The Winter Court of the Insane, Philosophical Ladybug

I think I'm developing a crush on Yami Yugi. I sort of wonder why it never happened before, given his justice-driven slant and his determination to fight for his friends. I'm trying to think of merchandise I have featuring him, and it's funny, even though he's the main character, I don't think I have much compared to some other characters. Of course, he's on a lot of my shirts, and I did get some magnets with him, and some stickers. I still don't have the pin from that set, and I believe I don't have his Hexor. Odd that the Beginner's Set was released with little Yugi instead, although I'm not complaining since Yugi doesn't get a lot of merchandise exposure. Of course, I have big and little Yami Yugi figures. I'm also contemplating making my plushie base into him since I haven't been able to find what I want for Marik. I'm pondering how to do the hair. It would need to be stuffed, I suppose. I have the black portion, but I'm not sure where I'd get the red-violent border.

Dad got a phone upgrade, so I got the old phone and hence, I finally have a Smartphone, lol. Or did I say that already.... I have a Yami Yugi wallpaper on it. He's kneeling on a checkered floor, and the floor reminds me of Sonic. I also have the YGO dub theme as my ringtone. I love it. I always thought one of the most fun things about a Smartphone would be a custom ringtone for something loved.

My Fire tablet keeps showing me ads for this Kingdom Hearts mobile game. At the beginning of the week I thought maybe I'd get it, only I found something far more intriguing in the App Store: Disney Heroes: Battle Mode, with Darkwing Duck as an unlockable and playable character! **starry eyes.** He's hard to get, unfortunately, and WTH, he's not on all servers. Of course, he's not on the one I was assigned to. Luckily, people are allowed to make accounts on other servers, so tonight I got on a server with him and had to start over to unlock him. After several days of playing, I know the ropes better and have advanced on the new account almost to where I am on the original account. It's still going to be hard to get him, though, but I am determined, just like I was about Yami Bakura. It's also really neat that Wreck-It Ralph and Vanellope are starter characters in the game. I've been angry at Vanellope because of the second movie, but playing the game has made me feel better about her again. There's a lot of nice, squee friendship in the game.

I have discovered good episodes in the other Monk seasons, to my delight and relief. Apparently all seasons had good and bad episodes. I have also discovered, though, that man, is the Captain immature sometimes. It was just jerkish and mean and childish to keep punching holes in Randy's drink. (Although it was also not a good idea for Randy to keep drinking those giant things while on duty. He should save that for off-duty hours, and since it's not a problem in other episodes, I imagine he decided the same thing.) It was also seriously immature to take off his shoe and run it across the window just to upset Monk (although at least in that case it was understandable for him to be upset since Monk felt the Captain's girlfriend was a murderer and he couldn't take that thought after so much heartbreak already in his life). And then the incident where he crunched up the donut box with the donuts.... Naturally I hated that on more levels than just the immaturity. I love donuts!

I also got reminded that it seems like Charlie's Angels were a little naughtier in the early episodes. They were kind of mean to Bosley in several season 1 episodes, and Jill was laughing while Kelly was obviously in pain from a massage that wasn't at all pleasant. I remember Kelly and Sabrina laughing at Kris for getting sun-burnt in the season 2 premiere, also. But I don't recall that things kept on like that. I imagine somebody complained, maybe saying the Angels weren't very angelic with such behavior. Heh. I'm pretty sure they stopped teasing altogether when someone was obviously miserable, and when they did tease Bosley, it was gentler than in season 1.

I am not kidding. Last night we started hearing weird noises. At first it sounded like someone going up and down stairs, but no one was there to do that (unless it was one of the ghosts Mom and I know hang out here). A little later, more odd sounds. The house makes lots of odd sounds all the time, and has been doing it even more the last couple of months, so I didn't pay a great deal of attention ... although when it kept happening I got more suspicious. Then I went into the kitchen and heard a distinctive crash of something metal. I thought either a cat was locked in the garage or that maybe I'd forgot to lock the door and a creep was in there. I turned on the light ... and saw the attic was caving in. Dad's been trying to fix up the basement and apparently he stored too much stuff up there. Gah. It looked sturdy, but it apparently wasn't as sturdy as it seemed. I had to wake him up and he didn't believe me at first, but then I got him to go look and he saw I was right. He had to hurry out there and find stuff to try to brace it so it wouldn't get worse. I had him turn off the electricity in the garage today, so that if it tears free and takes out an electric cord hooking up a lightbulb attached to a beam right over the mess, there won't be the potential of the cord breaking and starting a fire. He's hoping to get some people to help him tomorrow with a truck and getting beams from Home Depot to try to fix this mess before it gets even worse. He said it wasn't as bad as it looked and that it was one little section falling in, but honestly, it looks to me like the whole thing is strained and could all come down at any time. I hope he's right that the beams still standing are strong enough to hold it all up with the assistance of the braces.

Man, I'm sure glad no one was in the attic when that happened. Or in the garage. Some of the boxes fell through the floor and hit the garage floor, and more are poised to do that if something doesn't hold in the bracing.

Ugggh. My Ginger and Lou webcomic was originally created to document house problems large and small. I feel like I should try to make a comic out of this mess. Maybe turning it into something to laugh at will help. Hearing the weird noises, dismissing them, and then finding the attic caving in would work. I don't know if I'll keep it that it's happening in their house, though. I don't want to break their house. I might have it be something weird happening at a bed and breakfast they're staying at or something.

One thing that was certainly a comfort amid all the madness was the awesome package I got yesterday from ThickerThanLove! Squeeee. She surprised me with a ton of Sailor Moon CDs, a couple of the old TokyoPop comics (one from R arc and one from S arc), a charm necklace, and two YGO DVDs! It was incredible! So much awesomeness. She said she was sending a little something, and I sure never expected anything like that!

I also had some nice conversations in the nighttime and into the morning. I was talking to JP when the attic caved in and was exclaiming to him about it. I've also been renewing an old friendship and it's been wonderful.

I did end up buying those magnets, by the way, and they arrived on Thursday. So much awesomeness there, too! The seller was only missing a few out of the 100 set, and almost everything there had doubles. I have two Yami Bakura magnets, one regular and one shiny, and the same for Seto! And many cute Yugi ones, and some awesome Atem ones, and there's also Joey and Mai. And Pegasus. I need to contact the friends I know who like Pegasus and ask if they'd like my Pegasus doubles....

I wish the Japanese PVC figures weren't so expensive I can't afford them, because they're so awesome! I would like to have them all, but I would especially like the previously mentioned Yami Bakura one, of course, and also both Marik and Yami Marik. The Yamis I don't have in figure form at all, and even though I have the Mattel Marik figures, this one is in a class by himself! If I ever could get them (which I never could), I'd probably display Yami Marik with the freaky face option he comes with so I could get a good laugh, LOL. As horrifying as the faces are, they also amuse me in a "WTH, you are seriously messed up" kind of way. Mom commented on what it would be like to wake up with that looking at you every day. LOL.

We also have dental appointments this week. I'm really hoping that will work out even with this attic mess, because I've needed to see about a tooth that's been bothering me for ages. We go to my brother dentists, and the nearest one practices about an hour away, and it's been difficult getting up there. I'll have to miss the activity with the church girls this week, most likely, but I think I need to jump on the chance to finally be able to see about the tooth.

I can't deny I'm also hoping that while I'm up there, I'll be able to both get to at least one Toys R Us and also see about my smartphone or tablet problem at Target (maybe). I wore out every possibility of getting Duel Links to work now, including Android emulators. The only way anything will work here is if I install it on a device Dad uses frequently, as those are the only ones with current operating systems. I really don't want to do that and I don't think he would like it too much either. I want to have the freedom of having it on a device of my own, so I can do whatever I want with it. The phone just doesn't seem to be working out; it doesn't have enough free space because of all the bloatware. I'm concerned to get it and try it because of that. It's a ZTE Maven 3, and the reviews for it are pretty frightening. I'm now leaning instead towards getting a Fire tablet. Google Play Store can be installed on it (I've read about and seen demonstrations of how) and people have been playing Duel Links on it and say it works beautifully. Plus, my poor tablet really is getting on and I think I need a more recent tablet anyway to handle some other stuff that isn't working on the old tablet anymore. Even if I could get the Maven 3 phone to work, I think a tablet would be a better choice in the long run. Fire tablet is about the only tablet I can afford that has good reviews. And even at that, it's a strain right now. I need a Target gift card from one of my survey companies to really hope to make it work. I have enough, but the last few points haven't processed yet. Hoping they will in time....

Then Toys R Us.... I don't think it's really sunk in yet that they're all going. I knew that would probably happen once they filed for bankruptcy, but I still hoped. And there's a businessman right now who's trying to get enough money to save 400 of the stores. I don't think he's going to make it, but he and the people able to donate are sure trying. His fundraiser goes through Memorial Day. http://www.gofundme.com/helpsavetoysrus/

Anyway, with that slim hope, I keep wanting to believe they really won't all shut down. But I know they likely will, and regardless, I want to get to the liquidation sales before everything good is gone. So much of the good stuff flew out of K-Mart so fast, like the Pony stuff and the Miraculous Ladybug figures at the nearest branch. I would like to go to both the Toys R Us up in the approximate area of the dentist and also the one closest to us, but definitely at least one of them. And I suppose I'll need to prepare to break down crying when I really see everything going. It was hard enough with K-Mart and Borders. (Not so hard with Media Play, because then they just changed ownership and names and the store basically stayed the same, with 85% of the same contents.) I love Toys R Us much more.

One thing I do know: I'm pretty sure that I do not want to see any Toys R Us on the last days it's open. It was too hard and too wrong seeing that with K-Mart especially.

And I don't think I've ever mentioned how much I love the Evanescence song Imperfection and why. Of course, what really frustrates me about it is the unnecessary F word. I always liked that Evanescence didn't swear in their songs, and then they go and do it in a really beautiful one, one of the only recent songs of theirs that's really stood out to me. I went through the lyrics of the songs I hadn't heard from their vinyl compilation album as well as Synthesis (neither of which I even knew about until recently) and Imperfection was one of the only ones I really liked. Luckily for me, I found a clean version someone put up that I can play on Repeat while I'm learning the song myself. I can mostly sing it now. (And needless to say, yes, I'm singing it clean.)

Just on its own merits, I think the message of the song is quite powerful. And then for me, I can relate it to my current YGO verse and that makes me love it more.

To elaborate: I picture it during a fight between good and evil, perhaps THE fight that's started looming over everybody since my verse began with The Pendulum Swings. Yami Bakura has always struggled with trying to be good, since he's lived most of his life in hate. Shadi has warned him if he fails, the Infinity Ring will abandon him and he will be burned alive and fall to the shadows. No pressure. (**sarcasm.**) But Bakura insists he can do it, and that he will always be there to help him. He also insists that Yami Bakura is good, despite Yami Bakura's insistence to the contrary. The song, to me, is Bakura trying to buoy him up, encourage him that he can do this, and that he isn't alone. And also, that Bakura loves him just as he is, that even in spite of the embarrassment of him eating like a wild animal and him still getting a kick out of teasing people by scaring them (albeit more harmlessly now), Bakura could never and would never replace him.

My version, then, with two slightly tweaked words, goes like this:

The more you try to fight it
The more you try to hide it
The more infected, rejected, you feel alone inside it
You know you can't deny it
The world gets a little more screwed up everyday

I'm gonna save you from it
Together we'll outrun it
Just don't give into the fear
So many things I would've told you
If I knew that I was never gonna see you again

I wanna lift you up into the light that you deserve
I wanna take your pain into myself so you won't hurt

Don't you dare surrender
Don't leave me here without you
'Cause I could never
Replace your perfect imperfection

The way you look us over
Your counterfeit composure
Pushing again and again and sinking lower and lower
The world is on our shoulders
Do you really know the weight of the words you say?

You want a little of it
You just can't let go of it
You've got an ego to feed
Too late to rise above it
Don't look now but the little boy's got a grenade

I'm gonna lift you up into the light you deserve
I'm gonna take you down to the real world so you can watch it burn

Don't you dare surrender
Don't leave me here without you
'Cause I would never
Replace your perfect imperfection

We stand undefined
Can't be drawn with a straight line
This will not be our ending
We are alive, we are alive

Don't you dare surrender
Don't leave me here without you
'Cause I would never
Replace your perfect imperfection

Don't you dare surrender
I'm still right beside you
And I would never
Replace your perfect imperfection

And then alternately, strictly thinking of canon, I've also pictured the song as Rishid to Marik as Marik's trying to fight against Yami Marik. I like that interpretation too, but I do find myself partial to the Bakura and Yami Bakura version in my fic verse.