Ramblings and Musings of the Insane, Philosophical Ladybug

And so after a month we come full-circle. I went to F.Y.E. at the end of January looking for some type of James Bond figure in Roger's image. That wasn't the only reason I was there, and I would have likely gone anyway even if it hadn't been a reason at all, but I was still very upset when I got sick after that excursion and got everybody else in the house sick. I can't prove it came from there, but it must have been either there or Wal-Mart, since I got sick before anybody else and therefore most likely did not pick it up at my aunt's. It had to be a place where I was the only one going around and coming into contact with people. But it was highly aggravating and upsetting that it happened, especially when the shopping was fruitless.

I was upset for weeks feeling like I should have gone to Build-a-Bear instead and got the other doll I wanted. Then I probably wouldn't have got sick/got everybody sick. And I was frustrated that I didn't get to go last week because of the lingering cough problems. Now, however, I'm grateful I didn't make it. Hopefully I'll get another chance for the doll, but meanwhile ...

I finally found a figure online for a decent price. Not one of the 12-inch figures, sadly, but about half that size. I spent days debating whether to get it and trying to see if it really looked enough like Roger to make a purchase worth it. There were four people watching it besides me; it was a Buy It Now listing. I felt a little bad to suddenly pull it out from underneath them, but any of them could have bought it at any time if they had felt so inclined, and apparently they didn't by the time I made up my mind, so no regrets. These figures usually seem to go for much more than I got mine for, so I'm doubly thrilled.

I did immediately feel guilty to purchase something James Bond, since neither Dad nor Mom like that franchise (and I'd be all over it if it wasn't for the bed times; I loved Moonraker except for what amounted to two minutes or less of bed times/implications of bed times ... and I still kind of want to see more films, too ...), but of course it was more for the actor than the character, and my idea was that it could be whatever character I wanted it to be at any given time. I stayed in that more excited mindset and didn't feel any more guilt.

Ohmygoshsquee, it shipped Monday and came this past day! And, as I determined before taking the plunge and purchasing, it does look sufficiently like Roger to be worth it! And it's so nice with fabric clothing.... I adore fabric clothing! It shows real thought and attention went into the crafting, instead of just putting molded clothes on. (Not that some molded clothing can't be amazingly detailed too, of course. But it upsets me that fabric clothing is not really a thing like it used to be.) The card is also very nice, with many pictures of Roger all over it. I have it sitting next to the card from my Oscar Goldman figure so I can see the pictures. The figures themselves are on my desk.

So I have what I set out to find a month ago and I am very pleased.

I've also been reading that Saint book I got with my last Amazon order. I've got to say, I like this one way more than that short story collection I tried a couple of years ago. Even though that was written after this novel, I like Simon's characterization in the novel far more. It's one of the books written around the WWII era, The Saint Sees It Through, and Simon is serious like his television counterpart. I haven't seen one aggravating, dirty-minded crack in here like there was in the short story collection. I also haven't seen any instances of Simon taking the law into his hands more than I find comfortable (no burying bodies in gardens to keep the people involved from going to jail, oy vey). I may want to try some other books from this time period. And if I like them too, I will be highly amused, as of course the WWII era books are largely hated among the book purists. They usually prefer their Saint much more playful and mischievous and naughty, as he is in the earlier books. I prefer him more like the character in the TV show. Which of course immediately makes me a bizarre wild card in the fandom, as I am almost everywhere. Can't break with tradition, after all.

I'm also writing a sci-fi Maverick fic, as of course the fic where Snakes reveals himself to be alive has to include some sci-fi elements. And with encouragement, I'm continuing it to show Snakes taking Beau through the portal to visit the present-day. It's mostly a character study, though, as both Snakes and Beau have issues to work through at this point. It probably won't be more than a two-shot, but who knows.

I am vaguely considering that maybe Beau could be visiting in the Count Manzeppi fic I wanted to write, and that might give me a little more motivation to go ahead with it, but I'm not sure. I was just burned so seriously with The Deadly Codename that I'm honestly afraid to start a new WWW fic. I don't want to be involved in any more drama in that fandom. Beau around would just be one more thing for that person to complain about, should he decide to complain again. I might actually have more luck writing that fic for the Maverick fandom instead. **headdesk.**

In any case, there is the problem that by playing so much in Snakes' past, it kind of turned a few things in my original timeline for him on their heads, as I knew would happen if I kept playing. But I really liked the things I was coming up with and didn't want to let them go. Now I do have to wonder how to re-align things again, since Snakes wasn't supposed to have any friends before going to the present-day and now with the Maverick branch of the timeline he has Beau. I'm trying to rationalize it by him saying that Pinto broke him so much over three years of torture that he wasn't sure Beau really would still care and want to be his friend, since they didn't even really know each other that well. But I'm not sure that's a good enough fix.

There's also the issue that in Airship it's a plot point that Snakes hasn't been back to the past before and goes back only to find Jim and Arte. After I brought in the idea of Snakes and Beau, I knew Snakes wouldn't want to leave Beau hanging, so in the Maverick timeline, the first time he goes back is to find Beau and let him know he's okay. I don't know whether to leave things as they are, apparently two similar but different timelines, to try to reconnect them by explanations from Snakes, or to reconnect them by tweaking some things in the older stories.

Another idea I had was that maybe the time re-set Duke caused in the YGO branch of the timeline screwed a few things up that he hadn't intended on, including Snakes and Beau, and that perhaps when it's said that Snakes didn't have anyone, that's because he doesn't remember Beau with the time re-set. That gets fixed at the end of the story, so if there was any trouble, Snakes remembers the truth now. But that gets sticky too, as it would mean that the original WWW time-travel fics were written with the time re-set in mind and they're Snakes' incorrect memories of how things happened.

Confusion, thy name is time-travel. Confusion, thy name is also retcon.

I've gotta say, I have to sympathize with George Lucas in a situation like this. When you start playing in the past, you find new ways of telling things that you like better than the original way. And then naturally you want to tweak the originals to fit the new ideas. But that's an unpopular thing to do. And I still don't agree with him booting out the original actors for Boba Fett and Anakin Skywalker in the original trilogy DVDs. But still, I can understand why it happened.

What am I gonna do?

So I got a plunnie involving Beau Maverick and the episode The Rivals. It would involve Beau getting mistaken for Bret's friend Jack Vandergelt III during some chaotic episode where bad guys are after Jack for some reason (maybe wanting his or his father's business assets or something). Bret would likely turn up somewhere along the way. I don't know if I'd bring Bart in too; that could get pretty crowded. Although it would be amusing to have Bart react to Beau and Jack. And Bart and Beau's relationship is the most interesting for me to write, since Beau never interacted with Bret.

I'm debating whether Jack might be up to his old tricks a bit and want him and Beau to deliberately switch places and try to figure out what's going on. Jack (or Van, as he is usually called) is a little bit of a jerk in the episode, but by the end he's pretty adorable. (And there's some very nice hurt/comfort. Purrrr. Although Jack exaggerates the seriousness of his injury, heh.) He might want to try it, but on the other hand, he wouldn't want to deliberately endanger Beau's life.

I'll ponder on exactly how to work it out. Meanwhile, I wanted an extreme hurt/comfort fic with my Persuaders! fic and got it. And the Star Wars fic is almost done, I hope. I got a little distracted by the Persuaders! fic. Hopefully I can easily touch up the Star Wars fic and post it soon.

So today I finally got to see Simon's other CHiPs episode! He was adorable! **cuddles him.** However, I do take issue with the episode. As mostly quoted from emails earlier tonight:

He ran a car alarm company and was bewildered because the cars he set up with alarms kept apparently being stolen and then reappearing in random places around the city. His college age daughter wanted to help him in the business and he didn't want her fiddling around under car hoods. In the end, it turns out that she was the one disabling the alarms and driving the cars off so they'd seem to be stolen, all to try to get his attention! Ugh! What's really disgusting about it is that his reputation was being ruined over it, and she didn't care and kept on selfishly doing what she was doing until she tried it on Ponch's car and he caught her. Simon was much too forgiving and adorable under the circumstances. It looked like she was going to get what she wanted. After ruining her father's reputation, she should have to pay in a legitimate way before it would even be a consideration! She didn't even say she was sorry!

Hopefully some action would be taken, even though it wasn't shown onscreen. Even if Ponch didn't press charges over his car, some of the other people might have. She even did it to the mayor's car! I can't believe her utter immaturity. Simon was adorable, but that was one time I really would have liked to see him go into full-blown yelling, chewing-out mode. I would have rooted for him all the way. His daughter really didn't deserve to get what she wanted after being so nasty.

Simon's character didn't want her dealing with the cars, but he wasn't really harsh about it like some of his characters might have been. Yet Ponch acted like he was being so awful, and when he revealed the girl's crummy actions, it seemed like he and Jon behaved as though they were on the girl's side. Not that they agreed with what she did, but they felt the father really needed to listen to her side. Which he did, true, but they should have warned her that what she did was really wrong and even criminal. Usually characters never get off scot-free on the show, so I'll keep figuring justice was done, but I'll always wish there had been some onscreen mention of it.

Honestly, I don't think this show writes female characters very well most of the time. I don't care much for Bonnie; she can really be a she-dog when she wants to be. (Although maybe that just started happening later on; I thought she was nicer in earlier seasons.) I did like Robbie the truck driver, though. And I usually like Sindy, although I was disappointed with her when she wanted to be "one of the guys" so much that she even joined in teasing a sensitive character (Grossman) way too long until he really felt hurt over it and then she shrugged it off when he felt bad, as though that was it and there was nothing she could do about it. Ponch really felt awful when he realized they'd taken the teasing too far, and he wanted to do something to try to help Grossman feel better, but that angle didn't really get developed. (Grossman did, however, get to be heroic in the climax and then kids were coming up to him wanting his autograph. Aww.)

I was a little surprised when someone recently proclaimed they hated CHiPs, and I've been pondering what could be the reason for that, especially since they like the somewhat similar Jack Webb shows of the 1970s. My guesses would be: 1, CHiPs is funnier than the Jack Webb shows. 2, CHiPs kind of sensationalizes huge car accidents and shows really horrifying things, like cars tearing through trucks as they fly through the air. (This wasn't done so much earlier, but became a staple later.) 3, They don't seem to be able to write very likable female characters much of the time.

I think CHiPs was better in the earlier seasons, like 1-3. I haven't always liked some of the goings-on in the later episodes. And season 6 sounds preposterous on so many levels. We not only lost three key cast members, but they started doing dumb plots like people believing that there were aliens or other monsters afoot, and it really looking like there were, before everything was resolved. CHiPs is a more realistic show aside from the sensationalized car crashes, so I don't think I'd care for season 6 very much.

And I'm wondering what to do with my Maverick fic. I'm to the point now where I think the main conflicts have been worked out as much as I'm going to let them be at this point, so I was going to write the epilogue and have Bart recovered enough that they're leaving, but there's also the fact that Bart being injured set up the whole plot. He's still injured and I suppose I could extend the story with a chapter of two of him trying to recover and focusing more on that. Maybe it wouldn't even look like the story was properly paced if I didn't.

One problem is, I don't really like detailing recoveries in every particular. My WWW RP partner lives for that part of the hurt/comfort, but I get bored by it if it goes on very long. (I prefer the angst of the hurt and the squee of the initial beginning to recover.) Detailing every instance of trying to stand again after being in bed for so long, or every changing of the dressing, etc.... I can think of at least two multi-chapter fics that remain unfinished because I couldn't figure out how to keep detailing everything like that and not be retreading old ground. I wonder if I should do one scene of each, though.

The other thing is, however, the hurt/comfort was kind of a secondary plot point. The main thing seems to have ended up being meeting Snakes and how the Mavericks deal with this, including the feelings Beau has of not really belonging in the family. It was also supposed to explore Bart and Beau's relationship and I've done a lot of that through their conversations and Beau being protective and Bart worrying about Beau. I'm just not sure if suddenly focusing more on the hurt/comfort would make sense.

I always read through the whole story before I post an epilogue, but with these confused feelings, I don't even know whether to finish my epilogue yet. Maybe I could have some brief hurt/comforty flashbacks in the epilogue to Bart's recovery scenes. I could probably do that without breaking the flow of narration and it might be better than devoting a whole chapter to it. On the other hand, maybe it wouldn't.

I guess the only thing I can do is read through everything as it stands right now and then decide what direction to take.

I've mused sometimes on the Maverick family. I'm amused that I'm not a big fan of Bart, while my WWW RP partner is not a big fan of Bret. We both like Beau.

I'm not sure what she doesn't like about Bret. I think the reasons I don't always like Bart, though, are #1, Because he often seems more bland in personality than the other two, and #2, Because when one brother is being obnoxious to the other, it usually seems like it's Bart being obnoxious to Bret.

The popular episode Two Beggars on Horseback, which I remember talking about before, has both brothers trying to get to where one of them can get his check cashed. There's only enough money for one, so they're trying to outsmart each other to get there first. But unless something was cut from the version I saw (which is possible; I haven't watched the uncut yet), the worst thing Bret did was to try to sneak out of the hotel ahead of Bart. Meanwhile, Bart pulled pranks to further slow Bret down. I'm not a fan of practical jokes, so that would naturally annoy me. And it kind of irritated me that when he's talking to Patricia Barry's character (at least, I think it was her), he paints a picture of Bret as being the prankster. If Bret did anything in that episode, it was only after Bart provoked him. But as mentioned, I don't recall him doing anything.

(I also remember another episode where Bart tried to get one up on Bret, and succeeded, and was very obnoxious about it. Although maybe someone else wouldn't think he was obnoxious. And maybe that scene is actually one reason why my RP partner likes Bart so much, since he disguised himself and she likes Artemus Gordon and his disguises.)

Bart eventually gets himself into life-threatening trouble and Bret immediately abandons the nonsense of their competition to come help him. He also expresses the opinion that Bart is being silly and they should compromise, which they do when Bret frees him. They decide they'll share one check. (In the end, they both get all their money by tricking a crooked businessman who left Bart to die.)

Of course, I'm sure that if Bret had been the one to get into trouble, Bart would have abandoned the competition too. Bart has had some very good episodes; I'm particularly fond of his first one, where he does indeed have to save Bret, and The Goose-Drownder from season 3, which is basically a huge H.M. Wynant hurt/comfort fest. But I still like the other two guys better.

I was actually surprised to learn that my WWW RP partner likes Beau, though. The main thing that puzzles me about Beau is that it isn't always easy to tell that he and Bart care about each other, while it's always very clear with Bret and Bart. James Garner and Jack Kelly just had amazing chemistry together. Jack Kelly and Roger Moore ... not so much. I think Roger Moore had better chemistry with James Garner, albeit he didn't play Beau in the one episode where they're onscreen together.

In the first Beau episode, he's abducted by a madman and tries to get a message across to Bart for help. Bart comes, of course, but when he receives the initial communications, he really doesn't react like he's upset or worried. If it had been Bret in trouble, he would have reacted. (This could, however, be the product of bad writing, since the writing honestly wasn't as good by the fourth season and that was the main reason why Roger didn't stick around for long.)

Then in another episode, Bart is playing some tricks on current enemies and needs a thousand dollars from Beau. Later, Bart gets in trouble and Beau shows up to help him. When the crooks are caught, Bart exclaims, "You knew I was in trouble and you came for me, didn't you?" Beau says No; he came to get his thousand dollars back. However, it's not as cut-and-dry as that, because Beau really didn't know Bart was in trouble. As far as he knew, Bart was still pulling pranks and hadn't become a victim of the bad guys himself. Beau was probably rather exasperated when he arrived and found that Bart had gotten in over his head.

I do think they care about each other; Bart acts like he's happy to see Beau when he greets him coming back from England in the first episode. And they travel together sometimes and seem to manage alright with that (until a conflict of interest comes along). There's the general shenanigans of trying to beat each other to money or girls or both, but there's that with Bret and Bart, too. It just comes of how the whole family was raised.

But that doesn't change the fact that I just don't feel any chemistry between Bart and Beau. Beau does better solo. Ah, how I wish there had been even one episode with him and Bret together.

I wrote a Maverick story during the summer where Beau is shot trying to protect Bart and Bart can't deal with it. I definitely think he would be distraught if that happened, but on the other hand, it's kind of sad if Beau has to get himself shot for there to be a better indication of caring between them.

My Mannix chapter finally decided to be done. After I decided to combine another idea, I realized how to make the chapter feel more full and I got it up. And with the inspiration of the second idea, the second chapter got written and posted now too.

I hope I can carry this fic through to completion. I also want to finish the Dutch Ingram fic, but it's being a little more of a puzzle. And my song challenge is moving swimmingly; I have forty prompts left out of a hundred! That's the farthest I've ever got on a 100-prompt challenge. I'm writing at my own pace, with some fics long and some short, and it's just lovely.

Then I got an idea for a Maverick fic. Beau Maverick puzzles me a bit, as does his relationship with cousin Bart. While it's always perfectly easy to tell that Bret and Bart care about each other, in spite of their barbs and occasional tricks, somehow I find it more difficult to tell about Bart and Beau (even though I'm sure they care too).

So I got an idea rife with family hurt/comfort. Beau tackles Bart out of the path of a bullet and is hit instead. Bart is horrified and upset, especially when it turns out to be a very bad hit and Beau isn't really expected to survive. He sends for Bret and is determined to find the shooter. And while they alternately search for the guy and check on Beau, Beau has astral-projected and is wandering about, observing the other two while unable to make contact.

I'm not sure when I'll start on that one, or if I can carry it through to completion. I found Bret's voice and have an unfinished fic with him, but I haven't ever tried writing for the other two. Yes, I'm aware that Bret and Bart had pretty much the same speech pattern in scripts and James Garner could pick which brother he wanted to be, but they still seem different to me, I imagine because of the actors' great talents.

Another question is what to do about the fourth relation, Brent. Brought in after Roger Moore quit, Robert Colbert only played Brent for two episodes. Both the name and his get-up were definite, deliberate callbacks to James Garner, whose departure really killed the series. Even though I like Roger Moore, I agree that most of his scripts were way below James Garner's in quality and uniqueness, and I don't blame him for quitting.

So ... since Warner Brothers was just grasping at straws and Brent was really supposed to be identical to Bret (something Robert Colbert was aware of and worried about), I wonder whether to just ignore the character's existence. I haven't seen either of his episodes and am not even sure whether he is a brother or a cousin. I've heard both. If he's a brother, it's a total ret-con, because they were very clear earlier that there were only two brothers. And even though Beau is mentioned in the later attempts at reviving the series in the 1970s, Brent is not. It seems Warner Brothers realized how stupid the move was and they wanted to forget, too.

On the other hand, I hate to ignore any legitimate character's existence. So it is a dilemma.

So I continue to deliberate over whether I want the Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie Build-a-Bear plushies.

I've actually been fairly interested in getting Rainbow after realizing how much she's grown over the seasons. And then as I said, I'm sure she's the one they'll retire first.

But then today she goes and proves that she can never fully get away from being rude. She was doing so well! Now suddenly she has to go and act insulting about Twilight's excitement over an exhibit. It's one of her worst comments in quite a while.

I was really mad at her in the morning over that. Later on I felt somewhat better, but I still don't know what to think about whether I want the plush.

I wish they weren't limited editions, because that makes me worried and panicky thinking that even though my feelings are all over the place right now, I might regret it later if I don't get them.

With Twilight, I love her so much and we usually see her good side over her bad, so it's easy to forgive her faults and love her in spite of them. Plus, sometimes she's hilariously adorable when she has a meltdown, like in Swarm of the Century when the Parasprites are tearing the town apart right as Celestia is coming for a visit. Twilight goes, "Okay, Rainbow Dash, distract them." Rainbow flies by being chased by them. "Great. Now, everybody else, build an exact duplicate of Ponyville over there. We have one minute." Then she breaks down and wails that they really are doomed. Poor Twilight.

With Rainbow, it seemed like for most of seasons 1 and 2, we mostly saw her bad side, insulting and arrogant, and it aggravated me so much that it wasn't easy at all to forgive her faults. There were only a handful of times I liked her in the early episodes. Then she seemed to really be changing in the latter part of season 2 and into seasons 3 and 4. She matured a lot. But that comment today ... ugh. Just ugh. That was such a backslide.

I suppose I could blame it on the writing, since it sure hasn't been consistent for some of the Ponies, like Fluttershy. But considering Rainbow Dash's personality and her past behavior, it's hard to know what to think.

Also, the original Maverick series is honestly really cute. We have Cozi TV now and they air it. I still don't think I'd like the sequel from the early '80's, although I was going to try it again and see how I felt. But I don't think I tend to like Westerns from the '70's and the '80's. They seem to be so silly, almost like they're making fun of the genre. I don't like Alias Smith and Jones (although I was going to try it again, too) and I don't like Bret Maverick (the sequel series, not the person).

Gunsmoke continued until 1975 and was pretty consistently serious. Sometimes too much so, honestly. I didn't like what happened in The Guns of Cibola Blanca at all. It seemed way too raunchy for the series, even though by the mid-seventies times were changing with what they would air on TV. And it was such a confusing mess. I got so fed up trying to figure out what was going on that I finally started fast-forwarding through the thing and only stopping at Richard Anderson's scenes.

Anyway, though, the original Maverick series is pretty adorable. It's a little tongue-in-cheek and sometimes there's shades of the kind of humor that would come later in The Rockford Files and Alias Smith and Jones, but it seems to be a lot more mild. And I like the character of Bret Maverick. He's amusing and definitely not your typical hero. But he's a pretty honest guy, really, unless he's showing up some cheaters who've been causing trouble.

I only caught part of an episode tonight, and I liked it as well as the other three I've seen, although it was a little sad too. At the end, Bret was commenting on how the guy with him had done all kinds of dangerous things, but had come out alive, was a hero, and would be rich. Bret was broke and leaving town and no one noticed or cared. He wondered if he was wrong about his life's philosophy.

I really loved one of the episodes last week, where he and his brother Bart were both trying to get hold of some money and there was only enough for one of them to get a share. I thought it would be one of those awful "everybody gets greedy and betrays everybody else into dangerous situations" episodes. That seems to always happen in the old Road movies and is one major reason why I just can't get into them. The characters are always either greedy or cowardly and betraying each other. I can't stand it and can't buy the idea of the characters really caring about each other.

But in this Maverick episode, the stuff with the brothers getting greedy was more playful and did not extend to getting each other into dangerous situations. And it seemed like it was mainly Bart carrying on (although Bret did a bit of it). But as soon as Bart actually got into real danger, Bret immediately came to help him instead of just letting him suffer and maybe get killed. And they decided to share what money they could get. So much squeeableness! And so very different from what I thought would happen! That definitely makes Maverick unique.

I hope to continue catching episodes where possible. Right now I can only catch it on Saturday nights, as on weekdays it airs at the same time as Ironside. And even though Maverick is cute, I like Ironside lots better.