Marchellaneous: Harry Potter and the Star Vs The Forces of Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the PS3 · 6:48pm Mar 2nd, 2021
"One is common, you know. What ho, peasants!"
- Fancy Pants, trying to blend into a Ponyville crowd
February Report, O Fellow Stalwarts of Stationery, Thou Narrative Numpties, My Distant Deipnosophists and Wackadoodle Word-Wranglers! How farest thee? One finds oneself in surprisingly spiffing spirits!
Translation: S'up, yo. 😎
I'm in an oddly good mood today. 
Writing-Wise, Not Writing Wise
Anyway, last month? Report? Not off to a good start...
Writing-wise, this was a below-average turnout. The Moondancer short fic (Moondancer, Revisited) turned out to be only one good day.
Overall, though, I'm still in an awkward position where I can plan and research just fine, yet the actual prose-writing still feels like an uptight perfectionist bit of stalling. It's my one Achilles Heel, and frankly he can have it back. I didn't even break into five-digit figures (basically, 10,000 words or greater up to 99,999). Disappointed. 😠
And stalling. Had a mid-February near-meltdown with all the insane lists of projects I wanted to write and/or had started to write over the last ten years or so. That was... fun. 
God, I wish I could talk about this stuff properly, but I'm still super-wary of sharing spoilers.
"After you stole my academic glory from me, I'm never opening up to you again!"
Seriously, though, imagine if Moondancer was meant to wield the Element of Magic all along. If so, then she got stood up by fate in more ways than one.
All Work is All Play When Jack's A Good Boy
For the record, I've never fully liked that saying.
I'm not joking: I actually like work, to the point "work" and "play" is a spurious dichotomy to me.
Being allowed back into work this month, albeit on an unconventional schedule. Thankfully, once I figured out the new system - and stopped making dumb mistakes in a rush - I got my vigour back and bloody bowled 'em over. Eff yes! 
Sometimes, you don't realize how much you miss work till you're kept from it for long periods of lockdown time.
Sometimes. I know that's not a common opinion. 
Grumpy McGrumpy-Pants Vs Generation Fie!
Really have not been in a good mood about the show in February. Let's just say, without spoilers, that new information about G5 has pretty much instantly killed what interest I might have hitherto expressed for it.
Let's just say, with spoilers, that I basically was hoping G5 would finally be a nice clean break from prior canon that wiped the slate clean and got to start again, given my growing antipathy towards that in its later stages. My view of the show's more recent years has subsequently moved closer to "franchise zombie" territory. And you can dress it up how you like, the show has basically regressed its entire setting now to make an already-used plot work. Do something different already! Let the old show die with dignity, for FRIEND's sake! 
And... that is all I shall say on the matter. 🤐
Well look, vent though I may, I'm not going out of my way to ruin someone else's fun. Other people are getting excited about it, and that's honestly not a problem at all; I envy them, if anything. In any case, de gustibus non est disputandum. It's OK to have our own experiences, right?
Instead, I'm just going to do the sensible thing and ignore it, go do something else, find something that cheers me up. My interests are firmly elsewhere.
Board of Directions
Meanwhile, February was actually a good month for board games, though at the expense of my video-gaming. Board game nights are basically social occasions, as it's usually when family members in our bubble come together to socialize, and I have a much easier time of it when I've got something resembling a task to do during that (I've never been great at small talk).
So had some good days there. 
Might have been better if I didn't have Rainbow Dash's mentality: "I hate losing." But I'm getting better at that (it's not like I flip the board or have a tantrum, but I won't lie: it does rapidly get me down inside if I don't win, and especially if I keep losing). I'll get over it.
March Vs The Forces of Impo
It's gonna get a little weird... gonna get a little wild... I ain't from round here... I'm from another dimension...
Revisited Star Vs, mainly its first two seasons and a chunk of the third. By Mewni, I love this show. 🌟🦄
I mean, the filler's a bit hit-and-miss, but when it focuses on the larger story arcs, it really shines (which is generally the opposite of my attitude to MLP:FiM, or at least to the early pony seasons).
For anyone who's familiar with the show, I think I can basically say "Ludo" and you'll all know what I'm talking about.
For the rest of you, there's a surprisingly great villain in the series, who starts out largely as just the comical bad guy before another villain muscles in on his operation, and... long story short, the comical bad guy starts showing more admirable sides, hints at a fascinating backstory, explanations for why he's so messed up, and honestly even a massively increased threat level. Yet he's such a stubborn underdog that you kind of end up rooting for him. It's superb.
Also, the parallels between Star Vs and Friendship is Magic are pretty damn amusing: a fun slice-of-life-with-some-adventure-here-and-there show - inspired by the Magical Warrior Girl anime genre and Western fairy-tale fantasy - in which a magically powerful-but-still-learning royal-to-be leaves her magical city to mingle with the Muggles, have slice-of-life laughs, make friends, have magical accidents, live with a beleaguered "sidekick" who's basically her straight man (sometimes), and encounter a calculating villain from the past who wants to drain all magic and will manipulate another, more laughable, more pathetic but more redemption-worthy villain in order to do so?
Wait, which show was I talking about, again? 
No Cheese, Gromit!
Also, who remembers the ol' Wallace and Gromit shorts? Cracking series, Gromit! 
(Actually, I've been eating a lot of cheese this month. Not enough brie, though. I love me some brie. Why isn't there enough brie!? 
).
PlayStation Amelioration
An idea of how old-school retro semi-Luddite I am: the most up-to-date gaming console I possessed up until this month was a PlayStation 2.
Well, not anymore. My brother's becoming an Xbox boy, so he wanted to pass on one of his old consoles, and since I'd expressed an interest in freebies, he very obligingly sent it my way. I am now the somewhat reasonably pleased owner of a PlayStation... 3.
What? I'm a tight-fisted slowpoke. You should see what kind of phone I'm still using.
Harry Potter! The Boy Who Lived!
In addition to being tight-fisted and slow at poking techno trends, I'm also an incorrigible nostalgic, or at least wilfully ageless. You remember... I think it was a couple of decades ago... this new piece of literature that got a few people's interest and a respectable following? Something to do with witches and wizards. There was a school named after a medicinal plant, or something.
I see a badger there, so I'm guessing... Redwall?
Anyway, I went back to it.
This was after discussing it with others. Out of curiosity for how well it held up, I wanted to go back to the first book and march through as far as the point where I remembered not finding the series enjoyable anymore (round about Half-Blood Prince, for the record). Except, to my dismay, I found I couldn't find the first two books in the series. Darn it. 😒
So a week ago, I just went for Prisoner of Azkaban and progressed from there. I'm currently working through Order of the Phoenix. Finished Goblet of Fire yesterday.
In short: a corker. 👏
In long:
To be fair, not a flawless one. The prose is considerably drier than I remember, and Harry's everyman portrayal is more functional than fascinating (not helped by feeling a bit monotone against the bedazzling rainbow of colourful cast members around him). Each book also seems to rush a bit in its final chapters, as if suddenly trying to make up for lost time, with some elements kind of unexplained or arbitrary. And occasionally, Rowling's ability to conjure convincing magical jargon and punny names awkwardly drops dead (you know, naming the werewolf Lupin is a bit like an alien adopting the alias "Hugh Mann").
That said, gosh what a series. Rich magical detail in every chapter; intricate stories adding up to a surprisingly no-nonsense epic backstory for the Wizarding World; a memorable army of teachers, students, and bystanders leaping in and out of the spotlight; a light-hearted, sweetly British tone with darker elements as a moderating spice; playing around with boarding school tropes, epic fantasy, murder-mystery-esque plots, and political intrigue; so many magical terms and conceptual twists that it all feels fully lived-in and immersive: this is all very much a series where half the fun is the tour-guide nature of a setting you wouldn't mind visiting or imagining yourself in, in some form (less so when the war subplot pops up later, but I digress).
So yeah, having a good time with the old series. 
Also, I'd go in Ravenclaw House. Because me liker da brain things an shtuff. 🦅
Tell me now: which one do you think would end up in Slytherin House?
Woohoo, new month, new season, new time, new day, new opportunities arise!
Will try to blog more often. February was a bit of an odd month, as I spent most of it PMing particular pointy-headed playmates rather than positing possible pending pastimes for public perusal. 
This month, though, I would like to throw my hat into the open ring again (and see if I can trick people into dropping money in it).
Till next time, chumps and chumpettes! Impossible Numbers, out!
Princess Friendship Rainbow Magic™! Warning: May Contain Flammable Substances.
Yaknow, season four of Star Vs. was a dumpster fire, but it still had two of my all-time favorite episodes? The one where Marco goes to Kelly's planet (because Kelly is the best), and the one where the two babies grow up, which is weird since one of them had already been grown up, and they end up living in a cave in some kind of post-apocalypse? Damn, I wish there could have been more about that storyline.
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Oh boy, you've really opened Pandora's Box now.
Yeah, "Kelly's World" is a hilariously bizarre one (using fights as currency! and a good showcase for her and Marco); I wished they'd gotten to it sooner, considering she was introduced way back in the first half of Season Two. The other one you mentioned, "Gone Baby Gone", does feel more like deliberate fanfic fuel than a self-contained episode, but it's a cool concept all right (although what was Hekapoo thinking, leaving a portal open for them to just wander through?).
Other ones from Season Four I quite liked:
"The Monster and the Queen", wherein we finally get to know what Globgor, Prince of Monsters was like... and he turns out to be a really sweet family man who dearly loves Eclipsa. Awww. He's even reasonable enough to convince Eclipsa not to free him. I just can't help liking the guy. Plus, he makes fun of his own former monstrous habits in an awkward way, and that's pretty funny.
"Princess Quasar Caterpillar and the Magic Bell". Yeah, it's not as good as "Ludo, Where Art Thou?" in developing Dennis and Ludo, but it's a pretty neat way of showing Ludo's arc come to a close with him giving the most epic speech of the entire series. And killing a rat baron out of love for his brother. Simultaneously hilarious, horrific, and heartwarming: classic Ludo.
And I thought the first three eps (or four, if you split the third one into its two segments) were pretty good, with the quest to find Star's mother leading to the scam artist Pie Folk and the fighting between Rhombulus and Eclipsa.
But yeah, it's kind of a weak season overall.
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Some good choices, not all of which I remember. I got rather tired of Rhombulus as the show went on, though. He was clearly a strawman character. :/
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To be fair, if there's any member of the Magic High Commission that'd jump off the paranoid deep end, it's Rhombulus and his trigger-happy crystalling power. Although I still think it's a shame that the show abandoned his early friendship with Star. That was quite a nice one, with the winning visual of them having a friendly chat over tea and using Marco's crystallized body as a table!
Though to be fair the other way, the degeneration of the entire Magic High Commission to outright villains was ridiculously reductionistic in Season Four. The morally grey angle in Season Three was fine, and about as far as it really needed to go (their heroic turn in Season Two goes without saying, and leads to one of the coolest fight scenes in that finale when Toffee makes his move).
I remember Wallace and Gromit. Heck, I was just looking at our DVD of their original three shorts the other day. It’s been a few years since we watched it, but those were such classics.
Glad you found some enjoyment in returning to Potter! My wife recently finished reading them aloud to the kids (yes, all seven books, over a decent period of time), and I was struck by how much more well-crafted the whole saga was than I remembered—especially the later books.
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My favourite is "A Close Shave" for how much it manages to do in such a short amount of time (they even managed to put in a romance subplot among all the villain scheming and Shaun antics). I feel like I've watched a damn good movie afterwards. Although to be fair, this is a hair's-breadth difference, as they're all really good (I'm including the movie in this line-up, not least of all because it has more of those sweet Wallace-Gromit moments).
Re: Harry Potter, I tend to prefer the earlier and middle books to the later ones. A light-hearted series with dark elements appeals to me more than a dark series with light-hearted elements, hence the tonal switch over time didn't quite do it for me. Favourite has always been Goblet of Fire, though, slap-bang in the middle. I'm not even confining myself to the impact of the "this changes everything" ending: I like the emphasis on international games, the ongoing mystery, and the Crouch backstory. It was the point where the world started to feel bigger and more exciting.