theuntamedproject

[theuntamedproject]

穿越千年才找回跟你在一起的回忆

a WLW makeup ad. 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩

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Wangxian Earrings I got for my birthday!

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The parallels between the Yunmeng Brothers and Eastern/Western cultural ideologies.

Whilst many view Jiang Cheng as a character that is defined by his jealousy and fear of inadequacy; envy acts as only one of this character's many motivations. Although insecurity clearly plagues Jiang Cheng in his formative years (from when Wei Wuxain was first adopted to the defeat of the tortoise of slaughter), one could argue that after the massacre of Lotus Pier, and Jiang Cheng's subsequent loss and regaining of his golden core - one particular motivation comes into the foreground and overshadows all the childish insecurity: the prioritisation of family. In this analysis, the idea of 'family' also includes the Yunmeng Jiang Sect.

Growing up as heir to the Yunmeng Jiang Sect, Jiang Cheng grew up with familial pressures and expectations that Wei Wuxian was seemingly exempt from. A sense of duty and responsibility was instilled from the beginning and was evidenced by Jiang Cheng's apparent disdain for his brother's mischievous antics. Jiang Cheng was barred from the luxury of a carefree childhood, and already the idea of 'family' being above all else was being sewn into Jiang Cheng's head by his mother. As mentioned previously, the major issue that Jiang Cheng has with Wei Wuxian's carefree nature was not that Wei Wuxian was showing up Jiang Cheng, but rather that his antics were having a negative impact on the sect (and by extension - the family's) reputation. This prioritisation of family is an ideology heavily prevalent in traditional eastern cultures, and a sentiment that is shared by many other sects in this universe.

However, these ideas are only exacerbated after the tragic massacre of Lotus Pier. If the events leading to Jiang Cheng's loss of his golden core are analysed, it was selfishness (a sense of anger and vengefulness) that led Jiang Cheng to leave the safe space that his siblings had found for themselves. He went against the fundamental idea that all actions should prioritise the good of the family, and acted on the basis that revenge would be cathartic for himself. It was only until Jiang Cheng could see that his beloved brother was in danger, that the selfishness was quickly overshadowed by fear of his family getting hurt. By distracting the guards and letting himself be captured, we see the prioritisation of family winning over all else yet again.

Even post reincarnation, the audience can see that Jiang Cheng has grown into a strong sect leader. And still, the sect and his family are his number one priority. The complex range of emotions that the character has over his failure to protect his family is explored through his relationship with Jin Ling. The only surviving member of a family that Jiang Cheng worked so hard to protect, he shields Jin Ling and assumes the responsibility of being Jin Ling's guardian (despite not being part of the Jin sect). The determination that Jiang Cheng has to rebuild his family and sect from the remains left after the Sunshot Campaign is further evidence of Jiang Cheng's all-consuming prioritisation of family.  

On the other end of the spectrum, we have Wei Wuxian. As an orphan, despite being adopted into the Yunmeng Jiang Sect, the audience can still see the sense of isolation that Wei Wuxian feels. Madame Yu rejects him and despite the love from both his siblings and Jiang Fengmian, he is still 'othered' from the rest of the sect. A black sheep. It is interesting to see how Wei Wuxian deals with this subtle segregation. As opposed to trying harder to fit into the ideals of the Yunmeng Jiang Sect, Wei Wuxian actively rebels and cements himself as an individual - separate from the clan he was brought up in. This pride in individualism is an incredibly western way of thinking and an ideology that lead to such a strong rift between Wei Wuxian and the rest of the cultivation world. On another note, it is ironic that Wei Wuxians's rebellion of conformity was praised by Jiang Fengmian as a perfect example of 'attempting the impossible', whilst Jiang Cheng's strong sense of duty was rejected.

This idea of individualism follows Wei Wuxian in many of his actions throughout the story. Whilst Jiang Cheng inherits Zidian from his mother, Wei Wuxian makes Chenqing himself. Wei Wuxian also founded demonic cultivation, a screaming symbol of individuality and rejection of conformity in the cultivation world.

One interesting aspect of Wei Wuxian's story is his relationship with the Wen Clan, namely the Wen Clan Wei Wuxain helped look after in the Burial Mounds. As discussed previously, Wei Wuxian never found himself fitting in at Lotus Pier. However, after the Sunshot Campaign and the rejection of all members of the Wen Clan, it can be interpreted that Wei Wuxian sees part of himself in the characters Wen Ning and Wen Qing. A sense of isolation. Of feeling 'othered'. And from this, Wei Wuxain takes the Wen Clan under his wing. Echoing back to Wei Wuxian's childhood, he takes the remaining Wen Clan, forms a settlement in the Burial Mounds and actively rebels against the traditional ideas of a sect. Individualism is what sets Wei Wuxian apart yet again.

It would be incorrect to say that Wei Wuxian does not have a strong sense of responsibility to the Wen Sect at the Burial Mounds. However, unlike Jiang Cheng feeling responsible to the family he was born into, Wei Wuxain feels responsible for his 'found family'. (One could compare Wei Wuxian's 'found family' to the many families that have formed from LGBTQ+ people who have been rejected from their original homes, providing each other mutual support and care).

Ultimately, this difference in cultural ideology is what leads to the Yungmeng Brother's broken relationship. Wei Wuxian does not see himself as being a true part of the Yunmeng Jiang Sect; Jiang Cheng, on the other hand, believes Wei Wuxian to be one of his own.

Therefore, when Wei Wuxian chooses to protect the Wen Clan over staying at Lotus Pier; spends more and more time with Lan Wangji; misses Jiang Yanli's wedding and breaks his promise to stand by Jiang Cheng's side, Jiang Cheng feels a growing sense of betrayal. Jiang Cheng sees Wei Wuxian go against his core belief - family over all else - time and time again. And this finally reaches a tipping point at the penultimate bloodbath at the Nightless City. In Jiang Cheng's grief-stricken eyes, it is due to a battle that Wei Wuxian started, and a fierce corpse that Wei Wuxian created that Jiang Yanli died. One of the last members of Jiang Cheng's family gone. Despite seeing Wei Wuxian as a brother, the many betrayals after the Sunshot Campaign and the death of Jiang Yanli lead to Jiang Cheng rejecting Wei Wuxian. A man who went against Jiang Cheng's core belief more times than could be forgiven.

But, in the Guanyin Temple, when Jiang Cheng finally learns of Wei Wuxians sacrifice of his golden core, the years of grief and anger that he built up against Wei Wuxian is challenged. Wei Wuxian chose family, chose Jiang Cheng, over himself.

In summary, I believe that the differences in views of Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian parallel the difference of views in Eastern and Western cultures. In the west, capitalist society meant individuality was important in order to move up in social class. Whereas in the east, conformity was considered the ideal, and part of the Confucian philosophy.

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No testing, we die like men [weeks 5+6]

So, I'm not sure if you guys actually know where we are situated, but Hannah and I live in good ol' England. Currently, Covid cases here are rising. Because of these developments, Hannah and I decided it was for the best that we postpone our gingerbread material testing days which were going to take place this weekend. Which is such a rip, but what can you do.

So I'm afraid much like Hannah's last post, there's not going to be too much exciting news. Doesn't mean we have no news though!!

Also if ya'll are here for the spicy Untamed content as opposed to the specific science of things then go ahead and scroll down to the end. After seeing Hannah going on a tangent about her fav (still don't like Jin Guanyao Hannah, soz), I wanna get in on some of that fandom action to.

So let's get into it!

Planning our paper

The goal has always been to write a research paper based on our findings from materials testing / research when creating this MDZS gingerbread universe (I feel like we need to start coming up with a nickname for this...).

And while before we've kinda been a bit *hand wavy* about what exactly this paper will be about, in these past two weeks we've decided that our goal with this is to try and get the paper published in a scientific journal (ik, ik, probably a fruitless endeavor, but hey, we have zero common sense between us and a heck of a lot of reckless optimism).

Now in order for this research paper to happen we need to be concrete about what we're gonna do research on and write about. So here's what we've got so far:

We're going to attempt to maximise the material properties of gingerbread desired for structural purposes by looking into the chemistry of how a gingerbread recipe works.

Of course there will be limitations, but we plan to look into the structural properties of materials used in real buildings; as well as how ingredients, baking time, etc. affect gingerbread.

Possible applications to this paper could be having a method of maximising structural properties that can be applied to other foods (e.g. other biscuits). And the theory we use could possibly be applied to predict material properties of other foods by looking at the recipe.

Reaching out

A few weeks ago, Hannah emailed the lovely Kristine from The Gingerbread Journal asking about what she thinks the best recipe would be for building structural gingerbread. And omg, the excitement we had when she replied. Kristine, if you're reading this, you are an actual angel and Hannah and I appreciate your advice!

This is a quick summary of what we learnt from her:

In general, sugar, eggs, leavening of any type, and fats can make a more hygroscopic cookie that will absorb moisture.

Humid environments wreak havoc on cookies, gingerbread included. (Luckily we're in the UK and its winter)

Most of the large gingerbread house structures you see displayed in hotels, resorts, Disney, etc. are constructed with plywood that they then cover with pieces of gingerbread. (Which is a good reality check for us, lol)

The strongest royal icing she uses is made by dissolving powdered egg whites into fresh egg whites (no water) and adding the smallest amount of tylose powder.  This tylose makes the icing more elastic and less stiff when wet.  If you get too much it becomes hard to pipe.  You could make a knife with this icing it's so strong.  If you need everything to be edible you can create items with gelatin based pastillage that dry rock hard.

There's also gingerbread clay that is gingerbread cookie pulsed to a powder in a food processor and mixed with water/gum arabic to make a form of pastillage.

The eastern europeans use honey instead of molasses, golden syrup, or corn syrup and it bakes much harder.

I told you she was an absolute angel. Anyways, we plan to reach out to more people in the duration of this project, more specifically food scientists and materials scientists to ask about how we can gain quantitative data in our materials testing experiments.

Why Jiang Cheng is my spirit animal

Ok, a brief break from this project for my mini ted talk on my fav.

So in this household, we stan angry grape Jiang Cheng. The eye rolls, the 'take names and kick ass' attitude, and ZIDIAN?! I have no choice BUT to stan. Because bruh he is such a complex character when you get into it.

Unlike most western cultures, where the idea of individuality and finding your own way in life is considered the ideal, in ancient China (and even sometimes now) putting your family first was paramount. When you frame Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxains relationship in that light, it explains so much. Jiang Cheng cares about his sect and his family more than anything else, and seeing Wei Wuxain choose Lan Wangji and the Wen sect over him is a massive betrayl to the familial bond both brothers have. Now I'm not saying what Wei Wuxain did was wrong (because it really wasn't) but it makes you understand why Jiang Cheng feels so wronged by Wei Wuxain choosing to help the Wens.

Because as much as the show tries to make it seem like Jiang Cheng is mainly jealous of Wei Wuxain because of his cultivation skill - I don't think that's the case. Jiang Cheng respects the hell out of Wei Wuxain, and looks so proud whenever he does well.

The main reason Jiang Cheng is so serious compared to Wei Wuxain and compares himself is not because of jealousy, but because he's grown up with the added pressure of being a future sect leader. That pressure was never on Wei Wuxain, he could do whatever he wanted. But Jiang Cheng had to be *perfect* and whenever he failed to be absolutely perfect, he feels like he's failed his sole purpose. Which is bloody terrible for one's mental health (yay for the terrible parenting in this show).

Ok I've realised that this has gone TOO FAR, and I am nowhere near done talking about this man. So this might have to continue in a later post...

Next Steps...

Okkkkk fandom tangent aside, as covid cases are rising here in the UK, it's difficult to say when we will be able to start doing practical testing together. But reaching out to scientists and maybe doing a bit of gingerbread baking individually is definitely on the agenda.

But these next two weeks might be a bit slow, as Hannah and I both have our respective admissions tests for uni ;-; and I have to write up my dreaded physics coursework (which is currently 32 pages and counting).

So again, thank you for reading, and see you in two weeks!

Zara

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"If the face says nothing, listen to the heartbeat" - Lan WangJi, Mo Dao Zu Shi (Weeks 3+4)

https://zhtheuntamedprojec.wixsite.com/theuntamedproject 

... those who have read the novel know the real context of this line in the scene BUT taken out of context and used in a completely different (*cough* our) scenario..."If the face says nothing," translates to "Even if we seem calm on the outside,""listen to the heartbeat." translates to "we're so stressed to the point of ventricular fibrillation." (dunno if that's even a likely story but the overly exaggerated point still stands: we just handed our uni applications in and we're dreading admission tests and awaiting interviews...)

Quick overview

So aside from school work and university prep, TUP has taken up whatever spare moment either one of us has. However since Zara's Physics coursework began (good luck Zara!!) and both of us prepping for our respective admissions tests, we've decided instead of marching onwards with research on architecture and other food science related stuff, to settle on more relaxed Google seshes on MDZS (and totally not using this as an excuse to read the source text again) and beginning to design the buildings on CAD and paper.

So I'm going to introduce to you the barebones framework of what we plan to include in the design: characters, buildings and effects~ apologies in advance for not including the accents/tones in names (I cba tbh ;-; )

Characters

Because all these little dudes are just going to be cut out gingerbread men, we could include as many characters as possible (we did say we're making a universe are we not?). Those in italics are "maybe" characters depending on the dough remaining (or whether we like them to be part of the universe or not...) or how much gingerbread we're willing to eat ourselves (though huge shout out to everyone thats offered to eat our spare and broken gingerbread during materials testing - which I will get to a bit later :3)

Gusu Lan (the pretty sect)

Lan XiChen / Lan Huan (Sect Leader - simped so hard for his sworn brothers that both of them ended up dead)

Lan WangJi / Lan Zhan (repressed gay but we love him still)

Lan Yuan / Lan Sizhui (he's part of the Lan sect now goddamnit)

Lan JingYi (the most unLan Lan yet has the highest chance of being the next sect leader lmaoo)

Lan QiRen

Lan Yi / Lan An

QingHeng-Jun (Twin Jades' father)

Madam Lan (Twin Jades' mother)

Yunmeng Jiang (arguably the only "normal" sect here...)

Jiang Cheng / Jiang Wanyin (Sect Leader also an "angry grape" as put by Zara)

Jiang YanLi (OUR QUEEN)

Jiang FengMian (loved Wei Ying more than Jiang Cheng lol jk xd)

Yu ZiYuan (BAMF)

Wei Ying not included here since technically he defected from the Sect (; - ;)

Qinghe Nie (fans and sabers my bros)

Nie HuaiSang (Sect Leader - yeah, I can't believe it either)

Nie MingJue (noooooooooo)

Honestly, I swear this clan is either "big muscles or big brain?". If you have neither, you can't be part of their clique. I mean sect.

Lanling Jin (rich rich rich rich rich)

Jin Ling / Jin RuLan (Sect Leader - totally not named after Wei Ying's crush/ husband's family)

Jin GuangYao / Meng Yao (*smiles*)

Jin ZiXuan (peacock but JYL's husband nonetheless)

Jin GuangShan (gross)

Jin ZiXun (double gross)

Mo XuanYu (literally did not sign up to any of this. He just wanted to end his suffering at Mo Manor)

We decided against including everyone from Mo Manor since they literally died within the first few chapters of the novel / first episode of the drama so were kinda irrelevant. Also, we don't care about them like we care for the Lan Sect members either.

Off topic side rant, Zara has been on my case whenever I bring up Jin GuangYao. I have to say, he's way more lovable in the drama than in the novel (didn't really leave much of an impression on me in the novel, NHS did a better job at that). I'm here to briefly explain why this boy is misunderstood and deserved more than what he got (and also why you should love him because he deserves love).JGY is a poor soul who's goal in life was to please others because no one was ever satisfied with him. His mother wasn't satisfied. His father wasn't satisfied. Hell, even his sworn brother NMJ wasn't satisfied with him eventually. BUT GUESS WHAT Xichen the angel is the only person that showed any love or thanks to JGY that's why he didn't kill him in the end - he wouldn't kill people that actually cared about him. IF ONLY EVERYONE ACTUALLY PAID ATTENTION TO HOW CLEVER AND CUNNING THIS MAN WAS, THERE MAY NOT EVEN BE WENS THREATENING THE WORLD. end of brief rant.

Qishan Wen (too hot, hot damn)

Wen RuoHan (Sect Leader - could have taken over the world if his children weren't incompetent)

Wen Qing (half the reason why included this sect)

Wen Ning / Wen QiongLin (the other half of the reason)

Wen Yuan (WE NEED THIS BABIE ALONGSIDE SIZHUI OK)

Wen Chao (questionable)

Wen ZhuLiu (also questionable but less annoying than Wen Chao)

Rogue cultivators (including people we didn't really know where to put)

Wei WuXian / Wei Ying (Can work out how to cultivate resentful energy, fight against the biggest cultivation clans in the world and gain a formidable reputation as the Yiling Patriarch yet can't figure out that Lan Zhan has a crush on him. Makes it look like cultivating resentful energy is easy as pie.)

CangSe SanRen (Wei Ying's mother)

Wei ChangZe (Wei Ying's father)

Xiao XingChen (honestly, the nicest guy ever. Could rival Xichen in terms of kindness. But then again... where did that kindness lead either of them? Moral of story: screw kindness)

Song Lan (Wen Ning's dead buddy~)

Xue Yang (he was cool in the novel, a bit questionable in the drama ngl)

A-Qing (didn't report her situation to the police...)

Baoshan Sanren (without knowledge of her existence, Jiang Cheng may have given up on life after he lost his golden core)

Ouyang ZiZhen (I didn't know who he was at all from the novel (ie he left no impression) but since he's technically part of the juniors, we have to include him)

Wang Ling Jiao / Jiao Jiao (just so Wen Chao has a friend perhaps... I don't know if we're that kind)

Su She (ew. just. He's not our favourite. The whole thing could have gone smoother if he didn't exist)

Luo Qingyang / Mian Mian (that one girl that made Wei Ying think Lan Zhan was straight)

Whew! That's all the character's we've considered! We have yet to come up with individual designs for the clothes and what not but at least we know there are going to be straight up cutting them out using the gingerbread man cutters.

Also! let's not forget:

Li'l Apple (didn't sign up for any of this either)

Fairy (gift from JGY to JL, also good doggo)

All the bunnies in Gusu (yes.)

All the fans and sabers in Qinghe (it's part of their aesthetic)

Locations and Buildings

This section's going to be MUCH shorter than the previous one haha since we've basically come up with 5 main buildings and in 7 locations. We're planning these buildings to be architectural masterpieces (okay, that's a slight exaggeration but that's the point). These buildings will take SIGNIFICANTLY more time than the gingerbread characters and is the reason we've put so much effort into researching what would make the most stable type of building. This is because we've planned to mirror the buildings as close as possible to the drama. We haven't yet drawn 2D sketches as I've left that job mostly to Zara (sorry!) so it's sort of hard to describe in words but by next post, we hope to have these down~ (though please see the mood boards from Zara's post previously)~

Gusu Lan - Cloud Recesses

The Wall of Discipline

The Courtyard

The Orchid Room (the main classroom/hall)

Yunmeng Jiang - Lotus Pier

The Main Pier

Lotus Pod Lake

Qinghe Nie - The Unclean Realm

The Main Courtyard and stairs

Lanling Jin - Koi Tower

Koi Tower

Qishan Wen - Nightless City

Main building and stairs

Yiling - Burial Grounds

The Mountains (and farms/Wen settlements)

Demon-Slaughtering Cave

And of course, Yi City.

We don't know if we want to include any more places but we'll let you know if there are any changes to this list. Plus the effects of LEDs and other arts and craft jazz besides gingerbread, we plan to make sure each Sect get's their own spotlight~

Please enjoy our baby Cloud Recesses, they're going to grow up and be a fine specimen of society worthy of the Lan name :D

The plan going forward

Although unfortunately, things haven't gone totally to plan due to fairly busy circumstances, we still have some major events along the way before starting to build the whole thing (which would probably be around mid-to-end of December) which have indeed started preparing for. Including:

Material testing gingerbread and icing (ie finally, bringing our research to the real world) - a lot of gingerbread will be made, so thank you to the willing volunteers who wanted to eat our failed experiments!

Finding / creating a suitable recipe for the gingerbread people

2D and 3D sketches of the buildings

Designing costumes for the gingerbread people

Another thing that we kinda want to do is to make this project benefit the wider community (we wanted to set up a GoFundMe at some point and raise some money for charity~). But we don't know how to do that as of yet T-T . Any ideas, feel free to contact us and let us know! We want to help others through this project (if at all possible haha)!

[theuntamedproject]

Qishan Wen mood-board for our Untamed Project. (Check out our tumblr for more info! We’re planning on making a gingerbread MDZS universe!)

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Qinghe Nie mood-board for our Untamed Project. (Check out our tumblr for more info! We’re planning on making a gingerbread MDZS universe!)

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Yunmeng Jiang mood-board for our Untamed Project. (Check out our tumblr for more info! We’re planning on making a gingerbread MDZS universe!)

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The Langling Jin mood-board for our Untamed Project. (Check out our tumblr for more info! We’re planning on making a gingerbread MDZS universe!)

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Gusu Lan mood-board for our Untamed Project. (Check out our tumblr for more info! We’re planning on making a gingerbread MDZS universe!)

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The Start of Research [weeks 1+2]

And so it begins!! Heyaaa, Zara here. It's my turn to write the blog post this week, so let's get you guys all caught up on what we've been doing.

A brief overview

It's been two weeks since our last post, and since then, our TUP OneNote has been slowly filling up with sources and research notes on the science of gingerbread house making. Hannah's been focused on icing, I've been focused on the gingerbread itself.

an actual photo of Hannah and I researching

Now you may ask, 'why are you guys so focused on the research end of things? Just make the god damn gingerbread already!' Yes, yes, yes, we would love to start making delicious MDZS gingerbread but:

Now you may ask, 'why are you guys so focused on the research end of things? Just make the god damn gingerbread already!' Yes, yes, yes, we would love to start making delicious MDZS gingerbread but:

We are STEM students, and therefore very interested in the physics and chemistry behind all of this gingerbread house malarky.  

We are currently doing a lot of uni application stuff, which means the time to actually be in the kitchen and testing gingerbread and icing recipes is very limited. So we've taken to doing research in our free periods at school. (Shh, it's not procrastination if it's science).

Our blog is literally about MDZS and food science, so yeah, research is gonna have to come into this.

But if you don't care that much about the science behind all this and just wanna see some MDZS content, not to fear!! Hannah has been an absolute angel and started putting together mood-boards and character lists, so you can begin to see our vision for this gingerbread universe.

Gingerbread

Okkkk, so as we know, the MDZS/Untamed architecture is all inspired by various ancient Chinese architecture styles. With sweeping, multi-inclined roofs, and open courtyards. Not your typical western gingerbread housing...

So when it came to my research, I started my focus on the structural properties of gingerbread - as well as delving into the history of old Chinese architecture. And I came out with some pretty interesting initial findings.

First I looked at Mercedes Duifhuis and Sean Heisler's paper on the 'Structural Analysis of Gingerbread' [1]. Yes... someone has already done this. The internet really is an amazing place.

Anyway, they put their own gingerbread recipe through a variety of structural experiments, varying the type of fat used, and tested on these three properties:

Tensile strength per density via tensile tests.

Cantilever / shear stress per density via three-point bending tests.

Compressive Strength via compression tests.

Keeping every ingredient constant, they varied the type of fat (margarine, butter and shortening) and found that shortening to be the best fat for architectural gingerbread.

In fig.11 [1] it's clear that shortening performed the best under those three structural tests. Btw.. the y-axis on the graph is in the units KPa. Am I salty that Seam and Mercedes didn't make that explicit - a tad.

However,,, I'm hesitant to rely on this paper too much (apologies Sean and Mercedes). They didn't attach their exact recipes in the paper, which made me very sad. And whilst it may be true that shortening can withstand greater loads and stresses - I think Hannah and I should definitely try and replicate this data to see how accurate it is (although it will probably be quantitative data as opposed to Sean and Mercedes quantitive data). Also will using shortening as a fat even taste good? This is definitely something we'll explore later on in the project.

Then I explored some more sources!! In UCLA's Food Science blog [2] there was an article discussing 'Engineering the Perfect Gingerbread House'. From this basic summary of properties to look for in architectural gingerbread, the author discussed how the gingerbread should be 'sturdy but also demonstrate elasticity' so a dough with a 'tough, springy consistency and decreased moisture content' is ideal. This is because typically you want your gingerbread walls to be able to withstand stress from the roofs.

Now that's all well and good. 'But how do you get said tough, springy dough with decreased moisture content Zara??' you may be asking. Well the author to this blog post (Catherine Hu) says the secret is using flour with a high protein content (like bread flour). As they contain more glutenin and gliadin proteins which can create a springy gluten network that gives dough elastic properties. Do I know what glutenin and gliadin is? Imma be honest with ya'll, not really. So I'm going to look more into the chemistry of that in the coming weeks.

So conclusion to gingerbread findings? Shortening as a good structural fat and bread flour to give you those springy elastic properties. Something we can definitely explore further.

Icing

Now for Hannah's epic research journey in icing. So icing is eventually what is going to have to hold our gingerbread masterpieces together. Overall pretty important stuff.

So what property do we want in our gingerbread icing? Stickiness. We want icing that is good at making things stick together. So Hannah looked to the chemistry of gelling agents - the so called 'glue' of our project.

Royal icing is the typical icing used in gingerbread house making. Egg whites is the common gelling agent used. But what about ingredients other than egg whites? In 'The Science of Sugar Confectionary' [3] the chemical properties of a variety of gelling agents were investigated - as shown in table.3.9 [3].

When it comes to our eventual practical testing, we plan to take a base royal icing recipe and sub in a variety of gelling agents. We'll then see which performs better.

Currently we're planning to test:

Gelatine (Thermoreversible gelling agent)

Agar Agar (Vegan thermoreversible gelling agent)

Egg Albumen [aka. Egg White] (Whipping agent and irreversible gelling agent)

Xanthum Gum (Thickener)

Now how good are these gonna taste compared to typical egg whites?? Who the hell knows!! Stick around and we'll tell you once we've tested it. There may be a few kitchen disasters in the future. But all in the name of science!

Hannah has also been doing some research into Maillard reactions. Helping with the coagulation of proteins, the Maillard reaction is a reaction of amino acids and simple sugars with heat. Royal icing includes protein, so the Maillard reaction could - in theory - could in theory make the icing more sticky. However, heating also denatures proteins, which could possibly negate the coagulation effects of the Maillard reaction. Again, this will have be something we need to test in the coming weeks.

Finally, molasses and treacle. They have a possible ability to make sugar even stickier. But, we'll need to investigate if they still have those effects when combined with other ingredients (aka. in a recipe).

Historical Architecture

I also did a quick delve into historical Chinese architecture [4]. Turns out wood was commonly used in buildings back then. This is because people focused on the idea that life should connect with nature and things that have 'life'. (Which was why stone was avoided like the plague, and why it was typically used to house the dead).

As a consequence, large structural timbers were used as primary support structures for the building. So instead of the walls holding up the roof, structural beams did that instead. Which is pretty darn interesting - as that's exactly the opposite of gingerbread houses. Gingerbread houses focus on load bearing walls. So it could be fun to look into using structural beams for gingerbread houses? Although my current thought is that it might be too brittle. But hey, we don't know until we try!

Now onto roofs. The curved roofs that are prominent in Chinese architecture are supported by aforementioned structural beams. They are either 'multi incline', which has multiple sections of inclined roof on the building (as shown in the diagram above); or 'sweeping' which is typical single curved roof. When it comes to our gingerbread houses, we're gonna have to test out different methods of replicating these curved roofs. Yay for a fun engineering challenge!

Finally, I quickly looked at structural connections. Turns out rather than using nails and glue, Chinese architecture heavily relied on joinery and dowelling instead (as shown in the picture to the right). Again, an interesting find when you put it to the context of gingerbread. If we are able to connect all our pieces through joinery - we might not need icing at all!!

But realistically, joinery is a highly accurate, precision art. Which may be difficult for gingerbread due to its brittle and oily nature. It is definitely something I want to look more into though!

Having historical context to out designs will help make our MDZS universe more accurate and more epic! So this will not be the only research we do into historical architecture.

The plan going forward

These first weeks have been amazing fun - as well as incredibly research focused. Now that our UCAS applications are mostly done, we'll be able to focus more on TUP. Although my Physics coursework starts in October (T-T) which means I won't be able to contribute as much as I wish I could.

Now for these next two weeks: Hannah's going to be doing more researching into architecture and MDZS in general, and I'll be starting initial sketches for our MDZS building designs. So hopefully you can read all about our progress with designing this gingerbread universe in Hannah's blog post in two weeks time.

Thank you guys for joining us on this ridiculous journey!! And see you in a fortnight :))

Sources

[1]Mercedes Duifhuis and Sean Heisler 'Structural Analysis of Gingerbread' 2009

[2]Catherine Hu 'Engineering the Perfect Gingerbread House' 2014

[3]William P Edwards 'The Science of Sugar Confectionery: Edition 2' 2018

[4]Wikipedia 'Chinese Architecture' Accessed Sep 2020

[theuntamedproject]

Our website :))

[theuntamedproject]

The Beginning... [week 0]

Making a gingerbread MDZS universe. With science.

We're two A-level students from the UK who are huge fans of the work "Mo Dao Zu Shi" (MDZS) or "The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation".

Unlike other fans who perhaps write fanfiction or create FMVs/AMVs or rather create just your plain ol' fanart, we've decided to build a whole gingerbread village/world and we wanted to share it with you!

Getting Started

This idea initially came to us at around August time as we were making a bubble tea cake (which if you're interested, can be found here) and rewatching together the first few episodes of "The Untamed".

Initially, it was more of a fun Christmas project that we looked forward to do after submitting our respective university applications. Then, around the end of August, as Zara was thinking more about her Physics coursework, I thought that since she needed a project anyway, it could be beneficial to both us if we turned this into a big science project full of background research, initial proposals etc. Seemed convenient at the time but since this was too big of a project and that I was helping too she couldn't go through with it. Regardless, we went through with the idea anyway.

Although we have other individual commitments (namely university preparations and our own respective courseworks), we believe that we could actually go through with this project fully (as there is no strict deadline other than we start baking around Christmas time). Hence, we are able to fit super-curricular science research and reading outside of our lessons (albeit for fandom purposes)! This was a win-win for both extending our knowledge and also developing our research skills~  

Planning

Of course, we couldn't go into this without a solid plan. As mentioned previously, we are already very busy with applying to universities on top of studying four A-levels therefore we spent time during our break to create a Gantt chart.

Our milestones represent deadlines for when we need to have some things set up (for example, this website and also our other social media pages: Reddit and Instagram) otherwise, we've given ourselves realistic timeframes to finish certain tasks allocated. For organisation, we've set up a OneNote to collate our ideas, designs and notes.

Though, our organisation may change over the course of this (though very unlikely as we're both people who like to keep things neat and in order and OneNote very easily does just that).

The Project Going Forward

We plan to blog and share with you every step of the way including all the tidbits and findings that we stumble across regarding the gingerbread or MDZS research process. Thus, we will be posting every two weeks with updates with what's happened so far, what we've done and any changes to the plan.

(for example, if there was a tragic baking mishap)

As such, these blog posts will be written by me (Hannah) and Zara alternately so the writing style may change between posts (you could say it spices it up slightly haha because gingerbread... get used to this~).

We hope to be able to post the final paper and pictures of the final artefact at the end!

Current Work...

In terms of work to be done, I'm in charge of researching the chemical and physical properties of icing: what makes it sticky? what are the roles of different components/ingredients to make icing good for building and for decorating? how will being left in the open air affect its consistency and will it still hold?

On the other hand, Zara will be researching the structural properties of gingerbread and why it's a good material to build mini houses/buildings out of (because really, why is it a tradition that we make gingerbread houses?).

We hope that you will join us on our journey and learn a little thing or two about science, gingerbread or MDZS!

-Hannah