Ramblings and Musings of the Insane, Philosophical Ladybug

So the Pony episode this past day was really good; I think it was another of the best ones this season. But for me, that was just an appetizer before the entree, the Equestria Girls movie!

I was worried that someone might not put it up tonight, so I decided to try to get in on a live stream, even though those have never worked for me. I tried one on The Brony Network after being unable to find a YouTube one, but the connection just didn't hold. I went back to YouTube and figured I'd watch the first ten minutes clip that's been up, and instead I found a live stream that wasn't in my previous search for some reason. By that time the movie was already on, but I was able to get in on a good chunk of it. The stream kept cutting out and I'd have to start over, but I got to see many of the best parts. And then someone did put it up, so I've been able to see it in full now!

Eeeee, I'm so excited for the DVD release on the 13th.... I wish it would be in time for my birthday, but I'm glad the wait isn't too much longer.

Honestly, I seriously adored the movie. ( Mild spoilers )

Also, I always get excited because it's so uncanny how Sunset Shimmer runs these accidental parallels with the way I developed Snakes' character. They're both antagonists who ended up being shown true friendship and wanting to turn their lives around and are trying to figure out what friendship is about. And now one of my RP versions of Snakes is starting to try to pay forward the good he's been taught. It's very interesting how RPs can grow and develop and things like that can happen without it being planned on at all. I have no idea how that will turn out, but it's just kind of neat to explore that side of Snakes no matter what comes of it.

I just wish I had a place to really share my enthusiasm with other movie fans. The LJ comm is so dead. And the Pony forum I'm on is so often critical of both the TV series and the movies. Sometimes not without cause, but they also nitpick a lot instead of being able to enjoy the good. I have certain complaints of my own, especially with the series, but I still love it in spite of its flaws. Its missteps haven't reached Once Upon a Time levels of bad; hopefully that will never happen.

Ah well. Overall, such a really satisfying evening and a perfect early birthday present. I'm ecstatic.

Woke up looking for tapes for my shows tonight and happened to glance at my YGO DVD set that's the first half of season 1. I plan to get some more of those at some point, but since I do have video copies of every episode in English, I haven't been bending over backwards to hurry and get more.

I was thinking on how I think my favorite arcs are the first two: Duelist Kingdom and Battle City. I liked Noa's arc up to the point where Tristan had his "accident"; as glad as I was that the robot monkey thing was all virtual reality and not real, that was still getting too, too weird for me. I did like Seto's duel with Noa, though.

When they finally got out of the VR world, the Battle Tower wrap-up of Battle City was mostly tedious. Every duel seemed to take forever. Yugi and Seto was six episodes. Seriously? Joey and Yami Marik was four and Yami Yugi and Yami Marik was five. The best thing about the Battle Tower episodes was the Ishtar family squee.

Doom arc I love for the bikers, but it's a really depressing arc, with Mai going bad because Yami Marik emotionally destroyed her during Battle City and so many characters losing their souls. Of course, there was soul loss during Duelist Kingdom too, but aside from Yugi's grandpa, it was for a much shorter time than in Doom arc. Or it seemed like it, anyway ... though I guess Mokuba spent quite a long time soulless. I love any scrap of screentime the bikers have, and Duke had some great scenes too, but I hate wading through all the depressing stuff.

Grand Prix was honestly a really nice break from all the heavy stuff. I love Siegfried and still delight to remember how he beat Weevil and Rex in one move. It was a fun, light-hearted arc, and aside from the awful Vivian, I quite enjoyed it. I didn't realize how much I and the characters needed a break from the dark stuff until Grand Prix came along. And to think I was lukewarm about it at first because it was filler.

The Pharaoh's Memories arc is ... I'm not sure. I like that they put Seto in it; not having him in the manga version of the arc was a terrible omission. But the anime version doesn't have as many of the deep scenes with Thief King Bakura that the manga does. And I have mixed feelings about the very last saga, where Yami Yugi crosses over to the afterlife at long last. It's great to think that he can finally be at rest and that Yugi has matured enough to stand on his own, but it's sad to think of them being separated. And the dub version cuts out the epilogue scene where it shows what most of the characters we've seen throughout the series are up to.

And I thought about Duke some more, too. He and Tristan have some interesting interaction. Tristan always seems worried about Duke if it looks like Duke is hurt or worse. There's some mini hurt/comfort in Noa's arc when Tristan wakes up and finds Duke slumped next to him. And Tristan really seems to freak out and be upset and distraught when Noa encases Duke in stone.

But it's hard for me to get past Tristan not trusting Duke. They weren't allowed to discuss their strategies when they and Serenity were forced to duel against one of the Big Five, and Tristan decided that Duke was just out for himself because his strategy didn't involve protecting Serenity even though that was not helping anything long-term and it was just causing Tristan's lifepoints to whittle down to nothing. The Big Five guy was deliberately targeting Serenity because he was trying to get the guys to protect her and lose the game for all three of them. Duke's strategy was to try to save all of them, not just Serenity, and he knew that if Tristan just let himself lose it wouldn't help any of them, including Serenity. But he couldn't say anything about it and Tristan didn't trust that he had a plan that would be good for everyone. So Tristan kept doing his own thing and did end up losing. Then it was up to Duke alone to win, since Serenity really didn't know how to play the game. (Although if I remember right, she did end up turning out a couple of cool moves.)

It's one thing for friends to argue all the time, if that's just how they show affection, but when they can't even trust each other during life-and-death situations, it's really hard for me to believe that they're really close. I guess that's why the common fangirl ideas of Duke and Tristan as being really close friends (or even lovers) just leaves me cold. Tristan might be upset for Duke to be hurt or killed, but most decent people would be upset by that. If he can't trust Duke, after Duke should have already proven himself an ally, there's something wrong somewhere.

Of course, there is the fact that from the time Tristan and Serenity were saved from Rare Hunters by Duke to the beginning of Noa's arc was, I believe, one 24-hour period. Yes, this show really crams a lot of adventures into one day, just like what happens in a lot of my stories. Tristan and Duke had that fight on the roof in between (and the dub really made Duke sound awful in it, whereas in the Japanese he didn't say anything like that) and their rivalry over Serenity was definitely well-established. Naturally Tristan's distrust of Duke had a lot to do with his crush on Serenity and his feeling that Duke wasn't good for her (and perhaps anime Duke really wouldn't be; I still detest the changes they made to his character for his anime introduction arc). And the short period of time between events didn't allow for Tristan and Duke to really become friends. Tristan's distress over Duke's fate at Noa's hands was not the distress of someone who has lost a dear friend. They didn't know each other well enough for that.

The rest of Noa's arc may have taken place over the course of one day; I'm still unclear how long they were there. Battle Tower was all one day, I think, and then Duke went his own way again. He and Tristan may have been willing to bunk together out of necessity in both Battle City and Doom arcs, but neither arc had them having known each other enough to be doing that because they were close. However, out of all of Yugi's friends, Tristan is probably the one Duke has had the most interaction with and the one he felt most comfortable with. I can't see Duke bunking with Joey, for instance.

Then there's the fact that Yugi and company didn't even tell Duke about things in Pharaoh's Memories arc; Yugi felt guilty and admitted that he had forgotten. Duke said he understood, and he probably did; he was a loner and only came on their adventures if he either invited himself or was dragged into it by the bad guys. But perhaps he was a loner partially because he didn't fully feel like he had been accepted into the circle. Yugi wouldn't forget to tell Joey, Tristan, and Tea, so for Duke to be omitted definitely says that he is not as deeply in the friendship as the original four. And it doesn't help that his business is right across the street from Yugi's house. It seems pretty hard to forget a friend if they're right there.

I'm sure the fault is a bit on both sides; Duke is a loner and maybe Yugi and company think he prefers it that way. Maybe he does, but the fact that he comes right out with Yugi's grandpa as soon as he does find out what's going on suggests that at least part of him does want to be involved. It's a sticky problem, and in my fic Desperado I tried to explore it from both sides.

My YGO fics are mainly divided into two groups. The earlier ones, which I wrote while the show was still airing in first-run, have the whole group as buddy-buddy, including Duke. A couple years after the show finished, I started writing for it again, and reviewing the episodes gave me new perspectives on things, including how Duke sometimes seems excluded from the tight-knit group of the original four. In addition, the manga strongly suggests that Duke is not really part of the group and still doesn't fully grasp the idea of friendship. Those newer fics, up to the present, follow those concepts, especially anime-wise. But he does come to realize the value and reality of friendship, mostly through the store manager character who is obviously pretty close to him judging from their canonical conversation in episode #46.

I'm not sure I can ever un-see those concepts. I always explored the loner-Duke idea to some extent; even when writing the first batch of stories, the song Where Will You Go? was always Duke's image song, and he was quite a loner in the RP with Aubrie. So I guess I've just expanded on those ideas since then.

I feel like re-reading some of those fics and maybe writing some more. I often feel like that and don't really do it, but maybe this time I will.

I kind of wish I could do a Duke RP exploring some more of these ideas, but it would probably need to be a clean-slate RP and not one deeply entwined in canon of its own, so that is unlikely to be able to happen. Once I get an RP going with someone, it very quickly develops canon of its own, which is the case with the one steady RP I currently have going that sometimes involves YGO characters. And its Duke arcs have already covered some of those ideas, as well as the events of my Lead Me Through the Fire and Close Your Eyes, Clear Your Heart fics.

I miss the days when I had several RPs going at once. But I'm of course grateful to have any RPs still going at all. They are fun times.

Bleh. Saturday was spent mostly in pain. I hate when that happens, especially when it's so bad I can barely think straight. The only good thing about it is that when it's that harsh, it's usually gone sometime the next day. I'm definitely grateful for that, but I feel bad that I really couldn't converse with people when I was trying to.

This past week I've been amused thinking back to when I first became interested in Boba Fett. I had the figure of my brother's, as mentioned, and I wondered who he was. Mom and I looked on the figure chart and found his name. Then I wanted to see him in action, so we watched the Star Wars films again (or rather, the latter two, since we didn't have a copy of A New Hope back then) and ... well, it was pretty much instant intrigue.

Then I started doing very strange things. I had Kit and Molly from Talespin become Boba Fett's wards. I don't know what happened to Rebecca. I do remember at that time I was on the rocks with Baloo, which was totally unfair to him. I think it started because I didn't like the way he acted in the episode Stormy Weather, which was childish of me since he was only worried about Kit getting in with a creep and doing dangerous things. But so anyway ... Kit and Molly were Boba Fett's wards. And I made up silly posters on some pink paper one of my aunts gave me that said "The Kit and Molly Show! With Boba Fett Too!"

Mom thought it would be nice to give her one of the posters, so she could see I was enjoying the paper. So I did, and she read it aloud and Dad was there and went, "... Hey, isn't that the guy from Star Wars?" and I wanted to sink into the floor.

I also remember that one of my first hurt/comfort adventures involved Kit bringing Boba Fett ... somewhere, and saying he wouldn't wake up, or something (I was six; I don't think I knew a big word like "unconscious" yet). And then after a while I was embarrassed by the whole thing and when I had him wake up, I wasn't sure how to have Kit react and it was all very weird.

I used to occasionally draw Boba Fett, but all that armor was confusing to figure out, so I didn't do it very often. I did draw Kit and Molly a lot, badly. Mom drew better, and I'd have her draw paper dolls of all the characters we used in our stories. So there were the paper doll storylines and the action figure storylines. Later on, since later we mostly played with figures and there weren't existing figures for everyone I wanted in the stories, we developed a verbal-only storyline that we still have ongoing today.

I remember other oddball adventures back in the day like Kit being a brat and pretending he had amnesia and saying his name was Guacamole, because I thought that was a hilarious word. LOL. Poor Kit. I did such weird, weird things when I was a kid. And I had no concept of OOCness.

Leonardo Turtle owned a restaurant with his brothers. Probably a pizza parlor. LOL. Later on he sold it to Rebecca.

Don Karnage and Mad Dog hung out together. I wasn't crazy about Dumptruck or Gibber, so they weren't there. Over time, Karnage and Mad Dog pretty much became OCs rather than the Talespin characters. Eventually they really only shared the names and a couple of key personality traits (Karnage's conceit, Mad Dog's whining). I even redesigned them as other animals (Karnage as an Alaskan Malamute, Mad Dog as a Siberian Husky). The OC versions became the central characters in the stories I used to write and sell in the old neighborhood to get money. I also created a skunk character, Jackly the Pew, who was originally based on the Tiny Toon Adventures character Jonny Pew. (Jonny ended up being Jackly's brother.)

I created a whole bunch of skunk characters actually. I loved Fifi on Tiny Toons and she entered the storyline, as did Miss Skunky (an orange skunk who cameos with Jonny Pew in the episode), Red-and-White (a blundered version of Miss Skunky when I couldn't remember what she looked like), and a collection of girls either inspired by Fifi or who were early attempts at drawing Fifi when I didn't have a picture to be looked at: Viva, Vivi, Vifa.... Vifa, who started out as a sweet girl, eventually showed her true colors as a femme fatale and became one of my primary antagonists even today (albeit as a human version, not a skunk). I first tried that in my sixth YGO mystery and it continued from there.

Later, Vifa developed a twin sister named Flo. Flo was originally just Vifa in disguise, but then I wanted her to be another actual character. For the longest time, I had trouble giving her a separate personality from Vifa, but recently I differentiated them by having Vifa interested in money and jewels and Florence interested in power. Vifa could be pettily bent on revenge, while Florence didn't usually bother with that. Lately, however, she has gotten so frustrated with Ginger and Lou overturning her plans against them that she has made it a personal goal to defeat them someday.

Meanwhile, Jackly (or Pew, as we started mostly calling him) started out as an antagonist, frustrated by Karnage doing stupid conceited things and Mad Dog being embarrassed and whining and bawling about it. It was only after Karnage enlisted in the Army that Pew started becoming friends with Mad Dog. Eventually, they actually became closer friends than Mad Dog and Karnage had been.

Karnage drove General Stilton (from The Cat From Outer Space movie) utterly mad with his nonsense of wanting to look in mirrors and shiny hubcaps and anything else that resembled a mirror. Karnage eventually made friends with Corporal Klinger from M*A*S*H. Yes, we said "Screw time periods!" and pretty much added anyone we wanted. The setting was the present day, but anyone could wander in from other eras, at the same age they were in the other eras. And characters like Karnage remained anthropomorphic animals, while human characters stayed human. They co-exist together very easily.

Karnage was in the Army for many years, and then left to marry a mirror. LOL. It was a gag based on something from years earlier, when he'd talked about it and Mad Dog talked him out of it because he wouldn't be able to go on dates with anyone and back then, Karnage was a Casanova and loved dates. But this other time, Mad Dog couldn't talk Karnage out of it and Karnage said he regretted listening to Mad Dog that first time. There was a big wedding in New York City, with Lieutenant Schrank from West Side Story very unhappily running security and Ron Updyke from Kolchak: The Night Stalker being abducted by a bunch of rabid Karnage fans that demanded that Karnage be allowed to marry the mirror or they would keep Ron hostage in a hot-air balloon.

Ah, good times.

Currently the main characters are in Los Angeles, where they've mostly been for three years, since Karnage married the mirror and went to L.A., where he burst into court and got on the witness stand and said, "I solemnly swear that I'm glorious." Hamilton Burger's expression was priceless. LOL.

There was a sanity hearing, which dragged on and on because the judge and Karnage's lawyer were crooked (something Karnage was oblivious to), and Mad Dog and Pew and company came out from their main residence to participate in the hearing. Eventually Karnage was put under the observation of some doctors, who are fascinated by him and aren't much help, except for keeping him from doing dangerous stunts like getting on bridges and screaming about being wonderful.

Both Vifa/Vivalene and Florence pretended to be nice girls and talked with Pew, who wanted to give them a chance to start over despite thinking they were both awful in the past. He learned their true colors later and felt deeply betrayed. Then he met Virginia, a mysterious girl who likes to steal things and then pretend she didn't, and generally is a mercenary out for a buck. Her full origins are still unknown, but she causes trouble for the characters every now and then, including Ginger and Lou.

Fifi worked for a private-eye character called The Tester, who used to test Pew with mystery scenarios to train him to be a detective. The Tester is the English Cat from Scat Cat's Aristocats band in disguise, albeit I've never conclusively revealed that. Fifi eventually disappeared and they're still not sure what happened to her, but a girl resembling her has surfaced in London. She has amnesia and was found wandering by Simon Templar, who took her in as his secretary. She has adopted the name Patricia Holm, the name of Simon's girlfriend in the books. This is the TV Simon, so there is no real Patricia. And since Fifi is an anthro skunk, there is no romance going on between them. If she has any feelings for Simon, she will keep them to herself.

And as if all this nostalgia isn't enough, today I woke up with an urge to finally write my sequel to my fic for the much-hated TV show The Batman. I honestly really enjoyed the overhaul and found the series very fun and fascinating. About six years ago, I wrote a oneshot examining their version of The Riddler and then did a multi-chapter involving him that ended in a mysterious way. I never abandoned my idea and desire for a sequel, but I've just never got around to it. Now, suddenly, I really want to do it.

I re-read the oneshot tonight and will probably re-read the multi-chapter tomorrow. Maybe I'll re-read the three Riddler comics from The Batman Strikes! tie-in comic series, too. I really only liked the first one of those, though. And I especially detested the last one and felt The Riddler was OOC and the issue didn't live up to the awesomeness of its cover. I remember I planned that my sequel would tell the story that I thought that comic issue would, based on the cover.

I also want to bring in the idea from the main comics where The Riddler eventually at least semi-reformed and became a private detective. The first multi-chapter I did ended with him supposedly dead, but his body missing and a paper left in the freezer chamber that had the first riddle he gave Batman on it. I'm not sure I ever will reveal how he got out of the morgue, since there should always be some mysteries surrounding him, but I'm thinking the sequel involves him turning up as a private detective under his real name and staying in the shadows for a while, only revealing his identity to Batman and Yin later on.

I really hated that they dropped the Yin character from the show after season 2. She was awesome! And she certainly should have at least been in the episode where Ethan comes back to himself, since they were partners.

I don't know when I'll actually get a chance to start writing any sequel, though, or if I really will at all despite the abrupt burst of interest. I've got all the October Writing stuff to work with, and an idea to write a book about season 1 of Mannix, and I've been seriously neglecting my Perry blog lately.

So I should be working on stuff that's actually going to get posted on FF.net. I have gotten some more pages written on the next Rockford chapter. But all this week, what keeps calling to me the most is a strange little hurt/comfort piece that was supposed to only be a private hurt/comfort piece and has since taken on a life of its own.

I used one of my favorite angst-ridden scenarios, where someone is possessed and then proceeds to attack their friend. It was supposed to involve only that and the aftermath. Then I was half-asleep and got the giggles imagining the joke of somebody else wandering in during the comfort part and erroneously thinking the two are lovers. That used to happen off and on with various buddy characters in my fics and RPs.

Then their next-door neighbor is a kook who married a vacuum cleaner and keeps them up all hours of the night when she goes dancing with it on her balcony. The piece was supposed to end with the beaten friend calling the police on her for disturbing the peace. Instead, I keep wanting to try adding yet another scene, the next day, when she calls the police on them insisting there's domestic abuse going on and she heard someone being hurt last night. Then I envisioned it turning into an all-out war, since she is always trying to evict them due to their being jewel thieves, and they want to evict her because she is pushing them too far.

This has gone waaay beyond the simple hurt/comfort blurb it was supposed to be. And in some way it reminds me of some of the complex RP arcs Aubrie and I would do with various households of buddy characters and their oddball problems ranging from the angsty to the ridiculous to the mundane.

You Were an Intuitive Kid

As a kid, your power element was water. You were a very balanced and intuitive kid. You were probably always more emotionally mature than the children around you. You may have found it easier to relate to adults than most kids. And while it may have been hard for you to relate to the kids around you, it's likely you had a very close friend or two. Deep connections were important to you from an early age, and you were the type most able to form a 'BFF' bond with someone. As a kid, you saw things in the abstract. You did best when you were able to daydream, play, create, and engage your imagination. You probably found it challenging to sit still in a structure classroom. You may not have made trouble, but your mind was likely elsewhere.

Sounds like me, alright. Still does. I remember in my youth group, I usually preferred hanging out with the leaders than the other kids. But there was usually at least one girl I'd really gravitate to as a close friend.

Last year, I went with Dad to his high school reunion and I felt completely at home there, with music I knew and loved, an awesome restored classic car outside the place, people who grew up in the era I most enjoy the shows from, and yummy food. I wish the things didn't just come every five years; I just love going. (I've been to three.)

I felt a lot more at home there than I generally do with the local people my age. Of course, when I run across someone my age who is interested in the things I like, then I feel completely at home in that scenario, too. So it's less about the ages and more about the shared interests.

I never really was that fond of school. That said, I always had good grades. Things I loved most were History, Earth Science, and some of the literature. I did not like my particular English class/assignments because the instructor and I often disagreed. And I have always hated math. I can do it well when I understand it, and sometimes it's even fun then, but I tire of it quickly. And I always seem to run up against something I don't understand and then spend ages feeling like tearing my hair out. I would absolutely go bonkers in any job that required me to deal with math constantly.

I have loved making up stories for characters I love and role-playing since before I was five. Mom remembers me dictating stories to her about My Little Ponies and Beetlejuice (TV version). I could not get enough of pretending to be Darkwing Duck on the prowl for evildoers. And I absolutely adored making up adventures with my action figures and the paper dolls I'd have Mom draw of all the characters I liked who didn't have action figures.

Ah, good times.

My dad told me earlier tonight that Harry Morgan had died. We were standing in line for food at the church Christmas party and I almost cried right there.

I think the first time I saw him was in Disney's classic The Cat From Outer Space, where he portrayed General Stilton (a character I loved so much he was a regular in the role-plays with Mom). As we watched other Disney movies we found him there, too. The Barefoot Executive, Snowball Express ... good stuff. I must have been around 10 or 11 or 12; I can't remember which. I only remember that I think I was 9 when I saw That Darn Cat! (old version), and that was what started me on my love affair with Disney comedies. Oh, I also remember that by February 1997, I knew who General Stilton was. That was when he entered our role-play. So I was 9 or 10, depending on when I watched The Cat From Outer Space the first time.

... That means that for the majority of my short life, I've been aware of Harry Morgan and been a fan.

Then a couple of years later there was M*A*S*H. I'd heard about it for years, and when I finally got to watch I was delighted that Harry was a regular from season 4 on. (And his guest-spot in season 3 is just an absolute classic.)

I've also seen him in assorted non-Disney movies through the years. I loved his role in The Glen Miller Story, as the close friend (and I think manager?) of Glen Miller.

As previously mentioned, I'd known about his role in Dragnet 1967 for years, but only recently started to watch the series. As soon as Antenna TV started airing it I began making time to see it. Which is a testament to how much I wanted to see it; I don't watch a lot of TV shows, even oldies that I would honestly like to see, because I just don't have the time.

I was just watching Harry Morgan this past morning. We've moved into season 3, which I've heard is often put-down for not being as actiony as other seasons. It looks like an important season, though; Jack Webb was trying hard to improve the public's opinion of the police.

I had previously thought that Harry had probably died years ago, as I'd known he was getting on. I was surprised several months ago when I found out he was still alive at 96. I knew his time was likely pretty limited when he was getting on that much, but it was still a blow to find out he died now.

I wonder if I'll end up crying when I watch Dragnet 1967 later in the morning.

I seem to have been wrong about Sephiroth/Aerith as a popular fanon pairing. At any rate, I'm certainly not having much luck with getting reviews on the chapter I finished and put up. I'm actually not sure if I'll get them together romantically in this fic, or at all. I want to build things up a long way, and I may end up deciding platonic would be more squeeful. But I think I did a good job with the chapter and that I still have it in me to write them IC, which thrills me.

I have an idea for the next Perry mystery. I think it will be the Halloween-ish idea with the fake psychic, but I'm going to stir the pot a bit. I want Mr. Burger's friend Mignon Germaine to be in it, and I want her to have a friend whose child disappears. Mignon appeals to Hamilton for help.

Also, I've been giving this matter a good deal of thought, and I think it's very unlikely that I will write that Captain Caldwell restoration fic I was musing on a while back. But I have a good reason for it: if I write that, I probably won't ever finish that Monk fic with Kevin. The premises are so similar, I can't see myself wanting to write them both. I've restored Caldwell in an RP version, so that satisfied me a good deal. Of course, who knows, if the plunnie gets insistent I'll be writing it after all.

On the Monk fic, I honestly don't know what to do with it. The reason being, I've discovered that Monk, like Sailor Moon, is very difficult for me to write. There are things in both shows that I just want to throw out and not include as canon. But I just ... can't bring myself to do it. So I'm not sure when to set the Monk fic. I want Sharona to be moving back, but I don't want her in with Randy. That pairing was so cheaply contrived. I don't like how elements of the series finale were handled, so I'd rather it hadn't happened. And to do the fic at all, Dr. Kroger has to be dead, because Kevin wasn't killed until after Dr. Kroger died. I really love Dr. Bell; he was awesome from his very first scene, when he shook Monk's hand and then gave him a wipe, but I'd feel so sad writing the fic with Dr. Kroger gone.

So I find myself at a complete loss.

I am so jittery and nervous. That dark West Side Story oneshot I was working on I got up ... but I tinkered around with it and threw in a twist later on that I had not planned on. That changes it from being the flat-out tragedy it originally was. And it's funny, it's that aspect that makes me worry someone is going to throw rotten fruit, rather than to think that people would get upset about the tragic elements. Part of me wants to separate the pieces and just leave the dark part, but I don't want to do that either because I love the later part as well. So I'm stuck with posting it as-is and wanting it that way and yet being very conflicted at the same time. Mama Mia. http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7118730/1/

I should try to look over part 3 of the multi-part venture and see if I think it's done. I managed to add some very interesting things, including Schrank monologuing and how some of the main Jets really feel about what happened to him.

I also know, I think, how the rest of the Kolchak chapter will go. The Wal-Mart meeting won't be yet; I need to fit in some other clashes first. I'm anxious to get back to that, which I can hopefully do now that the oneshot is done (unless I decide I really have to somehow separate the parts).

The 31_days theme for tomorrow interests me a great deal. Paraphrased, it says something like When you choose to do the right thing, life becomes easier - no distractions. I wrote up something a few days ago that I was idly thinking of posting for it, but I'm not sure. It's a fairly rough, unpolished ficlet and probably really needs to be fleshed out more. There is a character death. And the manner of death maybe needs more expounding.

Basically I took an RP scenario from a recent RP with Crystal and altered it for the ficlet. In the RP, ghosts are angry and are throwing trunks at people intruding in their domain. Schrank tackles Sarah Nade out of the way of one of them and is struck by one of them himself. In the ficlet, the punk is nameless (but is not intended to be Sarah Nade) and I didn't want anything supernatural to be going on. So the gangs fooling around in the old house have caused it to be even more unstable, and somehow the punk jars something that tears a heavy beam loose from the ceiling. Schrank still tackles her away and is struck himself. Krupke then explodes in grief and anger at the punk for having got them into this situation and Schrank killed.

If I do post it, it will probably just be at 31_days for the time being, since I'm trying that other oneshot at FF.net and I need to get up the next part of the multi-part fic.

My little ghost plunnie exploded into a full-fledged, multi-chapter fic, and a very strange one at that. Now it's the Monkees discovering the ominous home, there's more than one malevolent spirit, and Baby Face was killed during twisted and unexplained circumstances, not a simple gang war. It will be explained later, but for now neither the readers nor the Monkees know what happened. Tony and the other gang members have come back to the house and are telling the Monkees to leave. They know that if the Monkees stay, the same disaster that befell Baby Face will come to them.

I'm trying to think on whom the disaster should start to befall, if any of them. So far I keep coming back to Davy. I'm not sure why I feel like it shouldn't be Mike. If it were Mike, the others would have to deal with figuring out how to save their leader. And that could be an interesting parallel since the gang was unable to save Baby Face. Maybe the more I write, the more right it will feel for it to be Mike as the victim.

There's far more paranormal things going on now than in the initial first draft, which featured only Baby Face as a vengeful spirit as a paranormal thing. It doesn't weird me out as much as that old RP where Tony was defeated by a Doom Reborn member and unwillingly worked with them under their control until he broke free and pushed Baby Face and the other gang members out of the Doom Reborn circle before it surrounded him and took his soul, but I'm still somewhat weirded out by the fic's concepts. I don't know, when the gangsters are such realistic characters and use guns and brute force and intimidation, I feel like paranormal goings-on ruin the realism. But the fic really wants to be written. It keeps coming. So I guess I'll keep writing until either I finish, stall, or am too weirded out to continue.

I'm thinking I may post the first chapter to the monkeesfic comm. It's much shorter than the chapters and parts I've been trying to post around lately.

... And I was wondering the other day if I could write for George and Lenny from Monkees in a Ghost Town. I just rediscovered that I did, once. They are the villains in an unfinished Bowery Boys fic I was writing. It looks like I didn't do too badly with their personalities.

I'm at an odd sort of junction. I seem to be trying to juggle five different fandoms that I am actively interested in/writing for/getting plunnied for.

Tutu: I started the tape recorder ghost fic and it's been moving along swimmingly. It flows every time I sit down to it. Currently I'm on page 20. I'm having a blast. Each one of the suspects has given a drastically different picture of what the dead girl was like. It's up to Ahiru, Autor, and Fakir to sort out the mess and discern the shocking truth about what happened 65 years ago. I'm probably going to be surprised too. I'm feeling out the mystery as I go along, albeit I do have a increasing idea of where it's going.

I just put up chapter 20 of the thriller fic. The response has overall been dying down, so I feel I'd better hurry and get the rest of it up. I'm concerned people are abandoning it because they think it's going to keep going on and annoyingly never end. I eliminated several things I'd originally wanted to do and kept only what I felt was important to the main plot, including all of the character interaction that's present, but I'm not sure all of the readers realize that.

YGO: I wrote the opening lines of the next chapter of Close Your Eyes, Clear Your Heart. I also keep wanting to write something from David's POV.

Patty: I've been plotting how to finish that fic with Alfred being hit by a car. Suddenly I wondered if I could use the recent huge snowstorms in New York as a backdrop, since this is supposed to be set in modern times and there is a snowstorm prominently featured in the fic.

The Monkees: I am craving to write a fic focusing largely on Micky and Peter (still my favorite Monkees friendship duo). I also discovered my old idea for expanding on the scenario in episode 17 when Peter had amnesia and seemed to be particularly frigid towards Micky.

Final Fantasy 7: After literally *years*, I realized how to finish that fic where Kadaj is being stalked by a master thief and Yazoo is shot to death instead of Kadaj during the fight with her. I'd wanted to give the story a happy ending, like its inspired roleplay had. It didn't want one. After years, I still feel that way. I gave it a bittersweet ending and am tentatively planning a sequel, but I probably won't write it unless there's enough interest.

I've also considered bringing back a Yazoo icon I used to use, or using one of my own that I made. I'm grateful I uploaded my icons to Livejournal; I'd have lost most of them otherwise. I'm still hoping I sent most of my other graphics to various people who might still have them.

The other day I also discovered this, an unfinished application for a group roleplay. I didn't complete it because I realized I didn't have the time or the motivation to participate in something big like that. But I saved the application because I did a very interesting character analysis. Here, have a look at what I put in the Personality section. A bit is expanded on based on my own concepts, but most is interpretation of things directly seen in or gleaned from canon.


( Yazoo Musings )