#which emma solved by reading the whole-ass webnovel

[lambergeier]

ok. ok. tell me what mzds is.

SDKJHFLSK I FORGOT YOU SENT THIS TO ME UNTIL I SAW YOUR TAGS ON THE MUGS POST. i’m here for you now.

mo dao zu shi is a ~650,000 word chinese BL webnovel about the importance of running away from abusive systems and also being in love. it’s been adapted into a manga series, an ongoing donghua (they’re two seasons in), and a live action TV series, which got put on netflix with subtitles late last year at which point all of western fandom lost their minds. i so heavily recommend the live action series. it’s 50 50-minute long episodes and will consume your life.

quick plot summary: there are five major clans of magic cultivators in ancient fantasy china. the jiangs (our hero’s family, lots of purple and discussions of lotus farming), the lans (our love interest’s family, live on top of a mountain, have lots of rules, all wear the funny forehead ribbons), the jins (rich, mean), the nie (they all wield buster swords and have anger issues, with a notable exception), and the wens (the fire nation). our guy wei wuxian is the adopted ward of the jiang family, raised as a sibling to jiang cheng, the clan’s heir, my absolute favorite, and jc’s older sister, jiang yanli, who is criminally underwritten you’ll be shocked to learn. the three siblings spend a summer with the lan clan learning about “obeying rules” and “what happens when you don’t obey rules,” where wei wuxian meets his future husband and second heir to the lan clan, lan wanji. wwx, at the time, thinks he is having fun bothering the handsome stuck-up nerd who keeps glaring at him. only years later will he realize that lwj understood wwx’s bothering to mean they were now soulbonded, and also lwj was right. they are deeply, immeasurably in love!

the actual plot of the story involves wei wuxian and his siblings being mauled and watching others be mauled by the fucked-up cultivator society, wwx’s attempts to escape this society, and wwx and everyone he loves being further mauled! and then he kills himself. and then sixteen (or thirteen?) years later he comes back to life! episodes 3-33 of the show detail his first life, while episodes 1, 2, and 34-50 are set in the present day as wwx, now revived, and lwj try to root out the mastermind behind much of their society’s ills. important note: episodes 1 and 2 are literally incomprehensible the first time you watch them. you will not have a single goddamn idea what is going on. i can only ask that you stick it out. for love.

another note: the webnovel is obviously canon gay. wwx and lwj make out lots. the show, what with party censorhip, cannot include any canon gay stuff, and so made up for this by including the most potent and powerful yearning any two men have ever accomplished on screen. like, significantly more than exists in the actual webnovel. the romance is tender and real. am i still out here on twitter arguing that jc+wwx is the central romance of the show? yes, and i’m right to do so. but to be clear, wwx and lwj invented love.

anyways, you should watch the untamed.

edit: oh i forgot to add the wwx invents necromancy. that’s like, a major part of the plot. he invents flute-based necromancy and makes heinous magical mistakes for like his entire adult life. i love him so much.