#and i say this was fast

[highlynerdy]

"Wen Xiao had supplied a surprising range of documentation. Some of it was rather florid poetry with a lot of barely comprehensible metaphors. Some of it was anatomical illustrations. Some manuscripts purported to be accurate historical accounts, and several were straight-up pornography with no pretence to literary style."

a fanARTifact book based on this brilliant fic by @achray1

My first fanARTifact in a cdrama fandom and I'm in love with it. It came together far easier than most of my projects do. As always, see pics and read more below.

So, I have always seen these accordion style books in cdramas, usually covered in book cloth and often given to the Emperor, but it wasn't until I watching Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty, that I saw these gorgeous wooden ones and lost my actual mind. I swooned and immediately saved them in my For Future Reference Folder of Doom.

It's not a surprise that I have been absolutely OBSESSED with Fangs of Fortune for the last few weeks (sorry non cdrama friends) and reading achray's amazing story fueled me to finally give this a try. It wasn't until I was writing this post and re-reading the fic that I realized she said scrolls and I should have tried making a scrolllllllll, aiya. There's always next time.

My wonderful husband - always one to encourage my fannish behavior - kindly took time out of his day yesterday to cut, plane, sand, and round these covers out of a piece of walnut he had lying around. He made them bigger originally and I thought they should be trimmed down a bit. I admit he was right and I should have left them larger. Ah well, next time. As per usual with these projects, I did do the research to check if walnut trees are native, or at least grow in China, and thankfully they do so moving right along.

The ones in the picture above were clearly stained and likely shellac-ed, but I only oiled mine (again with walnut oil), and pressed them over night to soak up any extra. Just look at the difference after they'd been oiled holy hell!

I experimented with quite a few ideas for attaching the text: vinyl, carving it out (no. omg. no. Carving walnut is a nightmare. I know that now), gold foiling. But I finally landed on calligraphy on paper and then adhering it on the cover like the reference image.

I went back and forth and round and round trying to decide what the cover should say. My initial thought was to translate Achray's entire fic title but that ended up being way, way too much text. So after talking with a discord friend and a lot of thought, we landed on "妖性爱习俗", which *should* translate to "Demon Sex Practices/Customs" or "The Practice of Demonic Sex" which comes from this excerpt in the fic:

"She shook herself, and stood up, mentally running through a list of all the texts— literary, historical, and medical— that she thought might or did describe demon sexual practices."

To do the text, I input the characters into a Chinese Calligraphy generator to use as reference. I don't own a brush capable of those gorgeous points, so I drew out the shapes and the followed the reference to fill them in. I did this a few times because I first made it way, waaaaay too big for the cover. I unfortunately decide to use a water based ink which, spoiler alert, will come back to bite me in the ass later.

See that bleeding. Yeah. That's my poor choice of a non waterproof ink, very thin calligraphy paper, and wheat paste asthe glue. Which I somehow didn't notice when I was doing the test on my extra board.

I decided to try out making wheat paste for the first time with this project and while I really did love the ability to remove and move around the piece you're gluing, it did not like to be stuck to the lightly oiled piece of wood so I decided after I redid the calligraphy on slightly thicker watercolor paper WITH waterproof ink, I would just stick with the tried and true PVA glue.

Lovely folks helped me decide between upper right hand corner or center placement and I'm really happy with the decision.

The inside is a torn down to size piece of an 22 x 30 Arches cold press 90lb watercolor paper, because with all my fanARTifact projects, especially the books, I like them to be usable objects in the end. I was SO fucking careful with my measuring and scoring and folding with this project y'all and I think I deserve a cookie.

I only used one piece folded up because I wanted the book to be able to remain flat/closed when it's not being used, but I think when I try this again, I will maybe try two pieces? Who knows. Certainly not me.

After all the stress of the calligraphy and the glue experiments gone wrong, it was finally assembled and put in my press with copious amounts of wax paper to protect everything.

In conclusion, this was a hell of a fun project and maybe the fastest I've ever seen a fanARTifact come together from start to finish. But I suppose one of the good things about learning all these new skills from each one of these projects will just make them come together easier (???) each time. I would love to get a nice calligraphy brush, some Xuan paper, and some ink and an inkstone to try a project like this again in the future.

I also want to try a scroll (which this should have been), stab binding, AND dragon scale binding. But, ya know, one step at a time yadda yadda.

Thank you, @achray1 for writing such wonderful, inspiring fics. And as always, if you made it to the end of my long ass posts, you deserve a cookie. 💛

[official-lucifers-child]

still thinking about the brainrot that fast fashion has caused in people, like i made this pair of pants that are black and white with a cool flowery design, and an acquaintance saw them and said "wow i'd pay like 20 dollars for you to make me a pair" and i could barely think with how utterly horrified i was at that; i told them that 20 dollars wouldn't even cover the materials, let alone the hours of work that went into cutting, sewing, ironing, hemming, altering, etc. they just had this look on their face when i told them that, when i said i wouldn't make them a pair for even 100 dollars because that was still way too low of an amount, a look that said "you're crazy for thinking that those cost 100 dollars" and maybe i am crazy but holy shit, 20 dollars for a pair of handmade, durable, lined pants fitted specifically to your measurements? 20 dollars for upwards of 60 hours of work? 20 dollars for several yards of high-quality fabric, thread, and buttons? 20 dollars???

[hinamie]

trick or treat!

[lilislegacy]

imagine being someone at new rome university and not knowing percy is the same guy as “percy jackson, son of poseidon, two-time hero of olympus, former praetor” because the thought doesn’t even cross your mind. like… he’s percy. he’s a total frat boy. on a normal night, he walks into a party, refers to everyone as bro or dude, socializes with every living (and not-living) person in the room, makes at least 50 sarcastic comments, plays 12 rounds of beer pong, drinks way too much, and then skates around campus on his skateboard yelling “I LOVE NEW YORK” (which makes no sense, because they’re in california) until someone calls his girlfriend to come get him.

and then one day there’s an attack, and frat boy percy is all of a sudden a fighting machine. he’s yelling battle cries alongside the praetors frank zhang and hazel levesque as they lead everyone into battle. (why is he with the praetors? and why…. why in the world do the praetors seem to be following his lead?) his sword slashes through armies of monsters faster than you’ve ever seen. he’s controlling the entire river surrounding the camp, creating huge waves as tall as skyscrapers that crash down all around him, wiping out monsters and causing mass destruction to his enemies’ ranks. the sky is suddenly dark above you, ice-cold water droplets are slashing through the air, and the wind is blowing so aggressively that it’s making it hard to stand up steadily. because he’s somehow created a hurricane.

and he looks terrifying. you can feel the power radiating off of him. he’s like a god. or maybe a monster. it’s hard to tell. you’re a little scared of him, to be honest. but also in total awe, because it’s extraordinary. he’s extraordinary.

frat boy percy is not who you thought he was.

[bamsara]

I think that one thing people fail to understand is that unsolicited literary criticism coming from an online stranger who is reading with no knowledge of what the authors intended goal is, is not going to be received the same as say: the authors beta reader or friends who know what the authors intended goal and has the sufficient knowledge and input to help the author reach that desired outcome.

"But I'm only trying to be helpful" How do I know you have the knowledge and literary skill for you to be able to actaully do that when we don't know each other and you are essentially a stranger to me? Are you applying this criticism based out of personal biased experience and desire to see the story or characterization be driven in another direction or tweaked, or do you know the author's intentions for the character? If the story is incomplete, are you basing your criticism of a character on the incomplete narration with only partial information available of them or are you building up a report until the story's completion? Did the author provide you with the information needed to make a fully informed criticism?

Have you discussed with the author what their plans are or are you assuming them based off the narration, especially if the narration is proven or implied to be unreliable or missing key points of the plot? Are you unbiased enough to help them reach their desired outcome for the characters and story regardless of your personal feelings towards the characters/antagonists and setting? Can you handle being told your specific input isn't wanted because you're a reader and/or have no written anything relating to their genre or topic? Do you understand and respect that the author's personal experiences might influence their writing and make it different than how you would have done it personally? Do you understand if an author only wants input from a specific demographic relating to their story?

If it's for fanfiction or other hobby media, are you holding a free hobby to a professional standard? Are you trying to give criticism because you feel like the author has produced 'subpar job performance' of their fic? Are you viewing their work as a personal intimate outlet or something that must conform with mass media? Are you applying rules and guidelines when the fic is shared for simple sharing sake? Is your criticism worded appropriately and focused on the parts where the author has requested input on rather than a general dismissal and or disapproval?

Have you put yourself in a place where you assumed you have the input needed for the story to evolve better, or have you asked what the author needs and what they're having trouble with? Can you handle having your criticism rejected if the author decides their story doesn't need the change and not take it as a personal offense against your character? Are you crossing that boundary because you think you are doing the author a favor? Are you trying to be helpful, or do you just want to be?

I think sometimes when people hear authors go 'please don't give me unsolicited writing advice or criticism' they automatically chalk it up to 'this author doesn't want ANY constructive feedback on their stuff at all' and not "i already have trusted individuals who will help me with my writing goals and- hey i don't know you like that, please stop acting so overly familiar with me'

[stuckinapril]

noticed a dip in posts about palestine on my dash, so i think it deserves to be said again: palestine is not a trend. caring about genocide is not a trend. there are still reports about humanitarian aid trucks intentionally blocked off from gaza, meaning so many fucking gazans, a big portion of them children, are just bleeding out with no help. it just came out recently that israelis disguised as women and medics infiltrated a west bank hospital, at which point they killed 3 palestinians (whom they claim were militants. right). these people are living day to day without even the most basic utilities. anyone who claims to have “activism fatigue” needs to question why they’re so severely lacking in the most basic forms of compassion. you don’t get to just grow bored of talking about palestine. please never stop calling attention to the genocide happening full force in front of us.

[wheatormeat]

Ms. Mia Fey

[beif0ngs]

everyone on tumblr @Buggy the 🤡 right now 

[xinyuehui]

ᓚᘏᗢ Yes, Cat Caretaker ♡

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

I'm not going back to Gusu with you.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[inkskinned]

the thing is there's like, a point of oversaturation for everything, and it's why so many things get dropped after a few minutes. and we act like millennials or gen z kids "have short attention spans" but... that's not quite it. it's more like - we did like it. you just ruined it.

capitalism sees product A having moderate success, and then everything has to come out with their "own version" of product A (which is often exactly the same). and they dump extreme amounts of money and environmental waste into each horrible simulacrum they trot out each season.

now it's not just tiktokkers making videos; it's that instagram and even fucking tumblr both think you want live feeds and video-first programming. and it helps them, because videos are easier to sneak native ads into. the books coming out all have to have 78 buzzwords in them for SEO, or otherwise they don't get published. they are making a live-action remake of moana. i haven't googled it, but there's probably another marvel or starwars something coming out, no matter when you're reading this post.

and we are like "hi, this clone of project A completely misses the point of the original. it is soulless and colorless and miserable." and the company nods and says "yes totally. here is a different clone, but special." and we look at clone 2 and we say "nope, this one is still flat and bad, y'all" and they're like "no, totally, we hear you," and then they make another clone but this time it's, like, a joyless prequel. and by the time they've successfully rolled out "clone 89", the market is incredibly oversaturated, and the consumer is blamed because the company isn't turning a profit.

and like - take even something digital like the tumblr "live streaming" function i just mentioned. that has to take up server space and some amount of carbon footprint; just so this brokenass blue hellsite can roll out a feature that literally none of its userbase actually wants. the thing that's the kicker here: even something that doesn't have a physical production plant still impacts the environment.

and it all just feels like it's rolling out of control because like, you watch companies pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into a remake of a remake of something nobody wants anymore and you're like, not able to afford eggs anymore. and you tell the company that really what you want is a good story about survival and they say "okay so you mean a YA white protagonist has some kind of 'spicy' love triangle" and you're like - hey man i think you're misunderstanding the point of storytelling but they've already printed 76 versions of "city of blood and magic" and "queen of diamond rule" and spent literally millions of dollars on the movie "Candy Crush Killer: Coming to Eat You".

it's like being stuck in a room with a clown that keeps telling the same joke over and over but it's worse every time. and that would be fine but he keeps fucking charging you 6.99. and you keep being like "no, i know it made me laugh the first time, but that's because it was different and new" and the clown is just aggressively sitting there saying "well! plenty of people like my jokes! the reason you're bored of this is because maybe there's something wrong with you!"

[mydairpercabeth]

does it ever drive you crazy

just how fast the night changes

[hinamie]

post-graduation trip airport looks

[determinate-negation]

in the content of their propaganda/material, insipid reactionaries of the 1920s longed for a mythologized version of feudal society. insipid reactionaries of the 2020s long for… personal pan pizza?

[egophiliac]

I DID IT I GOT MY PINK HAYATE now I am never doing that again!

(at least until they give me, like, a frilly unicorn Kamui or something)

[purrvaire]

they're so in love im gonna throw up real quick