#lin moniao series

[shoreslippery]

For @ockissweek, Shen Shanwei & Lin Moniao from a scene in The White Cloud Technique (Lin Moniao Series) by myself and @minutia-r

[ilthit]

8, 22, 30, and 43 for Shen Shanwei?

OC questions ask meme

What were they told to stop/start doing most often as a child?

Very small: Stop hanging on to hems, use your voice. During the dad road trip period: Stop sniffling, show some spine.

How does jealousy manifest itself in them (they become possessive, they become aloof, etc)?

He doesn't want to be jealous or show that he is jealous, so he tries to strangle the feeling, but it comes out as snappishness and criticism.

Who do they most regret meeting?

He has kind of transferred some blame for what happened at the White Cloud Bath House to Hua Yan, and there's also the wedding attack, so that's a good candidate. You can't really regret meeting your own biological father...

If someone asked them to explain their sexuality, how would they do so?

He would not, mostly.

🤔 In a modern AU, he would call himself gay if it had to come up; or if he was already married to Duyi, he would refuse to explain, because it's nobody's business whether he and Duyi are sleeping together. (This doesn't mean that he wouldn't identify as some value of nonbinary; it's just that that stuff is even more private.)

What an ornery cunt (affectionate).

[shoreslippery]

For @ockissweek, Heng Wanxue and Yi Zifan from the Lin Moniao Series by myself and @minutia-r

[ilthit]

OC-tober 7: Fu Chan, Madame Zhao

Week 1: OCs from the Lin Moniao series, which grew out of playing the wuxia RP Righteous Blood, Ruthless Blades with Minutia-R.

A-Chan (with bonus husband) by @bernard-the-rabbit.

A-Chan is a pretty servant girl in the imperial palace, attached to the service of Director Zhao. Except not really, because she is the secret wife of the Director, who is also Prince Zhao Kai. The marriage had to remain a secret, since the match was not suitable and the role of the third prince's first wife should be up for auction at a suitable time, even though in private the prince has put his foot down and sworn that he will not marry anyone else. What a troublesome prince! What's so special about this shy, overly polite girl, who doesn't even have any great talents, let alone a family of more than merely respectable background?

Well, nothing really. A-Chan was a sheltered noble daughter who, it was hoped, would become a low ranking wife among the heir apparent's harem, but he took her to bed early and then rejected her. In order to avoid fuss, his younger brother stepped in and said he would take her on instead, eventually, when appropriate. Through this whole mess and maneuvering, however, he fell in love with her.

A-Chan is sweet, helpful, graceful, and self-effacing; she likes people quickly and easily, doesn't like rudeness, and is very aware of all she doesn't know. She feels rather lonely with only her husband to share intimacies with. She tries to make friends with the other palace servants, but none of these attempts quite seem to work out--she is always either too fancy or not fancy enough, it seems! She hopes that one day she will be of some use; at the moment, it seems like she is always a burden, or getting in the way. Though her husband adores her, just as she adores him, his wild confidence, and the way he is ready to take on the whole world just to prove that he can, make her feel like she really is the silliest and most wishy-washy person in the world.

[ilthit]

@marquisguyun tagged me to post a WIP Snip!

My current WIPs are Big Project which is not being posted, Lin Moniao series (as co-author, with @minutia-r) which is all written but posting as it gets edited, and Bolworth Birthday Bet, which is posted as the mini-chapters/options are written out from their larval form... You understand. And I suppose the original vampire series, but that is also posted as I write it.

So here is a snippet from an unposted chapter of the Lin Moniao series under the cut.

Tagging: @slow-burn-sally @keirgreeneyes @d20owlbear

The magistrate's official residence is set in a three-story building flanked, in the north and south, by two courtyards, the latter of which extends into a training ground large enough to recreate a small battle formation in. It in turn is flanked, east and west, by the city guard's barracks.

Usually, it is more than enough to house the on-duty officers and the personal guard of any visiting official. Now, the yard and the barracks are bursting with men in gleaming plate and padded armor, and the armory overflows with spears. Among the troops flit dark-clad clerks, trying desperately to coordinate to get the force settled in unfamiliar quarters.

These are the empire's finest. The guards on the watchtowers at each corner have their eyes trained on the street for any sign of insurrection, but few dare venture near. They've heard who has settled into the magistrate's office, and fear runs deeper than curiosity.

The kitchen, too, is being run ragged cooking rice and strips of meat for the soldiers, the utensils clanging and the steam gathering under eaves before spilling out towards the sky. A cook steps into the dark cellar for more supplies, and two cooks step out--on such a day, who would notice?

Now the humble cook carries a tray of tea into the clerks' office, and returns dressed in black robes, an oblong box in his hands. He hurries along the corridors, exchanges a word with a colleague, and up a flight of stairs to the second floor of the magistrate's office. Here he steps lightly, soundless.

The central gallery where the magistrate's clerks used to meet with the population and the magistrate himself might officiate in cases that he chose to make public, where announcements were made and the daily business concluded, is surrounded by a balcony leading to the second floor hallway. The chef-turned-clerk now stops at the door to this balcony and listens; there is a murmur of a voice on the other side, too far to make out--one speaker, perhaps speaking to no-one but himself. He waits, and there--a scuffle of feet just on the other side.

Quietly, he opens his box and takes out what is within. He has thought about what to bring, and discarded his first thought in favor of tools he knows well: Two beautiful daggers, curved and deadly, with pin-point sharp tips.

[ilthit]

OC-tober #24: Yu Yanlong, Hua Haoyu & Dong Yuan

Week 4: The Lin Moniao series, friendship is magic edition.

Master Wu's disciples and those three of Lin Moniao's fellows who became full members of the sect at the same time as he did. They consider each other sworn brothers, and though they have been adventuring separately for years now, the bond is as strong as ever.

Yu Yanlong is tall and gentle; he was born a tradesman's son, became a servant, then attempted to become a scholar, and now finds himself a warrior. None of these roles ever really fit.

Hua Haoyu is short but hefty, a younger son of a trading family in the east coast, who grew up wealthy but inconsequential, and has been stuck at the Villa's headquarters while his brothers adventure out. He is bored, has an overactive imagination, and can't keep secrets.

Dong Yuan has the energy of twenty men in the body of one adventuresome youth. He is fearless and filled with wanderlust, and happy to tell you the stories behind his various gruesome scars. (Oddly enough, two of the most vicious can be attributed to fish.)

[ilthit]

OC-tober 6: Heng Wanxue

Week 1: OCs from the Lin Moniao series, which grew out of playing the wuxia RP Righteous Blood, Ruthless Blades with Minutia-R.

Heng Wanxue by @fmd-art.

This is really a shared OC, since I have played her but she was created from a list of questions that Minutia answered. Am I writing fanfic for Minutia's OC? Who knows? Maybe!

Born to a couple of street merchants who made and sold toys and trinkets, Heng Wanxue grew up hanging around markets. When her father lost the use of his right hand after he was caught thieving and was attacked, he couldn't craft toys anymore, and the family fell on harder times. Then a young teenager, Wanxue took took a job as a courtesan at a cheap brothel to help with the family income. She had very little in the way of poetry, learning or talent, but she was cheerful and pretty, and made the customers feel special, which was the main thing, and so she did well.

She also took up alternate, less honourable methods of earning money, namely burglaries and pickpocketing off the clock. Around this time, too, she fell in love with a pretty boy in the neighbourhood, but he and his mother moved away in the hopes of a better future. Wanxue would have followed, but the brothel madam put his foot down--she couldn't afford to lose a girl.

How she eventually left, and how she ended up with the ugly scar on her face, is another story, and not one she shares the truth of.

Though now less marketable, she was still young, and now a full-time thief, so she caught the eye of Tree Frog Gao, the Queen of Beggars. Master Gao trained her up as a fighter in exchange for loyalty to her network. Heng Wanxue is mostly a free agent, but if her master wants something from her, she cannot lightly refuse. She still keeps tabs on her family, and Tree Frog Gao, too, makes sure they are provided for.

[ilthit]

OC questions ask meme

@yuhengwanye asked: 1, 13, 14, 37? - for Lin Moniao - who is actually @minutia-r's OC, though we co-wrote his adventures. So, I will reply with what I think, and then turn it over to Minutia to tell me if I'm correct.

-

What’s the maximum amount of time your character can sit still with nothing to do?

Luckily he is a cultivator, so he can meditate. Even if not allowed to meditate, he is rather disciplined, and could probably stick it out for at least 20 minutes before coming up with a genius plan that is so much better than sitting still with nothing to do.

13. What color do they think they look best in? Do they actually look best in that color?

Lin Moniao? He would say he looks good in anything. I think most people would agree, even if some may say so grudgingly. Being strikingly good-looking, and well aware of it, is kind of a major character trait.

14. What animal do they fear most?

Well, it should be monkeys.

37. Do they have a system for remembering names, long lists of numbers, things that need to go in a certain order (like anagrams, putting things to melodies, etc)?

I think he does, from his classical studies. They did involve a lot of memorization. I can't tell you what it would have been.

[ilthit]

OC-tober 4: Mu Liqiang

Week 1: OCs from the Lin Moniao series, which grew out of playing the wuxia RP Righteous Blood, Ruthless Blades with Minutia-R.

☝️Mu Liqiang by @dreamerbee.

The only son of a magistrate who forsook his position to make a controversial love match with a merchant's daughter, Mu Liqiang grew up surrounded by luxury, but with high expectations, which he felt unequal to and unwilling to pursue.

When he was snapped up by the martial Parrot Cult--that is, the Illustrious Qilin Villa Sect--while trying and failing to pass the imperial examination, it felt like a relief. Rather than pursue becoming a magistrate or running an estate, he could focus on trying to impress and seduce Master Wu.

He is self-conscious of his looks--the foreign features inherited from his mother, the thick curly hair which he tries to hide in a bun, his height and size--and although he is a capable and ruthless warrior, what he really wants is to be somebody's pampered pet. His relationship with his parents remains complicated, with the conflict between his filial piety and what he wants for himself.

[ilthit]

@minutia-r

[ilthit]

OC-tober #27: Xiao Erha & Xiao Mao

Week 4: The Lin Moniao series, friendship is magic edition.

These two are both youths who were stolen at young age from their families and trained as assassins by the villainous palace official Shi Minhua. By the time they came to adulthood, they believed their families had abandoned them, and lived only to serve their master.

This is a case where I came up with this backstory and I still don't even want to write or think too closely about the details, because it is exactly the sort of thing I am squeamish about. So I won't. Even so, CW for under the cut: Violence, brainwashing, abuse.

Xiao Erha was the less favoured of the two. He often displeased the master, and thus took punishment more often. The master distrusted his loyalty to the point that he cut off Xiao Erha's tongue, and might have broken some of his fingers had he known Xiao Erha could write. Part of this was not the youth's own fault, but the fact that his father lived nearby, and Shi Minhua wanted to make doubly sure they would not reconnect.

But these measures, of course, also meant that Xiao Erha was always the one more likely to betray his master in the end.

Xiao Mao, on the other hand, was favoured. He was taught the arts of pleasing guests, making music, and some flavour of erudition, as a courtesan might have, and though Shi Minhua had lost his sexual appetites some time ago (lucky for all involved), he also took pleasure in these services. Xiao Mao was given a servant of his own to train, a young boy the same age he was when he had begun his training. Unlike Xiao Erha, Xiao Mao never had any doubt in his mind that he had been abandoned, and worse, and that Shi Minhua was in fact his savior.

Though both were taught the arts of killing, it was Xiao Erha who was actually sent out to practice them.

The two had a relationship that was occasionally antagonistic, and at other times friendly, but even as Xiao Mao was encouraged to scoff at his brother-assassin and bully him in front of the master, when there was no-one else, they turned to one another as each other's only equal and classmate; as a brother they had grown up with.

[ilthit]

OC-tober #23: Hu Qiu & Yang Xiuxing

Week 4: The Lin Moniao series, friendship is magic edition.

Art by @greyenbee, commissioned by @minutia-r.

Two juniors of the Illustrious Qilin Villa sect (also known as the Cult of the Parrot God). They were disciples of Master Guo, trained especially in internal arts by their shijie Yuwen Duyi, until Certain Events. Since then, both have found different masters, though they remain in the sect and the best of friends.

Nicknamed "the hooligans" by Lin Moniao, they're both spirited kids, though Yang Xiuxing is shy while Hu Qiu is ebullient, and so Hu Qiu often ends up acting as a buffer or a shield for Xiuxing. They are both orphans from unfortunate beginnings, brought to the sect young.

Hu Qiu has many talents, but likewise he is shockingly lacking in some basic skills. Earnest Xiuxing works very hard on exactly what he is told. Of course, his friend would never tell him to do anything he doesn't want to.

[ilthit]

OC-tober #25: Chan Yu & An Yu

Week 4: The Lin Moniao series, friendship is magic edition.

I'm so sad I couldn't get any visual representation prepared for these guys in time for this post. Oh well.

Chan Yu and An Yu are bodyguards. They were once drinking buddies, then joint failed wine shop owners, and now they beat people up for money.

Chan Yu is built like a brickhouse, a nearly perfect square of a man. He's not much of a talker, which is sometimes a problem when a job calls for subtlety. He fights with an axe. It may or may not be one originally intended for chopping wood rather than battle.

An Yu, for her part, is tall and square-shouldered, with a perpetually sour expression. Her idea of a disguise is to put on a pretty dress, but since she has no idea what's pretty and is not very rich, it's usually something gaudy and cheap. She prefers a pair of trousers and a tunic, but in truth, An Yu is simply not vain. She's never been pretty and now she's getting on in years, and is more concerned about where her next catty of baijiu is coming from. She fights with a dagger, and dirty.

They bicker and argue like an old married couple, and often pose as one, too.

[ilthit]

More memes just for me and @minutia-r

I made several so the rest are under a cut.

[ilthit]

OC-tober #22: Yuwen Duyi & Shen Shanwei

Week 4: The Lin Moniao series, friendship is magic edition.

Art by me, alas.

Servants of the Parrot God and disciples of Master Guo, these toxic besties who were supposed to be antagonists, but the protagonist had other ideas. (This happens a lot.)

Yuwen Duyi (right) is a stickler for the rules, humorless, harsh, and fiercely loyal to her master. She takes her position as da-shijie, instructor and physician seriously, but her first priority is Master Guo, whose approval she lives on.

Shen Shanwei was the only other disciple to follow Master Guo to the sect. The master and shijie had picked him up from the roadside some years before and trained him up. His loyalty is primarily to shijie. He's haughty, graceful, dour, and has the thinnest of faces.

She leads, he follows. Together, they are proof that even queerplatonic life partnerships can be kinda fucked up.

[ilthit]

OC-tober 1: Feng Bao

Week 1: OCs from the Lin Moniao series, which grew out of playing the wuxia RP Righteous Blood, Ruthless Blades with Minutia-R.

☝️Art by Minutia-R and AI stable diffusion, a very kind depiction of a complicated and dissolute old man.

Feng Bao is a talented potion-master, the creator of an excellent insect-repelling salve, and a magical innovator specializing in using talismans to trigger physical traps. He has lain many of these on the path and the water-way leading to the repurposed fishing shack that he lives in. He was born, apprenticed, and stayed his whole life in the same small village--or rather the lake that goes with it--that sustains itself mainly by pearl-fishing and related crafts.

He never married, but he did have a son with a village woman who came to live with him for a few years after falling pregnant. They quarreled a great deal, and both of them drank rather too heavily, and so she eventually left, leaving him to raise a boy by himself (and with help from the village women) to his teens, when he was taken to war by a group of soldiers passing by.

Feng Bao never forgot this, and doubled down on his traps, which have only become deadlier, sitting in his shack and innovating while cursing all military men. He makes his own, eye-wateringly strong homebrew, and has a little something going on with a comely village widow.