My Cosplay Summary 2022 (that I Made And Immediately Forgot About, Lol)

Fanart of GRIS, one of my favourite games! The perspective changes are based on Escher’s Another World, which I thought would work well with the geometric art of GRIS.

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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！

I realised that I never posted this gift for @tiiracotta in occasion of their birthday. It came to me in a vision 🌟🧠

紅簾前 "Before the Red Curtain" - song from TGCF donghua Season 2 Episode 2 (lyrics translation)

This is the song played when Hua Cheng taught Xie Lian to roll dice. Some of the lyrics from this song are kind of abstruse, so there're definitely elements of my interpretation, see lyrics translation below:

如影拂輕幔 亦如夢飄轉

Like a shadow brushing against the light curtain, like a drifting and whirling dream

翩翩花雨 遊入長街盛宴

A shower of dancing flowers travels through the festivities on the long street

人聲作伴 四下皆歡 未斷

Accompanied by the noise of the crowd, the celebration is all around and unceasing

隔淺淺一線 倏然驟暖

Seperated by a thin line, the warmth grows all of a sudden

繞指間紅線 繫兩端輕纏

The red string around fingers tied around two ends gently connects them

緣起驚鴻 結作銀蝶相盼

Fate brought us together when I laid my eyes on you; longing for each other, fate connects us with the silver butterflies

盅裡玲瓏 幾番輾轉

The delicately carved dice in the cup tossed and turned

凝眸處依舊 映晨星斑斕

The one I gaze on still looks the same, with morning stars reflected in his eyes

逐世間逢故人 裁長夜銜離恨

Pursuing an old aquintance in this mortal world; the long night grows shorter, I taste the regret of seperation

一朝一夕織紅簾 相認

Day and night, weaving the red curtain so we'd recognize each other

遣游絲爭繚春 染心花舞紛紛

Send out gossamer in the air to entangle the spring, the joy in my heart blooms like dancing flowers

手心溫 擲年輪 皆遊刃

The palm is warm that tosses away years as skillfully as it wields knives

不語或忘言 咫尺卻難辨

Speechless or forgetting to speak, you're hard to recognize even close in front of me

切念浮想 猶似經久未見

How I long for you, so many thoughts of you on my mind, as if I haven't seen you in a long long time

迷雲飛幌 流螢熠熠 怎斂

Streaming curtains in misty clouds and glowing fireflies, how do I gather it

望眉宇模樣 恍若從前

Watching your face, it looks the same as it was in the old days

無止或無端 悲喜中縈牽

Without end, without cause, lingering and tangling in sorrow and joy

眇眇幽火 曾映照伴人間

The small feeble flame was once your companion, casting a light on you in the mortal world

粲然一笑 萬事隨煙

With a bright smile, the burden of everything dissipates like the smoke

天縱難垂憐 只為一至願

Even though the heavens could not pity you, yet only for this one most earnest wish

逐萬變知所向 予此間知所眷

Chase all the changes in the world to know the direction, and know who's the one dear to you in this mortal world

但見月缺覆月圓 相連

See the full moon turns into the sickle moon, and lovers together under the same moon

此身虔渡此程 等千年更繾綣

I travel through this life with great faith and devotion, love only deepens over a thousand years of waiting

寄明燈 枕遙夜 伴夢眠

Send off the bright lanterns, in a faraway place I sleep and dream

一朝一夕織紅簾

Day and night I weave the red curtain

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!

Modern TGCF

I've tried to make a little comic of modern hualian ♥

It was quite long to draw, I'm way too perfectionist T-T

English isn't my native language. I apologize for any mistake.

(Sorry for the late post here. Tumblr became so quite lately. I've migrated to Twitter and Instagram ;-; I'll try to keep posting things here as long as there're people following me.)

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:

Ooh can I ask about "Clarity" 👀

Yes, you can, haha... ha /sweats

"Clarity" is an E rated, possibly dead dove, dubcon, top Xie Lian/bottom Hua Cheng project. Also known as "as far removed from what Yaban normally writes as humanly possible."

As I mentioned in the original description, the action takes place towards the end of the novel, and it's as close to canon as I can get with this premise. This means that the dubcon doesn't come from Xie Lian being a dark version of himself, but rather from a sort of "fuck or die" scenario. I make no promises of the smut being sexy —for starters, I haven't written smut since like 2011— because I'm more interested in Xie Lian's internal turmoil than anything. In fact, one of the tags I think I'll add is "this would be sexier if only Xie Lian didn't overthink so much."

I'm not sure of when the idea first occurred to me, but I've been turning it over in my mind for probably more than a year. Here's what I have written so far:

—————

Xie Lian waited until the last moment. He held on, and on, and on, watching how some flowers wilted and dried whilst others turned into fruit that ripened and fell, bursting over dead petals, making a mess of his front yard and the paths he’d painstakingly built from the base of Mount Taicang to his cottage. He had a hunch that Hua Cheng would be back before the flowering period was over, and he wouldn’t admit that such a thing happened until the very last bloom fell. 

One hot night of late summer, a sudden torrential rain shook the mountain, washing every single weak flower and most of the fruit away. Lightening felled a maple tree midway down the path, too, blocking transit. After assessing the damage in the morning after, Xie Lian resigned himself. Going back to the cottage, he picked a hatchet from his little trove of used farming tools and put on his new bamboo hat, given to him by a young man from Puqi Village who noticed he wasn’t wearing the original any more. The boy had asked what had happened to it, and Xie Lian had said that he’d given it to someone who needed it.

“But daozhang needs a hat too,” the boy had protested, reminding him of Hua Cheng.

This wasn’t a surprise, and it didn’t hurt. It was only natural that everything and everyone made him think of his beloved ghost. Xie Lian missed him dearly, so what was better than thinking about him to pass the time while he waited? He’d done so in many ways: dusting off his memories, visiting the places they’d shared, talking to Hua Cheng’s many subjects in Ghost City. Reading and wondering. Dreaming. Praying, once or twice, when he’d stumbled upon shrines dedicated to the Crimson Rain Seeking a Flower. That day, the circumstances invited him to reminisce about how swift and efficient Hua Cheng was cutting wood, the strength and elegance of every swing of his axe, and the way he cheekily pretended to sweat so he had an excuse to bare his snow-white, lean torso.

Xie Lian felt his face warm up and sighed deeply. Many days and nights of his heart and thoughts being spurred in dangerous directions by the memory of Hua Cheng’s scalding gaze and mischievous lips had made him familiar with this sort of agitation. In fact, he’d started to enjoy it, although he didn’t indulge much. The intensity of these new emotions and sensations was strong enough that, regardless of how scandalised he was at the prospect, he didn’t expect to preserve his path of cultivation nor the reserves of spiritual power attached to it once Hua Cheng came back. However, he was adamantly against allowing anything to break before that came to happen. After eight centuries and eight months that felt like a millennium each, he wasn’t going to succumb to his own imagination.

—————

When will I finish it? Who knows. I will focus on completing my ongoing fics first, but I'll keep taking notes and writing on the side. This is a very daunting project, so if inspiration strikes, I won't let it pass. Thanks for asking!

Back to WIP game main post.

• Chapter 5: Landing

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

Say hi to Manfred! I made him as a birthday present to my dear friend @tiiracotta, who's a big Dragon Age fan.

I had a blast working all the little details on the 40cm tall skeleton base I got in a Halloween clearance sale. All the other materials came from my stash, including the eyes, which were originally part of my prop sword sheath for my cosplay of Kusuriuri from Mononoke. The ornaments have been falling off through the years, so I recently replaced a few, and it was by noticing how similar the green crystals are to Manfred's eyes that I had the idea to make the whole doll.

I've always loved puppets, dolls and miniatures, so I hope I can make more projects like this in the future!