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....
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...
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:
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!
NuaNia Facebook sticker
by PRANEAT
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.
Eh, at least it was on a Monday, and not Tuesday. Yet. Again.
Then again, I don't have writing group tonight, so maybe it just snows on Tuesdays I have that evening meeting...???
As for writing, well.... I'm sort of at equal parts of "did a lot" and "barely had a chance to touch it."
Last week we got two new episodes for "Miraculous Ladybug." The first came out last Tuesday evening and was called Backwarder and the second came out on Valentine's day, and that one was called Stormy Weather 2.
At first, I was a bit bummed that we didn't have a more romance-centered episode, such as Weredad, for Valentine's day, but as Lawbreaker13 noted on Tumblr, there are a lot of parallels that tied Stormy Weather 2 back to the Dark Cupid episode.
Now, before I continue, I want to seriously point out that if you're in the fandom, and want a really good analysis of the episode Stormy Weather 2, you should check out that link to lawbreaker13's review. They even had their analysis pretty much confirmed as the writers' aim via the show's creator: Thomas Astruc saw my post you guys!
I haven't shared it on my tumblr blog yet because I want to re-watch the episode, that way I could throw in some of my thoughts as well. I just haven't had the chance to do a good rewatch, especially since I'm waiting for Wolfhearted. There are a few bits that I'm a bit... unsure of.... with Lawbreaker13's analysis, and wanted to include a sort of counter-argument, but, again, I haven't had a chance yet.
Anyway, back to the parallels between Stormy Weather 2 and Dark Cupid. Here's a real quick recap of the latter episode for those who aren't in the fandom:
In the season 1 episode Dark Cupid, the characters are celebrating Valentine's Day. There's a lot to unpack in this episode, but most of that isn't important for the parallels used in Stormy Weather 2. The long and short is that Marinette's classmate Kim tries to confess his crush on Chloe, only to be rejected and humiliated. He then transforms into Dark Cupid, who has the ability to create hatred with his arrows, as opposed to Cupid's ability to create love. He uses the power to break up any form of affection he sees: romantic or otherwise. He manages to hit Cat Noir with an arrow, and Ladybug can only break the spell with True Love's Kiss. It's kind of a big deal within the fandom. However, the part that's important is this:
While in class, Adrien works on a love poem for Ladybug, but he never actually names the subject of his poem within the writing. By the end of the school day, he gives up on his project and throws it out. Marinette, who had been trying to see what he was writing the whole time, pulls the crumpled paper out of the trash. As she wonders who the love poem is for, Tikki, who, at this point, doesn't know Adrien is Cat Noir, suggests that the lines are describing Marinette. Convinced that Tikki might be right, Marinette brings the poem home. She then decides that she's going to write Adrien a responding poem for Valentine's Day, and actually follows through with it. She even mails it to him. Problem is, Alya distracted her as she was finishing, and she forgot to sign her name. Adrien finds the unsigned valentine, and, since it answered his poem about Ladybug, daydreams that his superhero partner is the one who wrote him back.
Sorry, that was still kind of long, but trust me, that was "quick" for our purposes. So, how does this run parallel with the most recent episode, making Stormy Weather 2 an appropriate Valentine's Day episode? Well, towards the end of their review and analysis, lawbreaker13 pointed out the call-back to the poems.
We haven't had a call-back to them yet in the series, and then, towards the beginning of this episode, Marinette re-reads the poem Adrien penned. The exact scene of Adrien throwing it out, and Marinette retrieving the paper, is even shown in a flashback. Not only that, but it's shown at nearly the exact same time in both episodes. In Dark Cupid, Adrien throws the poem out at roughly a minute-and-a-half into the episode, and Marinette reads the poem out loud about 2mins in. For Stormy Weather 2, the shot of Adrien throwing out the poem shows up just shy of 3minutes in, overlapped with voice over of Marinette reading the last lines of the poem.
Likewise, at the end of Dark Cupid, at 19minutes and 47seconds in, Plagg is teasing Adrien about being brainwashed and doing cruel things towards Ladybug. Adrien is already upset about the whole thing, as well as his failed attempts to let Ladybug know how much he cares for her. In Stormy Weather 2, Plagg is again pointing out the failure of Adrien's wooing of Ladybug at nearly the exact same time: 19minutes and 35seconds in.
Fair warning, the rest of this is going to include minor spoilers for the Stormy Weather 2 episode, so please just scroll past if you want to avoid those.
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Okay, now back to Dark Cupid, Plagg says: "What's the big deal? You've got so many cards from all of these lady fans of yours, take your pick!" He then digs through the mountain of valentines, tossing Marinette's heart-shaped one onto the bed next to Adrien. In Stormy Weather 2, Plagg says: "Why don't you look for another girl to love? One who's actually available?" He then dumps Adrien's mountain of valentines onto his bed. Since this isn't specifically another Valentine's Day special, we're not entirely sure if it's been a full year since Dark Cupid, so this pile could still be from that V'day, but none of the other letters are opened; neither are the gifts. We won't focus on that right now. The point is that Marinette's unsigned valentine to Adrien is sitting on the top of this pile, and it is once again on Adrien's bed.
In Dark Cupid, Adrien picks up the unsigned valentine and reads it at the 20minute mark. He does the same at 19:40 in Stormy Weather 2. Again, nearly identical times within the episodes. Keeping with that parallel timing, at 20:28 in the Dark Cupid episode, an actual ladybug lands on the open valentine, right about where the signature should be. This is when Adrien thinks "maybe Ladybug sent it?" Jumping to the Stormy Weather 2 episode, Nathalie drops off schoolwork from Marinette at roughly the same time. Adrien even comments, at 20:05, that he never noticed before that Marinette's handwriting looks a lot like his unsigned valentine. So, at nearly identical times in the episodes, Adrien tries to figure out who wrote the valentine to him.
All of that said, the reason Stormy Weather 2 makes a good episode for Valentine's Day consists of more than its connection to Dark Cupid. There is also a nice chunk of overall character development and insight showcased in the episode, most of which has romantic undertones. Finally, the bit that most of the fans seem to hate about this episode is the fact that it's largely seen as "simply" a recap episode. At least half of the episode was made up of flashbacks, overdubbed by introspective voice overs. This "flaw" is the last reason why the episode was great for V'day: there were a lot of flashbacks of Marinette pining over Adrien, Cat Noir pining over Ladybug, and even Nathalie's growing affection towards Adrien and romantic feelings towards Gabriel.
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OKAY! SPOILERS OVER NOW! YOU CAN START READING AGAIN IF YOU SKIPPED THE LAST PART!
For those of you that skipped the above, the spoiler-free long-and-short is: Stormy Weather 2 has strong connections to the previous Valentine's Day episode, as well as showcased Marinette's feelings for Adrien, Cat Noir's love for Ladybug, and Nathalie's affection - both paternal and romantic - to Adrien and Gabriel, respectively. All-in-all, even though it wasn't overtly a "Valentine's Episode", it was still a very appropriate one to air on Valentine's day.
But I spent too much time talking about that episode. Although, as I pointed out in that spoiler section, it IS a good reference point for fanfic writers. If I hadn't already tackled my thoughts on Adrien's feelings for Marinette in “Peeping Tomcat” I would have definitely used bits from this episode for reference points. I'm glad to know that I seemed to have understood Adrien enough to kinda get it right... I'll definitely use this episode for character insight reference when I continue my work on "One and the Same."
Speaking of working on OatS, as I said at the start of this week's blog, I did a lot of writing, and yet barely any at all. It's a weird contradiction, I know.
So we'll start with the "not much at all" bits. I had two zero-days in a row, which, happily, has been a rare occurrence this year thus far. Although Tuesdays tend to only see me writing my blog posts, I've still had full weeks where I didn't have a single Zero-Day, and other weeks where I've only had one missed day. Still others did have two, but they were separated by multiple writing-days in a row. After a more consistent writing schedule such as that, it felt like I really slacked off by not really writing anything this weekend.
I also didn't add to my "One and the Same" manuscript this past week, so that was another bit of disappointment.
I didn't even have a short story up for Valentine's Day like I wanted. Instead, I recycled romantic Tumblr Exclusives and fluffy scenes from PT as my Valentine's Day contribution.
My first one is probably my personal favorite: Stranger in a White Dress. While it had 19 notes on Tumblr when I first posted it in May, it didn't really get any new love when I reblogged it on Thursday. It's a Gabriel and Emilie story, and the fans probably weren't into that for their V'day.
The second story I reblogged just a few minutes later was "Kisses", my Lukanette story I wrote shortly after we were introduced to the character of Luka. Originally, it had 64 notes on it. My reblog for Valentine's Day only added two more - three if you count a comment on it - but it's still more than SiaWD got. Plus, one of those likes, and the comment, were by the lovely ChibiSunnie.
You see, my writing is almost dauntingly long, in case you somehow didn't notice....
So, the massively time-crunched Chibi doesn't really get the chance to read my writing anymore, especially since it's in a fandom she's not a part of. She did tell me that she enjoyed being able to finally see some of my more bite-sized snippets of writing so she could appreciate what I add to the ML fandom.
Chibi: Awww you write such sweet romance stories for this fandom! ^_^
Chibi, you, darling, are so sweet for saying so, and for taking the time to read something from a fandom you're not a part of.
Figuring Valentine's Day was also a good time to try to bring more readers to PT again, I did a bit of promotion as well. I swiped a small snippet from chapter 4 of my story, and posted it as a sample scene for V'day. I hoped the Love Square gooiness would be more of what The People wanted for their holiday, and that it would lend itself to bring some more traffic to my story.
So, to get that Adrienette fluffiness out in the world, I sampled the movie pseudo-date they had: A Movie Date
It's received 4 likes. Not the traction I was hoping for, but it's still 4, presumably new, readers. Plus, the excerpt was still nearly 3000 words long, so it may have been too much for people to read on Tumblr. Perhaps they just used the link to AO3 and added it to their Read Later lists. Who knows?
Likewise, "Stranger in a White Dress" was just over 2000 words, whereas "Kisses" isn't even 800 words long. Plus, "Kisses" was in a ship a lot of people enjoy. So, I guess it makes sense what is and isn't getting notes on Tumblr if it's broken down like that.
I did receive one new Tumblr follower on the 14th, which could be because of my writing, but it could also be because of what I reblog, or even my comment about Chloe being surprisingly absent thus far this season. That observation has garnered me 30 notes between the likes, reblogs, and comments. Regardless, it's one more follower, which means one more person to see when I post new writing. I'm actually up to 96 followers on Tumblr. It's still small peanuts, but it IS nearly 100 people who make up a potential readership base. I'll take it.
Especially since I gained 7 new followers this past week. As I mentioned, one started following on the 14th, but I also added 4 more since the 15th. Again, I have no clue what it is about my Tumblr blog that attracted them enough to want to follow me, but it's nice to know that I'm slowly gaining more and more of a fanbase, as it were.
It was because of this growing fanbase that I figured I'd try to do another promotion attempt for PT.
As I commented above,
Adrien, at the end of Stormy Weather 2, notices that Marinette's handwriting looks like it matches the unsigned Valentine. Except he then decides that Marinette just thinks of him as a friend since she's obviously crushing on Luka, so the Valentine couldn't possibly be from her. It was just someone who has similar handwriting. GAAAAAAH! This kid is frustrating!
Anyway, whether you read the spoiler box or not, the point is that the fandom is currently caught up with how Adrien is SOMEHOW completely socially blind still. It's frustrating, but in such a good way, for me, at least. A lot of people are getting irritated by how much the Love Square is being drawn out with virtually no advancement in the relationships. However... I personally think there have been A LOT of growth in at least the LadyNoir and Adrienette corners of the Love Square, but people grow affection - true, long-lasting, deep affection - towards each other SLOWLY. I'm loving how much it's dragged out. At least it hasn't gotten as annoyingly frustrating as the Lois and Clark Will-They-Won't-They from "Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman", and I hear some of the worst "Will-They-Won't-They" was from shows like X-Files or Bones. Love Square drag-out is nothing compared to the live action shows aimed at the 18+ demographics.
Point is, I figured I'd attempt to shamelessly cash in on the "Adrien is an idiot!" discussion stemming from Stormy Weather 2, and, in part, Backwarder. I again grabbed a snippet from PT - this time "only" 1530 words long - and shared it to Tumblr.
I think I did a much better job at bookending the snippet to encourage readers to go to the full story this time though. For example, compare the first snippet for A Movie Date vs the snippet Confusion.
For those who may not be able to read the above image, it says:
I can't let Valentine's Day close out without some Love Square fluffiness. So how about a pseudo-date between Adrien and Marinette (with a sprinkling of DJWifi) from my story “Peeping Tomcat”?
I then include a few paragraphs to try to entice people to read, before dropping a "read more" link so it's not this epically, and possibly annoyingly, long post people have to scroll through on their dash. At the end of the snippet, hidden within the "read more" is this closing.
Again, in case you can't read/see the above picture, this is what it says:
*Excerpt from chapter 4: Normal. To read the full chapter, you can check it out on AO3 here. Or, if you prefer, you can find it on FFNor DA.
If you'd like to read the story from the beginning, you can check it out on AO3, on FFN, or on DA.
It's not.... bad? But it also could be better. So when I promoted the snippet from the seventh chapter of PT, I switched up the formatting to this.
I started off by commenting on the big discussion being had around the fandom, and how it made me think of my story, complete with the link to the story from the beginning. This way, if people didn't want to read on Tumblr, they had access to my story on AO3 right away.
I then gave a summary for PT, as well as the status - that it's complete, has 17 chapters, and is over 84,000 words long - the ships showcased, and the rating for the story. I even made sure to off-set this information to make it easier to read.
I then finished with apologizing for the shameless plug, called out what could be the appeal of that particular part of the story, linked to the chapter the snippet was from - again, in case people just wanted to read it on AO3 instead of Tumblr - before closing out my intro with a call to the main character focused on in the snippet: Adrien
Once more, I had a line break to separate the intro from the story itself, dropped a couple of potentially enticing paragraphs, and finished with a "read more" link so I wouldn't flood people's dash.
At the end of the snippet, I also switched up the formatting to one I think worked out better.
I put the non-story elements promoting where to find more of my writing in italics. I hoped the italics would draw eyes to it, offset it from the story outside of the simple line break, and to make the non-italicized, bold links stand out more.
I had a sort of call to action with the opening question of "Want to read more?"
I provided only one link - to AO3, the site most of Tumblr users seem to prefer - to the rest of the chapter to avoid overwhelming people.
I used another call to action, as well as a bit of a tongue-in-cheek comment about reading the story from the start, before promoting where to find the story off of Tumblr.
I have commas separating the different links, and off-set both them and the link to the chapter itself on their own lines. It helps draw the eyes and make the links stand out more.
I finished with a thank you to the readers who made it to the end of my long post.
I'm not sure if these format switch-ups helped at all, or if the subject matter was closer to what people wanted to read, or if it was simply because it was a shorter piece, but I did get more of a response from my "Confusion" snippet.
Back-tracking to "A Movie Date," that snippet has had 4 likes. One from Chibi, who also said "Awwww this was really cute! ^_^" To which, I responded that she has officially read part of PT, and can stop feeling guilty about not getting to it yet.
Speaking of, Chibi has a few new short stories up on her AO3 account. Sadly, I've been a bit of a slacker and haven't gotten to read them yet, but YOU can while Chibi is waiting for me.
Summary: Sorano and Hara write letters to each other to be opened up 10 years in the future. This is what I imagine the "Sorano/Manabu 10 Years From Now Love Letters Kuji Prize" might say.
Summary: Touya takes care of Yukito after finding him partially transparent and passed out in his yard. This expands the White Day chapter in the Sakura Card Arc.
Summary: Kusakabe writes a love song for Sajou and performs it for him in hopes it will help them get back together.
Word Count: 2849
Sadly, most of those were written MONTHS ago! The first two were written in November, the next one was in December, "Hara and Getting Older" and "Please Don't Leave Me" were shared in January, and only "Song for Sajou" was posted this past week.
Chibi, I am SOOOOO sorry I've been slacking off on sharing your stories, or even reading these short tales. But let's give this girl some love. I HAVE read snippets of a lot of these as she asked for some advice - be it beta reading, quick polishes, or figuring out which rating to give her stories - and I greatly enjoyed them, even if I wasn't in the fandom. So give them a shot. They are a beautiful representation of sweet, (mostly) innocent, gay love. Something that doesn't seem to be showcased enough in mainstream media, at least here in America, so I'm glad fanfiction writers pick up the slack.
Anyway, getting back to my promotions on Tumblr, as I said, the snippet of the Adrienette pseudo-date received 4 likes. I also received a new story favorite for PT two days later. I'm not sure if the two are related, but I'm running with it.
On the 17th I then shared the snippet from chapter 7: Confusion. That short received 14 likes in comparison to "A Movie Date." I also received my most recent follower on Tumblr shortly after I shared that snippet. Again, I don't know if the two are related, but I like the chances. I also received a new author favorite on the 17th over on FFN. Still not sure if it was thanks to my promotions on Tumblr, but it made me feel good to see that alert in my email.
Sunday, the 17th, also brought me a new comment on PT's posting over on AO3:
kitdubhran: Just caught up on this. Loved the conclusion. Can't wait to see more of this, whenever you can post it. ❤️❤️❤️
Lastly, I've received two new guest kudos on AO3 for PT over the past two days. So.... maybe the shameless plug worked? Maybe my story got out to more people, slowly but surely?
I am planning on posting more promotions for PT the closer I get to publishing "One and the Same." That way people can have a more seamless flow into the sequel. Get that hype up. I need to actually WRITE OatS though....
Instead... well.... I've talked a lot about the latest episode Stormy Weather 2, but I haven't said much about Backwarder. It is one of my favorite episodes for multiple reasons. We get to meet important people for both Master Fu and Kagami. We get some more of Master Fu's backstory. There is character development. There is romance. There's also a sort of comedy of errors, which I'm a huge fan of.
Sane Man in an Insane World is a hard comedic trope for me to get behind; I tend to get frustrated at the collective stupidity, which is why I nearly hurled "Big Trouble" by Dave Barry across the room as I got to the closing chapters. Still loved the book, but that trope annoys me. Comedy of Errors though? I'll eat that up all the time. Both tropes center around at least one person trying to navigate a situation they should never expect to be in, and have to explain themselves when they should never need to under normal circumstances. Comedy of Errors, though, focuses on how the misunderstandings could still be logical even with intelligent people, whereas Sane Man in an Insane World is mostly frustrating to me because of the stupidity of everyone. The exceptions are stories like Idiocracy, because at least then I know what I'm getting into, and can enjoy the comedic trope.
Anyway, Comedy of Errors. The error itself is kind of a major plot point in Backwarder, so I won't even attempt a spoiler box about it, because it's too hard to sum up for anyone skipping over spoilers for the show. What I will say is that it brings up a LOT of questions regarding Adrien's POV, which isn't shown much that episode.
Naturally, I wanted to give my take on Adrien's thoughts about the episode. It was supposed to be simple. It was supposed to be quick. It was supposed to be done and up on Wednesday, while the episode was still fresh in everyone's mind.
As per usual with my stories, I'm running super long on this concept as the insight delve went deeper than expected, and so I'm STILL writing the darn thing. A Tumblr Exclusive one-shot that was only supposed to be a thousand words or so is now up to about 4500 words.... and counting. I'm maybe 2/3rds of the way through the story I want to tell.
Whoops....
To be fair, I didn't have the time to write on Sunday or Saturday because we were slammed at work, people invaded after work, and when we didn't have house guests, I ended up passing out on the couch. Hubby and I also had nights in together for Valentine's Day. It's been a fairly booked week.
I've also elongated my writing process by pausing to do research I wasn't expecting I needed to do. Like transcribe a couple of scenes - only to find them on Tumblr the next day as subtitled gif sets.... - measuring the height difference between Adrien and Kagami, timing out where everyone is and when throughout the episode, analyzing the location of the bathroom on the animated train car shown in the episode, timing the length of a train ride from Paris to London, figuring out the logistics of a hand-written prescription, and designing wedding formal wear. That last one was probably the trickiest for me.
Once upon the time, roughly between the ages of 6 and 10, before I truly understood my passion for writing, I fancied myself a fashion designer. I loved using different design kits to create new clothing styles. I had about four different kits that I would rotate through. I'd also cut out bits and pieces from old magazines in order to paste together an outfit. While I loved just about everything I designed, I was apparently the only one who believed I had an eye for fashion. It didn't stop me, though. What finally did was the realization that I had to sew my own prototypes, and I was NOT into that. Me and sewing are not good friends....
Well, along with my desire to design, my eye for design also kind of died. Although, as I noted, most would argue I had no "eye for design" to begin with. As an adult I might be inclined to agree.....
Anyway, my point is, whenever I end up designing an outfit for an original character, or create a new look for an existing character, such as when I designed Adrien's Chat Noir Appreciation Festival look for PT, I tend to spend hours looking up fashion photos to see what pops out at me.
Not only do I have to try to piece together an outfit I think looks good, but I have to compare it to the design of the characters to see if it would work on them; if it's a style they'd wear. Finally, I have to figure out how to DESCRIBE the outfit so you, the reader, can understand what it looks like without the help of an actual visual reference.
I'm beginning to hate describing clothing as much as I hate coming up with names and writing repetitive action scenes such as fight scenes, chase scenes, and.... shall we say "sexually themed" scenes. I hope it's all worth it, though, and that someone is just as inspired by my fashion designing for this one-off as they were with that festival scene in PT.
I still need to finish THAT story though. This is definitely going to be my February "one new story a month" goal, but that requires me to finish WITHIN FEBRUARY. So I should probably get back to that story so I can share it with you guys by next Tuesday.
AAAAAAAND this blog post is stupid-long, and HOURS late. So... Catch you guys next week.
