insaneladybug: (Default)
I have always had great anticipation for my birthday. The last couple of years have been strange, with having to get my gifts myself, but in another way it's been nice since most of what I want is online-only, Dad has never been good with shopping for others online, and this way I ensure I get lots of what I really want. I've stocked up some fun things for my birthday, mainly Eevee and Star Wars and Encanto merch. And at least there will be a couple of surprises from friends.

On one such trip, I was absolutely overjoyed and elated to see the free-standing GameStop closest to us came back! It was such a shock. Last year they definitely seemed to be closed and I'm sure they were no longer listed on the website. But a couple of weeks ago they were open, fully functional, and on the website again! I doubt anything else could have excited me as much, except a new free-standing Toys R Us in the States. I might actually cry for joy if such a thing were to ever happen again (which I doubt it will). I wish I could go to Canada and visit it there.

The GameStop had many Eevee things. A lot of them I already have, lol. But there were a handful of things I didn't have, and I got a cute Eevee figure to put away for my birthday. She looks like she'll be better in scale with my Radley doll than my talking Eevee (who will of course stay Radley's as well).

I also finally saw the sleeping plush. She is very cute! But more expensive than Amazon was last charging. I'm hoping Amazon will restock. I never thought I'd want a sleeping plush, but the Eevees are so darling. They're even more appealing since I'm playing Pokemon Sleep. I imagine that game is responsible for sales of the sleeping plush going through the ceiling lately. Although they've always seemed popular.

Even knowing what most things are, the anticipation of opening them is just as exciting as if I didn't know. Perhaps a little moreso, since I know I won't get disappointed (unless I was sent the wrong merch, which I certainly hope won't have happened). The crowning piece is the adorable Halloween Eevee statue. I have no idea where I'll put her, but I had to get her. It hurt so much not getting her last year. She's so precious. Even Pikachu in that line is trying to be scary, but Eevee is just too innocent and sweet and genuine for that and is just going "Yay! :D"

Stores always like to send me things for my birthday month too. Disney has sent their annual 20% discount, which I plan to save for combining with their free ship day this month. I haven't decided what I'll use it on yet. Possibilities are Kristoff doll (if he's still in stock), Isabela or Dolores plush (Mirabel is cheaper on Amazon and Luisa is here waiting for Tuesday), or maybe Eeyore. I always wanted an Eeyore. Or a really furry Tigger. I have my brother's, but he is not very furry so many years later.

I was so frustrated that I got distracted with the possibility of a Disney order right when I was trying to place my Pokemon Center order a couple of weeks ago. I was distracted so long that I missed out on the Flareon and Jolteon Sitting Cuties, and those are the only two Eevee family members I have no plushies of. I had no idea they'd sell out over the weekend. I was worried the Afternoon with Eevee figures would sell out that fast, but they stayed and the plushies vamoosed. Go figure. I should have really known all along the Pokemon Center order was what I wanted the most, considering I've had other chances to get those Disney items on other sales and have always decided I couldn't justify the cost, even with discounts.

Target will send me something on Tuesday. Last year it was 10% off something, which is barely anything at all. But I still put it to good use getting the 24 inch sitting Eevee. This year, I have my eye on the Eevee costume accessory set. We're finally getting a Target closer to us and it's supposed to open this month, but I don't have an exact day yet. It would be awesome if they have the set. Not all Targets carry it. It would be so fun to buy it in-store. There's something especially satisfying about getting a wanted item in-store and bringing it home right then. Although mail is certainly fun too.

I'm also heavily contemplating a three-foot cardboard Eevee stand-up from Party City. Of course, this is utterly ridiculous since I am not at all sure where I'd put it. But it's oh so tempting anyway.

The one other order I'm debating right now is at Macy's. Last year I saw a beautiful blue reindeer and was crushed I couldn't get it. I don't know why I forgot about it entirely until I saw it on Macy's site the other day. A special sale on her ends tomorrow and I've been debating getting her. I really want her, but I also really want the Eevee things and I can't have it all. I'm honestly leaning more towards the cardboard cut-out, but it seems so foolish to get that. I must decide quickly, as my discount on that also ends tomorrow.
insaneladybug: (radley)
Christmas was basically very nice. I did manage to capture the feel of a Christmas from my childhood, which I had so desperately longed to do. It made me very happy. I also discovered cutting many dolls and figures out of their packaging can really hurt the thumb. My skin is dry and it cracked a lot there.

One of my favorite gifts is the Encanto doll set I've been wanting for a year! I was so thrilled Azalea542 got it for me! I have them set up on a metal tray right near my bed. They can stand on their own, which is so cool. I also got the Bruno and Dolores dolls so I'd have all the released dolls. I hope they will make the other characters too.

Another lovely gift was a gift card from Ladyamberjo so I could get Sylveon. I was sick of missing out on the Eevee family plushies at Build-a-Bear and I wanted to grab her since she's a favorite. That outing was a time. Almost everything that could go wrong on that outing did. Thankfully, we managed to return with Sylveon or it would have all been pointless. It started precipitating. I objected. Dad insisted we keep going, for some reason. We had to stop and get something from my sister. We had to get gas and had a hard time getting the locked gas cap off. We got stuck in a ditch for which there was no warning sign posted. People were very kind and helped us get out, but it took an hour or more. When we finally got to the mall, some mysterious thing had gone wrong and the store was temporarily closed?! I waited a bit, left in discouragement, then tried calling before leaving the parking lot. They were open again, so I went back for Sylveon. There was already a line forming, so I had to wait a bit more. Driving home was a nightmare as the precipitation continued. But at last we made it!

I got some more Eevees and watched The Rings of Power. I loved it and named Eevees Merry and Pippin. ThickerThanLove sent me the Lord of the Rings bear from Build-a-Bear, squeee! He looks like Frodo, with brown curly fur and blue eyes. I need something to name Sam next.

I am still furious at Nintendo cutting off eShop access to 3DS and 2DS tomorrow. I spent most of this past week looking for things to snap up. There was a big sale on Capcom games, for some awesome reason. I got Mega Man Legacy Collection. Mega Man games are hard. I can't jump on the bad guys and they swarm me really fast. I can't blast them all. I'm really happy to have the games, though. I'll figure it out. I was disappointed I couldn't seem to find anything else. I already got most of the awesome stuff I could afford in the months prior. Then I finally thought to look up Phoenix Wright. Those games were also on sale, for an incredible $2.99 each! Even the trilogy set! After spending much more than I really intended or wanted to (especially on DLC), I have many Phoenix games. I wasn't going to get Apollo Justice, but NinetalesUK finally convinced me I should. If I happen to take to him and the other characters from his games, I probably would be upset to not have the first game with them. I am notorious for balking at things and then loving them when I finally try them. For $2.99, I figured I'd better get it.

I got Investigations for the iPhone, since that was the only way to get it. (Yes, I have an iPhone.) But apparently I will only get the first case and have to drop a lot more to get the rest. I don't know when that will be, since I've already spent a lot. I'm enjoying the first case. Miles is still my favorite; playing as him is wonderful.

I still wish someone could use Radley's sprites from Over the Nexus to make a video game with him. I wish I could do that. I have no skills and would have to learn.

I got my dad's HP laptop working again and downloaded Steam onto it. Then I got The Disney Afternoon Collection, which was on sale for $5. I have always wanted to play those games. Darkwing is hard like Mega Man. The Chip and Dale games are the easiest. I am enjoying them all, even though I'm having trouble getting very far in them. I'll figure it out.

I had plans to get the Leafeon plush at Build-a-Bear, even though I'd have to do the online bundle with unnecessary clothes. I still want to try to make it work even after needing to snap up all that Nintendo stuff before it's gone. I have tried for days to convince my brain it is foolish. My brain will not listen. It's the only way to get him. I'm hoping I can re-sell the clothes, at least the sleeper. I might like the cape enough to keep it, but the onesie seems very silly. I don't want to cover up all that beautiful fur. If he hasn't sold out yet, I plan to order him tonight. He will make a lovely Easter gift. I'm tired of missing out on the Build-a-Bears. I wish I'd got him and Glaceon when they were briefly in physical stores last year, and Umbreon when he was online again briefly.

Some family members wanted me and Dad to get on their Verizon phone plan with them and we'd get iPhones. Mine was free! It's 13. The camera is glorious and I've taken videos of the kitty. The space is also glorious. I have 128GB! And there's not a lot of bloatware. It looks like I can delete whatever I want to, too. I like using the iPhone as a gaming device, mostly. I see both pros and cons of it. It's much harder to type on; if I need to correct a mistake, I can't even go right to the mistake. I have to erase the whole word! There's no headphone jack. Clearing caches is much harder. Apparently I'm supposed to hit offload app, but the description sounded much more complicated than a simple clearing of the cache. It sounded like I would have to redownload the app any time I clicked offload! Some of those apps are big. I don't have time to keep redownloading them! I got my dad's Motorola Android phone since he didn't need it anymore. It has 64GB, which is also good. I like to use it for most other Internet activities since Google devices are easier to manage in a lot of ways. Two of my tablets have been dying a lot, leaving me with the Amazon Fire tablet and these phones. I am happy to have them all.

I found someone called ZakuraRain who will do beautiful pictures for only $3, $6 if it's colored! They call them doodles, but they're definitely higher quality than mere doodles. I've got four pictures from them so far.

Fanfiction writing is slow at times, but still going on. I'm writing some enjoyable Kalin and Radley stories. Sometimes inspiration flows.

I also finally put the collars and lapels on the Kalin and Radley plushies' coat and jacket. I need to take pictures. I was going to get silver snaps for Radley, but I couldn't find the right kind and then I wondered if even the lightweight duster kind would weigh the light material down a lot.
insaneladybug: (radley)
For the last several weeks, I've known that MoonlightTyger would be coming out here for a day trip to a favorite theme park. I was invited to come with her and her sister and her friend, but wasn't sure until a few days ago that it would work out. And me being me, I stayed skeptical still worrying it wouldn't work out right up to the end and finally allowed myself to get excited the night before.

The rides to and from were very fun. We all have a lot of common interests, so it was neat talking about them and listening to the music they had brought. It took less time driving than I thought it would too, only about an hour instead of closer to ninety minutes! That was great for arrival times, but I was sad when it was time to say Goodbye so soon!

I've honestly never been to a theme park. The closest I've ever come is the state fair a couple of times and some carnivals for various holidays. It was a pretty amazing experience! It was all decked out for Halloween with hanging pumpkins and Jack-O-Lanterns and pretty lights and silly fake gravestones everywhere. I get motion-sick on almost any rides and sometimes still in the car, so I knew coasters were not a good idea. But my main deal was wanting to go in haunted houses, since due to Dad being a chronic Halloween Grinch, that's also something I've never done. And I kind of hoped I might find something awesome on the midway, since I know licensed character plushies turn up at the games on those.

I saw the licensed character booth on our way in, with Pokemon and Mario characters. I immediately wanted a big Daisy I saw hanging there. Ironically, I don't think I've ever played a game with her, except maybe Mario Party. But I love her personality, and of course I'm tickled her name is Daisy. We decided to do the attractions first.

There were several haunted attractions and I chose a couple that sounded creepy but not uncomfortable. Like one I rejected said it featured the devil. No. So MoonlightTyger and I tried a nice mansion. There was a hallway with those silly, creepy pictures that look normal and change to skeletons or zombies, lol. Then there were various freaky rooms. My favorite was a library with a fireplace and a kitty. At first it looked like a dead end, but MoonlightTyger finally saw the dark hallway to go down. There was eventually a mad scientist and a weird elevator operator. There was some disgusting imagery along the way, but I'd figured long ago there likely would be since a lot of people seem to like making Halloween gory. So I had managed to brace myself for that. It was fun and over all too soon, lol. (Of course, I'm sure MoonlightTyger was relieved it was over!)

I had also wanted to try a haunted ghost town. The website made it sound like it was outside and walking around to different buildings that were haunted, but it was all indoors. It was longer, being a whole town set-up, and to my surprise it was gorier than the regular haunted house. The outlaw ghosts were fun and very plunnying. There were freaky animatronics, like one floating over a cemetery, and something that looked like a scarecrow wielding a scythe. The church had ghosts rocking in the pews. So creepy! I got some nice imagery from both houses to use in fics, and I hope to get on that right away.

We walked around the regular town set-up, which had restored buildings from pioneer days. So cool! I love things like that. There was a church, a house, some cabins, and a main street of businesses. One had a miniature circus and lots of dolls on display. Some super old plushies too. It looked like the images were painted onto a cloth body shaped like the animal. Fascinating!

On the midway, MoonlightTyger and I played Whac-a-Mole. She was amazing at it! I don't know whether I was doing something wrong or if the machines just weren't registering me so well. I was hitting every thing, but it consistently gave me low scores. But since MoonlightTyger was getting a perfect score, we won and she won the Daisy for me! Squeee. Daisy is so soft. I should have brought my Disney tote bag along from my backpack just in case of winning something as I had hoped, but I hadn't been sure it would fit in the smaller red bag I had decided to carry through the park and left it in the backpack instead. So I just carried Daisy in my arms for the rest of the trip.

Throughout all of this, MoonlightTyger's sister and friend wanted to ride a particularly scary coaster twice and go on a water ride. Then we all regrouped and all three were able to go on MoonlightTyger's favorite ride when the lines were short! I knew I didn't dare try a coaster, so I watched their stuff and texted with Crystal for a bit.

To finish, we went in the gift shop and I found a hilariously adorable bookmark and pen set of a gray kitty holding a sword. LOL. I almost freaked when I saw the manufacturer name looked like Kalin, but then I saw it was Kalan. Oh well, still close!

All in all, such a lovely experience! I love meeting dear friends in person and it was so neat to get to do something like this at long last and for it to be so close to my birthday. I'm so happy it all worked out!

With things still upsidedown here, I haven't been sure Dad would even be able to go out and select anything for my birthday, and I certainly didn't want to impose and ask, so I decided the best idea would be for me to get a few things for myself when I was getting groceries and such. I still wanted a nice birthday, and knowing everything I'm getting (aside from friends' gifts) is better than getting nothing. I bought a couple of things a few weeks ago and put them away for that, and I got a bit more this past week. I'm also, of course, hoping to be Radley for Halloween. I've had the most horrible time finding any fake leather jackets in American sizes that I can afford. There were only two real options: one in the right size that said it would ship in 1-2 months and might not even come in time, or one a size smaller than my usual. Of course, I took a gamble on the latter. It came yesterday! It is very soft and I hugged it. It fits if I don't close it, and Radley always wears his open anyway, so that works.

I also learned almost too late that most Disney Stores are closing. My main one was already gone by the time I was told. My uncle managed to take me to the other one last week on the very last day. There was barely anything left, and even less that was of interest to me. I finally got The Rise of Skywalker on Blu-Ray and Digital. I can use the digital code, and this will be more incentive to get a Blu-Ray player. I saw Target's mini Disney Store and was underwhelmed (but at least I heard a beautiful song, You Carried Me With You, on their screen). JCPenney has a better selection of stuff, though, honestly. And they're closer. I came home and signed up for the Disney Store website, but the prices are abominable! $20 for one doll when it used to be $12! They sent me a free shipping coupon and I was having trouble finding anything to use it on. Finally they randomly reduced the price of a Cinderella plushie and I got her. She came yesterday too! So far she's still in the mailer, as I was hoping to save her for my birthday. I might have tried to do that with the jacket too, but I felt I needed to test that immediately since the size was not my usual. (And since I was so excited by that I didn't think I could wait, lol.)

I also ordered some of the YGO 5Ds manga and it came this week too. I'm also trying to save it for my birthday. Volume 4, which is one of the ones I want most, has become mysteriously hard to get. Aurgh! So I thought I should hurry and grab the others I most wanted. 4 may come back in stock for Books a Million on the 4th, so I'll be watching that closely. I may get all nine volumes eventually.

I had a strange but nice dream of shopping in a store and finding Radley-related merchandise. Weirdly, in the dream he was a Frozen character, lol. I woke up before I fully checked out, but at least I was checking out. Many shopping dreams have me unable to complete purchases because of the stuff mysteriously disappearing. The dream felt rather true to life, as with my Halloween shopping, I do rather consider I'm buying Radley merchandise, lol. I got the wig last night with an eBay gift card and I associate the jacket with him so strongly, it felt like he was real and the jacket was an actual connection with him. Yes, I know that's nonsense. No, I don't know why this particular comfort character makes me feel that way, as I haven't for any of the others, even Marik. But there you go.

I saw a lovely top someone was wearing at the park that said "Only God can judge me." I immediately knew I had to draw Radley wearing a jacket that says that. I hope to do that today.

Yay

Nov. 8th, 2020 03:17 am
insaneladybug: (nesbitt_lector)
I finally got to do my birthday outing, but as I'd figured, I didn't find anything I wanted other than a plushie base, and a nice patriotic shirt when I exchanged a pair of pants. Target was sold out of everything I like to buy there! Aurgh! But I did decide, while looking at a small Disney Store Mickey Mouse that cost $23, that I was going to buy the 25 inch one on Amazon. I got him that night and he arrived two days later thanks to my Prime trial, which they offered to extend for another month. He is sooo soft, both the fur and the huggability. I love him! I keep him on the bed.

I also finally got Build-a-Bear's tuxedo cat to be Oreo. They understuffed her, as usual, and I don't know when I'll be able to fix it since I'm not comfortable going into the store with her right now and I don't trust myself to do it. But she's adorable! Definitely the most Oreo-looking plushie I've ever found.

For Halloween, I put down paper towel on our wall and then put spaced-out candy. We got more kids this year than we have in a while. Go figure. I guess with no trunk or treats, they go back to traditional methods.

I immediately felt like getting Christmassy the day after Halloween and I turned on the small trees. On Monday we got lights for the big tree, since some were about to burn out on it (and immediately did when I turned it on, oy). The new lights are gorgeous. Instead of the cheap brands we usually buy, these are GE. Love it!

I wrote the YGO fic with Nesbitt being tricked into accepting the Orichalcos. I'm just finishing it now. It didn't work to extend it very long due to his unique circumstances and also the fact that I rarely like writing duels, but I like how it came out. Very heartbreaking and very squeeful and I use a lot of my personal feelings and struggles with self-hatred in how I write for Nesbitt. At the end, the problem isn't gone, but he's starting to heal thanks to his friends.

I'm kind of obsessed with the 5Ds character Kalin Kessler. He is a pretty horrible person even before the dark force gets him, and then he completely turns his life around after he's freed. It feels very vindicating. People would tell me I was writing characters wrong if their personalities became different when they wanted to repent. Kalin is a canon example showing it happening. I think his redemption arc was very well-done. I play him a lot in Duel Links. I want to make a plushie of him, and I might use my current plushie base for that. I even sought out some nice, soft material I could use for his hair. I found the right color and everything. Problem is, I could only buy it in a set of a yard and a half for over $8. Oy! The things I do for my crafting projects....

(I also bought a talking Charmander. I wanted him for my birthday, but they sold out, and they just finally got a couple this past week. One disappeared right away and I decided I'd better buy the other instead of waiting to try asking for him for Christmas.)

I also actually want to buy 5Ds. I've seen enough of it to know that I want to see more, and I would prefer to just get the DVDs and watch it that way instead of streaming the episodes on my tablets. I still hate the setting of Domino in the future, but I just love the characters and that's what sells it for me.

Duel Links added Zexal. A lot of fans of it have wanted it, apparently. I honestly think it looks very childish compared to the first three YGO series (yes, even GX). The characters seem to be younger and their cards are out of this world ridiculous. Zubababancho Gagagacoat?! How can anyone take a name like that seriously?! **headdesk.** Maybe someday Duel Links will introduce a character or event that will interest me, like they finally did for both GX and 5Ds, but somehow I doubt I will ever be that intrigued overall. With GX, I love Jesse Anderson and will play as him sometimes, and I'll play as Tyranno only because David Wills voices him, but GX just doesn't enchant me overall. The setting of a duel school is still preposterous and I just can't seem to get invested in the adventures. They're either too slice-of-life, which I can't get behind when I'm not invested in the characters, or too dark. 5Ds, on the other hand, grabbed me with the Dark Signer arc and Carly Carmine, and then I got invested in all the characters and their adventures. Somehow, in spite of the setting of a ruined Domino City and the nonsense of Turbo Duels, it feels like a better follow-up to classic YGO, storyline-wise. (On the other hand, GX still uses familiar cards, which felt so good to see after watching 5Ds. But I was seriously underwhelmed by the GX Paradox Brothers episodes. Not epic like the classic series at all.)

Yesss!

Jun. 21st, 2020 07:29 pm
insaneladybug: (lumisandumbra)
Nikki arrived and she's awesome. And I found a G. I. Joe to be Nesbitt! I knew it would be too strange if there weren't any that looked like him, because honestly, his character design looks like a G. I. Joe, lol. I found several possibilities and decided on Wheeler Field Pilot. I bought one on Amazon and I think he'll be here tomorrow! Meanwhile I was set to buy the Hawk River Lector G. I. Joe and then an auction popped up. I ended up going through with the Buy It Now listing anyway. I hope I won't regret not following the auction. I was concerned about someone else getting the Buy It Now and the auction suddenly spiking into a bid war and then I wouldn't get either one. That probably wouldn't have happened, but I didn't want to take the chance. Plus, I didn't want to wait 9 days for the auction to end.

A friend had some TaleSpin cereal box figures that she sent me. They're so cute! And it's almost the whole set of them; I just need Baloo, and I'm sure I can get him at the antique mall. And she also included a neat thing about Louisiana since I periodically write fics set there, and ohmygoshsqueee, a surprise item: an autographed picture of Boba Fett! She got it signed by Jeremy Bulloch in person years ago. I was over the moon and exclaimed aloud when I opened the package!

Monday we finally got to do an outing I've been hoping for for ages and it was one of those amazing days where things actually went right. Weirdly enough, both that Monday and one I still hold fondly from about three years ago or more involved getting paint at Hobby Lobby. LOL. I got a color that I hope will be good for painting Lector and also grabbed some black paint for Johnson's hair, since I don't know when I'll get back there and I thought I should just have it around even though I probably won't have Johnson for a while. It's always fun to explore there. Such a huge store! I wish they closed at 9 instead of 8. I was hoping to see some Halloween decor, but they had harvest coming in and that was a good compromise. Strangely, they still had some aisles of Easter stuff.

Then we went to Joann's and they finally had plushie bases back in stock. They also now have WiFi! And squeeee, they actually had the fake fur I needed for Umbra's hair! Since they don't have a whole rainbow of colors, I do wonder why they specifically had turquoise/teal/whatever it is. Is there a lot of demand for that color? Whatever the reason, it's awesome! It's super expensive by the yard ($29.99!), so I asked for the smallest piece and that was only $3 and change, and more than enough! I have a ton left over.

Then it was on to Kohl's to see if I'd have any better luck with my merchandising credit than before. The fitting rooms are closed and I didn't want to risk getting any more pants that didn't fit, so I focused on toys. I didn't really think they'd have Stacie, and I was right, but they did have a doll that I think and hope is Renee. Why don't they print character names on the boxes anymore? But I got her.

At Target I found Stacie! I also saw the new Yami Bakura and Yami Marik combo deck set they put out. I want it for Yami Bakura, but I couldn't afford it right then. If it was any other kind of Yami Bakura merchandise I wouldn't have been able to resist, but since I don't have anyone to play with I drag my feet on cards. I definitely plan to get that deck for my Yami Bakura collection, though!

At Walmart I got some muslin for the plushie ears. I still don't understand why they aren't made with ears on in the first place.

I waited several days for possible germs to die before starting the plushies. On Friday I made the ears and expressions. I copied Umbra's from a screenshot and I used Lumis's excited expression from Duel Links, even though I'm doing anime verse and not manga verse. The expression is just too cute! Saturday night into Sunday morning I worked on Umbra's hair. It's always hard dealing with fake fur hair and my finger is sore from pushing hard on the needle. But I love the results! Since they're not Rare Hunters anymore, I'll probably dress them similarly to how I depict them in my fics, in basic dark pants and purple tops. I have a progress picture up: http://meromeroyui.deviantart.com

I also figure I'll need to sew clothes for the Joes. I can't find anything that looks canon-accurate around, and a blog I found this morning warned that a lot of clothes don't fit Joes because some of them have big hands. I don't think mine do, but I can't be sure until they show up. I was going to use Luke to help me make clothing patterns today, assuming that the Joes and the Star Wars figures have the same bodies, but since Nesbitt is coming tomorrow, I think maybe I'll wait and have him help me instead. Nesbitt probably is a pilot, so it wouldn't look odd for him to sit around in the clothes he comes with for a while. I learned that some Joes and Star Wars figures have the same bodies, but I can't find out if the highly articulated ones do. I'm not sure Nesbitt has bendable knees, though, so his body might be more like the 1996 Star Wars ones that didn't bend the knees. But I'm not sure, because his hands are amazing and the FINGERS bend! I love it!

We've been watching some Star Wars movies and I had to write a bizarre blurb where Nesbitt is frozen in carbonite and Lector is able to release him (thankfully after a short period of time, unlike poor Han). I doubt I'll post it in any story, and maybe it won't even make it to 31 Days. But it was interesting to write. So far I gave no explanation for how it happened or why such a thing exists on Earth. I might if I flesh it out more. I'd certainly have to if I ever plan to really use it in something.

I also decided to look up Jason Wingreen, who voiced Boba Fett, and Jeremy Bulloch, who played him physically. I somehow stumbled on a hilarious interview where he said that in rehearsal he tripped on Darth Vader's cape and they both fell down and got tangled up, **snerk.** And then he flubbed a line and said "Put Captain Cargo in the Solo Hold." I've been giggling about that all day. I still wish I could get a 12 inch Boba Fett to match my Star Wars figures, but he still remains one of the hardest to get in the set. I should have tried to get one years ago, when they were first out. I remember watching my brother bring home his electronic Boba Fett with goggle-eyed interest. There's an electronic one on eBay for not too bad a price, but the Try Me button doesn't work. If I'm buying an electronic figure, I expect it to talk to me! I'd be fine with the Collector Series one too, even though I like the electronic one better, but it's also very elusive.

Since I've been having so much trouble finding out things about Barbies, like whether they're hollow or solid, or what characters they are, and this new problem about G. I. Joes and Star Wars figures, I'm slightly considering doing a blog on Blogger or somewhere talking about my collecting and things I've discovered on my own. Surely I can't be the only person who wonders things like this! It would be nice to be able to pass on my knowledge in case anyone else is having problems about such things.
insaneladybug: (bigfive)
On the 2nd we went to an open house. They've been building ten new houses near us and they allowed everyone to tour them before the families moved in. It's a company called Self-Help Homes; I think the deal is that whoever is moving in does a lot of the building themselves. It was mentioned that food would be provided, but not what. I looked up what's usually served at real estate open houses and turned up cake, so that's all I was expecting and wasn't surprised when we got there and found some. We didn't make it in time for the opening ceremonies, though, so it was probably announced there that they'd be serving an actual dinner after the house tours. While we were touring, I saw that getting set up and heard some of the other people talking about that. It was awesome to get dinner, especially after 90 minutes of walking! A hamburger with cheese, a hot dog, all kinds of toppings, Doritos, ice water, and giant chocolate chip cookies! Yuuuum!

The houses were all gorgeous. My favorite ones had huge bathrooms with the toilets off to themselves in nooks. One house even had a giant walk-in closet with a light off the bathroom! It was epic.

The weird thing is, while we were touring I kept having intense Sonic the Hedgehog nostalgia and thinking about getting that Amy Rose plush. Something about the touring or the houses or the time of day or the way the sun was coming in or all of the above was making me remember something Sonic-related, but I couldn't remember what and I still can't. It may have been a memory of around ten years ago when I was on a big Sonic kick in late summer. Or it could be a memory of when I got my first Sonic game set in July 2001, but that was a cloudy day, so I don't think so. In any case, it was very nice but also very strange. Maybe it was a memory of being into Sonic while taking those driving classes years ago, but I don't know what new houses would have to do with that. I don't know what new houses have to do with any of my Sonic memories, honestly. LOL. Maybe being on a Sonic kick and listening to the Sonic Adventure 2 soundtrack on our way to my childhood friend's wedding reception in her big backyard? I don't know. Maybe it's even as simple as the new houses being for families, and that reminding me of when I was a kid and just newly getting enthused with Sonic. It wouldn't explain the specific Amy Rose association, though. Then there's the thought that maybe I was associating the houses with anime, like Sailor Moon, and thinking about those characters' families, and how I got into anime in summer, and thinking of Sonic since it's also a Japanese property and I have many summer memories of Sonic....

I did finally get my gift card and order the Amy plush, and I got the last one. I was worried wondering if there was really one left or if I'd get a message that she wasn't available after all, but she was there and shipped and I got her the day before I needed to cancel the Prime trial, the 11th. She's so cute, and gorgeous, and so soft! Her dress is soft too. It's so hilarious that I would actually end up wanting an Amy plush, but realizing she didn't act out nearly as much as I'd thought really helped, because she was so cute and sweet in the episodes I was watching, and tough when she needed to be (not when she didn't need to be). I also like that sometimes she's kind of a voice of reason; when Knuckles flips out she usually stays logical. (Of course, then sometimes she's illogical herself at other times, heh. But I guess she's a pretty well-rounded character.) I love characters who are voices of reason; that's one reason why I love Gansley so much. (And I love Marc Thompson's voice for him in season 3; I could listen to that for ages. Help, I have a crush on a 60-year-old man (who isn't someone I've watched in stuff at various ages)! How did that even happen? Lol. I keep remembering this Charlie's Angels episode where Sabrina has a crush on a 60-year-old man because she loves his intelligence, and Jill and Kelly keep giggling about it. Of course, I certainly don't like the way Gansley acts with Yugi and Atem in their duel, but what I don't think people tend to realize is that if I write for a character for a long time, sometimes I end up falling in love with the version of them that I'm writing. Gansley is repentant in my post-canon verse, and combining that with his voice and being one of the logical ones of the group, well ... squeee. (And I think his "happy" sprite in Nightmare Troubadour is adorable.) Same thing with Nesbitt, minus him being one of the logical ones, lol. But I really love the way I've developed him in my post-canon verse. It's really those versions I'm crushing on, not what we see in canon where they're displaying such repugnant behavior ... although I do feel sorry for Nesbitt, especially considering his backstory in the original Japanese, and of course I love Gansley's canonical logical behavior trying to look after the others. Team Dad Gansley is adorable both in canon and in my verse, I have to say. Johnson doesn't seem to have any good qualities in canon unless he cares about the others, and Crump is so repulsive with his dirty-minded behavior towards Tea and Serenity in the original Japanese. The dub thankfully removes that, but he's still repulsively sadistic and I really don't have a lot of sympathy for him in either version. I do like the versions of him and Johnson I write for, though. I didn't think anyone except Lector was even deserving of a second chance until I re-watched the episodes enough to pick up nuances and realized that they seemed to care about each other. Then I really wanted to save them all.)

I was worried wondering if they'd even get any more Amy plushies in, as then it was saying "Unavailable. We don't know if or when this item will be back in stock." But I checked again and it said she'd be back in stock this week, so that's good. I have never seen something like this. All of these Sonic plushies are so popular and in demand, and they keep flying off the shelves almost as fast as Amazon can put them back! That should tell Sega that people still want quality Sonic merchandise. It's so hard to find Sonic stuff in stores right now and it's so frustrating. I love that I was able to get a shirt at ShopKo before they closed. I still feel a little sad that I didn't get another one I saw, but I didn't have much money and it was white and long-sleeved. I don't really like white for shirts because it gets dirty so fast, and I only wear long sleeves in public and in cooler weather, so I figured that shirt might not even get much use for a while. It was definitely more practical not to get it, but I still feel a little sad, especially when it's so very hard to find Sonic stuff.

I have to admit, in spite of the silly rivalry with Mario, it seems to me like Mario is clearly the winner in merchandise and almost always has been. There was a time when Sonic figures were around and more interesting than Nintendo figures, though, but that's long past. And there's a book about Mario that's readily available, while The History of Sonic book was never easily obtainable and went out of print before I could save up enough to get it. Sigh. I miss the days when Sonic stuff was easier to get and so plentiful. Even though the non-Boom ban is over, it seems like companies aren't getting back on track very quickly. Boom really ruined the merchandise scene and it's never recovered.

Then I have the problem that I love these Sonic plushies so much that I ... really want the actual Sonic one. The thought of petting a Sonic with minky-like fur just sounds glorious. But I think I'd feel more guilty getting another Sonic plush than I would for almost any other character, because my classic Sonic plush was such a close companion of mine as a kid, probably my favorite Christmas gift ever, and I never really wanted another Sonic plush because I was so happy with him. I know the plush isn't really alive, but it's really hard to think in logical terms like that, especially for someone sentimental like me who kind of wonders if the inner life idea could be true. Plushies and figures and dolls are alive to me, because in Jessie from Toy Story's words, "that's how they [the kids] see you [the toys]." I try to rationalize it by saying I have classic Sonic and why not get modern Sonic; they're different so it's not a betrayal of the classic plush; it would be nice to have a Sonic without felt spikes, etc. We'll see which side of my mind wins out.

The 4th was ... probably about the worst holiday I've ever spent. As a normal day it was okay, but as a holiday it was really lame. Two wonderful things happened, though: I reached the Big Five arc in my game that day and I got to role-play with Crystal. After that, the day went downhill and didn't stop. We didn't do anything as a family to celebrate and I wasn't even able to get a pizza. (I did finally get one next week after the Scottish Festival, though.)

The Festival was fun and we got to see the band The Fire again, which was awesome. I was a little sad they didn't do a full hour concert like they usually do (it was 45 minutes instead), but I guess they were worn-out from the heat. It was so hot, ugh. Although I don't think it was as bad as last year, where it was so stuffy it was hard to even breathe.

I wanted to find a pendant with a purple gem or rock so I could think of the amethyst ring I gave Lector in my fics, but I couldn't find anything like that. The jewelry shop I like so much didn't come this year, for some reason. The new store I liked so much last year was back, though, and they had some raw amethyst samples that were really tempting. But I really wanted something to wear and I didn't have much money, so I ended up not getting one of those.

It has been a really busy month. Most of this past week has been taken up with preparations for my sister getting re-married, and then the wedding was on Friday. Outside. In 97 degree temperatures. GAH. But at least it was at a beautiful place and there was some shade. The reception was pretty awesome. Most receptions around here only do dessert, but they did a meal! Cheese sandwiches and crackers and cheese squares and potato rolls and punch and nuts and M&M's and vegetable trays and gigantic pieces of cake ... ! Paradise! And on the way home I found the My Little Pony Bubbles at Target! This is G1 Bubbles, not G4 Bubbles. This Bubbles is yellow with blue hair, one of the two sitting down Ponies. I've wanted her for a long time. I hope I can find her friend Seashell too, because it would be too sad not to have her BFF. Plus, she's also really pretty, lavender with turquoise hair.

This week may be busy too; I'm desperately hoping we can have fun on our local holiday, especially since the 4th was such a bust as far as doing fun family things to celebrate.

And I finally beat the Nightmare Troubadour game, after many struggles against Yami Marik! I have to admit I oddly enough didn't have too much trouble with the other odd or difficult duels in the game. No one else really seemed to be on Yami Marik's level. I kept getting trounced to the point of utter frustration and aggravation, especially since I thought he was the final barrier keeping me from getting back to the Big Five. Finally some Internet searches brought up some advice and a gameplay video with good strategies I was able to use and I beat him. It was especially hard because I had to defeat him with Obelisk, and he kept destroying my monsters before I could get him on the field, and occasionally when I did get him on the field, Yami Marik did something else to make me lose, like play Ring of Destruction after already whittling down my lifepoints with Lava Golem.

Then when I finally beat Yami Marik, I found I wasn't at level 20 and I had to be at level 20 to see the Big Five again. I was just barely at 19. So there was some frantic dueling to level up, and occasionally a Rare Hunter or Yami Bakura showed up and screwed up my EXP. I love Yami Bakura and any other time I would have been happy to see him, but not when he ruined the EXP I'd got from Seto by causing me to lose before I'd saved again. He showed up a couple of other times and I beat him those times, so then he helped me get EXP. (I don't get any when I lose.)

It's been a delight to play against the Big Five again! I don't like that apparently I can only duel them in a row and have to start over if I lose to any of them, but at least I get to see them again in some way. I don't like that the game made it sound like they're possibly holographic projections, but I'll just insist they're real and this is their new job, lol.

I'm finally wrapping up my multi-chapter fic. I ended up feeling really badly for Pegasus, as through this fic and other ones of mine, he's seen or heard about characters getting second chances and yet he can't have Cecelia back. I don't even like Pegasus that much (mainly because of how flippant he acted about all the horrible things he did, even after he supposedly repented), but I felt like I was slapping him in the face and it just didn't seem fair, like that everyone is allowed back except Cecelia. (Of course, there are other characters who stay dead, but I don't think any case other than Cecelia's involves a loved one so unable to deal with the death as Pegasus is.) So I've set up a situation where Shadi's taking him on a quest that may bring Cecelia back. I was going to end the epilogue with them reuniting, but now I wonder if I should leave things with him on the quest and possibly have the next fic with more of the cast ending up on the quest too and having that be an adventure fic. Maybe it should be the one I've wanted to do for so long with the Big Five having to take Capsule Monsters trials. I'll think about it. That could take focus away from Pegasus, but I'm really not sure I could write a fic with him as a central character. It took me years to finish Until You Find Answers, mainly because I couldn't get into Pegasus's mind and was dreading his chapter so much.
insaneladybug: (Default)
So I finally got Kris, along with the G1 Pony playset, thanks to a second Target gift card. They did immediate shipping! I wish Amazon was that fast. They never are, unless you have Prime.

Kris looks more accurate than Kelly, just as I thought to begin with. I definitely want all the girls, though, even Julie. I honestly don't like her as much, especially compared to the classy Tiffany that she replaced, but maybe I'll like her more over time. I flip back and forth on her, really; I really liked her in Island Angels, but tonight we watched Stuntwomen Angels and I didn't like her slightly crude comments or her cowardly behavior. Although at the same time, I can't blame her for being afraid! I would be terrified to do frightening stunts! But I didn't like her cheating when they drew straws and causing Kelly to have to do the dangerous stunt first.

I could be wrong, but I think Julie is better-liked in the fandom than Tiffany. Maybe because Julie is different from the norm and they like that. But Tiffany is different too, in other ways. Like, she has an interest in the occult and believes in ghosts. I really like that and it would have been fun to have explored that more. I love the Halloween-ish episode with her! It doesn't hurt that she was in the first episode I saw, too, the one with Simon Oakland: Angel's Child, so in some ways I was used to her right off the bat. Some people have said that Tiffany is useless, but she doesn't seem so to me. Of course, I always love things everyone else hates, and in some ways, I think my ideal line-up would have been the season 4 line-up but with Sabrina staying on too, or at least making guest appearances like Jill. I love Tiffany!

The down-side of season 4 is that it's book-ended by two two-part episodes, neither of which particularly appeal to me. It opens with a crossover with The Love Boat, and while I like the main characters of that series, I don't care for the series since it seems like there's often insinuations of the guests getting it on with each other. (But I could be wrong on that happening a lot, since I haven't watched many Love Boats. A mushy series about guests often falling in love, or in infatuation, doesn't appeal much to me. I'd rather see more about the main cast.) Then season 4 ends with an irritating plotline of Kelly and Kris both falling for the same guy and that causing a rift between them. I hate that type of storyline. Although I am morbidly curious to see how bad the rift gets, as I always hope some friends won't let it ruin things completely. Naturally, we'll see all episodes eventually.

Halloween went well, costume-wise, although I didn't get to cosplay in local stores like I like to do. I still wanted to do it badly enough that I did it the following Monday. No one batted an eye. I love how chill this area is. I also love the dinner at the neighborhood Trunk or Treat: chilis and soups. They had a chicken chowder thing and even better, a potato soup! And tons of shredded cheese. So much love. A guy also gave us giant Snickers bars, which was epic. I adore Snickers!

Best Buy sent me a mystery certificate that I had to go in to find out the amount of. It could be anywhere from $5 to $5,000, with several other levels in between. Of course, I knew it was likely it was $5, but I wanted to try anyway, and even $5 would make me happy. Dad was very iffy about going, but finally agreed we could. We also needed to run a couple of errands, so it wasn't just a shopping trip for me to do frivolous, fun things. (And anyway, if it had been a big amount, I probably would have tried to find something to share with the family instead of just something for me. Although I badly want an Apple tablet, especially since I don't think they keep mysteriously gobbling space like Androids seem to....)

It was indeed the $5, and though my original plan was to get screen protectors for the big tablets if that happened, I was unable to do that. Oh dear. I know Best Buy had them back in April. But they have other neat stuff, even toys these days. I've been wanting a Wobbuffet plush that's bigger than the one Walmart has, and Best Buy had one. It's normally $20, but was on sale for $15, and then my certificate meant I only paid $10! I saw other things that looked good too, but my heart was set on Wobbuffet as soon as I saw him and the price. So soft....

I also had another coupon for Build-a-Bear and wanted to see if I could still get Peanut. She's no longer on the website and they're clearancing her out in stores, so I was worried they might not still have her. They actually had just one left! She was also part of a deal on clearance plushies for 2 for $25. Since she's $25 by herself, and would be such if I didn't do the sale, I thought it would be ridiculous not to do it. Why get one plushie for $25 when I could get two for the same price? They had one Halloween cat in the Clearance bin too, and since I'd wanted their pretty, glisteny cat, that was perfect. I also added a sound to one of these plushies for the first time, both to get the purchase up to what I needed to apply the coupon and because it was kitty sounds and it was too adorable to pass up.

I peeked in The Disney Store and they were still running plushie sales, as usual. I think I may ask for Lady for Christmas, to have something to ask for since I'm always puzzling over it. They also had a lot of Wreck-It Ralph figures and plushies because of the sequel coming out next week. I would enjoy having some of those too, but I don't know if I'd ask for any of those because Dad would probably make fun of the movie title and the character designs. I saw the trailer for the sequel as part of my work, of all things, and it looked so fun that I decided I should really see the first one. I'd always thought it looked like something I'd love. I was right, surprisingly, even though there was some bathroom humor I hated. Normally that will turn me off of something then and there. But I was so enchanted by the characters and the friendship and the "bad guy" thinking he was bad even as he was doing good things that I just fell in love with it when I bought it last week. I watched it three times, twice in a 12-hour period. LOL. I think the last time I did that with a film was the third Equestria Girls film. I also feel like it's time for another watch.

I also dropped in at Target with a third Target gift card (I've really been getting some amazing work lately) and remembered this time to get The Monkees' Christmas album. I'm going to listen to that today. I'm thrilled they finally made one, and that they got Davy on there in the form of archive recordings! It wouldn't be right without him. I also got another Pony. They still don't have the third wave yet, but now I have all but one of the second wave and three of the first wave. I hope I'll still be able to get the rest of the first wave, but I suppose I'll be able to; they keep selling out and restocking. People love having G1 Ponies back!

Then it was to Joann's to find material for David's hair. I really haven't wanted to use the same material as Duke's, since David's hair is lighter and that material is such a pain. I couldn't find anything in the exact shade, only lighter or darker. I chose lighter, because the material was amazingly soft. I also got a plushie base for Serenity and discovered that there is no tan or auburn fleece at Joann's. Walmart didn't have any either. I had to settle for something more orangey than planned on, as it was the closest to the right color. I also talked to an employee briefly about My Little Pony (G4), because of my Pony hat. We both have Twilight and Fluttershy as favorite Ponies, and she likes Applejack a lot too. I also like her, although I usually like Rarity as third favorite main Pony. (Overall, my most favorites are Twilight and Sunset, but Sunset I think of more as a human than a Pony, since she chooses to live as a human.)

I've mostly finished the Yami Bakura in Thief King form plush, by the way. I've detailed some of the process at dA, so I don't think I'll do it here too. http://meromeroyui.deviantart.com

During the trip, we heard a radio ad about Papa Murphy's Pizza having XL pizza for $6 on Fridays, so I badly wanted to check it out. Dad agreed and we brought one home. It's more seasoned than a Little Caesar's, but the crust is very thin and I prefer thick crust. Seems like the other Papa Murphy's I had featured thicker crusts. Ah well, I love the pizza regardless, though! Yuum.

I've been in a lingering Halloween mood since the beginning of the month, but Christmas music is finally go on the radio and I'm getting into the Christmas spirit from that and from seeing the lovely Christmas decorations in stores today. There's also a beautiful new store in the mall that has mostly religious paintings! I can hardly wait to take Mom there; she'll be in love with it.

I finished my WWW fic and started on the next YGO one. I needed to further my Big Five storyline, so this one features Lector back in his body and Dr. Portman trying to manipulate him into helping her torment Seto for her latest experiment. But Lector, torn after getting fed-up with revenge plots and having tried to help Mokuba, isn't sure what he wants to do. He's the only one of the Big Five that I felt could be redeemed, so I wanted to try it. I definitely find it intriguing how upset he is about thinking Seto used Mokuba and betrayed Gozaburo. Portman points out that he's hypocritical, since he also betrayed Gozaburo. This is juxtaposed with Yami Bakura wanting to celebrate Halloween and turn the front lawn into a scare fest. LOL. It's my attempt to write something similar to the old mysteries, as I mused about wanting to try doing. The mysteries were quite a mix of humor and dark situations, which this definitely is. I didn't stop to realize, though, that maybe newer readers wouldn't appreciate the humorous tones.... I'm also not sure Dr. Portman is appreciated, since YGO leans more towards fantasy than sci-fi. There are sci-fi elements too, though, especially in the virtual reality arc, so it doesn't seem so out of place to me to have a villain who's more about sci-fi than fantasy.

Yes!

Oct. 28th, 2018 03:43 am
insaneladybug: (yamibakura)
Whew, the FF.net admins finally patched the virus problem!

And I am so chuffed and hopeful that Toys R Us will be coming back! I really really hope this Geoffrey's Toy Box thing will work so they may be able to expand back to their big stores. I seriously doubt the lenders planned all of this from the start, as that would be idiotic to let the store go bankrupt just to try to make money on risky ventures like this. Frankly, I do think they're idiots in another way, as they didn't realize the value of the store until it was almost too late yet they greedily wanted a ton of money for the Geoffrey character and such. I hope they can get the store rolling again. I've been eagerly trying to find out who they're partnering with. Some Midwest-headquartered store, so people think Meijer. I hope ShopKo, because it's Midwest, but it's also West. Maybe it's both; it indicated they were looking for more than one store to try this out.

For days Mom and I have been wanting to put up our old Halloween decorations, the cute black cat cut-outs and such. We only finally got to do it Friday night. I'm really happy we did, but I wish a time had opened up sooner. That feeling of childhood rushed back so strongly once they were up, especially that year I was nuts about the Beetlejuice cartoon and it was such a fun autumn. I did finally go over the episode guide again and discovered most episodes were Maybe and some were Yes; only about nine or ten were absolute No. That's not too bad, but I still don't know if I'll get the set. The heavy nostalgia sure makes it tempting, though. And I've never seen the movie. Part of me would like to finally do that, but I'm always leery wondering exactly what I might run into, especially with that sick cover picture. I never handle that sort of thing well....

Cosplay-wise, I never have been able to get the hair on my wig to stand up, and I had to make a cardboard Millennium Ring, but I did get gold foil for it and I think it came out pretty well. There's a picture of it on my figure box that's in scale and I traced it, then spent 45 minutes cutting it out of heavy cardboard. It probably took another hour covering it with the gold foil. And I needed a new wig that looked more correct style-wise, and when I got it, it was pretty much perfect (except, of course, that no hair stands up, lol). Everything was done just in time for the Halloween party, and I hope Halloween will go well too. I have a preview picture on dA, although I took it before I had the Ring done. I'll definitely take pictures with it on Halloween. http://meromeroyui.deviantart.com

I loved my Nancy Drew game. It looks like there was a fraud going on, although it was never expressly stated, and Nancy tried to think that the other ghost sightings were hallucinations from carbon monoxide poisoning that was going on in the house. But I don't buy it, especially since some people saw the ghost who were never in the house. So I will happily believe there was a ghost.

I also bought more Nancy Drew games. There's an Egyptian one I just had to have, and a haunted castle one. Those came on double bills with other creepy ones. The Egyptian one also has one about a monster in Bavaria, and the castle one comes with a New Orleans one about a crystal skull. I'm playing the Egyptian one now and adore it, but if it wasn't that the games take up so much memory, I would be sorely tempted to install another one and alternate playing them, since they all sound so fun. I should do that on the hall computer; it has much more space and could probably easily hold several games.

I had a Wal-Mart gift card and they actually got in more My Little Pony movie figures, so this past Monday I got the set with Capper and Rarity, because I love Capper in the movie and wanted the figure. And there was one Songbird Serenade figure amid a sea of new brushables, so I decided I'd better snap her up since I wanted her too. I was a little unprepared for the darkness of the movie when I first saw it, but on repeated watchings, I enjoy it a lot more. And I want the soundtrack.

I found a tablet. Near the beginning of the month QVC was doing a promotional sale on Amazon's new Fire tablet, and I was able to get a 16GB in blue for $59.99, just ten dollars more than an 8GB! I'm paying in the Easy Pay installments. I'm not to where I actually need it yet, but I really felt I should have it on hand for when I do, since when I do need it there might not be a sale. Meanwhile, it's great for YouTubing. I'm almost always charging a tablet now that there are three, lol. All used for different things, too.

I got a Target gift card and tried for days to figure out how to arrange an order to get the Kris doll on their website. But it wasn't easy, since the website doesn't have as much stuff as the stores. (Seriously, they don't even have the G1 Ponies! They do have a playset that has a Pony, but now it looks like I can't order that with Standard shipping. WTH.) Finally I decided, after learning that the sculpt may not be as good as I'd thought, that I'd wait on Kris, buy her in-store, and use my gift card to buy more Ponies. I did that on Tuesday and don't regret it, but I also discovered that they've taken away the Mego figure display, so now I wonder if they'll never put Kris in-store at all and I'm back to trying to figure out how to get her off the site. I don't want to buy her by herself; that would cost about $7 in shipping and handling fees! And my Red Card is messed-up. I don't know why they invalidated it; maybe because it was around when that data breach happened five years ago. I was supposed to get sent a new one, but I don't know that I ever was, and I tried to get them to see about it in-store once, but the cashier didn't want to. And I had thought the Red Card was just a rewards card, but now I learn that it's a debit (or credit) card with access to my bank account, and after the breach I'm leery of something from Target having access to my bank account, so I don't know whether I want to even try to renew my Red Card. If I did, though, I could get free shipping and buy Kris by herself, which is what I really wish I could do. There's just not much else I want on their website, although I would like The Monkees' Christmas CD since the Target version has extra tracks. But that plus Kris wouldn't add up to the free shipping minimum. And I'm really hesitant to spend as much as I need for that unless I have a gift card to cover some of it. I could scrounge up some other things on the site, like some Nancy Drew books. They have a few of the yellow old ones. I think I might be able to get another Target card soon.

When I got the Ponies, I also got some other things, mainly the gold foil and plushie crafting supplies. I still want to make David, and I turned the plushie I got on my birthday into Tea, and then I had the wild idea that I wanted to try to make Yami Bakura in Thief King form. Totally unnecessary, since I have that little one I commissioned years ago, but it sounded like such a fun challenge that I badly wanted to try. I'm working on him now and he's coming along pretty well. I've also been thinking of making Alister so I can make a Valon and a Raphael in scale to be with him. Although I'd be sad for my little commissioned Alister that he wouldn't have the others, heh. I may make the Ishtars too, although I'd run into the same problem of being sad for my commissioned Marik. I've thought of making Tristan too, and figuring I'd probably have to stuff the pointy part of his hair. I wonder how many cotton balls that would take.

That was a bizarre shopping experience, as the gear shift fell apart while running Dad's errands. Ugh. Rather, the button you push in fell out and then Dad couldn't push the thing inside the handle in enough and we were stuck in Park while he called places and no one knew anything (of course). Finally he had the idea to push a pen in there and he got the thing pushed in enough with that to get the car out of Park and into Drive and we were able to finish the shopping trip (mostly). I opted not to try going to the mall, as I was happy with everything I found and I was worried to get home.

I got my YGO fic finished (although I still need to proofread and print it), and I've been doing that Wild Wild West fic based on my dream. It won't be very long, but it's a lot of fun to work with. I love writing for Snakes especially. I also need to finish a YGO fic I was doing where Yami Marik mind-controls Tristan for jollies and has him nearly kill Yami Bakura. Tristan is devastated, gah. And there's that fic where Yami Bakura is fading into the darkness but is saved. It's mostly done, if not all done, but I keep waffling on posting that one.
insaneladybug: (marik)
Been nostalgic today, remembering a shopping trip from nine years ago. I was looking for Ninja Turtles and Sonic merchandise. Maybe other stuff too, but that's mostly what I remember. I went to Big Lots, Rite Aid, Toys R Us, and maybe F.Y.E.

At Rite Aid I saw a Turtles plush, but it was made out of a really annoying non-furry and non-smooth material that catches fingernails. And it was of Michelangelo, who at that time I didn't like. He annoyed the heck out of me in the 2003 series, which was my main focus at that time. But he'd always kind of annoyed me; I remember thinking he was an idiot in the one Archie Comic I had. I wish I'd been able to see some of the other Archie Comics they did for the Turtles, because I've since learned that Michelangelo really had some powerful storylines! I think it was only a couple of years ago when I really began appreciating Michelangelo, both because of how he began developing in my fic verse and because of the long conversations I had with ThickerThanLove, a devoted Michelangelo fan. Hilariously, he's now my second favorite Turtle in the 87 verse. Haven't revisited the 2003 series much, so I'm not as sure how he stacks up there now, but I did rewatch my DVDs of the first few episodes a couple of years ago and only found him super annoying in the first one. I'm glad I didn't get that plush, though. I've found much nicer Turtles plushies of all of them.

At Big Lots I saw the game made for the TMNT movie. I seriously considered getting it; it looked like a blast. But from the system requirements, it looked like it would probably only work on Dad's computer, and I didn't think he'd appreciate that much. And I wasn't crazy about the thought of being downstairs to play it, either. At this house my computers have been upstairs, and I like that much better.

At Toys R Us I found a DVD of Sonic Underground with all four Knuckles episodes gathered together. Those were the only episodes of Underground I really wanted, so I was thrilled and bought it. That ended up being my only purchase of the trip, although I may have seen some other things I liked. Those are the memories that stand out the most for me.

I've been in a bit of a Sonic mood tonight. I meant to install Sonic R and Sonic Heroes on the computer in the hall, but I haven't got around to it yet. I switched the computer that was first in the hall with one that was downstairs that has more memory. I want to use it as a gaming computer. But I've only played Duel Links for my gaming sessions since I finally got to have it, so all other gaming projects have been on hold.

I've also thought a lot about Toys R Us. Of course, how could I not? I haven't been able to fully accept that the U.S. stores are now gone. Part of that may be because I didn't see it at the last. I was last there when I bought Sailor Mars, and they still had a lot of stuff. Maybe in the future I'll regret not seeing them at the last, but right now I'm fine with it. It makes it easier to remember it as it was. But it also helps to know that the store lives on in Canada and overseas. Even though I'll likely never visit any of those locations, it's just comforting to know they're there. The brand isn't dead, like my beloved Borders is.

The brand has certainly changed, though. It's been years since the days when I could almost always find something there I wanted to buy. The last several times, even before the liquidation, I wanted desperately to help give them business and I just couldn't find the things I wanted. I think the last thing I bought there before the liquidation was the Baxter figure I turned into Barney, and that was in February 2017. I did see Miraculous Ladybug stuff I wanted, and I remember wanting to get in on a BOGO half-off sale on dolls, but there was only one Marionette doll and nothing else I could combine her with. Now the dolls and figures aren't anywhere to be found except online, and usually for bad prices. But after hearing how the dolls often fall apart, I am horrified and think maybe it's for the best. But seriously, WTH Bandai? You're a big name brand. Where's your quality control?

There are so many happy memories of Toys R Us through the years, starting from around age 5, when my brother discovered it after my beloved Play World went out of business. I was skeptical that any store could be as good as Play World, and I think I was initially lukewarm to Toys R Us, but it didn't take long and I warmed up to them and loved them. It was my favorite place aside from home. I was always asking to go there, especially if we were out doing other errands. I remember one time Dad needed to talk to some guy about I think a computer problem, and the guy was really nice and let me play these fun arcade games he had set up while I waited. Afterwards, I asked to go to Toys R Us and we went to the one East of us.

They were there through all of my Sonic love up to now. I remember when Sonic and Knuckles was going to come out and they had a banner with the logo and my eight-year-old self overdramatically proclaimed it "Beautiful!" Heh. Then when the game really came out, it was on display and I got to play it a bit. The Loop-De-Loops baffled me. Later, I also played a little of Sonic Adventure 2 Battle there. Probably other Sonic games through the years too, but that's what I remember most. And the Tiger Electronics handheld games. I have two of them and always meant to get the other Sonic one, but never did.

All of my Talespin and Darkwing Duck figures came from there, and my Donatello figure. A lot of my childhood Ponies, too. I remember how proud I was to take my carefully saved money and buy a Magic Meadow Pony when they came out following the demise of G1 My Little Ponies in America.

Of course I went through a period where I mostly wasn't interested in visiting Toys R Us. After I discovered Yu-Gi-Oh!, that all changed. I went there so much again after that. We used to get milk from a dairy because Dad was obsessed with natural products without lots of added chemicals, and I was fine with that. We got to get ice cream cones from the dairy and then go to one of the Toys R Uses on the way back. I loved all the Toys R Uses, but for YGO visits I probably got the most sentimental about that one. We went there every couple of weeks when we needed milk. So many happy memories of those trips....

(And I hardly ever use makeup. Example: I bought two tubes of lipstick around then, when I was 16, and ... I still have some left. Occasionally I still use it. The smell will forever remind me of YGO and those shopping trips.)

I remember visiting a Toys R Us shortly after I first discovered YGO. We'd been to a wedding reception and were coming back and I stopped there and was looking in a magazine. Then we hurried on home so I could watch and record YGO that afternoon, LOL. It was one of the Seto vs. Yugi trilogy from season 1. I think it was part 1, and yet another part of me thinks it was part 3.

I remember calling them asking about YGO figures, and then going and seeing them. Just the small ones then, but I was happy for any. When the big ones came out, I was over the moon. I ordered Seto online, not sure when the stores would get them, and then he arrived on August 1st. We were going out later that day, visited the standard YGO Toys R Us, and I found the figures were out. Heh. Of course. So I bought Yami Yugi that same day. (That winter I found Joey at Walmart and asked for him as a New Year's present. About a year later, after five months of searching, I found the big Marik figure at ShopKo. I wish they'd made more human characters, in both figure sizes.... I don't know why Yami Bakura wasn't made, for instance, since he has always been a very popular character. Now there's a gorgeous figure of him, but it's far too expensive.)

My 16th birthday I usually cite as my happiest one, although I've had many happy ones. That one was my first after getting interested in YGO. I got the board game among my presents, which thrilled me, and on the shopping spree that year I bought my first two YGO shirts, which I'd previously selected as things I wanted to buy. One was gray with Seto and Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon, the other was electric blue with Yami Yugi. Most future YGO shirts came from Walmart (with the exception of my first Marik shirt, bought at Target), but those first two were from Toys R Us. Although I think one was at Kids R Us, so we must have been at the Toys R Us where I recently bought Sailor Mars, as it was the one with a Kids R Us next-door.

Many years ago I started a tradition of wanting to go to Toys R Us on my birthday. I think my 8th birthday was the first year that was done. Later the plan expanded to include other stores. A couple of years I didn't make it to Toys R Us in favor of other stores that had more of what I wanted.

I think the last point in time when Toys R Us had many things I wanted was around 2009, when I was having fun with Sonic stuff. Figures, clothes, fun memorabilia. . . . Then Sonic Boom came along a few years later and pretty much all merchandise was Boom. I still haven't tried Boom; I detest what they did to Knuckles' personality. The changed design was bad enough, but I could have dealt with that if they hadn't ruined his personality. Finally the ban on other merchandise lifted, but I don't recall seeing any Sonic stuff at Toys R Us other than Boom, except the recent classic Sonic plush and maybe one or two other classic design items. Last year on my birthday trip, I was very sad that I couldn't find any Sonic stuff there at all.

There were other fun times.... One year I had a very Mario birthday. At Toys R Us I bought the Mario backpack plush for $14.99 and a shirt on clearance for $2! And I got a free Mario scarf because they were running a promotion of getting a free scarf with purchase of Nintendo stuff. I felt a little guilty at first to be buying Mario instead of Sonic, even though I'd always loved Mario too. I quickly got over such silly feelings, especially since having a Mario plush was always a dream of mine!

And now I'd probably better close this topic, as I'm starting to get sad really thinking that those times are over and there won't be any more unless that businessman saves the U.S. stores. I'm not even sure if he's still trying, but he said he'd even be willing to get the empty buildings just to save the store. That was some months ago, though.

I did, however, finally decide after days of deliberating, what I wanted most to buy with some of my video conference money. Of course, in the end, what I wanted most was a lot of YGO Hexors that included the Yami Bakura one and a lot of pins that had the Yami Bakura one. Both were a little more than I wanted to pay, especially for the pins, but they really were an amazing price. And at the moment I could afford it, so I decided to do it. No regrets! I am so thrilled to finally have those things that I looked so hard for years ago. I bought as many boxes of Hexors as I could, trying to find the Yami Bakura one, and I went to so many 7-11s looking for the Yami Bakura pin. I'm really happy to have the Mai pin too. It's really nice and I've always liked her since she started to develop around episode 11. I thought the Seto pin was the same one I had, but it's not. The pose is the same, but it's a totally different pin, much sturdier and more collector's quality. Then the Joey pin is neat, and even though I'm not a Pegasus fan aside from scenes of him being awesomely helpful in the movie or setting the souls free because he's a man of his word, I do like his pin. I think I have every pin in the set except Yami Yugi, and I'm hoping to get him to complete it. At the moment, though, just so thrilled to have the Yami Bakura merchandise.

I also decided to make a Bakura plush. I have my cute little one, and so of course I felt guilty to bring in a second one, but that first, commissioned Bakura is in scale with my commissioned Yami Bakura in Thief King form but not with the Yami Bakura I recently made. I thought it was sad for him to not have a Bakura too. So, I made one. Everything went so well! I made most of the plushie on the 4th, and then I did the shirt this weekend. Not sure if I'll make the sweater. If I do, I'll change the design and have it open so the pretty turquoise shirt will still be visible. http://meromeroyui.deviantart.com

Squeeee!

Apr. 15th, 2018 02:56 am
insaneladybug: (yamibakura)
Awesome friends and family helped fix the attic, I found a tablet, and I've been playing Duel Links!

I wanted to go Best Buy to see if I could find a tablet shown on their website that they were clearancing. I don't think I found it, unless it was a different price in-store, but I found one cheaper than the Fire tablet because it was on sale (normally it's more expensive than the Fire). It's 8 inches and it's an Android system. I really felt it would be smarter to get one that already had Android stuff so I could know for a certainty things would work. I'll probably need to get a micro SD chip for it; I rather suspect by now that the stats I saw for the Steam version of the game are true for the mobile version too. On Steam it said 4GB of storage was the minimum, but 8GB was better. Which means if it is the same, it could technically fill up the whole tablet, it seems. There's a way to format micro SD so it can be part of the internal storage, so that would definitely help even if I could only get a 2GB chip. Right now the only thing I'm using the tablet for is Duel Links, which is just fine with me. Clearly I badly wanted that game since I was willing to pay $40 to get something to play it on. And since I find it completely worth it.

Wednesday was a very long day. I had insomnia, was super exhausted all day, and I have to go back to the dentist for more work. But one nice thing is that I've never been afraid of dentists since two of my brothers are dentists and I go to them.

Toys R Us ... honestly, I felt blank. They're only charging 10% off of most everything, which just makes me go WTH. K-Mart was doing 30% by now. And there was no Ladybug stuff. But they say they restock with stuff from their warehouses each day, so maybe later they'll get awesome things. Borders did that too; they had a much better inventory towards the end than they'd had for years, sadly. I'm hoping maybe they'll bring in some of the Sailor Moon figures, since they sell some online. But they'll have to bring the prices down more than 10% to make it worth it to me! At the nearest store especially, barely anything seemed to be gone. Maybe it still doesn't feel real yet, or maybe it's that for ages it's felt different than the store it was years ago, but I couldn't seem to work up any emotion while I was there.

I felt I needed to visit both Toys R Uses before deciding what to do about other things, so we went to the one an hour away after the dentist and then came down to the closer one. Best Buy was across the street and I spent a long time trying to find the tablets and then trying to decide on the best tablet. When I saw the sale price on the one, I was astounded. At first it looked like they didn't have any, but then the guy and I found one stuck in the wrong slot. I debated between it and the Fire and finally chose it for the reasons stated above. I had to wait a long time to get checked out, but everyone was really nice and so far the tablet has been really good. Hopefully it will continue to be, especially since I'm really only using it for that one thing. A 16GB would have probably been wiser, but I just couldn't afford that. As it was, I was only able to get this tablet right now because Mom was able to help me with the cost. Squeee.

My Target coupon came in right before we needed to leave, and then I couldn't get Dad's computer to cooperate to print it. But the nice lady at the dentist office let me print it there when she heard us talking about it! Since I'd already bought a tablet by the time we got to Target, I decided to check Target for the retro My Little Ponies. They were out, but I saw they had one copy of The Dark Side of Dimensions for the exact price of the gift card. I was extremely tired, hadn't seen anything else there I wanted, and I have been wanting to see that after all, for curiosity and completion's sake if nothing else, so I decided that was a great way to do it and it came home with me.

Since it's a verse all its own, not anime or manga since it contradicts both, I was able to view it as a separate entity and enjoy it for what it was. I was a little disappointed not to hear the classic gravelly Yami Bakura voice in the flashback, but I was happy to see him at all, even though it was a seriously disturbing scene. Gah. And the best line was when Yugi pulled out these weird Apple and Lemon Magician Girls and Seto exclaims, "You're fighting me with fruit?! You're mocking me!" ROTFLOL!

I found it interesting that Atem never speaks. He had so little screentime, but it was pretty epic when he showed up. I'm sure it had nothing to do with the Millennium Puzzle and everything to do with Yugi collapsing at the point of death. And I'm actually not sure that Seto went to the afterlife to see him at the end. I think now that maybe the original assessment that he went to the past is more accurate, because Atem was wearing the Puzzle, and he wouldn't have been wearing that in the afterlife.

If anyone is curious, here is what I found that contradicts the manga:

- Shadi teaching a bunch of kids about love and peace, yadda yadda. Shadi was a messed-up guy, as shown in the early manga, and he didn't understand about love and friendship. Yugi had to teach him.

- Bakura's father is not dead in the manga. Yami Bakura says in the final arc that he's the owner of the museum and that's why he, Yami Bakura, was able to get in.

I thought Joey was kind of mean to Tristan about the Duel Disk, when he starts yelling that Tristan broke it and he wants the new one. He knew that he'd asked Tristan to fix it, WTH. So it apparently wasn't broken by Tristan. But I loved the scene where Joey's memories are fading and then his memory of Atem is still there and that brings him out of the villain's world and back to reality. Very powerful! That is one of my favorite Joey scenes in any verse, I think.

I liked that it showed how the Ring warped personalities. I think that's canon to the other verses and it definitely makes Yami Bakura more sympathetic. However, what was weird is that the way they presented it, it almost looked like they were saying that the Ring only changes people but there isn't a separate entity there possessing them. We know that Zorc was in the Ring and that's why Thief King flipped out even more than he already was, and the other verses make it very clear that Bakura is being possessed by Yami Bakura; it's not just that Bakura is being corrupted by the Ring. After Zorc was destroyed, it's curious that the Ring is still a problem. I guess dark essence like that doesn't leave so easily. I'm frankly not sure Zorc can ever be destroyed, since he's the personification of the darkness in people's hearts, but that's a discussion for another time.

To be honest, even though the creator wrote the movie, it felt like a fanfiction. Things were so hand-wavy, like the contradictions with other verses and the stuff with the Ring corrupting everybody even with Zorc gone. But I had fun watching it and there were things I liked, and I'm happy to accept it as another verse. The main anime, the Toei anime, the manga, the video games, and this movie are each a separate verse. Of them all, I like the Toei anime the least, but I do remember enjoying Bakura and Yami Bakura's episodes and I should try to dig those up again.

Anyway, I'm glad I got it. I'm happy I was able to use the gift card for it!

And Duel Links.... Oh wow. So I had to wait to try it until the tablet charged for the first time, so I took a short nap out of exhaustion and then it was ready. Duel Links took a while to download and install, but they showed pictures and blurbs of all the characters and that was fun to look at. I'd had so many disappointments that I couldn't let myself believe it was really working until I logged in for the first time and got the game going.

I picked Yami Yugi as my starter, because I'd learned I had to beat Yami Bakura with him as part of the requirements for making Yami Bakura playable. And if I hadn't started with Yami Y, he wouldn't have become available until after Yami Bakura, so I had to go with him. But I was just as happy to, since Duel Links is definitely more manga-based and Seto is, hence, even more of a jerk.

It's all so fun! Most of the Standard OC duelists are okay, although I'm not crazy about Andrew, Josh, or Christine; they are very arrogant. The really little kids are adorable, especially Bella, and I like Daniel, Meg, Hailey, and ... is it Ashley? And there's one called Jess who's really nice. My favorite, though, is David. He looks like Duke's store manager, except he doesn't wear glasses, and I've headcanoned that he is Duke's store manager, wearing contacts. LOL. I haven't seen him for several Stages now. I wish he'd come back.

Things got much more interesting when canon characters started to become available, of course! I got Joey without too much trouble. Tea took a bit longer, and Mai took a lot longer. But I got to duel them until I met the requirements for making them playable.

The goal I was working on the whole time was getting to Yami Bakura, of course, although I wanted the other characters too, especially Tea. I've had a blast playing as her and Mai, and Joey too. One of the most epic duels was where Tea beat Seto in like five turns! I accidentally unlocked the GX world and Jaden, but I have no interest in that side of the game and I'm kind of glad that they're separate, LOL. I don't consider GX canon. I have nothing against the characters; it's just that I don't like the concept of a duel school and I don't like what the show did with the original characters when they popped up.

So, Yami Bakura. I wondered if he even would show up at Stage 13, because only two sites were reporting he would and other ones were still saying he was event-only. I wonder why they don't update. But to my delight and relief, yes, he was there, and so were a lot of other characters! Including Yugi! Squeee. I thought Yugi was still event-only!

My first duel against Yami Bakura was incredible. Not just because I'd longed for it for so long, but because it came out so well. I saved it and I hope to record and post it to YouTube. One requirement was to play against him using no spell or trap cards. Gah. Another was the Yami Yugi one, and I had to play with Yami Bakura being at Level 20 experience. I did both of those in the same duel, and for the first time I was able to play Slifer the Sky Dragon! It was incredibly awesome. Later that night, I had a duel with Tea playing against him, and that ended up fulfilling the requirement of winning against him with 2000 lifepoints or less. I was really wondering how to achieve that one, since you know, I wouldn't know how to go about deliberately losing lifepoints. As it turned out, I didn't have to do that deliberately, LOL. I also saved that duel.

The hardest requirement was dealing out 3000 points of effects damage to him, thankfully not all in the same duel. I have a starter card that deals 300 points, and that certainly helped, but I needed more. I got a bunch of card packs and found a couple of cards that really seemed to help. There was an awesome dragon that deals out a lot of damage if one is sent to the graveyard and you have another copy of it available to play. I built Mai's deck up with the express purpose of dealing effects damage to him. He and she had several interesting duels where they toyed with each other, dragged it out for ages, and finally Mai would get in some damage here and there when the right cards came up. The deck also worked on Joey, but Mai had very little luck using it against the Standard duelists or The Vagabond. (I'll have to change her deck around now that it's served its purpose.) Then tonight, Tea won Fire Sorceress (or is it Sorcerer? It's a girl, but it might be Sorcerer....) and I was able to give that to Mai to deal out the final points I needed! Eeeee. It was so exciting to at last see the message that he was unlocked! It is totally manga verse, as he delivered one of his creepy manga lines, but I will just pretend he didn't say that and it's anime verse instead, since anime voices are used and anime is my favorite verse. I played my first duel as him after fixing up his deck (all the characters come to me with really bad decks I have to fix), and he won! So much fun. I can hardly wait to play as him some more. I also want to unlock Ishizu and Rishid. I've been actively working towards that by playing Light cards and traps.

Oh, interestingly, people were saying that it was obvious Yami Bakura was a character Seto created for his VR world, but I actually had the impression that it was the real one. All he says is, "Memories.... Virtual Reality.... I see, Seto Kaiba." That sounds like Seto got the real one and somehow stuck him in there, and he was aware that it was a world based on memories of what happened. If he himself is only a memory made to move around, he would hardly be aware of that, LOL. I will continue to believe that Duel Links is augmented reality, as depicted in the movie, and the real people are just all in there. Joey certainly indicated that he was real and had been plopped in there when he showed up. Tea too.

I think too much about things.... While watching Yami Bakura vs. Yami Marik again, I started pondering again on the shadow left in the Millennium Puzzle. He spoke like he was fully Yami Bakura and knew what was going on, but he was left in there before Battle City ever began. How did he know about the duel? Since he is part of Yami Bakura's spirit, does that mean Yami Bakura is aware of everything he does and thinks? Or did he not know of the shadow's adventures until they merged at the beginning of season 5? It's always confusing to me when characters in media can split off pieces of their spirit, because of that perplexity. Is it the whole person, as far as personality and memories go, or is it only a part? Was Yami Bakura with Bakura in the Shadow Realm while the other part of him was in the Puzzle? I write it as such. And I got a weird plunnie of him running across a part of his spirit he'd left somewhere and forgotten about, and what would happen if that part didn't want to be good and they had to face off. Weird stuff, but the whole concept of splitting off parts of your spirit is weird anyway, so it lends itself to weird ideas.

I also got an idea for another hurt/comfort picture and I finally had the chance to sketch it out tonight. It came out mostly exactly as I'd pictured in my mind. It has Bakura embracing an extremely limp Yami Bakura around the upper torso and burying his face in the thief's shoulder while crying. Yami Bakura is in his classic form. His head and neck are falling backwards, his visible arm is very limp, and it's all in all a rather curious pose. It's hard to really describe it. One reason I like hurt/comfort art (besides the obvious reason of exploring feelings and interaction) is that it allows me to practice drawing all sorts of strange poses.

Last night I was watching Cannon, an episode where he investigates a girl's death from doping up on drugs and then falling out a window, and got a plunnie where Yami Bakura finds Bakura at a schoolmate's house, completely drunk from being tricked into drinking spiked drinks and swinging in a window in his underwear. Yami Bakura is horrified and outraged. Bakura falls and Yami Bakura catches him, and then he enacts punishment on the creeps responsible for getting Bakura into such a state. He makes them feel the hangover Bakura will feel and also have the sensation of falling over and over. It's not a permanent spell, but he says it will last until they regret what they did to Bakura. Even when Yami Bakura tries to be good, he can end up acting like Yami Yugi in the Toei anime and the early manga volumes. And he doesn't see anything wrong with that. He feels he's enacting justice. Makes sense to me, since what he wanted in ancient Egypt was justice, before Zorc got hold of him and warped him the rest of the way. He will probably always have that dark streak; that's one way I keep him quite the character! I have the first draft of the ficlet written and I quite like it. I need to re-read it and see if it's done. I also need to get the next chapter of the multi-chapter finished. I'm having a little trouble with this segment and am getting easily distracted. Hence why I'm writing epistle entries instead of working on it!
insaneladybug: (snakes)
So we got to go out today, which is awesome because it was the last day of my Barnes and Noble coupon and the last day before things are supposed to start acting like winter around here. I think the East Coast is having their winter plus ours this year! We need some more moisture or we'll probably have a drought come spring and summer.

Anyway, Target did have some of the Ponies! Squeee. As I half-expected, Bluebelle and Blossom weren't there. Neither was Butterscotch. But I was happy to get Minty! I wondered if I should have got Snuzzle too. I wanted to save money and hope to have a chance at getting Bluebelle and Blossom later (and Butterscotch), but really, I want all six. I kind of wish I'd gotten Snuzzle too. But I needed to check Toys R Us to see if they had any, so I opted to just get Minty. And really, I'm glad of that, because I met a guy there who was absolutely chuffed to see 1980s Ponies back and he was excited hoping to go buy some with his paycheck tomorrow, so I really hope Snuzzle and Cotton Candy will both still be there for him! Toys R Us doesn't have any yet, but they're being shipped to the warehouse, so maybe in a couple of weeks.

I also saw the Mutagen Canister figures back at Toys R Us, but they only had two Raphaels. Honestly, he seems to be the worst seller of the set. The Wal-Mart I visited later didn't even have a place for the Mutagen Canister figures anymore. Now I'm a little worried that maybe I won't get to buy another Baxter to fix into Barney for my dA friend....

I didn't end up going to Build-a-Bear because I felt I wanted to save the money for more Ponies, but Mom asked twice if I'd gone there and now that's making me nervous wondering if I should have. I have a month to use that coupon, but the time will likely go by quickly.

At Barnes and Noble I was considering getting the book on Legendary Pokemon, but when I saw it, I wasn't impressed. It told some of the encounters from the series and movies, but it didn't seem to want to talk about Pokemon Classic much at all and refused to mention movies 2 and 3. WTH.

I saw the new Equestria Girls book and it said that Sunset's friends fell under a spell where they only remembered the bad things about her. I'll probably want to read it since it is an original story, but that sounded sad and I knew I'd probably spend the whole book feeling bad for her, so I decided I didn't want to get that right then either.

Then I looked in some other Pokemon reference books and ended up hopping mad. I thought that book about Ash's journey from Kanto to Kalos was bad in their descriptions of Team Rocket. I found way worse! One reference book out and out lied about James' past. It said he got bored of the rich life and ran away because of that. No mention of being engaged to an abusive girl his parents were forcing him to marry. Maybe they felt that was too dark for kids to hear about, but why make up stuff?! Just say nothing like the Kalos book did! Then a book about the movies slanted it so that Team Rocket's unselfish acts sounded selfish. True, they did try to say that they were only helping to save the world because if it was destroyed there wouldn't be anyone to steal from, but their later sacrifice proved that was just talk. They thought they were going to die, which they outright said and which the book outright didn't say. Ugh. It's one thing to want to make sure the kids don't want to emulate the antagonists, but making them sound worse than they were and even lying about them is not the way to go about it.

I ended up supremely ticked off and bought a Nancy Drew book instead. There was one classic Nancy Drew that they had that I didn't. And heh, oddly enough, the few Nancys and Hardys they had were on the bottom shelves, just like in my dream. They weren't on the bottom shelves the last time I was there.

All in all, a fun little outing and I discovered an amazing Darren figure modeled after his character in A Christmas Story! I couldn't get it right then, as it was $30, but I'm going to keep monitoring it for a price drop! I must have it!

I just hope I won't regret not going to Build-a-Bear....
insaneladybug: (teamrocket)
So the car is not fixed. But my brother (the one who gave me the $20 for my birthday) let us borrow his car.

Traffic was frightening. But everything went well!

Bulbasaur is definitely striking. But I couldn't justify paying so much for him. Plus, honestly, he looked hard to cuddle with. They had all the Pokemon in the store, as I'd hoped, and I decided I really wanted Pikachu the most. But I think I'll get Eevee too at some point. She's so cute!

$28 still seems a lot, but somehow Pikachu seems bigger now than he did two years ago. Maybe that's because since then, I've seen what else is available and how small the other sizes are. And at least I got $5 off the price thanks to the coupon that prompted the entire outing! The Turtles on the last round were $28 too (although I got 30% off on the one I bought on that round, Michelangelo).

While we were out, I decided to check Barnes and Noble on the off chance that maybe a stray Sailor Moon figure was still on clearance. Naturally not; they were all bought up by this point. I'm glad I got to get a couple last month when the sale was on.

I've also wanted to check another Wal-Mart to see if they still had the Pokemon hat I wanted, and maybe The Johto Journeys too, because I do crave some more Pokemon and there are definitely things I like about Johto. The Wal-Mart I tried had both! And I got both. The hat had reached $2 in clearance price! So awesome. I love clearance! I hope I won't regret the DVD purchase. Hopefully there will be enough awesome Johto episodes to make it worth my while. And I'm obsessed with the theme song. Never cared much for season 4's theme, but as soon as I heard season 3's theme years ago, I fell in love with it.

I listened to the Pokemon Christmas album again and found it just as amusing as before. Then I started fooling around on YouTube playing random songs, and I've also decided Pokemon Live is awesome when all the Pokeshipping subplot stuff is omitted. I love another, abridged production I was shown and still need to see in full, and I love the utter, wonderful crack of Dexter being sentient and having a song. **snerk.** That kind of crack is in line with the Turtles' stage show, I think.

Somewhere along the way, I ended up stumbling on this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYdRJyFAnMY

I'm kind of obsessed with it too. A bunch of girls and a dad got together and this happened. LOL. Fun times. And I love Meowth's clothes and hair, I think mainly because they remind me of Scott on Carmen Sandiego.

So all in all, I'm having a Pokemon obsessed moment again, like I had last month. It's fun.

I'm also moving steadily along on the Turtles' fic. I think I've reached a snag and I hope it won't last. Snags are annoying and not fun.

Now I'm debating whether to post another Pokemon chapter right away. I think the one chapter a day thing is wearying to the readers, even though they're short chapters and that's usually what I do if a story is mostly written. But I ended up adding more to the chapter because I decided the fight scene needed to be shown more than briefly summarized. I'll need to look it over again before I post it. I'm wondering if I should hold off until after Thanksgiving to post the rest. Many is the year I posted something on Thanksgiving and had very little luck with reader response because of that.

Also debating if Brock will blame himself for James ending up forced to sacrifice himself protecting Ash, as Crystal pointed out how protective Brock is of Ash and Misty. This is Team Rocket, but under the circumstances, I wonder if Brock might think it should have been him instead of James. On the other hand, he might not because of his siblings and how devastated they would be. (And Ash and Misty too, of course.)

Hmm....

Oct. 8th, 2017 02:49 am
insaneladybug: (sailormercury)
Actually, after watching Scare in the Air, I'm back to not being so sure that my original story concept of Giovanni trying to kill James is so far-fetched. In that episode, unless the dialogue is different in Japanese, he sounds like he's deliberately sending Jessie, James, and Meowth out in a rickety blimp hoping they won't come back. Eeeek! Maybe I won't ever do anything with revising the story at all, especially if I keep flipping back and forth on that key angle. We'll see.

We had a very nice family outing. One of my nephews was getting baptized. (We believe in baptizing when the kids are old enough to decide for themselves, instead of doing it when they're babies.) He was really cute and very appreciative of the gift and card we had for him. He exclaimed "The letter is the best thing!" and was thrilled that the card's picture had a cat. They have two Russian Blue twins. I saw one of them and he said Meow when he was petted. I wanted to pet him, but by the time I finished eating, he had wandered somewhere in the yard and I couldn't find him. And my brother who owns the cats told us that they're always leaving "presents" by the door. He told a horror story of one time when one of them brought a mouse into the house that wasn't quite dead and they spent three weeks trying to find the thing and being all tense not wanting to take their shoes off with it running around. And then finally he heard the sound of it getting caught in the trap. Relief at last! I do feel sad for mice being caught in killing traps, but not so sad that I don't want to use them. It is horrible having them loose in the house!

They had these yummy big sandwiches with cheeeese, same as the last time we were out there, and I was delighted. They also had some kind of pasta salad that was great and some brownies and other desserts. And lemonade and ice water. I think it must have been powdered lemonade that's mixed up, because I like that but don't really like fresh lemonade because it's pulpy. Once everyone had their fill, I absconded with some leftovers. Good thing I did, as I got hungry before we got home and ate them all.

Another one of my brothers, the one who lives here in town, gave me $20 as a birthday present! Squeeee. That meant I could definitely get two figures! I had been waffling on whether I could, yet really wanting to because of the prices.

I got Chibi Moon, as planned, and then I saw Tuxedo Mask. He wasn't at the closer store. I hadn't planned to get him unless I already had Sailor Moon, but since he's the only male character in the line, he fascinated me. But I debated a long time between him and Pluto. I finally chose him, since I have a Pluto doll and since the Pluto figure is at the closer store. It seemed more logical to get ones I don't have closer access to. Not that I get to the local store much, but I may have another chance at it this month. Not sure, though. And my only other choices at that store we were at today would have been Mars, Super Sailor Moon, or Sailor V. Mars is my least favorite Senshi, so I'm not terribly enthusiastic about getting her ahead of other characters. I have Venus and don't feel the need for V as well, and as mentioned, I'd rather have the Sailor Moon release that comes with Luna. But I might end up getting Super Sailor Moon anyway, because of the price and because now I need to complete the Moon family!

Before we found that Barnes and Noble, there were sad times. We tried to go to a Toys R Us on the west side of the valley and couldn't find it. Finally things looked familiar to me and I saw where it had been. It's gone. The people in a local bookstore told us and then we saw the empty space. They're going to put up some stupid parking lot or something, I think they said. So that's two of my childhood Toys R Uses gone. I'd really be crushed if I still lived up there! It's sad enough just knowing they're gone. I was at that Toys R Us just last year, I think.

Then we couldn't find the Barnes and Noble because the address wasn't informative enough. We had to go ask some girls in a Metro PCS store and then backtrack, as we'd gone the wrong direction. But getting to the store was worth it, as recorded above.

And there was another reason it was worth it. There was a party store in that shopping center. Party stores always have tons of Halloween stuff, and cheaper than official Halloween stores. I went in and looked around. I found a lab coat! It was a little pricier than I wanted, but about the price I'd figured I'd have to pay for one. I couldn't find a wig, though. They were either an okay style but the wrong color or vice versa. But I was ecstatic to find the coat!

There's only one Toys R Us left in the valley now. Dad said we could go to it even though it would require a bit of backtracking. It was nice to see it, but sad too. It had a few things the closer one doesn't have, but overall, the product selection was either the same or worse than ours. And no Miraculous Ladybug dolls at all. It makes me remember my childhood and the three Toys R Uses in the valley and how nice it was to be able to have those different options to go to depending on where we were at the time. The one up East is probably the one I'm most deeply sentimental about, but I love them all. The one West is the one we went to a lot when I was watching YGO in first-run. We'd go get milk at a dairy out there every couple of weeks, drive through a local cemetery and get creeped out, and go to that Toys R Us. I think that was where I got my Team Rocket stickers (and failed to get the gift bag). The one remaining one, in the center yet farther South, is the one I probably got to visit the least, since it was the farthest away.

ShopKo is still across the street from it. So is a Halloween store. I tried the Halloween store for the wig and found the prices more frightening than anything in the store. The wigs that the party store had had too were double the cost in the Halloween store! There were also wigs unique to the Halloween store that were even more expensive. Then I tried ShopKo ... and I found something. It's blond, but it's wild, and a better option than anything else I've turned up. Best of all, they were running a weekend sale and it was 65% off! Plus I had my coupon and was allowed to take off an extra 20%! I got a $25 wig for $6.99! You can't beat that! And with the original price, one hopes it's a good wig. Most people see Baxter with blond hair anyway. It's not fluffy, unfortunately, but I'm not sure they even make fluffy wild wigs.

So now I'm all set! I can play Baxter after all! **dances.**

Then we drove mostly home, stopped to get some vegenaise (vegan mayonnaise) at a health store and picked up a free popcorn sample they have on Saturdays. Yuuum. I only got three and a half hours of sleep and thought sure I'd crash for a nap, but instead I've been wide awake. I'm wearing down now, though, I think, and I want to save the deboxing of figures until I've slept.

But yes, a great day and a great outing! I probably spent a little more than I should have, but that gift money sure helped!
insaneladybug: (hamilton)
What a day. I had maybe one hour of sleep, dozing holding the Baxter plushie and curled up against the other two. Then when I opened the curtains, evil gravity's evil cousin velocity caused me to bonk my toe on the edge of the cupboard so hard that it bruised and swelled up. Luckily, I don't think it's broken because I was able to move it after it happened, but ugggh. Even putting on a sock to go out hurt.

I wanted to see our K-Mart one last time and also to get the snow cone maker, and I thought the only way to do that was to tag along when Dad took my sister to work early in the morning. But something went drastically wrong when we went to get her and we apparently ran over something sharp, because the tire blew out. She had to go find our brother's car to take. And our tire size is very hard to find. Wal-Mart has a new one, but we really can't afford a new one when money is already so tight. Dad has been trying to find a used one.

EDIT: We have two cars here that don't work right, and one of them has the right size tire! Squeeee. So he just put one of those tires on the working car! Yes!

When the temporary tire got on, he was nice and decided to take me to the store anyway, even though we didn't get to take my sister to work, because I'd tagged along thinking I was going to get to go. And I did find the snow cone maker! And not much else. Gah, it was so sad seeing the place so bare. Everything they had left was moved more to the front of the store and yellow tape roped off the completely bare areas. There was only one half-aisle of toys left, plus three toy kiosks. There were pieces of all kinds of merchandise in other departments too, but the only section that really looked like its former self was the greeting card area. And as if it wasn't sad enough, someone had to decide that playing When Will I See You Again on the loudspeakers was a good idea. Um, no. We'll never see K-Mart again. I found out the one down South is also closing, so there will be no more in the state at all. Not a song I wanted to hear under the circumstances. Especially running on one hour of sleep.

We checked every tire place in town and no luck. Then I had trouble going back to sleep when we got home because I was wide awake. And because there was construction work right across from my window. When I finally went to sleep, I think I only got about three and a half hours.

I was glad to get the snow cone maker at such a good price ($4.80, down from $16!), but I could have done without seeing how sad the store looked. I almost wonder if I would have rather I'd got it on a previous visit, even though it would have cost a bit more, and then not seen K-Mart this week. I don't think I want to remember K-Mart the way it looked today. I think I want to remember how it looked before all this nonsense started, when there was no inkling that it would go away and it was always fun to visit and see what they had available and what might be on clearance. So I'm going to record the floor plan.

When you go in, just to your right are some shelves with changing merchandise. Usually it's quilts, but sometimes it's toys on clearance. To the left is the customer service desk. Up ahead is the women's clothing department and things like a jewelry chest of drawers made by Jaclyn Smith. I usually turn right, past the greeting cards on the right and the jewelry on the left. Dad usually goes to the pharmacy past the greeting cards to wait. Then comes housewares on the left, followed by snacks. Farther down on the right are the mattresses and appliances they started selling. We got our dryer there last year. Past those are the movies and TV shows. We got so many awesome deals on stuff there during holiday and birthday times.

Just diagonally to the left is the seasonal area. During Christmastime there are many trees set out. Some are white, some are green, most are pre-lit. Some of them turn by themselves. There are also lots of inflatables and other lawn decorations. During Halloween, the aisles are filled with spooky stuff, both the aisles past the media center and aisles to the left, beyond the open area. The open area with the Christmas trees usually has the trees during the Halloween time. Turn left past the open area and the holiday aisles and walk down to the toy section. There are several aisles of regularly priced toys and a special clearance aisle. The clearance price will fluctuate based on the week. Just beyond that is auto stuff.

Keep walking and turn left again. Now it's the back wall. The sports section is there, with furniture just beyond it. Last year we got a bookcase to serve as a pantry cupboard (not the one I got bonked on today). Just beyond that are men's clothes. Sometimes I find Turtles shirts there, like that one with Fly Baxter they briefly had last summer. It was right around the corner from the bookcases. Shoes are opposite this section. They have a poster of the 87 Turtles in the shoe section for some reason. I probably should have asked if I could have it.

Beyond that is the baby section. Turn left to walk past it and there you'll find the boys' clothing section, followed by the girls' section. Now you've made a complete square and the registers are to the left of you, along with huge baskets of products on sale in the middle of the aisle. Last year they had a bunch of chocolates on sale and we got a whole lot for presents for people, and kept some for ourselves too.

Sigh.

Aug. 27th, 2017 08:24 pm
insaneladybug: (hamilton_tragg)
I'm still working with that Turtles fic that was giving me trouble, and it still is giving me trouble. I have, thankfully, been able to get more scenes into it, though. But it's moving very slowly and my attention is still wandering. I'm anxious to do the class reunion story after this one. I already had ideas, and maybe yesterday did give me a little more inspiration too.

Now that I'm more awake than when I wrote the long post in the morning, I find I'm feeling more disappointed and sad about the shortness and understatedness of the class reunion. It seemed like so much work for such a little event. The dinner was wonderful, but like I said, it seemed like there wasn't much more than that and it seemed like it should have been a bigger affair when it was the last official reunion. Heck, the first time I went, they even had a bit with door prizes and stuff and we won a nice hardback novel by a popular local author! And then last year's fifties mini-concert.... This year there was a cute song written to celebrate, and one guy gave a nice speech and the class song was sung, and that was pretty much it besides the dinner. It's weird when milestone events aren't as big as previous ones. This was the last official reunion and there wasn't much to it. Same with the Scottish Festival when they did their 25th Anniversary celebration. It was so lackluster compared to the previous year. But eh, maybe when everybody's getting on so much by now, they were happy for a more low-key reunion.

Still kind of wanting that snow cane maker. Maybe I should see if Wal-Mart carries it and how much they charge. I wonder if they might clearance it as part of summer clearancing, if they have it at all. And I'll stay alert for any possible reason to get to the local K-Mart this week, both for the snow cane maker and also just because, well, I'd still like to say another Goodbye. Especially after seeing the disaster that was the other K-Mart. I don't really want that to be my last memory of the store. Mom's longing to get out somewhere, especially since she wasn't able to go on Saturday. Maybe Dad would be willing to take us to that town this coming week. It's not very far at all.

I also discovered that there is some distressing/holes in the Turtles shirt I got, but only on Leonardo. That makes me wonder if it's not supposed to be there and it's a damaged shirt. I tried so hard to find a good one. One had weird stains of something on it, which I immediately put back, and when I found the one I got I thought it was fine. I didn't realize I needed to check to make sure the picture wasn't damaged. I can't find it on F.Y.E.'s website to see what it looks like there and I wouldn't know how to find it anywhere else. There's just so many Turtles shirts out there. I have no idea when we might be able to go to the little F.Y.E. that's closer or if they'd even have the shirt, so maybe I should just say "Screw it" and start wearing it. It's not a lot of distressing, but if it's not supposed to be there then I wonder how durable the whole picture is. I really hate raised-up designs, since they can peel and flake and everything. The best kind is when it's imprinted right into the shirt's threads. The America shirt is like that, and some of my custom-made classic TV shirts.

I hope I won't regret that I didn't walk down the sidewalk from F.Y.E. and see if the Spirit Halloween store was open. Usually Halloween stores close at 8, so I figured it wasn't open, but there were lights and something was flashing in the window that could have been an Open sign. I was worried about taking a lot of time shopping, since I knew Dad wanted to get home and Mom would be worried, but also, I figured I should really check Wal-Mart's costume selection first, since a Halloween store would be more expensive. Wal-Mart should start getting Halloween stuff in within a week.
insaneladybug: (perry_hamilton)
Wooow, what a long day. Made even longer by the fact that I only got four-ish hours of sleep. I had plenty of time for a good sleep, but my body refused. Ugh. As soon as the batch of wash I'm doing is done, I hope to sleeeep.

First thing was that Dad wanted to visit an old friend. We got lost finding the street. But finally we did, and as soon as I saw the place, I remembered vividly being there years ago. It was also August back then, August the 5th, but temperatures were cooler and I waited in the car and wrote and observed some kids at the house across the street. It was honestly an outing I remember very fondly. We drove around the area afterwards and I saw a bride running through her front yard to the back yard. Apparently she was having either the wedding, the reception, or both on her property. We stopped for gas around 8 and I observed that the sun was going down. It was a hint of autumn on the way and I was thrilled. I even remember what I was writing: it was the early chapters of my YGO mystery Ballistic in Boston, when the Jackie Chan Adventures character Viper showed up. I'm not even fully sure why the memory of that outing makes me so happy, as I don't recall finding anything awesome while shopping. But it was such a nice, peaceful street and I was happy to sit there and write and watch those kids and I loved the hint of autumn.

Anyway, this trip out, it was way too hot to even think of me staying in the car. It was practically 100! Uggggh. So I went in. Luckily, the visit didn't last much more than thirty minutes, and the man was very nice.

K-Mart was ... oh brother, a mess. Unlike our K-Mart, which tried to keep order despite closing, this one was helter-skelter, especially in the toy department. Everything was everywhere! I had to dig through the toys on all shelves to make sure I didn't miss something awesome. Only by doing that did I find a Miraculous Ladybug figure, one of Marinette in casual clothes. That was awesome, and she was 10% cheaper than she would have been had I bought figures when our K-Mart had some. The dream that shook me up so much regarding that show seemed to be more in the background, so I snapped her up. Cat Noir was unfortunately the subject of the horrible dream and seeing his picture on the back of the card made me chill a bit, so I don't know if I would have got a figure of him had I seen it. Looks like it will still take a while for the dream to fully stop upsetting me. It's not that I'm leery of Cat Noir; it's just that he reminds me of the dream and it was extremely upsetting to me.

I also saw a doll of Chloe that looked amazingly accurate, but I don't like her and won't like her unless she shapes up this season, so I opted not to get that even though it was a temptation from the high level of accuracy. Then there was a figure of Marinette as Ladybug, but it was a fancy figure that could twirl, and even with the discount, I didn't think I should get that right now because I need to help with grocery money. So I just got the other Marinette figure.

Didn't see any 87 Turtles stuff except another of those Leonardo hats that really hurt to wear. There was lots of Nick Turtles stuff, though. And I find myself regretting I didn't get the snow cone maker. I wanted it badly at our K-Mart, but I couldn't get it then. This K-Mart didn't have it quite as cheap yet, so I still didn't get it. Now I'm thinking that for the sake of 10% more, I really should have, because it's unlikely I can get back to our K-Mart before they close and also unlikely that they will still have any of that product. I didn't realize I wanted the snow cone maker so badly. I'll see how I feel after sleep.

The class reunion had wonderful food! Potato salad, and potatoes drenched in butter, and chicken salad, and lettuce and tomato salad, and chicken teriyaki, and buttered rolls, and so many wonderful desserts! Cheesecake! Lemon cake! Eclairs! Some other cream puffy thing! Ice water! And luckily, I remembered to bring sandwich bags so I could smuggle food out if I didn't finish it all. There were also lots of leftovers on the buffet table, so I decided to help by running off with some of them. I'm not sure if the hotel just throws away the leftovers or what. I heard that if the roast wasn't completely finished, what was left of it would be thrown away. So wasteful! Why not let the employees have it? But anyway. I wasn't interested in the roast, but I ran off with the food I did love.

Aside from the food, though, I have to say that I was underwhelmed by the reunion. It didn't last long, and while I was grateful since I wanted to do more shopping, I was sad at the same time because it felt like there really wasn't much to the reunion and there really should have been, when it's the last official one they're going to have. Five years ago, they had an elaborate program with people singing fifties songs and I just adored it. This time, the program was very short. Everything, including the dinner part, was over within a couple of hours. Nobody seemed to want to stay and visit for long after the official festivities were over. I'm glad my focus switched to being excited more for the shopping, as otherwise I would have been tremendously disappointed. Part of the reason I looked forward to it for five years was because of how awesome the last one was.

I also felt a little less connected than I did the last time. That may be because my main interests right now are cartoons rather than 1950s shows, although I still adore them as much as I ever did.

Since things let out earlier, I debated whether I wanted the big F.Y.E. or Toys R Us more. I chose the former, and I don't regret it. I found an 87 Turtles shirt on clearance for $3! I also saw that they had been selling a shirt with the Team Rocket crew on it, but I couldn't seem to find any aside from the display copy, sadly. I'm planning to try to find the shirt online later.

We needed to grab a couple of items at Wal-Mart, so we hurried across the street to it. When we lived at the old house, that Wal-Mart was always my favorite. It always seemed to have more stuff than other Wal-Marts.

It didn't disappoint. After years, I finally got season 4 of The Wild Wild West! Squeeeee! And for cheaper than Amazon was selling it for! This is honestly the first time I've seen season 4's DVD set in person. I exclaimed out loud when I saw it and I immediately snapped it up. I have taped copies of those episodes, but I bet they're cut for commercial time.

I also saw two Baxters in the figure area! I didn't blog about this yet either, but I've finally been getting some more work and I felt I could offer the Baxter I had to my friend as a gift, as originally intended. And I was very happy that he wanted it and was thrilled with it! I'd like to get him another to make into Barney, as he's expressed the desire to have a Barney too and wishes he could find the figures in his area, but I wasn't sure I should get one right then after I'd had a mini-shopping spree and when I need to help with grocery money for at least a while. And I think the stores down here will be having more of him soon. The one two towns over is finally getting ready to sell the Mutagen Canister line! So I didn't get one. Hope I won't regret that too.

So overall, an awesome shopping time! And I am totally exhausted.

Also, I finally figured out how to get the tablet's Bluetooth keyboard to work, so now I can use it like a mini-laptop. Squeee. It will make typing long messages on the tablet very plausible and pleasant! Usually I've avoided typing long messages on the tablet and wait till I get back to the laptop. Now I won't necessarily have to, depending on what I'm doing while using the tablet.

I got the keyboard hooked up in case I wanted to take the tablet and write story scenes using the keyboard, but I'm glad I didn't. I only had a bit of writing time while Dad was visiting with his friend, so I did it the old-fashioned way, in a paper notebook.
insaneladybug: (z)
Such a long day, beginning with evil insomnia rearing its head as it likes to do once or twice every month. I had a long day ahead of me and I'd be running on three hours' sleep.

Actually, the family reunion/picnic started out pretty fun. There was a breeze and we were under a pavilion. Everyone brought their own lunches, but some people had stuff to share, like Brazilian cheeseballs! Yuuuum! And my sister who was hosting the thing had brought food to share with everyone. I had a hot dog and chips and ice water and was thrilled. It became less fun when the heat increased as the afternoon wore on. Ugggh. And driving around in the heat wasn't much better. It was hard to breathe at times and I wanted to scream. I want fall. I love seeing some stores getting fall merchandise out, like Hobby Lobby and Joann's and Dollar Tree. Autumn is the most wonderful time of the year. Christmas season is right up there too, though.

I did get done what I needed to. I wrote after I finished eating. Then we went out and I bought the fabric markers for Vincent and took care of Mom's thing and found the other Turtles shirt at K-Mart, so this time I snapped it up. I also saw that the holey blue shirt is being sold, to which I went WTH. But the picture is nearly the same as what's on the America shirt, only smaller, so even if I find one that isn't holey, I doubt I'd buy it. (Then again, I might because of the beautiful blue color and the amusing text about how to be a ninja.)

K-Mart looks a lot barer now and it's sad. I even had a dream the other day about going back there to get the shirt. It looked pretty bare in the dream too. The more time goes on, the more it really sinks in that it's going away. For a long time now, it's had a strong scent of something ... lotiony? Soapy? I'm not sure what makes the scent, but it's very distinctive. And it will forever remind me of Baxter because last summer was when I really noticed it and that was when they briefly had that shirt with Fly Baxter and I was planning my first Turtles story, so I was thinking of Baxter while in the store both because of the fic and the shirt. This past day was likely the last time I will ever smell that scent or be in that K-Mart. At the end of the month, if things work out to visit the one in the capital city, it will likely be the last time I will ever be in a K-Mart at all. I will likely bring up the memories of being happy in K-Mart many times in my mind and they will forever be bittersweet.

(I am also going to forever mentally kick and snarl at myself for not buying a soft YGO pillow there many years ago when they were clearancing it. Mom tried to encourage me to get it, and I wanted it, but money was tight right then and I thought I wanted a Detective Conan DVD set more. Of course, as things go, interest in that series was brief and soon waned anyway, while love for YGO has always been strong.)

Waaah, K-Mart, don't go....

Back at home, the blue fabric marker covered all the parts that will actually be visible; I'm glad I realized it likely wouldn't last for coloring all of Vincent and so I should first color what had to be colored and then see if there was any ink left for the rest. I had contemplated buying two blue ones, but I hoped one would cover what I really needed and I could get the purple one too (instead of hoping to find my purple Sharpie and use it instead. I'm still hopping mad about it getting lost in the closet two years ago thanks to gravity being nasty). I hope I won't regret the coloring job. I kind of liked the inaccuracy of a Caucasian Vincent and how that color scheme worked with the clothes. But I always knew I really wanted to color Vincent if I found a good way to do it.

One thing that's complicated is the oddity of trying to get a laptop shape on this cloth doll's head. I pondered many times on how to do that, whether to get a toy laptop and try affixing it to a body I'd sew from scratch in blue cloth, or sew a cloth laptop, or other weird thoughts. But when I decided to use the existing doll for Vincent, that left me with trying to make the head look like a laptop. I didn't want to mutilate the head for fear of making a mess (and just plan feeling bad to do that to a doll), so I drew the screen and screen frame on it. The keyboard will be attached separately. Not exactly accurate to a laptop due to the head shape from all angles, of course; it may look more like a purple version of the desktop-ish model he has on the show. But that's okay. I wanted to use this doll for Vincent, no matter the weird complications.

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