And by 'derailed' I mean:
In the meantime, Hubby's one friend has a loaner car we're borrowing. Back to driving stick, and boy howdy is this car LOUD! Not only the engine itself - because it has one of those sports car spoilers on the hood or whatever - but the inside of the car itself sounds like a wind tunnel! But, the car runs well, I still remember how to drive standard, and it's a way for us to go from point A to point B safely. That's all I care about right now.
Unfortunately, due to the nature of the accident, and a few other insurance complications - which I won't get into - getting my poor Cruze fixed up within a reasonable amount of time and within my budget may prove more challenging than originally thought.
That being said, it should be fairly obvious that I've been a bit... distracted this past week while trying to sort this out. I'm even late to publishing this week's post because I spent most of Tuesday and Wednesday running around trying to get all of my ducks lined up. I'm just mentally exhausted right now, trying to handle this nightmare of a claim.
Thankfully, there were also PLEASANT distractions for me this past weekend. So it wasn't ALL doom and gloom.
First of all, a new "Miraculous Ladybug" episode dropped last Thursday. On top of that, all of the previous episodes that originally had only French dubbing were finally released in English. So Wolfhearted swung by Friday night - after my accident - and we ate Camembert and quiche and watched the latest four episodes: Silencer, Bakerix, Onichan, and Miraculer.
Friday also had an update for EdenDaphne's story Discordant Sonata. It was a lovely conclusion to her akuma attack chapter. A bit of a game-changer chapter, actually. So, if you're into Miraculous Ladybug, want to check out a neat Enemy AU where Chat Noir is allies with Hawk Moth instead of Ladybug, and want a story elevated with mood music cues and illustrations, go check out her story.
Now circling back to Silencer for a moment. Back when the episode first aired, I made an observation about the character Luka. Actually, I made MULTIPLE observations about Luka. One of them included excitement over the fact that Luka finally has distinct eyelashes!
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| Luka in his introductory episode Captain Hardrock. |
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| Luka in his most recent episode Silencer |
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| Another compare and contrast L: Silencer R: Captain Hardrock |
As of this writing, my post - Luka Defends - is up to 1581 notes! That's WAAAAAY more than any other original content I have posted on Tumblr!
It's good to see my boy Luka getting the love and respect he deserves.
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| Hacker Girl Facebook sticker by Birdman, Inc. |
Another big post this past week was my answer to an ask Cyhyr sent me on Tumblr. She and I each shared a Tumblr game where 26 fanfiction-based questions are listed: A through Z. Your followers are supposed to ask you to answer the prompts/questions by sending you the corresponding letter.
Cy's ask for me was U: Share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much.
It kept me a minute to really narrow down to three fic writers, but even so, I couldn't stop there. I included seven in total, as well as gave myself a self-promotion at the end. Now, when I talked about each writer, I tagged their Tumblr accounts. Both Baneismydragon and Edendaphne reblogged my promotions of them, along with gushing thank-yous that made me tear up a touch.
Now, naturally, if each of those ladies have large followings, their followers will like and/or reblog from Bane or Eden, which would still show up on my dash since I was the originator of the post. Either way, after a week, the post is up to 176 notes, 24 of those being reblogs. I've also seen notes along the lines of "I haven't heard of everyone on this list, but if they're grouped in with [insert favorite writer here] then I'll have to make sure to check them out."
And, really, that's how it should be.
I know I was able to get a few new readers out of my self-promotion, so I hope that also means the other authors were able to find an uptick in their writings as well.
If you're into Miraculous Ladybug and wanted to see who I included in that ask, feel free to check out my answer here.
Another original post I threw up on Tumblr this week is actually a touch old for you fine folks. With the English airing of Silencer, and the popularity of my Luka Defends post, I figured I'd see what kind of response I'd get for the story I wrote for Taurus Pixie. It's a relatively short one-shot, so I went ahead and posted the full story onto Tumblr. I also included links to my FFN, AO3, and DA postings. This way people could read the story on the site they preferred, but they now also knew where else they could find my work.
My posting of I Was Thinking Of You on Tumblr has 67 notes, including 10 reblogs; one of which included the added comment of "Ahhh this killed me."
So, not much by way of new content this week, but I did do a lot of promotion for myself on Friday, which seems to be working at least a little. Since Friday, I've had 5 new likes/kudos on Peeping Tomcat, 4 new likes/kudos for Woven Heartstrings, 2 for Build Your Own Luck, and a whopping 11 for I Was Thinking of You, along with one fave of the story. I've also received 3 new comments on my stories. Now, I have no proof that any of those were because of the posts I put on Tumblr this weekend, but it's possible that they are.
One of the new comments on my fanfics was for PT, and it asked me if I would be posting "One and the Same" soon. The question is probably in part due to genuine interest in the story, which is cool, but it was also probably in part because I wrote in my closing notes of the story that OatS should be out in March...
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| Me as a Bitmoji |
That didn't stop me from ONE bit of new(ish) content on Sunday, and the intention of doing a daily-update series of about 17 posts.
That is, before the whole car accident thing...
Anyway, I have wanted to introduce the People of Tumblr to my original characters for MONTHS now, and this weekend I finally had the motivation to start writing up bios for everyone. Well, sorta. As I was working on the first bio, I realized that not everyone knows the Real World history for the inspiration of each character, or the worlds they belong in: Gyateara and Glitches. So my first task was to introduce them to the worlds.
It hasn't really had much love, and I kinda get it. I'm talking about my inspiration for world-builds for stories my followers aren't invested in because there's no actual story to read yet. I did mean to keep going with my series by explaining the Real World backstories to the creation of my characters. Then I would get into the actual character bios.
Buuuut, the car thing has been draining me, and I haven't had time to write this blog before now, let alone work on more of my Meet My OCs series.
Maybe I'll turn it into a weekly thing and post the next one on Sunday....
Anyway, if you'd like to follow along, the first post in the series can be found here: Who Wants To Meet My OCs? (Part 1)
So, between now and Sunday, I should work on that next post in the series. I should also REALLY work on OatS some more. We'll see where my head is at while I keep battling insurances and whatnot.
With any luck, I'll be back on schedule this upcoming Tuesday. So I'll catch ya then!
In the meantime, I'd like to wish my father a belated birthday.
Love you, Dad. Miss you.
