fish crematorium

dumping ground for assorted c-novel thoughts, reblogs, and the occasional doodle (90% mxtx stuff but I have read other things)

[themanlylobster]

⋆.˚ 𓂃 Despite it all, you'd still choose him? 𓂃⋆.˚

[therigeling]

i’ve recorded a video update for the tgcf fangame i’m making. it was meant for my friends but i thought y’all might appreciate it too

please do ignore all the debug stuff

[therigeling]

Hi everyone! I'm still working on my tgcf fangame, and today I'm back with some animations I've made for it. Enjoy Hua Cheng's misadventures as he prepares to propose to Xie Lian :) One is a complete animation, and the others are just tiny fragments that I thought were funny/cute

And below is the gameover cutscene that plays when Xie Lian's happiness reaches 0. Thank god HC didn't overreact or anything

The game is closer than it has ever been to release, which should be this august or september. My lovely partner has already played it and really liked the experience, and I hope that you will like it as well <3 Check 'rigeling’s tgcf fangame' tag if you want to see more

[evercelle]

favorite story i've never told

[qirongmycancelledwife]

[meru90]

since twitter is literally hell now im too chicken to post anything there so first post of the year will be on tumblr uwu

[fawnmisty]

Family outing in Ghost City

My piece for @/fengxinzine on twitter! So happy I got to be a contributor 🧡

[tenowls]

the latest in the long list of indignities suffered by black water sinking ships

[tenowls]

drawing black water arc myself bc the donghua may never get up to it part... 3...? from vol4 ch54 hehehe

[tenowls]

devour

[tenowls]

beefleaf fleas.png

[tenowls]

oh you know......

[tenowls]

MUCH TO THINK ABOUT...

[red-pearl-white-flower]

Bingqiu! One moment before a kiss…

[magekrove]

SQQ inspired sketch i started doing to look all deep and mysterious but grew tired of

[archerdepartures116]

One man army

[piosplayhouse]

I was thinking about Maigu ridge yesterday and my controversial opinion that I do genuinely and objectively think it's the best climax of the three mxtx series despite not enjoying reading the scene. I think what makes it so special is that as opposed to the other climaxes, sv builds up a sense of gradual dread towards it from the very beginning. You know it's going to happen. Shen Yuan tells you: luo binghe merges the realms at the end of the story, this is an unavoidable fact of the canon. But as things start to go to shit and the plot signs are pointing towards it actually happening what once was a somewhat reassuring expectation that you know what's going to happen turns into an inevitable dread that you're desperately hoping is shifted off course before it's too late.

And then sv hits you with the second aspect of Maigu ridge that it's been slowly getting you to dread: the story always ends in sex. That's how things are fixed. Whether the characters want it or not, the genre formula says sex crowns all. That's just how both PIDW and romance works. So there's this horrific reversal of expectations as you're watching all of these things go to shit, and a sense of futility connecting you to sqq as you both know there's only one way the story's going to be able to end, no matter how much else has been changed throughout the narrative. And then rather than granting you any kind of reprieve with the scene itself, that maybe somehow it'll all be fixed easily in the last minute, the climax is viscerally horrific and messy and wildly uncomfortable to sit though. It's like it's sitting you down to say here, this is the type of story you buckled in to read, here's how it will happen. You're rewarded this farce of a conclusion that by all accounts should have been satisfying, but all of the illusion has been stripped out of it until there's just a deep unease left.

[mikkeneko]

Roundup of excellent tags on this one:

#SO much can be said about what it’s doing thematically#but besides the subtext and commentary what it does TONALLY really does blow me away every time#that total dread really is the perfect way to describe it#the way when lbh is revealed to be powering the sword still#the way the bottom drops out even when you could see it coming#the slow slow almsot agonizing build up as sqq wanders the cave in#in the dark#alone (or so he thinks) with this tension building and building#it was hard to get thru the first read but now I appreciate it so much#this book doesn’t flinch away from EVERY aspect of the meta commentary#we are discussing sex and humanity and perspective and common trashy tropes and by god we are going the distance - via @opheliapurple

#it's consistent with the themes across the whole novel#in that svsss is taking these expected genre tropes and revealing just how miserable they actually are#like how it's fun to read a revenge narrative but terrifying and miserable to live through it#maigu ridge is the same#fuck or die plots or narrative climaxes where sex saves the world#they might be fun to read#but to live through? it fucking sucks#it's painful and it strips everyone involved of their agency#and i appreciate that svsss tackles it that way#and that it has lasting impacts on their relationship too since it was deeply traumatic for binghe - via @waitineedaname

#it also really addresses the system#the system could have given sqq the pendant and skipped this whole horror show#but it won't because that's not dramatic#that's not a romance#that's not the story you said you wanted#are you happy now?#we make fun of sqq for treating people like tropes and characters but the climax treats sqq like a character#the author is knocked out but the audience remains and hungers for blood - via @youremysunshine8

#that is sort of the redeeming power of shen qingqiu#he knows that xin mo can only be cleansed through sex or violence#but he offered himself up willingly for that#shen qingqiu of all characters understands when he's being coerced and stripped of his agency#he's spent the entirety of svsss resisting that#every time a wifeplot happens to him he slips sideways and manages to escape#that is inherent to the genreplay that is in svsss. sqq is a shizun he is not a wife#he has been adamant about being treated like a shizun instead of a wife to be conquered#but on this occasion he goes into it willingly. he walks across the ridge to go find the wifeplot and make it happen#horrific as that wife plot is#shen qingqiu's self sacrifice in that scene wasn't just physical and bodily it was also the agency that he prized and protected so adamantl#and he did it because he wanted to save luo binghe#the interesting irony of choosing to have your agency stripped but you chose it. knowing it all. choosing it anyway - via @silversquare