Fan Fiction Thread for Lost You Forever

 liddi:

Oh, 名士曲四首 is indeed another excellent song, and very fitting for Xiang Liu FMVs. Do you know which episode he sings it in?

Life has been a never-ending rollercoaster. I Barely had time to visit the board these days.

I found it. It's in episode 9 during the concert. He only sang a snippet of it. It's around the 3:39 mark in this video.

 liddi:

Remember what you said about not wanting to look like some crazy person, crying while behind the wheel from listening to the audiobook? It finally happened to yours truly.

I feel happy knowing that I'm not the only one behaving like a crazy person. It happened to me again the other day. I'm sure these drivers think I must hate my job, seeing as I'm crying in the car on my way to work :-).  

 liddi:

Still, and I believe I say this without any bias, TJC is the definitive Xiang Liu for me - the inflection, tone and timbre of his voice is spot on.

Since he's not likely to voice another audiobook version of LYF, maybe he will do Gu Yun in the audiobook for Sha Po Lang as we are not likely to get that drama ever :-(.

 HeadInTheClouds:

Life has been a never-ending rollercoaster. I Barely had time to visit the board these days.

Oh no.... please do take care, and I hope things have settled down down your end. Life is crazy these days for me too so I am grateful for the upcoming long weekend.

 HeadInTheClouds:

I found it. It's in episode 9 during the concert. He only sang a snippet of it. It's around the 3:39 mark in this video.

Thank you very much! The video is geo-blocked but I managed to watch it on iQiYi, including the earlier scene when Qiang Qingci taught the contestants how to express the same line with different nuances. It's a shame the song was not longer, nor had any historical scenes. Am still sore that the only historical scene is in an MV which never even made it in the actual drama. Seriously?

 HeadInTheClouds:

I feel happy knowing that I'm not the only one behaving like a crazy person. It happened to me again the other day. I'm sure these drivers think I must hate my job, seeing as I'm crying in the car on my way to work :-).  

Haha lunatics unite? Oh no... what triggered your tears this time round? I teared up a little during the scene while listening to Xiao Yao telling him he was not suitable to enter a girl's dreams - the self-mockery in his laughter really hit hard. Now Fangfeng Bei has just made his entrance at the dance hall... so I am looking forward to the outrageous flirt's interactions with her. 

 HeadInTheClouds:

Since he's not likely to voice another audiobook version of LYF, maybe he will do Gu Yun in the audiobook for Sha Po Lang as we are not likely to get that drama ever :-(.

Oh that would be such a treat if he did. Having never read the book itself, I have absolutely no concept of what the entire premise is. Are there any English translations floating around? 

Speaking of which, I am reading Once Promised - up to Vol 1 Ch15 so far at Zhong Yi's wedding, and misunderstandings galore between Chi Chen and A Heng. Remember that Communications 101 class you were planning to hold? I think you will need to conduct one for these two as well. At this point in time in the novel, I find Shao Hao's character fascinating, especially his bond with Qing Yang, and am looking forward to seeing how he turns against those who were closest and dearest to him in his bid to take over the throne.  And would you believe that I am actually braving A Life Time Love (up to Ep6 currently) because I am finally reading Once Promised? I know I know... the overall acting and costuming is painful to plod through, but surprisingly, after the first 1-2 episodes, Huang Xiaoming settled well into the role of Chi Yun and is making him a lot more sympathetic and less cringe-worthy. He was tearing up in the BTS when he spoke of how he cried several times as he read the script (apparently Victoria Song could not stop crying after filming one of the scenes too) so it does look like the actors were emotionally absorbed in the drama. I also personally find Sheng Yilun to be close to how I imagine Shao Hao which is a plus. The drama does change the plot considerably, and rearranges the sequence. One notable point is having A Heng being engaged to Shao Hao without her knowledge, around the time she was on Jade Mountain, falling in love with Chi Chen - probably to work around censorship issues of having a heroine 'two-timing' her fiancé with another man? If so, it might also explain why LYF diluted the YaoLiu loveline and focused on YaoJing's to avoid a heroine being in love with someone else other than the official pairing. Hmm.

 HeadInTheClouds:

Work has been insane. LOL. There are no more public holidays in my country until towards the end of the year and I can't afford to take any leave at the moment due to a big holiday I have planned for the end of the year. So I'll just have to grin and bear it, for now. 

I can relate since it too has taken me way longer than expected to slowly revisit posts I have not yet responded, thanks to work and home demands.

 HeadInTheClouds:

I won't deny that I've turned into a lunatic during the last 9 months :-). I swear there are times when I think this character and his ending have made me deeply depressed. We need a Xiang Liu-holics Anonymous. I've met some readers who have been fans since the book was released 11 years ago. The release of the drama seems to re-ignite all the emotions. It's amazing the hold that this character has on his fans. Even the newer fans are completely taken by him.

Agreed. Just when I think I have moved on, then something just triggers it once more. And I think what the drama did was made it worse, because TJC's portrayal brought him to life. I wonder whether it would have been as bad if the adaptation or the actors were a disappointment. I think the pain we experienced from the novel would still be there, but perhaps tempered by the eyesore that is the adaptation.

 HeadInTheClouds:

This time I was thinking about the added scene for the drama - where he was disguised as a woman and asked her why didn't she go home, isn't there someone waiting for her? And if she's unhappy, then the people who love her wouldn't be happy either. We know that he's talking about himself. It made me sad that he was probably thinking that she'd be away for a while and would return and they'll go back to being XL and WYL. I'm tearing up just writing about it. I swear the littlest things could set me off. The scene that you mentioned above was probably when he realized that things were not going to be the same again :-(.

I think he knew the moment he found out her real identity that things could never be the same again, because they were now clearly on opposing sides. Qingshui Town held their happiest memories with each other, when they both could let down their guard with each other, even if she kept her identity secret from him. For me, she knew far earlier - the moment she realised who Xuan really was - that things had changed. 

I understand your love for this scene. I think this is the closest he ever came to confessing his feelings for her, how he missed her, but as always, never directly, openly to her. Still, whenever I think of this scene, I really have to wonder whether it conflicted with what we know from the book (and what was in the leaked script later) about how she would instinctively be able to recognise him even if he appeared as someone else - when she first met Fangfeng Bei, and later at the gambling den when he was disguised. Yet here, she had no clue who "she" was despite being in such close proximity. 

 HeadInTheClouds:

I'm fairly certain that there is an English translation of the novel. Just do a Google search for Stars of Chaos by Priest. It looks like the English version is still incomplete - 3/5 volumes are currently available with Vol 4 due out in September and volume 5 in January 2025.

Thank you for the links. Seeing it's not complete either, I might defer for now until I've gotten past S2, and who knows how long it takes to drag myself away after that. Or just check out the original novel... we'll see.

 HeadInTheClouds:

Shao Hao really was a fascinating character. I don't remember any details from Once Promised, but my impression was that it was one of TH's strongest in terms of writing - the plot, characters, and relationships are all well-balanced and developed cohesively. Each reader can probably find a character or couple they like in Once Promised. 

YES! It was such a richly drawn universe, the various kingdoms and its politics, different loyalties, vivid characters beautifully depicted, even with just a few brief, yet impactful lines, including that of Lie Yang and A Bi. To be honest, the romance never drew me in as much, but I love the relationships between the siblings, bosom friends, comrades, the conflicting loyalties, and the plotting against father and siblings. There are major and minor scenes that remain vividly in my mind even now, and I would love to revisit again. 

 HeadInTheClouds:

Shao Hao was like an iceberg - you only saw the tip, but there was so much going on underneath that still surface. He and Chi You are the opposite of each other. And they are well-matched in terms of skills, abilities and characters. Whereas in LYF, I never get the sense that Jing was a match in any way for XL. I actually preferred Shao Hao as a character; I liked the grey, the ruthlessness; the quiet intensity and the softer sides of him through his friendship with Qing Yang and the way he treated XY. Although I never shipped him and Ah Heng. 

With 7 more chapters to go, I still root desperately for Shao Hao, despite already knowing how it would end - starting from the moment he accepted death at Yu Abyss, and she came back for him. And of course he (and Qing Yang) had to turn around and accept one half of the River Chart Luo Inscription, in exchange for letting Chi Chen take A Heng away. In that moment, I felt that none of them deserved her at all - not Chi Chen, not Shao Hao. Yet I still like his character despite seeing the horrific things he has done, exactly because he is so morally grey and such a fascinating study. I don't know whether I will still feel the same by the end of the book. We shall see.

 HeadInTheClouds:

Hah! I'm going to pray for you, liddi :-). Huang Xiao Ming is a capable actor when he remembers to act and not merely to look good. I think this series was after Cruel Romance and he was in his peak "male lead from a romance novel" persona (I don't know how to say that term in English). The impression was so bad at the start that I don't think it ever recovered for me. The interactions between him and Victoria Song were also the same. Cringe City!! Can you believe that Once Promised and Nirvana In Fire 2 were released in the same year? I wonder which one he filmed first.

Since things have been so hectic down my end, I have not had a chance to continue yet - was that your prayers working? lol  A Lifetime Love finished filming in Aug 2016 (broadcast Jul 2017) while Nirvana in Fire 2 filmed from 15Dec2016 to 9May2017 (broadcast Dec 2017). Certainly, just a matter of months between filming the two dramas, which goes to show the difference in performance that is elicited in the hands of a great script, director and production.

 HeadInTheClouds:

The issue with Sheng Yilun was his limited acting ability. Shao Hao is one of the most complex characters in the novel and needs a strong actor to capture the complexity, particularly as the story progresses and Shao Hao develops further. I found Shen Yilun to be "blank" rather than "still water runs deep". 

I agree. I should clarify that I found Sheng Yilun physically how I imagined Shao Hao to be, but certainly, the depth of his character (at least in the first 5 episodes) has not been effectively delivered.

 HeadInTheClouds:

I think censorship probably played a role like you said. I didn't take a lot of issue with this particular thing in Once Promised. A Heng was engaged to Shao Hao when she was a child (if I remember correctly), she wasn't even aware let alone have any say in the matter. And she was frank with Shao Hao about their marriage. 

I was not bothered by her engagement with Shao Hao too when she started getting close to Chi Chen. And I loved that she was upfront with Shao Hao when they married, though she had made her fair share of frustrating choices over the course of the book. I just ached for her husband when he told her he wanted to go back and choose again, after he finally fell in love with her. Though to be fair, seeing his choices down the road, I really have to wonder if she would have been happy choosing any one of her suitors. Chi Chen drives me up the wall too, and they were supposed to be the OTP. 

 HeadInTheClouds:

What I've read and seen is that the character of XY is not well-liked amongst the original novel fans due to the way that she handled her relationships (amongst other things) and XY and Jing apparently coped a lot of criticisms/flaks from the novel readers when the novel was first released.

I didn't know that Xiao Yao was not liked among the book fans. Was it because they did not like her final choice, or just her decisions in general?

 HeadInTheClouds:

If the second season played out the way of the leaked script, then they did minimise the YaoLiu's romance; and portrayed XL as more like an unrequited love. The novel's ending was melancholy, but those leaked pictures showed XY looking happy as a lark. The integrity of the novel would be compromised, IMO. 

I am crossing everything I can think of. With rumours now of even more episodes, I cling stubbornly on to the hope that we will have a last minute reprieve after all.

 HeadInTheClouds:

The funny thing is that even though they went through all of this effort, XL and YaoLiu still received an overwhelming amount of interest.

I think all credit goes to the character which speaks for itself, bolstered by the strong performance, that convinced even a sceptic like me that someone who played the diabolical Sima Zhao is the definitive Xiang Liu.

 ZYHLJ:

It would be interesting if Chinese writers also want to create a world with its own language, perhaps drawing on the languages of ethnic minorities~

Apologies for the late reply. I've been using my phone for the past few weeks...and today, I am on my computer so I would be able to reply to all the threads I've had to skim over. BUT yes! Wouldn't it me amazing if someone could create a whole new language for world building in Xinxia!?

 ZYHLJ:

Tonghua obviously did a better job at this point. She skillfully constructed a colorful remote ancient fantasy world that is related to the real world based on real mythology and history (although she obviously did not pay special attention to the setting part) , which is one of the reasons why I'm so interested in the Dahuang world.

Tong Hua world building is top notched! I think it's so amazing how she was able to personified and humanized the demons and deities of DaHuang. Usually xinxia always has this sort troupe, and Tong Hua just disregards these rules, which I think is quite adventurous and risky, but created a phenomenal experience.

 ZYHLJ:

I remember Tan once said in an interview that he very much likes his character to use his own voice, because then the entire character is shaped by him (others cannot change his design of this character).

This line reminds me of an interview of Tom Hardy, when he was talking about his villian role as Bane in The Dark Knight Returns...and he specifically said that he starts all his characterization with how they sound. He would try to find the right sound, expression, and mannerism in which his character would say and sound, and from there, it will help him transform into his character. I feel that Tan is very much this kind of method actor, who delves into the psychology and sound of his character, which is why he seems to be such a chameleon, morphing into his roles completely.

Hello ladies,

I owe everyone a new chapter on my fan fic, but I've had  few life changes and I was unable to finish it. I think I would have like two chapters left...they both are in revisions and I hope to get to them done by the end of the summer. XD

 plor20:

I owe everyone a new chapter on my fan fic, but I've had  few life changes and I was unable to finish it. I think I would have like two chapters left...they both are in revisions and I hope to get to them done by the end of the summer. XD

Please take your time - no rush. I'm grateful for your generosity and look forward to whenever you feel able to share your work with us. 

 liddi:

I'll be lying if I said it didn't irk me either. Just praying that the end result is not as bad as I feared. Regardless, I am eagerly waiting to see Xiang Liu once more.

At this point, XL fans are just watching XL as the plot because we already feel like everything is watered down.