#lotus gets asks

[lotusneedsserotonin]

what is love

baby dont hurt me

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Bros before Ho(oh my god is that Hanguang-Jun?)

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[lotus-pear]

I JUST LOVE LOVE LOOOOVEEEE THE WAY YOU DRAW DAZAIS HAIR!!! 🙏🙏 ,,,so ,,,,fluffy ,,, can u pls tell how u do it 🥹🥹🫶🫶

WAAAH TY I LOVE DRAWING HIS HAIR SM ITS SOOOO FLUFFY DEARVGOD ahem anyway you never heard that from me ok?? anyway as for how i go about doing it...........big huge gigantic disclaimer, i don't think ive ever used an official reference when drawing him so like the way i drew his hair is completely unique to my style and not a good reflection of how it looks in the show/manga. THAT BEING SAID i will offer a few pointers that i have picked up

ok so here's a drawing i did like. uh. Sometime This Week (sorry i gatekeep art from u guys </3)

ok so one thing to note abt dazais hair is that it's rly fluffy and wavy so don't be drawing his hair like he flat ironed it😐 uhm also make sure the part line is in the middle before you start streaking off. OH ALSO DRAW HAIR IN CHUNKS. this is a lot more characteristic of curly/wavy hair where instead of strands you have to try to think of larger sections of hair clumping together. uhm yea that's pretty much it

[professorcalculusstanaccount]

hi! loving your art. I was watching your awesome stories/gifs and I was wondering: how did Chang develop his feelings for Tintin? Did he discover them before or after him? How did he react and why? (English is not my first language so if you see a grammatical mistake, I'm sorry. Also, sorry if so many questions made you feel like you were in a philosophy exam)

Thank you so much! As a contrast to the rest of the Marlinspike team I'm writing Chang as someone who makes friends and develops crushes pretty easily!

I imagine he's had a crush on Tintin for some time, possibly from when they first met. He's been at the mercy of his circumstances for most of his life until that point - Tintin basically makes him feel capable of doing stuff.

He's pretty heartbroken after the Blue Lotus. Tintin doesn't contact him for years. Chang is struggling to adjust to his new family and is failing at school, having missed out on a good education for a few years prior. Until Tibet he feels pretty hopeless, he will never live up to the time when he took down a drug ring.

His near death experience in Tibet shakes him out of this rut. He starts to travel and take up hobbies like dance and photography. Didi trains him in some basic martial arts. Tintin makes an effort to actually stay in touch this time. Chang has some abandonment issues as he's frequently lost people throughout his life, so he's someone who's willing to give people second chances, even if they've hurt him badly. Chang thinks he's well over his crush on Tintin when he comes around to Belgium for his studies, but falls for him again very quickly!

Unlike Tintin, Chang is a lot more comfortable with who he is. He's used to being the odd one out and has generally low expectations for himself, so just goes with the flow.

Below I talk a little with how I'm going about writing him and the historical context surrounding this, cw for mentions of racism (sinophobia) and queerphobia:

I'm writing Chang as bi, I thought it would be interesting to explore as Asian men were perceived differently in the 30s compared to today. While Asian men in the West are currently heavily desexualised in the early 20th century they were stereotyped as predatory and deviant. In London a lot of Chinese immigrants were male dockworkers, so when they married white women there was a lot of fearmongering about predatory and disloyal Chinese men.

A lot of depictions of Asian men in Western media reflected these stereotypes (and often used queercoding to push the idea of Asian men being animalistic seducers - General Henry Chang in Shanghai Express (1932) was written to be bisexual while posing as a threat to the white leads). Some examples off the top of my head include Hishuru Tori from The Cheat (1915) and The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932). Novels frequently depicted Chinese drug lords with borderline supernatural powers in manipulation.

On the other hand I've noticed how fans frequently depict Chang as someone who's submissive, demure and soft, which ignores how ridiculously brave and proactive he is in canon (stealing documents from police officers, charging into a man immediately after getting shot at by a machine gun, I could go on!). It's a common example of Fandom Racism (not accusing anyone specifically, it's just a trend I've noticed.)

When writing Chang I'm kinda reckoning with two different eras. From a contemporary angle I'm writing him as a love interest, which as an Asian guy I rarely see in media today. I also gotta consider his own time and context, how he would navigate being a queer Chinese guy, and how that would affect his relationship with others and himself.

[livelaughliushen]

Luo Binghe WIP!

[legally-killable-sparrow]

Open arms is such a fucking heartbreaker my god

‘A cave!’ And his fucking voice, he’s just so… excited, he’s happy, things are working out!

And then the cave.

I just think it’s important that the motif with all of the positive upswings and just blatantly vibrant notes is his, even after death

And even when he died, he kept to it! He died believing in his wonderful world! He already knew that the lotus eaters had led them to the cyclops, he may have even had a few seconds of consciousness after the cyclops got him, but he still believed!

It kind of reminds of that one servant in a Shakespeare play, the manservant without a name. The manservant hears the lords (or something) plotting a terrible thing, so he steps forward to attempt to stop them- and is immediately killed. He knows this will happen. He knows he cannot stop them. But regardless he tries

Anyway I am completely normal about the notion of like- having a positive philosophy about your impact on the world and how the world itself is a kind one and dying because of it but still nonetheless dying with belief that the world is kind regardless

[seventh-fantasy]

galaxy-brained mlc take of the day: mlc is wuxia, yes and maybeee not exactly? it very much is a wuxia aesthetically, but it's actually - conceptually - xianxia story in the core. (this is different from suggesting that it is a xianxia show.) however xianxia can (or should) be considered a subgenre of wuxia, not its own separate distinct genre despite the idea of 仙 xian being fundamentally at odds with the idea of 侠 xia, because they both stem from the same belief. (as seen in mlc, it works with the conventions of traditional wuxia aka li xiangyi the sigu sect leader, to get to the real bits of xianxia concept aka li lianhua's story.) so, mlc is wuxia through and through, inside out. send tweet 🫡👍

-

ok wait I can explain

so, this must be premised on the understanding that any discussion of "仙 xian/deities" in this context is only as its abstract idea of living a life distanced, detached from worldly, human woes instead of the possibility of immortality existing in mlcverse. (if you think about the deities in xianxia stories being basically human beings who have cultivated themselves into immortality.)

this is the explanation of xianxia as a wuxia subgenre (古仙武侠) in the baidu article of wuxia genre:

武侠中的侠，是脱胎于墨家“以天下为己任”的使命感；而仙侠的侠，通常是传达着“能力越大，责任也就越大”的朴素精神。侠乃入世，仙为出世，道教阴阳的无情大道（无情指寻求自我的不断体悟，以达精神的成仙，非没有感情之意）与武侠江湖的有情众生，即是矛盾也是循环，象征着太极之道，这也就是为何古仙武侠也属于正统仙侠流派的原因。

rough tl:

the xia of wuxia is born from the mohist ideal of bearing a sense of responsibility for the world

while the xia in xianxia focuses on the idea of "with great power comes great responsibility"

the idea of 侠 xia is secular. the idea of 仙 xian is beyond the secular - it is to pursue a life of suppressing/taming your own emotions (it does not mean to be completely removed of the ability to feel. it's a pursuit of self-realisation that makes one attain the status of a "deity" spiritually.) 仙 xian is then inherently at odds with wuxia jianghu's deep empathy and connection with the secular world, but it's also connected back to it. this is why 古仙武侠 is considered to be a part of the wuxia genre.

the relationship between xian and xia is conflicting because the former is all about distancing yourself from worldly issues while the latter necessitates an active effort to do something about them.

but it also means that both wuxia and xianxia acknowledge this weight of human emotions and connection to the world. it's just their respective responses and the outcomes they want that they differ in. what is the ideal person? wuxia says it's to be someone who can propagate and execute the ideal of doing something about this weight of your connection to the world, while xianxia says it's to learn to be at peace with that connection, and it's ok to not do anything about it actually - which might even be harder than trying to do something. (and focusing on your own cultivation can be a good thing for the world, in fact.)

with this, I hope it sounds less absurd that I'm connecting mlc's story to the concept of xianxia. lxy's life was a traditional wuxia archetype. (I've already harped on enough about how he fits into the quintessential mohist model of a xia leader.) what happens after, aka his journey as li lianhua, is the real story of mlc. it's a breakdown of that quintessential wuxia hero. it is a story in which the main conflict faced by the protagonist is to struggle with all the worldly woes including his own past and the cases' victims, in defense of the serenity he has found in the past 9 years. it is a natural battle to fight for someone such as llh because as long as you're still human, you will face the implications of human connections and the innate feeling of compassion and urge to do something about it (part of this, I guess, manifests physically in bicha breaking him down and the resistance to cure).

and relating that to an excerpt from an article discussing xianxia in relation to wuxia:

武侠剧的精神内核也是仙侠剧的精神内核，而“仙”实际上是实现新形式的“侠”的手段，由此扩展了“侠”的深度和其实施的时空范围。武侠之中的侠义精神，可以强调其自在，更强调其是自为的，前者是需要逐渐成长和觉醒的。然而对于高于人的仙而言，作为上位者的“侠”之精神，则应该是内在自觉且自为的。

rough tl:

the spirit of wuxia dramas should also be the spirit of xianxia dramas. xian should in fact be another way to bring out and explore the idea of xia.

the spirit of xia in wuxia can be an emphasis on the spirit of freedom, and even more so, the idea of agency and autonomy. the former is gained through growth and awareness. but for xian aka people who occupy a realm above the people on the ground, the xia spirit they embody should manifest in their inner awakening and agency.

it goes without saying that nobody is a deity in this show, and never will be. only in ep 40.5 it came so close to possessing that otherworldly, surreal edge, but that's all to it. deities do not exist in the mlcverse.

but but. it's interesting to point out in the ep 3 flashback when lxy walked through town in the aftermath of the sigu sect vs jym battle, commoners were heard describing it as 神仙打架 百姓遭殃 when immortals fight, commoners suffer. of course they didn't mean it literally but figuratively, that those people of wulin jianghu are high above, detached from the people on the ground. which is. contradictory to the idea of 侠 xia to begin with. so... it could even be interpreted that li lianhua living the spiritually "immortal" life embodied the xia spirit even more deeply than he did as li xiangyi the sigu sect leader, the "immortal" in the eyes of the commoners. actual immortals do not have any real attachment to the people, but a cultivated "immortal" does and is destined to feel and learn to deal with it over and over like llh did. it all comes back in a circle indeed.

[arom-antix]

Viktuuri week day 6: Love

[legendary-cookies]

Have the legends ever played uno and if so, how chaotic did it get

...As chaotic as you'd expect with 12 people playing

[difeisheng]

difang question: who do you think ends up pushed up against a wall more often, DFS or FDB? (I think it would be about 50/50)

ooooh, okay, i'm with you there that it's roughly 50/50. love the image of it happening to dfs half the time because he forgets fdb is in fact a whole 5'11, aka not actually that much shorter than him, until he's fully using his stature to pin dfs. on the other hand. what is the POINT of difang if a not-insignificant part of their relationship doesn't involve fdb getting the railing of his life against a hard surface. either way though both of them are very much into it and i love that for them <3

[basketobread]

Same anon YOU LET HER DIE??????? DAMN. I mean I get the rp thing and that's rad but I just think that's so funny then because if it was a truly evil play through that means you only get shart, laezel and astarion. The game just becomes a 4 person adventure. Its like that meme of sponge Bob where's he's like " the gangs all here " and its just a sad napkin. A stale chip and a rusty penny. Which is not an inaccurate description of the 3.

yeah about that… lotus killed shart to get the artifact so it was just lotus, astarion, and lae’zel but then sliced lae’zel’s neck in the second campaign cuz lotus was like “why r u pointing a blade at my throat that is SO mean.” and then killed her so i was literally just rolling with lotus and astarion… 😭😭

IT WAS THE WORST EXPERIENCE OF MY LIFE AND I WOULD DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN DHSJSJJSJS

tbh, i know i played lotus as like a truly evil character but in my heart they’re actually just neutral like they dont exactly WANT to cause chaos or be evil… they just want the best outcome for themself and WILL do something if they feel threatened 😭 but they were def a murder hobo in both campaigns AND THEYRE NOT EVEN THE DURGE HELP ME

[lotusneedsserotonin]

tall femboy protogen cuddles. like if you agree

fuck yes brother

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

This was home.

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[lotus-pear]

Idk if I already sent this in or if it glitches out and didn’t send but I found this on pinterest:

OH MY FUCKING GOD STORYTIME REAL QUICK EVERYONE SIT DOWN. OKAY SO I SAW THIS ALREADY LIKE A WEEK AGO SO I WENT INTO THIS PERSONS DMS TO ASK THEM TO TAKE IT DOWN BC I LITERALLY DONT ALLOW REPOSTS AT ALL. AND THEN THEY ACCEPTED THE REQUEST. SO I WAS LIKE OK GOOD THEYRE CIVILIZED. WE'RE GONNA SORT THIS OUT. BUT THEN THEY LEFT ME ON READ. AND THEN THEY FUCKING BLOCKED ME??????????????????????? LIKE?????????????????????? THE FUCKING AUDACITY????????????????????????

[askteamsupernova]

How did the team all meet up and form?

Surya: I'm really glad she said yes. Being an explorer has been a lot of fun!

Ammy: Agreed!

[fanghuas]

did jiao liqiao even like di feisheng tho or did she just have gender envy