Holy Smokes! Let's Recap July!

Whew! That... was a LOOOOONG week, huh?

What? What do you mean, "It's August"!? *checks calendar*

HOLY SMOKES, I COMPLETELY MISSED UPDATING IN JULY!!!! Well, in that case...

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July just kind of blipped by for me. Sorry about that, folks. Let's see, the last time we chatted I was visiting my mom and sister. The trip was far too short, but it was very nice. After being together for 18 years, I FINALLY managed to take my husband to the Rita's Italian Ice stand RIGHT ON MAIN STREET OF MY HOMETOWN. I must have told him nearly every summer that we need to take him, and yet we always forgot. WELL NO MORE!

If you're from an area where you have no clue what I'm talking about, Rita's is a big Italian ice (or... I guess... "water ice" if you're from Philly...) restaurant chain in Pennsylvania. It's so big that they sell their brand of Italian ice in most PA grocery stores - at least, eastern PA grocery stores - and I grew up just assuming they were a national chain. Then I left PA and quickly discovered that Rita's apparently isn't so well-known outside my home state.

They specialize in Italian ice (obviously) and frozen custards. I personally love their gelati (specifically with their mango ice), which is a parfait-like layering of custard and ice.

Oh man. I made myself hungry. I should move on before I start drooling.

After the visit with the family, we finally managed our first real big hang with our local Beardy Man Wolfhearted. Now that we're all fully vaccinated we couldn't wait to hang for a significant amount of time for the first time in over a year. We brought up a small box of residentially-safe fireworks to set off on his lakeside dock and had a mini barbeque. We proceeded to kidnap him for the night and spent some of Independence Day itself with him at our place before Hubby had to go to work and I brought Wolfhearted home. It was nice to go from "I've barely seen you in 15 months!" to "We've hung out for nearly 24hrs straight!"

Independence Day was my only day off that week as my manager took some vacation time to visit her daughter, son-in-law, and her newborn grandson. It had been barely two weeks since she first visited to meet the grandson, and she was already whining that it's been "too long." Guess it's a good thing that her daughter is now about a 2hr drive away from her, as opposed to still being about 10hrs away! I'm fully expecting my mom to be the same way if/when Hubby and I have our first.

So, I hosted the first game of Scum and Villainy the day after a 24hr hang-out with Wolfhearted, and then the following day continued an 8-day work stint as my manager took her vacation. I had completely forgotten about this vacation (and my subsequent work schedule) when I last posted, otherwise I would have warned you fine folks that I would be too busy to have worked on my post. Sorry about that.

My first day off since Independence Day happened to be the anniversary of Rozsavaria's sister's death, so Hubby and I spent most of the day hanging with her. We spent far too long playing the Pokémon board game Master Trainer that came out in 1999. It was a blast though. And check out all the pokémon friends I was able to collect!

Call me James, because most of those pokémon just joined my team of their own volition (also, because a lot of the pokémon I had throughout the game were James' at one point in the series). See, in the game there are these cards you could draw that allow you an advantage. Things like healing potions or extra battle points for when you're dueling with someone. There's also cards that tell you to just straight up pick up a pokémon that's unclaimed on the board. I got that one a LOT. I also, surprisingly enough, considering how much dice don't seem to like me, never lost a single match the whole game. I could have easily ended it about 15min into playing. Instead, I decided I wanted to collect ALL THE POKEMON! (That is the goal, is it not?) In the end - and about THREE HOURS LATER - Hubby beat the Elite Four and won the game. Still, in my heart I was the true winner since I had the most pokémon.

Before hanging with Roz, however, Hubby and I did something we've wanted to do for MOOOOONTHS. We were fully vaccinated. My mother had a chance to see my mid-back-length hair. Hubby and I had a day off together. We practically SPRINTED to the local hair salon and chopped all of our "quarantine hair" off! Both of us lost at least a foot of hair, but I think it was closer to 15 inches (38cm) for both of us!

Behold: the New Me!

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I'll be frank, my hair should look about 3x as full and fluffy as that Bitmoji (I have SO. MUCH. HAIR!), but that IS the closest to my hair style I was able to find. So... Hello! I'm going to go back to my LycoRogue persona now....

My second day off that week was spent playing catch-up on cleaning and errands. Also, some recovery from the hang-out with Roz the night before. Then it was right back into the grind for another 7 straight days. I had shifted my days off to bookend my birthday for my mom's trip up to see me, which meant I yet again didn't have my normal Tuesday off.

The last day I had before hitting 37 was spent with last-minute cleaning. All. Day.

On my birthday itself, Hubby made me breakfast, and we cuddled a bit and just relaxed. Then Mom arrived and we hung out for a bit. I opened presents and Hubby took us out to eat. There's still a lot of local restaurants we haven't hit up, so we started to remedy that on my birthday. It was a nice little restaurant/gift shop. We had fun going through the gift shop section while waiting for our food, then we brought it home to eat. We hung out a bit more, and then Hubby headed out for an event he had been excited about for months (and then felt guilty that it landed on my birthday, but I told him to go). Mom then gave me her true birthday gift: helping me destress by helping me organize yet again.

While Hubby was at his event, Mom and I hit up Walmart to get some supplies, and then we got to work. We have a closed-in back porch that we share with our landlady, and has the inside stairs to the upstairs apartments. We get a little corner of the porch to do with as we wish. If we really wanted, we could set up chairs back there and just hang. However, since it's not as private as our front porch, it's mostly used for storage. However, how we were storing things wasn't working for me, so Mom helped me start from scratch. The next day our pursuit continued as we moved to the garage to reorganize that as well. I'm shocked with how much we threw out and how much room we have now!

It was a LOT of hard work, and I was almost glad to go back to work the next day so I could relax, but it truly did help me start of my new year of life on the right foot. Took a lot of weight off and almost instantly improved my mental health a LOOOT. I'm not fully back to how I was a few years ago, but I'm definitely in a much better spot.

Unfortunately, the Sunday after my birthday I didn't get MUCH rest outside of work, as I had intended. I also couldn't "relax" much at work since I had to actually do my job the whole time! I know, right!?

But why couldn't I rest even OUTSIDE of work? Well, on the 25th Dragnime and his fiancé headed off on a 2-week roadtrip. Some time to bond, get out of their apartment, and take her back to her home state for the first time in nearly a year. They proceeded to pack her up so she could officially move in with him (instead of just staying put because of the pandemic worsening in her home state), and the two made it back home safe and sound about midnight on August 7th.

What does this have to do with me and my frantic July? Well. At the end of May they adopted this adorable little fuzzball.

he baybe

I was asked to feed and socialize this adorable hellion while Dragnime and his fiancé were out of town. It was a bit tricky at first to try to sort out how to feed a cat that was in a different home before going to work, and then finding time to feed said cat again post-work. Especially since we also spent at least an hour with him per feeding so he wouldn't get lonely. In the end, we ended up spending up to FIVE HOURS over at Dragnime's place just hanging out with his kitten post-dinner (we'd bring our own dinner over to his place to eat there).

But how can you say goodbye to this face!?

He got a touch bigger....

Excuse the blurriness of the photo, this fur-covered ball of energy wouldn't sit still long enough for pictures.

So, completely unexpectedly, the majority of my non-sleeping, not-working hours were spent at my friend's apartment, playing with his kitten. I would steal away some time to do a little bit on my laptop, but this little stinker wouldn't allow you to just sit still while he was around. He was constantly in the mood to play, and I was more than happy to oblige.

Clearly Hubby and I need a pet, but we also need a home that allows pets first....

My next day off - July 27th - Hubby and I did our normal errands during my usual work hours since the kitten would expect to be alone during those hours anyway. However, I DID make the mistake of trying to sort out our laundry while feeding the kitten breakfast. I forgot how much cats will not leave laundry alone.... Nothing was damaged, but it certainly took WAY longer than expected as Hubby kept pulling the cat back out of our laundry basket. The focus on the kitten did mean I didn't even THINK about my blog post that week, however.

Fast forward to Saturday and Sunday, where I had a random weekend off. Same deal as Tuesday: when I would normally be at work, I was away from kitten-sitting to do my own errands. One such errand was hanging out with Hubby and Roz on Saturday. We had been talking for MONTHS now about getting Hubby a focus stone to wear and help him realign his energies/aura. We finally managed the trip to do precisely that. The one he picked out is amazing! It's like he has the night sky trapped inside his stone! So pretty!

No filter. The image on the right just has a flash on it.

It's a blue goldstone. It's supposed to be a pendulum, but it just kept calling out to Hubby, and he's a large enough guy that the pendulum cut actually doesn't look too big on him as a necklace. We then hit up a craft store to get cording for his necklace. Hubby picked out the colors, I did the braiding, and Roz put it together as a necklace for him. She even put a lobster clasp on the stone's chain itself so he can then reattach it to the original pendulum chain if he ever wished to use it for the original purpose again. Also, if he ever wanted to switch out the necklace he wore it with, he can do so easily. I really love the idea of that clasp there for him. And he has seemed a bit happier ever since buying that stone for him. Even if it's not blessed yet to be that focus stone he needs, at least how pretty the stone is brings him joy.

So... uh... yeah! That was my July in a nutshell. The Tuesdays I'd normally publish were instead taken up by: work, errands and spending time with a grieving friend, work, and kitten-sitting/errand catch-up.

I didn't really do much of anything creative throughout July anyway. I was so stressed between work and cleaning for my mother's visit that I didn't really think of my blog. I didn't write anything. I didn't even host more than that first session of Scum and Villainy.

I loved the idea of recording our session and then transcribing the tape so we'd always have the actual events of the evening on record. A way to go back and refresh before a session, or a way to look back in future years to relive the game.

Problem is, the only time I had to transcribe anything - as you saw above - would have been at work. And work decided it didn't want to cooperate. Either insanity ensued, and there was no downtime at work to do anything. Or there was too little downtime for me to get anything accomplished. Then there was the third option: I felt awkward doing so.

Right around the start of July, our work radio called it quits. Technically, the receiver itself was fine, but it was too old and the internet radio provider the store owners use no longer supported that receiver. Cellphone carriers pull the same BS to force people to upgrade to a new phone even if the one they've had for 5+ years is still perfectly fine. How are these companies going to make money off of us if we hold on to old technology as long as it still works, and the darn things don't break like they're "supposed" to?!

So, anyway, we were without music at work while we were waiting for a new receiver to even be in stock! Yup! The provider had apparently sent out a warning in November that all of their older receivers would lose service by the end of June 2021, and yet the owners never alerted us (maybe didn't even read the notice), nor did they order a new receiver before ours became obsolete. Clearly they weren't the only ones, so the company was temporarily sold out. We FINALLY got our receiver yesterday, and it's awesome to have background music again! But that was a solid month of stone silence at work.

Personally, it didn't matter to me. I'm fine with silence as long as there's SOME ambient noise, such as the AC blowing or the printer or elevator resetting themselves. The sound of quiet typing on a keyboard also works. There's always something to keep my mind juuuuuuust occupied enough to not be bothered by silence. I also frequently play music in my head anyway.

My coworkers, on the other hand.... They couldn't really handle the quiet, and so if I just sat at my desk for hours on end typing away without interacting with them at all during our slow periods just felt.... awkward. So I usually filled the downtime chatting with them instead. It was nice, and I really enjoy chatting with my newest coworker; get to know her. However, it also means even less time to work on transcribing the SaV session, let alone prepare for the next one.

There was also the insidious 4th reason why transcriptions of the game didn't happen like I wanted. There were days where I worked with my manager, and she was with a customer while I had nothing else to do. I had downtime. I was alone in the office, so I didn't have to feel awkward about not talking with anyone. I just.... didn't have the mental energy. So instead I'd do some relatively mindless tasks.

One such task was finally starting up a Spotify account. I figured I could create a 10hr or so playlist of work-appropriate music that we could listen to while waiting for our new radio to come in. I spent DAYS putting this thing together, trying to find music I'd like, my coworkers would like, and the owners wouldn't mind playing in their store. In the end, I only managed about 9hrs of music before calling it good enough and waving the white flag. Only to then realize that none of the work computers were powerful enough to consistently play music off them all day, and if I played the music off my netbook loud enough that my coworkers could hear it in the office, it would practically blow out my eardrums. I had no way of broadcasting the playlist.... whoops.

While I was on Spotify anyway, I started transferring my music playlists from YouTube over to an actual site intended for music play. So that took up a lot of other mindless-task time. One such playlist, though, was the one I put together for Jolene back when I was still playing as her and then writing about her during NaNoWriMo.

Lately Taurus Pixie has been posting her story playlists to her blog. Lists of songs she listens to that help inspire her for that particular story. As I started to transfer over my Jolene playlist - and as I found more songs I wanted to add to it while listening to the radio in my car - I remembered Pixie's playlists. I was struck with a drive to refine Jolene's playlist. It was no longer just a collection of songs that inspire me while writing about her, it was now an organized story in playlist form. Kept me a few days, but I'm happy with how it turned out.

There's still some blank spots where I haven't found the perfect song yet, and there's about 5 Dua Lipa songs tagged on to the end of the playlist that I would like to use, but I'm not sure what part of Jolene's story they would relate to. Other than those two hiccups, I think this is pretty set.

You can find the Spotify playlist here: Jolene

To understand why I picked the songs I did, and how it relates to Jolene's overall story, I explained that in this Google Doc. It's a bulleted list of the 50+ songs I used and a short description of what part of Jolene's overall story that song covers. Jolene's Story in Playlist Form

Focusing on Jolene's playlist also sent me down a different rabbit hole: artist tracking. Up until a few years ago, I would regularly find images I liked on Google Images or Pinterest and save them to my computer without a care of noting who the artist was. It would be for my own private purposes, so it didn't seem to matter.

Then, a couple of years ago, I wanted to post images of Jolene to Tumblr, only to realize how scummy it was that I couldn't credit the artist of the original image I had doctored. It kept me until earlier this year - just this summer, actually - to track down who originally drew the woman I doctored for my main image of Jolene. Now that I was working on Jolene's story again - via building a playlist - I realized I needed to do the same thing with the images I chose for Jolene's paramours. I had all of these images saved, but no clue who the original artists were.

You know how I mentioned before that I would sometimes hop on my laptop while watching the kitten? Well, this was largely what I was doing. I still don't have all of the images tracked, but I did find a lot of the original artists.

ArtStation is a beautiful place.

I now make sure that if I like an image, even if I THINK I'm only going to keep it for my own enjoyment, I don't download the image unless I know the artist, and I credit said artist - and where the image was uploaded - in my titling of the image. That way I have all of the proper info to then slap on a watermark of the artist's name and a link back to their original art posting, should I ever repost somewhere. I know reposting at all isn't cool, even when crediting the artist like this. However, when I want to share something to this blog, for instance, I'd hate to not be able to properly explain myself simply because the artist might not even acknowledge my request to repost with credits. So, this is my backup plan. This also allows me the happy medium option of not actually reposting the image, but instead dropping a hotlink to the image on the artist's page.

For instance, here's the link to the image I had saved for Jolene's stalker Orick Kodgin.

I have to say, it is SOOOO annoying that it feels like at least 80% of all image searches land on uncredited reposts to Pinterest (most sites now have a "share to Pinterest" option so the artist is still credited!!!!), another 5% are Wattpad, and another 5% to 10% (depending on the image) direct you to AminoApps. Lord bless the artists who post to ArtStation, because I know if I find a link to that site I'll get proper artist crediting; that the artist themselves posted it there. Tumblr is usually good at either bringing me to the artist themselves or dropping a link to them. DeviantArt would also be good, but so few artists actually use it anymore. Twitter is hit-or-miss as to whether or not the poster is the actual artist, and so I usually have to do further research to confirm. Let me tell you how much fun THAT is when the posts aren't in English..... I hate being monolingual.

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That's what I spent the time watching the kitten doing, mostly: tracking down the artists of the images I already have saved to my computer. That, and putting Jolene's playlist together. The week leading up to my birthday was Playlist Week, as well as going back onto Picrew.me. I tried out a few new makers, and I went back to makers I had already used in order to start making Chayse and Ripley whenever possible, since I didn't think of building them originally.

I also spent two or three days gathering up all of the Picrew images I had built over the past few months, and putting them together in a single FB album, instead of just various threads on my page. That way it would be easier to find them and go back through them. Problem there is that I didn't have ALL of the images on one laptop. Some were on my netbook I take to work, and others were on my main laptop at home. As I put the album together I figured I'd use the other laptop at some point to put in the images I was missing. It wasn't until I finished putting an album of over 100 images together did I find out that Facebook no longer allows you to move images around inside an album after it's been published! I used to be able to do that! You can still rearrange the new images when you batch-upload them, but once they're officially published to the album, that's it. No rearranging. So I couldn't just insert the images I missed because they were on the other laptop.

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I didn't have the mental energy to keep going at that point. So now I'm slowly going back through the makers I previously used, make sure I have built every character I'd want to try building with that maker so I can upload all of them together, and then I'll eventually redo that Picrew album. I might also build the album on Flickr, or some sort of public album like that, so I can then share all of the images with you wonderful peeps.

HAHA. This is when I create a Pinterest just to post the Picrew images; credits fully included??? Lord, I hate that site, but that might actually be the best option. I'm open to suggestions of alternate sites in the comments here.

So, yeah, all of that was what I was doing instead of transcribing the recording I made of the first game. To be fair, I DID transcribe the RIP Racing portion we finished the session with (that was the side of the tape still in the recorder). It kept me the better part of a week (see earlier about not having much downtime at work), and that alone was so exhausting. Especially since I had screwed up where the players and NPCs were on the race track a couple of times, so what I canonically said in-game vs what should have happened if I had counted properly was a fun thing to try to juggle in my transcription notes.

Transcribing the SaV gameplay, however, should go smoother since it's a lot of broad description I can then sum up, and a bunch of out-of-character (OOC) discussion among the players as we all tried to get a feel for the game. Unfortunately, with how exhausting the RIP portion was, by the time I was ready to work on transcribing the SaV portion I was mentally burnt out and decided to focus on Picrew and Spotify instead.

I was also MAJORLY stressing. I had the one tape. I didn't want to buy more tapes or a digital recorder in case I was getting either of those for my birthday within the fortnight. I didn't finish transcribing, so my goal to keep recordings/transcriptions of the game was quickly vanishing in front of my eyes (either I would have to record over the 1st session or I wouldn't be able to record the 2nd). I was so focused on transcribing the old session that I didn't even THINK of coming up with game plot-points for the next session.

Thanks to an in-game, post-job entanglement (I'll explain those more in a future blog post when I actually talk about the SaV story thus far), I knew that the crew had a mandatory job from the Borniko Syndicate, but I had no clue what that job would be. I also knew the next job they had lined up was an escort mission for their informant Maggie's friend Ishi. Ishi needed off the night side of the tidal-locked planet of Sonhandra, then smuggled to the neighboring star system of Rin, and escorted into the astral cloud there in order to find haven with the Maelstrom Pirates within The Cove. I had all of that sorted out before session 1, but the crew ran out of time to get to that job before it got too late. We had dog-eared it to start the next session with, but I didn't think of anything new.

What would be their complications with getting to Ishi? What could I provide the players to help them overcome it? What complications would there be with getting Ishi off-planet? What about smuggling him out of the star system? What does crossing star systems even entail? The game says systems are linked via Jump Gates, but what does that mean? How do they work? Are there traffic check-points where authorities might check out ships trying to travel between systems? Would there be such a check-point specifically because they triggered something that would put the authorities on high alert? What kind of complications would there be for the crew as they try to navigate the astral cloud? The book says it's nigh impossible to navigate the cloud without specific equipment, which is why the pirates are able to seek sanctuary there; they were able to build the equipment needed. Could I hint at a way for the crew to get the equipment? Or a way for Hubby's character Quinton to build it himself? Or a way for the crew to pass Ishi off to the pirates outside of the cloud? I also put a bounty on Ishi's head. How hard should I come at the crew with bounty hunters? Is there a way they would know the crew has Ishi? What about tempting the crew to just turn him in for the bounty? How would Maggie react if the crew betrayed her friend like that? How would the pirates react to the crew handing Ishi to them for protection?

As you can see, there's a LOT that I wanted to figure out before we got to the next session (let alone, ya know, the mandatory Borniko job). On top of ALL of that, I also needed to come up with a hook for the next RIP race: how did things evolve within the League after the crew's first race? What objective would they be tasked with this time? Would they have an objective other than winning? Quarthix's didn't quite understand how valuable Volts would be in the game, and how many you would need to repair your RIP Machine post-race, so he wasn't able to FULLY fix his vehicle before we closed out the session. Do I find a way of providing him more Volts so it's easier for him to repair his Machine, and therefore encourage his gameplay of smashing as many things as possible?

Tanuki Facebook sticker
by Yanare Ku

Only one game session in, and being the Game Master quickly went from exciting to overwhelming. Especially since I'm still trash at improv, so coming up with these complications and answers on the fly just wasn't going to work for me.

Oh, yeah, and our place was horribly neglected because of how much I had been working, AND my mother was visiting for my birthday, so I was stressed about that and scrambling to at least clean it enough for the poor woman to have somewhere to sleep when she stayed the night!

Hubby quickly pulled the plug and let the other two players know that we'd be cancelling our second July game; we'd try again in August. That was a huge load off. Plus, that means me missing my July blog posts didn't put you fine folks too far behind on the overall story going on with the game. I'll definitely have to dedicate a post to what's been going on.

All set to host game again the first Monday of August, I forgot I was watching this little attention-seeker still.

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Edited by LycoRogue

(Okay, he's not nearly this big yet, but he IS very long, so close enough!)

Dragnime and his fiancé thankfully allowed me and Hubby to host game night at their place so we could still kitten-sit without cancelling again. It was a fun experience, although the energy-ball-on-legs wasn't the biggest fan of there being four people in the apartment and NO ONE paying attention to HIM. So he frequently invaded the table to make sure he wasn't forgotten. Certainly made for an interesting night. Also, it meant getting through the Ishi escort mission took a bit longer than intended. The crew technically hasn't finished it, although they did close out another story arc, and they did get their mandatory job from the Borniko (I figured out what the job is! Yay!). So I'm actually pretty set for the next session on Monday since we didn't go through everything I had planned!

So, uh, thank you, kitten!

I ended up not getting a digital recorder or more micro-cassette tapes for my birthday, but Roz DID get me an Amazon gift card, so it's LIKE she bought those for me! Yes, I did end up buying both. That way, if the digital recorder glitches, I still have the analog version as back-up. That is, unless we're over 3hrs into the session before I realize I've forgotten to flip the tape when the one side ran out. Whoops....

I also tested it out, and the digital recorder is good enough to clearly pick up the audio from me playing back the tape recorder. So now the first game session has a digital copy, along with the 2nd session! I can just store these digital copies instead of worrying about transcriptions, and I can transcribe later if I wish! Another huge load off! I also have a dozen micro-cassettes now, so I can also have a bunch of analog back-ups to start us off.

So much good stuff the past two weeks!

All of that helping me keep the SaV game manageable. Plus a more organized storage at my home. And a slightly happier and healthier husband thanks to the new focus stone necklace. Also, my mom getting me one of those fitness watches, so I can start keeping better track of my own health. Add in that we have a functioning radio at work again, and we found an awesome station yesterday; probably the best option we've found since I started working there. It's upbeat music spanning 80s all the way up to today, but still "work appropriate." No more sleepy, depressing 70s and 80s "easy listening" music!

On top of all that, my hair had a month to grow out. I always love a freshly chopped off hair style the first week or so, but then it gets a bit unrulily as it grows out because it no longer has the weight of being long, and it just poofs out ridiculously. My favorite time is about a month after getting my hair cut because it's still short, but it's just weighed down enough to be manageable again.

I do have to admit, though, that my sister-in-law did just gift me curl-defining hair products to help with the freshly-cut poofiness. I have wavy/curly hair, but my loose curls are only well-defined when wet. Once my hair dries out it just becomes a rat's nest of poof and frizz, which is why I tend to just blow-dry my hair straight or go at it with a flat iron. That's also why I like my hair a bit longer so the natural weight of it pulls it straight. 

Well, between the new hair products, and my hair now being long enough that it's easier to pull it back into a ponytail again, I have somehow been blessed to avoid bad hair days just about every day since the cut. Yeah! This whole time! Even with the high humidity and near-constant rain.

The Delta variant of COVID is quite scary, and Hubby and I are back to wearing masks nearly every time we step foot outside, despite us both being fully vaccinated. Ignoring that terror in our lives, however, it seems like being 37 more-or-less suits me. Here's hoping this keep going.

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What I REALLY need, though, is for my Muse to return to me by means of my writing. While I've been creative a lot the past month, between the Picrew images, sorting out Jolene's story a bit more, and coming up with Scum and Villainy plots, I still haven't written anything in a little over 3 months.

What really REALLY sucks about that is the same thing that sucked back in November after THAT writing dry spell: this Friday is the 13th.

Yup. First Friday the 13th since November. First unofficial Plagg Appreciation Day since November. I have yet to miss a Friday the 13th since I started up this little tradition for myself. However, yet again my self-imposed deadline is crashing in on me, and I have no clue what I want to write.

If anyone has any prompt ideas for a Plagg-centric or otherwise Plagg Appreciation story, please PLEASE leave them in the comments section. Even if you read this post after August 13, 2021, please feel free to leave those ideas. Lord knows I'll always need them for future Plagg Appreciation Days.

Whew-boy, I still have so much left on my checklist of what I wanted to talk about after my unintentional hiatus, but this post is LOOOOOOOOOONG already, and it's already after 2:00pm! So I think I'll just have to continue all of this next week.

So... here's to hoping I can chip away at the upcoming post throughout the week so I can actually publish something next Tuesday. My manager is taking more of her massive amount of accumulated vacation time next week. Which means I'm working straight through from August 15th to August 23rd. Whoooo! Why do I seem to start off these long bouts of covering vacation time with SaV games?

Anyway, if working through my post day ends up too much, I'll try to at least play catch-up again on the 24th. Either way, I'll catch you beautiful people later! Take care, all, and stay safe!

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