The Winter Court of the Insane, Philosophical Ladybug

Some things the same, some better.

I'm getting paid now by a veteran's organization to take care of Dad. The money helps a lot, both for things needed in the household and fun things. I've had the freedom to buy things I couldn't before, which makes me very happy. One of my most treasured things is the Play Arts Kai Advent Children Sephiroth with wing. He arrived on my birthday last October and I adore him so much.

I finally got a Switch Lite and have plenty of games for it. Best discovery was realizing I could actually play Final Fantasy VII after loving it for so many years. I spent hours reading the game script, I watched countless cutscenes, watched Advent Children over and over, but I never had access to the games to be able to actually play them. Playing it at last and getting to actually experience those beloved characters' story opened story floodgates for me and I've had lots of ideas for both FF and KH stories. I'm also finally able to play Crisis Core, which I also love.

Twilight and Dawn timeline has definitely taken off and I've been writing many stories with Cloud and Sephiroth after they've grown even closer. I feel I should probably insert a few stories to bridge the gap between where the timeline left off and the first recent fic taking place after the other fics that showed them much closer than before, but I don't know. Maybe it looks okay as it is, especially since that recent fic has a crisis in it and said crisis furthered their closeness in it. I love those guys so much.

I overhauled my KH fic timeline after finally looking into Birth By Sleep and deciding it was time to accept it and work with it and that it mostly helped the main things I wanted to have in my timeline, mainly Sephiroth being his own person and actually trying to help Cloud instead of hurt him. My new KH timeline is way better than the old one and also accepts the magical nature of the source material much more. Seph has a much better and happier backstory, especially regarding his wings, and he no longer is bound to Cloud like in the old timeline. He's trying to help completely of his own free will. So much better.

Bought a gaming laptop and am able to run Dissidia NT on it. I play that most every day, always as either FF or KH Seph. It's funny that a fighting game is actually calming and comforting to me, but I think it's mostly because of being able to play as Seph. Smash Ultimate is another comfort game for the same reason, as is my ROM of Dissidia 012. I also have Rebirth and the mod that lets me play as Seph in at least some of it other than just chapter 1. That is delightful. The graphics in that game are so beautiful and I'm always swooning over Seph's gorgeousness in it.

Theatrhythm Final Bar Line is such a wholesome and adorable game, and useful to try to learn timing in music better. I like getting that out a lot too. My main team of Seph, Cloud, Zack, and Aerith reached Level 99 within a week or two, lol. Of course, it's fast leveling up in that game, but still.

The Eevee colony has expanded exponentially. And Pokemon Center is doing a Year of Eevee event, which of course has contributed to the expansion.

Very upset about Joann closing. I wish someone would step in and save them like someone did for Big Lots. Big Lots isn't even the same unique store it used to be, but there's really nothing that can replace Joann. I'm stocking up for future crafting projects and need to get back there again for more. It still doesn't feel real to lose it.

Party City is gone now too, save for the franchise locations that weren't affected by the bankruptcy (and the Canadian stores owned by other people). I'm glad I did end up getting the Eevee cardboard cutout when they got it back in stock last autumn.

Apparently I had intended to take this quiz last May, but never got around to it.

Say Hello to Steve Drumm as our icon host today. I think I'm one of his only fans. Poor Steve. He's really an interesting character in his own right.

5 Favorite recurrent characters you love to write about and why in no particular order:
1. Hamilton Burger (Perry Mason). He’s my favorite character from the show. It was his friendship with Perry that made me sit up and take notice to begin with, and this past year I started paying a great deal of attention to him and realized what a wonderful, kind, honest person he is. He deserves more attention in the fandom, which I am more than happy to lavish on him.
2. Sephiroth (Final Fantasy VII and/or Kingdom Hearts). Sephiroth, when he’s sane, is intriguing, aloof, serious, and a good friend. I’ve picked up writing for him again in To Blossom As the Rose and found that I still have the touch.
3. Duke Devlin (Yu-Gi-Oh!). Duke is a character whose potential is rarely explored by fanfic writers. I detest how the anime murdered his introduction story; it’s so serious and dark in the manga and gives him so much depth. (And there are no cheerleaders!) I like writing for him with his manga backstory inserted in the anime events. It’s kind of sad; the manga-ka gave him such an awesome intro and then kind of forgot about him. He didn’t even develop an interesting sub-plot with Duke and his cynical views in Battle City. The anime, on the other hand, involved Duke in that and other adventures.
4. Lieutenant Schrank (West Side Story). Played by the incomparable Simon Oakland, Schrank is a world-weary policeman who has to put up with and try to stop the local teen gangs. Unlike the characters I generally write, Schrank uses slang and bad grammar, and probably realizes but doesn’t care. He’s another generally overlooked character, one I find fascinating to explore.
5. Yami Bakura/Thief King Bakura (Yu-Gi-Oh!). My first favorite character (not my favorite overall, but literally the first character who became a favorite). It’s a puzzle trying to separate his personality from that of Zorc’s, but I like to try. Things were simpler before we had Zorc to worry about. But Yami Bakura as I wrote him recently is a much darker character because of the Zorc mess. I still like putting him in humorous situations too, as I did years ago.

5 Recurrent characters you hate/don’t care to write about and why in no particular order:
1. Noa Kaiba (Yu-Gi-Oh!). Like Crystal, he’s just never appealed to me. Worse, I’m not sure exactly why. It might go back to my dislike of child villains. Noa’s behavior seems ten times more disturbing because of his age. I’ve heard that the English dub mashed up at least some of the reasons behind what he did, though. I was told that in the original he wanted the others there in his virtual world so he wouldn’t be alone. Although even if it started that way, it seems his goals must have changed later. The way he treated everyone during his duel with Seto was just sadistic.
2. Vivian Wong (Yu-Gi-Oh!). I know she was supposed to be a parody of rabid fangirls, and hence annoying, and boy does she succeed. She is a stalking nightmare. I seethe when she abducts Solomon and deliberately injures his bad back to force Yugi to duel her, and insists on him being her love slave should she win. I shudder every time I see someone who wants her and Duke to pair up. Gosh, what a horrible fate for Duke!
3. Lilie (Princess Tutu). Now she is a sadistic little prick. She is always hoping for Ahiru to be miserable because she looks so cute when she’s miserable and Lilie wants to comfort her. She only showed genuine concern once, in episode 7. It says right on her official profile that what she loves is Ahiru’s failure and what she doesn’t like is Ahiru’s success. She is one messed-up nutcase.
4. Everyone on Gensomaden Saiyuki. Now, let me make it clear, I love them, but I don’t like writing for them. I can get their personalities alright, I think, but I can’t come up with anything decent to write about them. The one thing I tried to write, I didn’t like, and I’m not sure the recipient did either. I never have posted it anywhere.
5. … I can’t really think of anyone, unless I list another cast for a show I just haven’t been able to write for. Or unless I list Mr. Ishtar from Yu-Gi-Oh! He was vicious and cruel to Rishid, and I don’t know if he cared about Marik so much as he cared about just having a son to be an heir.

5 one-shot characters that I enjoyed writing about and why in no particular order.
1. Mignon Germaine (Perry Mason). From season 8’s The Fatal Fetish, she is a good friend of Hamilton’s. Her son works in his office as an assistant D.A. She is an aloof woman who cares deeply about her son and doesn’t want harm to come to him. Her bond with Hamilton is deep and strong and I just adore expanding on it.
2. Tony Ferano (The Monkees). From episode 25, Alias Micky Dolenz, he is the right-hand man of Baby Face Morales, the gangster lookalike of Micky’s. He has a wide range of hilarious expressions as he reacts to various nonsensical situations around him. Usually he is serious and cold, in fact, downright icy. He was a former policeman with Detroit, where he ran various illegal operations.
3. Baby Face Morales (The Monkees). Also from Alias Micky Dolenz. He has a hair-trigger temper and is very dangerous. Alternately, he can actually be oddly philosophical (in my stories). He and Tony have a bond of sorts, but it’s on-again off-again in between warring with each other.
4. Ruby (The Monkees). Yet still from Alias Micky Dolenz, Ruby is Baby Face’s girlfriend. Although seemingly ditzy in the episode, I generally write her as being smarter and more serious. She always worries about Baby Face and the chances he takes. She wishes he would leave crime behind and take her away somewhere to settle down.
5. Captain Caldwell (Perry Mason). From season 4’s The Misguided Missile, Captain Caldwell was an investigator from the inspector general’s office. He was killed by a nut while trying to solve a mystery surrounding the titular object. It was a very unnecessary and tragic death.

And a bonus, “David Tanaka” (Yu-Gi-Oh!). I put his name in quotations because it’s my invention. He doesn’t even have a canonical name. But he talks with Duke in his first episode and seems to be a close friend. In the English dub he’s the manager of Duke’s store.

5 characters I want to write about for future fics:
Would this refer to characters I haven’t ever written for? If so, I’m honestly not sure how to answer that. I think everyone I want to write for I’ve tried at least once.

Your favorite penned fiction and why (there can be two if there is a tie): Probably Lead Me Through the Fire for Yu-Gi-Oh! It developed Duke’s character a great deal, as well as that of the afore-mentioned David. It was very dark, included no magic or supernatural goings-on (well, except for something brief at the very end), and included a death that, try as I might, I haven’t been able to reverse in other fics and fully feel good about. I didn’t want the character dead, but it feels like it was so important that I can’t really change it. That doesn’t mean my sequel will remain unfinished, but it does mean I’m having trouble with it.

Also, The Case of the Broken Ties for Perry Mason. It is Hamilton’s and Paul’s story, as they work in desperation to reverse a spell that has caused everyone else to forget all or part of their memories. It develops Hamilton and Mignon’s friendship as well as the interaction between Hamilton and Paul. It’s amusing; while my favorite YGO fic has nothing supernatural for a generally supernatural series, this story is full of the supernatural for a series that always relied instead on logic.

Your least favorite penned fiction and why (there can be two if there is a tie): Probably Family Ties and Family Secrets, both Yu-Gi-Oh!. My mind was seriously messed up when I wrote those things. I don’t even agree with my portrayal of Mr. Ishtar anymore. I wish I could just remove them both. I only leave them there because people like them and I know how frustrating it is when something disappears that you like.

People’s favorite fiction of yours (by review count and positive postings): Probably still Frantic in Frisco, one of my old Yu-Gi-Oh! mysteries. 288 reviews. Good Heaven. I wish I could duplicate that feat someday.

People’s least favorite fiction of yours (by review count and negative postings): I have no idea.

If you are a member of Fanfiction.Net, how many people have you on their favorites’ list: … 660 (okay, my jaw is dropping now)

If you are a member of Fanfiction.Net, how many people have you on Author Alert: 283