#heavenly-curse

[dirtgrubber]

finally!

too many cute scenes to choose from @morningstarwrites

[jaxlightstairs]

Some people say "I love you." Magnus Bane says "Loving you made me believe in eternity"

Art from the graphic novel by Cassandra Jean

[saturnscherie]

༄ Yuji’s body fat percentage is in the single digits, but it looks like for whatever reason, he still wants to get more ripped. So he asked the gym shirt guy from the last mission, for his secret. (Look at Nobara’s reaction, she’s so done with him.)

༄ Asking him that, in the middle of a mission is something only he would do. Look at him asking Tengen why they looked like that when everyone was discussing their plans for the culling games. (And nice, now we have Megumi’s reaction.)

༄ Anyway, I think that scene is a good way to show us that, even after everything Yuji’s been through, he’s still just a normal teenager, who cares about the things a guy his age usually would. I mean…he’s only trying to look his best/strongest for himself and obviously for a certain someone. Not gonna say any names…but come on now, we know exactly who.

༄ It’s Mr. “If it comes down to a brawl without cursed energy involved, Itadori would win.” (While he stares at the camera like we’re the ones who called Yuji weak or something.)

༄ And Mr. “That's really more his style.” (Right before Yuji throws a whole ass car?!?!)

[green28go]

“Stop telling me to let you go,” said Alec. “I will never listen. I want to be with you. I never wanted anything more in my life. If you fall, I want to fall with you.”

Alec in The Red Scrolls Of Magic

Alec looked stricken. “We’ll die together,” he said. “Let me stay at least, with you.” “You have to go back. You have to go back to the world.” “I don’t want the world. I want you,” Alec said, and Magnus closed his eyes, as if the words almost hurt.

Alec in The City of Heavenly Fire

Before Shinyun could act, though, Alec was moving. He was reaching out, and he was wrapping his hand around the blade of the Svefnthorn, and he was grimacing with effort and resolve, and he was thrusting the Svefnthorn into his own chest, piercing his own heart. From where he knelt, Magnus could see the thorn run all the way through him, emerge through his back, and remain there. Alec’s eyes were still open, still wide, still staring right at Magnus.

Alec in The Lost Book Of The White

Bonus:

“Magnus Bane was one of the first great tragedies,” said Livvy as if she were reciting an old story everyone knew. “Bane realized he was turning into a demon. He begged his boyfriend, Alexander Lightwood, to kill him. Alec did, and then turned the sword on himself. Their bodies were found together in the ruins of New York.”

Alec in Thule (Queen of Air and Darkness)

These parallels are truly heartbreaking.

[getetteroo]

Some indulgent redesigns of Strahds wives.

[thelaithlyworm]

Daomu Biji Watcher’s Guide, May 2024

A few new entries have been popping up lately, and I’m always hopeful new fans will stumble into the pits and never leave so I thought I’d paste up a rough map.

(Obviously the best watching order, like the best reading order of Discworld or the Aubrey-Maturin books, is ‘whatever first comes to your hand’ but for the people who don’t like that…)

tl;dr:

Daomu Biji is a series about tomb raiding. Think Indiana Jones or Lara Croft but much, much longer. The protagonist Wu Xie is deeply in love with BFF1 Zhang Qiling, a hundred-year-old cryptid, and BFF2 Wang Pangzi, who was stolen in a raid from another book series. It’s comic, tragic, horrific, zany, prone to musings on life, love, desire, attachment, and has many, many piss jokes. (‘Journey to the West but modern’ is maybe the other comparison I’d make.)

Notes:

– This guide is not talking about “quality”. All of the adaptations have their own strengths and weaknesses and tone can vary a great deal, which is to say, if one of them doesn’t suit you it’s likely something else will.

– Wacky endings, and plot threads that disappear unfinished and get picked up a long time later, are as inherent to the franchise as the piss jokes.

– It’s common for the dramas to introduce characters and subplots a lot earlier than the books do. Sometimes we’ll see a character introduced ‘for the first time’ on multiple occasions and strangely familiar scenes. I’ll try to point out the biggest continuity clashes as I go.

The Soft Entry:

There are a few movies that are entertaining as standalones but will introduce various characters and background. I would recommend:

Escape from the Monstrous Snake + Mystery/Grave of the Abyss – two monster movies featuring Hei Xiazi, a supporting character. He’s a pragmatical mercenary who’s going blind in kind of a weird way, and goofy as hell when he isn’t tiptoeing over a vast abyss of existential dread. So many fun action scenes.

Time Raiders (2015) – so there are some textual clues that late in his career Wu Xie wrote this story as a memory-jogger for an amnesiac friend. The plot is a freewheeling wild ride which doesn’t directly match any book plot but introduces some major characters and how they relate to each other. It’s colourful and fast-moving. Enjoy, enjoy.

Conjuring Curse and Misty Creed are… theoretically set late in the series even if the actors look about twelve. Both work as stand-alone adventures, though Misty Creed is maybe a little deep in the lore. Again, colourful and fast-moving.

The Chronological Order

You could honestly start with most of these – they tend to come with a ‘what has gone before’ at the start or a newbie character that things get explained to. The only one I wouldn’t start with is Heavenly Palace in the Clouds, which is lovely but also the second half of a set and things won’t make sense if you haven’t seen Lost Tomb 2 first.

Lost Tomb 1 – a highly digestible 10-12 episode version of the Seven Star Lu Palace arc, ie. Baby’s First Adventure. Introduces A-Ning, Xie Yuchen, and Huo Xiuxiu early and a couple of og characters for Wu Xie to talk to instead of monologuing to himself. The restaurant scene at the end was raided from a later arc and you’ll see it again in Ultimate Note. A book character, Da Kui, was cut which is a small problem because how he died is a minor plot point discussed in Lost Tomb 2. 

Lost Tomb 2 – covers Raging Sea, Hidden Sands (underwater tomb) and Qinling God-Tree (weird bronze tree in the mountains) plus a whole lotta side stories and original content exploring the world and foreshadowing later plots. Mooostly in continuity with Lost Tomb 1 (see Da Kui above) and made as a set with Heavenly Palace in the Clouds – they share resources and a lot of actors, and some threads begun here are finished in Heavenly Palace.

Heavenly Palace in the Clouds – covers the Mt Changbai arc, a journey up a mountain to find a very old, very grand tomb. This was made so close to Lost Tomb 2 that LT2 borrows shots from Heavenly Palace and not the other way around, which is fascinating because it pointedly contradicts the last five episodes of LT2. It also brings forward some plotlines originally from the Tamutuo and Zhang Family Old Pavilion arcs (San-shu’s past in the underwater tomb, and the Huo Family videotapes) dragging some characters on-screen and forcing them to talk about their feelings, which they would clearly rather die than do. Given those plot-tweaks and the early, deliberate continuity clash, I’m tempted to call this a Canon Parallel Universe. Got some interestingly chewy character dynamics and luverly, luverly set design.

Mystic Nine – This is a prequel about Zhang Qishan – Fo-ye – and his peers, but later dramas expect us to know who Fo-ye was so I’m sticking it here. Kinda… picaresque? Lots of action scenes and Republican-era flavour and various factions jostling for power – kinda feels like an old-school wuxia story, only set in the 1930s with all that glorious Republican-era styling. Has some unfortunate cut scenes – the details of how Fo-ye recovered at his family’s house don’t make a lot of sense in the aired version, and there are a couple of missing fights in the penultimate episode. Shrug. Still a lot of fun. Comes with four side movies about supporting characters.

Ultimate Note – Covers the Tamutuo arc (a trip through the jungle) and two-thirds of the Zhang Family Old Pavilion arc (investigating Zhang Qiling’s past is like kicking a hornet’s nest). Very, very flirty and has some zippy-zip action choreography. Politely ignores Lost Tomb 1–Heavenly Palace continuity (Xie Yuchen is, once more, introduced for the first time, now with a romantically coded friendship arc) and brings in a lot of cameos from Mystic Nine and Sand Sea, which it was filmed after. Kinda tiptoes around parts of the book plot, which I suspect would be hard for anyone to film, re: Fo-ye’s actions in the 1960s. Fair warning, this ends on a cliffhanger. This is also where the Xinyue Restaurant scene appears again – two cakes!

Tibetan Sea Flower – If Tibetan Sea Flower ever airs, it will go here.

Sand Sea – Based on the Sand Sea novel. After Tibetan Sea Flower, Wu Xie goes into a bit of a decline and makes that the world’s problem. We the audience, plus Li Cu and Liang Wan, EDIT: a lovely doctor, are pretty much dropped in media res into a number of ancient conspiracies and complicated plots coming to a head in the manner of a boil. It’s weird; it’s messy; it’s mad fun. Like Mystic Nine, has a lot of factions jostling for power and colourful jianghu characters. We will, once more, see the Xinyue Restaurant scene. Also has some side movies.

Time Raiders – The textual hints that suggest Wu Xie wrote this, suggest he wrote it around Sand Sea-era, when his life was a bit complicated. I’m putting it after Sand Sea because I believe it caps a conversation that, ah, doesn’t quite make it into the drama. But notionally this is where it should go. Ah…. at one point, someone tells a story about an ancient ruler, King Mu of Zhou, who sought immortality from the Queen of the West in Tamutuo. The longer book conversation suggests that a) King Mu of Zhou engineered a “trap” for someone like Wu Xie to fall into in the future, and b) that Iron Mask Scholar, a villain from Lost Tomb 1, was an alias that King Mu of Zhou used in the Warring States Era. Which makes some of Iron Mask Scholar’s appearances in Time Raiders… interesting.

Reunion: Sound of Providence – sometimes known as Reboot. Having peaked in badassery in Sand Sea, Wu Xie has to consider what his life is going to be now, and also, he would like to track down a missing family member. So this was tweaked to make it more accessible to new viewers (so some parts of the back-story are not mentioned or conflated for simplicity) and that mostly works but I did find watching this first and then picking up the earlier dramas a bit of a mindscrew. Zhu Yilong is, however, a powerful draw and the rest of the cast sparkles. Probably best to think of Season 1 as two short seasons jammed together, which is to say, once the Warehouse 11 arc starts there are a number of characters who won’t reappear until Season 2. It’s a fun arc even so. Season 2 ends with a badass action scene and then a big party, which I think is a great way to end a story.

Escape from the Monstrous Snake, Mystery/Grave of the Abyss, Conjuring Curse, Misty Creed – these are all theoretically set around or after Reboot-era, though they can certainly be watched as stand-alones.

[kenna-is-reading-stuff]

Been collecting these since December for one big post. This collection consists of preorders and books from the Black Friday sale on Book Outlet. I’ve read about half of these and I’m waiting on the audiobooks for the other ones. 
Does anyone else buy books they’ve already read? I need people to validate my need for book trophies lol

[space-atrium]

What if Shen jiu was actually a celestial the whole time and when he died in pidw he returned to the heavenly realm. 👀

[bambamboozlesart]

some genderbent MDZS and TGCF

(Read below for context.)

Im running a JJK tabletop game where my players are teachers at jujutsu high. i wanted to make a lot of npc student characters that I wouldnt have to think too hard to roleplay and I took some inspiration from MDZS and TGCF. I took a lot more characters but these are the main couples. All my picks for students were male characters so some of them got genderbent. i also took some liberties making them more distinct from one another

cuz u know. its anime.

[omni-present-god-send]

Soooo I did some art...

Characters included!!!

My oc's Xingguang and Hou Jiao at the red carpet

Sir Pentious in a fabulous dress as requested by @temporarylyexistant

and @peppermint-whiskers El in His human disguise looking absolutely slay

[dailykugisaki]

Day sixty-three | id in alt

A puppet and a witch.

[ematsubusa]

Alright, why is my husband, or rather his body, running amok now?!

Who of you triggered Omega?! WHO?!

[rpwickit]

I know this implies to every Manga Readers Vs. Anime Watchers situation ever. But I felt compelled to make this.

[eepy-bells]

Eldritch horror Angel Gojo AU is going on in my head so I'm gonna throw it here.

So the setting is kind of like Solo leveling's but instead of monsters there are curses. There aren't stuff like dungeons though. Curses sells for good prices on the market. The higher the grade of the curse the more value it has(basic stuff).....

There are rare curses coz they are either a minority, extinct or a myth.

Angels are a myth since no one has seen them in years and suddenly one day Geto(a Grade 4 sorcerer according to his ID but is a Special Grade) was going back home from getting groceries, on a quiet evening, randomly finds a severely injured angel, all battered and bruised, some wings torn, on the roadside of his tiny neighborhood and he just picks him up and takes him home. [He doesn't know he's taking home an angel coz whatever Gojo looked like on the roadside definitely didn't look like an angel or any other depiction of angel Geto knows about.]

Still have more brain worms but I don't know how to put it into words....I'm eventually gonna draw this AU though.

[peppermint-whiskers]

Here's the next chapter! Updates might slow down due to the storm knocking my damn power out-