#besties it is genuinely so good

[grassbreads]

What Tai Sui is and Why Everyone Should Read It

So if you follow me, over the past couple weeks, you've probably noticed me obsessively screenshotting and posting about a book called Tai Sui. And now that I've finished it, I'd like to try and convince y'all to give it a chance.

What Is Tai Sui?

Tai Sui is a chinese web novel—a relatively unpopular work by the very popular author Priest (author of Guardian and Sha Po Lang, among others). Unlike a lot of the most popular web novels on tumblr, it's not a danmei. It's in fact rather important to the plot and themes that there is almost entirely no romance, but I promise you, it is absolutely worth it regardless.

What is Tai Sui About?

Tai Sui is a steampunk xianxia cultivation story. For those unfamiliar with xianxia and cultivation, this is a particular genre of Chinese historical fantasy.

The official summary of Tai Sui reads as follows:

“If I had a choice, I would only want to be a little insect in the mundane dust, born in confusion, dying in mediocrity, never seeing the light of day beneath the fog of Jinping City.

Better than taking this wrong road to heaven.”

You may have noticed that this summary is not in fact really a summary. It gives you a glimpse into the story's themes, mood, and destination, but it doesn't exactly tell you what happens in it.

That's because Tai Sui is one of those works that's incredibly hard to summarize. The story is incredibly wide in scope and changes massively over its course, to the point that any summary that encapsulates the whole thing is going to feel like a spoiler. However, I can try my best to add a little detail without giving too much away.

Tai Sui is the story of Xi Ping—an obnoxious, trouble-making rich boy with no interest in cultivation—who gets unwittingly involved in a plot to resurrect the "evil god" Tai Sui. This plot pulls him into the cultivation world against his will and, over time, threatens to rewrite everything he is.

Tai Sui is the end of immortality.

Why Should You Read Tai Sui?

Tai Sui is one of the most compelling stories I have ever read. It is a love letter to the power and promise of the whole world and its many mundane people. It also has some of the best worldbuilding I have ever seen.

Tai Sui is written in omniscient perspective, and though Xi Ping is very much the main character, as the story progresses, we spend more and more time alongside characters that aren't him. By the time the novel ends, his entire continent is at stake, and we the audience know that continent and its troubles inside and out from countless angles. Everyone from the immortal demigods of the cultivation world to the most wretched, miserable paupers is given a grand sense of emphasis.

Tai Sui is a deconstruction of the cultivation genre. It establishes a magic/cultivation system and its history, lets the main character live in that system for a while, and then dives deep into that system's depths. It looks at the cultivation genre, at the idea of people who leave behind their status as mortals for greater things, and asks "How does this really work?" and "Is this how the world should be?"

Tai Sui is the story of countless people who were never supposed to be powerful coming together to make the world a better place. It's well written (and very well translated), exciting, heartbreaking, and incredibly beautiful. It's also funny as hell.

I cannot recommend this story enough.

Warnings/Caveats

As I said before, Tai Sui is a deconstruction of the cultivation genre. If you're unfamiliar with this genre, while the book is certainly readable, you are going to be thrown head first into the deep end with the tropes and terminology at play. It's absolutely worth the learning curve, but it will be kind of a lot. Maybe do some light googling about what a cultivator is before you pick it up. (Or just ask a fan. I think most of us would happily explain anything that would win a new reader).

There are portrayals of people/cultures in Tai Sui that are heavily inspired by minority cultures in real-world China, and some of these portrayals play into pretty harmful stereotypes. It's not SPL "Barbarian" or TGCF Banyue levels of racist, but it's something to be aware of and careful about. I'd really recommend reading from the perspectives of those from the cultures in question (including but not limited to the post I linked) for more about the issues I'm talking about.

Tai Sui's English translation is 930,000 words long. I believe this is a strength, since its length is what allows it such an incredible scope. It is also a fucking daunting commitment, and I acknowledge that.

Finally, while Tai Sui doesn't need too many trigger warnings, it does contain some pretty viscerally upsetting depictions of inequality and mistreatment, as well as a few instances of violence toward children. You can't uplift without first seeing what the people need uplifting from, and hooboy. They need it.

There's also some scenes that are technically rather violent, but the goriness is not presented as gore, if that makes sense. It never feels intensely or overly violent in the way some fantasy novels do.

Links

If all my gushing and propagandizing has convinced you to give it a try, you can find the original Chinese version (where you can buy chapters to support the author) on JJWXC.

The complete English translation is free on the website of E. Danglars, who does a truly incredible job with the translating.

Happy reading :).

[shannonsketches]

There's a meme going around to draw your comfort characters as the Steven meme.

Bowser's never been a comfort character for me, but thinking about how great an Illumination Smash Bros movie would be with these two having the dumbest greatest villain team dynamic has brought me SO much joy this year.

[infiniteorangethethird]

being loveless does suck sometimes but less bc of some "ohnooo I'll never be able to loooove what will I ever doooo" bs but because how the hell do you tell the ppl around you that you view all relationships as business transactions where the currency is care and support and the reward is trust? How do you tell someone "hey so I could not care less about you as a person but also I enjoy every second we spend together and I'd fight the universe for you if you asked and if you ever disappeared I probably wouldn't miss you but I'd still cry for all the things we never got to experience together" without being the asshole?

[floofle-universe]

Not enough people are talking about this

[emomomortal]

Read this fic that literally chewed on my heart spit it out then stomped on it and left it out on the road to dry. This was a warm up to make me feel better immediately after rereading it 3 times before proceeding to start on a comic of the same fic

[adriles]

My Deep Desire To Be Remembered For My Honor And Sick Fighting Skills And My All Consuming Rage Brought On By Grief Have Collided In A Horrible Fire Ball

[thehappiestgolucky]

Assortment of easy violet doodles i managed because i care them but drawing is hard

[crispycreambacon]

Must you betray me with a kiss?

I love how I have a list of things I wanna draw (including one that I actually need to draw for a school assignment) and I completely dropped all of them to work on this, I’m so cool y’all 🤠👍🏽

Before you ask, yes, this was inspired by Judas’ betrayal of Jesus because Ryan and the Professor genuinely remind me of them for some reason and The Kiss by Gustav Klimt because. I don’t have an excuse I just wanted to base my drawing off it–

Lowkey proud of myself for the rendering! It was a pain to get through, and for a moment, I genuinely couldn’t tell if Ryan looked like Ryan or not, but you know what they say, trust the process!!

I hope y’all will have an awesome New Year’s and an awesome 2024 by the way :D

Click below for a filterless version, a WIP and two reactions from my friends ‘cause they’re the funniest people on the planet (shoutout to @couchpotato1206 for making the last image btw)

[the-river-runs]

My best friend Fandom has once again returned and asked me to post to Tumblr for her! Once again, I have permission to post this video and all edits were done by Fandom (http.redshoes on Instagram)

These memes are all based on Cryptid Sightings by @naffeclipse

She has a lot to say this time around!

A message from Fandom:

"Hello Naff!! And hello everyone :D

It’s me, your girl, your local meme and edit maker, Fandom (aka http.redshoes on Insta 😎)

I’ve come back to make another meme comp for you guys! I wanted to make this earlier, but:

1. I was busy saving/collecting ATSV content on Instagram like Pokémon to getting noticed twice by Jack in the Box ☺️

2. I had to create an Ao3 account (understandably ofc AI theft sucks) and was um. You know… being silly in the comment section 👀 (please don’t mind me if you ever stumble upon them - I react and appreciate the stuff I enjoy in weird ways 💔)

3. Was waiting for my friend here to finish reading so I didn’t spoil anything in the memes! We both loved the series so much and man. The Naff do be eclipsing fr in releasing chapters left and right biggest round of applause for one of my favorite authors here 👏👏👏

Naff, you did such a great job writing this fanfic. I’m going to repeat myself from the comment section BUT you need to give yourself a pat on the back, relax, take a break - just reward yourself. You deserve it all and I hope that you take care of yourself for all the hard work you’ve done 💞💞💞

I’ve also included the lovely artist themselves, @themeeplord , again in one of my meme comps.

It’s only one meme but dang they always draw Eclipse to be getting that gain 💪💪💪 (bc of how muscular he is haha.) Mad respect to all of the drawings they create - they’re always a banger to see.

(Most of the memes surround the last episode + epilogue so if you haven’t read those chapters LOOK ‼️ AWAY ‼️ Don’t get spoiled 🤯)

(P.S. for the imagine scenario that’s not a meme, this is what they’re saying in the audio:

“[Amused] You can hear their heartbeats? Come on, that’s a little far fetched.”

“[Soft chuckling] I can hear yours too… Your heart’s beating pretty fast.”

I’d like to think this would take place around the beginning of “The Episode Bedeviling Bodies,” where the Hunter is still trying to understand their dear friend and what they’re capable of. I thought it was fitting ngl and included it in the comp.

There were uh, more memes I wanted to include, but I’m running low on storage space atm. I’ll get back to making more after I’m done clearing that out ^^’)

(P.P.S. Okay I don’t have Tumblr obviously but 🕴️ apparently you guys really liked the SJ memes I made??? Because my friend’s been receiving notifs of it still??? Thank you so much you guys!! I didn’t really expect people to enjoy them that much 😭💘💘💘)

Now without further ado, enjoy the meme comp! >:D " -Fandom

[hassianlovebot]

i absolutely love how the devs portray reth and his relationship with tish. i feel like so often in media we see siblings hate each other when one of them was sick/disabled/otherwise needed more care, and i do understand why this is common and important to see, but i also love that their relationship Isn't like that. reth still loves, appreciates, and wants to protect tish. he's also not completely overprotective either. he just. loves his sister! and wants to see her happy! and it would've been so easy for the devs to make him spiteful or envious of her but instead they made him a good brother which is So refreshing to see. i love that they have a good relationship with each other

i just,,, reth <3

[blamemma]

joesef - play me something nice

[loving-jack-kelly]

jack would be a stem kid because he loves doing experiments the scientific method is his best friend he loves being hands on and getting to be like I was wrong but the right answer is way cooler than I thought it would be and he loves the connections between art and science, like the way chemical reactions are responsible for why pottery glaze looks so cool and how talented at art you have to be to be good at any kind of diagramming or bio illustration

and davey would be a stem kid because people are more impressed by good grades in science and math classes than english classes so he works harder at them even though he really loves language more than numbers and when he ends up in a class with jack who seems to be goofing off all the time he's annoyed by how little work he seems to put in until he realizes actually jack is really smart but completely unaware of it because he thinks he's goofing off when he's actually running pretty well-designed experiments for fun (unsanctioned by the instructor) in between steps of the lab.

[a-drama-addict]

finally sharing my durge <3 meet freyja (she/her) everyone

[saltpepperbeard]

*comes back to tungle covered in blood* hi beloveds

[hexados-on-a-string]

when you're the only one left, what will you do?

[n0kt3rnal]

Ahsoka is pure fan service for clone wars and rebels girlies and I don’t even care? Never watched clone wars? Dave Filoni says fuck you. Never watched rebels? Dave Filoni says fuck you. go watch them and then come back I guess.