#the drowning faith

[whyamiheretm]

- She’s the only divine thing he’s ever believed in. The only creature in this vast, cruel land who could kill him. And sometimes, in his loveliest dreams, he imagines she does.

this was supposed to be posted here on valentine’s day but i forgot to happy late valentine’s day from your favorite doomed lovers

closeups under the cut 💋

#the poppy war #the dragon republic #the burning god #rinezha #fang runin #yin nezha #the drowning faith #rinezha fanart #tpw trilogy #tpw fanart #rf kuang #rebecca kuang #rebecca f kuang #babel rf kuang #babel an arcane history #babel #book fanart #book art #fanart

[ibetonlosingdogz]

shadow and bone (2021 - 2023) // the drowning faith (r.f. kuang) // the borgias (2011 - 2013) // beautiful world, where are you (sally rooney) // hilda furacão (1998) // bob dylan, on joan baez // religion (lana del rey - honeymoon)

#web weaving #shadow and bone #six of crows #inej ghafa #kaz brekker #inej x kaz #kanej #the poppy war #fang runin #yin nezha #rinezha #the drowning faith #rin x nezha #the borgias #lucrezia x cesare #lucrezia borgia #cesare borgia #sally rooney #r f kuang #beautiful world where are you #simon x eileen #hilda furacao #ana paula arosio #rodrigo santoro #malthus #bob dylan #joan baez #lana del rey #honeymoon #girl blogging

[koiwynn]

fake ass idgafer i saw you yearning

#yin nezha #rinezha #the dragon republic #the drowning faith #the burning god #the poppy war #tpw #tpw trilogy #tpw ​‧₊˚✩彡 #˖ ࣪⭑ mine

[vikensbrainrot]

maybe in another lifetime…

#the poppy war #fang runin #rin #yin nezha #nezha #the dragon republic #the burning god #the drowning faith

[tyrannicalgirl]

the drowning faith / the burning god

#the being doomed of it all... #the love was there #the poppy war #the drowning faith #the burning god #rf kuang #yin nezha #fang runin #rinezha #chen kitay #rinkitay #sinegard four #mine

[dxrlinggxd]

the forces that dreamed up this world are the opposite of rational / this is the first time in an eternity that he doesnt feel like drowning / he loves her. of this he is certain. / in all of his worst nightmares shes dying; he doesnt tell her that his hand holds the blade. / she terrifies him, and he loves her so much it hurts. / it doesnt matter that he loves her. it doesnt matter. it never has. / shes the only divine thing hes ever believed in. the only creature in this vast, cruel land who could kill him. and sometimes, in his loveliest dreams, he imagines she does.

the drowning faith, r.f. kuang

#tpw #the poppy war #the drowning faith #the dragon republic #the burning god #tdf #tdr #tbg #rfk #r f kuang #rinezha #fang runin #yin nezha #poppy war #word web #words #literature #fantasy #bookblr

[korallion]

Loose threads and various trivia from the Poppy War series that I can't stop thinking about

I'm writing this because I have very little time to write at the moment so I won't be able to fit all these elements into the Poppy War fic I'm writing but I still have to get it out of the system because the amount of detail is insane.

DrUgS!

Ancient Chinese medicine in general is full of hallucinogenic and poisonous plants that were dosed very carefully, but shamans used them to talk to the gods, and the most common ones were:

The fly agaric mushroom: the mushroom that Chaghan and Qara gave to Kitay and Rin for the anchor ritual.

The ephedra plant: it was generally drunk in the form of tea and I think it's the liquid from the flask Jiang gives Rin in the first book when he sends her to meditate in the forest since Rin describes its effects not as a high but more as the beneficial effects of the plant in question.

The datura plant: it's extremely poisonous and was used in small amounts for its powerful hallucinogenic effects and sometimes its flowers are a blue-violet so I think it's the famous blue powder that Chaghan carries around in a small bottle although I couldn't find anything claiming it was used in that form. On that note, one of the candidates for Chaghan's drug is also cannabis, which was also used by Taoist monks and nomadic peoples from which I assume Hinterlands are inspired and, although they are modern hybrids, there are blue variants of this plant so it could be an artistic license from Kuang.

Betel nut tree: as Shiro experiments on Altan and Rin rants that the introduction of the Speerly to opium was an idea of the Red Emperor to make them addicted to Nikan and that previously their people used the bark of a tree without specifying which one. I think this is the tree in question although in reality, it is the nuts that are consumed because in addition to being the fourth most commonly used psychoactive substance after tobacco, alcohol, and caffeinated drinks, according to the World Health Organization, it energizing effects prevent fatigue and thirst so the famous fame of the Speerly warriors, at least those in Tearza's time, perhaps also stemmed from this as well as the brutal training regime and the legend of its origin is also very much linked to the Speerly eyes.

2.The Different Peoples of Nikan

I will only talk about Speerly and Hinterlanders otherwise I will never stop writing.

Speerly: As I mentioned above, the Tiwanese legend of the birth of the Betel Tree is linked to the inspiration for the red eyes of our phoenix warriors. According to the legend of the Paiwan tribe, one day a child with red eyes was born in a village, who killed any living thing with a glance. In the end Pali, this is the child's name, after finally integrating himself into the village and using the power of his eyes in wars between the other tribes, will be put to death after accidentally killing children but a friend of his notices that a betel nut tree was born on Pali's grave, the fruits of which are as wide and red as the boy's eyes that will protect the people of the village from then on. Now, what do you do with an intriguing legend about a red-eyed boy whose death essentially gave rise to a light drug tree? Apparently Kuang's answer was an entire red-eyed people reaching out to their murderous goddess via a drug of the colour of their eyes. I love this woman.

Hinterlanders: Rather than being one of a single people they are a sort of confederation of clans inspired by the Huns and the Mongols but I find it fascinating that many have light eyes and hair isn't an artistic license by the author to make them more 'shamanic' like most fantasy writers do because apparently a lot of ancient nomadic Asian ethnic groups had light eyes and hair. I used to think it was incredibly rare and more a thing of the descendants of peoples who lived near the Silk Road or the European border.

3.The Dragon

The Dragon is a Yao not a God.

I know Chaghan has already explained this, but many seem to forget about it, while I who had read Poppy War because I was in abstinence of Wuxia like MoDaoZuShi started shouting IS A FUKING Yao! and suddenly Nezha's whole speech about how it's not like Rin suddenly makes sense. Because Yao are often confused with Magical Beasts or Gods but Yao is a broad term for any animal, plant or even inanimate object that has gained spiritual awareness and magical powers. In this case, as Chaghan explained, an animal has absorbed the power of the Caves (if we want to speak in terms of theology or even Wuxia it would be Qi or even Mana if you prefer) which are one of those places where the veil between the two worlds thins and supposedly filled with the power of the real Rain Dragon and has become the 'Dragon'. But he is not a god because, as has already been said in the trilogy, true gods do not have material bodies. This can be confirmed in the story Vaisra tells Nezha about the shaman Yu who suggests that he has turned into the Dragon when in fact he may have been eaten and absorbed into the 'collection' of the Yao because in The Nine Curves River, a story by Kuang in the collection The Books of Dragons, she suggests the Yao existed before Yu's time because she makes no mention of Yu's legend but instead it is a fisherman who becomes the dragon in one of the versions.

The Dragon (Yao) is a Yinglong

The story of the Cave Dragon that Vaisra tells Nezha is inspired by the story of the legendary King Yu, founder of the Xia Dynasty who, according to the story, controlled the flooding of the Yellow River thanks to a Yinglong a very powerful water dragon that had lost its wings to kill a drought demon. This dragon is also related to the eels, through a connection that I honestly didn't understand, at least as Wikipedia explained it, and it relates back to how Rin sees him when he attacks the cave, because at least to me he reminds me of a giant eel.

Maybe the Yin sacrifice their children to the Yao

Okay I know, it sounds absurd, now I'll explain. Also in The Nine Curves River it is understood that it is set before the reign of the Red Emperor (the monks still operate) and the people of Arlong sacrifice the most beautiful people they can find in times of severe drought. Now there is no reference to anything like this in the era in which Poppy War is set but something may have changed when Yu was the one bound to the Yao in Dragon form, because in the story it is referred to that Yu would not allow anyone else to suffer, and in The Nine Curves River the Yao can cause an abnormal and prolonged drought until the sacrifice has been made but not in the times we are shown. So Yu did something that kept the Yao at bay for over a thousand years after his death or the Yin family sacrifice their children in secret. I have this theory that the Yin took it upon themselves to nurture what they thought was a God for the sake of their people after all forms of worship had been banned and, since in The Nine Curves River it is specified that the sacrificed people must go there voluntarily (perhaps a limitation imposed by the fact that even real gods cannot invade the minds of shamans unless the latter want them to and so a Yao who feeds on their power cannot go out and eat whoever they want whenever they want) the Yin Lords of the past would have piqued the curiosity of the sacrificable children to make them go to the Grotto voluntarily and the Yao would accept them as offerings and prevent the drought. So Vaisra knew that one of his sons would be eaten? Hell yes. Or at least he hoped that Yu's legend had some truth to it (knowing Riga) and that he would end up with at least one son turned into a Dragon to use for his revolution. As they say, be careful what you wish for.

Mingzha was not devoured by accident

Of course the whole theory above is dismantled when Nezha tells Yao that he was so hungry that he hadn't even thought of keeping Mingzha for himself and had devoured him straight away and that Nezha would go with him, presumably to do what Yu did (perhaps he had intuited something that is not told) to keep him at bay for so long. But hunger may not have been Yao's only reason for choosing to eat the child. Mingzha is presented to us with gold bracelets and anklets that are good luck charms for children, and so far nothing strange apart from the potential to be a heartbreak parallel for Nezha's handcuffs. But in The Nine Curves River the author implies that all Dragon sacrifices are marked with gold bracelets and anklets, so when the Yao chose Mingzha it was because he thought he was a sacrifice to be devoured.

The Red Emperor and Yu were like Nezha and Yin.

Me with a really crazy theory? More likely than you think.

So from what I understand even though it's not specified, the Yao doesn't eat all his sacrifices otherwise people like Yu and Nezha and the Fisherman wouldn't exist, even in legend. Maybe he plays with his food or maybe he has to give a fraction of his power in return, unfortunately we don't have enough elements to determine this but in Yu's legend there is a reference to the fact that the Dragon Province had become unlivable due to the currents and climate towards the end of the Red Emperor's reign, giving us a very specific time window in which to place the tale, which is strange in itself, but also makes a heavy implication (at least to me) that it was the Emperor's presence that made Arlong prosperous and, towards the end of his life, the work of his 'sacrifice' tapered off until Yu took his place.

Now, why do I think the Red Emperor was a Yin? Because Kuang loves to make us suffer and since Rin is Tearza's descendant it would make sense for Nezha to be a descendant of the Red Emperor but also for a few other reasons: Kitay says that the aunts and cousins of the Yin Clan were chosen as concubines of the Emperors and if the intrigue of the Harem didn't go out of fashion it wasn't just because of their beauty, women related to Kings and Emperors were a useful chess piece in political machinations. The coat of arms of House Yin is a dragon and speaking of historical reality the only ones who could wear the dragon on their robes or as a family crest were the Emperors and his family. Reference is made to the fact that there were no survivors of his lineage almost too insistently, just as there is no reference to Tearza's lineage until she calls Rin my blood. The Yin have the Imperial Seal that was thought to be lost. I'm pretty sure the Red Emperor is historically the equivalent of Emperor Qin Shi Huang, whose birth name was Ying Zheng and well . . . I know the Ying character and the Yin character are different but they sound similar and from a plot point of view the Red Emperor's remaining descendants could have hidden themselves by changing surnames but still one that had a resemblance to the one of origin or a side branch of the family, the possibilities are many. Lastly, he might be right about the Yin feeding their children to the Yao in Dragon form.

As for Yu, I think he was another yin descendant because, at least in the Italian version, Nezha seems to know that Yu is his ancestor.

That's all for now, at least until I find the rest of my notes. If any of this inspires you to write something I would love to have a little credit, even a small one, and oh. . .I definitely want to read it, or if you want to go in the rabbit hole with me don't be shy

#poppy war #headcanon #poppy war trilogy #no time for write #so i made this #for your joy and delight #the dragon republic #the burning god #the drowning faith #The Nine Curves River #yin nezha #Red Emperor #Dragon #Yao

[rewrite-canon]

gotta receive therapy for every rf kuang book i read because what the fuck.

#yellowface is kicking my ass rn #i need to read a shitty booktok book to get me out of this cycle of paralysing fear god #yellowface #june hayward #athena liu #rewriting #rf kuang #tpw #the poppy war #the drowning faith #fang runin #yin nezha #chen kitay #babel

[alderwoodbooks]

oh my god OUCH WHAT THE HELL

I didn’t know this existed until i was looking through storygraph to find my review of The Poppy war from earlier this year and holy shit

my heart, is shattered. what do you MEAN??? gut wrenching, i wish i had stayed ignorant.

#book blog #book review #bookish #booklr #books and reading #fantasy books #currently reading #rf kuang #the poppy war #the dragon republic #the burning god #babel an arcane history #the drowning faith

[fallingskiesandrisingseas]

Still not over the Poppy War because how could I?

First it is 'you need to succeed academically or be subjected to a life of misery in a forced marriage'. Then it's 'you're worse than everyone else because you are from the South where people are stupid and you talk weird and you have no inherited arts and you're poor.' When that's finally over and Rin is getting used to being at Sinegard, when she's getting used to being taught by Ziya and enjoying being a shaman Sinegard gets attacked, her friends murdered, Nezha crippled. 'Oh by the way you are also the only other survivor of a genocide on a martial race, the only other guy is your commander'.

Before the war is well underway she gets to deal with the massacre of Golan Niis, a traumatized Kitay. 'Yeah there were sex slaves, they were seen as less than human , we threw babies into boiling cauldrons'. 'Oh yeah we are also experimenting on the poor martial special savage southeners to learn the source of their heavenly powers'

Then it's 'the only other Speerly dies, we will call you The Last Speerly as the sole survivor of your race' and immediately after it's 'trauma and the desire to win the war and protect your people will make you do unspeakable things, even commit genocide yourself.'

Second book is a liiiitle easier, but not much, because 'you are getting so addicted to opium to deal with the effects of having to call the fire that you cannot fight anymore' , 'the source of your strenght is your friend, without whom you will not be special' are very close together. Then it's 'foreign people are trying to invade your lands because they deem you inferior' and 'a scientist is abusing you solely because they can, because she doesn't see you as human. Then there is a whole ass war, just before 'you are betrayed by the ones that mean the most to you, like literally a blade in your back' and 'you are now disabled, missing the hand of your swordarm'

And then the grande finale, of course. 'Civil war against former ally' and 'Trifecta coming back to life, my teacher being a war criminal' immediately into 'the scariest one of them trying to kill me the second he wakes up, just like he did with the rest of my people'. Then that war drags on, including 'Cold marches that kill half my army' and 'going back to South to fight with the people whose roots are yours as well' and 'subjecting people to the trauma you went through yourself just to win the war'. Couple that with 'large famine and banditery terrorizing the countryside' and 'large refugee crisis' and 'i don't recognize my family anymore'. When you think it's all over you're hit with the 'no one here trusts me' and 'I thought this person was betraying me but she took an arrow to the head for me', just before 'I need to kill myself for the greater good' and 'my friend does not want to live on without me.' To top it off we need 'oppressors will try to erase us, and we need them so badly we will let them try' and 'Nezha is all alone in the world'

O and you find out as well 'he loved her but betrayed her' and 'duty trumps romance'

Man, look at that list. No wonder I was devastated after that, it's just blow after blow after blow.

#poppy war #yin nezha #fang runin #chen kitay #the dragon republic #the drowning faith #the burning god

[funleen]

*insert tpw joke here*

#fang runin #the burning god #the dragon republic #the poppy war #yin nezha #chen kitay #altan trengsin #the drowning faith

[whyamiheretm]

- She was no victim of destiny. She was the last Speerly, commander of the Cike, and a shaman who called the gods to do her bidding. And she would call the gods to do such terrible things. -

Fang Runin from The Poppy War by Rebecca Kuang

#the poppy war #the dragon republic #the burning god #fang runin #rebecca kuang #rebecca f kuang #rf kuang #tpw #book art #books #fanart #the drowning faith #yin nezha #chen kitay #altan trengsin

[mercystine]

oh and btw she’s the only divine thing he’s ever believed in. the only creature in this vast, cruel land who could kill him. and sometimes, in his loveliest dreams, he imagines she does. if you even care. 

#the poppy war #the poppy war spoilers #tpw #the drowning faith #the dragon republic #the burning god #rinezha #fang runin #yin nezha

[tagithi]

hi, everyone! i'm rereading poppy war (i know, crazy) and i still can't picture out how sinegard academy looks like, including its grounds and stuff (as in the whole campus). can someone drop a fanart or at least a place that kind of looks like it. thank you huhu😭

#wow #rereading #si siz #the poppy war #the burning god #the drowning faith #the dragon republic #rf kuang #adult fantasy #historical fiction #asian fantasy

[moonchild-2002]

After reading The Drowning Faith, I have come to the conclusion that Rin is to Nezha what Altan was to Rin and what was Riza to Daji. Their only salvation and the chink in their armor.

#the poppy war #fang runin #yin nezha #altan trengsin #su daji #riza #idk what to do with myself anymore #i won't ever recover from this book #i am ruined #the dragon republic #the burning god #the drowning faith

[tyrannicalgirl]

introduction to the iliad, emily wilson / the drowning faith, r.f. kuang

#the being doomed of it all… #there will never be another relationship as doomed as theirs #the poppy war #the drowning faith #rf kuang #fang runin #yin nezha #rinezha #the iliad #emily wilson #mine