Ramblings and Musings of the Insane, Philosophical Ladybug

Yeah, the plunnies have really been biting. I just put up #32 in my Turtles fic series.

Since that's pretty much all I've been involved in fandom-wise for the last three months, I haven't posted anything here. Pretty much everything I've been up to can be seen on my site: https://sites.google.com/site/exittheflytmnt1987/ Both fic links and pages of stuff about the fics. And fun things like figure photoshoots.

After much searching, I did finally get my Baxter figure, and also a second one to repaint as Barney. I also got most of the rest of the TMNT Classics line from Mega Bloks/Construx, including a couple of playsets on post-Christmas prices. I love them! The Turtle Van was fun to put together, albeit frustrating when I'd make a mistake and use the wrong piece. I'd forgotten how fun it is to build things with blocks.

I also bought one Nick series set to get the laptop accessory out of it and use it as the alien computer, who has become a major presence in my series. I will build the Nick playset to use with my Classics figures. I now have the Nick Baxter figure too, which I also turned human. Totally going WTH to Nick trolling the fans by having Nick Baxter turned human again, only he apparently decided he liked being a fly mutant better and wasn't happy about it, despite having wanted to be human again in the past. WTH. Of course, regardless, I don't think Nick Baxter's plight was ever quite as horrifying as 87 Baxter's. I think Nick Baxter was just normally mutated, while 87 Baxter was actually fused with a fly when Krang tried to murder him by disintegration and something went wrong. GAH.

Sometimes I feel guilty for doing what I did to Barney in my fics, given that I have him do far worse things than he did in the series. (That's him in my icon. He has red hair, Baxter has brown hair ... or blond, depending on your point of view.) But at least he did develop a conscience while I was writing the very first fic, so my original plan of "make Barney more like the 2003 Baxter in personality" didn't really happen. And he is finally on the road to redemption now. After reading someone's really dark story where Barney behaves ... really disturbing, I don't feel so guilty anymore for what I did.

In real-life, things were going relatively alright until one of my half-sisters killed herself last month. It rocked the family and I think we're all still dealing with it in our own ways. Me, I cope by writing various levels of hurt/comfort, including finishing the fic I was doing at the time it happened, one where Barney is thought dead, and the one I just did where Baxter is thought dead. I can never get enough of writing tragedies that turn out happy. It's so nice to be able to manipulate fiction since I can't do a thing about reality.

So I've run across Robert Stack twice this week: first, when Mom suddenly took a notion she wanted to see Written on the Wind, and then this past night when we found a nice suspense film to watch, Murder on Flight 502. I realized in the first film that "... Oh my gosh, Robert Stack really is swoon-worthy, isn't he? ... And he has been ever since my days of watching The Untouchables." Apparently I had a crush on him then, but I never realized it until this week. Now I feel like going and buying some half-season sets.

After looking up information on him and finding out that he was married to the same woman all through the years, the crush only grew stronger. Few things are as attractive to me as that. And few things tick me off as much as infidelity in a marriage. I realized that out of everyone who is firmly in my top tier of "darlings", every one of them either didn't cheat on his wife or I don't know one way or another if they did. Known cheaters just don't make the top tier (or they drop out of it if they were there).

Another actor-related thing that happened this week was that I had a dream where I was watching something where one of the characters was played by Leonard Stone. Naturally, I woke up wanting to look him up, which I did. I like him because he's one of those character actors who can play anything from weaselly cowards to upright policemen and it's always believable. He was also married to the same woman all through the years, and he died in 2011, which I found surreal for some reason. I think it always feels a little surreal to me when someone from the classic TV era was alive all through this time and then died only a short time before I started discovering/re-discovering them. I feel the same about Milton Selzer, who died in 2006.

Of course, speaking of actor deaths, I can't not mention Robert Vaughn's passing. That was a sad surprise to me, especially since I hadn't known he was ill. I had an U.N.C.L.E. dream last week that I wanted to write a fic of, and after Robert's death, I tweaked some things about the planned dream-fic and turned it into a Robert/Napoleon tribute of sorts.

I was also sad about Leonard Cohen's death. I still love and adore his song Hallelujah. I must admit I don't know any of the other things he wrote, but I've been thinking I should look into them. If they're anywhere as good/powerful as Hallelujah, I'm sure I'd love them too.

This has been a big week for fics. I think I posted three fics, two of which were entirely written this week. I think I now have 500 posted fics at FF.net. I have many more fics that I haven't posted there, however, so that isn't the definitive number of what I've written by far. The fics have been flowing, which is thrilling to me since that doesn't always happen. I now have four posted fics in my Turtles timeline and have rearranged the next "episodes" in the list again. I'm doing the Twin Beaks-inspired one next, and have already started it. I'm hoping to have it finished by Thanksgiving, since Thanksgiving is a subplot in it. We'll see what happens.

My Turtles site is live now, by the way. https://sites.google.com/site/exittheflytmnt1987/ I'm still adding things to it, and it seems like I rearrange the episode list every time I finish a fic.

I also finally started making my Baxter plushie. Aside from a horrible fight with the coated wire I'm using for his glasses, it's been an uneventful and fun time so far. Making the shirt is always a horror to me, however, and that's what's next. Ugh, I wish I could just make the sleeves attached to the rest of the shirt to begin with.

And I fell in love with a purple teddy bear at Smith's this past week. I don't usually fall so hard for plushies that aren't either specific licensed characters or cats or fish, but I just really liked this one. (It may have been partially the influence of seeing many beautiful purple products on QVC, which I've meant to write an entry about for weeks. I am kind of nuts about QVC and I love it more than HSN, which I feel a little guilty about since HSN came first. But QVC feels so much more homey.) I seriously considered getting it, but didn't feel I should right then. I'd be willing to wait and ask for it for Christmas, but I worry they might not have any by then, as I've often watched stock fly out of Smith's long before a holiday comes. I'm thinking maybe I should get it this week, if the copy that looked the best is still there.

It reminds me of years ago when I fell in love with a white Christmas teddy bear at Smith's. I remember it seems like it was really late when we went to get the groceries the week when I had the money that I could get it (which was $2.99). I think it was 11 at night, oh gosh. We must have been up really late doing groceries that night. I was so excited to be able to get that bear. They had white and brown styles and it was the white one I really wanted. He became one of the sons in my polar bear family, which consists of two big white Christmas bears, him, and a little Valentine's bear.

I haven't spent much time posting lately. I've been so busy writing things that for the most part, if I want to say something that I might ordinarily say here, I say it one-on-one to someone instead.

I've been working on the next Turtles fic, which is a light-hearted oneshot. I found it difficult to go from a more serious tone in the multi-chapter to a lighter tone in the succeeding fic and not have it look strange or mismatched, but after I fleshed some things out it looked better and flowed better with the multi-chapter. One problem with lighter ones is that it's harder for character introspection and development, so it's a challenge finding ways to work that in. I really want the stories to be like seasons 3/4, although they will definitely dip into season 7-ish territory sometimes.

I've been tinkering with a website to talk about my Turtles verse, the proposed "episode" ideas, and other things. I wrote a long essay on why I think 1987 Baxter should be able to be redeemed and I'm quite pleased with it. The site isn't live yet, although I've given a couple of people the link to examine assorted things on it.

I finally started that fic I wanted to do detailing Illya being haunted by Mr. Ecks. So far I have two vignettes done and at least two or three others planned. I don't want the story to wear out its welcome, but with a character-developing series of vignettes, it could technically go on and on. I shouldn't have it get too long, though, or it might be harder to align it with later fics in the timeline.

I've also got the WWW fic going again. I'm going back and forth among all of these fics and also hope to work more on Ginger and Lou fics and that Real Ghostbusters fic. (And that Equestria Girls idea I still haven't started.) It's definitely nice to be able to flip from one fandom to another, writing-wise.

I saw some pieces of the new Equestria Girls movie. Honestly, I love Sunset Shimmer more with each film. She and Twilight are definitely the best things about them. From what I saw, though, my fears about this film feeling like Winx Club were not far-fetched. I want to see this film in whole, and I'll probably buy it, but I don't think I'll re-watch it much. I do not like that it looks like ( Spoiler )

Had a wonderful birthday! I was very touched by all the warm wishes through here and Facebook and other places. Got some lovely gifts, with some belated ones still on the way. And the shopping spree went swimmingly, better than it has a lot of times. I found some things I wanted and some surprises and it was delightful to have money to get them. Somehow I managed to collect a pretty good amount of money for the shopping spree just in the month of September. Usually I start saving in the summer months, but that didn't happen too much this year because of surprise sales and clearances.

I had intended to get a Fashion Style Pony, but while I love them dearly, I still can't seem to justify paying $15 for one of them when it comes right down to it. Sigh. I want a sale. Meanwhile, I found Indigo Zap on clearance for $4.98. Yessss! I am sad that apparently I missed other things clearancing at Toys R Us, but at least I grabbed something before they were all gone.

I also found volume 7 of The Real Ghostbusters for $9.99. The standard price is $14.99, so I wasn't passing that up. I didn't think I'd find it at Toys R Us, but it was an idle hope, and then there it was. I got it mainly for the Egon's Ghost episode, and thankfully, this time I was not disappointed! It was sooo good. So intense and so much friendship squee! Unfortunately, another episode I'd wanted, Slimer, Is That You? turned up in the re-dubbed version with Dave Coulier as Peter and Kath Soucie as Janine. I love Kath's work, but not as Janine. And Dave Coulier was absolutely teeth-grinding. The Time-Life version has the original voice actors for that episode, so now I have one more reason to try to get hold of some of those older DVD sets. It was a really fun episode and I want to hear it with Lorenzo Music and Laura Summer.

At Target, I found season 1 of TMNT 1987, which thrilled me. Wal-Mart doesn't have it anymore and Amazon upped the price, but Target was only charging a few cents more than Wal-Mart had had it. Now I have all the human Baxter episodes. I've watched his season 1 episode twice on YouTube in the past. When comparing it with season 2, it is pretty heartbreaking to see how much he cracked.

Also at Target, I discovered that Tracey West is still active in the kids' anime scene and she has written a YGO anime guide. I have no idea why they put that out this year, unless it's to prepare newcomers for the movie. But it was great! I longed for something like that when the show was airing. Oh, there were some things kind of like that, but I didn't like them as much as I liked this one. And it covered all seasons and characters. I probably shouldn't have, since it was just basic information that a diehard fan would already know, but I couldn't resist and it had to come home with me. I feel like a kid again, going through it.

I bought season 4 of TMNT 1987 at Wal-Mart. I also wanted volume 2 of Miraculous Ladybug, but they apparently sold out after finally getting some in. Sigh. I should have bought it at Target. But oh well; I'm sure there will be other chances for it.

(Oh! Oh! Speaking of Ladybug, I saw a doll giftset at Toys R us with her and Cat Noir! Squeeee. Naturally it was $30, so I am hoping for a Christmas sale. I must have it.)

Between my purchases and gifts, I now have all 1987 Turtles seasons except 9 and 10! I'm less interested in them, since they're darker and someone else takes center stage as the villain, but I'll probably try to get them sometime for completeness' sake.

I made one other purchase that night: another plushie base at Jo-Ann's. As much as I hate sewing, I absolutely love being able to create the characters I want in a couple of weeks instead of commissioning someone for a lot more money and waiting several months for the product. Now I just need to decide whether I'm going to use this plushie base to make Snakes, 1987 Baxter, or a Richard character (probably Steve Drumm). I want to make all of them, so it's mostly a matter of which one first. I kind of lean towards Baxter. It would be a fun challenge working out the hair and the glasses. It's making the clothes that drives me up the wall for any plushie. I shouldn't start any new one until I've finished Barry's shirt and made Mike's jacket, but uggh, I keep dreading working in silk with Barry's shirt. And I hate sewing in sleeves in general. Definitely the most maddening part.

I have an Amazon gift card and I'm having my usual debate on what to buy/when to use it. I could get $25 worth of books, as there are some I want, and then maybe get one other thing to go with them. Or I could bite the bullet and do a splurge and add $29 in cash to my $20 gift card. Ultimately, I'd rather wait until I can get another gift card, but by that time, some of the stuff will have probably changed prices. Uggggh. I hate so much that Amazon changed the rules for free shipping. $49 for free shipping is just outrageous! The only other way to get it (without getting Prime) is $25 worth of books and anything else ships free with them.

Then I have my usual dilemma of what to be for Halloween. Every possibility seems to fall through. I wanted to try being a Ghostbuster, but I can't fit into Mom's (non-Ghostbuster) jumpsuit and I'm not crazy about the idea of spending a lot of money on an official costume. Even if I wanted to try that, I can't find any women's costumes (which is weird, considering the new movie had women Ghostbusters) and the men's ones only turn up in sizes too big. I've also considered either a Turtle or April O'Neil. For April, I'd base her mostly on Megan Fox's April because of the hair, and then she has the classic yellow of the 1987 cartoon April. I have yellow tops, but no yellow trousers. Sigh. For a Turtle, green clothes would be good. I do have green pants, and I could probably dig up some kind of green top. Then I could buy a Turtle shell at Dollar Tree and a blue mask/headband thing and whee. A cheap ghetto thing, but good enough for a church Halloween party.

I've also considered trying to dress up in Ghostbuster Abby's casual clothes, since I probably could find stuff around here that looks somewhat like what she wore. Abby wasn't at all my favorite in the movie, although I warmed up to her before the film was over. But she is the one I could pass myself off as the easiest.

Today I even had the thought of wearing my long green coat, my fedora, and my sunglasses, and saying I'm a random spy/secret agent/whatever. Heh.

Most likely, I'll go with ghetto Turtle. But Dollar Tree was out of blue headband things this past night. Sigh. Hopefully they'll restock.

... not to avoid something that everyone and their dog hates.

Over and over, I find that if I avoid something because of negative reviews, I almost always end up loving it. It happened with season 3 of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., with season 9 of Perry Mason, with TMNT 1987, with Equestria Girls, and with many other things. I also in general love things everyone hates, regardless of whether I initially avoided it myself or not. The Batman series is a good example of that. I enjoyed it from the start, compared to everyone who tears their hair out over it.

I finally got around to buying/seeing Ghostbusters 2, mainly because of the two cartoon episodes it comes with. One of them is a favorite. (The other was WTH territory and I sincerely hope that it isn't typical of the later seasons.) Honestly, I ... ended up loving the movie much more than the original. I think there were only four instances of swearing and a couple of naughty comments, compared to swearing practically every two minutes in the original (or it felt like it, anyway). It was creepy but wacky, had many more character-developing scenes, and Winston had a lot of good screentime. It felt much more like the series, and that may have been the point. They probably knew a lot of kids would be watching it because the series was running right then. Also, the plot point I really wasn't crazy about before I saw it, them being discredited and having gone their separate ways at the beginning, ended up in practice feeling a lot like TMNT, especially Ray and Winston at that birthday party. LOL. So I actually ended up not being too bothered by that after all. I can see myself rewatching this movie and enjoying it, whereas I'm honestly not sure I would rewatch the first movie, at least not in full. I have rewatched my favorite scenes from it.

I can't remember if I mentioned, but Build-a-Bear had a 30% off deal the weekend before this one and I was able to get Michelangelo with that. We were finally going to be in the area and I couldn't pass up a chance to get that much off of him. Then I discovered that the big Slimer plush was on clearance at a Wal-Mart other than ours. I couldn't get him then, but the other day I was able to go back and get one. Our Wal-Mart still isn't clearancing them. It was awesome to get him for $7 instead of $15!

It felt so good to get my 31_days challenge done last week. Some pieces I really enjoyed writing, but others were puzzling, and it was definitely frustrating to have to worry about the day's piece each day when I really wanted to be writing my Turtles fic. But I kept on because I wanted to do the challenge too; it was a story I'd wanted to tell for some time. I still think I'll also write the original Snakes and Chita story I was going to tell, though, which was a third-person narrative oneshot involving one of the last times Snakes put up with looking all over town for Chita when she deliberately ran out to make him find her after an argument. I have a very distinctive image of the opening lines of that fic and they have never gone away, so I need to write it.

I tried to basically keep to the prior versions of the Snakes and Chita tale that Snakes related in two earlier fics. When I realized I had some details wrong in a couple of pieces, I went back and redid those parts. For a couple of other parts, however, I decided that I wanted to tell it slightly differently and that would either make more sense or be closer to what I wanted, so on a couple of points I deliberately made it different from the earlier accounts. Like, I didn't have Snakes and Chita go gambling all night long the first night they met. I mean, they'd been beat up in the first casino when Snakes tried to defend her. It seemed much more likely that they'd go try to take care of their battle wounds. And then at the end, I changed the point where Snakes lost track of Chita's trail in 1910. I wanted Chita to turn up again, but not decades older. I drew inspiration from both a role-play where I'd used her and from the fact that she was always intended to be characterized as sort of a flapper wannabe, and had Snakes lose track of her trail in the 1870s. She found a portal to the 1920s, where she fit in and was happily staying for the most part. (I will speculate that the portal was another result of Dr. Faustina's experiments.) But then she returned to the 1870s once, heard that Snakes was alive, and found the portal to the present-day to see him again. They were able to converse and have some closure at last.

Chita was very interesting to characterize in that last piece. Unlike other versions of her, including the role-play version, this Chita actually did mature a little bit. She wasn't as superficial, was willing to touch the scar that she had always avoided before, and felt badly for how her past cruelty had negatively impacted Snakes. But she wasn't ready to settle down and she recognized it; she had finally opted to stay single. She wants parties and material objects and yet she knows they're not what truly bring happiness. Still, she can't make herself not want them. I drew some inspiration from my own feelings regarding her love of material things and not feeling ready to settle down.

She was never meant to really be a likeable character, so I am amused that I kind of got fond of her and developed her a little. Even some of her superficialty is endearing to me. But since she has plenty of negative characteristics, I would totally understand anyone not liking her. What she did to Snakes was horrible. Not that it was worse than things Snakes did canonically, of course, and so there is definitely the possibility of redeeming her. That was kind of where I was going with the final piece.

I would never have her and Snakes get together again, but they parted on civil terms, and this past night I ended up drawing a cute picture meant to take place around that point where Snakes is standing watching her dance as she whips her boa around him. I sketched the whole thing out very quickly and I quite love it. I might ink it before I scan it, though.

Apparently I had Snakes on the brain after that themeset, because yesterday I had a weird dream involving him. It seemed to take place in the Old West, before The Poisonous Posey episode, even though some things ended up not making sense. Dr. Loveless was there too, and Snakes seemed to be working for/with him and there was some explosion planned for Jim West. Snakes seemed all into that, the little weasel (despite the fact that he seemed to not know Jim in the episode, so there's where it doesn't make sense). Then the tables were turned when Jim escaped and Dr. Loveless chained Snakes to a bomb that was set to go off in a couple of minutes. He was begging and pleading to be set free, and finally someone did. His characterization felt very similar to what's seen in the actual episode: pretty much a pathetic coward who likes to set bombs as ways out of his problems and ends up digging his own grave by doing so.

I never at all intended to become intrigued by him with that characterization, and yet it happened when I was fleshing out his character out of necessity in The Night of the Deadly Codename. And of course, that also led to Christopher rightfully taking his place as one of the darlings when I studied the episode more. I wonder if there's any chance at all that I could have seen that episode when I was very young. Mom insists that Dad used to watch WWW in reruns, so I wonder if there's any chance I saw it back then. That would be hilarious. And it would mean I did encounter Christopher years ago, just like all the other darlings. I want to say I have a vague memory of watching that episode in bits and pieces when I was a kid, but I'm probably just inventing something in my mind because I want so badly for there to be a time when I saw Christopher years ago. Still, wouldn't it be interesting? Snakes is one of my favorite characters to flesh out and develop, and if I actually saw him many years ago and just don't remember it now, that would be rather intriguing.

I also started thinking again about maybe making a Snakes plushie. I'd have to learn some basic embroidery so I could make the scar raised up, but that would be an interesting challenge. Now that the weather's cooled down, I feel like working on my other projects too. Maybe I can finish Barry's clothes at last and also make Mike's jacket!

I just love autumn so much. As always, I celebrate meteorological seasons and not calendar seasons, so for me Fall started on Thursday. It was a beautiful cloudy day too, perfect for the first day of Fall. When the sweltering heat of summer fades, my sewing creativity seems to wake up again. I am excited for what this autumn will bring and hope that it will be happy and enjoyable.

I think I'm almost done with the Turtles fic. I have the climax largely written, or all written, unless I add more to it. Then I just need the epilogue stuff. The story will definitely end where I decided it should. And I may or may not continue it in oneshots or other multi-chapters. We'll have to see. One thing I do know is that while I'm totally cool with watching the series in all its formulaic glory, I don't think I could make myself write stories that are all so formulaic like the series' nonsense, with Shredder's crazy plans failing, etc. I think I could only do a handful before it wouldn't feel believable to me any more. It's easy to watch nonsense; not so easy to create it yourself time and time again.

I kind of have a vague idea of the alien computer still being around after all and discovering that Baxter is finally human again. That would be kind of cute. And it would be interesting to see how Baxter would react to the computer while sane, and whether the computer would want to help him like before. That might be one of my oneshots. And if I do continue things, Baxter and Barney need to have a proper conversation again. Maybe Baxter can finally tell him that Krang was trying to murder him when the cross-fusion happened.

One problem I discovered while writing is trying to keep Barney from feeling too much like a Kylo Ren trope of wanting to go to the dark side/not caring if he has to kill a family member to do so. I fleshed out some of his scenes in chapters before I put them up and had him monologue and have doubts and wonder if he's just acting tough to impress Shredder when he appears as though it doesn't bother him, what he might have to do. I don't really want Barney to be sympathetic, exactly, because really, how much sympathy can you have for someone who willingly joins a megalomaniac while sane because he wants power and recognition? But when he's only in one episode and we just don't know much about him, I don't think it would be fair to paint him as irredeemably evil just to contrast him with Baxter being redeemable because of wanting to be honest at first and then having gone nuts. (Seriously, compare him in season 1 with the season 2 opener. He is sane in season 1 and just wants to invent something that would be helpful to the city's population. He really doesn't know what Shredder's up to. He thinks the guy just really hates rats in the city. He doesn't know Shredder is marketing the Mousers in order to murder someone, nor that Shredder is stamping Baxter's name on them so he'll take the blame. And Shredder is going to kill him just because he saw Shredder and could say that Shredder offered to market the Mousers and was using an old house as a hideout. By season 2, after he's been framed for attempted murder, blamed for the damage the Mousers caused, and thrown in the insane asylum for talking about the Turtles, Baxter is cackling madly about giant talking Turtles and is clearly insane. It is very sad, actually.)

So anyway, this story already inadvertently inverts pretty much all the angles of the other Baxter fix-it fic. I also hope to invert the Kylo Ren trope when it actually comes time for Barney to follow through on his vow to kill Baxter if he interferes. I really like how I've written the climax.

Then I drew Leonardo for the first time since my childhood, and this time he actually looks pretty good! I think I'll be able to draw those Turtles pictures for my "opening" clips that I wanted.

And I always meant to muse on this thought: Coming back to things I like that everyone hates, I actually liked when there was a girl who was part of The A-Team. She seemed to be a reporter if I recall correctly, so I kind of equated the situation as April O'Neil and the Turtles. Heh. The girl seemed to fit just fine into the A-Team's plans and it was nice to have someone around that I could more easily relate to.

Along those lines, I also tried comparing members of The A-Team to the Turtles, but that didn't go so well. Naturally I got B.A. and Raphael, but then I kind of stalled on drawing any other logical parallels. I guess Murdock could be equated with Michelangelo, since they're both the most out there members of their teams. But Hannibal and Leonardo and Face and Donatello don't seem to make very good parallels. And I keep wanting to equate Murdock with Donatello because of their mechanical know-how. So ... heh.

So of course, in addition to the Turtles fic, I'm doing that month-long 31_days challenge with Snakes and Chita, like I mentioned. Some are short, while some are long.

On days when I really wanted to work on the Turtles fic more, I was often frustrated to have to pause to write something else too. Yet I had really wanted to do those pieces and still did, so stopping wasn't a viable option. Now, as I find myself getting a little stuck on chapter 8, my attention is wavering and going back to being more interested in the themeset, so I'm even more glad I didn't stop.

I hope I will be able to get the rest of the Turtles fic to come out, though. I think the climax will probably start next chapter; it's mostly a matter of getting past the rest of chapter 8. I think I'm getting a little frustrated by lack of interest, as I have to admit I thought something for the Turtles category might actually bring some people in from the category to have a look. I got two Favorites/Follows early in, but nothing for a while. That was better than nothing at all, even though I'd hoped for reviews, so not having that either is kind of doubly discouraging. And of course, I'm happy that Harry and Crystal and Ladyamberjo have been interested in it. I just wonder why it is that it seems like no matter what category I write for these days, 99% of the time no one comes in from the category to read and review. I think the only times it's happened semi-lately is with Maverick and The Saint and The Persuaders!, aside from times when I've posted in the U.N.C.L.E. comm and one or more people have said something. FF.net seems to be in a sorry state these days. And I still barely get any comments at AO3, too. A couple of people left Kudos on the Turtles fic, though, which was also nice.

I didn't want to re-watch any Turtles episodes until I was done with the ones I hadn't seen before, but I think maybe I should re-watch one or two of the human Baxter episodes and see if that will jumpstart my inspiration again.

Anyway, back to the Snakes fics. I ended up getting kind of fond of the Chita character while I was writing the pieces. Naturally I would, since I was trying to show her good side up until Snakes learned the truth about her. They actually had some cute scenes sometimes. But because the audience was supposed to be as in the dark as he was (i.e., there weren't any hints about how terrible she really was, save for vague comments Snakes made directly to the readers in the narration), it came off as not feeling that believable when I got to that piece. I'm still feeling frustrated about that too and wonder if when I get everything done, I'll need to try to work on that one a little more. I wonder whether I should have had that piece at the point I did, and yet I felt I had to because the prompt for that day was perfect and none of the others fit quite as well.

Chita is a strange mixture. She's one part cliche/stereotypical gold-digger/airhead/hater of everything creepy-crawly and gross, one part devious woman who isn't really an airhead deep down, and one part whatever goodness is left in her. She did have fun times with Snakes and she did like him, even though she was never in love with him. And she never wanted to hurt him or for him to find out what she was doing behind his back. But that doesn't excuse what she did and she was certainly a horrible person to be married to.

It feels nice to write stuff for Snakes. I love fleshing out his character so much. I'm anxious to pick up the Ginger and Lou pieces again too. I'm hoping to do that come September, when this challenge ends.

Since there's only one other fix-it fic with Baxter that I can find, I quite naturally keep comparing and contrasting theirs and mine. The one major difference that I'm thinking of now is how we each portray Baxter.

Theirs is probably closer to what's actually shown in canon in season 2: If you do something nice/helpful for Baxter, he will be endlessly grateful and loyal to you. Shredder busted him out of the insane asylum and Baxter seemed to idolize him for that (until he got fed-up with the abuse). In the fix-it fic, the Turtles deliberately try to help him become human again in the hopes that he will join them in their fight against Shredder. He is so grateful to them that he fully agrees. I admittedly didn't read the whole fic because I didn't want to end up unduly influenced by it into wanting to copy some of their ideas, but it looked like Baxter was immediately fine, no after-effects from the long cross-fusion or the increasing instability.

Mine almost seems to turn all the concepts in theirs on its head, but not deliberately. I started writing mine before I found theirs. Mine takes the increasing mental lapses into account and assumes that Baxter would be much more broken upon finally being free. It's taking him longer to figure out how to put his life back together and there are lingering fly-like impulses from the cross-fusion that he'll have to fight against, such as snatching fruit off April's table. He also turned himself human again, albeit Leonardo kind of helped when he knocked the retro-mutagen ray gun away from them and pointed it at Baxter instead. And while he's grateful to the Turtles for taking care of him during his delirium, he's been so beat-down by life and people by this point that he doesn't want to blindly pledge his loyalty to anyone just because they threw him a bone. Definitely darker than most of the 1987 series, but I felt it fit better with the way Baxter deteriorated during the cross-fusion.

Theirs also assumes that Baxter was the one who betrayed Barney, while I have it just the opposite. Technically, that could work either way, but I wanted it the way I did it because to me it felt more logical considering that Baxter wanted to be honest in season 1, whereas the sole time we see Barney, he's working for a crook. I'm assuming the differences in what they wanted out of life probably separated them, and I have it that Barney scoffed at Baxter wanting to be honest. Barney was the cynical one to start with. Theirs has it that Baxter left to make it on his own, I believe. And maybe he did if Barney didn't want to go honest with him, but their story sort of implied that Baxter was the one in the wrong for leaving. If what split them up was whether to go honest or not, then to follow canon it's more likely that Barney was in the wrong. Of course, on the other hand, maybe they both wanted to be honest at first and each went down criminal paths eventually. There's so little canon information on Barney that almost anything goes for their backstory.

I also mused on how Baxter and April have had some interesting interaction in my fic, while Baxter and Irma haven't even met yet. I still don't want any romance in the fic at all, but I ended up dreaming about a Baxter/April pairing. Only the creepy thing is, it was the 2003 Baxter. Um yeah. Evil unrepentant genius and April? So not happening. I don't really think April would ever be interested in the 1987 Baxter either, even one trying to turn his life around. At least not as anything other than a friend.

Then I wasn't sure the fic would end with the first invention Barney made for Shredder being defeated, as I had last planned. But if I decide to make this entire fic a "season" of the series, that could go on and on indefinitely and I really didn't want that, either. I wanted the fic as more of a "pilot" for a "season." I guess I'll have to decide on that when I get that far, though. Maybe it won't look like a good ending place and I'll need to keep going. I really hope that doesn't happen, though. The longer it is, the more it could scare people away. Plus, I always think about this long, long story about Fang the Sniper that someone wanted me to read, and oyyy, it just kept going on and on and on.... I think it got to 35 chapters eventually, and most of the events were honestly not connected to each other. The person could have easily split the multi-chapter off at an earlier point and wrote oneshots for the other stuff.

So writing time in August has been very occupied, both with the 31_days challenge each day and the 1987 Turtles fic involving Baxter Stockman. I'm in the middle of chapter 6 of the latter. The chapters are short, but still. I love how this story is flowing!

I decided to bring his twin brother Barney from season 4 into the action, and while an early, long oneshot draft of the fic included an ending scene where they reunite, that has ... pretty much been changed and scrapped. I knew that I couldn't really tell the whole story in a long oneshot, and I knew I wanted it to all be one story, so it became a multi-chapter. And then I decided that there would be a rift between the brothers that wouldn't be so easily overcome. Canon slightly indicates it's a possibility. Then Shredder got into the act and decided to recruit Barney to work for him. Barney accepted.

The first draft of that plot twist involved him finally getting out of it at the end and reuniting with Baxter, who had tried and failed to convince him not to work for someone abusive like Shredder. But I'm seriously thinking I won't do that. I kind of like the idea of one of those guys working for Shredder indefinitely; Baxter was really underused in the series and transformed too fast. It could have been really interesting if he'd been there longer. It probably wouldn't have worked, though, because Shredder seemed to hate him more than Bebop and Rocksteady, and unlike those idiots, Baxter soon had enough of the abuse and just wouldn't put up with it anymore. I don't want him to go back with Shredder in the story, both because I really don't think he'd do that after everything he's been through and because it's canon that he originally tried to work honestly. I want to give him a break now.

Barney, on the other hand, we know very little about. He throws fits if people think he's Baxter and he's only ever seen working for a gangster. If Shredder liked his work, he could easily stick around indefinitely. So now the story is set to end with that still as the case, but with Barney occasionally trying to help Baxter if he's in trouble from one of Shredder's plans and/or from trying to talk to Barney. There's a years-long rift between them, yet Baxter still hates to see his brother work for Shredder. Ending the story with Barney still working for Shredder opens the door for many possible stories in the future. Depending on how it goes, I might write some short episodic-type fics continuing the concept. It was kind of fun how each season of the 1987 series did employ some level of continuity by the Technodrome being stuck in specific places each season and such.

I'm also debating how permanently scarred Baxter is from what happened to him. I previously explored the effects of extended cross-fusion with Yami Bakura and Zorc, and they are probably the grand-masters of it. But Baxter was cross-fused with a fly for months, if not years, and that canonically took a serious toll on his mind. Each time he appeared, he'd regressed further and become more fly-like. It was quite tragic, really.

In the story, now that he's finally free, I decided it wouldn't be logical for him to be able to quickly bounce back, like April did after being cross-fused with a cat for just a few hours. After a spell of fever and delirium he seems to come back to himself and is definitely more sane than before, thanks in part to the kindnesses shown to him by Splinter and the Turtles. But I'm thinking he has what will be lasting fears of both flies and spiders, and that for at least a while he may unconsciously exhibit fly-like behavior on occasion, such as grabbing somebody's fruit off the table to eat or as Crystal suggested, rubbing his hands together. When he realizes what he's doing, he hates it and wants it to stop, and he will probably eventually be able to get it under control.

I've also been involved with Ghostbusters stuff. My movie-going friend and I finally got to see it on Tuesday, following a disappointment where the theatre claimed they would air it at the time we could see it on the previous Friday but then changed their minds and the times when we got there. WTH. (I'm blaming Suicide Squad for that....) Immediately after seeing the movie on Tuesday, we had to stop at Wal-Mart, and that was great for me because I wanted to get the original film and take it home to compare.

My end determination is that both films have pros and cons. Each has a specific type of crude humor and I don't like it in either film (scatological stuff in the new one and other rude comments and a creepy succubus bit in the old one). Both also have more swearing than I'd like, particularly the old one. The new one, however, has much character-bonding, something the old one doesn't have a lot of. The old one has Janine, who is awesome. She really didn't deserve having her male counterpart in the new one be a complete moron. What a slap in the face! I also like the library ghost scenes more than their counterparts in the new film, and I adore chasing Slimer through the hotel. Classic! But Slimer stealing the car for a joyride in the new one is priceless too. LOL.

I like the cartoon best overall, really. It has ghost-busting, friendship squee, and family-friendly content. I wonder if they're going to try to make a new cartoon based on the reboot. I'd probably give it a try if they did.

So I participated in an U.N.C.L.E. poll that was an exercise for people to come up with story plots. I may be able to get my Napoleon h/c, if I decide I can really put the story together from my answers. We'll have to see what happens. I jotted down a few ideas and I'll probably give it a try.

One question would be whether to write it totally chronologically or whether I should jump into the action at some point and then brief the readers on what happened to get them to that point. I'm considering starting it on the flight to their mission, instead of showing the briefing first. I might flashback to the briefing, though. Or I could open it even farther ahead, after an abduction occurs and the other is trying to go about with the rescue, and have some level of flashbacks.

I of course am planning that Ecks and Wye will turn up on the mission, having been hired by a mysterious client to solve it. But the only hurt/comfort victim will probably be Napoleon. Well, I imagine there may be some level of Illya h/c too, since it wouldn't be easy to abduct him without harming him first.

It's frustrating when I really kind of want to write U.N.C.L.E. fics but I just can't seem to make them come. The last time I tried to write an U.N.C.L.E. fic and insert hurt/comfort, it was like pulling teeth. It would naturally be so much simpler if I actually, fully crushed on either Napoleon or Illya (or one of the actors). I like h/c best when I'm crushing on one or both of the characters involved. It's just almost impossible for me to write it otherwise. I have the same problem in the WWW fandom. A mild crush, like I have on both Robert Vaughn and Robert Conrad, still brings the desire for some h/c, but doesn't make it easy to write. I do like to write mission fics for U.N.C.L.E., but I need to have a strong desire to write it like I did with The Peaceful Meadows Affair. And overall, I really prefer writing character studies instead of adventure. The main reason why The Peaceful Meadows Affair worked for me was because I loved the conflict between Napoleon and Illya and Ecks and Wye. It clicked and it was so much fun to write. And people loved the plot. There hasn't been a great deal of interest in anything U.N.C.L.E.-related I've done since then. There probably would be if I could write fics along the lines that everyone else does, but I can't do that. I have to write what makes me the happiest. I still wonder and wish I could recapture whatever it was that made people love The Peaceful Meadows Affair, since I loved it too.

I watched a bit more of the Turtles DVDs. Even though 1987 Raph isn't angry/sullen a lot and he doesn't have a rivalry with Leo, there is a lot about him that mirrors the other versions of the character. He's sarcastic, often seems to want to charge into fights, and does seem to think Leo is a bit too optimistic. He's a cynic and sometimes cocky. And he is the most likely to get mad of the group.

And I pondered a bit on why I decided to get the season 2 set since it had several episodes with tropes I don't like. One reason was because it was one of the cheapest options and I needed something cheap to fill the last bit of the gift card. Another was because I wanted to see some of the other episodes. A third is because one does have to have a certain tolerance for mutations to watch any Turtles series at all, so that is slightly easier to tolerate than something like shrinking (ugh). That said, I decided to pass on the episode where April ends up mutated for now. I figured it would be easier watching it happen to Baxter Stockman than April.

It really is terrible seeing all the horrible things happen to Baxter in the various series, though. Of course, the 2003 series seems the absolute worst. The first time or two, it was a "Yikes" moment but felt realistic. The loss of an eye and then a limb. Not cool, Shredder is horrible. After that, it quickly started descending into utter outlandishness and it soon became clear to me that the creators were not taking it seriously. Dismantling him to the point that he's a brain, an eyeball and a spine, floating in fluid? Seriously, that is just utterly sick. In all his states, though, he acts so arrogant and like he's pleased to still have survived. There is an unaired episode held back because they felt it was too disturbing where he goes absolutely bonkers, decides April is responsible for all of his troubles, and tries to kill her. It ends where they think he's been killed, but he somehow still isn't. And he's really upset that he wasn't finally able to be put to rest. Even though he was always an out-and-out villain in the 2003 series, he certainly wasn't the worst villain out there and having such horrifying things happening to him makes it seem like they're saying he is the very worst and deserves all of this crap more than even someone like Shredder does.

Of course, the fly-monster from the 1987 series was not a good fate either. And since the problem was actually being cross-mutated with a fly, over the course of the episodes he loses more and more of his mind each time he's shown, becoming more like a fly and less like a human. The final episode with him, I read, has him try to steal a ray that will finally turn him human again, but it seems he still fails and is unable to use it before it's taken away from him. And in this series, from what I read, he actually started out as a fairly nice person who wanted to create an honest invention. Then he saw the Turtles, got thrown in an asylum for talking about them, and his mental state started to deteriorate from that. He certainly did some bad things when he worked for Shredder, but the fly fate still seems undeserved. And his mind deteriorates so bad after that that he can't even remember why he wanted revenge on the Turtles. One wonders if being free of the fly would give him his mind back or if he would still be in an irreversibly damaged state.

A lot of people felt sorry for him in the 1987 version. Sometimes, even if I don't particularly like a character, I want to give them a better fate if I feel like they got a bum rap. I'm tempted to attempt writing a fic where he finally is able to become human again. I'm guessing it would be a hard road back to complete sanity after that experience, though. Part of me wonders if this version of the character might ally with the Turtles, especially if perhaps they helped him to reverse the transformation. I'll admit I like those types of storylines. But even if I toy with them in my mind, it doesn't mean I'll actually write them. I do know that I would have him finally be able to regain his mind altogether, or at least, as much of it as he had before the fly mess happened.

Ah, if only there was more time to write in the day....

So there's an article linked on the front page about the creators of Sherlock trying again to stress that their Sherlock and Watson are not a couple. They stressed that their Sherlock isn't gay or straight. (Personally, I think almost all incarnations of Holmes are probably asexual.) They're totally cool with fans writing whatever they want in fanfiction, which is pretty awesome, but they just want to make it clear that in canon, it is not their intention whatsoever to have the characters hook up with each other. That is pretty much how I tend to feel when it comes to my own fic verses: I don't care if slash fans want to imagine things going the way they want to, just as long as they realize it wasn't my intention to write the characters as couples. A lot of my stuff probably looks like a slash lover's paradise, LOL. But that stems from the fact that ultimately, aside from any sexual things going on, slash lovers and platonic enthusiasts often want pretty much the same kinds of squeeable things.

Anyway, I was just amused to see that article there. It reminded me of a lot of my YGO adventures and encounters with slash fans. And it also kind of made me think of my Ginger and Lou fics, which probably look more slashy than anything else I've written yet are actually probably the least slashy in actuality. LOL. There's the same set-up there as there seems to be on Sherlock, with Ginger completely asexual and aromantic and Lou straight. The whole point behind the Ginger and Lou stories is to explore the idea of platonic soulmates and what if two people can have a completely platonic relationship that is every bit as fulfilling and enduring as a true romantic relationship and never, ever goes on to anything besides platonic. And I'm feeling squeeful just thinking about it, heh. I have the same kinds of warm fuzzies and thrills and excitement over a good platonic relationship as slash fans (or any romance fans, really) have over romantic relationships.

Speaking of romantic relationships, though, I finally decided on my own what I might do about that 31_days themeset. I may try writing it for Snakes and the Chita character he was involved with in my backstory. Now, normally I do not create OCs to hook them up with canon characters. I think the only times I ever do that is if the relationship has ended for one reason or other and therefore there is no OC hanging around and horning in on canon character time in the present-day. The idea for these two was based largely on the song Fliptop Twister by Rockapella, just reversing the end idea that it was the guy who was unfaithful and making it the girl instead, since Snakes is usually a protagonist character in my stories and I didn't want him being the unfaithful one. It also wouldn't have agreed with how his character developed, since I have it that he longed for someone to genuinely love him. Anyway, I've always meant to tell their story more fully, and maybe the themeset would make it an easier thing to write. I'll have to see what happens.

Also, there's apparently another new Six Million Dollar Man comic arc being put out by Dynamite. I'm wondering whether to even bother with it. I didn't really like their previous one because it was so dark in many ways and not what I wanted to see from a Six Mil story. It sounds like this one continues in the same vein. And it's a plotline that I don't even like, where Steve ends up finding out information that makes him distrust the OSI agency and he runs off to try to find more answers. Meanwhile, the OSI thinks Steve is a traitor and is out to get him. One of them wants to shoot him on sight to keep the secrets of bionic technology safe. I assume that is either an OC for the story or Oliver Spencer; I can't imagine it would be Oscar. But Oliver was in a coma at the end of the last arc, and in it because he did something heroic, so I would be kind of irritated if they made him an out-and-out antagonist in this arc.

It actually sounds rather OOC for Steve. If he got super mad at the OSI (again), he would likely go to Oscar and Rudy, bully them by throwing them around and threatening to do worse, and demand to know the truth. That's pretty much what happened in The Return of the Bionic Woman episodes. I'd hate to think that he now doesn't trust them after so many years together. But he has some bizarre voice in his head that could be partially responsible for his weird behavior in this new arc, and if that's the case, that could be an interesting angle to explore. But overall I'm not very impressed by the sound of things. And I'm wondering if they'll try to hook this arc up with the events of the first reunion movie, which had it that Steve quit the OSI and Oscar has to go to him for help again several years later. Honestly, it would seem really stupid and lame to me for Dynamite to go to all the trouble of bringing the series back in comic form only to have Steve permanently leave the OSI in its second arc, so I really hope they aren't going to try to connect their comics with the reunion movies. I hope that the voice Steve is hearing will be a large part of what's wrong here and things will end with Steve back at the OSI. But considering the information that upset Steve so much (that apparently they tried to give other people bionics in the past and it went wrong and they died), I don't know if there will be any way around this hurdle for him.

For now I think I'll keep monitoring what's happening in the issues as much as I can, but not make a move to buy any yet. I still need #5 of the previous arc, too.

So I finally admitted in the U.N.C.L.E. comm that I don’t see Napoleon as a chronic bed-hopper even though he certainly loves a pretty face and is a serial dater. What I didn’t say was that if I really thought he was a bed-hopper like James Bond, I doubt I would be attracted to him or find him appealing at all. Part of the reason why Napoleon appeals to me is because I’ve always had the impression that he’s a more moral person than James Bond. I don’t like James Bond because he’s a chronic bed-hopper. I do like Roger Moore, and yet when it comes to Bond, there’s just an automatic turn-off. No attraction.

(Years ago, when I was experimenting with walking more on the wild side, probably because I liked how impressed someone seemed to be when I did it, I had a character who was kind of a bed-hopper and that continued even after he became seriously involved with one particular person. That was gross. We never wrote out any bedroom scenes or anything like that, but it was always known what he was doing. I couldn't do that now, especially the continuing with playing the field even after starting a serious relationship. I would be totally uncomfortable, especially if the character was very important to the story as he was in those role-plays. I would also be uncomfortable with the character having a big role since he was a big-time crime boss and very unrepentant. If I ever get my novel off the ground, he will either have a very reduced role, not be a bed-hopper, or possibly both.)

Speaking of Roger Moore, though, it’s interesting how I can be totally obsessed with him for a while and then it fades and while I still like the characters, there doesn’t seem to be much, if any, crushing. That’s happened more than once. I wonder if that means he’s more on the fringes of my darlings instead of smack-dab with them. With all the rest, there is constant crushing on the characters when I see them even if there isn’t a constant, serious obsession with them/the actors.

I think a lot of why it faded this time was because of Simon Templar, actually. I like the character, but I am one of the few who prefers the color episodes to the B&Ws. There were a lot of B&W episodes I hadn’t seen before and then they finally released the DVD sets of those seasons and I snapped them up. In the B&W episodes, Simon seems rather sexist sometimes. And I know that was likely largely a product of the times and has to be looked at in that way, but Simon by his very nature is an anachronistic person. I think that even in the present-day, Simon would probably have some sexist ideas and feel that women are silly worrying things that need to keep out of the men’s worlds and stick to their own place. The book Simon is a lot more that way, I think, but the TV version has some of it too. I hadn’t seen some of the worst offending episodes of that sort before and when I did, they were kind of a turn-off. The most sickening episode of all was the more humorous Luella. Everyone was unlikable there, from Simon to his friend to his friend's wife. I think those views aren't expressed as much in the color episodes. Or maybe possibly Simon matured beyond such views. I should have been watching the color episodes on MeTV once they came around to them again. I keep longing for a new DVD release of all the color episodes, but I’m not sure they’re going to release separately from the boxset. I'd better watch my scant few color episodes again; maybe that will cool things a bit and I'll like Simon more again.

I still love Beau Maverick and was thrilled to see a couple of his episodes I’ve never seen before when Cozi showed them. The Town That Wasn’t There was sooo good and establishes why Beau is my favorite Maverick. It starts out seeming that he’s being a selfish prick, but throughout the episode he grows to honestly be fond of the people he’s with and sincerely wants to help them. He even turns down $10,000 when accepting it would have hurt one of those people. He then comments to himself something like that his uncle would send him back to England if he knew.

(Honestly, I really don’t like Beau’s uncle. He treats Beau like crap and most of the sayings he gives sound really selfish. And yet when he actually appeared on-screen, he acted more like Bret and the others in that he seemed to try to help people, so I ended up torn on what to think of him. Although it also seemed like he mostly helped because he liked giving the finger to the bad guys rather than because he wanted to help the people who were being hurt. When I write about him in stories I try to be kind, since even when I don't like certain characters I try to examine them from all angles within the contexts of the stories unless they're meant to be out-and-out villains and don't need to be examined more closely. Part of me seriously wants him to just flat-out not care about Beau since he treats him so rotten, but I always try to instead stress that he's just worried about Beau doing something that will get him hurt or killed. Although the $10,000 thing makes me question that idea.)

I think Lord Sinclair may be my favorite Roger character. Part of me would like to say that my Roger Bond figure is Lord Sinclair, as I think he’s the one I want the figure to be the most, but I feel I can’t since I don’t have a Tony Curtis figure to be Danny. Sacrilege! If I had a Tony Curtis figure that’s around 6 inches, my Roger figure would totally be Lord Sinclair. I don’t suppose there is such a thing as a Tony Curtis figure? Sigh.