Making the PV Canon-Compliant

Happy belated Thanksgiving to my American readers. 

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I hope everyone enjoyed themselves while still staying safe. Hubby and I decided to stay home this weekend instead of visiting my family as we normally do. In exchange, we had a game night with my sister-in-law yesterday, I'll have a Zoom meeting with my mom later today, and Hubby and I will be spending the weekend prepping for his birthday on Wednesday.

Full disclosure, as I mentioned in my previous blog post, I was running hella long and I still wanted to talk about my one plot bunny where I try to come up with a way to make the Miraculous Ladybug PV canon-compliant. I had decided to cut everything I had written up already - which is about half of what I wanted to talk about on this subject - and paste it into a draft for this week's blog. It would stop last week's blog from getting any longer, as well as kept me from spending another 3hrs or so writing it all up instead of doing ANYTHING ELSE on my day off. Plus, bonus, it gave me a major head start for this week's post. I was excited that I'd actually be able to post before noon on Friday, as I intended, because most of the post should have been written already. I could spend the rest of the week periodically working on the blog whenever I had downtime, possibly finish it Thanksgiving evening, then just polish it up Friday before publishing.

But this is 2020, so of course none of that actually happened.

Last Friday was the last day off I had prior to Thanksgiving. Post-work was spent doing Thanksgiving prep-work: cleaning the apartment, doing laundry, grocery shopping, finding the big serving/prep-work dishes, gathering recipes, etc. No big. I have 8 solid hours of work each day, and I'm sure I could at least work on my post over lunch breaks, if not longer given the feast-or-famine way we get customers lately. Well... Thanksgiving wasn't the only feast that happened all week long! We were actually fairly bombarded with customers, and we had to retag the store for Black Friday specials, and our tag-making program crashed on us... And we received a box of fabrics I needed to sort through to make sure our collection was up-to-date... That became a day-long project. It actually became rare that I even had time to just sit and eat my lunch this past week. My "lunch breaks" were usually me at my desk shoving a bologna sandwich down my throat at 3pm as I caught up on paperwork.

Needless to say, I didn't really have any time to even bring up this blog post to work on. Same with my annual tradition to come up with a new thing I am grateful for each day throughout the month of November; a way to really focus on the Thankfulness portion of Thanksgiving, and kinda-sorta repurpose a holiday that has some really sketchy origins, to say the least.

I did come up with things I was thankful for up until November 16th. Then I kind of fell off the wagon. I've been scrambling to get back onto it, but... well... there is no concept of time left in this age of 2020. Days just whoosh by me. I am determined to get this list done by Monday though, so I can have all 30 things listed and posted before November ends. I had started to post to Twitter as well as my personal Facebook page, but trying to get the whole tweet thread thing to work properly for me (I'm so illiterate when it comes to Twitter features), and how long the thread has become is already so overwhelming. So I won't be continuing that thread. I do want to post the whole thing up on Tumblr though. If I do so, I'll link to it in my next blog post.

So, yeah, yet ANOTHER week got away from me, and not much of anything really happened aside from work, chores, and playing more Animal Crossing. That does mean, however, that I can dedicate the rest of this post to that one plot bunny.

Last week I talked about my current list of WIPs and plot bunnies. Number 6 on that list was, as I mentioned above, turning the original anime-stylized concept for Miraculous Ladybug into something canon-compliant. 

So, to start, let's talk about what I even mean when I say Miraculous Ladybug PV or "original anime-stylized concept". In short, I mean this: 

This was a sort of test video that Toei Animation did for Zagtoon; the producers of the Miraculous Ladybug series. It was a way to get more backers; a proof of concept. It was uploaded to YouTube privately "for internal use only" originally, but was accidentally switched to Public in 2012. While the original video was switched back to private two days after the leak, the above video was one of many re-uploads under the title "Ladybug PV." PV being a standard video production abbreviation for Promotional Video.

The project was scrapped in favor of the CGI we now know and love for a couple of reasons.

1. The backers of the project felt the anime styling, even when done by a well-known anime studio, would be a hard sell for a French-created series.
2. While Toei was proud of the work they did, they also complained about how difficult it was to constantly animate the spots on Ladybug's costume, especially during fight scenes. Switching to a 3D model helped eliminate that concern and actually allowed MORE spots to be put on the costume.
3. The concept for the anime was supposed to be darker and aimed more towards teenagers, but production felt the show worked better with the lighter, more kid-friendly themes we now get with the canon show.
4. One of the elements of the darker concept was Felix, the original Chat Noir. He was supposed to be jaded and apathic; focusing more on the concept of yin and yang by having Chat Noir be nearly the polar opposite of Ladybug. Felix would also be both completely aware and actually quite annoyed by Marinette's fawning over him. Both the friction between the heroes and the rift between their civilian forms caused any and all romantic chemistry between the two feel entirely unrealistic. Not good when one of the core drives of the story was the romance between these two characters. On top of that, Astruc realized that Felix was becoming too much of an anime trope (which I'll get into). In the end, they realized Felix needed to go.
5. Felix was going to be like Adrien in five main ways: 1) he was going to be the son of a famous fashion designer, 2) he was going to be a renowned model due to his father's career, 3) he was going to be a rich teen both because of his father's success and his own earnings, 4) Marinette was going to be in love with him but completely inept in winning him over, and 5) he was going to be Chat Noir. However, with Felix, he was going to be snobbish because of his famous father, his wealth, and his own modeling success. He'd think himself above the likes of Marinette, and, as mentioned above, find her constant advancements annoying. Along with being snooty, he was apathetic towards the plight of the citizens of Paris. He was going to be a reluctant hero (again, I'll get into this more in a moment). He was originally going to be Ladybug's partner in saving Paris solely as a way to try to win her over. However, she would be wise to his insincere heroism, and be just as annoyed by his advancements as Felix was of Marinette's. Astruc felt Felix being "the cold and almost cruel rich boy who is a complete flirt and cuts loose while in disguise; along with a reluctant hero only in it to woo the girl" was a bit too much of an anime trope for male secondary protagonists. All reasons to scrap him and completely rework Chat Noir until we got our beloved Adrien.

Okay, now that most of the initial concept, and why it was scrapped for what we currently have, has been sorted out, there's still a couple more bits I need to further explain. Then I can FINALLY get to my plot bunny.

First is that, as part of the original "darker" concept of the show, Felix's ring would have been cursed. Plagg wouldn't be a trusted companion like he is for Adrien. Instead, he'd be a mass of chaos tasked to cause bad luck to follow whomever wore the Cat Ring; i.e. Felix. Felix would suffer through all of these bits of bad luck - such as the library books avalanching onto him in the PV - unless he was Chat Noir and Plagg was too preoccupied by powering up the ring. Felix also couldn't remove the ring ever. The only way to get the ring off his finger and end his curse would be to get a kiss from Ladybug. So he fights by her side and flirts with her to try to get her to kiss him and end his curse. However, Ladybug kinda can't stand the guy, and also realizes how valuable he is as a partner against Hawk Moth. Also, I believe the full Love Square would come into effect, and Chat Noir would fall for Ladybug. This, I think, was supposed to add to the drama because if Ladybug ever kissed Chat Noir it would end his curse, but he'd also lose his powers and could never fight beside her again. He then would be torn between ending the curse that plagued his civilian days with bad luck and keeping his powers so he could help protect his beloved.

Fun side note, I can't recall where I saw it since it's not in the PV, but there was either a shot or concept art of Felix touching an apple tree with the hand his ring is on, and an apple ends up falling on Marinette's head. This implies that he was going to find a way to semi-control his bad luck and use it as a means to distract or otherwise deter Marinette's advances. 

Anyway, as I said, the concept was scrapped as being too hard to animate, too difficult to sell to networks, too dark and mature for the audience most likely to be interested in a ladybug-themed superheroine, too unbelievable of an overarching romance subplot, and too cliché of a male lead.

However, fans still fell in love with this PV and these characters. Mostly anime-lovers and adult fans really missed this scrapped concept and hoped for some sort of revival. The best we've gotten so far is:

• an announcement that Miraculous Ladybug has done so well financially that Toei is in talks about creating a 2D OVA - an Original Video Animation; basically a movie or mini-series that is either non-canonical or finds a way to bring everything back to the status quo by the end so it doesn't effect the overall continuity of the main series.
• the PV becoming a canonical movie about Ladybug and Chat Noir within the series universe
• a revival of Felix as Adrien's identical cousin.

Before Zagtoon and Astruc gave us fans any of that, however, the fandom came up with alternate realities for the anime versions of Chat Noir and Ladybug, or where Felix and Adrien could interact and were perhaps twins; which is most likely where the show's writers got the idea of Felix being an identical cousin. Fans didn't like the concept of Anime Ladybug also being Marinette, however, so they redubbed her Bridgette. The personality between the PV Marinette and the CGI one were different enough, and the costume design was also different enough that people accepted that they were two completely different characters; much like Felix and Adrien.

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Now that ALL of that fandom history is out of the way, what about my story concept? Well, I thought of following Felix back to London. He'd keep the prim and proper rich boy attitude shown in the PV and also showcased in the canonical episode "Felix." I might age him up a bit too in order to better fit the look of Felix in the PV. Make him about 16. He looks about 16 in the PV. 

The Miraculous and the superheroes of Ladybug and Chat Noir have been known world-wide for some time now. Felix has also been bothered by his overly enamored classmate Bridgette. The art styling for Bridgette compared to Marinette is different enough that they don't necessarily have to look identical, and therefore it wouldn't be as much of a stretch that Bridgette and Marinette co-exist within the same universe.

I might even have Felix make some sort of passing comment about the similarities. Especially when Bridgette is fawning for Felix, he could note the video of Marinette's love confession to Adrien.

I'll have to do some more research on how the fandom views Bridgette's and Felix's personalities, but I believe Bridgette is seen as more perky and outgoing than Marinette. Probably more akin to Rose within the canon show. Bridgette seems to wear her heart on her sleeves, as opposed to Marinette bashfully hiding hers, as poor of a job as she may do with that. I also don't know if - whether canonically or within the fandom - Bridgette also aspires to be a fashion designer, but if not, then all the better. It will make her more distinct from Marinette. Same with figuring out if Bridgette's parents are also bakers.

So, I'll need to do more research on Bridgette, but I think I can make her work. 

Another character I need to do fandom research on, or come up with something myself, is the main villain of the PV. He's still Hawk Moth, but he decidedly has more of a Mafioso-Crime-Boss feel than Gabriel Agreste.

TOP LEFT: Ladybug PV Hawk Moth; TOP RIGHT: CGI Hawk Moth
BOTTOM: Gabriel Agreste

PV Hawk Moth having a secret meeting with The Mime

He has an older look to him in the PV than in the CGI. He also has that more subtle Mob Boss like feel to him. He's more Marvel's Kingpin or DC's Lex Luthor, or Disney Gargoyles' Xanatos. The Hawk Moth we ended up with is more akin to a standard supervillain with an anime flare to it, like Queen Beryl from Sailor Moon or Rita Repulsa from Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, or an 80s/90s American cartoony supervillain that threw a Villain-of-the-Week at the heroes, like Dr. Claw from Inspector Gadget. 

This is clearly not the same man as the Gabriel Agreste/Hawk Moth we got in the canonical CGI series. I'd need to really research and/or ponder who this PV version of Hawky is though....

Now for one of the main sparks with regards to how I could make the PV version of Ladybug and Chat Noir somehow work within the same universe as the canon show: the kwamis.

Here are Plagg and Tikki in the PV versus the CGI show we ended up getting as canon.

L: "Plagg" mocking Felix after mischievously knocking library books onto him.
R: Plagg getting scratches from Adrien while discussing their close friendship.

L: "Tikki" getting a snuggle from Bridgette.
R: Tikki getting a cheek kiss from Marinette to reassure the kwami that trust was never lost.

While the size difference and overall character design is most prominent in the images of Tikki, you can still kind of see it in Plagg as well. The kwamis are clearly much bigger in the PV version, and Tikki's ladybug spots used to be a single 4-leaf clover birthmark on her forehead. Plagg also shrank in the CGI version, his tail became much shorter, and he lost the little hair antenna off the top of his head. 

Okay, so the kwamis also went through a character re-design, so what? Well, if Felix could become a separate character from Adrien, and the fandom made PV Marinette the separate character Bridgette, why couldn't the same treatment be given to the PV kwamis? 

Also, as I pointed out last week when I first brought up this plot bunny, I was partially inspired by the concept of Smile Fruit in the One Piece universe. 

This is going to need some explaining as well, especially if you don't know the manga/anime One Piece. So forgive me as I try to run through this quickly.

In the world of One Piece there are these things called Devil Fruits. They have a god-awful taste to them, dangerous to eat, deadly if someone eats two of them, and has the ill-effect of paralyzing and removing all natural buoyancy from anyone who ate a Devil Fruit when they come in contact with sea water. On the flipside though, these fruits grant insane powers to any who eat them. The main character Luffy is made entirely out of rubber after eating a Devil Fruit and can manipulate his body at will within the confines of the property of real-world rubber. His adoptive brother can control flame. His one crewmate is an anthropomorphic reindeer. Another can reproduce any of her body parts - usually her arms - as many times as she wants and just about anywhere she wants. Another is a living skeleton. There are people that can turn into and/or control different natural elements, others turn into a species of animal - the reindeer can become human, and others still can manipulate gravity or straight up matter. These powers are insane, but they are balanced out with those aforementioned ill-effects and danger. Plus, it's a trial just to get a devil fruit in the first place. They aren't grown; they're magically formed, but I won't get into that.

So, Smile Fruit. These are introduced fairly late into the series. They are artificially produced Devil Fruit: a way to mass-produce these Devil Fruit to eliminate the need to track them down. A way to also try to make them without the ill-effects kicking in. In the story these fruit are still largely experimental, but the fact that characters are trying to recreate and artificially make a magical item got me thinking about the PV versions of Plagg and Tikki.

It also made me think of the PV versions of the Miraculous.

TOP LEFT: Felix wearing the Cat Ring; TOP RIGHT: Adrien holding the disguised Cat Ring;
BOTTOM: Marinette holding the Cat Ring while it's in the default look.

TOP LEFT: Bridgette wearing Ladybug Earrings; TOP RIGHT: Marinette wearing disguised Ladybug Earrings; BOTTOM: Marinette wearing activated Ladybug Earrings (when they go to default)

The Ladybug earrings didn't change too much by way of activated design, but there IS still differences there. Obviously the Cat Ring got a major design overhaul. The big takeaway, however, is that the Miraculous in the CGI version - the canon version - all disguise themselves when inactive and possessed by a wielder. The Miraculous in the PV didn't change at all between everyday wear and when activated by a kwami. Kind of makes the whole "try to find the Miraculous" a bit easier in the PV version, but I'll think about that more later.

Okay, so the Miraculous act differently and look differently, the kwamis appear different, at least Plagg's personality and dynamic with his holder was different in the PV, and there's the whole idea of the Cat Ring being cursed in the PV. The earlier versions of Ladybug and Chat Noir also have a different set of potential powers. In a video showcasing early CGI character models of powers being used, Ladybug is seen using some sort of light bo staff created from her yoyo, and a shield created by magical ladybug wings flapping quickly.

In an artbook for the series, we were also shown concept art for the two powers Chat Noir started off with: Black Hole and Black Storm.

Black Storm seems to have received a canonical semi-revival in the episode "Chat Blanc" where the character could flick and throw his Cataclysm instead of needing to physically touch the target. Black Hole also unofficially got a revival by way of Chat Noir using Cataclysm on the ground below Gorizilla to make the villain fall through and get stuck.

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My point is that the Miraculous, the powers, the kwamis, and the dynamics between the kwamis and their bearers were all reworked so much that they became different enough to be able to coexist within the same universe. Even the villain appears different enough.

So now, finally, here's my concept:

Felix, probably through some shenanigans similar to what we saw him pull in the canon episode "Felix", ends up in possession of a black ring with an embellished black cat face on it.

He puts the ring on, and is greeted by a little magical being that resembles a black cat. This creature has the ability to hide from view so it is never discovered, and proceeds to follow Felix around EVERYWHERE, causing continuous havoc for the teen. The creature gets quite the amusement from this torment. Felix tries to get rid of the cursed creature by removing the ring, only to discover he can't. This is when the creature laughs that Felix put on a cursed ring and that the curse clearly has to be broken before the ring can be removed. The being will gladly keep Felix company in the meantime though, and proceeds to cause more bad luck for the teen.

Meanwhile, somehow Bridgette ends up with the Ladybug earrings. She meets a little red magical creature with a clover birthmark on its forehead, and the two quickly bond, after Bridgette is done freaking out about HOLY HECK, A MAGICAL CREATURE CAME OUT OF MY EARRINGS WHAT EVEN IS THIS!?

The butterfly-themed villain - whose villain name I'll have to either research or come up with, because there can't be two Hawk Moths in the world, can there? - sends out his first villain into the city of London. I'm not entirely sure yet what instigates the attack and if it is before or after the teens get their jewels, but I'll sort that out later. The red kwami instructs Bridgette how to activate her earrings to become a superhero herself. Her powers are quickly described, and she's told how to de-activate the transformation once done. Bridgette transforms and is surprised that she resembles the Parisian superhero Ladybug, whom she's seen news reports about. Specifically, her costume largely resembles that from the Ladybug and Chat Noir movie despite it not matching the real life Ladybug's. She goes out to battle the villain.

Going back to Felix, he's arguing with his kwami about the curse, researching everything he can to try to find out how to break the curse. He stumbles upon "Fake Miraculous." I haven't decided yet if it was ancients creating them to try to recreate the power of the Miraculous for themselves after failed attempts to literally steal them - ya know, because... magic - or if this is a modern thing in which the London Hawk Moth knows of the Miraculous via news reports and the Ladyblog posts, and tries to use SCIENCE! to recreate the magical jewels. This could also be why the costumes resemble that of the movie (aka the PV), because the creators used the movie for reference instead of the Miraculous forming a costume that the wielder envisions, as the real ones do. I'm leaning a bit more towards Modern Technology, but the fact that the ring is cursed also makes me think "flubbed magic" is the way to go? I'm still debating it.

Anyway, Felix discovers that he has a forgery of Chat Noir's ring and that the curse locks the ring onto his hand until he can convince the artificial Ladybug to fall in love with him and kiss him. He may even make a snide comment about how "storybook" the curse breaking is and asks how he's ever supposed to even find this supposed Ladybug. On cue, he sees Bridgette's Ladybug, either because she swings by, or busts through the room he's in during her fight, or because of a news alert. Either way, he realizes he has to find a way to win her affection and demands to know how to turn into Chat Noir. I'm not entirely sure if he chances into figuring it out, if it's listed in the research revealing the Miraculous forgeries, or if he manages to convince his kwami to tell him. Either way, he's Chat Noir now, and rushes to get to Ladybug.

She's a bit preoccupied with the whole FIGHTING A FLIPPIN' SUPERVILLAIN IN LONDON thing, and does NOT appreciate getting distracted by this random cat superhero. She was excited at first to see a Chat Noir, but quickly switches to demanding he help her. The battle awkwardly won - no akuma to be cleansed this go; it might be more akin to a Batman Rogue's Gallery or something to go with PV Hawky's mafioso look - Ladybug reams out her partner and races off. Felix realizes that he's actually quite smitten with this woman, and that he'll gladly accept a kiss from her; curse or no.

Shenanigans continue as presented in the concepts leaked about the PV, but with the caveat that the "Miraculous" in this story are actually forgeries of the ones Marinette and Adrien possess; artificial magical jewels to try to harness the power of superheroes and a means to control them. Kind of like the idea of the Super Soldier Serum and Captain America vs... well... a BUNCH of other superpowered characters in Marvel comics.

There is A LOT to try to figure out for this before I can even fathom starting writing it. I need to figure out who this supervillain is. Is he also Hawk Moth? Would a grown man within an hour train ride of a supervillain bother to pick up the same mantle? Bridgette could easily go with the UK term for the beetle and call herself Ladybird instead of Ladybug to differentiate from Marinette's superheroine, but what about Felix? Would he just go with Black Cat instead of Chat Noir? Would he do the Americanized thing and go with Cat Noir? What about simply The Cat? Are the artificial kwamis still Plagg and Tikki? Should I rename them? If so, any ideas on what good names for them should be? Canonically Felix's dad passed away, so the Big Bad in this story won't be Felix's father, but who should he be? I could lean hard into the whole Wilson Fisk/Lex Luthor/David Xanatos feel and make him a prominent wealthy figure within London; someone the media paints as a humanitarian and philanthropist. I also need to figure out who created these fake Miraculous, how, why, and why they look the way they do. Why don't they resemble the real ones more? Why don't they have the same powers? What was the point if they are so different compared to the real ones? Were they considered a failed experiment because of those vast differences? Are the teens still restricted to a 5-minute power-up after using one of their main powers? Are there other restrictions to make sure these powers aren't OP? Can this Ladybug restore damage caused by the supervillain like Marinette's powers can do? 

It's fair to assume Gabriel doesn't bother with the superheroes in London because he discovers the powers are artificial and knows he can't make the wish on those earrings and ring that he could on the ones Marinette and Adrien bear. Still, what stops him from reaching out to London Hawky, or try to find a way of still stealing the jewels from Bridgette and Felix in order to soup up his own lackies? Likewise, what stops London Baddie from trying to overreach and attack Paris? What is his endgame goal vs. Gabriel's?

Like I said, there's a LOT to still flesh out, but I still love the starting seeds of this concept.

What do you guys think? Any ideas on the world build here? Should I bother? Is there already a plethora of stories with a similar concept? Let me know what you think in the comments.

Before I head out, just an FYI that I'm still all sorts of screwy with the work schedule between me asking off for Hubby's birthday, and my manager trying to get through more of her vacation time before she loses it. I SHOULD be back to having Tuesdays off by the 15th, but I'm also continually getting Fridays off. For right now I'll keep my blog updates as close to Friday as possible, but keep an eye out for me switching back to Tuesdays. I'll be sure to give you a heads up when that happens.

Until next week!

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Chaotic Thanksgiving Vacation

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Well, I guess, happy super belated Thanksgiving by now. Whoops.

Last week... did not go according to plan.

I had taken the weekend off to visit family for Thanksgiving. It's an annual tradition and I make sure I maintain it. Because of the weekend off, however, I ended up working last Tuesday. I knew this. I had meant to work on my blog post that Monday so I was prepared for my weekly noon update. I was not feeling well though, so I ended up just zoning out Monday night; not remembering my blog until I was ready to go to bed at like 11pm.

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So I didn't have my post set like it should have been. Big surprise there, right? Okay. Not that big of a deal. I would just write it while at work and post it late that day. At least, that was the back-up plan. I forgot that we had our weekly deliveries on Tuesdays, considering I'm almost never there for them. So I spent the morning running around with that and taking care of customers, and Hubby still got off of work at noon, as he does nearly every Tuesday. The morning ended up zipping by. Okay, no problem. I still had the afternoon to write and post, right?

Wellllllllllll....

Black Friday was obviously this past weekend. For any outside the US who might not know what this means, it's the "first day" of the Christmas shopping frenzy. I say "first day" in quotes, because lots of people start their shopping early, and a lot of stores are starting up their "Black Friday" specials earlier and earlier in the month each year. Point is, the term "Black Friday" is a reference to so may people buying that stores' ledgers are always "in the black." It's become a bit of a crazed tradition as people scramble to get most of their Christmas shopping - if not their "big ticket items" - purchased the Friday after Thanksgiving... or... ON Thanksgiving as most stores have started up.

I'm sidetracking myself. Point is that, with our store closed on Thanksgiving itself, I had to make sure the sales tags were scanned, printed, and prepped to be put up late Wednesday so they were good to go when my co-workers opened Friday morning. In order to have enough time to do so, I- I couldn't write Tuesday afternoon because I was busy scanning the store. Whoops again.

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After work then? Nope. It was November, which meant a writing group meeting every Tuesday from 6pm until 8pm. So, right after work I raced to get to my meeting. Didn't even had time to stop for dinner, so Hubby intelligently sent me to work with a frozen meal to heat up and eat while we were doing our first writing sprint. I COULD have used our sprints to work on my blog post, but that wasn't the point. The point was to work on One and the Same, which had been such a fail all month.

Well, there was only four of us at group last week, and one member actually cut out shortly after I got there. Her son sprung it on her that he was actually going to be spending the week out of town to celebrate Thanksgiving with his friends instead, so she wanted to get home to spend some holiday time with him first. Out of the remaining three of us, no one had anything we felt was ready to read to the group, and we didn't have much to discuss about our writing.

I had attempted that the previous week. I waved the white flag and told everyone what was bothering me about OatS; why it's kept me about two years to write as opposed to the one year for Peeping Tomcat. Namely that I had Important Scene A and Important Scene C, but it would be too jarring if they were back-to-back, and I couldn't figure out what Scene B should be to bridge between the two. I gave an example of one of those gaps I needed to bridge over and... well... they tried, but it was less than helpful.

They tried giving me the age-old advice to breaking through writer's block: 1) try killing off a character and see how the others react, and 2) try switching POV. Admittedly, I did attempt the POV switch when working on PT, resulting in the companion story A Plan Forms. I'll get back to this bit advice in a minute. First up, I had to try to explain to the group - in almost painstakingly simple terms - why "just kill off a character" doesn't work for fanfiction unless you're purposely working with an AU, and even so, you have to be careful as to who you kill off and why. It's a tricky thing to do without having your readers kind of rebel against you.

Plus. Ya know. OatS is supposed to be a mostly light-hearted love story? I feel like it would take quite the dramatic turn if I'm suddenly killing off characters. Especially since doing so still wouldn't necessarily help me bridge between the scenes. It would be too large of a tonal shift. And yet, I couldn't just be like "nope. Thanks, but that wouldn't work," because they kept pressing me as to why. "Because it's too much of a tonal shift" didn't seem to be a "valid" answer for them????

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As for the "change POV" thing, part of the problem was I wasn't sure whose POV I needed/wanted to be in, so I was already writing scenes in both Adrien's and Marinette's perspective, and that seemed to be confusing me even further. Their solution? Hand the bridging chapters over to one of the kwamis or another side character.

Huh!?

I stressed to them that my pattern would then be something to the effect of:

• Marinette chapter
• Adrien chapter
• Marinette
• Adrien
• Random character, potentially a kwami?
• Marinette
• Adrien
• Marinette
• Random character again; either the same as before or a random fourth POV
• Adrien
• Marinette
• Adrien
• Marinette
• Adrien
• Random character again; either repeating previous non-Adrienette POV or yet ANOTHER new perspective
• Marinette
• Adrien
• Marinette
• Adrien
• Marinette
• Tag-team between Marinette and Adrien during the climax of the story

And the group was like "Yeah. Why not?"

Why not? They were really cool with having a random third, or fourth, or fifth POV popped in? Seriously?

I wasn't even entirely sure where to begin with explaining why that wouldn't work; why that would potentially be jarring for the readers. But, maybe I'm the one that's in the wrong? Maybe I'm too rigid in my views of how POV should be presented in books?

Or, the more likely take, they figured "it's fanfiction; not something professionally written, so what's the harm?"

Thoughts? If I'm the one who's over-thinking this and if I'm the one who's too rigid in storytelling structure, please let me know in the comments section. If the group was right, I need to hear that.

Anyway, my overall point was that, two weeks ago, when I tried to ask for help on my story, and I couldn't utilize the main tricks other writers - who were working on original stories and had much more free rein - would be able to use, I just... I dunno. I guess I felt frustrated and isolated? Like, after doing this with them for, I think about three years now - maybe four? - they still aren't getting the core differences between fanfiction and original writing. It's almost like going to them for help on a script versus prose. There are things fundamentally different in how one writes one style of fiction over another, and yet I still get advice as if I were writing original content. In fact, I'm also kind of herded towards writing original content, as if my talents are wasted on fanfiction.

It may be true, but still, that's... not what I'm doing right now? So... that's not helping me?

Long and short, while I was still struggling last Tuesday, I didn't feel like my further talking with the remaining members - who happened to also be the ones who understood fanfiction the least out of the group - wouldn't do me much good. So I remained silent, and so did the other two ladies.

We decided to not do the sprints, and instead just utilize the 90 or so minutes the library was still open in order to just have a mini writing retreat.

Maybe THAT was what I needed. I didn't write as fast as I normally do, but I did manage to knock out 1368 words! Granted, about 60 of them is a sort of "note to self: I need these bits figured out and written into the chapter" sidebar, but still, that's over 1300 new words of prose. I'll take that. Better than what I had been doing lately.

I was now up to 3946 words on this attempt for the project. This officially keeps my disastrously pathetic attempt to write about my vampire character back in 2014 as my worst NaNo attempt! Whoo???

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After writing group, I COULD have finally settled in to work on my blog post for Wednesday morning, but at that point I hadn't seen my husband for 12hrs, minus the brief time I spent with him when I picked him up from work before I had to scurry back to mine. I waved the white flag and spent the evening catching up with him and trying to get some chores done.

Wednesday I did try to put in an effort to get this blog post done while I was at work. We couldn't really put up the Black Friday tags until closer to 3pm so that people weren't trying to take advantage of the sales early. However, other work projects came down the pipeline, and since I had taken this week off for a much-needed Staycation, I wanted to make sure those projects were set before I headed out.

I did manage to edit and drop in all the images you have seen - and will see - in this post. Those usually take up the most amount of time anyway. Especially when trying to track down original artists of images I find on Google so I can properly credit them. That takes a lot of time if they've been reposted and re-uploaded over and over and over again online. I also focused on the other semi-time-consuming bit: figuring out that word count for NaNo. I had figured out what I had written last Tuesday, added it to my grand total for the month, and then made sure to dump it here as a reference point to work into my post.

In fact, I did a lot of vague skeleton work for this post on Wednesday: dropping phrases or simple sentences about what I wanted to talk about and in what order. I then spent today working my way up to those bits in order to flesh out the actual post. So... valiant effort on Wednesday? But not nearly enough.

Post-work I was going to work on my post, but I got sidetracked again. I can't recall what sidetracked me though, and I've been trash with my time audits the past month or so. THIS IS WHY I NEED TO REMEMBER TO DO THEM! I'm better at work when I can just have the calendar out on my desk and in my face. I don't really have a place at home where it's readily in my face for whenever I switch up my tasks, and so I forget to go back to it. This is something I need to work on this month so I have a better routine next year.

Anyway. Point is. Clearly my blog post wasn't written Wednesday either.

THURSDAY! Thursday was Thanksgiving, and the unofficial start of my vacation since the store was closed and I had taken Friday off. Hubby had volunteered to work Thanksgiving in order to have the weekend off as well. His store closed at 3pm, so it was too late for us to really join his family for their Thanksgiving dinner. Yes, for those outside the US, on Big Meal holidays such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Easter, "dinner" is at like 1pm and lasts for hours before having dessert at like 5pm and then grumbling about being "stuffed" the rest of the evening. Also, since we'd be gone all weekend, and would most likely bring home leftovers from the Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday, we didn't want to put in the effort to make our own Thanksgiving feast. This meant I didn't have to spend the morning and early afternoon slaving away in the kitchen.

This also meant I had until about 2:30pm to just sit and write, if I wanted to. I could finally write my blog post. I could try to squeak in some last-minute word-count for NaNo. I had time.

Instead? Well... First of all, I started the day off with some chores. Okay. I was adulting. That's fine. Good use of my time. Buuuuuut then I watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. It's tradition, but also a bit distracting for me to write at the same time.

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Another distraction was another tradition I had slacked on the entire month. Long-time readers of this blog probably knows what I'm talking about. It's a tradition my mom started when I was a kid, and one I actually forgot about this year until I watched Bob's Burgers on Sunday, November 24th.

In that episode, the eldest Belcher kid Tina had a b-storyline where she tried to include a new Thanksgiving Day tradition that she read about in her Thundergirls - their version of the Girl Scouts of America - handbook.

She called it a Gratitude Tree.

From Bob's Burgers season 10 episode 8 "Now We're Not Cooking With Gas"

You can check out the full clip about Tina's attempt to initiate this new family tradition here:

This hit close to home to me because this is EXACTLY that tradition Mom came up with when I was a kid. Instead of a self-standing cardboard tree, Mom had covered the attic door with a cardboard tree poster. Also, while Tina was giving out eight leaves to each family member, in order to fill out and post all on Thanksgiving, Mom gave each family member THIRTY leaves, and we were to write something new each day of November, and post them as we worked our way to Thanksgiving.

Full disclosure: when I was a kid I LOVED when Thanksgiving was early, because it meant fewer leaves to fill out, since we never seemed to remember to continue the leaves past Thanksgiving.

Anyway, the only other difference is that my mom titled her tree the "Giving Thanks" tree instead of the simplified "Gratitude Tree" that Bob's Burgers used. Regardless; same basic concept, and I LOVE that one of the writers clearly had this tradition as well.

The double-edged sword was that this episode reminded me that I hadn't done my Giving Thanks Tree this year; which had turned into a simple list of 30 things I am grateful for after I went to college and no longer had a physical cardboard tree to attack leaves to. On the one hand, I was happy that I was reminded of this tradition, since I don't recall missing a year since Mom started it with us, but on the other hand, I was stressed that I now had to rush to try to get all of my bits of gratitude done on time.

So, guess what I did during the Macy's parade instead of working on this post or OatS.

Over 2600-words later, I had my list. I went into great length as to why I was grateful for each bit, but again, that's over 2600 words long. So instead, here's just the things I'm grateful for; no explanation included, and probably not even needed. This is how they would appear on my leaves if I still had physical paper ones to fill out.

1. My mom
2. My hubby
3. A stable roof over my head/having a home
4. I don't have to worry where my next meal is coming from
5. My job
6. My ability to practice my passion for writing so frequently
7. My readers
8. ChibiSunnie
9. Taurus Pixie
10. I live in a relatively safe town
11. I have filled my life with respectful males that have made me feel safe around them
12. Tumblr
13. My minimal-drama orbit on Tumblr; the people I follow are awesome
14. Miraculous Ladybug
15. I don't have to hide who I am; personality wise
16. My sister is finally realizing her own self-worth and demanding that higher standard in potential S/Os
17. My writing group; despite what I said above about my struggles with them, I still love them and they have helped me quite a bit in their own way.
18. My weekly Anime Day to help me connect more with my friends
19. My friendship with Cyhyr seemingly strengthening
20. My new friendship with Pixie's boyfriend Jowy Avilon
21. My new car
22. My year-long struggle with my car insurance issues are potentially coming to a close
23. Frozen 2 and Disney movies in general
24. The tradition of my mom's extended family coming together every post-Thanksgiving Saturday for our own Thanksgiving gathering
25. Zumba
26. This tradition of coming up with 30 things I'm grateful for each November/Thanksgiving.
27. OutsideXbox, Outside Xtra, and the Oxventure campaign videos
28. Official YouTube uploads from late night talk shows such as The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Daily Show with Trevor Noah, Late Night with Seth Meyers, and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.
29. People see me as a safe person to talk to and be around; that I'm a good ally
30. That I could come up with 30 things to be grateful for, and can easily keep going if I wanted to

So, there's my list. Do you have one? I'd love a taste of it if you'd like to share. It's a great tradition, but boy did it eat up my morning as I took time to take stock of my blessings and figure out the ones I wanted to include this year.

Free FB Cover art by CoverMyTimeline.com

By the time I was done with that list I had to get ready for the day, head to Hubby's work to pick him up, and then spent the rest of the holiday with him.

Friday was spent getting ready, packing, and driving down to my mom's for the weekend. Then I was socializing with them, even though I knew I still needed to work on this post, and I did pack up my laptop. Oh well. Family is priority.

Saturday I probably could have cracked open the laptop in the morning to work on my blog post since we didn't need to head out for the Thanksgiving gathering until nearly 2pm. However, I've been so drained lately, so Hubby and I actually slept until like... 10am I think?! There goes the morning writing, but the sleep was well needed so, oh well.

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We spent the afternoon and evening with my extended family, and I wasn't going to be so rude as to bring my laptop with me to work on my writing while hanging out with people I only see about once a year. By the time we got back to my mom's it was about 10pm and I was ready to just crash.

Sunday I slept in a touch again, but woke up early enough to go with my mom and sister to church with them, as a sort of gift to my mom who always wants me to join them. We then had tickets to watch Frozen 2 right after church, so I wasn't going to get onto the road until about 4pm, nor would I have time to write before heading out. The Nor'easter started coming through the area by the time I got back from church, so despite my mom's concerns, I figured "I'm not going to get ahead of this storm anyway; might as well give the plow/salt trucks time to get the roads cleaned" and went to the movie after all.

Post movie - which I enjoyed, by the way - we again wondered if we should head out or stay another night. We wanted to be home for Hubby's birthday yesterday, needed to hit up the DMV yesterday, and weren't sure if the storm would ease up prior to this morning anyway. So I shrugged, again put my faith in the plow and salting trucks, and braved the storm.

Dumb idea.

The roads were terrible. The standard speed limits of 65mph (~105kph) were dropped to 45mph (~72kph), and even then, a lot of the second half of the trip I had to drive little more than 30mph (~48kph)! That changed a 4hr trip into a little more than a 7hr one, made even LONGER when I... well... I slid off the road a little more than an hour away from home!

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I'm fine. Hubby's fine. The car is fine. The left overs and luggage packed in the trunk were fine. It was just frustrating. I was doing soooooo good with the weather, but I had to shift to the barely-used left lane to give space for a car coming off the on-ramp to the highway. Clearly no one is using this lane because who the heck is trying to pass cars in that weather!? So it wasn't plowed. It wasn't salted. It was bad, but the cars are now keeping pace with me, so I couldn't get back over to the better-traveled right lane for the better part of a mile. The highway turned slightly, and it was enough for me to lose traction, and off we went. The hill wasn't that bad where we were; but the snow and ice pile-up was too much for me to go anywhere. Fast forward about thirty/forty minutes - and a call to the state troopers for help - and the tow truck got me back up on the road and on my way.

There's $130-some well spent.

Needed to give Hubby one last adventure before his birthday, I guess.

The treads in my tires were fairly clogged with snow and ice at that point though, hence having to go about 30mph on the highway to avoid slipping again. We got home at about 11:30pm. I emptied the car while Hubby tried to quickly shovel the foot of snow out of my way to the garage. I then got stuck trying to make a K-turn in the road since our apartment is past the driveway to the complex's parking lot. Hubby dug me out, and I got stuck again making a turn into the garage, and again Hubby had to dig me out.

By the time we both made it inside it was nearly midnight. It was an exhausting day.

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Listen to your parents when they tell you not to drive in poor weather, folks.

Yesterday was Hubby's birthday, plus, I figured it would be silly to work on last week's blog post the day before this week's was set to go up, so I waved the white flag. I'm now down two weeks worth of posts this year. Whoops.

The weather was still crappy, and we got snowed in, along with all of Hubby's friends, so sadly we didn't manage to get to the DMV after all, nor did Hubby get to really celebrate his birthday with anyone. I'm hoping to make up for that some time this week while we're on vacation.

I should have at least worked on this week's post last night so I could have this morning to sleep in and snuggle Hubby. Instead I still slept in and snuggled, but that's why this post is still late.

So, yeah. November kind of sucked. I was behind on nearly everything all that month. I had the second-worst NaNo despite it being My Jam when it came to the year's theme. Mental health wise, the month also sucked. I'm so glad that month is over.

Although... with that storm on Sunday, December didn't start off much better. I hope I can turn the month, and the remainder of the year, around.

OatS isn't done, which is what I was aiming for this past November, but I have to change gears because I signed up for the Miraculous Ladybug Secret Santa exchange within the fandom. I have the person I'm to gift something to, and I have until Christmas to write the a story using the preferences they listed. So that's my new focus for the month. We'll see how this goes, and if I'll have any left-over time to also write gifts for my friends. I'll keep you posted, of course.

It's the Holiday Season now, so we'll see how chaotic life will be this month. Wish me luck.

Also, it was kind of a sucky day for him, but I'd like to send my Hubby a Happy Birthday anyway.

Take care, everyone, and if you're dealing with poor weather as well, please stay safe. Catch you next week.

I Did It... Sorta

I did it! I won NaNo! Granted, I don't FEEL like I won, but, hey, why not get the credit for my effort? Right?

I tried. I really did. I was on vacation last week so I could visit my mom and her family for Thanksgiving, and then spend the rest of the week with Hubby to celebrate his birthday. Which reminds me.

Belated birthday at this point, but I still wanted
to gush over how wonderful he is. <3

Anyway, I was on vacation. I could write more-or-less all I wanted. As I mentioned last week, I stole away a little to punch some words out last Saturday and Sunday while visiting my family. Even cranked some more out on Monday. But, for me, Tuesday was going to be the big day. I wrote my blog and I was going to hide away the rest of the day - since I didn't need to do the normal "errand day" things like laundry and grocery shopping - and just write. Hubby had eight other days alone with me, we could sacrifice Tuesday.

It started off well enough. I had my blog done, and Hubby made the meals that day as I worked so I didn't need to stop for long. I didn't think I was going to make up the last 20,000 words, but I thought I could put a good dent in them. Maybe close to half if I put in as much effort and time as I did for my Varekai recap.

Then it was about 5pm and time to go to writing group for three hours of writing sprints; we added an extra hour each week for NaNo.

First, Hubby helped me lug two garbage bags and one wine box full of books to the library for donation.... only to find out that they don't accept donations outside of August.

So I left my lunch-boxed dinner and laptop with the librarian as Hubby and I lugged the books back home for storage. I then made it back to the library about 10min later and headed up to writing group.

That's when it all went downhill.

I had the NaNo site up to periodically update the word count whenever I saved the file. I had my file open to just jump right back into it when I got settled, and I may have had a music player open or something since I write best when listening to music.

I settled in, plugged in my earbuds, and waited for my computer to acknowledge that I was typing. The lag was killing me. It wasn't registering at all. I then tried to close down the music player and NaNo site so I JUST had the word document up. I thought that maybe since my laptop wasn't properly connecting to the library wifi - which always lags my computer anyway - that it was slowing my whole system down.

After waiting a few minutes for my computer to "catch up" nothing happened. The programs were still open and weren't closing. I then tried good old CTRL+ALT+DELETE to try to bring up the program manager application so I could shut down the programs that way. After four attempts to bring up Program Manager, waiting about 3 minutes between each try, and the darn thing STILL wouldn't open up, I gave up and angrily closed my laptop. I felt guilty about making such a loud slamming sound with my fellow writers trying to concentrate, but no one seemed to skip a beat.

I then huffed over to the center of the room to grab a pencil and started writing in my red notebook dedicated to "Miraculous Ladybug" fanfiction. I jotted down some notes I had on a potential Akuma Villain, as well as notes on what I know I want to improve upon when I go back to revise the NaNo version of Peeping Tomcat.

The first twenty minute sprint was up and I hadn't added a single word. I had the vague startings of a new villain, and some notes on how to improve the first chapter of PT.

Everyone else chatted during the down time, but I again fought with my computer, hoping being in sleep mode for about ten minutes would be enough to kill the lag. It wasn't. I also didn't have a full twenty minutes before everyone ran out of things to talk about and we went back to writing. I continued to fight with my computer, which all but froze at this point, for another five or ten minutes before again giving up and snapping it closed; a bit softer, this time to not irritate everyone.

I scribbled down a few more ideas to kill the second twenty minute sprint. More people talked about their projects, and we welcomed a new member during our down time, and I again tried not to be too disconnected and distracted by my fussing with my laptop.

Once more we went back to writing before the twenty minute down time was up, which meant that within an hour, instead of three sprints and three down-times, we were looking at four twenty minute sprints with barely ten minutes in between.

I COULD HAVE GOTTEN SO MUCH WRITING DONE!

One of the women in the group likes to tell us how much she wrote in the twenty minute sprints, and each time she averaged about 150 words or so. I don't know if she mentally slows down to collect her thoughts before writing, or if I'm a faster typist, but I average about 500 words per sprint, so each time she called out how many she wrote I could only think of how many I COULD have written. I feel a bit guilty about that, but it is what it is.

After being at writing group for about ninety minutes and not getting ANYTHING accomplished because my laptop STILL wouldn't work, I gave up. At this point I had hard-pressed my laptop to turn it off before rebooting it. Only for it to give me some sort of "Auto Repair" program alert and then freeze during the initiation of it. My computer screen would just go blank with the mouse arrow just kind of.... there. The arrow followed my mouse movements, so that was fine, but the rest of the screen was just black. Four attempts to reboot my computer, and I got the same result each time.

Which means everything I wrote on Tuesday was gone! Over 1000 words gone.... AGAIN!

My thumbdrive wasn't staying in the USB port well enough to perpetually keep it in so I could save to both the laptop and thumbdrive each time I saved. So I had gotten into the habit of save CONSTANTLY while on the laptop, but only save to the thumbdrive at the end of the day and/or when I completed a chapter. I would then update my Google Docs file at the end of the night as well - since that's even more tedious to keep updating each time I save on my laptop - and at the end of the week I would save to a second thumbdrive.

After losing the whole novel once before, this was my new routine. I never expected my laptop - which I've only had for about 18months - was going to just DIE on me out of nowhere!

So everything I had done on Tuesday was just gone. GONE! YET AGAIN! I still had the nearly-30,000 words I wrote by the end of Monday, but nothing else. All that catching up I did, and all the catching up I could have done during writing group, was killed.

I tried to be as calm and discrete as possible as I quietly packed up my laptop and notebook, and returned the pencil to the center of the room. I was apparently very noticeable anyway, though. I had to stop my voice from shaking out of pure frustration as I told the group what was going on, how I was about to drop-kick my laptop out of the window, and that I just needed to go home before I punched a wall. They all understood my frustration, and wished me luck as I left.

My intention was to just steal Hubby's laptop to finish my story from where I left off on Monday.

Then HIS computer started acting up. Apparently HP and/or Windows 10 is all sorts of done with letting people use Chrome, because any time he tried to bring up the internet via Chrome, our preferred server, it would lag or randomly freeze the computer.

We have yet to see if the computer will behave itself if we cave and just used Window Edge....

So, my attempt to continue writing via Hubby's computer was also a bust. I couldn't even get online to post my story, Varekai recap, and November blog posts to the NaNo site to verify the word count.

I had to run to the library computers for that, but the library only allows 1hr stints at the computers, so I couldn't really use them for all the writing catch-up I needed to do.

I did manage to verify the word count of the story, and my recap, and all of the blog posts, in order to surpass the 50,000 words. yay.....

I feel a little cheap about how I ended up "winning," but, as I mentioned last week, I feel like persevering and still trying to finish the month even with all the technical difficulties I've had is a valid "win." For the rest of my life I think I'll look at that Winner badge with a bit of bittersweetness, but I think I'd be more upset with myself if I DIDN'T get that win for this year....

Anyway, I spent the rest of the week trying to check in on things online periodically via our smartphone - which has Hubby logged into FB, so it's not the best for me to use for that - and my 3DS; once I found it.

Not the best resources to do much with, and I can't really bring up videos, ad-intense websites, or anything like that. But it was enough to not be completely off the grid this past week.

While we did have some fun times celebrating Hubby's birthday this week, it was definitely one of those vacations you need a vacation from by the time you're done. If I was at work I could at least feel better at not being able to write or do much online.

Knives from the Scott Pilgrim comic books
by Bryan Lee O'Malley

But, hey, at least I got this glorious alert on the NaNo website:

Once I figure out what I'm doing, computer wise, I'll definitely have to check out the link for the "Now What?" months. I did tell people that I wanted to get at least the first chapter of the polished Peeping Tomcat story up by end of March/beginning of April. So I'm hoping I can find something I can use for more than an hour at a time so I can work on that.

I'm also hoping that the second season of Miraculous Ladybug premieres on Netflix soon. I've already watched the first half of the season thanks to YouTube and fan-subs, but I can't wait to binge the whole thing. It might help me get excited about this doomed project again, as well as better get a feel for how I should write it.

In the meantime, I'm waiting for FedEx to deliver a replacement power cable for my netbook so I can use that again. Then maybe I'll be able to take a step back and figure out what to do next for my main laptop.

As of right now, it seems that the hard drive may have gotten screwed up somehow between me writing at home on Tuesday and starting it up again in the writing group. Now I have to figure out if I just survive with my netbook until Tax Refund season again, travel back to Best Buy during the Holiday Season in order to try to get 18month financing for a good computer, just drop a little over $300 on another simple "netbook-sized" laptop, or try buying a replacement hard drive and seeing if that works.....

Joy......

The other thing to think about is if I should bother going to writing group tonight. The next one will be December 19th. Which means if I don't go tonight I will have walked out last week, and then gone two weeks without going to a meeting.

At the same time, though, I don't have anything to read..... but I could still hear what others have written and comment.... Gah, I don't know.

I'm running out of time at the library, though, so I guess I'll spend the next six hours or so debating what to do next. At least I still have my notebooks and pencils, right?