crossover_chick | Malls And Books

But first, a mention that this is another "empty canon" day in BTTF. Of course, tomorrow's the freaking nexus of the entire BTTF verse, so we can afford some quiet days.

Mall trip was nice. I hit Newbury, Hot Topic, Subway, Dave & Busters, and Ben & Jerry's -- the usual round, more or less. Lunch was a Chicken & Bacon Ranch sandwich, and my treat was a Milk & Cookies shake. :) I also got two new toys at Newbury:

A new Mechtorians figurine and the battle-damaged Hunter-Killer T-2 minimate vehicle! I've been wanting the latter, and I got the former to go with my steampunky mood as of late.

The Mechtorian out of its case -- as you can see, this one is a robotic phonograph. His name is D.J. Cramo. :p

The Hunter-Killer out of the package. The guns move up and down a bit, the head swivels, and the back opens up so you can put a minimate in there to "drive" it. This particular model comes with a resistance soldier, whom I have sitting on top of his prize. :D There's also a clean version that comes with an endoskeleton, but a) that's a Toys-R-Us exclusive I believe, and b) I already have an endoskeleton, so I don't need it.

The resistance soldier comes with a bunch of accessories -- a gun, binoculars, two hats -- a more normal military cap and a cap with night vision goggles -- and a pack of bombs that I'm not quite sure where it goes. Looks like it attaches around the neck. . . .

The Hunter-Killer on my minimates shelf. I had to move some of the other T-2 mates, but hey, he fits! I resisted the urge to reposition the other minimates so everybody was staring in awe at the soldier (who I have just now randomly decided to call "Ted") and his captured ride. XD

DJ Cramo, for his part, goes down with the Corpse Bride and Alice toys. Ye gods, are my shelves getting crowded.
-M2: We've noticed. What are you going to do when you finally run out?-
I really don't know. Honestly, I wish I had more room for another big bookcase in here. Then I'd set up a whole new system to make sure everybody got enough room. Specifically:
The BTTF 'mates would get a shelf to themselves
The Buster 'mates would get a shelf to themselves
The T-2 'mates would get a shelf to themselves
The Marvel 'mates would get a shelf to themselves
The mini Corpse Bride figures would get a shelf to themselves
The big Corpse Bride figures would room with the Alice toys and the Mechtorians
That way I could do as Mom suggests and set up little dioramas and stuff. I've already seen papercraft backgrounds for the Busters.
-OD: *Tommy* What about the Corpse Bride Christmas ornaments and the BTTF Kubricks and stuff?-
The Kubricks would stay with my general BTTF collection. The Christmas ornaments would probably go with my mini CB stuff. And since you're probably wondering, the reason the bigger CB figures share with other fandom toys is because there's fewer of them -- I've only got Victor, Victoria, Emily and Bonejangles when it comes to the six-inch figures. But this is all only speculation for now. . . .

I also finished Lords and Ladies today. Pratchett's done another great one. Ridcully and Weatherwax WERE exes. And they got to have a surprisingly tender moment together at the end of the book. :) Other things of note:
-->Magrat proves that, once again, when the pressure's on, she can be undeniably badass. Her in her borrowed armor is epic stuff.
-->Shawn Ogg is the best guardsman ever. Hell, I like the entire Ogg family.
-->Verence is adorable as usual. Though he needs more tips on how to handle a girlfriend/fiancee. (He sent away for a book, but they got it mixed up with the MARTIAL arts. Made Shawn happy, though.)
-->Pratchett's elves are creepy bastards, and I refuse to believe that the people who wrote "Changeling: The Lost" didn't read this book. They're freaking SPOT-ON for World of Darkness villains.
-->I LOVE THE BURSAR. Even though by this point he's gone completely round the twist and spends almost all of the book either falling apart because of his nerves or high on dried frog pills. I don't know what it is about "nuttier than a fruitcake" that I like, but. . . .
-DW: I'm sure I can quantify it by noting that his descriptions include that he's quite thin and lives on his nerves. Readers, who do you think she's picturing?-
-TTV: *rolls eyes*-
I can't help it! I just want to give him a hug. I was getting genuinely worried about him when the elves attacked, since we lost track of our visiting wizards for a bit with everything else happening. . . . And I seriously spent too much time looking him up on TV Tropes.
-->I think I've found some Fridge Brilliance:

The climax of the book involves Granny Weatherwax managing to Borrow -- that is, enter the mind of -- a swarm of bees. This was earlier stated to be pretty much impossible because no individual bee has a mind of its own -- they think solely as a swarm. (Yes, a Hive Mind, ha ha) And a human's mind isn't able to handle that -- as Granny describes it later, it's like your mind is going off in all different directions.

However, part of the book deals with Granny thinking she's losing her mind because she keeps remembering the wrong things. Ridcully helps her realize that she's in fact remembering things from OTHER Esme Weatherwaxes. In other words, she's temporarily got a million other minds inside her own, all hers from different worlds. (The book's heavily on alternate universes and the like.)

I refuse to believe these two events aren't related. Somehow I think that Granny being able to hear the thoughts of all her other selves is what enabled her to Borrow the bees. Her mind was ALREADY going in a hundred different directions -- she was used to it!

And that's all the news for now. I'll be posting my NaNo word count later. Also probably an update or two from