#Lotus Mastering

[endless-nightshift]

There's something so sad to me about the fact Lan Xichen goes from happily encouraging Lan Wangji to befriend Wei Wuxian to Considering Wei Wuxian to be Lan Wangjis 'only mistake'

Like... Imaging getting a miracle second chance not only at life but to have be loved by the man you've always admired only to find out that his family detests you because during the worst time in your life, physically and mentally you didn't take into account the idea that a man who'd always treated with cool acquaintance at best, active distaste at worst actually cared about you and that his constant reproach and effort get you do give up the one method you have to protect yourself while everyone was literally actually out for your head was honestly because he was badly wording his concern and not because he hated you and the methods you used to survive.

[levemetal]

Ye old Shen twins au where they both become peak lords EXCEPT. Instead of making them twin peak lords or something, we pretend the evidence that the beast peak does likely not exist is lies, and Shen Yuan gets to become peak lord of the beast peak. Why? Because he would LOVE IT there. It's his territory. He gets to be unapologetically nerdy about beasts 24/7 and make it everyone's problem.

As he should.

And bonus! He can snatch LBH at the disciple hole digging. Plot solved! (Assuming the system wouldn't you know. Pull system stuff and force LBH to end up on Qing Jing or some shit.)

And everyone lived happily ever after or some bullshit idk. I reread the 79 extras as well as the TLJ & ZZL ones let me have fluffy AU thoughts goddamnit, my heart has been irreparably damaged-

[tiny-breadcrumbs]

Some screencap study this year, with pencil on paper

[wilcze-kudly]

Hey chat is this anything

[lotus-pear]

I JUST LOVE LOVE LOOOOVEEEE THE WAY YOU DRAW DAZAIS HAIR!!! 🙏🙏 ,,,so ,,,,fluffy ,,, can u pls tell how u do it 🥹🥹🫶🫶

WAAAH TY I LOVE DRAWING HIS HAIR SM ITS SOOOO FLUFFY DEARVGOD ahem anyway you never heard that from me ok?? anyway as for how i go about doing it...........big huge gigantic disclaimer, i don't think ive ever used an official reference when drawing him so like the way i drew his hair is completely unique to my style and not a good reflection of how it looks in the show/manga. THAT BEING SAID i will offer a few pointers that i have picked up

ok so here's a drawing i did like. uh. Sometime This Week (sorry i gatekeep art from u guys </3)

ok so one thing to note abt dazais hair is that it's rly fluffy and wavy so don't be drawing his hair like he flat ironed it😐 uhm also make sure the part line is in the middle before you start streaking off. OH ALSO DRAW HAIR IN CHUNKS. this is a lot more characteristic of curly/wavy hair where instead of strands you have to try to think of larger sections of hair clumping together. uhm yea that's pretty much it

[kazytka]

memories...

[sombredancer]

Asian dramas and relationship dynamics

There are my favorite relationship dynamics as a list. Opposites attract + power couple

Drama: I Am Nobody /  异人之下 Characters: Zhuge Qing & Wang Ye Screentime: Minor I like it when characters are different in a way they could complement one another, but at the same time they are similar in terms of what is important for people to stay stuck together. Zhuge Qing is public, easy-going and wants to be friends with Wang Ye. Wang Ye is mysterious, reflexive and doesn't want to be bothered by other people. But no one can beat extrovert if he decided to be friends with you =) Plus, they are united by their superpowers: they are both powerful sorcerers and their sorcery is very similar in its nature. So they can compete and learn from each other and, if necessary, kick enemy's ass together. ̶A̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶i̶r̶ ̶d̶y̶n̶a̶m̶i̶c̶s̶ ̶h̶a̶s̶ ̶g̶o̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶c̶k̶ ̶B̶L̶ ̶v̶i̶b̶e̶s.̶ By the end of season 1 they are OK and together.

Drama: Mysterious Lotus Casebook / 莲花楼 Characters: Di Feisheng & Li Lianhua Screentime: Secondary Di Feisheng is a leader of a demonic sect, a former slave and a very straightforward man. Li Lianhua is a former leader of a righteous sect and an extremely sly man with not-so-bad background. But both of them are the best martial artists in Jianghu and went through a lot together. One wants everyone to leave him alone, another wants to be with him together forever. Both of them don't give a damn about everything that happens in the world but they care for each other. B̶L̶-̶v̶i̶b̶e̶s̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶a̶t̶t̶a̶c̶h̶e̶d̶.̶ The ending of the drama is obscure but I'd like to think they both are alive and happy together.

Drama: The Blood of Youth / 少年歌行 Characters: Xiao Se & Ye Anshi Screentime: Secondary A leader of a demonic sect who has an ultimate martial knowledge and a former best righteous martial artist, who is suffering from decease and can't fight anymore. What can unite them? The answer is: the similar mindset. They both had a great power and lost it, they both are shouldering great responsibilities which don't make them happy. Despite the fact that they should be on the opposite sides in Jianghu world, they are still good friends. M̶a̶y̶b̶e̶ ̶B̶L̶-̶f̶r̶i̶e̶n̶d̶s̶,̶ ̶a̶l̶t̶h̶o̶u̶g̶h̶ ̶X̶i̶a̶o̶ ̶S̶e̶ ̶h̶a̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶g̶i̶r̶l̶f̶r̶i̶e̶n̶d̶.̶ There is a small extra ep at the end of drama, when they meet each other again in a very romantic way. Just search for it.

Drama: The Legends / 招摇 Characters: Lu Shiqi & Qin Qianxian Screentime: Minor She is from a demonic sect. He is from a righteous one. She is immune to the impact of spiritual power. He is the one of the most powerful people in terms of spiritual power. She is dumb, straightforward and pure-hearted. He is blissed yet sensible and burdened with difficult moral choices. They could be an ideal Yin-Yang couple. But they have BE, because it's "The Legends", everyone should die in here Т_Т.

Pride and Prejudice + power couple

Drama: The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity / 晴雅集 Characters: Bo Ya & Qing Ming Screentime: Main This dynanics is similar with the previous one, but here we are focused on how they ended up together. Bo Ya has prejudice against demons-yao and believes all of them should be executed. He meets half-demon-sorcerer Qing Ming who helps him to overcome his prejudice. Finally, they become friends (or̶ ̶m̶a̶y̶b̶e̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶o̶n̶l̶y̶ ̶f̶r̶i̶e̶n̶d̶s̶) and together they win over the evil forces. At the end they are separated but there is a hope they meet again.

Drama: Wuliang / 无量 Characters: Po Xiao & Feng Ren Screentime: Main People of different social status both seek to get a magical sutra. During a road trip they exchange opinions on the sutra and how to use it and change each other's mind. In the end it turns out that they together saved the world and can be finally together. As friends, of course.

Drama: Oh No! Here Comes Trouble / 不良執念清除師 Characters: Pu Yiyong & Cao Guangyan Screentime: Main Pu Yiyong looks like lowlife, studies very bad and hates Cao Guangyan, who is self-confident, smart and thinks low of Pu Yiyong. But a mysterious case with ghosts forces them to interact and they find out, that together they are a perfect team. Honestly speaking, this little series couldn't develop this topic as good as I hoped, but it's a really interesting story, so you can watch it for the ghost detective plot and get this type of relationship in addition. It's a Taiwanese drama, so BL-jokes and dalliance with a viewer were huge, but it didn`t help much. Still a nice dynamics and a good drama. Us vs the World

Drama: The Untamed / 陈情令 Characters: Wei Wuxian & Lan Wangji Screentime: Main I don`t like the novel, but I like drama exactly because here I can see this dynamics. In the past life of Wei Wuxiang Lan Wangji was not strong enough to go against the whole world to protect his friend (well, in the novel they are lovers, but it kills the main idea of this dynamics by turning it into "I do it all just to get into your bed", which is meh), and his friend died. Suddenly, 16 years later, he gets a chance to choose once more: to be a part of society and watch once more his friend dying or to be with him against everyone this time. The moment he chooses to be with Wei Wuxian against the whole world I felt cathartic pleasure. The drama ends up on a little bit obscure but positive note.

Drama: Word of Honor / 山河令 Characters: Zhou Zishu & Wen Kexing Screentime: Main A former king's assassin who is at the brink of death and just wants to live the time left in silence and a birdy master of the most skillful criminals find each other, find out that they are brothers-in-teachings and decide to fight against the world together just to live in silence and enjoy each other's company. When one thinks it's his last second of life, the other comes to help him even if they both can't beat the greater number of enemies and will die for sure. Catharsis! The drama has a small extra ep where they are together and all right.

Drama: The Legends / 招摇 Characters: Li Chenlan & Lu Zhaoyao Screentime: Main Them, again! The first half of the drama they have enemies-to-lovers dynamics, but then, when they find out the truth about Zhao Yao's death and about feelings for each other, they turn into Bonny and Clyde and go annihilate the righteous guys who are in fact not-so-righteous. And it makes me feel cathartic, too. A very catharsis-causing dynamics, indeed! It's little obscure, but they will be fine at the end of the drama.

Drama: Dong Lan Xue / 东栏雪 Characters: Shen Yan & Chu Ningyuan Screentime: Main Two bad guys work together to get power in the palace. And get involved in romantic relationship during their power gaining. Nice story with an open ending.

Drama: Derailment /脱轨 Characters: Qi Lian & Jiang Xiaoyuan Screentime: Main It's a little story inside a big one about transmigrators that you can read in another of my posts. It lasts something like 1,5 eps of the drama but is a nice story itself. A lonely bellicose boy from a rich family runs away from home where no one cares for him and lives on the street. A lonely girl from an extremely poor family and being bullied by classmates tries to survive in this world. They meet each other and understand that it's easier to fight their fate together. Nice story, it's a pity that this one is too short and not a main plot of the drama.

The next post will be about Asian dramas and familial dynamics.

[xinyuehui]

Savage

Love Game in Eastern Fantasy · 2024

[ao3-anonymous]

Fastest Growing Fandoms on AO3 This Week (03/18/2024)

Every week I pull data on how many fics are in each fandom and compare to the previous week, then calculate the percentage increase to determine fastest growing fandoms.  Since this naturally skews towards smaller fandoms, I have included the same data filtered to Over 1k, 5k, & 10k fics.

Overall:

Over 1,000 Fics:

Over 5,000 Fics:

Over 10,000 Fics:

Source: AO3 Fandom Dashboard

[incorrect-tmnt1987-quotes]

Splinter, entering: Hello, Shredder. Shredder: Okay, Splinter, I’m not scared of you. The Turtles, entering: What’s up, Shredder. Shredder: I’m not scared of you either. Lotus Blossom, entering: Hey, Shredder. Shredder: Okay, YOU I’m scared of!

[randomfanficwritersworld]

Who is your favorite white lotus member?

[bl-bracket]

Poorest Little Meow Meow NOT from a BL: Bonus Round

[Submitted Reasons Under Cut]

Han Juwon: He is a typical kdrama lead in theory, his mom has been taken from him at a young age, his dad sent him far away to private schools and is using him in his political schemes. Han Juwon has mysophobia, not a social bone in his body and a RBF that do not endear him to people at all. He's not above using people and a little tweaking of the law to reach his goals.

Wave:

Ryu Sooyel: look how soppy wet he is. no one respects him. not even himself

Vier:

Kishimoto Ruka:

Katha: Khatha is such a poor little meow meow that he should be allowed to participate.

Lee Dongsik: He has been wrongly accused of killing his twin sister 20 years ago but never really cleared his name (no body, no crime, no convicted murderer) and is still searching for her. People still think he did it and are not afraid to treat him like shit. He's heavily traumatized. And let's say he's not above a little manipulation and crime to find his sister and her murderer

Jiang Zisuan: he spent like half of his life trying to avenge the death of his older sister and then for some reason just cant seem to actually do that before (SPOILER) dying in a random woman‘s arms who he employed because she looks like his sister and imagining that its actually her. she also was kind of in love with him which made this whole situation worse. and he killed so many people on the way except the guy he actually wanted to

Yun Biqui: SPOILER WARNING FOR SERIES: Ten years ago, Yun Biqiu was tricked into betraying the sect leader he idolized, Li Xiangyi. At the behest of a beautiful woman, he poisoned LXY; he only intended to temporarily incapacitate LXY, but the antidote he was promised turned out to be fake. LXY disappeared and was presumed dead, and Biqiu never stopped blaming himself and hoping that LXY would return. EXTREME SPOILER WARNING FOR END OF SERIES: When LXY eventually did return ten years later, Biqiu pretended to be re-beguiled by the beautiful woman in order to sabotage her evil schemes; to convince her of his loyalty, he also pretended to betray LXY again, stabbing him non-fatally and bringing him to her. His sabotaging allowed LXY to escape, though, and helped contribute to the defeat of all the baddies. Despite this, he still believed that he deserved to die for everything he'd done previously; when confronted with his past treachery and presumed current treachery, he did not defend himself, and would have willingly submitted to his own execution. Luckily, LXY arrived in time to reveal the truth of Biqiu's regret and loyalty, and also finally gave Biqiu peace by forgiving him for what he'd done ten years ago. And Biqiu cried 🥺

Master Amin: girlbossed to close to the sun

Shiro: Sleeping with a sleazy, much older politician in order to get information about his missing sister, who isn’t even his sister by blood. Openly gay yakuza and ready to fight about that. Cohabitating with a painfully strait laced and uptight virgin penguin. (A cop. Not a literal penguin.)

[qpjianghu]

The women in Mysterious Lotus Casebook

Normally I feel like I have to turn off my feminism brain for some of these shows, but I was beyond pleasantly surprised at how deftly the main female characters in MLC were handled...

Qiao Wanmian: The perfect set-up for a female character only brought in to serve the main male character's emotional arc (usually by getting fridged), but she... gets her shit together, takes over the sect, and becomes a boss ass bitch?? SLAY. She respects both Li Lianhua and herself enough to recognize it's never going to happen between them and she needs to live her life on her terms. She also realizes Ye Baiyi Xiao Zijin is a piece of trash and she deserves better. -1 for excessive teary pining for Li Xiangyi, though tbh I can relate, because I too will be obsessively and excessively crying over Li Lianhua for 10+ years. Embarassing for both of us. Still, 14/10 for a self-respecting lady

Master He: THE mom of all time. Teases Fang Duobing for his obessesion with his boyfriend Li Lianhua. Pulls the "I'm not your biological mom but I raised you, bitch" shit and it works. Steps in, fists raised, whenever her son needs help in a fight. Loves torture devices. Meanwhile, you keep forgetting if Fang Duobing's dad is dead or if he's just on the couch playing duolingo like the dad in Barbie. But it's fine because mom carries the whole fam + family business anyway. 16/10 milf

The princess: Seemed more pissed than heartbroken that Fang Duobing ran away from their marriage, which neatly avoids the "spurned woman" trope. Is so freaking cute I wanna squish her cheeks. Acts like a realistic pouty teen but also wields her princess power like it's nobody's business. Understands Fang Duobing's desires at the end and respects them both enough to let him follow his heart. 15/10 would adopt

Jiao Liqiao: Batshit psycho. I love her. Unhinged and horny on main. Infinity/10

[where-the-water-flows]

like on the one hand, obviously di feisheng wouldn't have been at all surprised when the first (second third however many were sent after him to their deaths) di assassin came for him, because he's im/ex-plicitly doing what he's doing (best at sword/founding the alliance etc) to keep himself safe from di fortress, and you don't do that unless there's, y'know, something to keep yourself safe from.

on the other hand. killing other di fortress kids clearly fucked him up! it was not something he wanted to do or enjoyed doing, it was something he was grimly doing because it was that or die, and also under threat of the mind control bug/ringing bell torture. even when he has amnesia, his nightmares feature him begging to know why they have to kill each other.

literally as soon as he physically can, he goes back to di fortress to free the other orphans, and when he's storming the gates, he very clearly uses nonlethal tactics on everyone between him and master Di. He bowls those kids standing guard over, but they show up at the end at the back of the crowd getting freed like everyone else, not really looking that worse for wear considering the second most powerful man in the jianghu just rolled through them.

so. how fucked up you think he was when he had to fight - and presumably kill - another di fortress orphan, after he'd escaped. after he thought he was free of it, after he thought that he was out?

the later ones, sure, it's awful but at that point it's sort of a numb horror of 'never quite free'; the first one, though, after however long of not having to do that, after maybe even convincing himself that he can just bide his time and get strong enough and no one will ever make him do that again, that between his skill and his (in)famous identity and maybe even the fucking alliance he's formed he's almost safe, that he's as free from the fortress as he can possibly be with the bug still in him....

and then he finds himself locked in combat, again, with another kid who knows the feeling of ringing in his bones and who knows that the only way this fight ends is with one of them dead at master Di's command.

(bonus round: how grimly grateful was he to be able to free the ones sent after him, even if it was through death - he at least could make it fast, make it...clean, ish, for a death in combat.

make it almost kind.

how long has he spent his life with that as the shitty back up/consolation plan - if he can't find a way to deal with the bug in him somehow, the knowledge that at least maybe he can get a few of them out from under the control of the fortress, even if it's just via the edge of his dao)

[zishuge]

Mysterious Lotus Casebook (2023)

[queen-of-paradise]

the way i fucking SCREAMED when the swords master gave sokka the white lotus tile because as soon as I saw him i FUCKING KNEW we would meet him again as part of the Badass Old Guys United Club and i fucking KNEW. iconic ass bitches if i were in that world i would SO JOIN their gang.