fannish-karmiya

[fannish-karmiya]

An update, sort of?

It's been ages, years? since I've posted to my tumblr. It was a mixture of getting frustrated with fandom drama, and depression over my art and writing. It's easy to say I just haven't posted long enough to build up an audience, etc, but I've had a lot of failed starts on social media with my art over the past near-decade and the lack of traction has made me reach the point of an intense, deep depression. As ironic as it is, I almost resented that people like my fanfiction; why are people reading that, but no one is interested in the art and writing I'm actually passionate about?

I love MDZS, and I enjoyed writing fic for it, but I'm far more interested in writing original stories. If I think that Jin Guangyao's background is interesting (for all that he lets himself become a monster), or have my interest captured by some of the new dramas featuring eunuchs in more diverse roles than the traditional villainous roles, I'd rather sit down and write my own story about those themes, not just hop around between fandoms.

I always tried to reblog stuff from my artist-tumblr to this one, but it never really made any difference. Anything I posted about outside of fandom metas flopped. Some people seem to be able to endure this, but I just couldn't. It hurt deeply in a way that I can't explain; every time I tried to post anything to social media, or even logged on, I was filled with this gaping hole of dread.

I do still want to upload what I have written of my fanfics; anything which I've started posting is either complete or at least halfway. I may still pick those fics up and finish them, too. Who knows.

But overall I'm so much more interested in original writing and art. Writing fanfic for MDZS was a rare event for me, because I love that novel so much that I couldn't let it go after just finishing the novel/radiodrama/donghua.

I'm writing my own novels, and am trying to figure out what the hell to do with them (self-publishing seems most practical, but also dubious for someone who has no social media skills whatsoever). I also am experimenting with a website where I am able to make much more detailed posts about my interests, though it is still in early stages.

So far, this post is the one I'm most proud of, if anyone is interested. I am deeply fascinated by shoujo manga and its history, and wrote this post trying to chronicle how the iconic art style developed. It was a huge amount work to research, write, and lay out the visual examples for this post, and I'm incredibly proud of it.

I don't really know what to say or how to end this, so...there you are.

[fannish-karmiya]

A cat of very noble stature.

I recorded the process of painting this on my Youtube channel, you can watch it here!

[fannish-karmiya]

Honestly, one thing that feels really weird about posting fanfic nowadays is that it feels like I'm on a 'stay of execution'. The thing is, I don't normally write fanfic; I'm much more interested in writing original stories. MDZS just captivated me so much that I found myself wanting to explore it further, and I guess writing was the way to do that. But I basically have fics exploring all the themes I want to explore, so once those are all complete...that's kind of it?

It's a very bittersweet feeling.

[fannish-karmiya]

Our Feelings Remain Unchanged (11608 words) by Karmiya Chapters: 3/? Fandom: 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī/Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn, Lán Jǐngyí/Lán Yuàn | Lán Sīzhuī Characters: Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī, Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn, Lán Yuàn | Lán Sīzhuī, Lán Jǐngyí, Wēn Níng | Wēn Qiónglín Summary: When Wei Wuxian is resurrected with his original face, any plans to hide in plain sight as 'Mo Xuanyu' are ruined before they can ever begin. He soon runs into old faces, and finds that despite what he feared in his last days, Lan Wangji's feelings for him never changed; whatever they were in the first place.

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A wild update, and with an illustration! While I don't have the time to do a lot of illustrations for fanfic at the moment, I had the pencils for this one hanging around so did finally finish it up.

[fannish-karmiya]

Hi! I love reference books and am actually very interested in any more recommendations you have, thanks for your post about To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth!

Oh, that's great to hear! I'll start posting some more tomorrow, then! I would today, but there is zero sunlight today where I live, so it will be easier to take book photos tomorrow. Thank you for your message! <3

[fannish-karmiya]

I feel kind of bad for not illustrating my fics any more; it feels really weird for me to post a chapter with no visuals. But I've been really busy working on illustrations for an original project, and I simply don't have the time to also be illustrating each chapter I update for all of my old fic (most of the fic I'm posting is old, I'm working through posting a lot of backlog chapters, not writing them at the moment, if anyone is curious).

It really takes a lot of time. The rough pencil stage alone involves both drawing and looking up references for architecture and clothing, and then I have to transfer it to good paper and ink it, then do shading and screentones... And I print screentones myself due to the cost of importing them from Japan, so I also have to print them! Oh gosh, and my printer needs more ink cartridges...

I have one fanfic illustration which I'm currently working on shading, but it's going to be fairly rare from now on for a fic to include them, sadly ;-;

[fannish-karmiya]

Actually, for anyone leery of the next few chapters of Fate Was Against Us, here's a quick little guide.

Chapter 8 concludes the rest of the siege and Wei Wuxian's death.

Chapter 9 features Lan Wangji being imprisoned in Cloud Recesses and punished, and then escaping.

Chapter 10 features Lan Wangji heading to Lotus Pier, for...well, you'll see.

Chapter 11 goes back to Jiang Yanli and Wen-popo and the kids and shows how they've been doing. This is where the story starts 'picking up', and becomes about grieving together and healing. It will be a while before Wei Wuxian's resurrection, but things do slowly start looking up from here on out.

This fic was very hard to write, so I totally understand if anyone wants to skim or even skip past a few of the hardest chapters. Wei Wuxian's resurrection only comes in chapter 23, which felt like an eternity while writing ;-;

[fannish-karmiya]

Updating Fate Was Against Us is always so funny because I keep waiting for the day the last of the few readers decides to stop, either because of the angst or just...you know. I'm pretty brutal about all of the sects; they all participated in a massacre of civilians, and I've never quibbled about that. But pointing out that the sects are all guilty is the worst thing you can do in this fandom: total social suicide.

Ah, well. I wrote the fic, so I might as well post it.

[fannish-karmiya]

My newest painting video is up on Youtube! This was done 5 months ago, so I feel that I've improved a lot since then, but it was really helpful to me in experimenting with certain techniques like wet-on-wet, and getting more comfortable with using cold press watercolour paper.

These are the main characters from an original story of mine. Let's just say that someone would rather be teaching a lesson on dual cultivation at the moment, shall we? ;P

Here is the full painting:

[fannish-karmiya]

Reblog from my main art blog. I have a million reference books and articles I could share, if anyone is interested.

I actually do a lot of research and am collecting what may one day be an entire bookshelf's worth of reference books, so I thought I'd share one. This is my pride and joy, at least as far as research goes:

To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth is a translation of the Shenxian Zhuan, a series of biographies of Daoist immortals by Ge Hong. The (extensive) introduction by Professor Campany also includes a lot of the translator's own research, drawing on various sources in order to provide a good overview of practices attributed to Daoists in common folklore. If you're interested in the Xianxia and Wuxia genres and their origins, I think this is an invaluable English-language text. Its focus is entirely on traditional beliefs, but through it you can see just how much of the modern fantasy genre in China is based entirely on traditional folklore.

The images of talismans, for example, are extremely familiar to any viewers of modern fantasy dramas or donghua. These look very similar to the talismans we see in the Modao Zushi donghua, don't they?

This is a really interesting little section describing levels of ascendance. It's a lot simpler than modern novels with their million stages of core formation, isn't it? (Though, to be fair, most novels I read are by authors who don't care to get into that level of detail and focus on characters and storytelling, thank goodness!) The 'tianxian' sound a bit like heavenly officials in more recent stories, don't they, whereas the dixian are regular immortal cultivators who still live on earth. The use of shijie (corpse simulacrums) meanwhile, seems to mainly be maintained as a means of faking one's death, not as a means of escaping the notice of the officials of the underworld!

The main paths of immortality outlined in Ge Hong's work are: internal cultivation, external cultivation (alchemy), the arts of the bedchamber, and diet. The first three are very familiar, but I've noticed that diet-based cultivation shows up much more rarely in modern stories. I can only immediately think of Ye Baiyi from Word of Honour, who begins to age again after descending from the mountains and imbibing mortal food once more.

One thing I found interesting is that most accounts of immortals flying either depict them doing so under their own power, or placing a talisman within a bamboo staff and flying on that (or sending some poor soul on a sudden trip across the country!). Flying swords seem to be a much more modern convention.

One thing that's really amusing to me is how much energy the author (Ge Hong, not the translator) dedicated to poking fun at Confucius and Confucianism. Even though the three major religions eventually became known as the Three Teachings and are in modern terms viewed as very harmonious and complementary, historically there was often a huge amount of religious tension. Confucians and Daoists bickered with each other a lot, and then Buddhists got into the fray as well as Buddhism became more and more popular in East Asia. While Buddhism was present in China in Ge Hong's time, it had yet to reach its later popularity; this is probably why Buddhism is barely mentioned in Ge Hong's writing. There are a few indirect references and borrowings from Buddhist tales, and Professor Campany posits that some were intentionally used in competition with Buddhism, while others may have been added by later compilers/transcribers of the text who were Buddhists themselves.

A lot of Cnovels depict this sort of religious tension (Thousand Autumns is a good example), and it's really interesting to see that in these translated historical texts. Even though there are plenty of texts I can't get access to and/or wouldn't be able to read in the original language, there is a huge amount of English-language and translated scholarship on Chinese history available. A lot of it is fascinating to read from a perspective of a fan of Chinese fantasy, since the genre draws so heavily on real history and folklore.

[fannish-karmiya]

Chapters: 4/? Fandom: 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī/Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn Characters: Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī, Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn, Lán Qǐrén, Lán Huàn | Lán Xīchén Additional Tags: Teenage Wangxian, historical sex work Summary:

While on a night hunt in Moling, a seventeen year old Lan Wangji meets a promising cultivator in a place he never could have expected. Wei Ying, for his part, only ever expected to have a pleasant few nights and pick up a few new talismans from this handsome young cultivator; but somehow, after a whirlwind affair, Lan Wangji proposes that he join his sect as an outer disciple and finally receive the formal training that was denied to him all his life. As foolish and reckless as it is, Wei Ying can't resist. The clouds hide many secrets, but how long can this secret be hidden?

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I haven’t been doing very well lately, but I remembered that updating fic is a thing I could be doing. Whoops.

[fannish-karmiya]

Hi!!!! Thank you for the lovely update today!!! While I'm on tenterhooks waiting to see if Lan Wangji can both hold onto his faith and find some proof (I'm not sure if that final scene will end up counting for or againat WWX >_<), can I request that the story with revived-with-his-own-face We Wuxian have an update sometime the next week or two as well? I normally would not ask, except that I think I remember you saying you've already writtena lot for most of these, and that you lose track of how long it's been since an update. I just really want to see more Wei Wuxian, Lan Sizhui, and Lan Wangji bonding hours where the world isn't (actively) out to get them! (Yet.)

But absolutely NO pressure with this request - if you *don't* already have an update for it, or you don't *want* to update it yet, please simply pretend only the first sentence and a half of this ask exists!!!

Thank you for everything you write and have written!!

Thank you for your message! I've been trying to update this one a bit more frequently at least until these early chapters are through, because I know they're really on tenterhooks for a while. I will say that Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian speak and Lan Wangji learns the truth next chapter!

No, it's no problem that you asked! I actually was going over the next chapter for Our Feelings Remain Unchanged and realised there was a scene I really had wanted to illustrate, so I'm currently working on that. It's in the pencil stages and I'm hoping to finish it and then post the chapter sometime this weekend! I'm really excited to post more of that fic for a bunch of reasons, including because it was so fun to write. It's not at all a canon rewrite; I basically pushed over one piece (Wei Wuxian coming back with his original face) and then tried to guess how everything else would fall apart as a result, and so a ton of things wind up happening differently over time. Just picture Nie Huaisang, constantly sweating bullets in the background because Wangxian are not behaving according to plan at all!

Thank you again for your message! I'm so happy that you're enjoying my writing <3 <3 <3

[fannish-karmiya]

Reblog from my art blog!

The video footage of my painting is now up! I usually record the process of painting my watercolour pieces; what I most want in art videos is to just sit back and watch how others work, so I try to do that with my own videos, too.

The full painting can be seen here on my art blog.

[fannish-karmiya]

Reblog from my art blog.

One of my newest paintings. The title is 'The Same Person', because, well, they are. Duan Hong (right) dies and returns as Dandan (left). The best fake name, obviously, no one could ever guess!

[fannish-karmiya]

Chapters: 3/? Fandom: 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī/Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn Characters: Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn, Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī, Wēn Qíng (Módào Zǔshī), Wēn Níng | Wēn Qiónglín, Lán Yuàn | Lán Sīzhuī, Lán Huàn | Lán Xīchén, Lán Qǐrén Series: Part 2 of Awaiting Your Return Summary:

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji are content with their life with the Wens in the Burial Mounds, but no matter how much they wish otherwise, the cultivation world is insistent on intruding.

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Capter 3, in which Lan Xichen is very confused.

[fannish-karmiya]

Chapters: 3/? Fandom: 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī/Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn, Jiāng Yànlí & Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn Characters: Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn, Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī, Jiāng Yànlí, Lán Qǐrén Additional Tags: Sect Leader Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī, domestic abuse Summary:

When his brother's sudden death in the waning hours of the Sunshot Campaign leaves Lan Wangji sect leader, he has to adapt rapidly to his new role. Getting through the war itself was the easy part, however; for Lan Wangji, navigating the world of politics is far harder. When, at the flower banquet, Wei Wuxian approaches him and offers advice, Lan Wangji sets aside their old argument over his cultivation, and the two of them are finally able to grow closer.

Lan Wangji starts to wonder if Wei Wuxian ever was in jest with his 'flirtations' as a boy, and hopes that he can now approach the man he loves more openly, since he is sect leader and no one can now gainsay his choice of cultivation partner. But the very thing which permits him to court Wei Wuxian also holds him back: after all, can even the seemingly irrepressible Wei Wuxian really refuse a sect leader?

Though he is determined to resist temptation and court Wei Wuxian slowly and subtly, Lan Wangji feels doubt as time goes on. Something is very wrong at Lotus Pier, and it isn't only Lan Wangji who begins to feel that perhaps the safest option is to tempt Wei Wuxian away from Yunmeng Jiang as quickly as possible.

[fannish-karmiya]

My newest painting. An immortal and his lover. Said lover (the young man on the right) didn't want to be his disciple: he said that being an immortal sounds nice enough, but doesn't pay the bills or taxes.