#tgcf reverse au

[sachanscribbles]

A redraw of a panel from the tgcf reverse au by @kimbapchan! I think this was when they were in the gambling house? But Xie Lian looked so pretty in this panel that I had to draw it uwu

I highly recommend checking out the comics! This AU is fantastic!

[aerscribbles]

I'm not getting to writing out the story for this WIP this year or probably the next (too much other stuff going on) so I want to put this out there somehow.

My mental nickname for it is 'TGCF Vertical Reversal AU'.

Instead of the more 'traditional roleswaps' (God/Calamity) it switches the places of Xianle and Wuyong on the timeline.

Jun Wu, thrice ascended as a martial god, god of disasters and misfortune, god of broken things. Generally way more hissy and spiteful than Xie Lian in canon. Also not very good at hiding the fact that he is constantly five seconds away from losing it.

Mei Nianqing the ~mysterious~ ghost king, infamous for his cartomancy, knowledge of the future and ability to manipulate dreams and fate.

The three unnamed vassals as gods who ascended after breaking up with Jun Wu.

Xie Lian as the Heavenly Emperor, as kind as he is strong, and oh so fucking tired. Constantly trying to parent all the other gods. also he gets to have pet tigers because I said so.

Hua Cheng as the gambling-addict State Preceptor of Wuyong. Responsible for Jun Wu's first encounter with the possibility of death. Currently trying to avert Xie Lian's rube goldberg suicide attempt.

Fengqing as powerful weather spirits in the territory of Mount Taicang. Mu Qing, a snow spirit known as Greed and Feng Xin, a wind spirit known as Ignorance (Hua Cheng is Anger). The names are referring to the three sources of mental suffering, as counter to the sources of physical suffering- Birth, Death, Sickness and Old Age (MNQ + the three mountain spirits). Hua Cheng is the old man shouting at clouds.

Mount Taicang and Mount Tonglu also switch narrative roles.

Mount Tonglu as a spiritually significant place for the kingdom of Wuyong, and also the place where the royal tomb is- 'in the fire we were born, to the fire we return'.

Mount Taicang as the ghost king trial location, though it isn't a volcano- think more Shinsenkyo from Hell's Paradise, a forested mountain overgrown with flowers, swarming with deadly insects and strange beasts- vaguely inspired by the wording of 'Body in Abyss, Heart in Paradise', a place of overwhelming beauty seemingly designed to harm you in every possible way.

The actual plot of this is less 'Xie Lian trying to force Jun Wu to become his successor by putting him through the Horrors and revealing Heaven's corruption' and more 'Xie Lian trying to ensure there is someone reliable in place to take over when he finally gets to kill himself, and cleaning house as a side benefit'.

But here's the thing. The deal with Mount Taicang is that it's the place where Xie Lian has imprisoned all of the Worst Things Ever, and the wards will fail if he dies. His power is the only thing keeping the Heavens afloat and a dozen other things functioning. The world is falling apart at the seams and is being held together with Xie Lian's lifeforce as duct tape.

Xie Lian is so, so tired.

And well, it isn't like anyone would really care if he died.

Care about the real him.

So, he plans to pass on the duties of maintaining the functional state of the world and finally find his rest.

Then his favorite child comes in and starts trying to beat some self-worth and appreciation for life into him.

Then everyone else shows up, including his old friends and the one who his heart betrayed him for.

And in the end, one person is enough.

I am 100% down to talk about this stuff if anyone shows any interest!

[kimbapchan]

TGCF Reversed AU: Ghost King Xie Lian’s besties

[gentrychild]

I have come to the conclusion that in a Role Reversal AU with Ghost King Xie Lian and God Hua Cheng, the two fake Junior Officers must be Yin Yu and He Xuan. Yin Yu is trying to prove that Xie Lian is a Calamity and dragged He Xuan down in this mess to have some support but his plan was foiled by Xie Lian giving He Xuan something to snack on and now, he keeps asking for more food. Or he's dead, if Xie Lian was the one to cook it.

[mrcformoso]

A little sneak peek at the upcoming chapter of Mind in Madness, Heart in Peace! Featuring a very disgruntled smol!HC

I'm going for a bit more lighthearted tone for this chapter because we're gonna get a bit heavy in the next two chapters.

[iwanttofuckereh69]

He stands over their sleeping figure, his shadow drowning the pictures on the wall that represented their life since he had left them to die. A river of blood loops into a knot between his fingers, spills over the alabaster of their skin, and loops into a knot around their fingers as well, binding them across the barrier of life and death.

God and Ghost. God and thief. Ghost and mortal.

- butchered, tongueless by @aerialights ( twitter )

[faalthien]

Here in this darkened temple, he was only Luo Binghe. A man, a boy, a pair of hands to light incense… Yes, here he was only Binghe—Xiu Ya’s most devoted believer. 

GUYS: GUYS: I’M OBSESSED. I had the good luck of signing up for the @bingqiuminibang​ for the BingQiu Reverse Bang, and of Beelzebubble picking my AU, and THIS FIC?? IT’S SO GOOD. A TGCF AU with Shen sibs and excellent characterization. It also incorporates all of my accidental throwaway thoughts from my prompt, which is a feat.

[Go take a look on AO3!]

Thank you Beelzebubble and an enormous thanks to Zan for organizing the event!

Details under the cut. <3

(Please ignore the shitty quality, tumblr hates me.) (It also won’t let me put images next to each other. Who needs luxuries like that anyway!)

Fun fact: these were the first and second painted sketches.

[vinzulu]

[tgcfpassion15]

Today! I made Hualian's kids Tgcf Au by @kimbapchan Tgcf reversed

Xia lian Flower princess along her twin brother Li cheng Flower prince

[obitv]

sorry. disorder where i think about him daily

[knucklesex]

*guy who has 1000 WIPs voice* what if i started a fic-

[sunderwight]

thinking about reverse SVSSS AU where the demon characters are human and the human characters are demons (LBH is still both), but cultivation society operates more like MDZS so that the demon characters can preserve their ruthless clan politics and inheritance systems, and but demon society (which the formerly human characters are now part of) operates more like the ghosts in TGCF, where it's mostly a free-for-all of powerful demons establishing whatever kind of system they please in whatever space they can carve out. I think that'd preserve the meritocracy elements and "twelve different sects in a trench coat" qualities that cang qiong has as an organization.

so the peaks are instead these sort of liminal space cities which are ruled by the most powerful/influential demons, who choose their successors (at least ostensibly) based purely on talent and ability. instead of the sprawling alternate dimension demonic realms of PIDW, they're more like pocket dimensions which can only be accessed if you know the secret ways, existing in the shadows of otherwise seemingly normal towns, mountains, cities, forests, etc. humans sometimes wander into them by mistake, although whether they can get back out again or not depends a lot on which demon lord's domain they were unlucky enough to stumble upon.

Mobei Jun and Sha Hualing are still the heirs of their respective sects/clans, which are among the most powerful sects around. The CQMS peak lords are the rulers of twelve allied demon settlements. Tianlang Jun was the heir of the strongest sect, sort of like Wen Ruohan if Wen Ruohan's biggest motivation was to have his Hot Girl Summer rather than conquering everything, but after his and Zhuzhi Lang's disappearances their sect lost a lot of clout. Su Xiyan hailed from a wealthy demon phantom palace, known for its exceptional hostility towards humans (this version of HHP definitely literally eats people).

The demons-turned-humans are still exactly as cutthroat and dubious as in PIDW. Sha Hualing still wants to kill her father to take his position, Mobei Jun's uncle still tries to assassinate him, the cultivation world has an underground business in trafficking demon body parts (officially decried, but unofficially often consumed to help boost cultivation or create certain tools), the sects often go to war with one another and tend to wreak havoc on the secular human governments and societies whenever they do. All that sort of stuff.

On the humans-turned-demons end, demons in this setting are sometimes born the same way as humans -- two parents of compatible genital orientation get it on and some months later etc etc, which is how siblings like Liu Qingge and Liu Mingyan happen. But sometimes demons also just sort of manifest out of concentrated pockets of demonic energy. Some demons come from humans (SJ and YQY were both born from the unquiet ghosts of slave children), some come from animals (SQH was a pet hamster who was tormented enough to become a demon hamster, and then cultivated enough to take on a human shape), some come from collisions of powerful elemental forces such as volcanoes or floods (Su Xiyan).

So demons have a lot of apprenticeship and teacher-and-student style familial relationships, and demons looking to build families often will risk venturing out into the human realms and trying to find other isolated demons to bring into their fold. Demons alone in the human world are highly vulnerable to being hunted, killed, or enslaved. This is also why there's such a high percentage of "orphans", and contributes even more to a demon like SJ (no parents) resenting a demon like Luo Binghe (found and adopted by a kindly older demon almost right away).

So in the original PIDW, Luo Binghe is a kid who thinks he's a demon and grows up under the cruel and resentful talons of the Lord of Qing Jing, Shen Qingqiu. Every twenty or so years the demon settlements manifest much more strongly in the human realms, during which time they are a lot more vulnerable to attacks from humans. To help deal with this this, the demon rulers traditionally host big, dramatic, scary events that bring everyone within a certain geographic range together, the better to put any righteous sects off the idea of trying to single them out and attack. Most of the smaller settlements clear out entirely in preparation, leaving "ghost towns" where the buildings appear but the demons and anything too valuable to risk leaving behind are all gone.

This Demonic Alliance Conference is a time for contests, trials, matchmaking, partying, festive hunts, trading, and big displays of power. What could be a massive weakness instead becomes a big celebration, and a time for mingling and making new connections.

In PIDW, after suffering years of abuse at the hands of his cruel master, Luo Binghe attends the DAC in hopes of securing some better place for himself in demonic society. But when the righteous sects launch an unprecedented attack on the event, his human heritage is revealed, and Shen Qingqiu tosses him into the twilight space between realms in disgust. Binghe is forced to navigate the hollow and desolate place, locked into his newly-revealed and very weak human form, until he bonds with the legendary Xin Mo blade and effects his escape. Then he sets about bringing the righteous sects to heel (his bloodline means he's heir to one of the biggest sects around, even if they've fallen on hard times the past 20 or so years) and of course conquering the demon realms, and taking revenge on Shen Qingqiu, all while accumulating a record number of wives.

Shen Yuan transmigrates into Demon Lord Shen Qingqiu, ruler of Qing Jin settlement, a haunted bamboo forest in the most cursed mountain range ever.

Downsides -- he's of course destined to be dismembered and/or shoved into a pickle pot by the protagonist.

Upsides -- he's a demon with amazingly awesome demon traits! He has talons! Fangs! WINGS! Also, Binghe is a little demon bun and he is so cute, like a puppy with his fluffy wolf ears and baby claws and darling bright red eyes. Who could ever persecute such an adorable monster boy?! His tail literally wags when he's excited!

Plus Shen Yuan gets to spend as much time investigating cool beasts and other demons as he likes. He's in heaven. Well, not literally of course, but for his standards. Pretty close. Almost worth the price of admission!

[aerscribbles]

Violet Mist Ferrying Stars (vertical reversal au MNQ)

pls click for better image quality!

[kimbapchan]

TGCF Reversed AU - San Lang made Gege cry :(

[aoxue]

hualian au role reversal?? where top paranormal investigator!hua cheng falls in love with 800-year-old ghost!xie lian

This is such a good concept?? I don't have the TGCF cred to do it justice, but let's see....

Hua Cheng's a leading expert in paranormal investigation because he's good at what he does -- thorough, efficient, and ghosts just seem to respect him? But also, he's got the cool, dark, mysterious persona. He rides around on a motorcycle. A majority of the ghost hunting community has had at least a small crush on him at some point

Lesser known fact: Hua Cheng has been a history nerd since childhood and the fall of the now-obscure Kingdom of Xianle is his Roman Empire. He comes across a haunted sword from this period... and eventually, it becomes apparent that the ghost attached to the sword is the last crown prince of Xianle. (Who was Hua Cheng's childhood crush, but the ghost doesn't need to know that in any hurry.)

Xie Lian has a lot of unresolved issues (Guilt™️) that have him stuck in the mortal plane. Included in said guilt is the death of one of his young but very loyal followers, who died protecting the prince. (Who is similar in a lot of ways to Hua Cheng, but Hua Cheng doesn't need to know that in any hurry, either.)

He Xuan does recovery dives at shipwrecks and works with Hua Cheng frequently when he comes across cursed items. Maybe this is where the Xie Lian sword was found.

There is definitely voluntary possession/body sharing that happens at some point in this AU, in some perilous scenario that requires it. Or not so perilous. Just recreationally. Who knows. Why not both

AU ask game

[mrcformoso]

Sneak peek for Chapter 17 of my reverse!AU HuaLian fic Mind in Madness, Heart in Peace!

We continue XL's POV, and move on to their reunion, as well as a run through of XL's POV on some events of the story. I will also finally reveal where XL's last temple is! A few people have figured it out already! I'm so proud of you guys~

I'll also be fixing the pacing of the next chapters because I realize that I was a bit ambitious when I first made the outline. So expect the final number of chapters to adjust :D