The Winter Court of the Insane, Philosophical Ladybug

So for months I've seen those weird Bendy and the Ink Machine toys in Wal-Mart and I've wondered what the heck that's about. Yesterday I finally remembered to try looking it up after seeing them advertised in an FYE email. I thought it was some cartoon paying homage to the 1920s cartoons or something. Instead I find out it's a horror survival game with this former animator coming back to his old studio after his friend sends him a message. He finds an ink machine gone haywire and turning everybody at the animation studio into cartoon monsters that he has to fight. And the creepy Bendy character, who is apparently the studio's mascot, is a cartoon devil/demon. Wow. Yeah, I doubt that would have flown in the real 1920s.

Well, at least their wolf character is generally a good guy? He looks like a Goofy knock-off, though, which is kind of eerie. Bendy looks like a cross between Mickey Mouse and Felix the Cat.

Honestly, I was never crazy about 1920s cartoon character designs, and this isn't helping. I thought Five Nights at Freddy's was disturbing, but what I've learned about the plot of this thing's chapters disturbs me way more. People being turned into dark versions of the cartoon characters they drew? Eeek! That makes me picture 1920s cartoon characters in the real world coming to life and coming after people. In the game, there's another character who absorbs the cartoon characters' powers and kills them to try to become a stronger version of herself. Disturbing as it is, and worse if she was a real person corrupted by the ink machine.

I guess the game does its job of creeping people out. It sure is me. Although I can't deny that I ponder on the idea of a YGO fic with a similar premise, maybe Yami Marik deciding to send everyone into a life-size version of the game (or a game similar, but clearly based on it, like I did with my send-up of Five Nights at Freddy's called Five Hours at Frankie's). I used to write some horror fics, and I'm trying again now with my Bad End Night-inspired one. I'll have to think about this. It seems like a lot of my YGO fics involve someone sending the crew into life-size games of different kinds, though. Maybe people are getting tired of it. I like it, though, and those are the kinds of plots I'm getting ideas for. Seems like each game is pretty different, at least.

Another idea would be doing the Bendy send-up with Ginger and Lou. It's always fun to visit them, and that's just the kind of problem they might run into in my verse.

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.

October 28th, 1966 was when the world was introduced to Lucrece Posey and her bizarre gang of crooks in the Wild Wild West episode The Poisonous Posey. For the 50th anniversary last year, I made sure to watch the episode. For the 51st anniversary this year, I also wanted to watch the episode and was able to. I also got to see Count Manzeppi's second episode, The Feathered Fury, and ended up going to look over my Wild Wild West story that heavily involves both of those episodes as well as The Sudden Plague. And I just wrote a little bit for the next chapter. That felt pretty good too. It's always liberating coming back to a fic and finally feeling the time and inspiration are right to do a little more. Maybe I'll actually be able to get it finished. I really liked it.

I do need to see if I can get the current Turtles fic done by Halloween, since it's slated as the Halloween fic, but I have the feeling it won't be done by then, especially since it's a humor fic and those sometimes move slower. Also, I may still want to detail some of the Halloween preparations and this fic would be better for that, pushing the actual Halloween venture to still a later fic, and probably a post-Halloween one, if I do it at all.

Earlier in the week we watched the Emergency! episode where the lady keeps thinking her dead sister is haunting the house and wanting her husband out, since the sisters had a falling out over the now-dead one thinking the husband wasn't good enough for her sister. It ends where they think the lady set a fire in the house and honestly believes the sister did it, but actually, no one saw her set the fire. The husband just naturally assumed she did it, as did the paramedics, since none of them believe the place is haunted. I got a plunnie where Ginger and Lou are contacted by the husband, who discovers that while he's in the house alone as his wife is undergoing psychiatric observation, something else really is there with him. He's terrified, as well as horrified that he's sent his wife to the psychiatric ward when she doesn't belong. Ginger and Lou come to investigate and find that instead of the sister, something dark and evil was summoned at the seance that started the madness. That would be a nice Halloween fic too. I'm sure I wouldn't get it written in time, though, but I really want to give it a whirl.

I did a dry run of my costume Tuesday night, as I figured that would be better than putting it on for the first time right before the party the next day. It came out pretty good. I took a few selfies, which I posted here: https://cubeupload.com/codes/bff957 The thumbnails don't show the entire picture, though, so they have to be clicked on to see it all. Hopefully later I can get someone else to take a picture or two to get the whole costume in. It is a pity I couldn't find a brown wig, as I prefer Baxter with brown hair, but I'm glad I found a wild one, at least!

The Halloween party went alright, but there wasn't much of a turn-out and hardly anyone actually wore costumes. I was disappointed, especially compared to previous years. At least the girls weren't uncontrollably wild. And they had fun. And there were leftover cookies from the ones they were decorating to give people, so I got to bring some of those home. Yum.

I found out that the most one can earn at the book fair is indeed $10. I also discovered that working two shifts in a row is exhausting, just as I feared it would be. I only did it because that was the only possible point in the week when I could do the extra shifts. But they had dinner for everyone afterwards, both because of teacher conferences that night and the book fair. So many different delicious soups! I had a cheddar and potato one, along with a roll and ice water. Perfection! Then I brought home a combo of chili and taco soups and three dessert things: a pumpkin and chocolate chip cookie, a raspberry cheesecake cookie, and a brownie. I love copious leftovers so I can do that!

I also decided that for all the work I did, the meatiest book choices were the two Pokemon ones. As much as I wanted the Pony storybook, it is for episodes I've seen. And it's a short story picture book. The Pokemon storybook was a chapter book of episodes I haven't seen, and then the other was the guidebook to the original 151 Pokemon. I was a little surprised that some of the things firmly ingrained in my mind weren't introduced until Gen II or later, like Pichu. The books are fun and I feel like they were worth what I did.

Still, I'm not sure that I'll do the book fair again when it comes time. It really was a bad week to try to do it, so I guess I'll have to see what things are like on the week it comes back. Also, though, maybe next time they won't have anything I'd consider worth all the work. We'll have to see. I did end up finding one other thing there I thought was pretty cool, a book about gems with some raw samples of some. But getting that would have meant not getting anything else, so I stuck with what I'd already chosen. That looked pretty awesome, though. I love rocks, minerals, and gems. Always have.

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.)