She Who Became The Sun - Tumblr Posts
Ma: I am at a loss for words
Zhu, narrating: Despite being at a loss for words, Ma continued to yell at me for another fifteen minutes
A thousand ghosts follow him, but the one who haunts him is not amongst them.
thing that drives me insane about the ouyang/wbx dynamic is that they both think they would do a way better job of being each other. ouyang is like ugh you have an intact male body and you're not even doing anything with it if i was in your position i would be soooo well-respected and masculine and my dad would love me for always doing what he wants. meanwhile wbx is like fuck you i love schemes and plots and being Not A Real Man why are you trying to prove yourself to people who are never going to accept you but also esen loves you and you don't even appreciate it, if he loved me i would be loyal to him forever and never betray him. also they do clearly have some level of respect for one another but they're also physically incapable of being in the same room without calling each other slurs
RAAAAAAGGGGGGDHFJFHGGGGGGGHHDJDJ
must enemies turn into lovers? can't they be the mirror of each other, connected by a defining trait of their character and arc, but ultimately separated by fate or ideology? can't they feel each other's presence in the crowd, a tether, a like calls to like, and at the same time repulsion for the distorted reflection they find in their enemy? can't they be each other's most feared destiny? can't they squash every time they meet the tiny fragment of empathy and connection that refuses to die, despite the opposite ideas, despite the blood, despite and because of the tragedy of it all?
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.)
oh 12.65 litres of blood clinging to the outside of my body, we're really in it now
today's episode of being obsessed with The Radiant Emperor: this conversation (even before the ''you don't kneel" moment) is insane for the parallels it shares with Ouyang's internal struggles. Aside from the obvious ''Why can’t you make it easier for me to hate you?/Would that I could only hate, It would be easier", it makes me want to chew on glass that Ouyang seems to never have considered forgiving Esen for (essentially) being Chaghan's son and is so taken aback by the fact that Esen considers forgiving Baoxiang simply because he loves him. Ouyang could never conceive of such notion even if what he subconsiously wants the most is to live happily ever after with Esen!
Another thing is the parallel between Ouyang being like ''oh no, Esen, why can't you see reality for what it is" several times (even if he admires that) and Esen here going ''oh no, Ouyang, why can't you imagine a different reality"... For all the poetic Ouyang waxes about Esen's naivete he doesn't share I find it sooo interesting this instance of Esen dragging Ouyang for his lack of imagination because this is ultimately what doomed him...
Scrolling through Instagram....
Seeing a post and profile selling books.....
Seeing the insanely cheap price for new books....
Plus they had a sale for they're one year anniversary.....
Immediately buying 7 books!!!
It arriving and upon opening the packaging......
It was fake, all reprints.
Like it was my first time buying on instagram and i thought it was just a good deal, but as it turns out it was too good to be true.
I feel so dumb...
i feel like i should just go and make a discord server for all those fantasy wlw books whose fandoms aren't big enough for a server on there own
so... if there's anyone interested in helping me moderate it-
edit: here's the link!
https://discord.com/invite/pYV6MRCKh7
Ma Xiuying will see a genderqueer amoral monk with world-conquering ambition and be like “Is anyone gonna wife that?” and not even wait for an answer
*picks up a book that is described as The Song of Achilles meets Mulan*
362 pages later: FISTING???????
exorcising some of the she who became the sun brainworms 😵💫