Latest Posts by yabancreations - Page 4

Preorders are open for Tails And Scales, a MXTX fantasy creatures zine! It's packed with beautiful art inspired in Chinese mythology and the wonderful stories of Scum Villain Self-Saving System, The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation and Heaven Official's Blessing. It also features fanfiction, and one piece was written by yours truly, as you can see above. This is the first time I join a fanzine, so I'm pretty stocked! I hope you like my take on Hualian and dragons~

Get your bundle at tailsandscalesmxtxzine.bigcartel.com. There's time until December 1st!

Random question for my fanfic writing friends:

When you go to AO3, what’s your total word count?

"If I had a green face and fangs, deformed features, ugly as a Rakshasa, evil as a Yaksha, how would you handle it?"

I participated in Dragon Age Big Bang 2024 as an artist for a lovely modern AU Adoribull fic 'time will change you' by @slothpoe!

Just finished the cover for 2024 MXTX Food Zine!

@mxtxfoodzine contains 55 recipes going along with art and fanfiction as well as a printable no-title version of the cover. Releasing this November.

Here's a reimagining I wrote of the scene in book 4 where Xie Lian gets drunk at the graveyard. Mind the tags, please.

Summary:

Didi (弟弟): Younger brother.

Drunk for the first time in his life, Xie Lian accidentally falls in an open burial pit and finds that he’s not alone.

Canon divergence from chapter 185 of the original/unrevised serialized edition.

❤️HuaLian 🔀 PlayList 🤍

Celebrating the anniversary of the TGCF donghua, we'd like to share our "Press Shuffle ❤️ 🔀 🤍 - Hualian Greatest Hits" playlist - the name might ring familiar: this is from the fanevent we've held some time ago where we asked fellow fans to submit songs that remind them of HuaLian.

With this tremendous help, we've collected the massive amount of 127 songs (a bit less on Spotify), across various genres and in many languages.

This means 8 hours of HuaLian music for your enjoyment.

Sharing our Youtube and Spotify playlist right now!

Hope everyone will find a song that resonates with them in some way and we can all worship hualian a bit - especially today. Anyone who submitted songs, thank you 🫶

So I thought this was commonly known internet navigation (but apparently it might just be those of us who have been using the internet since the 90’s who still know it). Or so it seems based on… a grumpy comment I got.

When you see an arrow like this:

It means you click it to expand out a hidden section.

It’s an accordion section/menu! It’s useful in web design to hide information that may be overwhelming under specific headers so people can only see what they need.

Here I’m using it for people who need the content warnings to be able to check, but for those who don’t need them and don’t want to be spoiled to just move right past without accidentally reading anything.

It’s still the user’s responsibility to click the arrow and read things as they need! But it is all warned. (And, yes, the all encompassing issues are already a tag on the fic, I’m just providing additonal warnings per chapter.)

TGCF Gotcha for Congo

Members of the TGCF cast dressed as characters from Beetlejuice 🪲🧃

Requested by @/rekisparadise

Drawing in the style of the 1989 animated series was a delight~

TGCF Revised Edition Translation

Greetings, friends! I figure it's about time for this.

For the last 6 months I've been working on a full translation of the newest 2024 revised edition of TGCF, since it has so thoroughly taken over my life and well, since nobody has done a full translation of the revised edition yet, I thought I'd start one.

Since Chinese isn't my native language, translating takes me a long time, and I have to fit it around other life commitments. But, rest assured, I do not use MTL for any of my work! As of writing this I've translated up to the end of the Ghost City arc, but most of it still needs editing, so I'm starting by uploading just the first few chapters.

I hope you guys enjoy the new added scenes as much as I have been, because damn there's so much more to love, even in just the first few arcs.

Happy reading!

天官赐福，百无禁忌！

Images for my fics

My archaic ass refuses to use a proper image hosting service, so given that I have to move my dumb fic memes once again, I'll try to host them here.

Isn't that my cat?

Grow on me

Didi

Heavenly Damnation:

Treasure Hunting in the Clouds:

Whenever people try to tell me to ship "moral ships" I like to think about how inherently immoral it is to flirt with service workers at coffee shops where they're obliged to be nice to you so... many coffee shop AUs are like. Immoral. But given that they are a fantasy where this is instant romance without the fear of trapping a service worker in an uncomfortable situation that's tantamount to workplace sexual harassment, I enjoy the cutesy coffee shop AUs immensely.

And that's basically my attitude towards all fantasy. There's lots of things I enjoy in fantasy that wouldn't work IRL. Enemies to lovers. Sudden kisses. Miscommunications in relationships. Codependency. Fight sluts who physically assault each other while emotionally connecting.

Once you start ascribing your morals to the fiction you consume, you tend to miss the issues in even the most innocuous, innocent seeming scenarios. It's easy to judge other people's fictional enjoyment until someone points out your innocent coffee shop AU is romanticised workplace harassment.

But it's all fiction. It's a fantasy. That's why it's fine.

A lack of education around things like consent, healthy relationships, self respect and respect of others, bodily autonomy, etc, has made people think they can rely only on fiction to tell them what right - but that's dangerous. And unsustainable.

Sobre la traducción del título «guoshi» en la edición española de TGCF

Recientemente, leí el hilo de observaciones que Bruja del Caos hizo en Twitter sobre el segundo volumen de La Bendición del Oficial del Cielo publicada por editorial Norma. Me llamó la atención la confusión causada por la decisión de traducir 国师 (guoshi) como «cultivador del reino jefe» o «cultivador jefe», lo cual Bruja del Caos resalta en los siguientes pasajes:

Tras un par de impresiones que intercambié con Bruja del Caos sobre el tema, que pueden leer en las capturas de abajo o directamente en Twitter, se me ocurrió una posible explicación para la decisión del traductor, además de mi propia alternativa que, a lo mejor, podría ser más clara.

Para sustentar mi idea, voy a definir varias cosas de contexto que puede que muchos ya conozcan. Perdón por la repetición, es para que todos tengamos claridad. También mencionaré datos relevantes pero no tan directamente relacionados con el tema porque me gusta dar datos curiosos. Espero que les gusten.

En fin, empecemos por lo primero. Las tres novelas que MXTX ha publicado hasta ahora se mueven entre dos géneros de la literatura china fantástica: Xianxia y Wuxia.

Las historias del género Xianxia se desarrollan en el universo mitológico que nace del folclor y los tres sistemas de creencias principales chinos: el taoísmo, el budismo y el confucionismo. Van de inmortales, dioses y criaturas legendarias, tienen magia y alquimia, varias dimensiones (como el reino fantasmal o el cielo) y el destino del mundo entero está en juego. La Bendición del Oficial del Cielo/TGCF es principalmente Xianxia.

Wuxia cuenta las historias y aventuras de artistas marciales en la antigua China. Estos artistas marciales normalmente son cultivadores de la inmortalidad bajo uno de los sistemas de creencias antes mencionados, y están organizados en una configuración social independiente del gobierno que se llama Jianghu (江湖). La traducción literal de esta palabra es «ríos y lagos», probablemente referencia al río Yangtsé y el lago Dongting, que son de los más importantes de China, y se refiere al mundo natural/rural que existe más allá de la ley o la estructura social, libre y salvaje. En el Jianghu predomina el que sea más fuerte, y el código moral se define a grandes rasgos bajo el concepto de honor en las artes marciales.

En el Jianghu no hay reyes ni gobiernos, pero sí hay una organización social y jerarquía basada en sectas. Las sectas son grupos que se organizan alrededor de un método/técnica de artes marciales y/o cultivación de la inmortalidad sustentada en uno de los sistemas de creencias. Algunas sectas son lideradas por una familia, que en este contexto se llaman clanes, mientras que otras son lideradas por uno o varios grandes maestros sin lazos familiares que transmiten sus conocimientos bajo un modelo de escuela. En el primer tipo, los hijos heredan el liderazgo de la secta de sus padres, mientras que en el segundo, el poder pasa al discípulo más sobresaliente cuando su maestro decide retirarse, asciende o muere.

Las sectas en El Sistema de Auto-Salvación del Villano Escoria/SVSSS, novela que tiene un buen balance de elementos Wuxia y Xianxia bajo el género sombrilla de historias de transmigración, son tipo escuela. La de los protagonistas es taoísta, pero también vemos sectas budistas y escuelas de artes marciales y magia demoniacas. Por otro lado, El Gran Maestro de la Cultivación Demoniaca/MDZS es principalmente Wuxia y sus sectas están lideradas por clanes taoístas, para los cuales las técnicas innovadoras del protagonista son inaceptables, ya que rompen varios tabús.

En MDZS se ve claramente cómo el Jianghu opera de forma independiente al gobierno: sabemos que hay un emperador porque se le menciona en un par de ocasiones, pero nunca aparece ni nadie se preocupa por saber qué opina del conflicto. A pesar de que hay miles de muertos y damnificados por la violencia, toda la guerra entre las sectas se da sin intervención el ejército imperial.

Por eso es que, aunque como dijo Bruja del Caos, pareciera lógico decir que los cultivadores que nacieron u operan en el territorio de un reino son cultivadores de dicho reino, en realidad ellos no le responden a la dinastía que rige sobre sus territorios, sino solo al Jianghu. De hecho, a veces Jianghu se traduce como «mundo de pandillas» o «bajo mundo» precisamente porque están por fuera de la ley. Para que el gobierno y el Jianghu se relacionen, debe haber algún tipo de acuerdo o negociación. Por ejemplo, en la novela Mil Otoños de Meng Xi Shi, hay varias dinastías imperiales peleando por el dominio del territorio chino. Cada una de ellas le ofrece alianzas a las sectas más fuertes de los diferentes sistemas de creencias (los confucionistas al sur, los taoístas al norte, y el centro disputado entre los budistas y los demoniacos), dándoles beneficios como recursos para construir templos o sedes, permiso para que enseñen sus credos a la población, miembros de sus familias como discípulos o cónyuges, etc. a cambio de que las sectas las protejan y les den apoyo militar y/o logístico en la disputa por el territorio.

Esto tiene un precedente histórico que podemos ver claramente en el origen del título que nos ocupa. El cargo de guoshi fue originalmente instaurado por Kublai Khan —un emperador de origen mongol que fundó la dinastía Yuan en el siglo XI de nuestro calendario— quien se lo confirió al líder de una de las cuatro grandes sectas del budismo tibetano (porque sí, las sectas del género Wuxia también tienen base histórica). Su labor consistía en administrar la región del Tíbet y manejar las relaciones entre el clero budista y la corte imperial mongola. A nivel práctico, el negocio fue darle a esa secta jurisdicción sobre la práctica budista en el imperio, y por consecuencia poder sobre las otras tres sectas que operaban en el Tíbet, a cambio de que el guoshi convenciera a la población del Tíbet de aceptar y someterse el gobierno mongol.

Ahora bien, los cultivadores que se vuelven guoshis en TGCF (Mei Nianqing, Ban Yue y Xie Lian) no son parte de sectas por las que tengan que o quieran buscar beneficio político, sino que son individuos cuyo poder marcial o nivel de cultivación es tan alto, que los reinos con los que interactúan deciden ponerlos de su lado. A cambio, ellos reciben aceptación social, seguridad económica, y aunque el tema en realidad no se toca en la novela, la posibilidad de presidir sobre las prácticas religiosas y/o la interpretación del conocimiento del sistema de creencias que tienen. Por ejemplo, Mei Nianqing mal que bien impone su método de cultivación taoísta en Xianle, que sabemos que es uno de muchos porque requiere celibato, el cual —como se dilucida en la novela y como MXTX explicó directamente en una nota de autor que dudo muchísimo que hayan incluido en la edición impresa— no es obligatorio en otros métodos taoístas de cultivación.

Todo esto para decir que llamar a cualquiera de esos tres personajes «el cultivador del reino (jefe)» tiene sentido porque cada uno es o el único cultivador oficial/formalmente parte del gobierno del que es guoshi (Ban Yue, Xie Lian), o el líder de una secta de tamaño e influencia indeterminados (Mei Nianqing). Soportando esta idea está el hecho de que más adelante en la historia conocemos a algunos cultivadores que son parte del Jianghu y no tienen relación con el emperador mortal del tiempo presente, por lo que no son cultivadores del reino en el que viven.

Adicionalmente, puede que se haya descartado la opción de traducir guoshi como "tutor/preceptor imperial" porque aunque Mei Nianqing y Xie Lian enseñan, Ban Yue no lo hace, y el título histórico de guoshi en sí no tenía un componente de tutorado o enseñanza tampoco. Debido a que 师 (shi) significa «maestro», resulta intuitivo traducirlo con la connotación de «persona que enseña» y usar sinónimos como «tutor» o «preceptor», pero recordemos que la palabra tiene otras connotaciones, como por ejemplo «dicho de una persona o cosa: principal entre las de su clase», de la que creo que salió lo de «jefe», definido como el que manda, el que domina, el que está arriba.

De esa manera, «cultivador del reino jefe» funciona como traducción de guoshi en la medida en que con ese título se denomina al cultivador más poderoso que está al servicio del gobierno y no del Jianghu. El problema, por supuesto, es que no se entiende de dónde sale sin este kilométrico contexto, e incluso dado el contexto, no suena como un título, sino como un vago descriptor.

Personalmente, si no tuviese la opción de dejar guoshi en pinyin y explicar de dónde sale el término en una nota al pie o en el glosario, yo consideraría «maestro cultivador (imperial/real/de la corte)» como opción. Como mínimo, cambiaría «jefe» por «líder» para que sonara un poco más formal, o si no hay manera, «cultivador en jefe», porque mejor que suene militar a que suene... como suena.

• Chapter 3: Cruise Altitude

It's time for another Hualian modern meet-cute! Witness the blooming of the most convoluted (kinda?) parasocial relationship, featuring: -Air traffic mayhem -Mistaken clothes -Only one bed -Videoblogging -A gay wedding -Explosives?

Summary: Hua Cheng’s flight gets off to a bad start when the airline arbitrarily gives half of his first class couple’s pod to a stranger. To add insult to injury, he arrives back to his seat only to find that the intruder has mistaken Hua Cheng’s jumper with the plane’s pyjamas! Before he can kick up a fuss, though, something in this man’s face strikes him as familiar…

Wait a second, isn’t this the super cute guy from the last video that Hua Cheng watched while at the lounge before the flight?

• Chapter 1: Take off

• Chapter 2: Climb

It's time for another Hualian modern meet-cute! Witness the blooming of the most convoluted (kinda?) parasocial relationship, featuring: -Air traffic mayhem -Mistaken clothes -Only one bed -Videoblogging -A gay wedding -Explosives?

Summary: Hua Cheng’s flight gets off to a bad start when the airline arbitrarily gives half of his first class couple’s pod to a stranger. To add insult to injury, he arrives back to his seat only to find that the intruder has mistaken Hua Cheng’s jumper with the plane’s pyjamas! Before he can kick up a fuss, though, something in this man’s face strikes him as familiar…

Wait a second, isn’t this the super cute guy from the last video that Hua Cheng watched while at the lounge before the flight?

• Chapter 1: Take off

It's time for another Hualian modern meet-cute! Witness the blooming of the most convoluted (kinda?) parasocial relationship, featuring: -Air traffic mayhem -Mistaken clothes -Only one bed -Videoblogging -A gay wedding -Explosives?

Summary: Hua Cheng’s flight gets off to a bad start when the airline arbitrarily gives half of his first class couple’s pod to a stranger. To add insult to injury, he arrives back to his seat only to find that the intruder has mistaken Hua Cheng’s jumper with the plane’s pyjamas! Before he can kick up a fuss, though, something in this man’s face strikes him as familiar…

Wait a second, isn’t this the super cute guy from the last video that Hua Cheng watched while at the lounge before the flight?

• Chapter 1: Take off

Drawing I've made as reward for donations to Care for Gaza in the context of the TGCF Gotcha for Gaza event. Prompts are in the image descriptions.

Thanks to all commissioners and donators! The Gotcha4Gaza initiative has raised more than 50k USD across multiple fandoms, and it's still ongoing. Learn more and be part of the movement by browsing the current events going on this X/Twitter account, or by creating your own!

Bonding time with Ruoye.

Chapter 2: Games

Summary: “Nobody really knows who this person could be, or why Lord Crimson Rain is looking for them,” Yu Liling continued, coming close to the pavilion with Xie Lian and Hua Cheng in tow. “There’s lots of speculation, but my ancestor who travelled to Ghost City heard there from a good source that they’re a ‘noble immortal Taoist.’”

As people said: no winds, no waves. The only rumours that passed the test of time were those that hid a little bit of truth within. Hua Cheng felt Xie Lian’s eyes on him, but he kept his face schooled and his eyes on the cloth fox.

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.

Hi! I wanted to know if the lyrics for all the songs in withering lotus and rotting waters were written by you? And if you would let me use them someday if they are yours. Not for another written work or anything like that but to use them for a song?

Hello! Yes, all the lyrics are written by me, except for the verse of Queen's "My Fairy King" in Withering Lotus, chapter 7, and the "Song of Yue Boatman" in Rotting Waters, chapter 4.

And yes, you can musicalize them as not-for-profit/non-commercial projects! Preferably as metal songs, but if that's not your genre, it's fine too. If you do it, please send me a link, I'd love listening to them 🤩

It was due time I tried my hand at drawing the one, the legend, princess of my heart: Zelda. Now, if you're curious about what's going on in the picture, as in what's the lore/situation, I can only say I'm taking the Nintendo approach: no plot, just vibes~

That's right, we have an update!

Thank you Tiira for this wonderful piece, everything you do for Heavenly Damnation is gold 🤟

The story of Heavenly Damnation, the TGCF Heavy metal AU by @yabancreations continues with the second part Rotting Waters! Here is a moment from chapter 4!

Hualian Mix'n'Match, day 8 Ghost minion Hua Cheng and ghost minion Xie Lian

Prompt: Free - A simple thing

"Why do we have to assume such a bizarre appearance?" Xie Lian asked, and Hua Cheng's incense stick long answer, painting a detailed portrait of the Green Ghost's peculiar "feats" and "deeds", made him laugh to the point of crying.

Event page || Organisers

Hualian Mix'n'Match, day 7 Young Master/Amnesiac Hua Cheng (butterfly dream) and Bride Xie Lian

Prompt: You'll always be the only one I like the very best

After Hua Cheng mentioned that bride kidnapping was traditional among his mother's people, Xie Lian made a little bet. One memory-eating monster and a wedding dress later, their vows are happily renewed.

Event page || Organisers

Hualian Mix'n'Match, day 6 Fisherman Hua Cheng and Ferret Xie Lian

Prompt: Food as an expression of love

Nothing like tricks to defeat a tricky yao —and Xie Lian was looking for an excuse to try his husband's shape-shifting magic, anyway. A ferret is a strange choice for the mission, but Hua Cheng doesn't mind. Giving him treats this way is adorable!

Event page || Organisers

Hualian Mix'n'Match, day 5 Fox Hua Cheng Wu Ming and Calamity Xie Lian

Prompt: Mystery

Xie Lian arrived to the ruined battlefield in search of resentful souls and found nothing but a single fox spirit that had already devoured them all. The jiuweihu wore a mask that Xie Lian understood it as a sign of subservience.

What a pity, but it'd do.

Event page || Organisers

This piece was vaguely inspired by the first arc of the c-novel Bai Yao Pu. A soldier boy saves an ash fox from death, and they become friends. Years later, the fox sacrifices his tail to save the now grown general from execution, and eats the spirits of all his victims to spare him from karma.

Bai Yao Pu has a donghua and a manhua.

Hualian Mix'n'Match, day 4 Ghost fire Hua Cheng and God of Flowers Xie Lian (butterfly dream)

Prompt: Fire and rain

Children scared of a ghost fire in their flower fields prayed to Xie Lian, the god of flowers, so he could get rid of it. He answered with no intention to damage the little spirit, wishing to talk with it instead. The rain surprised the god and ghost while they talked, and the former was quick to shelter the latter, who shone brightly to compensate for its lack of warm.

Event page || Organisers

Hualian Mix'n'Match, day 3 Soldier Hong'er and Apothecary Xie Lian (butterfly dream)

Prompt: Flower

Medical visits are the only joy that Hong'er gets in the barracks. He always helps the apothecary, Xie Lian, however he can. Today, he was tasked with gathering medicinal ingredients. Diligent as ever, he found them all, plus the courage to gift Xie Lian a flower.

Event page || Organisers