As you may have guessed from the title of this week's entry, it's been a bit of a topsy turvy week filled with good things, bad things and weird things. It kind of almost didn't feel real, like I was having some sort of weird dream. I hope that makes sense? Everything just felt surreal and I couldn't keep up with everything that was going on. Prepare yourselves, this is probably going to be a long post. There's so much to talk about this week.
For starters, my week didn't get off to the best of starts on Saturday, just after my last post. I woke up in the middle of the night with incredibly painful stomach cramps. Like, I was actually really worried that something very serious was wrong and was on the verge of calling an ambulance for myself, I was in that much pain. Then I remembered. I had drank too much orange juice. I don't know what it is with me and orange juice, we have such a love hate relationship, and I really have to be careful how much of it I drink. I love the stuff, but if I drink too much, it really upsets my stomach. So yeah, it was self inflicted like most of my illnesses because I'm an idiot.
So I didn't really get much done that day. I just spent most of it in bed relaxing, just waiting for it to go away. I had hoped to get a lot of writing done that day, but once again my own stupidity prevented that. I hate it when I'm ill. I hate it when I'm not able to do anything productive. As much as I do love relaxing, I always feel like I'm wasting a day if I do, which I think is why I have so much trouble with self-care. I feel guilty if I don't do anything.
Though I did manage to get a little bit done, mainly writing notes on my ideas along with fine tuning things on all of my stories. I just have so many ideas buzzing around my head right now, and I really wish that I could get them all out of my system, but I really don't want to overload myself. Speaking of overloading, my notebook is now completely full and I've had to start my new one. So thank you, dear notebook, you have served me well this past year.
Luckily I was quickly over my stupid stomach issues and could finally focus on writing and other things again. The main writing adventure this week has been with Madness Within. Chapter twenty-eight gave me so many issues. Not only was it an action chapter, but also quite a huge chapter in terms of revelations and important information. So y'know, no pressure. But another reason the chapter gave me so many problems was mainly because I wanted it to be a full length flashback of what happened that fateful night, well, at least from Marinette's point of view anyway. Problem was, that would mean that I would need to repeat a flashback I had already covered in the story. I had to choose between a messy chapter or a chapter that had a repeated section in it. It was huge problem, but in the end, I decided that a repeat was the lesser of the two evils. I hated doing it, but I felt like it was the only way that it would work. Some of you weren't too happy about it like I expected, but at least this is the only time something like that is going to happen, that I can promise you.
On the whole, Madness Within is a story that has always received some interesting reactions. Once people stopped lecturing me on issues they clearly didn't know much about, I have now found a remarkable audience that often differs in opinions on things, which is great, because it means that I'm doing a great job in creating morally grey characters.
For starters, there's Alya. She has inspired some seriously extreme reactions lately. There have been a few people who are on her side, understand why she's doing what she's doing, and fully support her. However, there are those who really dislike her right now, think she's being dangerously obsessive, selfish, and they hate the way she is behaving in general. I completely understand both sides, as it was always my intention to divide opinion with the way I have her characterized. In the show, Alya always struck me as someone who was obsessed with getting to the bottom of a scoop, and we certainly know that she's a huge fan of Ladybug. Ergo, having her do stuff like this just made sense to me, and I was certainly excited to see you guys' reactions, and I was not disappointed. You guys are almost forming factions at this point.
And of course, there's Marinette and Adrien. Some people feel more sorry for Adrien, some people feel more sorry for Marinette, others love them both, but one new review caught my attention yesterday that I just had to talk about. I'm talking about the amazing analysis provided to me by Golden.January:
Oh my gawd, I could have hugged this person when I saw this review! Finally, someone has spotted something that I had always intended! It may surprise you guys, but I never really intended for Marinette to be the hero of this story. There is no hero. There are only humans and the horrible and selfish mistakes that they make out of fear, trauma, greed and immaturity. I love every interpretation of this story that I see, and it doesn't make anyone else's interpretation of Madness Within any less valid. If you love Marinette and sympathize with her in the story, then that's great. But what Golden.January pointed out in her review was always what I had originally intended. Marinette is selfish and irrational in this story, and she is trapped in the past which regresses her character.
I always love it when people leave their analysis of things in the review section, whether they came to the conclusion of what I had originally intended or not. But Golden.January really hit the nail on the head for me. Of course, you guys don't have to agree with them, nor do you have to view Marinette the way that I intended her to be perceived, because we all have different perspectives, opinions and points of view on life. Madness Within was a story that I wanted to leave more open to interpretation, and the difference in opinions on the characters makes me feel like I've done a good job on their motivations and moral ambiguity; a true reflection of real life people. At least I hope anyway.
But it seems that people are really picking their factions now, which just makes the reviews and comments all that much more fun to read. All of your opinions and reasons for sympathizing with or disliking a character are just as valid, so don't be shy to share them with me.
To make up for chapter twenty-eight having a repeat section, I decided to make sure that I prioritised chapter twenty-nine so you guys would have something that was one hundred percent fresh to read. I was excited to write the chapter anyway, especially since it would mean that I get to chapters thirty and thirty-one a lot faster, because believe me, those are going to be some interesting chapters. So if you haven't already, you can read chapter twenty-eight by clicking here, and chapter twenty-nine should be available for you to read tomorrow if all goes well.
The next chapter of Chat Vert will hopefully be released on Monday if all goes well. I'm really trying to update that story a bit more frequently, especially since I have so many ideas that are waiting in the wings. But at the same time, I don't want to rush the story too much and do a bad job. But keep your eyes open for that update, or you can follow me on Twitter to instantly know when I have that chapter uploaded.
Sadly, I still haven't managed to start writing Immortal Bond yet as other stuff keeps getting in the way, but I promise to make some time for it at some point. I'd rather work on that story when I have a full day to myself and can devote my complete attention to it so that I can get as much work done on it as possible. I hope to devote a day to it at some point next week, but I guess as always I'll just have to wait and see how things pan out. Life can be unpredictable as this week has proven.
With everything that was going on this week, I have no idea how I managed to work so hard. One of the major issues that I faced this week was that I think that there might be something wrong with my dog. She's been acting weird for a few weeks; she just seems to keep collapsing. I thought nothing of it at first, just putting it down to her clumsiness and the fact that she's starting to get old now. But on Wednesday, my dog and my brother were walking down the stairs when all of a sudden she just froze and sounded really out of breath. Her legs were wobbling and then she just collapsed again, resulting in her rolling down the stairs. When she reached the bottom, she was unresponsive for a few seconds and wouldn't move. My brother screamed for me, and by the time I'd launched myself out of my room, she was acting pretty normal again, albeit her tail was between her legs.
So yeah, that was definitely worrying. I began suspecting that she might have had some sort of seizure or something. So we booked her an appointment at the vets, who didn't seem too worried about the whole thing, but they took a blood sample, so I guess we'll just see how things go with that. But it was incredibly worrying and frightening. It had both my brother and I incredibly shaken.
All of that definitely heightened my anxiety which has still been really bad this week. Ironically, I had a major anxiety attack while I was travelling to my support group. It had been a while since I'd had an attack in public, so it was pretty scary, and I was worried I was going to start visibly freaking out and scaring people. I was convinced I was going to throw up which is something I haven't experienced in a while. Back in school, I used to always been terrified of throwing up in the middle of class, and I occasionally had the same experience while in university. Anxiety attacks are scary as hell, yo.
But my new friends at the support group were there for me. It really helped make me feel better. I think I really needed that this week and it really helped calm me down. One of the main things that was recommended to me was to distract myself more, which was already on my agenda, but they just helped reinforce this fact. My problem is that I let myself get lost in my thoughts too much. Which is great when I'm in a creative mood and need to think of ideas, but not so much when my mind starts to wander down dark and dangerous paths. I convince myself of all sorts. So I need to try and make sure that I'm always doing something.
I figured that this would be a good enough excuse to finally force myself to get back into some more of my hobbies that I promised myself I would focus on this year. I've still been doing my language lessons, though I admit that I haven't been concentrating on them as well as I could have been. I started learning French at last, which I think is going to be my main focus language, while just casually learning Spanish on the side or something whenever I feel like a change or have some time to kill. So far, I'm surprisingly enjoying it, as French was a language that I was always nervous to learn due to some of the horror stories I've heard. The random pronunciation of words still has me scratching my head, but I find it more endearing now rather than scary.
But one thing I definitely need to do is try and read more. I'm often so busy writing fanfiction that I often neglect to read it. Not to mention I have a huge pile of books and manga that are just gathering dust, waiting for me to read them. I'm hoping that when things warm up a bit more and get more sunny, like they have been doing lately, then maybe I can sit outside and read, because that's always something that I loved to do. I did manage to read one fanfiction this week though, and that was the new story published by LycoRogue, titled Prescription for Love.
For starters, my week didn't get off to the best of starts on Saturday, just after my last post. I woke up in the middle of the night with incredibly painful stomach cramps. Like, I was actually really worried that something very serious was wrong and was on the verge of calling an ambulance for myself, I was in that much pain. Then I remembered. I had drank too much orange juice. I don't know what it is with me and orange juice, we have such a love hate relationship, and I really have to be careful how much of it I drink. I love the stuff, but if I drink too much, it really upsets my stomach. So yeah, it was self inflicted like most of my illnesses because I'm an idiot.
So I didn't really get much done that day. I just spent most of it in bed relaxing, just waiting for it to go away. I had hoped to get a lot of writing done that day, but once again my own stupidity prevented that. I hate it when I'm ill. I hate it when I'm not able to do anything productive. As much as I do love relaxing, I always feel like I'm wasting a day if I do, which I think is why I have so much trouble with self-care. I feel guilty if I don't do anything.
Though I did manage to get a little bit done, mainly writing notes on my ideas along with fine tuning things on all of my stories. I just have so many ideas buzzing around my head right now, and I really wish that I could get them all out of my system, but I really don't want to overload myself. Speaking of overloading, my notebook is now completely full and I've had to start my new one. So thank you, dear notebook, you have served me well this past year.
 |
| My very first story notes in my notebook, March 2018 |
Luckily I was quickly over my stupid stomach issues and could finally focus on writing and other things again. The main writing adventure this week has been with Madness Within. Chapter twenty-eight gave me so many issues. Not only was it an action chapter, but also quite a huge chapter in terms of revelations and important information. So y'know, no pressure. But another reason the chapter gave me so many problems was mainly because I wanted it to be a full length flashback of what happened that fateful night, well, at least from Marinette's point of view anyway. Problem was, that would mean that I would need to repeat a flashback I had already covered in the story. I had to choose between a messy chapter or a chapter that had a repeated section in it. It was huge problem, but in the end, I decided that a repeat was the lesser of the two evils. I hated doing it, but I felt like it was the only way that it would work. Some of you weren't too happy about it like I expected, but at least this is the only time something like that is going to happen, that I can promise you.
On the whole, Madness Within is a story that has always received some interesting reactions. Once people stopped lecturing me on issues they clearly didn't know much about, I have now found a remarkable audience that often differs in opinions on things, which is great, because it means that I'm doing a great job in creating morally grey characters.
For starters, there's Alya. She has inspired some seriously extreme reactions lately. There have been a few people who are on her side, understand why she's doing what she's doing, and fully support her. However, there are those who really dislike her right now, think she's being dangerously obsessive, selfish, and they hate the way she is behaving in general. I completely understand both sides, as it was always my intention to divide opinion with the way I have her characterized. In the show, Alya always struck me as someone who was obsessed with getting to the bottom of a scoop, and we certainly know that she's a huge fan of Ladybug. Ergo, having her do stuff like this just made sense to me, and I was certainly excited to see you guys' reactions, and I was not disappointed. You guys are almost forming factions at this point.
And of course, there's Marinette and Adrien. Some people feel more sorry for Adrien, some people feel more sorry for Marinette, others love them both, but one new review caught my attention yesterday that I just had to talk about. I'm talking about the amazing analysis provided to me by Golden.January:
"Marinette is so irrational and selfish. I've thought this before in the flashbacks but it's really clear when laid out like this. Also, rather then the betrayal on her part. I sympathize and pity Adrien; because she didn't care about Cat Noir. In fact, in a way, she emotionally betrayed him and even worse it was unconsciously done. First her main motivation to enter into the Mansion wasn't the akuma, meeting up with Cat Noir, or helping civilians. It was because she had a crush on a boy. Did she even confirm that anyone was left inside with the firefighters? Did she even confirm the situation? She could have very likely die within a second in there if the fire ignited a gas explosion. No, Adrien could be in there. When meeting up with Cat Noir, she was surprised to see him and the akuma. Meaning nothing else had crossed her mind except for Adrien; she hadn't expected to see or find anyone not even a trapped worker in the house. Red flags were flying everywhere but she ignores them all because Adrien. They meet Hawkmoth, Cat Noir has betrayed her. There wasnt even a single significant moment of confusion or glimmer of doubt for Cat Noir. He was immediately the bad guy because he might've done something to Adrien. Like gawd girl. Did all the years of saving each others skin and being heros mean nothing? Didn't she trust Cat Noir? Also, at her 'supposed' last moment there still wasn't a thought for Cat Noir. After the betrayal (which she was suspicious of and aware it was driven by something) everything they went through was that easily dismissed. Couldn't even spare an involuntary thought for Cat Noir when dying. Even up to the present day, Marinette's hate was directed at Cat Noir because of the betrayal and ultimately how he supposedly toyed with Adrien (and because she's still selfishly ignoring the red flags) There was no part of the hate for failing her hero duties, or getting herself into that situation, or even Hawkmoth the bad guy. The motivating factor for it all was Adrien. And after it all? What did loving Adrien amounted to? She hasn't even gone to see him once afterwards and she literally died for him. That drive to 'save' Adrien was simply switched to hating Cat Noir. You would've thought that being a hero she'll be more logical and mature. But even after withdrawing into herself, Marinette has not grown at all; regressed even. Her entire character is centered around the fact she was traumatized and trapped in the past. Adrien on the other hand is an emotional rollercoaster that grows his character."
Oh my gawd, I could have hugged this person when I saw this review! Finally, someone has spotted something that I had always intended! It may surprise you guys, but I never really intended for Marinette to be the hero of this story. There is no hero. There are only humans and the horrible and selfish mistakes that they make out of fear, trauma, greed and immaturity. I love every interpretation of this story that I see, and it doesn't make anyone else's interpretation of Madness Within any less valid. If you love Marinette and sympathize with her in the story, then that's great. But what Golden.January pointed out in her review was always what I had originally intended. Marinette is selfish and irrational in this story, and she is trapped in the past which regresses her character.
I always love it when people leave their analysis of things in the review section, whether they came to the conclusion of what I had originally intended or not. But Golden.January really hit the nail on the head for me. Of course, you guys don't have to agree with them, nor do you have to view Marinette the way that I intended her to be perceived, because we all have different perspectives, opinions and points of view on life. Madness Within was a story that I wanted to leave more open to interpretation, and the difference in opinions on the characters makes me feel like I've done a good job on their motivations and moral ambiguity; a true reflection of real life people. At least I hope anyway.
But it seems that people are really picking their factions now, which just makes the reviews and comments all that much more fun to read. All of your opinions and reasons for sympathizing with or disliking a character are just as valid, so don't be shy to share them with me.
To make up for chapter twenty-eight having a repeat section, I decided to make sure that I prioritised chapter twenty-nine so you guys would have something that was one hundred percent fresh to read. I was excited to write the chapter anyway, especially since it would mean that I get to chapters thirty and thirty-one a lot faster, because believe me, those are going to be some interesting chapters. So if you haven't already, you can read chapter twenty-eight by clicking here, and chapter twenty-nine should be available for you to read tomorrow if all goes well.
The next chapter of Chat Vert will hopefully be released on Monday if all goes well. I'm really trying to update that story a bit more frequently, especially since I have so many ideas that are waiting in the wings. But at the same time, I don't want to rush the story too much and do a bad job. But keep your eyes open for that update, or you can follow me on Twitter to instantly know when I have that chapter uploaded.
Sadly, I still haven't managed to start writing Immortal Bond yet as other stuff keeps getting in the way, but I promise to make some time for it at some point. I'd rather work on that story when I have a full day to myself and can devote my complete attention to it so that I can get as much work done on it as possible. I hope to devote a day to it at some point next week, but I guess as always I'll just have to wait and see how things pan out. Life can be unpredictable as this week has proven.
With everything that was going on this week, I have no idea how I managed to work so hard. One of the major issues that I faced this week was that I think that there might be something wrong with my dog. She's been acting weird for a few weeks; she just seems to keep collapsing. I thought nothing of it at first, just putting it down to her clumsiness and the fact that she's starting to get old now. But on Wednesday, my dog and my brother were walking down the stairs when all of a sudden she just froze and sounded really out of breath. Her legs were wobbling and then she just collapsed again, resulting in her rolling down the stairs. When she reached the bottom, she was unresponsive for a few seconds and wouldn't move. My brother screamed for me, and by the time I'd launched myself out of my room, she was acting pretty normal again, albeit her tail was between her legs.
So yeah, that was definitely worrying. I began suspecting that she might have had some sort of seizure or something. So we booked her an appointment at the vets, who didn't seem too worried about the whole thing, but they took a blood sample, so I guess we'll just see how things go with that. But it was incredibly worrying and frightening. It had both my brother and I incredibly shaken.
All of that definitely heightened my anxiety which has still been really bad this week. Ironically, I had a major anxiety attack while I was travelling to my support group. It had been a while since I'd had an attack in public, so it was pretty scary, and I was worried I was going to start visibly freaking out and scaring people. I was convinced I was going to throw up which is something I haven't experienced in a while. Back in school, I used to always been terrified of throwing up in the middle of class, and I occasionally had the same experience while in university. Anxiety attacks are scary as hell, yo.
But my new friends at the support group were there for me. It really helped make me feel better. I think I really needed that this week and it really helped calm me down. One of the main things that was recommended to me was to distract myself more, which was already on my agenda, but they just helped reinforce this fact. My problem is that I let myself get lost in my thoughts too much. Which is great when I'm in a creative mood and need to think of ideas, but not so much when my mind starts to wander down dark and dangerous paths. I convince myself of all sorts. So I need to try and make sure that I'm always doing something.
I figured that this would be a good enough excuse to finally force myself to get back into some more of my hobbies that I promised myself I would focus on this year. I've still been doing my language lessons, though I admit that I haven't been concentrating on them as well as I could have been. I started learning French at last, which I think is going to be my main focus language, while just casually learning Spanish on the side or something whenever I feel like a change or have some time to kill. So far, I'm surprisingly enjoying it, as French was a language that I was always nervous to learn due to some of the horror stories I've heard. The random pronunciation of words still has me scratching my head, but I find it more endearing now rather than scary.
But one thing I definitely need to do is try and read more. I'm often so busy writing fanfiction that I often neglect to read it. Not to mention I have a huge pile of books and manga that are just gathering dust, waiting for me to read them. I'm hoping that when things warm up a bit more and get more sunny, like they have been doing lately, then maybe I can sit outside and read, because that's always something that I loved to do. I did manage to read one fanfiction this week though, and that was the new story published by LycoRogue, titled Prescription for Love.
"This was not the weekend away Kagami was expecting, but then again, what was written on Marinette's letter wasn't what Adrien as expecting either. As Kagami tries to understand Adrien's confusion, and find time to try to woo him from Marinette, Adrien is busy trying to understand Marinette's train-side send-off, and finding a pharmacy."
It's definitely a very interesting story idea, and I never have any idea how LycoRogue always manages to think of scenes that I never realised I needed to read about. I highly recommend it, though it does contain spoilers from the season three episode Backwarder, so maybe don't read if you haven't seen that episode and don't want it spoiled for you. But of course, if you want to read what feels like a literal deleted scene from the episode, then please go and support her work!
Apart from that, the only hobby that I've really been actively engaged in this week is gaming, mainly Animal Crossing: New Leaf. I mean, are you even really surprised at this point? I dunno, just with how anxious I've been lately, I haven't really had the motivation to do anything as I can't sit still for too long. I spent most of last week pacing the house, and this week hasn't really seen much improvement on that front. I tried to put that energy towards something productive like cleaning, but that didn't work out either as I would quickly get worked up into a state or get distracted by something else. I really don't want to have to go back on medication, but my anxiety has just been so out of control lately that it looks like I might not have much choice. It's driving me and everyone around me bonkers.
In the meantime though, I'm just going to try and keep to the advice of the people in my support group and just try and concentrate on different tasks to distract my mind. I might have a few trials coming up for some new jobs that I've applied for, so that might help me out as well. I've also been thinking about joining some meditation classes, and a woman who helps run my support group has a writer friend who might be starting a writing club, so it would be awesome if that happened because I would join in a heartbeat.
Oh yeah, and as always, I've been working on cleaning up Destiny's Dance along with Madness Within. The tidy version of chapter eleven of Destiny's Dance has now been uploaded to FanFiction, and has been uploaded onto AO3, which you can read by clicking here. Chapter fifteen of Madness Within has now also been re-uploaded to FanFiction, and posted onto AO3, which you can read by clicking here.
My review for the episode Stormy Weather 2 will be posted onto my blog on Monday, so keep your eyes open for that. I'm so glad that more people are starting to interact with me on my reviews as it's always great hearing other people's opinions. Due to the amount of hate and salt that I'm seeing in the fandom at the moment, I hope that my blog can continue to be a safe place for people to civilly and peacefully discuss episodes without people getting all uppity, entitled and rude. Sorry if I'm ranting about that a bit, but it's just so disheartening to see.
Anyway, this blog post has gone on for long enough now. I hope that you guys have all had a good week and that you're doing well. See you all again soon.
Pixie out.
Awww, hun. :( I hope your dog is alright. That's so scary. And your stomach issues, I totally get. I had a few intense scares like that in college before I figured out that I was lactose intolerant. Not fun. :'(
ReplyDeleteI've also been ill this week, so I feel you about the self-care thing. We need it, but it does feel like such a waste. Especially when we ARE just sitting around, but still don't "accomplish" anything such as writing or reading because our minds just aren't in the right place. I'm glad you were able to give your mind a little bit of a break with your game though. Animal Crossing seems to be a great choice for people with anxiety to just veg out to. I have a couple of other friends who use it for that purpose.
As always, thanks for the shout-out/promo. It's still so humbling for you to describe my work as "deleted scenes" or "scripts" for the show. Thank you for that.
Also, that review on Madness Within is really cool. It's exciting to know that you evoke such emotion and debate. It's equally reassuring that you enjoy the debates, as opposed to some other writers who actually get offended if someone doesn't interpret the story EXACTLY how the author intended, or if readers dislike characters they're supposed to like, or like characters they're supposed to dislike. You, on the other hand, are excited to see these different angles, and it's refreshing.
Here's to a much less stressful week.
Sadly, it doesn't look like my dog is okay. We got her test results back today and it looks like there's something wrong with her liver, so now she has to have more tests done to try and figure out what's causing it. But the vet assured us that liver conditions are usually treatable, but it's still terrifying and worrying.
DeleteYeah, intense stomach pains can always be scary. I can only imagine how annoying being lactose intolerant can be. Yeah, that's exactly how it feels. I really hate being ill, but of course, the body needs rest. That's exactly why I play a lot of that game. It really is relaxing and good for people with anxiety.
You're very welcome! I'm always happy to spread the word about your stories so that hopefully they can get the attention that they deserve. But that's really how it feels when reading them, they're just written that amazingly!
I love debating with my readers and reading about how they interpret my stories. Yeah, it really makes me feel like I'm doing a good job when I evoke emotion and debate. It's a shame when writers get offended when people try to debate their work and say stuff like "this character has done bad things and isn't perfect" because I feel like if you think your character is perfect and amazing all the time, then you're not doing that good of a job as a writer. Characters are supposed to have flaws. So writers shouldn't be surprised when readers call those characters out on those flaws. In fact, they should welcome it, just like I do. At least that's my take on it anyway.