End of June Ramble

[miss_ingno]

Life

Had a work event I reluctantly went to - had a great time hanging out with a couple people and firmly ignoring others (am still bemused by how petty some of these people get but I'm hopefully not stuck here for much longer). Got stuck on the applications which is giving me a case of the nerves since the deadline is July 15 and I really need to sit down and finish all that stuff.

Dancing

Started out pretty well in the beginning of June, then flagged towards the end because heat OTL. Added a tutorial for HIP by Mamamoo and Star by Loona to my practice list, but then found I was too impatient to focus on those most days. Ended up adding Dreamcatcher's Lucky Strike cover, too, which makes me want to dance every time I hear it. The choreo is easy enough and a good power-through song to keep going when I'm getting sweaty.

Current line-up includes the following at 75% speed: Ponzona by Purple Kiss, Lunatic by Moonbyul, Lucky Strike by Dreamcatcher, PTT by Loona, Vivid by Heejin + No Dot by Sua and I'm A B by Hwasa at 100% speed, sometimes with another Lucky Strike at 100% to cap it off.

Watching

• I got stuck on Detective L during episode 4, the introduction of the forensic scientist had too heavy cannibalism vibes (which is a very strong squick for me, verging on trigger on bad days) and I still haven't gotten through the scene. Gonna give it another shot when I feel less like I'm stuck in a pressure cooker
• Ended up watching primarily ChilledChaos stream VoDs over on Twitch/his youtube, my favourite are the Town of Salem games hands down and he had some great ones this month. Very funny and good to relax to.
• Binge-watched the entirety of Exandria Unlimited: Calamity over the last two days and DAMN am I in love. What a poignant show with an incredible cast and DM. I'm already a Critter, though I'm way behind (haven't watched the first ExU yet nor C3), but Calamity is free of needing prior knowledge, which is great! :D
• Watched a bunch of the comedy shows over on CollegeHumour due to Brennan Lee Mulligan being /everywhere/ since his stint with ExU. He's so funny, his monologuing is hilarious and fantastic and *skilled*! Primarily watched Breaking News Network and Game Changer (at least the parts available to public for free)

Writing

I did reasonably well sticking with the WED challenge before dropping out around day 25 due to lack of inspiration/irl shenanigans. Hoping to recapture the muse for July tho :')
I ended up posting 4 of those fics I worked on:

1. Episode 3: Operation Campus Cat, A Covert Investigation By Chief Infiltrator Da Qing (Da Qing & Shen Wei's students)
2. Episode 16: Can't Get Fat With One Mouthful (Da Qing with kittens!)
3. The Fringe Benefits Of Being Family (ZYL & kid OCs, family fluff)
4. Long Night In Longcheng (Weilan smut with dragon!Shen Wei)

Reading

It felt like I didn't get much reading done this month, but going through my bookmarks proves that false lol. Tbf I took a dive into first Assassin's Creed and then Witcher fic around the same time I stopped writing my own Guardian fic, so I think I really needed a break. And I finally got started on going through the SID_comm's meta tag! not that I made it far lol but it was a super fun day and I wanna spent more time in there <3
Here's a couple Guardian recs from those fics I did manage to read! In no particular order:

• The Marvelous (Mis)adventures of Da Qing King of Cats, an on-going event collection of Da Qing-centric fics! :D I need to catch up with the newer ones, but everything's been a delight to read so far!
• midsummer offerings by sasamelons, great Weilan fluff at a Dragon Boat race
• Cradled by Elenothar, soft non-sexual BDSM/collars Weilan fluff
• Listen (it's late, it's late, but listen) by Trobadora, Ya Qing/Ying Chun reconciliation goodness
• Meeting in a Time of Peace by china_shop, in which the Envoy makes contact with the Yashou tribes
• Away From Home by tinypinkmouse, a Star Trek crossover with Outsider PoV by the local empath, Weilanzun
• Where hope dwells by velithya, where dragon!ZYL saves the day during eps 39-40

Goals for July

I started a mini-event with some fellow Guardian fans in discord, Longfic July, wherein we all encourage each other to work on a long WIP for the entire month.

In my case, this is my Arranged Marriage AU, a Canon AU in which Haixing and Dixing have a different sort of treaty and are much more equal neighbouring powers than in canon. When Heipaoshi announces he's looking to marry a Haixingren, the Bureau quickly picks Zhao Yunlan to be his pride. But while Zhao Yunlan will do his duty, his heart is already taken: by one mysterious Shen Wei, whom he seems unable to track down ever since the announcement...

• do research on Chinese marriage customs, both contemporary and ancient
• edit the existing 15k
• rewrite the rooftop flashback/Weilan's first meeting
• write ~15k more words

Other goals:

• get dancing regularity back up to 5/7 days a week
• catch up on Guardian fic, especially Da Qing adventures and Elenothar's dragon fic
• read up and get involved in more Guardian meta posts

Comments

[trobadora]

I hope your writing inspiration comes back quickly, and no pesky RL stuff gets in the way. Good luck with the longfic WIP in particular!

Also looking forward to hearing more of your meta thoughts; I really love these discussions.

And thanks muchly for the rec! ♥

[miss_ingno]

*fingers crossed* July 15 is the deadline for applications, so after that... I should be floundering anyway so xD might as well focus on fic writing for distractions ^^"

the discussions are super fun, thanks for participating even if it's on old threads <3

[trobadora]

Revisiting old threads is extra fun! Sometimes I go and reread the discussion there and realise I've forgotten my own reasoning from back then, LOL.

[miss_ingno]

Ha, I bet xD kinda like re-reading old fic, I imagine! :D

[elenothar]

I'm so excited about the Arranged Marriage AU, it sounds great! I hope inspiration will play ball soon, and always feel free to come yell at me to shake things loose :D

Thanks for both the rec and the goal, I appreciate it <3

Best of luck with the application! You can get the application finished and in, and I can get a place to live, and we'll both be happy and less stressed *knocks on wood*

[miss_ingno]

It's a fun AU! :D I'm slowly figuring out the bits I'm stuck on, but I still have many scenes I'm super excited about before I need to worry about those in betweens x'D (I might take you up on that, yelling is very brainstorm-inducive <3)

thank you <3 good luck to you, too! *presses both thumbs* ;)

[china_shop]

Good luck with your applications, and woohoo, congrats on finishing your June fics. *confetti*

(And thanks for the rec. *beams*)

Your longfic sounds really fun. *much pompoms, yay* :D :D :D

[miss_ingno]

Thank you! :D

I've been struggling with getting back into this longfic for months, so I figured telling as many people as possible about it would keep me somewhat accountable xD

[china_shop]

Ha, I know that feeling. Some of the WIPs I'm planning/hoping to finish this year are from 2018. *g*

[velithya]

LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO o/ I'm very excited for your arranged marriage AU! IDENTITY SHENANIGANSSSSSSSSSS :3 :3 :3

You posted so many fics in June! Great work! :D

Good luck with your applications! I hope you can take the remaining process methodically and have everything sorted without too much rush/stress at the end ♥

& thank you for the rec! I'm glad you liked the fic :3

[miss_ingno]

IDENTITY SHENANIGANS !!!! :D!

Thank you <3 I can use all that luck, I'm starting to get nervous about it :'D (and then I won't get rejections/confirmations until at least 3 weeks later OTL)

[velithya]

Ah, the wait time between submission and the result is definitely high anxiety for sure! At least once it's submitted you don't have to actively be doing anything else and can hopefully distract yourself with other things *Crosses fingers*

[miss_ingno]

and they expect me to check in at least once a week once the deadline's past, with each and every different university site I applied at, to see if they sent me an internal message about my rejection/acceptance, to then respond to within a new, short deadline, and half of them don't have the option to notify me of new inbox activity at my email :') it's. not the best system lmao

(sorry I'm cranky. some of these sites are EYESORES too, and very hard and counterintuitive to navigate >.<)

[velithya]

they WHAT?? UGH that sounds awful :( :( :(

[miss_ingno]

Nevermind the weird 2MB upload limit. It's a scanned 8 page pdf! I can only compress it down so much OTL

lmao thanks for listening to me rant <3 I'm done now

[velithya]

these seem VERY arbitrary!!!! OTL

Anytime! ♥♥♥

[marycrawford]

The Longfic July event sounds relevant to my interests as I struggle to finish my own longfic - can I join in? 👀

[miss_ingno]

Of course!

We don't really have much of a set-up aside from a thread on the discord (we considered doing a camp nano group but there was too little interest), but I think I'll do weekly updates on here too just for more accountability? It was really kinda of an accident/improvised little thing that came together last minute :'D

[marycrawford]

Aah I see, I thought it was more like a writing sprint project. I know what you mean about accountability, it can be helpful. I'm waffling about whether discord would help for me or be more of a distraction, ha.

[miss_ingno]

I haven't actually participated in writing sprints outside of discord before, I never ended up joining LJ back in the day because I was confused about what it was and why I should :'D so I'm missing some fandom know-how and only got to know the "modern" social media versions of those things.

The discord thread is primarily for encouraging each other! and talking about our projects. But it can get distracting for sure because the tab for show discussions or fic discussions is just one click away... <.< though I guess you could mute everything else lol

[marycrawford]

I use slack for writing sprints/pomodoros too sometimes, it's very helpful if there's someone else working at the same time as you are! But it's tricky to organize across timezones. And yeah, the danger of getting lost in a discussion is real for me :D

[miss_ingno]

Timezones, the bane of writer friendships! Tho tbf I'm just happy to have fellow fans to enable me, it definitely gets me writing more than I would on my own :D

[velithya]

The more the merrier, if you wanted to join! ♥

[marycrawford]

Thanks, I appreciate that! <3 Edit: I thought I still had a link to the Discord groups but if so I lost it - where do I go?

[velithya]

Here you go!

[marycrawford]

Thank you!