clo_again

I've just noticed that scoobydumblonde has gifted me a pair of dragons and my face went :D , which is pretty amazing for a Sunday night. <3 Thank you! :D

Secondly, I am not dead. I've been meaning to make an LJ post for- er, yes, not actually going to count the days because that's depressing but some time!

In that time I have: bought a blu-ray player; played an awful lot (around 45 hours so far apparently) of Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, most of it spent flapping around Skyloft on my giant red bird BECAUSE I CAN; got a new job (but in the same hospital); left my old job (by walking across the road to a different building); spent far too much money; decided not to do Wimbledon this year as I can't afford it after spending all my money; bought a piano-sized keyboard; failed to play anything recognisable on piano-sized keyboard; watched a lot of Suits; read of a lot of fic (mostly Suits); saw a spectacular production of Henry V with jesse_kips; read at least two fairly average books; watched the entire first season of Sabrina the Teenage Witch for the first time in years; thought a lot about how I should make an LJ post with all my Suits fic recs; started making this post, which will include at least one Suits rec.

That pretty much sums it up.

~

The Henry V production we went to was by the fabulous Propeller who I've seen do The Taming of the Shrew and Twelfth Night, and who have pretty much ruined Shakespeare done by anyone else for me forever. You can see a nifty trailer for their Henry V here and for The Winter's Tale production they're touring with it here. Their Winter's Tale even comes recommended by Stephen Fry! They're in New Zealand right now but they're touring the UK until August; I'm going to see Winter's Tale in London in July and honestly, if you even remotely like Shakespeare or theatre, go. Propeller are so amazing. I still mourn that they don't do DVDs so I'll never see their beautiful Twelfth Night again (see post title: the way Simon Scardifield delivered it was heartbreaking. Him not being in Henry this time was the only thing wrong with it.)

Did have the weird realisation halfway through Henry V that Dugald Bruce-Lockhart who plays Henry has been in all three of the Propeller productions I've seen (Petruccio in Shrew, Olivia in Twelfth), making him the only stage actor I've seen on three separate occasions.

When I confessed this, jesse_kips accused me of stalking. Then I also confessed that I'd slashed him with Simon Scardifield after watching Shrew (they kissed on stage, the entire play is basically them having epic emotional battles since they were Petruccio and Katherine respectively, what was I supposed to do?)

And then I remembered I even had a LJ icon of Dugald (see: this post's icon) and gave up on anyone hope of arguing that I wasn't a stalker. In my defence it's been mostly incidental; he is in a rather fabulous Shakespeare company.

I'm in the front row when I go to see Winter's Tale. Er. Maybe I'll keep my head down.

~

I started this an hour ago as an escape from tidying my wardrobe a brief update and there's still boxes all over my bed (woe), so wrapping it up with an incredible Suits/Avengers fic rec:

Sidekick by Closer, (who wrote the amazing Mike/Harvey Pizza verse.

Sidekick was written on the kinkmeme for the prompt 'Harvey Specter wasn't the rich renegade badass that plucked Mike from his potential life of crime. Tony Stark was.' It's well-thought out and hilarious and Mike's grandmother forces Tony to eat regular dinner and all the other Avengers show up (Mike teaches Thor yo mamma< jokes omg) and it's all so ridiculously in-character that it's almost unbelievable. Oh and if nothing else, SPIDER-MAN HAS A CAMEO. All of Closer's Suits fic is brilliant but I wouldn't be too sad to see her take time off to write more for Iron Man/The Avengers too because her Tony is amazing.

My one weird thing with it was that's Tony/Mike- and done awesomely - so even though Harvey shows up (as Tony's lawyer) it's obvs not going to have the same Mike/Harvey relationship. I felt a little sorry for Harvey missing out - Mike works for Iron Man; he's not missing out on anything - BUT I have just noticed that she's added a bunch of codas and there was the promise of a Harvey/Mike/Tony threesome so I'm just going to check that out.

Tidying? Pfft. Go read fic!

I was filled with glee last night when I discovered that rageprufrock was writing Merlin fic, because Merlin fic that I know will be good before I even start it is like gold. So, have some recs:

Starting with the delightful WiP AU that is Drastically Redefining Protocol (that's part one; part two is here. It's cracking me up with the whole MODERN BRITISH ROYALTY angle which is so oddly, hilariously, insanely well-done and Merlin-the-exhausted-med-student may be my new favourite thing with the moments of heartbreak interspersed with his fangirlish love of the crown prince and oh, I am obsessively checking for part three even though part two was only posted this morning. So much love.

And if WiPs put you off (they usually do me but rageprufrock and Merlin, there was just no way to resist it) try August. Sweet like thick honey, a softer, lazier look at Merlin and Arthur than the show has time to give us, with a wonderful Arthur-voice and jokes about what Merlin's mother will do when she finds out her son was despoiled in tree. This is going to be one of my happy fics that I reread to cheer myself up on bad days. It really is.



Since this appears to be a post of recs, Now For Something Entirely Different when I recommend the sheer insane genius that is athousandwinds' fic of... well, a snippet of fic arising from Ben Jonson and Shakespeare solve crimes; Marlowe haunts them and gives snarky commentary! which is staggeringly hilarious when put into fic. It made my hellish day yesterday so much better. Go read and marvel (and beg her to write more).

~

In less exciting News of Real Lifeness, it is the work's Christmas party tomorrow. I am expecting- well, I don't really know what I'm expecting except that I'm looking at it with more trepidation than anticipation. And then there's our Leaving For the Lake District party on Saturday. I expect I'll be quite relieved come Sunday when I can sit in my PJs and watch Top Gear safe in the knowledge that it's all over.

I do love my dress for the party tomorrow though. As much as it makes breathing a little bit more of an issue than it should really be, it is a fantastic dress. So that's a plus.

Holy crap. I've *seen* Twelfth Night. I even paid attention all the way through. So how, just exactly *how* did I manage to miss the fact that, when read, the language is insanely complicated?

I miss Othello. It didn' take anything to understand. Iago, git. Desdemona, sweet and innocent. Twelfth Night, *so* not that simple. Woe is me.

edit I do love Aguecheek's line "I was adored once too" though. In the Propeller production Simon (icon, though that's him as Puck) said it with this forlorn wistfulness and if there'd been nothing else, I would've loved the character for that. You could hear the sigh of "aaawww" all around the theatre.

K just suggested going to Crows on Friday, to celebrate (or mourn, if I don't finish Othello tonight) the end of uni. What with that and Hot Fuzz showing sat & sun on campus (I may go both nights. Um. Ssssshh. Not crazy) looks like my final weekend of official studenthood should be filled with awesome.

If I manage Shakespeare. Still on act 3 of Othello. Yeah. Computer's going off again.

(Crows & Hot Fuzz! Eeeeeee!)

I'm not even through the first act of Antony and Cleopatra yet. Jesus. I love this period of history and I love these crazy, megalomaniac, sex-obssessed, awesome people, only Shakespeare is making them into the most boring people ever to exist. Really. Antony's a git and Cleo's like all the most annoying BNFs and idiots in fandom and fic rolled into one. Any line now, someone's going to buy her a laptop. It's driving me nuts.

No love Shakespeare. No love at all.

To soothe my misery, someone rec me good Daniel/Vala Stargate fic? Please? I have a craving brought on by this stunning piece of NC-17 hotness.

It's reminded me I should be reading outside the box again. Which probably includes Shakespeare too and dammit, I really have to read this play. Hasn't anyone got a fun fic AU of it I can read instead? There's got to be one out there.

If not, hm. Gap in the market.

... Bored. Was meant to be onto the brainstorming part of essay planning now but I haven't even come close to finishing the reading. Thinking I'll read the section onShrew in my current oh-so-fascinating book and then one, maybe two or three (if they're short) sections from another on Midsummer because really, I am so not qualified to write this essay right now. Got a kind of general idea and maybe a couple of sentences here and there but I don't have enough critics or their opinions or my own opinions, really. I know I wrote a Middlemarch essya with less planning and survived but, as mind-numbingly awful as it was, Middlemarch is still one novel and essays on novels are easy. Shakespeare... not so much.

Also, for the record, I hate New Historicism, Feminism, psychoanalysis, Marxism, all the isms and theories. Really. They're hugely, horribly irritating to work with and around when you haven't left yourself enough time to really read up on them enough to understand how they relate to Shakespeare.

Yes, this is mainly my rant on "why I am stupid for not starting proper research sooner". Expect many over the next... *counts* thirty six hours or so. God, less than two days.

It helped that when I went to read in the library yesterday, some past student who'd sat in the little wooden booth where I was had Biroed "I'M GOING TO FAIL. HELP." on one side of it. I know how you feel mysterious stranger, I really do.

Someone had also written "BORED? PLAY BOREDOM TENNIS" and underneath had written "RIGHT --->" and a short space to the left, "<---- LEFT", the aim clearly being to let your eyes flick back and too, like watching tennis.

I didn't realise until a minute later that I was actually doing it. It's surprisingly addictive.

Ngh. Essays. And I have a 9:30am seminar in the morning too. >_<

edit: I like A, really I do but she likes to come and talk to me for ages all the time. Which, when I was just getting into a good mindset for reading only to spend an hour chatting about inconsequential things instead is.... so very frustrating. >_< Argh. It may be time to ressurect the Do Not Disturb post-it.

It's very, very grey today, unusually so even for Lancaster. It never quite brightened up fully and now it's edging toward twilight again. Totally bizarre.

Finished Shrew. Contemplating trip to library to check for more resource books since I only have three and a half, plus Sandman #3. Mmm. Can I really be arsed walking?

Then again, can I really be arsed to deal with the consequences of failing this essay? *sighs* Looks like I'm going to have to walk.

edit: Library site is refusing to load which is not, in any way, encouraging. Think I'll write it off until tomorrow.

edit: Library site loaded and found a couple of books that aren't on loan -- my bastardly fellow English students, taking them all over Christmas. Ggggrrr -- that look useful but still puting off until tomorrow. Because. Well. Grey.

You know, I put the Um Bongo song into my shuffled playlist to make myself laugh every time it comes on unexpectedly. About a hundred times of unexpectedness later, I'm still laughing.

And kind of craving Um Bongo. Now that's marketing.

Two-thirds of the way through Midsummer Night's... and am slowly falling asleep. It's not that I don't like it; I love the batshit crazy of this play and that the fairies lover's tiff caused ancient!global warming (it so did) and even the disturbing image of Ally McBeal Helena wanting to be a spaniel but... god, the speeches go on forever.

Need tea to get through this. Lots and lots of tea.

And the 'rents just calling me now made me realise something; when you bring up your current obsession with even them (disregarding that it was dad who got me into Hustle and I thought I'd pass on the lack-of-Mickey woe), you probably need a reality check. So. I am well aware I've been a little like -- ...a lot like -- a kid in a candy store with Hustle this last week and if I made you want to give me a good kick up the arse for being obsessively fickle, apologies.

That said, I love how this icon turned out. Lovelovelove it.

Acts of Shakespeare plays read today so far: 0. Watch this space.

... claireweasley who said "Post some Shakespeare! Whee!"


Sonnets CXXX

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound.
I grant I never saw a goddess go:
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.


And, because it's so pretty;

"... To die, to sleep-
To sleep - perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub.
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come..."

-- Hamlet


In the words of claireweasley, if you want to do the meme? Post some Shakespeare. :)