I smiled as I placed the last red triangle piece into place. Me not paying attention had caused me to mess up my build once already. This time I had gone for a simpler design that was difficult to knock over accidentally. I felt as if I shouldn't be having so much fun with a toy that was designed for children much younger than me, but I couldn't help but to thoroughly enjoy the almost obnoxiously bright colors of the blocks. Putting them together in all sorts of shapes was addicting. I could have sat there all day doing nothing but building.
"What do you think, Fluff? It's not as tall as the other one, but I think it looks better." I asked my bear.
Fluff had quickly become my trusted critic over the past three weeks. His silence spoke volumes.
"Yeah, I really like it too." I agreed with him.
And at that, I knocked my build over. Destroying what I had created was as fun as building. I bent over to pick up the blocks that had dropped to the floor, but I was interrupted by a call that rang throughout the house.
"Meadow!"
It was Eden, of course. He was upset with me again like he always seemed to be lately.
I was growing quite accustomed to his "angry face." It was what he was wearing when I reluctantly stood up and headed into the kitchen. He looked more irritable than normal.
"I'm getting really sick of repeating myself," he began with a stiff voice, "I don't understand why taking care of your dishes is so difficult for you. The dishwasher is ten feet away. Is it that hard to understand that it, and not the counter, is where your dirty plate belongs?"
"I forgot." I mumbled.
"How could you forget when the thing you were supposed to be doing was right in front of you? Besides, it's been hours since breakfast. Are you really telling me it didn't once cross your mind that you had a task left undone?"
"You told me to go do my school work."
"Like you're doing that either? I'm not deaf, Meadow. I could hear the sound of the blocks and not the keys of the keyboard."
"I was taking a break."
"I hope you are aware that children attending normal school don't get to take breaks every five minutes like you seem to have a habit of doing."
"I wouldn't do it if I was attending normal school." I mumbled even quieter.
"Well, you're never going to get there at this rate. As soon as I turn my head you stop working."
Eden then paused to study me.
"And why are you still in your nightgown? It's past ten. You should have changed a long time ago."
"But it's not like I'm going anywhere," I countered, "If I have to be inside, can't I at least wear what I want?"
"No. You're acting lazy enough. The last thing you need is something that encourages you to be even lazier."
"Then I'll go ahead and do all my work right away." I pleaded.
"Don't think giving me that pouty face is going to work. You are going to put your plate in the dishwasher. You are going to get changed. Then you are going to get on the computer and finish your assignment so I can give you the one you were supposed to have done yesterday."
Poor Ethy it sure is hard for her to get used to responsability when she had nothing to do before ^^
And Eden was indeed distant for her, but I understand why given what he said to her at the end of the chapter ^^
Poor Eden. Ethy may have him to talk to (now), but who is he going to vent to? No wonder he bottled up for so long. I enjoy Blaze's method of childrearing, and Am's comeback! "Let me go, old man!" XD Had I been in Ethy's shoes, I would have slammed the door and run off with Fluff to my bed when Eden snapped to knock first. This kid has a hard road ahead of her and Eden needs to learn to find a balance between HELPING her learn to be on par and finding time to fix his (well-intentioned) mistakes. Also, I totally ship Christmas. For now anyway. The kids -are- pretty young.
Yeah, I know I would have a hard time going from having (sort of) complete freedom doing whatever I wanted to having to follow the commands of someone else all the time. Actually, that's partly why I want to become an author so bad. I like being able to work at my own pace and do things how I want to do them, so a more traditional job like what I had now really grates on my nerves when I can't make my own choices (and especially when what I'm being told to do seem entirely counter-productive.)
Eden does have it tough. He has to worry more about keeping Meadow safe than she does because he's in the thick of all of what's going on behind the scenes.
@AEventyr- That is really true. He does have his "friends", but for the most part Eden is the one who is trapped the most at the moment. He has to be more careful around the other adults because they're more likely to pick up on anything suspicious compared to Meadow's friends. Then (this will all be talked about in the story at some point) there's the fact that the guy is 28. He's at the point where he'd want to be considering getting married and starting a family of his own, but there's no way he can do that while he has to keep so much hidden. His dream job will be much more difficult to achieve as well. He can't become a professor if he's never taught before, and I figure him getting a real job as an educator will be risky considering there's now a lot of illegal documents surrounding him due to "Meadow Yonder's" sudden entrance into the system.
I freaking love Blaze and Amaranth. They have such a nontraditional relationship, and it is one of the most fun things I've ever written. Even though Blaze pretty much is Amaranth's father, he still firmly remains in that role of the crazy/fun uncle.
They do both have a lot of hard times in store for them. There will be more tension in the future, but the next chapter will help to highlight their progress on going from two people pretending to be family to two people who are family. There's cuteness and more hugging ^^
I love that ship name for Meadow and Amaranth- Christmas. It totally works Meadow's actually going to have a whole lot of choices in terms of partners though XD The colored bar borders on the first page give a strong hint as to who the heir might have a child with, but that doesn't necessarily mean they'll end up with a person of that color. Right now I actually have some rather tragic situations planned out that could possibly occur.
I am adamantly staying away from your main page because I DON'T want to see those color bars anymore. It gives too much away. All aboard the 🐸🐸🐸🐸. Christmas! (And just in time for the holiday season.) Oh, crap. That's right. It's November. So much for doing a NaNoWriMo. Ah well.
Based on what you've explained Eden definitely has it worse, at least in my opinion. Ethy can certainly still mess things up but I think you're right, his dreams are pretty much shattered. That won't keep me from hoping some nice girl does notice him enough to at least give him some temptation.
I don't think they're too revealing. Who knows- perhaps Meadow is actually attracted to girls, she marries Sunset, and they adopt Amaranth's child after he and Blaze die in a tragic repeat of the car crash that killed Am's parents. That's totally not what's going to happen, but it shows how diverse I could make it if I wanted :disagree:
Mostly though, the bars are there to remind me which color to do next. I tried to arrange them so that the colors didn't clash with each other, because a good portion of the children will be born mixed.
You've still got plenty of time to do NaNo
That's what I think makes Eden's character so admirable. He is seriously giving up his entire life and much of his future all for Meadow's sake, but he's still all too happy and willing to do so because he cares for her so greatly.
There will be temptation. Eden might be a booky genius nerd, but that doesn't mean he isn't a charmer and hasn't already had his fair share of experiences
Great chapter Kelsey Made we water up at the end, I get all to well the 'I just wanna run off to my room and ball my eyes out or whatever' but your body is like OH NO! I'm locking you up, no moving.
@linesa- For sure! Even if I wasn't bringing in massive amounts of money, it is true that it would be so much better for me to stay at home and be an author instead of forcing myself into a job I don't like simply for money's sake.
Thanks ^^
@AmberKotori- And thank you too
I'm really glad you enjoyed the chapter so much. This was actually one I wasn't that sure about, because the ending felt like it concluded a bit too fast. It's good to know that's just me being picky
(momentarily coming out of lurking)
*mutters to self...I think butter should be banned from posting unless its an update to the story*
...I got all excited even tho you said updates would be monday, I came running when I got the flash that you had posted, excited to see an update so soon, lol...
(quietly drifts back into the shadows)
Question for butter...I have been setting up to do a story of my own. I had started doing one years ago, and didn't get far. Too many computer issues, but those are resolved now. Plus, its a new setup, a bit of a learning curve, for example, learning how to put pictures in, which I have figured out.
Now, the question...I noticed that when you post a new chapter, you post an intro here on the forum, then link to the whole chapter on a different site. Quite honestly, yours is the only story I have been reading, so maybe I should go peek at a few more for comparison. Anyway, why do you link off site instead of posting the whole story here? Is that what most others do?
edited to ask: Why do people leave several posts empty before they start?
@xxcoaimhexx- Sorry to raise your hopes XD
But yeah, save for special occasions (like the Christmas special I want to do) updates are always going to be strictly on Mondays. I'm too lazy to put in the extra work to post an extra update every now and again :disagree:
As for your questions. I've always found writing and posting to a blog much easier than doing the updates here on the forums. It seems these new forums automatically adjust pictures if they're too big, but it didn't used to be that way on the old forums. There would have been a long process involving uploading the pictures to Photobucket and resizing them. Then I would have had to worry about my photo storage limit. The last thing I wanted was for my pictures to be blocked because I used too much space- and that was bound to happen with the massive amount of pictures I had for The Goddess' Order. The blog helps me to be more organized, and I can upload photos directly from my laptop files as well as resize them right there in the blog post. I'm also able to accurately track the views I get (like today I had 42 hits from the US, 4 from Australia, 3 from the United Kingdom, 2 from Israel, and 1 from France- these forums can't tell me that) and use the Pages to hold all the extra information and links I share with everyone.
I've found that it's pretty even here in terms of stories that post to a blog and stories that post on the forums. I did notice that stories posted directly to the forum tend to get more traffic. I figure that's because people are generally lazy like me- it's a lot less effort to comment on something right in front of you instead of going to another site and possibly having to deal with having to enter in more information in order to comment (which is why I allow anonymous commenting on my blog to help encourage more activity.) I started doing short previews of chapters here on the Color My World thread as another way to encourage and draw people in to the story. Readers are able to sample the chapters here first and make their decision on whether or not it's something they're interested in as opposed to having nothing but a link to look at. Pretty pictures help entice people as well
People leaves several posts blank before they allow posting because they'll use those posts later on for more information/links. In my set up, the links for the chapters for Generation One and Generation Two will be in that second post. The links for Gen Three and Gen Four will be in the third post. It's simply another way to keep organized- as well as avoiding the decreased character limit these new forums have.
@AEventyr- Good, yay
I guess it felt like it did because I had more stuff with Amaranth and Meadow playing and talking. I deleted the pictures because I thought they was going to make the chapter too long. It was only when I got to the end of writing it out that I realized I actually could have used more to flesh out their conversations and characters. I'm still getting used to the length of these chapters. TGO I tried to keep to about 20 pics per update. Because CMW only comes out once a week, I'm trying to average for at least 25- meaning I gotta figure out the best ways to balance out the extra length.
Yes, there is. I don't quite remember exactly what it is though, but they've at least increased it since they opened the new forums. It cause me a lot of headaches at the beginning- I was unable to edit the main post for The Goddess' Order because it had thousands more words than what was allowed. Even after they bumped up the limit the post was still too long. I had to reduce me entire downloads section to one link to the downloads section on my blog in order to be able to edit the update date in the title.
I wouldn't think there would be a limit to posts per thread.
Thanks so much butter for answering all my endless questions, lol. I have a story in mind that I want to do, just want to make sure I know how to do everything first. I'm still getting used to the forum, and learning my way around flickr, I don't know if I want to figure out how to use a blog, too. You CAN teach an old dog new tricks, just don't want to try to learn too many at once, lol.
No problem ^^ Go ahead and ask away if you ever need an answer- I'm glad to help
I've never used WordPress, but I've always found Blogger (aka Blogspot) incredibly easy to use. It's all pretty straightforwards, and there's enough information out there on the internet to help if something is confusing. I would say the only thing that is higher on the difficulty scale is uploading a custom layout.
My fingers furiously tapped the buttons on my controller. I ignored everything around me besides what was going on on the screen. Sunflower constantly mumbling to herself, Sunset's fidgeting, and Sunset's mom's cries of frustration when she messed up never registered to my consciousness. Unlike most everything in the normal world, being good at video games had come naturally to me. I didn't have to read anything. I didn't have to worry about knowing stuff I was supposed to know. I was given an objective, and I followed it. That was all I required.
I was so entranced by the game that I hadn't noticed Sunset's dad coming over either. I think he watched us for several minutes too. It was only when he spoke that any of us bothered to acknowledge him.
"Are you four still playing this game? Dawn, I can't believe you're in on this laziness."
Mrs. Glory leaned forward as I passed her on the track.
"It's fine, Mel," she almost whined to her husband, "It's still hailing! Surely you don't expect me to force them outside in this weather?"
I nearly hurt my fingers as I smacked the buttons so hard.
"I won again!" I cried merrily as my character finished the last lap.
"Shoot. So close." Sunflower said.
"I guess it can't be helped. Meadow's so much better at stuff like this than us." Sunset laughed.
"I almost had her that time too." Mrs. Glory rolled her eyes.
I heard Mr. Glory sigh, but it was a sigh of mild amusement more than one of annoyance.
"No, I don't expect you to send them outside. There are so many other activities you could be doing than wasting your time with video games though." he said.
"Like what?" Mrs. Glory asked tauntingly.
I smiled widely. Sunset had told me her mom was decently older than her dad, but Mrs. Glory often seemed more like one of us.
"Reading books. I just bought a whole bunch of new ones. Or if you want to be social- tell stories. Ghost stories are a good option with dreary weather like this."
"Ghost stories?" I said curiously.
My enthusiastic question covered up large exhales from both Sunset and her mom.
"Don't get him started, Meadow. He's obsessed with ghost stories. He'll make up any excuse to tell one." Sunset explained.
@AEventyr- It is, isn't it I thought it was a cute way to end things after revealing something sad like Eden's backstory (and Allium's as well, I suppose).
Comments
I smiled as I placed the last red triangle piece into place. Me not paying attention had caused me to mess up my build once already. This time I had gone for a simpler design that was difficult to knock over accidentally. I felt as if I shouldn't be having so much fun with a toy that was designed for children much younger than me, but I couldn't help but to thoroughly enjoy the almost obnoxiously bright colors of the blocks. Putting them together in all sorts of shapes was addicting. I could have sat there all day doing nothing but building.
"What do you think, Fluff? It's not as tall as the other one, but I think it looks better." I asked my bear.
Fluff had quickly become my trusted critic over the past three weeks. His silence spoke volumes.
"Yeah, I really like it too." I agreed with him.
And at that, I knocked my build over. Destroying what I had created was as fun as building. I bent over to pick up the blocks that had dropped to the floor, but I was interrupted by a call that rang throughout the house.
"Meadow!"
It was Eden, of course. He was upset with me again like he always seemed to be lately.
I was growing quite accustomed to his "angry face." It was what he was wearing when I reluctantly stood up and headed into the kitchen. He looked more irritable than normal.
"I'm getting really sick of repeating myself," he began with a stiff voice, "I don't understand why taking care of your dishes is so difficult for you. The dishwasher is ten feet away. Is it that hard to understand that it, and not the counter, is where your dirty plate belongs?"
"I forgot." I mumbled.
"How could you forget when the thing you were supposed to be doing was right in front of you? Besides, it's been hours since breakfast. Are you really telling me it didn't once cross your mind that you had a task left undone?"
"You told me to go do my school work."
"Like you're doing that either? I'm not deaf, Meadow. I could hear the sound of the blocks and not the keys of the keyboard."
"I was taking a break."
"I hope you are aware that children attending normal school don't get to take breaks every five minutes like you seem to have a habit of doing."
"I wouldn't do it if I was attending normal school." I mumbled even quieter.
"Well, you're never going to get there at this rate. As soon as I turn my head you stop working."
Eden then paused to study me.
"And why are you still in your nightgown? It's past ten. You should have changed a long time ago."
"But it's not like I'm going anywhere," I countered, "If I have to be inside, can't I at least wear what I want?"
"No. You're acting lazy enough. The last thing you need is something that encourages you to be even lazier."
"Then I'll go ahead and do all my work right away." I pleaded.
"Don't think giving me that pouty face is going to work. You are going to put your plate in the dishwasher. You are going to get changed. Then you are going to get on the computer and finish your assignment so I can give you the one you were supposed to have done yesterday."
Continue reading.
Poor Ethy it sure is hard for her to get used to responsability when she had nothing to do before ^^
And Eden was indeed distant for her, but I understand why given what he said to her at the end of the chapter ^^
Yeah, I know I would have a hard time going from having (sort of) complete freedom doing whatever I wanted to having to follow the commands of someone else all the time. Actually, that's partly why I want to become an author so bad. I like being able to work at my own pace and do things how I want to do them, so a more traditional job like what I had now really grates on my nerves when I can't make my own choices (and especially when what I'm being told to do seem entirely counter-productive.)
Eden does have it tough. He has to worry more about keeping Meadow safe than she does because he's in the thick of all of what's going on behind the scenes.
@AEventyr- That is really true. He does have his "friends", but for the most part Eden is the one who is trapped the most at the moment. He has to be more careful around the other adults because they're more likely to pick up on anything suspicious compared to Meadow's friends. Then (this will all be talked about in the story at some point) there's the fact that the guy is 28. He's at the point where he'd want to be considering getting married and starting a family of his own, but there's no way he can do that while he has to keep so much hidden. His dream job will be much more difficult to achieve as well. He can't become a professor if he's never taught before, and I figure him getting a real job as an educator will be risky considering there's now a lot of illegal documents surrounding him due to "Meadow Yonder's" sudden entrance into the system.
I freaking love Blaze and Amaranth. They have such a nontraditional relationship, and it is one of the most fun things I've ever written. Even though Blaze pretty much is Amaranth's father, he still firmly remains in that role of the crazy/fun uncle.
They do both have a lot of hard times in store for them. There will be more tension in the future, but the next chapter will help to highlight their progress on going from two people pretending to be family to two people who are family. There's cuteness and more hugging ^^
I love that ship name for Meadow and Amaranth- Christmas. It totally works
Based on what you've explained Eden definitely has it worse, at least in my opinion. Ethy can certainly still mess things up but I think you're right, his dreams are pretty much shattered. That won't keep me from hoping some nice girl does notice him enough to at least give him some temptation.
Mostly though, the bars are there to remind me which color to do next. I tried to arrange them so that the colors didn't clash with each other, because a good portion of the children will be born mixed.
You've still got plenty of time to do NaNo
That's what I think makes Eden's character so admirable. He is seriously giving up his entire life and much of his future all for Meadow's sake, but he's still all too happy and willing to do so because he cares for her so greatly.
There will be temptation. Eden might be a booky genius nerd, but that doesn't mean he isn't a charmer and hasn't already had his fair share of experiences
It's better to do a job we like than one we don't
And I wish you good luck to be a successful author
Thanks ^^
@AmberKotori- And thank you too
I'm really glad you enjoyed the chapter so much. This was actually one I wasn't that sure about, because the ending felt like it concluded a bit too fast. It's good to know that's just me being picky
*mutters to self...I think butter should be banned from posting unless its an update to the story*
...I got all excited even tho you said updates would be monday, I came running when I got the flash that you had posted, excited to see an update so soon, lol...
(quietly drifts back into the shadows)
And LOL at xxcoaimhexx!
Now, the question...I noticed that when you post a new chapter, you post an intro here on the forum, then link to the whole chapter on a different site. Quite honestly, yours is the only story I have been reading, so maybe I should go peek at a few more for comparison. Anyway, why do you link off site instead of posting the whole story here? Is that what most others do?
edited to ask: Why do people leave several posts empty before they start?
But yeah, save for special occasions (like the Christmas special I want to do) updates are always going to be strictly on Mondays. I'm too lazy to put in the extra work to post an extra update every now and again :disagree:
As for your questions. I've always found writing and posting to a blog much easier than doing the updates here on the forums. It seems these new forums automatically adjust pictures if they're too big, but it didn't used to be that way on the old forums. There would have been a long process involving uploading the pictures to Photobucket and resizing them. Then I would have had to worry about my photo storage limit. The last thing I wanted was for my pictures to be blocked because I used too much space- and that was bound to happen with the massive amount of pictures I had for The Goddess' Order. The blog helps me to be more organized, and I can upload photos directly from my laptop files as well as resize them right there in the blog post. I'm also able to accurately track the views I get (like today I had 42 hits from the US, 4 from Australia, 3 from the United Kingdom, 2 from Israel, and 1 from France- these forums can't tell me that) and use the Pages to hold all the extra information and links I share with everyone.
I've found that it's pretty even here in terms of stories that post to a blog and stories that post on the forums. I did notice that stories posted directly to the forum tend to get more traffic. I figure that's because people are generally lazy like me- it's a lot less effort to comment on something right in front of you instead of going to another site and possibly having to deal with having to enter in more information in order to comment (which is why I allow anonymous commenting on my blog to help encourage more activity.) I started doing short previews of chapters here on the Color My World thread as another way to encourage and draw people in to the story. Readers are able to sample the chapters here first and make their decision on whether or not it's something they're interested in as opposed to having nothing but a link to look at. Pretty pictures help entice people as well
People leaves several posts blank before they allow posting because they'll use those posts later on for more information/links. In my set up, the links for the chapters for Generation One and Generation Two will be in that second post. The links for Gen Three and Gen Four will be in the third post. It's simply another way to keep organized- as well as avoiding the decreased character limit these new forums have.
@AEventyr- Good, yay
I guess it felt like it did because I had more stuff with Amaranth and Meadow playing and talking. I deleted the pictures because I thought they was going to make the chapter too long. It was only when I got to the end of writing it out that I realized I actually could have used more to flesh out their conversations and characters. I'm still getting used to the length of these chapters. TGO I tried to keep to about 20 pics per update. Because CMW only comes out once a week, I'm trying to average for at least 25- meaning I gotta figure out the best ways to balance out the extra length.
I wouldn't think there would be a limit to posts per thread.
I've never used WordPress, but I've always found Blogger (aka Blogspot) incredibly easy to use. It's all pretty straightforwards, and there's enough information out there on the internet to help if something is confusing. I would say the only thing that is higher on the difficulty scale is uploading a custom layout.
My fingers furiously tapped the buttons on my controller. I ignored everything around me besides what was going on on the screen. Sunflower constantly mumbling to herself, Sunset's fidgeting, and Sunset's mom's cries of frustration when she messed up never registered to my consciousness. Unlike most everything in the normal world, being good at video games had come naturally to me. I didn't have to read anything. I didn't have to worry about knowing stuff I was supposed to know. I was given an objective, and I followed it. That was all I required.
I was so entranced by the game that I hadn't noticed Sunset's dad coming over either. I think he watched us for several minutes too. It was only when he spoke that any of us bothered to acknowledge him.
"Are you four still playing this game? Dawn, I can't believe you're in on this laziness."
Mrs. Glory leaned forward as I passed her on the track.
"It's fine, Mel," she almost whined to her husband, "It's still hailing! Surely you don't expect me to force them outside in this weather?"
I nearly hurt my fingers as I smacked the buttons so hard.
"I won again!" I cried merrily as my character finished the last lap.
"Shoot. So close." Sunflower said.
"I guess it can't be helped. Meadow's so much better at stuff like this than us." Sunset laughed.
"I almost had her that time too." Mrs. Glory rolled her eyes.
I heard Mr. Glory sigh, but it was a sigh of mild amusement more than one of annoyance.
"No, I don't expect you to send them outside. There are so many other activities you could be doing than wasting your time with video games though." he said.
"Like what?" Mrs. Glory asked tauntingly.
I smiled widely. Sunset had told me her mom was decently older than her dad, but Mrs. Glory often seemed more like one of us.
"Reading books. I just bought a whole bunch of new ones. Or if you want to be social- tell stories. Ghost stories are a good option with dreary weather like this."
"Ghost stories?" I said curiously.
My enthusiastic question covered up large exhales from both Sunset and her mom.
"Don't get him started, Meadow. He's obsessed with ghost stories. He'll make up any excuse to tell one." Sunset explained.
Continue reading.
You're really a good writer ^^
@AEventyr- It is, isn't it