Fan Fiction Thread for Lost You Forever

 HeadInTheClouds:

I love the Qingshui town arc too. Things took a nose-dived once we left Qingshui. I get sad when I watch that scene where he rushes to Huichin clinic, but she is already gone:-(/

That was another addition in the drama which was not covered in the novel, but it makes sense that he would have rushed there once he sensed she was in danger. 

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 was sending my girl to school last week when we got to the part when Xiao Liu saw Royal Consort Jing An for the first time, and I found tears streaming down my face as I listened to Xiao Liu's tearful desperation, reaching out for whom she thought was the mother she had lost, just as we drove up to the school gates no less! Thankfully it was very early morning and I quickly drove away before more people saw me in this state!

 HeadInTheClouds:

I don't think I will be able to watch the death scene. I will cry too much. I'm already tearing up whenever I think about a particular sad detail from the novel (that epilogue is a killer. I could never read it without crying). I'm not too big on pain so I might have to give myself a few years. Once I can of XL without feeling sad, then maybe I can watch it. And I'm just someone who reads the novel. TJC lived with that character and all the emotions for a few months.

I know what you mean. It was a shock for me, to find myself crying over the audiobook, especially when it was a scene that I was already so familiar with, having read and watched it so many times. Surprisingly, I did not tear up over the epilogue in the audiobook, though I did when Xiao Yao mourned Xiang Liu's death. I think the actual delivery also plays a big part. My daughter and I were comparing Xiang Liu's first words in different versions of the audiobook "Mao Qiu, how many times have I told you, the hearts of men are devious. This time, you should finally remember." and some just totally leave us cringing because the delivery and voice itself just pulled us out of the story right away, while others were far better. 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. 

 HeadInTheClouds:

As someone who doesn't speak the language and is too busy reading the subtitles to pay attention to the voices fully, I thankfully don't have this problem. Do you know from which drama TJC starts to use his own voice? And which one of his dramas have you watched and would recommend? 

I think apart from Advisors Alliance (2016/2017) and Twisted Fate of Love (2020), he pretty much dubbed himself in most other dramas. I am actually very surprised he was dubbed in Twisted Fate of Love (even if it was by the amazing Bian Jiang) because it was filmed circa 2019, and he had already been dubbing himself before then (e.g. Secrets of the Three Kingdoms etc).

 HeadInTheClouds:

That song and this one from Love My Voice gets a lot of XL edits for obvious reasons. 

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? 

 ZYHLJ:

I think this frequency is appropriate. If you have the English version of Sha Po Lang, I think we should be fine reading two chapters every two weeks. Then we share our thoughts and questions with each other every two weeks and discuss them? :-)

Sorry. I've been super busy so have not been able to frequent the board as often. 

I think a fortnightly 2 chapter schedule would work. I would probably read the Vietnamese version of the novel rather than English. It shouldn't impact the discussion too much. If we want it to be more interactive something like Messenger might work. Otherwise, we could create another thread here or on the Winner Is King board. 

Haven't seen you around for a while. Hope all is well with you :-)

 liddi:

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.

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. 

 liddi:

Am still sore that the only historical scene is in an MV which never even made it in the actual drama. Seriously?

You and a bunch of us :-). I think the ones who followed TJC to Love My Voice from LYF were hoping to see him in costume for some XL-adjacent fix. We were anticipating seeing him acting out that short drama within the show. The disappointment when it didn't happen...

 liddi:

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.

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.

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 find the vibes of the drama and the book to be quite different. Drama XL came across as a lot sadder to me; whereas novel XL does come across like a traveller taking a stroll through the mortal world. I think the drama writes him more like a typical second male lead with unrequited love; whereas in the novel, it was more that he was an elusive traveller that XY can not hold on to, tried as she might. Even the scene you mentioned - In the book, it came across as more playful whereas in the drama it was rather serious. In many ways, I preferred novel XL to drama XL, although I really enjoyed TJC's performance. 

 I do love FFB and love XY and FFB interactions. It was just unfortunate that the funner interactions were short-lived and it got sadder towards the end. 

 liddi:

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?

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.

Info here: https://sevenseasentertainment.com/series/stars-of-chaos-sha-po-lang-novel/

Buy from Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=stars+of+chaos&crid=3GSVWRIUYK8E4&sprefix=stars+of+chaos%2Caps%2C387&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

From another website.

https://malaysia.kinokuniya.com/bw/9781638589310

 liddi:

Remember that Communications 101 class you were planning to hold? I think you will need to conduct one for these two as well.

Heh! Fictions are reflections of reality amped up to the nth degree. It's amazing how bad people are at communicating. If all characters actually knew how to communicate we wouldn't have any to read since misunderstanding due to poor communication probably made up a good chunk of conflicts in romance novels. 

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. 

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. 

 liddi:

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,

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.

 liddi:

I also personally find Sheng Yilun to be close to how I imagine Shao Hao which is a plus

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". 

 liddi:

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?

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. 

 liddi:

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.

I definitely think that this was the case with YaoLiu. And I'm not the only one. We've talked about them pushing JingYao as 1:1, the official pairing since the start of the drama. There are no formal rules or censorship around this issue, but there is an implied understanding of what is deemed proper and desirable behaviour/images for lead characters. 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. Picking Yang Zi for XY is smart. Besides her ability to act and attract investors, she also has a huge and aggressive fandom that will defend her character to a stupendous amount. They extend this same energy to DW's Jing as well as a way to protect her character since he is her official pairing. 

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. 

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