Hils's journal

Challenge #12

In your own space, resurrect an old meme. Have fun with it! Which is the goofiest meme you can think of? Put on your party hat and be silly!! Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I'm really terrible about remembering old meme, but I scrolled through some of the suggestions over at snowflake_challenge and there's a couple that I want to do.

( Desktop/Wallpaper screen shot )

And I'm going to do this one too because I love my music and it's fun to see who likes the same sort of stuff that I do

Music shuffle - go to your favorite source of music that can be shuffled. Your main Spotify playlist, iTunes, your YouTube music playlist. Hit shuffle. Write down the first line of the first twenty songs that come up. When people visit your journal, they have to guess what the songs are. Strike through the ones that have been guessed with the guessers name at the end of the line.

I'm going to be kind and not use my k-pop playlist :D This is my general favourite songs playlist that I listen to when I have a long car journey.

1. One day, when I came home at lunch time
2. Hello, it's me - no_detective (Hello - Adele)
3. You look nice alright
4. I've given up on society
5. I had a dream, or was it real?
6. When you came in the air went out - no_detective (Bad Things - Jace Everett)
7. Well, I guess I should confess that I am starting to get old
8. If I had wings like Noah's dove
9. Hey now, all you sinners
10. What if your heart said you ain't got nothing to lose
11. Hey, what's the big idea?
12. I've never seen a diamond in the flesh - no_detective (Royals - Lorde (although the version I have is by Postmodern Jukebox)
13. I heard that you've been self medicating in the quiet of your room
14. I've waited hours for this
15. She said she needed a break
16. I was sent here for you
17. I put a tack on everything
18. Oh, high on diesel and gasoline
19. I stand in the corner like a tired boxer
20. He lived in the mountains away from mankind

On Thursday evening I joked on Twitter that it felt like Christmas Eve because were all sat counting down until the time all the fanworks for sundial_exchange would be unlocked on Friday morning.

Although it wasn't planned for this reason, I had Friday off work and it really did feel like Christmas when I woke up and had a load of gifts to enjoy.

This was my first time participating in this exchange and I've honestly had so much fun. Initially I was just going to write my gift and leave it at that but I totally got caught up in the community spirit of creating treats and ended up writing a couple of additional little things. It's not over yet, either. Although the fanworks have been revealed the collection is going to remain open for another month for people to add more treats if they wish. I have one in progress at the moment and I have several more Dear Creator letters open that I am hopefully going to write treats for.

I have had such a blast doing this. It's really made me feel part of a fandom community in a way that I haven't felt for quite a while. Everyone is just so friendly and supportive. It's been wonderful.

I think my favourite thing, though, has been the new friends I've made. I contacted achray on a whim because I saw her name on the beta reader list and she mentioned Lost Tomb RPF was a fandom she was happy to beta for. I pinged her a message and we've been chatting pretty regularly on Discord for the past couple of weeks. Not only was she great with the beta work but she got so invested in what I'd written she ended up writing a fic of her own in the same universe as mine as a treat for my recipient.

It was an adventure too. The pairing tinny requested as her first choice has basically no fic so I watched a bunch of behind the scenes videos (looking at Zhu Yilong's face for hours is such a chore) to get some inspiration and then I just dove in. When I first contacted achray I told her the fic was going to be 'no more than 5k' and it ended up being 10k because I couldn't seem to stop.

Then, after I'd submitted it of course, I saw some gifs and thought 'damn, I wish I'd seen that before I'd submitted my fic' so I decided to write another 3k and turn it into a series.

Zero regrets I loved every minute of it.

So, a roundup of what I wrote.

Title: The Unravelling of Zhu Yilong
Fandom: The Lost Tomb RPF
Pairing: Zhu Yilong/Chen Minghao
Rating: Explicit
Summary: Chen Minghao has a deep admiration for anyone who works hard to master their craft. He’s already imagining what he and Zhu Yilong can do together.

Title: Hotpot Reunion
Fandom: The Lost Tomb RPF
Pairing: Zhu Yilong/Chen Minghao
Rating: Explicit
Summary: “Wu Xie and I also have our own pairing.” Chen Minghao is talking like he hasn’t read some of the most filthy Wu Xie/Pangzi fanfiction down the phone at him and then described at length what it would be like if they decided to act it out “But what about me and Xiaoge?”

Title: Because the Night
Fandom: The Lost Tomb
Pairing: Gen
Rating: General Audiences
Summary: This is what they do. They’ve been through so much together, and they help each other through it together.

And, I received some wonderful gifts too! naye made a wonderful cover for my first Guardian fic which I have already added. I love it so much!

And I received two lovely fics from two of my favourite authors. I honestly couldn't be more happy!

Title: All the Maps Were Wrong
Author: frith_in_thorns
Fandom: The Lost Tomb
Pairing: Gen
Rating: Teen
Summary: On the way back from Thunder City, Liu Sang is struggling more than he wants to admit.

Title: Let Him Lay His Head On My Chest
Author: laireshi
Fandom: The Lost Tomb
Pairing: Wu Xie/Zhang Qiling
Rating: Teen
Summary: Xiaoge gets scratched with a poisoned arrow. Wu Xie and Pangzi take care of him.

Challenge #9

In your own space, brag about yourself. Tell us what things you've done that you're proud of; the things that make you the wonderful person you are. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I nearly skipped this one because bragging about yourself is really hard! But, you know, we all need a bit of self love especially at the moment so I decided to have a go.

1. I am proud of my ability to build fandom communities. It started with Livejournal comms that I set up and built, these days it's Twitter groups. I just want people to have a place where they can go and talk to people that love the same things they do. I'm proud that my Untamed group started with 5 people and now has nearly 30. It makes me happy that people feel comfortable enough to invite their friends to join, and that everyone gets along so well that we now do voice-chat group watches together on a Saturday.

2. I am proud that I have written 850,000 words of fic since I first got involved in online fandom.

3. I am proud that one of the events I created for Random Acts is still going strong.

4. I am proud that several people, when they met me in person for the first time, said I'm exactly the same in person as I am online. I hope this means I am genuine.

5. I am proud of my infectious enthusiasm that results in people watching/reading/listening to the things I love.

Well, after saying how painless and straightforward my covid vaccine was my body decided to strike back and hit me with some of the more severe side effects that I'd been told I might experience.

I felt totally fine until late yesterday evening. I started to feel a bit chilly while I was on Zoom with the Newcastle gang and by the time we were done with the call I was shivering violently and my teeth were chattering. Had a hot shower and that didn't warm me up at all so I bundled myself up in bed which didn't warm me up either but lying down felt better.

Even though the only symptom I had was aches and shivers I had a horrible thought that maybe I'd caught covid at the vaccination centre.

Luckily today I am feeling a lot better. Still a bit run down and achey but the shivering has stopped and paracetamol seems to be helping.

I think I was just one of the unfortunate ones who ended up with flu symptoms as a side effect.

At least I know the vaccine is working I guess.

Challenge #7

In your own space, create your own challenge. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I was trying really hard to think of something for this and then it came to me.

I challenge anyone who wants to do it to try a new TV show. Maybe something you've seen your friends talking about, or one that just sounded interesting from the synopsis.

Your next new fandom could be just around the corner.

Snagged this one from naye

Your main fandom of the year?
Probably The Untamed although Guardian comes a close second

Your favourite film watched this year?
I should keep better track of all the movies I watch but it was probably Freaky. That was a lot of fun.

Your favourite book read this year?
Well, I barely read any books so I guess it was Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation

Your favourite TV show of the year?
The Untamed. It really is a beautifully shot and acted show, and it opened up the gates to so many other wonderful c-dramas that I also watched

Your favourite online fandom community of the year?
My Untamed group chat on Twitter, which isn't really about The Untamed anymore it's a whole mesh of stuff. They kept me sane and made me laugh when nothing else did. Also honourary mention to the Guardian fandom who piled on with hugs and tissues when I was livetweeting the finale and have been wonderful ever since.

Favorite fanworks of the year?
Anything on my fic rec lists

Your best new fandom discovery of the year?
C-drama fandom in general I think. The Untamed is special, of course, but it's really big and often overwhelming. I've had a lovely time in the Guardian and Lost Tomb fandoms though. Everyone is so nice and friendly.

Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year?
The usual nonsense. Ageism is still rife in fandom spaces, gatekeeping is still a huge problem, people still don't seem to realise that just because someone ships something you don't like that doesn't make them Problematic.

Your biggest squee moment of the year?
The villains in Love and Redemption finally getting brought to justice. I spent 50+ episodes yelling at those assholes and it was so satisfying when they finally got what they deserved.

The most missed of your old fandoms?
I miss hockey a lot, and even though they are coming back in a few days I think this is a catastrophically bad idea. Some teams have already has multiple players test positive for COVID in the space of one day. At least one that I know of is out longer term because of long covid. It's a mess and I hate that it's happening. I'm not going to be able to enjoy hockey until it's safe for everyone involved.

The fandom you haven’t tried yet, but want to?
I'm not actively looking for anything new. There's shows I want to try but whether I get sucked into the fandom or not remains to be seen.

Your biggest fan anticipations for the New Year?
I'm looking forward to writing more. sundial_exchange is coming up (PANIC!) so it'll be nice to have lots of new Guardian and associated show fanworks to enjoy.

L: Say something genuinely nice about a character who isn’t one of your faves.
This works out nicely actually because I've been wanting to talk about Ye Zun for a while now and hadn't got around to it. I was going to do a Twitter thread but I'll talk about him here instead. What I have to say covers all of Guardian right through to the finale so I'm going to put it behind a cut in case there is anyone avoiding spoilers.

( Why do I like Ye Zun? )

Challenge #3: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

In your own space, tell us who, from one of your fandoms, would you most want to have dinner with (or tea, or a random afternoon visit), And why? This could be a creator, an actor, a costumer, a set designer, a director, a character, a composer, anybody! What would you talk about? What are you dying to know? Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

An easier question would be who wouldn't I want to have dinner with. I love talking to interesting people, and I've had the pleasure of meeting several during my many years in fandom.

Let's assume for the purpose of this exercise that there are no language barriers, because I was saying to a friend recently I would love to sit down and have a conversation with Zhu Yilong. There's plenty we could discuss about Guardian but I'm actually really interested in The Lost Tomb and how much inspiration he drew from the other shows/movies and the books, and how much was his own interpretation of the character.

I would love to talk to Taemin from SHINee/SuperM especially given the comments he's made about the symbolism of his recent music videos and how he's drawn a lot from ancient philosophy.

Most of my fandoms have been movie/tv based and I really do find the whole craft fascinating so, honestly, I could probably spend an afternoon with just about any actor from my past fandoms and we would have an interesting conversation.

I still remember meeting a recurring guest actor from Supernatural at a convention and we spent about ten minutes talking about the differences between acting on screen and acting on the stage. He was really passionate about theatre but said that filming one episode of a TV show (which would take maybe 2 or 3 days) would pay for him to act on stage for six months.

K: What character has your favorite development arc/the best development arc?
Ooh, that's a good question and I'm trying to think now. I think probably Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Love how he went from antagonist that was supposed to be killed off after a few episodes to reluctant member of the Scooby Gang to deliberately fighting to get his soul back.

( Master List of Responses )

I love that this meme has been around since the Livejournal days. I wonder if whoever invented it knows people are still using it.

( My 2020 )