Advent Calendar: Day 1

My plans for October updates failed miserably. And November... ugh, the only thing I got was dark undereye circles from lack of sleep. I'm glad it's December- maybe now I can catch up on a bit of sleep in between Christmas prep.

As you can see from the blog post title, I've decided to do an advent calender for my blog.Which means a blog post every day (hopefully) until the 24th. The posts will be a mix of things- recommendations, fanfic bits, etc.

I don't have a concrete plan on what I'll put up, but I'll try to keep things interesting. Feel free to leave some suggestions or requests for upcoming Advent Calender days if you have any- and I'll see what I can do.

For the first day, I'm going to start off with giving you some interesting links.

1. Katsura Hoshino's Instragram
This instragram rec is specifically for any D.Gray-man fans who haven't already found out about it. It belongs to the mangaka of D.Gray-man and she posts quite a bit of art on there. Since she seems quite active, I hope she's doing much better health-wise. And I also hope that there will be a new chapter in the upcoming months.

2. Ask Danzo 
I found this gem when I researching some plot ideas and I'm so glad that I did.
I wish there was more content on the blog, but every single post on there at the moment makes me smile. Also, dare I say it, the blog makes Danzo kinda likeable.

3. Artist: Olggah
Has some fantastic fanart of Naruto. My favourites are Shikaku and Kaguya. Shikaku's expression in the picture makes me think of all sorts of AtO scenes where he's just heard about Harry's latest shenanigans meeting with the elders. 

4. FFnet to ePub convertor
This was recommended to me and it has been quite handy in reading some of the larger multi-chapters fanfiction on ffnet. As the name says, it converts a fanfiction from ffnet to an ePub for easy reading offline.

5. Wordcount from AtO15 first draft: 12,705
As a first draft, this is nowhere near ready to be published online. And the wordcount will go down with each edit. But I thought I should reassure you that I haven't forgotten about AtO. Even though I'm concentrating on updates for other stories, I still work on AtO when I can.

That's enough for day 1, I think. I'll see you here tomorrow.
Polar

The end of Naruto

...is so close.

I'm glad. Obscenely so.

I know that it's the end of an era and stuff, and I should be more torn up about it. But I'm more curious than anything about how Kishi will handle the ending.

How much clear resolution do we get? How many things will be left open ended?

The things I'm interested to see 'resolved' would be
- Team 7 dynamics, all of them including Yamato and Sai. How do they work things out if they work things out
- Orochimaru. What does he plan to do?

What about you guys? What are you waiting to find out as Naruto ends?

Polar

AtO with Zombies, of a sort.

Happy end of September.

As if. Who can be happy at how quickly the time has passed?

I can't be happy because I'm so behind on all things fanfiction related. All my organized plans and to-do lists have been completely useless in keeping me on track with updates.

But I have shiny new plans and better to-do lists.

Which means, October is going to be interesting. Either I kick my procrastination in the butt and put some updates online, or I fail miserably and get nothing done.

In the spirit of getting stuff online, here's something fun I've had on my computer for a while. This plot bunny was inspired by a review I got for AtO's Chapter 14.

Warnings: Not as edited as I'd like it to be. Not part of AtO.

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Cramming down the last of his seaweed snack, Harry gathered his magic for a reparo spell and aimed at the crack still visible on the newly repaired doll's neck. His magic washed out onto the doll, the hairline crack glowed but remained after the magic vanished.

Frowning, Harry aimed another reparo spell at the crack. 

The persistent crack remained even after another five reparo spells. 

Gritting his teeth in frustration, Harry tugged his wand out of its holster and gathered a chunk of magic. “Reparo!”

His fingers tingled, his wand buzzed with warmth and a wave of magic shot out to his target. 

The crack glowed, rippled and smoothed out. 

His magic lingered around the doll as a visible glow before it dissipated through the doll and into the air with an audible shock-wave.

The doll's smooth surface rippled, bulged and shifted into a dark leathery surface. The leathery transformation continued until the entire doll had rough leathery skin. 

Within seconds, under a ripple of his magic, every doll in the room changed to have dark leathery skin as a thick smell of rot filled the room. 

Wary, Harry kept a tight grip on his wand as the last of his lingering magic sank down into the lifeless dolls. 

To Harry’s horror, the glassy eyes darkened with life and swivelled around in their sockets until all the dolls- no, the humanoid creatures now- blinked and turned to stare at Harry as one.