Happy Halloween!

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Meh. I'm not going as a pirate, but that's probably the closest thing to my Steampunk costume I'll be able to find, so I'm going with it.

Happy early Halloween, everyone! I hope you all have safe fun on Thursday. Also, happy All Hallows Eve, or any other alternative to Halloween that you might celebrate on October 31st. Beyond that, happy All Saints/All Souls day to those who celebrate those days. And Happy Dia de los Muertos to any and all who celebrate that. If I've forgotten a holiday you celebrate this weekend, please know I wish you well during it, and feel free to let me know what you celebrate in the comments. I'd love to learn more!


Now, I want to be completely honest. I didn't really focus on writing this week. I just needed a mini-vacay before going into NaNoWriMo. So instead I figured I'd spend the time trying to work on drawing my new D&D character for Hubby's campaign. I had.... mixed results.

I started off by practicing drawing a D&D bronze dragon head. I figured if I studied them and practiced the angles I needed I'd be better prepared for drawing my character. I used a couple of references for the bronze dragon. Some were from the official books, and some were fanart based off the books. All of them had the dragon at full profile, probably to better show off the sides of the head and the neck. The cheek horns are a bit funky, and the neck seems way too wide, but otherwise I'm fairly content with my end result.

I don't know if it's an image in a monster manual, or if it were a promotional poster, but I found another reference sheet for the D&D 5e version of the Bronze Dragon. It shows the full body at profile again, then busts of juvenile versions of the dragon, as well as a baby: a wyrmling. Most importantly, there's a picture of the mature bronze dragon skull. I used that to attempt drawing something a bit more of a 3/4 profile, which is probably what I'd aim for with my character profile. I mean, full side profile is by far the easiest way for me to draw the dragon head, but it just seems weird to me to have a side shot of your character as a reference to how they look. So, anyway, I attempted the skull. I'm still a bit meh about the proportions regarding the placement of the far nostril and the cheek horns, but for the most part I was fairly content.

Feeling a sort of sense of hubris, I guess, I thought "Okay, this is time consuming, but it's not so tough. If I can get the right reference pics to work off of I think I've got this."

I then spent probably 2+ hours on Google Images using about a half-dozen search keywords - because my Google-fu is still trash - to get just the right pose for the flamboyant and over-the-top manner my dragonborn apparently holds himself. I finally decided on a flirty, anime-style, 2-finger salute and wink.

I'm gonna be completely honest. I have no clue what character that is, so I don't know if it's official promotional artwork or someone's fanart. If you recognize the art, please let me know in the comments. Thanks in advance.

I managed to find a pose reference that was doing that salute, was at about a 3/4 profile pivot, and looked a little buffer, so roughly the muscular structure of my dragonborn. I've always been almost scary-perfect at copying images via grid work, so I attempted to do gridding on my phone, and... well... considering I can't draw straight lines, the grid was only SO good....

I'm not even going to show off my end result because... the proportions are so wonky, and that back leg... I don't even know what I was doing with that. It's not terrible, but... you don't need to see it.

Figuring it was good enough of a start, since I'll have to change the legs to the more bent and stylized versions for dragonborn, and I would have to alter the hands to only have four fingers, etc., I moved on to Kriv's face.

I remembered the Disney's Gargoyles character Brooklyn had a similar beak-like face as bronze dragons, had horns, and had similar legs to dragonborn as well. I thought I could use him as a nice base reference. I could even go with Goliath or Broadway for more muscular leg structures if I couldn't figure out how to bulk up Brooklyn's.

I even stumbled upon the perfect angled profile for the framework pose I was working with.

I would just need to shift the direction of his horns, add spikes to the end of his eyebrows, add another set of spikes at the end of his cheekbones, one more set along the jawline, and shorten his snout. I could do that. That seemed easy enough.

Spoiler Alert: It wasn't....

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I drew Brooklyn's face on my pose to start, and then went to doctor it. And then I erased and tried again. Then I tried once more. Then I started from scratch. Then I erased the full side of his face to try again....

I must have drawn this face a dozen times, but I just can't get the angles and the proportions down properly. The neck looks like it attaches to the back of the head instead of the skull resting on it, the cheek spikes are too long, or too short, or aren't in the right spot for the bones they're supposed to end on, the main horns aren't right either...

The main portion of the face - his beaked mouth and the eyes - I really like after about a dozen tries. Finishing off the skull though? Like.... WHYYYYYYYY!?

So much for a relaxing side-hobby to destress me before going into NaNo. I think I'll stick with writing, thank you.

Speaking of, I randomly decided yesterday that I wanted to post one last thing on Halloween before I went fully into my NaNo project of One and the Same.

Yes, I do already have a "Halloween-y" story posted this month by way of Blame Fate for This, but it's not the same for a few reasons.

1. That story was supposed to be for Ronoxym, not a "Halloween Story"
2. It wasn't posted on Halloween - although I will most likely reblog on Halloween.
3. It isn't fanfiction, and while I'm super proud of that, I have to admit that my readership is mostly people interested in my fanfiction. Besides, I haven't written anything ML related for a month or two.
4. BFfT still hasn't really had much love, and maybe if I promote it along with my other Halloween stories - including a brand new one within a fandom - it would get more attention.

Yeah, poor BFfT hasn't really had much love over the past week. I still haven't had any valid notes over on Tumblr, and I'm holding at 4 hits on FictionPress. However, I went from 48 hits up to 60 over on DeviantArt. Who would have thought THAT'S where people go for original stories... No comments yet, and still only the one fave, but at least people are clicking on the link, maybe even reading it. So. Yeah. There's that.

I also have four "fans" - so to speak - over with my writing group. All four members that were there last Tuesday seemed to enjoy my story. Two in particular - who always seem to be the ones most vocal about my work anyway - really want me to continue the story into something novel-length.

The one was a touch concerned that Colton accepted what he is a bit too quickly, but it is a short story, so I kinda had to??? But, yeah, if it were a novel I'd probably have him struggle a touch more with the reveal. The other member really stressed how he liked my original stuff more than my fanfiction.

Valid. I mean, I feel part of that is because he's one of those of the mindset that Original Content is always superior to Fanfiction, and he probably thinks I'm "wasting" my talent with fanfiction. Again, valid, but I also don't think he fully comprehends the validity of fanfiction writing skills either.

Either way, I know I'm up to at least 5 fans of my work: those four at Group, and the one person over on DeviantArt. So... that's... cool.

Hacker Boy Facebook sticker
by Birdman, Inc.

Anyway, back to coming up with an ML fanfic in time for Halloween. I had to do a lot of repetitious work at my job yesterday, so I thought I could let my mind wander and try to come up with something. Yet all it could manage was the same tropes I see all the time in the ML fandom:

• Marinette is a witch and Chat Noir is her "black cat" familiar
• One of the cast - usually poor Adrien/Chat Noir - is actually a were-creature
• Demon summoning AU
• Vampire AU
• Adrienette goodness with that LadyNoir dynamic because they're in costume at a Halloween party and don't realize who the other is
• Alternatively, a non-superhero AU where they met at a masquerade, and don't recognize each other out of their costumes. Same Love Square chaos ensues
• A masked or otherwise Halloween-themed akuma attack

None of these tropes are BAD. They're tropes for a reason: people enjoy writing them and reading them. However, I like to add new things to the fandom. Besides, I'm sure there are better written and better planned-out versions of those tropes already out there that people can read. Case and point: Immortal Bonds for the Demon AU trope. Although, technically, Taurus Pixie doesn't have much of her rewrite up yet, so you'd have to go back to the original Immortal Bond for the true example of what I mean.

My point being, that I was stuck only thinking of things everyone else already came up with. Once more, I was at my default of "parrot what others did with your own twist." On top of that, I wasn't content that the "own twist" I was coming up with were unique or decent enough for me to bother writing them out.

I moved onto writing prompts, and let me tell you, it is so hard to find Halloween writing prompts not meant for children's writing projects. At least, unless you hit up Tumblr. Glorious Tumblr knows what's what!

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I spent some time on Tumblr, flipping through writing prompts. I was surprised how many included someone injuring themselves while carving a pumpkin! Is this legit a thing that happens? Or something people are EXPECTING to happen because... sharp/pointy things?

By the end of the work day I didn't have much by way of inspiration for the Halloween story. So, I did what I always do, and I talked things through with Hubby on our drive home from me picking him up at work.

I should just always talk to him first.

I was rambling off the prompt ideas that I was maaaaaaybe thinking about, and the tropes that pop up a lot in the fandom. He instantly jumped in with "ADRIEN'S FIRST TRICK-OR-TREATING BECAUSE HE WAS ISOLATED HIS WHOLE LIFE!"

I nodded and told him that I was thinking about that. Especially since we know Nino and Alya have younger siblings they'd probably be walking around, even if Nino's younger brother Chris likes to claim he's "too old for kiddie stuff anymore." Marinette could also be taking Manon around so Nadja can do a news report instead or something. It would be fun to see Adrien's unbridled innocence and excitement with trick-or-treating in contrast with Chris complaining about "baby stuff."

Then Hubby amped it up with "Manon could want to go as Ladybug, and begs Marinette to go as Cat Noir because Ladybug can't be without her partner. And so Adrien has to deal with Marinette running around as his superhero self. He may even hear about it early, and agree to go as Hawk Moth to complete the group costume. No, wait! He's super extra, so he'd go as Mayura, but since he looks so much like his mom he looks like Emilie's Mayura, and when Gabe sees that it puts him in an almost catatonic state that Nathalie has to deal with all night, all while realizing Adrien is running around Paris as her supervillian persona. OOO! And The Gorilla could be convinced to dress up as a senti-monster!"

By the time we got home I was dying!

I think I'm going to cap it at "Marinette surprises Adrien when she shows up dressed as Cat Noir to Manon's Ladybug" and focus on the goofy contrast of Adrien loving Trick-or-Treating at the ripe age of 14, meanwhile Chris - who is like... 10? - is pouting that this is "kiddie stuff" and doesn't want to join in. Not that I don't love what Hubby came up with. I 100% do. However, I feel like those are more visual gags? I'm going to have to put that out to the fanartists of Tumblr to please create a fancomic of Hubby's idea, because it needs to be appreciated in art form, I think.

Still, this brings me to my next point, and that's the fact that late last Tuesday, I finally figured out what image I should conjure whenever someone asks what my Muse looks like.

In the past, I've had a vague "female Ancient Greek" image, but I now know that is 100% incorrect.

My Muse is my Hubby. And I don't mean that in a sappy manner. I mean that completely honestly. More often than not, I either have NO ideas until talking to him gives me one, or I have a vague idea that becomes refined after discussing things with him.

Case and point: the aforementioned Halloween fanfic short story idea. Also, pretty much the entirety of my "original" story Blame Fate for This. That was more-or-less HIS idea, and I just ran with it.

I do that a lot... that's kind of what happened with Please, Let Me Explain and Some Like It Flamebroiled. For PLME, Ronoxym came up with a short story about Devon trying to explain himself to Willow, only I picked up the ball and sprinted away with it.... I then did it again for SLIF. I wrote a solo-role-play scene with Trish getting excited about blowing up an abandoned gas truck. Ron rewrote the scene as an AU of Trish and Devon dating - as I had originally intended - that was a bit smutty, but not too extreme. I, once more, picked up the ball and ran off with it. I have yet to properly finish either PLME or SLIF, but you get the idea.

Someone comes up with an idea, and I go all "Hold My Beer" on it... However, as I mentioned, most of those story ideas are birthed from Hubby.

In college, when I met him, I was stupid enough to take a video production class, script writing class, and a creative writing class all within the same semester. Did I make my life easy by writing a script based off my stories for creative writing, and then film them in production? Or, even write a story based off of my script for production? Nope. Why would I allow myself to double - or triple - dip like that?

So, instead, I came up with THREE DIFFERENT STORIES each time I had to come up with something new in each of the classes. I was getting fairly burnt out, and it was Hubby - then Boyfriend - who threw out the ideas that sparked my stories. He was like my Writing Prompt Random Generator.

When creating my first ever, and most prized, D&D character Amara? Same deal. He was the one who gave me the starting info to jump off with. World building? Same. He even came up with Willow's character as an NPC, and then gifted her to me to fully flesh out and take as my own. A lot of my more recent D&D characters I had him just draw up a base and hand over to me to role play, and they grew and developed from there.

It's not a matter of "Oh, he's my husband, he inspires me so much. He is my Muse." No. No I mean this as literally as I can without LITERALLY calling him a Greek minor deity. He tees up the ball, and I hit the home runs with them. Or... at least... I can get on base....

So. Yeah. Hubby is my Muse, and who the heck knows where my writing would be if it weren't for him. So all of that love you send my way? Make sure to send some his way too.

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Anyway - to get this blog back on track - unless something else springs up, I'm most likely going with the Adrien's First Trick-or-Treating concept for Thursday. Let's see if I find time to actually write it, though. Keep an eye out.

In the meantime, while you're waiting for me, why not check out one of the fanfics I follow?

Chapter 16 of When Duty and Desire Meet, which is also Part III of "The Bodyguard Arc," was just posted this past weekend, and man the ending of that chapter! Adrien, you love-sick nut!

For those who might not know, since it's been a while since I've talked about WDDM, the story is co-developed by midnightstarlightwrites and EdenDaphne. If I understand correctly, after their collaborative brainstorming for the story outline, Midnight then writes it, and Eden illustrates. Their concept is an AU where Adrien is actually four years older than Marinette, and when they first met up as superheroes, it was Ladybug who fell for Chat Noir. Except, due to the age difference, and Marinette being underage at the time, Chat Noir found her "cute" but wasn't romantically interested. Fast forward to a now 20yo Marinette meeting Adrien for the "first time" - as far as they know - in college, two years after Ladybug and Chat Noir have defeated Hawk Moth. Adrien instantly falls for Marinette, but she sees him simply as a best friend because she's too focused on her pining for Chat Noir. Basically, a complete flip of the Love Square. The new chaos gets even more complicated when Chat Noir gets caught leaving Marinette an anonymous rose on Valentine's day, and their crushes on each other becomes evident.

During the Bodyguard Arc, Adrien is on house lock down after receiving death threats. Even his phone is confiscated by the cops who are using it to try to find leads on who is sending the threats. Meanwhile, Ladybug is requested to be Adrien's bodyguard. They have a lot of MariChat-like interactions, but both are also concerned about their crushes: Adrien nervous about not being able to see or contact Marinette, and Ladybug worried about not seeing Chat Noir while she's on guard duty.

It's a fun AU concept. So if you haven't read it yet, go on and give it a go. The story if fun, and the illustrations are gorgeous.

While you do that, I'll see what I can do for my own story, as well as finish up my re-read of Peeping Tomcat and One and the Same so I can be good to go on Friday.

Speaking of re-reading “Peeping Tomcat,” I was re-inspired to do so this past weekend. Mostly due to a glorious FFN reader: writeringoodfaith.

Sunday morning I woke up to find 23 emails from FanFiction.Net all focused on writeringoodfaith! An even 20 of them are goodfaith reviewing my stories!

Another 2 were them favoriting two of my stories, and the final email was them starting to follow me as an author.

Writeringoodfaith started off reviewing all nine chapters of Prescription for Love, along with a favorite of the story. Then there was a review for Peeping Tomcat - Teaser, then for I Was Thinking of You, and Painfully Close, then the email letting me know goodfaith started following me, before finishing with reviewing 7 out of 17 chapters for PT. The chapters reviewed for PT? The first one, the 11th - which is the Teaser rewritten as a chapter - and the concluding 5 chapters of the story.

I'm not going to list all 20 reviews, but some highlights include:

writeringoodfaith: Ooh I love the premise and how you've done Kagami, her mother and Adrien. Lol could so see Adrien thinking these thoughts.

You write Adrien so amazingly well. The creators say that his only flaw is that he's too perfect for the outside world. He doesn't realize he's leading anyone on. He's just trying to be kind to everyone. Somehow you capture that so so well in his thought process and memories of Marinette and his present actions with Kagami.

This was the best depiction of Kagami I've ever seen. It's easy to be mad at her cos she wrecks the love square but she's got feelings too and Adrien needs to sort himself out... Speaking of which, Adrien was also a delight. He was so canonical it was crazy. This was just like an episode. Especially the part where he's all VERY GOOD FRIEND JUST A FRIEND everywhere. And his level of purity. So high. That's the Adrien we know and love and that's in the show. Now if only he could develop a tiny bit further and realise he has romantic feelings... This was an excellent fic. Thank you so much for writing it and sharing it with us!

I actually loved this teaser. It is helping me make an informed decision to commit to the long one. Yay!

This is my first Lukanette fanfic and I feel so guilty because it was perfect :') I like the song recs at the end of it too!

THIS chapter was so amazing! I loved, loved Ladybug's interview. Adrien really needed to hear that perspective. And it was so good too - I believe Marinette/Ladybug 100% mean[sic] those things! Also Chat Noir Appreciation Day. I love it.

Ah this was so cute. It all came together in the end. I am satisfied with this! Excited for the sequel but happy where it ended. Thanks for posting! I hope you keep writing :)

Bless Marinette. She was such a hero that week. She pulled off so much.

So, thank you, thank you, thank you, writeringoodfaith, for all of the love. It made my day! It really did help a lot, especially when I was getting such limited love for my original story. Plus, while I do get AMAZING and such largely invested readers, in the grand scheme of things, I still get such little recognition compared to those I follow over on Tumblr. The real sting are the ones who claim they are mostly artists, and are only just starting to transition into writing, and yet they already have such a large followship to start with, and they legit do have talent, that their stories are BLOWING UP.

I mean. I get it. I'm proud of them. I'm loving their content. I'm glad they are getting the love they're getting because they deserve it. I also know it's easier because they were able to build up such a large followship with their artwork, and their fans want to continue to support them. That's why *I* started reading their stuff.

I get it.

It still stings every once in a while. And it's been stinging extra hard this past weekend. Probably another reason I was so focused on maybe figuring out drawing this past week.

So, for writeringoodfaith, for my loudest cheerleaders - my mom, my hubby, ChibiSunnie, Taurus Pixie, and ChubbyUnicornMama - for my other reviewers, for everyone who reblogs my stories, and for everyone who likes/favorites/follows/bookmarks my stories, thank you so much. It really helps remind me that I'm on the right path, that I'm not shouting out into the void, and that I just need to keep the faith.

I love you all. You are all amazing.

Hacker Girl Facebook stickers
by Birdman, Inc

Well, it's now almost 4pm, so I should probably get moving on the rest of my day. Once more, I hope everyone enjoys themselves and stays safe this weekend.

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Original Content

I did it! Ah ha! I did it! I managed to come up with original content! I finished my original story for Ronoxym!!! So super happy belated birthday, Ron! Hope you enjoy your gift!

Speaking of birthdays, I want to quickly pause in order to wish a very happy birthday to Omnibladestrike who celebrated his this past weekend.

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I'm glad we could hang out, and the b'day cake you bought was super yummy! Thanks for that.

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Anyway, back to my writing!


It kept me exactly a month to do so, but I managed to finish the story I wanted to gift Ronoxym for his 30th. The whole process was a bit exhausting, and I feel like I exposition-dumped a touch in order to explain the world enough in this short story. So it's by no means the same caliber as the professional Urban Fantasy stories Ron likes to read. Regardless, I'm kind of excited for the world I built and the characters I created - although I fear Colton and Zetelica's voices aren't different enough??? - so I'll have to slot this world build away for a potential continuation.

Right along side the Gyateara stories and "Glitches"....

OH! Quick side note with regards to Gyateara. I mentioned last week that Hubby used the site donjon to help him quickly create a dungeon and NPCs for the "one-off" D&D session he ran for us. Well, as Hubby was poking around, he found a Random World Generator on that site. You can either input or randomize the following features, and let the generator do the rest:

• World Name
• Map Style: Atlas vs Antique
• Map Font: choose from 8 options
• Percentage of water on the planet surface
• Percentage of polar ice caps
• Geography: Yes or No
• This adds labels for things like 'mountains' or 'forests' or 'desert' etc.
• Rivers: Yes, No, or Many
• Cities and Castles: Yes, No, or Many
• Hex Grid: Yes or No
• Label Map: Yes or No

It takes about three minutes or so - depending on the internet connection - for the site to take your data and generate a world map. This isn't going to be the final one, but here's an example I quickly generated for Gyateara.

The main issue I have with this generator is that it doesn't seem to really break up
the main land mass into separate continents. So it would be more of a guide than the
official map, I think.

If you chose to have the generator create castles and cities for you, there's also a listing of what they're called and where to find them on your map.

So it's a really neat tool, and I'll have to spend some time playing around with it a little bit. At the very least, it's a nice way to randomly generate coastlines I can shift around to make continents, and come up with location names.

Likewise, I've watched 3 different YouTube videos this week who had World Anvil as their sponsor. I poked around a little bit after creating a free account. It seems like a great place to ORGANIZE everything, and it is so detailed with how much you can break down everything.

You can break each section down even
further into subsections.

However, there doesn't seem to be any image makers or generators, so donjon might be the best free option so far. I'll have to take everything into consideration when I get back to Gyateara, and even to help me organize Glitches, I think.

But back to my point!

My glorious point is that, along with Gyateara and Glitches, I now have this new urban fantasy supernatural story. The best bit is that the world-build is mostly done now - so it has a leg-up on any and all Gyateara stories - AND it is a story with only one or two main characters and potentially a completable story arc. Which is something I really struggle with for Glitches, which, due to its origins, has more of a serial series storyline and about a 14-character central cast.

Thanks to Ron and my desire to come up with something for his big 3-0, I may have found at least a foothold for my first ever marketable original story! I'm so friggen excited about this thing!

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Granted, I have had no comments on the story even though I published it on Friday. I also only have 52ish hits - I don't know how many people SEE my Tumblr post; just those who react to it - and but one fave. But it's an original story, so it's to be expected. My fanfiction followers on FFN and AO3 wouldn't get a notification that I have original content up. I'm also not nearly established enough in the Miraculous Ladybug or Fruits Basket fandoms for people to probably care about original content I publish to Tumblr. On top of that, because I do have the main character Colton get super stressed and drop the f-bomb a couple of times, I had to mark the story Mature on DA and FictionPress. I just don't know where the "course language" cut-off is between Teen and Mature, and I wanted to be safe.

So, it stings, but I get it. I don't have a platform set up for original content yet, and considering how infrequently I come up with something original, I don't know how long it will take to build it up.

However, a lot of you lovely people seem to be my fanfiction readers, so here's your heads up, in case you were interested and didn't previously know.

"Blame Fate for This"

On FictionPress       On DeviantArt       On Tumblr

Colton has noticed the same woman following him every day for the past two months. However, when he tries to get away from his stalker things get way more complicated than he could imagine. He has powers no living creature is supposed to possess, and only Fate can figure out what that means for both Colton and the world.

Eh, maybe my summary for this short story isn't eye-catching enough.... Or the title? I'm just so bad at these things, and I was kind of rushing those elements on Friday in order to make sure I hit my self-imposed deadline. Anyway, the story is about 6700 words long, just an FYI.

As I mentioned above, I haven't really had much notice/love for this story yet. On Tumblr the only note I've received thus far was a bot-account liking it. I really need to delete that note, but I'm still waiting for Tumblr to fix my access to my account activity log in order to do so.

Over on FictionPress I've had 4 hits, but nothing else. No comments, no faves, and no follows.

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On the other hand, DeviantArt has had 48 hits and one fave. And this time the fave looks like it's actually a person! Whoot!

It's a slow grind, but I'm content with the story, even if it's little more than a jumping point for a larger story. Plus, at least one other person seems to like it. No mention from Ron, but it IS 6700 words, and he is a busy guy with ADHD, so I don't know if he's had the time/focus/energy to sit down with it yet.

Regardless, the thing to focus on is that I WROTE AN ORIGINAL STORY IN A MONTH! COMPLETELY FROM SCRATCH! The actual writing of the thing actually summed up to only about a dozen days or so. I don't know about you, but I'm impressed.

Small life victories, guys. Also, added bonus: the story is thematically appropriate for Halloween, so it's a great October story, if I do say so myself.


In the end, no matter what else becomes of this short story - and yes, it's less than 7500 words, so it IS still considered a short story by most writing sites/publishers - I at least have gears in motion for an original novel idea. And I reminded myself that I CAN come up with original content; I'm not just some parrot who skillfully mimics the work of others. So, it was totally worth the effort.

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Speaking of my fanfiction, however, the stats for my Kyoru stuff have steadily increased this past week.

Reminder of my stats from last week:

FFN: 466 views, 5 faves, 5 followers, and 8 reviews
AO3: 418 hits, 31 kudos, 2 bookmarks, and 17 comments
DA: 138 views, 4 faves, but no comments

Total Results: 1022 views, 40 faves, 7 followers, and 25 reviews

Tumblr Notes: 201 notes; 151 likes, 37 reblogs, and 3 comments

And now the stats as of this writing:

FFN: 648 views, 6 faves, 6 followers, and 10 reviews
AO3: 510 hits, 40 kudos, 4 bookmarks, and 17 comments
DA: 181 views, 5 faves, but no comments

Total Results: 1339 views, 51 faves, 10 followers, and 27 reviews

Tumblr Notes: 248 notes; 170 likes, 46 reblogs, and 3 comments

Now, granted, if you add up the Tumblr Notes the total is actually 219; 212 if you don't count the seven times the KyoruWeek2019 event blog reblogged my stories. I personally don't count them because those reblogs had nothing to do with whether or not the moderator actually liked my stuff; the stories were tagged for the event, and so the blog shared it. Getting back to the notes discrepancy though, three of those over-all notes were my responses to the 3 comments, and for some reason I have 26 "missing" notes. My Day 6 story says it has 25 notes, but only 24 are listed. Same with my Day 5 story: it says it has 41 notes, but only 40 are shown. The big head scratcher is my Day 2 story. That one claims to have 73 notes, but when you go through the breakdown of the notes it only has 49 listed, including my one response to the comment. I have no clue why 24 notes are missing. Maybe those are people who saved the story to their drafts, so it's not officially reblogged yet? Is that how Tumblr works? In which case, I'm screwing up the notes count on a LOT of Tumblr posts.

Anyway, I'm fairly certain those 26 notes were "missing" last week as well, which means I received 47 new notes over this past week. Not too shabby considering the event is over, so there aren't really any new promotions for my stuff. Plus the KyoruWeek blog has since shared a bunch of generic Kyo and Tohru stuff from the season 2 trailer and/or the manga.

OH! Speaking of shipping week events, I want to make sure I don't forget this again! Last week I went on about my own writing for so long - which, I guess is reasonable; since this is my writing blog and all - that I totally forgot to promote Cyhyr's latest. Just as I finished with Kyoru week, she started up Sylvix Week. It's a ship for the Fire Emblem: Three Houses characters Sylvain and Felix. You can check out her week of stories here: Sylvix Week 2019 I don't personally see the ship, but Cyhyr does such a great job with these stories that I don't even care about canonical evidence. They're adorable together the way she writes them.

Also, Taurus Pixie, via her blog, had suggested the Miraculous Ladybug story The Lonely Waltz by her friend ChibiRinni. Holy smokes, that story got me worked up. It was MariChat, pining for Ladrien, singing and waltzing, and talk about really SEEING the person one is in love with. Marinette mentally beats herself up over breaking Chat Noir's heart, and Chat Noir wants to punch the guy Marinette is pining over for not seeing how amazing she is. I was just this giant ball of energy after I finished reading. So, go! Read it! It's about 8000 words long, but I've conditioned you by now to be able to breeze through that no problem.


I've also found two awesome Fruits Basket fics that were promoted during Kyoru Week. First up was the one-shot Written on your skin by palamig. There's spoilers for the second half of the manga, but it is delightful angst and fluff. The long and short is that a student asks Kyo if he'd mind if the student asked Tohru out on a date. That night, while studying with Tohru, Kyo unintentionally shows off his jealousy with a pen. It's lovely, and Kyo and Tohru are written so well. AAAh! If you don't care about spoilers or you know the ending of the manga, you should go read it.

The other fanfic I found is a touch naughty. It's post-manga, and Tohru and Kyo are living alone far from any "adult supervision." They attempt to get a bit more intimate, but the mood is always interrupted somehow. It's got that same great "will they; won't they" tension, which is an awesome twist of the trope for an already established couple. It's called In Every Light That Shines and it's by crossingandromeda.

My final reading suggestion actually should have been promoted weeks ago. That webcomic about Hades and Persephone that I've been talking about off and on for the past year? Well the first chapter was officially published to Webtoon at the beginning of the month. So, please give Punderworld by Linda Sejic a try. The artwork is so pretty, and the story seems excellent, based on that first chapter and the teasers we've received all year.

Check out the full-quality and unmarked image here.

Again, I know I shouldn't be reposting work without the creator's permission, but I want to showcase her artwork, and I hope by putting on those intrusive watermarks it helps mitigate my faux pas. At least this way if someone finds her work via a Google search and stumbles upon this repost they know where to find the clean version....

Please don't yell at me, but I WILL remove all reposted artwork if the artists request it.

Tanuki Facebook sticker
by Yanare Ku

Anyway....

Aside from finishing up that original story for Ron, I've also broken back into One and the Same finally! I took a two-day breather after basically writing daily for the past two weeks or so, and then yesterday I cracked open my OatS folder. I've mostly gone back through everything I've written already, in order to put myself in that mindset again. I've also decided that a 3000-word "chapter" I've written has no true drama to it. It doesn't push the story forward, so I'm going to instead recap that scene in another chapter and "scrap" what I have.

It hurts to "kill my darlings," as it were, but it hurts less knowing that I'm planning a sort of "deleted scenes" collection after OatS is fully published. That way people can see the alternate scenes I've written before changing POV or scene order, the scenes that aren't told in either Adrien's or Marinette's perspective so they don't fit the overall narrative, and the scenes I like but don't fit in the story without bogging it down. Such as the one I just completed yesterday before realizing it has to be scrapped.

Planning that post-OatS project really eases the pain of all that "wasted time/energy" or the hurt of "this is really awesome, and I love how I wrote it; but it just doesn't work for this story." It also gives me freedom to play with point-of-view, narration, and describing the "mundane" scenes to better help me solidify the story I'm telling. None of it will be wasted effort. First and foremost, it wouldn't be wasted anyway, because it would all help me improve and better build the main story. However, it now has that secondary benefit of also still seeing the light of day when all is said and done.

I still need to figure out my akumas for November, and I still have that tricky middle where I want to build up the MariChat relationship, but I have to make sure the story still pushes forward while doing so. In other words: I have a lot to figure out still.

In the meantime, I may take another time out to attempt to draw my new Dragonborn D&D character Kriv. However, my main focus between now and November 1st is to finish going back through what I have of OatS so far, and prep for NaNo.

I also need to get some "Halloween Movies" in for the month! How have I not watched Sweeney Todd or Little Shop of Horrors or Rocky Horror Picture Show or Hocus Pocus or any of the Underworld movies or even Ernest Scared Stupid yet this year?

I'm such a slacker...

At least I have my costume situated. I'm glad I was able to find one that actually fit me. The straps are a little loose but are otherwise fine.

It looks amazing alongside Hubby's Steampunk costume. Plus, the Steampunk goggles Hubby got me for Christmas have a blue tint to them, so they also work really well with this costume. The only real concern I have is the choker Hubby also got me for Christmas. It looks amazing, but the lacing is so wide and my neck is small with all the extra chunk I've put on over the years, it looks a touch awkward on me. I'll have to see if I'm actually going to be able to wear it or if I'll have to pull and audible and hope Hubby won't feel like he wasted money on his gift.

Either way, I was able to find a costume that fit after all, and presumably it will also fit when I start to loose wait; at least, for a little while. So yay to that as well!

Who's ready for Halloween to get here already?

Found years ago via Google Image.
Most search results are not in English so it's hard
to track down the original artist. Sorry.
Please let me know if you know who designed this.

A Story A Day...

Sorry, guys, I had a bit of a list of errands I had to run before noon today, so I didn't get started on actually writing this post until 11:45ish.

I was going to pre-write my post, but, as usual, that plan fell through; mostly because of how crazy this week has been. Now, obviously, there was the writing frenzy. However, even with that and work - of which I had no days off between last Tuesday and now - a lot of the chaos was actually centered around socializing.

Darn me and my extroverted nature!

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cropped by me

Mostly, I was visited by Wolfhearted just about daily. He stopped by to go for walks with me, to watch Miraculous Ladybug with me, to get Hubby and me to watch Carnival Row while we still have Amazon Prime, and to work on a D&D character.

See, one of Hubby's friends had his birthday this weekend...

...so he was off with his family instead of swinging by for Anime Saturday. Wolfhearted wanted to pop in to watch ML since a new episode dropped on the 12th. So, we asked Omnibladestrike how he'd feel about switching up Anime Day for a D&D one-off session since Wolf would be hanging out with us anyway, and that way our other friend wouldn't fall behind. Omni was happy to give it a go.

Basically, for a one-off, you quickly make characters - Omni and I based ours off of something randomly generated on Who The F*** Is My #DND Character? - and the DM runs a session that is supposed to conclude that day. Either the quest is simple enough to be done in one gaming session, and there really isn't a lead-in to further adventuring, or the aim of the game is to survive as long as you can while the DM progressively tries to kill your character off.

Then there are times where one-offs are used to test the waters, but can lead to further sessions. I personally think that's what happened with Oxventure. It was a three-part story where it was open-ended ENOUGH that they could continue with the characters they created, but there also wasn't much of a lead-in to continued adventures. If they didn't have fun, and/or if the session didn't prove popular enough with their audience, I'm sure the Oxventure series wouldn't have continued on. Which is why I'm so glad it did continue.

Hubby's quest, on the other hand, is in a sort of limbo-state right now. Technically it's not a "one-off" anymore since we didn't actually complete his quest. Between dinner and setting up our characters, or even getting off the beach our characters washed up on, we didn't get to the actual dungeon portion of his quest until 11pm-ish? We called it a night around 1am, but we only cleared out a small portion of the dungeon. So, we CAN pick up where we left off if we wanted to. Also, if we either all die in this dungeon, or we successfully complete the quest, but never continue with those same characters, it is still sorta a one-off.

Wolf seems to really like his character and our party as a whole - despite his character getting exasperated with the shenanigans of the rest of the party - and I'm having fun with my character, so we may indeed turn this "one-off" into a full-on campaign. We may even do it Oxventure style; no real overall goal aside from generic adventuring, and do sessions sporadically whenever we all have time to do so. However, with only three of us and Hubby to worry about, it shouldn't be TOO hard to try to come up with session dates. It definitely gets more complicated to schedule everyone when the party increases in size.

Also, Hubby randomly generated his quest and the dungeon via the site donjon. If he keeps doing stuff like that, then he doesn't even need to really spend too much time to come up with a campaign-long story. Each quest is self-contained, and we can stop whenever. Again; like Oxventure. A much more casual campaign will be fun to explore. The casual atmosphere also means we can feel out our characters, which is awesome. Especially since I don't really have a backstory for my character, aside from the story elements you can choose from during character creation. It's fun to see him evolve just over the course of the night.

I haven't had time to attempt my own design of my character, but here's the basics.

Kriv Myastan is a 16year old Bronze Dragonborn bard. For Dragonborn, adulthood is 15, so he IS an adult, but he's still fairly new to adulthood. He's the equivalent of an early 20-something in real-world standards. He's a sucker for a pretty face, but doesn't seem to find Elves attractive. Every time he meets someone new I've rolled percentile dice, with 50% being "average looks" and deeming him not consider someone as having a "pretty face" unless I roll 80% or higher. He has met two Elves and one Drow thus far on his journeys, and has yet to surpass 60% on my rolls. One of the Elves and the Drow were closer to the 40s....

Anyway, Kriv also craves being the center of attention, and is ridiculously flamboyant and eccentric to try to both grab and hold that attention. He has hardy laughs, talks boastfully, literally stands in the center of a crowd whenever he can; no matter how large or small it is, plays either his lyre or his pan flute to fill silence, and goes out of his way to introduce himself to all he meets. This can be very inappropriate times, as he has already tried to shake hands and introduce himself to ship crewmates who were trying to row us to safety during a terrible storm that sunk our vessel, and he has also attempted to introduce himself to a semi-hostile Elven village despite the fact that they only understood Elven, and he only speaks Common and Draconic.

He also thinks himself a "Triple Threat": actor, dancer, and singer. However, his singing is mediocre at best, and while his instrumental skills aren't half-bad, they aren't anything to really fame himself off of. As for dancing? He mistakes enthusiasm for skill. He IS entertaining to watch, mostly because he's a lot more graceful than one would expect from such a large creature - he's 6'9" (~206cm) and 327lbs (~148kg) - however, much like his instrumental skills, his overall ability isn't objectively impressive. He IS a great actor though, and can be quite convincingly deceptive if need be. He's a bit Method, but in the end, he "loses himself" to the roles he plays, even if it's a simple as pretending he doesn't know a bit of information that would get him in trouble.

Dragonborn come in a variety of looks, but most are too far removed from their Dragon ancestors to still have tails or wings. The heads are still mostly the same look, and they usually have scales and claws. Some Dragonborn have more flattened feet, like their Human counterparts, but others are a low enough generation still to have the more Draconic looking clawed feet. I have yet to decide where Kriv lands along that spectrum. But, for some starter visuals, this is a Bronze Dragon as seen in the D&D 5th edition handbooks.

So Kriv will have a similar finned and horned head, with those bronze scales and green finned "mohawk." For a better idea of what a Dragonborn version of a Bronze Dragon, this is Jasttor Bloodmaw, an OC created by the artist Zorayda and shared on Tumblr.

I probably shouldn't be reposting without permission,
so I added a watermark along with that link above to their account.
I hope this counters my faux pas.

I also love the jolly look used in this commissioned piece drawn by David Rodrigues. The energy coming from this Dragonborn - while the wrong species - is very much Kriv. So these are my two main base reference pics for my own artwork... should I ever find time to work on it.

Again, I'm hoping adding that watermark in
the center of the pic helps counter any bad Karma
I built up for reposting without permission....

It will be interesting to see how Kriv turns out when I get to drawing him....

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Kriv and the campaign, and the lack of sleep which I am still trying to catch up on all took place Saturday, a bit Sunday, and a touch more yesterday after I was done with work and Zumba.

The rest of the week, though? Minus watching ML with Wolf on Sunday in between football games, and going for hour-long evening walks with Wolf twice this week, the rest of my free time was spent on writing.

All. The. Writing.

Biscuit Facebook sticker
by Ghostbot

Oh, yeah, and also reading. There was a lot of reading this week too.

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For each day of the KyoruWeek2019 challenge, I woke up, re-checked the day's prompt - something I had from the get-go - and ponder. And ponder. And ponder some more.

Hacker Girl Facebook sticker
by Birdman, Inc

A lot of the time, I would read through the tag to see what others had come up with. I hoped it would spark inspiration in me as well. More often than not, though, everyone else was just as pressed for time as I was, and so no one really posted - at least, it wasn't shared to the "official blog" - until late afternoon and throughout the evening. Still, the few bits I did find did help. Also, once I was done for my post for the day, I would go through and read through the others. I found some good authors that way, and it seems others have found me as well, but I'll get back to that.

Another bit of extensive reading for this week was my stack of Fruits Basket mangas: 23 volumes in all. I obviously remember what happened in the first half - third? - of the series, because I just re-watched it via the anime reboot. However, the back half - 2/3s? - of the story is only vague memory. I read the full series back in like... 2009? Maybe? I then got the one manga I was missing - volume 21 - from a friend a few years back. Once I got that, I re-red volume 20, and felt I was fairly caught up enough to charge my way through to the end of the series. Which means I haven't experienced volumes... we'll say 8; the chapters have been shifted around a touch, through 19 in about a decade. I remembered, but, not ENOUGH.

So, while I still haven't read through the whole series again, and I have not read it straight from chapter 1 through chapter 136 again, I HAVE re-read quite a bit of it. Every time I got to a new prompt, basically, I went to work to track down which chapters I needed to re-read in order to research what has already been canonically established, and hope for inspiration for that day's prompts.

The real chaos of the thing is that I didn't have the time to write, edit, post, and publish before midnight most days. In fact, most of my stories were published around 1am. No wonder I'm exhausted!

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And to think, I get to do this for a solid MONTH in 16 days....

Hacker Girl
Facebook sticker
by Birdman, Inc

Oh well. The important part is that I DID manage to get a story written for each of the prompt days. You can find them as a full collection on FFN and AO3.

"Hearts Together"

On FanFiction or over on On ArchiveOfOurOwn

Otherwise, you can find each individual chapter as listed below.

First up was the Sunday, October 6th prompt. Day 1: Stay. I know I shared it already last week, but I figured it would easy on everyone if I just repost the whole week.

"Small Talk"

On FanFiction       On ArchiveOfOurOwn       On DeviantArt       On Tumblr

I'll talk more about the over-all stats below, but since I could actually see the individual likes and favorites for the DA and Tumblr posts, I want to say that I feared I was starting off on rocky footing. Maybe it's because I'm not an established author within the fandom. Or, maybe people don't like mildly-angsty Tohru. It could also have been because not terribly too much happened in this story. It could very well be considered my weakest entry.

Even today, over a week after I posted the one-shot, I only had 4 likes and 4 reblogs over on Tumblr. Although, to be completely fair, I was stupid and published my first story for Kyoru week as part of a reblog of the day's prompt. So I don't know if any of the 9 likes on the post after I reblogged were for my story, or for the original prompt promo. However, I DO know that - aside from the event tumblr blog - I had 2 people reblog my story, so there's that.

Over on DeviantArt, my story also had a slow start; only having a couple of views, and no favorites or comments. Today, there are still no comments/reviews, but there IS a fave, as well as 23 views. That's about average for the stories presented with this collection of work.

Then, on Monday, I again couldn't get the story done "on time" as it were. Still, while circling around a bunch of other possibilities, I decided to go with my initial gut feeling from when I woke up. The prompt was Day 2 - Firsts.

"Experience It All"

On FanFiction       On ArchiveOfOurOwn       On DeviantArt       On Tumblr

DA: 24 views, a different like than for "Small Talk", but still no comments
Tumblr Notes: 38 likes, 9 reblogs, and 1 comment. 

"Experience It All" actually has 70 notes listed on Tumblr, but... well.... I could only count those listed above, which only makes 48 notes. Add in my response to the comment, and the reblog to the event page, and I'm still only up to 50 notes. I... somehow... lost 20 notes without Tumblr registering it????

Either way, with 50 notes that I can actually track, this entry was the most popular on Tumblr. At least, so far, I still have the others who haven't hit the week-long mark yet.

Day 3 had the prompt "Selfish." I was originally going to have a Kyoru Parents story where Kyo, selfishly wanting time with his wife, gets a babysitter for their young son, that way the new parents could go for a well-deserved date.

However, when I sat to write the story, and was flipping through songs to get me into the mood, I stumbled upon the AJR song "Turning Out". I loved the melody of the song. It was the perfect pacing for what I wanted. However, the lyrics made me pull a bit of an audible, and I got kinda angsty with the prompt. What's worse, is that I did a dual-POV story, so even poor Tohru got a bit emo....

"A Greedy Night Under The Stars"

On FanFiction       On ArchiveOfOurOwn       On DeviantArt       On Tumblr

DA: 20 views, and a like by a third different person; still no comments
Tumblr Notes: 10 notes; 7 likes 2 reblogs

It did mediocre in the grand scheme of things. I don't think too many people liked the angst. They come to these shipping weeks for fluffiness, and I went "Screw that!" and instead had a bunch of self-hate.

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I went back to fluffy for the Day 4 prompt: Desire. I felt like a lot of people would use that prompt to showcase sexual tension and desire in some shape or form, but I wanted to show that couples could have desires for something innocent as well. So, I went for hugs instead.

"GLOMP"

On FanFiction       On ArchiveOfOurOwn       On DeviantArt       On Tumblr

DA: 21 views, but no comments or faves this time
Tumblr Notes: 31 notes; 26 likes and 4 reblogs

In truth, I basically wrote a story about me and Hubby, and then switched out our names for Tohru's and Kyo's. ChibiSunnie was able to pick up on it pretty much right away, but seemed cool with the overall story regardless. I hope my self-insert/self-indulgence was still Kyoru enough for my readers.

Either way, it was the first Kyoru story I managed to not only get done and published before midnight, but I also had it posted and promoted by FIVE O'CLOCK! Go me!

Day 5's prompt required the most research. The prompt was "Paper Flower." It's a fairly easy school craft that is apparently popular in Japan. For Fruits Basket, the craft was used as decoration for the graduation ceremony for one of the years the characters were in school. There's a lot of relationship significance of these paper flowers for two OTHER ships in the series, and that significance is more-or-less spelled out in the manga itself.

Kyo and Tohru, however? Well, this happens in those mangas I haven't read in over a decade, so I had to really dig in to try to figure this out. Kyo gives Tohru one of these paper flowers to help cheer her up, but that's really it in the manga. Then we see it again next to her picture of her mom. Then, on the last page of the series, the final panel is of Tohru's family memorial shrine, and the flower is no longer there. It was tricky to try to piece together why the flower would be important to Tohru, but I think I came up with a decent headcanon.

"A Crumpled Memento"

On FanFiction       On ArchiveOfOurOwn       On DeviantArt       On Tumblr

DA: 15 views, a like from a 4th new person, but still no comments
Tumblr Notes: 36 notes; 27 likes and 8 reblogs

Others focused more on the fact that the craft is fairly popular with school kids in Japan, and had Kyo and Tohru's kids making paper flowers, or had Kyo teaching his kids how to make one, or had Kyo make one for Tohru while their kids made Mother's Day cards for her. I was the only one I saw who focused on the flower shown in the manga. THAT might be why I had such trouble. Still, I think I did alright. It does have the 3rd-most Tumblr notes out of the 7-story collection. It was also was the second story I managed to post the day of the prompt. Score!

The Day 6 prompt of "Birthday Wish" had me hung up pretty much ALL FRIGGEN DAY! I actually paused in order to work a bit more on my story for Ronoxym, hoping switching gears would help me out. I also tried to see what other participants did for the prompt. We must have all been stuck, because I didn't really see anything until 9pm-ish. It just kept me FOREVER to figure out what I wanted to write.

And then I came up with a stupid cliche title... Oh well, I did post it before going to bed, but it was just about 1:30am.

"The Greatest Gift"

On FanFiction       On ArchiveOfOurOwn       On DeviantArt       On Tumblr

DA: 26 views, but no faves or comments
Tumblr Notes: 19 notes; 16 likes and 2 reblogs

To finish off Kyoru Week, we had the Day 7 prompt of "Forever." Now, regardless if it was something everyone was going to think of, I just couldn't NOT write about their wedding day. I mean. Come on.

Tapping into my own relationship again, I gave Kyo and Tohru a Western-style wedding, and swiped some of my own wedding vows for them to recite. They just seemed fitting. I was either right, or most people just cared about it being a story about them exchanging vows, because it was the second most-popular story I posted for this event on Tumblr. Then again, it's only 2 days old, so it may prove to be the MOST popular of my Kyoru stories. Give it time.

"Meet, Remember, and Love Again"

On FanFiction       On ArchiveOfOurOwn       On DeviantArt       On Tumblr

DA: Only 9 views, but it's also only been up for 2 days
Tumblr Notes: 46 notes; 33 likes, 8 reblogs, and 2 comments

The only thing that really bums me out was that I actually had the story mostly done and ready to publish by 5pm, but this was the day of our D&D one-off, so I didn't have the free time to actually publish it until 2am.

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Well, now that you have the individual stories, and the individual stats for DA and Tumblr, what about the story as a whole?

FFN: 466 views, 5 faves, 5 followers, and 8 reviews
AO3: 418 hits, 31 kudos, 2 bookmarks, and 17 comments
DA: 138 views, 4 faves, but no comments

Total Results: 1022 views, 40 faves, 7 followers, and 25 reviews

Tumblr Notes: 201 notes; 151 likes, 37 reblogs, and 3 comments

Those stats are NOT shabby for something that is up for - depending on which chapter you count - between 2 and 8 days. This blog is hella late and super long as is, so I won't go through the reviews this time, but go ahead and check them out. So much love!

Huge shout out to ChibiSunnie, ChubbyUnicornMama, and MalcomReynolds for leaving me reviews for every short story I posted for Kyoru Week. Yup, out of those 25 reviews, 21 of them are from those three. You guys rock so hard!

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If you are a reader who only reviewed one chapter, or didn't leave a comment at all, know that I love you immensely as well. It's just, knowing I have such faithful repeat readers warms my heart too much to NOT thank them for their loyalty to my writing. Especially since ChubbyUnicornMama and Malcom started following me with my ML stories. I just happened to luck into other fandoms they like, I guess.

Now, there WAS a bonus prompt given at the end of Kyoru Week: Beach. I had every intention to surprise everyone with that bonus Day 8 story on Sunday, but time got away from me, and I couldn't write anything. I DID do a bunch more research though.

Summer Vacation is a main catalystic arc in the Fruits Basket series, and about TWO WHOLE VOLUMES of that arc is focused on the cast of characters spending most of their vacation at the Sohma family beach house. So, I took most of my work downtime reading back through those mangas to refresh my mind as to what all DID happen at the beach.

Since I missed my opportunity on Sunday, and since no one was expecting an 8th story anyway, I decided to try again yesterday. I got about 4000 words into the story before realizing it didn't really focus much on Kyo or Tohru. I had a lovely Zodiac Reunion story, but it just didn't work for Kyoru Week. I'm not sure what I'm going to do now, and I may wave the white flag since it is sort of "extra credit" at this point. It would be fun to do though. Especially with so many new followers thanks to all the Kyoru content. Sadly, I don't have the exact stat right now because that part of my Tumblr account is glitching, but I know I have at lease a half-dozen new people.

As always, that probably doesn't seem like much in the grand scheme of things, but if you look over those Kyoru stats again, clearly it's giving me more of an audience than I was able to manage myself. To ride that wave with another story would be awesome! However, it looks like I'll have to see if I ever come up with a Kyoru beach story, and hope I still have the audience there once I do.

Besides, I'm running out of days before the month after Ron's 30 is up. It's a race to Friday to see if I can get this story finished off. I do have 5000 words put into it, but I'm not entirely sure how to end it. And where I am right now feels like World Build Exposition Time, so I have to polish that. Maybe I'll give that Dresden Files short a re-read to figure out how professionals build up worlds without info-dumping.

Okay... it's now 5pm and I've spent pretty much this entire afternoon - minus about an hour when I passed out at my laptop - writing this blog. So I should probably wrap it up. For one: I'm now behind on the rest of the stuff I need to do with my day off. For two: I'm sure you guys didn't anticipate spending the past hour reading my blog!

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Keep an eye out for a possible ORIGINAL STORY from me next week. Take care, guys.