#hualian are inspiring

[mossymage]

Spiritual energy exchange <3

[gaywaren]

changyang’s newest hualian fanarts!

[retiredpeach]

Hualian sleepwear

[swagvo1d]

anatomy of a hug

[qifreyplushie]

the ghost king dressed down

[ginalafraise]

Just love.

[tiny-pun]

"You know how to clean up a crime scene but not how to wash the fucking dishes ?!?

...

How is that even possible?! "

[magicpotatothoughts]

TGCF reread new finds #1

Xie Lian actively and consciously knows that he is attracted to HC the MOMENT THEY MEET in the Ox Cart. Like it’s not just blank gay panic, he knows.

His beauty was deadly like a sword, sharp and mesmerising. Xie Lian only met his eyes for a moment, then lowered his eyes in defeat.

MATE, normally wouldn’t you continue to be mesmerised and can’t peel your eyes away? That is, UNLESS YOURE WHIPPED. XL knows that SL's looks affect him to this degree. Defeat is the key word here.

Also

The distance between them had closed too fast. he suddenly didn't know what to do[...]Xie Lian blanked on the spot. He watched as the tall and slender youth walked away with his giant bag of junk as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do, and it made him mutter inwardly, Forgive my sins.

Making a rich young lad carry your things? Making him sleep in your crappy temple? That doesn't warrant the weighty thought? FORGIVE WHAT SINS Xie Lian??!!!

Many village girls saw (HC) and blushed [...] Xie Lian didn't know what they were going to ask, but felt instinctively that it must be stopped at once, and cried, "No!"

Jealous jealous boi! XL WAS POSSESSIVE after ONE night spent together at Puqi Shrine. Didn’t XL just say to SL that he will have no problem in the love department because girls will throw themselves at him? Yo, why are you cock-blocking? Everyone says HC is insane, no XL is equally insane for the other!

Also, when HC revealed that it's his real skin after the Banyue arc, XL instinctively poked him. Then

He looked at his own finger then hid it away, betraying nothing of his thoughts.

What thoughts XL ?!! Explain yourself right now!

Jumping back to OX CART scene, Xie Lian's character development was foreshadowed when they were talking about the gifting of ghost ashes.

Book 1: Xie Lian sighed. "It certainly is painful to think about, to have given everything for love and lose everything in return."

This is what Xie Lian is most afraid of! Like even thinking back to Xie Lian pushing Feng Xin away in Book 4, he definitely operated under that mindset. Love is a risk, it's something to be feared. Even now 800+ years later, he still feels that way and doesn't allow himself to get close to anyone. It just hits so much harder thinking that he operated under that for so many centuries.

Then Hua Cheng says

"What there to be afraid of? If it were me, I'd have no regrets giving away my ashes"

Which I think really changed the way that Xie Lian thought about love. Book 5 Xie Lian completely operates with Love is empowering and isn't something to be afraid of.

TGCF isn't about XL realising his feelings, literally from Book 1 it's about him wondering if it's worthwhile to act on them.

Three things, is this person worth losing cultivation over for?

He needs the reassurance that this person must reciprocate his feelings.

Then HC changed his perspective on love from FEAR -> EMPOWERMENT.

XL is soooo self-aware (unlike SQQ from SVSSS and WWX from MDZS), he's an unreliable narrator in the way that he doesn't reveal everything to the reader, especially his own feelings until he was absolutely sure that there really was both a physical and romantic attraction. I wanted to make this post to dispel the assumption for XL it was easy to forego 800+ years of cultivation. It was not? He ABSOLUTELY thought about it carefully.

[andariyadoesart]

"I've never seen that kind of charming San Lang before, and I want to see it more. Especially since, it's your original form." 🩷

[walkingcorpz]

| day 2 event entry for @vamplita 's 90+ editing event!

⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡ A character/theme which reminds you of your beloved ;♡; or a character/theme which is in love

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ for this prompt, i chose hua cheng and xie lian from tgcf! they really really remind me of my boyfriend and i and they're so sosososo in love, so i decided to double down and do extra for both of the prompts!

[echochqmber]

@here4hualian day 7: reunion kiss

As soon as Xie Lian sees Hua Cheng, he's running into his arms.

"I missed you, San Lang," he whispers.

Hua Cheng leans down, kissing Xie Lian on the lips first, then both cheeks, then his nose, then along his forehead. "This one felt like he was going to lose his mind."

"You don't have to lose your mind," Xie Lian assures him. "I'm here now."

"It was unbearable. I really couldn't take it."

"It was just as awful for me, beloved." Xie Lian presses a kiss of his own against Hua Cheng's jaw. "The world doesn't feel half as bright without you by my side. It's unbearable, really."

And with that said, the two's lips finally meet. Both are leaning into each other, as if the other is the first drink of water in a hot desert.

It would be a beautifully romantic picture of reunion, except...

"Hey!" Feng Xin shouts, having been forgotten in the heat of the couple's reunion. "He was only gone for three hours!"

[xueyuverse]

During one night, while the couple slept, Hua Cheng had his face closed in an anguished expression, pressing Xie Lian, who was unaware of his husband's discomfort at being deeply asleep, against him in an increasingly tighter hug. Then, suddenly, Hua Cheng screams, loud, hoarse and it was the scream of someone in pain.

Xie Lian wakes up with a start, Hua Cheng continued clinging to Xie Lian and screaming in an agony that reverberated through Xie Lian's bones and shook Paradise Manor.

His scream was one of pain and was still overflowing with murderous intent.

Xie Lian shook Hua Cheng, saying, "San Lang! San Lang!!! Wake up!! It's okay!!" But Hua Cheng kept shouting and shouting things like, "I'm not!! I'm not!! I'm not!! Your Highness!!"

And he suddenly woke up, sat up and grabbed Xie Lian, pulling him onto his lap and squeezing him in his arms, hugging him as if he was afraid of losing him. "I'm not, Your Highness, please believe me!"

Xie Lian wrapped his arms around Hua Cheng's waist and laid his head on his chest, saying, "You're not what, San Lang?"

Hua Cheng took a while to respond, seeming to come to his senses and completely step out of the boundary between dream and reality: "...Cursed."

"Oh, San Lang." Xie Lian tightened his embrace and pressed a kiss to Hua Cheng's chest. "Of course you aren't. You never were and never will be. I believe you."

Hua Cheng trembled, pulling Xie Lian closer and closer to him as if he wanted to merge their bodies. Xie Lian pressed more kisses to Hua Cheng's skin, his chest, his shoulders, his neck... wherever he could reach. "I believe in you, San Lang. You're not. I believe in you."

[qourmet]

Sm1 planted the idea of a stubbly xie lian in my head & all I could consecutively think about was a xie lian with a working endocrine system, pit & chest hair & a happy trail & kinda muscular & just 🥵 idk I kinda lost myself in the sauce a bit

[heartinhyacinth]

Doing the right thing even when it's not easy—staying true to yourself and your values—is a huge theme in Tian Guan Ci Fu.

The second and third books in particular spend a lot of time delving into the various ways humans tend to deal with crisis and the consequences, rewards, and overall thought processes before and after of each. It explores the fall of a kingdom and its prince's reaction upon discovering the apathy and greed of the people in his similar position of power. It explores corruption and hypocrisy. You watch as he's told time and time again that it's pointless to try and work against fate, forgetting the fact that those in power often are "fate" when it comes to the common people.

This story does not pretend that doing the right thing will always end in reward and praise. It does not attempt to sew you a story of the endless ways it is easy to be a good person—that it comes as smoothly as breathing. Quite the opposite. You witness as this prince falls from grace—as he is ridiculed and punished ruthlessly for daring to stand against the status quo.

It does not lie. It shows you the pain. It shows you the conflict—internal and external. It shows you the sacrifice and the doubt and the guilt.

But then... just as you expect to be abandoned by it, left to deal with your newly acquired hopelessness and loss of faith in humanity as you lie discouraged and confused on the ground...it extends you a warm hand.

It smiles down at you and tells you it's proud of you.

And you did the right thing.

Tgcf shows you that doing what's right doesn't always feel good. Being kind doesn't always end in reward...

That's okay.

It's still worth it.

There's so much pain and tragedy in this story that it is honestly shocking how it delivers the exact opposite message one would assume.

At its core, it is not a story of corruption and abandonment and evil. It is a story of resistance and bravery and hope. It is a story of defying fate, of choosing third paths.

It is a story that does not sugar coat the suffering and cruelty in this world, but prompts the idea that life is still worth it regardless.

People are still worth it.

Being kind and compassionate and true to yourself is still worth it.

You are still worth it.

In the author's own words, Tian Guan Ci Fu is:

(Previous post which inspired this one)

[adventure-waffles]

Bark Bark Bark

[everytimewetouch-dot-mp3]

inspired by the art i just reblogged: CONSIDER. tgcf ballet au where each of the four famous tales is a ballet.

(update: …this took longer and got bigger than i expected lmaooo)

at only seventeen, xie lian the principal dancer for the national ballet. xie lian danced like water, like the wind, with once-in-a-generation fluidity and grace. he was incredible, and he inspired a generation of dancers, especially young boys, to take up the art.

things turned bad, though. injured dancers (never xie lian, though) faulty flying rigs (never xie lian’s, though). damaged equipment and safety hazards and all manner of things that xie lian notices. he tries to fix them. he’s always too late. rumors start to spread. hadn’t he gotten into an argument with this dancer last week? hadn’t that dancer taken his preferred warmup spot the week before?

when xie lian catches the saboteur, no one believes him. how could they, when he’s blaming the artistic director himself?

it comes to a head on opening night of The Ballad of Wuyong. the show that rocketed the artistic director to fame, back in his performing days. xie lian plays prince wuyong now. he is terrified.

in the second act, one of the lights malfunctions. the artistic director looks him dead in the eyes and grins.

the light falls.

xie lian isn’t injured, of course. he never is when these things happen around him. why would he be, when he’s the one behind it all. that’s what everyone says. the dancers whose careers were ended that night, the theater damaged in the fire, the audience members who feared for their lives. it was xie lian’s fault. he’s been sabotaging the show from the start.

no one believes him. he retires, fading into obscurity. three years later, he teaches ballet in a small town. he knows he will never see the stage again.

hua cheng is a young firebrand with earth-shattering skill. he dances like fire, like the roar of racing blood, like passion incarnate. he is arrogant and cold as a member of the national ballet, and then he starts his own company. still arrogant, still cold, but after two years, he’s proven that his arrogance is well deserved.

he and two friends have written (choreographed and composed??) a ballet. well. they’ve got complete concepts for three. the other one is a work in progress. each is based on an epic that everyone and their mothers had to read parts of in school (a la the odyssey/the iliad). the four famous tales, the tetrad of classical legends that have been the subject of television and film retellings, novelizations and operas. it has been performed as a ballet before. hua cheng will do it better.

he xuan has composed the first three and is working through the fourth. hua cheng has taken on the ambitious role of second lead while assisting yushi huang in her role as artistic (co-) director. the role of the primary lead is vacant. hua cheng is arrogant and stubborn and he will not budge on one point: the role was created for xie lian. if he can’t convince xie lian to return and fill the role, the show will never see the stage.

(the entire creative team is furious with him, but…he pays their bills. he xuan owns his music; if the ballet falls through, he can still take his compositions to stage or write an opera or some shit. hua cheng doesn’t care.)

so hua cheng embarks on a mission to retrieve his ballet idol, the man who inspired him to keep dancing when he was ready to quit, the man whose performances changed his life again and again.

xie lian teaches twelve-year-olds. he hasn’t performed in five years. hua cheng doesn’t care; he can help xl get back into performing shape.

xie lian isn’t familiar with the show. hua cheng laughs, tells him nobody knows the show yet.

xie lian is…xie lian. his reputation is what it is, and after burning his former company to the ground as he did (because maybe it was his fault after all; so many people couldn’t all be wrong. they all agreed, didn’t they? it was his fault), he’s terrified of doing it to someone else’s.

hua cheng doesn’t care. he knows it wasn’t xie lian’s fault. hua cheng was in that show as a fifteen-year-old boy, a part of the corps de ballet at such a young age. xie lian wanted the show to succeed. xie lian bruised and cried and bled for that role. he pricked his fingers darning his flats; he was always first in and last out to rehearsals. he read the ballad of wuyong in an effort to understand his role better. he lost sleep, skipped meals, ran himself ragged for that role. the company spit in his face, shoving all the blame on him instead of investigating properly. hua cheng will not swallow their lies. this role was created for xie lian. he will not have anyone else.

no one has ever defended xie lian like this. no one believed him. his co-stars, his closest friends, his family. but here is this man, so famously skilled that xie lian’s students babble about him in class, more beautiful than the sun and just as bright, saying that he refuses to believe what even xie lian has grown to accept. he is not an ill omen. he is not a curse to the stage.

his students’ final performance of the season is saturday evening. sunday morning, he follows hua cheng to beijing.