I Thought Of Many Ways To Celebrate The Fact That, As Of Last October, I've Been Doing Cosplay For 10

From @/thisonethereader on BlueSky:

I’ve been following treasure hunting in the clouds and am stoked for your next chapter ^_^ where did your inspo come from? So many airports for poor Gege 😭. (Also sincerely hope you’ve never been THAT effed over by flights <3)

The seed of that entire AU is this tweet, which reads:

@/eddy_sarah: Had a new experience tonight: on hour one of a six-hour flight, I got up to use the bathroom and when I came back the guy beside me was wearing my sweatshirt

I found it hysterical and shared it on Puqi Shrine, the TGCF Discord server where I spend most of my time, elaborating on the spot with some clever and funny interventions of other members. Later that day, my good friend @tiiracotta told me on DMs that they found the idea hilarious as well, and we brainstormed some more—we decided together that Xie Lian would mudlark in his free time, for example. Tiira ended up making the animation featured in the fic as a birthday present to me, which gave me the final push to write!

I'm happy to say that, although I've gone through my fair share of airport misadventures, it's never been as bad as Xie Lian's experience in this fic. I keep putting this poor man through the exaggerated, horrible version of everything that happens to me, hahaha.

I'm determined to post the end of the fic before Christmas. I'm glad to know you're looking forward to it, and thanks for asking!

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Back to WIP game main post.

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.

My personal ranking of Uramichi's borderline revealing work outfits

Bacterian

Tbh this isn't that bad. The shorts are a bit short Ig but not out of reason. What gives this outfit the 👀 energy imo are the long gloves and thigh high boots, tragically not seen in this photo 😔 I'll give it a 6.5/10

Absent minded cat (idk if it has a proper name?

I'm begging you give this man a kirugumi or something!!!! This is not a cat! This is a bodysuit with catlike features! This is the most covered he'll be on this list but somehow I feel like I'm seeing way too much, and that's saying something. 2/10

Uramino kun

I'm not the kind to dismiss the appeal of less conventionally appealing creatures, but let's not kid ourselves; bagworms aren't cute. Unless you find pinecones cute ig. I do appreciate having even more leg from bacterian but otherwise this is a miss for me. 4/10

God of Shiso

I'm in love with this look. And that probably sounds hypocritical since this might be the most revealing outfit yet but hhhhh muscle,,, I think I also like it because it's probably the closest thing to a normal outfit on here, although maybe not on a kids show lol. My favorite. 10/10

Right Left Man

Another banger!! I'll be honest, idk why this does it for me. I think probably those straps on his arms that really accentuate his muscles? And the thigh highs are back! I know he is a caution sign but damn if he's not the hottest caution sign I've ever seen! 9/10

Bonjour man

I feel the same way as Uramichi does about this look lol. I know a lot of folks like it but I cannot stand it. I want to burn it. The shorts being the color of the french flag is a nice touch but the color and stripe pattern clashes SO BAD with those of the shirt. It looks like someone gave you two minutes to buy an outfit that you felt says "France" from your local thrift store. I can't even appreciate all the extra muscle on display because they're being drowned out the anguished tortured SCREAMS coming from this disaster of a costume. "Kill me," it says, "I don't want to suffer anymore." But we're in different worlds, so I can't offer it the sweet release of death. I can only bear witness to its suffering while I seethe with hatred. 0/10

ABCDMXTX - Day 16: Pei Ming.

This one is based on the fic No Paths Are Bound by Evie.

List of prompts.

Making preparations for next year's resolutions. I really need to strengthen my arms for health reasons, but even the chronic pain and the price of physiotherapy hasn't got me into the habit of working out. In vanity and cosplay/cosplans I trust!

Template by rainy. All pics used are official art or screenshots, except for Xie Lian in the bottom left corner, who was drawn by @irisevanz. Original post here.

Xie Lian knows the sound of a well-oiled machine when he hears one. And the pleasant rumbling that tickles his eardrums must be from one stopped right outside.

Which is odd. Only because Xie Lian usually repairs broken machines. It’s incredibly rare for an already fine-tuned engine to seek him out for help. And even if so, they are always accompanied by another that requires attention.

This machine isn’t here for a repair.

It isn’t here for him.

Xie Lian isn’t that lucky.

And yet, there’s a knock on his door.

...

fic inspired by artwork (LINKED HERE) by @yabancreations aka my amazing partner for this year's @tgcf-reverse-big-bang !!!

Xie Lian knows the sound of a well-oiled machine when he hears one. And the pleasant rumbling that tickles his eardrums must be from one stopped right outside. Which is odd. Only because Xie Lian usually repairs broken machines. It’s incredibly rare for an already fine-tuned engine to seek him out for help. And even if so, they are always accompanied by another that requires attention. This machine isn’t here for a repair. It isn’t here for him. Xie Lian isn’t that lucky.

My piece for @tgcf-reverse-big-bang 2024! All the love for my partner @princessofxianle, who wrote the fic "Welcome to the Gu Ring" based on it. It was amazing to exchange ideas and see this little universe expand!

Read:

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Tbh, I think if you read an mxtx novel with the expectation that the story’s hero is meant to learn some valuable lesson that fundamentally changes their character and views on life, then you are reading her books wrong. There’s not a single mxtx protag (currently) in existence who changes by the end of the story. It’s the world they live in that is changed because of their actions:

—Shen Yuan’s Shen Qingqiu transforms a toxic masculinity fantasy into a queer romance in which the unhappy stallion protagonist with a harem in the 100s is given his monogamous happy ending with a husband he actually loves and values with reciprocity. They fuck off to their forever honeymoon after exposing the corruptness of the cultivation world that ruined Luo Binghe’s life to begin with, and all of this was only possibly because Shen Yuan was just a genuinely nice fucking person. The world lives to see another day and a fuckton of people who died (or didn’t even get to exist) in the original stallion novel get to live long, more fulfilled lives in Shen Yuan’s revision.

—Wei Wuxian is killed for sticking up for a condemned clan, is resurrected against his will, and still stands by his actions in his first life while protecting those that continued to wrongfully condemn him. As a reward, the corpses of the people he died protecting save him and his loved ones (and the rest of the bystanders who killed them), he bags himself the most perfect and perfectly matched man in the cultivation world, and he continues to help others and do what he wants to the ire of the cultivation world who are now too embarrassed to fight him. The younger generation look to him as a beloved teacher, protector, and role model to aspire towards.

—Xie Lian rebelled against hierarchy as a beloved prince of a prospering kingdom, then as a beloved god against the older gods, then as a reviled scrap gods against the then most popular gods of the present day. He was always willing to lend a hand to anyone who needed it and to never hold resentment even if that kindness blew up in his face (and it often did). He gets to marry the man (ghost) who has seen him at his best and absolute worst and chooses him unconditionally, something no one else has ever done before. At the end of the novel, he is the god that all the other gods look to for guidance and strength.

None of these stories humble these characters for being good people. Even when their morally righteous actions net them unimaginably terrible results, even when they falter in the face of their failures, they ultimately remain true to their goodness. And none of the books humble them for that, because being good is not a character flaw. So in short: please stop talking about how mxtx protags “needed” to learn valuable lessons to “be good people” when they were already good people from the very beginning. These stories are not about how the world changes people but how genuinely good people can change the world just by actively being kind even with no benefit to themselves and especially if that kindness leads to detriment.

An action sequence from the Chinese opera 白蛇传·情/Tale of the White Snake, which showcases Chinese opera water sleeves (水袖) and spear kicking (踢枪)