The Winter Court of the Insane, Philosophical Ladybug

So I haven't been happy with G5 of My Little Pony ever since the info came out about all the Pony races being separate. Totally depressing enough, but at least it was supposed to be a new verse. Now more info shows that it's the G4 verse way in the future. Twilight and company are still alive, apparently, as they're going to be in it in supporting roles or something, last I heard, and come on, you know they'd never stand for something like that happening. They must be missing or trapped or something and the new main characters will have to find them. Ugh. I most likely will refuse to accept G5 as canon unless I can think of it as AU. I already don't accept season nine of G4 as canon. The quality was really low, as seen especially in episodes like Cheese Sandwich's second one. I watched it back to back with his first episode and the quality difference was absolutely glaring. The first episode was him and Pinkie wanting to make people happy with special parties tailored to each Pony's interests. The second was just stupid, about him running a prank factory and mentioning very little about the special parties.

Thinking about anything Pony-related of course makes me think of JP and how I can't share these things with him anymore. I'm so upset about his death that I can't even deal with it; my mind has literally subconsciously locked the memories and the pain away. If I think about him too long, it breaks the seal and I usually end up crying again. I just can't comprehend that he's no longer here, that all the late-night conversations and him wanting to share his latest interests is all a thing of the past.

This year is horrible and the summer especially has been nightmare after nightmare. Mom and I came down sick for a month. I don't think it was Covid because we didn't seem to have the symptoms. I really think it was a normal flu. (Of course, I realize sometimes that cursed virus manifests itself as a flu-like thing. If we did have it, our experience must have been middle of the road. It wasn't mild like some lucky people had it, but it wasn't the most severe either.) I definitely remember feeling horrible like that sometimes as a kid. Then Dad falls right in the driveway and breaks his hip so badly he has to have a hip replacement. He's recovering amazingly well and is able to be home, but now our home has become a hospital ward and people think they can troup in day and night to visit, even when he's trying to sleep. Sometimes they want to rearrange things the way they want them, whether we want it done or not. I hope Dad was firm enough now that it won't happen anymore. Yesterday was a chaotic nightmare and I was so exhausted. It's hard to get things done that actually need doing when there's so many people in and out all the time.

A family tragedy happened where a cousin suddenly had a heart attack and died, leaving his wife and many kids, some of whom are still young. His mother was having so many health problems that she couldn't even be told for a while because her condition was too delicate and they thought she might have a heart attack too. They were finally able to tell her and the funeral was this past Sunday and Monday. No one was told until the last minute and of course we weren't in any position to go, even if someone invited us. I was so upset about the death that I couldn't even process it at first. It just seemed too unreal, too unfair and horrible. He always struggled so hard to provide for his family, sometimes working multiple jobs.

There are other things happening too that I don't want to talk about.

I would much rather deal with Covid lockdown stress than any of what's happened this year. And fandom hasn't always been the escape for me that it usually is because I've been having some problems there too.

Screw you, 2021.

Last night I wanted to watch something new and ended up watching the live-action Dora movie. I thought it looked exciting and might give me plunnies. I didn't get any plunnies, and I have mixed feelings on the film. It was a basically great adventure, but I have to wonder who the target audience was. Was it kids who watched the cartoon and are adults now? There were jokes that were not appropriate for kids, like scorpions deciding to mate on a guy's head. And I'm not sure I've ever seen a movie so crude. (I know there's worse ones, but I haven't seen them.) There was a whole sequence about a girl needing to go to the bathroom in the jungle and Dora making up a song about it to try to comfort her. Okay, so that's a realistic problem that would definitely happen in such circumstances, but seriously?! Do we really need that kind of realism, especially in a kids' movie? Does any parent really want their kid walking around singing a song about digging a hole to go to the bathroom?

My other main problem is that it left things confusing as to what was real and what wasn't. It supposedly continues from the cartoon, but it acts like everything from it was in Dora's imagination. I hate that approach. It's like a slap in the face to all the kids who loved the cartoon, basically telling them that even within the verse of the show, it's not really real. It would be like Gabriella or some other human character on Sesame Street saying none of that's real and they were just daydreaming every episode. Okay, granted, if there were really talking maps and backpacks, the movie would have been extremely cheesy, but still. They also address Dora talking to the audience and have everyone confused about who she's talking to. That and some other things, like the bathroom song and Dora talking about a poisonous frog, make it seem like a parody of itself.

But then here's the confusing part: the fox character is suddenly revealed as real and is working for the villains. So if the fox is real, are the other things real or not? The movie acts like they're not, and yet the ambiguity is baffling. I know, it's not the kind of movie you can really take too seriously, and yet I can't not think about it.

And honestly, I've never even seen the cartoon, lol. But it sounds like from what I read about it that it doesn't take the approach that everything is only in Dora's imagination. I don't think I accept the movie as a continuation. They're separate verses to me.

Meanwhile, I cannot make myself start writing the scene I wanted to where Lector encounters Kalin Kessler having time and dimension traveled. I think it's because even though I've come to love the 5Ds characters, I just cannot reconcile what happened to their Domino City with the classic series. MoonlightTyger voiced one of my big problems: that there's no way many or any of the original cast are still around and alright. They wouldn't have just done nothing during the 5Ds era disasters. Seto must have lost his mind to create Turbo Duels and allow the totalitarian separation of New Domino City and Satellite. Seriously, you can't even face your opponents when Turbo Dueling. It just doesn't sound like something Seto would create at all. Why on Earth did they decide to set that series in Domino? If it was just somewhere else, there'd be no problem. I find myself repeatedly frustrated that I like the characters so much when there's this issue, because as a devoted classic YGO fan who doesn't want to see Domino City wasted, it is very difficult to deal with liking 5Ds!

Does anyone use Fire tablets, and type on them? I have the most horrible time typing on mine. I turned off Autocorrect, but I'm still having weird problems. It spaces after opening quotation marks, tries to make new paragraphs start with lower-case letters, and if I type a word wrong and go back to fix the typo, it will split the word in half at the point where I'm fixing it. Does anyone else have this problem? It is absolutely maddening! I did a little research and learned that some people having typing issues with Fires, but the described problems don't sound anything like mine. I wonder if it's a browser problem, but I can't see anything to even change the settings of the Silk browser.

And fic-wise, I've been pondering on what human Duel Monsters the Big Five might be able to portray, like if I ever did a fic where they ended up thrust into the game body and soul (or if I wanted to do some fun drawing exercises, like I did with the bikers years ago). Lector would probably be great as the White Magical Hat, and maybe Nesbitt as Cyber Commander (albeit I would remove the face plate so it wouldn't be covering half his face), but I can't think of anything for the others. Possibly contemplated Johnson playing Chow Len the Prophet.... I did have a cracky idea of Crump possibly put in as a human version of Nightmare Penguin, and his reaction is basically, "Seriously?!" But I'd rather find a human Duel Monster character.

Also keep pondering on doing a story with them in Capsule Monsters, and in the arc there's five trials to test one's intelligence and skills, and it would be interesting if there was a test for each of them in the fic, something specifically tailored to them and their personalities that they would have to pass. Not sure what said tests would be like, though, or what they would test....

So this past day was real fun. **sarcasm.** I wanted to play Duel Links so badly that I fought for hours to get Steam to work so I could play the PC version. Steam never cooperated. I don't know whether something messed up in the download or if there were just too many people signed in at once, but I had a horrible time connecting to the servers to even just sign in, and then whenever I got in, I couldn't get it to connect to the servers to start a download of Duel Links. **headdesk.** I tried switching my download region several times, I made sure Avast and Windows Firewall weren't blocking anything, I tried again after booting the computer up fresh later in the day ... all to no avail. Finally I uninstalled out of disgust. I don't know whether to bother reinstalling and seeing whether I had a faulty installation the first time. Even if I get it to work right, there's no guarantee the game will work. Technically, it says it will only run starting on the next OS up from mine. But Steam itself said it will run on my OS, so that's why I tried installing it. I thought the game would probably play through the Steam app and therefore might possibly work. But I didn't even get the chance to try and see if it would. We do have computers in the house that run on Windows 10 instead, but those are Dad's computers and I'd rather have the game on a computer that's mine. But don't think I haven't been tempted to try anyway. UGH.

(I have wondered if the thing's inability to download the game has anything to do with the fact that for some bizarre reason, the computer switched to not allowing me to download updates from inside programs several months ago. I have to remember to go to the Flash website and download the full version of the update every time there is one, instead of just being able to click the little gray box when it pops up, like I used to. I have no idea what happened. I didn't change my antivirus or firewall programs around that time. Heh, I can't even update from within my antivirus program, so it would be hilariously ironic if it's the culprit. I think I tried disabling it and the problem still happened, though. But regardless, even if that's why it couldn't connect to the servers to get the game, that wouldn't explain why it also couldn't connect to the servers to sign in in the first place!)

Then I went back to the idea of maybe getting the $30 Smartphone from Walmart that Dad has and see if I could play the game on that. I've been considering the Smartphone for a while for several reasons, but right now, wanting the game so badly is the main one. It would be like buying a portable gaming system, heh. I don't need a Smartphone, since I have a working phone and my precious tablet, but the tablet can't play the game. Anyway, so I wanted to make sure the game was compatible with that phone before buying it, so I asked Dad to let me just check something a minute. Unfortunately, he wasn't signed in on his Google account and it wouldn't let me even see something so simple in the Play Store without being signed in. He doesn't really use Google and I figured he wouldn't remember his sign-in info, and he didn't deny that when I pointed it out after he offered to sign in, so I finally gave up and signed in, figuring I could easily sign out after checking. Oh brother, was I wrong. #(&$#(&$ Google wouldn't let me out once I was signed in! There were instructions on how to sign out of the Play Store and they didn't work. It was outrageous! Finally, the only way I could sign out was to sign in on the phone's browser and delete the phone from the recent devices on my account. UGH! I hate Google. Problem is, they operate several things I really like, from YouTube to Blogger to Google Sites. And my tablet has an Android OS. I can't get away from Google. And the game is compatible with the phone, so I seriously want it now. It doesn't look like anything else will work for me to be able to play it.

Then there's my longing of merchandise.... I still can't find the Yami Bakura Hexor or get the pin the rare times I see it, but I turned up a seller on eBay who has the Seto and Yami Bakura magnets, as well as magnets of other characters. There's enough of them to make me feel like the price is worth it. There are even doubles of some of them, so I might be able to do some gifting with the extras. And the price has just lowered! I think I'm the only one interested, so even though it's been turned into an auction instead of a Buy It Now, I'm hoping I can snag it. But I really shouldn't get both it and the phone right now, so now I'm stuck in another dilemma. I don't want to miss out on the magnets. I had previously sort of decided I couldn't afford the lot, but then I got a real good look at everything in it when I looked on the laptop. The app just doesn't magnify things as nicely as the website does. Once I really saw everything I'd be getting, I felt the price was worth it.

If only the PC version of Duel Links would work, that would solve everything. I could get the magnets and not worry about the phone right now.

Oh well, I guess at least I can feel relieved that my burning desire isn't to buy that Yami Bakura figure that's over $100. Gah. Making the plushie has soothed that urge. Plushie's certainly more cuddly than the figure anyway. But I love that dynamic pose....

You know what's kind of creepy/weird about the plushie? I noticed that there's a long pinkish-red mark on the left arm, right near where the knife wound was on the show/in the manga. I have no idea how it got there. I didn't put it there. I didn't bleed on the plushie (although I got needle-stabbed several times). And I don't remember it being there when I first got the plushie home (although it must have been). I tried to take a picture of it, but it didn't show up well enough to be worth posting. Seriously, though, that is CREEPY.

Also creepy is that I watched Yami Bakura's duel against Bonz (again) and then the Arkana duel and got this really bizarre and weird plunnie of Yami Marik trapping Bakura as a Duel Monsters character in a duel (maybe other characters too) and then forcing Yami Bakura to play against him, Yami Marik. And eventually during the duel, Yami Marik gets hold of the Ectoplasmer card and wants to extract Bakura's soul and attack Yami Bakura with it. Yami Bakura is horrified and outraged. He tries to prevent that from happening, but fails. Only Bakura manages to fight back himself and instead of attacking Yami Bakura, he protects him and prevents another attack of Yami Marik's from getting through. Eventually Yami Bakura manages to win and Bakura's soul is restored, of course. They're both pretty badly shaken by the experience, although I think it affects Yami Bakura the most. I'll probably write that as a blurb. I doubt it will go into the current fic, although who knows what might happen. I'd kind of prefer it to be a oneshot unto itself, though. I really like having Yami Marik and Yami Bakura as arch-enemies. I really felt rather sad they never had another clash, especially after their intriguing parting words in the manga version of their duel.

I just love when I add a scene to a story, then do something like have a character come back from the kitchen before he's gone to the kitchen.

I.E., the scene originally had him taking ice to the kitchen. Then I realized I didn't specify he came back, so I tried inserting a sentence saying he came back ... and somehow I didn't realize that I'd inserted it at a point before he'd even left! Seriously? Seriously?!

At least I've fixed it now, but 25 people have already seen the screwy version. Maybe hopefully they were too focused on the overall plot to really notice....

(And yes, I do proofread my stuff. Repeatedly. Sometimes it doesn't go up for days because I'm still doing proofreads. But that scene was a last addition, spreading out something that had been summarized, and I thought everything was cool and I could upload the fic. Ugggh.)

I'm still working with that Turtles fic that was giving me trouble, and it still is giving me trouble. I have, thankfully, been able to get more scenes into it, though. But it's moving very slowly and my attention is still wandering. I'm anxious to do the class reunion story after this one. I already had ideas, and maybe yesterday did give me a little more inspiration too.

Now that I'm more awake than when I wrote the long post in the morning, I find I'm feeling more disappointed and sad about the shortness and understatedness of the class reunion. It seemed like so much work for such a little event. The dinner was wonderful, but like I said, it seemed like there wasn't much more than that and it seemed like it should have been a bigger affair when it was the last official reunion. Heck, the first time I went, they even had a bit with door prizes and stuff and we won a nice hardback novel by a popular local author! And then last year's fifties mini-concert.... This year there was a cute song written to celebrate, and one guy gave a nice speech and the class song was sung, and that was pretty much it besides the dinner. It's weird when milestone events aren't as big as previous ones. This was the last official reunion and there wasn't much to it. Same with the Scottish Festival when they did their 25th Anniversary celebration. It was so lackluster compared to the previous year. But eh, maybe when everybody's getting on so much by now, they were happy for a more low-key reunion.

Still kind of wanting that snow cane maker. Maybe I should see if Wal-Mart carries it and how much they charge. I wonder if they might clearance it as part of summer clearancing, if they have it at all. And I'll stay alert for any possible reason to get to the local K-Mart this week, both for the snow cane maker and also just because, well, I'd still like to say another Goodbye. Especially after seeing the disaster that was the other K-Mart. I don't really want that to be my last memory of the store. Mom's longing to get out somewhere, especially since she wasn't able to go on Saturday. Maybe Dad would be willing to take us to that town this coming week. It's not very far at all.

I also discovered that there is some distressing/holes in the Turtles shirt I got, but only on Leonardo. That makes me wonder if it's not supposed to be there and it's a damaged shirt. I tried so hard to find a good one. One had weird stains of something on it, which I immediately put back, and when I found the one I got I thought it was fine. I didn't realize I needed to check to make sure the picture wasn't damaged. I can't find it on F.Y.E.'s website to see what it looks like there and I wouldn't know how to find it anywhere else. There's just so many Turtles shirts out there. I have no idea when we might be able to go to the little F.Y.E. that's closer or if they'd even have the shirt, so maybe I should just say "Screw it" and start wearing it. It's not a lot of distressing, but if it's not supposed to be there then I wonder how durable the whole picture is. I really hate raised-up designs, since they can peel and flake and everything. The best kind is when it's imprinted right into the shirt's threads. The America shirt is like that, and some of my custom-made classic TV shirts.

I hope I won't regret that I didn't walk down the sidewalk from F.Y.E. and see if the Spirit Halloween store was open. Usually Halloween stores close at 8, so I figured it wasn't open, but there were lights and something was flashing in the window that could have been an Open sign. I was worried about taking a lot of time shopping, since I knew Dad wanted to get home and Mom would be worried, but also, I figured I should really check Wal-Mart's costume selection first, since a Halloween store would be more expensive. Wal-Mart should start getting Halloween stuff in within a week.