#donghua screencaps

[deluxe-dumpling]

Fog Hill of Five Elements | S2 EP2

[pomidaea]

AU Idea: Everything is the same except the Mo Family runs an opera troupe and Mo Xuanyu is one of the dan performers. He is a lousy actor with a decent singing voice. He forgets lines and has breakdowns a few minutes before the show starts. The troupe only allowed him to perform because they lack members and are desperate to climb the social ladder.

When people ask why the infamous ex-performer is hanging out with Hanguang-jun, Wei Wuxian gives an excuse that he's trying to learn music cultivation because his "family" was terrible and he wants to learn from a real musician

[one-flower-one-sword]

His fingers curled into claws, and he aimed directly for Hua Cheng's right eye!

It all happened in under a second. Hua Cheng dodged just as fast, but the attack still left two bloody scratches on his cheek.

For the first time, Hua Cheng faced an opponent he couldn't overtake in speed. His gaze turned sharp, and he changed tactics on the spot - he called forth millions of wraith butterflies, and they swarmed the man in a frenzy. The myriad butterflies wrapped the white-clad man inside a large, shimmering silver chrysalis, but that likely wouldn't last long. Hua Cheng was about to grab Xie Lian when the silver butterflies shrieked and exploded into sparkling powder!

Seeing the subtle change to Hua Cheng's expression as so many wraith butterflies were destroyed at once, Xie Lian knew that this wasn't good. The white-clad man had blown apart the wraith butterflies, and now he was hidden within the shimmering silver powder that choked the air. His newly grown hand struck out once more, aiming again for Hua Cheng's right eye!

TGCF Volume 6, page 76

In this previous post, I've speculated about the logistics of Hua Cheng being blind on his right side and his usage of the wraith butterflies as a sort of disability aid in some instances. This above scene of his first direct clash against Bai Wuxiang is another one of those moments where the text isn't directly stating something but it's possible to extrapolate from what is described and from what is implied.

Hua Cheng is extremely skilled at direct combat at a very young age already, evidenced by the way he manages to injure several of Qi Rong's lackeys when they capture him as he's only ten years old:

"I called for five or six guys, and they still couldn't catch the brat. He trashed and bit them until they were bloodied all over."

Volume 2, page 351

And then later as a young soldier in the army:

"Although the boy was carrying nothing but a worn sword, he was still highly effective and struck down many of the binu. [...] "You've never used a saber before, right? You use a sword, but the sword is tricky. Although it's fast and extremely aggressive, its range is fairly limited. If you've never used a saber before, try it next time. I think you might be even stronger with it."

Volume 3, page 124-127

(The horrifying thing about this is of course that while Hua Cheng probably possessed natural talent, the reason why he had to learn to defend himself against adults as a mere child was that he was so severely and frequently beaten by them)

Also in my previous post, I speculated that Hua Cheng always keeping his right eye covered likely meant he learned early how to compensate for his blind spot in combat, since that obvious weakness is something his opponents would immediately notice and try to take advantage of. Until Bai Wuxiang, we never witness him fighting anyone who can actually injure him, not since he's become a Supreme Ghost King. He defeats 33 heavenly officials in a row, and even fighting two against one with Feng Xin and Mu Qing, he defeats both of them with ease.

I would argue that, aside from being extremely skilled with a saber and having immense spiritual powers, it can be extrapolated from the above quote about his fight against Bai Wuxiang that it's also Hua Cheng leveraging his superior speed against his opponents that prevents them from taking advantage of his blind spot.

(As an aside, I would assume that even when Hua Cheng is in a fake skin that has both eyes and not in his true form, he's still blind in the right one because it's, well, fake. If the text ever actually contradicts that (I've not read volume 8 yet) I will add corrections)

But now, he's facing Bai Wuxiang, who is just as if not even faster than him. Judging by the fact that Bai Wuxiang aims his attack at Hua Cheng's right eye twice, he's correctly judged his blind spot to be the most vulnerable place to go for, thereby managing to bypass his defense long enough to injure him.

Hua Cheng immediately reasses the situation, realizes he needs to create more distance between himself and his opponent, and switches to use his wraith butterflies as a sort of distract-defend-attack combo. And against everyone else, this would have worked - we see this when he uses them to drive Feng Xin and Mu Qing back after they kidnapped Xie Lian away from him:

The butterfly deluge was blocked by the formless spiritual shield and shattered into shimmering silver light, which rapidly recrystallized into new silver butterflies and attacked once more. The onslaught was completely unstoppable - Feng Xin and Mu Qing gave ground slowly as they kept their shields up, and Hua Cheng steadily advanced step by step.

Volume 6, page 63

And then again to keep Feng Xin away and occupied while he faces Mu Qing with Eming:

Meanwhile, each arrow Feng Xin shot at the butterflies was snapped by their sharp wings. The sheer number of butterflies was ultimately too difficult to deal with!

Volume 6, page 64

But Bai Wuxiang is infinitely more powerful and simply destroys all the wraith butterflies at once, which then gives him the opportunity to immediately go for Hua Cheng's blind spot a second time and aim his attack there again.

If we continue to read the wraith butterflies as not only a weapon but also a disability aid of sorts, these fight scenes demonstrate both the possible uses of them as such and also their limits. While they're feared for good reason and have multiple functions - acting as his eyes and ears like spies, defending like a shield or cutting like a blade - they can help him make up for his blind spot to a certain degree, but they can't erase it. They're an aid for his vision loss, not a replacement.

(Which is a good thing imo, just to make that clear. I feel like it's always such a wasted opportunity when characters sustain a disability and then it's either magically fixed or they continue on as if they're still able-bodied. But Hua Cheng is disabled, and the ways he's found to empower himself and to navigate a world that's pretty hostile to people like him, don't take away from that)

Like I mentioned above I haven't read Volume 8 yet, where as far as I know there'll be more fight scenes, so I might come back to this post in the future to add further observations or correct previous ones!

[twistedappletree]

‘deleted’ scene series: zhuiling

[sir-camelot]

So as everyone knows there's this series I'm obsessed with...

I wanted to toy around and do a bit of a redraw of this particular scene, trying out this kind of style. I really just love how softly Hua Cheng is looking at Xie Lian in this particular shot.

I might do one or two more of these or just hop straight into doing my own fan art. idk lol

[weepingfireflies]

You jerk! You liar! Irresponsible bastard! You haven't fulfilled any of your promises to me. Go shopping with me undisturbed. See a movie with me from beginning to end. So many nights you told me that you would be back soon. Then why aren't you back yet? Why? Why are you always breaking promises? If you can do none of these, can you promise me one last thing? All this you owe me, can you repay me in our next life? Yes, my lady.

Link Clink Season 2, Episode 3

Screaming and crying. Why would you torment us this way

[tollundmen]

wei wuxian as mo xuanyu and wei wuxian (as wei wuxian)

[blueberry-ash]

The King's Avatar donghua, s03e10

[incorrect-web-novels]

Wo Jia Da Shixiong Shi Ge Fanpei / What's Wrong With My Big Brother S2

Season 2, Episode 5

[neuxue]

at risk of spoilers, sheng lingyuan

a challenge! I've tried to keep this spoiler-free beyond where you've read to, or at least extremely vague

notes

On the one hand, moonlighting as a lightning rod after you've come back from throwing yourself into a fiery abyss is pretty much the definition of intense. On the other hand he is alarmingly calm about so very much of it.

He's only half an angst-lord for the same reason: a weapon isn't forged to feel pain.

Yes you can be the state and also an enemy of the state at the same time

Does Sheng Lingyuan have friends? Good question. It's complicated. More so because being his friend is something of a death sentence.

Yes I ticked sidekick owner for Xuan Ji

How is Sheng 'stormclouds literally gather in his presence, named for the abyss' Lingyuan even remotely inclined towards the 'ray of sunshine' side of things? Here's the thing. He's only awful company if you're a) Xuan Ji, b) any member of his family, or c) in his way

Untouched by history? History sometimes wishes it were untouched by him.

He is neither sadistic for fun nor altruistic for fun but a secret third thing: a weapon forged for a purpose, to whom 'fun' does not apply*

He loses one or two points on the 'scary smart' scale for one very specific reason and that reason... has something to do with bloodplay on a bridge.

He doesn't need 1000 weapons; he is 1000 weapons. As for weapons he'd want... well, there's one, and that's enough to tip the scales on this particular slider.

Pretty much literal enemy of god, or the cosmos, or the natural order of everything, depending how you translate. It's fine.

Given who I am as a person I expected to tick 'more trauma' for every character in this meme but here's the thing. The narrative would reveal some element of Sheng Lingyuan's Trauma, or inflict some fresh new trauma, and every time I'd go 'yikes that's fucked up but it could be more fucked up if--' and the narrative would look at me in patient scorn and then a few chapters later I'd just be sitting there as every terrible implication was explored to its full agonising potential. But fuck, he suffers so beautifully.

*occasionally tormenting Xuan Ji notwithstanding

[unappeasableabyss]

[mae-i-scribble]

Soooooo about that new tgcf episode, right? (novel spoilers for those who have not finished book 1)

Across the board tgcf season 2 has honestly been blowing away all my expectations for just how *good* of an adaptation it was going to be. It definitely helps that the 2nd half of book one is probably my favorite arc in the entire series and it brings me great joy to see it animated with such care.

Case and point, I was not expecting them to go quite so hard in showcasing the history of Xie Lian and Lang Qianqiu but it is by far my favorite scene in the episode. There is just. So much attention to detail here.

First up we have how they actually transition into the massacre.

The returning thematics of the 3rd glass of water problem being presented and what that means for Xie Lian and Lang Qianqiu specifically are clear enough from how the novel presents them, but this is just a perfect way to showcase that visually. By having Qianqiu's statement of "he shouldn't have intervened from the beginning" into Xie Lian becoming that 3rd person to take responsablity for the Gilded Banquet. The way that this also shows how it will reflect Qianqiu's views on what Xie Lian did when the truth is revealed.

Also shoutout to how menacing Xie Lian is as he walks up to the king. The donghua is really selling you on the possibility that maybe Xie Lian did do this. However, important to note, Xie Lian does not have a speck of blood on him- until he kills the king. A clever bit of foreshadowing to how the only blood Xie Lian actually has on his hands is the king's, no one else in that room was killed by him.

I wish i had the screencap of when Qianqiu has overtaken Xie Lian because this is such a miserable and perfect parallel shot between the two of them.

Circling back to the initial transition with the 3rd glass of water question, we see Xie Lian becoming that third person to prevent Lang Qianqiu from having to do so in his stead. He turns that 3rd person question in to a simple good and evil scenario. Upcoming we'll have Xie Lian's declaration of "Good! I hope you never become like me!" to Lang Qianqiu and furthering the parallels between them, and this is such a classic shot to establish such parallelism. Lang Qianqiu is so young and terrified and eerily similar to Xie Lian. And Xie Lian, who we have come to know as a apathetic but ultimately compassionate and kindhearted person, fully assume the mask of the villain.

Anyways if anyone needs me i am going to chewing this episode between my teeth

[syncogon]

[QZGS TL] s3 ep2 new character designs

with blue rain vs samsara, we got our first donghua look at some more pros and accounts! so i'm here to collect screencaps.

i'm only including the ones that were explicitly labeled—so, no extrapolated identification of the thunderclap characters at the press conference besides xiao shiqin and dai yanqi. (one could go by their voice actors, but that would take more time than i have...)

also i'm only collecting the minor chars because we all know what hst and ywz and zzk and their accounts look like.

left to right: zheng xuan, song xiao, huang shaotian, yu wenzhou, yu feng, xu jingxi

BLUE RAIN:

Swoksaar (Yu Wenzhou)

Troubling Rain (Huang Shaotian)

Brilliant Edge (Yu Feng)

Receding Tides (Song Xiao)

Soul Speaker (Xu Jingxi)

&&&

Brilliant Edge (Yu Feng):

&&&

Soul Speaker (Xu Jingxi):

&&&

Receding Tides (Song Xiao):

misc group shots:

&&&&&&&&

SAMSARA:

Cloud Piercer (Zhou Zekai)

Empty Waves (Jiang Botao)

Cruel Silence (Wu Qi)

Chaotic Cloudy Mountain (Lu Boyuan)

Laughing Song (Fang Minghua)

left: chaotic cloudy mountain, lu boyuan, grappler

middle: empty waves, jiang botao, spellblade

right: laughing song, fang minghua, cleric

&&&

Empty Waves (Jiang Botao):

&&&

Laughing Song (Fang Minghua):

&&&

Cruel Silence (Wu Qi):

&&&

Chaotic Cloudy Mountain (Lu Boyuan):

&&&

misc group shots:

[greenhorn-art]

to catch a sunbeam with white moonlight

Author: orphan_account [this work has been orphaned and is no longer associated with it's author]

Fandom: 全职高手 | The King's Avatar

Rating: General Audiences

Category: F/M, Gen, M/M

Words: 55,720

At a Glory convention, Dai Yanqi meets Ye Xiu who is helping Su Mucheng buy her favorite doujinshi. They surprisingly hit it off as they browse through all the doujinshi about their peers and talk about Glory.

About the book

FONTS: EB Garamond (body text, title), Roboto (body text - electronic), Bebas Neue (title, headings), Alfie (title), Segoe UI Symbol (scene breaks - 'gear without hub')

IMAGES: Sunflower (Rawpixel, ID: 2687359), lightning (Rawpixel, ID:10200699)

MATERIALS: Domtar Earthchoice (textblock - 20lb, cream, 11x17 cut down to 8.5x11), Recollections paper pad (endpapers - Dark Watercolor Florals), Iris bookcloth (covers - Eggplant), Verona bookcloth (covers - Hot Toffee), Ribbon (covers - 1/4", shell grey), embroidery floss (endbands - 209 Very Dark Lavender), leather cording (endbands - 1.4mm), Ceramcoat acrylic paint (painted edges - metallic silver), Anita's acrylic paint (painted edges - 11038 Purple), Reeves acrylic paint (painted edges - Violet & Crimson & Blue Lake, Payne's Gray), waxed linen thread (sewing textblock - 30/3, white), Books by Hand (glue - pH neutral PVA)

PROGRAMS USED: Affinity Publisher (typesetting), Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo, LibreOffice Writer (QR codes), Bookbinder-JS (PDF imposer)

BINDING STYLE: Split-board binding, French double-core endbands

(Belated) Binderary Book 2024

My first year participating in Binderary and I'm 2/2 with my goals, albeit slightly late (even with the added leap day).

Goal No. 1: Bind a book!

This fic is an orphaned work, with no author available for me to reach out to. Convenient, since it was a last-minute decision.

Goal No. 2: Finish typesetting the fic that got me into this whole bookbinding/fanbinding hobby!

Bad Boys JEDI Style is a 217 chapter, 908k word "comedy of errors: in which our heroes are recruited to film a reality holo-drama". Much to my despair, the fic I loved had been deleted from every site it was uploaded to, and I was left kicking myself for not having downloaded a copy from AO3.

Shout out to Kam and Lofe, whose wonderful Binderary demos were put to use in the making of this book! Kam's French Double-Core endbands demo was super helpful, sizing up the 'textblock' and components made it easy to actually see what's happening with the sewing. Loffe's demo introduced me to the split-board binding technique and, sleep-deprived hiccup notwithstanding, I think I might find it easier then bradel style binding! Need to bind more books to know for sure (such a hardship 😔).

In other new-s, I took my dad's recent workshop baby for a spin. The bookbinding plough works like a dream! I tried a hidden fore-edge painting for the first time (just a solid colour), but the purple is lost under the Payne's Gray basecoat I applied to the silver painted edges. Adding ribbon to the cover was also new (mostly due to the fact that I never remember until the endpapers are already pasted down).

On the Design

Cover

This is a Team Thunderclap!Ye Xiu AU, so the cover was based on Team Thunderclap's uniforms from the donghua (from the one screencap of the team I found, see below): purple across the shoulders and forearms of their jackets with a yellow stripe down the centre. I added silver ribbon as a nod to the white of the jackets as well as the grey gear of the team's logo. Also in reference to the title: yellow=sunlight, silver=moonlight.

Title Page

The title page stumped me for a while. While brainstorming title page design ideas, I thought about what the title means. In English it's poetic but nonsensical, so I wondered if maybe it held some meaning in Chinese?

As it turns out, it does. Kind of. Maybe. (If I stretch and reach for it, it makes sense). According to a quick search of one webpage for each query, "'White Moonlight' usually refers to a person or thing that is elusive in the heart, has always been loved, but cannot be touched" or "an 'unforgettable first love'." The sunbeam itself might be Ye Xiu, the figurative ray of light, the hero, the gaming idol. Or 'catching a sunbeam' could refer to how "sunflowers turn their heads to catch every sunbeam."

The potential meaning I have cobbled together is how Dai Yanqi turns Ye Xiu's head and captures his heart by sharing the (SanXiu-ified) story of Su Muqiu, the aforementioned white moonlight. Is this what the author intended? Who knows. But it does seem plausible enough to inspire me.

I ended up using both the idea of sunflowers and Thunderclap's uniforms (again). Lightning referencing the team's logo, and also the white colour of a flash of lightning which is kind of like moonlight. The logo's background is blue, as is the uniform as seen on the cover of the manhua featuring the captain Xiao Shiqin (see below), so I made the background blue-purple.

Endpapers

The (not-actually-)sunflowers carried over to the endpapers, as well as the grey colour from the gear in Thunderclap's logo.

Endbands

Kept these simple. A solid purple, as close as I could get to the bookcloth. I didn't want to draw attention away from the stripes on the covers or the silver edges.

Probably could've gone for thicker cores.

The text

For the scene breaks I used a special character of a gear. The cog also looks like a sun. Which is fun because it can reference Thunderclap, the title (sunbeam), and my design choice of sunflowers.

I reused the lightning image at 50% opacity as a background to set apart the backmatter.

Misc.

Recently, I've begun to increase my efforts of preseving fanfiction and safeguarding the stories I love from purges and takedowns. (Sparked by the December 2023 scandal about Sony announcing an upcoming removal of content including the movies and TV shows that people have purchased).

This fic has been archived via the Wayback Machine at https://web.archive.org/web/20240215155152/https://archiveofourown.org/works/37414021?view_full_work=true.

Also, curses be upon Rawpixel. Since the time that I had downloaded the images, they have now be placed behind the premium user paywall (along with a number of other graphics and elements that used to be free).

[twistedappletree]

him legs too short for the gotdang ground

[imaginarylungfish]

ok so i am going to embark on a big project of making a miniature 1/12 scale of the Time Photo Studio. have i made a miniature of this scale before? no. but hey, i am really invested in this donghua and i really can't make myself practice on anything other than what my brain worm wants.

so, i am still in the planning stage. i am trying to make a rough blueprint so that i have some idea of what i'm doing.

from screencaps and the animator sketches released by the director, it looks like there are three stories (two of which we have actually seen in the doughua):

i can't read chinese, so i have no idea what it says, but i kinda figured out what a blueprint might look like:

i am thinking of making a few changes:

rotating the staircase from the ground floor to the second floor 180 degrees so i can fit everything on the second floor. if i kept it as is, it seems like i need to squish everything on the second floor in the space above the Entrance, Front Desk, and Dark Room. but idk, maybe i'm reading that incorrectly. i may keep it as the animator sketch shows if i can swing it.

adding a three-quarter bathroom on the second floor (because it seems like there's only a half bath on the ground floor).

adding a kitchen. where? i have no clue but like they need to cook, right?

figuring out what to put on the third floor! (i may leave this blank until season 3 to just see if we do, in fact, get to see that space.)

but anyway, i hope to keep up with this project and update my lil tumblr as i go. any suggestions, screencaps, or advice is welcomes and appreciated!

(also, i am picking 1/12 scale because i heard nendroids can use 1/12 scale furniture and there are LG and CXS nendroids available. however, that scale is not set in stone because Planning.)