swordsmithofgondolin

[swordsmithofgondolin]

Fingon for @jrrt-native-languages-fest

For day 4 prompts: Purple, Noble, Valiant, Fading

The poem is by Matsuo Bashō and is in Japanese, which is one of the languages that I am learning.

My rough translation -

Though it is soon to die,

The cicada's cry

Holds no sign of it.

[swordsmithofgondolin]

Maedhros for @jrrt-native-languages-fest

Day 3 with the prompts Red, Wounds, and Rain

The Poem is Facing Snow by Dù Fǔ, which is a Táng Dynasty poem written in Classical Chinese. Mandarin is one of the many languages that I am currently learning.

My rough translation -

Facing Snow by Dù Fǔ

Many new ghosts cry after the battle

I, an old man, worry and grieve alone

Disordered clouds hang low in the dusk

Snow dances rapidly in the returning wind

The ladle is discarded, and the cup is empty of green wine

The stove is still lit a firey red

To many places, news is lost

I sit with my book, but cannot read for my worries.

It is meant to be Maedhros after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad.

[swordsmithofgondolin]

Happy Autism Pride/Awareness/Acceptance Day!

Lán Wàngjī's wheelchair is inspired by the 1680 brush painting of Master Kǒng in a wheelchair.

[swordsmithofgondolin]

Ecthelion and Glorfindel for @jrrt-native-languages-fest

Music and dance as language

For days 1 and 2 with all of the prompts for these days!

[swordsmithofgondolin]

Ok so I don't usually get involved in fandom discourse or anything like that but the amount of racism and appropriation in the MDZS fandom has pushed me to my limit, so I'm doing this. This is for fans of both The Untamed and Mó Dào Zǔ Shī.

AUs are cool! I write AUs! Fanfiction is a labour of love and people should write whatever they want, but we have to be respectful of the culture that what ever we are writing fanfiction came from. But people write the most absolutely insane stuff. Historically, it is incredibly frequent that other cultures will steal the parts of Chinese culture and innovations and technology, and then use it while not giving any credit to Chinese people and being racist. This happens all the time today! (It is also what happened to Wèi Wúxiàn. The Cultivation clans hated him, killed him, killed his people, but he was brilliant and they used his brilliant inventions while being absolutely awful to him). If you want to write a Selkie AU, use characters from an Irish story or write Song of the Sea fanfiction. Or use similar stories from the Chinese mythological canon. There are so many Chinese myths about doomed love and animal transformation! Don't even get me started on the angel and demon christian bullshit AUs. I know that a lot of translations of MDZS use the word "demon" to translate either mó or yāo creatures, but they are vastly different from christian demons. This also gets into the other bizarre things that people write with Wàngxiàn's relationship. So many people in this fandom only like it because they want to write dubious consent stuff so they take these incredibly well-written characters with a very loving and trusting relationship and just write...the most out-of-character stuff to appeal to their own sexual fantasies. This ties into appropriation, using these Chinese characters with no regard for their culture or even for who they are as people! This is something that has happened to Chinese culture for centuries, and it is most definately a form of racism! Also, I cannot stress enough how much sex is not the only thing in Wàngxiàn's relationship. Their relationship is mostly about love, trust, shared interests, safety, and sex is just a small part of it. Also, kinks don't define people. Wàngxiàn feel so safe together and trust eachother so much that they are able to share their weird kinks with eachother, but their kinks aren't them. I have a lot more to say about this and the Incense Burner chapter, but that's not what this post is about. I will note something about characterisation, though - Wèi Wúxiàn is not the feminine twink that we make him. He's scary, he's powerful, he fucking killed someone by making her swallow a chairleg. He's terrifying. And his "feminine" qualities actually read a lot more like characters such as Né Zhā or Sūn Wùkōng from Chinese mythology. Also just the concept of "feminine" or "masculine" qualities is sexist and transphobic and terrible. I love gnc Wèi Wúxiàn and I often draw/write him wearing skirts and stuff, but that clothing isn't feminine and I have a lot more to say about this but there isn't time! He's a complicated and very interesting character, not just some western character type that you find on a chart in a middle school English class. Don't even get me started on the characterisation of Lán Wàngjī... Also, I've seen people writing meta about MDZS with Japanese culture and terms. East Asia is not a monolith! Japan has stolen so much Chinese culture and treat Chinese people awfully! Just watch anime to see the racism, and do reaserch about WW2 to learn about the awful things that they did to China and China's ecology and environment and China's people! But most importantly, MDZS is Chinese! Don't write meta about it as if it's Japanese!

The thing that pushed me over the edge to writing this is how so many fanfic writers just take the MDZS characters and put them into settings of mythologies from other cultures, or modern AUs, because they just...don't want to do research about Chinese culture and mythology or don't care enough to do so. This is racist! Y'all need to just take a minute to read the Dào Dé Jīng or Zhuāngzǐ or Wǔjīng or something!

The most prominent way that this misunderstanding of Chinese culture, particularly Dàoism, presents, is how people write/talk about Wèi Wúxiàn's ghost path. An important part of 道 is that there are many, many different ways to define it. Many different paths one can walk. There's also the earlier definition of 道 as a path, a course of discipline and cultivation and study, and the later definition of 道 as something ironic to the original meaning, the opposite of a defined course. The important part is that there are many different cultivation paths, many different 道. We need to read or watch more xiānxiá, rather than just MDZS! The point here is that Wèi Wúxiàn's ghost path is just another form of cultivation, another 道. A brilliant one, too! It is a very effective and kind and empathetic way to deal with all of the jiāngshī/stiff corpses. And his ghost path does not harm his body. I am so tired of it being something that harms him or that needs to be cleansed or something. If you want Wèi Wúxiàn to have health stuff, give him a disability! You can even use my disability headcanons if you want! I headcanon that Wèi Wúxiàn has Reynaud's, POTS, and EDS, and Lán Wàngjī has POTS, Scoliosis, and Lupus. If you have questions about writing these disabilities, you can mention me in a post or something to ask about Reynaud's, POTS, and EDS (I have these, so I can answer questions about them). For other disabilities, just tag them. There will definately be someone in the disabled community here who will be happy to answer questions.

This fandom is so clogged by racism that Chinese people and members of Chinese diaspora are being pushed out of the fandom because we are drowning out their voices and silencing them. Listen! Listen to Chinese people and members of Chinese diaspora! We have robbed them of a fandom that belongs to them and their culture!

Links to some Dàoist texts (there are a lot more that you should totally read and I don't even know if these are good translations or anything but I'm tired right now and my fingers are not happy that i am typing so much because EDS is like that so I'm only going to put these two but I might add more later) -

[swordsmithofgondolin]

Happy Birthday, Niè Huáisāng!

[swordsmithofgondolin]

Wēn Níng from @sillygoofyqueer's Mad Scientist Wèi Wúxiàn AU.

Wēn Níng is very overwhelmed with his new title! It does feel nice to have someone other than Wèi Wúxiàn praise his archery skills, but it's also a lot to have everyone calling him Fèng Bǐ Zhǔ (and gives Wèi Wúxiàn too much ammunition for teasing!)

[swordsmithofgondolin]

Wèi Wúxiàn and Lán Wàngjī from @sillygoofyqueer's Mad Scientist Wèi Wúxiàn AU.

I apologise for the art drought! I've had finals and an EDS flare up, so wanted to draw for your AU but couldn't. But here's Wàngxiàn!

[swordsmithofgondolin]

Duilin for @gondolinweek

[swordsmithofgondolin]

Happy flappy stimmy Lómion for @gondolinweek!

[swordsmithofgondolin]

Ecthelion for @gondolinweek

[swordsmithofgondolin]

Wèi Wúxiàn, Lán Wàngjī, and Xuē Yáng from @sillygoofyqueer's Mad Scientist Wèi Wúxiàn AU.

This AU is so good and keeps giving me so many art ideas!

Wèi Wúxiàn is very happy to have someone who will listen to all of his infodumping! And Lán Zhàn has a very good sense of humour, though no one seems to realise this (even his brother).

Xuē Yáng likes Lán Wàngjī, but is also very upset because he wants to talk to Wèi Wúxiàn, and Lán Wàngjī is stealing his gēge! Gēge theft is not allowed!

[swordsmithofgondolin]

Wèi Wúxiàn and Mèng Yáo from @sillygoofyqueer's Mad Scientist Wèi Wúxiàn AU.

Wēn Qíng is trying very hard to kidnap Wèi Wúxiàn and make sure that he doesn't make any of his injuries worse (healing is a very slow process) but so far has been unsuccessful.

Niè Huáisāng provided Wèi Wúxiàn with some very comfy clothes with nice embroidery on them that are very much His Style™, but Lán Zhàn's nèi yī are just so comfy and soft and smell like Lán Zhàn!

Mèng Yáo is very confused because people don't usually stand up for him. Sure, Niè Míngjué did a couple of times, but still. And he is very excited about having a new friend! Niè Huáisāng is a terrible friend. All that he does is complain and try to get Mèng Yáo to participate and aid in his increasingly elaborate schemes to get out of sabre practice. Little does he know, friendship with Wèi Wúxiàn means having lots more friends. And battles over who gets to monopolise Wèi Wúxiàn's time!

[swordsmithofgondolin]

Lán Wàngjī and Wèi Wúxiàn flying together on Bìchén from @sillygoofyqueer's mad scientist Wèi Wúxiàn AU.

I was going to draw Wēn Níng and Wèi Wúxiàn's reunion, as well, but chronic pain is not fun.

Wèi Wúxiàn is so, so, so relieved that he can have his hand on Lán Wàngjī's chest and actually feel a real human heart actually beating. Not the fluttering crow hearts that are easily snuffed out. And he absolutely loves infodumping about everything, especially Cultivation and all of his crow friends, to Lán Wàngjī! Lán Wàngjī is a very good listener and is very happy to hear Wèi Wúxiàn infodump. When Wèi Wúxiàn eventually passes out, Lán Wàngjī is trying his best to stay very still and not wake him up. Wèi Wúxiàn's clothes, hair, skin, everything, is just stiff with all the dried blood on him.

[swordsmithofgondolin]

For @sillygoofyqueer's mad scientist Wèi Wúxiàn AU.

Lán Wàngjī is a little panicked because all of a sudden there are a lot of people that talk to him and (according to xiōngzhǎng) are his friends. And there are a bunch of dead crows that want to be his friend, too. They keep following him everywhere!

He really, really likes having all these friends, it's just a lot (and he really hopes that Wèi Wúxiàn will want to be his friend, too).

[swordsmithofgondolin]

From @sillygoofyqueer's mad scientist Wèi Wúxiàn AU.

Niè Huáisāng has trained his birds to write before (Dà-gē was pretty angry about "using your talents for nonsense, when you should be training sabres!" and the resulting spam mail coming from little songbirds as a way of evading sabre practice. All of Niè Huáisāng's complains were delivered by the birds, so that he didn't have to leave his room and get dragged onto the training field!), so he knows what scratchy bird handwriting looks like! He is very happy that his best friend (only friend?) is alive, but a little concerned that he is sending/writing letters in blood using dead crows.

[swordsmithofgondolin]

Thank you! I am enjoying your AU so much, because mad scientist Wèi Wúxiàn, adorable and chaotic Xuē Yáng, Niè Huáisāng and Wèi Wúxiàn's friendship, and everything going on is just...so good. I can't wait to see where it will go in the future (and, since I'm assuming that when he joins the war again, Wèi Wúxiàn will be fighting on the side of Sunshot; how will everyone react? I really hope that Wèi Wúxiàn will get all of the Lán Wàngjī cuddles and kisses soon). I tried to make Wèi Wúxiàn's hair look like it was matted with blood (speaking of birds, will he have the crow entourage like in the dònghuà in this au?). The thing is...he actually had it better off in this AU than in canon when he was thrown into the burial mounds. Because in canon, he had been: 1. just recovering from the events in the cave of the Túlù Xuánwǔ. 2. whipped during the fall of Lotus Pier. 3. Recovering from a very traumatic surgery in which he had to be AWAKE AS HIS GOLDEN CORE WAS REMOVED. 4.No golden core. 5. All the stuff Wēn Cháo and co. did to him before throwing him into the Burial Mounds. But the missing golden core is the main thing. I really like the idea that when he comes out he is either already a fierce corpse, or can't tell if he's alive or a fierce corpse that doesn't know it's dead. When people touch him, they find their hands filled with gravedirt. It's hard to be near him, because he smells like a rotting corpse. His shadows don't...look right. They're just...off. He never eats or drinks, and when Lán Wàngjī forces him to drink water because he HASN'T HAD WATER IN WEEKS, it just kind of...sloshes. Like the sound of water falling into an empty pan. Some people have reported seeing mushrooms growing from Wèi Wúxiàn's body, and sometimes his voice sounds like many, many people all speaking at once. People also say that sometimes Wèi Wúxiàn bleeds from his qīqiào after battle (he doesn't. This usually only happens when people are really angry. But he coughs up a lot of blood all the time and his teeth are always tinged pink and there's so much blood anyways it just LOOKS that way). Lán Wàngjī has never seen this before and is so, so, so scared, so he just thinks "qì deviation" which of course means that he needs to play The Purification Tone, to help stabilise Wèi Wúxiàn's qì so he won't qì deviate. Also, I don't remember which adaptation it was, but I just remember that after Burial Mounds Time™, Niè Huáisāng tried to hug Wèi Wúxiàn and Wèi Wúxiàn flinched and Niè Huáisāng was really confused, and that just...yeah. Also how Wèi Wúxiàn covers his ears when there are too many screaming dead around him! So, anyways, while I was drawing this the whole time I was just thinking...about his time in the Burial Mounds in canon (╥﹏╥). Also I drew his eye and then added a layer of white over it to make it look kind of cloudy! I don't know if you can see it, but I tried to add the claw marks around the brand on his chest. I was going to tie his robes as a dead person, though, and forgot. And I tried to make bloody handprints on his face, like he was holding his face in his hands while they were covered in blood or a bloody ghost was touching his face. I really enjoyed drawing this :)

Wèi Wúxiàn and The Burial Mounds from @sillygoofyqueer's incredible AU.

Since Wèi Wúxiàn had to cut his hair off, his parents' red ribbon is now tied on Chénqíng