rosa_heartlily | Reading

I had a stupid thought about a scene in Peter Pan Goes Wrong, and it would not leave me alone until I wrote this.

Title: Audio Issues
Fandom: The Goes Wrong Show (technically Peter Pan Goes Wrong)
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Robert/Chris
Wordcount: 1,100
Summary: “You specified that the actors for Peter Pan and Wendy should not be sleeping together,” Robert says. “The implication being that other actors having sex might be perfectly fine.”

( Audio Issues )

lassarina

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embersofe

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Current Mood: okay

rionaleonhart

I was chatting to my housemates yesterday about my excursion to The Comedy About Spies with Tem. (The play's run ends today, which is probably for the best; I cannot keep buying tickets. Getting into Mischief Theatre fandom was a terrible idea. It's a financial nightmare.)

Riona: Rei, if I ever bring you to a Mischief production, and we end up at the stage door, you cannot embarrass me in front of Henry Lewis. That's my one hard rule.
Rei: Oh, that's not reasonable. What if I unintentionally embarrass you? I mean, you have met me.
Riona: If you unintentionally embarrass me, I will understand that it was an accident.
Rei: What if I facilitate you embarrassing yourself?
Riona: You see, this is exactly why I brought Tem instead.
Tem: I had to try so hard not to call him 'hot hot Henry Lewis' to his face.

In other news, Tem and I have been playing Assassin's Creed: Syndicate together, the Assassin's Creed set in Victorian London! I've played it before, but this is Tem's first experience of an Assassin's Creed game.

Riona: The Assassins are the good guys.
Tem: I feel they could have come up with a friendlier name.
Riona: Well, they're not called the PR Guys.

Tem is increasingly furious about a) the unnecessary modern-day framing device and b) Evie's outfit, decidedly inappropriate for a woman attempting to go unnoticed in Victorian London. I'm really enjoying xyr ranting.

Tem: (with great feeling) She's not wearing a hat! She's wearing skintight trousers! In Victorian London! When you make your Dreamwidth post, Riona, I want you to tell the people that this woman should have been arrested. Not that I don't agree with it morally, but, historically accurately, this woman should be doing hard labour.

(Playing as Evie, I notice a hatless man on the street and start pushing him around.)
Riona: Hey, sir, where's your hat? Hey, sir. Where's your hat? Hey. Hey. Hey.
Tem: You're one to talk.
Riona: Hold on a moment.
(I switch characters to Jacob, who is wearing a hat, and resume pushing the pedestrian around.)
Riona: Where's your hat, sir? Hey. Hey, where's your hat?

Tem enthusiastically encouraged me to break into Buckingham Palace, which, perhaps predictably, resulted in me lying on the floor of the palace, being beaten to death by guards.

Tem started mimicking the voices of the Cockney street children in the game, which gradually developed into creating the character of Nigel, a Victorian ghost orphan with an increasingly elaborate backstory, whose job it is to create all the piles of leaves the Frye twins keep jumping into. (It's a hard job; the game features leaf piles even in places that are strikingly short on trees, e.g. Trafalgar Square and the roof of St Paul's Cathedral, and it doesn't appear to be set in autumn.) Nigel provides frequent and deeply tragic commentary as I play. I'm very concerned about this Victorian ghost child.

Occasionally, Tem-as-Nigel speaks about Tem, using she/her pronouns; Tem goes by xe/xem.

Riona: I notice that Nigel misgenders you. That's attention to detail.
Tem: He doesn't mean anything by it; he just doesn't understand. I'm not explaining neopronouns to a Victorian orphan ghost.

rionaleonhart

I've seen The Comedy About Spies twice in the last month, and I enjoyed it a lot! It would obviously be ludicrous to go for a third time. But the play is leaving the West End within the next couple of days, and, well.

(I stare into the camera for slightly too long.)

( The Comedy About Spies, 24 September 2026, including cast encounters at the stage door. )

At home, I gave Rei the Peter Pan Goes Wrong script and explained it had been signed by the actors of Robert, Chris, Trevor and Vanessa, along with Adele James.

Pause.

Me: AND JONATHAN'S ACTOR, I FORGOT JONATHAN AGAIN
Rei: If I ever meet this guy, I'm going to tell him you forget about him every time you meet him at the stage door.

lassarina

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rionaleonhart

Here are a couple of Goes Wrong Show ficlets I've written in response to Tumblr requests!

( Two Goes Wrong ficlets. )

Come to think of it, these ficlets are both on the theme of Robert banging Chris's mother. It's my favourite theme. I still can't believe it's canon. What a beautiful world.

lassarina

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rionaleonhart

Some more responses to Goes Wrong questions I've received on Tumblr!

Anonymous: what do you think cornley would make of the play in ff7?

Imagine how livid Robert would be when Cloud and his date got the lead roles just for being the hundredth couple at the play. These people are not actors!

“Excuse me!” Robert snaps, rising to his feet in the audience. “Chris and I entered before these two! We were clearly the hundredth couple; those roles are rightfully ours. You simply assumed we weren’t a couple because we are both men, and I will be filing a discrimination case unless we are given our rightful place on that stage.”

“We’re not a couple!” Chris hisses at him in a panic. “And we don’t know the script!”

Robert, undeterred, bullies the organisers until they give him the role of the Evil Dragon King just to shut him up. (If Cloud chooses the ‘kiss the Evil Dragon King’ option, Robert really goes for it.)

At the climax, the entire set collapses, exposing a sheepish-looking Trevor, who has secretly been moonlighting as the stage manager at the Gold Saucer. Robert and Chris stare at him, incredulous.

Anonymous: If Cornley were in a JRPG what do you think their fighting styles would be in combat?

Annie fights with her fists; Robert alternates between body-slamming the opponent and putting them to sleep with a long monologue; Sandra inflicts status effects (Charm being her speciality); Max makes silly faces at the screen and ignores the enemy; Dennis attempts to befriend the enemy or hide; Trevor will occasionally hurl a bomb into the fray from offscreen, sometimes injuring you and sometimes injuring the opponent; Jonathan... wait, where’s Jonathan? He was right behind us. Why isn’t he on the battle screen?

Chris doesn’t fight himself, instead giving the others instructions that half of them will ignore. Vanessa consistently follows Chris’s instructions and will panic if Chris is out of action.

Anonymous: Here is a prompt and/or a thought experiment. After long and considered reflection, Chris Bean decides that getting an assistant may be the best way to tamp down on the Drama Society's tendency toward chaos. Unfortunately, the assistant he finds is certified (and possibly certifiable) chaos gremlin Alex Horne.

Although I'm delighted by this bonkers concept, I struggled at first with how to picture it because it's so hard to envision Alex Horne - or, more specifically, the character of Alex Horne as the Taskmaster's assistant - outside Taskmaster! Without the Taskmaster, who is the Taskmaster's assistant?

Conclusion: he needs a Taskmaster. Alex latches on to Chris, obeying him unquestioningly and homoerotically. Chris is slightly uncomfortable to realise that his new assistant is prepared to go above and beyond to an 'I'll buff your feet for you' extent. Robert is intensely envious and makes multiple attempts to poach Alex for his own assistance.

During casting, Sandra flirts a little with Alex in the hope of getting him to put in a good word for her with Chris. She's affronted by his complete lack of reaction and starts turning up the flirtation, trying to get him to act even slightly less like a block of wood. It becomes common to see Alex impassively working away on his iPad while Sandra drapes herself over his lap.

Dennis is relieved by the presence of an assistant: someone who can remind him of his lines! Whenever Dennis requests a line, Alex's response is just 'All the information is in the script', which Dennis faithfully repeats. This happens multiple times per play.

althea_valara

I slept well the second night, huzzah! And I was determined NOT to be late today, so I set my alarm for... I think it was 7am? Might have been 7:30am, but pretty sure it was the former.

( Day 3 under cut )

And that was my vacation! I think I did enjoy the Field the best, even though I was tired for it. I remain glad I planned this and followed through, and am very grateful to mom for paying for the hotel room.

althea_valara

So as I said at the end of Day 1, I had problems falling asleep due to PAIN. I didn't drift off until around 3:30am. I had reset my alarm from my normal 7:30am to 8:30am, so I could get an extra hour. This wasn't the original plan - I had intended to be up early and at the Planetarium when they opened. Staying asleep an extra hour, as much as I needed it, threw a wrench in my morning.

( the rest of the day under a cut )

rionaleonhart

A couple of days ago, my dad took me out for lunch. We chatted about theatre and genealogy; he taught me how to eat a crab; all in all, a very pleasant excursion. So far, so good.

As we walked across the common afterwards, I pointed out a small patch of pretty pink flowers and asked what they were. Dad glanced at them. "Autumn crocus," he said.

We turned to go. And then Dad turned back to inspect the flowers more closely. He picked one of the blooms.

"You know, I think this is what saffron comes from," he said, pulling it apart with worrying intent.

"I'm not sure you should eat it," I said.

"Well, it's not going to kill me, is it?"

"Well, some plants might!" I protested, as he popped the stamen into his mouth and swallowed.

I looked up the autumn crocus as we walked the last two minutes to my parents' house.

"How good are you at making yourself vomit?" I asked.

"Not great," Dad said. "Why?"

I showed him the website on my phone. All parts of the autumn crocus are lethally toxic to humans.

( The stupid adventure continues. )

So Dad lives to see another day, and the moral of the story is 'do not eat plants if you don't know for certain that they are edible'. Tell your children, and, apparently, your parents.

rionaleonhart

In the 2016 radio special The Christmas That Goes Wrong, Jonathan loses his wallet, containing the only photograph he has of himself with his daughter. I felt so bad for him! Here's a fic following up on that.

Title: The Annie Twilloil School of Problem-Solving
Fandom: The Goes Wrong Show
Rating: G
Wordcount: 1,300
Summary: Annie, after learning Jonathan has lost his only photo with his daughter, enlists Robert to help fix this problem in the most normal and sensible way possible.

( The Annie Twilloil School of Problem-Solving )

althea_valara

FOLKS THIS IS GOING TO BE LONG AND PHOTO-TASTIC! Definitely going under a cut!

The last time I took a TRUE vacation was in September of 2010. (No, I don't count going to Colorado for my cousin's wedding and to see my uncle one last time, as that was an obligation and not by choice.) So, it's been SIXTEEN YEARS since my last real vacation, and boy howdy was I overdue and in need of it.

I would have LOVED to go out of city somewhere, but (a) I knew I wanted to do something for my birthday, (b) I decided this in late July, which didn't give me much lead time, (c) I didn't know where I could go that wouldn't cost me more money than I was comfortable spending at this time. So I chose a stay-cation in Chicago, going to some of its attracions over the course of three days.

Day 1, September 14th: Nature Museum, Lincoln Park Zoo, and an impromptu visit to a LYS

The trip started early on Monday, though not as early as I had hoped. Like normal, I underestimated how much time I would need to shower, dress, etc. A bathroom visit caused me to leave about ten minutes later than I had planned, oops. Still, mom was able to drop me off at the train station in time for me to buy a ticket and wait 5 minutes for the train. Yay!

I hadn't realized the train would be non-stop from my village to Downtown. THAT WAS NICE. Because of morning nerves, I hadn't eaten before I left, and I was hungry when I got off the train. Apple Maps said the nearby Dunkin' was closed (on a Monday?!?) but I checked anyway because it was RIGHT THERE next to the station, and it was indeed open. I got a maple bacon breakfast sandwich and a pumpkin coolata drink, but he overfilled the drink. He wiped it off with a napkin but my hands got all sticky, as did my phone because I had to use it to guide me to where the bus stop was.

I overestimated how long the bus would take! I got to the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum about 20 minutes before opening. But it was a lovely morning, so I happily sat on a bench by the bus stop, then wandered towards the museum and sat on another branch there. I had texted mom when I got off the bus, and she said I'd be the first one in. WRONG! The stroller brigade was! They all wandered up as I was sitting waiting, and I let them and their kiddos enter first.

I had last been to this museum gosh, 20 years ago, I think? I had quite enjoyed it then, enough to want to become a member or even volunteer there. Because I had adored it so much, I had chosen to make it the first stop on my trip. Unfortunately, I ended up a little disappointed--just about all the exhibits were exactly as I remembered them being, so there wasn't anything to really grab my interest.

After wandering around the ground floor, I ventured back to the gift shop, where I bought some swag:

[Image Description: Stuff I bought at the Nature Museum: a small cross-stitch kit of a cardinal, a blue butterfly necklace, and a double chain necklace. The latter necklace features a pink flower on one chain, and a darker pink butterfly on the other.]

I think it was then that I noticed a sign saying there'd be a First Flight butterfly release at 2pm (or was it 2:30? can't remember). I would have LOVED to see that! But I also intended to visit the Lincoln Park Zoo, which was just close enough to walk to, but just far enough not to make it back quickly... so I made a decision to go into the Butterfly Garden then, rather than attempt to come back later.

I'm glad I did go in then! It wasn't crowded at all--for a time I had the whole garden to myself. It's not very big, but it is STILL one of the best butterfly gardens I've been to. As soon as I walked in, it was BOOM! Butterflies in your face!

Watch on YouTube

[Video Description: a short video of butterflies flitting through the air, shortly after entering the Garden.]

Watch on YouTube

[Video Description: walking around a bend in the path. One butterfly flies across the path, while two more are discovered around the bend.]

Watch on YouTube

[Video Description: a wider view of the room, showing off how many butterflies you can see at a time.]

When you exit the Garden, there's another room with windows to a labratory, in which I spotted this sign that I just HAD to take a picture of:

[Image Description: A sign reading "Beware of Attack Butterfly"]

The windows to the room are actually hatcheries for butterflies and moths:

A window full of recently emerged butterflies.

[Image Description: A window full of butterflies recently emerged from their cocoons.]

On my way back to the entrance of the museum, one exhibit on a wall did capture my interest! Titled "Weaving Resilience", this exhibit compared woven fabrics to flora and fauna found in nature. It was really need to see how that matched lace trimmings to butterflies, etc.

[Image Description: A display at the Nature Museum, titled "Weaving Resilence". It features weaving frames with strips of cloth woven through them, surrounding a center display. The center display features circular hoops holding examples of woven fabrics that resemble flora and fauna.]

[Image Description: A close-up of the Weaving Resilience centerpiece, showing samples of cloth and the flora and fauna they resemble.]

The museum had opened at 10am. I left for the zoo at 11:11am. Yeah, I got through it FAST. Still, I have no regrets of going because the butterflies were worth it.

I then began walking to the zoo. I wasn't sure how long of a walk it was, so I went slow. It felt longer than it really was, I think, because it was at 11:25am that I messaged the following to discord:

Walk to zoo accomplished! Sitting the fuck down for a bit. I couldn’t have asked for better weather. There’s a cool breeze keeping me from dripping with sweat. (Am still glistening but it’s not bad at all.)

The Lincoln Park Zoo is always free to the public. Oh--I haven't mentioned yet that my tickets to ALL the venues were FREE this week for being an Illinois Resident! SCORE! That helped keep my costs down. I had assumed it'd be busy these days because of the free admission, but hey, school is back in session and none of the museums were crowded at all.

The Nature Museum felt like it was filled with suburban families. Nothing wrong with that, being a suburb gal myself now, but I have to say I was delighted to see people of all different cultures walking around the zoo. It reminded me of how lucky I feel to be living in a big city (or near to one, anyway!) and experience so many different things.

The Zoo would be a repetition of "walk a bit, look at some animals, sit down, repeat", and I retraced my steps a lot. It's been so long since I've been there that I couldn't remember where anything was, so I walked in circles some. Despite the beautiful weather, there weren't many animals out in it, but I did see some!

[Image Description: Female lions lounging under a tilted tree.]

While in the small reptile/mammal house, I had just gone upstairs to a viewing area when a zookeeper entered one of the enclosures to give a critter its lunch!

A zookeeper is feeding one of the reptiles.

[Image Description: Feeding time! A zookeeper feeds a reptile perched on a tree branch.]

Speaking of lunch, it was time for my own. I found the cafe, and after some dithering, deciding on vegetarian nachos with rice and beans and other toppings. The toppings were good! The chips themselves were the cheap ones used for nachos at carnivals, so that was a disappointment. But hey, at least I was fed.

Shortly after lunch, I ended up in the gift shop:

[Image Description: Stuff I bought at the Lincoln Park Zoo: a gray cooling towel that has its own carrying case you can clip on something, and a very pretty glass magnet.]

I wandered some more after that, and saw LIVE YARN!!!

[Image Description: LIVE YARN! in three colors. Okay, they're alpacas. One cream, one brown, and one black. The black one is partially hidden behind the cream one, which is grazing.]

This cracked

lassarina up, and we then had a conversation about alpaca yarn. That put yarn on my mind, and say, there's a bunch of yarn stores in the city, might one be close by?

One was! So after a bit more zoo wandering, I exited and took the Clark bus up a few more stops, got off, and walked some more to Sister Arts Studio.

[Image Description: Yarn Bomb on a tree outside Sister Arts Studio, a local yarn store. It spells out the shop's name.]

I almost past the shopped up, because I was using Apple Maps to guide me and it seemed to indicate it was a little further away, but knitted ponchos in the storefront window caught my eye. I stood outside for a few minutes, using my handy new cooling towel to mop off sweat and wring my hair out at the back of my neck, then put the towel around my neck and walked in.

It's a nice shop! Still on the small side, but much bigger than my LYS, which is so tiny that I've been in private bathrooms bigger than it. The salesclerk was having a conversation with a customer when I entered, so I looked around at the yarn some, and then gently entered myself into the conversation when they started discussing Magic Loop vs. DPNs (I can use both, but have a preference for DPNs myself).

Once the clerk finally rang up the other customer, I told her I had looked on Ravelry for potential patterns to make before arriving. I had narrowed it down to three:

* Stole Dunes which is STUNNING but the LYS didn't have any gradient lace yarn
* Celestarium, a circular beaded shawl of the night sky.
* Mystical Forest Lace Shawl, a crescent shawl by a talented shawl designer

I strongly considered Celestarium, as I was planning on hitting the Planetarium the next day and I thought it would be appropriate to buy yarn for a space-related design, but decided against it because, well, it's the NIGHT SKY, it should be a deep blue, right? And I already have a navy blue shawl. I didn't want another, plus Celestarium is a LOT of stockinette, and I'm already knitting something with that.

So, Mystical Forest Lace Shawl it was! It was then just a matter of picking out the yarn. From the moment I entered, my eye had been drawn to the display of Urth Yarns. The colors were all so vibrant! I really considered a green as the shawl is named for a forest, but ended up with a bright aqua blue.

[Image Description: Four skeins of yarn that I bought. They are all the same deep aqua color in a fingering weight.]

Purchase made, it was time to head to the hotel. I am truly grateful to my mom for paying for the room. I could have managed it myself, but it would have wiped out most of my savings. As it was, there's a big trade show in town this week, so when I made the reservation, prices were double what they normally would cost and there were a dearth of openings!

I had originally planned on staying three nights--going up leisurely on Sunday so I could sleep in Monday some--but ended up staying just two because of cost. This did mean I carried my backpack THE ENTIRE DAY on Monday, as I couldn't check into my room until 4pm. Oof. Anyway, I chose to stay at a Kasa hotel near the Magnificent Mile. I... might have found something a little cheaper at a hotel I had previous stayed up, but I hadn't really liked that hotel, and this one sounded promising, so yes, I gave it a try.

Boy, am I glad I did!

I knew it was a "studio", so I did expect some seating along with a bed. I thought there might be a microwave, too. What I actually got wowed me:

[Image Description: A photo of my studio hotel room, looking towards the sleeping area. There's a bed on the back wall with a nightstand next to it. On the left wall is a walk-in closet (!!!) and a small, simple desk with a blue chair and lamp. A circular mirror is over the desk. In the foreground is a small table for eating. It's circular and white with two white chairs.]

[Image Description: A photo of my studio hotel room, looking towards the kitchen and living room. Just visible on the left is a blue couch (viewed from behind) and a chair with a floor lamp next to it. The kitchen holds a medium-sized refrigerator, full-sized stove, a microwave, a dishwasher (!!), an electric tea kettle, and a toaster.]

Not mentioned in the pics was that it had two MORE closets: one small one in which hung an ironing board an iron, and another one which housed a stacking small washer and dyer. ALL the items you could need! The kitchen was stocked, too, with pots, pans, dishes and silverwave - not a big abundance but enough for anything you'd consder making.

Well. Because I had a full kitchen, I decided to save myself a bit of money and NOT go out for dinner that night. Instead, I walked around the block to the nearby Aldi, and bought a box of white cheddar mac and cheese, a bottle of Gatorade, a gallon of purified water, and fixings for breakfast (frozen pumpkin waffles, cinnamon butter, pumpkin spice syrup.)

What I failed to buy was ibuprofen. It hadn't occured to me to do so. I would regret this later.

I made it back to my room, drank the Gatorade quickly (I needed it!), poured a glass of water and started the pasta. Then I tried turning on the TV to watch the season opener of Wheel of Fortune, but the TV required signing in to streaming services and well, we don't have any streaming accounts. I shrugged and turned it off - I'm not a big TV watcher as it is, so that was fine with me.

I ate, cleaned up, started knitting some... but did not last long before I was getting ready for bed and climbing into it. I was so exhausted that I had told mom I'd have no problem sleeping that night.

Wrong.

Why was I wrong? Well:

[Image Description: My step count for Sept 14th. It shows I walked 13,334 steps - or 5.1 miles. Wowzers!]

Folks, I usually average 600 steps OR LESS a day. This was so much more than I was used to, AND while carrying a backpack! Unfortunately, my poor feet and legs let me know all about it. I was very sore, and could barely walk barefooted to and from the bathroom. And this was WITH wearing a good pair of shoes!

Around 2am, I still hadn't really fallen asleep, and considered throwing my shoes on and going down to the vending machine to see if it had painkillers in it. But the vending machine was on a different floor, and I really didn't want to be wandering around the place that late at night, so I just turned back in and tried to sleep.

I was up again at 3:15am. I ended up eating the entire bag of pumpkin caramel clusters I had bought.

Finally, I fell asleep shortly before 4am. And thus ended the first day of my vacation.

It took an hour and 40 minutes to write this much. You'll have to wait for days 2 and 3. Please look forward to them!

Current Mood: tired

A bed of roses

Look out for thorns

Fanfiction: Audio Issues (Peter Pan Goes Wrong, Robert/Chris)

Catching Up Part 3

Sept 26th

Cor Blimey, Did Someone Mention The Door To Darkness?

How Dare You Bring Me Cake I Can't Eat?

What Are You Playing Wednesday

I Suspect Robert Always Tries To Avoid Paying For The Drinks.

What I've Been Reading

All The Information Is In The Script.

VACATION POST! Day 3

VACATION POST! Day 2

The Autumn Crocus: A Cautionary Tale.

Fanfiction: The Annie Twilloil School of Problem-Solving (The Goes Wrong Show)

VACATION POST! Day 1

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