Wednesday, February 19, 2020

How Marinette's Song Came to Be

Sorry I lied, and now this is a day late. Like... super late. Like, it's now night, late. I was out of the house more-or-less from 1:45pm until 7pm yesterday running errands, then I had dinner, then Hubby wanted to play his "A Song of Ice and Fire" miniatures game again, which lasted until 10:30 or so. Then some household chores.... Then, today, I've been at work.


Anyway, late though it is, as promised, here's my second blog post in order to help make up for missing last week. This way I can get a bit more detailed in the actual writing progress of Marinette's Song and my Fluff Week stories. I can also truly gush over those other stories I've read the past week or so.

Thing is, though... seems I had a LOT more to talk about than I thought in regards to the writing process behind coming up with my Lukanette story. So... uh... this entire epic blog post is JUST about Marinette's Story. 
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Edited by LycoRogue
At least you know what you're getting into, right? If you really don't care about my rambling about my writing process, and the readership stats for the story, then you can go ahead and skip over this post.

HOWEVER, I do also gush about the Lukanette Secret Admirer story written for me by CaptainMalcolmReynolds, and it would be a shame to miss that. If you want to just skip down to that bit, scroll until you see this Bitmoji:
My review of Or I Could Just Kiss You... is only about a paragraph after that.

For those of you that are sticking around for the whole ride, I hope you've gotten your bathroom breaks in already....
Luka screen grab from episode "Felix"
Marinette screen grab from episode "Silencer"
As I've mentioned in the past, I instantly loved the concept of the prompt justknitstuff had submitted for her future Secret Admirer to use.
Supernatural AU! And not the show SPN. Luka is descended from sirens. His music tends to put people under a spell (not the throw yourself to death kind though), so he goes to his favorite charm shop from the cute witch that makes charms to dampen the affect when he plays. Pre-relationship so while Luka is still calm and cool, you can tell he's still stupidly love sick.
I don't know if that's what came across in the end, but I hope it is.

Also, to be fair, I also enjoyed her other prompt except for two things:
Older Viperbug and Lukanette. Luka and Marinette are trying to start a family but second Hawkmoth makes it a little difficult. Everyone knows each others identity because knowing who they are makes them a stronger team and trust each other more. They work as one big team, but also in little groups. Luka takes charge of the Zodiacs and is kinda Marinette's second-in-command, cause Adrien knows Luka is a little better at making plans. I'm ok with nsfw and other background pairings. Second Hawkmoth can be anyone.
The issues I had with that Aged Up story? Well, for one, as much as I ADORE Lukanette, and think they will be great together, and would not mind if they're End Game, I'm still a die hard Love Square shipper. I will delightfully consume End Game Lukanette like it's going out of style, but I just can't bring myself to write it. Same with my second issue: Luka/Viperion becoming Ladybug's second in command, essentially demoting Adrien/Chat Noir. I am such a Chat Noir stan that is constantly fighting to remind people (the show's writers included) that Chat Noir is NOT Ladybug's sidekick. He is an EQUAL partner, as presented in season 1.

They are less Batman and Robin and more The Wonder Twins. Sure, the female is arguably more powerful or more effective, but you still need both of them to properly function.
Look! They're even "fist bumping" here!
(Just ignore the whole sibling thing;
it's not a perfect analogy)
Granted, it was further explained to me that it's more of a Sailor Moon Inner Senshi vs Outter Senshi, with, I guess, Chat Noir still being the Tuxedo Mask-like partner in battle (ignoring that TM never really actually battles, does he?), and Luka being in charge of the Zodiacs much like Sailor Pluto and the Outter Senshi??? Either way, it's a complex dynamic that definitely would not be fully explored in time for the Valentine's Day deadline.

Needless to say, with my resistance to the Viperbug story, and my instant draw to the idea of Luka being part siren, I was super excited to work on that AU story.

I wanted to be careful, though. I actually have Wiccan friends, so I instantly knew that I didn't want to have Marinette be a traditional "Hollywood witch" and instead try to ground her more in Wiccan practices.

Dear LORD was that a terrible idea. I'm Roman Catholic. I've never witnessed Wiccan practices, and I only vaguely know them via researching random sites on my own, and my friends casually talking about their practicing. I have the disclaimer down on each chapter, but I'll say it again: I hope I didn't offend any Wiccans, nor did I horribly misrepresent the religion. I hit up about a half-dozen sites researching different elements of the ritual I had Marinette perform. I don't know if every site I hit up is 100% accurate, nor do I know if the information I learned is interchangeable. For all I know, I created a ritual that looks like the Wicca equivalent of mashing up Baptist and Catholic Masses and calling it a standard Methodist Mass.

I was going to ask my Wiccan friend to read the story for me and critique the ritual at least, but as the story got longer and longer I felt guilty trying to ask her to beta. So I went in relatively blind.

Regardless, here are the sites I used:
  • I wanted to include a snake somehow to give a nod to Viperion, so I started off searching about snakes and Wiccan or Pagan rituals/symbolism. The two main sites I used were:
    • The Snake on Witches Lore
    • Serpent Magic and Symbolism on Learn Religions
    • In the end, I took most of the info from Witches Lore, because it all fit Luka near-perfectly. Especially the Wood Snake description, most of which Marinette relayed over in the story itself. She only missed: "Wood Snakes... usually sort difficulties out without consulting with others."
  • Next, I needed Marinette to have a way to figure out Luka's ancestry, so I turned to Grove and Grotto's gemstone chart to find the best stones to focus energy during the interview: Gemstones and their meanings
    • I got a nice mini-chuckle out of the appropriateness of Marinette using serpentine... cuz, ya know... serpent.... snake....
  • I needed to figure out what Marinette would have to symbolize the elements
  • Now having sorted out Luka's spirit animal guide, and figuring out which element guides him, the next portion was figuring out how to bind his powers. For that I looked back at the site Learn Religions: What is Magical Binding?
    • From there, I focused on Norse Runes
    • I also narrowed down which Rune I wanted to use: Elder Futhark – Rune Meanings on The Rune Site
      • I was trying to decide between: 
        • Thurisaz (Thorn (or Giant)) - This rune represents the ability we have to resist unwanted conflicts in a passive manner. It is a rune of protection and can tell us of a possible change that would have otherwise come without warning. You can use the protection aspect of Thurisaz as a defense against adversaries.
        • Ansuz (Mouth (or Divine Breath)) - A rune that symbolizes stability and shows us order. It is also a rune that indicates intellectual activities and directly represents the divine breath of all life and creation.
        • Perdhro (Dice Cup (there are many variations)) - This rune reminds of the uncertainties in life and represents freewill and the connection of the restrictions we have due to our circumstances. It is viewed as a rune of memory and problem solving.
        • Elhaz (Elk (or Protection)) - This is a rune of great restraint power, defense and protection. Use this rune in charms and talismans to protect yourself as well as your property.
        • Eihwaz (Yew Tree) - Eihwaz is a rune that can be used as a magical protector and facilitator. It shows us that in the event of an ending situation we find the start of a new situation.
    • I then learned about making personal runes:
      • "According to Tacitus in his Germania, the Runes should be made from the wood of any nut bearing tree, including oak, hazel, and perhaps pines or cedars."
  • Next was researching the meaning of those trees listed: The Victorian Language of Trees on Tales by Trees
  • Of course, I can no longer find my Google source for Juniper wood having a floral, almost rose-like scent to it.
That's not even all of my research. Like I said, I couldn't find my source on juniper lumber having a floral scent, and I know I hit up about a half-dozen other sites. However, they were too long ago, and every time I tried going through my web browser history the thing refreshed around February 7ths, and the research was mostly done closer to the 4th....

Anyway, after doing all of that research, and deciding that Marinette is going to give Luka a binding charm, I had to figure out what the charm would be. It would be easier if it were Adrien, because I could just use the charm bracelet. Duh. Luka, though? Marinette hasn't gifted him anything yet. He gifted her a guitar pick though.... Seemed weird to have it go the other way, however. Also, it wouldn't necessarily help if his voice also cast a magical aura. In the end, it was actually Hubby that came up with the idea of Luka getting a choker. I didn't want to add anything to his canonical design at first, but with the earrings, ring, bracelets, painted nails, and a low-u-neck shirt, truly the only thing he was missing was a necklace. Plus, I think a simple choker would work well with his design.
This is only a quick edit, so it's not the greatest
quality, and you can't really see the charm,
but just to give you a rough idea.
It works, right? What really got me was RIGHT AFTER deciding I was going to give Luka a choker, I found this bit of Aged Up fanart where Luka is ROCKING a choker - well, technically it's a charm on an extremely long chain he could wrap around his neck like a choker, but six of one; half-dozen of the other. Either way, the fanart just solidified that he'd look awesome with one.

Anyway, after deciding on the choker, I spent a bit of time sifting through a LOT of generic Google Image searches before finding this necklace on Amazon.

A close second was this choker by A. Brant + Son.
I think the simple hemp twine and single charm just works better for Luka. What do you think?
Well, along with all of that other research, I knew I needed to keep Tikki in my cast of characters somehow. I did a generic Google search for "red animals" and the second I saw this strawberry poison-dart frog, I knew that was Tikki. I mean, look at that coloring!? It's like the frog is wearing a Ladybug suit!
Image from the Momtastic Web Ecoist article
Well Red: 10 Amazing Red Animals
Look at how tiny they are, though! They're barely larger than a thumb nail! Here's another look at how small they are.
Image courtesy of TripAdvisor
Also, I don't remember why I bothered - probably a means to procrastinate under the justification of helping me visualize it better - but I spent a good hour or so doctoring the image of that snake necklace from Amazon so it looked like a wooden charm. It kept a LOT of color adjustments, and the flattened and singed back side of the pendent didn't come out as good. Still, fairly decent over-all for using a free online photo editor and touch-pad mouse.
Reminder of the original image
Speaking of taking far too much time creating an image... the story's cover art...

You see, as a bit of a change of pace for me, when I was editing Marinette's Song on the 11th, I noticed that I actually had six fairly natural stop-points for the story, all averaging between 1200 and 1800 words apart, making relatively consistent mini-chapters. Taking advantage of those natural stopping points I originally wrote in, I ended up splitting up the nearly-11,000-word story into bite-sized chapters, but still posted the whole story in one go. That way my readers could decide if they wanted to binge the whole thing, or just read it in small chapter bites.

It did keep me a day or two, though, to go back through and try to come up with proper transitional lines for the new chapter breaks. Mostly it was coming up with catchier opening lines - which then lead to new opening paragraphs. It was a task and a half, and one I was not expecting to spend so much time on still, especially when I had this blog and the rest of Fluff Week to finish.

Making the story multi-chapter, however, meant I now needed cover art. As I had mentioned in yesterday's blog post, I do try to have cover art for each of my multi-chapter stories so that they are easily grouped together visually on DeviantArt. Also, that way I don't have to include the story's title for each chapter.

Of course, I didn't think of this until the 13th when I went to publish the story on DeviantArt.

Real quick aside: the reason I publish the stories in the order of DA > FFN > AO3 > Tumblr is as follows. I still haven't figured out how to just upload a word document to DA, so I still cut and paste using the "Enter Text" hotlink. This brings up an HTML writer which doesn't allow emphasis - such as bold face, underline, or italics - to transfer over when I paste. The emphasis has to be added via HTML. Instead of scrolling back through my story and adding the HTML to the places I want italicized - or other emphasis, but usually it's italics - I just add the HTML as I'm writing. It's become second nature now for me to write <i> before hitting italicize, write what I need, then write </i> before switching off of italics.

Anyway, because my base document has the HTML typed into it, it's just easiest to post to DA first. Then I have to go back through my document, find the HTML via the Find feature, delete the HTML because the brackets won't transfer when I upload the document to FFN - leaving behind random 'i's - and re-save the document without the HTML. Once that's done, I upload to FFN. It's a simple upload; one of the easiest for me to do out of all four sites I use. For whatever reason, when I upload to AO3, or copy/paste from my Word document, there's extra line breaks between paragraphs, and it's just tedious to delete those. So instead, I upload to FFN, and then copy/paste to AO3 from FFN's document editor. For whatever reason, that doesn't add the extra line breaks. Go figure.
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So, to recap: I write with the HTML for italics to make life easier for my DA upload. After posting to DA, I delete the HTML and upload to FFN. I then copy the document via the FFN editor, and paste to AO3's uploader. Once all that is done, I go back to my DA posting, You see, when I copy/paste to Tumblr from FFN, AO3, or my Word doc, the italics aren't there, just like with DeviantArt. So, in order to not have to manually scroll through the story in order to put the italics back in, I "edit" the DeviantArt publication in order to access a file with HTML again. Now, the straight HTML doesn't work unless you're specifically in the HTML editor function, in which case I also need to include the HTML for paragraph breaks and the like. Instead, since the brackets still transfer over from DA, I search for the HTML, just like I did when I deleted it from my Word document prior to uploading to FFN. I then add the italics between the HTML coding, delete the coding, slap on a "read more" break somewhere a couple of paragraphs in, and call it a day.

The reason I don't just post to Tumblr at the same time as DA and THEN delete the HTML is because I like linking to the other sites people can read my story on.
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That's why I publish in the order I do. So, naturally, I tried to stick with that routine when I went to publish Marinette's Song on the 13th. Again, I TOTALLY missed that we were supposed to only publish to the AO3 collection until it went live, so I started, as I always do, on DeviantArt. Except, as I went to upload the first chapter I realized I didn't have cover art for the story.

Again, I could have just published as-is, then gone back to add the cover art to link the stories together. That way the story was uploaded on all four sites before 6pm on that Thursday. I guess it's a small blessing that I prioritized the cover, though, because that meant I did NOT publish to FFN before I was "supposed" to, and I didn't publish the story incorrectly on AO3 - something I'll touch on in a moment.

I wanted something quick and easy to make for the cover art. I had limited time, and I'm not terribly skilled with art design anyway. I figured the easiest would be similar to my I Don't Care cover: screen grabs of each half of the couple looking back at the other. The trick then became finding good enough grabs to use.

I started with Luka, hitting up "Captain Hardrock", "Frozer", "Silencer", "Desperada", "Loveater", "Miracle Queen", and then remembering he was also briefly in "Felix." I had a small handful of screen grabs that might have worked, but the one I used for the cover ended up coming from "Felix." I then did the same with Marinette, studying her during each of those same episodes. I also grabbed a nice handful of pics of her, but went with the nice blushing Marinette at the end of "Silencer." She's in a dimly lit room during a concert though, so it was tricky to try to adjust the lighting on her so she was a touch closer to Luka's color levels. Also, trying to cut them out of their respective backgrounds while using only pixlr.com was suuuuch a pain in the butt. I miss having Photoshop....

Then the title itself wasn't saving as centered, even though it showed centered in pixlr. Same with the white letter box I had the title in. I had it extended WAY past the sides of the images, but for whatever reason it kept cutting off with slivers of pink lining the sides on the saved files. I didn't finish editing the images until after the D&D session, so it was already late, and after over 40mins battling pixlr, I shrugged a "good enough for now" and resolved to fix it the next day.

It actually was a fairly quick fix, taking about 30mins or so.

Still, it kept me far too long to make something that wasn't as crucial as I was making it out to be, and that delayed my publishing. Although, as I mentioned, it was probably for the better. I had never published to a collection on AO3 before. I know on FFN and DA you could add an already published story to a collection, so, on the 14th when I finally got around to publishing to AO3, I went to publish the story like I normally did. However, when I went to add the story to the collection, it wouldn't show up in the drop-down options. In fact, I struggled with AO3 - which must have been flooded since it was about 10:30am on Valentine's Day - for about 40mins or so before finally caving and just publishing the first chapter without thinking about the collection. I then tried to add the story to the collection, and couldn't do it. Finally, I deleted the first chapter, and tried AGAIN. This time, I used the "upload" button found in the collection itself. That seemed to have worked fine. However, I would have screwed up again if I had actually published to AO3 on the 13th, because I wouldn't have had a way to hide it, and I forgot all about the collection.

Like I said. Good thing I prioritized the wrong thing, because it saved me from screw up more than I already did.

Anyway, I have to admit that I was a touch nervous when I noticed that the collection was hidden, and therefore my story was as well. I know there have been Tumblr posts warning about that feature of AO3 because you could "lose" your stories if the admin of a collection your story is in changes the privacy of it.

Cpt Reynolds was a mod though, and Knit seemed nice in the interactions I've had with her. So I'm trusting my story in their collection for the event. Worse comes to worst, I have it up on three other sites, and I can easily delete it from the collection and re-upload it under my own account.

So, there it was, about 1pm, crisis mostly averted because the story was hidden inside the collection on AO3, and I hadn't published the chapters on FFN, although I did have them formatted and ready to go once the AO3 collection went live.

We'll ignore that I actually remembered to tag Discovering Miraculous Writers at the end of each chapter, so that blog was starting to reblog my story on Tumblr....
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About 6pm on Valentine's Day, I got an email telling me I received a story as a gift: The event collection on AO3 was live! I was "off-grid" most of the day to spend it with the Hubby, so I didn't see the email until close to 10pm, but I happily published to FFN finally, then went back to my Tumblr posts to update with the links to the AO3, FFN, and DA publications of the story. I then lulled myself to sleep - in the best way - by reading Malcom's story to me!

Again, you can find Or I Could Just Kiss You... over on AO3 or Tumblr.
Summary: Marinette loved Luka. Luka loved Marinette. They were both too blind to see it though, until the day Luka decides to proposition Ladybug...
It is just so sweet. I didn't even remember what prompts I had thrown at the sign-up for this event. I'm terrible at stuff like that, so I literally looked up "Valentine's Day Prompts" and picked the first two that I liked and felt would fit well with Luka and Marinette. Seems one of those random prompts was quite the winner because Mal absolutely loved the prompt line of "Or I could just kiss you..." and just RAN with it.

It is such an amazing, sweet - but sometimes bittersweet - and perfectly paced story. I told Mal that it played out like a 1980s romcom like When Harry Met Sally or something. The concept? Luka and Marinette become best friends, but keep missing each other when they try to confess their feelings. Luka doesn't want to push Marinette, but Marinette keeps thinking she's "too late" and Luka doesn't feel the same way anymore. Luka had figured out that Marinette is Ladybug, and the two, at one point, get into a discussion about first kisses. Luka has yet to have his first kiss, and Marinette comments that she's only kissed a boy as Ladybug, so do they count? She then laments that no one would want to kiss her civilian form, and that's the first time Luka states "Or I could just kiss you.” She laughs it off as a "pity kiss." Fast forward to the duo talking about birthday wish lists, and again Luka asks for a kiss, but in his attempt to sound suave, Marinette misinterpreted as the request being a joke. This starts off a LONG chain of events where it takes these two morons about seven years of going back and forth asking each other for a kiss before they realize BOTH OF THEM ARE SERIOUS and FINALLY get together.

It's so gloriously painful to watch, and you just want to shout at them to just admit they sincerely want that kiss; tell the other how they feel. It's also nice to see how Mal envisions them in their early 20s.

Remember what I said above about not being able to write End Game Lukanette, but will gladly consume it? Yeah. This. This is the perfect example of that. So, yeah. Go read this awesome bit of writing.

And to MalcomReynolds:
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So, I've been giving love to the story gifted me, but what about the other way around?

You tell me, these were the reviews I got from Knit (AKA: ChromeMist):
ChromeMist: Chapter 1 down!

Lol it was fate that I was the one encouraging you to write more of my story! Mal told me my secret admirer was super excited about my prompt! I'm really happy it gave you such inspiration! So far it's really interesting and I can't wait to read the rest! Thanks a bunch!!


ChromeMist: *squeals* That was wonderful! So fluffy and heart warning! And you put so much effort into the actual magick of it! I just glossed over it in mine. Which is funny, we kinda sorta did the same thing...ish!
I don't have enough words though to say how much I love this! Thank you thank you!!
So I guess it's safe to say she enjoyed it? Does my heart good to know that, especially when I tossed Blame Fate for This and The Great Debate seemingly out into the void previously. Of course, I also got more love than simply from Knit/Chrome. The always awesome MalcomReynolds commented on all seven chapters, and another Secret Admirer Exchange participant also left me love and an encouraging review.

Here's the full stats breakdown.
FFN: 271 views, 5 faves, 2 followers, and 1 review
AO3: 206 hits, 20 kudos, 5 bookmarks, and 10 reviews
DA: 72 views and 4 faves

Total Results: 549 views, 29 faves, 7 followers, and 11 reviews

Tumblr Results: 64 notes; 52 likes and 12 reblogs

This post is already long, so you can check out the reviews at their respective sites.
Full disclosure: Discovering Miraculous Writers reblogged 6 times, and, like on DA, the same user could like/reblog each individual chapter on Tumblr, so take that number with a grain of salt. However, it seems most people waited to like and reblog the final chapter, which has links to all of the previous ones. Chapter 7 of Marinette's Song alone had 21 likes and 4 reblogs over on Tumblr. Also, ironically, the final chapter is the only one DMW did NOT reblog. Go figure.

Anyway, that SHOULD be everything I wanted to say about this nearly-month-long project for one of the two fandom events I had signed up for this month.

Now to start up a THIRD post - TRIPLE post week; who knew? - to talk about my Fluff Week stories, and the other stories I've read so far this month.

Catch ya later!
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Tuesday, February 18, 2020

What Am I Doing With My Life?

So... uh... ya know my New Year's Resolution to not skip blog weeks? That lasted real well, didn't it?
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I'm going to try to make up for it with a double post today. This one will explain what I've been up to the past two weeks, and another one will talk more about my writing progress/process and my gushing about the fanfics I've read so far this month.

First though...
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Yeah, I'm a bit late in wishing all of you a happy V'day, but that's unofficially the theme of this month, it seems.

So... yeah... the past two weeks....
Knives from the Scott Pilgrim comic books
by Bryan Lee O'Malley
First of all, I have to thank Mama Hen ChibiSunnie for strongly advising me to just throw up my "This Blog Post Is Still Under Construction" temporary post last week. You'll find out why in a moment. I thought I could at least do a brief blog post to recap my chaotic week last week, but I ended up spending about 3hrs on it - hours I could have spent working on other writing - and still never finished it, so I eventually caved and listened to Chibi.

In all honesty, I thought I was going to be able to do a smaller "week recap" post last week because I had slowly been adding to the post all week long. I completed a chunk of my story? Recap it quick on my blog draft. Read a fanfic I wanted to promote? Link it on the draft. Did something that prevented me from writing that day? Take a couple minutes to explain that in the draft.

All I had to do was edit and fill in the transitions. Simple. And I probably would have been able to get it done on time last week, but then I got to the fanfics I wanted to promote, and... that's where a lot of the time was eaten up.

To help me get inspired for Fluff Week, and to see how others interpreted the prompts, I read close to a dozen stories, at least three of which were on-going works I started following. By the end of the week though, I was starting to forget which plot went with which story, so I had to skim through them to remind myself which was which... and that's where a lot of the time went last Tuesday.

That and working on my own stories. Dear lord, did I do a lot of writing so far this month. Perhaps more than I have for most NaNoWriMos. If I haven't been at work, I've been writing... or rather... pulling my hair out trying to figure out WHAT to write.

The Kyoru Week prompts were only one or two word prompts, and while I did struggle a tad, in the end I was able to come up with SOMETHING everyday, and got them written, edited, and published within a fairly decent hour.

Lovesquare Fluff Week, though?
NuaNia Facebook sticker
by PRANEAT
I don't know if it's because I had too many options, or because, for some reason, I was thinking only of angsty stories based off of the prompts, but I struggled hardcore.

Here were the prompts for the week:
  1. Concert
  2. Trust
  3. Flowers
  4. Your Voice
  5. Comfort
  6. AU Day
  7. Reveal
The event ran from the 6th through the 13th, and the prompts were shared in December, and again in January, so we all had more than enough time to prep for them. Also, including the 6th as one of the days, that's 8 days to complete 7 prompts:
  1. February 6th
  2. February 7th
  3. February 8th
  4. February 9th
  5. February 10th
  6. February 11th
  7. February 12th
  8. February 13th
And yet, I only managed THREE prompts before Valentine's day. I wrote the day 1 prompt 'Concert' and the day 3 prompt 'Flowers', although the one I wrote for 'Flowers' does also have an undertone of the prompt 'Trust'. I then eventually went back to write the actual 'Trust' prompt. The thing that killed me was that I was only publishing every OTHER day instead of daily. And, on top of that, both of those stories were posted at 2am, AND when Hubby and I both had to work the next day. So I end up crashing by about 10pm the next day. Heck, even yesterday I fell into that same pattern of "post early in the morning after a long day; go to bed at 10pm." This awkward sleep schedule of "stay up until 2am; crash at 10pm the following night; wake up early due to fully resting and stay up until 2am again; crash at 10pm" has been slightly killing me.... which is why Chibi wanted me to take a bit of a break. And I thank her for her concern.

I honestly have no clue why this week in particular was so rough for me. Again, I didn't have this issue with Kyoru Week.

Also, there were tons of other authors who managed to churn out the Fluff Week prompts daily - and at really good quality too - so I am doubly concerned for my own inability. Have I burnt myself out already? Not even 2 months into the year, and without really writing anything in January? Am I rusty from the lack of practice last month? Even though I had the Lukanette story mostly done before starting Fluff Week, was my torn attention to blame? Why am I not one of those prolific writers who has about 40 plot ideas bouncing around in their head at all times and going "OOO! Ooo! I can finally use that one!"?
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Speaking of those other writers, I want to talk more about them and their writing, but, as I mentioned, I'll save that for my double-post.

Getting back to my writing, I had hunkered down to try to finish the Lukanette story for the Lovebugs and Snakecharmers Secret Admirer event. It was still a bit patchy for most of the week. Friday, Feb 7th, I had off, and we had a bit of a snow storm again, so I spent literally the whole day in my pajamas, only switching out in the evening when I showered and put on new pajamas. Got to love those days, right?
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When I had paused for lunch, my "quick" secret admirer story had ballooned into 7500+ words, and I still had a fair share of writing to do! I did kinda sorta stumble onto a plot... so... there's that, I guess.

Well, when I posted my astonishment about my story's size to Tumblr, I was amused at the encouragement (re: enabling) I received.

CaptainMalcolmReynolds said "Mine was supposed to be short and is 5K words. *sigh*" and Taurus Pixie told me "I won’t be complaining! Just means more awesomeness to read!" I even had one of the mods for the event - justknitstuff - chime in first with "Mine just reached 5K, and I still have a full scene and a half to go. I hear you…"

Seeing that last one KILLED me, because... who was I writing my Lukanette story for but justknitstuff! No one was supposed to know who their secret admirer was, so even though Knit was the main mod for the event, presumably she didn't know I was her Secret Admirer. And yet she encouraged! Was the FIRST to do so, no less!

Later, when I stopped again for another break, I commented that my story was now up to 8800 words! I joked that I was taking bets on whether or not I'd surpass 10,000 with this story. To which Cpt Reynolds replied with "I’m pretty sure nobody is going to object to MORE!" and "Whoo hoo!"

Then, when I finished my first draft, I replied once more with the final word count: 9,990. But I also still needed to do some editing, so I wasn't sure which direction that word count would travel. I mostly got pushes to keep going. Cpt Reynolds again jumped in with "11 more words! 🤣🤣🤣" and Knit also encouraged (enabled) with "Add on words! I’ll leave mine for a day then go back to fix up a portion and end up adding a whole new section!" When I laughed them off with a "LOL, you two know not what you’re encouraging. XD" Knit responded with "*encourages away* XD"

I was in stitches knowing she was unknowingly encouraging me to expand upon the story I was writing for her!

So, anyway, I'm 100% blaming Reynolds and Knit for me finishing with a story 10,943 words long.
Ya-Ya
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by Birdman, Inc
Trying to polish everything was a task and a half, and it kept me far longer than I wished. Mostly because I was still working on it off-and-on past the 7th, when I was supposed to be focused on Fluff Week. Or on my weekly blog post. Or both. I needed to make sure my Lukanette story was done though, so it took priority, my blog and the other event be damned.

Besides, I needed a distraction from Fluff Week. As I mentioned above, I did NOT do well with Fluff Week. Was I overthinking? I still don't quite know. I DO know, however, that there were just SO. MANY. OPTIONS.

There's the standard Love Square of Adrien and Marinette (Adrienette), Adrien and Ladybug (Ladrien), Ladybug and Chat Noir (LadyNoir), and Marinette and Chat Noir (MariChat). But there's LOADS of other combo options birthed from season 3. In case you haven't watched it yet, I'll drop them in a spoiler box.



For those that didn't click, depending on how goofy you get, and where you draw the line with them being a "new pairing" within the Love Square "rules", there was anywhere between 17 and 38 new configurations!

SO. MANY. OPTIONS.

In truth, I mostly focused Core Love Square to keep the complexity down to a minimum, but there was always the OPTION to use one of the dozens of other combos. Add in the vagueness of the one-word prompts, and... I think it was too much for my mind to narrow down? With Kyoru week it was simply Kyo and Tohru. That's it. Two people. The only real option I had to choose from was what time frame I wanted to put them in: pre-relationship, late-manga, officially together, or married. Also, most of the prompts were somehow key bits of the core Kyoru relationship: the paper flower Kyo gave Tohru, both of them being afraid of getting abandoned again, both of them fearing they are being selfish in their need for the other person, and 'Firsts', 'Desire', 'Forever', and 'Birthday Wishes' are fairly generic Romance prompts.

In contrast, except for 'Trust' and 'Reveal', the prompt options for Fluff Week aren't anything truly specific to Adrien and Marinette. It's just.... it's tough.

To try to clear my head, and help transition me from my Lukanette story to a Love Square piece, I helped beta-read for Cyhyr during that snow storm on the 7th. And somehow managed to accidentally delete bits of the document while critiquing it!
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Thankfully, she still had the original document, and it seems like she was able to piece back in the parts I somehow managed to delete, so... all's good. I have yet to go back and re-read to see how the rest of her editing went, but I'm glad I didn't screw her over too badly.

After THAT mini-disaster, I finally cracked my knuckles, so to speak, and got down to business: my first story for the Fluff Week event. While the 7th was technically the second day of the event, as I noted above, it was also the 7th day from the end date. So I could either start with prompt day 1 and be considered "late" or "the proper day"... whichever. Even if I was late compared to everyone else already posting their 'Concert' prompt stories, I'm sure no one would mind too much. Right?

My next blog will go into more detail about how I came up with my story. What I'll say here, however, is that it kept me until around 9pm to FINALLY lock in an idea, and then, between writing, editing, and formatting it for the different websites, I didn't have it published until about 2am.

"Music to Heal"

Since I was so focused on my own stories - both the Lukanette one, and what I was going to do for the Love Square prompt 'concert' - I didn't read any other Fluff Week stories until the 8th. Before then, I didn't have the time, and I didn't want what everyone else was doing somehow influence what I wrote.

Well, guess what the biggest trend was for the prompt 'concert'? I'll give you a hint, it WASN'T the direction I thought everyone was going to go in.

You got it. Looked like about 60% of the stories were actually Adrien performing a private piano recital for Marinette/Ladybug. I flipped through them so quickly - and some, admittedly, I didn't finish reading - that I don't have them really noted, but in nearly all of them Adrien was practicing his piano by himself; playing a sad/melancholy song. Marinette - either as herself or as Ladybug - hears him play, "interrupts" his performance, and then Adrien continues to play for Marinette/Ladybug alone. The two end up snuggling on the piano bench as Marinette gets lost in the sweet and professionally performed music.

Guess what I did for my 'Concept' prompt story?


Somehow I still managed to get a review saying, "This was really nice! That was original to think of a private Adrien 'Concert'."

So... uh... cool?

Anyway, out of the other stories involving Adrien playing for Ladybug/Marinette, one in particular stuck out. I'll go more in detail about my review for the over-all Fluff Week collection in my next blog post, but I did still want to give a quick shout out to LoveSquare Week 2020 by LittleLottieWrites.

Getting back to my writing, though, Saturday was a bit chaotic at work, and then we had a late start to Anime Night. I was going to use the delay to work on my writing some more, but I was just drawing such blanks. I did some cleaning instead, hoping the mindless tasks would help me come up with SOMETHING. Still nope.

I struggled some more on Sunday, now trying to play catch-up by writing both the Day 2 and Day 3 prompts of 'Trust' and 'Flowers'. On top of that, I had initially thought of doing the Day 4 prompt of 'Your Voice' so I was "caught up" with everyone else doing the event.

Instead I bounced between "what can I do for trust that hasn't already been done either on the show or in thousands of fanfics; their entire relationship is nothing but trust...." and "Okay, what can I do with 'flowers'????" Eventually I thought back to Kyoru Week. One of the prompts was 'Paper Flower' and I decided I'd just steal that. I'd loop back to 'Trust' at some point, but I'd at least focus on the prompt for that day. I would recreate Kyo gifting Tohru the paper flower scene. How though?

I'll get into the nitty-gritty of it in my next post, but the long and short is that I decided on Marinette helping make paper flowers as part of the backdrop for a Kitty Section music video, but then ran out of time to actually finish, a la her frantic To Do List schedule in the season 3 episode "Gamer 2.0" or her equally tight time table in "Bakerix."

I was excited to have thought of SOMETHING finally, even if I was still a day behind because I couldn't take my mostly-day-off to come up with two stories. Buuuuuuut, just like with the first prompt, by the time I was done writing, and formatting it for the different sites, it was about 2am again. So I wasn't even on time with the 'Flowers' prompt anymore. I didn't even take the time to edit it before publishing. I then went back and tweaked a touch about mid-Monday, and was surprised that it actually didn't need too much editing. Go me! Anyway, you can find the polished version at my normal four sites.

"Let Me Help You"

I've gotten back into Zumba finally, after a long 3 months of not having the time. So Monday I went to work, I went to Zumba, I had a nice heart-to-heart with my sister-in-law, who does Zumba with me, I found out my almost-7-year-old niece has FINALLY gotten into Miraculous Ladybug and is kinda obsessed with it (girl after my own heart), and then I went home to shower, have dinner, and spend some time with the hubby. I toiled over going back and working on a story for the day 2 prompt of 'Trust' as well as working on the day 4 prompt 'Your Voice'. In the end, I passed out at about 10pm without writing anything, but deciding I was going to shift the prompts around so 'Your Voice' is the penultimate one.

Last Tuesday, as I stated above, I attempted to write up my "what I've done this week", but you can see how long this already is. In the end, I caved and agreed to Chibi's suggestion. I had every intention of coming back and finishing the post before going to bed that night, or at least while at work on Wednesday. Clearly neither happened.

My Tuesday was fairly packed between errands, spending time with Hubby, and then writing group. I was actually a little excited because it would be one of the rare times I could read a full WIP before I actually published it. One of the few instances where I could actually work in the critiques for that story, as opposed to using the critiques to know what to improve upon for next time. Also, since I was aiming to read my Lukanette story, it would be mostly original - due to it being an AU story - so it would be easier for the others to critique, and easier for me to follow the critiques. For most of my stories, the things the other members critique are largely canonical elements I have no control over anyway if I'm going to stay true to the show.

So, yeah, a story they could actually critique, and I could actually include said critiques in the finished project. I wasn't sure about taking the time to read over 10,000 words worth of story, but I've done it in the past when there's barely anyone else there, and no one else had something new to read.

This was not one of those weeks.

Two other members took up the full time, which was a little bit of a bummer, but at the same time, they are working on wholly original works that they wish to professionally publish some day. The one in particular is working on a murder mystery story, so we got into quite a lengthy discussion about the structure of murder mystery stories, whether or not she's leaving the proper breadcrumbs, did the red herring work well, etc. It was a fun discussion, and it felt like her story got the rest of the group more involved than critiquing my story would have. So no hard feelings, just a touch bummed.

Flying solo, I focused hard on my Lukanette story last Wednesday. The story didn't need to be published until the 13th, but I wanted it done. That way it would be super simple to just format, upload, and be on time with the deadline.
OH! Hi, Irony. What are YOU doing here?

Right... me uploading the Lukanette story on time...

Before I get to THAT.

After polishing up the Lukanette story, I was determined to get another Fluff Week story done before the event ended. The Lukanette one wasn't supposed to be published until the 13th anyway, so I "had time" - not really because of my crazy Wednesday schedule, but we'll ignore that. It kept me a bit, but I did eventually think of something for the 'Trust' prompt, so I went back to that. It turned out actually mostly angst with just a bit of comfort/fluff at the end.... whoops. Oh well. It was done, so up it went.

"I Have Something to Confess"

You guessed it, I was up until the wee-hours of the morn posting that, then I still had to get up to go to work. This time, though, I didn't go to bed at 10pm. All because I'm an idiot.

There I was on Thursday, all set to start publishing the story at about 3pm or so. Plenty of time to get it done before work ended and I went straight into D&D night. Buuuuuut then I thought about the fact that most of my other multi-chapter stories had cover art to go with them:
Even some of my anthology works, such as:
Heck, even I Don't Care has cover art, and it only has the 2 chapters... so far. Really, the only exceptions to this "a story with multiple chapters has cover art" rule of mine are:
The main reason I started focusing so hard on having cover art for multi-chapter stories is so they have a tie-together over on DeviantArt. People see the cover art as the promo picture, and know it's part of the same story. That way I don't have to include the title and "Chapter #" for each piece.

Well, my Lukanette story had 7 chapters, so I guess I needed cover art for it. What I SHOULD have done was publish the story, THEN made cover art, went back, and updated with the art. That way the story itself was up at least. Instead, I prioritized the cover art, and didn't finish by the time work was out.

I also didn't have time to finish the artwork, let alone publish the story, before our D&D session started up. So I had to wait until 11:30 or so at night to start working on everything. I won't get into the details here as to why, but I always publish my stories in this order: DeviantArt, FanFiction, AO3, then Tumblr. Then I promote on Facebook, and over on Twitter. Well, DA was fighting me as I was trying to upload all seven chapters of my story. The website kept glitching and lagging... it was a mess. It was about 2am again by the time the story was fully published on DA. Buuuut, it was a Tumblr event, so I HAD to have it published on Tumblr before I went to bed! So I was up until about 4am trying to format and post to Tumblr. I noticed that the formatting of my image was off - it didn't save the way it looked in the editing program - but I was too tired to care. I'd fix it later when I published to FFN and AO3.

I crashed. I woke up about 7:30 later that morning. Then I saw the email from the event mods that they didn't have my Lukanette story in the AO3 collection, and they want all stories in before making it live. The email also reminded me to not publish to any other site or even sample some of it on social media, that way all recipients get their stories at the same time, and can be one of the first to read it.
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So.... it was an ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN event, that was just PROMOTED on Tumblr.... Also, since AO3 is the trickiest site to include cover art with your stories unless you know the proper HTML, it would be the last site I worried about with regards to HAVING cover art ready.

Which means, if I was paying proper attention, I would have just published the story to AO3, like I was supposed to, and then I could have spent Friday working on cover art in order to publish to the other 3 sites once the collection on AO3 was live.

I did this ENTIRELY out of order, and royally screwed up. I didn't even properly publish by the deadline!
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Thankfully, the mods were all super-chill about it, and I was just encouraged to publish to AO3 as soon as possible. I was also told that I wasn't the only person they were waiting on, so.... there's that.

Friday I tried to rush through publishing to AO3 as fast as I could, but I was at work, and - surprise, surprise - they actually needed me to DO my job. I'll go into more detail with the next post, but the long-and-short is that I didn't manage to get my story properly published to the AO3 collection until 1pm-ish. Thankfully, as I was told, I wasn't the only one they were waiting for, so the collection itself didn't go live until closer to 6. I feel a touch less guilty, but I still had it up on DA and Tumblr - and I remembered to tag that Discovering Miraculous Writers blog this time, so it was already reblogged to that - when I wasn't supposed to have the story anywhere else until it was live on AO3.

This is why you need to fully read the instructions, kiddos.

Anyway, now that it's live, you can check out my story in the normal four places.

"Marinette's Song"

After that chaos, I needed a bit of a breather. Plus, it was friggen Valentine's Day. So Hubby and I had a stay-at-home date night. No computers. No social media. No mobile games. Just us, a nice dinner, and movies as we snuggled.

I ended the day reading the Lukanette Secret Admirer story written for me. And, as luck would have it, my (not so) Secret Admirer was none other than MalcomReynolds! There were 14 people, so the odds weren't THAT slim that she'd luck into having me as her recipient, but still...

I'll gush more about it in the next blog post, but for now, here's the link: Or I Could Just Kiss You... by MalcomReynolds.

I randomed into another weekend off, so I figured I could use the Saturday and Sunday off to play catch-up on Fluff Week. Technically, the event ended on Thursday, but I wanted to participate, and By George, I was going to finish!

Saturday, though, Hubby wanted to head to a game store to pick up another army starter pack for the "A Song of Ice and Fire" miniatures tabletop game he started after our date-day last month. Since it's a decent drive - about 40 minutes or so - and the store had open tables specifically set up for tabletop army games, and Hubby had the spare cash on him, he bought yet another army starter pack, and we just stayed to play. He completely demolished me this go because I did NOT play my army of Free Folk at all the way they should have been played. Because, ya know, I have the strategic mind of a five-year-old. Still. I had fun.

The trade-off, though, was that we ended up spending the better half of the day out there - between driving, purchasing the starter sets, setting up the starter sets, reading what they did, picking out our army units, the game itself, packing everything up, dinner, then the drive home - and when we got home we went straight into Anime Night with Omnibladestrike. So no writing that day.

No big deal. I still had a relaxing day with the Hubby, and got socializing in. Plus, I probably needed a break from writing. Marinette's Song was already up, and the Fluff Week event was already over. No major rush. I would have liked to have finally put up last week's blog post on Saturday, but whatever.

Sunday I'd make up for it. I had Sunday off, and Hubby was at work for six hours. I could write, clean the apartment, and/or respond to ChibiSunnie's messages to me on Facebook that I had been neglecting. I had plenty of time.

Before I knew it, I ended up spending that alone time catching up on the three Fluff Week fanfics I started following after day 2, back when I was reading what everyone else did for the prompt 'Concert'. I read more of the story I linked to towards the start of this blog - LoveSquare Week 2020 by LittleLottieWrites - as well as Chasing Feelings by CoffeeComicsGalore, and the breathtakingly amazing Two Hundred Seventeen Days co-written by the equally talented mostlovedgirl and zenmisery. So, collectively, I read probably close to 50,000 words, if not more. Add in the time it took for me to review each chapter? Well, there's your 6hrs right there.

Technically, 5hrs, because I did spend about an hour trying to reply to Chibi before taking a break to write my own stories... only to still have no clue what to do with the rest of the prompts and reading instead.

The rest of Sunday - after picking up Hubby - was spent with more bonding time, some cleaning, dinner, and me FINALLY becoming inspired for my 'Comfort' prompt from Fluff Week. I had been deciding between about five different options, but, thanks to talking it over with Hubby, along with thinking back to my original fandom of "Hey, Arnold!", I was able to lock in what I wanted to do.

Of course, along with the other nights, I didn't start writing until close to 8 or 9pm. By the time I was done with the story, let it sit for a little bit, went back to edit, and then publish to my four normal spots, it was 2am again. I'm sensing an unfortunate theme here....

This one is at least actual fluff this time, and I'll get more into it with my next blog post. In the meantime, enjoy the fluffiness of Domestic Adrienette.

"Playing House"

As I mentioned at the top of this post, I was fairly wiped yesterday, so I crashed at about 10pm. I did ponder a bit on the next prompt I want to do: AU Day. Just before bed, I rewatched the Ouran High School Host Club episode "Haruhi in Wonderland." Which is basically an AU episode where the show does an Alice in Wonderland crossover. It's not a great parallel, and the characters joke that's mostly because Haruhi is too logical and too confrontational to be a proper Alice. The episode ends with Haruhi waking up to discover the Host Club dressed up for their Wonderland event, and she quips about how with the Club it's hard to truly know when she's awake.

I still haven't locked in what I want to do with my AU chapter, but I know I want it to be either a dream sequence, or some sort of role play - LARP, MMORPG, D&D or a D&D parody I create for the ML universe, performing a play, etc - and I want the story to zero in on Marinette crushing on Chat Noir, possibly even starting to piece together who Chat Noir could be, or that Adrien seems a lot like Chat Noir... something like that.

Then the prompt 'Your Voice' will be Adrien's turn to start piecing Ladybug's identity together. Finishing with the prompt 'Reveal'.

I need to figure out 'AU Day' first though.

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I know I was recapping two weeks, but even with my "shorthanding" and "handwaving" details, this still became MASSIVE! So I'm going to tap out now, and start working on the second post. I have no clue when I'll be able to get that one up today with the errands I need to do, plus Hubby wants to get in another game of A Song of Ice and Fire Minis, but I'm planning on getting the next post up before bed.

Wish me luck on that.

Also, be sure to stay up-to-date with me by following my Tumblr, my Twitter, or sign up for the email... the emails SHOULD work, as long as you don't happen to be Charlotte.

Anyway, gotta run!
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