one heart above and one heart below

 I think that I am going to sign up for Yuletide this year. It seems like fun, and maybe I will get fun Unicorn Chronicles fic, because that is a fandom that I have always wanted more fic of. The series is near and dear to my heart , but it's sorely lacking in the fandom community. I should reread the series and maybe play around in the world myself, too.

For now, my main projects involve hockey RPF and Hetalia. My preferred hockey RPF pairing is controversial for Reasons (which, well, are fair enough, even if, after following the case, I don't believe he did what he was accused of) and as a result I am terrified of the vitriol of the larger portion of the hockey fandom. The people who are left are lovely, but part of me wishes there were somewhere else to post our fic so we could stay away from each other. But AO3 is my preferred fic archive and I'm not willing to be run off.

Anyway, that fic is a retelling of East o' the Sun, West o' the Moon, which is my favorite fairy tale. It's been slow going though. My Hetalia fic is AmeCan (of course, heh) and involves the language of flowers, which is one of my favorite things.

Of course, most of my writing recently has been for my Dragonriders of Pern RP. We have just received wher eggs for our characters! I am looking forward to that hatching and the cutie inside. I've also been practicing coloring dragons, because my friend and I eventually want to prepare an RP site of our own, and I like to design dragons.

I should focus more on my projects, because I've been feeling really inspired lately, even if I haven't been getting very much done. I just... want to write things, and participate better in fandom. So I'm going to try.

 So I've participated in the AmeCan Summer Exchange over on tumblr, and our gifts were due today. I post to AO3, as per usual (I have mostly stopped posting fic directly to tumblr; after they changed their search feature, it's really hard to get people to see your things unless you specifically type "/tagged/whatever" in the address bar) and send a link off to the person I was writing for. (Fic can be read here; it's nsfw.)

Anyway, I have been periodically checking to see if my gift recipient has said anything; I've seen that they're active on tumblr because they're reblogging new things. When I notice that they haven't said anything, I remind myself that perhaps they're busy, etc. etc.

That's fine. I get it.

The thing that is more concerning, honestly, is that only myself and one other person have posted our gifts. I haven't received mine yet. And there's radio-silence from the people running the exchange. They did send out a reminder of the due date on the 23rd, but there've been no posts from them today, the day that the gifts were due. I try to remind myself that the admins are busy, too, but it's harder to have sympathy for the other people who are supposed to post their gifts today.

We've had over a month to write/draw/make fanmixes/whatever for the exchange. I've been part of exchanges where the fic I was to receive was late, or where the person originally matched with me dropped without saying anything, and I had to wait for a pinch hitter to come in and write for me. It sucks. It sucks a whole lot, and it's kind of frustrating me that the exchange has been going so weirdly slow this year. 

Hetalia is kind of a frustrating fandom to write about in general, especially because the two biggest pairings for my favorite character (America, hah) are two of my NOTPs. I got way more feedback for the singular hockey RPF fic that I wrote recently, even though my corner of the fandom is isolated. I've been in the Hetalia fandom for eight years and have gotten less feedback. I try not to whine about it, because I should put my money where my mouth is and comment more myself (not that I have been reading much Hetalia fic, recently) but it just... It makes it hard to find the desire to continue writing things for Hetalia.

And I feel like I'm being overdramatic about this, but if this fic exchange is going to be filled with people who don't finish their gifts, then I don't think I want to bother with it again, even though I've had luck with them in the past. It makes me wary of other fic exchanges too. I want to participate more and better in my fandoms, but this makes it hard to get the drive.

It's also still the 31st. Maybe I'm complaining too much, too soon. Maybe this evening, I'll see all of the gifts posted. But it's 8:30 PM EST, and the only people who have posted are still myself and one other person, and it shouldn't be too much to ask to expect that all of the gifts get posted on the day that we all agreed to when we signed up for this exchange, right?

ETA: Spoke too soon about the exchange hosts! They reblogged the other fic though not mine, heh. There still aren't any other entries posted though. I guess if I don't get a gift, I should ask about it tomorrow.

ETA2: Now they've reblogged my fic! Still no other posts though.

ETA3: lol I feel like I was definitely overreacting now; I have a gift, and it's a lovely gift. It still seems like not that many have posted things though. I guess we'll see how it goes, but I'll be disappointed if there's not more stuff, because I am looking forward to all the AmeCan.