#mystery gong fu

[pourtals]

i don't know what i'm drinking here

Julie went to Seoul and brought me back some tea. she says that the vendor at the tea place she finally found (that sold loose leaf tea) said this was a special Korean tea - a green tea fermented until it became essentially "brown tea" as they called it

i'm doing: 212 degrees F, 4g, 85ml, 10 secs

the wet leaf smelled sweet, like raisins

it tastes like that too. it kind of reminds me of black tea (definitely the color) but it tastes softer, more subtle

I don't know anything about tea in Korea / Korean tea!

[hyog-blog]

White Cat Legend

I was craving something unpretentious, slightly funny, absolutely not loaded with gut-wrenching backstabbing plots, and if possible with a very mediocre level of emotional luggage - and this drama delivered above and beyond!

First of all, Ding Yuxi is a real sweetheart and looks very cute as a Cat-Detective Li Bing. He basically finds himself a human (Chen Shi), just as cats do, befriends him, and takes him to work as his subordinate at the Court of Judicial Review, along with a bunch of lovely idiots who turn out to be very loyal partners as well.

By the time he meets Chen Shi, a simple boy from a small town who comes to the capital to find his brother, Li Bing has been around kitty-cattying his way into the plotty plots of the capital for 3 years, after the death of his father, when some assassins killed him along with all the members of the old Court of Judicial Review. Now, as Li Bing finds out, the new organization consists of the above-mentioned lovely idiots and one vice minister, the daughter of some official, who seems to be in the series just so we have at least one female supporting character in the all-male cast XD. There are lots of BOYS in this show, and they range from handsome to cute to hilarious.

As Li Bing becomes the second vice minister in this case-solving organization, along with the single lady, with whom he has no chemistry whatsoever, he meets his long-lost love childhood friend, a handsome general Qiu Qingzhi, who apparently made it his life's mission to meddle into all Li Bing's cases, take his witnesses, mess with his convicts, and just to be the handsome pain in everyone's ass with a very mysterious and slightly sad aura about him. Qiu Qingzhi is a walking red flag - one minute he jumps to save our boy who's falling from the roof and catches an arrow on his behalf (which nearly kills him), the next minute he's shooting arrows into our boy himself. Go figure, but he's quite obviously involved in the CONSPIRACY, so choices were made.

We get to learn the story of these two later into the show, but the bromance is bromancing strong in this one. Not in that kind of way, but more than one tear has been shed in this brotherly relationship, and these two are pretty much responsible for the most emotional scenes in the series.

So, there are were-cats (apparently the Original who turned our boy into a white fluff comes from the neighboring country, and of course, Qiu Qinzhi knows a thing or two about it). The Original is a joker-style mess of a man, who likes to play games with our boy and with everyone else. He has his own AGENDA apart from shedding blood and stealing people's teeth (yuck).

Of course, there's also a CONSPIRACY because how can you have were-cats and not have dudes in cloaks planning their weird things and looking for eternal life. Probably, were-cats are involved in that somehow, too.

The Lovely Idiots Boy Band consists of:

The Unlucky Boy who's like a walking bad omen, has a cute sad face and a nearly perfect memory for cases and who said what

The Former Army Guy who knows his gong-fu, can infiltrate an enemy base and has also seen a part of the CONSPIRACY

The Foreign Prince who talks with a hilarious Mandarin accent, has lots of money, and two henchmen who help him with stuff

The Youngest Son of a rich family trying to prove his worth to his papa. Has great makeup and cross-dressing skills

Also, there's the Empress, a bunch of officials, and plotty detective cases that are written and filmed well enough to keep your attention until the main storyline starts unfolding. There's lots of friendship, camaraderie, cute silly humor, and funny cat moments with Li Bing. Not nearly enough for him being an actual were-cat, they played down this part, but if you can ignore the not-very-expensive CGI and lack of worldbuilding, the story is more than entertaining, both the small cases and the bigger main CONSPIRACY. And all the brotherly love stuff.

Definitely a great watch if you're looking for something more lightweight and not another fandom to spend half of your life in. Just a cute little drama with CGI cats and killer fluffy paws (my brain literally malfunctions when I see grown-up men with kitty paws killing someone with rawrr and being pretty homicidal and psycho about it, ahah).

If you like cats, detectives, cat-detectives, plotty plots, no romance, and an all-boy cast, this drama is probably right up your alley. Just don't use too much critical thinking, don't expect much, and you'll have a great time watching this. At least I did. A good 8/10.

[zeravmeta]

Top 5 Fate blorbos NOT including Limbo.

this one made me laugh bc like, yeah limbo is my special little princess but also he is one of my many special little princesses, like i love limbo but im not The Limbo Guy, if that makes sense (i have many guys)

That said there are simply too many fate blorbos i have and no easy way to list them in a perfectly objective top 5, so I shall do something fun instead, listing them in tiers. As expected, the list expands as it goes on (not every servant listed obvs)

5. Characters who I am passively aware of. This is for characters who are somewhat relevant enough for me to like. think about

Gilles Saber, Caesar, Paris Hektor, Circe, Lu Bu, Spartacus, Eric Bloodaxe

4. Characters who I have a light inclination towards. Maybe they were useful for farming or I read their profiles and was satisfied

Jason, Billy The Kid, Oda Nobukatsu, , Tristan, William Tell, Medusa Lily, Janta Lily, Tawaru, Achilles, Wu Zetian, Cleopatra, Darius III, Kiyohime

3. Characters who I just like. I look at them and go "its the guy :)"

Senji Muramasa, Fergus, Robin Hood, Leonidas, Enkidu, Nezha, Anne-Bonny & Mary Read, Bartholomew Roberts, Red Hare, Scheherazade, Anastasia, Kyokutei Bakin, Charles-Henri Sanson, Assassin Emiya/Kerry, Ushiwakamaru, Gray, Huyan Zhuo, Penthesilea, Kijyo Koyo, Asterios

2. Characters who I love. This one is a substantial jump upwards in quality and they only have like 1-2 things missing (to me) that prevent them from being numero uno

Altera, Bedivere, Okita, Beni Enma, Sigurd, Saito Hajime, Artemis-Orion, Emiya, Atalante, Baobhan Sith, Cu Chulainn, Romulus (and Quirinus), Caenis, Vritra, Melusine, Boudica, Marie Antionette, Mandricardo, Habetrot, Dobrynya Nikitich, Hans Christian Andersen, Mata Hari, Charlotte Corday, Katou Danzo, Koyanskaya of the Light, Tezcatlipoca, Sen no Rikyu, Kriemhild, Koyanskaya of Darkness

My special little princesses. Play this song while reading

Mash Kyrielight number one forever, saber classes artoria pendragon nero claudius siegfried void shiki miyamoto musashi ibuki douji barghest archer classes david arjuna oda nobunaga artoria pendragon archer swimsuit james moriarty tomoe gozen calamity jane nightingale santa sei shounagon zenobia lancer class scathach artoria pendragon lancer artoria pendragon lancer alter brynhildr tamamo no mae lancer minamoto no raikou lancer swimsuit ereshikigal elizabeth bathory rider class medusa francis drake artoria pendragon santa alter astolfo sakata kintoki rider quetzalcoatl artoria pendragon rider alter swimsuit leonardo da vinci rider murasaki shikubu rider swimsuit caster class mephistopheles cu chulainn caster tamamo no mae nursery rhyme helena blavatsky xuanzang sazang nero claudius swimsuit nitocris leonardo da vinci shuten douji caster ascelpius chen gong artoria caster assassin class phantom of the opera jack the ripper mysterious heroine x ryougi shiki assassin shuten douji scathach assassin first hassan nitocris assassin osakabehime okada izo yu mei-ren kama berserker class sakata kintoki vlad III caligula tamamo cat nightingale cu chulainn alter minamoto no raikou mysterious heroine x alter hijikata toshizo atalante alter jeanne d'arc alter berserker swimsuit xiang yu arjuna alter mori nagayoshi salome miyamoto musashi swimsuit brynhildr swimsuit morgan sei shounagon swimsuit ibuki douji swimsuit ruler class jeanne d'arc saint martha swimsuit sherlock holmes qin shi huang quetzalcoatl samba santa artoria pendragon swimsuit ruler himiko leonardo da vinci swimsuit james moriarty lily iyo avenger class edmond dantes jeanne d'arc alter angra mainyu gorgon antonio salieri demon king oda nobunaga space ishtar kama avenger swimsuit nitocris alter alter ego class meltryllis passionlip sessyoin kiara okita souji alter ashiya douman xu fu larva tiamat mooncancer class bb bb summer sessyoin kiara swimsuit archetype earth foreigner class abigail williams katsushika hokusai mysterious heroine xx voyager van gogh mysterious idol x alter kukulkan pretender class oberon beast class draco nero

[ririchanva]

First~ **hugs** I miss you Riri!!

// Wah! *hugs back* Kit-kaaaat~! I mishu toooooo xD Ahahahaha while you didn't really place any request, I thought maybe an Izuku one-shot might be a good way to start things :3 Anyways, here's one just for you (based on our past roleplays~)

Summary: As Usadori, Izuku Midoriya has seen many time-lines in order to figure out how to stop the supposed future that Shinso had come from. As he was looking into the many burrows in the warren, he spotted one where he...had a different family?

Contains: Spoilers from the Quirk and Miracles main story, but not necessarily canon to it. Time Shenanigans. Based on a Tumblr RP. Slight angst and fluff. Deku having the Bunny Miraculous. OCs that belong to @moonxsuncelestials

Word count: 1,221

Quickly.

I must find solutions.

Various ways to prevent the horrid future.

Those were in the mind of one Izuku Midoriya, holder of One-For-All and the student of All Might.

Although...that was not quite right.

While it was true he was the 9th wielder of a mysterious power accumulating past heroes that also were users of OFA, he was currently a different type of hero.

Training under Master Fu, Izuku was given a magical device called a Miraculous. An object that a frantic Hitoshi Shinso was reluctant to give him, but did not have any other options. Then again, Izuku understood why the brainwashing quirk user was hesitant. Izuku was a wild card of a tactician.

And so, under the hero name of Usadori, the green haired male was sitting in what seems to be a vast space that held portals of different timelines and sifting through all of them. Many that had a Chat Blanc flooding the world as he sat alone. Or many that had either himself or Kacchan turning evil...

As he was waving a hand one by one through these portals, he stopped at one that made him falter.

He saw himself but older...and he wasn't alone.

In fact, Usadori watched as he saw his young adult civilian self was walking inside what seemed to be a traditional looking home, almost resembling the Todoroki residence but much nicer...more warm and welcoming than what house his dear friend Shoto grew up in.

"Tou-san! Kaa-san! Jade! I'm home!" The other him on the other side of the portal called, looking around as he was taking off his shoes.

This confused Usadori for a moment because one, he knew his father was overseas for work...well, the bastard never returned home since his announcement of being quirkless at the age of four. The second thing was, who was Jade?

The rabbit user's question was soon answered in a form of a little boy running towards Izuku with a smile.

"Izuku-nii!" The little boy chirped as he soon was wrapping his tiny arms around Izuku's legs, giggling softly as blue eyes looked up at him happily, "You're home!"

"Yeah...I'm home, Jade. Aaaaand I come bearing gifts~" Izuku bent down and brought the little boy in his arms and chuckled, tapping the kid's nose before he looked around, "Where's our parents?"

“IZUKU XIAO LONG MIDORIYA GONG!”

Usadori jumped at the sound of a voice and blinked when his other self was paling for a moment, the little boy then having a cheeky smile on his face, almost as if saying 'ooh! you're in trouble now!'

Stomping into the foyer entrance where the two boys were at, came a tall figure with cerulean blue hair that is tied into a ponytail and deep, cat-like red eyes. And he looked miffed. While gliding wisp-like behind the man is another tall male that had a glowing enthral look to him, that matched for his sapphire blue hair and violet eyes. Usadori would think, 'They are a beautiful pair.'

A smile was on the angelic looking male that showed that he was also sort of upset about something, but holding it back as the first man marched over to Izuku, who placed the little boy down.

"...Tou-san, whatever I did, it is all Bael-san's fault--"

"Don't you be giving me lies, boy. We raised you better than that." The first male snorted as he folded his arms, showing the muscles he had, his aura reminding Usadori of Eraserhead for a moment, "You know you worried your Mother and I?"

Usadori frowned, looking at the portal further to where Inko Midoriya was, but there was no sign of her. This made the rabbit user close his eyes for a moment, thinking, 'Ah...perhaps this is a world where Inko was not his mother? And these two were his parents?'

That...is quite the world.

Usadori kept watching as he watched himself stuttering and waving his hands around with excuse after excuse, until the second male decided to move forward, giving a soft smile before saying with a strong voice.

"We are not angry--"

"Speak for yourself, Beloved--"

"Sai Gong, you better not be interrupting me right now..."

"...Sorry, Lapis, my love."

Lapis narrowed his eyes, making the other man raise his hands up in surrender as he smiled towards Izuku once more.

"While your father and I are worried from you once again running off with your friends in dangerous situations, I understand why you do it. Despite being involved with the family affairs, Izuku, I wish you would at least tell us before you up and vanish like that. It almost gave me a heart attack when your Uncle Yun had to call me that you almost got hurt during a mission?"

"I know, a-and I'm sorry Kaa-san. Really, I thought I'd be back before Jade's bedtime..." Izuku breathed out, but not before he felt arms around him and blinked as he then looked up to Lapis.

"We know you are growing into a strong warrior, Izuku, my darling. But you have to remember that you have a family that loves and worries about you now. What would Inko-san think, bless her soul, if she hears you are dragging yourself injured with broken bones?" Lapis then looked over at his husband and raised a brow, "Darling, get over here and hug your eldest!"

Sai Gong was quick too wrap his strong arms around both Izuku and Lapis, his anger gone as he then chuckled, "Your mother's right, Izuku. Next time leave a damn note or something before you go off like Toshinori, ya hear me? Or you're grounded."

"Tou-san, I'm twenty one, I'm no longer that high school boy you took under yours and Kaa-san's wings."

"You're still our boy, and that still makes you little in our eyes," Lapis teased, as he then picked up Jade and let the little one join in what seems like a family hug.

Usadori watched with a soft and somewhat envious look as he watched Sai Gong take Jade and walk away along with Izuku following him while talking a mile a minute about something that happened that day. They look like a proper family... Usadori would think bitterly, but then remembered that he still had his mom. So it seems this world's Inko Midoriya had passed on, at least according to Lapis' words.

Speaking of the man, Usadori had a strange feeling that Lapis could feel him because he stayed behind and looked over to where Usadori was, as if he could see him.

"...I know you're there and I know you aren't a threat...but whoever you are, I hope that you can find what you are looking for..."

Usadori almost opened his mouth to reply to Lapis but then shook his head. There...there was no way that Lapis could actually know that he was watching, right?

...Right.

Usadori was about to swipe the portal away to go and observe the next time-line, but almost froze when the voice spoke again.

"You have people that love you, Izuku. Whether it is your time or mine, let it be known that you are not alone..."

And with that, Usadori quickly made the portal disappear, the words still fresh in his mind and heart.

[aworldforastage]

A second subjective list of favorite danmei's I read in 2022

I Can Do It :: 我行让我来[电竞] 酱子贝

This Prince has Something To Say :: 孤有话说 楚寒衣青

The Legitimate Son’s Dilemmas :: 嫡子为难 石头与水

Woke up and Heard I Was Married :: 一觉醒来听说我结婚了 木瓜黄

After Dawn :: 黎明之后 冰块儿

Heart Eyes :: 心眼 北南

Cherish :: 钟情 静水边

Floating Dreams :: 浮生梦 白芥子

PUBG Online Romance of the Century :: PUBG世纪网恋 酱子贝

I Ship My Adversary X Me :: 我嗑了对家X我的CP PEPA 

Compared to my other list, this list contains some lesser-known titles and titles I read later in the year. They had something about them that made me start reading and not wanting to put them down.

I know it’s March but I swear I started this list back when I could reasonably hope to publish it before Chinese New Year, then Lantern Festival, and um… 

I Can Do It :: 我行让我来[电竞] 酱子贝 – [Esports] I had to look up quite a bit of LOL references for this novel, but it says something about its quality that made me want to do the research! The story follows Jian Rong, a mouthy LOL live-streamer who gets recruited into his idol’s professional team. For me, it combines the comedy of having a snarky troll protagonist with the passionate energy of Esports. The Gong is around five years older than the shou, who turns 18 just before they start a relationship; but the sense of the age gap is quite strong between them. The key source of angst in this novel is the stress of injury and retirement for the more mature players, but the story’s keeps a mostly positive and upbeat focus is Jian Rong’s growth in professional gaming (and his cool, handsome boyfriend). 

This Prince has Something To Say :: 孤有话说 楚寒衣青 - [NOT TRANSLATED] [historical, political, wuxia] – This novel is split down the middle across two genres. The first part is a political intrigue in which the crown prince Xiao Jianshen (gong) tries to consolidate power in a (hilariously) hectic imperial court, while the second part is a wuxia tale in which a sect master Fu Tinghuan (shou) sorts out his old jianghu rivalries. They cross into each other’s worlds for their own objectives, but also fall in love. Fu Tinghuan’s vulnerabilities in love are heart wrenching, especially considering his backstory. Xiao Jianshen reads like he is on the ace spectrum; his love seems a lot more reserved in comparison, but from his POV he is as devoted to Fu Tinghuan as he possibly could be and isn't attracted to anyone else. The novel is also focused on the Gong’s POV, which is typical for this author. 

The Legitimate Son’s Dilemmas :: 嫡子为难 石头与水 – [NOT TRANSLATED] [historical, transmigration, “household drama” aka 宅斗] – Though this story is technically a danmei, only 2% of the text is relevant to romance. It isn’t even a true HE (Maybe OE? It’s HE in the sequel), and it’s realistically cynical in that both the protagonist and love interest marry (and consummates their marriages with) multiple women. Protagonist Feng Mingzhan is in a very awkward position as the sole legitimate “di” Son of the Emperor’s brother, but seemingly born mute so unsuitable to inherit his father’s title. To appease the Emperor, Mingzhan’s father sends him to the capital as a political hostage. This enrages Mingzhan (who is actually a transmigrator) and prompts him to seriously compete to become the heir with his more favored half-brothers. The political maneuvering is fun enough to keep me going, and it’s also an interesting examination in the kind of familial relationships and dynamics that can be formed (and destroyed or rebuilt) under such a social context. But honestly don’t read this for the romance. 

Woke up and Heard I Was Married :: 一觉醒来听说我结婚了 木瓜黄 – [celebrities/actors, system, mystery] – This is a story in which the main characters are celebrity actors, but they are actually solving mysteries, mostly at the direction of a system inside the protagonist that doesn’t do much of anything else. The protagonist is smart but lazy, appears very uninterested in the world around him, but wouldn’t shy away from doing the right thing when it counts. His older love interest is doting and suave, (and light spoiler: also rich enough to buy them out of most problems). Despite its lighthearted tone and premise, the “cases” veers into surprisingly deep and dark themes like homophobia, cyber-bullying, and the human cost of such cruelties. I generally like mysteries and procedural novels, but I never thought I could somehow enjoy them with an entertainment-industry context, which gives such themes a much-needed touch of lightness. 

After Dawn :: 黎明之后 冰块儿 –[celebrities, reconciliation, rival families] – This story looks like it’s trying to max out dog blood tropes that can be fit into one novel: there’s misunderstandings, a returning ex, ‘indecent proposals’, framed for a crime, inter-family rivalry, a sex tape, bastard sons competing for recognition and wealth, (quite a few very steamy scenes,) and so on … but fundamentally it’s two people meeting again after years, and reconciling after several rounds of misunderstandings. It’s very angsty in the process, but rationally you just really just want to grab and shake these two characters because they keep on saying just enough of the wrong things to make their misunderstanding worse. Perfect read for when you want to take your heart on a ride with good old-fashioned melodrama, and perfect demo for how NOT to communicate in a relationship. 

Heart Eyes :: 心眼 北南 –  [NOT TRANSLATED][reconciliation, (eventual) step brothers, hurt/comfort, slice-of-life ] Liang Cheng enters Qiao Yuanlin’s life three times, as a stranger who saves his life during a cardiac event when he was 13, as a mysterious tenant living in his grandmother’s extra room when he was 16, and as his step-mother’s son six years later. However, there is another hidden thread connecting their histories together.  In many ways, this is a coming-of-age story for Qiao Yuanlin, who is born with a serious congenital heart defect that has permeated every aspect of his life. Still, he manages a very realistic blend of good nature, naivete, and bratty-ness as he moves through adolescence and young adulthood, and together with Liang Cheng, learn to confront and move beyond the hard patches in their histories towards something better. It also has the most satisfying hurt-comfort-recovery arc I have ever read thanks to Qiao Yuanlin's heart.

Cherish :: 钟情 静水边 – [NOT TRANSLATED][guides and sentinels, sci-fi, space opera] – In a interstellar society with Sentinels and Guides, a weak Guide who doesn’t even have a familiar accidentally encounters and hits it off with the the most powerful Sentinel in the world, the Emperor, and is then pulled into the schemes in elite politics. I really enjoyed the novel for it’s fast pacing, because it’s not often that I find myself really drawn into a novel halfway into the first chapter. I feel like it leaves much to be desired as a sci-fi because it only very, very superficially address the social and political implications of the setting (and events of the plot).  However, the story is a very fun ride, and is full of funny details like the Emperor’s familiar being a dragon with the “heart of a teenage girl” who would like pink rhinestones on EVERYTHING, thank you very much. 

Floating Dream :: 浮生梦 白芥子 – [NOT TRANSLATED][historical, political intrigue, mpreg, meta] – It’s kind of cheating to put this one here, since this is an AU the author created for her two other stories in a shared universe. The premise is that men can carry children if they take a special potion. In the first story, Crown Prince Zhu Yunjing is framed for a crime, deposed and sentenced to death. He escapes the capital with the father of his unborn child, and builds a life with the man whom he once thought of as a rival and one night stand. In the second story, his younger brother Fifth Prince Zhu Yunxuan becomes the emperor by making a deal with a powerful court official, and their tenuous relationship deteriorates rapidly as he takes the throne as their power dynamics grow more complex. In this AU, the Crown Prince manages to save himself from being deposed; his own situation becomes less desperate, and he is also able to stick around and look out for his little brother, who doesn't need to end up in complicated political bargains. In the net, everyone seems to have it a easier in this version of events, though the Crown Prince’s love interest needing to wait longer for the prince to work out his feelings, and their lively and mischievous son needs to learn to turn down his nature since he is now the crown prince.

PUBG Online Romance of the Century :: PUBG世纪网恋 酱子贝-- [online gaming, live-streaming, past trauma] – Conglomerate CEO Yi Chen accidentally becomes the first viewer of Yu Yan, a new PUBG live-streamer on his platform. As Yu Yan navigates this new career to pull himself up from lackluster living conditions, he takes generous viewer and noob player “Yi” under his wing in the game as a part of his streams, unaware that this is the platform CEO “learning about his business”. Out of the four gaming-themed novels I read from this author, this is by far the least lighthearted and most involved with game play, though thankfully Yi Chen is also a new player that needed noob-friendly “tutorials” from Yu Yan. While the premise sets up a struggling protagonist and a rich love interest, Yu Yan still forges his own path, moves on from his trauma and flourishes on his own terms, while Yi Chen has his own baggage to resolve. The ending is happy but more hopeful, and leaves you feeling like these characters will grow into better and happier people. 

I Ship My Adversary X Me :: 我嗑了对家X我的CP PEPA – [idols and celebrities, humor, fandoms] A hilarious story in which C-list idol actor Wei Yanzi stumbles into the fandom of his ship with his rumored adversary, B-list actor Gu Yiliang. When the shippers are the only ones imagining their idol as a loving and loved little angel, Yanyan decides to join them and actively produce “candies” to feed their content. Gu Yiliang ends up with some very confusing signals from his co-worker but chooses the “generous” approach, and somehow this ends up as an epic loves story. This story is written in a brisk style, first person pov, full of internet and meme references, but if you can handle the style it will be a fast-paced funny read. Things that would hint at major angst in other works ends up being a laugh that gets breezed through. If you ever liked idols, this work will be a blast regardless of you are a solo or CP fan.

[pureu-pi]

Links <3

Side Account for Art: @pi-does-art

Ao3 name is: @PureUnAdulterated_Pi

I have been writing fics mainly for TGCF but plan on writing for more fandoms.

Anyway...

The State Preceptor is Annoyed Today

Rated M

Word count: 6k

Characters: Xie Lian, Lang Qianqiu

Summary: Spending a day with State Preceptor Fangxin and what he does in the Yong'an kingdom.

Shut Up You Stupid Dog

Rated M

Word count: 500

Characters/Ship: Fengqing (Feng Xin x Mu Qing)

Summary: Mu Qing writes a poem for his dog annoying BF.

The Enigmatic One by the Window: Silky Like the Taste on my Lips

Rated T

Word count: 1.8k

Characters/Ship: Fengqing (Feng Xin x Mu Qing)

Summary: Feng Xin meets an enigmatic loner selling coffee from an open window.

Did I Make up my Past because I was Lonely?

Rated M

Word count: 6.9k

Characters/Ship: Fengqing (Feng Xin x Mu Qing), Xie Lian, Pei Ming

Summary: Mu Qing gets amnesia and doesn't remember that he is a relationship with Feng Xin.

The Enigmatic One by the Window: This Dumb One Doesn't Get Art

Rated M

Word count: 1.4k

Characters/Ship: Fengqing (Feng Xin x Mu Qing)

Summary: Feng Xin and Mu Qing talk about a book they are reading.

The World's Best Storyteller

Rated T

Word count: 4.5k

Characters/Ships: Fengqing (Feng Xin x Mu Qing), Nan Feng (child), Fu Yao (child), Beefleaf (background)

Summary: The adopted children of Feng Xin and Mu Qing explore one of Shi Qingxuan's old houses in the Mortal Realm.

Wound Tale

Rated M

Word count: 21.8k

Characters/Ships: Fengqing (Feng Xin x Mu Qing), Mulian (Mu Qing x Xie Lian) (background)

Summary: Mu Qing possess a human to try help his wish to come true.

Smash the Mask because the Truth Hurts

Rated M

Word count: 4.3k

Characters/Ships: Huaqing (Hua Cheng x Mu Qing), Hualian (background), Fengqing (background)

Summary: Hua Cheng seeks revenge from his one true enemy.

1 out of 10 for Effort

Rated E

Word count: 8.4k

Characters/Ships: Fengqing (Feng Xin x Mu Qing)

Summary: Time for some yeehaw with sexy FX in a collar!

Xuan Zhen's Mysterious Gifts

Rated T

Word count: 9k

Characters/Ships: Fengqing (Feng Xin x Mu Qing), Hualian, Zhan Madao (human), Fengshen Gong (human), E'ming (human), Ruoye (human), Jiang Cheng

Summary: Mu Qing's birthday celebration

See You in the Next Life

Rated T

Word count: 1k

Characters/Ships: Fengqing (Feng Xin x Mu Qing)

Summary: Fengqing get reincarnated as.......?

[nasuversekinkmeme]

Weekly Roundup: Prompts (May 17-May 24)

Kara no Kyoukai

Smut, Can I get Mikiya being pegged? The whodunit doesn’t matter.

A whodunit on who pegged Mikiya

I would like Mikiya to have a moment where he sees another guy of your choice and realizing that oh, okay maybe my bisexuality isn't just with Shiki. Men are hot. Oh fu-

Tsukihime

Something with Hisui getting chained up

El-Melloi's Case Files

It turns out Gray’s dislike being seen as a pretty girl and constant dysphoria ends up being a mundane gender thing just as much as a ‘my physical appearance and identity have been slowly and painfully overwritten by a long-dead woman’s by the hands of fundamentalists’ thing. Ideally, additionally include Waver and Reines being supportive and going out of their way to help find means to present more masculine even with the unique issues of a magically 'frozen’ body.

Fate/Apocrypha

humbly asking for content specifically about Astolfo & the moon. thinking about it, telling others about it, being scared by the memory of it, w/e. would be very interested in something with BB specifically, but i really just want more content of my favorite paladin. thanks!

Fate/Zero

Saber alter in fate zero, what will she do?

Fate/Stay Night

Smut, medusa try's to get some mana from issei by using the dream illusions of the 2 woman demolition derby that is rin & luvia as a way to get what she needs , that plan obviously doesn't work. but after some trial & error ,medusa finds out that issei is down bad for shirou. cue the wet dream featuring issei getting tag teamed by 2 shirous (exact scenario of the dream is up to whoever fills this) after issei wakes up in the morning with morning wood & hella strong post nut clarity , he decides to call shirou.

Smut, noncon, let shinji do some time in the worm pit. god bless

Smut, I come humbly requesting for Saber/Guinevere sex. Specifically I want them to have the worst sex known to man. When Saber was given a dick to conceive a king they probably went at it like rabbits, but frankly I can't imagine either of them being happy with this. Even if they wanted it to happen it probably wasn't like this. So that's what I'm asking for! Everyone having a bad time having incredibly clinical and repressed sex.

Smut, Artoria and Iri bang except Iriviel is currently in Holy Grail form so it's more like Artoria trying to do passionate erotic acts with a cup. Iri is still completely conscious and appriciates the effort.

Sakura , rin & luvia are locked in chastity belts , and unfortunately for them , shirou has the only key. and to make matters worse shirou & artoria are out of town & won't be back for 3 months!

FGO

Nobunaga’s hat is precious to her. The moment she loses her hat, she acts as if she outright died. it’s up to Nobukatsu, okita, and mysterious Ranmaru x to find her hat before things go out of control!

Hokusai and Bakin’s body-sharing with their daughters becomes really awkward and unfortunate for them when said daughters begin a relationship in spite of their protests

castoria, chen gong, and mephistopheles face an impossible challenge: solving a problem without blowing anything or anyone up

Gudako/Gudao (doesn’t matter who) is thrown into a singularity that is basically finding out ‘whodunnit’, but with a twist: the singularity will reset whenever the ‘culprit’ is found and keeps going until the true culprit is caught.

Smut, Castoria and Sieg having fun away from Gudako following a tiring farming session. Spoilers: they fuck.

gawd dayum kipposhi got hips… anyways he and okita fuck. In Okita’s defense, kipposhi got the Rama specialty hips

the crypters attempt to summon something at 3 AM. ENDS HORRIBLY WRONG, SUMMONED DEMONS AND ALMOST DIED (and we killed lancer)

Ritsuka and Angra spend time together and they talk about their similarities. Angra being the host of all the hatred and curses of humanity, while Ritsuka carries on the despair and death he brought on to the lostbelts

Unsanitary, kagetora and nobu fighting… WITH THEIR NATURAL WEAKNESS! Is the somehow useable toilet mighty, or is Mitsuhide mightier than a toilet?

Castoria’s need enrichment. Be sure to put yours in a Houdini like trap at least once a week. Locks are mandatory!

Hijikata and Okita getting stuck in an unknown place In order to leave, one must sacrifice their life for the other to escape. With only 3 days to decide and a very annoying Gudako, what’s the worst that can happen?

Dubcon, Carmilla doing bdsm torture on a female servant until she loses her mind. Dubcon, but eventually she will come back for more

Muramasa confronts EMIYA on why he hates him so much, and we see emiya just fucking trauma dumping about everything he passed through and how Muramasa gives him PTSD

Alternate ending to Salem where Ritsuka tells Abigail to live as a normal child, instead of becoming a servant

mash uses one of those ancestry dna test kits , & when the results arrive , it turns out that mash has a sibling that was summoned to chaldea , it's Kiritsugu Emiya.

Smut, futa koyan twins get gudao pregnant so dobryna will get off their asses about grandchildren.

Smut, based off that one post, I'm surprised no-one had Bedivere getting dicked down by Xiang Yu while Yu Mei-Ren coaches him through it, maybe even give him some extra stimulation

Smut, Kiara and Hans have lovey-hatey sex, they love each other but they can't stop fighting because that's how they show love

Smut, Kintoki heroically protects master from attempts on their virtue by ibuki douji by fucking them himself. This may or may not fail spectacularly and end with ibuki getting in on it anyways. But kintoki still punched the boss's v card.

gudako becoming a ceo and joining the kengan association after retiring as master, not because they need money or have any interest in running a business/fight ring but because the kengan tournaments are the only place they can find dick from insane men who love to beat the shit out of each other close the level of what they had at chaldea

if beryl's so damn obsessed with mash , why not turn him into a mash clone? it's the author's choice on how he's transformed .

Saber & foreigner molay meet via a crash into hello , accidentally knocking each other's glasses off in the scuffle. turns out the reason why molay never takes off her glasses is not because of something lewd , it's because she's practically blind without 'em & so is saber molay . Saber & foreigner molay put on each others glasses by accident, after 2-3 minutes off feeling around for their glassess

Any Fandom

Something to do with drowning. Doesn’t necessarily have to be water. Could be blood, could be someone’s liquified stuff, could be Meltryllis’s body, could be drowning with your head deep in someone’s bloody guts chewing on their intestines. Just something that involves suffocation from too much stuff.

Crossover

It's already rerun time and I still have yet to see someone draw second ascension Summer Kiara interacting with Poison Final Fight, which makes me sad because that'd be hot. Ideally hot AND funny.

[oisinwrites]

Scooby-doo team-up: volume 5

The first story in this volume see’s the gang arriving at karma corners, (population: were all one!), a town built on hippie culture where this culture which is past its glory days elsewhere survives and thrives, or it did until it began to be haunted by the ghosts of the hippie’s parents who are getting to them with something worse than fear: guilt! My complaint about the last issues has been the absence of green lantern, but finally, in karma corners, mystery Inc. Are meeting green lantern!

In true Scooby-doo style, half of the ghosts are caught in a giant green hand from green lanterns laser ring and the rest are caught with a special arrow which, when fired, its head opens up and a net comes out, leaving them to be un-masked by the Scooby gang. It turns out the hippies were their parents, who ran off to this hippy town and never came back, so they pretended to be the ghosts of their parents parents and began nagging them to come back. But its not over yet.

The psycho-pirate has come to poison everyone’s hearts with hate and now a new argument has begun between green lantern and green arrow, but psycho-pirate made the mistake of announcing himself when two super-heroes are angry and their anger became directed at the villain. The spell was then broken by the black canary with her canary cry, after the psycho-pirate had just been taken down. This was a story with lots of fun plot twists right after each other, but the funniest part was the argument between  green lantern green arrow, where they called each other things like “ring-toting fascist” and “arrow-slinging socialist” and with Fred’s reaction “Its worse than a presidential debate!”.

The next story begins with the crew being attacked by fire-breathing dragons, while Fred and Daphne use extinguishers. Belma calls Hong-kong Phooey, a Kung-Fu fighting dog and while they are waiting, Daphne notices that while the other dragons are attacking, one dragon is rushing into stores. when Hong Kong phooey arrives, he is only performing Kung-Fu poses without actually touching  the dragons. When some dragons are smashed,(but not by Hong Kong phooey, he just thinks he smashed them.), they realise they are robots, so Daphne speed-reads the Kung-Fu manual and then smashes all the rest with only the one going into shops remaining.

Daphne then threatens to smash the dragon coming out of a store, but he shows he’s not a robot by un-masking himself! He confesses that he is a robotics scientist who couldn’t get funding, so he resorted to shop-lifting, but the mystery gang suggest he get funding from Hollywood by letting his robotics be used in film-making, because Hollywood will pay a fortune for this!

This was different from the usual Scooby-doo style and Hong Kong phooey does prove useful in the end when he accidentally knocks out the dragon coming out of the store. It was really thanks to his cat friend who tripped up a robot dragon which smashed on the floor while pretending to be asleep and pointed at the gong to make Scooby and shaggy think to hide behind it. though the latter turned out not to be such a great idea when a dragon struck the gong, he was still more the hero than Hong Kong phooey. He does this with ninja-like subtlety, without anyone knowing who the real hero is, while a possibly fake Kung Fu master takes all the credit.

The next story introduces us to a fortune-teller and a superstitious man who is terrified by the idea that he is cursed. They also meet the elastic man, who is capable of stretching his body in all kinds of ways but is vulnerable to cold temperatures, which make his body harden and become too rigid to move. They all enter the tarot shop on suspicion of her being a crook and they were correct In their suspicion, but had also made a big mistake!

It turns out the “fortune-teller” is an old enemy of the elastic man who has come to outsmart him by disguising herself as a fortune-teller and setting up shop in a former meat-plant, so what looks like a tarot shop is really a giant fridge! She is known as “the granite lady”! Fred gently pushes the freezing Elastic-man out of the giant fridge and they all run, with the granite lady following closely behind. They then trick her into following them to the back of a cement truck, where Daphne pulls the lever and she becomes cased in cement! The team are then rewarded with a free meal at an all-you-can-eat buffet, but of course its shaggy and Scooby who threaten to put it out of business!

This one had a very satisfying twist and also some funny bits, such as Daphne telling shaggy that its still not polite to comment on a woman’s weight, even if she is the granite lady, or the superstitious man panicking because of a bomb and elastic man assuring him, as he promptly throws it out the same window it came in through, that this is only because its Tuesday, not a sign of a curse. Annie the anarchist always plants a bomb in the FBI headquarters on Tuesdays.

The next story is set in the wild west, where there are rumour's about a monster, but the mayor doesn’t want a railway-building tycoon to hear the gossip, because he might not build a railway in this town. They then meet a bounty hunter with half his face disfigured but the other half normal who forces Fred to Duel him, but the duel is interrupted by all the local ladies in this town arguing over which of them he’s going to marry.

Suddenly, the town is under attack by a large blue, goblin-like creature in a poncho. All bullets are useless against it, frying pans and a bucket of cold water turn out to be more useful. when they manage to un-mask the “monster” (they also remove the poncho, which was hiding the steam-vent, but now the cold water has overloaded the system.) ,it turns to be a man in a steam-powered suit. The mayor recognised him as J.P Lackawanna but hadn’t suspected that J.P. Lackawanna would scare everyone away from the land in order to buy it cheap.

It was fun to see the Scooby gang in the wild west and all the local ladies wanting to marry the bounty hunter even though half his face was disfigured was pretty funny too. In the next story, they have just arrived after a call from officer Dibble, because of rumour's about “hoagies ghost”. They also meet top-cat and the whole gang of alley-cats. At first they encounter a few “ghost’s” who turn out to be alley cats. They then encounter two estate agents who aren’t technically breaking the law but are corrupt. They are then scared away by another “ghost”, who then reveals himself to be officer Dibble!

This was a great plot twist, because this time it was actually a good guy who was scaring away the crooks! Our last story begins with the mystery gang teaming up with “the challengers of the unknown” and a strange gnome-like creature. They go diving underwater, meet the “sea devils”, net a sea monster they were under attack by and enter a dry cave.

They then find themselves under attack by what appears to be a giant mutant super-rat, but the creature is scared away by the emergence of a mole-machine. Out of the mole machine comes another team who investigate mysteries underground. Next, they all together fly to a hidden base, where the challengers all unmask themselves and reveal that they are not the challengers, they are the secret six! The “gnome king” also reveals himself to be a villain called “multi-man”! they were planning to trick them into handing over the elixir, but made the mistake of revealing themselves too soon, before the elixir was handed over, so they were quickly outnumbered and defeated.

They then met another team from the future who had sent the distress signal to all those other teams and Belma figured out that “the mockingbird” is really Durant. This one I found the most complicated, as there were so many different teams and I wasn’t familiar with any of these characters. There just seemed to be a lot of teams with different uniform colour's. Anyway, this was another great Scooby-doo crossover comic, with lots of different stories and lots of fun.

[theoryofarson]

this episode easily the worst thing thats ever happened to me, and arguably to anyone 

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

Master Fu: Master of Failure (200 Follower Special)

Mentors are some of the most important characters in all of pop culture, as they help the protagonist advance in his journey while helping them improve in skill and personal growth. Because of their vital role, mentors tend to be among some of the most memorable characters in their respective franchises.

Mentors can be a variety of people, from wise sages, to former soldiers, to just regular people with a strong moral compass. What matters is the impact they have on the hero, and the role they play in the story.

Master Fu does a poor job at accomplishing both of those qualifications.

Like, well, basically every bad thing in Miraculous Ladybug, the ideas behind Master Fu were interesting in concept. The problem was the execution, or rather, what little we got with Master Fu. Yet he still manages to be memorable (no pun intended) for all the wrong ways. But before we get into Master Fu, let's get into a problem with Miraculous Ladybug in general that plagues several characters and plotlines.

Order of the... What Exactly?

Despite being “the last known member of the Order of the Guardians”, Master Fu hasn't really explained much about the Order he's from. All we really know is that he was trained to guard the Miraculous and distribute them to worthy people. And the Order does this... why exactly?

This is a huge problem with Miraculous Ladybug, the underdeveloped lore behind a major part of the story. Despite being connected to the Miraculous, you know, the magical artifacts the show is named after, we still don't really know much about why they were formed in the first place, and what their connection to the Miraculous is.

Oh wait, the origin of the Miraculous actually is explained... in an issue of the tie-in comic.

Someone seriously thought it was a good idea to explain that Kwamis are connected to abstract concepts like creation and destruction, and how the Miraculous were created, both very important things to learn, AND THEY DID IT IN A GODDAMN TIE-IN COMIC THAT ONLY LASTED THREE ISSUES! 

I shouldn't be expected to read supplementary material to understand the backstory of a show. You don't need to watch Star Wars: The Clone Wars to understand the tragedy of Order 66, so why would you expect your audience to read a comic book to understand the origin of the magical objects that give your main characters superpowers?

Even the explanation we got isn't that detailed. Okay, fine some guy created the Miraculous to give the Kwamis tangibility (which actually explains how they can phase through solid objects), but... how and why? How was this sage able to see Tikki, how was he able to create the Miraculous, and why did he do it?

This extends to the Order of the Guardians as well. How and why were they formed? What exactly do they even do besides guard Miraculous? Why do they even guard the Miraculous in the first place? We even learn more about their methods, and trust me, I'll get to that later.

In Xiaolin Showdown, the pilot episode of all things explains why Shen Gong Wu are so important, and why the Xiaolin Dragons dedicate their lives to protecting them, because they maintain the balance between good and evil, and if they fall into the hands of evil, the world could fall into 10,000 years of darkness. Yeah, the first episode actually does a good job at explaining the backstory of the show, who would have thought? And it's from a show that has a better representation of Chinese culture when this is what the main character looks like.

Overall, the Order of the Guardians is an underdeveloped concept that does very little to help out Master Fu as a character. If the backstory of a character is so vague, how can we even understand the character's motivations in the first place? And by God, are Master Fu's motivations confusing.

Master of Not Doing Anything

Before I started working on this, I saw a video review of Miraculous Ladybug by someone who had never seen the show before, and only did so because one of his friends said they would start watching One Punch Man if he did. Even though he only mentioned Master Fu a few times, he described him as “a dude with a jewelry box full of superhero bling”, and felt like that was all those unfamiliar with the show needed to know. As someone who is familiar with the show? Yeah, that's basically all Master Fu is.

Despite being classified as a mentor, Master Fu doesn't really do a lot of mentoring. Sure, he occasionally talks to Marinette, but whenever things get rough, all he really does is hand out a Miraculous for Marinette to give to someone else temporarily.

And I've said it multiple times, but the Rent-A-Miraculous system is a horrible idea. Not only does it require Ladybug to basically leave Cat Noir to fend for himself while she rushes over to Master Fu, she has to think of an ideal candidate for the Miraculous she takes, find said candidate, rush back to where the Akuma is, hope Cat Noir wasn't incapacitated by the Akuma, and then haul ass to Master Fu's place to return the Miraculous as soon as the fight's over.

The idea of introducing new heroes is interesting, but because we see them so rarely, they don't really feel that important. I get that the title is “Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir”, but I just wish the show would do more with the temporary heroes, like see how it affects their lives. Unfortunately, I can't, thanks to “Miracle Queen”, as usual. I'll get to that episode again later on.

Even when Master Fu takes out the Miraculous, he doesn't really help Marinette think of which one to choose. He just says something like “Take a Miraculous, but be sure to return it to me when you're done.” It doesn't matter, because Marinette apparently knows how all fifteen Miraculous in the box work. Hey, wouldn't it have been nice to see Master Fu actually teach Marinette how every Miraculous works? Maybe have him suggest which Miraculous to take based on the Akuma's powers? I'm just saying, maybe you can take time away from Ladybug and Cat Noir fighting a giant baby to actually give more focus on other characters.

Before that, he was just planning to do nothing and hope Ladybug and Cat Noir could reclaim Hawkmoth's Miraculous for him. According to Tikki in “The Collector”, Marinette isn't even supposed to see the Guardian, and only met Master Fu because she found the Grimoire. So despite being “Guardians of the Miraculous”, he doesn't even help out the random people he decided to give Miraculous to? It's a miracle Ladybug and Cat Noir survived an entire season without any real guidance from Master Fu.

The third season tries to do something by having Master Fu train Marinette to become a guardian, but all of the training is entirely offscreen, and by “Feast”, he just says that her training is complete, and then makes her a guardian against her will in “Miracle Queen”.

Then there are moments unrelated to the Miraculous where he fails to actually be a mentor. Everyone knows about how stupid it was that the writers wanted the audience to sympathize with Adrien for threatening to quit being Cat Noir while Paris is flooded, but this also could have been a moment where Master Fu helped him talk about his feelings, or maybe dispense some wisdom about how hard it is to understand if someone actually trusts him or not. You know, act as a mentor to Adrien?

But instead, they brush over this potentially interesting character moment, because that would actually imply that Adrien has flaws. Because we all know Astruc loves to show the audience that Adrien Agreste is basically the second coming of Jesus Christ, right? And even though the episode making a big deal about Adrien not knowing Master Fu, they really don't have any meaningful conversations outside of that episode, except maybe “Party Crasher”. Though the episode does have Master Fu taking action when Ladybug is incapacitated by the Akuma by giving a Miraculous... to someone he barely knows swimming in Adrien's bathtub. Even he regrets his choice a few minutes later.

And then there's the fact that despite it being his job to guard the Miraculous, he does literally nothing to figure out where the Butterfly and Peacock Miraculous are. Sure, he briefly talked with Marinette about Gabriel possibly being Hawkmoth in “The Collector”, but she did most of the investigating in that episode.

Hell, “Sandboy” establishes there's a way to contact Nooroo, the Kwami of the Butterfly Miraculous, on his birthday, but Master Fu turned it down, so they did it behind his back! For the love of God, this is a chance to figure out who Hawkmoth is and bring the conflict with him to an end, and you're passing it up?! In “Heart Hunter”, Master Fu says that Hawkmoth “talks a lot, but hasn't achieved much so far”, but you could easily apply that to Master Fu himself.

Outside of giving Miraculous to Marinette to borrow, what has Master Fu actually accomplished in the story? Maybe his backstory will shed more light on him as a character, and won't just make him look even worse.

The Bungled Backstory

One of the most frustrating things about Master Fu's backstory is that it actually has some pretty good buildup.

In “The Collector” we learn that Master Fu made a mistake that led to the destruction of the temple the Guardians operated out of, and the Butterfly and Peacock Miraculous were lost in the process. This does a good job at setting up the mystery of what Master Fu did to destroy the temple in the first place. It continues in “Sandboy”, where Master Fu's worst nightmare is him heing haunted by the ghosts of the guardians he accidentally killed, and then we see in “Backwarder” that Master Fu had confidants to help him keep the Miraculous safe from what are assumed to be the Nazis. Because I guess guardians get to share their secrets, but not Ladybug and Cat Noir?

And then we learned the full backstory in “Feast”. Much like how “Oblivio” and “Cat Blanc” killed any chances of me ever showing any sympathy to Alya and Gabriel respectively, I lost all respect for Master Fu after watching this episode.

We learn that Fu was chosen to be a guardian at a very young age, and had no other choice but to start his training. One day, he was assigned to watch over A Miracle Box as a test for twenty-four hours without any food, water, or sleep. He decided to use the Peacock Miraculous to create a Sentimonster to get him some food, but his anger corrupted the Sentimonster that made it go on a rampage to eat the Miraculous in the temple... and somehow set the temple on fire judging from this shot.

In my main blog, I had originally made a post calling out Master Fu for what he did, but since then, I've mostly softened up. This is just a fan theory you are free do disagree with, but I like to think that Fu was supposed to use a Miraculous during the test. Maybe he was supposed to use the Mouse Miraculous to get some food while one of the clones sat and watched the box, or use the Horse Miraculous to sneak to the kitchen.

My problem comes from how his backstory affects his actions, and makes him look like a complete hypocrite.

Even though he hated the fact that he was basically drafted to become a guardian when he was only a child, he saw no problem handing out Miraculous to children who weren't that much older than he was when he burned down the temple. I don't even think he should even qualify as a master. His title shouldn't be “Master Fu”, but something more along the lines of “Acting Master Fu” on account of the other guardians burning to death.

Say what you will about Zordon for recruiting teenagers with attitude to become the Power Rangers, but what makes him more likable than Master Fu was that he actually cared about them. He routinely gave them advice, never really lost his patience with them, and understood they had lives outside of their jobs as Rangers. Hell, he was even willing to let them retire to peruse major opportunities in their lives, like Jason, Zack, Trini, and Kimberly, because he knows what it's like to be trapped in a situation that prevents him from living a normal life.

In fact, if Fu really hated being forced to become a guardian, why did he have no problem doing the same thing to Marinette? If anything, Fu should hate the Order of the Guardians, but it's never really explained what really motivated him to continue their practices.

Usually, a backstory related to a supporting character is meant to be followed up by the main characters doing something so history doesn't repeat itself. Anakin Skywalker was driven to the Dark Side because he was afraid of losing someone close to him, with the Jedi Order giving him no support due to their rules against personal attachments. This ideology is subverted in the original trilogy when it's Luke Skywalker's compassion for his father that motivated Anakin to rebel against the Emperor and fulfill his destiny as the chosen one.

But instead of learning from past events, or maybe realizing the Order of the Guardians was never as noble as we were led to assume it was, Master Fu just upholds their tradition of enlisting child soldiers to protect these world-ending artifacts while barely doing anything to help them out. And nobody ever acknowledges there might be anything wrong with the Order.

The Cowardly (and Hypocritical) Turtle

Despite being established to be 186 years old (which still hasn't been explained), and the destruction of the temple happening when he was a child, Master Fu hasn't really done anything with his position.

Despite having all the time in the world, as well as a Miraculous that lets him teleport anywhere, he still hasn't found the missing two Miraculous that Gabriel managed to find at least 129 years after he lost them, give or take.

There's also the fact that, at least, according to the flashback in “Backwarder”, Master Fu may or may not have chosen to sit down and let several historical atrocities and conflicts happen because he didn't want to risk losing the Miraculous. You know, minor things like the Taiping Rebellion, the Crimean War, World War I and II, the Rape of Nanking, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Tienanmen Square Massacre and God knows what else. What did Master Fu even do while he ran around the world to keep the Miraculous safe anyway?

These both factor into the biggest problem with Master Fu as a character: He's a coward.

Whenever he's confronted with a tough situation, Master Fu's first instinct is to run away and hide. As soon as the Sentimonster that destroyed the temple returns, he takes back Marinette and Adrien's Miraculous and runs away. As soon as Hawkmoth finds out about his existence, he packs up his stuff and runs away. When he's captured by Hawkmoth and Mayura, he gives up his position as Guardian and forces Marinette to take on the role, so he can run away safely.

And once again, despite hating the Order for forcing him to train to become a Guardian, Master Fu has no problem with forcing Marinette, someone who was only a few years older than he was when he was drafted, to become the next Guardian of the Miraculous, all while conveniently losing his memory in the process, which implies that Marinette will lose her memory when she retires as Guardian. I once made a submission to Terrible Miraculous Ladybug AU's joking that he only made up the whole amnesia thing just to dump the responsibility of being Guardian on Marinette, but with his appearance in the Season 4 teaser, I'm genuinely worried that may be true.

And yet, despite every incompetent thing he's done, the show keeps trying to portray Master Fu as this wise old soul, because like with so many characters, the writers think if they keep saying things that aren't true, the audience will just give up and accept these ideas as fact. “Master Fu is a wise mentor”. “Alya is a good journalist”. “Ladybug and Cat Noir are equal”. “Chloe is irredeemable”. “Gabriel is a sympathetic villain”. “Lila is a good liar”. “Thomas Astruc responds to criticism like an adult”.

And I'm not against the idea of a flawed mentor either. I already talked about how complex Dr. K is as a character, and how her connection to Venjix makes her an interesting mentor. What I want is for the narrative to acknowledge that Master Fu is way out of his league. I want someone, anyone, to actually call him out for how poorly he's handled things. I don't want to be told he's a great mentor when the evidence clearly shows otherwise.

But it seems like we may never get that in the show, even though it looks like he's going to return in Season 4.

Let's just hope Master Su-Han is a better mentor, and actually appears in more than a single episode before being escorted off so Marinette can't have any confidants as Guardian. Who am I kidding? That's basically what's going to happen.

[project-paranoia]

Live Watch: S.C.I. Mystery Episode One

I enjoy camp because I've always enjoyed analysis and examination.  I enjoy looking at something from all sides, testing it with my fingertips. When I was a child I would sit for hours just looking at something until I had it all held in my mind and I felt like I understood it.  Camp necessitates that understanding the way that imitation and - good - parody requires it.  To quote Susan Sontag - who articulated what camp is so well - Camp is "a sensibility that revels in artifice, stylisation, theatricalisation, irony, playfulness, and exaggeration rather than content."  Because of this camp takes on head to head gender, sexuality, expectations, any sort of defined norm and sequins it up then shakes it down until understanding comes out.  When understanding something there are three major ways to work your investigation - what it is, what it's imitation is - the close but not quite, and what it isn't.  Camp handles all three, to quote again: "Camp sees everything in quotation marks. It's not a lamp, but a 'lamp; not a woman, but a 'woman.'"

Why are we talking about camp?  Because SCI Mystery is some of the best kind of camp outside of drag or screaming about wire hangers.  It deals a lot with mental illness in a way that would destroy a serious show, but in this one "mental illness" is a metaphor for being marginalised and a way to talk about the mouse and cat in the room.  This show is about being queer.  About being gay loudly and quietly, about resisting specific labels and needing them, about the threat of a cure and the blessing of acceptance.  All the messy realities of queer life as varied as queer people. Like Lil Nas X's Montero, you can appreciate the effort without being comfortable with it. While the show's allegory of mental illness when many queer people are still told they are ill is done well and there is reason to the choices and tone, things are said which can be hard to hear.  Knowing they're there because they're hard to hear and have been heard doesn't help everyone.

With all that said, it's also a fun, silly bl drama.  Don't let the analysis scare you off.  While the information about camp can be something to be aware of, all this show requires to be enjoyed is a willingness to be amused and spooked in turns.

You know the drill, spoilers below!

* I have memorised the youku sound, I have a triggered response with it. Not all triggers are bad, this one reminds me of Guardian

* Welcome to episode one where we just leap in!  But don't worry, one of them has a cute earring and they are colour coordinated.

* Watching from youtube the episode is 38 minutes long while most of the others are 45.  Attach whatever emotion you want to that fact.

* The exposition is handily delivered by asking a question which tells us some things, thank you show, I appreciate it

* First episode and he's already giving his partner an in case I don't come back letter to be opened if he dies

*  Wait for me!~  Go!~~

* Slow walk with dramatic music: 1 (don't make this a drinking game You Will Expire) this time with bonus almost looking back

* I've seen a similar shot on Hawaii Five O

* Don't explain what's happening, just knock everything over with a jump kick in some absolutely spotless white tennies

* Running with dramatic music with bonus looking back: Does it count?  We have yet to hear back from the judges

* They leap into the water with an explosion behind them, we are less than 2 minutes in and I love that for them

* At first I thought the boats were making a big heart before I remembered that I am very silly and they are not doing that

* This one is going to be long

* I can see his pockets through his trousers, why are his trousers so thin?

* It's not kissing to dramatic music in the surf if it's CPR

* Each story line has its own intro and that's very sexy of them

* Slow walk/dramatic music: 2-6

* These people are totally goofy and and yet the Seriousness

* Two Weeks Ago!

* The police school bus has arrived to shoo away the crows circling around Dr. Zhan staring (dramatically) at the body

* Sport scar policeman dresses even more unprofessionally than Zhao Yunlan who at least looks like a detective who was jumped by so many criminals he just gave up wearing a suit and went for jeans. Chief Bai's clothes are so thin, I'm under constant anxiety someone is going to tear them off.

* Also several of the cast pictures on MyDramaList look like the pictures your auntie insists taking to send to your other aunties and I love that for them

* Triple axil spin from the victim, the judges are loving it - this is the camp I'm here for

* The dramatic slo mo and music budget for this show was so big, just as it should be

* He's mad because he's angy

*  Master Psychiatrist can tell all about the killer from crouching by the body, it's a trope and this is one of the few places I like it because it serves the show instead of the show serving it

* When you're almost boyfriend is going away for reasons and it's not your decision but you can't go with him because of your job so you're just low key bitter about it

*  "You can't control me"

* The pettiness between these two

* Professional women who worked hard to get where they are still are constantly obsessed with boys according to most cdramas

*The male posturing in those three second has accidentally circled back around to being gay in the way those bro shows accidentally do and I love that

* I live for this 80s-90s police chief perm

* The Pettiness

* I always tend to like doctor characters, I don't know why.  Even when they aren't my favourites I like them.

* She's kind of adorable, I like her (I've seen a lot of this show and every time I say I like someone it ends badly ;-; )

* "the victems"

* If you love Creative English, this is the show for you!

* Chief Bai's crew is trying so hard to get them back together

* Dr. Zhan is so good at psychology he can tell what someone looks like from some tire tracks - this trope is used all the time in crime shows, but they push it a little farther in SCI and it really helps the viewer know what the rules for the show are

* The scene in the psychiatrist's office hearkens back to queer coded villains and the way they're treated in old black and white horror cinema - but done so artfully it's almost invisible.  It's incredibly well done, and the awareness of tropes and types all throughout the series is tremendously successful as much as it's campy fun.

* There's also the trope of someone who manipulates someone into feeling like they've been "purified" and then weaponises them against the "filthy". And of course the fact that the killer's blade is a mirror - that he's killing in others what he sees in himself. This trope hasn't just been queer-coded but has been applied to any sort of physical or mental disorder. Thesis have been written about this trope and the anxiety attached to it. I can't write them better and this is long enough, it's just a small part of the excellent handling of the themes showing up in this genre and I wanted to point it out because it deserves appreciation for the skill and knowledge in the writing.  

* The whole you need evidence vs you're saying psychoanalysis isn't trustworthy feels very much like a coded angry exes discussion

* I love the establishing shots, so good

* He kind of deserved that door to the face, what was he even doing

* Police violence in crime shows is supposed to be a release for the viewer, but many countries have issues with police violence so it hits wrong.  Here it's far more performative in a way that at least has some awareness

* The weirdest phone call, you call someone to tell them something important and they say two things to you and hang up

* The tongue thing, why always the tongue thing?

* When a serial killer tries to compliment you by calling you a carnivore and you shut down the whole alpha male supposition by calling yourself a vegetarian

* At this point I've written almost fifteen hundred words and taken almost two hours to watch 23 minutes

* This is my life, these are my choices

* Dutch Angles

* You could make this conversation about being gay, I have had this conversation about homosexuality before

* Unfortunately while I had it I was on the bus trapped in a window seat

* The conversation didn't end with me saying something cool and everyone clapping

* They just got off the bus to go to work

* The banality of evil, yo

* Her shorts are Incredibly Short, good for her

* "arrest the perp behind my back" that's his job, broheim

* He doesn't ask why she checked behind their ears

* DUN dun dun!

* Slo mo file drop, and of course the file is blood stained and aged

* Chalk Art of Doom

* Chinese word play!

* Caught almost putting his coat over his crush, embarrassing XD

* Backstory!

*  I love all the little character details, I could quote lines I think are funny all day but that would start getting silly

* Bai Yu Tong is marked as clean and having OCD but we don't see what's apparently a huge character trait at all other than the all white, do love that he's good at cooking

* Dr. Zhan: Brilliant!  Genius!  Cannot feed himself.

* Dr. Gong has indifference level 100% which is true and also I love that for him

* I love that Wang Shao part of the team because he's good at making friends, I love that for him

* Poor Zhao Fu: scared of ghosts and dumb and sweet?  At least he has an 8 pack

* Jiang Lin is very tropey except the mention of her nearsightedness

* Ma Han's height 1.7m and legs 1.8m is hilarious and I love it

* I stopped recording the slo mo walks, but if you were drinking along with them you might be dead so I really appreciate you taking time out of your afterlife to continue reading.  We appreciate all our ghost readers

* And that's the first episode!  Thanks for making it to the end!

[recentanimenews]

Four Generals Join the Cast of Kingdom 2 Live-Action Film

  Four more cast members have been revealed for Kingdom 2: Harukanaru Daichi e ("Kindgom 2: To the Ends of the Earth"), an upcoming live-action film based on the epic historical action manga by Yasuhisa Hara about how the fateful encounter between two young men from very different walks of life will change the course of Chinese history. The new cast members include:

  Etsushi Toyokawa as Biao Gong.

Yukiyoshi Ozawa as Wu Qing.

Tsutomu Takahashi as Gong Yuan.

And Kiyohiko Shibukawa as Fu Hu Shen.

    Funimation currently streams the first Kingdom live-action film, while Crunchyroll and Funimation currently stream the Kingdom TV anime in the United States. Crunchyroll describes the story of Kingdom as follows:

  Shin and Hyou are war-orphans in the kingdom of Qin. They dream of proving themselves on the battlefield until the day Hyou is captured by a minister. The boy manages to escape and return to his village, but he is badly injured. Shin then meets a mysterious youth who bears an eerie resemblance to Hyou—a boy who will one day become emperor!

    A sequel to the 2019 live-action Kingdom film, Kingdom 2: Harukanaru Daichi e is directed by Shinsuke Sato and stars Kento Yamazaki, Ryo Yoshizawa, Kanna Hashimoto, and Takao Osawa. Kingdom 2: Harukanaru Daichi e is scheduled to hit theaters in Japan during the summer season of 2022.

  Source: Comic Natalie

  Copyright notice:

© Yasuhisa Hara / Shueisha

© 2022 Movie "Kingdom" Production Committee

    ---

Paul Chapman is the host of The Greatest Movie EVER! Podcast and GME! Anime Fun Time.

By: Paul Chapman

[wtf-triassic]

Odontochelys semitestacea

By @alphynix​

Etymology: Toothed Turtle

First Described By: Lie et al., 2008 

Classification: Biota, Archaea, Proteoarchaeota, Asgardarchaeota, Eukaryota, Neokaryota, Scotokaryota, Opimoda, Podiata, Amorphea, Obazoa, Opisthokonta, Holozoa, Filozoa, Choanozoa, Animalia, Eumetazoa, Parahoxozoa, Bilateria, Nephrozoa, Deuterostomia, Chordata, Olfactores, Vertebrata, Craniata, Gnathostomata, Eugnathostomata, Osteichthyes, Sarcopterygii, Rhipidistia, Tetrapodomorpha, Eotetrapodiformes, Elpistostegalia, Stegocephalia, Tetrapoda, Reptiliomorpha, Amniota, Sauropsida, Eureptilia, Romeriida, Diapsida, Neodiapsida, Sauria, Archosauromorpha?, Archelosauria, Pantestudines, Odontochelyidae  

Time and Place: Around 232 million years ago, in the Carnian age of the Late Triassic

Odontochelys is known from the Lower Member of the Xiaowa Formation of China, commonly known as the Guanling Fauna

Physical Description: Odontochelys is one of the earliest known turtles - preceded by one, possibly two, precursors other than stem members of the family group - and it showcases how this extremely unique group managed to evolve in the chaos that was the Triassic Explosion. It was simultaneously similar to and very different from living turtles, a true transitional organism. Like other reptiles, it had teeth embedded in its jaws, rather than the toothless beak found in turtle mouths. Like turtles, it had the lower plastron extending from its ribs, but unlike living turtles it had no upper shell - instead, it just had widened ribs and no bony shell around its body. The ribs and the vertebrae were put together differently from modern turtles as well, and its skull was more stretched out compared to its living relatives. It didn’t have fused tail bones, and its scapulae were very different from living turtles. It had short limbs and long, thick fingers, as well as a decently sized shell. It was about forty centimeters long from snout to tail tip. 

Diet: The diet of Odontochelys is fairly uncertain, despite us having its teeth; though they are small and peg like, we can’t really extrapolate a function since we don’t actually know its precise ecology! They may have been used for stripping plants, but it’s also possible they were used to chipp up algae and other aquatic water plants, or even invertebrates! So, more research there is clearly needed. 

Behavior: The life history of Odontochelys is actually a big mystery. It was found in a marine environment, leading initial studies to indicate it was marine. However, it had the hands of a fresh water organism, including fresh water turtles today. Furthermore, studies of other early turtles indicate that turtles first arose on the land, rather than in the water, and later groups would adapt to water life; the limbs of Odontochelys share similarities with tortoises and support a terrestrial lifestyle. So, the ecology of Odontochelys has been a constant battle. That said, there is some evidence that it was actually marine - and may represent an early experiment in ocean life by turtles. One fossil of Odontochelys indicates that it had completely messed up shoulder bones, likely due to a problem in life rather than destruction of the fossil. This pattern resembles decompression sickness, aka the bends, aka the condition caused by a diving animal coming up much too fast from a lower depth. Modern turtles have complex behavioral adaptations to avoid the bends, so Odontochelys may be an early experiment in marine life in a group mostly adapted for terrestrial life. In this transition to ocean life, it not only lacked better physical adaptations for the ocean, but also better behavioral ones, and was stricken with the bends on its trip back to the surface. So, as we try to determine its ecology and behavior, these clued paint a rich tapestry of the world’s most transitional turtle. A pioneer! 

Ecosystem: Odontochelys was found in - and thus, the null hypothesis is that it lived in - an ocean environment near the coast of the Tethys sea. This was a deep, open ocean - pelagic, hence the bends and problems Odontochelys faced trying to deal with the ocean. It was a very fertile ecosystem as well, with a variety of Triassic marine animals showcasing the rapid evolution of these groups. Among the invertebrates, there were many different types of Ammonites, plenty of bivalves, brachiopods, and crinoids & sea cucumbers as well. Still, the fascinating part of the ecosystem was the sheer number of marine reptiles. There were Thalattosaurs such as Anshusaurus and Xinpusaurus; Placodonts like Psephochelys and Sinocyamodus; and Ichthyosaurs like Qianicthyosaurus, Guizhouichthyosaurus, Guanlingsaurus, and Callawayia. One of many beautiful deposits of marine animals from this Period - and the many Ichthyosaurs would have been major predators of the relative n00b Odontochelys. 

Other: Odontochelys also just looks really weird because it basically looks like your usual turtle except it doesn’t have a freaking shell so here we are with this oddity. It’s transitional in shape, transitional in ecology, transitional in behavior, and just. What the heck. What the heck, Odontochelys. If you need more proof for evolution despite knowing about the dinosaur - bird transition, have I got a friend for you. 

~ By Meig Dickson 

Sources Under the Cut

Anquetin, J. 2012. Reassessment of the phylogenetic interrelationships of basal turtles (Testudinata). Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 10(1):3-45. 

Bradley Shaffer, H., E. McCartney-Melstad, T. J. Near, G. G. Mount, P. Q. Spinks. 2017. Phylogenomic analyses of 539 highly informative loci dates a fully resolved time tree for the major clades of living turtles (Testudines). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 115: 7 - 15. 

Feldmann, R. M., C. E. Schweitzer, S. Hu, J. Huang, Q. Zhang, C. Zhou, W. Wen, T. Xie, E. P. Maguire. 2017. A new Middle Triassic (Anisian) cyclidan crustacean from the Luoping Biota, Yunnan Province, China: morphologic and phylogenetic insights. Journal of Crustacean Biology 37 (4): 406 - 412. 

Gilbert, S. F. 2007. How the turtle gets its shell. Biology of Turtles: The Structures to Strategies of Life. 

Heiss, E. 2010. Functionality and plasticity of turtle-feeding with special emphasis on oropharyngeal structures. Universitat Wien Doctoral Dissertation. 

Hess, H., W. Etter, and H. Hagdorn. 2016. Roveacrinida (Crinoidea) from Late Triassic (early Carnian) black shales of Southwest China. Swiss Journal of Paleontology 135(2):249-274. 

Joyce, W. G. 2015. The origin of turtles: A paleontological perspective. Journal of Experimental Zoology Part B: Molecular and Developmental Evolution 324 (3): 181 - 193. 

Lee, M. S. Y. 2013. Turtle origins: Insights from phylogenetic retrofitting and molecular scaffolds. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 26 (12): 2729 - 2738. 

Lemell, P., N. Natchev, C. J. Beisser, E. Heiss. 2019. Feeding in Turtles: Understanding Terrestrial and Aquatic Feeding in a Diverse but Monophyletic Group. Feeding in Vertebrates: 611 - 642. 

Li, C., and O. Rieppel. 2002. A new cyamodontid placodont from Triassic of Guizhou, China. Chinese Science Bulletin 47(5):403-407. 

Li, C., X. C. Wu, O. Rieppel, L. T. Wang, and L. J. Zhao. 2008. An ancestral turtle from the Late Triassic of southwestern China. Nature 456:497-501. 

Lu, H., D.-Y. Jiang, R. Motani, P.-G. Ni, Z.-Y. Sun, A. Tintori, S.-Z. Xiao, M. Zhou, C. Ji, W.-L. Fu. 2018. Middle Triassic Xingyi Fauna: Showing turnover of marine reptiles from coastal to oceanic environments. Palaeoworld 27 (1): 107 - 116. 

Luo, M., Y.-M. Gong, G. R. Shi, Z.-Q. Chen, J. Huang, S. Hu, X. Feng, Q. Zhang, C. Zhou, W. Wen. 2018. Palaeoecological Analysis of Trace Fossil Sinusichnus sinuosus from the Middle Triassic Guanling Formationin Southwestern China. Journal of Earth Science 29: 854 - 863. 

Meredith, R. W., J. Gatesy, M. S. Springer. Molecular decay of enamel matrix protein genes in turtles and other edentulous amniotes. BMC Evolutionary Biology 13: 20. 

Neenan, J. M., N. Klein, T. M. Scheyer. 2013. European origin of placodont marine reptiles and the evolution of crushing dentition in Placodontia. Nature Communications 4: 1621. 

Nicholls, E. L., C. Wei, and M. Manabe. 2002. New material of Qianichthyosaurus Li, 1999 (Reptilia, Ichthyosauria) from the Late Triassic of southern China, and implications for the distribution of Triassic icthyosaurs. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 22(4):759-765. 

Reisz, R. R., J. J. Head. 2008. Palaeontology: Turtle origins out to sea. Nature 456 (7221): 450 - 451. 

Rothschild, B. M., V. Naples. 2015. Decompression syndrome and diving behavior in Odontochelys, the first turtle. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 60 (1): 163 - 167. 

Schoch, R. R., H.-D. Sues. 2015. A Middle Triassic stem-turtle and the evolution of the turtle body plan. Nature 523 (7562): 584 - 587. 

Shang, Q.-H., and C. Li. 2009. On the occurrence of the ichthyosaur Shastasaurus in the Guanling biota (Late Triassic), Guizhou, China. Vertebrata PalAsiatica 47(3):178-193. 

Vermeij, G. J., R. Motani. 2017. Land to sea transitions in vertebrates: the dynamics of colonization. Paleobiology 44 (2): 237 - 250. 

Wang, X., G. H. Bachmann, H. Hagdorn, P. M. Sanders, G. Cuny, X. Chen, C. Wang, L. Chen, L. Cheng, F. Meng, and G. Xu. 2008. The Late Triassic black shales of the Guanling area, Guizhou province, south-west China: a unique marine reptile and pelagic crinoid fossil lagerstätte. Palaeontology 51(1):27-61. 

Wang, X., X. Chen, C. Wang, L. Cheng. 2009. The Triassic Guanling Fossil Group - A Key GeoPark from a barren mountain, Guizhou Province, China. Notebooks on Geology 3: Chapter 2: 11 - 28. 

[for-dramas-sake]

The Devil Punisher ep 1

The Taiwanese supernatural drama is out on Netflix! One episode per week.

I made a previous post on how excited I was about Taiwan venturing more into paranormal/supernatural stories. So does the show deliver?

The short review:

Yes and no. The show delivers on the paranormal but lacks in the story. As there is only 1 episode out right now I can’t judge the entire show on just the first hour. BUT I will say that if you like Goblin and Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms you might like this story.

Positives: I am SO interested in the background of the supernatural characters and the cogs of how the Underworld works. (I already have a ton of questions.) I like Mike He’s mysterious character and his quest to capture over 50 demons as well as get his love back. 

Negatives: The story is pushed and pulled in such a state that it feel discombobulated. Some scenes are dragged out while others are too rushed/ sped through. The first half of the show feels incomplete because there is so much that should have been explained or at the very least drawn out a bit more. As a result: There are so many plot holes! Hopefully the episodes will even out in the future. 

The long review:

The main character Zhong Kui is Heaven’s Great Exorcist/ Ghost King who protects the human realm from vengeful spirits. He is based on an a mythological character that I know nothing about!!  He has powers (he can flip a table! haha), can teleport in the human realm and has 2 power spirit assistants. 

I think the show did something right with these three punks. The blue-haired chick is Xiao Qi, a sword spirit that transforms into Zhong Kui’s weapon. Very similar to Soul Eater! The older man is Ah Fu, who I think is a type of informant spirit. He does have some abilities though.

The love story: 

Super vague but we do know that Zhong Kui has feelings for Lady Meng apparently for a long time. He tried to rescue her when she as kidnapped in the Underworld, but he was unable to keep hold of her. The name he shouts is, I think, her first name, not the one she has in the Underworld.

He then travels to the Human Realm against orders to find her which he does...like really fast.

The Underworld Organization:

Lady Meng (Ivy’s Shao’s character) is similar to Lee Gong Wok’s character Goblin: she makes tea that helps the dead forget their previous life. But she is sick of her job and has repeatedly asked for reassignment, but has been denied every time.

The Underworld seems like a business with everyone assigned a job, duties, and paperwork. It, again, reminds me of Goblin, and I would love to know more but sadly we only see a few minutes of it.

The Spooky Stuff:

The show is marketed as a spooky drama. So far not a lot of spookiness or ghosts being scary.  They are a comedic sideshow for now. I do like the ghosts’ interaction with our FL. She’s like their afterlife therapist. 

There was a cliffhanger at the end of the episode of a ghost being spooky on a motorcycle!

The Human Realm:

It’s your typical Taiwanese setting: streets, coffee shops, abandoned buildings, and university. I didn’t pay too much attention to the side characters here because this is the first ep. We’ll be seeing a lot of the best friend, the old lady who owns a bakery, and the professor who also owns a bakery. 

Overall:

So far we are getting a little taste of everything (plot, love story, spooky stuff, fighting), but I really hope it doesn’t drag out. Cross fingers!

[aworldforastage]

刀斩山河 by 不落不落

不管他是教书先生还是高贵的龙脉，于伏城都没有区别，他只想看看他，告诉他，白鹿城的晚霞，很美。 Whether he is a schoolteacher or noble imperial blood makes no difference to Fu Cheng. He just wants to see him, and tell him the twilight in Bailu City is a beautiful sight.

Synopsis

Liuying Alley, tucked into a dark corner of a small town near the northern borders, is home to many sabre masters of dubious origins. They will accept any hard and dirty job for the right price, except for Fu Cheng, who refuses to kill despite being a formidable fighter .

After a rescue job goes wrong, Fu Cheng's client and a friend go missing, and Fu Cheng is stuck looking after his rescue target, Zhou Xuanyi, a beautiful young man with serious injuries, an insufferable personality, a mouth-watering bounty on his head, and an inconvenient bout of amnesia that renders him incapable of offering any explanations or solutions to this mess.

Zhou Xuanyi offers to help Fu Cheng find his friend and promises a sizable reward for Fu Cheng's continued protection. He settles into life in Liuying Alley with Fu Cheng and his ward, teenage girl Jin Ling. Their investigation into Fu Cheng's missing friend quickly connects their plight in the far north to conspiracies that can rock the very foundation of the Zhou dynasty. And as protecting Zhou Xuanyi forces Fu Cheng into increasingly dangerous scenarios, Fu Cheng is forced to reflect on the demons in his past that has robbed him of a life-saving skill -- the ability to kill in battle.

The Main Characters

Fu Cheng is a versatile and efficient fighter, a "traitor" expelled by a famous sect. However, he literally cannot strike a killing blow due to psychological trauma from his childhood in a destructive cult. Despite his morally-dubious profession and dark past, Fu Cheng is a kind idealist who always wants to help people and give them another chance. He falls in love with Zhou Xuanyi, and even though their social positions mean they have no future together, he wants to make the most of the time he can have with the young man who has given him a new purpose in life.

Zhou Xuanyi is the mysterious young man whom Fu Cheng is hired to rescue from a kidnapping, whose real identity is possibly the Crown Prince Zhou Heng. Zhou Xuanyi is daring and smart, always thinking a few steps ahead, and makes the most of every tool and resource at his disposal. He manages to survive the threats to his life in Bailu City without his memories, but the real challenge is waiting for him in the capital. After falling in love, he is determined to hold onto Fu Cheng for as long as he can, though later he feels guilty for bringing Fu Cheng into the quagmire of imperial politics.

Both are in their early twenties.

The Relationship Arc

This story has my favorite type of sour-sweet relationship arc. Two people get to know each other and admiration develops gradually. The main couple gets together about halfway into the novel, so it has a fair amount of fluff from an established relationship. They love and trust each other so fiercely in the present moment, but they also believe they don't have a future together given their political reality.

Their future (or the lack thereof) and their class differences cause genuine complications to the relationship that never get hand-waved away. Fu Cheng believes people like him won't find a happy ending, especially not with someone noble and royal like Zhou Xuanyi; every moment in the relationship is clouded by his belief that it won't last. Zhou Xuanyi himself also expects to one day marry a woman and produce heirs as his position requires; he can't bear to let Fu Cheng go but feels guilty about keeping him in this limbo state. Their circumstances make them angry and a little resentful, even though they still love each. Until it happens at the very end, even they don't believe they can have a happy ending together.

This is also one of the few truly verse/switch couples I have seen in danmei. They both show traditional gong tropes. Fu Cheng is physically stronger, very protective, and Zhou Xuanyi eventually becomes the top priority in his life. Zhou Xuanyi confesses his feelings first, and have more control over the status and progress of their relationship. They are not shy about sex, and they don't bring any gender and power dynamic into who tops. They start with some kind of turn-taking, but it's generally decided based on their needs and vibes at that moment.

Zhou Xuanyi has no other partners after starting a relationship with Fu Cheng, but he has been attracted to men before, and his male ex-something plays a major role in this story. He also has two concubines in his estate, but he hasn't been intimate with them for years, and they are just bored stuck at home and end up striking up very fun friendships with Fu Cheng.

The Plot

To put it briefly: action-packed and fun, but don't think too hard about it.

This novel is a fusion of wuxia and political intrigue. Most of the conflicts in this story are rooted in political motives, but they are often resolved by wuxia-style showdowns. Fu Cheng's personal arc deeply linked to his past in the martial sects, while Zhou Xuanyi's is all about the court politics.

Personally, I find the plot more engaging in the first part of the story, when it's set up like a mystery trying to figure out Zhou Xuanyi's kidnapping and backstory. The second part of the novel is mostly set in the capital, but instead of elaborate politicking, the story relies on creating incredibly threatening villains to raise the tension.

This novel also stands out for putting its main characters are under more intense pressure/threats than I typically see in works of this genre. Fu Cheng is a strong fighter, but his effectiveness in battle is seriously reduced by his inability to kill. Zhou Xuanyi is smart and have a very important title, but I have never seen a main character in a worse position than Zhou Heng in terms of manpower, resources, and political capital. As smart as they are, it feels like an uphill battle just to survive, let alone strike back against their enemies.

Supporting Characters

The side characters are surprisingly fleshed out in this story. Through their actions and choices, they all have different answers to the question "what is the most important thing to you." Some have surrendered their identity and pride to protect the people they love. Some have given up their personal interests to fight for the greater good. And some choose to trample over lives of innocent people for their own personal ambitions, or break the hearts and trust of people they love out of selfish resentment.

Compared to the "friendly" supporting characters, the villains are more cartoon-ish. This story relies on villains being incredibly powerful and threatening to create tension, which limits the space for nuance and complexity. But it is an effective strategy that keeps the story engaging enough.

Other Thoughts [spoilers ahead]

This is one of those rare stories in which the protagonist ends the story in a much worse mental state than what he starts with -- which is fair, given what Fu Cheng goes through, but still an atypical course of character development. He conquers his inability to kill, but is worse off in every other way. In the final chapter, Fu Cheng is technically living out his dream retirement of running a restaurant, but he seems to be doing it to make a point, not because he is enjoying it. He is not nearly as open or friendly as his initial appearance. This vague ideal of Zhou Heng, being a healthy and wise ruler far away in the capital, is the only good thing in the world that gives him purpose to keep living.

It feels strange to see Zhou Heng, set up as a great emperor, leaving his position to be with Fu Cheng (even though he does a lot of good work in his decade of reign and prepares his successor). They are certainly not the first danmei couple to take this route, but it feels a bit off here. Due to Fu Cheng's state near the end, it feels less like them starting a new chapter/retirement that they both look forward to, and more like Zhou Heng choosing a vulnerable Fu Cheng over his responsibilities. However, from Zhou Heng's POV, the worst of Fu Cheng's trauma comes from the sacrifices he has made to help secure Zhou Heng's peaceful reign. Returning to Fu Cheng is him taking care of someone who has given so much to him and the nation, as much as it is about him reuniting with his lover.

Ultimately, the protagonist loses against the challenges set before him in the story. And as sad as it is, it is sort of comforting to see a character who loses, fails, and despairs, but remains sympathetic. Fu Cheng returns to the battlefield to help Zhou Heng in the final arc, but he is so broken compared to who he was before. Zhou Heng isn't judgemental or disappointed that Fu Cheng hasn't healed; he aches for him and only wants to ease his pain. Healing is difficult, and it takes time and energy and support that are in very short supply for broken people. And even though Fu Cheng's recovery is slow, imperfect, and incomplete, he is still capable and deserving of love.

[my-otp-list]

Just finished daomu biji

Hey! I stumbled across your blog maybe 3 months ago, looking for danmei after I read my first ever chinese work (tian gong ci fu/heavens official blessing) and being absolutely blown away. I saw your header and the phrase "瓶邪王道“ made me curious so I googled to see what it meant and boy, did I end up in a rabbit hole.

I feel quite empty inside after finishing the whole series, honestly I signed up for some danmei action but instead I got a quality mystery plot, loads of humour, and a portrayal of what might be one of the best fictional friendships I have ever read between the 铁三角。As soon as I finished the series I knew I had to leave a note to you, because without your tumblr header I would have never thought to give DMBJ a chance. Thank you for introducing me to such a whirlwind of an adventure, and i know it is a series I'll be revisiting again many times in the future.

That being said,

瓶邪王道 <3

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My-otp-list’s response:

SERIOUSLY you have no idea how this post of yours has made my day. I mean, people start reading stuff after seeing my recommendation, yes, that do happen. But you start reading 500+ chapters of DMBJ (and finish it in 3 months!!!) because of an ambiguous ‘phrase’ in my intro is just epic.

I thank you so much for reaching out and leaving such a lovely note. I hope you continue to dive further into this wolrd of Daomu by reading the sequels, the prequels, the extras and everything else. After all, #青山不改绿水长流, our Iron Triangle’s journey will always go on.

And definitely, absolutely, certainly, 瓶邪是王道 😉