#domduongart

[domduongart]

Got into Hazbin Hotel this year, so prepare for some fanart 👀 First up is Chaggie!

[fahye]

Omg I just finished reading A Marvellous Light and had no idea you were also the same person until now who wrote 'half cloak & half dagger', both one of my favourite Xiyao fics and one of my favourite characterisations of JGY. Congrats on the books! I'll be looking to pick up A Restless Truth too

thank you! that fic is a pure expression of how much I enjoy writing overthinking ruthless petty bitches, a character type I have not yet fully unleashed in my original works.

[quindriepress]

Coming Sept 1st - TILT: SIX TALES, a medley of black & white comics!

✏️ Edited by @evegwood & @haridraws, featuring six fantastic UK comic creators:

🌲 Julie Campbell

💸 Chris Manson

🍜 Jack Devereaux

🤖 @ariadnearca

🫖 @kroovv

👹 @domduongart

With cover art from @fitakaleerie!

Sign up for a launch notification on KICKSTARTER or OUR WEBSITE to get an email when preorders go live!

[fishfingersandscarves]

Pls have my housemate's very good, noisy, sassy weirdo Luna. She loves chorizo, tuna and having people watch or pet her while she eats

Omg I love her

[veliseraptor]

Xiyao for the ship ask meme?

hooooo boy!!!! was wondering when this one was going to come up and then of course it took me ages to get to this, thank you for your patience

Cons:

it hurts! a lot! I mean, this is kind of a thing that I enjoy about it as well (see below) but also...I want them both to be happy and that doesn’t so much work out. 

also, I do think that there’s a certain amount of hangups you’d have to get Jin Guangyao over before he was willing to get into any kind of relationship. I think he’s extremely gun shy in that arena, for multiple reasons, and I actually kind of like the idea that Lan Xichen is the one who does the pursuing here. and I’ve talked before about how I think that any kind of physical relationship would be...unlikely while Jin Guangyao was married, because he wouldn’t do that to Qin Su. 

most of the other downsides here are the things that I like about Xiyao as a ship, actually. other than - oh, I feel like this is a pairing rife with characterization I either dislike or disagree with. I’m very picky about both these characters and the dynamic they have with each other! so sue me.

(not that that isn’t true...generally, but it is more true for some things than others.)

Pros:

this canon has an abundance of ‘possible ships that hit a whole bunch of my personal specific buttons simultaneously’ and this is definitely up there for one of them!!! 

right off the bat I have a thing for ships where it’s like...”character with excruciatingly low standards of behavior falls head over heels in infatuation with person who is decent to them” and, I mean, yeah. 

I’m always going to be a little sad that we don’t see the time that Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao spent together while Lan Xichen was in hiding, though, because I think that’s actually...where infatuation became something else? because that’s a period of time where they were (more) on even footing, where Jin Guangyao could actually help Lan Xichen, could actually be doing something for him as opposed to...being the recipient of pity or charity. (which is, I think, something that Jin Guangyao is extremely averse to in his personal relationships.)

I just...have a lot of feelings about the absolute faith that Lan Xichen places in Jin Guangyao. the way he is willing to extend so much benefit of the doubt to him, so much trust to him, and how he does that very deliberately and publicly in the face of a society that is, in many ways, set against Jin Guangyao. 

and then I also have feelings about how determinedly Jin Guangyao wants to protect Lan Xichen, keep him safe and shielded from the darker parts of his life and of himself, but at the same time Lan Xichen is someone he can be more himself with, in some ways, because he doesn’t have to have his customer service face on always, he doesn’t have to be as preoccupied with image, he can engage with him on a level that feels equal, as the recipient of respect and friendship. 

I wrote a while back about how I think that’s probably what’s most important to Jin Guangyao about his relationship with Lan Xichen - the fact that Lan Xichen respects him. and I think admires him, too! his persistence and determination and keeping his head up despite everything everybody says. 

but then with all that...the deception that is involved in Jin Guangyao’s attempts to protect Lan Xichen. the fundamental gap of understanding that does come from their difference in origin and the fact that Lan Xichen is not, I would say, class-conscious. the fact that Jin Guangyao is presenting a partially sanitized version of himself (though not, I think, as sanitized as he thinks; Lan Xichen seems to refer to knowing he got up to some shit); he can’t let down his guard completely, he is still conscious, I think, of the ways in which he doesn’t live up to Lan Xichen’s image of him. 

and Lan Xichen...he doesn’t know this. he’s operating under a belief about their relationship and an understanding that gets utterly shattered, and that shattering shakes some of his foundational understandings about himself and his world. 

it just hurts a lot, also, and I do love to suffer. 

[moonsheen]

I just finished reading your story, Cardinal Orchard, and holy shit, it gave me CHILLS. How everyone normalised the treatment of the dryads, the body horror stuff, just, ahhhhhh. I loved both this and A Good Wick; you're so good at writing horror stories! So I was wondering, what do you like best about writing horror? And what sort of things do you do or think about when trying to achieve a chilling or horrifying moment when writing a story (of any genre)?

Ah, thank you! I’m so glad you liked my creepy dryad story. 

My favorite thing about horror is lore and atmosphere. My favorite genre for horror is actually survival horror games because they are all about lore an environment. They often rely fully on atmosphere and little bits of lore -- and focus on the character’s relationship with an increasingly hostile environment.  I like horror where the setting is as much a character as anything else. A creepy, living, beating setting that has a personality all its own and half of learning its history is learning what kind of personality it has. A haunted house, a cursed village, or an orchard full of tree people...

Also, as someone who suffers from anxiety, it’s an oddly cathartic way to tap into the general low key feeling I have day to day of being scared of everything. Little things can become frightening in big ways when you have anxiety, so turning that into a narrative you have some control over is oddly comforting. 

I think about that slow creep a lot, the way things may seem normal until the second they’re not. The dissonance people suffer when they start to realize something has gone wrong is about the creepiest thing in the world to me. I’m not big on gore, but I AM a huge fan of that psychological horror that plays on perception vs. reality. i.e. someone who treats something WEIRD as normal or vice versa.

I guess what I’m saying is: existential horror is my favorite and everyone should do it.

[domduongart]

These two absolutely danced together back when they were still friends.

[domduongart]

Most likely my favourite ship from Helluva Boss, when House of Asmodeus started playing, these two HOOKED me.