Absorbing Stories

This wasn't a very productive week.

And I don't mean it like I did a week or two ago, where it wasn't a productive week, but ironically was at the same time.

I mean this was NOT a productive week for me. This was a VERY chill, I don't feel like thinking, kind of week for me.

It was a week of catching up on reading and on shows. I mean, I guess that's still sort of productive, because I'm absorbing other stories, which is always beneficial for a writer so they can then draw from that pool later on. So there's that. As for my own writing though? Meh...

Early-ish in the week, I realized I wanted to continue "Painfully Close" to also include Plagg's POV on the events of "the cringe episode" Puppeteer 2. However, I also hadn't seen the episode in a little bit at that point, so I figured I'd rewatch the episode. Somehow, that turned into me transcribing the episode so I could use the transcription as a reference while I was at work and couldn't watch the episode.

I don't have the full thing transcribed, since my focus was on what Plagg would witness, but still, Adrien does take up at least a third of the episode. Also, due to the means I was trying to transcribe, and the fact that I was frequently interrupted during my attempt, it did keep me two days - Thursday and Friday - to accomplish this task. I think collectively I spent about 4hrs or so trying to transcribe this episode? I used to be so much better at this. I used to transcribe commercials as part of my job when I worked in production. I'm out of practice. My ears aren't quite as attuned as they once were. I can't hold full sentences in my head anymore; not without my mind paraphrasing them. I have to go a few words at a time, and then re-listen while I re-read my transcription about 4x to make sure I did indeed write what was said, and not what I THOUGHT was said.

It's tedious. So, to all those transcribers out in the world, especially court stenographers who can't ask for things to be repeated, and even fan-transcribers (like I was those two days) who do this simply for the sake of doing it:

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Lord knows my life would have been easier if someone else had already transcribed the episode. However, I don't know if anyone wants to re-live the cringe enough to actually transcribe it. Perhaps I'll finish my transcription so it can be posted online; save another fan.

Especially since "the cringe" doesn't seem to really hit me; nor does the second-hand embarrassment. In fact, I actually enjoy this episode. It's rage-inducing, sure, and leaves you wondering "what the heck am I even watching right now!?" but those things are oddly fun for me....

Anyway... that was probably the most productive I was all week: those transcriptions.

I THOUGHT, once I went back through the episode continuously, especially while trying to get into Plagg's head the whole time, that I'd be ready to write. On Saturday I tried. I got a couple paragraphs in, but it just didn't feel authentic. I wasn't in Plagg's head for whatever reason. It was less of an episode reaction - like with Tikki - and more of an episode recap. I just wasn't feeling it. So that project is on the backburner, and "Painfully Close" remains a one-shot for now.

Instead, the past two days have had me mentally planning out a sequel to one of my Tumblr Exclusive stories: Stranger in a White Dress

For whatever reason, I already had Gabemilie feels running around my head lately, but it all seemed to form into some semblance of a narrative after hearing an Ed Sheeran song on the radio. Seriously, I need to just listen to this man's albums on repeat whenever I have writers block, because his songs always seem to inspire SOMETHING.

Anyway, the song in question this time is "I Don't Care." It was originally a collab with Justin Bieber - and, honestly, the poppy version with Bieber is actually fun and the video is delightfully kooky - but the version I love more, and the one that inspired me, is the Sheeran-only acoustic.

Aside from the line "And I don't ever wear a suit and tie" I feel this song is VERY much a Gabriel Agreste song. If I had any form of reliable editing equipment, and if there was ANY footage from the show of Gabriel and Emilie together, you KNOW I'd be throwing those scenes together as an AMV for this song.

The best alternative I have is to write it out as a fanfic. Darn.


The basic story idea I have brewing is Emilie meeting up with Gabriel for the second time after their initial meet-cute in "Stranger in a White Dress." Gabriel was dragged outside of his apartment by his roommate who thinks Gabe needs to socialize more. Except the roommate quickly abandons Gabe in order to dance with some cuties. Emilie sees Gabe - who hasn't started wearing his suit and ascot yet; preferring a cable-knit sweater over a button-down shirt - and asks him to dance. They actually have more than a few minutes together, and it's very reminiscent of Disney's Cinderella; either the original animated or the live-action. They finally get to know each other, instead of just succumbing to their initial attraction to each other.

It's the true start of their love story; one with a tragic ending, even if Emilie does get revived.

So, there's that... We'll see if I actually motivate myself to write it.

Ironic that THIS is the week that I'm all sorts of "nope" with my writing, since I was interviewed about being a writer last Tuesday. However, by now you should know what I say about me and Irony...

Who would have thought I'd be
using this graphic so frequently?

Anyway, a local reporter is trying to help promote the local libraries, and specifically the writing groups that meet up at them. He did a video recording of our interview so he can also create a video to post online. For anyone who was willing to go on camera, the reporter brought us into a separate room for a short one-on-one interview while the rest of the group continued their normal reads and commentary.

One of his questions was "why do you write?" Frankly, I wasn't sure how to answer that. I write because I write. Eventually I came up with the answer "I write because I don't know what else to do with these characters talking to me in my head, or the stories I think of that wouldn't be experienced by anyone else if I DIDN'T write them." He seemed intrigued by that answer.

So... yeah... then this week happened....

I tried, but I couldn't find the origin of this quote.
If you know, please tell me in the comments so
I might properly credit them.

Instead of writing, as I mentioned at the top of the blog, I focused on absorbing other stories.

Hubby has been playing the latest game in his favorite franchise: Fire Emblem. The story of "Three Houses" is so heartbreaking as these former classmates and students end up going to war with each other. There's also mysteries to solve. Also also, there is an adorable lead to one of the three houses: Claude.

He's tall, dark, and handsome. He's witty and playful. He's thoughtful and sarcastic. He's seemingly care-free, but also is a great strategist. He also tries to be as unbiased a mediator as possible, knowing the best strategy is to get into the mind of his opponent. That way he can figure out his opponent's end-goal and either defeat them before they can reach it, or find a way to peacefully help them reach it in order to spare lives.

I would have been sorely disappointed if Hubby had started off with any house other than Claude's Golden Deer, because I would cry if I had to watch him battle against Claude. I probably will have to ignore any future re-plays Hubby does.

Another character from Golden Deer I would have been sore to watch Hubby battle against? This friggen human puppy:

Raphael is the Gentle Giant type. A bit simple-minded, and focuses mostly on 3 things: 1) food; any and all, 2) his little sister and her protection, and 3) being as strong as possible in order to help protect his sister. We find out in one of the support cut-scenes that Raphael knows his sister is smarter than him, and wants her to have the best life she can, so he sends her his textbooks and the study notes people gift to him. That way she gets the education he's at the monastery for. He knows he won't quite understand most of it, but she seems to be picking up on it fairly easily. He's just too adorable, and reminds me of the X-Future character Hubby came up with years ago: Zeke "Warbash" Barclay.

There's actually a whole slew of characters in Three Houses that I love, including shut-in Bernadetta, elitist noble Lorenz, meek Ignatz, introverted Marianne, scheming Hilda - especially when she's higher level, can be put into different melee/brawler classes, and still holds onto her catch phrase "I'm still a delicate flower, ya know!" - foreigner Petra, playboy Sylvain, stoic swordsman Felix, assassin Shamir, and the broken Ashe. There are more characters that are also enjoyable to watch and interact with, but those I named above all usually had me going "OMG, I love them!" whenever they were on-screen. There's also so many adorable support interactions to fill a shipper's heart. I personally love the idea of Claude and Hilda together, and Marianne either with Raphael or Ignatz.

There's also the character Annette who likes to sing to herself when she's alone and/or doing chores, and a lot of the support interactions she has with Felix involves him stumbling upon her while she's singing these silly songs. She gets embarrassed that she was "caught," regardless of how much Felix tells her he likes them. However, he's so stoic and one-note that she usually reads his sincerity as teasing. Once you get them a high enough ranking, however, she actually becomes less nervous about his hearing her goofy songs, and even teaches him some. It's flippin adorable! This game and its feels, man!

This is two games in a row for my hubby: Three Houses and Trails of Cold Steel.

RPGs sure know how to pull at the heart strings, huh?

I've also have been yearning to re-play "Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time" and "Majora's Mask." I have both for the 3DS, so I don't even have to unbury and hook up Hubby's N64. However, as I went to switch out the game I already had in my 3DS, I realized I never actually completed "Professor Layton and the Unwound Future." So I spent about an hour or two this past weekend finishing that game. I haven't started up OoT yet, but it's on the docket.

Layton is another game where there's a lovely cast of characters. However, unlike with the RPGs Hubby plays, I tend to play puzzle-themed games. So the cast of characters are lovely and quirky, but they don't really stick with you quite the same way. For this game, the emotional pull is the friendship between Layton and his apprentice Luke - think Batman and Robin without the GrimDark grit and fighting; just the detective work - as well as Layton reminiscing about his lost love Claire. Both are so bittersweet. I'm tempted to forego Zelda, since I've played both games, and instead play the next Layton game in the line-up. I'm pretty sure I have "Professor Layton and the Last Specter" around here somewhere. I'm fairly certain Hubby bought it for me when he got me Unwound Future.

I'm torn! If only I played games more consistently, it wouldn't be such a problem for me. However, I do so many other things, it's actually become quite rare for ME to be the player - as opposed to me casually watching Hubby play while I do something else; like fold laundry. While I only played Unwound Future for roughly 37hrs, according to the play clock on my save file, it probably kept me over a year to actually complete the game. Thankfully, when you start up a save file in the Professor Layton games they give you a recap of the "Story so far..." to remind you what happened, precisely for those of us that go MONTHS between sessions.

I've wanted to play Zelda for a while now, and I don't precisely know where Last Specter is, so I'm probably going with OoT, but still....

Other story I've consumed: Hubby and I rented and watched "Shazam!" finally. It might be my favorite DC movie yet, although "Wonder Woman" is still up there, and "Aquaman" is actually decent as well. Seems the DCEU has finally figured out that going GrimDark with their stories isn't what audiences necessarily want. I really enjoy the characterization of everyone, but then again, I only really know Shazam via the Justice League cartoons and the like, so I'm not sure how comic-book accurate it is. At the very least, however, the casual viewer should enjoy it. Also, yeah, Billy's bestie Freddy is great, but can we just pause a moment to reflect on how amazing little Darla is!? She's adorable, and the actress's comedic timing is fantastic! While I still don't quite understand the internet term 'stan' enough to use it in a sentence myself, I get the word's meaning enough to now completely understand all the "Darla Stan" posts I saw on my Tumblr dash in April.

This weekend I also tried to plow through more "Steven Universe" episodes. At first, I didn't get the appeal of the show. It looked like another dumb Cartoon Network show with sloppy, over-exaggerated Western animation styling. In fact, that was precisely the point! To make it look and feel like any other CN show to draw kids in. Then it evolved to this amazing story that I 100% get the hype about. It tackles genderization, LGB relationships, slavery, caste systems, PTSD, anxiety, self-worth, colonization, healthy vs abusive relationships, and there's even veiled sexual consent discussions in the story via the use of gem fusion practices. I'm sure there's more life-lesson themes throughout that I'm missing or forgetting - such as the importance of open communication between guardians and wards/parents and kids - but that list seemed substantial enough anyway.

I had tons of friends tell me to watch this show, and finally one of them gave me a way to watch the series - since CN wasn't airing reruns of it, and it wasn't OnDemand. I got a few episodes in, casually made my way through the first season and about half of the second. I kept thinking I needed to go through a few more episodes here and there. Then the latest Overly Sarcastic Productions Trope Talk came up, discussing Plot Twists. Which included this disclaimer because, well... plot twists...

The font may be a touch difficult for some people to read, but the stories that have major spoilers discussed in the video include:

• Game of Thrones (ALL SEASONS)
• Steven Universe (season 5)
• Spider-Man: Homecoming
• Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse
• Terminator 2: Judgment Day
• Avengers: Age of Ultron
• Captain America: Civil War
• Avengers: Endgame

A looooot of MCU content there... I'm sure Red discussed that trivia as well, but I wouldn't know right now, seeing as I haven't watched the video. Why? Well, because I've seen all of the spoiled content... EXCEPT for Steven Universe.

So, I figured I needed to put my butt in gear so I can finish the series and go back to watch this Trope Talk. I'm going painfully slow for Omnibladestrike. I got him hooked on Overly Sarcastic Productions, specifically Red's Trope Talks, and he loves talking about the Trope Talks with me. He's been dying to discuss this one, I'm sure, seeing as he brings it up every time we see each other. Also, Steven Universe episodes are only 10 minutes long, and yet it has been THREE WEEKS since that Trope Talk was uploaded, and I STILL have season 5 - and most of season 4 - to get through.

I did spend HOURS plowing through season 3 and the start of season 4 this past weekend. The power on just our block went out on Saturday. Because of the storm going on, it was too dark to see the house well enough to clean it - folding is hard when the table has to be used for candles, candle light isn't bright enough for me to feel like I can make sure my dishes are clean, no electricity means no vacuuming, etc - and there wasn't much Hubby and I could do to entertain ourselves after chatting for a while. We used our phones for a bit, knowing I could just go out to my car to recharge them before bed. We couldn't really read though... candle light and all. How did people read by candle light? They must have had better candles to utilize... I just had little tea-lights and Yankee candles.

We also couldn't play cards or a table top game because Hubby didn't like the idea of them being so close to the candles. That and the lack of table space, as previously mentioned. Finally, later in the evening, knowing my laptop still was at full battery, I brought up Steven Universe, and we watched that until my laptop nearly died. Got Hubby drawn into the story, I think.

Also, I don't know if I have a favorite Gem, but Peridot's attempts to fight the Crystal Gems and get back off Earth are adorable and hilarious, and I love her! Her bravado is fantastic, and I actually really like her graveled voice as well. If it were a deeper tone; more of a growl to it, then I could see that as Trish's voice.

I'm getting off topic. My point was that I started watching SU again after that Trope Talk went up, but then I started seeing promos on Cartoon Network for a Steven Universe TV movie premiering on September 2nd. So now I'm trying to race through the episodes so I'm set for the movie in a couple of weeks. And it seems I'm helping Hubby get caught up for the movie as well.

The trick though is that I still have 48 episodes to watch - two of which are 2-parters. While each episode is only 10 minutes long, that's still EIGHT HOURS WORTH of SU to finish in about 12 days! I do need to pick up the pace on these episodes!

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But hold on, because we're not through yet! A few weeks ago, ChibiSunnie gave me a heads up on a manga sale. Chibi and I had discussed for a while now how we needed to get our hands on the "Fruits Basket" sequel "Fruits Basket Another," especially now that it's finally getting translated. The third and final manga in the series is supposed to come out October 29th. So, Chibi and I both took advantage of the sale, and ordered all three mangas. She's waiting for the third to publish before getting her shipment, but I got the first two in the series in the mail over the weekend. I also bought Hubby the next omnibus for "Air Gear," and I bought both of us the next two volumes of "Psyren." Mangas all around!

Yes, I did already devour the FBA mangas. It's a short series that focuses on the children of the original cast. You don't get to see the original cast, but they're alluded to, which is nice, because you get a sense of what they're up to now that they're in their late-30s/40s/early-50s. It's also fun to see what traits passed down to the kids. There's even one page that just cracked me up so much. It's literally the end of the second volume. Nothing really by way of spoilers, but if you want to go in cold, I'll drop it into a spoiler box.

First of all, this is while the group is discussing the Sohma family lake-side cottage. The original cast went there during Golden Week the first year Tohru lived with Shigure, Yuki, and Kyo. The joke is that, while at the cottage, Shigure teased "A summer home like this by the lake, you half-expect Jason to show up." - referencing the "Friday the 13th" villain. Kyo - and Tohru, to be completely fair - didn't catch the American Pop Culture reference, and so Shigure teased further by claiming Jason was a type of vicious bear. Later that day, as Kyo, Tohru, and Yuki were walking through the woods, Kyo slipped on a bear print on the trail. He and Tohru then freaked out that it was "Jason." Yuki then informed them that Jason isn't a breed of bear, but was a horror movie villain, to which Kyo replied "DON'T ACT LIKE YOU'RE SO SMART!! Who gives a damn if some bear shows up in a horror movie?"

Also, for those who don't read mangas, you're going to read the below text right to left.

Clearly this has now become a tradition whenever someone new is brought to the Sohma summer home: tell them to watch out for the bear species Jason.

For those who don't want the spoiler, it's basically a one-time tease turned into a long-running family inside-joke. It's nice to have tie-ins like that. Even so, knowledge of the original manga isn't necessarily needed to enjoy FBA. The sequel series IS certainly set up to be read second, however, as one would expect. The main reason is the obvious spoilers as to how "Fruits Basket" ended. Although, aside from Haru and Ayame, I don't think any of the original cast of characters are ever referenced by name; more referenced by their careers and/or their relationships with the other parents/adults.

For instance, within the first few pages of the series, you met the principal of the high school the new cast attends. Readers of "Fruits Basket" will instantly know him as the former class president who was practically begging Yuki to be his successor. Well, apparently he was more fixated on Yuki than we originally thought, because he's constantly giving one character preferential treatment out of respect and admiration for the kid's father: Yuki. You also figure out another character's mother based on the character explaining her mother being the president of the Prince Yuki fanclub. It's also fairly easy to figure out the parentage based on character design. The kids look a LOT like their parents. Near carbon-copies of the same-gender parent.

The reviews on the first manga weren't great, but I think it's because I suspect the readers that reviewed were expecting a more in-depth story. One that was a 26-volume tome like "Fruits Basket" was. The main conflicts are over now, however, and it was supposed to be a quick check-in with the world of Furuba, and so it's a short and sweet 3 volume series. It still has drama, but it's mostly focused on the main character Mitoma Sawa learning to see her self-worth and learn to interact with people instead of shutting herself out from the world. It's a cute story, but it's not "Fruits Basket." Just like how "Rugrats: All Grown Up" wasn't "Rugrats" or "Girl Meets World" wasn't "Boy Meets World" or "Fuller House" wasn't "Full House" or "Raven's Home" isn't "That's So Raven." So on and so forth.

Still, I'm enjoying it, and I'll be sad to see it end with that last manga in October.

I was also pleasantly surprised this past week to see that Taurus Pixie had updated "Chat Vert." So you KNOW I had to go and read that latest chapter!

You can read it too here: Chapter 9: Totally Not a Date

Likewise, EdenDaphne updated "Discordant Sonata" this weekend, so I had THAT to read as well!

You can find the latest chapter here: Chapter 10: Nocturne

So... yeah... a lot of video game story absorption, TV show watching, and story reading - both fanfic and manga. Maybe all of this, plus that Ed Sheeran song, can re-inspire me to get pen to paper myself, as it were.

We'll see, I guess!

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