warlocksass

[warlocksass]

“Oh my god.” Hua Cheng is whispering. Xie Lian can picture him, hand pressed over his mouth, eye closed.

Art for chapter 6 of the fic "you'll know, you'll fall" by mme_anxious, in collaboration with EchoandtheVaskians who's doing an amazing job with the podfic!!!

This was the scene that Echo specifically requested art for, and I'm so glad she did because it's turned out to be my favorite! I just love drawing brooms I guess ;P

The full uncropped art can be found ~here~ or in the podfic chapter on AO3!

[warlocksass]

TGCF Wulian Week is coming!

Event Information

TGCF Wulian Week will begin Sunday November 2nd and run through Saturday November 8th.

It's purpose is to celebrate and explore the relationship between Xie Lian and Wuming from Heaven Official's Blessing/ Tian Guan Ci Fu!

Each day will have an overall theme plus three prompts to inspire fics, fanart, and everything in between. The theme or prompts can be followed as closely or loosely as you like.

Though it will run over the course of a week, there is no official deadline. This account will reblog anything tagged #wulian week 2025 until the year is through. Likewise, the ao3 collection, which opens November 1st, will close December 31st, giving a deadline for works to be included there.

Prompts will be posted soon, stay tuned!

Any questions, feel free to DM me, @artingstarvist

Please Signal Boost~

Event Rules / Guidelines Under the Cut.

Rules

No AI works. No one wants to see that.

You can include other ships/characters, but please make sure the focus is Wulian/Hualian (with an emphasis on Wuming over Hua Cheng).

This ship can get dark. Please make sure to warn or tag appropriately for any non-con, graphic or sexual violence, suicide, etc. You are also encouraged to tag more controversial tropes such as m-preg or major character death.

Please tag your work as #Wulian Week 2025 here on tumblr. I plan to host the event on Bluesky as well, but DM me (@artingstarvist) if you'd like to set up a page on other social media sites.

If posted to Ao3, feel free to add it to the Wulian Week 2025 Collection once available (I will add a link here on November 1st).

No pressure! Don't hurt yourself! Drink water.

Guidelines

The prompts aren't hard set. You can use either the overall theme or the specific prompts, or both! As long as something there inspired the work in some way, you're good!

No specific tropes or themes are disallowed or discouraged, but if it's dead dove please TAG IT as such.

The work doesn't have to be Wulian slash (ie romantic or sexual). It just has to explore the relationship between Xie Lian and Wuming in some form or another.

Feel free to do the prompts out of order or post on days after the event. This is all pretty casual. The important thing is lots of Wulian content!

Please keep things positive. Lets avoid rude/ hateful comments on anyone's fics or posts, and no unwarranted critique. Let's just have fun and enjoy the intricacies of this complicated and canonically underexplored Hualian dynamic!

Feel free to ask questions in the replies! That can BE the FAQ place.

[warlocksass]

We don't talk enough about how Wuming knew what was actually happening during the brief calamity arc.

Wuming saw it all as a ghost flame, not just the torment and torture, but also saw BWX hug Xie Lian after a loved one betrayed him, heard BWX's offers to be a mentor and his promise that he was the only person who would be by Xie Lian's side. So what do you think went through Wuming's head when he saw XL using the same mask as the calamity and wielding the same sword that man used to torture him?

Xie Lian was not just reacting to the suffering. There was a powerful person with the clear intention of manipulating him and Wuming knew this. This is why I don't see the wuming era as just HC being a simp and following Xie Lian Even if he's evil. It's more so trying to do your best to help a loved one whose behavior is being influenced by a malicious actor, like in an abusive relationship or a cult.

[warlocksass]

[warlocksass]

his greed sickens me (he has two rapiers)

[warlocksass]

Okay, something about that kinktober (with no kink) thing that I noticed is this: every fic must have a conversation about a safeword being used, and then use it in the scene. Obviously this comes from the fact that they're treating fictional characters like real humans yadda yadda yadda

But like... the hope behind a safe word is that you're not supposed to use it unless something goes wrong. So like.

This is unironically what they're doing oml

[warlocksass]

|Don’t cry, Dianxia|🦋🩸 coloured sketch with XL

I reeeeeeeealy like it

[warlocksass]

[warlocksass]

last min print of these two bc im normal for them need whatever these two have going on

[warlocksass]

To Dream Of You

[warlocksass]

I feel like we don't often get well-written immortals. Like; it's rare for an author to present us with an immortal being who has lived for hundreds of thousands of years, and then actually have them act like they've lived that long.

I don't think people understand how living that long would affect someone. And I don't mean in the angsty "All my friends will die so I must have no friends" kind of way.

I mean like Xie Lian from TGCF.

He's wise, he's experienced, he knows of the world and life and death because he's lived it over and over and over again. He's also weird, and a little rude: he's lived too long and will live too long to bother not voicing his opinions when he has them.

His skills are nothing short of legendary. He's honed his own body and martial ability for so long that he's reached the pinnacle of those skills, perfected his art. Every physical fight he has, save for the one against The Emperor himself, is a cakewalk. And yet he doesn't like to fight. Why would he? He knows exactly how that interaction is going to end and he dislikes hurting people. Though his dislike of violence must never be mistaken for an unwillingness to inflict it.

He loves people. Though he struggles to form truly deep and meaningful relationships, he will not hesitate to befriend those around him. He's kind, he's loving, he would never turn someone away if they asked him for help. He doesn't look down on mortals even a little; after all, just because their lifespans are shorter than his doesn't make them any lesser than him.

Perhaps most importantly, he has an indomitable will and unbreakable mind. He has too; for if he didn't, he would have given up a hundred times over, and would by lying in a ditch somewhere, having thrown himself into it some hundred years ago.

He's probably the most well-written, well thought out Immortal character I've ever seen, and I really wish there were more like him.

[warlocksass]

Can’t recommend Heaven Official’s Blessing enough if the main thing you look for in fiction is guy hitting rock bottom and then hitting like five more rock bottoms

[warlocksass]

✨The Hyperfixation Cave✨

[warlocksass]

Too many artists are held back by outdated and bad color theory rules, or even rules that are fine but have built in limitations that you should know and I want to set everyone free.

[warlocksass]

“I’ll tell you what it is,” he said softly. “Watching your beloved be trampled and ridiculed with your own eyes and being unable to do a thing about it. You understand that you are nothing, that you can do nothing. That’s the worst suffering in the world.”

-Chapter 54

There was an altar behind him. Four smooth, obsidian-black urns sat serenely upon it. Two shredded fans were discarded on the floor—the Wind Master fan and the Water Master fan. Father, mother, sister, fiancée. “Kowtow,” He Xuan ordered.

-Chapters 65

Here is why I don't think Hua Cheng was in the wrong for not saying anything during the Blackwater arc. With what face was he going to pull He Xuan away from imparting retribution?

Hua Cheng had an agreement with He Xuan. It wasn't born just because, Hua Cheng kills tyrants, the truce wouldn't exist if Black Water's motivation was being out there cannibalizing orphans. Hua Cheng is intimately familiar with the pain of seeing a loved one tormented and wanting to hurt those who did it. So I ask with what face was he going to get involved in He Xuan's plan, especially when, for both of them, the harm came from the Heavenly Officials' abuse of power.

[warlocksass]

The irony of this new breed of self-righteous AI hunters on AO3 is that they're all just copy and pasting peoples fics into AI detectors, which are all operated by AI and therefore THEY are feeding people's work into the algorithm without their consent and in some cases no doubt circumventing the locks people put on to avoid getting scraped...

Don't copy and paste anyone's AO3 work into third party websites, you're not the good guys in this situation?

[warlocksass]

fifth urn