Hils's journal

June Something Questions

Day 6: What's a fandom that you wish had a bigger following?

I'm going to sound like an asshole but I kind of like that the fandoms I'm in at the moment are small. Smaller fandoms have more of a family feel to them. We all know each other and support each other. I'm not saying smaller fandoms are drama free but there is definitely less, and everyone is just so happy for new fanworks that everyone jumps in when something gets posted.

So, yeah, I'm pretty happy with things the way they are, thanks.

But if you want me to talk to you about Guardian or DMBJ I am happy to do so :D

I'm aware I haven't posted here in a month so I just wanted to check in and let everyone know I'm still alive. Still not going out much even though I'm fully vaccinated but I'm starting to ease myself back in. Took my car into the garage last week and went into town for a couple of hours while I waited because I didn't want to take a bus home and back again. It wasn't too bad. It was a Friday so most people were at work which was probably a good way to start. I popped into the pharmacy to get some more allergy meds and there was one other person in there, and I popped into a restaurant that was doing takeout food only to get something to eat and that wasn't too busy either. Then I found a nice bench and read a book until I got the call to say my car was ready.

That's a bit weight off my mind at least. There's a few small issues with my car that I've been getting by with that are now fixed so I don't need to worry about them anymore.

The big exciting news is that I'm finally going to see my parents. They've both also been fully vaccinated and Scotland has loosened the rules where they live meaning it's okay for 2 households to mix. I'm heading up on 12th June and will be coming back on the 20th. I haven't seen them since December 2019 so it's going to be super weird. My aunt has also invited me to visit so I can pet her kitties (I haven't touch a cat or a dog since December 2019 either) and has said my cousin will cook us dinner. My cousin is a trained restaurant chef so I'm excited by that. Restaurant quality food without having to go to a restaurant!

It's also going to be the first full week I've had off work since February 2020. Don't get me wrong I've been taking days off, but it's mostly been a Friday or a Monday to have a long weekend rather than any sort of extended break. I can't wait!

Work is ticking along and I feel like I jinx it every time I announce I'm done with recruitment so let's just say I currently don't have any interviews lined up...

Fandom stuff is also ticking along. I finally finished Nirvana in Fire. It was excellent. Jacqui and I watched Word of Honor together. She loved it and has already ordered some merch. I didn't hate it or anything but it didn't grab me the way some other shows have.

Drama watching is now on hold while I play the Mass Effect: Legendary Edition. I'm almost at the end of the first game and Jacqui is enjoying watching me play it so she doesn't have to play it herself.

I have no idea what we're going to watch when I've finished all three games. I have a list, of course, but there's nothing on the 'omg must watch immediately' list. I'll see what takes my fancy when I'm ready I guess.

I've posted a couple of fics this month and my current WIP is done and in the process of being edited. My word count for the year is now at 69k (nice) which is incredible I honestly don't know how I've managed it. Writing in small bursts is clearly a method that works for me because I can't remember the last time I got this much written.

This is what I've posted since my last update on here:

Title: Go On As Three
Fandom: The Lost Tomb Reboot
Pairing: Wang Pangzi/Wu Xie/Zhang Qiling
Rating: Explicit
Summary: “Hi,” he whispers softly, so as not to wake Xiaoge. He’s also trying not to move because Xiaoge’s head is currently resting on his shoulder, but with Pangzi touching him like this it’s proving a little more difficult. “Happy month-late birthday.”

Title: Sun-soakin' Bulges in the Shade
Fandom: The Lost Tomb Reboot
Pairing: Wang Pangzi/Wu Xie/Zhang Qiling
Rating: Teen
Summary: The ingredients laid out before him now are fresh, purchased from the market just an hour ago, all carefully washed and prepared ready to make what he knows is going to be a delicious stir fry. There’s just one ingredient missing, which he’d dispatched Wu Xie to fetch in from the garden and naturally Xiaoge had followed to help. He glances down at his watch and makes a face. It’s been at least ten minutes and if they wait much longer some of the greens are going to start to wilt.

And I also worked on a fun little project with achray, elenothar, fangirlishness and teyla. It's been so long since I've done a fic collaboration and it was a blast

Title: Recast
Fandom: The Lost Tomb, The Lost Tomb 2, Ultimate Note, Tomb of the Sea, The Lost Tomb Reboot
Pairing: Wang Pangzi/Wu Xie/Zhang Qiling
Rating: Teen
Summary: Pangzi comes over and stands in front of them, surveying them both, hands clasped behind his back.

“My friends,” he declaims. “Since we’re to be parted so soon—or some of us are, anyway—and we’re going into untold danger and mystery, and facing whatever the Zhangs left to fuck with intruders, which I bet is going to be good—”

Wu Xie coughs, pointedly.

“Fine, fine,” Pangzi says. “I got us something. Got you something, I mean. Not all of us are stingy gift-givers, ah, Tianzhen?”

OR

Five times Wu Xie and Xiaoge lost their gift from Pangzi and one time they gave him something in return.

Things are ticking along and I'm feeling a little less miserable which is good I think.

Work has been insanely busy this week so the going for walks part of Operation Get Your Shit Together hasn't really happened yet. Hopefully next week.

Writing is still going well. I've just posted another fic and my next is on the go.

Title: Mine Forevermore
Fandom: The Lost Tomb Reboot RPF
Pairing: Zhu Yilong/Chen Minghao
Rating: Explicit
Summary: Chen Minghao smiles at him through his eyelashes, sending a tingle of excitement through Zhu Yilong’s body. They might be old now, but that doesn’t mean they no longer know how to have some fun.

My Chinese lessons are going well too. I've just passed HSK1 which is the first level of the Chinese Proficiency tests. I'm still relying quite heavily on the pinyin to help me but I recognise a lot more characters and can understand basic sentences now. I'm feeling very pleased considering when I started in January I knew about 5 spoken words from the dramas I've watched and didn't know any characters at all. It's nice to see your progress in some measurable way.

Speaking of Chinese dramas Jacqui has asked to watch Word of Honour with me. We've watched a lot of Thai and Korean shows together but this will be her first Chinese one. I hope if she enjoys it I can get her to watch some of my other favourite Chinese shows. Probably not Guardian though because she saw what a wreck I was when I finished that :D

I forgot it was a bank holiday this Monday so that was a nice surprise when someone mentioned it during a meeting earlier this week. I think the plan will mostly be to finish Nirvana in Fire. I only have 4 episodes left.

Trying to be a little more upbeat after the last couple of negative posts. The other situation isn't resolved yet but I feel like we're at least kind of moving in the right direction. It's going to take time, but I think we'll get there eventually.

So, enough about that. I want to make a happy post.

Today, I posted another fic. Like most of the things I've written this year it ended up being longer than planned, but I really enjoyed writing it.

Title: The Only One On This Road
Fandom: The Lost Tomb Reboot
Pairing: Gen
Rating: Teen
Summary: Stupid. He was so stupid. No one is going to want to work with him now that he’s been foolish enough to let himself get kidnapped. Not even Wu Xie, and it’s well known in the industry that he’ll give anyone a chance.

I've already started my next fic which is going to be the fourth (and I think final) part of The Unraveling of Zhu Yilong. It's funny, I was saying on Twitter a couple of days ago that I never imagined when I read my sundial_exchange letter and thought 'yeah, I can do something with that' that it would turn into a multi-part series that I am now super invested in. I've had so much fun writing it.

I was looking at my AO3 stats today and I've now posted over 50k of fic this year, and it's honestly one of the few things in my life I genuinely feel good about at the moment. I'm only 2k behind the total I wrote in 2012 and after that I have to go back to 2010 to get to a year where I wrote more. It's just such a nice feeling to finish a fic and immediately start another one because I know exactly what I want to write. I already have an outline for the one I want to do after the one I'm currently working on.

I just feel a little more like me again and I don't think I realised how much I missed writing fic until I started doing it again. I think setting myself a daily goal of 500 words has helped a lot as well as the fact that I've fallen into quite a small fandom where people are always happy to discuss ideas and help me.

So, yeah, feeling good about my words at least and given how shit everything else is I'll take it!

A very productive bank holiday Friday for me. I did my Mandarin practice, read some more of my book, finished editing my fic, started writing another fic, had a Zoom chat with the Newcastle gang, watched an episode of Nirvana in Fire, and watched some Black Sails on a group watch.

And, because fangirlishness is an amazing human, she beta read my whole fic in a few hours so I could get it posted.

If you thought my Zhu Yilong/Chen Minghao fic was a rare pairing, let me present one that's even rarer. This is the only fic with this pairing on AO3, written because I was bemoaning to achray that all the Wu Xie actors were hanging out together but not my two favourites.

Yeah, I don't even know, but I had fun writing it.

Title: Handover
Fandom: The Lost Tomb RPF
Pairing: Zhu Yilong/Qin Hao
Rating: Explicit
Summary: Zhu Yilong almost wants to cry because Qin Hao understands. He’s worn the shroud of Wu Xie for months, has let him inhabit every part of him. He’s not sure anyone else gets it the way Qin Hao does. Even Sanshu, who wrote the books and created these characters, doesn’t seem to get it. Or rather he doesn’t seem to care the way Zhu Yilong does. It’s already getting to the point where Sanshu is avoiding his calls when Wu Xie wants to ask about some gap in the novels that he thinks will give him a better understanding of the character.

Tonight we finished watching Ultimate Note which means we have now finished all of the Lost Tomb shows. We started in August last year and have watched every weekend so it's taken us 7 month to get through them all. I feel kind of bereft now.

It's been a really fun time. Initially I started watching on my own, and thebonwitch started watching on her own at the same time so on a whim I asked if she wanted to watch some together one weekend. We had a blast and from then on it became a weekly thing.

Along the way amedawg18 popped in to see what we were watching and never left (she's still mad about the ending of Lost Tomb 2 even though she hadn't seen most of the rest of it.

kthxrawr popped in just after we started Sha Hai, got attached to Li Cu pretty much immediately and then never left.

I've honestly had a blast. I started Reboot pretty much purely for Zhu Yilong and didn't expect to get so attached to all of these characters and to get sucked into the fandom along the way. And, in the way I tend to do, I've got other people into it as well. Even those that don't want to watch the shows enjoy talking about the murder clams and other nonsense that has appeared at various points.

At some point, when I eventually finish Heaven Official's Blessing I am going to read the books even though I know they are terrible.

I think what I love is that even though the shows are objectively bad there's stuff I love in all of them. We've all got attached to specific characters and actors along the way, and yes they are dumb and full of plot holes and have bad pacing but they are fun.

And the fandom is utterly delightful. There's a lot of crossover with the Guardian fandom of course because of Zhu Yilong but I've met lots of wonderful people that I didn't know before and we just have a good time.

The Untamed got me through the first half of this pandemic, and The Lost Tomb is getting me through the second half. I'm going to miss not having new stuff to watch but I can totally go back and rewatch it. I definitely want to give Reboot another watch now that I'm more familiar with the universe and the characters. I suspect I missed a lot the first time around.

I really need an Iron Triangle icon...

Shamelessly stolen from tinny

1) How many stories have you posted?

212 according to AO3

2) In what categories?

M/M (127)
F/M (68)
Gen (18)
Multi (4)
F/F (1)

3) What ratings?

General Audiences (115)
Teen and Up (66)
Explicit (15)
Mature (13)
Not Rated (3)

4) How many fandoms?

31 fandoms. Although some of them are RPF (eg I've written Supernatural and Supernatural RPF which AO3 classes as two different fandoms)

5) How many fandoms where you've written more than 10 stories?

Six

6) Any fandoms where you were the first to post a story for it?

I was about to say no but actually yes! In 2011 Michael Rosenbaum made a short film called Shear Love which he posted online. It's utterly bonkers and me and my friend Lexi co-wrote 3 equally insane fics set in that universe. I'm not even sure I want to link to it but I guess if anyone is curious...

Shear Love

( The rest of the questions )

Snuck in a day late and posted one final sundial_exchange fic as a gift for laireshi

Title: I Live For You
Fandom: The Lost Tomb Reboot
Pairing: Wu Xie/Zhang Qiling
Rating: General Audiences
Summary: “I thought Xiaoge’s blood made him immune to poison,” Pangzi says, his face twisted in concern as he reaches the same conclusion Wu Xie has.
“Resistant,” Wu Xie replies, his heart feeling heavy in his chest as Xiagoe continues to shiver in his arms. “Not immune.”

While I'm technically done with Sundial now I do still have a few letters open and might drop unexpected gifts on people as and when. But for now I'm going to focus on a few other things I want to write.

achray is a terrible influence who has given me an idea for a fic that has an even rarer Zhu Yilong pairing than Zhu Yilong/Chen Minghao. At the moment there are 0 fics on AO3 so mine will be the first I think. I haven't started it yet as I've been working on the above fic but that will be my next project which I plan on starting on Monday (Sundays are my writing day off because I have way too much other stuff going on).

I know I've said it before but I've had such a blast doing sundial_exchange and I'm delighted that I've got to know fangirlishness and achray as a result. Love chatting to them on Discord about various Lost Tomb things.

And I didn't realise how much I'd written for the exchange. I was telling someone that I'd written my main gift and '2 or 3 treats'. I just looked and it's actually 6 treats. I have no idea how that happened, especially as I said to one of my group chats in January that I didn't have time for treats and that I'd be lucky if I got my main gift done in time.

It's been fun though. I'd got to play around in a few different fandoms and pairings and it's definitely been keeping me sane these past few weeks.

Still not doing great mentally. Things that normally wouldn't bother me are irritating the shit out of me and I'm finding myself avoiding places like Twitter so that I don't end up snapping at someone who hasn't actually done anything wrong. I'm still dipping in and out but I'm not glued to it the way I used to be. Same with Discord.

It's actually been quite nice that a couple of weeks ago Jacqui asked if I would watch Manner of Death with her as she'd seen gifs on Tumblr and was interested. Since it was on my to watch list too this worked out well and we spent pretty much every evening last week watching it together. It was a lot of fun. As a result she's asked for more bl shows to watch and luckily I have a list :D

We've watched Because of You and Tonhon Chonlatee together so far and she's watched History 3: Trapped on the evenings when I've had other social obligations because I've already seen it.

The nice thing about it is because I'm watching it with someone else I can't pause it to reply to messages or look at my phone and I can't tweet while watching because I need to read the subtitles. It's given me some much needed social media downtime.

The only downside is that it's taken over the slot where I was watching Nirvana in Fire so I haven't watched a single episode in a good couple of weeks. I'm going to have to try and make time for it somewhere because it's still fantastic and I do want to finish it.

Writing is helping a lot too actually. Sometimes when I'm upset I don't want to do anything creative at all but at the moment writing is providing a good escape for me.

I published another sundial_exchange treat last night and I have another one that's a work in progress. I should get that finished before the 12th and after that I'll consider my Sundial Treats done. It's been a fantastic experience. I've got to play in multiple fandoms, write some super rare pairings (don't even ask about the one I have outlined that has 0 fics on AO3) and enjoy the warm fuzzy feelings I get from giving people gifts.

As of yesterday I have now published more words this year than I did in the whole of 2020 and it's barely March. In fact this is the most I've published since 2016 and I'm only 4k away from overtaking that year as well. Guardian and associated fandoms is very inspiring!

This is the fic I posted yesterday. It's for glymr and is a continuation of Talking Through Walls

Title: Talking Side By Side
Fandom: Guardian RPF
Pairing: Zhu Yilong/Bai Yu
Rating: General Audiences
Summary: “It was an accident, Xiao Bai. Accidents happen all the time, to regular people with regular jobs.”
“Regular people don’t choose to do their own stunts, Long-ge. Maybe we should have become accountants instead. Or librarians.”

My Mandarin lessons are still going well. I got to the first 'test your proficiency' stage on one of the apps I'm using and I passed :D It was quite satisfying when some of the questions only gave you the chinese characters to answer with and I still did okay. I'm starting to recognise some of the more commonly used ones which makes me feel good.

And I'm recognising more spoken words when I'm watching cdramas which is always exciting.

I think I need to accept that I'm not going to get all my sundial_exchange treats done before the collection closes on the 12th. I've got one that I'm editing at the moment which I shall hopefully be able to post early next week, one that's a WIP which theoretically shouldn't be very long but I've been down this road before so who knows, and then another one that is currently just a plot outline.

And that's not before I get into the other lists that I have open where I thought 'Ooh, I could write something for this'. People might just have to get random gifts at some nebulous time in the future.

BUT I did post another one today for xparrot

Title: Where Love Has Been Confined
Fandom: Guardian
Pairing: Zhao Yunlan/Shen Wei
Rating: General Audiences
Summary: “It’s not serious,” Shen Wei says, which might have been more convincing if he wasn’t still swaying dizzily even now he was sitting down. “I just...I just need to rest for a moment.”

“You need to rest for more than a moment!” Zhao Yunlan exclaims. “Now show me!”