Accalia's Cave

Hi!!! I'm Accalia // They/Them // Art (COMMISSIONS OPEN) // Writing // Original Characters // Current hyperfixation: BG3 & MHA & Arcane & My Ocs

[softymuii]

Eruri and SmileX

[depsidase]

[shuravf]

TGCF CHIBI SERIES (11-21)

Which one is your fave?

[ray-eh]

TGCF is actually insane because if you zoom out, it’s just a story where,

Xie Lian tries very hard to mind his own business, and the universe repeatedly responds with personalized suffering. Like this man ascends, immediately messes it up by caring too much, falls, gets humiliated by everyone who once adored him, lives as a scrap-collecting disaster god, and still somehow goes around saying “it’s fine :)”. Sir. It is not fine. It has never been fine.

And then there’s Hua Cheng, who saw one boy fall off a wall, got saved once, and said “okay cool, this will now define my next 800 years.” No hesitation. No therapy. Just raw, industrial-grade devotion. He doesn’t believe in gods. He believes in this one guy, specifically, and frankly that’s worse.

The funniest part is that Xie Lian genuinely thinks Hua Cheng is just a little intense. Like yes, your most devoted believer is a ghost king feared across realms, wears red like it’s a warning sign, kneels like it’s a lifestyle choice, and would burn the world down on your behalf but sure, he’s just enthusiastic.

At its core, TGCF is not even a romance. It’s a case study on how devotion is sometimes quieter than love and sometimes absolutely unhinged. Hua Cheng never asks to be loved back. He just stays. Xie Lian never asks to be worshipped. He just exits.

Meanwhile the Heavenly Court is running on pure audacity. These people watched Xie Lian get destroyed for being kind and still have the nerve to act shocked when Hua Cheng shows up like a walking consequence. “Why does he hate us?” I don’t know. Maybe because you publicly ruined the only person he ever loved? Just a thought.

Feng Xin and Mu Qing are out here having the world’s longest, messiest miscommunication arc. They care. They care so much. They are also deeply allergic to saying it out loud. So instead we get centuries of tension, resentment, loyalty, guilt, and vibes that scream “we should’ve talked about this 800 years ago.”

And Jun Wu, oh Jun Wu standing there like the embodiment of “this could’ve been avoided if you’d gone to therapy instead of committing atrocities.”

Like what the hell

[shuravf]

TGCF CHIBI SERIES (1-10)

Which one is your fave?

[liberalsarecool]

We are a consumer economy. Shareholder economics bleeding companies, illegal mergers of businesses, and focusing only on the ultra-wealthy hoarders to trickle down, is a failure.

[suresne]

thoughts about jin, kazumasa, shimura, and abuse

so we know from daisuke that kazumasa sakai was originally written as a physically abusive drunk, but that his character was changed significantly to humanize him a bit more and make him more complex (good choice, writers)

this would mean that kazumasa being physically abusive toward jin is not necessarily canon in the game

HOWEVER....

i think there is quite a bit of subtext in the game to support that interpretation of kazumasa's and jin's relationship, at least to some extent

(analysis under here)

my first piece of evidence for this, and the most obvious, imo, is both jin and shimura's reactions when shimura hits jin after jin defies him for the first time at castle shimura:

from shimura's reaction, he knows IMMEDIATELY that he fucked up. it's truly an "oh shit, we're never coming back from this" moment. and jin's look of betrayal is so potent. my feeling is that shimura knew about kazumasa's abuse and tried to shield jin from it as much as possible, which is one of the reasons why they became so close later. so shimura hitting jin in that moment defies the very basis of their loving uncle-nephew dynamic, AND it gives extra strength to jin's later pronouncement: "i am not your son. i am the ghost."

potential translation: "i won't let you treat me the way my father did. i'm breaking out of this inherently abusive system. fuck you."

more evidence is jin's dialogue with masako in the tale "the family man": they're looking for kajiwara, a man who purportedly abused his wife and daughter

masako laments that the wife and daughter returned to kajiwara even after she provided them with refuge from him. jin, in contrast to masako's disbelief, responds with understanding:

"it's not always easy [to leave your abuser]. especially when you think they'll change."

he could have said: "it must not be easy," or "it must be hard"; but no, he seems to be speaking with authority here; he has lived it, he understands it from personal experience. he knows how it is to love and respect someone while fearing them, to want to get away from them but to be unable to--especially as a child who was repeatedly told that he should honor his father, that he was his father's heir, that one day jin would be the next lord of clan sakai and that he should look to his father for guidance

then, when masako and jin finally confront kajiwara, he admits to killing his wife and daughter; jin, usually very stoic, is furious to the point that even masako (the impulsive one) has to hold him back

i used to think this emotional reaction was just a product of jin's commitment to shimura's "code" breaking apart by this point in the story, but now i wonder if it isn't also something more...

there may be more moments that point to this interpretation, but these are the ones that stand out to me

[kelenia]

I am forever your most devoted believer

[ceika111]

so uhhh more beefleaf then? one of my favorite themes is the diversity between ming yi and he xuan forms and how the interaction with qingxuan have a different dynamic depending on whom we seeing right now

[frogonilds]

[auchrauch]

Thank you everyone who helped me out yesterday by tossing some coins my way! Please take this art with Dianxia as a gratitude :) (btw, this is one of the CGs from my tgcf fan visual novel)

[ying-an-sanren]

I think at this point it can be called a collection.

[ying-an-sanren]

Family is growing, backwards but growing 🫡

[ying-an-sanren]

Hua Cheng now too has parents

[cryptidkey]

Started re-reading tgcf and remembered how much I love his character design

[ghost-kings-court-jester]

Considering the fact he’s set up to be like an antagonist force in the Heavens for Xie Lian Pei Ming is such a wild side character like:

He’s probably aromantic

He’s older than Xie Lian by maybe 5 years maybe 100s it’s really vague

He is constantly following his dick into places I wouldn’t go with a gun

He isn’t actually antagonistic to Xie Lian at all despite all the behind the scenes manipulation trying to make that happen

Him and Xie Lian share custody of a 250 year old war criminal

He’s the text book example of why “I was just following orders” is really fucking bad

He has an incredibly strong sense of justice

He’s best friends with the most evil woman and second most evil man in heaven for most of the novel

He’s genuinely a good person

He’s so charismatic his best friend/situation-ship tried to make him king without asking him

He’s so distraught about what happened with The Rain Master he runs away from her for +800 years of existence

He’s a slut

He’s a Hualian shipper

Despite being probably the third strongest Martial God in the series he spends all of Mount Tonglu with a broken elbow and being comic relief

He genuinely believes he and Hua Cheng are buds

He somehow didn’t have any children so instead he tries to trust fund kid his 17 times great grand nephew who was raised by the most humble man ever and can’t work out why the kid won’t let him buy his way out of jail

He wants to talk to Xie Lian about his sex life

He spends most of the last book being depressed that one of his best friends is dead and another is on the run

People pray to him for long lasting relationships

A yandre ghost is trying to kill him

Jun Wu was actively running a smear campaign against him the entire time

He was part of the magical girl sword

He’s the slut of the heavens

He is both so tried and living by the motto fuck it we ball

He’s the only other man Xie Lian finds handsome

He was the first person to realise E’Ming was a boner metaphor

He’s scared of the bull man who hates him

He is probably going to be the next heavenly emperor since Xie Lian doesn’t want that shit

He’s the only martial god who genuinely likes and respects Ling Wen until Xie Lian shows up

He says “Ho Ho” when Hualian kiss

[dragonryyu]

Relax

[kyuhudraws]

forehead touch

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

MAY YOU NEVER LOSE YOUR HYPERFIXATION