This Delay Brought to You by Insurance Shenanigans

So, things got a little bit derailed for me this week.

And by 'derailed' I mean:

I'm fine, the guy who hit me is fine - although I did nearly strangle him... - and the car WAS drivable still... sorta. At least, it was until I went to get quotes from different collision centers. The repetitive opening of the hood ended up shifting the already dislodged headlight, and now the hood won't latch closed... Soooooo, I'm letting it just kinda sit and wait until I'm ready to drive it to the body center...

In the meantime, Hubby's one friend has a loaner car we're borrowing. Back to driving stick, and boy howdy is this car LOUD! Not only the engine itself - because it has one of those sports car spoilers on the hood or whatever - but the inside of the car itself sounds like a wind tunnel! But, the car runs well, I still remember how to drive standard, and it's a way for us to go from point A to point B safely. That's all I care about right now.

Unfortunately, due to the nature of the accident, and a few other insurance complications - which I won't get into - getting my poor Cruze fixed up within a reasonable amount of time and within my budget may prove more challenging than originally thought.

That being said, it should be fairly obvious that I've been a bit... distracted this past week while trying to sort this out. I'm even late to publishing this week's post because I spent most of Tuesday and Wednesday running around trying to get all of my ducks lined up. I'm just mentally exhausted right now, trying to handle this nightmare of a claim.


Thankfully, there were also PLEASANT distractions for me this past weekend. So it wasn't ALL doom and gloom.

First of all, a new "Miraculous Ladybug" episode dropped last Thursday. On top of that, all of the previous episodes that originally had only French dubbing were finally released in English. So Wolfhearted swung by Friday night - after my accident - and we ate Camembert and quiche and watched the latest four episodes: Silencer, Bakerix, Onichan, and Miraculer.

Friday also had an update for EdenDaphne's story Discordant Sonata. It was a lovely conclusion to her akuma attack chapter. A bit of a game-changer chapter, actually. So, if you're into Miraculous Ladybug, want to check out a neat Enemy AU where Chat Noir is allies with Hawk Moth instead of Ladybug, and want a story elevated with mood music cues and illustrations, go check out her story.

Now circling back to Silencer for a moment. Back when the episode first aired, I made an observation about the character Luka. Actually, I made MULTIPLE observations about Luka. One of them included excitement over the fact that Luka finally has distinct eyelashes!

Luka in his introductory
episode Captain Hardrock. 

Luka in his most recent
episode Silencer

Another compare and contrast
L: Silencer
R: Captain Hardrock

Anyway the observation I wanted to actually talk about here is the fact that we got to see how much Luka truly loves Marinette in Silencer. I did up a quick micro-essay about it over on Tumblr, and it kind of blew up a little.

As of this writing, my post - Luka Defends - is up to 1581 notes! That's WAAAAAY more than any other original content I have posted on Tumblr!

It's good to see my boy Luka getting the love and respect he deserves.

Hacker Girl Facebook sticker
by Birdman, Inc.

It's been kinda cool to watch my Tumblr dash flood with "so-and-so liked your post Luka Defends" or "so-and-so reblogged your post Luka Defends" over the past month.

Another big post this past week was my answer to an ask Cyhyr sent me on Tumblr. She and I each shared a Tumblr game where 26 fanfiction-based questions are listed: A through Z. Your followers are supposed to ask you to answer the prompts/questions by sending you the corresponding letter.

Cy's ask for me was U: Share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much.

It kept me a minute to really narrow down to three fic writers, but even so, I couldn't stop there. I included seven in total, as well as gave myself a self-promotion at the end. Now, when I talked about each writer, I tagged their Tumblr accounts. Both Baneismydragon and Edendaphne reblogged my promotions of them, along with gushing thank-yous that made me tear up a touch.

Now, naturally, if each of those ladies have large followings, their followers will like and/or reblog from Bane or Eden, which would still show up on my dash since I was the originator of the post. Either way, after a week, the post is up to 176 notes, 24 of those being reblogs. I've also seen notes along the lines of "I haven't heard of everyone on this list, but if they're grouped in with [insert favorite writer here] then I'll have to make sure to check them out."

And, really, that's how it should be.

I know I was able to get a few new readers out of my self-promotion, so I hope that also means the other authors were able to find an uptick in their writings as well.

If you're into Miraculous Ladybug and wanted to see who I included in that ask, feel free to check out my answer here.

Another original post I threw up on Tumblr this week is actually a touch old for you fine folks. With the English airing of Silencer, and the popularity of my Luka Defends post, I figured I'd see what kind of response I'd get for the story I wrote for Taurus Pixie. It's a relatively short one-shot, so I went ahead and posted the full story onto Tumblr. I also included links to my FFN, AO3, and DA postings. This way people could read the story on the site they preferred, but they now also knew where else they could find my work.

My posting of I Was Thinking Of You on Tumblr has 67 notes, including 10 reblogs; one of which included the added comment of "Ahhh this killed me."

So, not much by way of new content this week, but I did do a lot of promotion for myself on Friday, which seems to be working at least a little. Since Friday, I've had 5 new likes/kudos on Peeping Tomcat, 4 new likes/kudos for Woven Heartstrings, 2 for Build Your Own Luck, and a whopping 11 for I Was Thinking of You, along with one fave of the story. I've also received 3 new comments on my stories. Now, I have no proof that any of those were because of the posts I put on Tumblr this weekend, but it's possible that they are.

One of the new comments on my fanfics was for PT, and it asked me if I would be posting "One and the Same" soon. The question is probably in part due to genuine interest in the story, which is cool, but it was also probably in part because I wrote in my closing notes of the story that OatS should be out in March...

Me as a Bitmoji

I haven't had the heart to message the person back yet to say that it's still going to be a while. I should probably use my guilt to motivate me to stop procrastinating with other projects, and just work on OatS again finally! It's been roughly a month. I need to stop dragging my feet.

That didn't stop me from ONE bit of new(ish) content on Sunday, and the intention of doing a daily-update series of about 17 posts.

That is, before the whole car accident thing...


Anyway, I have wanted to introduce the People of Tumblr to my original characters for MONTHS now, and this weekend I finally had the motivation to start writing up bios for everyone. Well, sorta. As I was working on the first bio, I realized that not everyone knows the Real World history for the inspiration of each character, or the worlds they belong in: Gyateara and Glitches. So my first task was to introduce them to the worlds.

It hasn't really had much love, and I kinda get it. I'm talking about my inspiration for world-builds for stories my followers aren't invested in because there's no actual story to read yet. I did mean to keep going with my series by explaining the Real World backstories to the creation of my characters. Then I would get into the actual character bios.

Buuuut, the car thing has been draining me, and I haven't had time to write this blog before now, let alone work on more of my Meet My OCs series.

Maybe I'll turn it into a weekly thing and post the next one on Sunday....

Anyway, if you'd like to follow along, the first post in the series can be found here: Who Wants To Meet My OCs? (Part 1)

So, between now and Sunday, I should work on that next post in the series. I should also REALLY work on OatS some more. We'll see where my head is at while I keep battling insurances and whatnot.

With any luck, I'll be back on schedule this upcoming Tuesday. So I'll catch ya then!

In the meantime, I'd like to wish my father a belated birthday.

Love you, Dad. Miss you.

Prepping for NaNo and Election Day

First and foremost, I want to say thank you and I love you all so much!

Hacker Girl Facebook stickers
by Birdman, Inc

I was in a bit of a funk last week and you all came charging in like a cavalry of White Knights. This is why I love my support group so much. My family, my friends, and my readers: you all rock so hard core! I have the best of all three.

I was already on an upswing. I was already fighting back. I was already determined to not let my funk keep me down. Yet you all came to my aid to help lift me up anyway, and I love you all for that.

ChibiSunnie started the charge by flooding my Facebook with love and hug stickers. She then reminded me that a lot of fanfic readers - at least, in the fandoms she's a part of - read fics in their short-lived downtime. I do have long chapters, so maybe people have my story dog-eared for later reading, but just don't have time now. Or they're flat-out intimidated by the 84,000+ words.

I don't know how I feel about that, considering there are tons of popular fics that are over 200,000 words long! But they are also roughly 40+ chapters long, so each chapter is roughly 4,000 words as opposed to my 7,000+ words. So... maybe? Regardless, she does have a point, and it was really sweet of her to remind me of that.

She also encouraged me to write more of my Miraculous Ladybug essays, and participate in fic prompt-challenges and the like to get my name out there.

I actually had similar advice from one of the fanfic authors I follow on Tumblr.

BaneIsMyDragon: I noticed you are dealing with the very real struggle of throwing fanfiction out into the void. The internet, and fandoms in particular, is such a fickle place, and it can be very difficult to find a foothold sometimes, regardless of talent. Remember that sometimes it can be very random what brings the change over from “obscure” to “popular”. That doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't feel disheatened when you are struggling to get feedback, but it does mean that you can look at the comments you do get as worth believing in. ^_^ I know for me, a lot of my stories wallowed in obscurity until I did some short story challenges that got semi popular, and that then lead people to my larger fics. If you are looking for ways to connect with the fandom challenges/prompt list request drabbles and things like that can be a great way to meet people and gain followers. Good luck and keep writing!

I had tagged Bane and a few other fic writers when I posted about last week's blog update. I was promoting their stories, so why not tag them? In truth, part of me did kind of hope they'd see their name and become curious about MY writing... leading them to read my stuff....

But I wasn't expecting getting advice. Especially since the "tossing into the void" bit wasn't on my Tumblr post. Bane would have had to read my blog to have noticed that. Which just makes my heart swell. It was really sweet of her to both read my blog and to then leave me a comment on my Tumblr.

Speaking of leaving comments! How can I forget the wonderful one Jowy's Pixie left me here last week? It's a bit lengthy to quote in its entirety here - much like Chibi's pick-me-up posts on my Facebook - but here's a basic summary; you can read the full comment on last week's post:

She noted that she thinks the Miraculous Ladybug fandom as a whole tends to be less generous with reviews, but she still gets my desire for more of them, along with more readers. She also reassured me that she's seen other high-quality fics like mine also get less recognition than she thinks they deserve, so I'm not alone in this problem. Much like Bane, Pixie pointed out that views and reviews seem to be sort of a luck-of-the-draw sort of situation, sadly. She then shared some trends she has been noticing, such as readers tending to lean more towards darker themed and AU fics right now. PT is neither of those.... She did suggest sharing a chapter of my fic on Tumblr to draw more attention to it. My chapters are so long I would have to do only a snippet, but that is a possibility... She concluded by reminding me that she thinks my story is still "incredibly underrated" which is why she made a point to have it be the first fanfic review she did on her blog.

Speaking of, she does have another fanfic review up as well as some insight into her own fanfics. If you haven't yet, go check out her blog: Taurus Pixie.

Anyway, Pixie noted that her fic review of “Peeping Tomcat” is currently her most popular post. While that's very encouraging, I also feel the reasoning behind the review of my story specifically being her most popular post is because of the times I've gone to it in order to grab a link to share, and/or because my family went to read it after I posted about it.... but it would be nice if the traffic to her post truly meant new readers for my story.

It did encourage one of her online friends TLOS21 to give my story a try. Actually, it seems that it was a one-two punch of Pixie's review and her actual fangirling to TLOS21 via messages. Either way, according to TLOS21 the excitement pouring out of Pixie made T just NEED to read this fic. She also noted in her review at the end of the last chapter that, if it weren't for school, she would have easily binge-read all 84,000+ words.

TLOS21: (Review on chapter 5) Wow! That was a really good chapter right there! You have detail but it wasn’t too much and it wasn’t just in general detail of things like how most authors do (ex, Ladybug purifying the akuma). You gave this story and chapter very well thought out detail with a good choice of words to describe things. Your OC of an akuma was excellent! The battle was amazing and the feelings of Chat/Adrien were wonderful! I felt like I was reading a script of an episode! This fanfic is super amazing so far! Please keep it up! I want to read more! See you in the next chapter!

(Review on chapter 17) Hello again! Me here! Hello! *waves* That was a beautiful story. All of it was amazing. I don’t think I could’ve thought of a better ending. It kind of seemed like the show a little bit, especially like “Origins: Part 2” in the umbrella scene. It ended where things got settled but there was still room for people to travel their imaginations with. The story was so beautiful and everything was amazing! The story and the side stories were all beautifully well written and portrayed very well. If it wasn’t for my conscious and me reading this on school nights, I would’ve binged the whole thing in one day. It had humor, suspense, and emotion all very well crafted into this story and there wasn’t too much of anything but not too little either. The personalities were pinned own so well that I had to remind myself that this wasn’t a script of the show, ha ha. You have a real knack for writing and I can feel and see all the effort you put in into every single one of these chapters. This is an amazing story! Don’t ever doubt yourself that this isn’t a good story, because that’s not true. This story is utterly amazing, one of the best I’ve read so far. Huge applause for you my friend!
Alrighty, now, to go hunt down that sequel fic. I’ll see ya then and I hope you have a good day! You rock!

Nah, TLOS21, YOU rock. You and all of my readers, and my friends, and my family. My whole support group, really. You guys are TOTALLY the ones who rock!

Marinette Dupain-Cheng in the episode Stormy Weather
Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir

To accentuate this point, I also thanked everyone on my Tumblr:

You Guys are Awesome

Also, as I mentioned in that Tumblr post, I'm weirdly proud of the moderately quick edit job I did for this pic.

BEFORE:

Marinette and Tikki in Style Queen

AFTER:

I wish I did better with the base of the dress dummy,
but otherwise I'm actually impressed...

When I was in my funk I very much felt like Marinette in the opening of the episode Style Queen: despite tons of evidence to the contrary - Marinette was supposed to be delivering her hat to Adrien to wear on the catwalk of his father's fashion show - she felt like she had no talent and no one would like her derby hat. It just felt fitting to switch the hat out for a book version of PT. I'm also kind of impressed on my equally quick edit to make PT look like a book. Here's that edit:

So, I may be trash at drawing, but I'm getting better and better at doctoring images. I've always been fairly good at that. So... maybe that will be my next campaign attempt to get people to read PT. Splice it into scenes of Miraculous Ladybug. It seems like a fun campaign. Maybe it will be how I stay active on Tumblr while I'm busy with NaNo next month.

And by "next month" I of course mean "starting Thursday"!!!!

Speaking of, I already have my NaNoWriMo calendar downloaded from DaveSeah.com. How about you?

Get yours here.

Dave is a graphic artist who so graciously creates these calendars for free download each year. There is a string of reasons why I love Dave's design, and why I've used it each year since I found it - and so far I've also WON both years I've used this calendar.

• The satisfaction of ticking off another box every 250 words.
• Keeping track of individual daily word counts, as opposed to the tracker on NaNo's site itself, which just has a running tally.
• Keeping track of weekly word counts, which may help later if you go back and analyze when you slowed down vs really got into the flow of your writing.
• That glorious large box to proudly write the total word count you hit by midnight November 30th.
• The listing at the end of each week as to how far you should be to hit the 50,000 word goal on time.
• The reminders to back-up your work, as well as encouraging bits under certain days, such as quarter mark, halfway mark, three-quarters mark, word count sanity check, "so close", and a reminder to post to NaNo before midnight.
• The overall streamlined look that is easy to read, and easy to quickly glance at to see your progress.
• Finally, the most important thing for me is that Dave already broke down what you need to adjust your word count to if you're only writing five days a week; allowing for two breather days so November doesn't feel AS overwhelming. 

It says "5 days a week....2,272 words/day..... 9 blocks/day when writing 5 days a week"

Writing daily always stressed me out, and if I missed a day I would panic. Knowing I have those two breather days - I generally don't automatically work them in, but I do aim for the last two days of my week to be my "off" days - really helps me forgive myself if I missed a day. And forgiving myself keeps my stress down, which keeps the writing fun. It also allows me to still socialize because I can count that as one of my weekly "off" days.

So, I strongly recommend this calendar to any who are participating in NaNo, and if you find it as helpful as I do, maybe you could check out Dave's other productivity tools: Dave Seah Productivity Tools

All of this NaNo talk brings me to what I've actually been doing this week, besides feeling the love from everyone.

I have a large chunk of my outline re-written. I should be more-or-less set at least to get started on Thursday. The big thing, though, is of COURSE the darn akuma attack. As per usual, I'm struggling to figure out what Ladybug's Lucky Charm is going to be and how she'll use it to stop the Villain of the Week, as it were.

But I think I have a few more of the other things sorted. My main hiccup was wondering, if Chat Noir is going to be captured by Headliner, why he doesn't use his Cataclysm to get out of the bind - literally. Also, why doesn't Headliner just take his ring while he can't move?

We'll see when I start my revisions in January if I like what I came up with, but for now it's good enough to get started.

Which reminds me, you can still send me a friend request on NaNoWriMo's website if you are also participating. We can be writing buddies and check in with each other; encouraging each other. I'm easy to find. I'm LycoRogue over there as well.

Unfortunately, since I've been focusing on getting set for NaNo, as well as cleaning to prep for Halloween tomorrow, I haven't had time to write anything narrative yet. Part of me thinks I could count the Gabriel Agreste character study I wrote up a few weeks ago, but another part of me thinks that's kind of a cop-out.

I do have two or three ideas that SHOULD be nice shorts. We'll see if I can find time to write them before midnight tomorrow. I'll be sure to share the links next week if I succeed.

When.

When I succeed. I was determined to post a new narrative each month, and I WILL. I have nine months under my belt, I can keep going. Next month is going to be tricky though... writing a new story while working on my NaNo story as well.

I guess I should get started on all of that though. Thanks again to all of you for the love, the pep-talks, and for taking some of your time to read what I wrote. It means the world to me.

Armstrong giving a loving bear hug to Ed while Winry, Pinako, and Al look on with varying degrees of appreciation towards the show of affection.
Fullmetal Alchemist

Oh, and also, a very happy Halloween to everyone as well. Along with a lovely Dia de los Muertos and/or All Saints Day.

OH! WAIT! BEFORE YOU GO!

I want to get in a quick PSA for any of my American readers. I know next week's blog post will be up on Election Day, but I want to give you guys time to RESEARCH YOUR BALLOTS.

Yes. Please, PLEASE take the time to really research who is running. These mid-term elections are kind of crucial this year, for both parties. Either the Republicans keep control, or the Democrats take it. So VOTE! Regardless of which side you land on - or if you're with alternate parties such as Tea, Independent, or Green - you NEED to make your voice known.

And in truth, it really shouldn't be #VoteRed or #VoteBlue. It should be #VoteForWhoRepresentsYou. So even if you're voting "across party lines", do it! Research the candidates and pick the ones that really stand for what you do.

For more information on what you should be voting on come Tuesday, November 6th - as well as where your polling place is - check out Vote411.org.

After punching in your address you can look up a ballot preview. Here's mine:

I deleted my district from US House, State Assembly, and State Senate for privacy reasons,
but your ballot preview will have those specified.
Also, I guess I need to research what the heck a Comptroller does... #ThingsSocialStudiesDidntTeachMe

You can then see who is on your ballot and ways to research them: their political background as well as their campaign platform and stance on major topics important to you such as taxes, health care, abortions, gun control, etc.

You can even have this information emailed to you so you have it on hand while you are at the polls.

Finally, a reminder for any who don't vote due to lack of transportation, both Lyft and Uber are teaming up to provide either free or discounted services to make sure you CAN get to the polls. Also, your work is LEGALLY OBLIGATED to give you enough time off to vote, so check in on what the specific regulations are on that. It should be readily available for you to see on the Department of Labor posters most companies have in their breakrooms. If you can't find it: ASK.

Please, please, please get informed on your voting rights, the voting rules and regulations - such as, you can't be promoting a party and/or candidate within the polling locations, who your candidates are, where your polling location is and how long is it open, how to write up an absentee ballot if needed, and how to get to the polls if you don't have reliable transportation. You have a week. You have time to research.

Okay, PSA is done.

Election day is Tuesday, November 6th. Most polls should be open between 6am and 9pm