#Crimson Crown

[therealms-number1angirl]

Remember when Raisa broke off her engagement with Micah and then ordered him to save Han even if it meant he died? Cuz I find myself randomly replaying that part on my audiobook and it always makes me giggly.

[loverslibraries]

just finished crimson crown by heather walter!!! (image text under read more)

Image text:

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a free eARC in exchange for an honest review!

I'm going to be totally transparent with yall: immediately after receiving this ARC, I slipped into my annual reading slump that usually starts about late spring into early summer (No seriously, check my monthly tags if you don't believe me). That being said, the first 40ish percent of this was agony. I was forcing myself to read to try and break out of my slump (bad idea) and ended up resenting the book. I paused it and went onto to read some shorter books, and came back to this one once I felt my slump was sufficiently broken, and Oh my goodness this book was so fun. I read the back half of this book in a day, devoured it, I tell you! I loved the story and the worldbuilding and the characters. Sooooo good.

I do want to note that I went in completely blind to the concept of this book, only looking at the cover when I requested the eARC, and I think that will afford you the best reading experience, overall.

3.8 rounded up

[murasaki-cha]

The Xianle quartet in the begining of TGCF is literally so funny to me as a concept.

Because it's literally these 3 guys who have disguised themselves from this 1 guy to go hang out with him. 2 of them know who each other is and also immediately recognised who the third guy is but don't have any proof to back it up. And the third guy also knows exactly who they are but he doesn't care and doesn't even wanna interact with them because he got beef with them.

Meanwhile the 1 guy they are disguising themselves from actually recognised them on sight because they absolutely suck at disguising themselves, but they're trying so hard and he doesn't want them to feel bad and they're also hanging out now so that's fun, he doesn't wanna ruin that.

[xueyuverse]

Updates on TGCF from MXTX!

TGCF unrevised UNCENSORED VERSION released! ↓

1. Hua Cheng always fully intended to marry Xie Lian, he collected engagement gifts for Xie Lian;

2. Hua Cheng likes to grab and squeeze and merge with Xie Lian when he's horny;

3. Xie Lian would dance for Hua Cheng in women's clothing happily;

4. Xie Lian feeds chickens, has cats and likes to plant flowers (he is a grandmother);

5. From the extras we already know that Hua Cheng is a bully in bed, so he rules out introductions 🤭

6. Hua Cheng tried to grab Xie Lian's ass in the kiss scene at the opening of Mount Tonglu;

7. Huahua would see Xie Lian on the swing when he was a child and referred to him as "future wife";

8. Huahua takes good care of his boots lmfao;

9. Xie Lian CRIES in some kissing scenes;

10. Xie Lian LOVES Hua Cheng's rough side.

[the-artist-grimm]

Question about the lamb gender comic seen here. https://www.tumblr.com/the-artist-grimm/762154972241674240/takes-place-about-late-darkwood-probably-about?source=share

Do the Lamb's pronouns ever reroll multiple times in one day, or while they are awake? Also, is there any sort of consistent point at which they reroll, such as every 24 hours or whenever they wake up?

Feel free to info dump on me if I'm horribly misunderstanding this.

The lamb mostly swaps day to day to every few days! Anthea often chats to the kits and Narinder through the crown, so after they help out the first time usually in the mornings the twins will help the lamb play the pronoun game for a bit. (And Narinder will join in too from time to time)

[lazycranberrydoodles]

bitchy gay guy save me….

[lunart-06]

*insert Credens Justitiam ost from Madoka Magica here*

Happy birthday to the boy ever I have to speedrun this cause I have other projects but wjfhshfj I wish I can do more for him but my lack of freetime cursed me 0(-(

[marshymeds]

Outfit swap except Xie Lian wasn’t expecting The Outfit instead of his daily fit, but who can blame HC when thats the first thing he ever saw XL wearing

[happypeachsludgeflower]

For the longest time I kept seeing tags about the Xianle Quartet and—this is very embarrassing to admit, but I was honestly baffled as to why all these people seemed to ship Xie Lian, Feng Xin, and Mu Qing with Qi Rong of all people …yea it was not my brightest moment…

[brittle-doughie]

Thinking about what would happen with Crowned Cupcake if certain cookies were the ones to "steal" us away. Specifically the cookies on the more powerful (and more evil) side of the spectrum.

Any opinions if it was Black Pearl or Dark Enchantress who "stole" us away?

(Also maybe Crimson Coral or Carmel Arrow, but that's mostly for self-indulgence reasons on my end)

Notice: Inbox is closed at the moment so I can make dents in the ask pile!

Crimson Coral always knew that Crowned was up to no good and took you in to protect you from her.

Within the water, Crimson has more of a fighting chance, but will severely be at a disadvantage if Crowned can get her out of the water. But Crimson isn’t one for backing down, she’ll keep fighting no matter what!

That goes double with Caramel Arrow Cookie. Her love for you is the most pure compared to Crowned and she’s determined to prove it in any way possible

No potentially murderous princess will stand in her way of sharing a path with you! Crack her dough all she wants, Caramel Arrow Cookie will fight until the end

[therealms-number1angirl]

Han: Dancer is one of my best friends. If something ever happened to him, I don’t think I could live with myself.

Han: Of course, I wouldn’t have to because Cat would kill me.

[izzy-prizzy]

hua "i would recognize you in total darkness, where you are mute and i am deaf. i would recognize you in another lifetime entirely, in different bodies, different times. and i would love you in all of this, until the very last star in the sky burnt out into oblivion" lian

[murasaki-cha]

Tgcf official art you lied to me there was no falling on lap scene😭😭😭😭😭

[perioddramapolls]

Period dramas dresses tournament: Black dresses

Round 1 Round 2 Round 3 Semifinals Finals

Winner: Li Haolan's dress, from Legend of Haolan

Costume designer: Xiaotao Song

[xueyuverse]

It's ironic to me that part of the fandom insists so much that Hua Cheng's personality revolves around Xie Lian when in fact MXTX created Hua Cheng first and then had to make Xie Lian his ideal type. Like, the truth is that Xie Lian was molded for Hua Cheng. I find this contradiction very funny, I'm sorry.

But they were indeed created for each other.

Hua Cheng has a strong personality, he is firm in his ideals and beliefs, assertive in his opinions, cold in his justice and someone who does not bend the rules just to fit in, he creates a third way instead of adapting to a world that hates him and was cruel to him.

His ideal type would have to be someone as confident as him, who not only does not bend the rules, but also does not get corrupted by difficulties, someone benevolent enough to see people like him with kindness, because only someone faithful in his beliefs would be able to be so different from everything that the world says is right — because the right thing is for you to annihilate people like Hua Cheng, whether they are innocent or not, just because of a supposed curse that they did not ask for.

This meta is based on this excerpt from the afterword that MXTX put in TGCF ↓

When it comes to character designs, the Shou’s were decided on first for the first two novels, but I was torn over the Gong’s for a long time, and needed a run-in period. Hua Cheng, however, was an exception. Inspiration struck and there he was; inspiration struck again, and I blinded one of his eyes.

[...]

It was actually the Shou, Xie Lian, who tortured me for up to half a year’s time. When the novel started serializing, I was still torn over him for a long time.

[...]

But the most important thing is, by my instincts, someone like Hua Cheng will most definitely love someone like this. So, after a good half a year’s worth of qualms, in the end I still typesetted him: It’s you!

Speaking more about this postscript, I found it interesting how for MXTX, Xie Lian was the most difficult character she has ever played. People tend to think that Xie Lian only has two personality traits: (false, for many) kindness and idiocy. The idiocy may even be right lol, but when you stop to think about it, Xie Lian is a really difficult character to create and, mainly, to develop.

For all the layers he has, he could easily be a snobbish prince, a vengeful and bitter ex-prince, a fallen prince who rises again to reconquer his kingdom and reclaim his throne or a spotless saint who is always intelligent and wise and is above things like sadness, anger, lust, etc.

We know that Xie Lian is none of these things, he was not made for these plots. But if he is none of these things, then what could he be? Honestly, I find it very difficult for anyone to come to the conclusion that your protagonist is a "loser" who failed and has no ambition to rebuild his kingdom and become the new king. It's bold to make your protagonist a poor and extremely unlucky nomad, especially with the princely background that you gave him, we can see from the amount of stories out there about protagonists who lost their kingdoms and then have a path of reconquest that it's difficult not to be tempted to follow that path.

Of course, Xie Lian is a god, something greater than a prince or king, but he is a poor god, known as "the joke of the three kingdoms", he has no wealth and for 800 years he only had 1 believer that he didn't even know existed and he is also known as the "god of plague" and "immortal scrap collector", unconventional titles in the literary world lol

He must experience youthful ignorance, overestimation of his own abilities, have been laughable, been foolish, made mistakes, despaired, felt hatred, gone crazy. But he can’t run, and he can’t hide; everything is what it is. All this was killing me. Not just within the text, but outside the text too. My mediation was useless, and I’ve no energy anymore either, so in order not to be affected, I stopped looking at comments altogether. Since I always habitually vaccinate myself before a serialization begins, speculating on all the worst possible scenarios and preparing myself mentally, by the time serialization started I had already expected how all the negative comments would go down. But after much hesitation, I still thought, why not try all different kinds of characters? I haven’t tried writing a main character like this before.

— MXTX

[the-artist-grimm]

I love how Narinder’s third eye is always looking at Athena with some sort of adoration.

Hehe-it's the one part of his expression that he can never school-no matter how hard he tries, his third eye always will reflect how he truly feels or whatever emotion is strongest in a moment