Getting Back To Center

While January was less frantic than December, and February is shaping up to be more even-keel than January, this past week is still a bit of a blur.

Last Tuesday I read my Plagg-centric story at writing group. It had mostly positive reviews, but it might have also received the most critiques of all my fanfiction. Perhaps that was because it was mostly original content, and therefore I had more control over it? The biggest issues seemed to be the way I "breezed through" about 1000 years of Plagg's life with his previous owners, only to then slow down and talk about one specific day Plagg had with Adrien. The commenter wanted me to maybe slow down the "previous owners" overview... I... I don't know if I've ever been told I don't have ENOUGH detail in my stories before....

The other critique was that Plagg grew attached and started to truly trust Adrien a bit too soon for an eternal being that was abused, isolated, and tortured for so long just before. Maybe I did make things a bit TOO harsh for Plagg before giving him Adrien...

Whoops.

On a more positive note, ever since I posted about it, one of the group's members has basically been begging me to bring my newly minted hard cover copy of Peeping Tomcat to group. So I did, and got to talk about how awesome my sister is for publishing the copy for me. We then chatted for a little bit about why I can't actually sell copies of the book, but it was still awesome that my sister made me a physical copy to put on the shelf.

I could also look into how much it would cost to print off paperback versions for anyone who would like a copy, and then just gift them out. Can't get in trouble for that.

I also found a Tumblr post explaining DIY bookbinding, so there's also that option, but I feel like, in the long run, it will be cheaper to print from the company my sister found: bookemon. I could be wrong, though... I mean, I would just need to print off something like 274 pages and create the cover.... it might be cheaper to self-bookbind.

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Wednesday was my last day at the other store. It was fairly uneventful, but I will miss working with those ladies. They made the long-ish commute worth it. We did get a last-minute customer, though, so I didn't end up leaving until close to 6:45, and didn't get home until after 7:30pm. So I was just in total "I need to crash" mode when I got home.

Thursday was work and then D&D. We actually had some combat this go, and the party again got hurt pretty badly as we went up against just a few thugs. Hubby really needs to stop rolling high numbers for our enemies when at least Omnibladestrike and I are TERRIBLE at rolling decent numbers. I must have rotated between four different D20s to try to find one that wasn't going to kill Kriv.

Then, because I can't control my characters, Kriv finished the evening doing The Stupid, as per usual. The airship our party is using as a base doesn't have any meat options for food since the crew is Fae-touched or something like that. Not to say that we can't BUY meat to bring aboard for the party, but when Hakkim's wild magic can random him into spontaneously having a goat in his arms, why waste gold? Hakkim and Kriv jointly decided on having the half-orc cast a spell, and hope to luck into the goat. Hakkim jumped off the airship, used Feather Fall - because it was pretty much the only non-combat spell he has - and..... well... we did get meat....

A confused bear appeared on the deck in front of Kriv. Quarthix's character wanted nothing to do with these shenanigans and had already started back into the city to buy supplies, so Hubby let him decide which bear the rest of us would fight. He chose polar bear because we all enjoy the show We Bare Bears. Let me tell you, there's a reason Ice Bear is so badass!

Once the confused polar bear popped up on deck - with the party already down two members: Hakkim and Solf - Wolfhearted's character Gavin also kind of pulled a "nope" and popped below decks. Same with Omni's Kiatha - whom Kriv got the party calling Keith for short, despite her being cisfemale - so this left just Kriv and the bear...

It was Kriv's idea, AND he had to protect his precious Money Tree pot, so he metaphorically rolled up his sleeves and planned to get the crew one HECK of a feast.

Kids, do NOT let a bard take on a bear alone. It... does not end well for the bard.

Yes, Kriv was hit below 0 hit points and knocked unconscious. In D&D 3.5, you were still alive until you were knocked past -10HP, then there's no coming back. In 5e, you have to roll to pass a death check. If you succeed 3x, you're fine, just unconscious. If you fail 3x, you are officially dead; no coming back. Thankfully, when Kriv was knocked out by the Murder Rug a few weeks ago, I was able to pass my checks. I was nervous about being able to do the same this go. Especially since you get an auto-fail to one of your checks if you take damage again, and a confused and injured polar bear is not likely to let up just because its sole opponent is knocked out.

Thankfully, Hubby already had a contingency plan up his sleeve. The ship's captain Gilliam had been watching, and the second Kriv went down Gilliam used his magic to send the polar bear back to where he came from. He even magicked a fish in the bear's mouth as a form of apology.

So, aside from a few scratches the bear can heal from, no Ice Bears have been injured in The Stupid. And Kriv is still alive despite his party all abandoning him to his idiocy.

DO NOT LEAVE YOUR TEENS UNATTENDED, ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY ARE BARDS!

Ya-Ya
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by Birdman, Inc.

Friday I was planning on cracking down on my writing. I had the start of my Lukanette story, but I wasn't close to done, and I wanted to complete it by the 5th. Hubby had other plans for Friday night, however.

While wandering around the game store we found on our day-long date a couple weeks back, Hubby got a glimpse at the A Song of Ice and Fire tabletop miniatures game. It's your standard mini-army game where you start on opposite sides of the table and use rulers to determine how far you go, and then roll against each other to battle. It's similar to other minis games I've played: Ninja All-Stars, Gaslands, and Warhammer 40K*.

*Disclaimer: I have never actually played Warhammer, but Hubby does, so I've seen it played.

Anyway, Hubby bought the starter set, as well as a Heroes Pack expansion for both the Starks and Lannisters - the two factions obviously at war in the starter set. He was so excited to play it last Wednesday, but since I got home so late and just kinda crashed, we didn't get to play. Again, because of D&D on Thursday; we didn't play. So when I got home Friday Hubby already had most of the game unpacked onto the table, and already had dinner all set.

How could I tell him "I was planning on doing other things tonight" when I come home to that?

So we played ASOIAF all night. I am trash at these games because I'm a terrible strategist, but I was able to more-or-less hold my own. The game is supposed to last either six rounds or until one side hits 8 victory points, whichever comes first. It might have been because we were on our dining room table, so we had a play field of about 2.5ft (~0.76m) by 5ft (~1.5m) instead of the suggested standard of 4'x4' (~1.2m square), but I was able to get as many victory points as Hubby each round.

After the third round, Hubby and I both had 9 points. We decided to keep going the full six rounds to see who the true victor would be. This turned out to be a terrible decision because he started wiping me out at that point. In the end, after another 3 rounds, Hubby beat me 15 victory points to 11. Still not a TERRIBLE loss for someone who doesn't do well with these types of games. My air/bird ninja clan notwithstanding.

Even though Hubby and I wanted a "short" game, so we went with only 30pt armies, since we went all 6 rounds it still kept us until 10:30ish to finish playing. At that point I wasn't awake enough to try writing.

Saturday was Anime Night, as well as Wolfhearted's birthday!

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Wolf popped in for a bit before spending his birthday at the local gastropub; having great food, enjoyable beer, and playing pool all night. Hubby introduced Wolf to a gambling-themed anime to try to entice him to stick around, but anime isn't really his bag of tea. He did comment, multiple times, how much Goob enriched the experience though, because Goob Knows All when it comes to anime, and tends to give a running commentary on things like composers, writers, voice actors, certain culture references and how they were changed for the localization of the show, and frame rates.

We all shared the cake that Wolf brought over for D&D but we forgot to touch. Then he was off to the pub, and we were ALMOST back to our regularly scheduled program. While we were on Netflix - where the anime was that Hubby introduced Wolf to - Hubby noticed that the second half of Miraculous Ladybug season 3 was FINALLY up. I don't really remember now how it went down, but somehow the announcement of the new episodes somehow lead to us watching "Gamer 2.0" with Goob while Omni went to McDonald's to get dinner. The even funnier thing was, when Omni came back in time for the second half of the episode, most of Goob's questions about the show were answered by Omni and Hubby... ya know... as opposed to me... the obsessed fan. I would start to answer, but about a word or two in Hubby or Omni would jump in. It amused me how much they now know of the show.

Because of that, at the end of the night - I think after Goob had left - I hijacked our watch schedule to jump onto YouTube and show Hubby and Omni the ML Reanimation project for the episode "Dark Cupid". If you're a fan, or just a fan of fan re-animation projects, you should totally check this piece of work out. There are some fantastic artists/animators that I got introduced to in this, there are also artists I already follow that participated, there are fantastic visual gags, and the random puppetry had me in stitches each time. It's amazing.

Also, quick side note about "Gamer 2.0." When the battle select screen came up Goob started making jokes about who the villains looked like. Hubby paused it so Goob could keep joking about each of the villains, but then they had me actually go to the TV and name each of them off. I didn't get as into detail as to state the name of the victims that were akumatized, but I did manage to name them all. That was when I realized that there were some villains from previous seasons that didn't make the cut, as well as villains from earlier in the 3rd season. For instance, Style Queen is a playable villain, but Queen Wasp and Malediktator aren't. All-in-all, there are 10 villains from the first 2 seasons that weren't used, and only 2 season 3 villains making the cut, despite the episode being a later-season one. Also, while Reverser is used, he's not on the select screen. I'm surprised I never noticed any of that before.... I mean, the episode was one of the earlier ones that aired, despite it including a mid-season villain we weren't introduced to yet, so that might explain why I didn't notice the lack of season 3 villains. Otherwise... huh.... wonder why I never just noticed how many we were missing before.

Back on track, though....

Sunday was the Super Bowl. After work, I was planning on getting SOME writing done before Omni and Quarthix came over to watch the game. Instead I helped prep the food/apartment, got changed out of my work clothes, and ended up socializing. Darn me and my extroverted tendencies yet again!

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Monday was my first day back to Zumba! I hadn't been to a class since, like... mid-to-late-October. I was fearing going considering how much my knee now clicks as I climb stairs, I haven't done much exercising at all over the holiday/winter season, my great toe on my one foot has been sore the past few days, and I was feeling fatigued all day. But I FINALLY had my evenings free again for more than just one day a week - which is why I opted out of January classes - so I wasn't going to let all of that stop me! I even got home late - I worked until 6, I had to then pick up Hubby from work, and stop by the ATM because I couldn't remember if I had Zumba money in my bag still - and has about 10minutes to get changed, fill my water bottle, and speedwalk to class. I certainly had a defeatist attitude of "why bother; I'm going to be late and not have time to stretch and I'll end up killing myself" but Hubby gave me a quick pep-talk, and out the door I went.

I... didn't die!

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The balls of my feet were killing me when I was done, and my sinuses were on fire because I am a touch sick. But that's more-or-less it. My legs weren't as wobbly as I expected they would be. I even managed to walk normally back down the stairs to the street after class, instead of my normal "Oh, Lord, I gotta lean HARD on the railing as my wobbly legs inch me down these 20 steps." I also either remembered or quickly picked up the routines, so another win there.

Whoot!

The only snag is that I purposefully avoided Zumba in January because I was only going to be able to do the Monday night classes, and I figured that would do more harm than good. I only started up again this week because I can finally do both Mondays and Wednesdays again. Aaaaaand this Wednesday's class is cancelled because the instructor will be at her son's basketball game.

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Meh, I tried. And there's always next week....

Anyway, I attempted to at least work on this blog post last night so all I had to do was edit and publish today; leaving most of my morning free to work on my story instead. Alternatively, I could have worked on my story so that it was potentially done for me to share with you fine folks today.

Neither happened. I let the fatigue of the day - and mild exhaustion from exercising - finally overtake me, and I was in bed before 10pm last night. I thought "Hey, at least I can be well rested and wake up about 7am to start writing tomorrow".... that... also did not happen. Apparently my body needed that extra sleep - again, I'm mildly sick, but perhaps it's worse than I'm giving it credit - and I didn't push myself out of bed until closer to 8am.

So, yeah, even though things are FINALLY getting back to normal, I'm still a bit off-balance and need more adjustment time. Getting those daily stories done this upcoming week will be interesting....

Speaking of, what kind of progress DID I manage, now that I spent about 20 minutes rambling about my week like this is a diary instead of what it should be: a blog about my writing progress?

Meh. Knowing what I'm doing with my life help explains why I'm not writing, right?

Hacker Girl
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by Birdman, Inc

I have done some writing. I'm up to 3659 words in my Lukanette story, but I still don't have an actual plot for this thing; just Luka and Marinette kind of stumbling around each other while Luka asks for help and Marinette tries to figure out the best solution for him. Even I don't know what solution Marinette will give him, so I've been kind of letting the story unfold on its own. I feel like I have a bit to edit out and/or edit down now that I know some more details.

This is such an inefficient way of writing, but it's better than no writing at all, right?

I've also been doing a lot of side-research. I won't get into detail now as to what I've been researching, for fear of giving away the prompt before my recipient gets to read it, but my research and brainstorming has taken up quite a few hours this week.

My other bit of research is on Lukanette in the first place: How do others present their relationship, and how can I couple that with the canonical way they interact to better figure out how to handle them in my story?

Sadly, there hasn't been much that really helped me with that. Most of the stories I've skimmed either feel like he's out of character - more of an Adrien stand-in then actual Luka, or a genderswapped Marinette - or the plotlines are so divergent from what I'm working on that the interactions don't really help me much, or their relationship status is different than the one I'm working with, and so how they interact with each other would be different.

Fanart also isn't helping much, because most of them are just the two characters kissing or cuddling. There isn't much emotional diversity to them, as opposed to many Love Square fanart I stumble across.

So, in the end, I'm back to just relying on the canon interactions.

That doesn't mean I didn't find a good piece of fanfic I'd like to pass on, though. I actually got a lot of enjoyment over a simple little drabble. It seems to just be on Tumblr, and it's called "It’s mine now!” by KryptoRed.

Summary: Written for Lukanette February 2020. Day 1 prompt: mine

Word Count: 330 drabble

Rating: General Audiences

It's a cute little story about Marinette laying claim to one of Luka's sweatshirts, mostly because it smells like him, and that comforts her. As someone who 100% did this with my husband when we were dating, and still do it with his favorite sweatshirt now that we're married, this story spoke to me on an intimate level. It was just so me and Hubby, and I loved that.

Now, at the start of my Lukanette inspiration research, I did stumble upon a great MariChat story. It wasn't what I wanted inspiration for at the time, but I also couldn't resist the read. The story is Make Me Like You by Princess Kitty1

Summary: Marinette knows she should keep things strictly professional between herself and Chat Noir, but the more often he comes over, the harder it gets. (31 drabbles in which Marinette and Chat Noir goof off and fall in love.)

Word Count: 12,561

Rating: T for Teen

The story was written during MariChat May 2016, so it is quite the old fic, and was solely based off season 1 material, and just sort of went from there. It was such a visceral read. Princess Kitty1 truly knows how to write make-out sessions, but also those heartstring-pulling moments. The fear each has about the other discovering their identity. The confusion as they begin to fall for each other. The need to be together, despite the awkwardness while interacting in their other personas. It's all just so good and sweet. Also, since these were daily drabbles, each chapter is super quick to read through, and each moment is so self-contained that you can always stop whenever you need a break. (As opposed to me, who just HAD to binge the whole thing in one sitting last Tuesday night.)

I can't even properly remember how I found this story anymore - I think I saw fanart of the chapter Film Noir and was intrigued, and then figured "Meh, let's see how others handle MariChat, and maybe it will help me with OatS" - but I'm glad I did. Also, the answer is decidedly "nope" on helping me with OatS because the situations are far too different, but I did note some ideas I really did enjoy and would love to use at some point in future projects. So... yay? Either way, it was a good read. So, yeah. Definitely yay.

Now to try to get my act together so I can figure out how to finish this Lukanette story before I go to bed tomorrow night. I'm also anxiously awaiting the start of Fluff Week on Thursday... wish me luck.

I SHOULD have about seven stories by next Tuesday, but Fluff Week only has 7 prompts and is running 8 days - February 6th through 13th - so I may push back Day 1 until the 7th. Either way, be prepared for a BUNCH of writing rained onto you next week!

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Crazy New Schedule

Sorry for the delay on this post. Normally I have Tuesdays off, so I can write my blog and post by noon. However, my one co-worker is on a mini Staycation, and so I had to work yesterday.

Actually... I had to work for seven days now, and I have two more to go before my next day off. On top of the non-stop work week, the football season is upon us. Hubby and I now have a standing date with Quarthix and his wife. We go to their house for the Thursday and Monday night games. They come to our place all day for the Sunday games. Which means two nights after work I'm jetting over to their place to watch the games, and the normal Sunday Get-together with Omnibladestrike will now be Football Day with Quarthix and his wife. Omni can also come over as well, of course, but he's not the hugest football fan, so I think we'll have to shift our meet-ups.

Also, sidebar... I've never given Quarthix's wife a name here, have I? All she's ever been is "Quarthix's fiance" and "Quarthix's wife"... she's a good friend of mine. She needs a name. Hmmm, pandas are one of her favorite animals, so she'll be Panda. Besides, Panda is one of my favorite "We Bare Bears," so that works too.


Back on track here, I also agreed that Rozsavaria and I need to hang out more. So the past two Fridays I've gone to her place. We've either watched "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" and crafted, or we talked about writing. So I guess that's going to be our new thing now. When Hubby and I aren't playing in Panda's D&D campaign one Friday a month, I'll hang with Roz while Hubby is at Friday Night Magic.

But wait, because we're not through yet!

I am horrendously out of shape and have wanted to get back into exercising for a while now. I greatly miss my Monday Night Aerial Yoga and Wednesday Night Kickboxing classes. However, the yoga shifted dates and instructors and... I just can't do it anymore. As for kickboxing, that is the one I REALLY miss. But my wrists and ankles are trash. Even wrapping them doesn't keep them sturdy enough, and I end up sore or even in pain for days after each weekly workout. So I have to get more weight off me first I think.

That's when I saw that Zumba came to town. I guess there's been a class here for a year or so now, but they just moved into the building across the street from my job, so it's the first time I've known about it. Last Wednesday I gave it a try right after work.

I promptly died.

But I enjoyed the class, so I gave it another try Monday night. I didn't die nearly as much, so I'm all set to go once more tonight.

So, let's recap:

• Mondays right after work I have Zumba. I then have just enough time to shower before going to Quarthix and Panda's house for football.
• Wednesdays right after work I have Zumba.
• Thursdays after work I have time to eat dinner and jet over to Q&P's for football.
• Fridays I'm either at Q&P's for our monthly D&D session, or I'm hanging with Roz.
• Saturdays seems to now be the day that Shadow comes to visit, and we might be shifting Omni's weekly visit to that day too.
• Sundays Q&P - and possibly Omni - comes over to watch football.

AAAAAAAND every other Tuesday I have writing group. Last night being one of the "on" weeks, so I got to jet over to Group after work!

I'm exhausted just writing all of that. While football season is going on I'll never have time to myself!

I mean, I like all the socializing, but.... geez.

Plus, work is picking up again, so I probably won't have much time to write at work anymore. This might result in my overall writing slowing down a bit.

The end result tends to make autumn bittersweet for me: I get a BUNCH of socializing in, especially with people I haven't interacted with for months, but I barely have quiet time to just sit and write or play video games or whatever.

The fact that the start of this crazy new jam-packed schedule for me coincides with the week I don't have a day off just makes things even more exhausting.

So, yeah, sorry I didn't have this blog done on time. I tried really hard though. I wrote a little Monday night to get a head start. I wrote some more over my lunch break at work yesterday, but the day itself was pretty slamming, so I couldn't get much done. After Group I had Shadow come over so we could watch the latest "Miraculous Ladybug" episode - the first new one since my birthday in July. Once he left I finished writing this blog post, but it was after midnight by the time I was done.

It was not a good week to try to get this blog post up. So, sorry again, but thanks for your patience with me.

Ironically enough though, I DID manage to write something this past week. During the "it's still slow" portion of my long work-week I tried to catch up on my outline of "One and the Same." I used a few more tactics to try to get through my current writer's block. I mind-mapped. I created a calendar so I could jot down the timeline of "Peeping Tomcat" and more-or-less the timeline I wanted for OatS, that way I could see how long the whole series would take place. I jotted down a flow-chart of Adrien's reaction for the post-akuma fight at the beginning of the book.

See, OatS is going to start with an akuma attack. The point is to showcase how the world works: this is Ladybug, this is Chat Noir, this is an akuma, these are the supervillain attacks Paris has to deal with on an almost daily basis, this is how the superpowers work, this is who Hawk Moth is, and this is how the dynamics are between everyone. It's also supposed to set up why Ladybug believes its so dangerous for her and Chat Noir to know who each other is.

Adrien reflects on that last part when he's alone in his room. I needed to figure out how he goes from "Shoot! She's right! I almost put us both in grave danger because I know who Ladybug is!" to "Meh, it's fine. I'll woo her as Chat Noir and once she's in love with both my superhero persona and my civilian persona I'll show her I'm the same guy."

It seemed like quite the leap and I had no clue how I was going to do it. I also knew it had to be more-or-less done within just one chapter. Otherwise the rest of the plot wasn't going to happen.

After trying out about five different brainstorming tactics I just went "Meh. Just write it." The characters tend to talk to me when I just write prose, which is why I was a Pantser for so long. It's also why Peeping Tomcat became so long. I knew where I wanted to go with the story, but as I wrote each chapter Adrien's thought process and actions took me in directions I didn't realize before.

Even if he meandered around and I had to edit it down for the final story, perhaps letting Adrien just talk to me will help both of us sort out his thoughts better.

That worked for a little while. I got about two or three pages in. Then I had Plagg point out the bracelet Marinette gave Adrien. It was his way of hinting that it shouldn't be a problem for Adrien to get Marinette to fall for him.

As Plagg said in the episode Frightningale: "People are blind!" However, that doesn't mean Plagg is. I'm sure he managed to pick up that Marinette is head over heels for Adrien, even if the kid didn't figure it out himself.

Anyway, it was here that things went sideways.

I don't know why, but I began really thinking about The Bracelet. I couldn't write more of my practice chapter because I became so focused by this thought. Mostly, I wondered where the bracelet came from. Marinette just happened to have it in her pocket when she was playing the video game with Adrien in the episode Gamer. It definitely didn't look like something she'd make. So, as sweet as it was that Adrien made her a bracelet for her birthday, I really don't think Marinette made the one he has. Let alone made it for him.

So where DID the bracelet come from? Well, I came up with a whole fantheory about it, and honestly, until the show gives us a canonical origin, the fantheory became my headcanon. I then really REALLY wanted to see a fancomic utilizing my new headcanon. Well, I don't have the money to pay EdenDaphne for a full fancomic, and I had already given her the specifics for my commission anyway. The only other way - aside from me drawing it myself, and lord help me if I tried - for this headcanon to be drawn is if artists saw my theory and liked it enough to attempt to draw it.

How could artists know of my headcanon though? Well, it's a good thing I have a place like Tumblr where I could share my thoughts on the matter and other members of the fandom could see it! Which is exactly what I did. You can check out my full fantheory/headcanon about The Bracelet here.

As I was writing out the whole thing though, I realized that I had more than a simple fantheory and headcanon. I had an Athena-like plot bunny: popping out of my head fully formed and ready for the world.

So I set to work on writing the glorious ball of fluff that is a slice-of-life family bonding story. If you need some warm fuzzies in your life, enjoy my latest short.

"Build Your Own Luck"

On FanFiction            On ArchiveOfOurOwn            On DeviantArt

Now the headcanon itself has been getting a lot of love over on Tumblr with 46 notes. Yes, on Tumblr that's barely any love, but I'm still new to the fandom's presence, so the 46 notes I did get is "a lot of love" for me. Anyway, my point is 37 different people have liked my theory, and it has been reblogged 9 times. As for the story itself, I received two likes on Tumblr; 40 faves between FFN, AO3, and DA; 364 views between the three sites; and six sweet reviews.

- Awww, that's adorable! And the thought that Marinette gave Adrien her lucky charm made by her dad is heart warming. Nothing she would do to a random person. But of course, she is jUst A fRieNd.

- (in reference to the above review) Well, I accidentally posted a review from guest account, but it was me :B So, not to leave this one without meaning, let me tell you I admire your writing skills and ideas.

- Awww, such a sweet nice story! The only thing that shocked me was FIVE-YEAR-OLDS play games like Mecha Strike? I love my high school students, but clearly I am out of touch with anyone younger.

- Aw, I love it! So sweet and adorable. I agree with your theory about the bracelet. It doesn't look recent, so there's got to be some special meaning behind it. Some special memory, someone special giving it to her. Like you said, Tom and Sabine are the ultimate Parenting Goals.

- Awww! I love this headcanon so so much and it makes sense!! The story was so well written and it just flowed really nicely. Massive kudos to you!

- They totally are. (In reference to my Author's Note about Marinette's parents being hidden treasures for the show)

Anyone else noticing a theme with how nearly all of those reviews started?


It got a nice review over at writers group as well. There was a sentence or two that they suggested I change, but as a whole I got nods of approval. One of the members commented that it felt so true-to-life, and she'd love to re-enact my story and use it as a "how to bond as a family" training video! hehe. So... yay!

Here's hoping the more I work on "One and the Same" the more I can come up with fun shorts like "Build Your Own Luck."

After watching the latest episode of "Miraculous Ladybug," and having at least one more episode before September is through, I might be inspired enough to keep my plot bunny farm wonderfully replenished. Perhaps the plethora of plot bunnies will help me stay on top of my writing, even with the new crazy schedule I have to navigate.

Now, I'm not the only one who has been inspired lately. Like I said at the top, Roz and I have been discussing writing ideas. I think I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that she's chasing after a story that came to her in a dream. She's also trying to build a new character for the X-Future board now that Hubby is trying to restart the game.

Omni also messaged me the other day to say that he thinks his writers block the past couple of months is because he was stumped with the culture for the race he created for his story. He did a rework and likes the new direction he's headed. I sent him some follow-up questions, and I think he's off to the races now. We'll see.

Also, it seems Jowy's Pixie has been wanting to write a blog for a while now, and after seeing this one, she has decided to give her own author's blog a shot. She's planning on talking about her fanfics, posting her own fantheories and headcanons, sharing her thoughts on the latest episodes, and generally talking about her writing process. She's new to blogging, so she doesn't have much up quite yet, but she seems to be leaning towards Sunday post updates, so keep an eye out for her.

You can find her over at Taurus Pixie.

Finally, since I'm promoting people anyway, how about another reminder that Celeste Straub has her first novel coming out in less than a month!

She now has pre-order links for all of her e-book sellers.

• Amazon
• Smashwords
• iTunes
• Kobo
• Barnes&Noble
• Google Play

She's still working on last-minute edits before the finished product goes to the printer. Once the printer has the file, Straub should have a pre-order link for the print version. Assuming she gets said link by Monday I'll be sure to share it with you fine folks next week.

And for those of you that are on Facebook, Straub is throwing a month-long release party for her premiere book. The official Facebook party is on October 4th, but between now and then she'll post games and prizes.

If you would like to hang out with the author and some of her fans, you can hop on over to her Release Party.

Alright, well, as I mentioned earlier, it was after midnight when I finished writing this, and it's now past 10am by the time I finished getting my edits done. So I think that's enough of a delay on this post. Sorry one last time for that. I'm hoping to get back into the proper rhythm of things this upcoming week and actually updating at my normal time next Tuesday.

Also, it may now be September 12th, but I still feel the need to close out with one last thing: a solemn reminder.