The Battle With Fluff Week

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Edited by LycoRogue

Welcome back to this super special THIRD blog post this week! (Does this count as "this week" when it's Sunday and is closer to "next week"?) I meant to have this up on Thursday but... well... I've been sick this week (with my sleep schedule this month!? Who would have thunk!?) and I've been a bit too drained to finish this post on time despite my continuous working on it the past few days.

(What are you talking about? I'm totally not focusing on getting this post up to avoid working more on my Fluff Week stories....)

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by Hanasake Pictures Inc

Buuuuuut, speaking of Fluff Week, that's the main aim of this post. Wednesday I talked about everything that went into writing Marinette's Song, and today I'm going to discuss my battle with the Love Square Fluff Week at the beginning of the month.

In truth, part of the problem was probably my participation in the Lukanette Secret Admirer story exchange. I thought I had my schedule properly planned out so I could manage both, but with my lack of really writing anything in January, and then the EXCESSIVE amounts of research for Marinette's Song, I just shot myself in the foot. I didn't have time to properly plan out Fluff Week, which, at first blush, didn't seem that terrible of a deterrent. I didn't really plan Kyoru Week either, and yet I managed to do fairly well. I could totally do the same with Love Square, right?

Weeeeell... the thing is that I was focused on Marinette and Luka for close to a month. Even though I'm a die hard Love Square shipper, it was still a bit of a mental shift for me, and I guess I wasn't able to manage it as acrobatically as I thought. Another issue was that, as my husband put it, I depleted my Fluff Reserves while working on Marinette's Song, leaving me with almost only angst for my Fluff Week posts.

Ironically.

Yeah, I know, I know. I love you too, Irony.
NOW, GET OFF!

I mean, fluff got into the stories EVENTUALLY, but they weren't all good feelings and happy times, as one would expect to find during something called Fluff Week.

Honestly, I'm surprised I got any kind of love at all for those stories. The two with Ladybug were largely angsty, with comforting bonding at the end making everything better. The stories with Marinette are definitely fluffier, but there's no real romance in them. I mean, I have a HINT of romance towards the end of both, but still....

So, uh, yeah. No clue why Fluff Week is so much harder for me than other times I go to write. This month I was basically this meme...

That's Salt Not Sugar meme (or whatever it's called)

I guess I was just in a Mood the past month or so, and it spilled out onto my stories. In the end, though, I DID get some love.

FFN: 851 views, 6 faves, 11 followers, and 11 reviews
AO3: 176 views, 19 kudos, 2 bookmarks, and 13 comments
DA: 141 views, 2 faves, but no comments

Total Results: 1168 views, 27 faves, 13 followers, and 24 reviews

Tumblr Notes: 150 notes; 115 likes, 30 reblogs, and 5 comments

This post will be long enough as it is. Feel free to go to the respective sites to read the comments and reviews.

Not too shabby for someone who didn't really write fluff or fully participate in the event week. At least, not yet. I DID post a 4th prompt-story after the event was officially done, and I AM planning on finishing the other 3 prompts. I even have the AU Day prompt plotted out finally. More on that later.

Now, while I, of course, prefer sites like FFN and AO3 for my multi-chapter stories because everything is linked together as one large file, as opposed to my readers having to either go back to my profile or follow embedded links to get to the next chapter, there's also something that can be said about DeviantArt and Tumblr.

Namely, that I can see how specific chapters rate compared to the others.

Over on DeviantArt, my most popular chapter thus far is my MariChat story Let Me Help You. It has the most views at 51, and it's the only chapter with any faves. My second-best chapter is my first one: the Ladrien story Music to Heal, which has 47 views. My LadyNoir story/chapter I Have Something To Confess comes in third with 37 views. Trailing in the back of the pack is my Adrienette piece Playing House with only 6 views. To be fair for those later stories/chapters, though, they weren't up as long as the first two, so those numbers could still catch up in a day or so. It's unlikely after nearly a week, but it IS possible. Also, I published my first 3 stories/chapters while Fluff Week was still going, so maybe people just aren't in the mood anymore now that I've continued past the event - and Valentine's Day - with Playing House.

I'm inclined to believe perhaps the timing is indeed the main issue with the Adrienette story over on DA, because on Tumblr it's the biggest hit out of the four Fluff Week stories I have up. It has 47 likes, 12 reblogs - although, 1 reblog is by DiscoveringMiraculousWriters and another is the event page for Fluff Week. That being said, I did also get one more reblog from each of those two sites, so that's at least one more reader each that I might not have had without those reblogs.

I have to say, for a story I published at about 2am on Monday morning - and therefore the story hasn't even been live for a week - I'm impressed it's had so much love! I'm also glad Love Square Fluff Week is still reblogging stories tagged for the event, even if the event is over. Bodes well for my last 3 stories/chapters.

Much like over on DeviantArt, my MariChat story received a bunch of love as well. Over on Tumblr, it was a close second to Playing House. I currently have 34 likes and 10 reblogs. Granted, one of those reblogs was again by the LSFW event blog, and, sadly, no one else reblogged from the event page. I did get two more reblogs off of other people's reblogs though... so again I have at least 2 more readers than what I might have had otherwise.

I honestly don't know what it is about these two stories that got them so much love compared to the other two. Although, I do have to admit that there is a small handful of factors that I can think of.

• Playing House and Let Me Help You have Marinette instead of Ladybug, and maybe people prefer that?
• I know I prefer it. It's easier to have Marinette in a romantic situation than the super serious "must focus on Superheroing" Ladybug, as adorable as Soft Eyes Ladybug tends to be.
• PH and LMHY are arguably the fluffier of my stories, whereas the two with Ladybug instead of Marinette are more hurt/comfort stories.
• As I said above, it's easier to have Marinette be all fluffy and romantic as opposed to Ladybug. Because of the serious nature of Ladybug's character, it lends itself better to those hurt/comfort stories that start off a touch angsty, but becomes fluffy towards the end.
• Because I prefer writing Marinette over Ladybug, perhaps that bled through into the stories, and so, along with being fluffier, the Marinette stories are also just more fun to read.
• I've had time to distance myself from Lukanette when I wrote each of those Marinette-centric stories, so maybe my Fluff Meter refilled slightly?

I'm sure there are other potential factors, but those are the main ones I could think of. 

Anyway, my first-ever attempt at writing the Ladrien side of the Love Square came in third for Tumblr love. It could be because it was the first one posted, and therefore had the most time for people to have found it. It could be because I tagged EdenDaphne - something I'll touch upon again in a moment - and therefore had more visibility. It could also be because my LadyNoir story is probably the least fluffy out of my four posts, but I'll touch on that shortly as well.

My Ladrien story Music to Heal currently sits at 25 likes, and 7 reblogs. Since this story focuses heavily on music, I stole a fantastic idea from EdenDaphne's story Discordant Sonata, and included mood music links for people to listen to while reading. Since I got the idea from Eden, I made sure to tag her in my story in order to credit her. It kept her a couple of days to see the tag, but when she did she left me a lovely comment and reblogged it to her side tumblr account - the one she specifically has for reblogs so her main can focus on her original content. What's even better is that at least one person reblogged from Eden's side account. So, thank you, Eden, for spreading my story to at least one more person who might not have seen it otherwise. I'm actually going to say two people, because I don't know if Yunyin - another artist I admire - would have seen it otherwise either.... so... yay!

Anyway, while it will be a bit much to post all 24 reviews I've received between FFN and AO3, I AM going to share Eden's. Mostly because I admire her artwork and storytelling so much that I'm still dumbfounded that she read something I wrote AND commented on it AND reblogged it. Although, I must admit, that final bit might just be because I tagged her and she might have a thing for reblogging all mentions... but still! A reblog! Of my stuff! On Eden's sideblog! Whoo!

EdenDaphne: AHHHH I can’t believe I didn’t see the mention! What a sweet chapter, the music added that extra oomph to the Feels™️ 😭👌

The LSFW event blog also reblogged my story, and one person reblogged from that, so again, I managed to be seen by at least one more person who might not have found my work otherwise. So, that's super cool! It was expanded visibility like this that convinced me to try out the event in the first place, after all.

As for that LadyNoir story? Well, as I mentioned, I got kinda angsty in I Have Something To Confess, which mostly focuses on Ladybug letting Chat Noir know she knew where Master Fu lived, and that she allowed Adrien Agreste - simply a civilian, as far as she knows - the honor of suggesting a Miraculous Holder - something that Chat Noir hasn't been able to do - AND Adrien knows who Viperion is when NO ONE is supposed to know who the other holders are, aside from Master Fu and Marinette since she's handing them out.

I mean. I like the story well enough, but it probably isn't "worthy" of Fluff Week when it gets so heavy with its content. That MIIIIIIGHT be the reason it only has 9 likes on Tumblr, and the only reblog is by the Fluff Week event blog.

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Regardless of any other love I received, however, I have consistently gotten the same comment from the user daminett4life. Namely, they have left me triple heart emojis on all four story/chapter posts: ❤️💛❤️

Thank you so much for all the love, daminett4life!

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This is all well and good, but how did I come up with these stories in the first place? Why are they mostly angsty? Where am I planning on going with the final 3 prompts.... assuming I stop procrastinating enough to actually WRITE them?

All very good questions.

Let's obviously start with the first prompt: Concert.

"Music to Heal"

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Summary: Ladybug ends up stumbling upon an intimate scene as she stalks by Adrien’s home.

I meant to have my Lukanette story done by the 5th so I could start working on the Love Square stories on the 6th when Fluff Week started. However, the 6th was a busy work day, and I did NOT feel well; mostly just tired, but still. We ended up cancelling D&D that week, but I also didn't get much writing done, let alone starting my Love Square story. To be fair, though, my lack of writing anything that first day of the event was also largely due to the fact that I wasn't sure what to do for the prompt.

Friday the 7th, I spent most of the day at work trying to figure out SOMETHING. I purposefully avoided reading any fics because I didn't want to have them potentially influence my writing, but I still scrolled through the fanart to see if I could find something to spark a story. I then searched just generic Love Square fanart to see if that would inspire me. Trying to come up with a plot for a quick one-shot was trying, at best. I kept bouncing back and forth between ideas, mostly leaning towards the duo at a Jagged Stone or Kitty Section or Clara Nightingale concert, but that felt like the direction everyone would go??? I mean, it was a given, right? Prompt is 'Concert' so you take one of the three established bands/singers canonically in the show, and have Adrien and Marinette - in some form - go to the concert together.

Naturally, I wanted to see if I could bring an original take to the party, and eventually landed on Adrien playing piano for Ladybug. I had never written Ladrien before. It is just TOUGH to come up with a plausible excuse for Ladybug to spend time with Adrien, and not simply save him and then dash off again to stop the akuma. I mean, I've seen some nice concepts before, such as Ladybug being asked to be his personal bodyguard when the threat is a bit too high for Adrien's normal bodyguard to handle. There's also the classic "Ladybug checking in on Adrien post-akuma." No matter what I came up with though, it either didn't feel original enough or didn't make sense due to the fact that Adrien - as Chat Noir - would have been with Ladybug for the most part, or wouldn't have gotten home before Ladybug with enough time for him to be in the middle of something, like playing piano.

I needed Marinette to be Ladybug without an akuma threatening Paris, that way there was a reason for Adrien to be home; clueless of the need for Chat Noir. MariChat is easier because we have canon evidence of Adrien becoming Chat Noir just to get out of his father's home for a bit. For Marinette though? The only real canonical evidence of her being Ladybug outside of akuma attacks is when she's late for something, and needs to be Ladybug in order to cross the city quickly. She's also been Ladybug for petty reasons, such as finding a way to stop Adrien from slow dancing with Chloe, or to yell at Lila for lying about personally knowing Ladybug. None of them felt right for a Ladrien story, especially that prominent one of her being late for something: why would she then stop at Adrien's house and make herself later? The fandom loves to have the heroes go on patrol for those "just out as superheroes without anything terribly pressing" moments. I think the idea came from a YouTube exclusive video - one of the Miraculous Secrets videos - but patrols are never mentioned in the canon show, so I tend to ignore they happen.

I know I could have made an exception this one time, but I also thought of two other times Marinette was Ladybug without an akuma attacking: the episode "Prime Queen" where she and Chat Noir had a live interview with Nadja, and the episode "The Mime" when Ladybug granted Alya a private interview. So that was my in: she had done another interview with Alya - because she doesn't quite trust Nadja's reporting - and it just felt easier for her to go home as Ladybug as well. She's not in a hurry, and could cave in to her urge to stop by the Agreste mansion.

Originally it was supposed to be a very fluffy story of her getting a "private concert" from Adrien on his piano, but it somehow just got grim. He was grieving and missing his mom, and he played sorrowful music to reflect that. He was feeling alone and tearful, and Ladybug was there to comfort him, but I still had to break the poor kid first.

I'm mean like that.

At least I got a touch fluffier for the next story.

"Let Me Help You"

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Summary: Chat Noir struggles to help Marinette out with a major last-minute project. If only his darn claws weren’t in the way.

Like I said in my Tuesday blog, I couldn't think of anything for the prompt 'Flowers' until I thought back to Kyoru Week's prompt 'Paper Flower' and the significance of that prop for Kyo and Tohru. I could use that. I could have Adrien give Marinette a paper flower... or, more appropriately, Marinette give Adrien one. Somehow that turned into Chat Noir giving Marinette one. Regardless, I had to figure out why there were paper flowers in the first place.

My first thought was "Marinette is a class rep. So maybe she needs to make all of these flowers like they did in Fruits Basket." But I couldn't think of WHY. I didn't know if France had School Festivals like Japan did, and I wasn't sure if graduating from collège (basically middle school) in France is a huge deal? I did some research about two years ago and found out that you could basically test out of school at that point, if you wanted to go straight into a trade school or a career or whatever instead of going to high school. So... maybe it is a big deal? I didn't really have time to do the research though, so creating flowers for school was out. Of course I JUST NOW thought of "school dance, of course", but then again, I don't know if that's an American school tradition that doesn't exist in France...

I also thought about them making the flowers as a crafting project in art, but I couldn't think of a reason for Marinette to openly give Adrien one of the flowers, or vice versa, when the rest of the class is right there. I also thought of the students that go to the art room during their free period, but Adrien doesn't seem to be one of them, so I was again struggling to figure out how to get the flower from the room to Adrien.

I then thought of Kitty Section, and needing the flowers for set design for a music video. Okay. That was set. Next obstacle: the premise of Kyo having to redo all of his flowers because his admirers stole his initial batch, and Tohru helping him so he wasn't there all night. This would be perfect for Adrien and Marinette, except I couldn't figure out a scenario where Adrien was the one making flowers, Gabriel letting him out of the house to bring the flowers anywhere, or the flowers being left somewhere that Adrien's fans could swipe them. (Of course, yet again, I just now thought of him making the flowers during a free period in school and dropping them off at Juleka's and Luka's after school, but his fans swipe them in the interim...)

Point is, I couldn't figure it out THEN - I really need to find someone to bounce ideas off of like I just did here... - so I switched back to Marinette making the flowers, but why did she need to re-do them? I thought that they SOMEHOW went missing, and she was up late struggling to remake them all when Chat Noir pops in to check on her. He had seen her flinging things all around her room to look for the flowers, and he became concerned. I even started writing up the story with that premise, only to realize "would she have enough left-over supplies to start from scratch at about 10 o'clock at night? If so, why the surplus?" Soooo I instead went with a premise similar to the "Gamer 2.0" episode: Marinette overbooked herself and didn't have the time to work on the flowers before 10pm the night before they needed to be done. She's in a panic, and sore from making them as fast as she can, and freaking out that she won't get them done in time, and Chat Noir spots her pacing her room and stretching out, clearly tense about something. He checks in, and offers to help. The story developed from there.

The true struggle, though, was figuring out that second prompt of 'Trust'. As I mentioned on Tuesday, the trick was coming up with a display of trust that wasn't already showcased on the show or in other fanfics. I'm happy with what I came up with, but it certainly wouldn't really qualify as "fluff" under normal circumstances....

"I Have Something to Confess"

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Summary: Now that she’s the Guardian of the Miraculous, Ladybug has a lot to confess.

I was stuck for so long that I caved and began reading other stories with this prompt to see what others were doing. A lot of people had trust falls as their take on the prompt: be it Marinette and Adrien, or Ladybug and Adrien, or Ladybug and Chat Noir. The thing that really got me, though, was most of them showed Chat Noir/Adrien's complete trust in Ladybug/Marinette, not so much the other way around.

Now, that's not to say I didn't enjoy the Trust Fall stories. I actually really enjoyed CoffeeComicsGalore's take in their story Chasing Feelings. The story just really got to me for whatever reason. It's LadyNoir being playful and enjoying each other's company. I think I especially enjoyed Ladybug and Chat Noir acting as teens instead of superheroes. It's super sweet. In fact, all of Chasing Feelings is sweet, so might as well check out the whole thing!

Especially their last chapter for the prompt 'Reveal'? It's amazing, and has Adrienette being stupid dorks to prank their class and it's amazing and I need it to be canon!

Anyway, back to MY story.

I tried to think of different ways of displaying trust in someone without it being a trust in one's physical well being. I ran through dozens of different scenarios, none of which I remember now, and eventually I thought back to the episode "Syren" where Adrien/Chat Noir felt undervalued and untrustworthy to the point where he threatened giving up being Chat Noir because he wasn't being trusted or viewed as an equal partner.

Bingo! There's the trust! It was again SUPPOSED to be fluffier; closer to LMHY than Music to Heal. However, as I wrote it, it was a bit more even keel. It wasn't super angsty, but it wasn't terribly fluffy either. Chat Noir felt hurt that he was left out, but was feeling better that Ladybug now is trying to rectify that and make him a more equal partner again. Ladybug also was a bit saddened by the situation - losing Master Fu as a mentor and allowing her and Chat Noir to drift in equality for so long - and she was scared to find out Chat Noir's reaction to what she had to confess to him. She was surprised by how well he took everything, and amazed that he comforted her and reassured her that he wasn't mad.

It's a sweet story that I enjoy. It just isn't "fluffy".... like every story I published during the actual Fluff Week.

I think the trick was my last minute audible into wanting the stories to tie together. I was originally going to just do a series of one-shots like I did with Kyoru Week, but I saw so many other writers were making a cohesive story with the prompts. So I stupidly attempted to follow suit.

I Have Something To Confess was the first time I fully tried to integrate the Fluff Week stories by having Chat Noir remember how it felt for Ladybug to have comforted him, and how happy Marinette was when he gave her the paper flower. I also knew I needed to build up their relationship from friends to lovers in this story. Clearly the current Love Square dynamic was already in play: Ladybug and Adrien being in love with each other, but not sure how to express that, meanwhile Chat Noir and Marinette are just friends goofing around with each other and bonding. I couldn't instantly make them lovers. I had to work my way to it. I took the first step towards that in this chapter.

I then took a slightly larger one in the next story, the one I posted after the event was technically done.

"Playing House"

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Summary: Adrien finally has a day to spend with his friends, but Marinette can’t join in on the fun because she has to babysit Manon. Alya thinks they can do better than that….

The prompt for this story was 'Comfort' and I was again stuck, hence posting after the event concluded. I already had enough angsty stories where one part of the Love Square comforted another. Although, to be fair, in IHSTC, I had the comforting mostly be Chat Noir towards Ladybug, so that's twice Chat Noir comforted his lady - once as Marinette, and once as Ladybug - but I have yet to have Chat Noir be comforted. Likewise, I had, in this order, Adrien upset and comforted, Marinette upset and comforted, then Ladybug upset and comforted. So it WAS Chat Noir's turn to be upset and comforted somehow. At the same time, though, I had but one side of the Love Square left to showcase, and it didn't include Chat Noir.

Adrien and Marinette were both already upset about something, and already comforted by the other's superhero persona. I didn't really want to repeat that. Plus, I really TRULY wanted to try to be fluffy this time. I then noticed that the prompt was 'Comfort' and not 'Comforting' or 'Comforted'.

I could just focus on them BEING comfortable. Cozy clothes or non-awkward interactions or snuggling, etc. The possibilities erupted out of me when I realized that distinction.

There were almost too many, and I couldn't really lock down any in particular. One thought was to just have Marinette be relatively chill around Adrien for once; COMFORTABLE with him, like she was in "Oblivio" or the chapter "Normal" in my story Peeping Tomcat. Maybe the two have another dance since Marinette and Adrien both seemed quite comfortable together. Or she could teach him how to bake. There was also the aforementioned thought of them snuggling together under a blanket or something, but I couldn't quite figure out the reason why they were like that.

I also tried looking at one of my original fandoms, "Hey, Arnold!", in order to figure out "true fluff." What were some of the best Shortaki moments in the show, and what made them great? I instantly thought of the episode "Dinner for Four" where Helga wins a gift certificate for a dinner at a local French restaurant. In her attempt to prove to Arnold that she's as sophisticated as his crush Lila, Helga invites Arnold, Gerald, and Phoebe out to dine; on her. Or rather, on the gift certificate. Problem is, she got the restaurants mixed up and takes them to another French restaurant, racking up a high bill she can't pay for. She tries to get out of the bill, but in the end she admits her wrongdoings and the quartet washes dishes to make up for the cost of the meal. While Helga is understandably upset, Arnold playfully sprays her with the sink hose, and tells her how proud of her he is, as a way to try to cheer her up.

It's adorable, but I just couldn't figure out how to work that into an Adrienette story. So back to the drawing board I went. Maybe Marinette designed "comfy" clothes and Adrien was modeling them? Hubby ran with that idea and suggested a slumber party so they're all in comfy PJs. It felt weird for me, though, to have a co-ed slumber party with teenagers. Sure, OUR quartet of Marinette, Adrien, Nino, and Alya are just innocent beans who would probably have a wholesome slumber party, but I grew up with co-ed sleep overs past the age of 12 being a "no-no" until you were in college and Mommy and Daddy couldn't stop you. I couldn't get through that mental block. At least, not that day.

I know my school had "sleep over" trips to places like museums where the class went to the museum after-hours to have a private look at all of the exhibits, and have special ones set up for us specifically because we were spending the night. We then crashed in sleeping bags right in the main halls of the museum, have another fun private tour of some other exhibits in the morning, a pancake or scrambled eggs breakfast, a stop at the gift shop, and then homeward bound. There is the Louvre right there in Paris, among other historical sites. I could do something like that to allow the co-ed slumber party. However, my museum sleep overs were largely when I was about 10, so.... not sure if it's a thing 14-year-olds would be participating in????

Dear lord, I overthink my stories, don't I?

Tanuki Facebook sticker
by Yanare Ku

Anyway, I felt like maybe Hubby was on the right track with the PJs thing, even if I couldn't quite figure it out. I remembered the episode "Startrain" and the two of them snuggling while napping on the train to London. I could do something like that! You have to be super comfortable with someone to fall asleep around them, let alone ON them.

Perhaps they have a video game night - they seemed kind of comfortable together in "Gamer" - and it gets kind of late, so Marinette passes out on Adrien's shoulder again, or even on his lap. Or Adrien passes out on HER lap. I couldn't figure out how Adrien was able to stay out that late, however.

What if it was some sort of screening of one of Nino and Alya's movies, which would ALSO have them snuggling under a blanket, and it was just too calm and Adrien passes out!? It was good, but Alya and Nino were still there.

Finally, I don't even really remember how I landed on it, but I thought of the quartet having fun at the wax museum while playing with little Manon. I had already established in LMHY that Marinette is overbooking herself and exhausting herself, AND in IHSTC I added on the stress that Ladybug is under. Marinette was always overwhelmed with babysitting duties before, but now that the poor girl is exhausted!?

That's when I came up with the broad premise: Adrien gets a rare free day to hang with his friends, but Marinette is already getting overwhelmed while babysitting Manon. Alya volunteers to help her bestie out since Manon listens to Alya a lot more. Adrien and Nino chat before deciding to help the girls out. They help babysit, but Alya notices how tired Marinette is, and orchestrates her and Nino leaving with Manon to give Marinette and Adrien "alone time," and Alya tells Adrien to stay put to let Mrs. Chamack know where her daughter is, if she gets there before Alya and Nino return.

I was even able to work in that playful dish washing scene from HA! by having Marinette's family kitchen be a disaster after trying to bake with Manon, and Adrien helps clean it up while Marinette's napping.

In the end, it was definitely the fluffiest story out of the four I posted, and I kinda adore where it went.

Where are the next three going to go, though?

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I'm going to talk a bit about my intended plots for the last 3 stories/chapters, so if you want to go in blind, just scroll past.

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You good? You want to stick around to read this? Okay, cool. So the prompt that's tripped me up for most of this week is 'AU Day'. Now, a reminder that AU is short for "Alternate Universe" and is a type of story where you throw the characters into a situation that wouldn't be able to logically happen in the universe presented in the source material. For instance, my Lukanette story Marinette's Song where Marinette is a witch and Luka and Juleka are descended from sirens. A VERY popular AU trope is "Coffee Shop AU" where the characters run or otherwise meet at a simple coffee shop. There's also the "non-magic AU" trope where Ladybug and Chat Noir are either spies or superheroes without powers a la Batman or Ironman. Another one that showed up during Fluff Week was "Fairytale/Disney AU." I wanted to go a bit "off script" again and come up with a different take on AU. Because, ya know, I like to make my own life harder for whatever reason....

There was also the added challenge of "how can I be in an AU and still have it logically connect to the overall story?" A lot of the other continuous stories had an akuma create the AU universe, or they just allowed the AU be a "What If..." chapter. One story in particular, Two Hundred Seventeen Days by the duo mostlovedgirl and zenmisery - a story I will definitely gush over in my next blog post - went super creative and had Adrien and Marinette fake a relationship to avoid unwanted romantic/sexual advances, so their 'AU' is them being in a long-time relationship.

Hubby joked that I could take 'AU Day' literally by making it a chapter centered around gold - because AU is the chemical symbol for gold - or I could purposefully misinterpret what AU meant and have it stand for Aged-Up. Although, the Aged-Up story idea would have a similar issue to Alternate Universe, unless I time jump to Future Ladybug and Future Chat Noir via Bunnyx or something....

Anyway, waving off Hubby's suggestions, I thought of going a bit unique by having the AU being the characters playing a role play game, and telling the story through the perspective of their characters. It was a fun concept to think of the gang creating alternate personas for a World of Warcaft-like MMORPG, or characters for a LARP in one of Paris' many parks, or even a D&D-parody game. I might still develop these plot bunnies at some point, but there were two main issues with this route:

1. I wanted these last 3 prompts to FINALLY have the Love Square kind of collapse on itself: Marinette all but figures out who Chat Noir is, or at least realizes her feelings being torn between him and Adrien, and the same for Adrien with regards to Ladybug and Marinette.
2. Adrien feeling comfortable enough with his character persona to act more "Chat Noir Like" and Marinette not tripping over herself while role playing with Adrien. Plus, this would have to be an ongoing thing for them; could I afford Adrien enough time in his schedule to regularly - at least weekly - dedicate HOURS of his day playing a role play?

Again, it's a fun concept, but I think it might be a bit much for a single chapter within a story instead of a story in and of itself.

Finally, I went to yet another of my fandoms for inspiration: Ouran High School Host Club. In the episode "Haruhi in Wonderland" the main character becomes "Alice" as she follows Honey's stuffed pink bunny around Ouran, and meets each of the Host Club members - and other main supporting cast - as the various Alice in Wonderland characters. The Host Club members joke that Haruhi makes a "poor Alice" due to her logical analyzing of everything she comes across in the Ouran Wonderland. This crossover/AU episode ends with Haruhi waking up to Tamaki telling her to get ready for their Wonderland event, and she quips that she can't tell anymore when she's awake vs dreaming due to the eccentric nature of the Host Club members.

Normally, I'm not a fan of "It was all just a dream" stories, but that's usually focused on dramas, where the drama doesn't matter because everything goes back to Status Quo by the end. For AU episodes or stories, however, the "It was all just a dream" can be fun as it tends to also bring the story in a more whimsical direction. Also, if the audience already knows it's AU they are already expecting the events to not affect canon anyway, so the rug feels less pulled out from beneath you when the dream is "revealed".

The Miraculous Ladybug episode "Oblivio" kind of bridges that gap. It had drama, so the amnesia premise was annoying because none of it actually mattered in the end, however, due to how extreme the episode was, it was hard to believe it WOULDN'T somehow go back to the Status Quo, so you just enjoyed the ride and canonical proof of how well Adrien and Marinette would be together if they could just get past their own hang-ups. The season 3 episode "Chat Blanc" was also very much the same way - I can't believe they did that to us twice within the same season, BTW....

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My point is, I want to do a sort of semi-crossover/dream sequence for my 'AU Day' chapter/story. It was tricky to sort it out since it's not a direct parallel, but with the Love Square I wanted to go with an "A Midsummer Night's Dream" inspired story. Since it's a dream, Adrien and Chat Noir are two different people, and Kwami Shenanigans - that I don't have to properly explain because it's a dream, and when are things explicitly explained in dreams? - causes both boys to fall for Marinette; abandoning their love for Ladybug. Marinette gets a bit overwhelmed by the attention, and by the end of the dream she yells that it would be easier if they were just the same guy. Chat Noir and Adrien - in unison - comply and merge together, which is when Marinette wakes up with a start as her phone alarm blasts away.

If I can just stop procrastinating and get to writing the thing, it might be the fluffiest of my stories. I get to really just indulge in it, and I don't have to worry if it's not fully explained or a bit jumbled, as long as I skillfully do so in a way that seems obvious that it's a dream prior to Marinette waking up.

The next story/chapter would use the Day 4 prompt of 'Your Voice'. I was instantly inspired by this prompt. I've thought about this for YEARS now. Adrien does shift the tone of his voice slightly whenever he's talking as Chat Noir. Between that and his personality shift, it's easy to see how Marinette MIGHT not see the two as similar, let alone the same person. HOWEVER, the same can't really be said about Marinette. Sure, she's more confident as Ladybug, and that would affect her vocal tone, but if you heard confident Marinette vs Ladybug, it would be hard to tell the two apart.

I'm just waiting for the day when Adrien realizes that. He hears Marinette, and thinks it's Ladybug, or vice versa. I was half-expecting that sort of "ah-ha moment" in the episode "Reverser" when Ladybug becomes very clumsy and much more "Marinette-like" due to the villain's powers.

Add in my love for the 90s live action show Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. The very next sentence is going to be a spoiler for the show, but you're already in the Spoiler Alert section, soooooooo...... Anyway, the season 2 finale of L&C reveals that Lois figured out that Clark was also Superman. She figured it out due to 2 very important factors. The first was that she noticed both Clark and Superman lovingly cradled her face and massaged her temple with his thumb in EXACTLY the same way. The second was when Superman was reviving Lois and calling out to her, she regained consciousness thinking it was Clark calling to her, and even nearly called him Clark when she awoke.

That one. That second factor of confusing Superman's voice for Clark's is what I want to do. I'm not sure how I'm going to bang up Adrien/Chat Noir so badly without going down the Angst Hole again, but I want him to recover to Ladybug calling out for him, and he defaulting to "Marinette's Voice!"

I'm still unsure what I'm going to do for an official reveal for that final story/chapter/prompt. I have the dominoes lined up with Marinette wanting Chat Noir and Adrien to be the same person, and Adrien thinking he heard Marinette when it was actually Ladybug, AND PREFERRING MARINETTE TO HAVE BEEN THERE. So I just have to sort that out.

First though, is writing that AU story and going from there.
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OKAY! SPOILERS OVER NOW! YOU CAN START READING AGAIN IF YOU SKIPPED THE LAST PART!

The long and short for those who scrolled passed the spoilers, I have the AU story more-or-less mapped out. I was inspired by the 'Your Voice' prompt because it's something I've thought about for years with regards to a potential reveal lead-in. I don't know exactly what I want to do, but I have the overall FEEL for what I want to go for. That final prompt of 'Reveal' is still eluding me, but I hope to have it sorted out by the time I'm done with the other two stories/chapters.

AAAAAAAAAND there we go! All done with letting you know what went into my Fluff Week stories, and I'm all caught up on all of my "bonus content". This Tuesday I'll be focusing on all of those amazing stories I've read this month. I wanted to fit them in with the rest of Fluff Week, but this post is already so insanely epic.

Stay tuned for that Story Recommendations post on Tuesday!

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Happy Birthday, Pixie!

Welcome everyone, to the final day of Camp NaNo!

I'm not going to sugarcoat this. I SUCKED at writing this month. If I wasn't FINALLY going to watch "Avengers: End Game" tonight - so I obviously have to wear my Captain America shirt today - I would totally be sporting this baby all day.

Such major fail...

Thinking positively, though. I DID manage to surpass 5000 words, which means I have 5000 more words for "One and the Same" than I had last month. That's not nothing, right? I also have more of my plotline figured out, with those two key scenes finally sorted. So that's also a bit of a win. Right?

Hacker Boy Facebook Sticker
by Birdman, Inc.

According to Camp NaNo, at the pace I'm going, I should have OatS FINALLY done by September! Whooo!

Also, you may have noticed that my total monthly count is actually 8660 words. Although 3500+ of those words are NOT for OatS.

See, this past weekend was a whirlwind of birthdays. My aunt's was Friday, my mom's was Saturday, and Taurus Pixie's was Sunday.

So let's give a brief pause to wish them all a happy belated!

Back when I wanted to write a Christmas story for Pixie as a return gift for "Twelve Days of Chatmas," I had asked her what kind of stories she really liked reading. One of the suggestions she made was watching Chat Noir nurse Marinette/Ladybug back to health. I was originally going to go that route. I even had a basic story plotted out for it, but the further I went with the story the more I realized it wasn't really "Christmas-y" so I made a hard left on my MariChat story, and ended up with "Woven Heartstrings" instead. I think I made the right decision.

I then decided that I was going to put Nurse Chat Noir on the back burner until Pixie's birthday. Well, guess what? That meant back burner until this past weekend! Whoot!

Eeeeeeeexcept.... Pixie had gone on writing hiatus a few months back in order to re-center herself. Feeling better, she got back into working on her blog and fanfiction about two weeks ago. She was all excited to get back into the swing of things, but didn't take into consideration how she had to work herself back up into the rhythm she once had.

And that includes being inspired.

The girl has four stories going at the same time right now! I can't even finish figuring out ONE and she has FOUR: Madness Within, Destiny's Dance, Chat Vert, and Immortal Bond.

I, sadly, haven't had time to get into the massive undertakings that is reading "Madness Within" or "Destiny's Dance" quite yet, although I did read the first chapter or two of DD, and I did enjoy the set up.

"Madness Within" seems to be her main focus, as this is the one that tends to get updated the most frequently, and she has a sequel mentally in the works for it as well. "Destiny's Dance" seems to be mostly going through some clean-up edits. She'll update a more polished chapter on FFN and then post that same chapter as a "new" one on AO3 now that she's slowly trickling her works over there as well. It's a MASSIVE epic of a story though, so if you haven't started reading it yet - like me - then the fact that she's polishing it more than updating it should give you time to catch up before a new chapter gets published.

"Immortal Bond" was the first one of her stories that I read, and I greatly enjoyed it. However, this story seems to be the bane of her existence right now. She discovered a few months back that she had written herself into a corner that she couldn't get back out of, so she scrapped the project in favor of starting over from scratch. Much like my ongoing battle with OatS, it seems "Immortal Bond" is being just as frustrating to build for her. She's powering through, though, and I have faith that the end result we get will be amazing for it.

How does all of this relate to her birthday? Well, that's where her most recent story "Chat Vert" comes in. The story starts off with Marinette believing there's no hope for her and Adrien to be together because of his "crush" on Kagami. Her sadness results in an akuma, but thankfully our resident musician Luka is nearby to cheer her up. Sadly, this means the akuma instead "evilized" a woman who just found out her husband was cheating on her.

While that's where the story was left off - for now - we can still assume, based on Luka being in the story and the title hinting at a jealous Chat Noir, that there will be Lukanette goodness. It is also probably safe to assume that said Luka and Marinette pairing will make Adrien/Chat Noir jealous somehow, and I am super excited to see that unfold.

Unfortunately, after months away from the story while on her hiatus, poor Pixie is a bit tapped dry in inspiration for "Chat Vert." There is a Luka-centric episode out called "Silencer" which will 100% re-inspire her for this story. However, it's only out with the French voice over, and she tries to wait for the English dub so she can watch it with her boyfriend for the first time.

Kind of like how I don't mind subtitles, but I try to wait for English dubs of the episodes so I can watch them with Wolfhearted for the first time.

Anyway, knowing that Lukanette episode is out there, but she can't watch it yet, and knowing that her well is a bit tapped dry, I decided that what Pixie truly needed for her birthday was some Lukanette goodness to help her out.

Yes, it is a bit self-serving because it helps get another chapter of a story I read, but isn't most creative like that? We build from each other in hopes to see our mutuals grow?

Also... don't judge, it's a good story and I need more of it!


Long and short? The Chat Noir Nursing Marinette story was thrown to the back burner a second time in favor of a Luka and Marinette story instead. Problem there, though, was that I made this decision ON her birthday, on my way to work. Which means it was already the afternoon of her birthday before I even got started writing. If I was able to have a full day to just write, and get it polished and ready to post by the time I got home, that would STILL be about 9:30 at night on her birthday!

It would be cutting it close, but it was worth the effort.

And then the story didn't want to properly form. I got side-tracked easily. I couldn't decide on where I wanted to go with the story. Did I want just HINTS at their crushes, as there were in the episodes Captain Hardrock and Frozer? The way I hinted at a potential future relationship between Chat Noir and Marinette by the end of "Woven Heartstrings"? Should they already be dating, as they were in my first ever Lukanette fanfic: "Kisses"? What about a "get together" story where they finally realize their feelings? Or should it be a sort of "half reveal" of their own in which Luka officially confesses his love for Marinette, but she doesn't necessarily respond/reciprocate, because... Adrien?

By the time I got home from work I just barely had the start of a story done. I was able to do a little bit more writing while waiting for Hubby to get off of work, but not enough to finish. Then... well... Game of Thrones happened.
   

I was tapped after that episode, and it was about 4am Pixie's time anyway, so I waved my white flag.

So my focus yesterday, since I had a rare Monday off again, was to finish my story. It STILL kept me until 4pm my time to do it though! There goes my day off being productive....

Still! I got the story done! And it was "only" 9pm her time... so I was technically still only a day late with my gift.

NuaNia Facebook sticker
by PRANEAT

Based on her review... I think she liked it. What do you guys think? Hehe.

Oh...my...god! I literally had to keep pausing as I was reading because I just couldn't handle all of the amazing cuteness and fluff! I was rolling around on my bed squealing like some crazy person. I have never been more in love with two characters than what I am now! Eeeek, they were just so damn adorable! I LOVED THIS SO MUCH! EEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKK!

You know how much I love my Lukanette, and the fact that you captured their characters so well in this story made it all the more better. I LOVE IT! I LOVE IT! I LOVE IT! I LOVE IT! Of course I love my love square ships, but I do love Lukanette as well, but I can never find many decent stories that keep my attention, so I'm so glad that I have this one now! Not only that, but it's dedicated to ME! Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!

You are the most amazing writer and the most amazing friend! Thank you so much for helping me with inspiration with Chat Vert! This story has certainly helped reignite that spark and the rusty cogs inside my head began to turn again. Thank you so much for that! This is one of the most amazing one-shots that I have ever read and I really can't thank you enough.

YOU'RE THE BEST!

LOL, she's adorable, right?

Anyway, you can also read her belated birthday gift at my normal three sites.

"I Was Thinking Of You"

On FanFiction            On ArchiveOfOurOwn            On DeviantArt

It's a completed one-shot of "only" 3500-some words. So it should be a relatively quick read this go.

Also, apparently Pixie isn't the only one who believes it's hard to find decent Lukanette stories, which actually surprises me considering the love Luka has been getting lately.... Then again, it's been forever since I've attempted to find fanfiction to read soooooo....

Anyway, at least one other review I received also claimed the same.

FFN Reviews:

• I LOVE this! It was so sweet! And I'm not even really a Lukanette fan... but YES! This was awesome!
• This was beautiful and I loved it. It's really hard finding decent Lukanette stories, so I'm glad this one exists! It was a truly wonderful read.
• ...Now I just really wanna watch that fictional movie :P

AO3 Reviews:

• This is fantastic and sweet, and I enjoyed it very much.
  I'm so glad Luka made it clear that he doesn't just want to be friends with her (since that was a concern of hers in Frozer). And I love how her friends were so supportive (and had been eagerly awaiting this).
• Awww this was precious!

I think the most amusing thing was that last AO3 review - "Awww this was precious!" - because it was immediately followed by this review:

LOL wow I Just realized who wrote this fic! I guess it always seems like your fics appeal to me!

Also as a sidetone, I'm in the middle of reading Pepping Tomcat and its really great so far!!

How awesome is that!? This isn't the first time this person has done this either. They read a story, like it, and THEN realize I was the one who wrote it. Amuses me each time they realize that.

Another thing that amuses me is the stats I have over on DeviantArt for this story. Somehow, I only have one view of the story, but two different users favoriting it....

Um.... sure... I'll take it, I guess.

Actually, what ARE my stats thus far for this story? Keep in mind, it's not up for 24hrs yet.

FFN: 141 views, 8 faves, 4 followers, and 4 reviews
AO3: 227 views, 22 kudos, 0 bookmarks, and 3* comments
DA: 1 view (?), 2 faves, and no comments

Total Results: 369 views, 32 faves, 4 followers, and 7 reviews

Tumblr Notes: 6 notes: 3 likes, 1 reblog, and 2 comments - me and Pixie talking

I have to admit, I'm loving the reviews I'm getting. I'm so happy other people are also enjoying this gift for Pixie. Especially since I talk about Chat Vert as my reason for writing a Lukanette story in the first place. So perhaps that means she'll get more love for her story as well.

Also, fun bonus: it's a completed story in the month of April! Score! Mark another one off my check-list. I still missed writing/completing a story in February - what did I do in February??? - but at least I have "Woven Heartstrings" for January, and "Prescription for Love" for March, and now "I Was Thinking Of You" for April.

A big bit of inspiration for the story was actually a song I was re-introduced to via a throw-back radio station I listen to. I had enjoyed the song when it first came out in 2009, and I was reminded of that about a week ago.

"Two is Better Than One" by Boys Like Girls; 

featuring Taylor Swift

I had that song on loop for most of my writing. It really got me in the proper mood for the story. It worked, for the most part, but then I got to the main scene with Luka, who is, of course, playing his guitar. I needed inspiration for the songs he was playing as well. After a quick search on YouTube, I discovered the composer Ryini Beats.

He was pretty perfect for finding guitar-only instrumental songs to help inspire me for Luka's own compositions. There are four songs he plays for Marinette.

The first one is a bit sad, and Marinette even calls him out on how sorrowful it sounds.

That soft electric echo of the guitar in that song was even more perfect since Luka always strums on an unplugged electric guitar.

After Marinette calls Luka out on the sadness of that first song, he switches it up a little to something a bit more upbeat, but still has some melancholy to it.

After some more conversation, Luka switches up the music a little bit more, and we transition into a song inspired by this one from Ryini Beats.

Finally, Luka switches gears one last time. I wanted something super plucky and cheerful for that last song. Sadly, the one I found that I thought was perfect is also one of the few songs Ryini Beats does not have marked as Free. So the audio equivalent of a watermark comes in every couple of seconds. Still, it should be enough to give you the basic idea.

Long and short? Now you have a sort of "soundtrack" for "I Was Thinking Of You", and if you enjoy the songs I picked from Ryini Beats, feel free to support the guy. Even if that means watches on his YouTube channel. The songs are all so good.

...

Okay, wow! Yeah... this post went STUPID long, resulting it being nearly 90min late to publish. So I'm going to call it here.

Just... ya know... read Pixie's stuff. Listen to Ryini's stuff. Support creators. And also, feel free to let me know what you think of my latest story.

Catch ya next week!

Picture Time!

Why, hello, fine folks! Welcome, welcome. I've got quite a bit of a treat for you.

Well... for some of you....

I don't know how involved/invested some of you might be when it comes to this, but back in chapter 4 of "Prescription for Love" I had designed outfits for the two Agreste men and two Tsurugi women to wear to the British Royal Wedding.

I had a couple of reviewers state that I did a wonderful job designing everyone's wedding outfits, and/or they also feel the pain of trying to design new outfits for their characters. It was so great to feel that camaraderie and praise that I figured I'd let you know exactly what I do to get these outfits figured out.

I meant to go over all of this last week, so it would be closer to when I posted the fourth chapter, but with everything else I talked about, and how long it kept me to finish the post, I just forgot. Which means you guys have the delight of learning my process this week instead.

Buckle up, there are a LOT of pictures to go through.... I probably use as many reference pictures as artists do. I just wish I could DRAW the finished product to show everyone... Oh well, my readers seem to have a decent mental image. We'll see now if I was able to describe the below in a good enough capacity that you, dear reader, were able to imagine what I did.

To start, sadly, I don't know why, but it seems I deleted the reference pics I had for Gabriel and Adrien's matching white tuxes, and I can't re-find the pictures I used via Google image. At least, I can't re-find them in a timely enough manner for it to be worth it.

Just know that I spent probably hours online flipping through pictures of tuxedos of varying degree of formalness. I saw some really sharp-looking white tuxedos with waistcoats, and, with both Gabriel and Adrien wearing white jackets/cover shirts normally, it seemed to fit them.

Gabriel, Adrien, Kagami, and her mother
from the "Miraculous Ladybug" episode Backwarder

Okay, so Gabriel wears more of a cream-colored jacket compared to everyone else in white, but you get the point.

Once I decided on a white tux, I wanted a bit of an accent. I'm not entirely sure how I stumbled upon silver paisley, but I did find a lovely picture and ran with it. Along those lines, I just pictured Gabriel in a top hat, and it worked for me. Same with Adrien in a trilby. I would love to show you what I envisioned, but I just spent the past 45 minutes trying to quickly edit a few clips from Style Queen with Marinette's derby hat replaced with a trilby. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a trilby image at the right angles for the edits to work, so they all look like these...

Last one is the best,
I think....

Trust me, in my head it worked....

The real problem, though, was trying to figure out what the Tsurugi women were wearing. I did a few internet searches, resulting in kimono-like dresses such as this one for Kagami's mother.

I still wasn't very satisfied, though. So I went to one of my mobile games. It's a fashion designer/dress-up game called Love, Nikki. In the game, the Cloud Empire has very Chinese-oriented clothing, but there are also kimonos, so I figured I'd flip through the Cloud Empire clothing to try to find something Kagami and her mother would wear.

For Mrs. Tsurugi, I put together this.

What I love is that the hair style and glasses almost match Kagami's mother's design.

It made it much easier to picture Mrs. Tsurugi wearing the above gown since I basically put it on her.

After an hour or so, and coming up with the above look for Mrs. Tsurugi, it was Kagami's turn. I knew I wanted her in red, and in a more modern look. My Love, Nikki take was this one.

It was decent, especially since I found a hair style close to Kagami's. It just didn't feel as fancy as everyone else's though. Ironic, since, while looking up images of guests of the Royal Weddings of Prince William and Prince Harry, this design for Kagami is probably closest to what real-world guests would wear....

Anyway, back to the internet I went. As I looked for "modernized kimonos" and "Japanese modern wedding outfits" I stumbled upon this article: Antique Kimonos Elegantly Transformed into Contemporary Wedding Dresses

The long and short of the article - which isn't long to begin with - is that designer dress company Watabe Wedding pioneered the trend of modernizing kimonos as colorful Japanese wedding gowns. Out of their collection of five gowns they rent out to brides, these are the three I combined to eventually design Kagami's dress for my story.

The Kanazuru (“gold crane”)
designed by Watabe Wedding

This one was my main inspiration. Something about it just screamed "Kagami" to me. The red and black. The subtle white accent. The ribbon around the high-waist of the gown. The delicate power that the golden cranes seemed to add to the dress. I just loved this gown, but it needed some tweaks. That's when I went with this gown:

The Tsurumomiji (“crane maple”)
by Watabe Wedding

This was the flowing silhouette I wanted for Kagami. It had grace and elegance and a daintiness she rarely shows canonically. Plus, it better matched Marinette's vision of what Kagami would be wearing.

Marinette, freaking out about Adrien and Kagami having a weekend away,
starts envisioning how Adrien would fall in love with Kagami after seeing her dolled up.

The dress from Watabe Wedding that really cinched it for me was this one.

The Botangiku
(“peony and chrysanthemum”)
by Watabe Wedding

I loved the idea of the dress having a corseted back, and I loved the flowers on this gown. It again had the flowiness I wanted Kagami to wear, and it had a nice elegant train to it.

The last bit was Kagami's sleeves. In truth, that idea came from my own wedding gown. It was an October wedding, so I wanted belled sleeves to wear during the ceremony, and then I could slip them back off for the reception. However, on top of that personal spring of inspiration, I also found images of looooooong sleeves like these, that kind of matched the look of a furisode kimono.

So I decided to add in the detached and belled sleeves to Kagami's outfit.

I wasn't QUITE done yet, though. Mrs. Tsurugi had her hair up in the elegant buns showcased in that Love, Nikki design, but Kagami just had her hair down. Even in Marinette's imagination, Kagami's hair was down with just an accent in it. I wasn't a fan. She needed a bit more as well. So back to the internet I went, searching for updos for bobbed hair. I eventually found this.

I loved it! Kagami's hair would look so cool woven together like this! And she's one of those annoyingly "good at anything she does" type of people, so I had faith she could figure out how to properly pin her hair to have it look like that basket weave. Throw in some Baby's Breath throughout her black/blue hair, and I was done.

Hacker Girl Facebook sticker
by Birdman, Inc

Whoo! That.... was a lot.... But for anyone curious about how I designed everyone for the wedding in chapter 4, now you know. In great length. With plenty of pictures. I gladly welcome fanart of their looks.

The above process kept me about three or four days to accomplish, so you can probably see (a) why I wasn't able to write at a fast enough pace to get the story done and up in a timely manner after Backwarder aired, and (b) why I have a love/hate relationship with the idea of designing outfits for characters....

This is why I gave up fashion designing, and why I'm sticking with writing.

But all of that was what I did back in February. What did I do THIS week?

Well, in part, I slacked off a little.

I didn't finish and post my blog update last week until Thursday, so you can read that post to see what I was doing on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Friday was supposed to be when I would post chapter 7 of "Prescription for Love." That way I was still, kind of, keeping with my "every three days" posting schedule. As you could probably guess, I failed at that deadline.

I had the chapter written up, but part of it was Kagami's story tagged onto the tail end of chapter 6. I realized it didn't really work in her POV, so I gave it back to Adrien. Which meant I had to rework a few things so it fit his perspective better. The second part of the story was from Adrien's POV to begin with, but it was an awkward transition from Kagami's chapter, so THAT needed to be fixed. Once those opening parts of the chapter were polished, I realized I wasn't a fan of how I described Adrien FINALLY getting the medicine Marinette asked for, so that needed to be reworked as well. Lastly, I felt that, as the sort of culmination of the whole story, the drive to find the meds that has pushed Adrien throughout the plot, the chapter was kind of bland.

I zipped through their Sunday in London, got the pills for Marinette, and had the quartet on the train within 1800 words. That was too quick. I mean, it kept me 6 chapters, and roughly 9,000 words, to describe everything that happened during their Saturday, but only a fraction of that length was spent on Sunday? The day where everything kind of comes to a head? I couldn't rush this.

So I slowed things down. I showcased Kagami's attempt to help Adrien, and Adrien's frustration that they walked "all over London" - as he says in the episode - to find the medicine. The end result was an extra day needed to write and edit. Which meant the chapter was OF COURSE late and posted on Saturday instead of Friday.

Late Saturday as well. It posted at 10:30pm my time. I'm good at this deadline thing...

"Chapter 7"

On FanFiction            On ArchiveOfOurOwn            On DeviantArt

This chapter, after slowing things down, became MASSIVE, compared to my other chapters. Well... other chapters within PfL. This past chapter certainly isn't massive when compared to chapters in my other works.

Anyway, my point is, I was proud that this story had "bite-sized" chapters of only 1000 words or so. Then I inched closer to 2000 words. And then this chapter? Darn near 4000 words. Granted, that was the average size of a “Peeping Tomcat” chapter, but... well.... I wanted shorter chapters for this story. I mean, it was SUPPOSED to be a simple story inspired by a single episode. I wasn't expecting it to blow up to a 13,000+ word story! And I still have at least one more chapter to write, maybe two.

Worse yet is that I'm still not completely satisfied with my timing for Chapter 7. Upon doing further research for my upcoming chapter, I realized that Adrien and Kagami seem to be stopping to eat a LOT in this last chapter.

• Kagami and Adrien had breakfast at about 8am, and it takes roughly 30min to eat.
• Then lunch less than 4hrs later at noon, which again takes about 30 or 45 minutes to eat.
• Then they had to try out the British tradition of Afternoon Tea at about 3pm, which meant only two/two-and-a-half hours between meals...
• While Adrien and Kagami finished their tea early and went to go feed ducks and talk, Mrs. Tsurugi enjoyed a full hour for her tea, which means they went back to touring about 4pm.
• I had the train leaving at 8pm to arrive in Paris at 10pm, but I forgot about time zones, so the train has to actually leave at 7pm. 
• Which means, when they stopped for an early dinner before meeting up with Gabriel and boarding their train, they had to have stopped no later than 6pm. 
• And that's based on the idea of them both getting, and eating, their meals in about 20min!
• So, in truth, they probably stopped closer to 5:30. WAAAAY too soon after having Tea!

It's a good thing I didn't actually state any times in my chapter, but it's easy enough to break down. That is a LOT of food in a VERY short amount of time, especially for Europeans, who traditionally eat WAY less than Americans do.

Maybe I shouldn't have had poor Adrien try a "Full English" breakfast at the start of the chapter...


There were a couple of other things with the chapter that bugged me, like a distinct lack of location transition towards the end. Adrien is in the pharmacy, then there's internal monologue and contemplation, and then, suddenly, Adrien is at the train station and asking his father something.

No mention of reaching the hotel to gather their bags from the storage lockers, where their stuff was moved to after 11am check-out. No mention of meeting up with Gabriel after a day away sight-seeing. No mention of reaching the train station. Just a vague hand wave, and BOOM! They're in the train station!

So, I'll most likely go back and polish up Chapter 7 one more time in the future. For right now? It's at about 85%, so I need to focus on finishing the story first.

Which will be fun, since, while rewriting Chapter 7 in the first place, Adrien threw a curveball at me that I need to handle. I also never got around to actually finishing the story before I started posting. Remember a few posts ago, when I said I couldn't QUITE hit my goal of one new story per month because I couldn't finish PfL in February? Yeah, I was so focused on my sister's birthday and playing catch-up polishing off my first draft, that I never actually finished it.

A new chapter is SUPPOSED to go up today, and I have a decent chunk of the chapter written already. Who knows if the chapter will actually make it to being published though.... Wish me luck, fast fingers, a steady flow of inspiration, and a LOT of discipline to not distract myself.

Also, don't forget to check in on your favorite link to my story for that next chapter update:

"Prescription for Love"

On FanFiction            On ArchiveOfOurOwn            On DeviantArt

Keep in mind that if you follow the story on FFN, subscribe to the story on AO3, or follow me on DA, you'll get an email notification once I post the new chapter. That way you can be one of the first to read it! And you don't have to wait for the link in my post next Tuesday. Yay!

Alternatively, you could follow me on Tumblr to see me post a promo for the latest chapter once it's live. Lots of ways to find me, find the story, and find out when a new chapter or story is posted!

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I've got grocery shopping, laundry, and cleaning to do before hitting up "Captain Marvel" with Skarabrae-Stone tonight, so I better get cracking on that writing! Catch you guys next week.