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[tireddemi]

bonus:

somehow their different cross-media designs give off different vibes/ship dynamics to me, i just thought it'd be fun to draw it out lol

(also i love their mobile designs they're so pretty ;v;)

[tireddemi]

Reposting this old thing cuz I deleted my account on accident

I may redraw this one day 🤺✨

[tireddemi]

svsss tpmeme 4/4 (for now)

[tireddemi]

[tireddemi]

For Scum Villain fandom specifically I have to say that the deciding factor in whether I adopt a headcanon or not is whether I think it's funny.

Do I think Shen Yuan was ill in his first life? Yes, because I think it's extremely funny if he was ill in his first life, got a brand new life with superpowers (cultivation) and boosted health, and then immediately got slapped with another fucking chronic illness (Without-A-Cure.) I think that is the funniest sequence of events and thus the correct one.

Do I think that Shen Yuan was on the very low end of his twenties, barely college-age, when he transmigrated? Yes, because I think it's hilarious if the rest of the Peak Lords have unknowingly been "shixiong"ing a fuckin sophmore

And lastly, do I think that Shen Jiu never went to the brothels for sex and ultimately died a virgin? Yes, because that sets the stage for SY!SQQ to later trip over some kind of virginity-detecting critter or plant (you KNOW the PIDW setting has to have these somewhere, c'mon), not even knowing that it's something he has to think about avoiding, and whoops getting outed as a virgin in front of the entire cultivation world, and that would be hilarious

[tireddemi]

ATLA sketches because I'm deep into it atm 8)

★ patreon || website || twitter ★

[tireddemi]

some spoilers to erha's ending, be carefull

[tireddemi]

Geography in SVSSS?

Does anyone know if any of the locations in Scum Villain are intended to be real/where in China they're roughly intended to be situated, or if it's all intended to be entirely fantasy geography? I know there are a few lovely maps made for MDZS, but so far I haven't been able to find such an image for SVSSS.

My knowledge of Chinese geography is extremely minimal, so most of what I've found so far is that there's a Bailu Mountain, Jinlan Reservoir and a Tian Yi Pavilion all in Zhejiang Province, and a Zhao Hua Temple in/near Zhangjiakou in Hebei province (I have no idea about the characters used for any of these things compared to the novel, so they could be way off). There's also the "12 peaks of the Wushan Mountains" landmark in Wushan County, Chongqing. I've not seen anything about MXTX's potential inspirations beyond genre tropes, etc., but I found the description interesting:

There's also, uh, this:

Thoughts? Resources? Throw it all away and just make things up? The main reasons I'm looking into this are potential placenames and weather patterns, etc., for fic, but I appreciate any insight anyone wants to share.

[tireddemi]

Flooflers

[tireddemi]

reblog the money pigeon for a financially stable future

[tireddemi]

I’m not sure this deserves to be called a meta exactly, it’s mostly me just copying over a few parts of svsss that are interesting to compare, but it caught my attention and I want to share!

So, Tianlang-jun and Mobei-jun are two demon lords who don’t have that much screentime total, have very little to do with each other, and in most respects, are fairly diferent from each other.

But a thing they do share that’s really fascinating is their traumatic experiences with humans and the human realm.

I have thoughts that I feel like should come into something coherent about how  Mobei-jun had his terrible encounter with humans as a tiny, tiny child (nobody could expect a child that young to be ready for something like that, and he came out of it… relatively unscathed), while Tianlang-jun had his adventure as a confident, powerful adult (in theory, maybe he should have been more braced for things to go south, but he acted in good faith and the consequences were, shall we say, Fucked Up)

I think the narrative could have done more with Tianlang-jun, and that it REALLY could have done more with Mobei-jun, so this falls into the realm of [characterization headcanons] much more than [serious analysis of the intentions of canon], but I do think it’s interesting that as adults, dealing with human pov characters, both of these characters are noticeably disconnected and hard to communicate with. Saying that the trauma definitely absolutely caused that sounds like way too strong a claim, especially given how young Mobei-jun was, but it does definitely seem like Tianlang-jun is a significantly changed person after bailu mountain, compared to what we see of him before and after.

Teal deer, Mobei-jun was a four-year-old when his asshole uncle tricked him and threw him into the human world, where he had a terrible time until his dad just happened to notice he was missing, where his uncle barely got scolded, and they were told to get along in the future.

Mobei-jun’s mother had died when he was very young, and the person he’d clung to in his youth was precisely this younger uncle, who wasn’t much older than him. However, thanks to some emotional disputes between the older generation of brothers, Linguang-jun had never quite been able to like his little nephew. One time, when the other demons weren’t paying attention, he’d coaxed his obedient young nephew outside, and had thrown him into the human world, letting a pile of cultivator thugs chase this lost, confused little demon child, out of his mind with fear, falling over his own feet every few steps, hunting him down for days on end.

At that time, Mobei-jun’s age had been approximately equivalent to a human four-year-old. If his father hadn’t realized after ten days or so that hmm, it looked like his son hadn’t been following his brother around— Well, Mobei-jun might have been locked away in the Huan Hua Palace Water Prison until he was terrified to death. To a demon that young, a crowd of humans encircling and shouting at him was like being surrounded by a crowd of flesh-eating, blood-drinking monsters. Just imagine a human four-year-old getting captured and tormented by a nest of demons— The reaction would be about the same.

The former Mobei-jun had a heart as large as a basin, even the Sichuan river basin. Since his son had been recovered in the end, more scared than hurt, he didn’t really pay much mind. He said a few words to his brother, then told them to continue ‘getting along well’ in the future.

After he was brought home, messy-haired and dirty-faced, Mobei-jun never again spoke to his former favorite uncle. As he grew older, it became more and more severe, until he was unwilling to speak with anyone, and held a deep abhorrence for any kind of betrayal, and held many painful associations too.

That last paragraph is the most explicit acknowledgment of the trauma that we get, and even then, it’s not really clear how much of it is directed at Linguang-jun and how much is directed at humans. But the Mobei-jun’s first appearance in the airplane extras does make it clear that he’s definitely got major issues with at least some humans as well.

Things are a bit more spread out for Tianlang-jun, and it’s tied into the central plot, so I won’t recap everything, but long-story short: young demon lord on spring break meets cold hot young woman, romansu ensues that may have been started in bad faith on her end, but which became real. Humans use her to set a trap for Tianlang-jun, he gets trapped under a mountain for twenty years, unable to move, in sensory deprivation hell, with his body rotting away, Honestly, just collecting these quotes, I support this man in all his burn-the-world-down amibitions. This whole dad+mom+nephew+son family unit is made of pain and they hurt me so, so much.

Tianlang-jun really, really liked everything to do with human beings, from the bottom of his heart.

Probably, it was that he felt that demons were a bunch of cold, boring things, not like this foreign race. His fervor for humankind was intense, and the way he romanticized humanity was almost ridiculous.

-

And underneath the surface of [Su Xiyan’s] gentleness were arrogance and indifference. Her wild ambitions​ concealed her schemes. As the first disciple of ​Huan Hua Palace, ​she held a high position, and often commanded thousands of people. Since ancient times, the four major ​sects ​had been the enemies of the ​demons, including Huan Hua Palace. ​To them, Su Xiyan ​was a very dangerous person.

​Zhu​z​hi​-lang ​reported all the information he had gathered to Tianlang​-​Jun, but Tianlang-jun ​was unconcerned.

Once he became obsessed with something, he would forget​ all about​ death and life, and put all his eggs in one basket. It ​wasn’t that this information was new to him, it was that ​he’d​ never doubted her.

The price he paid for ‘never doubting’​ was being pinned under Bailu Mountain for years and years,  in total darkness, with no chance for justice or redemption.

“​I want to kill humans.”​

In those years, that was ​the sentence that Tianlang-jun would repeat the most. Yet, Tianlang-jun had once liked humankind more than anything. He’d never killed a single human being before. 

-

One sect head rushed to attack him. “For you? What justice is there for a demon harboring evil intentions, threatening to send the whole world into chaos?!”

The next moment, this man’s head exploded, like a clove of garlic. Tianlang-jun smiled. “Actually, at first, I didn’t have any evil intentions. I wasn’t interested in throwing the world into chaos. I would occasionally cross the border to sing some songs and read some books. It was quite nice. But now that I’ve spent so many years under Bailu Mountain, these things you suggest are rather tempting.

-

He sighed. “Alright. At least there was one thing that wasn’t that terrible.”

A few snowflakes dotted his eyelashes, trembling into motion. He was unsure whether it was this first snowfall to grace his brow in decades, or frozen, unshed tears.

And the rest of these are somewhat in order, but I really wanted to post this one separately, because it really drives home the trauma of the situation.

​​​​​Tian​lang​-​Jun couldn’t tolerate others seeing him​ in such a pathetic, miserable state, where he could neither ask for life nor seek death. He’d been born​ as an honorable prince in​ the​ Demon Realm. He’d never suffered hardships, ​and had always been calm and elegant​. He ​didn’t like ugly things, but ​in reality, ​the way he was right now was​ far uglier than anyone else.

​Covered in blood and ​imprisoned under seventy-two iron chains and forty-nine ​strong spells, ​he could only watch​ his body gradually rot away, day after day​. ​But he was conscious and clear-headed the whole time, and couldn’t ​​pass out even if he wanted to. The people in the ​cultivation world couldn’t kill him, so instead, they tortured him. ​Even Zhuzhi-lang’s ugly half-snake form looked better than Tianlang-jun like this.

​Zhuzhi-lang could no longer speak after ​his body degenerated, so Tianlang-jun began to talk to himself. For hours and hours, every day, he would repeat dialogues and sing arias to himself. Sometimes, while Tianlang-jun was singing, the words would abruptly catch in this throat. Zhuzhi-lang knew then that this must have been from one of the plays that Su Xiyan took them to see.

However, after ​a period of ​silence, Tianlang​-​jun ​would suddenly continue ​on, in an even louder voice. The melody ​would be dragged out and lingered over, his hoarse voice reverberating ​in the uninhabited valley, ​prolonged​ and sorrowful​.

Zhuzhi-lang could not speak, so he could not tell him to stop singing. He could not raise his hands, could not cover his ears, had no way to stop himself from listening to that voice. In this manner, he started to understand what being powerless truly meant.

If I had to compare the two characters, I think it’s a lot easier to see where Mobei-jun’s trauma would come from, but the text really does take the time to linger over how present Tianlang-jun’s trauma is. That last passage legit fucks me up every time I reread the extras. The description of this as ‘instead, they tortured him’ depends on how the original chinese was translated, which is always a bit of a toss-up, but this excerpt really drives home for me that regardless of intent, this was, functionally, twenty years of torture. 

I don’t have any particularly large conclusions to draw about these characters, because it’s not like I have any complaints I can think of over how people talk about them or characterize them. But especially since the book was almost entirely told from human pov, where demons were typically aggressors, it was very interesting to me to realize that of our limited demon cast, two of them had both been through their own major traumatic human encounters, where the humans were unambiguously the aggressors and the people they were aggressing against were 1) a tiny child, and 2) a human fanboy who thought the whole human world was super cool and just wanted to smooch his girlfriend. Like I said, I haven’t seen anybody being wrong about things on the internet that I’m complaining about here, but I do really, really love thinking about why fictional characters do/act the way they do, and this was something that hadn’t occurred to me before.

[tireddemi]

How to put on Hanfu (Han Chinese clothing)?

A typical set of Hanfu can consist of two or three layers. The first layer of clothing is mostly the zhongyi (中衣) which is typically the inner garment much like a Western T-shirt and pants. The next layer is the main layer of clothing which is mostly closed at the front. There can be an optional third layer which is often an overcoat called a zhaoshan which is open at the front. More complicated sets of Hanfu can have many more layers.

[tireddemi]

[tireddemi]

Ah yes, the sweet sound of clinical validation! XD

My therapist just told me my problem is that I need to write more fanfiction.

[tireddemi]

wuxia, xianxia, and cultivation differences meta

translations: wuxia 武俠, xianxia 仙俠, and cultivation 修真/修仙 (xīuzhēn/xīuxiān)

think i've seen posts on this eons ago, and i'm pretty sure there are tons of these online, but since this has been written up already let's just have another one.

wuxia 武俠

wuxia and xianxia sound similar, but basically for wuxia it is about the pugilistic world (江湖 jiānghú). It is relatively more down-to-earth, and people practice martial arts ("kungfu") in their current life -- they do not do it to become xians (仙) and gods (神) however.

Like Thousand Autumns and Faraway Wanderers/Word of Honor, it has more historical background and ties to the current court and kingdoms, because people are living in the moment and concern themselves with worldly issues.

Martial arts may seem unrealistic, but in view of chinese fantasy it would be considered "real". It consists of fighting moves and internal energy, which they call qi or nèigōng (內功), and at times you see people flying around, climbing hills and jumping across rooftops which is qīnggōng (輕功).

xianxia 仙俠

A level up would be xianxia, where characters in the story cultivate to become xians (and gods, like in the heaven official's blessing). They don't really care about earthly issues here now, because their ambitions lie beyond the current world, and cultivation, getting stronger, and an immortal life are majorly all their goals.

You may not always see them working towards that purpose, such as in mdzs they are considered a lower-xianxia society (低魔), meaning people don't go through all the steps of cultivation and only stay at the stage before the "golden core" stage.

In xianxia, characters still learn basic fighting moves aka. martial arts, but to direct the internal energy they use línglì (灵力), zhēnqì (真气), and fǎlì (法力), all xianxia terms you commonly see. "neigong" is practically nonexistent in this genre. That's why people building up their "neigong" instead of "lingli" are likely never going to be able to cultivate.

cultivation 修真/修仙

A subgenre in the xianxia category would be cultivation. Characters actively go through the stages of cultivation, and likely for the MC, because they are the main character, they successfully become a xian and exit the world at the end of the novel.

There are many stages of cultivation, usually defined at the beginning of the novel in the synopsis, and a typical example of the different levels would be this:

练气，筑基，金丹，元婴，化神，炼虚，合体，大乘，渡劫

And with a cursory search, an English translation would be something like this, albeit not with all the cultivation ranks identified.

Qi condensation (练气), Foundation establishment (筑基), Core Formation (金丹), Nascent Soul (元婴), and the names after that vary too greatly with translation and fandom so I'll jump straight to Immortal Ascension

extra info: getting into the philosophy of it all

It'd be interesting to note that the word "xiá" (俠) permeates all these genres. This is something akin to the concept of "hero", but not at all also, and I'd love to speak more on this but this post has already gone way longer than I hoped it would be, so perhaps another day.

Regardless, it is interesting to note that wuxia has a greater emphasis on "xia" than xianxia. (some joke that cultivation doesn't have the word "xia" in it, and much of that is because characters have foregone heroism and focused on gaining powers and working towards ascension instead). As a result, wuxia is more confucianism-oriented, though not without its taoism and buddhism influences.

xianxia, on the other hand, is mainly derived from "dào" (道), from taoism, which is another lengthy concept if I ever get to it.

And some may have heard of the "farming" genre, 种田 (zhòngtián). This has to do with golden fingers (mary sues) in imperialistic china, earning a wealth of money, and all that. It has nothing to do with cultivation, alike they sound in english.

that's it for now, hmu if you wish to ask/discuss!

(and apologies for the pinyin translations, hope it's understandable still! formally writing pinyin they are supposed to be two separate words not one.)

[tireddemi]

Shen Twins babyy

Consistent style who?

Link to Google Drive Full Size Versions

If anyone wants to upload this to Twitter or something, you have my full consent. I don't have one -- couldn't pay me to do -- but maybe some people there might enjoy it. Maybe message me a link if someone says something nice?

Either way, holy shit I did not expect to finish this. All that attention I couldn't pay to my writing had to go somewhere, I suppose >.<

[tireddemi]

I love the demon trio & the cultivators they simp for especially the fanworks where the three of them awkwardly gush (in the most uncomfortable way) about their humans. Now in the cultivator-dating-demons interactions lmy is usually left out on account for not being a transmigrator so I had a thought: there's no proof that lmy ISNT a transmigrator!!! She could be!!! She could've been a fanfic writer in her previous life !!! Hell we could even say she's sy's sister!!! It'd fit!