My Over-Analyzing Era

Est. Read Time: 28min
This Month's Font: Josefin Sans

Well then. I started this blog update on the 17th with so so SO much hope that I would get it done before the end of the month this time. I managed it! Win! But it still kept me 11 days to actually have this written up (and an extra day to edit).

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What happened to my weekly updates where I wrote up the post within the 6hrs or so that Hubby was at work???? Are my updates really THAT much longer now? Am I getting interrupted that much? Is my brain now too scattered to focus on something long enough to complete it within one sitting anymore? What's even going on???

Anyway, you might have noticed that I've switched up the font again this month. Going back to Josefin Sans so see how I feel about it. I dunno. I just can't find one that makes me think "That's it! That's my new font!" I may have to full-on go back to the drawing board. Maybe search for some new font options. See if I can find one that better fits what I'm looking for. I'm just nervous about finding one, only for it to be moot since most of my readers won't have access to that font on their devices.

Is that's what's been going on this whole time anyway???? Is that why no one has commented on their font preference for the past 16 months???? Does the font just change to some default like Ariel or Times New Roman or Calibri or something when you bring up my updates? Am I toiling over something that most of you can't even see???

If so... that tracks. I've been WAY over-analyzing lately, apparently.

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Edited by LycoRogue

Oh... quick side note, since I'm talking about features readers may not even see. I spent a LOT of time last update putting in alt-text descriptions for all of my images. When I published, however, the little "alt text" clickable link that shows up on images elsewhere - such as Twitter or Tumblr - didn't show up at all. I clicked on the images and.... nothing! Does the alt-text code not work? Is it only for screen readers, and there is no other way to access the alt text???? Do I have no way of double checking on the code without using a screen reader myself?

So disappointing....

I've tried, but if the alt-text code isn't working I just don't have the energy to fruitlessly describe every image I put on this blog. If you use a screen reader or otherwise need that accessibility feature - and if you either were able to get the alt texts last post or know of an alternative way for me to include them - please let me know. I want to make sure I'm accessible to my readers, but I'm not going to make the process of writing each update needlessly longer by writing up descriptions no one can see anyway. So, in the meantime, I think I'm going back to not describing the images. Sorry....

Getting back to where I was originally going with that "over-analyzing" thought process, though. I managed to finish the smut fic that I talked about last update!

To be fair, although I do describe the full sex act between the characters, I focus more on them kissing on each other and their hands roaming each other's arms and backs and the like. I also zoom in on their thoughts and motivations as the night progresses. So, it IS technically explicit, "smutty" material, but it's not really "pornographic." So... it's like... 25% smut?

Anyway, I'm just so proud of myself. As I mentioned last update, between the two published stories I had in 2023 (totaling 1870 words) and whatever prose writing I might have done for Seduce with Caution in the past year or so, I've barely written 3k words since December 2022. Want to know how long that smut story turned out? OVER 7200 WORDS LONG!!! That is more than what I've written since June 2022!

HOW!?!

It's amazing! I feel amazing! I am GLOWING with pride and excitement over this story. Between edits and just genuine enjoyment, I must have reread this beast about a dozen times since I've completed writing it two weeks ago.

But, then comes in the over-analyzing....

I was excited about this story. I told you all last update that this story had a chokehold on me and I was writing with a renewed vigor. It kept three days of chipping away at it - March 24th, April 9th, and April 11th - but I had it done and edited on the 12th. Once completed, I was itching to publish it online.

Then I remembered that Not Your Typical Reincarnation Story is an adaptation of a webnovel. Basically, webnovels are what gets hosted by sites like FictionPress or Wattpad: typically amateur original writing published online for free consumption. Point being, it already was a novel, and yet I'm here "novelizing" the webcomic.

The whole thing felt very The Producers (2005): a movie musical adaptation of a Broadway musical adaptation of the original Mel Brooks movie from 1967 (about a fictitious Broadway musical...).

Was there even a point in publishing this story now? Was what I was craving - filling in the gap of the mental state and emotional shift within the main characters during their first night together - already available for me via the original author's novel?

It kept a little bit for me to track down, especially since I was looking under the wrong title, but I found a copy of the English translation of the original webnovel. I'm not sure how the webcomic landed on the title Not Your Typical Reincarnation Story, but the webnovel used a more literal translation of the Korean: I Thought It Was A Common Transmigration.

There's two different uploads that I found, each with their own slight translation interpretations and errors, but you can still get the basic idea of the original novel and what author Lemon Frog wanted to say.

On Moonlight Novel
On Guava Read

There were quite a few translation/localization changes between the English webnovel and the English manhwa that I found amusing. For one, Rigelhof (as it is spelled in the webcomic) was spelled Riegelhoff in the Guava Read version of the webnovel translation. For two, the butler Rhynon (webcomic) had his name spelled Renan in the webnovel translations. Then, we had the two biggest changes. The Duke's family name in the webcomic is Rudwick. In both English translations of the webnovel? Ludwig.... Finally, while the Duke's ward is Rhyse (pronounced 'Reese') in the webcomic, in the webnovel her name was apparently Lizé.

So, I guess that's one reason to go ahead with publishing my story. Like a novelization of a movie adaptation of a novel, there's going to be changes to the adaptation from the original novel. Therefore, even if the original author Lemon Frog did write up more about Edith and Killian's mental states during their first night together - if not straight up write out the sex scene - it still could have been different than how it would have played out in the webcomic version. And so, I would still be filling in that blank spot for us Webtoon fans.

Regardless, I was still curious about how Lemon Frog handled that main plot point. Yes, my story was based off of the webcomic, which was a bit different from the webnovel. However, I didn't want to publish something that majorly contradicted the webnovel (specifically, character motivations and/or mental states). At least, I didn't want to publish it without a disclaimer that it was novel non-compliant.

I flipped through the chapters real quick, and found the seduction scene in the webnovel. Turns out that Lemon Frog did the same thing as the webcomic. Killian was successful in seducing Edith. They start making out. He starts lifting the skirt of her nightgown up her legs. Hard-cut to Edith waking up in Killian's bed the next morning, still beaming about the night she had with her husband.

I even had a chuckle when I saw the comments section of the Guava Read upload that included comments like "i can never forgive the author for not giving us the full details about the night, IM CRYINHGG[sic]" and "author, think there is a big chunk of this chapter missing please fix the error asap" and "Author-nim, there is so much lacking in this novel. The details of their first night! Why?!"

Seems I'm not the only one who was like, "NOOOO! The censoring!!!!"

The comments were also either from late last year or as recent as this past February. The webnovel - at least, the English translation of it - is still relatively new! So, there were potentially others who read the webnovel translation who were still hungry for that "missing" content. Not to mention the webcomic fans, such as myself.

Lemon Frog didn't already canonically describe what I had just written out, AND there was potentially an audience for my story still! It was DEFINITELY worth posting (as opposed to just keeping it to myself).

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Cropped by LycoRogue

Added bonus? The inner monologue that I said last time was implied but not expressly stated? The focus on Killian's motivation and thoughts on losing his virginity? Edith's confusion about Killian's seduction? All of that unsaid stuff that I included in my story? It was almost all accurate, apparently!

For instance, based on how the comic artist A-jin drew Killian when he first caught Edith in his room, he didn't give off "I just got woken up" vibes.

Scene from episode 20
Story by Lemon Frog
Art by A-jin

So, I had Edith silently panicking that Killian had only been pretending to be asleep when she kissed him. Lo and behold, if you go to the novel, you have the kiss played out from Killian's point-of-view because he 100% was pretending to be asleep, just to see what Edith would do.

Again, just from studying Killian's character and the catalysts leading to him seducing Edith, I had him becoming lustful because he doesn't have to fight for Edith's affection; she'd give it freely if allowed. Plus, he felt guilty about Edith fainting and sliding into a coma for two days, which is why he didn't go to see her when he heard that she had woken up earlier that day.

Jump over to the novel, and guess what Killian's motivation for both seducing Edith and not going to see her when she woke up earlier that day were?

Quite frankly, the only thing that truly differs in my story compared to the webnovel is the amount of time they had sex together. Minor spoilers here, but, the webnovel concluded the seduction scene with, "After that, Killian couldn’t control himself. It was just the beginning of a night dominated by passion, instinct, hot body temperature, and slippery sweat." Despite going on for 7200+ words, my story definitely didn't have them go through "a night dominated by passion", etc. I did manage to work in the passion, instinct, elevated body temps, and sweat on my own. Just... not a full night's worth....

Regardless, I'm stoked that I was able to pick up on the crumbs that the adapter and illustrator left us readers, and used them to lead me to the exact character motivations and growth that Lemon Frog had for Edith and Killian.

I'm actually SUPER proud about that.

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OK! That over-think was out of the way. I was definitely publishing this story. I would then have to hope it does well within the fandom. Now, time to sort out a title for it. I couldn't just leave the file name as the title: Not Your Typical Reincarnation Story Smut....

Juuuuust.... needed an actual title...

AAAAAANY sort of title...

Once I have the title I could post the story....

Title...

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I was stumped. Nothing came to mind. There wasn't really a THEME for me to build a title off of, like Rolling Thunder or Cataclysm the Doubt. I couldn't think of a fun summary title/play on words like Peeping Tomcat or Woven Heartstrings or Prescription for Love or For Whom the Bells Toll or my last smut story Sparks for the Moment. The story wasn't based off of a song like I Don't Care or RE: Your Brains. Although, I did try finding songs that matched the vibe of the story and maybe title it off of those.

The ones that fit the best, for me, were the Dua Lipa songs "Fever" and "Pretty Please" as well as the song "Obsessed" by EMDI featuring Veronica Bravo. All of which had song titles that just felt too generic for a story title.... Although, given that Suna was isekai'd into the story Don't Obsess Over Me, Brother, perhaps calling the story "Obessed" wouldn't be too terrible....

Anyway!

Maybe the tried and true "use a line or bit of dialogue from the story to title it" method would work better?

I had three potential candidates. All were lines from Killian's canonical dialogue. All had pluses and minuses.

First potential was Killian's first line in that webtoon episode/webnovel chapter. The one showcased in the above panels: "You pretended not to care this whole time."

Edith had just kissed Killian while she believed he was asleep. She then expected him to wake up, just like he did in the novel, and throw her out of his room in disgust. Instead, he catches hold of her arm, smirks at her, and comments, "You pretended not to care this whole time," before teasing her about her lust being too great to pretend any longer, and how he's fine to let her have her way with him.

Which leads me to my second potential dialogue-turned-title: "Seduce me like the Rigelhofs taught you."

When Edith still resists Killian, he takes her hand and runs it up and down his bare chest while continuing to basically tell her to do whatever physical depravity she wants with him. He then asks her my third potential title: "...Are you happy now?"

Now, the main pro of that first option was that it felt very on-theme for the story. Both Edith and Killian pretended to not care about the other. Even to themselves. Edith pretended to not care about Killian, or about Killian's affection for Rhyse, or what Killian and his family thought about her (Edith), or that her life was fated to be tragic, rough, and end by her husband executing her. Killian pretended to not care that his father favored his older brother (for obvious birth-order inheritance reasons), or that he'd soon inherit land that was going to be removed from his family's dukedom and he would have to move out of his childhood home, or that Rhyse seemed to also prefer Cliff, or that he (Killian) was potentially the cause for Edith fainting and falling into a coma. He pretended to not care about Edith at all, let alone what his family negatively thought of her. Killian also pretended to not care about the rumors that Edith is having an affair with butler Rhynon. There is just so much pretending to not care throughout the canonical story. Alternatively, in my fic, those façades come down and they finally admit - even if briefly - that they DO care.

Another pro? That line kicks off the whole seduction scene, so fans should be able to know exactly where this fic takes place within canon. Simply based off of the title.

The con of this title? It felt a bit "angsty" for an otherwise "fluffy" little sex scene where two people finally see each other, come together, and just let go. If people saw the title "You Pretended Not to Care This Whole Time" (or, the shorter alternative "You Pretended Not to Care"), would they think "ooo, that's a fluffy smut fic"?

The pros of the second option? Well, for one, just like the first option, it would be a dead giveaway for fans as to when my fic takes place. Maybe even a more obvious "hint" on when the story takes place.

A second - and the main - pro? I mean, it straight up includes the word "seduce" within the title, so it would DEFINITELY give off the right vibes: "this is a smut fic, folks!" Killian asking Edith to "Seduce me like the Rigelhofs taught you" also gives off the vibes of the sex scene itself: sensual but also a bit clunky and goofy. On top of that, while the line is Killian addressing Edith, I thought it was equally appropriate the other way around. The irony of KILLIAN being the one to seduce EDITH the way that he believes the Rigelhofs had taught her. All-in-all, this was one of my favorite title options.

The cons though? For one, "Seduce Me Like The Rigelhofs Taught You" felt too long of a title. Despite liking isekais, with their notoriously long titles, I have always preferred short titles that are easy to remember, quick to say, and quick to type. However, simply shortening this option to "Seduce Me" then felt like I fell into the same "too generic" title category as "Fever" or "Pretty Please" or "Obsessed". Also, "Seduce me like the Rigelhofs taught you" felt very "Draw me like one of your French girls." Yeah, I mean, that's kind of the vibe, but it also feels a bit extra goofy???? I dunno. Secret third con? Well, I've been working on Seduce with Caution for damn near four years now. Only to then post a DIFFERENT smut story with "Seduce" in the title? It just felt like, if/when I finally publish SWC it would then read like I can only come up with smut stories with the word "seduce" somewhere in the title (Sparks for the Moment not withstanding). It was a weird block, but one I faced nonetheless. I just couldn't lock "Seduce Me Like the Rigelhofs Taught You" in as the title of my fic because of those cons.

The final option? Well, the pro is that both Edith and Killian do wonder "Are you happy now?" at the end of the story. They are metaphorically asking that question both of each other as well as of themselves. Plus, it's the shortest option out of the ones I was toying with.

The cons? The title again felt kind of generic. As well as potentially sarcastic and/or angsty. It also didn't quite catch the vibes of the story the same way the other two options did.

As I was pondering those three options, I did think of a fourth: "Forget About Rhyse."

It wasn't really a line from the story, but I did have that sentiment a couple of different times throughout the narrative. Edith wonders if Killian could possibly forget about his feelings for Rhyse, or if he'd regret sleeping with Edith. Meanwhile, Killian is already pushing his feelings for Rhyse to the side and needed Edith to be the one who forgot about Rhyse. Forget about how her husband was in love with Rhyse. Forget about her friendship to Rhyse and whether or not sleeping with her own husband is somehow a betrayal of Rhyse.

There was a lot of focus on "we need to forget Rhyse exists right now" for a portion of my story. And them following through with sleeping together seemed to confirm that they did indeed forget about Rhyse, even briefly.

Plus... short title. Win!

My problem with this title, though, was that it felt like it incorrectly signaled to the potential readers that the narrative would be focusing on Rhyse in some form. She wasn't even in the story outside of Edith and Killian briefly talking about her and Edith having a throw-away line about wondering if Killian was picturing her as Rhyse. Also, "Forget About Rhyse" again falls into the "does this title make it feel like an angsty story" conundrum.

I just couldn't decide on what to title this story, and so I ended up not publishing it on the 12th after completing it. Maybe if I slept on it a good title would pop in my head.

No such luck. So, I spent the rest of the weekend pondering. Reading, rereading, and re-rereading my story to try to see if the right title vibe would show itself to me. I asked two different people if they had any ideas on which of my titles seemed best, or if they had any alternative suggestions.

One of them teased that I was definitely reading too much into my potential titles, and that my readers wouldn't be putting nearly as much weight into what the title alone could mean for the story. Yeah. I was over-analyzing again.

Still. I feel like if I was doing this, there MUST be others who would as well. Titles are important, after all.

In the end, I had to make the decision myself.

It kept me until after 6:30pm on Sunday, April 14th, but I finally locked in my story title.

Despite the "potentially angsty vibe" downside, I landed on my first title option:

You Pretended Not to Care

Summary:
      When Suna Choi reincarnated as Edith Rigelhof, the villainess of the novel Suna read the night before she died, she knew she had to do everything possible to avoid Edith's cruel execution at the hands of her own husband. Seemed easy enough to avoid the pitfalls that led to Edith's demise. She attempted to befriend the novel's protagonist Rhyse Sinclair. She refused to be her despicable father's spy. Most importantly, she wouldn't fall in love with her husband Killian Rudwick. His heart already belonged to Rhyse, and his arranged marriage to Edith wasn't going to change that.
      Despite her best efforts, Edith is still being forced down the same path as the original novel's plot. At least, that's what it seems like. But when Edith finally waves the white flag and decides to just follow the plot after all, the novel again has other plans. Edith steels herself for the next main plot point: a failed attempt to seduce her husband... except... this time it isn't going to fail....

• Rating: Explicit; due to a descriptive sex scene
• Word Count: 7,228
• Est. Reading Time: 36min
• Status: Completed one-shot

• On ArchiveOfOurOwn

• On Tumblr

• On DeviantArt

I was shaking as I posted it to AO3, DA, and Tumblr (due to site restrictions, I can't post my smut on FFN). Don't get me wrong. I get a little nervous each time I publish a story; of course I do. I worry that people won't like it. People won't even SEE it. That I'm just screaming out into the void.

I mean, sure, "write for yourself" and all that, but what's the point of then publicly sharing said story if not to attract an audience for it?

When I share my smut, however? Hooooooboy! That is another level of nerves. Will people think poorly of me for even writing smut? Let alone sharing it? Does my sex scene read as authentic? Does it read as goofy and cliché? Does it read as bland and generic? Does it read as juvenile? Will people like it? Will they find it cringe? Will I be thought of as a weird pervert? Will people use how I wrote out the sex scene as proof of my own kinks or what my own sex life looks like?

I anxiously awaited my 24 hour stats.

24 Hour Stats

AO3: 13 hits, 2 kudos, no bookmarks or comments
DA: 13 views, but no interaction

Total Results: 26 views, 2 kudos, no bookmarks, and no reviews

Tumblr Notes: 2 likes

Not the greatest stats in the world.... But, considering I didn't know how big this fandom was, there were no other smut options for this fandom on AO3 for me to gauge off of, I didn't promote the new story on my socials (aside from Tumblr, obviously), and it IS smut... getting any kudos/Tumblr likes at all was an accomplishment! There were people on AO3 willing to read my smut - or, at least, open the tab....

I'll take it!

Then, roughly an hour after I grabbed my 24hr stats, I got my first review! The exact type of review I was hoping for:

THANK YOU!!!!
I've been waiting for someone to fill in these blanks that were left in the original story. Your contribution is greatly appreciated 💜
- Megra

That review managed to rejuvenate my faith in myself, my writing, and the fact that I had an audience. Emboldened, I tweeted out about my new story, as well as posted about it on FB. I have no clue if those "promos" really did anything for my readership, but the readers started rolling in regardless!

Current (at time of publishing) Stats

AO3: 197 hits, 22 kudos, 2 bookmarks, and 4 comments
DA: 118 views, but still no interaction (probably never will get any, if I'm honest)

Total Results: 315 views, 22 kudos, 2 bookmarks, and 4 reviews

Tumblr Notes: 2 likes and 1 reblog

Reviews:

• THANK YOU!!!! I've been waiting for someone to fill in these blanks that were left in the original story. Your contribution is greatly appreciated 💜 - Megra
• This is good. Extra kudos. - Elf_Kid
• This is absolutely what this fandom has been needing. While I hope this won't be the last fic written to fill in this particular blank, you can rest assured that you have set the bar for it really frickin high
  edit: oops it is now 3 am goodbye sleep schedule
  - EvenstarFalling
• This was SO GOOD!! 💖
  I love how you wrote their actions and the alternating POV was really nice; it's great to be able to contrast Edith and Killian's thoughts and feelings through the story. - ZenPudding

I know it feels so weirdly small of a number to be happy about, but roughly 11% of people who read my story on AO3 left a kudos! And nearly 18% of those who left a kudos also left me a comment! Those are insane stats, actually!

Comparatively, let's look at my other smut story Sparks for the Moment. Only about 4% of that story's readers left a kudos. And only about 7% of people who left a kudos also left a comment.

What about my most popular single-chapter, non-smut, big-fandom story Could Your Paradise Also Be Your Hell? Only 6% of those readers left kudos, and, again, only about 7% of those who left a kudos also left a comment.

Granted, the data will be skewed by how long the story has been published. For instance, a person who rereads any of my stories will add hits but can't give me more kudos. Which then throws the kudos-to-hits ratio off, but it's not for lack of love for my story. You know?

That said, for now, I'm basking in the glow of a surprisingly well-received piece of my work.

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Oh! Fun side note? That smut story is also the 50th story I've published on AO3. That's... a neat milestone...

Now to just write another smut story for Edith and Killian's second night together. Then to jump over to Leveling Up My Husband to the Max and write up smut for Amber and Carlyx's first night together.... And then another one for their night together after Carlyx saved Amber... and then again for their last night together before Carlyx went off to war... and then their reunion over a year later....

Goodness! I really AM reading the manhwa equivalents of classic Harlequin romances, aren't I? Well... I guess I AM within that target demographic now, huh?

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Cropped by LycoRogue

On the non-smut side of things, I toyed around with my mental build of NoPixel character Anna-Marie Wolffe (maybe I could manifest her if I do this often enough?).

The more I thought about how I would love to play her as a sort of Mama Wolf (hence the last name), I realized there's no way I could play her as someone in her 20s. I mean, I KNOW there's 20-something "Mom Friends". I used to be one of them. But it just isn't the right VIBE for her. I want her to be Protective Mama^TM because she has that experience under her belt. Therefore, I'd probably keep her about my age.

 ^{That's one thing sorted out.}

I then wondered why Anna-Marie would be moving to Los Santos.

Most people move due to housing reasons: improved housing, being able to own instead of rent, cheaper housing options, improved neighborhood/less crime, better school district, was forced to move (eviction/foreclosure), etc. Quite frankly, due to NoPixel characters starting in a tiny studio apartment within a Los Angeles-like city - one that has MORE crime due to it being a GTA game - me thinks that "moving for basic housing reasons" doesn't really apply for Anna-Marie.

MAAAAYBE the foreclosure/eviction reason? But... then why go out to Los Santos to try to start anew if your finances are that poor? I mean, it WOULD explain the starting character account of only $500 dollars.... MAAAAAYBE this could be an option then? She lost her family home, heard that people were starting over in Los Santos and that the renewed economy meant that anyone could make it big on just $500, so she decided to try her luck???? Eh. It's in the running, I guess. What do you folks think?

The next biggest reason people move is for family: again, better school districts, change in marital status, wanting to establish one's own household, living closer to/further from family members, taking care of ailing family, assisting family in other ways (such as helping raise children), etc. Because I don't personally know any of the other NoPixel players there is no way to establish any of them as Anna-Marie's family that she moved to Los Santos to be with. Unless Hubby joins me with his own character on NoPixel, I can't say that Anna-Marie moved there with her family for x-reason. I could maybe establish that 40-something Anna-Marie moved to Los Santos to give her kids a better life, but.... then where are her kids? Did she go ahead of them in order to set up a home before they move in? If that's so, and I manage to play throughout the many years that 4.0 is live, why hasn't her family moved to join her in the months or YEARS that Anna-Marie is in Los Santos? Seems weird to create lore that she has kids but then never introduce them or be forced to come up with lore as to why they never joined her in LS. And, given the motherly demeaner I would love for her to have, it doesn't make sense to make her a neglectful mother of her own kids.

The only "for family" option that I could think of that might work here is either 1) trying to get away from existing family; poor family home life, or 2) change in marital status. Given that I'm pulling a little from X-Men's Rogue as inspiration for Anna-Marie (see: her name), I can see her having a need to get away from her family. I cannot see her getting a divorce. Maybe she's a young widow? Or her and her beau didn't marry before he broke her heart. I think that's my frontrunner: she was devastated by an ex and she moved to Los Santos to get as far from him as possible; starting anew.

The third reason given by people who have moved is employment: new job or job transfer, having an easier commute, retirement, or better opportunity to find a new job.

Obviously Anna-Marie wouldn't have a job right out the gate. That's part of the fun of the game: finding ways to earn money. I could maybe come up with some BS job within the city and then say that it fell through once she moved. A new job that fell through? A transfer that ended up getting cut?

Maybe, since Los Santos is supposed to be like LA, and there IS a movie studio within Los Santos, Anna-Marie moved for the same reason a LOT of people move to LA: to get a foot into the film industry. Maybe I could have her be an actor or writer or even a film editor? It would be so fun to use Anna-Marie as an excuse to get back into editing so she would have a resume reel. However, I've been out of the game for so long. I am INCREDIBLY rusty. So, unless I get back into editing before this dream-inclusion on the NoPixel server, maybe I just leave it to skills I know I'm better at right now: acting and writing.

The final main reasons for moving, according to the census, are: relationship with unmarried partner (i.e. moving to be closer to them), attending/leaving college, health reasons (e.g. - my uncle's ex-wife got crippling migraines in the Northeast humidity, but they all-but-vanished when she moved to the desert), change of climate (i.e. Northerners moving south to avoid snow... or my uncle's ex-wife again), or avoiding/escaping natural disasters.

That first reason is again nixed. I would be going in without knowing anyone personally, and therefore I couldn't roleplay that Anna-Marie moved to be closer to any of them. Having her move to be closer to an unnamed/unseen relative or partner MIIIIIGHT work... Treat them like an unseen sitcom character, such as Niles' first wife Maris from Frasier, Howard's mother from The Big Bang Theory, Lieutenant Columbo's wife from Columbo, or Karen Walker's rich husband Stan from Will & Grace. Again, if I were to actually make it onto NoPixel, it's a high probability that Hubby would as well. In which case, coming up with an unseen partner would be out. Maybe a cousin, aunt/uncle, or grandparent???

There is a college campus in Los Santos. So Anna-Marie moving to LS to attend college as an adult student wouldn't be too far fetched. However, it would be hard to roleplay since the college is little more than a set-piece. I could maybe use that as an excuse as to why my character is unavailable during the times that I'm not playing. However, they already have the logged-off mechanic worked in: "Asleep". If someone isn't currently logged into NoPixel you say that character is currently "asleep" and that they "wake up" once the character is logged in. If someone goes a long time without playing, you say they are "traveling outside of the city" and that they have "returned to the city" once they log back in. You can also complain about how long of a wait the queue to log in is by grumbling about your "train ticket" causing delays. All that said, me saying "I was at my night classes" doesn't fit the already established vernacular. So I can probably nix that as an option.

I could maybe play around with those final three options: moving for health reasons, for a change of climate, or to avoid/escape a natural disaster. Despite Los Santos being a GTA version of LA, it doesn't really experience earthquakes. Although, you might be able to joke that all of the noclipping glitches are due to earthquakes.... Also, to have an immersive in-universe reason for the servers kicking everyone out of the game a couple of times per day for updates, the players refer to the system resets as "tsunamis" or "storms" that flood Los Santos and washes everyone out of the island-based city for a few minutes. These are usually timed "storms" so people can make sure to go for cover (aka - save your progress) in time. So, they're manageable disasters. However, still feels a bit much for someone to deal with if they've moved to LS to AVOID natural disasters. So, I think that option's out.

I have nothing either for or against the other options of "health reasons" or "change of climate". They can remain in the running, I guess.

So, to recap, here's some options for why Anna-Marie moved:

1. Down on her luck. Just got evicted from her home (figure out reason later). She heard that the island city of Los Santos is trying to revitalize its economy and has government funding that allows every citizen to receive free housing, and there are a plethora of job opportunities in order to make a fortune. It required Anna-Marie to sell all of her belongings to do so, but she was able to fund her travel across country (starting on the east coast somewhere) and got a small studio apartment in Los Santos with $500 remaining to her name.
2. Similar to - and possibly building off of - option 1: Anna-Marie finally raises enough money to get out of a toxic or abusive home. Whether that home was with her parent(s) or a lover TBD. She runs across country to try to get as far away as possible from that toxic/abusive environment. Once she is done running, she has but $500 to her name, but is able to get a small studio apartment for free thanks to the government assistance in Los Santos.
3. A new job opportunity - be it a new career/company, a new position, and/or a job transfer - opens up in Los Santos. When Anna-Marie gets to the city she discovers that the job fell through. She has "secretly" been in the city for a couple of weeks (so, she was in LS for weeks prior to me officially playing as her; "secretly" explains why none of the player characters have bumped into her). She struggled to find other employment within x-industry (figure out later) over those few weeks, and eventually failed to secure anything. Now, with only $500 left in her account, Anna-Marie downgrades to the government-funded studio apartments and starts looking for work in more labor-intensive jobs, such as towing, package delivery, secure money transfers, or fast-food work.
4. Similar to option 3: Anna-Marie got laid off from her old job, considered it A Sign^TM, and decided it was the perfect chance to move to Los Santos and attempt to get a foot into the film industry as a writer/actor. Sadly, as all know fairly well, the job offers won't come right away, so she's living in her government-funded studio while working odd jobs until she gets her big break.
5. Generic "She moved to a new climate". I have no details for this option yet.
6. Generic "She moved for health reasons". I have no details for this option yet.
7. Anna-Marie's relative (TBD) lives in Paleto Bay, north of Los Santos but on the same island. The relative would always be an unseen character that I reference, but no one ever meets (unless it's handwaved that they met "off screen" like when players have their characters sleeping with each other... it's never ACTUALLY played out; it's just spoken into canon). This one would be tricky since there are already some player characters who have homes in Paleto, and they actually have a couple of gang HQs in that area. So I would have to find an address that isn't available to purchase. If it opens up for PC purchases, I could say that the relative died or needed to move, which is why the house was now on the market. Hopefully, by that time, Anna-Marie would be established enough within the city that it would make sense that she didn't move away with the relative no longer in Paleto.
         Not a bad option, but a touch more complicated. Especially since I'd have to come up with a second character while finishing my build of Anna-Marie.
8. Vague "She just needed a new start". This one could be a bit fun. I thought it would be neat to have the other players kind of build up Anna-Marie's history for me. I would have Anna-Marie be vague and mysterious about why she moved to Los Santos or any past experiences she has. If anyone decides to fill in the gaps with their own theories or rumors, I would then vet them to see which ones I think work for the character, and then confirm those. Deny the ones that definitely won't work for the character. Refuse to either confirm or deny any I'm on the fence about.
         This is a great way to "Yes and..." my way into a character build. It's also a neat way to kind of form Anna-Marie's backstory organically. Finally, it would be able to take into consideration how my character presents to other players. Trish is fun and all, but I can't play her as intimidating as I wanted her to be. Lia ended up more meek than I had planned. Jolene got too attached to the adventuring party too quickly for her backstory. One of my old Vampire: The Masquerade characters had her whole backstory fleshed out just from how I fidgeted in the local park while waiting for a meeting to end. So, realistically, this might be my best option for Anna-Marie. It's still fun to come up with a complete character ahead of time though, especially since I'm daydreaming here. Which brings me to....
9. Building off of option 2, my favorite option is probably that Anna-Marie was living with a boyfriend who broke her heart and devastated her. Considering the crime in NoPixel, I'll probably avoid her being mad at him simply for being a criminal. I think I'm leaning towards "she found out that not only was he cheating on her, but Anna-Marie was actually the secret 'kept' woman of a married man with kids!" Yeah. I think I like that. Being cheated on is one thing. Discovering that YOU are unintentionally and unwillingly the Other Woman makes it so much worse. THEN discovering that you're helping him betray his wife and abandon his kids!? When Anna-Marie herself wants kids (and he probably keeps shooting her down precisely because he's already a neglectful father)!? Ooof. Yeah. I like the spice of this one. I could see her feeling guilty enough to want to run as far away from him and his family as possible to no longer interfere, and not really having any personal possessions if it was his secret second home. Would a cheating husband be the one to pay for a secret second home???? Would he be mooching off of her home???? I dunno. Thoughts in the comments, please. I'd love to see what everyone thinks of this option.

Actually, I've love to hear thoughts on ANY of the above options. Were there any that resonated more with you than others? Do you have an idea for the "for health reasons" or "climate change" options? Do you have a different prompt for me to try to build off of? Should I lean more into the X-Men's Rogue lore? Should I try pulling in things from the D&D rogue class somehow???

In the meantime, it's been a fun thought experiment to keep going back to and poke at now and again as Hubby and I continue watching NoPixel.

I wonder what his character would be like if Hubby were to join....

Anyway, that is a thought experiment for another day. In the meantime...

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Wait. I Wrote Something?!?

Est. Read Time: 65min
This Month's Font: Mali

Oh, geez. I promise you guys, I started working on this post about a week before the end of March. I thought it was going to be relatively quick. I thought I was going to be able to proudly publish a monthly update with time to spare this go.

The next thing I know, I'm constantly getting interrupted while I'm working on this update, and it has become a MASSIVE post that takes roughly AN HOUR to read! Soooooo.... the update got delayed until today.

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What took so long with writing this blog? Well, for one, as I mentioned, I talked A LOT this month. I had no clue I had so much to share with you fine folks, but... well... I got to gush about a new interest of mine that I haven't really had a chance to discuss with too many people up until this point. So I may have gone a bit overboard.

Because of that, I did include hyperlinks to jump you over different sections of this post. That way you don't have to slog though things you either already know or don't care to know about. Hopefully that will save you some reading time. However, it did mean that I had to learn the html coding first. It's simple to do, and I had fun including it, but I still had to learn HOW. So that took up some time.

I also discovered that I can include alt text in all of my images. I sure hope it works this time. I know it hasn't in the past. Regardless, assuming it does work, I wrote up alt text for every image I put on this post. I... never know how detailed they should be... so they took LOADS longer than I anticipated to write up. Especially with HOW MANY images I've included this update....

So, those are the three main reasons it kept me longer than expected to write this post up in the first place, but why exactly is it so lengthy!?

Well, my fine friends....

I DID IT! I WROTE SOMETHING! I... actually wrote A LOT! (not including this novella of a blog post)

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Before I get into it, though, I should probably explain how I was able to break through my nearly year-long drought. Yeah. This is where the bulk of this post is going to come from.

Mainly, my sledge hammer for that writers block ended up being simply sticking to my second New Years resolution: "Read an average of 7.5hrs per month (that's the equivalent of 15min per day for a 30-day month)."

I started off the month failing HARD with this resolution yet again. I felt exceptionally guilty about that fact when I visited my sister for her birthday. She spent much of the weekend carrying around a travel mug and wearing a hoodie both decorated in fandom decals I didn't recognize. It gave off Harry Potter vibes but was distinctly NOT Harry Potter.

Sadly, reader, I cannot remember the name of the series she told me it was. Mostly because she then showed me the SIZE of these books in the franchise! And I was dumbfounded by how THICCC they were! You could bludgeon someone to death with these monsters! And my sister was tearing through them in a week or two? Maybe a whole month if it was a particularly chonky novel.

I wasn't even reading the equivalent of the smallest novel in the franchise over the course of a YEAR! And yet my sister - who works, is planning a wedding, has a semi-long-distance relationship with her fiancé, is preparing to move into their marital home, and is almost exclusively crocheting crafts she sells as a side-hustle whenever I see her - she ALSO has time to just endlessly read!?

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Bravo to her for keeping up with such an important hobby. Shame on me for slipping so far.

Septa Unella, the "shame nun"
Game of Thrones season 5

Although, to be slightly fair to myself, it truly helps if you find a story that just GRABS you. Much like when I read FLOAT in the fall. I was obsessively reading the webcomic adaptation. Then I bought the book because I was itching to tear through the story faster than the paywalls on Webtoon would allow. Finally, I bulldozed my way through the novel in less than a week! So, it's actually fairly easy if you find the right story. Which I eventually did this month, but let me work my way up to that.

First, let's recap my reading journey via webcomics and digital mangas. Or... rather... manhwas (the South Korean equivalent of the Japanese manga). A LOT of what I've been reading (namely, on Webtoon) has been localized manhwas.

Along those lines, let me explain the term for a specific genre I seem to favor lately: Isekai, or Portal Fantasy. If you already know what isekais are (or you don't care to learn), feel free to jump ahead.

I'm sure you are all already familiar with the concept of Portal Fantasy, even if you didn't realize that's what the subgenre was called. It is when the main character is either physically or mentally spirited away to an unfamiliar time or world. Well-known stories such as The Chronicles of Narnia, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Peter Pan, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and the TV series Futurama are all portal fantasies. Even video games like Super Mario Bros is a Portal Fantasy! At least... any of the games/shows/movies that keep with the canon that Mario and Luigi are initially from Brooklyn, NY.

While the main character isn't spirited away anywhere, one could also argue zombie apocalypse stories such as The Walking Dead could be considered Portal Fantasy as well. Or, Portal Fantasy Adjacent, at the very least. The main character goes to sleep (or falls into a coma, in this case) in a world he recognizes. One we, the audience, also recognizes. Yet, when he awakes, he's in an unknown world with unknown rules and codes of conduct that he must now learn and navigate.

In Japan, the Portal Fantasy subgenre was called "Isekai", which roughly translates to "Other World" or "Different World" or "Another World". In Western Portal Fantasy stories, the protagonist typically returns to their familiar world by the end of the adventure. Again, think Alice from Wonderland, Dorothy from Oz, Wendy from Neverland, the Pevensie children from Narnia, and Hank Morgan from Camelot. There are some exceptions, such as Rick from The Walking Dead, Fry from Futurama, and Joel from The Last of Us, who cannot return to the time/world they once knew. Regardless, even in those cases, they are still themselves. They have just resolved to stay in the world they are now in.

For isekai, on the other hand, there are two subgenres of this fantasy subgenre. The first is similar to what I discussed for the Western Portal Fantasies: "transition into another world" or isekai ten'i. Some popular anime that fits this subgenre includes Fushigi Yûgi (probably the pioneer isekai in the West), The Vision of Escaflowne, Digimon Adventure, Magic Knight Rayearth, Inuyasha, Sword Art Online, and the acclaimed Hayao Miyazaki (Studio Ghibli) film Spirited Away.

The other subgenre of isekai is called "reincarnation into another world" or isekai tensei. In this version of the subgenre, the protagonist dies - usually killed tragically - in the real world right as the series opens, and is then reincarnated in to this new world. The most common way for the protagonist to tragically/suddenly die is by being hit by a truck. It is such a common trope of isekai tensei that the truck destined to kill the protagonist is lovingly/jokingly called "truck-kun" by fans. Modern isekai protagonists even joke about truck-kun themselves. Some will curse out "truck-kun" (meaning the truck itself, not the driver at fault) for killing them. Others will elate that they weren't isekai'd by truck-kun.

In most cases, the isekai'd protagonist will reincarnate within the already grown body of a person that lives in this new world, effectively possessing and taking over this person's (usually) tragic life. In some cases, the protagonist will be truly reincarnated, waking up inside a recently birthed child. The fun comes from the protagonist still having all of their adult memories even when fully reincarnated. Which is another key factor of reincarnation isekais. The protagonist pretty much always remembers their former life in the real world, and uses that information to improve their new life.

For instance, a few years back, Dragnime had us watch his favorite anime Saga of Tanya the Evil, wherein the protagonist claimed there was no god. Hearing this, God Himself (or, at least, a being posing as God), doesn't prevent the protagonist from being murdered by a disgruntled former employee. Instead, "God" isekais the unnamed protag into the body of orphaned baby girl Tanya in an Alternate Universe version of Imperial Germany. Using his adult, modern knowledge and his personal vendetta against "God" (whom he dubbed "Being X"), Tanya becomes a military prodigy.

You also have some weird mixes of the two isekai subgenres. For instance, famed manga/anime YuYu Hakusho is probably the West's first introduction to good ol' "Truck-kun" when the protag is killed off within the first episode of the series (although, he was struck by a car, not a truck... close enough). He is then essentially isekai'd into the spirit world, but also later had his original body resurrected. So he can still live within the real world but also travel between the two realms, much like how Kagome travels through time via the well in Inuyasha.

There's also stories like The Familiar of Zero or The Rising of the Shield Hero where the protag wasn't killed in the real world, and therefore wasn't reincarnated in this new world, but also doesn't really have a way to get back home. So, the end result is fairly similar to reincarnation isekais.

A fun "secret" third subgenre of isekai/portal fantasy is the "reverse isekai", wherein the fantastical enters our world instead. Anime such as The Devil is a Part-Timer! and Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid are good examples of this subgenre. As is, oddly enough, the Hollywood movie Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure once all of the historical figures are time-traveled out of their original times.

OK! So, primer done! Sorry, that was probably a lot, but I needed to make sure you understood what I was talking about as I discussed the many stories I've been reading lately.

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As I mentioned back in December, my return to the app Webtoon started with FLOAT. It's a simple, slice-of-life, teenage-first-love story. I followed an artist I enjoyed over to her work on FLOAT and the Webtoon app in general.

OK. Sorry. I think we need another time-out so I can remind everyone how apps like Webtoon and Comikey work before I continue. Feel free to jump ahead again if you don't need this bit either.

These apps have a large collection of webcomics/mangas/manhwas/etc. The stories are split up into smaller bits. On Webtoon - to go with the "cartoon" vibe - these segments are called "episodes" and have a weekly release/update schedule if they are "originals" (aka, Webtoon officially licensed them, they are exclusive to Webtoon, and the creator is matched with a personal editor for their work. The creator also gets paid directly from Webtoon). If the Webtoon comic is a "Canvas" story, that means Webtoon simply hosts the digital version. The creator has to sort out editing themselves, and gets paid via ad revenue instead of directly from Webtoon. The creator does have more creative liberties, however, such as uploading their comic in places in addition to Webtoon, and they can set their own upload schedule. The reason I had originally stopped using Webtoon for so long was because, at the time, the only comic I followed was Punderworld. Being a "Canvas" series, the creator Linda Sejic could opt to put her series on hold - which she did - so she could instead focus on her primary series Blood Stain. Having not gotten into Blood Stain yet, I didn't see the need to use the app again until Punderworld returned.

Anyway, as I was saying, Webtoon comics are uploaded "episodes" at a time. Over on Comikey, they are listed as "chapters"... although it's more like "subchapters"? Most of the manga I read on Comikey has the official chapters segmented into 12-page increments. So you'll end up with chapters numbered "Chapter 1.1/Chapter 1.2/Chapter 1.3/Chapter 2.1/Chapter 2.2", etc. So, for the rest of this post, whenever I mention a Comikey chapter, I mean these roughly 12pg weekly updates, as opposed to the "official chapters" like how you would get them in a physically published manga.

I'm sure just about any/all digital comic apps have a similar set up, but I'll talk about Webtoon and Comikey specifically since these are the apps I use.

Now, for Webtoon, the first couple of episodes are free. A way to hook the reader and give them a taste of what the story is like. Then, the remaining episodes are locked behind paywalls. You can either (a) buy coins to pay the app directly to unlock the paywall episodes at roughly 7 coins (about $0.70 USD) per episode, (b) watch an ad to unlock the next episode (this usually caps at 3 episodes and has its own drawbacks I'll explain later), or (c) wait patiently for a week until the next episode unlocks for free-reading on its own. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason behind how many episodes are locked behind the paywall. However, the most recent episode uploaded by the creator does seem to consistently be locked for a month or two before it's officially released for free consumption. Once an episode is unlocked for free-reading it is forever free to read.

This becomes a big benefit of getting into a series late. You now have significantly more free content to consume before you hit the paywall. Yay!

Comikey, on the other hand, tends to dump multiple completed chapters (so, the official chapters as you would see them in a published manga) up on the app at once. They then have the first handful of their version of chapters (so, roughly the equivalent of 1 or 2 official chapters) free to read to draw users in. Then, you get a daily pass. Once per day, you can use your daily pass to read the next locked chapter of the series. One pass per series you are reading. This temporarily unlocks the chapter. So, if you are like me and want to go back to reread an earlier chapter, you have to do so before it relocks and you have to unlock it again. Comikey seems to average about 72hrs of free reading before it relocks the chapter. After using your daily pass for a series, you can opt to watch an ad to read a second chapter. But that's it. You can't read any further that day without using their in-app currency: keys. The mangas I follow ask for 3 keys per chapter, and you can buy 20 for $2 USD. Significantly cheaper per-chapter unlock (~$0.30 USD) than Webtoon, but, at least the Webtoon ones are, I believe, a permanent unlock. I don't know if Comikey's are as well.... The other downside of Comikey is that it doesn't seem to matter how late to the party you are with any manga. They all just forever and always only have the first official chapter or so available for free and you just have to use daily passes, ad watches, and key purchases to read through the manga faster (or go back to re-read).

Yet another negative of Comikey? The permanent paywall. At least two mangas that I have been chopping at the bit for just seem to have permanently locked me out without paying now. I got 11 official chapters into one, and 9 into another. And now I'm just.... stuck. Whereas, over on Webtoon, if a story is completed I can tear through it until I hit the temporary paywall, and then I just wait for the weekly unlocks for those final episodes. So.... yeah... Comikey's paywall sucks. I'll talk a bit more about this later.

So, the TL;DR of that whole thing is that, even if I am REALLY into a series - such as FLOAT or The Dragon King's Bride - I still can't fully binge-read something. I can get fairly far, as I did with both of those series, but then I hit that paywall and I'm halted. Forced to either spend money on coins/keys or wait for the next free unlock. Worse still is tearing through mangas on Comikey and then hitting that permanent paywall.

Too ravenous for more content to patiently wait for the weekly releases, I made the mistake of watching the ads on Webtoon to unlock more The Dragon King's Bride early. The caveat is that it did not unlock the following episodes any sooner. That fourth episode that I couldn't reach without keys was still locked for the 28 days that it was when I finished reading my weekly free episode. Which meant, instead of getting new content each week for those next three weeks, I had to sit and wait for nearly a month for that next episode to unlock for me. What's worse? The early-unlock episodes were only available for 3 days! Just like with Comikey. Then I had to wait for their designated free-public-release date for them to be available for free re-reads. Or, I could opt to watch ads again, but it still only ever unlocked those initial 3 episodes.

On March 24th I accidentally did the same thing - use ads to read the next 3 locked episodes - for my latest story obsession, meaning I now have to wait nearly a month for new content! But I'm not QUITE there yet to talk further about this story. I just wanted to point out the aforementioned downside of using the ads to unlock episodes early on Webtoon.

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That was a LOT of preamble. Sorry about that. Promise we are FINALLY to the point! This next segment talks about how I got back into reading and gives summaries of all of the webcomics I'm subscribed to. If you want to skip ahead again, you can get right to the main series I want to talk about here.

So, to recap... again.... Over on Webtoon, I started reading FLOAT. I then saw an ad for The Dragon King's Bride and started reading that. Much like FLOAT, I was OBSESSESED with this series! I devoured it as fast as I could! I was entranced by the budding romance between the leads Lucina and her shotgun-wedding groom: King Hakan. Their flirting was so sweet and hot and awkward. It was just so good! Plus, you have a handful of miscommunication issues and secrets and... well, I already talked about all of this at length back in December. If you want to learn a bit more about the plot of TDKB and my initial thoughts (same for FLOAT), go back and check out that post.

Sadly, much like FLOAT, I binged until I got caught up with The Dragon King's Bride episode paywall. Then I became stuck in "wait for weekly updates" limbo.

FLOAT would update Sunday nights around 9pm ET. I would bring up the app. Read for maybe 15min - which IS my daily goal - and then.... what? Same deal with TDKB, which updates Tuesdays at 9pm ET. I had the app up anyway. I was in the mood to read now that I had completed my weekly 15min-update read. Rental Hero also updated Tuesday nights at 9ET. So, I'd typically flow from TDKB into that. At least it felt worth opening the app then.

The mystery of Rental Hero is what really draws me in. Seeing the main character Juwon kind of come into Justice's power while working that espionage angle to try to figure out who managed to kill the world's #1 hero? So good. Having his life on the line pretty much no matter what he does? Excellent. Giving him the tragic backstory of not being able to save his sister with his natural-born powers, and how he's trying to make up for it by using these new found powers? *chef kiss* Adding in the potentially budding romance between him and Chrome? Well, golly gee! You KNOW I'm a sucker for romantic plots/b-plots (or, at least, you WILL if you haven't sorted that out quite yet). Plus, you get all of these really neat mutations and powers and world build. It is really scratching my Glitches itch. Who knows? Maybe it could even inspire me to work on that original content again. I know My Girls would appreciate that.

Okay, so I'm up to roughly 30-45 minutes of reading time in the app on Tuesdays. I still had a BUNCH of free episodes of Mythic Item Obtained that I could also catch up on. I could fill the gaps with that. And, for a while, I did (again, see December's post).

Then ChibiSunnie started promoting the stories she had helped edit. That brought me to Comikey finally. As I mentioned last post, I started with My Housemate Sano-kun is Just My Editor! Then there was The Lady Likes a Nerd Over Princes. The one that truly hooked me, however, was easily From General to Bride: Marrying My Strongest Rival. Again, I went over why in more detail in my last update, and this post is getting chonky enough as it is. So I won't bog this post down further by reiterating that.

For a while now, the platonic/maaaaaaaybe-flirty slice-of-life story of My Housemate Sano-kun is Just My Editor! just hasn't been my thing. It's a good story. I'm enjoying it. My problem, however - as it is with all slice-of-life stories - is that there wasn't enough of a hook to drive me to keep turning the page, metaphorically. Like, it felt more akin to an episodic cartoon: you could drop in whenever. The other stories I was following had more intrigue and bigger stakes. I would get to the end of my free reads and wonder "But... what next!?" So, sadly, MHSJME kind of fell to the wayside.

The Lady Likes a Nerd Over Princes definitely hooked me more, but there were still days where I didn't have much time to read, so I was like "I can miss a day or two before finding out what happens next."

For From General to Bride, however? Oh heck no! I used my daily pass and watched an ad EVERY DAY to tear through this story! Problem is, I crashed face-first into that paywall. And it hasn't budged for close to a month. So, as I mentioned above, I'm pretty sure this is just a permanent paywall now. Maybe once more chapters are translated and uploaded I'll get daily passes for free reading again, but, as of right now, my daily passes will only allow me to reread the earlier chapters. La sad.

Now that FGTB has been effectively removed from my reading list (unless I want to go back and reread... which I have definitely been doing...), I've picked up another romance. It was advertised and promoted fairly heavily, and I finally decided to give it a peruse to see what it's even about.

I HAVE FOUND MY NEW OBSESSION!

(Yeah, as I mentioned above, I'll be recapping plots of a bunch of new stories I've been reading. If you decided that you just want to get to the part where I talk about what I wrote, feel free to have this grand leap.)

The story is called Double the Trouble, Twice as Nice. You start off hearing about a pharmaceutical company trying to figure out who will be their new CEO, but - gasp! - the prime candidate has gone MIA a few short months before the board vote! Next, we see our female lead: Yuri Hayama. She's a 28yo office worker (or, as the official summary puts it: "bottom-tier corporate slave"). She's physically and mentally exhausted from working such long hours. In part, because she can't say "no" to anyone, and so she's been taken advantage of to cover for countless coworkers. Also, her long hours are, in part, because she HAS to make as much money as possible to try to pay off debts her deadbeat dad saddled her with before running out on his family. If her life isn't rough enough, her boyfriend of 3yrs Asami not only dumped her, but informed her that he is already engaged to someone else! Completely down and defeated, Yuri stumbles upon a child unconscious on the streets clinging desperately to a choker necklace! She can't find his parents and her phone is dead, so she can't call for help. Unsure how else to care for the kid, she carries him home. She cleans him up and nurses his wounds while waiting for her phone to finish charging enough to call someone about the boy. Unfortunately, while tending to the kid, her own exhaustion overtakes her, and she passes out. When she wakes up, the kid is gone, but the hottest guy she's ever seen in her life is on her futon instead!

After some freaking out on Yuri's end - because... of COURSE she'd freak out! - the man introduces himself as Ren and tells Yuri that he's the little boy she carried home. He then demonstrates by taking off the choker necklace the boy had been clinging to so desperately. In an instant, the kid is in front of Yuri again. Ren puts the choker back on, and reverts to his adult body. Which happens to be the body of the missing CEO candidate from the opening.

He explains to Yuri that he's 18 and the adult body is his natural state, but a weird lab accident transformed his body into that of a child. Thankfully, he was able to sort out a temporary solution by way of the choker, but he needs to find a permanent cure. He also can't return to his own home until he is cured, so he asks if he can stay with Yuri.

It takes some convincing, but Yuri agrees to him becoming her roommate. As a thank you, Ren uses his previously unmentioned wealth to pay off all of Yuri's debts. He also uses his free time while in hiding to play househusband, keeping Yuri's place clean and making her phenomenal meals to help nurse her back to health. He does all he can to help her heal from her physical and mental exhaustion, and encourages her to open up about how hard her life is, allowing her to heal her mental health further.

It's then revealed that Yuri's ex is the alternative candidate for CEO mentioned in the opening of the series. Also, he had been engaged to his fiancée for nearly five years! Yuri was unknowingly and unwillingly the "other woman" for three years!? AND Asami wants Yuri back!? Meanwhile, Ren is falling HARD for his sweet, broken roommate.

To be fair, she's also falling for this gorgeous, mysterious man who takes such good care of her. She is just REALLY icked out by the idea that he's ONLY EIGHTEEN!

Bravo to Yuri for being like, "Nah, man. I know you're legally an adult, but you're BARELY an adult and I'm still TEN YEARS older than you!"

But also.... I ship these two together so hard!

Ren is just so sweet and caring with Yuri. He encourages her to put herself first and to not shy away from her feelings. He does everything in his power to help relieve her of her pre-existing burdens. He tries to spoil her. He protects her best he can. He needs to learn boundaries a bit more - he's kissed her twice without getting proper consent - but otherwise doesn't try to pressure her into doing anything she's not comfortable with, and instantly backs up the moment he realizes she's not ready. He's mature for his age due to his scientific prodigy. I just really like him and Yuri together!

So... yeah. I'm hooked by the romance alone, but you also have the mystery of how Ren got transformed into a child in the first place, and how he's going to cure himself. Also, there's the chess match between Ren and Yuri's ex, both over Yuri's heart, but also over that CEO position.

It's just such a fun series that I wish I could devour faster but it is also the second aforementioned manga that I've smacked hard into a paywall for. I NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT AND I CAN'T SEE IT WITHOUT SPENDING REAL-WORLD MONIES!

Comikey's paywalls are going to be the death of me.

It did give me that reading itch back, though. As well as something I needed more: a fairly regular reading routine! Wooo! So, after checking in with Comikey first, I've also built the habit of switching over to Webtoons.

I don't have daily unlocks on Webtoon the way I do on Comikey, though. What I did have was still only FLOAT on Sundays, and The Dragon King's Bride and Rental Hero on Tuesdays. There was also Mythic Item Obtained, but I was definitely now in a romance kick. MIO is interesting, but it's also VERY aggressive and action-heavy. It's still fun to see the lead strategize and all, but... no romance to be found. And I wanted me some romance.

So instead, I turned to the manhwa I Will Live the Life of a Villainess. I talked about this story last month, so feel free to go back and check that out if you need a refresher. In short, I really loved this story. I was captivated by the strategic minds of both the female and male leads. I adored the focus on female-empowerment within the story. The romance of it, however? It was so far on the back burner that, in one episode where there is a hint of flirting between the leads, one of the top comments was "Oh. Right. This is in the Romance category...."

I still happily read IWLLV every Tuesday - after going through my updates of TDKB and RH - but I'm not as ravenous for more content as I once was, or the way I am for TDKB or Double the Trouble, Twice as Nice or FGTB.

Instead, I have another Canvas Webtoon that I'm chomping at the bit for. I had seen it advertised when I first got the Webtoon app, and I had even joked before with Hubby and Aurora Morgen that I might be the main character. The series is called Her Wish to be Isekai'd. I never did get into reading it a few years ago when I was first advertised it. However, the creator decided to reboot the series, so it is once again being heavily advertised on the main page of the app. I figured, "since it came back into my orbit, it must be Fate that I read it."

Holy hecken is this a plucky little story. Given that it's Canvas, the creator can more-or-less do whatever she wants for the series. So each episode feels painfully short, especially compared to those I get with the "Original" content I also read. Plus, the artist doesn't seem to be doing this professionally (at least, not yet), so she only updates twice a month. Such a painfully long wait for more content. Especially because I really am loving the characters and the multi-layered plot.

The series starts with an unnamed woman with long, brunette hair chained to dungeon walls. Her hair is in her face. Purple veins visibly run through her body. She casts a spell, commenting about not yet getting her "divine blessing". She asks for her wish to be granted. Then it cuts to our female lead in the modern world.

We are introduced to our lead - college student Selina Garnett - out on her balcony. She's negotiating with herself as to how much more of the fantasy romance story she can read before getting back to her homework. She is then startled to see a shooting star. She struggles to figure out what to wish for, but eventually - and jokingly - wishes to be isekai'd into the romance she's reading. As she laughs about how silly of a wish that was, she is hit by the shooting star. She's convinced that she was killed, but she then blinks awake. It takes a beat for her to catch her bearings - confused by things such as the field she was asleep in, the regal dress she's wearing, and the castle in the background - before she realizes that she got her wish!

She wonders which character she's become, and happily greets a couple of maids to find out. She is Lady Elise Rosenborn, a minor character in the story Selina was reading who was more of a plot prop than an actual character. Elise also happens to look exactly like Selina, so she's a bit disappointed that she simply looks like herself in fancy dresses. Her disappointment is countered by her elation over the character she got. Due to Elise being an almost non-existent character in the story means virtually nothing Selina does as Elise would affect the story plot. She just needs to make sure she's where she needs to be for that one crucial plot point, stay out of the story protagonist's way the rest of the time, and then her life is her own!

Her excitement over her getting such a good character to isekai into ends up straining her body too much, and the poor woman coughs up blood as she collapses. That's when she remembers the one time Elise is used in the story.

The plot of the story Selina was reading centers around the female lead Erin, a "saintess" (basically a priestess with divine powers). Erin finds poor, sickly, fragile Elise collapsed at a festival. Erin is able to use her "saintly" powers to heal and cure Elise. Worried for his sister, Elise's older brother Duke Damien sends her out of the country to recover; fortuitous, given a war soon breaks out within the country the main characters live in. But it also explains why Elise isn't utilized further in the story outside from being mentioned. For instance, when Erin gives up being a saintess so she could be a mage instead, she is personally trained by Duke Damien as a thank you for saving his sister.

Selina didn't finish the story before getting isekai'd, so the above information, plus a few spoilers that she had read, was all that she knew of the core plot. She doesn't know what Elise's fate is, but hopes it's a long, happy life.

She's now not sure whether or not to be happy about the character she got. She's not the female lead, so her life should be far from drama, complications, and trials and tribulations. It's more-or-less her own to live how she wants since she - as far as she knows - won't be able to affect the story's main plot. However, she doesn't know her character's fate. She's sickly, so she can't do too much. Also, she'll be sent away from her character's only family. Will she be lonely? Bored? Will she survive?

As Selina/Elise ponders how to live this new isekai'd life, she walks out onto her balcony, only for the intruder alarm to instantly go off. The mages, thinking Elise was still in bed, puts a protective seal on her room that accidentally locks her out on the balcony. It's then that she realizes that she's already screwed up. It was only mentioned in passing in the story, but Elise had been begging her brother to let her go to the festival to watch the fireworks. In the end, he lets her go, despite her poor health. This was that night, but she had turned down the offer to go see the fireworks. She was drained from everything and didn't see the point in going. Now she knows the point: Elise wasn't supposed to be home during the invasion where two guards and a maid are killed defending the estate.

Panicked, but assuming she's safe regardless of being on her balcony since Elise didn't seem to be the target in the story, she is instantly proven wrong again. The infamous assassin of the story - Adrian - ends up on Elise's balcony to hide from the guards. He decides to use Elise as a human shield. He kidnaps her so the guards won't attack him, and then safely drops her off on the outskirts of her family estate once he knows he has safely gotten away. During their escape, Adrian still manages to injure his arm, causing it to bleed pretty profusely. Despite being kidnapped, Elise is smitten with this gorgeous assassin who did treat her gently and freely released her once he was safe, even without her asking. She grabs his hand to try to inspect his arm. Adrian pulls away, gives her his cloak to keep her warm, and then shoos her back to the mansion. Once she's gone, he tries to tend to his arm himself, only to discover it had already stopped bleeding and started to heal.

Elise, knowing the character needs to be at the festival for Erin to find, convinces her brother to let her go, even after the kidnapping. She ends up wandering away from her bodyguards and passing out from heat stroke. Erin does find her, and we're introduced to The Core, a metaphysical plane where the person's soul and mana reserve manifest as a golden crystal. Elise's crystal was pointed, cracked, and vine-covered. It looked ruined, which is why she was so frail. Erin tried to heal Elise's crystal, but got rejected; her astral projection getting booted out of Elise without healing her. This confuses both women.

Erin ends up waking up in the monastery, having been found collapsed and brought home. Meanwhile, Elise was left on a bench under a tree at the festival. Who brought Erin home? Who moved Elise? We have no clue. However, Adrian, who was still in the area after the attack on the Rosenborn estate, ends up finding Elise, and is shocked that she isn't guarded. He decides to watch over her until she awakes. When she does, she's so shocked to see him that she calls out his name - which she only knows due to her knowledge of the story. Adrian is startled that she knows so much about him, and demands to know why. Elise distracts him by confessing that she's sickly and will likely die soon, so could he maybe please not kill her... since she has such a short time left anyway???? He seems concerned for her condition. This gives her an idea, and she tries out a tried and true trope: Enemies to Lovers. She hopes, if she can get him to fall for her, that maybe he'll be more inclined to spare her. So she asks him to escort her around the festival. To her surprise, he agrees and they have a lovely date....

Which ends in them accidentally marrying each other! Whoops!

That evening, while asleep, Elise slips back into the metaphysical plane with her crystal. Somehow, she manages to heal it herself, causing it to morph into a pristine, golden orb. In doing so, she also gains all of Elise's memories. All the backstory stuff Selina/Elise wasn't privy to since it wasn't in the original story. Her illness is cured, and she can now cast magic! She needs her brother to follow the plot of the story, though, so she tries to convince him that the saintess Erin had cured her and that he should track her down. He doesn't fully believe Elise.

Meanwhile, Adrian is torn because he was tortured and imprisoned for a decade while battling with a demon contract, so, socially, he's the equivalent of a toddler. He has no clue what it means to be married to Elise, but he knows that he hopes she's alright. His handler, on the other hand, wants Elise killed to remove Adrian's distraction from assassinations. There's also this little chickadee that visits Elise as she recovers from her various illness-induced fainting spells prior to healing herself. Her brother Damien frequently talks to the bird as if they can understand each other, and Damien comments on how precious Elise is to the bird. The bird also has the same magenta eyes as Adrian, and watches him closely. A masked second assassin, upon meeting up with Adrian after the assault on the Rosenborn estate, called Elise "the crown prince's childhood friend and fiancée", details that Selina did NOT know about Elise prior to becoming her. Finally, Erin, startled awake after her failed attempt to heal Elise, leaves to train as a mage, but is told her mana is depleting and no longer recovering; unheard of! She ends up disguising herself as a new maid for Duke Damien, since the mage's guild wouldn't assign her to him as an apprentice. However, while in disguise, she goes by the name Selina Garnett! The lead's IRL name! WHAT!?

I won't go further into the plot because I don't want to share more spoilers than I already have. However, this story is just so good. So many layers. So many mysteries. So many questions! The romance between Elise and Adrian is so sweet. Elise doesn't even TRY to fit into the story by avoiding modern phrases or expressions. She leans heavy into relying on story tropes and speaks as such as well. She even went as far as to yell at Adrian for being so attractive despite being a minor character and a villain. He was very confused by being called a "minor character". It was beautiful. Selina/Elise is such a glorious fandom nerd! I love her!

Okay, but HWTBI only updates twice a month. What other stories could I focus on when that reading itch kicks in, considering I'm all caught up on the other romances I'm subscribed to?

Well, as I was reading through I Will Live the Life of the Villainess, the recommended section at the end of the episode had another red-haired female-led story showcased: Leveling Up My Husband to the Max.

The way the leads were posed in the thumbnail was very similar to IWLLV. I got a chuckle and decided to give it a shot, assuming it was some sort of copycat story.

Nope. Not even close. In fact, Leveling Up My Husband to the Max is actually the older one, and it's already a completed story. Also, the plot isn't close. For one, the female lead Amber isn't EXACTLY isekai'd. It's one of those "isekai-adjacent" sort of stories. She is reincarnated upon a tragic death at the start of the story... but she's reincarnated as her younger self.

Amber had suffered extreme abuse and neglect at the hands of her distant husband and entitled mother-in-law. She is given the classic "Cinderella" treatment of abuse, neglect, and forced servitude after getting married off to the duke of a desolate wasteland overrun with plague and monster invasions. Amber endured for a decade, and even rejoiced at discovering that she was pregnant. Then, the Emperor framed the duke for an alleged uprising in order to have an excuse to wipe the dukedom off the map, including poor Amber and her unborn child.

After being struck down by the Emperor, Amber wakes up in her wedding dress. She is determined to not let the last ten years play out the same way. She starts off by demanding to see her husband Carlyx. The first time she lived through her wedding day, her husband didn't even greet her when she arrived at his castle. He had gone off with his troops to combat a monster invasion. Him heading out with his troops led to him getting sucked into more invasion interventions and a war. Amber didn't even officially meet her husband until two years into their arranged marriage; long after her entitled and power-hungry mother-in-law had already used Amber's dowry to buy herself jewelry, and then blamed Amber for not having the funds to properly care for the household. Duke Carlyx's leaving for the first two years of their marriage was the instant downfall of Amber's life, and she wouldn't let it happen again.

She knew from her previous life that the invasion was small enough for the knights to handle it alone, so she begs her husband to stay with her. She also asks for him to show her the same level respect that she shows him - calling her "My Lady" to correspond to her calling him "Duke". To Amber's surprise, he agrees to all of her requests. This is not the Carlyx she had been married to for 10 years!

Amber is never privy to it the way the audience is, but Carlyx was leading his troops not to avoid Amber, but instead in an attempt to give her a better life. He had seen her in passing once when he visited the empire's capital. He loved how much life and joy she displayed as she socialized in the courtyard. Knowing how desolate his land had become after it was poisoned by a mysterious force, he was devastated to discover that the Emperor himself had made the match between Carlyx and Amber. Carlyx was smitten with her the second he had seen her at the capital, but feared not being able to provide enough for her. That he'd kill her spirit. That she wouldn't be able to live the lush life she's used to. The irony is that his leaving for two years - in an attempt to make their home safer for Amber, and in hopes of finding enough spoils to get funds to help provide for her - actually caused the break in her spirit that he feared. Namely at the hands of his own mother. When he returned home finally after two years of fighting he was a changed man, and she was already a frail woman with little life left herself. He had failed on two fronts, and it caused a further rift in their marriage. He became distant and seemingly oblivious to the abuse his wife endured under his mother's rule over the household.

In this lifetime, though? Amber stopped him from leaving. He instantly did what she requested. He wrestled Amber's dowry back from his mother. He helped Amber get acquainted with the grounds and the servants. He worked with his wife in transitioning the control of the household from his mother to Amber.

What stings so sweetly with this story IS how smitten Carlyx is, and yet the relationship between the two of them stays at arm's length. Amber is still traumatized by her previous life, so she has an understandably hard time trusting Carlyx this go. She finds this version of her husband kinder, more open-minded, and a bit more social, so she is struggling not to fall for him. She tries to avoid getting her heart broken by false hope by reminding herself how Carlyx was the first time. She then routinely comments to Carlyx that she understands that he doesn't want the marriage any more than she does; that she also isn't romantically interested; that they can go about their days as if they weren't actually married; that she understands that the marriage is just a business arrangement organized by the Emperor.

Since Amber makes a point of stressing that she knows the marriage has no romantic or sexual attachment to it, Carlyx (usually) resists showing any affection towards Amber, thinking it would be unwanted.

DEAR SWEET LORD, THE MISCOMMUNICATION IN THIS SERIES!

So good! Om nom nom! I'm gobbling it up!

Well, folks. This story officially threw me into a really weird isekai trope (at least, within manhwas). If you don't care and just want to get back into the other stories I've subscribed to, jump away.

Screenshot of my Webtoon Originals subscriptions

Do you notice the trope I fell into somehow???? Again, I started off by reading I Will Live the Life of the Villainess (upper right). I then tried out Leveling Up My Husband to the Max (bottom) because the thumbnail was so similar to that of IWLLV, and that amused me. I was then suggested Not Your Typical Reincarnation Story (middle). Same thumbnail composition: female lead with long, wavy, red hair in a fancy dress and pressed against the chest of the male lead; a slender, serious-looking man in royal/military-esque garb who wears his straight, black hair short with shaggy bangs. All three are either isekais or isekai-adjacent (such as LUMHTTM's protag reliving the last 10 years). All three female leads were reincarnated as noble women at the mercy of the men they are married/betrothed to, and all three end up getting executed at the original ending of their story (I'll get into this more for NYTRS in a minute). The love interest for all three protags also ends up being a stoic noble who is distant and calculated when the leads first meet.

That's so specific to begin with! How is "isekai'd protag is a female noble with long, wavy, red hair whose romantic interest is a stoic male noble with short, black hair with bangs" a whole trope!? It's borderline its own subgenre of isekai!

If that's not weird enough, turns out both IWLLV and NYTRS go even deeper! They get the added plot parallel of "female lead is a nondescript South Korean office worker with long hair kept in a high ponytail who, upon her tragic death, gets isekai'd as the villainess of the romance novel she knows by heart, and now she has to try to change the novel's plot to avoid getting executed by the novel's heroes."

Generated by Bitmoji

HOW!? And, even stranger, HOW ARE THESE STORIES ACTUALLY NOT ALIKE AT ALL ONCE YOU GET INTO THE ACTUAL PLOT!?

See, Dragnime and Aurora Morgen? This is why I tell you both to not worry if you think your stories are "cliché" or "trite". Look at how similar those two isekais seem on the surface, but they are still two very different stories with very different vibes. I'll get more into the differences in a bit, once I talk about Not Your Typical Reincarnation Story in some depth.

But first, I want to get back to that subscription list. You may have noticed that I didn't mention the first circled story in the above screenshot: The Fateful Invitation. No male lead in the thumbnail, so there IS a slight difference there. It also technically isn't an isekai since the protag Hillaria is never spirited to a new world/time/body. However, her family has hid for centuries that the females in their bloodline have magical powers. One of Hillaria's is that of precognition. She saw into the future where her principality is fully destroyed and burnt to ashes, just because she refused the Emperor's proposal. So, she uses her glimpses into the future to help direct her, similar to how isekai'd characters use the knowledge from their previous life. Which means, while The Fateful Invitation isn't technically an isekai, it still has some of the same flavor. Plus, Hillaria is still a female noble with long, wavy, red hair locked into an arranged marriage/engagement. Once you get far enough into the story, you find out that Hillaria's glimpse into the future saw the Emperor marrying someone else and this leads to Hillaria's principality getting attacked. So, not too dissimilar to the other plots of the female lead getting killed off because they are depicted as the villainesses against the Emperor/King/Prince/Duke's future wife. Also, you guessed it, the Emperor IS the romantic love interest, is a noble of higher standing than the protag, and has short, straight, black hair with shaggy bangs - Hillaria even comments on how the Emperor should really cut his bangs since they seem to bother his eyes.

HOW IS THIS SUCH A SPECIFIC TROPE!? AND HOW DO I KEEP FINDING IT!?

Well, to be fair to The Fateful Invitation, after being suggested NYTRS I just straight up went into the Romance category and searched for any/all that had thumbnails with noble-looking women with long, wavy, red hair. Just for S&Gs. There's also Divorcing My Tyrant Husband, but I haven't gotten around to reading that one quite yet. Although, yes, the "tyrant husband" in question does have a disinterested-stare, and is a black-haired noble (whom, I'm presuming, ends up as the main love interest... if the trope holds true).

I was also amused by the two comics I point out via arrows in the above image. Rental Hero because it still showcases both red and black, straight, shaggy-banged hair in the image... even if both hair types are on the protag mid-transformation. The other story, Answer Me, My Prince, is yet another isekai romance that includes an isekai'd noble (who is actually a book character) and a female lead with long, wavy, red hair. The main differences with AMMP are: 1) the isekai'd noble is actually the titular prince, creating a reverse-isekai, 2) the love interest has blonde hair...., and 3) the female lead does not seem to be in the same mortal danger as the other protags I've been reading.

Still, the wavy, red hair got me.

The thing I find the most humorous about this whole trope? It seems to just be translated/localized manhwas that have it! I've never experienced it while watching anime isekais. It also doesn't show up even once among those Canvas Webtoon series I follow. Is there some cultural significance in South Korea that I am unaware of that created such a weirdly specific trope? If you know anything about this I'd love to learn! Drop me some knowledge in that comment section below!

Getting back on topic, i.e. the stories I've been following. This is going to take a little while again, so here's another skip if you want to just jump to the story that rejuvenated my desire to write.

I eluded to the next story I started reading earlier - Not Your Typical Reincarnation Story - but I actually want to save that one for last since it relates to my own writing.

So, skipping ahead, we have The Fateful Invitation. I already gave the rough plotline earlier: magical princess sees her principality fall after she refuses the Emperor's proposal and he marries someone else instead. To try to prevent this future, the princess Hillaria agrees to the Emperor's proposal to become one of his Empress Consorts. Basically, he has four ladies that are the top candidates to become his wife, the empress, and they live on the palace's estate - Vladislav - a la The Bachelor or something. They all have incredibly high standing within the empire, considering they are the Emperor's personal consorts. They are each given their own personal, lesser castles within Vladislav, which, in and of itself, is the center of the empire's capital. Of course, the consorts also compete against each other to eventually woo the Emperor into marrying them and making them Empress.

Hillaria wants none of this. Due to her premonition, she goes into the arrangement with no desire to even interact with the Emperor. Why would she? He could potentially destroy everything dear to her. She is there to simply fulfill her obligation (and, hopefully, convince the Emperor to remain peaceful towards her principality). The other consorts - or, at least, two out of the other three - are confused and irritated by Hillaria's apparent lack of interest in the Emperor. Especially since Hillaria's dismissal of the Emperor only makes her all the more intriguing to him, so he pays her special attention.

I'll be honest. This story hasn't been as captivating as the others. I'm kind of "meh" about Hillaria. The other protagonists start on their back foot and have to plot and claw and strategize to try to find a peaceful existence that doesn't end in their demise. Hillaria, on the other hand, goes in with an advantage and has no problem throwing her weight around. The other consorts want to pull rank - since Hillaria was the last to accept the status of consort - or show off their own political power in a very intriguing way that I've seen in the other isekais. While this then becomes a political chess match in stories like I Will Live the Life of a Villainess or Leveling Up My Husband to the Max, in The Fateful Invitation Hillaria just throws around "I am a princess and therefore have higher standing than you, a duke's daughter. I don't have to listen to you" and.... there ends the conflict. For anyone that "I'm a princess" might not work against, she has another card up her sleeve: she can blackmail the other consorts over the murder of Hillaria's consort predecessor. Right out the gate the other consorts don't have a leg to stand on against her.

There's also this whole side plot where the Emperor's mother had died and his father re-married and had a second son. Upon the former Emperor's death, instead of naming his second son - the son of his current wife; the current Empress - as his successor, he upheld tradition that his first-born would become the new Emperor. The Empress Dowager briefly remained in power since her step-son was only 15 when her husband died, but he soon wrestled control from her. In the process, the new Emperor exiled his younger half-brother. For some reason, the Empress Dowager didn't go with her teenage son - nor was she also exiled with him??? - and instead remains within the Empress's castle upon Vladislav. She is, of course, plotting to dethrone the Emperor so she can place her son in his stead. The Emperor is well aware of this fact, but, again, doesn't exile his step-mother???? Instead, there's this supposed political chess match wherein the Emperor and his step-mother are each building up their metaphorical army of political backers, and the Empress Dowager is even tainting at least one of the Empress Consorts against the Emperor. This whole thing is supposed to set up another layer of conflict and difficulty for Hillaria, but she just kind of skirts it by staying neutral and convincing the Emperor to order her to not introduce herself to the Empress Dowager, that way it's not Hillaria's fault that she doesn't interact with the Empress Dowager.

All of this potential conflict set up in the story, and yet nothing even comes close to touching Hillaria. She is becoming a full-on Mary Sue, sadly. What's worse? The comments are FLOODED with praises for the female lead with things like "We stan our queen" and "yes girlboss!" and "she can order me around any time she'd like"..... I dunno. I just never connected with this character.

The EMPEROR, on the other hand?! The top comments tend to hate him - mostly because he's always one step ahead of Hillaria, and they can't stand that the male lead is outsmarting the "girlboss" female lead - but I ADORE him so much! Specifically because he IS outsmarting Hillaria! He's her only true opponent. Her only actual source of conflict. He turns the story into this cat-and-mouse game of wits. HE is what turns the story into the political chess match (with romantic elements) that I want to see/read.

That, and I greatly enjoy the side characters. The former Top Dog consort feels so much more complex and fleshed out than Hillaria. You don't know whether to hate her or root for her. The consort that the Empress Dowager managed to get on her side is one of those classic romantic "idiot" rivals/villains where you love to see her fail at all of her ill-conceived plotting. The third consort we don't know much of outside of being introverted and potentially a secret sword master. Then there's a member of the Emperor's inner-circle: a duke who is also secretly a weapons trafficker, and the cruel older brother of the Former Top Dog consort.

I read all of the other stories on my subscription list in order to follow and root for the main character(s). Conversely, I will probably continue to read The Fateful Invitation for all of the other characters despite the lead.

Oof.

The other problem I have with TFI? The names! Oh dear lord. I get that this is a localization of a manhwa where the South Korean author was trying to write about European culture, but....

The main character is named Hillaria. Which, of course, I have to fight to not read as "hilarious". I'm actually a little grateful when characters use the nickname "Hill" for her, but even that feels so ridiculous. Her last name is also Guinevere, so I'm always going to think of Arthurian legend whenever her family name comes up. Then, the Emperor in the story is named Ebenezer! I'm sorry, but after growing up with A Christmas Carol, I cannot read/hear the name "Ebenezer" and not think "Scrooge". So it's hard to take the male lead seriously as well. This fact is frequently pointed out in the comments section, so I'm glad I'm not alone in that. The surname "Winfred" doesn't really help matters either. Especially when his exiled half-brother is simply "Nathan". Speaking of, Nathan's mother, the Empress Dowager, is named "Lobelia". Sure. Why not? Next, you have the Former Top Dog consort: Sillotte (which is sometimes spelled with only one l). What IS that name? Is it supposed to be pronounced like "silhouette"? Is it "Charlotte" but with a "Sil" instead of "Char"? Why hasn't the translator or editor caught the spelling inconsistency for this name? Then you have her older brother Vaneyck. Not Van Eyck, as is normal, but Vaneyck, all one-word. We'll ignore that a) Van Eyck is a surname, not a given name, and b) Vaneyck and Sillotte's family name is friggen KLARINET! Another name that doesn't stay consistent throughout the story is the introverted sword master consort: Jayne (or... Jaina? Hillaria refers to her as Jayne, but everyone else calls her Lady Jaina. Is Jaina her last name? Is she Jayne Jaina?) The final rival consort is the one that Empress Dowager Lobelia is using as a pawn: Olivia Erasmo. Probably one of the most normal names we have in this lot. Especially when you see that Hillaria's head lady-in-waiting is called Chelloste! Again, HOW DO I PRONOUNCE THAT!? Meanwhile, Hillaria's main hand-maiden/companion/whomever she is is named Katie.... And Hillaria's childhood friend is Beatrice "Bebe" Genesis. Bouncing back to the consorts, before Hillaria's invitation, Emperor Ebenezer had another consort: Beniche Sebastian. Her younger brother Karthal was taken in by Hillaria's family upon Beniche's murder.

It's exhausting trying to keep these horrible names in my head. And yes, I did have to look all of those up right now, because I just could not wrangle them to the surface of my memory otherwise. On the plus side, it's a great case study on what NOT to do when coming up with fantasy names, I guess.

Racing through a few of my other subscriptions, we have a digital hosting of the official Avatar: The Last Airbender post-series comic The Promise. It was originally a three-part graphic novel published in 2012 by Dark Horse comics. That was a fun comic to see pop up on the home page when I opened the app a couple of weeks ago! You know I had to instantly subscribe to that one!

Lore Olympus has been on my To Read list for a while now. It's again a retelling of the story of Hades and Persephone. This time it has a more modern spin and seems to have more of a "high school drama"/"CW" vibe to it? Here's the official summary:

Witness what the gods do…after dark. The friendships and the lies, the gossip and the wild parties, and of course, forbidden love. Because it turns out, the gods aren’t so different from us after all, especially when it comes to their problems. Stylish and immersive, this is one of mythology’s greatest stories -- The Taking of Persephone -- as it’s never been told before.

I've heard awesome things about it, and it keeps getting suggested to me. I just haven't officially cracked it open yet.

Ever since creating Lia, I have had an affection towards volcanic rock and obsidian in general. So, when I saw a thumbnail with a similar vibe as all of those redhead isekai protags, and the title was called Obsidian Bride, you know I had to subscribe to it. It's another one that I haven't officially started yet, but it feels right up my alley lately. Plus, I use subscriptions on Webtoon more as bookmarks so I don't lose track of comics I find interesting, even if I haven't started reading them yet.

Based on the summary, despite me initially looking at Obsidian Bride because its thumbnail reminded me of the isekais I've been reading, this comic has more of a My Happy Marriage and The Dragon King's Bride vibe. The main character is forced into an arranged marriage, much like the isekais. However, she is then invited to join "the empire's Jewel Box" where each member is assigned a gemstone - presumably, she's obsidian. There she finds friends and perhaps true love.

I talked briefly about it above when I was discussing isekais, but I also started following the completed story Answer Me, My Prince. Another one on the To Read list that I haven't officially started. However, the premise seems fun. The main character is a romance editor who is given the manuscript for a romance novel's sequel, along with an antique trunk. She stores the manuscript within the trunk, only to discover the next morning that the manuscript is gone, and is replaced by a letter from the novel's male lead: the titular prince. Apparently the typical chaos ensues as the editor tries to sort out what is going on with her penpal, the fictional prince, and tries to deduce if he's been magically conjured into the real world. And, if so, how to find him and send him back. Seems fun. Just haven't taken the time to start it yet.

The most recent romance I HAVE started is My Husband Changes Every Night. Quite frankly, I was amused by the title, and then intrigued by the synopsis the app gave:

Following the death of the World Tree, all that stands between the apocalypse and salvation is the Divine Maiden, prophesied to restore peace and prosperity. But never mind all that. Princess Teriella Rufeon has more pressing issues at hand: her family keeps trying to kill her, she’s got a secret healing power to keep under wraps, and she’s just found out she’s being sent off to marry the infamous tyrant Emperor Rivanfel von Leonharta! But there’s more to Rivanfel than meets the eye, and Teriella discovers she isn’t the only one with a grave secret to hide…

How could I NOT tear into this story to figure out what the HECKEN is happening!?

What's happening is that Teriella is a spirited middle child of a cruel, power-hungry, and callous king. I haven't gotten far enough in yet to know why everyone hates Teriella so much, but, given her pink hair compared to the rest of her siblings having their father's sickly-green hair, I'm guessing she's a half-sibling of some sort? They also hate Teriella because all of their attempts to kill her backfire and instead severely injure them. HA! Serves them right!

In an attempt to both get rid of Teriella and gain more political power, her father sells her off as the emperor's newest potential bridal candidate. Thus far, the emperor has cast out all previous candidates, and there's been rumors of him straight up executing them. As far as the Rufeon (appropriate name) household is concerned, either Teriella can prove herself useful by becoming empress, or she'll be shunned/killed off. Either way, she's out of their hair. And worse comes to worst, if she is shunned by the emperor but returned to the Rufeon kingdom, her father could just sell her off again to another king to try to build political favor that way.

The moment the emperor sees Teriella, however, he realizes that she's the prophesized Divine Maiden; the only one that could temporarily cure his own ailment. See, he was secretly experimented on as a child. The experiments were so horrid that all traces of it - including the test subjects - were supposed to be destroyed. He is the sole survivor and the lone bit of evidence that the experiments even happened (outside of the populous' memory of the events). Despite being the emperor, he still has to hide that he was experimented on. However, every night, as the moon shines upon him, a side effect of the experimentation causes a tattoo to form on his chest and his hair to become snow-white. To keep his secret, he has always hidden away after sunset, causing him to be viciously stern about his isolation. This resulted in the rumors of him being an angry drunkard, a womanizer (due to his revolving door of empress candidates), and a cold-hearted murderer.

However, if Teriella could use her power to heal him, he wouldn't have to hide at night! Problem is, her healing isn't permanent, so she'd have to cure him nightly. She agrees because he reminded her that religious zealots would want to sacrifice the Divine Maiden in an attempt to appease their god and revive the World Tree. He'd keep her secret if she agrees to keep his... and help him out.

That's as far as I got into that story, but it seems fun.

As I mentioned above, I haven't gotten around to reading it yet - haven't even officially subscribed to it yet - but there is also Divorcing My Tyrant Husband. Another isekai with the wavy-redhead protag who had been isekai'd into her favorite novel. She's reincarnated as "Empress Robellia Le Castilla, the wife of the tyrant Alexandros the second." She had felt sorry for Robellia while reading the novel, but is now struggling to change her fate... mostly by divorcing her husband. She thinks it will be easy since the Emperor was always more affectionate towards his consort in the novel. Which leads me to believe that, just like all of those other isekais, the protag actually gets reincarnated into the novel's protagonist's romantic rival/the villainess of the story. Much like all of the other stories, the male lead who is seemingly cold to the villainess in the novel turns out to be the isekai'd protag's main love interest. The more the protag tries to convince Alexandros to divorce her the more intrigued with her he becomes.

Finally, we have The Reborn Young Lord is an Assassin (although, the internet tab is titled "The Regressed Son of a Duke is an Assassin"... sooooo... maybe that's the literal title translation???). This one seems to be a lot like Leveling Up My Husband to the Max, in which the main character gets reincarnated as his younger self in order to correct his life path. It's also very similar to Mythic Item Obtained in that regard. In fact, given that this story has a male lead and is focused on him being an assassin, I'm assuming it is much more akin to MIO. In other words, aggressive and action-packed as opposed to romantic. So, much like MIO, it's probably on the reading backburner for a bit while I ride my Isekai Romance wave.

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OK. All other comic subscriptions recapped? Good! Now we can get into the true meat-and-potatoes one! The one I've been skirting around all update: Not Your Typical Reincarnation Story.

Not all villains are evil. When Suna Choi reincarnates as Edith Rigelhof, the villain from her favorite novel, she is determined to change Edith’s life around and treats everyone with kindness. Although she marries the handsome Killian Rudwick, he is madly in love with the original protagonist of the book and mistrusts Edith because she is from a rival family. Will her marriage survive the whirlwind of family feuds, love triangles, and more? Will Edith find her happy ending?

When Webtoon first suggested Not Your Typical Reincarnation Story I thought it was going to be a knockoff of either the completed Leveling Up My Husband to the Max or the on-going I Will Live the Life of a Villainess, which has a very similar plot. But I was so impressed! Out of this whole “Female Lead isekai'd into redheaded noble woman” trope, I think NYTRS is my favorite. I still very much love IWLLV, but that story is more focused on the Female Empowerment and political power grabs between the princes. The actual romance of this supposed romance-genre comic is VEEEERY much on the back burner. LUMHttM is also very enjoyable. For that story, the romance is a lot more forefront, and it does still have the survival drive of the female lead avoiding the fate of being executed. However, there is this weird, sci-fi “The Creator” mystery element in NYTRS that just kind of pushes it to the forefront. That, plus the mystery of sorting out who is actually an ally of Edith and who are the villains is so fun.

I should probably give you the broad-strokes plot, huh?

Okay, so, Suna Choi is that nondescript South Korean office worker with long hair in a high ponytail that meets a tragic end, and is reincarnated as the villainess of her favorite book: Stop Obsessing Over Me, Brother!

In the novel, the protagonist Rhyse (pronounced Reese) Sinclair is the illegitimate daughter of a count. Due to her illegitimacy, her family horribly mistreats her (again, think "Cinderella"). One day, she saves Duchess Jocelyn Rudwick from falling off of her horse. The Duke and Duchess are instantly (platonically) smitten by the girl's beauty and kindness. Upon hearing how she is mistreated, they offer to forgive the massive debts owed by the Sinclairs in exchange for guardianship over Rhyse. Now a ward of the Rudwicks, she is finally trained and raised in the ways of being a lady of the court. She also meets the Rudwicks' sons Cliff and Killian. The boys instantly fall for her and obsessively dote over her, hence the title of the novel. But, alas, Duke Axel Rudwick's most fearsome rival Count Rigelhof wished to set up a marriage arrangement between his daughter Edith and one of the Rudwick boys. Knowing that Count Rigelhof was planning a coup against the Emperor, Duke Rudwick agreed to the arrangement, hoping they could keep the count's beloved Edith as a sort of hostage to rein the count in (meanwhile, the count was hoping he could use Edith as a spy within the Rudwick's household). Edith is married off to the younger son Killian, but, in the novel, this doesn't stop him from pursuing Rhyse. The whole novel then centers on Rhyse's love triangle between her and the two brothers, all while the jealous Edith does everything in her power to try to sabotage and even kill Rhyse so that she (Edith) could remain Killian's wife and benefit from that social status. In the end, Rhyse marries the older brother Cliff, but Killian still executes Edith himself for her many crimes against Rhyse and the Rudwick family as a whole.

Suna figures the easiest way to rewrite Edith's fate is to simply let her husband Killian be with Rhyse. Don't get jealous. Don't get attached. It's a simple business arrangement. Stay out of Killian's way so he can continue to act as if he wasn't married. Step two: just... don't spy on the Rudwicks for her father. She'll already be out of his home, so what could he do about it anyway? Maybe she could let him know that his coup is futile, and he might be grateful for her saving him and his troops. Easy peasy!

That is.... until she meets the count. Upon which, a sci-fi like screen (disembodied voice?) pops up to announce that Suna is "Edith Rigelhof v13.0".

Scene from episode 1
Story by Lemon Frog
Art by A-jin

(Yeah, I know, art re-uploading is a trash move, but I wanted to convey the pseudo-sci-fi vibe they included in this fantasy romance. I hope the watermarks are enough to appease.)

Suna is then shown Edith's memories up until that point. That way Suna knows everything Edith did, and understands the role she's supposed to be playing. It is then that Suna realizes that Edith's pampered, promiscuous, entitled, and conniving persona showcased in the novel was all just a facade. In truth, she was routinely abused by her father, brother, and even the Rigelhof family servants. She was draped in gorgeous, revealing gowns and gaudy jewelry by her family whenever she was to be paraded around the other nobles. She was prostituted out as a means of espionage and as a tactic to break up powerful rivals. If she failed any of the sleezy, underhanded tasks she was given she would be severely punished once alone with her family.

Suna knew she needed out of that house and away from that "family". She was elated to be married off to Killian. Especially when, upon meeting him at their engagement dinner, she instantly fell for his good looks. She told herself to not get attached because his heart belonged to Rhyse already, but she still loved herself the eye candy she was about to get hitched to.

That is when everything started to fall apart for poor Suna/Edith. She knew all of the main plot beats; all of the core conflicts between Edith and Rhyse. She did everything within her power to try to avoid them.

First was an incident on Edith and Killian's wedding day. Perhaps out of spite or as a show of force, the Rudwicks dressed Rhyse in a white gown to attend the wedding. In the novel, Edith berates Rhyse about the white dress, setting up their conflict and establishing Edith as the villainess. This time, though, when Rhyse went up to Edith (Suna) to welcome her into the family, Edith honestly found Rhyse adorable. She complimented her dress and how good it looked on her. When Rhyse later ran into Killian, however, the interaction went sour. Rhyse happily told him that Edith complimented her dress. To which, Killian warned her to not take Edith's words at face value. She was most likely giving her a snide, backhanded compliment, but Rhyse is just too innocent to understand how cruel Edith was truly being.

The next big conflict was with the dressmakers. In the novel, Edith was accused of being bratty, entitled, and snooty about her dresses. Part of that came from the outfits her family dressed her up in, as well as her reputation that she never wore the same dress twice. To try to counter that, when the dressmakers came to the estate, Edith (Suna) helped pick out dresses for both the Duchess and for Rhyse, but, instead of ordering dresses for herself, Edith (Suna) simply ordered to have her dresses altered. Cover up the cleavage, remove the gaudy jewel appliques, and have a more refined fit. Killian still accused Edith of being entitled, snooty, and bratty; claiming she didn't order new dresses because she'd rather re-wear old dresses than wear anything the dressmakers could sew for her.

Next was when the jewelry makers came through. In the novel, everyone was doting on Rhyse, and she felt guilty that Edith was being left out. She offered up a dainty necklace she thought Edith would like. Edith was offended by such a small jewel and instead pointed out some of the most extravagant pieces the makers brought with them. The Rudwicks found Edith greedy, and, to teach her a lesson, Cliff bought up everything to gift to Rhyse. He left only the necklace Rhyse originally suggested for Edith, forcing her to humble herself by either taking that dainty necklace or have no new jewelry at all. However, when Rhyse first offered the necklace to Edith (Suna), Edith genuinely thought it was lovely, and gladly accepted it. Killian offered to buy the necklace for Edith. To not be shown up, Cliff ended up buying the rest of the inventory and gifting it to Rhyse; creating a similar end result as the novel.

Edith was then accused of espionage and smuggling of important military inventory documentation to her father. Despite Edith in the novel doing exactly what she was accused of, Suna/Edith made a point of messaging her father that she would not smuggle intel to him, and he should give up on his coup attempt. And yet, she was still accused of spying, clearly framed.

Edith (Suna) soon realizes that the novel plot is fixed. No matter what she does to try to change Edith's fate, the story somehow self-corrects to keep the plot on track. It even messes with Killian. All of the changes that Suna has made as Edith is slowly winning Killian over. He's softening with her and spending more time with his wife, as opposed to Rhyse. However, if he's not battling his brother for Rhyse's heart then there is no love-triangle conflict. To correct that, whenever Killian starts to show any sort of affection towards Edith (even simply thinking kindly of her), he gets a massive headache, and Rhyse magically shows up to help soothe the pain.

After a particular event - which I'll explain a bit more in a minute - Suna is introduced to the concept of The Creator. Presumably, they are the one who originally authored the story, and the one who keeps course-correcting the plot.

Frankly, as an author who has little-to-no control over my own characters, and as someone who has to constantly course-correct to keep the plot I want to tell.... I feel for The Creator a little bit. Even if they are the true antagonist of the story. And probably why Suna is now the THIRTEENTH version of Edith!

Peeps, I am ABSORBED into this story! March 23rd-24th I did that classic kid tactic of hiding under the covers to continue reading instead of going to bed! I was up until 3am binge reading this comic! I probably would have stayed up longer but my tablet was down to 6% battery! I just craved more and more and more of this wonderful webcomic.

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The art is gorgeous. Edith - the Suna version - is a sweetheart, but also knows how to hold her own. She isn't afraid to stand her ground when she knows she's being wronged, but she also knows when to sit and hold her tongue as her opponent digs their own grave. She knows how to play that political chess match I'm missing from The Fateful Invitation. There's also so many mysteries. So much intrigue.

IS Rhyse as innocent as she seems? Is it all a ploy? She seems almost TOO innocent. Plus, she does show up whenever Killian starts to be affectionate towards Edith, and she is the center of those incidents that go awry even when Edith does everything in her power to avoid conflict. Is that Rhyse's doing? Or The Creator's? Who even IS The Creator? How can Suna/Edith defeat them? Despite evidence of the contrary - namely Novel Rhyse marrying Cliff - did Rhyse prefer Killian over Cliff this whole time, and is jealous of Edith being his wife? Is Cliff the master mind conspirator against Edith? The one who keeps framing her? Something about him feels overly passive-aggressively vicious. What about Edith's mother-in-law, who has always seemed like an ally? Is she as sweet and supportive as she seems, or is she playing the MASSIVE long-con? I mean, she IS still part of the Rudwick family. Is baron Rhynon Filch - the Rudwick family's vassel and head secretary - the ally Edith believes, or is he plotting against her as a means to protect his lords without their direction? Is HE perhaps jealous of Killian? A lot of fans – me included, for a bit – did ship Edith with Rhynon and hoped that part of Edith dismantling the original story plot included her having an affair with him. I mean, it's not like Killian loved her anyway. He could have Rhyse. She would have Rhynon. Happy marriage!

To be clear, I have since changed my mind now that Killian is coming around. I hope instead for he and Edith to learn to love and trust each other. Happy marriage!

The other main thing that NYTRS has for it over the other comics I've been reading? Why, that would be Edith and Killian's romance plot inspiring me to write actual prose finally!

Yeah! I know, it's been about 50mins worth of reading (if you didn't use the skips), but I am FINALLY at the point that I'm sure you fine folks truly care about.

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So, that incident I kind of handwaved past earlier? The one that lead to the reveal of The Creator? Well, Edith discovers that it's pointless to try to change the original novel plot. She has failed miserably up until this point. She's waving the white flag. She might as well not think as hard and just follow the plot as it was laid out in the novel. Give her time to grieve her eventual demise at the hand of her own husband (whom, despite her efforts there too, she has fallen for).

The next big plot point in the novel? Well, after the espionage charge, Novel Edith is fearful of her position within the Rudwick household. In a last-ditch attempt to win Killian to her side - to act as a buffer/shield for her - Novel Edith decides to fall back on her family's training. She'd seduce Killian.

Problem is, Suna knows that the novel version of Killian is so in love with and devoted to Rhyse that Edith's seduction was DOA. When Novel Edith attempts to sneak into Killian's bedroom at night he is furious with her, and it makes everything all the worse for the villainess. Suna/Edith doesn't want to go through with it, but, if she's going to be blamed and shunned for the seduction regardless, she might as well have fun attempting it. Right?

Begrudgingly, Edith (Suna) sneaks into Killian's bedroom, just as the novel version did. She knows that her version of Killian is different than the novel version, seeing hints of him actually careing for her (Edith/Suna). She hopes that he'll become so furious about the attempted seduction that he'll revert to the novel version of himself and she won't have the (seemingly false) hope of his affection hanging over her anymore.

But, surprise-surprise, the seduction not only works, but... it works in reverse! Killian catches Edith in his room and starts teasing her about it. She tries to explain that she didn't mean to do anything salacious. He counters by seducing HER instead! She resists, pointing out that she knows he'd much rather save himself for Rhyse. Oddly enough, this only entices Killian further. His wife knows that he's in love with another woman, and doesn't seem to mind in the slightest. Now all he wants is for Edith to care; to be jealous; to lust for him; to want him all to herself. The seduction continues.

Much like the story Bitterblue that I read back in July 2019, I knew I couldn't just let a handwaved sex scene go undescribed.

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Edited by LycoRogue

Yeah. I know. Me and smut, right? I don't know what it is. That connection - that first physically intimate interaction - just seems too important to handwave past. I woke up the morning after reading that episode, and it just stuck with me. I read a couple more free episodes, but I kept going back to that seduction scene. I needed to know more of what was going on in Edith (Suna)'s head. I needed to know what Killian was thinking as he gave up his virginity for someone other than Rhyse. I needed that passion. That lust. That confusion but also connection. Despite Edith expecting Killian to regret sleeping with her the moment they finished, or even after waking up the next day, neither happened. Killian seemed more attentive with Edith, offered after care, and even playfully flirted still.

I WANT TO HAVE MORE OF THAT! I WANT THAT VULNERABILITY! I WANT THOSE HEART-RACING MOMENTS! I WANT THAT PLAYFULNESS!

And, well, THIS right here is the core of the "write for yourself" advice. Isn't it? If you want a story and it doesn't yet exist, you might as well write it yourself, right?

I mean, I couldn't get Killian nibbling on Edith's neck out of my head anyway, so might as well.

Sunday, March 24th, I spent HOURS (about five? Six?) working on this story. I... definitely didn't expect to spend so much time on it. Let alone spend that kind of time on this fanfic and not even finish it! If you've read my fanfics before you know that I aim to write them so that anyone could read them, even if they aren't familiar with the source material. I like to think that it's a way for my family and/or my fandom friends to join me in a new fandom, even if briefly. It's also a great refresher for myself years later when I might not necessarily remember the source material as well anymore.

So, that said, I PLANNED to simply recap the seduction scene. You know, just to set everything up. A quick lead-in to them actually sleeping together, the same way I did for Sparks for the Moment. Problem is, what started as a recap turned into an almost play-by-play novelization of the comic in order to dive deeper into both characters' psyche a bit. I described every panel between Edith sneaking into the room and that fade to black. I.... did not realize that the seduction scene was made up of THIRTY-FIVE panels! That's more than half of the 61-panel episode (yes, I went through and counted them all). I forgot the seduction scene was literally over half of the whole episode. No wonder it stuck with me.

On top of the novelization of the scene itself, I also recapped scenes that happened earlier in the series - such as Edith's failed attempts to change the story plot or Killian reading a passage of Edith's diary she had shared as a handwriting sample - and added in some inner monologue that wasn't included in the original story but I felt MUST have been happening.

In the end, I wrote over 3700 words that day! That's more prose than I wrote in ALL of 2023! I didn't even get to the scene I wanted to write in the first place. I don't know how I managed it, but I averaged a little over 100 words per comic panel!

Sadly, I still haven't had a moment to finish that story and post it. So I still missed my New Year's Resolution "stretch goal" of publishing a new story once a quarter. But I still consider this a writing victory! I mean... THIRTY-SEVEN-HUNDRED WORDS! IN ONE DAY! How can I be mad about that? Especially when the reason I haven't finished working on the story is because I've been chipping away at this epic of a blog update since March 25th.

I finally had something I was excited to talk about, so I started working on this post. I THOUGHT it was only going to take me a day or two to write up. Then I could get back to finishing my Not Your Typical Reincarnation Story smutty fanfic. I'd publish it, then jump back into this blog post. I'd update it with a link to the new story. I'd check off the "new story per quarter" resolution. Huzzah!

Clearly, things didn't go as planned, but.... yeah. I'm still happy!

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I mean, I'm already 3700 words in, and I haven't even gotten to what I WANTED to write about! How massive is this fanfic going to end up once all is said and done?

More fun? I just checked AO3 for any/all NYTRS fanfics (I included both the original South Korean webnovel and the translated webtoon in my search). There's only TWO stories right now. One is I think written in Ukrainian and the other is a boy-love AU where Suna is reincarnated as a male version of Edith but is still intended to be married to Killian. The non-English one is under 1000 words long, and is 1 out of an unspecified number of chapters. Posted earlier this week! The English BL AU one is also 1 chapter out of an unspecified number, posted November 2023, and is currently holding at 1500 words.

THEN LYCOROGUE COMES IN WITH A STEEL CHAIR!

Edited by LycoRogue

Either this story is getting tossed into a desert and never gets seen by anyone or I will be laying out an all-you-can-eat buffet before some starving Edith/Killian shippers to devour. It will be interesting to see how this goes.

Regardless of how well this smut does, I may very well stay on this NYTRS train for a little while. I've gotten further into the webcomic, and there's a couple more Killian/Edith scenes where Killian's mental state and actions are implied, but I want to actually SEE THEM!

In one scene, Killian is drawn with this completely shook expression on his face. He then storms out of the room. The next thing we see is Killian in his "He Protec" mode over Edith. I know there is some turmoil going on in that man's brain that I'd love to exploit for my own entertainment!

There's also a scene where Duke Rudwick shows Killian the land he'll be inheriting while Cliff gets the rest of the dukedom. Killian tries not to focus on his feelings of being slighted by his father since Killian can't remain within the dukedom. His distraction from that rage? Killian wonders how well Edith will adapt to moving away from the capital and to colder weather. I'd love to explore that as well, along with the week-long journey Killian took both out to the manor he'll inherit and then back to the Rudwick family estate. Same with Killian's thoughts when his mom told him about Edith's cross-stitch project....

There's just so much of Killian's character and thought processes we, the audience, aren't privy to since the story is mostly told from Edith/Suna's POV. I want that content though! I want more of Killian as well!

I might have found my new well of inspiration and I am so so SO excited!

And I promise it won't be ALL smut stories. I'll have some mom-friendly ones in there too.

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Edited by LycoRogue

Now, to ride this wave into working on my stalled Miraculous Ladybug aged-up smut story.....

We'll see where all of this goes. How much more writing will I do? What other bits of this story will inspire me? As I mentioned earlier, I made the mistake of using the ads to unlock early access to the next 3 episodes, which means I don't have anything new to read for A MONTH! Which probably means a lot of re-reads of the free episodes.

Man! It's so awesome when a story just grabs hold of you. The way that "Hey, Arnold!" and Miraculous Ladybug and even Hailey's On It! have all gripped me in the past. I need more of that in my life!

But I'm now about two weeks into working on this blog update! And you fine folks have set up camp to go through all of this with me for over an hour! So, I'll let you go, and I'll return to my smut writing.

Catch ya later this month!

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P.S. - Happy birthday to my niece, my friend celestialTyrant, and my aunt! (It's a big birthday date!)

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