Will You Be My Valentine?

Est. Read Time: 30min

Happy Valentine's Day, friends!

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It's been a touch longer since my last post than I had intended. It's still very much February though, so I'm still sticking with my goal of at least one blog post per month. Can't be mad about that. It is Valentine's Day though, and how could I miss the opportunity to make my February post also a love letter to my fine readers.

So, may I ask for each and every one of you to collectively be my platonic valentines today? Because I want to share with you all of the love you've shown me over the years.

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You are all such amazing people, and I am always so pleasantly overwhelmed by the love my writing gets. I know I whine a lot about how my readership isn't as vast or active as the fanfic authors I idolize, or I lament my stories not getting spin-off fanfics or fanart or fan theories like big-name fanfics get. I do tend to be ungrateful as I fall into my self-doubt spirals. I am so sorry for that and for guilt-tripping any of you about how you love my stories. How you do so shouldn't matter. What should matter is that you DO love them and read them and support me. So, thank you. I love you. You make my writing worthwhile. Your likes and kudos and faves and bookmarks and comments and reblogs all bring huge smiles to my face. I recognize the repeat readers, and you remind me that my writing is good enough for someone to want to read more from me. I see the new names, and you remind me that my writing isn't as invisible as I believe. You are all beautiful people, and I wouldn't be as far along in my skill if it weren't for you.

I know that the adage (and the healthier option for participating in a hobby) is to do it for me; no one else. However, I used to write for me. I used to tell myself stories. I was content keeping them in my head (maybe take some physical notes to keep the details straight). It was rare that I would actually follow through with writing anything down for years and years and years. If no one else was reading it, why bother putting in the effort to write it when I could just create the stories in my head?

Then I got into fanfiction writing. I still wrote for myself; just to get the ideas out of my head. I never edited, though. First draft was final draft. Throw it up online. If people see it they see it, if not... well... I wrote it for me. Not the greatest mindset for trying to hone or improve one's skills though. And, without trying to improve and sharpen my skills, my desire to become a published author was little more than a pipe dream and wishful thinking living off the scraps of being told most of my life that I was a gifted writer.

Then I started writing for my readers. No, I wasn't writing stories simply because I thought it's what you want to read. In that regards I still write for me. I still tell stories I want to tell and stories I wish I could read myself; so I create them. The part about writing for you, my readers, is more about my motivation. See, my desire and drive to improve my writing stems from my want to put out better stories for my readers. I started editing, revising, and - gasp - PRE-PLANNING my stories so the end results are better for my readers. I feel guilty about not being as prolific a writer as others I follow within the fandom because I want to have more things for my readers to enjoy. I have this blog so I can connect with you and give you a heads up on how I am and where I am with my writing; so you're not wondering where I vanished to. I get excited about parts of my stories because I imagine how my readers will react once they reach those scenes. I refuse to delete anything (I instead cut it and paste it into a "scraps" file) because I imagine some of my readers being fellow authors, and being able to show them where the polished story started and how much I had to revise might be encouraging for them. I started posting those cut bits to Tumblr because I thought my readers would get a kick out of them. I want to tell you all about my Scum and Villainy campaign (which is coming later) because my stories don't feel alive unless others know about them; unless my readers can experience them as well. My stories have all become extroverted divas that need that spotlight to feel real and complete, and you fine folks are all that spotlight.

So, thank you, yet again, for considering what I write worth your (most likely) precious little time available. It means the world to me. You are all such beautiful people. I'm going to explode with love.

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Speaking of my writing, you probably noticed that I didn't update this blog to promote my latest Plagg Appreciation Day story. I also haven't promoted it yet within this post. You may have also noticed - if you follow me on Twitter, Tumblr, AO3, FFN, or DA - that you didn't get a notification alerting you about the latest Plagg Appreciation story.

Yep. You guessed it. That's because there wasn't one. I tried. I spent three days plotting and pondering and playing with ideas. The closest I got to a fleshed-out idea was something akin to The Adventures of Brainy where Plagg daydreams that, instead of absorbing into the Miraculous jewels in order to power up a human superhero, he and Tikki transform into human superheroes themselves. I couldn't quite get the concept ironed out in time for Friday, January 13 though. Maybe I'll get it sorted by the next Friday 13th in October. Maybe I'll think of something completely different.

If you have any plot bunny ideas for a Plagg-centric story, feel free to pitch them my way.

Anyway, as it crept closer and closer to January 13th, I, of course, got more and more anxious about my story. I was doing what I always do and beat myself up over the fact that I didn't have this story done. This was MY holiday that I created. How could *I* not meet my own deadline and participate in my own created fandom holiday????

Then the 13th hit, and I realized how much pressure I was piling onto myself. It was FANFICTION. It was something people would read FOR FREE. It was a MADE UP holiday. I was seemingly the only one who even celebrated it, seeing as how I have never seen anyone else post anything Plagg-centric specifically on a Friday 13th or tag anything Plagg Appreciation Day or tag me on any Plagg Appreciation Day posts (exception being LivreVer once or twice). It DIDN'T MATTER if I posted a story or not.

Ah, the dark side of "I write for my readers": I pressure myself to hit arbitrary deadlines and feel guilty when I don't hit them. As if I'm disappointing you guys. I know I'm not disappointing you all. I KNOW! I have to retrain myself to let that feeling go. I have to remind myself that my readers are all lovely and patient and are excited to read my writing, regardless of when or how frequently I publish.

So, on January 13th, when I still had no idea what even to write, I battled with myself for a bit, and then let it go. I waved the white flag and marked a second missed Plagg Appreciation Day.

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Most of January was spent dealing with headaches at work anyway. Headaches I'm STILL dealing with, actually, but I won't get into that. Point being the few times I wasn't dealing with work stuff I was recovering from said work stuff. My brain was fairly fried, and I didn't even think about fanfiction. The fact that I hadn't seen a new Miraculous Ladybug episode since November probably didn't help motivate me to write anything. Not having the energy to go on Tumblr and interact with the fandom didn't help much either.

Instead, I focused on Scum and Villainy. We were racing towards our grand return to the campaign on the 30th. I needed to be prepared for that.

And I was not prepared for that....

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I didn't have time to break away and listen back to the recorded sessions while I was home, and I had slacked off; waiting until January to even start listening back to them and taking down GM notes. I tried to listen to the sessions like podcasts, but I had to stop too many times to take notes, so it wasn't good background noise for doing house work or getting ready for work. I tried listening while at work, and I got the farthest in doing that, but... work headache stuff... I didn't have the down time I needed to go through everything.

Soooooo.... the last time I ran a RIP race that all of the players could participate in was August! Seemed like a good way to ease everyone (including myself) back into the campaign, as well as introduce new characters! Plus, no real plot-line needed since the plot-line would be introducing the new NPCs. Hubby was off that day, so he created the new RIP race machines and rolled up the NPC start positions for me. Then, when we played, everyone else rolled their start positions. I finished the last-minute set-up. We did some soft roleplay - which is the limited improv I can handle - and the race itself is mostly just me keeping track of where everyone is. I didn't even bother coming up with a cool track design. It wasn't needed. The track wasn't the point of the race that session. The new rivalries were.

The session was fun. It felt like a nice way to ease all of us back in. The following Monday - being the 1st Monday of the month - we had another session. This time I had most of a job sorted out for the group. Not as much as I would have liked (I like preparing for the weird off-beat things they tend to do so I'm less likely to have to think of things on the fly), but enough to fake my way through it.

Aaaaaand then Hubby came up with something during soft roleplay that ended up becoming a job all on its own. The whole session was basically unplanned, soft roleplay... and all improv on my part.

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It was all good. We finished up the impromptu side mission around 10:15pm. We try to finish by 11pm. Definitely not enough time to actually get to the job I had planned. I began to panic a little on what we'd do for the next 45min. Do we just call it early? Am I going to have to scramble to come up with another "short" mission for the crew to go on?

And then the characters Demarcus and Quinton had a long debate about power struggles and setting up allies and what is the best strategy for the group. I didn't really need to do much of anything for the better part of an hour. I just got to enjoy them debate each other. Eventually I interjected to let everyone know how late it was and we should sort out experience for the game. So... aside from the adlibbing I had to do for about two hours during that side mission - which was mostly character driven; I can do that easily enough - it was a fairly lowkey session for me.

I'm going to be spoiled by the time we do our next session on the 20th and I ACTUALLY run that job I had planned out.

Speaking of, let's do some "mini" recaps of what's been going on with the Stardancer crew to catch everyone up!

Credit to the Scum and Villainy art team:
Brett Barkley, Tomasso Renieri, Juan Ocha, Michaela DeSacco, and Tazio Bettin
(Color by LycoRogue)

Tada! Yeah, I realized that I never actually shared my edit of the Stardancer artwork to showcase how the crew had their ship painted! I was going to show the playgroup first and then you guys... except I never came back to update this blog. Whoops. Anyway, I'm back now. This is the chrome-black with neon-green accent lights paint job they picked out for the Stardancer. How does it look? I wish I could have added a bit more dimension to the black paint job to give it more of a chrome look as opposed to just a matte black, but I wasn't as happy with my other two attempts.

As far as the campaign "plot" for the Stardancer crew (who still hasn't come up with a crew name outside of that), they have started up some trouble while also somehow going under the Hegemony's radar. They've added crewmates and collected quite a few pets. They've made enemies and powerful allies. It feels like we just started our campaign, but, at the same time, they've already outgrown their ship! It's been a bit crazy.

When I last caught you folks up, it was the third session. They had a mandatory mission from the Borniko Syndicate to air an advertisement for the Echo Wave Riders as a way to patch up the rift the crew caused between the two factions. In the process of airing said message for the EWR, the crew caught the attention of infamous wizard-class hacker Vorex. Their ship was spotted by a patrolling 51st Legion spaceship, and that lead to the crew picking the above paint job for their ship to try to disguise it. They finished up with a RIP race on one of Warren's sister moons. Since then, the main "plot beats" have been:

• Session 4 - Unfortunately, this was the first game where all three players couldn't attend. So I just sort of piloted tI'kæl so she was still there as the crew FINALLY delivered Ishi to The Cove. There they met Ishi's good friend Hunter Black, 4th in command of the Maelstrom Pirates. Hunter instantly took a liking to Demarcus, and I started the running gag of Hunter enthusiastically asking Demarcus and the Stardancer crew to join his crew/fleet. Demarcus always turns him down and counters that Hunter could join the Stardancers instead.
      Itching to fight someone, Demarcus signed up for a big open-call cage match on The Cove against famed Cove MMA fighter "The Prodigy". None of the 14 fighters that went before Demarcus lasted one round, and barely even winded the Prodigy, who was amped up with a bunch of mechanic limbs (a la the anime Megalobox, except they're actual artificial limbs as opposed to exoskeletons). Quinton was able to hack into the Prodigy's limbs (after Demarcus got pretty roughed up - including a sword through the left shoulder), and locked him into place so Demarcus could knock him out. Despite Quinton purposefully only freezing up the limbs for a few seconds at a time, people still suspected foul play. Thankfully, Quinton had called Hunter down to see if he wanted to place any bets on the fight, so he was fairly untouchable as Hunter escorted him over to the betting booth to collect their winnings.... which promptly broke the game economy since I wanted to showcase how intimidatingly tough The Prodigy was by making it something like 50 to 1 odds against Demarcus. Even with the players allowing me to retcon that down to about 10-1 odds, they walked away with an INSANE amount of money. Whoops!
• Session 5 - Hunter's last pet Razor passed away 3 years ago and he's ready for a new one. He sends the crew to fetch him a leaguin; a leopard-penguin hybrid with four wings that lives on the beaches along the equator of the jungle planet Amerath.
      I was kind of thinking of the Otter-Penguins from Avatar: the Last Airbender, except leopard-spotted, with a leopard's head and fangs, and with leopard-claws at the end of their webbed feet.
  
  
      The crew rounded up about half of a leaguin colony, kept one each for themselves as pets, and sold the rest to Hunter, who kept two as his own pets (they are social animals, after all). Hunter has been breeding and selling the rest on the black market. The crew then started up a campaign to legalize domesticating leaguins and keeping them as pets, even without an exotic pet license.
      Leaguins are docile unless provoked, and then they become EXTREMELY aggressive. While trying to fend off the attacking leaguins and corral the rest to take to Hunter, Demarcus broke out his flame thrower. Only one leaguin - who was particularly aggressive - got burned. Demarcus was like, "I like this guy. He's as reckless as me," and decided to nurse and adopt that one. For obvious reasons, it was still aggressive towards him; biting him frequently. So that leaguin's name is now Nippy. Seeing as how Memish are basically "seafood" as far as leaguins are concerned, tI'kæl's pet also kept trying to bite her (as did most of the others, to be fair), so she named hers PIMA. Quinton named his pet Languin, in honor of his mentor. I never came up with names for Hunter's pair; I should do that....
• Session 6 - Chaos Theory had another RIP race. This time through the gas planet of Vet. This is one of the first races I felt comfortable really letting the sport live up to its name. I had described the track as being windy, having a loop-the-loop, and having a gap the machines had to jump over. One of the racers ended up getting bumped off the track at that jump, and was lost in the debris making up the rings of the planet.
      Because the track seemed more suited for speed than brute force, Demarcus sat out. One of the team's rivals - Ice Heart from the Gravity Blades - had also stayed in the team bay because Demarcus had blown up his Machine - the Gremlin - the last race they did (the one after airing the EWR message; I forgot to come back to write about that last time). Quinton (as Poet) and tI'kæl (as Sanic) dominated the field, and was even humiliating Ice Heart's teammates AirJack and Bolt. Ice Heart was pissed and screaming at the screen projecting the race. Demarcus decided it would be a fun time to try to antagonize Ice Heart, and when that escalated into a scuffle, he slammed Ice Heart head-first into that screen, bending it around the guy's head and busting up his face pretty badly. As the race continued, AirJack's Machine The Victory blew up, and his escape pod was brought to the team bay. He got out of the pod right after Demarcus took out Ice Heart. AirJack tried to retaliate, managed to stab Demarcus in the side with a piece of busted plasma screen, and then Demarcus promptly shoved him head-first into his own escape pod; breaking his nose and taking out some teeth. With both main rivals now unconscious and bleeding in their team bay, Demarcus casually walked back to Chaos Theory's bay to finish watching the race. The third member of Gravity Blades made it to 3rd place, behind Sanic and Poet. The crew was impressed with Bolt's driving, her overall better (re: less cocky) attitude, and her attempts to keep the peace between her teammates and Chaos Theory. They offered her a spot on their team, but, after seeing her bloodied teammates and Demarcus proudly stating that it was his handiwork, she growled for Chaos Theory to walk away before things got ugly.
      Quinton made sure to save the plasma screen shard Demarcus took out of his side. Never know when they'll need something with AirJack's fingerprints on it.
• Session 7 - Another session that Rozsavaria had to miss. Which meant, canonically, tI'kæl had something else to attend to, so she left the guys alone. This was also right around Christmas 2021, so I decided to go with something holiday themed: A Christmas Carol. (Technically, I also had a job that was very How The Grinch Stole Christmas, but the guys decided to save that for a session all players could attend). The money lender Benser Cee Grooze (of Grooze and Jybac Moneylending) is also a bail bondsman and bookie on Quinton's home "planet" (it's a colonized moon) of Warren, and Grooze decided it's "harvest time". He placed bounties on all who have defaulted on his loans (bounty was 5% of debt owed), and had forced his workers into mandatory overtime without additional pay. The workers - rallied behind their boss Bob Kranket - had gone on strike. Grooze had put bounties on his striking workers and Bob as well. The crew was asked by a third party to help stop Grooze any way they could. Quinton and Demarcus needed to take down one of the major bounty hunters going after Bob before getting more info on what was going on. They opted to create a massive bounty for Demarcus in order to get the hunter's attention. Interrogation went array, resulting in the hunter and something like 32 civilians dying in a fire??? They promptly took the bounty off of Demarcus, and then went to Grooze with an offer to sell his business to Quinton's friend and mentor Lucian Lang. Negotiations took a bit longer (and a bit more narcotics) than expected, but they got Grooze loopy enough to sign away his company under the guise of becoming a partner in a retirement cruise spaceship. Fearing that Grooze will fight the legality of the acquisition as soon as he's sober, Demarcus sniped him from his own building and planted the rifle and ammo on one of the scabs working during the strike. Bob was then made CEO of the company (with Lang as the silent owner), and he removed all of the bounties Grooze put out.
• Session 8 - Back from her religious retreat, tI'kæl was mildly appalled by what the guys got up to without her, but at least it was for the greater-good in the long run (no more bounties on defaulted loans or striking employees; or a need to strike, for that matter). Having started up a strong acquaintanceship with Vorex since their meeting in session 3, Quinton received a job from her; a favor. She had discovered that the Counters Guild keeps extremely detailed records of all of their assets, but keeps a separate - but just as detailed - ledger of all their LIVING assets (such as Vorex's kidnapped sister). The ledger is closely guarded and constantly on the move to prevent people from getting to it. Vorex was able to figure out that the Guild was trying to move the ledger two star systems over (to Brekk) to a planet called Nightfall (so named because its 13 moons cause constant solar eclipses, casting the planet in "night" more frequently than "day"). The crew offered their services as "discreet couriers" to the shell company the Counters Guild used to move the ledger without people suspecting what the product actually was. They were given a caged Way Beast that resembled a blue, semi-translucent, ethereal tiger with twin tails wearing a collar. They were also informed that they had a strict timeframe to get the beast to Nightfall, and that they will be hunted down as thieves if they didn't reach their checkpoints in time for other members of this shell company to scan the beast's collar at the designated point. The crew quickly deduced that the collar contained the ledger, and - through Vorex's help - managed to create a way to clone the file from the collar so they could get that to her without stopping the ship (largely thanks to tI'kæl managing to Attune with the beast well enough that Demarcus could get the cloning device against its collar without being mauled). TI'kæl actually got so attached to the creature during her attunement that she wanted to keep it. Quinton had to remind her that the Counters Guild couldn't suspect any foul play, or all of the assets would be instantly moved, and the ledger would be scrubbed; failing their mission for Vorex. Despite some in-fighting among the crew, the actual smuggling job - both of the Way Beast to Nightfall and of the Ledger to Vorex - went off without a hitch. In fact, due to Hubby constantly rolling critical successes while piloting the Stardancer, they hit each checkpoint early.
      TI'kæl is now determined to track down where on Nightfall that Way tiger is so she could kidnap it and keep it as her pet.
• Session 9 - Another RIP race session, this time on one of the 13 moons that orbit Nightfall. Demarcus got a wrist slap over his attack against the Gravity Blades. His punishment wasn't more severe mostly because the cameras did show that - while excessively aggressive - Demarcus WAS only defending himself. He's allowed to still participate in League races, but he is no longer allowed to remain in the team bays unsupervised; indefinitely. Alternatively, the entirety of the Gravity Blades was banned from that race as punishment (ignore that both AirJack and Ice Heart were still recovering and Bolt didn't do anything against Demarcus or Chaos Theory), and are also not allowed in the team bay AT ALL while a race is going on. If they wish to watch instead of participate, they must do so from the stands or via video off-site.
      Despite the reprimand over the fighting in the bay, Demarcus was also offered a new League opportunity. The RIP League has a club for pilots called The Basher Bonus Club. Invited members to the club are given a "punch card"; their membership card on which black dots, or "punches" shows up for successful slams, forced retirements, or caused explosions. Forced retirements/caused explosions count as two punches vs the one punch for a successful slam. When five punches accumulate on the card, a Volt (a race-specific form of currency used to repair or upgrade the RIP Machines) is added to the pilot's race earnings and the punches reset. Members must at least ATTEMPT a slam in each race, or they are removed from the club until they are invited back.
      Other than that, the race went off without much of a hitch. Some more explosions. Poet and Sanic again podiumed, but this time they were joined by Demarcus (as Doc).
• Session 10 - This session I attempted to do something similar to the Fable games, and offer the same job, but on opposing sides. The mission centered around the Turner Society (the drug traffickers and drug den providers the Stardancers smuggled Vosian Crystals for in the first session) trying to take down their biggest competitor: high-end drug dealer Yon Lirak. He's actually a named NPC in the rulebook. His entry reads: "Runs a factory in Rost [on the planet Amerath] that never shuts down, producing synthetic narcotics for several major species. [He is] experienced, ruthless, [and] unforgiving" [pg 309 in the rule book]. The crew was given the option to either help the Turner Society take down Lirak's factory (run by slave labor) or help Lirak protect his factory from the sabotage.
      They still had that Grinch-themed job that was also on Amerath. That one had a researcher up on a mountain of Amerath requesting that someone stop the Dance of the Fairies festival that happens annually and disrupts the researcher's work for a solid month as the festival goes on in the valley below him. When the crew decided they'd prefer to help the Turner Society (in part because they were already friendly with them, in part because of the slave labor, and in part because Hubby decided Lirak was also a rival to Lang's drug empire), Quinton plotted that they could somehow frame the residents of the hamlet Hovayle who host the Dance of the Fairies festival, and the ruthless and unforgiving Lirak would come after them; affectively ending the festival.
      Quinton hacked the servers of Lirak's massive 30-story building and sent out a memo that the workers were allowed a two-day leave to participate in the Dance of the Fairies festival. Sixty-percent of the work force were able to leave and get onto shuttles that the Stardancers had set up before the rest of the facility went into lockdown and bounty hunters were sent to bring back the workers.
      Having another brilliant idea, Quinton had himself and Demarcus disguise themselves as AirJack and Ice Heart as they broke into the facility. TI'kæl randomly threw a disguise together and lucked into looking exactly like a flower shop owner from down the street. The trio made their way into the factory, hacked the system to make their way through the levels until they could get to where the drugs were actually being made (most of the building was living space for the slave laborers and guards, an on-site hospital, a brig, and packing facility). When they got to the brig, they found three people locked up. One was a big, burly guy foaming at the mouth trying to get at the guard on duty. Another was a frail fifteen-year-old who looked like he was pushing 90. And a third that looked like a string-bean of a man with a shark head. That was when I passed the floor to our newest player who introduced his shark-headed character as Fin and swore he had no clue why he was locked up. The crew let the trio out, assuming they were all falsely imprisoned by Lirak, and the burly guy instantly started beating the already unconscious guard to death. Having Fin scoop up the frail guy (named Chuck), the crew continued on through the facility. They got to the factory floor, and Quinton hacked into the system to steal the drug recipe, force a self-destruct flushing of the drugs already made, and destroyed all of the materials needed to make more. Sabotage complete, the group broke back out of the facility. Quinton made sure to escape via crashing through a window. He then left behind the shard AirJack had shanked Demarcus with to further frame the rival duo.
      After being rescued by the Stardancers, Fin revealed that his real name is Jet Ryle. He's a human, but he's also a gambling addict who isn't particularly good at the gambling bit. He has massive debt all throughout the Procyon Sector, and that was probably why Lirak had him locked up; to cash in on the hefty bounties on Jet. The shark head was also a result of the massive gambling debt he had accrued. One of his bookies offered to forgive his debt if he agreed to some medical experimentation. He happily accepted, got knocked out for surgery, and awoke in a back alley with a shark head instead of his own. Jet's player was inspired by this Sharkman character on the cover of the Gravity RIP rulebook.
  

  

  Illustration by Colin Craker

      Meanwhile, here's Chuck... he's just the old prisoner from Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
  
  
      Since sabotaging the factory (and unintentionally rescuing Jet) only took about 90min, they had time to still see to the Grinch-themed job. They split the crew; half would meet up with the researcher Hirg Chent and the other half would go to Hovayle to try to convince the town to not host the festival (or at least keep it down to not disrupt Chent's research). The Dance of the Faeries festival celebrates the annual solar eclipse on Amerath, which initiates the pollination season in that valley. The bioluminescent flowers and mushrooms release glowing spores that are collected by glowing insects; the whole cycle resembles what The Ancients (aka Earthlings) would describe as faeries or Will o' the Wisps. Hence the name of the festival. Since this is a nature-based event, it cannot be rescheduled, and it is the biggest influx of funds to the small hamlet, so the mayor refused to alter the festival at all. Meanwhile, tI'kæl had a great time talking about The Way with Chent, but couldn't convince him to do research somewhere else on Amerath while the festival was going on. Not finding a peaceful solution, and really wanting to take part in the festival themselves, the crew decided they're just murder hobos. They'll trick the researcher into thinking they stopped the festival, get paid for it, and then kill the researcher and transfer the rest of Chent's money to Ice Heart and AirJack to further frame them. The murdering-the-researcher bit went wrong as Chent's pet attacked to defend him. The pet is a domesticated wakeena: a wolf-like creature the size of a pony, has six legs, hyena-like spots, a prehensile tail, and 4 eyes. Chent named it Limainamilx, but called him Milx for short. In the scuffle, Chent's research and tablet/computer that would have been Quinton's access to Chent's bank account were all destroyed. In the end, the hobble Chent was living in was still standing and now vacant, so the crew left a mostly-recovered Chuck there before heading down to Hovayle.

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H'okay... even "abridged" these session recaps are LONG! I mean, the game sessions themselves average about 4hrs so... I think I'm doing pretty good at recapping. Either way, I think I should probably tag out with the introduction of Jet. Maybe I'll find time this month to do another post recapping more of the sessions in my attempt to catch you up with our game. At the very least, you are now caught up on nearly the full first year we've played. Jet was introduced in May, 2022. Also, with that being session #10, you know about half of the Stardancer saga, seeing as how we're going into session #23 this upcoming Monday.

So, to finish up, I'd like to address the elephant in the room (in the blog???). You have probably noticed that I'm still using the Coming Soon font this post. That's because I haven't really had much feedback with regards to the font options I gave everyone last post. Actually, I was offered a few other options to try out, which kind of hinders my ability to narrow things down to just one winning font. So I'm going to try this again.

The first font voted 'yes' on was Indie Flower. So here is a refresher on what Indie Flower looks like. THIS IS THE FONT IN ALL CAPS. This is the font italicized. This is it in bold. My concern with Indie Flower is that it feels like a smaller font. More condensed. Might be harder to read. I'm not sure though, so how does everyone feel about Indie Flower? Is this the keeper?

The second 'yes' vote was for Josefin Sans. Here's a refresher for Josefin Sans. THIS IS THE FONT IN ALL CAPS. This is the font italicized. This is it in bold. My concern about Josefin Sans is that it feels like a more generic font? It is definitely more print-friendly. Which might be a bonus and might be exactly why I should stick with it perminantly. On the flipside, I think I'd miss that "handwritten" feel of my blog's font. What are all of your thoughts on the matter? Do I go more professional, print-friendly and stick with Josefin Sans? Or do I keep the more unique (but definitely less-professional) hand-written look of some of these other options?

The first alternative option given was for Kalam. This is what Kalam looks like. THIS IS THE FONT IN ALL CAPS. This is the font italicized. This is it in bold. I do like the handwritten look to it. My concern is that it's SUUUUUPER spaced out. I feel like my already long posts will look unbearably epic in length if I go with this one. Plus, the italics are hard to notice since the font defaults at slightly-slanted. I'm not sure. What's everyone else's thoughts on Kalam? Should this be my new font for this blog?

Another suggested font was Mali. So this is what Mali looks like. THIS IS THE FONT IN ALL CAPS. This is the font italicized. This is it in bold.I don't mind this one. It's not too small or spaced out too much. Has the curviness of Indie Flower. The letters all seem distinct enough from each other, but I could do a quick double check on that: the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. Seems good. My only concerns are that, compared to my current font of Coming Soon, this font doesn't have as much of a hand-written look as I'd like, and it feels larger. I'll have to drop the default font size down for sure, and I don't know if I can lock in a default font point because I've never set one before. Will this font end up with the same pitfall of Kalam? Namely, make my blog look even longer than it already is? I dunno. How does everyone else feel about this possibly being my blog's official font?

Along with Kalam and Mali, I was also suggested Patrick Hand (which looks like this) and Comic Neue (which looks like this). To be frank, I wasn't the biggest fan of either option. Comic Neue just didn't seem unique enough of a font and might as well be Comic Sans. In fact, it's supposed to be a "mature and professional" version of Comic Sans. Comic Neue also isn't much different from Coming Soon. Which begs the question: why bother switching?

As for Patrick Hand, the font felt TEENY, and I just wasn't the biggest fan of its over-all look. I do appreciate the research done to suggest these fonts though.

So, again, what does everyone think of the font choices? Stick with Coming Soon? Switch to Indie Flower? Go with Josefin Sans instead? Try out Kalam? Use Mali? Let me know in the comments section.

And, with that, I will leave you all, my wonderful valentines, to enjoy the rest of your Valentine's Day. Know that you are loved and cherished. Best to all of you! Until next time.

Generated by Bitmoji

Beta Reading and World Building

If you didn't see my post this past Wednesday, go ahead and scroll down to read it. As you scroll you can check out a few links in the sidebar. First up is the "Followers" section. If you have any form of Google account you can click on the handy button there and become a follower of my blog! Or you can continue to scroll down to my post and keep an eye out for that "Subscribe to" section. There you can add me to your RSS feed, or drop in your email address for my posts to go directly to your inbox - no spam included.

If none of those options are your cup of tea you can keep scrolling down, read that blog post, and then hop on over to twitter to follow me. I made it super simple: @LycoRogue. Still don't like your options? How about friending me on Facebook? Lyco Rogue. I usually only go on that account to announce blog updates, so even if you place me as a close friend you'll only get an occasional notification.

There, wasn't that easy? And now you don't have to worry about ever missing another update.
YAY!

Anyway, getting back on track. Since my last post I FINALLY got around to reading both ChibiSunnie's Valentine's day entry "My Oh So Special Someone" and DarkAngel1326's two stories that she sent me back in like January!

Chibi's story was ADORABLE and I'm thinking it's yet again a strong competitor. Everyone is in character, the story is sweet, and it's a pairing not too many people write about. So make sure to check it out and let her know what you think. Here's the link again:

"My Oh So Special Someone"

DA sent me a revised version of her Soldier Story and I sent back a few more notes. I'm not sure where she is on polishing the story up, but I feel like we'll all be able to read the story soon.

I've actually been debating sending the story to my mom. It's that Nicholas Sparks-esque story that she LOOOOOOVES. However, it's a bit of a tear jerker - which, let's face it, she also loves, but she'll still yell at me for - plus it might remind her of my dad a touch too much.

For those of you who don't know, my father lost his battle with cancer when I was 13. It's still weird to know that I've had a single parent longer than both. Anyway, the last family trip we all took a little more than a month before he passed was to Disney World. In DA's story a young boy's last trip with his father before the man shipped off to Vietnam was to Disneyland. Also, the name of the soldier just so happens to be my father's name. All the more reason why this story is extra powerful to me and all the more reason I both want my mom to read it, and fear the backlash of her weeping over it.

DA's other story that was waiting patiently in my inbox was a drabble she wrote about her Of Blood and Honor main character 33. A simple little tale about 33's reaction to his missions to burn down whole villages. I can't wait to see more progress on the character and world building of this tale - which seems to be growing in to a full book series at this rate!

Sidenote about DA... she snuck in a Valentine's Day story as well. She didn't make it in time for the contest, but she did manage to post the first chapter last night. I really enjoy it and recommend the read for some fluffy goodness.

"Stories from the Winds of Hillwood"

When I finished my extensive beta reading I also made sure to spend some face time with Omnibladestrike. Haven't heard THAT name in a while, right!? Well, the poor guy has been in a massive writing funk, one that made him want to scrap his story and start from scratch YET AGAIN, as well as made him seriously wonder if he even had any writing talent.

I helped him out the best I could, but deciding if writing is really what you want to do in life is purely a soul-searching experience. No one can tell you if you can or can't. Only you can figure that out. I feel like I should write a full blog post dedicated to that, but I'll wait for a week where I don't have so many updates to talk about. That is, of course, unless you, Dear Readers, would greatly appreciate said post ASAP. If you guys are questioning yourself and need an inspirational/insightful post about the subject feel free to let me know and I'll get cracking on that.

In the meantime, check out my Handy Links For Fellow Aspiring Writers page. I just updated it on Friday, complete with a whole new category for fantastic blogs about writing that I've found.

Anyway, back to Omni. Poor guy has been dying to talk to me about his story for a while now, but every time he visited he either spent the whole time playing Magic: The Gathering with Hubby, or I had my own writing to work on, or he was helping us move. I'm not entirely sure why he didn't just call me or visit with the sole purpose to talk to me about his story, but regardless the poor kid waited months before we finally had our little heart-to-heart this week.

There still needs to be a bit more tweaking in my opinion. Things still don't exactly mesh with each other, but I think he's getting a much better handle on what he wants to do with his story. I think his biggest roadblock is that he's been working on this tale since like middle school and he wants to hold on to a lot of that original story - even the parts that don't quite work anymore. It's a noble effort, but his creativity and abilities have matured so much since then. He knows what works and what doesn't. I feel like he should just drop what doesn't work instead of constantly trying to rework it until it does work. I had to do that with Amara and a lot of the background I did with her way back in 2004. It's hard to do, but the pruning process really does need to be done. Once he manages to do that, I think he too has a nice book series on his hands.

Speaking of Amara, after discussing fantasy world building with both DA and Omni - as well as trying to help DA out with creating a village name - I became reinspired to work on world building Gyateara. So I broke out my 3-ring binder filled with different D&D campaigns as well as notes on the world I was building for Amara. I had two countries named: Kerizmar - the country that most of Amara's adventures would take place - and Gancrock - the country where Amara was born. The majority of my world building thus far was in Kerizmar. To help DA figure out the best way for her to come up with names for her villages and such, I composited a listing of all the cities I came up with and how I came up with the names. I called it "The World of Gyateara and how it was named.... OOOOOOR.... a lesson in how bad I am at naming things".

A large chunk of the city names I couldn't remember how I came up with them, and my notes on how I came up with the names was missing from my binder. However, there was still a vast majority where my name-creation notes were still available. Most of the names were simply me trying to describe the location of the place and then tweaking the name so it didn't sound like that was what I was doing.

For example, here is an exact note that I had on a Gnome village:
Gnome -> David the Gnome -> Forests -> Animals -> Forest Thief -> Forthee -> Forthy

It's mostly just a train-of-thought freewrite. In the end I liked the description of that particular location of gnomes being the "corrupted gnomes" territory. I then took elements of the words "Forest" and "Thief" and merged them in to "Forthee". I then worked the word in my mouth a little until I spat out "Forthy". Thus the village name was born.

As I worked on my extensive list of locations, and compared notes with the map that I created - in an attempt to remind myself how I came up with some of the names - Hubby saw my little pet project. We got to talking about all the work I had put in to Kerizmar back in 2008/2009. He was shocked at the number of locations I had and the vast population I was trying to distribute between all the communities. I had made Kerizmar a bit bigger than Pennsylvania but was still trying to squeeze in roughly 30 cities and a population of  8-million. Since there's over 8-million people in New York City alone, I thought these numbers were about right for a medieval country about the size of PA. Hubby thinks otherwise.

This is a perfect example of what I was saying about Omni's need to let some things that don't work go. Even though I put extensive hours in to researching general D&D population break-down, the rough population of medieval Britain, and made sure to measure out the distances between towns to make sure they weren't too close or too far from each other.... well, Hubby still thinks it was a bit overboard. I was so afraid of UNDER populating my country that I went a bit too far in the opposite direction. So now I must also practice pruning. Drop some of the villages with crappy names - such as Forthy - shift some other towns in to a different country, rework the populous, and rename all of my natural landmarks. Since I was originally building Kerizmar as a D&D campaign setting I had all of the major mountains, deserts, lakes, seas, and rivers named after D&D deities. Now that I'm trying to switch Kerizmar and the whole of Gyateara in to my own original world I need to drop any and all references to the D&D-specific deities.

It's a long trial for sure, but Hubby should be helping me out this time. In the meantime, I can still use my limited world building knowledge to help DA name locations, and use my trial of pruning to help encourage Omni to do the same.

Happy Early Valentine's Day!

What's this? A special Wednesday post?

Yeeeeaaaaaaah..... u_u I was still really tired from the long nights this Friday and Saturday and so I forgot to mention some key things Sunday. I originally thought about just updating/editing this week's post, but then I feared those of you that read my post when I updated on Sunday wouldn't know that I edited it, and therefore would miss what I wanted to say. Also, the more I worked on this "quick" update I realized it was a fully realized blog post in and of itself.

Well, anyway, I want to start off this mid-week update by letting my beloved readers know that I'm already in the process of outlining the next chapter of What Is Truly Meant To Be. I've had the concept in my head for about two months now, so I'm excited to get to work. The only thing is that I was incredibly excited about my last chapter too when I started out, and we all saw how that turned out.

The way I set up the format of my story, the best way for me to get a chapter out is if the song easily and clearly formed a linear story in my head. The first chapter was birthed from me completely picturing a Hey Arnold music video to the song "Life After You" by Daughtry. Since I could never create the video that was in my head, I went for the next best thing; a story inspired by it.

The chapters that have all come easily to me were all the same way. I heard the song and I envisioned a complete music video. All I had to do then was describe what I saw in my mind.

Then there was the latest chapter. All I had was a visualization of the first stanza and the knowledge that the whole song would fit with what was happening in my story. That was probably why it was such rough going writing the chapter; I just couldn't properly picture it.

However, I do have a very clear mental picture of the chapter I'm currently working on. In fact, not only have I had a clear picture of my current chapter in my head more-or-less since I heard the parent song it's based off of, but I've also wished someone would do a cover of the song as a duet. Yes, ever since I heard this song and knew it would be a chapter in my story I've heard it as a duet between Arnold and Helga.

What song is it? Yeah, right! Like I'm leaking that! But it would make a beautifully painful duet in my opinion  When I finish the chapter and post it you can decide for yourself if I was right.

So there's the story progress update that I wanted to let you know. But there are two major updates with regards to building up my readership, professionalism, and over-all platform.

Although it doesn't seem to be there any longer for whatever reason, Chibi informed me that exactly a week ago a member of the Hey Arnold! Save The Jungle Movie group posted about my story What Is Truly Meant To Be! She asked the group what fanfics they are all reading, and then she stated that she was reading "What is Truly Meant to Be by LycoRogue and I highly recommend it"!!! *Squeal* I was so excited!

Chibi and DarkAngel1326 have both been bugging me about how I need to promote myself more in the Hey Arnold fandom groups. Everybody else posts their fanfics and chapter updates and that's why their readerships are so much higher than mine. I shouldn't feel ashamed about promoting myself.

Yet, I do. It took a lot for me to even promote this blog on my two Facebook accounts, my DeviantArt account, and on Twitter. Every now and again when I comment on a blog or on the Writer's Huddle forum I'll include a promo for this blog - mostly when it auto-links to the blog when a comment is made. However, as a whole I don't really promote the blog, or my writing. It's only been through continued encouragement from Chibi, DA, and my uncle that I started posting links to my writing on my main FB account. It's not that I'm ashamed of my work - I'm not; I'm very proud of it. It's more that it seems needy and shameless to self-promote.

I would go to the HA groups and see other people constantly going "I'm reading such-and-such fanfic and it's fantastic! You should all read it" or go to DeviantArt and see a new fanart group set up specifically for a fanfic and I wanted to have my stuff be good enough that I didn't need to promote it. My readers would do it for me.

NOT THAT I'M TRYING TO MAKE YOU FEEL FORCED IN TO PASSING ON MY WORK! IT DOESN'T MEAN ANYTHING IF YOU FEEL OBLIGATED TO DO SO!

Anyway, for someone I'm not friends with to actually and sincerely enjoy my work enough to pass it on and promote me..... It was such an ego boost. THIS was the main reason I was upset about not winning the Halloween contest. It wasn't so much because other people were able to write better than me or because I didn't get the prize. It was because my work wasn't being promoted by an impartial outside source.

Granted, as I started this whole thing off saying, the post isn't there any longer so there aren't any further promotions off of it. Plus, I don't know how many people actually started reading my story because of the link - I didn't see a huge spike in readership. However, the point is that at least one impartial person promoted me. Who knows how many more there are throughout the internet that I don't know about. To me, that's huge!

So, if you are one of my faithful readers passing my name and my works on, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.


AGAIN, NOT TRYING TO MAKE THE REST OF YOU FEEL OBLIGATED!

Anyway, now on to the other big milestone in my writing "career" - as it were.
This past Sunday - the tenth - I received my first review about my actual writing style; not the content of the story!

Yes, in the past I've had generic writing style reviews such as "this feels like I'm watching an episode instead of reading a fanfic" or "I could really feel the character's pain" or "Everyone is totally in character! It's fantastic!" as well as the even more generic, but still heartwarmingly awesome "You're such a great writer! Please write more!"

However, Sunday I received the following review for the first chapter of What Is Truly Meant To Be:

dyingXdasies: "I adore your word choice. The way you place words in your sentences heightens the intensity of the moment. All in all a greatly written chapter."

That is the coolest review! Someone commented on my SENTENCE STRUCTURE!

WHAAAAAA!?

Personally I think that's quite an accomplishment. So thank you, DxD!

Speaking of reviews, I've also had quite the positive feedback on The Adventures of Brainy already! I posted on Sunday and already have four reviews! Heck, my first reviewer couldn't wait until she was done reading before she reviewed!

"I haven't even finished half of this but had to comment funniest thing ever."

Pretty much all the reviews are the same. Granted, this was supposed to be a Valentine's Day story, but I went so far from fluffy this year! I'm glad it turned out so hilarious. I'm always so concerned when it comes to writing humor. I feel like I suck at it, but everyone seems to enjoy my jokes....  GO ME!

I had 39 views the first day that I posted and I'm up to 55 total. Not fantastic numbers, but considering the number of views versus number of reviews, and then comparing to the same ratios for my other stories, I think this story has the greatest reception.

In contrast, I've had 46 views but no comments over on DeviantArt. So there goes my theory that more people now read their fanfiction over there...

Regardless of where you find my stuff, if you fave it, if you review, if you've read more than one - or more than once, or if you promote my work; if you read my stories at all I want to thank you.

Happy Valentine's Day

Two Stories? Amazing!

My ninetieth post already!? And boy is it a good one for you guys.

Once again I didn't intend on my "post will be delayed" update to be my ONLY weekly update. Life got MAD CRAZY.

Hubby and I found a new apartment and spent a week transporting everything via packing multiple cars. Our house is in chaos complete with mini-mazes made out of egg boxes we got from the grocery store. We also couldn't get internet in the new apartment until this past Tuesday. Throw in work, the winter storm that came through this weekend, and my sister-in-law's baby shower. My netbook is also pretty much shot, and so I'm only using my desktop once again - meaning no progress during my work breaks any more.

The few moments I was able to find to write I used for my stories. Which means you guys had two in about a week!

First up - as mentioned in my delay post - was my latest chapter of What Is Truly Meant To Be. Another super big thank you to ChibiSunnie for helping me FINALLY get that chapter done! You're a godsend m'darling! Now to keep up the momentum to get the next chapter out before the end of the month! Whoo-boy, the next 18 days are gonna fly by quick, aren't they?

So, after I was finished with the latest chapter and the packing, and moving was more-or-less complete, it was time for me to get cracking on the Valentine's Day contest entry. I tried on multiple occasions this past week to work on both the delayed blog entry and my contest entry. Things didn't go according to plan.

But Friday I was determined. I had one day to work, but I promised myself I would write something for the contest. I started first thing in the morning, but I got stuck in multiple places. So I unpacked the bedroom while I thought. I washed dishes while I thought. I organized the bathroom while I thought. I watched videos to try to inspire me. And thus I wrote off and on for about 17 hrs.

Throughout the day I would send Chibi my story scene by scene to get her opinion. Although the darling woman was still struggling to finish up her own writing entry, she took multiple writing breaks to read my story and give me feedback. Meanwhile, I only gave her feedback on one part at the end of her story. I feel bad about the one-sided-ness of that day.

SORRY, CHIBI! SOOOOO SORRY! I HOPE YOUR STORY TURNED OUT WONDERFUL REGARDLESS!

Actually, I could let you guys know soon enough. She sent me the final draft. I just haven't had time to read anything - with still unpacking and whatnot. Speaking of which, I also have two things to beta-read for DarkAngel1326. First up was a revision to her soldier story, and second is a drabble about her Of Blood and Honor character 33.

I swear, ladies, I will get to your stories this week!

But getting back to my stories.
I've determined that not only do I suck at creating titles - I mean, my Valentine's day story is called The Adventures of Brainy - but I also suck at fight scenes. I had to break out the HeroScape to play out the fight scene for my Script Frenzy screenplay last April. I then struggled again for the fight scene I had in my Valentine's Day story. I'm just not very good. I just can't picture the fight choreography, and so it's hard for me to describe it. Things to focus on improving I guess.

I'm also a bit nervous about how the judges will "grade" my entry this time. I got originality points off last time simply because I purposely wrote the story as if it were an episode - as well as writing a ghost story even though it was specifically listed as a viable option in the rules. I'm still a little irked at both deductions. However, due to me purposely writing my story as a cheesy melodrama, which is where most cliches come from, I'm afraid of again losing originality points. I'm also fearful of losing points for not keeping the characters....in....character. Since the whole story is a dream sequence, much like the Married episode of Hey Arnold, the characters are supposed to act a little different than normal. In the case of Arnold it's REALLY different than normal.

Then again, part of me really doesn't care if my grade is lower than last time. It's a simple story clocking in at about 5,000 words - one of my shorter tales - and I'm proud of it. I guess that's all that matters, right?

Finally Got The Ideas Flowin'

Last week I was excited to have a story concept set for the Valentine’s Day contest. This week I spent most of my days wondering if I had to go back to the drawing board. This was the Halloween story all over again. I had ideas bouncing around in my head, but I couln’t get any of them to develop in to a full story.

A week of talking back and forth with ChibiSunnie as well as scribbling notes down whenever I was on a work break resulted in me still not having a clue what to do with Brainy fantasizing about him and Helga. Everything I thought of either felt cliché or it had already been done in the show.

There were long battles with myself...

Helga’s trying to make it to Wrestlemania?

She and Harold already had that adventure in “Buses, Bikes, and Subways”.

Helga’s late for class?

Eh, she wouldn't really care about that.

What if Helga’s breaking in/out of the Sunset Arms?

Again?

Alright, this is a reoccurring thing, so not too many originality points, but it could work. It's sort of a show running gag.

Obviously she’d be attempting to stop Arnold from finding out her secret, but what would be the cause of her predicament this time?

Her book of poetry she writes about him?

Already happened in “Little Pink Book”.

Her locket with his picture in it?

Arnold found that in “Helga’s Locket”.

She confessed her feelings and then regretted it; hoping to snag back the proof before Arnold got to it?

Oh, you mean like the answering machine message in “Helga Blabs it All”?

What if she wasn’t aware that she was going to confess?

I get it! Like in “Helga Sleepwalks” when she broke in to his house to confess while she was sleeping!

How about someone else making the confession?

Because that would somehow be different than a parrot reciting Helga’s poetry to Arnold in “Helga’s Parrot”…

What if an actual person blabbed it? 

Everyone knows that Brainy knows her secret, but if he’s the hero – and if he hasn’t said anything by now – there’s no way he’s the one who’s going to say anything. 

Phoebe obviously knows considering the amount of times they hint at it in the show, but what would drive her to tell Arnold? Does he suspect and is badgering Phoebe about it?

Dr. Bliss is yet another who obviously knows, but she’s sworn to secrecy thanks to Doctor/Patient confidentiality. Besides, what would cause her to talk to Arnold about that anyway? 

Same goes with Mr. Simmons. He’s a smart enough man to know the poems Helga submits for class are about Arnold, but why would he ever say anything? 

It’s possible after the “Helga’s Boyfriend” episode that Stinky suspects that she likes Arnold, but he never really says anything the rest of the series, so it’s also quite possible he didn’t put two and two together. 

Lila knows because Helga told her in “School Play”. She’s a possibility since she’s at least a child and not a close enough friend of Helga’s for it to feel like a betrayal. Maybe Lila feels she’s helping those two finally get together? Maybe it’s a way to direct Arnold from crushing on her anymore? If I’m ignoring the FTi confession scene from the movie, can I also ignore that Arnold drops his crush on Lila at the end of “Timberly Loves Arnold”?

Then I thought of a rival, a thorn in Helga’s side that surpasses Lila…. Helga’s older sister Olga. Sure, she doesn’t seem to know about Helga’s crush on Arnold – or really anything else about her sister’s life for that matter – but what would happen if she found out? Clueless Miriam found Helga’s bubblegum shrine to Arnold in “Arnold’s Hat”, and Olga seems to always help out with the household chores, so what if Olga was helping her mother by putting Helga’s clean clothes away and finds another of the Arnold Shrines? What if she stumbles upon Helga’s poetry? What if Olga goes to check in on her Baby Sister while Helga’s sleeping and finds the locket?

For a little while I ran with the idea that Olga discovered Helga’s secret and, in an attempt to help out her kid sister, decides to let Arnold know about the crush. Helga could somehow find out and panic. Then Brainy’s to the rescue in stopping Olga and keeping Helga’s secret safe.

Three problems:

1 – How does Brainy permanently stop Olga from telling Arnold?

2 – Why can’t Helga do the same exact thing?

3 – Why would Brainy fantasize about keeping Helga’s secret safe? If he kept her secret safe she’d be eternally grateful to him and fall for him – if it were a true fantasy – and if so, Arnold finding out the truth would be a moot point since fantasy-Helga doesn’t feel that way any longer.

So, if it’s illogical for Brainy to fantasize about helping Helga by stopping Arnold from finding out her secret, what could Brainy help her with? Back to the drawing board...

At the very least, brainstorming how Brainy could save the day – using a real-world problem like in that The Big Bang Theory scene I posted last week – gave me that “Olga finds out about Helga’s crush” plotline. I think it could become a really cool “Olga and Helga Redefine Their Relationship” story. Plus, I’ve wanted to write an Olga story for a while. At least now I have a plot idea for that Olga story.

Oh, the Plot Bunny Farm is filling up fast! I might have to do another post about them all!

So as of Thursday I still had no clue what I was doing. I tried to switch gears by listening to my Valentine's Day playlist. I hoped that - much like how I get inspired to write chapters for my story - one of the songs will speak to me and inspire a story for the contest. I also started rewatching episodes of the Disney Aladdin cartoon series.

Inspiration hits in the weirdest ways. I landed upon a comedic love song entitled "Skullcrusher Mountain" and that really got my juices flowing.

Certain elements of the Aladdin cartoon also inspired me, but if I were to relay what parts over to you I'd give away some key points of my story.

Point is, I think I've finally figured out my Valentine's Day competition story! Whoot! I'm still going with Brainy fantasizing about Helga, but it will play out almost like a cheesy 1960's melodrama cartoon a la "Wacky Races" or "Dudley Do-Right". Let's just say that Arnold - in his "Eugene, Eugene" villainous persona Lawrence - portrays the singer in "Skullcrusher Mountain" with poor Helga as the captive woman.

Now that I know what I want to do with my Valentine's Day story I can finally concentrate on how I want to finish up my latest chapter for What is Truly Meant to Be. This way I can stick with my New Years Resolution to post a new chapter every month. Best part is, I think I FINALLY know where I want to go with that too.

So for the next 11 days I'll be working on WITMTB as well as packing to move in to the new apartment by February 1st. Then, once February rolls around, I'll use the last 8 days of the contest working on this Brainy story. If I could get the Halloween story done in one day, having over a week should be simple! Especially since the hardest part - figuring out the plot - is already taken care of!

Hopefully, by next week I'll either have my latest chapter done, or at least finished enough to send to Chibi to beta!