Hello, hello again. Most wonderful of dorks.
Life has been going fine for those that are named Angel and live in Arizona and are 26 year old trans girls. That's probably specific enough to make it entirely just about me.
Probably.
Close enough anyway!
Although I have most of you on Facebook, and do enjoy getting to glance at your posts once in a while.. I do admit that Facebook is hardly my communication platform of choice. So I do hope you don't take my silence personally. I just don't really talk much on Facebook, and if I do it's over the messenger system and not really on wall posts and the like.
Things have been going well for me. My main toys, dolls, and cartoon interests have been a bit bent towards the Sofia the First, Lalaloopsy, and [strike]Littlest Pet Shop[/strike].. Minka Mark, I'm still a dedicated little Strawberry Shortcake fan. I just admit it's a bit of an aesthetic appreciation at this point, and the cartoon is something sometimes I'll slip on for noise. It's a bit of a happy place vibe, but I can certainly say that as the series has gone along it doesn't have the same kinda magic the series that I was introduced to had. The Strawberry Shortcake that lead me to meet you, will always be an inspiration and a role model for me. I'll always be growing a little better each day, and slipping on an episode that series still brings me feel warmer and happier inside then most other things are capable of.
I moved to Phoenix, Arizona this year as most of you are aware of by now. I'm really enjoying the place! I mean, it's just a better situation in general for me, although depression wise I sorta regressed a bit here and there. It was hard for me at times, and the diet that I've been working so very hard to keep strong this year has slipped a bit here and there. Still, this year as a massive amazing year for me.. and all around this is going to end nicely. The money issues we were having here and there are all done.
I suppose the other sorta bigger things going around with me in a dorky sorta fashion is I crossed over to a bit of the other side of the toy aisle, and have been interested in super hero things lately. I'm super interested in mixing up the ascehtics though, and various things like that are totally pandering to me. Just recently a cute little line of DC heroines are going to be made into the most pretty of dolls, and I'm super interested in those.
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Pics, so it totally happened!
Other then that um.. I've been interested in some of the YA fiction stuff Disney has been into lately! Never Girls and Star Darlings. Although my favorite Never Girl is probably super easy to guess, I'm actually having trouble picking my favorite of the Star Darlings designs. So many of them are so cute. Doll wise, I'm probably a bit taxed even.
I wish Novi Stars had stuck around..
I.. I hope you've all been lovely! Hehe. I'll stop ranting about dolls, or maybe I won't. This is a forum based on Strawberry Shortcake after all, even if sometimes it might not seem like that. Hehe.
Stella Grapes Wrote:SO, this actually isn't suited for The Spam Thread, but I'm being lazy.
I saw the new Sour Grapes and Sweet Grapes.
I think it's really something that my original idea for Reformed Grapes' name was Sweet Grapes, although that is the rather obvious choice. Stella, meaning Star, tied into the arc I planned out and flowed better, however.
I also think it's funny how much Sweet Grapes looks like the previous incarnation of Plum Puddin'.
Anyhow, as a long time Sour Grapes fan, here is my two cents:
I always wanted to see Grapes at Strawberry's age. However, I wanted to see that in flashbacks. I like Grapes as both an antagonistic adult and a maternal adult. She was the first adult woman in the franchise, so that seems important to her character. I'm not sure how much sense that makes. She's the wicked auntie, she's the sensible sister who has known her sibling for a loooong time, and she's Team Mom.
The kid remake had pieces of this. I was pleasantly surprised to find some of her predecessors in her, more than I expected. That was a comforting familiarity. There's a glimmer of the old Grapes.
But my main issue isn't her generation, although that was always part of her character before. My main issue is she was always GRAPES. Not Sour, not Sweet, not Stella either, GRAPES. Her second name was the important name. The one exception to this was Gladys, and that was a temporarily visited alternate universe.
Point is, Grapes is multifaceted. She is sour. She is sweet. She is a person of many strengths and weaknesses, in my opinion more so than any other character in the franchise, officially.
Splitting her into two separate characters distorts that.
And yeah, where in all the berry big bitty world is Pie Man? Pie Boy, whatever. I know, I know, they took out characters whose names weren't fruit. I feared from the start this would lead to Grapes without Pie, and it did. That doesn't set right with me at all. Their dynamic is a bond established for the viewers in 1982 that doesn't deserve to be broken.
This is Grapes with... herself. What??
So Grapes has been broken into two, and yeah, Sour can be a nice person, but Sweet is the loving, worrisome, feminine side of Grapes. The irritation and the sympathy have been literally split into two different characters.
Sour Grapes was a wonderful character because she was several things. She didn't have a split personality. She was a complicated human. The second version, my favorite, was someone who loved several people but loved her brother first, though he frustrated her to no end. She was depressed, trapped in a situation she
didn't deserve. It wasn't too heavy for a little girl's show in the way it was presented. The first version was a funny woman who gave the person she cared about well-deserved torment. Both were witty, the sensible foil to Mr. Crazy, and more protective than the casual viewer noticed.
And now we've got Grapes split in two, having a rivalry and partnership with herself instead of Purpie. Let's not.
I already told you this over BookFace, but it deserves repeating that this is a really nice analysis. I feel like the fact that Sour and Sweet Grapes are a beautiful design pair makes it a tad bit more tragic. Since one of my more honest complaints as that the girls so far have been a bit depressingly interchangeable in design.. (so much so that quite a few many artworks involving the girls have literally just changed the colors to make each picture a different one of them) these two new ones felt a bit daringly unique enough. Especially Sour.
Such a shameful shame!