ABCDMXTX - Day 15: Ouyang Zizhen.

It took over ten days for Xie Lian and Hua Cheng to walk from the inn where they met with the emperor to the entrance of Mount Tonglu. What happened during that journey? And most importantly, what would've happened if things had gone differently during that journey?

Expect folk stories told by Hua Cheng worshippers, Xie Lian figuring out stuff he could've realised one hundred chapters ago, and a Ghost King simultaneously hating on his child-like appearance and getting the best out of it.

Canon divergence from chapter 143. Contains many spoilers from the book!

Read on Ao3.

Chapter 1: Fever

Summary: In the past few days, by his own initiative, Xie Lian had hugged and carried Hua Cheng more times than he could count. He'd held his hand for hours at a time, he kept squeezing his cheeks and nuzzling his hair. He shared blankets with him every night and made his hair every morning. His attention brought Hua Cheng a level of comfort and reassurance he hadn’t even imagined before. Even the smallest gesture of tenderness coming from Xie Lian could push all the rage of the volcano to the far corners of Hua Cheng’s mind and make him forget that it was there.

Perhaps that had been the problem. Perhaps Hua Cheng had got too comfortable basking in Xie Lian’s attention, shamelessly taking advantage of his good heart until, due to his carelessness, a wave of the mountain’s evil influence impacted his brain directly, taking him out of commission like a stupid novice.

It took over ten days for Xie Lian and Hua Cheng to walk from the inn where they met with the emperor to the entrance of Mount Tonglu. What happened during that journey? And most importantly, what would've happened if things had gone differently during that journey?

Expect folk stories told by Hua Cheng worshippers, Xie Lian figuring out stuff he could've realised one hundred chapters ago, and a Ghost King simultaneously hating on his child-like appearance and getting the best out of it.

Canon divergence from chapter 143. Contains many spoilers from the book!

Read on Ao3.

Reblog if reading someone else’s fanfiction has helped you get through a hard day

MXTX couples can't be separated, so here are the animal gongs to the animal shous I drew before: the extremely good boy Luo Binghe, sly Fox Cheng, and distinguished Hanguang Bun.

This DTIYS was originally meant for Instagram as thanks for 3k followers, but then I checked my tumblr and what a surprise! I got to 4k already? Wow! In that case...

Thank you all so much for 4000 followers!

Tumblr was my very first "social media" besides internet forums, and it still holds a very dear place in my heart. Mostly thanks to the amazing people I met there. ^^

Anyway, as this is a DTIYS, you can check out the rules under the cut if you wish to participate, I hope you'll have fun!

What is a DTIYS?

A Draw This In Your Style is a simple challenge during which an artist creates an illustration, and other people can redraw it in their own style! Go crazy, modify the poses, the interactions, as long as the core elements are there (the three mxtx protagonist with Xie Lian in chibi version), then it counts as submission!

How can you see our submission?

Simply tag me. ^^ As soon as I'll see your submission, I'll reblog it!

Is there a deadline?

Not really, but preferably before the end of 2023.

Will there be a reward/winner?

I don't want this to be a competition, and I don't have anything to offer. My only wish is for you all to have fun!

Thank you all so much for 4k followers! I hope you'll enjoy your stay on my blog. ^^/

Hold on. HOLD THE FUCK ON.

Babymetal does it again with the matches made in Heaven. Bloodywood is so incredibly cool; how HYPE is this collab, damn, what a massive win for Asian metal! And this animation?! Did you guys see Babymetal's celestial fox spirit?! Jayant Bhadula having badass saiyan powers?!?! I'm over the moon.

Bekhauf (बेखौफ) means Fearless. Perfect title, perfect everything!

Cuando, luego de leer las tres novelas de MXTX, decidí explorar los fanfics dedicados a cada historia, dejé a SAVE para el final. Lo que me hizo retrasarlo fue la reticencia a leer algo en ese universo que no tuviera la comedia emocional y a veces trágica tan característica de la novela, la cual me parece su más grande acierto y lo que la hace una lectura tan particular y disfrutable. Es posible que jamás hubiese dado el paso si no fuera porque ‘open my lungs to let you in’ me apareció un día en Twitter y el resumen, expuesto en una captura de pantalla, me hizo soltar la carcajada. Ghost escribe con sensibilidad e ingenio, su caracterización es fresca, hilarante y capaz de alcanzar ese precario nivel de parodia absurda que hace reír y llorar, y de hacerme volver para releer una y otra vez. Finalmente, decidí pedir permiso para traducir el fic y ahora lo dejo aquí, en español de aires colombianos, con la esperanza de que nuevos públicos puedan acceder a esta expansión creativa del mundo de SAVE.

En español: Abro mis pulmones para dejarte entrar.

En inglés: open my lungs to let you in

ABCDMXTX - Day 13: Mu Qing.

I read somewhere that Mu Qing uses a zhanmadao (horse-slicing curved sword) and I never looked back.

List of prompts.

Yknow what while I’m here I know we as a website agreed to oppress the business majors but all the bullshit that comes around every April over ao3’s business practices makes me think we should’ve kept at least one to explain to people how nonprofits, despite their name, still need money to function and do not in fact run on rainbows and dreams alone

A note to all creatives:

Right now, you have to be a team player. You cannot complain about AI being used to fuck over your industry and then turn around and use it on somebody else’s industry.

No AI book covers. No making funny little videos using deepfakes to make an actor say stuff they never did. No AI translation of your book. No AI audiobooks. No AI generated moodboards or fancasts or any of that shit. No feeding someone else’s unfinished work into Chat GPT “because you just want to know how it ends*” (what the fuck is wrong with you?). No playing around with AI generated 3D assets you can’t ascertain the origin of. None of it. And stop using AI filters on your selfies or ESPECIALLY using AI on somebody else’s photo or artwork.

We are at a crossroad and at a time of historically shitty conditions for working artists across ALL creative fields, and we gotta stick together. And you know what? Not only is standing up for other artists against exploitation and theft the morally correct thing to do, it’s also the professionally smartest thing to do, too. Because the corporations will fuck you over too, and then they do it’s your peers that will hold you up. And we have a long memory.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking “your peers” are only the people in your own industry. Writers can’t succeed without artists, editors, translators, etc making their books a reality. Illustrators depend on writers and editors for work. Video creators co-exist with voice actors and animators and people who do 3D rendering etc. If you piss off everyone else but the ones who do the exact same job you do, congratulations! You’ve just sunk your career.

Always remember: the artists who succeed in this career path, the ones who get hired or are sought after for commissions or collaboration, they aren’t the super talented “fuck you I got mine” types. They’re the one who show up to do the work and are easy to get along with.

And they especially are not scabs.

*that’s not even how it ends that’s a statistically likely and creatively boring way for it to end. Why would you even want to read that.

ABCDMXTX - Day 2: Ban Yue.

Ban Yue checks all the boxes of my personal preferences, to the point I couldn't believe she was a character made by someone else. Even our names are homophones!

Based on Starember's design.

List of prompts.