Ten Little Chances to be Free

Offff to Dragon*Con with ariastar and srevans! Weeping angel costume... okay, not finished, I still need to do a bit of glove-sewing and paint minor bits and bobs, but the wings and wing harness are totally redone and look awesome. Slightly nervous, as this will be my first big con, but v. excited! Backup/non-pain-in-the-ass-to-wear costume is the Master again--I even finally sucked it up and went to a barber and now vaguely resemble John Simm again. (Believe me, the haircut was long overdue, cosplay or no cosplay--I had been letting it grow long on top while halfassedly trimming the back with scissors from time to time, and not only was it all scraggly-looking in places, it turns out my hair just fluffs and refuses to spike or stand up when it gets too long, so I looked pretty stupid.) Aaaaah so much last-minute con panic, I don't even know what panels I want to go to, I fail at planning anything, etc... but it should be fun regardless. If my car doesn't lose its front bumper halfway to Atlanta, that is.

...seriously Dragon*Con you take up five hotels and have too many panels even to have a central listing of them. I need a goddamn Time-Turner to deal with this shit.

Quick NYC update:

Did not intend for this to be a Weekend O' Theater, and yet somehow I saw three shows in two days. Avenue Q yesterday, which was tons of fun; today, completely on a whim, I joined my cousin and his friend in the rush line for How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Because... Dan Radcliffe, and why the hell not? So we ended up with standing room for the matinee and it is a really, seriously fabulous production and Dan Radcliffe kind of comes off as the adorable fan-favorite understudy. Because he is good but he's not quite there yet in terms of vocals and stage presence--he can totally carry the show, but you can tell he's not a seasoned stage actor even by comparing him to the ensemble. Adorable though, and I had no idea he was so short, and also no idea that he could dance that well.

And then we all went and entered the lottery for Book of Mormon, figuring our chances were obviously nil we wouldn't be able to live with ourselves if we didn't at least try. And my cousin fucking won. Two tickets, front row center, and he and his friend have both been dying to see it for ages, and I already had a rush ticket for Addams Family, so it was pretty much decided. In retrospect I kind of wish I had at least wheedled a bit, though, because Addams Family was terrible. I mean--I love campy goth shit and I love musical theater and I have a high tolerance for things that are so bad they're good, and I had a hard time getting through this steaming pile of horseshit. After the initial novelty of "lol, Gomez and Morticia in a generic cheesy Broadway number complete with kick line" wore off, I started wondering where the fuck they were going to take this, and the answer was nowhere. It started nowhere, it went nowhere, I couldn't remember a single tune after it was over, and I'm not sure who it's meant to appeal to except the kind of people who enjoy laughing at musical theater and campy goth shit rather than with it. My ratio of "money spent on ticket" to "money spent on alcohol just to get through the show" was pretty damn embarrassing, and I realized at the top of the second act that drinking didn't actually make it funnier, it just loosened the (strictly metaphorical) tongue of my inner bitchy theater critic enough that I could cope. For it to be funny I'd've needed copious quantities of weed, and there may be a time and a place for stoner humor, but that is not something you want with Addams Family.

tl;dr: I thought it'd at least be entertaining, and that the dreadful reviews were just critics jumping on the chance to snark on something stupid and fun. Turns out it was stupid, not fun at all, and that the critics were 100% right. Snark away.

...actually, most of the exciting things happened on Monday, but the Great Spring Break Road Trip did continue for most of the week.

Tuesday: Down to Washington DC so I could say hi to my family and we could crash at my dad's place. "Oh, let's walk to Georgetown along the canal," I said, "it's only a couple of miles." Turns out it was more like five or six. OOPS. Oh well, it was a nice walk? And killed an afternoon nicely?

Wednesday: Met mmejavert in Harrisburg, where we hit up a few bookstores. And lo, there was much cackling and dramatic readings of bad romance-novel covers and massive fangirlage of both Les Mis and Doctor Who. (Things I will never be able to unhear: you can tap the Master's drumbeat along to DYHTPS. To large parts of Les Mis, really--just take those crashing thematic chords in the overture and add a note to make a triplet. When the beating of your heart(s) echoes the beating of the drums...)

Thursday: Baaaack up north. Attempted to make another trip to the abandoned dam I found outside Forestburgh, NY in the summer of 2009, but it's in a state park that was closed for the season. filia_belialis and I amused ourselves in the car by making up Doctor Who filks to the Battle Hymn of the Republic and then ghetto-blasting German bagpipe metal and waving cheerfully at passing hipsters as we sped back into town.

The weekend: was mostly spent on a MASSIVE DOCTOR WHO BINGE and then diving headfirst into aaaall the Doctor/Master fic. I'm now three episodes into season 5, guys. So much Who.

And... so many feelings. Especially about the Tenth Doctor. Everyone has Their Doctor, the defining one, and I think Ten is mine for better or for worse--loved Nine but that was before I began my headlong slide into the fandom. And God, Ten. It would be too simple to say "I adore him and want to smack him in equal measure." Because I adore him, and project my own geekiness and loner-complex and martyrdom kinks onto him too much, and think he is incredibly hot and suffers oh-so-prettily, and wish Russell T Davies hadn't heaped on so much ridiculously gratuitous Ten!pain after realizing how prettily he suffers, and want to kick him for being such an angstypants even as I take sadomasochistic pleasure* in how much of a woobie he is, and stare in awe at the Woobie Feedback Loop created by his perverse enjoyment in taking All The Burdens onto his poor overburdened shoulders and setting himself up to get nailed to every cross in sight, and am creeped out by his "then you leave me with no choice!" brand of moral ambiguity but am also pretty sure I like him better as an arrogant morally-ambiguous crazypants than as a bucket of angst. Because God, did they ever lay it on thick. I was okay with it in season 3! It did not trip my eyeroll meter. But in season 4, most of the episodes were great taken individually, but all together they added up to piling terrible burden onto terrible burden until it got ridiculous and oh, poor Doctor, only he can hear the singing of the Ood. And it was all gratuitous and out of left field and I would've liked it better if they'd stuck to exploring the sources of angst and trauma that already exist in his life because it's not like those are in short supply.

* Yes, both sadistic and masochistic, because I get a fucked-up emotional kick out of projecting his angst onto my massive martyrdom kink, but I also want to do horrible things to him because he suffers so prettily. This is a large part of the problem. And also why I love Doctor/Master from both points of view.

And... most of it fits together, I guess, if you look at it as him re-enacting the Time War/Gallifrey trauma over and over. Right down to his singularly irritating habit of refusing to lay smackdown on an aggressor just so he can give them a goddamn choice he knows they'll turn down, and end up doing something even more awful to them when they do. Because his sanity and coping depend on believing he had no choice but to commit a double genocide and that there was nothing, absolutely nothing else he could've done. On seeing himself as a good person who's been forced to make terrible choices and do horrific things because the alternative was so much worse. And that is interesting and complex and disturbing, I just wish they hadn't laid it on so goddamn thick.

...also, just throwing this out there: End of Time. What the fuck was that? I mean, what the fucking fuck I don't even--I want to find whatever Rusty was smoking and throw it down a black hole so nobody can ever have any ever again. And the worst part is that there is too much good stuff buried under the Bad Crack to completely write it off and go "none of that ever happened, la la la in my headcanon Ten just tripped over a brick and regenerated into Eleven."

However, I continue to be amused by all the shameless visual references to Star Wars. I started noticing them around the escape-pod sequence in "42," and then we got the Master's mini-Death-Star-meets-ANH-interrogation-bots and Jedi funeral pyre, a bus stranded on Tatooine, Ten and Jack in the Mos Eisley cantina, hands chopped off left and right, the Battle of Yavin recreated by goddamn Spitfires in space, and God only knows what else. I'm sure there were others I'm not remembering.

And from what I've seen of season 5 so far I am so glad Moffat took over. Because I may have fewer issues and feelings about what I've seen so far (well, feelings besides "fuck yes this is awesome!") but I also want to punch the screen a lot less. And it's so much less shippy--in all four preceding seasons I pretty much wanted to ship everyone with everyone, and now even though Amy is smoking hot I am content to sit back for Happy Fun (And/Or Horrifying) Gen Adventures In Space, admire the steampunk TARDIS, and bask in the fact that Moffat knows how to fucking write.

So, Eljay, I would babble all about Who fandom shenanigans, but it is currently 2:30am and I have to be up at 7:30 for a SPRING BREAK ROAD TRIP. filia_belialis and I are in for a week (...give or take) of mayhem, geekery, exploring creepy abandoned places in Pennsylvania, possibly fireworks, and lots of sleeping in the car. On the list: the Great Barrington fairgrounds on our way out of Massachusetts, Centralia, an old coal breaker in Mahanoy City, the Richmond Power Station in Philadelphia, and anything else we find along the way. Internet situation will probably be tenuous--not that I ever update anymore anyway.

...okay fine, Who fandom shenanigans, in bullet points:

- Yes, I have a weeping angel costume underway for Conbust. It might be way too elaborate for my pathetically non-crafty self, but the prospect of getting to terrify people by just lurking in corners standing very very still is ample motivation.

- Finished season 3! Um, so many thoughts. SO MANY. Will not try to pretend I wasn't shipping Doctor/Master starting from the phone conversation in Sound of Drums. They're just so--sjkl;jasdfsd wonderfully fucked up. And I want every single song used in those two eps. Also Martha is the BAMFiest BAMF ever and as much as I want to see her shag Ten senseless, my love for her went through the goddamn ROOF at the ending.

- Construction had already begun on the angel costume by the time I finished s3, otherwise I would've said "fuck that, too much work" and gone as the Master. Because after the initial fangirling had worn off a tiny bit, I realized I have John Simm's hair, or will by the time Conbust rolls around, and why waste a golden opportunity to cosplay a gleefully deranged Time Lord?

- ...however if I get sick of having shit visibility and lugging a pair of foamboard wings around on my back, I might swap it out for a business suit and a laser screwdriver just for an afternoon. If only for the idea of a weeping angel tearing its face off to reveal the Master in disguise. "Oh no! You are being pursued by a psychotic alien who can and will fuck up your personal timeline beyond repair! It pulls off its mask and... you are still being pursued by a psychotic alien who can and will fuck up your personal timeline beyond repair."

- It has been decided that the Who fandom equivalent of dead-baby jokes = dead Gallifrey jokes. Which of course the Master tells the Doctor just to rile him up in the AU where he actually ends up locked in the Tardis.

Q: How many Time Lords does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Just... *sob* One.

Q: What's even more beautifully red and orange than the skies of Gallifrey?
A: The skies of Gallifrey as it blows up!

Q: What's the difference between the Holy Grail and the last Time Lord in existence?
A: The Doctor doesn't have the Holy Grail locked up in his Tardis.
...as far as we know, that is.

Vacation was... interesting.

( My brother's school is such a weird place )

( Vacation )

AND. My mom's friend, who is a giant ebay addict and has used the Sucking Pit of Auction Temptation to amass the world's biggest collection of rowing memorabilia, found and bought me two maps of 1830s Paris. I think they might even be vintage maps, not modern prints. My jaw hit the floor when I found out about this, since the first and only time I walked into an antique maps and prints shop in Paris they had an 1834 map going for over €300, but apparently there is someone on ebay selling these things for something in the low-to-mid double digits.

So I am about to be the proud and extremely shocked owner of an 1834 street plan of Paris and an 1832 map of the Paris environs. I'm still too stunned to squee (although there will be LOTS of squee when they arrive), because the idea that people would do these sorts of things for me is just... ajskl;ajsdafsdf

sjkl;jasdfasdlkj;skjdf

(In the interests of public geekiness, said ebay seller can be found here. God help us all. And now I am staring at the listing for a slightly-damaged 5-franc coin from 1831 and wondering whether I want to pay ten bucks for it. Or a sou from 1791. Or... hell, in the interests of public geekiness, here is the ebay page for French coins.)

Crazy trip of crazy is working out okay so far!

Train out of France (to Geneva) got rerouted because of strikes, so I ended up having to sit in the non-air-conditioned standing room for people who don't have reservations. Not very fun, but at least I got there. Train ride from Geneva to Zürich was GORGEOUS. Night train from Zürich to Salzburg not so fun; all the sleeper cars were booked solid because of the air-travel ban, so I ended up in a not-very-comfortable seat in an over-air-conditioned train, and got into Salzburg at four in the morning freezing my butt off. But all is well, I have a bed in a rather nice youth hostel, and I managed to sort of order coffee in German, which is more than I managed last time I was in Zürich.

Salzburg is... very very Baroque. Okay, I will admit it, I came in here not bothering to think about the cultural stereotype of Austria and mentally correct for it. And due to the shittiness of the American education system and their failure to teach European history, the American cultural stereotype of Austria is "that place that's kind of like Germany, only with better skiing, scarier right-wing politicians, and The Sound of Music." It was a long time after high school that I learned that AUSTRIA USED TO BE A FUCKING EMPIRE back before a united Germany was even a twinkle in Bismarck's eye, so I tend to forget when I'm not thinking with my historian-brain. I don't think I'll ever forget again, not after all these elaborate formal gardens and giant wedding-cake Catholic churches. And yes, all the rococo is rather cute and twee, until you remember that it was the velvet glove over the proverbial fist, and that you DID NOT insult Austria's twee pastel cake-frosting architecture unless you wanted them to come partition your country.

Unfortunately, no Mozart concerts tonight, so I'll have to content myself with just wandering around listening to the Marriage of Figaro on headphones and admiring all the Imperial splendor.

Despite a catastrophic misadventure involving Parisian Metro and bus schedules that almost caused me to miss my train, all is well and I am in Digne. Digne, it turns out, is a mountain town in the foothills of the Alps. Some of these foothills have snow on their peaks at the end of April, but no matter, clearly I am a silly American who has never seen anything more impressive than the Appalachians.

Digne is also where the bishop's seat is for the region (DUH) which means you pretty much cannot chuck a stone without hitting a current or former convent. They have a street near the Rue de l'Evêché named after Mgr de Miollis, upon whom Hugo based Mgr Myriel; otherwise, unlike Montreuil-sur-Mer, they don't appear to care that Hugo wrote about them.

Did I mention it's in the mountains? My legs hurt from all the hill-climbing we've been doing, which I probably have no right to complain about since I was the one who suggested we go hiking near the river today. The river is unnaturally blue, very low from apparent lack of rain, and so cold it probably just melted last Tuesday.

Anyway, I have postcards! Anyone who wants a postcard from Digne, fill out the poll with your name and address, which are only visible to me. First ten people to ask get a postcard with "Digne-les-Bains" and a pretty picture of the town on it.

[Poll #1552229]

I will do my best to mail them from Digne itself, but the hotel's internet does not appear to work, so you might end up with one posted from Geneva or Salzburg instead.

So when I was joking about "Tomorrow to Calais, then a ship across the sea" I didn't mean it literally! But I did, indeed, get Calais and a ship across the sea, and I did not get Les Mis.

It all started when they closed the Channel tunnel due to weather, see, and my Eurostar train got cancelled. ( Read the whole saga )

What I have to show for all this: two frostbitten feet, a lot of aches and pains from holding and dragging heavy suitcases all across creation, an exchangeable Eurostar ticket, and unused and useless Les Mis ticket, three new friendships forged in the fire of necessity, and bragging rights.