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.