紅簾前 "Before The Red Curtain" - Song From TGCF Donghua Season 2 Episode 2 (lyrics Translation)

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~

This fic was written as part of the TGCF Gotcha for Congo initiative! The request was a piece featuring Ling Wen and Bai Jin, perhaps a character study or a look at their relationship, romantic or otherwise. Ling Wen is one of my favourite side characters, and the whole ordeal with the Brocade Immortal intrigued me greatly since the beginning. To say I was over the moon when the revised edition deepened their story, and allowed us to have a glimpse of Bai Jin while he was still alive, is a severe understatement! I greatly enjoyed working on this little piece, and I hope you enjoy reading it as well.

WIP Game!

I was tagged by @e-n-t-r-o-p-i-c-f-r-o-g. Thanks!

Rules:

Make a new post with the names of all the files in your WIP folder.

Let people send you asks with the title that most intrigues them, then post a snippet or reveal something about it.

Tag others to continue the game.

I'm going to provide a little more information besides the titles, because otherwise, picking one feels too much like a shot in the dark.

UNPUBLISHED:

In Memoriam: MDZS, postcanon. Wei Ying is asked to pretend he's Mo Xuanyu and bid farewell to the former nanny of the Mo family, so she can pass away in peace.

Scars: MDZS, postcanon. Wei Ying asks Lan Zhan if, given the chance, he'd erase the scars left by his punishment.

First night: TGCF, missing scene. During the first night he spends in Puqi shrine after meeting Xie Lian on the ox cart, Hua Cheng ponders about what kind of life the prince has lived the last eight hundred years, and about the function of his second shackle.

Clarity: TGCF, canondivergence. Hua Cheng comes back from his second dispersion early, but he's barely there, unable to move or speak on his own. Afraid of exposing his beloved to any malignant actor while in such vulnerable state, and tormented by how much and in how many ways he missed him, Xie Lian locks them both inside the Mt. Taicang's shack until he can come up with a solution.

Pearl Memories: TGCF, postcanon. Xie Lian decides to learn how to style hair properly, and in return, he learns about what happened to the lock of hair he tied around Hua Cheng's finger during the land of the tender incident.

Haifisch: TGCF, mermaid AU. To unwind from his gruelling job and difficult circumstances, Xie Lian has got into the habit of screaming underwater while he swims at the bay, unaware of the fact that his sorrow smells like blood in the water for Hua Cheng, a siren that feeds from despair.

The Newcomer/King of the Ghosts: TGCF, postcanon. A new earth master ascends and immediately accuses Hua Cheng of having stolen his auspicious fate in marriage and use it for himself in order to marry Xie Lian. Seeing in this a chance to free herself from her bureaucratic prison, Ling Wen offers to take care of the case.

The Secret Garden: TGCF, postcanon. Xie Lian is a tireless worker, and while Hua Cheng deeply admires that of him, he's also desperate to make him settle and rest after so many years of struggle. Perhaps making Paradise Manor feel like a real home could do the trick.

Picture perfect: TGCF, modern AU. Hua Cheng begrudgingly agrees to participate in a photography project of his fellow uni student He Xuan, under the condition that he won't have to remove his eyepatch. However, when he arrives to the studio and meets Xie Lian, an incredibly charming man who's missing the right leg, he fears he might be persuaded into exposing his own scars.

The fantasy creatures pitches: SVSSS, MDZS, TGCF (but they aren't crossovers). Chinese mythology AUs. I wrote six pitches for the Tails And Scales fanzine, two for each novel. They picked one from TGCF, but I can talk about the other five.

Fairy Boy: Zelda BotW, missing scene. The story of Link growing up and how he ventured into the Lost Woods to find the Master Sword at age 12. It's entirely told in rhymes, like a children's bedtime story.

ONGOING:

Heavenly Damnation: TGCF, modern AU, metal music. After eight years of taking on awful gigs to stay afloat, Xie Lian is forced to confront his past when issues with the registration office bring him back to the capital. The difference? Hua Cheng, who has been his biggest fan since the beginning, is now ready to help him out of the hell Bai Wuxiang put him into.

Treasure Hunting in the Clouds: TGCF, modern AU. Hua Cheng bought a first class couple's pod to fly back to London after a business trip to the USA, but the airline forced his hand at the last minute and shoved a stranger in the other half of the bed. Hua Cheng hates this at first, but he changes his mind when he sees who's his impromptu pod mate.

Within Reach: TGCF, canondivergence. During their long walk towards Mount Tonglu while Hua Cheng is in his sealed child form, he and Xie Lian encounter humans who tell stories and legends of Crimson Rain Seeking A Flower, and decide to make a game out of it in order for Xie Lian to learn more about his secretive companion.

The Perfect Gift: Zelda BotW, post canon. Unauthorized sequel of the orphaned fic "A Most Convenient Marriage". On a mad race to eliminate the new threat looming over Hyrule, Link comes to terms with his strained relationship with Zelda and the blooming love he shares with Prince Sidon.

This... is hella lot more than I expected to have, lmao. Feel free to ask about as many titles as you want. I'm just now starting to use Tumblr again, so I'm sorry if I'm being inopportune with the tags: @ardenrabbit, @edenwolfie, @peachylixir, @callmefoxypepsi.

Answered questions:

The Newcomer/King of the Ghosts

In Memoriam

Treasure Hunting in the Clouds

Within Reach

Clarity

• Chapter 4: Descent

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

Dinghai Love Week 2023 Day 1: Chile Chuan Under the Yin Mountains.

Horses are a blessing and a curse for Dinghai Fusheng Lu readers and I didn't want to leave them out of the event. Here's Huleishan, pride of the Akele tribe, hanging out in Chile Chuan.

Your beloved pet, your favourite animal, that legendary beast you're obsessed with, the character you adore in animal form... Let me draw them!

€15 per animal, +€10 per addition (other animals, background)

Five slots open. First come, first served~

Order via KoFi or shoot me a DM if you want to discuss it further and/or pay via Wise. Thanks in advance for your support!

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.

Last Line Game

Tagged by @e-n-t-r-o-p-i-c-f-r-o-g weeee

The last line I wrote:

The sight is so that Xie Lian concludes he’s still dreaming. The proportions of this person are mythological. How tall can he be?

If you're reading this and want to join, feel free!