Sky's Content

For those of you who don’t know what Sky’s Content is, it’s the Shikamaru fan fiction I am currently writing. I wanted to write something about Sky’s Content behind the scenes because I think it’s rather interesting. Plus I want to go more into detail about somethings that I think you guys should know.

SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT!

First off, I started the first chapter of Sky’s Content sort of randomly. I didn’t have a plot planned and I didn’t really think that flowers for Yuri was going to be SO important. I remember sitting in my grade 11 English class coming up with the original plot of the story, writing out everything that happens chapter by chapter.

Then as I started to write the chapters I found that I wanted some stuff to happen later, and that I should add in something random to fill in the space. And so far that’s been almost every chapter of Sky’s Content. Ironically enough, as I wrote these ‘filler’ chapters the story molded into something completely different. I started to think of new ways the story could progress and now the plot is completely different than what I wrote on that piece of paper all those years ago.

The first ‘filler’ was the whole Mitsuyu thing. She was never supposed to be there, but I used that to help Shikamaru and Yuri realize that they like each other. Then the next ‘filler’ was the trip to Suna. THAT came out of nowhere. I was like ‘Ok. Chapter 7. Shikamaru’s POV. GO. “It had been about a week now since Yuri left to visit her father in Suna.” WTF. SUNA?!’

Ok, so it wasn’t really like that. But it did come out of nowhere.

I originally had wanted Yuri’s neck to be slashed in chapter 8, but I thought that I should expand on the Suna trip some more. And since I always liked the idea of characters getting sick, and using that as a bonding experience, I used that for chapter 8.

Little tidbit: In chapter 8 when Shikamaru was leaning in, his intention was actually to kiss her. Yuri can judge Shikamaru’s actions pretty well; she’s very observant. Then after that attempt to kiss her failed, he decided not to try it again until Yuri stopped being so embarrassed.

Then chapter 9 was the first real plot thing that was PLANNED to happen. It took me a while to get through that chapter, but I’m glad I did. The entire series at that point had nothing to do with ninjas or fighting, and I really felt like it needed some sort of ninja aspect. It was then that I realized what was the biggest factor getting in between Yuri and Shikamaru: he’s a ninja and she’s not.

I know, I know. I pointed that out in chapter 7 with Shikamaru. But I didn’t realize the gravity of it until the end of chapter 9.

Then chapter 10 came out very easily (It might have been because I procrastinating on studying exams…), but I knew every emotion that Yuri would be feeling, I knew that she was crack and break into a million pieces, and I knew that her father was going to forbid her from seeing Shikamaru. What was harder for me to grasp was how Shikamaru was feeling. I knew he would feel guilty but I didn’t really know HOW he would deal with it.

So I took the opportunity before working on chapter 11 to watch the Naruto Shippuuden episodes where Asuma dies and Shikamaru takes down Hidan. I LEARNED A LOT about him from those episodes. I realized that in my head I was making him out to be more indifferent and lazy than he actually was at that point. I thought that he would probably end up keeping his feelings to himself. But I realized, if it will make things easier for him, he’ll do anything. Including staying with Yuri.

And then when I wrote chapter 11.5 I really just wanted to show the contrast between Yuri and Shikamaru. If you notice, Shikamaru concentrates more on the fact that he needs to make a decision. He knows how he feels and he weighs the options of what he can do. He doesn’t go into much detail about kissing, or feelings.

Yuri on the other hand, everything for her is feelings. The constant feeling of the hole getting bigger. She already knows how deeply she cares for Shikamaru and she knows that she should get over him. But she doesn’t. She tries to cling to him because she loves him and if Shikamaru hadn’t ultimately decided to stay with her, she would have gone insane. She wouldn’t have recovered like Shikamaru thought she would, but that’s because he didn’t realize at the time the gravity of her feelings.

But then again, there are some things that I purposely made the same for them. For example, their dislike of sand as noted in the Suna saga of the story. I purposely made the wording almost exactly the same. Although some things that were similar I didn’t even realize I put in.

Lastly, chapter 12. What you have to realize is that usually between each chapter, weeks or even months go by. Yuri and Shikamaru have TONS of normal conversations, and spend time together normally. Everything in the chapters were usually things that related to their relationship progressing. So chapter 12 was a chapter to show those normal conversations, and to show those normal hang outs. They’re best friends, not just boyfriend and girlfriend.

Not to mention, the whole waking Shikamaru up thing was so cute :p

So now the story will continue to deal with their relationship and how they deal with him being a ninja. Not to mention it will deal with the aftermath of what happened in chapter 9, and how both Yuri and Shikamaru grow from it.

I hope you guys enjoy reading the series as much as I love writing it. It’s the one story I have put the MOST effort in.

Here are some goodies. They are drawings of Yuri and Shikamaru I did from like, last summer. It’s weird how easily it was to draw them together:

My favourite ones are the first one and the third one. So the images on the left side

My Braces Got Into a Fist Fight With Me, and Won

Ok, so that title isn’t exactly literal. But it gets my point across pretty clearly: My braces has caused me so much pain in the past few days that I actually think being beat up wouldn’t have hurt this bad.

Let me explain the back story. So basically, Tuesday I went to my orthodontist to get my top braces adjusted, and my bottom ones placed on. I didn’t really think of it as a big deal since I had already gotten my top braces and it wasn’t so bad.

I was wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong.

About an hour after they put my bottom braces, I was in a meeting at work and I began to feel pain. They told me that some pain is normal, so I shrug it off. Then about two hours later I was so in so much pain I had to stop what I was doing and hold my jaw because it hurt so bad.

Now by this point I had already taken pain medications such as: tylenol 2, and tylenol 3. If you don’t know what those are, those are the heavy duty pain killers that you can only get prescribed. So I managed to get through work and when I got home I called the orthodontist’s emergency number.

When they called me back about 4 hours later, I tried to explain to them that I was in horrible pain. That it didn’t even hurt this bad when I got my wisdom teeth out two years ago. They brushed me off and said ‘Pain is normal’ and basically hung up on me.

So today I wake up and I’m like ‘hey it doesn’t hurt that bad’, then about ten minutes later I’m downstairs taking a tylenol 3. Which was a horrible idea considering at work today I had WHMIS training. For those of you who knows what WHMIS is, you can guess why you shouldn’t mix drugs that make you drowsy and WHMIS in the same sitting.

Needless to say, it felt like my entire body was in sleep mode, yet I was still awake. It was hard to freaking BREATH because it felt like I was taking the shallow breaths I would when I was sleeping.

After the longest and most tiring two hours of my life, I talked to my supervisor and I left work. Yes. I left work because my mouth was hurting from my braces. That’s how bad it was.

Then after I leave work my dad and I go down the orthodontist office and we decide that we are not going to leave until I see someone. I mean like, I had to leave WORK because of this. So we go in and I walk up to the receptionist and start explaining. I knew about 5 seconds into talking to her, she wanted to brush me off and send me home.

My dad pushed her, and she conceded because she probably didn’t want us to make a scene. Then about 3 explanations later, the orthodontist tells me that I have really sensitive teeth. He explains how most people are ok with the wire they put, but every once in a while they get someone who is REALLY sensitive.

I had to learn my teeth are sensitive by experiencing two days of excruciating pain. How lovely.

Anyways, so they put in a thinner wire (one that they usually use for people with gum disease) that has relieved some of the pressure, and now the pain feels normal.

This whole ordeal has taught me the importance of being assertive. Because I am one of those people who usually walks into stuff or falls down, and gets back up like nothing happened. I have a HIGH pain tolerance (as I have been told repeatedly by doctors), so complaining about pain was not something I was used to. In fact, I sort of hate complaining about pain because I don’t want to seem like a drama queen.

So when I was complaining about this pain I sort of felt really, really dumb. Which is probably why I let them brush me off on the phone the first time.

But the most frustrating thing of all of this (besides the pain), is the fact that they blew me off like I was just whining. When I have to take heavy duty prescription pills to get MOST of the pain to disappear, I am not whining, I am in PAIN.

Moral of this story: Trust your gut, and don’t let others convince you that you’re wrong. SPEAK UP AND BE ASSERTIVE!

Dreams

Dream are weird things you know. I’m not your typical person who has dreams about the last thing they think about, or has dreams related to things they’re worried about. My dreams are so freaking crazy and out there, that most of my stories come from dreams because I know I wouldn’t have EVER come up with this information consciously.

I bring this up because last night I had around 3 or 4 different dreams, two of them I remember very vividly.

The first of the two was in a tree house. A gigantic, furniture filled tree house. I believe that I went into the tree house in the previous dream, but now the sequence was all different. I was in a futon, and Edward Cullen was in there with me.

Now let me point out, usually in my dreams the point of view I am is usually not me. (I know, sounds convenient right?) But this time I’m pretty sure the point of view I was in was Bella’s. At least I don’t want to think of it as me, because really Edward Cullen is not my type of guy.

There was this tense atmosphere as everything was quiet and like I just knew this was the moment right before he bites Bella/Me in the neck. And the entire thing was just the anticipation, he never ended up biting. The atmosphere is what makes it the most memorable of the dreams because it was so… intriguing. I definitely want to try to mimic that same atmosphere in a story.

Then the next memorable dream was about a dream later; the one I had just before I woke up. It was like I was in a video game where I had swords, guns, daggers, etc. and I was just killing enemies. Like I believe the dream before it was someone trying to murder me in my house and I was defending myself. But eventually it turned into a full out video game sequence. I mean like, at the end I was overwhelmed by enemies and narrowly escaped, only to find out that I had lost after I got to the final room.

It was interesting because none of the weapons I had seemed to work correctly. The swords were always a little flimsy; I kept trying to find one that was actually like hard steel. The daggers I never got to use, and the guns always had like 5 bullets to use before it was empty.

That’s the way my dreams always are when I have weapons, it makes a little sad ;_; I would like weapons that work considering dreams are the ONLY times I can use them to kill stuff in semi real life.

Blah, for all you dream interpreters got any idea what flawed weapons indicate :P? Haha.

Ah man, Edward Cullen. And that was the first time I dreamt of him too.