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lgbtlunaverse · 3 months

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What kind of saber is baxia anyway?

I love my bloodthirsty princess of a cursed blade, and in my heart of hearts i am nothing but a sword nerd, so i've been extremely fascinated by Baxia and how we know frustratingly little about what she actually looks like!

I mean, look at bichen, right?

Bichen in the donghua:

Bichen in the drama:

They're clearly not exactly the same. The scabbards are different, and the guards have a different shape. But these are recognizably different iterations on one theme, right? Thin jian with a white grip silver guard, light blue tassel and silver mounting accents on the scabbard.

Now this is baxia in the donghua:

And baxia in the drama:

????????

THAT'S A COMPLTELY DIFFERENT WEAPON

it doesn't stop there either, the audio drama is kind enough to give us ANOTHER COMPLETELY DIFFERENT BAXIA

pretty! But how is that he same sword??

And when we go back to the novel, we get very little information on her appearance other than the fact that her blade is tinted red with all the blood she's absorbed. Which none of these designs incorporate.

This is not a dig on the designs itself, they're all quite gorgeous in their own right and i'm going to spend a while discussing all of them! Because isn't it fascinating how, since we know little about novel baxia beyond "saber" all of these designs ended up so different? What kinds of sabers are these, anyway?

So, a chinese aber, aka a "dao" (刀) just means a sword that has only one cutting side. As opposed to a jian, which has two.

You can see how that leaves a LOT of room for variaton.

I've actually seen some people get confused because Huaisang's saber in the untsmed is thin and quite straight, making it superficially resemble the jian more than drama!baxia, but it is still clearly a saber!

See? only one cutting blade!

This, to me looks a lot like a tang dynasty hengdao

credit to this blog for providing his image and being a great source for all this going forward.

TANGENT: during all this I found out the english wikipedia page for dao is WRONG! Ths is what they about the tang hengdao!

So that sounds like the hengdao was called that during the sui dynasty, but then, after that, started being called a peidao, right?

WRONG

I LOOKED AT THE SOURCE THEY USED AND IT SAYS THIS:

IT WAS CALLED THE PEIDOU UNTIL THE SUI DYNASTY, AT WHICH POINT IT WAS CALLED A HENGDAO. Which would carry over to the Tang dynasty. This was the source wikipedia linked! and it says something else than they say it does!

Anyone know how to edit a wikipedia article?

ANYWAY

BACK TO BAXIA

Since we're already at the drama, let's look at drama baxia: She's also straight! the general term for straight-backed saber is Zhibeidao, but that's a modern collector's term, and doesn't really say anything about which historical kind of saber baxia could be based on. Another meta i found on the drama nie sabers already went on some detail here.

I'm gonna expand on that a little: The kinds of historical straight-backed sabers we see resemble the hengdao a lot more than they do baxia. They don't go to their point as harsly as she does (she's basically a cleaver!) and they're all way skinnier.

No, my personal theory is that instead of being based on any kind of historical sword, drama!baxia is based on a Nandao.

I mean, come on, look at it!

Baxia!

The Nandao... isn't actually a historical sword. It was invented for Wushu forms. There's a really fascinating article about its conception, but that's why the swords in the images look a little thin and flimsy. Wushu swords are very flexible and light, they're dance props, not weapons to fight with. There are actual steel versions of Nandao, but they're recreations of the prop, not the other way around.

So That's one way in which Baxia differes from the Nandao: she's actually a real weapon. The other is that, as you can see above, the nandao has an S-shaped guard. Baxia doesn't. She's also much more elaborately decorated, of course. Because she's a princess.

Now: audio drama baxia!

This is much easier. with that flare at the tip?

Oh baby that's a niuweidao, all the way!

There are more sabers with that kind of curved handle, but the broad tip is really charcteristic of the niuweidao. The Niuweidao is also incredibly poplar in modern media, often portrayed as a historical sword, but it originated i nthe 19th century! And it was actually never used by the military!

That's right, the Niuweidao was pretty much exclusively a civilian weapon! That makes its use here anachronistic, but so is the nandao, and considering that the origin story of the Nie is that they use Dao intead of Jian because their ancestors were butchers, portraying them with a weapon historically reserved for rebels and common people instead of the imperial military is actually very on theme!

Finally, Donghua/Manhua baxia. These two designs are so similar I'm going to treat them as one and the same for now.

Unlike both previous baxias, The long handle makes it clear this baxia is a two-handed weapon, though Nie Mingjue is absolutely strong enough to wield her with one hand anyway. Normal rules don't count for cultivators.

Now, this is where things get tricky, because there are a lot of words for long two-handed sabers. And a lot of them are interchangable! This youtube video about the zhanmadao, one of the possible sabers this baxia could be based on, goes a little into just how confusing this can get. This kind of blade WAS actually in military use for many centuries, making it the most historically accurate of all the baxias. But because of that it also has several names and all of those names can also refer to different kinds of blades depending on what century we're in.

So here's our options: i'm going to dismiss the wodao and miandao, because these were explicitly based on japanese sword design, and as we can see manhua baxia has that very broad tip, so that won't work

(Example of a wodao. According to my sources Miaodao is really just the modern common term for the wodao, and the changdao, and certain kinds of zhanmadao... do you see how quickly this gets confusing?)

Next option: Zhanmadao.

Zhanmadao stands for "horse chopping saber" so... yeah they were anti-cavalry weapons. meant to be able to cut the legs and/or necks of horses. That definitely sounds like a weapon Nie Mingjue would wield. But if you watched that youtube video i linked above, you'll know the standardized Qing dinasty Zhanmadao looked very different from earlier versions. It was inspired by the japanese odachi, and more resembles the miandao than its ealrier heftier counteprarts.

Earlier Ming dynasty Zhanmadao on the other hand were... basically polearms. the great ming military blog spot, another wonderful source, says these are essentially a kind of podao/pudao (朴刀) which looked like this

Now that blade looks a lot like baxia, but the handle is honestly too long. Donghua!baxia straddles the line between sword an polearm a little, but while zhanmadao have been used to refer to both long-handled swords and polerarms, this was undeniably a polearm, not a sword.

If you want to know what researching this was like, I found a picture of this blade on pinterest-- labeled as a "two-handed scimitar"-- and the comment section was filled with people arguing about whether this was a Pudao, Wudao, Zhanmadao, Dadao, Guandao, or a japanese Nagita.

So... that's how it was going. This has kept me up until 2 AM multiple times.

However! Thanks to this article on the great ming military blog I found out there have historically been pudao blades with shorter handles!

Specifically, Ming dynasty military writer Cheng Ziyi created a modified version of the pudao to work with the Dan Fao Fa Xuan technixues-- aka technqiues for a two-handed saber, which would alter heavily influence Miaodao swordmanship-- thereby, as the article points out, essentially merging the cleaver-polearm type Zhanmadao with the later two-handed japanese-inspired design.

This is the illustration for the Wu Bei Yao Lue (武備要略) a Ming dynasty military manual

This blade shape in the illustration doesn't match Baxia exactly, but since it's a lengthened Pudao-like blade and we've seen above that those can match Donghua Baxia's shape, i'm gonna say that calling Baxia a Zhanmadao with a two-handed grip isn't all that innacurate!

However, because all of these terms are so intertwined, there are a dozen other things you could call her that would be about equally correct.

To show that, here's a lightning round of other potential Baxia candidates:

Dadao (大刀)

Which are generally one-handed and too short. However!

Another youtube video i found of someone training with a Zhanmadao that resembles baxia a little also calls it a "shuangshoudai dao" (雙手带刀) shuangshou means two-handed, and while 雙手带 seems to refer to a longer handled weapon, when looking for a shuangshou dao or shuangshou dadao (双手大刀) we find a lot more baxia-resembling blades like here and here

I also found that, while the cleaver-like Dadao is strictly a product of the 20th centuy, since dadao just means big sword or big knife, it has been used to refer to loads of different weapons! Some people could've called the zhanmadao and pudao "dadao" during the Ming dynasty as well.

Another potential baxia candidate that mandarin mansion classifies as similar to the later dadao (though longer, as seen in the illustration below) is the "Kuanren Piandao"

Which piqued my interest because this diagram classifying different tpye of Dao:

Claims that a Kuanrenbiandao (diferent spelling, same sword) is the same as a modern day Zhanmadao.

(So once again, all of these terms are interchangable)

Another opton Is the Chuanmeidao/Chuanweidao (船尾刀) below you can see a diagram, based on the Qing dynasty green standard army regulation, of blades all officially classified as types of "pudao"

The top middle is the Kuanren Piandao, and bottom left is the Chuanweidao.

Both of these have a lot of baxia-like qualities.

So there you go! live action baxia is based on a Nandao, audio drama baxia is based on a Niuweidao, and Manhua/donghua baxia is some kind of two-handed Zhanmadao/Pudao/Dadao depending on how you want to look at it.

I'm honestly surprised no one has made the creative decision to portray Baxia as a Jiuhuandao, aka 9 ringed broadsword yet.

I mean look at it! Incredibly imposing. Would make for a great Baxia imo. (@ upcoming mdzs manga and mobile game: take notes!)

#mdzs #mdzs meta #nie mingjue #baxia #cql #the untamed #long post #I HAVE SO MANY TABS OPEN. FEEL MY SUFFERING #I understand that asking a gigantic region with thousands of years of rich history and many different subcultures #to have one standard naming convention is basically impossible #But could they do it anyway? for me? 🥺#i also want to buy one of these... so bad #or even just a plastic trainer so i can practice the techniques #but i know that once i start buying swords i'm not gonna stop until my money runs out #Being a sword nerd is a very dangerous not phyisically but for your wallet

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yuwuta · 26 days

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Nsfw // Remember the itfs talk?? Cause I was thinking, I was thinking so hard about what to answer cause like yesss!!!

I want to focus on the latter tags cause.... Wow thats what I'm talking about!! Whenever I read itafushi I like top yuuji and bottom (and more often than not sub) megumi. So it makes so much sense that you'd want to take revenge for that cause he liked you but chose to ask yuuji out before asking you?? Or, yuuji knew megs liked you and still choose to ask him out?? So, in the first scenario it would be more than fair to dom him! Maybe you were all just talking about how you all ended up together and yuuji just lets that slip. maybe you're feeling like being a bit (or maybe a lot) mean to megumi, get him on his knees, sucking, deepthroating really, yuuji with you controlling his movements absolutely forcing him to take all of yuus length down his throat and gag like crazy with an obscene amount of spit oozing out of the corner of his lips. It was definitely personal too, they way you were treating megumi. Yuuji is not innocent in all of this ofc, but I'll let that slide for the sake of the moment. To continue punishing megs you would have your way with yuuji while he just sits there and... watch. It would end with yuuji giving you a huge creampie, it was such a lewd sight too, his dick was already shining cause of megumis spit, and even more after he entered you cause you were soaked. So there you are, full of your bfs cum seeping out and you ask megumi to clean you, cause that wouldn't be the first nor last time that he'd taste yuuji. Your revenge on yuuji is definitely happening another day too

gnaws on a steel plate… godddddddd okokokok yuuji has such an effortless dominate aura about him that’s a little scary once he hones in on it. most of the time, it’s purely his outgoing, charming nature and physical strength that lures other people into submission by will or force, whichever comes first, and he’s sort of naive to it. but when he chooses to exercise that strength, when he chooses to be stronger than you, than megumi, when he chooses to seduce, it’s mind-numbing, it’s boyish, but there’s still a distinct power struggle that it’s dizzying… insane…

anyway… you said two very important things in here and i only have the space (brainpower) to bring attention to one right now, and i will below, but just know we need to come back to the point about letting yuuji creampie you while megumi’s there bc i am firm believer that that’s actually one of megumi’s biggest fantasies. in general, seeing you and yuuji together does very bad things for his brain but not bad enough for him to deny that… also megumi king of safe sex until it comes to watching yuuji cum inside of you goddddd

yuuji is the one who instigates your revenge in the first place (and he will also do the opposite, will convince megumi that he deserves to take some frustration out on you, that you were sooo oblivious while he pined for you for all those years, how you weren’t very observant as his best friend and now he’s got the chance to show you exactly how badly he’s wanted you… but that’s for another time…)—but right now, yuuji’s getting into your head, he’s deceptively charming, not at all innocent, and far too calculated when he stops making out with megumi and turns to you, not too far away, sitting up against the headboard with wide eyes. yuuji thinks you look awfully cute—you always do when you three are together, you have this wide-eyed awe about you; not shy, but definitely still timid about the fact that you’re now dating your childhood best friend and his boyfriend. yuuji loves that look, but he thinks he’d like to ruin it more.

and he takes the opportunity to do so, much to megumi’s surprised and distaste—ignoring megumi’s pawing at the hem of his shirt, impatient, yuuji looks over his shoulder to you and poses, “can i ask you something?”

your eyebrows raise in surprise. megumi’s raise in suspicion, petulantly coming down from the high of making out with yuuji, and craning his head back to look at you. your eyes shift to his briefly, and then back to yuuji’s, almost embarrassed, and when he looks at megumi, there’s a slight blush at the tips of his ears. cute. you two are very cute, and yuuji likes it a lot. it confirms to him exactly what he wants to happen tonight.

“you remember how i told you about yuuta-senpai? and how he’s my best friend, but when he started dating inumaki-senpai, i kinda hated him because they spent so much time together?” yuuji recounts casually, biting back a grin when megumi huffs. you nod, evidently confused, but yuuji continues, slowly reaching a hand up megumi’s arm, over his shoulder, up his jaw, until he reaches the shell of his ear, then asks, “did you ever feel that way about me?”

he can see the shock on your face, hear it from megumi when he gasps a bit and pulls away from yuuji’s touch, “what kind of a—”

but yuuji doesn’t want to hear his side of the story right now. in fact, if all goes his way, he won’t be hearing much of anything from megumi tonight—he reaches his hand back up to pinch at megumi’s ear, and hushes him, “i’m just asking her, meg. she’s my girlfriend now, too. don’t i get to know these things?”

your mouth is slightly ajar, and yuuji chuckles. you’re so quiet, he’s beginning to think he’s scared you, but soon, you smile, sweet, and gentle, and he can’t even blame megumi for fawning over you since middle school. “i—i didn’t hate you yuuji,” you reply, “i thought—think—you’re good for megumi. i just wanted him to be happy, and you make him happy.”

yuuji hums. no wonder you two never got together before. “so you’re the self-sacrificing type, too, huh?” he smiles, far less innocently than you might think, “maybe i should have gotten you and yuuta-senpai together, instead.”

you look like you’re about to refute, but megumi pulls back again, throughly annoyed when he interjects, “what the hell are you—”

but yuuji is quick to move his hand from his ear to his throat, pinching his fingers around his neck with just enough pressure to stutter and silence him.

“i’m still not talking to you,” he reminds megumi, eyes sharp. he squeezes around megumi’s neck a bit tighter, before turning his attention back to you, “was he always like this? always biting before you can bark? must have been kind of annoying to deal with, huh?”

your eyes widen, bambi-like and yuuji almost coos. from where you’re sitting against the headboard, you can’t see megumi’s face completely, just a sliver of his cheek, but you can probably tell by the reddening skin around his neck and ears that yuuji’s not just choking him for show.

“i—uh… it’s not like that, it’s just… yuuji you’re gonna hurt him…”

but, you should also be able to tell that megumi’s not fighting it either.

“you’re always so worried about him,” yuuji pushes megumi back against the pillows, paying no mind to his panting, simply ordering, “stay down.”

yuuji then reaches out for you instead, gently pulling your body towards in him stark contrast to how he’d treated megumi a moment ago—twirling you as best he can while you’re kneeling on the mattress, maneuvering your body so that you’re straddling megumi and yuuji’s back is pressed against yours.

yuuji hears you gasp, ever so lightly, when you inadvertently press your crotch against megumi’s. he almost wants to watch you two do that instead, but right now he’s a man on a mission, so instead, he puts his hands on his hips to keep you still, “see—he can take it. he even likes it.”

you raise a hand to reach out to megumi, but yuuji stops you, forcing your back flush against his front, and caging you in with his arms and resting his chin against your shoulder. he turns his head to kiss you on the cheek, slow, once, and then again, and then against your earlobe, “you wanna try?”

“try—what, choking him?” you ask, trying to turn your head to face yuuji, but he keeps it steady, keeps you facing megumi.

“it’s not like you’re gonna hurt him,” yuuji hums against your skin, trails open-mouthed kisses along your neck. “it’ll feel good, i promise.”

“well, uh... megumi, do you—”

but yuuji raises a hand to squish your cheeks together before you can finish, turns your head to him and tuts, “i’m telling you it’s okay. megumi didn’t ask you before he asked me out, right? you don’t need his permission for everything, princess.”

yuuji’s not just leveraging your feelings against each other now—now it’s sexual knowledge too, all the fantasies megumi has indulged him in about you, all the kinks he has that you’re clueless to. yuuji knows that despite the history you and megumi have, he’s the bridge between you now—and right now, yuuji wants you on his side.

“must bother you a little bit, right?” yuuji coos, releasing his grasp on your cheeks and using his hand to tilt your chin upwards to face him, “that he asked me out when he still had a crush on you. it still bothers me sometimes—and yet he had the nerve to get upset when i asked you about it. kinda selfish, no?”

“i’m just saying, i think you should teach him a lesson,” yuuji continues, using his other hand to help your body rock against megumi’s, drinking in the sight of your pliant lips and the sound of his strained sighs.

megumi’s probably not far from cumming in his boxers at this point, and you’re not far from helping yuuji make him do worse.

“come on, princess,” yuuji smiles, pressing a kiss to your cheek before looking at megumi, “you gonna help me put a leash on him?”

it’s an invitation and a threat, this you seem to understand. you can say yes to yuuji, say yes to having megumi between you two tonight, say yes and have a little bit of power; or you can say no, and be on the receiving end of punishment.

yuuji almost thinks you’ll choose the latter out of loyalty, out of devotion to your best friend, out of shyness and inexperience in taking what you want, but you’re not just megumi’s anymore—your his girl now, too, and you make it known when your soft hand crawls up megumi chest and to his neck, and hesitantly wraps around his throat.

tonight, megumi’s yours and yuuji’s.

“good girl,” yuuji grins, wicked with intent when he presses a kiss to the back of your neck, “now lets have some fun with him.”

#.........immense intense brain rot i didn't even put into words right how yuuji has so much inadvertent power and [blacks out]#GODDDDDDD #tumblr user yuwuta ever stop using dog analogies when writing about megumi level impossible #HNNNNNNN i need to BITE him #yuuji is so effortless seductive it's crazy it's crazy it's CRAZYYYY #the twist of using your and megumi's feelings for each other to get you three together #to then using it to tear you two apart for his own devices............. yuuji itadori when i catch you.............#this reminds me i have more itfs asks to answer i just need to relax and be coherent....#itafushi #itafushi x reader #yuuji x reader #megumi x reader #yuuji smut #megumi smut #itafushi smut #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jjk smut #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen fluff #jujutsu kaisen smut

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