The Winter Court of the Insane, Philosophical Ladybug

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!

Sometimes I have characters I'm working with who fascinate me personality-wise but whom I'm not exactly swooning over. What usually tends to happen is that sooner or later, after writing for them and developing them for a long time, I end up crushing on them and then do the fangirl squee.

Like with Lector, I'll admit I didn't find him so physically attractive at first, although I was intrigued by his complex personality and found it fun to work with. Somewhere along the way, I ended up finding that he had my heart and then it was "Ohmygoshsqueeehe'scute!**glomp**" And (silent) fangirly squeals watching him in episodes. At the moment I'm in one of my states of wanting to leap over the moon because I'm so thrilled with him. LOL. (And maybe also because I was looking at somebody's YGO Tumblr who sounds like she's open for possible RPing and I'm excited at the thought of maybe asking her if she would RP with me. I only have one RP going in my life right now, but I used to have as many as half a dozen at once! I would love to get another one going.)

I have to admit, when I wrote the ficlet of Lector being bothered by Vivian, it opens with her just being fangirly and I was channeling my feelings for Lector into that scene. LOL. (I would love to stroke his hair and beard!) Of course later, when Vivian got gross and wanted Lector as a love slave and hurt Gansley to try to force Lector's hand, that was all her and not me.

I also scraped together some more money because I just had to get another picture from ElfBean right away. I am eagerly awaiting the results.

... And in one of my silly explorations of random stuff, I looked up an episode guide for OK K.O. (which I have never seen beyond a clip from the Sonic episode) and completely snarked at one called Let's Not Be Skeletons. The title is hilarious, and the plot is, some new device people are excited about starts turning them into skeletons and the main character has to let everyone know it's a dangerous device. Gee, you think?! **snarks.** ROTFLOL WTH.

So I found that season 4 of Monk is way better than season 6, although of course there were missteps there too. (Ugh, I'd totally forgotten how much I hate Mr. Monk Goes to the Office.) I think now that season 5 is probably where things really went wrong. Mr. Monk and the Actor was awful. I'd only remembered the hilarity of the movie casting a girl to play Randy, and how the real Randy and the Captain were just staring in slack-jawed disbelief over the movie Randi and Captain being romantically involved. ROTFLOL. And the nutty actor who got way too much into his parts. I'd forgotten that he went so completely nuts that he thought he was Monk and had to catch Trudy's killer, and stopping him caused Monk to have a horrible setback (which of course wasn't mentioned in any other episode). That wasn't funny in the least, but it felt like they were trying to play it as funny because he felt he had to see Dr. Kroger every day. That was heartbreaking, especially since at the beginning he actually felt ready to take a weekend vacation and by the end that was all shot! Ugh, that was just so cruel of the writers. I think it was also in season 5 where Harold and Monk had some dumb argument about who loved Dr. Kroger most, and then at the end Harold takes a bullet for Dr. Kroger and it's coming in at cheesy slow-motion and it was all so ridiculous. **rolls eyes.** Pretty much any time the show does slow-motion, I cringe.

We seem to have exhausted all Netflix discs that Dad and Mom would like to see, so since I don't like ordering discs if I'm the only one who wants to watch, we switched back to Streaming. Unfortunately, it's different than before; there's barely any classic TV anymore. We probably won't be keeping it for very long, so I'll have to soak up what I can of the wonderful kids' shows I want to see. With Streaming, I can definitely watch things that only I want to see.

First I watched a bunch of My Little Pony season 8, which I'd had trouble finding. I still have a little more of it to watch. Then I remembered they have The Real Ghostbusters, and I've been having a ball watching a lot of those. I've also watched some of the Miraculous Ladybug episodes I hadn't seen yet.

It didn't take long to remember about the Carmen Sandiego series, so I gave that a go. I was pretty lukewarm at the idea of reinventing her as a Saint-type character who only steals from the bad guys, but when I actually watched the show, I fell in love with said show. Now it's hard to think of going back to verses where Carmen is a cold-hearted criminal. (She is pretty one-dimensionally bad in World, honestly.) I still have three episodes to go on their very short season, but I love the show, the reinvention, and I want more. My only complaint is that the theme song is boring as heck.

Somehow I wandered into an anime Netflix dubbed called Glitter Force (or Smile PreCure in Japan) and decided to try it. I spotted so many things that were references to Sailor Moon (I assume in a love-letter way), but it was cute and sweet and fun and I've found myself watching quite a lot of it. I also might try to look up the eight episodes they cut for silly reasons (mostly that they couldn't figure out how to localize them, it seems). Honestly, I kind of love that it's localized, though, even with dumb episode removals. It makes me nostalgic, thinking of Saturday morning anime on broadcast channels. I miss those days so very much. Heh, even back then, I would far rather watch a cute magical girls show than something darker and depressing.

Of course, the irony is I am writing dark and depressing things sometimes. Did I mention the twisted abduction fic with Lector being taken by some nut who wants to get back at Gansley for firing him, and the nut then proceeds to send Gansley severed limbs claiming they're Lector's? Of course, they're not. Lector is physically alright, but he's being drugged and probably psychologically tormented. The Big Four, meanwhile, are going out of their minds. Eventually they find Lector safe, naturally. I wrote several scenes weeks ago when the bizarre urge first struck me, and in spite of worrying I'll traumatize whatever fanbase I have left, I have finally written a bare bones first draft of the whole story (minus epilogue stuff). I also want to insert scenes of the Big Four struggling to deal with this and maybe some flashbacks to when they each met Lector. If I really post this fic, I'm wondering if it should be rated M for thematic elements. I also wonder if I should have rated Taming the Darkness M.

Then there's me actually getting interested in an AU scenario that doesn't involve bringing back dead characters, which is a pretty rare thing, honestly. AU normally doesn't interest me in the least. But I started thinking of how Crump and Tea were both being frozen in their duel, and hence, it seemed like when Crump lost, he should have been frozen. Of course, that would have complicated things too much, and it might have seemed too dark for the good guys to leave him like that, but I started wondering what would happen if Noa insisted on enforcing it after Yugi and Tea left. He would probably make Crump freeze while in human form too, so he'd really suffer. Then the others would try to rescue him upon realizing he was missing, and Noa would tell them that if they won the Merger duel, he would free Crump and let them take the kids' bodies. But they lost, and Noa refused, and they tried to free Crump anyway, so he froze all of them as punishment. Then he went to duel Seto, and the duel with Yami Yugi happened too, and while Noa was trying to possess him, Yami Yugi saw the Big Fives' fates in Noa's mind, and why it had happened, and he wanted them free. Noa initially refuses, but when Gozaburo likes what Noa did and then promptly abandons Noa again to go blow up the world, Noa snaps and frees them to spite Gozaburo. And I'll be rewriting some of the last three Noa's Arc episodes. I want Lector to help Mokuba somehow, but I'm not sure how, because of course I still want Noa to possess Mokuba and Mokuba to resist and for that to be what gets Noa to try to save everyone instead of blowing them up. And I want someone to rewrite the program so Tristan will realize he still has his human form, instead of continuing to be tricked into thinking he's a robot monkey. I always hated that twist, and for some time I didn't want to re-watch the arc beyond Nesbitt's duel because of it. I've mellowed enough that I can tolerate it due to wanting to see other things that are going on, but I still don't like it. I had thought Noa or Nesbitt should give Tristan his body back, but maybe it should be Lector, or Lector and Nesbitt together, considering how Lector refused to give back the body after losing the Merger duel. That was probably his lowest moment.

I also got intrigued by the thought of What if Lector had found out that Gozaburo was abusing Seto, and Lector adopted both Seto and Mokuba to keep them safe? I probably wouldn't write that AU, as I kind of have my usual idea of "What's the point? Why should I work with AU when I could work with canon?" But on the other hand, it's so adorable to me that I might have to tinker with it a little bit. It makes me squee all over just thinking about it.

Back in my main timeline, I think I'm going ahead with my idea of Manga Yami Bakura falling into anime verse and putting some of the characters in a life-size Mario game. I'll probably do it as the next big fic after I finish posting the New Orleans one. Just one more full chapter and the epilogue left.

We have awesome movie gift cards given by my aunt and we decided to try seeing Mary Poppins Returns last month. There wasn't anything else in the theatres that sounded safe/like something we could all enjoy. I was lukewarm, since I rarely like musicals and wasn't particularly crazy about the first Mary Poppins film, but I ended up loving it. I keep playing the soundtrack over and over on my Amazon Music trial, and I'll want to buy it once the trial runs out.

I got two more plushies on that outing so I could make Crump and Johnson. I also got the Sabrina doll from Charlie's Angels and a Chachi doll from Happy Days. Squeee! I'm not big on Happy Days, but I love Scott Baio, so Scott Baio merchandise must be mine!

I have the Big Four plushies semi-made by now; I have everything done but their shirts (and suitcoats and ties, if I feel like going all the way making suits). I used the black velvety material I used for Duke's scalp on both Crump and Johnson, and a scrap of leftover black fake fur for Crump's mustache. I gave them clothing scrap ponchos so they can be around, especially since I'm really dragging my feet on the shirts. I really hate sewing anything with sleeves. I have Gansley's shirt largely done, though, so I need to finish it and move on to the next one.

I also finally found a giant ladybug plushie at Walmart again! They only come out for Valentine's, and I haven't seen them in years. We tried so hard to get one the last time they did it, but they sold out within days. This time around, there have always been some there since they first showed up. But I didn't think there'd be money for that, and I didn't have money to spare to buy it, only I woke up Tuesday morning thinking, "What am I thinking? I don't want to pass that up when they finally have them again!" So I went to Walmart to try to get one ... only the only two I could find left were both torn, WTH. I was about to give up when I remembered that I'd seen some getting randomly put where they didn't belong, in some big basket bins and boxes of animals. I started looking through those and finally saw a flash of red in one. To my delight, it was another ladybug, and one that wasn't torn anywhere! I bought it. Then to my further surprise, Dad noticed and suggested that he buy it from me and give it to me on Valentine's Day. LOL. That was great with me, since I really couldn't afford to spend the money.

I have had some weird and fun dreams the last couple of days. First it was a dream that had a segment where we were either watching or attending (I think it was watching on TV) Beetlejuice and Lydia getting married. Kind of WTH out of the blue, as my only recent association with the series has been seeing the boxset in Walmart. But I guess that was enough to get my mind thinking about things again. (I've contemplated getting the set, but when I read through the episode guide I wasn't sure there were enough episodes that sounded good instead of WTH material. It seemed like the pre-syndication episodes had a higher concentration of good ones, while the syndication ones were often WTH. And the syndication ones are the bulk of the series. So as much as part of me kind of wants to get it, I'm not sure I ever will. On the other hand, since I keep kind of wanting to, maybe it will happen someday.)

Then the dream shifted and I was watching The Rockford Files and found that there was another episode with Ginger and Lou, but they were played by different people and didn't even look much like themselves. It was a weird mish-mash, as it was supposedly a more recently made episode, yet Jim looked the same, and I projected that the reason there were different guest-stars was because both Christopher Cary and Luke Andreas had died. The dream was oddly interesting and amusing, with them seeming to be on okay terms with Jim, but they'd gotten mixed up in some fraud scheme and were being arrested. I think they got bailed out and were talking to Jim later.

This past day I had a dream of watching a YGO arc that was either a revamp of season 5 or a different season 5. Yami Bakura was wearing the black coat, and he was the antagonist, but it was set up with him being very philosophical and more justice-driven, instead of clearly unhinged as he got during his Shadow Game with Atem. There was no mention of Zorc, but it seemed like he was collecting various ancient Egyptian artifacts (not the Millennium Items) to bring some kind of plan of his to pass. He was a sympathetic character and I was rooting for him. I got startled out of that dream, sadly, but it may have been ending anyway. I was surprised it went on as long as it did. I wish it had been able to conclude, though. A handful of my dreams actually have decent endings instead of shifting to other things beforehand.

You know, it probably looks seriously shallow that when I discovered a complete series set of Charlie's Angels for $31 (MILL CREEK IS AWESOME), my response was immediate and enthusiastic and I was much more ready to jump in and buy that rather than to pay $24 for season 2 of The Virginian. But it makes sense with my current mindset of preferring fluff and squee. The Virginian is of course the deeper series, but Charlie's Angels doesn't have as many depressing episodes. And I love the friendships between the girls. And I enjoy David Doyle in a Simon Oakland-ish type of way. It's really not a bad series, if one enjoys 1970s cheese and fluff and friendship and detective shows and generally happy endings. There's a lot of worse things one could be watching.

But I was still concerned to think of dropping that much money right now, as I want to be sure to have enough to buy the live-action Beauty and the Beast when it comes out next week, so I didn't buy that either. I have it added to my Wish List, though, for the future. And I looked up Miraculous Ladybug and found that volume 4 was released last month, oy. I've been looking for it at Wal-Mart for weeks and haven't seen it, and it was cheaper on Amazon than Wal-Mart would have charged, so last night I bought that. I still have this coming week before the Prime trial expires, so if I want to go for one more small purchase, I still can.

Among the things I'm considering (I would only pick one of them):

- The Wild Wild West season 4, because my recorded copies from MeTV are probably chopped up for commercial time

- The Rockford Files season 1

- A manga I need to replace

- A couple of Nancy Drew books, as the prices for some are really good right now ($3.99 to $5.99, compared to the usual $8.99 they charge for the hardbacks these days!)

Fanfiction-wise, I'm almost done with what was probably my first Turtles-related idea, a crossover with the 87 series and the Platinum Dunes movies. I hope people will give it a chance and not throw things at me for the crossover. I was hoping I could fit Napoleon and Illya into it, as I need to write something U.N.C.L.E.-related for a birthday gift for someone, but I don't think they're going to fit and it would just look shoehorned in if I tried. So ... I'll probably have to go back to Plan A and just write a non-connected blurb.... And it will probably still be a Turtles crossover, because the plunnies just ain't biting. Good thing she likes the Turtles too....

I've also been thinking about those other plushies I bought at Jo-Ann's last year. I got them for specific characters (Coley and Snakes, I believe), because each one is handmade and looks different, so you have to look them all over and pick with specific body and head shapes in mind, but I kept changing my mind on what I wanted to do with them. I also considered Jim and Arte or even trying to make April. Making am adult female character with one of these dolls would be ... interesting. They're really better suited to making either children or adult males. But yeah, so that was another thought. Also considered making Barney, but then I'd want to make Vincent, and that would have to be from scratch, since he's a computer with a body and he's blue.... Also considered this week making the characters from The Persuaders! in memory of Roger Moore. So overall, still very conflicted. That wasn't ever really the reason why I didn't make the plushies before, though. It was because I couldn't seem to draw Coley. And because making Baxter was exhausting and I wanted a break. And then I felt I didn't need to make any other plushies right then because I was satisfied with Baxter. And still am, really. But I feel bad for those two, waiting to be made up. Maybe I shouldn't have bought them, but I got them on amazing 60% off deals and I thought I shouldn't pass it up.

I do feel a certain sentimentality that the one I picked for Baxter I picked on my birthday, and although I waffled a bit on whether to really make Baxter at that point, that plushie was always really reserved for him and when I became even fonder of the character than ever, I decided to go ahead with that plan the following month. At first I thought he'd probably be mostly for display, as I worried about jarring his glasses, but I've done a lot of cuddling with him since then.

I've been thinking about Halloween costumes too, because it's never too early to plan something fun like that, especially for one of my favorite holidays. Kind of wondering what it would take to put together a Baxter costume, honestly. As usual, I have a couple of pieces that could work, but I'd need all the rest. Of course, white lab coats are easy to come by around Halloween. I could probably find a light brown wig fairly easy too. For glasses, I'd just have to knock the lenses out of my sunglasses. They fall out all the time anyway, so it's easy to put them back. They're pretty much the right shape and everything. I actually have a black sweater vest and white shirt combo, although the shirt has thin black stripes. But it would be mostly hidden by the coat anyway. I have plenty of jeans, which appear to be what Baxter wears for trousers. And I have plenty of leftover ribbon with which to make myself a bowtie.