Initial Reaction to Ali Luke's Novel Lycopolis

So as you all know, for whatever reason I've had no drive lately. I have about a dozen fanfiction stories piled up in my email inbox. I have two more stories chillin' on DeviantArt. I only casually browsed through this week's post on Aliventures. I just don't feel like reading anything. I have TONS of ideas for stories, but no inspiration to actually WRITE them. I stare at the screen and go.... "meh".

Silver lining? I'm using my free time to put together bookshelves to create a library in our small side room and finally unpacking all of my books. YAY!

Anyway, I usually kill time during my work breaks and lunches by writing. No drive to write means fifteen minutes of solitaire on my computer instead. Sooooooooo, I decided to switch gears and finally crack open Lycopolis. I've only been reading it the past two days, and until my usual "can't sleep without my husband"Sunday Insomnia, I read only while at work. So I'm only a few chapters farther than the first five chapters that Ali shares as a free sample of the book.

I pretty much never read anything that isn't by an American author, and so reading a story with all the British terminology for things - such as Biscuit Box, Mum, Wardrobe door, Holiday, Half-term, Corridor - is kind of fun. It's easy enough for me to figure out that in the US the above list easily translates to Bread Box, Mom, Closet door, Vacation, Homecoming Weekend, and Dorm Floor. So I can just chuckle a little at getting a glimpse in to another culture. Other things that amuse me are things like school uniforms. Sure, more and more US public schools are starting to adopt this idea, but for the most part students can wear "street clothes" in school, so remembering that most countries have uniforms is interesting to me. That and the fact that most non-US countries have a more formal setting for schooling, which includes such things as a Head of Year. I guess that could be the equivalent of a Class President, but at least in my school the CP was more in charge of stuff like the school dances and what the Senior Gift to the school would be and organizing the class reunions.

So, getting past the cultural stuff. How is the story itself?

Well, maybe it's because I have my hand in a variety of Role Play types - such as table top, pen & paper, forum, video game, and Live Action - and maybe it's because I haven't actually participated in the type that inspired Lycopolis - Ali sites the game Wolfenburg/Kingdom of Heroes - but I find it hard to picture the game mechanics.

The actual story of the characters in real life, as well as the story-within-a-story of the in-game characters, are both very well done. When I'm reading the IRL parts I find myself tearing through the pages, hungry for more. And the In-Game prose is also very compelling. However, I can't seem to let myself get as immersed in the In-Game part of the story. At least, not as much as I should. I find myself reading the book critically; perhaps a left-over habit from Beta reading, or perhaps it's because my mind is trying to figure out the game mechanic.

Part of how she describes the game makes it feel like there should be graphics that the players see and audio that the players can hear. There are descriptions of how the characters look, and how they turn when they hear footsteps, and how they can see the wolves and sacrifices, etc. There are even lines stating how the game creator meticulously built the world code by code and how he can manipulate the world however he wants. These all make it feel like it should be a MMORPG like World of Warcraft or something.

Then there are descriptions along the lines of hearing echoes, or reacting to each other's vocal cues or tones in their voices, or even a strong urge to kneel that must be fought against. One description that really stuck out as odd was "Perhaps he imagined it, but he thought he saw her shudder." How does that get described online!? Did the female character type "She shudders, but so faintly it is hard to tell" and then his character gives the "Perhaps he imagined it..." description? Did his character come up with that all on his own - assuming her character would shudder? Is that why the "Perhaps he imagined it" is there? Because he's going "God Mode" on another player? Or did the game itself give some description that would imply that she was shuddering? I don't know, but descriptions like these feel more like a LARP than an online game. Even the fact that a demon can be unknowingly summoned through role play makes it feel more like LARP than an online game. HOW DO YOU SUMMON A DEMON VIA THE INTERNET!?

Then you go back to the tagline of the book "Words never hurt anyone..." and there are other descriptions that clearly state that everything is in text. So now I'm picturing the game sort of like the X-Men RPG which is a forum-based game. Although everything there is done sort of in script format, when I relayed passages here I put it more like prose so it was easier to follow. Maybe that's what was going on whenever things in-game were described in Lycopolis.

Then I got to the following passage in the fifth chapter:

"It's a sort of game," she said. "All in text, no graphics."

He didn't ask anything else, just looked intently at the screen and said, "They're waiting for you."

Kay was impressed that he'd managed to pick up that much. When she'd tried to explain the game to her parents, they'd been bemused by the lines of text appearing in different places - the gossip and in-jokes in the Chatroom window, the main action in the big Game window, private messages in the Inbox.

And then this passage towards the beginning of the sixth chapter:

A Small Room With Stone Walls
This room is identical to the others along the row. Cold, with a hard bed and a blanket, it smells of damp and worse. There's little light, and no candles. The thick wooden door has no lock on the inside.

Edwin had been playing Lycopolis long enough to pick up on clues pretty easily. He typed "examine door" and was told:

There are deep gouges in the heavy wooden door, on both sides. There's no lock, but the outside has a thick metal ring that matches another on the wall. A chain or padlock could easily be hooked through these.

Soooooo, the game is sort of like Zork? A completely text-based game with heavy descriptions of the world? Is all the code-by-code world building a Zork-like reference? The main issue I have is that the character Seth is the world creator and apparently the only storyteller of the game. How can he be everywhere at once and available whenever people want to be on? How does the game progress a story without him? How was Kay able to do an activity in-game without him? How would it be programmed in? If it were all forum-based; ergo player driven, then it would make more sense. I had tons of RP scenes where Hubby wasn't involved.

Maybe these questions will all be answered the further in to the book I get. Maybe I need to track down Kingdom of Heroes and play a little bit - if it's still up and running. Maybe I should stop being suck a geek and just let the story unfold without thinking about the game mechanics. Or, maybe I should just combine all four aspects of RP - graphic, LARP, forum & text-based - in my mind so I can stop over thinking.

In the meantime, more plot bunnies are being birthed in my brain. Back when I re-watched all of The Guild I grew a strong urge to one day do a similar Web Series using my own RP experiences, but using D&D instead of MMORPG as the base. Now that I'm reading Lycopolis, I sort of want to write a book based on my current vampire LARP character. It would be perfect too. Since she's a freshly turned vampire all the jargon regarding the world has to be taught to her - and so the reader is taught as well. The reader learns with the main character. The question is, do I want to do an original story loosely based on what already happened in-game; do I want to just directly transcribe what has happened so far; or do I want my Hey Arnold fanfiction crutch and have a cross-over using World of Darkness?

Yup, another grand story idea just waiting to be written, and yet I don't have the drive to actually type anything out. What's up with that!? At least I have Lycopolis to keep me company until the writing juices again flow.

Next week I'll either have something dealing with new writing that I've done, or I'll tell you guys more about my MASSIVE HYBRID CROSSOVER STORY!!! Sound good?

Hello? Muse? Where'd ya go?

Yet another week of non-inspiration. I don’t know why, but I’ve been very “meh” as of late. No drive to do anything. Not even passive things such as watch TV or read. In fact, Thursday was the first time I read something in a month. Which pains me since both AngelBlood666 and DarkAngel1326 have new fanfiction posts I have yet to read. I’m actually thankful that Ali Luke announced her pregnancy – Super Congratulations, by the way – this week instead of doing a normal blog post; I wasn’t in the mood to read one. And I’ve been avoiding looking at the artwork ChibiSunnie has been posting lately, because I have no drive to write her any sort of comments, and I want to leave something for her on all her art.

I worked a little on those RP event calendars that I talked about last time. I didn't even have the drive to go back and re-read the forum, so this little project is only just barely started.

Speaking of the forum, well the friend that plays Devon hasn't been on all week. Since at least one or two characters need to talk to him, and he's needed for a "recruitment mission" to bring in another character, all of those people are on hold until he gets back on the forum. And since he was in the middle of a conversation with my character Willow, she's on hold, as well as the three people that need to talk to her and yet another mission to recruit another character. Devon has effectively killed the forum... :P

As for actual writing, well, I again tried. I opened the file and then stared at the screen. :P However, there was SOME development in my story. I have a folder on my computer, and I have a series of files in that folder that related to the chapters. The first 7 chapters that I have posted are all individual files in that folder - as one would expect. But then I have a series of empty word documents also saved in that folder - each one saved with a different chapter title. This way whenever I'm inspired - regardless of which chapter I'm actively working on - I can open up one of these other files and work on that chapter.

Anyway, so when I started the story I had 15 chapters laid out - meaning we'd be roughly at the half-way point by now. However, the longer it takes me to write the more opportunity I have to hear a new song on the radio that works perfectly with the story. Either that, or as I'm writing I discover that a chapter doesn't end as I intended - such as the third chapter. In both cases, I end up creating a new chapter. I had to add in a chapter between my original chapters 3 and 4 in order to break Arnold and Helga up again. I then heard two songs that would work perfectly between my original chapters 6 and 7. The one I'm working on right now, and I JUST added the other one. So now my original chapter 6 is the last chapter I posted, and my original chapter 7 is going to be chapter 10.

Meaning -  at least until I have to add more chapters - my current count is now 18 chapters planned. On the plus side, I'm giving the characters more time to mill things over before reacting, so that's good, right? Man, is this story going to take FOREVER to finish at this rate! I need to really start cracking down. I just need to figure out how to re-spark that drive.

Perhaps this upcoming week will go better for me. I did get a nice review a couple days ago. Maybe I should really put my nose to the grindstone when it comes to this story. Who knows...

Yeah.... About that writing....

Well, I don’t really have much to show for the past week. There have been a couple of days in which I spent my 15min breaks and 1/2hr lunches playing computer games instead of working on writing. I had some major stuff weighing on my mind. One or two things are related to work drama, and then there’s a major thing that is mostly a happy thing that I’m excited about, but it could also have the potential of being a not-so-good thing. It’s kinda hard to explain while being cryptic like this.

Basically, one of my husband’s friends celestialTyrant has become a super-close friend of mine too, and he’s majorly crushing on my sister. I’m beyond excited to see these two together – especially since it’s not a secret that I don’t like my sister’s current boyfriend; however, my sister DOES already have a boyfriend, so the fact that cT is crushing on her could end in disaster.

Every time I try to open up a document to work on one of my many projects I just think about cT’s situation, as well as the work drama, and then I can’t focus on the story.

I have been fairly active on the X-Men RP though. So I guess that’s something. My one character Willow is coming up with a plethora of pranks that she and another character Devon can pull, so it’s fun to not only come up with pranks – I myself was never much of a trickster so it’s actually hard to think of pranks – but also have these long posts describing Willow and Devon talking about said pranks. Hubby decided to throw a monkey wrench in to the works by having one of the NPCs eavesdropping and deciding to pull some pranks on the pranksters. We’ll see how that turns out.

Then we have celestialTyrant. Well, his character Nix is actually dating my sister’s character Annika – which is how the two started talking IRL – and so it’s fun to read their interactions in-game, especially since Hubby just had Nix kidnapped. However, both Nix and Annika are telepaths, so they still talk to each other while trying to figure out where he was taken to. XD

In the meantime, Hubby’s main character Cajun is roommates and best friends with Nix, and so my main character Lia – who is roommates with Annika – is torn between comforting Cajun and comforting Annika, who are both broken over the disappearance of Nix!

And finally, there’s Lucas. He’s a character run by one of Hubby’s friends he met through work. The friend is like a walking comic book encyclopedia, and so he is Hubby’s assistant story teller. The two talk back and forth to come up with plot devices for the game, and they come up with some awesome stuff! Anyway, because of the friend’s vast knowledge, Lucas is the only character that was allowed to be made old enough to be a teacher – the rest of us are students. Well, Lucas also recently had an experience of being held captive for two weeks, breaking out of the facility that held him, rescuing three kids that were also held captive, and taking the children to the institute. Lucas – who was raised in the future and came back in time to the present in order to live in a more peaceful time – soon finds out that one of the kids he just rescued is destined to be the mutant that kills him. Dun, dun, duuuuun! On top of that, another one of the kids he rescued is killed the same day that Nix is kidnapped! Finally, one of the people that held Lucas captive has a mental link with him and – presumably – forces him to have violent blackouts. So far all Lucas has done is destroy the landscape around the institute, but he fears for the students and is now leaving the school in hopes of figuring out how to handle the blackouts.

This game is like a mini soap opera! I love it and want to write those webcomics even more each week! I just might open up Celtx and start up writing the scripts. In the meantime, I’m trying to make it easier for everyone to follow what-happens-when by writing up a “calendar” of all the events. It's kind of like the calendars used in dating sim games. So that’s my most recent little project.

Hopping RPGs to the Vampire LARP Hubby’s BFF runs, Friday was the first game with the new vampire character. I was pleasantly surprised at how much fun I had. Normally, I’m so lost my characters just hang off in a corner somewhere twiddling her thumbs. This time it was alright that I was lost because my character was SUPPOSED to not have a clue about what was going on. It was just amazingly fun to come up with her reactions to things like “First time attacked by another vampire” or “First time seeing a vampire killed and turned to ash” or “Surprised to have staked a vampire first go-around and is excited to have ‘survived’ the attack”.

Throw in Hubby and I visiting celestialTyrant on Wednesday, and one of Hubby’s high school friends and his wife visiting us yesterday… well, the week’s been a touch busy.

I really do want to write, and I have plenty of options to choose from. I just need to find the drive to just sit down and start tappin' on the keyboard until words show up on my screen! XD

Maybe I’ll have something for you guys next week.

Expanding My Fandoms

As promised, due to missing a week, and said weeks being insanely filled, I am now gifting my beloved readers with a second blog update. The original post just would have gone on forever in a ramble if I kept it all as one, but I wanted to talk about everything, and thus this second post! YAY!

So if you haven't read my first post for this week, it's here.

Now, typically this blog goes on endlessly about my love for Hey Arnold! and all the fanfiction I write for it. It's rare that my readers hear mention of any other fandom. Yet the last post was mostly discussing X-Men, and this post shall continue that thought.

Ever since Hubby set up Netflix, we marathoned any and all X-Men cartoons available on Netflix, and Hubby set up the RPG; you guys have read minor mentions of the fandom here and there.

Yet, spending all that time describing both Lia and Cajun to Neghya really re-sparked my interest in X-Men. I'll admit, it's mainly because I had to do so much research on Gambit - and refreshed my memory on how awesomely suave, charming, and ruggedly handsome Gambit is.

I mean, I had legitimately forgot how epic Gambit is, and was quickly reminded as I flipped through pictures on DeviantArt and Tumblr. I drooled. I got hot and bothered. I screamed out "HOW ARE YOU SO AWESOME!?" I was hooked.

As I mentioned in the last post, this revival of my X-Men interest lead me to hop on to YouTube to search for videos of Gambit. I mainly focused on the Gambit from X-Men: Evolution, since that incarnation would be the version that is Cajun's father. Man, as much as I always have and always will love the 90's X-Men cartoon and it's version of Gambit, I think the Evolution Gambit is about equal. Goodness, was he hot for a cartoon character! Plus, his charisma and the way he played off Rogue.... *drool*

So I obsessively watched X-Men Evolution - mainly any and all Gambit scenes - for the next day or two. I also sent Neghya my two favorite interactions Hubby and I had between Cajun and Lia. I love them so much I'll put them here too:

Chayse first interacts with Lia (whom he's been watching from afar for the past two months she has been at the institute) at the "Back to School" mixer and he asks her to dance. She agrees (charisma FTW), and is then embarrassed when her father surprises her as the new school librarian. Jamie (Lia's dad) uses his mutant ability to duplicate himself so there are now three of him standing over Lia. The three Jamies all dote over her and gush about how much time they'll spend together (super overprotective and super embarrassing), and then the Jamies start talking sternly to Chayse - who was just about to kiss Lia when Jamie interrupted. Lia gets frustrated with her overprotective father and Chayse doesn't help matters by mentioning how adorable Lia's butt is.

Lia storms off and Chayse follows her. Lia quickly turns around, stopping Chayse's advance. She starts poking him in the chest, "OOOOh no, Mister! You are causing enough trouble for me as it is! I finally had time away from Dad and as soon as you hit on me there he is! In triplicate!"

Chayse smirks as he allows Lia to continue poking him. In an instant he uses his powers to phase through her arm, sneak a quick kiss, phase the rest of the way through her, and then walk away. "Call me sometime, Chère, I'm looking forward to seeing you again."

Yup, Chayse not only stole THEIR first kiss, but LIA'S first kiss... She was excited and pissed at the same time.

Then there's the next interaction these two have. Lia runs in to Chayse in the hall...

When Lia sees Chayse she bites her lip and plays with the orange streaks running through the lower layer of her hair - both actions are normal ticks of hers when she's nervous. With a deep breath, she continues down the hall and tries to act cool. As she passes Chayse she avoids eye contact and places a hand on his chest, keeping him at arm's length. "Don't try doing that phasing bullshit again. And you better not make any more trouble for me."

Chase cocks his head and watches Lia pass. With a knowing smile, he takes out a deck of cards and starts shuffling them as he follows her down the hall. "Sorry 'bout the mixer, got caught up in the moment and was hypnotized by your beauty. I'll make it up to you sometime." He does a little jog to get in front of Lia and starts walking backwards, fanning out his deck, "Pick a card?"

She purses her lips and eyes up the Cajun. With a questioning glare Lia reaches out and selects a card.

Chayse gives a charming smile and shuffles the rest of the deck, "Don't need to do the rest of the trick to know that you took my ace of hearts."

Lia blushes as a smirk creeps on to her lips. Out of curiosity, she checks the card and is shocked to see that Chayse is actually right: Ace of Hearts.
"Alright, I'll admit that was kinda smooth."
She turns the card around to show it to him, "And had a bit of slight of hand involved I'd wager."

She holds out the card for him to take back, but he puts his hand around hers and pushes it gently back against her chest. "You can keep it,  Chère, I took something from you so the least I can do is give you something of mine."

Lia blushes harder and pulls her hand away to tuck the card in her pocket, "Alright, Cajun, you might not be so bad after all."

MAN! Is my husband smooth or what!? Now does everyone understand why I married this man!? Cajun is Hubby's suave side personified... COMPLETELY! XD

Now that I went back and sent those blips to Neghya, my desire to translate the RPG in to web comics is even stronger. Too bad I can't draw...

I also wanted to revive the game since Hubby's friends have the tendency to go full throttle in to a game, and then quickly fizzle back out. Barely anyone has done anything the past month. Now that my desire to play is revived, I spent most of Tuesday and Wednesday trying to think up plot points that Hubby could use to try to bring people back to the game.

Both of us are posting everywhere, trying to get people to interact. I actually had fun coming up with long posts for my secondary character Willow. She's a trickster and is currently trying to seduce a classmate in to using his morphing abilities to help her pull pranks around the school... We'll see how it goes.

But X-Men isn't the only fandom I'm now re-fixated with.

There is this one scene in X-Men: Evolution that makes me squee like the little Fangirl I am. Rogue is brainwashed and attacks all of the main mutants introduced in Evolution. One of the last mutants being Gambit. The rest of the cast - the X-Men, the Brotherhood, Magneto's Acolytes, even Magneto himself - were all pretty easy for Rogue to take down. However, Gambit actually manages to put up a fight, lasting longer than everyone else. Rogue finally subdues him and takes his power by using the element of surprise: she quickly kisses him on the lips.

This scene reminded me of a similar scene in another show I used to love. A scene where the main female cast member is also brainwashed/possessed, also takes out a group of people by a simple touch of her hand, and also finally tries to take out one of the males by kissing him instead of simply touching him like the others. I'm talking about the second episode of Extreme Ghostbusters.

Kylie is this five-foot-nothin' gothic girl who is currently possessed by a plague-spreading demon. Kylie spreads the disease with a simple touch. Eduardo is a tall, lanky, slacker who likes to think himself a lady's man. He's also a bit of a coward, and so while the other two members of the revived Ghostbusters team - Roland and Garret - go off to try to find the ghost spreading the disease, Eduardo stays behind "in case Egon calls." While Eduardo is all alone and defenseless, Kylie walks up to him WITH HER HANDS BEHIND HER BACK and leans in close to him - trying to coax him in to kissing her. SHE COULD HAVE EASILY TOUCHED HIM AND INFECTED HIM AT ANY TIME!!!!

This scene - and other Eduardo/Kylie moments - got me thinking about a mini-essay I wrote back in high school when I used to watch the show religiously. It was basically an episode by episode evaluation of Kylie and Eduardo's relationship throughout the insanely short-lived series. Using examples from nearly every episode, I gave definitive proof that Eduardo is in love with Kylie - and was at least attracted to her from the moment they met; and that Kylie at the very least was attracted to Eduardo by the end of the series. The show ended too soon to showcase whether or not Kylie had any strong romantic interests in Eduardo.

All of the re-watching of the Extreme Ghostbusters episodes - especially all the Eduardo/Kylie moments - plus thinking of my old essay also got me thinking of a fanfic I was attempting back in 2008 when I first re-introduced myself to the show. I didn't get very far with the story, thankfully.

I reread it on Thursday. It's by no means awful, but it's also not all that good either... It's workable, but I'm not entirely sure how to rework what I already have. I'm pretty positive I have Eduardo's voice down, but I'm not convinced I properly characterized the rest of the cast. I just might take a break from Hey Arnold! to work on this fanfic; see where it goes. Regardless, I'm thinking complete re-write of what I have.

Here's a snippet that I'm actually happy with, but I think I need to tweak Kylie's dialect some more to sound like her:

Eduardo was passed out on the couch and let out a large snore. “Ug,” Kylie moaned, “Can’t we turn him off or somethin’?”

Garrett’s eyes lit up and the corners of his lips curled into a smirk. Kylie just gave him the perfect idea for ending his boredom. He wheeled himself over to Eduardo’s side, placing both Eduardo and the couch between him and Kylie.

“Hey, Kylie,” he called over a little louder than he needed to, “I heard a rumor today. Wanna hear it?”

“Not particularly,” Kylie replied softly as she took another bite of her sandwich.

“The rumor is about you,” Garrett dangled the carrot. On cue, Eduardo stirred and his face started to frown. Kylie didn’t get the hint, however.

“Don’t care,” She took another bite.

Garrett puffed out his chest. All this time and Kylie still wouldn’t play along with him. He tried again. “Heard you had a date tonight,” he emphasized the word “date” and made sure to lean into Eduardo a little bit. He nearly got smacked when Eduardo jumped awake. Garrett stifled his laughter. At least he accomplished his task of waking the Latino.

“Well you heard wrong,” Kylie responded, still not allowing herself to be roped in to whatever Garrett had cooking, even if she was relieved that Eduardo’s snoring stopped.

“Come on, Kylie,” Garrett returned his voice to a softer tone, “admit that you have a date tonight. Cute guy too, I heard.” He nodded towards Eduardo, trying to give her some sort of signal.

“What?” Eduardo squeaked, trying to understand the conversation going on around him.

She ignored Garrett’s signal and finished her sandwich. “I said I don’t have a date. Besides, even if I did, why would I feel the need to broadcast it to you?”

It wasn’t much, but Garrett would take it. “Sounds like a confession to me. Right, Eddy?” He nudged his poor disoriented friend.

“Doesn’t sound like nuttin’to me,” Eduardo pouted.

“This guy must be really hot for you to keep him from us.” Garrett continued, “What? You’re afraid we’d scare him off?”

Kylie was tired of this. She stormed over to the paraplegic and leaned in so their eyes met. At a solid five feet tall, Kylie didn’t have to bend too far to accomplish her goal. “I said,” her tone was rough as she slowly talked, purposely punctuating each word in hopes to end this farce. “I. Don’t. Have. A. Date!” She flared her arms with the last word and stomped towards the stairs.

“Guess she doesn’t have a date,” Eduardo smiled to the slightly shaken Garrett.

Before Kylie reached the stairs, the alarm went off. Someone had called the Ghostbusters for help. She detoured for the fire pole instead.

“What have I always said about your snoring being too loud to hear the phone?” Garrett joked as he wheeled himself towards the disability lift.

“Yeah, yeah,” Eduardo rolled his eyes, “you’re real funny.”

The most basic of plot descriptions for this fanfic is as follows: 

The main ghost in my fanfic feeds on jealous energy. This ghost - which manifests itself as a spider - bites Eduardo and turns him in to a Hulk-like monster, but the transformation is fueled by jealousy instead of rage. The ghost then shapeshifts in to a handsome, Australian, college student, and woos Kylie - in an effort to make Eduardo jealous so the ghost can feed off the energy. It works, Eduardo Jealous-Rages, the ghost becomes strong off of the energy, and the Ghostbusters are helpless to stop it. Kylie is kidnapped King Kong style and it's discovered that the only way to weaken the ghost enough to capture it is to calm Eduardo's jealousy. Kylie finally gives up fighting her feelings, confesses to Eduardo that she likes him back, Eduardo changes mostly back in to a human, and the rest of the XGB capture the weakened ghost. There is a bit of a Beauty and the Beast thing where Kylie's kiss is the only way to fully transform Eduardo back in to a human and "heal" the ghost's bite.

Super cheesy, I know... it's the Hopeless Romantic in me... Anyway, I tried to use elements already established in the show to make it feel more "canon". For instance, the "Eduardo gets bitten and is turned by a ghost" is established in "Killjoys", as is the concept of ghosts "feeding" off emotion - in "Killjoys" the ghosts focus on laughter. The "Ecto-induced Transformation" that Eduardo undergoes - therefore making the proton shots harmful to him - is established in "Witchy Women". Janine at the end of the story convinces Kylie to confess to Eduardo because of references to the episode "The Crawling" in which Janine gets transformed in to a bug creature and can only have her humanity returned by Egon confessing his feelings for her. The "Beauty and the Beast" transformation is also partially inspired by another show I loved when writing the fanfic: InuYasha, in which Kagome is the only one capable of calming InuYasha when he is fully demonic.

Aaaaaand, speaking of InuYasha, while trying to find the XGB fanfic I just described I managed to find another fanfic I nearly forgot about. It's actually a massive hybrid/cross-over fanfic that takes elements from at least four different sources.

The main source is the Xbox game "Fable". The setting and basic history, as well as the basic background of the male lead, are all based on the game. The secondary source is Legend of Zelda. Then there are elements - mainly character traits - taken from Escaflowne, Tomb Raider, InuYasha, and Fushigi Yuugi. That story is a touch too complicated to explain simply. Therefore, I'll have to restrain from giving you a preview of that story right now, especially since this blog post is long enough as it is.

Switching gears over to roleplaying, I did Character Creation on Friday for yet another vampire character for Hubby's BFF's newest game. This time I actually started as a human and we roleplayed my character's embrace. It was violent, it was forced, my poor character was left to fend for herself, and she was clueless of what she became. Boy, was the poor girl freaked when she killed two bums while feeding, and felt like she landed in the Twilight Zone when she was informed that Vampires were not only real, but she was one. It was so much fun reacting to that news! I was "meh" about her at first, but developing a freshly-turned vamp might be lots of fun!

Already I kinda want to write a story based on her - sort of transcribing the game so others can enjoy. ^_^

On top of all these other writing ideas, I'm excited about another possibility. Now, in my birthday post I was listing all the gifts that DarkAngel1326 was giving me, but I didn't get my fourth gift in time to let you guys know what it was. Turns out the picture she drew me was a precursor for another short story she wrote for me. She wrote out my favorite scene in The Familiar of Zero, but starring Arnold and Helga. She did a really good job too!

So now I'm thinking we should join forces to elaborate on my "Spellbound" short story and collaboratively write a Familiar of Zero/Hey Arnold! crossover. The closest I've come to a collab story before was the script where I met ChibiSunnie, but for that it was more that she gave the broad plot ideas and I did the writing. With DA1326 I think we would be jointly writing, and I think it would be kinda cool to see how to best do something like that over the internet.

We already discussed how we love when PinkLotus27 collabs with someone they come up with a joint name. For instance, when she was still BrokenRose24 and would collab with NintendoGal55 their stories would be posted under the name BrokenNintendo. Likewise, when NintendoGal55 collabs with SuprSingr - who has a fantastically popular HA! story out right now - their penname is SuperNintendo. After a quick discussion DA and I decided that we'll post the collab under the name DarkRogue! XD YAY! But if we collab on something super-duper fluffy we might switch it up to LycoAngel. So I guess you guys can keep an eventual eye out for that!

In the meantime, I just don't know what direction I want to go with my writing!

• Get back to working on "What Is Truly Meant To Be"
• Go back and work on the rest of the July Daily Challenges
• Get to work on my Hey Arnold/Familiar of Zero cross-over
• Either alone, or as that joint effort with DarkAngel1326
• Go back and re-work my XGB fanfic
• Get started on my Vamp story
• Go hard-core with my X-Men RPing

Do you guys have a preference? Feel free to let me know in the comments below. ^_^

Well, I hope this appeases my readers that missed out on an update last Sunday. We'll see next week what I do with my vast writing options.

Back in to Video Editing and Other Distractions

Wait...

*Checks calendar*

...I missed last week's update and didn't notice!? How did that happen!? Oh... right... I was mad busy... :P

And so I'm going to make it up to you guys. I'm gonna do TWO updates this week! YAY!

I was trying to make it all in one post, but it ended up super long and kinda rambley. So let's have two, more focused updates, shall we? This first one will talk about the craziness that has happened since my birthday, and why I totally missed last week's update - essentially, this post is what would have been up last Sunday.... Then, the second post will be more focused on writing; so what I would have normally posted today if I didn't do the recap. :P

Let's get started, shall we?

A friend of ours needed some help on a work project. The long and short of the project is that he was in charge of doing some sort of presentation for corporate - each store in the franchise had to do it - and he wanted his presentation to be about a new safety video for work orientation. With the suggestion from my husband, I ended up as the editor for the video. This would have been a great opportunity to try to get my foot back in to production if Corporate liked my work. The issue is that the friend didn't even start filming until about a week before the project was due - mainly because he was transferred to a different store.

So the Friday before my birthday I got the footage to edit, but with my mom and sister visiting I wasn't going to work on the project. I therefore spent my actual birthday getting insanely frustrated when I finally tried to tackle the video. My main problem was the footage was filmed on a consumer camera and my editing system wouldn't accept the file format. SOOOOOOO.... I spent the day pulling my hair out and Hubby spent it trying to calm me down while attempting to help me convert the footage in to a format I could actually use.

The next issue was that the footage was horrible quality because the guy who filmed it was clearly an amateur and couldn't hold the camera steady to save his life... :P On top of that, our friend didn't make sure he filmed everything he needed for the video. So after about four hours of editing on my birthday and another six on Tuesday I was maybe half-way through the project. After work on Wednesday I went ahead and finished filming everything I needed, and then spent roughly twelve hours editing!

The end project is only five-minutes long! I stayed up until 2am Thursday morning finishing the edit and fighting with my computer to get the darn thing to burn on to a DVD properly. Hubby and I then woke up at about 5:30am so we could meet up with the friend by 8am and get to the presentation that day! I was so tired when going to the presentation! Worse yet, I didn't realize until we got there that these presentations were being VOTED ON! The region consists of roughly 20 stores - only 10 of which actually had anything they could present - and we were apparently all competing against each other. None of the stores knew what project the others were working on, we could do ANYTHING as long as it would improve the store in some way, and most of the presentations were Powerpoints. Once all the stores gave their presentation, the store managers and regional directors would collectively vote on the best presentation, and that would be sent to Corporate where the winners of each region would again compete in a similar fashion.

I DIDN'T KNOW ANY OF THIS!!!!!

So, needless to say, I was insanely nervous about showing a video I still felt was insanely sub-par. Granted, part of me felt we were shoe-ins because, well, video versus boring Powerpoint presentations; part of me felt bad for those who worked really hard all year and wouldn't have a hope to surpass a video that was completed in less than a week; and part of me still felt like there was no hope of winning because I saw all of these flaws in the video - even if no one else noticed.

I have to say I was a bit flattered and humbled when one of the store managers came up and offered to pay for the video I edited so he could have a copy to show his store! I looked to Hubby and Buddy to see what I should charge, we all shrugged, and in the end I just gave him one of the FOUR copies I made.

Our presentation was right about the half-way point of the day, and the last store to go also did a video - a SAFETY video no less! This meant we were no longer the only store to do an orientation video. Oh, the irony that we both picked "Safety" as the focus! Anyway, the video was clearly filmed with a professional-grade camera and with more cinematographic angles. I got super nervous, until that store was named the runner up.

Our store was then named the winner - which comes with a $1000 reward that we can use either to polish up our current project, or use towards next year's project/presentation. Would have been cooler if ANY of the prize actually went to us. :P Still, YAY we won!

The other store were clearly sore losers. I went to congratulate them on a Job Well Done, and tell them how beautiful their footage looked, but they were already out the building and in their cars by the time I could break away from our store manager congratulating us. According to the regional HR rep that was hosting the meeting, they left so abruptly that they left behind their thumbdrive with their Powerpoint presentation, the DVD their video was on, and the laptop speakers they brought in... The Rep gave the store manager a talking to about the poor sportsmanship....

Anyway, so that was the majority of the first week of my 28th year... Man, was I mad stressed and insanely tired. I spent Friday and Saturday vegging out - mostly putzing around in Photoshop. Probably why I missed last week's update - I was still too tired to even notice it was Sunday!

Regardless, Sunday came, I did my normal "wake up at midnight to take Hubby to work" thing, and then just COULD NOT FALL BACK ASLEEP! I just couldn't do it! Now, when I was first married and couldn't fall back to sleep I used those eight hours to work on my writing, but I was still too braindead to do anything truly creative.

Instead, I finally responded to a message I got from one of my online buddies Neghya. Way back in December - I think - Delaroux created a Facebook group dedicated to the massive population of characters she created for her own little universe. The small group of us all became pretty tight, but alas, I drifted away from the group because I just couldn't dedicate the time that everyone else did. Plus, the group is majorly comprised of the members role playing. I just couldn't spend four hours a day trying to read through the daily set of about 700 posts. Anyway, I recently psuedo-reconnected with Neghya on DeviantArt and commented about how great she did when drawing up the characters of the other group members. I stated that although I didn't have a character for the group I still would love for her to draw one of the characters I came up with for my multitude of other RPGs that I do with Hubby.

There's three D&D characters, one HeroScape character, three vampires - although I only pitched a description of one, and the two characters for the X-Men forum RPG. I also offered up a character I'm creating for the sequel to What Is Truly Meant To Be... but since I'm not even 1/2 way through that story, the sequel is easily a year or two away from its premiere...

Neghya responded that she'd love to draw any of them, but needed references to try to figure out how I picture them... I'm assuming she now regrets this message, because I spent the full eight hours I was awake and alone on Sunday to reply to her.

Being the most recent game I've played, the fact that it's a fandom I'm super interested in again, and the fact that I spent Friday and Saturday messing around in Photoshop trying to work on my pixelart - I went with Amelia "Lia" Madrox, AKA "Obsidian", AKA - my main X-Men character.

I spent a great deal of time finding reference pictures as well as describing Lia. On top of that, I also sent these three pictures - two of which you might recall from a previous blog post.

On July 27th - since it was my birthday that Monday - we had Lia's 15th birthday karaoke party. Again, this meant I was super focused on the X-Men RPG the weekend before replying to Neghya. This also meant I was again fixated on Hubby's character Chayse "Cajun" LeBeau. So I also spent the weekend oggling up pictures of Gambit as a means to gather references on how Cajun must look.

After sending Neghya the reference info on Lia I couldn't resist sending a mass of reference info on Cajun as well. It's hard to picture Lia without Cajun right by her side... so in case Neghya wanted to include him, she now knows what he looks like. ^_^

The big thing about last weekend, is that the floodgates were re-opened. Roleplaying lead me to think of Hubby's character Chayse. Chayse got me thinking about his suave father Gambit, and how Chayse must have picked up a lot from him. That lead me to do "research" on Gambit. Researching Gambit meant looking up gorgeous pictures of the character, and watching clips of him from the 90's X-Men cartoon, as well as X-Men: Evolution - especially since the latter would be the version that becomes Chayse's father.

I'll admit it: Link from Legend of Zelda and Gambit from X-Men get me all hot and bothered... I mean, why else would ROGUE be part of my handle, right? ^_^

So now I'm totally in to re-watching X-Men, X-Men: Evolution, and I'm in to re-watching one more cartoon... Which one? You'll find out in the next post. ^_^