#RadiantEmperorWeek2024

[ash-and-starlight]

@radiantemperorweek day 7 // free space

i did these lil portraits as warmup during my swbts reread and i guess this is the perfect occasion to post them u.u motivational words from the blorbini

[spiderthread]

@radiantemperorweek | devotion

Why don't you ever need anything? I would give it to you.

[mispatchedgreens]

clothing, day 2 of @radiantemperorweek

he/she dyke fashions

[escyn]

Radiant Emperor Week Day 7: Like Knows Like | Two Unlike Things

Ft. Ouyang and Baoxiang actually going at it (wip-inspired by shelley’s official fanfic, the art that goes with it, and the sex tier-list; id in alt)

[radiantemperorweek]

PROMPTS ARE HERE

8/25, Day 1 - Mirror / Devotion

8/26, Day 2 - Haunted / Clothing

8/27, Day 3 - Reincarnation / Stabbing

8/28, Day 4 - Beach Episode / Brother

8/29, Day 5 - Sun and Moon / Minor Character Appreciation

8/30, Day 6 - Snow / Destiny

8/31, Day 7 - Like Knows Like / Two Unlike Things / Free Space

Happy creating!! Please use these prompts however they inspire you, whether it be literally, figuratively, in combination, etc. Late submissions will also be happily accepted :)

See our FAQ for more details or drop us an ask anytime!

[thestoriesthatweweave]

“Would you like to hold him?” the Empress asks. The words stretch between them. They make Baoxiang wonder if this meeting was as accidental as it initially looked like. They make him wonder if the Emperor knows, if this is a trap or a test. It doesn’t matter. Baoxiang has been dead for more than a year, and if wanting to hold the son he’s made is what kills him it will have been worth it. It might kill him regardless of what the Emperor does. “Please,” he says, and his voice sounds rough and strangled to his own ears. He sounds, he realizes with an edge of hysteria, like Ouyang had. Wanting and not wanting, tearing himself apart over it. The baby is heavier than he expected, surprisingly muscular, twisting and turning in his arms like a cat. It takes a moment for Baoxiang to see his scowling little face, and once he does his heart throbs. He’d been prepared to see himself, or to see the Empress, but the Imperial Prince Zhu Di, at six months old, soft and round-cheeked and scowling, looks like he could be the son Esen never had.

After a new dynasty is established, Wang Baoxiang learns how to live again.

My Day 1 fill for @radiantemperorweek! It's a post-canon, Baoxiang-focused fic set in the TRE Next Generation universe that @mispatchedgreens , @gatoraid and I came up with.

[erisenyo]

For @radiantemperorweek Day 4, Brothers

“You’re my brother,” Esen frowns, that rare, frustratingly stubborn furrow forming between his brows. “It’s as simple as that.”

Baoxiang sniffs, idly waving the idea away and pretending to admire Ouyang’s graceful, economical, barely-restrained motion past Esen’s shoulder. “So you insist.”

The furrow deepens. “We share a father.”

“Did we?” Baoxiang asks, sharper than he intended. Irritation twists in his chest at Esen’s bewildered look. “It takes more than blood.”

“We have more than that!”

“What,” Baoxiang challenges, wrinkling his nose in distaste as Ouyang wordlessly extends his arm, “our vast array of shared interests and experiences?”

Esen reaches back to accept the offered mug without looking. “You had the same lessons! The same—”

“Slightly different performances, though, one might say,” Baoxiang cuts in, making his tone sardonic and droll as he pulls the embroidered cuffs of his sleeves just so.

The furrow returns. “That doesn’t matter.”

“No?” Baoxiang lets his eyes slide back to Ouyang. He wonders sometimes if Esen actually believes it. “Chaghan begs to differ.”

Esen hesitates, shifting in his seat. “He just says things sometimes, you know that.”

Baoxiang cuts Esen a scathing look before he can catch himself. “And what, shall I just disregard those things because he’s still my father? Because he bothered to put it down on a few papers?”

“A few—yes!”

Baoxiang presses his lips together and stares at Ouyang’s tight, erect back another moment, his white-knuckled hands. Then he turns to Esen, eyes narrowed. “And that’s what it takes then, for brotherhood?” he asks silkily, something hot and jagged seething in his chest as Esen hesitates again, wary. “A shared childhood and a shared parental figure, no matter how actually parental he was?”

“I—” Esen’s mouth works a moment and Baoxiang settles into the flare of triumph at the frustration lashing over Esen’s face like it always does when Baoxiang decides to set more than a quarter of his mind to stymieing him. “Yes!” Esen finally rallies, straightening with fresh bravado just as Baoxiang knew he would. “Yes, because that’s—”

“—what brothers are?” Baoxiang finishes for him, voice blandly curious, softly venomous, and Baoxiang watches with a dark kind of satisfaction as Esen startles as Ouyang slams out of the room, the ‘yes’ clearly caught in his throat, clearly sticking alongside the ‘no.’

“As simple as that,” Baoxiang finally says softly, sweeping away from the table with a swirl of fine robes and derisive toss of his head, leaving Esen frozen in his decision, something familiar and bitter in the back of his own throat as he traces Ouyang’s path away.

[astrarche-x]

Ouyang + ethnicity 2: Mongol

second part of my compilation for @radiantemperorweek day 7: free space

So. Having spent most of his life immersed in Mongolian culture... against his will, how much did he actually absorb of it? Did he think himself more Mongol or more Nanren?

His conversations with general Zhang are a goldmine of this: they have so much in common, yet it's clear that Zhang perceives Ouyang as being more ''Mongol" than himself - even though Ouyang neither does confirm nor deny this. This is when his balancing on the fine line between belonging to one culture or the other shows the most, in my opinion.

The impression doesn't really change when Ouyang visits the Zhangs: worth noting that here, ''us/we'' pronouns refer to the Zhang family, not the Nanren.

The Mongolian customs Ouyang adopted (on his own volition or not) shaped his whole bearing, from his outfit/hairstyle to his mode of transport and what he ate.

Zhu's observations indicate how he was complying with the style:

...and Ouyang himself doesn't feel much of connection between himself and the ''filthy Nanren peasants'':

And then there's Ouyang's military career: having spent his life in the Yuan army and in the way that being in the army was his whole life, it's not surprising that this is where his allegiance - to the customs, but not the banners - shows the most. It's also pretty telling this is where his conviction about the superiority of Yuan army is the most visible: his remarks about the more modern/effective warfare methods, the speed with which the army travels, the archery skills the opening quote alludes to - all this highlights that for Ouyang, Mongolian army meant competence.

Zhu also sees this and uses it, of course:

And then there's the language. Even after Ouyang kills Esen, makes his speech to the soldiers in Han'er and thinks that he may never speak Mongolian again, he still curses in this language. And his accent still gives him away immediately.

It's interesting to me that at the point when Ouyang meets Baoxiang in Khanbaliq, his attitude towards Mongolian is much the same as his attitude towards Han'er at the end of SWBTS: both languages feel like something out of place, something belonging to the past long gone. Does it mean that he became more comfortable with the Nanren part of his identity? Or does it mean that he lost any sense of belonging? Or maybe it was just all the same because his personal identity, and especially him being an eunuch, was far more significant.

[annie-handholder]

Day 2: Haunted

[gatoraid]

For @radiantemperorweek day 2, haunted.

Featuring Esen's ghost, and Baoxiang and Ayushiridara escaping their fate together.

[nineveh-uk]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Radiant Emperor Series - Shelley Parker-Chan Rating: General Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: General Ouyang/Esen-Temur, Esen-Temur & Wang Baoxiang Characters: Wang Baoxiang, Esen-Temur, General Ouyang (The Radiant Emperor Series) Additional Tags: Fix-It, Brothers, Radiant Emperor Week 2024, The leopard doesn't make it tho Summary:

'Ouyang's a general,' said Esen defensively. 'Of course he values skill in a warrior.' 'Tell yourself that. But when was the last time Ouyang introduced you to a friend?'

When the Spring Hunt is rained off, Baoxiang is forced into a change of tactics.

[spiderthread]

@radiantemperorweek | ✨ beach episode ✨

[mispatchedgreens]

beach episode, day 4 of @radiantemperorweek

pov you want to stab him and yourself, you want to be that clothes' tag peeking out, you don't want to go camping at lake khar and you want it more than anything. and mongolia is the second largest landlocked country in the world.

[escyn]

Radiant Emperor Week day 1: Mirror (Ma & Esen)

(sketch for a painting that may or may not ever get finished) id in alt

[radiantemperorweek]

And so it begins!

We are soo happy to announce the start of the first edition of Radiant Emperor week! Before we begin, a quick recap: - Here are the week's prompts - Here are the guidelines - Tag us in your post and/or use the tag RadiantEmperorWeek2024 or REW2024 so we can find it and reblog it more easily - Dont worry if you couldnt make it in time, late submissions are all loved and encouraged

and most importantly have fun! we are so excited to se what everyone came up with and hope you all are just as hyped <3

[thestoriesthatweweave]

My fill for Day 2 of @radiantemperorweek for the prompt Haunted, in which a broke, freshly divorced Esen rents a haunted apartment because it's cheap and he can just ignore the faceless Ming dynasty ghost in the living room, right? Right.