Ramblings and Musings of the Insane, Philosophical Ladybug

Like Crystal, I'm not tagging anyone. And you can ask about more than one character, within reason, of course. And unlike the previous meme, I don't care whether you ask about a character I've talked about a lot before, since I think most of these answers would be new for almost anyone.

Give me the name of a character, and I'll tell you:
1. Whether or not I like this character
2. What name(s) I call this character
3. What image-song I associate with this character
4. What color I associate with this character
5. What character I like to put this character with (romantic-ships and/or friendships)
6. What I would want to say to this character
7. What my plans would be for this character

**has an extreme urge for hurt/comfort tonight.** Not sure where I expect to get it, as it seems to be for the KH Seph. **bounces back and forth focusing her attention on one or the other.** Maybe I'll write that weird oneshot to entertain myself.

I'm also psyched with To Bring You Back. It's interesting, because while I want the character introduced in chapter 2 to be aloof, I also want a sense of polite coolness. That's the impression I got from him in the one scene of his that I can really use as a reference at this current time. XD Plus, given his current condition, I have to take that and add to his personality a sense of broken exhaustion, ruination. And somehow, I have to do all that and make sure he doesn't come off sounding like Seph or Yazoo.

His speech pattern and politeness actually make me think of Hakkai a bit, but maybe that's because they share a VA. XD Though there seems to be a more mocking undertone to his politeness. **muses.**

When I was writing chapter 2, I got worried that maybe the focus had shifted too much to him when my claim is for Sephiroth, so I added some stuff about Seph wondering if he would have once thought that he belonged in the village. According to him, people usually go there to get away from everything and everyone else. And when he was first cursed with the wings, he felt very depressed and was angry at himself for the mistakes he had made in life. Plus, no one recognized him as another part of the curse.

Anyway, later on in the fic, maybe after Zack is found, I'm now thinking that Seph will converse with this person. They'll find some similarities with each other, but also some glaring differences. Sephiroth may leave there with a better appreciation for his own situation and a deeper understanding of himself.

Also, since both he and Cloud are worrying about Zack, I want a lot of the fic to explore their friendships with him and have some little remembrances of things in the past and whatnot. It's fun playing around with things. X3 Since there is no Zack in KH, I can change things around at will from the FF7 version. The KH Cloud and Zack have ended up having been childhood friends, which is an interesting angle to pursue.

As for I Don't Feel Enough for You to Cry, I've been considering making eight the final chapter, or at least the second to last. What do the readers think? Should I see if I can extend it more, or does this look like a good place to timeskip and move into the final stretch?

**has become addicted to Jack Sparrow's theme tonight.** This is catchy. X3

Over the weekend I read over the only Saiyuki manga I own (#6) and I got a craving to see the whole Kami-sama arc. Remembering that SK said the anime adaption was close to the manga version, I sought it out. X3 And I just watched the whole thing of it, episodes #17-#25.

Watching Reload in Japanese, I don't have the voice complaints, since the voices didn't change. And I don't mind the new animation style. Hey, this time they actually got Gojyo's hair the right color! The necks weren't as oddly long, either. Maybe the Reload animation got better as the series progressed. And that leaves the OOCness complaint. But since they lifted the story pretty much scene by scene, word by word from the manga (or what I remember of it from browsing in Borders), there's not that problem either. ^^ Lisa, I highly recommend this arc!

I loved it! It was darker than the Gensomaden stuff, but that was great! ( Spoilers )

I've also been working on my fic with Vodka and Vermouth. This is my third attempt at it. XD; The second version took on a life of its own and went off in a bizarre direction that wasn't what I wanted for it, involving Vodka and Vermouth going to eliminate a target and ending up shooting and restraining someone else in the dark building, who shot at them and ended up being an amnesiac Gin. The scene did intrigue me, but since it wasn't how I wanted this fic to go, I set it aside and lifted Vodka's thoughts from the front of it to stick in the third version. (Though if anyone wants to see the scene, I'll post it here, since it will probably not ever be anything but a misplaced blurb.)

I'm not entirely sure what to do with the middle of this fic. XD The beginning is mostly Vodka's thoughts, interspersed with the present time as he waits for Vermouth after she goes into a convenience store. The middle should be how Vodka and Vermouth keep trying at this partnership and fail, probably culminating with the realization that it can never work because of their clashing personalities and because Vodka's so shattered and lost due to Gin's death and just can't accept another partner. I'm excited for the ending scenes, which I have half-planned and won't mention here, but I need to sort out the middle first. ^^

http://pics.livejournal.com/insaneladybug/pic/00002sdw/g2 I finished the preliminary sketch and inking! This one I wanted to upload before coloring. It can be interpreted either in the original way, where it is symbolic of Alexander's feelings on his self-appointed mission to kill Alister, or it can be interpreted as literally depicting Alexander as an Angel of Death. Either way, I really like it. ^^ Thank goodness I found a picture of Sailor Pluto holding the Time Key so that I could get Alexander's arms and hands right. XD; And in case anyone is wondering why he's holding the glaive down, it's for no better reason than that holding it at that angle was the only way I could fit the weapon part in. Though if you wanted, you could imagine it as symbolism for him bringing death.

And here is the link to the first part of my psychological fic, if anyone wants to look. http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2736049/1/ I'm really hoping to get some reviews on this, even though I'm mainly writing it for myself. (I think most of my best stories have been written for myself and not for anyone in particular.) I write what I want to see written, because hardly anyone else does. XD;

Earlier I had a dream that is actually useful and that was fun to dream! That's pretty rare for me. ^^; I dreamed that Dartz and Alexander were on a business trip at an old hotel in NYC, and then they got involved in a good old-fashioned mystery without any magic or supernatural stuff. It involved the Mafia, I think. And there was a mysterious woman. Also rare about this dream was that at one point I started to wake up, but I wanted to keep dreaming, so I managed to go back to sleep and slip back into the dream again. I'm hardly ever able to do that.

Dad had some episodes of Law & Order: Criminal Intent from the library and we watched a couple. The first was okay, but the second was bizarre. O__o; And I don't like the fact that the sole focus is the crime. I want to see relationships between the characters, like on the X-Files! That's just about the most important thing to me, so for the show to not really have that is a big downside. I don't know that I want to watch any more of it. **shrug.**

Yesterday morning I watched more Saiyuki: episodes 5, 6, and 7. **coos.** I love 6 and 7! Those are the ones with Sanzo's friend who went crazy from implanting a Talisman in his body. Sanzo got speared, Goku went berserk, Sanzo had to eventually kill his former friend. . . . It was intense. And I love the part at the end where Sanzo has a flashback to where he's talking to his master (Koumyuu? I always forget how to spell it), and his master is musing about the birds flying and that, if there was no place for them to go, they might regret having wings at all. "Perhaps true freedom," he says, "is having somewhere to come home to." And then it shows Sanzo stumbling along and seeing the Jeep with the others up ahead. X3 And they play Open Up Your Mind. I swear, that song is going into a bikers fic!

Here we go. I think they're done! ^^; Well, I had Aubrie's done a while ago, but I still wasn't done with SK's. Now I added some dialogue at the end and I think that's probably good enough for a first attempt at a Saiyuki drabble. Hopefully I didn't do too badly at characterizations!


( SK's Saiyuki Blurb: Reflections in the Snow )


Warning: Runihura is the Destroyer, and hence, he destroys things. XD So, some people may be disturbed by this blurb, even though he's already done the destroying by the time it opens. Heck, I was disturbed myself, so there's no harm in it.


( Aubrie's Runihura Blurb: Musings of the Destroyer )

Okay, I went to Yu-Jyo because they have the summary for #185 up now. I just remembered a day or two ago that Siegfried is sometimes called "Jeek/Jeeks/Jik" and it says on #185 that the butler calls him that. My question is, Where did that come from? XD; His name is Siegfried in both versions. Is "Jik" a nickname or something? Darcy was getting a kick out of it. XD **completely confused now.** I should have asked Amelda-kun about that when she was on. . . .

Also, his last name was given as Schroider instead of Schraider. I've heard both, but if one's incorrect, how did that get started? XD;

And http://www.advfilms.com is having a huge anime sale through the 7th! Many of the things are around $6.00. @__@ They have several Saiyuki volumes for that, and I'm definitely getting a couple! I'll consider it an early birthday present to myself. ^^; I think I want 9, 10, and maybe 12 out of the ones on sale.

I think I'm finally starting to develope my opinion on Dartz. For a long time I've had that love-hate relationship with him and I haven't known what to think. But I'm becoming so fond of him after watching him interact with Alexander. I was listening to Dartz's Theme in the morning and really thinking about how sad and melancholy it sounds. He really is a tragic character, any way you look at it. He ruled over the people of Atlantis and knew nothing of the corruption that could enter in, until it did. He had to kill his own wife after she turned into a monster, because if he hadn't, she might have attacked and killed others, even perhaps the rest of the family. Obviously he couldn't have been in his right mind during Doom, whether the Orichalcos was completely controlling him or just influencing him. After ten thousand years of either option, naturally he would have gone mad. To do what he wanted to do was complete insanity. I don't know if he could ever really recover from that disaster, but I like him better when he's stable rather than schizophrenic. I think that may be another reason why I've stalled on Candy Clouds. He's in Life After the Tears, too, but he's of sound mind in it. XD;

This is really unfair! I only got five and a half hours of sleep yesterday, but it was impossible to sleep! I was so tired that I actually fell asleep for a nap at one point, but later when I got into bed I tossed and turned for TWO HOURS. WTH? I've had about four hours and forty-five minutes of sleep today. I want sleep.

And I'm trying to call the tech support for the mouse since they're open, to see what they have to say. They're really cheap-seeming and unprofessional. They don't play music while you're on hold, and every thirty seconds a recording comes on that says, "Technicians are still busy. Please continue to hold." This is ridiculous! My dad thought I should see what the technicians had to say about the mouse, but apparently I'm not going to be able to talk to them. I'm about to give up and just go with my brother's advice. I'm on hold right now as I'm typing this. I've had enough.

I did get to watch most of volume three of Saiyuki earlier. It was awesome. X3 Of course. So much friendship cuteness and hurt/comfort. . . . And the swearing level was around the same as in the movie, with the same words, so that's satisfying.

Well, thanks to Netscape and my computer being pains, I must start this entry again. This time I am typing it in Wordpad and will copy and paste. If something happens to it before then, I will decide that my topic is jinxed and that for some reason, it's not supposed to be posted.

I watched the rest of the Sakura Wars OVA on Saturday morning during a time when there were reruns on that I wasn't interested in watching. I'm not sure what I think of it. The animation was gorgeous, the music is something I must find, and the characters had potential, as did the plot, but there wasn't enough done with it. It wasn't taken to its full potential at all, and it left a lot to be desired. There were too many timeskips in order to get to things that they thought were the best for the plot, but it seemed too hurried. It's not the kind of story that makes a good OVA. It should have been a TV show. There were so many unanswered questions, such as the details about Kanna wanting revenge for something that happened to her father. Who was she angry at? Did she succeed in her attempts? She left in part 2 and we didn't see her again for a while. When we next did see her, no mention at all was made of what had transpired with her in her absence. Plus, it seemed like one of the girls only existed to have lab accidents. It became a running joke for there to be explosions no matter what she was working on.

And let's see . . . what else was odd. . . . Well, it seemed like they concentrated more on the angle of the girls performing rather than the girls fighting the demons that had invaded Tokyo. Their superiors claimed that the girls being on stage acting helped them to develope control over their psychic powers and spirit energies, though I fail to see the connection. Also, part 4 seemed to focus almost entirely on them doing a play and then needing to postpone it while they went to help their new commander fight. The whole thing didn't even have a resolution; the demons were still at large and we were left to assume that things would continue in the vein that they had been going.

The characters weren't developed as much as they should have been. The obnoxious brat didn't show any redeeming qualities for the entire four episodes. The poor lab scientist didn't get any developement, either. Actually, the only one who seemed to change at all was Sakura herself. She became confident and bold, whereas before she had been shy and quiet. But there were more characters than just Sakura, darnit. I wanted to see all of them develope!

You know, Sakura Wars was lacking so much when it shouldn't have. I almost feel like writing a version of it myself, to tell it the way it should have been told. The problem was, they tried to cram too much into just four episodes. The lack of character and plot development were the biggest disappointments, especially with such beautiful animation. It started out rather slowly in the first two episodes, the same way they might begin a normal TV series. Then it speeded up even worse in the last two episodes.

... The best line was spoken by the commander in part 4, when he found that he needed to help care for about twenty crying babies: "I think I'm going to cry now, too!" XD I love that.

All in all, it's not something I'd recommend. I wonder if possibly there was a TV show version or if this OVA was all there was.

I want a big floppy red hat! They're so purty. X3 I sketched out that picture of Alucard and NegaDuck encountering each other, and they're both like, "That's MY hat!" I drew Alucard from memory, though, so I probably didn't get him too well. **will print a picture and compare.** I do love how soft-looking I made his hair, though. XD;

Also, I find myself getting a bit more interested in the Megaman fandom again. That's probably due to the intense plot on Axess currently. I've been waiting for ages for them to start the episodes where Protoman is corrupted! They started that saga a few weeks back and I've been loving it. The show's gotten so much darker since then, and I hear it shall get more so. And we'll learn more about Chaud's past! I'm so excited. Chaud is great. He's the Seto Kaiba of the Megaman.EXE fandom.

I had a vague dream about Chaud and Protoman on Saturday, so now I want to write a story about them that focuses on their struggles during Axess. Chaud has many different names, though, and I will probably mix and match to get the one I like best. I never liked "Blaze" as his last name, as it is in the English anime. In the English version of the games, it's "Eugene Chaud." I definitely like "Chaud" better as the last name, but I'm not sure what I think of "Eugene." His Japanese name is Enzan something. I can't remember the durn last name! Anyway, I was briefly considering calling him "Enzan Chaud" in whatever fic I may write. Those are my two favorites of his names.

I also read over the story I did for the classic Megaman fandom (where they're robots): Something to Fight For. Not to be vain, but wow, I really like how I wrote that one. I need to see if I can pick up the threads of the sequel again. I got lost somewhere in the third chapter or so, uncertain of where to take it from there, but I remember how much I was enjoying writing it.

That reminds me of the short one-shot I want to write about Goku's thoughts at the end of Requiem. I definitely do not think he was looking so sad because he wanted breakfast, as he told Gojyo. **laughs.** SK gave me some cool info about Goku and about a past fight that the Sanzo-ikkou had with a previous enemy, so I think I should be able to write the drabble. Goku doesn't seem like a hard character to write for. ^^;

Wow! I wasn't expecting the soundtrack to get here already. Didn't I just buy it on Friday? Or maybe it was Thursday. In any case, that was really fast service. And it's my third buy from eBay user Animestuffstore. It seems that when I buy anime music, I usually get it from her or from Max-boons. At any rate, I must not buy anything more this month, unless I find some other way to get a bit of money, such as selling some original stories. I just don't have the time to write any, though. XD; And I'm having a combo of writer's block/unmotivation with the chapter fics. I hate when that happens.

I am slowly getting ideas for how to transform my hypothermia blurbs into a fic, which is a good thing. I've been wanting to do something with those for a long time now. And I got inspiration for some cute dialogue from a show that Mom and Dad were watching last night. Muwahaha.

I'm much too fond of Alexander. XD; I don't think I'll be able to ever send him back to Alister's heart. Maybe he'll get so he likes the mortal world because of the people he cares about who live in it, so he won't want to leave after all. Alister speculated on that in his journal, which I also immensely enjoy writing.

I have more ideas for pictures right now than stories. I'm working on a family portrait of Dartz with Chris and Ironheart where Alexander is glomping Dartz from behind. XD Dartz looks like "Not again," Chris looks amused, and Ironheart is frowning. I also wanna draw a picture where Dartz is injured and Alexander is with him, looking distraught. And I wanna draw an exhausted Alister. In the biker club earlier, I mentioned that I see Alister sleeping in a loose-fitting tank top and dark pants. Now I'm thinking of a dark grey T-shirt instead. XD; Maybe it depends on the day and the temperature. I speculated once on if Alister doesn't like the heat and that's why he dresses as he does. Or maybe he just dares to be different. In any case, I sure as heck don't think he does it because he's gay, since he isn't. XD

You're Yaone, the beautiful quiet chemist and medic
of the Kou-tachi.


Which of the Sanzo-ikkou or Kou-tachi are you? (Saiyuki)
brought to you by Quizilla

Since I'm now starting to actually read and watch Saiyuki, I decided to try the quiz. I was surprised by the result, but not so much when I read about her. ^^

The Saiyuki movie came earlier. I was surprised that the mail person didn't knock. It said on the Best Buy website that someone needed to be home to sign for it. XD; Anyway, I wish I could leave them a comment or something, like I can on eBay. That was really quick service. Anyway, I'll probably get off soon to watch the movie, since I am tired. ^^; And today is Dad's birthday, so I'm not sure what we'll be doing for it. He usually just likes to watch movies, though. XD; He was hanging around at the library for about thirty minutes trying to pick stuff out, while I got done what I needed to within five minutes!

We had to get some stuff done before six, when we had an appointment with the home teachers (though that probably doesn't make much sense to anyone here except Darcy and Kim). Dad had to get some ink for the printer and he had to go to a specific place to get it wholesale, because he uses a big fancy printer and the ink is way too expensive getting it retail. And I needed to go to the libraries and get something for Dad at Media Play. (While I was at Media Play, I ended up buying another volume of Gundam W, because after watching the first volume, I craved to see more of it again. I bought 7, because I haven't seen those episodes yet. Since I bought so much stuff last month, I'd better try hard to refrain from buying anything more for a while.) And we ended up not being able to get to the city library before we had to go home. By the time we got out again, it was pouring rain like mad. Seriously, I haven't seen the rain come down that heavily for a while. And it stayed that way for close to a half hour instead of the usual five minutes. The umbrella actually turned inside out. XD;

We didn't get back until around nine, and Dad wanted to see a movie (surprise surprise). I decided I'd rather wait to go down till latenight, since if I went at nine I'd only be there for an hour or so. I busied myself with drawing a picture where Valon looks like he's going to ride off on his motorcycle without a helmet, Raphael looks frustrated, and Alister is deadpanning, not even seeming to notice that Alexander is kneeling on the ground hugging Alister's legs. XD I still have to draw the motorcycle and most of Raphael. ^^;