New Year; New Me (Birthday Edition)

Est. Read Time: 12min
This Month's Font: Playpen Sans

Welp. Here we are. Over a week into August, and only NOW publishing my JULY writing update. At least I HAVE a July writing update... sorta... I'll get to that. I just couldn't NOT update two months in a row. It was hurting me.

However, as I mentioned in my July LRRC, I still haven't really done anything in the writing field. So, it's kind of understandable that I don't have much of an update.

But, my birthday has passed. So, New Year; New Me (birthday edition). We'll see if it sticks more than the New Year; New Me (calendar year edition).

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OK, so a literal new "me" with regards to my little LycoRogue emojis I use here. Bitmoji, for who-knows-what reason, decided they wanted to update their avatars to be 3D models (with still 2D... everything else...). Probably to better match (and compete?) with the likes of the Apple Memoji and Facebook Avatar. However, I just CANNOT stand the new look. I haven't found a perfect replacement for Bitmoji quite yet, but I've at least temporarily settled on Avatoon for now.

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Not the biggest fan. Avatoon is too "teen/young adult fashionista" forward. Reminds me of the digital fashion dolls of the early 00's. I can't adjust the body shape of the avatar. I can't really customize the clothing options, and none of them really fit my aesthetic. The hair options are limited. There aren't pre-made reaction/emojis that I can just look up and grab like I can for Bitmoji. I have to choose from a variety of poses (which, oddly enough, is a lot but also not many poses that I'd actually like to use). I can't adjust the poses like you could in OLD old-school Bitmoji. I have to sift through a BUNCH of stock photos (a lot, I fear, may be AI generated, but I can't be certain) in order to find ANY that could work as a background. After AAAAAALLLLL of that, I then have to meticulously build my reaction photo: see both of the above. Not great for quick emote responses in messages, unless I take the time to build up my own archive....

Still, while this version of my LycoRogue persona doesn't look like "me" the way the Bitmoji 2D model perfectly did, it still looks better than THIS nightmare fuel:

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*shudder*

So, until either (a) Bitmoji releases an update that allows users to revert back to the 2D models, (b) Bitmoji releases a separate app for the old-school 2D models, or (c) I find something that's a better replacement for Bitmoji, I guess I'm stuck with Avatoon.

On the plus side, unlike Bitmoji, you can create multiple avatars in Avatoon, and easily switch between them. So I can have my LycoRogue avatar set up for internet-facing places, such as here on my blog or on my socials. Then I can switch to the one that looks more like me irl for when I'm messaging my friends/family. I can even create avatars for my OCs now (which was fun, to be fair).

Lia Madrox
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Willow Driver
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Trish Morrison
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My X-Future/Glitches Girls
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Amara Yori
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Jolene Crisslebalm
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Aubrianne Zani
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My D&D Girlies
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As I mentioned for my LycoRogue avatar, the outfit choices on Avatoon are more fashionista than true avatar. So, obviously, there isn't MUCH by way of fantasy outfits. Meaning, for Amara, Jolene, and Aubrianne, I had to go for more of a "vibe" than what they actually would wear. Somehow, that landed poor Aubrianne in a "Farmer Mom" aesthetic, I guess....

Also, for obvious "can only make human avatars" reasons, I couldn't recreate my tabaxi Emerald Gaze or bronze dragonborn Kriv.

The X-Future/Glitches gals, on the other hand, are pretty spot-on to my mental image of them. So... yay! The only exception would be that I'd love for Trish to look more grunge and her hair more wild.

Close enough for horseshoes and government work.

And this, dear friends, is why there is no need to turn to AI (aka plagiarizing) image generators. There's tons of these other generators out there where the art is made specifically for the generators by humans knowing what their artwork is being used for, and - CRUCIALLY - agreeing to that use. Even if it isn't exactly what you're looking for, with some effort on your end, I'm sure you can get close enough until you can either (a) learn to draw to the standard you want, (b) have a friend draw for you, or (c) afford the cost of commissioning a human artist to draw for you.

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Side note: I'm so glad I still have a hefty archive of the 2D Bitmojis. I already miss the "I Can't Even" shirt on the Avatoon version of my avatar.... Wonder if I could doctor one on. Might have to snag all of the poses available in the app and turn them into a digital paper-doll sort of thing via layers upon layers in GIMP. Then make my archive of avatar reactions/emojis that way.....

Lord, that's a lot of work...

Generated by (old school) Bitmoji

We'll see if I feel like putting in the effort, or if I'll just resolve myself to the mediocre version of my avatar that Avatoon can produce without outside edits.

In the meantime, though... WRITING! This update is supposed to be about my writing! Not about avatar-generators (although, that does remind me that I haven't checked in with Picrew in a while).

Writing wise? Weeeeeellllllll....

Look. I mentioned in my last update, and at the top of this one, the summer has not been great for writing creativity.

Between my vacations, my co-workers' vacations, and my hubby's co-workers' vacations, both Hubby's and my work schedules have been wonky since May. Doesn't look like it's clearing up anytime soon either. That alone makes finding time to hide away and work on fictional writing (or updating this blog) a bit tricky.

It also makes finding time to get together with friends to play D&D a bit tricky. Especially when we had to switch our game day to Thursday nights to help accommodate a player's adjusted work schedule, but then Hubby gets pulled in to work the night-shift nearly every Thursday during Vacation Season. Which means I haven't even broken out Aubrianne more than once or twice ALL OF 2025!

Sooooo I haven't even stretched my writing wings via D&D like I did last year. Which suuuucks. This is how a lot of campaigns die: too much time between sessions. I don't want the campaign to die. I'm not ready to give up Aubrianne. It was rough enough when I had to give up Jolene and Kriv before I was ready.

Maybe it will inspire me to write some Aubrianne fanfic, though. The urge hasn't struck yet, and it never did with regards to writing fics about Kriv, but who knows? I'd prefer to wait a bit longer, though, before having to give up Aubrianne... save for potential fics. I'm hoping we can get back on the D&D wagon by September; before we have to stop again for the holiday season!

Tanuki
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by Yanare Ku

On the flipside, the Discord server has had some activity on it again. Which is nice. Most of it being Dragnime, who is really pushing to get his manuscript done and published in the near future. Bravo to him. Aurora Morgen has also gotten back into writing, it seems, and ne's been sending me some new possible plotline notes that ne's playing with.

Under normal circumstances, having those two talk about their writing would pump me up and get me back into writing as well. Instead....

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Yeah... double use of this Bitmoji. Life's been that grand.

Any and all free time I've had to write I've instead spent playing games. I'd just rather engage my brain in a plot that I don't have to think about. My creativity is completely fried. 

For instance, typically, watching new media - btw, watch KPop Demon Hunters on Netflix if you can and haven't yet; worth the hype - or playing games or listening to my friends talk about their writing helps jumpstart the creative juices for me. This go? No dice. I just itch for more ready-made plot being spoon-fed to me instead of my brain making up some plot itself.

I'm just not getting the usual "Oooo, that's neat, but what if I tweak this???" writing itch.

Not to say I'm not trying. Whenever I find myself with some quiet time away from a screen - while driving, in the bathroom, taking just a few quiet moments at my desk at work, as I fall asleep at night, while making food, etc - I try REALLY hard to come up with SOMETHING.

Mostly, it's been building up my "author got isekai'd into her own story" idea.

My main thought lately is on the author wondering about power dynamics as one of the supporting male leads tries to woo her. Of course, she can't be bothered with romance because she's on a mission to prevent major plot points from happening; spare her poor characters from pain, turmoil, and even death. That doesn't stop one of her supporting characters from falling for her, however. In fact, her efforts and the lengths she has to go to in order to have the authority to do anything about these impending disasters are exactly what the character falls for. 

However, the author CREATED these people, didn't she? She's basically their god, despite evidence to the contrary, namely her not actually having any power to just bippity-boppity their problems away. Once inside her own story, she has no control over the plot outside of the same social dances any of the characters could have done in her stead. 

Regardless of her power (or lack thereof) within her story world, she's still trying so desperately to save her characters because she now sees them as sentient people with full and rich lives and emotions separate from the stories she wrote. They've proven that they don't just follow the script of her novels anymore.

And yet, she can't get past, "this guy likes me because that's how I wrote him." Ignore that she didn't have him falling for the character she's been transmigrated into.

Also ignore any feelings the author might have for this lovestruck character. Of course he's flawed in just the right ways to make him perfect for her. She WROTE HIM that way. It's like falling in love with a robot you programmed to be your lover. This is some Pygmalion shit. 

How do I get the author over that romance hurdle? Not a clue, but at least I came up with something that might add drama... if I ever get around to writing this story.

Eh, it's better than nothing.

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Also, since I missed last month's writing update, I wasn't able to gush about a reader of mine. Which means I get to segue into that now (and we'll ignore the irony of stating that we're going to segue as a means to segue....)

Back at the start of June, I had such a huge surprise as I went through my AO3 emails, and saw the same name over and over and over again. So, on the off chance that they are reading this, I'd like to send so much love and a major thank you to AO3 user Naty1808, who pinged my radar when they left kudos on half of my Aged Up Adrienette stories in one day: 

• Cataclysm the Doubt
• Never Take This for Granted
• Could Your Paradise Also Be Your Hell?
• I Think I Like You (Maybe More Than I Should)

(They didn't leave kudos on 3 Aged-Up Adrienette stories. Don't know if that means they missed them or if they read them and didn't like them enough to leave a kudos. Either way, pour one out for Tell Me You Want Me When You're Sober, Rolling Thunder, and I Just Wanted to Kiss You)

Naty then came back later that same week, and left kudos on 2 out of my 3 Lukanette stories:

Marinette's Song and Acting Weird

Although, to be fair, Acting Weird is more of an Adrien-centric story about him realizing his feelings for Marinette after he found out she started dating Luka. 

Also, much like the above "missed" Aged-Up Adrienette stories, I'm not sure if the 2nd main Lukanette story I wrote - I Was Thinking of You - was either overlooked by Naty, or they didn't like it enough to leave a kudos.... Either way, pour another one out for IWToY.

Naty1808 didn't leave a single review, but I still saw their name show up so many times, and it warmed my heart each time. So, as much as I beg for my readers to interact with me in some fashion, please know that I do still note you even with a simple kudos, and you are still precious to me.

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Speaking of people who are precious to me, seems like a great time to talk about my birthday week!

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For my birthday this year, my husband again gifted me an experience. 

Back for my 30th, Hubby gifted me tickets to Paramore and Fall Out Boy's Monumentour. Three years ago, he got me amazing seats for Imagine Dragons' Mercury World Tour. Even though he didn't join me, Hubby crossed off a Bucket List item for my 33rd when he got me tickets to see the Cirque du Soleil show Varekai. He crossed off another Bucket List item when he made it possible for me to see a Broadway show in NYC (so, not touring) by taking me to see Hadestown for my 40th. This year was yet ANOTHER Bucket List item (quite a few of them are seeing performances...). A little obscure artist you might not have heard of: one "Weird Al" Yankovic during his Bigger & Weirder tour.

Official Concert Art

Seeing this man in concert has been on my list since I was a teenager. I've lamented the times he's literally been less than a 10min drive from my mom's house and I wasn't able to go because I couldn't afford the tickets. Knowing that, the MOMENT Hubby discovered that Weird Al was going on tour again, he kept an eagle-eye out for his tour dates and if any of them were nearby. 

Not only was one relatively close, but it was a week from my birthday! Perfection! He snatched those babies up near-instantly. Because of that, I've actually known that I was going to this concert since this past winter (come to think of it, this may have been my Christmas gift? Joint Christmas/Birthday due to the expense? Can't recall, but I'll count it as his b'day gift to me).

The fact that this man is constantly finding ways to gift me once-in-a-lifetime experiences and builds memories with me? How can I not fall in love with him over and over again every day?

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My other July blessing (Yes! I have TWO! Maybe to make up for not finding one for June?) was also a birthday gift.

If you couldn't tell from these writing updates (and especially my missed ones), I've been in a depressive funk for ages. Which, sadly, has affected my ability to keep up with household chores. Which only stresses me out further, which makes it even harder for me to catch up, which stresses me more; rinse and repeat.

My family - Mom, sis, and brother-in-law - all gave up their weekend to come visit me for my birthday, and, specifically, to help me and Hubby tackle our home. It's still far from perfect, but at least one room has been completely scrubbed top-to-bottom, and I've been able to maintain it ever since. It's also helped motivate me to tackle more Adulting projects/chores; shaking me (at least a little) from my funk.

So, for my family, who took hours out of their life to drive out to visit me, only to spend basically an 8hr work day helping me clean, and then drive HOURS back home - all while my mom has two bum knees - I want to send you the largest thank you.

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Now, I really should be off working on my August LycoRogue's Reading Corner update. I have a LOT to talk about, and less than a week to do so! Hopefully I can hit this deadline. Send me good vibes to help motivate me. 

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Meet Willow

So, uh, I didn't get my Willow introductory posts up last Tuesday like I demanded myself to do. In fact, the more I worked on it, the more involved it became. By the time I finished writing/editing the posts it was Thursday. So I figured I'd just hold off until Sunday, and have my Meet My OCs series update every OTHER Sunday. That way I have two weeks to organize, write, and edit each character's introduction.

In the end, the document to introduce Willow was about 45pgs long! That doesn't include the space that would be taken up with pictures. The final info-dump - and it was indeed a DUMP as I flooded my poor followers' dashes - was SIX POSTS long, and the first 5 posts were each between 6 and 10 pages long in the master word document.

If you want to learn more about Willow - although, I think I have already shared pretty much all of it on here in some shape or form - you can check out my Meet Willow mini-series over on Tumblr.

• Part 1 introduces who Willow is, gives some of her family history/backstory, and explains her powers.
• Part 2 gets a bit more in-depth with her major relationships throughout X-Future, as well as how I'm planning on adapting those relationships in my rework for Glitches.
• Part 3 turned out MASSIVE as I recapped every major event Willow went through in the X-Future plot line, as well as explain how much of her story is going to be brought over to Glitches.
• Part 4 gave ALL the visuals I have for Willow.... And... it's- it's a lot.
• Part 5 actually has 5 different scene samples of Willow.
  As I was going back through the X-Future role play for research for Part 3, I was amused by some of Willow's interactions. I truly did forget some key bits about her since I haven't role played her for 2yrs. I wanted to showcase those bits via narrative prose.
  Samples include:
  • The one-shot "Mutual Teasing" to showcase Young Willow and her early dynamic with Devon
  • A snippet of the X-Men detention cells scene from "Please, Let Me Explain." Mainly the interaction of:
    Devon: "I'm innocent and never meant to hurt you."
    Willow: "Well, you being innocent makes my life worse; could you just admit to being the bad guy for me?"
  • The one-shot "It Is So On!" to showcase Snarky Willow, her interactions with Nyssa, and her attitude towards Devon post-Brotherhood return.
  • A prose adaptation of Willow's Astral Plane fight with Agony in X-Future, specifically showing off how powerful she is compared to her foil.
  • A prose adaptation of my role playing of Willow confronting Lia's tendency to overburden herself. Namely, the final interaction where Lia: "All of my friends die, and I'm useless to prevent it; why do I even exist?" is responded to by Willow: "Their deaths aren't about you! God, your ego! Get over yourself."
  She's a comfort, that one...
• Finally, after overwhelming everyone, I finished up with a bit of fun by showing off the two main Custom Wrestler entrances Hubby and I created for Willow.

Actually, since this is the first time I tried to film them, I'm cool with showing off the entrances here too. Sorry for the video quality, though. I don't have any recording hardware for the Xbox, so I had to resort to using my phone to record the video... Meh, it works....

This is Willow's individual wrestler entrance. She's donning her Cheshire Cat illusion, and wearing the closest thing I could get to her X-Men uniform. Her entrance music is also her unofficial theme song: "I Get Off" by Halestorm.

 This is Willow's Mixed-Gender Tag Team entrance for her and Chayse. I had Chayse in his casual, everyday clothes, and I had Willow in the closest to her "everyday clothes" that I created: a Slutty School Girl outfit. Their entrance music is "My Goddess" by The Exies.

So... yeah... if it's not obvious, that was what took up most of my week. Well, that and more reading, which I'll get to in a minute.

Next on the docket? Lia.

I was going to bounce over to Jolene, since I probably know her about as well as Willow, and she has a lot of visual aids too. However, that's the problem. I had originally saved a bunch of picture references for my own purpose, so I never noted the artists. I'm going to need time to try to track them down, but it will also be a bit of an uphill battle. Especially since I can't even re-find the image I had used for Jolene herself. She may need more than 2 weeks to be good to go.

Alternatively, I was thinking of writing about Amara, simply because she's my oldest-existing OC, and I THOUGHT I knew her inside and out.

However, ever since I started using Tumblr, I've really picked up on how "stand-offish female lead with a wounded heart that just wants to be loved" cliche Amara actually is. When I first created her, I had her physically abused by her father's side of the family, and then emotionally abused by her mother's side of the family. Giving up on her relatives, Amara went to a Human town to learn how to become an adventurer, but Something Vague happens, and she retreats to the wild. Then, upon near starvation during a particularly harsh winter, Amara is saved by a hermit who trains her on crucial survival skills. He becomes one of the first people to ever show her kindness - outside of her mother - and proves to her that Humans aren't entirely unbearable. At the very least, they can be useful allies/companions. With a renewed outlook on society, she becomes an Adventurer.

It was good, but I needed to figure out that Something Vague portion to figure out what drove Amara to the wild; giving up on society as completely useless to her. I also needed a reason for her to be so stand-offish around men, and why she purposely tried to make herself as unattractive to them as possible. About 5 or 6 years ago, I thought I figured out my solution: 16yo Amara, having traveled to the closest Human city outside of her family's woods, gets kidnapped off the streets, drugged, and forced into prostitution. When she finally breaks out of the brothel, she's so disgusted with Humans, and males in general, that she runs to the woods to live among the "more civilized" animals.

Fast forward to a year or two ago, and that "solution" to Amara's attitude left a foul taste in my mouth. I was basically using repetitive rape as a plot device for character development. Also, if Human males were that evil towards her - the physical abuse was also from her Human male relatives - then why the hell would she trust a Human male hermit, even if he did provide her food and shelter? She also wasn't showcasing nearly enough PTSD and other such symptoms of such a harsh trauma as sex trafficking.

And, on a MUCH more minor note, I couldn't figure out how she was able to break out of the brothel, especially when she was chained to her room. The only solution I could think of was a "good-natured" patron took pity on her and released her, and I hated that a man had to rescue her and set her free...

Still, the forced prostitution stayed in her backstory, because I couldn't think of an alternative.

Until recently, that is.

While reading "Graceling" by Kristin Cashore, I did NOT get a "Legend of Zelda" vibe from the story, as I've mentioned last week, but I DID see Amara a great deal in Cashore's lead Katsa. Both leading females are deadly warriors that no one wishes to mess with. A simple glare was enough to clear the room. Even with this harsh reputation, both women actually find the violence exhausting and disagreeable. Neither woman truly wants to be seen as attractive by men, even though they can't hide how conventionally beautiful they are. Katsa counters this by refusing to wear dresses whenever possible, and chopping her hair close to her scalp. A decision that was mostly functional, as long curly hair is a major pain to maintain and difficult to fight with, but it had the added benefit of making her more masculine looking. Amara, on the other hand, purposely kept herself filthy - covered in dirt and her hair tangled in unruly dreadlocks - and wore men's clothing whenever possible to hide her curves. Both women just wish to be free of criticism and obligation. Katsa wants to be her own woman, instead of the muscle of her king, and Amara wishes for her mother's family - and Elves in general - to just accept her.

I had originally created a love interest for Amara; a Human fighter who falls for her, warts and all. He knows she's broken, and he doesn't demand she give him affection in return. All he asks is that she accepts HIS affection, and finally believe herself worthy of being loved. A task that proves trying, since even Amara's mother was a bit distant from her, emotionally. Eventually, Amara not only accepts his love, and the realization that she DESERVES love, but she also falls for him in return. She doesn't necessarily soften due to his love, but she does finally show her existing soft spots to others; now feeling safe to do so.

For Katsa, Cashore had her also believe she wasn't suited for love. Katsa is actually surprised to discover how many of her companions have fallen in love with her. It's a pretty amusing scene as she races to her cousin and demands to know if HE has also fallen in love with her. To which the cousin just kind of chuckles before admitting that he does love her, but he certainly isn't IN love with her. Katsa is determined to remain unmarried and childless, something I'll touch upon more as I fully talk about this book. She then meets Po, a fellow Graceling, who is very nearly her match in hand-to-hand combat. They agree to train together while secretly gathering information on who would want to kidnap Po's grandfather. There is a hiccup in their relationship and trust...

...when Katsa figures out Po's true Grace, however, his encouragement sticks with her, and Katsa decides to officially free herself from her uncle's service. After threatening the king into submission, Katsa decides to forgive Po's deception and travel with him to find the answers he needs about his grandfather's kidnapping.

While on a quest - which takes months to complete - Po and Katsa re-connect. Then Po apologizes to Katsa. Despite his efforts, and despite his knowledge that she doesn't want a relationship, Po has fallen in love with Katsa. She is equally distressed as she realizes she loves Po in return. However, she still wants to remain unmarried and childless. A decision Po doesn't bother attempting to push. He lets her know that he is hers, and it is up to her to decide what to do with that information.

Much like Amara, Katsa doesn't exactly "soften" with Po's love, but she does find the courage to finally showcase the kindness and mercy she had to keep hidden for most of her life. Po also helped her realize what her true Grace is, and how she wasn't meant to be the weapon her uncle, the king, forced her to become.

The more I read about Katsa, the more the wheels spun in my head, and the more I tried to figure out how to use Katsa as a blueprint for Amara's backstory rework. I don't know if I'll have her become a forced assassin like Katsa was, but I now know of much preferred alternatives for Amara's "Tragic Past," things that can still force her to hate humanity.

Likewise, Hubby, Omnibladestrike, and I just finished up watching How NOT to Summon a Demon Lord during our weekly anime-watching meet-ups. In the show, a character is revealed to be a Demon Lord sympathizer, wishing for the Demon Lord Krebskulm to be revived so she can exterminate the mortal races. While we don't have MUCH on this character's backstory, we do get some hints as to why they want all mortal races to be erased from the planet. Not a kind childhood, that one had.

The Netflix season of Lucifer - which Hubby and I just finished last night - even had a Generic Cop Brutality Towards PoC/Gang Violence episode that had Amenadiel question the value of staying on Earth, and how safe life is among humans. That could also kinda sorta maybe work for Amara pulling away from Humanity....

In truth, it doesn't take much to make someone lose faith in Humanity. It doesn't need to be as violent, traumatizing, triggering, and/or invasive as rape. I don't need - and, in fact, I should avoid - the "old, white, male writer shortcut to tragic female character development" trope. It's gross. It's insulting. It's insensitive. I'm better than that. All writers SHOULD be better than that.

I need to find more characters like Katsa, Amenadiel, and the demon worshiper in HNTSADL. That way I can find a reason to hate Humanity that fits Amara's world, backstory, and personality. I also need to determine if I still want to lean so hard into my InuYasha obsession when I first created Amara, making her goal in life be a quest to find some magical artifact that could dispel her human half and make her fully Elven.

With so much I need to rework for Amara, I probably won't write up her intro until nearly all of the others are done.

Which brings me back to where this all started: Lia being my next OC introduction in 2 weeks. Who knows what I might unearth as I start writing up her intro, considering Willow's intro was supposed to be ONE post. As of right now, though? I think the only thing I need to "sort out" is her Glitches last name since her father is no longer going to be the X-Men canonical character Jamie Madrox. As of right now, the leading option is Mordeaux, mainly because I kept mispronouncing Jamie's last name as that, so Lia's basically been Lia Mordeaux in my head the whole time anyway....

As I mentioned above, working on Willow's write-up wasn't the only thing I did this week, although it was pretty darn close to being so....

This past weekend, EdenDaphne surprised everyone with a second epilogue to her and Maerynn's story "Under Lock and Key." Eden was commissioned to draw the Adrienette Halloween costume teased at the end of the story. After drawing the commission, Eden had an itch to write a small companion piece, so she added the scene as an epilogue chapter, and it was so sweet.

Now, I was busy working on finishing my Willow posts this weekend, but I did finally get around to reading the new chapter yesterday. Of course, I'd recommend it. If you haven't yet, go check out ULAK, especially with this new chapter.

Also, released yesterday, and promptly consumed by me, was the latest chapter of Taurus Pixie's story "Chat Vert". And, yes, it IS another mini-Lukanette chapter. So of COURSE I was sitting on my front porch squealing at a pitch only the neighbor dogs could hear.

I'm calling all fanartists here. If you ever feel inclined to draw fanart for Pixie's story, could you PLEASE do a comic-style side-by-side of Marinette and Luka's phone conversation? Because seeing his side of the conversation would look ADORABLE, and I would love it, and Pixie's stories deserve more fanart.

I'd do it myself, but it might take me 3 months to get it nice enough for anyone to recognize what exactly is even going on in the image...

Anyway, along with reading fanfiction, yesterday I caught up on my re-read of "Fruits Basket." At least, I'm caught up in re-reading volume 3 of the manga, which is where the anime is up to now. This Friday's episode will be the start of volume 4 of the manga, so I should get started on my re-read of that...

Not enough reading for you? Well hold on, because I still have more! I've actually been quite the busy girl this week....

"Graceling" was due back at the library on the 13th, so I rushed to get through the final 100 pages of the story. I still think the second half of Part II in the story is my favorite part; the most intense. However, I did enjoy the conclusion of the story. My only real complaint is about Google's auto-fill feature.

See, about half-way through the book, the descriptions of Po's cocky, intense, but somehow still playful look, and his constant style of undoing the top of his shirt and rolling up his sleeves, just kept making me think of this image:

This is Addison, an OC of windyautumnmoon, and drawn by CrystalCurtisArt. Addison is a were-fox and king of thieves, so it makes sense that he'd give off the same energy as Po. However, without fully remembering this image while I was reading, I couldn't recall if it was actually fanart for "Graceling," especially since I hadn't heard of the book prior to that Tumblr post a month ago. We'll ignore that the series premiered in 2008. Anyway, I didn't think to look up who the artist is via an old Rogue's Scribe post, and instead tried to just search for generic Po fanart.

This, was a TERRIBLE idea. Because all I had to do was write "Graceling Po" in the Google search bar, and the first auto-fill hit turned out to be a major spoiler.

So, here's your warning. DO NOT SEARCH FOR PO WITHIN THE GRACELING FANDOM UNLESS YOU HAVE FULLY READ "GRACELING" OR YOU DON'T MIND SPOILERS.

Going into the third part of the book, I kept trying to forget the spoiler I saw. I could not, and the reveal wasn't nearly as impactful because of it. I mean, obviously, that's why the scene was "spoiled." I do have to say the emotion was still there, and it still hit me, but it didn't hit AS hard as it could have because I saw it coming. Plus side though, at least I know that scene has re-readability if it still hit me even after knowing what was going to happen.

Oh geez, I was going to go into more depth about my overall thoughts on "Graceling" but I've already rambled for quite a bit about my characters, so I guess I'll have to postpone again until next week.

Generated by Bitmoji

For now, I'll leave you with this: the writing style Cashore uses, her voice, the language utilized, isn't really "me." I didn't find it nearly as engaging as the more conversational writing voices of say Rick Riordan, or any of the fanfiction writers I follow. I just wasn't as emotionally invested. But, that could just be me and my desire to read more conversational writing. All-in-all, language aside, I did enjoy the plot and characters immensely, and did instantly talk about the book with both Hubby and Omni.

I am planning on picking up the next book in the series "Bitterblue" when I hit up the library for my writing group tonight. I'll keep you posted on my thoughts.

Now, to go work on Lia's write-up so I can actually get it done by my deadline of Sunday, June 30th. An interesting task, considering I should be visiting my mom that weekend; assuming my car is finally out of the shop by then.

Wish me luck!

All the Writing; None for OatS

Guys! I nearly doubled my word count this week!

I mean, granted, that's only a little over 4,000 words, and I STILL haven't hit the 10,000 word mark. Nevertheless, my pathetic show this week is still progress in the right direction. It's still me improving. So... I'll take it.

Vash the Stampede
from Trigun

I'm finally having some fun figuring out how to implode Marinette's brain. I have most of chapter three done for "One and the Same" as well. Granted, I still have to go back and write the second half of chapter one, and the first half of chapter two... but that's all an akuma attack.

And I don't wanna!!!!

I'm still missing the majority of the story, but hopping to the "fun bits" and then threading them together later seems to be the trail I'm following this go. What kills me the most about all of this was that I spent MONTHS trying to build an outline so I could just blast through this year's NaNo. What happened!?

Thankfully, I do have the weekly writing sprints to help me out. Having those two hours dedicated to just writing without any sort of other distraction is what I need. I really should have done these at home throughout the rest of the week too. Even if it's just one or two more days a week. However, with Zumba and football and date night... I don't really have other evenings to dedicate to writing.

Which, among the other reasons I noted thus far this month, is yet another reason why this year's NaNo is rough for me. I just can't re-organize my new life schedule to include writing. And that kills me.

I have always been amazed by authors who balance writing with parenting. However, with just the slightest add-on to my moderately few out-of-work hours, and how much that's kicking my butt, I have a new level of appreciation for the time management parents have to possess.

Part of the problem - as it almost always is - happens to be that Hubby and I really enjoy the same shows, and it kills him that he has to wait for me for most of the programming he wants to watch. For instance, the third season of "The Seven Deadly Sins" was released on Netflix a few weeks back. We got into the anime when it came out in 2014. When "season 2" came out later that year - although it felt like a year later - we were super excited, only to be bummed that it was just a 4-episode transition between season 1 and the actual season 2. We apparently had to then wait four years for the ACTUAL next season to come out. Although, I have to say I thought we watched this show in 2016, not 2014... but I know we watched it the year it came out.... I'm becoming so old that years blend together now...

My point being that it was either a two year, or a friggen FOUR YEAR, wait for us to get the next season of "The Seven Deadly Sins." We already delayed watching it because season 3 of "Daredevil" came out on the same day, and Hubby watched the dark re-imagining of Sabrina in "The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina" so I could at least pretend to write while he's watching that.

In truth, I kind of want to watch that series too, but I was on the fence enough to let Hubby watch it on his own while I was off doing other things.

But Hubby was getting antsy. He knew I'd be bummed if he watched SDS without me, but he didn't really want to wait much longer. Especially when he knew my sister watched it already and would probably want to talk about it during our Thanksgiving visit. So we watched the season. It kept a few days to do so, which is quite a few days to not be writing.

Panda also asked us to watch "Bohemian Rhapsody" with her on Friday. We were planning a date night to watch it anyway, so we happily accepted the offer. Another night knocked out.

Seriously, this week was probably one of the busiest after-work schedules I've had in a little while. Yet it was one of the slowest work weeks, so thankfully that's where I was able to make up ground. It does also explain why I wasn't able to break 2000 words any of the days I did write. Not having much writing time does that....

As I promised last week, I did manage to write at least enough to not be as embarrassed to share my NaNo calendar again. I just wish I could blot out Week 2...

Calendar designed by David Seah
Get yours at DavidSeah.com/Productivity-Tools

I had a couple of days where I didn't even hit the 250 word minimum to fill in at least one block. It was kind of pathetic to fill that day in on the calendar, but it was still SOMETHING. So I was happy to not put another zero on that calendar. Although, I did forget to put a zero in yesterday's slot... whoops...

Can I take some comfort knowing that I did a lot of writing outside of my NaNo work? Or should I be more irritated because it meant I COULD HAVE written my story?

To be fair, the writing I did outside of OatS this week was easy enough to do while watching the TV show or football games, because none of it was fiction narrative. I was mostly just chatting into the void that is Tumblr via posts. They didn't take a lot of extra thought or brainpower, so having a divided attention was fine. Writing narratives though? You need full concentration really.

Still... it WAS quite a bit of writing.

Most of said writing was because of a Tumblr game I was tagged in by Hari-Writes. It's a simple game. You just list the titles of all of your Works-In-Progress - WIPs - without any sort of context. You then tag other writers you know on Tumblr so they can play the game as well. And then you wait. While part of the fun is to see which of your friends will join in and share their list of WIPs, the main fun of the game is that you also request your followers to ask you about the title(s) that intrigue them.

I got an ask from both Cyhyr and ChibiSunnie; always my faithful cheerleaders. I'll get to those asks in a moment, but first, if you also want to know about my current WIPs, you can check out my updated Tumblr post here: WIP tag game. I had to update since I forgot some WIPs my original go...

I knew I had quite the stack, but since I only ever really focus on one at a time - and the rest are plot bunnies I haven't gotten to yet, or side projects I drift from - I forgot how many I truly had. I'm sure I've forgotten some more, but my list of WIPs for the Tumblr post was 22 long! Granted, about five of those are probably now dead projects, but you never know...

Alright, so back to Cy. She must have only just started reading my blog recently, because her ask was "What's 'Glitches'? How did I miss this?"

How indeed? As of this writing, I have 17 posts with the Glitches tag, prior to coming up with the name "Glitches" I had posts talking about this project tagged with X-Future Reboot, and there's 21 of those, although 2 of them overlap when I first started referring to the reboot as "Glitches."

I really don't know how she did miss that.... Unless it was all a rouse, and she wanted me to promote my most well-developed original story???

Either way.... I went down the rabbit hole, and brought my followers with.

I answered that ask by stating the broad strokes of the project: it's a re-working of the X-Men universe into an original setting so I could utilize the OCs from X-Future. I then went into the world history I had figured out thus far. If you want to read my full 2156-word response to Cyhyr, you can check it out here: ASK: What is Glitches?

The real trouble of Cy asking about my original story is that I wasn't satisfied just talking about the history of the world I was developing. I didn't even touch upon the characters I'd be playing with. So I briefly did so in the next two posts. And by briefly, I mean "I talked about their powers."

You may remember that in the past I've talked here about the categorizing I did of the Glitches' powers. I figured it would be natural for the governments within that world to want to pigeonhole the Glitches, and it had the added bonus of me - as the author - also having a way to categorize them, and try to keep a bit of a world consistency. I called the location of this international listing of powers the GRID - Glitches Identification and Registration Database.

Well, after introducing the GRID briefly in my response to Cy's ask, I felt I'd demonstrate it a bit. I did two different posts on the subject: one for the adult Glitches that I had adapted from X-Men canon characters, and then one for my teenage Glitches; the OCs from X-Future.

If you want a refresher on everyone's powers and how they'd be placed on The GRID, you can check out the posts here:
The GRID (part 1) - Adult Characters
The GRID (part 2) - Teen Characters

I pretty much spent FIVE HOURS on Thursday finding my research and writing all of that up! Almost my entire day off - with Hubby out of the house working an 8hr shift, so I had no distractions from cleaning or writing - was spent answering an Ask that Cy couldn't possibly know would send me over the edge.



Whoops....

Poor Chibi was nervous that she'd do the same - send me on a tangent that kept me from working on OatS - but she wanted to also ask me about one of the titles she saw on my list. To be fair, this one I haven't really talked about anywhere. It was sort of just brewing under the surface for about a month now.

The story is going to be titled "When Love Matters," and it's going to be a bit more of an experimental fanfiction project. Since I haven't started this project yet, and there really isn't much involved in it, I haven't bothered to talk about it on here... yet. I'm sure that will change once I have the first chapter of it written.

In the meantime, you can find out about "When Love Matters" the same way Chibi did: via my answer to her ask.
ASK: What is When Love Matters?

The answer to Chibi was significantly shorter, but it's still words I spent talking about a project instead of actually working on one.

I've also done a lot of observation and promotion this week. Again, because doing so is a lot easier to do with a split focus than writing narratives.

Watching "The Seven Deadly Sins" again for the first time since I introduced myself to "Miraculous Ladybug," I had a few amusing observations about the fact that there are a lot of shared voice actors. In fact, three of the main cast from ML are main cast members of SDS as well: Bryce Papenbrook, Cristina Vee, and Max Mittelman. In the season Netflix just added - Revival of The Commandments - two more main cast members joined the SDS team: Keith Silverstein and Mela Lee.

• Papenbrook plays Adrien/Cat Noir in ML, and the main character Meliodas in SDS.
• Mittelman plays Plagg in ML, and King in SDS - one of Meliodas' squad known as the Seven Deadly Sins; hence the show name.
• Vee plays Marinette/Ladybug in ML, and Hawk the pig in SDS; one of Meliodas' companions who is always by his side. Doesn't hurt that Hawk's mom is a giant pig who wears Meliodas' inn - The Boar's Hat - on her head/back.
• Silverstein plays Gabriel/Hawk Moth in ML, and is Monspeet, one of the villainous Ten Commandments in the latest season of SDS
• Lee plays Tikki in ML, and in the latest season of SDS she is another Ten Commandment: Melascula

So, that makes the core cast of ML - Marinette, Tikki, Adrien, Plagg, and Hawk Moth - also key characters in Seven Deadly Sins. I had fun posting musings about these facts on Tumblr. One such musing was how similar Cat Noir and Meliodas are to each other both in character design and rough character build/personality.

I mean....

Meliodas from The Seven Deadly Sins (top)
Cat Noir from Miraculous Ladybug (bottom)

With a similar character design and attitude, coupled with the same voice actor, I was afraid that I was going to watch Meliodas thinking "this is just older Adrien LARPing." Essentially "ruining" the show for me.

Instead, while Cristina Vee used a COMPLETELY different voice for Hawk, I had to chuckle whenever the pig tried to prove himself the bravest and strongest out of all the knights. Because all I thought of was Hawk strutting around as Ladybug.

Don't focus too much on this.
I spent like 10min on it...

The mental image must have amused a few people because it has 61 notes on Tumblr....

Another amusing observation that seems to have gotten a little bit of love on Tumblr was for the DuckTales reboot. The latest episode has Louie try to get his company off the ground. The problem being that he has no clue what his company should actually DO to make money, and he has no employees to run it. So he recruits Huey and Webby, and they brainstorm what they could do as a service. Webby starts blurting out random items they could sell. Meanwhile, Huey, already 100% done with Louie's nonsense, suggests Louie just sells lemonade like a normal kid.

Huey: “Why don’t you just sell lemonade?”
Louie: “Eh, lemonade is small potatoes.”
Webby: “Oh! POTATO-ADE!”

Me to Hubby: “Isn’t potato-ade just… vodka?”

I have 22 notes on that post from Saturday... so I guess I have my shining moments of humor every once in a while...

The post that probably has the highest and fastest reblog count however must be from Friday. As I've mentioned periodically throughout this blog, over the course of this year I've followed multiple different on-going fanfics. Well, this month two of them posted their final chapter:

• "Mr. Lucky and the Cat" by HariWrites
• "Under Lock and Key" by Maerynn and EdenDaphne

I had been following "Mr. Lucky and the Cat" since the day it first went up, back in March. As for "Under Lock and Key," I discovered that via EdenDaphne promoting her artwork for the story. ULAK itself started May of 2017, and I jumped on board mid-December. Either way, I had been reading both of these stories on and off for a large portion of 2018. So much so that I figured they should just go on my reading challenge list.

Yes, both are both less than 50,000 words each, but I think they can also represent the words I've read, but not putting on this list. All the still-in-progress fanfics, as well as all the one-shots, should more than make up the "small" word count each of these completed works have.

Thus completes my challenge; a month early I might add

Now, Hubby let me know my Christmas gift from him is a book, so I might slide one more story in before 2018 ends... or I'll hold it until January to kick off my 2019 reading.

My point is that I loved "Mr. Lucky and the Cat" as well as "Under Lock and Key," so after I was done finishing both stories - on the same day no less - I needed to promote these now completed works. I felt like I owed it to the authors to gush about these stories. I also felt like it helped me a little to express the bittersweet feeling I had having read the last chapters of two stories I enjoyed.

Naturally, I tagged both HariWrites and EdenDaphne as I promoted their stories. Well, Eden apparently couldn't resist gushing back. She reblogged my shout out for her story, with an added "Thank you so much 😭😭😭😭😭❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️"

One can only guess how large her fanbase is, but, thanks to Eden's reblog, my shout out post - as of this writing - has 323 notes. Luckily, I saw that one reblog did note "As for the other story mentioned, that’s one I haven’t read yet but now I have a new story to look forward to reading! Thank you for the recommendation." So, yay! Getting readers for HariWrites! I was kind of hoping something like that would happen: Eden's fans would discover Hari, and if there were any of Hari's fans who didn't know who Eden was; now they do.

I've even picked up 3 new followers this week, bringing me up to 61 people. Not massive, but not too shabby either. I think I'm slowly weaseling my way into the fandom's notice. Which might mean more readers once "One and the Same" is posted.

But first, I should probably WRITE THE DARN STORY, and worry about readership later....

Which brings me full circle to NaNo again.

Naturally I'm a bit bummed with my performance this year for NaNo, and I frequently state so both here on my blog and on my Facebook page. Seeing how down I am about my slacking, both Chibi and Cy have pointed out the amount of non-fictional writing I've been doing this month. You can see above how much I've done in just this week alone. Noting specifically my blog posts and the three-part info-dump for "Glitches" on Tumblr, both women said I should count those words as well. Chibi went so far as to include my analyzing Tumblr posts, and an anecdote I sent her the other night.

I explained to both of them that I want to stick with the original spirit of NaNo, and only count the words I add to my fictional writing. Mainly because that's the hard part. Just chatting with you guys here in my blog? Info-dumping about a world I've been building for years? That's easy. I could do that in my sleep. That's just me being my long-winded self; a bit of an inheritance from my maternal grandfather.

Still, the more the two of them pointed out "every word counts" the more I wondered. Especially when Chibi told me the anecdote I sent her was 1494 words long. Knowing I'm not going to change my official NaNo word count to include anything not written for "One and the Same," I was still curious about how much I really HAVE written...

• Posts about "The Seven Deadly Sins": 695 words
• Observation about "DuckTales": 34 words
• Post about my WIP "When Love Matters": 563 words
• Posts about my WIP "Glitches": 5067 words!!!
• Post promoting fanfics I'm reading: 344 words
• Post promoting my progress on "One and the Same": 373 words
• Facebook posts talking about what I'm thankful for
  (I'm way behind; stopping on day 7): 717 words, but this will be lengthened soon
• And like I said, the anecdote Chibi counted for me: 1494 words!!!

That's already 9,287 words I wrote in November, but not for OatS. Now for my blog...

Another 5573 words!

So, not including the lengthy conversations I've had with Chibi, Jowy's Pixie, and TLOS21, and also not including this week's blog, I have 14,860 words that the ladies think I should add to my overall total. Like I said above, I'm not going to, but it's fun to know that they'd have my NaNo total be 23,640 words. A touch more than the 8700 I'm actually counting...

Now I'm curious how much I'd add if I included what I wrote for OatS prior to November, but I've lost track of what I have and have not written this month. I do know that, just counting the scenes I haven't touched yet this month, I'd be adding another 11,103 words!!!

Adrien finds out about The Bracelet: 2404 words
Adrien's recap of PT: 2380 words
Chat Noir confesses to knowing who Ladybug is: 1370 words
Getting Marinette's number: 525 words with a drastic need to be edited
Marinette at the Trocadero: 4424 words

If I posted to NaNo all the words I have for OatS thus far, whether or not I wrote them in November, I'd be up to 19,883 words! There's a lot of completed fanfics that aren't that wordy, and I'm not even half-way done with my first draft! OatS will probably be another 80,000 word beast.

So, I HAVE been writing. Just not the "right" things at the "right" time. I guess I can feel a bit better knowing that. I mean, I've already come to terms with the fact that I'm not "winning" this year's NaNo. Although, I am a bit more determined to get my butt in gear now that I have some swag....

As a thank you for donating to NaNoWriMo, the Office of Letters and Light - the name of the non-profit that runs the NaNo organization - sends out some gifts. You can opt out of receiving the gifts so more money is spent on the program. I was tempted to go this route, but I really liked what they were offering.

The bracelet says: "The sword with
which I slay the beast called doubt."

Cute little pin

This book shaped sticker says:
"Optimist. Explorer. NaNoWriMo Writer"

One side of the bookmark from OL&L says
"Thank You" across a background of books on a shelf

The flipside of the bookmark with
an encouraging "Thank You" message.

And yes, I am wearing the bracelet right now. How did you know?

With all of this encouragement around me, how could I fail? I may not be able to finish writing "One and the Same" before November 30th. I may not hit 50,000 words, or even 25,000 words. Although, quick shout out to Cyhyr who surpassed 20,000 words last night...

No. I will most definitely "fail" NaNo this year, but I won't let it defeat me like it did in the past. My newest goal is to just have the first draft of OatS done before the close of 2018. That way I can still start the editing in January, and have it polished enough to start posting in March.

That, and to enjoy my time with my loved ones.

So, to all of my American readers...