dazzling hundred blossoms

Waiting for the Fell Star🌠Can you spot the crest of flames?👀 Inspired by Edmund Leighton's "Stitching the Standard"! Closeups below the cut if you want to appreciate the crosshatching ;)

(ʘ‿ʘ✿) “what you say ‘bout me”

I had the pleasure of designing the dust jacket for Adrian Tchaikovsky's 'Alien Clay', a book I had actually read and adored BEFORE I received the job offer!

He certainly tried to kill JGY before JGY started music-poisoning him!

Interestingly in the novel we don’t see them swear the oath or learn the oath they swear; the only thing we do know is that it seems to be unusually violent:

Lan XiChen, “Since Brother chose to make the oath with you, it means that he has indeed approved of you.”

Jin GuangYao spoke with dejection, “But, Brother, didn’t you hear what he said in the oath? Every sentence meant something more. ‘Face a thousand accusing fingers, be torn from limb to limb’—this was clearly a warning for me. I… I’ve never heard of such an oath before.”

(Exiled Rebels, ch 50)

For anyone who’s had a passing exposure to the trope of an oath of sworn brotherhood through novels or c-dramas or even the most famous brotherhood in Three Kingdoms, it’s very easy to agree with JGY that one has “never heard of such an oath before”. Like seriously, wtf.

Usually the vibes of these oaths are very chivalrous and romantic — “we’ll share our blessings as well as our burdens together (有福同享，有难同当)”. Or they’ll repeat the refrain from the famous oath by Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei “we ask not to be born on the day, same month, same year. Only to die on the same day, same month, same year” (不求同年同月同日生，但求同年同月同日死). The overall theme of the oath is that the sworn brothers are in this together, and that they’ll be willing to die for each other in battle. The loyalty and devotion displayed in such scenes is very moving.

At most such an oath will mention that those who break it will incur the wrath of/be punished by heaven and the people 天人共诛/怒/戮, especially if the brotherhood was formed to serve a higher purpose like defend the country. Or it won’t be mentioned at all because such oaths are made in confidence, trust and mutual admiration, rather than on a contractual basis.

So for NMJ to get this specific about the method of death? And to invoke the most horrific mode of execution in chinese culture, in an oath that is supposed to be founded upon camaraderie? Wtf NMJ. You’re not supposed to do that!!! I think this scene is supposed to radically disabuse the reader of the romantic image that is usually evoked by the trope of three brothers coming together to pledge an oath of brotherhood that deepens their devotion to each other, especially if that was how they imagined the 3Zun brotherhood began. I think it implies that there was something messed up about the 3Zun brotherhood right from the start.