicious looking sewage. She found a stick and shoved it inside herself so violently that her vagina visibly spouted a little stream of blood and she let out a putrid shriek as she realized just how sensitive her new body was. Internally she smiled at the fun that was soon to come. The shopkeeper ran over welding a rake like a weapon, Phlegma on the ground crawling over looking desperate and distressed, her bleeding gender obvious.

“You have to help me! Please! I was attacked.. I... I..” Phlegma begged the man, doing her best to illicit tears out of her eyes, hardly able to as she continued to wretch. The shop

Man looked visibly disgusted, but allowed his concern to overtake as he lifted the poor girl inside and gave her a blanket to cover herself with.

“Please! They took all my clothes, I need... god... how could I let this happen...” she pleaded as the shopkeeper attempted to comfort her, Phlegma sobbing as she tried to contain her explicitly growing excitement and arousal as she gritted her teeth.

Eventually able to conjure and entire outfit with a skirt, shoes, and a shirt she gandered at herself in the mirror. The shop person even helped her with measurements using a marked rope, the same rope Phlegma used to strangle him to death shortly afterward. Not realizing her new lack of strength she struggled to drag the body out front and into the fountain to make it appear maybe he had drowned, he was an older man and she figured no one would question it, and couldn’t really care as much if they did. She sighed quite morose as she realized she would miss the opportunity to witness the horrified looks on the patrons faces that would discover this forgettable corpse.

Strolling through alleys, giddy with her new getup, she noticed her feet would be much more comfortable if she were able to step on a pair of severed penises as insoles in her shoes, but she kept in mind her new existence was a search for subtlety that would be more so free of such delectable creature comforts such as keepsake genitalia.

She inhaled the luscious night air laced with the septic overtones of an overcrowded place, overcome with joy as she strut along, until she encountered something in an alley, three men repeatedly kicking another man on the ground, who was begging and pleading for them to stop. Without a second consideration she couldn’t help but prance over and join in kicking the man with them, although she aimed more for the face, which for some reason they had thought to avoid. “Who the fuck are you?” One of the startled men demanded as they all step back to watch her take over. “Oh my name...” she continued kicking his mouth joyously until a tooth came out as he spit up blood between kicks. “Is Phlegma, anddd there we go! Get those front teeth out!” One of the guys laughed, almost nervously “Yo! You’re fuck’n crazy! I might of just fell in love with you, you’re crazy. Now move bitch we’re gonna have to kill this rat” the man on the ground re-amped his begging struggling to say anything through his mangled mouth and possibly concussed state, saying please, anything, blah blah.

She giggled and leaned over the man “Don’t worry, I won’t let them kill you. Hold on.” He looked up through his only unswollen eye looking horridly confused. She turned back to the men asking “Do one of you have a knife?” At which the man on the ground started screaming even more urgently than before, who almost relatively calm taking his beating beforehand started visibly thrashing around and panicking now, trying in vain to crawl away, choking on blood as he let out the most desperate screams. Phlegma’s clit twitched at the sounds as one the men curiously handed her a knife and she squat over the bleeding man, gently kissing his bloody forehead cooing to him in a soft, squeaking voice “Oh come on. Stop yelling now. Or else. Okay?” The man refused to oblige and started screaming even more urgently for help, for god, for anything really, and she put the point of the knife against his jaw.

“See, you can force to stay mouth open by cutting... right... here!” She skit and the man let out an even more horrible array of shrieks as his face gushed blood. She snuck a run of her hungry clitoris as she lifted up her skirt. “I told him stop with the yelling right?” The men looked on in wonderment and horror at what she could possibly be doing now. One even asking “what, what are you gonna do?” As she lifted her skirt completely, holding his jaw open as she squatted over his face, round cheeks smashing into his bruised, disfigured visage.

“I’m taking a shit.” Phlegma answered as she perfectly positioned her asshole gaping open mouth and began slowly pushing out greasy logs of shit into his mouth, pushing so hard trying to fill his throat that she even pissed a tiny bit, the man waving his broken arms helplessly as he choked and suffocated, the feces covering his face and filling his very lungs. Phlegma took a deep inhale of the sweet aromas of her particularity rancid shit, chunks and pieces of hairs sticking out of some of the turds. She snuck a finger down to the pile, swabbed for some fecal matter and smothered the muddy fingertip up into her vagina, sliding in and out of the dribbling rabbits mouth between her legs as she let out a gentle moan and her toilet gurgled his last gurgle.

When she lifted her head and opened her eyes, the men had vanished. She presumed they must have enjoyed the show so much that they had to flee to a proper chamber to relive themselves, requiring the utmost privacy for masturbation over such an excellent display. She squiggled her fingers in a nearby puddle to clean them, pulled her skirt down and sauntered off, softly smiling, milking this moment for all she could. But she had so much more work to do. She glanced back towards the now dead man’s crotch, wondering if his penis would make a good cushion for her tired feet like she pondered earlier, but decided it would probably be too minute and shriveled to make a difference, shrugging it off as she spit a loogie onto a curled up sleeping cat in a corner, and kicked a passing rat like a football up through the air and into an open window nearby. She wondered to herself “Did they enjoy the show? So many voyeurs in this city, I am so blessed.” Spotting a trail of roaches in the street, she dropped to her knees and started shoveling them into her mouth, chewing enthusiastically roach after roach, one pregnant with babies, she could tell as the eggs plopped and popped in her mouth as she

chewed, a thousand squirming things in her mouth. It reminded her of a time when her crotch was infested with the loveliest colony of maggots, the ticklish sensations keeping her bubbly and ecstatic all the live long day.

Phlegma gazed above as a yellowish glaze spread gently over her vibrant fungi-green eyes, pupils dilating back and forth as she watched the decaying buildings sway in the windy night sky. She jumped and spun in circles, muddy waters splashing about as she tip-toed then stomped around the filthy wet street. Some brown water flew up and splashed into a collection of patchy blankets adorning a sleeping person on the side of the road there. They groaned and re-arranged themselves as Phlegma watched excitedly. She kicked a little more water into his face and giggled at her subtle playfulness. Eyeing the struggling body she spotted from

beaneth the blankets a holy, yellowed pair of dirty socks dressing a delectably rotten pair of feet. She sprinted over, dirty water splashing all over her bare legs as she knelt down to kiss and suckle the darkest spots of the molding socks, the man looking on bewildered behind his scruff. She sucked and swallowed the bitter crust, smothering her face in it, inhaling the intoxicatingly mephitic fumes as she struggled to rip the socks off, they seemed glued on as she uncovered scabby, possibly gangrenous toes on the septic feet, which she immediately began fellating, biting off scabs and chunks of blackened trench foot and curling callouses, sucking the mysterious juices off of and any part she could of the soles and in between the toes (some fused together by rot) even swallowing a very dark loose hangnail, she coughed and knelt over puking all over the road, some of his things and his feet, she leaned into the spread out chunky vomit and slurped it off the ground, moaning violently in a nauseous daze. She jumped up, almost crying ecstatic tears of joy, and began stomping and kicking the body and head of the man as he slowly and feebly attempted to stop her. She suddenly turned and ran into the distance, overcome with perverse fevered energy. She skipped along cackling and yelling in rapid succession to herself and the outside world.

She couldn’t believe her luck when she spotted a lone syringe lying in the road, she bit picked it up and bit the side and then the needle, glass shattering and slicing her gums apart as she chewed and tasted the tiny bits of old blood inside mixing with her shredded mouth’s, shaking with that intense and specific type of wondrous pain that she squealed in delightful bliss, swallowing pieces of glass and plastic and metal, a quivering smile forming across her spiked lips as she pondered happily the multitude of diseases she could of possibly accrued in just the past few minutes, squeezing her tits as roughly as she could, smothering and rubbing, a bit of broken glass under her fingernail slicing the left areola, both nipples lactating a shot of sour milk as she molested them. Feelings of an intrinsic sense of motherhood flooded her mind as she envisioned becoming pregnant, being able to taste that afterbirth, nibble on the placenta and the treasures inside, to gnaw on the newborn flesh of her baby, the tender jerky of the umbilical cord, an entire feast of the highest delicacy grown inside her, to be preciously shit out. She closed her eyes and considered the stretching of her pussy to accommodate an overweight ball of meat, her child’s distorted screams as she plucked out its tiny pea sized eyeballs and chewed them up, feeling them burst between her teeth as she slowly tore the little lump to shreds. She pictured her swollen gut, she’d been morbidly obese, but pregnancy was a new ground entirely, and what if she sprouted twins? Double the enjoyment!

She crept over to a nearby dumpster and dug for something to masticate, preferably something expired and spoilt enough to give her once again that sweet delectable nausea. A cool dip into ameliorated decadence, the soul soars through the sky leaving a streak of wet garbage and brittle bones and putrescent smog whistling in the air, the filthier the outside becomes, the more purified the deepest, most inner parts become, dutifully bathing in the thick excretions of Angels. Right then, an angel shed it’s skin, falling to the earth in the perfect shape of a blustery crucifix. It fell onto Phlegma as she allowed it to cradle her as if she almost expected it, as if it weren't at all possible that this exact thing couldn’t have happened right at this exact moment, as if she knew all along this day would come.

Still dressed in the angel’s skin she used it as a pleasantly long pea coat, sauntering into a gas station, swiping a couple things off the shelf to keep, plugging a long square of starburst into her pussy as she headed right for the bathroom. She used the sink and some of the only

slightly used toilet water to freshen up and clean some of the leavings off of her body. She would need to be clean to expend new patrons. Written in black lipstick and feces on the wall were multiple sayings and marks of graffiti,

DEATH IMPENDING PHASES FURRY LIKE A HAIRY LOBSTER

WRAPPED IN ENLONGATED SKULL EYES BULGE

I CANT STICK I CANT SIT CANT STAND UP

BACKSTROKING IN THE BOING OCEANS OF SHIT

IS MY SKIN BURning? aM I siNKINg into the AIr??

The AIR AROUND Me SLOW DISINTGRATION O TIME

SLOWLY SLOWING TIME

CAL 1-777-69967 FOUR A GO D TIME

She lapped up her fill of toilet water (she had quite a thirst built up) and she waltzed out purposefully. The cashier said something to her as she left, she ignored it and plucked the starburst out, dripping wet she cast the wrapper aside and started unwrapping individual candies and eating them, a gnat trapped in one, adding a little treat. She unscrewed a gas tank and pushed a few candies into it, considering that the car might want sweets as well, car accidents were some of Phlegma’s absolute favorite things. She recalled one where an entire family was shredded and decapitated inside a Volkswagen Beetle, the car crunched so that it looked like a soft, square frowny face. There was a much longer car on top that looked as if it were mounting the beetle and trying to fuck it, it’s penis killing and dismembering the family inside as it stroked and penetrated through the windows and their little walnut heads ripped so easily from their fragile little necks, pounding the people into chunks. Phlegma excitedly took photographs of the incident, long before any police or good samaritans could spoil and molest this exquisite still life, she noticed at the back of one of the vehicles among this pile up was a lone survivor, a tiny baby in a car seat, in the lower car underneath a big chunk of engine just above, dangling by a thread above the child. With ecstatic glee Phlegma started pushing and shoving and hitting the motor-piece so that it would fall, and it finally gave, landing with perfect form onto the car seat, crushing the baby with a spongy splat, the whole twisted interior of the car adorned with little red speckles of infant insides, a bit of yummy baby brains landing right on Phlegma’s upper lip, which she licked up and swallowed, shuttering with pleasure as she snapped a perfect photograph of the splattered thing. A photo which she kept on her mantle ina tiny frame built of dried entrails she had pulled from its half mother, legs on the dashboard swung back behind like a contortionist, the top half seemingly vanished from thin air.

Right then, Phlegma discovered a discarded gas tank, which she could use to burn any number of things, especially since she hadn’t eaten barbecue in such a long time, but alas, she had to focus. She was going to lose sight of her mission. She wasn’t here to play around, she was here to take care of business. She grabbed her pussy hard and squeezed growling to herself as she ponders what she could possibly do this coming morning.

[brothermarc7theatre]

"Waitress" show #763

Sugar, butter, flour: three simple ingredients which, when proportioned, mixed, and baked correctly, will make a delectable dessert. The ingredients that make up the Jessie Nelson/Sara Bareilles musical adaptation of the 2007 film are just like a pie: simple and will satisfy a sweet tooth. This musical elevates the rom-com genre by making the journey of Jenna, the central heroine, representational for women who have ever had a dream, had to overcome an abusive husband, and/or an undesired pregnancy. Christine Dwyer, leading the tour as Jenna, is a substantially gifted performer, giving Jenna the attentive nuance she needs to be a character worth investing in. However, it is the supporting cast of waitresses and male figures that truly give Waitress its applaud-worthy praise.

The divergence from a typical Broadway score works in Ms. Bareilles' favor, for the most part. The three “I Want” songs the three leading waitresses sing sporadically through the play are intentional, strong deviations from the plot and a true source of getting to know the internal drive of these women. However, the group numbers such as the bouncy “Opening Up,” the wittily written “The Negative,” and the affair-justifying “Bad Idea” serve Ms. Bareilles’ ability to write impressive harmonies rather than plot-pushing tunes. There are times when this serves as a pleasant break in the pace, thanks to infallible direction by Diane Paulus, such as when the Women’s ensemble deliver a stellar “Club Knocked Up,” a harmoniously fun scene transition. Otherwise, none compare to Jenna’s torch song in Act two, “She Used to Mine,” which Ms. Dwyer absolutely rocks. Her struggle, her strength, and her stamina all culminate in an anthem of inspiring, female empowering proportions. Aside from Ms. Dwyer’s vocals, which are also in glorious sound for her earlier “What Baking Can Do,” she has a great balance of all the quirks and traits Jenna is endowed with. Taking on a role that is written to be relatable to a variety of women, Ms. Dwyer finds the balance of strong-willed and submissive to the husbandry abuse, talented baker, lover of men, and confidant to her co-worker friends. A star turn is what Ms. Dwyer brings to this tour, a performance worthy of your time and ticket money.

Ms. Nelson’s writing is strong due to the fact that each of the female characters is purpose-driven. You know they have a journey to make, a transformation to go through, and a struggle inhibiting access to their respective finish line. (The male characters have very little journey and change, but are so specifically written that each performer has their time to shine.) Of the supporting females, Maiesha McQueen and understudy Gerianne Perez are in dynamite form as Jenna’s fellow waitresses, Becky and Dawn, respectively. These two team up with Ms. Dwyer early on for “A Soft Place to Land” and are a fabulous trio of singer-actors. Ms. McQueen’s sassy delivery of Becky’s quips are comedy gold, and her vocal turn in the Act two opener, “I Didn’t Plan It,” is worth the wait to hear her belt and decorate Ms. Bareilles’ score. Ms. Perez nails the quirky, odd-duck Dawn by grounding her performance in complete sincerity with her desire to find a lover. Ms. Perez’s turn at “When He Sees Me” is genuine, finely-sung, and staged/physicalized with a spastic insecurity that is consistent with Dawn’s attributes.

Steven Good delivers an endearing turn as a charming Dr. Pomatter, Jenna’s gynecologist. The two spark a near-immediate attraction for one another, an insta-chemistry that Ms. Dwyer and Mr. Good develop organically and believably. Mr. Good’s unsure demeanor is a nice complement to how spitfire Ms. Dwyer’s Jenna is, and his vocals are sublime in their does-nothing-for-the-plot-but-nice-to-listen-duet, “It Only Takes a Taste.” Matt DeAngelis is so good at being the bad husband, the blue collar drunken he-man, Earl. Mr. DeAneglis’ turn at “You Will Still Be Mine” is really a solo disguised as a duet with Jenna, a song about possession and Earl’s deep-seated insecurities and control issues. The role of Earl is sadly the most undeveloped role, a truly two-dimensional character. Earl never sees a moment of redemption, and there’s not much script to support any justifiable attraction between he and Jenna. However, Ms. Paulus’ direction and Mr. DeAngelis’ acting choices make him a character of interest, one that you feel exactly how you should feel about every time he tromps on stage. Alex Tripp absolutely steals the show as Ogie, Dawn’s eventual betrothed; yes, Dawn finds love! Ms. Tripp’s unsuspecting, eccentric demeanor magnifies the genius staging and lyrics of his breakout solo, “Never Ever Getting Rid of Me.” Mr. Tripp is a constant delight every time he spouts impulsive poetry, sucks the inhaler, and poses with flare.

Featured standouts come at the hands of Rheaume Crenshaw as Nurse Norma and Larry Marshall as Joe. Ms. Crenshaw’s comedic fire builds with every scene she enters at Dr. Pomatter’s office, whether it’s with a condescending comment or act of pie thievery. Mr. Marshall’s veteran presence and slow burn allurement brings nuance to every scene he is in, always indicative of the journey he is going on, culminating in a beautifully sung, simply staged “Take it From an Old Man,” a true swan song for the “old man” character in the show. It’s moments like this where the otherwise over-choreographed work from Lorin Latarro is stripped away and used to accent the scene rather than visually stun. With the limited ensemble (a great casting choice since a bigger ensemble is not necessary), the excessive staging becomes tiresome, though it is executed with consistent sharpness and commitment in honoring each beat of movement.

Ms. Paulus’ choice to have the musically gifted band infiltrating many scenes doesn’t pay off in the way it may be intended, but certainly doesn’t dilute the affect this musical has in embodying and promoting a sense of community, empowerment, and one’s pursuit of happiness. Complete with a stellar, decadent set design by Scott Pask and visually stunning lighting by Ken Billington, Waitress is a musical treat for the romantic at heart. Indulge your musical sweet tooth and catch Waitress in your hometown before it’s too late!

[writer59january13]

When The Doomsday Clock Struck Twelve

    PROLOGUE: Ever since the timeless immeasurable coalescence of consciousness viz wrought higher thought propensity, and bequeathed the rudimentary tools of the then nascent malevolent (though unbeknownst to themselves, innocent looking, knee high primates, would attempt a futile declaration of independence, nonetheless their biological constitutional bound them to chromosomal amendments), would affix the seal of disapproval alluding to archaic contraband arms trade (those most primitive hominids forged sticks and stones as defensive means), yet unwittingly, jarringly, and alarmingly – in due millenniums got cursed with their own demagogic demise.

    The prism of hindsight allows, enables and provides a peg leg up for us grand children to the power of googleplex from those nattering nabobs of…nature scant survivors to parse and piece together an anthropological spectrum analysis.

    We can advantageously, yet delicately isolate (much more easily than those bipedal millennial lowbrow swedish, nor wee gin, and dane hush knuckle dragging forebears of contemporary residents of Lake Woebegone) that roamed vast expanses and virginal plains on the prowl for seedy stems, root stock, and grubs that formed a zigzag pattern of trial and error asper what did not kill them got the shortish brutes (yet to attain the realm noble savages).

    These early primates rode a figurative and veritable zip line toward domination upon the healthy terra firmae, and unstintingly planted the spores for vast generational realms spelling beasty boy modern day prairie home companions, who accidentally stumbled upon the long lost culinary delicacy earning the equivalent of Michelin awards for high demand best selling powder milk biscuits comprising raw bits of NON GMO, gluten and msg free vintage Triceratops ground horn meal circa millenniums ago.

    Inconclusive questions still abound asper how one wimpy, scruffy, and outlandishly kooky band of ambling ape like creatures attained the rand and file of most dominant, hogtied, and lukewarm pygmies strode right topmost uber valiant warlords.

    One school of thought ascertains highly touted punctuated equilibrium theory. This hypothesis ordains a sudden and inordinate burst of species differentiation versus gradual feints evolving determination to cope.

    A brush stroke of chance graced one great descendent of a monkey’s uncle (christened matthew scott harris – who just by beginners luck linkedin with all in his family inside a radiation proof arched bunker) with empirical and unique wisdom – at least in comparison with other feral and furry jungle loving spoonful sized swinging creatures.

    No matter whether one attributes bytes of divine intervention, a mere crapshoot in the dice throw of fate, the scattershot fits and starts among Darwinian survival of the fittest brought an undeniable net result, which in toto spelled light years away complete and utter extinction for a biological experiment that went seriously awry.

    Over the course of millennial generations, a combination of beginners’ dumb luck, coevals of circumstance and happenstance proffered the L'Enfant terrible civilization with the subtle trappings of preponderant transcendence and imminent domain over all the other life forms great and small.

    This godlike domination and mantle to rule with an iron maiden fist would eventually and in short order cook to a crisp the supposed ribs from cosmic creator.

    Mushroom became a hot commodity and premium especially as invisible shackles proved to chain these prehensile beasts acquired, reveled in unbridled power.

    This inimitable coterie of chest thumping missing links into deluded them into owning a fools’ paradise.

    A parabolic trajectory arced elliptically toward chaos of lex Lucifer at that atrocious, nefarious, and heinous explosion.

An innocent, innocuous and subtle series of incremental transitions fostered physiognomy of arboreal mammals to climb, crawl, shimmy and slide across various and sundry terrain.

    At some metastatic stage, these informal claques and clicks spurred an inexplicable brainstorm to tap out a manifesto and stand up for vaguely grunted inalienable rights.

    Who knows really knows how, what or when precipitated one unsuspecting ring leader to prompt a horde of hairy brutes to lurch ahead of the pack?

    Once in an upright pose, the de facto leader probably received the first standing ovation.

    An erect and more upright posture stepped up the advantages, which ironically enough set the stage for one after the other epic tragic 2017 spatial odyssey.

    In the end one nasty, shortish, brute could end up wielding a bigger club, rattle a sharper saber and sadly and lastly fire off a deadlier warhead.

    Fain to argue against the existence of diabolic ambitions and concomitant sinister treason against scripted virtuous blueprint fleshed out on the divine creators’ drawing board, when tell tale signs abundantly litter the byways and highways of the actual and information superhighways of this human lot.

    That slow but inexorable ascent from the primordial ooze thence reaching upon the highest summit of egoistic grandeur also condemned and forebode a relatively terrible swift descent from what would turn out to be a hollow and precarious precipice.

    Difficult if not well nigh impossible to discern any traceable handy dance blues clue of such demonic motives in the rather cute and furrowed brow, heart and soul of those ape men, women and children that happened to be above average.

    Although anthropological lineage can be traced with a rather jagged line from that hazy humid dog day afternoon, an ordinate amount of energy plus a preponderant exuberant expenditure of crusading conviction found pitched battles with battle axes and crucifixions following pomp and circumstances infusing the exploits with pomp and circumstances of the fighting machine.

    Like overgrown children egging the enemy for a zealous fight, that lethal brinkmanship set in motion an irreversible lethal assault.

    Instantaneous electronic and satellite communications automatically instructed formerly hidden weapons of mass destruction to get launched from their respective silos only to bore down heavily on the designated pre-coded targets.

    Tracers arced and lit up one fatal view of the celestial orb, gamut of constellations and cosmic mysteries burned as one collective blinding nihilistic imprimatur – upon billions of seared retinas!

    This veritable blitzkrieg zeroed in on major metropolitan centers before extinction of détente ripped a black hole in the heartland.

    Time seemed to be suspended and still for one brief yet glorious moment before those sinister mushroom clouds sprinkled spores, sprouted and populated the radioactive heavens.

    A deafening ear-splitting sound filled the air just before the cherished landmarks got rent a sundered by this encompassing apocalypse now, with critical up to date emergency specification blared via national public radio, yet audio soundcloud muted by the sonic threshold waking up the recently grateful dead.

    All phenomena became liquefied into gruesome, macabre and twisted shapes.

    Entire populations became hostage to an evil genii loosed from the bottle of atomic energy.

    This entropy purportedly milked from noble heart felt blood sweat and tears for fears.

    The long march of history presented a completely replete treat of supremely intelligent mortal men and women bestowed with the benevolent title of genius ineluctably contributed to the annihilation of planet earth.

Forsooth thy willowy young lass named lingua franc me childhood sweetheart and newfound bride long gone bonnie oh

abeyance promulgated by Prometheus

reigning eternal radiation to glow

no more splendiferous raiment

nor sylvan paradise

bloweth gale like from thine beau.

    A small number of multi-cultural Homo sapiens from Lake Woebegone (myself included plus a claque of hearty strapping Norwegian Bachelor farmers, whose diet of powder milk biscuits and raw bits a possible preventive inoculation) in addition to a cadre of various and sundry other species chanced to be on a reconnaissance mission ironically to broker negotiate word peace.

    This motley crew (a typical representative sampling of most all the gamut per creed, nationality, race, religion, et cetera) of humankind experienced a collective gasp of horror at the blinding flash that cleft the globe into smithereens and shattered the atmosphere into at least a millions little pieces.

    No more ability to support life in all those various and sundry manifestations with a newly forged asteroid belt birthed into existence.

    Such an ignominious end and total destruction of mother earth (formerly replete with all the attendant diversification of flora and fauna) far exceeded the ability of our shell- shocked vestigial eclectic tribe.

    This emotionally tattered remnant (once part of a now vanished misty, mythic, swashbuckling and vainglorious past) awash with self proclaimed manifest destiny and emancipation a little to late swore unbridled allegiance to all manner of god and country (incorporating hidden and inconvenient truths to boot chrome windows) no longer inhabited the four corners upon the plane of Gaia.

    Prognosticators of yore spouting this, that, and the other end of world hypothetical scenarios could never even approach this catastrophe on a biblical scale times the power of google.

    Witnesses in now way, shape nor form could capture even a paltry approximation the fury nor wrath of these tectonic nuclear blasts.

    Classic literature steeped in the annals of the noble savage banging the tom-tom and emitting that blood curdling and ear-piercing scream.

    This eruption of ferocity meant to breed fear and sought (perhaps in addition to a scalp or two) nothing short of being heir apparent sovereignty, a salient trait to bank upon.

    How quaint that now iconic image frequently reminisced by artists, musicians, writers, et cetera contrasted with those last surviving exploitative ideologues qua demigods, who in the name of busy whacking democracy similarly plundered and raped with reckless impropriety and nonchalance.

    Those pulverized remain permanently ensconced forever pinwheel thru the air of those skeletal concrete and steel reinforced fortresses.

    Hot vicious thermal winds blew the thick mass of cremated ashes across the rubble strewn and severely cratered landscape.

The devil made mince meat oye vay

as like one huge lumbering ogre massive as Uruguay

and grim reaper got feedstock upon lovely bone covered tray

rolled up into one not so jolly green giant did slay

good will to all men

and spat out pox with an emphatic nay

triumphing over godly salvation

using eponymous accursed pitchfork

made merry and rolled in the hay

simultaneously sneering out in delight

at wanton death and decay

whereby civilization forever mutilated

and perforated said spindled World Wide Web structure

where once proud and strong spikes radiated

now sundered in total chaotic disarray.

    EPILOGUE: Ever since the beginning of time, when one select group of primates owned an advantage to survive and transcend pitfalls and predators, their abilities to forage, hunt and scavenge for food and safety likewise eclipsed other equally adept tribes.

    Vagaries, vicissitudes and voices initially in the form of primal groans and grunts began to weave the rudiments of traditions, which in no short time seem to thrive on sacrifice, superstition and many aspects of the kill.

    At some juncture, one branch from the tree of homo sapiens would practically subsume the entire trunk line, thus render the once almighty, beastie boy, crafty duty enemy fly guy humbled.

    Thus, the varietal genes and chromosomes encapsulating latent internecine torture and extermination bred dreadful heathen jimmied, linkedin, nasty pirated reprehensible totemic vicars xing zone.

    Eons would elapse with negligible yet faintly perceptible notches of sophistication. Ever more egregious methodologies would be dreamt up, employed in peevish mock war games

    Only to be inflicted on innocent civilians or military personnel as collateral trophies in the name of mortal combat.

[operationrainfall]

Title A Robot Named Fight Developer Matt Bitner Games Publisher Matt Bitner Games Release Date September 7th, 2017 Genre Metroidvania Platform Steam Age Rating N/A Official Website

One of my favorite genres of all time is the Metroidvania. Like many gamers, it all started with Super Metroid, but my passion was also reinforced by the glorious period of time where Castlevania started to adopt that style, all beginning with the incredible Symphony of the Night. As a result of my fandom, I do a lot of research into upcoming Metroidvanias, and do my best to follow their progress. So it was to my utter surprise that one came out of nowhere and slapped me across the face, demanding my attention. It wasn’t just a Metroidvania, it was a procedurally generated one with roguelike aspects. That game is called A Robot Named Fight.

Drawn, programmed and created by the one man team of Matt Bitner (with some assistance from his lovely wife), A Robot Named Fight is a tribute to many games he loved from the good old days of the SNES. That inspiration shows in how it borrows the winning aspects of many games, such as Super Metroid and Contra. At first glance it would be easy to make the erroneous claim that the game is just wilfully copying those games, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. You need to appreciate that Matt spent the time to teach himself many aspects of game creation while making A Robot Named Fight, and while you’ll be familiar with some parts of the game, it was more of a delightful mash up of recognizable features than theft. After playing the game for six hours, I can say with confidence that it more than stands up on the merits of its own ideas, and you’ll quickly look past those features which may remind you of older games.

With that out of the way, let’s talk about the meat of the game. The basic premise is that robots have become the dominant members of society and have heralded in a age of prosperity. Enter the hideous Megabeast, a cancerous collection of mutant horrors, which it literally rains upon the land in endless horrifying combinations. Robot society is devastated by this assault, not least of all because the legions of the Megabeast are capable of infesting and controlling some robots. Enter our hero, a nameless plucky robot determined to slay the Megabeast, and in so doing earn the distinction of being named Fight. It’s a little silly and very 90s, but the plot provided just enough motivation to get drawn into the game. Like any Metroidvania, the whole point is the action and exploration, and A Robot Named Fight doesn’t disappoint.

A great part of exploration is finding odd graffiti which gives hints to the lore behind the game.

I said earlier that the game is procedurally generated, and that’s very true, but with some provisos. Though the layout and weapons you find on a given run are totally random, the basic order in which you proceed is not. You always start at the same opening stage, working your way to the Caves, then the Factory, down into the Buried City, and then back to the beginning to finish things. That probably sounds like a short jaunt, and while that’s true, the game has ways to keep things going. Every level you discover and every boss you first defeat unlocks new content, from weapons and upgrades you can find on subsequent runs to save stations you can use. In essence, the farther you get, the more the game world expands and becomes more complex. If you find a dark room, you’ll need to find a Bright Shell to illuminate it. Can’t proceed through a narrow tunnel? Find a Arachnomorph transformation! While you can beat the game in less than an hour, it will take time to get powerful enough to successfully do so. I spent a good 3 hours trying and dying again and again until I had unlocked enough upgrades and gotten the perfect weapon and skill setup (Infinijump, Flamethrower, Buzzsaw and Tri Orb) to take on and beat the filthy Megabeast, and managed to do so in just over 51 minutes. So it’s both a game with good amounts of exploration and combat as well as a game that can be speedrun for fun.

Nothing wakes you up like the smell of roasted Megabeast in the morning!

The procedural generation has good and bad aspects. The good is that you’ll be given different upgrades at different points in the game. One run I got a flamethrower that could unlock flesh covered doors as well as do burn damage on foes; another time I got a slide move that took me under tight tunnels, and yet another I got an electrical blast that could shoot through walls to trigger switches. I loved this variety, as the same basic goals can be accomplished a million different ways, and that makes each run an unpredictable delight. The bad is that sometimes it seemed that I was locked out of progressing forward. Multiple times I came to a room where the way forward was blocked by a huge pillar, and since I had no upgrades at that early point, I couldn’t go farther. I forcibly restarted several times until I had the bright idea that maybe there was a hidden passage. Sure enough, by shooting at the ceiling I revealed a way forward, a technique that has worked ever since. This was to the game’s credit, as the way it unveils the stages teaches players what to expect and how to think critically. Like in Super Metroid, there are lots of locked doors and hidden paths, and diligence and patience will always reward you with a way forward. While I did occasionally find that the game would create rooms where entering would immediately put me right next to an enemy, instantly inflicting damage and even killing me one time, this was the exception and not the norm. Overall the procedural generation is well implemented and keeps things fresh. Combined with the intuitive controls found when paired with an XBox 360 controller, the game proceeds at a brisk pace.

The more you unlock, the better your chances for success.

Fight On! ->

It wouldn’t be a true Metroidvania without hulking and beastly bosses, and A Robot Named Fight mostly doesn’t disappoint. While each of the bosses is well animated, freaky and challenging, some are much easier than others. That might not sound like an issue, and it mostly isn’t, but given the random nature of the game, you might encounter wild difficulty spikes unexpectedly. For example, you might fight a boss such as Sluggard, a slow moving boss that does little to threaten you, and then move onto a much more difficult boss next, such as Wall Creep. Most boss fights are one note, as they only have a single phase, and typically revolve around rushing them with a torrent of gun blasts, avoiding their attacks and then rushing them again. There are a few bosses which are much more of a challenge, such as the sinister Metal Patriarch or the Megabeast itself, but it’s hard to know what to expect whenever you enter a boss chamber. To be fair, most of the bosses are fair for what your current weapon setup turns out to be, just don’t expect the game to always play gentle.

One way to even the odds in your favor is to use scrap and artifacts you have collected to buy upgrades and new weapons from robot shopkeeps scattered about the game. They only have a couple different things on sale at a time, and there’s no way of knowing exactly what you’re getting. At first I was ready to complain about this, until I realized another well known roguelike, The Binding of Isaac, basically does the same thing in the shop, and only experience used in subsequent playthroughs will tell players what to expect from items. While I do wish A Robot Named Fight was a bit clearer, you can usually get an idea what items do from visual cues you’ll find on the selection screen. I will say that if you ever see an icon that looks like a green buzzsaw, buy it. That weapon is utterly devastating, as it can slice through hordes of foes with ease. My only other minor complaint with regard to the shopkeeps is that I wish the scrap and artifacts needed to buy things were held between games instead of lost when you die.

Visually, the game is quite pleasing and features robust enemy variety, as well as colorful attack animations. The monsters you face are all delightfully horrifying, striking me as some dark mix of Aliens, Contra and even Dementium. None of the foes you face look remotely normal, and the vast panoply of horrors gave the game a unique flavor not usually seen in Metroidvanias. There’s also plenty of gore, as defeating enemies generally paints the walls with their gore and guts. The synth music is catchy, and reminds me fondly of Mega Man X, and I loved the ominous sounds found outside a boss room, but the basic sound effects can get grating. The standard shot is very loud and some enemies screech every time they move. When you hear the same foe screeching every other second as it bounces against the far end of a room and then rebounds, it can get a bit annoying.

Those egg sacks will always release lovely monsters when you burst them. How fun!

While I don’t have any major complaints against the game, there were a couple of minor issues that nagged me. For one thing, I’m not sure if there are only four main areas in the game, or if I can unlock more eventually. Though the variety present isn’t lacking, I always love getting lost in sprawling Metroidvanias. I also desperately wanted a bestiary. From following the game on Twitter, I see that many of the bosses have great names, like the aforementioned Sluggard and Metal Patriarch, yet the game doesn’t clarify which is which. Yes, upon beating a boss you get the achievement for doing so and their name, but the accompanying picture is of the weapon you unlock, not the beast that you beat to unlock it. I would love being able to pause the game, bring up a picture of all the bosses I beat and some flavor text to round things out. I think doing so would provide the game with a longer legacy, as it’s much easier to remember monsters with memorable names, such as Ridley, as opposed to monsters whose name you’re uncertain of.

This room caused me to restart repeatedly until I found the hidden passage.

Overall, I was quite impressed with A Robot Named Fight. It provided a healthy challenge, tons of unexpected variety and just enough exploration to satisfy fans of the genre. It’s clear to me that Matt truly understands the factors that make this genre great, and did his level best to include all of them in this, his very first game. While the base journey is pretty short, the various achievements and the need to find everything keeps me playing. I would venture that even Sundered, another fantastic Metroidvania with random generation, isn’t quite so adept at procedural generation as this one. For only $9.99 (or 25% cheaper for the next few days) this game is one any Metroidvania fan should own. I can only hope that it does well in sales, since I’d love to see it make its way to other consoles, as well as maybe getting some DLC. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go and beat the Megabeast for the third time and finish getting 100% of those achievements!

[easyreview cat1title=”Overall” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”4.5″]

Review Copy Provided by Developer

REVIEW: A Robot Named Fight Title A Robot Named Fight