#tgcf roleswap

[aerscribbles]

I'm not getting to writing out the story for this WIP this year or probably the next (too much other stuff going on) so I want to put this out there somehow.

My mental nickname for it is 'TGCF Vertical Reversal AU'.

Instead of the more 'traditional roleswaps' (God/Calamity) it switches the places of Xianle and Wuyong on the timeline.

Jun Wu, thrice ascended as a martial god, god of disasters and misfortune, god of broken things. Generally way more hissy and spiteful than Xie Lian in canon. Also not very good at hiding the fact that he is constantly five seconds away from losing it.

Mei Nianqing the ~mysterious~ ghost king, infamous for his cartomancy, knowledge of the future and ability to manipulate dreams and fate.

The three unnamed vassals as gods who ascended after breaking up with Jun Wu.

Xie Lian as the Heavenly Emperor, as kind as he is strong, and oh so fucking tired. Constantly trying to parent all the other gods. also he gets to have pet tigers because I said so.

Hua Cheng as the gambling-addict State Preceptor of Wuyong. Responsible for Jun Wu's first encounter with the possibility of death. Currently trying to avert Xie Lian's rube goldberg suicide attempt.

Fengqing as powerful weather spirits in the territory of Mount Taicang. Mu Qing, a snow spirit known as Greed and Feng Xin, a wind spirit known as Ignorance (Hua Cheng is Anger). The names are referring to the three sources of mental suffering, as counter to the sources of physical suffering- Birth, Death, Sickness and Old Age (MNQ + the three mountain spirits). Hua Cheng is the old man shouting at clouds.

Mount Taicang and Mount Tonglu also switch narrative roles.

Mount Tonglu as a spiritually significant place for the kingdom of Wuyong, and also the place where the royal tomb is- 'in the fire we were born, to the fire we return'.

Mount Taicang as the ghost king trial location, though it isn't a volcano- think more Shinsenkyo from Hell's Paradise, a forested mountain overgrown with flowers, swarming with deadly insects and strange beasts- vaguely inspired by the wording of 'Body in Abyss, Heart in Paradise', a place of overwhelming beauty seemingly designed to harm you in every possible way.

The actual plot of this is less 'Xie Lian trying to force Jun Wu to become his successor by putting him through the Horrors and revealing Heaven's corruption' and more 'Xie Lian trying to ensure there is someone reliable in place to take over when he finally gets to kill himself, and cleaning house as a side benefit'.

But here's the thing. The deal with Mount Taicang is that it's the place where Xie Lian has imprisoned all of the Worst Things Ever, and the wards will fail if he dies. His power is the only thing keeping the Heavens afloat and a dozen other things functioning. The world is falling apart at the seams and is being held together with Xie Lian's lifeforce as duct tape.

Xie Lian is so, so tired.

And well, it isn't like anyone would really care if he died.

Care about the real him.

So, he plans to pass on the duties of maintaining the functional state of the world and finally find his rest.

Then his favorite child comes in and starts trying to beat some self-worth and appreciation for life into him.

Then everyone else shows up, including his old friends and the one who his heart betrayed him for.

And in the end, one person is enough.

I am 100% down to talk about this stuff if anyone shows any interest!

[i-like-danmei-ig]

Roleswap Hualian + hairstyle swap Hua Ching and Yin yu, thought that would be just a silly fun thing to add to this AU

[lycorisketch]

♡~Crimson Heart Sought Paradise~♡

A drawing from the amazing roleswap AU by @kimbapchan

I just got into TGCF recently and have loved it. Might do more art of this series.

Everyone say thanks to kimbapchan whose AU got me to finally get into this fandom (Definitely not specifically the art of Qi Rong or Shi Qingxuan)

(Xie Lian was supposed to look more insane here but I failed so he kinda just looks like he's longing after something...or someone)

[jaymei]

roleswap mulian for the tgcf rarepairs gotcha for gaza <3

[trans-girl-uchiha-itachi]

saw a tag game where you post the filenames of everything in your WIP folder and then people can send you asks with the title(s) that most intrigue them and you post a little snippet, and i Want To Participate but i wasn't tagged and i don't feel like tagging anyone (and you're supposed to tag as many other fic authors as you have WIPs??? I DONT KNOW THAT MANY PEOPLE). so here is my modified version where i post the filenames/folder names of anything from my fic repo that hasn't been posted to ao3 in some form and has enough actual content (and not just notes) to post snippets

hinataverse AUs:

akatsuki_au (i MIGHT cannibalize this for the confusing time travel fic, but it does have an actual plot outline so it might survive the process. we'll see)

akatsuki_au_itachiswap

aroace_fake_dating

arranged_marriage

back_to_school_au

crack_massacre_au (this one also includes an eyeball swap unlimited subplot, so i want to finish eyeball polycule first so that i can reuse all the eyeball worldbuilding)

crack_time_travel_au

deaging (i have separate per-chapter markdown files for this; ch05 and ch06 are still WIPs)

hinata_infiltration_2

intricate_eyeball_polycule (again i have separate per-chapter markdown files but the titles aren't at all descriptive; if you want a snippet from a specific unposted chapter feel free to specify the number)

itachi_deaging

itahina_bodyswap

roleswap (im probably going to cannibalize this for the confusing time travel fic since it doesn't really have, like. plot)

tam_lin_au (...also probably going to cannibalize this for the confusing time travel fic)

time_travel_au (this is the confusing time travel fic!! i should probably rename the folder to something less generic. and also move it out of the Secret Private Fic Repo)

yugakure_peasant_uprising

hinataverse "canon" (such as it is):

hysterectomy

academy_team_7

itachi_pov

wave_arc

programmers_and_paladins (this is the extremely self-indulgent dnd campaign i have posted about here; one of my PCs is itachi, but we decided that for RPG purposes the byakugan was way too OP so hinata just shows up as an NPC occasionally because she's Busy With Her Own Shit. this is an AU where hinata does get involved with the campaign plot and it's stalled because we haven't, uh, had a session in a while so i don't know where the plot is... going)

class_schedules

hinata_charsheet

the_gang_meets_hinata

non-crossover scum villain fic:

liuqijiu_time_travel

proud_immortal_daemon_way

hinataverse crossovers/fusions:

hp_hinata_5thyear_prof

hp_tom_riddle_besties

itachi_[NAME CENSORED]_bodyswap (this is the one where itachi transmigrates into my body and has to figure out robotics engineering on a time crunch)

svsss_hinata_nyy_au

svsss_sj_hinata_besties

scholomance

star_wars

tgcf

(there is also a whole Extended Avengers Crossover Multiverse but i've not yet cultivated enough shamelessness to post about it)

[hydropophis]

liens favorite tgcf fics, sorted by word count, biggest at the bottom

made primarily for my own organizational purposes and so i can stop dragging the open tabs around with me because i dont know how much more my poor computer can take. some of these ive had open for months continuously. also so my evil friends can stop dragging me for having too many browser tabs open all the time

Dearly Departed by IlluminatingSceadugenga

unfinished, currently at 5 chaps at the time of writing this, cute. really cute. the ghost marriage is really unbearably cute.

of death, and love, and absolution by Naamah_Beherit

unfinished, currently at 12 chaps at the time of writing this. really good roleswap. has a lot of oomph. the roleswap-ness feels well thought out and not shoehorned in. very worth

what i want from you is sweet by VampireFaun

Not safe for worch. this is a bdsm fic. like the best damn bdsm fic ive ever read, probably. d/s also. its really good just read it

No Water Is Enough by Boomchick

woodchipper'd my heart. abhorrently exquisite. hurts so good. please read this. memory loss fic. ghost king ashes WERE harmed in the making of this fic. Please Read This

Til our compass stands still by edenwolfie

a lot of ghost city in this fic :) makes one smile. makes one happy. pre-third ascension meeting fic. dianxia is very cute in this one. the background characters are also cute.

No Paths Are Bound by Cataclysmic_Calamity

very long. also, very good. extrapolates from the novel excellently to weave in brilliant and fascinating new threads and plotlines. genuinely thrilling! many bonus points for cute hong-er.....

[ecccentrick]

I really enjoy Hualian roleswap aus but one version I haven't seen yet is, what if for some reason Hua Cheng doesn't descend? Maybe he wants to exact revenge that way, become a traitor at the perfect time for maximum damage, a la Black Water. Get as many worshippers as possible to usurp the Heavens.

Xie Lian could actually truly die and have enough conviction to stay (ignoring the fact that Officials aren't supposed to be able to reincarnate, so I assume they shouldn't be able to become spirits?) or never ascend again, roaming listlessly and becoming a metaphorical Ghost.

[wygbyrm]

personally i think roleswap aus are very fun and funky and i was just thinking about how much easier it is to do that with the characters in tgcf than with the ones in mdzs and it definitely tracks due to the differences of the themes in those books. in tgcf, there is a major theme of how one moment can change the entire trajectory of a person’s life. setting aside hua cheng and xie lian for a moment, this is really prominent in the he xuan/shi qingxuan storyline. shi qingxuan could have so easily been left destitute and ended up as a vengeful spirit, but one act by his brother meant that he became a god while he xuan was left with that fate. and jun wu, if things had gone differently and he had someone stand by him like xie lian did, might have never even become the white clothed calamity in the first place. the tentative nature of fate is a huge theme in tgcf and so it makes a lot of sense that, when you apply that to hua cheng and xie lian as characters, it’s very easy to swap their roles in the story. hua cheng canonically had the potential to ascend to godhood, hua cheng has experienced derision from the gods and society at large, and he had fallen. xie lian has been vengeful, xie lian has been devoted, and xie lian canonically has the potential to be a calamity. there are a million places you could go with the idea of hua cheng being a god and xie lian being a calamity. with mdzs and its characters, that isn’t really the case because a major theme in mdzs is the weight that your status and circumstances have on you and how they can often times be inescapable. lan wangji could never be the yiling laozu, he could never be cast out of the cultivation world, he could never be turned into public enemy number one because of the circumstances of his birth. he is the second jade of lan, wealthy and powerful. even in canon when he did things that should have caused the cultivation world to turn on him, excuses were made for him and people continued to help him because at the end of the day, he still had his status. wei wuxian would never have gotten the levels of support that lan wangji did because he was the son of a servant and a rogue cultivator. unless you completely rewrite them as characters and change the circumstances of their birth and their lives, you can never have lan wangji truly take wei wuxian’s place in the story line. and if you did that, then they would be vastly different as characters. maybe its just because hua cheng and xie lian have similar enough personalities and experiences that you could easily switch them around without having to get complicated about it, but wangxian just doesn’t have that.

[aerscribbles]

Violet Mist Ferrying Stars (vertical reversal au MNQ)

pls click for better image quality!

[aerscribbles]

Jun Wu (Vertical Reversal AU)

God of Disaster and Misfortune.

A perfectly normal young man, nothing to see here... (he is thinking about tearing someones throat out with his teeth)

[aerscribbles]

I've recently re-read your post on the tgcf vertical reversal AU and I am so so curious. Apologies if this has been asked before, but I'd love to hear more!

Specifically, how does the Wuyong story go then, with Jun Wu (&MQN)? Is it still the volcano erupting?

Does anything change in regards to Xianle? Or do Wuyong and Xianle swap stories?

And finally. Does Jun Wu get the missions Xie Lian does in tgcf? Cause if so, I'm cackling at the mental image of JW dressing up as bride to fool the "ghost groom". (Although wouldn't other characters change as well or would it just be Wuyong/Xianle?)

Hi! This is actually the first ask I've ever gotten, so no worries!

The Wuyong/Xianle swap keeps the core elements (Volcano-Plague), but changes the circumstances around them.

Specifically, the Human Face Plague is mainly a result of biological warfare instead of outside interference (as well as the Land of the Tender and a bunch of other curse/demon stuff).

Mount Taicang has been used to imprison resentful spirits in canon (chapter 27 / 66-68) so I took that and extended it to demons, curses, plagues... all kinds of bad stuff. Sometimes that 'bad stuff' (technical term) accumulates to the point where it needs to be released and/or consumed or it risks breaking the wards. One big straightforward threat is easier to deal with than a bunch of small complicated ones, so that's why the Ghost King trial happens.

The Wuyong situation diverges because of increased resource struggle and other gods taking advantage even more than in canon- the other events (volcanic eruption, war, bridge) still happen (and are maybe kinda worse?).

Unnamed Vassal 1: so, we may or may not be in the midst of a political shitstorm-

Unnamed Vassal 2: the people are dying of smoke inhalation-

Unnamed Vassal 3: everybody hates you-

MNQ, a conspiracy board-like mess of star charts behind him, hasn't slept for a week: WE'RE ALL GONNA FUCKING DIE.

In terms of other characters, nothing's final but I have been thinking about three tumors Yin Yu-Shi Qingxuan-He Xuan (overworked-party animal-business major) as well as switching Yin Yu-Ling Wen + Quan Yizhen-Bai Jing, and maybe put Banyue and Pei Xiu in a beefleaf situation. maybe.

Also, swapping Lang Qianqiu and Lang Ying (jr).

And yes, Jun Wu gets his version of those missions. Here is a snippet of how the whole 'dress up' thing went:

Jun Wu, putting on the bridal outfit: hate you hate you hate this hate everything-

Badly disguised former vassal: we can find some other way if it really is this intolerable. you don't have to do this of you don't want-

Jun Wu: stfu don't tell me what to do.

(He cons them into dressing up as bridesmaids for revenge.)