A Parallel with an Earlier Fandom of Mine

It feels like spring outside!

It's NOT spring outside, and it's still a touch too cold for me to sit on my front porch to write this post, but it's warm enough for me to PRETEND I could be. So that's a start....

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Hello to everyone who might have returned to this week's blog post after discovering my writing blog last week! As the previous post suggested, I don't normally have suggested reading posts, but I DO praise any reading I've enjoyed that week. Sadly, I haven't had the time to read anything THIS week, so no story recommendations, if that's what you're here for.

However, if you are still here simply because you enjoyed my blog's style and/or you are interested in MY writing, then have a seat. I don't have much to say today, but I do have some progress I want to chat about.

Before that, though, I wanted to comment on something I meant to last week. And the week before that. Namely, I wanted to go over how much my Tumblr has grown the past month! I don't know if it's because of my writing - the entries in Love Square Fluff Week working in promoting me after all - or because of my promotion of other authors, a happy combo of the two, or just random circumstances. Still, check out these stats!

I had 556 notes in the month of February!? And 25 new followers!? Roughly 9% of my overall current followers started in February! I mean, I know it's not much compared to a lot of blogs on Tumblr, but for me, that's huge!

Now, something to note is probably that Top Post. Yup. That is my promotion for last week's blog post. The one where I reviewed and recommended six stories. I of course tagged the authors, and since one story had two authors, that was seven people I had tagged in the promotional post. Most - if not all - of those authors reblogged my promotional post to their blogs, spreading my promotion for this blog.

So, again, if you're now here because of that, welcome.

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Let's see what the stats are since that blog post promotion went up....

Everything kind of died off since I hadn't shared a new story, and I wasn't really reblogging anything either. You see that spike on the 29th, though? Well, EdenDaphne saw my tag and reblogged my story rec promotional post.

Clearly she has a few more followers than my 276, and my post kind of blew up a touch from that. As of this writing, my story rec post - which does highlight why I recommended each story, in case people didn't want to read my long blog post here - has 102 notes on it. Over half of those notes were after Eden reblogged my post. Now, I'm not saying all 69 post-eden-share likes are from her blog. Some of them could have been people stumbling upon my blog normally, or my own followers - I'm sorry, I didn't bother going through all of my followers to see if that's the case - or people following the other authors who also reblogged. However, there were six reblogs that were neither the others I tagged nor me responding to their reblogs. All six of those were people reblogging Eden's reblog. So... yeah.... most of that love was because I showed Eden love, and it kind of spread from there.

So, uh, thanks, Eden!

Actually, speaking of, you see the second person in my "Biggest Fans" section in that second image? Rikareena? That's actually one of my buddies from the "Hey, Arnold!" fandom that I've lost touch with when I moved onto X-Future and Miraculous. She found me on Tumblr, and we were able to reconnect, thanks to her seeing Eden's reblog of my post. She had kind of a "wait, I know that handle" moment, reached out to me, and now we can re-bond over Miraculous and a couple other shared fandoms I didn't know we had!

So thanks again, Eden.

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Now, my stats didn't exactly bottom-out after that Eden-Surge on the 29th. In part, that could be because I am still getting likes and reblogs on that promotional post. But also, I did post another story late Saturday night.

"Making the Complicated Simple"

On FanFiction       On ArchiveOfOurOwn       On DeviantArt       On Tumblr

As I mentioned last week, I'm not giving up on those Fluff Week prompts, even though the event ended about three weeks ago at this point. Honestly, I'm more determined to finish this challenge than I care about whether or not I'm getting the extra promotions through the event page. Considering the event page didn't reblog my story, the admins probably aren't even checking in on the blog anymore at this point....

Still, I said I was going to write seven stories using the prompts, and that the prompts are all going to thread together into an over-all fluffy - or, as fluffy as I can get - story resulting in a reveal. I AM going to follow through on that unofficial promise to my readers. It's just taking me far longer than I had hoped.

Regardless, I DO have the latest prompt done, and I have two more to go.

Making the Complicated Simple

Summary: The Love Square is as complicated as it's always been, with Marinette only in love with Adrien, and Adrien only in love with Ladybug. Tikki confesses that she might have a solution to the whole problem, but it ended up making things even MORE complicated. Marinette just wants a simple solution to everything.

This was a bit of an experimental story, to be frank. I won't say anything more openly, in case some of you wish to go in blind to read the story. So, if you want to know a touch more about the experimental premise of this story

The real reason this story is so experimental was because I was very loosely basing it off of the play A Midsummer Night's Dream AND I was writing it AS a dream sequence without outwardly stating that's what it was. I have certain things seem "off" such as an unlikely message on Marinette's phone, a poster coming to life and then blinking back into its original position, Marinette "teleporting" between locations because dreams rarely show you actually moving from one location to the next, an akuma being stopped even though Ladybug never actually encounters them, and - to go with the Midsummer theme - Chat Noir and Adrien are different people.

For those who didn't click, the long-and-short is that I went with a very unconventional storytelling technique, and I don't know how well I managed to pull it off. I have some nice reviews from return-readers, and it has had some love over on Tumblr, so maybe I did better than I originally feared. It is also definitely fluffier than my Ladybug stories - Music to Heal and I Have Something to Confess - so maybe that helped bring in more love?

The story went up around midnight on Saturday over on Tumblr and DA, and then I had it up on FFN and AO3 around noon on Sunday, so it's not even up for all that long yet.

Now, for FFN and AO3, I don't have stats for individual chapters, but here's a quick recap of what the stats for those two sites were when I last posted them on February 23rd.

FFN: 851 views, 6 faves, 11 followers, and 11 reviews
AO3: 176 views, 19 kudos, 2 bookmarks, and 13 comments

And here are the stats now. Note: I'm just sharing the DA and Tumblr stats for this individual chapter instead of the whole body of work thus far.

FFN Total: 1213 views, 8 faves, 13 followers, and still 11 reviews
    Presumably New FFN: 362 views, 2 faves, 2 followers, and no reviews
AO3: 272 hits, 21 kudos, 2 bookmarks, and 15 comments
    Presumably New AO3: 96 hits, 2 kudos, no new bookmarks, and 2 comments
DA: 23 views, but no faves or comments

Total New Results: 481 views, 4 faves, 2 followers, and 2 reviews

Tumblr Notes: 16 notes; 14 likes and 2 reblogs

New AO3 reviews:
  1. I absolutely loved this! I was upset at Tikki in the beginning, but then [Redacted Due To Spoilers]
  2. Nice! [Redacted Due To Spoilers] tied in well with the connection to "A Midsummer Night's Dream". It was pretty cool to read!

Also, one of the Tumblr reblogs was to discoveringmiraculouswriters since I had tagged them, but still, I WANT that promotion, so.... cool.

I'm still not showing up on the Ladynoir Feed blog, even though it supposedly uses an algorithm to find Love Square fics on FFN, AO3, and Wattpad. I might have to start tagging them too????

Anyway, I don't know how many of those new 362 FFN views and 96 AO3 views are people reading that latest chapter in my story, but I can hope, right? Either way, I did get 2 more faves, 2 more story followers, and 2 more kudos, right? Also, as I mentioned, 2 of my repeat-readers did leave those reviews, so.... Devil's Advocate though: except for the two new reviews, which show up on that chapter, I don't know if those faves, kudos, followers, and views are from before the story even went up. There's nearly a full week between the last time I posted the stats on the 23rd and when I put "Making the Complicated Simple" up late Saturday. So, ya know, grain of salt and all that.

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Now to figure out the next prompt: Your Voice.

I've had this whole idea for YEARS now to semi-recreate the Reveal Scene from the 90s live-action show Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. I just LOVE the idea of Lois FINALLY figuring it out due to her truly seeing Clark and some of his quirks and subtle mannerisms that transfer over to his Superman persona. Another bit in the previous episode - the season finale - that stuck with me, though, is how it's not just the mannerisms. I kind of wish Lois mentioned this bit as well, but it's also Clark's VOICE that suddenly seems familiar.

A bit of a quick recap of the season 2 finale to better explain. If you haven't seen this show yet, wish to, and want to avoid spoilers, here's your warning.

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Okay, so in the canon of the show, there is a man named Tempus who lives in a distant future utopia created by Superman. H. G. Wells actually manages to build the time machine he writes about in his novel. He meets Tempus, who volunteers to return to the past with Wells. Tempus has always been bored to tears in his utopian future, and uses Wells as a means to escape and try to destroy Superman in order to instead build a chaotic future. This sets off a long chain of events within the show's canon as both Tempus and Wells are repeat characters.

Anyway, in one of the episodes, the time traveling crew of Wells, Lois, and Clark all leave Tempus behind in a 1800's "Wild West" prison. Trapped in the past, Tempus writes everything he knows about Clark, Superman, and Lois. This includes the fact that Clark is Superman, and that Lois is his main weakness, along with his parents and then his co-workers. Namely, that he can work around his physical weakness to kryptonite, but not his emotional weakness towards the ones he loves.

In present day 90's, Lois and Clark have been dating, and Clark is ready to propose. However, a millionaire villain, who is NOT Lex Luthar, discovers Tempus' diaries - once thought the ravings of a madman - and uses them to not only make his fortune, but now set up a plot to destroy Superman. He kidnaps Clark's parents, and threatens to kill them if Clark doesn't steal or otherwise work as muscle for him. Eventually, it escalates to the point where the villain wants Clark to kill Lois and bring her body to him as proof. Clark must decide between his parents and the woman he loves.

Lois confronts Clark on the shady way he's been acting, and he confesses his parents' kidnapping and the latest demand for Lois' life. Lois then sets up a meeting with Superman. She tells him to quickly freeze her with his ice breath to kill her similar to cryogenic preserving. She'd be dead, but none of her cells would break down, so they could revive her once Clark and his parents are safe. Superman of course argues with her before caving in and does as she asks.

This is when Lois discovers Superman is Clark, but realizes it too late to say anything. Clark has this tendency to brush back her hair and rub the temple by her right eye with his thumb. It's a tender gesture that Superman also used just before freezing her. He had done so before as Superman, but the fact that she was afraid of staying dead heightened Lois' senses so that she truly noted how identical the interaction was with her earlier one with Clark.

Fast forward to post-climax of the episode/season finale. Superman stops the villain, and burns the diary so the man has no proof of who Superman truly is. With everyone else - and his secret - safe, Superman finds the still-frozen Lois, and revives her. It's, of course, a tense moment where Superman and his parents are wondering if she'll be able to come back. Superman is calling for her to return to him, and to not leave him alone.

Lois finally chokes out her first breath, then calls out "I'm here." She then nearly calls out Clark's name, since that's whose voice she was hearing, but quickly switches over to Superman. It's a bit weird, given the next episode - the season premiere - reveals that she already knew who Superman was at that point, and the only ones around at the time already knew as well, but maybe she felt "just coming back from the dead" wasn't the time to let HIM know she knew???

Either that, or she had temporarily forgot the revelation since there was so much more clearly on her mind at the time, and she was just focused on following her boyfriend's voice, only to be surprised to not see "Clark" standing over her???

That's kind of what I'm going for.
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OKAY! SPOILERS OVER NOW! YOU CAN START READING AGAIN IF YOU SKIPPED THE LAST PART!

So, for those who scrolled past, here's a recap with as few spoilers as possible in order for you to get the gist of what I'm aiming for.

Lois is unconscious, and Superman is there to try to revive her. He's calling her name, nervous that she isn't going to be able to wake up. He's practically begging her to come back to him. When Lois does wake up, she nearly calls Superman by Clark's name, simply because that's whose voice she heard: Clark's. It's a sweet moment where she doesn't want to leave Clark behind and alone. She's struggling to return to him, and is following his voice in order to do so. Only, when she opens her eyes, she's instead greeted by Superman, to her temporary confusion.

One day I WILL write this scene as a Miraculous Ladybug reveal, because it is one of my favorite superhero reveals in TV history.

This prompt was going to be my "in." I mean, it's RIGHT. THERE. The whole draw to the voice!? Yes!

Buuuuuuuuuuut, how do I do this without throwing a bunch of angst at the wall and seeing which sticks? It's FLUFF WEEK, even if it IS about a month later.... The stories are supposed to be fluffy! Light-hearted! Sunshine and rainbows and lollipops and cuddles and warm-fuzzy feelings.

Not "one of them nearly died" stories....

Even if I don't go with the "nearly died." If I just go with "is unconscious" or "got brainwashed by an akuma" or even "was akumatized themselves" as the story.... well... all of those options were already shown canonically, and in no way has Marinette/Ladybug been so distraught that she sat there PLEADING for Chat Noir to come back to her.

I COULD go the opposite direction, and have it truly parallel L&C by having Chat Noir trying to revive Ladybug/Marinette, and have her hearing Adrien's voice. But I purposefully held on to this story for the penultimate one specifically as a way for a pseudo-reveal. One of them realizes that the voices match perfectly, so they HAVE to be the same person, right!? It's all but confirmed. I already had Marinette's "could they be the same guy?" in that latest chapter: "Making the Complicated Simple." I don't need another one. Besides, it's more meaningful if she's looking for Chat Noir and it's Adrien who is there calling for her to come back to him.

In L&C, everyone knows Lois' love for Superman, so the fact that she hears his voice as Clark's and wants to return to him means SO MUCH for her relationship with Clark. If it was Clark calling for her, and she heard Superman, it could be interpreted as "she prefers Superman still." But to prefer the Civilian form!? To have the superhero calling for you, but wishing it were the civilian? That's an extra layer.

Even though Adrien IS the civilian, the way Marinette/Ladybug interacts with him vs Chat Noir actually reverses the roles: it's so much more significant for her to want the superhero over the civilian. So, as I said, for it to have the same impact as the L&C scene, Marinette/Ladybug would have to be calling for Chat Noir, and then be a bit disappointed/surprised to find Adrien instead. Why would Adrien be trying to revive Marinette/Ladybug though?

Doesn't matter, really. 1) it's angsty to think about, and I'm trying to go for fluff, and 2) as I mentioned, Marinette already had her "ah-ha moment" and it's now Adrien's turn. So that means it's definitely Adrien mishearing Ladybug's voice as Marinette's. Which brings us back to a perfect parallel to L&C, but with a gender swap.

Adrien (Lois) was instantly smitten by the superhero Ladybug (Superman). It was such an extreme crush that he (she) doesn't even notice the romantic interest from his (her) close friend Marinette (Clark). Adrien (Lois) doesn't even notice the fairly obvious visual similarities between Marinette (Clark) and Ladybug (Superman). Eventually, Adrien (Lois) begins seeing Marinette (Clark) in a more romantic light, slowly giving up his (her) crush on Ladybug (Superman). Then, when in great peril, Adrien (Lois) hears a voice calling his (her) name; calling for him (her) to come back to them. Adrien (Lois) regains consciousness, fully expecting for his (her) new love Marinette (Clark) to be the one calling, but is surprised, and a bit disappointed, to find the superhero Ladybug (Superman) instead. This confuses Adrien (Lois), who could have sworn he (she) had heard Marinette (Clark). This not only solidifies that Adrien (Lois) truly does love Marinette (Clark) over Ladybug (Superman), but also has Adrien (Lois) realize that Marinette (Clark) and Ladybug (Superman) have the same EXACT voice! Could they be the same person!?

HOW DO I DO THIS WITHOUT BEING ANGSTY THOUGH!?

First of all, back to my original question of getting Adrien/Chat Noir in enough peril that he has to follow Ladybug's voice back to her, thinking it was Marinette's voice the whole time. She's so panicked about him that she's PLEADING for him to not leave her, and THAT is what he follows. HOW IS THAT NOT JUST DRIPPING WITH ANGST!?

Regardless, we've seen Chat Noir in trouble before, and Ladybug distressed about it, but she hikes up her boots, defeats the villain, and trusts that her restoration powers will return Chat Noir to her, safe and sound. Even making it Adrien in trouble won't change that. In one episode he's turned into a golden glitter statue. It broke Ladybug for a couple of seconds, but she just became determined to save the day and then use her ultimate power to return Adrien to her.

Besides, I need it to be Chat Noir in trouble anyway, that way I can have him nearly call her "Marinette" before switching to "M'lady?" without causing any suspicion. Adrien doesn't call anyone "m'lady" sooooooooo......

I need to come up with another reason for Chat Noir to follow Ladybug's voice, and for it to be significant that he thought it was Marinette's the whole time. That he was trying desperately to return to his classmate and friend.

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by Birdman, Inc

These Fluff Week prompts will be the death of me. Any ideas are welcome! Meanwhile, I'm going to keep trying to figure this out on my own.

Until next week.

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All the Reveal Stories!

It's.... been a trying week. I only managed 1800 words last week; only two writing days. I squeezed in a short burst before writing group, although I didn't end up reading anything. I then finished put-off errands on Wednesday, followed by a mad-dash on Thursday to try to clean my apartment at least a LITTLE before my mother's arrival.

She came up Friday, and we spent it going over her business. Saturday was a long, and I mean LONG, day organizing my dining room/secondary room. We have a few more last-minute things to do to finish, but it's mostly dropping off trash and donations. I should have it done by the end of today, so I'll be sure to post pictures next week. Anyway, after putting in my eight-plus hours of near-straight work, I finished the night trying to get more than 600 words in for the week.

Where I'm at, Adrien is wrestling with his feelings: does he love Marinette for Marinette, or does he only have feelings for Ladybug that spills over to Marinette? If he only has feelings for Marinette because she's Ladybug, does that mean he doesn't truly have feelings for Ladybug after all? The poor kid is so confused, but I couldn't get into the right mindset. Thankfully, a song that played at work gave me the spark of inspiration I needed.

Because of "Crush" by David Archuleta, I was able to knock out almost 1200 words before I had to call it quits Saturday night. It was a nice mini-spurt of writing, but I wasn't able to get any more in on Sunday.

While I was at work yesterday I did take some downtime to write some more, just to avoid all of these zero days piling up on me. I didn't continue telling the story, and I didn't really add all that much to the parts that I already wrote. All-in-all, my writing at work wasn't even 400 words, but it still was something. It wasn't a zero.

What I did accomplish was the start of editing the first half of the story. I decided that will be my goal while at work. It takes a little less effort, so it's easier to jump in and out of the process, depending on when I'm needed. It also really helps, as editing tends to be, because it allots me time to clean up some of the paragraphs that were clunky when I originally wrote them during the summer challenge; leaving my out-of-work writing time available for continuing the story. I'm also adding a bit more depth with these edits, now that I know this story needs it. I'm probably going to go over the story yet again to slow the pace further in order to add even more meat to the tale, and then break it into chapters.

For now, though, I'm just working on getting the main body of the story fleshed out. I'll chapter it later, once I have the first draft fully written.

While at work, I'm also cleaning up characterization. There have already been a few paragraphs scrapped and rewritten so Adrien and Marinette stay more in-character. I'll have to find time for another rewatch to solidify that I have them written right. That's the main issue of watching all these fancomic dubs: I'm being flooded by how others interpret the characters and the character's voices; which is overshadowing the canonical portrayals.

On the plus side, though, I'm really picking up on a lot of patterns that the fandom has thought of in regards to the Big Reveal of Chat Noir and Ladybug's true identities. There are some that I love and want to try to include - such as Adrien's confusion about his feelings, since us fans believes he has started to have a crush on Marinette anyway - as well as some I know I want to avoid - such as Marinette freaking out that Chat Noir is disappointed that she's Ladybug because she feels that she's a loser.

I kind of want to do something similar to "You've Got Mail" I think. Adrien will use Marinette's crush on him to convince her how great Chat Noir is so that she falls for the "true" version of him. I'm not 100% sold on this idea, and I still have to get past Adrien's shock over who Ladybug is, but it could be fun.

On the flipside, while messing with Adrien's head over his crush for Marinette is fun, the "You've Got Mail" thing works better if Marinette knew first. Mainly because Marinette already likes the civilian form, so him showing her he's Chat Noir by powering up, and her giving the iconic "I hoped it was you" line just seems odd and reversed. Meanwhile, since Adrien has been actively looking for Ladybug, having her de-power to her civilian form is a lot more analogous of the anonymity of a pen pal being revealed when meeting in person for the first time. "I hoped it was you" works so much better when the mask is REMOVED instead of added.

On the other hand, I also really liked the reveal in "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman." Spoilers for anyone who hasn't watched the series, but wants to: skip to the next paragraph if you want to avoid them. Anyway, Lois volunteers to let Superman flash-freeze her so she appears dead, under the assumption that Superman could then use his heat vision to revive her once the villain is thwarted. Lois is dating Clark at this point, so when Superman lovingly brushes her cheek before freezing her Lois recognizes it as the same move Clark does all the time. Then, when Superman revives her Lois hears his voice and recognizes it as Clark before she opens her eyes and realizes it's Superman.

I kind of want to do something like that. Marinette and Ladybug are so similar to each other that the personality Marinette showcases as Ladybug seems to be the main thing throwing the world off; kind of like original Superman with his glasses. Clark is too meek to possibly be Superman, which, along with something "covering his eyes," is his only real "mask" to hide who he really is. This is nearly an exact parallel for Marinette and Ladybug. Therefore, I kind of like the idea of something traumatic triggering Adrien "hearing" Marinette when Ladybug talks, and then realizing who she is.

On the flipside, Adrien changes up his personality, his hair shags into a mildly different style, and he does change up his vocal inflections a touch as well - a trick both superheros do unintentionally, I'm sure, but it CAN be enough to also fool people. Between the two of them, Adrien to Chat Noir is a much more drastic change, and so I could see how it would be harder for Marinette to figure out who he is. Plus, it's a lot easier to believe there are multiple teen males with shaggy blonde hair, since Adrien's eyes are also changed completely green to match the cat-look. It's a lot harder to rationalize that in Paris there are tons of teen girls wearing their black-hair in pigtails, while also having blue eyes. So, this might get us back to the original "You've Got Mail" situation of Chat Noir using his Adrien half to convince Marinette to love both sides of him.

I might have to write multiple Reveal fanfics and see which one the fans prefer.


Thanks to a college friend, I'm now part of a fanfiction group on Facebook, so I might have to see if any of them are into Miraculous. It is an 18+ group, but who knows? Maybe some wholesome child's cartoon fanfiction is just the palate cleanser they need.

Either way, with the second season coming out in November, I might have the readers regardless. I just hope they don't actually do a Big Reveal scene this upcoming season, because there's no way I'll have any of these stories done before November, and it's more fun to write these fanfics when it's still a mystery as to how the show will do it.

I mean, after how "Lois and Clark" did their reveal, it just seemed too perfect to mess with it. It wouldn't be fun to rewrite that story. It's much like the "Hey, Arnold!" fanscript I want to try to finish before November; it's a race to get my own vision out before the canonical version is revealed.

Who knows, though? I might win the race!

Thanks to the massive hard work my mother put in over the weekend, I now have my library back, so I have my writing hide-away again. I also have much easier access to my journals for all my notes. On top of that, I can now get to the binders I have set up for Gyateara's world creation, and the outline for What Is Truly Meant To Be. So I might be able to get back to working on each of those starting in January, after the projects I already have planned are completed.

It is WORLDS easier to find what I need, and know where everything should go, after my mother re-arranged and re-organized this place, which also means I SHOULD need to dedicate less time in cleaning every week. Want to guess what I might do with that new free time? Anyone guess more writing? Okay, maybe some video game playing again.... but mainly MORE WRITING AVAILABILITY!

2017 may have been a slow-start/sucky year, but 2018 already is shaping up to be promising. It's always the even years....