Proud Shout Outs and Story Suggestions

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I know that it's the final day of Pride Month, and that this has been a particularly hard month for various reasons. Still, I hope people were able to embrace who they were and found safe spaces to just be them. Enjoy this final day of Pride Month, friends, but please carry that pride and love and strength throughout the rest of the year as well.

You are loved exactly how you are.

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Getting to the point of this blog, I'd like to apologize for missing last week. I had no clue what to talk about because, you guessed it, I haven't written a dang thing. As I tried to mentally plot out what to discuss, I figured I'd check in on a Facebook message from ChibiSunnie. Next thing I know, I'm sending the poor girl an 11pg letter and it was time to pick Hubby up from work! I had debated working on a blog post after picking him up and doing our grocery shopping. Problem there, though, is a) we wouldn't be home until after 1pm, b) it's been taking me 4+ hours to write my posts lately, so this would take up my entire afternoon, c) I still wasn't sure what to talk about, d) I had chores I really needed to get back into a consistent routine with again, and e) I was already getting exhausted and needed something mindless to do.

So, no blog post last week.

The week before, I had continued working on my blog post after picking Hubby up from work, and it kept me until about 3:30 to finish. By the time I was done, I was so drained I ended up napping for about an hour or so. I just didn't have the energy to even promote it. All the more reason I didn't want to bother last week. So, if you did manage to find and read that post from a couple of weeks ago, thank you. This is why I have that email alert option, so you don't miss a post even when I'm too lazy to promote my own work!


Anyway, here we are again, with me STILL not writing anything. I was tempted to also skip today because, well, I'm sure you are sick and tired of reading me go "meh, no writing this week..." for months on end. I know I'm tired of writing it.

However, first and foremost, since I didn't write last week, I didn't promote the week before, and I totally forgot I was writing in June that first week, I wanted to make sure to get today's blog post done in order to have a proper "Happy Pride Month" in just before the month ended.

Secondly, I needed to make sure I got a shout out to my mom. Yesterday marked 25years since she was declared officially cancer-free; kicking breast cancer's ass when she was younger than I am now!

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I'm bummed that this year Hubby and I weren't able to go visit her, for safety reasons among others, but I did get a chance to chat with her last night. She sounded like she managed to still properly celebrate. She told me this year was the one she was most looking forward to:

Mom: "Five years meant I could breathe [the cancer probably wasn't coming back]. Ten years meant I could ease up [on my vigilance]. Fifteen years meant I was probably safe. Twenty years meant it was highly unlikely it would return. Twenty-five years meant I could finally relax."

Well, you did it, Mom! You can start to relax a bit. May the next 25 years go a LOT smoother for you, and a lot less stressful.

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Along with those shout outs, I also had three stories I wanted to promote. None of them are mine, of course, but all three are great reads and on-going projects.

First up, we have a two-fer from zenmisery.

FINALLY having both the time and mental energy to read some fanfic, I started up Zen's story Dressed to Confess.

Summary: A lonely and forlorn Chat comes to visit his Princess and ends up keeping her company every night leading up to her last-ditch effort to capture Adrien’s attention.

Rating: Teen
Current Word Count: 8548
Status: On-going; 4 chapters; updated every week or so

This is an awesome story with just the perfect balance of rot-your-teeth-out fluff and breaks-your-heart angst. Adrien has been feeling particularly dejected at home, so, as Chat Noir, he goes to visit Marinette. He knows she's making an elaborate and gorgeous gown in order to make herself - as she put it - look as beautiful as possible before FINALLY confessing how she feels to her crush. She figures it's all or nothing. If the dress turns out the way she wants, and she feels she's going to look as gorgeous a she's gonna get, and he still rejects her, then she'll finally start to move on.

Chat Noir of course has no clue who she's talking about, and assumes she's talking about Luka, and gets small pangs of jealousy that "this idiot" hasn't already realized how amazing Marinette is and scooped her up. As the story progresses, Chat Noir is all but convinced to do the same with Ladybug: confess one last time, and if she still rejects him it's time to finally move on. The decision to give up on Ladybug becomes easier for Chat Noir to make when he starts to realize that maybe he has fallen in love with Marinette.

The fourth chapter just went up, so I haven't had a moment to read it yet, but the story is already so lovely, and I'm curious how the Love Square is going to collapse in on itself as the story progresses.

Now, while I have been waiting for updates on Dressed to Confess, I've been reading the other story that Zen recently started up. Excuse the pun, but this one is a much darker story overall.

In the Dark

Summary: Lost in complete darkness, Marinette comes across a child who has just been through the same ordeal she went through. Except, she doesn’t know what that ordeal is, how to find his mother, or how she’s going to explain if he ever sees her face when he’s already identified her as Ladybug and she can’t find Tikki.

Rating: Teen
Current Word Count: 8266
Status: On-going; 4 chapters; updated every week or so

Talk about a consistent writer, right? Both stories updated at about the same pace, both have 4 chapters up right now, and both are roughly the same word-count.

Anyway, this story is a gritty and intense story, especially compared to Dressed to Confess. Personally, I am amazed by her ability to switch story vibes as regularly as she does.

In the Dark deals with a great mystery of what exactly happened to everyone. Marinette wakes up with a headache; probably a concussion. Tikki is missing, with no explanation yet as to how or why; not even Marinette remembers. She then has to navigate the pitch black in a rubble-filled collapsed building with a small child in tow she quickly stumbles upon. The boy Luc had asked if she was Ladybug, and she went with that persona despite the lack of powers or suit, as a means to keep the child calm. The "lie" gets a bit more complicated when she runs into Nino in the dark, and then hears Chat Noir's voice. If she's brought into the light before she can find Tikki and properly transform, her secret may be out. She has more to worry about, though, such as the safety of herself, her friends, the child, and his mother. Finally, since she couldn't remember if the damage was caused by an akuma, Marinette has no clue if she can repair the damage that Paris has suffered. The potential inability to repair what happened becomes heavier as Marinette's head wound seems to get worse, and one of her friends is found injured.

I am on the edge of my seat reading through everything, wondering what could possibly go wrong next. It is completely gut-wrenching and the hits come frequently, but in the best way as the stakes keep increasing. The current chapter pattern has also been bouncing between Marinette's POV and Alya's which is great as the two best friends are currently separated. This way you can also get a glimpse of what the rest of Marinette's class is up to during the destruction. The mysteries of what caused everything, how Marinette is going to get out of her identity predicament, where Tikki even is, can the damage be repaired, how are they going to collectively make it to safety, and will everyone be alright just keeps me wanting more.

And when it gets too intense, you can just hop back over to Dressed to Confess or some of her other fluffy stories to get the warm fuzzies again.

Jumping fandoms, Cyhyr uploaded her latest chapter of Displaced by Time.

Summary:
Vesper Scienta wanted nothing more out of life than to make sure her charge and best friend, Prince Aster Amicitia, was happy. She would follow him, always, and keep him safe, as her appointment as Shield dictates she must. She was happy. They were happy.
Then they found the Messengers.
Now she's flitting through time itself, racing against the weakening pulse of the Crystal. It's been almost nineteen years since the Dawn Returned, and the world needs saving again. Vesper just doesn't understand why it has to be her, or why the Messengers separated her and Aster, or why they paired her with the daughter of the Marshal and the son of the King of Light - both from different times.
Time's running out. The star will burn. Raise the dawn, become the night, restore the Crystal.
Vesper just wants to be with Aster again.

Rating: Teen
Current Word Count: 23,043
Status: On-going; 3 chapters

As a refresher, this is a mostly original story taking place within the world of Final Fantasy XV. It follows a party of original characters, with the canon characters sprinkled in as support and timeline guideposts. Very much like how X-Future was.

I do not follow this fandom at all, and my knowledge of this game specifically was mostly learned via Cyhyr's Tumblr posts, but I am still adoring this story. There are time travel and parallel world shenanigans, and parallel stories to the main game storyline. I'm always a sucker for those types of stories. I've also already grown to love Cy's original characters, and I'm rooting them on. I'm curious about their different timelines, and how their parallel universes both differ and connect. We also haven't had any confirmation yet that the timeline the trio is currently on is part of Vesper's or Voti's past, or if this is a completely separate universe than even either of them are from. It's complicated, but intriguing as you try to figure it out alongside the characters. There's also this struggle between duty to save the planet as a whole versus taking the chance to save a loved one, and already two of the characters have been struggling with that choice.

Things get even more complicated in the third chapter as one of the characters tries to save a parent who never actually fathered children in the timeline they're currently on, but you can still sense this emotional cry to save him regardless, and you hope that they succeed in doing so.

I'm sure the story is much more entertaining for any who played the game and can see the game story plot points played out in a different perspective, as well as see how Vesper's actions - and that of her partymates - either affect the timeline, or cause a canonical event to happen regardless (or because of) her intervention. Still, without knowing the canonical story, I'm enjoying this hardy read. It is a bit confusing for non-fandom members, mostly because it's rough to gauge where the characters are in relation to different important cities and the significance of their locations across the whole continent's layout, but it is still written well enough to be followable and entertaining.

Now to get my OWN writing in gear.

Mouse lit a fire under her own butt this past week, and sent me an article about persevering against fear. I'm going to try to follow her lead and see if I can find time to finally just sit and think and create again.

I do miss it.

As I try to re-center myself this July and re-find that 2017/2018 self that managed to create and complete Peeping Tomcat, I also wish to leave you with this reminder:

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Love you, friends. Stay safe out there.