Whumptober Day 19: “I’m Not As Stupid As You Think I Am.”

“if you can’t brush your teeth that’s fine uwu one step at a time” posts are supportive and that’s great but I’m about to have a 4.4k$ dental bill because I wasn’t taking care of my teeth when I was super depressed so uhh brush your fuckin teeth

Word of Honor as The Onion News headlines part 1 (-> part 2)

Thinking about how in a way, the identity of Li Lianhua dying was actually for the best, especially if he truly wanted to live for himself.

Li Xiangyi was the street kid unaware of his bloodline, who's adopted by a loving if not slightly dysfunctional (settling your couple quarrels through having the brothers fight to hone their skills was not healthy change my mind) family. And then as a teenager, he defeats this random villain and now he's not just a person, not anymore. He's the fastest sword in the land, he's the leader of the Sigu Sect, and maybe he did establish the sect with the noble intentions of helping people just like his childhood self, but in the end he's a teenager and he becomes a figurehead, a banner, and one command from him could move troops, and he doesn't know how to deal with this much responsibility but he can't delegate it because no one else is competent enough is expendable enough. In the end, Li Xiangyi wasn't living for himself, but for the powerful Sect he established and the ideals he's unwittingly become the figurehead for.

And then he becomes Li Lianhua, and this time it's more obvious that he's not living for himself. His one motive for surviving is to find his shixiong Shan Gudao's corpse, and it's my personal belief that if he'd found his corpse 5 years earlier, he would've buried himself next to his shifu and shixiong within a year. He says he's happy with his more relaxed life, and I'm not saying he's lying, but I also feel like the only way he could enjoy that life without the guilt crushing him was to tell himself "this isn't forever, this doing nothing will end. I can enjoy this because this helps me find my shixiong before I die." But then he finds out that instead of finding his shixiong's body, and therefore neatly tying up all his strings in life, most of what he thought was true is a lie. In a way, he survived only for Shan Gudao, then realized his one motive for surviving was a lie, so really, is there any reason for Li Lianhua to exist anymore, especially when this identity has gotten tangled up with his old life again?

And maybe, a few months after Li Lianhua is publicly considered dead, fortune teller Li will start following Di Feisheng and Fang Duobing around, but that's not part of the narrative. The point is, in order for the narrative to complete itself, Li Lianhua had to die.

New Howl piece! :D Very proud of it ^^ Took me quite a while to draw all those little houses, haha! XD

finally can share my part of @wohzine ✨

kitties in watercolours from January, which I wasn't able to properly scan until now :')

{art print}

Every day I think about Li Xiangyi and his two swords and go a little more insane. The unbendable, unyielding Shaoshi that carried Li Xiangyi to the top of the world, and was found and lost and found again. The flexible but equally lethal Wenjing that remained with him in his life as a ghost, looking for the brother that gave it to him. Shaoshi, which his master gave him, which he left behind for so long in favour of his master's wine gourd instead. Wenjing, the blade that had always been soaked in blood and betrayal, undoing the meaning of the decade he had spent with it. Wenjing, abandoned after he realised it was a mark of everything broken and bitter in his past. Shaoshi, which he took up and carried again till he could, and shattered the moment he decided to run once again. Shaoshi, whose shards Di Feisheng found and kept. A swordsman shouldn't have weaknesses, Di Feisheng told him long, long ago. What does it mean, then, when a swordsman carries a sword that is broken and nothing more than a memory?

I'm just Akarsha fr

Cover of 天若有情 by A-Lin on guzheng

I am eagerly watching Mysterious Lotus Casebook*o* so good!

idk what will the ending bring (nothing good, knowing Chinese dramas); but in my mind Di Feisheng (“gay as hell to have arch nemesis; what’s he arching? his back?”- meme personified) will always aggressively care for Li Lianhua (there probably will be threats of the snake pit at least twice a dayXDD)