Well, this certainly didn't take absolutely forever to get posted...
There are two things that set this vacation apart from any other I’ve ever gone on as a grown-up-adult-type-person; first, I did not suggest or initiate any of the major aspects of the trip, and second, there was never a moment I wasn’t surrounded by passionate, creative, intelligent, and above all _friendly_ people. I was an interloper much of the time, seeing as I was likely the only person at the con (or at least, the only one not carrying a White Pass) who only ranks two of the seven Harry Potter books among her favourite literature*, but these people are undeniably My People, and I felt at home in a way I haven’t in quite a long time. Unfortunately, returning to my everyday life after the elation of spending eleven days with almost exclusively people who like the things I like, want the things I want, and believe the things I believe**, I fell face-first into the abîme of despair I had been staring down into in June.
Such is the wonder of Disney World and LeakyCon, however, that I had a length of rope and a grapple with me when I hit bottom, and I have taken steps to begin the long climb back out…and hopefully out of the even larger canyon containing this abîme. These tools have been constructed primarily out of the Lessons Learned presented below the cut.
Lessons Learned in Orlando
~ Hufflepuffs are honey badgers. And they were flippin’ everywhere, which was rather unexpectedly delightful. It was quite amusing to see the realization start to dawn about the second day that something probably close to half of the people in attendance were defending Hufflepuff from the anticipated brush-offs that might have happened once or twice before everyone else figured out they were in the minority. And you know, surprisingly enough, when Hufflepuffs figure out they’re the majority party, they don’t take potshots at other houses. Also delightful was seeing just how many Hufflepuffs were traveling in pairs with a Ravenclaw. As much as Magpie and I talked about how we would take to our soapboxes about the problems with sorting or claim to be from Beauxbatons when inevitably asked what house we were in, it was actually rather affirming to walk the halls decked out in blue and yellow and shout our house names at the proper times in StarKid songs and not feel like we had to do it just to balance out the red and green because the red and green didn’t need balancing out. (Which, again, sounds like I was imbibing just a little too much of the powdered kids’ drink, but no one harangued me for not drinking more than I chose to partake, and that’s an important distinction.)
~ Speaking of imbibing, that absolutely was not just cranberry juice those girls in front of us were drinking at the second night of wrock concerts. (Which was the only evening event we managed to stay up for, other than Open at the Close. We are such old fogies.)
~ Standing in lines is a good thing, especially before signings. Things do not go according to plan if I don’t have time to prepare what I would like to say to people I admire. Also, you meet really interesting people standing in LeakyCon lines. Or sitting at breakfast tables.
~ Another mistake I made leading up to this trip was not re-watching the Potter Musicals. That probably would have been even more helpful than listening to the first four books was, since I had literally nothing adequately gushily specific to say to any of the StarKids, aside from Brian Holden. Between the confusion in finding the line, instantaneously being shuttled straight to the signing table because of our Rock Star badges, and my having only seen the musicals once in October, I just thanked them all (except Holden, and possibly Darren Criss, but more on that later). As I rewatched the musicals this week and listen to Starship ad nauseum, I continually kick myself for the dozen or more missed opportunities to more fully express my gratitude. (A hint for the LeakyCon organizers: If you want my money, now would be an extremely good time to announce another con.)
~ Re-watching the musicals also would have prevented me from being _completely frickin’ confused_ by “Guys Like Potter” - I had never seen Joe Moses out of costume, and I couldn’t for the life of me remember if Tyler Brunsman was meant to be Cedric or Lucius at that point, and I was so befuddled I forgot to listen to the words that SHOULD HAVE CLUED ME IN. But we’re cool, now.
~ Joe Moses, Will Dunn, Rohan Gotobed, Benedict Clarke, Neil Cicierega, Jim Povolo, Mark Oshiro, Lauren Lopez, and Jaime Lyn Beatty are all varying degrees of hilarious and adorable.
~ Getting stuck in front of a tightish-black-t-shirt-wearing Joe Walker because the person in front of you is chatting with Jaime Lyn Beatty about fashion is even more uncomfortably awkward when he’s making goofy faces and you haven’t had time to prepare anything to say. So thanks for that Magpie… (Yes, I am almost certainly the only person on earth who would complain about having to watch Joe Walker make faces just for me.)
~ Somehow, despite using what I thought was the last of my self-restraint not to ogle and blurt out “FOREARMS…!” during that encounter, I managed also to keep from saying “TEETH…!” when I got up to Tyler Brunsman, or “EYES…!” when meeting Benedict Clarke. I think I may have gasped a bit when Clarke first looked at me, though, because it was so very unexpected. You can see Walker’s arms and Brunsman’s teeth from space, but Clarke hides his eyes behind shaggy hair (and a black and white headshot) so they are startling when you do see how very, very blue they are.
~ I did have time to prepare things to say to the Deathly Hallows actors when we went to their signing, but it quickly became apparent that there is virtually nothing you can say to 11- to 15-year-olds signing autographs that won’t come across as creepy, condescending, or both. I am imminently grateful to Rohan Gotobed for devising a fun little double-handshake way of preventing awkwardness, but I really couldn’t help thinking of Christian Bale’s “all I wanted to do was ride my BMX bike in the woods” while watching the younger kids diligently signing through hand cramps.
~ Best shirts of the con? Ryan Turner’s “Gingers Rule” shirt (complete with a drawing of a gingerbread man) and Rohan Gotobed’s “I survived Azkaban” shirt (for those of you who missed the joke, Gotobed was Sirius in “The Prince’s Tale”).
~ Scarlett Byrne and Evanna Lynch are really very sweet.
~ I am kind of a lot in love with Chris Rankin and Brian Holden (Yay, age-appropriate celebrity crushes!***) (On people who play characters who are kind of arseholes!) (But who are very witty and personable in real life!) (Magpie is kind of buds with Holden, now, you guys!) (She actually is legit buds with Mark Oshiro, so she’s kind of an internet celebrity once removed.)
~ Red Vines EVERYWHERE.
~ Jaime Lyn Beatty is just basically Jodi Benson all over.
~ Apparently, Darren Criss becomes invisible when he sits next to Brian Holden. I am not even sure I thanked him, I was so focused on the fact that, Brian Holden remembered Magpie from the photobooth. He (Criss) was honestly one of the ones I was least excited to meet, anyway, but the positioning was unfortunate. If I had had my wits about me, I could have at least told him his version of “Teenage Dream” is the only good thing to come of Katy Perry’s singing career****. Of course, now I want to babble incessantly at him about how brilliant I think the songs from Starship are… He might have said “defeat thee/eat me” was the rhyme he was proudest of, but I'm pretty sure “larval/marvel” is the best one written in the last four centuries. This will at least teach me to do my homework next time.
~ I couldn’t help but feel this time through AVPM that Darren Criss’ Harry is kind of Andy Dwyer.
~ Brian Holden is a tricky guy; Lupin CAN sing. (Also this image Yahoo found for me.)
~ “Hermione Can’t Draw” will never not make me smile, now. I just have such respect for how silly he is willing to look, and it’s a testament to how mooney-eyed***** I’ve become that he’s the one I was watching during most of “Stutter”.
~ “Mooney, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs” does not get any better with repeat readings, it just doesn’t. Read it once, revel in how awesome it is that time, and never again think about what actually happens. (Notice how they do that bit in AVPS.) (What I mean by that last parentethetical is that they don’t do it. Sirius just tells the kids straight away, and then they all figure out the Pettigrew thing together.)
~ LeakyCon volunteers have the worst jobs ever. I really hope Magpie and I weren’t the only ones who realized that.
~ If emcees didn’t insist that audiences repeat themselves every damn time they did call and response type stuff, audiences wouldn’t be so jaded about participation. We know the first “Good morning,” or whatever, isn’t going to be deemed loud enough no matter how loud it is, so there’s no point in even trying to feign enthusiasm. The less effort you put in the first time, the lower the expectations are for the inevitable second. This doesn’t, unfortunately, take its toll on the rock bands and wrestling announcers who popularized the “I can’t hear you, Springfield!” approach, it’s the poor schmucks repeating the same cheesy Jungle Cruise lines or barbequing Jaws all damn day long who pay the price.
~ I survived ten days in Orlando being outside nearly all day for most of them with only one very minor sun-not-quite-burn on my forehead. I went for a walk the Sunday after I got home, spent a total of two hours in the sun, and am now bright bloody pink everywhere. Orlando is clearly a magical wonderland where even the sun is friendly.
~ IHOP is also a magical wonderland****** that caters to all your 1-AM-dinner-because-your-dumbass-roommate-managed-to-get-everyone-locked-out AND 9-AM-breakfast-because-no-one-wants-to-be-in-the-room-with-your-dumbass-roommate-any-longer needs, and does so with fresh fruit, turkey bacon, and green apple lemonade. Or with chocolate chip pancakes, if you’re Irish and flippin’ adorable.
~ Any further trips like this will have an international-roommates-only stipulation.
~ Two butterbeers is way too much. I know they’re tasty, but just stop. Really. It’s a long way from the Three Broomsticks to your hotel room.
~ A butterbeer and a cauldron cake will give you instantaneous diabetes. I’m not telling you not to enjoy them, just know what you’re getting yourself into. Also to that end, the Wizarding World’s treacle fudge has raisins. Congratulations, Universal, you’ve just made me wish Hagrid had been the cook.
(This is not fair - all of the other food we had there was very good. Just…who wants raisins in their fudge?)
~ Even the Bertie Bott’s beans that aren’t meant to be horrifying flavours are still pretty disgusting. Well, I give up on these.
~ I never want to eat another peanut again. Or another bagel, for that matter.
~ On the subject of food that didn’t suck, Mytho’s at Islands of Adventure and Mama Melrose’s at Hollywood Studios are both excellent.
~ Revenge of the Mummy is basically the only reason to go to Universal Studios, but it is a pretty compelling reason.
~ Universal Studios is definitely not the Nickelodeon playground I envisioned when I was seven. Don’t be fooled by the giant Ang and Momo - everything in the Nickelodeon store has Spongebob, Dora, or Jimmy Neutron on.
~ DO NOT forget to take your con notes out of your bag before riding Dudley Do-Right’s Ripshaw Falls and/or the Jurassic Park River Adventure in Islands of Adventure. They will be soggy.
~ Take the ferry over to Magic Kingdom, not the monorail. Never the monorail.
~ SO MANY BRAZILLIANS.
~ Good freaking luck finding Snow White merch in Magic Kingdom (Hint: it’s all in the Snow White’s Scary Adventures gift shop. There is none in the Castle Couture shop. None at all.)
~ It’s a Small World is absolutely unbelievable. Do not visit Magic Kingdom without riding it. There is no way to capture in words or pictures just how very wrong it is; it truly must be experienced. Every single person working the ride is a cheerful senior citizen, and that’s the thing about it that is the least disconcerting.
~ They’ve already added Blackbeard to Pirates of the Caribbean (Davy Jones is nowhere to be seen, however…), and Barbossa will probably never not make me giggle.
~ Hollywood Studios has Barbossa’s CotBP costume on display. I apparently could have stood there all day just staring, and probably would have eventually pulled my flashlight out of my backpack so I could actually _see_ it in the atmospheric gloom. Alas, Mags quite unreasonably wanted to DO things while we were at the park, so I had to walk away eventually.
~ It looks like there is a crazy amount of stuff going on in the Winnie the Pooh movie that just got totally buried at the box office, and it looks _adorable_. What the hell was Disney thinking with that release?
~ Ike/Tour Guide Barbie is the best tram announcer in Orlando.
~ There is an import tax of approximately $699.30 added to your purchase if you bring a German beer into an Italian wine/chocolate shop.
~ Moroccan food is awesome. As is Japanese. And Canadians are awesome. And lightning rods. Lightning rods are totally the coolest things ever.
~ The fans sold at the China shop in Epcot are made in Taiwan. The fans sold in the Japanese shop are made in China. The cashier offered to personalize them in Japanese, though, so that’s kind of authentic-ish.
~ Bruce the Canadian dude wants you to know that, if at any point in the Canada showcase it feels like the room is moving, it’s just the visual effects of the movie. It’s totally cool; don’t worry.
~ Turtle Talk with Crush, Muppet Vision 3D, and the Monsters Inc. Laugh Factory are made of love…even if the latter was accompanied by intense physical pain and a small amount of terror when one of the guys working the line decided my Darkwing Duck shirt warranted a spontaneous Disney Afternoon sing-along and an extended conversation of said shows even after Mags and I walked away from him multiple times and I, distracted, took a metal gate to the upper thigh (but, hey, two days later, my leg was the same colour as Mike Wazowski and Sulley at the same time - free souvenir to remind me of my trip!). The guy working the Jungle Cruise was much less creepy with his DWD shout-out.
~ Sacagawea was a Hufflepuff, and Mark Twain and Benjamin Franklin were the trickster gods of American history.
~ All modern theme park rides and 3D shows are required by law to have a bit where an animal sneezes or spits on the riders/audience.
~ If you see anything coming at you in 3D in the pre-show holding room at the Shrek 4D thing in Universal Studios, it’s because the guy going over the rules and backstory threw it at you.
~ Pins sold by Whimsic Alley are very disobedient. Awesome, but disobedient.
~ Fleur and Lupin have the neatest wands. It’s a good thing I had already found Hermione’s at a thrift shop… (You guys can’t let me ever go back to Universal, or I’ll wind up buying Lupin’s, I just know it.) (I think I may be a Lupin fan or something…)
~ Frickin’ Alan Rickman (and Benedict Clarke) (and Joe Moses, now that I’ve rewatched AVPS). STOP PULVERIZING MY HEART. SNAPEISACREEPIDON’TWANTTOFEELFORHIMOHGAHDIT’SSOSAD.
~ For all that, Dobby and Ollivander were still the bits that got me most in Part 2, and I’m super glad they didn’t go all-out emaciated and tortured with John Hurt. I realized the second the headstone was shown at the beginning that I should have found a way to stuff the Dogtor into the bag I carried to the park and the theater that day.
~ Aberforth was Wentworth! Man, Persuasion was forever ago…
~ Everyone at LeakyCon adores Neville. And rightly so. Again, these people were _so much cooler_ than I expected.
~ The Snape, Draco, and Lucius cosplayers had the personalities down pat. Like, they sneered at you as they passed you in the hallways, and being stuck in an elevator with them was intensely uncomfortable. It was awesome.
~ But not as awesome as the silver doe.
~ Just don’t try to make plans with anyone else when you’re on vacation in Orlando. It’s not worth the effort.
~ Ben Wyatt is my favourite character in anything ever. (There is apparently only one video on all of YouTube of Ben doing anything but being shipped and set to sappy songs, so here is instead a promo for the show that features actor Adam Scott being adorable with his co-stars.)
~ Getting the “I live at home and have disposable income out my ears” passes is always a good deal (the Fantasmic! dining package at Hollywood Studios, Express Passes at Universal, the Rock Star badge at LeakyCon), but I still hate the damn toll roads.
~ Kids these days think watching the Eccleston Era is going way back in Doctor Who, and I’ve become one of the old grans of fandom. I’ve got a pretty raging case of “Get off my lawn”-itis right now, and am therefore waiting a bit to watch my new S6/32 DVDs.
~ With apologies to bizarreoptimism , on my drive back after the Con, I got to a point where I went, “Screw it, I need StarKid,” and thus began my unending looping of the soundtracks.
~ Putting the 1776 and Starship soundtracks on the same disc may have been done for convenience’s sake, but it makes quite an amusing pairing. I’m not sure if there’s any earth-shattering commentary to be read into it, but it makes me happy on a number of levels. So, again, thanks to Magpie for that.
Thanks to Magpie for all of that, really. Because it’s totally her fault that I now have these:
(Annotated immediately after returning to the room, because there was no way we were going to figure out later which signature belonged to whom.)
(Now, it would be completely understandable if you had come away from my above rambling about Brian Holden with the impression that he is my favourite StarKid, but that doesn't happen to be the case. My favourite StarKid is whoever drew the angry eyebrows on the tree, which I did not notice until after we got back to the room that evening...which is to say, I do not know the identity of my favourite StarKid. I kind of suspect either Holden, Walker, or Joe Moses, since their signatures are in close proximity to the tree and I seem to recall all three of them looking down at it rather longer than the others, but all I can say conclusively is that it was not Jim Povolo, Julia Albain, or Nick Lang, what with their non-black pens, or Tyler Brunsman, because I was totally hypnotized by those teeth the entire time, and he wasn't looking down long at all.)
It is, however, entirely the fault of my seven-year-old camera that decided to crap out the first time I tried to take a picture that I didn’t get a single photo of anything (not that I would have used it much, anyway) and that I can’t now get a picture of the awesome loot I picked up, or what happens to a “Milk chocolate shaped frog” when it gets left in a car trunk in Orlando in July (my first thought upon opening the box was, “Remus Lupin Eats Shit; Gryffindor Wins!” I did mention my fondness for certain awkwardly proportioned, mustachioed vampire-gremlin-robots*******, right?) But what I lack in pictures can be more than made up for in notes! I’m good at taking notes! Have some notes! (Note: Notes contain spoilers. Although, really, what the hell are you doing reading notes from a Harry Potter con if you need spoiler warnings?)
~*~*~*~*~
7/14/11
The Harry Potter Experience in South Africa - Tara Weinberg
Antjie Krog - South African poet who wrote "Country of My Skull," about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Potter Puppet Pals
"Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived. For a little while." ~Neil
"I see all of my friends: Ron, Hermione, all of them." ~Harry
"Hagrid could have taken him to jail, and it would have been heartwarming." ~Neil about Harry’s rescue from Privet Drive
"I personally believe [Harry's angst] is why every single friend he makes at Hogwarts is someone he met in the first ten minutes on the train." ~Neil
"More like Harrywarts School of Roncraft and Hermionry." ~Neil
"I want to kill the Dark Lord Napoleon." ~Harry
"Snape sucks, and as soon as he doesn't suck, he dies........Spoiler." ~Neil, while discussing the paternal figures in Harry's life
"Who else has stuck around as long as Voldemort? Who has fought as hard for custody as Voldemort?" ~Neil while discussing the paternal figures in Harry's life
"Being fatherly toward Harry is like standing in front of a train." ~Neil
"Voldemort has set up the Easter Egg hunt from hell." ~Dumbledore on horcruxes
Harry: You're right, Dumbledore. You're naked, but you're right.
Dumbledore: And you can put that on the tombstone.
"If it weren't for my friends, I think I would have burned the school down, too." ~Harry commiserating with Voldemort
7/15/11
Casting Your Patronus: The Representation of Mental Processes in Harry Potter Novels - David Martin
Putting memories into the pensieve must be voluntary, but reading the memories doesn't have to be; anyone can read them with or without permission - it's out there, now, it's published.
"Depression is the inability to construct a future." ~Rollo May
memories are state-associated - memories that present themselves at a given moment are related to the current environment
most (all?) patronuses shown are mammals, except Fawkes (and Cho Chang's? How valid is this statement, actually?)
patronuses can change following strong emotional change (possibly only change of significant other? Do we have any other examples?)
Deatheaters do not seem to have patronuses, from what we've seen
terriers (but not Jack Russells specifically, despite what was said by someone in the audience) have been/are used to hunt otters
most effective memories for casting patronuses are related to identity, the single strongest statement you can make about yourself
essence of depression is powerlessness, so way to fight it is by focusing on success, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant
Mark Reads Harry Potter! - Mark Oshiro
"I'm ridiculous and pedantic; that will work out." ~Mark about writing about reading Twilight
"Who has a fax machine?!" ~Mark
"No. That post was not an invitation to send me sock fetish videos." ~Mark
Rubicon - it's good, and it's short. Apparently.
On why Lupin is his favourite: He’s calm, constant, in the middle, as opposed to the extreme personalities of the other characters
Stephen King's Under the Dome is evidently quite good
"First of all, I said the f-word probably more than [J.K. Rowling]'s said in her whole life." ~Mark about his reviews of the Potter books
"I just want to be text buddies with [Rowling] and Tina Fey." ~Mark
"Will you go with me on an eight-week cruise?" ~Mark, on the one question he would ask Rowling if possible
"Can you wiggle for me?" ~Mark, on the one question he would ask Lauren Lopez
"I hope my voice is sultry enough for everyone." ~Mark, about to embark on a live reading of "Mooney, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs”
"Bless Lauren Lopez for being able to pull off a diaper joke for two hours." ~Mark
"Lupin's like, 'We need to have a monologue, because even I don't get this book.'" ~Mark
"Did my file turn into fanfiction?" ~Mark, pointing out the extreme slashiness of certain sentences in the chapter
"I love queering up fiction so badly." ~Mark
Troll Hunter is apparently also worth watching
"Someone take this microphone away from me; I'm never gonna stop." ~Mark
"'I'm clawing your face out.' You have a wand!" ~Mark on the silliness of physical violence in the wizarding world
"It's not on this list; it's not true." ~Mark as Hermione about the Animagus registry
"Does - this is an awful question - does Lupin keep dog stuff in his office?" ~Mark
"Why would I pee on trees? Why was that the one thing I picked? I can do that now." ~Mark about the benefits of chilling out as a werewolf for a couple of days
7/16/11
Luna, Percy, and the Kids
[During a competition between Will Dunn and Helena Barlowe to see who the biggest Potter fan is, Benedict Clarke manages to win]
Will Dunn to Benedict Clarke: You are so nerdy.
Maggie: Sleeper fan.
[Audience member squeals]
Will Dunn: Nice scream. [beat, which begins to fill with squealing] That wasn't a cue to start screaming.
"They didn't have the mudblood scene in the script, which is a bit annoying." ~Benedict Clarke
Audience member: Snape kills Dumbledore!
Benedict Clarke: Dumbledore asked him to!
"Voldemort! He's so badass, and he doesn't even have a nose!" ~I have this attributed to Benedict Clarke, but I kind of think it may have been Arthur Bowen in response to which character other than his own he would like to play. I was trying to scribble something else down when it was said and sort of lost track of the thing.
Meanwhile, Rohan Gotobed wants to be either Lupin or James Bond, and Will Dunn would like to be either Frodo or Bilbo (and would make an excellent Gollum)
"I thought it was a tender, loving moment." ~Will Dunn about the Voldemort/Draco hug
"Do you call him 'Mr. Rickman'? Does he make you call him 'Mr. Rickman'?" ~Melissa Anelli to Benedict Clarke
[at this point in typing up my notes, Daniel Radcliffe appeared on The Daily Show and I took a break. As expected, a couple of things that were said were quote worthy, so I jotted them down in the most convenient file I had open intending to pull them out and put them in a logical place later. I then continued on with my notes. The segue was completely accidental, and I didn’t even realize it had happened that way until just now.]
Jon Stewart: I don't want spoilers...Does Gollum get his ring back?
Daniel Radcliffe: Yes. He is the central character of this film.
"It's kind of hard to get jaded when you're a 14 year old and you show up to work and there's Gary Oldman. It doesn't get much better than that." ~Daniel Radcliffe
"The first thing [Daniel Radcliffe] said to me was, 'Young Gary Oldman!'" ~Rohan Gotobed
"Despite having a scary voice, Alan Rickman is a really nice guy." ~Benedict Clarke
"Dumbledore's having a funeral. WHY?!" ~Benedict Clarke's reaction to skipping to the end of HBP
"Voldemort is a bit of a--" ~Arthur Bowen
"I suppose my boggart would be losing someone I love. Or worms. I don't like worms." ~Helena Barlowe
"My boggart would be a lemon meringue pie....It's too sweet." ~Benedict Clarke
Rohan's boggart would be a sheer drop, assuming it could figure out how to do that somehow.
Audience member: What was your favourite part of the final film?
Chris Rankin: That bit between the Warner Brothers logo and the final credits.
"That sucks a bit, but at least I'm there." ~Chris Rankin about Percy's storyline being entirely dropped in the last half of the series
"My favourite bit - when Filch is in the hallway trying to sweep up." ~Chris Rankin
"This is the most expensive set of extras I've ever seen." ~Mark Williams while filming the Battle of Hogwarts, as related by Evanna Lynch
"[Oliver Wood]'s not burning in the Quiddich pitch, is he?" ~Melissa Anelli
"I was in that nighty, which was...bizarre." ~Chris Rankin reminiscing about Goblet of Fire
"It felt just so Lovegood." ~Evanna Lynch about dancing with her "father" at the wedding
"I think it's a great move. It got me Neville." ~Evanna Lynch about Luna's particular style of dancing
"Whenever I have that feeling of, 'You're not in the right place, you're not meant to be here,' I just think, neither is Luna. It's okay.'" ~Evanna Lynch
"I can't tell Ryan Turner what slash fiction is..." ~Chris Rankin on the trials of moderating a Q&A session with underage panelists
"They can use a Time Turner; it's fine." ~Evanna Lynch about shipping Luna/Dumbledore
"I've always enjoyed that Percy was kind of a pratt." ~Chris Rankin
Melissa Anelli: Now I get to not tell you stuff [about Pottermore].
[beat]
Chris Rankin: How much does Melissa drink?
"I guess I'll just be someone's secretary." ~Chris Rankin about his place in Leaky Country
Chris Rankin: [turning around and realizing there is a giant screen projecting an image of the stage directly behind him] I didn't know we were up there.
Melissa Anelli: I've been watching you on the screen because it's easier.
Chris Rankin: I just thought you were bored.
Me: Percy was my favourite for years.
Chris Rankin: Oh... I'm not sure _why_...
Me: I'm not, either. I was just *that* kid in school.
Chris Rankin: Me, too.
Magpie: (proudly) I was the one who got her to read the books!
Me, hours later, to Magpie: I _should_ have said, “And we survived! People can change!”
Me, hours after that, in my head: Or rather, I should have said, "The real question is why was Magpie my friend back when I was the kid whose favourite character was Percy?"
~*~*~*~*~
*** Uh…coming so soon after those bits about the younger actors, this looks rather like I’m saying I have a crush on one or more of them. This is definitely not the case. I was merely referring to the fact that the majority of my celebrity crushes over the years have been on people my parents’ age or older.
**** Well, okay, I do like “Extraterrestrial,” despite the fact that its subtitle is “Katy Perry Sings Twilight in Space.” At least I can pretend it’s a Xlormp filk.
***** Yeah, I just did that, didn’t I? Sorry.
****** Considering my previous feelings toward the restaurant and my inability to ever let anything go, you know something truly miraculous must have happened. Three words: “green apple lemonade.” Also, “completely bonkers eating schedule”…which I guess makes seven words. Tack on “not peanut butter or bagels,” and the magic is pretty thoroughly described.
******* While searching for what the third thing he was mistaken for was, Yahoo threw this gem up in the text preview of a bit of fanfiction: “Remus Lupin read Buffy's words fondly.” I’m gonna have to read this abomination, aren’t I? It’s just too bad NOT to read, I think.
Beeteedubs, where I finally found my answer? In a comment on Mark Watches ‘A Very Potter Sequel’, which is a review that pretty much exactly sums up my feelings about the musical. I know I’ve only read Mark Reads Twilight (and attended his LeakyCon thing) thus far, but I’m gonna go ahead and call it now: I love you, Mark Oshiro, and I’ll probably wind up reading your Hunger Games reviews this weekend, now that I’ve finished Mockingjay. Also, if anyone can help me figure out what I think about His Dark Materials, it’s probably you.
Additional: My first impression of Starship as a whole is that there were places in the story and dialogue that could have used some work, and I was distracted by the fact that I know the polished-up album versions of the songs by heart already...but the sets and puppets and costumes are all just as creative and impressive as I've come to expect, I laughed and applauded many, many times (several of which clearly went over the heads of most of the apparently much-less-geeky-than-I audience, including one instance where I literally rolled around on the floor for a bit before I was even able to pause the disc - now I have this perverse urge to go through Bill Paxton's entire oeuvre and replace him with Joe Moses. Also the recounting of the Robot War and the full version of the distress tape [Kane!]. My goodness, the amusingness), the songs are still amazing, micing the actors and releasing it on DVD so I could watch it on the big screen with the surround sound turned on was about the best thing that could have happened to the show, Bug was the most precious thing ever, and I'm pretty sure it's my favourite of the three musicals I've seen. I'd also like to point out that I had this idea of how "I Wanna Be" would start, and I got quite close to what they did - I imagined it starting with him facing forward and fully silhouetted against a light background rather than facing back stage in low lighting, and I figured the reveal would be sudden and on the word "not" rather than slower a bit after the line.
* Prisoner of Azkaban and Order of the Phoenix, for those of you who have come late to the party. I also have quite a lot of love for Goblet of Fire, and my appreciation for the first two grew a fair amount in revisiting them earlier this year, if it comes to that.
** This sounds so terribly, terribly cult-ish, and I am just about the last person on earth who finds Kool-Aid refreshing, but, having spent so long with almost exclusively people who don’t get the things I like, devalue the things I want, and abominate the things I believe, I understand the value of an occasional retreat more than I ever thought I could.
Such is the wonder of Disney World and LeakyCon, however, that I had a length of rope and a grapple with me when I hit bottom, and I have taken steps to begin the long climb back out…and hopefully out of the even larger canyon containing this abîme. These tools have been constructed primarily out of the Lessons Learned presented below the cut.
Lessons Learned in Orlando
~ Hufflepuffs are honey badgers. And they were flippin’ everywhere, which was rather unexpectedly delightful. It was quite amusing to see the realization start to dawn about the second day that something probably close to half of the people in attendance were defending Hufflepuff from the anticipated brush-offs that might have happened once or twice before everyone else figured out they were in the minority. And you know, surprisingly enough, when Hufflepuffs figure out they’re the majority party, they don’t take potshots at other houses. Also delightful was seeing just how many Hufflepuffs were traveling in pairs with a Ravenclaw. As much as Magpie and I talked about how we would take to our soapboxes about the problems with sorting or claim to be from Beauxbatons when inevitably asked what house we were in, it was actually rather affirming to walk the halls decked out in blue and yellow and shout our house names at the proper times in StarKid songs and not feel like we had to do it just to balance out the red and green because the red and green didn’t need balancing out. (Which, again, sounds like I was imbibing just a little too much of the powdered kids’ drink, but no one harangued me for not drinking more than I chose to partake, and that’s an important distinction.)
~ Speaking of imbibing, that absolutely was not just cranberry juice those girls in front of us were drinking at the second night of wrock concerts. (Which was the only evening event we managed to stay up for, other than Open at the Close. We are such old fogies.)
~ Standing in lines is a good thing, especially before signings. Things do not go according to plan if I don’t have time to prepare what I would like to say to people I admire. Also, you meet really interesting people standing in LeakyCon lines. Or sitting at breakfast tables.
~ Another mistake I made leading up to this trip was not re-watching the Potter Musicals. That probably would have been even more helpful than listening to the first four books was, since I had literally nothing adequately gushily specific to say to any of the StarKids, aside from Brian Holden. Between the confusion in finding the line, instantaneously being shuttled straight to the signing table because of our Rock Star badges, and my having only seen the musicals once in October, I just thanked them all (except Holden, and possibly Darren Criss, but more on that later). As I rewatched the musicals this week and listen to Starship ad nauseum, I continually kick myself for the dozen or more missed opportunities to more fully express my gratitude. (A hint for the LeakyCon organizers: If you want my money, now would be an extremely good time to announce another con.)
~ Re-watching the musicals also would have prevented me from being _completely frickin’ confused_ by “Guys Like Potter” - I had never seen Joe Moses out of costume, and I couldn’t for the life of me remember if Tyler Brunsman was meant to be Cedric or Lucius at that point, and I was so befuddled I forgot to listen to the words that SHOULD HAVE CLUED ME IN. But we’re cool, now.
~ Joe Moses, Will Dunn, Rohan Gotobed, Benedict Clarke, Neil Cicierega, Jim Povolo, Mark Oshiro, Lauren Lopez, and Jaime Lyn Beatty are all varying degrees of hilarious and adorable.
~ Getting stuck in front of a tightish-black-t-shirt-wearing Joe Walker because the person in front of you is chatting with Jaime Lyn Beatty about fashion is even more uncomfortably awkward when he’s making goofy faces and you haven’t had time to prepare anything to say. So thanks for that Magpie… (Yes, I am almost certainly the only person on earth who would complain about having to watch Joe Walker make faces just for me.)
~ Somehow, despite using what I thought was the last of my self-restraint not to ogle and blurt out “FOREARMS…!” during that encounter, I managed also to keep from saying “TEETH…!” when I got up to Tyler Brunsman, or “EYES…!” when meeting Benedict Clarke. I think I may have gasped a bit when Clarke first looked at me, though, because it was so very unexpected. You can see Walker’s arms and Brunsman’s teeth from space, but Clarke hides his eyes behind shaggy hair (and a black and white headshot) so they are startling when you do see how very, very blue they are.
~ I did have time to prepare things to say to the Deathly Hallows actors when we went to their signing, but it quickly became apparent that there is virtually nothing you can say to 11- to 15-year-olds signing autographs that won’t come across as creepy, condescending, or both. I am imminently grateful to Rohan Gotobed for devising a fun little double-handshake way of preventing awkwardness, but I really couldn’t help thinking of Christian Bale’s “all I wanted to do was ride my BMX bike in the woods” while watching the younger kids diligently signing through hand cramps.
~ Best shirts of the con? Ryan Turner’s “Gingers Rule” shirt (complete with a drawing of a gingerbread man) and Rohan Gotobed’s “I survived Azkaban” shirt (for those of you who missed the joke, Gotobed was Sirius in “The Prince’s Tale”).
~ Scarlett Byrne and Evanna Lynch are really very sweet.
~ I am kind of a lot in love with Chris Rankin and Brian Holden (Yay, age-appropriate celebrity crushes!***) (On people who play characters who are kind of arseholes!) (But who are very witty and personable in real life!) (Magpie is kind of buds with Holden, now, you guys!) (She actually is legit buds with Mark Oshiro, so she’s kind of an internet celebrity once removed.)
~ Red Vines EVERYWHERE.
~ Jaime Lyn Beatty is just basically Jodi Benson all over.
~ Apparently, Darren Criss becomes invisible when he sits next to Brian Holden. I am not even sure I thanked him, I was so focused on the fact that, Brian Holden remembered Magpie from the photobooth. He (Criss) was honestly one of the ones I was least excited to meet, anyway, but the positioning was unfortunate. If I had had my wits about me, I could have at least told him his version of “Teenage Dream” is the only good thing to come of Katy Perry’s singing career****. Of course, now I want to babble incessantly at him about how brilliant I think the songs from Starship are… He might have said “defeat thee/eat me” was the rhyme he was proudest of, but I'm pretty sure “larval/marvel” is the best one written in the last four centuries. This will at least teach me to do my homework next time.
~ I couldn’t help but feel this time through AVPM that Darren Criss’ Harry is kind of Andy Dwyer.
~ Brian Holden is a tricky guy; Lupin CAN sing. (Also this image Yahoo found for me.)
~ “Hermione Can’t Draw” will never not make me smile, now. I just have such respect for how silly he is willing to look, and it’s a testament to how mooney-eyed***** I’ve become that he’s the one I was watching during most of “Stutter”.
~ “Mooney, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs” does not get any better with repeat readings, it just doesn’t. Read it once, revel in how awesome it is that time, and never again think about what actually happens. (Notice how they do that bit in AVPS.) (What I mean by that last parentethetical is that they don’t do it. Sirius just tells the kids straight away, and then they all figure out the Pettigrew thing together.)
~ LeakyCon volunteers have the worst jobs ever. I really hope Magpie and I weren’t the only ones who realized that.
~ If emcees didn’t insist that audiences repeat themselves every damn time they did call and response type stuff, audiences wouldn’t be so jaded about participation. We know the first “Good morning,” or whatever, isn’t going to be deemed loud enough no matter how loud it is, so there’s no point in even trying to feign enthusiasm. The less effort you put in the first time, the lower the expectations are for the inevitable second. This doesn’t, unfortunately, take its toll on the rock bands and wrestling announcers who popularized the “I can’t hear you, Springfield!” approach, it’s the poor schmucks repeating the same cheesy Jungle Cruise lines or barbequing Jaws all damn day long who pay the price.
~ I survived ten days in Orlando being outside nearly all day for most of them with only one very minor sun-not-quite-burn on my forehead. I went for a walk the Sunday after I got home, spent a total of two hours in the sun, and am now bright bloody pink everywhere. Orlando is clearly a magical wonderland where even the sun is friendly.
~ IHOP is also a magical wonderland****** that caters to all your 1-AM-dinner-because-your-dumbass-roommate-managed-to-get-everyone-locked-out AND 9-AM-breakfast-because-no-one-wants-to-be-in-the-room-with-your-dumbass-roommate-any-longer needs, and does so with fresh fruit, turkey bacon, and green apple lemonade. Or with chocolate chip pancakes, if you’re Irish and flippin’ adorable.
~ Any further trips like this will have an international-roommates-only stipulation.
~ Two butterbeers is way too much. I know they’re tasty, but just stop. Really. It’s a long way from the Three Broomsticks to your hotel room.
~ A butterbeer and a cauldron cake will give you instantaneous diabetes. I’m not telling you not to enjoy them, just know what you’re getting yourself into. Also to that end, the Wizarding World’s treacle fudge has raisins. Congratulations, Universal, you’ve just made me wish Hagrid had been the cook.
(This is not fair - all of the other food we had there was very good. Just…who wants raisins in their fudge?)
~ Even the Bertie Bott’s beans that aren’t meant to be horrifying flavours are still pretty disgusting. Well, I give up on these.
~ I never want to eat another peanut again. Or another bagel, for that matter.
~ On the subject of food that didn’t suck, Mytho’s at Islands of Adventure and Mama Melrose’s at Hollywood Studios are both excellent.
~ Revenge of the Mummy is basically the only reason to go to Universal Studios, but it is a pretty compelling reason.
~ Universal Studios is definitely not the Nickelodeon playground I envisioned when I was seven. Don’t be fooled by the giant Ang and Momo - everything in the Nickelodeon store has Spongebob, Dora, or Jimmy Neutron on.
~ DO NOT forget to take your con notes out of your bag before riding Dudley Do-Right’s Ripshaw Falls and/or the Jurassic Park River Adventure in Islands of Adventure. They will be soggy.
~ Take the ferry over to Magic Kingdom, not the monorail. Never the monorail.
~ SO MANY BRAZILLIANS.
~ Good freaking luck finding Snow White merch in Magic Kingdom (Hint: it’s all in the Snow White’s Scary Adventures gift shop. There is none in the Castle Couture shop. None at all.)
~ It’s a Small World is absolutely unbelievable. Do not visit Magic Kingdom without riding it. There is no way to capture in words or pictures just how very wrong it is; it truly must be experienced. Every single person working the ride is a cheerful senior citizen, and that’s the thing about it that is the least disconcerting.
~ They’ve already added Blackbeard to Pirates of the Caribbean (Davy Jones is nowhere to be seen, however…), and Barbossa will probably never not make me giggle.
~ Hollywood Studios has Barbossa’s CotBP costume on display. I apparently could have stood there all day just staring, and probably would have eventually pulled my flashlight out of my backpack so I could actually _see_ it in the atmospheric gloom. Alas, Mags quite unreasonably wanted to DO things while we were at the park, so I had to walk away eventually.
~ It looks like there is a crazy amount of stuff going on in the Winnie the Pooh movie that just got totally buried at the box office, and it looks _adorable_. What the hell was Disney thinking with that release?
~ Ike/Tour Guide Barbie is the best tram announcer in Orlando.
~ There is an import tax of approximately $699.30 added to your purchase if you bring a German beer into an Italian wine/chocolate shop.
~ Moroccan food is awesome. As is Japanese. And Canadians are awesome. And lightning rods. Lightning rods are totally the coolest things ever.
~ The fans sold at the China shop in Epcot are made in Taiwan. The fans sold in the Japanese shop are made in China. The cashier offered to personalize them in Japanese, though, so that’s kind of authentic-ish.
~ Bruce the Canadian dude wants you to know that, if at any point in the Canada showcase it feels like the room is moving, it’s just the visual effects of the movie. It’s totally cool; don’t worry.
~ Turtle Talk with Crush, Muppet Vision 3D, and the Monsters Inc. Laugh Factory are made of love…even if the latter was accompanied by intense physical pain and a small amount of terror when one of the guys working the line decided my Darkwing Duck shirt warranted a spontaneous Disney Afternoon sing-along and an extended conversation of said shows even after Mags and I walked away from him multiple times and I, distracted, took a metal gate to the upper thigh (but, hey, two days later, my leg was the same colour as Mike Wazowski and Sulley at the same time - free souvenir to remind me of my trip!). The guy working the Jungle Cruise was much less creepy with his DWD shout-out.
~ Sacagawea was a Hufflepuff, and Mark Twain and Benjamin Franklin were the trickster gods of American history.
~ All modern theme park rides and 3D shows are required by law to have a bit where an animal sneezes or spits on the riders/audience.
~ If you see anything coming at you in 3D in the pre-show holding room at the Shrek 4D thing in Universal Studios, it’s because the guy going over the rules and backstory threw it at you.
~ Pins sold by Whimsic Alley are very disobedient. Awesome, but disobedient.
~ Fleur and Lupin have the neatest wands. It’s a good thing I had already found Hermione’s at a thrift shop… (You guys can’t let me ever go back to Universal, or I’ll wind up buying Lupin’s, I just know it.) (I think I may be a Lupin fan or something…)
~ Frickin’ Alan Rickman (and Benedict Clarke) (and Joe Moses, now that I’ve rewatched AVPS). STOP PULVERIZING MY HEART. SNAPEISACREEPIDON’TWANTTOFEELFORHIMOHGAHDIT’SSOSAD.
~ For all that, Dobby and Ollivander were still the bits that got me most in Part 2, and I’m super glad they didn’t go all-out emaciated and tortured with John Hurt. I realized the second the headstone was shown at the beginning that I should have found a way to stuff the Dogtor into the bag I carried to the park and the theater that day.
~ Aberforth was Wentworth! Man, Persuasion was forever ago…
~ Everyone at LeakyCon adores Neville. And rightly so. Again, these people were _so much cooler_ than I expected.
~ The Snape, Draco, and Lucius cosplayers had the personalities down pat. Like, they sneered at you as they passed you in the hallways, and being stuck in an elevator with them was intensely uncomfortable. It was awesome.
~ But not as awesome as the silver doe.
~ Just don’t try to make plans with anyone else when you’re on vacation in Orlando. It’s not worth the effort.
~ Ben Wyatt is my favourite character in anything ever. (There is apparently only one video on all of YouTube of Ben doing anything but being shipped and set to sappy songs, so here is instead a promo for the show that features actor Adam Scott being adorable with his co-stars.)
~ Getting the “I live at home and have disposable income out my ears” passes is always a good deal (the Fantasmic! dining package at Hollywood Studios, Express Passes at Universal, the Rock Star badge at LeakyCon), but I still hate the damn toll roads.
~ Kids these days think watching the Eccleston Era is going way back in Doctor Who, and I’ve become one of the old grans of fandom. I’ve got a pretty raging case of “Get off my lawn”-itis right now, and am therefore waiting a bit to watch my new S6/32 DVDs.
~ With apologies to bizarreoptimism , on my drive back after the Con, I got to a point where I went, “Screw it, I need StarKid,” and thus began my unending looping of the soundtracks.
~ Putting the 1776 and Starship soundtracks on the same disc may have been done for convenience’s sake, but it makes quite an amusing pairing. I’m not sure if there’s any earth-shattering commentary to be read into it, but it makes me happy on a number of levels. So, again, thanks to Magpie for that.
Thanks to Magpie for all of that, really. Because it’s totally her fault that I now have these:
(Annotated immediately after returning to the room, because there was no way we were going to figure out later which signature belonged to whom.)
(Now, it would be completely understandable if you had come away from my above rambling about Brian Holden with the impression that he is my favourite StarKid, but that doesn't happen to be the case. My favourite StarKid is whoever drew the angry eyebrows on the tree, which I did not notice until after we got back to the room that evening...which is to say, I do not know the identity of my favourite StarKid. I kind of suspect either Holden, Walker, or Joe Moses, since their signatures are in close proximity to the tree and I seem to recall all three of them looking down at it rather longer than the others, but all I can say conclusively is that it was not Jim Povolo, Julia Albain, or Nick Lang, what with their non-black pens, or Tyler Brunsman, because I was totally hypnotized by those teeth the entire time, and he wasn't looking down long at all.)
It is, however, entirely the fault of my seven-year-old camera that decided to crap out the first time I tried to take a picture that I didn’t get a single photo of anything (not that I would have used it much, anyway) and that I can’t now get a picture of the awesome loot I picked up, or what happens to a “Milk chocolate shaped frog” when it gets left in a car trunk in Orlando in July (my first thought upon opening the box was, “Remus Lupin Eats Shit; Gryffindor Wins!” I did mention my fondness for certain awkwardly proportioned, mustachioed vampire-gremlin-robots*******, right?) But what I lack in pictures can be more than made up for in notes! I’m good at taking notes! Have some notes! (Note: Notes contain spoilers. Although, really, what the hell are you doing reading notes from a Harry Potter con if you need spoiler warnings?)
~*~*~*~*~
7/14/11
The Harry Potter Experience in South Africa - Tara Weinberg
Antjie Krog - South African poet who wrote "Country of My Skull," about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Potter Puppet Pals
"Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived. For a little while." ~Neil
"I see all of my friends: Ron, Hermione, all of them." ~Harry
"Hagrid could have taken him to jail, and it would have been heartwarming." ~Neil about Harry’s rescue from Privet Drive
"I personally believe [Harry's angst] is why every single friend he makes at Hogwarts is someone he met in the first ten minutes on the train." ~Neil
"More like Harrywarts School of Roncraft and Hermionry." ~Neil
"I want to kill the Dark Lord Napoleon." ~Harry
"Snape sucks, and as soon as he doesn't suck, he dies........Spoiler." ~Neil, while discussing the paternal figures in Harry's life
"Who else has stuck around as long as Voldemort? Who has fought as hard for custody as Voldemort?" ~Neil while discussing the paternal figures in Harry's life
"Being fatherly toward Harry is like standing in front of a train." ~Neil
"Voldemort has set up the Easter Egg hunt from hell." ~Dumbledore on horcruxes
Harry: You're right, Dumbledore. You're naked, but you're right.
Dumbledore: And you can put that on the tombstone.
"If it weren't for my friends, I think I would have burned the school down, too." ~Harry commiserating with Voldemort
7/15/11
Casting Your Patronus: The Representation of Mental Processes in Harry Potter Novels - David Martin
Putting memories into the pensieve must be voluntary, but reading the memories doesn't have to be; anyone can read them with or without permission - it's out there, now, it's published.
"Depression is the inability to construct a future." ~Rollo May
memories are state-associated - memories that present themselves at a given moment are related to the current environment
most (all?) patronuses shown are mammals, except Fawkes (and Cho Chang's? How valid is this statement, actually?)
patronuses can change following strong emotional change (possibly only change of significant other? Do we have any other examples?)
Deatheaters do not seem to have patronuses, from what we've seen
terriers (but not Jack Russells specifically, despite what was said by someone in the audience) have been/are used to hunt otters
most effective memories for casting patronuses are related to identity, the single strongest statement you can make about yourself
essence of depression is powerlessness, so way to fight it is by focusing on success, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant
Mark Reads Harry Potter! - Mark Oshiro
"I'm ridiculous and pedantic; that will work out." ~Mark about writing about reading Twilight
"Who has a fax machine?!" ~Mark
"No. That post was not an invitation to send me sock fetish videos." ~Mark
Rubicon - it's good, and it's short. Apparently.
On why Lupin is his favourite: He’s calm, constant, in the middle, as opposed to the extreme personalities of the other characters
Stephen King's Under the Dome is evidently quite good
"First of all, I said the f-word probably more than [J.K. Rowling]'s said in her whole life." ~Mark about his reviews of the Potter books
"I just want to be text buddies with [Rowling] and Tina Fey." ~Mark
"Will you go with me on an eight-week cruise?" ~Mark, on the one question he would ask Rowling if possible
"Can you wiggle for me?" ~Mark, on the one question he would ask Lauren Lopez
"I hope my voice is sultry enough for everyone." ~Mark, about to embark on a live reading of "Mooney, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs”
"Bless Lauren Lopez for being able to pull off a diaper joke for two hours." ~Mark
"Lupin's like, 'We need to have a monologue, because even I don't get this book.'" ~Mark
"Did my file turn into fanfiction?" ~Mark, pointing out the extreme slashiness of certain sentences in the chapter
"I love queering up fiction so badly." ~Mark
Troll Hunter is apparently also worth watching
"Someone take this microphone away from me; I'm never gonna stop." ~Mark
"'I'm clawing your face out.' You have a wand!" ~Mark on the silliness of physical violence in the wizarding world
"It's not on this list; it's not true." ~Mark as Hermione about the Animagus registry
"Does - this is an awful question - does Lupin keep dog stuff in his office?" ~Mark
"Why would I pee on trees? Why was that the one thing I picked? I can do that now." ~Mark about the benefits of chilling out as a werewolf for a couple of days
7/16/11
Luna, Percy, and the Kids
[During a competition between Will Dunn and Helena Barlowe to see who the biggest Potter fan is, Benedict Clarke manages to win]
Will Dunn to Benedict Clarke: You are so nerdy.
Maggie: Sleeper fan.
[Audience member squeals]
Will Dunn: Nice scream. [beat, which begins to fill with squealing] That wasn't a cue to start screaming.
"They didn't have the mudblood scene in the script, which is a bit annoying." ~Benedict Clarke
Audience member: Snape kills Dumbledore!
Benedict Clarke: Dumbledore asked him to!
"Voldemort! He's so badass, and he doesn't even have a nose!" ~I have this attributed to Benedict Clarke, but I kind of think it may have been Arthur Bowen in response to which character other than his own he would like to play. I was trying to scribble something else down when it was said and sort of lost track of the thing.
Meanwhile, Rohan Gotobed wants to be either Lupin or James Bond, and Will Dunn would like to be either Frodo or Bilbo (and would make an excellent Gollum)
"I thought it was a tender, loving moment." ~Will Dunn about the Voldemort/Draco hug
"Do you call him 'Mr. Rickman'? Does he make you call him 'Mr. Rickman'?" ~Melissa Anelli to Benedict Clarke
[at this point in typing up my notes, Daniel Radcliffe appeared on The Daily Show and I took a break. As expected, a couple of things that were said were quote worthy, so I jotted them down in the most convenient file I had open intending to pull them out and put them in a logical place later. I then continued on with my notes. The segue was completely accidental, and I didn’t even realize it had happened that way until just now.]
Jon Stewart: I don't want spoilers...Does Gollum get his ring back?
Daniel Radcliffe: Yes. He is the central character of this film.
"It's kind of hard to get jaded when you're a 14 year old and you show up to work and there's Gary Oldman. It doesn't get much better than that." ~Daniel Radcliffe
"The first thing [Daniel Radcliffe] said to me was, 'Young Gary Oldman!'" ~Rohan Gotobed
"Despite having a scary voice, Alan Rickman is a really nice guy." ~Benedict Clarke
"Dumbledore's having a funeral. WHY?!" ~Benedict Clarke's reaction to skipping to the end of HBP
"Voldemort is a bit of a--" ~Arthur Bowen
"I suppose my boggart would be losing someone I love. Or worms. I don't like worms." ~Helena Barlowe
"My boggart would be a lemon meringue pie....It's too sweet." ~Benedict Clarke
Rohan's boggart would be a sheer drop, assuming it could figure out how to do that somehow.
Audience member: What was your favourite part of the final film?
Chris Rankin: That bit between the Warner Brothers logo and the final credits.
"That sucks a bit, but at least I'm there." ~Chris Rankin about Percy's storyline being entirely dropped in the last half of the series
"My favourite bit - when Filch is in the hallway trying to sweep up." ~Chris Rankin
"This is the most expensive set of extras I've ever seen." ~Mark Williams while filming the Battle of Hogwarts, as related by Evanna Lynch
"[Oliver Wood]'s not burning in the Quiddich pitch, is he?" ~Melissa Anelli
"I was in that nighty, which was...bizarre." ~Chris Rankin reminiscing about Goblet of Fire
"It felt just so Lovegood." ~Evanna Lynch about dancing with her "father" at the wedding
"I think it's a great move. It got me Neville." ~Evanna Lynch about Luna's particular style of dancing
"Whenever I have that feeling of, 'You're not in the right place, you're not meant to be here,' I just think, neither is Luna. It's okay.'" ~Evanna Lynch
"I can't tell Ryan Turner what slash fiction is..." ~Chris Rankin on the trials of moderating a Q&A session with underage panelists
"They can use a Time Turner; it's fine." ~Evanna Lynch about shipping Luna/Dumbledore
"I've always enjoyed that Percy was kind of a pratt." ~Chris Rankin
Melissa Anelli: Now I get to not tell you stuff [about Pottermore].
[beat]
Chris Rankin: How much does Melissa drink?
"I guess I'll just be someone's secretary." ~Chris Rankin about his place in Leaky Country
Chris Rankin: [turning around and realizing there is a giant screen projecting an image of the stage directly behind him] I didn't know we were up there.
Melissa Anelli: I've been watching you on the screen because it's easier.
Chris Rankin: I just thought you were bored.
Me: Percy was my favourite for years.
Chris Rankin: Oh... I'm not sure _why_...
Me: I'm not, either. I was just *that* kid in school.
Chris Rankin: Me, too.
Magpie: (proudly) I was the one who got her to read the books!
Me, hours later, to Magpie: I _should_ have said, “And we survived! People can change!”
Me, hours after that, in my head: Or rather, I should have said, "The real question is why was Magpie my friend back when I was the kid whose favourite character was Percy?"
~*~*~*~*~
*** Uh…coming so soon after those bits about the younger actors, this looks rather like I’m saying I have a crush on one or more of them. This is definitely not the case. I was merely referring to the fact that the majority of my celebrity crushes over the years have been on people my parents’ age or older.
**** Well, okay, I do like “Extraterrestrial,” despite the fact that its subtitle is “Katy Perry Sings Twilight in Space.” At least I can pretend it’s a Xlormp filk.
***** Yeah, I just did that, didn’t I? Sorry.
****** Considering my previous feelings toward the restaurant and my inability to ever let anything go, you know something truly miraculous must have happened. Three words: “green apple lemonade.” Also, “completely bonkers eating schedule”…which I guess makes seven words. Tack on “not peanut butter or bagels,” and the magic is pretty thoroughly described.
******* While searching for what the third thing he was mistaken for was, Yahoo threw this gem up in the text preview of a bit of fanfiction: “Remus Lupin read Buffy's words fondly.” I’m gonna have to read this abomination, aren’t I? It’s just too bad NOT to read, I think.
Beeteedubs, where I finally found my answer? In a comment on Mark Watches ‘A Very Potter Sequel’, which is a review that pretty much exactly sums up my feelings about the musical. I know I’ve only read Mark Reads Twilight (and attended his LeakyCon thing) thus far, but I’m gonna go ahead and call it now: I love you, Mark Oshiro, and I’ll probably wind up reading your Hunger Games reviews this weekend, now that I’ve finished Mockingjay. Also, if anyone can help me figure out what I think about His Dark Materials, it’s probably you.
Additional: My first impression of Starship as a whole is that there were places in the story and dialogue that could have used some work, and I was distracted by the fact that I know the polished-up album versions of the songs by heart already...but the sets and puppets and costumes are all just as creative and impressive as I've come to expect, I laughed and applauded many, many times (several of which clearly went over the heads of most of the apparently much-less-geeky-than-I audience, including one instance where I literally rolled around on the floor for a bit before I was even able to pause the disc - now I have this perverse urge to go through Bill Paxton's entire oeuvre and replace him with Joe Moses. Also the recounting of the Robot War and the full version of the distress tape [Kane!]. My goodness, the amusingness), the songs are still amazing, micing the actors and releasing it on DVD so I could watch it on the big screen with the surround sound turned on was about the best thing that could have happened to the show, Bug was the most precious thing ever, and I'm pretty sure it's my favourite of the three musicals I've seen. I'd also like to point out that I had this idea of how "I Wanna Be" would start, and I got quite close to what they did - I imagined it starting with him facing forward and fully silhouetted against a light background rather than facing back stage in low lighting, and I figured the reveal would be sudden and on the word "not" rather than slower a bit after the line.
* Prisoner of Azkaban and Order of the Phoenix, for those of you who have come late to the party. I also have quite a lot of love for Goblet of Fire, and my appreciation for the first two grew a fair amount in revisiting them earlier this year, if it comes to that.
** This sounds so terribly, terribly cult-ish, and I am just about the last person on earth who finds Kool-Aid refreshing, but, having spent so long with almost exclusively people who don’t get the things I like, devalue the things I want, and abominate the things I believe, I understand the value of an occasional retreat more than I ever thought I could.