#a transition that happened in both of the books. but also with mdzs i think it's more effective bc wx aren't the main characters the Plot

[tvxcue]

like theres inevitably going to be comparisons between tgcf and mdzs bc they were written by the same author and mdzs feeds into tgcf and they do have a lot of points of similarity but they’re also so different. and it makes for interesting stories in conversation with each other bc they’re basically inverted.

like they both have the same focus on the main relationship that makes the story revolve around them but the thing abt mdzs is that even though it’s abt wangxian, it’s also not abt them. tgcf is explicitly abt xie lian, the whole story and plot revolves around him not just bc he’s the main character but bc he’s the focal point of the antagonist which is what makes him the main character in the first place. like xie lian isn’t a passive character but he’s not very active in moving the story along, he’s kind of just floating through it while other characters bring him into it. and it culminates with bwx and that entire confrontation but even from xie lian’s first ascension it was all something that was orchestrated for him to respond to.

but with mdzs, yes wangxian are incredibly active characters making all these choices that move them forward in the story but they’re just a footnotes in the novels action. wei wuxian and lan wangji’s story is abt them and their relationship and the bigger plot serves as a backdrop for that. in the drama it is a little different bc the bigger story kind of “clears” wwx’s name and kind of changes things for him in that regard but in the novel, it doesn’t even really do that, it offers questions about morality and righteousness that do change how certain characters feel abt wei wuxian and challenge the structure of the world they live in. in the end, the big confrontation is abt other characters finally revealing themselves while wangxian basically make out in the corner like they don’t give a fuck who killed whose brother! yeah wwx still saves the day but it’s not abt him even though it is quite literally abt him as the main character.

[finalfrontierpublishing]

2023 in (bookbinding) travel

so i've been procrastinating big time since i got back from the US because i was jetlagged for something like 2 and a half weeks and was going to bed at 9pm, and then promptly caught COVID so i've been a bit MIA from bookbinding for a while. am shaking off the last dregs of it as we speak; am thankfully feeling much better.

i had the privilege of being able to attend comic con in san diego this year, and took great advantage of the fact that the usual transit spot is LA - i promptly hit up the California chapter of Renegade Bindery sometime last year and was like please please can i visit and thankfully they said yes!!!

this was one of two meetups for the US - i had the great privilege of meeting some other cali and non-cali members who were attending comic con - no photos but i did do a surprise book trade with @rhipidurafan of @fantailpress, which brought about the apocalypse great hilarity of the catfish calamity book trade.

guys... there are 11 million works on AO3, of which 70K of them are in MDZS. it should be statistically fucking impossible that we would both decide 'oh hey, this seems like a cool fic to bind as a surprise'. AND YET. AND YET! the gloriousness of the accidental acquisition of the same fic bookbind. WE BOUND THE SAME FUCKING FIC.

i think we laughed ourselves silly for something like 20 minutes straight. the lesson in a two way trade is to make sure there is a third person who knows exactly what the fuck is being bound to prevent things like this from happening in the future.

ALSO RHI'S COPY IS FUCKING GORGEOUS and i have spent many moments stroking it. ITS ROUNDED AND BACKED AND THE ENDBANDS! très magnifique, i can't even.

on coming back from san diego, i had the opportunity to hit up the LA chapter and GODDAMN, i had such a good time screaming about their lovely books and their lovely selves. i was also so kindly gifted pins, engraved and 3D printed tools, crepaldi paper and handmade stickers - THANK YOU SO MUCH YOU GUYS - YOU ARE SO AMAZING. some of the members came specially to meet me from hours away and i am so fucking touched, y'all.

the next day i also had the pleasure of being brought around the area where i was staying to have brunch and do a little bookbinder shopping and it was great.

i had such a lovely time meeting each and every one of them, my god. i didn't have the best time at comic con, which was very tiring and transport around LA was challenging as fuck without a car, but getting to meet renegade members was really, really fucking worth it and the best part of my trip, hands down.

again - this probably would never have been possible if i hadn't gone on my first Renegade meet up in March where i met the esteemed @celestial-sphere-press in Japan who brought me to eat excellent ochazuke and to explore the queer nightlife and didn't turn out to be a catfish (EHEHE) so really, i owe it all to des for helping me instill some confidence in my family that i wouldn't be kidnapped and murdered while meeting strangers on the internet.

anyway future travel plans potentially may include ??? GREECE WITH RENEGADE??? i am EXCITED and AM THRILLED AND CANNOT WAIT.

[hunxi-after-hours]

struggling to get into heaven offical blessing, mdzs and mxtx fans and the untamned fans are really toxic. they compare every danmei to mdzs and the untamed. i don't want to been seen as a fujoshi (cause i'm not). xiao and wang still get shipped still and it's everywhere. i like to read danmei because i always did find the male/male chemistry unique before i even read a danmei novel. it's different from girl/male. any advice???

also there are people who proudly call themselves fujoshi's which is a japanese term for rotten women. like that's nothing to be a proud of. (2/2)

oh, oh dear anon, I think I’m going to have to break some things to you that you might not want to hear, but then again, such are the dangers of coming into my askbox with anything remotely hate-baity, I did put “the gloves are off” on the literal header of this blog for a reason

first of all, re: fandom spaces, the reality of it is simply that you have to curate your own fandom experience. it is both impractical and unreasonable to expect fandom to conform to your personal tastes and preferences, so it’s up to you to unfollow and block people on tumblr, or twitter, or whatever fandom platform you use. Likewise with tags on content you don’t want to see--tumblr has a tag filtering system that works pretty damn well. Use it.

At the end of the day, it is up to you to shape the fandom experience that you want. There is a reason (well, there are many reasons) I’m not on twitter; I do not vibe with the platform, and I do not vibe with the form of fandom engagement that happens on it--thus, I do not use it. In an example closer to home, there are reasons why I’ve been transitioning from my more well-known blog to this one, even if that means losing the vast majority of my followers in the process. Am I sad to retire that blog and no longer receive the same amount of attention, notes, and interaction? Of course. But more importantly, I truly did not vibe with the fandom experience I was getting from running that blog, and so I made the decision to extricate myself from it.

You have to curate your own fandom experience, and sometimes that means leaving things you once loved behind.

Sometimes, fandom is following fifty blogs on tumblr that all post about this one show. Sometimes, it’s a discord server where people chat and offer recommendations for fics, books, other media. Sometimes, it’s your DM’s with the one friend you trust to have the right takes on this particular story. And sometimes, it’s just yourself.

I wonder if sometimes, in all of our declarations that “fandom should be fun!!!” we forget that fandom is not ideal, or unproblematic, or perfectly catered to your tastes. Fandom is like any other extracurricular activity--if you enjoy it, keep doing it. If you don’t, no one’s stopping you from leaving.

That being said, breaking up with fandom (a fandom in particular, or fandom in general) can really suck, because... well, the term ‘break-up’ is apt, right? You used to have so much fun together. It used to be so good. But now, this relationship is no longer working, at which point, you end it, because dragging this out longer will just hurt you.

It is valid to feel upset. It is perfectly reasonable to mourn. But it is on you to recognize that, and take actions to improve your own fandom experience (or nonexperience, as it may be).

second of all, I guess we’re going to get into fujoshi discourse on this blog now, and honestly it’s surprising that it hasn’t happened earlier considering that I now have a tag specifically for thoughts on gender in danmei, but I’ve been side-stepping it deliberately because it’s messy for a lot of the same reasons that I brought up in this post, which I spent much more time, labor, and emotional effort writing

because many of the same dynamics are at play:

stigmatization of sex and desire, this time specifically female desire

censorship and queer representation, whether the censorship is based in government legislation or societal shaming

imposing privileged and/or patronizing perspectives across cultures, this time specifically Western/non-Chinese/non-Japanese fans attempting to regulate and police content produced by Chinese and Japanese creators

(only talking about Chinese and Japanese BL/danmei/tanbi because that has been the extent of my research)

yes, 腐女子 fujoshi in Japanese means “rotten woman,” but if you look further into the background and usage of the term, its origin as an insult comes from stigmatizing female readers/consumers of BL media. For what? What makes them rotten?

the implication was that women who enjoyed BL were, by extension, perverse in their desires and ruined for marriage

There it is. That’s it. These women were deemed ‘rotten’ by society because they have kinks they should apparently be shamed for, and are no longer fit for marriage to proper men

as for the former point, kinktomato; as for the latter, I hope we’re seeing that for the misogynistic and hegemonically masculine and heterosexist perspective that it is

reclamation work has been done on the term ‘fujoshi’ in East Asia, to the point where people are perfectly happy self-identifying with it, and I’ve definitely seen an ad or two go by on the Mao’erFM site (i.e. the site that produces, hosts, and distributes audiodramas of your favorite BL novels) that utilizes the term as well--this time as a marketing ploy, implying that ‘fujoshi’ is not just an identity that is out, proud, and loud about it, but also has a considerable amount of market sway

but ‘fujoshi’ is still primarily derogatory in Anglophone circles, because of white moralization, because internalized demonization of queer sex and female desire, because no one is actually taking forty-five seconds to google the origin, history, and current usage of the term (but here is a good tumblr post to use as a springboard, with links to further discussions and sources)

I’m not going to get into fetishization discourse because I, as a person, am uniquely unqualified to weigh in on this discourse, but I also think that’s an issue that can only be resolved through conversations between members of the Chinese/Japanese LGBTQ community and BL creators (while taking time to realize that 1. these communities are not even mutually exclusive, and 2. this conversation has been already been happening for literal decades). It is truly not our place to police content creation and consumption in a culture that is not our own, especially not if we also enjoy said content

tl;dr please

take the time to curate your own fandom experience in a way that benefits your own happiness

stop using ‘fujoshi’ as an insult

take a moment to read Jin Feng’s research paper on danmei as a genre

reflect on why you might like this genre, without the specters of societal stigmatization pressuring you to absolve yourself of quote-unquote “perverse desires or tastes”

[razberryyum]

Scumbag System (SVSSS donghua) Episode 10 Thoughts (spoilers)

(covers SVSSS chaps 24 - 26, BC Novels Translations)

And thus the first season of the SVSSS donghua comes to an end...rather weirdly abruptly to be honest, but more on that later. Obviously I love the donghua. It was not perfect, but it still exceeded my expectations. I truly appreciate what they were able to do within their budget constraints and I think they captured the spirit of the source material perfectly, which is really all I hope for when it comes to adaptations.  The writing was strong, the humor hit the spot always (for example, when poor Shizun got motion sickness from sword riding, I guffawed), and they also gave us some of the most beautiful characters I’ve ever seen on screen, especially with Shen Qingqiu, Luo Binghe and Liu Qingge. I really, really hope they release official figurines for them. I’m going to start saving my money now just for that possibility.

Even though their time together in this episode was short, the BingQiu love was definitely strong. They gave them a combo move that was not in the source material: for someone like me who grew up watching Cantonese dramas, two characters who have a combo sword move (”雙劍合璧”!) are usually a couple so I was especially tickled by this addition. I am always thankful to the donghua team for the little Easter Eggs they give us for BingQiu, like the way Binghe's eyes lit up when he sees SQQ... 

or when SQQ touches him...

Once again, for those not in the know, it can easily be interpreted as a disciple just being devoted and filial to his Shizun. But for those of us who have read the novel, of course we know it’s indication of Bingmei falling in love with SQQ. I love how subtle yet significant these little expressions of Binghe’s are, and I hope they continue on with these little touches even in the next season. 

Of course then there are the more obvious gestures, like that HUG:

It lasted for a good 15 seconds and oh my God look at the Binghe’s hand placement!  There was totally nipple groppage happening there! This wasn’t in the book by the way...SQQ didn’t get woozy and Binghe most definitely didn’t have to catch him like some fainting damsel, so we have the donghua team to thank for this wonderful moment of (sexy) physical contact between the two of them. 

The donghua team was also especially generous in this episode since not only did we get some BingQiu love, but we got a pinch of LiuShen and QiJiu love too.

LQG’s eyes were on SQQ the entire time! And then Yue Qingyuan as usual took any opportunity he got to touch his Qingqiu.  So all shippers were fed. Hell, they even threw in some more straight-baiting again so peeps who are watching the show for the “straight” romance between Luo Binghe and his never-to-be-future-wife Qin Wanyue were fed too since the scene where Binghe gives her the handkerchief to wipe away her tears were not in the chapters of the book for this episode, and racking my brain I don’t even think it was in the book, period. I’m trying to remember if that handkerchief even holds any significance but even if it does, it’s all for naught since we know Qin Wanyue is at most just a minor side character. She does pop up again later on but then is mostly forgotten, so...not quite sure what that moment was all about other than to, I don’t know, throw off the censors?

I’m also not sure why we spent so much time with Liu Mingyan and Gongyi Xiao in this episode. Nothing against them personally, I like both characters very much (despite my previous complaints about GYX’s character design), and it’s not that they don’t deserve more screen time, but this was the season finale! Even though the next season has been announced, God knows when we’ll see it next year and how many episodes it would be, so every minute of screen time matters! That’s why I was a bit puzzled that they used up half of the episode showing LMY basically facing the same perils with her group of fellow disciples as before and GYX just running from that huge serpent. Even if that thing DOES turn out to be Zhuzhi-lang, it was still a bit much. They weren’t exactly character building scenes either so...why? Budget reasons? Didn’t have enough money to pay SQQ’s voice actor (Wu Lei-laoshi) so they had to stick in miscellaneous scenes to lessen his screen time? 

I’m kidding of course. God I hope that wasn’t the reason because that would just be sad.

Speaking of miscellaneous scenes though, what was going on with these two dudes?

I gotta admit, I’m a bit salty that these two mob characters got to do what our main couple can’t. What’s their story? Why do they get special privileges? Damn these nobodies. XD

All kidding aside, I have to say, of all the episodes this season, this might be the weakest one, not only because of the “filler” scenes, but also, the way the episode ended was so odd, especially for a season finale. The season basically ended on a scene transition. Not a cliffhanger, just a scene transition, and then cut to credits. What?? Why??? It’s almost as if they just ran out of time so had to stop the show all of a sudden. And then as if to make up for it, they added post-credit scenes which, honestly blew me away because it was so unexpected. It was indeed almost enough to make me completely forgive the weakness of the episode as a whole and that weird-ass ending.

I teared up!  The scene was kind of chopped up, didn’t even flow that smoothly, but I still got emotional! I’m sure when I see this scene in its entirety next season I am just going to be destroyed. I think they made it even more gut-wrenching than it was in the novel. Looks like the donghua team really aren’t gonna hold back when it comes to delivering the BingQiu knives. 

We also got to see Mobei-jun appear in the post-credits scene; I guess they had to stick him in there since he was featured in the poster for this season, so it would have been weird if he didn’t at least make an appearance.

I immediately thought of him as Sephiroth’s younger cousin when I first saw him on the poster and I still feel that way. Anyone related to Sephiroth, I will approve and instantly have affection for. For the MoShang shippers’ sake, I hope the Shang Qinghua they create for him will be just as pretty. I think I can now safely discard my guess from last time and also that moon-faced bearded ojisan others have guessed. We actually got a glimpse of the real deal in this sequence:

They strategically made him blurry so you can’t really make out his features, but what we still can tell from there is that he does not have facial hair (hence, he cannot be the ojisan) and the hair crown he’s wearing is silver and different from the twinky sect leader. So I guess we’ll be getting a fresh out of the microwave Airplane Bro instead of any of the no-name potential cannon fodder we’ve already seen. 

We’ll probably get the abyss opening up in maybe even the first episode of next season but that’ll still leave a lot of ground to be covered in just 10 episodes (rumored). There haven’t been any talk about a third season, but I really hope it’ll happen, even though it might take them a while to make it. I know it’s premature to even think of a third season when we haven’t even gotten an actual release date for the second, but I’m greedy because I already miss the donghua. This season was over so quickly, I’m already mourning the lack of new episodes. I hope we get the second season in the first quarter of next year and then by some miracle, a third or even fourth to properly finish out the story. I know we will never get the FULL story, but as long as they keep the spirit of BingQiu’s love and continue to hint at it like they’ve been doing this season, I will be more than satisfied. 

And while I’m wishful thinking for new seasons, I hope we also get a BingQiu duet and character songs. I love the opening and ending theme this season, if they want to save money I totally don’t mind if they just use the same OP/ED themes in the next season as well, but I hope they throw in a good BingQiu insert song and then release some individual character songs as well. I’m still not a fan of Binghe’s voice, but maybe they can have someone else do his vocals for the songs. SVSSS is the older son of MXTX’s works, I feel like it already got short-shrifted in terms of adaptation since it got the lesser budget compared to MDZS and TGCF. Hopefully with how popular the donghua is this season, it will be given a bigger budget next season so they can bring to life all the subsequent proceedings from the book properly. And whatever they’re paying Wu Lei-laoshi, SQQ’s voice actor, they should double it because that man is just amazing. I worship his voice and performance. I wish he would read the audiobook version of the the novel. I would listen to the hell out of that.  I have always loved SQQ, but if I’m going to be honest, I came into the show just a little more excited about seeing Bingge being brought to life. I still love Binghe of course, in all his phases, however, now,  because of Wu Lei-laoshi’s stellar voice performance (and of course SQQ’s beautiful looks), I’m leaving this season absolutely head over heels about SQQ/Shen Yuan. Also thanks to the show, I’m completely obsessed with Liu Qingge as well.  So for those two reasons, I will eternally be grateful to the donghua team.  

[laiqart]

The Untamed vs MDZS Anime: Which is better?

Going to japan now. Currently in the plane. The in flight tv is broken. So... ive been watching mdzs on youtube!

Hot damn the animation is beautiful. Every frame is a work of art. How the hell. Its so beautiful. I mean they use 3D a lot for the backgrounds and boats but its still gorgeous and not too jarring. The lighting is so realistic, scenery too. All the fighting choreography is beautiful. The way the swords swing in the air looks so fluid, and when swords clash its in flashes of light the color of their sword. Such a tasteful yet stylistic choice. Everyone's, esp wwx, hair is so flowy, so detailed every strand sways in the wind. The waves reflect light and move smoothly. How the hell did they do that. How. I was thinking of doing those screencap redraw thingy with the scene when wwx whacks lwj's boat. (they also emphasised how far lwj's boat was sinking into the water, which makes it more convincing how wwx can deduce that theres something underneath vs the live action where lwj's boat looked normal..) it was damn beautiful. The thing is, the point of these redraws is that the animation looks simple, so the redraw would enhance the scene. But for mdzs, everything is already in peak quality, redrawing it will only look worse. Its like writing fanfiction of books. The original writing is so damn beautiful, fan fiction ends up being such a stark difference that the reader cant help but compare the 2.

Drama, as everyone says, shows better facial expressions due to the live actors, so emotions hit harder. But anime def LOOKs way better in all action scenes. Angles that follow the characters are used to emphasise scale between enemy and chracters, and all the movements feel so dynamic, and i love how when they use talisman spell thingies they got a circle of light in an intricate pattern thats super beautiful. In the drama, its just a piece of paper.

However, i prefer drama's lwj. Maybe cos wyb looks so young, its more believable when he freaks out over the adult book that wwx gives him in the library scene. In the anime, he looks 20+-30+. Its a bit hard to believe that he'd be worried over that. Idk theres a kind of innocence and naivety that leads to the stubborn refusal to express emotion that young lwj is plagued with that we have in the untamed (was this intentional on wyb's part or is it because the teenage lwj wig made his eyes look floaty, so he seems more like a teenager and naive, less experienced as a cultivator vs lwj 13 years later? Dk but it works!). In the anime, he looks like an adult thats calm and level headed already from the get-go. Idk maybe i just havent watched enough (only seen up til the water demons in caiyi town). In both anime and drama, everyone and i mean EVERYONE besides the fricking babies looks the same 13/16 years later. It doesn't feel like time has passed at all. I wish they would have maybe a change in costume, or hairstyle in the anime. The drama at least changes their costumes a little and neatens the hairstyle of jiang cheng and lwj to indicate maturity.

Btw i love that in the anime for the water demons section they had wwx and jc casually chatting (though its a blatant cornetto ad which is fricking weird. How can there be frozen treats back in those days), then wwx beautifully catapulting himself onto a boat and rowing away showing the unique and romantic af mode of transport in caiyi town, then smoothly transitioning to the lan bros on the bridge right above them with lwj asking why lxc decided to bring them along. Its just tying together so many scenes, quickening the plot along and yet doing it so naturally and seamlessly compared with the novel and drama.

Though i like that the drama involved wn and wq and have wwx save wn, and makes way more sense why wn would want to risk his life to help wwx recover his parents fricking corpse illegally right under the nose of wen chao and wen zhuliu.

The anime removed the entire mystery plot of a yan and the fairy goddess statue and thats honestly the best best best choice to make. In the drama, it was one of the worse sections ever cos i didnt understand who all these random ass characters were (it was one of the first mysteries in the drama) and yet it didnt go into detail like they did in the novel, so not only did i not know what was going on, i also didnt give a single shit about the characters. When i saw that they completely did away with the random passer bys who screwed around with the fairy statue, i was thoroughly impressed.

I liked that the drama let nhs have his own trouble making moments tho, like having him sneak a live bird into class. It makes it more convincing that wwx would be friends with him because they both have a mischievous side that they can both appreciate in each other. In the anime, nhs just looks like a loser nerd thats weak in swordplay and does wwx's homework for him, without a will of his own. It doesnt make sense why wwx would keep him around. Then again, maybe itll make the reveal that nhs is a conniving mastermind more impactful for the anime, oh well only time will tell.

I liked that lxc and lwj look similar in the anime. Its more convincing when people call them the twin jades of the lan clan. In the drama, they hardly looked like brothers. Lxc looks more like lwj's mentor or teacher rather than an older brother. In the anime, they look more siblingy.

I miss drama wen ning. I rmb when he looked so fierce and terrifying in his first appearance. I was legit intimidated. Oh how hes changed! Hes so fluffy now. In the anime hes equally menacing. His fight scene with the statue goddess was so beautiful. Doesnt it take a long time to animate the chains moving so fluidly yet dynamically yet somehow looks like it can disintegrate rock in an instant? The lighting on it too, how it reflected the fire of the forest around them. Have i mentioned how beautiful having that fight scene at night was? It was dark and ominous looking, yet the fire cast an epic looking light over the scene with warm orange glows. And the animators had that fiery light reflected in anything they could find: eyes, chains, swords.

Ooh but jiang cheng's whip looked prettier in the drama than in the anime, which is kind of weird given they were both cgi-ed. Somehow the lighting of the whip in the drama was brighter, looked more like real lightning vs the whip in the anime looking a little dull, like they colored it then added a gray filter. This is kinda bizarre given the laughably bad effects of the effects for everything else in the drama. Visuals for non human things is not the drama's strong suit, so it makes u wonder what happened for the anime whip. Maybe in the dark, the lightning would have to look hella bright and reflect on the surroundings (tedious to color) more so than in the day, hence why it looked worse in anime vs drama. Oh well.

As for lan sizhui, its weird that his voice is so deep in the anime (and audio drama!). Ive always seen him as a kiddo thanks to the live action, so hearing him sound mature is kinda off-putting. He sounds like a leader, and gives off lwj vibes vs in the live action where he gives a goody two shoes studious nerd vibe, whos just trying his best. Maybe this is better, he feels way more like a lwj-raised child(serious and business-like) which makes more sense. Live action lsz feels like a wwx(optimistic and intelligent) AND lwj(well-behaved and sensible)-raised child. Anime lsz looks like hes got his shit together. Jinling is fairly similar in both, maybe less prideful in the anime (in live action theres the scene where im pretty sure he indirectly kills one of his men by wishing for the fairy goddess statue to come to life. That was a hella asshole move. This was omitted in the anime.) Jingyi in the anime somehow looks snarkier. Maybe cos he straight up duels with jinling and kicks him down a dark cave. Ive been wondering why all the tumblr posts depict ljy as this sassy ass short tempered kid when he was quite tame (though sassy by lan standards) in the live action. Now i know.

The costumes for the drama is better, more detailed though thats expected i guess. I just love that they have little white gusu lan clan uniforms that wwx jc and friendos are required to wear. Its so cute and such a cool detail. In anime, theyre all in their usual garb, and they just look like random people who decided to turn up at lan qirens class. In the drama, it looks more like a school that they have to attend for half a year and it feels characteristic that gusu lan clan would require their students to have a uniform, given their incredibly strict regime type. It also serves to separate the happy carefree school days from all the other tragic af events in wwx's life. His costume starts out white showing innocence and purity of his naiive teenage years who had yet to experience hardship and still feels invincible as a youth. After school, he wears dark blue, as he goes on an adventure with lanzhan and experience how important the yin iron is (gives up the joking light hearted nature as a teenager by realizing the gravity of situation if the wen clan gets their hands on it) and maybe that hes not truly part of the jiang clan who wears purple. Then his costume eventually becomes black as he experiences his first life and death situation that he isnt sure he can handle. That child like assurance that "oh the seniors will let me off" or "im sure jiang fengmian will come to my rescue" gets demolished when he undergoes cruel indoctrination at the wen clans. This visual development may be a bit on the nose, but personally i love subtle representations.

Overall, the anime does do a better of job of explaining the world's mechanics, which is quite important. The drama is quite faithful to the book, at times even more so than the anime, so it irks me that this is the one thing they decide to skim on. The god damn premise, the first thing the audience needs: why the hell is wwx alive again and what is mo xuanyu doing?? I guess the drama thought that it explains itself but it doesnt really. It was really confusing. The anime, though somehow faster than the drama, still has the time to properly explain mxy. A technique ive noticed is that they do exposition during the fight scenes, which is so ingenius. Its visually appealing, as always, so its not boring, the viewers gets to understand whats going on AND it gives the sense that the characters are so skilled that they carry causal conversations while fighting supposedly weak enemies like zombies and water ghosts, which is accurate seeing how wwx and lwj and friends are supposed to be one of the most powerful cultivators.

TL;DR both are good lol