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starsficYou guys are so fantastic! ♥ I posted a poll about DVD commentaries (preceded by a post about why their appeal is mysterious to me) and some people tried to explain what is or is not interesting for them in commentaries they've seen and why. Then I tried to do/write one myself.*
Well. Let me tell you, I now have way more respect for the actresses/writers/assistants who get conscripted to do the commentaries on season box sets and so forth. Staying on track = NOT EASY. Also, picking a story from ten years ago had the unexpected problem of the author not being able to remember what it was about.
Luckily Marci volunteered to help me, so grand credi to her: she is in fact the only reason this got done at all. Lynn wandered through and agreed to participate (she's like the Torri Higginson of this scene), so extra credi to her for being a good sport.
First Kiss DVD Commentary
with *Andrea, Marci, and Lynn
*Andrea: I should go back and read the first "First" story so I can think about it. And be horrified.
Marci: I think you should read it out loud and we can react to it as you go.
*Andrea: You want to do that right now?
Marci: Yes! We should do it all at once; I don't think you should read it first.
*Andrea: Okay. Wait, I have to write that down.
Marci: And I'll do something else at the same time, so there will be random things thrown in.
*Andrea: I need to find a faster way to abbreviate our names. We should do a podcast, it would be faster.
Marci: That would be awesome. And then I think you should write at the top of the commentary, HI, MY DVD COMMENTARY IS AN INTERESTING ONE UNLIKE ALL THE OTHER BORING ONES YOU PROBABLY READ FIRST. In all caps.
*Andrea: I'm writing that right now. Oops, I wrote MY DVD COMMENTARY IS AN OBVIOUS ONE instead.
Marci: That too! You don't want it to be obscure!
First Kiss ~ The Astro Rangers spend their summer vacation in space.
*Andrea: That summary doesn't really work with that title.
Marci: Well, it does if you assume they were all kissing in space. It's funny, though, what I remember most about the story is them fighting on Earth.
*Andrea: I wrote that summary years after I wrote the story, because it was specific to my new website. I was like, "Well, anyone reading it already knows what 'First Kiss' is, and if they don't, I probably can't explain it anyway."
Marci: I would have given up and been like, "This is the first 'First' series." Very meta.
*Andrea: "This sentence is the title of the story and is also found several times in the story itself."
Marci: Okay, one of the key phrases for the book Foraging New England is "trail nibble." I don't know how I feel about that.
*Andrea: I'm going to go wash my dishes.
Marci: There you go, funny commentary about what you're doing while you commentary!
*Andrea: I think it means I'm already bored and I've only typed the title.
...
*Andrea: Okay, so you've ordered a book, I've let the dog out and given her an eyedrop. What else have you done?
Marci: I... ate a hard-boiled egg?
*Andrea: I should type a line from the story so it's like we've started.
Marci: And I need to check my laundry.
*Andrea: I'll just type the first line.
Marci: But the first line is the most awesome line!
"Man, those quantrons were tough," TJ declared as they demorphed.
Marci: Best line ever! Plus, it starts the saga, you know?
Lynn: Where did I leave my little black notebook, does anyone know?
Marci: I don't know.
Lynn: I had some notes written in there.
*Andrea: You're going to be in our commentary now. Just so you know.
Lynn: Well now I don't dare say anything.
Marci: We need another $2.75 to get free shipping. What was that book you were looking for? Herbal Medicine?
Lynn: ...Maybe we should get The Best of Christmas, it's cheaper.
Marci: It has nothing to do with anything. I don't even know how it got on this list.
Lynn: Well, all of these are more expensive than we want. I'll try to trip over them at a booksale somewhere.
Marci: I'm sure we can come up with something.
Lynn: I'm sure as soon as you find something you want, I'll come up with something I want. A lot.
Marci: This is an actual review: "I'm a scientist, I don't believe in magick," but they spell "magick" with a "k." You liar.
Lynn: Juniper, grapefruit, and heliotrope.
Marci: So how far have you gotten in the story?
Lynn: She doesn't even need to do anything; she can just write down what we say and it will be funny.
*Andrea: Yes, actually.
Lynn: Well, I'm not saying anything else.
Marci: Too late!
*Andrea: I can only type 90 words a minute, don't worry.
Lynn: Did you copy that down? Whinnie scratching under the table?
*Andrea: No, but I will now.
Marci: "Dog makes irritating noises under the table."
Lynn: "Lynn calls attention to dog destroying the rug."
Marci: Wow, this is really confusing. I feel like I need a card set to divine what they're saying about this card set.
"You're just out of shape," Cassie teased, springing down the steps of the Megaship to the deck below their Glider tubes.
Marci: All of life is a game. That's what I learned from that guy who ran the Rec Room on the Enterprise.
*Andrea: Diane Duane, Spock's World. And The Wounded Sky.
Marci: Ken, or something.
*Andrea: Harb Tanzer.
Marci: Right.
"Either way," Carlos interjected, "That was not what I had in mind for my morning workout."
Lynn: Well, this deck is high on my list for some reason. It's supposed to be very usable.
Ashley stretched her arms above her head, then rotated her shoulders with an ease that made the stretch look unnecessary. "I'm with you, Carlos. Even morphed, I took some serious blows from those guys.
*Andrea: I'm just copying down lines from the story while you're talking.
Marci: You haven't been reading them out loud! You have to toss them into the conversational pool!
*Andrea: Um... it's mostly just them complaining that they didn't want to do any work this morning. Which is strangely appropriate. But here, I can read this out loud.
Already on his way out the door, Andros rolled his eyes. He couldn't help it.
*Andrea: Because I was ten when I wrote this, and I thought people couldn't help rolling their eyes. Which is true, if you're me.
Marci: I vastly overuse eye-rolling in my stories.
*Andrea: ...Unfortunately I can't remember what you said after that.
Marci: Probably for the best.
Lynn: How do I forward an e-mail?
Something about Ashley Hammond made it impossible to take her seriously.
*Andrea: This story is so perfect for our conversation!
Marci: You know what's awesome? This story, compared to the most recent First story... if only Andros could see, years down the road. He would be rolling his eyes like whoa.
*Andrea: Oh, but see, he loves her:
No matter what she said she could contradict it at a moment's notice, and no matter how much she complained, she'd be in there swinging whenever they needed her.
Marci: Aw... You know, he thought that about Zhane once, too. And then he locked him up in a room on the Megaship.
*Andrea: After Zhane died saving him!
Marci: I'm just saying, nothing lasts forever, Andros. Also, now that we've finished our shopping, Amazon thinks maybe we'd like to add a hundred-dollar gift certificate to our order. Apparently other people who've bought the things we've bought also liked that.
"I'll be lucky if I'm not stiff as a board by lunchtime," TJ commented, and as Andros escaped into the hallway and headed for the Bridge, he heard Ashley's irritatingly cheery reply.
Marci: I love thinking about the Space team in their little... outfits. ...That went to a weird place with that little pause in there.
Lynn: Well, I'm just glad I didn't say it.
Marci: Can you imagine them meeting Gem and Gemma?
*Andrea: Oh my gosh, that would be awesome. They would love each other.
"Who wants a backrub?"
*Andrea: "Who wants a backrub?" That's the part we're at now.
Marci: Excellent! So we've made it, what, a paragraph?
*Andrea: Yes.
Marci: Only nineteen and three-quarters pages left to go.
*Andrea: We might have to skip ahead a little.
Marci: But the backrub circle, that's key.
*Andrea: Maybe we could review that all at once.
Marci: I appreciate the fact that your stories are so angst-free. I mean, especially with Andros and his terrible angsty past, but no! A movie night or two and he's fine! Teenagers get over these things.
*Andrea: And if they have friends, they get over things faster. Or their friends cause them more angst they have to get over. Often both.
Marci: This kind of reminds me of when we were audio-taping "Greatest American Hero," and you could hear Mom and Dad setting the table in the background.
*Andrea: It's like those DVD commentaries on TV shows where everyone starts talking about something else while the show keeps playing in the background, and you're like, "You're not even talking about the show anymore!" But it keeps playing. This doesn't keep playing unless I keep copying it. Clearly I should copy more.
Marci: Yes. Also, recommended for people who bought Season 3 of "MacGyver": four emergency blankets. And "Pilates: Precision Sculpting and Toning."
Andros shook his head. I don't think I even want to know, he thought, but his curiosity got the best of him. When he'd finished the routine Bridge chores, he wandered down past the Rangers' living quarters, looking for the others.
He found them in Carlos' room, aligned one behind the other in various sitting positions. Each faced the same direction, and they all had their hands on the shoulders of the person in front of them--except for Ashley, who sat at the front of the line.
Some bizarre Earth tradition? he wondered, watching them knead each other's shoulders and backs. What's the point?
"Andros!" TJ exclaimed, finally noticing his silent presence in the doorway. "Come on in, man!"
"Yeah, Andros," Cassie agreed, "you look like you could use a backrub as much as any of us."
Before he could answer, Ashley twisted a little to look at him and gesture. "C'mere; you can sit in front of me."
He hesitated, not sure how to decline gracefully. "Come on," Ashley insisted. "It feels great, I promise."
*Andrea: Was that pilates thing a video or a book?
Marci: It was a DVD.
Andros sighed. It looked like there was no getting out of it... and he was still curious as to the purpose of the exercise.
*Andrea: Oh, Andros. If only you knew how far your curiosity would take you.
Marci: You have to write that!
He entered the room cautiously, and lowered himself to the floor in front of Ashley, back turned as the rest of them had done.
Marci: Jesus Christ, it's a rabbit! Get in the Enterprise!
*Andrea: Oh no, I wrote "rabbi" instead of "rabbit"!
Marci: And you can totally see Carlos being like, "Whoa, Andros, bad rabbi associations?"
"I'm not as good as Carlos," she warned, the ever-present smile audible in her voice. "But I'll do my best."
He didn't know what she was talking about, but didn't want to embarrass himself by asking.
*Andrea: Yet another thing you should have googled first.
Marci: Well, the tricky thing is that... I have no idea. I said that hoping something would come to me, but nothing did.
Then her hands touched his shoulders, and Andros jumped.
"Hey, relax," Ashley said. "It's just a backrub."
"Haven't you had a backrub before?" Cassie asked from behind Carlos.
He just shook his head. He was too startled to attempt any other kind of reply.
"Well, we'll change that," Ashley told him, her tone decisive. She moved her hands over his shoulders, massaging muscles that only became more tense at her touch.
"Mmm," he heard Carlos murmur, "that feels good, Cassie; thanks."
"Anytime," she answered, and Andros wished he could turn around to see their faces.
Ashley sighed. "Andros, you're supposed to relax. Sheesh, you've got to be the tensest person I know."
*Andrea: And they all start giving him tips on how to relax. Coming from the Space team, I don't really know what to make of that.
Marci: Hey, they were very relaxed! They're the last... no, they're not. I was going to say, they were the last team, in your stories at least, to focus on going to school.
*Andrea: Yeah, that's true.
Marci: Was the Ninja Storm team in school? Yeah, because Dustin was doing that video thing for a school project.
*Andrea: No, that was just for fun, but there was some reference to it being a "school night."
Marci: They couldn't have been in school, then. They never did anything!
*Andrea: No kidding. There was some thought they might have been on summer vacation.
Marci: The whole time? That would make one heck of a "What I Did On My Summer Vacation" report.
"Sorry," he offered, not sure why that was a bad thing. Being tense meant you were alert, and being alert kept you alive.
"It's okay. Look, just forget whatever you're thinking about and concentrate on something soothing," Ashley instructed.
"Like rain," Cassie volunteered.
"Rain's not soothing," Carlos objected. "It's wet."
"It is too soothing," Cassie retorted, giving him a playful push.
"Try the stars," TJ spoke up. "That always works for me."
Marci: Where are we at? Didn't someone tell Andros to imagine water dripping into a pool?
*Andrea: Yeah, I just copied that part. TJ says to imagine rain. Oh, no, it was Cassie.
Marci: And then someone says it's not soothing, it's wet, right?
*Andrea: Yeah, Carlos says that, and then TJ tells him to think of stars. I'm impressed that you remembered that. I couldn't remember it even after I'd copied it.
Marci: Dude, do you know how many times I've read this story? Next they go down to the Surf Spot, and then Ashley comes back to the ship to get her sweatshirt, and she kisses Andros, and then she goes back to the Surf Spot, and they fight quantrons.
*Andrea: Sweet! I'm just going to write down your summary and then we'll be mostly done.
Marci: Greg is doing his blog post on kayaking.
Lynn: He hasn't done it yet?
Marci: No. He's writing about how he swallowed a yellow jacket.
*Andrea: This is Greg?
Marci: Yeah... he says the yellow jacket was in his beer, and he didn't see it, so he just swigged it down.
Lynn: I always forget that plantain is good for stings. So he didn't use the epi-pen?
Marci: Dave only has one epi-pen, and he was like, "You're not using the epi-pen. You're not dying."
Lynn: I'm going to go check on creatures. Thanks, Marci. It's been a very productive morning of online ordering for me.
Marci: I have to go check on my laundry.
Lynn: You know how the Hallmark Store has votive candles?
*Andrea: Okay, just so everyone knows, I'm fast forwarding through the part Marci just summarized. We'll pretend it's been playing in the background all this time.
Marci: I think that's an excellent plan.
Ashley nodded in agreement, and TJ sighed. "Let's get back to the ship."
Andros raised his left hand. "DECA," he told his morpher. "Five to teleport."
Lynn: What's a good price for a votive candle?
Back on the Megaship, the Rangers gathered on the Bridge while Andros played with the scanner controls. "Something's not right here," he muttered, pushing a few more keypads.
"Yeah," TJ agreed, "it's not like Astronema to send down quantrons without a plan."
Marci: What are you getting up to over there, *Andrea?
*Andrea: I'm just filling in bracketed parts around your summary so people know where we are. They all went back to the ship and now Andros thinks something isn't right. That's what made me laugh.
Marci: So did DECA fly the ship while they were all down on the planet? I never really thought about that.
*Andrea: Well, they were in orbit. How hard is it to keep a ship in orbit?
Marci: Um, I don't know.
*Andrea: Yes. I think DECA flew the ship.
Marci: DECA is awesome. Props for DECA. Ooh, hummingbird!
*Andrea: Purr?
In a move that surprised Carlos, Andros slammed his fist down on the console. "There has to be something we're missing!"
*Andrea: Hey, I just realized I could write a whole new story just by using excerpts from an old one! Like, see how those lines totally look like they follow each other? They didn't at all in the story, not that anyone would know since I've completely given up cutting and pasting the whole story.
Marci: Because if you did that, it would be a thousand pages long.
*Andrea: Plus we would die of old age.
Marci: By the way, the second half of this commentary is mostly made up comments. But we COULD have said them, and if we had, they would have been funny.
*Andrea: This would probably be more understandable if I specified somehow which comments I made up and which ones we had actually said.
Then the monster alert went off.
*Andrea: Or we could go weed. Thanks Marci! I appreciate all your help!
Marci: We can come back to it; I know we still have a lot more to go.
*Andrea: I'm just going to summarize the end the way you summarized the beginning. Basically they watch Monty Python and it's over.
Marci: Is that in this one? I think that's in the next one.
*Andrea: Oh, maybe they stay up late to watch it in the one where they can't sleep. Okay.
Marci: They watch it after they fight at the beach.
*Andrea: And in this one they fight in the park, you're right. After they fight at the Surf Spot. They fight a lot in the early stories.
Marci: Well, that was the premise of the series. That they were fighting a lot because Dark Spectre was trying to take over the universe.
"Wow!" the boy exclaimed. "This was the best birthday party ever!"
*Andrea: Hey, I think we might be good! This is the end!
Ashley nodded. "I'll walk you home, if you like," she offered.
*Andrea: Okay, I think we've pretty much covered this style of DVD commentating, the one where you talk and the show plays in the background and the two things have nothing to do with each other.
Marci: You should say something about something funny that happened to you while you were writing it. If anything did.
*Andrea: I took me like ten years to write it; I'm sure something funny happened in that time.
Marci: But this story, specifically.
*Andrea: I don't even remember writing this story, to tell the truth. I have no idea when I wrote it or why, let alone what might have happened while I was working on it. I have no recollection of it.
Oh... except the kid having the birthday party was originally named "Ryan." And I had just finished writing a story with Rayan in it, and so my computer at the time was set to auto-correct "Ryan" to "Rayan" because I kept typo-ing Rayan's name. Then when I was working on this story I figured it was more likely I'd write about Rayan again than this Ryan kid, so I didn't change the autocorrect. I changed Ryan's name instead. To Jeremy.
Then I realized I had just sent the story to an archive owner named Jeremy, so I e-mailed him to apologize for naming a small child after him and he wrote back and was like, "That's okay, I didn't notice." Except he said it in a nicer way with a smiley face.
Marci: There, see? You're done.
*Andrea: Couldn't have done it without you.
Marci: Well, no. That's true.
TJ saw Ryan look over his shoulder and wave more than once as they made their way slowly out of the park.
*Andrea: Bye everyone! Thanks for coming!
Marci: Applause!
*Andrea: Now I have to go back and see how long it is. Eight and a half pages. Compared to... about half a page of the actual story. That's a good ratio.
...
*Andrea: The funniest thing about this commentary is how it's a massive failure to commentary anything at all.
Marci: But it's good.
*Andrea: That's true.
THANK YOU MARCI AND LYNN FOR HELPING, AND EVERYONE ELSE FOR POLL-TAKING AND POLL-COMMENTING AND JUST GENERALLY BEING ENCOURAGING. I LOVE YOU ALL!
(...Hey, I just noticed his name is Ryan again! I wonder when I changed it back!)
*This is a first attempt at DVD commentary, representing one particular type (the unrelated to the story type, mostly). I'm hoping to try a couple other styles with different stories, just so I get a range of exposure to the phenomenon. Several people have mentioned specific stories they'd like to see be test subjects, so I'll be using those for future attempts ♥
Well. Let me tell you, I now have way more respect for the actresses/writers/assistants who get conscripted to do the commentaries on season box sets and so forth. Staying on track = NOT EASY. Also, picking a story from ten years ago had the unexpected problem of the author not being able to remember what it was about.
Luckily Marci volunteered to help me, so grand credi to her: she is in fact the only reason this got done at all. Lynn wandered through and agreed to participate (she's like the Torri Higginson of this scene), so extra credi to her for being a good sport.
with *Andrea, Marci, and Lynn
*Andrea: I should go back and read the first "First" story so I can think about it. And be horrified.
Marci: I think you should read it out loud and we can react to it as you go.
*Andrea: You want to do that right now?
Marci: Yes! We should do it all at once; I don't think you should read it first.
*Andrea: Okay. Wait, I have to write that down.
Marci: And I'll do something else at the same time, so there will be random things thrown in.
*Andrea: I need to find a faster way to abbreviate our names. We should do a podcast, it would be faster.
Marci: That would be awesome. And then I think you should write at the top of the commentary, HI, MY DVD COMMENTARY IS AN INTERESTING ONE UNLIKE ALL THE OTHER BORING ONES YOU PROBABLY READ FIRST. In all caps.
*Andrea: I'm writing that right now. Oops, I wrote MY DVD COMMENTARY IS AN OBVIOUS ONE instead.
Marci: That too! You don't want it to be obscure!
First Kiss ~ The Astro Rangers spend their summer vacation in space.
*Andrea: That summary doesn't really work with that title.
Marci: Well, it does if you assume they were all kissing in space. It's funny, though, what I remember most about the story is them fighting on Earth.
*Andrea: I wrote that summary years after I wrote the story, because it was specific to my new website. I was like, "Well, anyone reading it already knows what 'First Kiss' is, and if they don't, I probably can't explain it anyway."
Marci: I would have given up and been like, "This is the first 'First' series." Very meta.
*Andrea: "This sentence is the title of the story and is also found several times in the story itself."
Marci: Okay, one of the key phrases for the book Foraging New England is "trail nibble." I don't know how I feel about that.
*Andrea: I'm going to go wash my dishes.
Marci: There you go, funny commentary about what you're doing while you commentary!
*Andrea: I think it means I'm already bored and I've only typed the title.
...
*Andrea: Okay, so you've ordered a book, I've let the dog out and given her an eyedrop. What else have you done?
Marci: I... ate a hard-boiled egg?
*Andrea: I should type a line from the story so it's like we've started.
Marci: And I need to check my laundry.
*Andrea: I'll just type the first line.
Marci: But the first line is the most awesome line!
"Man, those quantrons were tough," TJ declared as they demorphed.
Marci: Best line ever! Plus, it starts the saga, you know?
Lynn: Where did I leave my little black notebook, does anyone know?
Marci: I don't know.
Lynn: I had some notes written in there.
*Andrea: You're going to be in our commentary now. Just so you know.
Lynn: Well now I don't dare say anything.
Marci: We need another $2.75 to get free shipping. What was that book you were looking for? Herbal Medicine?
Lynn: ...Maybe we should get The Best of Christmas, it's cheaper.
Marci: It has nothing to do with anything. I don't even know how it got on this list.
Lynn: Well, all of these are more expensive than we want. I'll try to trip over them at a booksale somewhere.
Marci: I'm sure we can come up with something.
Lynn: I'm sure as soon as you find something you want, I'll come up with something I want. A lot.
Marci: This is an actual review: "I'm a scientist, I don't believe in magick," but they spell "magick" with a "k." You liar.
Lynn: Juniper, grapefruit, and heliotrope.
Marci: So how far have you gotten in the story?
Lynn: She doesn't even need to do anything; she can just write down what we say and it will be funny.
*Andrea: Yes, actually.
Lynn: Well, I'm not saying anything else.
Marci: Too late!
*Andrea: I can only type 90 words a minute, don't worry.
Lynn: Did you copy that down? Whinnie scratching under the table?
*Andrea: No, but I will now.
Marci: "Dog makes irritating noises under the table."
Lynn: "Lynn calls attention to dog destroying the rug."
Marci: Wow, this is really confusing. I feel like I need a card set to divine what they're saying about this card set.
"You're just out of shape," Cassie teased, springing down the steps of the Megaship to the deck below their Glider tubes.
Marci: All of life is a game. That's what I learned from that guy who ran the Rec Room on the Enterprise.
*Andrea: Diane Duane, Spock's World. And The Wounded Sky.
Marci: Ken, or something.
*Andrea: Harb Tanzer.
Marci: Right.
"Either way," Carlos interjected, "That was not what I had in mind for my morning workout."
Lynn: Well, this deck is high on my list for some reason. It's supposed to be very usable.
Ashley stretched her arms above her head, then rotated her shoulders with an ease that made the stretch look unnecessary. "I'm with you, Carlos. Even morphed, I took some serious blows from those guys.
*Andrea: I'm just copying down lines from the story while you're talking.
Marci: You haven't been reading them out loud! You have to toss them into the conversational pool!
*Andrea: Um... it's mostly just them complaining that they didn't want to do any work this morning. Which is strangely appropriate. But here, I can read this out loud.
Already on his way out the door, Andros rolled his eyes. He couldn't help it.
*Andrea: Because I was ten when I wrote this, and I thought people couldn't help rolling their eyes. Which is true, if you're me.
Marci: I vastly overuse eye-rolling in my stories.
*Andrea: ...Unfortunately I can't remember what you said after that.
Marci: Probably for the best.
Lynn: How do I forward an e-mail?
Something about Ashley Hammond made it impossible to take her seriously.
*Andrea: This story is so perfect for our conversation!
Marci: You know what's awesome? This story, compared to the most recent First story... if only Andros could see, years down the road. He would be rolling his eyes like whoa.
*Andrea: Oh, but see, he loves her:
No matter what she said she could contradict it at a moment's notice, and no matter how much she complained, she'd be in there swinging whenever they needed her.
Marci: Aw... You know, he thought that about Zhane once, too. And then he locked him up in a room on the Megaship.
*Andrea: After Zhane died saving him!
Marci: I'm just saying, nothing lasts forever, Andros. Also, now that we've finished our shopping, Amazon thinks maybe we'd like to add a hundred-dollar gift certificate to our order. Apparently other people who've bought the things we've bought also liked that.
"I'll be lucky if I'm not stiff as a board by lunchtime," TJ commented, and as Andros escaped into the hallway and headed for the Bridge, he heard Ashley's irritatingly cheery reply.
Marci: I love thinking about the Space team in their little... outfits. ...That went to a weird place with that little pause in there.
Lynn: Well, I'm just glad I didn't say it.
Marci: Can you imagine them meeting Gem and Gemma?
*Andrea: Oh my gosh, that would be awesome. They would love each other.
"Who wants a backrub?"
*Andrea: "Who wants a backrub?" That's the part we're at now.
Marci: Excellent! So we've made it, what, a paragraph?
*Andrea: Yes.
Marci: Only nineteen and three-quarters pages left to go.
*Andrea: We might have to skip ahead a little.
Marci: But the backrub circle, that's key.
*Andrea: Maybe we could review that all at once.
Marci: I appreciate the fact that your stories are so angst-free. I mean, especially with Andros and his terrible angsty past, but no! A movie night or two and he's fine! Teenagers get over these things.
*Andrea: And if they have friends, they get over things faster. Or their friends cause them more angst they have to get over. Often both.
Marci: This kind of reminds me of when we were audio-taping "Greatest American Hero," and you could hear Mom and Dad setting the table in the background.
*Andrea: It's like those DVD commentaries on TV shows where everyone starts talking about something else while the show keeps playing in the background, and you're like, "You're not even talking about the show anymore!" But it keeps playing. This doesn't keep playing unless I keep copying it. Clearly I should copy more.
Marci: Yes. Also, recommended for people who bought Season 3 of "MacGyver": four emergency blankets. And "Pilates: Precision Sculpting and Toning."
Andros shook his head. I don't think I even want to know, he thought, but his curiosity got the best of him. When he'd finished the routine Bridge chores, he wandered down past the Rangers' living quarters, looking for the others.
He found them in Carlos' room, aligned one behind the other in various sitting positions. Each faced the same direction, and they all had their hands on the shoulders of the person in front of them--except for Ashley, who sat at the front of the line.
Some bizarre Earth tradition? he wondered, watching them knead each other's shoulders and backs. What's the point?
"Andros!" TJ exclaimed, finally noticing his silent presence in the doorway. "Come on in, man!"
"Yeah, Andros," Cassie agreed, "you look like you could use a backrub as much as any of us."
Before he could answer, Ashley twisted a little to look at him and gesture. "C'mere; you can sit in front of me."
He hesitated, not sure how to decline gracefully. "Come on," Ashley insisted. "It feels great, I promise."
*Andrea: Was that pilates thing a video or a book?
Marci: It was a DVD.
Andros sighed. It looked like there was no getting out of it... and he was still curious as to the purpose of the exercise.
*Andrea: Oh, Andros. If only you knew how far your curiosity would take you.
Marci: You have to write that!
He entered the room cautiously, and lowered himself to the floor in front of Ashley, back turned as the rest of them had done.
Marci: Jesus Christ, it's a rabbit! Get in the Enterprise!
*Andrea: Oh no, I wrote "rabbi" instead of "rabbit"!
Marci: And you can totally see Carlos being like, "Whoa, Andros, bad rabbi associations?"
"I'm not as good as Carlos," she warned, the ever-present smile audible in her voice. "But I'll do my best."
He didn't know what she was talking about, but didn't want to embarrass himself by asking.
*Andrea: Yet another thing you should have googled first.
Marci: Well, the tricky thing is that... I have no idea. I said that hoping something would come to me, but nothing did.
Then her hands touched his shoulders, and Andros jumped.
"Hey, relax," Ashley said. "It's just a backrub."
"Haven't you had a backrub before?" Cassie asked from behind Carlos.
He just shook his head. He was too startled to attempt any other kind of reply.
"Well, we'll change that," Ashley told him, her tone decisive. She moved her hands over his shoulders, massaging muscles that only became more tense at her touch.
"Mmm," he heard Carlos murmur, "that feels good, Cassie; thanks."
"Anytime," she answered, and Andros wished he could turn around to see their faces.
Ashley sighed. "Andros, you're supposed to relax. Sheesh, you've got to be the tensest person I know."
*Andrea: And they all start giving him tips on how to relax. Coming from the Space team, I don't really know what to make of that.
Marci: Hey, they were very relaxed! They're the last... no, they're not. I was going to say, they were the last team, in your stories at least, to focus on going to school.
*Andrea: Yeah, that's true.
Marci: Was the Ninja Storm team in school? Yeah, because Dustin was doing that video thing for a school project.
*Andrea: No, that was just for fun, but there was some reference to it being a "school night."
Marci: They couldn't have been in school, then. They never did anything!
*Andrea: No kidding. There was some thought they might have been on summer vacation.
Marci: The whole time? That would make one heck of a "What I Did On My Summer Vacation" report.
"Sorry," he offered, not sure why that was a bad thing. Being tense meant you were alert, and being alert kept you alive.
"It's okay. Look, just forget whatever you're thinking about and concentrate on something soothing," Ashley instructed.
"Like rain," Cassie volunteered.
"Rain's not soothing," Carlos objected. "It's wet."
"It is too soothing," Cassie retorted, giving him a playful push.
"Try the stars," TJ spoke up. "That always works for me."
Marci: Where are we at? Didn't someone tell Andros to imagine water dripping into a pool?
*Andrea: Yeah, I just copied that part. TJ says to imagine rain. Oh, no, it was Cassie.
Marci: And then someone says it's not soothing, it's wet, right?
*Andrea: Yeah, Carlos says that, and then TJ tells him to think of stars. I'm impressed that you remembered that. I couldn't remember it even after I'd copied it.
Marci: Dude, do you know how many times I've read this story? Next they go down to the Surf Spot, and then Ashley comes back to the ship to get her sweatshirt, and she kisses Andros, and then she goes back to the Surf Spot, and they fight quantrons.
*Andrea: Sweet! I'm just going to write down your summary and then we'll be mostly done.
Marci: Greg is doing his blog post on kayaking.
Lynn: He hasn't done it yet?
Marci: No. He's writing about how he swallowed a yellow jacket.
*Andrea: This is Greg?
Marci: Yeah... he says the yellow jacket was in his beer, and he didn't see it, so he just swigged it down.
Lynn: I always forget that plantain is good for stings. So he didn't use the epi-pen?
Marci: Dave only has one epi-pen, and he was like, "You're not using the epi-pen. You're not dying."
Lynn: I'm going to go check on creatures. Thanks, Marci. It's been a very productive morning of online ordering for me.
Marci: I have to go check on my laundry.
Lynn: You know how the Hallmark Store has votive candles?
*Andrea: Okay, just so everyone knows, I'm fast forwarding through the part Marci just summarized. We'll pretend it's been playing in the background all this time.
Marci: I think that's an excellent plan.
Ashley nodded in agreement, and TJ sighed. "Let's get back to the ship."
Andros raised his left hand. "DECA," he told his morpher. "Five to teleport."
Lynn: What's a good price for a votive candle?
Back on the Megaship, the Rangers gathered on the Bridge while Andros played with the scanner controls. "Something's not right here," he muttered, pushing a few more keypads.
"Yeah," TJ agreed, "it's not like Astronema to send down quantrons without a plan."
Marci: What are you getting up to over there, *Andrea?
*Andrea: I'm just filling in bracketed parts around your summary so people know where we are. They all went back to the ship and now Andros thinks something isn't right. That's what made me laugh.
Marci: So did DECA fly the ship while they were all down on the planet? I never really thought about that.
*Andrea: Well, they were in orbit. How hard is it to keep a ship in orbit?
Marci: Um, I don't know.
*Andrea: Yes. I think DECA flew the ship.
Marci: DECA is awesome. Props for DECA. Ooh, hummingbird!
*Andrea: Purr?
In a move that surprised Carlos, Andros slammed his fist down on the console. "There has to be something we're missing!"
*Andrea: Hey, I just realized I could write a whole new story just by using excerpts from an old one! Like, see how those lines totally look like they follow each other? They didn't at all in the story, not that anyone would know since I've completely given up cutting and pasting the whole story.
Marci: Because if you did that, it would be a thousand pages long.
*Andrea: Plus we would die of old age.
Marci: By the way, the second half of this commentary is mostly made up comments. But we COULD have said them, and if we had, they would have been funny.
*Andrea: This would probably be more understandable if I specified somehow which comments I made up and which ones we had actually said.
Then the monster alert went off.
*Andrea: Or we could go weed. Thanks Marci! I appreciate all your help!
Marci: We can come back to it; I know we still have a lot more to go.
*Andrea: I'm just going to summarize the end the way you summarized the beginning. Basically they watch Monty Python and it's over.
Marci: Is that in this one? I think that's in the next one.
*Andrea: Oh, maybe they stay up late to watch it in the one where they can't sleep. Okay.
Marci: They watch it after they fight at the beach.
*Andrea: And in this one they fight in the park, you're right. After they fight at the Surf Spot. They fight a lot in the early stories.
Marci: Well, that was the premise of the series. That they were fighting a lot because Dark Spectre was trying to take over the universe.
"Wow!" the boy exclaimed. "This was the best birthday party ever!"
*Andrea: Hey, I think we might be good! This is the end!
Ashley nodded. "I'll walk you home, if you like," she offered.
*Andrea: Okay, I think we've pretty much covered this style of DVD commentating, the one where you talk and the show plays in the background and the two things have nothing to do with each other.
Marci: You should say something about something funny that happened to you while you were writing it. If anything did.
*Andrea: I took me like ten years to write it; I'm sure something funny happened in that time.
Marci: But this story, specifically.
*Andrea: I don't even remember writing this story, to tell the truth. I have no idea when I wrote it or why, let alone what might have happened while I was working on it. I have no recollection of it.
Oh... except the kid having the birthday party was originally named "Ryan." And I had just finished writing a story with Rayan in it, and so my computer at the time was set to auto-correct "Ryan" to "Rayan" because I kept typo-ing Rayan's name. Then when I was working on this story I figured it was more likely I'd write about Rayan again than this Ryan kid, so I didn't change the autocorrect. I changed Ryan's name instead. To Jeremy.
Then I realized I had just sent the story to an archive owner named Jeremy, so I e-mailed him to apologize for naming a small child after him and he wrote back and was like, "That's okay, I didn't notice." Except he said it in a nicer way with a smiley face.
Marci: There, see? You're done.
*Andrea: Couldn't have done it without you.
Marci: Well, no. That's true.
TJ saw Ryan look over his shoulder and wave more than once as they made their way slowly out of the park.
*Andrea: Bye everyone! Thanks for coming!
Marci: Applause!
*Andrea: Now I have to go back and see how long it is. Eight and a half pages. Compared to... about half a page of the actual story. That's a good ratio.
...
*Andrea: The funniest thing about this commentary is how it's a massive failure to commentary anything at all.
Marci: But it's good.
*Andrea: That's true.
THANK YOU MARCI AND LYNN FOR HELPING, AND EVERYONE ELSE FOR POLL-TAKING AND POLL-COMMENTING AND JUST GENERALLY BEING ENCOURAGING. I LOVE YOU ALL!
(...Hey, I just noticed his name is Ryan again! I wonder when I changed it back!)
*This is a first attempt at DVD commentary, representing one particular type (the unrelated to the story type, mostly). I'm hoping to try a couple other styles with different stories, just so I get a range of exposure to the phenomenon. Several people have mentioned specific stories they'd like to see be test subjects, so I'll be using those for future attempts ♥
no subject
Date: 2009-08-13 11:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-14 02:27 am (UTC)I was so gonna point out that the name was again there. I know the 2 lines where right next to each other, but my attentnion span is in the negatives, so the fact that I noticed that really gives your commentaty point. ^_^
I can't wait for more comentaries! ♥
no subject
Date: 2009-08-14 02:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-14 12:23 pm (UTC)There were eighteen candles on Tori's birthday cake, and she was the one complaining about it being a school night. So either she's a year younger than Shane and Dustin, or they're all in high school and she's the only one who cares. Either option is workable with canon.
And in this one they fight in the park, you're right. After they fight at the Surf Spot. They fight a lot in the early stories.
And you had good battle sequences there, too! The one I particularly remember is - were those Ashley and Andros or Casey and Saryn who rescued Zordon from Divatox's ship? Possibly the former pair but the latter stole the show, because it was the first time Saryn demorphed. Or Casey being shot down over Aquitar, and I have some recollection of quantrons in a playground.
It's not that I don't miss a little more combat content (because it is part of PR, and sometimes glossing over it feels odd), but what you focus on now seems to be more deeply You. And as fun as battle sequences can be, in terms of reading communication seems to me to trigger more thought. Which is good.
ETA: you didn't leave a comment over at my place and this seemed a reasonable other place, so. 'nyway, I do know you enough to be familiar with your concept of "meme tagging" and correctly apply it in context. Technically, you started this meme (and I made my request of either Sparkles or anything with Jack and Sky in it), and I replied and you made your choice of TSoM or the multifacet identity of P:A. So it's all good ♥.