Smarter Than the Average Squirrel

 OK, I had better apologize in advance for this post, because I have been drinking wine out of my Autobot Pimp Cup for the past few hours, and this post may not make complete sense. But it's Saturday night and I'm bored on the internet, and I realized there were things that needed posting about that were not meme related, so. Yeah.

Point the First - Alpha fics, yatta! Oh my god, you guys, there was SO MUCH good stuff written for this fest this year, I can't even. I still need to go back through and kudos-review all the things. 

I wrote One of Their Own for thesecondbatgirl because we're ridiculous people. It's rare that I say this, given that my self-esteem is generally less than stellar, but I am actually proud of this fic. And hey, if I had to watch the same three episodes of Goseiger on repeat for the sake of writing it, it was still a worthwhile venture. 

I received TWO fics, woohoo!

First, Mistel Me What You're Thinking by Revieloutionne who...I don't THINK has a DW otherwise I'd be linking him right now? IDK. This is one of those wonderful situations in which I prompt the thing, I don't expect anyone will actually write the thing, someone DOES write the thing, and it's WAY BETTER THAN I EXPECTED IT TO BE. Seriously, I can't say enough good things about this fic. It has it all. Gia and Jake having an awesome bromance! Prank wars! Troy backstory! Troy having an angst! How often does a fic inspire both laughter and wibbling? I rec the FUCK out of this fic, it is AWESOME. 

And second, Something Fishy This Way Comes by queenriley , in which so many of my favorite things happen, let me count the ways. 1, Billy showing up in seasons where he ought not be. 2, there is FINALLY FIC ABOUT BOTH BILLY AND ANTONIO BEING AFRAID OF FISH, 3, he still makes Antonio eat sushi but he is SO MUCH NICER about it than Ji was in canon, 4, Billy totally knows what motivates Antonio and tells him to DO IT FOR JAYDEN. I am so happy this fic is a thing. 

And even though these were not fics for me, I'd be remiss if I didn't give a bonus rec to Private Lessons by tptigger , which is the Rocky and Justin friendship backstory I've always wanted but was too lazy to write myself, and The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship by queenriley , which is far and away THE BEST social worker!Rocky fic I have ever read. 

I swear, this fest gets better every year. <3

Point the second, I have plane tickets now, so I am officially going to visit thesecondbatgirl for couchcon again! Huzzah! I can't wait for another extended weekend of hanging out with awesome fandom people, watching ridiculous amounts of toku, writing fic and making my liver hate me. <3 <3 <3

It's 2014, woot woot! I have resolutions and goals and shit like that, but I'm not going to post about them because every time I do, I end up looking back on that post and feeling inordinately guilty about whatever I didn't succeed at doing. :P

Anyhoot, there was a ridiculous New Year's party at my mom's house last night, complete with ridiculous amounts of alcohol, of which I consumed entirely too much. I suspect I'm getting too old to be partying that hard, but there's something deeply satisfying about getting drunk as hell in the company of nearly all your favorite people.

And now, without further ado, it's time to start the topic meme! For day 1,tsukino_akume asked me to explain the origin of my username, and I am glad to do so because this story never fails to delight me with its derpiness.

( Of cons and silliness )  

 Two different people requested stuff for day 3 and no one for day 2, so I'll just bump one of them up for tomorrow's meme. Day 2's post will be on favorite animals (with bonus cute pictures!) as requested by punkpinkpower , and day 3 will be diversity in the women of Power Rangers as requested by angel_negra . And I'm still actively soliciting for about 15 more topics, so feel free to comment here  if you'd like to suggest one. 

So, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers hit the airwaves for the first time today. If you're reading this, you're most likely already well aware of all my feels about this show and how it's affected my life over the past 20 years. While I kind of wish the show's powers-that-be had lived up to all the #PR20 hype done more to honor the actual date, that hasn't stopped me from doing some low-key celebrating on various forms of social media while wearing an MMPR shirt and watching some episodes on Netflix.

I won't offer ficlets this time because I can't let myself get distracted so close to the Femslash Ficathon deadline <strike>and because I'm bad at responding to prompts anyway</strike>, but I'm more than happy to chat about any headcanon/fanon/meta stuff people may want to hear about. 

Also, here's a random list of some of my top PR-related memories over the past 20 years. 

- Reading an article about the show in Disney Adventures Magazine and deciding that this was relevant to my interests
- Waking up at 8:30 in the morning on Saturdays to watch when new episodes were on
- Taping the show on VHS and watching them over and over and over...
- Being in awe of the Command Center playset in the toystore, only to be told by my parents that it was too expensive ~_~
- MMPR:TM being released on my 11th birthday, getting nothing but movie merch for presents, and listening to the soundtrack over and over and over...
- Making my dad quiz me on PR trivia because I was convinced I knew EVERYTHING
- The massive brainbreak that accompanied the end of MMPR and the advent of Zeo. (I can still see those promos clear as day. "You gotta see it! It's coming!")
- Getting onto the internet in my dad's office and checking out all of the fansites
- Reading - and subsequently writing - my first fanfic
- Crying in front of my television at Countdown to Destruction
- Re-discovering the show in college, watching DT with my ex
- Re-RE-discovering the show in 2009, when I saw an ad for a PR-centric RPG on InsaneJournal. Wrote my character application on the plane home from Japan, joined, and thereby met rivulet027 , who proceeded to drag me back into the fandom full-stop. 
- Meeting my husband for the first time and realizing he was The One when he invoked the name of my favorite fandom with no provocation whatsoever from me and told me he had PR action figures in his cubicle at work. 
- Flying across the country for the sole purpose of PMC2 and getting to meet Riv, thesecondbatgirl , and so many other awesome people face to face for the first time. 
- Meeting, having my headcanon affirmed by, doing the ugly cry in front of, and ultimately hugging my all-time hero David Yost at NPS Live. 
- Giving directions to Johnny Yong Bosch at Genericon
- Having my best friends from the fandom attend my wedding...and, naturally, morphing with them in the photobooth. 
- Couchcon 2013, complete with the Gokaiger marathon, the Porner, and the questionable but tasty Skittles vodka. 

...And many more to come, I'm sure. :)

Happy Rangerversary, everybody!

Two things learned from the weekend:

1) Don't go to gaming cons when you're not a gamer.
2) Nerds throw the best parties.

Basically, the entire reason this happened was because a very old and presently Boston-dwelling friend of mine decided to gift the Yeti and I PAX passes for Christmas and offered up her house for us to crash at. To make a long story short: Biggest fucking con ever. HORDES of nerds the likes of which I've never seen before. Custom-painting D&D minis and playing vintage arcade games = fun. Burning all my spoons by hustling through crowds and hanging around with a bunch of people I don't know = tiring. And as I said, I'm not a gamer, so a lot of what was going on didn't hold my interest. Xyc entered a Magic: The Gathering tournament and had a blast, though, so I suppose overall it was a worthwhile endeavor. And then there was a spectacularly bitchin' afterparty that involved a disco basement, the worst video games I've ever seen, horse masks, giant foam hands, cornhole, guys rubbing butts, obscure British drinking games, a booty-drop competition, and me being a classy mofo by not only killing an entire bottle of cheap terrible wine by myself, but also drinking said wine out of a red Solo cup.

Nerds definitely throw the best parties. And speaking of...next stop, COUCHCON!!!! Cannot freaking wait!

Point the first: I'm now more than a week post-op and have been feeling a lot more normal for the past few days. I've been back working since Wednesday, graduated from the hydrocodone to regular ibuprofen and haven't needed any pain medication whatsoever since Thursday night. The incisions are still a pain in the ass. They don't hurt at all until I do something to remind myself that they're there. And it's stupid stuff that sets them off, like...wearing most of my pants. Or trying to sleep on my side. It's super annoying, so I am not-so-patiently waiting for the damn things to heal up. On the flip side, I ate a bunch of junk food this weekend and had NO pain whatsoever, so I guess the surgery was a success!

Point the second: This weekend was Genericon weekend, ever and always the official kickoff to con season! And 2013 has got a BIG con season. Genericon is to be followed by PAX East in a couple weeks, then Couchcon in April, possibly Anime Boston in May (assuming my sister-in-law is able to make it), and then my husband's first ever Star Trek convention in June. I might be overcompensating for missing PMC last year JUST a little bit.

But yeah, enough rambling, have a con report!

( Cut for long and longness, as usual )

I'm hanging out with fly_buggy_fly today; we're chilling on my couch and watching assorted nonsense on Netflix. Right now the deal is, for every episode of MLP:FiM I agree to watch (Say nothing, just because I'm watching doesn't mean I will ever be sucked into the fandom.), she agrees to watch an episode of Power Rangers. I feel vaguely victorious because of this. But really, the important part is that it resulted in this being said:

"That's about the extent of my knowledge [of PR], you make them gay and you like the yellow one."

That is...probably the single most apt description of my fandom I have ever seen.