Ramblings and Musings of the Insane, Philosophical Ladybug

Thanks to that weird dream I mentioned, I ended up skimming over most all of Life After the Tears yesterday. It's still my favorite of my YGO fics. X3 But even so, there are some things I'd like to tweak around.

The main thing involves Duke's death. As it is, it's only mentioned in chapter 6, before his Orichalcos-controlled self comes to taunt Tristan. I'm thinking I should mention it specifically in chapter 1. The way it is now, Yugi is only thinking that he lost two friends before the Duel Monsters invasion (Atem and Duke, neither mentioned by name right then).

Of course, there's also the usual, feeling like some things could have been fleshed out more. There's some summarized places that should not have been summarized. XD;

I also started thinking that I'd like to overhaul Der Engel des Todes and then try to write the rest of it. There's two major things I've been thinking of that would alter the story's plot (I think, for the better).

Item #1: As it stands right now, Duke was found alive in the temple rubble by the Legendary Warriors. And I ... kind of have this obsession with exploring him being dead. XD; I don't know why, but I have for years. So I want to alter Engel so he is dead, and helps the other characters for most of the story as a ghost, but then is restored at the end.

Item #2: I think I rushed Alexander's original mission of stalking Alister/trying to kill him. I want to stretch it out!

I'm hopefully going to get Engel out, look it over, and determine if these things can be done.

One thing about it, I do *not* want to delete and repost it (and lose all my wonderful reviews on it). So I'd have to edit the content of each chapter with the new stuff. And in order for people to know it had been done, I'd need to have another chapter written and mention that in the author note.

The thought of really getting Engel going again definitely excites me; it was gearing up to be as shocking as Life After the Tears.

^^ I've got a lot of positive reviews for Engel's new chapter, which I posted yesterday morning, but I got one that confuses me a bit. XD; The person said that Alexander is an interesting character, in spite of her not agreeing with "certain aspects of the angel part." Errr, what angel part? "The Angel of Death" is just a common phrase that's out there. It's not meant to be taken literally. Alexander self-proclaimed himself as such, but it doesn't mean any of the other characters agree. And he's not an angel at all. **shrugs.** I thought it had been pretty well established by now that he is a doppelganger. Oy. **scratches head.**

Sometimes people come to me asking what makes a good OC. XD; That's really a hard question to answer. But basically, they have to be very human, with both good and bad points. However, if the bad points are overemphasized (especially in a character on the "good" side), it's really quite annoying. Though of course if one overemphasizes the good points, that can be annoying too. XD One needs to find a proper balance. And the character needs to be very unique and not like a carbon copy of a million others out there. Also, one shouldn't force a character into existence for the sake of having one. A good OC will develope at his or her own pace, with ideas flowing gently to the author. And if they're having trouble figuring a character out, it's helpful to use them in RPs for character development before using them in fics.

Dad got Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade from the library because he wanted to see it. I was happy to see it again, but Dad didn't seem to like it very much. (I kinda had a feeling he wouldn't, though.) XD; He complained about many of the harrowing escapes not being able to happen in real life. But isn't it silly to complain about that, when any movie of the genre has a lot of escapes like that? I don't know, he seems to complain about a lot of the movies that I find highly fascinating. I don't think he sees the depth in them that I do. I'm fairly certain that he wouldn't like anime.

I pitched my story idea involving Siegfried's ex-fianceé to Amelda-kun and she thought it sounded interesting. ^^ Basically I decided that Aloysius (his father) had tried to arrange a marriage between Siegfried and the daughter of a business partner. The girl, Aldabella Friederich, is a devious, twisted, manipulative, murderous little rich girl. XD; But unlike Vivalene, who always has a worldly air and appearance, Aldabella looks extremely innocent, even though she isn't at all. Siegfried was one of the only people to see this, and when his father killed himself, Siegfried broke off the engagement. He secretly used to call her "Belladonna," like the poisonous plant. Aldabella was always angry at him for breaking the engagement, and one of her loyal maids was as well. The maid then infiltrated into Siegfried's manor and has been working there for a while.

And hence continues my trend of female villains. XD; Armina isn't a villain, but she's also technically not an OC. Well, readers of Engel will see that soon, anyway. Anita, an unnamed character on the show, is another such technicality. XD; I guess the only semi-important female character that isn't a villain and that is a purebred OC would be Kasumi, who I haven't done much with lately.

I've been thinking about Dartz and writing for him. I remember that even before I finally softened to the point of liking him, I very much disliked the way some people portrayed him. One such person played him as a typical villain, a sniveling coward who when confronted by his former warriors, would lie and say he was sorry and beg for forgiveness and such because he didn't want them to hurt him. .__.; WTH? That's just about the most OOC nonsense I've seen for him. What's scary is that the person was being serious and not just trying to be funny or something. Heck, come on, Dartz would never act like that. He's the furthest thing from a typical villain and he's certainly not a coward. I kinda think that person didn't like Dartz and his dislike of the character came out in the way he played him. I could be wrong, though. Maybe the person just didn't have a good grip on how to play him, because he also made Ironheart very OOC. ^^; Oh well. Anyway, I like the way I write for Dartz. I think I have a pretty good grip on his character.

And here's a fun quiz!


( Anime Quiz )

^^ On Tuesday my order from ADV came. This morning I finished watching Saiyuki volume 11. Oooh, I loved it! The third episode was probably my favorite. XD So much cuteness, with Goku worrying about Sanzo, and a flashback to 500 years ago. I love those. But I wish we knew what happened to Nataku! I wonder if it's explained in one of the later animes, or in the Gaiden manga.

**examines battle wounds.** XD I do the stuffing and the gravy every year, and I stupidly had the pan on the stove while the plate was on, while I was trying to put the olive oil (which we used in place of the large amount of margarine they called for) and water in. It exploded into the air. XD;; I should have remembered that it might happen, because of what I'd read about hot and cold fronts colliding in my science textbook. Luckily, I only have a couple of minor burns on my left hand.

Dad wanted to go for a walk earlier, so we wandered around the neighborhood for a bit at twilight. I like going then, because the Christmas lights are just starting to come on. ^^ And I realized again just how much exercise I must get when we go to Wal-Mart and I lose him somewhere in there. XD;

And I got a lot done on Engel in the morning too! I wrote a great scene with Dartz and Alexander. ^^ It kinda shows more of Alexander's true character and Dartz's as well. I'm not entirely sure how the entire fic will play out, but during the climax, something will probably happen to Alexander in order to startle Dartz into realizing that he does care about him. I hope to have chapter 2 done and posted on Friday morning.

Also, I was thinking about Homura and his lackeys. I haven't seen any special reason to dislike them. Actually, they kinda remind me of the Doom organization. Homura rebelled against the Heavens because he saw a lot of hypocrisy in what was going on, and he wanted to create a new Heaven and Earth. He reminds me of Dartz. (He even lost his love, too.) And get this, he has one gold eye and one green eye, even though they're in reversed positions from how Dartz's eyes are.

On Wednesday I went out to buy sheet protectors so that I could print up LATT. (Since it's so big, I wanted a binder instead of just staples.) I also wanted to get the 3-disc DuckTales boxset that Disney just released. DuckTales was a big part of my early childhood, as were all the early Disney Afternoon shows. In order to acquire those two items, I had to accompany Dad to a meeting. XD; The places I wanted to go to were three blocks away from the meeting place. So I did get what I wanted and got LATT printed up. ^^

I am really surprised at some of the stuff they allowed to be shown even in DuckTales. XD I thought that show was directed more to a younger audience than, say, Darkwing Duck, but I found a lot of jokes in DuckTales that kids would never get (and that I hadn't gotten when I first watched it). The big scene shocker for me was when they allowed (in silhouette form, but still) someone to strangle Scrooge unconscious. .__. Seriously, you actually saw the attacker squeeze his neck until he went limp. I have a hard time believing that would be allowed today. XD; I bet Toon Disney edited that scene out when they showed DuckTales there.

Another thing I was really pleased about is that the 27 episodes they included in this first set were randomly picked. They didn't just have the first 27 episodes of the series. By having them picked randomly, I got a lot of my old favorites in the set, including the genie one. ^^

I just got done with the prologue for the follow-up to LATT! I posted it just now. Alexander gets some moments. XD And I've decided that this fic can be my annual Christmas fic, since I'm nowhere near done with POTT (which takes place in February). LATT took place in summer, but I never said exactly when, so I decided that it could have been late summer, in September, and then I moved things ahead a few months in the follow-up so that Alexander's wing can heal and that the action can start. The follow-up has a German title. XD Why? Because it looks cool, and better than the phrase would have looked in English.

... And I love my Siegfried icon. XD On Saturday I watched a couple of Doom episodes and then I wanted to see the clip where Siegfried mops the floor with Weevil and Rex, since I hate what the writers started doing to them beginning with Doom arc. I noticed the expression Siegfried had after Weevil summoned his monsters, and I knew it was icon material.

Speaking of episodes, I finally got to see Mana in this past Saturday's YGO episode! I was surprised by how much I like her. It ended right before Yami B and Mahado started their duel. (You know, I've seen so many spellings for his name, that I really don't know what's correct any more.) And they kept the flashback scene where Mahado got bitten by the snake, though they didn't actually show the snake biting him. And Yami Y sounded like Yugi in that part. ^^ They did keep him sucking out the venom, which I was somewhat surprised about. It's an important part, but they've cut out important parts before. XD; I love how the censors seem to be loosening up.

This dialogue amused me:

Tristan: Every time I open a door, there's fifty more!
Joey: Even the doors have doors! ><

And Seto talked to the Millennium Eye. XD

Seto: ... What are you looking at? >< . . . Someone shoot me. I'm talking to an ancient golden eyeball.

I don't remember if he actually said "shoot me," but I thought of that probably because he used the phrase in LATT when he talked to the Dark Magician. XD

EDIT: Poked around in Sarah's LJ and found this unique quiz:

( Quiz! )