Creating a Rec List

 Oh, hey, guys. How's everyone doing?

Weird, right? Having a blog post up. It's... it's been a couple weeks, huh? I'm back to having a Tuesday off, hence me working on this blog again. Hooray!

Aaaand then I'm working next Tuesday so I can have the following weekend off for my wedding anniversary so.... See you guys again in October???

My coworker says her daughter's wedding was gorgeous and went wonderfully, so yay. Also, congrats to both newly wedded daughters to both of my coworkers. My other coworker's been grumbly about not getting to eat solid foods while recovering from her oral surgery, but she had a check-in yesterday, so hopefully everything healed properly and she's back to normal.

Which means, after next week, where, as I mentioned, I'm taking a few days off so Hubby and I can just have a day to snuggle for our anniversary, I should FINALLY be back to a normal schedule of having Tuesdays and a random second day off per week.

At least, until late November/early December where I may or may not be taking time off to at least see my mom and sister for Thanksgiving. If nothing else, I'll be taking time off for Hubby's birthday.

Plus, both the coworker whose daughter just got married this weekend and myself still have over 100hrs of PTO to chew through, so who knows if there will be more sprinklings of "just taking it for mental health reasons" days. We both feel guilty about ever taking the time off though, because that means the other two workers don't get days off that week. So, who knows?

I feel like I'll be sprinkling more random vacation time in next year though....

OH! And also I want to sneak in a quick congratulations to Dragnime who just got engaged this past week! So happy for you two.

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I think that's all the extra housecleaning I had to do this week. So let's get into some writing updates for this supposedly writing-centric blog, huh?

First and foremost: there is none.

I've been super tempted lately. I've had scenes and mini-plots bouncing in my head. I just haven't had the time or energy to get them OUT of my head.

But I was tempted.

Ronoxym and ChibiSunnie had their birthdays this weekend - Happy Belated to both of you - and I figured "now's the time to break out of my funk! Write stories for them so you can still gift them something without physically delivering or mailing it."

Buuut then I remembered that my story gift for Ron kept me a MONTH to figure out last year, and I had no clue what to do for this one. Try to continue the story? Start from scratch with a completely different concept? Try to find something fanfic wise that he'd appreciate? I was at a loss.

Chibi, however, I had just talked about some fun headcanons with regards to Fruits Basket. Mostly, it was images I hoped the creator Natsuki Takaya would eventually do, or fanart people would make. Things like

Kyo proudly introducing Kazuma (Shishou) to Hajime, or Kazuma getting introductary cooking lessons alongside a 5yo Hajime. Or Machi and Kakeru fighting or Yuki's attention, creating a weird sort of poly relationship. Or just Yuki living as a normal teen/young adult as he and Machi go on double dates with Kakeru and Komaki, and perhaps Machi and Komaki are "forced" to interact as yet again Kakeru vies for most of Yuki's time.

 

Anyway, as I mentioned, these were just scenes. I could do something quick though, right? Even a little drabble would be a surprise to Chibi, and I know she'd cherish it because I gifted something specifically for her, but also because it would be the first bit of narrative writing I've done since the pandemic hit. Considering how much support and encouragement she's given me over the years, but specifically through this one, and considering how much time and effort she puts into ALWAYS making me a Christmas and birthday card each year, I thought it would be a fitting honor to FINALLY get out of my writing funk by creating a story for her birthday.

Alas. It was not meant to be. The week FLEW by (but also dragged on?) and before I knew it, her birthday had arrived and I had nothing to show for it. I debated writing something anyway and still posting it during the weekend of her birthday, but I still ran dry. All of those scenes I stated in that spoiler box above? Like I said, they would be great artwork; freezeframes of these sweet moments. Pictures that didn't need words or even actions to fully capture the essence of the scene.

That, and, while I enjoy the stories, and mangas in general are a fairly quick re-read, I still haven't really read either Fruits Basket or Fruits Basket Another more than once - aside from a couple of Furuba books - so I don't feel confident that I know the characters of Komaki or Hajime well enough to properly keep in-character and get the scenes right. Not without research - i.e. rereads - and not only did I not have the time for it, but also my mangas are kind of buried in the back of a cluttered room right now. So I REALLY don't have the free time to get any of those stories done in a reasonable amount of time.

However, as I mentioned, it DID keep me a month to gift Ron his story for his 30th, so there MIIIIIGHT be hope for me to still become inspired and get something written for Chibi. Plus, there's always the original fandom that brought us together. I just haven't touched anything "Hey, Arnold!" related in so long. I KNOW I'm rusty in their characterizations....

Instead of getting ahead of the game and doing the research I needed to write gifts for my friends, I spent the week on a completely different project that I've been meaning to do for over a month now.

WAAAAAAAAAY back during the week of August 17, the Miraculous Ladybug fandom decided to host a Positivity Week: a week for the fandom to shut down all of the salt and hate and venom flowing through the fandom, and get back to the uplifting positivity it originally had. During this week, people posted what they liked and appreciated about the show. They shared posts explaining the good qualities different characters had. They supported the creators. They supported fandom creators as well by sharing fics, artwork, gif-sets, videos, etc. Most importantly, there were fanfic and fic writer recommendation lists.

I was actually on one of those lists!

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One of the big reasons I kept falling into my writing funks after joining Tumblr was because I'd CONSTANTLY see fic recommendation lists, and I was NEVER on any of them. And it wasn't like I was simply seeing the same stories over and over again. Sure, there's some stories that just about the whole fandom seems to know about and would suggest, but more often than not the lists were all different. A large variety of stories were getting love and recognition.

But I would never be included.

Until August 22.

ML Positivity Week, Favourite Fanfics Day posted by chicoriii

I was... I was dumbfounded. This time period was probably one of my deepest bouts with imposter syndrome and there it was: my name on a rec list. Not only that, on a FAVORITE STORY list! Right above one of the fandom's favorite stories: Under Lock and Key.

I feel so guilty that I haven't acknowledged this honor anywhere yet. And for the dumbest reason too, although, I also feel the most justified with this reason???

So, along with the writing funk, I have been staying off Tumblr because I just don't have the free time or mental energy to go through my active dash. Also, as already stated, Tumblr does, on occasion, hurt my mental health because it is one of my main sources of imposter syndrome. That's mostly due to the aforementioned lack of ever appearing in anyone's recommendations or lack of likes/reblogs on my story shares. Also, because my dash would be flooded with new stories, and I would feel worse about not writing anything myself.

This is why, for months on end, I would only log onto Tumblr long enough to check my notifications, see if I had any messages or asks, and then hop back off without ever really looking at my dash. When chicoriii mentioned me in her rec list, I was still at that point of avoiding Tumblr to make sure it didn't spiral me further. So it was especially surprising and emotional for me to see that I had actually made someone's recommended fic list!

But to get to my reason about not instantly acknowledging how honored and humbled I felt. See, since I was avoiding Tumblr, I only knew of Positivity Week within the fandom in vague passing - usually something stated in the top post of my dash when I first log in - and so I hadn't participated in it. I felt guilty jumping in on the last day of it simply to gush at how honored I felt to have been included.

I mean, that was the point of the fan event, right? To lift up the creators and fellow fandom members while also bringing back a positive view of the show itself? So, to gush about how happy it made me to have been on her list would have been a pretty perfect way of closing out the week. At the time, though? Nope. I NEEDED to add to Positive Week if I were to acknowledge the honor of being on chicoriii's list.

So I decided I would thank chi while also lifting up other works of fiction. Then I quickly realized how many stories I loved, and that either the list would be a bit massive or I'd leave out some gemstones. That was when I decided my new project: write up a Tumblr post of my ML fanfic recs, and then link to it when I acknowledge chi's list.

This was a mistake.

Sure, there were the big ones that I could think of right away - usually involving EdenDaphne in some shape or form - but that list was largely stories I know are already fairly big in the fandom because they have some of the highest hit/kudos/comment counts. Not that any of that means I SHOULDN'T recommend them, because I 100% am going to still. No, instead, and especially because of how I was feeling, I wanted to make sure to also promote stories I feel aren't getting nearly enough love. To make sure I didn't miss any, I started going through my bookmarked and favorited stories on AO3 and FFN. 

I... forgot how much ML fanfiction I've actually read over the years. I did not read nearly as much HA fanfiction....

I have 42 bookmarked ML fics on AO3 alone, and I was trash at actually writing anything in my bookmark notes, so I knew I enjoyed the stories enough to want to save them, but I couldn't really remember what each of them were about per se, or why I enjoyed them specifically.

Sooooo that's what I wanted to do next: re-read, or at least skim, these saved fics to remind myself why I enjoyed them so I could better recommend them to others. Buuuut, I also had work pretty much non-stop for over a month, so I just didn't have the energy.

This week I finally did. All of my main work at my job was taken care of, and all I really had left was optional busy work. On a particularly slow day I decided it was time to finally start up this project. I figured I could get it done in the one shift.

I was wrong.

It's been over a week now, and I STILL have stories to read back through. I've been updating my bookmarks as I go so that next time I know exactly why I loved that particular story and what I felt was unique about it. I've also started writing recaps of what happened in the last chapter of on-going works, because I always seem to forget by the time they're updated. Sure, it means re-reading the previous chapter first to remind myself what happened, and I'm sure the authors appreciate the extra reads, but it also means I have to calculate reading TWO chapters whenever ONE updates, which usually results in a delay before finding time to read. This way, hopefully I can read the updates a lot sooner.

Sorry, getting off topic. Point is, I've been re-reading a LOT of fics lately, and it's giving me lots of feels. It's been really uplifting and reminding me a lot about why I love this show and the friendly bits of this fandom community. Also, while I'm still not quite ready to write anything myself yet, it HAS been helping grease those mental gears so I'm good to go once I'm back to a more normal work and social schedule.

Also also... I know how I'm going to be spending my next day off on Friday:

Official promo poster

Frozen starts at 6:10
Miraculous Ladybug starts at 8:00

The creator of Miraculous Ladybug Thomas Astruc had stated in past interviews that he initially had a whole expanded world planned with more miraculous bearers and other superheroes. He teased that back in season 1 when Alya gushed about her favorite comic book hero Majestia that Majestia was a real American superhero. Then, there was a comic book run where Ladybug and Chat Noir went to the United States and met Majestia.

This New York special seems to have been inspired by that comic run. Or that both this special and the comic books were both inspired off of Astruc's original world builds for the Miraculous universe.

Either way, I'm excited.

Also also also, to lead up to this hour-long special, Disney Channel will be having a season 3 marathon. True, I can watch them all I want on Netflix, and the airing order on the channel isn't any better than the scrambled mess Netflix has, but still....

I'm hoping re-watching this past season after such a long hiatus, as well as getting some new content to tide the fandom over until the next season arrives in 2021, will help respark my desire to write.

Because I miss it, you guys. I HURT not being able to write for so long! Especially this year when March feels like a decade ago.

Tanuki
Facebook sticker
by Yanare Ku

Here's to hoping I can get back into the swing of things finally. Here's to Chibi and Ron and their birthdays. Here's to my coworkers' daughters and their new marriages. Here's to chi and her ability to make me cry simply by enjoying my work and wanting to share it with others. Finally, here's to you, dear reader, for staying by me when I've had virtually nothing to say this whole year.

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(minor edits by me)

Catch everyone in October!

Original Content

I did it! Ah ha! I did it! I managed to come up with original content! I finished my original story for Ronoxym!!! So super happy belated birthday, Ron! Hope you enjoy your gift!

Speaking of birthdays, I want to quickly pause in order to wish a very happy birthday to Omnibladestrike who celebrated his this past weekend.

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I'm glad we could hang out, and the b'day cake you bought was super yummy! Thanks for that.

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Anyway, back to my writing!


It kept me exactly a month to do so, but I managed to finish the story I wanted to gift Ronoxym for his 30th. The whole process was a bit exhausting, and I feel like I exposition-dumped a touch in order to explain the world enough in this short story. So it's by no means the same caliber as the professional Urban Fantasy stories Ron likes to read. Regardless, I'm kind of excited for the world I built and the characters I created - although I fear Colton and Zetelica's voices aren't different enough??? - so I'll have to slot this world build away for a potential continuation.

Right along side the Gyateara stories and "Glitches"....

OH! Quick side note with regards to Gyateara. I mentioned last week that Hubby used the site donjon to help him quickly create a dungeon and NPCs for the "one-off" D&D session he ran for us. Well, as Hubby was poking around, he found a Random World Generator on that site. You can either input or randomize the following features, and let the generator do the rest:

• World Name
• Map Style: Atlas vs Antique
• Map Font: choose from 8 options
• Percentage of water on the planet surface
• Percentage of polar ice caps
• Geography: Yes or No
• This adds labels for things like 'mountains' or 'forests' or 'desert' etc.
• Rivers: Yes, No, or Many
• Cities and Castles: Yes, No, or Many
• Hex Grid: Yes or No
• Label Map: Yes or No

It takes about three minutes or so - depending on the internet connection - for the site to take your data and generate a world map. This isn't going to be the final one, but here's an example I quickly generated for Gyateara.

The main issue I have with this generator is that it doesn't seem to really break up
the main land mass into separate continents. So it would be more of a guide than the
official map, I think.

If you chose to have the generator create castles and cities for you, there's also a listing of what they're called and where to find them on your map.

So it's a really neat tool, and I'll have to spend some time playing around with it a little bit. At the very least, it's a nice way to randomly generate coastlines I can shift around to make continents, and come up with location names.

Likewise, I've watched 3 different YouTube videos this week who had World Anvil as their sponsor. I poked around a little bit after creating a free account. It seems like a great place to ORGANIZE everything, and it is so detailed with how much you can break down everything.

You can break each section down even
further into subsections.

However, there doesn't seem to be any image makers or generators, so donjon might be the best free option so far. I'll have to take everything into consideration when I get back to Gyateara, and even to help me organize Glitches, I think.

But back to my point!

My glorious point is that, along with Gyateara and Glitches, I now have this new urban fantasy supernatural story. The best bit is that the world-build is mostly done now - so it has a leg-up on any and all Gyateara stories - AND it is a story with only one or two main characters and potentially a completable story arc. Which is something I really struggle with for Glitches, which, due to its origins, has more of a serial series storyline and about a 14-character central cast.

Thanks to Ron and my desire to come up with something for his big 3-0, I may have found at least a foothold for my first ever marketable original story! I'm so friggen excited about this thing!

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Granted, I have had no comments on the story even though I published it on Friday. I also only have 52ish hits - I don't know how many people SEE my Tumblr post; just those who react to it - and but one fave. But it's an original story, so it's to be expected. My fanfiction followers on FFN and AO3 wouldn't get a notification that I have original content up. I'm also not nearly established enough in the Miraculous Ladybug or Fruits Basket fandoms for people to probably care about original content I publish to Tumblr. On top of that, because I do have the main character Colton get super stressed and drop the f-bomb a couple of times, I had to mark the story Mature on DA and FictionPress. I just don't know where the "course language" cut-off is between Teen and Mature, and I wanted to be safe.

So, it stings, but I get it. I don't have a platform set up for original content yet, and considering how infrequently I come up with something original, I don't know how long it will take to build it up.

However, a lot of you lovely people seem to be my fanfiction readers, so here's your heads up, in case you were interested and didn't previously know.

"Blame Fate for This"

On FictionPress       On DeviantArt       On Tumblr

Colton has noticed the same woman following him every day for the past two months. However, when he tries to get away from his stalker things get way more complicated than he could imagine. He has powers no living creature is supposed to possess, and only Fate can figure out what that means for both Colton and the world.

Eh, maybe my summary for this short story isn't eye-catching enough.... Or the title? I'm just so bad at these things, and I was kind of rushing those elements on Friday in order to make sure I hit my self-imposed deadline. Anyway, the story is about 6700 words long, just an FYI.

As I mentioned above, I haven't really had much notice/love for this story yet. On Tumblr the only note I've received thus far was a bot-account liking it. I really need to delete that note, but I'm still waiting for Tumblr to fix my access to my account activity log in order to do so.

Over on FictionPress I've had 4 hits, but nothing else. No comments, no faves, and no follows.

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On the other hand, DeviantArt has had 48 hits and one fave. And this time the fave looks like it's actually a person! Whoot!

It's a slow grind, but I'm content with the story, even if it's little more than a jumping point for a larger story. Plus, at least one other person seems to like it. No mention from Ron, but it IS 6700 words, and he is a busy guy with ADHD, so I don't know if he's had the time/focus/energy to sit down with it yet.

Regardless, the thing to focus on is that I WROTE AN ORIGINAL STORY IN A MONTH! COMPLETELY FROM SCRATCH! The actual writing of the thing actually summed up to only about a dozen days or so. I don't know about you, but I'm impressed.

Small life victories, guys. Also, added bonus: the story is thematically appropriate for Halloween, so it's a great October story, if I do say so myself.


In the end, no matter what else becomes of this short story - and yes, it's less than 7500 words, so it IS still considered a short story by most writing sites/publishers - I at least have gears in motion for an original novel idea. And I reminded myself that I CAN come up with original content; I'm not just some parrot who skillfully mimics the work of others. So, it was totally worth the effort.

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Speaking of my fanfiction, however, the stats for my Kyoru stuff have steadily increased this past week.

Reminder of my stats from last week:

FFN: 466 views, 5 faves, 5 followers, and 8 reviews
AO3: 418 hits, 31 kudos, 2 bookmarks, and 17 comments
DA: 138 views, 4 faves, but no comments

Total Results: 1022 views, 40 faves, 7 followers, and 25 reviews

Tumblr Notes: 201 notes; 151 likes, 37 reblogs, and 3 comments

And now the stats as of this writing:

FFN: 648 views, 6 faves, 6 followers, and 10 reviews
AO3: 510 hits, 40 kudos, 4 bookmarks, and 17 comments
DA: 181 views, 5 faves, but no comments

Total Results: 1339 views, 51 faves, 10 followers, and 27 reviews

Tumblr Notes: 248 notes; 170 likes, 46 reblogs, and 3 comments

Now, granted, if you add up the Tumblr Notes the total is actually 219; 212 if you don't count the seven times the KyoruWeek2019 event blog reblogged my stories. I personally don't count them because those reblogs had nothing to do with whether or not the moderator actually liked my stuff; the stories were tagged for the event, and so the blog shared it. Getting back to the notes discrepancy though, three of those over-all notes were my responses to the 3 comments, and for some reason I have 26 "missing" notes. My Day 6 story says it has 25 notes, but only 24 are listed. Same with my Day 5 story: it says it has 41 notes, but only 40 are shown. The big head scratcher is my Day 2 story. That one claims to have 73 notes, but when you go through the breakdown of the notes it only has 49 listed, including my one response to the comment. I have no clue why 24 notes are missing. Maybe those are people who saved the story to their drafts, so it's not officially reblogged yet? Is that how Tumblr works? In which case, I'm screwing up the notes count on a LOT of Tumblr posts.

Anyway, I'm fairly certain those 26 notes were "missing" last week as well, which means I received 47 new notes over this past week. Not too shabby considering the event is over, so there aren't really any new promotions for my stuff. Plus the KyoruWeek blog has since shared a bunch of generic Kyo and Tohru stuff from the season 2 trailer and/or the manga.

OH! Speaking of shipping week events, I want to make sure I don't forget this again! Last week I went on about my own writing for so long - which, I guess is reasonable; since this is my writing blog and all - that I totally forgot to promote Cyhyr's latest. Just as I finished with Kyoru week, she started up Sylvix Week. It's a ship for the Fire Emblem: Three Houses characters Sylvain and Felix. You can check out her week of stories here: Sylvix Week 2019 I don't personally see the ship, but Cyhyr does such a great job with these stories that I don't even care about canonical evidence. They're adorable together the way she writes them.

Also, Taurus Pixie, via her blog, had suggested the Miraculous Ladybug story The Lonely Waltz by her friend ChibiRinni. Holy smokes, that story got me worked up. It was MariChat, pining for Ladrien, singing and waltzing, and talk about really SEEING the person one is in love with. Marinette mentally beats herself up over breaking Chat Noir's heart, and Chat Noir wants to punch the guy Marinette is pining over for not seeing how amazing she is. I was just this giant ball of energy after I finished reading. So, go! Read it! It's about 8000 words long, but I've conditioned you by now to be able to breeze through that no problem.


I've also found two awesome Fruits Basket fics that were promoted during Kyoru Week. First up was the one-shot Written on your skin by palamig. There's spoilers for the second half of the manga, but it is delightful angst and fluff. The long and short is that a student asks Kyo if he'd mind if the student asked Tohru out on a date. That night, while studying with Tohru, Kyo unintentionally shows off his jealousy with a pen. It's lovely, and Kyo and Tohru are written so well. AAAh! If you don't care about spoilers or you know the ending of the manga, you should go read it.

The other fanfic I found is a touch naughty. It's post-manga, and Tohru and Kyo are living alone far from any "adult supervision." They attempt to get a bit more intimate, but the mood is always interrupted somehow. It's got that same great "will they; won't they" tension, which is an awesome twist of the trope for an already established couple. It's called In Every Light That Shines and it's by crossingandromeda.

My final reading suggestion actually should have been promoted weeks ago. That webcomic about Hades and Persephone that I've been talking about off and on for the past year? Well the first chapter was officially published to Webtoon at the beginning of the month. So, please give Punderworld by Linda Sejic a try. The artwork is so pretty, and the story seems excellent, based on that first chapter and the teasers we've received all year.

Check out the full-quality and unmarked image here.

Again, I know I shouldn't be reposting work without the creator's permission, but I want to showcase her artwork, and I hope by putting on those intrusive watermarks it helps mitigate my faux pas. At least this way if someone finds her work via a Google search and stumbles upon this repost they know where to find the clean version....

Please don't yell at me, but I WILL remove all reposted artwork if the artists request it.

Tanuki Facebook sticker
by Yanare Ku

Anyway....

Aside from finishing up that original story for Ron, I've also broken back into One and the Same finally! I took a two-day breather after basically writing daily for the past two weeks or so, and then yesterday I cracked open my OatS folder. I've mostly gone back through everything I've written already, in order to put myself in that mindset again. I've also decided that a 3000-word "chapter" I've written has no true drama to it. It doesn't push the story forward, so I'm going to instead recap that scene in another chapter and "scrap" what I have.

It hurts to "kill my darlings," as it were, but it hurts less knowing that I'm planning a sort of "deleted scenes" collection after OatS is fully published. That way people can see the alternate scenes I've written before changing POV or scene order, the scenes that aren't told in either Adrien's or Marinette's perspective so they don't fit the overall narrative, and the scenes I like but don't fit in the story without bogging it down. Such as the one I just completed yesterday before realizing it has to be scrapped.

Planning that post-OatS project really eases the pain of all that "wasted time/energy" or the hurt of "this is really awesome, and I love how I wrote it; but it just doesn't work for this story." It also gives me freedom to play with point-of-view, narration, and describing the "mundane" scenes to better help me solidify the story I'm telling. None of it will be wasted effort. First and foremost, it wouldn't be wasted anyway, because it would all help me improve and better build the main story. However, it now has that secondary benefit of also still seeing the light of day when all is said and done.

I still need to figure out my akumas for November, and I still have that tricky middle where I want to build up the MariChat relationship, but I have to make sure the story still pushes forward while doing so. In other words: I have a lot to figure out still.

In the meantime, I may take another time out to attempt to draw my new Dragonborn D&D character Kriv. However, my main focus between now and November 1st is to finish going back through what I have of OatS so far, and prep for NaNo.

I also need to get some "Halloween Movies" in for the month! How have I not watched Sweeney Todd or Little Shop of Horrors or Rocky Horror Picture Show or Hocus Pocus or any of the Underworld movies or even Ernest Scared Stupid yet this year?

I'm such a slacker...

At least I have my costume situated. I'm glad I was able to find one that actually fit me. The straps are a little loose but are otherwise fine.

It looks amazing alongside Hubby's Steampunk costume. Plus, the Steampunk goggles Hubby got me for Christmas have a blue tint to them, so they also work really well with this costume. The only real concern I have is the choker Hubby also got me for Christmas. It looks amazing, but the lacing is so wide and my neck is small with all the extra chunk I've put on over the years, it looks a touch awkward on me. I'll have to see if I'm actually going to be able to wear it or if I'll have to pull and audible and hope Hubby won't feel like he wasted money on his gift.

Either way, I was able to find a costume that fit after all, and presumably it will also fit when I start to loose wait; at least, for a little while. So yay to that as well!

Who's ready for Halloween to get here already?

Found years ago via Google Image.
Most search results are not in English so it's hard
to track down the original artist. Sorry.
Please let me know if you know who designed this.

I'm Late, I'm Late, For A Bunch Of Dates!

Okay. I'm actually a touch exhausted, and it isn't just because I'm currently running on about 3hrs of sleep.

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I mean, yes, there's the lack of sleep as well, but that's what caffeine is for. See, the grocery store Hubby works at is already understaffed, but then, last week, one of the supervisors for the front end cashiers quit. Yesterday, another supervisor decided to transfer to a different store, and a third quit "effective immediately"! That means Hubby is now just one of like 3 or 4 supervisors available! So he stayed late yesterday. Then the overnight cashier - since it's a 24hr store - called out, and with all the available cashiers already scrambling to cover the supervisor shifts, there really wasn't anyone left. So - picking up 7hrs of overtime - Hubby went back to work to do the overnight. That means he was at work for 19hrs, minus the 4hr break he had between the long shift and the overnight.

Yeah, so, as exhausted as *I* am, he's 10x more-so.

How does any of this translate to ME working off of 3hrs of sleep? Well, readers that have been around since I started this blog might remember how much I HATE when Hubby does the overnights. Once upon a time, he'd go in for the Saturday-to-Sunday overnights every week in order to switch out the tags for that week's sales. I just couldn't fall asleep without him home, and so I'd have insomnia those nights. Sometimes I'd power through the night and Hubby and I would crash when I got him home after his shift. Sometimes exhaustion would overtake me and I'd actually pass out about 3am or 4am. Well, last night was one of those nights. Could NOT fall asleep until 3:30ish, and I needed to be up at about 6:45 so I had time to quickly get ready before picking Hubby up at 7.

Caffeine is my friend today.

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However, as I mentioned at the top, my true exhaustion is NOT from the lack of sleep. Instead, it's due to the writing frenzy I HAVE been able to get myself into.

Sorta.

So, you guys already know that my anniversary threw me off last week, and so it actually kept me 3 days to write my blog, and a fourth to edit and FINALLY publish it. Yeah... that seems to be the trend for my writing this month.

After publishing my blog post, I spent the rest of Friday cleaning my apartment and researching for my story for Ronoxym. I found a lot of really neat info, but it also meant I got lost on Wikipedia for hours on end. I also talked quite a bit with Wolfhearted throughout the day. Sometimes it was about Ron's story, sometimes it was about Miraculous Ladybug, and sometimes it was about stupid stuff because why not? I also wrote up my basic concept for my story and sent it to Wolf to read over. It really helped me sort of solidify my idea to write it out like that. It also spotlighted the bits I still needed to figure out.

So figure out I tried. Saturday I went back to researching. The biggest thing I noticed is that most of my supernatural references I was using were European/UK based, and yet I randomly threw a Japanese myth in as well. I had to decide if I was going to go all-or-nothing. I either had to pull in myths from the rest of Asia, India, Africa, and Central/South America, or I had to keep the references strictly European - and by extension North American/Australian due to colonization.

I once more got lost on Wikipedia, and once more found a LOT of really interesting stuff. However, I couldn't find anything from non-European cultures that really worked with the concept I had come up with, so I caved and dropped the Japanese reference. I could always mention that this was just the "European/American branch" and that there were other branches covering the other regions/cultures of the world.

Content that I had researched enough - at least, to start - I FINALLY wrote my first word of Ron's story. The set-up kept a bit longer than I originally anticipated, but it almost always does that to me. I was at 4pgs and nearly 2200 words when I had to stop for the day. I still need to go back to re-read and edit what I have, and then finish the actual story. However, I do not have it done yet, and I doubt I'll have it done in time for Writer's Group to critique it in time to help me edit. I mean, I could give them the opening and see what they think of that....

Again, I'm hoping to have the story done by the 18th, so I only have 10 more days to lock this down. I can do it!

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The real challenge is the timing of Kyoru Week.

As I mentioned on Friday, Sunday was the start of this Fruits Basket fan event. We were given seven single-word prompts: one per day of Kyoru Week. We are then challenged to use the Word of the Day to create fanfiction or fanart focused on the relationship - usually romance - between Kyo and Tohru.

I was going to do more writing at work, but got distracted by another creative project. For Halloween, the local businesses are participating in a scarecrow design contest. My manager and co-worker signed the store up on one of my days off, and the two of them decided on Jack Skellington and Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas.

We had more than enough discontinued fabric in our store. We could have probably made a fairly close replica of Sally's dress.

I mean, we could have, but my co-worker - who pitched the idea of Jack and Sally - never actually saw the movie, and so she just knew Sally had a patchwork dress and ran with it. Okay. Close enough. I joked that we had Zack and Suzy instead of Jack and Sally; ya know, to avoid copyright infringement.

Anyway, the scarecrows needed to be up by yesterday, but Sally's dress still needed to be finished. I decided that was priority, so I finished sewing on the patches my co-worker started, and I added on Sally's capped sleeves.

Same basic feel as Sally, right?

I don't know if my co-worker considered her done, or if she added a few more patches before putting the couple in front of our store. I'll have to check them out when I'm back at work tomorrow.

Anyway, that project took up most of the 5hr work day I had on Sunday. Then, when I got home, I had a quick meal with Hubby before he had to go back to work; yes, he also did a last-minute split-shift on Sunday to help cover with all of the coverage loss at work.

I finally had a moment to sit and write at about 6:30 on Sunday. I had every intention to continue working on Ron's story then, that way it could be set for tonight's writing group. However, as I wound down from my day, and flipped through Tumblr quickly, I was reminded that Sunday was Day 1 of Kyoru week!

Shoot!

I wanted to participate, I had yesterday and today to still work on Ron's story before group, and Ron's story is already "late" at this point, so what would a couple more days hurt? Shelving my original story, I began thinking about what to do with the Day One prompt: Stay.

I started by reading through the other stories submitted. See if any of them spark anything. I then thought of two songs I know with "Stay" as their title.

First was the song I've been obsessing over lately. In fact, I've had it on repeat the whole time I've been writing this blog.

"Stay" by The Score.

It has such a nice beat to it to get you pumped. That bass, man. Plus, I love the lyrics. In case you can't really read that lyric video, here they are again:

I've been lying to myself, at night
Thinking everything is alright
Yeah, I get lost in this state of mind
Losing my words got me, got me, got me tongue tied
Doubt myself and I don't know why
I wish I wasn't this person sometimes (times, times)
I make mistakes but I think it's just fine (fine, fine)
It's just fine
And I tell myself

Stay, who you are
Don't be afraid
When it all comes crashing
Stay, who you are
Don't be afraid, stay

I'm so tired trying to walk the line
Just to measure up, I'm done trying
Yeah, I get lost in this state of mind
Losin' my way every, every, every time, I
Doubt myself and I don't know why
I wish that I could be perfect sometimes (times, times)
I make mistakes but I think that it's just fine (fine, fine)
It's just fine

When it all comes crashing, stay
Who you are don't be afraid
When it all comes crashing, stay
Who you are don't ever change
Stay

Stay
Stay

Stay, who you are don't be afraid
When it all comes crashing, stay
Who you are don't ever change
Stay

Stay
Stay

The lyrics are just awesome for Fruits Basket stories. The desire to be someone else? The want to be perfect? The constant reminder to just stay who you are? Those lyrics just scream out Kyo and/or Yuki. In fact, if I could get video and an editing suite, I would be so tempted to make this into a Furuba music video.

However, the lyrics do lean more towards Kyo by himself, and/or Yuki by himself. Aside from maaaaaaaybe questioning if she's a bit too ditzy, Tohru never really challenges the idea of changing who she is. And, yes, she does remind each boy that he's amazing as he is, she never officially tells them to not change. Besides, the lyrics to the song imply that it's an inner voice reminding the singer to not change.

It's a great song for a Kyo and/or Yuki themed story, but not really one for a Kyo and Tohru themed story. Especially one focused on their relationship. So, over to the second song I thought of the moment I saw the prompt word.

"Stay" by Mad At Gravity. This one was a college staple of mine, and I'm pretty sure Hubby was the one who introduced me to this band. With this song, specifically. Now, the version I know, and the one I can find on YouTube, is the "rare acoustic demo" but I can't seem to find an official studio-release of this song. If you've heard the non-acoustic version, please feel free to leave me the link in the comments section. I'm itching to hear it.

Either way, the acoustic version is probably more sorrowful sounding anyway, so it works.

This song is more about mistimed love, and it actually fits really well for Kyo and Tohru. Not out of any sort of maliciousness, and not because one falls out of love with the other, just because they can't seem to get on the same page. Both believe they aren't worthy of the other's love.

Here's the lyrics.

I can feel you pull away
And it's just as I lean in
And the timing leaves me wide open
With a miss I am betrayed
Slices right through my thick skin
Yet I seek another high

I'm asking you to stay in my arms
Away you're breaking me apart
Stay in my arms
Away you're breaking me apart

And I'm out here on a limb
But I'm holding out my hand
Hoping you can make the climb with me
And I'm carving in the bark
And dropping down to where you stand
Trying silence on for size

I'm asking you to stay in my arms
Away you're breaking me apart
Stay in my arms
Away you're breaking me apart

And I miss you in my fingers
And valleys in between
It's odd how feelings linger
For something yet unseen
There's ages between
My heart and my mouth
My veins throb with that
Which I cant spit out
Now I don't need much
Just presence in mind
And the assurance
Your ache matches mine

So stay
Please don't pull away from me

Stay in my arms
Away you're breaking me apart
Stay in my arms
Away you're breaking me apart

So angsty. Now, the lyrics, especially with how angst-ridden it is, screams a Kyo-to-Tohru story. Lyrics like "Slices right through my thick skin / Yet I seek another high" and "And I'm out here on a limb / But I'm holding out my hand / Hoping you can make the climb with me" and "Trying silence on for size" and "There's ages between / My heart and my mouth" all FEEL like they were written specifically for Kyo.

However!

First of all, I already wrote an "Angsty Kyo to Tohru" story: Unsent Letter
Secondly, all of those lyrics can also apply to Tohru, even if it doesn't feel quite as obvious.

Tohru, arguably, has thick skin as well. How else would you explain her befriending people who were straight up cruel to her when they first met: Uotani, Hiro, Akito, Rin, and even Kyo to some extent. The fact that she's out on a limb and hope that he'd make the climb with her may seem odd since he's the cat and therefore climbs up things all the time. However, for her to INITIATE the climb? He generally snubs things she initiates - at least, at first - because he likes to keep his Tough Guy persona, and fears following behind Tohru would diminish that. Tohru is also a very talkative person, sometimes to the point of rambling. However, she also knows when to sit and listen, and she figures out fairly early that Kyo needs a listener so he feels included. So, you could say she's "trying silence on for size" to see how it fits for their relationship. Much like Kyo, Tohru also can't quite figure out how to express her feelings. Mostly because she fears that she's reading too far into their relationship; seeing romantic advances where there might not be any. That, and she's a bit of a ditz who doesn't notice his non-verbal cues.

Much like Kyo, she is wondering if he hurts as much as her that they aren't together. She also longs for him to stay in her arms - turning into a cat or no - or at least hold hands - "And I miss you in my fingers / And valleys in between." Being apart hurts her, and this is showcased A LOT in the series.

The cincher for me is that it's usually Kyo that pulls away. He's the one who puts up the emotional barrier. It's mostly because he fears his future isolation - and feels guilty about Kyoko - but still, it's HIM that pulls away.

It may be a male singing the song, but this is completely TOHRU'S song to Kyo.

Feeling confident in that decision, I started writing the story from Tohru's perspective. It was going to be an angsty story about her wanting Kyo to admit his feelings, or at least let her know if he didn't feel anything romantic for her. It would be her pain as she tried to coax Kyo to stay with her; be with her; let her hold him, even if it's just his hand. He was going to be his aloof self; struggling to keep his feelings for Tohru hidden. It was going to hurt. It was going to be angst-ridden. It was going to be beautiful.

It was also going to be way too long.

I didn't actually start writing anything until 8pm, and I knew I was going to pause for an hour while watching one of my TV shows. That left me with three hours to write, edit, and publish. There was another hour lost to texting with friends and picking Hubby up from his second shift of the day. Now I was down to two hours! After my first one, I realized the story I was going for was going to take too much time to tell. I had to simplify.

So, when I got back to writing at about 11pm, I edited, cut down, and reworked. It's not nearly as knife-turning as I originally aimed, but it is still a decent show of how oblivious these two are. Plus, I got to write a pseudo-tsundere Kyo. That's always fun.

In the end, however, I didn't finish writing until 12:15am, and I didn't have the story formatted and posted to Tumblr until 12:45-ish. So... I was technically late, but it was before I went to bed, and it was still October 6th on the West Coast. So..... still counts?

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I ended up publishing the story on my other three sites Monday morning, and that's when I realized.... titles are a thing.

I'm letting you know right now, my titles are even more trash than normal this week. I just... I can't think of anything properly poetic, but I wanted more than "Kyoru Week" and the daily prompt word. So... please forgive me my titles, and if you have suggestions for alternative, you are more than welcome to leave them in the comments section.

As of right now, the name of the entire Kyoru Week collection is Hearts Together. Yeah...

The story for Day 1: Stay, is called

"Small Talk"

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I'm going to wait until next week to note my over-all stats. I probably won't be able to figure out which chapters are more popular than others that way, but I'm already so far behind on everything I don't really have stats for Day One vs Day Two anyway.

Speaking of Day Two....

After my fail with Day One, I tried reallllllllly hard to get my act together for Day Two. I went to bed knowing the prompt was going to be "Firsts." I tried to fall asleep picturing what that could mean.

I woke up with a list of potential "firsts" for a couple. Admittedly, my mind DID briefly stop at "write smut; their first time intimately together." I... quickly breezed past that. It was in the back pocket for a sort of "last resort" but I wanted to stay fairly PG/PG-13 with this story. I then thought about the excitement - and perhaps challenge - of buying furniture for the first time. Which lead me to "their first apartment together." It wouldn't be the first time they lived together, but it would be the first time they did so without any sort of "buffer roommates" as it were.

I continued to think about the story as I did errands and cleaned the apartment some more. I also got a bit sidetracked with errands that sort of sprang up on me; unexpected responsibilities I needed to handle. Mostly because of Hubby having a longer-than-expected shift, and then going back for the overnight. Which meant I had to shift things like laundry around so he had something clean to wear when he went back to work. One of Hubby's friends also asked us to the movies with him, which meant I had to rearrange things I was going to do today so that we had time to hit up the movies. More things to do last night, such as grocery shopping. On top of all of that, I also got distracted when Ron's still awaiting story crept in for me to ponder a bit.

Somehow, throughout the day, I got worried that "first apartment" wouldn't be an entertaining story, so I tried to figure out other non-sexual firsts. However, most of those were already talked about in depth within the manga: the first time they met, the first time they lived together, the first time they really hung out as friends, the first time they held hands, the first time they told each other they loved each other, the first time they kissed, the first time they hugged, the first time they hugged without Kyo transforming, the first trip they took together, etc.

A lot of other participants seemed to focus on Kyo's and Tohru's first child: Hajime. It was sweet, but it was what most people were getting as they read through the event tag. Plus, the stories were more focused on Hajime and how the couple was as parents. It wasn't really focused on Kyo's and Tohru's relationship with each other. There were also a small handful of people who focused on Kyoru's first fight. However, arguably they already had those in the manga as well.

I tried to brainstorm with Hubby as I brought him home for those four hours, but I also had to do the laundry, as I mentioned, so I was doing a LOT of running around. I was also stuck in a Bad Luck cloud. Little things all day: dropping a dish I JUST WASHED on the yet-to-be-washed floor; the shower curtain rod falling on me, twice; my bathrobe billowing out further from my hips than I thought, and therefore knocking over a collection of plastic bottles I needed to bring to the recycling center; my milk hitting my cup of coffee at JUUUUUST the right angle that it splashed my coffee up at me; a sealed bag not properly tearing open when I tried to get to my daily supplemental pills; the chain to the ceiling fan/light snapping so I had to climb up a ladder to reattach it; etc.

It was an exhausting day. By the time I actually had a moment to sit down and WRITE my story, it was about 11pm!

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At least I had decided that I was going to stick with my original "first apartment" idea. I was able to churn the story out in about 100minutes, and had it formatted and posted to Tumblr just before 1am. Less than an hour late. Not too bad, right?

I was actually impressed that I was able to write it so quickly, and when I proofread before publishing to my other sites this morning I didn't find too many errors. So... yay.

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It did seem to blow up quite a bit already as well, so that's cool. I mean, Kyo and Tohru are actually a sweet couple in this story, so it makes sense that more people would like this over my first one.

The title's still trash though.

"Experience It All"

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Now to figure out today's prompt: Selfish.

Also... ya know... Ron's birthday story....

But first, I need to get going! The movie is going to start in about 90minutes, and 40 of that will be used up with driving to the theater!

OH! But before I jet, I'm not the only one who connected with her muse this week.

Taurus Pixie was able to finally figure out her story Immortal Bond and was able to upload the restarted version as Immortal Bonds. How cheeky, including the 's' to get around the "no duplicate titles" thing. This way, if you liked the way the original was written, you can still read that incomplete version. Pixie can also keep all of her lovely reviews, and compare the stats of her new version to those of her original. All while essentially keeping her original title, which she loved and was perfect for her story. YAY!

Right now Immortal Bonds only has a short prologue up, but it's a jumping point. It's an achievement proving that the year-long wait was worth it for both her and her readers. If you like dark, occult-themed AUs, where the main character accidentally summons a not-necessarily-malicious demon, by all means go check out Immortal Bonds! 

As for me? I REALLY need to jet now. Bye!

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