A New Fandom Enters the Ring

Est. Read Time: 20 min

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

EXCEPT!

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

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

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

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

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

COVID SUCKS, YOU GUYS!

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

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Edited by LycoRogue

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

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

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

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

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

Official promotional image

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

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

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

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

As The Professor says: "No pressure."

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

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

Well.... NEARLY everything.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Edited by LycoRogue

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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What DID I Do This Past Month?

Well then. Seems Tuesday threw a LOT more at me than I was anticipating, and this blog post got kinda left on the wayside. I had most of it done, though, so I figured I'd just post late this week instead of skipping again. Because, well, come on. A blog post two weeks in a row!? It's amazing how much better I feel being able to do this. I truly missed being able to write ANYTHING, even if what I AM writing is basically just weekly journal entries. It's still a start, right? 

Speaking of, NaNoWriMo starts on Sunday. Part of me wants to participate, but another part doesn't want to add any more stress to a year that has already been a lot for me with regards to my writing confidence. So I haven't officially signed up for it. We'll see what I decide by Saturday.

There are three options I'm batting around should I decide to do NaNo. Four if you add in the option to just bounce between them all and focus on both word count and writing ANYTHING instead of the traditional version of "50,000 words for ONE story".

Option 1: Try to work on One and the Same yet again. This story has been in the making for 2 years, and I've had so many people finish Peeping Tomcat only to ask me where to find OatS. I always feel a touch embarrassed when I have to respond with "Uh... I'm... still working on that one...." Just call me the George R. R. Martin of fanfiction at this point. I may get the next story out.... eventually.... in the meantime, let me assure you - while I have a bunch of other projects released in the meantime - that I'm totally working on that sequel I mentioned years ago.... I did vow at the beginning of the year that I'd get at least the first chapter of OatS published before the conclusion of 2020, but considering I've barely even LOOKED at this story all year, I don't know if I should still hold myself to that. After a 2+ year wait, I REALLY don't want to rush out something subpar. Nor do I want to publish the first chapter just to say I did so, and then have people waiting for who knows how long until I can get the rest of the story written and polished.

Option 2: I'll touch more on this later, but I was heavily inspired by the Miraculous Ladybug special that came out at the end of September. Well, to be more accurate, I was heavily inspired by the confusion and salt the fandom threw around after watching the special. I don't know if I just know how to get into the heads of the writers better than a lot of fans, but I understood where they were going with just about all of scenes, whereas a great many of the fandom seemed blindsided. Or they felt what happened was a bit contrived. Or a character seemed to be written poorly. Et cetera.

So my thought was to help the fandom see what I did with regards to why the writers made the decisions they did. In a manner similar to my story Prescription for Love, I want to write the scenes that were skipped because they weren't necessarily crucial for plot progression. I want to write scenes we were shown, but in a different character's perspective than the one we saw on screen. I want to further flesh out the events of the special. In part, because these side scenarios are bouncing around in my head anyway, but also to maybe help the fandom see what I did and appreciate the special more.

While I feel guilty taking on another big project instead of working on OatS (again), I also kind of want to get this story done sooner rather than later since it's specifically focused on canon, and I'm already a month out from the special's premiere. 

Option 3: I had offered to help my mom out with something, and I have totally fallen off the horse on that. We talked about it, and we now have a new deadline of February to get it all sorted out, but I do hate holding up other people's projects like this. I've been in group projects where the rest of us are in limbo as we wait for someone to get their part of the project done. It sucks being those who are just on standby. So I may use November as a means to kick myself into gear for this project.

So, there we are. My three options for NaNo - should I decide to participate this week - as well as that fourth option of just bouncing between these projects wherever my inspiration takes me just to keep me moving forward.

Now, let's circle back to that ML special.

I absolutely adored it. The voice acting was a bit off - as in the VAs lost the tone they had established for these characters' voices, but the acting itself was spectacular - so that threw me, but after watching the special about a dozen times (thank you, DisneyNOW), I'm getting more and more used to it. I just hope the choice - either by the director or by Cristina Vee herself - to have Marinette deepen and mature her voice whenever she's Ladybug doesn't transition into the show. If they had made that choice at the start of the series it would be one thing, but after 3 seasons it seems weird for her to start that NOW when her voice hasn't been remotely close to a giveaway up until this point. 

Maybe you could explain it away as "after the event of 'Chat Blanc' she's making sure Chat Noir doesn't figure out who she is" but she didn't deepen her voice in the episodes following, so it doesn't really work. You could also possibly argue that "she's now the Guardian and feels she needs to work harder to hide her identity" but if no one figured out her identity before why would she feel like it's in danger of being discovered now? Maaaaaybe because Chloe knows that most of the Miraculous holders are her classmates, and the guy that's now pseudo-dating Marinette??? I dunno, the girl that's pseudo-dating Adrien was also a holder, so maybe Chloe won't put two-and-two together? 

Either way, I'm not a fan of the decision. I wouldn't mind if Bryce Papenbrook had decided to do something like that for Chat Noir because he already changes up his voice slightly between the two personas. It just feels weird to have Marinette randomly do it out of nowhere. Especially with how drastically different Cristina Vee goes with it. I think the issue I have the most with it is that she uses the same deeper and more mature voice she used for Nightmare Ladybug in the episode "Sandboy," and to have "evil" Ladybug's voice now be the real LB's vocal choice is just wrong to me.

Other than that, though, I LOVED this special. You can read my semi-live-blogging of the special here. Fair warning, there's spoilers as I react to the special.

As predicted though, as well as mentioned above, this ever-growingly-toxic fandom was all set to tear this special apart for every little thing. The largest victims being Adrien and Alya. This is where the idea for Option 2 above came from.

I mostly wanted to rewrite the Car Scene from Adrien's perspective, and possibly Alya's perspective as well. We see it via limited POV through Marinette's perspective, so I don't think there needs to be more there, but trying to understand Adrien and especially Alya during that scene seems to be both crucial and something that goes over a lot of fans' heads. In fact, the way Alya acted throughout the whole special I feel needs to be explained. 

So many complained about how she's once again not being a good friend to Marinette - similar complaint as in the episode "Chameleon" - and since I had friends like Alya growing up, I feel like I understand her and her motivations. Are they healthy, intelligent, or helpful choices? No. Are they decisions a lot of teens her age would make because they don't have the maturity or perspective to understand why these decisions are bad? Hells yeah! Should writers abandon realism in telling a story in favor of "teaching" children better life choices? Maybe, but that's entirely up to the writers and what kind of story they're trying to tell. Is the story automatically bad because a writer decides to go with "realism because it adds better drama" instead of "teaching children so they are better prepared for the future"? No.

I could do a whole essay on this subject, but I won't get into it now.

So, yeah, I want to rewrite the Car Scene from these other character perspectives, along with what happened with Marinette and Adrien post-sewer scene, the Floating Scene, the flight from Paris to New York City, Alya's and/or Nino's POV during the museum attack, Alya and Marinette interacting post-attack on NYC, Adrien prepping for the trip to NYC, why Luka had to race a bus to drop Marinette off, possibly Adrien's trip back to Paris, and maybe a LadyNoir scene post-special when the two meet up again in Paris. There might be more there, but I'll have to go through the special again (woe is me) to decide if there's more scenes I want in this project.

I do already have some starter essays I wrote over on Tumblr to give me jumping off points for the narrative as a whole.

• Plagg being visible when the Cat Ring isn't in disguise mode
• Defending the Car Scene and Alya

Again, these are heavily spoilerific essays, just FYI.

I guess that does mean that I HAVE written this past month. Specifically the final week of September, but still. Yay.

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I wasn't the only one that was inspired by the special, which I completely expected to happen. I still haven't finished that project from over a month ago where I was trying to compile my list of fanfic recommendations. Instead I started reading all of the NY special inspired stories. Now I have even more stories to add to my rec list....

Whoops.

Worth it.

I've also been reading something out-of-fandom. Honestly, I've been trying to avoid doing precisely that because it's hard enough for me to get back into writing if I stay within the fandom and allow it to help inspire me. I didn't want to try to switch gears to a new fandom and hope it doesn't throw me off track of what limited progress I've made this year.

However, Taurus Pixie recently started up a new story for the Hellsing fandom. I'm not really feeling Halloween-y this year - which SUCKS because it's a Saturday, it's a full moon, it's a blue moon, etc etc etc, and yet... meh? - so I was hoping a story based on a vampire-centric fandom might help with that. Really get me in the spoopy mood. Plus, Pixie got a lot of rude and entitled reviews on her latest ML chapter, which caused her to decide to pull away from writing anything for this increasingly toxic fandom. I knew she needed some love after that ordeal, so I wanted to get in on the ground floor of her newest story.

Honestly, I'm surprised it kept her this long to write something for Hellsing. This anime/manga's aesthetic is right up her alley. The story follows Seras as she tries to figure out the nuance and political environment of the vampire world without the aid of Alucard. I'm only 2 chapters in - a 3rd was posted on the 22nd, but I haven't had a moment to read it yet - and I'm already loving the world build. I don't think she's ever played any form of White Wolf's World of Darkness, or, specifically, the Vampire: The Masquerade game. And yet, that environment is more-or-less what she's building. It's great  how multiple people just SENSE that idea of animalistic hierarchy and tension of turf wars happening within vampire culture. That structure of vampiric society seems as part of the myth as fangs, sunlight aversion, and hatred of garlic.

Anyway, if you want something dark, gritty, violent, and Halloween-y to read this week, why not give Pixie's story a go? Fair warning, being in the Hellsing fandom more-or-less means she has free rein with her writing so she has virtually every trigger warning slapped onto this thing. Like I said, this is violent and grotesque and dark and gritty as she focuses on Seras dealing with her own monstrous nature and surviving against other creatures that have all but fully submitted to their monstrous and feral nature. Also, it takes place post Hellsing Ultimate/the manga, so... spoilers as well.

Go and Conquer

Cast out by her master, Seras must try and make a new life for herself, despite knowing so little about the vampire way of life. But when a small coven takes her in, Seras finally begins to fully relise her true potential, falling more and more into the insanity of the vampire world. Meanwhile, Hellsing sends in Alucard to deal with this new and emerging threat...

Speaking of submitting to one's monstrous and feral nature, I've been playing Among Us, as I mentioned last week. This past Friday we actually managed to wrestle together enough people for there to be two impostors for a few games! That was exciting. Also, for whatever reason, this time *I* was the impostor seemingly more times than not. Man, I know most people prefer being the impostor and having the fun of sabotaging and killing without having to worry about working out who is the impostor. However, I am NOT one of those players. I HATE being the impostor. Yeah, it's fun, but it's also sooooo stressful. Trying to think of lies or alibis to keep the heat off of you? Trying to keep your tells in check so you don't give yourself away? I know I can't play with voice chat on because I giggle uncontrollably when I can't think of a way of talking myself out of suspicion. Trying to keep track of EVERYONE so you can get in a clean kill? Incidentally, I almost NEVER got a clean kill. Someone either spotted me or walked in RIGHT after the kill, and I couldn't think of a lie fast enough to self-report. 

The only really clean kill I had was when I sat in the vent in Electrical on the Skeld map, because I knew SOMEONE had to have a task in there at some point. The second I saw someone alone I jumped out of the vent, killed, then hopped back in before anyone could be the wiser. I then travelled via vent for a bit so no one could pin me near the room.

Also, Hubby and I are those annoying players who like to pod-up so it's harder for the impostor to pick us off without the other(s) seeing it happen. More often than not we can't convince other players to join us in podding so we just partner up, but, if Ronoxym's Twitch stream from that night was any indication, it annoys the HECK out of the other players that they can't kill one of us without the other seeing because we're ALWAYS together. This playstyle is very helpful as a crewmate, but it's also suuuuuper difficult as an impostor. 

If Hubby and I are ALWAYS together, but one of us is the impostor, it's sooooo hard to get a clean kill without the other seeing it. Which means splitting off from each other, but if we're ALWAYS attached at the hip then the fact that one of us wanders from the other can be a bit suspicious. Alternatively, it means that our spouse is the first to go so we're free to roam around solo. Which also means we go from "partnering keeps us safe" to "partnering potentially makes us the first victim" as well as people getting suspicious that one of us is running around without the other.

We're actually surprised THAT wasn't the main give-away: "Hey, found Zalic's body. Lyco didn't report, but she's still alive. Lyco seems sus." Or, alternatively, "Zalic's alive and didn't report a dead Lyco? Seems sus."

Nope. No one managed to put those pieces together. They would grumble about us being attached at the hip, but never had any red flags go up when we WEREN'T together.

Hacker Girl Facebook sticker
by Birdman, Inc.

Although, now that I've pointed it out, looks like Hubby and I need to come up with a new strategy or we just gave ourselves away as impostors....

Anyway, for me at least, it's just so much easier when there's two impostors. Then I can focus on doing sabotages and hope O2 running out or the reactor melting down kills everyone for me, or at least thins people out enough for the other impostor to get in the kills.

We did recently got introduced to the Hide-and-Seek mod that people have been playing, and I'm all for playing in that mode! It's bound to be so much less stress to be the impostor when you don't have to worry about hiding it. It does seem a LOT more stressful to be the crewmates though....

Still excited to try it out!

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On a much sweeter side of things, Hubby swiped my Switch on me Saturday. For the majority of the month, he's had his character in Animal Crossing: New Horizons running around as Chat Noir whereas I've had either an all-pink outfit (for breast cancer awareness month) or a new Halloween costume on.

Well, since he had been running around as Chat Noir anyway, he decided to surprise me when I got home to play that day.

My glorious dork of a husband decided to go full-throttle, found a BUNCH of Adrien Agreste inspired shirts in the custom design kiosk, and even had my character send him the orange sneakers to finish the outfit. Wish the green eye color available was more emerald shading than jade, but it works.

Naturally, I had to make sure I matched.

I was able to find quite a lot of Marinette Dupain-Cheng inspired shirts via the custom design kiosk as well. As a whole, however, his outfit is way better than mine. I couldn't find pink slip-on shoes, so I went with low heels. I also don't have a pink round purse with a black strap. Some of the shirt designs had one drawn on the design, but I liked having the actual bag better. Finally, the blue hair is a bit too light of a shade, but it was either this or actual black, so I'm going with this. I'd also prefer if the pigtails were at the base of the head, much like the dual-braids, but I guess these work too.

We've been having fun roleplaying as these two adorable dorks.

I found "Adrien" playing on the piano while visiting Hubby's island.

The truest of roleplaying: Lovesick Marinette and totally clueless Adrien.

To finish up the Miraculous Ladybug deep dive to try to get re-inspired to write for this fandom, I had decided to make a new mask for this week. I doubt I'll dress up for Halloween much more than just an all-black outfit, but I do also have this mask now...

I tried a new mask design that accordions out vertically instead of the standard horizontal. Doing so is supposed to bevel the mask out away from your lips while still staying snug against the jawline and nose. This way your lips never touch the mask. It seems to work really well, however I DID cut the ear straps a touch too small, so, unless the elastic stretches out, I can only wear the mask in short trips, like to the grocery store or laundry. It's just too much tug on the ears otherwise.

I debated making a second one with longer ear loops, but without a sewing machine stitching this mask together took two days as is. Maybe some day in the future I'll try again, but for right now I'm content with this one mask.

How about everyone else? Have you been reading anything good? Any stories getting you in the mood for Halloween? Alternatively, if you want to hear out-of-copyright ghost stories from around the gothic/Victorian era, here is the playlist of ones Luke Westaway from OutsideXtra has been reading on his private channel this year. Do you have a Halloween costume this year? What are you dressing up as? Have you been playing Among Us as well? Do you prefer to be the impostor or a crewmate? Any pro strats to share? Are you going to participate in NaNoWriMo? Do you have a preference as to which option I should do, should I decide to join in?

I keep forgetting to share this, but I did set up a new Dream in ACNH this past week. I'll have to redo it now that I'm Marinette and my island is getting a bit more spoopy, but if you have the game and want a poke around my island, feel free to pop on by.

Dream Address, in case you can't quite read the image,
is DA-6983-1496-3456.
Enjoy your stay.

I know this is a strange year with strange circumstances, but I do hope everyone can enjoy their Halloween while still staying safe and healthy.

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Also also also also!!!!

If you are a United States citizen over the age of 18, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE remember your civic duty! You have LESS THAN A WEEK NOW!

NEXT TUESDAY is election day. An overwhelming amount of citizens seem to have already voted via mail-in ballots, drop-off ballot boxes, early voting, etc. Keep it up! Keep yourself safe whenever possible. Remember that you can always hand deliver to your elections office if you don't want to chance going to the poles, but also don't trust either mailing or ballot boxes. If you don't know where that is, this site can help you find your local elections office. Please make a plan if you haven't already voted. Make your voice heard. Don't let anyone convince you that your vote isn't going to matter or count. Don't allow yourself to think that you shouldn't bother because you know your area is going to vote for the opposing party anyway. Don't think that it doesn't matter because your area typically votes the same way as you regardless. 

GET. OUT. THERE. AND. VOTE.

Safely.

Happy Halloween!

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Meh. I'm not going as a pirate, but that's probably the closest thing to my Steampunk costume I'll be able to find, so I'm going with it.

Happy early Halloween, everyone! I hope you all have safe fun on Thursday. Also, happy All Hallows Eve, or any other alternative to Halloween that you might celebrate on October 31st. Beyond that, happy All Saints/All Souls day to those who celebrate those days. And Happy Dia de los Muertos to any and all who celebrate that. If I've forgotten a holiday you celebrate this weekend, please know I wish you well during it, and feel free to let me know what you celebrate in the comments. I'd love to learn more!


Now, I want to be completely honest. I didn't really focus on writing this week. I just needed a mini-vacay before going into NaNoWriMo. So instead I figured I'd spend the time trying to work on drawing my new D&D character for Hubby's campaign. I had.... mixed results.

I started off by practicing drawing a D&D bronze dragon head. I figured if I studied them and practiced the angles I needed I'd be better prepared for drawing my character. I used a couple of references for the bronze dragon. Some were from the official books, and some were fanart based off the books. All of them had the dragon at full profile, probably to better show off the sides of the head and the neck. The cheek horns are a bit funky, and the neck seems way too wide, but otherwise I'm fairly content with my end result.

I don't know if it's an image in a monster manual, or if it were a promotional poster, but I found another reference sheet for the D&D 5e version of the Bronze Dragon. It shows the full body at profile again, then busts of juvenile versions of the dragon, as well as a baby: a wyrmling. Most importantly, there's a picture of the mature bronze dragon skull. I used that to attempt drawing something a bit more of a 3/4 profile, which is probably what I'd aim for with my character profile. I mean, full side profile is by far the easiest way for me to draw the dragon head, but it just seems weird to me to have a side shot of your character as a reference to how they look. So, anyway, I attempted the skull. I'm still a bit meh about the proportions regarding the placement of the far nostril and the cheek horns, but for the most part I was fairly content.

Feeling a sort of sense of hubris, I guess, I thought "Okay, this is time consuming, but it's not so tough. If I can get the right reference pics to work off of I think I've got this."

I then spent probably 2+ hours on Google Images using about a half-dozen search keywords - because my Google-fu is still trash - to get just the right pose for the flamboyant and over-the-top manner my dragonborn apparently holds himself. I finally decided on a flirty, anime-style, 2-finger salute and wink.

I'm gonna be completely honest. I have no clue what character that is, so I don't know if it's official promotional artwork or someone's fanart. If you recognize the art, please let me know in the comments. Thanks in advance.

I managed to find a pose reference that was doing that salute, was at about a 3/4 profile pivot, and looked a little buffer, so roughly the muscular structure of my dragonborn. I've always been almost scary-perfect at copying images via grid work, so I attempted to do gridding on my phone, and... well... considering I can't draw straight lines, the grid was only SO good....

I'm not even going to show off my end result because... the proportions are so wonky, and that back leg... I don't even know what I was doing with that. It's not terrible, but... you don't need to see it.

Figuring it was good enough of a start, since I'll have to change the legs to the more bent and stylized versions for dragonborn, and I would have to alter the hands to only have four fingers, etc., I moved on to Kriv's face.

I remembered the Disney's Gargoyles character Brooklyn had a similar beak-like face as bronze dragons, had horns, and had similar legs to dragonborn as well. I thought I could use him as a nice base reference. I could even go with Goliath or Broadway for more muscular leg structures if I couldn't figure out how to bulk up Brooklyn's.

I even stumbled upon the perfect angled profile for the framework pose I was working with.

I would just need to shift the direction of his horns, add spikes to the end of his eyebrows, add another set of spikes at the end of his cheekbones, one more set along the jawline, and shorten his snout. I could do that. That seemed easy enough.

Spoiler Alert: It wasn't....

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I drew Brooklyn's face on my pose to start, and then went to doctor it. And then I erased and tried again. Then I tried once more. Then I started from scratch. Then I erased the full side of his face to try again....

I must have drawn this face a dozen times, but I just can't get the angles and the proportions down properly. The neck looks like it attaches to the back of the head instead of the skull resting on it, the cheek spikes are too long, or too short, or aren't in the right spot for the bones they're supposed to end on, the main horns aren't right either...

The main portion of the face - his beaked mouth and the eyes - I really like after about a dozen tries. Finishing off the skull though? Like.... WHYYYYYYYY!?

So much for a relaxing side-hobby to destress me before going into NaNo. I think I'll stick with writing, thank you.

Speaking of, I randomly decided yesterday that I wanted to post one last thing on Halloween before I went fully into my NaNo project of One and the Same.

Yes, I do already have a "Halloween-y" story posted this month by way of Blame Fate for This, but it's not the same for a few reasons.

1. That story was supposed to be for Ronoxym, not a "Halloween Story"
2. It wasn't posted on Halloween - although I will most likely reblog on Halloween.
3. It isn't fanfiction, and while I'm super proud of that, I have to admit that my readership is mostly people interested in my fanfiction. Besides, I haven't written anything ML related for a month or two.
4. BFfT still hasn't really had much love, and maybe if I promote it along with my other Halloween stories - including a brand new one within a fandom - it would get more attention.

Yeah, poor BFfT hasn't really had much love over the past week. I still haven't had any valid notes over on Tumblr, and I'm holding at 4 hits on FictionPress. However, I went from 48 hits up to 60 over on DeviantArt. Who would have thought THAT'S where people go for original stories... No comments yet, and still only the one fave, but at least people are clicking on the link, maybe even reading it. So. Yeah. There's that.

I also have four "fans" - so to speak - over with my writing group. All four members that were there last Tuesday seemed to enjoy my story. Two in particular - who always seem to be the ones most vocal about my work anyway - really want me to continue the story into something novel-length.

The one was a touch concerned that Colton accepted what he is a bit too quickly, but it is a short story, so I kinda had to??? But, yeah, if it were a novel I'd probably have him struggle a touch more with the reveal. The other member really stressed how he liked my original stuff more than my fanfiction.

Valid. I mean, I feel part of that is because he's one of those of the mindset that Original Content is always superior to Fanfiction, and he probably thinks I'm "wasting" my talent with fanfiction. Again, valid, but I also don't think he fully comprehends the validity of fanfiction writing skills either.

Either way, I know I'm up to at least 5 fans of my work: those four at Group, and the one person over on DeviantArt. So... that's... cool.

Hacker Boy Facebook sticker
by Birdman, Inc.

Anyway, back to coming up with an ML fanfic in time for Halloween. I had to do a lot of repetitious work at my job yesterday, so I thought I could let my mind wander and try to come up with something. Yet all it could manage was the same tropes I see all the time in the ML fandom:

• Marinette is a witch and Chat Noir is her "black cat" familiar
• One of the cast - usually poor Adrien/Chat Noir - is actually a were-creature
• Demon summoning AU
• Vampire AU
• Adrienette goodness with that LadyNoir dynamic because they're in costume at a Halloween party and don't realize who the other is
• Alternatively, a non-superhero AU where they met at a masquerade, and don't recognize each other out of their costumes. Same Love Square chaos ensues
• A masked or otherwise Halloween-themed akuma attack

None of these tropes are BAD. They're tropes for a reason: people enjoy writing them and reading them. However, I like to add new things to the fandom. Besides, I'm sure there are better written and better planned-out versions of those tropes already out there that people can read. Case and point: Immortal Bonds for the Demon AU trope. Although, technically, Taurus Pixie doesn't have much of her rewrite up yet, so you'd have to go back to the original Immortal Bond for the true example of what I mean.

My point being, that I was stuck only thinking of things everyone else already came up with. Once more, I was at my default of "parrot what others did with your own twist." On top of that, I wasn't content that the "own twist" I was coming up with were unique or decent enough for me to bother writing them out.

I moved onto writing prompts, and let me tell you, it is so hard to find Halloween writing prompts not meant for children's writing projects. At least, unless you hit up Tumblr. Glorious Tumblr knows what's what!

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I spent some time on Tumblr, flipping through writing prompts. I was surprised how many included someone injuring themselves while carving a pumpkin! Is this legit a thing that happens? Or something people are EXPECTING to happen because... sharp/pointy things?

By the end of the work day I didn't have much by way of inspiration for the Halloween story. So, I did what I always do, and I talked things through with Hubby on our drive home from me picking him up at work.

I should just always talk to him first.

I was rambling off the prompt ideas that I was maaaaaaybe thinking about, and the tropes that pop up a lot in the fandom. He instantly jumped in with "ADRIEN'S FIRST TRICK-OR-TREATING BECAUSE HE WAS ISOLATED HIS WHOLE LIFE!"

I nodded and told him that I was thinking about that. Especially since we know Nino and Alya have younger siblings they'd probably be walking around, even if Nino's younger brother Chris likes to claim he's "too old for kiddie stuff anymore." Marinette could also be taking Manon around so Nadja can do a news report instead or something. It would be fun to see Adrien's unbridled innocence and excitement with trick-or-treating in contrast with Chris complaining about "baby stuff."

Then Hubby amped it up with "Manon could want to go as Ladybug, and begs Marinette to go as Cat Noir because Ladybug can't be without her partner. And so Adrien has to deal with Marinette running around as his superhero self. He may even hear about it early, and agree to go as Hawk Moth to complete the group costume. No, wait! He's super extra, so he'd go as Mayura, but since he looks so much like his mom he looks like Emilie's Mayura, and when Gabe sees that it puts him in an almost catatonic state that Nathalie has to deal with all night, all while realizing Adrien is running around Paris as her supervillian persona. OOO! And The Gorilla could be convinced to dress up as a senti-monster!"

By the time we got home I was dying!

I think I'm going to cap it at "Marinette surprises Adrien when she shows up dressed as Cat Noir to Manon's Ladybug" and focus on the goofy contrast of Adrien loving Trick-or-Treating at the ripe age of 14, meanwhile Chris - who is like... 10? - is pouting that this is "kiddie stuff" and doesn't want to join in. Not that I don't love what Hubby came up with. I 100% do. However, I feel like those are more visual gags? I'm going to have to put that out to the fanartists of Tumblr to please create a fancomic of Hubby's idea, because it needs to be appreciated in art form, I think.

Still, this brings me to my next point, and that's the fact that late last Tuesday, I finally figured out what image I should conjure whenever someone asks what my Muse looks like.

In the past, I've had a vague "female Ancient Greek" image, but I now know that is 100% incorrect.

My Muse is my Hubby. And I don't mean that in a sappy manner. I mean that completely honestly. More often than not, I either have NO ideas until talking to him gives me one, or I have a vague idea that becomes refined after discussing things with him.

Case and point: the aforementioned Halloween fanfic short story idea. Also, pretty much the entirety of my "original" story Blame Fate for This. That was more-or-less HIS idea, and I just ran with it.

I do that a lot... that's kind of what happened with Please, Let Me Explain and Some Like It Flamebroiled. For PLME, Ronoxym came up with a short story about Devon trying to explain himself to Willow, only I picked up the ball and sprinted away with it.... I then did it again for SLIF. I wrote a solo-role-play scene with Trish getting excited about blowing up an abandoned gas truck. Ron rewrote the scene as an AU of Trish and Devon dating - as I had originally intended - that was a bit smutty, but not too extreme. I, once more, picked up the ball and ran off with it. I have yet to properly finish either PLME or SLIF, but you get the idea.

Someone comes up with an idea, and I go all "Hold My Beer" on it... However, as I mentioned, most of those story ideas are birthed from Hubby.

In college, when I met him, I was stupid enough to take a video production class, script writing class, and a creative writing class all within the same semester. Did I make my life easy by writing a script based off my stories for creative writing, and then film them in production? Or, even write a story based off of my script for production? Nope. Why would I allow myself to double - or triple - dip like that?

So, instead, I came up with THREE DIFFERENT STORIES each time I had to come up with something new in each of the classes. I was getting fairly burnt out, and it was Hubby - then Boyfriend - who threw out the ideas that sparked my stories. He was like my Writing Prompt Random Generator.

When creating my first ever, and most prized, D&D character Amara? Same deal. He was the one who gave me the starting info to jump off with. World building? Same. He even came up with Willow's character as an NPC, and then gifted her to me to fully flesh out and take as my own. A lot of my more recent D&D characters I had him just draw up a base and hand over to me to role play, and they grew and developed from there.

It's not a matter of "Oh, he's my husband, he inspires me so much. He is my Muse." No. No I mean this as literally as I can without LITERALLY calling him a Greek minor deity. He tees up the ball, and I hit the home runs with them. Or... at least... I can get on base....

So. Yeah. Hubby is my Muse, and who the heck knows where my writing would be if it weren't for him. So all of that love you send my way? Make sure to send some his way too.

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Anyway - to get this blog back on track - unless something else springs up, I'm most likely going with the Adrien's First Trick-or-Treating concept for Thursday. Let's see if I find time to actually write it, though. Keep an eye out.

In the meantime, while you're waiting for me, why not check out one of the fanfics I follow?

Chapter 16 of When Duty and Desire Meet, which is also Part III of "The Bodyguard Arc," was just posted this past weekend, and man the ending of that chapter! Adrien, you love-sick nut!

For those who might not know, since it's been a while since I've talked about WDDM, the story is co-developed by midnightstarlightwrites and EdenDaphne. If I understand correctly, after their collaborative brainstorming for the story outline, Midnight then writes it, and Eden illustrates. Their concept is an AU where Adrien is actually four years older than Marinette, and when they first met up as superheroes, it was Ladybug who fell for Chat Noir. Except, due to the age difference, and Marinette being underage at the time, Chat Noir found her "cute" but wasn't romantically interested. Fast forward to a now 20yo Marinette meeting Adrien for the "first time" - as far as they know - in college, two years after Ladybug and Chat Noir have defeated Hawk Moth. Adrien instantly falls for Marinette, but she sees him simply as a best friend because she's too focused on her pining for Chat Noir. Basically, a complete flip of the Love Square. The new chaos gets even more complicated when Chat Noir gets caught leaving Marinette an anonymous rose on Valentine's day, and their crushes on each other becomes evident.

During the Bodyguard Arc, Adrien is on house lock down after receiving death threats. Even his phone is confiscated by the cops who are using it to try to find leads on who is sending the threats. Meanwhile, Ladybug is requested to be Adrien's bodyguard. They have a lot of MariChat-like interactions, but both are also concerned about their crushes: Adrien nervous about not being able to see or contact Marinette, and Ladybug worried about not seeing Chat Noir while she's on guard duty.

It's a fun AU concept. So if you haven't read it yet, go on and give it a go. The story if fun, and the illustrations are gorgeous.

While you do that, I'll see what I can do for my own story, as well as finish up my re-read of Peeping Tomcat and One and the Same so I can be good to go on Friday.

Speaking of re-reading “Peeping Tomcat,” I was re-inspired to do so this past weekend. Mostly due to a glorious FFN reader: writeringoodfaith.

Sunday morning I woke up to find 23 emails from FanFiction.Net all focused on writeringoodfaith! An even 20 of them are goodfaith reviewing my stories!

Another 2 were them favoriting two of my stories, and the final email was them starting to follow me as an author.

Writeringoodfaith started off reviewing all nine chapters of Prescription for Love, along with a favorite of the story. Then there was a review for Peeping Tomcat - Teaser, then for I Was Thinking of You, and Painfully Close, then the email letting me know goodfaith started following me, before finishing with reviewing 7 out of 17 chapters for PT. The chapters reviewed for PT? The first one, the 11th - which is the Teaser rewritten as a chapter - and the concluding 5 chapters of the story.

I'm not going to list all 20 reviews, but some highlights include:

writeringoodfaith: Ooh I love the premise and how you've done Kagami, her mother and Adrien. Lol could so see Adrien thinking these thoughts.

You write Adrien so amazingly well. The creators say that his only flaw is that he's too perfect for the outside world. He doesn't realize he's leading anyone on. He's just trying to be kind to everyone. Somehow you capture that so so well in his thought process and memories of Marinette and his present actions with Kagami.

This was the best depiction of Kagami I've ever seen. It's easy to be mad at her cos she wrecks the love square but she's got feelings too and Adrien needs to sort himself out... Speaking of which, Adrien was also a delight. He was so canonical it was crazy. This was just like an episode. Especially the part where he's all VERY GOOD FRIEND JUST A FRIEND everywhere. And his level of purity. So high. That's the Adrien we know and love and that's in the show. Now if only he could develop a tiny bit further and realise he has romantic feelings... This was an excellent fic. Thank you so much for writing it and sharing it with us!

I actually loved this teaser. It is helping me make an informed decision to commit to the long one. Yay!

This is my first Lukanette fanfic and I feel so guilty because it was perfect :') I like the song recs at the end of it too!

THIS chapter was so amazing! I loved, loved Ladybug's interview. Adrien really needed to hear that perspective. And it was so good too - I believe Marinette/Ladybug 100% mean[sic] those things! Also Chat Noir Appreciation Day. I love it.

Ah this was so cute. It all came together in the end. I am satisfied with this! Excited for the sequel but happy where it ended. Thanks for posting! I hope you keep writing :)

Bless Marinette. She was such a hero that week. She pulled off so much.

So, thank you, thank you, thank you, writeringoodfaith, for all of the love. It made my day! It really did help a lot, especially when I was getting such limited love for my original story. Plus, while I do get AMAZING and such largely invested readers, in the grand scheme of things, I still get such little recognition compared to those I follow over on Tumblr. The real sting are the ones who claim they are mostly artists, and are only just starting to transition into writing, and yet they already have such a large followship to start with, and they legit do have talent, that their stories are BLOWING UP.

I mean. I get it. I'm proud of them. I'm loving their content. I'm glad they are getting the love they're getting because they deserve it. I also know it's easier because they were able to build up such a large followship with their artwork, and their fans want to continue to support them. That's why *I* started reading their stuff.

I get it.

It still stings every once in a while. And it's been stinging extra hard this past weekend. Probably another reason I was so focused on maybe figuring out drawing this past week.

So, for writeringoodfaith, for my loudest cheerleaders - my mom, my hubby, ChibiSunnie, Taurus Pixie, and ChubbyUnicornMama - for my other reviewers, for everyone who reblogs my stories, and for everyone who likes/favorites/follows/bookmarks my stories, thank you so much. It really helps remind me that I'm on the right path, that I'm not shouting out into the void, and that I just need to keep the faith.

I love you all. You are all amazing.

Hacker Girl Facebook stickers
by Birdman, Inc

Well, it's now almost 4pm, so I should probably get moving on the rest of my day. Once more, I hope everyone enjoys themselves and stays safe this weekend.

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