vanessarama

So today was the second full day of Supanova and the Colin Morgan panel, and it was absolutely fantastic.

vissy and I actually lined up for the panel before Colin's, not wanting to experience the hour-long wait in the sun that had characterised the Billy Boyd session, and then we just let everyone go past us and ended up close to the front (we weren't the only ones doing the sneaky clever thing!) We ended up with an excellent view, in the third row (the first two were reserved for the people who paid VIP prices, ie, hundreds). Alas, they only let us take photos for the first five minutes and only without flash, so the shots I managed to get were pretty grainy. But Colin was in great form; he was funny and relaxed and chatty. I'm sure many of you have already heard about the giant "You're the Voice' singalong (which did make me cringe a wee bit) so here are the few really interesting highlights for me:

- Someone asked about how musical he was. He said he'd pretty much picked up and played any instrument he could ever since he was a kid, drums, piano, accordion - I think he said his mum had, or had given him, a Casio keyboard? He never learned the notes, but played what he heard and said "imitation is an actor's passion". But he said he had a problem with singing and it was an issue for him at drama school.
- a wee little girl asked if he was going out with Katie & he said "no we're not"
- he said the best scene he'd filmed with Bradley was the most iconic Merlin & Arthur moment from the legends, which has been referenced before in the show, but hasn't screened yet.
- he did a very cute imitation of a horse trying to mess with his head and buck him off :)
- He can speak cat! He and cats connect on the cosmic level :)
- He had many good things to say about Catherine Tate - she's brilliant, incredibly funny, he couldn't say enough good things about her
- Someone asked about the props and whether he'd got to take any home; he said the thing he wants most is the little wooden dragon Balinor made for Merlin, and the thing he has is a prop from 4.04 - "you can fry it, boil it, poach it... and it's MINE."
- He says the finale of this season is phenomenal and he doesn't know how they'll get out of it.
- There was a "truth or dare" - he was dared to do ten sit-ups and had to hitch up his jeans before he did so :)

- and I transcribed this bit from the rather awful audio I recorded (so there is a word missing or muffed here and there) because I thought it showed how happy it made him and I know rodneyscat will like it :) As he was saying goodbye Colin said "I've had a chance to speak to most of you with the signing and the photos... And you really really have exceeded the expectations of what the Australian fans are like, you've represented your country absolutely fantastically... You've made me so at home and so welcome, it really is an honour, so thank you so much once again, you're all brilliant!" And I think he really meant it; he really did seem so genuinely pleased and happy and bowled over. At one point he commented about all the love in the room. So many hearts from everyone!!!

In short: Colin happy. Fans happy. He spread the joy around, and it was good.

Title: Tend
Pairing: Arthur/Merlin (preslash)
Rating: PG
Author: andraste_oz/vanessarama
Length: 1400 words
Summary: Distress and comfort. A missing scene from ‘The Tears of Uther Pendragon’. Sometimes the giver and receiver are both one and the same.
Warnings: wee bit o’violence and owieness, nothing permanent.
Notes: This was originally written as a bit of distraction for the lovely lolafeist.

( It’s a physician’s job to tend and comfort as well as to heal )

1. On participation. I don't participate in fandom as much as I would like. Also, I know I am terrible at giving feedback, which is something I really need to work on.

2.On anon meme. I gave up even peeking at the anon meme about two months ago and honestly, it has changed my life. I realised that I was going there because I felt I was seeking more fannish participation - I would read all the fic and all the friendslist and then want MOAR MERLIN TALK. But what I was getting from the anon meme was more the illusion of fannish participation. There were some good times and interesting threads but in general I spent most of my time there getting furious at the way everything got blown up way out of proportion and wild conclusions were drawn from little evidence. The last time I was there I was getting into the beginnings of an (unintentional) argument with someone and suddenly realised "This is futile. It's just going to make more aggro in the world, and we'll never change one another's minds." And I haven't been back and I feel better for it. Now I'm not even tempted!

3. On personal encounters. Funny, but I don't feel the same sense of envy I did in previous years about people who got to see the filming at Pierrefonds, or go to events and meet the boys. Maybe that is because I got to Pierrefonds last year, and even though there was no filming while we were there it satisfied something (and we can now play the "Been there!" game when we watch the show). Maybe it was because I got to go to the BFI and be in the same room as the cast, even though I didn't get to meet them. Either way I feel delight not envy now when I see other people's reports.

4. On entitled fans. Having said that, I wish people would stop it with the massive sense of entitlement if the crew and cast don't give them what they want at Pierrefonds. Complaining that they spend too much time filming inside? That they smile and joke with their castmates but don't talk to the fans? That they all have "long faces"? For fuck's sake, people. These people are there WORKING, making a TV show, and that has to be their focus. It is our privilege that any of us gets within shouting distance of them AT ALL while they are filming. Don't go on and on and ON about how you didn't get what you wanted out of the experience.

5. On writing. I wish I wrote a bit quicker, but so much of work involves writing that I tend to not want to write in my spare time. This is a shame because I have many, MANY ideas I want to write. I am currently writing a sequel to one of my long epic fics and it's taking its sweet time to coalesce. I think about it every morning in the shower and every night while I'm falling asleep and I'm just in love with it, and I had to share it somewhere :)

You guys, I had the most hilarious Merlin-related dream last night. I dreamt that I was reading an exposee in the paper which said that the reason Channel 10 hasn't yet played season 3 was that they thought Colin Morgan was too overweight and that would be displeasing to viewers.

The best thing of all is that in the dream, they had a photo in the paper of a chubby Colin. Well, a slightly-heavier-than-he-actually-is Colin. In the dream, I was indignant on so many levels. Ahahahaha.

MERLIN + SLIM DUSTY = AWESOME.

You heard me.

Title: A Gift Unasked For
Author: andraste_oz/vanessarama
Rating: R
Pairing: Merlin/Freya, Arthur/Merlin
Words: about 27,000
Spoilers: up to episode 2.09 and AU thereafter
Summary: Written in response to this prompt at the Merlin kinkmeme: "What if Merlin did leave with Freya in ep.9?"
Disclaimer: These characters don't belong to me in any incarnation, and I am making no money from them.

( A Gift Unasked For )

( Merlin spoilers under the cut )

The antibiotics and puffer are working already - my coughing is much, much less than it was although it is still very bad at night. I went on a cooking spree on Friday, making salade nicoise for lunch, spring lamb soup for dinner, and a nommy citrus yogurt cake with orange syrup. SO GOOD. Making more salade nicoise today - I'm trying to keep up healthy eating.

I watched a doco on the History Channel last night called 'Firestorm' about the Black Saturday fires. It was obviously made for overseas sale, since A) they called them "forest fires" and B) they spent a lot of time explaining where Melbourne was, what eucalypts were, what the Stay or Go policy entails, etc. It was actually very interesting learning (from what they had to explain) where our fires differ from everywhere else in the world (such as that spotting doesn't happen anywhere near as much in other countries, or that radiant heat is a bigger killer here).

Anyway, while they did a good job of explaining the background, and included much of the most compelling footage from the day (including the film taken by Daryl Hull, who they also interviewed, as Marysville burned around him), there were some big flaws in the program. First is that it seemed truncated. They spent so much time leading up to it, showing footage of CFA volunteers getting their gear on and stuff like that, but they didn't mention, for example, that 90% of Marysville was destroyed. They didn't mention the number of deaths - surprising considering how much they talked about the "terrible toll" and " the state will never be the same again", etc. And worst of all they only mentioned the Murrundindi and Kilmore East fires - which, ok, they were the biggest and worst, but the Churchill, Beechworth and Bendigo complexes also killed people.

Lastly, and most insultingly, they said that "In rural Victoria, most residents went about their day oblivious to the looming danger..." Erm, NO.

Some people were oblivious, I'm sure - I have always been a bit peeved at the guy whose wife died, who was really critical of the government and emergency services and who said that "...my wife was very simple. She just listened to CDs on the way to work, she never read a newspaper, she didn't watch television news..." because if you live anywhere in a civilized country, where you depend on public emergency services, you have a duty to keep yourself informed. And if you live in a rural area where you know the fire risk is high in summer, you should bloody well inform yourself in summer of how the situation is going. You can't expect your own personal notification of danger.

However, I don't think that attitude was typical. I knew it was going to be an unprecedentedly bad day. I'm sure most people *did* know. Some people were cautious but had seen fire before and figured that if they were well-prepared they'd be OK. Some people were very conscientious and did everything they were advised to do, and some of them, no matter how well-prepared they were, still died. This was an event on a scale we have never seen before. But we'll be seeing them again, so we'd better bloody well learn from it, and vague generalisations about how oblivious "most" people were do not help.

Cough woke me in the middle of an awesome dream involving Bradley James, dammit. I got up 20 minutes early so as not to wake Rohan. I began idly fiddling with my Merlin action figures.

AND I PULLED ARTHUR'S LEFT HAND RIGHT OFF.

I wan't even trying! There was virtually no effort involved.

Now I have an amputee Arthur. Calling true_statement!