Love In The Asylum

It's not so much that I ship Javert/Valjean as a thing that is there in the text, or even in the subtext (unlike Enjolras/Grantaire, which is clearly canon). It's that I want to rewrite the whole universe around Javert to give him the better life and the epic, antagonistic, loving friendship/romance with Valjean that could have been. Because he's had such a cold, empty, unforgiving life - deservedly, perhaps, and through choices entirely his own, but he's so unhappy in himself, and I love him so much, and I want to fix it.

Non-Javert thoughts on Les Mis: Marius was delightfully drippy until Empty Chairs broke my heart into tiny little pieces, but there is still nothing you can do to make me care about Ingenue Soprano/Naive Lovestruck Pretty-Boy in a musical where they are surrounded by more interesting goings-on. Needed more Eponine, and in fact I would be quite happy with Javert and Eponine Go Off To have Adventures: The Musical. I sobbed uncontrollably basically every time Gavroche was on screen, but especially That Scene. There are a few lines I am sad that they cut (especially Grantaire's bit in Drink With Me, which I would have much preferred to Bring Him Home going on soooo long), but Do You Hear The People Sing was basically flawless perfection.

I am really feeling the need to read the book now. And maybe listen to the 25th Anniversary recording 5 or 10 times over. Just to get a grasp on all these emotions I'm having now.

Reasons why this weekend was the Best Weekend:

1. I saw Brave! And adored it - Merida is so spunky and stubborn and sweet, the animation was drop-dead gorgeous, and I have been yearning in my soul for a kids' movie that has both bear-fighting and a central mother-daughter relationship. Could not stop gushing all night after I saw it. MARRY ME MERIDA.

2. Albuquerque Pride! My very first pridefest ever, and I had a great time. A few less fun bits - there were protestors at the end of the parade, and it was over 100 degrees on Saturday so we were dying walking around the fairground and I got ridiculously sun-burned - but overall I really enjoyed it. There were cute butch girls everywhere! And old lesbian couples and families with tiny children and fabulous drag queens and boys wearing very short pants, and I got to shop for sex toys and see BDSM demonstrations and a burlesque show and eat frozen yogurt while people threw glitter at me.

3. Opera! This year I decided to see The Pearl Fishers at the Santa Fe Opera (a toss-up between that and Tosca, but I've wanted to see The Pearl Fishers for yeeeeears), and I am so glad I did, because it was a phenomenal production. All the principals were just fabulous - Zurga needed to work on his projection more, he was occasionally drowned out by the chorus, but I'm willing to forgive him since he nailed the emotional scenes so well. His aria in the third act was just wrenching. And Nadir and Leila were both spot-on. I could how this was a less mature opera from a younger Bizet - there were some rough edges and plot holes, and the very first duet between Nadir and Leila in the first act is frankly terrible. But the brilliant bits are so brilliant that it's totally worth it anyway. AlsoIkindofshipZurga/Nadir/LeilanowI'msorry.

4. SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIN. I LOVE YOU SO MUCH SPAIN. I LOVE YOU CESC. I LOVE YOU XAVI. I LOVE YOU NEW BB LEFT-BACK. I LOVE YOU FERNANDO TORRES AND YOUR TINY BABIES. I LOVE YOU IKER AND YOUR BOTTLE OF CHAMPAGNE. I LOVE MY SPANISH BOOOOOOYS THEY ARE THE BEST IN THE WOOOOOOOORLD.

“Rogue Flight throws the best parties,” Luke says, twisting around to sneak a swallow of Wedge’s drink. “This is so much better than Mos Eisley.”

Wedge snorts. “And how would you know, farm boy?” He asks. “Have you ever been to Mos Eisley?”

“Once. For a few minutes. Until Han shot a guy and someone tried to kill me. Then Ben said we had to leave. But still, I can tell about these things. I’m a Jedi, you know.” He nods very seriously, and then ruins it by leaning forward and licking Wedge’s nose.

“Hey,” Wedge protests, flustered, but that just gives Luke time to plaster himself more firmly against him, twisting a hand in the unzipped top of Wedge’s flight suit to give him leverage while he licks a wide damp stripe down the the side of Wedge’s neck.

Finally finally finally saw Captain America today. And I absolutely loved it!

( spoilers under the cut )

Some quick thoughts on Star Wars, via the radio plays (and also unnamed webcomics):

1. Why did no one ever tell me that Leia is a complete fucking badass? Did I just not notice this when I watched the movies as a kid? I mean, I got that she was important and kind of cool and refused to take Han Solo's shit but OMG SHE IS AMAZING. Just in the first movie/play, she murders an Imperial General and makes it look like a hunting accident, bitches out Darth Vader to his face, endures near-lethal torture and Force-aided interrogation and refuses to betray the Rebellion even in the face of the destruction of her home planet, and more or less rescues herself, Luke and Han Solo after the bust her out of prison on the Death Star. I AM IN LOVE.

2. Why can't I find any of the prequel-era erastes/eromenos Jedi fic? It has to exist, right? I mean, I can find Qui-Gon Jinn/Obi-Wan Kenobi by the bucketful, and even plenty of Obi-Wan/Anakin. But it's all soul-bonding true-love damn-our-traditions-I'm-devoted-to-you fic and that's...perfectly fine, I guess, but I'm twisted enough that I would really like to see some fic that plays up the master/student dynamic in an institutionalized, part of Jedi culture kind of way (if also in an 'over the age of majority, as consensual as the situation allows' kind of way). I don't even want to read it - that dynamic isn't one I really like in my pairings - I just want to be validated in my belief that it's uncomfortably plausible and the kind of thing fandom would pick up on.

3. Continuing the 'I am a terrible person' line, I would desperately like someone to write me the darkfic AU of the original trilogy where the morality of the universe is switched. The Empire really is a benevolent one, committed to the ideal of using their resources and weapons to bring peace to the galaxy and ending the poverty and violence that flourished under the Old Republic. The Rebels are terrorists attacking the peace of the empire, conscripting dumb kids off farm planets to throw their lives away and killing innocent civilians and workaday imperial soldiers alike. Ben Kenobi is a bitter remnant of the old regime, indoctrinating young Luke into an antiquated cult faith. It's - you know, canonically, of course I'm totally on the side of the Rebels. The Empire is evil, Luke Skywalker is adorable, the Jedis are awesome warrior monks, end of story. I just want to see if someone could pull this off.

...I need to stop letting my brain take over like this. It always ends in such weird places.

I...probably should have considered how bad I am at horror movies before I signed up to do a presentation on Ringu for my Japanese class. I still would have had to watch it, but at least I wouldn't have had to watch it twice. It didn't seem that scary when I was watching it - I didn't realize how much it had freaked me out until I went to go to the bathroom afterwards and realized I couldn't move because I would have to walk past the mirror. Needless to say, I have not gotten very much sleep the last two days.

I did get an A+ on my presentation though, so at least I didn't suffer in vain.

This weekend I am making an Amy Pond fanvid. This is, like, an actual thing. With a grade attached to it. I'm having a hard time picking a good song to use for it. I have several Amy songs in my Doctor Who playlist, but they are mostly romantic songs, and that's not what this video is about - we've been reading about transformative fanworks this week, and I really want to do a project that a) reframes her as the protagonist and b) showcases how much awesome she is made of. Some of my filk songs fit better, but I don't want to use music that will be embarrassing/hard to explain in a distinctly non-geeky context. So I'm not sure what to do.

But that will keep until tomorrow. Tonight I am tired and grumpy and stupidly hormonal, so I am declaring it a night off and devoting myself to crime dramas and naval porn. Yup.

It is a well-established fact that my grandfather's girlfriend, M, is pretty much the coolest person in the history of the universe. It doesn't matter what we talk about - astrophysics, Victorian literature, Russian history, traditional needlework, cabinetry - she always knows something about it, and she always has an opinion on it. I totally want to be her when I grow up.

So when my mom and I and the boyfriend went out to dinner with the two of them last night, M and I started talking about some of the anthropology classes I took last year - she is really interested in cross-cultural gender roles and parenting roles, which my winter term class covered extensively, so we were mostly talking about that. And then she kind of off-handedly mentioned that she had gone on a 4 month anthropological survey some years back when her husband was invited to be the group's official physician and she, I guess, just sort of talked herself into being included. As it turned out, this was a good thing, since out of the anthropologist, his grad student, her doctor husband and her, she was the only one who had the sense to think about things like food, laundry, mosquito-netting, etc.

Now, this would already be a pretty interesting story to hear over pizza. But in the middle of telling me about this expedition she went on, M is like, 'hey, you should come over tomorrow and I can show you the footage!'

So yeah, I spent this afternoon watching original, unedited footage of an anthropological survey of indigenous tribes along the Manu River in Peru, mostly the Machiguenga and Yawanawa groups. IT WAS REALLY REALLY COOL. I mean, mostly it was pretty mundane stuff - people fishing, cooking, chopping wood, playing with their kids, doing their hair, that kind of thing, all shot by the grad student - but it was still fascinating. Since it was raw footage, it wasn't subtitled or narrated, obviously, but M still remembered the names of a lot of the people they dealt with, and she told me a lot of extra details about what the food tasted like, and how they had parties every week where they got drunk on fermented cassava, and how one of the kids in the village got eaten by alligators. It had an immediacy that even a very good documentary can't quite capture. She kept asking me if I was bored, or I wanted to stop, and I was like NO THIS IS SO NEAT IS THERE MORE.

Today was really kind of an awesome day.

Also, while I was there M gave me a pie crust recipe and a potato bread recipe, and since I am the least patient person ever, tomorrow I shall do ALL THE BAKING. THERE WILL BE PIE OMG (I have never made pie before. This may well end in tears).

Also also: Behold! David Tennant's chest! This is the movie they've been filming here all summer. I am coming up with fewer and fewer reasons not to see it.

Best part of having Fridays off: having the afternoon free to go see Iron Man 2! A few notes:

( Oh, like you didn't expect me to have opinions )

7. OH MAN I CANNOT WAIT UNTIL NEXT SUMMER IT IS GOING TO BE EPIC.

New Trailer for Going Postal up! IT CAN BE MAY NOW PLEASE?

Lord Vetinari doesn't look especially like my mental picture of him - why on earth is he blond? - but everyone else is pretty damn good. Especially Adora Belle, who just edges out Polly and Sybil as my Favoritest Discworld Lady Ever. I am so excited about this movie, you guys, I don't even have words for it.

(This is making me want to reconsider writing that story where Moist/Adora Belle and William/Saccharissa have epic partner swapping hijinks. What the hell, brain? But...well, Moist and William talking circles around each other would be hot like burning, and Saccharissa might need a little persuading but I'm pretty sure Adora Belle would be all in, if the whole thing wasn't her idea to begin with - it totally is, though - and yeeeah, I'm going to hell, aren't I?)

 I won't say I don't like the concept of romantic comedy, because the sheer amount of slash fic I read would make an instant liar out of me. But 99% of the rom-coms I see are a) horrendously misogynistic and heteronormative, b) about women with whom I have nothing in common because all they care about is shopping and getting married, or c) have plots that depend on everyone being monumentally stupid. (Not that scifi/fantasy/action, my movie genres of choice, aren't misogynistic, heteronormative, and stupid in equal measure, but at least then I have explosions to distract me from the fail.) But every once in a while a nice romance is just what I need, especially when I'm watching movies with other people who don't share my tastes in the swords-and-starships end of movie-going. 

So tonight I watched The Proposal with my aunt and uncle and it was actually very charming. I'm glad I like Ryan Reynolds, since he's shaping up to be the go-to boy for comics movies for the next few years, it seems like. He's a good piece of eye candy. And Sandra Bullock is just lovely. And the film was not infuriating on many levels, even if I'm still wondering how "driven, hard-working career woman who is sort of emotionally distant because of past losses = icy bitch queen" at the start of the movie. It is nothing you haven't seen a million times before, but who goes to a rom-com to see revolutionary filmmaking? 

Also: the one plot I hate above all others in romance stories is the one where Character A is dating Character B under false pretenses (a bet, a pay-off, whatever), and then starts to fall for them, at which point Character B finds out about the deceit and flips out. It pushes my hate button on so many, many levels - it's sloppy and contrived and humiliating and skeevy and manipulative and just, you know, generally awful. ON THE OTHER HAND, it turns out that I really, really absolutely ADORE what could be considered a distant relative of that plot, namely the "we don't like each other/aren't interested in each other, but we are going to pretend to be a couple to go undercover/get a green card/impress my boss/impress my family, until all the proximity and oversharing makes us realize we are actually in love" plot. IT IS RIDICULOUS. AND WONDERFUL. I guess it works better for me because it doesn't carry all the weird, skeevy baggage of deceit, trust, and consent when both characters are in on the lie. But anyway, watching this movie made me want to read a million fics where Dean and Sam have to pretend to be a couple to investigate a haunting, or Rodney poses as John's husband to get his brother to lay off him, or Kirk and McCoy go through an alien wedding for reasons of diplomacy fail. I have problems, okay?