neonghostcat

[neonghostcat]

Shen Yuan is 1000% moping as an abandoned wife (read: Liu Qingge went to CQMS 🤭) At least he has cheeky ducklings to comfort him! ✨

Isn't the color palette such a lovely one? And I love the outer robes. He looks stylish and comfortable!

Be sure to view this full size to admire it properly and let the artist know how awesome it is! ✨✨✨

Daym, it took a lottt of time but I regret nothing!

Still can’t get over this fic:3

@neonghostcat thank you!🍑❤️‍🩹

[neonghostcat]

The group picture 100% makes me picture them planning a family vacation. Shen Yuan is in the middle of explaining why they should absolutely visit a particular place known for its "very interesting" monsters. They're fine with it when he leads with wanting to see them both in action, but silently veto and suggest another place when Shen Yuan adds, "And I can get some fighting experience too." By this point, they are fully aware that either something dire would happen or they'd be bringing home a scary new pet. (Perhaps both.)

Also - all of the purple notes are so incredibly valid. 🤭

(Please validate their time well spent. ;3 )

In case anyone wondered what I did with my time now- I just read fics and then scribble feverishly until I've filled up a canvas.

That is it.

That is all.

Cultivate: Slow Life on a Monster-Infested Mountain by @neonghostcat

[neonghostcat]

There's something so meditative and fun about watching someone work! Especially if you have moments where you go, "Ooooh, so that's how that's done!"

Also, can I say straight up that my favorite aspect of this picture is just how full-on charismatic Liu-gege is in this? He's all smooth moves, going to win Shen Yuan over in this! Perfect! That hand placement and smolder~!

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did! 🥰🥰🥰

@neonghostcat I love your fic, Cultivate, so much! I'm still only on chapter 27 at the time of this post but I've really been enjoying it. This is for Shen Yuan and Liu Qingge and Tao Ying their magic tree.

Art under the cut

[neonghostcat]

Brain Overflow

You know how in my last 'state of the author' post I said I could feel the urge to write coming back?

Oh, it has.

It's terribly inconvenient too. I'm going to tell you a little about some of the things I've been thinking of and then whine/wibble a tiny bit if you click through to behind the cut. (You don't have to read the last bit!)

I've written down three different SVSSS (LiuShen) ideas in the last couple of weeks, added a few thoughts to older ideas, made a mental note of possible Cultivate extras, and just refused to write down others so as not to encourage rampant plot bunny breeding.

But let me tell you about a few of them because I'm hoping it reduces the urge to work on them better than just typing up notes.

The Lady Blackbird fusion Not sure what Lady Blackbird is? Well, it's a free tabletop rpg that you can download here. But the TL;DR is, "Sort of like steampunk Star Wars: A New Hope + Firefly + potential Jane Austen novel, if you want." I'll just C&P the pitch here: Lady Blackbird is an Imperial noble fleeing from an arranged marriage to be with her secret lover, the pirate king Uriah Flint. To reunite with him, she has hired a notorious smuggler and the crew of his skyship, The Owl. However, The Owl has been captured by an Imperial cruiser. How will Lady Blackbird and the others escape? What dangers lie in their path on the way to the pirate king’s lair? Can you see where this is going? (Actually, probably not your first thought, no.) We start with Shen Yuan transmigrated in a xianxia-by-way-of-steampunk gown, sitting in a jail cell with several men, a teenage boy, and a veiled teenage girl. System helpfully informs him that he is now "Lady" Blackbird, on the run to end up in the arms of Pirate King Mobei-Jun. His cell-mates are, as follows: Smuggler Captain Liu Qingge, Lady Blackbird's personal bodyguard Liu Mingyan who suggested her brother when LB said she wanted to escape, the ship's mechanic Shang Qinghua, the ship's doctor Mu Qingfang (or they pick him up later, I haven't decided), and "a goblin named BingBing". While SY is busy freaking out that System can't fool him - that's the Protagonist, Luo Binghe!!! wtf!!! System says "later, loser" and more-or-less abandons him (though still employing an OOC ban). So now you can probably see where this is going, lol. It involves at least a brief period where SY has to crossdress and pretend to be one of Binghe's future wives - a fiancée/wife of Mobei-Jun as Liu Qingge gets very conflicted feelings about his troublesome passenger. Featuring lots of Cumplane friendship, sassy MQF (as a treat), teenage smirking (likely aided and abetted by the adults), and space whales (naturally). I have not yet fully decided if the story Shen Yuan read was PIDW and now he has to figure out how the infiltration of "space with gears on it" into his xianxia has fucked up what he and Airplane know, or if the story was something like "Proud Immortal Starlit Way" and it was always like that. (Thoughts?) ---

The "SY Bodysnatches MQF" idea What it says on the tin... SY accidentally ends up in MQF's body instead of SQQ's. Only MQF isn't gone - he remains. This occurs directly before the Demonic Invasion and double qi deviation part of the plot and they rush back to the sect to deal with that. Then things get messy while they conspire to get SY his own body. Featuring: An extremely confused Liu Qingge, eventual Shenbros, and aro-ace MQF being very bemused at all times. ---

The "LQG Gets De-Aged/Age-Regressed" idea As you can guess: LQG gets age-regressed. This happens in Lingxi Caves instead of his death-by-deviation. He latches onto SY-SQQ and SY-SQQ is helpless to do anything but take the cute kid in. Featuring: BingLiu friendship, possibly Bing-other disciples friendship, but mostly establishing bro-code that makes Binghe switch his infatuation with SY-SQQ into family feelings as soon as LQG regains his adult body and it becomes clear that LiuShen is happening. ----

This is along with: Joint Custody (LiuShen), my SJ-SQQ second-chance redemption fic (LiuShen and LiuJiu, but different LQGs), a peak lords ascension fic using Cultivate's backstory (LiuJiu), a LiuShen timeloop fic, and at least another half a dozen fic ideas sitting in the hopper that aren't nearly as developed/that I am not burning to write yet.

I'd love to know which ideas you guys are most interested in. ;) Joint Custody is still next regardless and I'll probably not be working on either of the LiuJiu fics in the near future because they are definitely 100k+ territory and I'm still not ready for that. But knowing people are hype for something keeps me hype. ;3

I'll probably be in this fandom awhile, y'all. Please send help.

Sadly, I can't work on any of them yet, because I have over 2,600 messages in my inbox waiting for me to respond to. (This is not a humble brag - this is thousand-yard-stare territory. It was somewhere over 3000 for awhile until I started making a list of people who generally only left emojis or thanks and let them know that I was going to just thank them for all of them in one email so they didn't peppered by replies in kind.)

Not that I'm complaining about them, because I missed replying to comments so much (it's genuinely one of my favorite parts about writing fanfic), but it's still a lot and even if I could manage 100 replies a day (which for mental health reasons, I really can't), it's going to take awhile.

RIP.

More importantly - I hope you are well! 🌼

[neonghostcat]

My rambling underneath the cut!

I think any time the unnamed peaks have come up, I default to a Beastmaster Peak being one of them.

I mention it the most in my fic The Guardian Ghost and the Bookish Fairy, though it really only comes up for about a chapter or so.

My next most common is some sort of arts/magic combo peak. They focus on talismans, arrays, and the performing arts.

Quoting from a reply to someone that I pasted into my fanon notes: "In my headcanon, the magic peak tends to sort of divide itself between 'magic nerds' (researchers/magic theory) and 'magic drama kids' (the ones that take to the road under the guise of vagabonds and performers, learn new magic from far away lands, and send back reports to the sect of what they see)." So definitely picture those street performers with the quick-change mask routines, rope climbers, snake charmers, acrobats, living statues; etc. But even the other sects aren't aware that these street performers could be Cang Qiong Mountain Sect picking up secrets. Who would think someone from such a great sect would be willing to live hand-to-mouth off a few coins tossed their way? Even rogue cultivators live better! Besides - their 'public face' is definitely the researchers who stay safely at home and perfect whatever the performers learn.

I've never mentioned the peak specifically in my fics, though I've made vague references to it a few times. (The strongest being in my Halloween series where references to dramatic disciples were made.)

As for the third peak, that's always been vaguer. Because of the other cultivation novels I've read (specifically MDZS, but also Ascending, Do Not Disturb and others) it is always tempting to make it the music cultivation peak, though I generally fold that into Qing Jing and my arts/magic peak. If I did not make Zui Xian Peak into the cooking peak based on the one line in the Extras where SQQ and LBH go and have a meal there, it would 100% be a cooking cultivation peak.

So I guess that just leaves me with an artificers peak. I usually fold that under other peaks too. Wan Jian Peak as a weapons smithing peak, of course. And then with An Ding as a generalized "civil engineers" peak, SQH has the resources to push the disciples with that kind of aptitude to create things he wants to have from the modern world in his new world. "Here's a project, see if you can figure it out." (Which came in handy for certain points in Cultivate.) But I do kind of love the idea of SQH snagging a few disciples who came here to join a proper artificer's peak and putting them to work for him.

svsss fans challenge: we only know 7 of the 12 Cang Qiong Peaks — make ur own Sectsona to fill in the empty spaces!

[neonghostcat]

If you ever feel like you don't contribute to fandom because you "only" comment—

A regular serial commenter just joined a fandom Discord server I'm on and people are coming out of the woodwork to thank her for her service to the fandom, expressing how much joy her comments on their works bring them.

Remember—they're never only comments.

[neonghostcat]

I may just have to canonize this reunion. 🌼🌼🌼

Reunion

Mu Yue and her sister, from @neonghostcat’s Cultivate

[neonghostcat]

I absolutely love looking into an artist's sketchbook. Chaotic creativity is wonderful! ✨

Honestly, setting aside the beautiful Empress and the adorable Mu Qingfang communing with a plant, the first thing I want to comment on is how my brain immediately went to, "I love how Shen Qingqiu's response to being trolled is to troll back harder. So accurate." 🤣 Made for each other, those two. Everyone's expressions in these are great! Any second now SQQ is going to twig that LBH is peeping and might be corrupted by the casually seductive Tao Ying and block his view, but for now - it's war! 🥰

I forgot to post these arts for liushen svsss fic "Cultivate" made by @neonghostcat they may seem quite uh doodly but every older piece in my sketchbook looks like that after some time so I hope you don't mind!

[neonghostcat]

One of the things I've long admired about @fistfuloflightning's artwork is how graceful it always is. I associate their style with swans and lilies. There's also always a sense of tenderness to how the characters interact with each other. Both of these impressions are in full effect with this one, and it knocks me flat. ...much like a swan, come to think of it! 🦢

“It will be fine, Shizun,” Binghe agreed consolingly, wrapping his arms around Shen Yuan’s waist and tucking his face against his chest until he received a hug in return and a pat to his head. This had been item number eight on the list — if Shen Yuan was sad or anxious, hugs ‘or similar nonsense’ should be given until he calmed down. Binghe was happy to oblige his shibo’s orders in this. When he looked up, Shifu had gently drawn Shizun’s head to his shoulder and was petting his hair. Shizun’s eyes had closed and his body had relaxed.  For a few minutes they all three lingered in the comfort until a bell rang out lower on the mountain, signaling meal time.

a scene from Cultivate by the wonderful @neonghostcat that I’ve been thinking of drawing for a while (and that I meant as a much belated now congratulations on finishing this story!)

[neonghostcat]

Hello everyone! I just wanted to give you something of a heads up/state of the author thing for anyone wondering! I have spent a few weeks just... chilling, goofing off, reading some of the stories in my Marked to Read Later, obsessing over various cultivation-type video games (thanks @roxiusagi for getting me into both Yi Xian and Immortal Life... This is me +1ing those as recommendations, btw! Yi Xian is officially free-to-play now, so you too can get obsessed!), dealing with holidays/irl and so on!

I'm about to start getting back on track with fandom, which starts with queuing some lovely art that's been posted in the last few weeks and then starting on AO3 replies!

❣❣❣ That's your warning: Anyone who's posted AO3 comments, please expect replies starting soon! ❣❣❣

After I've made a reasonable dent in those, I get to start working on Joint Custody! Yay! I'm sure someone is out there going, "Wait, it's been months... you've not even started yet?" And the answer is ✨No!✨ I've been goofing off, as I said! 🙃 TBH, I've been worried about burnout and didn't want to just go through the motions - I wanted to write with my whole heart. But I'm starting to get the itch again, which means it's about time.

I'll post a progress report once I have a better idea of how I'm going with Joint Custody, but you may get a couple of Cultivate extras before then. I imagine replying to everyone's comments will send me running to Scrivener.

Thank you for being patient with me! I hope you are all well! 🥰

[neonghostcat]

My delight knows no boundaries. Only keyboard smashing remains. I love, love this sort of thing. Whenever I purchase an art book, I spend the most time gawking at the concept art and thumbnail sketches that go into the final pieces. Look at the wonderful character designs!!!

And the chibis of the sweet and sour couple (TY/SQQ, naturally) just is... well, I'd say 'the cherry on top' but that feels rude in context? Sorry Tao Ying. Sure, let's put peaches on this hypothetical dessert, why not? Treat yo'self. 🍑🍑🍑

heyoo here are the promised bonus concept doodles for the covers ( ´ ▽ ` )b (finally dug them out lol)

(these first two were the ogs that i made back in june. i was lying in bed unable to fall asleep before my entrance exams and had sudden thought hey what if i made cultivate covers haha jk unless- and then the very next day these two were made hjkd)

as you can see i didnt listen to my own sketches tho and most of these underwent more changes as i went hahha

and here are the ideas for the beautiful spouses of bai zhan and taoren mountain <333 matching when theyre on each others peaks so that everyone knows theyre a package deal hahha i have modified them quite a bit for the final piece but that was simply because it better fit into the composition that way (but low ponytail lqg is still very dear to me even if it didnt make it into the final version hahha)

(sy has a willow branch hair pin and lqg has peach blossom hair adornments) yea also i know the taoren outfits are too fancy but shh they can dress up properly to their status for once cuz i said so and wanted to draw it hfjhgkdfh. also they deserve many outfit variations also because yes.

i also thought about making bonus content that you get with the special editions of the final books, like the stickers and posters ykno. so i started doodling stickers but ran out of time hahha so thats that xD (but if anyone else feels like doing cultivate stickers instead pls feel free the more the merrier and stickies spark so much joy to look at hkjghkdf)

speaking of running out of time. i am the biggest procrastinator so i went "oo i got pleny o time" and then the chapter count started catching up with me so i went "panik!!" and then it went up so "hm kalm again." and then again and again hdfkjhdfg

[neonghostcat]

I always love seeing the creative designs people come up with for the characters (and costumes, and environments, and -) for Cultivate! ...especially if they're not specifically described in the text or the details are very sparse and somehow we end up on if not the same page, then at least a very similar one!

And that's what's happening here! Full disclosure: As of typing this up before putting it into the queue, I hadn't yet written the scene where OPM monster showed its face, so some of the details are directly inspired by this video because, well, when you're already really close to the same design, why not upgrade it? ;3

As always, BambooWraith does such an amazing job of getting the mood and timing just so right! Enjoy the creepy chills! 🖤🖤🖤

SPOILERS!!!

Spoilers for Cultivate chapter 53 by @neonghostcat

So… Cultivate i almost over and I decided to make another animation to honor it. Obviously, the Old Palace Master monster hasn’t been described on screen so I came up with the creepiest design I could, which was inspired by the face stealer from ATLA. Kind of fitting if you consider the bgm!

I decided to make this sort of a continuation of my last animation. Is the OPM going to be a giant centipede covered in miasma? Probably not, but I asked my moots what they thought of my design ideas and this is the one they chose. To be fair, I was already leaning towards this design anyways. The alternative would have been a giant no-face-esque formless blob with the faces of the devoured people and beasts straining against the surface, which would have been way out of my skill level and would’ve taken too long.

Not that this hasn’t taken me quite some time. At first I tried to make the centipede curl in on itself, which didn’t work out so I had to improvise and leave the curling off screen. Then I uploaded it and noticed that I forgot to add the second row of legs… So I deleted that post and uploaded the new version now. But I’m still proud of the result! Just don’t ask me how long this took, I lost count after a while :D

(so…many…hours… just for a 20 sec animation)

The little glow at the end is part of a theory I had for a while now, and I REALLY hope that I’m right.

If you want to hear a few little (not so fun) fun facts, Xiu Ya finally breaking off screen right on the beat of the drum as NYY and LBH watch was a happy little accident :D Also, the last animation on Tao Ren Mountain (TRM) got animated to the intro of the bgm (“The Last Agni Kai” covered by Eliott Tordo, for those who are interested), while this animation is showing the situation on CQM, animated to the outro of the bgm. Kind of fitting, since this story started out on TRM, and now we’re here.

Anyways, I hope you liked it! See you at the last chapter :D

[neonghostcat]

Life always gives Mu Qingfang its hardest trials! First he has to deal with his self-destructive sect mates, and then there is a land of wonders still unknown to science and medicine (redundant??) awaiting...!

Also, I actually shed a tear laughing at the "meet-awkward" scene between LiuShen. He really did just say, "I can fix him." didn't he? 🥰

The LiuShen fic "Cultivate" caught me in it's shackles and won't leave, I'm not complaining tho...

So I did some doodles and I hope @neonghostcat will see and like it!

Love your work!

[neonghostcat]

I always love the gorgeous flow of @fistfuloflightning's artwork! There's always movement and grace and a touch that reminds me of Yoshitaka Amano-meets-Bruce Timm's artwork, especially with their mutual love of strong darks. It's always just so striking, even in the calm pictures!

Not that this one is 'calm' - but it does have that dreamy quality still and can you tell I'm still in the phase where my heart is too full and it's pushing the words out? 🤭 Let's hit that heart then. 🖤

I’ll never get there, but if I put the work in, maybe I’ll get close enough that I can chase just behind perfection — and have a front-row seat as you achieve it.

Chapter 20, Cultivate by @neonghostcat

[neonghostcat]

Trying to get this in under the wire and reblog while it is still Cultivate's one year anniversary (for me)! 🎊

Aren't they all just so ridiculously wonderful? I love how it starts with the darkness of winter with volume 1 (perhaps suggestive of Shen Yuan's time between worlds, but definitely those first few horrible nights), continues through lovely fresh spring of a budding new love, and the dog days of despair (in summer), and ends with autumn's glory, a bountiful harvest of their love fulfilled. 🍂💛 (And, coincidentally, the season the story will end in + the season the story finishes posting in. Which is a delightful coincidence.)

This will dissolve into key smashes if I keep going. Please tell Roxiu how wonderful and cool and handsome they are! 😉🌼

✨Cultivate: Slow Life on a Monster-Infested Mountain✨ by @neonghostcat - fan covers in the design style of seven seas danmei publishing ✿

sooo.. I know it would be more appropriate to post these once the fic is fully finished BUT i got too excited and was waiting too long already to post these hdjfhk and today is cultivate anniversary so appropriate excuse to post lets go!!! anyway theres only one chapter left to go so ppl who have been waiting to read it until its done the time is NOW! hahha

anyway fun fact this was originally going to be just 3 parter. but. at this point cultivate has surpassed svsss in word count if i am not mistaken......so ive decided that adding one more volume would be appropriate lol

oh well and here are the pieces by themselves

also... just to clarify im obviously in no way shape of form comparing myself to the quality of actual seven seas cover artist lmaoo hdjshf i hope thats obvious that this was just fun gimmick passion project

[neonghostcat]

Every once in awhile someone does gift art for Cultivate that makes me go, "Ah! I forgot that this was a shoujo anime fic! So true, so true." It always makes me smile so much.

If I walked past this as a poster in a store, I would be immediately searching up info on it because it checks every one of my shoujo-loving boxes. n_n 🍑🍑🍑

Some art for Cultivate fic by @neonghostcat

I really enjoying this story. Especially this two cutie's interaction and I can resist the urge to draw them. All thanks to Author님 for making this really inspirational fluff heartwarming ʚ♡⃛ɞ(ू•ᴗ•ू❁)♡´･ᴗ･`♡(≚ᄌ≚)ℒℴѵℯ❤♡(*´ω｀*)/♡(✪ω✪)/ヾ(´︶`♡)ﾉ with great plot fic 🫶

[neonghostcat]

And here it is - in all its glory: @eather100's edition of The Guardian Ghost and the Bookish Fairy.

I've probably sat for ten minutes trying to say something that will encompass the Big Feels I'm having in a way that makes you have some Big Feels too. In the end, all I want to do is say is that it's a monumental thing for me to imagine somewhere out in the world there is someone who can, any time they like, pull one of my fanfics off the shelf and curl up with a nice cup of tea as they read even if the internet is out.

This is utterly tremendous and I hope you tell them how wonderful a job they did! 🍵

I present the bound copy of @neonghostcat ‘s lovely Liushen fic “The Guardian Ghosts and The Bookish Fairy” bound in handmade book fabric with Tibetan end papers. The final page count is 230 pages. Book cover was designed in procreate and cut out on pearl heat bound vinyl. I received lovely help from the “I transmigrated as a Sword svsss fic discord in choosing the correct characters for the board. Including @hystericblue and others. Thank you for your help!

As we near the end of Cultivate: I wanted to surprise Neon with the completion of their earlier work in physical form.