#and a novel thats basically like... abt my life

[oshaviolater]

god yeah my priority in life is 2 take rship advice from fiction which deals with ghosts thanks for the toxic rship red flag heads up

[strawberryseeded]

god 1 of these days is2g im GONNA catch up w ywpd (the last season n also the MANGA !! which at sum point started updating again n i completely missed it so im super behind noww T-T like SUPER DUPER) this series is still in MY HEART 4EVER im just also trying2 catch up w other stufff bc i started enjoying animanga again recently after a very long time......n also more than anythin im Xtremely obsessed w bllk atm to b completely honest

[ge]

okeyyy...i know this acc is preddy much good and dead, rest in peace all my dearly beloved tgcfmdzs mutuals and followers who moved on to smth else in the yrs since mdzs ended, ....but i still have a big enough active audience methinks soooo i wanted 2 promote a korean novel thats REEALLY unappreciated in the eng community ITS SO GOOD its my favourite novel atm and i really want it to catch on w western audiences bcuz i swear it has the potential to be as big as mxtxs novels were if given the opportunity to blow up...

RETURN OF THE MOUNT HUA SECT (aka, officially, RETURN OF THE BLOSSOMING BLADE) is an action, fantasy, comedy korean novel by BIGA on Naver, with a webcomic by STUDIO LICO on Webtoon

THE WEBCOMIC IS CURRENTLY ON BREAK AFTER THE COMPLETION OF ITS FIRST “SEASON” (will be returning sometime mid 2023) AND THE NOVEL IS STILL ON GOING WITH 1494 CHAPTERS (as of 4/15/2023)....if uve read tgcf in its entirety pls dont let that chp count scare you..rotmhs is a very bingeable novel... while rotmhs doesnt have an official english translation, the ongoing fan tl has 379 chapters translated (as of 4/15/2023) [LINKS PROVIDED BELOW]

MY SYNOPSIS: the story follows the main protagonist chung myung, a member of the mount hua sect who was formerly known as the legendary ‘plum blossom sword saint’, reincarnates into the body of a beggar child a hundred years into the future after dying following the beheading of the demonic cult leader, chun ma, who slaughtered his clan members as well as countless other sects during the war. when he wakes, he discovers that his once proud and respected sect has fallen into ruin during the century following its defeat. chung myung, hiding his identity as a fabled hero from the past, rejoins the mount hua sect under the guise of being nothing but a beggar to help restore the mount hua sect to its former greatness while making friends as well as enemies along the way..

the official (webtoon) synopsis:

When Cheongmyeong of the Mount Hua Sect awakens a hundred years in the future, his last memories are of a bloody battle against the Leader of the Demonic Cult, the evil Cheonma. The battle almost saw the end of the Ten Great Sects of ancient China, when Cheongmyeong ended the hard-fought struggle by striking down Cheonma. Soon after, he succumbed to his wounds, filled with regret at their pyrrhic victory. All is not lost, however, as he awakens to his second chance at life. Shocked to find his beloved Mount Hua Sect reduced to a mere shadow of itself in the present day, Cheongmyeong embarks on a journey to restore Mount Hua to its former glory.

while the official synopsis does make it seem like the story is going to be heavy and action focused, the novel itself is more comedic than its led on to be and its action scenes are rlly fun and exhilarating to read..

the main cast are extremely likeable and their relationship w each other is very funny and heartwarming... that being said i feel like if uve come from any of the popular danmei novels and r interested in reading rotmhs (PLEASE BE INTERESTED) i feel like i shuld mention that THERE IS NO ROMANCE IN THIS NOVEL... its not a BL, theres no romantic connotations between any of the main characters, this novel is more focused on found family and the bonds between friends than anything BUT PLEASE PLEASE DO NOT LET THE LACK OF ROMANCE DISSUADE YOU..

AIIISSHH THIS IS GETTING LONG ENOUGH soo basically here are links 2 where u can read ROTMHS please consider reading it PLEASE bc im sick as hell of not having enough fics or fanart of it or ppl to talk to abt it with..feel like im rting art on my priv to brick walls....!!!!!!!!!!

(official) NAVER (1494+ chapters, korean) https://series.naver.com/novel/detail.series?productNo=4130558&isWebtoonAgreePopUp=true

(official) WEBTOON (73 chapters, english) https://www.webtoons.com/en/action/return-of-the-blossoming-blade/list?title_no=2849&page=9

FANTRANSLATION (379+, english) https://skydemonorder.com/projects/return-of-the-mount-hua-sect

one last also before let yall have at it, if u’ve read the webcomic and dont feel like rereading the entire novel up to the webcomic stopping point, jump to chapter 117 on the fantranslation.. chp117 is right where the webcomic leaves off👍

OKAYYY HAVE FUNNNN PLEASE READ RETURN OF THE MOUNT HUA SECT PLEEEASEE SHARE THIS POST W EVERYBODY OR ILL KILL MYSELF IDK YAYYYYY YIPPEEEEE ROTMHS SUPREMACY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! if u do end up reading and liking it please god..talk to me about it..... im literally shaking scratching my neck rocking in a corner crying sobbing sniffling snotting

[hustlerose]

finally finished FILTH by irvine welsh. i stand by what i said abt it before. this book would put 99% of puritanical twitter geeks in the fucking hospital

if the middle third (or even the middle half) of it was removed or reduced, this might be my new favorite novel. as it stands, there's so little plot in there, it really drags. until the ending, of course, which is the best thing i've read in a long time

i can see the argument that the lack of plot is a positive, though. filth is a study of bruce robertson as a character. the murder mystery plot is secondary. and the directionlessness serves to donstrate that bruce's life fucking sucks. this is the life you get when you act like robbo: hollow, dull, aggrivating, gross, full of petty bullshit, and slowly getting worse.

if he actually did his job, or had deep relationships with other people, this would be a normal detective novel. instead, it's an experimental scottish acid trip. it's a slow drop down a bottomless pit

and i love this character. he really is good enough to make you keep reading, plot or no plot, just to see him do stuff. he starts already depraved, and only gets worse. he is disgusting in very ordinary, human ways, even while everything ramps up to absurdity. every aspect of him is horribly plausible. i saw myself in him sometimes, and felt sick

thats whats so compelling abt characters like humbert humbert or patrick bateman. you hate him, obviously, but we've all been that guy once or twice, just a little bit

no spoilers, but the ending is amazing. it reminded me of lolita in a lot of ways. its the same sudden gut punch, where we see what other ppl really think of the main character. he thought he was soooo smart, so in control, the master manipulator. he thought everyone would see him as the most masculine, powerful, interesting guy in the world. what a fuckin joke

btw someone on the disco elysium team was definitely a big fan of this book. the fascism, the loser cop archetype, the divorce, the focus on character over plot, the dreamlike introspective stuff. the mix of comedy and tragedy, condemnation and empathy. it all fits so well. it would be pretty easy to make a hdb who's basically an alternate universe robbocop

[pespillo]

Hello! I hope u don't mind my questions, but regarding the Emperor's Acolyte AU, is it possible for you to elaborate further about Raine's relationship with King and his position in the Kingdom of the Red Sun? And what of Edric and Emira and their position in the moon court (i think?) I absolutely LOVE the concept and the possible exploration in the day-to-day life of the people stuck within the kingdom, INCLUDING that incredibly interesting play! How did King even find Luz's manuscript, anyway?

first of all just posted smth explaining the militia so i think thats a good point on where to start thinking abt everyone´s places in all this vv

second of all , King´s been around Raine for as long as they been turned into head of the bard coven , King always holds a certain curiosity for everyone in the castle ,but his interest turned further when he took notice of Eda´s relationship with them when he was "kidnapped" in the Owl House for a bit (if you check my #emperor acolyte au tag for a sec youll see a small fic of a scene between luz n king transcurring at that time)

Since King starts seeing the Owl Lady as a maternal figure for him (it sorta starts off as wanting to get something Luz has but really, King just needs honest affection and Eda´s doesnt feel like it has any ulterior motive) , King sorta turns Raine into a royal "advisor" bard figure but in reality he sorta rlly just wants to matchmaking them n Eda so they can form his own idea of a family ,King likes to hear their music before sleeping and they unequivocally bond over extremely similar trauma in the hands of the Emperor´s Coven, to the point it makes Raine feel extremely guilty they didnt try getting him outta it much sooner considering they are realizing this is a 9 yr old whos been treated like a dog by the worse person in the Isles not even allowed to talk to other people besides the Emperor n Kikimora, in a way this guilt drives Raine further to not leave the castle to the small rebellion that Darius n Eber been forming.

Speaking of Darius n Eber, Darius n King has a small confrontation/argument that lead to their leave, Eber at first didnt actually mind the way King was running things since it was all sorta thrilling and battle oriented , but since hes inseparable from Darius he aint gnna be ditching his buddy ya know. Darius was just trying to get information of his old mentor, because King KNOWS about the way he died because Belos told him , at least his own version of it, but the more heated Darius got at King´s avoidance of the details, he ended up saying something that made the kid snap at him like "You care more about your mentor more than Hunter, where is he now? what would your mentor think about the way you treated him up until now?" which pretty much shut down that whole conversation, parting ways.

Regarding Luz´s manuscript, it was unfinished, she wanted to join that writer´s competition just as she did in the original episode but some other adventure ended up calling up to her ,so she just sorta forgot abt it or decided it leave it for other day. When the Owl House got raided by the Emperor´s coven n everything was sent to a warehouse, King came up to that warehouse to get Owl Lady´s stuff n move it into his new castle basically , he came upon it while just looking thru Luz stuff n decided to read it through because hes nosy ( he did the same with eda´s diary before), he´s never rlly been allowed to write his own stuff even when he was taught to write and read, so he decided to take it upon himself to make it "his" novel, and subsequently his play , as a way to vent all out his feelings of the world , his feelings towards Luz and everything else, plus to make a big statement culturally for the Isles.

for Edric n Emira, they were dragged into the Moon Court for Collector´s favor , because they were essentially living around them for a good while before turning into King´s Right Hand . Odalia´s been disposed off but not killed (because Emira convinced em to Not Kill their mom as much as the twins n Amity hate her because thats already so much trauma), Alador has run off to join Darius growing group as a way to find a solution to this whole, mess.

[the-gayest-sky-kid]

Please tell me abt the desolation/agnes chuuya parallels 👀👀

OKAY SO i am not completely clear on like specifics regarding chuuya backstory i havent finished his light novel (stormbringer) so like take this with like 60 grains of salt my chuuya mutuals could probably explain this better BUT this is what stood out to me

chuuya isnt the vessel of a god but he is commonly mistaken as one due to people only taking the info from the "dazai, chuuya, age fifteen" light novel. the god he is mistakenly referred to as the vessel for is a god of destruction & was associated with 'black flames' in the light novel (even if that was just rimbaud). thats surface leve of course. chuuya IS however holding a singularity which is basically when abilities contradict themselves and go haywire? i think? this is because of some government typical unethical wartime experimentation. in stormbringer, again mostly from what i know from mutuals and the little bits i have actually skimmed, chuuyas humanity is called into question because the unethical experimentation involved cloning and it was possible he was the clone rather than the original. he sacrifices a way to confirm this by using the previously mentioned singularity in order to save the city. of course we do know chuuya is the original thanks to the epilogue, but yeah! chuuyas story in general also involves a LOT of loss. of his life in the sheep (group he was in pre-mafia), of his friends in the mafia, etc. i doubt he wants to lose what he has now.

of course again my knowledge of chuuya isnt the best and my chuuya mutuals probably get the art a lot better than i ever will fhdhjsks one of my lovely mutuals helped make the au so i have full faith in it

[glitched-dawn]

I, the boink Anon, call upon the eldritch horros that are your writing ideas. Fire away.

/nf

oh shit uhhh

imma have to fire away some ideas that arent abt my novel series cuz i cannot by god spoil that shit lmfao

anyways i had an idea that i wanted (and started) to write a standalone about, thats more focused on mythology than my other works. and the idea was originally from my cousin, so props to her too!

the idea itself is pretty simple: water Wendigoes. just Wendigoe-like creatures residing in the water, with several twists and adjustments on the classic Wendigoe design. we dont have a proper name yet, but to remember and diminish them we named them Watergoues. creative, i know, right?

so the story revolves around a bunch of young adults from college, taking a break on an autumn break to go to a lake up in the mountains, where Liliana (the main character) got the biggest trauma of her life: a clawed hand had tried to drag her under the surface of the water when she was five.

So now she’s back, several years later, at the time of the years when the lake’s the absolute murkiest, to face her fears. But of course, that hand was a Watergoue, and she and the homies are fucked.

a little about the Watergoues, though;

they’re mostly water-treading creatures, but they can split their mermaid-like tails in half and form legs in any anatomy their body is capable of to walk on land (different tail = different leg structure), but splitting their tail leaves an oily trail behind them on land, which can be used to track them from and to the water.

they don’t have tongues, they just hiss. but they do have fangs, many of them, that make for a very disgusting hunting technique I’ll tell you about later.

the Watergoues basically look like humans with no hair, scales, mermaid tales and several fins, big round boba eyes that glow a sickly yellow, and a big slit-mouthed maw filled to the brim with those fangs.

now, about their hunting technique: their goal isn’t just to eat humans, but to convert them into Watergoues. So they hunt them down, bite them, and that’s where the cool medical-ish stuff comes in.

their fangs hold venom, neurotoxic venom, exactly the kind of venom either brown or black recluses have that kills nerves. This is because the Watergoue wants to kill off the human nerve system to make room for the Watergoue one. This attributes to slurred speech, a hard time moving around, holding items, etc. the slurred speech also comes from the victim’s tongue fading away, since Watergoues don’t have tongues.

then the Watergoues cocoon the humans, either hanging from the trees or chained to the bottom of the water (in such a way that it looks like they’re hanging upside down but. underwater and not upside down), which also makes for epic horror scenes.

In the cocoons, the humans half-melt to form new Watergoues. And boom, after a very very short period of time, your good old friend Michael has turned into a human-eating lake horror.

that’s about all I can say, of course there’s more to the novel than just the Watergoues (my cousin agreed to write the spicier scenes and I’ll write the horror) but that’s what I’m most excited about.

anyways thank for the ask and feel free to send more :3

[yuukei-yikes]

Here’s a Harutaka ask for you! Do you think they’d get married? If yes what do you think their wedding would be like? Also I hope you feel better soon!

HIII if it isnt the little guy i watched slowly get into kagepro. whatsup. how are u holding up being into kagepro. ALSO THANK U im already a lil better i ate 1 single boiled egg and now im laying in bed

yes haruka and takane 10000% get so married. i have this silly headcanon that haruka is begging her from day 1 to get married because IDK he's just excited about being alive and takane liking him💗💗💗 and maybe he is also terrified of her changing her mind abt liking him and for some reason thinks getting married will solve that feeling of feeling not good enough for her💗💗💗 wait who said that. but takane's all like No haruka we're only like 20 and he's like AUUUUGGGHHH!!! fine

honestly its a hc born from a bit in the novels (im not sure u read them) where haruka says man i wish takane stopped swearing so much she's gonna have a hard time finding a husband💔💔💔 ITS SO FUNNY TO ME idk likeeee since he knew he'd die, he never imagined being an adult at all. this is more in the territory of the early twenties crisis he apparently has post str i guess. which is also hilarious.

i think haruka's like... he thinks of marriage of this weird alien thing bc as a teen he wont even entertain the idea of dating or anything bc HES DYING like he literally shoots down the acknowledgement of his feelings for takane BECAUSE he is dying. he's like man whats the fucking point if im just gonna die this sucks ASS

so marriage. well it's an adult thing. and he turns out to be alive!! and takane REALLY LIKES HIM FOR SOME REASON!!! and he's like WELL WERE ADULTS ARENT WE WHY THE HELL SHOULDNT WE GET MARRIED???? takane's like because we're BARELY adults like BARELY. and also IN SO MUCH NEED OF THERAPY. and haruka's like i dont see how that's related🙄🙄🙄 whatever takane ur such a bore🙄🙄🙄 its just a silly argument they laugh and tease each other about *rips hair out* theyre so CUTE AUGGHHH

yeah they do eventually get married. not IMMEDIATELY though but still probably rly young. like before their mid twenties young. LOL!!! as for a wedding i dont think they'd actually care about one??? because haruka and takane are really introverted ppl and being the center of attention mortifies both. well takane's used to attention bc streamer slay but its not. the same. like that's different BASICALLY i dont think takane would care to throw money in something like this and haruka is also like whatever man just sign the paper so i can officially be ur boywife. they still probably have like a little get together with the dan though. maybe they dont even tell them they're like OH BY THE WAY WE DID SOMETHING FUNNY TODAY wjxnoefuoendoefundkc call shintaro&ayano on the phone like can u come with us to sign as our witnesses. and shintaro and ayano are like WITNESSES OF WHAT? erm. haruka&takane engaged for exactly 14 hours when haruka asks takane to marry him for the millionth time and this time she's like uhhh. yeah alright👍

thats my harutaka wedding hc. that theyre too lazy to have a wedding🫡 ayano mourns it so much she's been like wedding planning her whole life for her siblings. seto&mary get ultra married as soon as theyre 18 im not getting into those hcs i already did but ayano goes so crazy with it. and then haruka&takane are next (tho years later) and ayano's like WH?? BUT IM?? SUPPOSED TO PLAN ANOTHER WEDDING????? WHAT DO U MEAN U WONT MAKE ONE???? and theyre like 🤷‍♂️ maybe she forces them and she organizes it alone and forces them to kiss in front of everyone and only then stops being annoying. sorry i love crazed wedding planner ayano

[stuck-in-the-ghost-zone]

MAC!!! GOOD EVENING!!!!!! im thinking soo hard abt interesting fairytale things rn but also. i would LOVE to hear abt ur danny phantom thing?(images aren't loading for me but i think? graphic novel? normal novel?? 👀) ??????!!!! i'm peripherally interested in dp on the basis that my beloved mutual (u) is into it & im!!!! curious!!!! whys it so good!!!! tell me!! free infodump card for u 👀👀👀

THIS ASK IS A MISTAKE. BEWARE. FUCK. DUDE I COULD TALK ABOUT DANNY PHANTOM FOR SO LONG IM NOT EVEN KIDDING IVE GOT . NEARLY 20 YEARS WORTH OF LOVE FOR THIS SHOW. I AM 23 YESRS OLD. THATS HOW SERIOUS I AM . IM.*THE* DANNY PHANTOM GUY THERES A REASON ALL OF MY USERNAMES ARE DP REFERENCES. ohhhh my god. where do i even fucking start. i guess ill start with agit but im still so overwhelmed with love that i have not fully processed yet so prepare for this to be a total fucking mess of words

so. the show ended in.. 2007. and. god the last episode sucks so fucking bad. bad enough that the fandom as a whole collectively agrees it does not exist it never happened . phantom planet isnt real phantom planet cant hurt you if you dont look at it or think about it ever. i could go on a whole. rant about how much phantom planet sucks but instead ill just say butch hartman (<< creator of the show) is a fucking. annoying awful person and he was greedy + wanted more money from nickelodeon than they were willing to give him so they gave him a hard limit on episodes before the shoe would be canceled. so. season 3 goes downhill SO fast and ends with the fucking disaster that is phantom planet . and !!! you know how disappointing it is to have your facorite show have a garbage ending!! it sucks!! so then there was like. a HUGE HUGE long silence where there was. 0 canon content bc hartman considered it a flop and kind of just. abandoned it until he wanted clout (there were a few gameboy games that came out after the show ended + some nickelodeon games that included danny as a character + butch made a youtube channel where he would spout absolute death of the author garbage about the show every time he wanted attention but it was mostly dead silence) UNTIL. AGIT. A GLITCH IN TIME IS THE FIRST CANON SHOW COMPLIANT CONTENT THAT HAS BEEN RELEASED SINCE 200 GODDAMN 7. FUCK . and not only is it canon compliant it is ALSO A CONTINUATION OF MY FAVORITE EPISODE IN THE WHOLE SERIES.

so. my favorite episode. is ultimate enemy. it was one of the 4 movie-length episodes and the basic premise is. danny uses his ghodt powers to cheat on a huge standardized test and this sets off a butterfly effect reaction that leads to a timeline where his family + friends get killed in an explosion and he loses his mind and turns into the worlds most powerful villain <3 you can see why i like it so much im sure (<< guy who has a documented chronic weakness for stories where a good guy turns bad etc)

SO AT THE END OF THE EPISODE. Dan (the evil future danny) is trapped and locked away forever . but at the end of the ep theres a scene that hints to a possible future episode where he escapes !!!! so there was always a teased sequel but this sequel was never created due to aforementioned. budget issues and cancellation. etc. buggest disappointment of my life. UNTIL AGIT !!!!!!!!!!!!!

it was released. july of this year . and i am just reading it now bc its been burning a hole in my bedside table bc it never felt like the right time to read it until this morning for some reason. and fuck its so good its literally everything i wanted.

i dont know how involved butch hartman was in the creation of it but the author (gabriela epstein) is obviously someone who cares deeply about the show and the characters and im so fucking happy about it she did an incredible job. i literally had to pause a handful of times in the first few pages just because the characters and dialogue were written so well and it was like SUCH a breath of fresh air (the fandom is. so bad. its so bad. because its been around for so long people have such insane warped takes on a lot of the characters and its become completely unbearable to me ive had to block the tag and its so painful. this is literally the only reason i am not reblogging dp content constantly. i have to filter it through artists i know can handle the characters properly. if i was not nerfed by the awful fandom it would be 24/7/365 dp lockdown and id be so unbearable) OH ALSO not only is agit a continuation of my alltime favorite episode, it also retcons the garbage pile that is phantom planet in a way that acknowledges that it was a real thing that happened but going back on it in a way that feels so so so so natural for the show. so it wasnt a throwaway "no that was bad lets forget about it" it was a well crafted well thought out "this was real and it sucked and the characters remember it BUT we can play with timeline so things will continue as normal" and . holy shit it was so fucking good. i will begrudgingly acknowledge phantom planets existence if only for agit.

uhhhhhhhh fuck this is so long and i am running our of directed steam so if i keep talking i will just start rambling about the intricacies and holy shit dude i could literally talk about danny phantom for hours and hours and hours and hours if theres anything else u want to know i am the guy . i am the guy forever

[diamondsandlemons]

Hi sorry for being the least normal person on the planet about this but I saw you rbing some The Locked Tomb stuff and it's only been like a week or two since I got extremely into the series and it's nice to see someone I follow also show interest in it around the same-ish time as me! Can I ask abt your take on the books so far n fav character/s?

well I've only read the first book (I'm definitely interested in continuing with the series but I probably won't get to it for a while, esp. since I wanna get back into playing Ace Attorney games, as playing a visual novel kinda takes up the same time slot in my day as reading a novel, yk?) so there's def stuff I don't know abt yet.

but anyway yeah! I did really enjoy it. I appreciate the comedy in it, which I wasn't really expecting since like the cover art is so grim and it opens with some really dense politics stuff and a bunch of long names (that I just know should be pronounced with a british accent but I can't really make my head voice do that) and like the actual plot is very serious with deaths and stuff but nonetheless This Book Has Jokes

and its best when they're the dumbest, simplest jokes you could think of and Gideon says them out loud because thats the kind character she is. love her

Palamedes is great too because he entertains Gideon's antics while also being the one most focused on solving the mystery castle puzzles. (this girl who's been here for like a month and has never spoken a word to anyone is talking to me now? and she's rude? thats fine I'll just roll with it). he's also like the most normal dude in the whole cast. you feel comfortable when he's around

(btw what the hell was up with the thing he discovered about the rooms in Canaan House being from different time periods? like the different rooms are literally different ages? I don't think that was ever explained or brought up again???)

Also, for "lesbian fiction" being basically the one thing everyone says about this series, I was kinda surprised at the lack of a romantic plot in this one? I mean maybe there will be more of that in the other books idk, but like. ok so from the beginning it's very clear that Gideon and Harrow are gonna be the main pair here. and I was a little skeptical they were gonna be able to sell me on that because of where their relationship started, but nahhh I had nothing to worry about. they were meant for each other and enemies to lovers works great it turns out. but like. their relationship definitely improves a lot over the course of the story, but most of the time they don't talk to each other about anything but their jobs. its all bones and skeletons and locked doors with them.

don't get me wrong it has strong gay vibes all the way through (and Gideon is constantly commenting on how hot other women are, which is great) but at no point are Harrow and Gideon actually like. dating. closest they got was when I think it was implied they fucked once, after the pool scene. which like, good for them, I'm glad they got the opportunity to do that before, ah, y'know.

speaking of which I have NO clue what'll happen next based on how it ended. and the brief glimpse of the emperor at the very end was not at all what I expected, so that's curious as well...

OH yeah and speaking of the empire. uh at least the copy of the book that I have has a bunch of bonus material at the end, like in-universe essays and reports (and a pronunciation guide where I frustratingly learned I'd been reading half the characters' names wrong). and ONLY in that bonus material was it ever acknowledged that other inhabited planets exist outside of the empire. like for the whole book it kinda seems like there are nine planets that comprise the empire, and that's it. no humans anywhere else in the universe. no life outside the empire.

sure, the Cohort supposedly fights "enemies of the empire" but that's all that's ever said about that. could be like evil skeletons or some other kind of space monster for all we know. but no there ARE other civilizations, which I guess might be at war with the necromancers? it's cool to know that, that this story's universe is bigger than we've seen, and if I had to guess I'd say bigger than we probably ever will see, since there's still so many ghost/death mysteries and House history stuff our beloved necros have yet to solve.

ok thats probably everything I have to say about Gideon the Ninth for now. thanks for giving me an opportunity to put it all into words, lol

[old-stoneface]

so ive been listening to these podcasts by the production team "minnow beats whale", which are all podcasts meant to sound like theyre happening in real life, kind of like a loose arg type thing in the sense that its all presented as real life and fact and the main characters are like podcast hosts, and ive been trying really hard to put my gripes into words here...the shows have a wealth of information in them, but the characters feel bland and the emotions just Aren't There.

so i found out one of the creators of the podcasts wrote a novel ("rabbits" by terry miles) and i was like huh, okay, theres a good way to investigate what other people think of this without too much effort - i ended up finding a very comprehensive reddit thread on why several readers felt the book fell very flat. this comment summarizes my feelings perfectly:

such a great read of why the stories and podcasts by this little company always feel flat. its incredibly formulaic, the dialogue is stilted, and the protagonists have no personality. which is also why i have felt weird abt the protags of both the black tapes and tanis! its because theyre basically the same person. but voiced by two different people. so its like a copout.

the other problem i have with it, besides the failure to build tension, is that every conversation a protagonist has with a morally ambiguous character is like "answer all my questions now" and then the latter is like "yes okay. here is a vague two word answer" and the protag is like (showing basically no emotion at all, not even annoyance) "[repeats what the other character says]?" and the other character is like "yeah." and then thats usually it. there is No chemistry, there is no personality, there is vaguely competent storytelling that could be so much more effective in a different format. and the fact that these protags are all podcast hosts but theyre putting their extremely personal info online?? its so stupid. "we need to keep this a secret! but you all can hear the recording of my therapy session." you are stupid. this is a plothole.

anyway im glad i went looking for info on this book bc now i have the words to explain why the writing is bad and poorly developed

[cantalooprat]

Golden Stage

What I Liked

has some incredibly iconic romantic lines mainly courtesy of yxh. ok. even tho i found the novel mostly lackluster. the romantic lines?? iconic. memorable enough that it makes me want to fall in love. like rly. i rly love these iconic romantic lines. this is the biggest pro tbh. the romantic lines have given me flutters like no other novel had.

the side story of the prince n fu tingxin was cute n its what every sideship that encountered a bad end deserves to get /crying /crying

What I Disliked

i couldn't rly follow the tl well, idk if it's bc of the tler, who did a good job but wrote things in a weirdly poetic confusing way or if it's just the author's writing style. like objectively it was written in a pretty way, but it didn't resonate w me, so i quite slogged through 80 ch, as opposed to devil venerable which i devoured in 2 days lmao

ok there was one scene that rly didnt sit well w me n left a bitter taste in my mouth as i read more sickeningly sweet moments between the leads. so in saving a village that was like poisoned, the leads saved a poisoned husband who was abt to be kille n his wife. the leads wanted to mercy kill the husband bc infectious poison n like ok thats logical BUT THEN they had the audacity to coldly tell the wife, "u r still young, u will fall in love again, take this money n go" after the wife expressed how she's been w the husband for basically her whole life. n that's like. idk. they didn't even show a shred of sympathy to such a devoted couple, n im supposed to buy that the main cp is super devoted to each other even tho they cant even like...see a shadow of themselves in this couple... it just rubbed me the wrong way so so much n i couldn't enjoy the rest of the novel as much.

the enemies to lovers part was kinda lmao, they were nvr rly enemies all along so i was like... ok...

Notes

i nearly forgot abt this wn n wasnt gna include it LMAO ok it turns out i didnt like it so much n i can admit that now. i just think these fast romances don't appeal to me much. after having a taste of one of the most highly acclaimed fast romance wn n ended up not being v convinced, i think it's just not for me. prob gna stick to slowburn danmei from now on.

i read this... 2nd? of all danmei? i think? i was baited by a yuhuang golden stage au that made the premise super interesting, but i think the fast romance pacing is just sth i cant buy.

Quotes

"There was somebody. I might not have been able to ever stand side-by-side with him, but I could still put him in my heart, watch him from a distance, and say a few things to him on occasion, and that’d be just as good." -Yan Xiaohan

"You are set up high within my heart, and no one can reach you." -Yan Xiaohan

"With one look at you, I could wait for no one else for the rest of my life. I would use any means at all." -Yan Xiaohan

[sapphicvevo]

:O wait can you talk about your story? i'm interested :3!!!

AAHH THANK YOU FOR BEING INTERESTED!!!! sorry for the late reply i wanted to be able to format BUT YKNOW

so basically it’s a mismatch of fantasy and scifi that leans more towards sci-fi if anything. it’s not based on earth or our solar system, and its a bit of like… cyberpunk in terms of cybernetic modifications + technology with a steampunk aesthetic. so like a few technologically advanced cities that are huge scattered throughout the world, and the further out you go from these cities, the less technologically advanced they are. there’s also a bit of magic, creatures, and quests that make up the fantasy elements.

it’s set five years after a huge world war that devastated the planet. the planet’s currently rebuilding, but resources are scarce, quality of life is impaired significantly, and there’s rebuilding but it’s slow. the good guys won, but they’re considerably weak and are still in the process of freeing some of the smaller societies that are still under siege (by the imperialists).

in the background there’s a secret organization of assassins who’ve been in stasis until the war ended. they believe they’re the answer to the problems of the world, and believe that people should be controlled without knowing they are. they’ve waited in stasis during the war, refusing to help either side, and are now in the process of wiping out political leaders and sending in those they’ve placed to take over without anyone knowing.

originally they were formed to be neutral and their sole goal was to maintain peace for the planet, and started off with good intentions and the belief that humanity as a whole were good and they were merely protectors. however, as time went on, corruption and a lack of desire to change and adapt to the world around them + growing cynicism made them into the organization they are currently.

this organization would take children during the war, either in the dead of night, or were given away by parents who believed them when the organization said they would protect these children during the war. of course, the parents never saw them again. these children were trained as elite warriors and depending on how well they did as children, would rank up within the organization or be sent out to the world to spread peace throughout the masses.

there’s a few conspiracy theorists that talk about the group existing, but it’s mostly seen as spooky campfire stories by the gen population at large about children going missing in the dead of night.

MY CHARACTERS… MY OCS.. MY BABIES UNDER THE CUT FOR THE LENGTH AND NOT WANTING TO CLUTTER THE DASH

so the protag is a former assassin of the group whose name is azura! she’s the only one who managed to escape from the organization. on her first assassination mission, she couldn’t kill someone, especially while they were asleep and weaponless, so she faked their deaths and ran.  

at the start she’s very on edge despite her very blasé personality. she’s crude, funny, cocky, and has a habit of running when things get too real. she found the biggest city closest to her, changed her name, and decided to hide within a crowd.

most of her skills are based in fighting, so she’s made a living as a merc for hire because… well she doesn’t have any other skills that are worthwhile to a nonviolent lifestyle and nobody would hire her. she doesn’t kill, but she’ll find people, objects, etc. for anyone after she’s gotten a reasonable background check on them.

bisexual former assassin who’s got a heart of gold who’s trying her best despite her mouth getting in the way

her main goal is to help bring peace to the world after realizing her hand in what made the world the way it is. also to make sure ajur gets justice after trying to kill her lol (a lot of vengeance vs justice ties in between her and ajur)

she also has a robo dog named fish!

my antag is named ajur and him and azura were raised in the same organization together. same teacher, and were neck and neck for the top spot, but they actually got along really well together. he actually considers her his sister, so when she left, it felt like a betrayal. 

since she failed to complete her first mission, his first mission was to kill her. he spends the whole year she’s gone searching for her, and the only reason he finds her is because she takes a job with a higher pay roll then she usually does.

farah and ajur are both traumatized survivors who are raised the same way and in the same place, but have both made choices that lead them on very different paths. i just wanted to show that you have the choice to be good or not based on your choices, not your upbringing and i wanted to highlight that

while azura is more skilled in combat, he’s more skilled in leadership and is more charismatic than she is, and has the backing of many young members of the organization who feel the same as he does

his main goal is to also bring peace to the world, first by dismantling the organization of assassins and leading them and the rest of the world into a new age of safety (through murder, manipulation, and false sense of security - is very pragmatic and believes the ends justifies the means, and if the world needs a person to be the one to kickstart with violence in order for the world to know no violence, he will take on the role)

then my side charas are farah, a runaway lesbian who azura first met when she came to the city then left because of how strong their connection was. (bisexual disaster.) nobody knows she’s a princess, and for good reason. her kingdom is still under siege by imperialists and she was the only one of her family to escape. she’s the head to azura’s heart, very logical, charismatic, and good with a sniper. 

there’s eva and bones hawthorne, my twins!!! eva is a pilot/mechanic and bones is a hacker/cyborg/dabbles in the occasional engineering. their older brother died during the war, and their family and village are still recovering from the effects of it. they learned their skills from their family, and are heavily involved with resistance groups. 

eva’s very head in the clouds, a little naive, but very protective over bones. she learned to pilot from her older brother, and how to maintain the ship too. she believes there’s good in everyone, you just have to look for it. 

bones is a little more realistic than his sister, and is also very protective over her even though they have that ‘hey ugly’ ‘what’ ‘lol’ ‘omg shut up’ relationship. he lost his his leg up to his knee from an attack on their village, and feels guilty because their family had to give up nearly everything in order to get a cybernetic replacement so he does jobs here and there that are a little more criminally inclined to help his family. 

then comes ari malloy, eva’s boyfriend! he’s the one who hired azura to retrieve a part of a map that leads to a mystical force that could restore the planet to its former glory (the fantasy quest-ish part, which i havent completely figured out yet lol). he’s a scout for the resistance, good with medicine, and average in combat. he’s also pretty much the glue of the team, and takes on a more parental role for the team.

and last but not least is ronan acosta. he’s a seer who is plagued by visions of the planet’s inevitable destruction due to humanity, and has a big hatred for it, partly due to his vision of the end and how he was treated because of his ‘curse’ as he sees it. he’s also able to talk with those from beyond to gather information, but it comes at a cost to his health where he gets migraines, passes out, or goes into seizures. he’s very closed off, angry, and not willing to help azura and co. with their quest at first, but he’s got a secret soft side where he just yearns to be a kid and have a family considering his abandoned him. (he’s also bones’ love interest)

I’M SORRY THIS IS KIND OF LONG BUT YKNOW I WARNED YA !!!!! this is my very vague outline/cast and i need to fill out names/timelines and other minor characters but this is the gist!! :~) thank u so much for asking

[sneakydraws]

Well, here it is - a lengthy explanation of each card in my mdzs major arcana deck and what I meant to convey/what i would have changed in retrospect/what alternatives i considered! It’s a bit messy and my typing style is lazy but hopefully it will be an interesting read to some of you :)

And so you don’t say I didn’t warn you - jiang cheng’s section (11 justice) is absurdly long lmao

0 the fool  I elaborated on this in the post itself but yeah basically jin ling is kind of representative of all the damage and trauma caused by the past, and there’s a kind of danger there of him falling victim to the same vices as the older characters and repeating the same mistakes and perpetuating the cycle of war and misery (the cycle that we already see with how the jin sect became the new wen sect, and later with how jgy became the new wwx) and he has a lot of room to grow! He grows so much over the course of the novel, comes to realise the complexities of the past and gets a harsh life lesson in how nothing is as black and white as it seems. But ill save talking about his progress for the end, for now whats important is that he has room to grow and also a dog. I don’t really have a justification for the sun, i mostly just thought it looked sick? It made its way to the next card as well, where it makes a bit more sense, but then i realised it was a dumb motif to include 1 the magician I still very much like wwx for the role, and that illustration would have probably had him raising a corpse on his left and pointing threateningly to the sun on his right. I considered including the table as well, with some mdzs relevant items replacing the card suits. Anyway, like i said wwx got a few cards to himself already so i went with the alternative wq design, since i think she fits the card as well. Both she and wwx are highly skilled people, extremely driven once they set their mind to something. The card to me symbolises the creative mind as well as a general drive for action, which fits them both - wwx was famously a prolific inventor, and wq came up with a previously unheard of surgery, after all. This card strays pretty far from the rider-waite deck design, largely because i was still figuring out how i wanted to approach this series, but you can still see the influence. 2 the high priestess I was actually going to skip this card at first because I couldn’t think of a fitting character, but once i considered a qings character post death, it all fit pretty well. She was already a highly intuitive person in life, and in sharing her memories with wwx she is, in a way, relaying a kind of secret knowledge. Anyway she’s one of my fav characters so im glad i got a chance to include her. The coffins could be interpreted to be xxc and sl or xxc and xy 3 the empress Theres other mother figures in mdzs who got to be mothers for a longer time, but jyl definitely embodies the positive aspects of this card the best. She’s nurturing, kind, emotionally supportive, she already mothered wwx and jc quite a bit when she was young. Plus i liked that the rw card had both water and flowers, making an easy lotus connection. In retrospect the stars look kind of out of place and i should have replaced them with something more relevant... Also, i should have had her hold a lotus seed pod instead of a flower, haha 4 the emperor Like i said I considered jc for the role but hoching bullied me into admitting that nmj was better… they’re both more of an inverted emperor than an upright one but then again theres hardly any character in mdzs who would fit upright emperor so. Jgs was also considered but he’s even uglier than nmj so i couldn’t bear to draw him 5 the hierophant It was pointed out to me that lqr would have fit this card better and the truth if that statement haunts me to this day. Unfortunately I have no space in my brain for lqr so lxc got the role instead. My main reason was his role during the wen destruction of gusu lan, when he ran away with the contents of the library - this is why there’s bookshelves behind him. The keys, take, from the rider-waite deck, are meant to represent the gusu pendants that allow you to enter 6 the lovers Im sure many people would have chosen wangxian here but I uhh don’t really care abt wangxian personally? And also their love story is so convoluted that jyl and jzx seem idyllic by comparison lol. Also i didnt really have an idea for who to put in the angel’s place for wangxian… mme jin certainly did not get these two together in the end but undeniably she and mme yu did initially give them a chance to fall for each other so. Thats something i guess. Anyway the trees became their sects’ flowers and the mountain became the burial grounds - an omen of their tragic fate, basically 7 the chariot There might have been other characters who fit this card better but i couldn’t really think of another card for lwj and i thought it would be weird to not include him… anyway i don’t really care for current timeline lwj BUT i do like that he was clearly influenced by wwx to walk his own path in life based on his moral convictions rather than follow his sect’s rules blindly. The chariot is to me a card of self control, self determination and focused action, so it seemed fitting. The composition felt kind of empty without the actual chariot so i padded it out with the guqin, the cloud recess in the bg (it doesn’t look great but i tried to replicate the drama design….) and the bunnies which conveniently fit the colour scheme of the sphinxes in the rider-waite design 8 strength Like i said before, my interpretation of this card is more… morally ambiguous than the quote unquote official meaning, so i thought about manipulative or duplicitous characters more than kind characters whose strength is expressed through gentleness (though i did consider jyl briefly for the latter interpretation). As such, i considered both jgy and nhs, but ended up going with jgy largely because i couldn’t pass up the opportunity to put the nie sect’s beast as the lion. 9 the hermit My thoughts immediately went to bssr lol. It may be an overly literal interpretation but whatever, i like it just fine. And i like that i managed to echo the rider-waite silhouette in the mountain and the tree (and even in bssr herself) 10 wheel of fortune God i love the parallels between these 2… this card to me is about how you cant trust your current situation, good or bad, to last forever, and these 2 embody that perfectly imo. Wwx went from son of a well off servant and a powerful cultivator, to street rat orphan, to adopted son of sect leader jiang, to double orphan, to MIA, to terrifying but admired warrior, to terrifying and despised traitor, to dead, to, at the very end, suddenly respected and trusted again. The dishonesty and cheapness of whatever the public’s current opinion of him is is portrayed beautifully as far as im concerned. And jgy of course claws his way up to power only to instantaneously become public enemy number one, to the point that he’s probably blamed for stuff there’s no reason to believe he had a hand in. Wei wuxian’s silent astonishment at how quickly the cultivation world turns against jgy and towards him again is a delicious moment of thematic resonance.  11 justice I settled on this card for jc after he got booted from the emperor seat but i do think it fits, in a somewhat convoluted way. I turned both the sword and the scales into visual representations of the golden core transfer (can you tell im obsessed with it). According to biddy tarot, the justice card is partly about searching for the truth, and the scene where jc finds out about the transfer is of course a big deal. I was also very influenced by the reversed meaning again - which is about being reluctant or unwilling to face or accept the consequences of your actions. I feel on an intuitive level that this fits jc but I’m not sure how well i can explain it - it’s something about how he’s a little too comfortable scapegoating wwx for things that were also, if much less so, influenced by his actions, and also something about the way he keeps wwx at an arm’s length emotionally but still leans on him and accepts his support when he really needs it, and somewhat hypocritically expects wwx to put the needs of him and the jiang sect before the needs of others. And also something about the core exchange is the consequence and proof of wwx’s deep - terrifyingly deep, even - love and care for him, which is something jc doesn’t seem to let himself acknowledge. Maybe even something about how you could argue that the way all of the jiangs acted around wwx - jfm’s favouritism that left him with the feeling of a debt he needs to repay, mme yus insistence that he be a servant more than a brother to jc, prepared to give his life for jc, and jc’s own unwillingness - or inability, he was a child after all - to clearly acknowledge wwx as an equal to himself, enabling wwx’s self sacrificial and protective tendencies - that all of this was what caused wwx’s complete and unquestioning willingness to do whatever it took to protect jc, and therefore paved the way to the golden core transfer. And i don’t mean this to be scapegoating jc - especially considering how young he was when this all went down, it wouldn’t be fair to expect this level of emotional perceptiveness, awareness and maturity of him - but i think adult jc has to grapple with the fact that the chain of cause and effect was not as simple as wwx fucking everyone’s lives up to be a martyr, and that both jc and his parents had a role in that story as well. I don’t even necessarily think this is something that jc only realised in the current timeline - i think it’s something he felt on some level this whole time, and it probably led to a lot of feelings of guilt - but the suibian reveal definitely puts it in sharp focus, and i think he’s now better equipped to handle this introspection than he was as a recently orphaned, traumatised teenager, lol. ANYWAY the window with the fabric is both a nod to the rider-waite design and a reference to the destruction of lanling - i actually did some basic ass research for this, and it seems that in ancient china fabric would indeed be hanged in a window if the normally used paper was damaged. The design of the window, as well as the very idea to use it to imply the reconstruction of lanling, was taken from this great piece of jc angst by my pal moroll1! Oh yeah also the covered window kind of works as a denial of forgiveness for jc because it’s like a halo but covered up... Also I completely forgot to put a blindfold over his eyes which would be perfectttt because blind justice and the core exchange......... ok moving on 12 the hanged man I always have issues with this card because i cant find a satisfactory summary of what it’s really about. Best i can tell it symbolises a need to hit pause, surrender or let go of something… ive also seen it tied to sacrifice? So mo xuanyu doesn’t fit perfectly, but sacrifice is definitely there in a surface level reading kind of way, and the idea that you have to surrender or let go in order to achieve your goal does fit the whole deal of getting revenge but giving up your life in exchange and not being there to see it 13 death This is probably one of my favourite cards, definitely not because I have huge issues with change or anything…. I see this card as signalling the necessity of change or putting an end to something / leaving something in the past in order to start anew? At first i considered putting past wwx, mxy and current wwx here as a kind of transformation and one cycle flowing into the next... But firstly, I’d already used mxy in the very previous card, so putting him in again would feel like overkill, and secondly, the longer I thought about it the less convinced I was that this would even fit with the card’s meaning? Because coming back from the dead doesn’t like... trigger an internal transformation within wwx or anything? Anyway, fun fact: the design I ended up going with was actually originally intended for judgement! I thought I was being very clever with the whole “figure plays an instrument and the dead rise” parallel, but apparently I’d just completely forgotten that the judgement card had a completely different composition... Truly I was boo boo the fool... But yeah anyway at the end of the day I figured the design would kind of work for death as well, with Wen Ning and the theme of transformation, (since in his case coming back as a fierce corpse does actually mark a certain transformation in behaviour) and Wei Wuxian’s protection of the Wen people essentially signifying an attempt to break the cycle of oppression if that makes any sense? Like, wwx is trying to revolutionise the way the world works a bit, if you catch my drift 14 temperance  The centrist card! Again this is probably going off track from the “official” interpretation, but to me this card has a certain “don’t commit fully; do everything in moderation; don’t take either side” flavour to it that i personally find infuriating irl and that i very much assign to lxc. It’s entirely possible that I’m misinterpreting his character because i didn’t really pay him (and the 3zun in general) much mind while reading, but hell, I’m allowed to pick favourites and choose who i want to interpret deeply vs shallowly. Again, i wish id chosen lqr for hierophant because its so annoying for a character i don’t care about to get two cards…. But oh well 15 the devil My alternative idea for this was jgy as the devil and lxc plus nmj as the figures, but since all three had been featured already (multiple times, even!) i figured I’d go with xy instead, especially since he’s among my faves lol. I think the devil signifies something along the lines of unhealthy attachment, obsession or addiction, which isn’t 100% accurate in the case of xxc and a-qing, but if i stretch it a bit to cover toxic relationships in general, and especially manipulation or negative influence, i don’t think it’s half bad. My main struggle here was to choose who amongst the xxc/sl/aq trio to choose for the human figures. 16 the tower Arguably jin zixuans death and the following massacre of nightless city were the final and most direct reason for the siege of burial mounds, and the tiger seal is good shorthand for wwx’s loss of control over his powers, which led to the deaths of jzx and jyl. When reimagining major arcana i like to feature some kind of building in this card (spoilers for a possible future project but in my rose of versailles major arcana set the tower is bastille) and even if it’s not a tower, the image of wwx looming over the gathered crowd from atop a rooftop is so good i couldn’t resist 17 the star Struggled with this one - considered both jin ling and lsz for it, as symbolising a hope for the future, but that was kind of covered by the world so it wouldn’t make sense to include here as well... As usual when I struggle with interpreting a card (as opposed to understanding it but struggling with matching a character to it, like with death or moon) I went to biddy tarot and read all the details about its meaning. What i got was that this card signifies an incoming period of introspection and inner peace following a time of turmoil, as well as a general moving on into a new, better phase of one’s life or finding new meaning and purpose. The figure also suggests someone vulnerable, but possessing a keen sense of intuition as well as a good degree of practicality and common sense. Given all those, I settled for mianmian because IM LOVE HER..... I also kind of see her as a prelude to the “just one person is enough” theme present in tgcf!! And i think her decision to abandon her sect because she saw the toxicity and corruption in it is a very inspiring action - even if it didn’t make a large visible impact, i think the appearance of her and her idyllic family at the very end of the novel - paralleling and mirroring wangxian - implies that at the end of the day, it was a meaningful one 18 the moon Another card i ALWAYS fuxking struggle with - this time less because i can’t grasp its meaning and more because I can never find a character that fits it well. I usually get fixated on the “dreams and subconscious” part, but if i lean more on the “disguise, deceit, anxiety and fear” part, i eventually figured the whole yi city arc wouldn’t be a bad fit. I say the entire arc because it really does encompass all those themes if you include both the past and the present - xue yang’s disguise, his tricks with the villagers, a-qing’s lies and even xxc’s reluctance to talk about his past as well as xue yang pretending to be xxc all fit the disguise and deceit angle, and the general mystery and creepiness of the current timeline yi city work well with the anxiety and fear - the mist, the slow uncovering of the past, even a-qing being revealed to be an ally after scaring the shit out of the protags. I definitely struggled with including all the elements and characters, and even moreso with making them vaguely fit the rider-waite composition, but i think it ended up okay ish. OH and i completely forgot to draw mist swirling around them :( 19 the sun I was considering mianmian’s family for this one, but since I used her for star, I ended up with wwx and his parents instead. Once again I’m reinterpreting the card a bit - normally I think it symbolises incoming times of pure happiness and abundance, as well as a connection with the inner child, but I gave it more of a nostalgic or sentimental twist - wwx looking back at the brief glimpse of his happy childhood. 20 judgement another card that i struggle to interpret a bit... Here i actually used the tgcf tarot zine as a reference! In it judgement is summarised as “rebirth, following duty, absolution” SO i figured that nhs, mxy and wwx all together would fit pretty neatly... wwx achieving (public) absolution through clearing his own name after being reborn, and nhs sort of calling on wwx to expose jgy’s crimes... It’s a bit messy but not bad I think! 21 the world This ties very closely to my read on mdzs as a story - which is that it’s, at the end of the day, largely about cycles, and about how hard it is to break them, but how we gotta keep trying and have hope anyway. Or maybe more precisely, that the people directly involved with and influenced by the trauma of the past might not be able to get over said trauma and that the hope for healing from it will be shouldered by the new generation. Or something like that… Basically what i mean is that jc and wwx and lwj and lxc and nhs and jgy and all these people who were in the thick of the sunshot campaign and the siege are so profoundly affected by it that it genuinely feels by the end of the story like there is little hope for them to ever truly overcome that trauma and build a better future without repeating the same old mistakes - but there is a glimmer of hope in the new generation, specifically in jl and lsz. And it’s a bit paradoxical, because they have also been directly impacted by the past tragedies - lsz having his entire clan wiped out after wwx failed to protect them, jl losing both his parents to wwx’s mistakes - but despite that loss, and despite coming from arguably the two opposing sides of the past conflicts, they are both, in the end, capable of moving past that tragedy, of recognising the complicated nature of those conflicts (jl’s moment of clarity at the end is both heartbreaking and hopeful) and forging friendships between clans in the process. I honestly think that the extra where jl is struggling to assert his authority as sect leader, to treat his subjects well and to cooperate with other sects in a truly amicable way is the single hopeful ending note for the larger themes of the novel - it allows us to imagine that maybe these kids can learn from the mistakes of their elders rather than getting sucked in by resentment at those mistakes, and actually build a brighter future for the cultivation world. And sidenote, this is also why i have a soft spot for jin ling and lan sizhui as a ship... speaking of which their poses were directly referenced from the lovers card ehehe

Looking back, I’d like to add some symbol of jin ling’s trauma so that it mirrors baby wen yuan in the tree stump... maybe his father’s sword? 

[toonbly]

4 and 6 for bideo games

6: A game that’s changed you the most?

OH MAN THERE’S A FEW.

honestly id have to name two: Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of Darkness and Pokemon Ranger Shadows of Almnia.

LIKE OKAY.

Mystery Dungeon was my first exposure to large narratives in video games. With all the emotional punches and plot twists and turns all over this thing with some of the BEST foreshadowing and character writing I’ve ever seen in a spin off Pokemon game, this is one of the things in my early childhood that got me really into storytelling. i remember specifically like, my first time doing written out prose was trying to make a novelization of mystery dungeon! i started making stories abt explorer teams with my toys and cards n stuff bc i was like 10 yknow what i mean HFKJDHFKSD

but then i also played Rangers: Shadow Of Almnia. this game was the reason i made my first ever comic! it was basically a comic version of the game but with my ranger OC Lola! she was also secretly a fairy whos parents were vaporeons but she WASN’T a pokemon ok she was a fairy and she has a deep seeded rivalry with darkrai who tries to kill her at some point but its fine.

yeah i was like 8 what do you want from me HJFJDSHFKDS

BUT LIKE LEGIT. THAT WAS MY FIRST EVER COMIC. I WOULD NOT BE MAKING FERRYMEN NOW IF IT WERENT FOR MY WEIRD MARY SUE RANGER FANFICTION I MADE WHENEVER I WAS IN LIKE? 2ND OR 3RD GRADE FHDJFHKSDJF

theyre the games that got me into stories!! and i wouldnt be where i am or who i am today without storytelling

4: Worst game you’ve ever played?

oh baby you already know its YIIK

I’M PUTTING THIS BIT UNDER A READ MORE BECAUSE GOOD LORD DO I HAVE A LOT TO SAY HERE FSJDKHFKJDSF

i bought the game to “give it a chance” sometime last year i think? bc like listen. listen. i only vaguely knew about the problems with it, i knew it had supposedly bad writing and the dialogue could be a little awkward. that was it. i took a look at it and tbh i liked the visual style! like

i genuinely like the art style for the talk sprites! and i get the vibe theyre going with the low poly models and the very bright colors, its supposed to be very 90s-esque!

it does kinda feel like its missing that little Spark that really ties it all together? its missing a little pizzazz to make it really stand out and REALLY get the vibe its going for, it misses the uniqueness mark but! it does its job okay enough for me to get what its going for!

plus honestly i found the intro sequence with the crow asking you questions really charming! in full context of the actual shitshow i was about to get into it was a little tryhard-y, but i liked it when i first saw it!

so i figured hey, what the heck, i’ll give this thing a try. the intros cute and i like the art style, maybe people are giving it too much flack.

and then. and then alex picks up that first phone call.

AND IT GOES. SO DOWNHILL. FUCKING IMMEDIATELY

LIKE OKAY. THE GAMEPLAY IS SO BAD AND REPETIVE AND GENUINELY BROKEN. im no game design expert so i cant really explain why, but combat in yiik DRAGS ON so much that its GENUINELY fucking draining. no joke while trying to complete this game i had to put it down multiple times bc it made me dissasociate. i WISH i was joking. i WISH that was exaggeration. it isnt. it is far fucking from it.

AND LOOK USUALLY. USUALLY. I CAN PUT UP WITH MEDIOCRE OR EVEN TERRIBLE GAMEPLAY IF THE STORY IS GOOD.

BUT THE STORY ISN’T FUCKING GOOD. ITS AWFUL.

it’s somehow both over explained and absolutely fucking nonsensical, characters will repeat themselves THOUSANDS OF TIMES in these long, repetive exposistion dumps that explain every single detail while making sure you understand NONE of it. the characters are unlikable (ESPECIALLY alex, the main character), it’s tone death and insensitive, and it’s just so. fucking. pretentious.

there are other issues in the game like racism, sexism, insensitity towards very serious topics (like using the real life death of Elisa Lam for shock value. no thats not a joke. the devs themselves have admitted this was intentional.)

not to mention all the shit the devs have done which we dont have TIME to get into-- LONG STORY SHORT YIIK IS A MASSIVE FUCKING SHITSHOW OF A GAME AND DON’T WASTE YOUR MONEY ON IT LIKE I DID. i WISH steam would let me refund it. my brains gonna explode.

i think the devs owe me compensation for damages. just damages in general. /j

[daiseukiis]

YOOOO WHAT WEBTOON DID U JUST REBLOG CAUSE 👀

— 🅱️🧋

you’ve made a wish, and it’s been heard loud and clear •ଓ.°

ITS CALLED SOLO LEVELING AND OMG 😭💕 IT WAS THE WEBTOON THAT GOT ME READING MANHWAS ITS SO WELL WRITTEN THE CHARACTERS ARE HOTー EVEN CHOI JONGIN WHO I NEVER THOT I WOULD FALL IN LOVE W AND THAT ONE GERMAN HUNTER FUCK THEYRE SO HANDSOME AND THE GIRLS STRAIGHT UP PRETTY AF ‼‼ SOLO LEVELING STARTED MY DAYS OF READING MANHWA AND ALL I DO NOW IS READ MANHWA

yeah so we have our protag sung jinwoo and his pretty as fuck sister ‼‼ basically he used to be the world's weakest hunter the first 20ish chapters and then boom smth happened where he almost died now he's basically op as fuck and he levels up his power as if in a video game but little does he know there's a fucking catch

to our left we have cha hae-in SHES SO UGHHHH OMG I LOVE HER SO PRECIOUS ‼‼

and to our right is choi jongin, he gave me aizen vibes and i think thats why i like him 🤡🤡🤡

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT TEN OUTTA FUCKING TEN

another one you'll love if you see this man is omniscient reader's viewpoint, i also love that one that i even started reading the novel ! tho there's so many chapters hahaha. this one has some whack shit going down, like,,, whack shit. everything that happens to the humans on earth is a motherfucking live stream for myths, legends, constellations to have a go at and watch humans struggle to live after this little bitch said so

yeah im talking abt that furry

so we have kim dokja, basically he read this webnovel called how to survive an apocalypse or sum shit, he became the only reader of the story and went past like over 1300+ chapters by himself but oh shit after he, the sole reader finishes it and thanks the author, somehow the web novel he read is now coming to life. so three ways to survive an apocalypse just started happening irl. love him he's the funniest mc out there and holy there's so much twists and turns in the plot

we have yoo jonghyuck, the little ass i also wanna smack the living shit out of. he's such a psychopath honestly and thats kinda scary, but he has the mental stability of a four year old. has mood swings stronger than a girl on her period and literally just kills anyone in his way because he can. this guy is the protagonist of the book kim dokja was reading : three ways to survive an apocalypse, and he's called a regressor. someone who continously relives his life every time he dies. he will continue to live, die and live again in the next life repeating everything in a continuous cycle. that's why he's such a pissy fucking baby. not to mention he threw dokja off han bridge in chapter 10-15 around there to a serpent and has major trust issues.

honestly i thank dokja every time he gets pissed bc he radiates me, i kin the shit outta dokja now omfg. i also appreciate every time he smacks the living ass out of jonghyuck's stupidass because he needs it, yeah we get you're the mc but who tf gave you rights to have tantrums JAKDJJE. 10/10 recommend this one if you like a lot of plot, its very complicated so you gotta like watch out for that. ALSO APPEARENTLT THE NOVEL IS STILL ONGOING ??? lots of spoilers.

please there's a point you two were shipped and didn't even CORRECT the characters and i think some characters think they're together and i fucking love that. but srsly. literally psychopath i kinda wanna smack him across the face with a pan sometimes