The evil has been defeated

(I’m gonna do the June something catch up in a separate post)

So yesterday was my trip to Birmingham for the exam. I was out at 9 which is far too early to be up and outside. At the train station I found out that the trains have changed. Instead of going to Birmingham and stopping there they now either continue on to the airport or go all the way down to London. This will prove useful if I have to go to a con as the NEC is by the airport so I can just take a direct train there which will save time (and also, you know, I can go direct there when my love comes in November).

The train also has WiFi but it’s a bit useless. It won’t load emails, website or pictures but the twitter app works. Ugh. I ended up going over my notes.

In Birmingham I got the new Vanity Fair from Smiths. I managed to get the Kylo cover, which I’ve not looked through properly yet (though the pictures look amazing). I then went to the Forbidden Planet by the station to get my comics and they had the last Hotel Oblivion issue as well as the two Star Wars issues I was looking for (TIE fighter 2 and age of rebellion Lando).

After that I wondered around a bit. I went in HMV cause it had a bargain bin on DVDs/blu rays but none took my interest. There was Jurassic World Fallen kingdom for £5 on 3D blu Ray which I almost got but then remembered how depressing it was so I left it.

After getting a few bits from Poundland (and being annoyed the other Forbidden Planet has alphabet squadron cheap and not being able to cancel my amazon order) I made my way down to the venue for the exam. I stopped off on a spiritual place and got a moonstone (which is so pretty) and the lady there assured me I was going the right way so that was good.

But ugh. The venue was a football club about 30+ minutes out from the the city center so it felt like it was a bit middle of nowhereish. Thankfully there was a McDonald’s near it so I had something to eat and went over my notes (and I got ESO funko from the nearby B and M). But ugh the venue was so odd. It was in a football club had to go through a metal detector and print off a visitor sticker and it just felt so weird. I got in there about 40 minutes early so was in a waiting area for a bit. I tried to go over my notes some more but couldn’t settle properly.

As for the exam itself, I think it went pretty well. There was two sections to it. The first was 10 questions and you had to answer 8 of them. The questions here were short, with things that could just be answered with a sentence or two mostly. I feel that I did pretty well on them, with only one or two little bits that I feel uncertain on. The section part was 5 questions but you only had to answer 2. These were more in depth, in general meaning to cover each section of the course. I feel I did pretty well on this too, although I forgot what hectares converts to in km so I know I got one section wrong (but I still did the sums so that counts for something).

So yeah, I feel, overall, that I did pretty well with the whole thing. I ended up putting Ray’s album on when I left and headed back to the town, intending to come straight home but instead I stopped in TK maxx. I saw a bb-8 model book and intended just to get that but then I saw a giant porg and I had to have him. He’s called Perry and he’s huge (as big as my torso) and he’s so cuddly and soft.

I’d have got home sooner but my ticket was (apparently) off peak so I couldn’t get through the barrier until6 (ugh) so I grabbed some food before heading through and getting on the train. On the way back I read Umbrella Academy and that ending! How could they end it with that? I’m super curious for what happens next.

When I got home I pretty much snuggled up and had booze and Doritos while watching tv (something about the Nile which was fascinating, then Hawaii 5O and then NCIS LA). Naryu, it turns out, had been naughty and peed on my bed so I had to stay downstairs which was a bit annoying but I just got so tired I slept anyway.

My plan for the day is mostly to rest (my body aches being out so long) and I’m gonna watch Thunderbirds, Good Omens and Killing Eve tonight (and the last Springwatch eps). I might try and write too (I want to finish the Toro fic and I started a Cisco one... plus I need to get back to the serial killer fic which I’ve not looked at in ages). I have a summer to do list I’m forming too which I may post soon.

The June something 13-15

So this is the last post of the June Something questions and it’s been pretty interesting to do.

13: What do YOU consider fandom's "little black dress"? Is it a coffeeshop AU? Sharing a bed trope? Bonus, share your favorite example.

This is tricky since, until recently, I’d checked out of fandom. I’d kinda been pushed out last year and didn’t expect I’d come back to it. But then I decided to come back into things. As you will see in these answers, The Umbrella Academy played a huge part in that.

So to answer the question, with a The Umbrella Academy, omegaverse stuff seems to be popular. The fandom is still pretty new, so others will be forming too. Some of other great fics have been murder mysteries, with Diego as a detective (Klaus usually ends up involved in there too in various ways).

I’ve not actually gone through The Umbrella Academy tag for awhile due to having tabs of doom! But I will soon.

14: Some long fics used to come with a playlist. What's a song that you were introduced to by something fannish, and what was it inspired by? Bonus: Share a link to the song/music.

Now I hoped that The Umbrella Academy would get a following when the series started. What I didn’t expect was for the fandom with it to be so huge. People were writing and making art within days of the show coming on Netflix and people formed communities pretty quickly too.

I ended up joining some of those communities on discord. I didn’t expect much, I’ve been pretty bad at using discord since last year (and some servers I’ve not been as active in as others) but the Kliego one is the one I ended up most connected to.

Early on one of the members started a kliego playlist of songs related to our boys. Most of them I had never heard of but I love them, I listen to the playlist a lot and some sounds (like Gallery Piece) ended up inspiring one of my fics.

15: What is something you do today that you wouldn't be doing if not for fandom? Examples: Vacation with fellow fen, running a community, etc.

So I’ve mentioned a lot how I was a fandom outsider today and this is true. I only really felt part of the bandom community back in the lj day’s and, when people started leaving, I lost that. I lost contact with people and the sense of community that came from it. I kept writing, but for less and less people until, eventually, I was left with one regular reader.

In 2017 I found myself in another fandom community. It was a discord for Waycest and I felt connected with people again, I felt encouraged to post on ao3 again, so that’s what I did. Then last year, those people fucked me over. A month later my final main reader left too. I was at a bit of a loss as to what to do and, eventually, stopped writing altogether. I had two other readers, but one just went silent and I think another killed herself.

So yeah, last year felt like a mess and I thought that I was done with fandom completely. I was so discouraged and low, I just felt... I dunno.

Anyway, end of last year I kinda stumbled into new people here, which lead me to slowly begin to write again. Then I joined bandom holidays which was a lot of fun and then I did the snowflake challenge. Through that I built more confidence again. I connected with people, on here and twitter, and I started posting on ao3 again.

And then The Umbrella Academy came along and I connected with more people. I joined discords, eventually being asked to co-mod the kliego one and it just... it all feels so surreal. If you told me last year I’d be doing all this I’d have no believed you.

I feel in such a good place and it feels, so strange. But it’s a good strange.

Anyway I’ve napped all afternoon so now I’m trying to watch stuff.