The Invasion of the Bots

Est. Read Time: 20min
This Month's Font: Comic Neue

Oh, hey! My May update is publishing in June. Fancy that. Show of hands, who here is still surprised at how long it takes me to publish these blog updates?

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Cropped by LycoRogue

Same old song as always: I had no clue how to even start this update. It'd be one thing if I actually had any writing to talk about, but my brain blue screened this month. Any time I tried to sit down to work on either blog post - let alone anything fictional - I ended up looking like Minamikawa here.

Panel from Shut Up, Takamori!
by Kamiharu Haruno

I thought I'd be clever this month. Any time something came up that I wanted to talk about in this update, I would open up the draft and just add it. I'd work out the order and flow later. That way I didn't forget anything and I already had a head start. Perfect!

Until I had nothing to add to the draft.... As I said: blue screened. Perpetual buffer circle. In other words, instead of the above panel, I was more like this:

Panel from Shut Up, Takamori!
by Kamiharu Haruno
Edited by LycoRogue
(I spent way too much time on this edit...)

All I ended up adding to the draft were a small handful of comments, which I'll get to in a minute. I even planned to jump into the draft to add my May Blessing as soon as it happened so I wouldn't have to worry about thinking of one when it was time to publish this update.

...

I... did not have anything that shouted "BLESSING!" to me... so that plan also flew out the window as I went the whole month and that portion of the draft remained empty.

May was definitely Brain Shutdown Month.

All I wanted to do was curl up on the loveseat next to my hubby. Watch more Dimension 20 and Game Changer. Read through my vast list of WEBTOON series. Play games. But even then, my brain was too fried for most games, so I simply played my mobile merge games or my color-by-number app on my tablet. Things that didn't really require much thought. Things that allowed me to still be

Art by Kamiharu Haruno
Crude edit by LycoRogue

The fact that no one has really been posting on the Discord server hasn't really helped rekindle my love of writing. Nothing is really sparking. Bluescreening continues.

My only real pull back into writing was when I was surprised by TWO new reviews for You Pretended Not to Care. I am still dumbfounded whenever I get a new comment on this story. This was supposed to be an almost throw-away story that I wasn't expecting to be really seen by anyone. Instead, it is quickly becoming one of my most popular stories!

This was so good!!! I didn't think I would find much fan fiction about this story but I'm very pleased I found yours. This was so lovely. I am currently reading the story and it was so nice to step into their heads a bit more deeply and also have an idea of what may have happened during the fade to black.

I loved how tender it was but also "His angle was lust." Jajaja really made me laugh they are both so horny for each other

This is sooo good!! I’ve been reading and rereading this so much now that the manhwa is over (💔). The use of the original text was so good and I especially loved how you expanded on their feelings. Killian wanting to reward her for wanting him was so 🥹🥹🥹. Their interactions actually felt so in character I loved it so much!! Thank you for writing this god-tier piece of writing 🫶🏾🫶🏾

"God-tier"??? I could have wept! This. This story and these comments are what's keeping me afloat. The fact that this story has been consistently getting love for over a year now keeps my head above water. Thirteen months live, and it is the story with the 4th-most hits! That's surpassing stories that have been available to read for over 5 years! Including multi-chapter stories that would get a new hit every time someone came back to read the next chapter. YPNTC also has the 4th-highest number of kudos. Same deal. It surpassed so many of my other stories that had loads more time to build up that kudos count. Keeping consistent, it's also the story bookmarked the 4th-most out of my whole catalogue on AO3. The only category where YPNTC falls out of the top-5 (out of the top-4, honestly) is in comments. Even so, it's still 12th out of 52!

Considering how sporadic my view/kudos/comments count has been for my first smut story - Sparks for the Moment - I honestly was assuming YPNTC was also going to fade into obscurity. Yes, the story was still on-going when I posted, as opposed to when I uploaded SftM, which was seven years after the novel it was based on was published. Presumably, there was still an active fandom for Not Your Typical Reincarnation Story whereas I had no clue if anyone was still thinking of Bitterblue in 2019. Even so, I had no clue HOW popular the webtoon was. Plus, this was my only entry in that fandom; I'm not otherwise active in it at all. So it's not like people would know to search me out specifically. I published YPNTC expecting the same smattering of fans who may be just as itchy as I was to know what happened during that metaphorical fade-to-black. Just as I had found with the Bitterblue fandom.

Given the TEEEEEEEENY presence of NYTRS on AO3, I was NOT expecting the relative flood to my story!

So, considering the source material for each of my smut fics, here's where we're at.

There's only 178 fics in total for the entirety of the Graceling Realm series (which includes 5 books). I couldn't figure out how to accurately single out which ones are specifically based off the book Bitterblue without going through each fic's tags and summary, and I'm already running too far behind on this blog update to take the time for that. Anyway, out of the initial 178, only 17 focus on a Bitterblue and Saf relationship, including Sparks for the Moment. And my story was the only one listed as explicit (aka, the only smut).

After being live for nearly 6 years, SftM has 1461 hits, 66 kudos, 5 bookmarks (one is a recommendation bookmark), and 4 comments.

Comparatively, Not Your Typical Reincarnation Story / I Thought it was a Common Transmigration only has 11 fics in total! SEVEN of which were published AFTER I posted YPNTC! Which means I published the FOURTH story for this fandom on AO3!!!!

Like I said, I thought this was a virtually non-existent fandom presence on AO3! Out of those 11 fics, 8 are Killian/Edith romances (one of which is mine). Out of those 8 Killian/Edith fics, 1 isn't written in English, and 1 other is a partially gender-swapped AU. Which means YPNTC is just 1 of six canon-compliant, English-written, Killian/Edith romance stories on the whole of AO3! And, once again, mine was the only one listed as explicit (although, given the description in some other ones, maybe a few more should have been "explicit" instead of just "mature"...).

And yet, You Pretended Not to Care has 4092 hits, 332 kudos, 45 bookmarks (2 rec bookmarks), and 17 comments!

It is THE MOST VIEWED fic out of the 11 available, and by nearly 50% over the next-highest (4092 vs 2874 for the 2nd place fic). Same with kudos. YPNTC has 332 and the 2nd-highest (which was published a month before my story) as 227. Once again, YPNTC has the most with regards to bookmarks as well: 45 to 39. Finally, there's comments, wherein the 2nd-most commented on story has 12 comments to my 17.

DUMBFOUNDED! ABSOLUTELY FLABBERGASTED! 

I mean, with Sparks for the Moment setting the precedent, I was NOT expecting the love I've been getting from YPNTC! Especially considering how little my other works have picked up any sort of attention (with exception of Woven Heartstrings and Could Your Paradise Also Be Your Hell?, both of which very much still get consistent love).

Then, to have YPNTC be one of the VERY few stories I have up on AO3 where someone actually tells me that they're a repeat reader!? "I’ve been reading and rereading this so much..." I mean, THAT'S THE DREAM! THIS IS WHAT I'VE BEEN SCREAMING ABOUT!

PLEASE, just let me know that you like my stuff. That it sticks with you. That you enjoyed it enough to go back and dedicate more of your time to rereading it.

Not to discredit that first review. That one also had my heart aflutter. As I mentioned, this fandom's presence on AO3 is so tiny. I get what that person means when they say they weren't expecting to find much on that site. I'm so glad to have provided them with something that really scratched the itch. And knowing that I made that person laugh? To FEEL something? Beautiful! Wonderful! I'm in tears!

Which is a complete contrast to what the heck has been going on over on FFN this past year. After 10 months and a measly 1062 hits (which is still over double the 395 hits on AO3), I finally got my second review on Scott's List Item:  

As I was reading, I couldn't help but see the world unfolding so vividly in my mind the emotions, the atmosphere , the rhythm of each moment. Your story is rich with visual potential, and I'd love to help bring that to life. Whether it's an intense, action-packed sequence or a quiet, emotional beat, your work deserves to be experienced in a way that captures its full depth and energy...

Seems nice, right? *buzzer sound* Wrong. Note the "I'd love to help bring that to life." With all of the bots flooding my DMs to solicit art commissions, that phrase threw up a HUGE red flag. Upon a second look, while the comment seems sweet and encouraging, that's kind of the point. Look at how vague that is! Nothing specific is called out. None of the characters are named. Not a single emoji is used. It doesn't even read like a fan reader would write. I mean, compare this comment to the ones I got for YPNTC. Then you have that closing line: "...your work deserves to be experienced in a way that captures its full depth and energy..." 

Yes. I do comment now and again how I'm built to be more of a visual storyteller, which is why I'm so fixated on acting and video editing. I love visual media. There's a reason it's so much easier for me to consume movies, TV shows, video games, and comics/graphic novels than it is for me to sit and read basic prose. Ironic, considering my wish to become an author, I am well aware.

Scene from Ouran High School Host Club
Meme edit by LycoRogue

Still. This is largely why I keep stating I want "Glitches" to be a web comic or something of the like.

HOWEVER! I don't say ANYTHING about any of that on my fic accounts - be it AO3, FFN, or FP - and so having this commenter be like, "Yeah, your writing is good, but you really should be in visual media" adds to that previous red flag. This commenter wants me to agree to pay them for artwork. I could feel it. 

Also, side note, but it's low-key rude. "I couldn't help but see the world unfolding so vividly" but I still need it to be translated into visual media for others to "[experience it] in a way that captures its full depth and energy"? So.... my descriptive writing isn't good enough? I'm leaving crumbs?

Anyway, as I feared, the bots have now friggen invaded my comments section! On a story that isn't getting any love otherwise. Just to twist the knife.

Confirming my suspicions, literally the same minute I got the email alerting me of the above review, I also got an email alerting me of the below DM from the same user:

Subject: Appereciation and Commission Request..

I'm Fleming Michelle!, a professional comic artist, and I just finished reading your story I genuinely loved it. The way you build tension, craft atmosphere, and develop such authentic characters is incredibly impressive. Every scene played out in my mind like a film, and your dialogue flows like something straight off a bookshelf.

Your writing naturally lends itself to visual storytelling, and I truly believe it has amazing potential as a graphic novel or comic. I'd be honored to collaborate and help bring your world to life through expressive cinematic art that captures the emotion and energy of your work.

No pressure at all just an open invitation to connect , If you're ever interested feel free to message me or reach out on,
Discord: flemingmichelle
I'd love to explore the possibilities with you!
I hope you will like my words!
Warm regards,

That is a straight cut-and-paste from the DM I got. Typos and all. Including the comma after "Warm regards" without any sort of signature to follow.

This year has been a classic case of "Be careful what you wish for...." I had been whining for years about the lack of interaction with my stories. Be it low hit counts, few comments/reviews, no inclusion in anyone's fic recommendations (outside of that one person who recommended Peeping Tomcat to me!), virtually no fanart, or even friends/family talking to me about my stories. Now I get a new message weekly - I'm up to 31 DMs, which is actually MORE than one/week - but every last one is a bot. I finally have the engagement I wanted, but it's not from actual people, and it seems to simply be a scam to get me to pay them for art (that I may or may not actually get, and if I do get any it will most likely be AI generated junk). 

Worst yet, these bots are feeding me things I wish people genuinely felt about my work! I want to let myself believe these DMs are real. Why can't they just be real?

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I'm exhausted. I'm struggling to not just curl up in a ball and cry. Thank God for those YPNTC reviews!

It's little wonder that my motivation to even attempt to write anything is drying up when my audience (for non-smut, at least) seems to be exclusively bots. And, because of this invasion on my FFN and FP accounts, I have to side-eye every single "Guest left kudos" I get for my fics on AO3. Especially because there's been this resurgence of views and kudos for my Hey, Arnold! fics. Why were my works dormant for so long, only for people to NOW find my decade-old stories? Especially with nothing new going on in the HA fandom (that I'm aware of) that would maybe have people want to dig up those old fics.

Are those actual people doing HA deep-dives since the fandom seems to have dried up after The Jungle Movie was finally produced? Or are those hits and kudos just bots swarming AO3?

I hate that I don't know and I hate that I have to seriously consider just locking my account so only logged-in users can read my uploads. So, if you are someone who likes to read my stuff, but don't have an AO3 account to do so, I'm sorry, but you may be locked out of my stories soon. Let me know if you need an AO3 recommendation to set up an account faster than the 2 weeks average (is it still a 2 week wait normally???).

And no, I will not go over again my perpetual argument of "write for yourself" and how it means to write stuff you like to read, not literally "who cares if no one else reads it." I'm so tired of that debate.

All that aside, I will give this shining note of hope: I HAVE been mentally plotting out stupid little things - characters, really - thanks to D&D and TTRPGs in general.

Over on the Oxventure YouTube channel, they have been playing the game Deadlands. One of the game mechanics for Deadlands is the idea of Exploding Dice. It's something that has shown up a lot in TTRPGs lately. The basic concept is if you roll a target number - usually the highest value, such as a 6 on a 6-sided die (d6) - you get to reroll that die and add your previous roll to your new roll. For example, if you exploded your d6 you would reroll it, and if you got a 6 again, you get to reroll again. If you get a five that 3rd roll then your total would be 17 (6 + 6 + 5) instead of the initial 6 that you would have with more traditional rolling rules.

One of the TTRPGs that Hubby watched on Dimension 20 - "Never Stop Blowing Up" - had an evolution to the Exploding Dice mechanic. For that game, instead of the dice exploding, they "blow up". As stated in the official rules (which you can get for free), "Every time [someone] gets the highest value on their die, it Blows Up and that skill moves up to the next die type. Roll that new die and add the results to the current check."

For example, if someone rolled a 4 on their d4 they get to then roll a d6. If they get a 6 on that d6 they get to upgrade again to a d8. Let's say they then rolled a 4 on that d8. Their result would then be 14 (4 + 6 + 4) instead of just 4 that they would normally get with that initial roll in more traditional game mechanics.

Alternatively, I recently read a Reddit post about Cascading Dice, which does the same, but in reverse. For their example, a max-value d12 would then add a d10. If that also maxes out, you'd add a d8, so on and so forth, but capping at a 4 on a d4 since there are no smaller dice to cascade into. It causes a cap, but does still provide a far larger number than the die alone. A d12 cascading all the way into a d4 can get a max of 40. 

The reason I bring all of this up is because of the "Everybody is a Kobold" D&D one-shots I've offered to host whenever Hubby needs an off-week from running our campaign but we still want to play D&D in general. Hubby thought it would be fun to add the Blowing Up dice mechanic from Never Stop Blowing Up. The surviving kobolds are getting smarter, stronger, more charismatic, and hardier the longer they live and the more successful they become.

I loved the idea. So now, instead of rolling a standard d20 and adding the stat modifiers, the difficulty target number they have to reach will be adjusted and they all roll d4s and add their modifiers. If they explode the d4 they instantly roll a d6, so on and so forth. Then, the next time they roll for that stat, they use the last die they rolled and keep the explosions coming.

For instance, if a player has their kobold do something that requires strength and explode the d4 they then roll the d6. If that also explodes they roll the d8. If the d8 didn't explode then they start with a d8 the next time they roll for strength.

With this new mechanic in mind, I wanted to go back to my Kobold Gacha. The last time I hosted this game I wanted to give each kobold its own epithet and then give the character stat adjustments based on that epithet. For instance, Dabe the Medic has a +1 proficiency bonus to Medicine and Survival checks. With this Exploding Dice idea in mind, I wanted to also adjust some things there. Some examples would be Criknik the Cunning, who starts with a d6 instead of a d4 for their Charisma checks, Eggna the Altruistic, who can opt to pass their dice upgrades to a different player and keep rolling with the die that exploded, and Streki the Easily Discouraged, who has to roll the max number on a die twice (not necessarily in a row) before the die would be considered "exploded".

Not the most balanced game mechanic, but if everyone is playing a kobold anyway, might as well go full-chaos mode!

It's not fictional narrative writing, but it was still some semblance of creative expression as I came up with these kobold names, epithets, and character-specific mechanical quirks. Does that count? I say it counts at least a widdle bit.

Alternatively, going back to Dimension 20, the way that the main DM Brennan Lee Mulligan describes the different creatures and fantasy races and their respective cultures has gotten my wheels turning again. Oddly enough, not for D&D or my stories. Instead, Brennan describing fantasy races within his D&D world has me thinking of fleshing out more alien races for my Scum & Villainy campaign.

I haven't actually gotten anything down on the proverbial paper, but the itch is definitely there, and things are slowly percolating in my brain. We'll see if anything comes of that. 

So, two little blips of creativity for May. Better than none at all, but not the greatest. I need to find a way to get back into it for June. In a little over a week is the next Friday 13th. Do I finally start watching Season 6 of Miraculous Ladybug to maybe get back into the mindset of my Plagg Appreciation Day stories? Will I have a new ML one-shot to share at the end of the month?

Only time can tell. As of right now, my May Bluescreening has continued, so I am completely blank on ideas for any Plagg-centric stories, but we'll see.

In the meantime, what blessing do I have for May?

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I tried thinking about this for three days. Yet another reason this update is so belated. However, outside of those two reviews on You Pretended Not to Care, which I already mentioned were life preservers for my writing, I haven't really had any blessings within the writing portion of my life. Sad to say.

So, instead, I'll go for something a bit more general to close out this update with some positivity.

Work has been hectic. It's been crazy. We've been scrambling to fix clerical errors and appease entitled and cranky customers. We've worked long weeks as we adjusted our schedules around everyone's vacations - and by "everyone" I mean my manager's and my coworker's - as well as my coworker picking up an extra day per week working in a different store. Coordinating when we need her versus when they need her has been far more complicated than it ever needs to be.

I've dealt with colleagues being incompetent and having to clean up their mess. I've dealt with representatives from other companies that we partner with who also seem to frequently drop the ball. I've called out my manager's boss whenever he's fallen behind on tasks.

My job has been far more stressful than it really ever should be. Hooray for entitlement and/or incompetence. 

That all said, both my manager AND her boss - especially after I've oh-so-kindly remind him of tasks he's fallen behind on - have verbally told me with a sincere tone how much they appreciate me and my work and how on top of things I am. Honestly, I'd prefer a show of appreciation via a pay-raise, but, in lieu of that, it means a lot for my bosses to acknowledge me.

It's the same thing I had to tell myself waaaaaay back when I first got into the work force and had to deal with people mad at me for things outside my control: as long as the ones who are signing my paycheck think I'm doing a great job, that's all that matters. Everyone else can be mad at me and try to throw me under the bus, but as long as my boss(es) knows the truth and will back me up, who cares?

Getting that sincere, "Thank you so much for being here and for everything you do. I don't know how we'd keep everything together without you," really means a lot.

(Not as much as if that appreciation translated into getting paid OVER minimum wage, but at least it helps my morale a bit.)

Anyway, here's hoping I can find something equally promising with regards to my writing this month. I want a writing-focused blessing to share with you in *checks calendar* dear lord, twenty-some days.... That's going to fly, isn't it?

In the meantime, I'm off to catch up on Dracula Daily finally.... catch you in 10 days (or so) for June's LycoRogue's Reading Corner.

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