#like ysh sqx and pei ming

[fortune-maiden]

TGCF Revised Ver: Mid Autumn Banquet

Short arc is short and honestly aside from some stuff in the beginning I think most of the changes here are fine. It does feel like it flows better in some parts

The biggest change here is the beginning of the arc:

Originally QR possessed one of the guys he'd kidnapped, then showed up at the Xianle Royal tomb to desecrate it and then XL dragged him home. In this version, he just found a random dude while escaping after the events of the Fangxin arc and possessed him (this was the only kind of person he could possess). Notable changes though: it's said upfront that this dude is a gambler and a drunkard (and that this is the type of person QR hates most because it reminds him of his own dad). And he came crawling to Puqi Shrine to hide from LQQ. XL is still quite savage to him though. Also QR's long rant about how everyone sucks is moved to the end of this scene with him also cursing out the Three Tumors as a group after cursing them out individually. (Also my mtl has him call SWD a 'nouveau riche' instead of blackhearted and I'm very curious if this is an actual change or a translation thing xD)

And now the big rage change. THE PICKLE JAR SCENE IS CUT! Bye bye Pei Ming's final stint as an antagonist, Pei Xiu standing up to his boss/ancestor, and the Wind Master making a fool of him and then cheerfully inviting XL to the mid-autumn banquet. In the revised ver Ling Wen just informs him there's a banquet and he attends (though all the reasons he lists for being unable to refuse are the same)

No Lang Ying in this version so SQX does not mention taking XL to pick him up later.

XL recognizes LW's male form right away in the revision, while in the original he only caught on after seeing PM & SWD next to her. Also snip goes the bit about the Three Tumors praising each other and SQX calling them fakers.

The audio drama adds some cute dialogue here about LW not wanting to go to the hot springs with PM and SWD telling her to go with him and pretend PM doesn't exist. I love it a lot. (also this is SWD’s first line of dialogue in the AD haha)

LW/PM going 'Instant karma' to SWD after he made fun of them is cut. Awww

Idk if it's a translation thing but the price for stopping the mid-autumn play was possibly reduced from 100k to 10k merits - most likely a translation thing because it’s still 100k in the AD

Oh? Looks like the XL's play in the Mid Autumn Festival is called "The Strange Tale of Flower and Night" and SQX notes that it must have been written by one of his new believers...and XL then notes that his only believers are the poor villagers in Puqi Village. There is no mention of the Banyue merchants here like in the original.The play is still about Banyue though

Which leads to the consequence of cutting the pickle jar scene. SWD asks after Little Pei and PM says he washed his hands of him (I guess they had their talk offscreen?) SQX proceeds to mock him for not disciplining PX properly and brings up the past incident with his subordinate and the Rain Master, which makes PM uncomfortable (he has no reaction to SQX defending Banyue in the original) SWD scolds him as before (honestly SQX does feel a little ruder in this ver since she's bringing up the one topic PM doesn't like) (possibly also a translation thing, but SWD explicitly calls PM SQX's elder in the mtl which is cute) (mtl is also much nicer to SWD when it comes to *that* line)

The Rain Master convo that originally took place during the pickle jar scene happens here. Its also noted here that YSH silently allowed XL to borrow water for Yong'an 800 years ago (since he didn't exactly ask in this version) Also notably SQX reveals right away that the Rain Master was the last ruler of Yushi, and Pei Ming was a general of Xuli and XL realizes their history. In the original we don't learn this until Mt Tonglu.

And now for an annoying characterization cut because it's been a while. Originally when XL & SQX discuss PX's exile they have a moment of nodding about the Human Realm wearing one down over time. In the original there's an added bit about how XL is nodding unconsciously while SQX's nod is exaggerated. There's no flourish in the revision and I am annoyed because this is a key difference between the two of them. SQX says these things but doesn't fully understand them yet...

(While I'm sad about the pickle jar scene, I will admit moving this dialogue makes the scene flow better here. Originally we went right from SWD scolding SQX to the lantern battle. It was actually pretty abrupt...)

After SQX receives her ranking, other officials note that LQQ would have normally been ranked there. But he became depressed after the events of the Fangxin Guoshi arc and wasn't focusing on his duties :( Originally, he's only mentioned as being less popular than QYZ despite ascending earlier

Since SQX doesn't need to take XL to Lang Ying in this version, she goes to drag her brother away from his friends.

Also snipped is Feng Xin giving XL a congratulations. Poor Feng Xin :(

And then XL goes home and the scene with QR is more or less the same.

Very small changes overall and most of the characterization is in tact. Save for Pei Xiu's.

RIP Pei Xiu. I still love you.

[hualianisms]

Hi..... If you don't mind me asking (again), who are your top 5 favorite characters from TGCF novel? And why do you like them? Sorry if you've answered this question before.....Thanks so much....

hello im so sorry for answering this so late!! ive been busy with a lot of things and it took me a long time to figure out how to explain my thoughts on my fav characters. thanks for sending this ask, i love talking about tgcf characters and i don't mind at all!

my top 5 fav tgcf characters are:

xie lian & hua cheng (i refuse to choose)

feng xin

yin yu

ban yue

the explanation got extremely long so i put it below a readmore:

1) xie lian 

why do i love xie lian? god where do i even begin... from the start of book 1 i really liked him already bc he was so eccentric and funny in an endearing way, and compassionate and gentle. i love his kindness, his ideals, his dream to save the common people that was the reason for everything he did and that he never truly gave up on despite his disillusionment. i love his courage and his selflessness and how he is both incredibly gentle and incredibly fierce with a will of iron. i love his sharp wit and perceptiveness and his determination and his terrible cooking and nerdy love of swords and how easily and adorably flustered he gets by hua cheng and how fiercely protective he gets of hua cheng and i love his absolute refusal to give up on his ideals no matter what and would literally rather die than change who he is and above all, i love his heart.

it’s that heart that loved his people so deeply and believed so wholeheartedly in the inherent worth of the life of one commoner child that everyone else had believed was cursed and monstrous and worthless, that led him to save hong hong-er and attract jun wu’s attention and help that demon pass on to the next life and inadvertently attract jun wu’s wrath, that led him to attempt to help the people from yong’an in book 2 which indirectly ended with the collapse of xie lian’s own kingdom and xie lian’s own fall from grace. he was punished for that heart by the world, by jun wu, and he came so close to losing that inherent kindness that made him who he is, but still he clung stubbornly to it and fought with tooth and nail to retain his beliefs and his dream and his ideals. 

xie lian’s arc in books 2 and 4 were deeply moving and powerful and impactful for me and will stay with me for a long time - his disillusionment and pain and utter misery and becoming the worst version of himself but then returning to himself again because of one stranger’s kindness that he remembered and lived by for the rest of his long, immortal life. how he is so complex and incredibly human and has had the darkest of thoughts and is deeply flawed but still fights to rise above it and chooses to be better, chooses the kindness that in the end, even a hundred swords couldn’t bleed dry.  

1) hua cheng 

oh boy again where do i begin. firstly he is just so... mxtx really just set out to write the hottest and most devoted love interest ever and she absolutely succeeded. a supreme ghost king borne out of love, surrounded by imagery of crimson blood and flowers and ghostly butterflies... conceptually, crimson rain sought flower is just. so captivating. and hua cheng is also a character who goes through so much change and metamorphosis - we see so many sides of him, from hong hong-er to wu ming to xue yu tan hua to san lang. i love every side of him and i love all his traits, how he is calm and composed and clever and arrogant and confident and playful and spontaneous and teasing and fierce and determined and all-or-nothing and tender and devoted and loving.

hua cheng’s past is so heartbreaking to me, the fact that from the moment he was born he spent every single waking moment suffering, how much trauma and abuse he suffered yet blamed himself for it, hating himself for being “weak” and “ugly” in a way that is so deeply ingrained that we still see how strong his self loathing is 800 years later. i also deeply admire how all-or-nothing hua cheng is, how he set out to do everything he wanted to do - becoming supreme ghost king, becoming the strongest to protect his beloved, building a city on his own, teaching himself how to paint and carve, bending fate to his own will, defying the cursed fate he was condemned to at birth - and all with his own hands, through 800 years of painstaking effort. i have so much admiration for hua cheng and how much resolve and willpower he has, and the unimaginable strength of spirit it must have taken to go through even a fraction of the things he did and not simply collapse but instead triumph above them.

an integral part of hua cheng’s character is also his love for xie lian. i just think that the overwhelming, all-consuming, fierce depth and intensity of his love and devotion for xie lian is just so moving, powerful and romantic. the fact that he loves more intensely and fiercely and devotedly than any other character i've ever read about, despite the fact that he was starved of love all his life. the way his story is about religion and devotion and love and ache and desire and how all of those things intertwine...

3) feng xin

i adored him from the start bc he is so funny, i loved his dialogue and all the scenes he appeared in and i think all the little things about him are so endearing - how he cusses so much and is hotheaded and laughs at everything and hums off-key when he’s happy and has such strong emotional reactions which were actually pretty relatable (also i like himbos)... later on as they showed more of his past in book 2 and his relationship with xie lian, i was very moved by how loyal he was to xie lian, how besides hua cheng, feng xin was arguably the one who believed in and stayed by xie lian’s side the longest, even when their lives got so awful and hard. and at the same time feng xin was also trying to provide for jian lan too and treat her well… he is just someone who gives his all to his loved ones and does his best to do right by them, even at cost to himself, yet he does it in such a quiet way that could end up being overlooked or taken for granted. 

i also love that feng xin has strong principles of his own that he remains steadfast to. he was loyal to xie lian because xie lian was his best friend and prince, but also because he genuinely believed in the same things that xie lian stood for and admired and stood by him for that (which is also why he reacted so strongly to book 4 xie lian stealing and trying to punish a stranger for disrespect). feng xin is just so steadfast and dependable and honest and true on top of being extremely endearing and funny as all hell and i just adore him lots and think he’s pretty underrated.

4) yin yu 

i just love yin yu’s fanon character design and the moon imagery associated with him and i think that yin yu is a very funny character in a very endearing way (the running gag about his face being so plain xie lian thought it must be fake, and yin yu’s long-suffering exhaustion, and being something like hua cheng’s overworked burnt out secretary). but what hits me hardest about yin yu is that speech he gave right before he died in bk 5. "If I was already destined to be no one remarkable, then at the very least, I... wanted to be a kind and perfect person. But... I couldn't even do that." it was just something that felt very relatable and human to me - desiring to be someone and achieve great things yet being just Average no matter how much you try, and wanting to at least be kind and virtuous yet realising with shame and guilt that you've fallen short of even that. 

to me, yin yu's story was about the pain of mediocrity, of being un-special, un-chosen, of being Just Average, no matter how hard you work, how much you try. it's a very sympathizable situation to be in. despite several fans' love for him, yin yu was meant to represent the background character in a cast full of exceptional characters - easily forgettable and unnoticed, always outshone, always standing in someone's shadow. and that makes him one of the most relatable and painfully human, mortal characters in a cast full of flashy and outstanding immortals. most of us readers are likely yin yus instead of hua chengs or xie lians. 

another reason why yin yu is very human to me is his emotions of exhaustion, repression, envy, bitterness, resentment, guilt and self-loathing, and yet despite all his flaws and darker emotions, he still strives to live by his principles of kindness and avoid giving in to his jealousy of quan yizhen, which makes him admirable to me, and proves that he does ultimately have that kind heart that he wanted so badly to have and beat himself up for being unable to live up to.

5) ban yue 

i have a soft spot for ban yue because i think she’s a cute/endearing character and i really liked the bond she formed with xie lian who took her in, and was even so moved and impacted by him that she wanted to save the common people too, just like him, although she didn’t understand how to do it. i find her past sad, how she was bullied and shunned by others, yet it was very touching how “She remembered no one who beat her; but the ones who had saved her once, she remembered for a lifetime.” 

im so sorry this got so long!! thanks again for the ask, i enjoyed answering it <3

[fortune-maiden]

I think about this part a lot…

What if SQX had been left behind for Xie Lian and the others to find?

What would have happened to him? Would Pei Ming have taken him in?

[fortune-maiden]

For that character thing-Pei Ming and Quan Yizhen <3

Thank you! :D

Rambling under the cut

Pei Ming

How I feel about this character: GENERAL PEI! Pei Ming is actually my favorite tgcf character. He is just so... good! And especially in how he's starts the series as the shadowy starter villain and is just intentionally designed to give a kneejerk 'no!' reaction after mdzs, but when you actually meet him, he's a cool laidback guy, he has morals (mostly), he goes all in for his friends, and he has the most interesting backstory in the series. Also his comic relief moments are glorious. Pei Ming is the best! -

All the people I ship romantically with this character: Top ones: MingGuang, PeiShui, PeiXuan, PM/YSH -

My non-romantic OTP for this character: All of the above are wonderful platonically as well! But with a side of PM&LW and the Three Tumors as a group! The OTP is probably still PeiXuan though xD -

My unpopular opinion about this character: I don't think his criticisms towards Banyue were intended as sexism/misogyny. This is the girl that his deputy general likes and effectively threw away his career for. Of course, he's going to be critical of her! He's the mother-in-law! Similarly I think his awkwardness around the Rain Master has more to do with their history than just him refusing to be shown up by a woman. (I think he genuinely wants to be able to save her one time) -

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon. I'll hold off on the rant about him & SQX not getting a proper reunion scene this time xD Instead, let's talk about him & Rong Guang post-canon! It's very vague what exactly happened to Rong Guang. It's mentioned that his resentment dissipated but it doesn't sound like he moved on the way Xuan Ji did (although... Angst Potential?). Yet he's nowhere to he seen/heard from in Pei Ming's final scene. So where is he??? But also also, I wish Pei Ming had had the chance to introduce Rong Guang to Ling Wen & Shi Wudu! They must have heard of him at least! I have been thinking about Pei Ming and his three asshole cats (+little yapper dog) a lot since yesterday xD

Quan Yizhen

How I feel about this character: Quan Yizhen is a GOOD BOY who deserves the world! He's another one of the very few officials who is not really out for any power. He just wants to train and fight evil things and be praised by Shixiong! -

All the people I ship romantically with this character: QYZ/Martial Arts. I don't have any romantic ships with him. -

My non-romantic OTP for this character: I think he and SQX should be friends! There is a scene in the Black Water arc where he calls SQX by first name, this is the only character he seems to ever do this with. What's the story there MXTX??? But also QYZ + He Xuan. There was a really excellent fic I read called 'empty waters' that had QYZ repeatedly challenging HX to fights and something like friendship forming between them. I loved it a lot T_T It would also be nice if he and Yin Yu could reach some understanding that works for both of them.... -

My unpopular opinion about this character: I'm not really sure... I think he's a good character, but I don't really think about him that much tbh ^^" -

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon. Also not really sure... but I'm going to throw in a I wish we got a pre or post canon extra with him! TGCF doesn't really have extras focused on the side characters, and I really wish that weren't the case T^T