For the "five things in an AU" ask, DMBJ, the cuthroat world of competitive vegetable growing for the prize at the local competition.
Okay, I actually have very strong feelings about this. Imagine Pangzi in Pest Control but Even Worse because now his honour is also at stake
Pangzi and Xiaoge are in charge of their vegetable garden. Wu Xie tried to help once and it was soon decided that he's far better suited to a research role. So he researches soil types, and the best vegetables for each season, and obsessively checks the weather (hearing thunder strikes fear into his heart because what if their crops get struck by lightning)
People come from far and wide to look at their huge award winning lettuces. And also to look at Xiaoge. But mostly the lettuces.
Xiao Hua is a primary investor (everyone needs a hobby) and if anyone even thinks about trying to sabotage Pangzi's veggies. Well, it only happened the one time and now everyone knows better
Wu Xie tells anyone who will listen (and also those who won't) that his degree in architecture makes him an expert on soil
Liu Sang joins the team when he idly makes a comment that he can hear that the soil is too dry when Pangzi is doing some planting
Send me an AU prompt and I'll tell you 5 fun things that would happen
(Mr. Mojo just walked through and I tried to explain the concept of the huli jing needing a skull that fit him, and he said, Like a hermit crab? And now I can't stop laughing.)
Inspired by @foxofninetales' just-begun story of the very wronged huli jing Liu Sang and some other characters I don't know but will learn to love (or hate), I'm sure.
Faithful in the Bone
by fox_of_nine_tales (T, 4k, liu sang & zhang qiling, WIP)
Summary: The fox had been with him almost as long as Zhang Qiling remembered. // What he no longer remembered was that the fox had been there much longer than that.
I was just rewatching all of your Lost Tomb vids over the weekend! Do you have any more vidding projects in the works - Lost Tomb or other?
Oh wow, that's a lot of vids xD Hope they brought you joy!
Thank you for the ask! Hmmmmmm -- I mean, yes, vids are like fic, you start them and then you realize that they're more work than you thought and then whether or not you finish them depends on how badly the idea won't let you go -- but since I'm currently writing and arting, I don't have an active vidding project. But I can share my WIP/ideas catalogue!
Act A Fool aka Tomb Fast Tomb Furious
This is the Ludacris song from the Fast & Furious 2 soundtrack, which for so many reasons needs to be a DMBJ vid. Ludacris is terrible to vid though (his songs are so! fucking! long! and it's hip hop which I don't know how to cut without using very short clips), and while watching the vid is fun (I have about 1:30 of it), making it is sadly a little boring bc very repetitive. I have vague hopes of finishing this but it will still be a while.
There Ain't No Bugs On Me
This is just an idea, I haven't started it yet, and it may be a bit too one-note, but I think it would be hilarious to make a Xiaoge vs. Tomb Critters vid to this song. (You can see a theme emerging here; most of my vid ideas are 'lol wouldn't it be funny').
Dangerous
Heihua! My struggle here is that most Heihua footage is in UN and UN are not my favorite Heihuas (I like LT2 Xiao Hua and Sha Hai Hei Xiazi), so I'd want to use mostly the ones I like best, but that's much more difficult than just using UN. I have this vid all mapped out in my head though.
Momma Sed
Not DMBJ! This one is an idea for Nirvana in Fire I've had. I don't know if you've seen the show (if you haven't, WATCH IT NOW), but there's a lot of older generations advising (or screwing over) younger generations, so this song fits. The reason I haven't gotten anywhere with this yet is that Nirvana in Fire is the antithesis of the kind of show I like to vid -- it's very static and has little movement, and the sets all look very similar, so anytime I start clipping it, I want to throw myself into the sea after ten minutes.
World's Smallest Violin
Also not DMBJ! Except it's a little bit DMBJ. This song is all about a guy who knows he's a mess but doesn't have any real problems compared to the people he's comparing himself to. My grand idea here is to make the central narrator Reboot Wu Xie (and other Zhu Yilong characters who create most of their problems themselves) and make all the people the song's narrator is comparing himself to other Zhu Yilong characters who have real problems (like Lin Nansheng from Rebel, for example). It's very funny in my head, there's lots of Zhu Yilong crying; my issue is that I'd have to clip all of Zhu Yilong's considerable filmography and ... I just don't have the patience D: I am still holding out hope I'll do it one day, though!
Edit: Forgot to say! I have a Kinnporsche shitpost vid coming out this weekend during fanworks. No details beyond that because it’s a premiere but that’s definitely going to be posted within the next ten days!
Nooo, I just realized Brigid already asked you about the BHT & LS fic, but that's OKAY, because I am also very curious about what kind of fic could be attached to "tell me how to love like that".
jskafhdj it's okay! I'll just keep the ask for when I have more to share about it <333 as for "tell me how to love like that," that one can pretty much be summed up as Liu Sang and the journey to found family lol. you might remember a snippet I shared like...a month? two months ago? on the discord that was Liu Sang thinking about his birth mother as like, a sidechamber in his metaphorical tomb which...sounds kind of ridiculous like that but anyways that snippet was from this wip actually! basically I want to explore his feelings about past experiences with family (including his relationship with his master) and how they make his relationships with his current little family really difficult to navigate.
the title comes from The Knack by Mother Mother, which actually planted the idea in my brain originally! that particular line is in the chorus, but I think the verse that makes me have the most Liu Sang Feelings is:
I just wanna have the virtue
And I don't really wanna hurt you
Oh, baby, don't hurt me too
I just wanna have the talent
But I don't wanna have to practice
Like they do
because love (in any sense of the word) is hard! and messy! especially when you're coming into it with a shit ton of trauma! but the reality is, if you want to be close to people, you have to make peace with the fact that not only they might hurt you, but you might hurt them. intentionally or not. and I think that would be a very, very hard thing for Liu Sang to accept.
anddd to make up for that rambling, I will throw a snippet in here too! (not the snippet I desperately want to share bc damn it rey, stop spoiling the intense emotional parts of your wips before they're even done, but a snippet):
Liu Sang tries to look at the various bottles of wine—and their prices—in front of him, but it’s hard with Pangzi complaining in his ear. “I had a last second gig. I can’t just quit work to go eat your over-spiced pork.”
The resulting noise of offense is so loud he swears he can hear it echoing out of Wushanju, even in a grocery store miles away. “You take that back right now or so help me—”
“What was that? You’re breaking up,” Liu Sang says drily before wiggling the phone out from his shoulder, hitting end call, and, after a moment of debate, tossing the least expensive bottle of wine in his basket.
Rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all). See if there are any patterns. Choose your favourite opening line, then tag 10 of your favourite authors!
Tagged by @mejomonster and @foxofninetales for the 8 and 20 line one, so combing them into one. Thank you both! 💖💖💖
I’m going to go with written date, rather than posted date, since I recently moved a bunch of old fics onto AO3. This means I’ll also be including some fics that are at least half written, but not yet posted.
Where I’ve co-written fics, I’m only including the ones where I wrote the first line, as far as I can remember, since it’s also asking about patterns in your own writing.
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1. Living With Inlaws (DMBJ Liu Sang Week fic co-written with @xantissa): Game over, read the message on the cell phone screen, and Liu Sang sighed and tossed it onto the couch next to him.
2. As-yet-untitled Liu Sang Week fic (DMBJ): The smell of gasoline was everywhere - overpowering the musty carpet smell, seeping into his clothes, wafting through his hair, burning the back of his nose, his throat, with every panicked breath he took.
3. The Zhang Identity (DMBJ): For all that the bright streetlights weren’t that far away, it was dark where he staggered, burning with pain and the desperate need to get away from his followers.
4. Cats and Dogs (DMBJ): Liu Sang huddled further underneath the chassis of the car he was pressed up against, shaking his head in an attempt to clear the ringing from his ears.
5. Silent Graves (DMBJ): When the grave was first built and occupied, it was very busy.
6. Those who fear darkness have never seen what light can do (DMBJ): Wu Sanxing crouched down beside the new hole that his people were digging out despite the pouring rain and darkness.
7. Nevermore (MDZS/CQL): Just before their sixteenth birthdays Jiang Cheng’s adopted brother, Wei Wuxian, came charging into his room, waving a printout of the article announcing both the program, and that recruitment was now open.
(this one is also an exception - this is not the first line, but is the first line I wrote. This is a Pacific Rim fusion, and the first few lines of the fic are taken from the movie)
8. It's a lovely day in the tomb, and Yóu is a horrible shibie (DMBJ): It's a lovely day in the tomb, and Yóu is a horrible shibie.
9. Stars fall like diamonds (DMBJ): The first time it happened, Zhang Qiling wasn’t entirely surprised.
10. The Cats Travesty (Guardian): It all started because of the reviews.
11. Blanket Forts are the Best Wingmen (MDZS/CQL): Not for the first time that day, Lan Xichen looked around the utter disaster area that was his living room and wondered just what the hell he was doing.
12. The Rescue Job (Guardian): If anyone had asked Zhao Yunlan this morning how he thought this day would go, kissing Shen Wei would not have even been suggested.
13. Untitled post-canon fic (Guardian): It was hurting again.
14. Operation Make Lan Zhan Remember (MDZS/CQL): Supervising a day trip for a busload of five-year-olds had not been Lan Wangji’s plan for the day when he woke up this morning, and yet, here he was.
15. Qinghe Jue (MDZS/CQL): Pain. His entire world was pain.
16. Do You Want To Have A Blanket Fort? (MDZS/CQL): It looked like it had been a bright, beautiful day – at least, that’s what was promised by the golden sunlight that crept around the edges of the curtains on his bedroom window.
17. A Court of Azeroth and Prythian (A Court of Thorns and Roses / World of Warcraft): Water filled his lungs as a falling cannon collided with him, causing him to gasp involuntarily despite himself.
18. The Falls of Mercury and Zoisite (Sailor Moon) (2001): In the velvety darkness of night two people stood on one of the balcony's of a graceful palace, looking at a blue-green planet in the sky.
19. The Death of Zoisite (Sailor Moon) (2000-2001?): The swirling sakura petals settled around Kunzite's feet as he stood silently.
20. Endings and Beginnings (DS9) (2000): “Adami! Adami, listen to me!”
*
Patterns, hmm. I have a tendency to start in media res, from the looks of these, and almost always start with either action or some kind of description, rather than dialogue.
Favourite line... I have a few favourites here. The Rescue Job and Operation Make Lan Zhan Remember in particular both amuse me greatly, and pretty much all of the first lines of the recent (within the past year) fics are ones that would have me keep reading for at least the rest of the paragraph to see if the rest of the fic would keep me as engaged.
Tagging... whoever would like to do this, as I can’t remember who has already done it!
For the "writing an entire plot because of one scene" ask game, I know you haven't gotten much of it down yet, but I was wondering if there was a driving scene behind the DMBJ In Space AU.
Omg!!!! An ask!!!! In my inbox!!! For me!!! 🥺
That entire fic spiraled out of the desire for one thing: Li Cu waking up, hungover as fuck, on a starship, with a man whose smile is as bright and vast and untouchable as the stars outside ✨
Wu Xie was actually originally much more of a Bad Dude, but some feedback from people who saw the early drafts led me to make him more light hearted! And I’m a lot happier with that in the end ✨
Because you said I could ask about fanfic: I know you Cannot Speak about your HeiHua exchange fic, but do you have any other HeiHua fics in the works or even just ideas? Also, any Liu Sang whump in the future? *flutters eyelashes*
Ehehe!
One thing I Can Speak about regarding my HeiHuia exchage fic is that I don't feel like I've fully got to grips with their characters yet. I've had to 🥺 at my beta readers so they can make sure it's not too OOC because I'm honestly not convinced at this point.
And, listen, you know I am always low-key thinking about whumping Liu Sang. It's how I get myself off to sleep at night.
Currently an idea I have vaguely floating around in my head is Liu Sang getting attacked by a hungry ghost that drains his energy. Mostly as an excuse to have Xiaoge and Pangzi carrying him a lot 👀
For end of year fic superlatives, hit me with 8, 15, and 21!
8. Best characterization
Interestingly my first thought was one of my many Pangzi fics but actually I'm proud of the way I wrote Huo Daofu in Alone With You
15. Most likely to make someone cry
Oh, gosh, I don't know. I don't really write angsty or sad fics. I guess the closest I got to angst was Unseen Heart heart where Pangzi is in unrequited love with Wu Xie, Liu Sang is in unrequited love with Xiaoge and the two of them find comfort with each other. I don't think it'd make anyone cry though.
21. Best last line
Brb while I read the last lines of every fic I've written this year
Okay, I got to this one and stopped. It can't get any better than this line from Varying Degrees
