#well after my reread of tgcf: absolutely not! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

horse-girl-anthy · 1 year

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Do you mind if I ask your top 10 favorite characters (can be male or female) from all of the media that you loved (can be anime/manga, books, movies or tv series)? And why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before.....Thanks..

tbh this is extremely hard to answer because I have many interests. I’m sure I’ll feel bad when I remember the hundred other characters that should have made the list. I’m not putting any Ikuhara characters because it’d been too hard to pick and honestly I’d have to go through each work individually.

1. Tenma from Naoki Urasawa’s Monster. I don’t claim to be a complicated person, alright. I just think he’s nice. every time I read Monster I get more attached to him like a little baby duck, which is what all the other characters in that story do as well so I’m valid. trying to put it into words is hard--he’s just an alluring combo of pathetic, ridiculous, cool, strong, and kind. plus he kinda becomes a religious figure by the end and I’m a sucker for that shit.

2. Xie Lian from TGCF/Heaven Official’s Blessing. I read the novels this summer after watching the donghua. I was just expecting a decent BL, but what I got was epic historical supernatural fiction (and BL). Xie Lian is such an impressively written character. his story helped me deal with my own fall from grace, as it were, and was overall cathartic and engaging. plus he’s my type. step aside Hua Cheng, I’d die for him first.

3. Orel from Moral Orel. I love this show a lot because of its focus on the cruelty and hypocrisy of WASP America, and Orel is relatable for struggling to understand the bulltshit answers he gets to all his questions. he’s a lot more innocent than I was as a kid, but I think his kind of purity plays well against the satirical, dark edge of the show.

4. Reki from Haibane Renmei. most of the reasons I love her aren’t revealed until the very end of the show. I’ll say that I love her because she’s the ultimate manifestation of the story’s themes of guilt and redemption.

5. Ishida from Koe no Katachi. I just finished rereading this manga recently. if you want a character who does wrong, suffers, tries to change himself, but finds it isn’t that easy, Ishida is your man. he’s such a funny, well-written teen boy, but also someone I think anyone from any background can see themselves in--the good and the bad.

6. Naruto from... you know. Naruto was the first anime I became really obsessed with, when I was in middle school, and Naruto himself is the first character I can remember becoming attached to in an intense, lasting way. I loved him so much and I still have that attachment to him. he’s so, so cute, and so, so lovable. when I’m done with my first round of Ikuhara vids, I’m going to download Naruto so I can make my friend a Sasuke fancam and I’m also gonna make a Naruto edit just for me :)

7. Miyuki from Naoki Urasawa’s Happy! I’ve read everything by Urasawa except for Yawara, and I’m one of the only people who seems to have read Happy! I gotta say, would I pick it as one of his best works? no. I love everything he’s done, but something like 20th Century Boys or Billy Bat is clearly a more serious, meaningful story than Happy!, which comes out of his transition phase between writing romantic comedy sports manga and his later thrillers. however... Happy! is one of those works which makes me lose my mind regardless of quality. and Miyuki, the main character, is just so damn adorable. I find her a very appealing, sweet character. beyond that, kind of like Monster, the entire story is about people trying to break her down, but she refuses to ever give up and I love that sort of thing when played right.

8. Ged from Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea series. I am still digging into Le Guin’s body of work but I’ve read most of her novels and short story collections. I could absolutely make a top ten list with just characters from her books. however, I managed to narrow it down to just three from this list, all from the Earthsea books. Ged is the only character who appears in all six books, and the reader gets to experience close the entire course of his life. he starts as an arrogant, careless boy and grows into a wise man. Le Guin decided not to leave him after he does his final great act, and his story continues after he loses his power. Tehanu, the fourth book in the series, is probably my favorite book I’ve ever read, I’ve thought about writing an analysis comparing it with RGU, and one of its main themes is life after loss and trauma. his story interwines with the next two characters on this list.

9. Tenar from Earthsea. like Ged, we get to see most of her life throughout the books. book 2 contains her coming of age story, while Tehanu features her as a widow, struggling between the life of an ordinary woman and her status in the mythology of Earthsea. she brings so much fire, mirth, and strength to the series. she’s someone I wish I had in my life, and if you really pressed me, she’s my favorite character Le Guin ever wrote.

10. Tehanu from Earthsea. this character is a strange one to try to write about. I’ve seen people criticize her writing by saying there’s nothing to her, she’s just a vessel for the story. but I can’t agree. as someone who’s known people who went through severe childhood trauma, I think that Tehanu is written with thought and care. I love how unnerving and unknowable she is, but also how she is written like she’s any other child. the ending of her story in the final book made me sob and sob and sob.

sources for the last three images because they’re fanart: 1, 2, 3

#these are in no particular order btw..........#ty for the ask #i do love to talk about things i love!#i took off Oofuri characters #more Le Guin protagonists #some of my fav movie characters #other Urasawa characters #theres v minor characters whove made a huge impression on me like Misae from Paranoia Agent #but this is a p good summary of the characters who make me the craziest

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the-golden-mango-of-discord · 1 year

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Hi! I hope you are doing well (⁠◕⁠ᴗ⁠◕⁠✿⁠)

For the violence ask game: 12,18 & 22 about tgcf.

12. the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

i feel like there's not too many characters that would be considered unpopular?? i guess i'll say mu qing bc there's a fair amount of mu qing haters but he is my guyyy my boyy my problematic proletarian fave <333 i understand him on a fundamental level if i had to live among rich people i'd be a cunt too ok. he has so many complexes and he has not gotten over a single one after 800 years what's not to love!!

18. it's absolutely criminal that the fandom has been sleeping on…

LANG YING (the original one)!!!!!!!!!!! nobody brings him up in any of the discourse or the meta or the fics or the angsty book 2 fanart and it makes me want to commit atrocities!!!!!!! he is the moment he is THE xie lian foil and everyone has collectively forgotten he exists

22. your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores

maybe just bc i'm rereading this part but during the mt tonglu arc when xie lian is slowly going insane thinking he's the actual reincarnated prince of wuyong is sooo insane i will never get tired of watching xie lian spiral in any context <3333

#tgcf #feeling sooo strongly about xie lian foils and xie lian's various trials and tribulations tonight u guys #ask game #asks for me :)#blorboposting

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sophia-sol · 5 months

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November recs: fic, vids, short stories, and novelettes

In November I started doing a thing where whenever I read a story or a fic that I enjoyed, I quickly wrote up a brief rec for it and posted it directly to my mastodon account. I am amazed at how much I'm enjoying doing this, and how well it works for me! But this means that I have now built up a backlog of recs that I want to share to my dreamwidth and tumblr as well. So I think going forward I'll post a roundup once a month of the past month's recs, so that y'all can see them as well!

Here's the November ones! Featuring:

7 TGCF fics 13 SVSSS fics 1 MDZS fic 1 NiF fic 1 Persuasion (Jane Austen) fic 2 multifandom vids 5 short stories 3 novelettes

TGCF RECS

Digging for Orchids, by betts

TGCF, hualian

Over the last couple days I reread this fic and was reminded just how GOOD it is

modern AU hualian

roommates! out of work actors! pretending to be husbands!

hualian are canonically both just so weird about each other and so over the top about everything to do with each other always, and this fic captures that dynamic beautifully

the author's careful attention to the physicality of scenes is so good and so important

xie lian is living with chronic pain after a fall and it's so real about how that affects his life

there are so many funny and on point observations of various characters and their relationships with each other!

I had many feelings

LOVE WINS.

On Our Way to Fall, by etymologyplayground

TGCF, hualian

a cute quiet small domestic scene in puqi shrine in the middle parts of book canon

see hua cheng as a cat! hear hua cheng's theory about breathing being sexy! enjoy hua cheng and xie lian being completely smitten with each other! also lady windmaster is a real pal as always

it's super adorable

6k words in length

Celestial Confluence/Cultivation Cross, by pengiesama

TGCF, hualian

a silly funny fic about hua cheng causing chaos in heaven by creating a trendy new gacha game

xie lian, bewildered, ends up on shi qingxuan and ming yi's livestream about the game

hua cheng is absolutely willing to get distracted from the game by gege

there's some excellent comic timing in here!

6k words in length

The Heart and All its Chambers, by etymologyplayground

TGCF, hualian

modern au where hualian are lesbians

xie lian has never had an orgasm, and hua cheng offers to help by loaning her a toy

obviously the help ends up going further than that

it's just so cute and sweet how much xl and hc love each other and take care of each other and are clearly SUPER into each other!

and how good they are about each other's weird hangups about sex!

19k words in length

Stick in the Mud, by etymologyplayground

TGCF, beefleaf

beefleaf before the beefleaf arc goes down

having sex with a strap-on and definitely not having any undercurrents of emotions about anything, what are you talking about, beefleaf would never

god, the note it ends on!!

4k words in length

beloved in your sight, by olivers_box_of_raisins

TGCF, mulian

mu qing pov from the xianle trio era

ft. class issues and teen relationship drama

xie lian is an enormous martial arts nerd and a naive but shining prince; mu qing is pining but hyper-aware of class boundaries and how everyone sees him; feng xin is ready to judge

it's so great and succeeds so well at what it's doing, I love it

I love the last scene, which it ends on, about xie lian's appearance after he ascends. perfect ending to the fic

7k words in length

Your Sweet Breath On My Dice, by Siamesa

TGCF, hualian

canon divergence story where ghost king hua cheng manages to catch up with his god in a different way

that way: xie lian accidentally triggered a curse and now he's swapped bodies with a mysterious ghost….?

(INCREDIBLE premise)

I love xl and hc's very different reactions to finding themselves in each other's bodies

I think my favourite part though might be poor yin yu doing his best to handle the situation, between hc's firm instructions on how to treat xl, and xl's equally firm opinions on what to do

a very fun read overall!

6k words in length

SVSSS RECS

ars adeo latet arte sua, by lavenderandrue

SVSSS, bingqiu

post-canon bingqiu experimenting with roleplay

in which they pretend that lbh is a statue in a museum and sqq is the museum caretaker who understands the statue's true value more than anyone else

yes obviously they're both extremely horny about it and also feelings-horny about it

the asides about the various lbh figurines sqq had in his old life are so funny

I love seeing them able to just be happy and have fun exploring their sexuality together, after all the woes of canon!

the word count is 6969, nice

bereft, bestowed, by sixthmoon (seventhstar)

SVSSS, moshang

cute fic about mobei-jun being hounded by his advisors to get married, but he's uninterested in the various eligible women being presented to him

shang qinghua suggests that mbj set a task that anyone who wants to marry him must fulfill

I think you can guess how this ends :D

3k words in length

in the thin winter sun, by goshkiki

SVSSS, moshang

rule 63 post-canon moshang from mbj's pov, featuring a pining mbj who can't understand why sqh doesn't seem to be interested in being her queen even though sqh is happy enough to have sex with her

gorgeously desperate and despairing, lyrical and in love and hopeless about it

mbj's pov is amazing, and so is seeing sqh through mbj's eyes

note that the fic ends with the pining situation unresolved, but the author is planning a sequel, and the fic is satisfying as it is as well!

17k words in length

Tale Within A Tale, by BrilliantLady

SVSSS, bingqiu

an au where sqq does his best to communicate to lbh prior to the Immortal Alliance Conference, despite having his words held back by the system; so he tells a series of meaningful stories and hopes lbh will draw the right conclusions

the fic is from lbh's pov and I love how earnestly and carefully he tries to put together the clues sqq is giving him! the CONCLUSIONS he draws!!

I screamed internally with delight at multiple points while reading the fic. it's such a delightful read!

32k words in length

Come With Me, by acernor

SVSSS, bingliu

modern au, liu qingge's ex-fiance yue qingyuan is marrying luo binghe's ex shen jiu

lqg & lbh have an ill-advised hookup at the wedding of their exes, and then keep on having ill-advised hookups

both of them are completely incapable of being emotionally self-aware, even as they spend more and more time with each other, most of it framed antagonistically

oh my god they are both so fucked up

the draw and the attraction they both feel toward each other is so well-shown

truly impressed with them for managing to make a happy ending for themselves out of all this!! <3

63k words in length

Cold Blooded Rivalry (Just Add Heat), by acernor and hyphendots

SVSSS, liubingqiu

liu qingge gets hit with a fuck-or-die monster venom! shen qingqiu and luo binghe are here to help him out

the vibes are SO good, from the prickly antagonism between lqg & lbh at the beginning, through the awkward unspoken interest in sqq, to the way lqg goes all melty and floaty at the end

it's SO soft from lqg's pov once the cure is embarked upon and I love it so much

7k words in length

The Cost of Sacrilege, by Prim_the_Amazing

SVSSS, luo binghe & the old palace master

lbh is having a totally chill time of it having a breakdown after his shizun dies

the old palace master of huan hua is ALSO having a totally separate chill breakdown about once again having a disciple under his control (….he thinks) who looks like su xiyan

when their breakdowns intersect, no prizes for guessing who wins lol

It's Time For Binghe Angst

such a good view into what might have happened at the very beginning of the 5 year period where sqq is dead!

5k words in length

The Dark Is Full of Your Voice, by straightforwardly

SVSSS, bingqiu

post-canon au where post bing-ge vs bing-mei fight, it's bing-mei who returns to sqq

prompts that inspired this fic included “Technically awful attempts at comfort are actually very comforting” and “Comfortee flaunts their hurt in order to get more comfort” and it's perfect actually, I love how THEM it is

sqq having zero clue what to do that's Actually Helpful when someone's injured is soooo funny tbh. but his fussing is what really matters!

2k words in length

shen yuan and original luo binghe’s epic adventure in the modern world, by tshirt

SVSSS, bingyuan

shen yuan definitely didn't intend to buy this body pillow of luo binghe what are you talking about

he also definitely didn't involve his "essence" in an accidental ritual that summoned the real luo binghe

however luo binghe is now here and he needs to do SOMETHING about that

extremely funny, tshirt is always so good at the comic timing

the airplane cameo is also perfect

4k words in length

if you don't have your own boyfriend, rented is fine, by nyoomerr

SVSSS, bingyuan

I feel sure I've talked about this fic before but I can't find it in my tags?! I've been following it as a wip and it's now DONE!

the premise: bing-ge transmigrates to our world, and shen yuan thinks he's an attractive but incompetent and down on his luck cosplay-boyfriend-for-rent and takes pity on him

sy tries to reform lbh and turn him into someone who's not terrible at being a boyfriend. meanwhile lbh is slowly discovering that maybe…..it's possible………for someone to care about him and be nice to him just because they like him?? sounds fake! but what if?

every single aspect of their relationship (and everything else in the fic!!!) is a COMPLETE delight. I love to see how much sy's sharp-mouthed peerless cucumber side is out in full force, and how feral lbh is, and how the two of them play off each other

86k words in length

commodity fetishism, by tshirt

SVSSS, moshang

tshirt is a genius, this is SO funny, I'm dying

modern au where mbj is a trust fund baby who's lost access to his trust fund, and what is he going to do, WORK for money?? no.

enter sugar daddy sqh, or possibly findom mbj's paypig sqh

3k words in length

bro you posted cringe, by tshirt

SVSSS, cumplane

yes more tshirt fic, can't stop won't stop

this one's about shang qinghua and shen qingqiu arguing about whether sqh's sex scenes are at all believable

which of course leads to a hands-on demonstration

during which OBVIOUSLY they don't stop arguing

it's so funny and so in character and it's amazing

the excerpts from pidw that are read aloud as evidence are also peak comedy

also it's rule 63

3k words in length

is she, you know, a disciple of xian shu?, by tshirt

SVSSS, mingying

liu mingyan and ning yingying's developing relationship as they find ways to open up and be real with each other

it's so cute!!

I love how it talks about the experience of gender, how nyy likes that with lmy she isn't expected to be a demure flower, and lmy likes that she doesn't have to be perfect, and none of that excludes them from belonging as a woman who loves women

and also they bond over writing RPS, obvs

3k words in length

MDZS RECS

Disrupt, Corrupt, and Interrupt Me, by hansbekhart

MDZS, lan wangji/su minshan

I love fic that takes Su Minshan seriously as a character, it's a rare delight whenever I come across one

Lan Wangji/Su Minshan during the disciple era, before the guest disciples arrive

lwj is a fuckboy and sms is delighted to discover evidence that lwj despite his airs is the same as everyone else

they fuck about it a lot

content note for nonconsensual somnophilia

PERFECT ENDING omg.

3k words in length

NIF RECS

all around us are cliffs (close your eyes and fall), by plalligator

NiF, mei changsu/mu nihuang/xiao jingyan

canon divergence au where after the destruction of the chiyan army, mu nihuang takes her army back to yunnan to set up as an independent ruler, and prince jing disappears

mei changsu, hearing that nihuang has taken a husband and nobody knows who he is: right so I'm going to yunnan

cue identity shenanigans, of course!

the wip is at 5 chapters and 12k words right now, and it's left unmarked what the expected final length will be, but I am HERE for the ride wherever it goes because everything it is doing is delicious to me

it's tagged with mei changsu/mu nihuang/xiao jingyan so I'm assuming that's the endgame ship, which, yes, take me to there

PERSUASION RECS

An Officer and a Gentleman, by cedarboots

Persuasion, Anne/Frederick

a rewrite of Persuasion featuring butch 4 butch Anne/Frederick

god it's so GOOD and I am so EMOTIONAL about it

I love all the ways in which it is both the same and different, the ways their identities affect the things they do and the choices they make

and I mentioned in an earlier post how meaningful it is to be able to see gender non-conforming people like me in historical fiction, living their lives, finding ways to be happy, finding their community. shaking hands with them across time. I see you and you see me.

making Persuasion specifically be the story told is so perfect too because of how it's about getting to know yourself better when you've had time to grow up more

also there's lots of excellently-researched historical content

and lots of feels

READ IT READ IT READ IT

it's such a lovely ending and I nearly cried about it

47k words in length

MULTIFANDOM RECS

Masculine Women, Feminine Men, by Tafadhali

multifandom vid

fanvid about queer movies from mostly pre-Code hollywood days

a fascinating window into the way queer themes were portrayed in that era

fun and thoughtful at the same time

3 minutes in length

We Kiss in a Shadow (I Have Dreamed), by Tafadhali

multifandom vid

a follow-up to the pre-code vid I just recced, this one is about queer themes in 1950's-60's hollywood

very different vibes, and the contrast says a lot when you watch the two back to back

this one does really good understated yearning and unspoken secrets.

SHORT STORY RECS

Brincando Charcos (Jumping Puddles), by Ben Francisco

Short story

a beautiful story about fear and trauma and being latino in the USA, and queer romance and the wisdom of the people who love you, and how something that can help save you and that can bring joy and fun in your life can also be an unhealthy coping mechanism if you take it too far. I loved reading about Javier and Mateo as they developed their relationship!

4k words in length

The Long Mural, by James Van Pelt

Short story

about a stowaway on a generation ship

also about art and being part of a community of amateur artists whose work is worthwhile

I loved the details about the problems with microbial growth in a closed system full of humans who are constantly shedding skin particles, and that the main character sees it as an important job to be part of the clean-up

the future is unknown but worth being a part of

7k words in length

The Dying Lover of Nogorod, by R. K. Duncan

Short story

fantasy story about wizards and dragons and power, and being queer, and being horny for a dragon who is also your death

deliberately written in a higher register, which can too easily feel stilted or cold, but here works to give the whole thing a sense of dignity and depth

5k words in length

To Carry You Inside You, by Tia Tashiro

Short story

sci-fi story about a woman with a port-drive into her brain that allowed her to be a great child actor when she was young, and gives her a career as an adult of plugging in the mental backup of a dead person to visit bereaved families who want their beloved dead back again

about identity, embodiment, and not knowing how to want things

also about body-sharing

in second-person pov which works so well for the things this story is about and the things it's doing! the main character is someone who spends most of her time being someone else, after all

it's so compellingly written!

has the perfect ending, which can be so hard to pull off right

7k words in length

this is the first published story by this author, and something this great is her first; I am excited to think of where she might go from here!

Nextype, by Sam Kyung Yoo

Short story

a short story about a young woman who was given a neural implant to improve her abilities and skills in school to be able to get a good job

about parental expectations and abusive control

trying to figure out who you are and what you care about when you've never been given the opportunity to be anything but obedient

I had feelings

4k words in length

NOVELETTE RECS

The Year Without Sunshine, by Naomi Kritzer

Novelette

an urban neighbourhood handling an ongoing collapse of systems in a climate crisis by banding together and forming supportive community

doesn't ignore things like temporary and permanent disability

believable amounts of hopeful

10k words in length

Over My Dead Body by shukyou

Novelette

content notes for ummmmmmm body horror? body grossness definitely. also, murder, plus sex with weird consent stuff going on. drug use. probably other stuff too.

but it's not, like, horrifying and depressing about any of that! it's remarkably sweet!

an absolutely incredible piece of original fiction about bodyswap/bodysharing that really makes its home in exploring the weirdness of the situation from the inside. What Is Embodiment. How to have a relationship with the body you're in. Bodies have a lot going on! The brain is part of the body.

probably this story isn't for everyone, but if it is for you then you are in for a TREAT. I adored it.

14k words

Black are the Waters, by Ten Tzeng

Novelette

about the difficulties of being a teen girl whose dad just died, and who is trying to figure out her identity as an othered visible minority, with a large and close-knit multigenerational family whose older generations are more connected with traditional culture and who want her to be too

the traditional culture is selkies

yeah it's a GREAT premise and I love how carefully and believably the selkie culture is imagined, and what the experience of being part of a landed selkie family would be

very emotionally affecting too!

8k words in length

#fic recs #svsss #mdzs #cql #tgcf #persuasion #nif #short story recs #rec #sophpost #monthly recs

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iantimony · 6 months

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accidentally back to tuesdaypost

despite my best efforts, shabbat came and went and i did not make my post. oops. trying a new heading template this week as well.

maybe not this week but i am thinking of starting to host images for the making section somewhere else...maybe on gdrive? or postimages.org? imgur? just so that if my tumblr ever breaks the images in dreamwidth won't vanish.

listening

partizan! halfway through episode 12 right now, which means, according to where i was last week-ish, i am averaging about one episode a day LOL. extreme sport FatT speedrunning. also relistening to all is as all should be recently, just scratches a brain itch for some reason. it's very brain-worm-able to me, i've been humming songs from it all week.

reading i was going to say fallow and then went. hooold on. i've been reading SO many things just not, like, books.

wikipedia articles of the week: Naomi Shihab Nye, Rachel's Tomb, Matzevah, Alexandre Cabanel, Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud, Leo Africanus

because it's november and i'm nostalgic for nanowrimo (and considering doing it again once i'm done with classes and therefore homework), i went and reread some of my nano from when i was in high school and WOW. nostalgia!!! some of it is very very bad, unsurprisingly, it was almost 10 years ago, but some of it is actually quite good. very fond of the comments left by a friend on it that were preserved when i downloaded the google doc a billion years ago to save on my external drive, including one that said "your prose is crisp like an autumn apple" or some fucking thing like that. truly delightful. i'd also somehow forgotten that i'd actually hit the word goal? the document is about 60k words give or take, the story was not finished though which is probably why i misremembered. i should start writing again.

in my quest to populate my inoreader with blogs and other such things i've been delving into my bookmarks and re-found this delightful site, their most recent article is just the world's most specific niche horn memes it's so funny. like this is absolutely meaningless to literally everyone else that it passes back into absurdity and probably funny to non-horn players again. i am VERY excited to peruse their pdf library though.

playing pokegoooooo. i am visiting my grandma and going on long night walks around the old people development with pokego is very elite. i am a little nervous that someone will call security on me though because i frequently just stop (often like...in front of people's apartment buildings....) and stand still to catch pokemon if a bunch have spawned in one location...

watching i have not watched it yet but i am VERY excited to start season 2 of the tgcf donghua!!

watched kurtis connor's "deep dive into potterheads" and literally cheered out loud at the end when he mentioned the snapewives. that made me want to watch strange aeons so i also watched her video on msscribe and snapewives.

i wasn't On Livejournal or active in fandom while everything was going down but i remember learning about it a few years after it all happened so seeing comprehensive deep dives now is very, very...satisfying isn't quite the right word, but i am a messy bitch who lives for drama especially when i'm not involved in it. what a mess.

youtube

making pottery!!! i have a bunch of stuff coming out from a glaze run that i'm very excited to see but it will have to wait til saturday when i get home from visiting my grandma for thanksgiving. i do however have pictures of this little box i made:

it was a gift for my grandma, and i glazed it all the way back in the beginning of october i think? the kilns got monopolized by some other stuff for the owner's business (which is super fair) which means we didn't get a student project run until literally friday, two days before i was supposed to leave town, so after some texting with her she was able to put it out on her porch around 11pm on saturday when the kiln cooled down enough so i was able to pick it up at like 5:30am on my drive to the airport LOL so all in all it worked out! next roundup post will have pictures of some of my other glazed pieces, i'm very very curious how they do!!!

i've been playing with underglaze because i was like ohhhh i love the look of carving designs into underglaze...and i bought some fun colors when i went to The City a few weekends ago...so i have this mug that needs its first fire, i also have some fun eye-motif ones in the works at the moment! i also added some underglaze color to my dragon carving from last week.

finally this bowl already had its first fire but i painted underglaze on over white to try and get a watercolor-type effect? i put lilypads on the inside and painted koi on the outside (no picture of that yet)

misc not a whole lot else! since my summertime trials and tribulations i have unfortunately become the kind of person who gets tummy issues when my stress levels get too high. i have always become a basket case in the ~24 hours before i have to travel somewhere so that's been less than fun but i'm figuring it out. also trying to switch psychiatrists right now is sooooo fucking aggravating i will not get into it but ughhhhhh.

#tuesdayposting

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jeriafterdark · 2 years

Text

2021 - Year in Review - Let me tell you how I fell into this pit

It's New Year's, and I know it's a happy occasion, maybe? For me, I'm just really anxious due to personal family things, as well as ZZH things, so I'm writing this to distract myself haha. Let's talk about how I fell into this danmei pit~ (LONG POST)

1. It was early 2021 - Heaven Official's Blessing - TGCF

I was browsing on Netflix looking for things to watch when it recommended me Heaven Official's Blessing, the donghua. I watched it, thoroughly enjoyed the visuals/story/music, and then I checked out the manhua. And realized Starember's work is THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WORK I'VE EVER SEEN.

So then... the manhua wasn't updated that quickly, so I decided I'll just look up the novels and read them, I can read pretty quickly, so no big deal, right? WELL. I ended up spending 2 solid weeks reading ALL of the TGCF novels lol. My god, I fell in love. The writing was just -chefs kiss-. Hualian invented love, as they say. So I ran out of material and was slowly going insane...

2. I looked at MXTX's other work, MDZS + The Untamed

I was desperate for more, so I saw The Untamed was rec'd to me on Netflix. I used to watch old wuxia shows when I was a kid with my mom, so I thought I could get back into it lol. AND THEN, i couldn't even finish the first two episodes, the CGI killed me haha.

I ended up reading MDZS (Mo Dao Zu Shi), and then I came back to watch the Untamed. And I got HOOKED. HOOKED. Absolutely destroyed. I fell in love with the world, the stoic Lan Wangji, the chaotic good gremlin Wei Wuxian, and their forever-love. So sweet.

I checked out the BTS of The Untamed, all of it. Everything. And I became a turtle and started shipping RPF for the first time in my entire life. Yizhan / BJYX SZD stan here. I spent about three months just devouring every candy I could, honestly, where did my life go???

3So, I slowly went more and more insane... and then I heard about what happened to a certain actor in August.

3. Zhang Zhehan / Gong Jun + Word of Honor

I really didn't want to watch WOH/SHL because I was so obsessed with the Untamed, and my initial impression of ZZS's makeup was just too spray-on tan lol. It killed me. So I read a bunch of danmei like Thousand Autumns/reread TGCF, etc, until I gave in in September 2021. I started WOH and it took a few episodes, but when ZZH's face was revealed in that make-up remover lake, I just died. He was so beautiful. Their chemistry was off the charts, the flirting was so cute, the STORY itself - about older men falling in love and finding their own family, starting again. It's just such a rare story to see, I've never seen it. Usually media depicts really young people falling in love, or older people, or people who aren't Asian and queer. And this couple, WenZhou, was just so sweet. I loved it.

I even loved all the outrageous nut advertising, honestly. I still have to finish my 28 day LLD challenge about how much I love WOH/LLD/JunZhe.

After I demolished the show, I decided to watch the behind-the-scenes for funsies. I was thinking, how possible is it that ANOTHER couple, both men, fell in love on the set of a BL show??? Like YiZhan? No way. But damn. Those two are so loud, I don't know how you can deny it.

Ah god, I love them so much. I watched all their shows/interviews/the concert a thousand times. I just loved their love, it was so sweet, pure. I followed all the sagas/the ring saga/one night in x, etc. --which I want to do a write-up on this blog later too. When I discovered the saga of the ring, that convinced me 100% that they're together. It's not so uncommon for actors and actresses to fall in love on set, happens all the time in the West. So why would it be weird for these two boys to fall in love in CN?

Anyway, I fell in love with their love <3. And After what happened to ZZH, I couldn't leave. I want to stay on the mountain, and support him from afar, waiting for the day he'll come back. And maybe the day where they'll both be in the same stage again! Now with Uncle Li's help, that future isn't so far off, I think.

Conclusion

Thank you for joining me on this journey :) I've only started this blog a few months ago because I was feeling very alone in my love for them, and my grief for ZZH. But I see that there are a lot of new followers, and people who like the same things I do, and like them the way I do. So great to have a shared love of something so pure :) Thanks all! Let's hope for a brighter 2022.

#tales from the mountaintop #meta #about me #tgcf #woh #yizhan #bjyx #junzhe #lld #long post

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neuxue · 2 years

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Hi.....If you don't mind, can I ask somethings?

a) In which moment or part that got you to fall in love with MDZS and TGCF?

b) Can I ask your top 3 favorite quotes from both of the novels?

Thanks. Sorry if you've answered the questions before....

Oh good questions! I'm actually going to take a rain check on favourite quotes because I'm still in the middle of a TGCF reread (and my first MDZS read) and if I try to pick favourite quotes now I'll end up just letting this sit in my askbox for approximately the rest of eternity. So uh. Check back with me on that one?

Anyway! Moments that made me fall in love...

TGCF

I think this one is less of a single defining moment and more a series of things:

1 )The prologue alone was a pretty strong sell, for the combination of a) Xie Lian's blithe confidence in saying that he will not apologise for what he did not do wrong, and if the heavens disagree then it is the heavens who are wrong and b) the way we are given, right from the start, this idea of Xie Lian's involvement in the fall of Xianle exacerbating the situation even as he tried to salvage it. I love watching a fall from grace, I love it more when the character plays an active role in that fall, and I love it most when the narrative plays with consequence without making it into blame. By which I mean, this isn't a story about punishing a character for making the 'wrong' choices; it's about exploring the choices that are made and why and the fact that the only thing you can ever do is find a way to live with the outcomes. ANYWAY. Before I end up writing that essay, basically the hints of that in the prologue hooked me in a big way.

2) A series of small things throughout the first few chapters of Book 1, where Xie Lian slips in these lightly-stated side comments or thoughts that, when you look a little more closely, have absolutely horrifying implications in terms of things he has experienced. The things he takes in stride, with a smile and a don't-look-too-closely-or-it-will-hurt indifference towards his own wellbeing. The things that make you pause for a second and go 'what happened to you?' and the way he conducts himself with regards to those things. It's a character trope I love and it also, on my first read, meant that there was Good (read: Bad) Shit To Come.

3) The other gods' absolute fear of Hua Cheng, and the story of how he destroyed 33 gods in a day. Need I Say More.

4) The General Hua story. Literally everything about it. An essay for another time, but like... the story itself, and the way it starts to fill in some of the detail around those horrifying hints about Xie Lian's past, but also the questions it raises and deals with and that become themes in the whole novel: questions of 'right' and 'wrong' where there isn't a single answer, questions of what it means to try even when all your efforts come to nothing, questions of intent vs perception, action vs consequence, and the way it is all remembered or forgotten, the way life becomes story and people become roles and-- anyway. That.

5) I was pretty solidly on board at this point, but the conversation between Xie Lian and Hua Cheng after the Banyue arc, when Xie Lian laughs a little bitterly at his past self for once telling a lost child to make him their reason for living, and Hua Cheng's response... yeah. That whole scene wrecks me.

CQL (as I'm still only on ch13 of MDZS)

This one's easy.

1) The first 3 minutes of the show in which we see Our Protagonist crying on a cliffside, devastated and broken and at last quietly falling. The way his soft but grief-stricken resignation and fall is overlaid by the story of a once-bright, wild youth whose legacy is notoriety. The way we are handed this tragedy from the beginning, as well as the whole Theme of... perception and consequence and what it takes to cast someone as the villain in the eyes of the world.

2) That moment in episode... oh, 3 or 4 maybe, when I realised with the force of a fucking lightning bolt that oh, this isn't just a half-episode or 1-2 episode flashback of a sequence of moments catching us up quickly to that cliffside, no, we're going to see the entire path from sunlight to darkness. I think I actually gasped aloud at that realisation and had to pause for a minute to let it sink in. It's the kind of story I crave and so rarely get to see, and from that moment in I was sold.

#i simply Cannot narrow down favourite quotes to three #like for TGCF alone we've got to include every single word Bai Wuxiang says to Xie Lian #and that doesn't even begin to cover everything /else/!#you see my problem here #anyway this was a fun question #also i have a few of your other ones sitting in my askbox because #you ask great questions! and then i take forever to answer them! because they're good and i want to give them Adequate Thought!#anyway. we'll get there.#asks #elaine2895 #tgcf #the untamed

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spockandawe · 3 years

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What are your favorite chinese webnovels? What are some of the differences youve noticed between cnovels and other types of novels?

That second question is really, REALLY interesting, and I really want to answer it well, and I am REALLY sure I’m going to do a bad job of answering it, so let me just noodle about that first question for a minute while I try to think XD

I went through some of my TOP-top favorite novels in more detail yesterday, but generally speaking, mxtx and meatbun are both at the top of the pack. They’re really good at writing compelling main characters and balancing piles of angst with plenty of humor and pulling everything together into a very satisfying ending (which is something I don’t alwaysssss see, even in some of the novels I really like). After them, The Disabled Tyrant’s Pet Palm Fish (transmigration, ancient chinese prince falls in love with pet fish) and Golden Stage (ancient chinese gay arranged marriage between bitter enemies(?)) are two novels that I love a lot, which both have very cute romances and go a bit lighter on the main character suffering front, and which I broadly recommend to anyone who’s interested in the genre. They didn’t end stick the landing QUITE as hard as an svsss or tgcf, but they still were very nice.

Then, let me see. I’m trying to remember which books I’ve read in the last year, and am doing a terrible job, haha. I will say that a book I enjoyed for like... eighty percent of it and then the ending let me down terribly was The Dreamer In The Spring Boudoir (modern day career woman transmigrates into barely-fantasy ancient china novel as the disliked primary wife of a nobleman), which is also the only straight webnovel I’ve read so far. The main character and romance were delightful, but that ending... haha, wow, I felt betrayed. But I did like the first half very much!! I’m idly contemplating a deliberately-partial reread. Then I’m currently like two chapters away from catching up with the current translation of The Wife Is First (ancient chinese prince lives out time travel fixit fic, determined to treat his spouse better this time around). I’m also catching up on Heroic Death System (transmigration, across MANY universes, where the goal is to die heroically in each one, and also maybeeeee to find his boyfriend in each one. this shit gets fucking bananas. in one of them, he emotionally seduces his boyfriend while he’s a dolphin. in another one, he’s a sentient mushroom. i’m in the middle of a section titled ‘I Am An Evil Pen’. yes, like a writing utensil type of pen. this is the weirdest book I’ve read so far). Oh, and Thousand Autumns (righteous sect leader gets sabotaged and loses a fight, wakes up blind and amnesiac, demonic sect leader is like ‘lol i bet i can turn him evil’ and accidentally catches feelings along the way).

What else... I’m keeping up with (but behind on) some others. First, there’s How To Survive As A Villain (modern terminally ill CEO transmigrates into stallion novel, wakes up as villain, accidentally seduces hero). Then, we’ve got Transmigrating Into The Body Of The Heartthrob’s Cannon Fodder Childhood Friend (only modern webnovel I’ve read, young man transmigrates into beginning of gratuitous whump book, back in high school, and is determined to protect the protagonist from all the canonical suffering). Then there’s Pulling Together A Villain Reformation Strategy (guy transmigrates into story as the hero’s childhood friend who will eventually become his enemy and get killed, successfully acts out his part and dies, completely fails to realize he’s broken his friend’s heart in the process... and then wakes up in another character’s body). And then there’s The Villain’s White Lotus Halo (a transmigrator keeps bouncing from universe to universe as a cannon fodder villain, who gets like half a line before being killed. he tries to purchase an upgrade package so he can be a COOL villain instead, but accidentally gets sold a ‘white lotus halo’ package instead, so that no matter what he does, everyone is just DEEPLY moved by his appearance and is positive he did nothing wrong). All of those are EXTREMELY delightful. You may notice a running transmigration theme, which....... yeah, I think there are a TON of delightful stories in the webnovel scene that deal with this genre, which seem so rare in English language media.

Which makes a good transition point to what’s different about the cnovel scene! I’ve seen hardly any transmigration stories in English, and I’ve got a couple go-to examples for when I’m trying to explain it, but like. Only a couple. Which is such a shame! Like, there’s the default idea of ‘I was reading this book and then I woke up inside the book!!’ but it’s clearly such an established genre that people are playing with it in all kinds of interesting ways, like in The Villain’s White Lotus Halo or Heroic Death System setups. It’s kind of wild to me, because it seems like such a gimme for a nice easy story structure? Whatever kind of world you want to present, there’s no need to introduce it to the reader from the ground up, or find a good way to hook them in. Either the main character read the book in question and can explain the premise and why we should care in pov, or the main character is new to the universe too, and trying to find their own footing. I enjoy it a lot! I’ve sampled transmigration books that didn’t grab me, but I’ve sampled way more that did.

And then, the one semi-technical answer I thought of to this question was the way that these novels tend to handle pov. It’s not a hard-and-fast rule that regular novels are restricted to one pov, or that pov can only change at hard breaks in the story, but if I saw a bog-standard american novel glide from pov to pov the way these novels regularly do, I would tend to wonder if it was sloppiness or a mistake, or I would grump to myself about how I don’t like omniscient third person pov. And I still don’t know exactly what I think about this, or why it’s different in here, but I’m pretty sure I like it a lot, especially for stories where the romance tends to play a large part :V

I used to read a lot of Books About Writing, and read plenty of stuff about why you don’t DO this, but.... I like it! In dtppf, Jing-wang can’t talk, and when Li Yu is a fish, he can’t talk, and drifting from one of their perspectives to the other gives me lots of useful information about how they’re both feeling. Could that be conveyed through restricted pov? Maybe! But I’m typesetting the svsss extras right now, and I’m in the bing-ge vs bing-mei section, and we get a few brief flashes of bing-ge’s thoughts, and it’s so NICE. It’s information I would not have otherwise received, because Shen Qingqiu sure wasn’t going to notice it. But early in the story, that pov was withheld from me, which also made sense (or hua cheng’s pov was withheld from me FOREVER, which makes me so sad ;u;). There don’t seem to be any hard and fast rules, which makes me really nervous about writing fic and trying to match the style, but I do like it a lot!

And I’m definitely not able to articulate this in the way that I would like to, or speak with any real authority (I’m not that widely read in the cnovel scene, and i’m not very genre-adventurous in english), but there’s something about the role that the romances play in these stories that’s different from what I’m used to expecting, and it’s VERY tasty to me. I only rarely read romance novels, because I’m not often interested in the romance as a primary plot driver, but the romances in these books play a more substantial role than I’m used to expecting. And I’m into it! It’s a balance closer to what I’d expect from, like, a shippy longform fanfic. Which covers a lot of ground and is NOT a precise measure, but there’s more emotional weight given to the romance than I would expect, but without the romance carrying ALL of the emotional weight, and it strikes a perfect balance for me in a way I’m not used to encountering. Now, some of this could definitely be due to me not finding the right authors, or right subgenres, or whatever. But in the genres I inhabit, it’s a subtle difference, but one I find compelling.

Oh, one last thing. The cultural differences, duh :P I’m only familiar with things like, say, ancient chinese court etiquette through a lens of fan-translated novels like these, and I didn’t grow up steeped in the culture in a way I’m used to the trappings of something like medieval european courts. But there’s a distinct flavor to the social dynamics of these novels, from the formal levels down to the casual, and I know it’s super intricate and detailed and that authors play with differing degrees of historical accuracy vs fictional fun, and I wish I was better equipped to speak to the nature of any of this. But I find it really compelling! I recognize that it’s only new to ME because I didn’t seek out chinese media before now. And, the point that I originally wanted to get to before I got super distracted: the flirting. The flirting and teasing are a very different flavor from what I would expect in most english language media, and I love it, even if I can’t speak to how much of that is purely cultural, and how much of it is like... the conventions of How Fiction Is Written varying by culture, if that makes sense. I adore seeing what flirting and affection and indulgence and attentiveness look like in different settings, and these books, with their heavy romantic focus, absolutely deliver.

#spock replies #long post/#i've read more novels than i thought :p #i thought it wasn't many #but then more kept occurring to me #i've only read a few that i don't recommend period but i've read a lot of good ones #Anonymous

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nyerus · 4 years

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i have reread tgcf for 2 times alr but there has been this one thought in my mind for quite some time and i was wondering if you can share your thoughts on this : why did dianxia fall in love with his hua cheng? (thank you in advance for answering

Sorry for taking so long to answer Anon! I wanted to do right by this question (and also I've been studying--or, attempting to.... And of course Fafa's birthday and all)! Giant answer ahead.

So I think first we need to break down the very philosophical question of what "love" is. I don't want to get too deep into that, but fundamentally: love is emotional intimacy which is built upon the pillars of affection, respect, loyalty, and trust.

Speaking strictly from Xie Lian's side, he feels all of this towards Hua Cheng. To him, Hua Cheng is someone trustworthy and reliable. Hua Cheng is also someone who makes him laugh, and is an equal (in terms of both skill and intellect) with whom he can hold a deep conversation on just about any topic of their choosing. Hua Cheng in return respects him, trusts him, never belittles him. They communicate well, and have similar viewpoints and temperaments. Personality wise, they are good compliments rather than being direct opposites.

Basically, Hua Cheng is someone with whom Xie Lian feels safe--physically and emotionally.

This is sort of what... most people looking for love are after, simply put.

Xie Lian also tells us what he really wants in book 3: for someone to know his everything (his past and all the things he's gone through), and for that person to not judge him. For that person to see him for who he is, and still be able to love him regardless.

But Xie Lian is not the type of person who would actually reveal the horrors of his past to anyone, so he is sort of working against himself here. There is a part of Xie Lian who feels that he is unloveable, and more over, unworthy of love because of what he has done. Even so, he yearns for it anyway. A beautiful dream that he thinks he could never have.

How serendipitous for him that there happens to be someone (Hua Cheng) who actually DOES know his Everything, and loves every part of him. Including all the ugly bits Xie Lian wishes he could erase! Hua Cheng loves Xie Lian in exactly the way Xie Lian has always hoped for: completely, and without judgement.

"What matters is you and not the state of you." That's the crux of their relationship, after all.

This, combined with how Hua Cheng teats Xie Lian kindly, and makes him laugh--well. How do you NOT fall in love with someone like that?

I haven't even talked about the fact that Xie Lian is also very much sexually attracted to Hua Cheng right from the start. We can't discount that. His appearance, his demeanor, etc. It's a direct hit to all of Xie Lian's weak points, and it definitely lowers his guard. Hua Cheng and the (very specific) vibe he gives off is exactly Xie Lian's type. The courteous bad boy with a heart of gold. ;)

While they do have many differences, Xie Lian still feels like he and Hua Cheng are kindred spirits. He even identifies that Hua Cheng has his own insecurities and sense of loneliness, to which Xie Lian relates.

Xie Lian also respects and cherishes Hua Cheng in return. He knows that while Hua Cheng may have some extreme methods, the ghost king is ultimately fair. Xie Lian knows of Hua Cheng's many accomplishments and he's quite in awe of this. In short, he also finds Hua Cheng to be an amazing person--someone he genuinely wants to spend time with.

Xie Lian and Hua Cheng are also both the type to love with their whole heart, with no room for anyone else. They just work really well together.

So to reiterate the earlier question: how do you NOT fall in love with someone who understands you, makes you feel happy and safe, and who cherishes you tenderly? Who also happens to match your skill and intellect level, shares your viewpoints, is absolutely gorgeous, and to top it all off--very clearly has a thing for you too?

TLDR; Mutual affection, respect, loyalty, and trust. Mix it all up to get stellar chemistry, and you have a recipe for love. By this, it’s easy to see why Xie Lian would fall so deeply and irreversibly for his Hua Cheng!

Thank you so much for sending this ask, I know I kinda got carried away because Hualian just makes me like that! xD

If anyone else has asks about TGCF, please do send them in!

ﾟ+｡:.ﾟヽ(*´∀`)ﾉﾟ.:｡+ﾟ

#tgcf #tian guan ci fu #heaven offical's blessing #hob #anonymous #asks #nyerus.txt

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touchmycoat · 3 years

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HI good afternoon from here !!! I don’t remember when I sent the ask but I finished book one this Thursday so in a week and oh god oh god I’m loving everything soooo much I’m so djfkgkgk I’m so excited to know more about everyone 👀👀👀 every time I would read something I was left speechless and the QiRong reveal… aaaaa xl pls you burden yourself with and take the blame for so many things :’) and hhhh I loved the ghost city !! I couldn’t stop laughing about beating the half eaten bun and hc accepting anything just bc it’s gege his beloved~ and aaaaa how he goes to such lengths just so the truth can be revealed and xl doesn’t have to deal with thing he didn’t do TT I think for unexpected it was QiRong lolol especially the cousin part haha just really didn’t see that one coming and welp I know he might or might not cause more trouble in the future~

For some reason the whole banyue thing confused me in the donghua but I think I understand more after reading it

I really really like how much fx and mq care about xl but also I know I will get hurt when I know more about their past and what happened between them 🥲🥲🥲 im not ready Midoooooo

Im itching to start book two after I get some free time and oh boy oh boy I kinda spoiled myself some things, idk in which books they happen but I’m very *sweats profusely*

my ask is all over the place im so sorry djfkf i just wrote as I remembered stuff bc hhh everything was so good aaaaa

HUA CHENG IS SO FUCKING MUCH. he's literally the Xie Lian: *spits on the ground* Me: *licks it up* situation, he's the WORST.

Qi Rong....i stan a cannibal but also he's so fucking annoying lmfaaaoooo. part of MXTX's brilliance as a writer is how precise her characterizations are, imo, and she really said "I don't think I've done a character that's so inexcusably annoying that he's going to cross the line and then cross it right back and then take a huge stinking dump on the line" and then executed it to perfection. Also like, he's so nasty (affectionate) that I forget he actually looks...a lot like Xie Lian?? Like canonically he's good-looking????? My brain keeps deleting that fact from my memory

oooh yeah the banyue situation!! confused as in what happens? it's so funny 'cause Dafan Mountain and Banyue kind of exist in the same category in my mind, where the first and second times I read their respective texts, the thematic resonance didn't click for me, and they both felt like utility arcs than anything that stuck with me? But that's just 'cause i'm illiterate. The Banyue arc totally makes sense now w the revelations for XL and the parallels with Banyue herself. Maybe I still don't totally get Dafan Mountain but that's fine

I LOVE THE XIAN LE TRIO SO MUCH. Mu Qing is so fucking good. I reread the scene where he brings medicine to XL under house arrest, and he's like, 7000% schadenfreude "omg, you got revenge? you went out there and done did the dirty and you're not as glowing and good as i have an issue with you being?" He's Shen Jiu's best friend and that's just the truth, bitch boys unite.

AAAAHHHHHHHHH okay okay at least tgcf is one of those stories that doesn't diminish in impact even if you know the spoilers? well maybe, i don't actually know, i was lucky enough to know absolutely nothing going in, and i blazed through the book in like, 5 business days or something, so i didn't have time to get spoiled either. WHAT DO YOU KNOW I WANT TO KNOW but also it's fine don't look more into spoilers

#tgcf readalong #illusion-li #I'M SO HAPPY YOU'RE ENJOYING IT

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veliseraptor · 4 years

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☕️ I confess that I'm deadly curious for any thoughts you have on svsss/tgcf/erha (so far) (I realize that is a dreadfully broad ask, feel free to disregard or sharply narrow scope, whichever suits)

oh man oh man. So I feel like I don’t have a lot of detailed thoughts, especially for erha because I really feel like I just started it (though I am enjoying it so far! and liking the translation! and the concept re: Mo Ran in and of itself is like. [chefs kiss] tailor made for me)

I feel like I don’t have enough to say about SVSSS because I read it so goddamn fast - like, I think in some ways my experience of both SVSSS and MDZS suffered a little by the fact that I blitzed through them very quickly so like. I feel like there’s subtleties I didn’t absorb? but the reason I did that with SVSSS in particular was because it was like delicious candy.

I feel like what I’ve realized with both SVSSS and erha is that transmigration stories twig a lot of the same things I like tropes as time loop/time travel fics do? (I mean, the latter is pretty straight time travel, okay.) Which is to say the dramatic irony of people knowing how things are going to/supposed to play out, and how things change based on branching decisions that people make based on that awareness. I don’t think I’m explaining this very well, but I do really like that.

and with SVSSS in particular I really appreciate the fact that, like. it actually hampers Shen Qingqiu, because he’s so fixated in some ways on the things that he knows to be true that he doesn’t really register how much things are changing. which...I don’t always have a lot of tolerance for super oblivious characters (this was something that sort of frustrated me about novel!Wei Wuxian), but it worked for me here because it was this enormous blind spot clearly created by his sense of “okay but this is what should happen,” which is a kind of obliviousness that makes a lot of sense to me. he’s so locked into his sense of ‘canon characterization’ (as it were) that he misses how much things have changed, and so locked into his internal narration that he misses how he’s coming off to others.

I think so far of the three MXTX novels that TGCF ended up being my favorite. I’m not sure if this was a translation thing or a third novel writing improvement thing or what.

(It’s probably also true that the more webnovels I read the more I get used to genre conventions/tropes/stylistic quirks, which has also probably changed how I read. so possibly this trajectory of “liked the last one I read best” is just a reflection of that. hard 2 say.)

I definitely recognize that it sprawls, but because I was just really enjoying the reading experience I didn’t care. the only part where I dragged a little was actually in the book 2 flashback, which...I got into eventually but it took me a while, and I think remains my least favorite part? (book 4 is probably my favorite.) I really, really liked the ensemble cast (so many delightful side characters!), the Xie Lian/Hua Cheng relationship might be my favorite main pairing of the three novels...and I just, yeah, really enjoyed the experience of reading it. this is probably the one I’m most excited to go back and reread (though after I finish erha I think I’m going to go back to either MDZS or SVSSS first, try an alternate translation for at least bits of the first and the one you sent me for the second.)

re: erha so far I’m just like. you have given me “terrible person who gained absolute power, discovered they really weren’t enjoying themselves anymore, and committed suicide only to find that they came back to life with a second chance to fix things for themself” combined with “obsession with my nemesis who I hate but also have complicated feelings about” and I’m. I mean,

okay okay okay

#webnovel liveblogging #i'll probably need an svsss tag i guess when i go back to that one #what do i even tag this it's not really an opinions it's just kinda me rambling #spockandawe #conversating #lise reads tgcf #lise reads erha

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mihanada · 4 years

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Heaven Official’s Blessing Liveblog

As promised, a liveblog of Heaven Official’s Blessing! I am treating this as my first read through past Chapter 21. I do know a lot of the major plot lines, but I will try my best to keep any spoilers out of the entire thing since this cannot be considered a re-read.

This novel is long, so it may be the case that I liveblog more than one chapter at a time in the future!

Chapter 1: Heaven Official’s Blessing

I really, truly think the first chapter is both unnecessarily dense and suitable for the type of story this grand tale will turn out to be. The scope of the first chapter is huge and treated like both a fairytale and a historical account, which is TGCF in a nutshell. It may suit the story to come, but it also means that I dropped this novel twice without making it past the first chapter. It’s worse than Scum Villain because it isn’t confusing really: it’s somewhat of a dry read. A lot happens that I knew I wouldn’t remember if and when it became relevant again, which makes this novel good to reread, but hard to pick up.

[“I want to save the common folks!”]

A kind-hearted and earnest crown prince may not be my favorite main character archetype, but it has truly been so long since I’ve seen it in western fantasy (not to say there still aren’t novels with this character archetype, but none of the ones I’ve read or seen circulating have one as the MC) that I am much more open to seeing one now. Although the first section of this chapter is a glowing review of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, the “famous laughing stock” of the three realms sets you up to say “alright, now how is this about to all go horribly wrong”, so there’s that.

Actually, MXTX’s other two novels had a similar thing going on. The first chapter already reveals, to some extent, that the main character has made mistakes in his life and a good part of the story is seeing the nature of those mistakes. I think this is what made me intrigued enough to continue reading her works, or at least go back to it in TGCF’s case.

So, we have a naive and earnest crown prince and the next section relates a story of him performing a ritual to earn good luck for the country. Considering the ancient setting and the xianxia setting, you can understand why the officials flip out when their crown prince derps off to save a child in the middle of it. I wonder if someone dying in the middle of such a ceremony wouldn’t also be ominous? In their perspective perhaps it’s not as bad a thing, but to our crown prince, this isn’t a question at all.

Someone was in trouble, so naturally he should save that child if it’s in his power to do so.

The first interesting point is his stubbornness. Unwilling to commit himself to something untrue (apologizing for saving a child when he isn’t sorry at all), he doesn’t even think of the consequences if the heavens decide to smite him. The officials even tell him that he doesn’t have to fully commit to the apology, just a “gesture” will suffice. Although this makes it seem like the apology really isn’t a big deal, the responsible thing to do as the next ruler of the country would be to just face the wall for a bit and leave it at that - but it’s against his principles, so he won’t.

Even if we weren’t told his age, it’s easy to guess by his words: [“How could the heavens fault me because I did the right thing? Then the heavens would be the ones who are in the wrong. Why should the people who are right apologize to the ones who are wrong?”]

There are so many characters in this novel that it becomes extra important for the dialogue to carry details like this - which not all writers are good at.

[He had never encountered anything he wasn’t able to accomplish, and he had also never met anyone who didn’t love him. He was always right, and he was the heart of the world.] And there is the root of the problem. But I might get back to this later, or else my inner psychology nerd will come out.

(Side note: Out of MXTX’s three MCs, it’s Xie Lian and Wei Wuxian who don’t believe in saving face - and it brings them all sorts of external troubles from society. On the flip side, Shen Qingqiu is so careful about maintaining his image that his personal relationships get neglected and misunderstandings form, which then leads to a good chunk of society willing to shoot him down.)

Next story is a ghost terrorizing a bridge - great symbolism there, and also a trial for our crown prince.

[“This child’s future is limitless, impossible to measure.”] AND YET IT IS ALL GOING TO GO SO WRONG.

[The things he wanted, there was nothing he could not obtain. The things he wanted to do, there was nothing that was impossible for him to accomplish. And when he wanted to ascend into godhood, he really ascended into godhood at age seventeen.] Again, significant to understand his mentality as a 17-year-old. Once you’ve ascended to godhood, a feat some cannot accomplish even after devoting their lives to it, truly the word impossible should not even exist...right?

[...heaven’s godly officials could not meddle according to their wishes. Unless it was a result of demons and ghouls overstepping or violating their boundaries, what happened must be allowed to happen.] Interesting and very important rules. Practical, too. The duties, limitations, and roles that heavenly officials play as gods to the mortal realm are actually quite intriguing, but I think it’ll take a while for it all to reveal itself. For now, it’s removing themselves from two important duties they had in life - loyalty and devotion to one’s country and ancestors/relatives.

And in this section, we read about how it all went wrong - meddling in the war didn’t save his country, and the people ended up resenting him.

[From then on, a martial god known for protection and peace faded away, and a demonic god who attracted disasters was born.

When people said you were a god, then you were a god. If they said you were shit, then you were shit. Whatever the people said you were, that was what you became.]

MXTX likes to write about society, particularly these aspects of society. It bears keeping in mind as we progress through the story. It’s all about perspective.

[“Body in the abyss, but heart in paradise.”

Because the one who personally said the phrase had already proved that when his body was in the abyss, his heart was not in paradise.]

I’ll come back to these lines at some point. But, yeah. A person who has never failed before in his life finally does so, and it’s possibly the most catastrophic of consequences. Looking back at those naive words, though they can be seen as profound, I can also see how they’re somewhat pretentious and at one’s absolute lowest, may seem impossible to live up to.

[Now that he was banished twice, would he become a demon and retaliate by abusing the common people?] Luckily for heaven and earth, our MC did not go down that route. And everyone kept a close eye on him for a while after that second ascension and banishment, which - kinda creepy, ok. Then they lost track of him because he obviously wasn’t about to wreak glorious havoc against them again, so why bother?

And, finally, we come to the last section and his final ascension! This is why I gave up twice before finally powering through. This whole chapter is basically a history book and it was difficult to get through before knowing anything about the characters, or why the reader should care. But, well, I made it. Eventually. And I’m excited to get past Chapter 21 at last, lol.

(masterpost)

onward →

#heaven official's blessing #tian guan ci fu #tgcf aka a trial by fire and tears #links to be added later

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