keep on hopin'

I was chatting to my housemates yesterday about my excursion to The Comedy About Spies with Tem. (The play's run ends today, which is probably for the best; I cannot keep buying tickets. Getting into Mischief Theatre fandom was a terrible idea. It's a financial nightmare.)

Riona: Rei, if I ever bring you to a Mischief production, and we end up at the stage door, you cannot embarrass me in front of Henry Lewis. That's my one hard rule.
Rei: Oh, that's not reasonable. What if I unintentionally embarrass you? I mean, you have met me.
Riona: If you unintentionally embarrass me, I will understand that it was an accident.
Rei: What if I facilitate you embarrassing yourself?
Riona: You see, this is exactly why I brought Tem instead.
Tem: I had to try so hard not to call him 'hot hot Henry Lewis' to his face.


In other news, Tem and I have been playing Assassin's Creed: Syndicate together, the Assassin's Creed set in Victorian London! I've played it before, but this is Tem's first experience of an Assassin's Creed game.

Riona: The Assassins are the good guys.
Tem: I feel they could have come up with a friendlier name.
Riona: Well, they're not called the PR Guys.

Tem is increasingly furious about a) the unnecessary modern-day framing device and b) Evie's outfit, decidedly inappropriate for a woman attempting to go unnoticed in Victorian London. I'm really enjoying xyr ranting.

Tem: (with great feeling) She's not wearing a hat! She's wearing skintight trousers! In Victorian London! When you make your Dreamwidth post, Riona, I want you to tell the people that this woman should have been arrested. Not that I don't agree with it morally, but, historically accurately, this woman should be doing hard labour.

(Playing as Evie, I notice a hatless man on the street and start pushing him around.)
Riona: Hey, sir, where's your hat? Hey, sir. Where's your hat? Hey. Hey. Hey.
Tem: You're one to talk.
Riona: Hold on a moment.
(I switch characters to Jacob, who is wearing a hat, and resume pushing the pedestrian around.)
Riona: Where's your hat, sir? Hey. Hey, where's your hat?

Tem enthusiastically encouraged me to break into Buckingham Palace, which, perhaps predictably, resulted in me lying on the floor of the palace, being beaten to death by guards.

Tem started mimicking the voices of the Cockney street children in the game, which gradually developed into creating the character of Nigel, a Victorian ghost orphan with an increasingly elaborate backstory, whose job it is to create all the piles of leaves the Frye twins keep jumping into. (It's a hard job; the game features leaf piles even in places that are strikingly short on trees, e.g. Trafalgar Square and the roof of St Paul's Cathedral, and it doesn't appear to be set in autumn.) Nigel provides frequent and deeply tragic commentary as I play. I'm very concerned about this Victorian ghost child.

Occasionally, Tem-as-Nigel speaks about Tem, using she/her pronouns; Tem goes by xe/xem.

Riona: I notice that Nigel misgenders you. That's attention to detail.
Tem: He doesn't mean anything by it; he just doesn't understand. I'm not explaining neopronouns to a Victorian orphan ghost.

I've seen The Comedy About Spies twice in the last month, and I enjoyed it a lot! It would obviously be ludicrous to go for a third time. But the play is leaving the West End within the next couple of days, and, well.

(I stare into the camera for slightly too long.)


( The Comedy About Spies, 24 September 2026, including cast encounters at the stage door. )


At home, I gave Rei the Peter Pan Goes Wrong script and explained it had been signed by the actors of Robert, Chris, Trevor and Vanessa, along with Adele James.

Pause.

Me: AND JONATHAN'S ACTOR, I FORGOT JONATHAN AGAIN
Rei: If I ever meet this guy, I'm going to tell him you forget about him every time you meet him at the stage door.

Here are a couple of Goes Wrong Show ficlets I've written in response to Tumblr requests!


( Two Goes Wrong ficlets. )


Come to think of it, these ficlets are both on the theme of Robert banging Chris's mother. It's my favourite theme. I still can't believe it's canon. What a beautiful world.

Some more responses to Goes Wrong questions I've received on Tumblr!

Anonymous: what do you think cornley would make of the play in ff7?

Imagine how livid Robert would be when Cloud and his date got the lead roles just for being the hundredth couple at the play. These people are not actors!

“Excuse me!” Robert snaps, rising to his feet in the audience. “Chris and I entered before these two! We were clearly the hundredth couple; those roles are rightfully ours. You simply assumed we weren’t a couple because we are both men, and I will be filing a discrimination case unless we are given our rightful place on that stage.”

“We’re not a couple!” Chris hisses at him in a panic. “And we don’t know the script!”

Robert, undeterred, bullies the organisers until they give him the role of the Evil Dragon King just to shut him up. (If Cloud chooses the ‘kiss the Evil Dragon King’ option, Robert really goes for it.)

At the climax, the entire set collapses, exposing a sheepish-looking Trevor, who has secretly been moonlighting as the stage manager at the Gold Saucer. Robert and Chris stare at him, incredulous.

Anonymous: If Cornley were in a JRPG what do you think their fighting styles would be in combat?


Annie fights with her fists; Robert alternates between body-slamming the opponent and putting them to sleep with a long monologue; Sandra inflicts status effects (Charm being her speciality); Max makes silly faces at the screen and ignores the enemy; Dennis attempts to befriend the enemy or hide; Trevor will occasionally hurl a bomb into the fray from offscreen, sometimes injuring you and sometimes injuring the opponent; Jonathan... wait, where’s Jonathan? He was right behind us. Why isn’t he on the battle screen?

Chris doesn’t fight himself, instead giving the others instructions that half of them will ignore. Vanessa consistently follows Chris’s instructions and will panic if Chris is out of action.

Anonymous: Here is a prompt and/or a thought experiment. After long and considered reflection, Chris Bean decides that getting an assistant may be the best way to tamp down on the Drama Society's tendency toward chaos. Unfortunately, the assistant he finds is certified (and possibly certifiable) chaos gremlin Alex Horne.

Although I'm delighted by this bonkers concept, I struggled at first with how to picture it because it's so hard to envision Alex Horne - or, more specifically, the character of Alex Horne as the Taskmaster's assistant - outside Taskmaster! Without the Taskmaster, who is the Taskmaster's assistant?

Conclusion: he needs a Taskmaster. Alex latches on to Chris, obeying him unquestioningly and homoerotically. Chris is slightly uncomfortable to realise that his new assistant is prepared to go above and beyond to an 'I'll buff your feet for you' extent. Robert is intensely envious and makes multiple attempts to poach Alex for his own assistance.

During casting, Sandra flirts a little with Alex in the hope of getting him to put in a good word for her with Chris. She's affronted by his complete lack of reaction and starts turning up the flirtation, trying to get him to act even slightly less like a block of wood. It becomes common to see Alex impassively working away on his iPad while Sandra drapes herself over his lap.

Dennis is relieved by the presence of an assistant: someone who can remind him of his lines! Whenever Dennis requests a line, Alex's response is just 'All the information is in the script', which Dennis faithfully repeats. This happens multiple times per play.

In the 2016 radio special The Christmas That Goes Wrong, Jonathan loses his wallet, containing the only photograph he has of himself with his daughter. I felt so bad for him! Here's a fic following up on that.


Title: The Annie Twilloil School of Problem-Solving
Fandom: The Goes Wrong Show
Rating: G
Wordcount: 1,300
Summary: Annie, after learning Jonathan has lost his only photo with his daughter, enlists Robert to help fix this problem in the most normal and sensible way possible.


( The Annie Twilloil School of Problem-Solving )