001: Update

HI READERS!

In the days between story postings, we thought it would be a good opportunity to touch base with you guys and maybe give a little behind the scenes sorta look at what’s going on over on our end—share the things that have been inspiring us recently, discuss some of our thoughts on the text, and answer whatever questions have been posed to us about characters or story or anything else! These won’t be an every Saturday sort of thing, but we hope that you enjoy them nonetheless.

NOTES AND TRANSLATIONS

Yuhui writes a poem in 005 (The wind in your hair//swollen sea and sinking stone//I breathe back and forth//la, la, la, la, ah—) which is then referenced again in the narrative of 006 (Yuhui hummed in soothing singsong, notes a palliative encouragement of la, la, la, la, la. His breath was gentle as a rainstorm sweeping over a neon cobalt countryside, lungsway back and forth like 喇, 喇, 喇, 喇, 喇). The la’s are all meant to be a play on sounds—la, la, la, la, la very much like a singsong taunt in English, 喇 (la) an onomatopoeia for the sound of wind or rain.

Also in 005, Laike writes four characters on Yuhui: 開天避海. It is an alteration on a traditional four character idiom 開天避地 that means “open the sky and divide the earth”. Instead of 地 (earth), Laike writes 海 (sea)—his answer to Jiling’s riddle “how do you survive a flood spirit’s anguish” is to open the sky (the 天 in question here being Yuhui) and divide the sea (his swirling chaos flow). 

RECENT INSPIRATIONS

When we first began building the world for Body&Shadow, we were all over pinterest boards for visual inspiration but we also developed a Spotify playlist to help us feel out a mood. We decided to share that with you guys HERE. The rest of this Saturday’s inspiration comes from Nen:

The other day when I was trying to draw 010’s chapter image, I had to look up photos of people making out, because people making out is really weird to draw. I stumbled on an animated gif of Bill Hader GETTING GOOD AND ROUGH with Paul Rudd’s face and nips and then got stuck in a pinterest hole watching the SNL cast viciously lick each other’s tongues and trade bubble gum mouth to mouth for ACTUAL HOURS. I’m amazed I managed to finish the image. 

Seriously, just google “SNL kissing family” and you’ll see exactly where I lived for three hours of my life.

COMING UP THIS WEEK …

Is a thrilling conclusion! There are some boys that get into trouble, there’s blood in the streets. There is an infinite dark within the depths of a flipped perspective, a father’s advice, the threat of vomit.

READER QUESTIONS AND CLOSING ANNOUNCEMENTS

Gumroad NSFW content for April is going to be one of our favorite scenes from the latter half of our book(s) in progress: Collapse. It’s Kasse and Eoran and they get extremely creative with language and formatting: there’s acrostics, there’s constrained writing exercises, there are things that are intended to be read multiple ways, annotations marking meter, upside down text and challenging ideas galore! We’re really proud of it and we hope you will enjoy reading it until the first Body&Shadow NSFW chapter drops in May.

This Saturday’s reader questions were submitted by J. Thank you, J!

1. How strict is Luanshi re: vegetarianism? Given Laike’s excitement for candy/meat, is it just grounds-based or…?

Nen: So at Luanshi there’s two primary groups of people who serve specific functions for The Empty Mountain, besides people who just live there and pilgrims who come to die there: there are Jiling’s disciples and underlings who are generally priests, monks, and religious scholars, and there are Xueyu’s disciples and associates, who are tasked with protecting the cores and artifacts held within the mountain. They also take on arena challenges on behalf of Luanshi to accrue more for the mountain’s archives. In order to minimize harm, the more religiously affiliated people, like many Buddhists and Taoists, are pretty stringent about a vegetarian diet but it extends over the whole camp because Jiling’s swarm sense can feel things die, especially on the Mountain where her presence is all over the place, and it causes her Great Discomfort. Xueyu, other protectors, and his disciples are not necessarily bound by the same ethics codes as Jiling’s priests and acolytes because they are raised as fighters, assassins, and gladiators—they tend to eat what is present and available. It is not uncommon for them to eat meat when they’re wandering the realm or down in Fanxing for a challenge. Meat, however, is technically a luxury item and it is not overly represented, except on the richest of tables.  

2. If Yuhui lives with Miyan, why does he fall for her terrible deals? He should know better.

Liz: He does know better, but he thinks that approaching his sister to do things for him in good faith is the best possible way to get anything out of her. It’s sort of a double edged sword, right? If he wants something very badly then he knows she is going to want something precious in return. It’s not like he goes into these sort of things blindly—he’s not (completely) dumb—he just thinks it’s best to lay it all out, let her tell him what she wants, then try to talk down the demand if he doesn’t quite like it. Besides, he’s pretty sure that the suffering caused to him by Miyan taking his things is what gives her true satisfaction, not that she actually wants these items. Gotta pay that emotional toll!

3. Do powers manifest at a specific point in one’s life, or are they augmented? Is there a selection process for artifacts?

Nen: So people are born with their abilities hard coded into their cores but not everyone has powers or the ability to use artifacts. Though the upper class have an expectation and culture of capability and artifact usage, it is pretty common to be just a regular person. There is a stigma against being powerless for distinguished families and this is something we’re planning on exploring with a character who hasn’t been introduced yet. Powers are present from birth, which makes things REAL HILARIOUS when someone has a power baby. 

As far as artifacts are concerned, artifacts basically contain a snippet of code that can be parsed by a person’s system to augment, alter, or expand their abilities, and depending on the arrangement, can serve to modify each other. People who install these artifacts are called Inlayers and they can advise users on the best arrangements, install the artifacts, lay the tracers that connect them, and tattoo the skin to augment, embellish, or hide the installation. While most upper class families have additional advisors to help decide which artifacts or combination of artifacts will be best for certain users, lower class citizens likely take what they can get. On Yunji mountain, however, they install artifacts that “sing” for an individual—in this case, Yunji’s massive library of artifacts will often choose their own hosts because their codes are harmonious. This process is aided by the Lady of the Swarm, whose senses pervade everything on the compound.

4. What is the most embarrassing thing Xiaoxu has done to Yuhui?

Liz: Xiaoxu is actually a really good sibling. He doesn’t actively try to embarrass Yuhui! Even if he did, Yu is pretty resistant to such tactics. He knows how much of a shameful walking catastrophe is already—it’s pretty hard to top an external influence when you’re your own worst enemy. ;D

5. Will we potentially see Yuhui’s other crushes?

Liz: Yes!

Nen: Yes. Oh, yes. And Lai’s too. ♥

THANK YOU ALL FOR READING!