#ghostysword

[mdzsao3]

Mo Xuanyu and Wei Wuxian share 1 self-sacrifical brain cell

[ao3 link]

[sometimesophie]

From the latest chapter of The Twin Blades of Yunmeng by @ghostysword:

Qin-zongzhu is delicate-featured and a head shorter than most of the cultivators around her, but a subtle gravity pulls the attention of the men and women present towards her.

[ID: Digital portrait of Qin Su as Sect Leader Qin, in flowing pink hanfu with gold accents. She stands on stone steps facing the viewer’s left, but with her head turned to stare directly at the viewer. She is wearing her hair in a matron’s updo secured with pink-and-gold crabapple-blossom hairpins, and she holds a sword with a golden hilt and dark pink sheath. Behind her, the banister of the stone steps is decorated with dog-lion statues. The portrait’s backdrop includes the rooftops of a tall Chinese manor, a willow tree, and the blue, indistinct shapes of rounded hills. /end ID]

[evilhasnever]

@ghostysword

The title in itself is a little tarot inspired, yes! And also, the watchtowers have a bit of an important role in this story…

It’s your usual “a rando used the sacrifice ritual to bring JGY back” scenario, but it’s a little ambitious in scope so I haven’t written past chapter 2 (I need to wrap my head around postcanon politics and developments; also, I’m not sure how to keep it interesting if lxc and jgy do not meet for several chapters yet… you know?)

But here’s a snippet of resurrected jgy in damage control mode!

He’s killed another father, and he feels nothing. At least, nothing significant. Some bitterness seeps through, acrid in the back of his throat, like the poisons he’d dutifully taken every day in Qishan and then in Lanling to build up an immunity. It occurs to him that now he may have to start over from the beginning, if he can get his hands on some poison. Granted, the body he’s stolen may never have been in a position to fear being poisoned, but Jin Guangyao always is. It pays to be cautious. 

The first thing he does is upturn the water basin and scrub every last evidence of the bloody array from the ground. No matter what, he won’t leave such a conspicuous hint for anyone who might know what it means - such people are few, but they are exactly the last people on Earth he wants to alert to his presence.

[havenarchive]

[ID: a banner with a book and a sprig of lavender under text reading “The Haven Mayday Rec List”]

Featuring fics by: 

LadyOfRoseFire|@ladyofrosefire, Chrome|@catalists, GhostySword| @ghostysword, RoseClaw|@roseclaw, Rionaa|@unexpected-readings-of-poetry, stardust_and_sunlight, AllMadeOfStardust|@all-made-of-stardust, SkyKat_Ava, Demenior|@demenior, pippen2112, InTheMidnightHour, wulcanbiology|@wulcanbiology ashley_in_the_know|@jenkinsjester, handwritten, Defiler_Wyrm|@defilerwyrm, 1stLieutenantTwitchy|@1stlieutenanttwitchy, dancer4813|@dancer4813

And for:

Avatar: the Last Airbender, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia, Critical Role (Web Series), Harry Potter, Supernatural, Thor (Movies), Voltron: Legendary Defender, 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV)/Módào Zǔshī and crossovers with 天官赐福 - 墨香铜臭 | Tiān Guān Cì Fú - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù and Doctor Who (2005)

Find it here

[sometimesophie]

From The Twin Blades of Yunmeng by @ghostysword: 

Now the sect leader reaches across his back and pulls both blades free in one fluid motion. Sandu’s violet sword glare breaks a shard of rock from the statue’s leg while the other blade sends the fairy’s next punch skidding off to the side. Jiang Cheng pivots from under a stomp of the creature’s foot, a fluid dodge that reminds Wei Wuxian of the moves he’d developed during Sunshot to stay out of sword range while playing his flute. Then Jiang Cheng brings both blades around, two sword glares flashing, and—

Oh. Oh. Wei Wuxian knows the second sword’s glare, silver with a hint of red, better than any other. His brother is wielding Suibian, the first and last sword that had ever belonged to Wei Wuxian. Time moves slowly for a second as he watches Jiang Cheng use the crossed blades to brace against a hit, the red and purple lights of the two swords flaring together. Jiang Cheng flies backwards and catches himself with sturdy Sandu, already rebalancing to bring lightning-quick Suibian around for another strike.

[ID: Digital painting of Jiang Cheng in Yunmeng purple, crouched on one knee in the dirt. He’s in the heat of a fight, hair disheveled, eyes furiously focused on a target offscreen. Jiang Cheng wields two jian (double-edged straight swords): his original spiritual weapon Sandu in his right hand, and Suibian, the sword previously belonging to Wei Wuxian, in his left. His left arm is flung back for balance, and Suibian’s blade is stained with blood. /end ID] 

[sometimesophie]

first sketch vs. final painting: illustrations for The Twin Blades of Yunmeng (by @ghostysword) chapters 1-4

a gentle reminder to fellow art learners that nothing comes out of the can looking perfect--and it doesn't have to! Between each of these paired images are countless sketches, studies, and franken-digital-manipulations, each one bringing me closer to the image and impact I envisioned in my head.

Foreshortening doesn't come naturally to me; neither do dimensionality or light. But that's what references are for--they can help you re-configure your artistic eye, when your brain has trouble wrapping around how something like foreshortening works. I watched a lot of wushu videos for these. In some cases I had to create my own references, using friends and family who were very patient with me climbing up and down furniture to get weirdly angled photos. I drew things repeatedly and stitched together different sketches (with parts stretched/flipped/squashed) to make composites that I then drew over digitally. I experimented with different techniques and colors and sometimes had to backtrack because actually a drawing was Done two versions ago and I had just been overworking it. And all that takes time, so much time, but none of it is wasted--it's all part of the process~!

[sometimesophie]

From the newest chapter of The Twin Blades of Yunmeng by @ghostysword:

Jiang Cheng is practicing his sword forms in the inn’s dusty courtyard, both blades flashing in the golden morning light. He looks more like Jiang Fengmian than he ever has before. Good Jiang swordwork looks fluid, almost lazy to the untrained eye. Jiang Cheng had struggled to smooth the choppiness from his swordwork as a kid, to the point that the swordmaster had joked about shipping him to the Nie and giving him a saber. Jiang Cheng has mastered the Jiang style now, though, each move with a strength to it as flexible and inexorable as a river.

[ID: Digital painting of Jiang Cheng in a simplified version of his Yunmeng purple robes, with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He holds Sandu in his right hand and Suibian in his right, and both blades flash in the sunlight as he moves through the stances of a sword form. /end ID]

[sometimesophie]

from Ch. 4 of The Twin Blades of Yunmeng

as always, by the awesome @ghostysword // read here~

you get TWO arts with this chapter! a diptych which could be subtitled "POV: Jiang Yanli watching over her loved ones" :))

With his face softened in sleep, Jin Ling looks so much like Shijie.

[ID 1: Digital painting of Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng, both kneeling over their nephew Jin Ling in a clearing of grass. Jin Ling is unconscious, curled toward Jiang Cheng, who is gripping his arm and taking his pulse. Wei Wuxian, on Jin Ling's other side, is tentatively reaching out with his right hand to peel a black curse mark away from Jin Ling's leg. In the slanted sunlight, the brothers and their nephew almost form a loose yin-yang circle, with Wei Wuxian on the yang (light) side and Jiang Cheng and Jin Ling forming the yin (dark) side. /end ID 1]

And then:

He pivots to walk away, and Jiang Cheng lunges to catch his wrist. Wei Wuxian goes limp, defeated. If his brother wants to hit him, he can. Anything of Wei Wuxian’s that is left, his brother can take. There isn’t much there, anyway.

[ID 2: Digital painting of Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng, both looking upset. Wei Wuxian is angled away from Jiang Cheng, as if to walk away, but he's being prevented by Jiang Cheng, who is gripping his wrist in one hand and the sword Suibian in the other. Between Wei Wuxian's eyes being closed and his back being turned to Jiang Cheng, he cannot see Jiang Cheng's pleading, vulnerable facial expression. /end ID]