Ramblings and Musings of the Insane, Philosophical Ladybug

I had another Once dream today. This time I wasn't even thinking about the show consciously, but I still dreamed of it. It was another season 2 dream, and it was set in a beautiful snowy, wintery scene similar to that one I documented some time back. It was supposed to be Storybrooke, but there was either a big house or a castle that was very prominent. I'm not sure whether that was Rumpel's place or someone else's, but there weren't any ominous feelings about it.

In the dream, I was introducing Mom to Once and I had decided for some reason that season 2 was the place to start. Of course, this wasn't the season 2 of reality. In this season 2, it seemed like the characters still hadn't figured out who they were in regards to their fairy tale counterparts. Episode 1 seemed to focus on Mary-Margaret trying to solve the mystery about herself. Also, Rumpel and David had both gotten injured somehow and were at the hospital, and for some bizarre reason, both of them had decided to sleep in the windowboxes under each of their respective windows. WTH. Rumpel was very mysterious, as he was in season 1, and someone was talking to him about what he knew and Rumpel seemed to want to make a deal. Or maybe the other person proposed the deal. Hmm.

Mom loved it and I wanted to show her more. But then Dad came up during a scene where The Evil Queen was onscreen and I flipped it off, because even in this different Once, I knew Dad probably wouldn't like what we were watching and I thought it better if it wasn't on when he was around. Heh. (In reality, I don't think I'd ever show Mom Once, although I've told her about it.)

There was some other influence from reality, as I remember thinking and longing for a plotline where Rumpel sacrifices himself for the townspeople and Belle is able to revive him a la Beauty and the Beast. I wanted to write the story if they didn't ever make it. In reality, of course, Rumpel already did sacrifice himself, the last time I really liked the series and not just a stray episode, and the townspeople really didn't care or appreciate it. And they're far worse now (using Belle to force Rumpel's hand in the Underworld arc is the most repulsive last straw; that is not the behavior of true "good guys", especially when Belle actually considers them friends! UGH), so I wouldn't even think they'd be worthy of Rumpel trying to make such a sacrifice for them now.

It's kind of both funny and sad, the deep impact this series made on me. I swear I wasn't even thinking of it yesterday (I even forgot to post the discussion post on Sunday, oh dear), and it still crept into my dreams. Subconsciously, I obviously feel extremely badly about what happened to it, even more than I do consciously.

And ... I don't know, I am seriously heartbroken that they decided to make Robert Carlyle's Trainspotting 2 haircut a plot point in the series instead of just giving him a wig until it grows out again. Maybe it's shallow, but the long hair was one of the first things that attracted me to Mr. Gold. I would have been fascinated by that mysterious, well-dressed man in season 1 no matter what he looked like, but the hair was the icing on the cake. And it made him stand out more from all the other men, since I don't recall any of the other regulars had long hair. After all the OOC changes they've heaped on the character since season 4, the hair was just about the only thing still the same about him. Stupid, but I think in the back of my mind that was always a slight comfort, like the one constant about the character that they wouldn't change. And now they've gone and done that too.

I've always felt guilty for liking the character at all, but I will continue to remember him as he was in the early seasons, especially when he was trying to turn his life around, before the creators deliberately had horrible things happen to him because he was trying to do the right thing (as they admitted they did).

So while I was going through stuff tagging it recently, I stumbled on that entry where I was comparing Napoleon and Illya's interaction to Jim and Arte's. That was before I'd seen The Summit Five Affair, so I didn't even really believe there was a friendship between Napoleon and Illya and in any case, if there was, I preferred Jim and Arte's insult-free friendship. It was interesting to read that again. And even though now I have come to believe in Napoleon and Illya's friendship, the comparison still made some observational points that are relevant regardless. I've been thinking about it ever since.

It was amusing about Napoleon and Illya, really. The whole fandom pretty much celebrates their friendship, and then there was this one person who insisted she didn't see their relationship that way at all and felt they were only partners, and then there was me in the middle. I wanted to believe in the friendship, but I wasn't feeling it, and I wondered if she was right. I was thrilled when I watched The Summit Five Affair and finally saw clear and present friendshippiness. Yet in spite of that, and in spite of the fact that I enjoy reading other people's friendship fics with them now and then, I personally don't seem to be that interested in writing about friendshippy, hurt/comforty situations with them. For that matter, I don't really seem to be that interested in writing that sort of thing with Jim and Arte, either.

It could be the fact that I don't actually crush on any of them very seriously. (I do have mild crushes, to varying degrees.) Generally, I reserve hurt/comfort scenarios for characters I'm actually crushing on very seriously. On the other hand, it could be that plus the fact that for both shows, my favorite things about them are the plots and mysteries rather than the friendships. (And some of the guest-stars....) And that may sound strange coming from someone who can get so intrigued by friendships that she'll even tinker with characters she normally wouldn't go near, but considering that mysteries and detective shows were always my first love, it makes sense. I mean, seriously, I was four years old and I knew I just had to watch Carmen Sandiego because it was about detectives in these awesome fedora hats and catching crooks and that just sounded so epically awesome. I'm still puzzling over how I already knew I wanted that type of show. I certainly hadn't been exposed to it before; Mom felt I was way too young for that sort of thing. Then the same thing happened when we got this thingie in the mail telling about upcoming shows and I learned about Darkwing Duck. I was like "... A crime-fighting duck?! I MUST WATCH!"

So yeah. Pretty much if it was a crime show, I wanted it. That was my original motivation for getting into The Andy Griffith Show too. (Well, that and Barney sounded hilarious.) Then I started learning all I could about classic TV and found out about U.N.C.L.E. and WWW and all those great things and I wanted them. But it took years before I actually had access to them. And I was all over the James Bond film Moonraker when I saw it (aside from the bed times). Spy stuff ... yay!

But back to Napoleon and Illya. Their specific friendship type is not being very open about their caring. As Crystal pointed out, the best way to see their caring in most episodes is through their facial expressions. It's a very visual thing. That, of course, doesn't translate to stories (unless they're illustrated). But that could be part of my disinterest in writing friendshippy fics about them too, since in lieu of seeing the caring via pictures, it would have to come out some other way. I don't want things to get too mushy/goopy since that would be OOC for them, but sometimes even them discussing deep things at all can result in them seeming too open/OOC. With them, I usually prefer to keep things pretty much as they are in the show, and hence, my stories usually seem to focus on their adventures instead of being hurt/comforty (aside from one creepy fic). I do like having them discuss deep subjects at times, which they do in The Peaceful Meadows Affair, but it doesn't really feel like I'm having them be so open.

Then we have characters like Brett and Danny, who also have that insult humor I don't like but can also do a 180-degree turn and be very open about their caring like it's the most natural thing in the world to show it (which it should be, but it's understandable/professional/better if secret agents like Napoleon and Illya don't follow that idea). I'm hoping to write more fics with them, but I am wondering if I'll be able/comfortable getting the insult banter into things. I haven't really needed to yet, and come to think of it, I've left that out of the U.N.C.L.E. fics too. The thing I adore about Brett and Danny is their openness and I find that easier and more relatable to write than friends who are holding themselves more at arm's length.

When I really think about it, Brett and Danny may very well be an exception to the usual, as it seems like the friendships I usually enjoy writing about the very most ... are often ones I've developed almost or entirely on my own, rather than being fully in canon. With the exceptions of the canonical friendships of Sephiroth and Zack (as shown in Crisis Core), Joe Mannix and Lew Wickersham, and now Brett and Danny, it seems like most of my main friendships have only really been developed into friendships by me. The familial relationships I've loved to write about are canon, but the friendships ... either hardly ever are or else there's only the slightest smidgen of it shown in canon and the smidgen is enough to intrigue me and make me want more. Even with Seph and Zack, there isn't a whole lot showing them together in canon, although as I recall, someone does specifically identify them as friends in-game.

Usually I characterize working partners as friends, regardless of whether they're actually depicted as such in canon. Other examples would be Gin and Vodka, the bikers, Schrank and Krupke, Ginger and Lou, and Ecks and Wye (although the evidence for the latter being friends seems pretty strong to me, given Wye's actual flipping out after finding Ecks stabbed).

With the bikers, Raph seemed protective of Valon in canon, but Valon and Alister couldn't seem to get along. And usually aside from that, they didn't interact together. But it became a fanon thing to have them be friends anyway, with several people adopting the idea of them deciding to start over together after the Doom arc, since they'd already been through so much together and they were really all each other had.

With Ginger and Lou, you have to look pretty closely to see what's going on there, but there is definitely some kind of chemistry between either the actors, the characters or both. I think that essay I wrote pretty well examines every possibility and shows that it is possible that they could be friends. I develop the idea by saying that they became closer and more open while in prison, thus opening the door for their interaction as I've depicted it. Of course, one could certainly use the argument I made with Napoleon and Illya and throw it back at me, saying I shouldn't portray these two being open either. I've worried about that. But one thing is, we've only seen how Ginger and Lou canonically interact during a high-stress situation. With Napoleon and Illya, we've also seen how they behave during downtime. So with Ginger and Lou, I figure there might be some leeway since we don't know how they behave during normal times. I try to make their interaction as fitting the characters shown in canon even though at the same time I'm trying to develop it a bit beyond that. (I guess I also figure no one would care if I soften Ginger a bit, really, since I doubt anyone really became intrigued by him and Lou in canon like I did. I kind of worry what David Chase, the writer of that episode, might think, though. Yes, that David Chase....) Of course, that's what a lot of the U.N.C.L.E. writers do as well, often with excellent results.

Then there's Autor and Ahiru, who were certainly not friends in the series proper. But Autor seemed friendly in that little follow-up play some of the voice actors did, and given Ahiru's gregarious personality, I have a hard time believing that she wouldn't eventually come to see the good in Autor and accept him as a friend. So that seemed to have good potential even though it wasn't expressly canon and that became another of my favorite friendships to work with.

Then we have Duke and David. There's no indication of who David is to Duke in canon (aside from the dub note that he's the store manager), but since Duke confided in David about his plans, at least partially, and David teases Duke without consequence, I would say it's pretty likely that they're friends.

And of course, things like Ray Norman and Coley Rodman, Snakes Tolliver and Beau Maverick, and Snakes and Duke, are most certainly not canon by the slightest stretch of the imagination. Those characters are not on the same show in canon, nor are Ray and Coley or Snakes and Duke canonically in the same time. It's interesting how things like that can just develop in fics or role-plays and end up feeling so right.

Perhaps I usually prefer focusing on things like that because I feel that either canon or the other fans are handling the main friendships just fine and I'd rather do something different and explore other angles. I know that's how I tend to feel about Rumbelle, even though I still enjoy writing my vignette series now and then. That's more in protest of the way Once has gone downhill, though, instead of a desire to actually write Rumbelle. I like to write them talking, which the show should have done more of, but I am pretty useless when it comes to romantic stuff. In general I find romantic/kissing scenes tedious, boring, and almost impossible to write, and I don't want to let down the fans who want to see lots of that, so I still hesitate to post my vignettes on FF.net. (That, and the fact that I don't update that story very frequently....)

Counting down the last couple of weeks until my birthday. Belle is still unopened and by this point I definitely plan to keep her for my birthday. Anticipation is highly mounting and it's fun. The last couple of weeks kind of fly by.

Not to mention, next Saturday is the new Equestria Girls movie. I've been waiting so long for that! I wondered how I'd ever stand waiting the last couple of months. Then the new Carmen renaissance happened and it wasn't miserable waiting at all. I'm so psyched that it airs a week before my birthday. I hope I'll get to see it that night. Since I don't get the channel, I have to rely on YouTube to see Pony stuff.

And the Pony episode this past day was AWESOME. Rarity solved a mystery and it was a detective/noir parody and the detecting scenes were in B&W and Rarity had a fedora and trenchcoat and narrated like it was an old detective show ... ! I am ecstatic. I may have to re-watch this one very soon. I sooo want Rarity as a detective to be a thing. She seems like such an unlikely candidate for a detective, but she was awesome! And she used her knowledge and love of fashion to solve the mystery! Now I want to dress both my Rarity plushies in fedoras and trenchcoats. And I want an icon of Rarity like that, although I don't know where I'd put it. But seriously, so much awesome! That's one of the few episodes without Twilight that I really like. Of course, Rarity is one of my other main favorites.

I was going to make a dream post a couple of days ago and wasn't able to get to it. It has been so hectic this week. I wonder if now I can remember enough details of the dreams to even write down.

I remember my dream redesigned Snakes and gave him longer hair, about like Scott in season 2. It doesn't suit him at all, but it did look very nice in the dream and I woke up kind of wanting to try illustrating it.

There was something weird going on where we were at a mall, I think, and Snakes was with a girlfriend. It wasn't the Chita character I created, but someone else. She wasn't so nice either and she'd done something to make criminals angry. They slipped something into her food and apparently into Snakes' as well, and both of them collapsed unconscious. I think Snakes found out she was a creep first.

Later on there was a dream where we went to a recurring locale that hasn't turned up for a while: a very weird place with aquariums where the fish are huge and can jump out of the aquariums and swim through the air and be held for a little bit. I've been there maybe three or four times in my dreams, so it doesn't recur as much as some other places. It was kind of nice to see it again. So many cute fishies!

The last time I was asleep I had another Once dream. They have definitely been coming with increasing frequency over the past month. I don't know if that's solely because of Belle or if it's also because I sort of wonder if I'll actually be interested in trying the new season. The stuff I've heard about it could make it really good, but I've been burned so much over the last season and a half that I don't know that I dare believe it will be decent. The dream seemed to be about me having watched the first half of the season and being frustrated when the mid-season finale ended with things being left up in the air and the villain biding his time and waiting to do whatever he was going to do, which put Rumpel and Belle in a spot.

Crystal inadvertently gave me an awesome idea for a new Once vignette the other day, and today's 31_days prompt was perfect for it, so I wrote it and just got it up now. This one fully deconstructs "canon" from 3B on, and acknowledges "canon" in a certain way that gives things more closure than if I was just writing my AU verse without acknowledging "canon" at all. It felt so good. This is probably the only show I'll ever write for where I feel the need to make such a clean break from canon. In general I'll acknowledge all known canon and write stuff after the last canon point, but Once just became too much of a mess. I can't acknowledge anything beyond 3A as canon for that show.

I bought The Virginian season 7 on Saturday, since I had an Amazon gift card and that's how I noticed the sale in the first place, and opted for the cheapest thing possible to push it to free shipping: a cute fish plushie I've wanted for a while. I name all my fish plushies after Perry characters; years ago, I selected this one to be Della Fish. It shipped early Monday and is supposed to arrive on Saturday, but I really hope it gets here before that. Saturday is supposed to hit 100, and it's going to be a busy day, if everything works out the way it's supposed to. I don't want a package arriving on Saturday and sitting in the mailbox for hours on such a hot day.

I'm glad I didn't include the movie as part of the order, because I found that some copies of the movie carry an offer that expires at the end of July, for $4 off the entire purchase if you get a doll with the movie. Squeeee. But I wasn't sure whether to get it while I was at the store or not, because I need to have money for Saturday. I don't know if I'll find any orders I can write this week; last week I couldn't find any. So I need to use what money I've got very carefully. We'll be up in the old area on Saturday and I can go shopping there. It's possible, but not probable, that I could find Octavia or the Sunset plushie. I felt like I couldn't be at peace making the purchase this past night until I know what's up there. I assume that other Wal-Marts will also have copies of the movie with that offer.

The Wal-Mart here is just getting in some new dolls, including an adorable Fluttershy with partially braided hair, and I love her so much that I think I'd be happy to get her instead of the original deluxe Fluttershy that I've wanted. I considered getting her tonight, either her or the Sunset Shimmer doll with the correct hair, but in the end decided I really did need to wait, even though it was torture putting everything back. Hopefully I'll still have the chance for that purchase if I don't find anything at the other stores.

I'm also trying to remember which doll box some kid left their lollipop stick on last week. Ewwwww! I think it was a Rarity box and not the Sunset Shimmer box, but because I can't remember, that makes me a little leery about getting the Sunset doll at my Wal-Mart. I'll be checking other Wal-Marts we're at; I'm hoping to visit at least two Wal-Marts, a Target, a Toys R Us, and the big F.Y.E. I hope it works out; I'm so excited to think of being able to go to those stores again! They might have different stock than the ones down here.

I also need to get some sheet protectors for the final act of my first 100songs set. Wal-Mart has been out of the kind I need for the last couple of times. Ugh. Something else to check other Wal-Marts for....

So apparently all I have to do is accidentally see Once DVDs at eBay for good prices to end up dreaming about Once and Rumbelle. I think that show and that pairing mean more to me than I'm even fully aware of, and the way the show has let me down since season 3B has disappointed me even more than I realize. I've dreamed about it several times lately.

Yesterday I finally got up a Mannix season 1 post here: http://thepathofthestars.blogspot.com I'd meant to do a Lew Wickersham-centric post, but it turned into season 1/Lew and Joe's friendship, instead. Of course, you can't really discuss Lew for long without getting into the friendship, but now I'm wondering whether to write a post to say some of the things about Lew that didn't quite fit into this post or whether I should not post any more about season 1 and save it for the book about season 1 I want to write.

I also finally got another webcomic page done. http://thesecretlifeofexcons.tumblr.com I'm hoping to get page 2 done soon, too. I posted 1 by itself because posts have been so scarce lately.

And I am so restless and nervous about a lot of things today, for some reason. I had a horrible time going to sleep for a while, I was so edgy, and the edginess continues after sleep. I'm not even fully sure why I'm so wound up. Among other things, I'm worried about whether I'll have all the content desired in order to open my website next month, and how I'll get said content, and whether a reviewer familiar with Riptide will keep reading and commenting on my multi-chapter fic or if she'll bug out because she doesn't want it to be supernatural and is afraid it will be.... Also wondering if people will get mad at me for toying with a May-December romance between Giovanna and Scofield or if they won't care since a large portion of the fanbase prefers slash and would probably rather Cody didn't have Giovanna.

I'm really nervous about planning the next activity for the girls at church, since I'm pretty much on my own due to a decision that each of us will be in charge of an activity and we'll keep going the rounds like that. I kind of liked when we all planned the specific activities together instead, so that the whole burden for the lesson wasn't on one person. Especially since while kids like me for some reason, I'm really not a good teacher and often get tongue-tied and don't explain things well, so I'd kind of like help. But I wouldn't like to ask and make it look like I can't handle putting it together on my own, since the others can manage fine doing that.

I'm a little sad and disappointed about a couple of things, nothing major, but still, it contributes to the overall feeling of being on edge. I wonder if the activity is the main source of stress, though. I only have a week to prepare it. And I'm pretty worried about the website, too, since things just aren't going the way I hoped in regards to it.

So I haven't been watching Gotham or Once Upon a Time, but I've been keeping track of what's going on with them, and I'm not pleased with either one.


( Spoilers )

So it suddenly occurs to me to wonder, I hope the Venus plush is the correct size. The stock picture was the big one, and the weight of the package fits, so one would assume the individual seller was aware of that and listed their product on the right page. One wouldn't think the small size plush would ever sell for that price, but I saw some outrageous prices for her on eBay. All there is now is to wait and see.

And I got up today's vignette, in which Vivalene bothers Ecks. She turns up in most of my fandoms and I thought it would be fun to see her there. The setting is the present-day, as per my preferences, since to my surprise the Cold War didn't really seem to play any part in the series with regards to Illya's presence. (I.E., no one ever seemed alarmed that a Russian was there, etc., so time period seems of little importance.) Nevertheless, for pieces posted on FF.net and such, I will probably try as much as possible to be ambiguous and not state a time period one way or the other, since I know most people prefer it to be the time in which the series was made.

Ecks still thinks Wye is dead, and Vivalene is only furthering those thoughts (albeit Vifa really thinks he's dead). I'm still anxious to get to the reunion, but I'm not downright upset like I was last night. I think that had less to do with them thinking each other dead and more to do with my distress over the injury and the treatment and the extended hospital stay. It downright upsets me to write things involving extended hospital stays, as mentioned, especially if said stay includes any length of time in which the patient can't perform normal bodily functions themselves without tubes and machines everywhere (which certainly is the case for injuries like that, probably moreso than some other injuries). That is just disgusting and gross. What I wrote didn't actually touch on any of that, but it was a hospital piece and it upset me just knowing what must have happened that I didn't write about. I thought I was upset more because I can't stand hospitals in general, after my grandmother was in one for so long and we kept going in for long hours several times a week. That's probably part of it too, but I think I figured out it's the other element that bothers me most. But ah well, there was nothing I could do about that, since I wanted the character to survive the injury and that would mean he'd have to suffer through the treatment for it.

And then I also think I'm just plain feeling guilty for writing about some more antagonists. It takes me a while to get used to doing that each time it happens, because I always feel like I shouldn't be doing it. Sometimes I never do stop feeling that way; I slacked off on those Once Upon a Time vignettes because I kept feeling guilty to write about Mr. Gold after all the horrible things he's done.

Anyway ... I'm kind of thinking I'll write the reunion piece for Wednesday's theme, but we'll see.

And apparently my post where I was trying to find out some other details of such an injury made it into the top 25 posts for today, according to Livejournal. That's cool. I never thought any post of mine would be quite that popular.

So money has been so hard to come by lately that I finally broke down and did something I had vowed never to do: I started writing some articles for the lowest-paying category at Textbroker. I was desperate; the site isn't how it used to be and most everything for the better categories was too technical or about locales I didn't know about and couldn't write about or was otherwise unacceptable for me. At least in the lowest category, I found a bunch of movie and television descriptions that needed writing. It's been hard digging out ones about shows I've actually seen, but it's a triumph every time I've found one. And it's been fun, too.

One of the ones I found that I could write was for one of the Winnie the Pooh shorts. And while I was writing it, it occurred to me that "... Hey, how can a teddy bear eat honey (or anything else) anyway?" Of course you're just supposed to accept it as children's book logic and not question it, but when they keep reminding you within the stories' adventures that he is indeed a teddy bear (stuffing ripping, needing to be wrung out if wet, etc.), it does cause one to scratch their head and wonder what's going on around here anyway. It sounds more like a fantasy that Christopher Robin is acting out with his plushies and isn't something that could really happen. Yet you know it really is happening in the context of the show, because at least four of the characters are not plushies (Rabbit, Tigger, Owl, and Gopher, and maybe Piglet isn't a plushie either; I don't remember seeing stitching on him or other indications that he's a plushie) and they're real and interacting with the plushies, which have apparently come to life yet are still plushies (i.e., Toy Story).

And amazingly, I had another good sleep. I also had weird dreams that also leave me scratching my head. It's so strange to all of a sudden dream about something you weren't actively thinking of while awake.

I was afraid I'd go to sleep dreaming about those terrible Goosebumps books, because I have Ginger and Lou talking about Mike having read some when they came out and hence, I needed to know what year they first came out. Then I got curious, read the whole article, and also read the titles of the books and a few summaries, something I really wish I hadn't done since several of the books deal with my most-hated trope. That, coupled with the fact that R.L. Stine says there are no deaths in the books, means that there must be weirdness on the level of what happened to Once Upon a Time's Mad Hatter, which I ... honestly think is worse than death. **shudders.** I was curious because having read the titles, I couldn't figure out how there couldn't be death in at least some of the books, so I read some summaries, and thankfully just glanced/skimmed at the one in that group of books that involved my hated trope, but it was enough of a glance to understand more of what was going on than I wanted to. Ugh! I wish I wasn't so curious sometimes.

But anyway, I did not dream about those things. The most stand-out dreams in my mind are two that seemed to be happening concurrently: 1, Mom and I were going to get a taxi cab and go to Wal-Mart after dinner, because I wanted to shop baaad and Dad wasn't available to go that day, and deciding to get ready was happening very slowly and I was getting impatient (something that often happens when going for groceries with Dad in reality, since he doesn't like going places), and 2, I was watching/acting out a very convoluted version of Princess Tutu's episode 22.

The taxi dream was taking place at the old house yet again and when we finally called the cabbie, he said we could go out the upstairs back door because that would be quicker. In the dream it made sense, but in reality, there is no road back there to drive out from. (There is a driveway that goes back that far, but when we lived there, we had old cars along that driveway. There wasn't room for another to drive along.) There is just the backyard. And in the dream, the snow was coming down generously (finally; the poor East Coast has gotten all of the West's snow!) and I was hoping the snow wouldn't complicate the drive. I was also a little leery of going out the back way, which fits reality, as I was pretty terrified to go into the backyard at night after the neighborhood started getting so scary. Also, both in the dream and in reality, we kept that door pretty bolted up. In reality, we never went out that door after we found it necessary to bolt it up.

Also frustrating was that the cabbie was a crook who just wanted to rob us. **headdesk.** One dream trope of mine is having extreme difficulty getting anything to go the way I want it when it comes to shopping. Either we don't get there at all, or we get there, but I can't find what I want and the stores are weird and I wander around in them a lot. It's very strange when I actually find what I want in a dream and can keep hold of it. Sometimes I find it but then it mysteriously disappears during the trip.

In the Princess Tutu dream, nothing in Act 22 was going the way it really went on the show except that Autor had been officially introduced. Autor was also being chased by a horrible purple tentacled monster, which he was fleeing from in panicked terror. I knew that in Act 23, it caught up to him in a creepy old house (that looked a lot like a house I know in reality) and Fakir and Ahiru, or even just Ahiru, came in to save him in time and then Autor and Ahiru talked for a bit, so I wasn't too worried. Autor definitely was, however, and when he reached said house, he ran around to the back and hid under a gigantic rock, trying to make himself unseen by the monster, which hadn't come around yet.

Meanwhile, for some reason Fakir was operating a crane. Maybe that was part of him trying to catch the monster, I don't know. Another scene had Ahiru quack and go duck and she was sitting on the steering wheel of Fakir's car, while he was sitting at the wheel and observing something. And I was thinking, "Oh yay, proof that Princess Tutu does take place in the modern day, just in a town that still looks beautifully old, just as I've said."

Weird, weird dreams, as usual. And I wake up kind of wanting to look over some of my Tutu fics. I have two hanging fics for that, I think, but I'm pretty sure they will never be finished, or at least not the one that's more fantasy-like. I don't have any inspiration for oneshots, either, but I still love the characters and it would be fun to revisit them sometime.

One long ago idea for the YGO story I've finally picked up writing lately was that they visit Kinkan Town before leaving Germany and Autor finds some more information for them on the amethyst. When I picked up the story several weeks ago, however, I decided not to do that angle. I don't think I want YGO to co-exist in the same verse with Princess Tutu (even though, yes, I had Siegfried and Leonhard make a cameo appearance in my longest Tutu fic several years ago). The magical girl shows I like tend to have a verse of their own, while YGO shares the more realistic verse with my live-action shows. In spite of the Shadow Realm and creepy magical items and things like Yami Marik, YGO fits a lot better into my live-action verse than any magical girls show does. I have the live-action characters run into weird supernatural stuff a lot, mainly ghosts, evil spirits, and sometimes haunted items, but weird, giant monsters and girls casting magic to save the world? No. That's a whole different category of weird and supernatural that really doesn't fit what I want for my live-action verse.

I guess basically, I can sum it up with that I believe ghosts, evil spirits, and haunted items all exist (I also think there are at least two haunted items in this house), but of course, I do not believe in bizarre monsters or magical girls. For my more realistic, live-action verse, I prefer to stick with stuff that I believe could more easily happen/already exists. (Admittedly, I break that rule now and then, like when I want to do an enchanted death, but not very often.) Of course, YGO has monsters too, but they were only really real in the long-ago past and were locked away in their own dimension, so that's not the same as monsters terrorizing people in the present-day, as they do in magical girls shows. When it comes to the monsters being "real" in Shadow Games, I think of it more as the Item holder influencing things in the other's mind so that they seem to be real. (Of course, they were real in Doom Arc, as I recall, but eh.) But then, I'm an incurable cynic and skeptic about things like monsters, when it comes to shows where monsters exist but so do mind games. :) Pretty much how I write Ginger and Hamilton and other cynical characters.

So for the last couple of weeks or so, I've been working on a picture of Scarecrow and Riddler fighting. I used the concept art of The Batman version of Scarecrow, since that's the verse the story takes place in. Man, that version of Scarecrow looks freaky. I think the picture is coming out pretty cool. I just finished the inking last night. I'll scan the inked version and then color it and scan that version.

I still haven't tried to get back on dA and post the inked version of the Riddler standing under the lamppost. Now I have the colorized version of that, too, only I lost my flesh-colored pencil (well, the smidgen of it I had left, anyway) and since the Riddler's skin is so pale in this verse, I currently haven't colored it in at all. Not sure whether I'll keep it like that or not, but I'm really not sure what to do without that pencil. The other possible colors I could use are too dark.

Also, the continuing nonsense on Once is making me retreat further into my little post-3A world and insist on imagining that it's what happened instead of 3B and 4A. I also started considering more seriously the idea of buying seasons 1 and 2 on DVD. Maybe season 3, even, when the price drops, to have the first half of the season. (One of the only times I ever wished for a season's release DVDs to be split up. I also wish that would happen with Gotham, so I could rewatch the first half of season 1 in the privacy of my room and not have to wait until fall for the whole season set.) I still don't know that I really will buy any of them, but more and more I'm missing how good the show used to be and I want to relive those times again.

I miss the good times so much that I actually sat down and starting drawing a picture of Mr. Gold from memory. I didn't quite get the hair right and I'll have to alter that, but I went for that gentle, sort of awed expression he gets around Belle and I really love how that came out. Then I tried putting Belle in the picture too. She came out awful at first and I had to try again. That time she came out pretty nice. I'm looking forward to touching up the sketch and scanning it in. Don't know if I'll color it; I tend to not color the stuff I draw of realistic people, because I want each soft strand of hair to be more visible than it would be colored.

Pondering on whether to buy anything at the store tonight. I need to start getting Christmas presents for people, and then I'm still considering getting volume 1 of Batman: The Animated Series. I could ask for it for Christmas, but there's so many Batman things at Wal-Mart that I wouldn't be surprised if Dad might get confused and get the wrong thing. Then I'm also considering season 1 of Once, if they still have any in stock. There's the DJ Pon-3 doll I wanted, and if the $9.98 sale is still going on, it's the perfect time to get her. There's a cool Batman charm necklace. I've even thought of getting their Hello Kitty plush. It's about the same size as Build-a-Bear's, but eight dollars cheaper and already dressed. I'm not really into Hello Kitty a whole lot, but I think she's cute and I kind of casually would like a plush.

Naturally, I would only pick one of those things, if I get anything.

Still doing the Once post-season 3A vignette series on 31_days. I did manage to get one done that was Thanksgiving-themed. And I have a plan for the next one. Not sure whether I'll write it tonight or save it for sometime this week, though.

Fiddled with my Interests and added Gotham. I've also put Rumbelle in, but I don't know if I'll keep it in since I don't want to give the impression I'm okay with what the show did at the end of 3B and all through 4A. I first removed Monk to get it in, since some things about the show bug me, but I like enough about it that I put it back. Then I removed Rurouni Kenshin, since Kenshin himself is pretty much the only character I like in the series (well, I do like Sanosuke too) and the manga has too many instances of my most-hated death just in the first five volumes and I had to quit collecting it because of that. I still don't know, though. I might take Rumbelle out and put Kenshin back, or put something else in.

Hoping to get to the store tomorrow. I want to look at a Batman/Batgirl (same logo both ways, but it's Batgirl on the package) pajama set I saw and see if I can find a price. Online it seems to go for $29.99, which is more than I'd pay. I was hoping Wal-Mart might have it for $19.99; any more than that would be too much for me. And if it's too much, I thought I might try on that lone pair of Batman pajama pants and see if it would fit even though I figured it would be too big.

Also contemplating getting either season 1 of 1960's Batman or volume 1 of Batman: The Animated Series. I remembered that six years ago, most of the episodes of the latter that I saw were early ones and I adored them, so I decided maybe I'd like the first set better than the second set. I'd been hesitant on getting the first set because it doesn't have any Riddler episodes, but now that I've seen The Animated Series Riddler and ... really don't like him that much (other than his amazing voice), that would no longer be an issue. And $14.99 for a set of 28 episodes is hard to beat.

It's almost time for me to get two gift cards in, so I've been debating waiting just a little longer and getting the 1960's Batman with the gift cards. If Wal-Mart doesn't have any more in stock, that would end the matter right there. But if they do, and if I have my refund from the faulty DVDs, I would probably go ahead and get it at Wal-Mart and use the gift cards for other things. I watched some clips on YouTube the other day and am getting antsy to see the show again, especially the Penguin episodes, since Tom Kenny's portrayal is based on Burgess Meredith's.

Of course, if Wal-Mart would actually have Joseph Campanella's Christmas movie, that would trump everything else. But it looks like I'll have to buy it online.