Ask Sythe

I go by Sythe on fanfiction.net and AO3. My birthday is June 1st 1988 I'm a Vietnamese journalist and published author. I started out writing English fanfiction when I was a teenager as a way of exercising my English. These days I write for fun and stress relief when I have the time. I'm currently in the MDZS fandom (the Chinese side) and learning Mandarin Chinese (HSK4) because of it.

[asksythe]

IoriIta fanart

Iori Okkotsu x Yuji Itadori.

Commissioned with the artist Nga Phuong. It's only a preliminary sketch at the moment but I'm pretty happy. Ahhh, this couple is still pretty rare and doesn't have a lot of materials for it yet. But that's ok. I'm an adult. I have adult money! I can place commssions!

[asksythe]

Drafted a Romcom for IoriIta. Named it How a Wolf Cub hunts the Tiger King.

Yes that new dark horse ship that came out of nowhere because of a few pages and some words in Iori Okkotsu's character profile 😅. I actually drafted 3 different interwoven melodramatic, tragic, steamy telenovela style erotica stories at first. Then I stopped for a moment to think about this character Iori who is the kind of character you would expect from some spicy Chinese BL rather than a shonen manga series and I went... yeah but what else can you do with this guy? I know! Let's write a romcom that still stays true to his character! You think I can't do it? I'll do it so you watch. Here is a snippet from it. ...........

Iori knew all too well that the delusions in his head would forever remain just delusions. Uncle Yuji carried the bloodline of the Death Painting Wombs, giving him ultimate poison resistance and a top-tier alcohol metabolism. Wanting his uncle to pass out drunk just so he could make a sleazy move? In his dreams! Not to mention, Iori was just an obedient nephew; to rebel against an elder was something he simply didn’t have the guts to do.

Yet, fate seemed to know exactly how to torment the lovesick teenager.

Three months after his 18th birthday, while on a mission in a remote, rural province, Iori happened to pass by a slum market and spotted the fortune-telling stall of an old medium. Normally, a young master from the Gojo-Okkotsu clan would never believe in such cheap scams. But just as he was about to brush past, the old woman suddenly called out in a sharp voice, hitting him right where it hurt: "Hey youngster, you're deeply in love with someone who won't ever give you the time of day, aren't you?"

Iori’s footsteps froze. Amidst the sweltering heat and the thick smoke of burning incense, he felt as if possessed, turning around to take a seat. Perhaps his long-harbored, unrequited love was so starved and sensitive that it forced him to cling to any shred of hope.

The old woman smirked, giving him a knowing look before whispering an incredibly bizarre method: "Just wait for a waning moon night when the two of you are sharing a room. Get 'her' to drink some sake mixed with your 'essence,' and she will naturally fall head over heels for you."

What kind of nonsensical, perverted nonsense is this?!

What the hell did she mean by "essence"? His semen or his cursed energy mixed into the alcohol? It was utterly unreliable and disgusting! Iori immediately stood up and walked away, cursing the old fraud in his mind. Yet, that crazy idea somehow acted like a parasite, lingering and taking root in his mind for weeks to follow. It was true that jujutsu sorcerers rarely got drunk, but… what if it was a premium sake infused with cursed energy, plus a little bit of his "personal touch"? Would it actually get Uncle Yuji drunk enough to look at him differently? He began to map out all sorts of thrilling yet guilty scenarios in his head again.

And then, that rare "opportunity" finally presented itself on the day Iori took his Grade 1 Sorcerer promotion exam.

To ensure the absolute safety of the future Clan Head, the higher-ups had actually deployed Uncle Yuji himself to act as his chaperone. It was truly the privilege of a thoroughly spoiled young master. Iori performed flawlessly on the mission, his strength completely overwhelming. But ironically, the information from the "Window" was severely flawed. The cursed spirits in that village weren't just Grade 1; two of them had actually evolved into mutant Special Grades.

Although Iori drained his strength to the limit to win, the battle was so violent that it destroyed a large portion of the village, forcing all the residents to evacuate to a nearby small city in the dead of night. The higher-ups of the jujutsu world quickly booked the major hotels in the area to temporarily house the displaced villagers.

As a result, by the time the exhausted uncle-nephew duo, covered in filth and cursed spirit blood, dragged themselves to the city center, every single room was completely booked. Infuriatingly, the only vacant places left were in a row of… Love Hotels catering to couples, with flashing neon signs in various colors that made one blush just looking at them.

Iori stood frozen at the entrance, his face flushed red with embarrassment. In stark contrast to his flustered nephew, Uncle Yuji just burst into hearty laughter, slapping him repeatedly on the shoulder:

"Haha! Our Iori is already 18, right? Surely you're not shy about this kind of stuff, are you? Let's go, I'm exhausted. Just having a place to wash up and sleep is a godsend!"

With that, Yuji picked a hotel with the largest heart-shaped sign at random and walked in. Left with no choice, Iori followed closely behind his uncle like a timid child who had done something wrong, his face burning hot as he clutched his backpack.

But the most bizarre part was yet to come. Following a strict, odd rule of this love hotel, they didn't allow single guests to rent rooms at night to prevent suicides. You had to go in pairs. The receptionist handed them the key to the largest, most VIP room available.

Click.

The moment the door opened, Iori nearly dropped his cursed tool backpack right onto the floor.

The entire room was decorated in an incredibly intense and cheesy "honeymoon" style. Dim, shifting pink and purple lights illuminated a colossal round bed sitting right in the center of the room. On the bright red bedsheets, someone had thoughtfully arranged two pillows embroidered with bright, eye-catching red words: Yes! and Yes! (there was no No in sight). If that wasn't enough, heart-shaped balloons in red and pink hung all over the ceiling and walls, swaying gently in the draft of the air conditioner. The air in the room carried a faint scent of roses so sweet it made the 18-year-old boy's head spin.

It was too embarrassing! Way too stimulating for a kid who had recently been secretly masturbating with a toy modeled after his own uncle!

Standing beside him, Yuji also paused for a beat at the room's overwhelming "hospitality." He scratched his cheek, giving his nephew a wry smile:

"Yikes… this room… the decor is a bit too enthusiastic, isn't it, Iori?"

Iori stood stiff as a board, his ears turning as red as ripe little mandarins as he stammered breathlessly: "Y-Yes… Uncle Yuji… Should we… should we change rooms…"

[asksythe]

I do like these two.

[asksythe]

Commissioned art. Artist: Con Meo ARap I like the artist's cartoonish style, and they were putting up some very affordable comms, voila. These scenes are from a recent JJK fanfic I started writing about a month and some ago.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/80279696

Summary: Baby Yuji dreams of the future.

Then decides that he doesn't like what he eventually becomes, so he jail breaks his nine older brothers and absconds with them into the wilderness to start a homefarm and enjoy the good life. Meanwhile, civil war happens between the big 3 in jujutsu world because it turns out Noritoshi Kamo did succeed in creating an answer to the Zenin's Ten Shadow and the Gojo's Six Eyes + Limitless combo. It just so happens that his masterpiece is going through what they call teenage rebellion.

Written because I am unconvinced by Modulo's solution to the curse problem. It will eventually feature (pseudo?) sibling incest. It's a Choso x Yuji romance sub storyline. So fair warning. Don't come in if you feel like it's a deal breaker.

[asksythe]

hi there! you translated an interview with mxtx a few years ago now and in your translation you mentioned that jin yong was “credited as having accidentally created the proto icon of danmei as a genre.” i was wondering if you could elaborate on that? what exactly is the icon of danmei that you’re referencing? i’m writing a paper on identity and queerness in jin yong’s fiction and it caught my eye :)

Hey! Oh man, I wanted to write a small post about that too but then I was so busy with work it completely slipped my mind. Anyhow, it's Dongfang Bubai from the Smiling, Proud Wanderer. Specifically, from a certain cinematic adaptation of the Smiling, Proud Wanderer. Unintentionally because Jin Yong never meant to make Dongfang Bubai such a charismatic villain with such an unexpected chemistry with the male lead. Hahaha! I think in a couple interviews of him he was very candid about it too. He meant for Dongfang Bubai to be a true blue villain, not an anti-villain for people to feel conflicted about or to sympathize with her. I briefly wrote about this in a post on facebook All Things Danmei group before so I'll just copy paste it here. ...................................

You might or might not know this character, but her existence pioneers the later development of Danmei as a genre.

Danmei has only been a thing since the 1990s. The genre starts out as amateur online novels and fanfictions of pre-existing titles. The first generation of authors started out as fans and readers of Japanese BL genre. In 2003, the largest platform for Danmei (and literature for women), JinJiang Literature City, was founded.

But what about before that?

From the publication of The Smiling, Proud Wanderer in 1967, the name Dongfang Bubai slowly became synonymous with LGBT and trans in China, Taiwan, and a few other South Asian nations.

Dongfang Bubai's iconic status is further cemented with director Tony Ching Siu-Tung's adaptation Swordsman II. Supposedly an adaptation of the novel, Swordsman II is notorious because it turned the thrumming chemistry and implied mutual attraction between Dongfang Bubai (a secondary villain) with Ling Wu Chung (the OG male lead of the novel) into an actual tragic love story... Hah! So yes... it was basically legal fanficiton… and the prototype to danmei literature in the next decade.

Swordsman II was a resounding commercial success and later on became a cult classic. The actress playing Dongfang Bubai, Brigitte Lin Ching-Hsia, did such an exemplary job and deepened the character to such a degree that subsequent adaptations of The Proud, Smiling Wanderer all cast actresses for the role Dongfang Bubai (which, before Briggite Lin, was largely played by men in heavy makeup). She would then go on to play Dongfang Bubai in a spinoff movie starring Dongfang Bubai as the protagonist.

The scene in which Ling Wu Chung met Dongfang Bubai for the first time in Swordsman II (with Ling Wu Chung stumbling in on Dongfang Bubai swimming in a river and Dongfang Bubai drinking from a wine gourd. I repeat, the hero stumbled in on the secondary villain while the villain was taking a bath in the river….) became the most played-back scene in early modern Asian cinema. It is remarked for its poeticism and eroticism. You can check out the attached photo here, or check on youtube for the scene.

So there you have it. The OG prototype of modern danmei. To this day, you can see the signatures and influences of Dongfang Bubai in many danmei characters (right off the top of my head: Wei Wuxian).

[asksythe]

Gal, last night when I saw your reply about Spacebattles, I had a thought, "How nice. We are active on the same forum," then this morning, when I was reading the new chapter's comments of this JJK fic, I stumbled upon an account with the avatar like you said.

My god, my jaw drops. I don't want to dox you, so I will not link anything, but is that really your account????

Is the account name something fluffy and recently commented on fan theory involving Taira no Masakado. If yes, then that's probably me. Hi! I'm not really all that worried about being doxed. I don't live in America, Europe, Australia, or anywhere that's easily reachable for the vast majority of Spacebattlers or global netizens, especially considering the price of oil and the state of the world right now.

The people who actually live in the same country as me... uh... most of them are a fair bit younger than me (and some look up to me as the first generation to even dabble in fandom). The last time somebody recognized me in real life during a fandom offline, they heartily asked for a hug, so I think I'd be fine.

I would be impressed if somebody manages to dox me, because they would need to be pretty obsessive over me to manage that. And to be honest, I'm not really such an interesting person that warrants that sort of attention, I think 🙂.

If somebody manages to reach me, I'd probably treat them to homemade cooking. I'm pretty confident in my home cooking skill!

Thank you for worrying about me though! My husband was kinda miffed about why I would even use a photo of us as an avatar on an online forum too. I hadn't told him but I'm secretly pretty smug about having him for a husband so I want to brag 😉... while still mostly being my hermit self.

[asksythe]

I want to write a FGO x JJK fic

I love the design of ascension 3 Demeter that just came out last Valentine event. How funny that the other kid hero in the new gen manga series I like can also use a replacement mom.

So .. a FGO x JJK divergent canon crossover where a mad, grieving machine goddess Demeter answers the call of a motherless homunculus-adjacent Yuji Itadori.

The sorcerers think Yuji is an abomination born from a reanimated corpse and is haunted by the vengeful spirit of his mother. Yuji thinks mommy just loves him so much even death can't keep her away. Demeter Erinyes thinks my baby my baby my baby never leave me. And she is willing to break a world or two for that. I'm going to call it... Mama's Boy. Seriously though, I just want to say fuck you to JJK canon and have ascension 3 Demeter be Yuji's vengeful spirit replacement mommy.

This... hanging around Yuji and reducing any curses that dare look at him funny into atomic dust after Shibuya.

[asksythe]

Wait, Sythe, are you on Spacebattle? Because I'm pretty sure I just saw an avatar with your face in it, and the vibe is kinda the same with you

☺️

Shh... You saw nothing.

Jokes aside though, yes, I am. I've been a member for years now. Something like... close to 10 years probably? Albeit I mostly lurk. That was probably me you saw. The avatar is the photo of I and my husband, albeit most people think I'm my husband just based on that photo. Hi! Fellow Spacebattler! I am recognizable by my vibe eh?

[asksythe]

It's a real-life Choso!! Oh my god! Even down the sub-culture vibe he has going on! I gotta see if there's a cute pink-headed boy around this person! Jokes aside though, this is a Chinese singer named Xiao Gui (Lil' Ghost). This is (I'm assuming) from the person's tiktok account. I don't know whether he deliberately cosplay or if it was just a happy coincidence but this is incredible. Choso is buffer and taller, but this is already like 95% faithful rendition of a real-life Choso. Man! It's just amazing!

[le-feline]

There’s something I’ve never stopped being curious about. A post you made a loooong time ago referenced a woman who was the real life inspiration for kaguya otsutsuki. Can I ask who that person is?

Queen Himiko of ancient Yamatai

Welcome to one of the most controversial figure in ancient Japan history. Other than the fact that she existed and was both the ruler of a major part of Japan and the chief priestess, almost everything else about her is in dispute. Mostly because historians couldn't agree on the facts. She lived in a time before a writing system in Japan, so there existed no records about her from the same era when she lived. She was only mentioned in ancient records from China (and some from Korea too if I'm not mistaken). Keep in mind that there exists no direct quote from Kishimoto to confirm this ok. If anything Kishimoto mentioned the moon princess Kaguya from the bamboo cutter's tale as the folklore figure giving a name, a face, and an origin (alien from the moon, sort of) to Naruto's Kaguya. Just that for me personally, other than the name and origin, Himiko seems a better fit for the character inspiration. A queen who possessed mysterious supernatural power, who had profound but hard to quantify influence on Japanese history, whose reign was the stuff of myths, whose powers were seen as alternating between divine and foul sorcery, and whose rule ended because she was betrayed by a male familial figure (there are tales that spoke of Himiko's defeat and death being assisted by her own younger brother). She was also either (or both) a tyrant or a wise rule who enforced communist-style equality on her people. It's just my take but Naruto's Kaguya seems to come from combining moonprincess Kaguya from the Bamboo Cutter's tale with the mythical queen Himiko of ancient Yamatai. The moonprincess gives her the name, the face, and the origin. Himiko gives her rulership, powers, and history.

[asksythe]

I remember reading your post about Daybit and Ritsuka and…. do you follow FGO JP? Because the latest quest just made me come back to what you wrote and just go “…damn bro” again. All of your posts about Ritsuka are art, but I still wasn’t expecting to like Daybit and Ritsuka so much until I read what you wrote too.

I... try not to get spoiled on FGO JP. But that sometimes feels rather futile what with the osmosis nature of fandom social media these days. Hahaha 😅. Still, I try not to get pulled into new plot details coming out of FGO JP, especially ones I really anticipate. I don't want to spoil the virgin feelings of experiencing the story for the first time. Not to mention all the noises and misinformation that can come from fandom and wonky translation. My Japanese is also nowhere near enough to be confident of grasping all the nuances and multi layers of Nasu writing. I'm glad you like the DaybitGuda posts!

[asksythe]

Ritsuka for Tet 2026

[asksythe]

How badly does Teddy Lupin struggle with having Harri Potter as a Mom? Mom who is The Girl-Who-Lived and defeater of Lord Voldemort, but also having to deal with stuff like: "Your mom is hot!"

Bad. But then he has to adjust eventually. But yes, single mom Harri is smoking, isn't she??!!! Hehe... I'm also working on a design for her in her persona as the 'Witch Queen of Avalon' (Headmistress of Hogwarts).

This one is still a WIP. The completed version will be full color. And yes, I totally cribbed FGO Morgan's costume. This one is the version without her glasses.

And this is the one with glasses.

This Harri Potter design is part of my preparation for this high concept crossover fanfic. The premise is that the aftermath of Voldermort's death leads to the Wizarding World being discovered by Muggles. A series of bungles from both sides lead to a Magical versus Mundane World War, the result of which is not pretty for any body involved. Hogwarts, being the one bastion of magical children, becomes like the ark of Noah, carrying the few survivors (children of witches and wizards) to a different world where they have to rebuild their own nation. That world is the world of Planetos circa 100 AC (1 year before the Grand Council). Cue the cultural clash and political ramifications of a new faction of highly advanced (by the standards of Planetos) and deeply magical people.... who, as it goes, also has some kind of relationship with dragons and whose language seems weirdly familiar as it is alien (High Valyrian is based on ancient Latin... so... think of the in-universe implications of that).

Ahhh, I'm so excited!!!!

[asksythe]

It's still WIP! And this is her without the bottle butt glasses and yes I do have to remind artist Nga that this version of Harry Potter does actually still have the scar. I guess she gets distracted by how pretty Harri is. Ahh... I'm stoked! This is what adult money is for!!

[asksythe]

I absolutely love reading your writing. It's so cool and your ideas are always very exciting. hope you have an awesome day!

Aww thanks! I had a lot of fun creating these ideas and fleshing them out. I'm glad other people enjoy them too.

[asksythe]

How badly does Teddy Lupin struggle with having Harri Potter as a Mom? Mom who is The Girl-Who-Lived and defeater of Lord Voldemort, but also having to deal with stuff like: "Your mom is hot!"

Bad. But then he has to adjust eventually. But yes, single mom Harri is smoking, isn't she??!!! Hehe... I'm also working on a design for her in her persona as the 'Witch Queen of Avalon' (Headmistress of Hogwarts).

This one is still a WIP. The completed version will be full color. And yes, I totally cribbed FGO Morgan's costume. This one is the version without her glasses.

And this is the one with glasses.

This Harri Potter design is part of my preparation for this high concept crossover fanfic. The premise is that the aftermath of Voldermort's death leads to the Wizarding World being discovered by Muggles. A series of bungles from both sides lead to a Magical versus Mundane World War, the result of which is not pretty for any body involved. Hogwarts, being the one bastion of magical children, becomes like the ark of Noah, carrying the few survivors (children of witches and wizards) to a different world where they have to rebuild their own nation. That world is the world of Planetos circa 100 AC (1 year before the Grand Council). Cue the cultural clash and political ramifications of a new faction of highly advanced (by the standards of Planetos) and deeply magical people.... who, as it goes, also has some kind of relationship with dragons and whose language seems weirdly familiar as it is alien (High Valyrian is based on ancient Latin... so... think of the in-universe implications of that).

Ahhh, I'm so excited!!!!

[asksythe]

Forgive me if this has been asked before, but I was just wondering, is there a reason you alternate between Caster Altria and Castoria in Lies despite Castoria being derived from Artoria rather than Altria? 

Eh! I did? Ehhh... must be some brain farts moment, hahaha 😅. I don't think I made this a secret, but most of the time when I write Lies and his Wife Truth, I usually do it in a state of sleep deprivation. Usually at midnight. Several times writing for hours through the night. One time, I finished a chapter and posted it after staying up all night and almost immediately after got dragged on a motorbike for a beach trip with my husband (I was dead on the bike).

So... yeah...

@erimies tends to have better writing habit, but considering her job, she's not much better than me either 🤣.

[asksythe]

Hi Sythe! Hope u and ermies update Lies soon! The fanfic withdrawal is bad for my soul😭

Anyway bit of a crack idea to throw out there, but what if Ritsuka and Oberon's next child would be a Manaka-face? Because a lot of people mistook Obie as Manaka when LB6 trailer came out on JP I heard. I would imagine she (or he, gender don't matter) is like Manaka, but is less unhinged and does have a moral compass (Because Gudako is their mother and she has the superpower called 'rubbing on the most vilest of villains')

What would Arthur think? I can't imagine it😂

@erimies Meri!!!

Yes, we hope to release the next chapter soon, and then get to the wham chapter that will close the first arc of the past timeline.

Haaa.... the next child (the unnamed child who bears the aspect of dragon BEAST from a defeated Oberon after the climax/divorce of Lies) being a Manaka face? That's rough. But also it fits scarily well that this particular child is a Manaka-face / White Oberon face. But yeah, with Riri as the mother, she is unlikely to ever become that twisted. Albeit she probably inherits her father's loathing for things like fate or chosen ones or such nonsensical divine scams. Out of all the children, she probably inherits a burning hatred for Merlin type (scammers) as well.

I don't actually have Proto Arthur so I wouldn't really know. But there is a post-epilogue omake chapter involving the various branches of British nobility waging war against the other nobilities of the world over a misunderstanding (that Oberon, who is direct kin to British royalty through both parts of his being, is up to no good and possibly doing some land grabbing scheme to build a new house for his family in the new world... ya know... as the British usually do. Just go around grabbing people's lands and stuff). I probably should read up on Proto Arthur's materials all things considered.