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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