damshtrina

[damshtrina]

This is the fic I wrote as a gift for francowitch as part of the "Once upon a jianghu" edition of the mdzs seasonal exchange run by @mdzsxchange. LWJ descends to the underworld to persuade the god of death to release WWX's soul. Combines Indian and Chinese mythological elements with the story of Orpheus!

[damshtrina]

this isn't the first time @cerbykerby had an idea that i've impulsively drawn... rest of the comic under the cut!

[damshtrina]

gasp.

LIU TAO 刘涛 | Mid-Autumn Festival Program

Liu Tao: more photos here Mid-Autumn Festival Program: more photos here

[damshtrina]

A beautiful little wangxian fic that made me cry... And smile. Angst with a happy ending.

💙 fragmentary anamnesis by besanii

💙 fragmentary anamnesis

by besanii (@besanii)

Not rated, 2k, Wangxian

Summary: He’s seen people like him before. He’s watched them all: lost souls still tethered to the world, searching for something that had been denied them in life and they now seek in death. They wander the earth day after day, year after year, century upon century, until they can no longer remember the reason they linger. And then they come here, to this little shop of his stuck between life and death, and he ushers them back into the cycle of reincarnation. (or: Wei Wuxian works at a tea shop in the afterlife.) Kay's comments: Just found this story again after reading it years ago and absolutely loving it and even more delighted to see that it absolutely holds up. It's just perfect. Wei Wuxian is stuck in the afterlife serving people Mengpo's soup. One day, he's serving Lan Wangji too. They don't remember each other. (Can you hear the sound of my heart breaking?) Don't worry though, there's a happy ending! Excerpt: He's not sure what finally tips him over the edge. The next time the man comes into his shop and walks up to the counter, he's waiting for him with a bowl already on the counter and a smile plastered on his face. The man frowns. "I did not order this," he says. "Rules of the house," he lies. "You've been here for centuries. It's time." The man shakes his head. "No, I am still looking for someone." The determination in his voice stirs something akin to admiration—or perhaps pity—in his chest. "I know they will come, sooner or later. I will wait." "What if they've already gone ahead without you?" he asks. "Then the last few centuries would have been for nothing." Doubt creeps into that perfectly sculpted face and he feels a sharp pain in his own heart at the sight. "Then I will wait here until his next life is over," he says. "However long it takes. I will wait."

pov wei wuxian, reincarnation, chinese mythology & folklore, mutual pining, memory loss, grief/mourning, major character death, angst with a happy ending, afterlife, emotional hurt/comfort, reunions

~*~

(Please REBLOG as a signal boost for this hard-working author if you like – or think others might like – this story.)

[damshtrina]

Announcing: The Nirvana in Fire Fanwork Exchange 2024

Sign-ups — 1st-14th Oct

Prompt claiming — 17th-21st Oct

Assignments — 24th Oct

Check-in — 1st-5th Dec

Deadline — 21st Dec

Gift reveals — 25th Dec

Creator reveals — 31st Dec

The Nirvana in Fire Fanwork Exchange is an event for anyone who's a fan of the show Nirvana in Fire, its sequel series The Wind Blows in Changlin, the novel, manhua, audio drama and any other associated media I've forgotten.

It takes the form of an anonymous fanwork gift exchange: gifters will be matched with recipients based on prompts submitted by participants during sign-up. All participants will create a gift and receive one.

The event is open to all types of fanworks: fic, vids, visual art, crafts, podfic, etc.

Announcements will be crossposted to Tumblr, Discord and Dreamwidth.

If you would like an invite to the Langya Hall discord server, which has a channel for discussing the exchange, please let me know.

How It Works

During the sign-up period, you will be able to submit a Google Form with a list of 3 prompts for fanworks you would like to receive, as well as space to list any Do/Do Not Wants. The link will be posted on the DW community, the Langya Hall discord, and on this Tumblr.

On 17th Oct, participants will be sent an anonymous list of sets of prompts and asked to rank their top 5 choices. Once all participants have responded, the mods will do their best to match everyone according to their preferences.

On 24th Oct, participants will be sent their individual assignment: the prompt list of the person they have been matched with, along with that person's AO3 username.

On 31st Oct, the prompt list will be made public, for anyone, whether they signed up or not, to creat additional 'treats' for the prompters.

There will be a mandatory check-in 1st-5th Dec. Participants will be asked whether they are on track to complete a gift by the final deadline of 21st Dec. Participants who miss this deadline without contacting the mods will be assumed to have defaulted and their assignment will be sent to a pinch-hitter.

Gifts should be submitted to the AO3 collection (still under construction) by the end of the day on 21st Dec. Participants will still be able to make edits, but the gift should be in a giftable state by then.

On 25th Dec, the gifts will be revealed: everyone will be able to see all works in the collection, though the creators will still remain anonymous.

On 31st Dec, the names of the creators will be revealed.

TL;DR: Sign up with prompts, choose the prompts you'd like to fill, make a thing, post a thing, get a thing, shower your fellow creators with love and comments.

Minimum gift requirements

Treats

Fic: 500 words

Podfic: 5 mins

Art: 1 artwork (B&W or colored)

Video: 30 secs to 1 min, depending on complexity

Crafts: 1 picture and/or documentation of the finished project

If you don't want to sign up as a full exchange participant, you can still create fills for prompts as 'treats'. The prompt list will be made public on 31st Oct. Treats can be posted to the AO3 community and tagged with 'NIFTREAT24'.

General Points

BYOB: Bring your own beta. In previous years, the exchange has offered a beta-matching service, but we're running at reduced capacity this year, so if you want your work beta-read, please organise this yourself.

Timezones: Deadlines for participants are 11.59pm of the date in question, wherever you might be in the world. Timings for the mod doing stuff are based on 'when I have a spare hour during that day' and I can't be more precise than that.

AO3: You'll be able to add your work to the Nirvana in Fire 2024 Exchange collection on AO3 (currently under construction but you can see last year's collection here). If you need an AO3 invite, we can arrange this, but please let me know before December if possible.

Contact a mod: If you're in the Langya Hall discord server, feel free to ping me @ sinni-ok-sessi on there, or @ withans for a PM. You can also contact me @sinni-ok-sessi or via the @nifexchange24 Tumblr. Nominally I am on Dreamwidth, but I almost never remember to check it, so that's not your best bet. If you sign up, you will receive instructions for how to email me.

[damshtrina]

How i see Wei wuxian leading the band of disciples through out the book:

[damshtrina]

Just Xiao Xingchen and A-Qing ^_^

(Drawn in 2022)

[damshtrina]

Must not be late to shan gudao funeral

[damshtrina]

Signups are open!!!

Once Upon a Jianghu

Join us for a fantastical art, fic, and podfic exchange! Adapt or create an alternate universe inspired by fables, fairytales, folklore, legends, mythology, and more!

Tag-Set Nominations: September 10 - September 16

Sign-Ups: September 17 - September 30

Assignments by October 4

Works Due: November 16

Collection Reveal: November 24

Collection Link | Tagset Link

[damshtrina]

pink moon.

[damshtrina]

Once Upon a Jianghu

Join us for a fantastical art, fic, and podfic exchange! Adapt or create an alternate universe inspired by fables, fairytales, folklore, legends, mythology, and more!

Tag-Set Nominations: September 10 - September 16

Sign-Ups: September 17 - September 30

Assignments by October 4

Works Due: November 16

Collection Reveal: November 24

Collection Link | Tagset Link

[damshtrina]

So, we’ve gotten to the entry where Mina has a “I’m not like the New Women” moment, let’s talk about what the concept of the New Women and why it is deeply ironic for Mina of all characters to be dismissive of them.

With the second wave of industrialization and the increase in the ability of women to access higher education in England starting in the 1870s, there was a corresponding social movement to change the way women were perceived. 

New Women were educated women who had careers - usually from the increasingly large Victorian middle and upper middle class. They advocated for women to have greater autonomy over their lives and greater financial freedom. Basically the ability to live on their own and not have to rely on men and marriage. It was also wrapped up with the suffragette movement - though the New Woman was not necessarily a suffragette.

There was a lot of backlash in late Victorian society which claimed that independence was unwomanly and would lead to the emasculation of men and the neglect of the family. As tame as it may seem to us now, this sort of thing was supposed to look absurd because the men and women have switched gender roles: 

So when there are jabs at New Women in sections of Dracula about how women will propose in the future, we are supposed to read it in the same sense as the Punch parodies. This is supposed to be an absurd notion that would upend gender norms. Of course as modern readers it doesn’t because we’ve moved past those gender roles.

But it is also striking in the text because Mina is the picture of the New Woman without the satirical varnish of something like Punch. She is from the middle to upper middle class. She is well educated and has a job at the beginning of the novel: She is a school teacher. 

Socially she is exactly the kind of woman who has the position to be more independent. The idea that she is a New Woman also comes from her characterization. She is a very active character and has a remarkable amount of agency. She goes places and asks questions and starts to put together the mystery without necessarily relying on men.

And her relationship with Jonathan actually does invert gender roles. She is the person who is more active and Jonathan is more reliant on her. He may be the breadwinner (or will be now that he’s fully a solicitor and not just a clerk), but they don’t have a very typically gendered relationship for the period. 

And on the note of the gay subtext in Mina’s relationship with Lucy - New Women were also the kind of people who entered into Boston Marriages.

And it seems that Stoker tries and fails to distance the character he wrote from the image of the New Woman. There are these weirdly out of character comments in Mina’s journal about New Women that read as either deeply ironic or as Stoker backpedaling on the character Mina actually is. 

There are also sections later that point to Stoker having a very ambivalent relationship with feminism, but it will be worthwhile to discuss those when we get there.

But the crux of why Stoker seems to think he hasn’t written a New Woman is this: Mina is exceptionally nurturing. She cares for Lucy. She cares for other characters when they are physically or emotionally compromised later. Mina’s most stereotypically feminine feature is that she is a carer. She is not the image of a woman who emulates the emotional expression of a man.

Read from a modern perspective it comes across as a bit absurd, because being an independent woman and being nurturing are not mutually exclusive.

[damshtrina]

My fic for the MDZS RBB 2024 in collaboration with the amazing @nerdzewordart whose brilliant art prompt threw us headlong into this 1920s/30s prohibition-era mafia au set in San Francisco Chinatown. See more of their art for this fic here and here. It was a sheer joy working with them! Thanks also to the wonderful mod team of @mdzsrbb for giving us this opportunity and for all their hard work organising this event!

[damshtrina]

ONE MORE! Nerdzeword had sketched out this fic early but it must have stayed in my subconscious because it turned out to be absolutely apt for the end of chapter 8 "The Guanyin Temple" (the final chapter before the epilogue) of "Know Your Onions", the fic I wrote as our collab for MDZS RBB 2024.

Another piece for the MDZS RBB! This was meant to be more of an Art Deco, but I'm not sure it really worked haha. Either way I am still happy with how it turned out! We love some ladies being badass!

Link to the fic, here!

[damshtrina]

@nerdzewordart made this lovely SECOND piece of art for our collab for the MDZS RBB 2024 event and it really inspired me to write the second chapter! (My fic is here btw)

Second of my MDZS RBB pieces!

When I went into this project, I was thinking that I would do each one in a different style for the era they are set in. That quickly went out the window, but these two still remain in Art Nouveau because why not. (please go check out the fic, because it is so so lovely! You can find it here!)

[damshtrina]

Had so much fun working on a prohibition-era Yunmeng siblings mafia AU for the MDZS RBB based on this awesome art piece by @nerdzewordart and it's finally posting day! (My fic is here btw)

It's finally here! I've been so excited to share my works for the MDZS RBB, and I can't be more pleased with how both the art, and @damshtrina's wonderful fic (Which you can find here!)

[damshtrina]

Loads of new kidfics to read! I couldn't participate in this edition but I'm looking forward to reading them all!

MDZS Kidfic Collection Revealed!

[ID: Small blackboard hanging on a wall with the word "kidfic" written in multicolored chalk.]

Grab a juice box and get ready to feast on over fifty fics and artworks featuring MDZS kiddos and the adults who love them. Thank you so much to all our participants — you all created and shared such wonderful works!

As always, the collection will remain open indefinitely for late treats. <3