Underrated?

One thing I've noticed about my stories is the fact that some of the ones I believe are the best end up not getting as much credit as I would like - there's plenty of reasons for this, I'm sure, but it bothers me. Here are the stories I've written that I want more people to read because I have a good bit of narcissism in me.
Oh, yes. First off, we have the story I consider to be my masterpiece - The Child's Mistakes. While yes, it is a sequel to another story (and is soon to be second in a trilogy, whoop!), I believe it can stand alone very well. It's the Doctor Who fanfiction I am most proud of. Why is it my masterpiece? Well, I think it features some of my best writing in general, description wise and just in the general flow. The plot is something I toiled over for a long time (I've only ever put more thought into the Willolly timeline I'm working on) and weaves into the show and other things. Also, the idea of things being discovered backwards is probably one of the most interesting things I've ever done.
It's no secret that I love Phantom of the Opera, and I thought a lot of other people did as well. I ended up making a modern day Phantom of the Opera fanfiction by the name of In The Wings. I'd been wanting to do it for quite a while, and the project ended up being one of my biggest and most ambitious. Despite getting a lot of good reception in the early times, I ended up finding that I had little to no readers for the vast majority of the story! Perhaps it was just too long...but honestly, I poured everything into this story. There's a lot of moments I'm very proud of, and I also enjoy the fact I was able to add my own twists to this story.
I'm honestly surprised this story got as many reads and votes and comments as it did, being half about Hannibal. While there certainly are Fannibals on Wattpad, I thought that there weren't enough to support this story. The Sherlockians did come through, however. Still, I wish more people could've read this - there is some of my best character and dialogue in this book. There are actually zero OCs involved in this story, which I believe is the first time has ever happened in one of my fanfictions. Not sure about that, though. Honestly, this doesn't play out like an episode of Sherlock nor Hannibal. It's all about the characters and very little about the crime. But Sherlock and Hannibal have the best characters. And are also the best shows. And this is also where the Willolly timeline began. Yikes. \
Back when I was first developing this story, people were all over it! I thought I already had a dedicated fanbase but was somewhat disappointed to find out that very few people were reading the story. As my first original, I'd dedicated countless hours to creating everything about this story. I thoroughly ended up falling for the plot I'd made and the major twist that came along (Chapter Twelve, if you're wondering)and loved writing about Alia and Ronnie along with everyone else. I just want to have more people reading it - I may or may not have canon ship names for some of the characters that I'd love to share should anyone ship a thing.
Nightmare Fuel and Terrible Fate - I shouldn't be surprised that they aren't popular, due to the fact they've only been out during this month. But still, I crave more attention for those two little stories more than I'd like to admit. The plot of these stories is one of my favorite ones I've ever concocted - while yes, a lot of it is heavily inspired by Jadusable's BEN Drowned creepypasta, what I've made on my own has made me oh-so-happy. And the feedback I have gotten on the story thus far has been incredible. Combine that with my attempts at utulizing more foreshadowing, characterization, and a different story format that mainly takes place over the period of three days and you've got something that I'm perfectly sure will be one (or rather, two) of the best things I've ever written. So there you go. If you haven't read these stories of mine yet, I highly suggest you do. Yep. - Rain

Abort Mission!

Oh look, it's another one of those blog posts with lots of reaction gifs and not very much coherent speech. Today, my emotions and thoughts and other general things will be portrayed by Louise Brealey. I've got such an enormous squish on both her and Molly (although I've spent a lot more time thinking about the latter as I write about her) that I just can't help it.

First off, I'm right in the middle of Camp NaNoWriMo. Okay, not right in the middle as we're only five days in, but I've already gotten a significant portion done and it's just all going to fly by. I'm glad to be ahead at the moment, because chances are it's not going end up lasting. (This is a lie - I'm just going to get lazy one day and then panic when I have to catch up on it later.)

*me turning to face the writing I'm behind on w/o the smile*

But of course, everything is going to get a lot more complicated when it comes to a little thing called musical theatre camp and Pippin. I've worked my butt off in order to make sure all of my writing is set up for this month, and thank goodness for it. Now I can spend more time worrying about callbacks and then later on learning songs and dances and maybe even lines...joy.

There's also a little thing called my plans for New York are a bit tangled when they shouldn't be - turns out Ramin Karimloo is going to be out of town when we're going to see Les Miserables on Broadway. I'm pumped to see the show on a Broadway stage and all, but really. I was going to hear the voice I married live. And now I'm not.

Now. As for the title of this post, I have to regretfully share something with you...I'm giving up on Project Arendelle. It's an amazing idea, and I'm not going to toss out all of the things I've worked on so far, but an Elsa costume is just too time and money consuming. With the year I've got coming up for me, doing something like that would just end up causing more trouble than good.

But I have tentatively joined a cosplay group where we're going to make a dragon together. Sort of. It's hard to explain and is just in sketch stages at the moment, but I think it's going to be wonderful if we can pull it off - and I have confidence we can!

You know, if I was writing down my Willolly plotline, I would have the equivalent of a novel down within a week - easily. I've got their entire lives planned out, including how you take a mouse in the morgue and turn her into someone who shoots a serial killer five times in the face. Er, yes. And that is what I like to call connecting canons in a very non-canon way. 

I could write down the evolution of Molly right here for all of you to see, but judging by how few of you are Fannibals and how fewer of you have read Red Dragon, it would likely not make a lick of sense. But, then again, I think I'll be more successful in building a Willolly army then going through with Project Arendelle. 

That is the face of a dragon slayer.

Right now I've got Grease pumping in my ears, and somehow I feel like I'm never going to fall asleep because of it. I have this lovely habit of being perfectly unable of staying outside of my room past 9 PM but if I'm on my bed and on my laptop I can easily go for hours and hours on end. It's stupid, really. 

And to think, I could be using my time doing something far more productive than making musical theatre mixes on 8tracks and looking at gifs of Louise Brealey.

On the other hand, that doesn't actually sound too bad. 

Don't let me listen to musicals past 10 PM, otherwise you're in trouble.

Ahem. Anyways, I just had a moment where I started to analyze Molly again. Bad idea. I don't want to do that. Yet. 

In terms of my plan to make myself healthier, everything has been turning out very well! I jogged for 1.5 hours today and burned 750 calories (thank you, Hannibal - even though I was crying I still managed to make it through it all). Unfortunately, though, the scale I use has gone mysteriously missing and I don't have the faintest clue how to find it. 

Speaking of the stunning Loo Brealey (I wasn't talking about her, but whatever), I tried to find Delicious on iTunes but it didn't show up. Bit of a shame, considering that I would've gladly shelled over a portion of my fifty dollars on there in order to watch that adorable looking film!

Reminds me of something out of the Fullerverse. But that might just be because I finished Wonderfalls, am rewatching Hannibal, and have been putting a lot of thought into a potential Pushing Daisies musical.

I might've just started shipping something new in Sherlock about three seconds ago. But I'm going to leave you in absolute agony and not tell you what it was.

Anyways, I feel the need to fill you in on a few things that have been happening over on Fanlandia Island on Tomodachi Life - because there's some good things in there!

First of all, Molly and my Mii are now best friends! We had a fight on there so I was worried...but apparently we worked it out, and then some.

The romance is all out of whack - while I like Dean and the TARDIS together (they're adorable, okay?), some of the other pairings were me trying to avoid making the Miis upset. Just listen to what they are for a second. Ned the Pie Maker and Molly. Yeah, cute, but not the OTP I was trying ever so hard to force upon the island. And then...Charlotte Charles and Hannibal Lecter. Funny how the not-dead girl and the serial killer end up together.

But seriously, how did those happen?! AND WHY IS MY MII ALMOST AS COMPATIBLE WITH WILL GRAHAM AS MOLLY IS?!

Now. The other sets of best friends...Dean and Castiel, and Will and Hannibal. I don't know how the game just knew...but it did. And I'm more than fine with it. It helped me to make a Hannigram song at one point, with River and I as backup singers. 

If this game doesn't sound insane to you by now...

So there you go. A bunch of things you never wanted to know about my life. Have fun with that.

- Rain

Fanlandia Island

Ever heard of a game called Tomodachi Life?

Well, if you haven't, I think the following video is a good place to start...(warning: there is some language and sexual references, but it's all very comedic, trust me!)

Anyways, you can put all sorts of people on your island (mine is known as Fanlandia Island) and have them interact. I chose to use a whole bunch of fictional characters...so aside from my sister and I, here are the people on the island:

• Dean Winchester
• Sam Winchester
• Castiel
• Luna Lovegood
• River Song
• The TARDIS
• Molly Hooper
• Sherlock Holmes
• John Watson
• Will Graham
• Hannibal Lecter 
• Olive Snook
• Ned the Pie Maker
• Chuck Charles

Not even a day in, and some interesting things have happened...here are a few of my favorites.

Cas and Dean have already become good friends!

Hannibal and Will are friends, and then River joined into their circle. In other words, they're a bunch of psychopaths. Sort of.

My sister and I have bonded with Molly, and I've also started a strong friendship with John. So that happened.

WILL HAD THE WEIRDEST DREAM EVER, AND THAT'S EVEN BEYOND WHAT'S ON THE SHOW. SO YEAH, THAT'S SAYING SOMETHING. I CAN'T EVEN EXPLAIN IT.

Sam didn't like salad. I died a little inside.

I may or may not have rigged the system a bit so that Will and Molly are rather compatible...

Ned and Chuck work at the same place! But they haven't met. Yet.

And I'll give you plenty more updates as things happen...

- Rain

No Context is the Best Context: Romance Edition

I always say no context is the best context - and that applies to a lot of things. So I decided to compile a bunch of things I've written over the past while and compile them together in a way that takes away the majority of the context. None of these have been posted...yet. All names and pronouns have been made gender neutral. There are always two lovers in each one, due to this being romance, and they will be known as Alex and Jordan. If there is a third character, then they'd be called Sydney.

I want to see if any of you can guess what some of these are from - or perhaps you might end up reading them in the near to distant future, but with context. But where's the fun in that?

"You sure have a funny way of expressing it, then," I replied.
"Come on. Alex, I was just saying."
"Yeah, yeah, it doesn't matter now." I checked my watch, frowning at the numbers. "Three minutes."
"Alex," Jordan began. "I want to make sure I've done this before we head in there, because I won't be able to stand it if we don't make it out."
Before I could even blink, I felt Jordan leap over to me and press xir lips up against mine.

 Xe looked up and met my eyes. I could see a glitter in xirs more unique than a fingerprint.

"Anyways, I thought you wanted to see Alex. I'm sure we'll be able to find xir within about ten minutes, especially if we put our minds to it." Jordan could do nothing but close xir eyes for a moment. If Sydney was correct, the moment xe had been desperate to have for years upon years of xir life was coming to xir soon.

They'd taken a chance by getting together to begin with - but it just seemed to make sense during the summer. Perhaps it was just the heat and humidity going straight to their heads, or perhaps it was something more. Jordan, in most ways, convinced xirself that the latter was the case. Xe'd never gotten any sort of confirmation of love from Alex, but xe could feel it.

"God, I really must be a narcissist."
"And why do you think that?" xe asked.
"People always said I was a narcissist, and I looked it up to see it meant being in love with yourself. But I hated myself for so long. But xir...xe's like me, but better. And..."
"I see."

You shouldn't look that attractive under the flourescent lights of hospitals. You just shouldn't. But someone xe managed to pull it off, and then some.

"I don't understand," Jordan replied, shaking xir head beneath Alex's hands. "If you wanted, you could have had so many people and gotten married to them. It would've been so easy for you."
"Love has never been easy for me, Jordan."
"Now you're the one who's missing the point," Jordan sighed. "You could've easily kissed me and left the moment you found out what I was like. You had so much time to break it all off, but you didn't."
"Let me see if I can explain it to you," Alex said. "Tell me about how you fell in love with me - the moment that it happened, if you can. It's a lot to ask for, I know."

"You're like a mutation, that one mutation that helps a creature and allows it to survive better. You're the mutation that causes evolution. You're not bad. You're just different."
"I know, I know," xe continued. "I've been studying for AP Bio recently, it's been on my mind. But the fact of the matter is, I love you. I love Sydney as well. I couldn't tell you which one I love more, or which one I've loved longer."

Let me know what you think...!

- Rain

Ranting Time...?

So, if you know me decently well, you'll be aware of my love affair with NBC Hannibal. You could call it my guilty pleasure. Sometimes it causes me to make subtle cannibal jokes.

Most of the time the fandom (known as Fannibals!) are some of the most lovely and polite people I've ever seen throughout the world of all fandoms. I see so much love for the show and its people, and it makes me feel ever so happy. They have a good healthy respect for the showrunner, Bryan Fuller, too.

Until, of course, they get pissed off.

Especially when they get pissed off about something really dumb.

Now, another little factoid about me - I'm a feminist. Once upon a time after that one person went and killed several women because he couldn't get a date, I literally started screaming and crying in the middle of the cafeteria as I ranted about it. I was horrified. Absolutely horrified. I'm very passionate about it, and also red lipstick. Sorry.

And then, I'm also an avid supporter of proper treatment of ALL genders and ALL sexualities. I could go so in depth with that, but I think I'll keep that for another rant.

You're probably wondering what this all has to do with one another, right?

Well, well, well, here we go. I'm going to explain to you a plot device in Hannibal that has a good portion of the Fannibals still fuming. It has to do with misogny and showrunners, something that has plagued me for an awfully long time now.

In order to prevent spoilers should any of you watch the show, I'll be using different names for all of the chracters. But you'll probably be able to figure it out. Yep. Yep.

Once upon a time, a new character was introduced on the show! Alice was a character who was in one of the books, but you wouldn't have recognized it. In the books, she had a very masculine look and had taken many steroids - and she was also a lesbian. But now, in the show, she was tiny and feminine and had sparkly eyes and such. Everyone was surprised, and also confused. Where was the lesbian we were promised?

Bryan Fuller (who I may mention, is a gay man) assured us that Alice was indeed part of the LGBT community, and the unrest was settled for a little while. We wondered how her story would end up unfolding...

Soon, another character from the books was introduced - Andrew, Alice's brother, who was also the heir to a great fortune. Also, a sadist. Also, someone who has absolutely no feeling for how he hurts anyone. Also, someone who laughs at pain and makes martinis from tears.

Needless to say, Alice needs to get rid of Andrew. He's absolutely horrible, yeah? But she also needs to do something in order to gain the upper hand. So what she ends up doing is something kind of insane...

She goes to one of the main (male) characters and gets herself pregnant so that she will have an heir.

And then...

Then the Fannibals went insane.

Alice is supposed to be a lesbian! Alice shouldn't be having sex with a man! Alice should never be doing something like that! This is so misogynistic, ask a real lesbian if they'd do that, etc. etc. etc.

Yes, they have good points, but I can guarantee that they didn't do one thing.

Oh, yes.

Let me tell you about Alice in the books again. As you may remember, she's taken steroids. But she's also gotten herself a partner. In other words, she is physically incapable of having a child. But she still wants to have an heir, just like in the show. So what she needs to do is get genetic material from Andrew so that she could have her partner have a child who could still be a genetic heir.

She would've done it herself, had she not been physically incapable to.

Then, let's go back to the show now that's cleared up. Basically, she needs to keep her pregnancy a secret from Andrew. He would've stopped her no matter what - so basically, getting sperm from a sperm bank wouldn't have worked. He would've found out. And then, of course, he would've stopped Alice.

Alice needed to do it more secretively. And that would require sleeping with a man. So she went to someone she trusted.

In case you're wondering, Andrew does find up. And he makes it so that Alice can never have children again. Basically, I was sobbing my eyes out. Yep.

Do you see? Do you see now?

Do you understand why I'm irritated with the fandom?

Yes, it was not ideal. It was not ideal at all. But, you know what? I have this feeling Alice is going to get a partner in season three. And I have a feeling it's going to end up going along with the events of the books to a certain degree.

Or maybe I'm just being silly.

Either way, this was one hell of a rant.

- Rain

A Resolution, 5.5 Months Late

Funny how you can easily forget the things that set you off running in the first place. And then, in one enormous moment, it all comes flying back to you and you remember just what you had as your start. I must say that I know this well, almost too well, after everything that's happened today.

Now, let me give you some background - I'm writing approximately 28,000 words a week. That's over half of a NaNoWriMo novel, and that's in a singular week. This is all because I'm writing new chapters plus 750 Words plus Penzu entries plus other novels that haven't been posted yet...I'm writing a ton. I average about 4,000 words a day with this.

Let me tell you - I've figured out the approximate speed of my writing. I can write about 750 words in 15 minutes if I'm focused. We can do just a bit of math to figure out that it takes me five minutes to write 250 words, or one minute to write fifty words. If we apply this to the 4,000 words, then we can figure it out fairly simply. It would total up to be about eighty minutes, if I just wrote straight on.

Now, eighty minutes doesn't seem like too long of a time. It's approximately how long an episode of Sherlock is, after all. I could just switch on some Cumberbatch and Freeman and write away...right? Well, no. I get distracted far too easily for all of that. It ends up taking me hours to finish my writing.

I spend all of my free time (when I'm not getting distracted) working on writing. I literally only have one core class this semester, which means very little homework, and I'm still finding myself so busy because of all of this writing I feel like I have to do!

The thing is, I think I'm obsessed with writing.

I'm so obsessed with making novels that I've nearly forgotten where it all began.

Novels. I read novels. I am a reader. Or, at least, I was a reader. Once I got into high school and got into the groove of weekly updates on Wattpad, my reading has decreased dramatically. Surely some of you must know how bad I am at reading your stories - and you're not the only ones. I mean, the author of Nature and Nurture (Sherlock fanfiction featuring a clone baby - it's excellent and probably one of my favorite fanfics out there) only updates about once or twice a month, and I'm still behind.

I've lamented over the fact that I've seemed to have lost touch with reading, but I never seemed to act on it. Frankly, I just felt too anxious that I'd get behind on my writing and that everything would end up falling apart. I still feel that way at this very moment.

But just a few days ago, I was cleaning my room. Part of that requires me to clean up my books, of course. As I was shuffling them around, I realized just how badly I wanted to read those stories once again - and also read those I hadn't experienced yet. I've been reading here and there on my Kindle, but it wasn't until that moment that I just wanted to sit down and read.

Then I ended up forgetting about it...that is, until today.

I picked up a book called Every Day by David Levithan. The premise had sounded interesting when I bought it in the bookstore months ago. It had been stuck in my room, waiting to be read, but it wasn't until I was assigned an independent reading project in English that I found my opportunity to do so.

Then today, during lunch, I decided to get ahead on the reading for the project, if only by a little bit. Within those twenty minutes, I had ended up going about forty pages. It's not too much, but it was still significantly past how much I had to read today.

When it came to English class, we ended up down in the library for the last few minutes of class. I ended up passing one hundred pages. I was still thirsty for more. And I couldn't possibly surpress that...or could I?

So I thought about for a few minutes. Then I realized that I just needed to get back into reading. Every Day will have to wait for school nights for me to read it, but I'm sure I'll just end up tearing straight through it.

I decided that, at least for today, I was going to push writing aside. It was no longer my main priority. I plan to read today. I plan to read, at least a little, every single day. And if I can, I want to be able to read through a book a week for the rest of this year...or possibly the rest of my life.

That's my resolution, even if it is five and a half months after New Year's.

- Rain

1.38

I feel enlightened.

I don't know what's been happening as of late, but as a whole I feel a whole lot better about myself as a person in general. I've felt so much happier, and it's almost insane.

I guess it all sort of started with a number.

1.38.

Doesn't look like much, does it?

Well, I might as well just come clean.

I'm a 1.38 on the Kinsey Scale.

Yes, indeed, I am not exclusively heterosexual. I just mostly find myself attracted to males. But sometimes...sometimes I find myself attracted to females. Granted, it's not often. But I feel very comfortable with where the Kinsey Scale places me. 

You see, I had been questioning my sexuality for a while - it was those little thoughts that bugged me. I always tried to reaffirm I was straight, until one day I decided that I'd be better off if I considered myself bisexual.

Well, let's just say I stumbled upon the Kinsey Scale and some other test things and I decided to take them. Lo and behold, I was not bisexual - that would be a three on a Kinsey Scale. No, after doing several tests I found that my spot lay between one and two: 1.38.

Now that I feel comfortable with my sexuality, I can move on to feeling comfortable about other parts of me. I'm sort of part of the LGBTQAAI+ community now, and that is kind of wonderful in of itself. When I participated in the Day of Silence, it really got me to start thinking. It was amazing to see so many people in my school trying to help bring awareness to the issue of bullying and discrimination.

Then in English class, my group decided to do a project on gay rights. Let me just show you the infographic we made:

It feels incredible to be a part of something bigger than myself, and the fact is that I feel very comfortable within it.

Which leads me to my next point.

Now that I feel comfortable with myself on the inside, I need to make sure that my outside can match. I've struggled with body image and self esteem for years, along with weight. I've never been extremely overweight, but I've definitely ventured into that zone. It's gotten to a point where I feel upset looking at myself sometimes - half of my stuff doesn't seem to fit!

Just a few weeks back, I went to Disney World for spring break. My mother swore that as soon as we got home we'd go on a diet - so it was fine if we pigged out there. And oh, I did. I mean, obviously calories were burned off when I was walking through the parks, but I ate a ton of whatever I wanted. 

Then we came home, and we didn't go on a diet.

...

Then it was time for Easter. Lots of candy, lots of fattening foods, no diet.

...

It became perfectly clear to me that my mother wasn't going to be doing anything in order to get the entire family on a diet. At that point, I decided that it was up to me to eat healthier and start exercising. I started out by doing random exercises for thirty minutes on my own while trying to eat better...but then I began using apps!

Now I have a workout app on my phone that counts burnt calories, no less, and another website which counts my overall calories. It's been very enlightening to see just how much I'm eating, how much I'm exercising, and how much I'm losing. It's only been about a week, and it seems to me that I have already lost four to six pounds.

Four to six pounds. That's insane. I'm not starving myself, but I managed to lose four to six pounds. It's because I've been eating healthier and have exercised a whole lot more. This is more than just a diet and an exercise program, this is a lifestyle change. If I can keep this going, then I thoroughly believe that come the next school year, I'll be a whole lot more comfortable in my own skin.

Being comfortable just makes life so much easier.

- Rain