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| My sister is so magical and majestic... Image is the cover art for a notebook by Black River Art |
Anyway, Saturday Hubby and I drove down to visit her and my mom. I was also supposed to post the fifth chapter of "Prescription for Love" on Saturday, but things didn't really go as planned.... I didn't wake up early enough to post it in the morning as I originally wanted, which would have been a nice surprise for everyone, since I've been updating at about 11pm each time. When I missed my first-thing-in-the-morning posting, I figured I'd post after reaching my mom's house. However, she was throwing my sister a surprise party for her 30th, so when I got there I was recruited to help set up the party. It was a fun event, especially since I was able to surprise everyone with this!
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| My plates weren't put on the car yet. It's actually a midnight blue, but it looks black here. |
I actually picked this baby out two weeks ago, on the 26th, and put a down payment on it. Then I officially signed the papers to buy it on the 28th. It was SOOOOOOO hard to not post about it until after I surprised my mom and sister with it.
Anyway, I surprised my mom with the car, since she thought I was borrowing from a friend, and then I was the distraction for my sister when she got home - so everyone could hide and she wouldn't notice oddities about the house - by showing off the car to her. Then the actual surprise party happened. My high school bestie was over to celebrate since she's basically another sister, and she stayed until 1am or so hanging out and chatting.
Originally, when the rest of the party died off around 10pm, I planned on hiding away to post a late update, as per usual, except I got caught up in catching up with the bestie. In the end, I didn't get a moment to update the story until Mom and Sis were at church the next morning. But at least it's available to read now!
"Prescription for Love: Chapter 5"
On Sunday I also did laundry, and did some running around while I was visiting my hometown. Eventually, I went to the bestie's to celebrate my godson's fifth birthday!
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| Artwork is the cover of a greeting card |
Monday, I slept in a touch, and then there was minor chaos trying to get all four of us ready before heading out at 11:30 for an early lunch reservation at a local hibachi grill. We had a fun time. It was the third time I've done hibachi, but a first for Mom and Hubby. Mom was probably more entertaining to watch than the chef. She's so jumpy and gets wonderfully amazed by so many things. Love her!
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| Hacker Girl Facebook sticker by Birdman, Inc. |
With the movie done, we headed back to my mom's, along with my sister's boyfriend and best friend, and the six of us played games for the rest of the day. We got in some Mario Kart, Uno - of which we had some of the longest rounds I've ever played in my life - and the new Mario Kart themed Monopoly Gamer. Around 10pm or so, everyone started to crash, so my sister's boyfriend and best friend each headed home before Sis also called it a night.
I was going to use the rest of the evening to work on the blog post, or edit the sixth chapter of PfL I wanted to post on Tuesday. Instead, my mom needed an assist on computer things. So I helped walk her through organizing old thumb drives and new photos off her memory card. Once it passed midnight, it got too late to stay up longer, so I crashed.
Tuesday morning I started working on this blog, but then Mom greeted me, we talked, Hubby woke up, we had breakfast, and then it was just about time to start packing up to head home.
We managed to get home with barely an hour to spare before my writing group meeting, and we used that hour to unpack and quickly pick up things like milk from the grocery store.
At the meeting, I read chapters 2 and 3 of "Prescription for Love" since these were actually fairly short. As per usual, most of the group sort of nodded their heads and commented about how much fun it was to hear. The only other member remotely close to my age, Skarabrae-stone, really got into my story, asking for follow-ups and the like.
Before I had read my story, Skarabrae read a bit of fanfic of her own. She has a Captain America AU series on AO3 called "And the Fall to Doom a Long Way Away" that is, as she put it, "a barely passing glance at canon." In her AU Steve "Captain America" Rogers and Peggy Carter were born in the 80s, along with other Avengers such as Natasha "Black Widow" Romanoff, instead of their canonical birth years. James "Bucky" Barnes is also now "Becky Barnes" and has a potential relationship with Steve. As far as I can tell, she's still the Winter Soldier.
Anyway, the piece Ska read Tuesday night was from a WIP she hasn't posted yet for that series. I really enjoyed it. I was a bit confused, but I enjoyed it. Once I realized it was an AU that mostly resembled canon in name alone, I enjoyed the story all the more, the confusion all cleared up. I also asked for follow-up information, mostly about the changes she made for her AU, and chatted about how much I liked the changes she made. Then the two of us bantered back and forth a bit about fanfiction writing in general: keeping to canon versus changing it up for an AU - which means "Alternate Universe" by the way, for any who might not know - how the word 'incredulous' seems to consistently pop up in fanfiction, the debate between writing a fanfic AU that barely relates to canon versus just writing it as an original story, and other such 'trade trials'. During those ten minutes or so, the rest of the poor group probably felt like they were watching a friendly tennis match as we lobbed comments back and forth to each other.
Eventually, we passed the floor over to Jack Nanuq, who read a sample of his sequel to "Parabellum." We discussed that for a little bit, and joked about his "taking a break" after publishing "Parabellum" since he's "only" about three chapters into the sequel.
By the way, quick side tangent as I remind everyone that "Parabellum" is now available as both an e-book and a paperback. Seriously, folks. This story is really intriguing, and it's so much fun to learn Nana's backstory while Carson deals with hitmen and military refugees.
One more time, here's the link: "Parabellum: When you live in peace, prepare for war"
Now back to the Tuesday night writing group meeting. After I read my bits from PfL, Ska and I kind of went back and forth again, as I mentioned above. I also had some insight chipped in from two more members of the group, but I've been reading Miraculous Ladybug stuff for so long they at least have a semi-basic feel for the fandom by now. Whereas, only one other member knew who Captain America really was, and it was largely due to the Marvel movies. My point being, it was nice to hear someone else's fanfiction writing, and for someone to be a bit more engaged in mine; knowing the wonderful pains of writing fanfiction herself.
After the meeting broke, I went straight home, where Wolfhearted was still visiting with Hubby. Originally, his plan was to have some "guy time" with Hubby while I was at my meeting, and then watch ML with me once I got home. However, almost as soon as I greeted him, he said goodbye to me. He claimed he was super busy, and sadly couldn't stick around any later, but then Hubby started up the latest episode of the SYFY channel series Deadly Class. Wolfhearted caught some of the opening, loved the concept of a secret academy to train assassins, and was hooked. He sank back onto our loveseat, and stuck around for an extra hour to watch the episode with us.
So much for "no time to watch Ladybug"... oh well... I guess I'm waiting until tomorrow for us to watch the latest episode together....
Wolfhearted ended up not leaving until around 9:30 Tuesday night. At that point, I thought Hubby and I had a show to watch at 10pm, and I didn't believe a half-hour before our show would be enough time to really get my writing done. I suggested instead that we spend that thirty minute block watching the latest episode of the DuckTales reboot, which had aired on Saturday. Might as well get one of our other shows out of the way, right?
Well, at 10pm, we ended up not having our normal show. I had forgotten that this past Tuesday night a sort of "adult content" version of "America's Funniest Home Videos" had a special on, and the show we normally watched would have its finale NEXT Tuesday.
Whoops. Guess I did have time to work on writing, huh?
Worse yet, instead of shrugging off the lost time and knuckling down to work on my story or blog post, I got suckered into a news promo teasing about an American football player trade. Hubby and I hopped over to ESPN, and I spent a good half-hour or so watching the news reports about the trade.
I might be a bit too invested in this sport sometimes....
Content that I learned all I was going to, and realizing how late it was in the day, I popped in my headphones, and FINALLY focused on editing and posting the latest chapter of PfL. Unfortunately, by the time I was done with edits and had formatted for posting, it was about 12:30am. It was Wednesday morning. Once again, I was a day late on my posting schedule.
I'm so glad my readers are patient.
Speaking of, if you wanted to check out the latest chapter and haven't yet, you can find chapter six at the normal three sites.
"Prescription for Love: Chapter 6"
And also speaking of readers, have I ever mentioned how amazing mine are? I almost always get such lovely and excited reviews, and this silly little story is no exception. I even got Taurus Pixie a little riled up, in a playful sense, by not being 100% accurate in describing a British royal wedding.
I was trying to, Pixie! I did my research! It just didn't match up with the facts the show gave us, and all of the royals were already married off by the time the show aired!
Nah, I'm just teasing. I did legitimately try to be as close to 100% accurate as possible, but I knew Pixie's critiques were all in good fun. I enjoyed seeing them.
To be honest, it WAS difficult to figure out how to handle the wedding. In then end, I sort of went with "this is an alternate Earth where superheroes are real thanks to magical jewelry, so maybe it's a different set of British Royalty." I mean, it happens all the time for the United States. We always get some fictitious president instead of using the actual president at the time, unless said Real World president is important to the overall plot.
So, in the end, I picked Westminster Abbey since Prince William and Catherine were married there. I also took a few elements - such as a garden party reception - from Prince Harry and Meghan's wedding. Then I observed some of the more formal garb worn at such weddings as Prince Harry's, Prince William's, and both of Prince Charles', in order to get a feel for what Adrien, Gabriel, Kagami, and her mother should all wear. Finally, I researched the vows Prince William and Prince Harry each used for their weddings, added my own take via a generic "unique wedding vows" search, and threw in the Archbishop of Canterbury, since he seemed to officiate royal weddings.
In the end, I'm glad Pixie enjoyed my sort of unofficial AU of the Royal Wedding. Plus, it was fun seeing her get worked up about the details.
Again. I have amazing readers.
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| Hacker Girl Facebook sticker by Birdman, Inc. |
This weekend though, I had a sort of out-of-body experience. I had to stare at a name over on AO3 for quite some time to fully register it. One of my reviewers for the third and sixth chapters of PfL was Yunyin!
A little context. See, once upon a time, before I caved and re-joined Tumblr, I would just Google Image fanart for ML. It was when the second season started posting online. I would watch an episode, want to look for ML content about said episode, and would just search via Google. More often than not, I'd find pictures on Pinterest. One of two main artists I found, who created content I consistently enjoyed, was Yunyin. The other was the amazing EdenDaphne.
Anyway, after roughly four months of following Pinterest finds back to the original Tumblr posts - along with a lot of poking from ChibiSunnie - I eventually caved and re-joined Tumblr. Along with Chibi and a couple other IRL friends, Eden and Yunyin were among the first people I followed.
I just love her artwork and the fancomics she creates. I've adored her content for at least a year, and I don't recall her ever finding my content previously.
I'm not sure if she just stumbled upon my story on AO3, if she was specifically looking for content about the episode Backwarder - mine is one of 13 stories on AO3 based on that episode - if someone suggested the story to her, or if she saw one of my Tumblr posts promoting it. Regardless of how she found it, she did, and seems to enjoy it.
Yunyin (about chpt 3): Aaaaaw. Luka's Marinette song! And Adrien likes it!
I also like him worrying about Ladybug being alone. It adds a nice touch!
I'm still trying to get over the fact that someone I've followed for so long is reading MY content!
Readers, I love you all! You are my life-blood! Between someone I've followed reading my stuff, consistent readers letting me know their thoughts, and Pixie engaging so much in my story....
This was supposed to be a stupid little story, and it's getting such love! You guys rock!
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| Natsuo Maki from Love Lab Manga by Ruri Miyahara |
As for "One and the Same"? Clearly, it's not posting this month like I teased forever ago. However, I'm all signed up for Camp NaNo, and have OatS as my goal project again. I only got about 12,000 words in during NaNoWriMo, but I'm hoping to actually finish my project in April. We'll see how that goes.
Feel free to join me, or follow my progress.
But, for now, I really need to end this post so I can get to working on my fanfiction. It's no wonder I didn't have the time to finish this up yesterday... Darn lack of free time!
I'll catch everyone at my normal noon update on Tuesday!
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