Ramblings and Musings of the Insane, Philosophical Ladybug

So I did not find the Sunset Shimmer plush, as I was hoping to. The waiting gap for the Applejack and Octavia plushies two years ago was March to the end of July, and that's been about the same timeframe here; I think it was March when I first knew the plushie had been released somewhere in the nation. So I hoped for another end of July find here. Although it was later in the week when I found them; possibly I'll see Sunset later on. Or maybe she'll be like the Princess plushies and Wal-Mart won't even get her at all. Ugggh. Right now I know that there's only a very few stores across the nation that have her in stock, so as long as she isn't very plentiful anywhere, there's still some hope.

However, the dolls connected to the movie in a couple of months are starting to come in! I saw the new deluxe Applejack and Fluttershy, and oh my goodness. I must have them both, but especially Applejack. She looks so gorgeously autumny! And since autumn is my favorite season, I think just having her around would make me happy thinking of autumn all year. It was actually very difficult not to immediately buy her then, at the price Wal-Mart is charging. It's $5 less than someone else thought she was going to cost, much to my relief, but it's still a little pricey. I would certainly prefer a sale price, but I'd be willing to buy her at full-price.

I also saw some of the new Apple family playsets, and while I'm not sure why they're being spotlighted, I really liked the house playset and that is honestly tempting to get sometime. I wish I could have seen what the interior looks like, though. I'll have to see if anyone on the forum has one and took pictures.

I should be getting a gift card for Amazon in the next week or so, and when I do, I'll probably give in and get Octavia with it. I didn't want to buy any more dolls through Amazon, but I don't feel like paying an arm and a leg for shipping to have someone else get her for me, either. I'll just have to hope that Amazon will do a better job than they did with Rarity.

I am so excited for this upcoming movie! It's torture thinking of waiting two more months for it. I wonder when Hasbro is going to start releasing the pre-movie shorts. It seems like they should be getting going on that by now. They said there were going to be some.

I also saw the next Batman and Sailor Moon sets. I still need to finish getting season 1 of Sailor Moon. Maybe I'll do that through Amazon too, since Wal-Mart doesn't have that set right now and it would be nicer not paying tax on it anyway. It adds over $2 to the price.

Then at the grocery store I saw a magazine with some information on Gotham. I had a curious peek. I wasn't too happy with the information on season 2, but it wasn't anything I wasn't expecting, after the way season 1 turned out. ( Mild spoilers )

Had another of those odd role-play in person dreams, like the Detective Conan one I had recently. This one, however, was with Ginger and Lou. I had recruited a couple of guy friends to role-play that with me and they really got into it. The one playing Ginger had the pretty blond hair and imitated a British accent. The one playing Lou was also very accurate, physically and in personality. I can't remember many of the details of what was happening, except that something was going on at their house and Lou was upset. And I hugged him. (As much as I love Ginger too, I kind of don't think he'd sit still for a hug. LOL.) I was thinking that even though he wasn't the "real" Lou, it was very nice to hug him.

It seemed like there was some girl there in addition to me and they were going to drive her home.

Then the scene did a weird switch and I and Ginger and Lou and some of my gal pals were at the mall. This strange person came up to us pitching their clothing line and said they'd sell the tops at $2 each if we agreed to a resolution of bettering ourselves. I thought that was very weird and too good to be true and wondered if she was either an agent of the Devil or part of a crime syndicate trying to get us committed to something we wouldn't be able to easily get out of.

We wandered around the mall for a bit and then went into a movie that someone in the group had got tickets for everyone to see, including my dad. The movie was starting with ancient Egyptian scenes, but it seemed like within the movie, the characters were putting on an Egyptian play, rather than that the movie was set in Egypt.

Overall, another bizarre exploration into my mind. I assume the Egypt stuff was because of my YGO fic, where everyone's going to need to go to Egypt for the climax. The role-playing Ginger and Lou is probably because I was thinking earlier, as I do sometimes, how fun it would be to actually find some people willing to play Ginger and Lou and we could make a movie based on some of my stories.

I also recently had another haunted house dream. I remember mentioning I had missed having those. In this one, the third floor was the only one off-limits. Usually, it's the second and third floors and half of the ground floor. Yeah, I don't know why we put up with that in my dreams. LOL. If that much of a house had really been taken over, it would be time either for a mass exorcism or a quick move.

Also, I can hardly believe it was three weeks ago tonight that I got the Batman plush. I'm very glad we got him out of that Wal-Mart when we did; last week we saw about four police cars over there and people getting arrested and it creeped me out wondering what in the world was happening. I hope there wasn't a shooting.

And it's been a week and a day since we went out and I was able to get the Hello Kitty plush! There was only the 40th anniversary edition available, the sprinkly one, but I had already decided I would be willing to get that one since I like Build-a-Bear's Hello Kittys better than anyone else's. I did have another moment of doubt about getting the sprinkly one at the store, since overall I like accuracy for characters and to have likenesses of them that really look like the way they normally look, but then I decided to go ahead and I haven't regretted it one bit. I like Build-a-Bear's best because they're big, really filled out instead of seeming more flat, and I love that the clothes are fully removable and changeable. I was also able to get the anniversary dress for her, which was discounted to about half off. I'm very glad of that; a Hello Kitty really needs clothes (and I didn't want to pay $13 for something)! I'm thinking I might actually get more clothes for her sometime. I've never been interested in clothes for my other plushies, but as I said, Hello Kitty needs them.

I adore every plush I've got from them, but I think my most favorites are Twilight Sparkle, Trixie Lulamoon, and Hello Kitty.

Went to Wal-Mart this past evening due to Dad not feeling well. He still wasn't, but we were so badly in need of stuff that we really couldn't postpone it another day. So he gave me some money and I bought the stuff while he waited and rested in the car (and in Wal-Mart, after it got too cold in the car).

I went looking for the pajama pants and didn't see them, and I saw that the set with both pieces was $14. And in the right size. Starry eyes. I immediately grabbed that. But since I didn't have my refund yet, I had to borrow the money for that from what Dad gave me. I was worried to not get it right then, since it had been selling well; several were gone from last week. Hopefully the refund will come in soon; I've written to ask if the DVDs have got back yet. In any case, since that's something I actually need and I wasn't just being frivolous, maybe Dad won't be too frustrated about that purchase.

I also got season 1 of 1960's Batman (finally!). Used my own money for that one. Hoping to watch a Penguin episode or two now.

Still no Joseph movie. I'll have to get it online (and hope Amazon will have some in stock when my other gift card comes in. It should be any day now....).

Finished the first draft of the fic! I'll re-read the whole thing before I post the epilogue, just to make sure I've tied up all loose ends. I include the proposed teaser at the end, with Dr. Portman and Scarecrow laughing about their plans for Gotham. I describe Scarecrow as having dark hair, as that's what I remember from the movie, but it looks like from some comic panels that his hair was originally lighter? Oh well, since there's no Scarecrow in The Batman, and the only design picture has him costumed, I can make him look any way I choose.

I'm not quite sure how I'm going to write him, though. I might need to watch the movie again to refresh my memory on that portrayal. One comic version has him speaking in rhyme, but I don't think I could do that. I will have him recite nursery rhymes, though, because that is just so, so demented and creepy. Reading his comic backstories and about all the people he killed makes my skin crawl. He is definitely among the darkest in Batman's rogue's gallery. Portman will love working with him.

And it would be lovely if money grew on trees. Thinking about things further leaves me in a quandary over whether to buy the 1960s Batman or the Sailor Moon set. I seem to want both equally, but can only have one right now. I actually wasn't expecting the Sailor Moon set to turn up at Wal-Mart, or that it would be the same awesome price as the Batman set. Reading the episode guides for each does nothing to help the problem. I am concerned, however, that it may be more difficult to find Sailor Moon at the continuing lower price than Batman. Wal-Mart probably won't have it for long, and Amazon's price for Sailor Moon has never been as low as Wal-Mart's ... at least, not before this week. Checking it just now reveals that it currently is the same price. Which only makes the decision harder still.

I also really need some new pajama pants and have been looking over the fun licensed character ones Wal-Mart has. I like both a TMNT and a Batman logo print. But I can't seem to find the Batman print in the size I need, and the TMNT one is for the 1980s show, which I was never actually into as much as some other branches of the franchise. So I kind of lean more towards wanting the Batman one. Wish they'd get some in in the proper size....

I also finally saw The Batman vs. Dracula movie. (LOL.) I don't know why it's taken me nine years to get to it, since I was interested from the first year it came out. Even people who aren't big fans of The Batman incarnation will sometimes like the movie, as it's darker than the series. There's blood as Penguin cuts himself on his umbrella sword (and accidentally revives Dracula when it drips on the bones), The Joker gets electrocuted and supposedly dies (for a while), Batman is very shaken by it, as he was there at the time, and later on, when The Joker comes back, he immediately gets assaulted by Dracula and turned into a vampire himself.

What I find especially intriguing about the film is that Batman immediately takes a scientific approach to the vampirism plaguing Gotham and decides that since the vampires' bites infect the blood, maybe there's a way to heal the blood and reverse the process. After a fight with Joker in a blood bank (LOL), Batman locks him up in the Batcave and tries to use him to find a cure for everyone. It takes so long that Joker is screaming about being hungry and is in a lot of pain. Batman actually fills a blood bag with some of his blood to give to the Joker to ease his suffering while the search for the cure goes on. It's a very moving and powerful scene.

Of course, Batman eventually finds the cure and is able to help Joker and all the townspeople. But Dracula himself cannot be cured. He calls himself The Prince of Darkness and it's very creepy. He also tries to use reporter Vicky Vale's soul to revive his dead love. Batman rushes in to stop it just in time.

The title of the movie is definitely amusing, but in actual practice it's quite a dark and intense film. I loved it so much I wanted to watch it again the same day, but I didn't get that chance. I'll probably watch it again today sometime.

Another thing I adore about it is that it takes place in the earlier seasons era, so the focus of the interaction is on Batman and Alfred and Batman and the bad guys. There's no Yin, sadly, and Batman really could have benefited from her being there, as the police end up thinking Batman is responsible for the disappearing people and come after him. That makes it difficult to pinpoint the exact time period, because if James Gordon was commissioner yet, I don't think he would have allowed the outrageous and unfair attack. (The SWAT teams seemed to be shooting to kill, without Batman even doing anything to fight them!) And if he wasn't commissioner yet, Yin should have definitely been there. If I had to guess, I'd say it was probably in the middle of season 2 and maybe Yin was on vacation or something.

There's also some awesome special features, including a section on the voice actors and some of the fun things going on while they were recording. I love seeing what the actors look like, and how they perform the voices during the recording sessions. It makes me wish so much again that they had kept doing awesome special features for every release of the show. I still want so bad to know about what prompted them to redesign the Riddler so drastically (and awesomely) and what it was like having Robert Englund come in to do the voice.