ok hi i feel like this may be the wrong place to ask but i couldn't figure it out: I'm in a tgcf hyperfocus again and was listening to some of your podfics (lovely, by the way, always so much fun and i especially love your jiang cheng/mu qing/other grumpy assholes voice) and you keep talking abt a reading of tgcf by ?genevra? and is that the one that is up on youtube or is there another one? anyways love your stuff sorry for bothering you thank you for your work bye!
oooh absolutely! @ginevrafangirl had to move it to another site a while ago; i finally went to look it up for you because i listen through alternative means (bwahahaha i have special access for ~reasons). here's the twitter post about it: https://x.com/GinevraFangirl/status/1828115192170897521
i believe you have to sign up via wordpress but the instructions are all there! and it is complete now so you can just listen one to the next without waiting. :D :D :D
i didn't know there was one on youtube, i don't think it's Ginevra but i wouldn't know because i never go to youtube :(
there's truly something to be said about every other game changer couple figuring their shit out in 6 months max and it taking hollanov *checks watch* 7 YEARS of hooking up to talk about their feelings for the first time. if any of the other couples got in an argument they were going through it so massively that they simply had to make up as soon as possible + they were grown enough to apologize and own up to their shit, but these two kids were repressing this secret affair for SO LONG!! no wonder everyone was surprised to discover the timeline, none of the others could hide their happiness for even a season!
now that i've read all the books, i've had some thoughts on this (no spoilers for the books dw)
(these aren't necessarily all in one universe cause otherwise it would be a bit messy lmao)
Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji as Shane/Ilya
I mean this is obvious. They're both very high up in their fields, they're rivals, one is autistic and the other is depressed, one is a chaotic bisexual and the other is an uptight gay. It's likely the public thinks they hate each other. wwx's biggest fantasy is domesticity while in lwj's fantasies they have freaky nasty sex. need i go on?
Song Lan/Xiao Xingchen as Scott/Kip
personality wise there isn't much overlap there (though we could go with cql timelines and have wwx call xxc old) but they have the vibe of this OG couple that inspires all the other ones to be happy too. I'm sure Song Lan would make a mean smoothie.
Wen Ning/Nie Huaisang as Ryan/Fabian
Big hulking shy gay who has trouble fitting in but Chaotic Bisexual Demon is nice to??? That's Wen Ning for sure. And Huaisang would be the perfect gender-queer hockey hating sexy musician. Wen Ning would love to quit hockey and just be big protectice bouncer bf to Huaisang on tour.
Nie Mingjue/Lan Xichen as Eric/Kyle
I don't have many thoughts on this other than Daddy Dage would make a great dilf and Lan Xichen would make a great 25 year old sexy boytoy. They're both very smart, Mingjue ends his long, successful career, they're health conscious, frolick around the world going to museums and beaches.
Wen Qing/Jiang Yanli as Troy/Harris
i was going to go with jc as troy, but there isn't really a harris for him i liked. but then i realized Troy is literally Wen Qing. used to be a big bad (with the wens) but stood up when it mattered, got cast away. is met with the unstoppable force of goodness and kindness that is Jiang Yanli (who has always been treated as delicate) and can't help but fall!!
bonus thoughts:
Nielan would also make an excellent Scott and Kip. Nie Mingjue also has wise old man who turns pathetically down bad for cute smoothie man Lan Xichen energy. They're everyone's dads.
Sizhui is Luca Haas. He could also make a good Harris to Jin Ling's Troy. But I can't resist him being the baby Centaur prodigy and Wangxians adopted son. This also makes the juniors the centaur rookies which I love.
Jin Zixuan would /also/ make an excellent Troy to Jiang Yanli's Harris, but I didn't want to erase the gay of it all. He can be one of the side characters, maybe Hayden? idk he's a wife guy and would definitely have many kids with his excellent wife.
Wen Qing as Svetlana is another choice I love. In the universe where Wangxian are Hollanov she's 100% Svetlana. Omg and Mianmian can be Rose.
Would Nieyao also make a great Kyle and Eric, possibly more so than Nielan? Yes. they would. But Nielan are my favorite non-wangxian ship so 🤷🏽♀️
my loml Jiang Cheng I couldn't really fit in anywhere that I liked. He could be aggressive ally Carter, he could be wwx's bestie Cliff, he could be angsty emo Troy, my babygirl has so much range.
bonus bonus:
if you want a story about wangxian as professional athletes (baseball), spanning over many years, pining while fucking, and epic romance, you should read the fic Waiting for Spring by thievinghippo or listen to its incredible podfic by @mulberrygraceful !!
okay i sat down to watch heated rivalry again and in the middle got sidetracked by the show boots on netflix. it was so entertaining i ended up watching all 8 episodes in a row, and I NEED to get my thoughts out!
spoilers under the cut
first off, it's a good show. it clearly points out several systemic flaws in the military while also overall highlighting the good people in it, and I have my feelings about /that/, but overall it's a great story, it's well written, it has interesting characters with depth and a lot of heart!
I could say it has great commentary on queerness and masculinity and the sort of hyper-masculine, patriotic environment that the military can be, but that's been said before. what I wanted to focus on is how I felt about the ending.
it's painted as a happy ending, our protagonist cameron has against all odds and expectations, survived boot camp to become a marine, even with the last minute twist of him being underage. I can say I was truly surprised by his choice to get his mother to sign the waiver. I felt like sullivans entire arc and story that we learned, and the parts of it cameron got to see, would all lead up to him TAKING the out offered by his mom.
cameron's motivation in joining the marines was to become stronger, and learn to stand up for himself and protect himself in the world he'd always known. and he did that, by the end of bootcamp he has grown and learned and is so much more confident and focused and strong (he feels).
but sullivan's story shows us where that leads. he can enjoy the brotherhood and the sense of purpose and strength, but it DOES come at a great cost. a constant fear, living in survival mode. going as far as getting the man you love arrested, however unintentionally. never being truly free. knowing that if any of your so-called brothers knew the truth they'd shun you. you'd be kicked out or arrested.
sullivan is the golden boy, he has all the medals and the tours and blah blah and he's still gay, which invalidates everything else. years of living like that lead him to spiral. and, this is the likely future for cameron as well. sure the ending of the story is triumphant and he's embraced and respected by his peers now.
but those same peers have been throwing slurs around the entirety of boot camp. with the exception of ray, there's no guarantee any of them will not turn out like maitra. i was convinced seeing sullivans story play out was going to lead to cameron recognizing his own future staring back at him, and take the way out offered by his mother.
but he doesn't. he chooses to stay. and so as the show ended I couldn't help but feel conflicted and apprehensive for our protagonist. to me, this didn't feel like a happy ending, it felt like the continuation of the cycle of loneliness and secrecy and fear that Sullivan only escaped by sabotaging his life.
no matter how cameron felt in that moment I was scared for him. I don't know what the timeline of the books is, and I know the show is based on real experiences people had, but I just wanted to share how I felt about the ending. especially cause I read about people calling it sweet and feelgood. it had a lot of those moments and amazing characters! but to me, the ending is anything but.
devastated that it's been cancelled after the first season, and we won't ever get to see the future of these characters, but I think it was a fantastic season and the story wrapped quite well.
It took me about 4 months and ~140 drawings to complete, I'm pretty happy with it and it was a huge project to work on (next time if I decide to color the animatic, please hit me with a stick lol).
Thanks a lot for the support you've shown when I was posting my WIPs, it really helped my motivation.
I'll appreciate you watching and sharing the animatic :3
Credits for the animatic idea to this post by @smoreboi
UPD:
[VD: A TGCF animation set to "So Alright, Cool, Whatever" by The Happy Fits. It features Hua Cheng pining for Xie Lian and shows the progression of their relationship through the whole novel. End VD]
by saying she'd wear that, I took that as a challenge and made both of us haobin shirts. Because it was in fact pride month. And we have a kpop event we (mostly her) are organising in a few weeks. At a queer community center. So of course we need a gay kpop uniform for that.
mdzs smosh au (this is unhinged but hear me out) where wangxian are shourtney, obviously, and they're best friends and have great chemistry for years, being part of the mdzs comedy channel and everyone thinks they're dating but they're not (typical wangxian shenanigans) and then after like 13 10 years of being best friends they finally have their big confession moment and obviously decide to get married immediately. wwx realises it's the end of march and they have the opportunity to do the funniest thing ever
context for mdzs peeps who know nothing about smosh: smosh is a production company that posts different kinds of videos on youtube. shourtney is the ship name of shayne and courtney, two cast members who have been working there for a decade and started together. they were shipped for literal years, very very intensely but they always said they were friends. they eventually did start dating but kept it on the DL, and no one knew until last year when they posted wedding photos on the April 1st. it kind of broke the fandom
mdzs smosh au (this is unhinged but hear me out) where wangxian are shourtney, obviously, and they're best friends and have great chemistry for years, being part of the mdzs comedy channel and everyone thinks they're dating but they're not (typical wangxian shenanigans) and then after like 13 10 years of being best friends they finally have their big confession moment and obviously decide to get married immediately. wwx realises it's the end of march and they have the opportunity to do the funniest thing ever
prguitarman
turnnoffyourmind
theartofmadeline
origamiaround
areudirty
