So In Love With Two (and, of course, Hubby)

From now until the fullness of time,
where we will meet, remember, and love again.

First and foremost, a happy belated anniversary to my amazing husband. We had a super chill day of just snuggling on the couch watching movies and playing board games and the like. It's great that we just need to be next to each other all day to celebrate our anniversary.

Love you always, Hubby!

The man is amazing, and he has been my number one sounding board pretty much since we met. And yet, even he can't help me out with the dilemma I found myself in this week.

Last Tuesday I commented on how I had a week to rush through as much of my Peeping Tomcat fanfic as I could before the end of the month. That was because after September ended I was going to shelf the project for a few months. That way I could work on NaNo prep as well as try to FINALLY finish my "Hey, Arnold!" fan-script before the official The Jungle Movie airs on Nickelodeon in November. I was then going to work on my Varekai fan-novelization during NaNo itself. Spend December fixing the fight scene for the Devon/Trish story, as well as GIVE IT A FLIPPIN' TITLE, and then back to Peeping Tomcat.

That was the plan. I even updated my FanFiction profile page for the first time in like five years in order to reflect my writing schedule.

Then I saw this in my email:

Commit to your superheroic creativity

Friggen NaNoWriMo is superhero themed this year! I missed the first year they used this theme, so I'm super excited about it. However, now I'm super torn! How great would it be to write my "Miraculous Ladybug" fanfiction - ya know, a story about TWO SUPERHEROES - during a NaNo dedicated to superheroing? It would certainly be easy to remember the theme for the NaNo I wrote it. I mean, it's only a year out and I already don't 100% remember the theme from last year's NaNo. Shooting for the stars, or something like that? There was a rocket and a flag on the moon. Space themed?

The temptation to work on a story that fits the NaNo theme is so great! It's to the point where I feel like this might be kismet. Forget Varekai. Ride the momentum of this fanfic that started off simply as a random writing practice whose sole purpose was to add words to a total count. This story has obviously gripped me.

Also, there's another drive for me to want to stick with PT. Namely, I'm writing for an ACTIVE fandom for once. I'm writing for a series that hasn't been concluded yet. There are still so many questions that people want answered, and fanfiction is a great way to fill that void until the canonical answers are given.

Which is why, for the first time, I have a moderately popular story. I mean, it's VASTLY popular for me, but for the grand scheme of things, it's only so-so. Still. Check this out!

Ignore the bottom one. It's just me getting the email announcement that my story went live.

This is from last Tuesday! The first story follow was only 34minutes after I published the story on Fanfiction.net!

A little over 12hrs after the teaser went live I received 287 views, 8 faves, and 3 reviews. I ended the first 24hrs of publication with 360 views and 9 faves on top of those 3 reviews. A week later, and I'm now up to 525 views, and 13 faves!

To put this into perspective, out of my 18 stories published on Fanfiction.net, only six other stories had 13 or more faves, and they were all in the HA! fandom. One of those six other stories STILL hasn't hit even 400 views even though it was posted in 2012. All of the other stories I have with more views, more faves, and/or more reviews are all from around 2012 when I updated a lot more frequently, and the story has more than one chapter. I couldn't tell you anymore how quickly my work was found, read, reviewed, and/or faved, but I'm fairly positive it wasn't comparable to the numbers I saw with the Miraculous Ladybug story numbers.

On top of all of that, the reviews for Peeping Tomcat are asking for more, so yay! Maybe I shouldn't make them wait until next year like I originally planned? Maybe go for it and write the story in November after taking this month to write up an actual outline so I'm ready to go? Then the first month or two of 2018 can be used for editing. That way these readers can get the full story a couple months sooner than anticipated?

On the flipside, I have been wanting to do the Varekai story for a couple months now. The only thing stopping me from working on it more was that I wanted to use it for NaNo, and so I was trying not to have too much written before the start of the challenge. I did start working on world building, as it were, to try to explain the dynamic between the different "races" presented via the costumes in the show, as well as trying to explain why The Betrothed has her transformation. I've dug deep to write this story. I WILL write this story. The question now though is, do I still do it in November?

I have tickets to watch the show in November. I am beyond hyped to go see it with my one friend. It's supposed to be my driving push to keep going for the last week or so of the challenge. I KNOW that while driving home from the show my friend and I will talk about the performance, and inspiration will strike, and I will want to write for this story. I don't want to derail myself from the ML story once I get that jolt from FINALLY getting to watch Varekai in person.

True, especially compared to my ML teaser, the teaser I posted for my Varekai story back in August hasn't really gotten much love. It's only been seen 21 times, and it has no faves. It does have one review though, and that review is also asking for more.

It's a much smaller fandom. Who thinks to WRITE a fanfiction based on a circus act? Let alone who thinks to look for them to read? On Fanfiction.net, mine is but one of EIGHTY-EIGHT stories written for Cirque du Soleil. Out of the 78 stories written in English, mine is one of 64 that has been reviewed. The fandom of Cirque du Soleil is also predominately written by 7 authors, making up 62 of the English-written 78 stories! One person wrote 18 and another wrote 14 stories. That is a lot of love from so few writers! Also, my numbers may be off, but just based on the summaries coupled with the stories, almost half of the Cirque du Soleil stories are written about the 2007 show Kooza: forty stories, and possibly more! Meanwhile, I seem to be the only English-written story about Varekai.

So, yeah, a lot less love, but also, who is reading this story? Some might take this as me stating that I should shy away and go back to the popular ML story. However, I think of it more of "those who DO want a story about these shows has virtually nothing to read. I could fix that!" Plus, considering how small the fandom is, the fact that there is nothing else written for Varekai, and the fact that I'm an "outside writer" for a fandom that seems to be mostly written by the same seven people, the fact that I had 21 views and one review at all is kind of amazing to me! Plus, now I REALLY feel obligated to post my story for the reviewer looking for more because they don't seem to have any other options on FF.net.

So..... WHICH DO I WRITE!?

While going through an old playlist of mine, I came across the song "So In Love With Two" by Mikaila. I am still planning on using it as a chapter for What Is Truly Meant To Be, once I EVENTUALLY return to it....

In the meantime, though, I think it would be a very amusing AMV for Miraculous Ladybug. Poor Marinette is torn because she can't decide between her love for Adrien and her crush on Chat Noir, completely unaware that she's actually just crushing on the same guy. There is in fact at least one AMV of this song using the show, but it's Marinette trying to choose between Adrien/Chat Noir and Nathanael/Evillustrator. A fun dynamic, for sure, but not the same.

Anyway, going back to the song itself. Coincidentally, with this pull between Varekai and ML, the song works really well for me! I am torn between two that I seem to love equally.

I tried to "listen to my heart" to see which story pulls me more, but one doesn't seem to need to be written more than the other. I tried to "trick" myself into making a decision by deciding "OK. I'm just going to go with the Varekai story since that's what I decided on months ago" to see if I felt a pang of sadness for not writing the ML story more. I did, so I happily went "OK. Peeping Tomcat it is!" only to get the same pang of sadness that I wasn't working on the Varekai fan-novelization. NOT. HELPFUL.

Since I couldn't make the decision myself, I decided to go to Facebook for some help. I commented about my dilemma on my personal page, as well as on a fanfiction group I recently joined. I asked for people to vote on what they thought I should write.

I even shared the links to the two "teaser" stories to see which people preferred reading and would want more of first. In case you want to weigh in, here they are again:

"Icarus' Descent"

On DeviantArt            On FanFiction

"Peeping Tomcat - Teaser"

On DeviantArt            On FanFiction

I have one vote for ML. I have one vote for Varekai. I have two votes to do both. I have one vote to "do what works for you." I have one vote for "Start with one story, but use the second one as a back-up for when you need a break and switch gears to recharge."

Not helpful, guys! *chuckle*

So, I'm still in limbo. Meanwhile, NaNoWriMo is asking me if I want to promote my novel for next month. Problem is, I STILL DON'T KNOW WHAT TO PUT IN FOR MY NOVEL! Oh, the melodramatic pressure!

In the meantime, I guess I just start building more information for each story so that I'm prepped for NaNo regardless which one I decide on. Or... in case I go with the majority vote and try tackling both at the same time.

I even started up already. I have a notebook for each fandom.

The red one is for my Miraculous Ladybug notes.
The orange one is for Varekai.

I must admit that I actually didn't continue with any narrative writing this week even though it was, supposedly, my last chance to advance PT for a few months. Instead, I started making notes on what I needed to fix in the story to better get it to work. The reason I stopped when I did was because I wasn't much of a fan of Chat Noir's confession speech. I honestly don't know if I want him to confess the way he did and when he did. I think I need to save that for the "All is lost" moment of the story. I needed to figure out what was next though, after Adrien figured out who Marinette was.

My on-going notes for the Peeping Tomcat
story.

So, I wrote down things I needed to fix. I wrote down things I wanted to make sure I included. I wrote down things I wanted to avoid. I even started coming up with my own Akumatized Villains for the duo to go up against. Because, frankly, just a story of those two sorting out their teenage confusion is nice and all, but it also is too focused on that fluffy angsty stuff. There needs to be more to build up the story. There has to be a plot beyond Adrien and Marinette finally coming together after a LOT of confusion. There needs to be exterior conflict.

I'm terrible at costume design, but I did make up visuals for two villains thus far:

 The first one is the main reporter on the show Nadja Chamack akumatized into the villain Headline. She was supposed to be part Wonder-Woman-Homage with part 1920s reporter with the trench coat and a small off-center "press fedora." But, with the limited selection available in the doll maker I used, she looks like a female Gambit. Whoops.

The other Akuma victim I came up with is Vocalizer. She's an original character named Annette Moreau. I literally just started throwing things together to make up a costume I liked, and then colored it blue and purple because those colors haven't really been used in the show yet.

I need at least one more to start the story off with I think. Beyond that, I think I still want to come up with one or two more Akumas, but we'll see how many the outline needs me to have.

If that's not enough - which it may or may not seem like a lot, depending on your perspective - I also started up a bunch of notes containing my own observations and fan-theories on elements of the show. I then made even MORE notes of my fan-theories based on other fan-theories and confirmed information via the Miraculous Wiki.

I wrote on the back cover and the blank page between the
cover and the last notebook page. So. Many. Notes!

Yeah. This is where the majority of my week went. These fan-theory notes. I wanted to make sure I really got the feel of the world and the rules that control it so that I don't break any of them when I write my story. This is the first fanfiction where I had to worry about stuff like that. It's a LOT to take on, but I hope I do it justice.

Maybe waiting until next year for more PT is a good idea so I have more time for these builds. Then again, I'm kind of doing the same thing with Varekai! Gaaah!

I have to figure this out. Any advice or requests you'd like to throw at me, feel free to do so in the comments section.