Hmm.

So the other day I ended up watching The Making of Pokemon Live and then I felt a little guilty for slamming it. It was nice to see that it was definitely a work of love and the cast and crew were having so much fun with it. I still think Jessie and James were a little over-the-top, but maybe that was just their honest interpretation of the characters and since I focus more on other traits of theirs, I don't think much about their over-the-top-ness. There were definitely scenes in the anime where they were over-the-top, LOL.

(I don't think there was any canon excuse for making Brock goofy about things other than women, though....)

That was the first time I've actually heard Darren Dunstan's natural voice. Since he used the Pegasus voice for Giovanni, and I've heard him singing in that voice when not playing Giovanni, I thought that was his natural voice. And I was having a horrible time separating him from Pegasus and I kept wondering how a goofball like Pegasus could do voice direction for some of the movies. **headdesk.** I know I shouldn't have, but yeah.

I've been trying voice-acting with the Team Rocket characters. I'll never realize my dream of a play, but at least I can play-act with myself. Meowth's voice is super hard. Maddie Blaustein was one of a kind! I can get a Brooklyn accent really easily, but adding that "meower" tone to really make it sound like a cat/Meowth is the hard part. I am up for the challenge, though! James and Jessie should be easier. James is similar to Vernon and Jessie seems easy enough. Prissy but not screechy.

I've been toying with the idea of making Team Rocket plushies, but I wish I didn't have to resort to fleece, felt, or something else like that for hair. I wish I could find some doll wigs that would work, but I haven't had any luck. It's really amazing that I found the perfect doll wig for Ginger!

If I decide to try it, I'd probably be making human catboy Meowth, because that would be a fun challenge. For him, I guess I could use the yellow hair that's the counterpart to Baxter and Barney's and Lou and Mike's hair. But that material wouldn't work for Jessie or James.

If I try it, I'll probably also take a page from the abridged Pokemon Live and have Jessie's black shirt come down all the way, LOL. And extend the skirt's length a bit.... And oh, hey, for them I'd have to make foot coverings, since the boots are iconic parts of the outfits.

I've been having a blast with my rewrite of Dead and Alive. The first draft is finished, clocking in at 8 chapters instead of the original six. People on FF.net are still silent, but they're definitely reading. And a fan of the original story checked in on AO3, of all places. (I rarely get reviews there.) The story is mostly for me, hence why I keep posting it instead of waiting for FF.net reviews that probably won't come any time soon. I have three chapters posted so far. I'm really thrilled with what I've done with it.

Some things are mostly the same as in the original, while others are different. Some are similar but modified. In the original, James cross-dresses as a nurse to escape thugs in one scene. LOL. In the new one, it's specifically Nurse Joy he cross-dresses as. She reacts to this. I've illustrated it. Haven't colored it yet, though. I scanned an inked version of a picture with human catboy Meowth, but for this one I think it would be funnier colored, so I don't think I'll scan the inked one. Both versions of the story are mostly serious, but that's a bit of an amusing scene. I always laugh at James' cross-dressing. (Well, except for Beauty and the Beach. No. Just no. That episode makes no sense. What are he and Jessie even doing in the beauty contest?! It's so bizarrely random. And I am creeped out by his antics. Misty's reaction was pretty much mine. At least since the dub cuts that, I can technically say that James never did that even though Kojiro did....)

I love my expansion on Meowth being attacked. It definitely makes more sense to focus on that more than I originally did.

One thing I don't do in either version is explore the amnesia in-depth (even though there are certainly scenes of him trying to remember). Nor do I have James getting back memories of Jessie and Meowth being abusive to him. Still debating whether to go that route, though. Most amnesia stories I do have the victim get back memories of the loved ones' less than stellar moments and have to choose to trust them anyway. This story instead went down the path that he remembers Jessie and Meowth are important to him and he doesn't waver from that. It's a fairly fast-paced story in both versions, although there's two timeskips in the old one and one timeskip in the new one. I'm debating if I should write an entirely new chapter exploring the timeskip instead, but I think it works the way it already is.

And I have the Turtles fic nearly done too, save for the epilogue stuff. It went down a much different path than the person hoped it would, though, I think. But I never planned to follow that path too much, as I warned him, since I felt that would make it too similar to an earlier story in the series. Hopefully he'll like it for what it is. I've never been able to write one of his requests exactly the way he hoped for. Of course, that's always a risk one takes when requesting a fic from someone.

And oh dear. I've been trying to figure out how to get that Team Rocket shirt while it's at the lowest price, so I asked Dad if there was anything he wanted on Amazon so we could combine an order instead of me getting other stuff to pay the full $25 price for free shipping right now. He couldn't think of anything, really, but had me try a few options that didn't really work out. Now I see that the second half of Batman 66 season 2 is down lower than I've ever seen it before. I've been hoping to get that for years. I already decided that if the shirt went back up to $14, I wanted it enough to still get it, but now something else is at a great price too and it's even more difficult to not think of placing the order at this point. I really shouldn't right now. But I am close to another cash-out, so I could probably replace the money fairly quickly. Still, then I'd just be right back where I am now instead of having more money.

What to do....

... Funny thought that just occurred to me. I've been so worried about Dad seeing what Jessie's wearing and getting bent out of shape, but I have about five YGO shirts with Marik and he's never seemed to pay enough attention to them to get upset. Although Marik doesn't show as much of a bare midriff as Jessie does!

Ahh.

I had a series of strange dreams today. One oddball one involved my YGO board game, although of course the gameplay in the dream was nothing like what it is in real-life. It involved the board looking like a woods backdrop or something. Then I had a bizarre dream about some nutcase who was extremely reluctant to go get help about something and had to literally be dragged to get it. Napoleon Solo was in that one, with someone actually asking him about all the rumors about him basically being James Bond with all the women. He just smiled and gave a very vague answer to keep up the mystery.

The final dream I had before waking up actually involved a local production of Pokemon Live and I was playing Jessie and people actually enjoyed my performance. There was a second performance the next day and I was so involved in the dream that when I started waking up, I was thinking, "Oh no, I missed the performance and the understudy had to go on...."

It was a really nice dream. Usually the last dreams of the day are real bummers, so this was a great change. It was kind of sad to fully wake up and realize that no, there was no performance and I wasn't playing Jessie, though. Heh.

I don't even know if I'd do a good job as Jessie. I'd rather play James, but that wouldn't really work, so Jessie would be the next best thing since I'd get to be with James. I don't know, though; I used to be more random and silly in real-life than I am now, so maybe if I dipped into that part of my personality I could pull it off.

Finally got the Turtles fic done. I hope nothing looks rushed. I wasn't sure how to end it, so the epilogue is short, and then it's more of a humor installment, so I didn't want to get too in-depth with more serious things. People seem to like it, though, so that's good!

... And I finally got a review on the Dead and Alive rewrite on FF.net! Awesome.

Was discussing the Moltres episode with Crystal and wondering exactly what James might dare to do if he had continued on his power trip. We eventually started musing on the thought of a One Ring-type corruption storyline and she suggested writing a version of Control Freak where James has the mask instead of Jessie. I watched the part of that episode where Jessie has the mask, hoping for a plunnie. I got one, but not what I expected. I wouldn't want James to act like Jessie did in that episode, especially since she really did seem to just be on a power trip instead of being corrupted. I would hate to see my favorite character behave that way and I'm also not sure James would be strong enough to take it once he realized what he'd been doing. And I think with James, he's the type of character whom I want to either be a hero or a victim, or both, but not the one causing the problem. (Of course, I did that possession fic, but it was the evil spirit causing the problem there and James was fighting it.) Interestingly, as I recall, when James went on his power trip in the Moltres episode, he wasn't mean to Jessie and Meowth. He just took over as the leader and wanted to lead them all to greatness. Jessie, on the other hand, immediately started treating James and Meowth like dirt. Well, she does that half the time anyway, but even moreso when she got a taste of power.

Of course, the plunnie I got was dark. And I don't know that I'd do anything with it beyond a blurb to satisfy my own curiosity about the scenario. But I found Jessie's treatment of them so off-putting that I got a plunnie where the mask really is corrupting her/taking her over and it gets so bad that when James realizes what's going on and tries to stop her, she responds by ... somehow impaling him with the bottom of the staff. But as he falls, he says he knows this isn't Jessie. That would break the spell over her, but then I'd be left with the problem of how to fix it. One of those rare times where I'd need a magical healing on hand, I guess.... Or reversing time, but that's a cop-out. I thought of an alternate version where she commands James' Pokemon and Meowth to attack him and they beat him up almost to death before she's able to break the spell and order them to stop, but I actually think that would be worse. Then Weezing and Victreebel would be haunted by having hurt him, especially since, judging by Meowth in the episode, they would be completely aware and just unable to stop themselves. I don't think they would be very forgiving to Jessie, even though she was corrupted and not herself, and that would be sad for everyone. Maybe I could make it random wild Pokemon instead of James' Pokemon, but I think part of the point was that the mask had caused her to fall so far that she would really do something so cruel as having James' Pokemon attack him when he opposed her.

Also the problem that someone else already took the Control Freak episode and made it serious with Jessie getting possessed by the mask and I wouldn't want to inadvertently write anything similar to their story. I can't remember their name or the fic's name to check on it. I never read it, both because it looked really long and because it was a romance, but I'm tentatively guessing that anything I'd do would be different from her effort and I wouldn't need to worry.