ladybug_archive | Entries tagged with my little pony

So a long time ago Dad wanted me to add a bunch of Cary Grant, Gregory Peck, and Gary Cooper movies to the Netflix queue. Naturally he wanted dramas, not comedies, so I looked through what they had and tried to add every drama that sounded interesting. Unfortunately, they had an incorrect summary for the movie Only Angels Have Wings and I thought that brief summary sounded so interesting that I got the thing without looking up more in-depth information.

It was ... pretty lame, honestly. Not super terrible, but not great either. It was just kind of ... there. And while the summary made it sound like Cary Grant's character had made some terrible error and was spending the movie trying to regain respect from the other pilots, that ... wasn't how it was at all. It was some other dude who made the error, and honestly, it really was a super bad one. He bailed out of a malfunctioning plane and left his mechanic to die (which he did ... die, that is). Apparently he deliberately left the guy to die because he was a coward. That was the impression given, anyway, rather than that he bailed out thinking the mechanic was bailing out too. And his wife had acted really awful with Cary Grant's character in the past, and she was supposed to be acting really awful about her current husband, but they didn't do a good job of showing that. She wanted to know what he had done that was so horrible it was causing everyone to shun him, which is a normal reaction for anyone. Apparently she wanted to know for her sake and not because of his, but they didn't really bring that out very well. So instead the movie came off looking like it was bashing the idea of a wife wanting to know the skeleton in her husband's closet in general. Naturally she should respect his privacy if there are things he doesn't want to/feels he can't tell her (which was something Barbara Keane on Gotham couldn't seem to grasp and was one of the main things that ticked me off about her), but sometimes if you really love someone you want to know everything that's going on in their life, especially if it's something that's bringing sadness. And honestly, this character was coming off as just being worried about her husband. If Cary Grant's character hadn't gone off on a tangent insisting she was only concerned about herself, I wouldn't have realized that was what they were driving at. It was still hard to believe it after he said it, because the woman just wasn't being portrayed that way.

There were a few moments of humanity, mostly involving the best friend of Cary Grant's character, and I did like that they showed Cary Grant's character felt things deep down but just tried not to show it. That was moving on some level. But mostly the movie felt very cold and emotionless and macho, really. And it was supposed to have a lot of exciting scenes of planes flying, and there weren't that many, honestly. Most plane scenes were close-ups that were filmed on a soundstage. I find it hard to believe that such a blah movie could have actually been the inspiration for a TV series like Tales of the Golden Monkey (which was the inspiration for TaleSpin, according to Wikipedia). TaleSpin, with all of its heart and soul, couldn't be more different from this thing.

And I had a dream today about Charles Nelson Reilly being dead (which he has been for ten years) and them doing some kind of tribute with his All Dogs Go to Heaven character feeling sad about him being gone. Also, H. M. Wynant was in it for some reason. That was a nicely depressing thing to wake up from, especially considering how special Charles Nelson Reilly and that character are to me. I became obsessed with All Dogs Go to Heaven during a very discouraging time in my life and the movie and that character really helped to buoy me up. I really didn't need to have his death fresh in my mind again right now.

I hope tomorrow's Pony episodes are good. I wasn't that impressed by the trailer, but I am remaining ... cautiously hopeful. I'm also not that happy that the main characters and Spike get transformed into sea creatures in the upcoming movie, but hopefully it's just for a scene or so. I am excited that we're getting Sea-Ponies in general. And all the merchandise planned for the movie thrills me and makes me very nostalgic for the G1 era.

Also, now I've gotten so far into my Turtles timeline and Barney has improved himself and his relationship with Baxter so much, it's kind of depressing reading back on the older fics where they're still having problems. I still feel kind of weird about the fact that I created most of the details of their problems, albeit they definitely had some in canon judging from Barney's episode. At least I don't feel outright guilty about it anymore. That dark and depressing and twisted fic I read certainly cured me of that.

It's strange when I have one thing planned for a character and something totally different happens. Both with Baby Face and Snakes, I never intended for them to be anything other than bad guys. Then I got intrigued with various elements of how I was writing them and that's what caused me to flesh them out. With Barney, it was sort of the same thing, as I started out planning to make him like the 2003 Baxter, albeit with a little more humanity. Then I decided that wasn't fair to the character when we knew so little about him in canon and I wanted him to be better than the 2003 Baxter, who was basically sane but evil. So Barney became much more troubled instead, and unlike the 2003 Baxter's idiocy, he regretted being with Shredder and Krang more and more until he started working against them at times and finally turned against them altogether. Now he's actually turning his life around and it's lovely.

Ugh, I hope I feel happier later today. That dream really did bum me out and I was also feeling a little depressed from looking in one of the earlier Turtles stories, as mentioned. And then other unhappy memories came to the surface again that I would rather not talk about.

Current Mood: blah

I have been way too busy lately to come here for much. Plunnies have been flowing for the most part and it has been so delightful. I rarely ever have so many plunnies that keep coming and I just want to soak it in for as long as it will last. I've done nine stories for my 1987 Turtles series, with many more planned; I'm just starting the Christmas one. As soon as I finish one, plunnies bite for the next one and so on. Each story builds on the previous one, while at the same each one usually has a stand-alone plot. They also heavily study both Baxter and Barney. Baxter is going up and Barney is going down. I have hardly ever examined an antagonist in-depth while he's doing bad things, as I prefer to write for good guys/reforming bad guys in-depth. Barney is the antagonist of the stories (well, along with Shredder and Krang, etc.) and Baxter is the protagonist. It makes for some interesting compare and contrast between them. It is so fun!

I also finished the Baxter plushie. There are a few pictures of him in my Scrapbook posing with my Build-a-Bear Minty plushie. They released her just for the holidays and I was able to get her last week on a 30% off sale. Squeee.

This is a great time to become intrigued by 1987 Baxter, as they are finally releasing a human figure of him. It's the main thing I'd like for Christmas, but aside from a few that released early, he's not supposed to release until January. And since January releases usually seem to be late January, it might even be February before I can get him. Sigh. It's an interesting figure in a Mutations line. You can change him from fly to human. I had hoped he would be sold in human form, but he's apparently sold in fly form and you have to change him to human if you want that. I hope it won't be difficult to exchange the pieces; I remember some difficult struggles with my Japanese figures that had switchable parts.

There's a description on Toys R Us's website, and I don't know whether they wrote it or if Mega Bloks did, but they describe the human version of Baxter as a maniacal madman. That only happened, debatably, in season 2. (Then he cracked up all the way after being cross-fused.) They seem to be using the season 1 design for the figure, where he was sane and stable and a genuinely nice person. The figure also looks like a sad kicked puppy, just about the farthest thing from a maniacal madman there could be. So ... mismatched description much? LOL. I am probably going make a Tumblr post joking about the irony.

Miraculous Ladybug did their Christmas special and I loved it so much I watched it twice in the same day. Then I got the most bizarrely cracky idea that I should cross over my Ginger and Lou series with Miraculous Ladybug. I've tried to keep the more realistic series separate from the fantasy series, but somehow Ladybug seems different than, say, Sailor Moon or something like that. It feels more reality-based. And I can't seem to shake this nutty idea that Ginger and Lou go to Paris for a business trip and something happens that causes Papillon/Hawkmoth to decide Ginger would be a perfect candidate to be possessed by one of his dark butterflies/Akuma. If I actually decide to go ahead with the idea, I have to think what kind of design Akumanized Ginger would have. I know I would want him to still look human and just have a bizarre weapon-laden outfit or something. It's figuring out what kind of weaponry would work for Ginger and also work for a family-friendly series, because Ginger isn't very family-friendly when it comes to his weaponry. LOL.

The idea was on my mind so much that I dreamed about Luke Andreas. It was a really weird dream, too. It was one of those kind where I was wandering about town, yet at the same time I was watching things unfold like on TV. I was absolutely psyched because I was thinking, "Yay! Finally, here's something else that Luke has a lot of screentime in!"

I found this shop that had some stuff I wanted, including this pen thing with a figure thing of 1987 Baxter on it. I decided to get it, and Luke was/was playing the owner of the shop. We interacted for some time at length and there were other things going on, like a town meeting, that his character was involved with. Also, Luke was dressed like his secret agent character from The Bionic Woman. Epic.

Current Mood: thirsty

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.

Current Mood: thirsty

I was sure I never watched the Real Ghostbusters cartoon growing up, because 99% of the time I wasn't interested in people cartoons and preferred animal cartoons instead. But there was that exception with Peter Pan and the Pirates (and oh, Beetlejuice too; that's ... technically a people show), and oy, the more I watch the Real Ghostbusters now, the more the opening and ending both look familiar. It's possible on the one hand that I saw the opening on YouTube when I was just fooling around, but that wouldn't explain the ending. I know I must have seen the show coming and going; perhaps it came right before something I was trying to catch. The big question, whether I actually watched the show itself, I honestly can't answer. It ended the year I turned five and the memories are patchy at best. I'm sure enjoying it now, though. It's just perfect for me: friendship stuff and ghosties and creepy situations.... I don't suppose Mom would remember if I watched it if I asked her. Couldn't hurt to try, though. It would be kind of cool if I actually did watch it and liked it and that's why I was given the pinball game. But on the other hand, Dad sometimes just picked up stuff if it was a cartoon, whether I watched it or not. LOL. Like, I have some toy walkie-talkies from the short-lived Fish Police, which I definitely never watched. But since he's not into supernatural creepy stuff and usually doesn't like my interest in it, it's kind of surprising either way about him getting the Ghostbusters pinball game. Still, he sometimes indulged my love of Turtles stuff even though he didn't really like that. So hmm. A puzzle.

Egon was pretty much immediately my favorite watching it now and that hasn't changed. Not surprising, since he seems to be the most logically-minded of the group and I almost always go for that type in shows. My first (recent) episode was the Boogieman one and I really loved Winston in it too. He was also adorable in another episode, when he was excited about a blueberry fudge cake (yuuuum) and Slimer ate the whole flippin' thing. **headdesk.** Winston was such a good sport about it and it was very endearing. I like the whole group, though. Slimer is still cute, but it is exasperating that he keeps eating everything and not leaving any for anyone else, even when he promises to. Oy, in life he must have been like Sergei on WWW, always wanting to eat. But I love when he manages to do something to help.

I'm going to get to see the new Ghostbusters movie in a week. I went to see my movie-going friend this past day and she gave me a cool mini-poster for the film. At home, I was still tired and took a nap and I had a weirdo dream about watching the film because of looking at the poster. Naturally, in the dream the movie wasn't anywhere as exciting as it probably will actually be. Earlier, I was reading one of my Batman fics, the one where The Riddler comes back alive after they thought he was dead, and I had a dream about that too. It was one of those kind of "run/evade/don't be seen" dreams and he was trying not to let someone in particular know that he was alive. He had to go through a series of ten mazes without being spotted by them. Naturally, he was eventually seen and the chase was on.

On Tuesday I went out to see if I could find the Donatello plush locally for a good price. I couldn't find any at the Wal-Marts we visited, which wasn't surprising. But I finally found the Lyra Pony plush! I've been looking for her for a year and a half, so I didn't want to leave without her. I decided on the best one and brought her home with me. I also got Sweetie Drops. She appeared at our Wal-Mart recently, but I didn't have the money to get her and I'd kind of hoped to find a better one of her. Two were understuffed and a third had a slightly crinkled nose. And I wasn't sure I wanted to get her at all if I didn't know I could get Lyra too, since they're best friends. But once I got Lyra, I immediately wanted to get Sweetie Drops too. Wal-Mart still had one of her and oddly enough, it was the one I felt was the best of the three. I don't know why she wasn't snapped up but the other two were. But that was good for me!

I finally broke down and decided to do the Amazon Prime trial, since they at last got some more Donnies in and I really couldn't afford to add $29 cash to the $25 gift card to get free shipping right now. The two-day shipping certainly was lovely! I got some Turtles DVDs (two season 3 sets and the season 2 one) and Donnie and they showed up this past day. But Donnie is a bit understuffed compared to Leo, which is really frustrating since what I like about these plushies is that they're not understuffed, and gah, it looks like maybe part of his left arm is loose and I'll need to go over it with stitches to make sure it's secure. I already found a small hole near his wrist and had to sew that up. That sort of thing is why I hate buying plushies sight unseen, sigh. But overall he's great and it looks so good to see another splash of Turtle mask color. Now to get Mikey and complete the team.

Also, I went back over my Six Million Dollar Man entries and saw that the previous Dynamite comic arc left a whole slew of loose ends. That makes this new arc even more maddening, because I don't think it's in the same continuity. It doesn't sound like it addressed even one of those loose ends. WTH. They had a bunch of unresolved stuff there and the series really couldn't continue based on that arc without addressing most of it. They should have focused on those things for their second arc instead of starting something completely unrelated. That definitely makes me even less enthusiastic about trying this new arc, sigh.

I am totally in a hurt/comfort mood too, and have been for the past few days. But instead of wanting to write hurt/comfort, I seem to want to watch and read it, and about a random assortment of subjects. I wanted to see some Dying Informant segments (which I finally got around to now). I wanted some Turtles h/c and delighted in re-watching one of my favorite episodes of the 2003 series, Tales of Leo. I also delighted in more Leo h/c in one of the 1987 episodes I watched today. I wanted Riddler h/c and re-read some stuff in my fics. I watched most of my music videos and want to re-read some of my Princess Tutu stuff and get a helping of Autor h/c. I crave Napoleon h/c too, and that I might actually write. I'll have to see; I really don't think I'm much good at U.N.C.L.E. hurt/comfort. At any rate, it doesn't come easily for me when I try to write it, unless it's about Ecks and Wye.

Current Mood: tired

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.

Current Mood: pleased

So a couple of weeks ago I finally solved my dilemma about the Amazon books. I really wanted to get a manga in the order, but I couldn't figure out how to make everything come out to exactly the cost of the gift card. I really felt I couldn't pay any cash with that order, so finally I had to set the manga idea aside and I got the two Pony-related books and two Nancy Drews.

The package was delayed because of weather problems and other such things. I was worried it might show up waterlogged. Thankfully it didn't, but whoever packed things couldn't do a good job. The one paperback in the order, the Pony U.N.C.L.E. parody, showed up completely dog-eared on one corner. Half the pages in the book were also bent at that corner! WTH? I don't know whether it was packed stupidly and happened then or if the book was damaged to begin with. I was absolutely furious. I'm still not sure what to do about it. Returning and replacing things online is such a pain, and that was probably the book I was looking forward to the most, so I hated to think of waiting even longer to get to read it. But I don't like always having to settle for damaged merchandise when I order paperback stuff from Amazon, either. I really chewed them out when I bought comics from them and they were packaged really stupidly and all showed up bent. I wonder if Barnes and Noble packs things better. They also have the free shipping with $25 of books deal. The problem there is that I don't have B&N gift cards, so I'd have to pay cash.

(Oh, I miss Borders so much. I was actually in the area where it used to be a couple of days ago and I spent some time just staring out the window at its location across the street. They were so much better than B&N. They actually had discounts in general and coupons for more than 15% off. And they generally had a bigger selection of stuff, except Nancy Drews, but now B&N's selection of those is lame too.)

I ended up reading the book last night. Of course it was a quick read and meant for kids, so it didn't get too deep, but I was intrigued that it touched, albeit briefly, on Bon Bon being weary and wanting to leave the secret agent stuff behind and have a peaceful life now. I would kind of like to expand on that in a fic sometime. And it ended happy, with her and Lyra still in the organization but being able to stay in Ponyville when not on missions. Also, the secret agent place was in New York (well, their New York) and it was accessed through a fridge in a pizza parlor. LOL.

The Equestria Girls book was really interesting. It takes place after the third movie and a large part of the plot is the human Twilight trying to befriend the girls from her old school. At first I was puzzled that it only focused on Sunny Flare, Sour Sweet, and Sugarcoat. But then I realized that the other girls, Lemon Zest and Indigo Zap, were already pretty nice people and probably didn't need any serious help turning their lives around. Lemon Zest is seriously adorable, definitely among the most normal of the girls at Crystal Prep, and so is Indigo Zap, basically. The other three are all kind of dysfunctional in various ways.

I don't think the author really captured the girls' personalities well, though. Sunny Flare was depicted as the nastiest of the bunch and the one most unkind to Twilight and worried about her turning into a monster again. That just doesn't fit to me, because while she was definitely nasty early in the movie, she was the one who called out Principal Cinch for trying to run away, and she looked really horrified and upset when Cinch said she was trying to get away from "that monster" and Sunny Flare should do the same. Sour Sweet was really the nastiest to Twilight in the movie.

Not once did the author do Sour Sweet's trademark of first saying something fake and nice and then following it up immediately with her true feelings, always a burn. She did occasionally do Sugarcoat's trademark of being very blunt, but it seemed more like she gave that trait to Sour Sweet.

I also didn't agree with the author writing that either Sunny Flare or Sour Sweet said they were Twilight's friends (and they were also apparently on her Friends list on Facebook). Not once in the movie did they ever act like they were interested in being her friends; they only interacted with her when circumstances forced them together. Sugarcoat was really the only one of those three who acted like she might be what Twilight considered a friend. And then Lemon Zest was really nice and didn't seem to have anything against Twilight at all. Indigo Zap kind of thought Twilight was an idiot, but she "defended" Twilight when the Canterlot High students started wondering what she was up to, which was kind of cute. (Although she probably only did it because Twilight was a Crystal Prep student, not because she really cared about Twilight personally.)

The author also set it up that Sour Sweet, Sunny Flare, and Sugarcoat were supposedly friends, but weren't happy together. The first two hung out together in the movie and really seemed pretty chummy to me. Sugarcoat, on the other hand, really gave the impression of being a loner.

I did love that Twilight eventually did make friends with them in the book and things ended happy for all of them, instead of them just being portrayed as one-dimensional characters that wouldn't change. But to be honest, I kind of think I could write a better story with that basic plotline that would stick closer to canon regarding personalities. I'll admit that Sunny Flare's personality is the most underdeveloped in the movie, but I don't think it was fleshed out in the book in a manner that fits with what we did see in the movie. Maybe I can try to start writing a story like that and see what happens.

Then last night I started randomly singing Unleash the Magic to myself. It's sung in the movie by Cinch and the Crystal Preppers as they try to tempt Twilight to, well, unleash the magic she's collected in her mystical pendant. I was considering maybe trying to record it and do all the voices. Cinch would be a blast to voice, although I probably wouldn't be able to sound as nasally as she does. But so I got to the line "I understand you have your reservations/it's hard to have a brain as large as yours" and suddenly I wondered if it wasn't just a line of manipulation, but something Cinch personally understood. I finally listened to the commentary track for that movie and they were wondering what her backstory is. Now I'm wondering if she was a smart outcast like Twilight growing up and if in some way, she is a dark version of what Twilight could have become had she remained an outcast. She certainly is smart and calculating and loves knowledge. And even though she seems to be very arrogant and egotistical and is worried above all about her reputation, I'm not entirely sure she was worried for completely selfish reasons. As she told Twilight, it was her reputation, and the school's, that was responsible for everything they had to work with. If the reputation dropped, they might not have all the funding and other things they needed to function properly. So honestly, I could understand her worrying about keeping up appearances to some extent, although of course she took it way too far and her manipulation of Twilight throughout the movie was horrid.

Another thing the commentary track mentioned was that an early draft of the script had Cinch fall through the gaping portal hole created by Twilight when she flipped out and became Midnight Sparkle and Cinch ended up a horrible monster in Equestria. They changed that because it seemed too mean. I agree, honestly. Maybe it would have been poetic justice, especially after how she ostracized Twilight's transformation considering she encouraged her to use the magic, but I wouldn't have wanted her to stay like that permanently or be stuck in Equestria. That's more like what a show like TMNT might do, or maybe even the U.K. Pony comics of the '80's and '90's, but it doesn't fit for something sweet like the current My Little Pony series and movies.

Speaking of TMNT, though, the new movie came out today! Eeeee! And hopefully I'll get to see it next week! I actually really loved the movie two years ago; I thought it was great overall and I loved that there was scarcely anything crude and it was largely absent of swearing. I was very surprised and impressed by that. And to be honest, I really think I liked that movie better than the one called TMNT that came out about nine years ago. (Oh gosh, that long ago? Seriously?) While that movie was cute too, it had some things I didn't like, such as April and Casey living together while not married, and how they made it look like only Raph did something bad during the fight between him and Leo. Honestly, it was kind of interesting how they had Leo finally snap and say something really awful to Raph ("I'm better than you"), but it was spoiled by neither Leo nor the script acknowledging that Leo did something wrong as well as Raph. That was just seriously WTH?

Well, at least that film contributed to my loving Raph more. He scared me as a kid because of his bad temper. That still scares me a bit, but I'm mostly seriously intrigued by him and he's replaced Donny as my second-favorite Turtle.

I still need a Mikey figure. Even though he's my least favorite, I want to have a complete set of Turtles. I just wish the figures weren't so expensive these days. It costs almost $9 for one from any current Turtles line! And that's the cheapest price, since it's Wal-Mart's. I've checked other places before and they've been worse.

(Amusing note: just about each Turtles figure I have is from a different line. My Raph, and my Fugitoid, are from the 1987 TV series. My Leo is from the second movie. My Donny is from a line that looks more like the comics. And my Casey Jones is from the 2003 series. I need an April too. Not having her is sacrilege. And Splinter. Actually, I'd kind of like another Raph too, since my Raph is a space suit Raph and even though I love him dearly, I'd like one that's just normal Raph. But then I'll probably feel guilty to have two Raphs and not two of everyone else. Heh.)

I also want Mikey and Donny plushies. I had thought of getting Build-a-Bear's Mikey, but their new Mikey has a different face than the old one, I think. The old one was just cute, but this one's expression is seriously obnoxious. And then with Donny, I always planned to get him from the same line as my Leo, since I'm not crazy about Nickelodeon's redesign of Donny and it's less obvious with those big pillow plushies. But I didn't want Mikey from that line too, since they all have the same expression and that's kind of WTH. That was why I got Build-a-Bear Raph instead of pillow Raph.

And then I was thinking that while the 1960s and 1970s fascinate me, it seems to be the 1980s that I have some serious nostaglia for. Which is funny because I don't even remember the 1980s. By the time I was old enough to remember much, it was 1990. But so many things I loved from my childhood are from the 1980s to begin with: Ponies, Mario, TMNT, DuckTales, Gummi Bears, Pound Puppies, Care Bears, Garfield (well, he started in the late 1970s, but he sure got popular in the 1980s), Baby-Sitters Club, Alf, the latter two Star Wars original trilogy movies.... Most of my paper dolls had 1980s fashions. We had a couple of huge catalogs, a Sears Wish Book and a J.C. Penney's equivalent, both from the 1980s, that I just adored looking at again and again. And when I go to antique malls, it's the 1980s toys that send me into serious nostalgia trips. Sometimes I remember happy times of playing with 1980s toys with friends in the 1990s. When I see shows from the 1980s, especially family or kids' shows like Punky Brewster or the Pony or Care Bear cartoons, the nostalgia continues even though I never saw those when they originally aired. There's just something innocent and sweet and fun and cheesy about that decade. Then there's things that started in the 1990s: TaleSpin, Darkwing Duck, Sonic.... I love those too. And I'm trying to remember when Trolls got a resurgence of popularity, the 1980s or the 1990s. I think the 1990s, but they've existed since the 1960s. Gomer even had a pink-haired one in his foot locker, which Sergeant Carter threw a fit about. ROTFLOL. ("A Troll doll is a non-regulation item!") But I just don't seem to be nostalgic about the 1990s like I am about the 1980s. Weird. I almost wonder if that's because I actually don't remember the 1980s and so it carries a sense of mystery and the ability to place it on a pedestal, whereas I remember the 1990s very well and it just doesn't hold the nostalgia/pedestal factor. I don't think there's one decade I remember that I feel nostalgic about, really. I get nostalgic over experiences and shows, but not decades as a whole.

Current Mood: happy

Ty's small Twilight Sparkle plushie suffers from the great indignity of the wings being placed too far down on her back. Apparently, however, some particular copies get it right. In Walgreens on Monday, I found one Twilight out of the four they had where the wings were placed in the correct position.

I kind of want to go back and buy her, if she hasn't been sold yet.

I already have two Twilight plushies. Indeed, I have two of almost every character, in both Funrise and Build-a-Bear sizes. (My medium Twilight is the talking one instead, however.) It is highly unusual for me to have two of any character, but I make exception for many of the Pony characters because the brands make them so differently. (And I still wish I had a third Shadow the Hedgehog that is both a decent cuddling size and furry....)

Twilight is my absolute favorite; I only love Sunset Shimmer anywhere as much (and possibly more). The Ty Twilight is tempting because she's small and would be a good traveling size, if I wanted to take a plushie with me on the go somewhere. I am still frustrated with myself for passing on the sitting down Aurora Twilight when Smith's had her for $10. I thought it was too much for the size, and it was, but after seeing other prices I've realized she was a bargain. I keep checking Smith's floral department in case they get one again, but I haven't seen any more of her. (The Ty Twilight is smaller than her, costs $7, and has brushable hair instead of cloth-sculpted.)

Also, I watched The Friendship Games in the morning and I renewed my feeling that I really like Sugarcoat and I want a doll of her. She intrigues me because while she's blunt and kind of rude, I kind of had the impression that maybe she was trying to help human Twilight improve herself, at least at first. (I grimace at some of her later comments and actions.) And then by the end of the movie, the students from both schools seem to be getting along better.

I'm not sure which doll, though, because the basic one is styled better, leg-wise, but the deluxe ones with bendable limbs are so nice. But of all the idiocy, instead of giving her real tights or even leaving her legs skin-color below the cloth shorts, the deluxe doll has tights painted on, which looks really stupid on a bendable fashion doll's legs. And in addition to just looking stupid, it irritates me because another intriguing thing about Sugarcoat is that she apparently has no desire to have her legs mostly bare; she wears what looks like the boy's uniform trousers underneath the short skirt. The doll having really short shorts kind of spoils that aspect. (And then the Basic has a short skirt, if I recall.) If I had some extra tights from a different doll, I could give those to her and that would disguise the awful legs. But I don't want to take the tights from any doll currently wearing them and there are no extra pairs.

Another problem is that I think Toys R Us is the only store in the area that carries either doll at all, they only have the deluxe, and they often don't have good enough sales. I don't think they'd be clearancing anything, since they tend to keep the dolls from the previous movies even when the merchandise for the new ones starts coming in.

Sigh. Well, I'll keep thinking about it.

Current Mood: contemplative

So for the last several days I've wondered what would happen if I took a quiz in Ginger's voice. Last night I was prowling around in my journal and reading the DuckTales entries. When I found one with a quiz, I randomly clicked on the Quiz tag and started going through them to find something that looked good for Ginger to take. I ended up fooling around long enough to take several.

Here they all are, below the cut. Just remember that Ginger is a blunt and colorful person, so if anyone gets offended by something written, it's what I honestly felt Ginger would say. (Actually, I think Dutch Ingram is a more offensive fellow, but eh.)

( Ginger quizzes )

Current Mood: amused

So most people may remember that I am not a fan of the Pony fiction books in general. I'm very picky about characterization and I think they fall short. But I do like the Equestria Girls books that have original stories rather than just being novelizations of the movies and shorts. I have the first of those kind and a second has just come out. I went to add it to my Wish List and discovered that in the main line of Pony chapter books, one was recently released called Lyra, Bon Bon and the Mares from S.M.I.L.E.

You know, I don't even like Lyra and Bon Bon now that they have canon characterization and it's obnoxious. But the one thing I did like from their episode 100 characterization was making Bon Bon a secret agent, and now there's a whole book about spies and secret agents and friendship squee and the title is totally a Man from U.N.C.L.E. parody! Bon Bon is drafted into her secret agency again, and instead of exposing Lyra to a memory wipe because she knows too much, Bon Bon pleads for her to be allowed into the agency too. She is, and the plot mostly follows them on their first mission. Eventually they have an argument because Bon Bon feels like Lyra is so excited about the new job that she's more focused on that than on Bon Bon, but it gets patched up and they fight the bad guys and hopefully Lyra is going to stay in the agency.

I MUST HAVE THIS BOOK!

Current Mood: ecstatic

So I've been thinking a lot about Mike Trevino lately, as evidenced partially by the long post I did on Tumblr this past week. He's figured a lot into some of my recent Ginger and Lou pieces. It's been very interesting developing Mike and Ginger's interaction throughout the past three years and actually getting them to a place where they actually like each other and are comfortable being around each other. They don't confide in each other and probably never will, but Ginger finally apologized to Mike for the shooting (whereas previously he had only apologized to Lou).

I've thought off and on for years that I should probably make a Mike plushie to go with my Ginger and Lou plushies, but sewing is such a pain that I've always put it off. I decided I should really do it, so I used a coupon on Friday to get another pre-stuffed doll at Jo-Ann's for half-off and am planning to start work on the plushie this week, since I have materials for ears, hair, and pants already here. I'm already trying to start by finding a good picture of 1970's Joe E. Tata that I can use as a guide in making the expression, which I practice many times on paper before actually applying to the plushie.

On that, I'm running into some trouble, as it seems like most of his 1970's characters don't have much to smile about. I can't use a more recent picture as a guide. And the only 1970's shots I've got of him, save one, are side views. I'm going to need to get out everything I have with him guest-starring and study it for possible shots. If I don't draw the expression from an actual picture of the person, it never looks as accurate.

I finally solved my Amazon problem by waiting for another gift card that was just about ready to come and then using all of that plus a little cash to get the complete Cannon boxset. I waffled a bit on whether to really do that, since I'd end up having to pay a little more cash than before and I'd been hesitant to add that much cash. But the price was right and Cannon is a show we love in general and not just when darlings guest-star, so it seemed like a very wise investment. I don't have a lot of episodes recorded compared to how many there actually were, and I don't know if the ones I have might be cut. Some of them look like they might be. Crystal encouraged me to get the boxset and last Saturday I finally did, with no regrets. It came yesterday and Mom was thrilled. We watched a couple of episodes, including Don Knight's and the second one with Joe E. Tata.

Joe had a pretty big part, unlike a lot of the times when I see him. He appeared to work for an old man who did a lot of crooked things but had never been caught at it. I say "appeared" because he really seemed to be so much more than just an assistant. They'd been together for years; Cannon mentioned a drug operation that both Joe's character and the old man were involved in eight years ago. He spoke as though they were more like equals or partners in the operation, although I admit that could have just been my interpretation. But there was much more as evidence; it seemed like they lived in the same house, either that or Joe's character Higgins was just over there all the time. And when the nutcase in the episode sets a bomb in the old man's car and he's seriously hurt, Higgins is extremely distraught. He goes to the hospital and is there for hours waiting to hear if he'll be alright. Of course, an assistant or other employee could be that devoted to their boss, but all in all, I got the vibe that maybe even if he technically was an assistant, the relationship was more like a surrogate son and father or extremely close friends. We actually never learn the old man's final fate, but I like to think that he did pull through since Higgins would be so sad if he didn't.

In thinking about it in the hours since, I determined that there are two basic criteria that need to be met, in general, if I'm going to be intrigued by antagonist characters to the point of wanting to write about them. #1, For them to show some indication of caring about someone, and/or #2, That there is some indication that redemption is possible.

Of the two, #2 is the more important reason for me. That could manifest in several ways, including reason #1, or by them doing something decent, or even just by the idea that they will be going to prison and maybe they can be rehabilitated. In this case, while #1 is definitely present, there didn't seem to be any indication that either Higgins or the old man would be or could be interested in changing the way they handled life, so despite being curious and interested in their interaction, I seriously doubt I would write about them.

In the past I somehow got so intrigued by Gin and Vodka that I ended up being willing to write about them performing their jobs as assassins, although the stories were more about them as characters than about what they were doing. But I am still appalled that I did that. That just isn't me. More recently, when writing about Ecks and Wye, I did have to touch on their canonical jobs a bit, but mostly the stories were about them running for their lives after canonically betraying the organization and trying to start over and go straight. I still had to write Wye as having some darker views than I am generally comfortable with writing, but I tried not to touch on that as much and I did have him finally determine, at least, that the organization with which he had been affiliated did do things worse than most governments.

Sometimes I don't intend to get intrigued by a character and I end up doing it anyway because of what I'm writing about them to flesh them out. That was what happened with both Sephiroths (especially KH Sephiroth) and Snakes Tolliver. It also happened with Baby Face Morales. I had honestly originally intended that he would be the dark foil and counterpart to Micky and nothing more. I wrote The Return of Baby Face Morales with that idea in mind and I did not have the character show any redeeming qualities at all, that I recall. But then when I wrote the sequel and had to have Baby Face work with the good guys and later when I wanted him and Tony to patch things up, I got myself intrigued by the idea of him being more of an anti-hero and also developing his interaction with Tony. That was how and why I ended up changing how I wrote for him and started diving into his past and trying to flesh out possibilities of what could have made him such an angry and dark person. Some of it probably went into sob story territory and I might not follow that exact backstory now. I seriously doubt that I'd write about him at all anymore, really, both since his and Tony's story is probably as a standstill and since he really is a dark character and not one I'm that comfortable writing for anymore. If I were to do anything with those characters again, it would probably be to finish that hanging story about them and the Monkees held captive by mad scientists, and/or to keep writing that crossover with Kolchak. Tony Ferano would be the main character in the latter. I toyed a little bit in my last burst of Monkees stories about Tony and whatever goodness he still has in him. If I were to write about him again, I might further that angle and have him finally break away from Baby Face and try to get his life back in some semblance of order again. Even though I'm probably not comfortable writing for Baby Face, I have to admit that I do still love Tony. Jimmy Murphy's portrayal of him was classic.

Of course, Ginger is really quite a dark character too, so it's possible that in the future I will also not want to write about him anymore, either. But in his case, there was that actual chemistry I sensed between him and Lou (which could have been chemistry between the actors) and that is really what set the whole intrigue off. The fact of that chemistry combined with their interaction in general just fascinated me for some reason and led to me being unable to stop writing about them. And in their case, they really are trying to go straight after their stint in prison (something Baby Face would likely never do), so it's not uncomfortable writing about them. So I really hope that I will never feel differently about that, especially now that I've learned some more information that might possibly put a different spin on the elephant in the room of the shooting. I went into that in detail on Tumblr. http://lucky-ladybugs-lovelies.tumblr.com. Of course, as I say there, I will never be fully satisfied on that, but this is the best I can do to handle it. And in my timeline, as I mentioned, Ginger finally has apologized for that.

Bottom line is, I usually really don't want to like or get intrigued by certain characters, but sometimes I do because of those criteria.

Occasionally, I suppose, I can also get fascinated by a character for one other reason: if it feels like they got a bum deal in canon. Dutch Ingram would fall in that category, because the idea that he committed a murder was just shoehorned in, said by Ken Swofford's highly questionable character, and there was no proof it was true. I still don't believe it is, and that is the basis of my Rockford fic featuring him. But if it weren't for feeling like he wasn't the murderer, I doubt I'd write about him. He isn't really the type of character I like either. I don't think just the fact of Christopher playing him would have made me want to write about him, since I don't want to write about every character played by a darling.

And I need to decide what to do about another Amazon gift card I got. There's no chance of any other one coming soon, so with their changed policies I'm thinking maybe I should get a few books with this one. I considered that recent set of Kolchak short stories, which I want to get since I know the author of one of the stories, but I keep hesitating on getting it since I don't know if any of the stories deal with Tony (Vincenzo now and not Ferano, heh) and his and Kolchak's intriguing relationship. I know that in general, the prose stories do not. That collection of 43 short stories I have only has one where Tony really gets to shine, so in a set of 14 stories, there's not much chance Tony will have good screentime. The comics are better than the prose at giving Tony stuff to do, but I don't know if there are any graphic novels out that give him a lot of "screentime" since there are also some comics where he doesn't appear much. If I knew of any I don't have with good Tony content, I would jump to get them.

Other possibilities are Miles Edgeworth manga or Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys books or some combination of several things. There are also a couple of new Pony/Equestria Girls books I want, an artbook for the series and a new Equestria Girls novel that will be out a week from ... Monday, I think. I almost always ponder for ages on what to spend gift cards on, since it's a treat I only have several times a year and I want to make sure I get what I really want and what will be meaningful for years to come. Hopefully I'll come to a decision this week.

Current Mood: sad

So yesterday I did indeed buy season 1 of Little House to get that episode uncut. I was also finally able to get my Archery Applejack and Fluttershy dolls! Wal-Mart lowered the price to $7 each and I couldn't pass that up when I've been wanting them for months. I am so glad I didn't break and get that hippie Fluttershy doll at K-Mart. While Fluttershy would agree with some hippie ideas, I don't think she'd agree with everything and in any case, I just don't think hippie fashion works for her. I liked the Archery doll much better.

On the episode ... it certainly helped to already know that the character was going to die. He was a nice guy, but pretty cheeky (like, Dutch Ingram-level cheeky; I was a little surprised the show would have him say and do some of what he did) and a practical joker, so I didn't like him as much as the more serious Paul Gantry. Practical jokers are just never among my favorite character types. But I did like this character when he was serious and I liked how much you could see he loved his family and cared about people, including those who became his new friends.

I think it was just one reviewer's opinion that he made a stupid mistake and that got him killed. When I saw the episode, it looked to me like the explosion was just one of those freak accidents that happen with explosives that can't be prevented. He was too good with what he did to actually make a bizarre mistake, I think.

It seemed that there wasn't even a body to find. I had hoped that maybe I could have it that the explosion just blew him some distance away where he might not be found for a day or two, but watching the episode, it doesn't seem likely. I didn't see any place where he could have ended up that they wouldn't have found him. So as of right now, I don't know how to revive the character. I'll think about it, but I may have to leave this one dead and just write a ghost story. I do at least think that it was an almost entirely fiction story and not something Laura wrote about as having happened; I can't find anything like that in the books. There was a plotline where her father left to find work, but he ended up working in a wheat field and not a quarry.

As to whether I saw the episode before or not? I am almost certain that I did. Right now, the main part that stands out to me is the explosion itself. I remember how it lingered in the air and how final and shocking and chilling it was. I also kind of have a memory of giggling at one of the cheeky things he said while Mom was rather appalled, but that's not as strong a memory and might be of my own creation.

Also, I wonder which was Don Knight's natural hair state. In the 1960s, it seemed to be very straight. In the 1970s, it got very curly. I squee over the curly hair; I have a weakness for thick, wavy, curly hair. **headdesk.** I love how Christopher's hair got the same way in the 1970s and 1980s.

Current Mood: contemplative

Last week was interesting. A couple of weeks ago I'd contacted the script people to see if they had scripts for Riptide's The Pirate and the Princess and Rockford's The Hawaiian Headache. I heard back several days ago and they have both. I ordered the Riptide one, since Christopher's character is a main guest-star in that instead of being regulated to two scenes in the Rockford episode (and since that episode is a complete mess. I know the series wasn't cancelled because of bad scripts, but you can just tell so much that the quality had gone down in that last season).

I didn't like to have them wait on my decision once they replied, and I sort of felt like having asked in the first place committed me to get something immediately following their reply, which is the same way I feel about buying Ponies from people on the Arena too, but I probably should have waited until this weekend to get the script. My sister finally cashed the check I gave her for the Sunset Shimmer plush, and even though she turned out to have cost less than I thought she would at her size, that left me $10 shorter than I thought I had. And I'd been spending most of the week trying to figure out how to get to Build-a-Bear, because they finally sent a coupon like I've been waiting for since January and it was for $10 instead of $5!

It was only Saturday when I saw that the check had been cashed, and I knew that getting the plushie would then drain most of the account until I get paid this weekend, so I really knew I should give up on the plushie since Dad didn't want to go anyway, even after I offered to pay the $2.79-ish it would have cost in gas money. But since I had almost $15 in discounts (including the last bit of one gift card), I figured that even paying the $5.99 for shipping on the site would still make it worth it in this case. After all, it was only about $3 more than the total would have been with gas money included. (The Build-a-Bear website has to charge state sales tax, ugh. So I wouldn't save anything in that respect by ordering online.) I just couldn't bear to waste a $10 coupon, especially since I'd been waiting for months for a coupon and since I wanted it to get something specific.

I had earlier tried to get Muffins with the coupon, since she's online-only anyway (grrr). But I couldn't do it, because they decided to run a sale on Ponies that wasn't as good as my coupon and I couldn't combine my coupon with it. Then I searched a couple of times for the cheapest plushies possible, but nothing really appealed to me like the other Lalaloopsy doll I'd wanted. So I decided that if I was determined to get something online so as not to waste the coupon, I should just get what I really wanted.

I got the order all set up and still hesitated, since I really knew I shouldn't do it, but about five minutes before the coupon expired I took the plunge and clicked the Complete Order button. And then spent the next several hours worrying about having done it and wondering if I could cancel the order. I searched all over the website and finally found that it could be cancelled by calling them, but only if the order hadn't already gone to Processing. And it already had! I really didn't want to cancel despite my worries, so I switched to hoping that they would ship quickly.

After a good sleep, I wasn't worried about having ordered the plushie, but I did start worrying about having ordered the script several days earlier. I really should have waited on that, at least, but I had thought it would look bad if I had told them I needed until next weekend. Hopefully it will be worth my while. I certainly got a lot of mileage out of The Queen of Peru script (missing and altered scenes, first draft characterizations that were changed later, what Ginger calls Mike (I don't know why it didn't occur to me before reading it that he would probably say Michael. It just sounds so right), and the original physical description for Ginger that clearly showed David Chase had Christopher in mind for the role all along ... or possibly Don Knight, but I lean towards Christopher since Ginger is described as a physically small man and Christopher definitely was). I'm hoping for more goodies in this Riptide one that didn't make it to the finished episode.

I just hope the script won't disappoint me instead. In the episode, they never actually said in the end what the deal was with Captain Scofield. You were left to puzzle out for yourself whether he was honest or if he'd been mixed up with the bad guys. Taking all the evidence into consideration, I determined that he was honest and that he had been trying to find out who framed him for starting a fire when the real traitor surprised and shot him. Later, when he struggled up and stabbed that guy and took the knife to the main characters, I assumed he was bringing it so they could get untied. I did wonder why the bomb was left armed, but he was hardly what you'd call completely conscious and I assumed that he just hadn't realized it was armed and he thought that stabbing the traitor would prevent him from arming it. But normally they spell it out for you in an episode regarding whether a character is good or bad, so when they didn't, I was perplexed.

Also, Interrupted Melody arrived last week and I loved it! Roger had much screentime and there was sibling squee and overall depth and it had a lovely ending. So happy I was able to get it!

Current Mood: contemplative

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.

Current Mood: sad

This has been one very long week. Not bad, really, but long.

A week before, I was ranting on the Pony forum again about Funrise's distribution and how I still couldn't find Sunset Shimmer. A couple of people told me that the 12-inch size has started popping up in Targets. Someone else showed me that there have been a couple on eBay too. That made me hope that maybe my Target would actually have one too. I called and they did! But Dad wouldn't go in, so I had to ask my sister to get it for me. After a very long and tense day of waiting, she was finally able to bring it the next day.

I'm so thrilled to finally have her after a whole year of trying! She's gorgeous! I think the 12 inch and 20 inch sizes eliminate a lot of the sculpting problems Funrise seems to have with the smaller sizes. I think if the 12 inch size had been around to begin with, I probably would have collected it instead of the 10 inch size.

This has also been a week for getting other things I wanted. I've always been in love with the Archery Twilight Sparkle doll, even though I figured I'd focus on getting the two-pack with her and Flash instead. But on Monday, I discovered that Archery Twilight was on clearance for $4! That could not be passed up. Then on Thursday, I was at K-Mart hoping they'd still have the Twilight with the upswept hair that I've always wanted to be able to get. I thought they might be clearancing her by now. They had one left on clearance, and they also had the two-pack on clearance! I probably really shouldn't have, but I couldn't bear to leave the two-pack behind even though I'd just got the Archery Twilight, so everything came home with me.

I'm really glad to have all of them. If I'd got the two-pack first, I probably wouldn't have got Archery Twilight, and oddly enough, even though her glasses are wrong, she's the most accurate hair-wise of all my Twilights. I gave her wings to my original Twilight, however, since naturally human Twilight doesn't have wings except as Midnight Sparkle and since my original Twilight should have purple wings instead of yellow. I have a couple of pictures in my Scrapbook. I am continuing to have fun with Dad's tablet.

This week I also finally wrote the rest of that long Ginger and Lou ficlet that's been a problem for months. The whole thing was originally written around one scene, the initial scene I dreamed about with Ginger falling down the stairs in some big mansion and Columbo wandering in, and that was probably part of the hang-up with it. I'm so chuffed to finally have it done! Now maybe I can go on to the other ideas that have been accumulating for that theme set. I have quite a lot, including a demented Five Nights at Freddy's parody. I'll probably write that one next, unless I try to do an Easter oneshot and I don't know if I'll have the chance for that.

And I don't recall whether I posted about this or not, but last year I wanted to make a silly music video with Ginger and Lou and the Ghostbusters song. It required a lot of new artwork, however, and I just ran out of time. I've been trying to get going on it this year and hope I can do it, but I'm not sure there's even enough time now. I bought the song last night and was listening to it on Repeat and realized that my initial evaluation overlooked the instrumental parts other than the one at the beginning. So that's even more pictures I'll need to make. I'm using a few screengrabs and a few appropriate webcomic pictures, but the rest will be entirely new artwork for this MV. I'm just not sure I can do it all. I'll also need to at least ink all the pictures, if not outright color them. And if colored, they should really be digitally colored and I can't do that, so I'd need to see if anyone would be willing to come onboard the project and do that part of it. But I'd only want to ask people I knew well and I doubt any of them would have the time and I'm sure none of them would have the interest. It would be a pretty big commitment. I don't even know if I can stick with it, so I don't like to ask anybody else to try to. (Plus they might have a different vision of how they should be colored.... It's generally better to do everything myself when possible.)

I started drawing another picture for it today, one for the Black Agnes statue story where the possessed statue is putting people in comas, including Mike. I've never drawn Mike quite right, though; I realized that I think my drawings look more like Joey Aresco than Joe E. Tata. Heh. I love Joey Aresco's shaggy hair.... But so this time I tried to draw a Mike that looks closer to how he does in the episode. Only since I haven't been drawing him that way, I wonder if he'll even look recognizable to those who follow the webcomic....

I also created an idea for a framing story in the MV instead of it just being entirely random ghost-busting scenes. In between those, the framing story has Jim Rockford encountering the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man outside his trailer and calling Ginger for help. Ginger, Lou, and Jim get batted all around by the thing, and then Ginger finally has enough and blasts it with his shotgun. Marshmallow goes everywhere, Lou stares, and Rocky drives up. Jim goes, "Hi, Dad. How about some marshmallows?" Then they start roasting marshmallows while Ginger and Lou flee. Then there's a silly omake where Lou tells Ginger about some weirdo making the MV. Ginger responds with a flat look and "What." I was telling Ladyamberjo about that last night and got the giggles imagining Jim's expression when he sees the Marshmallow Man. James Garner is totally one of the masters of the WTH expression.

Current Mood: tired

So apparently I'm more excited for the Pony premiere next week than I even thought. I had a weird dream on Friday. The mirror had malfunctioned and sent Cadance, Shining Armor, and baby Flurry Heart to the human world. Flurry Heart had got lost somewhere and Cadance and Shining Armor were frantic to find her. For some reason, Charlie from All Dogs Go to Heaven was there, human as well. Guess he used another Miracle Pin or something. Lieutenant Anderson from Perry Mason was trying to help them find Flurry Heart. He was highly skeptical that they had come through a portal and were really Ponies. But he did believe that their child was lost and was fully into helping them find her.

Even though I don't want to consider that the Pony verse takes place in the same verse as my more reality-grounded shows, I kind of want to make this into a fic (minus Charlie, probably; I don't know what the heck he was doing there and I don't think he'd really fit into this plot in a fic, unless I just decide it's free-for-all crack). I am very amused by the thought of Andy interacting with Cadance and Shining Armor and trying to grasp WTH is happening here.

Also, I love my dad's tablet's camera! Squeeee. I had totally forgot there was a camera in there! He doesn't use the tablet much, as the laptop is his preferred portable technology, so I asked if I could use it. I thought maybe some websites would work better on it than on the old laptop I use. The websites don't always work too well on the tablet, either, but eeee, the camera! It is simply gorgeous! Such clear pictures, unless I accidentally jostle something! It's so much better quality than the cheap digital camera I can't find the installation disc for!

So, here are some pictures I've taken of things people wanted to see. First, my Scott Leonard circa season 2 plushie, as made by HarukaKou:

( Scott )

Also, an obligatory shot of my incomplete Barry plushie because I want to show the face:

( Barry )

And my Roger Moore figure, which

kirarakim wanted to see! Close-ups didn't turn out so well; I'll have to re-do those.

( Roger )

I've gotta say, I am thrilled with this and I am so happy to finally be able to join the ranks of people who find it commonplace to take pictures and have them instantly ready!

Current Mood: exhausted

Reason #1001 why I love Kojak: He says to a horrible crooked lawyer, "When you're ready to drop by, call first. You'll feel right at home; we have cockroaches." Later in the episode, he fights with an evil fly and finally gets it with the telephone while talking to Stavros on said telephone. (Oh, poor Stavros.)

Interesting to note that all of the poor main guest character's grief with the lawyer could have been avoided if his wife had only trusted him like she should have. But on the other hand, the lawyer was pulling the same horrid stunts with many people and needed to be brought down, so it was good that what he was doing was brought to Kojak's attention. And at least the wife eventually realized she wasn't being fair. Meanwhile, even though the husband was being put through outrageous hoops by the lawyer, he was worried about his wife and saying how the long drawn-out court actions must be Hell for her.

And I managed to get in on McDonald's Pony toy promotion this year! I got Starlight Glimmer. I was looking for her and Coco Pommel especially. Suri Polomare was also available, but I wasn't really interested in her. I'd be curious to know exactly how she turned from being an apparently nice Pony to a rotten liar and cheat, but since she has a very obnoxious speech pattern and showed no remorse for what she did, I doubt I'd be interested in her unless she's given some more development and shown to still have some good in her (like with Coley Rodman and certain other antagonists I'm intrigued by). Hmm, maybe I should try writing a fic with her, since I really am interested in her backstory. Maybe she'd even end up being a female Snakes for me and I'd really enjoy writing for her and get more interested in her. She does definitely have the potential to be at least somewhat like a female Snakes. I had kind of wanted the brushable of her, in any case, but it doesn't seem like we're going to get it in this area.

Starlight has certainly had an interesting season. She was definitely one of the most disturbing antagonists due to her complete belief in her twisted ideology. Then, after she stalked Twilight for revenge all through the season (!!), they ended up reforming her in the season finale. I was extremely skeptical of her reason for getting so messed-up, honestly. It was horrible that her childhood friend left her as soon as he got his Cutie Mark and never even talked to her again, but it seemed a little hard to swallow that one event made her decide that all Cutie Marks were evil and should be done away with, etc. etc. If it was the final straw in a long line of things, as JP suggested, that would be more believable to me. In any case, it also seemed hard to swallow that she could flip her ideology so thoroughly in such a short amount of time after being so insistent in it and so bitter at Twilight. But ... I do love reformed antagonists and she does have potential for interesting things down the road, so I'll go with it.

A lot of people started insisting that it looked like Starlight was going to appear in season 6 and might even be part of the main group. I remained skeptical of that too, but she is definitely going to be in the two-part premiere, at least. And I have to say, if they do a good job developing her like they did Sunset Shimmer, she could very easily become a favorite of mine. In any case, I thought I'd like a figure or two, so that's why I went for the McDonald's one.

Speaking of season 6, by the way, all those rumors of a year-long wait between seasons was nonsense. Then we heard a May release, but now we know the season premieres on March 26th! Squeeee! That's the day before Easter. Ponies and Easter are just so right together.

Current Mood: happy

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.

Current Mood: determined

I'm slightly worried to use this as The Persuaders! icon that everyone probably knew was coming, since it makes it look like Brett and Danny are different heights when they're really about the same height, but it's such a squeeable picture. I don't have the DVDs yet, and this was the picture I liked best that was available in the highest iconning quality when I did a search.

It has been a very busy and interesting week. Maybe I'll type things up in more detail later, but right now I just want to blog about a couple of things.

We got a couple of awesome coupons to try out McDonald's Create-a-Burger thingie, so we investigated last Wednesday. It was epic and awesome and it's hard to think of ever eating their standard burgers after eating one of those. It was sooo good. I had two kinds of cheese and tomato and lettuce and a special artisan bun....

The coupon I used gave a free Happy Meal with the purchase of a Create-a-Burger. The kids' toys this month were ShopKins and Rabbids. I rather abhor Rabbids. I knew nothing of ShopKins, but anything sounded better than Rabbids.

I waited until I got home from our little shopping trip before I took the toys out of the bag to examine them fully. Apparently they're inanimate objects with faces. I got a ring and a mirror, and they came in a plastic bag (which, oddly enough, didn't have a face). I'm such a sentimental slob that I found the things utterly adorable. I looked at the available ones at Wal-Mart when we were there next, but I didn't find them as compelling. They're much smaller than the McDonald's toys, interestingly, and the current line is anthropomorphic food, which I ... really kind of don't like. Then it makes me uncomfortable thinking of eating food if I'm picturing everything from cheese to ice cream having faces and being alive. Um, no.

Actually, I kind of liked the McDonald's ones so much that I kind of wish I could get more of theirs. But I don't have the money to spend on that. (Plus, I guess they'll probably be gone now if they were December's toys.) They were really high-quality, though, and I was really impressed.

I got some awesome Build-a-Bear gift cards from Ladyamberjo and Lisa, and then the store sent me a $10 off thingie that was only good for this week. So I was worried about getting there and being able to use the certificate/coupon thing. Dad doesn't like to go out for just one thing. There's several things we need to do up there, but last night he finally agreed we could go up and we were borrowing a car again and we had to have it back by a certain time. Our car went kerplunk again earlier this month and the only way we've been able to get around is by borrowing a friend's car. Gah.

The store was so extremely crowded that it proved impossible to go anywhere else. I swear, I have never seen it that crowded except before Christmas. I didn't think it would be so active after Christmas! But I was able to get Shining Armor, as I hoped. I also checked out the new Pikachu. I was surprised he was $28 instead of $25 (yikes), but he looks really high-quality too. I'm considering getting him, depending on when Muffins is reissued. I still have plenty of gift card money and another coupon good through part of February. Meanwhile, my Funrise Cadance is perfectly in scale with Shining Armor, as I'd hoped, and she looks so happy to have him here at last.

Among the things I watched for Christmas was Mickey's Christmas Carol, which got me thinking a lot about Scrooge McDuck and Alan Young and how awesome it is that Alan still voices Scrooge. I can hardly believe that they really won't use him on this DuckTales reboot. Terrance McGovern says that everyone is being replaced. That is sacrilege. Why not use anyone who's still around and interested from the old days? I think I need to look into Terrance's Facebook; he sounds adorable. I read the blurb where he was talking about everyone being replaced and he said he hadn't told Launchpad yet. Launchpad was out in the garage working on the Thunderquack. I love someone like that who really cares about the characters they play, instead of just considering it a job. I can't imagine anyone else bringing Launchpad or Scrooge to life, honestly.

They used Alan Young for Scrooge just earlier this year, in some silly Mickey Mouse cartoon. He only had a line or two, but it was so wonderful to hear him again! He sounds just the same; it's incredible! He's 96 and still kicking. So, so awesome.

Apparently there's a series of Mickey Mouse cartoons airing now. They use a pretty retro style for the characters; Mickey only wears shorts and shoes, for instance. And it's some strange slapstick thing like old cartoons were. I read an episode guide and one episode said Mickey loses his ears.... Um, WTH? Mickey isn't Felix the Cat. But so I don't think I'd go much for the show. I didn't cotton a whole lot to the episode I watched. Goofy fell in love and Mickey and Donald were trying to help him, only at the end they find out he's in love with the sandwich the waitress was holding and not the waitress. The episode ended with a marriage ceremony and being pronounced "husband and sandwich." Goofy then ate the sandwich. It was so, so weird and stupid. But I have to admit, Mickey and Donald exclaiming, "He's in love with a sandwich????!!!!" was kind of epically priceless. ROTFLOL.

Another thing I didn't like a whole lot was that they kind of simplified Scrooge's character. He acted more like his namesake, LOL. He promptly kicked everyone out when Donald asked for money. I think the DuckTales version would have started choking on his tea and exclaimed, "WHAT???!!!" But regardless, it was so good to hear Alan again, and I'm so glad they had Scrooge wear blue, like on DuckTales. In the comics it's usually red.

If the whole cast is really being replaced for the DuckTales reboot, the only good thing about it is that there will hopefully be new merchandise. Maybe I can finally get a Scrooge plushie. I tried to get one years ago, when I got Darkwing, but I lost the auction.

Current Mood: contemplative

I try not to let silly things irk me as much as in the past, when after reading a magazine article that showed the writer clearly didn't understand the Marik Ishtar character, I wrote a long letter to the magazine pointing out a bunch of things the writer either didn't understand or didn't know. I doubt I'll write a letter to the publishing company Little and Brown now. But ... I can't help feeling annoyed that on the case for a set of Equestria Girls novels, they made some actual errors about Sunset Shimmer when describing the book plots. You'd think that a case of the books would make an effort to get things right. Instead they make it sound like Sunset is still a problem for the characters following the first movie. They have the idiocy to say that the Dazzlings is her band, when in reality she had nothing to do with being in the band and instead wanted to stop them. And they call her "always rebellious."

...

Completely aside from the fact that she had a complete change of heart at the end of the first movie and wanted to be good and not rebellious, the books actually portray her as even more insecure in the succeeding adventures than the movies do. Even in the most recent book, the Friendship Games adaption, this is done. In the movie, a key scene has Applejack making a remark that could be taken as guilting Sunset about her past. But Applejack means it as a joke; they are close enough friends now that such jokes can be made. Sunset half-smirks in response; she knows it's a joke. But in the book, Sunset takes it as a way to guilt her and show they'll never forget what she did in the first movie.

Apparently the publishing company will certainly never forget, or forgive, since they want to portray her so unflatteringly on the box and even accuse her of things she didn't do. **headdesk.**

Saturday was an extremely long day. Where to even begin? I feel terrible everything took so long, especially since Mom wasn't feeling well enough to go and we had to leave her home and call in every little while or so. But things can't fully be explained on the phone, so she was still plenty worried and I felt plenty horrible at the time it took. Even moreso since some of the time didn't have to have been taken.

So let's see. We made good time getting to the church and made it for the viewing/wake, as we were aiming for. The following funeral service was lovely and all the kids spoke, but gah, it was so sad. They were all so sad and some of them kept breaking down. These were grown men. It was moving to see how much they loved their mother (and for most of them, she was a stepmother, but they still considered her a mom just like their other mom). But man, it was heartbreaking. I don't often cry at funerals, but it was a struggle not to cry at this one.

The luncheon for the family and close friends was pretty amazing. I've never been to a funeral luncheon like that before. It was Mexican food. There were giant tortillas to fill with beans, chicken, cheeeeese, salsa, avocado spread.... It was so awesome. And there was ice water and several kinds of cake.

We hadn't actually planned to go to the cemetery part of the service, since it was even farther away and Dad just didn't see how he could afford the gas. But then my sister offered that we could go with her and her youngest daughter. We had to make a spur of the moment decision because everyone was leaving right then. I was worried to go with someone else, since then we'd be captive to their whims, but I could tell Dad really wanted to go to the cemetery, and I did too, really, if we could manage it. And I hoped it wouldn't take too long afterwards to come back to the car. So I figured we'd better try it. He left the decision up to me and I didn't want to be responsible for Dad not getting to go.

She didn't seem to know her way around too well for some reason, but her daughter set up the Google Maps app on the phone and used that to guide her up to the city where the burial would be. This was where we all used to live, and the cemetery is one of my favorites ever. It's so huge and old and mysterious.

The burial plot was in the newer section, so we drove over there, my sister got us to the wrong burial service even though we told her it was by the fence, and we had to try again. That time it went right and we arrived early.

I was surprised not to see the jagged triangular headstone in the area. I had thought it was right near the family plots in that area. Since there was a little extra time, I wandered off to find it. That thing creeped me out so bad as a kid, but it morbidly intrigued me too. It's just so unique. And then it's also creepy to me because from a distance, the only thing you can see written on it is the surname going vertically down the stone. The name is unusual and it's similar to the name of an aunt (just minus one letter), which only adds to the unsettling nature of it. I've tried to put it in every cemetery picture I've drawn (albeit I don't put the name).

I finally found it, over near where some family friends are buried. It still creeps me out, but it was daylight and didn't seem so creepy then. I walked right up to it. It's pretty big in person; it was about as tall as I am. Of course, I'm pretty short (five feet even), but that's still pretty big for a tombstone. I wonder why they used such a jagged piece of rock like that for the marker. That would make for an interesting story, I imagine. It's sad too; the person buried there was only 19.

I walked back and they still hadn't started yet; they were waiting for the hearse. When it finally got there, we did a little graveside service and tried to sing some family hymns, but we didn't know all the words, especially on the final one we tried. I'm glad we made it to the cemetery to participate in that final part of the service. It was after we left that the problems started.

We needed to drop my niece off at a friend's house where she'd arranged to spend the night. My sister detoured a bit to look at my dad's birth house (yeah, he wasn't born in a hospital) and the old shop where he used to work with his grandfather. Along the drive up, I had remembered that I wanted to check Marshalls for the rare Adagio Dazzle doll, as she's been turning up in a lot of them lately. The only Marshalls here are up in that approximate area, and my sister agreed we could try one on the way back down.

After some trouble with rush hour traffic, we finally got to the place and I went in to look around. I was really impressed with the store; it looks really upscale, even though it's a discount place. I wish Mom could see it; I think she'd love it as much as I do now. I couldn't find the doll, but I did find the big Twilight Sparkle figure. I'd just been thinking about her and that she wasn't in stores any more. I had wanted the original unicorn one and had not paid attention to the winged version, but I finally knew I'd never get the unicorn one since she's rare and expensive now and I was willing to get the winged one. When I saw her at Marshalls for $10, I figured I'd better snap her up.

We headed back to where we'd left our car at the church. We got off the freeway too early and started wandering around. Even though I saw street signs that said we were not in the right town, my sister didn't believe it. We wandered around some more as it got dark and ended up in yet another wrong town. Finally we all saw a sign proclaiming the name of the place and my sister believed we were lost. She didn't know how to work the Google Maps app, but the directions were still programmed into it from that morning as to how to get to the church. So she brought that up, followed them, and finally we were able to get back to the car.

I suppose I really should have just said for us to go home then, since we'd been out eight-nine hours at that point. But since we hardly ever get out that far and there were sales I needed to see about right then or they'd be kerplunk, I could hardly bear the thought of just going home then. I really tried to hurry regardless, but it didn't work out that way.

We also tried finding some stuff Mom wanted for Christmas presents, but we didn't have any luck finding stuff for the adults. We did get the stuff she wanted for the kids, so that was good.

I checked T.J. Maxx and Ross for the doll and still didn't find her, so then it was on to Toys R Us. They had a 30% off sale on all Pony stuff, and I thought I'd planned I'd get the archery Applejack and that would be that, but when I actually got in there and everything was on sale, suddenly it wasn't an easy decision. I debated for ages over several things I'd wanted, couldn't decide, and then we had to rush to the mall to see about the Build-a-Bear discounts. I had discounts adding up to $15 off, plus there was a 2 for $35 sale on. Both of my discounts worked with that, which meant I could get two for $20! Naturally I couldn't pass that up. I'd planned to get Zecora and Teegan (the purple cat/tiger) if I could get two, so that was what I did. It was fun and the girls were so friendly and sweet and fun. And since Teegan comes with a tank top (as well as sewn-on underwear), I found some cheap swim trunks for her to wear at least for now. Maybe later I'll have money to get her a nice outfit, but right then I just wanted to clothe her good enough and save more money for other things. But it took a lot longer to get two than I'd planned on; it was about thirty-forty minutes later when I got back to Toys R Us.

During the interim I thought I'd decided what to get at Toys R Us, the two-pack with Twilight and Flash. But every single copy Toys R Us had featured a stray glitter problem. It was shedding off of Twilight's skirt and getting everywhere. That didn't seem appealing at all, so I wondered if I'd rather get the characters separately and buy a Twilight without that skirt. I turned my attention more fully to the two-pack I'd tried to get in the summer, with Sonata and Aria from the second movie. There were only two copies of those, they're phasing out, and with the sale they were only $13.99. That was definitely the best deal. (Well, actually, the best deal was Photo Finish and her two band members, but I don't really know those characters other than Photo Finish herself. They don't even have any dialogue.) So I preferred Sonata and Aria. I still debated for a moment, feeling guilty as always to get antagonists, but I knew I really wanted them. They bicker like sisters, which makes me have a certain fondness for them. Plus, I knew I probably wouldn't be able to find the set before long. And I have a chance to get the Adagio doll from someone on the forum, so I wanted to have the other girls in the band right ready in case I could. It would be too sad not to have the whole group.

(Also, I have plans for a story where Sunset finds them post-movie and tries to extend friendship to them. One thing I did like in the book version of the second movie was that she felt some pity for them. I can definitely picture that, since Sunset had some similar goals of wanting to be popular/well-liked.)

With that taken care of at last, I wanted to just try one more Wal-Mart looking for Sunset Shimmer. (We'd tried one around the time we got the stuff for Mom.) That was a fizzle, of course. We had planned to try one more store looking for DVDs for the adults, but it was so late by then and I was exhausted and panicking, knowing Mom would be so upset and worried that it was taking so long. So we went home, arriving over twelve hours after leaving home. GAH. Mom didn't like the long time we'd been gone one bit, but she did like seeing what I'd brought back and was happy I'd been able to get those items, so that made me feel a little better.

I felt awful that I was too exhausted to stay up for long with Ladyamberjo and JP, though. That's the night I chat with them and Ladyamberjo and I have had all kinds of trouble having a conversation the last several weeks. And of course, on the night when Ladyamberjo tried extra hard to be available and awake, I'm so tired I'm falling over in the chair.

With weather reports of storms coming up this week, we decided we needed to look for the other DVDs on Tuesday. That was just two towns over. We left earlier than we do sometimes and spent the latter part of the afternoon checking out the DVDs at K-Mart and ShopKo. I also discovered that K-Mart's two-packs of Twilight and Flash are glitter-free and gorgeous, so I'm back to wanting the two-pack again and not to get the characters separately. I wonder if it would be worth paying full-price for it to get a nice glitter-free one.

I still couldn't find Sunset Shimmer, but I did at last find a good Scootaloo at Wal-Mart! All legs were the same length and her face wasn't shaped weird (yes, those are problems with Funrise sometimes), so I decided I should get her.

Also, I very randomly saw the 12-inch Applebloom at ShopKo. It was frustrating, because from a distance I momentarily thought she was Sunset. Sigh. But it was interesting to see a rare character turn up at ShopKo, of all places. ShopKo doesn't even have any Friendship Games dolls yet! I wonder if seeing her is possibly a good sign. Scootaloo just started showing up last month, and now an Applebloom.... Maybe, possibly, Sunset will still come? I don't hold out much hope of that, though. And I still wish I had taken that person up on her offer to get one for me in the summer. I was worried about shipping costs and I was fully convinced back then that we were just about to get her for fall stock. And then we didn't.

Well, anyway, we had some good luck with the DVDs, and I got a couple of Christmas presents, and it was a pretty nice little outing. We got back in time for me to chat with Crystal.

I also had good luck with one of my survey companies and got an Amazon gift card again already! I got a couple more Christmas presents with it, as well some more Get Smart for myself. Hopefully it will arrive in time for me to send one of the presents on and have it arrive before Christmas....

I also discovered that I need to watch every episode of The Persuaders!, ohmygoshsquee. It's wonderful! I plan to buy the DVD set with my next gift card. Meantime, I found it on YouTube and watched an episode in the morning. The friendship between the main characters is glorious, and it's even more awesome because they start out hating each other, and they go from that to really caring about each other and being really close friends. It's such a shame it only ran one season. It should satisfy my Roger Moore withdrawal nicely. I love his character, and the friendship with Tony Curtis's character, and I won't be surprised if I want to write fanfic somewhere down the line. As much as I love Simon Templar, he's a loner, and it's harder for me to relate to writing for loners if they don't have one good friend or family member to interact with. And if they're the only steady character in the cast. Then they work better in crossover fics. I really love to write about friendships. (Plus, I still worry about the fact that I prefer the TV show Simon while the few fanficcers prefer the book Simon. I'm still going to write that one fic with Simon appearing to be dead and Inspector Teal reacting to it, though. Then it flashes back to tell what led up to it, comes back to the present, and of course Simon will be alright when the drug wears off.)

I also became obsessed with the song Little Talks by Of Monsters and Men. It's absolutely haunting and gorgeous. I'm thrilled Ladyamberjo found that song and shared it with me! I am totally going to want to write a fic based around it at some point, although right now I'm unsure what characters such a fic would involve. I'd also like to sing it, but I don't know how well it would go over if I tried recording me singing it, since it really does need to be a duet.

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Music: Home for the Holidays---Perry Como

[Error: unknown template qotd]HECK YES. I always preferred stuffed animals to baby/little girl dolls, although admittedly, I did love the dolls I had. But my stuffed animal collection is enormous. I have my brother's plushies that he gave me, and all the ones that were only ever mine, both gifts and ones I've bought. I still adore them all. While I stopped collecting for a while because I was overwhelmed, I think it was my love of My Little Pony that really started me going again. I have the talking Twilight Sparkle plushie that was one of the first G4 plushies released. Then I have one of almost every character released in the 10-inch size by Funrise (I want my Sunset Shimmer, sob sob), plus the bigger Celestia and Cadance. I also have Aurora's season 1 Luna and every Build-a-Bear Pony released in the stores save for their Celestia and Cadance, as well as Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie. (I think I'm going to get the big Ty Pinkie Pie, if I can get the really good one at the Hallmark store with a better-developed muzzle than many of the Ty plushies. Their Pinkie's hair is just gorgeous, oh my gosh. And I'm going to get Zecora and Shining Armor, now that they're no longer online exclusives and are in stores.) Occasionally I get other types of plushies as well, usually other licensed characters like the TMNT or Hello Kitty or Care Bears, but I'll get anything that seriously strikes my fancy, such as an adorable bat plushie. I also like to get every really awesome cat and fish plushie I see. And I occasionally make human plushies with Jo-Ann's pre-stuffed dolls. I am still seriously obsessed with plushies. So soft and cuddly.... I adore soft things.

Favorite childhood plushie ... oh wow. How do I pick just one? There's the brown-and-white dog that was my brother's that's probably my favorite of the plushies I got from him. She's been everything from a Bassett Hound to a hound dog, but for years she's been a Springer Spaniel named Madeleine. And there's the gray Poodle Pound Puppy that I named Georgette, because I loved Georgette in Oliver & Company. (Later I finally got a real Georgette plushie, which I adore too. But the gray Poodle is still named Georgette as well.) And there's my Sonic the Hedgehog, which absolutely thrilled me on Christmas morning 1994, when I didn't even know Sonic plushies existed!

I have all of my toys. It's some of the childhood books and videos I sold when I was desperate for money. Some of those I don't miss, but there are others I wish I hadn't sold. I have a policy now of not selling anything; I never know when I might want it and not have it.

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: Do You Hear What I Hear? -- Johnny Mathis

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Page generated Jul. 4th, 2025 02:11 pm

Ramblings and Musings of the Insane, Philosophical Ladybug

We were so carefree then, our hearts were on a cloud....

Entries tagged with my little pony

Blah.

Oh good grief. LOL.

Halloween woes.

Curious.

Turtles and Equestria Girls

Musings.

Uh oh....

And now for something completely different.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

... Lovely.

Watched.

$10 coupons....

Gah.

What a week.

Oddball dream and pictures!

ROTFLOL.

No more new Persuaders!, sniffle.

ShopKins. Interesting.

What a long day.

Answer for question 4561.