Stuck at Home

Hey, how's everyone doing? I know things are not boding well for me already. I mean, I'm still healthy, but... well.... Saturday was my last day of work before the business shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic. Thankfully, as far as I know, no one in the company has a confirmed - or even a suspected - case of COVID-19. Instead, this closure is mandated in order to assist with social distancing, and is supposed to last at least two weeks. However, no one knows how long we'll actually have to do this.

You know how, if a child is in timeout but tries to leave it prematurely, the timeout is restarted, so the child's 2 minute timeout ends up taking nearly 10 simply because they wouldn't listen? Yeah. I feel like that's what's going on with the entirety of society. We need those two full weeks of social distancing in order to keep all those with the disease - both known and unknown - fully away from everyone who is still healthy at this point. Every time the government has to yell at people for organizing in groups or still doing frivolous shopping/gathering it's like the child getting sent back into timeout; the timer resets.

The long and short as to why the timer must reset is that it takes up to 2 weeks for the virus to fully incubate and cause symptoms. If, after 2 weeks, you don't have symptoms, then you almost definitely also don't have the coronavirus, and therefore can't spread it to someone else. However, each time more people potentially come in contact with an unknown carrier, the timer has to reset to take their potential contraction of the virus into account.

I found this really simple infographic on Tumblr that helps explain the situation.

So, uh... yeah. The longer it takes for society to just suck it up and stay home/away from people, the longer those of us that are complying will need to stay put. It's frustrating, to say the least.

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(Yes, my Bitmoji is wearing PJs. Why wouldn't I?)

Honestly, I thought I'd be able to handle it better than I have been. Despite arguably being an extrovert, I'm still kind of a homebody, so you'd think it would be easy for me to ignore that things like restaurants, movie theaters, bars, and even my friends' houses exist. Plus, I have a list of things I want and need to do that is so long it probably easily surpasses the two week minimum I'll be home. Heck, this is day three, and I'm still in "aaaah, time to relax and catch up on sleep" mode. So you would think I'd have more than enough to keep me from going stir crazy.

At the same time though, this is only Day 3 and I've already lost track of what day of the week it is at least a half-dozen times.

Bun Facebook sticker
by David Lanham

Also, as I noted, I haven't even started to touch that To Do list yet. Case and point, I STILL haven't had a story update this month. I haven't finished my Fluff Week project. I haven't written any new one-shots. I haven't started up the When Love Matters project. I haven't thought of One and the Same. I have just... kinda... lost myself as if I already had cabin fever.

For instance, Sunday - just Day 1 of my mandatory home-stay - I started off the day listening to the recording of a two-and-a-half hour livestream on one of the YouTube channels I follow. Overly Sarcastic Productions had Red do two reading livestreams over the past few days as fundraisers for Feeding America. The first one, on Thursday, had Red reading various Edgar Allan Poe short stories for 2+ hours. The second one - the one I listened to on Sunday - was held Saturday evening, in which Red graced us all with a reading of the most notoriously horrendously written fanfiction known to man: My Immortal by XXXbloodyrists666XXX.

For those uninitiated, this story was written in the early 2000s - I think 2006? - and it is a gothic Harry Potter AU where the main character is obviously a self-insert, Mary Sue original character. Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way - the main character's full name - is a vampire who is in her final year at Hogwarts. She starts dating a gothed up Draco Malfoy, only to instantly get a crush on a newly goth Harry Potter, who now goes by the name Vampire. In fact, all of the sympathetic characters have become both goth/Satanists and members of Slytherin House: Hermione Granger became B'loody Mary Smith, Ron Weasley now goes by the nickname Diabolo[sic], and, if I remember correctly, Neville Longbottom shows up towards the end with the new name of Dracula. The author even includes an author-insert character for her beta reader and best friend Raven. This character is named Willow.

The "Plot" of the story - if you could call it that - is that Voldemort wants Ebony to shoot Vampire or Voldy will kill Draco. Due to Ebony's conflicting feelings within a very forced love triangle - which also includes Vampire and Draco both being bisexual and ex-lovers - she keeps telling Voldemort no, and for whatever reason he just keeps pestering her to do it instead of following through with his threat. Eventually, Professor Trelawney - who is either "Profesor Sinister" or "Profesor Trevolry", depending on the whim of the author at any given point - who is also gothic ("goffik") and therefore has a friendly repertoire with the main characters, tells Ebony she must go back in time in order to seduce a teenage Voldemort. Seems he only became evil because he was heartbroken. While back in the 1980s, Voldemort, who is going by the name Satan instead of Tom Riddle, does start to fall for Ebony.

Further time traveling and false death shenanigans ensue before the author dropped off the face of the Earth. There are 44 chapters total, however the 39th chapter was apparently written by someone who hacked the author's account. This parody chapter mocked nearly every element of the story thus far before claiming the fic "complete." In the chat of Red's read through of My Immortal, a lot of commenters joked that the "hacker" was Raven, finally sick of the author's poor grammar and spelling despite the beta reading. This joke is also a nod to the real-life drama told in the Author's Notes at the start of every chapter.

Usually, the ANs were generic "gothics rock; preps are just jealous haters. Everyone who flames the story is clearly a prep. Goths, you rule and I love you." There was also almost always a hat-tip to Raven to thank her for the beta reading. A little past the halfway mark, however, the two had a falling out. Apparently the author had stolen a poster from Raven because said poster was of the author's favorite singer, and she couldn't resist stealing it. She apologized to Raven via the ANs - a weird spot to air out dirty laundry and ask for forgiveness, but whatever - but apparently Raven didn't accept the apology. This lead to Raven's insert character Willow getting killed off. This rough patch with Raven, and a couple of earlier chapters where Raven was on vacation and couldn't beta read for the author, were the worst-written chapters. So, despite all of them - except the hacked one - being horribly written, it seems the quality WAS somewhat improved by Raven's involvement. "Luckily," a couple of chapters from the end, it seemed the author and Raven made up, because Willow made a silent return and the quality "improved" again. In the meantime though, the drama between the author and Raven continued to play out with the author bouncing between "screw you" and "I'm sorry, please forgive me" in her ANs. She also routinely yo-yo'd between "don't blame me for the poor spelling/grammar, that's all on Raven's beta reading" and "Just kidding, Raven, you're amazing!"

Let me tell you, this story is ATROCIOUS. It is borderline PAINFUL to experience. I had Hubby listen to some of it, mostly so he could experience the glory that was the hacked 39th chapter, and he almost couldn't handle just chapter 38; I had him listen to that first to hear the narrative change and understand the mockery. And yet, I LOVED listening to Red read it. The story was one of those trainwreck So Bad It's Good type of experiences. Plus, Red's mocking voice acting, her stumbling over reading the misspellings of words and poor grammar, and her running commentary of the work was a delight. Please, note, however, if you do brave Red's "audiobook" of this fanfic - or find and read the fic yourself - that it is bad for reasons worse than poor grammar and lack of knowledge of the source material.

There is an obscene amount of profanity, gratuitous and callous use of wrist cutting, romanticized and nonconsequential views of suicide, and nonchalant mentions of pedophilia and rape (always spelled rap). Now, the pedophilia and rape are always portrayed as horrendous acts, and the acts are never actually described, but the terms are thrown around casually as evidence of how "evil" someone is. Also, bisexual males are heavily fetishized with the author interjecting with phrases like "aren't bi guys so sexy?"

This. This is how I started my two-week isolation. It's kinda only gone down hill from there.

Hubby wanted something new to binge on Netflix, and, due to a lot of talk about it lately with our Anime Night friends, he decided it was time for us to FINALLY get into JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.

This... this show... it's... well... it's unique. That's for sure. I'm enjoying it, to be fair, but it is so massively over-the-top with everything. The dialog, the character design, the color palette swaps for dramatic scenes, the move sets, the character/villain names - which are almost all nods to Western musicians and bands - and the POSES - probably what the series is most known for. Add in the casting of just about every male voice actor I adore, and how can I not enjoy this grand slice of Cheese?

That said, "bizarre" adventure is an appropriate title, because, HOO BOY, is this show ever bizarre! So, needless to say, Sunday was an overly "weird" day for me.

Also, if all of that wasn't enough for my Sunday, thanks to a message ChibiSunnie sent me, I fell down the Inuyasha nostalgia rabbit hole. I've been routinely listening to the soundtrack ever since. In fact, while writing this blog post, I've been listening to the full 4min version of "Come" by Namie Amuro on nonstop repeat.

I have also gone back to listen to Red's livestream of the Edgar Allan Poe stories, but that was yesterday while making dinner and doing dishes.

The rest of my Monday consisted of Hubby and I sleeping in, us watching more JoJo's, me cleaning for a bit, and managing to still get in my Monday Zumba class, thanks to the instructor getting a free version of the video conferencing program Zoom. So, for as long as we can't meet up for Zumba in person, we can each go through the hour-long class at home. All we need is some floor space, the link to the Zoom session, and a good internet connection. Added bonus? Some of the normal participants who are out of town can still join in now!

Add in all of the other entertainment - OSP's reading livestreams, various other YouTube videos, Netflix, Tumblr, and (hopefully) this blog post - as well as people's ability to work from home, and still stay connected to each other, and I think the internet is the MVP of this social distancing. Way to keep up the hard work, Internet.

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Speaking of MVPs, can we pause for a minute to talk about the true MVPs? The essential workers that still have to brave interacting with others during this time of crisis?

So, thank you, doctors, nurses, various other hospital workers, first responders, grocery store workers, delivery drivers, postal workers, funeral directors/morticians, and any other worker I might have missed - such as clerks in stores like Walmart that are still open because they also sell food, water, and other essentials. I know most of you don't really have a say in the matter, but I still praise you for your continued work in this chaotic time, and your calm demeanor despite how crazy everyone else has become, and how poorly a lot of you have been treated lately.

I don't know how much comfort it is in these trying times, but, from me to you:

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Stay well, and stay sane out there.

Hubby is one of those brave souls. He works at a grocery store, so please send him all of your Positive Thoughts for the mornings where the store gets a delivery truck. The place gets MOBBED! The store opens at 6am, and when I drop Hubby off for that 6am shift there are already easily two-dozen cars in the parking lot, and the store manager has already let most of them inside! It is a MADHOUSE as people rush to grab up the hand sanitizer, soap, cheap meats, bread, paper towels, tissues, and.... you guessed it... toilet paper. What is up with the toilet paper insanity?

Downside is that Hubby has to still go out and deal with the public during everything, which also means he could contract COVID-19 and bring it home to me. So please keep us in your thoughts. I mean, so far so good, but I don't want to rest on my laurels. Also, even if we do stay healthy, that is a LOT of time for him to be standing when he already has bad knees and a bad back. Also add in the particularly terrible treatment from a lot of customers right now.

Plus side is two-fold. One, Hubby is getting a massive amount of hours, plus a hazard pay premium while everything is going down, so I hope that will help with me having to switch to unemployment for at least the next two weeks. Two, as mean as this may sound, his working while I'm forced to not means I have nearly 8hrs every day to be home alone. I can spend that time cleaning, or writing, or watching shows I want to catch up on but he's not really into, or stealing the TV to play video games; something I don't get a chance to do frequently.

That said, you see how well I utilized that alone time on Sunday....


Alternatively, Monday, while I was doing Zumba in the "dining room" that separates our living room from our bedroom, Hubby switched from JoJo's to a different anime he had on his watch list, but I wasn't particularly invested in one way or the other. After my shower, and our dinner together, I asked him if he would be cool watching more of his show instead of going back to JoJo's. That way I could sneak off to attempt SOME writing.

Squirreled away for roughly two hours before crashing for the night, I once more tried tackling that 'Your Voice' prompt for the long-over Fluff Week challenge. I had told you last week that I was writing down all of the options I thought up so I could weed them out of my head. Well, a few days ago I just kind of gave up and started writing, hoping SOMETHING would manifest.

I'm not entirely sure how I'm feeling about what I have thus far, but whatever I have, I have six pages and nearly 3000 words worth. It's definitely fluffier than some of my previous chapters/stories, although that's not really saying much. It's also far more Adrienette than I initially pictured for the story, but I guess I needed all of it to help set up the pay off? I'm still not sure what I'm going to do to switch to the initial LadyNoir side of the Love Square that I want the prompt to really focus on. So..... we'll see where I go with that.

Oddly enough, mostly due to my frantic attempt to keep up with my now flooded Tumblr dashboard, I haven't actually read anything this week, unless you count my listening to My Immortal.


Seems everyone I follow is now home with plenty of time to either add content, or at least reblog it, on Tumblr. Meanwhile, I still had work last week, and while we barely had any customers, a lot of that time was spent trying to clean and sanitize the store. Not much time to go through Tumblr with enough regularity to keep up with the heightened influx of activity. When I got home each night I spent some time bonding with the husband, and then I would kind of mindlessly sift through my Tumblr dash for four hours.

I have added so much to my already overwhelming drafts folder.

NuaNia Facebook sticker
by PRANEAT

Since I spent so much time trying to stay up-to-date with Tumblr, I ran out of reading time. Then, like I said, I've been slacking Sunday and Monday, so no reading then either. I'm hoping to get past the mental block this work shutdown has created and truly start utilizing this newfound free time properly.

It's just so weird to be told I CAN'T go anywhere, instead of opting to stay home of my own accord. It's making me stir crazy out of principle, I think. Age old "you don't want something until you're told you can't have it" problems, I guess.

I'm sure it didn't help that it's finally officially spring and we still had this mess to deal with yesterday:

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Why are we still getting snow!?
It was like 70 the day before!

I'm still awkwardly kind of on-call for work since I'm literally a block away from the store. I'm hoping the blinding sun I've seen all morning means the snow melted on its own. Otherwise I might have to go shovel the front sidewalk at least. The store's owner is trying to figure out how to pay me - or somehow give me some sort of backpay once the store reopens - for any time I might spend checking on and otherwise maintaining the building. There's a lot of roof-leaking problems as well that I might have to peek in on.

So... uh... yeah. This time is weird. It's going to feel weird for a while. While I feel like most of us are hoping these Social Distancing restrictions are only going to last for 14 days, I have a suspicion it might last until the end of April at the earliest. Especially if people continue to not voluntarily isolate themselves.

Boy, do I hope I'm wrong, and we can all get back to some semblance of normalcy by the beginning of April. Regardless of which direction this thing leans, I hope we can all stay sane together, and that I've helped you ease some of that boredom and antsiness.

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Zombie Mode

Sorry, guys. I'm kinda in zombie mode again. This seems to be a theme to this year, and I kinda hate it. I don't know why I can't get things evened out, but I keep tweaking; keep adjusting.

The weather has been gorgeous though. Yesterday I was able to spend some time writing on my front porch for the first day this year. That was nice. I'm also writing this blog post on the porch. Perhaps getting out of the winter weather will help. My only concern is that this year has had quite the yo-yoing weather. One day it's a cozy 50F (~10C), and I can see grass... and a LOT of mud... but still... I can see grass, and I only need a light coat or heavy sweatshirt. The next day we'll get about 3in (~7.6cm) of snow and I'm bundled up like I've forgotten what heat feels like. It's been killer on my immune system, so I've been battling sinus issues and scratchy throats pretty much all season.

If we can just have this gorgeous weather from now until November, I'd be set.

Okay, arguably, this picture isn't the nicest. It's been drizzling all morning, and the
breeze is a bit cold. I don't know if I'll stay out here the whole time I'm working on my blog
because my fingers are already a bit numb from the wind...
but at least I can get a few minutes. So... yay?

The "nice" weather has only been around since this past weekend, though, so I was still zombified leading into this post update.

I've spent far too much time trying to figure out what on earth I was going to do for that 'Your Voice' prompt for the Fluff WEEK story that should have been done a month ago, but here I am still chugging along with it....

The original inspiration I had for the prompt just does not work. It goes right back to my other Ladybug-involving stories: hurt/comfort. Chat Noir has to be in a low or life-threatening position for the prompt to work the way I originally planned. I'm THIS far into Fluff Week, and I'm already doing so terribly with it, that I just can't do that to my readers. Not with this collection. I'll have to tuck that in my back pocket for a future story.

So now all I have is the prompt - Your Voice - and a vague premise: Adrien realizes his feelings for Marinette, and either suspects or hopes that Marinette is Ladybug. A parallel to the previous 'AU Day' prompt and my story/chapter using that: Making the Complicated Simple.

I don't have a plot though. At least, I didn't for most of last week. To try to help me become inspired, I went back to the Fluff Week Tumblr page to see what everyone else came up with for the prompt. Of course, I already knew what three people did, and I already talked about their over-all stories a couple of weeks ago.

While I did enjoy a lot of the other stories, there were two that really stuck with me. Sctwilightvampwolfgal over on FFN had a lovely little drabble using the prompt: The Encouragement I Hear.

Summary: There is one voice that Ladybug hears in her head that gives her the encouragement to whatever lays before her, the same voice that one of her earliest memories of, is giving her encouragement. [sic]

Marinette has the wedding jitters, and begins reflecting on how much she truly relies on Chat Noir's encouraging words. She focuses on Chat Noir's voice in her head as she waits for the wedding ceremony to start. It is so sweet, and the pacing and build are done beautifully, especially considering how short the story is.

Over on AO3, Pengirl91 had a gloriously stupid way for a reveal to happen, and I loved it!
The Good Parts of Life

Summary: Alya is mad that she wasn't able to get any footage of a late-night akuma attack. As she tries to vent about it to her two very sleepy friends, she realizes there might be an even bigger scoop surrounding Marinette and Adrien.

It's another short story, but it is funny and sweet, and I love watching Alya's reaction to everything!

Writers who can convey so much so quickly always astound me. They have better skill than I.

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I still didn't really have anything to work off of. I only knew I wanted Chat Noir to note Ladybug's voice, and how it reminded him of Marinette's. How to do that, though? What would trigger him to FINALLY hear Marinette in the much more confident Ladybug? Do I have LB have a moment of uncertainty? Already did that, and he's already heard LB be unsure canonically. Plus, that's back to being a little angsty... so... next idea.

How about CN can't see for whatever reason, and has to follow LB's voice, and that need to focus on her voice is what triggers it for him? It's possible. It's probable, even. But why wouldn't CN be able to see? I can't simply take out the lights, because he has night vision, and making it so dark that even that wouldn't magically work is tricky. I could temporarily blind him, and have his vision restored with the Miraculous Ladybugs, but that's getting kind of angsty again. Blindfolded? What would be the point of having him blindfolded for an extended period of time? How is it he couldn't take the blindfold off? Would it be part of LB's plan? What would be the need? He was blindfolded in the episode "Reverser" to help prevent him from getting scared.... Could I think of a similar scenario without outright rehashing? What if he were in a labyrinth of some sort, and needed to listen to Ladybug instruct him on where to go? How did they get separated? Why does LB know the layout? Why can't she just break him out of the maze, or why can't CN use his cataclysm to get out? How entertaining would it be for readers to go through a chapter of LB instructing CN where to go? Even with an extended amount of time of CN listening to LB via earpiece, how would he not think of the voice as Ladybug's? There has to be another element that helps him forget who is talking to him juuuuust long enough for it to trigger.

It wasn't until my roadtrip down to visit my sister for her birthday did I come up with something remotely viable.

By the way...

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Happy birthday to my godson,
and a happy birthday for my sister!

Anyway, on the long drive I FINALLY thought of maybe ALTERING Marinette's and Ladybug's voice, and he'd pick up on the fact that both of their voices changed the same way. I even managed a good thousand or so words into the story yesterday.

It's not really working though. I was going to have Marinette's voice strained from exhaustion, and Chat Noir noticing LB's voice was just as strained, but I'm not liking how it's coming together. I'm spending too much time with the duo in class, describing Marinette's voice, and Adrien being distracted with concern. Then I have to take into consideration that Marinette now has a suspicion that Adrien is Chat Noir, so she'd have to be extra cautious about talking around her partner because it's kind of a dead giveaway that it's the same voice.

Unless I go the route of a lot of fanart that tease that the characters could dye their hair - usually Adrien dying his blonde hair pink - and the other STILL wouldn't be able to put two-and-two together.

So back to the drawing board. I'm now thinking of the trust-escort mission concept again. Except, instead of Chat Noir being the blinded one, what if it were Adrien? He might get hints of "huh, Marinette kinda sounds like Ladybug" because she is in her Take Charge voice after a little while of realizing she's responsible for Adrien's safety and he wholly trusts her. However, I really need Chat Noir to picture MARINETTE while Ladybug is speaking for it to truly work the way I wanted it to. So, maybe he has "she's kinda like Ladybug" moments, but it doesn't actually click until later. He instead is hyperfocused on Marinette's voice and absorbing what it truly sounds like while she's directing him. Then, when listening to Ladybug he realizes it's not Marinette who sounds like LB, but it's actually HER that sounds like MARINETTE to him.

It has potential. I just need to still lock down HOW I'm going to do it. What would be the situation in which Marinette - of all people - is in charge of a "blind" Adrien trust exercise? I could go the way of some Fluff Week 'Trust' prompt stories, and have the class practice trust exercises, and Marinette is paired with Adrien. On the one hand, why wouldn't she be paired up with Alya (her bestie) or Lila (being forced for them to build trust)? On the other, perhaps the students can just pick the people they trust, and Alya claims she wants to be matched with Nino to improve their relationship???? An obstacle course isn't exactly life-or-death, though, so would Marinette switch to Serious Mode? And how does she not then switch to be lead by Adrien, and be hyperaware of his very Chat Noir-like voice?

I could have it be similar to Oblivio, in which there was an akuma attack, and they're stuck alone and untransformed as they try to find a way to get the other to safety while also trying to sneak away to transform, and they happen to be somewhere dark??? Adrien doesn't have night vision out of the costume, but Marinette never has it, so if it's too dark for Adrien, how is it not too dark for Marinette?

Hacker Girl
Facebook sticker
by Birdman, Inc

Hacker Girl
Facebook sticker
by Birdman, Inc

I JUST DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THIS PROMPT AND STILL KEEP IT FLUFFY!!!!!

On top of THAT, this Friday is the 13th! It will be my last "Plagg Appreciation Day" until November. I need to think of something good for that. So the Fluff Week stories are going to have to take a back seat for a week.

So much for my schedule to get One and the Same back on track....

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I don't even know what I want to write for the Plagg Appreciation Day story.... anyone have any fun prompts to throw my way?

On top of all of the inspiration troubles, I was really drained last week. Nothing due to illness, so don't worry.

Facebook meme

I've just been running on fumes lately. I don't know if I'm not sleeping well, or what the deal is, but I feel like I need to pump caffeine directly into my veins every day. Which isn't fun when my body is also super sensitive to it, so I have to be careful about the amount of coffee I drink, and when I drink it.

WHAT I REALLY NEED IS SUNLIGHT!

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 Again, I'm hoping that being able to enjoy my porch will help wake me up and re-spark my writing energy.

In the meantime, I guess I'm still writing through all the ideas that WON'T work in hopes that writing them out will clear them from my head and open the way for ideas that WILL work. Such an inefficient way to write. I hate it, but it's better than no writing at all, right?

I also need to start consuming other forms of story again, in hopes that will also help re-inspire me. Reading other Fluff Week stories hasn't really helped, so maybe I need to go back to the source. Or some other fictional TV, or movies, or video games....

D&D hasn't really been helping, mostly because we only played once in February. Last Thursday was the first game in two weeks, and it was mostly "try not to let these low-level monsters kill you noobs." I mean, seriously, we're 4th level characters and we STILL have to at least take a short rest after every battle! How did we screw up our collective attack power so much?

Ya-Ya Facebook sticker
by Birdman Inc

On the plus side, we got some nice magical equipment that should help us stop being so squishy. I got way too excited, because Kriv was able to find a Lightsaber... er... I mean the Sun Blade.

D&D 5e illustration of Sun Blade

The sword is usually just the hilt, but I can activate it to create the blade of light. So.... yeah... Kriv now has a lightsaber. Now I REALLY need to learn how to draw so I can make fanart of Kriv wielding this thing.

Even with that awesome turn of events, however, I don't have the drive to write about Kriv like I normally do. Stupid Zombie Mode.

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If you guys can send me writing motivation, I'd greatly appreciate it. Also, keep an eye out for WHATEVER it is I'll post for Plagg on Friday.

Until next week!

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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The Battle With Fluff Week

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Edited by LycoRogue

Welcome back to this super special THIRD blog post this week! (Does this count as "this week" when it's Sunday and is closer to "next week"?) I meant to have this up on Thursday but... well... I've been sick this week (with my sleep schedule this month!? Who would have thunk!?) and I've been a bit too drained to finish this post on time despite my continuous working on it the past few days.

(What are you talking about? I'm totally not focusing on getting this post up to avoid working more on my Fluff Week stories....)

Koko Facebook sticker
by Hanasake Pictures Inc

Buuuuuut, speaking of Fluff Week, that's the main aim of this post. Wednesday I talked about everything that went into writing Marinette's Song, and today I'm going to discuss my battle with the Love Square Fluff Week at the beginning of the month.

In truth, part of the problem was probably my participation in the Lukanette Secret Admirer story exchange. I thought I had my schedule properly planned out so I could manage both, but with my lack of really writing anything in January, and then the EXCESSIVE amounts of research for Marinette's Song, I just shot myself in the foot. I didn't have time to properly plan out Fluff Week, which, at first blush, didn't seem that terrible of a deterrent. I didn't really plan Kyoru Week either, and yet I managed to do fairly well. I could totally do the same with Love Square, right?

Weeeeell... the thing is that I was focused on Marinette and Luka for close to a month. Even though I'm a die hard Love Square shipper, it was still a bit of a mental shift for me, and I guess I wasn't able to manage it as acrobatically as I thought. Another issue was that, as my husband put it, I depleted my Fluff Reserves while working on Marinette's Song, leaving me with almost only angst for my Fluff Week posts.

Ironically.

Yeah, I know, I know. I love you too, Irony.
NOW, GET OFF!

I mean, fluff got into the stories EVENTUALLY, but they weren't all good feelings and happy times, as one would expect to find during something called Fluff Week.

Honestly, I'm surprised I got any kind of love at all for those stories. The two with Ladybug were largely angsty, with comforting bonding at the end making everything better. The stories with Marinette are definitely fluffier, but there's no real romance in them. I mean, I have a HINT of romance towards the end of both, but still....

So, uh, yeah. No clue why Fluff Week is so much harder for me than other times I go to write. This month I was basically this meme...

That's Salt Not Sugar meme (or whatever it's called)

I guess I was just in a Mood the past month or so, and it spilled out onto my stories. In the end, though, I DID get some love.

FFN: 851 views, 6 faves, 11 followers, and 11 reviews
AO3: 176 views, 19 kudos, 2 bookmarks, and 13 comments
DA: 141 views, 2 faves, but no comments

Total Results: 1168 views, 27 faves, 13 followers, and 24 reviews

Tumblr Notes: 150 notes; 115 likes, 30 reblogs, and 5 comments

This post will be long enough as it is. Feel free to go to the respective sites to read the comments and reviews.

Not too shabby for someone who didn't really write fluff or fully participate in the event week. At least, not yet. I DID post a 4th prompt-story after the event was officially done, and I AM planning on finishing the other 3 prompts. I even have the AU Day prompt plotted out finally. More on that later.

Now, while I, of course, prefer sites like FFN and AO3 for my multi-chapter stories because everything is linked together as one large file, as opposed to my readers having to either go back to my profile or follow embedded links to get to the next chapter, there's also something that can be said about DeviantArt and Tumblr.

Namely, that I can see how specific chapters rate compared to the others.

Over on DeviantArt, my most popular chapter thus far is my MariChat story Let Me Help You. It has the most views at 51, and it's the only chapter with any faves. My second-best chapter is my first one: the Ladrien story Music to Heal, which has 47 views. My LadyNoir story/chapter I Have Something To Confess comes in third with 37 views. Trailing in the back of the pack is my Adrienette piece Playing House with only 6 views. To be fair for those later stories/chapters, though, they weren't up as long as the first two, so those numbers could still catch up in a day or so. It's unlikely after nearly a week, but it IS possible. Also, I published my first 3 stories/chapters while Fluff Week was still going, so maybe people just aren't in the mood anymore now that I've continued past the event - and Valentine's Day - with Playing House.

I'm inclined to believe perhaps the timing is indeed the main issue with the Adrienette story over on DA, because on Tumblr it's the biggest hit out of the four Fluff Week stories I have up. It has 47 likes, 12 reblogs - although, 1 reblog is by DiscoveringMiraculousWriters and another is the event page for Fluff Week. That being said, I did also get one more reblog from each of those two sites, so that's at least one more reader each that I might not have had without those reblogs.

I have to say, for a story I published at about 2am on Monday morning - and therefore the story hasn't even been live for a week - I'm impressed it's had so much love! I'm also glad Love Square Fluff Week is still reblogging stories tagged for the event, even if the event is over. Bodes well for my last 3 stories/chapters.

Much like over on DeviantArt, my MariChat story received a bunch of love as well. Over on Tumblr, it was a close second to Playing House. I currently have 34 likes and 10 reblogs. Granted, one of those reblogs was again by the LSFW event blog, and, sadly, no one else reblogged from the event page. I did get two more reblogs off of other people's reblogs though... so again I have at least 2 more readers than what I might have had otherwise.

I honestly don't know what it is about these two stories that got them so much love compared to the other two. Although, I do have to admit that there is a small handful of factors that I can think of.

• Playing House and Let Me Help You have Marinette instead of Ladybug, and maybe people prefer that?
• I know I prefer it. It's easier to have Marinette in a romantic situation than the super serious "must focus on Superheroing" Ladybug, as adorable as Soft Eyes Ladybug tends to be.
• PH and LMHY are arguably the fluffier of my stories, whereas the two with Ladybug instead of Marinette are more hurt/comfort stories.
• As I said above, it's easier to have Marinette be all fluffy and romantic as opposed to Ladybug. Because of the serious nature of Ladybug's character, it lends itself better to those hurt/comfort stories that start off a touch angsty, but becomes fluffy towards the end.
• Because I prefer writing Marinette over Ladybug, perhaps that bled through into the stories, and so, along with being fluffier, the Marinette stories are also just more fun to read.
• I've had time to distance myself from Lukanette when I wrote each of those Marinette-centric stories, so maybe my Fluff Meter refilled slightly?

I'm sure there are other potential factors, but those are the main ones I could think of. 

Anyway, my first-ever attempt at writing the Ladrien side of the Love Square came in third for Tumblr love. It could be because it was the first one posted, and therefore had the most time for people to have found it. It could be because I tagged EdenDaphne - something I'll touch upon again in a moment - and therefore had more visibility. It could also be because my LadyNoir story is probably the least fluffy out of my four posts, but I'll touch on that shortly as well.

My Ladrien story Music to Heal currently sits at 25 likes, and 7 reblogs. Since this story focuses heavily on music, I stole a fantastic idea from EdenDaphne's story Discordant Sonata, and included mood music links for people to listen to while reading. Since I got the idea from Eden, I made sure to tag her in my story in order to credit her. It kept her a couple of days to see the tag, but when she did she left me a lovely comment and reblogged it to her side tumblr account - the one she specifically has for reblogs so her main can focus on her original content. What's even better is that at least one person reblogged from Eden's side account. So, thank you, Eden, for spreading my story to at least one more person who might not have seen it otherwise. I'm actually going to say two people, because I don't know if Yunyin - another artist I admire - would have seen it otherwise either.... so... yay!

Anyway, while it will be a bit much to post all 24 reviews I've received between FFN and AO3, I AM going to share Eden's. Mostly because I admire her artwork and storytelling so much that I'm still dumbfounded that she read something I wrote AND commented on it AND reblogged it. Although, I must admit, that final bit might just be because I tagged her and she might have a thing for reblogging all mentions... but still! A reblog! Of my stuff! On Eden's sideblog! Whoo!

EdenDaphne: AHHHH I can’t believe I didn’t see the mention! What a sweet chapter, the music added that extra oomph to the Feels™️ 😭👌

The LSFW event blog also reblogged my story, and one person reblogged from that, so again, I managed to be seen by at least one more person who might not have found my work otherwise. So, that's super cool! It was expanded visibility like this that convinced me to try out the event in the first place, after all.

As for that LadyNoir story? Well, as I mentioned, I got kinda angsty in I Have Something To Confess, which mostly focuses on Ladybug letting Chat Noir know she knew where Master Fu lived, and that she allowed Adrien Agreste - simply a civilian, as far as she knows - the honor of suggesting a Miraculous Holder - something that Chat Noir hasn't been able to do - AND Adrien knows who Viperion is when NO ONE is supposed to know who the other holders are, aside from Master Fu and Marinette since she's handing them out.

I mean. I like the story well enough, but it probably isn't "worthy" of Fluff Week when it gets so heavy with its content. That MIIIIIIGHT be the reason it only has 9 likes on Tumblr, and the only reblog is by the Fluff Week event blog.

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Regardless of any other love I received, however, I have consistently gotten the same comment from the user daminett4life. Namely, they have left me triple heart emojis on all four story/chapter posts: ❤️💛❤️

Thank you so much for all the love, daminett4life!

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This is all well and good, but how did I come up with these stories in the first place? Why are they mostly angsty? Where am I planning on going with the final 3 prompts.... assuming I stop procrastinating enough to actually WRITE them?

All very good questions.

Let's obviously start with the first prompt: Concert.

"Music to Heal"

On FanFiction       On ArchiveOfOurOwn       On DeviantArt       On Tumblr

Summary: Ladybug ends up stumbling upon an intimate scene as she stalks by Adrien’s home.

I meant to have my Lukanette story done by the 5th so I could start working on the Love Square stories on the 6th when Fluff Week started. However, the 6th was a busy work day, and I did NOT feel well; mostly just tired, but still. We ended up cancelling D&D that week, but I also didn't get much writing done, let alone starting my Love Square story. To be fair, though, my lack of writing anything that first day of the event was also largely due to the fact that I wasn't sure what to do for the prompt.

Friday the 7th, I spent most of the day at work trying to figure out SOMETHING. I purposefully avoided reading any fics because I didn't want to have them potentially influence my writing, but I still scrolled through the fanart to see if I could find something to spark a story. I then searched just generic Love Square fanart to see if that would inspire me. Trying to come up with a plot for a quick one-shot was trying, at best. I kept bouncing back and forth between ideas, mostly leaning towards the duo at a Jagged Stone or Kitty Section or Clara Nightingale concert, but that felt like the direction everyone would go??? I mean, it was a given, right? Prompt is 'Concert' so you take one of the three established bands/singers canonically in the show, and have Adrien and Marinette - in some form - go to the concert together.

Naturally, I wanted to see if I could bring an original take to the party, and eventually landed on Adrien playing piano for Ladybug. I had never written Ladrien before. It is just TOUGH to come up with a plausible excuse for Ladybug to spend time with Adrien, and not simply save him and then dash off again to stop the akuma. I mean, I've seen some nice concepts before, such as Ladybug being asked to be his personal bodyguard when the threat is a bit too high for Adrien's normal bodyguard to handle. There's also the classic "Ladybug checking in on Adrien post-akuma." No matter what I came up with though, it either didn't feel original enough or didn't make sense due to the fact that Adrien - as Chat Noir - would have been with Ladybug for the most part, or wouldn't have gotten home before Ladybug with enough time for him to be in the middle of something, like playing piano.

I needed Marinette to be Ladybug without an akuma threatening Paris, that way there was a reason for Adrien to be home; clueless of the need for Chat Noir. MariChat is easier because we have canon evidence of Adrien becoming Chat Noir just to get out of his father's home for a bit. For Marinette though? The only real canonical evidence of her being Ladybug outside of akuma attacks is when she's late for something, and needs to be Ladybug in order to cross the city quickly. She's also been Ladybug for petty reasons, such as finding a way to stop Adrien from slow dancing with Chloe, or to yell at Lila for lying about personally knowing Ladybug. None of them felt right for a Ladrien story, especially that prominent one of her being late for something: why would she then stop at Adrien's house and make herself later? The fandom loves to have the heroes go on patrol for those "just out as superheroes without anything terribly pressing" moments. I think the idea came from a YouTube exclusive video - one of the Miraculous Secrets videos - but patrols are never mentioned in the canon show, so I tend to ignore they happen.

I know I could have made an exception this one time, but I also thought of two other times Marinette was Ladybug without an akuma attacking: the episode "Prime Queen" where she and Chat Noir had a live interview with Nadja, and the episode "The Mime" when Ladybug granted Alya a private interview. So that was my in: she had done another interview with Alya - because she doesn't quite trust Nadja's reporting - and it just felt easier for her to go home as Ladybug as well. She's not in a hurry, and could cave in to her urge to stop by the Agreste mansion.

Originally it was supposed to be a very fluffy story of her getting a "private concert" from Adrien on his piano, but it somehow just got grim. He was grieving and missing his mom, and he played sorrowful music to reflect that. He was feeling alone and tearful, and Ladybug was there to comfort him, but I still had to break the poor kid first.

I'm mean like that.

At least I got a touch fluffier for the next story.

"Let Me Help You"

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Summary: Chat Noir struggles to help Marinette out with a major last-minute project. If only his darn claws weren’t in the way.

Like I said in my Tuesday blog, I couldn't think of anything for the prompt 'Flowers' until I thought back to Kyoru Week's prompt 'Paper Flower' and the significance of that prop for Kyo and Tohru. I could use that. I could have Adrien give Marinette a paper flower... or, more appropriately, Marinette give Adrien one. Somehow that turned into Chat Noir giving Marinette one. Regardless, I had to figure out why there were paper flowers in the first place.

My first thought was "Marinette is a class rep. So maybe she needs to make all of these flowers like they did in Fruits Basket." But I couldn't think of WHY. I didn't know if France had School Festivals like Japan did, and I wasn't sure if graduating from collège (basically middle school) in France is a huge deal? I did some research about two years ago and found out that you could basically test out of school at that point, if you wanted to go straight into a trade school or a career or whatever instead of going to high school. So... maybe it is a big deal? I didn't really have time to do the research though, so creating flowers for school was out. Of course I JUST NOW thought of "school dance, of course", but then again, I don't know if that's an American school tradition that doesn't exist in France...

I also thought about them making the flowers as a crafting project in art, but I couldn't think of a reason for Marinette to openly give Adrien one of the flowers, or vice versa, when the rest of the class is right there. I also thought of the students that go to the art room during their free period, but Adrien doesn't seem to be one of them, so I was again struggling to figure out how to get the flower from the room to Adrien.

I then thought of Kitty Section, and needing the flowers for set design for a music video. Okay. That was set. Next obstacle: the premise of Kyo having to redo all of his flowers because his admirers stole his initial batch, and Tohru helping him so he wasn't there all night. This would be perfect for Adrien and Marinette, except I couldn't figure out a scenario where Adrien was the one making flowers, Gabriel letting him out of the house to bring the flowers anywhere, or the flowers being left somewhere that Adrien's fans could swipe them. (Of course, yet again, I just now thought of him making the flowers during a free period in school and dropping them off at Juleka's and Luka's after school, but his fans swipe them in the interim...)

Point is, I couldn't figure it out THEN - I really need to find someone to bounce ideas off of like I just did here... - so I switched back to Marinette making the flowers, but why did she need to re-do them? I thought that they SOMEHOW went missing, and she was up late struggling to remake them all when Chat Noir pops in to check on her. He had seen her flinging things all around her room to look for the flowers, and he became concerned. I even started writing up the story with that premise, only to realize "would she have enough left-over supplies to start from scratch at about 10 o'clock at night? If so, why the surplus?" Soooo I instead went with a premise similar to the "Gamer 2.0" episode: Marinette overbooked herself and didn't have the time to work on the flowers before 10pm the night before they needed to be done. She's in a panic, and sore from making them as fast as she can, and freaking out that she won't get them done in time, and Chat Noir spots her pacing her room and stretching out, clearly tense about something. He checks in, and offers to help. The story developed from there.

The true struggle, though, was figuring out that second prompt of 'Trust'. As I mentioned on Tuesday, the trick was coming up with a display of trust that wasn't already showcased on the show or in other fanfics. I'm happy with what I came up with, but it certainly wouldn't really qualify as "fluff" under normal circumstances....

"I Have Something to Confess"

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Summary: Now that she’s the Guardian of the Miraculous, Ladybug has a lot to confess.

I was stuck for so long that I caved and began reading other stories with this prompt to see what others were doing. A lot of people had trust falls as their take on the prompt: be it Marinette and Adrien, or Ladybug and Adrien, or Ladybug and Chat Noir. The thing that really got me, though, was most of them showed Chat Noir/Adrien's complete trust in Ladybug/Marinette, not so much the other way around.

Now, that's not to say I didn't enjoy the Trust Fall stories. I actually really enjoyed CoffeeComicsGalore's take in their story Chasing Feelings. The story just really got to me for whatever reason. It's LadyNoir being playful and enjoying each other's company. I think I especially enjoyed Ladybug and Chat Noir acting as teens instead of superheroes. It's super sweet. In fact, all of Chasing Feelings is sweet, so might as well check out the whole thing!

Especially their last chapter for the prompt 'Reveal'? It's amazing, and has Adrienette being stupid dorks to prank their class and it's amazing and I need it to be canon!

Anyway, back to MY story.

I tried to think of different ways of displaying trust in someone without it being a trust in one's physical well being. I ran through dozens of different scenarios, none of which I remember now, and eventually I thought back to the episode "Syren" where Adrien/Chat Noir felt undervalued and untrustworthy to the point where he threatened giving up being Chat Noir because he wasn't being trusted or viewed as an equal partner.

Bingo! There's the trust! It was again SUPPOSED to be fluffier; closer to LMHY than Music to Heal. However, as I wrote it, it was a bit more even keel. It wasn't super angsty, but it wasn't terribly fluffy either. Chat Noir felt hurt that he was left out, but was feeling better that Ladybug now is trying to rectify that and make him a more equal partner again. Ladybug also was a bit saddened by the situation - losing Master Fu as a mentor and allowing her and Chat Noir to drift in equality for so long - and she was scared to find out Chat Noir's reaction to what she had to confess to him. She was surprised by how well he took everything, and amazed that he comforted her and reassured her that he wasn't mad.

It's a sweet story that I enjoy. It just isn't "fluffy".... like every story I published during the actual Fluff Week.

I think the trick was my last minute audible into wanting the stories to tie together. I was originally going to just do a series of one-shots like I did with Kyoru Week, but I saw so many other writers were making a cohesive story with the prompts. So I stupidly attempted to follow suit.

I Have Something To Confess was the first time I fully tried to integrate the Fluff Week stories by having Chat Noir remember how it felt for Ladybug to have comforted him, and how happy Marinette was when he gave her the paper flower. I also knew I needed to build up their relationship from friends to lovers in this story. Clearly the current Love Square dynamic was already in play: Ladybug and Adrien being in love with each other, but not sure how to express that, meanwhile Chat Noir and Marinette are just friends goofing around with each other and bonding. I couldn't instantly make them lovers. I had to work my way to it. I took the first step towards that in this chapter.

I then took a slightly larger one in the next story, the one I posted after the event was technically done.

"Playing House"

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Summary: Adrien finally has a day to spend with his friends, but Marinette can’t join in on the fun because she has to babysit Manon. Alya thinks they can do better than that….

The prompt for this story was 'Comfort' and I was again stuck, hence posting after the event concluded. I already had enough angsty stories where one part of the Love Square comforted another. Although, to be fair, in IHSTC, I had the comforting mostly be Chat Noir towards Ladybug, so that's twice Chat Noir comforted his lady - once as Marinette, and once as Ladybug - but I have yet to have Chat Noir be comforted. Likewise, I had, in this order, Adrien upset and comforted, Marinette upset and comforted, then Ladybug upset and comforted. So it WAS Chat Noir's turn to be upset and comforted somehow. At the same time, though, I had but one side of the Love Square left to showcase, and it didn't include Chat Noir.

Adrien and Marinette were both already upset about something, and already comforted by the other's superhero persona. I didn't really want to repeat that. Plus, I really TRULY wanted to try to be fluffy this time. I then noticed that the prompt was 'Comfort' and not 'Comforting' or 'Comforted'.

I could just focus on them BEING comfortable. Cozy clothes or non-awkward interactions or snuggling, etc. The possibilities erupted out of me when I realized that distinction.

There were almost too many, and I couldn't really lock down any in particular. One thought was to just have Marinette be relatively chill around Adrien for once; COMFORTABLE with him, like she was in "Oblivio" or the chapter "Normal" in my story Peeping Tomcat. Maybe the two have another dance since Marinette and Adrien both seemed quite comfortable together. Or she could teach him how to bake. There was also the aforementioned thought of them snuggling together under a blanket or something, but I couldn't quite figure out the reason why they were like that.

I also tried looking at one of my original fandoms, "Hey, Arnold!", in order to figure out "true fluff." What were some of the best Shortaki moments in the show, and what made them great? I instantly thought of the episode "Dinner for Four" where Helga wins a gift certificate for a dinner at a local French restaurant. In her attempt to prove to Arnold that she's as sophisticated as his crush Lila, Helga invites Arnold, Gerald, and Phoebe out to dine; on her. Or rather, on the gift certificate. Problem is, she got the restaurants mixed up and takes them to another French restaurant, racking up a high bill she can't pay for. She tries to get out of the bill, but in the end she admits her wrongdoings and the quartet washes dishes to make up for the cost of the meal. While Helga is understandably upset, Arnold playfully sprays her with the sink hose, and tells her how proud of her he is, as a way to try to cheer her up.

It's adorable, but I just couldn't figure out how to work that into an Adrienette story. So back to the drawing board I went. Maybe Marinette designed "comfy" clothes and Adrien was modeling them? Hubby ran with that idea and suggested a slumber party so they're all in comfy PJs. It felt weird for me, though, to have a co-ed slumber party with teenagers. Sure, OUR quartet of Marinette, Adrien, Nino, and Alya are just innocent beans who would probably have a wholesome slumber party, but I grew up with co-ed sleep overs past the age of 12 being a "no-no" until you were in college and Mommy and Daddy couldn't stop you. I couldn't get through that mental block. At least, not that day.

I know my school had "sleep over" trips to places like museums where the class went to the museum after-hours to have a private look at all of the exhibits, and have special ones set up for us specifically because we were spending the night. We then crashed in sleeping bags right in the main halls of the museum, have another fun private tour of some other exhibits in the morning, a pancake or scrambled eggs breakfast, a stop at the gift shop, and then homeward bound. There is the Louvre right there in Paris, among other historical sites. I could do something like that to allow the co-ed slumber party. However, my museum sleep overs were largely when I was about 10, so.... not sure if it's a thing 14-year-olds would be participating in????

Dear lord, I overthink my stories, don't I?

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by Yanare Ku

Anyway, I felt like maybe Hubby was on the right track with the PJs thing, even if I couldn't quite figure it out. I remembered the episode "Startrain" and the two of them snuggling while napping on the train to London. I could do something like that! You have to be super comfortable with someone to fall asleep around them, let alone ON them.

Perhaps they have a video game night - they seemed kind of comfortable together in "Gamer" - and it gets kind of late, so Marinette passes out on Adrien's shoulder again, or even on his lap. Or Adrien passes out on HER lap. I couldn't figure out how Adrien was able to stay out that late, however.

What if it was some sort of screening of one of Nino and Alya's movies, which would ALSO have them snuggling under a blanket, and it was just too calm and Adrien passes out!? It was good, but Alya and Nino were still there.

Finally, I don't even really remember how I landed on it, but I thought of the quartet having fun at the wax museum while playing with little Manon. I had already established in LMHY that Marinette is overbooking herself and exhausting herself, AND in IHSTC I added on the stress that Ladybug is under. Marinette was always overwhelmed with babysitting duties before, but now that the poor girl is exhausted!?

That's when I came up with the broad premise: Adrien gets a rare free day to hang with his friends, but Marinette is already getting overwhelmed while babysitting Manon. Alya volunteers to help her bestie out since Manon listens to Alya a lot more. Adrien and Nino chat before deciding to help the girls out. They help babysit, but Alya notices how tired Marinette is, and orchestrates her and Nino leaving with Manon to give Marinette and Adrien "alone time," and Alya tells Adrien to stay put to let Mrs. Chamack know where her daughter is, if she gets there before Alya and Nino return.

I was even able to work in that playful dish washing scene from HA! by having Marinette's family kitchen be a disaster after trying to bake with Manon, and Adrien helps clean it up while Marinette's napping.

In the end, it was definitely the fluffiest story out of the four I posted, and I kinda adore where it went.

Where are the next three going to go, though?

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I'm going to talk a bit about my intended plots for the last 3 stories/chapters, so if you want to go in blind, just scroll past.

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You good? You want to stick around to read this? Okay, cool. So the prompt that's tripped me up for most of this week is 'AU Day'. Now, a reminder that AU is short for "Alternate Universe" and is a type of story where you throw the characters into a situation that wouldn't be able to logically happen in the universe presented in the source material. For instance, my Lukanette story Marinette's Song where Marinette is a witch and Luka and Juleka are descended from sirens. A VERY popular AU trope is "Coffee Shop AU" where the characters run or otherwise meet at a simple coffee shop. There's also the "non-magic AU" trope where Ladybug and Chat Noir are either spies or superheroes without powers a la Batman or Ironman. Another one that showed up during Fluff Week was "Fairytale/Disney AU." I wanted to go a bit "off script" again and come up with a different take on AU. Because, ya know, I like to make my own life harder for whatever reason....

There was also the added challenge of "how can I be in an AU and still have it logically connect to the overall story?" A lot of the other continuous stories had an akuma create the AU universe, or they just allowed the AU be a "What If..." chapter. One story in particular, Two Hundred Seventeen Days by the duo mostlovedgirl and zenmisery - a story I will definitely gush over in my next blog post - went super creative and had Adrien and Marinette fake a relationship to avoid unwanted romantic/sexual advances, so their 'AU' is them being in a long-time relationship.

Hubby joked that I could take 'AU Day' literally by making it a chapter centered around gold - because AU is the chemical symbol for gold - or I could purposefully misinterpret what AU meant and have it stand for Aged-Up. Although, the Aged-Up story idea would have a similar issue to Alternate Universe, unless I time jump to Future Ladybug and Future Chat Noir via Bunnyx or something....

Anyway, waving off Hubby's suggestions, I thought of going a bit unique by having the AU being the characters playing a role play game, and telling the story through the perspective of their characters. It was a fun concept to think of the gang creating alternate personas for a World of Warcaft-like MMORPG, or characters for a LARP in one of Paris' many parks, or even a D&D-parody game. I might still develop these plot bunnies at some point, but there were two main issues with this route:

1. I wanted these last 3 prompts to FINALLY have the Love Square kind of collapse on itself: Marinette all but figures out who Chat Noir is, or at least realizes her feelings being torn between him and Adrien, and the same for Adrien with regards to Ladybug and Marinette.
2. Adrien feeling comfortable enough with his character persona to act more "Chat Noir Like" and Marinette not tripping over herself while role playing with Adrien. Plus, this would have to be an ongoing thing for them; could I afford Adrien enough time in his schedule to regularly - at least weekly - dedicate HOURS of his day playing a role play?

Again, it's a fun concept, but I think it might be a bit much for a single chapter within a story instead of a story in and of itself.

Finally, I went to yet another of my fandoms for inspiration: Ouran High School Host Club. In the episode "Haruhi in Wonderland" the main character becomes "Alice" as she follows Honey's stuffed pink bunny around Ouran, and meets each of the Host Club members - and other main supporting cast - as the various Alice in Wonderland characters. The Host Club members joke that Haruhi makes a "poor Alice" due to her logical analyzing of everything she comes across in the Ouran Wonderland. This crossover/AU episode ends with Haruhi waking up to Tamaki telling her to get ready for their Wonderland event, and she quips that she can't tell anymore when she's awake vs dreaming due to the eccentric nature of the Host Club members.

Normally, I'm not a fan of "It was all just a dream" stories, but that's usually focused on dramas, where the drama doesn't matter because everything goes back to Status Quo by the end. For AU episodes or stories, however, the "It was all just a dream" can be fun as it tends to also bring the story in a more whimsical direction. Also, if the audience already knows it's AU they are already expecting the events to not affect canon anyway, so the rug feels less pulled out from beneath you when the dream is "revealed".

The Miraculous Ladybug episode "Oblivio" kind of bridges that gap. It had drama, so the amnesia premise was annoying because none of it actually mattered in the end, however, due to how extreme the episode was, it was hard to believe it WOULDN'T somehow go back to the Status Quo, so you just enjoyed the ride and canonical proof of how well Adrien and Marinette would be together if they could just get past their own hang-ups. The season 3 episode "Chat Blanc" was also very much the same way - I can't believe they did that to us twice within the same season, BTW....

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My point is, I want to do a sort of semi-crossover/dream sequence for my 'AU Day' chapter/story. It was tricky to sort it out since it's not a direct parallel, but with the Love Square I wanted to go with an "A Midsummer Night's Dream" inspired story. Since it's a dream, Adrien and Chat Noir are two different people, and Kwami Shenanigans - that I don't have to properly explain because it's a dream, and when are things explicitly explained in dreams? - causes both boys to fall for Marinette; abandoning their love for Ladybug. Marinette gets a bit overwhelmed by the attention, and by the end of the dream she yells that it would be easier if they were just the same guy. Chat Noir and Adrien - in unison - comply and merge together, which is when Marinette wakes up with a start as her phone alarm blasts away.

If I can just stop procrastinating and get to writing the thing, it might be the fluffiest of my stories. I get to really just indulge in it, and I don't have to worry if it's not fully explained or a bit jumbled, as long as I skillfully do so in a way that seems obvious that it's a dream prior to Marinette waking up.

The next story/chapter would use the Day 4 prompt of 'Your Voice'. I was instantly inspired by this prompt. I've thought about this for YEARS now. Adrien does shift the tone of his voice slightly whenever he's talking as Chat Noir. Between that and his personality shift, it's easy to see how Marinette MIGHT not see the two as similar, let alone the same person. HOWEVER, the same can't really be said about Marinette. Sure, she's more confident as Ladybug, and that would affect her vocal tone, but if you heard confident Marinette vs Ladybug, it would be hard to tell the two apart.

I'm just waiting for the day when Adrien realizes that. He hears Marinette, and thinks it's Ladybug, or vice versa. I was half-expecting that sort of "ah-ha moment" in the episode "Reverser" when Ladybug becomes very clumsy and much more "Marinette-like" due to the villain's powers.

Add in my love for the 90s live action show Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. The very next sentence is going to be a spoiler for the show, but you're already in the Spoiler Alert section, soooooooo...... Anyway, the season 2 finale of L&C reveals that Lois figured out that Clark was also Superman. She figured it out due to 2 very important factors. The first was that she noticed both Clark and Superman lovingly cradled her face and massaged her temple with his thumb in EXACTLY the same way. The second was when Superman was reviving Lois and calling out to her, she regained consciousness thinking it was Clark calling to her, and even nearly called him Clark when she awoke.

That one. That second factor of confusing Superman's voice for Clark's is what I want to do. I'm not sure how I'm going to bang up Adrien/Chat Noir so badly without going down the Angst Hole again, but I want him to recover to Ladybug calling out for him, and he defaulting to "Marinette's Voice!"

I'm still unsure what I'm going to do for an official reveal for that final story/chapter/prompt. I have the dominoes lined up with Marinette wanting Chat Noir and Adrien to be the same person, and Adrien thinking he heard Marinette when it was actually Ladybug, AND PREFERRING MARINETTE TO HAVE BEEN THERE. So I just have to sort that out.

First though, is writing that AU story and going from there.
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OKAY! SPOILERS OVER NOW! YOU CAN START READING AGAIN IF YOU SKIPPED THE LAST PART!

The long and short for those who scrolled passed the spoilers, I have the AU story more-or-less mapped out. I was inspired by the 'Your Voice' prompt because it's something I've thought about for years with regards to a potential reveal lead-in. I don't know exactly what I want to do, but I have the overall FEEL for what I want to go for. That final prompt of 'Reveal' is still eluding me, but I hope to have it sorted out by the time I'm done with the other two stories/chapters.

AAAAAAAAAND there we go! All done with letting you know what went into my Fluff Week stories, and I'm all caught up on all of my "bonus content". This Tuesday I'll be focusing on all of those amazing stories I've read this month. I wanted to fit them in with the rest of Fluff Week, but this post is already so insanely epic.

Stay tuned for that Story Recommendations post on Tuesday!

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