Moving Forward with Collaborative Writings

Once again I find myself with no motivation to write. Normally I have all of these ideas, and I'm just geared up first thing in the morning. That's the main reason I chose to shift my updating to Wednesdays - a day which I can write in the morning. However, I'm just so drained and sore from work lately. All I want to do is curl up in bed and forget there's anything outside of it. No dishes. No laundry. No cooking. No cleaning. No bills. No work. And, sadly, no writing either. Mainly because that requires sitting at the desktop, which is killing my back right now.

Yet, here I am. Once again using the "just write a little" method to push me along. Using that drive of having SOMETHING posted every week for you fine folks to get my butt moving. Now, to do the same with my non-blog writing.

To be fair. I DID do so yesterday. After literally two full months of not knowing what to do with her, I FINALLY role played as Lia. I didn't do anything major, but I did get the girl out of her damn room finally! No one is really on the boards anymore, and so who knows if I'll actually have anyone besides Hubby to interact with, but it's out there. We can start to move on.

Speaking of which, Ronoxym finally moved on with our collab - sorta. As I had mentioned last week, I had finished re-reading the first two-thirds of our story and had tons of notes. So many that I felt it would just be easier to restart the story with the typos and missed punctuation fixed, and then reposted up on Google Docs as something we could both edit.

Although, honestly, I think it would be better if we just mailed the file back and forth to each other so we could actually SEE what we each other edited, and decide if we thought it was a good idea or not. This way we don't have all these notes back and forth debating if we should use this word over that word, or whether or not there should be a comma somewhere. I'll have to check if the "track edits" feature in Microsoft Word is also in Google Docs. The closest thing I could find - which is only available for those who can edit - is a revision history.

By the way, quick shout out to ChibiSunnie for showing me the editing feature in Word in the first place. Made my work as a beta-reader so much easier!

Alright, back to the collab.

So, I'm in the midst of updating the 13-page story, but I take long breaks due to how tedious a task it is. Plus, the whole sitting at my computer thing. Well, in the meantime, Ron finally decides to go through my epic amounts of notes on our Doc file - which isn't even all of them, all of my notes in the middle I never typed up - and edits the document to fix my concerns.

Surprised the crap out of me, actually. I was even excited Saturday night to see him logged in to the story and editing. I figured I'd have more to read during my normal Sunday insomnia.

Well, seems editing was indeed a daunting task, because he didn't update the story after working on editing the second draft. So now I have the version I was editing merged with his edited version. I have notes EVERYWHERE of portions deleted or inserted between the two. My fun task is to now go through all those edits and have a coherent draft to post up for us both to edit from now on.

Maybe Ron editing what we did so far has resparked his interest in the project that had taken such a strong hold of him back in January. Perhaps within the next week or so he'll move the story forward. That would be awesome, and might even kickstart my own drive to once again write.

Although, I do have another collab story in the works. Well, in the very beginning, researching stages. Way back in 2012 I had the fantastic idea of doing a Hey Arnold parody of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. This idea must have struck a cord with AngelBlood666, because this past week he asked me if I wanted to work together in actually writing that parody. It's a story I keep absentmindedly drifting back to, but haven't done anything with in over two years. Perhaps having a co-writer on the project is just the push I need.

So we're both re-reading the play and taking notes so that we know what we wish to do with the concept. Heck, I spent an hour this morning just jotting down plot notes on the FIRST SCENE OF THE PLAY! Act one. Scene one. I ended up with TWO looseleaf pages filled FRONT AND BACK with notes. Now to type them up so that AB666 can see them too.

This could prove so much fun!

I've also been casually working on more research for world building both Gyateara and the X-Future reworking. Not too much advancement with either one, but it's better than completely forgetting about them.

Speaking of which, as much as it's grown on me, the placeholder name of Gyateara does seem a bit heavy-handed and lazy: "Eh, I'll just mesh Gaia and Terra together, tweak the spelling, and voila, a planet name!" I'm still not 100% convinced I'll be keeping it when I eventually get to officially writing stories about it; although I might keep the name for D&D sessions. So I'm thinking of using Hubby's suggestion of rearranging the letters until I get something a bit more original, but also keeping the basis of "my planet's name is based off of Greco-Roman terms for Earth". We'll see if I can come up with anything better.

Yay, naming things....


Honestly, if I'm not at work I'm either crashed on the couch or frantically cleaning the otherwise neglected apartment. So I'm not entirely sure I'll be making much progress in writing until either a) the apartment is actually clean and I just need to do maintainence every day, or b) work becomes less frantic. I'll try though.

Until next week... let's just focus on the "try a little and hope for a lot" mode of productivity every day.

World Building and Inspiration Striking (for others)

Wow. This has felt like such a loooooong week. I legit had to read back through last week's post to even remember what I last talked about. Weird to think how slow this month has been going. Bombarding poor Phfylburt as well as Mother's Day both feel like weeks away instead of just a few days.

Actually, I haven't talked to Phfyl at all this week aside from sending him more brainstorming on Thursday. I'll get to that in a bit.

Honestly, aside from bouncing more ideas off of Hubby and having the gears grinding, I haven't done terribly too much with writing this past week. I was finishing up this little fella:

Sorry for the blurry pictures. My camera broke a few years back and I haven't had the money to fix/replace it. Anyway, that little guy up there is supposed to look like a toy version of this dude:

That would be George, my best friend's pet rabbit. The crocheted version of him is a toy I made for Bestie's first-born son. Picking out what I would make for him was part of her baby-shower gift, much like what I did with my sister-in-law and the blanket I made for my niece. It's been so long since I last saw my bestie - and it kept me so long to get down to business and make the silly toy - that the bunny also became the kid's baptism gift.

So my week was spent frantically trying to finish up the toy while working my now-normal insane hours and getting ready to trek home for the kid's baptism. Oh yeah, and be surprised by Bestie that I'm one of the kid's godmothers! YEAH! I have a niece and now I have a godson! About a month ago Hubby and I even got a hand-me-down frame for our mattress and we've been sleeping off the floor. Look at who's growing up and junk!

Alright, back to writing.

So, my time was obviously spent on slightly-higher priority stuff this past week: work, finishing the kid's toy, becoming a godmother, visiting my mom and sis, etc. Oh, and, Mom, if you're reading this I put those in order of what I did for the week. I'm not saying visiting you was on the bottom of the list....

*Ahem*

During my work breaks, however, I was able to FINALLY finish editing the collab Ronoxym and I started back in February. There were a lot more edits - mostly typos - than I initially realized, and Ron has the collab word doc set up so that only he can edit and I can only make comments on it. So, I think I'm going to have to redo it as a new word doc, set it up so that both of us can edit, and send him that as a replacement. Hopefully if he re-reads the whole thing like I did it will respark his inspiration and he can finally advance the story.

Yes, I'm trying to guilt trip you in to writing, Ron!

So, that project is done and the project of actually typing up the second draft shouldn't be too daunting, I hope. The only other thing I really worked on this week - as I mentioned - was using my husband as a sounding board.

Which brings us back to my statement at the start of this blog: the brainstorm with Phfyl this past Thursday.

Technically I wasn't really brainstorming with Phfyl as much as I was relaying over an awesome concept that Hubby came up with. See, last Wednesday Hubby and I went to go watch the second Amazing Spider-Man movie. While we were waiting for the movie to start I relayed over Phfyl's thought of a cyberpunk fantasy setting for our X-Future original reboot. After some discussion, Hubby came up with the following:

In the near-future groups of hacktivists - such as Anonymous or The Rising Tide from Agents of SHIELD - succeed in taking down the corrupt governments of the world. Not sure if it's more of a domino effect or a simultaneous attack. Either way, this results in a massive power void. The hacktivist groups decide to take control since they feel they understand what works best for the people.

After a bit of a power struggle between the groups and the previous government officials and supporters the hacktavists manage to become the new government. They aren't numerous enough for a different person to be in charge of each country in the world, and so they break down the modern borders and restructure the world in to kingdoms. This will give us the "fantasy"/medieval setting.

Over the generations - Hubby was thinking our story would take place in like 2250 or something - the Cyber Lords become more and more corrupt and power hungry. Eventually they become just like the governments the original hacktivists overthrew. During those same generations, citizens have become more and more dependent and trusting of their devices, and so most are easily manipulated by the Cyber Lords' "approved" information. The Cyber Lords are the best hackers in the world and can manipulate any information that goes online.

Soon, people begin to age out of the knowledge of how the world was before the rise of the Cyber Lords. They only know of the existence of the Kingdoms.

Meanwhile, due to food additives, genetic manipulation, "unclean" power sources, and pollution, mutation has switched from a strange phenomenon to an almost every-day occurrence. And the mutations become more and more extreme; such as fur, wings, high healing factor, etc.

The mutations also become more and more genetic, so if your dad had wings you have 1/2 chance of having some as well.

Because of the Cyber Lords the worlds' dialects have become more internet/gamer oriented: text/tweet shorthand and leet-speak. Due to the new modern dialect, the mutants were typically described as something similarly found in games. For instance, mutants with wings would be angels, demons, or fairies depending on how the wings looked. Mutants with super-human strength and/or fast healing would be berserkers. So on and so forth.

Along with the information distortion that all but erased the pre-cyber-world, the idea of mutants gave way to just "new races".

Technology became more and more impressive, but the average citizen became less and less knowledgeable of how it worked. They just took for granted that it did. Only the Cyber Lords and the other nobility knew how technology truly functioned any more.

Because of this, citizens began believing in magic again. This gave way to elemental-kinetics, psychics, and other "physics" manipulators to be thought of as "mages" instead of "mutants".

Thus is the setting of our Brave New World of cyberpunk fantasy while still holding on to the original concept of mutants.

Now, I embellished a bit on his initial idea; adding in things like how the mutations kick-started and why technology was considered "magic" in the future. However, the core of the above was from the mind of my husband. Man, I miss having him as a Dungeon Master...

Anyway, the concept is amazing, but there's one downside. It's TOO good. X-Future works so well and is able to be converted in to an original tale so easily because the background universe it takes place in barely affects anything at all. We can put these characters in to virtually any setting, and as long as they're able to still have the normal teenage-high-school-drama and powers/magic the story works.

The above setting is too intriguing for X-Future. You don't want to watch an ensemble cast play around in this universe without really acknowledging it. You want to explore this new world. You want to explore how it came to be and determine if it will stay as is. You want to maybe watch a Cyber Lord as he ruled. Or you want to watch a citizen become disillusioned and try to start a coup. Maybe you just want to watch a woman struggle as she's declared an outlaw simply because she wants to become an archaeologist; discovering how the world once was and how it came to be. There could even be a really cool tale if the citizens of this new world decided to rename Earth - or never refer to their planet by name - and so the reader thinks it's a tale on an alien planet. Then someone discovers the history of the world and BAM! The reader is shocked to discover that they're still on Earth!

That's what happened in one of the mangas I used to read. I won't say what manga so that I don't give away spoilers, but the basic concept is that teenagers were magically teleported in to this barren, hostile, desert-like planet with ruins that vaguely resembled modern buildings. Then, one of the teens discovered his uncle's house perfectly preserved. That's when they realized they weren't being sent to a different world, they were being sent to the future! Dun Dun Duuuuuun!!!!!

My point is that the setting Hubby came up with is almost a character in and of itself. However, the focus of X-Future is definitely on the interesting characters we all came up with. It would be way too complicated if we tried to run a story where the reader is torn between wanting to know more about a cast of at least seven people or learn more about the setting.

I am planning on slotting that idea away for some future project, though. I just need to figure out who will be the character that gets to play in that playground. ONE interesting character running around an intriguing world is a much better fit.

So.... still trying to figure out the world behind the X-Future reboot. Wonder if Phfyl has thought of anything over the past week.

In the meantime, I'll brainstorm some more with Hubby. I may even take up world building Gyateara more. Silly Hubby actually told me on Sunday "If you ever need help with naming things, I'm pretty good at it."

First of all... I KNOW he's really good at it! I love all the names he comes up with for his characters and settings. I tell him that a lot, actually! Heck, there was a month or two where he had me convinced that we should name our son - if we were to ever have one - after one of his D&D characters. Would have been a really cool name too....

Secondly: DOES HE NOT KNOW ME BY NOW!? Of COURSE I need help naming things! I frequently lament how horrible I am at naming things! Where has he been!?

That being said, he's now going to help me with coming up with names for my world building.

Before I jet for the week I do want to do a couple shout-outs!

Seems a trio of my online writing buddies are finally back in to the groove of things, plus Omnibladestrike has been chugging along with his own world-building for about two weeks now.

Friday I had a message posted on my Facebook wall:
"All right, I'm doing the '5 minute writing' that you talked about in a blog. Let's break my hiatus."

AngelBlood666 later commented that his "five minute writing" turned in to a half-hour; easily. He has since written for "five minutes" every day and is ready to do his first update in a long time. Should be up sometime today! Mad props, AB666!

Same day I also received a message from AB666's beta and the mutual friend that got us to meet: DarkAngel1326.
"You better be writing! I'm writing tonight too. Rose (my princess/undercover knight) has some stuff to say."

So glad she's getting back in to Of Blood and Honor! So YAY for her too!

The real shocker was when I received this message yesterday morning just before running off to work:
"I want to write a story, but I need someone to be my sounding board. Up for it?"

Heck yeah, I'm up for it! Especially since that message was from someone I haven't mentioned here in AGES. Good old Delaroux! I honestly have no clue how much writing she's been doing over the past year or so since I stopped frequenting the Facebook group she started up for her original characters. It was a fun time and I loved both her and the other girls I met in that group, but they would be up at about 2am role-playing. I'd spend HOURS just going back through and reading everything they've posted while I was sleeping, like the old broad that I am.

I kept telling Delaroux that she needed to create a forum - much like X-Future - for her and the girls to role play on. I'd be able to read more at my leisure that way. Instead of scrolling on endlessly in the group set-up Facebook switched to a few years back. I still can't stand that. The old groups where everything was organized in threads was so much easier to navigate; especially when you aren't on the group 24/7.

Anyway, I'm off topic.

My point is that I'm so proud of all four of you!

Omni! I'm excited to hear what progress you've made with your world building. Perhaps we'll make a day to draw maps together.

AB666, I'm so proud that you've tried out the 5-minute writing challenge, that you've stuck with it, and that you have something to show for it. Doing better than me, haha! I can't wait to read the end result.

DA1326, I'm just amazingly excited that school let out - or is soon? - for you and that you finally have writing time again! I want to know everything Rose told you Friday night.

Delaroux, I still need to go back and read everything you sent me - probably my next task after posting this - but I'm elated that you're writing again! Your characters are always so intriguing to me. I can't wait to see what you have in store this time.

The Floodgates Are Open

Sorry about last week's rantings and emo-ness. I think I scared some people off. While I had 23 hits on my Rant About X-Future post I only had 17 hits on the My Muse Keeps Getting Hit By A Giant Flyswatter follow-up post.

I feel silly being proud of so few hits in the grand scheme of things... Still, having people reading my ramblings at all is awesome.

Anyway... My point is that I want to thank those of you still around after yet another emotional turn for the worst in my blog. I do that a lot, don't I?

I actually debated going back and taking those two posts down.

My rage and sadness faded as I vented for seven hours in my blog. Yup. SEVEN HOURS OF CONTINUOUS WRITING. They were rantings and a bit rambled and I deleted a lot before posting, but still not bad for someone who didn't want to write at all! Ah, the power of writing; journaling.

The thing is though, that with that rage and sadness gone there was no point in having those posts up. They were essentially my passive-aggressive way of slapping Phfylburt in the face, and making him feel bad about his decision. Worst part was that it worked. Worked so well that he wanted to Skype with me so he could apologize "face to face".

On top of that, I had at least three friends take pity on both me and my predicament.

So then I felt even MORE of a loser for making people either feel bad for me or feel guilty of what they had done, all because of what I had written. Again: the power of words.

Those were all reasons to just take down the posts so no one else could see my low point.

Then it hit me. Maybe that's the exact reason why I should keep them up. I know that if I went to Ali Luke's or Rick Riordan's blog and saw a post like those up it would be humbling for me. To see an author I admire admit their failings and show the open wounds of a low point.... they would be more human and my own struggle wouldn't seem so lonely.

Thing is, I'm not alone in this struggle to find myself as an author. I'm not alone in getting WAY too attached to a fictional world. I'm not alone in wondering if I'm where I should be.

You're not alone either.

I kept those posts up because I hope that one day - if it hasn't already - someone will read those low points and realize I'm in the same boat as them. We're the same. If I can make it out of this pit and actually become a professional writer then perhaps you can too.

That bit of help. That bit of connectivity that can only come from the beauty of the internet. That encouraging thought. That minor legacy. That - and the fact that I more-or-less haven't STOPPED writing since - is why I am never taking those blog posts down, or any of my emo-rific blog posts.

Future authors need to see that someone who came before them had the same struggle, and was able to overcome it. Now... to just overcome it enough that I can make something of myself!

First step in that direction? Acknowledging my support network. Well, outside my husband, of course...
My online buddy AngelBlood666 and my mentor Ali were instantly there to perk me up after I posted last week. I'm sure DarkAngel1326 would have been right in their ranks too if she wasn't about to die from schoolwork....

But the one who really pushed me in the right direction was my lovely ChibiSunnie. It had been a little while, but she found last week to be the perfect time to return to her usual "my comments about your blog are too long for the actual comments section, so I'll send them to you in an email."

It was indeed a long email, but it was filled with empathy and encouraging words - as well as concern for Lia, but I'll get to that. Out of the full email though, I thought this bit to be the part that really hit home the most. Wonderful insight about struggling to figure out if you should follow a certain path in life.

Chibi: [It's like] if you're running late for the bus and you're starting to worry you won't make it. So you briefly slow down for a sec, thinking "Why bother running if I won't make it?" Then you either give into that idea and walk the rest of the way, or you start running as fast as you can...so that you can at least say you gave it your all [to try to make it]. It sounds like you're in that brief sec part. So you need to decide if you're just going to walk the rest of the way and make writing a hobby, or if you're going to start running and at least know that you gave it your all attempting to make it a career.

I'm sprinting, Chibi! I'm sprinting! You better have a towel and water for me at the bus stop.

I have to admit that I loved that quote so much that I made sure to post it here as soon as I read it. I knew I'd be able to build a blog post around it somehow. If not, I was going to post just the quote. Didn't care.

So, like I said, I have more-or-less been writing non-stop since.

Well... world building non-stop since; to be specific.

Phfyl sent me an IM after reading my blogs in order to apologize yet again, but also admitting how humbling my posts were.

Phfylburt: For me the whole situation was a bit of a roller coaster. Cause on the one hand I felt bad that I put you through this. Then there is the other side that was kind of thrilled about it. I've never had anyone react this way to my writing. Ever. I mean granted not a lot of people have read my stuff, but still. And then you put up that second post and it was even more humbling. I mean the fact that you said you were excited when I posted something and that you were a fan was simply unreal for me. And then there was your outro paragraphs. Damn, [girl], if I don't have those similar thoughts every...day. What if I'm just someone who likes to write but isn't meant to be a writer?
So yeah. Sorry...but only kind of. And thank you for the kind words.

Like I said.... we're not alone in the struggle.

This is a guy that got me exited to always read what he wrote. This is a guy who evoked so many emotions from me last week. This is a guy who creates such awesome characters and masterful plot twists. Even HE wonders if he can make it as an author.

On the one hand you can take that as "well, then what chance do I have?" but on the other hand you can ALSO say "We're alike. So maybe I can make it too..."

In fact, a big ego boost that helped me think I can actually make it as a writer was what I mentioned at the top of the blog: Chibi's concern for Lia. In fact, I recently found out that apparently quite a few people seem to really like her.

Phfyl and I were having our little heart-to-heart when he told me that he "had to" do what he did last week because "in my book, Lia is the main character, and so torturing her is part of the job." HUH!? Lia!? The main character!?

Now, I knew that she was one of the central characters right alongside Willow since I try to ALWAYS have the girls active and involved in everything on the boards. It's more fun to play like that, and it makes the characters more embedded in the overall story if they have at least a LITTLE role in everything that goes down.

But MAIN character? I didn't really see X-Future as HER story per se. However, he argued that she was essentially the introduction the reader had to this universe and it was about watching her grow - among other things. Also, poor Lia gets struck with all the feels for the most part.

No wonder The Bard and Chibi love her so much. I thought the poor girl was shoved in to the back seat once I really got the hang of Willow and created Trish. It's good to know that not only is she loved, but she's probably the most loved of my characters, at least by the readers. Part of me feels bad for Willow now - who is my favorite - but screw it; she has everything else going for her. What else does Lia have? Plus, it's awesome to see that people truly do care for my original characters!

Like I said: ego boost!

So now I'm pushing hard to ride this high. I've actually made progress with converting X-Future in to an original universe for a story reboot. As you all know, I've been thinking about this for a while. Some of the tweaking has been easy, but it has mostly been a brick wall in front of me for some time now. I even tried to use one of the weekly writing challenges during the Writers’ Huddle Winter Challenge to help me with the conversion. The challenge was to work out a mind-map. It only helped me a little and certainly did not turn out pretty at all....

Have I mentioned that I suck at making these?

Well, this past week has really made me want this to happen even with the stalled out momentum for the past few months. In truth, part of it is so I can reboot the story so Phfyl's fopaux is either non-existent or at least waits until further in the overall story before it occurs. Also in truth, part of it is so I can run Devon. Ronoxym takes too long to do anything and I see so much untapped potential in Devon. But mostly it's because I'm still not sure how to react on the forum right now, but I am still so hooked with this story.

Novelizing it as X-Men fanfiction is one thing, but I'd LOVE for a broader audience to experience this story. I also keep thinking of it as a much more visual story than what we can do on the boards. Thus my pull towards making a webcomic of it.

Now, the trick is trying to figure out how to handle making it a webcomic. I know I want to work with Phfyl on this project. He's like a walking Marvel Comics encyclopedia. He knows the best way to tell stories by way of comics. He knows the Marvel universe. He's also such a great writer; ya know... in case I didn't hit that point hard enough yet...

I also consider it a given that I work with Hubby on this. X-Future was his idea to begin with and a large portion of the cool plot twists on the board are either his brainchild or birthed from he and Phfyl collectively being evil. Even without those merits, he's also a great sounding board and support network for me.

I'd also like to work with Ron since we worked well together when we were working on that Devon/Willow collab. However, Ron clearly isn't really geared up to write ANYTHING until his life gets more settled and he has more free time. Main reason why that collab isn't done yet and posted for you fine folks to read. Trust me, I'm working diligently on the second draft of what we DO have so it can be posted as fast as I can get Ron to move.

So, I have my writing "staff" for this thing. In and of itself that's quite unique. Most webcomics are just one writer/artist. Perhaps they're a team: one artist and one writer. Having four writers and no artist though? Rough start. Taking applications...

After getting Phfyl on board with the webcomic idea, I spent the week smoothing out the edges on my concept of "classifying" mutants in to categories based on the core of their powers. I think it's a cool system Hubby helped me create. The trick though is to figure out a new collective term besides "mutants" since calling them that and having them all train at a school is a blatant rip-off of the original source material.

This is the latest snag. Poor Phfyl has spent the past week innocently bringing up Facebook, only to be bombarded with about a page's worth of my brainstorming ideas every day.

Phfylburt:
That is quite a bit of information.

Me:
I may have been thinking intently about this for a few months....

Phfylburt:
Well that much is obvious....

Do you ever sleep?....
I'm too tired to take this all in. I'll come back later and digest it all and give you a response.

To be fair.... each ellipsed comment is a separate day's response to my insane bombardment on the poor schmuck...

At the very least I am enjoying the discussion and the brainstorming. Obviously... otherwise he wouldn't have to wade through so much every day. But hey, even if he groans every time he sees another message from me at least I am writing. That's what counts, right?

We've looked up "mutant" in multiple languages and tried synonyms to broaden our search. We've thought about locations for the first "mutant outbreak" that brings them to the public eye. We've even learned a new word: Preternatural - very unusual in a way that does not seem natural; existing outside of nature; exceeding what is natural or regular; extraordinary; inexplicable by ordinary means.

We don't have one term tied down quite yet, but I'm personally leaning towards an almost cyberpunk term I came up with. It would work well with the pseudo-cyberpunk mutant classifications Hubby thought of. Phfyl, I think, is leaning more towards the Finnish translation for Preternatural: Travaton. Although, to be truly accurate, the proper translation of Preternatural for the meaning we're leaning towards would be yliluonnollinen. I don't even KNOW where to start with pronouncing that!

The next snafu would be the actual world we want to have our universe in. Personally, I've always thought of X-Future as a near-future sort of environment. Very close to the source material of X-Men: Evolution. Once I started shifting it away from X-Men fanfiction and more original work I was seeing it more of a cyberpunk story. However, Phfyl seems to be nervous that it will still feel too close to X-Men. Although slight, there's a possibility that if we follow through with this idea of creating a webcomic Marvel might notice the similarities and take it down for copyright infringement. A bit of a stretch, but still a definite possibility.

To try to prevent that, he pitched the idea of switching gear completely, stripping everyone down to their most basic roots, and converting the whole thing in to a fantasy. He even thought the idea of a cyberpunk fantasy world would be cool.

I have to admit that when I first really started hearing The Girls I was a bit upset that they were tied down to X-Men fanfiction. They are all so compelling to me that I want to write volumes of books about them. I even debated the idea of creating them in a High Fantasy world. Perhaps throw them in to Gyateara. Different continent than Amara or Natalie and Connor, but still.

I keep going back to near-future cyberpunk though, and it seems less complicated that way. Less world-building. We still have a few crucial questions that we need to answer, but it seems like a better option. I'm throwing a million options at Phfyl - as per usual - and seeing which idea sticks. The more ideas I have out there the easier they come to me. I'm liking this!

So, let's see where this takes me. Hopefully to an on-time update next week...

My Muse Keeps Getting Hit With A Giant Flyswatter...

First off, an update.

Just before my blog went live Phfylburt did indeed give me a "legit" answer as to why he did what he did. I debated going back and editing my last post, but figured it would work better if I used it as an update in this one. It sort of ties in to what I want to say.

I'm going to try to avoid spoilers, sorry if something slips out. Take comfort that it will probably be a good year or so before I get to this part in the X-Future story, and so maybe any spoiler hints I accidentally slip will be forgotten by then.

Anyway, it seems that the underlining reason for Phfyl to do what he did was indeed simply "boredom". On three levels: He felt that with things the way they were he was in a rut, took the tale as far as he could and it was time for him to do what he did, and his number one reason? He was just flat out bored with what he had.

So, as I mentioned in my last post, I at least have an understanding; a reason. However, I'm still royally pissed off, and maybe even more so. Maybe it's because while HE was in a rut with everything and bored with it I was able to see so much more potential. I could have gone off on my own and ran with so many ideas if he had just turned everything over to me instead.

Plus, I'm tired of all the rage-quitting.

Sure, he's still on the boards, but he's just one of many - actually, most at this point in time - that just threw their hands up and said "This is boring me, nevermind."

Granted, for him this might be what he needed to revive his spirit in the game and move forward with more fervor. A way for us all to jumpstart the game again with his added interactions. For nearly everyone else, however, it means dropping out of the game completely and killing our momentum. It's hard to do a role-play-game with only two regular people, one moderately frequent player, and two players that sporadically show up to play.

If we don't get more players - or more players back - we might as well just call the game.

That enrages me more than anything because it would just be about par for the course for me.

As a teenager I started up fanfiction writing, although it wasn't in the traditional sense. I would mentally role-play scenarios that would be fanfiction if I ever got around to writing them down. The closest I got was joining an online RPG like X-Future. It was a Batman RPG.

They already had a player for the character I both really wanted and really knew well: Selina "Catwoman" Kyle.
Thankfully they had an opening for another beloved character of mine: Harley Quinn.

Problem being that this was back when I was still new to role playing, and even newer to role playing online. I don't like stepping on people's toes when I role play. I don't write in absolutes in most cases. While most would write "She punched him" - making it a definite that the swing connected - I tend to spin it as "She swung at his jaw" - leaving the option open for him to dodge or otherwise counter the punch. It actually annoys me that so many on X-Future write in absolutes....

Anyway, since Harley was generally just a glorified Joker Henchman, I didn't like doing too much without Joker's player directing me. I came in mid-plot and didn't want to ruin what they had set up or where they were going with it. Sure, it got Joker a bit mad because back then I could only go on the internet about once a week, and when I updated it would a simple sentence or two, but we got by.

Then the guy who was playing Batman graduated college and couldn't play as regularly anymore due to his work. He passed the character off to someone else who also didn't play regularly. Next thing I knew we don't have a game any longer, just when I was starting to get the hang of it and was able to post significant actions.

Now the same is happening here it seems. Although we aren't dependent on one central character - Batman - we are still dependent on people who don't update frequently at all and hold up the board. Add in the fact that we have fewer and fewer players - mostly due to the same rage-quitting Phfyl essentially did - and we REALLY rely on the handful left to be active. At least if there were about 30players it wouldn't matter too much if people weren't on frequently. There was always someone else to interact with.

So, yeah, Phfyl, I'm pissed at you rage-quitting and shrinking our ranks some more.

Wanna know why else I'm pissed? Why this feels about "par for the course"?

Because whenever I find something that gives me any sort of momentum, any sort of drive, anything that sparks my passion for writing.... it gets squashed. Hard.

I was excited about writing on the Batman board and was thinking of actually writing out the fanfiction I've been mentally writing for years. After the board died I lost the desire to keep going with writing Batman stuff - especially after apparently sucking so hard-core as Harley. Clearly I didn't know the characters as well as I thought.

I was excited about becoming a journalist, and even more so about actually interning at the local newspaper during my senior year of high school. That is, until the editor wanted me to just do police blotters. That's it. My entire internship was walking down to the police station, gathering their reports that were redacted for public knowledge, and typing them up. She put NO effort in to taking me to actual stories in order to show me how it's done. No effort to actually educate me on how to be a reporter.

I gave up on journalism pretty much then and there.

I was excited to be a Creative Writing dual-major, and then I met my professor. No matter how passionate I was with my writing, no matter how excited I was to turn in something, no matter how much drive I had to get my story told... there he was repetitively telling me I wasn't cut out for writing.

While I still had to turn out scripts like a machine for all of my Broadcast Media courses - and then again while with a production company, I didn't write leisurely for about six years.

I got in to Hey Arnold and started writing for leisure for the first time since college. I was passionate about my stories and while What Is Truly Meant To Be is left unfinished, I was still turning out one-shots fairly frequently. Then I moved, and somehow lost most of the DVDs I had of the Hey Arnold series. Then the rights for Netflix to air the show expired. Finally, the drama within the fandom finished off my drive.

I still love the show and do eventually want to go back and at least finish WITMTB, but that desire to write from that source material is gone.

Ali Luke gifted me a slot in her online writing group Writers’ Huddle, and that got me going again too. I'm still a bit nervous about passing anything over to the critique section since it is mostly fanfiction of fandoms people aren't all that aware of, but the community is great. It was welcoming and I was getting great advice.

Then the laptop thing happened, and I don't really read things online anymore. To be fair, this one is on me...

I thought I would be able to solve the internet issue for interacting with other writers by creating a local writing group where we can either meet in person or on Skype. No screen-reading or eye-strain required. But that fell through after just two meetings.

I had a spark; an almost ITCH to write when I had that back and forth with Ronoxym, but then he fell off the planet.

And now the board. X-Future. My last drive to keep me writing. It's dying too, and Phfyl's post last night is just killing it all the faster. Especially since the only real dive for me to keep going with Lia was to interact with Phfyl's characters more. Actually, Willow just had a nice connection too, and Crystal was heavily involved with Phfyl's characters. So, essentially his big play last night stopped my ability to do that much more on the board. Whole plotline potentials lost.

My only drive left with X-Future is to drop the board entirely and just focus on it as a webcomic. Reboot it. Start it over. Don't transfer anything over except for the characters and maybe some of the more key plot points. Maybe just converting it completely in to our own universe, like I've been slowly working on.

The only thing THERE is that it feels a bit like cheating. Even if I do have Hubby, Phfyl, or even Ron join in on the collab, there's still about fifteen characters that aren't ours. I'm sure my friends wouldn't really mind, but it feels like cheap fanfiction. You're taking someone else's characters and creating your own story with them, but the characters are designed from your friends' imaginations; not a well-known piece of work. So, it's fanfiction, but with the drive to call it "original work"....

Oh, and then there's that whole "I can't draw" thing stopping the webcomic process....

So it might be unfair to Phfylburt that all my anger gets pooled and then spilled over on to him, but he's just the latest out of a long list of writing opportunities lost and muses murdered.

Then - on a more personal level - there's the fact that I don't really have that large of a social circle. I'm getting older, and while most of my friends are younger and the whole "they're getting married and starting families" trope isn't true quite yet, they are still not visiting as much.

The Bard spent the past weekend with us, but except for playing the LARP we haven't socialized with him for MONTHS before that... his birthday I think. Sucks since he and Ronoxym apparently talk every day.
CelestialTyrant has always been a bit "flaky" due to his job, but we see him even less after he had to more-or-less "reboot" his career. Once a month if we're lucky.
Omnibladestrike frequently uses the "I'm exhausted after work" excuse. Understandable; we've used it too, but still....

Cyhyr doesn't visit without Ron, and he doesn't visit due to working two jobs. I'm still a bit bummed that we somehow missed his one day off a few weeks ago...

So Hubby and I are more-or-less isolated except for any online socializing we do. In other words: Facebook and X-Future. So the possibility of losing X-Future is super hard on me. It's not only a large source of writing muse for me for nearly two years, but it's also one of my main social networks. A bit pathetic, I know, but there ya have it....

The final thing that I think affected me so much was Phfyl's writing itself. Two fold here.

On the one hand I have to admit how envious I am of him. As I mentioned in my last post, I have to give him credit for making me care so much for his characters and loving every plot he came up with. Nearly everything from this man was gold to me. He'd come up with a character and I instantly was like "MY NEW FAVE!" He'd come up with plot devices and twists, and I'd be beyond excited for him and Hubby to enact them. As much as I'd hate the trauma he'd put Kinney and Lincoln through, I still loved the updates. I loved seeing the character development. I loved going "OH SNAP!" as his tale took a new direction.

Then he shocked and kind of disappointed me. As I said in my earlier update, it felt lazy and cheap. He had a great opportunity he could have taken and didn't seem to even think of it. Actually, it may have been hard to remember since the role play has dragged out, but in-game something major happened a week or two earlier that he never explored. There was an interaction with Willow and some character development that he ignored.

The fact that he said he was bored enraged me because there was so much there that he could have worked with and he didn't seem to see it.

Here I'm struggling to come up with a muse of mine own and he ignored so many of his. If only I could have written for HIS characters or using HIS plot lines I'd be set. I guess that's the fanfiction writer in me.

Which brings me to the second reason why Phfyl's writing affected me so much.

What if all of this means I'm really NOT cut out for writing? I mean, seriously? Every time I have something that inspires me, something that drives me, something that is my muse it dies on me. I can't seem to be inspired unless there's an outside catalyst of some sort, even if its just a source material that I can write fanfiction for.

Think about it. I was inspired to write again by getting in to fanfiction. My "original" stories based in Gyateara are birthed out of source material I have to now manipulate: Legend of Zelda, Fable, D&D, Inu Yasha, and Vision of Escaflowne. My greatest drive to write something was the X-Men forum. Even then, a lot of the one-shots I've written were my characters interacting with another player's character based off of what recently happened on the board. Then there's the story where I'm literally just converting the board in to a narrative. Even on the board itself I need an outside source to inspire me; a catalyst such as Hubby creating an event, a character interacting with me, or something another character does somehow affecting mine, etc.

The strong "itch" to write was because something Ron wrote sparked my muse. Even now I'm using HIS story to rekindle my writing.

So what if I can't do this alone? What if I can't find a story that is wholly mine that grabs me and drives me to write? What if the fact that my muse is killed so frequently means I don't have the passion to write that I thought I did? If I was really meant to do this why can't I seem to push myself to do so? Why don't I have the discipline Cyhyr or Phfyl have?

Even if I could find a way to write without an outside source or catalyst, would I be able to write characters as compelling as Phfyl does? Plots as engrossing? Would I ever be able to evoke emotion as strongly as Phfyl did with me? Would a reader hate me as much as I hate Phfyl if I had pulled the same stunt he did?

I guess this whole blog post just sums up to one thing:

I'm sorry I dumped so much on you, Phfylburt. I'm sorry I'm so enraged at you for seemingly no reason. I'm sorry that I've made you feel guilty for your decision - even if I do still think it was a moronic one.

Clearly I have some of my own things to try to sort though and figure out.

A Rant About X-Future

This update is going to be hard for me. All I want to do is turn off my brain and not look at a computer screen. Yet, here I am.

I'm surprised actually. Not so much that I'm writing this blog, but that I have to struggle so hard to do so.

This past week has been just a repeat of the previous ones: Go to work, be run ragged by the lack of staffing in the start of our busiest season, come home exhausted, pissed off, and emotionally drained, veg on the couch to try to ignore the rest of the world exists, and lose track of what day it even is.

There was no motivation there for anything - aside from playing a little more Lego Marvel Superheroes. Once again I had no drive to do any writing or research. I was doing the bare minimum to avoid Zero Days. Even with my sermon about bite-size tasks turning in to full project completion, I haven't really been able to do so myself.

I was able to accomplish NOTHING during my two days off this past week. Two days off in a row. TWO. I essentially had the equivalent of a weekend off for the first time in maybe a year. I did minimal cleaning, crocheted a teeny bit, The Bard crashed Friday in to late Saturday, and we more-or-less marathoned Lego Marvel Superheroes the full 24-hrs he was over.

Sunday I actually fell asleep just about when I got home. I even napped a little before work. I was still exhausted. Go figure. However, Sunday was also the start of me kicking my butt in gear with my slacking off with writing.

About a month ago I had a strong desire to continue work on the collab project Ronoxym and I were writing about Devon and Willow. Sadly, I can't actually CONTINUE the story since I have no clue where Ron wants to go with it. Yet he hasn't touched the story since March; maybe even end of February. Anyway, I had already edited the "inside Devon's head" portion we've written, but there were still 12pages before that. So I started editing those too.

That's what gave me Non-Zero days since Sunday. I've been slowly re-reading and editing the rest of the story. It's a slow start, but it's something. It gets me in the "how to edit a second draft" mindset; which is a process I need more practice in since I rarely do second drafts of anything. At the same time it got my writing juices mildly flowing again as I try to rework sections of our story.

That's the main reason I'm so surprised at my deep, DEEP desire to ignore all things writing and needing of brain function. I was all proud of myself for getting back in to the writing swing of things. I was getting excited about working on this post.

Then Phfylburt happened.....

For those who might not recall, Phfylburt is one of my husband's friends who is a prominent player on the X-Future boards. Hubby may be the Game Master of the board - in charge of all things plot-wise - but Phfyl is one of the main Storytellers. Hubby and Phfyl routinely bounce plot ideas back and forth in order to come up with some of the most intriguing story points in the game. Phfyl is one of the people I wish to work with in rebooting X-Future as a webcomic.

Still looking for artists, by the way....

Anyway, despite last night I do still wish to work with him on a webcomic reboot, but at the same time he's the reason I don't wish to write at all.

The reasoning is super spoilerific for the X-Future story, so please just quickly scroll on down if you don't want any spoilers. I made sure to keep the spoiler part inside a blocked quote so it's easy to see what part to avoid.

***SPOILER ALERT**SPOILER ALERT**SPOILER ALERT***
*****DO NOT READ IF YOU WISH TO AVOID SPOILERS*****
**ONE LAST WARNING THAT THIS SECTION HAS SPOILERS**

Just before I was ready to go to bed Hubby noticed that someone had posted on the X-Future Facebook group for the first time since early MARCH. In fact, it was the first time ever someone besides ME posted in the group - everyone else usually just responds to my posts.

Anyway, what was said new post?
It was Phfyl stating simply: "I am a monster. Of this I am aware."
I knew INSTANTLY that he meant Lincoln. My beloved and favorite character on the board: Lincoln. My heart started racing and I sprinted to my computer. Hubby chuckled at my concern for the character and told me I didn't want to read.

However, he warned me with that little playful chuckle in his voice. He'd usually do this to spook me as a prank. Typically if he warned me I didn't want to read or watch something with that playful chuckle it meant either a) nothing bad happened at all and he just wanted to freak me out, or b) something bad did happen, but it was mostly angsty feels that weren't so bad aside from me going "I NEED TO CUDDLE THAT CHARACTER!"

Since I was told to check out Lincoln's journal first I figured the later would happen. Phfyl would be a monster because he came up with a new mental or emotional torture for his little character. I was fully expecting to read what was posted and then find SOME way to get Lia over to Lincoln to comfort him. Hell, I had been trying that for weeks now, but more on that later.

I went to the Lincoln's Journal thread and saw simply: [Page had been torn out]
I was like "WTF? Why bother posting in that thread if it's just gonna say that a page was ripped out of the book?" I then saw the post in Lincoln's bedroom and thought maybe there was context there. Perhaps the bedroom had some narrative to explain what Lincoln wrote, and why it was torn out of the journal.

Nope. Still no clue why the page was ripped out...

Instead I ended up switching gears as I got excited about possible character advancement. One part of the bedroom post seemed to suggest that Darwin - the voice inside Lincoln's head that has been heavily implied to be a separate being of some sort - was able to unexpectedly take over control of Lincoln's body for a moment.

Lincoln was all Emo-Boy once again. Darwin was trying to cheer him up, and then demanded that he get out of bed and talk to someone. Lincoln refused, but bolted upright anyway. This was where I got excited and thought that Darwin somehow figured out how to take control of Lincoln's body. I even thought that perhaps this was what Phyfyl meant. Perhaps he was a monster because Lincoln got bumped out of his own body; sorta.

You could tell by the way he talked towards Lincoln that Darwin had a brotherly sort of love towards him, but Darwin also couldn't resist tormenting and teasing him. Perhaps Phyfyl's monster comment was regarding a grand reveal in which Darwin was really some villain. It actually just happened on the boards in which a supposed best friend turned out to be a sleeper spy. We also have a villain who literally head-hops, and so Darwin "living" in Lincoln's head wouldn't be too far fetched.

Maybe now that Darwin knew how to control Lincoln's body he'd create mischief in Lincoln's place. The groundwork was already there. Lincoln got depressed again because he got in a fight with Tyler, and got the two of them and Crystal thrown in to a detention session. Darwin wouldn't have needed to do much to create more hell for Lincoln and possibly bring the X-Men down from the inside; an ongoing theme it seems.

Then the rooftop scene blindsided me.

Darwin was driving Lincoln to finally go talk to someone - especially after the whole "Did I just control you?!" part. Lincoln agreed at first, but decided to finally use his newly healed wings instead of walking throughout the school. I was again excited for him. So much potential can be had in this character and I was so happy that he could possibly be happy again after being able to fly once more.

Except Lincoln randomly turned for the worst. He motions to talk to his mom - whom he had just found a week before after a lifetime of searching for her - but abruptly declares that there's no way she could help him. He then thanks Darwin for being a friend and begins a spell. Darwin recognizes the spell but can't do anything to stop Lincoln. He calls out for help, but being a voice inside a kid's head no one can hear him. At least, not fast enough.

Lincoln completes his spell and almost instantly combusts. Yup. Phfyl KILLED Lincoln! Just offed him! Had the kid commit suicide out of nowhere! What's worse is HOW he did it. The kid is now splattered guts, a jawless skull, and wings painting the roof of the Xavier Institute. Grotesque! It was pretty much an "Eff you guys, there's no way we can bring Lincoln back."

See, in the Marvel Universe - especially with the canon character we recently brought in to the fold: Elixir - characters rarely stay dead. Hell, more often than not a character's heart will be pierced and they will actually DIE, but then Elixir will come by and heal said character. Good as new and capable of fighting another day. If we REALLY wanted to, in theory I'm sure we could have found a way to revive both William and Liam. Hell, Hubby's waiting for the opportune time to reveal that two different deceased characters are revived.

But then there's Phfyl's masterpiece. He sure as hell made sure NOTHING was gonna revive that puppy.

Alright, now for some buffer text so that people who skipped the spoiler above won't accidentally see anything as they go back to reading the blog... if they ARE still reading the blog. Anyway, the non-spoiler section is where I'll explain why this event made me not want to write this update, as well as touch back upon my earlier statement about Lia and cuddles.

**END OF SPOILERS*END OF SPOILERS*END OF SPOILERS**
*IF YOU SKIPPED THE SPOILERS YOU CAN READ AGAIN NOW*
**NO MORE SPOILERS. FEEL FREE TO READ AGAIN BELOW.**

Anyway...
So the above happened and let's just say it blindsided and dumbfounded me. Phfyl just devastated me with the mildest of warnings, and when I called him on it and asked for a reason he simply reposted what he said in the Facebook group.

I was a wreck. It completely ruined everything for me. I was finally getting back in to the forum - one of the few remaining players - and now I don't want to look at it.

I'm slowly playing through a mission as Willow, but I think I'll just have Hubby relay over what he did, and then have him post my responses so I don't have to bring the board up. I even hid the link in my favorites bar so I wouldn't be tempted.

I have no real clue what to do with Crystal - Hubby keeps reminding me that she's technically an NPC, and so I don't have to do anything with her; just respond as her - but I REALLY have no clue what to do with Crystal now. I have no idea how she's gonna react. It could go one of about ten ways!

So, I'm down Crystal. I've also been down Trish since January. I had already "lost" one of my favorite characters because Ron is still MIA.
He's never on the boards, and he has two characters keeping a third one sort of locked in a role play that he has to finish up. So even if Ron ever DID hop on the boards, Hubby would slaughter him if he role played "the past" with Trish; since the Brotherhood section hasn't been caught up with the "current" timeline it's still considered "pre-time-skip". Since - as I just mentioned - The Brotherhood hasn't been caught up - aka: nothing past "Rescue Trish Mission" posted yet - and since I can't role play with Ron's characters Devon or Nys - again, as mentioned, Hubby would slaughter him - the only way I can do anything with Trish is to do solo-plays. What was Trish doing during the two years skipped on the boards? Trick there is I'm not really sure; hence not posting as her even though I wanted to.

I temporarily lost my favorite character until the board advances far enough - which isn't gonna happen any time soon since no one goes on to role play anymore - and I can't think of what to do with another character who MIGHT be able to advance things, mainly because the people she'd most likely interact with don't really frequent the boards at all anymore. So if I tried any sort of role playing with them she'd be just as stuck as Phfylburt's one character who is waiting for Devon and/or Nys to do ANYTHING.

Then there's Lia.
My first character. She used to be my main character. She's taken a backseat to Willow - whom Hubby claims is mostly my personality which is probably why she became my new main - and to Trish. Lia's broken and emo-rific. She's really struggling emotionally right now, and that's one of the main reasons I haven't done anything with her for a month. I'm not really sure what she'd do next.

Part of me thinks she'll just want to hide in bed for a few more days, but would Ripley, Chayse, Willow, or even Lia's dad allow her to isolate herself like that? Would they be understanding that she needed space? Would Crystal's wonderful bluntness show itself by way of telling Lia to suck it up and get over it? Option two would be that Ripley was able to cheer her up enough to at least shower and leave her room. But where to? Probably to grab something to eat, but at the same time I feel like Lia might be all "I'm too depressed to eat anything" and just poke at the food regardless of her stomach's protest of the fasting. Lincoln has also been in a rough patch lately - although Lia DID miss the small stint of his wings being hindered - and I REALLY wanted to have Lia and Lincoln sort of interact more. Emo Corner Twins Unite!

I think this is why I'm most pissed off at Phfyl. I wanted Lincoln to be sort of Lia's Last Hope. She's on the breaking point right now and needs some sort of way of redeeming herself. Lincoln could have been that option for redemption. The two of them could talk and interact and maybe life would be able to get better for Lia. She'd stop being so emo and I'd have a useable character again.

Instead, what Phfyl did pretty much nails Lia's coffin. I really don't see a way for her to bounce back. There's been too much drama, turmoil, emotional dive-bombs, death, and betrayal for a 17-yr-old to handle. Too much for even Ripley to fix. Now, because of one super stupid thing that Phfyl did, I feel like I have no choice but to retire Lia.

I need away from the forum for a while. Maybe I'll think of a better resolution, but right now I'm just seeing Lia throwing up her hands, shouting "NOPE! I'M DONE HERE!", and packing to move back home to Long Island. Screw you all!

I can't even express how much last night's solo-play upset me.

It felt like it came out of nowhere. Phfyl hadn't really been on the boards for a few weeks - partially because his one character waiting on Ron to do something - and when he returns he does THAT!? It seems so cheap. Kinda lazy, actually. And there was so much story potential lost now. It's just gone! So many questions left unanswered. That pisses me off.

There was also emotional turmoil for MYSELF there. I wept. By god, I was a MESS last night. I yelled. I sobbed. Legit SOBBED. I ranted. I was PISSED! I was inconsolable as I stormed around the house. I tried to get my mind off of it by going through my FB notifications, but I couldn't focus. I tried to work more on my crocheting, but I kept losing count. Hubby tried to cheer me up with some humorous shows off of Netflix. Eventually he gave up and we did just go to bed.

Yet I continued to rant. I continued to call out how stupid of a move Phfyl made, and how pissed off I was at him for doing so. I then vented that I felt guilty about being so mad at Phfyl because I didn't want Hubby to see me so anguished and then HE'D hate Phfyl for pulling such a stupid stunt - and therefore ruining my night. I was then even ANGRIER at Phfyl for making me feel guilty about the possibility of Hubby also hating him - me for the stupid move on the board and Hubby for pissing me off so royally.

I couldn't sleep. I was just so irritated by what Phfylburt did on the board that I couldn't turn off my brain. I went from being infuriated to depressed to calculating any minute possibility that we could reverse his moronic move.

I hoped that Phfyl would at least explain to me why he did what he did.
Did he have a master plan? He and Hubby usually do. Some intense over-arcing plotline that would take this imbecilic play and make it EPIC in the long run.
Was he just bored and figured "eh, why not?" I'd still hate the decision, but I'd at least UNDERSTAND it.
Did he feel that he was taking on too much with the boards and wanted a way to cut back? Again, I'd be pissed at how he went about doing so, but I'd get it.
Hell, I was so agitated by the post that - even though I HATE this trope - I was even hoping for a "it was all just a dream" sort of scenario explanation from Phfyl.
Instead he answered my "Why'd ya do it!?" with a repost of what he said on the FB group, with the addition of a devilish grin.

That just made me more pissed.

I guess that's just the power of well-written characters. Phfyl - although an almost crucial player on the board - doesn't actually post all that much. We see his characters slowly grow, but at the same time it's quick since there aren't many posts to go off of. There aren't many interactions with his characters. They mostly hide in the background of the action and drama that mostly centers around my characters - since I tend to be on the boards most frequently and have the highest amount of active characters.

And yet this one simple post was able to emotionally strike me like nothing else has in a while. The last time I felt so many conflicting emotions was about 4yrs ago. It's personal family stuff so I won't get in to the details, but it was REAL LIFE and REAL PEOPLE that got me so flustered that I would quickly flip-flop back and forth between angered and depressed. This is only the SECOND TIME IN MY LIFE that I was this uneasy about something... and this time it was about a FICTIONAL CHARACTER IN A FICTIONAL WORLD!

So, let's pause a moment to give props to Phfylburt for writing so expertly. And then give him a Dead Arm for the same reason.

Anyway, my ranting about this can go on for another couple-dozen paragraphs, and this post is already epic. I think I'll stop here. Perhaps I'll continue in a double-post today. Either that, or save it for a post for next week. Regardless, if I do continue I swear it will be a little more soul-searching and a little less straight out ranting.

So much for "I didn't want to look at a computer for a while", huh?