A New Fandom Enters the Ring

Est. Read Time: 20 min

*sigh* Well, it did it. The year 2023 broke me. My goal to post SOMETHING to this blog at LEAST once a month has been missed. October came and went, and I didn't even NOTICE that I didn't post something until this past Friday.

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October was... rough. I feel like that's been the theme of 2023, especially since my birthday. My husband wasn't able to get as many days off as I did. Which meant we couldn't really have a true vacation for our anniversary, as I would have liked. I'd even appreciate a staycation where we could reconnect, catch up on TV shows or movies on our To Watch list, or maybe organize the apartment a bit. Instead, nearly any and all plans I had were interrupted by taking my husband to work, picking him up from work, doing chores while he was at work that I wouldn't mind stopping abruptly to go fetch him, etc.

There was also a LOT of literal getting rest: sleeping in, going to bed early, taking mid-day naps. Just... a LOT of catching up on sleep instead of catching up on house cleaning or our To Watch/To Read/To Play lists.

My poor Animal Crossing: New Horizons island. It's been so neglected. My island is officially a year behind the IRL date. Couldn't even manage to catch up on that over my vacation.

Once my vacation was done, the schedule was MOSTLY back to normal... for about a week and a half.

Manager still had something like TWO-HUNDRED hours of PTO to use before the end of the year! Technically, she has 80 hours she NEEDS to use, because the remaining 120 hours can roll over into next year. But that's the cap: 120 hours; all others are forfeit if not used before the end of the calendar year. Still. That's ten PTO days! And the owners get cranky if their sales associates take time off in December because that's their busy season. Plus, I always take the week between Thanksgiving and Hubby's birthday off. So Manager had a little over a month to use AT LEAST ten vacation days! She decided that the week before Halloween would be the perfect time to use five of those ten "mandatory" days before Biker Coworker or I took our time off. That way Manager still had the rest of the year to sprinkle in MORE vacation time. She also bookended her requested time off with her normal days off each week, bringing her time away from work up to a nice 9-day vacation.

So I was again scheduled to work ten days straight while Manager was on said vacation.

EXCEPT!

Three days into my work week/two days into Manager's vacation, Hubby was NOT feeling well. He barely slept. He was coughing up a storm. He felt weak and feverish. He called out from work. I was feeling fine, and of COURSE no one has any sort of covid protocols in place anymore, so I still went to work. Only to discover that night that... yup... Hubby caught covid a second time. I tested negative, so I was back at work - and out of the apartment as much as possible while Hubby isolated in our bedroom - the next two days. We're now up to my sixth day of work, and Manager's 5th day - out of 9 - for her vacation. I got home from work. I got dinner ready. I crashed while trying to catch up on Dracula Daily entries (another endeavor I failed at, but at least I got further along this year than I did last year). Hubby texted me at 8pm to see if we wanted to do a watch party: me in the living room, where I had set up my nest, and Hubby in our bedroom with his isolation nest. I was feeling very weak, but missed socializing with my husband, so I was game. We watched a couple of shows while texting back and forth. By 10pm I felt like I was on fire while still shivering up a storm. I had already tested that morning and got a negative, so I had to wait until the following morning to test again. However, I had confirmed that I had a fever, so I was 99.9% sure that I had failed to dodge the damn virus and that I was also now covid positive. The following morning did confirm my suspicion. Still had a fever, and now a positive at-home covid test to match.

Tumblr post by @somanyjacks-writes and @wormsslime
This post has resonated with me for two years now. So true.

Thursday, October 26th, I called out sick via a picture of my positive covid test and thermometer reading texted to Manager, her boss, and Biker Coworker. Biker Coworker claims to have tested daily on the 26th, 27th, and 28th, and it came back negative each time. However, she still had a fever and vomited on Saturday. She says it was a bad reaction to her allergy medication increase to combat the higher allergy count in the air. Either way, it meant she couldn't work on the 28th, and Manager had to cut her vacation short (apparently Biker was running the store solo both the Thursday and Friday I was out because Manager's boss couldn't find coverage?????). Poor Manager not only had to cut her vacation short, but there STILL wasn't any additional coverage so she had to work solo Saturday through Tuesday! FOUR DAYS! Let me remind you that our store's layout does NOT make it the safest location to try to run solo! This inability to find coverage is such BS!

Anyway, regardless of the fact that Hubby and I were now both covid positive, we decided to keep to our corners. That way we weren't keeping the other awake with our coughing. So, for the second round with covid, I was trying to sleep in the living room on a loveseat for a week. At least this time it was a reclining loveseat, so I was able to stretch out a bit easier, but it still wasn't the most comfortable thing. On Sunday, Oct 29th, nearly a week after Hubby was confirmed positive, he managed to get a negative test. We then decided to trade nests so I could hopefully get better rest. It did help, but I still missed my husband. We both still have really nasty coughs as I write this, so we are STILL sleeping apart from each other to try not to wake the other up throughout the night! I might offer to Nest-Switch again today. That way we each get a week on/week off with sleeping on the loveseat.

That said, I DID finally test negative on Halloween. Both Hubby and I went pretty much the full 7 days to flush covid out of our system. Luckily, neither of us needed medical intervention. There were a LOT of naps though. I probably slept about half the time I was out sick. I couldn't really do much for more than an hour at a time before needing a two-hour nap to recoup. Even though I tested negative Tuesday morning, I was still too worn out - and was still too wary of being contagious - to go back to work that day. Instead, I went back to bed and slept for the next SIX HOURS! That was when I was NEGATIVE! I woke up just before trick-or-treating started, and quietly wept that I would have to miss out this year. Dressing up in costume, passing out candy, and seeing everyone else's costumes are all reasons why Halloween is probably my favorite holiday. And I had to just stay inside in my PJs and ignore the world on my favorite holiday this year.

COVID SUCKS, YOU GUYS!

So... yeah! Here's your reminder that it's STILL HERE! I am the TENTH person I know who caught it THIS. YEAR! Fifth within the past MONTH! Don't let the media make you think this is done and over! Go get your vaccinations and/or boosters if you are medically able! (Hubby and I were actually scheduled to get our booster THIS WEEK! So close and yet so far!) Wear your masks still! Social distance when possible! Be careful out there, folks!

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Edited by LycoRogue

Now that I've written it all out, it's kind of obvious why I didn't write anything in October. Still hurts though. I even missed Friday the 13th (AKA Plagg Appreciation Day) again. I HATE when I can't even celebrate my own personal fandom holiday! I just don't have the time anymore, and when I DO have the time, I don't have the energy anymore. The rare times I have both the time AND the energy? Inspiration decides to stay away.

We're five days into November, aka NaNoWriMo. I didn't even REGISTER that it's now NaNo until Rozsavaria asked me if I was doing it and if I wanted to join nir in writing meet-ups to get some writing done. I told nir that I was not officially signed up for NaNo this year, but it might help shake me out of my writing funk if we met up. We'll see how well that goes.

Oh! Quick side note. Rozsavaria did rebrand online, so, going forward, ne will be Aurora Morgen, or just Aurora (makes things a little tricky if I wish to talk about one of my ACNH villagers, but it's easy enough to distinguish between my IRL friend and an Animal Crossing penguin).

Anyway, despite not having the energy or motivation to write anything for.... quite some time... I DID start getting the itch while I was out sick. One of the cases of not having the energy despite having the time.

The story would be a simple one-shot, but it isn't for Miraculous Ladybug. It's also not for any of the fandoms I've written for before, nor is it an original story. Over the summer I got addicted to a new Disney Channel cartoon: Hailey's On It!

Official promotional image

For those who don't know the show, here's a semi-quick primer:

The show follows 14 year old Hailey Banks. Despite admitting that she hates trying new things, and what few new things she IS interested in she frequently talks herself out of, Hailey started up a pseudo-bucket-list in the first grade. Her "Big List of Things I'm Totally Gonna Do". The list got so long - at least 411 items! - that she started filling a notebook with it, as shown in the promotional image above.

On New Year's Eve, Hailey made the New Years Resolution to actually do the items on her list. Immediately afterwards, she was attacked by Chaos Bots (the weird robot crab things in the promotional image). They tried to destroy her list, only to be stopped by the time traveling Professor (the purple-haired woman with prosthetics in the background by the roller coaster). The Professor lets Hailey know that her list is a national treasure in the future. In the timeline The Professor is from, Hailey not only kept her New Years Resolution, but she managed to check off EVERY ITEM on her list within that year! Completing her list within a year started Hailey down the path that led her to invent a device that not only stops global warming, but actually reverses it. Saving the planet from its otherwise fiery doom within the near future.

The Chaos Bots, who are sent back in time by some mysterious unnamed villain, were trying to destroy Hailey's copy of her list, like G-rated Terminators. The Chaos Bots' goal is to stop Hailey from completing every item, because that would then set her on a different path that results in her NOT inventing the cure for global warming, leading the world towards its flaming death within Hailey's lifetime.

As The Professor says: "No pressure."

The Professor is then abruptly sucked back through the time portal, but not before she gives Hailey a smart phone loaded with the most advanced AI program from The Professor's time: Beta. He's tasked to be her guide and assist Hailey in completing the list. In order to better accomplish those tasks, Hailey builds Beta a robotic body to pilot, and then hides it inside one of her stuffed animals (hence the teddy bear in the promotional image; that's Beta).

Hailey ends up hiding both Beta and all of this "saving the world" stuff from everyone she knows, assuming it's too overwhelming and/or fantastical to be taken seriously. The only exception is her best friend Scott (the guy behind Hailey in the promo). She knows/trusts that her beloved himbo of a best friend would believe her, so she confides in him about everything.

Well.... NEARLY everything.

Naturally, a cartoon with a 14yo female lead HAS to have a romantic subplot. So here's Hailey's: she grew a crush on Scott back in the 5th grade, and added list item number 143: Kiss Scott Denoga. Like all of her other 400+ list items, Hailey chickened out and never let Scott know about her feelings. Now that they're 14, she fears that he'd never see her in a romantic light, and fears all the more that HER having romantic feelings for HIM might ruin their friendship. You know, that old chestnut.

Added complication to the whole "kiss Scott Denoga" thing... Scott's crush Kristine wants to ask him out. Not ready to come to terms with her feelings and confess to Scott, Hailey gives Kristine her blessing. So Scott isn't even romantically available anymore. Oh, and Kristine now considers Hailey her bestie. Neat.

Despite those complications, Beta keeps trying to come up with plans to cross item number 143 off Hailey's list (thinking it's the simplest to complete) and Hailey has to keep redirecting him to a different list number they could try to accomplish, all while trying to keep Scott in the dark. Luckily, as I mentioned, Scott's a glorious himbo. As Hailey states in the pilot, "he wears the same pair of jeans for a month. He calls potato chips 'crispy dippers'!" Beta's main "nickname" for Scott is "buffoon" for a reason, is what I'm saying.

So, the show - set up as two 11min mini-episodes within the roughly 22min runtime - follows Hailey, Beta, and Scott as they try to check off all of Hailey's list items within the next year. Beta uses his knowledge from the future and the data he's gathered based on current events and character interactions with Hailey to calculate which list item has the highest completion probability at any given time, and the episodes tend to focus around that. There are some episodes, however, where it focuses more on just Hailey's life and her relationships with her family and friends, as well as maintaining her friendship with Scott by focusing on what he'd like to do that day. Which means a list item isn't necessarily completed each episode, and not every list item warrants getting its own episode - such as her list item to eat a raw onion like an apple.

They've also shown that, as long as Hailey completes the item within the year, she can still add to the list. Which means the writers have 400+ list items to play with to tell their story. They can end the series without showing all 400+ list items (just hand wave that they were completed off-screen), or they can surpass 400 items and just say that Hailey added them throughout that year. We also aren't given the whole list - obviously - that way they can build up Hailey's list based on what individual episode plotlines they want to tell. As of right now, there are 67 list items known (but not necessarily completed).

I personally love the premise of this show. A risk-adverse girl finds her confidence as she does a bunch of seemingly average childhood adventures - such as completing a corn maze without getting lost, making a female friend, and throwing a successful party - motivated by the fact that completing this list is her first step in saving the world. It's wonderfully high-stakes and low-stakes at the same time. The show creators were largely inspired by the grand adventures the titular characters of Phineas and Ferb went on, and wanted to create a show with a similar vibe.

The show - not in small part due to Scott's endearing idiocy - is wonderfully cheesy and dumb and playful. Simple things, like winning a sand castle tournament, gain world-saving stakes and are treated with the proper absurdity you'd think that premise would create. Hailey ends up adopting a balding flamingo with a flatulence problem. Scott's girlfriend writes, directs, and stars in a high school musical all about hats (complete with hat parody songs of famous show tunes such as "Seasons of Love" from RENT and "Tomorrow" from Annie). Hailey beats out a bunch of 1st graders in a competition to be Sherriff For A Day at a debunked wild-west-themed amusement park. She represents Scott in a mock trial where Scott "sues" a fellow classmate for ownership of a popular phone app. Hailey competes to be the Crab Queen - a school position similar to homecoming queen at her school that no other student actually wants to win. Weird Al does a cameo as a Willy Wonka-esque owner of the in-universe version of Pringles (Dingles) and takes Hailey and Scott on a tour of the factory in an obvious Charlie and the Chocolate Factory parody. Hailey, who is naturally great at bowling, struggles to miss as many pins as possible during bumper bowling so her notoriously terrible-at-bowling father could win a game.

Hailey - being voiced by Moana star Auli'i Cravalho - is also of Hawaiian descent. As a sort of nod to that element of Hailey's character design (strongly influenced by the fact that she's voiced by Cravalho), as well as an in-joke about Cravalho's big break with Disney, Hailey's twin baby brothers are named Dwayne and Johnson. Obvious reference to Cravalho's Moana costar Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, who is himself half-Samoan.

Like, it's wonderfully-dumb stuff like that which makes this show so endearing to me. It gives me the same "dumb plot with semi-high stakes" vibes that seasons 1 and 2 of Miraculous Ladybug had. Even the slow-burn romance between the 14yo female lead and her best friend (well... Chat Noir would be Ladybug's best friend in this scenario).

Over the seasons, Miraculous Ladybug has become more intense, character driven, and full of overcoming trauma. I love that for the show. It has become so engaging - and quite a bit frustrating, but we'll ignore that bit - as it moved away from episodic storytelling and moved towards a more serialized over-arcing storyline. I don't hate that decision because it gives everyone so much to talk about and be inspired to create (well... except me, but ignore that too).

I just miss when ML was a dumb show I was semi-embarrassed to admit that I liked. I miss when it was my mindless show that I could watch to destress and laugh at. We don't have many of those dumb, mindless moments in ML anymore.

But I DO have them in Hailey's On it! and I love that about this show!

Sooooooooo, yeah. While I was recovering from covid, part of my time was spent with my new comfort show: Hailey's On it! Which DID manage to gift me a new plot bunny. I haven't physically written it out yet, but I have played out the scene a few times in my head to try to lock the story in.

As mentioned, the romantic subplot of the show is Hailey HAS to kiss Scott before the close of the year in order to complete her list (and eventually save the planet). There was an episode where Hailey and Beta found a work-around with the whole Scott and Kristine "problem": a part Truth-or-Dare, part Spin-the-Bottle party game. Spoilers for this episode to follow.

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I know that most of you might not care, but I wanted to still throw up that spoiler alert for the few who might have cared....

Anyway, Hailey and Beta reason out that, since it's under the pretense of just following the rules of the game and therefore wouldn't necessarily have any actual meaning behind the kiss, Hailey could kiss Scott without betraying Kristine (and Scott wouldn't be cheating on her). Beta then manipulated the game so that Hailey would have to spin to kiss someone and the spinner would land on Scott. The trick goes off without a hitch (for the most part) and Scott's game. He leans in for the kiss, only for Hailey to realize if she were to kiss him she would want it to mean something, so she pulls away from the kiss and says she quits the game.

That's it. That's the spoiler: Hailey doesn't follow through with the kiss. Super minor, but, again, I don't know who might care about that sort of thing. So I figured I'd play it safe.

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Edited by LycoRogue

Small little spoiler section this go. Long-and-short of the episode, and the point of me bringing it up in the first place, is that Hailey discovers throughout the course of the episode that she wants her first kiss with Scott to mean something. If she's going to kiss him, it's because he now knows her romantic feelings for him, and, hopefully, returns them.

Therein comes my plot bunny. The more I watch the show, the more I want SCOTT to initiate the kiss. That way he doesn't question it. That way he doesn't think they kissed only because it's one of Hailey's list items that she HAS to complete. Also, that way Hailey doesn't think Scott just went along with the kiss to help her complete the item, since he knows how important crossing an item off her list is.

I have no clue if the creators already know how the kiss is going to happen and who would initiate it. I don't know if they want Hailey to initiate it because it will be an accumulation of the confidence she built while doing the rest of her list. I'm assuming that's how the show is going to go, and I don't hate it. I get it. I'd be game if that's where the show goes.

Still. I really REALLY want it to be Scott to initiate the kiss. So that's my one-shot: Scott lets Hailey know that he sees her in a romantic light, and initiates the kiss. Beta cheers about them FINALLY crossing item number 143 off the list. Hailey confesses that she put kissing Scott on the list way back in fifth grade, but wanted to make sure it meant something when she crossed it off. They talk about her crush and how she stepped out of the way for Scott to be with Kristine, and then talk about Scott developing feelings for Hailey instead. They bond. Beta whines about the "mushy atmosphere" or something. Fluffy little ending.

Oh, and I want the show to NOT wait for "Kiss Scott Denoga" to be the last item Hailey has to cross off. Much like fellow Disney Channel cartoons Kim Possible and The Owl House (and even ML), I want Hailey's On It! to have a season where Hailey and Scott are dating while they knock off the last of Hailey's list items. I want to see them as a couple, not finish the series with them becoming one. I want to be rewarded for my patience through the slow-burn romance subplot. Which means I may finish my one-shot with a gag list item that Beta is now determined to get Hailey to do since #143 is FINALLY crossed off. Maybe the list item "rollerskate all the way to Orlando [from California]" which is teased in the opening theme song.

Maybe, instead of working on One and the Same or Seduce with Caution, when I meet up with Aurora to work on our writing I'll instead focus on this HOI one-shot. Maybe I'll take a break from ML and work on more HOI fanfic, or branch out to other fandoms. Maybe reconnect with old fandoms like "Hey, Arnold!" or X-Future. Maybe I need to shake things up to finally get my writing mojo back. Who knows?

With any hope, I will have a second November blog post for you fine folks at the end of the month. If I succeed, I have two goals to share in that post: 1) my HOI one-shot, and 2) my annual Giving Thanks list. Maybe focusing on the HOI fandom will inspire me to properly cross off my own goals. Here's hoping.

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