Wait. How Do I Stop My Plot Points?

Est. Read Time: 20 min
This Month's Font: Playpen Sans

I had been debating with myself for over a week on how to start this update. I probably would have had this published days ago, but I just could not get started. I had the middle. I had the end. But not the opening.

And, boy howdy, is that ever a metaphor for my writing as a whole lately.

I come up with a cool scene, but it makes no sense without set-up, and that's the part I can't seem to figure out outside of a generic exposition dump like the text-crawl at the start of Star Wars movies. Or I have an opening, and I know how I want to end it, but what happens in between? What's the actual plot? 

This right here is why One and the Same hasn't gone anywhere for years. I know how I want the middle to go, and I know what I want the end to be, but I can't seem to get the set-up - the opening act - to make sense. For Seduce with Caution, I have an opening couple of chapters I'm happy with, and some cool scenes throughout the rest of the story, but that connective tissue between those scenes still alludes me. I even have two nearly-finished chapters that just sort of abruptly start in medias res and feel short without a proper opening to transition into the scene I wrote.

Like... how does one start things????

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No one I've talked to about these struggles in the past really had any answers. Likewise, there's crickets on my Discord server channels where I talk about my writing.

So, naturally, I decided to add another WIP to the mix... that'll help, right?

I mean, Linda Sejic created Punderworld as she stepped away from her main comic Blood Stain in an attempt to shake herself out of writer's block. So, maybe this WILL help? I hope so.

If you've been following my LycoRogue's Reading Corner updates - or if you've simply read my blog updates in 2024 - you're aware that I've been reading a LOT of isekai stories lately. Also, as I frequently talk about, these portal fantasy stories tend to come in 3 main flavors.

The first is your standard portal fantasy. A person from the real world full-on teleports into a new world. Various examples of this type of story includes: 

• The Pevensie children in The Chronicles of Narnia
• Dr. Daniel Jackson from the movie and spin-off series Stargate
• Anne from the Disney channel series Amphibia
• Fellow Disney channel character Luz from The Owl House
• Hitomi from The Vision of Escaflowne
• Miaka and Yui from Fushigi Yûgi
• Saito from The Familiar of Zero
• Naofumi from The Rising of The Shield Hero

So on, and so forth. I hope you get the idea. For this category, I'd also include the multitude of isekai-adjacent stories that have been prevalent lately: the "Main Character gets trapped in a video game via their VR headset" genre made popular by stories like Sword Art Online and Overlord.

The second concept is the reincarnation isekai. A person dies in our world and is reincarnated in a fantasy world, but retains all of their memories and adult intellect from their previous life on Earth. I personally haven't come across this style outside of Japanese stories, and even so, this isn't the main genre I watch. That said, I have watched at least three animes within this subgenre of isekai stories:

• The Saga of Tanya the Evil
• So I'm a Spider, So What?
• That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime

There's also those stories adjacent to the reincarnation isekai, where the main character is TECHNICALLY reincarnated in this new world, but they are "rebirthed" fully-formed in their "adult forms" like Athena or Aphrodite from Greek myth. Some examples of this would be My Unique Skill Makes Me OP Even at Level 1 or the delightfully absurd Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon.

The final flavor of isekai is transmigration. This one is my current pet genre to watch/read. If there's an isekai on my reading list, you can bet that it's a transmigration story. Basically, a person from our world ends up possessing a fictional character. This could be because they died in our world, but they don't HAVE to have died. 

While most reincarnation isekais (that I know of) seem to be predominantly male protagonists, the transmigration stories seem to be largely female protags. The fictional characters in question (that the main character possesses) tend to be from romance novels or dating sim games. This is where the ever-increasingly-popular subgenre of villainess isekai stories grew from. 

An adjacent subgenre is the pseudo time-travel transmigration story, where the main character dies, but their spirit then possesses a younger form of themselves so they can relive their life. Again, this is largely a female-dominated subgenre, but one of the more popular reincarnation/transmigration isekais - Re:Zero - does have a male lead, and takes this trope of "possess your past life" and cranks it to 11! (Also, death time loop stories like Edge of Tomorrow are tangentially part of this subgenre, I'd suppose...)

Now, why did I give you yet another primer/refresher on what isekai stories are? Shouldn't I save this for LycoRogue's Reading Corner? Well.... as you've probably guessed, this does indeed relate to my writing.

As I mentioned last month, I had come up with a little transmigration isekai story idea where a pair of lovers unknowingly transmigrate into the same fantasy world and re-find each other. Well, a little over a week ago, I came up with another one!

For those who haven't read this month's LRRC yet, I started reading a new isekai: I Am The Villain. The long-and-short of this story is that Lucy ends up teleported into her friend Sena's romance novel. Originally, both the readers and Lucy believe that she transmigrated into the body of Sena's villainess Lucia, who looks identical to Lucy. Meanwhile, Sena has become her protagonist Claire, who is Sena's self-insert character. The added complication is that (a) Lucy and Sena don't know that the other also isekai'd into Sena's story, and (b) the original novel version of both Lucia and Claire are still their own people, essentially creating two of each character within this story's world. Sena wrote Claire to look exactly like herself, so she easily stole Claire's identity and stepped in as her story's protagonist. Meanwhile, Lucy unintentionally usurped Lucia's life when the real Lucia went missing, and her brother thought he found her when he came across Lucy.

Going back to Sena as Claire, however, that is what sparked my latest story idea.

Sena is in awe that she gets to walk within the world she built and among the characters that she created. She marvels at how much more handsome the male cast is compared to what she even pictured. She notes how real they all are, but then casually laments that one character has to die so soon within her plot. Meaning he is not long for this world. 

That would kill me if I were Sena! I have a hard enough time causing physical pain to my characters. I struggle to leave lasting scars, let alone maiming/dismembering my characters, causing them to become physically disabled at all. To kill them?! I'm getting choked up just thinking about it!

So.... what if the main character of an isekai is a writer like myself, but teleported into their story like Sena? As of right now, I'm picturing the main character as female. Mostly because (a) that's just common for this genre, and (b) I'm a female, so it's easier to write.... I don't have a name yet, so I'm gonna call her MC (for Main Character) for this.

Introducing MC, an introverted writer vastly lacking in personal connections. She's chronically online, getting her socializing done almost exclusively behind anonymous internet handles on social media.

She loves her fans, and enjoys doing meet-and-greets with them, but she doesn't have too many actual irl friends. They all drifted away from her as they aged. She became more engrossed in her fans and the worlds she builds to compensate.

Sometimes, she gets so engrossed in her WIPs that she goes radio-silent as she spends nearly every waking moment either researching or writing her latest story. People have gotten used to this, so no one (including fans) really bats an eye if no one has heard from her for weeks at a time. As long as she still checks in at least once a month and she hits her deadlines, everyone simply assumes she's hyperfixating and is otherwise fine.

She's a bit of a prolific writer, but her most popular stories are all within the same regency fantasy franchise (think Bridgerton). Franchise title TBD.

One night, MC is particularly worn out. She had just published the latest installment in her franchise, but way overworked herself to get it done by her deadline. Due to her hyperfixation with her story, she hasn't been eating well (if at all), has become very dehydrated, and has been pulling way too many all-nighters. Her poor self-care has caught up with her. She's feverish. She's all alone in her small apartment. She's weak, but assumes she just needs to finally rest. She falls asleep fantasizing about being pampered and nursed back to health like one of her protags. (Yes, I swiped this idea from the inciting incident of My Housemate Sano-kun Is Just My Editor!)

She is rudely woken up the next day as someone whips open the curtains in her room. Except, she's not in her room anymore! She's in a queen-sized canopy bed with intricately carved posts. The sheets are the softest fabric she's ever felt. The mattress is so cozy she never wants to leave. And the woman who woke up MC is dressed as a regency-era maid. She greets MC pleasantly but a bit sternly, as if expecting MC to be in that bed; as if she recognized her. However, she doesn't call MC by her name. The name DOES sound familiar, though (I'm thinking maybe Olivia???). The maid verbally encourages MC to get out of bed and greet the day, rattling off that day's schedule. When MC complies, the maid instantly starts getting MC ready for the day: fetching water to wash up with, laying out her clothes, helping her get dressed, doing her hair, etc.

Upon seeing herself in the mirror, MC realizes why she recognized the name the maid called her. She has transmigrated into her self-insert character within her story franchise! Understandably, MC assumes she's having a fever dream brought on by thinking too much about her story lately, and enjoys the pampering.

...Except... Would a fever dream include uninterrupted bathroom breaks? Or uneventful meals, no matter how delectable the food is? Or the boredom of filling a slow evening post-supper?

It soon dawns on our MC that this is no dream! Somehow she ACTUALLY transmigrated into her story franchise as her self-insert character! She now has a comfortable life of luxury and all the free time she wishes. Writing might prove more difficult without the aid of a computer to type or research on, but that's a small inconvenience for everything she just got! Easy trade! Best yet, it's not like all of those typical transmigration stories where the main character becomes the villainess! She's her self-insert, who is just a minor character in her franchise! She has little-to-nothing to do with the plot. Just an extra body to fill in a few scenes to make the world feel more alive. She can live a cozy, cushy life of an aristocrat just on the outskirts of drama. (Aaaaand I swiped this part from Her Wish to be Isekai'd. Don't steal the whole crown, but feel free to steal some jewels to make your own crown....)

It's not long before MC is invited to one of those high-society parties that her character was created to help populate. She delights in getting dolled up and rubbing elbows with the nobility within her world. She is gobsmacked at how real and alive her characters all are. They're more elegant than she could picture, and their outfits more intricate and gorgeous than she could imagine. They are cunning and witty and playful. Just as she designed each one to be. She tears up a little, like a proud mama watching her grown children.

Then, she bumps into one particular character. He's a sweetheart to her. He's exactly as gentlemanly and noble as she wanted him to be. As he walks off, she reflects on how many people would have died to have been able to interact with such a fan-favorite character. She then starts tearing up, realizing how relieved she is that she had the chance to actually meet him before he was brutally killed. It had pained her to do it, but the battle just didn't feel realistic or as impactful if there weren't some named casualties. "For the story," she had wept as she wrote his bitter death scene.

But he's right there! He's alive and well! Oh, lord! He's destined to die, and it's all her fault! All of these lovely people are about to Go Through It, and it will all be by her design! No! Her precious characters are all living in their lovely Status Quo. How can she stop the plots of her novels from kicking off??? At the same time, though, there WERE some satisfying endings where characters were able to find their true loves and villainous characters got their comeuppance. Can she still get that to happen without too many of the tragedies that she had worked in????

There HAS to be a way, right? She created the plot, she must be able to influence it, right???? And it doesn't have to be entertaining anymore, just effective. It doesn't matter if a battle doesn't seem impactful or threatening. The attackers can be pushovers that are easily captured without a single casualty. Who is she trying to entertain anymore anyway?

With the same hyperfixation that got her in trouble and isekai'd in the first place, she is determined to direct her characters to their fated happy endings, and stop her villains (maybe rehabilitate them???), all while avoiding death and bloodshed, if possible. Problem is... she's not the author anymore! She's just a silly little side character now. A lower noble that the main characters rarely interact with. How can she affect anything????

Also, you KNOW I have to have my own romance subplot. I'm thinking at least one knight or noble or royal or whomever starts to fall for her, but she's so fixated on saving all of her precious characters that she is OBVILIOUS to the flirting and romantic advancements. Those are a distraction! Maybe there's a popular crack ship of her self-insert side character with one of the secondary love interests of the main plot? All of the fans wanted him to find someone after the story's protag chose the other love interest, and thought the MC's side character would be a perfect match for him. The MC never understood the ship, especially since she never actually had the two characters interact. However, he is definitely paying more attention to her than the protag he was SUPPOSED to be wooing, dammit! Were the fans right all along????

Lastly, I think it would be important for her to finally form a social group. She starts awkwardly doing so as a way to garner more influence over her characters to try to protect them, but it becomes a legitimate and caring friend group. Problem here is that she falls into the same pattern she had on Earth: she becomes too focused on her work (in this case, saving her characters, as opposed to writing her novels) and starts to isolate herself again, assuming none of her friends truly want to spend time with her anyway.

As for the broad strokes of the plot, that's all I have right now. More than I thought I had, honestly. And the rabbit hole goes deeper, but I'll get to that. 

When I first thought of this story, I only had a basic elevator pitch:

Instead of the person possessing the villainess trying to change the plot to avoid her death, my protag would be the transmigrated author now going, "OH SHIT! HOW DO I STOP THE PLOT POINTS FROM HAPPENING! EVERYONE MUST LIVE HAPPILY-EVER-AFTER!"

Problem is, this author's self-insert character was just a side character with little-to-no authority over anything....

Aurora Morgen jumped in and told me, "I like it. 10/10 would read. That problem is a good plot element. Makes it that much more exciting when they do figure out how to stop the plot points."

That was all the encouragement I needed. After thinking about it a couple more days, I decided the plot bunny had stuck around long enough to talk about it here. I started writing up the above synopsis, unsure if I was going to give more than that original elevator pitch. But then more just kept flowing! I'm definitely more locked-in on this idea than the "lovers re-find each other" plot bunny I shared last month. I'm super excited about this. If I can't break my current writer's block over my Miraculous Ladybug fanfics, maybe I should spend next month focusing on this instead. I mean, there's still some pretty key things that I need to sort out.

• What is the main character's original name?
• What is her self-insert character's name? Do I lock in Olivia? I did a quick search for regency-era names, and found this link. There isn't a single O-name listed for females. Does that mean Olivia won't work? Should I make that the MC's original name instead? (I'm kinda feeling Olivia for her one way or another....)
• What is the name of her regency-era franchise?
• Should her franchise be more like Bridgerton and be based in reality? Or should I lean into most of the fantasy worlds used in these villainess transmigration stories? Add some magic/monsters/attacking demons?
• What are the plots of her books that she's trying to prevent?
• Who would be the main characters she's trying to save? And which one(s) would be her love interest?
• Did she die from her illness and now lives the rest of her days as her side character? Or is she in a coma, and she has the option to return to her real body at the end of the story? If the latter, does she???

Lots to think about.

In the meantime, I already had a nice glimpse into how my main character thinks. How she plots out her stories, poking holes in her plans to make sure they're strong before committing them to paper.

*Note, the next passage would all be presented in the story as the main character's thought process as she problem solves.

The main character comes up with what seems like the obvious solution to explain away why she knows that bad things are coming, and to convince her characters to listen to her advice. She'll tell everyone that she's clairvoyant! Duh! She can see the future!

Except... she never established in her stories that this character is clairvoyant. She never even included foresight/fortune telling in any of her novels. For all intents and purposes, this kind of thing isn't real/believed by sensible folk. How does she convince everyone?

She has to let a more mild plot point come to pass and let people know about it. That will prove that she has The Gift... but why would it start NOW, when she's in her early 20s? Why wasn't she clairvoyant earlier in life? What changed?

A HEAD INJURY! She could get a minor bump on her head, ham it up to make it seem more serious. Then claim it did something to her mind and she can see flashes of the future now!

There's a montage of her orchestrating minor head injuries.... only to be protected from them each time. (yes, I did steal this failed head injury plot-point from At Your Mercy) If the main character keeps trying to seemingly get a nasty head injury it will become obvious that she's doing so on purpose.... She needs a new plan....

A CURSED ITEM! Perfect! She can start having visions due to this item, and then, once the plot changes enough that she doesn't know what will happen next, she can get rid of the item to explain why she can't see the future anymore! Why didn't she think of this first?

OK. So, she has to find an ominous-looking, mysterious jewel from an "disreputable" source that is still appealing enough that it feels organic that this side character would not only buy it, but would want to keep it with her. How is she going to manage THAT without raising any flags???

After a few more antics and shenanigans (TBD), she manages to find the perfect jewel to play the part of her mysterious cursed item.

Except, in the process of trying to fake a head injury and then acquiring said item, she's already changed more than she realized. She goes to showcase her first premonition by claiming something unexpected would happen to a specific noble during this exact social gathering....

... and it doesn't happen ...

People wave it off as her having a very weird and vivid dream, and think nothing more about it.

She sighs. Back to the drawing board.... Only now she's unsure if she even can still predict the plot enough to stop the more distressing plot points from happening!

Man! Look at everything I already thought of for this concept in about 10 days!!!

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Edited by LycoRogue

I keep thinking, "man, I haven't written in a while. I'm not getting any writing done. Do I even remember how to write? Why is this so hard for me? Why am I slacking?" And yet, I seem to have something new to tell all of you fine folk every month! So, I guess I'm doing better than I thought. 

One of the benefits of having this blog is being able to see that. To properly reflect and see my writing for what it is, as opposed to how I feel or think it is.

Speaking of, I actually got another comment on Could Your Paradise Also Be Your Hell? Despite that story being one of my most popular ones - 2nd in kudos and hits, 3rd in bookmarks, and 2nd among my one-shots in comments - I haven't had a new comment on it since September 2023! What's even more fun is that I had included a dumb little The Road to El Dorado reference in my story, and this reader not only picked up on it, but joked back about it. Man, I love that!

She really needed that cold splash of water now, and certainly couldn't share this bed with that man. Nope. Can't do it. Not today. - The Stars not in alignment?

Also, the love for You Pretended Not to Care is still pouring in. Usually, it's just one new kudos, but I have had a couple of days where 2 or 3 people left kudos on it. I also get at least one kudos notification per week for this story, and that's with it being nearly a year old! (Good golly! It's almost a year old!)

The weirdest thing for me, however, is that I Think I Like You (Maybe More Than I Should) is getting relatively significant love again. As much love as YPNTC throughout March. Huh!? That story was published last May. It's over 10 months old! That's practically ancient in the flood of ML fanfic. There is just shy of 76k different stories within the fandom's tag on AO3! Out of that mountain of content to read, the VAST majority (62,938 stories; 83%) are written in English and aren't crossovers. That is a LOT of competition for older stories to push against. And yet, both Could Your Paradise and I Think I Like You are managing! Since both are spin-off stories of fics that MostLovedGirl wrote, I hope that means her stories are still getting flooded with love too.

Maybe that's what's happening. People are still reading MLG's stories, and my fics are listed as "inspired by" at the end of her work. People find my stuff that way. I mean, I'll gladly take it. I can't think of many other reasons for my stories to be found and read now, months and years after they are published. Then again, I haven't started watching the latest season yet - although, we FINALLY have an air date for EPISODE 1 finally! - so maybe something happened in canon that also relates to my stories somehow? And that's why people are finding them so late???? I guess I'll find out once I catch up after April 26th....

Getting back to that flood of stories, however. I had looked up how many total works on AO3 were in the ML fandom last Thursday. When I looked it up again today to update the above numbers, FIFTY-FOUR new stories had been added in the last four days! 

Comparatively, there's One Piece. Specifically, the manga/anime fandom, as opposed to the sub-fandoms of the live action Netflix show, the video games, or a D&D web series within the world of One Piece. The manga started WAAAAAY back in 1997, and the anime started in 1999. BOTH ARE STILL GOING! This is a much-beloved series that has been around for over 25 years! There has been PLENTY of time for fans to write fanfics for the show, and yet it "only" has 88,086 stories on AO3 (66,221 stories if you're only looking for non-crossovers written in English).

HOW DOES THE MIRACULOUS FANDOM - which has "only" been around for 9 years - NEARLY HAVE AS MANY FICS AS ONE PIECE???

Prolific. This fandom is filled with prolific writers. They are insane. Bless them all.

I know I've poked at this idea in the past, but I'm starting to finally have enough confidence to really believe it is a factor. The reason I get so lost in the shuffle within the fandom is (probably?) because I don't write as prolifically as the Big Name authors. I don't post something new daily or weekly or even a couple of times a month in order to stay towards the start of the fic search results. When I do post, it's generally a chonker of a story. Easily 4500+ words. Not the shortest/easiest fics to read and digest quickly between classes or while commuting on the bus or while taking a lunch (or bathroom) break at work. Stories 4500+ words long can be intimidating. Especially when you have 20 stories under 3k words that you could read instead.

It's basically the same mentality as those who can binge 4hrs of TV episodes, but can't sit through a 2.5hr movie.

Which is a lot of people, to be fair....

So, maybe that truly is my problem.

1. I don't publish frequently enough to be towards the top of search results
2. My stories are too long, and

Sweet Brown/Ain't Nobody Got Time for That meme
(yes, I'm still using a meme from 2012. I'm old. Leave me alone)

Maybe if I found a platform that wasn't so crowded I could find space to plant my flag. Nothing's really had a chokehold on me the way Miraculous Ladybug does, though. Not since I got introduced to the show, at least. So, who knows?

In the meantime, I'm gonna keep reading my isekai stories on WEBTOON, and hope it helps inspire me to keep working on my latest plot bunny. Or, maybe one of the stories will take hold the way ML has, and I'll have a new fandom to spread my wings into. Keep your fingers crossed!

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Before I go, though, it's time for March's blessing. It feels like I'm cheating, especially since I've done this two months in a row now, but I think I've already talked about what I'm thankful for in March. Namely, that I not only found inspiration for a new story, but also that it's an original story - instead of fanfiction - and that I thought of so much of it already with barely a week to ponder.

I mean, let's let that second bit sink in for a moment. Aside from Scum & Villainy or D&D plotlines, I have not thought of an original story since I wrote Blame Fate for This for Ronoxym's 30th birthday back in 2019! Five years! Actually, closer to 5.5yrs since my brain was able to come up with an original story!

And yet... boom! Two new story concepts in as many months! And one has a decent structure started already. I'm having so much fun with this concept too. I'm really excited about seeing how much more I can develop it. It's been AGES since I've felt THIS excited about writing. So.... yeah... may be a bit of a cop out since this was also the main topic of my update this month, but I don't care. My blessing is definitely my Muse returning to me on the back of these endless isekai/transmigration stories I've been reading.

Thank you, Muse, for stopping by to chat for a while. I hope you enjoy your stay and decide to extend it.

In the meantime, I'll catch all of you peeps in about two weeks for my next LycoRogue's Reading Corner!

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Incoming Gush Fest

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Hello again, peeps! Phew! I JUUUUUUST barely made my "one blog post per month" deadline, huh? Funny thing is, I had started working on this post back around the 13th or something like that. Had most of it written by St. Patrick's Day. I just needed to finish up my thought, then edit, and then I'd be good and golden to publish.

And yet, here it is, the last day of the month, and I'm only publishing this post NOW. Like, what happened to March!? What happened to February, even? Both months just flew by for me. I'm still reeling a bit.

I know that I'm definitely now an Adult(TM) by the fact that I can't seem to keep track of time anymore. It all just zips by me. As a kid, days would crawl on, and I could do a hundred things between waking and going to bed. Now? I'm lucky if I check three things off my To Do list before passing out.

Case and point: this blog. I never did get back to recapping more of the Scum and Villainy sessions before the end of February. And now it's keeping me over TWO WEEKS to get a post finished! I'm still struggling to find writing time outside of work, and so I end up reconciling myself to slowly chipping away at a post whenever I can while at work.

It is so frustrating that I'm still battling with prioritizing my writing like this. I just have too much on my plate and not enough time in the day to chew through it all. The irony is that this post was all about me not having time to write, how I didn't work on any writing (outside of this blog) since mid-December, but also how I was going to re-prioritize now that I'm trying to get my writing mojo back.

...And then it kept me an extra two weeks to finish said post.

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The even bigger irony is that I now have to basically start from scratch because... well... within those two weeks that this post was delayed... I WROTE SOMETHING!

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Yeah!

I'll circle back to that though.

First, you might have noticed that I'm not writing in my normal font of Coming Soon. No, I didn't get an answer from my readers as to which font worked best for you guys. So, instead of dragging out a question that might not ever get answered, I decided to be a bit more pro-active. I'm taking the "finalists" of Indie Flower, Josefin Sans, Kalam, and Mali, and dedicating a post to each font. I'll then go back and see how I feel about an entire post in that font as opposed to Coming Soon. I'll decide from there which to ditch and which I might use permanently. You are of course still more than welcome to comment below on which font you find easiest to read or which font you think still has that unique "handwritten" aesthetic while being a touch more professional looking (bring this blog out of the early 00s and into the 2020s), and the like.

This month, I'm starting with Josefin Sans. I was going to start with Indie Flower, but, after going back through this post while it is in that font, I instantly cut it from the running. Sorry for those who liked the look of Indie Flower, but it definitely felt harder for me to read once it's in a longer format. At least that cuts our possible fonts down to just four.

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Okay! That bit of house keeping taken care of, let's get back to me actually writing something!

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Back around Valentine's Day this year, my husband had introduced me to the song "Siren" by April Fooze; the NoPixel character of streamer Fuslie. I've been obsessed with this song for the past month.

Fast forward a couple of weeks to the start of March. The artist Ceejles posted some fanart she did of Yor and Loid from the anime SpyxFamily. I instantly fell in love with the impassioned - but drunk - kiss in the opening three panels of the fan comic. I even downloaded it onto my phone to use as my wallpaper.

Then, on Monday, March 20 - the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere - it was like the perfect storm hit. I was listening to "Siren" yet again when I looked down at my phone; seeing Ceejles' fanart of Loid and Yor. Loid being a chiseled blonde, and Yor being a more petite - but still fierce - woman with black hair made me picture them instead as adult versions of Adrien and Marinette. In fact, that's one of the reasons I got into SpyxFamily in the first place. I had seen a bunch of fanart for the show, and kept thinking artists were creating aged-up fanart for Miraculous Ladybug. I was very confused over on Tumblr for a couple of weeks last year.

Anyway, picturing Ceejles' scene with Marinette and Adrien instead of Yor and Loid, and adding in the sultry song "Siren"? A scene instantly started playing out in my head.

I had a rare Monday off, and so I was home. Hubby was at work, which meant I was alone for some uninterrupted Me Time. I had my laptop open anyway in an attempt to iron out the last of what I needed for our Scum and Villainy session that night. As I sat in front of my computer and the Adrienette scene continued to play out in my head I literally told myself - as in, I said it out loud - "You idiot. WRITE IT DOWN! What's stopping you? Why is this not your default? Why are you only writing it mentally? Get it out of your head! Do it!"

And so, I did.

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I put "Siren" on loop and had Ceejles' picture up on my phone to help keep me in the right mindset. My Muse decided to pay me an unexpected visit, and, by gum, I was going to follow her anywhere!

I'm clearly a bit rusty after going roughly 3 months without writing fiction. I started writing around 2:30/3:00 in the afternoon. Hubby telling me he was done with work and ready for a pick-up came unexpectedly fast at 4pm. I still had to finish the story, but I also had to work on preparing for Scum and Villainy that night. I was a little bummed to be interrupted after all, and upset that a relatively short scene - for me, at least - was taking over an hour to write. Defeated, I went to get my husband and mentally switch gears.

Then, in a weird twist of fate, the Perfect Storm continued. As Hubby and I got home our landlady informed us that the maintenance guy would be able to work on replacing our busted kitchen overhead light that evening. We had been struggling with this light for at least a year. Sometimes it would work. Other times it wouldn't at all. Others still, it would work but then almost instantly start strobing on us. The landlady thought it was because the bulbs were burnt out, so she tried to switch them out. It worked for a little while before it started again. Then she had to wait for the maintenance guy - who does building maintenance for her as a secondary job - to be able to check the light to see what the problem was. Then she had to wait for a replacement light fixture to be in stock.... it's been a bit of a saga. So I wasn't about to tell her, "actually, we're having people over tonight. Can we reschedule?" because I wasn't sure how much of a delay there would be before the maintenance guy would be available again.

Sadly, this meant having to cancel the Scum and Villainy session because having people over while the maintenance man was in our kitchen felt like a bit much. Especially if he needed to ask us questions or have us help him somehow while he was switching out our light. On the plus side, however, this meant more time for me to write!

It also turned out to be a good thing that we cancelled game since the maintenance man had to turn off the power to the whole apartment, not just the kitchen. While it would have been a bit of a headache to have lost the power with everyone over, I was able to use the time to continue writing thanks to the battery of my laptop and the sunlight that was still coming through the windows. Yay, having a bright, clear, sunny day for the start of spring! And yay that the sun didn't set until closer to 7pm! By then my story was finally done!

It had kept me another two hours - between roughly 5pm and 7pm - to finish writing this "short" scene! About three hours total to write under 1500 words. Sheesh. I know that might be fast for most people, but for me? It's painfully slow.

I also didn't really have much time with my husband between him being at work and me isolating to write. So that sucked. It then took me over an hour to format, publish, and promote the story in my normal 4 sites. Hubby and I didn't have dinner until almost 9pm (we typically eat between 6 and 7). I only really interacted with my husband for three or four hours that day. For people who still genuinely enjoy their spouse's company, that was rough, and I missed him terribly despite being in the same house as him for 4hrs of our time "apart."

But, in the end, the story was complete! It was edited. It was published. I had done it! The first bit of fiction that I've published this year!

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Tell Me You Want Me When You're Sober

Summary: While at Alya and Nino's house-warming party, Marinette wandered off to take a breather. Noticing her vanishing act, Adrien went to look for her. Hidden away in the guest bedroom being used as a coat-check room, the two take a moment to themselves. The fun little intimate moment between friends becomes more intimate than either of them anticipated.

Rating: Teen for mildly suggestive elements

Word Count: 1450

• On ArchiveOfOurOwn		• On FanFiction
• On DeviantArt		• On Tumblr

The story has been up for over a week, and the reception it has received has me in tears in the best way. I don't know what it is about this story that particularly resonated with people, but I've been getting so SO much love and praise. Maybe it's because it's the 7th-shortest story I've ever published on AO3 (out of 48 total), and the 5th-shortest ML fic (out of 30). Maybe that's the overall readership hook that I've been missing: a short story to capture people and entice them to read more? Because that's what's been happening!

It started with AO3 user MeowMeowKissyKissy reading Tell Me You Want Me When You're Sober (TMYWMWYS), and then reading/commenting on Build Your Own Luck and then continued to ALSO read Rolling Thunder. Then, AO3 user dabnyfantown did the same thing. They started with TMYWMWYS, then moved on to read I'm Not Allowed to Love You, followed by Is It True?, and then followed AGAIN by Woven Heartstrings! Their last comment was on the first chapter of WH, so I'm not sure if that was the only chapter they had read at the time? Assuming that to be true, that's still 7800 words and 4 stories read - at least, in part - between something like 3:45pm and 5:10pm! A couple of days later, presumably after finishing Woven Heartstrings, they read and commented on I Was Thinking of You as well! They even told me they should have been sleeping but "needed" to read more of my content! Like... WHAT!? NEEDED!? Such high praise!

I was crying every time someone like MeowMeowKissyKissy or dabnyfantown commented on my stories. I was getting repeat readers! I was getting key smash comments and caps lock comments and a parade of exclamation points. These people were shouting at me how much they enjoyed my work!

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Then came another surprise that truly honored me.

At least within my curated circle of the fandom, the user SteelBlaidd is a fairly prominent member. Between May 2020 and March 2023, they have written 38 stories for Miraculous Ladybug! (Reminder that, comparatively, I have 30 stories for ML and I started publishing them 2 years before SteelBlaidd). I've seen them get so much love for their stories, and I also very VERY much enjoy them. This is a case, much like with EdenDaphne or MostLovedGirl or ZenMisery or Buggachat or Keyseeker, where I truly admire and respect this writer. Well, not only did SteelBlaidd leave kudos and a comment on my story - which alone was like "eeeeeeee" - but they also concluded their comment with, "I realized I had not subscribed to you. An oversight that has now been corrected."

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WHAT!? Excuse me. Did they call NOT subscribing to me "an oversight"!? ME!? MY work!? I was screaming. First, Keyseeker read and reviewed my story - which, she does quite frequently, and it still makes me giggle with glee each time - but then SteelBlaidd made sure to subscribe to me!?

Peeps, I was on Cloud Nine! After literal years of wondering about my writing and if it will ever get noticed, the reaction to my writing this past week has had me in TEARS with how amazing it's all felt.

Yes, yes. I hear all of you who have supported me through the years already screaming at me. You did remind me that my writing was good and that I was a skilled writer. You did inform me that it was almost a luck-of-the-draw sort of thing when it came to becoming recognized within a fandom; especially a large one. You had told me not to worry, and yet I did.

My insecurities and imposter syndrome got the better of me, and I apologize for not listening to your support; for not trusting you. Thank you for sticking with me and reassuring me the whole time anyway. You are all real ones.

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Anyway, SteelBlaidd proceeded to then comment on the story I had posted in December: Is He Loved? Is He Happy? Their comment made me cry all over again:

SteelBlaidd: This is why I said it was a grave error on my part to not be subscribed to you.
I could have read this months ago!

This is a wonderful infill for the episode and the characters have lead you to marvelous places.

A "grave error" to not be subscribed to me? SteelBlaidd, you're killing me!

Marinette from Miraculous Ladybug
in episode "Stormy Weather"

The reception has been so much more than what I shared above! This is probably one of my most interacted with stories in a while. Here's the Week 1 stats!

AO3: 661 hits, 79 kudos, 6 bookmarks, and 9 comments
FFN: 249 views, 8 faves, 4 follows, and 3 reviews
DA: 379 views, but no other engagement

Total Results: 1289 views, 87 kudos/faves, 10 bookmarks/follows, and 12 reviews! IN ONE WEEK!

Tumblr Notes: 26 total; 11 likes off my post, another 6 likes off Ladynoir AO3 Feed's post, 5 reblogs off my post, another 3 off LN AO3's post, and 1 comment on my post

AO3 Reviews:

1. Awwww i love this!!!
2. This was super cute
3. Ah! That was just too sweet. Adrien is indeed a noble fellow [redacted due to possible spoilers]. Excellent writing!
4. Oooh this is lovely. I’m glad that [redacted due to spoilers].
5. Adrien is such a sweetheart! They're just too sweet together.
6. That was wonderful!
7. AHHHH i loved this i love [redacted due to possible spoilers] im so happy for them thank u for writing
8. Sosososo well written I love a king that [redacted due to possible spoilers]
9. This is our boy!
   Always a TRUE gentleman.
   This is our girl!
   Always an adorable disaster.
   
   I came to find this after seeing your response to the tumblr post on writing vs posting.
   I realized I had not subscribed to you. An oversight that has now been corrected.

Other Reviews:

1. This is cute! I love this and I love that your muse took control for a while! Good job listening and letting her do her thing! Hehe
2. so good! always happy when you grace us with an MLB fic!
3. that was great!
4. YOU WROTE SOMETHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m so happy for you!!!!!

Excuse me, but "grace us" with a fic? Someone (*cough*LivreVer*cough*) SCREAMING about how happy they are that I wrote something!?

Peeps! I can't! It's all too lovely! You are all so awesome. I love you all so much!

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I will try to hold on REAL tight to all of this love, and remember to come back to this post the next time I doubt myself.

Now, this was where I originally talked about the other "writing" I was doing at the start of the month. Mostly, going back to Seduce with Caution to see if I could push through my block now that I've had four months to freshen up my eyes. I didn't actually write anything for it, but I did go back to thinking about it. I've also been creative with coming up with stuff for SaV, of course.

However, this post is already getting long with me gushing and throwing in about a dozen images. (Speaking of, if you haven't noticed, I did add alt-text to the images I posted today. I'm trying to put in more effort to be more inclusive, so please let me know if there's more I can do. Also, let me know if the alt-text doesn't work. I can't actually preview it before posting....) Anyway, the blog post that I had written earlier this month - which talked about me working on SaV and SwC - was roughly a 30min read all on its own. Add in the post you fine folks got instead? Yeah. Felt a bit much.

So all of that stuff was shifted to a new post draft. With any luck, I'll be able to polish and finish that one relatively quickly. And then you'll have your April blog post in just a week or two from today. Neat, right?

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In the meantime, thank you all one last time for all of the love and support, both new and very old. You are all beautiful people and I love each and every last one of you to pieces. You truly help lift me up and keep me going. I just want to bear-hug each and every last one of you.

Okay! Enough gushing! I'm off to work on finishing up the job for the next SaV session on April 3rd. And also possibly publishing a new post in a week as well!

Will You Be My Valentine?

Est. Read Time: 30min

Happy Valentine's Day, friends!

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It's been a touch longer since my last post than I had intended. It's still very much February though, so I'm still sticking with my goal of at least one blog post per month. Can't be mad about that. It is Valentine's Day though, and how could I miss the opportunity to make my February post also a love letter to my fine readers.

So, may I ask for each and every one of you to collectively be my platonic valentines today? Because I want to share with you all of the love you've shown me over the years.

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You are all such amazing people, and I am always so pleasantly overwhelmed by the love my writing gets. I know I whine a lot about how my readership isn't as vast or active as the fanfic authors I idolize, or I lament my stories not getting spin-off fanfics or fanart or fan theories like big-name fanfics get. I do tend to be ungrateful as I fall into my self-doubt spirals. I am so sorry for that and for guilt-tripping any of you about how you love my stories. How you do so shouldn't matter. What should matter is that you DO love them and read them and support me. So, thank you. I love you. You make my writing worthwhile. Your likes and kudos and faves and bookmarks and comments and reblogs all bring huge smiles to my face. I recognize the repeat readers, and you remind me that my writing is good enough for someone to want to read more from me. I see the new names, and you remind me that my writing isn't as invisible as I believe. You are all beautiful people, and I wouldn't be as far along in my skill if it weren't for you.

I know that the adage (and the healthier option for participating in a hobby) is to do it for me; no one else. However, I used to write for me. I used to tell myself stories. I was content keeping them in my head (maybe take some physical notes to keep the details straight). It was rare that I would actually follow through with writing anything down for years and years and years. If no one else was reading it, why bother putting in the effort to write it when I could just create the stories in my head?

Then I got into fanfiction writing. I still wrote for myself; just to get the ideas out of my head. I never edited, though. First draft was final draft. Throw it up online. If people see it they see it, if not... well... I wrote it for me. Not the greatest mindset for trying to hone or improve one's skills though. And, without trying to improve and sharpen my skills, my desire to become a published author was little more than a pipe dream and wishful thinking living off the scraps of being told most of my life that I was a gifted writer.

Then I started writing for my readers. No, I wasn't writing stories simply because I thought it's what you want to read. In that regards I still write for me. I still tell stories I want to tell and stories I wish I could read myself; so I create them. The part about writing for you, my readers, is more about my motivation. See, my desire and drive to improve my writing stems from my want to put out better stories for my readers. I started editing, revising, and - gasp - PRE-PLANNING my stories so the end results are better for my readers. I feel guilty about not being as prolific a writer as others I follow within the fandom because I want to have more things for my readers to enjoy. I have this blog so I can connect with you and give you a heads up on how I am and where I am with my writing; so you're not wondering where I vanished to. I get excited about parts of my stories because I imagine how my readers will react once they reach those scenes. I refuse to delete anything (I instead cut it and paste it into a "scraps" file) because I imagine some of my readers being fellow authors, and being able to show them where the polished story started and how much I had to revise might be encouraging for them. I started posting those cut bits to Tumblr because I thought my readers would get a kick out of them. I want to tell you all about my Scum and Villainy campaign (which is coming later) because my stories don't feel alive unless others know about them; unless my readers can experience them as well. My stories have all become extroverted divas that need that spotlight to feel real and complete, and you fine folks are all that spotlight.

So, thank you, yet again, for considering what I write worth your (most likely) precious little time available. It means the world to me. You are all such beautiful people. I'm going to explode with love.

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Speaking of my writing, you probably noticed that I didn't update this blog to promote my latest Plagg Appreciation Day story. I also haven't promoted it yet within this post. You may have also noticed - if you follow me on Twitter, Tumblr, AO3, FFN, or DA - that you didn't get a notification alerting you about the latest Plagg Appreciation story.

Yep. You guessed it. That's because there wasn't one. I tried. I spent three days plotting and pondering and playing with ideas. The closest I got to a fleshed-out idea was something akin to The Adventures of Brainy where Plagg daydreams that, instead of absorbing into the Miraculous jewels in order to power up a human superhero, he and Tikki transform into human superheroes themselves. I couldn't quite get the concept ironed out in time for Friday, January 13 though. Maybe I'll get it sorted by the next Friday 13th in October. Maybe I'll think of something completely different.

If you have any plot bunny ideas for a Plagg-centric story, feel free to pitch them my way.

Anyway, as it crept closer and closer to January 13th, I, of course, got more and more anxious about my story. I was doing what I always do and beat myself up over the fact that I didn't have this story done. This was MY holiday that I created. How could *I* not meet my own deadline and participate in my own created fandom holiday????

Then the 13th hit, and I realized how much pressure I was piling onto myself. It was FANFICTION. It was something people would read FOR FREE. It was a MADE UP holiday. I was seemingly the only one who even celebrated it, seeing as how I have never seen anyone else post anything Plagg-centric specifically on a Friday 13th or tag anything Plagg Appreciation Day or tag me on any Plagg Appreciation Day posts (exception being LivreVer once or twice). It DIDN'T MATTER if I posted a story or not.

Ah, the dark side of "I write for my readers": I pressure myself to hit arbitrary deadlines and feel guilty when I don't hit them. As if I'm disappointing you guys. I know I'm not disappointing you all. I KNOW! I have to retrain myself to let that feeling go. I have to remind myself that my readers are all lovely and patient and are excited to read my writing, regardless of when or how frequently I publish.

So, on January 13th, when I still had no idea what even to write, I battled with myself for a bit, and then let it go. I waved the white flag and marked a second missed Plagg Appreciation Day.

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Most of January was spent dealing with headaches at work anyway. Headaches I'm STILL dealing with, actually, but I won't get into that. Point being the few times I wasn't dealing with work stuff I was recovering from said work stuff. My brain was fairly fried, and I didn't even think about fanfiction. The fact that I hadn't seen a new Miraculous Ladybug episode since November probably didn't help motivate me to write anything. Not having the energy to go on Tumblr and interact with the fandom didn't help much either.

Instead, I focused on Scum and Villainy. We were racing towards our grand return to the campaign on the 30th. I needed to be prepared for that.

And I was not prepared for that....

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I didn't have time to break away and listen back to the recorded sessions while I was home, and I had slacked off; waiting until January to even start listening back to them and taking down GM notes. I tried to listen to the sessions like podcasts, but I had to stop too many times to take notes, so it wasn't good background noise for doing house work or getting ready for work. I tried listening while at work, and I got the farthest in doing that, but... work headache stuff... I didn't have the down time I needed to go through everything.

Soooooo.... the last time I ran a RIP race that all of the players could participate in was August! Seemed like a good way to ease everyone (including myself) back into the campaign, as well as introduce new characters! Plus, no real plot-line needed since the plot-line would be introducing the new NPCs. Hubby was off that day, so he created the new RIP race machines and rolled up the NPC start positions for me. Then, when we played, everyone else rolled their start positions. I finished the last-minute set-up. We did some soft roleplay - which is the limited improv I can handle - and the race itself is mostly just me keeping track of where everyone is. I didn't even bother coming up with a cool track design. It wasn't needed. The track wasn't the point of the race that session. The new rivalries were.

The session was fun. It felt like a nice way to ease all of us back in. The following Monday - being the 1st Monday of the month - we had another session. This time I had most of a job sorted out for the group. Not as much as I would have liked (I like preparing for the weird off-beat things they tend to do so I'm less likely to have to think of things on the fly), but enough to fake my way through it.

Aaaaaand then Hubby came up with something during soft roleplay that ended up becoming a job all on its own. The whole session was basically unplanned, soft roleplay... and all improv on my part.

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It was all good. We finished up the impromptu side mission around 10:15pm. We try to finish by 11pm. Definitely not enough time to actually get to the job I had planned. I began to panic a little on what we'd do for the next 45min. Do we just call it early? Am I going to have to scramble to come up with another "short" mission for the crew to go on?

And then the characters Demarcus and Quinton had a long debate about power struggles and setting up allies and what is the best strategy for the group. I didn't really need to do much of anything for the better part of an hour. I just got to enjoy them debate each other. Eventually I interjected to let everyone know how late it was and we should sort out experience for the game. So... aside from the adlibbing I had to do for about two hours during that side mission - which was mostly character driven; I can do that easily enough - it was a fairly lowkey session for me.

I'm going to be spoiled by the time we do our next session on the 20th and I ACTUALLY run that job I had planned out.

Speaking of, let's do some "mini" recaps of what's been going on with the Stardancer crew to catch everyone up!

Credit to the Scum and Villainy art team:
Brett Barkley, Tomasso Renieri, Juan Ocha, Michaela DeSacco, and Tazio Bettin
(Color by LycoRogue)

Tada! Yeah, I realized that I never actually shared my edit of the Stardancer artwork to showcase how the crew had their ship painted! I was going to show the playgroup first and then you guys... except I never came back to update this blog. Whoops. Anyway, I'm back now. This is the chrome-black with neon-green accent lights paint job they picked out for the Stardancer. How does it look? I wish I could have added a bit more dimension to the black paint job to give it more of a chrome look as opposed to just a matte black, but I wasn't as happy with my other two attempts.

As far as the campaign "plot" for the Stardancer crew (who still hasn't come up with a crew name outside of that), they have started up some trouble while also somehow going under the Hegemony's radar. They've added crewmates and collected quite a few pets. They've made enemies and powerful allies. It feels like we just started our campaign, but, at the same time, they've already outgrown their ship! It's been a bit crazy.

When I last caught you folks up, it was the third session. They had a mandatory mission from the Borniko Syndicate to air an advertisement for the Echo Wave Riders as a way to patch up the rift the crew caused between the two factions. In the process of airing said message for the EWR, the crew caught the attention of infamous wizard-class hacker Vorex. Their ship was spotted by a patrolling 51st Legion spaceship, and that lead to the crew picking the above paint job for their ship to try to disguise it. They finished up with a RIP race on one of Warren's sister moons. Since then, the main "plot beats" have been:

• Session 4 - Unfortunately, this was the first game where all three players couldn't attend. So I just sort of piloted tI'kæl so she was still there as the crew FINALLY delivered Ishi to The Cove. There they met Ishi's good friend Hunter Black, 4th in command of the Maelstrom Pirates. Hunter instantly took a liking to Demarcus, and I started the running gag of Hunter enthusiastically asking Demarcus and the Stardancer crew to join his crew/fleet. Demarcus always turns him down and counters that Hunter could join the Stardancers instead.
      Itching to fight someone, Demarcus signed up for a big open-call cage match on The Cove against famed Cove MMA fighter "The Prodigy". None of the 14 fighters that went before Demarcus lasted one round, and barely even winded the Prodigy, who was amped up with a bunch of mechanic limbs (a la the anime Megalobox, except they're actual artificial limbs as opposed to exoskeletons). Quinton was able to hack into the Prodigy's limbs (after Demarcus got pretty roughed up - including a sword through the left shoulder), and locked him into place so Demarcus could knock him out. Despite Quinton purposefully only freezing up the limbs for a few seconds at a time, people still suspected foul play. Thankfully, Quinton had called Hunter down to see if he wanted to place any bets on the fight, so he was fairly untouchable as Hunter escorted him over to the betting booth to collect their winnings.... which promptly broke the game economy since I wanted to showcase how intimidatingly tough The Prodigy was by making it something like 50 to 1 odds against Demarcus. Even with the players allowing me to retcon that down to about 10-1 odds, they walked away with an INSANE amount of money. Whoops!
• Session 5 - Hunter's last pet Razor passed away 3 years ago and he's ready for a new one. He sends the crew to fetch him a leaguin; a leopard-penguin hybrid with four wings that lives on the beaches along the equator of the jungle planet Amerath.
      I was kind of thinking of the Otter-Penguins from Avatar: the Last Airbender, except leopard-spotted, with a leopard's head and fangs, and with leopard-claws at the end of their webbed feet.
  
  
      The crew rounded up about half of a leaguin colony, kept one each for themselves as pets, and sold the rest to Hunter, who kept two as his own pets (they are social animals, after all). Hunter has been breeding and selling the rest on the black market. The crew then started up a campaign to legalize domesticating leaguins and keeping them as pets, even without an exotic pet license.
      Leaguins are docile unless provoked, and then they become EXTREMELY aggressive. While trying to fend off the attacking leaguins and corral the rest to take to Hunter, Demarcus broke out his flame thrower. Only one leaguin - who was particularly aggressive - got burned. Demarcus was like, "I like this guy. He's as reckless as me," and decided to nurse and adopt that one. For obvious reasons, it was still aggressive towards him; biting him frequently. So that leaguin's name is now Nippy. Seeing as how Memish are basically "seafood" as far as leaguins are concerned, tI'kæl's pet also kept trying to bite her (as did most of the others, to be fair), so she named hers PIMA. Quinton named his pet Languin, in honor of his mentor. I never came up with names for Hunter's pair; I should do that....
• Session 6 - Chaos Theory had another RIP race. This time through the gas planet of Vet. This is one of the first races I felt comfortable really letting the sport live up to its name. I had described the track as being windy, having a loop-the-loop, and having a gap the machines had to jump over. One of the racers ended up getting bumped off the track at that jump, and was lost in the debris making up the rings of the planet.
      Because the track seemed more suited for speed than brute force, Demarcus sat out. One of the team's rivals - Ice Heart from the Gravity Blades - had also stayed in the team bay because Demarcus had blown up his Machine - the Gremlin - the last race they did (the one after airing the EWR message; I forgot to come back to write about that last time). Quinton (as Poet) and tI'kæl (as Sanic) dominated the field, and was even humiliating Ice Heart's teammates AirJack and Bolt. Ice Heart was pissed and screaming at the screen projecting the race. Demarcus decided it would be a fun time to try to antagonize Ice Heart, and when that escalated into a scuffle, he slammed Ice Heart head-first into that screen, bending it around the guy's head and busting up his face pretty badly. As the race continued, AirJack's Machine The Victory blew up, and his escape pod was brought to the team bay. He got out of the pod right after Demarcus took out Ice Heart. AirJack tried to retaliate, managed to stab Demarcus in the side with a piece of busted plasma screen, and then Demarcus promptly shoved him head-first into his own escape pod; breaking his nose and taking out some teeth. With both main rivals now unconscious and bleeding in their team bay, Demarcus casually walked back to Chaos Theory's bay to finish watching the race. The third member of Gravity Blades made it to 3rd place, behind Sanic and Poet. The crew was impressed with Bolt's driving, her overall better (re: less cocky) attitude, and her attempts to keep the peace between her teammates and Chaos Theory. They offered her a spot on their team, but, after seeing her bloodied teammates and Demarcus proudly stating that it was his handiwork, she growled for Chaos Theory to walk away before things got ugly.
      Quinton made sure to save the plasma screen shard Demarcus took out of his side. Never know when they'll need something with AirJack's fingerprints on it.
• Session 7 - Another session that Rozsavaria had to miss. Which meant, canonically, tI'kæl had something else to attend to, so she left the guys alone. This was also right around Christmas 2021, so I decided to go with something holiday themed: A Christmas Carol. (Technically, I also had a job that was very How The Grinch Stole Christmas, but the guys decided to save that for a session all players could attend). The money lender Benser Cee Grooze (of Grooze and Jybac Moneylending) is also a bail bondsman and bookie on Quinton's home "planet" (it's a colonized moon) of Warren, and Grooze decided it's "harvest time". He placed bounties on all who have defaulted on his loans (bounty was 5% of debt owed), and had forced his workers into mandatory overtime without additional pay. The workers - rallied behind their boss Bob Kranket - had gone on strike. Grooze had put bounties on his striking workers and Bob as well. The crew was asked by a third party to help stop Grooze any way they could. Quinton and Demarcus needed to take down one of the major bounty hunters going after Bob before getting more info on what was going on. They opted to create a massive bounty for Demarcus in order to get the hunter's attention. Interrogation went array, resulting in the hunter and something like 32 civilians dying in a fire??? They promptly took the bounty off of Demarcus, and then went to Grooze with an offer to sell his business to Quinton's friend and mentor Lucian Lang. Negotiations took a bit longer (and a bit more narcotics) than expected, but they got Grooze loopy enough to sign away his company under the guise of becoming a partner in a retirement cruise spaceship. Fearing that Grooze will fight the legality of the acquisition as soon as he's sober, Demarcus sniped him from his own building and planted the rifle and ammo on one of the scabs working during the strike. Bob was then made CEO of the company (with Lang as the silent owner), and he removed all of the bounties Grooze put out.
• Session 8 - Back from her religious retreat, tI'kæl was mildly appalled by what the guys got up to without her, but at least it was for the greater-good in the long run (no more bounties on defaulted loans or striking employees; or a need to strike, for that matter). Having started up a strong acquaintanceship with Vorex since their meeting in session 3, Quinton received a job from her; a favor. She had discovered that the Counters Guild keeps extremely detailed records of all of their assets, but keeps a separate - but just as detailed - ledger of all their LIVING assets (such as Vorex's kidnapped sister). The ledger is closely guarded and constantly on the move to prevent people from getting to it. Vorex was able to figure out that the Guild was trying to move the ledger two star systems over (to Brekk) to a planet called Nightfall (so named because its 13 moons cause constant solar eclipses, casting the planet in "night" more frequently than "day"). The crew offered their services as "discreet couriers" to the shell company the Counters Guild used to move the ledger without people suspecting what the product actually was. They were given a caged Way Beast that resembled a blue, semi-translucent, ethereal tiger with twin tails wearing a collar. They were also informed that they had a strict timeframe to get the beast to Nightfall, and that they will be hunted down as thieves if they didn't reach their checkpoints in time for other members of this shell company to scan the beast's collar at the designated point. The crew quickly deduced that the collar contained the ledger, and - through Vorex's help - managed to create a way to clone the file from the collar so they could get that to her without stopping the ship (largely thanks to tI'kæl managing to Attune with the beast well enough that Demarcus could get the cloning device against its collar without being mauled). TI'kæl actually got so attached to the creature during her attunement that she wanted to keep it. Quinton had to remind her that the Counters Guild couldn't suspect any foul play, or all of the assets would be instantly moved, and the ledger would be scrubbed; failing their mission for Vorex. Despite some in-fighting among the crew, the actual smuggling job - both of the Way Beast to Nightfall and of the Ledger to Vorex - went off without a hitch. In fact, due to Hubby constantly rolling critical successes while piloting the Stardancer, they hit each checkpoint early.
      TI'kæl is now determined to track down where on Nightfall that Way tiger is so she could kidnap it and keep it as her pet.
• Session 9 - Another RIP race session, this time on one of the 13 moons that orbit Nightfall. Demarcus got a wrist slap over his attack against the Gravity Blades. His punishment wasn't more severe mostly because the cameras did show that - while excessively aggressive - Demarcus WAS only defending himself. He's allowed to still participate in League races, but he is no longer allowed to remain in the team bays unsupervised; indefinitely. Alternatively, the entirety of the Gravity Blades was banned from that race as punishment (ignore that both AirJack and Ice Heart were still recovering and Bolt didn't do anything against Demarcus or Chaos Theory), and are also not allowed in the team bay AT ALL while a race is going on. If they wish to watch instead of participate, they must do so from the stands or via video off-site.
      Despite the reprimand over the fighting in the bay, Demarcus was also offered a new League opportunity. The RIP League has a club for pilots called The Basher Bonus Club. Invited members to the club are given a "punch card"; their membership card on which black dots, or "punches" shows up for successful slams, forced retirements, or caused explosions. Forced retirements/caused explosions count as two punches vs the one punch for a successful slam. When five punches accumulate on the card, a Volt (a race-specific form of currency used to repair or upgrade the RIP Machines) is added to the pilot's race earnings and the punches reset. Members must at least ATTEMPT a slam in each race, or they are removed from the club until they are invited back.
      Other than that, the race went off without much of a hitch. Some more explosions. Poet and Sanic again podiumed, but this time they were joined by Demarcus (as Doc).
• Session 10 - This session I attempted to do something similar to the Fable games, and offer the same job, but on opposing sides. The mission centered around the Turner Society (the drug traffickers and drug den providers the Stardancers smuggled Vosian Crystals for in the first session) trying to take down their biggest competitor: high-end drug dealer Yon Lirak. He's actually a named NPC in the rulebook. His entry reads: "Runs a factory in Rost [on the planet Amerath] that never shuts down, producing synthetic narcotics for several major species. [He is] experienced, ruthless, [and] unforgiving" [pg 309 in the rule book]. The crew was given the option to either help the Turner Society take down Lirak's factory (run by slave labor) or help Lirak protect his factory from the sabotage.
      They still had that Grinch-themed job that was also on Amerath. That one had a researcher up on a mountain of Amerath requesting that someone stop the Dance of the Fairies festival that happens annually and disrupts the researcher's work for a solid month as the festival goes on in the valley below him. When the crew decided they'd prefer to help the Turner Society (in part because they were already friendly with them, in part because of the slave labor, and in part because Hubby decided Lirak was also a rival to Lang's drug empire), Quinton plotted that they could somehow frame the residents of the hamlet Hovayle who host the Dance of the Fairies festival, and the ruthless and unforgiving Lirak would come after them; affectively ending the festival.
      Quinton hacked the servers of Lirak's massive 30-story building and sent out a memo that the workers were allowed a two-day leave to participate in the Dance of the Fairies festival. Sixty-percent of the work force were able to leave and get onto shuttles that the Stardancers had set up before the rest of the facility went into lockdown and bounty hunters were sent to bring back the workers.
      Having another brilliant idea, Quinton had himself and Demarcus disguise themselves as AirJack and Ice Heart as they broke into the facility. TI'kæl randomly threw a disguise together and lucked into looking exactly like a flower shop owner from down the street. The trio made their way into the factory, hacked the system to make their way through the levels until they could get to where the drugs were actually being made (most of the building was living space for the slave laborers and guards, an on-site hospital, a brig, and packing facility). When they got to the brig, they found three people locked up. One was a big, burly guy foaming at the mouth trying to get at the guard on duty. Another was a frail fifteen-year-old who looked like he was pushing 90. And a third that looked like a string-bean of a man with a shark head. That was when I passed the floor to our newest player who introduced his shark-headed character as Fin and swore he had no clue why he was locked up. The crew let the trio out, assuming they were all falsely imprisoned by Lirak, and the burly guy instantly started beating the already unconscious guard to death. Having Fin scoop up the frail guy (named Chuck), the crew continued on through the facility. They got to the factory floor, and Quinton hacked into the system to steal the drug recipe, force a self-destruct flushing of the drugs already made, and destroyed all of the materials needed to make more. Sabotage complete, the group broke back out of the facility. Quinton made sure to escape via crashing through a window. He then left behind the shard AirJack had shanked Demarcus with to further frame the rival duo.
      After being rescued by the Stardancers, Fin revealed that his real name is Jet Ryle. He's a human, but he's also a gambling addict who isn't particularly good at the gambling bit. He has massive debt all throughout the Procyon Sector, and that was probably why Lirak had him locked up; to cash in on the hefty bounties on Jet. The shark head was also a result of the massive gambling debt he had accrued. One of his bookies offered to forgive his debt if he agreed to some medical experimentation. He happily accepted, got knocked out for surgery, and awoke in a back alley with a shark head instead of his own. Jet's player was inspired by this Sharkman character on the cover of the Gravity RIP rulebook.
  

  

  Illustration by Colin Craker

      Meanwhile, here's Chuck... he's just the old prisoner from Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
  
  
      Since sabotaging the factory (and unintentionally rescuing Jet) only took about 90min, they had time to still see to the Grinch-themed job. They split the crew; half would meet up with the researcher Hirg Chent and the other half would go to Hovayle to try to convince the town to not host the festival (or at least keep it down to not disrupt Chent's research). The Dance of the Faeries festival celebrates the annual solar eclipse on Amerath, which initiates the pollination season in that valley. The bioluminescent flowers and mushrooms release glowing spores that are collected by glowing insects; the whole cycle resembles what The Ancients (aka Earthlings) would describe as faeries or Will o' the Wisps. Hence the name of the festival. Since this is a nature-based event, it cannot be rescheduled, and it is the biggest influx of funds to the small hamlet, so the mayor refused to alter the festival at all. Meanwhile, tI'kæl had a great time talking about The Way with Chent, but couldn't convince him to do research somewhere else on Amerath while the festival was going on. Not finding a peaceful solution, and really wanting to take part in the festival themselves, the crew decided they're just murder hobos. They'll trick the researcher into thinking they stopped the festival, get paid for it, and then kill the researcher and transfer the rest of Chent's money to Ice Heart and AirJack to further frame them. The murdering-the-researcher bit went wrong as Chent's pet attacked to defend him. The pet is a domesticated wakeena: a wolf-like creature the size of a pony, has six legs, hyena-like spots, a prehensile tail, and 4 eyes. Chent named it Limainamilx, but called him Milx for short. In the scuffle, Chent's research and tablet/computer that would have been Quinton's access to Chent's bank account were all destroyed. In the end, the hobble Chent was living in was still standing and now vacant, so the crew left a mostly-recovered Chuck there before heading down to Hovayle.

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H'okay... even "abridged" these session recaps are LONG! I mean, the game sessions themselves average about 4hrs so... I think I'm doing pretty good at recapping. Either way, I think I should probably tag out with the introduction of Jet. Maybe I'll find time this month to do another post recapping more of the sessions in my attempt to catch you up with our game. At the very least, you are now caught up on nearly the full first year we've played. Jet was introduced in May, 2022. Also, with that being session #10, you know about half of the Stardancer saga, seeing as how we're going into session #23 this upcoming Monday.

So, to finish up, I'd like to address the elephant in the room (in the blog???). You have probably noticed that I'm still using the Coming Soon font this post. That's because I haven't really had much feedback with regards to the font options I gave everyone last post. Actually, I was offered a few other options to try out, which kind of hinders my ability to narrow things down to just one winning font. So I'm going to try this again.

The first font voted 'yes' on was Indie Flower. So here is a refresher on what Indie Flower looks like. THIS IS THE FONT IN ALL CAPS. This is the font italicized. This is it in bold. My concern with Indie Flower is that it feels like a smaller font. More condensed. Might be harder to read. I'm not sure though, so how does everyone feel about Indie Flower? Is this the keeper?

The second 'yes' vote was for Josefin Sans. Here's a refresher for Josefin Sans. THIS IS THE FONT IN ALL CAPS. This is the font italicized. This is it in bold. My concern about Josefin Sans is that it feels like a more generic font? It is definitely more print-friendly. Which might be a bonus and might be exactly why I should stick with it perminantly. On the flipside, I think I'd miss that "handwritten" feel of my blog's font. What are all of your thoughts on the matter? Do I go more professional, print-friendly and stick with Josefin Sans? Or do I keep the more unique (but definitely less-professional) hand-written look of some of these other options?

The first alternative option given was for Kalam. This is what Kalam looks like. THIS IS THE FONT IN ALL CAPS. This is the font italicized. This is it in bold. I do like the handwritten look to it. My concern is that it's SUUUUUPER spaced out. I feel like my already long posts will look unbearably epic in length if I go with this one. Plus, the italics are hard to notice since the font defaults at slightly-slanted. I'm not sure. What's everyone else's thoughts on Kalam? Should this be my new font for this blog?

Another suggested font was Mali. So this is what Mali looks like. THIS IS THE FONT IN ALL CAPS. This is the font italicized. This is it in bold.I don't mind this one. It's not too small or spaced out too much. Has the curviness of Indie Flower. The letters all seem distinct enough from each other, but I could do a quick double check on that: the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. Seems good. My only concerns are that, compared to my current font of Coming Soon, this font doesn't have as much of a hand-written look as I'd like, and it feels larger. I'll have to drop the default font size down for sure, and I don't know if I can lock in a default font point because I've never set one before. Will this font end up with the same pitfall of Kalam? Namely, make my blog look even longer than it already is? I dunno. How does everyone else feel about this possibly being my blog's official font?

Along with Kalam and Mali, I was also suggested Patrick Hand (which looks like this) and Comic Neue (which looks like this). To be frank, I wasn't the biggest fan of either option. Comic Neue just didn't seem unique enough of a font and might as well be Comic Sans. In fact, it's supposed to be a "mature and professional" version of Comic Sans. Comic Neue also isn't much different from Coming Soon. Which begs the question: why bother switching?

As for Patrick Hand, the font felt TEENY, and I just wasn't the biggest fan of its over-all look. I do appreciate the research done to suggest these fonts though.

So, again, what does everyone think of the font choices? Stick with Coming Soon? Switch to Indie Flower? Go with Josefin Sans instead? Try out Kalam? Use Mali? Let me know in the comments section.

And, with that, I will leave you all, my wonderful valentines, to enjoy the rest of your Valentine's Day. Know that you are loved and cherished. Best to all of you! Until next time.

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