#clavisa

(replies from @clavisa​)

YESSS MY TIME HAS COME.

So Neverafter is the current season of College Humor’s actual play D&D show, Dimension 20. It’s a fairytale horror season, so the characters are figures from fairytales, but something has gone wrong. Little Red Riding Hood is now a werewolf, Sleeping Beauty’s prince never showed up, the Frog Prince is turning back into a frog, stuff like that. This season is super intense. I don’t know how much you’ve been spoiled on it, but yeah, they’re exploring some pretty dark themes, and character deaths are very much on the table.

I like it because it’s playing with fairytale tropes and narrative structure in a super interesting way. In the most recent episode especially, things are getting super meta. I don’t want to spoil too much, but my nerd brain is THRIVING. Also I’ve fallen in love with all of these actors over several seasons and they all create amazing characters and character arcs and relationships every time.

“Pavlova experiment Today I made a pavlova! I had never made one...”

It looks delicious and now I want to try making some!

It was delicious! However, I do not recommend trying it unless you have 

a stand mixer, or 

high stamina for holding an electric hand mixer, or

even more stamina for hand-whisking. 

You clearly need to commission a seamstress to make you a tunic like that! I think it would be pretty straightforward to sew!

clavisa replied to your post “Ineptitude in the Kitchen, Wife Edition: part 2”

That's a LOT of salt haha. Maybe with some fruit or something? I had a salted whipped cream once with a rich spice cake and it was oddly good.

Oh, that sounds interesting. I had the over-salted cornbread with some wild plum jelly today and it wasn’t bad. 

This blog is probably the most up-to-date source on things I’m into. But since no one has time to scroll through the whole thing, I’ll do my best to summarize.

I enjoy nature, and learning about new things. I enjoy period drama and science fiction. I enjoy long walks that (lately) involve playing Pokemon Go. I enjoy sailing, including (sometimes) competitive sailing, though that’s something I do less these days than previously. I like working with others to make the communities we share the kinds of places people want to live in.

I got into watching Poe Party through @clavisa. I’d come to know her through the Lizzie Bennet Diaries, a webseries we were both fans of. One evening (specifically, the evening of October 24, 2013, it turns out), she posted the following:

You guys, there are only nine (9) posts in the entire A Tell Tale Vlog tag, and three of them are by me.

I need people to fangirl with. 

Please watch it here (the eps are less than 2 minutes each) and then come geek out with me over the literary references and juxtaposition of historical/formal and modern/vernacular speech and also genderific can you tell me what time period her dress belongs to?

So because clavisa very much knows What Is What, I checked it out. I’ve never regretted it.

Note for Tumblr historians/archaeologists: It looks like clavisa’s earliest post tagged A Tell Tale Vlog was made 20 minutes earlier that same evening. In that post she embedded this video:

…and wrote:

So I just discovered A Tell Tale Vlog because it was recommended in the same Hypable article that recommended AoJE and I’ve only watched one episode so far but I think it’s is going to be hilarious. (Please go check it out so I have people to meta with? thanks)

That’s a bingo, right? Congratulations!

clavisa replied to your post “Hamlet roulette, 7”

The next best thing to me being able to see this many performances is me being able to read your reviews of this many performances.

In the unlikely event that you manage to visit again in July, August, December, or January, you could see it again!

clavisa replied to your post “Hamlet Roulette Bingo”

Ah this bingo card is super cool! Here's a question: do the actors always stand in the same order while the draw happens, or do they just stand randomly?

Oooh. Good question! I will have to pay more attention. (See?! There is still new stuff to discover!) This time I did notice that, from left to right (i.e. stage right to stage left), it started with El and Megan, who were coincidentally the first two people to get cast (in that order), and Nick was on the far right (i.e. stage left) and was cast third. But I don’t remember what order the rest of them were in. 

normallyparenthetical replied to your post “Hamlet Roulette Bingo”

I think I meant internally, but if you wanted to do it aloud, it would be pretty funny for those that understood. Thank you for showing us the order of draw, too. It seems like the tension would slowly increase as you move toward "greater" roles. [And, I agree about diagonals. The order of the actors is arbitrary and there must exist seven arrangements that would give you the NW-SE diagonal.]

Oh, yeah, I’ll definitely be shouting “BINGO!” internally if it happens! But I also think that the cast/director might be amused to hear about it. 

Good point about the math! (I hadn’t actually thought about it, but of course you’re absolutely right.)

About the order: the first time I saw it they started with Hamlet, which seems like the wrong order to do things in. But actually, that was when they were drawing a whole configuration rather than one actor at a time (to make sure that everyone played each character twice during previews, they had 14 possible configurations for the first 14 performances), so the director just read them out in the wrong order; they were probably still thinking through how best to do it. When I saw it again one week later, I think he read them in the order that they now draw them. 

Naturally, the actors are a bit ...nervous? excited?... before the drawing too. Apparently they make bets backstage. El won money last night because she bet that she would play Polonius, and that is indeed what happened, so when her name was the first one pulled she yelled “I won! I won!” which was pretty funny. Anyway, they tend to act excited about whichever role they get drawn for, but it’s true that at the end it’s a little like a Miss Universe pageant or something where the last two people are standing there anxiously with their arms around each other waiting for the runner-up (Claudius) to be announced.

It’s so interesting to see a play where the illusion is broken before the performance even starts, rather than afterwards during the curtain calls. The actors come on stage wearing all white, not in costume. Each one leaves as soon as they know their role, bringing their labelled, bound script with them, to put on their costume and prepare mentally. Once the casting has happened, the director makes a few announcements, and then some music starts, which acts as the countdown. Right as the song is ending, the actors file out on stage in character (except the ghost/gravedigger sits off-stage but visible to the audience), and just after the song’s last note sounds, the house lights go out at the same moment that the stage lights come on, and the play starts. It’s sort of like... BAM! Let the illusion begin. 

But then, the illusion is pretty thin. The actors will ask to be prompted for a line now and then. They are carrying scripts! (The scripts get used as props, representing letters, a shovel, portraits.) The characters will address the audience directly--they know we are there, and even ask us to participate a few times. Each character is putting on an act for the other characters, not just for the audience. There are layers upon layers of illusion and self-reference here, all of which is openly acknowledged.