Let's Play The Yay-Boo Game!

Well, folks, it's everyone's favorite game show!

It's. The.....

GAME!

Here's how you play. You have conflicted views/feelings about a subject, and you go back and forth about the yay's and boo's of that subject. Ready to play?

This week's subject is: My Writing Progress

I finished Chapter Eight of "Peeping Tomcat" with a few days to spare before I needed to check in over at Writers’ Huddle. First week I wasn't just squeaking in at the deadline! YAY!

The reason why I finished Chapter Eight so soon was because, while the rest of my chapters average at 5412 words, my latest didn't even hit 1600 words originally. BOO!

Yes, there are three chapters that skew the results one way or the other, my longest chapter being the one about the akuma attack which clocks in at 7560 words, and my previously shortest chapter was the lead-in to Adrien and Marinette's pseudo-date, which was only 3062 words. Here's the actual break-down:

Chapter 1: Mistake - 6978
Chapter 2: Itch - 3967
Chapter 3: Opportunity - 3062
Chapter 4: Normal - 4876
Chapter 5: Mimicker - 7560
Chapter 6: Parallels - 6804
   (I'm still debating calling chapter 6 "Epiphany" instead)
Chapter 7: Confusion - 4639

I have since been able to go back and add more definition to the story though. YAY!

But it was for the seventh chapter to bring that up to the above 4639 word count.... BOO!

HOWEVER! Yesterday I was able to steal away some time to add to Chapter Eight's word count, bringing it up to 2139 words, much closer to my minimum. Plus, I'm not done reworking it yet! YAY!

I really need to stop worrying about how short this chapter is, though, because this week's challenge is a second akuma attack, and I don't even have a starting point for this akuma. BOO!

I DO have some of the interaction I want between Chat Noir and Ladybug thanks to the akuma, though, and that's the whole point of the upcoming chapter.
Added bonus: if the chapters "Normal" and "Mimicker" are any indication, I'll probably have to introduce the akumatized character and the distressing event in Chapter Eight, as a lead-in to the actual akuma attack in Chapter Nine. Which means figuring out the akuma attack for Chapter Nine will help bring up Chapter Eight's word count. DOUBLE YAY!

The big problem, though, is that I've been so focused on this project of "Peeping Tomcat" that I didn't even think of a short to post this month. Which means I only have today and tomorrow to write, edit, and post something new online in order to keep with my new years resolution of something new published each month. On top of that, I don't have anything to share here for the month, AND, unless I get at least the writing done today, I again won't have anything to read at writer's group tonight. DOUBLE BOO!

AAAAAAAAnd, there we have it! The conclusion of our game! Let's see the results:

YAYs: 5              BOOs: 5

Well, looks like it was a tie game! Each up swing had its fall, each cloud had its silver lining!

Thanks for playing the

GAME!

Now back to our regularly scheduled program....

Okay, so for writer's group tonight, even though I probably won't have a new one-shot to read, I COULD start reading off "Peeping Tomcat" to hear their thoughts, add them to my betas' reactions once I send them the story, and see where I end up. As you saw above, though, each chapter is LOOOONG! But then again, isn't this the point of the group? To read off your WIPs and get reactions in order to better them? Sure, none of them know "Miraculous Ladybug", but don't I want opinions from non-fans to see if they understand the story? To make sure I'm explaining the scenes and episode events well enough that you don't NEED to watch the show to enjoy the story?

I'll see what I decide when I get there. If I'm one of the first to read, perhaps I'll just go full throttle and read off "Peeping Tomcat". If I have a new one-shot written, perhaps I'll read that to help polish it before posting tomorrow.

I'll let you know what I decided next week.

In the meantime, I finished my re-read of Lycopolis a couple of days ago.

I told Ali that, while my mind and world views have evolved since my first read, and I understand the characters better this go, I still had the following thoughts on each character:

• Seth is definitely the charmer he's supposed to be, but he's also a complete jerk, and it's masterful how Ali has him walk that line.
• Kay is a lovely heroine, but there's one scene late in the book where I always seem to scream because she's too timid! I get why she reacts the way she does, and I get why it's important to the overall story that she does, but, dang, girl! Move faster!
• Edwin just needs all the cuddles! He's portrayed as Goth, but he is by far more Emo than Goth. If Emo's wore baggy clothes to hide in instead of the skinny jeans, you'd have Edwin.
• Mark is my least favorite character. I understood him more this read than I did last; probably because I'm going through a similar weird 30-something "mid-life crisis" but for completely opposite reasons than Mark. He also started to redeem himself towards the end of the book, more so than I remembered from my first read. Still, I don't like him. I still think Hannah can do better....
• Hannah we don't really get much of outside her role as "Mom," either to her actual kids or to the teens in the book: Kay, Brandon, Edwin, and Robert. I like Hannah, but I don't really get enough to build a true opinion of her.
• Robert is another one we don't get much of, mostly because everyone else is from around the same area in England, and Robert is Texan. While I get his teenage/religious rebellion and questioning, I also think he's a jerk to follow Seth so easily.
• Brandon is still my favorite character. His aloofness is just so enduring to me for whatever reason. The fact that he thinks in numbers is fascinating to me, and I totally get his justifications for the numbers he assigns each person he meets. The characteristics do seem to fit both the people and, strangely, the assigned number. 

All-in-all, I want to see how Seth reacts post-Lycopolis, I want to learn more about Hannah and Robert, I want to see Kay become more confident, I want to see how Mark redeems himself and grows, and I just want more Brandon. Edwin just needs more love and cuddles. Man, I love broken characters....

I've been taking a roughly week-long reading break instead of getting a jump start on "Oblivion". Mostly because whenever I know I should be working on "Peeping Tomcat" I've instead been reading.... It's a seemingly wonderful excuse for procrastinating...

Come Thursday, however, it will be March 1st, and I'll be back to reading. I'll let you fine folks know how my opinions may change for each character. Ooooor, you can decide for yourself by going over to Amazon and buying the books.

Okay, this blog is now going to posting late. Stupid computer lag. Plus, I still need to figure out my monthly one-shot. So, I'll catch everyone next week!

2018: Year of the Writer

It's that time of year again! When I use any excuse to try to hit the reset button. To be fair, though, in regards to my writing, I haven't been doing so bad. I haven't been doing as good as I would have liked, but I haven't been doing bad either.

This past week was probably one of my worst weeks, actually. Ironically. Between a day or two of being in a deep, angry funk for no apparent reason, Hubby trying to cheer me up, Valentine's Day at-home date-night followed by an actual date-night late in the week, and ironically Writers' Group, taking up all of my evenings, I didn't get much writing done. I also had no time at work, even during lunch. Mostly because lunch was the only time I had to get any reading done to not fall behind there.

So, I'm on par with where I want to be with my reading challenge at least.

Writing time, on the other hand, took a back seat this past week. Instead, Hubby and I had a "bad movie night" and watched a couple of movies on Netflix with some terrible reviews. We then watched "Black Panther" at the local theater on Saturday. Yesterday we watched the live action Fullmetal Alchemist movie on Netflix. Backtrack to Friday, Hubby had us watch "Z-O-M-B-I-E-S" on Disney Channel. It was cute for what it was, a Disney Channel Original movie. It did give me a new song addiction, which I happen to be listening to now:

Quick explanation. In Z-O-M-B-I-E-S a lime-soda induced explosion at the power plant created zombism. For me, the lime-soda is important for explaining why the zombies all look like Batman's Joker cosplayers. Anyway, the point is, in this movie, zombism is more a mutation than the reanimation of corpses. They still have superhuman strength, are aggressive, and crave flesh - more specifically, "braaaaaaaaiiiiiins". However, the government was able to design Z-Bands, wristbands every zombie wears that calms their flesh-eating urges and their aggression while also dropping their strength to average for humans. Now that zombies are "normal" they can live side-by-side with humans, sorta, they're stuck in the zombie slums called Zombietown. The story then follows the attempt to integrate zombie teens into the "normal" high school.

Again, it's cute. A bit heavy handed in putting exposition in dialog, and late in the movie, during a song the main character Addison sings, they visually recap the movie YOU JUST SAW in a flashback montage, which Disney seems to be big on lately. Those were the two main flaws I saw, but otherwise I'd recommend the movie if you have Disney Channel.

Back to my writing though.

I didn't give myself a lot of time to just write. Instead, this week was more "self maintenance" week, trying to spend time with my hunny, figure out why I was so randomly angry all the time for two days, taking long showers, and watching non-serious movies as pick-me-ups. It was important to do this maintenance, because I definitely feel much better this week.

I did manage to still keep my chapter-a-week pacing, though. At this rate I will never have all of "Peeping Tomcat" set to send to my betas by mid-March. However, most fanfiction writers only have a detailed outline, will write a chapter a week, edit THAT chapter, and post for weekly updates. So, I'll be sort of ahead of the game because I'm trying to have the whole story done first and edited as a whole entity. That way, if something later in the story adjusts something earlier in the story, I can do so instead of trying to dance around plot holes.

You know, like what I did with What Is Truly Meant To Be. I knew what I wanted for this story. I had a fairly detailed outline for it. I knew what would happen in each chapter. I did what most other fanfiction writers do: write a chapter, polish it, post it, work on the next chapter. Then I discovered the devil is in the details. Once I got into the actual nitty gritty of dialog and inner monologues, I stumbled upon plotholes I had to fill. It would have been a lot easier to have written the whole thing out, found those plotholes, and changed the earlier chapters to avoid them, instead of trying to pull a solution out of a hat later on, after I couldn't change things. Lastly, writing chapters took me way longer back then, so updates weren't nearly regular enough. And I eventually fell away from the story.

I want to avoid "Peeping Tomcat" falling into the same pattern as this last major project I was working on. Which is why I want to have it completely done before I started my weekly update postings. However, it looks like I'm going to fall into a sort of half-way between the two. I should have the first ten chapters done by the end of the Winter Challenge, which means I'll have all but the last five chapters edited. I might even get as far as the eleventh chapter, actually, since chapter ten is already pretty close to the best I can do without beta notes. That's over 60% of the story re-written/edited and ready for my betas. I also have a fairly firm grip on what I want for the tail end of the story, complete with the chapters already having a first draft written thanks to NaNo.

I could send the girls the first two-thirds of the story as edited as I can get it on my own, and then a detailed synopsis of the final third so they know where I'm going with the story. They should be able to give me notes on each chapter and the story overall based on that. I'll start posting the finalized chapters on time, and I'll have about two months to finish the last four or five chapters, get them beta'd and then polished, before I would fall behind. I should be more than capable if I stick with my current pace. In fact, I should have a month leeway to start working on "One and the Same." I probably won't be able to start posting it the week after I complete "Peeping Tomcat" though, unless I lock myself away for a weekend or something and just write the whole first draft in one go.

We'll see how everything goes. I do need to work at a faster pace, but for right now, I like the rhythm I have, and it is an improvement over the past. I'm happy, and I can work to increase my productivity for "One and the Same."

I might even have something to read at group again.

I've been avoiding it for a couple of reasons. First is that my betas haven't read any of the story yet, so I don't know what their input will be, and I don't want to read the same chapter multiple times to the group. Second reason is that my chapters are LOOOOOONG and I'll probably take up at least 45mins of the two hours we meet up every other week. It could even be as much as a full hour, and I feel like that is taking too much of everyone's time. Especially if I do that fifteen times. Third is because no one is into the fandom. They seem to enjoy the story anyway, but they also seem kind of hesitant to critique. Mostly they just have questions on how x-y-z works, which I guess does help because it means I need to explain things a bit more so non-fans could enjoy it. I just need to figure out the happy balance between non-fans enjoying the story, and possibly be tempted to watch the show based off the story, and not putting in so much explanation that the fans get bored, since they knew all of it already. My final reason is that it's 15 chapters, read every other week. I won't be done reading the story to them until around September. I should be done posting the chapters online by then. Any critique they would give me would be moot unless I wanted to go back and update chapters already posted and read. So it would just be me reading for the sake of having a captive audience for my story.

On the flipside, though, I'll be doing a second Miraculous fanfic right after this one, am I truly not reading anything at group for a year?

I mean, I still want to post something new every month, so maybe every other writing group I'll read that? I need to write something for this month still....

I dunno. Thankfully, we ran out of time last group, so I didn't have to worry about whether or not I wanted to read something. Instead, I tried to pass the turn over to Omnibladestrike.

YEAH! Haven't seen that name for a little bit, huh? Well, he's writing again! Check the above link to see his latest. He's been coming to writing group too. This past Sunday was supposed to be the first week of our writer's dates, but it was mostly me reading his latest edits and then five hours of us watching YouTube.... we're good at this.

But he's writing again, and regularly! So exciting! And I'm not doing too shabby either. ChibiSunnie has been working really hard on her first children's story, and she should have at least the bare bones, if not the whole thing ready to publish, by the end of the college semester.

Over at Writers’ Huddle, last year's winter challenge was basically week after week of all of us going "yeah, I wasn't able to do much :(". This year's winter challenge has more people, and most of us are commenting about our progress. Even those who were sick, taking care of sick family members, were on vacation, or were otherwise distracted from their writing - much like me this past week - are commenting about getting SOMETHING written at least.

So, perhaps 2018 will be a good writer's year.

I guess I need to get started on chapter 8 to find out.

Shoving That Boulder Along

I'm a day early, but Happy Valentine's Day to you all. Romantic, platonic, familial, communal, or otherwise, I hope you're feeling some extra love this week.

I would appreciate a little extra love from my Muse this week in order to help me catch up with "Peeping Tomcat".

My second week of the Writers’ Huddle Winter Writing Challenge went about as well as the first one. Prior to the challenge starting, I had the following break down:

1. Chapters 6 and 7 redone and ready for my beta readers by the close of the first week: February 4th
2. Chapters 8 and 9 set for my betas by close of the week: February 11th
3. Finish chapter 9 if need be, touch up on the mostly fine chapter 10, and start chapter 11 by close of the week: February 18th
4. Catch up week if I need it, but still have chapters 11 and 12 done by close of week: February 25th.
5. Chapters 13 and 14 by the end of the week: March 4th
6. Chapter 15 before I need to head to my mom's to visit my sister: March 9th

After the challenge started and I knew I had to work chapter 5 in as well, my new goals look like this:

1. Chapters 5 and 6
2. Ooooh kaaaay.... how about 6 and 7?
3. Chapters 7, 8, and start 9?
4. Here's hoping I can finish 9 and just quickly polish a few words here and there in chapter 10.
5. Shoot! I need to get chapters 11, 12, and 13 taken care of!
6. Race through chapters 14 and 15; taking no more than 2 days each. @_@

I have a feeling that come March 12th, instead of sending a completed manuscript to my betas, I'm going to just send the first half of the fanfic along with a detailed outline for the second half. That way they can at least start giving me notes so I can still have my story posted "on time."

Oh! That's right! I shared on DeviantArt, but not here. I have a tentative publication date of Friday, April 6th, or even late Thursday night so it's available all of Friday. With the help of my two betas Cyhyr and ChibiSunnie, I should have the first chapter polished and ready to go by that April publication date. Then I'll polish a new chapter each week, and post said chapter every consecutive Friday... or Thursday night, whichever one I decide on. If I can at least be far enough ahead in my edits/writing to keep up with this schedule, then I'll finish off "Peeping Tomcat" about mid-July. I'll then start posting "One and the Same" on a weekly schedule as well.

That means I not only need to be ahead of the game in my weekly posts for PT, but I also need to have at least the first few chapters of OatS ready to go. I have no clue how large that story is going to be, but, if it doesn't carry me to the end of the year, then it should at least carry me long enough for me to polish up that Devon/Trish battle fanfic. Then THAT will be my final post of the year. Given the plan of FINALLY doing the Varekai fan-novelization over this year's NaNo, since I pushed it aside last year, I should get that polished and set to go March/April 2019. That's quite a ways away, though, so let's focus on PT, shall we?

As I mentioned, Cy and Chibi both offered to beta for me. Cy is actually a Miraculer as well, so she's going to be my main beta reader for this project. Chibi hasn't had time to get into the show, and she's also pretty booked with her own writing and schoolwork. However, she's always been a beta reader for me, so she's keeping that hat on, as it were. Since she knows my writing style and voice, she'll help assist me with that. Plus, she's my gauge on how well people outside the fandom might understand and/or enjoy the story.

So, can we take a brief time out to thank these two ladies for taking what will probably be massive amount of time helping me figure out this story? Likewise, can we thank my writing group for dealing with my kooky fanfiction I bring every meeting? No one is ever in the fandoms I write for, but they are good spirits and let me read anyway. So, thanks, everyone, for indulging me.

Hacker Girl Facebook Sticker
by Birdman, Inc

Oh, speaking of thanks and indulgences, I actually co-won the raffle for the first week of the writing challenge. I've got an Amazon $10 gift card, and I'm itching for a book to spend it on. Anyone know if I can use Adobe Reader to read e-books I purchase off of Amazon? I don't have an e-reader, and there are a few people over at Writers' Huddle that have digital-only books up on Amazon. Although, it might be cheating a bit, using my winnings to support them....

Anyway, I joked that, thanks to the raffle accepting anyone who checks in, even if they don't hit their weekly goal, I got rewarded for not figuring out my story.

I guess that was the encouragement I needed, though, because I DID figure out the rest of chapter 5 shortly after. Actually, once I published last week's post, I hopped in the shower. I was barely in there three minutes when I figured out the Lucky Charm I needed to finish the chapter. Bam, just like that. It almost felt obvious. The rest of the chapter fell into place quickly after.

Problem was, I still had to work on chapters 6 and 7 this past week, and I didn't even start them until Wednesday since I wanted to get chapter 5 done first. I wasn't worried though, because chapters 6 through 8 were already written. I assumed I only needed to clean them up a bit. Much easier and faster than the "writing from scratch" chapters I had just completed.

I even stated in this blog a few weeks back, "at least chapter 6 is a fun one of Cat spying on Marinette yet again, so that one should be quick to revise/edit."

I then READ the chapter!

Good lord, it was bad.

It was obvious that I had written it about half-way through NaNo, and after the emotional and mental drain of losing the first half of my story. I was rambling; trying to get words on the page in a frantic attempt to catch up. I spilled everything from my head onto the paper. Adrien was trying to figure things out, and so I was too. It wasn't pretty. And it was long!

I.... uh.... I don't know if I improved it at all.

See, the problem with chapter 6 is that it would be a lot easier in a visual medium than a solely written one.

Chapter 3 starts five days after chapter 1; five days after Chat Noir accidentally spies on Marinette. Chapters 3 and 4 show Adrien's dynamic with Marinette. I try to keep it about par with the show in regards with Adrien's contradictory crush on Marinette. On the one hand, it's super subtle: more than willing to kiss her during a film their friends are taping, the constant need to call out her name to get her attention whenever he sees her, the constant touching of her shoulders, the glances he gives her later in season 1, the friggen SLOW DANCE in season 2, and even how he looks at the lucky bracelet Marinette gave him. It's easy to just look over everything as "he's just really friendly/comfortable with her" or even "he knows she likes him, so he's subconsciously flirting back." It's so subtle, it's kind of obvious that he doesn't realize he likes her. On the other hand, while the crush IS super subtle, it's just as much BLATANTLY OBVIOUS to anyone who's looking for signs of him crushing on Marinette. I point out the same reasons.

Anyway, my point is, chapters 3 and 4 of PT are supposed to set up that subconscious crush on Mari, so that late in the story, when he finds out she's Ladybug, the reader doesn't feel cheated that he realizes he likes her. The reader already knows this, it's ADRIEN who didn't, and struggles as he wonders if he likes her for her, or does he just like her because she's LB.

Chapter 5 is the akuma attack, which sets up the next chapter.

Chapter 6 takes everything that Adrien, and therefore the reader, learned from that day - chapters 3 through 5 - and applies it to what Adrien discovered throughout the week of spying on Marinette. These things combine to give Adrien the epiphany that Marinette and Ladybug are two sides to the same coin; Adrien not realizing how close to correct he really is.

It wouldn't work if he had this epiphany before chapter 3, and he wouldn't get it in chapter 6 if he hadn't watched Mari for 5 days already. Likewise, I can't really show the days in chronological order between chapters 2 and 3, because by themselves, the observations CN makes don't really move the story along; therefore, they aren't justifiable as their own chapter.

Which leaves revealing CN's week-long spying observations to chapter 6; making it a "recap chapter" as CN flashes back and "montages" the previous three nights. Because he's recapping each night, I can't really add any dialog without slowing the recaps down too much. Instead, each night is restricted to three or four short paragraphs. After the recaps, Adrien needs to have the epiphany that makes the chapter worth keeping in. He does this by using the information he gathered from the five nights of spying, and comparing his new view of Mari to how he views LB. This is more internal dialog since he can't talk to anyone about it, aside from Plagg, who is currently in the Cat Miraculous giving Adrien the power to be CN.

All-in-all, it was almost all show, virtually no tell, and there was no dialog, which just makes the whole thing jumbled and feel like it's rambling. I needed dialog, and I needed a better feel for the whole scene I was cutting down in the recaps. A way to know EXACTLY what would stick out.

So, I spent the week actually doing a LOT of writing. I wrote out the whole scene - from both Adrien's POV and Marinette's - for Adrien and Mari finding Alya and Nino after the akuma attack. I wrote the scene where they decide to forego the rest of their outing, and instead head home, complete with Adrien walking Mari home. I made sure to set the scene of Adrien asking Nathalie about showing Marinette's portfolio to Gabriel. I then wrote out what fully happened each night CN peeked on Marinette.

Once all that was figured out, I then cut every scene down to the aforementioned three or so paragraphs to recap. I also added some dialog this go, which helped a little. The whole thing still feels like a rambling, god awful, jumbled mess. However, it IS better than the original go. I'm sure I can cut down 6800 words to something more manageable....

Poor Cy and Chibi....

Even though I spent the whole week writing pretty much every moment I could steal away, I STILL couldn't catch up on my challenge goal. All because I'm writing a bunch of stuff that does help me better understand my story, like when I wrote The Birth of the Mimicker, but it doesn't add a single word to my actual story.

I did manage to finish chapter 6 by the close of the week, so yay to that. I just need to work on chapter 7.... and 8.... and create a second akuma attack for chapter 9... all before Monday. I can totally do this....

It's not like it kept me almost two full weeks to figure out an akuma, their powers, the Lucky Charm, and how the villain was going to be defeated... Simple.....

Eh, at least I'm keeping pace in my reread of "Lycopolis."

I should probably get back to working on my novel, though. But first, one last group hug with all of you.

I love each and every one of my readers, so thank you all lots for showing me love back! Happy Valentine's Day!

Hacker Girl Facebook Sticker
by Birdman Inc

Darn These Lucky Charms!

My posts are surpassing 100 hits again. I think the Miraculers are back. So.... Hi again, fellow Miraculers. You won't really find any new info on Miraculous Ladybug here, but you're welcome to stay.

Since I'm talking Miraculous anyway, I have to talk about "Peeping Tomcat." It's..... a slow process. Last week was the official first week of Writers’ Huddle's Winter Writing Challenge. By the end of the first week I wanted to have chapters 6 and 7 edited, revamped, rewritten, whatever I needed to do to have it set for my beta readers in March.

I'm STILL not done with chapter 5 though. I wanted that done before even starting the challenge.

It's the darn Lucky Charm! I just cannot figure out what I want to do for it! I mean, granted, it also kept me a while to figure out my akumatized supervillain, but once I figured that out last Monday I was on a roll. The rest of the chapter worked out fairly well. I was able to salvage some descriptions from the first go at this story I did over NaNo. I'm just stuck on what to do for a Lucky Charm.

For those unfamiliar with the show, Ladybug's main power that she uses to stop every akuma is called Lucky Charm. She's gifted an item that is used to stop the villain long enough for her and Cat Noir to retrieve and break the akumatized item; releasing the person from Hawk Moth's hold and returning them to their civilian form.

These Lucky Charms always force Ladybug to think outside the box. For example, she used a towel Lucky Charm as a makeshift hang-glider; a large packing box to trick a Santa Claus themed villain into thinking he was getting a present, which allowed LB to be close enough to snatch the akumatized item; a spoon as a makeshift fishing hook to tangle the villain and lift him off the ground; an oven mitt as homemade handcuffs; a shoe box as a projector promoting a show the akumatized villain wanted to stop; a power strip as a second yo-yo as she fought five attackers at once; and the foil inner lining of an ice cream bar wrapper as a reflective surface to see through illusions.

More often than not, she has to MacGyver her Lucky Charm into something useful, such as the aforementioned spoon being duct taped to her yo-yo which in turn was attached to Cat Noir's baton in order to make a fishing pole. The shoe box was combined with someone's glasses, a promotional poster for the show the akuma was trying to stop, and the headlights from a nearby bus. The oven mitt was combined with an already existing oven mitt, a belt, and a bracelet.

That's part of the power. Once Ladybug has her charm, she scans the area for clues, which flash in red with black polka dots. Once her vision gives her clues on what other objects she'll need to combine with her charm, she has to mentally put it all together herself.

The combinations she has to come up with in the second season are even more involved. She has to combine a unicycle, multiple rake heads, and Cat Noir's baton for the most recent episode. The one before that she simply gets a motorcycle helmet, and, thanks to her Ladybug Vision, is able to figure out that Cat's baton, three directional street signs, a bus, a bench, a tipped over motorcycle, and two light posts are all needed to stop the villain.

So, in order to stay true to canon, I need to think of something presumably useless for her to get as a Lucky Charm, and then figure out how it's obviously the only way to stop the akuma.

I CAN'T THINK THAT FAR OUT OF THE BOX!

So I've been stalled for two days now. I have a lot of the post-Lucky Charm Use chapter done, but I can only do so much. The way the akuma is stopped could affect small bits of the back end of the chapter. Plus, I'm missing a huge chunk if I don't have her using the Lucky Charm.

And this is just the first akuma attack. I have a second one planned in a few weeks, and at least two more for the sequel. How am I going to do this!? How can my brain not be this creative?

HOW DOES ASTRUC AND HIS TEAM FIGURE THIS OUT 26 TIMES PER SEASON!?

It's no wonder that just about every other Miraculous Ladybug fanfic I've come across has avoided akuma attacks. If they do have them in, they're fought "off screen" with the characters just reflecting back on them. Or, they do fight the akuma, but the fight "fades out" with a simple "Ladybug got her Lucky Charm, figured out how to use it, and saved the day" sort of thing. OOOOOR the even rarer, Ladybug doesn't even use the Lucky Charm to defeat the akuma.... which isn't really accurate at all, because without the charm she can't use her ultimate power of Miraculous Ladybug, where she restores everything to how it was prior to the akuma attack.

I have yet to come across a fanfic or fancomic writer who has attempted to actually think of a Lucky Charm and how Ladybug uses it. Am I the only one brave enough to try? Or have others tried, but failed so miserably that their stories aren't all that well known?

If you are in the fandom and have either read - fic or comic - a story where a Lucky Charm is shown and used, or if you yourself have written one, could you link me in the comments section? I won't steal the idea, but it might help to see how others accomplished this herculean task.

I wracked my brain so much that I actually had quite the interesting dream last night. Sadly, I've been up for a few hours now, so it's not as vivid as when I first woke up, but I was still too groggy to write it down then.

It started off as a Miraculous dream, with Adrien/Cat Noir and Marinette/Ladybug as the main characters, but as the dream went on they morphed into mutants. I think "Glitches" is feeling a bit left out that I haven't worked on anything original since July.

I just have patches now, but the dream started with the heroine being abandoned on a small and remote island. I'm talking super small, like only a couple miles long. Like if Manhattan was still uninhabited. It's a bit blurry now, but either she was abandoned there in an attempt to find an important artifact, or she was left there as bait for the hero who had the artifact, or she was left there in order to ransom the artifact from the hero. One of those three.... Somehow she gets off the island and back home, which looked a lot like Main Street of my home town. I'm sure my mother will have a field day knowing that..... Anyway, apparently before being left on an island, the heroine had roomed with someone else. Again, it's vague since the heroine started as Marinette, but she's living on her own with a roommate, so she's somewhere between 14 and 20.... Really narrowed things down, huh?

Either she made it home and was captured again, or she was "rescued" from the island by the villain, who, along with the hero, resembled Adrien? Either my mind couldn't decide what it wanted, or I'm dealing with an evil twin.... The villain is the same rich boy that Adrien is, but instead of being humbled and isolated by it, the villain uses it to give himself power and entitlement. So.... Chloe.... The villain is "gifted" the heroine by his mother, who is the true villain of the dream. The boy is also given a short sword, which I guess was the artifact the heroine was abandoned on the island for. The son used the sword to mildly sexually assault the heroine. Doing things like threatening to cut her clothes off - he doesn't - and sliding the blade across her exposed skin, which is quite a bit since the mother first forced the heroine to dress in a bare-back dress with long slits up the sides to help expose her legs. At some point, the villain falls asleep, but does so without attempting to first restrain the heroine. This is the part of the dream where I, as the dreamer, thought that maybe the kid was only doing idle threats to seem tough in front of his mom, but in truth, he's not bad. Perhaps he purposely "fell asleep" with the heroine free so she could escape without his mother realizing he let her go.

She steals the sword and races home, but the front door is sealed shut by the police. Yes, I know the police don't actually do this, but I dreampt that they bolted her front door closed along with posting a police notice. Anyway, she breaks in and sees that her house has been ransacked, and her roommate is missing, as is the stray dog they had taken in just before the heroine was brought to the island. Distraught, she wanders her house to try to find any way to contact help and figure out why the police think she's some dangerous criminal on the lam - as indicated by the police notice on the front door.

She finds her cellphone - don't know why it was left behind; dream logic - and tries to call her roommate to see where she disappeared to, is she safe? Before her roommate could answer, there is a whimper at the front door. It's the stray lab they had taken in prior to the start of the dream. Except, he has a couple of people with him. One is the heroine's roommate. Despite the rain, they look dry and pristine. The roommate, who greatly resembles Scarlet Witch from the X-Men comics, admits that she's a mutant and a telepath. They talk about how the heroine - who doesn't really resemble Marinette anymore at this point - is actually a mutant as well, and the roommate was originally there to try to watch over her like a secret guardian. She apologized for failing at her job of protector..... and that's about where I woke up.

I'm not sure what I can grab from this, but it was interesting enough that I might have to tap back into this dream in the future for story ideas.

Now, if my mind could help me figure out a Lucky Charm, that would be great. Either that, or it did, and now I have to figure out how Ladybug uses a short sword to stop a clone army and get visors off the villain..... and she has less than four minutes to MacGyver it all together before Cat Noir transforms back.


On the reading front, I'm nine chapters in my "Lycopolis" re-read, and I'm happy to be reading about Brandon again. I don't know why, but he's my favorite. He's just so quirky, and such an oddball. Maybe he vaguely reminds me of my husband in college? Hubby doesn't have the number thing that Brandon has, though.... Either way, I still say "more Brandon" and hope there is plenty more in the other two books.

I've figured out that if I read at least two chapters each day - an easy task since they seem to average at about five pages; quick read - I can finish the book with a week to spare in the month. Might be able to get a jump start on "Oblivion."

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by PRANEAT

Alright, this is going to be dangerous, but back to Tumblr and Pintrest to see if other Miraculers have ANYTHING that might inspire me with this Lucky Charm thing so I don't fall even farther behind than I already am!