Weird Anime Concepts, Greek Gods, and Editing

Guys, I went down a rabbit hole this week. And it's all thanks to my friend Neghya.

A few weeks ago our mutual friend Delaroux was commenting about the latest anime she was watching. Most of the anime she watches centers around a group of students that are all on a team together. Sometimes it's tennis, or swimming, or cycling, or baseball; you get the gist. Now, I have no clue how she finds these, and I feel I'm going to perpetuate the anime stereotype here, but these "sports" animes always seem to have - even if it's just misperceived by the audience - a homosexual undertone. Neghya and Delaroux just out right call them Gay Sports Anime.

Well, in the way that ONLY those two can, they began to joke around about "what if there was a Gay-Sports anime; where being gay was the sport?" They joked about this all day until it wormed its way in to Neghya's head.

She's now obsessed with making this in to an actual thing, even if it's a manga instead of anime.

Well, here's the part that I come in. She was commenting about how she was working on her "gay sports anime" but knew she would need some help fine-tuning. I joked that "while I'm not an expert on gay anime, I am renowned for being the Queen of Angst, if you need."

Neghya and I proceeded to talk about her anime concept for the next two hours!

Granted, it evolved quite a bit. The original joke was "these gay men compete against each other in stereotypical 'gay' activities; like listen to their female friend bitch about her boyfriend, making a fantastic dinner, dance both classically and club, go shopping, and straight up arouse other gay men." This then evolved - back when she was chatting with Delaroux about it - in to "what if the male lead wasn't gay, but asexual? But his parents forced him to compete anyway?"

Well, when I started chatting with Neghya about this on Friday she already had the lead character designed.

Meet her baby Chris. Isn't he adorable?

However, the anime concept somehow evolved from "gay guys doing stereotypical gay things" to "gays - men and women - seducing each other in order to literally score; person with the highest point total wins" to a straight up "elite, underground college club where people sign up as seducers - Competitors - or people willing to be seduced - Game - and the highest point scorer gets a winner's purse."

We figured out tiny bits about the college and how The Game - our working title for it - is structured. Competitors join either the fraternity or sorority that runs the competition. Those that sign up as Game are all in one dormitory: The Game Preserve.

While Neghya was a bit hesitant to do so since she feels the asexual community is almost never represented, she agreed to switch the main character Chris to demisexual. In other words, he's LIKE asexuals in the fact that he has little to no sexual interest and doesn't get aroused by anyone or anything. The difference is that demisexuals DO become aroused when they're with the one person they're in love with. This solitary human being is the only thing that gets their blood flowing.

For my Hey Arnold friends, Helga would be demisexual towards Arnold. For my readers who are Big Bang Theory fans, Sheldon's evolution is becoming less asexual and more demisexual towards Amy.

Neghya still wants to represent the asexuals though, and so she has a side character that might be able to fit the bill. We also came up with a best friend for Chris, although Delaroux and I have completely opposite ideas on who should be the bestie. The guy she thought up is aloof and blunt. He's a nice foil for Chris because he just doesn't care what anyone else thinks and doesn't bother to keep himself groomed. The guy I thought of tries way too hard. He thinks himself a lady's man, but his track record all but destroys that persona. He's eager to please and is a bit over the top, but in a goofy way. I think Neghya might be leaning more towards Delaroux's idea, but I hope my guy still makes it in as comedy relief at least.

We also did some minor work on Chris' love interest. We know what his - yes, Chris falls for a guy - basic look is and what his basic attitude will be. We know that the love interest will start off thinking of Chris as a hated rival, although Chris won't feel the same way at all. In the end, the love interest will start falling for Chris despite himself. We don't have much more than that.

Oddly, the thing we spent the most time on was designing Chris' parents; his reason for bothering to sign up as a Competitor when he's not aroused by anyone. Neghya and I have nearly everything figured out for these two. We have their personalities, their history, how they met, when they married, when they had Chris, what their jobs are, what Chris' homelife was like, and basic character design for his parents. We spent so much time on them, that Neghya jokes these two are the secret and true heroes of the story.

Now, to actually think of NAMES for them....


My week hasn't been COMPLETELY taken over by semi-smutty anime concepts, though. That was just my "slack off" weekend.

The rest of the week I have been slowly chipping away at Please, Let Me Explain.

I believe last week I stated how complicated the edit has become. I have three different versions of the same scene, and I'm trying to find a way to weave all three together. I'm about half-way done so far. Once I'm done with the weaving, I get to go back through with fresh eyes and see if I can't edit it down a bit.

I'm glad I caved and posted that short chapter last week, because this one is getting SOOOO long! I've added about two pages worth so far! The entire story is now at a grand total of about 21 pages, and according to Ronoxym, we're only about half-way through his intended story. Who knows how much longer the story will be once I get my mitts on it!

The last bit of work I did this week was finally beta read another story for ChibiSunnie. I just barely squeaked it in, but I managed to keep up with my New Years Resolution to get beta notes back to the author within a fortnight. She still needs to polish it up, and probably will send it back for another once-over, but I'll be sure to let you guys know when she posts it.

Which reminds me, I totally forgot to post the LAST story I beta-ed for her when she published it at the beginning of the month.

So, for any who might be interested, here is Chibi's Hey Arnold fanfic about Mr. Simmons:

Is She Really A Keeper?

While I'm not sure I'll be able to get it done before the end of the month - therefore making up for my slacking in January - I did start up my second book this week. Hubby and I watched the 2010 version of Clash of the Titans the other day, and it had me really want to do two things: play God of War and read Percy Jackson's Greek Gods. I ended up just reading the book, although I do still want to play that game. Our poor Playstation 2 gets no love with the Wii U and Xbox 360 on either side of it...

I'm not that far in to the huge 450pg book, but it is really amusing. Definitely what I've come to expect from Rick Riordan. Now to see if I can get it done in time to catch up with my "one book a month" resolution. Worse comes to worse, I have a head start on the book for March.

How about you, fine folks? I know Phfylburt is excitedly working on his latest project of a "Choose Your Own Adventure" story, but what have the rest of you been up to?

Bite Sized Chunks

I started off the morning sort of dreading today. Labor Day was this past Monday and so the past week in the deli was hell. I would come home exhausted, and would typically just collapse.

So. Many. Naps!!!!!

I swear, I slept through about half of the week when I wasn't at work....

Which meant not only did I not do any writing this week, but my inability to even remember yesterday means that any brainstorming I may have done over the week is completely gone. Can't recollect anything.

And then I woke up this morning, realizing I yet again had nothing to show for my week. I was ashamed to post one more "Excuses" update. "Oh man, guys, I didn't do anything, but I have this valid reason so that I don't feel like a loser!"

Yeah, because THAT truly shows dedication to a craft I wish to make in to a profession.

This guilt of letting another week slip by me actually kicked my butt in to gear. So I started my morning by FINALLY working on one of my in-queue snippets. Still not sure if it will end up in the official X-Future: Snippets, but it's at least some sort of writing.

It's the farewell conversation between Lia and Sasha. It's more for my own character-building knowledge than anything else. Better understand what Lia was up to over the summer time skip. Might even get back in to her head enough to work on the Lia In NYC snippet I need to legit write for the board.

Ironically, I wrote in Sasha's POV while trying to get in to Lia's head. Sasha isn't even my character! So the story is getting sent off to 2-feathers-and-a-stone to see if I kept the girl properly in character for this scene. Once I get approval on the snippet I may officially post it for you fine people to check out.

In the meantime, rejoice with me in the fact that I'm not as much of a bum as I thought! I can force myself to write! YAY!

Accountability and guilt does wonders for my motivation.

On a less formal note, Spink started role playing this past week. I couldn't find an organic reason for one of my girls to come across where she was, but Phfylburt sure as heck did. And it was fantastic! So her character Donna hid away in the laundry room, only for Hubby to have Deadpool find her. That interaction was fantastic as well.

After slacking off for a while, this morning I finally got Lia in on the action. Not nearly as fantastic as Deadpool or Nodya, but at least the girl is doing something. Sad to say, this was the first RPing I had her do since June!!! So stupid!

So, yay for finally having some roleplaying!

Hubby also set up a scene for Willow as well. She, Chayse, and another player who recently rejoined the board all stumbled upon a news report about the couple of students that went missing over the summer. Soooooo, there's that....

It also helps light a fire under me to write up what actually happened to those two. I've kind of been dragging my feet about it because the events are so epic I'm not entirely sure how I want it to officially go down. I sort of want to collab on it, but past events have proven that is sort of a bad idea. Either the other party is super excited and I drop the ball, or I'm super excited and the other party disappears from the internet.

Guess I just need to pull the trigger on that project.

In other Role Playing news, I'm back in moderately-regular contact with Neghya. We talked for a while last night about our respective online roleplaying groups. She added me to her Facebook-based group - I still need to try to catch up on that, but it's a bit of a daunting task with the FB formatting - and I in turn sent her X-Future: The Second Generation Begins as well as the link to X-Future. That way she can decide if she wanted to set up a "reading account" in order to see how things work there. She seems to love the concept behind X-Future, but sadly her two favorite characters - Beast and Storm - are already "taken". So I'm not too sure I can actually convince her to join. Still, if I can get her to read it, there will be one more person I can talk to about the board. That might get me excited enough to work on the next chapter of TSGB.

In fact, I was online specifically to work on said next chapter when Neghya and I started chatting last night. It's going to be a while before the chapter is ready for posting since I still have to sift through hundreds of posts, but at least I'm finally in motion again, right?

I focus too much on the end result sometimes. Then I see all the steps needed to get there and I become overwhelmed. I need to remember planning my wedding, and how I took things in bite-sized chunks in order to build up to such a major party/gathering. I was able to do so much with only my mom, sister, bestie, and fiance to really help me out. And even then I took the brunt of the work right up until a mental break down about 3 months before the wedding. That's when Mom called me a moron for not delegating more, and I truly let the others help me.

My point is that while I may not really have others to delegate to when it comes to my writing, I really need to start thinking the same way. Yes, it's a daunting task that seems too big and too overwhelming to tackle while looking at the big picture. That's what usually paralyzes me. That concept of time needed to accomplish such a massive undertaking. However, if I can change my POV to think in smaller bites, I may be able to conquer anything!

Ali Luke uses this concept a lot in her advice. Sure, the idea of writing a full novel in a year seems out of reach, but when you break it down to x-number of words per season, per month, per week, per weekend, or even per day, it seems achievable. Ali even figured out how to finish a roughly 81,000 word draft every 3 months; basically one a season. With Rachel Aaron's ability to write 10,000 words a day, she's capable of writing a full draft in a week or two, and then rework said draft multiple times before actually cranking out the finished product roughly every season or so. Hell, her editor probably works slower than she does. Then you have the idea of NaNo. Fifty-thousand word novel in just one month? However, even without Aaron's insane writing speed/availability, it's still achievable by a lot of people.

It's all about breaking it down.

50,000 words. Seems daunting and impossible for one month. Roughly 1666 words a day? Still a bit much, but definitely more do-able as long as you don't slack off. 81,000 every three months? Not as mind-boggling as NaNo's task, but still a bit overwhelming. Break that down to about 27,000 a month or - as Ali put it - about 900 a day? That seems manageable - at least for her - even with a toddler.

Now let's take someone like me who isn't as ambitious quite yet. What if I want to give myself the full year to write a 90,000 word novel? That's only 7500 words a month, 1875 words per week, or about 268 words a day. Heck, if we just divide 90,000 by 365 - to avoid the messiness of some months having more or less days, or the ones that have five weeks instead of four - that's even less! A simple 247 words per day will get me MORE than a 90,000 word manuscript within a year's time.

Heck, this blog post up to this point is roughly 1300 words and it only kept me 2hrs to write; which also includes taking time-outs for breakfast breaks, potty breaks, researching, and chatting with both celestialTyrant and my sister.

Not even 250 words a day!? That's essentially me just taking a daily half-hour time-out in order to write SOMETHING that would further my manuscript. THAT'S IT! If I'm inspired - or at least have the next part properly plotted out - I could write my daily amount in just ten minutes! Even if there is some sort of holiday or family gathering that prevents me from taking that 30minute writing break, I can easily bump up the next day's writing to a simple 500 words. If I get in to a good enough writing flow I could get the entire week's worth of writing done in one long session!

The only thing holding me back is motivation to try!

Still not sure how to beat that hurdle, but I'm working on it.

Which I guess is the best thing about this blog. I'm openly working on probably one of the hardest roadblocks in writing. I'm just laying my struggle out for the world to work through with me. I'm pointing out all the tactics I'm trying, and explaining whether or not they work and why. I'm figuring it all out publicly. So that maybe you - or some future writer who has yet to find my blog - can feel like someone else has your struggle. That you're not alone. That you're not a failure for having this problem. And maybe you'll try out new methods of conquering this beast with me. Maybe something won't work for me and I'll have to move on to the next trick, but something in that gauntlet of things I try will show you a method that is your golden key to motivation.

I have such insanely high hopes for this blog, don't I?

Regardless, I guess my latest task is to try to think of writing the NaNo way year long: one day's word count at a time. Simple, small bites. Who cares if it's bad? As long as it's completed. It can be edited later.

Well, okay, maybe THAT is my biggest fault. I get too excited about my projects and post them In Progress, and so each section has to be PERFECT before I can move on since I can't go back and edit later; it's already out for the world to see.

Me thinks I need to first master patience - not posting things until they're complete - and the art of sketching out full plotlines so writing each chapter moves faster and smoother....

I just gave myself so much homework, didn't I? Good thing the school year started again this week. And I WAS commenting on how I miss college...

The Voices In My Head

This started off as a tangent on the last post, but it got too lengthy, so I dropped it in its own.

Before I continue, did you read the other post? I have two new ones up for today to make up for the random vanishing act. Go check that one out first! ^_^

Back? Alrighty then. So, as I mentioned in the last post, I'm growing more confident in my characters all having not only differing personalities, but voices as well. I mean, I can tell when one is talking versus the others because of how the statement is said and the little visual clues that come along with it. I thought it was just sort of an instinctive author thing, but I'm now realizing that it's because they're truly their own people and have their own way of talking.

It excited me to realize that. So I wanted to showcase how my characters all differ both in personality as well as speech. I also wanted to showcase what I meant when I said that each of The Girls was a bit of me.

Lia is my bashful and maternal side. The side of me that most people see. She's playful but protecting. Probably one of the reasons I got all giddy whenever Chayse - who is VERY much my husband - did anything to woo Lia. Lia is - more or less - who I am. When we first started X-Future and she was a younger teen she was unsure of herself, routinely fell in to her nervous tick of biting her lip and playing with her hair, she'd playfully punch people in the shoulder to accentuate her statement, and she loved calling Chayse names like "Swamp Brain". That last part I blame on all of my Percy Jackson reading since the character Annabeth routinely picks on Percy about being a "Seaweed Brain".

Anyway, after the time jump and Lia had two years to mature and train, she became more confident in herself and her abilities. She also became very maternal and protective of those she cares about. There's this one scene when she's walking Crystal around the Institute and something happens that forces Lia to protect Crystal. It surprised me how Mama Bear Lia became. I don't know why I was so surprised if Lia is me, however. I'm called Mama Bear by my friends all the time.

Lia's voice reflects all of that personality. She may use the same words as the other girls, but when she was younger it was filled with doubt or cheesy insults to mask the insecurity. As an older teen her words are filled with confidence, but concern. Even though she's not the oldest, she certainly speaks and acts like she's the mother of the students.

If Lia is who I am than Willow is who I want to be - well, partially. Willow is confident, playful, and a prankster. She knows she's got what everybody wants, regardless of sex. She is mad flirtatious and exudes sexuality. Being overly flirtatious - especially since more often than not she's not actually interested in the person she flirts with - tends to get her in trouble, but she loves to do it anyway. She basks in the attention. Even after she aged she's still the same-old-Willow. She's toned down the flirting a LOT after getting in to a relationship, but she hasn't stopped completely; just ask Crystal and Tyler. She's still sarcastic and playful, usually trying to joke around in serious situations to try to lighten the mood. But she's also learned when to get serious and work as a unit.

Willow's voice is full of confidence, flirtation, and sarcasm. She's a sweet talker who uses pet-names a lot and likes to say whatever she needs to in order to get someone's blood going. Although she's older than Lia she definitely acts like a sixteen-year-old hormonal girl in contrast to Lia's mothering.

Trish is my dark, pyro side of me. If there were no rules - or if I didn't have a conscious - I might have ended up like Trish. She's this tiny thing, but she still can give most people this cold chill just from looking at them. She has this "Don't Mess With Me" attitude most people comply with; Quicksilver and Devon being the exceptions - well, them as well as Deadpool and Wolverine, but they're interrogating Trish so it doesn't count. She is OBSESSED with fire and has two personalities linked to that obsession. There's the Wild Fire half where Trish just gets so angry she flies off the handle and goes wild herself. She doesn't think, she just does. It usually gets her in trouble. The second half is the slow, controlled burn. She's calculating and vicious. She'll figure out how to get out of a situation and she'll figure out greatest way to hurt her enemies. Nyssa needs to be weary that Trish linked her to Devon - who is Trish's main enemy at this point.

Trish is the easiest to figure out voice wise. She's constantly cursing - usually dropping the f-bomb, which I can't stand... - and her words are either filled with a chilling confidence, or a rush of anger. She will either intimidate you with her burning calm or her wild anger.

Crystal isn't really a part of me since she was an NPC I just took over. She's a young teenage fangirl who landed on cloud nine when her celebrity obsession became her boyfriend. She's a bit awkward and bashful - as most fourteen-year-old girls are. She's definitely a bit of a prude, a side I discovered leading up to Prom. She has moments where she rambles endlessly and she likes taking charge whenever she does find something she's confident in. She doesn't mean to be rude, but she's blunt and speaks her mind.

Her dialect is slightly different from the others because she's from Ireland, but since I didn't research Ireland's typical speech patterns her voice isn't too authentic for her upbringing. The main way to know it's Crystal speaking is that bluntness. It's not exactly Willow's sarcasm or Trish's cruelty. She just speaks her mind with little filter. You creep the bejeezus out of her and she'll let you know. If she thinks you're hiding something she'll call you out on it. Not too many people like her because of this trait. That, and the rambling whenever she's excited or nervous.

Beyond that though, I also have different voices for my other two main characters: Neghya from the Vampire LARP and Amara from D&D.

Neghya doesn't know when to shut up or get serious. She's a much more intense version of Willow. Even when she knows her comments will get her in trouble she'll still be cocky or sarcastic. It's not so much to break up the tension, but it's her way of showing she's a bad ass. She had been living nomadicly on her own for nearly a decade before becoming a vampire. She used her sarcasm and wit to get by and bluff about how tough she was. It's sort of a defense mechanism. If she feels really out of her element the sarcasm and stupid remarks seems to increase to try to show confidence and cockiness where there isn't any. But she also knows when to just shut up and watch everyone else like a hawk to quickly pick up the lay of the land and the best action to take to keep from getting killed.

Amara tried to turn herself in to a closed off robot. I'm sure you've seen the time in movies, anime, or read about  them in books. It's the trope of being seriously emotionally hurt, and so the secretly overly emotional warrior becomes an emotionless robot to keep from being hurt again. Instead the character hides behind the Intimidating Warrior persona, militaristic strategy, logic, and might. Amara shies from showing emotion. She's very calculating and is slow to speak, making sure that when she does it's cold, precise, and worth someone hearing. Her conversing is mostly done through death glares.

So, what do you think? If you have your own original characters, how do they differ from each other? Are they bits of you as well? Is one of your characters a trope like Amara is? Let me know in the comments. ^_^

Birthdays, Apologies, Vamps, and a LOT of Pictures

I had a TON of online buddies with birthdays this past month! Sheesh! September is BIRTHDAY MONTH apparently!

So let's pause a moment to give quick happy birthdays to the following:

• Chopfe
• DarkAngel1326
• Ronoxym
• ChibiSunnie

And sort of Duchess's little sister FMA:B since she was born this year at the beginning of the month. She actually shares a birthday with Chopfe.

Alright, so maybe that isn't a TON of people... but it's still a lot after months of no birthdays at all.

And since we're talking about my online buddies, AngelBlood666 has two new chapters up for his collection of the 30 Day Writing Challenge from last summer. He's now up to 26 out of the 30; better than my 14.

Final updating note on my buddies? Omnibladestrike just sent me his second chapter to read. This is pretty big. He's only done that once before. He usually gets so self-conscious about his work that he just sticks in an endless loop of reworking his first chapter. So the fact that he has finally moved on is fantastic, and in and of itself shows how much he's grown as an author. So big thumbs up there.

Now, if only I could just sit myself down to beta read for him and Chibi....

Gah, I miss having a netbook/laptop. I love my desktop, but computer chairs are so uncomfortable. I get a lot more relaxed and in the writing mood when I'm reclined or laying in the grass. Also, if I weren't tethered to the desktop - which is in perfect sight of the TV - I could remove myself from distractions so much easier. As it stands, I have to blast music through my headphones to drown out the TV and/or the talk of visitors playing MTG with Hubby, and then I have to try to angle myself so that I don't see the TV in my peripheral.

Although I can usually write while like that, I found it's increasingly difficult to beta while sitting at an angle to the computer and with music blasting in my ears. It's equally hard for me to proofread my stuff. Add in the fact that I'm getting sadly close to blind, and well...

Here, let me explain. I much rather prefer contacts to glasses. I look better in contacts. I don't have to worry about things in my peripheral being blurry since they are outside the range of my lenses. Plus, after a decade of almost exclusively wearing contacts, the extra distance between my eyes and the corrective lenses of my glasses is just enough to give me this weird fish-eye-lens feel that makes me a touch dizzy and kills my depth perception.

Problem is, like I said, I'm closing in on "blind." Without any corrective lenses of any kind I have to be within about five inches of something to see it clearly. Once your eyes get that pathetically bad it is impossible for contacts to be made in small enough increments to truly correct your vision. So, I can either stick with the prescription I have now which is a touch too weak, or go to the next level which would be majorly too strong.

Obviously I'm sticking with the touch too weak. This means I'm good for most sight purposes, but when it comes to reading something I have to be about two feet or so from it - depending on the size of the font, obviously - and items in the distance aren't as clear to me as they would be with 20/20 vision. To my guestimation, I'd say I'm at something like 15/20 vision. It's pretty darn close to corrected, but not quite there.

Add in the fact that I'm pinching pennies right now, and so I can only afford the contacts as opposed to the rough estimate of $200+ for new glasses. Ah, glasses. THEY can be made with small enough adjustments that they could get my exact prescription need and I'd be at full clear vision again.

Anyway, the reason I bring all this up is similar to why I brought up the whole desktop thing too. The way my desk is set up my monitor is probably about 2feet from my face, so it's at the edge of my clear vision with my contacts. Add in the normal eye strain of staring at a computer screen for too long. This results in me either adding a lot of stress on my neck and back as I lean forward to read, or really putting a strain on my eyes as I try to focus. Either way, it's literally painful for me to read at my computer too long in one sitting.

So, I apologize to Chibi and Omni for not being the quick-turn-around beta I vowed to be while coming up with my New Years resolutions. I apologize to my fellow members at the Writers’ Huddle for once again disappearing from the boards; it's just hard to read what conversations have been going on, let alone join in. I also apologize to AB666 for not reading/commenting on his chapters lately. Finally, I apologize to any other author whose story has been sitting in my inbox for weeks/months on end. Same goes for the three or so bloggers that I follow and haven't read in ages.

And since I'm here apologizing anyway, I might as well add in that I'm sorry that I don't have a chapter update for you guys this week. Normally - so it seems - I would therefore not have a blog update, but I figured if I wasn't going to give you guys a chapter I might as well give you this, right? Besides, I do have something else - aside from the above - to talk about.

This week has just been rough at work. A LOT of my co-workers have been getting sick now that school started up again. In other words, school started, kids went back to school, the increased socialization within a confined space is causing these kids to catch each others' colds, said sick children are now bringing their colds home to their parents, and they in turn bring the sickness to work. Yay....

We're pretty short staffed to begin with, and on top of that a lot of my co-workers are college students who now have a very restricted work availability. So now that people are dropping like flies with these stupid illnesses, the few of us with open availability have to fill in the gaps. I personally gave up my day off today - as well as shifted my Friday and Saturday schedule a little to open up some hours for me to work before hitting overtime - in order to cover for someone.

When I'm not dead tired at work I'm home cleaning the apartment. Either that, or once more getting suckered in to my husband's siren-song of snuggling on the couch while binging on hours of anime. The meal of the week? Black Butler II, and now Fairy Tail.

Side note: I LOVE Gray!

HAWT (ironic for an Ice Mage...)

Grrrrowl... ;)

I LOOOOOVE watching him enter this stance in the anime. He looks so awesome! *swoon*

*Ahem* Right... I'm married... to an actual man, not an anime/manga character....

I was semi-creative this week though. I swear!

So when I wasn't dying at work, cleaning, or wasting my life by watching hours on end of anime, I actually had the vampire LARP this past Friday. It's been MONTHS since we last played, so it kept a bit to get back in to character.

I then couldn't get her out of my head. Yay, insomnia!

Anyway, the character I'm talking about is my most recent: Neghya. Yup, name "stolen" from online buddy Neghya.

She is for our Sabbat game; simply, very violent vampires who wish to rule over Humanity as farmers rule cattle. If one were an X-Men fan I'd say - very loosely - that Sabbat are the Brotherhood of Mutants to the Camarilla's X-Men. They are chaos to Camarilla's order. They also have a sort of bastardized mock Catholic Church set up to their society's standings. It's complete with such positions of stature as Bishops being the most powerful vampires to rule over a city or borough, and packs within said city who each have their own Priest that performs rituals every night and Abbots who protect their haven.

All that aside, Neghya's story consists of living in a dystopian present in which every man is more-or-less out for himself. There are little to no "heroes" among Man any longer. Vampires and other supernatural creatures control nearly everything from the background, still hiding supernatural existence from humanity. In this dystopia Neghya is a 25-yr-old runaway who has taken on a nomadic lifestyle for the past decade, more-or-less. One night, after working a shift at a New York City bar, she comes across a strange man. I have yet to work out enough of her backstory to know how she pissed him off, but I do know she somehow came upon a ring that is of great importance; although The Bard has yet to bring the subject of the ring back up and so I have no real clue of its significance. Anyway, she either won the ring off of him by besting him in some card game - probably though rogue-like cheating - or she just plain stole it off of him.

Either way, she had the ring - along with more of his valuables - and he wanted it back. Not only that, but he wasn't about to be bested by a mere human. He is from Clan Ravnos; originally the Gypsy Kings of the vampire world, now a nearly extinct race of common rogues, thieves, murderers, and delinquents. Being outsmarted by a human was NOT an option. So he took his revenge on her the best way he knew how, but more on that in a moment.

The real draw for me to play Neghya was that I'm still learning how to play Vampire: The Masquerade. We have games so infrequently - and the rule books are so convoluted in describing how to play - that I never really understand what to do or remember key points that any vampire character should know. We set Neghya up as a newly-embraced vampire. The first role play session I had with her she didn't even know what she had become. She was terrified after killing a homeless man and draining his blood. Hubby's character Javed found her and took her in as his surrogate Childe. There were some humorous moments when she mocked the most powerful vampire in NYC because she didn't quite comprehend yet that not only were "those creatures from TV, movies, and preteen novels" real, but she was now one of them.

Since Neghya is still trying to wrap her head around the concept that supernatural entities do exist and that she's no longer human, she's also learning the ways of the Vampire. This of course means that I can goof up during game sessions and then blame it on Neghya "not knowing". Win!

The story diverged a bit from Neghya's original storyline; mainly because it wouldn't be fair to the other players if the whole game was centered around her. So, for game purposes, she's just a new recruit being thrown in sink-or-swim style during a massive war between the Sabbat and the Camarilla for possession of NYC. We're about to hit the conclusion of this war as we played out the beginning of the final battle this past Friday.

If I were to turn this in to its own World of Darkness fanfiction, Neghya's story would consist of her tracking down her true sire - the Ravnos - and take her revenge on him. There is unbridled hatred for this man, and Neghya wants to unleash her full fury on him. Fair warning, though, if I were to actually write out her story - a thought I toss around every now and again - it would have to be a mature rating and the first chapter alone would be greatly disturbing.

See, the Ravnos' revenge on Neghya was to "take everything that makes her who she is"; in other words, the most violently forced embracing he could think of. The whole thing was about dominance over her and stealing as much as he could from her. Poor thing is stripped down and shackled to a dumpster in a side alley behind the bar she worked at, is violently raped while being sliced open so he could slowly drink her blood while inflicting as much pain as he can, and then is turned in to a vampire just before he rips out her insides so she could survive the torture of it.

Jack the Ripper had nothing on this creep. In fact... maybe he once was Jack the Ripper...

When I started roleplaying as Neghya we knew that she was raped before being violently turned in to a vampire, but we didn't have the specifics. After Friday's game I guess Neghya wanted me to have the specifics.

I tossed and turned while having the most random bout with insomnia; something I've only suffered from maybe half-dozen times in my life. As I lay snuggled against my husband I couldn't turn off my brain as I witnessed the entire brutal scene of Neghya's embracing. I heard her Sire's voice as he berated her, screamed at her, threatened her, and mocked her. I heard her pleas for him to stop, forgive her, and spare her; I then heard her cries of agony. Actually, it's no wonder I couldn't sleep with such torturous visions playing out in my head.

At about 2am I caved and went to the desktop to type. I didn't get every single word or nuance, but I have more-or-less the entire vicious act written down now. Then during my break at work today I had Neghya's response to this vile deed. There is a trick that vampires can use on each other. Camarilla forbid its use - it's an executionable offence - but the Sabbat embrace it. In fact, Hubby's character Javed has an obsession with it to the point where he will frenzy if he is allowed the opportunity to do this feat and then it is denied him.

This action is called Diablerie; a heinous act, akin to vampiric cannibalism. One vampire drains another of his blood, and once the victim vampire is completely dry his very soul is consumed by the feasting vampire. Javed just taught Neghya how to diablerize a vampire during Friday's game. Now that she knows this trick exists, the extreme power and ecstasy it brings, and the complete irreversible death it causes; she's figured out how she'll enact her revenge. I have that whole scene written out too.

So, alas, there is no new X-Future chapter for you guys to read; almost exclusively due to me spending nearly two entire days watching anime with Hubby. However, I WAS creative over the weekend at least. Plus, I managed to get over my hurdle of "I can't torture my characters"; at least with poor Neghya. I think it's mainly because she was able to more-or-less recover from it. Same with Amara. I was able to torture her, but she also more-or-less recovered.

From what I hear, Hubby's co-storyteller - whom I idolize for his ability to create such compelling characters and side-stories - is thinking of doing something major that would result in a complete annihilation of one of his characters' personalities. I nearly cried when I heard that! And the guy hasn't even DONE anything yet. He's just THINKING about it! Man, to be so cruel and cold to one's characters after making everyone else fall in love with them!? That's talent.

So, while I sort out this whole mess of "can I truly torment my characters for the betterment of their development/the story?" I'll also debate writing out Neghya's story while I actually work on the next chapter of X-Future. Unless I'm called in to cover for more sick co-workers, I should have my scheduled two days off in a row this week. With any luck I can accomplish some writing on at least one of those days.

Wish me said luck!

Expanding My Fandoms

As promised, due to missing a week, and said weeks being insanely filled, I am now gifting my beloved readers with a second blog update. The original post just would have gone on forever in a ramble if I kept it all as one, but I wanted to talk about everything, and thus this second post! YAY!

So if you haven't read my first post for this week, it's here.

Now, typically this blog goes on endlessly about my love for Hey Arnold! and all the fanfiction I write for it. It's rare that my readers hear mention of any other fandom. Yet the last post was mostly discussing X-Men, and this post shall continue that thought.

Ever since Hubby set up Netflix, we marathoned any and all X-Men cartoons available on Netflix, and Hubby set up the RPG; you guys have read minor mentions of the fandom here and there.

Yet, spending all that time describing both Lia and Cajun to Neghya really re-sparked my interest in X-Men. I'll admit, it's mainly because I had to do so much research on Gambit - and refreshed my memory on how awesomely suave, charming, and ruggedly handsome Gambit is.

I mean, I had legitimately forgot how epic Gambit is, and was quickly reminded as I flipped through pictures on DeviantArt and Tumblr. I drooled. I got hot and bothered. I screamed out "HOW ARE YOU SO AWESOME!?" I was hooked.

As I mentioned in the last post, this revival of my X-Men interest lead me to hop on to YouTube to search for videos of Gambit. I mainly focused on the Gambit from X-Men: Evolution, since that incarnation would be the version that is Cajun's father. Man, as much as I always have and always will love the 90's X-Men cartoon and it's version of Gambit, I think the Evolution Gambit is about equal. Goodness, was he hot for a cartoon character! Plus, his charisma and the way he played off Rogue.... *drool*

So I obsessively watched X-Men Evolution - mainly any and all Gambit scenes - for the next day or two. I also sent Neghya my two favorite interactions Hubby and I had between Cajun and Lia. I love them so much I'll put them here too:

Chayse first interacts with Lia (whom he's been watching from afar for the past two months she has been at the institute) at the "Back to School" mixer and he asks her to dance. She agrees (charisma FTW), and is then embarrassed when her father surprises her as the new school librarian. Jamie (Lia's dad) uses his mutant ability to duplicate himself so there are now three of him standing over Lia. The three Jamies all dote over her and gush about how much time they'll spend together (super overprotective and super embarrassing), and then the Jamies start talking sternly to Chayse - who was just about to kiss Lia when Jamie interrupted. Lia gets frustrated with her overprotective father and Chayse doesn't help matters by mentioning how adorable Lia's butt is.

Lia storms off and Chayse follows her. Lia quickly turns around, stopping Chayse's advance. She starts poking him in the chest, "OOOOh no, Mister! You are causing enough trouble for me as it is! I finally had time away from Dad and as soon as you hit on me there he is! In triplicate!"

Chayse smirks as he allows Lia to continue poking him. In an instant he uses his powers to phase through her arm, sneak a quick kiss, phase the rest of the way through her, and then walk away. "Call me sometime, Chère, I'm looking forward to seeing you again."

Yup, Chayse not only stole THEIR first kiss, but LIA'S first kiss... She was excited and pissed at the same time.

Then there's the next interaction these two have. Lia runs in to Chayse in the hall...

When Lia sees Chayse she bites her lip and plays with the orange streaks running through the lower layer of her hair - both actions are normal ticks of hers when she's nervous. With a deep breath, she continues down the hall and tries to act cool. As she passes Chayse she avoids eye contact and places a hand on his chest, keeping him at arm's length. "Don't try doing that phasing bullshit again. And you better not make any more trouble for me."

Chase cocks his head and watches Lia pass. With a knowing smile, he takes out a deck of cards and starts shuffling them as he follows her down the hall. "Sorry 'bout the mixer, got caught up in the moment and was hypnotized by your beauty. I'll make it up to you sometime." He does a little jog to get in front of Lia and starts walking backwards, fanning out his deck, "Pick a card?"

She purses her lips and eyes up the Cajun. With a questioning glare Lia reaches out and selects a card.

Chayse gives a charming smile and shuffles the rest of the deck, "Don't need to do the rest of the trick to know that you took my ace of hearts."

Lia blushes as a smirk creeps on to her lips. Out of curiosity, she checks the card and is shocked to see that Chayse is actually right: Ace of Hearts.
"Alright, I'll admit that was kinda smooth."
She turns the card around to show it to him, "And had a bit of slight of hand involved I'd wager."

She holds out the card for him to take back, but he puts his hand around hers and pushes it gently back against her chest. "You can keep it,  Chère, I took something from you so the least I can do is give you something of mine."

Lia blushes harder and pulls her hand away to tuck the card in her pocket, "Alright, Cajun, you might not be so bad after all."

MAN! Is my husband smooth or what!? Now does everyone understand why I married this man!? Cajun is Hubby's suave side personified... COMPLETELY! XD

Now that I went back and sent those blips to Neghya, my desire to translate the RPG in to web comics is even stronger. Too bad I can't draw...

I also wanted to revive the game since Hubby's friends have the tendency to go full throttle in to a game, and then quickly fizzle back out. Barely anyone has done anything the past month. Now that my desire to play is revived, I spent most of Tuesday and Wednesday trying to think up plot points that Hubby could use to try to bring people back to the game.

Both of us are posting everywhere, trying to get people to interact. I actually had fun coming up with long posts for my secondary character Willow. She's a trickster and is currently trying to seduce a classmate in to using his morphing abilities to help her pull pranks around the school... We'll see how it goes.

But X-Men isn't the only fandom I'm now re-fixated with.

There is this one scene in X-Men: Evolution that makes me squee like the little Fangirl I am. Rogue is brainwashed and attacks all of the main mutants introduced in Evolution. One of the last mutants being Gambit. The rest of the cast - the X-Men, the Brotherhood, Magneto's Acolytes, even Magneto himself - were all pretty easy for Rogue to take down. However, Gambit actually manages to put up a fight, lasting longer than everyone else. Rogue finally subdues him and takes his power by using the element of surprise: she quickly kisses him on the lips.

This scene reminded me of a similar scene in another show I used to love. A scene where the main female cast member is also brainwashed/possessed, also takes out a group of people by a simple touch of her hand, and also finally tries to take out one of the males by kissing him instead of simply touching him like the others. I'm talking about the second episode of Extreme Ghostbusters.

Kylie is this five-foot-nothin' gothic girl who is currently possessed by a plague-spreading demon. Kylie spreads the disease with a simple touch. Eduardo is a tall, lanky, slacker who likes to think himself a lady's man. He's also a bit of a coward, and so while the other two members of the revived Ghostbusters team - Roland and Garret - go off to try to find the ghost spreading the disease, Eduardo stays behind "in case Egon calls." While Eduardo is all alone and defenseless, Kylie walks up to him WITH HER HANDS BEHIND HER BACK and leans in close to him - trying to coax him in to kissing her. SHE COULD HAVE EASILY TOUCHED HIM AND INFECTED HIM AT ANY TIME!!!!

This scene - and other Eduardo/Kylie moments - got me thinking about a mini-essay I wrote back in high school when I used to watch the show religiously. It was basically an episode by episode evaluation of Kylie and Eduardo's relationship throughout the insanely short-lived series. Using examples from nearly every episode, I gave definitive proof that Eduardo is in love with Kylie - and was at least attracted to her from the moment they met; and that Kylie at the very least was attracted to Eduardo by the end of the series. The show ended too soon to showcase whether or not Kylie had any strong romantic interests in Eduardo.

All of the re-watching of the Extreme Ghostbusters episodes - especially all the Eduardo/Kylie moments - plus thinking of my old essay also got me thinking of a fanfic I was attempting back in 2008 when I first re-introduced myself to the show. I didn't get very far with the story, thankfully.

I reread it on Thursday. It's by no means awful, but it's also not all that good either... It's workable, but I'm not entirely sure how to rework what I already have. I'm pretty positive I have Eduardo's voice down, but I'm not convinced I properly characterized the rest of the cast. I just might take a break from Hey Arnold! to work on this fanfic; see where it goes. Regardless, I'm thinking complete re-write of what I have.

Here's a snippet that I'm actually happy with, but I think I need to tweak Kylie's dialect some more to sound like her:

Eduardo was passed out on the couch and let out a large snore. “Ug,” Kylie moaned, “Can’t we turn him off or somethin’?”

Garrett’s eyes lit up and the corners of his lips curled into a smirk. Kylie just gave him the perfect idea for ending his boredom. He wheeled himself over to Eduardo’s side, placing both Eduardo and the couch between him and Kylie.

“Hey, Kylie,” he called over a little louder than he needed to, “I heard a rumor today. Wanna hear it?”

“Not particularly,” Kylie replied softly as she took another bite of her sandwich.

“The rumor is about you,” Garrett dangled the carrot. On cue, Eduardo stirred and his face started to frown. Kylie didn’t get the hint, however.

“Don’t care,” She took another bite.

Garrett puffed out his chest. All this time and Kylie still wouldn’t play along with him. He tried again. “Heard you had a date tonight,” he emphasized the word “date” and made sure to lean into Eduardo a little bit. He nearly got smacked when Eduardo jumped awake. Garrett stifled his laughter. At least he accomplished his task of waking the Latino.

“Well you heard wrong,” Kylie responded, still not allowing herself to be roped in to whatever Garrett had cooking, even if she was relieved that Eduardo’s snoring stopped.

“Come on, Kylie,” Garrett returned his voice to a softer tone, “admit that you have a date tonight. Cute guy too, I heard.” He nodded towards Eduardo, trying to give her some sort of signal.

“What?” Eduardo squeaked, trying to understand the conversation going on around him.

She ignored Garrett’s signal and finished her sandwich. “I said I don’t have a date. Besides, even if I did, why would I feel the need to broadcast it to you?”

It wasn’t much, but Garrett would take it. “Sounds like a confession to me. Right, Eddy?” He nudged his poor disoriented friend.

“Doesn’t sound like nuttin’to me,” Eduardo pouted.

“This guy must be really hot for you to keep him from us.” Garrett continued, “What? You’re afraid we’d scare him off?”

Kylie was tired of this. She stormed over to the paraplegic and leaned in so their eyes met. At a solid five feet tall, Kylie didn’t have to bend too far to accomplish her goal. “I said,” her tone was rough as she slowly talked, purposely punctuating each word in hopes to end this farce. “I. Don’t. Have. A. Date!” She flared her arms with the last word and stomped towards the stairs.

“Guess she doesn’t have a date,” Eduardo smiled to the slightly shaken Garrett.

Before Kylie reached the stairs, the alarm went off. Someone had called the Ghostbusters for help. She detoured for the fire pole instead.

“What have I always said about your snoring being too loud to hear the phone?” Garrett joked as he wheeled himself towards the disability lift.

“Yeah, yeah,” Eduardo rolled his eyes, “you’re real funny.”

The most basic of plot descriptions for this fanfic is as follows: 

The main ghost in my fanfic feeds on jealous energy. This ghost - which manifests itself as a spider - bites Eduardo and turns him in to a Hulk-like monster, but the transformation is fueled by jealousy instead of rage. The ghost then shapeshifts in to a handsome, Australian, college student, and woos Kylie - in an effort to make Eduardo jealous so the ghost can feed off the energy. It works, Eduardo Jealous-Rages, the ghost becomes strong off of the energy, and the Ghostbusters are helpless to stop it. Kylie is kidnapped King Kong style and it's discovered that the only way to weaken the ghost enough to capture it is to calm Eduardo's jealousy. Kylie finally gives up fighting her feelings, confesses to Eduardo that she likes him back, Eduardo changes mostly back in to a human, and the rest of the XGB capture the weakened ghost. There is a bit of a Beauty and the Beast thing where Kylie's kiss is the only way to fully transform Eduardo back in to a human and "heal" the ghost's bite.

Super cheesy, I know... it's the Hopeless Romantic in me... Anyway, I tried to use elements already established in the show to make it feel more "canon". For instance, the "Eduardo gets bitten and is turned by a ghost" is established in "Killjoys", as is the concept of ghosts "feeding" off emotion - in "Killjoys" the ghosts focus on laughter. The "Ecto-induced Transformation" that Eduardo undergoes - therefore making the proton shots harmful to him - is established in "Witchy Women". Janine at the end of the story convinces Kylie to confess to Eduardo because of references to the episode "The Crawling" in which Janine gets transformed in to a bug creature and can only have her humanity returned by Egon confessing his feelings for her. The "Beauty and the Beast" transformation is also partially inspired by another show I loved when writing the fanfic: InuYasha, in which Kagome is the only one capable of calming InuYasha when he is fully demonic.

Aaaaaand, speaking of InuYasha, while trying to find the XGB fanfic I just described I managed to find another fanfic I nearly forgot about. It's actually a massive hybrid/cross-over fanfic that takes elements from at least four different sources.

The main source is the Xbox game "Fable". The setting and basic history, as well as the basic background of the male lead, are all based on the game. The secondary source is Legend of Zelda. Then there are elements - mainly character traits - taken from Escaflowne, Tomb Raider, InuYasha, and Fushigi Yuugi. That story is a touch too complicated to explain simply. Therefore, I'll have to restrain from giving you a preview of that story right now, especially since this blog post is long enough as it is.

Switching gears over to roleplaying, I did Character Creation on Friday for yet another vampire character for Hubby's BFF's newest game. This time I actually started as a human and we roleplayed my character's embrace. It was violent, it was forced, my poor character was left to fend for herself, and she was clueless of what she became. Boy, was the poor girl freaked when she killed two bums while feeding, and felt like she landed in the Twilight Zone when she was informed that Vampires were not only real, but she was one. It was so much fun reacting to that news! I was "meh" about her at first, but developing a freshly-turned vamp might be lots of fun!

Already I kinda want to write a story based on her - sort of transcribing the game so others can enjoy. ^_^

On top of all these other writing ideas, I'm excited about another possibility. Now, in my birthday post I was listing all the gifts that DarkAngel1326 was giving me, but I didn't get my fourth gift in time to let you guys know what it was. Turns out the picture she drew me was a precursor for another short story she wrote for me. She wrote out my favorite scene in The Familiar of Zero, but starring Arnold and Helga. She did a really good job too!

So now I'm thinking we should join forces to elaborate on my "Spellbound" short story and collaboratively write a Familiar of Zero/Hey Arnold! crossover. The closest I've come to a collab story before was the script where I met ChibiSunnie, but for that it was more that she gave the broad plot ideas and I did the writing. With DA1326 I think we would be jointly writing, and I think it would be kinda cool to see how to best do something like that over the internet.

We already discussed how we love when PinkLotus27 collabs with someone they come up with a joint name. For instance, when she was still BrokenRose24 and would collab with NintendoGal55 their stories would be posted under the name BrokenNintendo. Likewise, when NintendoGal55 collabs with SuprSingr - who has a fantastically popular HA! story out right now - their penname is SuperNintendo. After a quick discussion DA and I decided that we'll post the collab under the name DarkRogue! XD YAY! But if we collab on something super-duper fluffy we might switch it up to LycoAngel. So I guess you guys can keep an eventual eye out for that!

In the meantime, I just don't know what direction I want to go with my writing!

• Get back to working on "What Is Truly Meant To Be"
• Go back and work on the rest of the July Daily Challenges
• Get to work on my Hey Arnold/Familiar of Zero cross-over
• Either alone, or as that joint effort with DarkAngel1326
• Go back and re-work my XGB fanfic
• Get started on my Vamp story
• Go hard-core with my X-Men RPing

Do you guys have a preference? Feel free to let me know in the comments below. ^_^

Well, I hope this appeases my readers that missed out on an update last Sunday. We'll see next week what I do with my vast writing options.

Back in to Video Editing and Other Distractions

Wait...

*Checks calendar*

...I missed last week's update and didn't notice!? How did that happen!? Oh... right... I was mad busy... :P

And so I'm going to make it up to you guys. I'm gonna do TWO updates this week! YAY!

I was trying to make it all in one post, but it ended up super long and kinda rambley. So let's have two, more focused updates, shall we? This first one will talk about the craziness that has happened since my birthday, and why I totally missed last week's update - essentially, this post is what would have been up last Sunday.... Then, the second post will be more focused on writing; so what I would have normally posted today if I didn't do the recap. :P

Let's get started, shall we?

A friend of ours needed some help on a work project. The long and short of the project is that he was in charge of doing some sort of presentation for corporate - each store in the franchise had to do it - and he wanted his presentation to be about a new safety video for work orientation. With the suggestion from my husband, I ended up as the editor for the video. This would have been a great opportunity to try to get my foot back in to production if Corporate liked my work. The issue is that the friend didn't even start filming until about a week before the project was due - mainly because he was transferred to a different store.

So the Friday before my birthday I got the footage to edit, but with my mom and sister visiting I wasn't going to work on the project. I therefore spent my actual birthday getting insanely frustrated when I finally tried to tackle the video. My main problem was the footage was filmed on a consumer camera and my editing system wouldn't accept the file format. SOOOOOOO.... I spent the day pulling my hair out and Hubby spent it trying to calm me down while attempting to help me convert the footage in to a format I could actually use.

The next issue was that the footage was horrible quality because the guy who filmed it was clearly an amateur and couldn't hold the camera steady to save his life... :P On top of that, our friend didn't make sure he filmed everything he needed for the video. So after about four hours of editing on my birthday and another six on Tuesday I was maybe half-way through the project. After work on Wednesday I went ahead and finished filming everything I needed, and then spent roughly twelve hours editing!

The end project is only five-minutes long! I stayed up until 2am Thursday morning finishing the edit and fighting with my computer to get the darn thing to burn on to a DVD properly. Hubby and I then woke up at about 5:30am so we could meet up with the friend by 8am and get to the presentation that day! I was so tired when going to the presentation! Worse yet, I didn't realize until we got there that these presentations were being VOTED ON! The region consists of roughly 20 stores - only 10 of which actually had anything they could present - and we were apparently all competing against each other. None of the stores knew what project the others were working on, we could do ANYTHING as long as it would improve the store in some way, and most of the presentations were Powerpoints. Once all the stores gave their presentation, the store managers and regional directors would collectively vote on the best presentation, and that would be sent to Corporate where the winners of each region would again compete in a similar fashion.

I DIDN'T KNOW ANY OF THIS!!!!!

So, needless to say, I was insanely nervous about showing a video I still felt was insanely sub-par. Granted, part of me felt we were shoe-ins because, well, video versus boring Powerpoint presentations; part of me felt bad for those who worked really hard all year and wouldn't have a hope to surpass a video that was completed in less than a week; and part of me still felt like there was no hope of winning because I saw all of these flaws in the video - even if no one else noticed.

I have to say I was a bit flattered and humbled when one of the store managers came up and offered to pay for the video I edited so he could have a copy to show his store! I looked to Hubby and Buddy to see what I should charge, we all shrugged, and in the end I just gave him one of the FOUR copies I made.

Our presentation was right about the half-way point of the day, and the last store to go also did a video - a SAFETY video no less! This meant we were no longer the only store to do an orientation video. Oh, the irony that we both picked "Safety" as the focus! Anyway, the video was clearly filmed with a professional-grade camera and with more cinematographic angles. I got super nervous, until that store was named the runner up.

Our store was then named the winner - which comes with a $1000 reward that we can use either to polish up our current project, or use towards next year's project/presentation. Would have been cooler if ANY of the prize actually went to us. :P Still, YAY we won!

The other store were clearly sore losers. I went to congratulate them on a Job Well Done, and tell them how beautiful their footage looked, but they were already out the building and in their cars by the time I could break away from our store manager congratulating us. According to the regional HR rep that was hosting the meeting, they left so abruptly that they left behind their thumbdrive with their Powerpoint presentation, the DVD their video was on, and the laptop speakers they brought in... The Rep gave the store manager a talking to about the poor sportsmanship....

Anyway, so that was the majority of the first week of my 28th year... Man, was I mad stressed and insanely tired. I spent Friday and Saturday vegging out - mostly putzing around in Photoshop. Probably why I missed last week's update - I was still too tired to even notice it was Sunday!

Regardless, Sunday came, I did my normal "wake up at midnight to take Hubby to work" thing, and then just COULD NOT FALL BACK ASLEEP! I just couldn't do it! Now, when I was first married and couldn't fall back to sleep I used those eight hours to work on my writing, but I was still too braindead to do anything truly creative.

Instead, I finally responded to a message I got from one of my online buddies Neghya. Way back in December - I think - Delaroux created a Facebook group dedicated to the massive population of characters she created for her own little universe. The small group of us all became pretty tight, but alas, I drifted away from the group because I just couldn't dedicate the time that everyone else did. Plus, the group is majorly comprised of the members role playing. I just couldn't spend four hours a day trying to read through the daily set of about 700 posts. Anyway, I recently psuedo-reconnected with Neghya on DeviantArt and commented about how great she did when drawing up the characters of the other group members. I stated that although I didn't have a character for the group I still would love for her to draw one of the characters I came up with for my multitude of other RPGs that I do with Hubby.

There's three D&D characters, one HeroScape character, three vampires - although I only pitched a description of one, and the two characters for the X-Men forum RPG. I also offered up a character I'm creating for the sequel to What Is Truly Meant To Be... but since I'm not even 1/2 way through that story, the sequel is easily a year or two away from its premiere...

Neghya responded that she'd love to draw any of them, but needed references to try to figure out how I picture them... I'm assuming she now regrets this message, because I spent the full eight hours I was awake and alone on Sunday to reply to her.

Being the most recent game I've played, the fact that it's a fandom I'm super interested in again, and the fact that I spent Friday and Saturday messing around in Photoshop trying to work on my pixelart - I went with Amelia "Lia" Madrox, AKA "Obsidian", AKA - my main X-Men character.

I spent a great deal of time finding reference pictures as well as describing Lia. On top of that, I also sent these three pictures - two of which you might recall from a previous blog post.

On July 27th - since it was my birthday that Monday - we had Lia's 15th birthday karaoke party. Again, this meant I was super focused on the X-Men RPG the weekend before replying to Neghya. This also meant I was again fixated on Hubby's character Chayse "Cajun" LeBeau. So I also spent the weekend oggling up pictures of Gambit as a means to gather references on how Cajun must look.

After sending Neghya the reference info on Lia I couldn't resist sending a mass of reference info on Cajun as well. It's hard to picture Lia without Cajun right by her side... so in case Neghya wanted to include him, she now knows what he looks like. ^_^

The big thing about last weekend, is that the floodgates were re-opened. Roleplaying lead me to think of Hubby's character Chayse. Chayse got me thinking about his suave father Gambit, and how Chayse must have picked up a lot from him. That lead me to do "research" on Gambit. Researching Gambit meant looking up gorgeous pictures of the character, and watching clips of him from the 90's X-Men cartoon, as well as X-Men: Evolution - especially since the latter would be the version that becomes Chayse's father.

I'll admit it: Link from Legend of Zelda and Gambit from X-Men get me all hot and bothered... I mean, why else would ROGUE be part of my handle, right? ^_^

So now I'm totally in to re-watching X-Men, X-Men: Evolution, and I'm in to re-watching one more cartoon... Which one? You'll find out in the next post. ^_^