Ramblings and Musings of the Insane, Philosophical Ladybug

Frankie Valli released a Christmas album this year! Squeeeee. I saw it at Wal-Mart on Friday and I couldn't resist getting it. Somehow I resisted listening until after Halloween. It is awesome and totally puts me in the Christmas mood. And I adore that he's still working with Bob Gaudio after all these years!

I ended up doing three different things for costuming. At the party, I played Rouge. It was nice to pull out that old costume again, but I still wanted to try some new things too. On Friday, when Wal-Mart was having a party and costume event, I threw together a very bad costume of Lydia from Beetlejuice in her casual clothes. I never could find a pink sash I know we have, so I had to use a scrap of cloth left over from a sewing project. And my hair is too long to stand on end, so I had to settle for a ponytail on top of my head. At least the makeup was in both correct colors, but I had a terrible time getting the purple to show up well.

None of us could find those yellow clothes, so now I'm really worried wondering where they are. But I played April on Halloween anyway, doing a combo of the 1987 and 2014 versions. My aunt gave me some blue jeans for my birthday that are so soft and lightweight and comfortable, so I used those and my tan boots as the 2014 elements. Everything else was the 1987 version.

I'm so glad we went to the Trunk or Treat at the church; there were only two groups of kids who came to our door (aside from one or two that came so early they weren't expected and I couldn't get there in time). I think that's the slowest Halloween we've ever had. It's sad how things have dwindled in recent years. It's strange too, considering how much people are spending for Halloween stuff. You'd think the number of Trick-or-Treaters would increase, not decease.

I've started to warm up to at least one of the new Troll characters, as I figured I would. I like Poppy, who is the leader. She reminds me more of the classic Trolls than most of the characters do, so I would like to get a plushie of her, I think. Probably the Build-a-Bear one, as I'm not impressed by the "fur" softness levels of the more mainstream ones. I might even try to see if I can see the movie. I figured I'd really want to give it a try after all, since I've loved Trolls so much through the years. I've always tried any version of them I could find. I loved the computer game about finding baby Trolls (I was playing it just the other day) and the children's novels about a pink-haired Troll coming to the human world and making friends with a human girl, and I would have tried the series Trollz if I had been aware of it and had access to it when it was on. Regarding Poppy, from the trailers I've gathered that rather than being a naively cheerful idiot, she's a good leader who chooses to be cheerful even though she knows there's a lot of things to be unhappy about. I could be wrong, though.

I finally took some screenshots of Baxter and Barney from my DVDs and am continuing to work on my website. I think I almost have it to the point where I'll let it go live. I still need to decide what I'm going to do with my fanarts, if I should post them on dA and link them, or if I should post them on the website only. People on dA rarely seem to give a darn about stuff I post, so I'm pretty bored with posting there. That, and half the time when I try, dA ends up gobbling memory and I have a horrible time even getting stuff up. Ugh.

I'm still ordering Netflixes from that list Dad made of movies we'd seen many years ago and liked. A Mario Lanza movie came yesterday, That Midnight Kiss (ugh, what a stupidly mushy title). The music was beautiful, of course, and I was totally thrilled that Kathryn Grayson was the girl, as I adore her and her singing. But the movie itself was pretty stupid. Some guy convinces a temperamental tenor to trash his room when he's mad and tear up his contract, because they want to bring Mario's character in as the tenor instead and they have to get that guy to go. And it ticked me off how the girl just couldn't bring herself to sing the operas' love songs with the temperamental tenor, not because he's a jerk, but because he's fat, ugh. But that was the typical attitude of the day, that fat always equaled unappealing. Honestly, I liked the guy okay; in physical appearance he reminded me of Simon. And actually, in some ways he had a perfect right to be angry, considering the way he was being treated at different points in the film. And then there's a huge misunderstanding between Mario and Kathryn's characters and they're both acting stupid refusing to talk things out and she's doing the typical "I hate him! I hate him!" immature nonsense when he sends her good luck wishes and she stomps on the poor roses, yet for some reason when she sees him on stage instead of the other tenor, she's totally thrilled and happy and all anger is forgotten, even though they haven't talked anything out yet. Of course, you're supposed to take it that it's because she really loves him instead of hating him, but I was expecting an explosion on the stage before she calmed down.

At least it's just shallow, stupid fluff, though, and not rage-inducing like Kiss Me, Kate is. Ugh, I loathe that production. The guy is such a jerk I can't figure out what she sees in him. Such an egotistical, abusive creep.... And I hate the whole Taming of the Shrew plot in general. I know about the different alternate interpretations of the plot, that she's not really tamed and she's just letting the guy think she is, but to me it's still a really gross and disgusting story.

And then there's The Toast of New Orleans, which I love for the music while I'm unsure what to make of the plot. On the one hand, I think the idea is simply that the high society types changed the main guy too much and that by making him integrate into their world, they're destroying everything that made him unique, and that of course that's a bad thing. But when part of what they did was simply to teach him good manners, I kind of struggle with the whole thing. The character was very obnoxious and crude and annoying, and I found him far more appealing when he learned good manners. I suppose the idea was more that the girl loved him for his bizarre and unique personality and didn't like it being erased or seeing him stifled, instead of simply saying that him learning good manners was wrong, but I have a really hard time seeing the distinction. Of course, it's not a good thing for anyone to have to be stifled if they're not actually doing anything wrong, but eh, I don't know; the way the movie handled the whole thing kind of bugs me. At least she said "We changed him too much," implying that some of the changes weren't bad, but still.

So I've always loved Trolls. I was so disappointed when the last revival of the figures didn't last very long. I had high hopes when I heard that we were going to get new Trolls thanks to DreamWorks.

Then I saw them.

Why, exactly, is their skin colored bizarre colors as well as their hair? Why can't DreamWorks make Trolls that, you know, actually look more like the dolls that have been around for fifty years?

And they made it so they have exclusive product rights everywhere in the world except Scandinavia. Not that the original company tends to make the bizarre hair colors that really made them popular in the U.S. They seem to stick more to logical colors like black and white.

I saw a trailer for the film some time back. As usual, DreamWorks had a lot of scatological humor in it. I hardly ever watch DreamWorks films because of that element. But I'd probably still bite the bullet and see the film if the Trolls actually looked like they're supposed to. I guess I could still be won over, but I'd always like the classic styles the best.

Looks like if I want more classic Trolls, I still have to either turn to buying MIB Trolls online from the last wave and paying S&H costs or else picking up the loose Trolls I've seen at the antique mall. Or both.

... 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 I'm still on a Turtles kick. I watched the very first movie and still loved it. I also wanted to see TMNT, but I wasn't sure I'd still feel the magic for it since there are things I don't like about it. But I did get caught up in the magic again and I was thrilled. It really is a very good, very powerful movie. And the whole thing with the 3,000-year-old warriors and the man cursed with solitary immortality for his mistake and the portals to different dimensions and escaping monsters all reminded me of something out of a YGO film. I think that was part of what excited me so much before.

Also, while I still wish they had actually had Leo apologize to Raph for the nasty things he said to him, they did have quite a touching make-up scene. It wasn't enough for me before, but this time it seemed to mean more (maybe because of Crystal's enthusiasm over the subtleness of Napoleon and Illya). Raph comes and helps Leo up as the drug wears off and hands him some new katana, saying he'll need them if he's going to lead them out of there. Leo smiles and says he'll need Raph too and they smile at each other. Not exactly "I'm sorry" on either of their parts, but it really was a beautiful moment with each acknowledging they had been wrong.

And while I still think the problem was on both sides, I really was horrified at how far Raph allowed his anger and hurt to go, actually fighting with Leo quite viciously and eventually breaking the original katanas and pinning him down. The moment where Raph comes back to himself and realizes what he could have done is very powerful. He can't even stand to be there and turns and runs. And Leo is so drained and shaken from the episode that he isn't paying attention when a tranquilizer dart is shot at him. Raph hears him cry out and runs back, but he's not able to stop the bad guys from kidnapping Leo.

I watched a lot of the bonus material and while I'd seen some of the scenes before, I didn't see all of them. And I didn't remember that originally they were going to have Leo and Raph talk at the end. There was still a lot they needed to talk out: Raph's feelings of abandonment and how he had to take over when Leo was gone, Leo's feelings that he just wasn't good enough to be the leader and the brothers would be better off without him.... I wonder if that scene would possibly be in the novelization. I always wanted to get it, as I knew it had stuff that was left out of the movie. If it's not in the novelization, I'm really tempted to write my own version of it. That movie has so much pain and hurt, especially on Leo and Raph's parts. It seemed to be Raph's movie in a lot of ways, and we didn't really get in-depth on Leo's issues.

Several weeks ago I read through all my journal entries tagged with TMNT (which is the general Turtles tag, not just for this movie). I found that one of the movie's creators had said that he wanted to show that animated movies didn't just have to be about characters running into each other and passing gas. LOL. But yes, it really is a very deep, very serious movie with moments of humor here and there. It's a beautiful film and I love it again and want to see it again very soon.

I decided to follow it up by watching an episode of the 2003 series. I have the first 12 on DVD. So naturally I started with the first one. Mikey was a little more tolerable this time around, but still kind of too much. I seem to like him everywhere else, but I don't know, he just comes across as so obnoxious and frustrating in this incarnation. And Raph ... yikes. He really could be pretty nasty in this version. I forgot that in addition to Leo, he also seemed to have many problems with Mikey, to the point of hitting him and trying to fight with him. I did remember how upset Raph was when Mikey beat him in some tournament thingy later on in the series (and how obnoxious Mikey was about winning and kept rubbing it in everyone's faces). I'm so used to Raph in the movies, who never seems to have any specific problems with Mikey and actually "teamed up" with him in the newest film, that this was kind of a jolt. I had other issues with the 2003 series in the past, and I wonder if I won't like it much at all this round. I was thinking that I seem to prefer the Turtles in movies, any of the movies. I grew up with the first movie more than the original series and I'm absolutely nuts about the current movies while I still don't know if I want to touch Nickelodeon's TV series. Nick seems to have a concept of Raph being rather protective of Mikey in all their stuff, though, so that would be one adorable thing in their TV series.

Another thing I've never been able to make peace with is Nick's decision that April should be a teenager too. They felt it was too illogical for an adult to want to be friends with teenagers. Actually, there's probably not that much difference in their ages. Maybe five, six years. And I never found it illogical that April had made friends with them; I always thought it was beautiful. I like that Nick found a way to make things work in their movies without resorting to making April younger. In the movies, the backstory is that she was the one who owned them before the mutations. That is seriously adorable and I am all for it. And it would totally work in any branch of the franchise. After all, the story is that they were pet turtles that were lost. Somebody owned them. But I don't think April would have to be the previous owner in order for it to make sense that she made friends with them. To me, it still makes sense in every branch of the franchise. April was never conventional and was always open-minded; even though she generally freaks out in every initial meeting with them, she warms up pretty quickly once she knows they're friendly. She was probably always a little strange/different from everyone else. Having unusual friends just doesn't seem such an odd thing for her. And after all the crazy things she went through with the Turtles in their early adventures, it makes a lot of sense that a lasting bond would form and she would want to stay in touch.

I was also thinking about The Next Mutation, which is the bane of the franchise. It was finally released on DVD a little while ago and you can find it at places like Wal-Mart or K-Mart for $5. For that price, I've considered buying it, but I don't know if I want to touch it, either. I'm not that crazy about the idea of a fifth Turtle, or that April and Casey are bizarrely absent, but what bugs me more than anything else is that in this thing, the Turtles are not biological brothers. By all indications, this was done just so that there was a possibility of any of them hooking up romantically with the new Turtle. Um, that is seriously beyond lame. Actually, if the series had instead kept the brothers angle and the storylines were all "Hey, we have a new sister! Yay!" I would probably think it was seriously adorable and would be very enthusiastic about trying it, even if I still wouldn't want the girl Turtle to be canon in any other branch of the franchise. But getting rid of the brother thing was sacrilege, and doing it for the possibility of romance is utterly unforgivable. Why does everything always have to be about romance? The Turtles were always more about platonic relationships. It should stay that way.

Yesterday was a long and interesting day that started with horrible, horrible insomnia. Ugggh. I was so tired I actually felt ill, and yet when I was able to lay down to sleep I didn't even get three hours worth of sleep! WTH? I rolled around for a long while, gave up, and watched the rest of something I was recording before it was time to get ready to meet a local friend for the new Turtles movie!

Honestly, I loved it overall. I kind of might love the first one a little more, but I don't know. They are both great. Like the first one, there was really only one crude moment. There was a little bit more swearing, but pretty much only at the beginning and then there wasn't any more. (YAY!)

( Mild spoilers )

We also went shopping a bit. I'd called Toys R Us and asked if they had Sugarcoat dolls and the guy couldn't find any. They had a whole bunch. **headdesk.** But she wasn't on sale, so I'm glad I went ahead a couple of days ago and bought her at Hasbro's eBay store. She was only $9.99 there and they have FREE SHIPPING. Also, people told me that they've shaped up and their shipping is faster than it used to be. As I'm watching the tracking information, I see it looks like that's true. I think she'll get here before the estimated date of June 16th, and even that isn't bad. One week is about what it takes for Amazon's free shipping.

I bought Charlie's Angels season 1 at K-Mart. I should have got it two weeks ago when I bought a present for my movie-going friend's birthday, but I held off because I wasn't sure I'd like season 1 as much and I wanted to review the episode guide again. I regretted not getting it the instant I got home and read it, ugh. It's been driving me nuts that it's taken so long to be able to get back up there to get it. We watched one of them already and it was fun. I love 1970's cheese.

Wal-Mart is having a sale on their basic Equestria Girls dolls, or rather, I think the price has just lowered to get rid of the stock so they can start getting in stuff for the new movie this year. I'm hoping to at least get Lemon Zest; I decided the expression on the basic doll is way cuter and more fitting for her than the expression on the deluxe doll (which can't seem to be found in the States anyway, oy vey). I was willing to pass on Sunny Flare, since she wasn't very nice through most of the movie, but I still think the post-movie novel didn't do her justice at all, and when I think about how she was really upset and shocked that Principal Cinch wanted to get away from "that monster" instead of trying to help Twilight, considering Cinch manipulated her into unleashing the magic in the first place, I think that Sunny Flare is probably really a pretty nice person. Plus, I love her color scheme. So I might end up getting her doll if I can only get one.

Each one has some flaws, though. Lemon Zest doesn't have her bangs, which is weird since Hasbro has been so good about giving bangs to the dolls whose characters have them. Her forehead looks so unflatteringly big without the bangs. (I think they used the Rainbow Rocks-era head for her that has a really high forehead.) And Sunny Flare's hair is long when it's actually short in the movie. I don't know why Hasbro wouldn't let her have short hair when the DJ doll has accurate, short hair. I could cut it, of course, but it's so beautiful that I hate to do that even for the sake of accuracy.

Of course, I'd really like to have them both, but I don't know if I'll be able to with money tighter than usual lately. It's been slow going on TextBroker for weeks. Sigh. I want to get at least one of them on Monday, though. Hopefully Wal-Mart will still have them; they have for the past couple of times, even with the price drop.

I've been planning for the Equestria Girls fic I want to write with the Crystal Prep girls. My next fic for that was going to be the one where Sunset Shimmer learned what happened to her naturally human counterpart and I was outlining some of it last week, but after reading that novel and feeling like the Crystal Prep girls just weren't portrayed IC, I really want to try my hand at writing them and see if I can do it better/more canon-accurate.

Sugarcoat will be portrayed as probably the only one Twilight really associated with in any kind of a friend capacity. Of course, they won't have been very close, but considering that Twilight reaches out to Sugarcoat and says her name, and Sugarcoat is actually the only Crystal Prep girl who calls Twilight by name anywhere in the movie, and since she sounded like she might have been trying to help Twilight improve herself in the early part of the film, I do kind of like to think that they had some connection. It might have just been that Sugarcoat was almost the only one willing to talk to Twilight at school, or maybe they were also at each other's houses a time or so. Still thinking on this.

Lemon Zest likes Twilight just fine; she never acted mean at all until the climax, when Cinch led all the students in ganging up on Twilight to unleash the magic. I think I'll portray her as friendly, but probably not really into the science scene like Twilight is. She's one of the top students, so she can likely do the work, but has no interest in it (like me with math). She wanted to share her music with Twilight, and maybe that happened semi-frequently. Twilight definitely didn't like her pounding rock music, or trying to be polite in listening to it, but in hindsight I think she would appreciate that Lemon Zest was generally nice to her. Usually, however, I'm guessing that Lemon Zest was lost in her own world of music and probably didn't approach Twilight except to get her to hear things.

Indigo Zap probably thinks Twilight is kind of an idiot after her awkward response to Indigo's "Are we gonna win?!" exclamation. She was also irritated when Twilight bumped into her and caused her to drop her glass. But she's loyal to Crystal Preppers. It was right after that irritation that she jumped to Twilight's defense when Canterlot High students wanted to know what she was doing. Whether her loyalty extends to former Crystal Preppers who transferred to another school, however ... good question. The movie did end with the schools on better terms, but she still might not like that Twilight left Crystal Prep and wonder why Twilight would do that. On the other hand, maybe she would have some level of understanding about it, after everyone ganged up on her and it resulted in her transformation once she unleashed the magic.

Sour Sweet was definitely the nastiest in the movie. But again, since it ended with everyone on better terms, figuring out exactly what to do with her will be a little hard. I think she still won't like Twilight, but she won't be as hostile as in the movie. She also, however, won't try to say some nonsense like that she was Twilight's friend at Crystal Prep. She clearly didn't want to associate with Twilight at all, and only did when circumstances forced them together. She and Sunny Flare seem to be friends in the movie and they seem to get along great, unlike the portrayal in the book.

Sunny Flare is the real puzzle. Since she's Rarity's counterpart, I might give her an interest in fashion. Or maybe she's a little vain. Or both. Maybe more stuck-up than just vain. She certainly won't be portrayed anything like the book portrayed her, what with being scared that Twilight will turn into a monster again. They all know it happened because she did what everyone was pressuring her to do and unleashed the magic, and Sunset Shimmer saved Twilight, so there's no real reason to believe that she'll turn into a monster again.

I'm really excited to try this fic out.

And now Alan Young is dead, as of Thursday. I just learned this past day. He was 96 (!!) and still doing some acting and voice-work.

I think this death hits me the hardest this year. Such a good, full life, but he was so much a part of my childhood with DuckTales. I loved Scrooge McDuck so much. I wanted a plushie, but wasn't able to get one. I doubt I'll do much, if anything, with the reboot, but I'm really hoping it causes new plushies to be made so I can get one. I do have a couple of figures, a tiny one from Kellogg's mail-in thing and a bendable one.

Alan Young was also in The Cat From Outer Space as a veterinarian. That was probably the first time I ever saw what he looked like. It's a hilarious movie filled with wonderful character actors and an adorable cat. (And you get Harry Morgan and McLean Stevenson in the same place. It's a must for M*A*S*H fans!)

And then I discovered a whole new side of Alan Young several years ago when I watched Mister Ed. I honestly thought the horse was pretty mean sometimes, but I did love it whenever he showed that he really cared about Alan Young's character. And I totally ate it up when Alan played Wilbur's father in one episode and used his Scrooge McDuck voice. Epic.

I watched a couple of my favorite DuckTales episodes tonight in tribute. I don't think I've ever actually crushed on Alan Young or his characters, but I loved him and Scrooge McDuck about as much as I can love actors and characters without actually crushing on them, and that's a lot.

So yesterday I suddenly remembered the new YGO movie opened in Japan over the weekend, so I hurried to see if a detailed summary was up anywhere. I couldn't find a complete one at the time, but this one told a lot of it up to a point: http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Yu-Gi-Oh!_The_Dark_Side_of_Dimensions

It definitely is manga-based, and after I learned that months ago I was never sure I wanted to consider it canon. Now that I know more about it, I realllly don't think I want to consider it canon. I want to like it, but some of it sounds so weird and OOC. ( Spoilers! )

Patty Duke is dead at age 69. And from something apparently unexpected and sudden. That makes it even worse than ever. It's so sad to think of her being gone and so sad to think of her loved ones grieving. I was thinking how sad William Schallert must be, since he really ended up like a father figure to her, and then of course Sean Astin and her other kids must be so sad.... I should do some kind of a Tumblr tribute.... I wonder if I have any pictures of her already taken from my DVD sets.

I spent the afternoon filling out our Netflix queue.... I added a lot of Hawaii 5-O, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, and Hart to Hart, although Mom's probably already seen most of the latter episodes. They come on Monday evenings on Cozi and she watches them while Dad and I are getting groceries. I wish I could see the show more often because it's adorable and generally clean. I love cute 1980's series. I think that was the last decade when we really had a lot of nice and safe live-action TV shows, and of course even then, some of them were starting to get kind of bad sometimes.

Among the Scarecrow discs I added was the one with Luke. It's been years since I've seen it and since he was the main guest-star, I wanna see it again. I was thinking the other day about when I got my first Equestria Girls dolls, the original two-pack with Twilight and the Sunset with incorrect hair. That was in November of 2013. I had a big, fun de-boxing session that night and then set them on my desk while I watched that Scarecrow episode. Then I made a silly Tumblr post commenting that I was playing with dolls of Ponies as people and watching old shows with middle-aged men ... and loving it.

PAX TV used to air Scarecrow around 2000, right before Remington Steele. I hardly ever got to catch it, but weirdly enough, the one with Luke was one that I saw at least part of. I distinctly remember the epilogue. And that means I at least was introduced to Luke's name in the credits, even if I didn't see any of his scenes. Kind of eerie.

Wal-Mart currently has season 1 of Remington Steele available for $10 and I've been debating getting it. I loved that show back in the day and saw almost all of them repeatedly, but I wonder if I would still love it today. My only semi-recent experience with it was when I caught one episode on Halloween night on MeTV several years ago, the one about the stolen dog with Tom Baker guest-starring, and I loved it just as I had before. That was season 2, though (I think). I'm wondering if I'd like season 1 as much as the other seasons. Season 1 didn't have Doris Roberts, and one of the things I loved the most was her interaction with the others. Still, after reading over the season 1 episode summaries, it still sounds like a blast.

Among the stuff I added to the queue today were several things with Don Knight. I tried to weed out a few where he either might not be playing bad guys or where he at least wasn't playing the Big Bads. I'll get around to seeing everything I can with him eventually, but when possible I like to start with things where the actor plays nicer people. I didn't add the Little House disc, though, or even see if Netflix has it. I'm still displeased by the sound of his character's needless death. Anyway, I probably have the Little House thing around here somewhere, as I think my sister gave us all of her Little House tapes when she graduated to DVDs. Ten to one I actually saw that episode years and years ago, as I grew up often watching the show on our local PBS station (which lost the rights to it only a couple of years ago or so, after airing it for decades, gah). I liked it okay, especially as a kid, but I don't know if it would have the same appeal for me now since I really prefer shows with more action. I remember being surprised one time when I saw a Little House episode with bad guys invading the town and holding people hostage and somebody (Laura, I think) bonked one of them with a frying pan. Buwahaha.

I also tried adding The Apple Dumpling Gang and was told it's on Very Long Wait. **rolls eyes.** Not encouraging; that usually means it will end up lost. I wonder if the library might have it....

Also, this morning I decided to look for cheap copies of Interrupted Melody, a movie I want to see with Roger in it. I've been trying to get it for a couple of months and finally just decided to wait and get it with my next Amazon splurge. Only problem is, the survey company is taking forever about giving me my gift card. Uggggh. It's been almost two months now. That occasionally happens with them and it's really frustrating when it does. A while back I got Gold of the Seven Saints on eBay when its price came down, so now I decided that if I could find a cheap copy of Interrupted Melody I'd do the same with it.

I ended up finding a sealed VHS for only $6 and free shipping! I had really wanted a DVD copy, but oh man, it is hard to beat a price like that! I opted to grab it up. At the time I was stressed about stuff and worried that maybe getting a VHS wasn't a good idea, since that means I can only watch it in the living room. But after a good sleep and a dream involving the actors in it, I woke up ecstatic to have finally got a copy. I can hardly wait for it to get here. Also, I love the picture on the VHS copy, as it looks like it's probably Roger's character bending down to the leading lady. He plays her brother, so now I am hoping there will be some sibling squee.

In any case, I hope I will like this film way better than Gold of the Seven Saints. That was ... probably one of the stupidest things I have ever seen. I knew I shouldn't expect too much from it, but I was expecting a little more than I got. Still, Roger was cute and there was hurt/comfort and friendshippiness, so it was worth watching.

So I learned a few interesting things today.

I already knew this is YGO's 20th anniversary. I found out now that it shares its anniversary with Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?; the manga was first printed on September 30th. (The anime, which I love much more, celebrates its 16th anniversary on April 18th.)

The 20th anniversary celebration movie releases in April. I thought it wasn't coming until July, for some reason. But it's saying that the movie takes place six months after the end of the original manga. For some reason I had thought it took place in anime-verse, but it kind of sounds like it doesn't. If it takes place in manga-verse, then I probably won't consider it canon unless it's really amazing; the anime is my preferred YGO canon, with only the substitution of Duke's manga introduction instead of the anime one. And the more detailed manga conversations between Atem and Thief King Bakura from the Memory World stuff.

And then this summary that Shounen Jump released has me puzzled to the extreme:

In the past Yūgi Yami and Kaiba have clashed many times!! Yami Yūgi, who resides in Yūgi Mutō's body, and Kaiba will have a duel that bets their prides and accepts each other's mutual experience.

Ummmm.... So it takes place after the end of the manga, when Yami Yugi had gone on to the afterlife, but they're still talking about him like he's there? What?

I know it seems strange to think of a YGO anything in the original verse without Yami Yugi around, but he's kind of not supposed to be there now. The whole point of the finale was to show that Yugi can stand on his own and Yami Yugi's destiny lay in finally being able to rest in peace. So right now I am left seriously scratching my head and wondering if something was mistranslated in that summary.

I look forward to April 23rd with great interest. And a bit of trepidation. I don't mind Yami Yugi being back, if there's a logical explanation for it, but I'm not too thrilled at the thought of the film being manga-based. And I wonder what will happen with Duke and Bakura, who have been my favorite YGO characters and story subjects for several years now. (Ironic, since in the past I used to struggle with writing for both of them....)

Also, I finally finished chapter 5 of my Riptide fic. I am thrilled. I think it may be starting to take better shape now; it's leaning towards a combination of The Hardy Boys and The Saint in plot structure, with a dabbling of old adventure quest movies like Mara Maru. Which makes total sense since the Riptide episode that inspired the fic made me think of The Hardy Boys and since there are some really fun Saint episodes set in tropical areas. And since movies like Mara Maru also have some similar plot elements with what I'm doing: ship settings, smuggling, maybe a crook in a white suit....

I finished that Saint book, too, and thoroughly loved it. The TV adaptation of it was kind of a mess; probably not one of the better episodes. It changed drug smuggling to art smuggling, which just wasn't as intense, and it had a bizarre subplot of an old girlfriend of Simon's being manipulated by a hypnotist who was obsessed with her. She couldn't make herself break free of his control, no matter how Simon pleaded, but at the climax she sees the hypnotist about to shoot him and she runs out to try to save him and gets shot herself. The episode ends with Simon holding her as she apparently dies. It was heartbreaking. Even moreso since the girl really was innocent and hadn't ever willingly participated in the hypnotist's crimes.

I'm torn between writing a fic of Simon at her grave after the funeral or saving her life instead. Apparently Simon didn't break it off with her; she left him three years ago. Simon still cared about her, and she him, although I think Simon had really accepted that it was over between them. If I save her, which I certainly lean towards doing because it was just too sad, I'd still have to have them decide not to renew their romance, at least not at that time. But Simon would say he would always be there for her if she needed him. Only that all opens another can of worms in that she would likely be suffering a lot from trauma after finally breaking free of the hypnotist's control, and the road to recovery would be long and I don't think I'd be able to write that kind of fic; I stalled on more than one about recovery from trauma (including the Detective Conan fic Breakdown). I guess I could still just make it a oneshot and have Simon planning to stick around during her recovery and let it end there. Either that or timeskip to when she's better and they talk then and decide at that point not to renew their romance. They really have to decide that, as the episode aired at the end of the second season and even if she didn't die in canon as she seemed to, she certainly isn't around for any of the remaining four seasons.

Anyway, of The Saint episodes I've seen that were based on stories I've read, I wasn't so keen on this one or on the adaptation of The Gentle Ladies, but I like the book version of The Gentle Ladies even less. By contrast, I absolutely loved the adaptation of The Ever-Loving Spouse, in contrast to my thorough dislike of the book version. I believe I squeed over it here around the time I first saw it. Most episodes I have not read the book version of, and in general I imagine I would prefer the TV episode, if I liked either one. And then there's episodes that have no book counterparts, particularly a lot of the color ones. I kind of really love those, as they get into espionage and other exciting spy things like that. Many of the book-based ones are more about running cons, and while it is delicious to see con artists get some of their own medicine back at them, I love spy episodes the best.

I added another wartime-era Saint novel to my Amazon wishlist. I really wouldn't be surprised in the least if that ends up my favorite Saint era. I just love the idea of The Saint as an undercover government agent, especially if he tends to behave as he did in the novel I just finished. In any case, I'm just thrilled to have read a Saint book I really enjoy and that didn't make me uncomfortable in any way, as several of the short stories in The Saint to the Rescue did. I'm glad I didn't give up completely after being disappointed by the short stories. I was certainly tempted to. But I kept wanting to read that one particular book regardless and now I finally have.

And speaking of writing character death fix-it fics, ugh, I also must write one for a Charlie's Angels episode. I was so bummed by the episode in general, as Dan Tanna from Vega$ was in it and I got it in my head that it was a full-blown crossover. So I immediately sent for the disc, as I like Vega$ and I adore Dan Tanna; it's so intriguing that instead of a Las Vegas private eye being a really wild sort, Dan is very morally upright. (Maybe that was to try to make Las Vegas more appealing to conservative 1970s TV viewers?) But then he only has a tiny cameo appearance at the very end of part 2. It was so lame. I wanted to see him and the Angels solve a case together! I suppose the shows airing on different networks was what prevented a real crossover, even though they were both Aaron Spelling shows, but it was still disappointing.

Making it worse, there was an adorable character in the episode played by Scatman Crothers who had a pet cat that he carried everywhere with him. He was the best friend of a character played by Dean Martin and the villain was trying to take away everything that Dean's character loved. That included running down Scatman's character. Gah, it was heartbreaking. The cat jumped out of the way, thank goodness, but then it ran over to him and got on his chest, so worried. And then he survived the car crash, but the crummy villain came in through the window of the hospital that night and gave him a drug that killed him for real. I just hate when a character survives something horrible and you're so happy and relieved, and then they throw in the twist of them dying anyway. That is also lame. And sadistic.

But so anyway, I must figure out some way to save that character, because him dying is just unacceptable. I hate when one half of a great friendship (or for that matter, an enduring romance) is killed off, and it's so sad thinking about not only Dean's character being so sad, but the cat. Gah.

So this morning I finally got around to looking up what the heck The Lion Guard is about. The concept sounded ludicrous to me in the past (a Prince running security? WTH?), and learning more about it is not helping me think it sounds any less ludicrous. In addition to that weirdness, we've got him with the absolutely bizarre ability to ... channel his ancestors' roars? What? And since it takes place around halfway through the second movie, I have to wonder, why was there no mention of him in The Lion King 2 (other than because of course the character hadn't been animated yet)? It makes very little sense to have him absent throughout that entire film. (Now I can't remember if he was the character they used in some kids' books long before The Lion King 2 came out. If he was, that's cool that they finally animated him. But it doesn't help the series sound any less weird.)

I actually liked The Lion King 2, so I do like the idea of getting to see those characters some more. But I don't like that they never use the original hyenas from the first film, except in that silly, generic Timon & Pumbaa TV series from the nineties. Why create new hyena characters? What's wrong with the original ones? I do love the concept of having one hyena in The Lion Guard be nice, though. It's about time there was a protagonist hyena.

And then I have to admit that while even though the original Lion King featured a smidgen of scatological humor, it at least wasn't a plot point. Apparently in The Lion Guard, we've got the Prince's security team saving Kiara from a stampede because ... the honey badger passed gas? What? **headdesk.** That is so stupid. About on par with The Lion King 1 1/2 saying that the animals bowed not because Rafiki was holding Simba up, but because they were all fainting from the smell of Pumbaa passing gas. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I've never wanted to see The Lion King 1 1/2 because it sounds like it deconstructs the original movie and I loved that film. I rarely like parodies or satires because I don't like to see things I like being made fun of.

(Then a minor quibble with The Lion Guard is the character's name. Kion ... really? It rhymes with lion. Why, why, why would anyone want to name a lion character Kion? How can you take that seriously?)

I'll admit that perhaps the show looks better than it sounds on paper, but overall I am not that impressed by what I've learned. I suppose sooner or later I'll give it a try, but I'm not looking forward to that so much.

I also learned that this year's Equestria Girls movie will have a camp theme. I can't say I'm excited. I'm not an outdoorsy person and camp is not my thing. I can't imagine it would be Rarity's thing, either, for that matter, although the Pony Rarity went glamping once. LOL. Anyway, though, it seems like the movies just keep getting better and better, so I'm going to keep hoping for the best. Rainbow Rocks didn't sound like much at first, but then it ended up being wonderful. As long as there's lots of Sunset and naturally human Twilight character development in the camp movie, I'll probably love it.

And then Muffins is finally being re-released as Build-a-Bear promised. But she's still a web exclusive! **cries.** Why? Uggggh. I was hoping so much they would put her in the stores this round, like they finally did for Zecora and Shining Armor. I just don't know how to buy from Build-a-Bear online. You have to get $40 to get free shipping, or else shipping is about $6, and Muffins is $30 instead of $25 for some mysterious reason, and it's all a big mess. I just can't afford to buy from them online, but it doesn't look like they're going to put Muffins in-store, so if I want her, I'm probably going to have to get her online somehow.

Also, I finished watching The Persuaders! tonight. I am sad that there are no more new episodes to see. I stretched the last few out as long as I could. I will definitely start re-watching my favorites now. I've already seen some of them twice, as I've been introducing Mom to the series and showing her the best episodes. She likes the series, which I'm thrilled about. But I regret that we'll soon have watched all of the really friendshippy ones together, leaving the earlier ones where they're not as close. I'm not as anxious to show her those or to see them again myself.

I can't understand why they didn't air the episodes in the order of filming, since that makes so much more sense regarding character development. In the earlier ones, you have things like Danny questioning why Brett is even concerned about his safety. (And Brett just makes a quip about "Maybe I'd rather hate you alive than dead", heh. Not my type of humor, but at least I know he doesn't mean it. I've never been a fan of the insult humor that heavily populates male buddy stuff.) But by the later ones, you have Danny telling everybody that Brett is his very best friend and they never question each other's concern; they have complete trust in each other by that point and know that they can rely on each other. And you have things like Brett growling furiously that he will take an old house apart brick by brick to find the missing and hurt Danny. (And he also says things like that he's terribly, terribly hurt that Danny hired his housekeeper from under his nose. He wouldn't have expressed hurt in the earlier episodes. Not knowing Danny very well, he wouldn't have had reason to feel hurt then. I didn't like what Danny did, but I did love what Brett's reaction says about him and their friendship.) The progression of them as people and as friends is just so beautiful. But by airing them out of order, some of that gets lost in the translation.

I think my very favorite episodes are The Time and the Place and Someone Like Me. Those are two gems just overflowing with friendship squee. They're the first ones I showed Mom. And Someone Like Me also has the distinction of being very much like some of my fics. Heh. Other big favorites are Someone Waiting, The Ozerov Inheritance, That's Me Over There, Chain of Events, Anyone Can Play, and The Old, The New and the Deadly. And while I didn't like the black humor of A Death in the Family (which was based on Kind Hearts and Coronets, oh my), there are some great friendship moments in it. It was the first episode I saw. I had previously been led to believe that the characters were not that close throughout the entire series. Imagine my surprise when I watched that episode (one of the later ones, naturally) and saw many expressions of close friendshippy concern and even some hurt/comfort! I was immediately in love.