The Winter Court of the Insane, Philosophical Ladybug

Now I'm calm enough that hopefully I'll remember all that I was originally going to post, lol. I should be able to see Geoffrey's Toy Box on Tuesday and I'm thrilled. Even though it's just a pinprick of Toys R Us, even a pinprick is better than nothing! From what I'm reading, lots of people are excited. Someone from Kroger even said people hadn't been this excited about something at their store in a long time, if ever.

ROTFLOL, the kitty is so silly and adorable! Yesterday I had one foot on the garage step. She decided to sit on my leg, knead, and rub her head on my face. Tonight she tried it some more. Then she went nuts and started investigating everything in the garage that she hadn't looked at before. She climbed in a wheelbarrow and went under an open umbrella positioned over it. Then she climbed around, looked at an old oven we brought from the old house, and somehow squeezed into a box full of sealed electrical supplies like plugs and cords and empty boxes. She went under a sack of wilted flowers to get in through the hole in the middle. All the flaps came up and I couldn't get her out of there for a while. She would look up at me with big round eyes and then resume digging into the box to see what was in there. **snerk.** Silly, silly kitty! I finally got her to come out by pretending to leave. Yeah, letting the kitty roam freely in the garage is a very bad idea. We were considering it for Tuesday, but I think we'll have to try something else.

(Also, she apparently killed a mouse, as there was a dead one by the garbage can. What an appropriate place for it. But ugh, this shows there are still mice in the yard. We'll have to be careful none of them get into the garage. We can't have them in the house again! Dad said he found another dead mouse a couple of months ago under the red car. Great.)

Last night Dad found a DVD with several Christmas movies on it and we watched one called Holiday Affair with Robert Mitchum and Janet Leigh. It's a clean film, despite the title, but it's one of those annoying love triangle things where the girl is engaged to a perfectly nice man, but he's not exciting enough, and when a new guy enters her life who seems more interesting, she wants him instead, and after only several days. The new guy had a great relationship with the son she had from a prior marriage (her husband was dead) and that was adorable and sweet, but I don't really ship the romance. I think the first guy was much nicer and she should have stayed with him and realized whatever she felt for the new guy was just infatuation. The new guy could have continued to be friends with the boy without trying to nose into her love life. He even stood up at the dinner table on Christmas and said he felt she should marry him instead of the guy she was engaged to. **headdesk.** And that he felt a guy had a right to ask a girl he liked to marry him, even if she was someone else's girl. She was understandably indignant at him being so bold and brazen, with the first guy and her parents all there. Of course, the script tries to twist it into her being upset because she had feelings for the new guy that she was trying to deny. But since I'm never sold on real romance happening within a matter of several days, I'm not impressed.

(Of course, ironically, I have a similar problem with the Serenity love triangle in YGO, and I have her with Duke instead of Tristan. I feel like Tristan shelters her too much, but also, I think he probably reminds her a lot of Joey, and she may think of him as another brother. She's already said she thinks of him as a friend. However, if I really thought Duke was an immoral womanizer like most of the fanbase, I would hate Cheershipping. I always felt the flirting was a facade and that he really does care about Serenity, unlike the empty-headed fan club girls. And I usually write Duke with more of the manga personality, where he is much less interested in the flirting, so he's more mature.)

I have a lot of gift cards for Amazon and I was considering getting one of those films with Richard I haven't seen yet. One of them is unfortunately one of those love triangle kind, with Richard as the nice boy who gets jilted in favor of the more exciting Frenchman the girl meets. I definitely decided against that; it would probably just make me mad that she would pass up Richard's character.

I also considered a movie about a dog that he's in. I think he plays a nice character. But the movie largely involves the dog ending up in dogfights, and even though people say you don't see the fights onscreen, I think that would bother me too much even though it is a dark part of actual history. I rejected it before because of that and I rejected it again this past week.

Then there's a suspense movie with Richard playing a nice character, but it sounded depressing, with the main character eventually ending up killed. I've passed it up multiple times because of that.

In the end, I don't think Richard has a lot of screentime in any of the films, and I'm still just not impressed by the films for one reason or another, so I opted against all of them and got The Mod Squad (the complete series for $27, squeeee!), The Odd Couple complete set ($35!), and the Pony movie soundtrack. With earlier gift cards, I got the Wreck-It Ralph soundtrack and an amazing-sounding Perry Mason book that has interviews with cast members, including Richard and H.M. Wynant! A friend of the author posted about it in the Perry Facebook group and I was ecstatic. It was published in 2015; I don't know how I managed to not know about it all this time. I can hardly wait to read the interviews and see the other stuff. It's almost 700 pages! I'll probably finally have a new blog post for my Perry blog after I look through it.

I've spent a lot of this past week trying to fix my room, because I'm so crowded I couldn't even reach my Christmas CDs. I got the idea to move some of my tapes into the living room, ones that have the PAX shows on them that we all enjoyed. Then I had enough free space to start taking down the towers on a bookcase. It feels so good to have been able to take down some of the towers I had stacked around and to have cleared out and rearranged a shelf and some stuff in the printer box. (I can hardly believe the amount of stuff that I had, well, stuffed into that shelf. Good grief! Once it was gone or put other places, I had enough space to move a huge stack of magazines into the space!) I have an old printer in here that I was going to use, but it needs a new toner and doesn't work right, so I've ended up just stacking things on it instead and using the up-to-date printer downstairs when I want to print. Now I want to somehow get it out of here and maybe put a small wheeled bookcase in its place. I think I mentioned that, and that I can't find wheeled bookcases anymore. But I found a wheeled metal cart that would hold DVDs, so I might get that. I also need a nightstand by the door instead of the bags and box that my backpack keeps sliding off of. I ended up accidentally breaking a picture frame trying to stop the backpack from falling. It's amazing the glass didn't break.

My laptop's DVD/CD drive suddenly stopped working. I don't know if it's because something went wrong in another part of the computer and that's affecting it or if it just died, but it won't read any discs at all. I've tried just about every possible solution, even seeing if it will play in Safe Mode to tell if it's a software problem. That didn't help. Ironically, I was trying to play the Wreck-It Ralph soundtrack when it borked. I don't think the soundtrack was responsible, since it played on another player just fine, but it is darkly amusing to think that Ralph wrecked my drive. I'm going to bring the gaming desktop in from the hall, since I really need a working DVD/CD drive for multiple reasons. (It's not literally a gaming computer as the technical term goes, but I mostly use it for gaming because it has the space for big games.) But I'm not ready to give up the laptop. It still works okay, basically, and we've been together since 2010. It was hard giving up the Gateway too, but at least I had more time to prepare for that since it acted up for months before giving out. This was so sudden. So I'm going to keep using the laptop for everything other than DVD/CD drive needs.

Yesterday I demonstrated I have the Big Five on the brain way too much by dreaming about them. And it was Lector hurt/comfort too. I'm debating if there will be any such scene in my current fic. It's possible.

I'm also debating if I'll go full-blown Azureshipping in this fic or another in the current timeline. With the old fics, I preferred keeping it friendshippy and the Azureshipping fics were in the future instead of the present. Since I have Cheershipping in the present in the new timeline, however, it makes it more tempting to have Azureshipping too. I've been teetering in an Azureshipping mood ever since I decided to make the Tea plush, and the feelings have been even stronger lately. I just love that pairing. Crump has kidnapped Tea in the fic (or rather, his soulless body did; Portman couldn't bring back the trapped souls, but she healed and revived the bodies and they're running loose all over town. Lector, who does have his soul since he was allowed a second chance after helping Mokuba, is highly shaken and disturbed), so either it's just because Crump likes pretty, young girls (ugh, dirty old man) or because even soulless, there's some recognition that taking Tea will hurt Seto. Everyone else is occupied with stopping Gansley and Nesbitt from hurting Mokuba, but once the dust settles there, they'll realize Crump hasn't been seen and discover Tea's missing. (Johnson already attacked Seto and Yami Bakura sent his body to the Shadow Realm.)

Then I finally got around to reading the details on the Wreck-It Ralph sequel, since I probably won't get to see it in theatres and I wanted to know what happens. I have ... mixed feelings. ( Spoilers )

I had a dream today that crossed over Perry Mason and TMNT 87.

It involved the Perry characters Perry, Della, Paul, Andy, and maybe David Gideon (I'm not sure of the other person's identity) at a fancy dinner party hosted by a mad scientist. Also present were characters from TMNT 87. The Turtles, mainly, but I'm sure the Stockmans were there too, since it was my verse. Okay, that's a recipe for wackiness right there. But it gets worse.

Said mad scientist decides to apparently shrink Della. She's running around desperately trying to get someone's attention and finally makes contact with Andy. He can't believe this is real (who would?), and when he's finally convinced, he's so shocked and horrified that he faints. Yeah, I don't think so. Perry and Paul have to drag him to a couch and then deal with their own shock.

Most of the rest of the dream involved the characters trying to find the laboratory and reverse what happened. And in the middle of all this, Shredder shows up to fight the Turtles right at the party.

The dream is totally wacked-out, no question of that. And while I am certainly no stranger to writing weird Perry stories, I don't do shrinking stories. As I've mentioned, it's one trope I seriously dislike. So if I ever do decide to do something with it, it would have to be something like, the mad scientist kidnaps Della and has her locked in the lab while he sends out a miniature android to try to fool people into thinking he can shrink people in the hopes of forcing them to comply with his ultimatum (whatever that is). And even at that, it's seriously off-the-wall for any Perry story. So much so that I doubt I dare write it. I might instead modify it to be a Turtles story alone and have April as the one kidnapped.

Or I might do nothing with it, because seriously, W.T.H.

I had a lovely dream on Thursday. I dreamed that H.M. Wynant had made many movies for Disney (actually, he only made one, Tonka) and Disney was releasing them in an H.M. Wynant Collection. Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo was one of them, LOL. Random choice, brain. Then we were watching some old movie, and we were at the old house, and Grandma was still alive and we were showing it to her like we always used to do, and it seemed to be either a Western or taking place in the 1900s and H.M.'s character was wearing a straw hat and striped jacket and was singing to a crowd. The song weirdly enough included some of the lyrics of a silly song I wrote about his Perry Mason character. (That parody is one I'm most proud of, as the character's name is Mr. Sampson, and oh, how well that works for a parody of Mr. Santa/Sandman!)

It got weirder/more awesome by far when H.M. came to visit and I got to meet him and later have dinner with him and his wife (which was set up on a small table down in the old house's laundry room, WTH).

Bizarre settings, but awesomely epic dream. Waking up from that kind of dream is actually refreshing. It's nice for a change.

Then today, oh boy, I had one of my "I'm being chased" dreams again. This one was intense and scary, as it was an assassin after me. I think I knew something I wasn't supposed to know. I was alone in the house (something that's never the case in real-life), ran out, ran next-door for help, tried to call 911, messed up the address on the phone because the guy was breaking in, had to run away again both to protect myself and the people in the house.... Then I was back in my house again and had to run again, and thus began the mad chase. I ran up and down blocks, in and out of people's houses, encountering some people who turned up in prior dreams and eventually ending up in the dream world of my mom's childhood neighborhood. It looks and feels much creepier in the dream, even though in reality it's not a safe place anymore and hasn't been for years. I decided going to hide down the old street would be a bad idea because I could be tracked there, so after I passed the home of some relatives who still live there in actuality, I ran down a different street. I ended up at some old dilapidated house where I knew some private eye or lawyer or somebody lived. For some reason, I thought the guy would help me, so I ran inside. The guy was certainly unconventional, but he did agree to help. There were a few scenes of what seemed to be making plans for what to do and going to some dilapidated theatre to ... meet an informant or something.

Then ... I'm not sure what happened, if I woke up and went back to sleep and started some of the dream over, but it was night and I was home and I knew I had to go out and get to the downtown area to ... either get to that guy's house or meet him somewhere like Borders. And even though the home was definitely here, or based on here, the downtown area was the area in our old city. (Which is also where Mom's childhood neighborhood is in real-life.) So I started out and had to go past the cemetery, and it's also way bigger than in real-life, and it was making me very nervous. Then it was by the freeway in the dream, and I was walking alongside the freeway on the sidewalk to get downtown. And either someone was with me or I decided to get a tricycle to go faster than walking, WTH. Still not sure whether the one on the tricycle was me or if I was with her. And we did make it downtown and it seemed like we were going to Borders to meet the guy.

I often dream about taking such trips downtown, to Borders or Barnes and Noble or the big library. There's always a much more mysterious feeling over the whole place than in real-life. It's so interesting and weird both. As are the chase dreams. Assassin ones are freaking scary, but they're intense and exciting as I'm putting as much distance between him and me as possible. And it's always kind of nice revisiting the old neighborhoods in my dreams. Even though they're not exactly the same as in reality.

So I've been regretting importing my Livejournal in here, because I always intended this account to be separate and used for other things. I came in tonight trying to see what I could do about that and I discovered that I could delete all imported entries. I did that. Then I created an account specifically to be a back-up for LJ: ladybug_archive. I think an LJ back-up is a very good idea; I just preferred it to not be this account. So I guess we'll see where this account takes me in the future. I have some other silly Perry Mason songs I could post, for one thing.

1. The first character I fell in love with: ... That is a really good question. I became very fond of all the main cast, and of Hamilton and Perry's friendship, and of Tragg. Sometimes I think he was the first character I really became very fond of. But if we're being literal and talking about crushes, that would be Hamilton.
2. The character I never expected to love as much as I do now: Lieutenants Anderson and Drumm. I am always very lukewarm about replacement characters, and I was dreading going into the episodes where Tragg appeared less, but both Andy and Steve have worked their way into my heart.
3. The character everyone else loves that I don't: ... Gosh, I don't think this applies. I love everyone.
4. The character I love that everyone else hates: Hamilton.
5. The character I would hug anytime: Haha, I'd be way too shy and embarrassed to do it much, but I would definitely like to give Hamilton a hug.
6. The character I'd want to be like: Della. Loyal, kind, and patient. Although I highly doubt I could ever enjoy secretarial work. I absolutely hate typing things into the computer from pieces of paper. It stresses me and sets my teeth on edge. I make a lot of typos when I type things in, too. I much prefer just typing into the computer to begin with and not looking at anything.
7. The character I'd slap: Some of the murderers and other undesirables. Probably especially James Coburn's character in The Envious Editor.
8. A pairing that I love: I'm not sure there's really any that I would put in this category. I think Perry and Della belong together, but I don't really like reading romance stories with them or having them officially hook up. I love their interaction on the series too much to change it.

I really love the feuding ex-couple in The Guilty Clients, though. It looked like they despised each other so much and yet they really loved each other so deeply.
9. A pairing that I despise: I can't think of any that I despise, either. I hated the idea of Julie Adams' character hooking up with the young guy in The Fatal Fortune. He was such a jerk! His father was a much better person. But that non-pairing resolved itself, so I don't know that it qualifies.
10. Favorite character: Hamilton.
11. What are your five favorite things about your fandom?

- The fans are very nice. A lot more accepting of a supernatural story than I thought they'd be.

- The characters are wonderful. It's admittedly hard for there to be a lot of development when there's that formula, but the writers tried their best to do what they could. And the actors delivered the material beautifully.

- Season 2! Almost every episode of season 2 is epic and has wonderful scenes between Perry and Hamilton. They still clash in court, but you can clearly see that their relationship has developed greatly from season 1. They are friends.

- Season 6. Along the same lines as 2. But 6 goes even deeper. Hamilton is very relaxed by season 6. Many episodes show his softer side and how kind he is. And he and Perry team up for several awesome episodes.

- That theme song. A good theme is important for a series, and the jazzy strains of Park Avenue Beat surely make for one of the most recognizable themes even today.
12. What are your five least favorite things about your fandom?

- That it's so difficult to find gen stories. I swear, I've never seen a pairing take over a fandom so completely as Perry/Della takes over the Perry fanbase. There's maybe two or three gen stories on FF.net besides my own, and all the rest is Perry/Della romance.

- That the show's writers kept falling back on tired cliches to keep the formula moving. I honestly don't like when Hamilton or the police suspect Perry of bending the law after the point when Perry isn't doing that so much. I know that there's some level of continuity to it; since he did it before they have no way of knowing when he might do it again. But it's still kind of irritating. They tapered off on that after season 4, I believe. At least for the most part.

- That season 9 is such a mixed bag. More than any other season, you don't know what you're going to get when it's a season 9 episode. There are some wonderful gems, but there is also a higher ratio of disasters. The episode I detest the most, The 12th Wildcat, is season 9. And there's some others I really don't care to see again, including the last episode The Final Fadeout. I understand why they did what they did, I believe, but I still don't like that we ended the series on an episode where Hamilton is off in orbit. At least he came back to Earth by the end.

- That it's so difficult to catch episodes from seasons 7 and 8. I don't think Columbia House released many of them, either. So until my local station shapes up and/or CBS starts releasing these seasons, I rely on other fans to see most of these episodes. I'm endlessly grateful, but I can hardly wait to get hold of DVD copies.

- That there's so many instances of failing marriages among the guest-star characters. I like seeing a marriage that's happy. When they do feature one, it's a special treat.
13. Who are your five favorite characters? Hamilton, Perry, Andy, Tragg, and Della. With Mignon Germaine as a runner-up.
14. Who are your five least favorite characters? I love all the main cast. And I think James Coburn in The Envious Editor is about the only guest-star who has made me want to go RAWR. He was very talented at playing an absolutely despicable character. I also didn't like the girl in The Sleepy Slayer who supposedly had a nervous breakdown. As it turned out, it was an act the whole time and she was wicked.
15. What are your five favorite pairings? None! Unless we want to talk about platonic pairings. Then I could come up with a list.

- Perry & Hamilton
- Hamilton & Mignon
- Perry & Della
- Hamilton & Della
- All of the main cast collectively interacting with each other
16. What are your five least favorite pairings? None.
17. Which character are you most like? Probably none of them. But I do have a tendency to fly off the handle when I'm pushed too far, as Hamilton does.
18. What is your deep, dark fandom secret? I don't think I have one. Unless it's that I can't draw the characters. I haven't drawn much at all the past year because the characters I've been interested in for all series I just can't draw. Except I can draw passable Monkees and Baby Face and his gang. But Kolchak, West Side Story, and Perry? No.

Okay, here's that silly Gee, Officer Krupke parody I wrote. I'm very proud of these silly lyrics; I thought a long time about how to keep the flavor of the original song while adapting it to what I wanted. I kept a scant few of the original lyrics when they fit the situation.

I should explain first: the conceited nut the fuss is all about is an original character of mine. He started out as me just role-playing Don Karnage from Disney's Talespin, but he ended up so different years later that I decided he was no longer that character but someone else altogether. And he became my own character. He's still called Karnage, but if I ever do anything nationally with him, of course he'd be called something else. I have another name all in readiness, just in case. And this Karnage is an anthropomorphic Alaskan Malamute instead of a ... whatever Don Karnage is. (I insist he's a fox, but the comic said he's a wolf.)

I find conceited behavior repulsive when taken seriously, but as a gag it's one of the things I find funnier than just about anything else. I kept pushing the limits with this guy in my role-plays with Mom. He's just about as outrageous as you could get. When something goes wrong, like losing a piece of fur, he goes into these states where he just screams "Me, me, me" until the problem is solved. He joined the Army and was under the command of General Stilton from Disney's The Cat From Outer Space. And Corporal Klinger from M*A*S*H became his best friend. (The time period for the role-play is the present day, and we liberally throw in characters from all eras, although in the role-play they haven't time-traveled or anything like that; they just live in the present day and that's the way it's always been.) I don't think Karnage is still in the Army, though. He met Hamilton Burger when he barged into court one day, took the witness stand, and said in all sincerity, "I solemnly swear that I'm glorious." He was promptly charged with contempt of court and kept on racking up the charges when he wouldn't shut up. Hamilton prosecuted and this song came out of the silliness.

EDIT: I've thought for a long time that I should add spoken dialogue between each verse, just like the real song has. I've added some in.


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I'm probably going to cross-post this entry to LJ, at least. But I decided I wanted to try out using this journal for something. And play with my icons. This is Andy. (Well, actually, it's not; it's a doctor character Wesley Lau played on The Mod Squad, but I list him as Andy anyway. I can feel like I have a color picture of him.)

Year-End Fanfic Meme

Favorite:
It might be the one I’m working on now: The Case of the Broken Ties, for Perry Mason. It’s a plot concept I’ve been fascinated by for years. I’ve tried variations on it two previous times, for other fandoms. Ironically, both of those fics are unfinished. I don’t intend to let this fic suffer the same fate, however. I have the basic plot mapped out in my mind and some details on the computer. I've very excited to tell the whole story.

Best:
I really have no idea. Maybe the longest fic I’ve written to date, It’s Probably Me, for the Princess Tutu fandom. I worked so hard on it from last November through this past February. There’s still a couple of kinks I need to iron out and haven’t dragged myself to do so yet, but overall I think it’s a well-done piece.

Most underappreciated by the universe:
Everything I’ve written for West Side Story other than Language Barrier.

Most fun to write:
Gosh, I don’t know. Every fic should be fun to write or it isn’t worth it. And I’ve enjoyed each and every one.

Most intense fic:
I don’t know. Maybe It’s Probably Me and The Case of the Memento Mori Murderer. But The Case of the Macabre Mansion turned out very intense too. Those latter two are both Perry Mason.

Saddest fic:
Running on Empty, for West Side Story. Or it would have been, had I not suddenly changed gears two-thirds in and not been able to stop myself.

Perhaps I should list I've Been Standing Too Near, for The Monkees (more or less). It was a fic involving Baby Face Morales and his gang from episode 25, and it had character death. As it stands alone, I don't plan to write any kind of sequel or follow-up to it.

Funniest fic:
… Gosh, did I write any humor fics in the past year? I rarely write humor at all, albeit I can when I feel like it. You know, I think the closest I came was Ross, The Good Samaritan for The Patty Duke Show. And that was more just gentle family-friendly goodness, like the show. There’s nothing that funny.

Fic that shifted my own perception of the characters:
I think every fic I write helps my perception of the characters change at least somewhat. But perhaps especially my West Side Story fics for Schrank and Krupke. The Worth of Souls and Ripples in the Water have been the most effective to that end, I believe.

Hardest to do:
Probably those two fics, as well as maybe Game of Darkness for Kolchak: The Night Stalker and Yu-Gi-Oh!. (Now there's an odd crossover for you.)

Biggest disappointment:
That I changed Running on Empty from its intended bittersweet path. I still wonder if I shouldn’t write the original ending and put it up too.

Biggest surprise:
The immense positive response I got when I tested the plot idea for The Case of the Broken Ties in the Della-Perry Yahoo group. I didn’t think anyone would be that interested, considering the supernatural slant.

Most telling:
… Telling about what? My love for the characters? What certain characters are like? I hope my love for them comes through in every story. And I try to show their true personalities every time, often focusing on aspects people don’t know or think about much.

Now I believe The House of the Setting Sun, for The Monkees, is the most telling that I have a strange mind.

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted?
I don’t think I ever try to predict how much I’m going to write.

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January?
Just about everything I did this year was something new. I would never have thought I’d be writing fics for Monk, West Side Story, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, or Perry Mason. Or that I would be writing an FF7 Western story crossed over with two rare Western movies. And since I had no idea about any of that, I didn’t have any idea about the specific characters I’d be writing for, either.

… You know, Simon Oakland is directly responsible for most of the new things I tried. Because of Kolchak, and realizing how much I liked Simon, I got story ideas for West Side Story and got back into Perry Mason. And without getting back into Perry Mason, that FF7 fic would not be happening.

Did you take any writing risks this year? (See above for unexpected pairings, etc.):
I wonder if that FF7 fic would be considered my biggest writing risk. It’s both a genre most people would never think of using with those characters and has characters from two Western movies most people probably don’t know exist (Smoke Signal and Two-Gun Lady).

Do you have any fanfic goals for the New Year?
Finish everything I’m currently working on, but especially The Case of the Broken Ties and To Blossom As the Rose (the FF7 fic).