#mdzs x among us

[suibiansubs]

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[jengarie]

my mxtx bigbang 2021 pieces! these are drawn for euro's* MDZS x Among Us fusion fic! i love this fic so much, you guys have no idea!! be mindful of the tags, but do check it out! [link]

*euro's socials: genderqueernerd (tumblr), peanut_poppy (twitter), ficwriter103 (ao3)

(originally tweeted on dec 2021)

[10thmusemoon]

"Start Here, at these Irrefutable Truths"

X Posted from twitter and ao3 Rating: Gen Fandom: MDZS Ship: none, Yunmeng Shuangjie reconciliation, Jiang Cheng & Wei Wuxian, background Wangxian Word Count: 4,544 Tags: Brief & skippable Mention of suicide ideation, body dysmorphia, Grief/Mourning, Survivors Guilt

Summary:

Mo Xuanyu’s body burns in the sun. Among the sins that Wei Wuxian counts against him, this is one of the most grievous. Jiang Cheng looks at one of the most dangerous men alive, the scourge of the cultivation world, and the first thought that comes to mind weighs heavily on his heart. He looks like Jin Ling. --- Or: The Body doesn’t feel like it's Wei Wuxian’s, but his shidi would recognize him anywhere.

notes: this was my first foray into fic writing in over a decade so it's more angsty and experimental 🙈 the single line of suicide ideation is marked by /// at the beginning and end so it is skippable.

--

Mo Xuanyu burns in the sun. This is not uncommon, or surprising. The Jin, with their creamy complexions and delicate figures, are not known for laboring beneath it. Only sect leader Jin, the latest, is known for enjoying resting beneath its rays. His cheeks turn a warm pink in the heat and settle to a light brown by end of day.

But Mo Xuanyu- Mo Xuanyu burns in the sun. Pale skin turns red and peels as easily as an overripe persimmon. On long days outside, his body will itch and blister and lead to dizzy spells.

The first time Wei Wuxian faints in the heat he laughs as his husband applies a cooling salve to his neck and back. The second time, he sits so still in the cold spring that there are no ripples. His gaze stays glued to the opposite shore but does little else. His husband keeps a vigilant watch, afraid that he'll fall asleep and drown if he looks away for even a moment. Lan Zhan is always looking at him.

Even during those long years apart, the ghost of his image haunted him from his peripheral. He never could turn his head quickly enough to catch it. When he sought echoes of those features in the faces of strangers, they could never come close. There was a time he panicked and took this to mean he was forgetting him. In moments of desperate longing, he would return to familiar locations and overlay scenes from his memories to be see him again, even for just a moment.

To have him again, to be able to hold him and press kisses down his back and on his knuckles, to discover him a new, is like a prayer answered. It does not matter to him what form he takes, Wei Ying is Wei Ying.

Lan Zhan will love him anyway. All the more for returning to him

But- But Mo Xuanyu burns in the sun. Among the sins that Wei Wuxian counts against him, this is one of the most grievous.

He will always be grateful for his sacrifice, for the chance to see through his eyes the faces of those he loves so dearly.

Mo Xuanyu's too small hands fit neatly in A-Yuan's large ones.

They are just long enough to play a dizi with ease but not strong enough to train with a blade for hours.

This small body can be carried so easily by his husband, can bend in so many marvelous ways, yet takes all day to recover from a hangover. This body, in moments of pure unadulterated joy, does not instinctively turn to either side to share it. It does not seek that which it has never had.

This weak golden core allows him cultivate again but he cannot race across the skies. He cannot heal his own injuries. Wei Wuxian, the head disciple of Yunmeng Jiang, once shrugged off errant arrows from his cute shidis with nothing more than a laugh.

Wei Wuxian, husband and cultivation partner to the illustrious Hanguang Jun, cannot even heal irritated skin. That is a skill that is second nature to the disciples of Yunmeng Jiang, though hardly necessary for anyone used to summers at Lotus Pier.

The third time Wei Wuxian faints in the sun, they are on the way to a cultivation conference in the Unclean Realm.

His quiet demeanor goes beyond the time his husband spends circulating healing qi through his system. Wei Wuxian does not notice the stares from other sects, nor the way they whisper to one another about the sound of his silence. He does not notice the searching gaze from Yunmeng Jiang.

Sect Leader Jiang hates these conferences. If he wanted to hear people disagree and complain about every minor decision he would talk to the matchmakers again. The food is rarely to his tastes and the rooms are always too cold. The Jin are ostentatious, the Nie's too utilitarian, and Gusu Lan is much too quiet. People always tip toe around him as if he will start whipping people at any moment.

He is watched like a tiger in the middle of a market, the threat is implied by his mere presence. His reputation is hard earned.

When they had nothing but ashes and mud, when the vultures were circling above Yunmeng Jiang, and their back was to the flames, they had Sandu Sengshou. Rooster, pig, and snake. The war hero that no one must ever make the mistake to anger or offend. A man who could kill his brother, a demon in his own right, is capable of anything. The Yunmeng Jiang were protected by the reputation of a man known for his cruelty and quick whip, a man who was always ready to address any offense.

In the settling dust of the war, when Jiang Cheng had nothing else, when his life had gone up in flames around him, he had this: The last gifts from his parents, Sandu and Zidian. The last remnant of his sister, Jin Ling. And a dizi.

////

In those early years, the only thing that kept him alive was the obligation to his sect and to his nephew.

But on the nights where Jin Ling’s absence felt like a hollowing of the soul, when every time he closed his eyes he felt the discipline whip, when the shadows showed him the last memories of his family covered in their own blood, that obligation felt like a noose.

////

Yunmeng Jiang had Sandu Shengshou and little else. If you ask Sect Leader Jiang, he would say that didn't amount to much. If you asked a Jiang disciple, they would say that was all they needed.

Who else but Sect Leader Jiang embodied the the ways of Yumeng Jiang so clearly? Who else could have taken mud and ashes and raised a sect so strong? Who else would haven taken in street orphans and misfits and given them a name and a home? What other sect leader would have waded in the mud and labored along side them during the scarce years? Who else had the unrestrained strength of their rivers in their blood and lightning coursing through their veins? Who else could have done the impossible, if not a man birthed from the very waters he protects.

If you ask the elders whose lakes sit at the edge of Lotus Pier, those who remember a time before the ashes when laughter would echo across the water, they would tell you this: The people of Yunmeng Jiang do not love lightly.

Whether it be people or places, once that seed is planted in their hearts, you’ll have an easier time drinking the river than uprooting it.

What could be considered impossible in the face of such devotion? That is the Yunmeng Jiang way.

And that is a son of the Yunmeng Jiang.

The terror of one land is a hero at home. When is a monster not a monster?

When you are the reason it has become so mangled.

The people of Yunmeng Jiang understand this better than most for they are the only ones who survived the war with two terrors to their name.

But the passage of time softens the blows of war. Yunmeng Jiang, once isolated as a consequence of having nothing to offer, is self sufficient in a way no other sect can claim. For this reason, there is always someone trying to corner sect leader Jiang at these conferences. There is always a trade contract to be negotiated or a someone’s cousin or disciple to meet. For reasons sect leader Jiang can’t quite parse, the smaller sects have stopped throwing every woman of marrying age at him and have started introducing him to cultivators of various talents and renown. He is mildly offended at the implication that he would want their castoffs when his own disciples are so highly skilled.

His second in command has perfected the art of diversion in these instances and Jiang Cheng has become intimately familiar with the isolated corners of every sect. So when Hanguang Jun’s husband disappears and misses dinner, he has some ideas of where to look. Not that he is searching for him or anything, but if anyone were to ask him, there are directions he could point to. Such as the training ground behind the stables. It just so happens that his post dinner walk has taken him in that direction.

The food Nie Huaisang provided was too rich and made such a stroll necessary. It has nothing to do with Jin Ling sneaking away with his friends or Wei Wuxian’s absence. This is a digestive walk, practically medically mandated for a cultivator that cares about being in peak condition.

Danger lurks around every corner, it would be embarrassing to perform poorly in a battle simply because food didn’t sit well in his stomach. He is in the middle of creating a new nightly regimen to torment-train his newer disciples with when he comes across Wei Wuxian

Jiang Cheng looks at one of the most dangerous men alive, the scourge of the cultivation world, and the first thought that comes to mind weighs heavily on his heart. He looks like Jin Ling.

Here is the thing about about the Yunmeng Jiang, a trait every child of the lake shares: they will always seek comfort in water. When a Jiang disciple marries out or leaves the sect, it is not uncommon to find them staring longingly into ponds or streams.

When Jin Ling was young and had to return to Carp Tower after months spent in Lotus Pier, his disappearance would often cause a havoc among his caretakers. More often than not, he could be found wading in the lotus pond his father built or sitting at its edge.

Once, when he was still a toddler and throwing a tantrum about being left behind, Jiang Cheng found him asleep in the stables next to the horse's trough. The sight was so achingly sweet that he took the time to commit it to memory before carrying him away.

If he had possessed any artistic talent, he would have painted a portrait to be able to look back on it across the years.

As Jin Ling's chubby little hands grasped against his robe, sleeves still wet from the horse's water, he felt like he could finally breathe. For the first time in years, something slotted into place, and It took a moment to realize what it was.

Relief.

When Jin Ling finally leaves him, or when Jiang Cheng dies, whichever comes first, he will still have the comfort of water. Jiang Cheng has failed in so many things, has let countless of people down, but he was able to give him this. This one thing that no one can take that from him. This intrinsically Jiang thing.

It had been an old fear, he wasn't sure that Jin Ling would take to it in the same way, the Jin are different after all. They don't share their ways.

He will never forget his shijie's shamefaced confession right before his naming day. Frantically whispered in a rare moment they had stolen away, Jin Ling bundled in her arms. "A-Cheng, they wouldn't- the wouldn't let me do it. He wasn't born in the water." It had stunned him into silence.

It didn't seem feasible that any child of Jiang Yanli wouldn't be born swimming. Even his own mother, raised in the mountains where it is too cold to swim, made certain to have water births. When Wei Ying came to them as a half starved thing, he couldn't swim but would still float on his back for hours until he learned.

Raised alongside the heirs of Yunmeng Jiang, it wasn't long before he was swimming as strongly as any of them. Countless days were spent under the sun for hours, until their skinned pruned up and other tasks called them away. The happiest moments of Jiang Cheng's life were spent in the waters of Lotus Pier.

His father had taught him how to swim, and Jiang Cheng had taught Wei Ying.

It should have been Jiang Yanli who taught her son how to dive off a dock without making a splash, and go for lengths without breaking the surface.

Instead, he got Jiang Cheng.

He had taught countless shidis how to swim, of course, it wasn't difficult.

But could a man so devoid of affection teach Jin Ling to find safety and security in the currents. To love them? He wasn't sure. It felt like it would be the final betrayal of his family's memories if he failed in this. And yet, Jin Ling learned to swim before he learned to walk. Running around Lotus Pier in those ridiculous golden outfits that made him stick out like a sore thumb, his shijie's beautiful little boy was every bit as Yungmeng Jiang as any of them.

And beneath the moonlight, sitting next to what passes for a pond in the Unclean Realm, Wei Wuxian looks like Jin Ling.

His face holds the same delicate softness that Jin Zixuan's did, his eye brows furrow similarly to Jin Guanyao's when someone arrived with an unexpected guest.

It’ss Barely noticeable, but he can see that at some point, Mo Xuanyu had broken his nose.

It's in a different spot from the break in his memories. During their second Dragon Boat Festival together, before the development of their golden cores, Wei Ying had stolen the poisonous paper animals from Jiang Cheng's wrist and tripped in his attempt to get away. It was ugly. He had smashed his face into a food stall run by their shixiong's sisters and painted his festival robes red. Jiang Cheng kept an arm around him as their shixiong's elder sister flagged someone down to take them back home. In an attempt to calm a crying Wei Ying, the younger of the sisters gave them three sticks of wrapped tanghulu that Jiang Cheng ended up tucking into his sleeves for later. Back then, food always cheered Wei Ying up.

By the time his shixiong found them, with their shijie trailing behind, his crying had deescalated to just hiccups. Thinking back on it, he remembers Wei Ying being more upset about the sullied robes than from the actual pain.

Things between them right now...they're not good. They're also not horrible. But the bar is very, very low. But Wei Wuxian has been quiet all day.

He hasn't moved from where he is sitting with his knees pulled next to his chin and arms wrapped around his shoulders. There's no indication that he's heard Jiang Cheng approach, but at his age, he knows better. He should leave.

He should turn around and tell one of his disciples to go tell Jin Ling to tell The Boy to have Hanguang Jun come collect his husband. But- Right now, sitting alone in the Unclean Realm, Wei Wuxian looks like Jin Ling when he wants to cry.

And he has never been able to walk away from his nephew when he's worn that expression. It seems he's just as defenseless to it when his- when Wei Wuxian wears it as well.

It's the same face, that's all.

Wordlessly, he shuffles over and sits a little more than an arms length away. He doesn't look over, instead choosing to stare out into the pond and pretend like he isn't hyper aware of the weight of his qiankun pouch.

It's a cloudy night, and in the time that they sit there in silence, the light of the moon is blocked and darkness blankets over them. The sound of the grasshoppers and the leaves shifting in the wind is almost meditative. He startles when Wei Wuxian's voice breaks the peace.

"Mo Xuanyu burns in the sun." It's not what he expected. He can't say with any definitive confidence what he thought Wei Wuxian would say, but it's not that. He grunts in the affirmative.

"The peacock was a tomato during those first few summers."

Before he formed his golden core and was suddenly too good to be trailing after their sister. Somehow, this was a misstep, Wei Wuxian grip on himself tightens. This too, is familiar. He used to hold himself so fiercely that he would leave bruises on his arms.

Concerned, Jiang Cheng had asked his shijie why he did that, couldn't he see he was hurting himself?

Back then, it felt like she had all the answers. Jiang Cheng knows now, she was just child trying to fill in the gaps in their lives.

She brought him into a hug with one hand and ran her hand through his hair with the other. He remembers that the look on her face was so sad.

"A-Cheng, A-Ying was alone for a very long time. He didn't have anyone to hold him or to hug him when he was sad or scared. So he holds himself." And that was the saddest thing Jiang Cheng had ever heard. And he had just lost his dogs. But the solution felt simple.

"So we have to hold him then, right?"

She pressed a kiss to his forehead and he felt her nod against him. Shijie never wanted to let them see her cry. Overnight, they implemented a secret rule. If Wei Ying was sad, you had to hold him. If he was happy, you had to hold him too.

They still shared a room back then, so when he had nightmares, Jiang Cheng would make his way over to his bed and hug him until he stopped shaking. He had nightmares a lot. More often than not, Jiang Cheng would wake up in the wrong bed.

But the bruises disappeared.

He's so wrapped up in his own head that he almost misses the choked whisper that comes next. What he hears is so preposterous that he almost asks Wei Wuxian to repeat himself.

"What if- this body- Mo Xuanyu- what if-" he rushes the last part, as if the somehow saying it all in one breath might keep it from being true. "-what if it can't swim?" It, not I.

Something separate from himself. Something not Wei Wuxian. And Jiang Cheng- He can't accept that.

He can't. Because that would imply- That would mean- He can't even finish the thought.

He kept a dizi for over a decade to avoid thinking that.

Here are some objective truths of the world: The sun will rise every day. The seasons will change. Sect leader Jiang loves his nephew. Wei Ying swims.

In the event that any of these stop being true, it's a sign of something calamitous to come. Something unspeakable.

It takes all his will power to keep looking straight ahead. There's only one answer here. "Then learn." Wei Wuxian's bark of laughter catches even him by suprise. Of course, of course. Jiang Cheng makes it sound so easy, so simple. He's always been like this, no time for frivolities, cutting straight to the point.

He nearly drove their teachers mad insisting that it was senseless to use so many metaphors, waste so many lines, just to say "Let's get married," all the while blushing and stammering at the mere thought of it. Even now, Jiang Cheng is still Jiang Cheng.

It's a comforting thought. Wei Wuxian woke up in a different world, in a body that often feels stretched too tight, too misaligned. But Jiang Cheng is Jiang Cheng. It makes his heart hurt. He misses him. From his perspective, it wasn't that long ago that he had his shidi.

It wasn't that long ago, that shijie- That- It hasn't been that long, that's all. It's just- Sometimes, when he's alone, it feels like a chasm is opening up in his chest. Like he is still lying on that mountain with Wen Qing's hands re-arranging him and hollowing him out. And if he stops to think about it, to truly analyze what any of it means, he'll start screaming and never stop.

He can't do that. It would scare Lan Zhan. He'd be sad.

Lan Zhan has spent enough of his life being sad about Wei Wuxian. He won't add to it. And this thing going on with- with the body. He wouldn't understand it. Lan Zhan loves Wei Ying so much, he could have been reborn as Little Apple and Lan Zhan wouldn't love him any less. And A-Yuan, oh his little A-Yuan, his little radish. The only evidence that he still had a heart, at the end of it all.

If anyone had ever bothered to ask, he would have sworn it stopped beating alongside his shijie's. After that night, he felt more like one of his own corpse puppets than an actual person. Maybe that was when he died. And this thing that he is now- It came back wrong.

Maybe it's not Wei Wuxian. How would they know? How could they know? Lan Zhan, his A-Yuan, they have now spent more time with the body than they ever had with Wei Wuxian. In another 20 years, this is how they'll remember him.

In a body that burns in the sun.

Heat starts to pool behind his- the- Mo Xuanyu's eyes. It's a strange sensation. Back then, after becoming part of the Jiang, he didn't cry often. The body cries so much. Is this him? Or is it the final vestiges of Mo Xuanyu mourning his death? He doesn't know.

How would he know? The silence has stretched long enough, Jiang Cheng can hear Wei Wuxian's breathing pick up next to him. Whatever this is, it has him treading on unsteady ground.

He's rattled by it.

If Jiang Cheng closes his eyes, he can still picture that little boy in the bed across the room, trying to keep silent, shaking in the night. Shijie, does the rule still apply after death? Yours and his? Does his husband know how often Wei Wuxian needs to be held?

How would he know? Only the Jiang saw what he was like before the rule had been implemented and Wei Wuxian has been operating at a deficit of affection for the majority of his life. Surely death has only amplified it.

In this moment, little more than an arm length away, he has never felt further from Wei Ying. The distance feels insurmountable, impossible even.

Here are some objective truths of the world:

Sandu Shengshou is a war hero.

Jiang Cheng is a coward.

Jiang Cheng loves his nephew.

Wei Ying is Wei Ying.

Here is the thing about the Yunmeng Jiang:

They do not love lightly.

Whether it be people or places, once that seed is planted in their hearts, you’ll have an easier time drinking the river than uprooting it.

What could be considered impossible in the face of such devotion?

That is the Yunmeng Jiang way.

And Jiang Cheng is a son of the Yunmeng Jiang.

Jiang Cheng steels himself with a breath. He is a coward, a man devoid of affection, but he has experience building something from mud and ashes. A familiar shudder next him has him turning his head on instinct, seeking what always used to be there. His shixiong.

The clouds above them finally clear and there, under the moonlight in the Unclean Realm, is Wei Ying. The sight of him makes his heart hurt. Jiang Cheng is struck by the realization that he misses him.

He missed him so much. It doesn't feel like he'll ever stop missing him.

This epiphany gives him the courage needed to finally speak the words he's been desperate to say since that night hunt on Dafan Mountain and again that time at inn.

"Wei Ying," his voice cracks and his shixiong, conditioned by a lifetime of taking care of his shidi, immediately turns to face him at the first sign of distress.

"Come to Lotus Pier. Come home."

He swallows back a sob because the next part is important, he needs to get it out before he loses his courage. Jiang Cheng can, at the very least, give him back this part of himself. Maybe he's the only person who can.

"I'll teach you. If you can't, I'll teach you. Again."

The words haven't left his mouth before Wei Ying is scrambling over to wrap his arms around him.

And oh.

Oh. Jiang Cheng has always been the stupider of the two. How could he have forgotten? How could he have missed something so important?

Jiang Cheng always held Jin Ling when he was sad. He made sure to hold him when he was happy too. Though he threatens to break his legs, he has never once hit him. Jin Ling has never feared his touch nor wanted for it.

Jiang Cheng could count on one hand how many times Jiang Fengmian had held him and still have fingers left over. His mother had done it significantly more often, though she was unaccustomed to such easy affection. But if he initiated, she always reciprocated. Such tender physicality, the gentleness of it, just wasn't the way of the Meiyan Yu. But his siblings? There aren’t enough lotus pods in all the piers to calculate how often they held him.

But no one who knew that had been alive to remind him.

Until now. The Twin Prides of Yunmeng had always been mirror images, more alike than one would initially think. And in many ways, they never stopped being those boys sharing a bed in the dark. They stay holding each other until they both stop shaking. Wei Ying is the first to pull away, he croaks out an "Okay. Okay." before taking another moment to compose himself. He has to look away before he starts back up again. Otherwise, they'll be here all night and there is still a discussion conference going on. He never thought he would have this. After Guanyin Temple it had felt impossible. He should have known better.

This is Jiang Cheng, after all.

Speaking of, there was one thing he's been dying to ask.

"Back then, on the mountain and in the inn, how did you know?" the It was me goes unsaid.

When he had really sat down to think about it, Jiang Cheng only spent a handful of moments with him before immediately clocking his identity.

He hears a familiar snort of disbelief behind him, maybe wetter than it would normally be, and a rustling of fabric. Wei Wuxian, still sitting on the grass, peeks over his shoulder to look up at his shidi. Jiang Cheng is giving him that lopsided smile that Madam Yu always said would make his face stick like that.

His answer is so simple, so Jiang Cheng, he doesn't know what he expected. "In what life wouldn't I know you? You move like my brother." Wei Wuxian's jaw hangs open as he watches Jiang Cheng retreat into the night. When he finally recovers from the shock and looks down, there is a bao wrapped in fabric next to a clarity bell catching the moonlight. Here is the thing about the Yunmeng Jiang, an objective truth of the world: The waters will always welcome them home.

[tavina-writes]

about loch-are there really no good available translations? it's a shame. 2017 is really good, are any of the other adaptations worth looking at? does 1983 have subtitles?

Hi Nonny! Oh boy, this is going to be long, so answers to this under the cut.

Regarding LOCH, which I love dearly but find myself frustrated with consistently regarding translation style and quality, there is an official English translation, which I cannot in good faith recommend given that uh, there are whole sentences and passages that Jin Yong never wrote in there. There are character names translated literally and others left in their original format. There's just, mmmm stuff I could never in good faith recommend to people as someone who dearly loves this book. The translator took it upon themselves to also make major writing related edits which as someone who has a long history in fan translation myself, I could never in good conscience recommend. It's kind of like how we have routine "why didn't the mdzs translators do x?" about some things people mention as differences between the Chinese edition and the English edition, except, the edits were absolutely on purpose and uh, not an improvement! Imagine a translation of MDZS where Lan Wangji's name gets translated as "Blue." His name is just Blue now. Wei Ying calls him Blue. Lots of other beloved characters will now get weird English translated names that flatten their nuances. Lan the Teacher. Separation Jiang. Jade Meng. Mulberry Nie. That's. The severity of the problems with the official English translation, and it kind of breaks my heart that it's like that. Why would you read that and why would I suggest that you read that? The sheer condescension towards both the original text and the abilities of the English language readers just drips from these name changes alone.

The fan translated version of LOCH that I know of is here. It's quite rough in some parts grammar wise, and due to the sheer number of translators that worked on this, not always entirely consistent in formating/spelling/etc, but I have spent a lot of time on the spcnet forums, and wholeheartedly appreciate the efforts of the translators there. I think the issues with translating Jin Yong is a matter of both scope and depth. Jin Yong's books are extremely long. Most of his major novels are close to if not over a million Chinese characters each, and DGSD famously features over 200+ named characters. The spcnet translation of DGSD, for example, took 12 years and countless translators to complete and burned out so many of us. It is a major work to translate a Jin Yong book on length and time input alone.

Further complicating matters, Jin Yong wrote wuxia with the insistence that it could be literature instead of merely genre pulp fiction, and his books are deeply rooted in references to Chinese history and literature. I distinctly remember at least four poems and one song as well as an extended discussion of the Jingkang Incident, (also if you've seen the Temple of the Iron Spear sequence in 2017, you can start to understand the scope of the "Jin Yong writes in a way that is rooted in his book being in Chinese for the wordplay alone and it sounds SO WONKY outside of that Chinese context") among lots of other things I probably didn't catch in LOCH alone, which also makes the task of translating his books harder, especially when you have to not only get the plot across, but somehow make accessible all of his wordplay and references as well as the poetry he interjects at various points to heighten certain scenes and their emotionality.

So yeah, it's a task. I'd recommend checking out the fan translation I've linked above if you want to read it though instead of paying money for a book where the Love Interest gets translated to Lotus Huang because the translator....could? Like bonkers English naming conventions aside, I'm not a great recommender of Blue Lan and I'm not a recommender of Huang Rong being turned into Lotus Huang either.

REGARDING THE ADAPTATIONS:

1983 is my beloved childhood adaptation but please remember it is also. It is. It was made by TVB in the 1980s. The accessibility of this to people who do not speak Chinese is rather...low, given the lack of desire from subtitlers to subtitle things made by TVB in the 1980s. (It's also more readily available in Canto though there WAS a Mandarin Dub, that I watched because I don't speak Cantonese.) I think the first third of the series is available on Youtube with the English autotranslate feature? I can dig up this link for you if you would like to see it because 83 is dear to my heart, but I would not make anyone who isn't a LOCH fanatic sit through this merely for my sake, yknow.

1994 I am unfortunately not really that impressed with 1994, and 94 is kind of like the ignored middle child of LOCH adaptations so there is also no english subtitling anywhere and it's also more widely available in Cantonese. This was a 90s TVB production. I am not sure you want to watch this one.

2003 is one of my favorite adaptations! when it's going well. When it's not going well [lolsob] truly the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, the hands down best in some areas and the "I fear you did not realize this CGI would not be cool" in others. Find the first 41 episodes here and the last episode here. This is LOCH for LOCH/Jin Yong nerds, the pacing is incredibly tight for the first 3/4ths and the expansions were made with the book in hand and the themes in mind. I would say though that 8 episodes of Mongolia is likely not where one wants to begin when watching LOCH 😔.

2008 .....I am a professional 08 LOCH hater. 😔It decided a sex pest needed nuance when the original rightfully gives him NOTHING. NO INTERIORITY. THE MALE EQUIVALENT OF A SEXY LAMP. I cannot explain to you how much I hate the Ouyang Ke - Mu Nianci - Yang Kang love triangle in 08 because my homeboy (evil trash son) Yang Kang does NOT have enough good qualities for you to subtract some so a 30+ year old sex pest can share. The storyline edits were at times just "I see you did this for drama, but tell me why???" 😔 It does have Hu Ge in it though, though I would say that this was not Hu Ge's best work given that he was coming off of a really bad car crash.

2017 I think this one is the most accessible and most book faithful adaptation for LOCH and also the one that I'd most recommend people to see, since it both has good English Subtitles (and is on Youtube and IQiYi if you look for Legend of the Condor Heroes 2017). Also great fight scenes. 2017 loves its fight scenes. And is also a remake of 1983.

2023/2024/the Yao Ke LOCH - This one isn't out yet! The trailer looks absolutely BANGING though. This one is uhhh apparently a more deconstructed LOCH version where we get extra backstory details so I have no idea what we're getting into here but the production quality looks insane. Anyway who knows when the censorship board will have mercy on us and lolsob when this will appear or if it'll get lost in Tencent's giant cdrama vault to haunt me from now until the end of time. You'll hear me scream if it comes out.

https://m.weibo.cn/status/N5ZMnAMmw?refer_flag=1001030103_

Thanks for the ask Nonny! Uh! I'm not sure if all this was helpful but maybe it was? I love LOCH very much so if you have more questions and or thoughts come back to my inbox and tell me! (also who's your favorite character from 2017 so far?)

[tsukikoayanosuke]

Captain of Demonic Cultivation (MDZS x TWST AU) - Jiang Yanli’s Phoenix Mountain Moment but It’s Yuuken Instead

I want to write the whole Phoenix Mountain Hunt but I have no energy to write the whole episode. So, I just write Yanli best scene. Either this or The Untamed "I used to see you as my lifelong bosom friend" scene, but the latter will be only after I have more context.

The Sunshot Campaign had passed and peace had arrived. Whispers among the streets about his brother's new unusual cultivation method, but Yuuken still stands by his belief. Both of his siblings are the only family left, thus he will stand by their side as they rebuilt their fallen House Crowley of Dawn.

It was during this time that House Kingscholar of Afterglow decided to hold a Crowd-Hunt at Phoenix Mountain, inviting all the remaining four Great House. This was also one of the few that Yuuken can attend since he was personally invited by First Lady Claudia Kingscholar, the mother of Leona Kingscholar, his former fiance. Though Yuuken could've guessed why she did that.

Even so, that didn't make walking down the forest path with Leona by his side to be less awkward. Lucky for them, there weren't any monsters around, though Yuuken guessed that it had something to do with the sound of a flute earlier.

"Looks like we have ourselves a human-size snake."

Yuuken snapped out of his thought to look at Leona. "What?"

"A monster from the southern isle." The young lord crouched down. His fingers brush away some grass, revealing the shedded green scales that were too big for Yuuken's liking. "It'll just have a height-measuring contest when you encounter it. If it's taller than you, it'll swallow you up. Looks tough but it's nothing compared to us."

Yuuken's eyes widened slightly. "Us?"

Leona glanced back, but Yuuken quickly looked away. "Surely you can take care of yourself."

Yuuken unconsciously reached for the hilt of his sword, Enma. "Oh. Of course." It wasn't that Yuuken didn't know how to fight. He had his spiritual sword and studied along with his siblings and Leona at Cloud Reccesses. But his spiritual power and experience in hunting are less than theirs, in addition to never being allowed to participate in the battlefield.

Leona was quiet for a while before getting up and started walking again. Yuuken followed with a few steps behind him.

"I can bring you to Afterglow Savannah's private hunting ground for next month's hunt," Leona said again. "You can catch many rare preys there."

Yuuken just hummed. Seemed like that wasn't the right response as Leona turned around and Yuuken immediately looked to the ground. "Not liking that idea? Don't you want to go hunting once in a while?"

Yuuken shook his head. "It's not that, but..."

"Or you just don't want to be with me?"

His breath hitched. "It's complicated." Yuuken might not be the smartest, but he understands himself. And he understand that he fancied Leona for the longest time. The two of them were engaged because both of their mothers were best friends. It was only natural for the two House to strengthen their bond. With Yuuka being born with a naturally stronger golden core, thus securing her role as the future leader of the House, Yuuken's role is to alliance through marriage. He understood that since he was little and as he grew older, his admiration and crush for Leona grew. He knew Leona had trouble expressing himself, leading to many misunderstandings like the incident that caused Jonah to get expelled from fighting with Leona and leading to them breaking their engagement.

"Is there anything about him that can make me happy?"

"You son a bitch!"

Leona clicked his tongue and Yuuken dared himself to look up. Leona wasn't looking at him. His eyes were closed and his head turned another way.

"Whatever," he said. "I wasn't going you invite you on this hunt anyway. Forget about it."

Yuuken hummed again. He had his guesses. "Please, excuse me." He turned around, going back to the path he went through, trying not to feel disappointed. Back then, even before their engagement broke, he wondered if Leona actually like being with him. But maybe it was Yuuken who isn't worth being by his side. Maybe that was why he didn't even realize the exploding cliff until Leona screamed his name.

"YUUKEN!"

Yuuken almost looked up too late as the human-size snake rose, possibly taller than the stairs leading to Cloud Reccess. Before he could reach for his sword, Jonah suddenly appeared in front of him, raising his hand as his golden eye glowed to summon his power. It protected them and attacked the snake at the same time, slicing through the thick skin as it screeched. An arrow suddenly flew through the air, hitting the bullseye right in the snake's eye. With a final loud screech, the snake fell down, causing the ground to shake. Yuuken turned around toward where the arrow came from, finding Riddle Rosehearts with his bow raised.

"What's going on?!"

Looking up, Yuuken could see Claudia, along with some of their House disciples, jumping down from her sword and quickly running toward Yuuken. Her hands were on his upper arm out of concern. "Yuuken, dear. Are you alright?"

Yuuken tried to calm her. "I'm fine, First Lady Claudia."

"Did the brat bully you again?"

"Mother!" Leona exclaimed, clearly not happy with the accusation. But Yuuken couldn't look up to defend him, not when Leona did in a way.

Claudia huffed, turning toward her son. "Leona Kingscholar! Do I need to spank you again?!"

"It doesn't matter what Sir Kingscholar said," Jonah said, positioning himself between Yuuken and the Kingscholars. "From now on, he and Yuuken-oniisama will walk on their own separate ways."

"Now see here, Sir Argentum." A Kingscholar disciple came forward, standing next to the snake corpse with a look of annoyance despite his regal posture. Yuuken knew him. Farena Kingscholar, Leona's brother. "Aren't you being too arrogant for talking to your elder like this?"

Jonah scoffed at him. "I'm trying to go against First Lady Kingscholar. But your brother has bullied oniisama several times. How am I the arrogant one here?"

"How are you not arrogant one?" Farena landed his foot on the snake's head, twisting like he was squishing some ants underneath. "Catching a third of a prey. Not even leaving us the snake. Are you purposely showing off your demonic skill?" He sighed in disappointment. "The House Crowley's upbringing is nothing more but that."

"Farena!" Claudia warned.

But Jonah just chuckled. "Upbringings? Demonic?" His hand reached for the flute that was fastened on his belt where Captain's Order previously was. Yuuken watched his brother worriedly. He knew he wouldn't hurt anyone, however, no one know how far his new power could extend.

"Jonah." It seemed that Riddle had the same thought as him as he called him, but Jonah either didn't listen or purposely ignored him. He had a mocking smile on his face as he spun his flute with one hand, challenging Farena who watched him as if he was being insulted. 

"I may never bring my sword anymore, but I can still beat you any day with my so-called Demonic power." He stopped spinning his flute and his golden eye glowed as a warning. "You guys all are no match for me!"

Farena sucked in a breath. He gritted his teeth, his growls were audible, and his fists were curled. "Argentum!" He pointed at Jonah. "You're nothing but a servant's son! Don't get too cocky!"

Yuuken let out a gasp. He looked at Jonah almost quickly. His brother was silent for a second, but Yuuken knew his anger was brewing. "Oh." He chuckled. "So that's how you wanna play?"

Riddle was quick to step in first, grabbing Jonah's trembling hand that was holding his flute to avoid bringing it to his lips. "Jonah. Focus." But Jonah once again didn't listen to him, too furious to even acknowledge Riddle. Everyone could feel the air changing like the first sign of a dangerous storm as red auras trickled down his clenched fist.

Yuuken walked toward him, positioning himself in front of Jonah and putting a hand on his shoulder, giving him a gentle yet grounding squeeze. "Jonah-kun." When he didn't get any response, Yuuken pressed a hand onto his cheek. "Jonah-kun, come back to me."

Jonah sucked in a breath and finally came out of his trance. He looked up at Yuuken with a panting breath. "Yuuken-niisama..."

Yuuken couldn't help but smile, relieve that Jonah was back again. "Stand behind me, okay?" he whispered. He turned around as he gently push Jonah behind him.

Yuuken stared Farena straight in the eyes, standing tall without any trace of fear. The young man in front of him had stepped the line. Jonah's parents had been a sore subject in their family, more often than not the arguments between his birth parents. But it never hinders Jonah's smile which Yuuken has loved ever since their first meeting. Even when his mother didn't like Jonah in the family, Yuuken made it his life goal to love his new adopted brother just like how he loved his birth sister.

"Sir Farena," he started. His voice was steady and not wanting to show any anger. "From what you said earlier, Jonah caught a third of the monsters in Phoenix Mountain. He was unruly and too cocky. He intentionally caused trouble for you." He bowed him. "I apologize to you all on his behalf."

"Oniisama!" Jonah cried, but Yuuken just glanced back and gave him a headshake.

Farena chuckled. "Sir Yuuken, you really are kind and understanding." He eyed Jonah who looked like he was ready to pounce at Farena if it wasn't for Riddle still holding his hand. "What your brother did was extremely inappropriate and made quite a fuss." He looked back at Yuuken, a victorious smile on his face. "But for Sir Yuuken and Lady Yuuka's sake, there's no need to apologize. House Crowley of Dawn and House Kingscholar of Afterglow are like siblings."

Yuuken nodded and continued with his chin raised high. "However, while I don't join in a hunt that often, I know that throughout the years of hunting, I've never heard of a rule that forbids someone from hunting too much prey. If Jonah broke a rule, which one was it?"

Farena blinked confusedly. "What?"

"Sir Yuuken, what you said might not be the best way to put it," an older Kingscholar disciple spoke up. "Although it was not written, everyone understands clearly and obeys them well."

"That's right," another younger one chimed in. "How much prey is in the area in total? Probably below five hundred. That's so little compared to the five thousand hunters attending this! And Argentum hog them for himself! What are we supposed to do?"

"It isn't his fault that others can't capture any prey," Yuuken spoke without looking at who spoke, still focusing on Farena who slowly became more annoyed at him. "Isn't the hunt all about a test of one's skill? Although the methods that Jonah-kun used are different from others, it's still his magical skill that he build on his own. Just because the others can no longer hunt that third of the prey, you can't say he follows an unorthodox path. In the end, hunting is hunting. There's no need to bring up about upbringings. Jonah-kun is a disciple of House Crowley of Dawn. He grew up with my sister and me and is as close as a brother is to me. I will not accept anyone calling him a 'servant's son'. A mockery toward him means a mockery toward our House."

Yuuken stepped forward until his chest nearly touched Farena's. He took a deep breath before releasing it through his nose. His heart was hammering hard behind his chest. He knew what he was doing was right. All for his little brother. "So, I hope that Sir Farena Kingscholar will apologize to Jonah Argentum of House Crowley of Dawn."

Farena was taken back, just like the others from the murmurs. Jonah looked like he was going to cry, while Riddle nodded at him with respect.

Claudia stepped forward, a hand on his arm and rubbing gently. "Yuuken, dear. It's a small matter. Don't be angry anymore."

Yuuken turned to her, smiling out of respect. "First Lady Claudia. Jonah-kun is my brother. I won't let anyone insult him."

He looked up to Jonah and smiled with a promise. Promise that no matter what, he will love his dearest brother.

And he still loves him until his final breath.

[any-n-everything]

MDZS Characters play “Among Us”

Imagine... [Character: Username]

WWX: Suibian (Black)

LWJ: Wangji (White)

JWY: Sandu (Purple)

JYL: LadyLotus (Blue)

WQ: DrWen (Red)

WN: GhostGeneral (Pink)

LXC: Zewu-Jun (Cyan)

JGY: Lianfang-Zun (Yellow)

NMJ: Chifeng-Zun (Green)

NHS: Headshaker (Lime)

ROUND 1

NHS reports two bodies

Wen Ning and Wen Qing are dead

The other players theorize that it’s a double-kill

When asked if he saw anyone, NHS just keeps going, “I don’t know, I don’t know, I really don’t know!”

Skipped voting because they lack info.

2 Imposters remaining

ROUND 2

Jiang Wanyin reports a body

Jiang Yanli is dead

7 players left

JWY accuses WWX of being an Imposter because he last saw JYL with WWX

Everyone is sus of WWX

LWJ is the only one who protests, saying that he saw WWX perform a task

No one believes him because LWJ has a history of protecting WWX in Every. Game. They. Play.

WWX is voted out

Suibian was not An Imposter

2 Imposters Remaining

ROUND 3

JGY reports a body

NMJ is dead

5 players left

NHS accuses JGY

LXC hesitantly tries to defend JGY

NHS discreetly directs the conversation with pointed questions, leading everyone to sus JGY

LXC skips voting

JGY is still voted out

Lianfang-Zun was An Imposter

1 Imposter Remaining

LXC is dismayed

4 players left (LWJ, JWY, LXC, NHS)

ROUND 4

JWY reports a body

LWJ is dead

JWY immediately accuses NHS, saying that NHS killed LWJ right in front of him

NHS protests and anxiously defends himself

LXC believes NHS and votes against JWY

Sandu was ejected.

VICTORY. THE IMPOSTERS WERE JGY AND NHS.

WWX: Nie-xiong, that was well-played!

NHS: Thank you, Wei-xiong!

LWJ: Why did you kill me and not Jiang Wanyin?

NHS: Well, Wangji-xiong, if I killed Jiang Wanyin in front of you, then you would have told Er-ge, and he would believe you over me. And if I killed Er-ge, Jiang-xiong would have never believed me if I said that you killed your own brother. And I wasn’t sure if I could convince you that Jiang Wanyin was the Imposter because it’s very unlikely that he would kill Yanli-jie if he was.

LWJ: Mn.

JGY: A-Sang, why did you throw me under the bus :(

NHS: You killed Da-ge!!! >:(

NMJ: Yeah thanks for that

NMJ: Huaisang why the fuck can’t you be this smart with your schoolwork

LXC: I

LXC: I don’t know who to believe anymore

WQ: A-Ning and I are killing all of you when we become Imposters

WQ: Smh killing us off in the first round

JYL: A-Cheng I can’t believe you thought a-Xian killed me

JWY: Sorry a-jie...

JYL: Apologize to a-Xian!

WWX: Yeah ChengCheng!! You owe XianXian an apology!!!

LWJ: Mn.

[rarepears]

Masterpost [July 2022 ideas 1/2]

July 2022 (1/2)

Find the second half of July's masterpost here.

lan wangji finds himself being married off to cang qiong sect auluo binghe

shen jiu's brocon brother au

imagine if itachi uchiha was reborn as lan xichen au

hashirama and madara reincarnates as wei wuxian and nie huaisang respectively au

sung jinwoo is a farmboy au

shang qinghua in bungo stray dogs au

wei wuxian reincarnates into svsss as an imperial prince and raises a dead shen jiu as a fierce corpse (and his future tutor) au

give me a tech illiterate Jinwoo who's feeling the impacts of growing up poor w/ single parent & then struggle to raise sis on his own au

shen jiu was aizawa's hero teacher and then becomes bakugou's as well au

shen yuan is married to yue qingyuan and everyone thinks that shen yuan is shen jiu's older brother when he isn't au

lan wangji finds himself being married off to cang qiong sect au

Dolores must be the wizarding world’s name equivalent of Karen.

Mama Jiu tea party in which multiple shen jiu's with kids meet up to discuss life au

sung jinah transfers to ouran high school after high orcs destroy her previous high school au

 Sung Jinwoo who is a professor AU

if sung jinah used her internet slang for evil aka she bullies jinwoo with it au

sung jinwoo x tywin lannister au

Sung jinwoo ends up with a baby Hibari (khr) au

mdzs modern verse poolboy wei wuxian and music professor lan wangji au

xanxus's cloud guardian is shen jiu (and cloud!luo binghe tags along) au

 the married life of sung jinwoo and wen ruohan au

PIDW reborn as cats and Shen Jiu is the lucky cat owner au

cumplane i didn't know that was you edition au

aizawa's chronic pain the TMJ edition au

if yue qingyuan and shen jiu were actually blood brothers but shen jiu was too young to remember their family au

in which the system places shen yuan's soul into shen jiu's body in a very very different way au

hibari reborn as a lannister au

shen yuan unknowingly is dating his son's teacher au

solo leveling meta

shen jiu moves to gotham with baby!shen yuan to start a new job at wayne enterprise and his new neighbor is jason todd au

Nie Mingjue X Meng Yao - married AU

shen jiu gets a thirsty onlyfans system so he never goes to cang qiong au

jason todd has no clue what the fuck is going on but he's oddly popular among these svsss folks when he's just trying to kill them au

if luo binghe did not join cang qiong then what would happen? au

pitch black is the guardian of tik tok au

sung jinwoo time travels and now there's two sung jinwoo's au

gojo x tony stark

Yue Qingyuan revives a dead Shen Jiu and Cang Qiong assumes that Shen Jiu must be Yue Qingyuan's childhood love au

twink!Sung Jinwoo (except he's the immortal monarch of death) X Endeavor au where hawks is SufFeRiNg

 sung jinwoo's english name is chad sung au

 hibari reincarnates as Lang Xichen's twin au

single parent of a plant baby thy name is shen jiu au

aizawa gets himself a posh european boyfriend named hannibal and it's going GREAT until it's not au

Sung Jinwoo is Jinah's maternal grandfather who reawakens as S ranked hunter au

the svsss war on drinking milk to prove ones true noble heritage au

tifa (FF7) reincarnates as jiang yanli and thus jiang yanli x nie mingjue

[dangermousie]

Mousie’s absolutely subjective, very biased Top 10 web novels list

Please note that this is hardly aiming to be objective, if one can even be properly objective about a work of fiction. It is 110% based on my preferences, which means this list is heavy on the angst and has nothing set in the modern day. It is also heavily danmei-centric, even though I read way more het romance than danmei, because for whatever reason, most of the danmei I’ve read has been insanely good.

10. Return of the Swallow - one of the two non-danmeis on this list. Smart and nuanced and with a large cast of characters. Our heroine is a long-lost daughter of the family that is brought back in and has to cope with familial struggles, crazy royals, court intrigue, invasion et al. It’s SO GOOD! There is romance with the sexy smart enemy general but honestly, it’s the heroine that is the main selling point for me.

9. Transmigrator Meets Reincarnator - the only other non-danmei novel on this list, this was my very first web novel and what drew me into this insanity. This is just a ton of fun, probably the lightest novel on this list, not an ounce of angst to be found. But it’s hilarious and features competent heroine and tsundere hero and I will always love it for opening a new world to me. Anyway, our heroine transmigrates into the novel as the female lead. Unlike the original lead though she doesn’t want to seek adventures and angst - she just wants to comfortably live with the wealthy, nice husband heroine has. Alas, said husband is no longer nice since he has previously lived this story where he was betrayed by FL and then transmigrated/reincarnated into the past. Oh well, the heroine opens up businesses and makes friends. And eventually, her husband realizes his wife is way different this time around. This actually doesn’t have much romance, not until close to the end, but this is so fun I don’t care.

8. Lord Seventh - I am only partway through this so far, but it’s already on the list because it’s smart and somehow intense AND laid-back (not sure how this works, but it does) and is honestly just a really really solid and smart period novel, with the OTP a cherry on top of a narrative sundae. Plus, I love the concept of MC deciding he is not going for his supposedly fated love - he’s tried for six lifetimes, always with disaster, and he’s just plain done and tired. When he opens his life in his seventh reincarnation and sees the person he would have given up the world for, he genuinely feels nothing at all. (Spoiler - his OTP is actually a barbarian shaman this time around, thank you Lord!)

7. Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (MDZS) - oh come on, how are you even on this tumblr if you don’t know MDZS/The Untamed? This was my very first danmei and it’s so much fun! I love everything about it - the unreliable narrator, the looping structure, the main OTP, Wei Wuxian’s laidback, traumatized insouciance, everything. Anyway, the plot in the event you somehow transported here from 2005 is that the Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, Wei Wuxian, was defeated by the righteous sects over a decade ago and fell of a cliff to his death. Only now that same Wei Wuxian opens his eyes in another body and everything that was supposed to stay in the past starts again.

6. Heaven Official’s Blessing (TGCF) - people either love its meandering narrative, picaresque structure and cast of thousands, or find it a detriment compared to much more compact MDZS. I love it even more than MDZS for those very qualities. It does have a rock-solid, darling OTP, but what really elevates it to me are the MXTX trademark combo of snarky/light tone hiding a ton of trauma underneath, the insanely intricate world-building, and what it has to say about the nature of grace and goodness. Xie Lian is one of my top 5 web novel characters and probably in top 10 from anywhere. Oh, and while MXTX’s stuff is not as angsty for me as Meatbun’s or even Priest’s, there are always exceptions, and there is one chapter in this novel that pretty much broke me and sometimes I still flashback to it and feel unwell.

Anyway, what is it about? There is a commotion in the heavenly realm - Xie Lian, the Crown Prince of a long-destroyed kingdom, has ascended to Godhood. That in itself is not so exciting. However for Xie Lian this is the third time (!!!!) as he’s ascended and lost his godhood twice prior. And now, the biggest joke of the divine realm is back, throwing the heavenly realm into chaos. And elsewhere, Hua Cheng, one of the four most powerful demons of that Universe, sits up and takes notice.

5. Golden Stage - my perfect comfort novel. Probably the least angsty of any danmei novel on this list (which still means plenty angsty :P) It also has a dedicated, smart OTP that is an OTP for the bulk of the book - I think you will notice that in most of the novels in this list, I go for “OTP against the world” trope - I can’t stand love triangles and the same. Anyway, Fu Shen, is a famous general whose fame is making the emperor antsy. When he gets injured and can’t walk any more, the emperor gladly recalls him and marries him off to his most faithful court lackey, the head of sort of secret police, Yan Xiaohan. The emperor intends it both as a check on the general and a general spite move since the two men always clash in court whenever they meet. But not all is at is seems. They used to be friends a long time ago, had a falling out, and one of the loveliest parts of the novel is them finding their way to each other, but there is also finding the middle path between their two very different philosophies and ways of being, not to mention solving a conspiracy or dozen, and putting a new dynasty on the throne, among other things. It always makes me think, a little, of “if Mei Changsu x Jingyan were canon.”

4. Sha Po Lang - if you like a lot of fantasy politics and world-building and steampunk with your novels, this one is for you. This one is VERY plot-heavy with smart, dedicated characters and a deconstruction of many traditional virtues - our protagonist Chang Geng, a long-lost son of the Emperor, is someone who wants to modernize the country but also take down the current emperor his brother for progress’ sake and the person he’s in love with is the general who saved him when he was a kid who is nominally his foster father. Anyway, the romance is mainly a garnish in this one, not even a big side dish, but the relationship between two smart, dedicated, deadly individuals with very different concepts of duty is fascinating long before it turns romantic. And if you like angst, while overall it’s not as angsty as e.g., Meatbun stuff, Chang Geng’s childhood is the stuff of nightmares and probably freaks me out more than anything else in any novel on this list, 2ha included.

3. To Rule In a Turbulent World (LSWW) - gay Minglan. No seriously. This is how I think of it. it’s a slice of life period novel with fascinating characters and setting that happens to have a gay OTP, not a romance in a period setting per se and I always prefer stories where the romance is not the only thing that is going on. It’s meticulously written and smart and deals with character development and somehow makes daily minutia fascinating. Our protagonist, You Miao, is the son of a fabulously wealthy merchant, sent to the capital to make connections and study. As the story starts, he sees his friend’s servants beating someone to death, feels bad, and buys him because, as we discover gradually and organically, You Miao may be wealthy and occasionally immature but he is a genuinely good person. The person he buys is a barbarian from beyond the wall, named Li Zhifeng. It’s touch and go if the man will survive but eventually he does and You Miao, who by then has to return home, gives him his papers and lets him go. However, LZF decides to stick with You Miao instead, both out of sense of debt for YM saving his life and because he genuinely likes him (and yet, there is no instalove on either of their parts, their bodies have fun a lot quicker than their souls.) Anyway, the two take up farming, get involved in the imperial exams and it’s the life of prosperity and peace, until an invasion happens and things go rapidly to hell. This is so nuanced, so smart (smart people in this actually ARE!) and has secondary characters who are just as complex as the mains (for example, I ended up adoring YM’s friend, the one who starts the plot by almost beating LZF to death for no reason) because the novel never forgets that few people are all villain. There is a lovely character arc or two - watching YM grow up and LZF thaw - there is the fact that You Miao is a unicorn in web novels being laid back and calm. This whole thing is a masterpiece.

2. Stains of Filth (Yuwu) - want the emotional hit of 2ha but want to read something half its length? Well, the author of 2ha is here to eviscerate you in a shorter amount of time. This has the beautiful world-building, plot twists that all make sense and, at the center of it all, an intense and all-consuming and gloriously painful relationship between two generals - one aristocratic loner Mo Xi, and the other gregarious former slave general Gu Mang. Once they were best friends and lovers, but when the novel starts, Gu Mang has long turned traitor and went to serve the enemy kingdom and has now been returned and Mo Xi, who now commands the remnants of his slave army, has to cope with the fact that he has never been able to get over the man who stabbed him through the heart. Literally. This novel has a gorgeously looping structure, with flashbacks interwoven into present storyline. There is so much love and longing and sacrifice in this that I am tearing up a bit just thinking of it. If you don’t love Mo Xi and Gu Mang, separately and together, by the end of it, you have no soul.

1. The Dumb Husky and His White Cat Shizun (2ha/erha) - if you’ve been following my tumblr for more than a hot second, you know my obsession with this novel. Honestly, even if I were to make a list of my top 10 novels of any kind, not just webnovels, this would be on the list. It has everything I want - a complicated, intricate plot with an insane amount of plot twists, all of which are both unexpected and make total sense, a rich and large cast of characters, a truly epic OTP that makes me bawl, emotional intensity that sometimes maxes even me out and so much character nuance and growth. Also, Moran is my favorite web novel character ever, hands down.

Anyway, the plot (or at least the way it first appears) is that the evil emperor of the cultivation world, Taxian Jun, kills himself at 32 and wakes up in the body of his 16 year old self, birth name Moran. Excited to get a redo, Moran wants to save his supposed true love Shimei, whose death the last go-around pushed him towards evil. He also wants to avoid entanglement with Chu Wanning, his shizun and sworn enemy in past life. And that’s all you are best off knowing, trust me. The only hint I am going to give is oooh boy the mother of all unreliable narrators has arrived!

The novel starts light and funny on boil the frog principle - if someone told me I would be full bawling multiple times with this novel, I’d have thought they were insane, but i swear my eyes hurt by the end of it. I started out being amused and/or disliking the mains and by the end I would die for either of them.

[ladyqueth]

Let’s talk about things that make WWX’s donghua character song 造化 (Zao Hua) amazing.

(If you haven’t heard it before, go!  Do it now!)

To start, the music is gorgeous.  You’ve got a dramatic intro, then the instrumentation drops to almost nothing, then builds back up across the verses.  It’s the same melodies but the instrumentation changes everything.  The first half-verse is very quiet, reflective.  At the start of the second verse, there’s an almost militant quality that I love, followed by the soaring strings right before the second chorus. The second repetition of the chorus is so much more intense than the first.

Within the overall buildup, there's a lot of ebb and flow. It's very dramatic.

Then, of course, the lyrics!

[Disclaimer: I am absolutely not qualified to translate this song.  I’m not trying to present a full translation, just translated snippets - tending on the literal side - to help non-Chinese speakers (among whom I count myself) appreciate what I’m talking about. Particularly questionable translations in italics.]

First, duality is everywhere.

Now, Chinese is full of compounds that are created by putting together words of opposite meaning, so their presence alone isn’t anything notable.  But there are lots of them.  (A disproportionate number, I feel, when compared to other MDZS song lyrics.)  And it’s not just in individual compounds.

Look at the hook(?):

宿命浅 情义深 造化 Our destiny was shallow[1], our feelings were deep, such is my good fortune

Which is immediately followed by:

风无羁 月无暇[2] The wind is without restraint, the moon is without flaw

Some examples of the frequent use of antonym compounds:

葬是非功过 Bury the right or wrong, merits and demerits

又一程 是非曲 善恶谣 Another journey, songs of right and wrong, good and evil

And then you have the epic bridge:

善与恶 后人说 孰真孰假 Good and evil, later generations will say who were true, who were false

神与魔 谁定夺 一分高下 Gods and demons, who determines the score as high or low

  Next, look at the way the chorus evolves. It's so beautiful, and it captures WWX's happy ending!

(I've read people say that the song is about his past, present, and future, and I think that's right. But it would take translating the whole song to fully capture that, and I'm already pushing my limits, so I'm just going to highlight some shifts in the chorus between the first two and the final repetition.)

Originally:

不羡仙 不谓侠 贪一世潇洒 Wanting a life confident and carefree[3] 宿命浅 情义深 造化 Our destiny was shallow, our feelings were deep, such is my good fortune 风无羁 月无暇[2] The wind is without restraint, the moon is without flaw 辗转几场冬夏 满坞莲花薄 Lotuses are scarce in the pier 葬是非功过 空牵挂

Becomes:

不羡仙 不谓侠 又一世潇洒 Another life confident and carefree[3] 守情义 何必问 代价 Why ask the price of honoring our feelings 笛无羁 琴无暇[2] The flute is without restraint, the qin is without flaw 同奏一曲年华 云深不知处 Cloud Resesses 你我的归途 Our way home 已无涯 is boundless

The change from Lotus Pier (basically) to Cloud Recesess! I can't. Every time.

  So that's about all that I can manage. Many thanks to @spicychickenyang for fielding all of my Chinese questions - she probably could have written most of this post herself with how much I pestered her.

  And, uh, I ended up with footnotes: [1] The implication of "shallow" destiny here is that fate was not on their side. [2] This is a typo in the lyrics! 暇 should be 瑕. [3] As far as I can tell, 潇洒 has a lot of nuance, and also is like one of WWX's signature adjectives, so I'm not going to spend more time here trying to do it justice.

Postscript: I randomly learned today that the phrase 不羡仙 in the chorus, which played no part in my gushing here, is a literary reference. (x)

[bigbadredpanda]

A lot of the Western MDZS fans seem to think that Wei Wuxian has self worth and self esteem issues.Is this interpretation true to the text? What does the Chinese fandom think about it?

Well, I don’t think the dividing lines within the English-speaking fandom (the West vs the East, Asian vs non-Asian, America vs the rest of the world, etc) are that clear-cut. Sure, cultural sensitivities differ, I only have to look at the comments on my translation of the Gusu Lan Sect rules to acknowledge that, some lambast the Gusu Lan Sect for the outrageous deprivation of fundamental liberties, others view the rules as strict but fair and even experienced something similar as part of their own education. However geographic origin is not the be-all and end-all that decides whose opinion is more informed. Curiosity, open-mindedness and a willingness to challenge one’s own frame of reference go a long way to apprehend a work outside of one’s own culture. And that’s what MDZS is for the vast majority of the fans in the international fandom, a piece of fiction from another culture and even a first encounter with a work of Chinese origin. In the end, international fans share the same fandom space without borders, they use the same social media, read the same version of the English translation, come across with the same fanmade content and engage in the same discussions.

The more manifest divide in my opinion is between the international side and the Chinese side. Within the English-speaking fandom, we have differences of interpretations and clashes of opinions but the Chinese fandom has an altogether separate fan culture and another relationship between the audience, the author and the source content. There are superficial similarities between the two sides such as some common fandom trends but they often differ in essence, for instance, the motivations and modus operandi of antis and purity cliques in the Chinese fandom are dissimilar to those in the English-speaking fandom. Both the international and the Chinese fandoms exist while being more and less dimly aware of the other’s presence but there is precious little interaction between the two of them as a whole. When content from one side makes its way to the other side, it’s fanart for the most part as well as Chinese-to-English translations of official and fanmade content. It’s more a unilateral transfer than a conversation between different cultures.

Chinese fandom is organised and segmented, the novel and its adaptation have their own supertopics on Weibo and proper tagging is mandatory so that people can stay in their own lanes. Contrary to the international fandom in which there are relatively few spoken and unspoken rules (you can pretty much post whatever wherever as long as it’s not offensive or stolen), the Chinese fandom abide by a whole set of mostly self-enforced regulations. For example, the MDZS supertopic which is novel-centric has its very own wall of rules in its pinned post, among these there is giving due respect to the author, the characters and the novel; the proscription of breaking up or reversing Wangxian, of disseminating content that distort the facts in the novel, etc, etc... There is a more rigid adherence to what is established as canon. What is not supported by the novel runs the risk of being considered ooc. It’s quite common for fanfics to have an author’s preliminary statement along the lines of “the characters belong to the author, any oocness is on me” as a precautionary measure. I’m describing all this to give a tiny bit of insight on what it’s like on the other side, I don’t think that one fandom culture is superior to the other. It’s like free verse and regulated verse, there’s not much point in comparing what cannot be compared. It stands to reason that the international and the Chinese fandoms have disparate views of the original content as they have evolved independently over the years and they do not consume it the same way. You also have fandom-specific interpretations that spread and become a prevalent norm (e.g. Lan Wangji’s speech patterns).

So, after excessive meanderings, I finally return to the main topic of your question. Wei Wuxian’s supposed self-esteem and self-worth issues are definitely prevailing traits in the English-speaking fandom. It seems to me that it stems from a misreading of cultural norms as many of Wei Wuxian’s actions are rooted in a specific historical and social context steeped in filial piety as well as a literary genre that idealises the archetype of a noble and righteous hero fighting for the greater good. That’s not to say that such representation of him is completely non-existent in the Chinese fandom, it does come up from time and time, perhaps more on the live action side. The more common portrayal of Wei Wuxian though is as a brash young man and a self-assured genius and you have some very good meta on why “perfect equality” between Wangxian is one of their main strengths as a couple (x).

Hope that answered your question despite the long digression =)

[herorps]

Hey flo do you have a guide to naming Chinese characters?? So I can be ethnically correct !

i apologize for how late this is. i’ve had a very busy work day and i’m only now getting some downtime to sit down and answer this the way i want to answer this. i want to start off by saying that i am chinese-american and that what i say and how i name my chinese characters is based on my personal experiences in my community growing up and what i’ve gathered through long-sought out research and diaspora twitter. 

i also want to say that of course your ethnically chinese character can have an western name, it’s very common that we do, especially in modern times and in immigrant spaces, however i think we should be able to normalize using ethnic names. also unless you are adopted ( see: leah lewis ), in my experience you 100% have a chinese name on top of having a ‘western’ name, so if you want to give your character a western name it’d be accurate to give them a chinese name as well ( see: natasha liu bordizzo/liu chengyu ).

if you find this guide helpful, please like and reblog the post, validate me and if you have any questions/corrections/add ons please let me know! 

i would have you start off by reading this really helpful guide. it’s a little long winded and you don’t have to read all of it but they do a great job with describing the different romanizations of names and how they’re different across different dialects/regions. you need to first decide what context your character exists in, whether they’re from beijing or taipei or hong kong, their full name is going to be spelled differently based on what background you want to give them.

my mother’s surname is actually a great example of this. her surname is 湯 which in mandarin chinese is pronounced “tang” but because my mother’s family is originally taishanese, her last name is romanized “hong” everywhere that uses an english spelling. alternatively, if my mother’s family changed their romanization when they moved to hong kong, where they speak cantonese, her last name would have been romanized as “tong”. 

another example of this is chou tzuyu. because she from taiwan, the romanization of her name is chou tzu yu but if her family was from, like, shanghai her name would be romanized zhou zi yu. same chinese characters ( 周子瑜 ), but because they are pronounced differently across different languages and because she is taiwanese, the romanizations are different. 

so after you’ve decided what romanization you want to give them, the next step is to actually choose a name. i personally begin with the given name with all of my characters because i like attaching a meaning to the given name over the surname. and also surnames are pretty easy to find/figure out.

here is a guide that discusses a little bit about naming conventions in china, particularly about gendered names. i really like what tangelotime had to say about the fact that gender doesn’t really matter when it comes to naming because, in my opinion and experience, it doesn’t. i would say that what would be “gendered” is possibly the way a name sounds. idk how to explain this but there are some names that sound “girly” but more in the sense that it’s like girly vs. butch. and i can’t think of a good example of this so you’re just gonna have to ... idk go with your gut. but for the most part, chinese names are gender neutral. 

what tangelotime also said about how giving a chinese name is intense is absolutely true because there are so many things that parents may consider including chinese zodiac and fengshui and radicals in a certain character and what it means---it’s a sport that i do not have the effort for nor the intelligence to properly explain. however, i think the guides that i’ve linked so far do a good job in explaining that in a way that i cannot. here is another extensive guide, but this one discusses historical contexts ( for all u historical rpers heh ) and more importantly imo, the list of themes that a parent might take in creating a name. 

8/6/21 edit: i came across these pictographs of characters from mdzs that analyze the etymology by the radical that gives you a lot of insight to possible name meanings and to the written chinese language. 

additionally, here is a video by avenue x, an amazing creator on youtube who reviews c dramas and gives a lot of in depth cultural context for some of the shows she watches, that explains the names of characters from word of honor and gives the poetry references that the writers may have used. 

so if you’ve taken a look all the guides i’ve given you, good on you, i really appreciate you putting in all the work. now let me give you some examples of how different things may be taken into consideration when giving a chinese name. 

my given name is 安儀, romanized “on yee” because my family speaks cantonese. the first character means “safe” while the second character means “appearance,” so together my name means “safe appearance”. but, my mom also took into consideration the radicals of the characters as well. the first character looks like it has a hat or a roof on it right? that is intentional. the character underneath the hat is the character/radical for girl, so my mom wanted to make sure that her daughter had something over her that would protect her. hence why she chose the character 安. the second character in my given name consists of primarily two other words/radicals, 亻+ 義. the first radical is a variation of ⼈, the chinese word for “person,” and the second radical can roughly translate to “righteous” which means when put together, 儀 can mean “righteous person.” however 儀 can also come to mean “the appearance of a righteous person” if you consider all of the meanings i’ve given so far. my parents thought heavily about what my name means, not only on a translation level but also on a structural level. 

if you’re writing a family with multiple children, consider having a generational name. in short, generational names usually have a shared character among a single generation of family members. both of my parents and their siblings are named in this manner. my mom and her siblings all have the 華 ( wah ) character in their names. my dad and his brother have the 少 ( siu ) character and his sisters have the 美 ( mei ) character in their names. my grandparents ( both sets ) thought to give their kids a generational link in their names. 

now let’s look at jackson wang’s given name, 嘉尔, which he explained was homophonic in meaning. this is a tangent but chinese people love homophones and it’s why we don’t trust the number 4 but love the number 8. his given name, romanized “gaa yee”/”jia er”  is essentially a homophone for “plus 2″. he said ( in a video that i cannot find anymore ) that his grandfather named him because he wanted the meaning to be “a king with two guards to protect him”. jackson’s last name 王 (wong/wang) means “king” so “king” “plus 2″ is the intention his grandfather had in naming him. 

but if you’re really not versed in things like fengshui or poetry or you don’t have someone with chinese literacy available to you, the next best thing is to honestly ... take a look at media. whether that’s celebrities or film/tv/book characters ( written by actual chinese people pls ) and see what their names are ( or at least the romanizations are ). this will help you figure out what sounds appropriate and what sounds like you’re just mashing sounds together ( see: cho chang is she korean... is she chinese?? who the fuck knows ). and then finding characters that give off a meaning ( like my name meaning “safe appearance” ) is just fine imo. 

and honestly sometimes giving a name doesn’t have to be so deep. like fan bingbing’s name literally translates to “ice ice” and i don’t even know what her brother, chengcheng’s name is supposed to mean, i think their parents just think having the duplicated character is fun and cute. so don’t stress yourself out. 

also a lot of what i’ve gone over has pertained to the common 3-character name ( 1 character surname, 2 character given name ) but you can also consider a 2 character name ( 1 character surname, 1 character given name ) ( see: xiao zhan ) or even a 2 character surname ( see: ouyang nana ). 

so finally, to get you started, here is a short list of characters and their romanizations that you can take a look at.

thank you so much for bearing with me, i know this is a lot of information to take in but it is great that you are seeking this information out in the first place. i also know that this may seem very daunting, and even for me it’s daunting sometimes, but if you have any more questions, please let me know and if you have anything you’d like to add, please let me know. 

[spockandawe]

Hi....If you don't mind me asking, who are your favorite MXTX characters (top 5 from each novel)? And why? I'm sorry if you've answered this question before.

It’s absolutely no problem at all!! I don’t think I’ve been asked this before, but hey, I also have zero object permanence, so it keeps things fresh and new. And it’s interesting to see how my answers change over time! Lemme see, I think I’m going to go in reverse order, because I feel like then I’ll be doing the worst agonizing up front.

TGCF

Fifth favorite: YIN. YU. I know that he’s a minor character and him even making it onto the list is pretty solid performance, but I do feel guilty that he isn’t higher than this. He came out of nowhere in my first reading and punched me in the stomach with emotions. I find his sections so hard to read, and I was DEVASTATED when he died and BEYOND stoked to find out he was still alive in the extras. His story hurts so much! I am weak against characters who have relatively modest goals and still see them snatched away (see also: my next entry) and have to struggle on. I wish wish wish I had a way to see more of how he made his peace with things after being thrown out of heaven, and the nature of the (distant) relationship with Hua Cheng and what happens with Quan Yizhen now that he died in his arms, and still came back anyways, my god!

.

Fourth favorite:  He Xuannnnnn. I have a hard time articulating particulars, but. I love him a lot. I love a character with a grudge, with a deep, painful grudge, where the grudge is hurting him almost as much as it’s hurting the people around him, and setting the grudge aside would also hurt, and then what has any of this been for-- I've used this metaphor for other characters, but I don’t care if I’m overusing it, because I love it. He feels like a character caught in a thorn bush, where simply being there... hurts, but trying to escape or move in any ways is going to hurt worse, and there’s no path forward that doesn’t involve pain. And like... I don’t love the way he hurt Shi Qingxuan (who didn’t quite make this list adfasgdafsd I’M SORRY) but I wouldn’t have liked to see him swallow back down all that pain and set aside everything that happened to his family and fiancee either! I’m always, always soft for characters who have no good path forward and who grit their teeth and set out anyways.

.

Third favorite: MU QING!!!!!!!!!! I have done... extensive screaming about him. And I love him veryvery much. I can already tell that this list is going to have a lot of mean boys on it, and like... no regrets. Especially since this is one of my FAVORITE flavors, an unapologetic mean boy who is rarely (but sometimes!) soft for the people around him, and who regularly tries to do decently by people, but who consistently gets shat upon and misunderstood and accused of acting in bad faith. I screamed when he and Xie Lian finally got to talk their friendship out in the book. I also screamed when I realized how immediately after Xie Lian’s return he started looking out for him again, and how sincerely, despite his horrible attitude about it. I still want to write more fic for him so badly. I love him so much.

.

Second favorite: Xie Lian! What a good boy! The best boy! He’s so sweet and gentle, but also the best fightboy this world has ever seen, and also so gently snarky with the people he loves! I just... really love me some traumatized characters who have trouble recognizing that they can be Loved, and I’m not going to write this whole essay right now, but I think in some ways, he’s the most... passive about his romance, out of all the leads? Shen Qingqiu is aggressively oblivious, but Xie Lian kind of gently shrugs off the idea that he might be Hua Cheng’s special someone, until he finally gets hit with the cluestick. I generally shy away from the idea of a character “earning” love, but he’s maybe the mxtx character who moves me most with ‘you deserve to be loved’

.

Most favorite: Hua Cheng. HUA CHENG. Oh my god, gotta love this boy. Gotta love this devotion. I love a mean boy who is soft for one person, and he EMBODIES it. I mean, I love Shen Jiu, but he barely manages to do the soft thing at all, while Hua Cheng is over here like ‘if I could only be the stone beneath your feet--’ It’s hard to talk about him separately from Xie Lian, because they’re a unit in my head more than just about any other characters on this list are. I don’t want to get this list to get out of control, so I’m not going to scream for too long, but... I could just watch him go forever. I want to write him forever, and that’s a huge aspect of what draws me to some characters.

MDZS

Oh god, I think I lied, I think this book is going to be hardest. Making these choices is AGONIZING.

Fifth favorite: .....Lan Wangji. Oh god, I feel bad about how low he is. But this story is just packed SO full of wonderful characters, and I’m already consumed with guilt over all the characters who aren’t going to make it. I don’t love them less! But my love for characters in this particular story is very evenly distributed. And I think that Wang Yibo’s acting is possibly scoring points with me that the book might not have earned all by itself. Microexpressions and subtle body language add SO MUCH to a character with such flat affect, and I would be drawn to such a closed-off character anyways, but it really helps. And I love, like... the combined subtlety and intensity of his relationships. It’s not that subtle once you know what to look for, and the brother/sworn brother network makes for varying degrees of how much other characters understand of the things he chooses not to explicitly express, and it gives a really interesting character to the way he interacts with the people around him. Also, love me a man with intense separation anxiety.

.

Fourth favorite: Jiang Yanli? I think it has to be Jiang Yanli, but these rankings are hard. So. I just talked about how much I enjoy the flat affect and closed off nature of Lan Wangji? Well, guess what, I also love it when m’girl is just very GENUINELY AND OPENLY an absolute sweetheart of a person, and I love the contrast between her genuinely kind nature and the uncomfortable pressure that her family’s dynamics put on her to start parenting at a very young age. It’s not necessarily a happy situation, but she adores her brothers so much and they adore her so much! And it’s... a very understated element of the story, but after her parents died, her baby brothers went off to war, and one wreaked havoc as a straightforward commander and one of them disappeared for months and returned as a creepy-ass zombie puppeteer. And she STILL dotes on them like before, despite knowing what they’re capable of. Like, yes, Wei Wuxian just raised an army of corpses and forced a man to eat himself, but I shall still boop him on the nose and feed him Soup. How can I not adore energy like that?

.

Third favorite: Wei Wuxian, I think. I do adore him a lot. He gives me some of the same vibes that make me ache most with Xie Lian, where he is trying his best, and is struggling to hold on in the face of lots of suffering, and I find it really interesting that when the suffering peaked, Xie Lian was forced go on because he couldn’t die, while Wei Wuxian... expired. That line about ‘he thought that no matter how large the world was, there was still no place for him’ always sticks with me, and hurts me deeply. Xie Lian had most of his personal attachments stripped away, and was left to wander on his own, while Wei Wuxian still had a number of strong connections left, but abruptly exited life. And that informs their respective trauma so interestingly! The way Wei Wuxian bounces between high energy chaos and drained exhaustion is really fascinating to me, and was the thread that held me attached to the book through a very confusing beginning. And I’m still very drawn to how intensely he loves, whether it’s Xiao Zhan’s fantastic acting, or it’s him busting out with how much he wants Lan Wangji in the middle of the Guanyin Temple scene. He’s a fantastic character, honestly, I don’t think such a convoluted book would have held together very well without a protagonist this strong.

.

Second favorite: Xue Yang :X Look, he’s a good boy and I love him. Who among us hasn’t done a few mass murders that we are completely unrepentant about, but that we would really like to keep hidden from our current boyfriend, actually? Anyways, as always, love me an angry boy who makes terrible decisions for understandable reasons. And I do love a character who is consumed by agonized ragrets (see my next entry), but I DO also love me a character who has no regrets at all and doesn’t even have much interest in trying to justify himself to anyone else around him. Just look at that confidence! Look at him go!!

.

Most favorite: Jiang... Cheng....... I knew he and Xue Yang were going to be at the top, but those were the only parts of this list that were easy. I mean. Love a self-sabotaging angryboy who is also super super sad and keeps hurting himself in his own confusion. And while I love the romantic thread in all of the mxtx books, the agonized family thread in mdzs is one of my favorite parts, and something that I don’t really see echoed in any of the other stories. I need ten million jc+wwx reconciliations, at LEAST. He’s so sad! And so angry! And I want to see him becoming less of that thing, and for Jin Ling and Wei Wuxian to demonstrate very firmly how much they love him, because they do. I am invested in his happiness in a way that goes far and beyond any of the other non-main characters, haha

SVSSS

Fifth favorite: Tianlang-jun. I think? Oh god, but moshang. THIS IS REALLY HARD, I HATE THIS ;-; But especially since writing my fic, Tianlang-jun has really won me over. And like, he already hurt me good in the novel, just thinking about how he was an innocent young guy, just! Trying to have a girlfriend! And instead got trapped in sensory deprivation, body-rotting-hell for twenty years, when he didn’t do anything wrong!!! He suffered, so much! And I live for his intensely strained relationship with Luo Binghe, because it’s! Perfectly understandable and painful, from both of their perspectives! And he wants to hate humans so badly, but in the end, when he’s told that Su Xiyan never betrayed him, he starts helplessly asking the people around him, ‘really? is it really true?’ and then in the end he loses the only family member he has left who cares about him, and it’s just! Everything is terrible! I have a su xiyan au brewing in my head because I can’t stand it! Someone just give this man a loving partner!!!

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Fourth favorite: Shen Qingqiu. But... moshang??? Goddammit. Anyways, this dumbass. I find him so endearing, in his dumbassery. I sometimes get a bit frustrated with Wei Wuxian for being oblivious, and Shen Qingqiu is just asking for me to react the same way, but I... don’t, for the most part? Because he thinks he has good information, and he’s slow to react to a changing playing field, and I still haven’t read another transmigration novel that strikes the same balance of hypercompetence and intense incompetence :ppp It’s a funny book, and he’s a funny character! And I really vibe with him, in most parts of the story, which covers a pretty darn wide emotional spectrum. Plus, the running internal commentary is choice.

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Third favorite: Liu Qingge. Look, I’m a woman of simple needs, and sometimes I just need a high-quality fightboy who clearly cares deeply and is absolute garbage at expressing his emotions. I can’t articulate it much better than that. I absolutely howl at the succubus extra, when Shen Qingqiu is talking to Madam Meiyin about his future partner, and Liu Qingge is like ‘oh my god, sHE IS CLEARLY DESCRIBING ME’ and Shen Qingqiu is like ‘haha, liu-shidi, i thought you thought this was stuupidddddddd’. They’re both so dumb. I love them so much. But stupidity plus war god fighting energy has a narrow lead over stupidity and internal commentary track.

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Second favorite: SHEN JIU. GOD. I’m still arguing with myself over whether he should go first, but Luo Binghe hurts me consistently through the whole entire story, so I think he wins. Shen Jiu just stabs me in the heart at strategic moments. This is it. My ideal mean boy who is soft for one (1) person, and who BOTH does unconscionable things for terrible reasons (someone just. give him a pile of girls to teach, it will be much more pleasant for everyone involved), and who ALSO gets blamed for things he didn’t do even when he tries to act in good faith. It is the best of all painful worlds. And even at the end, when he has a powerful person who wants desperately to protect him, he still tries his hardest to shove that person away, to keep him safe. I’ve got like four aus where he gets to live. I’m so invested in this character, I love him so much.

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Most favorite: Luo Binghe. He was.... made for me............ Like, the overwhelming amounts of childhood angst were baked in by Shang Qinghua, but the in-story pain and suffering is PRECISELY my jam. I love a character with separation anxiety! I love a character with massive anxieties over being unwanted! Over nobody ever, EVER just choosing him! I love a character struggling with the idea that the person he loves most in the world thinks that he’s intrinsically Disgusting! I love the kind of stubborn determination that leads him to preserve a corpse for five years, desperately hoping for a way to revive it, constantly cooking fresh food, in case, in case he someday wakes up. The way Hua Cheng loves is overpowering, but he’s had time to like... learn to be mellow when he needs to be. Luo Binghe doesn’t have a chill bone in his body, and if he’s acting chill, it’s probably because he’s done some mental math and decided that being more clingy right now will probably get him pushed away harder. I love the combination of manipulative tendencies and a very, very genuine fear of rejection and being unwanted. There is nothing I don’t love about Luo Binghe, including his worst decisions. I love him so so much.

[sol1056]

wuxia: a general yet probably too verbose introduction to the genre, pt2

and now we get to the actual conventions -- although more accurately, these are just the ones that I either noticed the strongest or had the most difficulty adjusting to, when I was first getting into wuxia. 

Not all stories have these elements, and of course in a genre as varied (and as old) as wuxia, there are twenty exceptions for every rule. What’s more, one story’s mild admonishment (”well, X is frowned on, but I guess if you’re just low-key about it”) can become the next story’s worst taboo (”omg you did X, you must be shunned! SHUNNNNNNNNNNed.”). 

Like any other living genre, authors will shift/tilt convention as needed to drive a story’s conflicts. 

btw, it’ll probably be a few days before I can do an introduction to MDZS, which should give time to @guzhuangheaven, @atthewaterside, @dramatic-gwynne, @the50-person, @drunkensword (and anyone else) to point out everything I misunderstood, over-emphasized, misinterpreted, or just plain missed. 

--- --- --- --- --- --- ---

1. Hierarchy still matters. A student’s respect for their teacher, a child’s respect for their parents, younger siblings/students to elder. You’ll see this in how people are called (ie 3rd uncle, elder sister, 2nd brother), but this doesn’t mean everyone goes around dutiful and obedient. Err, wuxia is actually more of the opposite. I mean, a good story requires conflict between characters, and what better way than someone overturning (or at least appearing to overturn) the hierarchy?

In that vein, creating new relationships that take precedent over old relationships is anywhere from disrespectful to a full-on violation of natural law. As in, learning from someone other than your teacher, joining a new family in lieu of your birth family, running away to get married -- hell, just running away! -- are all potential sources of trouble. At the same time, wuxia has a really strong comedic streak (all the martial arts also make for great slapstick). Squabbling families with headstrong, misbehaving kids who break the rules, well, that’s a classic that can be played for melodrama, comedy, or both.

2. Swordsmanship is the pinnacle (or the most prevalent) of martial arts. The protagonist is either going to be (or end up) the best swordsman (or swordswoman) ever, or they’re going to use a weapon that’s unlike any other -- and if the latter, they’ll either be reviled for it, or lauded.

3. Despite the fact that swords are heavy and a real pain to carry around, characters carry their swords. All the time. Everywhere. In historical dramas, swords hang from belts, but not wuxia. Plus, characters will place swords on the table, across their lap, lean them against chairs, put them on the floor, and it doesn’t seem to map to whether they’re among allies or enemies, on guard or relaxing. The sword goes with them everywhere, and is always within reach. (And again, this general convention can go strict in some stories, like MDZS, where the failure to carry a sword is seen as a major breach of etiquette.)

4. The general term for ‘members of a sect’ or ‘people who study martial arts’ is ‘cultivators’. To cultivate is to grow something: cultivating [internal or spiritual] fields to gain a [skillset] harvest. Cultivation isn’t just going to the practice hall and swinging a sword three hundred times; meditation, study, even copying out texts are also ways to cultivate. 

5. Wuxia characters may also be called swordsmen/swordswomen, wandering heroes, or martial heroes. If the story pivots on getting into a sect (or achieving some rank in a sect), then the characters will be considered cultivators (of a given path). If they’re introduced as just swordsmen, that seems to indicate it’s a story where sect politics plays less of a role. Or both terms may be present, to differentiate between sect-members/students versus people who defected (or are self-taught). 

6. Wuxia as a genre is remarkably egalitarian. Expect women martial artists to throw down with (and hold their own against) male opponents. Learn to fear the older women in wuxia; they’re often the most dangerous. Not to say there aren’t damsels in distress in wuxia, just that there are usually as many female warrior characters, too.

If the story has multiple sect leaders, usually at least one is a woman -- and if not, one of the men is married to a woman that everyone knows is the truly powerful/skilled one. Near-equal cast percentages are common, too, both in the foreground (and not always for the sake of pairing off for romance), and in the background, when you catch shots of the rank-and-file sect members.

Basically, you can expect the average wuxia to pass the Bechdel test with flying colors. It may not always pass all the other gender tests, but conversations (and deep friendships) between female characters are usually on-screen (not just implied), and often a strong part of the storyline.

7. The super-hero-like skills -- leaping from or to an extreme height, tossing someone a great distance, getting thrown far and getting up again -- are a good map to things like gunslingers who can shoot a playing card at eighty paces blindfolded. Or Robin Hood getting a bullseye through the arrows of someone else’s bullseyes. Wuxia tends to expect even superlative skills at a beginner’s level (so you’ll see student-characters doing such), but it’s all just ways to say, these characters have studied the sword while the rest of us were waiting for the translation team to release the next episode.

8. Those skills are not magic, which occupies a different category. Whether shown or implied, wuxia’s ‘martial arts’ (if exaggerated and unrealistic) are still studied. When magic shows up, it’s often derided, because it’s a shortcut. There’s an insincerity, a kind of bad sportsmanship. The reaction in-story is much like real world reaction to athletes using performance-enhancing drugs. It’s cheating, and it’s disrespectful towards your opponents, that you refused to match their efforts with equal effort of your own.

9. Every story has its own definition of what is, or is not, ‘magic’ and thus a shortcut. Wuxia is usually pretty good about making clear what the story considers ‘orthodox’ or ‘right’: look for characters introduced as authoritative voices in the story’s world, and what they do is probably a good indication of accepted skills (that is, not-magic). Well, unless the character cackles a lot, in which case they’re probably an example of magic/unorthodox approaches.

9. Qi -- energy -- is the root of a character’s power (or lack thereof). Plenty of wuxia only reference this concept in passing, but some codify it into a necessity -- as in, some people have the ‘right’ kind of qi, and some do not. Or that it takes years to develop so the hero is permanently behind until they finally get to doing the work. Whether nature or nuture, this qi is how a cultivator can leap high bounds while the background farmer or merchant characters must scramble to find a ladder.

10. Over the years of television, ‘manipulating qi’ -- shoving energy at someone through the hands/feet, a sword, a musical instrument, something else -- has developed its own set of stylized movements. It’s a lot of arm-waving and finger twirling and whatnot (often circular). I think of it like riding an invisible bike to charge the generator; releasing it means the TV has the juice to kick on. Or the tazer can release, or whatever.

11. There are a bunch of virtues being promoted by wuxia, from a tangle of daoism, buddhism, and confucianism -- things like loyalty, sincerity, honesty, humility, respecting one’s parents (or teacher), benevolence, and justice (or righteousness). Plus a disregard for wealth or glory for personal gain.

The good (or enduring) wuxia stories seem to be the ones that find a way to make a virtue into a point of conflict -- as in, loyalty to what/who, questions of what it means to be righteous in this circumstance or that, and so on. The virtue is still at the heart of things, the conflict lies in how it’s interpreted or applied.

12. Wuxia predates Confucianism and Buddhism (and possibly Daoism), so it’s got a long history of cherrypicking to mix and match as it pleases. Some things you might see, and the influencing source:

horsetail whisks, used for purifying a space and removing evil influences, traditionally carried by Daoist priests as a sign of their rank. 

an emphasis on Yin and Yang as driving opposing energies (sometimes good and bad, sometimes required to be balanced), also a Daoist concept.

most mystical elements are also Daoist influence: like qigong (coordinated posture and movement to increase/improve health, spiritual strength, and martial prowess), alchemy, astrology, etc.

mudras (hand gestures, cf Naruto) are predominantly Buddhist, meant as a way to focus oneself. When these show up in wuxia, the origin is still ‘to focus oneself’ but being wuxia, the result is usually a burst of visible power.

if a story revolves around learning to forgive/forget and to have compassion (over vengeance), that’s the Buddhist influence showing.

if filial piety, the observance of rites, or questions of ethics/morality are significant themes, that’s probably confucianism’s influence.

The lines are way blurrier than I’m going into, here. After all, the three perspectives have competed and coexisted for hundreds of years. There’s a fair bit of cross-contamination, as it were. 

13. A lot of wuxia -- and I mean a lot of wuxia -- can be boiled down to coming-of-age stories: a young hero faces trials and tribulations on his (or her) way to finding a place in society. Sometimes it’s working their way up through the levels to claim the top spot; sometimes it’s being rejected from the school they wanted, and continuing to fight that fate until they’re accepted and demonstrate they deserve to be there.

This focus on younger heroes also means that wuxia is rife with idol dramas, where the majority of the cast are young/first-time actors, chosen for their looks and their similarity to the character (so as to not require too much of a stretch for them, acting-wise). On the other hand, this does often mean the pretty is almost overwhelming, since it’s looks and not long-time acting experience that set the bar.

14. Compared to other Chinese literary genres, wuxia is somewhat unique in its emphasis on individualism, but this isn’t to say you should expect full-throated american-style rugged individualism. I’d say it’s less about the individual breaking free of social rules, and more that the individual must find a way to interpret those social rules and forge a compromise between what they’re required to be vs who they want to be.

The best illustration I can think of is a parental dictate of “I want you to marry and have a family,” that sets off the story’s conflict. By the end of the story, the now-adult child realizes the message wasn’t meant literally so much as a way to say, “I want you to grow up, have a place in this world, surrounded by people who love you.” The error wasn’t in the parents’ blindness to the child’s needs, but in the child’s interpretation of the parental message. 

(Unlike historical or modern dramas, which often have a lot of daddy issues -- thanks, Confucius -- wuxia is relatively free of that. Child-parent conflict is common, but truly dysfunctional on the level of modern melodramas, not quite so much.)

15. The fights are balletic and acrobatic; they’re meant as an abstract representation of a fight. You want reality, go watch an HK or Korean action movie/show. Wuxia is where you go for the twirling, the leaps, the spins, all the kinds of moves that no decent fighter would ever do, ‘cause turning your back on the enemy gets you killed -- but wuxia isn’t about that, it’s about the cool visual factor.

16. Historically and aesthetically, the costumes are closest to the Ming dynasty  -- layered and belted ankle-length robes with long, flowing sleeves. Partly because the Ming dynasty seems to be a favorite setting (for whatever quality of actual time period a story even bothers to identify), but also (at least, my theory is) because those big sleeves make for dramatic gestures when swinging a sword.

17. There are newer wuxia that show some Game of Thrones influence (or, in the movie adaptations like The Four, some grimdark-slash-steampunk influences) but for the most part, wuxia is rather brightly-lit. My theory is that it was traditionally designed to be visible on (literally) smaller TVs, out in rural villages and whatnot. Frex, the darkest things get in wuxia, visually, is a day-for-night blue, since filming at night for real makes for an awful dark screen. 

This is changing -- I’ve seen a lot more wuxia that are genuinely filming at night -- but the same show may also do day-for-night just cause they’re on a tight schedule and can’t sit around until it’s dark again to shoot the next scene, so they make do. 

18. Older filming styles still dominate in wuxia, and the one you may notice the most is a particular move where the speaking character turns away from whomever they’re talking to, walks towards the camera, and speaks in the direction of the camera. It’s just not something people normally do, but it happens all the time in wuxia.

I think it comes from the days of only having one camera, so either you took the time to reshoot to get reactions (not really possible on shoestring budgets with tight deadlines), or you made sure the frame could include the speaker and the listeners. (Or it might be coming from the stage, where the actor must face the audience to be heard.)

The basic blocking, lighting, and so on sometimes reminds me of afternoon soap operas from the 80s, done with videotape rather than film. Not cheap so much as lower budget. 

19. If you want historical authenticity, this is the last place to look. The costumes will be flashy, especially for the hero and his love interest: layered and embroidered, with modern fabrics in bright, sometimes neon!, shades and combinations (Nicholas Tse, I see you).

Older wuxia, the characters rarely got dirty, a wound from a fight was represented by a streak of clearly-fake (and somewhat diluted) pink syrup, and plenty of times a character will go through an entire battle and not even be sweaty or dirty. (Game of Thrones is changing this, too, though -- I’m seeing more dishevelment, though it’s still relatively minor compared to post-battle LotR or GoT.)

20. You can tell the budget from two things: how many costumes and how many wigs. A lower-budget wuxia (or one made at rapid pace) means characters go to bed in their day-clothes, with headpieces still on. Wigs are expensive, and a quickly-made wuxia means you get one wig, and that’s what you’re always wearing, rather than a wig for sleeping and another for waking. Same goes for showing characters in their day-clothes versus what they’d wear for night, or when relaxing, or whatever. (Or having two versions of the same costume, one pre-battle and one post-battle.)

21. About that historical bit -- at least up to the Qing dynasty, Chinese men usually wore their hair in a top-knot once they reached adulthood. Wuxia’s aesthetic is for everyone -- including elderly men -- wearing their hair mostly down with only a small top-knot to pull back their bangs. This just isn’t how anyone wore their hair, but it’s a massive visual clue that the story takes place in the jianghu, where normal society’s rules don’t apply.

22. I think I mentioned the Ming dynasty -- not sure why, but it seems to be the most favorite target. (You’d think it’d be the Qing, since they were outsiders, but nope.) The literary precursors of wuxia had a strong streak of ‘the government is corrupt and/or full of idiots, we’re better off doing our own thing over here,’ which led to various dynasties cracking down on wuxia as a kind of rebel literature.

It’s kind of ironic that wuxia’s history of overturning the natural order confucian principles (that is, treating individualism as an equal virtue, and elevating commoners to hero-status for *gasp* leaving their place of birth to wander around and do good deeds) is what made wuxia immensely popular during the cultural revolution, when China was busy deconstructing (often violently) so much of its cultural past. Wuxia stood apart, as something that had been quietly deconstructing all along, and thus shot up in popularity for finally being in tune with the zeitgeist.  

(Wuxia in all its forms has always, perhaps unsurprisingly, been massively popular among the common classes. Wuxia is not, never has been, a high literary form; watching wuxia means you’re watching the latest iteration of an ancient yet truly pop-as-in-popular-as-in-common culture.)

I get the impression the chinese authorities have an uneasier relationship with historical dramas (which can walk a fine line of implying that imperial past as a good/positive), whereas wuxia’s place in the mythical jianghu diminishes its ability to threaten via social commentary. This isn’t to say wuxia isn’t in dialogue with the social and political environment in which it’s made; all literature is, by virtue of being of its time. It’s just a bit more coy about it, and its loudest political-type trait -- of dismissing the imperial system/capital as corrupt, evil, or otherwise contemptible -- fits with a desire to see the dynastic past as something to be discarded and/or dismissed, not emulated.  

23. Oh, and one last thing: wuxia is very, very, very chaste. A lot of the romantic relationships are almost entirely implied -- a lot of longing looks, maybe the exchange of a significant gift, I mean, we’re talking a genre that considers holding hands to be pretty daring. I’ve seen entire series where you know those two will end up together, but if you can’t read the visual cues, you’d think they were just close friends (if not socially-awkward acquaintances).

That said, when wuxia breaks that so-chaste rule, it’s like having a table dropped on you. There’s a drunken makeout scene in The Legends that had my jaw on the table because holy smokes, that was unexpected. Mad passionate wild abandonment just isn’t a thing in wuxia.

[ETA: don’t get me wrong, wuxia in general is hugely passionate. Just not on a sexual level; it’s on the emotional level that wuxia will go to eleven, repeatedly.]

...okay, that wasn’t even in the neighborhood of brief. hell, it wasn’t even in the same state as brief, but I did warn you. Wuxia’s a huge genre, after all. An entire book might still only scratch the surface, but hopefully this suffices as a general introduction.

[goddamnelsa]

Liz’s Top Books of 2020

blatantly stolen from @alamorn but also i wanted to feel accomplished that i did in fact read published books this year before descending entirely into mdzs/the untamed fanfiction :) :) :) :)

In two parts! Books I read that actually came out in 2020, and then honorable mentions of books I read in 2020 that were published in previous years. Enjoy!

Top Books Published in 2020 (which are not in any kind of order because I can’t like rank stuff, I’m not that kind of person)

The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin

What can I say except it’s N.K. Jemisin who wrote my favorite high fantasy series (The Inheritance Trilogy), won three consecutive Hugo Awards for her The Broken Earth trilogy, and she’s writing urban fantasy with Lovecraftian and superhero team flavor. I mean....obviously I was at the top of the wait list for this once my library ordered it. And it lived up to the hype!! Because of course!! It’s fabulously fast-paced with amazingly smart and interesting characters of diverse backgrounds. I kept thinking one of them was my favorite, and then another would have a great line and I would change my mind. It’s fine, they’re all technically one entity with several parts, so I can love them all and not choose (but it’s probably Bronca, let’s be real). And it’s the first of a series! And I’m counting down the days til there is more!

Axiom’s End by Lindsay Ellis

I definitely picked this up simply because Lindsay Ellis, one of my favorite video essayists, wrote it, and then ended up loving everything about it. I’m not usually one for First Contact stories, but I appreciate the very human-focused approach here, sticking solely to an ordinary girl’s perspective as she navigates being the person first in contact with a very alien alien. Cora’s attempts to humanize Ampersand are relatable, but I appreciate Ellis reminding us at almost every turn that Ampersand is super Not Human, no matter how much Cora reads into his actions. Ellis doesn’t gloss over the Science part either, especially when it comes to the race of aliens Ampersand belongs to. Again, the first of a series, and you will absolutely be screaming for the next book when this one is over.

You Had Me At Hola by Alexis Daria

Insert my obligatory “I don’t usually read romances blah blah blah.” Though, during lockdown, I attempted to branch out beyond my usual genres when I was attending a ton of publisher webinars about upcoming books. This one stood out to me because of its Latinx cast and the whole behind-the-scenes of a Jane The Virgin-esque show, based on a telenovela (of course). It is fantastic, a quick read with instantly likable and fun characters. And the tropes! We’re playing love interests but we have insane chemistry! A sensitive, traumatized male lead who learns to open up again! A sassy but insecure female lead who learns to let loose and love again! Hooking up, but we have to keep on the DL or else scandal! And of course, the extended families add to every scene they are in--I loved every interaction Ashton and Jasmine had with their families, it was the cherry on top of a fantastic read. Also the sex scenes are steamy. 

Beetle and the Hollowbones by Aliza Layne

I got this graphic novel as an advanced reader copy well before it came out, and after reading it, I was sCREAMING because I couldn’t tell all my graphic novel, queer coming-of-age-with-magic loving friends to immediately pick up a copy!! So thankfully, it’s out now, so I can scream to the heavens to please read this!!! It is such a sweet story with beautiful full-color art and fantastic world-building. It has the same silly, referential humor you see in a lot of kids/YA graphic novels these days, but Beetle packs in a lot of heart as well. 

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi

Like many people in May/June of this year, I was reading, reading, reading a lot of books about racism from as many Black authors as I could get my hands on. There were many not published this year that should definitely be read (So You Want To Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo being among the top), but this book really stuck with me because it is written specifically for a younger audience, and Jason Reynolds knows how to talk to kids about tough subjects. Stamped gets across difficult concepts like assimilationists and segregationists in an easy-to-understand, conversational style that doesn’t take away from any of the important history and nuance. This certainly is not The Book of antiracism studies, but it is a good starting point if you are daunted by lengthy title lists and aren’t sure where to begin. I highly recommend the audiobook as well, read by Reynolds himself.

(Side note: I watched this keynote address with Reynolds and Kendi which is an excellent primer into the background of how this book came to be. Reynolds is also just very interesting to listen to)

Honorable Mentions aka Books I read in 2020 that were published in previous years again, not ranked because I CAN’T, OKAY

White Is For Witching by Helen Oyeyemi

I read this book and then wanted to go back and read it immediately again, not necessarily because it was so amazing, but because I felt like I would get it even more if I did. This is a haunting little book that took turns I was not expecting, even with the book synopsis I read. It is disturbing and features descriptions of an eating disorder, so proceed with caution. However, if you like Gothic tales of haunted houses and the trauma inflicted on us by those who came before, I can’t recommend this one enough.

Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

My last book club read before the pandemic D: We didn’t actually get to meet to discuss this book, but my club (all librarians) were working at our emergency call center at the same time and all reading it, so we KINDA got to discuss it, if not in a formal book club setting. ANYWAY, it’s a thrilling jaunt through 1920s Mexico, following a fantastic Cinderella-esque heroine who makes a deal with a Mayan god to retrieve his body. If you are a fan of the Percy Jackson-brand of mythological adventures, this is definitely one to add to your list, especially if you are looking for something a little bit more Adult.

Scary Stories for Young Foxes by Christian McKay Heidicker

Okay, I know it’s a young readers/middle grade book, but HEAR ME OUT. This is whimsical and haunting tale about seven little fox kits who set out to scare themselves shitless by hearing scary tales. Only one kit will remain when the night is over, but the one who does will get to hear a surprisingly sweet, and well-earned, happy ending. If you are a Neil Gaiman-esque horror fan, I recommend picking this up. Its scares are fairly scary, especially for its audience, but it’s an engaging story about the lengths we will go for the ones we love.

Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse

Did someone say Navajo monster-hunting heroine with magic powers navigating a post-apocalyptic world, oh and also saving it??? Look, Maggie is My Kind of Hero, in that she’s damaged, she drinks too much, she’s surly, but she has a seriously gooey heart of gold underneath all that armor. Navajo mythology is woven into this tale of monster-hunting, surviving. If you’re in Supernatural-disappointment-land, maybe give this a try! It has that Western-y, road trip feel to it, and again, I love the lead character. (It also has a currently published sequel and a soon-to-be-released third book as well!)

This is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

This was rec’ed to me by a librarian friend, with the words, “Oh, Liz, you’ll really like this.” And she was RIGHT. Red and Blue are on opposite sides of a war waged across time and decide to send letters to each other, at first, to taunt, but then, to understand, to learn, and to love. The details of the war don’t matter much, but what does matter is the achingly beautiful poetry with which Red and Blue reveal themselves to each other. I was told to listen to this one, but I’m glad I read it myself instead. The prose is very purple at times, and I appreciated being able to go back to passages to reread again and again. Oh, and it’s queer (Red and Blue are both female), and SPOILERS SPOILERS has a happy ending. 

(also there is a wangxian remix for my mdzs buds. and also a semi-officially sanctioned fanfic sequel???? at least amal el-mohtar linked it from goodreads so whoo! also also it’s very funny)

And that’s my Year in Books 2020! Seeing it laid out like this, I had a surprisingly good year for book reading even though I felt like I barely read anything. For awhile, reading was Hard, and I just wanted to consume fluffy, sweet fanfiction, but I’m getting back into it. Oh, and please let me know if you check any of these out!

Here’s to a good year for books in 2021! ✨

[valdrift]

AH I absolutely love your MDZS X Among Us art I firmly believe that LWJ wouldn’t tell a soul what he saw

he absolutely wouldnt 😊

my take on among us/mdzs is tht wwx is host to an alien parasite thts using him to kill off the rest of the crew and lwj becomes an impostor to cover for him since his first kill 😔

[captain-apostrophe]

tag people you want to get to know better

tagged by @piyo-13, hey thanks! :D

your name and then what you would have named yourself: Dani, and... idk, I’ve never felt disconnected from that! I do enjoy going by cap online, though.

astrological sign (sun/moon/rising if you know them): scorpio

when did you join tumblr and why?: 2017, I may be relatively baby on here but I did see the porn ban. I joined looking for feminist and women-friendly ‘nerdy’ spaces that weren’t reddit (because no matter how hard I tried to curate my reddit experience, awful people always insisted on ruining everything)

top 5 fandoms: I really don’t/haven’t participated in fandom outside of mdzs but in terms of other stuff I’m always happy to see on my dash... critical role, ATLA, ghibli films, star trek?

top 5 favorite films: aside from the fact that it’s impossible to choose... Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Alien, Howl’s Moving Castle, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, The Fall

go to song when you wanna Feel something: I mean, which thing! there’s different songs for different feelings! But if I want to feel good and energised it’s The Real Thing by Client Liaison. Edit: okay I’ve thought about this for like an hour and my new answer is Problems (JEFFE cover) by Petit biscuit. As soon as that one starts playing I always feel a thing.

what’s your religion or faith if you have one?: n/a

a song that makes you feel seen: maybe Free by Rudimental feat. Emeli Sande?

if you could have any career: I mean, who among us doesn’t want to make a living as a writer? but I’ll settle for making myself permanently a librarian

do you have a type?: kind men, strong women

what does your heart/soul yearn for: peace

if you had to describe yourself in 5 words to someone who doesn’t know you: big sister/heart/ideas/idk

favorite subjects in school: in primary/secondary school? english! tertiary school? okay still my lit classes, but also screen studies

where does your soul feel most at home: in the middle of the night when everything is still 

top 5 fictional characters: Lup (TAZ: Balance), Captain Janeway (Star Trek: Voyager), Yu Shu Lien (CTHD), Scully (X Files), BMO (Adventure Time)

top 3 moments in a show that made you ugly cry: I know this has happened a bunch of times, why can I not think of any! Okay a few I can remember - the end of Oh! My Emperor, even though I saw it coming/knew what was going to happen; the ending of The Good Place; and I cry every single time I watch Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (which I apparently have on the brain today, since it’s in 50% of my answers for this post). I’d say Fatal Journey but I refuse to accept that as canon :)

the earth, the sun, the moon or the stars: the moon, does she know i love her?

favorite kind of weather: a really juicy thunderstorm, heavy rain, it’s warm enough that you can have the windows open to enjoy it but cool enough that you’re not sweaty about it

top 3 characters you kin with: uhhhhhh not sure I’m the kind of person to ‘kin’ anything, but characters I relate to would include Sophie from Howl’s Moving Castle, Tilly from Star Trek Discovery, Judge Judy (that last one’s aspirational).

favorite medium of art: the written word

introvert/extrovert/ambivert: introvert but I ‘pass’ for sociable

a favorite literary quote: a grim one, but something I haven’t forgotten (the very last line in particular, but the context is part of the thing of course) in like twenty years so I suppose it has to count, from Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World -

The machine turns, turns and must keep on turning—forever. It is death if it stands still. A thousand millions scrabbled the crust of the earth. The wheels began to turn. In a hundred and fifty years there were two thousand millions. Stop all the wheels. In a hundred and fifty weeks there are once more only a thousand millions; a thousand thousand men and women have starved to death.

Wheels must turn steadily, but cannot turn untended. There must be men to tend them, men as steady as the wheels upon their axles, sane men, obedient men, stable in contentment.

Crying: My baby, my mother, my only, only love; groaning: My sin, my terrible God; screaming with pain, muttering with fever, bemoaning old age and poverty—how can they tend the wheels? And if they cannot tend the wheels… The corpses of a thousand thousand thousand men would be hard to bury or burn.

some of your favorite books: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers (and the sequels were pretty great too); NK Jemisin’s Broken Earth Trilogy; The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold; Stephen King’s The Stand, and the Dark Tower series; Isobelle Carmody’s Obernewtyn Chronicles; uhhhh non-comprehensive list because I’m blanking now.

if you could live anywhere in the world where would it be?: in a daydream? Wales - I love how it looks, and they have the best accent, give me a little farm with some goats. in real? I’m pretty happy right here, though.

if you could live in any time in history when would it be?: yeah as piyo said before me, I don’t think that there would be a point in history that would be kinder to me as someone female-presenting. but if I could visit some time incognito it would be pretty exciting to see something like the library at Alexandria

if you could play any instrument masterfully it would be: the banjo I guess, since I own one (why would someone own an instrument they don’t play? GREAT QUESTION you should ask the ex who gave it to me in an attempt to prove that money could show as much affection as actual affection does)

if you have one, what mythological god or goddess do you feel a connection to: n/a

and lastly, favorite recent selfie in your camera roll: I’m not going to share it, but it’s def one of the pictures of me holding my baby niece :)

tagging (but only if you want to): @megalodont, @aninfiniteweirdo, and.... hmmm who sent in asks and might like to interact @demoiselledefortune, @lefthandsuzukimethod, @queenofsovngarde, and idk anybody who sees this and wants to be friends or has been too shy to interact before? <3