#emperor ma

[spiderthread]

I needed to practice hands, so I did gay fanart about it

[andhumanslovedstories]

AO3 is SILENCING me. Anyway I wrote She Who Became the Sun/He Who Drowned the World fic.

[tumblerislovetumblerislife]

she who became the sun

including but not limited to:

1) monk zhu who is DEFINITELY above worldly desires 2) there are many benefits to having a hand made of light (gee i sure wonder who's holding the knife?) 3) guys i think they used ye olde photoshop on zhu's emperor portrait

zhu kicking their feet & giggling @ ma (unfortunately no hair to twirl)

some modern zhus!

(image description below the cut because it got super long!)

[ID: digital art of the character zhu chongba/yuanzhang in the radiant emperor series in the first image, and then nine close-ups. the background is yellow and imitates rays of sun, dividing the image into sections, from the center of the sun, counter-clockwise.

section 1: zhu's head and neck. she is a chinese person with dark-brown eyes, shaved hair, and moles on her face and neck, looking down and smiling slightly. there are two slits in their eyebrows, and they are wearing a gold nose ring and various black and gold studs and rings in their ears.

section 2: two simple drawings, an arrow between them, labelled above with *OUYANG POV*. the first is zhu's face, drawn cartoonishly so that the cheekbones are very wide and the chin is very narrow, creating a triangle. the second is a cicada's face that looks very similar to the cartoonish zhu (the eyes replace zhu's ears and its mandibles replace zhu's chin).

section 3: three drawings of zhu, inspired by canon. the first is zhu as a monk, wearing orange robes and with ordination scars on her scalp. her head is angled down, but her eyes are raised. the second is zhu in he who drowned the world, her hair slightly grown out with a gold hairpin and wearing golden robes. someone is pointing a knife at her and she is smirking like the cat meme, her mandate of heaven illuminating her missing hand, which is showing the middle finger. the third is zhu as emperor, looking more masculine and attractive than the other images. she is wearing blue and gold robes with a dragon embroidered on them and a gold hair crown and pin.

section 4: zhu's profile, smiling after a flash of brown hair. they look modern, wearing a light-blue sleeveless turtleneck with an ace flag and she/they pin as well as a gold nose ring and multicoloured jewellery in their ears. her hair is shaved, but growing out slightly and there are two slits in her eyebrows, and two lipstick kisses on her cheek and corner of her mouth. they are surrounded by pink light, hearts and sparkles, and there is a heart reflection in their eye.

section 5: five drawings of modern zhu. the first is her eyes and thick eyebrows in greyscale, wearing yellow eyeliner that imitates the sun. the second is from the waist up, zhu smiling with their eyes closed, wearing a patterned white and green button-up and leather belt, along with multicoloured pieces of jewellery. the third is zhu's whole body, folded up in a seated position. she's wearing a yellow shirt with white flowers on, grey and brown checkered pants with a green belt, black and gold socks, and purple sneakers, along with jewellery and a gold choker. the fourth is zhu's nose and mouth, showing their nose ring and smile. the fifth is zhu from the knees up. she's looking sideways, right arm held to her head and wearing a bright multicoloured shirt and clashing striped pants over a black crop top, along with a nose ring and sun earrings. /end ID]

[mispatchedgreens]

welcome to another installment of 'what if the radiant emperor was a whole nother thing', vol. shounen manga

this was fueled by a completely normal post wondering abt ouyang's blade, and then me trying to figure out a universe where he'd wield the zhanmadao

[captainamsel]

Ma Xiuying from the Radiant Emperor duology!

Design/research notes under the cut

The characters read 馬秀英 (Pinyin: mǎ xiù yīng), her personal name, and 孝慈高皇后 (xiào cí gāo huáng hòu), her name as Empress.

There's certainly no dearth of material on Chinese clothing history out there. That is, if you can read Chinese, which I can't, so everything I have is from secondary and tertiary sources and/or relies on translation software. Fortunately, we're dealing with historical fantasy here, so some anachronisms are not only allowed but encouraged.

While Shelley Parker-Chan takes many liberties, the books are still set in a very specific time period, which is both a blessing and a curse. Most readily accessible resources will tell you about dynasties, which can span hundreds of years, and the duology takes place in a transitional period. So how to dress a Semu girl from the Yuan dynasty who lives with Nanren rebels wanting to revive the Song dynasty and who later becomes the first Ming empress?

Let's go through them one by one. The best resource was this book which is on the Internet Archive. I disregarded Mongol and Semu influences for the design since clothing is very much political and a way to either stand out or fit in with the surrounding society, see for example Wang Baoxiang wearing a topknot in Khanbaliq. Ma, I imagine, would want to fit in with the Nanren around her, so she's pretty much wearing the attire of Han women under Yuan rule. For the hair I went for something that looks youthful while being plausible, though I found very little on hair in this period, so who's to say.

The next one is from a specific scene in the book, so there is some description to go on: red, long sleeves with gold embroidery, high hair, red and gold ribbons. Since this is the scene where Ma declares herself queen and future empress in front of the Red Turban, it has to be a very deliberate dress. It therefore takes inspiration from Song aristocrats' broad-sleeved gowns as well as from 翟衣 (dí yī), the highest ceremonial gown of both Song and Ming empresses. (Some examples for 翟衣 are in this post, which also features the bird shaped crown I just had to include, and this post.) Her hair still has the loops, but it's much more sculpted.

Finally, Empress Ma! This is mainly based on the two actual portraits I could find of the historical figure that Ma is based on, with elements taken from other portraits and paintings. It includes 凤冠 (fèng guān), the phoenix crown, 霞帔 (xiá pèi), the sash, and 禁步 (jīn bù), the jade belt. This video shows how Ming dynasty layers are worn, but it refers to a much later period so it's not quite the same as Ma's.

(Some additional, historically irrelevant notes: I realized too late that a right-to-left timeline might be more appropriate. Oh well! Also, how the colours photograph frustrates me, I swear I did not make her this deathly pale. And finally, some of the characters look a bit smudged because my cat spilled water on them. I did what I could to save them.)

[escyn]

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

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

[inemperorsname]

[writersglock]

Mas Ahmedda: Commander Fox. It is my pleasure to announce that you have been nominated for government employee of the month.

Fox: Sir, I should remind you that I disagree with the very existence of the Empire, but that aside, you'd be a fool not to pick me.

A little while later...

Fox: I will gladly walk deeper into the belly of the beast, if it means I can implement effective change, such as: sending the Emperor hate mail everyday, plastering the Emperor's face on billboards for anti-wrinkle cream. And of course, my dream, which is to bring all this crumbling to the ground...

[lunaathorne]

every sapphic book i love → she who became the sun by shelley parker-chan

"you have a lot of feelings in you, ma xiuying." "don't mistake it for caring about your life or death, monk." but it was too late; she already cared.

[gatoraid]

She Who Became the Sun illustrations by Przemysław "Trust" Truściński

Okay I did some digging around and managed to find an ebook version of the illustrated Polish edition (Ta, która stała się słońcem) of She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan!! I got my copy from swiatksiazki.pl with the help of automatic translation.

Here are the illustrations I thought would be the most interesting to show here.

Chapters 1–4, Zhu at the monastery

Chapter 7, Ouyang

Chapter 10 - Ouyang and Esen

Chapter  16 - Zhu and Ma’s wedding

Chapter 19 - Zhu and Ma figuring out the business of rain and clouds

Had to censor this one OTL

Chapter 22 - Esen and Ouyang

Chapter 23, Zhu at the end of the book

[ash-and-starlight]

kinktober week 3: esen/ouyang/zhu + “a yank on the leash, a touch under the chin” (+ ouyang wet dreams) and ayushiridara/baoxiang + desk sex and crying and pale peach and first times

[spiderthread]

Kiss Art February prompt 1: adoration

[deaddove]

slow cooking a lighthearted modern au where esen and baoxiang are pining after their friends ouyang and ma, respectively. but due to a ~wacky misunderstanding~ (read: chronic heteronormativity) they think ouyang and ma are dating each other—obviously that’s why ouyang is always going over to her place, right?

esen is in denial about his feelings and extremely supportive of ouyang’s relationship (he avoids talking about it or thinking about it—out of respect to ouyang’s privacy ofc). baoxiang thinks ouyang is in denial about his own sexuality and using ma (he has formulated a 12-step plan to Remove Ouyang that he will enact When The Time Comes).

then one day: baoxiang and ma are hanging out (spa day), esen and ouyang are also hanging out (sporting event(?)) and they all decide to meet up at that new restaurant afterwards. as they arrive, ma and ouyang are texting, they tell baoxiang and esen “hey my partner got us a table.” so baoxiang and esen follow them to the table expecting to see the other couple already seated there. but it’s just zhu.

(they both have met zhu—they thought she was just ma’s roommate. in reality she’s ma’s fiancée and ouyang’s queerplatonic d/s situationship.) (they also realize neither of them has ever actually seen ma and ouyang interact for an extended period of time. it becomes immediately apparent that ma dislikes ouyang and ouyang doesn’t even know her name.)

[dustteller]

The maybe-sorta-not-really-almost blowjob scene, because I don't think I've drawn them together before and this is probably the best place to start.

(Tumblr ate my quality :( pls click to rescue it)

[mispatchedgreens]

more of xu da's internet activity, placed thoughtfully (to me) in the reincarnated band au, featuring the most beautiful woman alive, one bug person crouched on the rooftop of the recording studio while ouyang is being Fussy downstairs, and the rarest creature ever to be caught on film: grumpy bitch ass smiling. permission to imagine esen, chin to chest, flopped on the couch, staring at ouyang's photo, ablaze with jealousy at all of his interactions with xu da, while wbx rubs at his temples in preparation for yet another oblivious, nonsensical sibling conversation.

[pinkhair-smoothbrain]

just finished she who became the sun, enjoy my shitty memes