What DID I Do This Past Month?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Again, these are heavily spoilerific essays, just FYI.

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

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

Whoops.

Worth it.

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

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

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

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

Go and Conquer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hacker Girl Facebook sticker
by Birdman, Inc.

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

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

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

Still excited to try it out!

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

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

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

Naturally, I had to make sure I matched.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Also also also also!!!!

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

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

GET. OUT. THERE. AND. VOTE.

Safely.

A Grand Return

 Oh, dear Lord! It's been nearly a month since I was last able to write a blog post. Let's see if I even remember how. 

Tanuki Facebook sticker
by Yanare Ku

First and foremost, I have missed this blog and I have missed you, dear readers, so much. I nearly cried when I realized I FINALLY had a Tuesday off and could work on this again. It's just been a rough month with this continued kooky work schedule, throwing my whole work/life balance all sorts of out-of-whack. Writing truly is in my blood, and while I've always known I'm just not myself if I'm not writing, I don't think I've fully realized how much this blog and my weekly updates - even if I'm seemingly talking about nothing - have truly meant to me as well. And hoo-boy do I have a lot to catch up on!

While this is the most recent of things, I figured talking about getting unexpected Feels about something seemingly done for fun - such as writing these blog posts - is a good transition to also chat about how I've spent my last couple of days.

Namely, what I've downloaded over the weekend:

I downloaded the original Newgrounds Game Jam 2015 version
as well as the full Wrong Dimension version

So, I was vaguely aware of a simple, free, 15-min or so game titled There Is No Game in which the premise is that the game's programming is actively trying to convince you that what you're running isn't actually a game, and tries to prevent you from doing any sort of playing in said non-game. It was a cool concept, and I MIIIIIIIGHT have tried it out on Newgrounds at some point??? But it's been ages since I've gone onto that site, so I couldn't really remember.

Then I saw MatPat play the first chapter of the full game There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension on GTLive last week, and I was intrigued.

Yes, I know there are people out there that take issue with MatPat, and I do see some shades of arrogance in his presentation across all four of his channels - Game Theory, Film Theory, GTLive, and now Food Theory - but the overall content is still entertaining, so... meh. Point is, I saw him playing this game, thought it looked fun, I had some spare cash, and the game cost less than $20, so I treated myself this weekend.

I also treated myself to this, but I'll get to that in a bit.

I have become one of the herd, and I am not ashamed.

So, back to TING:WD and how that relates back to my earlier statement about caring for things unexpectedly.

The premise of this extended game by Draw Me A Pixel is exactly like the Jam Session one: you start up the program and said program, via voice over, tries to convince you that there is in fact no game and you should probably close the program down. Through a series of various mouse click interactions - that is literally the only game mechanic: interact via your mouse - you work your way through puzzles. The game is super meta and has a lot of great tongue-in-cheek, satirical commentary on the gaming industry. The companionship you get from the program - simply called Game - is fantastic as "he" berates and teases you, but also begs you for help as the "non-game" continues. There are six chapters and an epilogue to work your way through, and as you progress an actual story begins to unfold. By the end of the second chapter I was intrigued, by the end of the third chapter I was emotionally invested, by the end of the fourth chapter I could not stop until I got to the conclusion.

THIS DANG (NON-)GAME HAD ME TEARING UP AND LEGIT GASPING AT VARIOUS STORY TWISTS! Like, I won't tell you really anything about the game because I don't want to ruin it for you, but I highly suggest finding a way of getting your hands on a copy yourself. The puzzles aren't that difficult if you're not one for puzzlers. Some do require some unconventional thinking, and I have had to use the Hints section quite a bit towards the end (only to discover I was doing the right thing I just wasn't getting the timing quite right; as is almost always the case with me and puzzle games), but there ARE hints throughout the game should you get stuck, and there doesn't seem to be any punishment for using them, such as losing points or having to use in-game currency to unlock the hints or having Game mock you for using them, etc. I also didn't see any Steam achievements for not using a single hint, so there really isn't anything besides your own stubborn pride keeping you from using those helpful hints throughout the game (er... non-game). Game himself also gives you plenty of verbal clues to try to nudge you in the right direction, so you may not even need those hint boxes.

All-in-all, not only was the game (er... non-game) mechanics unique and so much fun, but Pascal Cammisotto, the creator of the original TING for Jam as well as the writer/director/voice for Game in the full version, did such a fantastic job at the actual writing and content creation for this (non-)game. Such a touching story, and great lore, and fantastic commentary on the gaming industry, along with fantastic voice acting. With but a voice, Game became a fully fleshed-out character that I grew so attached to, and I've happily opened the game back up simply to be re-greeted (a bit hostilely) by his voice, play a few puzzles to try to unlock a few more achievements, and then I'll smile as I quit and he shouts "Don't forget to uninstall me!" as the game closes. My entire playthrough was a little over 5hrs - mostly because of those dang timing issues I had; the game probably is only about 4 or so hrs long for other people - but Game has become a beloved character for me.

So little can say so much, and, as a long-winded writer myself, I am forever in awe of those who can weave such a touching tale within barely any time with their audience.

I am over here hoping to learn that TING:WD has done so well since its launch on August 6th that Draw Me A Pixel can continue their great work, and Cammisotto, et. al., can continue the tale they've started with this game.

In the meantime, I guess I'll just keep playing this fun (non-)game as I study Cammisotto's storytelling prowess, as well as chuckle at the characters constantly confusing Game's French accent with a Russian one.

Aaaaaaand, speaking of the French, I have exciting news, but I'll circle back to that. Next up: Among Us.

A big trend for me this year, thanks to the pandemic shutdown back in March, is to finally join in on the pastime of watching Let's Plays and gaming streams. In the past I would shrug this form of entertainment off. It's fine if others enjoyed it, but I was always kind of "meh" to it. If I was going to take the time to watch someone else play a game I was interested in, why didn't I just use that time to play the game myself? Or, I didn't want to watch streams or Let's Plays because I had every intention of playing that game and didn't want spoilers. Or I could just watch Hubby play the game, so why watch strangers do it? Especially since a lot of the earlier streamers/Let's Play-ers... I found weren't all that entertaining with it.

I mean, I've seen some pretty bad streamers, you guys. Ones that only vaguely respond to the live chat, so if you aren't actively reading the chat or you were watching the VOD, you were confused as to what the player was responding to. Ones that didn't lower the game audio enough and so the game audio fought with the player's commentary. Ones where the player virtually had no commentary, and so you were literally just watching the gameplay as if you were the one playing, but with no control over how the game progressed. Ones where the players barely had the game audio up at all - which is fine if they were going to do a running commentary and didn't want to fight the game audio - but then proceeded to either NOT talk, leaving a lot of dead air to wade through, or when they would react to the game audio that the audience can't hear. So on and so forth.

I just... I couldn't get into this new entertainment trend.

However, my go-to YouTube channels I love to gush about - Outside Xbox, OutsideXtra, and, to a lesser and newer extent, Dicebreaker - are actually super good at gaming streams. They are entertainers first and foremost and make their streams this whole experience. They make sure to read off the chat comments (usually paid-for super chats, but whatever) before responding to them. Their running commentary is akin to sports announcers. They have the gaming audio only slightly softer than their own if the game audio is significant to the gameplay, such as music cues or monster screams in jump-scare horror games. I could gush further, but this blog post isn't supposed to be a promotion for them per se, so I'll just conclude by saying that their videos are so well done they could be podcasts and people would still more-or-less understand what is going on within the video game. They're just super good.

So I've jumped onto the "watch video game streams" bandwagon, and this has proven equally an excellent and terrible idea. Mostly because I'll watch these guys play a game and, much like what I did with MatPat and TING:WD, I'll be intrigued enough that I'll buy the game to play it myself. Yay, free advertisement for said games!

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It was Luke's adorable streams on OutsideXtra that solidified for me that, yes, I should get Animal Crossing: New Horizons. It was Mike's chill stream on Outside Xbox that got me to buy House Flipper on Steam. And Jane's chaotic streams on Outside Xbox that convinced me that Two Point Hospital was worth buying on BOTH Steam and Switch, so that I can play whenever, even if they aren't linked accounts.

Well, the Oxboxtra crew struck again. They finally jumped on the Among Us trend this month. They, along with members of Dicebreaker and Eurogamer, have been having 9-person games. They stream for about 2hrs and one member from each channel is in charge of streaming for said channel, which means after watching for 2hrs you can rewatch from the other 3 channels' perspectives. It's particularly fun when you already know that the streamer from x-channel was the impostor for y-runs or was a victim in z-runs, and you can either watch their killing spree or laugh at their ghost-chat conversations and get their thoughts on the matter - things you wouldn't be able to get otherwise because of them staying muted.

Watching these streams have been great fun as we try to figure out who the impostor is ourselves, using only the same limited information as the first streamer we ride along with; usually Luke from OutsideXtra. It's also fantastic to have moments like this, when not only do YOU, the viewer sometimes see things the players don't, but you can also afford to watch the reactions of the other players when THEY see things the others don't. 

Hubby has always been a big fan of these impostor-among-us/social deduction type games, such as Werewolf, Hail Hydra, or Secret Hitler. So seeing a video game version with the added component of being able to sabotage or complete tasks to win really piqued his interest. Add in watching how much fun everyone is having as well as his own mental calculations as to how he'd win as either the Impostor or Crewmate, and he was HOOKED.

I picked him up from work this past Saturday and was instantly greeted with "Check out what's free to download on the phone, and is only $2 to get rid of ads!" Goob's birthday was this past week, so we had him pop in for a birthday gift, and Dragnime swung by for his normal anime night get-together. So Hubby, seeing that we now had four people - the minimum to play Among Us - decreed that the rest of us needed to download it as well. We were all intrigued by the game anyway and so we were easy to manipulate into complying.

Sadly, a 4-player game does not last long; naturally. The plus side was that we were able to get a few rounds in before Goob had to head out and I got disconnected from the server. We had fun though, and got a taste for the gameplay. I do have to say that I wasn't much of a fan of playing on my phone. My thumbs are too thick and I either have to deal with clunky controlling of my character or my fingers getting in the way of my view of potential Impostors.

In other words: I got killed a lot.

The game was, like, $5 on Steam, and I already had enough fun to not mind spending the extra money on the game; maybe get a bit more over to the developers. They deserved it. I would be able to see easier on the larger screen, and I had better control using the A,S,W,D keys and/or mouse. We just needed more people to play. We tried Sunday to no avail, but we were able to get a couple more games in last night.

I know Hubby will be itching to get a few rounds in just about every night, and it could be a fun way to unwind after frustrating days at work. I could just focus on simple tasks that need to be done, as well as yelling for others to get theirs done without being considered a jerk for doing so. I could go on a lovely killing spree to relieve stress. I could shout and accuse and try to flush out liars, assuming I'm still alive to do so. 

I mean, seriously. Hubby was the Impostor, like, 7 out of 9 games we played last night and I was almost always the first to be killed! Naturally he was therefore the one I killed when it was my turn to be the Impostor.

We truly love each other.

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Anyway, that's probably how I'm going to be spending at least an hour or two any night we can get enough people to join. I know that also means I'm playing another game instead of writing, but it's a fun outlet for when my mind isn't to the point of coming up with plot myself. It's also exercising my deductive reasoning and improv - especially when I'm the Impostor and trying to bluff my way through the voting - so it might be a good mental workout to help with all the stress. Maybe that's what I need to clear the cobwebs and get me officially back on the right track.

Another thing that's been a big help, though, especially with the whole Impostor Syndrome issue I talked about last time, is the amount of support and love I've been getting lately by way of my writings.

I've had a bunch of you making sure to tell me, either in the comments here or via Facebook messenger or in person, that I am far from an impostor.... er.... with regards to Impostor Syndrome. I'm still sometimes an Impostor when playing Among Us.

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Anyway, thank you, all, for the love and support. I know I'll still have to battle that constant doubt, especially since my skill with fanfiction writing is a bit of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, others find my work so good because of how well I can get in the mind of the canon writers and create something new that feels so much like canon. I can parrot fantastically, and this is a skill I'd love to figure out how to turn into a career, if I'm honest. On the other hand, however, being so good at parroting does leave me wondering if I'm only good if I piggy-back off of others; that I can't think of anything original and any of my success is because I'm "tricking" people by being such a good mimic.

This duality will always exist, I fear, but it IS such a comfort to have so many of you in my corner cheering me on.

Speaking of, I'm not entirely sure why, but I've had one HECK of an uptick in readership, faves, kudos, follows, and comments on the story I wrote for Taurus Pixie as a Christmas gift in 2018: Woven Heartstrings.

I'm seeing the name of this fic pop up in my email notifications nearly daily. It's amazing, but I'm also so confused by it. An older story, Christmas themed, and not one promoted on any of my Tumblr posts I've been seeing get more attention lately. The only explanation I was able to figure out might be this one from one of the commenters this week:

 JuliaFC: My French friend reviewed a little while back, she really loved your story, she's (and I'm) a true Marichat and Adrien fan so your story really touched some cords.

I'm not entirely sure who this friend was, but they are so sweet to have reviewed my story and recommended it. If you are randomly that person, I want to thank you so very very much.

I'm just dumbfounded that non-native English readers are not only finding my works, but are also reading them. I have such a trash mind for learning other languages, so to be fluent enough (or able to interpret Google Translate well enough) to read a 32,000+ word story is so amazing to me.

Speaking of French readers - and relying on Google Translate - one of those new reviews I've received just blew my mind!

 EtoileLeadSama: Salut. Je viens de passer l'après-midi à lire ton histoire. Elle est absolument magnifique. Un vrai petit bijou. Elle réchauffe le coeur comme l'un des fameux chocolats chauds de Marinette. Merci beaucoup pour ce petit moment de bonheur tout doux. J'aime beaucoup la complicité de Chat Noir et Marinette. Tes idées de cadeaux sont absolument géniales. J'ai vraiment beaucoup aimé chaque chapitre. Félicitations. Je vais enregistrer cette sublime histoire dans mes favoris pour pouvoir la relire à loisir. Bon courage pour la suite. Bisous miraculeux

If Google Translate is to be believed, that comment should translate to:

Hi. I just spent the afternoon reading your story. [This] is absolutely gorgeous. A real gem. It warms the heart like one of Marinette's famous hot chocolates. Thank you very much for this sweet moment of happiness. I really like the bond between Chat Noir and Marinette. Your gift ideas are absolutely brilliant. I really liked each chapter. Congratulations. I will save this sublime story in my favorites so that I can read it again at my leisure. Good luck for the future. Miraculous kisses

I- I just.... I got a non-English review! I've- I've never received a non-English review before! I- I still cannot form the words to express how much this milestone means to me. The fact that someone clearly isn't very comfortable writing in English but still felt compelled to leave me something; still enjoyed my story to read it, even when it isn't in their native tongue. 

Stuff like this has really been lifting my spirits, so thank you, sweet, glorious, dear readers. Thank you for indulging me and putting up with my breakdowns and showing me such kindness.

I am so blessed!

I want to go on more about the Miraculous Ladybug special and new projects that Pixie is up to and how I've had a weird uptick on my Tumblr as well, but it's already nearly 6pm and this post is so long. So I'll resist, and hopefully I can get more into what I've been doing the past month in next week's post.

Much love to you all!

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(P.S. - if you're American, here's your belated reminder to double check if you still have time to mail in ballots, check for OFFICIAL drop-off boxes, find out if there's still early-voting options in your area, and make a plan if you decide to or have to vote in person.)

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!

August was Trash, Okay?

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OMG, guys, August was suuuch trash!

Sorry I've been so absent lately. Sorry still that my writing has YET to return to the land of the living. This past month? Well... it IS 2020, isn't it? I'm now feeling a bit guilty about using images like this at the conclusion of last year:

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When you feel bad about how you "treated" 2019, and kinda wish to go back to THAT year? You KNOW the current year is beyond trash.

I'm just so exhausted. I've been exhausted for a while now, and August did NOT help that in the slightest.

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Also, side note, the new formatting for Blogger? 

It's supposed to be more streamline, but a lot of the things I personally do with this blog now takes extra steps. I also do a lot of HTML edits and tweaks, and reading the code is now a LOT harder for me since it all runs together. Here, see?

If you are a programmer, that might look helpful. It's color coordinated, and you're probably used to it all running into itself. Me? I am NOT a programmer. The old HTML view used to have everything set up in paragraphs that I could easily read and understand. To demonstrate, I took the above code and edited it best I could to look like how it used to.

Yeah, it was all one color, but so is just about any text I'd read. The important thing was the paragraph breaks so I could easily skim through and find what I wanted to edit. Now? Well, thank God someone created the CTRL+F search function, because I'm probably going to use it a LOT now. I mean, it's cool and all that code is red when it's incomplete, and then turns green once you've completed the line. That helps me make sure I didn't forget to close a function or something. But I tried to put a little tweak on one of the above images, then continued writing while in HTML mode - something I used to do a LOT originally, just to make sure the spacing is how I want it - and when I want to switch back to composition mode I got a pop-up saying some of my code may be invalid and may not stay if I switch out of HTML. I spent a solid 5 minutes or so tweaking what I did and reading through the above code to see how to mimic it in what I had done, and I still had no clue what I did that would have been considered "invalid." So, in the end, I ended up deleting all the coding I had done, hit "okay" to the "may be invalid" pop-up, and just continued on in composition mode. 

I hope this blog looks the same as it always has, but I may have to consider completely revamping it so I use less coding. Because right now? Well, not to be overly dramatic or anything, but check the shirt.

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I mean, when I previewed this post thus far, I noticed there was a MASSIVE gap between one of the above images and the text following it. It looked like I had hit the Enter button about 3x to create line breaks. Just a few weeks ago, with the old formatting, I could easily go into the code, see the extra <br /> or <p></p> code and know I can delete those to get rid of the surplus spacing.

With this new coding layout? And, frankly, I feel like the HTML somehow got more complicated??? Well, I spent another 10 minutes or so trying to read the code to see where the extra space came from, because it wasn't there in compose view for me to just delete. I finally saw that a line of code was out of place from when I initially tried going into HTML view to edit one of the image codes. Again, something I used to do weekly, so I thought I generally knew what I was doing by now.

Well, after shifting where the code was SUPPOSED to be, I hit Preview, and.... now the entire blog after that picture was center aligned instead of left aligned.

Yona from Yona of the Dawn
Created by Mizuho Kusanagi

Another 10 minute battle or so as I copied and pasted the code ABOVE the image - where it was still properly left-aligned after an image - and edited it to include the proper image (the one I had messed with originally) and the proper text (that had somehow become center-aligned). It SHOULD have worked. I literally used the EXACT SAME CODE of a portion of the blog that was formatting properly.

It... didn't.

After, as I said, 10 minutes of adjusting this, tweaking that, hitting the Undo button about a dozen times, and reading the code with painstaking focus to try to understand it enough to mimic it... and it STILL not working, I gave up. I just went back into compose mode, selected all, and hit the Left-align button.

And I STILL had to select 2 different paragraphs separately and left-align them independently, since apparently they weren't included in the Select All??????

Hacker Girl
Facebook sticker
by
Birdman, Inc.

Yeah, I hate this new format...

BUT BACK TO AUGUST!

Throughout August, my one co-worker's daughter got married, my other co-worker had a bridal shower for HER daughter, the 1st co-worker had a family event, and then the 2nd co-worker's brother got married, so every weekend one of them requested a 3-day or 4-day weekend. Also, the first co-worker had needed oral surgery for about a month, so she finally managed to get that taken care of and needed a week off to recover. We all have all of this vacation time, and boy were those two using it.

And yet, one of them was particularly snarky about me taking a week off in July for my birthday, but whatever....

Anyway, because of all of that, I had to work two Tuesdays in August, the most recent time being last week. Hence me missing two blog post updates last month.

Also, on top of all of THAT, one of our branch stores had a whole new staff hired, which isn't as extreme as it sounds since it only has 3 employees anyway, but still. So I was asked to travel about 40min to the other store in order to train the new employees, as was another employee from one of the other branch stores, that way the other could cover while one of us had a day off.

I trained the new sales associate two days the one week, and then the following week the sales assistant came on and I went out to train her.

And then, apparently the one owner felt the assistant needed more training, so she was sent to my home-store for me to train her while helping cover the store I normally work in - ya know, because the tag-team of my co-workers requesting off.

Now, when I was hired, all employees had two solid weeks of training in their home-store, and then another month of shadowing the sales associates as a way to learn how to sell (back then every employee was in sales). About two years later, there was a shift to include hourly employees as sales assistants. Fast forward another 7 months or so, and that's when I started to get tapped for training the newbies and driving to the other stores for a day or so. For the most part, the "2 weeks of training" were shrunk to just one week - since the 2nd was typically training on how to sell merchandise, something most of the new employees weren't doing - and then that week of training was usually split between me and someone who worked in that employee's store. I'd start with the real meat-and-potatoes of how to run the main program we use for sales and a broad overview of what product we carry, and then the other employee would finish the training with getting into the minutia of the day-to-day and rare issues that might come up.

For the past year-and-a-half or so, this training system seemed to work. Heck, even with that sales associate I had trained early August had that sort of training regimen set up.

For the new sales assistant though? We're not sure why, but the one owner for whatever reason believes this woman needs 3 solid weeks of training with me.

Thankfully, last week and this week were in my home-store, so I didn't have to travel, but my days are completely consumed with trying to think of ANYTHING that I could still teach this woman so we're not just staring blankly at each other for 8 hours straight. Or, alternatively, so she's not like my co-workers: just sitting bored at a desk, wondering what to do, while I have a HUGE list of things *I* need to do still. Things like creating and hanging tags on the new product that comes in explaining the options available for it. Things like keeping up with the company's social media accounts. Things like keeping on top of the new company website so I can send glitches or other such errors to the web master ASAP. Things like updating some of my data spreadsheets so it's easier for us to look up things.

Granted, a lot of this stuff either of my co-workers could also learn to do - such as the spreadsheets or the information tags - but neither puts in effort to learn how to do it. So now it's backlogged by about a month.

And I STILL have to figure out what to do with this woman I'm supposed to be training despite us going through everything she needed to learn in the first 3 or 4 days.

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So.... yeah, work has been EXHAUSTING, and so all I want to do when I come home is zone out. For the most part, I've done that, with the exception of the couple of times I've GM'd our sessions of Blades in the Dark by John Harper. Those have been quite stressful in and of themselves. 

The sessions themselves seem well enough. The group appears to be enjoying themselves, and that's all that matters. Plus, with the scores I keep coming up with so the group has options, I'm slowly building a story of the world going on around the group. I am enjoying the brainstorming sessions Hubby and I have to try to come up with those world-build side-stories we could play off of. While the crew is doing this, off in the background these two warring factions are doing that. The way this score concludes affects this bit of the city. That sort of thing.

The first score the group chose my last GMing session was a continuation of one of the scores they did the 1st time I GM'd. In that first session a professor and his rival were both researching this one particular piece of technology in a race to see which of them could finally solve the problem the scientific world was having in improving the effectiveness of the tech. The professor knew his rival was further along than him, so he wanted the crew to steal her notes so he could have the advantage instead, and he wanted it to look like a random burglary.

Well, the crew did ransack her office and steal a bunch of random items that seemed valuable, along with her notes, as an effort o stage it as a burglary instead of a pointed attack. Problem is, they literally only hit the rival's office. So, I had a new score in which she knew that her rival had plotted the theft and wanted either proof to take to the Bluecoats or wanted the professor to be framed. Either way, she wanted him in jail.

The guys LOVED the continuation of this random side-plot of these two tech rivals, and got a kick out of the fact that she only knew her rival was involved with the theft, not that the crew was the one who actually did the burgling. So they agreed to set the professor up for masterminding the theft of her notes.

It's moments like that - where they gleefully passed around the index card the score was written down upon, and each of them going "OH!" after reading it - that makes me happy I've agreed to tag-team GMing with Hubby.

But then I go to write down what happened.

As I've commented throughout this post, it has been a busy and stressful month. I barely have the free time to write anything down, and when I do, it's a week or two after the session. So far, between 4 game sessions, we have played through 8 or 9 different scores. Hubby had that opening score in the first session. Then we went through three in my first session as the GM. Then we went through 2 or 3 more scores when Hubby took over again, and we went through another 2 when I last GM'd.

The fact that I can't remember how many we went through when Hubby last GM'd is part of the problem. I wanted to write the sessions down SPECIFICALLY because, especially with all the chaos and stress of 2020, my memory is trash. And yet, I only managed to write down the first 2 scores I GM'd before I ran out of time. So I'm now staring at so many backlogged game missions and struggling to remember what even happened. At the same time, as I write out what happened during the scores I ran vs reflecting on the ones I have to write down that Hubby ran, I began getting super depressed. I felt like I wasn't giving anyone any significant challenges. Which of course made me wonder about my overall writing and storytelling skills.

Was this why I have so many stories focused on inner conflict instead of outer conflict? Is this why I seem to write exclusively Man vs Self stories? Am I just incapable of coming up with external conflicts for characters?

Total. Writing. Existential. Crisis.

So even when I did have time to write down the sessions, I still didn't. I couldn't. I shut down. I just got depressed whenever I thought about my sessions. I felt like I was making things too easy for the players; that the complications I came up with the group just kind of shrugged off. 

To try to help, Hubby decided last week's Blades game session would actually be the group watching Let's Plays. That way Hubby and, especially, I could see how other GMs come up with scores and consequences/complications, and the guys could see how other groups played. We hoped it would help everyone get a better feel on how this game played different than D&D and break us from that D&D mindset.

Namely the idea of critical-failures, excessive pre-planning, the fear of complications causing us to fail the mission entirely, and the #1 D&D rule of "never split the party". The mechanics of Blades in the Dark is done so specifically to address and negate all of those issues of D&D.

In the end, Quarthix concluded that the session we watched on YouTube played fairly similarly to how we already play. Hubby more-or-less agreed. I had also noticed that the "consequences and complications" the GM came up with were things like "the floor creaked, but none of the 'sleeping' bodies beside you move". So maybe the complications and consequences I came up with weren't so mild after all. That did help my overall outlook.

Also, because we watched Let's Plays last week, and talked more about our character backstories, Hubby is still on-deck for GMing the session. That also helped because I didn't need the added stress of trying to come up with scores for the guys to do this session. Hubby's in charge again tonight, and it will be nice to just be able to play.

Especially since work wasn't my only bit of chaos. In Animal Crossing: New Horizons, today is the start of both a new month and new season. At the end of each month, the game cycles out an assortment of bugs, fish, and deep-sea creatures. It also brings in new bugs, fish, and deep-sea creatures. So I already knew there was a list of creatures leaving at the end of August. However, these were also summer-only creatures, so I wouldn't see them again until next June or July. Normally not that big of a deal except for three things:

1. I was still missing a total of 10 or 11 bugs/fish that I would have been able to capture by this time in the game. Two of them weren't active over the summer, but one came back today and the other would be back in, like, December or January, so it wouldn't be AS long of a wait.
2. I'm a completionist player, which means I try to go through 100% of the game. This is why one of my daily "chores" in-game is to go to both shops, and check the Nook Stop, and buy up everything that was "new," even if I don't like it. There's a "catalog" in-game and every time your character has possession of an item - via purchasing it, picking it up, or being gifted it - it is added to your catalog. So, I buy anything not already in my catalog, so I have a record of it, and then sell anything I don't wish to keep.
   This also means that I want to fully complete my Critterpedia: the listing of all the bugs, fish, and deep-sea creatures you could catch in the game. I don't want to have to wait until JUNE OR JULY in order to complete this thing!
3. There is a set of 6 main breakable tools that you frequently use in-game: net, slingshot, shovel, watering can, fishing pole, and axe. You can get the ultimate upgrade of a Golden tool once you achieve certain milestones. You learn the watering can when you have improved your island to the highest rating: 5-stars. You learn how to make a golden axe after breaking your regular axe a certain number of times. You get the golden slingshot recipe after popping x-number of balloons with your slingshot.
   For the golden shovel, you have to assist a side character that literally washes up on your island at least once every two weeks. You have to help him 30 times, so it will take a long time to get the shovel, but it still shouldn't be a "have to wait until next July" sort of situation to complete that task.
   The net and the fishing poles? You learn how to make the golden versions of those tools by completing the bug and fish critterpedias respectively. So, not only would catching these bugs and fish help me 100% my critterpedia, but also allows me to unlock the final 2 tools of the game. On top of THAT you also get Nook Miles - in-game points you receive for completing specific tasks - and stamps for both completing the tasks and building the resulting golden tools.

So... yeah, my Completionist Butt didn't want to have to wait until these bugs and fish returned to the game next July, and I didn't want to start "time traveling" in order to get them sooner than intended. Which all means I HAD to make sure I caught all of those bugs and fish before the end of August. Of COURSE I didn't realize how many bugs/fish I was missing until last week, so when I dropped Hubby off at work at 6am I would then spend an hour or so trying to hunt down any of these missing bugs or fish before getting ready for work myself. Then my Friday off was largely spent trying to hunt down the missing bugs and fish. Again Saturday morning - a rare Saturday off for me - I did little more than try to grind out the bugs and fish I needed, but I also had to deal with the surplus of flowers that had popped up and were going to overrun my island. 

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by Yanare Ku

Sunday morning before work and then more Sunday evening were spent once more searching for the remaining elusive creatures. Sunday post-work was also spent playing a couple hours of Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening on the Switch, a game I FINALLY started up Saturday afternoon while waiting for the next time bracket where the bugs/fish I needed would spawn. Two hours of playing a game within my favorite franchise. A game I had already played the Game Boy Color re-release version of. Two hours, and I somehow managed to die NINE TIMES! This is NOT a hard game. I went through two dungeons on Saturday, and died ONCE. Granted, I left most fights with only half a heart - your character's health meter - but I still managed to survive MOST of the game session. Sunday, though? Nope. I ended up saving in a new slot in case I wanted to go back to my original file and redo everything. Which I did do yesterday and did MUCH better: no deaths. My reflexes were certainly a lot better and I was a lot more focused last night.

Anyway, I was back to searching last night, having but two beetles left to find.

All-in-all, I think I personally clocked about 15 or 16 hours of doing little else in the game other than running around searching for these dang fish and bugs! It was certainly more a chore than fun, and it was EXHAUSTING and FRUSTRATING. But, at the same time, I didn't want to give up, because then I'd have to wait a year to officially complete the game. I mean, it may take me that long anyway, and I may be actively playing the game still anyway, but I didn't want to force it either simply because I didn't catch those creatures before they left for a year.

In the end, it was Hubby, playing my game for me for another TWO HOURS while I was working on this blog post - I'll explain in a moment - for my game to FINALLY get every creature I could by the end of August.

That being said, while I do have an insane amount of hours poured into this game since the end of March - over 800 hours, for sure - my official gamer profile says I have something closer to 860hrs clocked for ACNH. That's largely due to the amount of times the game goes idle while I do things like stop to eat, forget to log off before doing laundry or going to work, or, what happened this weekend, I fall asleep while playing so it just sits there - idle - for the 6 to 8 hrs I'm sleeping.

This ended up being beneficial, however, because there's this trick with the game. You can leave your main island and go on what's known as "Nook Mile Tours" or "Mystery Island Tours". These are tiny islands you can go to harvest things, and sometimes meet new villagers you can invite back to your home island. When you're on one of these islands, time moves normally, just as it would anywhere else in the game. HOWEVER, certain creatures have time restrictions for their spawning. For instance, the beetles I still needed as of yesterday only show up in the game between the hours of 5pm and 8am. So, if I were playing the game at 4pm, the beetle would never show up, but the moment it hit 5pm they would start to spawn, only to vanish again at 8am. On those island tours, you're locked into the time-block you reached the island within. So, to again use that beetle example, if I hit up a Mystery Island at 8:45pm, I'd be within that 5pm-8am time block. Any bugs/fish that didn't spawn at 8:45pm, but might spawn at 9pm wouldn't be spawning at all on that island, even if I stay on it until 10pm. While the clock still advances, and the lighting changes from night to day and vice versa, when it comes to critter spawn restrictions, you are locked into the time it was when you first landed on that island.

So, as I said, this proved beneficial. I had passed out playing ACNH while on Nook Mile Islands both Sunday evening and Monday evening. Which means, as far as the game's creature-spawns were concerned, it was still 10pm. Hubby had yesterday and today off, so I ran around in-game for an hour before getting ready for work yesterday morning, found one of the 4 critters I still needed, then passed the game over to Hubby. He played for another hour or so before letting me know he caught the last fish I needed. Then, as previously mentioned, I passed out again last night with just TWO MORE creatures to go, and Hubby spent a couple hours this morning finding them for me.

"Crisis" averted.

But holy heck was that stressful and NOT. FUN. the past week. Especially since that meant that - except for the few hours I played LoZ this weekend - I was pretty much exclusively playing this game whenever I had downtime. And it wasn't even stress relieving like it was meant to be!

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Sooooooo, yeah. That super sucked. I'm going to try to be a bit more diligent on which critters are leaving each month, and try not to save them for the last week or so of it. Thankfully, the largest collection of critters leaving the game comes at the end of the summer - so August in the northern hemisphere and February in the southern hemisphere - which means I shouldn't be as overwhelmed again while playing this game. A word of caution for any of my readers who also play this game and are in the southern hemisphere, or at least has their game set up for the southern hemisphere: DO NOT SLEEP ON THE SUMMER BUGS/FISH. TRY TO GET THEM ALL ASAP SINCE THEY ARE ONLY AVAILABLE FOR 2 MONTHS TOTAL THROUGHOUT THE FULL YEAR!

My one co-worker's daughter is getting married on September 19th, and so she took that whole week off to prepare and then recover from the wedding. That will be a LOOOOOOOOOONG week and I'll most likely miss my September 15th update due to that, but I'll try to be more on-the-ball this week.

So long to that crappy summer and doubly crappy August. Here's to September being better over-all. And here's to games RELIEVING stress instead of adding to it. (Yes, I'm also looking at you, Link's Awakening, and your stupid 9 deaths...)

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Edited by LycoRogue

And, finally, here's to 2020 being kinder to us, pretty please!

Hope to catch you next week!