This is supposed to be a little overwritten, and I will get rid of a lot of the verbiage in a succeeding draft. Adverbs are one of the things I have to allow in a first draft to some extent or I don't feel the love, but then I can get rid of once my first pass is done.

This is me holding back, even. Sad, no? Thanks for the notes!

I will probably be posting parts of this as I go along, because it's begging me to be read aloud and have an audience, a serial sort of thing. I just can't get any of my siblings to sit still long enough WHILE I have the nerve.