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I'm making this a sticky post because I'm already tired of scrolling through my Guardian tag to get to it

As I continue to accumulate resources for This Fucking Show, I need somewhere to keep them other than in my Gmail drafts folder. So this post is mostly for my own resources but please please please feel free to hit me up with any others in comments.

Cut to save y'all's reading pages.  )
I'll continue to add to this post as I come across stuff. I get the feeling I might be in this fandom for a while. ETA:  Oh I'm definitely gonna be in this fandom for a while
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If you, a white person, are tired of hearing about racism in fandom imagine how tired non-white fans are of the abuse they continually suffer in our fan spaces. I know we are all tired and we want to enjoy our things, but what about the other people who want to enjoy those things, too? We need to accommodate for their needs. We need to provide them a safe space and it's beyond insulting, not to mention hurtful and rude, to suggest if they don't like it, they can just go elsewhere. Don't people notice how similar that sounds to "America? Don't love it? LEAVE!" Do you really want to be associated with that mentality?

Posts like this (Tumblr) are heartbreaking. How can we look at that creator and tell them to go away? That we're not willing to protect them?

We now know that AO3 has the resources to improve, they are aware there are issues, and there are lots of people out there with suggestions on how to begin the work. Yet people in the OTW, people on my DW read list, people everywhere, cry censorship and refuse action because it's not their job to make the call on what's allowed. The attitude discouraging for me, a white person. The emotional weight that puts on fans of color must be awful.

We've got to do better, and silence is complicit. Neutrality places us on the side of the oppressor. If we don't believe it's the responsibility of AO3 to protect its users from exposure to hateful, hurtful content, we are part of the problem.

I'm not asking my mutuals to make the decisions on what must be done--pretty sure none of y'all are on the OTW board. But I expect the people I'm mutuals with to support reform in fandom spaces. I expect my white mutuals to voice their support for anti-racist actions in fandom spaces. I'm done being friendly with white fans who don't engage with even the minimal point of agreeing we need change. I get being tired! I'm tired as fuck y'all, but I guarantee I'm not as tired (or at risk) as fans of color.

[personal profile] naye put together a truckload of anti-racism resources and links if you'd like to acquaint yourself with them. Let me see your voices. Let me see you asking for change.
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Wednesday's blahs were helped considerably by the fact that when the KC dentist vet's admin called to check on Miss Thing/Miette yesterday, the phone call went like this: Clicky click. )
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Twitter:
Bai Yu Heart Hands.
Fanart: Hugs.
Back on the swooning like Victorian maidens train.
Why is this method of tying people up so prevalent in Chinese media and why hasn't the rest of the world followed suit? 
You're pretty when you cry.

Tips on making Chinese food.

I don't feel guilty about not being the friend I used to be, but I dislike it a lot. This thread and the responses resonate hard.

Fun and exciting images under the cut )

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Twitter:
The glisten of (likely fake) sweat on Zhu Yilong's clavicle is outrageously mesmerizing and how have we all become such Victorians over this man?
Already there's a preview of my commissioned piece for Ghost Story!

More importantly, though, Sundial Exchange works were revealed this morning, and I feel so warm and special after rolling around in my three gifts--a story and two art treats!

[personal profile] rlyqueer 's language in No Matter How Long is just gorgeous. Such a beautiful story, based on the Time Engraver ad, with tons of magic and love. Thank you thank you, bb! [personal profile] rlyqueer also gifted me with a moodboard that could absolutely pair up with my own fic (link below) and that just charmed the hell out of me. I kinda wanna link to it in the notes of my story? Is that allowed? And [personal profile] naye gave me lovely Time Engraver visual vignettes that I now want to write about.

And now, the fic I wrote for [personal profile] ranalore : 
Elsewhere (6,738 words)
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Thermos "Magic Cottage" commercial
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Characters:  Bai Yu/Zhu Yilong Character combinations
Additional Tags: Fairytale Elements
Summary: A different sort of Jack tale

ETA: whoops! I just realized I mixed up my treat and my gift from [personal profile] rlyqueer . The fic is a treat and the moodboard is my gift. This makes the fact that it so wonderfully matches my own gift to [personal profile] ranalore even more delightful!!!!
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A fairly small Untamed collection today.

Twitter:
The sheer physicality of the scene where Shen Wei catches a swooning Zhao Yunlan--the strength and trust required for that--is just staggeringly erotic.

I am mortally offended that I cannot immediately purchase this calendar. If anyone knows where I can do so in a reasonable manner, please let me know.

A lovely thread on Jiang Yanli from The Untamed.

Let me be clear, I hate paparazzi photos and other pics where it's obvious someone snapped a photo of a celebrity in a private moment but I also need to tell y'all I had an Actual Meltdown when I saw this pic and video of Zhu Yilong smoking. My smoking kink is apparently strong enough to overpower the angel of my better nature because when I say Actual Meltdown, I'm not shitting you, even I was embarrassed for me. It was bad.

Neither Guardian or Untamed related, but this clip of RM (from BTS) is just... The dude is fucking talented.

Would someone (looking in [personal profile] bonibaru 's direction) tell me what is the significance of Xiao Zhan singing ABBA? I am obviously missing out on a delightful cultural reference here and it's killing me.

[personal profile] naye, I got your card yesterday and it moved my heart of stone to tears. Actual, legit tears. Thank you thank you thank you. It made me feel so good. I love fandom as a thing, and I love the fandoms I'm in, and the fact that Guardian fandom has been so welcoming and friendly to me is just... it's really great. *warm fuzzies*

Speaking of cards, I am getting a new airbrush for my birthday! It's scheduled to arrive by this weekend so perhaps I will be motivated to work on those cards I promised everyone Actual Ages Ago. The brush itself cost twice as much as the entire rig I got last year, so it had better be more reliable. At least the old one came with a good air compressor so it wasn't a complete waste.

Writing is not coming easily lately and I'm not sure why. Uncertainty about character motivation for one is definitely a problem for one (the History 3: Trapped PWP) but I don't know why Deconstruction is giving me such a hard ti.... oh, oh yeah I do. Never mind, ha ha! Typing it out made me realize--I've got everything but the last chapter and epilogue of Ghost Story back from beta so my brain really wants to stay there where the water is nice and warm and soft and easy and doesn't involve creating new stuff. Revisions, y'all. I like revising soooo much more than writing. sigh. Welp.

At least I got my [community profile] sundial_exchange  fic uploaded!

*puts on headphones and big girl pants to get cracking on Actual Writing*

clevermanka: (hugo award winner)
Twitter:
Weilan CEO/Secretary AU or Inception
[personal profile] bonibaru suggested an Untamed Pern AU and y'all I was tempted but thank dogs FayJay came through and yes, I am subscribed.
Kinda sad Weilan kisses
We don't often get Shen Wei surprising Zhao Yunlan with a kiss, so this is very nice.
Lipstick kisses

Not Guardian or Untamed (or Twitter, I guess): 
I mentioned in a comment on bonibaru's DW about how the RWA meltdown reminded me of the puppies and the Hugos and welp, CALLED IT.

Am ensconced at a friend's* for the week. You know those jokes about how black people and white people keep their houses at radically different temperatures? I might actually die here. *laugh-cry emoji* But oh god it's so good to be in a quiet space with no expectations on me. He's having an ex over for brunch and since the ex and I got along,  I'm invited to join. \o/ I started my henna extra early this morning so I wouldn't be sitting at the table with a head full of mud. I wasn't due to touch up until next week but I wanna look good for NYE. Head full of mud isn't helping the overheating.

* My former work BFF and upcoming NYE party partner

This week's snippet from Deconstruction:
He’d wanted to kiss Zhao Yunlan on that bench, so much. He always did, always had, but especially then, when he knew that sort of an unseen miracle, he was unlikely to survive the final confrontation with Ye Zun. His lips, teeth, and tongue had tingled with an ache he nearly couldn’t suppress. But what right had he to doom Zhao Yunlan to heartbreak? If he couldn’t offer the life Zhao Yunlan deserved, better that only one of them should suffer this lonely heartbreak.

OMG y'all, check out the gorgeous cover art [personal profile] naye made for [personal profile] bonibaru's podfic of Lollipop! I LOVE EVERYONE IN THIS BAR.


dSSS 2019

Dec. 25th, 2019 08:52 am
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I wanted to make a separate post for my due South Sekrit Santa gifts (yes! plural! someone gave me a treat in addition to my exchange gift!) so they didn't get lost in that other giant post. I love them so much.

I'm so heart-eyes over my exchange gift I can't even tell you: What I am when I am with you Look at all that soft love and beauty! 

And my treat, which I'm just...someone made me something they weren't assigned? and it's perfect: eeeeeeeeee! Ice Cream Love

Both are Frannie/Elaine because this world needs more Frannie and Elaine!
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I figured out where to put the porn in Accidental Voyeur. Nobody is surprised.

Twitter finds:
Gentle affection in the SID office seen from above. (I like this artist and I love that piece in particular)
It's sad-making that Zhu Yilong and Bai Yu probably won't ever get another gig together.
Bai Yu cuddling Da Qing's cat actor.
Shen Wei is embarrassed and Zhao Yunlan loves it.
Why why why didn't I give Ghost Story's ZYL tattoos
I feel like maybe this piece is more reflective of novel!verse than drama!verse (idk I haven't read it), but I love the visual of Shen Wei literally coming apart in Zhao Yunlan's arms.
Thanks to this Twitter thread, there is no need to watch My True Friend for the Zhu Yilong parts.
"re: a certain article praising cql for its restraint in showing a slow burn romance: censorship and other restrictions cause a lot of interesting creative work as creators develop tactics to survive life under oppression. those tactics should not be credited to the oppressors."

Ghost Story is back from beta! *eeeeeeeeeeeeeee!*

I need to flesh out one scene (which I kinda knew already) and sent it to a second reader to see *cough* if she thinks there's too much sex. I mean...there is a lot of sex (bc lbr I love to write it) but I want to make sure it's not getting old by the end. I want that last sex scene to have a big emotional punch and not start with a feeling of "oh god, more sex?"

Wednesday's reading was fine.Two people read from stories not by them and they were both notoriously, famously bad fics. Everyone but me thought it was hilarious. I thought it was, idk, kinda shitty? I mean, we in fandom laugh at My Immortal but when you present it to the general public as something to be mocked I...didn't like it. I was, in fact, made really uncomfortable by it and I was glad I went first so I didn't have to read after one of them. In fact, only three of the six pieces read weren't presented in a satirical way. I'm going to tell the organizer that I won't participate in next semester's fanfic open mic night if people read stuff they didn't write as an opportunity to mock it. People might think I'm stick-in-the-mud about it, but oh well.

Another kinda weird thing I didn't think was cool was there was someone there from the student newspaper to cover the event but none of the readers were told ahead of time. The organizer said she hadn't told anyone "so nobody got nervous" but I'm kinda like...that's...not...consensual? She asked us afterward who didn't want their image/whatever to be used, but I'm like, couldn't they have done that to begin with? And just, you know, not covered the people who didn't want to be? 

IDK the whole thing seemed a little off from a fan perspective and the more I think about it the more I'm bothered by it.

Late addition but if I wait until tomorrow, everyone will have already linked to it:
CNY Sundial Exchange

A Chinese New Year multi-fanwork exchange at [community profile] sundial_exchange. For Guardian and Guardian-related canons.
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From Twitter:
Sweet-sad Weilan hug.
Pure sweet Weilan kissing with SW  in casual wear.
Nice compilation vid of various Zhu Yilong roles. If anyone sees this on YouTube, lemme know so I  can put it in my Zhu Yilong vid playlist.

Speaking of playlists, I think it's funny how that song has been used twice that I've seen for Zhu Yilong vids and it's on my Ye Zun playlist (which I should probably make available since it's got a reasonable number of songs, now). Note: I would have sworn that was an Imagine Dragons song until I looked for a link.

Drama An unfortunate situation prompted some good discussion in Guardian fandom recently. [personal profile] bonibaru 's post on consent, tagging, and other issues was timely because I'm grappling with how to tag Ghost Story (the most notable one is does the entire fic need a major archive warning for non-con or will a chapter tag suffice). Excellent conversations in [personal profile] starandrea 's post about writing things and I'm so glad you wound up writing the post, thank you. [personal profile] xparrot 's thoughts on engaging with fandom are great as well.

I think by the time I have the brain space to make my own response to it everything will have completely died down (wouldn't be the worst outcome), so I'll take just a moment for a public resolution. I will be better about diplomatically pointing out what I see as potentially troubling behavior/statements in my fandom spaces when I see them rather than assume everyone in the fandom is cool with the status quo. Might as well put my thick skin to use somewhere.

Someone contacted me on Monday night about translating my Guardian fics into Russian!  I, uh...might've sounded a little deranged with my enthusiastic YES. I've been excited about new Guardian stuff from Russian fans on my Tumblr dash and now someone wants to spend the time and effort translating my fics for them?  o_O I'm...just...floored. Wow.

Revising Ghost Story from the top over the next couple days, hope to send the whole fic to beta by this weekend.
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Mostly. I've been adding to this post for like four days. Time to just publish it.
Cut to save your reading pages )

Oh, and I only got three paragraphs into the sex scene before I had to tap out. This is just not working for me and I'm pretty sure now it's not the ~issue with narrative~ like before (and unfortunately, is not as easy a fix). Taking today off from writing to fuck around in the craft room. Cover a couple more tea canisters and maybe make an art card or two. Anyone want an art card (similar to what I did for my Con*Strict name badge)? I don't mind mailing internationally. Heck, if you want a tea canister and are willing to help with shipping, I'll make you one of those too. I got my dSSS assignment, so I need to get my hand back in that game before I go producing an exchange gift. 
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My card is here.

Thanks to [personal profile] glymr for helping me fill the square about sharing a resource link on my resources post. And thanks to [personal profile] asya_ana  for helping with two more squares--watching vids from 2018 and 2019. I had already planned to fill the Comment on a fic from 2019 square by finally taking the time to comment on [personal profile] sakana17 's Layer by Layer. I'm slowly making my way through the series so I can savor it. So. Good.

But anyway, none of those three are on the same line as the one I'd planned to tackle, so now...hm. At least I have a nice head start if I decide to go in a different direction?

In boring life shit: On Saturday my back (between my shoulder blades) started twinging and this morning it kinda hurt to breathe deep so off to the chiropractor. I do feel better, now, but I probably shoulda put off exercise until the weekend. I'm going back Friday for a hopefully-final alignment because it definitely does not feel as good now (after a paltry 20 minutes on the recumbent bike) as it did when I left her office.

I want lunch but there is (hilariously) nothing thawed that I feel like eating. The packaged box of greens that I was banking on lasting one more day didn't. So the salad I'd hoped for is not happening. *sad trombone* Anyone want to take me out to a late lunch? 
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This Guardian Twitter thread is 100% accurate. The "don't you dare try to fckin sacrifice yourself again you stubborn mf" line could be the show's tagline (or, more appropriately and likely perhaps) an episode title.

The new OTW icon that showed up in my email this morning (see icon) made me laugh so hard I actually cried. Don't piss off the combo of lawyers and librarians, y'all. Especially lawyers and librarians who are mostly women.


Got my Bingo card!
Row 1: Rec a hidden gem. Guardian Lantern. Read a fic from 2018. Watch a vid from 2019. Share a resource link on the resource post or your DW. Row 2: Comment on a rewatch or episode discussion post on DW. Comment on a squee or picspam post on DW. Rec fanwork(s) from 2019 on DW. Comment on fanart from 2018. Merit Brush. Row 3: Post on DW about a specific scene, episode or chapter. Comment on fanart from 2019. All Four Hallows. Add something to the wiki. Watch a vid from 2018. Row 4: Listen to the OST, a fansong, etc. Post to sid_guardian. Comment on a fic from 2019. Longevity Dial. Check out a link from the resource post. Row 5: Mountain-River Awl. Read a fic from 2019. Check out people on the friending meme or welcome post. View fanart or icons from 2018. Comment on a squee or picspam post on DW.

This week's Tumblr collection is Tuesday, October 15: Floors.
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Ughhhh I woke up super out of sorts. Maybe I'm still hungover from Meatpocalypse, idk. I'm anxious and sad and blahhhhhhhhh. I do not like these emotions and I would like to exchange them for something less itchy, please.

At least I had a good writing day, yesterday. 1,500 words of People Having Difficult Discussions. Good times!

I'm nearly halfway done with The Untamed but the latest fuckery with people getting banned for supporting Hong Kong is making me feel gross about consuming more Chinese content. No ethical consumerism etc. etc. but ugh. I just... *sigh* Is anyone else dealing with this or am I being one of those Annoying People At Parties? Here's a list of companies who have complied with China's censorship requests regarding Hong Kong.

Spent an hour today trying to write the next (literal) fucking part of Ghost Story (I'm alllllmost in the home stretch, y'all! It's nearly Spring Break!) and I'm gonna scrap the whole scene. It's not telling the right story, you know? I'd like to use it 'cos tbh it's pretty fuckin' hot if-I-do-say-so-myself but because of Ghost Story's (obviously) weird sex logistics, it's not like I could use it in a future fic. I might see if I can get it to work for a later (unplanned) sexy scene. Dogs know I've done that at least once already in this fic and I doubt anyone will mind. If someone actually does, well, scroll bar's to the right.

Okay, self. Time to write some fuckin'. Once more, with (the right) feeling.

ETA: Thanks, Tumblr, for occasionally coming through on shit like this!

Scattershot

Oct. 7th, 2019 08:05 am
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I tried to put this under a cut but apparently DW doesn't let you paste a bullet list under a cut? IDK. LJ's cut tag function is the only thing I like better about that platform. le sigh Sorry this will take up a bit of real estate on your reading pages.

Found on Twitter:
  • Kyoshi Warriors cosplay at New York Comic Con.
  • Me, a bridge member of Gen X and a survivor of Windows 95: *watches while rocking back and forth, measuring the progress bar religiously at intervals, saying incantations for a safe install
  • Weilan fanart that puts into perfect visual that moment in Lollipop when ZYL tips backward into the bed. I know the artist didn't purposefully illustrate my fic, but other than them wearing the wrong clothes, that's 100% how I pictured it.
  • Super cute Zhu Jiu fanart
  • Gorgeous Weilan fanart promoting a library event (?)
  • This short Twitter thread from [personal profile] naye makes me happy for people in non-shithole countries with reasonable employment laws. When I got sick(er), my department chair at the time fought me every step of the way, including telling me I couldn't work from home any more than I already had (even though I could absolutely do at least 75% of my job remotely). When a new chair took over the department, she was supportive of my cautious return-to-work schedule but her efforts couldn't save me from being laid off (a university decision based, I'm sure, largely on my long absences despite stellar annual reviews and a spotless 20-year employment history in the job). 
  • Fairy tale Weilan fanart. After loving FayJay's Guardian Gothic so much, I am here for more Guardian fairy AUs. I mean, I'm always up for fairy tales, especially ones with Actual Faerie Danger, so this isn't surprising. So who's up for writing them? It's not me! I have a Canadian Shack, a porny one-shot, and Garage Mechanic AU lined up. Get on it, folks!
  • I love behind the scenes stuff (such a sucker for DVD extras) and this bts photo from Guardian cracks me up. That is exactly the Zhu Hong in Ghost Story's expression after Zhao Yunlan has made yet another spectacularly bad life choice. Poor thing looks So Done.
From Tumblr, can anyone explain to me what is happening in this with the nose-punch? This one's Chinese, not Korean, like the other fanart translation I was wondering about (which, btw, thank you, [personal profile] umadoshi <3 !). Yet another thing my job loss took--fun and simple access to people speaking loads of different language (a rarity here in the heartland of these fine united states).

Couple days ago I saw this headline about China breeding pigs "the size of polar bears" and then yesterday I saw this one about pigs using tools. Maybe this is the sign of the true end times. In this, the worst timeline, we're going to be taken over by my favorite animal for eating. I always suspected it might be the case, but it appears that yes, I probably am going to be one of the first against the wall in this age's revolution.

Before the revolution comes, though, I want to go back and comment to so many fics I've read lately. I have three that I want to leave oodles of glowing praise for, but my brain cells are currently occupied elsewhere. It's good consolation to know that it's always fun to get comments weeks after posting.

Everyone and their dog (including people I usually agree with) is raving about that damn Atlantic article so I feel like I need to go read it again. See what/how I read it wrong. That's absolutely taking second priority to the comment-leaving though, for reasons which can be (ironically?) inferred from the article itself. Hard to get motivated to do so, though, when this article by Laurie Penny (I love her so much y'all, she has yet to disappoint me with anything) is fucking brilliant and moving. I'm including it in this week's dump, but it pairs well as a companion piece to the Atlantic one, imo.

Waiting for [personal profile] mckitterick to get up so I can start cooking. Probably the best way to do that is start working on Ghost Story...
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[personal profile] fairestcat posted:I'm So Fucking Tired of Revisionist Fandom History.

This Weilan-or-Zhubai-or-something fanart (technically SFW but maybe wait until you're alone to view it) hit me where. I. fuckin'. live. yo.

I have recovered from the file saving fuckery. Mostly. I went back to a few days before The Loss and found some revisions that were still missing. For the most part I think it's okay. I got some new stuff written yesterday, too. Eleven words short of my daily 1k goal and that was good enough. Things are kind of a slog right now, story-wise. I put off the next big sex scene because it didn't fit into the narrative at this point. Where I'm putting it will work much better, but it means I've got about a month of story time that I need to fill with something other than, you know, fucking. /o\

Dear dogs I look forward to writing a PWP again.

This morning I am driving to a neighboring small town to pick up the half side of beef I split every year with two friends. Unfortunately for me, they are both out of town so they're not around to help as usual with the dividing up. And then I gotta deposit it in their freezers. At least they both live on kinda the same side of town.

[personal profile] mckitterick is gonna help with the carting around, but he's tired and unsettled from a disaster trip to Chicago where not only did the beloved Crossfire die while there, he didn't accomplish what he needed to do. Like get a visa so he can go to China and secure funding for the SF Center so we don't have to worry about money so much what with my being unemployed. But no, the car died and he was stuck in a repair shop up north of the city. He's supposed to leave in three weeks, the Chinese consulate in Chi-town is the only place he can get a visa, and there's no way he can make another trip. So he's gonna have to track down someone he knows there (maybe one of his former students) to do the legwork for him. Because you can't do any of this by mail. Anyway.

Good times.

Okay I gotta get ready to go pick up dead cow parts.
 
ETA: Chicago is about a nine hour drive from us and he absolutely hates flying so no zippy there-and-back for him.

Scattershot

Oct. 2nd, 2019 07:14 am
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Discovered on Monday that 30 minutes at anything other than minimum resistance on the stationary bike is too much. Got home feeling mostly okay, but halfway through a bowl of soup I got hit with the Fatigue Bat and wound up sleeping for an hour and a half. *sigh* So Tuesday I didn't gym, but I did 90 minutes of deep tissue work a friend who's going through some shit. It's still early so I'm going to see how I feel after the sun comes up before I make the decision to gym today.

I don't enjoy being reminded that recovery is not linear, and for some problems it's only over when everything else is. =\

Writing is going better now, but I had a rough time this weekend. Everything was a fuckin' slog. Even the actual fuckin'  was more of an exercise in (my) stamina than an indulgence. I'm itching to start Canadian Shack, and fanart like this Is Not Helping.

Speaking of fic, fan responses to the AO3 Hugo continue to be fantastic.
I am done with listening to gatekeeping men who want to put lines around our creativity, who want to declare that while yes, two authors can both win for "best novella" and a team of 6 can win a "best fanzine" or "best podcast" award, a team of a million can't possibly win the "best related work" award.

I have such a smoking kink, y'all. Have some Bai Yu as Detective L pushing A LOT of my buttons

If you don't already subscribe to R. Eric Thomas's newsletter, I highly recommend it. This week's made me seriously and for real laugh out loud more than once.

Literal. Ice. Knives. Thanks, [personal profile] naye ! Speaking of OUCH, [personal profile] frith_in_thorns  has a great h/c conversation on their DW that focuses on the hurt aspect. It's not Guardian-specific, so for those (few) of you not in the fandom can still appreciate the discussion. That said, if you, too, are in the Hurts So Pretty camp, I can't recommend the show enough.

Wishing (for several reasons) that there was any hope I could finish Ghost Story this month to fulfill October's theme of Full Moons, Hauntings, and Harvests at [community profile] brush_and_lantern . I started it August 20, and the only days I haven't written something were August 28 and 29 for a current total of 50,042 words. That's (I think--math is not my strong suit and tbh my ability to count reliably above fourteen is questionable), twenty-nine days of writing, with an average of 1,725 words a day. So in theory I could finish writing it (I'm just over halfway through the story's nine-month timeline) but let's get real, I do have something of a life to live, minimal though it be, and I wouldn't ever expect a beta to get through this monster before the 31st. Kinda fun to think about, though!

A less expensive version of this happened in every. single. restaurant (oh, except for the pizzaria in Venice) we went to in Italy (back in 2007). We eventually stopped eating in actual restaurants and stuck to taking advantage of bars that served food (which was usually better and less expensive).

ETA: just saw on [community profile] sid_guardian  that Guardian is good to go for Yuletide and it frustrates me that this might be the only time I can participate (I'm rarely this involved in a fandom, much less a small one) and I don't think I can because of energy resources. I'm still waffling on signing up for due South Sekrit Santa, even. /o\
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Wow, Chinese sure is a fascinating language. The more I learn about it, the more I'm 1) impressed (at both the language and the people who learn it) and 2) completely uninterested in learning it myself this lifetime. My poor little brain. It boggles.

I mentioned in a comment on [personal profile] jo_lasalle 's post yesterday my headcanon for the Dixing King curse thing: My personal headcanon is this only happened after the Guardian lantern went out (which is why it seems to come as a shock to Shen Wei?). Dixing needs some sort of sacrifice to stay functioning at even a bare existence level. Pretty sure this was influenced by my love of fairyland lore because that's 100% some tiend-to-hell shit and I am always here for fairy rules. I'm gonna be sort-of addressing it in a hand-wavey fashion in the Canadian Shack fic but I'm not letting myself think about it too much. I am not sinking myself into two WIPs, especially two that don't share a POV character. I know my brain's limits, and that way lies madness.

In a different exchange, [personal profile] naye coined the phrase "Consensually Attacked." It so accurately describe the (ice) knives this fandom hands each other so we can then stab our own selves in the heart. Repeatedly. I wonder if the reason I fell so easily into this fandom is we're all a bunch of emotional sadomasochists. As I commented in [personal profile] naye 's post:


Oh fandom. <3
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Jaw-droppingly good Weilan cosplay found on Twitter. Just...that third pic especially ? Good Lord.

Haven't written anything since I sent the third fic to beta and am actually feeling a little...at sea? It's weird. I I want to start on the Space Poem but idk, my brain isn't being cooperative. I have lots of good lines for it--just need the inspiration to put them together.

But today I have a headache and what I want to do is veg out on the couch with fic and food and Kpop music videos in between. What I am  going to do, though, is peel myself away from this computer and go work in the kitchen since we have literally nothing to eat in this house that doesn't require extensive food prep. So....

*channeling my inner Shen Wei for cooking inspiration*

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Vegas took me two and a half days to recover and I'm not feeling great today. Not thrilled to be getting back on a plane this Sunday but at least it's just to Indy to see my folks and will (I hope?) be less wearying. It was informative to re-experience Extreme Fatigue again. yaaaay

Had a great conversation with [personal profile] jo_lasalle  about one of her squicks that gave me a bunch of good information and insights into how to better the First Time fic I'm writing. I appreciate her taking the time to talk with me about it and I hate so much the fandom stance of "this thing makes me feel icky and you should feel bad for writing/reading about it." And then of course there are the "well I love this thing and you're stupid and weird for not liking it" but at least I haven't noticed that they're as vocal as the antis. We'll always have Dworkins and the like, but maybe(?) the majority of people who spout that stuff will eventually come around to the non-censorship side of things. (probably not, but we need to hold to some small fantasies)

Speaking of the First Time fic, I'm a bit over 4k words and they're finally doing it. So much for this being a short fic. I guess this happens all the time? 

Elizabeth and Gav accepted my offer to do a Guardian guest intro/primer for The Rec Center so that's frexciting. I've got the essay portion done but I'm coming up against a wall with the rec list. Y'all. Guardian fics that don't have, like, a zillion spoilers are thin on the ground. I'm including Constellation (because obviously) and Love Touch (also hot and mostly spoiler-free). Also the vid Augustine and links to a couple fanartists (Marmaladica and Breeze Wong). But that's only two fics and they're both porny. If anyone has suggestions for T or G Guardian fics that aren't AU or full of spoilers, please hit me up? Or if there's an AU that you think doesn't need knowledge of the characters in canon to get, that works, too. I'm leaning toward including Not All Those Who Wander (handily rated T) and If Life Was A Movie (also T) and I think I'm set for recs! \o/

ETA:  [personal profile] forestofglory had the brilliant suggestion of having someone look over my pitch post before I send it off. Any volunteers? 

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