#and for the life of me i absolutely could not give up another sopranos character. it was hard enough just choosing 2

[winedark]

tagged by the lovely @macbethwitches — thank you 🫶 🫶 ❣️

make a poll with five of your all time favorite characters and then tag five people to do the same. see which character is everyone’s fave!

(the sopranos / succession / chungking express / the sopranos AGAIN sorry i couldn't help it / the brothers karamazov)

tagging: @alethiometry, @camelliagwerm, @caernua, @tatianalarin, @leofrith + anyone else who would like to do this, take this free ticket 🎟️ 💜✨

[missmis]

I’ve been having a lot of heated debates recently over which actors are the best in certain roles, so I thought long and hard about my ideal Les Mis cast.

For some roles, I have several actors (mainly Enjolras, because every guy who’s ever played him seems to be gorgeous). For some roles, there is only one person who just IS that character to me.

Now without further ado, here we go:

Jean Valjean: Alfie Boe, always. He perfectly conveys Valjean’s transition from angry convict to noble and almost saintly, plus his voice still gives me chills every time. I could write an entire post exclusively on the sheer perfection of his high note at the end of “Bring Him Home”, but that is a subject for another day. Honourable mention: John Owen-Jones because his voice is incredible, too-but he overdoes it on the anger sometimes.

Javert: ooh, that’s a tough one. I’d say it’s probably a tie between Earl Carpenter (who has the warmest and most powerful baritone ever) and Norm Lewis, who does the cold-hearted arrogance perfectly. Honourable mention: Richard Woodford, who used to be Grantaire and Javert’s understudy ages ago. Most people probably won’t know him, but he is honestly amazing- and a lovely guy.

Fantine: Carrie Hope Fletcher. Her voice can be powerful or soft as needed and she really captures Fantine’s pain. Honourable mention: Lea Salonga, whose voice is also gorgeous, but whose acting I find a little exaggerated sometimes.

Éponine: Samantha Barks will always be the one true Éponine for me. Her voice is incredible, she looks right (because in my head, Éponine is always dark-haired) and she portrays the whole unrequited love thing to perfection. And yes, I may possibly have a tiny crush on her... Or a big one.

Cosette: Honestly, Cosette always annoyed the heck out of me until I discovered Lily Kerhoas. She’s completely lovestruck-as the character should be- but she manages to turn Cosette into an actual person and not just a one-dimensional teenager who was put in to make all the guys look better. And that is honestly a huge accomplishment. Honourable mention: Amanda Seyfried, although her incredibly high soprano is a bit too much for my ears.

Marius: I loved Eddie Redmayne’s portrayal in the film version. His general adorable shyness steals my heart every time. I also love Rob Houchen, who has a gorgeous voice and who captures the innocence of the character. And Gareth Gates does hands down the best version of “A Little Fall of Rain” I’ve ever seen, because he actually seems to care that Éponine just died, unlike many other actors who’ve played this role.

Enjolras: As I said, there are so many amazing people who have played him. But if I had to choose one, it’d probably be Bradley Jaden (and no, I’m not just saying that because his man bun is a blessing to this fandom). I love his passion and the sheer power he brings to the character. Aaron Tveit is also up there with my favourites-he may not be the greatest singer, but he looks exactly like Book Enjolras and he gets that coldness and indifference-especially towards poor Grantaire- just right. Then there’s Killian Donnelly whose Irish accent I absolutely adore. Oh and lastly, Ramin Karimloo, of course-he may not look like your classical Enjolras, but the light of rebellion is ablaze in his eyes :)

Monsieur Thénardier: the one and only, the inimitable Matt Lucas. He is simply hilarious, which is actually kind of an ethical issue, because he almost makes me like Monsieur T. And every time someone says “Cosette”, I now hear “Courgette” in my head, which is entirely his fault.

Madame Thénardier: Katy Secombe. She’s mean, she’s funny, she’s brash, her facial expressions are everything and her voice can knock you off your feet. Especially great in combination with Matt Lucas. Honestly, I’d pay to see these two do stand-up comedy together.

Gavroche: Also a tough one. My favourite is probably Daniel Huttlestone in the film, just because he’s so adorable I want to adopt him. I also love Robert Madge’s mischievous and cocky Gavroche in the 25th and recently, Logan Clark, whose antics give me life.

Grantaire: He’s my favourite character, so I’m kind of picky about who plays him. Only two guys have found mercy before my eyes. One: George Blagden, whose pining for Enjolras was the only thing that kept me watching the film. I will never stop being pissed that they cut his solo in “Drink With Me”. Two: Keith Anthony Higham. He has the richest voice ever and he just gets Grantaire-the cynicism, the drama and the unrequited love thing. If you haven’t already, watch his 2008 version of “Drink With Me” with David Thaxton. Thank me later.

Courfeyrac: Fra Fee- I love his passion and his friendship with Gavroche in the film. Plus, he has a beautiful voice. Also the guy from the 2019 staged concert- I believe his name is Michael Sheehy, but I could be wrong. He is honestly hilarious.

Combeferre: Killian Donnelly. He gets the whole slightly-exasperated-by-all-of-these-irresponsible-idiots professorial vibe. And he has a very powerful voice.

Feuilly: Matthew Gent because of his lovely soft singing and his funny-as-hell facial expressions.

Joly: Jamie Muscato, who is just such an adorable goofball.

Bossuet/Lesgles/Laigle/the dude with a hundred different names: I don’t know the guy’s name, but he’s in the 25th. Firstly, because he’s actually bald and thus, about ten times more accurate than most other portrayals and secondly, because his voice is warm and soft and it’s actually a shame he hasn’t got more lines to sing.

Bahorel: Again, the dude from the movie- Iwan Lewis, I think he’s called. Just the right amount of recklessness.

Jehan Prouvaire: I haven’t really found anyone I like in this role yet. I’m not that big a fan of Alistair Brammer for some reason, so if someone could help me out here, I’d be grateful.

The Bishop: Also Earl Carpenter, because his voice is-for lack of a better description-like a nice, warm blanket. And I like Colm Wilkinson in this role, too.

I hope I haven’t missed any characters. If I have, please do point them out to me. I hope you’ve enjoyed my analysis- I tried to make it about more than just “Oh, I like this person because they’re hot”. Feel free to share your own opinions and remember: these are just my subjective ones.

[theres-a-goldensky]

BL Show Review Series - HIStory 3: Trapped

My first non-Thai BL review is also going to be of a series that moves away from the university setting: the Taiwanese drama HIStory3: Trapped.

Disclaimer that these are my own opinions, and I don’t know where the BL community as a whole stands on these shows. If I disliked a show you loved or visa versa, no disrespect is intended!

MASTERLIST OF BL SHOW REVIEWS

MILD SPOILERS AHEAD!

HIStory3: Trapped Rating: 9.5/10

This series. This series. First, a little background if you’re unfamiliar with the HIStory franchise. HIStory is a series of unrelated BL stories. The first season had three hour-long specials. The second series got more ambitious. There are two different stories, each spanning four full-length episodes. Finally, by the time they reached the third iteration, the franchise had grown so popular that both of the series, Trapped and Make Our Days Count, were 10 full-length episodes. (Well, or 20 small episodes that were then condensed down to 10 larger ones, but semantics.)

If you’re interested, the HIStory series is available, in the US at least, on the website viki. It is a subscription site, but it gives you access to thousands of Asian dramas, including this series and South Korean BLs like Where Our Eyes Linger and Mr. Heart.  

HIStory3: Trapped is a story about a mobster and the police officers pursuing him. But since this is BL, the mob boss has a heart of gold and is trying to reform the gang so that he and his ‘family’ can get out of the drug business and go legit. Meanwhile, the police officers are on the hunt for answers about a four year old incident that killed one of their own, but they are, err...not super effective. 

Look, you just have to roll with the fact that this story is extremely lax about police protocol and the reality of being in the mob. It’s a set up for enemies-to-lovers and intense UST and that’s it. The police chief and other higher ups have no problem with one of their officers dating a well known mob boss who is suspected of killing a fellow police officer, for instance. So why should we? Just roll with it, ok? Roll like a bowling ball, where the pins at the end of the alley are super hot UST, pining, hurt/comfort, jealousy and bed scenes. 

The mob boss in question is Tang Yi. 

Since the death of his adopted father, he’s taken over the Tang operation and is dedicating himself to avenging his father’s murder and also following his father’s dream of legitimizing their company so that their family can be safe. He is...I mean. He’s gorgeous. Just, like, super super super hot. He is outwardly unflappable (unless you poke the bruise of his father’s death), dresses impeccably, and kills with these knowing smirks that get me every time.

His life is made very complicated by officer Meng Shao Fei, who has been obsessively following him around for years. The same incident that killed Master Tang and injured Tang Yi also killed his police mentor, and Shao Fei is certain that Tang Yi had something to do with it. 

Shao Fei is impulsive and as straight forward as Tang Yi is oblique and mysterious. It’s clear early on that Shao Fei’s pursuit of Tang Yi is fueled in part by his attraction to him. Tang Yi can see this as well, and he uses Shao Fei’s crush to his advantage, ratcheting up the sexual tension to nearly unbearable heights in the early episodes and purposely provoking Shao Fei’s quick jealousy.

The jealousy is what brings this show’s rating down the half-point. Shao Fei is so transparent about his jealousy that it becomes uncomfortable to watch. I was cringing with secondhand embarrassment through a lot of the early episodes. However, that honest emotion works well for him once he figures out what he wants from Tang Yi.

This relationship has a TON of hurt/comfort for those of you interested in that particular trope. For Shao Fei, it’s physical h/c. The guy can’t stop getting hurt, and we get to see a lot of Tang Yi worried about him. For Tang Yi, though, it’s emotional h/c as he deals with the psychological fallout from watching his father die. 

You might hear mob boss/police officer and think of, I don’t know, The Sopranos, or some other serious, dramatic show. While this story does have its dramatic moments, it is largely romantic and comedic in tone. 

The plot surrounding the mystery of that mass murder four years earlier keeps things chugging along and takes some interesting turns, but the focus of the show is very much on the couples.

The main side pairing of the show is between Jack, Tang Yi’s right hand man, and Zhao Zi, another police officer and Meng Shao Fei’s best friend. This pairing is pure fluff from beginning to end. It’s where a lot of the comedy comes, and the two of them are absolutely delightful together.

The contrast set up by Jack’s dark, dangerous personality when he’s doing his job and his sweetness towards Zhao Zi is entertaining. He’s often seen idly flicking a switchblade and smiling in a way that makes it clear he has no problem using it. And then, on the other hand, he prepares Zhao Zi bento boxes and texts him cute bear stickers to make him laugh. 

Neither of these sides of Jack seem fake. They’re both just part of who he is, and Zhao Zi gets the warm, domestic Jack, while the rest of the world gets the ruthless, efficient Jack.

Again, you might be asking yourself: isn’t it weird that a leather-wearing gang member who was recently arrested by that very police team could stroll into the station and hand an officer a homemade lunch and no one cares? And to that, I say, roll with it like you’re in one of those giant orb things and HIStory3: Trapped has just pushed you down a hill.

The character of Zhao Zi is adorable, naive and almost childlike. He looks like someone who has never even held a gun in his life, never mind actually shot one. That makes it pretty funny that he became a police officer. It seems to be implied that Zhao Zi is more of a tech / research guy than a field officer, but anyway, we’re rolling with it, so it’s fine.

He’s completely blindsided by Jack’s interest in him, but is easily won over through snacks, home cooked meals, and Jack’s genuine interest in Zhao Zi’s stories about his beloved, dead grandmother. 

The other side pairing in this series is between Tang Yi’s adopted sister Zuo Hong Ye, who runs the legitimate side of the company, and their assistant, Dao Yi. Dao Yi is loyal to the Tang family, and is much older than Hong Ye. He has been her bodyguard since she was adopted by Master Tang, which makes his romantic feelings very uncomfortable for him.

Some people didn’t like this pairing, but I got into it by the end. The problem is that Hong Ye starts off seeming pretty unlikable, because she’s rude to our protagonist, Shao Fei. But then you realize that she’s doing it to protect Tang Yi from the police officer she thinks is gunning for him. 

There may be a large age difference between the characters, but the actual actors are very close in age, so that part of the story line comes off a little weird. But I found them an engaging couple, in particular Dao Yi’s stoic pining for Hong Ye. 

In conclusion: watch this series! It’s great! The bed scenes are hot, the characters are well drawn, the acting is good, the story is interesting. Big recommendation.

And if you’re interested in fanfic, I put together rec lists for multiple BL shows including this one that can be found here and here. 

MASTERLIST OF BL SHOW REVIEWS

(Send me an ask if you have a show you’d like me to review - with the understanding that I will be completely honest - or if there’s anything you think I forgot or got wrong in this review.)

[amandaoftherosemire]

Ice and Moonlight -- Part One

Fandom: Marvel Avengers AU

Pairing: Loki Odinson X Asgardian!Reader

Characters: Loki Odinson, Thor Odinson, Valkyrie, OFC Cassie

Author: @amandaoftherosemire

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 4,183

Format: Short Series

Warnings: Smut (very light), 18+ only, language, fluff, angst

Summary: You and Loki had been inseparable until his discovery of his true origins and his father’s deceptions. You only spoke to him once more before his sacrifice on Svartlfheim. After his death, heartbroken and left with nothing but unanswered questions, you’d left Asgard to find your fortunes on Midgard. One night, and once again not dead, Loki walks back into your life. The bastard.

A/N: I have a deep weakness for Hozier and this story is absolutely inspired by the chorus of ‘Work Song.’ When music puts a story in my brain, I tend to produce a barrage of words, so this is another one-shot that got away from me. Anyone who has been reading my stuff for awhile will know that this happens to me a lot, but the next part will be up in a couple of weeks at most. I’d be more specific, but I’m still buried in my personal life and eking out time to write so I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep.

This is canon adjacent through Thor: Ragnarok but I split off at that point to keep Loki alive without dealing with the consequences of IW and Endgame. For the purposes of this story, Thanos got super busy playing with a kitten he found, and Infinity War never happened.

Mischief // Malice // Magic

Mischief

You could smell them the moment they walked in, even over the myriad other smells that inundated the air of the bar. That air was redolent with smoke, liquor, wood, humanity, but when the door opened, the air that followed the men carried rain and ozone, ice and moonlight to your nose and you knew they'd found you. Those scents were as familiar to you as your own face, your own name, as there'd never been a day in your memory that you hadn't known and loved them.

The ice and moonlight would have been more of a surprise if your best friend in this realm and any other, Cassie of the wicked laugh and mean left hook, hadn't come barreling into your room this morning to show you the news report she'd been watching on her phone. You'd seen the royal brothers, plural, and the shriek of rage and betrayal hadn't quite clawed its way out of your throat before the rest of the report left you breathless with grief.

Asgard, of golden spires and shining seas, was gone, destroyed in prophesied Ragnarok. Your people were a remnant, refugees in an uncertain universe. You may have left Asgard, but you had intended to go back home, someday. Now someday would never come.

You would have gone to your people right away, offered your comfort to Thor, whom you loved as a brother, except Loki stood at his side and you hadn't yet decided if you were going to acknowledge his second return from the dead. You still hadn't really dealt with his first return.

You didn't look up, merely continued to flick your fingers over the keys of the piano, an instrument you'd taken to almost as soon as you'd set foot on Midgard. Heimdall had set you down in the parking lot of this bar, owned by the sharp-eyed, smart-mouthed Cassie. She'd taken one look, seen a babe in the woods, though a babe that could bench press a semi, and taken you under her wing. In return, you sang for your supper, kept her bar safe and entertained.

You'd found your voice here, a very different one from the ethereal thing that had once lifted out of you like angel song. You could still awe Midgardians with a soaring soprano, but you much preferred the richer, rawer voice you'd found here in the smoke and the dark. Your voice no longer lifted, but poured out of you, fueled by heartbreak Midgardians couldn't fathom, nor could they resist. You packed them in every night to hear the angel that fell to Earth, to witness the magic you made with your voice.

Loki couldn't understand why Thor had dragged him halfway across this horrid little planet to visit another horrid little corner of it. He would have much preferred to find some place plush, comfortable, and quiet to escape, tired of humanity after less than a week in their presence. He enjoyed the fact that he was infamous but would have preferred a little less breathless terror and a little more deferential respect.

Thor immediately sauntered up to the bar, leaning in to grin at the bartender. Though he was wearing jeans and a t-shirt in red that stretched across his massive chest in fascinating and delicious ways, there could be no doubt that he was more than an ordinary man by the scent of ozone and power that hung on him. Cassie merely lifted a brow, wishing she could allow herself to be charmed, but she recognized the pale man behind him as the one who'd, as she thought of it, set you on fire. Loki, gorgeously out of place in a smoke gray suit, sneered at the dark woman whose equally dark eyes were judgmental as they rested on him. Hostility rolled off of her in waves as she stared him down.

Which is how she saw the change come over him when your voice began to wind through the air, twining around the smoke with the same rough warmth. She wondered at the stricken look of hope and despair that chased each other across his face; she'd heard the story from you and knew your last interaction to be viciously ugly, shortly before his supposed death.

Thor was trying to charm the bartender into giving him an unusually large quantity of liquor for Midgard, experienced with human bartenders doubting his usual order. Cassie was letting him, laughing at his earnest explanations. She lived with an Asgardian and knew well their capacity for drink, but he was cute, and she couldn’t resist teasing him.

Cassie didn't know that you'd rarely overindulged on Asgard, too often responsible for the song part of the wine and song celebrations. Thor had known you were here, but he'd remembered his naïve and sheltered friend and Loki's devoted beloved. He didn't know Cassie's rough and tumble bouncer and backup for every ridiculous thing that came out of her mouth.

You'd finished so, so many fights Cassie had started.

Loki, meanwhile, was staring at you as your voice wound into his head, sinking into his gut, sending shivers of heat over his skin. There'd once been a time when the only way he heard your voice this rough and wild was when you were moving under his hands, your body prey to his mouth and rocking him to madness. Now your glorious voice was mated to that sensual rasp and dragging him back to happier days.

'Loki.' He smiled but didn't open his eyes. He could feel the petals of the flower you were toying with brush over his lips. The sun was shining and all he could smell was the warm scent of flowers and you. 'Loki. Are you sleeping, Loki? Loki.' He could hear the laugh in your voice and the sound was so pretty he kept feigning sleep so that you'd keep playing. When he was alone with you, basking in your complete and absolute devotion, he could forget everyone else.

Then you were leaning close, whispering 'Loki' in a tone so sweet it made tears prick at his eyes. You brushed your lips against his, even softer than flower petals, and the low hum in your throat was seducing him, beguiling him. His arms lifted, one hand cupping the back of your head while the other snaked around your waist. In the next moment, he was rolling with you until you were giggling on your back in amongst the flowers, Loki braced over you, green eyes laughing.

'I knew you were awake," you murmured as you drew his mouth down to yours.

 "Loki." Thor clapped him on the shoulder and brought him back to the present, on the Earth you'd escaped to rather than live in an Asgard where you were forever reminded of him, of everything you'd lost. Loki had allowed Thor to believe that Heimdall had been charged with dereliction of duty because he had discovered Loki was impersonating Odin. Rather, Heimdall had let you leave through the Bifrost and refused to say where he'd sent you. Loki had completely lost his temper that day, and when Heimdall went on the run, he'd lost his chance permanently to find out where you'd gone.

Loki saw immediately, however, that Thor had known exactly who he'd find here.

"This is the lovely Cassandra," Thor told Loki, his remaining eye gentle on Loki's shining green. "She has been caring for our Y/N while she has been here."

"Ha!" Cassie barked the laugh and made both Thor and Loki frown at her. "Bitch can take care of herself." Loki's mouth opened to snarl at the insult to you when Thor's hand restrained him. Cassie was already lifting her voice over the applause that broke out at the end of your song. "Hey, Y/N! I got some boys back here think I take care of you."

A rumble of laughter went through the crowd, most of them regulars, many of them witness to at least one of many, many occasions upon which you'd saved Cassie from a fist in the face, and in one case so far, a knife in the gut. Thor and Loki looked around in confusion at the good-natured sound.

"Now, Cassie," you called back, your fingers moving into the opening notes of a more suggestive song, one you sang on a regular basis, "those boys are Asgardians." You smirked and sent a hot look over your piano at your audience. "I was a Lady, before I fell into this den of iniquity." The crowd cheered when you launched into the song and Thor and Loki shared a look, Thor gleeful, Loki shocked.

 Loki stood next to his mother, watching his idiot brother work the crowd, the conceited ass, and fought the urge to roll his eyes. He glanced across to where you stood in the crowd, so close to the royal dais that he could be at your side in half a moment. You were applauding politely, but you didn't bother to resist, rolling your eyes at every ridiculous stunt of Thor's. Loki knew you were going to mock his brother relentlessly for all of this for years to come.

He could hardly wait.

He kept his eyes on you as much as possible, your smiling face keeping him calm even as his heart jumped and jumped with the excitement of his latest mischief. Any moment…

Trying to settle, he focused on the demure neckline of your dress, imagining brushing his lips over the discreet swell there. You were always demure, always a perfect lady in public; he knew one day you'd be a perfect princess, though most important was that you were perfect for him, for each other. You even laughed at the pranks he played on you.

Of course, he was always careful not to play too rough with you. You were too precious to treat with anything less than reverence.

Which is why he felt a rare pang of remorse when he heard his father say, 'The Frost Giants," and he saw terror flash in your eyes. He cursed himself for a fool when he remembered that you'd lived in fear of Frost Giants for years as a child after hearing the story of your father's death.

Your eyes stayed on his face, wide with fear and worry and he could see your hands clasped together in front of you, the knuckles white. His lips curved slightly to reassure. The sight seemed to help as you smiled back, if only a little, and he felt a rush of pride that you, glorious creature that you were, preferred him above all others.

He knew some whispered that he'd ensorcelled you, that there was no other explanation for the fact that the brightest jewel in Odin's court draped herself on the dark Prince's arm. There was no doubt you could charm anyone, including the elder Odinson if you so chose; it was incomprehensible that you should choose the younger.

You'd been raised in the palace alongside them when your father had been killed saving Odin during the War with Jotunheim. You'd been a babe yourself and had grown up with the royal brothers. Even as children, you'd always sought Loki's company, and the whispers of enchantment remained only whispers.

Loki felt another pang of remorse at using Frost Giants to ruin his brother's day when he remembered how much you'd feared them as a child. He made a note to himself to make sweet love to you later to distract you from old fears, find a way to assure you that the monsters couldn't come back. Above all, he'd use other tools in the future.

 Your eyes met his, as though no one else existed, snapping him out of his reverie and bringing him hurtling back to this place where the lady you’d been was dead with your homeworld. He was unsurprised to discover he was rock hard. If he'd ever been able to resist temptation, it hadn't been when you tempted, and he was far less virtuous than he used to be. He was enthralled by the sharp edge to your voice and the wild storms in your eyes, would also be unsurprised should he fall in love with you all over again.

Your eyes were hot with old memories and he wondered if the same ones tormented you. He no longer heard Thor flirting with the angry-eyed bartender, unable to care about her hostility. He recognized her as another that you'd enchanted by being yourself and appreciated the Midgardian's protectiveness, since it was you. He easily ignored the sexual by-play behind him; all he could hear was you, and the ache that hot rasp inspired in his gut was sharp and painful. He wouldn't beg for much in this universe, but he thought you might be the exception.

Loki paused in the hidden corridor behind the wall of your bedchamber, looking down at the hand the Jotun had touched. He could still see the striated blue racing up his arm and the memory was making him feel cold deep, deep inside. He wasn't sure he would be here now if he hadn't promised to come see you. He could hardly believe it had been only a few short hours ago that he'd last spoken with you, pausing a moment to kiss you on his way to Thor. You'd whispered sultrily in invitation that he'd have to sleep with you until they discovered how the Frost Giants had gotten in; he'd whispered back that if he'd known that would be the consequence, he'd have let them in himself.

If he'd known how this day would end, he'd have done anything but.

'Loki?' Your voice was a raspy whisper in the shimmering dark as he slid in between your sheets. He'd promised to come to you as soon as he'd calmed everyone down, expecting to be here hours ago, not really anticipating that it'd be so easy to taunt his brother into going to Jotunheim. Even if he hadn't promised, upon the return from that icy land and the shocking discovery there, followed immediately by the confrontation between his brother and father, he needed to find some semblance of peace. You, if nothing else, remained constant.

For a moment he hesitated, unwilling for reasons he didn't want to examine to touch you with the hand touched by Frost Giants. That hand had betrayed some secret, some hidden aspect to himself that he'd never suspected, sending whispers of fear through him. But after everything that had happened that night, he needed you. His arm slid around your waist to pull you close. 'My love,' he murmured, burying his face in the skin of your neck and breathing deep, his heart racing with a terror he couldn't, wouldn't name.

'Was he that bad?' You turned in his arms to offer comfort, able to hear plainly the lost and broken tone in his voice. Thor could be thoughtless in ill temper and often hurt Loki because he saw only his own pain and frustration. You had long ago become accustomed to tending to Loki when he’d taken a stray lightning bolt.

'I can't--' His voice choked off, but with an emotion you weren't certain you could truly name. You wrapped yourself around him, burying your hands in his hair to hold him close, worried at the pain you thought you heard. As you opened your mouth to ask why he sounded so upset he took a deep breath. 'Please, love. Let's not speak of it tonight. Let me--' His voice cut off when his mouth met yours.

Part of you wanted to pull away, to demand he tell you what happened that put this desperation in his touch, the fear in his kiss, the pain in his voice. But there was that desperation, that fear, that pain and you couldn't stop yourself from reaching, opening to comfort, to reassure. You loved Loki with all of your heart. If he needed you, all he had to do was ask. You gave him all he wanted and more, eager under his hands, diabolical with your own.

'Love me?' he gasped once you were straddling him, connected, your hips driving him out of his mind as you twisted and rocked against him.

When you and he were alone together, all the realms fell away. 'More than anyone in the universe.' You moaned it, your eyes direct on his; you loved the way his hands tightened on your hips the more vocal you were.

Except tonight he looked wild, urgent, like he needed you to convince him. 'Forever?'

You leaned close, leading with your heart. Your body flowed against him in a graceful wave, your eyes soft in the shimmering light from the nebula streaming through your window. 'And always.'

'Do you promise, love?' Loki's arms came around you, pressing you to his chest, his heart clutching in terror even as your skin against his drove him higher. 'No matter what?'

'Oh, love, I promise,' you whispered gently, your hands cupping his beautiful face. 'Even if you got stuck pretending to be Volstagg.'

Loki's heart lifted in wonder when the laugh lifted out of him at the wicked look on your face. Only you knew when and how to tease him when he was most hurt, most insecure. Only you could make a solemn vow into a loving joke. He was reassured even as the laughter eased the tightness in his throat. With a burst of movement, he was tumbling you onto your back, to stroke into you more forcefully, wanting to forget everything but you.

'Ah, love,' he purred in a chuckle, 'no wonder they think I put a spell on you.'

 Loki could have sagged when your eyes released him to turn with a smile upon your audience. He was pleased to hear the enthusiastic applause, gratified that you were as adored on Midgard as you had been on Asgard. He relented, a little. He could not hate a people that recognized your worth.

The memories were still dark in his eyes when you stood and he could have knelt in supplication at the sight of you, not in demure Asgardian garb, but in casual Midgardian clothing that revealed the body he'd never stopped dreaming of. Clad in denim that hugged your legs, reminding him of the way they'd felt wrapped around him, and a sweater in bright, Asgardian gold, you looked strong and capable, like you'd found a power and purpose that had eluded you at home. He wondered now what singing for humans did for you that singing for your own kind had not because your voice had turned to fire and fury, and he could hear a passion that hadn't been there before. 

"Because I get the question on a regular basis," as you spoke you circled the piano and leaned against it, crossing your legs at the ankle and bracing your elbows on top, “yes, I know Thor.” You smirked hen the man in question turned to look at you. “And I'm about to prove it. Get your ass up here, you big, beautiful bastard," you shouted with a growl at the grinning God of Thunder, who responded with a running leap onto the stage to snatch you up into a bear hug. You laughed when he squeezed you tight enough to make you squeak, and the people who'd seen you wreck worlds with your fists snickered at the sound.

 You stared at Thor, your mind blank with horror. Loki couldn't be gone, couldn't have done what Thor was saying he'd done. He'd been upset and hurting the last time you saw him, only a couple nights before, but he'd been himself. He'd left your bed with a kiss the night of Thor's banishment, claiming he needed to speak with his father, and you'd understood. Though you hadn't seen him since, his continued absence from your company made sense with the news of the Allfather's sudden collapse after Thor's exile.

Thor had found you in Loki's rooms the night he’d returned to Asgard, where you'd been waiting. You'd intended to talk to Loki, comfort him, when he was able to finally rest and had snuck in so you wouldn't miss him. You'd fallen asleep in his bed, comforted by his scent. You'd awoken to a new world, a new life and you wanted to climb back in, go back to a world that made sense, a world where your dearest love wasn't a mad monster that tried to kill his brother or destroy an entire realm.

A world where your dearest love wouldn't leave you.

A year later, you stood with your hands in Thor's, your eyes fierce and wild on his. 'I know I'm not being fair,' you said, and though his eyes stayed hard, his hands were gentle around yours. The two of you had become the dearest of friends, grieving the man you'd both loved and lost. Only Thor could truly understand the confused betrayal left to you in the wake of Loki's death. The news that he was still alive had left you feeling only more confused and betrayed.

'You may ask the unfair of me, dear one,' Thor murmured as he lifted your hands to his lips. He was about to leave, the Allfather amassing the energy to send him to Midgard.

'Please, bring him home. Tell him…' You paused, a thousand things both devoted and bitter choking you. You'd save those things for Loki's ears alone. Instead, you looked at Thor's face with shining eyes. Your voice a little angry, you went on. 'Tell him I still love him. No matter what.'

Thor's lips curved at the fury that colored your tone. Loki, if he could be reasoned with, would be coming home to a much less accommodating Y/N. 'If anything can reach him now, it would be you.' His father shouted and he squeezed your hands before letting go. 'I'll tell him.'

You watched Thor run toward the portal of energy His Majesty wielded, and hoped he was right. The moment Loki had let go, deliberately falling from the Bifrost, you'd begun to doubt.

You cupped Thor's pretty face in your hands, looking over the shorn hair, the patch covering his lost eye, the grief in bright turquoise. "Sweet Prince," you said, softly, your old nickname for him falling easily from your lips and making tears prick at Thor's eye. "You've traveled a long way without rest, haven't you?'

The wry understanding in your eyes had Thor huffing out a weary laugh. "Oh, Y/N. You have no idea."

"Come with me," you said, briskly, turning with Thor and sliding your arm through his to lead him back to the bar. Your audience was dismayed but understanding. You’d started your set with a song honoring and mourning Asgard. "Cassie knows how to water an Asgardian. If she said otherwise, she was fucking with you."

Loki had been watching from the back of the room, his gut curdling with jealousy as he saw how familiar you and Thor were with each other. You'd considered Thor family your entire life, but you'd never been close, your preference for Loki leading you to find Thor irritating a lot of the time. He hadn't seen Thor's humility, his remorse after his time on Midgard, hadn't seen the two of you, siblings in all but blood, become friends as well.

When you turned in his direction, he felt the urge to flee, to hide from the bleak amusement curving your lips, the condemnation in your eyes. You and he had never been anything resembling siblings. His feet were planted, however, his knees weak and in the next moment you were next to him, leaning on the bar to tease your Midgardian friend. Your scent wound into his head and left him dizzy as you took three glasses and a jug with no label from the other woman. If Thor hadn't clamped a hand on his shoulder, he didn't know that he would have been able to follow you behind the bar to a small room in the back.

You gestured the brothers to the couch against the wall, handing both of them a glass filled with the mead you'd taught Cassie to make. You still hadn't acknowledged Loki as anything more than Thor's companion, had decided being rude would be less insulting to Loki than pretending you didn't know him at all. Once you'd filled your own glass, you dropped into the chair behind Cassie's desk and propped your feet up. 

"So. What did you do?" Thor's grin flashed at the stern disapproval aimed his way, twisting your eyebrows over a mouth twitching with mild amusement. Then your face softened with sympathy and sadness, and jealousy burned under Loki’s sternum. You'd once shown him all this loving kindness, now you'd barely glanced at him. Until that stern eyebrow lifted in his direction and he felt pinned, like an insect. "How'd you boys manage to set off Ragnarok?"

Part Two: Malice

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[opera-simplified]

Opera Simplified #3: Benvenuto Cellini

Benvenuto Cellini

Opera Simplified #3

The Basics:

Music: Hector Berlioz

Libretto: Henri Auguste Barbier and Léon de Wailly

Premiere: September 10, 1838; Salle le Peletier, Paris, France

Based on [very loosely]: Vita (Life), Benvenuto Cellini’s autobiography

Setting: Rome, the final days of Carnival, 1532

Characters:

Benvenuto Cellini, a goldsmith and sculptor—tenor

Teresa Balducci, his girlfriend—soprano

Fieramosca, her fiancé and the Pope’s official sculptor—baritone**

Giacomo Balducci, her father and the Pope’s treasurer—bass-baritone

Ascanio, Cellini’s apprentice—mezzo-soprano

Pope Clément VII, duh, the boss of the Roman Catholic Church—bass*

Francesco, one of Cellini’s assistants—tenor

Bernardino, another of Cellini’s assistants—bass

Pompeo, a swordsman and Fieramosca’s friend—baritone**

A Tavern Owner—tenor

A player in Cassandro’s troupe acting as Colombine—spoken

Requested by: @monotonous-minutia (once again, thank you both for enthusiastically reading this over and for making some of the videos featured in this Opera Simplified!)

*The Paris Opéra would not allow the Pope to be portrayed onstage for the premiere, so the character became Cardinal Salvati, although his music and function in the story remained identical. However, as it should be, virtually all available performances and recordings revert to the Pope, so as such (and according to Berlioz’s intentions), I will revert as well.

**Fieramosca and Pompeo were both originally intended to be played by tenors (according to the cast list given in the Bärenreiter critical edition), but they are universally played by baritones.

Additional Notes Before We Go: There are three versions of this opera: the first version (which I will call 1838 Original version) was the version that Berlioz initially presented to the Paris Opéra; the second (which I will call 1838 Premiere version) was the score actually performed in the initial run (which flopped) after cuts and censorship; the third version, which premiered in 1852 in the city of Weimar (thus it being called the Weimar version), had other cuts and more rearranging of sections in Act II.

In an attempt to follow both Berlioz’s intentions and modern performance/recording practice, this Opera Simplified will mostly follow the 1838 Original version, albeit with some elements from other versions. Those elements will be discussed by scene in the notes.

Also: Berlioz did envision the opera with spoken dialogue; recordings are split on the issue, although only one of the five productions I have watched uses spoken dialogue.

Finally, thanks to my university’s Fine Arts Library for having a very diverse collection of opera scores, including a Bärenreiter critical edition vocal-piano score of Benvenuto Cellini, which I consulted while researching and writing this Opera Simplified.

The Opera:

Benvenuto Cellini overture

Roman Carnival Overture (not to be confused with the opera’s actual overture (given above), although this uses two very lovely tunes from Act I of the opera)

Act I:

Scene 1:

Sunset on Shrove Monday, inside the Balducci house. At left is a table with two chairs. There are two doors, one on the left and one at the back. There is also a window at the right, where Teresa is standing and watching the Carnival revellers. Balducci enters, having just gotten dressed.

Balducci: Teresa!

*Crickets.*

Teresa! Where is she?

*Ditto.*

TERESA!

*Ditto.*

TERESA I’M NOT CALLING YOU AGAIN GET DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW WHERE ARE YOU

*Ditto, but this time he sees her.*

TERESA I SPECIFICALLY TOLD YOU THAT YOU WEREN’T ALLOWED TO BE BY THE WINDOW ARE YOU DEAF

*Teresa reluctantly leaves the window.*

Fine time for daydreaming; I’ve been calling you for FOREVER! Look, the Pope’s waiting for me, could you be a nice daughter and get me my stuff? My walking stick, my gloves, my dagger, that collection of papers…?

*She hands him each in turn.*

Ugh, I can’t BELIEVE that the Pope is making me come in all the time, especially this late, every morning, every night it’s always “BALDUCCI WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT THE SCULPTURE COMMISSION WITH CELLINI BLAH BLAH BLAH” and it’s EXHAUSTING. I mean, not to question the Pope or anything because that would be bad and sacrilegious and all, but the Pope has Fieramosca, who is not only a perfectly good sculptor and future son-in-law but also the official papal sculptor anyway, so why is he getting some lazy libertine metalworker from Florence, of all places, to make this sculpture? **

*He leaves, grumbling.*

Teresa: FINALLY HE’S LEAVING

*Balducci immediately returns.*

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME 

Balducci: Just to make sure that nothing happens while I’m gone, lemme give you a Quick Fatherly Lecture™ because of course that will be effective! Come here and listen closely. ***

WELL, YA GOT TROUBLE, MY CHILD, RIGHT HERE I SAY YA GOT TROUBLE RIGHT HERE IN THE ETERNAL CITY—shoot where was I going with this okay start over

NEVER LOOK AT THE MOON EVER BECAUSE LOOKING AT THE MOON IS THE LITTLE SEEMINGLY INNOCENT STEP THAT LEADS TO LIVES BEING RUINED AND YOU’LL NEVER BE ABLE TO SLEEP AGAIN BECAUSE YOU’LL BE TOO BUSY HAVING CATHOLIC GUILT AND REGRETTING ALL YOUR LIFE CHOICES YOU COQUETTISH GIRLS NEED TO WATCH YOUR HEARTS AND KEEP THEM PURE AND ALL THE OTHER STUFF YOU SHOULD’VE LEARNED AT SUNDAY SCHOOL AND THE WORLD IS A CRAZY, BAD PLACE ALSO YOU SHOULD ALWAYS WEAR A MASK (not just because masks help save lives during pandemics although that’s not the kind of mask I’m talking about at this moment) ALSO MEN ARE HIDEOUS AND APPEARANCES ARE DECEIVING AND UH THERE ARE A LOT OF DEMONS OUT THERE I GUESS SO WATCH OUT

*He leaves again. Teresa watches to make sure he is absolutely gone.*

Teresa: OKAY HE’S LEAVING FOR REAL THIS TIME

First off, that lecture made no sense whatsoever; second off, that was, like, literally torture or martyrdom or something; third off, I’m so relieved! I can breathe and relax and not worry again!

Cellini, Francesco, Bernardino, and Their Fellow Revellers: *outside, in the street* TRALALALALALA DE PROFUNDIS SOMETHING SOMETHING CARNIVAL WILL BURY SOMEONE TONIGHT TRALALALA ALL YOU FELLOW YOUNG ONES LIVE WELL AND NO MATTER WHO YOU ARE STOP CRYING AND ENJOY LIFE AND DRINK TO LUNDI GRAS AND TO CARNIVAL VIVA CARNIVAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAL

*Yet again, Balducci returns.*

Balducci: WHERE’S ALL THIS RACKET COMING FROM

Teresa: uggggggggggggggggggh not again hey Dad aren’t you supposed to be going to a meeting with the Pope

Balducci: I KNOW oh great all this noise is right outside I need to speak to whoever the noise control manager is I’M PRETTY SURE CELLINI AND HIS WILD CROWD IS MAKING ALL THIS NOISE TERESA AVOID ALL OF THEM AT ALL COSTS

*Cellini and his buddies throw what appears to be white confetti up through the window; they are actually white plaster pellets, which leave white dust all over Balducci.*

ARE YOU KIDDING ME I JUST GOT THIS NICE NEW OUTFIT AND THEY HAVE TO GO AND RUIN IT RIGHT BEFORE I’M SUPPOSED TO MEET WITH THE POPE IT’S TOO LATE TO CHANGE NOW SO I GUESS I’LL JUST HAVE TO GO LOOKING LIKE THIS YOU DAMN TUSCAN BOY I’LL HAVE MY REVENGE ON YOU SOMEDAY

Cellini, Francesco, Bernardino, and Their Fellow Revellers: LONG LIVE JOY LET’S BE HAPPY BECAUSE GOD GAVE US HAPPINESS AND LIFE SO LET’S NOT CRY AND INSTEAD JUST BE HAPPY

Teresa: BAHAHAHAHAHAHA DAD YOU LOOK LIKE A LEOPARD OR SOMETHING

Balducci: YOU THINK THIS IS FUNNY DON’T YOU WELL IT ISN’T AND IN ANY CASE I DO LOOK LIKE A LEOPARD AND I HATE IT

*Teresa approaches the window and is immediately showered with flowers.*

TO THINK THAT OAF COULD EVER BE MY SON-IN-LAW I MEAN SERIOUSLY I WOULD RATHER BE HANGED THAN LET CELLINI MARRY YOU A CURSE ON THIS LAZY LIBERTINE FLORENTINE

Teresa: WELL DAD GET USED TO IT BECAUSE SOMEDAY HE’S GONNA BE YOUR SON-IN-LAW BECAUSE I’M GONNA MARRY HIM BECAUSE I’M COLOMBINE AND HE’S LÉANDRE AND WE’RE IN LOVE AND MEANT TO BE

I mean, me the wife of Cassandro? Could you imagine? A CURSE ON THE GUY YOU WANT ME TO MARRY ****

Cellini, Francesco, Bernardino, and Their Fellow Revellers: TRALALALALALA DE PROFUNDIS SOMETHING SOMETHING CARNIVAL WILL BURY SOMEONE TONIGHT TRALALALA ALL YOU FELLOW YOUNG ONES LIVE WELL AND NO MATTER WHO YOU ARE STOP CRYING AND ENJOY LIFE AND DRINK TO LUNDI GRAS AND TO CARNIVAL VIVA CARNIVAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAL

*Balducci leaves again.*

Teresa: Third time’s the charm...third time’s the charm...third time’s the charm…

*Balducci has truly left.*

FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh, these are all such pretty flowers, I can’t believe they threw all of these up here just for me...

*She sees a bouquet among all the flowers scattered around.*

Ooh, this is a lovely bouquet!

*She picks it up and a note falls out.*

A note? From Cellini! Oh goodness, bold as always like that, but honestly I kinda like it.

*She opens it.*

What?! He’s coming here, tonight, for a date?! My God! Well, my dad isn’t here and he’ll be busy for a while, so this is the perfect time! What to do now…?

When you’re torn between love and duty, you have a lot of problems and angst you just want to complain about to everyone but you can’t because no one will listen to you and everyone will judge you and it really sucks. It especially sucks because you have to fear what you desire and you can’t even hope for anything good in this world. I mean, how are you supposed to pretend that you don’t feel what your heart feels and that you’re not looking at what your eyes see? Life sometimes...well, you know what? I’m not having it!

Dad, I love you, and maybe when I’m as old as you I’ll be smarter and sadder and wiser and all that, but I’m young! I’ve got my whole life ahead of me, just waiting for me to live it to the fullest! It would be such a waste to be dull and unhappy!

Someday I’ll be old, and I don’t know, be a grandma maybe, and then it’ll be fine! Love won’t matter then! But I’m young now, and I’ve got my whole life ahead of me, and I want to live it while it’s still there! *****

*Cellini enters.*

CELLINI!

*She moves a little away.*

Cellini: Teresa, it’s alright! Don’t run away!

Teresa: Cellini, I love you but I’m not sure this is gonna work.

Cellini: You’re killin’ me here!

*Noise from outside.*

Teresa: WHAT WAS THAT

Cellini: It’s fine, I promise—

Teresa: NO I’M DONE FOR AND YOU NEED TO LEAVE BECAUSE MY DAD’S PROBABLY BACK AGAIN

Cellini: No, it’s just my friends celebrating Carnival outside. I promise. It’ll be okay, don’t worry.

Oh, Teresa, you are my happiness and I love you more than life itself! I’ve learned that if I’m far away from you, I lose all hope and happiness!

*Fieramosca, who has somehow gotten into the house unnoticed, tiptoes in while holding an enormous bouquet.*

Fieramosca: You don’t win girls by breaking locks and being all macho and stuff like that; you simply sneak in on tiptoe and that’s how you steal their hearts! I mean, I guess that’s how it works.

Teresa: I love you but this is crazy! Part of me just wants to abandon all of this but a part of me deep down knows we can never see each other again…

Fieramosca: She’s not alone! I thought her dad was leaving but maybe he’s actually here? No, wait, that can’t be him—oh, I can’t believe she’s alone with another guy!

Cellini: NO I SWEAR BY ALL THE SAINTS AND THE VIRGIN THAT LOVE WILL NEVER ABANDON YOU TO FIERAMOSCA

Fieramosca: OH MY GOD IT’S CELLINI I NEED TO HIDE

Cellini: I’M NEVER GONNA GIVE YOU UP NEVER GONNA LET YOU DOWN NEVER GONNA RUN AROUND AND DESERT YOU NEVER GONNA MAKE YOU CRY NEVER GONNA SAY GOODBYE NEVER GONNA TELL A LIE AND HURT YOU

Fieramosca: *who is now hiding...somewhere* at least pick a good song, dammit ******

Teresa: MAY MY PATRON SAINT SAVE ME FROM THE DISASTER AND SHAME OF HAVING TO MARRY FIERAMOSCA ALSO IF I HAVE TO MARRY HIM I’LL DIE

Fieramosca: ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh if only I could speak aloud or even whisper a word so they could hear me

Cellini: If I have to leave you, my life, my love, I’ll lose all hope…

Teresa: I really don’t know if this’ll work out...I want it to, but I’ll probably never be able to see you again…

Cellini: You marry FIERAMOSCA?! They want you to marry that stupid little such-and-such?!

Teresa: Me?! His WIFE?! I’D RATHER DIE THE CRUELLEST POSSIBLE DEATH A HUNDRED TIMES THAN MARRY HIM

Fieramosca: ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh if only I had my sword instead of this stupid bouquet because obviously I didn’t bring both because obviously you can’t bring both

Cellini: CHILL honey don’t go straight to dying seriously why is that every young soprano’s go-to instead let’s plan to find a way to happiness!

Teresa: And your idea is…?

Fieramosca: if only I had my sword

Cellini: ALRIGHT THEN LISTEN UP

Teresa: shhhhhhh speak more softly what if someone hears us

Cellini: well there’s no one else here but I’ll speak more softly for you

Teresa: good point about no one else being here but thanks

Cellini: So tomorrow evening, Mardi Gras celebrations—

Teresa: Tomorrow evening, at Mardi Gras—

Fieramosca: Mardi Gras?

Cellini: Don’t miss the celebration; be there at the Piazza Colonna—

Fieramosca: what are they saying I can’t hear them well

Teresa: Piazza Colonna—

Fieramosca: ohhhhhhhhhh I think they said Piazza Colonna—

Cellini: where Cassandro—

Teresa: Cassandro—

Fieramosca: Cassandro?

Cellini: Is presenting a new show—

Fieramosca: wait what I didn’t hear about that I didn’t know they were doing a new show

Cellini: While your dad is watching the show, you’ll take the arm of a monk in brown—

Teresa: the arm of a monk in brown—

Fieramosca: I didn’t catch like any of that

Cellini: and one in white—

Teresa: one in white—

Fieramosca: white?

Cellini: One will be your lover—

Teresa: You!

Fieramosca: Him?

Cellini: And the other, my apprentice—

Teresa: Your apprentice—

Fieramosca: His apprentice?

Cellini: I’ll take you away—

Teresa: You’ll take me away—

Fieramosca: wait what

Cellini: to Florence—

Teresa: To Florence!

Fieramosca: Florence?

Cellini and Teresa: We’ll go to Florence together and get married and be happy for the rest of our lives!

Fieramosca: wait WHAT

Teresa: Wait, but what about my dad? I can’t just leave him—and also isn’t this kinda an offense against God?

Cellini: What? Teresa, that’s just your Intense Catholic Guilt™ again. If anyone’s offending God around here, it’s your father because he wants to rob you of all your life and love by putting you in a convent or even worse, marrying you off to Fieramosca!

Teresa: NOT FIERAMOSCA NO I’M NOT MARRYING HIM

Fieramosca: ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh if only Balducci were here to see this

Teresa: WHO AM I KIDDING I CAN’T BEAR THE THOUGHT OF MARRYING HIM ALRIGHT I’LL DO THIS TAKE HEART WE’LL BE HAPPY TOMORROW EVENING

Cellini: Should we go over all the details of the plan again?

Teresa: YES!

Cellini: More softly, remember, Teresa, more softly like you said…

*Fieramosca moves closer in order to hear better.*

Tomorrow evening, at the Mardi Gras celebrations—

Teresa: Tomorrow evening, at Mardi Gras—

Cellini: Don’t miss the celebration—

Teresa: I won’t miss it—

Fieramosca: I most certainly won’t miss it—

Cellini: be there at the Piazza Colonna—

Teresa: Piazza Colonna—

Fieramosca: Piazza Colonna—

Cellini: where Cassandro—

Teresa: Cassandro—

Fieramosca: Cassandro—

Cellini: Is presenting a new show—

Teresa: A new show—

Fieramosca: A new show—

Cellini: While your dad is watching the show, you’ll take the arm of a monk in brown—

Teresa: the arm of a monk in brown—

Fieramosca: the arm of a monk in brown—

Cellini: and one in white—

Teresa: one in white—

Fieramosca: and one in white—

Cellini: One will be your lover—

Teresa: You!

Fieramosca: Him?

Teresa: Got it.

Cellini: And the other, my apprentice—

Teresa: Your apprentice—

Fieramosca: His apprentice!

Cellini: I’ll take you away—

Teresa: You’ll take me away—

Fieramosca: He’ll take her away! Well!

Cellini: to Florence—

Teresa: To Florence!

Fieramosca: To Florence!

Cellini and Teresa: We’ll go to Florence together and get married and be happy for the rest of our lives!

Fieramosca: THEY’LL GO TO FLORENCE TOGETHER AND GET MARRIED AND BE HAPPY FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES?!

Cellini: A beautiful promise! Teresa, I adore you! Love, protect her and let her make it tomorrow…

Fieramosca: YOU’RE BETRAYING ME BEWARE

Teresa: Holy Virgin, forgive me and calm my father and his anger!

Cellini and Teresa: WE’RE BOTH YOUNG AND HAPPY AND FULL OF LOVE SO WE SHOULDN’T BE RESORTING TO DEATH TO SOLVE OUR PROBLEMS ESPECIALLY NOT WHEN WE HAVE A HAPPY FUTURE ALREADY WITHIN REACH SO LET’S LEAVE THIS CITY AND FIND HAPPINESS UNDER OTHER SKIES AND HAVE HOPE AND GO TO FLORENCE

Fieramosca: YOU TRAITORS BEWARE BECAUSE I HAVE STANDARD BARITONE HATRED AND RAGE AND I WILL USE IT TO RUIN YOUR PRECIOUS LITTLE PLANS SO BEWARE

Cellini, Teresa, and Fieramosca: Tomorrow evening!

Cellini: Piazza Colonna—

Teresa: Shh!

Cellini: Near Cassandro’s theater—

Teresa: Shh!

Cellini: A monk in white—

Teresa: Yes, I’ll be there!

Fieramosca: Well then, I’ll be there too!

Cellini and Teresa: Take heart and have hope!

Cellini, Teresa, and Fieramosca: Tomorrow evening!

*Teresa hears footsteps and looks outside.*

Teresa: OH SHOOT OH SHOOT IT’S MY DAD WE’RE DONE FOR

Cellini: Are you sure?

Teresa: HE’S RIGHT OUTSIDE

Fieramosca: obviously the best solution to this problem is to hide in my fiancée’s bedroom

*Which he does.*

Cellini: Where should I go? Your bedroom?...

Teresa: NO THERE’S NOT ENOUGH TIME FOR YOU TO MAKE IT IN THERE 

Cellini: He’s coming...

Teresa: GOD HELP US

*Cellini quickly flattens himself against the wall by the door. Balducci opens the door; he is shocked to see Teresa and forgets to close it, allowing Cellini to hide between the door and the wall.*

Balducci: You’re still up? It’s really late; I thought you would be in bed by now!

Teresa: *trying to improv and pointing to her bedroom* Dad...there’s a man in there…

Balducci: A MAN?!?!

Teresa: Uh, yeah...when I went to go to bed...I heard a strange noise in there...it sounded like a man…

Balducci: A MAN?!?! I’M GONNA GO BEAT THE LIVING CRAP OUT OF WHATEVER HORRIBLE MAN DARES COME HERE AND ENTER MY DAUGHTER’S BEDROOM

*He runs into Teresa’s bedroom. Cellini comes out from his hiding place.*

Teresa: Go while I’ve bought you some time!

Cellini: Thank you, my love! See you tomorrow evening!

Teresa: See you then!

*Cellini leaves.*

Teresa: Oh, boy, I’m afraid this won’t go well.

Balducci: *from Teresa’s room* YOU BASTARD I’VE FOUND YOU

Teresa: Wait, there’s actually a man in my bedroom? Well, that’s convenient.

*Balducci drags Fieramosca, who is still holding his bouquet, out of the bedroom.*

Balducci: COME WITH ME OR ELSE I’LL KILL YOU

*He recognizes Fieramosca.*

What? You, Fieramosca?

Teresa: BAHAHAHAHA WHAT AN UNEXPECTED DEVELOPMENT

Fieramosca: First off, I wasn’t trying to rob you—

Balducci: THIS IS MUCH WORSE THAN THAT ALSO WHAT WERE YOU DOING IN MY DAUGHTER’S BEDROOM

Teresa: YEAH WHAT WERE YOU DOING IN MY BEDROOM

Fieramosca: Uh, well, it’s very simple, really...I came…

Balducci: YEAH I KNOW THAT

Fieramosca: I...I was coming just to visit.

Balducci: ‘I was coming just to visit!’ A visit, late at night, when I’m not here, HIDING IN MY DAUGHTER’S BEDROOM YOU HORRIBLE PERSON

Teresa: EXCUSE ME IT COULD HAVE LOOKED SO BAD THAT I WOULD HAVE BEEN EXCOMMUNICATED

Fieramosca: ...I’m pretty sure that that’s not how excommunication works.

Teresa: WHAT AUDACITY

Fieramosca: I swear, it’s not what it looks like—

Balducci: THAT’S WHAT THEY ALL SAY

Fieramosca: But Mr. Balducci, sir, I swear—

Balducci: THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES

Fieramosca: My God, you think I would be the one to do such a thing?

Balducci: Well, who else, you horrible person?

Teresa: (You traitor!)

Fieramosca: IT’S CELLINI

Teresa: CELLINI???

Balducci: CELLINI?!?!

Fieramosca: CELLINI!!!

Balducci: You call yourself Cellini! Have you lost your mind?

Fieramosca: No, no, WAIT!!!

Balducci: ENOUGH OF THIS

*He opens the window and starts yelling. Teresa also sticks her head outside and starts yelling.*

Teresa and Balducci: HEY EVERYONE GAETANA CATARINA FORNARINA PETRONILLA SCHOLASTICA AND EVERY OTHER NAME IN THE BABY BOOK COME HERE

Fieramosca: PLEASE STOP MAKING SUCH A HUGE RACKET 

*Teresa runs out the back door to call for help.*

Neighbors: *offstage* UGGGGGGGGH WHY ARE YOU NEIGHBORS FIGHTING AND MAKING SO MUCH NOISE

Balducci: A LIBERTINE IS IN MY HOUSE HE WAS HIDING IN MY DAUGHTER’S BEDROOM HELP US TEACH HIM A LESSON AND GET HIM OUT OF HERE

Neighbors: OH THAT’S A DIFFERENT STORY

Fieramosca: I’M NOT A LIBERTINE I’M A GOOD UPSTANDING PERSON PLEASE LISTEN TO ME THIS IS HIGHLY EMBARRASSING

*Balducci goes away from the window and Teresa returns.*

Teresa and Balducci: Fieramosca, you’re in good hands.

Fieramosca: THIS ISN’T AN ALLSTATE COMMERCIAL AND THIS ISN’T FUNNY

Teresa and Balducci: What’s Allstate? Oh, never mind.

Balducci: ONLY WOMEN CAN SHOW THE RIGHT WAY TO EXTRAVAGANT MEN LIKE YOURSELF

Fieramosca: Left to the mercy of women!...NO THIS IS HORRIBLE I FEEL LIKE I’M ORPHEUS BEING TORN APART BY THE BACCHANATES *******

*He tries to escape in one direction but is blocked by a large crowd of women armed with household objects.*

Neighbors: WE’RE GONNA TEACH YOU LIBERTINE A LESSON BECAUSE YOU’RE MESSING WITH A WOMAN’S HONOR SO YOU’RE GONNA TAKE A VERY UNPLEASANT BATH

*Fieramosca tries to escape in another direction but the same thing happens with a different crowd of women.*

Fieramosca: I just came here to have a good time and I honestly am feeling so attacked right now :(

Neighbors: LET’S TAKE HIM INTO THE GARDEN AND DUNK HIM IN THE HUGE FOUNTAIN YOU COWARD YOU’RE GONNA TAKE A BATH

*The same thing happens with a third crowd.*

YOU WRETCHED HONORLESS COWARD YOU’RE GONNA TAKE A BIG BATH IN THAT FOUNTAIN AND THE POND AND WE’RE GONNA LEAVE YOU THERE UNTIL MORNING YES YOU’RE GONNA BE IN THERE ALL NIGHT AND THERE’S NOTHING THAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU CRY LIKE THE LITTLE BABY YOU ARE

Teresa and Balducci: YEAH BEAT HIM UP AND DUNK HIM IN THE FOUNTAIN SO HE CAN LEARN A LESSON THAT HE WILL NEVER FORGET

Fieramosca: YOU SHREWS WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME I REALLY DON’T WANT TO BE STRIPPED NAKED AND DUNKED INTO THE WATER AND LEFT THERE ALL NIGHT I REALLY NEED TO GET OUT OF THIS SITUATION

*He starts running around trying to find a means of escape.*

I’M ORPHEUS AND I’M BEING TORN APART BY THE BACCHANTES HOW DARE THEY TREAT ME LIKE I’M A LIBERTINE I SWEAR I’M A MAN OF HONOR AND I REALLY JUST NEED TO RUN AWAY

*Exit, hurriedly, pursued by the neighbors. Not quite as terrifying as a bear, but close. [We later find out that they successfully caught him and dunked him in the fountain anyway.]*

Notes

Scene 2: 

Evening, Mardi Gras. A tavern on the corner of the Piazza Colonna and the Via del Corso, with a view of Cassandro’s theater. Cellini is alone.

Cellini: Teresa will be here, at the Piazza Colonna, in only one more hour! Love, on this joyous day of Mardi Gras, let my heart be the happiest of them all! And if you don’t, ah, you are ungrateful!

I used to only care about glory, the kind of crazy noble hope that only artists have, but that’s all changed now and I reject it all; Teresa alone rules my heart! Love, see what I’ve done and how I’ve changed for you: protect her and protect me!

Teresa once lived so peacefully—like a stream flowing by far from the sea, her days and years passed by, one after the other, all the same, as they were supposed to. But she loves me enough that she’s willing to give that security up, and not only that, she wants to take up my life of wandering and misery instead, just because she loves me! Love, see what she does for you: protect her and protect me! **

*Francesco, Bernardino, and a bunch of Cellini’s friends and fellow goldsmiths enter, fully ready to party.*

Everyone: ALRIGHT EVERYONE LET’S GET WASTED (or not but whatevs we just want to drink)

Bernardino: TRALALALALALALALALA I AM AN EXCELLENT SINGER TRALALALALALALA LET’S ALL SING TRALALALALALALALALA

Cellini: Very well, but for the love of everything holy, please don’t sing any of those lowbrow drinking songs or ballads about sweethearts that EVERYONE sings in taverns. Let’s sing about how awesome metalworking is—a toast to our glory!

Everyone: THE EARTH MAY GROW AWESOME STUFF ON THE SURFACE WHEN THE WEATHER IS GOOD BUT PEOPLE CAN GET METAL FROM THE BOWELS OF THE EARTH AT ANY TIME 

HONOR TO THE MASTER METALWORKERS!!!! WE CAN CREATE TREASURE FROM WHAT’S BENEATH THE EARTH ANYTIME AND ANYWHERE

WHEN THE MASTER METALWORKER WORKS, GOLD SHINES LIKE THE SUN AND RUBIES LIKE FIRE IN THE NIGHT AND EVEN THE DIAMONDS AND TOPAZES SPARKLE AT NIGHT WITH THE STARS

When the world was created, artistic genius was given to four kinds of artists, each with their own tools: the architects have stone, the painters have color, the sculptors have marble, and those are cool and all, BUT WE THE METALWORKERS HAVE GOLD

METALS, THE UNDERGROUND NEVER-FADING FLOWERS, SHINE BRIGHTEST ON THE BROWS OF ALL THE GREATEST PEOPLE—THE KINGS AND QUEENS AND DUKES AND EMPERORS AND EVEN POPES—SO HONOR TO THE MASTER METALWORKERS

Bernardino: HEY everyone let’s have a moment of silence

Cellini: For what?

Bernardino: BEFORE WE START SINGING AGAIN LET’S ALL GET SOME MORE DRINKS

Everyone Else: YEAH WE NEED MORE WINE BECAUSE WE ALREADY DRANK WHAT WE GOT HEY TAVERN OWNER COME HERE

*The tavern owner, who is (probably) super-annoyed with everyone and definitely needs a nice vacay, comes in.*

Tavern Owner: uggggggggggggh whaddya want?

Everyone Else: WE WANT WINE

Tavern Owner: WE’RE OUT THANK YOU

Cellini: THIS IS LITERALLY A TAVERN HOW COULD YOU BE OUT OF WINE

Tavern Owner: Well, actually, we’re technically not out of wine but you’ve already had too much and if you want to drink more…

Everyone Else: Then...?

Tavern Owner: ...you need to pay up for the wine you’ve already had.

Everyone Else: Well, what do we owe you?

*The tavern owner gets out an exceedingly long list.*

Tavern Owner: Well, you asked for it, so here’s the whole long list of everything you bought:

First, white wines: Orvieto and Aleatico and Maraschino—that’s thirty.

Everyone Else: Thirty already?

Tavern Owner: Next up, reds: Ischia and Procida and Nisita—that makes sixty.

Everyone Else: wait SIXTY BOTTLES

Tavern Owner: And that’s not the half. There’s also Asti sparkling wine, Lipari wine, Lacryma-Christi (Jesus, you people drink a lot of the dude’s tears)—which brings the total to exactly one hundred and thirty bottles of wine.

Everyone Else: ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY BOTTLES SWEET JESUS WHO THE HELL BOUGHT THAT MANY

Tavern Owner: ...You people did. Not my problem.

Cellini: EVEN THE TRUMPETS OF THE LAST JUDGMENT WOULD BE LESS SCARY THAN THE VOICE AND THE LIST OF THE TAVERN OWNER

Francesco, Bernardino, and Cellini’s Friends and Workers: YEAH THIS IS HORRIBLE

Cellini: Hmm, how do we get out of this sticky situation?

Francesco, Bernardino, and Cellini’s Friends and Workers: LET’S BEAT UP THE TAVERN OWNER

Cellini: Nah. Let’s think about this.

Francesco, Bernardino, and Cellini’s Friends and Workers: awwwwwwww but we wanted to beat him up

*The tavern owner runs off.*

Cellini: Maybe Ascanio will save us!

*Ascanio, who is apparently well-versed in reality shows, comes in at that exact moment with a bag of money.*

Everyone: HURRAY THERE HE IS HE’S COME TO SAVE US LONG LIVE ASCANIO

*Cellini runs over to greet him.*

Cellini: THERE YOU ARE I’M SO GLAD TO SEE YOU LET’S CHAT AND LET ME HAVE THE MONEY IT LOOKS LIKE THE POPE GAVE YOU FOR THE STATUE

Ascanio: Hold on, wait a sec! I’m ready to drink as much as any of you, but first I need to tell you something very important.

This is indeed from the Pope: it’s advance money for the casting of the Perseus statue, which everyone on the Italian peninsula is waiting for with baited breath! There’s one condition attached, though: you must have the statue done tomorrow. I need your oath. ***

Cellini: Tomorrow? Very well, nothing I can’t handle. I swear it.

Francesco, Bernardino, and Cellini’s Friends and Workers: AND WE SWEAR IT TOO SINCE WE’RE GONNA HELP CAST IT

Everyone: WE GIVE OUR WORD THAT THE STATUE WILL BE CAST TOMORROW WITHOUT ANY DELAY

Ascanio: Alright, now I can feel good about giving you this money since you’ve all promised. I hear you have to pay off a bill; here you go.

*Cellini empties the bag and examines the contents, visibly disappointed.*

Cellini: That’s IT???

Francesco and Bernardino: That’s practically nothing!

Ascanio: Hey, not my fault that Balducci is an old, grouchy fool.

Cellini: Well, he doesn’t like me anyway, and at least this is definitely enough to pay the bill. Waiter!

*The tavern owner comes back. Cellini mimics his nasal voice.*

Here’s your precious money to pay off your precious bill!

*The tavern owner, trembling, accepts the money.*

Tavern Owner: FINALLY THANK YOU do you want to drink?

Everyone Else: YEAH GET US SOME MORE WINE

*He goes off.*

Cellini: HEY EVERYONE I HAVE THE BEST IDEA TO GET REVENGE ON BALDUCCI FOR PAYING ME SO BADLY so I know that Balducci is coming to see Cassandro’s show at the Carnival celebrations tonight so since we’re buddies with Cassandro and his troupe whaddya say to paying the troupe to make fun of Balducci in the show tonight and even maybe getting in on shaming and humiliating him ourselves???

Everyone Else: YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY THAT SOUNDS AWESOME

Cellini: ANATHEMA ON GIACOMO BALDUCCI

Everyone Else: YEAH HE CAN GO SUCK IT MEANWHILE WE’RE GONNA MAKE ALL OF ROME LAUGH AT HIM SO LET’S GO TO CASSANDRO’S

Everyone: GLORY TO US LET’S SING THE SONG ABOUT HOW AWESOME METALWORKERS ARE AGAIN

Cellini: Just the last part—that’s the best verse!

Everyone: METALS, THE UNDERGROUND NEVER-FADING FLOWERS, SHINE BRIGHTEST ON THE BROWS OF ALL THE GREATEST PEOPLE—THE KINGS AND QUEENS AND DUKES AND EMPERORS AND EVEN POPES—SO HONOR TO THE MASTER METALWORKERS

*Fieramosca, who has been spying on all this, comes out of his hiding place.*

Fieramosca: IT’S TOO MUCH ALL THIS SHAMELESS PLOTTING AND I WON’T LET HIM GET AWAY WITH THIS ****

*Pompeo casually strolls in.*

Pompeo: Hey, what’s up with you?

Fieramosca: WHAT’S UP WITH ME??? MY LIFE IS FALLING APART AND I’M FILLED WITH RAGE BECAUSE CELLINI—

Pompeo: oh what did he do NOW

*Fieramosca runs over to Pompeo and embraces him.*

Fieramosca: POMPEO MY DEAR FRIEND MY SAVIOR

Pompeo: oh wait I heard what happened to you yesterday.

Fieramosca: You know? I haven’t even told you yet!

Pompeo: Everyone knows. You got beaten up and dunked into a fountain.

Fieramosca: PLEASE DON’T TALK ABOUT IT DEAR POMPEO ANYWAY THE WHOLE SITUATION GETS MUCH WORSE

Pompeo: How so?

Fieramosca: TERESA AND HER DAD ARE GONNA SEE CASSANDRO’S SHOW AT CARNIVAL TONIGHT

Pompeo: ...I fail to see the problem.

Fieramosca: THE PROBLEM IS THAT WHILE THE SHOW’S GOING ON AND BALDUCCI’S DISTRACTED A WHITE FRIAR AND A CAPUCHIN ARE GOING TO CARRY OFF MY FIANCÉE

Pompeo: Bravo!

Fieramosca: YOU’RE MISSING THE POINT THE WHITE FRIAR IS CELLINI AND THE CAPUCHIN IS HIS APPRENTICE ASCANIO

Pompeo: Bravo!

Fieramosca: ...Excuse me?

Pompeo: Long live boldness!

Fieramosca: I don’t care what happens to me but I’m going to tell Mr. Balducci about this plan and we’ll see if he cries ‘Bravo!’

Pompeo: oh my goodness you IDIOT do you not get it

Fieramosca: What?

Pompeo: I love you, but since you’re obviously not the sharpest tool in the shed, let me explain it to you in small words so you can understand: since you know his plan, use the plan yourself.

Fieramosca: but HOW

Pompeo: omg this is so frustrating you dress up as a White Friar and I dress up as a Capuchin and we get there before Cellini and Ascanio 

Fieramosca: good idea BUT WHAT IF CELLINI SEES ME HE’S GONNA KILL ME

Pompeo: DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT YOU HAVE ME AND I’M A PRO AT THIS

Fieramosca: Very well.

WHO CAN STAND UP TO ME WAS I NOT BORN TO FIGHT WOE TO THE MAN WHO DARES CROSS ME AND EVEN MORE WOE TO THE MAN WHO DARES MOCK ME BECAUSE I’M AS QUICK TO A SWORD AS TO ANGER HERE’S A QUARTE HERE’S A TIERCE LONG LIVE FENCING WHICH (aside from sculpting and getting humiliated by my fiancée and the guy she likes I guess) IS MY BEST SKILL *****

TERESA MY HEART IS BURNING FOR YOU LIKE MOUNT VESUVIUS BECAUSE I LOVE YOU SO MUCH AND I LOVE YOU SO MUCH THAT IF YOU WANTED ME TO I’D MAKE WAR ON HELL AND EVERYONE IN IT AND I’D EVEN FIGHT CELLINI AND NOT EVEN A HUNDRED CELLINIS COULD KNOCK ME DOWN

NO!  NO ONE CAN STAND UP TO ME WAS I NOT BORN TO FIGHT WOE TO THE MAN WHO DARES CROSS ME AND EVEN MORE WOE TO THE MAN WHO DARES MOCK ME BECAUSE I’M AS QUICK TO A SWORD AS TO ANGER HERE’S A QUARTE HERE’S A TIERCE LONG LIVE FENCING WHICH IS MY BEST SKILL

*He grabs his sword or some other random object and starts mock-swordfighting. Popping random balloons is optional but strongly encouraged.*

ONE TWO THREE ONE TWO THREE THRUST PARRY ONE TWO ONE...DEAD! I MERCILESSLY STAB HIM THROUGH THE HEART AND I AM VICTORIOUS

Pompeo: Bravo! Now let’s go. The party’s almost starting.

Fieramosca: Dear Pompeo, let me embrace you!

*They hug.*

Pompeo: Now let’s get a couple habits from...somewhere. Don’t be afraid. Everything will go just fine.

*They leave together.*

Notes

Scene 3:

The Piazza Colonna a short time later, with Cassandro’s theater and everything decked out for Carnival.

Balducci: I really hope you appreciate that I’m taking you to the theater at your request, even though you know that all I do at the theater is complain about the actors and you know that I don’t like theater anyway. Anyway, let’s see what weird new show all the kids these days are talking about.

*He goes to read the advertisement for the show, leaving Teresa alone.*

Teresa: What should I do? Could I really leave my old father alone and break his heart?

*She goes over to her father. Cellini, dressed in a white habit, and Ascanio, dressed in a brown habit, enter.* **

Cellini and Ascanio: let’s keep our project on the down-low and let the troupers distract Balducci and then work together and get Teresa and then go to the notary!

Teresa: Could I really leave my father behind? Then again, maybe, when we get married, he’ll learn to accept it!

Balducci: I REALLY HOPE YOU ENJOY THIS BECAUSE I KNOW I WON’T

Cellini and Ascanio: let’s let this plan play out!

*The four of them get lost in the crowd.*

Revellers: HEY EVERYONE CASSANDRO IS PRESENTING A NEW SHOW SO STICK AROUND AND SEE IF IT’S FUNNY BECAUSE IF IT’S NOT WE’LL BOO OUR HEADS OFF

*A group of dancers with tambourines enters, along with Francesco, Bernardino, and the members of Cassandro’s troupe. Teresa and even Balducci get mixed in with the dancers. People mingle in the square and start to join in with the dancing.*

Francesco, Bernardino, and Troupers: HEY EVERYONE COME HERE COME SEE THIS AWESOME NEW SHOW

Revellers: BRAVO BRAVO

Francesco, Bernardino, and Troupers: HEY EVERYONE COME SEE CASSANDRO AND HIS AWESOME NEW SHOW

Revellers: YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY BRAVO BRAVO

IT’S DARK BUT WE’RE ALL SO HAPPY AND THE CITY IS SO NOISY AND WE’RE ALL IN LOVE AND A LITTLE BIT DRUNK HOW COULD YOU BE SAD

Francesco, Bernardino, and Troupers: C’MON COME SEE THE SHOW

Revellers: HEY MUSICIANS PLAY ON WE LOVE YOUR MOOD

Francesco, Bernardino, and Troupers: HEY EVERYONE WE DON’T CARE IF YOU’RE A DOCTOR OR A JOKER COME SEE OUR AWESOME SHOW

Revellers: LONG LIVE JOY LET’S DROWN IN JOY LET’S DRINK AND SING AND DANCE

Francesco, Bernardino, and Troupers: ALL YOU MASQUERADERS COME SEE THE SHOW TOO

Teresa and Revellers: CARNIVAL IS A HUGE PARTY WHERE EVERYONE IS HAPPY AND THE WORLD TURNS UPSIDE DOWN

Francesco, Bernardino, and Troupers: HEY EVERYONE WE’RE GONNA KEEP SAYING IT COME SEE OUR AWESOME NEW SHOW

Revellers: WHO ELSE IS EXCITED ABOUT THIS NEW SHOW

Francesco, Bernardino, and Troupers: DON’T GO AWAY BECAUSE CARNIVAL AIN’T COMPLETE WITHOUT US AND OUR AWESOME SHOWS

Some of the Revellers: KEEP YELLING AT US IF YOU WANT BUT WE THINK DANCING’S MORE FUN SORRY NOT SORRY

Francesco, Bernardino, and Troupers: WE DON’T CARE ABOUT WHAT YOU STUPID DANCERS THINK EVERYONE COME SEE THE SHOW

Teresa and Revellers: WE LOVE TO DANCE AND ALL THE WORLD IS A BALL SO LET’S DANCE WHILE WE CAN

Francesco, Bernardino, and Troupers: EVERYONE COME SEE OUR NEW SHOW CASSANDRO’S AWESOME AND YOUR DANCING IS STUPID

Revellers: WHAT A BEAUTIFUL NIGHT CARNIVAL IS A HUGE PARTY THAT MAKES THE CITY BURN WITH DELIGHT AND THE WORLD TURN UPSIDE DOWN

*The trumpeters signal the beginning of the show. Most of the people take seats near the stage, including Teresa and Balducci. Cellini and Ascanio grab seats on the left. Fieramosca (dressed in white) and Pompeo (dressed in brown) find seats on the right.*

Men: HEY EVERYONE STOP DANCING THE SHOW’S ABOUT TO START

Women: YEAH EVERYONE BE QUIET THE SHOW’S STARTING

*The curtain of the theater rises to reveal four actors onstage: a man dressed like the Pope, a man dressed like Balducci sitting on a throne, and two men dressed like Swiss Guards and holding money and laurels.*

People: LOOK THERE’S THE POPE AND HIS TREASURER BALDUCCI

Balducci: OH SO THIS IS HOW IT IS THEY’RE GONNA MOCK ME ONSTAGE HUH

Teresa: oh no oh no let’s go, Dad!

Balducci: Well, I paid to see this stupid show so I might as well stay here and see the whole thing and see myself get completely and utterly humiliated. After this, though, I'm going to go speak to the Pope about how the people are making fun of us and about the utter blasphemy they’re committing!

People: HEY YOU OVER THERE SHUT UP WE CAN’T HEAR THE SHOW

Cellini: Hey, Ascanio, do you see Teresa?

Ascanio: She’s over there.

Fieramosca: Hey, Pompeo, do you see Teresa?

Pompeo: She’s over there.

Teresa: this is the most embarrassing thing ever

People: HEY EVERYONE SHUT UP

Balducci: BUT I DON’T WANNA SHUT UP

People: CAN IT

*Colombine enters.*

Colombine: HEY EVERYONE OUR SHOW’S STARTING AND WE HAVE A TREAT FOR YOU BECAUSE HARLEQUIN AND PIERROT ARE GONNA COMPETE IN THE ITALIAN PENINSULA’S GOT TALENT TO SEE WHO’S THE BETTER SINGER ***

People: YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY

*The actors playing Harlequin and Pierrot enter.*

Some People: HARLEQUIN IS BEING PLAYED BY THE BEST TENOR IN ROME

Other People: PIERROT IS BEING PLAYED BY A SINGER FROM TUSCANY BUT IS HE ACTUALLY A MAN OR JUST AN ASS

Women: PLEASE BE QUIET HARLEQUIN IS ABOUT TO SING

Men: YOU BE QUIET

*Harlequin (in pantomime) sings and accompanies himself on the lyre. Some people continue talking; the fake Balducci falls asleep.*

Men: Well done! Bravo! You damn chatterboxes need to shut up!

Women: YOU HAVE TO WATCH HARLEQUIN HE’S BEING PLAYED BY ROME’S FINEST TENOR

Everyone: HE’S SUCH A GOOD SINGER AND HE’S DOING SO WELL EVEN THOUGH TECHNICALLY HE’S NOT ACTUALLY SINGING

*Harlequin’s section comes to an end. Pierrot (again, in pantomime) sings and accompanies himself on the bass drum. The people all listen attentively; the fake Balducci wakes up and, delighted, beats to the time of the music.*

Some People: LOOK HOW MUCH THE OLD TREASURER IS ENJOYING THIS

Balducci: THIS HAS GONE TOO FAR I NEED TO SPEAK TO THE MANAGER OF THIS

Some People: STOP BEING SUCH A KAREN

Balducci: WHAT’S A KAREN

Some People: NEVER MIND YOU’RE TOO FOOLISH TO UNDERSTAND

Other People: HAHAHAHAHA THE OLD MAN IS SO HAPPY HAHAHAHAHAHA

*When the song is over, Harlequin and Pierrot both wait, expecting the prize. The fake Balducci gives a small coin to Harlequin, who is visibly disappointed, and then gives the rest of the money to Pierrot.*

People: Well, when the judge has an ass’s ears…

Balducci: SCREW YOU ALL I DEMAND TO SEE THE MANAGER OF THIS OPERATION

Teresa: please be quiet you’re only making them laugh louder

*The fake Balducci gives the laurel wreath to Pierrot. Harlequin then hits both of the other actors with a wooden sword. Colombine unsuccessfully attempts to intervene.*

People: YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY BRAVI THIS IS THE BEST SHOW EVER

Balducci: FINE SINCE I CAN’T SPEAK TO THE MANAGER I’M GONNA TAKE THIS INTO MY OWN HANDS

*He jumps up from his seat, runs onstage, and begins attacking the comedians with his cane.*

Teresa: oh my GOD DAD STOP BEING SUCH A KAREN

People: LONG LIVE CARNIVAL BRAVI THE ORIGINAL AND THE ACTOR ARE FACE TO FACE SO NOW WE GET TO SEE WHICH IS UGLIER

*Some of the people stay to watch the fight between Balducci and the comedians, while others go back to dancing and mingling. Several people carrying moccoli (little candles often carried at Carnival) mix with the crowd. People keep blowing out and relighting the moccoli. Several coaches are bearing torches; these are blown out from apartment windows above by people bearing large bellows. Cellini, Ascanio, Fieramosca, and Pompeo make their way through the crowd, trying to find Teresa. In general, it’s absolute pandemonium; what else would you expect?* ****

Cellini and Fieramosca: *to their respective assistants* Come on, let’s push our way through this huge crowd and get Teresa!

*Teresa has made her way downstage and is looking for Cellini and Ascanio when she sees, but does not definitively recognize, them.*

Teresa: OH HEY I THINK THAT’S CELLINI WITH ASCANIO

*She sees Fieramosca and Pompeo in their disguises but does not recognize them.*

WAIT WHAT WHY IS THERE ANOTHER WHITE FRIAR AND CAPUCHIN MONK DUO WHAT ON EARTH IS THIS

Fieramosca: HI IT’S ME

Cellini: HI IT’S ME

Teresa: WHICH ONE IS THE ORIGINAL

Revellers: MOCCOLI MOCCOLI MOCCOLI

Cellini and Fieramosca: IT’S ME COME WITH ME

Revellers: MOCCOLI MOCCOLI MOCCOLI

Other Revellers: YOU MOCCOLI PEOPLE ARE SO ANNOYING

Revellers: MOCCOLI MOCCOLI IT KINDA RHYMES WITH BROCCOLI MOCCOLI MOCCOLI

Cellini: THERE’S ANOTHER MONK HERE THERE’S SOME TREACHERY AFOOT GOD DAMN IT

Pompeo: C’MON FIERAMOSCA WE CAN DO THIS DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT

Fieramosca: this is the worst plan EVER

Pompeo: KEEP GOING ANYWAY

Ascanio: WE NEED TO AVENGE THIS TREACHERY

Pompeo: SERIOUSLY FIERAMOSCA I LOVE YOU BUT PLEASE STOP WORRYING ABOUT THIS

*Cellini draws his sword.*

Cellini: I DON’T CARE WHO YOU ARE YOU ASKED FOR IT BECAUSE IT SEEMS LIKE YOU’RE TRYING TO KIDNAP MY GIRLFRIEND

Fieramosca: POMPEO PLEASE COME OVER HERE AND HELP ME OUT BECAUSE I’M GETTING SCARED

Ascanio: *running after Fieramosca* I WILL GET YOU

*Ascanio, Fieramosca, and Pompeo all draw their swords. Cellini fights Pompeo; Ascanio fights Fieramosca.*

Teresa: FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE SOMEONE STOP THIS

*Some of the revellers unsuccessfully attempt to restrain the four fighters.*

Revellers: HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND IT’S CARNIVAL THIS ISN’T A TIME FOR FIGHTING

Cellini: NO I HAVEN’T LOST MY MIND

Teresa: EVERYONE STOP IT

Fieramosca: *running away from Ascanio* SOMEONE HELP ME

Pompeo: KEEP GOING

Cellini: YOU ARE NOT GETTING AWAY WITH THIS

Fieramosca: SERIOUSLY SOMEONE HELP ME

Cellini: NO YOU’RE NOT GETTING AWAY WITH THIS NO

*He runs Pompeo through with his sword. Everyone immediately stops what they’re doing and screams.*

Pompeo: I WOULD LIKE TO ANNOUNCE THAT I AM DEAD

*He dies.*

People: OH SHIT A DUDE JUST GOT MURDERED FIRE POLICE AMBULANCE

*Balducci, in a state of disarray from the fight, returns.*

Balducci: GOOD LORD THERE’S A DEAD MAN WHERE’S MY DAUGHTER

*Guards arrive. Fieramosca runs over to Pompeo’s body, checking behind him because he believes that Ascanio is still following him.*

Fieramosca: HELP ME....OH MY GOD POMPEO’S DEAD NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

People: *pointing to Cellini* ARREST THAT FRIAR HE DID IT AND HIS SWORD STILL HAS THAT DUDE’S BLOOD ALL OVER IT

*Cellini is arrested. Everyone gathers around him.*

Cellini: I’M DONE FOR

Fieramosca: I’m saved…

Francesco and Bernardino: THEY CAUGHT OUR MASTER

Ascanio: MY POOR MASTER DOESN’T DESERVE THIS

Fieramosca: WE GOT ‘IM

Teresa: WHY IS FATE SO CRUEL

Teresa, Balducci, Francesco, and the Troupers: THIS IS THE WORST NIGHT EVER

Women: Such a good man killed…

Men: A KNAVE DID THIS

*Cellini’s friends and assistants pretend not to recognize him in order to more effectively set up their plan.*

Fieramosca, Balducci, Francesco, Bernardino, and People: HOW COULD THIS MAN MURDER A CAPUCHIN THAT’S LIKE THE WORST THING EVER HE’S PROBABLY A BANDIT FROM THE COUNTRYSIDE OR A SPURNED LOVER OR SOMETHING KEEP A GOOD GRIP ON HIM

Teresa: HE RUINED HIMSELF FOR MY SAKE I FEEL AWFUL I DIDN’T KNOW THIS WAS GONNA HAPPEN BUT I STILL FEEL AWFUL ALSO HOW DARE YOU PEOPLE TREAT HIM LIKE A MONSTER

Cellini: THIS IS THE WORST NIGHT EVER HOW DARE YOU PEOPLE TREAT ME LIKE A MONSTER

Ascanio: MY DEAR MASTER I CAN’T BELIEVE THEY’RE DOING THIS TO YOU AND TREATING YOU LIKE A MONSTER

*Suddenly, the cannon of the Castel di Sant’Angelo booms three times. As presumably per end-of-Carnival tradition, everyone blows out their candles and torches, plunging the square into darkness.* *****

Cellini: MY FRIENDS HELP ME I’VE BEEN CAUGHT

*Francesco, Bernardino, and others create a large commotion. In the general confusion caused by that, the darkness, and the booming of the cannon, Cellini pushes his way through the crowd and escapes.*

People: WE CAN’T SEE ANYTHING

Fieramosca, Balducci, and Chorus: HEY GUARDS DO YOU STILL HAVE HIM

Guards: NO WE DON’T HELP US

People: BUT YOU’RE THE ONES WHO WERE SUPPOSED TO HAVE HIM

Teresa, Ascanio, Francesco, Bernardino, and Cellini’s Other Friends and Workers: THANK GOODNESS HE ESCAPED

Fieramosca and Balducci: WHAT THE H-E-DOUBLE-HOCKEYSTICKS WE JUST HAD HIM

Teresa, Ascanio, Francesco, Bernardino, and Cellini’s Other Friends and Workers: THANK YOU CANNON FOR SOUNDING AT JUST THE RIGHT TIME SO HE COULD ESCAPE

Fieramosca, Balducci, and People: CURSE YOU STUPID CANNON WE JUST HAD HIM WHY DID YOU HAVE TO GO OFF NOW

Balducci: TERESA COME HERE

Teresa: DAD—

Ascanio: *grabbing Teresa’s arm* HEY TERESA IT’S ME ASCANIO COME WITH ME

*The two of them make their way through the crowd, trying to avoid Fieramosca and Balducci.*

People: OH GOD THE MURDERER ESCAPED WE JUST HAD HIM AND NOW WE CAN’T SEE A THING AND HE’S GOTTEN AWAY WITH IT

Balducci: TERESA WHERE ARE YOU IT’S SO DARK AND NOISY OUT AND I CAN’T SEE A THING

Fieramosca: CURSE THIS STUPID CANNON WE JUST HAD HIM BUT NOW THERE’S A MURDERER ON THE RUN AND IT’S SO DARK AND NOISY OUT SO I CAN’T SEE A THING

Teresa and Ascanio: IT’S SO NOISY OUT BUT HE’S GOTTEN AWAY SO THAT’S GOOD

People: THIS IS GETTING WAY TOO CRAZY AND IT’S JUST PLAIN CHAOS

*In the midst of the chaos, Balducci bumps into Fieramosca.*

Balducci: IT’S HIM IT’S THE MONK IN WHITE

Fieramosca: wait WHAT

Balducci: I GOT HIM

Fieramosca: EXCUSE ME WHAT THE HELL IS THIS

Guards: WE’RE COMING

*They arrest Fieramosca.*

Balducci: KEEP A GOOD GRIP ON HIM

People: THEY GOT HIM

Balducci: TERESA WHERE ARE YOU

Teresa, Ascanio, Francesco, Bernardino, and Cellini’s Other Friends and Workers: HAHAHAHA THEY GOT FIERAMOSCA THAT’S EXCELLENT

Fieramosca: BUT I’M NOT—

People: TAKE HIM AWAY

Fieramosca: YOU’RE MISTAKING ME FOR SOMEONE ELSE

Guards and People: LET’S TAKE CARE OF THIS MURDERER

Fieramosca: BUT MY NAME IS FIERAMOSCA

Guards: LET’S GO OFF TO PRISON

Balducci: SERIOUSLY TERESA WHERE ARE YOU

Several People, One At A Time, Around the Square: THEY CAUGHT HIM

Fieramosca: I SWEAR TO GOD I’M FIERAMOSCA

Teresa, Ascanio, Francesco, and Some People: YOU MURDERER WE’LL HAVE YOU HANGED RIGHT AWAY YOU’RE NOT GETTING AWAY WITH THIS

Balducci, Bernardino, and Other People: WHY WOULD YOU MURDER A CAPUCHIN ON THE EVE OF ASH WEDNESDAY WE’LL HAVE YOU HANGED RIGHT AWAY YOU’RE NOT GETTING AWAY WITH THIS

Fieramosca: I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU ALL WANT TO THROW ME IN PRISON AND HANG ME LISTEN TO ME I DIDN’T MURDER ANYONE I AM A GOOD CITIZEN OF ROME AND MY NAME IS FIERAMOSCA

Everyone: OH GOD I’M SUFFOCATING GIVE ME SOME ROOM LET ME OUT OF HERE WE’LL NEVER MAKE IT OUT OF HERE

Balducci: I CAN’T FIND MY DAUGHTER TERESA

Teresa and Ascanio: C’MON LET’S GO WE NEED TO STICK TOGETHER

Fieramosca: OH GOD I’M SUFFOCATING DON’T STRANGLE ME

Everyone: OH GOD YOU’RE CRUSHING ME THIS IS A LIVING HELL ON EARTH AND ALSO COMPLETE AND UTTER CHAOS AND WE’LL NEVER BE ABLE TO GET OUT

*Teresa and Ascanio run off. Fieramosca is led off by the guards. In a panic, everyone else tries to push their way out of the square.*

Notes

Also, a collection of several artistic portrayals of the Piazza Colonna and Carnival in Rome!

Act II:

Scene 1:

Early morning, Ash Wednesday. Cellini’s workshop. Various creations of Cellini’s are scattered around. On the right is a plaster model of the Perseus statue. At the back is a door, with one window on each side. The windows look out onto the street.

*Teresa and Ascanio run in. Teresa starts looking out one of the windows while Ascanio closes the door.*

Teresa: Oh God, what’s happened to Cellini? Where could he be?

Ascanio: He’ll be here soon, Teresa. Don’t worry about it.

Teresa: NO I SWEAR HE’S BEEN CAUGHT OR HE’S DEAD

Ascanio: No, he’s alright, listen to me; he’s not the kind of guy who could get caught by the Pope’s men or the law.

Teresa: But why hasn’t he made it here yet?

*A group of White Friars (a Carmelite order of monks) starts to pass by.*

White Friars: Vas spirituale, Maria, sancta mater, ora pro nobis…

*For the sake of concision, the White Friars continue chanting intermittently in much the same vein for the next few minutes.* **

Ascanio: Listen!

*He runs over to a window and looks out.*

Teresa: Is it him?

*Ascanio comes back.*

Ascanio: Unfortunately, no. That song is just a group of monks passing by and chanting prayers as they go off to their holy works.

Teresa: This hurts too much!

Ascanio: Take heart.

Teresa: We must pray!

Teresa and Ascanio: Alright, then.

*They kneel.*

Holy Virgin, star of the morning, smile and shed some light on us...

*The White Friars pass by the door at this point; their voices gradually fade as they move away.*

Holy Virgin, star of the morning, have mercy and bring Cellini safely back to us!

*Cellini, still dressed in his white habit (which is now covered in blood) runs in.*

Cellini: HEY I’M HERE

Teresa and Ascanio: CELLINI THANK GOODNESS YOU’RE HERE

*They run over to him.*

Teresa: You aren’t wounded, are you?

Cellini: No, thank God, but I did get a bit frazzled along the way.

Ascanio: You? Frazzled?

Cellini: It took all my luck to get out of all that craziness and certain arrest.

Teresa and Ascanio: What happened?

Cellini: Okay, here goes, I bet you’ve never heard anything like this:

SO it was really dark and I had my dagger and I was running through this huge crowd and I got out and I kept running because there was this huge mob chasing after me and yelling for my blood because yeah of course they were and I was still wearing this habit—

Ascanio: Couldn’t you have just taken it off?

Cellini: DON’T INTERRUPT MY STORY anyway just in the nick of time I saw a building with the door open and I hid behind the door and they still kept running because they didn’t see me so I closed the door and then I thought about Teresa and blessed my patron saint and then I felt really weak and the ground started shaking under me and then I fainted

Teresa: OOH WHAT HAPPENED NEXT I’M REALLY SCARED BUT ALSO VERY INTRIGUED

Ascanio: ...I’m not buying it also how come SHE gets to interrupt your story

Cellini: Ascanio, I think very highly of you but you’re not my girlfriend ANYWAY I woke up a while later and it was dawn and the rooftops were covered in beautiful light and the roosters were crowing and people were walking around everywhere and I had no idea how I was going to get home but a bunch of friars dressed like me happened to pass by so I slipped in and they happened to pass by here so I slipped out AND NOW I’M HERE AND SO ARE YOU ***

Teresa: And may God never separate us again!

Ascanio: Uh, guys, I hate to break it to you but one of you is still wanted for murder and the other’s dad is probably looking for us as we speak so we’re not out of danger yet.

Cellini: You’re right. We have to go NOW.

Teresa: We have to go? We should just try hiding out—

Cellini: No, we have to go NOW.

Ascanio: BUT YOU STILL HAVE A STATUE TO FINISH

Cellini: TO HELL WITH MY STATUE AND THE POPE AND THE LAW WE JUST NEED TO RUN AWAY TO FLORENCE ASCANIO GO GET US A HORSE

Ascanio: Very well. You can count on me and I’ll be back here as soon as I can.

*He leaves.*

Teresa: My love, God is on our side! After everything, we’re here together, which is the proof that God has blessed us...

Cellini: Yes! Let’s enjoy this moment, our love, the brief moment of peace we have now before we have to flee…

Teresa: YESTERDAY WAS PLAIN AWFUL

Cellini: You can say that again.

Teresa: YESTERDAY WAS PLAIN AWFUL

Cellini: BUT THAT’S NOT NOW THAT’S THEN

Teresa: You’re right; it’s a new day that’ll dry our tears…

Cellini: Even though the future may be dark…

Teresa: ...we have peace and love and happiness!

Cellini: Let’s live and let death come when it will!

Teresa: But first take off the habit. You can’t be seen in it.

*Cellini takes off his habit and puts it on a chair.*

Cellini: There we go. Time is running out, but first...how about a mock swordfight?

Teresa: I AM SO DOWN CHOOSE YOUR WEAPON

*They start mock-swordfighting.*

Cellini: Ah, brava! What bravery, my squire!

Teresa: Put on your breastplate!

*The fight comes to an end.*

Cellini and Teresa: GOD HAS BLESSED US SO WE’LL BE OKAY NO MATTER WHAT BECAUSE HE HAS BLESSED ALL OUR WISHES ****

You know, when eagles in the mountains hear their friends being captured, what do they do? They stick together and help each other out and yell their war cries and help each other escape! And they fly far away despite everything, even being shot at! LET’S DO THE SAME THING AND RUN AWAY TO FLORENCE WE’LL BRAVE EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE EVEN THE VATICAN LET’S GO

*Ascanio runs in, in a state of panic.*

Ascanio: HEY SIR DEAR SIR WE HAVE A BIT OF A PROBLEM

Cellini: What is it?

Ascanio: BALDUCCI AND FIERAMOSCA ARE HERE I JUST SAW THEM THROUGH THE WINDOW

Teresa: OH SHOOT IT’S MY DAD

Cellini: Don’t be afraid. I’ll take care of this.

*He helps Teresa hide behind the model of Perseus.*

Ascanio: THERE THEY ARE

*Balducci and Fieramosca enter. Fieramosca sees Cellini and immediately starts backing towards the door, but Balducci goes to confront Cellini with his cane.*

Balducci: AT LAST I HAVE FOUND YOU, YOU MURDERER AND SEDUCER AND BRIGAND AND AT THIS POINT I’M JUST GOING TO CALL YOU EVERY NOT-NICE THING IN THE BOOK BECAUSE I’M JUST FED UP WITH AND SEVERELY PO’D AT YOU

Cellini: Oh excuse me, Mr. Giacomo, I didn’t realize that you could just show up at my house and start making such a ruckus. What’s gotten into you?

Balducci: YOU KNOW WHAT THIS IS ABOUT GIVE ME BACK MY DAUGHTER I KNOW SHE’S HERE SO GIVE HER BACK OR ELSE I WILL BEAT YOU UP WITH THI—

Cellini: DON’T EVEN THI—

*Teresa runs out and falls on her knees before her father.*

Teresa: DAD I’M SORRY NOW I’M KNEELING BEFORE YOU

Balducci: ahhhhhhhhhhh THERE you are so let me get this straight: you honor your beloved mother by running away from me and planning to escape with, of all things, A KNOWN MURDERER wow who would’ve thought that you, of all people, could be such a horrible person?

Teresa: DAD JUST LISTEN TO ME

Cellini: Your daughter would NEVER—

Teresa: YEAH DAD I WOULD NEVER

Cellini: I’ll say it: I’m the only guilty party here.

Balducci: That’s a load of BS coming from you; I know what I know about you…

Cellini: Which is…?

Balducci: uh...NEVER MIND ANYWAY TERESA GO HOME

*Cellini steps in between Balducci and Teresa.*

Cellini: STOP I LOVE YOUR DAUGHTER

Balducci: WHAT DOES THAT MATTER

Cellini: AND SHE LOVES ME

Balducci: WELL TOO BAD SO SAD

Cellini: THIS IS THE FASTEST WAY TO RUIN YOUR FAMILY’S HONOR

Balducci: THAT DOESN’T EVEN MAKE SENSE ALSO YOU TWO ARE BREAKING UP EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY

Cellini: THAT’S NOT HOW THIS WORKS

Teresa: DAD STOP IT

Balducci: TERESA WE ARE LEAVING

Teresa: CELLINI HELP ME OUT HERE

Cellini: DON’T WORRY TERESA I GOT YOU

Balducci: Fieramosca, come claim your wife!

Everyone Else [yes, including Fieramosca]: wait WHAT

*Fieramosca timidly goes over to Teresa.*

Fieramosca: uhhhhh so I guess this is a thing now so uhhhhhh let’s leave

Cellini: You thief, if you so much as TOUCH HER I WILL

Balducci: FIERAMOSCA TAKE HER OUT OF HERE

Fieramosca: *backing away* Me? But I don’t want to cause even more of a scene…

Cellini: IF YOU SO MUCH AS MOVE TOWARDS HER FIERAMOSCA I WILL SEND YOU TO HELL

Balducci: FIERAMOSCA DO SOMETHING

Fieramosca: BUT I DON’T WANNA CAUSE A SCENE

Ascanio: Some son-in-law!

Teresa: OH MY GOD CAN EVERYONE CALM DOWN FOR FIVE SECONDS 

*A disturbance from outside causes everyone to stop arguing and look up, only to see an unexpected development.*

Everyone: OH SHOOT IT’S THE POPE hey everyone we need to stop fighting and shut up and show some respect omg the Pope is here

*They all promptly shut up and kneel as Pope Clément VII (who will hereafter be referred to as ‘The Pope’ on the understanding that he is not the current Pope in The Real World™), dressed in traveling costume, enters with his retinue.*

The Pope: My children, full indulgence for all your sins! Rise; I don’t want to feel so aloof because I feel like you are all my children, and mercy is the dearest value to our hearts! Rise, my children! A full indulgence for all your sins! Rise!

Balducci and Fieramosca: Uh, Your Holiness, we very humbly give you our request: avenge us!

The Pope: Avenge you? For what? Oh, and for crying out loud, I’ve already asked you like...six times to rise and you’re still down there on the floor.

*Everyone gets up.*

Balducci: A GUY ABDUCTED MY DAUGHTER AND DISHONORED MY GOOD NAME

Fieramosca: AND THE SAME GUY KILLED MY SIDEKICK BUDDY WITH WHOM I DEFINITELY DID NOT HAVE A HOMOEROTIC RELATIONSHIP

The Pope: Who did all this?

Balducci and Fieramosca: CELLINI

Balducci: *gesturing to Teresa* THERE’S MY DAUGHTER

Fieramosca: *holding Cellini’s discarded bloodstained habit* AND THERE’S THE BLOOD HE SHED

Cellini, Teresa, and Ascanio: NO CELLINI ISN’T GUILTY

Balducci: Cellini, one, you literally said you were the only guilty one here like five minutes ago; two, I absolutely hate it when people refer to themselves in the third person.

Cellini: THAT’S BECAUSE YOU’RE NO FUN BALDUCCI

The Pope: A murder and an abduction? Cellini, you did all that? Really? Are you kidding me right now? Are you always going to play the little devil?

Cellini: No. Please, just hear me out for a moment.

The Pope: First, how’s the statue coming?

Cellini: Oh, right. The statue. The statue for you. The statue especially made for you. Your statue. That statue?

The Pope: YES, that statue.

Cellini: Uh...I don’t got you covered. *****

The Pope: What?

Cellini: ...It’s not done yet.

The Pope: Wait a sec...after all this time I’ve given you, and after your promise to have it done today, IT’S STILL NOT FINISHED?!

Everyone: It still hasn’t been cast!

The Pope: So you used my advance money to break a father’s heart and murder a man in the middle of Carnival and then spent the rest drinking? Seriously?

Balducci and Fieramosca: YEAH HE DID

Cellini, Teresa, and Ascanio: NO HE DIDN’T

Balducci and Fieramosca: SHUT UP

Cellini, Teresa, and Ascanio: YOU SHUT UP

The Pope: EVERYONE SHUT UP

Very well, then, you leave me no choice: another will cast the statue.

Teresa, Ascanio, Fieramosca, and Balducci: ANOTHER?!

Cellini: Another cast my statue? EXCUSE ME WHAT DID YOU SAY OH WAIT I KNOW WHAT YOU SAID AND IT IS NOT HAPPENING ON MY WATCH

I WOULD SOONER DESTROY MY OWN MODEL THAN ALLOW SOMEONE ELSE TO—

Everyone Else: What is he DOING?!?!

Fieramosca and Balducci: HOW DARE YOU?!?! ARE YOU NOT IN THE PRESENCE OF THE POPE?!?!?!?!

Cellini: Yes! May the Virgin forgive me, and the Pope, and my patron saint, but NO ONE ELSE, NOT EVEN MICHELANGELO HIMSELF WILL CAST THIS STATUE BECAUSE I’D RATHER DIE THAN THAT HAPPEN

The Pope: Fine, let’s test that out. Guards! Arrest Cellini immediately.

*The guards come forward but at the same time, Cellini picks up a large hammer and runs over to the model of the statue.*

Cellini: I will whack this model into tiny, unrecognizable bits before a single one of your guards lays a hand on me.

*He raises the hammer to smash the model, but everyone screams.*

The Pope: STOP oh for holy God’s sake

Teresa, Ascanio, Fieramosca, and Balducci: He defied the Pope to his face! What has he done?

The Pope: FINE you demon, what do you need to calm down? Honestly, at this point, I mostly just want to see my future display piece not get hacked to bits.

*Cellini moves in front of the model, lowering his hammer but still holding it.*

Cellini: Full forgiveness for all my sins.

The Pope: Very well; you will have it without confession.

Teresa, Ascanio, Fieramosca, and Balducci: Without even confession!

The Pope: I have said it; it will be done.

Cellini: That’s not all. I want Teresa’s hand in marriage.

The Pope: Let me get this straight: you want forgiveness and Teresa?

Fieramosca and Balducci: HOLY FATHER STOP RIGHT THERE

Cellini: Oh, and one more thing: I want the time to cast my statue.

The Pope: You want forgiveness, Teresa, and the time to cast the statue? Please tell me there’s nothing else.

Cellini: That is all.

Everyone Else: That’s all!

The Pope: ah DANG IT the devil knows how much I love art and he’s laughing at me but next thing you know I’ll be laughing at him

Balducci and Fieramosca: he knows how much the Pope loves art but it’ll be our turn to laugh

Teresa: Dear God, have mercy on him!

Ascanio: HAHAHA THIS IS THE BEST TRICK EVER

Cellini: I’VE GOT HIM IN A CORNER BECAUSE I KNOW HIS LOVE FOR ART

The Pope: How much time do you need to cast the statue?

Cellini: The rest of the day, God willing.

The Pope: ...Are you sure that’ll be enough time?

Cellini: I think so: the furnace has been heating up the metal for a while now.

The Pope: *signaling to the guards to move away* Very well, I agree to your conditions.

*Cellini puts down the hammer and goes over to the Pope.*

But listen to me very carefully, you rogue: I myself will be at the workshop tonight to see if you are able to complete the statue. If not, by God, I will hand you over to the legal authorities and you will be hanged tonight.

Teresa, Ascanio, Fieramosca, and Balducci: Hanged!

The Pope: I think I’ve made myself clear.

Balducci: But...but Holy Father, he can finish the statue by the end of the day, and Teresa—

The Pope: To Hell with you and Teresa! He’ll be hanged if he doesn’t finish.

Fieramosca: But...but Holy Father, he can finish the statue by the end of the day, and Pompeo—

The Pope: ugh you people to Hell with you and Pompeo! He’ll be hanged if he doesn’t finish. Cellini, I trust I’ve made myself clear?

Cellini: ...Crystal.

Teresa, Ascanio, Fieramosca, and Balducci: Hanged! If he doesn’t finish today, he’ll be hanged!

Cellini: *ironically* Ah, Holy Father, how kind to offer such an indulgence for my sins—the threat of hanging!

The Pope: Yes, you will hang!

Now he’ll feel less proud because I myself will punish him because no saint or angel in all of Heaven will help him; he has sealed his own fate!

Cellini: GOD WILL HELP ME AND I WILL SUCCEED BECAUSE I FEEL THE POWER AND SOMEONE ONCE SAID SOMETHING ABOUT FORTUNE FAVORING THE BOLD WELL IT’S NOT JUST FORTUNE IT’S ALSO GOD SO NO ONE’S PETTY VENGEANCE CAN STOP ME

Teresa: NOOOOOOOOOOO HE’S GONNA DIE BECAUSE EVERYONE’S WORKING AGAINST HIM EVEN GOD AND THERE’S NO HOPE AND I FEEL LIKE MY ONLY OPTION IS DEATH

Ascanio: LET THEM INSULT HIM WHAT DOES HE CARE GOD WILL HELP HIM BECAUSE HE IS BOLD SO I HAVE HOPE AND NO ONE’S PETTY VENGEANCE CAN STOP HIM

Fieramosca and Balducci: AT LAST HE IS COMING TO HIS DESERVED RUIN AND WE WILL HAVE OUR VENGEANCE

*The Pope’s retinue moves towards the Pope as if to protect him, but he signals them to stop.*

The Pope’s Retinue: WHAT AN INDULGENCE HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN PUNISHED ALREADY AND HE DOESN’T DESERVE THIS CHANCE

*Everyone leaves.*

Notes

Scene 2: **

Cellini’s foundry. The furnace is at the back; there is one door each at right and left. Some of Cellini’s other works are there. A clock strikes 4 PM.

*Ascanio runs in.*

Ascanio: Tralalalalalalalalalala…

What’s the matter with me? I just feel so overwhelmed and weary with all this drama right now but TOO BAD  because when I feel sad I just laugh and sing tralalala and then suddenly I feel dizzy and happy again!

So our bronze baby is getting its baptism of fire tonight: the Colosseum will be the church, the Pope will be the godfather, and all the people of Rome will be the witnesses! Tralalala honestly thinking about that overwhelms me even more but you know what? It’s okay; I’ll just laugh and sing tralalalala…

*Quick note: during this next part, Ascanio imitates both Cellini and the Pope.*

HAHAHA THAT WHOLE THING WITH CELLINI AND THE POPE WAS THE FUNNIEST THING EVER BECAUSE THE POPE WAS LIKE ‘Take the man away!’ and Cellini was like ‘NOT SO FAST I’LL DESTROY THIS MODEL FIRST’ and the Pope was like ‘fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine I give in because I guess I’m a total pushover’ and Cellini was like ‘I want forgiveness for all my sins’ and the Pope was like ‘sure whatever’ and then Cellini was like ‘I ALSO want Teresa’ and the Pope was like ‘yeah cool okay’ and THEN Cellini was like ‘and I want the rest of the day to cast the statue!’ and the Pope was like ‘sounds good’ and THEN SUDDENLY THE POPE GRABBED MY MASTER’S HEAD and he said he would HANG HIM if he didn’t finish the statue by the end of the day! Is that all? Oh, you’ll hang! You understand? Ah, Holy Father, what an indulgence!

great THAT overwhelmed me too and I feel sad again but I’ll just do what I always do and just laugh and sing tralalalala and everything will be okay! ***

*Cellini enters and signals Ascanio to leave, which he does.*

Cellini: Alone, just me, my courage, and my audacity, about to have the fight of my life—and all Rome is watching! Very well, then; let the winds bring the storm, let them rile up all the waves, and let me sail straight into it! This is the story of my life...what a life!

Why could I not be a simple shepherd, leading my sheep and wandering through the wildness of the mountains? Free, alone, at peace, with no need to do any useless work for anyone else...I would wander far from all these busy cities and I would sing to my heart’s content...and at night I would sleep on the ground in a little hut, but I would sleep so peacefully, it would be like sleeping in my mother’s arms as a baby! Ah, what a dream! What a life!

Metalworkers: *singing outside* How happy the sailors, those children of the waves, are…

Cellini: ugggggggggggggggh not that song AGAIN

Metalworkers: ...they happily follow the wind wherever it blows…

Cellini: something bad ALWAYS happens whenever they sing that stupid song

Metalworkers: ...and when the boat sinks, the ocean is their tomb…

*Ascanio comes back.*

Ascanio: That sad song is bad luck!

Cellini: If they lose heart, we’ll fail!

*calling out to the workers* We are sailors who sail on metal! To rule the waves is easy; the real triumph is to rule over fire as we do!

Cellini and Ascanio: TAKE HEART AND HAVE COURAGE IF WE CAN JUST HOLD ON FOR ONE MORE DAY WE’LL ALL CELEBRATE TOMORROW

Chorus: *even more sadly than before* How happy the sailors, those children of the waves, are…

Cellini: *putting on an apron* Alright, let’s go to work, no more dilly-dallying!

*Loud knocking on the door.*

WHO IS IT

*Ascanio runs to the door and opens it, then hurries back.*

Ascanio: IT’S FIERAMOSCA

*Fieramosca enters with two swordsmen.*

Cellini: uggggggggggh not him hi, what do you want?

Fieramosca: Cellini, I have come to send you to Hell.

Cellini: ‘nyah nyah nyah Cellini I have come to send you to Hell nyah nyah nyah’ what do you MEAN you BUFFOON

Fieramosca: okay fine, I’ll say it differently so your tiny little brain will understand: I demand satisfaction for your insults.

Cellini: You’re joking, right?

Fieramosca: Uh, no.

Ascanio: Oh, really?

Fieramosca: NO I’M NOT JOKING I DEMAND SATISFACTION NOW

Cellini: BUT I CAN’T LEAVE

Fieramosca: So you do not accept the challenge, you coward?

Cellini: Pot calling kettle black, I see.

Fieramosca: You don’t accept?

Cellini: FINE WE FIGHT HERE

Fieramosca: No! If I kill you in your house, even if we are legitimately dueling, I’m an assassin. That’s the law. We fight elsewhere.

Cellini: OH I SEE HOW IT IS YOU WANT ME TO NOT BE ABLE TO FINISH but, God willing, I’ll teach you a fine lesson about messing with the wrong guy, which you SHOULD HAVE LEARNED last night but I guess you did not. Your desired location?

Fieramosca: I will be waiting for you behind St. Andrew’s cloister.

Cellini: Very well. I will be there. 

Fieramosca: And I’ll send you to Hell.

*He leaves with his swordsmen.*

Cellini: This couldn’t have been timed worse. Ascanio, go get my sword.

*He does so, and the door opens again.*

 godDAMMIT Fieramosca why are you alrea—

*He realizes that the person who has come in is not Fieramosca but Teresa.*

Teresa! Good God! TERESA!!!

Teresa: MY DAD HAS BETRAYED US

Cellini: what NOW

Teresa: So you know how the Pope said that no one from either Tuscany or Rome could marry me until the end of the day? ****

Cellini: ...I somehow did not hear about that?

Teresa: well that’s a thing ANYWAY even though the Pope himself made that order, my dad was like ‘screw this’ and was packing to take me away from Rome, but I slipped out and ran here as fast as I could to see you!

*Ascanio returns and gives Cellini his sword.*

What are you doing with that?

Cellini: Honey, I’ll be back soon.

Teresa: NO STAY HERE YOU’RE GONNA GET INTO A FIGHT

Cellini: ...that’s kinda the point?

Teresa: I’M NOT LETTING YOU GO

Cellini: TERESA IT’S OKAY I’M GONNA SEND YOUR FIANCÉ TO HELL

Teresa: wait WHAT

Cellini: Fieramosca came here and insulted me and challenged me to a duel.

Teresa: IT’LL BE A TRAP (knowing him and also because this is how every duel in the history of French opera turns out)

Cellini: Calm down, it’ll be fine.

Teresa: NO IT WON’T

Cellini: Look: your fiancé isn’t anything near a Hercules; he’s a buffoon with an extremely inflated ego and I’m gonna teach him a lesson he will never forget.

*He leaves with Ascanio.*

Teresa: seriously NO ONE listens to me around here and now I’m here all alone

Metalworkers: *offstage* CELLINI WHERE ARE YOU WHY DID YOU LEAVE

Teresa: What’s going on?

Metalworkers: LET’S GO

Teresa: If he doesn’t come back, I’m done for…

*Francesco, Bernardino, and the other metalworkers leave their work behind and come onstage.*

Francesco, Bernardino, and Metalworkers: LET’S GO WE’VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS

Teresa: What is happening???

Francesco, Bernardino, and Metalworkers: EVEN THOUGH WE AIN’T GOT HATS OR BADGES WE’RE A UNION JUST BY SAYING SO AND THE WORLD WILL KNOW

Teresa: WHAT ARE YOU DOING

Francesco, Bernardino, and Metalworkers: WE’RE ALL LEAVING

Teresa: BUT WHAT ABOUT CELLINI

Francesco, Bernardino, and Metalworkers: HE MAY OWN THE WORLD BUT HE DON’T OWN US WE’VE BEEN DOWN TOO LONG AND WE’VE PAID OUR DUES

Teresa: Look, he’ll be back soon—

Francesco, Bernardino, and Metalworkers: WE BEEN KEEPING SCORE EITHER HE GIVES US OUR RIGHTS OR WE GIVES HIM A WAR

Teresa: Please, go back to work, he’ll pay you tomorrow—

Francesco, Bernardino, and Metalworkers: SO HE GAVE HIS WORD? WELL IT AIN’T WORTH BEANS NOW HE’S GONNA SEE WHAT ‘STOP THE FURNACES’ REALLY MEANS

Teresa: He’ll pay you very well—

Francesco, Bernardino, and Metalworkers: BUT WE NEED MONEY TO LIVE

Teresa: (Holy Virgin, don’t abandon us now!) I’M NOT LEAVING YOU 

Francesco, Bernardino, and Metalworkers: LET’S LEAVE

Teresa: PLEASE I’M BEGGING YOU

*Fieramosca enters and Teresa sees him.*

OH GOD CELLINI’S DEAD

*She faints. Francesco and Bernardino help her up and support her.*

Francesco, Bernardino, and Metalworkers: wait WHAT

Fieramosca: What...what is the meaning of this?!

Teresa: *reviving and pointing to Fieramosca* Good workers...that man has killed your master...avenge him!

Francesco, Bernardino, and Metalworkers: he WHAT OH HE KILLED CELLINI HE WILL PAY FOR THIS LET’S KILL HIM

*They start attacking Fieramosca.*

Fieramosca: NO NO STOP IT I AM YOUR FRIEND

*Gold coins fall out of his pockets; the workers see them.*

Francesco, Bernardino, and Metalworkers: Dude, why do you have so much money on you? Not that we care, but you could get robbed.

Fieramosca: I was just coming to give you a better salary than you get here…

Francesco, Bernardino, and Metalworkers: A BETTER SALARY WOULD BE NICE BUT NOT FROM YOU BECAUSE YOU KILLED CELLINI SO WHAT SHOULD WE DO ABOUT THIS OH WE KNOW LET’S THROW YOU INTO THE FURNACE

Fieramosca: WAIT NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO I’M YOUR FRIEND

Francesco, Bernardino, and Metalworkers: THROW HIM INTO THE FURNACE

*Chaos ensues. Suddenly, from nearby:*

Cellini: HEY WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE

*Cellini and Ascanio enter.*

Teresa, Francesco, Bernardino, and Metalworkers: OMG YOU’RE ACTUALLY ALIVE

Cellini: Indeed I am! Why wouldn’t I be?

*Teresa rushes over to Cellini and embraces him.*

Teresa: THANK GOD YOU’RE OKAY

Francesco, Bernardino, and Metalworkers: WE ALL THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD AND THAT FIERAMOSCA KILLED YOU

Cellini: Well then, rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

*He goes over to Fieramosca, who is sweating and panting like an ox.*

What were you doing here while I was waiting for you behind St. Andrew’s cloister?

Fieramosca: I was coming...I’m coming…

Francesco, Bernardino, and Metalworkers: YEAH HE WAS COMING ALRIGHT HE WAS COMING TO TRY TO HIRE ALL OF US

Cellini: Let me get this straight: you were trying to bribe my entire workshop?

Francesco, Bernardino, and Metalworkers: YEAH HE WAS

Cellini: watch out because I’m about to get VERY ANGRY IF YOU DIDN’T ALREADY GET THE HINT

Fieramosca: I was coming...I’m coming…

Cellini: You’ve come—to work!

Everyone Else: wait WHAT

Cellini: YES HE WILL WORK GET AN APRON ON HIM AND MAKE SURE HE TAKES HIS PLACE IN THE WORKSHOP AND DOESN’T TRY TO SABOTAGE ANYTHING OR BY GOD—

Teresa, Ascanio, Francesco, Bernardino, and Metalworkers: THIS IS THE BEST IDEA EVER C’MON FIERAMOSCA GET TO WORK OR CELLINI WILL MAKE YOU TAKE A VERY UNPLEASANT BATH IN A BUNCH OF MELTED BRONZE

Fieramosca: ugh not this AGAIN very well I’ll go to work

*He puts on an apron.*

Cellini, Teresa, Ascanio, Francesco, Bernardino, and Metalworkers: Alright, everyone, it’s time to go back to work and finish everything up!

Fieramosca: I’ve already taken one very unpleasant bath this week and I don’t want another so let’s go to work

Ascanio: THIS IS THE BEST THING EVER

*Everyone goes to work except Teresa and Ascanio.*

*****Teresa: I feel much better about this now, but the sky is getting dark…

Ascanio: Have courage! Before long, we’ll be through the storm and into a safe port and everything will be okay.

*He goes to join Cellini and the others. The Pope enters with his retinue and Balducci.*

Balducci: TERESA WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE

The Pope: Be quiet!

*Teresa kneels before the Pope.*

Teresa: Holy Father, forgive me!

The Pope: Rise, my child. Tell me: how did you get here?

Balducci: EXCUSE ME—

The Pope: IN THE NAME OF GOD SHUT UP 

Teresa: Well, my father wanted to take me away from Rome so I couldn’t marry Cellini, but I thought you would be forgiving, so I came here and joined Cellini in order to wait for you and the casting and hopefully my marriage to Cellini!

The Pope: oh Dio mio you really should honor your father, BUT your father failed entirely and very much dropped the ball in actively trying to go against my orders, so I forgive you.

Now, tell me, where is the man of the hour?

Teresa: There he is now!*****

*Cellini enters and acknowledges the Pope.*

The Pope: Well, have you finished?

Cellini: Not quite yet, Your Holiness, but everything is on track to be done soon, thank God; the metal is heating up right now and all that needs to happen is that the metal melt and flow into the mold, the very bowels of the earth, and become holy at your signal!

Balducci: The braggart!

The Pope: He’s faking his cheerfulness and honestly, it really annoys me, but we must wait and see how this goes. Very well: begin.

*Cellini signals the workers to begin. They work for a while to some of the slappiest orchestral music ever written in opera, until Fieramosca leaves his work and runs up to Cellini.* ******

Fieramosca: WE NEED MORE METAL OR ELSE WE’LL STOP WORKING

Cellini: What are you saying?

Fieramosca: WE NEED MORE METAL OR ELSE WE’LL STOP WORKING

Cellini: Let me check this out myself. If you’re lying, you’re in big trouble. If you’re telling the truth, I’m in big trouble…

*He runs to check on the work, leaving a very embarrassed Fieramosca behind.*

Balducci: Fieramosca?! Is that you?!

Fieramosca: ...Yeah.

Balducci: What are you wearing that for?

Fieramosca: Well, uh, it’s a long story…

Balducci: And your face is covered in soot! Really, I don’t understand you at all sometimes.

Fieramosca: Uh, well...shouldn’t even rival artists help one another every now and then?

*Cellini returns.*

Cellini: WE’RE DOING FINE FIERAMOSCA GET BACK TO WORK

*He gestures threateningly at Fieramosca, who immediately backs down and returns to the furnace, followed by Cellini.*

Teresa and Ascanio: He looks so pale! Dear God, don’t abandon him now!

Balducci and the Pope: He looks so pale! He’s getting nervous; he might be in trouble!

*Cellini returns, flustered.*

Cellini: Excuse me, but I really need to be back there supervising the casting. We’re getting pretty close now; we just added more metal to the furnace. Everything is being melted and it is all going very well.

*He goes back to supervise. Exactly fourteen seconds later, Francesco and Bernardino get his attention with a very unwelcome twist.*

Francesco and Bernardino: CELLINI THE METAL IS CONGEALING *******

Everyone Else: wait WHAT

Francesco and Bernardino: WE DON’T KNOW HOW IT’S HAPPENING BUT THE METAL IS CONGEALING

Everyone Else: THAT’S ACTUALLY REALLY BAD

Francesco and Bernardino: WE NEED MORE METAL

Cellini: But there should be more back there. Has it all been used?

Francesco and Bernardino: WE DON’T HAVE ANY MORE METAL WE NEED METAL NOW

Cellini: BUT I DON’T HAVE ANY MORE METAL

Everyone Else: you don’t have WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!

Cellini: I’M DONE FOR

Everyone Else: HE’S DONE FOR

The Pope: Well, that’s the one thing that can make him dumbfounded.

Balducci: FINALLY HE’LL BE HANGED

Everyone: oh sh—oh shoot he’s done for

Balducci: *ironically* Oh, you, such a genius as you are, are tortured by just a simple little nothing? You know everything, your skill is infinite! Turn that little frown upside-down!

Cellini: you’re not helping and I would say some choice words to you but we’re both in the presence of the Pope and that is the only thing restraining me at the moment

Francesco, Bernardino, and The Workers: WE NEED METAL NOW

Francesco: WE’RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME THE FIRE’S GOING OUT

Cellini: Wait! What...what should I do?

Francesco, Bernardino, and The Workers: WE JUST NEED METAL MORE METAL MORE METAL

Cellini: DEAR GOD YOU’RE MY ONLY HOPE LEFT SO PLEASE HELP ME OUT HERE BECAUSE I’M SO CLOSE TO GIVING IN TO DESPAIR AND I’M REALLY TRYING MY BEST DOWN HERE

Balducci: Um, not to spoil the mood or anything, but perhaps you should wait to chat with God until after we find out what happens with this statue?

Cellini: that doesn’t even make sense

Balducci: I mean you can give thanks then on the extreme off-chance that you actually pull this off.

Cellini: I’M SAVED GOD IS HELPING ME BECAUSE I JUST GOT AN IDEA

WORKERS GRAB EVERYTHING METAL YOU CAN FIND TAKE EVERYTHING FROM THE WORKSHOP AND THROW IT IN THE FURNACE

Francesco and Bernardino: WHAT YOU WANT US TO GET YOUR OTHER ARTWORKS AND THROW THEM IN THERE?!?!?!?!

Cellini: I DON’T CARE JUST GRAB ANYTHING METAL YOU CAN FIND INCLUDING MY ARTWORKS AND THROW IT IN NO MATTER WHAT METAL IT’S MADE OF IF IT’S METAL GRAB IT

*Ascanio grabs a candelabra and throws it in. Cellini does the same with every metal object he can find. Ascanio, Francesco, Bernardino, and some of the other workers start bringing in some of Cellini’s metal sculptures and passing them to other workers so they can be thrown into the furnace.*

Teresa: IT’S ALMOST TOO MUCH TO BEAR I HOPE HE MAKES IT IN THE END

The Pope: HE HAS SUCH BOLDNESS WILL HE MAKE IT IN THE END

Balducci: HE’S GOING MAD AND HE’S RUINING HIMSELF FOR A HOPELESS CAUSE

*The metal collection continues. The workers keep melting the objects and sculptures in the furnace. Suddenly there is a large explosion and the lid of the crucible mold is blown off.*

Teresa, Balducci, and the Pope: WHAT WAS THAT NOISE WHAT’S GOING ON DID IT HAPPEN OR NO

*Cellini, not daring to look, runs to the front.*

Cellini: IT EXPLODED I’M DONE FOR

Workers: LONG LIVE CELLINI VIVAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

*Everyone turns to see the molten metal pour into the mold. The casting is successful.*

Everyone: VICTORY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*Fieramosca pushes through the crowd to find Cellini.*

Fieramosca: HEY LEMME THROUGH I WANT TO FIND MY DEAR FRIEND CELLINI AND EMBRACE HIM

Balducci: I KNEW HE COULD DO IT ALL ALONG SO TERESA HERE’S YOUR FUTURE

Cellini: well well well which of these two is the more cowardly suck-up???

Holy Father, I have completed the casting.

The Pope: Well, since God has blessed both your work and your boldness, I will hold up my end of the deal: I officially pardon you, Benvenuto Cellini.

Cellini: Teresa!

Teresa: Cellini!

Francesco, Bernardino, Workers, and Spectators: VIVA CELLINI

Teresa, Fieramosca, and Ascanio: IMMORTAL GLORY TO CELLINI

The Workers: Gold shines like the sun and rubies like fire in the night…

Teresa, Fieramosca, Balducci, Ascanio, Francesco, and Bernardino: GLORY TO HIM

Cellini: ONE LAST ROUND OF OUR SONG

Ascanio, Francesco, and Bernardino: LIKE YOU SAID JUST THE LAST VERSE BECAUSE IT’S THE BEST

Everyone: METALS, THE UNDERGROUND NEVER-FADING FLOWERS, SHINE BRIGHTEST ON THE BROWS OF ALL THE GREATEST PEOPLE—THE KINGS AND QUEENS AND DUKES AND EMPERORS AND EVEN POPES—SO HONOR TO THE MASTER METALWORKERS

TRA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA—

HONOR TO THE MASTER METALWORKERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*General celebration.*

Notes

THE END

Up Next: Così fan tutte

[akp-1327]

Hiii!💕 Can you do headcanons for your MC Charlotte or OC Leila?? They’re so adorable and I love them🤭

Absolutely! And because I love them both just as much, I did them both! Thanks for asking! 😆💖

Find the prompts I used here! Also, feel free to give me other characters!

Charlotte Parker:

Charlotte has quite the music taste. She’d love to listen to anything and is open to suggestions, but she especially loves the classics. Her favorites consist of “Jolene” by Dolly Parton, “Proud Mary” by Tina Turner, and “Be My Baby” by The Ronettes.

Charlotte can practically sleep in any space. Maybe not comfortably or soundly, but she can definitely close her eyes and catch some z’s. The worst place she’s ever drifted off to Dreamland was at school. This may not sound that bad, but it was in the middle of a Homecoming dance. In a bathroom stall. Why? She was bored!

While notorious for her pool and dart skills, Charlotte has another game that she excels at: Clue. Everyone she’s ever played with always claim that she cheats, but she shrugs off the lie with her reasoning of being a descendant of Sherlock Holmes (which, of course, is a complete lie).

Charlotte is a very expressive person and she absolutely adores emojis...maybe a little too much. Her top 3 favorites are as follows: 🥰, 🤘, 💕 (all hearts, really)

Because Charlotte can literally sleep anywhere, she doesn’t get super tired very often. Though, when she does, she mopes. Her usual lively personality is replaced with one of utter laziness.

Charlotte’s favorite warm beverage to enjoy at any time of the day is hot chocolate. She likes coffee and tea respectively, but hot chocolate just comforts her in a way that makes her feel all warm and fuzzy.

Music is a huge part of Charlotte’s life, so when she’s feeling down, she loves to sing and dance. She doesn’t care what it looks or sounds like; her only wish is to feel a little bit better than she did before.

Charlotte has always loved drama. Since she was young she has wanted to be a Broadway actress. Theater has always been her passion and she’s over the moon that she’s going to pursue it at NYU.

Rainy weather has always been Charlotte’s favorite. Not only does she like the soothing aspects but also the positive impact it has on nature. According to Charlotte, without rain, the world wouldn’t be half as beautiful as it is now.

Charlotte has a beautiful singing voice. She classifies herself as a soprano (she has a natural high pitched voice, so that intensifies when she sings) and loves to belt out high notes as she stands under a spotlight on a stage.

Drawing...doesn’t come easily to Charlotte. She enjoys scribbling little stick people all over her notes - some with bows, some with glasses, some with wacky hair that sticks out all over - but that’s as far as she’ll go with sketching.

Leila Maciel:

Leila has a very distinct music taste. She loves any type of rock, though hates any pop or country. Her favorite bands - Shinedown, Styx, and Boston - are superior, though she does enjoy Queen and some REO Speedwagon. Her favorite (ever) songs consist of “Cyanide Sweet Tooth Suicide” by Shinedown, “Renegade” by Styx, and “Don’t Look Back” by Boston.

Leila isn’t the fall-asleep-anywhere type, so the weirdest place she’s ever drifted off was at her cousin’s birthday party when she was 6.

Leila isn’t a huge fan of board games, so she likes to demonstrate her skill through sports; particularly soccer. She’s been playing soccer since she began to walk, but became less involved in high school because of her rigorous classes. So, whenever she gets the chance, she’ll put on her cleats and shin guards and teach everyone a lesson on the field.

Leila isn’t a huge emoji-heavy texter (solely because she thinks emojis are pointless) though she does like one emoji...and one emoji only. She thinks it’s pretty universal and can be used in any situation...😎

Because Leila doesn’t sleep just anywhere, she tends to be tired pretty often. Her normal personality, usually somewhere between sarcastic, logical, and teasing, can turn into pure and unbridled anger when she’s extra exhausted.

Green tea is Leila’s go-to warm beverage on some mornings. She doesn’t like coffee at all and thinks hot chocolate is too childish. Leila also doesn’t drink any other types of tea besides green. Charlotte always calls her a grandma whenever she nurses a mug and asks when Leila will knit her a blanket.

When Leila’s in a slump, she doesn’t necessarily have a plan. She likes to do what’ll make her feel better in the moment, which could be going on a walk or going over by her friends’ houses. However, one thing she will not do is trap herself in a room with her thoughts.

Leila’s “dream career” has changed multiple times. When she was in middle school, she tried to imagine herself as a doctor or a lawyer; neither of these options fit, so she was clueless until she took a finance class her sophomore year. Everything clicked when she decided to become a part of the business world.

Leila loves thunderstorms. There’s just something calming about the sudden flashes of lightning and rolls of thunder that just make her feel at ease. She likes to curl up under a blanket and read a mystery book whenever this happens to take full advantage of the relaxation.

When it comes to singing - or anything musical - Leila struggles. Of course she enjoys to hum and sing along to her rock songs when she’s alone, but she isn’t a great singer by any means outside of that.

Drawing is something Leila has somewhat of a grasp on. She can sketch out pretty good pencil portraits if you give her time. One of her favorite works was a semi-realistic drawing of Shinedown’s lead singer Brent Smith. She has it framed and hung among her posters.

[introvertguide]

Singin’ in the Rain (1952); AFI #5

The next movie on the AFI list is perhaps the most popular musical in American Film, Singin in the Rain (1952). This film is far and away the highest ranked musical on the AFI list. It is a comedy set in early Hollywood when movies switched from silent to having sound. A lot of actors were suddenly exposed as talentless with a pretty face and the old vaudeville performers suddenly regained popularity. A film that didn’t hold any punches as to the difficulty Hollywood had with understanding this new aspect of movie media, this is definitely worth checking out. I want to go over story details before addressing the behind-the-scenes aspects, so...

SPOILER WARNING! THIS DESCRIPTION COMPLETELY SPOILS THE STORY SO WATCH THE MOVIE FIRST!

At the premiere of his latest film, The Royal Rascal, Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) tells a gathered crowd an exaggerated version of his life story, including his motto: "Dignity, always dignity." His words are humorously contradicted by flashbacks showing him alongside his best friend Cosmo Brown (Donald O'Connor) working all the undignified jobs involved with acting. He is with his shallow leading lady Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen), who turns out be very screachy and stupid. The new movie is a hit and Don leaves with Cosmo to the producer after party when the car breaks down and Don is recognized. To escape from his fans, Don jumps into a passing car driven by Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds). She drops him off, but not before claiming to be a stage actress and sneering at his "undignified" accomplishments as a movie star.

At a party, the head of the studio, R.F. Simpson (Millard Mitchell), shows a short demonstration of a talking picture, but his guests are unimpressed. To Don's amusement, Kathy pops out of a mock cake right in front of him, revealing herself to be a chorus girl. Furious at Don's teasing, she throws a real cake at him, only to accidentally hit Lina in the face. She runs away. Don is smitten with Kathy and searches for her for weeks. While filming a love scene, Lina tells him that she had Kathy fired. Don finally finds Kathy working in another Monumental Pictures production. She confesses to having been a fan of his all along.

After a rival studio has an enormous hit with its first talking picture, the 1927 film The Jazz Singer, R.F. decides he has no choice but to convert the next Lockwood and Lamont film, The Dueling Cavalier, into a talkie. The production is beset with difficulties, including Lina's grating voice and strong New York accent. An exasperated diction coach tries to teach her how to speak properly, but to no avail. Don is also given diction lessons which turns in a great tap number with Cosmo to Moses Supposes. The Dueling Cavalier's preview screening is a disaster; the actors are barely audible thanks to the awkward placing of the microphones, Don repeats the line "I love you" to Lina over and over, to the audience's derisive laughter, and in the middle of the film, the sound goes out of synchronization, with hilarious results as Lina shakes her head while the villain's deep voice says, "Yes! Yes! Yes!" and the villain nods his head while Lina's squeaky soprano says, "No! No! No!"

Don, Kathy, and Cosmo come up with the idea to turn The Dueling Cavalier into a musical called The Dancing Cavalier, complete with a modern musical number called "Broadway Melody". The three are disheartened when they realize Lina's terrible voice remains a problem, but Cosmo, inspired by a scene in The Dueling Cavalier where Lina's voice was out of sync, suggests that they dub Lina's voice with Kathy's. R.F. approves the idea but tells them not to inform Lina about the dubbing. When Lina finds out, she is infuriated. She becomes even angrier when she discovers that R.F. intends to give Kathy a screen credit and a big publicity buildup afterward. Lina threatens to sue R.F. unless he orders Kathy to continue working uncredited as Lina's voice. R.F. reluctantly agrees to her demands, as a clause in her contract states that the studio is responsible for media coverage of her and she can sue if she is not happy with it.

The premiere of The Dancing Cavalier is a tremendous success. When the audience clamors for Lina to sing live, Don, Cosmo, and R.F. tell her to lip sync into the microphone while Kathy, concealed behind the curtain, sings into a second one. While Lina is "singing", Don, Cosmo, and R.F. gleefully raise the curtain, revealing the fakery. Lina flees. A distressed Kathy tries to run away as well, but Don proudly announces to the audience that she's "the real star" of the film. Later, Kathy and Don kiss in front of a billboard for their new film, Singin' in the Rain.

I really enjoy the movie, but I have to admit a couple things that I have noticed over the years on different viewings. One thing is that the acting is not very good. It is all very hokey and I like to believe that this was done on purpose, but I have seen other productions from these actors and the acting from all three is  pretty similar. Another thing is that the pitch for the “modern number” that turns out to be the Broadway Melody was just shoved in for timing reasons and it comes out of nowhere and goes nowhere. I noticed that Rita Morena is in this film and she is a complete triple threat, but a 19-year-old Debbie Reynolds got the lead.

There are some very well known behind the scenes trivia notes that are pretty general knowledge to American movie fans, but I will go over a couple things. The Singin’ in the Rain number was set up but Gene Kelly was very sick with a fever so he did a practice take and went home. They continued filming the next couple of days but most of what is in the movie came from that initial sick take with fill shots from the other takes. 

Debbie Reynolds was not a dancer or a singer, but a gymnast. She had to be taught how to dance and you can see in her face how hard she is trying. Strangely, the speaking that she put in for Lina Lamont was actually the actress Jean Hagen (who played Lamont and was nominated for best supporting actress) who did not have that high pitch voice but a deep smoky voice. The singing that was dubbed over was not Reynolds either, but a professional singer named Betty Noyes. 

The film had a lot of difficulties as takes had to be redone because the crew did not really know what they were doing. There were episodes where the mic was poorly placed on the actor’s body (Debbie Reynolds) and there was difficulty getting clean takes, including an episode when the mic picked up her heartbeat. Donald O’Connor had to do the Make Em’ Laugh number twice because the cinematographer left the lens aperture open and the film fogged over. A lot of numbers actually had to be redone because of a fire. 

None of the other actors in this film ever reported working with Gene Kelly as a positive experience. Kelly had a very high standard and a very specific style which could be difficult as Reynolds was not a dancer. Kelly also had just come off of filming the previous year’s best picture, An American in Paris, and really wanted the movie to do just as well. He was mean to Reynolds and made her cry. He also had her do the Good Morning number over and over until vessels broke in her feet and she started to bleed all over the stage. O’Connor did not like the way the Kelly pushed around the other actors and referred to Kelly as an aggressive control freak. Gene Kelly admitted later to being far too hard on his fellow actors during this filming and both O’Connor and Reynolds forgave him suggesting it was a learning experience. It still sounds like pretty awful working conditions to me (edited)

Only two of the songs in the film were original for the movie, Moses Supposes and Make Em Laugh, although the former was based on a children’s rhyme and the latter was very similar to Be A Clown by Irving Berlin. This was actually the seventh movie that had Singin’ in the Rain as a feature song. It seemed like an homage to the popularity of the Follies in the 1920′s, using all of the popular notes of the year to commemorate the past. 

So should this film be on the AFI List? Absolutely, although I don’t know if I would have put it in the top 5. It is a lot of fun, it is very well known, it is still mentioned frequently in current popular media, and the actors really put a lot into the production. However, I wouldn’t put it above movies like Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz. That is a little much. And would I recommend it? Of course! This movie is a lot of fun and one of those movies that the pace pulls you through without ever needing to check the time. The dancing is fabulous and the show of the misunderstanding of sound in movies by the characters is truly hilarious. It is 100% certified fresh an Rotten Tomatoes and I completely agree. 

[yourfanvivitran]

It should come as no surprise that John Carpenter and Dan O’Bannon were students in the same film class, that they created Dark Star together, and that they both had a great affinity for 1951’s The Thing From Another World. If you put Ridley Scott’s Alien, which O’Bannon wrote, next to Carpenter’s The Thing, the parallels cannot be contended. A group of people, bound together almost exclusively by their careers, are isolated and trapped in their own environment with a murderous monster. One by one, they are picked off by this alien beast and are forced to pull out all the stops just to survive. The tension in both movies is suffocating. The suspense stays well after the credits roll.

So, why did Alien excel and why did The Thing fail?

Alien was heralded as a science fiction-horror masterpiece, raking in over $200 million at the box office. The Thing, although now recognized as one of Carpenter’s best films to rival even the likes of Halloween, barely exceeded its $15 million budget by $4 million. What’s more is that critics panned The Thing almost unanimously after its 1982 release. And to what point?

When you compare the 2 movies, it objectively doesn’t make much sense. When you sit down and watch The Thing, without even thinking of its much more popular predecessor, it still doesn’t quite add up. There is not much I can say about The Thing that hasn’t already been said before. It’s well-known, now - the writing, the acting, the practical effects, the cinematography? Masterfully done. No arguments. So what went wrong?

The most popularly accepted explanation was that it just wasn’t the right year for it. In 1982, The Thing had to contend with the Summer of Spielberg, being critiqued alongside horror giant Poltergeist and science fiction treasure E.T. How could a stark and grim story of distrust and gore stand alongside such beloved classics?

But in tandem with these films and also calling back to the success of Alien, Carpenter cites reception from various focus groups: they hated the ending.

It should be assumed at this point that if you have not yet seen The Thing, you are sorely missing out. All the same, however, be wary of spoilers.

The end of The Thing is bitter, to put it lightly. Childs (Keith David) trudges through Antarctic snow, lit by the burning wreckage of Outpost 31, towards R.J. MacReady (Kurt Russel) who sits alone, already half buried. They observe their inevitable deaths, and drink to the supposed demise of their shapeshifting predator.

A lot is left out to die in the snow.

According to Carpenter, this ending was seen by test audiences as too dismal. And rightfully so, when you take into consideration the other popular releases of 1982. Carol Anne is ultimately saved, along with the rest of her family, at the end of Poltergeist. Elliot embraces E.T. before he finally returns home. And going further back, even Ripley is able to escape the xenomorph by the skin of her teeth and secure herself the title as one of the greatest “Final Girls” ever put to the silver screen.

And what of MacReady and Childs?

Well, that’s up to your imagination, Carpenter told a test audience member who asked who the final host was at the end of the movie.

“Oh, god. I hate that,” they responded.

As a writer, this loose ends style of concluding a story is almost expected from a lot of modern works. It’s written this way in order to haunt the reader, to linger and adhere itself to the real world in the most sardonic of ways. Think Joyce Carol Oates’s “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” or Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” This almost anticlimactic close of the curtain arrived in the literary world long before it found its place in film, but it’s a big point of contention in mainstream criticism.

Dark or incomplete conclusions have been met with the most scathing of responses. Beware the black cutaway of Sopranos fame. Or the near-universal outcry against the third Mass Effect game that grew so much, the developers created a morsel of DLC content that maybe kind of confirmed a more optimistic fate for our dear Shepard.

But even for the horror genre, The Thing seemed unprecedented. The only fate darker to fall upon a mainstream protagonist was Ben’s untimely death in Night of the Living Dead. The tragedy of both movies is palpable - all this trouble to survive against inhuman killers, all this trouble to outlive something gruesome and maybe even make the world a better place, and what was left to show for it?

In short, Carpenter’s science fiction terror was too much of a bummer.

I personally did not take much of a liking to horror until much later in life. My parents didn’t filter the media I consumed as much as they probably should have, and I was scarred early on by movies as cheesy and entertaining as The Lost Boys and Blade. It wasn’t until late adolescence and into college that I set out to catch up.

My roommate at the time of this resolution had been a fan of horror her whole life, her favorites being Halloween, Candyman, and The Thing. Having already known a good deal about the former two, I decided to strap in for The Thing for the first time ever.

These days, I always have several soap boxes on retainer, just waiting for the next unwitting recipient of my usually-beer-induced rants. Brian Jones was killed, Jaws single handedly endangered sharks, banning books is a stupid practice, representation in media is important, etc. Predictably, one of these soap boxes is the general lack of appreciation of The Thing, both at the time of its release and today (it does not even make the top 100 on Rotten Tomatoes’s highest rated horror movies).

And yet, at the same time, if The Thing had achieved the credit it deserved upon release, I may not like it as much as I do today.

I make a point to not read too much about movies I am feverishly anticipating, and revel in the feeling of going into a well-known movie knowing as little as possible. Most of the time, it makes for the best viewing experience, but I’m sure I don’t even have to point this out.

This was my experience seeing The Thing for the first time. I was on winter break, staying at my parents’ house for the holidays. Everyone else had gone to bed, and I stayed up late in the living room, curled up under layers of blankets, content in perfect darkness save for the television.

I had no idea what to expect, as I had not been spoiled by any TV show making any blatant references and had not done any prior reading into the film itself. And I was absolutely delighted from beginning to end.

What stays with me the most is the special effects. It’s true what they say - that practical effects hold up better than CGI alone. And the production team didn’t cut any corners in this department. Stan Winston and his team, who were later responsible for the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, helped construct one of the best animatronics in the movie. Rob Bottin, who brought this constantly-morphing creature to life from conception to every last slimy detail, went on to be hailed as a genius in his special effects career. And there is definitely something to be said for the work of cinematographer Dean Cundey whose masterful control of lighting and framing is best seen in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

The extent of my knowledge of the titular creature was that it was an alien. That it was an alien who could consume multiple life forms and take on their shapes was both exciting and terrifying. There’s creative genius in this premise that thrills the science fiction lover in me, and also fascinates the bookworm in me. I had been a fan of Agatha Christie novels as a teenager, and to see a new and outrageous take on the And Then There Were None structure was incredibly novel to me.

The appeal wasn’t just that there was something out there, lying in wait to torturously pick off it’s victims one-by-one. It was that it could have been anyone.

At its core, horror as we know it has deep roots in whodunnit style murder mystery. With the rise of the giallo and the sensation of the slasher, horror movies of this nature are far from uncommon and can be seen as late as 1996 with the Scream franchise. Carpenter himself spurned a new kind of fear with his breakout success with Halloween by refusing to give a bodily face to its main antagonist. Here, with The Thing, he takes the eponymous killer character to the next level by giving it the genetically inherent function of deceiving its prey. Not knowing the true face of your murderer has proven to be inherently bone-chilling.

Even now, hundreds of horror movies under my belt later and still constantly learning, I keep coming back to The Thing. I really cannot think of another movie in my wide array of favorites that I love more than The Thing, and I truly believe it has everything to do with me not knowing anything about it upon my first viewing. Every other movie I can name on my (similar to the subject) constantly changing top 10 list of most beloved horror flicks was, at some point, spoiled for me in some capacity.

Think of how often the twins in The Shining are referenced in cartoons, of all the head spinning jokes made in reference to The Exorcist. Anthony Hopkins’s portrayal of Hannibal Lector in Silence of the Lambs has become so infamous, that I knew his dialogue (and Buffalo Bill’s) long before I ever saw the movie in full.

I don’t blame these references for ruining these movies. As a super fan, I understand that compulsion to pay tribute. It’s no one’s fault and to their credit that these films take lives of their own. But the repercussions don’t age well in terms of initial viewing experiences.

All that being said, I truly cherish how much I was not exposed to this movie. The unpredictability of the creature and the quiet, looming despair that comes with it create a horror unlike any other.

Although it was a box office flop, The Thing is now a welcome and praised name in both science fiction and horror. Even Quentin Tarantino made it known that The Hateful Eight was primarily inspired on several fronts by Carpenter’s underrated work. However, it has not pervaded pop culture like so many other horror classics have left their indelible mark on film vernacular. And to that end, I hope it remains in that slight shadow of anonymity for all future enthusiasts.

[melforbes]

what's been your favorite part of writing seaglass blue? is there a part in particular that you couldn't wait to write? is there one you were avoiding?

to be honest i am 100% flying by the seat of my pants with this which right now is out of character so i haven’t exactly gotten to the dreaded parts yet lmao

i have an ending in mind (and a final line) that i really like but that i have a gut feeling no one else will like but i’m not compromising with it and i’m a little nervous to post that eventually. i’m not nervous about writing it but i don’t think it will necessarily come across well. Like it feels a little end of the sopranos but also it’s not like that at all but it’s the same existential vibe if that makes sense. which it doesn’t at all. but still

i actively avoid dialogue because it’s not my strong suit. i also can’t get the Mulder Voice right (deadpan snark etc) and then throwing in Big Feelings i’m just so out of my element

so far i shockingly haven’t dreaded writing any part of it. i did end up blocked with this last chapter because i hadn’t entirely decided what to do with the plot and the plot i’d thought through and didn’t actually use (and lmao have since forgotten!) just was not working at all so i didn’t write and instead did the whole running in circles thinking it through thing that isn’t writing (i recommend reading atomic habits by james clear ahaha! that running in circles motion gets a massive drag in there) that ultimately was never fruitful AND EITHER WAY i started a new drug for the other side of my life and it gave me wicked insomnia and at two am everything righted itself so i finally figured out where i was going. But that being said i never really dreaded it even though i oftentimes dread a scene or two in most chapters i write and i think the lack of dread comes from how it’s all set up in a very cozy way and it’s hard to dread something like that

i couldn’t wait to write the wedding which is why i dive into it so quickly. And i really wanted to interject parts of their “wedding night” or afternoon or whatever because those were my favorite moments to visualize. there’s another part down the line that i can’t wait to write but i also can’t spoil that haha. i think like...the most anticipated stuff i have coming up for the next chapter (or maybe the one after that depending on how the wordcount shakes out) is a specific conversation about specific things that happens in the dark. and uh i will not elaborate beyond that aldskjasldkjfdalsgj

my favorite part of writing it. this answer is so disjointed i’m sorry. i’ll put the rest of this under a cut because i’m rambling ahaha

my favorite part of writing it has been like...i think this is a multitude of things which is why i wrote msr again after a long unintentional break from it. idk if i ever really mentioned this (or at least if i mentioned it recently) but i started writing msr here in mid 2016 to rekindle my passion for writing while i was very very ill long term, and that culminated in the “everyday msr” archive i have on my ao3, which thus was a log of self-comfort in hard times as well as (unintentionally) documentation of how i neurologically healed during that treatment. so, bizarre. i was in a hard place back then and writing helped me keep my head screwed on straight, and luckily with msr you can write the shittiest things and someone will still be genuinely happy to read it and will look past any lack of talent or training or experience or anything and instead see you, someone having an idea and offering it to others, sharing something for the sake of feeling something good together. that (combined with my own personal gratification of having done something) really helped me emotionally during that time. like when you can’t be of service to anyone in the world, barely even to yourself, it’s really reassuring to hear “i was having a hard day today and this small thing you did eased me” and know that they didn’t need quality or exceptional talent; they just needed you to show up. i’m getting off topic but all of this is a roundabout way to say that i’m essentially back in that same place right now and have been for the past little over a year and like. It’s bullshit ahaha. like it’s absolute bullshit. But it’s strangely valuable to have this like...same connection as i had last time, just in a bit of a different way. it’s still msr, it’s still a kind of Happy Place for me, but there’s an overarching plot, i have other stuff that i write too, etc. but still, i appreciate being able to go back to an original comfort and form that comfort in the same way. the “everyday msr” stuff was intended to be just extended written-out headcanons about domestic msr post iwtb or post revival #1 that i could write in one sitting, and this isn’t entirely different from that; it’s just that the domesticity has a twist and a different era. but it’s the same stuff as before - pictures of misty places, gentle music, living based on the season, being a homebody, cooking for your lover, natural beauty. it’s nice to return to that place right now

another favorite part of writing this is that maine was an important part of my childhood. my family spent a week of vacation there each year (outside of bar harbor, not on mdi but right outside of it) and i kind of associate that purity with it. it feels like one of the only elements of childhood that i haven’t found adulthood corrupting. like we learn that disneyland is just a capitalist hellhole and whatnot when we’re older but maine hasn’t been ruined for me yet and i treasure that. And having them there feels special as a result. i very much on purpose didn’t label a town they’re in (or even base where they are on a real one lol all of that is glossed over enough anyway that i’m not worried about it) but it felt important and right for them to be in maine. it feels special to tap into the very brief time that i shared with the show while i was still a part of its cultural landscape. that sentence makes no sense. in other words i was born in 1997 ahaha. but either way like...i get to people this place that is already special to me and give them love and safety within it and that feels good in a way that i’m struggling to describe. And also i could go on some stupid rant about how Cell Phones Hurt Our Social Circles or whatever but i do genuinely miss rental houses that got 10 blurry channels on rabbit-eared tin foil televisions in a day and age when you normally got way more than that, all while you’re in an era in which boredom is still normal enough that all of that means “well, no tv for this week i guess!” and then you play a board game instead. it feels good to voluntarily create a place like that, then ask in my own life, why don’t i just live like this? And then to struggle through plotting something because there’s no digital numbing with television and smartphones and whatnot, and to understand my own hesitation, and to explore that a little more whether or not it’s in writing

another favorite part (yes i will in fact keep going!) is that the writing style is a little bit atypical from my current norm which allows me certain freedoms that i haven’t really opted for in a while. on the off chance that anyone has read any of my other recent stuff (though this is...a very small chance ahaha) it’s clear that these chapters are much shorter and less prose-heavy than my other stuff is, and that’s really helpful in that editing it is much simpler and writing it happens much quicker. if life were predictable and i had better self-discipline (and better health! can’t discount that one haha) then i could easily get a chapter out every weeks, in comparison to other stuff that i updated once every three months. i’m trying to keep each chapter to being about 3k in length (which they seem to naturally tend toward anyways, i didn’t create that metric so much as just went along with it) and there aren’t frequent “flashback sequences” (there are callbacks and past things brought up, but they’re not significant portions of chapters that go back and forth in timelines and make a nonlinear plot, the linear plot dominates and each scene is more or less in chronological order even if there are callbacks) so i’m not too worried about pacing or structure or anything like that. i never set out to make it “simple” i think it reads better this way and i appreciate that a lot because i can take a break from other stuff that’s a bit more jagged and just do this instead. it’s also nice to write something that i feel is more on the readable side than other things. i think my biggest inspirations for this (which i realized accidentally with the “he wants to brush her hair” line ahaha) were our souls at night and the sunlit night, both of which have a kind of dainty prose style and are a little low on long descriptions but can say a lot with one simple sentence. recently i’ve focused a lot more about darker subject matter and uglier parts of humanity so it’s nice to be able to focus on something that i feel like matters and has a more readable quality to it without actually sacrificing anything in the process or trying to dumb something down

so i think that’s it! that’s my thoughts! this is too long and far too personal! haha!

[thefilmsimps]

Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (dir. Jim Jarmusch)

-Jere Pilapil-

I spent the last year, maybe year and a half of college having wrapped up my major (English) and pursuing my interests through whatever electives I could take (plus the last few film minor classes). That led me down comic books, and anything that I could see letting me write about whatever the fuck. That’s how I spent a lot of that time thinking about and writing about eastern/western cultural mixing and the ways that gets reflected in comic books, movies, and music. My final college paper was a behemoth about the Wu-Tang Clan, intricately researched but also basically shitted out From that perspective, it is an absolute shock that I had never watched Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai until 36 Cinema did a live stream with commentary by the RZA (who scored the movie). It’s a movie that speaks to my obsessions so acutely that there’s a chance we’ll find out I went back in time to give Jim Jarmusch the idea. We’ll see what happens.

Ultimately, this is a movie about the cross pollination of ideas between cultures. The titular character lives his life according to the Hagakure, its lessons interspersed throughout the story giving us insight into Ghost Dog’s train of thought as the story unfolds. Italian mobsters enjoy hip-hop (and can’t tell brown ethnicities apart). A French-speaking ice cream man can’t communicate with Ghost Dog, but they’re best friends. Their thoughts and conclusions are identical. That’s the greatest wisdom that this movie has to offer, that cultures share and spread and influence one another unintentionally. It can’t be helped; so many characters in this movie are afraid of change, of the world becoming different but they are part of the reason it’s happening, whether they know it or not. That said, I think it might be fair to accuse the character Ghost Dog of exorcizing Japanese culture, but the movie is working on such a broader scope that that is less true overall. This would all be well and good but could be pedantic as fuck - a more elusive version of Crash, I guess - if it weren’t fun. Luckily, the turn of the century must have had something in the air. This came out about half a year after The Sopranos premiered, and much of it plays like something that could be happening across town from Tony and company. There are weird bits here and there for those on the same wavelength as this movie - I particularly love a conversation between Louie, the mob boss who hires Ghost Dog for hits, and Louie’s mob bosses. They’re in disbelief over this hired hand who only communicates via daily pigeon messages. They can’t believe he calls himself Ghost Dog. One says a lot of black people take aliases like that. His favorite is Flavor Flav. Another boss says it reminds him of Native American names. It’s all common traditions.

The premise is that a hit goes wrong got Ghost Dog, and in covering it up, he must be eliminated. But the mafia folks are a bumbling bunch, and it takes a whole movie. I just finished rewatching the Sopranos a few months ago and the way the more violent scenes are shot, not particularly stylized (except the odd blur effect) and feeling like improvisation on the actors’ part is very similar. They are of the same world, tracking the dying gasps of the culture that makes sense for their characters. The Italian gangsters are a little lost by their turf becoming populated by varying shades of brown, and Ghost Dog himself adheres to a code of honor centuries removed from modernity (but it works for him, of course).

What a great movie, one that I can see not being others’ cup of tea, but one that resonates very much with me. It’s humor is my humor. You could argue its pacing is too slow, but I think it helps immerse us in its weird, weird world of eccentric gangsters. It slots itself nicely into that uneasy “what’s coming next?” Cultural moment of 1999 but also within the lineage of gangster/hit man movies (via obvious but hilarious homages to Le Samourai and Branded to Kill). But above all I think it’s a fun kind of vibe movie, where you can enjoy these characters and what they bring to each other’s world, enriching the experience for everyone.

10/10

[calzona-ga]

After 14 years as the titular Meredith Grey on Grey’s Anatomy, Ellen Pompeo is more determined than ever to make the hit medical series the best it can be.

Pompeo recently opened up to TV Insider about how her character’s evolved over the seasons, and if Meredith will ever find love again after the loss of Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey).

Plus, find out when she’ll be ready to take her medical diploma off the wall. Not to fear: The highest paid actress on a TV drama just signed up for another two seasons.

Despite losing leading man Patrick Dempsey, the show has endured because of 'super-loyal fans.'

How would you describe Meredith Grey’s journey? Ellen Pompeo: Her journey is one of strength. She’s lost so many people in her life, yet she uses all that pain to give her strength to keep going. We try to send the right message to kids, who may need encouragement and stamina themselves.

How important is it for you that she is a strong woman? When I first started in the business, I was getting a bunch of feature scripts. It was always to be the girlfriend, the girlfriend, the girlfriend. It wasn't even the wife! And all of them seemed so uninteresting to me. And by the way, great directors, great movies, great scripts, but the parts had nothing for me to do.

What initially drew me to the Grey’s role was that this was a character who, from the beginning had something to do. She was a doctor and the story was about her. Grey's Anatomy put a woman front and center taking care of things long before it was fashionable to do so. Creator Shonda [Rhimes] was kind of ahead of the curve on that.

Meredith is currently at the top of her profession and functioning quite well without a man in her life. Are you happy with that? We want to make sure that we tell that story that Meredith doesn’t need a man to complete her; that if you don't have a spouse you're not missing something. When people say to me, "Oh you have it all. You have a family, and you have a husband, and you have kids, and you have this great job." And yes, that may be true, but I think having it all is defined differently for different people.

In truth, having it all is what you define as feeling fulfilled and happy. Certainly a partner is a great to share your life with, but that can't be Meredith's whole purpose... to fill that spot that Derek Shepherd left. I think her goal more is to be as good or better a surgeon than her mother was—but also to be a better person.

Your producer Krista Vernoff hinted that there could be another love interest for Meredith at some point, perhaps this season. I know Krista’s pushing for it. For me, it’s about finding the right person and then writing the story, rather than writing the story and then having to hurry up and find the guy. It’s like Sex and the City—after Mr. Big left, Carrie had another love interest, but it wasn’t him. I don’t think we’re going to get anybody that I have more chemistry with than Patrick Dempsey. If what we do won’t be as good, why should we do it? But—you can always be surprised.

Do you prefer the dark and twisty Meredith Grey or the Meredith that’s lighter and happier? I didn’t love the [dark] writing on the show in the past couple of years, but I loved the dark and twisty when Sandra Oh was on the show. Any scene I got to do with Sandra Oh [as Cristina Yang] was an absolute joy. When you do a show for this long, you have plenty of seasons that you just can't get through, and then other seasons are lighter and happier.

Did you consider leaving during those seasons? I can't personally say, "Oh, I'm gonna walk away because I don't like what the character is doing right now." It’s like with a friendship or marriage. You can’t just walk away cause it gets a little tough. I'll just say, “Let's take the character in a different direction." I’ve have plenty of ups and downs on this journey that is Grey's. Plenty.

You’ve started directing, following a number of your co-stars, including Chandra Wilson and Kevin McKidd. How do you like it? I never had an interest in directing before because it consumes so much of your time, and I spend so much on the set already. But to be honest, I have this ego attached to this show, where, because the show is still so successful, I really want it to be good. I want everything to be better all the time... which is why I'm interested in producing.

Directing is pretty natural to me because I have a very strong vision of the show, which may be different from other people's. I know these characters, and I know what I want to see. So directing is a way for me to get to show the fans my version of Grey's Anatomy.

Everyone I’ve talked to from the show hopes you’ll stay a couple more years so Grey’s can beat the ER 15-season record as longest-running medical series.

[Laughs] I’m not competitive in that sense. I don’t want to make any grand sweeping announcements about when the show will end, but certainly, there's kind of an end date in mind.

So it seems that you’ll make it through those two more seasons. I think we’ll be doing that.

How do you envision Meredith in the Grey's finale? I can see her going to Switzerland to work with the UN and reunite with “her person,” Cristina. It’s very interesting. It’s like how do you end Grey’s Anatomy? It’s a huge thing, like ending The Sopranos.  All I can say now is that I know that Shonda Rhimes will be the one who decides how it ends. We’ll decide together when.

[horrificmemes]

LOTS O’ Tips on Writing: Blindness

Hey y’all, so I’m not really a reference blog exactly, but I figured I would share some of my experience in writing (and in life) with a character type that a lot of people seem unsure of how to represent. That would be characters with partial or complete blindness. I myself have one character who is completely blind, and I too am on the low-sighted spectrum, so I figured I’d clear up a few misconceptions about characters with blindness! This is a long post, so part of it is under a read-more, but I include subjects ranging from medical details to describing non-visual senses to handling romantic relationships.

1) Blindness is totally a spectrum. Someone who is legally blind at 20/200 vision doesn’t see “nothing but black”. In fact, people who are legally blind can sometimes see enough to use some adjusted devices or read large-print books! Legal blindness (or low vision) means that someone’s eyesight is very poor even with their highest corrective lenses. 20/200 means that something 20 feet away from them has the same definition as something 200 feet away from a well-sighted person. That’s why 20/20 vision often represents “perfect” vision, because objects at 20 feet look like they’re... well, 20 feet away. Sometimes, legal blindness can be caused by natural degeneration from severe myopia (nearsightedness) from age, extreme strain, or just genetics.

2) When thinking of what a visually impaired person experiences as far as sight, ask yourself if the description is necessary first, then listen to interviews or podcasts for a description if you do need it. Please don’t take the word of someone with no eye function at all and apply it to someone with severe myopia or cataracts, because blindness varies. People with one cause of blindness may have cloudy vision, extremely blurred vision, ‘missing’ spots in their sight, or lack of color, while someone without any eye function (or without any eyes at all) will wonder why you’d even ask! Often “a black void” or “nothing but white” isn’t exactly true. Someone who doesn’t see color or light won’t see a lack of light either! Black? White? What? You really don’t have to even describe what they "see” unless they are partially-sighted.

3) Characters with all forms of disability can still do some badass shit. They can defend themselves as well as another character, they can learn to navigate a new space, they can play games and run and be athletic. They can be artists, musicians, or even own their own business. They can do their own household chores. They can be great parents. They can use modern tools and devices with the right adjustments. Don’t be afraid to let them accept - or ask for - help, but please don’t make it seem as though they’ve become useless. Give them all kinds of talents! (for example, my visually impaired muse can channel spirits, tends to her own herb garden, and is a classically-trained soprano. Possibilities are endless, you guys!)

4) Cause of blindness should be known if you insist on describing your character’s full facial appearance and how their blindness affects them. But remember this: you don’t have to draw attention to the appearance of someone’s eyes constantly. Don’t let that be the only thing that defines them. Here are a few tips though: many people who are legally blind have very ordinary-looking eyes. The cloudy white/blue eyes you often see is usually from diseases like cataracts, while paled eyes without visible pupils may be from congenital (childhood) glaucoma. Other forms of glaucoma cause black spots in the iris. Cataracts and glaucoma can coexist in one person. Eyes can have an inflamed red sclera from bacterial infection-induced blindness such as meningitis. Some infectious diseases require removal of the eyes (we see this in cats and other animals all the time). There are tons more reasons. When researching the cause of your character’s blindness, pay attention to the level of impairment, because not all causes of blindness have the same outcome!

5) People whose eyes have nerve damage don’t always move perfectly together. As tempting as it is to give your visually impaired character the ability to eerily stare directly into someone else’s gaze all the time, often people who lack nerve control in the eyes have issues of mobility now and again or even constantly: eyes that move independently, one or both eyes that won’t move at all, one pupil stuck in full dilation (anisocoria), and they may not be aware that their eyes are moving in odd places. Please don’t use this as fuel for humor, as some folk go out of their way to cover their eyes constantly because of this. Speaking of cover, not all visually impaired people wear sunglasses like the cliche in movies. Many will wear them in public because their eyes are very sensitive to light rays or because the light gives them horrible headaches, while others choose to cover their eyes because they’re aware that their eyes lack mobility control or they’re shy about a drooping lid/etc. Not everyone who has problems with vision wears something over their eyes.

More information on memories, relationships, and making the best of five senses are in the read-more!

6) Memories - let’s talk about memories. Often, someone who goes completely blind before the ages of 7-8 won’t have many visual memories at all once they reach adulthood. They may not recall color, details of faces, or how to visually recall the shapes of objects. Objects may be described with adjectives such as “sharp”, “bumpy”, “dry”, “cold”, etc. Dreams are often not visual in this case. Please avoid the stereotype of “my character has been blind since birth, but they can see perfectly in their dreams and recognize everything just fine” unless something wickedly supernatural or divine is at work. People who are blind still dream! Some have reported extremely vivid dreams that are a lot like their waking life - full of smells, taste, tactile senses, emotions, sound (and fury, signifying nothing). That was a Shakespeare joke. Fight me. Also remember that if your character has recently gone through surgery to regain sight, they could likely still automatically rely on other senses out of habit or to ‘check’ what they’re perceiving. Sure, they can see that flower pot in front of them now, but maybe they want to touch it too. Who wouldn’t? Flower petals are super nice and soft.

7) The other five senses are amazing. Did I say five? You bet your ass, I did. Because there’s one sense people tend to forget, and that’s ‘aura’ or ‘proximity’. Have you ever been sitting with your eyes closed, but you can feel someone walk behind you even if they’re trying to be super quiet? If that can happen to you, it can happen to someone without vision also! Don’t be afraid to note that your visually impaired character isn’t so vulnerable that they’re startled by everything. It’s fine to let other characters be delicate or careful with them, especially if they’re still getting to know one another and their friends are being considerate, but you don’t have to make them so paranoid that they never trust their surroundings. Have them smell someone’s shampoo as they walk by. Have them hear a whisper from an adjoining room. Have them sense the electricity of their partner just as they’re about to embrace them, or lean in for a kiss without having to be guided because they can find their lips by feeling their breath. Let them be courageous with their hands, identifying objects or people confidently through touch. Let them initiate. 

8) Speaking of partners: just because your character may not be able to see someone’s face/body doesn’t mean they can’t be attracted to them, have crushes, lust after someone, or fall in love. Think of a sighted character for a moment. What do they love about their partner or crush? I’m sure you’ve got a list of over a dozen things unrelated to appearance, and guess what? Those are perfect here! Your visually impaired muse may adore someone’s voice, their scent, their laugh, how soft their skin is, their calloused well-worked hands, how long/short their hair is, playing with their thick curls, how warm their hugs are, their sense of humor, their determination, or some talent they have that makes them incredible. Don’t refuse your character an experience without a solid reason.

9) On that same subject, it shouldn’t even need to be said: visually impaired characters cover all ranges of sexual and romantic preference. Absolutely your character can be ace, aro, or a combination. But please avoid the excuse of “they don’t feel attraction because they can’t perceive beauty, so therefore they aren’t fit for a relationship”. If sexual preference was all about how nice someone looks, I’d have 4000 pictures of Ryan Reynolds on my bedroom wall. A+ face right there. Then again, I may still make a collage of his twitter posts.

10) Give your character tools. Not just a cane, but let them use their whole body to help them navigate. Counting steps, listening for cues in a certain area, touching the furniture, and relying on memory as well. Let them walk the streets about town, remembering a certain smell from the restaurant two blocks from home, or the sound of the coffee grinder from the bookstore at the corner. In a modern verse, using an ATM card is a great way to let your character make purchases without making them worry “shit, did I just give them a $20 for my $5 purchase?” Let your character organize their things in such a way that they can pick out their necessities confidently. Independence, people!

11) Here’s a bonus note: some people have used echolocation to help them navigate (usually by tapping a cane or other tool against surrounding surfaces to feel/hear the vibration return to them). This is super cool but also super rare to do perfectly. If this is your character’s thing, it’s very significant and special to them - unless they live in a society where everyone is capable of it, this is a talent that will make them stand out and should be used wisely. It’s easy to collect lots of super cool talents and abilities and realize all too late that some people might be rolling their eyes at a very over-skilled character.

12) Your visually impaired character can be clumsy. They can have terrible sense of direction. They can be anxious or easily startled due to their natural disposition. They can mix up their night and day. All of that is fine, but it’s not all necessary. Don’t forget to sprinkle in some useful skills or even a positive outlook! A character with blindness is not a useless character or a helpless character, and one person with a visual impairment may handle their daily life completely different than another. You can have a character who is blind but not a source of pity.

This is not a complete list of everything you’d need to know, but it’s a start if you’re very interested in RPing as a character with some level of blindness. I hope this helped, and if you have questions, please feel free to IM me or ask a question off anon so that I can answer privately. :)

[khalilhumam]

Links Round-up: November 30, 2020

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/links-round-up-november-30-2020/

Links Round-up: November 30, 2020

Hi all, Well that was a week, wasn’t it? The Spending Review confirmed what was feared for the ODA budget, and then on the same day Diego Maradona (see the last link) and James Wolfensohn (link 2) died. Just when 2020 was looking like it was going to try and rescue itself from the massive suck-fest it seemed so happy being, gaslighting humanity by giving us the news the Dolly Parton might have saved humanity (again—the first time was when she released the album Jolene) and that DeAndre Hopkins catch, it turned the tables again to reveal it’s true evil nature. If 2020 was a TV character it would be Tony Soprano—violent, abusive, but occasionally just likable enough to make you let your guard down again. When 2020 says ‘we had coffee,’ this is what they mean.

So… shall we start with the obvious? I’ve always disliked the idea that the amount of good we do on development can be reduced to the amount of aid we spend in a given year, but cutting the aid budget in the middle of a global pandemic that is likely to cause the first increase in global extreme poverty in decades is… not so great. Not when the IMF’s head is penning op-eds desperately arguing to maintain a focus on the poor, if we want this crisis to ever truly end. And certainly not when you consider the quality of some of the other spending this year. That said, I’m going to break a rule and repeat a link. If we’re going to cut, cut the worst of it. I also liked this take by Mark Miller, and in particular his twitter thread. But more than anything else, I’d point out that there is everything still to fight for. Cuts can protect what UK aid does best, but require real defence, real fight. If you care about getting this right, cut your losses on the fights that have already been lost and fight the ones that remain. Until they’re lost, they’re worth fighting, and require people who believe in it, and have the knowledge to make the case for keeping the best of our work.

James Wolfensohn, whom Justin Sandefur described as the only good President the World Bank has had, passed away. Via Dan Honig, here is a truly amazing interview he gave as part of an oral history of the World Bank. As Dan said: you can learn more here about how the Bank works than from any other source available.

Do you find ‘left’ and ‘right’ restrictive intellectual categories? That there is a complexity to your thought that reducing it to a single region on a single axis won’t capture? Pranab Bardhan (whose work on sharecropping in India had such an impact on me when I was a student) has a lovely piece setting the ideological diversity of the academe on a more complex scale than left/right, and in the process gives you a starter for ten on so many intellectual debates that you can wormhole down at your leisure.

Two super pieces on VoxDev this week—first Suresh de Mel and co-authors on an experiment that finds that rolling out free digital savings accounts to a cohort of poor people in Sri Lanka achieved… not much at all. Digital solutions are nice, but only once we’ve worked out the fundamental behavioural constraints to the problems we face. And another piece that finds that outsourcing of work from a parent firm leads to an increasing concentration of economic rents in the contracting firm—a finding that chimes very much with one of my favourite papers, Nick Bloom’s Firming Up Inequality.

Two more pieces on the recent US election. First, a really sad look at the shockingly high number of Americans who report being close to no other person, and how strongly these marginalised people broke for Trump—one possibility for why polls underestimate his support so consistently. And a piece which looks at the ethnic breakdown of Trump’s support, attributing his increased popularity with some ethnic minorities in part to reversion to the mean, to the rural/urban split even within ethnic groups, and Trump’s ability to tap into the specific concerns of some minority groups.

Because of course, Branko has written something about The Makioka Sisters, once again proving that he is a walking venn diagram, connecting unrelated topics in the mind of a single polymath again and again.

So I didn’t say much about Diego in the intro, because I was saving the best for the last. I don’t really watch football anymore, but I idolised Maradona. In fact, my son’s first name was very close to being Diego, before it was nixed by my (half-Argentine, no less!) wife. I am just old enough to remember watching him play at his absolute apex—for Napoli and for Argentina. It was the clearest expression of genius I’ve ever seen: he was simply that much better than everyone else I have ever seen play the same sport. And it wasn’t despite his imperfections, they were very much part of him; his genius is inseparable from the mindset that led him to do so many crazy things. We could have thousands of links here, but I’ll try and be restrained: the FT on how Maradona is the perfect metaphor for monetary policy; but he wasn’t a metaphor for life—he was far more important than that, as L’Equipe understood. It comes across on the commentary of that goal, particularly the howl of “Siempre Maradona! Genio, genio, genio!”; and in his legendary Live is Life warm-up. I’m so sad he’s gone, but happy to spend hours watching this to celebrate him.

Have a great weekend, everyone! R

[miss-musings]

Why I want to stop watching the Blacklist (a.k.a., A Rant by Me)

This used to be my favorite show. Hands down. I would legitimately schedule things around it; I would leave events early to make sure I could watch it live; I would post about it on Tumblr and read other people’s posts the rest of the evening; I would search through multiple review site’s posts the next day.

I loved the dynamic between Red and Liz. I loved the mysteries and the little morsels of answers that we would get. I loved how, in the S1 finale, it felt like no one was safe: Meera got killed; Harold got attacked and nearly killed; Tom was shot and left for dead.

But, over the past few seasons, this show has become the bane of my TV-watching experience.

(EDIT: this post, which quietly keeps gaining notes, was written post-S4, pre-S5. So, there’s still plenty of relevant things in the post, but just keep the timing in mind.)

I would watch it, sure. But that was because I didn’t want the folks on Tumblr spoiling it for me. It was because I thought we were finally getting answers – which is what they teased us with every other week – only to feel so disappointed.

This last year, I made reaction videos for a friend of mine for every single episode. You know what one of the most commonly said things in those videos is? “Well, at least next week’s preview looks good.” Only to be disappointed in that episode, and to say the same thing about next week’s preview, and the cycle repeated itself until we actually got a half-way decent episode (which was usually some kind of finale or premiere, because that’s the only time actual shit can happen – during Sweeps Week).

Over and over again, both online and in person, I compared this to those scenes in cartoons where someone puts a carrot on a fishing pole in front of a donkey, and the donkey runs so hard to reach the carrot, only to never get there.

That’s how this show has felt the past season or two.

It’s only a shadow of what it once was, and I’m tired of it. I wish I could stop watching it.

So many other people I follow on Tumblr have said they’ve either stopped or thought about stopping. By comparison, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad and the Walking Dead seemingly increase their viewership every season; the Blacklist has been NBC’s lowest-rated show in the demo for the last year, IIRC. The ratings for the Redemption spin-off were so low, the showrunners tried to pass it off as a one-off miniseries, when it was ALWAYS intended to be its own full-length show.

I understand that the show does well in DVR viewership numbers, and it was the most expensive TV show that Netflix had purchased when Season 1 was released.

But, this show continues to disappoint me. There’s hardly anything I like about it anymore. Hell, even James Spader, who’s a master at his craft, seems to be bored with it. His monologues are becoming more and more cliche, and even his amazing performances can’t save this dumpster-fire.

Its protagonist, Liz, is all over the fucking place in terms of characterization. First, she was naive and learned her “husband” had used and abused her. Then, she went to the dark side, chained him up on a boat and said she’d never forgive him for what he’d done. Then, she apparently forgave him, slept with him, had his kid, tried to remarry the guy, and then faked her death to get away with him and is now living her happy dream life with her little girl and her ‘perfect’ husband.

What happened to the dark, morally questionable, grungy Liz? What happened to the Liz who was jaded and afraid after being on the run for several weeks, or months?

She just settled down with a guy who she used to hate and she’s living the dream.

What in the literal fuck?

And, for all the time that has been invested in Liz, she has made little to no progress in her characterization these past few seasons. In fact, she’s done more of a 360. She’s right back where she started, more or less.

Why should the audience give a shit about her journey if she’s not making any progress? Why should we care that, halfway through this show, she has everything she’s ever wanted?

The side characters, like Aram, Samar, Ressler, Cooper and others are there just to serve the plot. Any time there’s a semblance of some character development or plot progression, the showrunners regress everyone back to Stage One so we can do it all over again. Aram and Samar look like they’re making progress in their possible romantic relationship? Fuck that, we’ve got to make sure Aram runs back to his abusive girlfriend and string this thing along another season! Remember when Ressler got shot, had prescription drug problems, and was in Narcotics Anonymous? Yeah, me neither.

Mr. Kaplan, who was best when she was on-screen to sass and help Reddington once every few episodes, gets pushed into the spotlight for some made-up bullshit reason that had never been discussed or hinted at previous to the “Mr. Kaplan used to work for Katarina Rostova” storyline. And while Susan Bloomaert is a fantastic and underrated actress and did her absolute best to make those scenes between her and Liz feel emotional, I didn’t really care about their dynamic at all because it felt so forced, underdeveloped, and out-of-nowhere.

Whereas the relationship that I care the MOST about – that between Red and Liz – that has been the most built-up and developed over the course of the show keeps getting thrown under the bus as Liz does the whole “love Red, hate Red, forgive Red” song-and-dance routine. She claims she agrees with Red when he tells her not to go back to Tom in Season 2… only to go back to Tom later in Season 2. She’s totally down with asking Red to help her whenever she’s a criminal on the run… but the minute her wedding gets shot up, she yells at him and says it’s his fault.

And now, as far as the Lizzington fans go, which I count myself as one of them, the show has written itself into a corner. Because all the amazing chemistry and romantic tropes throughout the show feel incredibly creepy now that Liz believes Red is her dad, regardless of whether he actually is or not. I don’t care how they try to pull themselves out of the ginormous hole they’ve dug for themselves on that one – why the hell would a woman ever end up with a guy that she once thought was her dad, even if it turned out he actually wasn’t?

And the only real way out of it is the Impostor Theory – a well-written and well-researched theory, but one that makes people have to do fucking mental gymnastics for it to work. You have to assume a lot of people like Naomi and Reddington’s former roommate from the Naval Academy who’s now an admiral, are in on it. Whereas dudes like Finch or the Director aren’t…

Don’t get me wrong; I think it’s a wonderful theory and it explains a lot. But, if it ends up being true, it means one of two things:

1) The writers didn’t plan this from the beginning and lucked their way into it

OR

2) The writers DID plan this from the beginning, which means they have the ability to be really good writers, but then they fell into all this other bullshit – like Liz’s weird arc and other things – which really means that they’re not that good of writers; they just had the one good idea.

And if the Impostor Theory DOESN’T end up being true, in some form or fashion, that means that Red really IS Liz’s dad, and this whole fucking show – Red’s entire characterization, his relationship and dynamic with her – has been a lie. Canon can be throw out the window to rot in the sewer and fuck itself in the interim, because the writers don’t even care any more.

Which, I realize is unfair, because I know there are hundreds of people who work really hard to make this show happen, and while it’s not, like, the worst show of all time, the fact that it had such potential and has fallen so far, almost makes it seem worse than a show that was so bad from the beginning I never invested time in it.

And what makes it even WORSE is that the showrunners continue to act like this is the most groundbreaking show on television, and put it on a pedestal On High, along with the likes of Game of Thrones, The Americans, and The Sopranos… you know, actually good shows.

That would be the equivalent of the Taken director demanding that his movie should’ve gotten an Oscar. It’s like, you know it was a fine movie, and I had a good time watching it, but like, bring yourself back down to earth. Taken is okay, but it is NOT Oscar-worthy material, so get off your high horse, dude.

I guess, if nothing else, it shows that the showrunners, writers and actors are so talented that they got me to invest in the show to the point where I can’t not watch it, even though it’s fallen so far and I feel like it’s nowhere near as good as it used to be. They hooked me and got me to care about these characters and their dynamics so much that, even though it frustrates me week in and week out, I will still keep watching it.

It’s just that, now, I might be doing it with a bottle of vodka, taking shots every time:

Red has a monologue that proves James Spader is too damn good for this show;

Liz is bitchy to Red for little to no reason, while continuing to be lovey-dovey with Tom;

Ressler survives a fight or car accident or some other action sequence with no injuries whatsoever;

Harry Lennix is completely underused as Harold Cooper in an episode, because he only tells his employees to do the obvious… and literally nothing else;

Samar and/or Aram take a step back from getting together, despite hints that they’ve liked each other since Season 2.

So, bottoms up, Blacklist fans!

[samdukewieland]

Stuck Inside Media Diary Week 4

On my birthday I made a 100 song playlist for myself with the criteria of choosing my Top 20 favorite bands/musicians, five songs from their catalog-preferably only one song per album-and that was it. This was part-exercise-part-how-do-I-celebrate-myself-and-my-excellently-unique-tastes-on-the-one-day-this-is-allowed. I had already gone through the painstakingly unasked for “challenge” of whittling down of a Top 5 for a project in college and it’s gone unchanged in the past four years, and being the way that I am, I am generally always considering what the Top 10 would be. Anything beyond Top 10 is egregious, but because I was deeply unsatisfied with a 25 song playlist, I just kept going until I settled on 20 and 100. 

It then dawned on me (I couldn’t sleep that night, BIRTHDAY JITTERS and all that) afterwards that this is technically a list of what I’d consider to be the top 100 songs and that was just all wrong. I love every song on that playlist; I chose obvious songs and I chose obscure deep cuts that would make yer average me chuckle and say “heh, that one huh?” But if I were asked to make a list of the 100 greatest songs ever recorded, I don’t think I could leave off something like “Hey Jude” (The Beatles) or “Wonderful World” (Sam Cooke) or “The Champ” (Ghostface Killah) and yet I did. What a dweeb.

Sunday, April 12

Starship Troopers, Verhoeven 1997

Listen, I love Paul Verhoeven. This is my least favorite Paul Verhoeven movie and it’s still incredible. And it’s a me issue too (though, I’m not taking all the blame here-this obvious issues here are that there’s no good actor here besides Michael Ironside, Jake Busey and Neil Patrick Harris), though I think that’s part of the point of it. Or at the very least there’s been enough revisionist history and nostalgia slapped onto this thing that Denise Richards gets a pass-“well yeh, she’s bad on purpose” they’ll say; this movie is lemonade.

Three Busy Debras, “Sleepover!”

Probably the biggest difference between Three Busy Debras and Stella (which is what Three Busy Debras reminds me of the most) is that Stella was so unconcerned about saying anything about anything. This is not a knock on Debras, not in the least bit, but that’s ultimately what I landed on when I was thinking about the two next to each other. Three Busy Debras is very good and very, very funny and reminds me of one of my favorite television comedies to ever exist.

Beef House, “Boro”

When I went and saw Tim And Eric’s live tour back in January they were going to show the first episode of Beef House after the main show, but then they surprised us by having John C. Reilly come out as Steve Brule and do a bit with an audience member for like 15 minutes, probably less time. Watch Beef House if you like Tim and Eric, but you already know that if you do.

Joe Pera Talks With You, “Joe Pera Lights Up The Night With You”, “Joe Pera Talks to You About the Rat Wars of Alberta, Canada (1950–Present Day)”

At this point you can tell that I probably just turned on Adult Swim after finishing Starship Troopers and just kept it on, because a Sunday night on Adult Swim is the only thing that could rival an HBO Sunday night. Alright, so I had only ever seen one episode of Joe Pera Talks With You before these two episodes and I liked it fine, but didn’t have great context for it and was probably just not in a great headspace for it. Sure, I liked it fine back when I had watched that episode, but I was not motivated to continue watching it and I didn’t. Until this particular night. I know for sure that I’ll be writing more about it next week, so I’m just going to say now that this makes for incredible “watch before bed” programming.

Mad Men, “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” [Series Premier]

And thus the great Mad Men re-watch has begun. I’ve only watched this all the way through once and that’s when I got caught up on the DVDs for season 4 back was when I was in high school. This pilot is one of the most pilot-y pilots I’ve seen/re-watched in a long while, and maybe it’s so glaring to me because of what I studied in college and how I just generally spend a lot of my time as a person. But it’s a very old fashioned pilot, maybe the last prestige TV classical pilot? You just don’t see very many shows now that have their first episode be as thirsty for another shot as this one is. Not bad, but more just very in your face.

Monday, April 13

Rashomon, Kurosawa 1950 [this might be available on Criterion-I just DVR’d it]

Baby’s first Kurosawa. This one has really stuck with me, just in its simplicity in telling a story and I’m going to stop talking about it here, one because like we really need another 26-year-old white dude talking about Akira Kurosawa movies and two, should I continue to talk about this movie, I will turn even more into what I hate and who I consider to be my arch-enemies: the film school kids.

Parks And Recreation, “Rock Show” [Season 1 finale]

Whenever I start a Parks re-watch, I always start with “Rock Show.” It’s now just in full fledged Simpsons territory that I wouldn’t be able to tell you how many times I’ve seen certain episodes and that it is incredibly comforting to watch where I can turn off brain while watching, but know exactly when to start re-paying attention because of jokes I like. I don’t know when it’ll be as recognized as The Simpsons (maybe it never will be?) or seen as the true predecessor, but it’ll feel good once it does. Though if there’s a show that demonstrated how irrelevant recognition for hard work was, it was Parks.

Tuesday, April 14

The Wicker Man, Hardy 1973 [as of now this is available on Netflix]

I feel confident that I’ve lied to friends of mine about having seen this movie. Pretty easy to do, considering it’s a pretty straight forward story and you can get by with saying stuff like “I mean yeh, it’s just like a pretty fucked up movie.” And it is! on both accounts. Though I guess not as unsettling as I figured it would be, but as soon as the animal masks come out I did get squirmy. That and choir singing folk music with vaguely disturbing lyrics juxtaposed over not totally right images-it’s like the opposite feeling when someone uses “Perfect Day” too ironically.

Better Call Saul, “Bad Choice Road”

Kim. Wexler. I guess what I love about Vince Gilligan is that he zags (though zagging in this case is kind of old fashioned) and saves his big thing to happen for a season’s finale and not the penultimate episode. But he doesn’t rob you of a wild penultimate episode either-just kind of nice and takes confidence.

Parks And Recreation, “Pawnee Zoo”

Wednesday, April 15

Obvious Child, Robespierre 2014 [as of now this is available on Netflix]

Got sick Wednesday night, ralphed twice!, and needed something I absolutely didn’t have to think about. I had started watching this probably like a year and a half ago in a waiting room while my mom was getting some kind of dental procedure done and had never picked it back up after putting 20 minutes down. It’s good, though I think it resonates better for other people than it did with me, but that’s no knock. Loved very dialed in Gaby Hoffmann and it feels like Max Silvestri mighta supposed to originally have the Jake Lacy part, but Jake Lacy is contractually obligated to play this sort of part whenever it is written into existence every year or so. Tough break.

Parks And Recreation, “The Stake Out”

Thursday, April 16

Targets, Bogdanovich 1968

I caught this recommendation from....I think Matt Singer on twitter and also @nextontcm​ (which is a first tier twitter follow) and man, this thing is great! I forgot that Bogdanovich comes from the Roger Corman school of directing, but ole Rog doesn’t let you forget with this one. It’s a movie I would imagine Steven Soderbergh really likes (and I say that, because The Limey is the only other movie that I know of that uses another movie’s footage in reference to one of the characters in the movie-like I’m sure there’s other, I haven’t seen every movie, leave me alone). TCM’s apparently doing a podcast series on Bogdanovich, which is kind of weird, but he did a short interview with Ben Mankiewicz afterwards and it was hilarious, because surprising no one, Peter Bogdanovich really doesn’t give a shit about what he says anymore.

Top Chef, Season 17 episode 5

This was the first time in Jen’s Top Chef career where she didn’t fall victim to the yips, which shows progress. But it’s also helping make the case that Jen Carroll might be the worst evaluated draftee in all of Top Chef? That sounds harsh, and I have no doubt that Jen Carroll is phenomenal, this just doesn’t seem to be her strength; there’s no rule that says competitive people have to always be good at what they get competitive about.

Mad Men, “Ladies Room”, “Marriage Of Figaro”

It’s weird seeing Don not as partner, but just a dude who’s really good at his job that people respect, but is also not in charge of everything and doesn’t aspire to be in charge of everything. Though not without trying to be in control of everything. I haven’t watched this since I was in high school, so I’ve both forgotten a lot of stuff and also just like know more about life and characters and didn’t realize how sad of a character Pete is. Man, Vincent Karheiser really doesn’t get enough credit for how good he is as Pete Campbell, a character who could’ve easily been just another Christopher Moltisanti (full disclosure: Christopher is in contention for favorite Sopranos character) and is so much sadder in a different way. 

However, I’m still just dumb guy, and maybe that’s not the complete reason, but there’s some Betty stuff that is just like not very interesting. I think if they had gone down an avenue of “let’s try and radicalize her with Kennedy” story, that would’ve worked better than other stuff, but I don’t know. Betty’s complicated! But that she has to be the character that bridges Glen’s story to the main one is incredibly detrimental.

Friday, April 17

Parks And Recreation, “Beauty Pagent”

Brooklyn Nine-Nine, “Ransom”

Every season needs at least one Cheddar episode. This is not at all a controversial opinion, but it’s worth saying out loud in case anyone thought differently.

Big Night, Scott & Tucci 1995 [as of now this is available on Amazon Prime]

When Ian Holm isn’t running away with this, Isabella Rossellini (Big Beef and Cheddar in hand) is and when Isabella Rossellini isn’t running away with this, Minnie Driver is and when Minnie Driver isn’t running away with this, Tucci and Sheloub just keep passing it back and forth to each other while Liev Schreiber just silently stares at them from afar. This is a fantastic way to spend a Friday evening.

Mad Men, “New Amsterdam”, “5G”

Saturday, April 18

Parks And Recreation, “Practice Date”, “Sister City”, “Kaboom”

“Practice Date” is the first “modern” episode of Parks. “Sister City” feels like one they had drafted for S1 and just couldn’t figure out how to get it in there (it’s definitely not a bad episode, but it feels way more like steps backward than forward). “Kaboom” is a wonderfully silly episode and a great debut for Aisha Muharrar (who is a Tier 1 Parks writer-please don’t ask me to rank them).

Defiance, Zwick 2008 [as of now this is available on Netflix]

I had never watched this movie, because in the back of my head I’ve always suspected it would be real dumb and bad, because a WWII movie with Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber, on paper, should be something people talk about more, but nah, this thing’s real dumb and bad. But not even fun-bad, just forgettable bad. It’s dumb-guy-Munich. 

Mad Men, “Babylon”, “Red In The Face”, “The Hobo Code”, “Shoot”

The Dick Whitman childhood really suffers from Al Swearengen just having a much better “raised by whores” story and also you can tell that Matthew Weiner thinks he’s doing important work by writing this stuff. And not to sound like a blog from 2007-2015, but Rachel really was the perfect match for Draper, holy shit. It’s also this stretch of episodes where Peggy starts to shine and Elizabeth Moss is definitely someone I take for granted, because I don’t really have to think about how good she is, because I know she’s good, but man she is really good at playing Peggy Olson. What an MVP.

[jackthebard]

Ultimate Opera Singer

Name: Kaneshiro Marié

Age: 24

Height: 5’6”

Weight: 133

Blood Type: A+

Hair: Black

Eyes: White

Likes: Good acoustics, laughter, commentary

Dislikes: People being too quiet when they approach, losing her cane

Before Tragedy: Blind from birth, Kaneshiro Marié seemed to be a lost cause to her French father and Japanese mother. However, she quickly showed that she had ears that made up for what her eyes lacked. Because her sense of hearing was so well-developed, she could discern even the subtlest differences in sounds (though not to Daredevil extents of using it for echolocation), and replicate them perfectly. This caused her to become one of the premier sopranos in the Japanese Opera by age thirteen, as well as allowing her to become fluent not only in French and Japanese, but also in Spanish, Italian, English, Russian, and German. Her skill in multiple languages and her amazing memory allowed her to memorize almost all of the operatic canon by the age of fifteen. In truth, Hope’s Peak had been scouting her despite her young age, only waiting for a chance to give her an acceptance letter.

During Tragedy: One of the first things that Marié lost was her cane. Her father went not long after. Stumbling around in the ruins of Tokyo, she had to forage for food using a half-bent piece of rebar, not knowing how long she would survive. Eventually, she was discovered by the Future Foundation, where one of the scouts that had been monitoring her recognized her and the clear tone of her voice. They took her in, nursed her back to health, and eventually convinced her to sing again, allowing her to raise her voice in operas of hope, encouraging her saviors and their soldiers with songs of joy and justice. After Tragedy: Incredibly grateful to attend Hope’s Peak, Marié felt a little out of place, spending a few days pacing around the entirety of the massive school until her instructor requested that a GPS be placed in her E-Handbook, allowing her to navigate the school with ease, using the familiar measurement of “Steps” in order to help her get around. Even so, she prefers to keep her cane around for old time’s sake, and because it feels better in her hands than nothing. Naturally, she associates more with the more talkative members of her class, being comfortable around sound, and isn’t afraid to join them for a night of hanging out and karaoke.

Notable Features: Marié always carries a cane with her, for obvious reasons, and also wears a hoop skirt for a similar issue, generally in a solid, bright pastel color. If someone/something bumps the skirt, she can move out of the way. She almost always has one of her E-Handbook’s headphones plugged in because it keeps track of her steps.

  Interview 79.01 – Open

Interviewer: Yamada Jiro, Psy.D

Subject: Kaneshiro Marié – “The Ultimate Opera Singer”

Interview Date: April 30th, 8 AT (after Tragedy)

 Observation

 [The individual in question is a young lady in a pale green dress, almost the color of mint toothpaste. Her black hair is curly, and bound tightly back in a ponytail at the base of her skull. Her skin is pale, belying her French heritage, and her eyes are a milky white, which gives away her blindness, if the cane in her hand did not. She takes her seat cautiously, sweeping the cushion in order to ensure that there is nothing on it that she could potentially sit on. Her gaze is unseeing, vacant, yet directed in the interviewer’s general direction, and she offers a polite smile.]

 Discussion

 Interviewer: Please state your name and age for the record.

 Marié: My name is Kaneshiro Marié, and I’m going to be turning 24 on May 2nd.

 Interviewer: That’s only two days off. Happy birthday in advance.

 Marié: [She gives a broad smile, one that causes her eyes to close. It’s genuine.] Thank you so much! It’s been a long time since I could celebrate it properly.

 Interviewer: Thank you for coming in today, Marié. So, before the terrorist event known as “The Tragedy” occurred, you were being scouted by Hope’s Peak Academy. Do you know why?

 Marié: I assume that it’s because of my voice. I managed to become the first soprano in the Tokyo Opera by the age of thirteen, and I know that Hope’s Peak representatives had approached me long before that.

 Interviewer: Your memory serves you well. So the purpose of this interview is that we would like to extend that opportunity to you once again. We are opening up Hope’s Peak Academy once again, and we would like to offer our previous prospects the opportunity to study and improve their skills around people of their same level of ability once again. Before we begin, should we find your answers satisfactory, would you accept the offer?

 Marié: [She pauses for a moment, her hands wringing slightly against one another. Her head bows, and she speaks clearly though her nose is pointed at her knees.] I would take the chance, but I don’t know if it’s appropriate. Is it truly safe to put “hope” out there once again?

 Interviewer: We’re opening up Hope’s Peak again in order to show the world that there is still hope to be found among the ashes of despair. We would like you to be part of that hope.

 Marié: Then I accept.

 Interviewer: Very good. Now, we’ll stay away from the things that occurred during the tragedy, since I know that was a difficult time for you more than any of our other potential students.

 Marié: Thank you.

 Interviewer: What can you tell us about your hobbies?

 Marié: Odd. I was half expecting you to ask me about my voice, and how I came to develop it.

 Interviewer: We will ask those questions in due time, particularly during your annual assessments, when we are in a much more formal setting. This is mainly meant to be a bit of a more relaxed interview. Just getting to know you and see if you would be an appropriate addition to the 79th class of Hope’s Peak.

 Marié: Oh! [She suddenly straightens up, a bit more attentive. Despite the fact that this is an informal interview, she seems to be taking it rather seriously] With regards to my interests, I like to read in my spare time. It’s very difficult to find books in Braille, but I love each and every one of them. I’ve also taken to listening to books on tape.

 Interviewer: I see. Do you have any favorites that you enjoy listening to?

 Marié: Oh yes! I particularly enjoy the Harry Potter series, especially the versions read by Stephen Fry. Another one that I like to read is Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.

 Interviewer: Those two are on very different ends of the spectrum. Any particular reason why the discrepancy?

 Marié: I like how Sun Tzu’s work on war can be translated into philosophy that can be used in everyday life, and how J.K. Rowling’s work can be shown to induce love and compassion in even the bleakest of souls, and how a life without either is devoid of any worth. In the end, Voldemort, who only cared about power, died hopeless and final, surrounded by nobody that cared for him.

 Interviewer: That’s very deep. Do you often seek the broader meanings of works in such a way?

Marié: I feel that I have to. Singing opera requires an implicit understanding of the text, not only of the action and emotion that goes into it, but also the story. It’s one thing to have a story described to you, but another to actually read it for yourself.

 Interviewer: If memory serves, you have performed operas such as Stravinsky’s take on Oedipus Rex, as well as Weber’s Der Freischütz. Are you saying that you are fluent in languages other than Japanese?

 Marié: Yes.

 Interviewer: Which ones?

 Marié: In addition to Japanese and my father’s native French, I am also fluent in English, Italian, Spanish, German, and Russian.

 Interviewer: That’s a rather impressive résumé. And you did that just to learn the stories of the various operas?

 Marié: More or less, yes. It also allowed me to communicate more effectively with my fans.

 Interviewer: I take it that you had a few fans outside the country?

 Marié: Oh, absolutely! They were mostly young girls, much as I was, some of them disabled. They saw me as an inspiration, and my success as a reason for them to strive to be better. If I had to be true with myself, I don’t enjoy the roses being thrown on the stage as much as I enjoy finding letters with foreign postage in my mail

 Interviewer: That’s a very positive way to look at it. Do you see your blindness as a disability?

 Marié: I feel like… [She pauses, idly tucking a strand of her hair back behind her ear and tilts her head up once again, face set in grim determination. She’s looking a little to the left of the interviewer, but the intent is the same.] Being able to see would be nice. But I also think that not being able to see is a huge part of who I am. I have learned to experience the world in such a way without sight from birth, and I don’t want to muddle my perception and my art by literally altering the way I view the world.

 Interviewer: That’s a very nice way to look at it. I only have one other question for you, if you’re alright with that?

 Marié: Of course. Ask away.

 Interviewer: What was the most embarrassing moment you ever had on the stage?

 Marié: Oh goodness… [Her face is dusted with blush, presumably from the memory, and she speaks slowly when she opens her mouth again] I have to say… the most embarrassing moment was either when I inhaled too deeply and the stitches on my costume came undone as I breathed in, resulting in a wardrobe malfunction later in the scene… or when I forgot the words during Rossini’s The Barber of Seville.

 Interviewer: [It should be noted that the interviewer is trying to contain a laugh and almost failing] I see. And how did you overcome each of those?

 Marié: The wardrobe malfunction was easy. I was lucky in that I was wearing a shift underneath it, instead of just underwear, and it was at a moment when the character was supposed to be vulnerable, so I felt the dress fall to the ground around me, stepped out of it, and kept singing. The director of the opera said it was overwhelmingly powerful, and that he’s ashamed he didn’t think of it himself.

 Interviewer: Good improvisation on your part. And the time when you forgot the words?

 Marié: That was a little bit more difficult to recover from. I forgot the words, and I just started singing the names of every kind of pasta that I could remember in place of the words. “Barilla, Linguini, Tortellini”, etc. Even afterwards, the critics claimed that I “had a wonderful understanding of the text and excellent diction”.

 Interviewer: [He can’t contain his laugh anymore. He just bursts out laughing] Right. Right… So, thank you, Kaneshiro Marié. It is my pleasure to admit you to Hope’s Peak Academy.

 Marié: Thank you! [She’s bouncing in her chair and fumbling with her cane] I can’t wait to tell my mother! Thank you so much!

 [She leaves, tapping her cane excitedly along the floor until she leaves the room, then skips down the hallway, clicking her heels together as she jumps up in excitement.]

 End Transcript