The Winter Court of the Insane, Philosophical Ladybug

This has been a fun week, something sorely needed. Real-life is rarely fun these days.

Monday I got hit in the head by an AMV that needed to be made. I already had the song and took a few more screencaps and made Radley Will Make a Man Out of You!

We ended up getting groceries on a different day this week. I don't know if that made a difference or not in products that were out, but if it wouldn't have happened on our regular day, I'm glad we were late. I've been waffling for literal weeks on what to spend some money on, which makes it difficult when I want just about everything I've seen but can't get it all. Then, after being unable to make a decision, I see an adorable little Eevee plush at Walmart and immediately fall in love. I'd kept feeling like I couldn't make a decision until I checked Walmart one last time, and that was apparently what I was waiting for. I have my beloved big Eevee, but I've wanted a little one to be my Radley plushie's Eevee. I just never thought I could afford the price for one when I already have one. But as soon as I saw her, I knew I was getting her. Unfortunately, I thought she was going to ring up as $12.99 and she rung up as $16.99 instead. Gah. And by then, I'd bonded with her way too closely to not get her. I still wondered if I'd made a mistake and worried about having spent so much, and yet there was no buyers' remorse and no desire to return her, although I did ask some people what they thought about the scenario. I was thrilled to give her to Radley. I was a little sad thinking I'd really like another one to be Kalin's Eevee and figured no way would I be able to pay that price a second time.

The next day I got an amazing package! I knew my friend MoonlightTyger was sending a couple of fun souvenir shirts from a town we both like, and those were there and very cool! One is a Christmassy shirt, and I feel like wearing it now, heh. And also in the box was another little Eevee! Not the same one I'd got, but just as soft and cute! I was over the moon and stayed there for hours. I wondered briefly if I should return the one I'd bought, but there was still no desire to do so, especially since I'd wanted two and now I had two! ... And now I'm encouraged to want more, lol. There's an adorable winking one I'd like to be Scotch's Eevee. I've even been considering a sleeping Eevee. Normally I don't see the appeal in sleeping plush since you can't really play with them, but when it's Eevee, I might make an exception.

So maybe what I really want is to collect Eevee plushies. One awesomely fun thing about multiple Eevees is that each one can be a different character, whereas if I'm getting multiples of, say, Shadow, it's all the same character. That makes it feel like there's much more of a point to getting multiple Eevees. I love them so much, I want many. Some of the things I've been considering buying are figure sets with multiple Eevee figures. But the figures are too small to pair with a Radley, so the plush was more appealing on that level as well as softness level. I love soft things, and these Eevees feel like minky! Utter paradise!

What everyone wants to have happen: the HVAC unit dying in the middle of a heat wave. It got up to 92 degrees in the house and was so horrible it was hard to breathe, even with a fan. Dad actually consented to a repairman, but the guy insisted on $877! That was out of the question. The normal going price is between $100-$200, I believe. Dad was disgusted and fed-up and insisted on doing it himself. There were many setbacks and problems, such as an idiot sending the completely wrong motor after Dad specifically went over the specs with him several times! After a week of hellish temperatures, off-set a bit by fans and a cute portable AC, Dad and my brother finally fixed it! HALLELUJAH. And now we know more about electricity and how HVAC motors work. And the sounds they make when they don't. There's a video on YouTube where a guy demonstrates the sound we'd been hearing, and the video opens with a shot of a bad motor sitting there making the sound, and for some reason that amuses me so much. I'm not sure why. Maybe it just seems funny to see it highlighted like that. But yes, that was a nightmare week.

I've been trying Discord because I wanted so much to find a nest of YGO fans. There have been many ups and downs. But I got closer to a silent fic reader friend I've casually known for a while and we have an RP going, and I have a couple of other steady RPs going, so that's all really nice. I still just love RPs.

Fic writing and art-making go on. I also dabbled in fanmixes and have two for Kalin and Radley on YouTube. I just *love* that so many artists are putting their songs officially on YouTube! All but I think two of the songs on the mixes are officially up on the artists' channels. I have pages on my YGO website to discuss the song choices in detail. For some reason, the YouTube descriptions won't load on mobile devices well, plus there's a character limit, which I hit for the second mix.

I've been having so much fun finding new music for the mixes when I need specific topical songs. Occasionally it's frustrating when I can't find something that fits, like a song where someone is annoyed by someone who isn't a jerk ex but doesn't want to kill the annoying person (seriously, why are there so many extreme songs where someone wants to kill the annoying person? WTH. Yeah, yeah, I know it's because there are many people who feel like that even if they wouldn't really do it, but it's frustrating when you're looking for something not as extreme), but in the end I've found things that work! Yes, I finally found a song about being annoyed with someone that was exactly what I wanted, so close that it felt like it was written for the specific situation of Kalin suffering from depression and self-hatred in Crash Town and repeatedly rejecting Radley because of feeling he's not sincere! (I Don't Even Care About You by Missio.) That was an amazing moment.

My icon is also related to my fanmix projects. I realized Evanescence's My Heart is Broken is perfect for the scenario in my fics where Radley is forced to sacrifice himself to save the others and Kalin can't deal with it. I'd forgotten that red text washes out once icons are saved; it was much brighter in my program.

I am obsessed with the band Red. I stumbled on a song of theirs called Hymn for the Missing by accident, was intrigued, and finally looked up lots of their stuff on Friday. IT IS INCREDIBLE. Squee songs and hurt/comfort songs and angsty songs and now I have seven of their songs on my second mix because THEY'RE SO PERFECT. I even found songs that could fit for amnesia situations! (Probably not what they were intended to be, but that's half the fun when a song can be interpreted multiple ways!)

I'm also customizing dolls. I wanted Kalin and Radley dolls (so I could stroke Radley's pretty hair, lol). It's not easy finding boy dolls with rooted hair, but Jay from Descendants is perfect for Radley with a little paint to lighten his skin tone to Radley's. Their proportions are so odd, though, that then to match up with him, my only choice for Kalin was a rooted hair Carlos. The post office has been aggravatingly slow about delivering him, but he should be here tomorrow. The hair is shorter than I'd wanted, but I'll work with it. I don't feel like rerooting or making a wig. I'm nervous how the hair dyeing will go, but hopefully it will work out. I have clothes all sewn for him and some Ken shoes that will hopefully fit.

... I have just got to see someone make an AMV of Leroy Brown with clips from Lawton in the 5Ds Crash Town arc. I have seriously got the giggles over this. It fits so well. He is such a nasty guy. The chorus could have clips of him doing things like hitting Radley in the head with a gun, unfairly beating him in a one-turn kill, trying to kill Kalin and Yusei, kidnapping the kids, blowing up the town, etc. For the line about the Continental they can show that weird contraption he rode in on. And then of course there really is the love triangle situation with him, his brother, and Barbara. The only difference is that Malcolm would never be able to best Lawton in a fight, I'm sure. But eh, the AMV would all be in fun anyway.

I might try making this myself when I get the DVDs. Problem is, I've never made a clip show AMV and have only made slideshows. I think it would look better as a clip show. But maybe a slideshow wouldn't be too terrible. Or maybe I could learn to do clips.

I also have AMV ideas to use All About Us with the Big Five, mainly to celebrate how they never betray each other, unlike so many villain groups in media. In the original Japanese, I discovered last week, Nesbitt doesn't even have that moment of weakness where he tries to abandon the others. Why didn't Yu-Jyo.net say that?! I wish I'd watched the Japanese of those episodes long ago. I would have, probably, if Crunchyroll hadn't quit working. It finally worked again when I downloaded it on my DigiLand tablet.

My other AMV idea is Playing With the Big Boys Now with Lumis, Umbra, and the other Rare Hunters. I started taking pictures for that one but haven't finished yet.

Also, I have a huge crush on Radley. My plunnie explosion all involves him and I've drawn him too. ( http://meromeroyui.deviantart.com ) Thus continues the tradition that I must crush on characters everyone ignores. And I guess I have Bruno to thank for this, because if I hadn't been trying to write a fic to revive him, I wouldn't have written opening paragraphs describing Crash Town and what Radley was up to. It was from that that I decided I had to write the story I was describing and not regulate it to a few paragraphs in another story. Once I really started paying attention to Radley in canon, I saw he really is interesting. He isn't mean like Malcolm or Lawton and he seems to be on very friendly and even equal terms with his gang, judging from the saloon scene. We never actually see how his men treat the mine workers. I wouldn't be surprised if they're treated decently, unlike Malcolm's. The only time Radley is shown maybe being nasty is when Barbara tells Yusei about the town, and honestly, Barbara isn't the most reliable narrator. She lied to Yusei, she even lied to Malcolm. If she could cast Radley in a worse light than he deserved, she would totally do it. Radley did snap and shake Kalin when they were sent to the mine, but it seemed like a very human reaction under the circumstances. People do snap and say and do things that they wouldn't say and do normally.

The Over the Nexus game lets Nico and West's father live after his fall, but it doesn't do justice to Radley. He's portrayed as a generic punk with none of his anime personality. Aurgh! But at least we get to see his deck; he plays Crystal Beasts. It's hard to get used to someone other than Jesse using them, lol. The game takes place a lot in Crash Town and I'm debating if I'd like to get it. It's for the DS, so I could play it.

Yes, I have become a fan of 5Ds. Hate what happened to Domino and always will, and Turbo Dueling will always be WTH, but I love the characters and their adventures so much. The characters are as special to me as the classic YGO characters. Hence why a portal opened so they can keep visiting in the fics, lol.

So thankfully, we didn't really need a new modem. Something was wrong outside. A technician came out and fixed it! Things have been fine since then.

I rented Frozen 2 on Amazon, as per Crystal's suggestion, and watched it three times during the rental period. My feelings are ... mixed. I still don't like the ending. I don't think it had to be that way. But ... aside from the ending, I found it a beautiful film and I loved the songs. It was a much higher quality film than the Wreck-It Ralph sequel, as I expected and hoped.

The reasons why I have problems with the ending are as follows.

1, Elsa's powers separated her and Anna for most of their lives. They had only had three years together finally bonding again before the Frozen 2 ending separated them again. At least they're going to visit, but it's not the same.

2, It's Anna's mother and culture too, and she should also get to explore and learn about the past. Of course, somebody has to watch Arendelle, but I think it would have been much more satisfying if Elsa and Anna stayed a bit to learn about their mother and mother's family and Elsa learned more about her powers and then they both went back to Arendelle. Maybe Anna could still be queen so Elsa could be "free," but Elsa would mostly live in Arendelle and travel to the forest when she felt like it or if there was trouble. The four spirits are the guardians of the forest, so it doesn't seem like Elsa has to be there. Elsa does seem to have an adventurous side, understandable when she was cooped up so long, afraid of her powers. But that shouldn't have to equate living apart from Anna.

3, One reviewer on YouTube commented that she thought Elsa had to live in the forest so she could unleash her full powers without hurting anyone. That would just be sad if that's the reason. And it goes back to what I said about her learning to control them even better while there, but not having to stay there. Elsa does love the forest and seems more at home there than in the city, but then that's because the writers wanted it that way. Maybe some of the fans would have different images of Elsa or feel like she would be happy in the city getting to be with Anna and not be afraid of harming her. Or maybe everyone decides to move Arendelle closer to the forest so everyone can be more connected to each other. That would have been satisfying too. But basically, Elsa learning the full scope of her powers should really make her feel free, and how would it make her feel free if she has to live apart from the city for fear of harming them with said powers? That is not a happy ending. Of course, it's just that reviewer's opinion that that's why Elsa decides to live in the forest. I don't think that was what Disney intended.

Really, though, the original Frozen had the perfect ending already: Elsa learning how to start controlling her powers and the kingdom realizing she isn't a monster and them all being accepting and happy together.

All that said, the Show Yourself sequence is just incredible and my favorite part of the sequel. And I thought Olaf's sequel song was better and funnier than In Summer. I liked that they toned down Olaf falling apart. Waaay too overdone in the first film. I think I loved all the songs in Frozen 2, whereas in the original I was enthusiastic about maybe three or four. Frozen 2 was also less crude. So ... a mixed bag. But definitely worth seeing. I'll probably want to own it someday. I definitely want the soundtrack.

I've thought a lot lately about how much I can relate to Elsa on some things. I love both girls, but I definitely find Elsa the most relatable, struggling with herself and what she is and worrying about concealing her true self. (And also relating to having a bit of an adventurous side, although at the same time I wouldn't be comfortable doing anything risky, heh.) I know a lot of lesbians gravitate to her and wish that Disney would make her a lesbian, but I wish Disney would make her asexual. :) Oh, one of my favorite lines in Frozen 2 is in the childhood flashback. Anna is obsessed with romance and Elsa's reaction is, "Anna, kissing won't save the forest!" ROTFLOL. I love it. I would love to have a Show Yourself moment and finally feel free to reveal my complete self to everyone.

Gansley did indeed come on the day I was thinking he would! It's pretty awesome to have all five members of the Big 5 in G. I. Joe form now. I wish I could think of stories to act out with them, heh. Mostly I play with them by picking them up and moving them around. There are lots of cute hugs with Lector and Nesbitt.

(Also on that day, which was Dad's birthday, my brother wanted to get him a birthday dinner. He ordered KFC. Yuuum! I'm having a lot of trouble with tomato intolerance, which is really frustrating me lately. Of course, the most upsetting thing is when it affects my pizza intake. I'm considering having fried chicken for my birthday this year.)

The price of the Wreck-It Ralph Elsa and Anna dolls finally came down on Amazon, so I bought them with a gift card. They came on Monday. They're slightly disproportionate, sadly, and hollow plastic instead of solid, but they're very cute and I'm happy to get them at last. It's fun seeing them in modern clothes. LOL, Anna's shirt has a sandwich.

And my three-foot Elsa arrived on Friday! It was an amazing day and really felt like Christmas, heee. I woke up just before the delivery and was able to immediately get her inside. I needed more sleep, so I got her out of the mailing box and brought her into my room. I thought I'd be too excited to sleep, but I finally dozed off, and I had an amazing dream, one of the haunted house dreams I have such fun with. And it plunnied me for a fic at last! I hope I'll be able to develop a whole plot from it. I'm thinking that Noa buys a house because he wants a big one for him and his mother to live in. But weird things start happening and they end up calling the Big Five and Yugi and company for help. Then they have to try to solve the mystery of what happened in the house and why the ghosts are angry. I suppose that unlike Evangeline's house, which will always have some mysteries, I'll need to try to solve this one. My house dreams never do solve the mysteries, though. Lol. There's lots of wandering through all the rooms, and there's bedrooms with all of the past tenants' stuff and the feeling of ghosts lingering and being angry. In the dreams I always want to take some of the neat stuff and use it myself, but I never feel free to because of the eerie feeling. This dream had a huge bathroom with spa and a room with a stage, and rooms filled with stored furniture that felt haunted. And all of this stuff was on the basement level. Usually it's higher levels.

I probably won't try buying much of anything for a while, except a picture here and there by ElfBean. I'm pretty happy right now and want to play with all the lovely things, hee. I feel like I've been having my birthday shopping spree since April.

I finally finished my interview fic and got it all posted. I hope it looks alright. Johnson's was the hardest for me. He's my least favorite member and it's the most difficult to get into his mind.

I also kept being pestered by my original Purple Avenger plunnie, where Lector becomes a vigilante because he feels betrayed and abandoned by his friends. I finally had to pen it, and I wrote it as taking place in another verse. But it's a misunderstanding created by Dartz, who was hoping someone would give into their inner darkness. Everything gets resolved and there is squee.

Frozen 2 also provided plunnies. I love the line in Kristoff's song "You're my True North, because without you I am lost in the woods." I had to adapt the line for a squee scene with Lector and Nesbitt. It may or may not be part of my next mystery fic. It looks fine as a stand-alone, but I know I get a bigger audience for the ensemble fics. I'm not sure it fits the tone of this upcoming house fic, though. So I'm still thinking about placement for that.

Then Anna's heartbreaking song The Next Right Thing, where she thinks Elsa is dead, provided inspiration and I had to draw a heartbreaking picture: http://meromeroyui.deviantart.com I'm planning to color it, but haven't yet.

I also want to draw Lector swinging on his grappling hook as the Purple Avenger. I love that concept of Lector as a vigilante way too much.

On the local holiday last month we went to the nearest JCPenney's to see what they had, as we had a gift card to use. We couldn't find any of what we were actually hoping to find, but we got a nice blue bath towel and I found a hilarious kitty shirt with kitties randomly floating through space on pastries. It is so silly! Some of them look blase, while others are WTH about it. I love it. It was a fun holiday and was so nice after the nothingness of the 4th.

On the 1st we had to go to the dentist and I hoped to stop at a mall and check the JCPenney's up that way. I was looking for some things I didn't find at the closest one to us, but I found similar things there and thought another branch might have the actual things. What I was looking for was Wreck-It Ralph figures (by themselves and not with huge cars that cost $40) and Mario and Luigi figures. I didn't find those things at the other JCPenney's, but I found something that excited me even more: the Vanellope plush! JCPenney's must have some deal with Disney, as they sell some stuff that I've only seen otherwise at The Disney Store. I've been trying to find the Vanellope plush for ages and figured I'd have to buy her online. She was more expensive at Penney's, yet cheaper than she'd be online with shipping included. First I saw one that was totally messed up with some weird brown stuff all over her. (Yuck!) I desperately hoped that wasn't the only one and went to look through the plushie racks. I found one half-hidden on the bottom shelf! I also found a third one on another rack. I was so excited. I got the good one I found first, from the bottom shelf.

There was also a Target just a block away, so we went there too. I still can't find the Farrah Fawcett figure, but I finally found Medley! I've been looking for her so long; she was on my last Christmas list. It felt so good to finally bring both her and Vanellope home. Medley looks so '80s. It's awesome.

I couldn't help remembering an August 1st in the past that was a happy day for me too. I can't remember now if the year was 2002 or 2003; part of me says it must have been 2002, but the other part says that wouldn't work, time-wise, because I'm pretty sure I got into YGO in late July 2002, and that wouldn't have left enough time for all the figure-searching I was doing. What happened was I wanted YGO figures and I found big ones of Yami Yugi and Seto were coming out. I hadn't seen them locally, so I finally ordered the Seto one on July 24th online. He arrived on August 1st and I was thrilled! I remember standing him next to the TV to watch the YGO rerun that day, heh. I also remember it was the very first episode, not a favorite because of Seto's horrible behavior. But I watched it and then we went out shopping and went to the Toys R Us on the West side of the valley. I found that the figures were out, wouldn't you know it. So I got Yami Yugi that same day. Then we had a nice driving excursion to an old mining town.

I really miss back then when YGO and anime were so new to me and everything was so exciting and there were always new discoveries to be had. It just seems like these days, there's not a whole lot to get excited about regarding anime. There were some neat merchandise things coming out for anime I've loved for years, like YGO and Sailor Moon, but there isn't much of that left around now, it seems like. I did see a Sailor Moon shirt at Target, which made me ecstatic, and I desperately want to go back and get it (if it's not a crop top; I couldn't tell and those would not look good on me). Hopefully all branches will have it; I saw people finding it at their Targets too, so that's hopeful. And there's one at Forever 21 I like even more, but I don't know if it's in local stores or just on the website. But places like FYE, which used to be one of The places for anime and video game merchandise, don't seem to have much at all anymore. The last time I was at the big one, there was hardly any of that. It looked so barren. It's really sad. I discovered a neat store called Boxlunch with anime stuff, but their prices are horrifying. They have better prices online, but then you have to factor in shipping.

I've been following Toys R Us very closely all this year. Geoffrey's Toy Box was a success, apparently, and they have emerged from bankruptcy! It's interesting that I never could accept they were gone and it's ended up that they're not. They finally announced the new stores for the year, but apparently there will only be two, in New Jersey and Texas. I'm still trying to convince them to come here too. Heh. Hopefully next year it will happen. In any case, there will be the website, and I desperately want to support them and buy something there. I hope they'll have a huge selection and a good shipping policy. The new stores are going to have product demonstrations and play areas for the kids to play with Geoffrey. Those things sound epic! I just really hope they won't mostly have educational toys and not much else. Educational toys are important, but I feel like all the other toy stores in existence right now focus on those. I want Toys R Us to still have toys based on popular characters and such. They had a better selection of those than anywhere else.

(Also, still no sign of this KB Toys comeback they were promising. There's been no word from them at all since they told why the stores they promised last year didn't happen. I prefer Toys R Us, of course, but I was hoping KB would be back too. I am not impressed with their lack of information and apparent lack of going forward with plans....)

A couple of weeks ago it really hit me that ShopKo is gone. I don't think it ever really sank in before, especially since I didn't get to go to the liquidation sales much. It's really sad. Okay, they usually had horrible prices and that's probably why they're gone, but I still loved the store and sometimes they had good deals. I got a Turtles playset there to get the laptop out of it. I got a Twilight Sparkle Christmas ornament. I think it was ShopKo where I finally found the big Marik figure. And the fun Halloween stuff they used to have.... So many happy memories of them.... Now there won't be any more.

I was going to buy myself that book about Mario for my birthday, but the price suddenly dropped to $17, so I decided I needed to get it now. It's different than what I thought; it doesn't have all the juicy background information I was hoping for, and it only focuses on 17 games they consider the main timeline. But it is a fun book, detailing the gameplay of those games and the enemies and the power-ups and such. I love books like that. I also got a book about haunted locations in my state. Some things I hadn't heard before. It was a short book, but a fun read.

And I ended up getting a very dark idea for my next big YGO fic, of whether the accident that killed Noa was really an accident. I also got the idea of someone falsely accusing Lector of hitting Noa, due to that story I mentioned reading where he really did kill Noa, on purpose. Since I was partially inspired by that story, I tried to contact the author to ask if it was alright if I posted mine, but I didn't have any luck. A friend told me she thought it would be alright if I posted it anyway, since I was only inspired by it and my story went in a completely different direction, with Lector innocent. So I credited that author and her story for partial inspiration and I've been posting it. I just put up chapter 6. Lector really goes through the emotional wringer. It's pretty much the opposite of the story I read, as he not only didn't do it in mine, but he is devastated by the accusation and is tortured by painful memories from the past throughout the fic. He fears it was his fault, as he and Noa were arguing and Noa ran away when he was struck. Due to the subject matter of wondering if Noa was murdered, I ended up rating the story M. I just wasn't comfortable rating it T.

I've been doing more pictures, and I finally made a Big Five wallpaper I've wanted to make for months: http://meromeroyui.deviantart.com

I also decided on a bunch of image songs for Nesbitt in my verse. Whereas in canon he is over-confident and arrogant, in my verse pretty much all of that has been knocked down and he is discouraged and despondent, hating his impulsive and reckless behavior and how he often blurts hurtful things to Lector and the others. Leave Out All the Rest I chose for him a while back, along with The Reason and Forgive Me. Yesterday I realized Breaking the Habit also fits very well, and that song has been stuck in my head since then.

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.

I still haven't bought a new bag. Money's been tight and the red purse has been holding everything I need right now aside from the full-size notebook (and aside from any purchases I might make; I love that the messenger bags hold most purchases that I make so I don't have to carry shopping bags around). And ... I'm still in love with the Chibiusa drawstring bag. It's so impractical to think of getting that one, since I assume it only has the one compartment, and it's so frustrating. It's so happy and cute and it says what I want to say right now better than any of the other bags I've looked at. Dang it, I want it.

I have considered getting it to use as a purchase-holding bag. Or as a bag to take my Ghostbusters board game in when I walk to my friend's house (although I have a tote for that). I just ... really don't need this bag. And it costs most than the messenger bag. How do I make myself not want it....

And I watched Phantom of the Sewers the other day and decided I wanted to do a Five Nights at Freddy's-type fic with the Turtles characters. The episode gave me a perfect set-up for it! I had a rocky start getting it going, but that may have been partially because I wanted to write something squeeful that I also had an idea for. So I wrote a blurb that will go into a future fic. Once I got that out of my system, and figured out exactly how I wanted to work the Freddy's fic, I managed to get the Freddy's fic to flow. First draft is almost done now, aside from the epilogue stuff (and whatever I add in proofreads).

In preparing for the fic, I re-read the Freddy's parody I did with Ginger and Lou. I also ended up reading a couple of other short stories with them. I am honestly still pretty proud of all those fics. And I still think that I wrote them pretty accurately, if they ever were to reform. Ginger is such a wild card. And it was fun sometimes, being opinionated on topics through him that I probably wouldn't dare to be opinionated on as myself. Heh. Someday maybe I can write the rest of that second 100Songs set I was working through. I think I was close to being halfway done with it.

And random thought of the day: I don't think Baxter and Barney in my verse would be able to stand watching The Lion King, for obvious reasons. I think the brother problems would upset them too much, both because Barney was never as horrible as Scar and also because he would still be able to relate to some of Scar's bitterness and anger.

I have several songs that remind me of one or the other or both. I'm considering making a section on my website to list them all. Some were found by ThickerThanLove and some were found by me. I love them. And I've been practicing trying to sing some of them in-character. I already have recordings of a couple of them on my Sta.sh. They're sad ones, though, as they're sung by Baxter in fly form post-Revenge of the Fly, when he's lost Z and the fly has mostly completely eclipsed his humanity.

It's funny that I've been having the most difficult time doing voices for Baxter/Barney and for the Turtles. April/Irma/Vernon and Shredder/Krang/Z are pretty easy for me. But I think I've hit on the best voices I can for Baxter and Barney, so I may try recording some new clips and songs soon. Barney's voice is slightly higher pitched, as that seems to be the case in canon. (Although I imagine that he and Baxter can sound exactly like each other, if they choose.)