Hi! 💜 For the wip ask game: please please please, tell me more about in memoriam 👀
Hi! Of course, let's see: both In Memoriam and Scars surged from my curiosity about how Wei Ying (and Lan Zhan, plus the rest of the cast) processed Wei Ying's change of bodies in the long run. The novel shows some of it, yes, but it's such a strange occurrence! Surely there's more to it than saying, "alright, this happened. Moving on~"
Specifically for In Memoriam, I thought about the people who used to know Mo Xuanyu. His family was killed at the beginning of the novel, and no one in the Jin clan cared about him, but there are more people in the world. Someone had to remember him dearly from his childhood years, right? I thought of their reaction upon learning that who they used to know as an odd yet sweet child of the local gentry is now a completely different person. What an unholy aberration it must look like for someone outside the Jianghu who can't even imagine the power of cultivation! That's why I chose a former nanny, someone humble who looked after the clan's kids when needed, isn't well-read nor has contact with the Jianghu—she might even be wary of cultivators. She's gentle and a little superstitious, and would definitely die of horror and shock if they told her what happened with xiao Xuanyu. Her last wish is to see him because she's had dreams of something terrible happening to him, and thus her family decide to lure Wei Ying to the Jin territory with an outrageous story in order to ask him privately to help, so the old lady can leave the world with no worries.
That said, I never planned to make the fic about their meeting, but rather, of the before and after, and the narration is a third person vaguely close to Lan Zhan's perspective. Wei Ying goes to see the nanny without giving it much thought, but the experience makes him face the fact that he was shoved into an already started life that had memories and significance and an identity, and he comes back pretty shaken. Most of the fic would be about how he and Lan Zhan come to terms with it together.
I find writing for MDZS pretty intimidating. The worldbuilding and characterization are both very solid, I don't find as many crevices to get in as with TGCF. I don't know if I'll ever post any of these ideas. Have a preview of what I have written, to compensate, and thanks for asking!
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“I am talking nonsense, aren’t I? I'm sorry, Hanguang-Jun,” he said and leaned on Lan Zhan’s chest, looking up at him with eyes filled in equal parts with mischief and adoration. “I really want to see them try to explain their scheme to my face, and they won’t dare doing so in front of you. They are not worth your time, anyway; it would even stain the reputation of the Gusu Lan Clan to meddle with such affairs, don’t you think?”
“They will try to kill you.”
Wei Ying smirked and stretched a bit in order to get close to Lan Zhan’s ear.
“Let them try,” he purred, malicious. “Let me have some fun.”
Lan Zhan could feel Wei Ying’s slender fingers slide across his chest, drawing his collarbones and making little circles around his burnt scar. He didn’t falter.
“I’ll behave, I promise.” Wei Ying smile turned into a kiss against Lan Zhan’s neck. “I’ll be good, very good. I'm only ever naughty with you.”
“Stop it.”
“I can’t fly on a sword, so I’ll take Little Apple with me. It'll be a good bonding experience.” Wei Ying sat straight to see Lan Zhan in the eye and offered him the most innocent, purest smile, exquisitely fabricated. “Your uncle will be happy to have some peace; maybe you yourself will remember how much you enjoy silence and how bothersome I am.”
“Wei Ying…”
“Isn’t it true that I am bothersome, and that I love to bother you, and that you love to be bothered by me?”
Lan Zhan couldn’t stop the smallest smile from briefly appearing on his face. Wei Ying noticed it, and he was delighted.
“It is true, it really is!” he said, and leaned forward to point one finger at Lan Zhan’s chest. “Yet don’t tell me you don’t feel at least a bit tempted to have one day of your little five-to-nine clan rituals without my sabotage.”
Lan Zhan frowned slightly. Perhaps Wei Ying was the one in need of a break. He had always been a walking terror, ill-adapted to discipline and routine. Maybe the night hunts were not enough to compensate for the rather domestic, uneventful rhythm of the Cloud Recesses. That was understandable, but why did he want to go alone?
“Lan Zhan, are you pouting at me?”
—————— Back to WIP game main post.
My first animal portrait commission is Rufus the dog!
I still have slots open. Order via KoFi or shoot me a DM if you want to discuss it further and/or pay via Wise.
As gen-AI becomes more normalized (Chappell Roan encouraging it, grifters on the rise, young artists using it), I wanna express how I will never turn to it because it fundamentally bores me to my core. There is no reason for me to want to use gen-AI because I will never want to give up my autonomy in creating art. I never want to become reliant on an inhuman object for expression, least of all if that object is created and controlled by tech companies. I draw not because I want a drawing but because I love the process of drawing. So even in a future where everyone’s accepted it, I’m never gonna sway on this.
One of my goals for 2024 is to write in a more relaxed and spontaneous way, and here's my first step in that direction.
Summary: After a series of unfortunate events, Xie Lian’s old friends allow him to crash their couch for a few weeks. Upon arrival, Xie Lian is amazed by the amount of online shopping Feng Xin and Mu Qing do, and even more by the extremely awkward timing of the local postman who brings their parcels. How is it possible that this man only rings whenever Xie Lian is in the shower?!
Hualian Mix'n'Match, day 1 Hong'er and Child Prince Xie Lian Prompt: Red
While chasing butterflies in the palace's gardens, the young crown prince caught a glimpse of red beneath the foliage. He went to have a closer look, and found the crimson eye of a baby looking back at him.
How great! He always wanted to be a gege.
Event page || Organisers
For wip game: Within Reach!
( I adore this one so much. Hua Cheng's worshippers have always been so interesting to me, and I love the idea of them having very different stories about who he is (ghost; a fox; man; woman; some other animal). And an eye symbol for 'helping' him find his beloved is so touching! Xie Lian picking up on little hints and slowly learning more of his new (not as new as you think my prince) dearest friend and being so tender with his San Lang 🙏 Also it also having Hua Cheng sickfic-hurt/comfort bits! Whump is my jam, and it's not so often I see a good one for Hua Cheng.)
Within Reach! I'm so happy you like it. It was one of my very first ideas for a TGCF fanfic. Alongside The Newcomer and Heavenly Damnation —which was the one I ended up submitting— it was one of the pitches I prepared for the TGCF minibang 2022. At the time, I was translating manhua for Bilibili Comics, from which I learned a lot about Chinese mythology and wuxia/xianxia tropes. This led me to understand just how big MXTX had made the sandbox for TGCF canonverse fancreations, particularly with how loose she made the magic system, and how she built Hua Cheng's backstory up through rumours and half-truths. I thought I could explore this by writing about Hua Cheng's side of the 800 years of separation, but I didn't want Xie Lian to miss out! I then needed a lapse that MXTX had left open to interpretation, and during which Hua Cheng's ability to conceal his story or interfere was limited.
Now, if I wasn't a rabid fan of The Legend of Zelda, I don't think I would've chosen the time when Hua Cheng was sealed in a child form to tell this story, even if it's possibly the best moment for doing so. I don't like children in fiction. I've got nothing about real life children, on the contrary, but the use and connotation of childhood in fictional narratives is more times than not shameless propaganda for reproductive futurism, and I hate it. However, the biggest sidequest of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask features Kafei, a man who has been de-aged by a curse, and his fiancée Anju, who he's to marry on the same day the moon is going to fall and end the world. Kafei hides from Anju and the rest of the town in shame by wearing a fox mask (known in the game as Keaton mask, being Keaton a golden fox spirit). One good day, I looked at Kafei, thought of Hua Cheng, and had an epiphany, hahaha. If I'm very idle in the future, I'll write a TGCF x Majora's Mask crossover with Xie Lian as Anju, Hua Cheng as Kafei and Link as, well, Link. It'd be the ultimate "target audience = me", reason why I'm not in a rush to write it (I can simply daydream) but this explains the design of Hua Cheng's mask in the cover art I made for the fic. It's just Keaton's mask with Hua Cheng's trademarks, lol. Also, the eye windows/carvings might be Zelda's influence, too. There's a lot of eyes in the series, as they're the weak point of most bosses, and the emblem of the sheikah, a tribe of ninja warriors at the service of the Hyrulean crown.
In general, coming up with ways for Hua Cheng's worshippers to show their devotion and support has been a lot of fun. Hua Cheng will never appreciate the love they have for him or how they want to help him (he only cares about Xie Lian), but Xie Lian will see it and be very proud of him, I think. He's also delighted to be able to take care of his dearest friend during this trying times, and he'll baby him to oblivion, as he should —you're so real for the Hua Cheng whump appreciation, I salute you.
They'll be a bit further from human settlements in the next chapter, so we'll mostly encounter creatures, rogue travellers, and cultivators with their own bewildering theories about Crimson Rain Seeking A Flower. I hope you enjoy it when I finally post it, and thank you for the ask!
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Back to WIP game main post.
Thanks for the tag. Here's both of us, as per tradition~
Open to whoever wants to do it.
(not my picrew credit to artist!!)
@megaroniandcheez @fish-nailed-to-a-cross @justobsessedwithvic @cheesesandwjch @milltheinfinity @illiteratesblog @le-dormeur-du-val @that-one-xachster @hermy-97 @ladyloss-blog and anyone else who wants to join!
My piece for the fic the color sum by StarsinmyTea, made as part of the TGCF Minibang 2022.
Summary: Xie Lian, Mu Qing, and Feng Xin are finally moving in together. They've worked hard to build up their relationship and are wary of unbalancing that. But people change, whether they want to or not. Xie Lian develops a crush on someone for the first time in years, and he wonders how his boyfriends will react. Feng Xin has known for a while that he doesn’t like sex, and he’s afraid that saying that out loud will cause cracks in their life together. Mu Qing’s therapy isn’t working as well as he wants, no matter how hard he pushes himself. This is the day their relationship reaches a turning point, with their new home as witness.
30+ | They/them - Ace | 🇩🇪 🇨🇴 — Fancreator: creative writing and translation EN-ES, cosplay, clothing and doll making, digital painting, photography and video edition
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