Clever Manka is dressed and undressed

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

You know how you're innocently going about your own business, listening to music while recovering from your single task of the day, and out of nowhere a song whollops you in the feels regarding a certain fictional character?

Thank you to everyone who weighed in on yesterday's conundrum! I appreciate everyone's thoughts. ( Cut for long-ish post and today's snippet )

Twitter: 
Forehead kisses!
This bts-ish selfie does things to me.
Still here for that Inception AU.
Screen Door. Hurricane.
No acting required (tag yourself, I'm the one turning away and hiding her face to avoid spontaneous combustion).

Today's another Guardian picspam on my Tumblr.

This was my absolute worst fear as a graduate secretary.

Resumed the current Guardian rewatch this week (hoping it would help inspire my return to Deconstruction), and... Okay, so in episode 10, when Shen Wei, Zhao Yunlan, and Zhu Hong are discussing how the students and Da Qing are still sleeping off Wang Zheng's drugs, Chu Shuzhi and Guo Changcheng run up to them, all awake and stuff. Where, exactly, had they been sleeping and why weren't they still? Hit me up with your theories, please.

Okay, fuck it. I removed my fic from the Make Me Feel collection and posted it my damn self. Grousing in comments.

Worth the Wait (3295 words)
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 镇魂 | Guardian (TV)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Shěn Wēi/Zhào Yúnlán
Characters: Shěn Wēi, Zhào Yúnlán
Additional Tags: First Time, Virginity
Summary: Shen Wei couldn't believe Zhao Yunlan was actually a virgin, but when had life ever presented him with something he expected?

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:


A Chinese New Year multi-fanwork exchange at sundial_exchange. For Guardian and Guardian-related canons.

From Twitter:
A soft not-quite-kiss moment (love the lines in this).
Jesus, bonibaru , just @ me next time. (for the record, this was true before the recent relationship stuff)
I feel kinda stupid about this, but I didn't realize that Zhu Yilong has an official Insta? I looked once, a while ago, with no luck. Can someone pretty please link me to the damn thing? 
Clothing swap fanart for Weilan week. I love Shen Wei's irritation and Zhao Yunlan's delight.
Another Weilan week artwork for the "Family" theme--"Da Qing is probably rolling his eyes."

Not!Guardian:
I thought the Telepathy stuff in The Untamed was like their Empathy spell (spell? not "spell," but what's the correct term?) but this thread makes me think maybe not? alllllllllllll the spoilers fyi.
The heartwarming saga of a father and his daughter's hamster.

Huge sigh of relief, I found a beta for my dSSS fic, and I finished writing it yesterday afternoon! I think for my first fic in a fandom, it's not too shabby. Here's hoping my beta agrees and my recipient doesn't hate it!

Also relieved that I figured out what I'm gonna read for the fanfic open mic night that my (former)graduate students are hosting next Wednesday. A section of Lollipop (from when they portal into ZYL's apartment, up to the line “I couldn’t say. Obviously I have no personal experience with the subject.”) took me about 11 minutes to read aloud (20 minute time limit). I could read it from the top (16 minutes), but then I would have to pronounce Cong Bo, Zhao Xinci, and Minister Guo and I'm like, ehhhhh. No. Mad respect tobonibaru for reading it in its entirety, and a salute to all the podficcers in this fandom, seriously.

A local friend told me about Co-Star Astrology on Instagram because I love how accurate most shitty internet horoscope stuff is for me (apparently I'm a near-textbook Aquarius or something). A recent one made me roll my eyes, though, because excuse you, I like to leave difficult emotions turned off as much as possible okay? Those things itch and give me a headache.

Twitter finds:
Love Shen Wei holding a hair elastic in his teeth while styling Zhao Yunlan's Kunlun hair.

yantantether posted a distracting collection of Zhu Yilong photos and in the comments qikiqtarjuaq noted that his trousers are undone in that lying-on-his-back-in-the-water one. Harper's Bazaar China, truly Coming For My Life. I mentioned how that image has been my laptop wallpaper since that damn shoot hit the internet and it is a testament to Zhu Yilong's hideous beautiful face that I never noticed the open trousers. Now, of course, that's all I see. I want to open them more

I never understood how people wrote so many fics for a fandom. I could imagine one, maaaaaybe two possible ideas for a few of the shows I'd watched, but dozens? Hundreds? Incredible! Magical! Y'all are wizards!

Then I started writing and I now understand the danger (delight? danger? both, both is good?) of plot bunnies. Thanks to stultiloquentia, I now have a corset fic in my list of potentials. It's been a long time since I spent any time in a corset (well, technically, a bodice), but the memories are visceral, y'all. Some things don't fade. So add Corset Fic to: Canadian Shack, Lollipop prequel, Shen Wei getting fucked over his desk (fromyantantether 's porn plot bunny post), and the Garage Mechanic AU.

GOOD LORD. So y'all are still wizards for writing that much (still can't imagine hundreds--hundreds!) but now I see that magic is a curse as well as a blessing. =D

Most anything new from Ghost Story is gonna be highly spoilery at this point, but here's something from early last week. A conversation, completely unrelated to the plot, between Zhao Yunlan and Chu Shuzi--who only appears a few times in this fic, sorry, but I am highly entertained by my version of him .

“So, um, it’s none of my business, you can tell me to fuck off, but what are you two gonna do, after? After he leaves, I mean.”

He had no idea what he’d said, but the look Chu Shuzi gave him clearly indicated he’d said something idiotic.

“Sorry,” he said, holding up a hand. “None of my business.”

“I’m going to go get him.” Obviously, Chu Shuzi's tone indicated. “I’ve written his uncle about my intentions.” He looked offended that Zhao Yunlan would have thought any less of him.

Zhao Yunlan was glad to have the cover of dope smoke to explain the next several seconds he spent choking. “Uh, wow. Um. Very…traditional of you! I guess? Uh. Does he…have you…”

A flicker of emotion passed over Chu Shuzi’s face before resuming its usual implacability. Zhao Yunlan suspected it had been delight at his shock. 

“Not until I hear back from his uncle.”

That made sense. Zhao Yunlan nodded. “What’ll you do if the uncle doesn’t approve?”

Chu Shuzi cocked an eyebrow. “I won’t give advance notice that I’m coming to get his nephew.”

Twitter finds: 
Zhu Yilong's handsssssssssss.
Guardian behind the scenes clips I hadn't seen yet.
Not Guardian!
“Cowboy Bebop is just your extended family from Winston Salem.”
What's your ao3 tag (based on your birthday)? Mine is Angst with post-breakup, fuck you very much?

My Guardian bingo badges! I actually made a blackout! I'm a rockstar.


I was merrily skipping along on Ghost Story yesterday when I realized WHOOPS IT'S TIME FOR THE NEXT SCHEDULED SEX SCENE. I've been so narrowly focused on getting through the current plot issues that I just...did not see it coming. Well done, my focus, but damn, that was a shift of gears when I got to the transitional section and realized "oh, right, the [spoiler redacted] sex goes here."

Since a snippet from the sex would be super-spoilery, here's Zhu Hong being a badass:
She moved her wrist in a quick motion, folding her fingers in an intricate pattern before stepping forward. He followed, slowly, frustrated and worried by Ye Zun’s strong presence. The air grew colder, wetter, and put up increasing resistance. With every step, the pressure in his ears grew until the tiny bones started to ache. Could Ye Zun rupture his eardrums? He clenched his teeth together and kept moving forward. It felt like he’d walked for miles. Zhu Hong was a few steps ahead. How was the room so far away? Turning to face the door, she touched it, testing. She waited for Zhao Yunlan to stand behind her before turning the knob and throwing the door open.

I'm in the home stretch of the story (four more weeks of story time plus epilogue) and it's possible (not necessarily probable but possible!) that I'll be done writing it by the end of the week. Eeeeeeeeeeeee!

(a lot) From Twitter:
Someone unintentionally made an illustration for Ghost Story! (thank you naye , for retweeting it)
Shen Wei fumbling with Zhao Yunlan's belt/fly in this piece of fanart is breaking me.
There is mention of this manip in a fanvid and I want to know where is the fmv please?
Just when you think you're going to expire from Bai Yu's face...his tongue makes an appearance.
Zhu Yilong's traps, delts, and lats clearly visible through his white shirt jesus take the wheel.
And this I actually found on FB  through a google search for supercut of Zhu Yilong spitting blood. #NoRegrets #NoShame
and actually not Guardian related! 
If you haven't seen the Degas-style studies of Tom Holland's lip sync battle, you really should.

Found a Tumblr with detailed, spoiler-heavy re-watch posts for The Untamed. They're currently at episode eight (posted on November 4).

I did a poor job of tracking most of my Guardian bingo squares and I  feel like an asshole about that because I've gotten so many good links from people posting what they did. Apologies for not returning the favor. Mea culpa. In my defense, it was track those or make better progress on Ghost Story and Ghost Story won. But I figure I should at least note what I did to fulfill the Hallows squares:

Longevity Dial: Tonight I'm watching the final two episodes with someone in meatspace I'd talked into watching the show and nursing her through the trauma.

Mountain-River Awl: By sheer luck, I discovered I hadn't left a comment on xparrot 's gorgeously angsty Now Lie in It (which, god, the title alone is heartbreakingly perfect) so I rectified that.

Merit Brush: I'm counting all my links to Twitter posts for this.

Guardian Lantern: Still to go. I won't be posting a fanwork before the deadline (sob!), but I'll work on a love letter this weekend. I would like to recognize mekare, though, as being the reason I'm here. Thanks, bb! Your artwork and screencaps/gifs brought me to the party and I'm so grateful.

Things are Physically Not Great which bleeds right into depression for me. Amazing how an inability to move bums me out! Haven't made it back to the gym since Tuesday's crash. It's difficult enough getting up the (one) flight of stairs in my house. That's a solid indication of a fatigue flare-up even though my brain is (mostly) staying online. I danced around the living room to a couple songs yesterday afternoon, just to do something and it felt so good. But last night's sleep was fractured and I woke exhausted--indicative of high cortisol levels which means I gotta take it real easy today or risk putting myself in a hole for several days in a row.

I hate this.

At least I have Ghost Story and the internet!