#tortoise of slaughter

[salternateunreality2]

MDZS aka SephZack adventures update: episodes 14-23 SHUT UP I'M AN ADULT I CAN WATCH 9 EPISODES IN A ROW IF MY BABIES ARE IN DANGER

Cough

Anyway

Spoilers...

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Zack: let's fight the tortoise of slaughter!!!!

Sephiroth: *stares in besotted wtf*

Zack: no, it'll be super cool, we can kill it and get the glory and solve the mystery and most importantly, I won't be bored waiting for Genesis to get back!

Sephiroth: *stares in besotted 'bruh, my leg is broke, you ribs is broke, we both got open wounds, we're starving to death, and you want to fight a giant tortoise'*

Zack: no really, I checked and we can't get out, so I'mma be super bored. Come onnnnnn, it'll be fun! 🐶🐶🐶🐶🐶🐶♥️🐶🐶🐶🐶🐶🐶🐶🐶🐶

Sephiroth: ...this is going to be our entire relationship, isn't it? Ok.

Zack: YESSSSSS, after we make some weapons, I'll jump into its shell because apparently that's a thing I can do!

Sephiroth: ...ok

---------------

The fight with the dick head (literally) Tortoise of Slaughter (solid naming decision) goes great, but Zack succumbs to the infection he undoubtedly got from SWIMMING WITH AN OPEN WOUND AND PROBABLY BROKEN RIBS, THEN RUNNING AROUND THE FESTERING INNARDS OF A TORTOISE OF SLAUGHTER.

Sure, the evil sword energy probably didn't help, and I'm sure canon is saying "um, actually" as we speak, but come on, Zack. The magic grass you packed into your boo's leg wound next to the weirdly short, unsanitary sticks was limited.

---------

The whole fight, Zack is battling with the evil sword miasma, and Sephiroth is making this face:

It's very cute, I am HERE for it.

--------

Zack: 😵

Sephiroth: 😦😦😦😦 you have a fever!!!

Salty: gee I wonder why

Zack: mmm sing me a song

Salty: how about medical treatment, such as getting you out of the wet clothes, sharing spiritual energy, prying your hands off the evil sword that made you sick...

Sephiroth: ok *sings in simp*

Zack: 🥴😵‍💫 what's that song called?

Sephiroth: Wangxian, our ship name, but I don't say it out loud so the Chinese censors are happy ❤️

Zack: ❤️😵‍💫🥴🐶❤️😵

Salty: ffs, if cuteness could cure stupidity, we wouldn't be in this situation, but as it is, keep trying to fix his stupidity/fever with adorableness, it's working for my shipping heart.

---------

The next [way too many] episodes:

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Then Wen Ning aka Cloud comes in clutch! Wen Ning is baby, and he is BEST BABY EVER ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️🐥

-------

Some quick plot points:

Genesis gets degradation, Zack gets him out of it.

Gen's girlfriend helps because she's nice (?) like that.

Gen's parents die.

A war happens with zombie degradation clones.

Zack gets yeeted by the villains into a den of unmitigated horror (not Hojo's labs, but just as nasty).

Everything sucks.

I sat on the toilet to cry into my shirt, not knowing why. It was because I watched the sad thing in my room and the toilet was the only place where the sad wasn't happening. Also it took me a full several hours to realize watching a sad thing made me sad #neurodivergence #isfun #andquirky!

THEN THE BOYS GOT BACK TOGETHER FUCK YEAH!!!!!

---------

Sephiroth: you should probably not fuck around with this newfound angry spirit power...

Zack: remember my cute puppy face?

Sephiroth: fuck

Zack: 🐶

Sephiroth: 🥴

Genesis: STOP MAKING EYES AT EACH OTHER. FUCK OR GET TO WORK!

Angeal (btw he's alive): they are so fucking cute

Zack's sister: dude they so are ❤️

Genesis: we are at WAR

Angeal: I'm gonna be a bridesmaid

Zack's sister: GASP we should get matching outfits!

Genesis: 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

--------

Zack: *waits until the LAST minute to whip out his fancy angry spirit powers* Hey Idiot Poop Face, how bout that?!

Idiot Poop Face: 🤬 *chokes Zack* *it's not kinky*

Sephiroth; *is jealous anyway* *catches bb Zack as he passes out from using angry spirit powers and being choked* *my dude was like half a football field away* *then he appeared out of nowhere to catch his boo*

Salty: *clicks rewind several times because it's fucking adorable*

#ff7 #sephiroth #zack fair #genesis rhapsodos #cloud strife #angeal hewley #die hojo die #wei wuxian #lan wangji #mdzs #crack #tortoise of slaughter #im fine #im not fine

[yinyangbuns]

what are the chances that if wwx had thrown wen chao to the turtle instead of leaping off with him that wen zhuliu would attempt to save him, and they’d both get eaten??? is this too fanciful????? hmmmm

#mdzs #mo dao zu shi #mxtx #wei wuxian #wwx #danmei #mdzs fanfic #lyly chatters #the untamed #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #gdc #fanfic #tortoise of slaughter #core melting hand

[praesaepe]

i do wonder what might have changed if wen qing had "accidentally" gotten stuck in the cave with the others. would wrh have just killed wen ning/the dafan wens by merit of "no longer useful" or would he have just sent them into battle?

#on the assumption that wrh thinks wq is dead #wq ends up staying back in the cave with wwx and lwj simply because theyre both injured and she was helping them #but then misses her opportunity to swim out #she helps kill the tortoise of slaughter and cant go back to nightless city for uhh. reasons. #maybe she learns wn is no longer there and then wwx and hc drag her back to lotus pier #the attack on lotus pier happens but maybe wq is able to give a heads up on how wc would retaliate #so its not as devastating. maybe madam yu and jfm survive #wen ning is injured in the attack bcuz he refuses to fight and ends up getting left behind #ok i need to cut myself off #i have thoughts. obviously. #rk.txt

[lilnasxvevo]

NAILED IT NAILED IT NAILED IT NAILED IT NAILED IT

#it's so funny that he's been gone for so long that the show felt the need to toss his name up next to his face #i almost thought they were gonna do that for mianmian but she was around during the slaughter tortoise thing at LEAST #this guy has been off the grid for. what. 15+ episodes.

[dr-dendritic-trees]

Sunstone has appeared... so... if you need me I'll be sobbing softly into a pillow.

#emperor mage #tempests and slaughter #the tortoise scene is going to haunt me forever

[chronomally]

Everything about Shen Yuan is so funny to me I love him I'm obsessed with him his internal monologue is so iconic and relatable

#please feel free to ignore this #I'm reading SVSSS #I remember reading a Twitter post that was like if SY!SQQ and WWX switched places #SQQ would've left the cave of slaughter riding the tortoise and having named it Mr. Torty #Like SO true bestie #King of working smarter not harder and also king of accidentally making everyone fall in love with him

[howtofightwrite]

So happy you're back after all this time! I have a question, do you happen to know how people fought in ancient rome? Particularly gladiators and soldiers? Sorry if this isn't the blog for this question tho!

I think we've covered both of these questions independently over the years.

Gladiators were a performance sport. It was more about glorifying the Roman Empire and its victories, than a conventional fight. As a result, most Gladiators were armed with specific variant, “loadouts,” designed to cosplay as various enemies that The Empire had conquered, and they only fought against specific countering variants. Specifically, the variants would be matched in such a way that it would be difficult for either combatant to have a decisive advantage over the other, with an eye towards creating situations that would result in a lot of visible injuries, without serious harm to either participant.

In case it needs to be said, gladiators were a significant financial investment, and they weren't casually killed in the arena. The point was for visible injuries, and a bloody spectacle, not a slaughter. Sometimes someone would die, but having them die on the field wasn't the intention, and they generated a lot of money, and on the rare cases when they were killed, it was meant to be a climactic moment, not someone taking a blade to the gut and collapsing mid-fight.

Obviously, I'm barely scratching the surface here, because it gets a lot deeper, but the simple answer is that in the vast majority of cases, gladiators were armed with weapons that were designed to make seriously harming their foe difficult to impossible. Also, the gladiators were something that evolved and became more complicated over time. When they first started in the Republic, it was a much more stripped down structure with prisoners of war being given a sword and shield and forced to face off against one another.

As for the Roman Legions. I'm not sure I've ever seen a comprehensive description of their training techniques. The Testudo, (or Tortoise) is one of the more famous examples of their specific combat style. Legionaries would create a shield wall, and the soldiers behind the front line would raise their shields to cover the formation against attacks from above (usually arrow fire, or thrown spears.) While being able to strike with javelins. In practice, the formation had issues, including being vulnerable to siege fire, and mounted archers were able to easily flank the formation. It's a neat story, but the formation had serious limitations.

One thing we haven't talked about before (I think) was the Roman's use of biological warfare. During sieges, they would load (locally sourced, I assume) corpses onto catapults, and then launch them into the besieged city.

Beyond, the major thing about the Legions was the extremely disciplined and orderly combat formations, with a lot of attention paid to managing battlefield movement. It wasn't so much about exceptional individual performance, so much as their ability to operate as a unit. This isn't a particularly mind blowing concept today, but in an era when professional soldiers were the exception, or limited to the elite forces, it had slightly more impact.

Regarding the details of their training, I've never seen any of that come up. Now, granted, I've really tried to research that degree of Roman history. So, if you're asking, “how, exactly, did they swing the gladius?” I don't know, and I don't remember ever seeing anyone credibly claim they had that insight. As far as I know, the only surviving Roman training manual was De Re Militari, (there's around 200 surviving Latin copies) which is far more concerned with overall strategic planning and command. If you're trying to write Roman era military fiction, it's probably worth reading. So, I'm not sure this is exactly what you were looking for, but I do hope it helps.

-Starke

This blog is supported through Patreon. Patrons get access to new posts three days early, and direct access to us through Discord. If you’re already a Patron, thank you. If you’d like to support us, please consider becoming a Patron.

#writing reference #writing advice #writing tips #how to fight write #starke answers #roman empire #history

[rsephys]

little cave of the tortoise of slaughter wip…

#my art #art #fanart #the untamed #cql #wangxian #mdzs #artist #the untamed art #digital art #original art #xuanwu #wip #unfinished #digital painting #lan zhan #wei ying #wwx #lwj

[incarnadinedreams]

Spicy Probably Bad Take Unpopular Opinion Time:

While I think Jiang Cheng's reaction to the Jiang massacre and blaming Wei Wuxian was extreme and largely fueled by grief and trauma, I also think the fandom as a whole also goes too far in the other direction of calling it completely irrational and illogical. Acting as if there's no logical reason at all for Jiang Cheng to ever for one little nanosecond even consider that Wei Wuxian's behavior was a factor in their being targeted.

At the Tortoise of Slaughter cave, Wei Wuxian doesn't just defend Mianmian the same way Lan Wangji and Jin Zixuan were doing. He goes out of his way to verbally eviscerate Wen Chao in a particularly humiliating way, laughing at him the whole time, and followed that up by directly threatening his life and holding him hostage at sword-point.

It wasn't mere defiance. It wasn't merely defending people. It was funny, it was clever, it was brave and dashing and all of the things Wei Wuxian can be. It was an awesome moment - for the reader, anyway - that perfectly crystalizes all the flair and personality he had.

But there was no way someone like Wen Chao was ever, ever going to let that go.

It simply does not matter how right Wei Wuxian was. It doesn't matter how wrong Wen Chao was. The matter was never going to fade without serious retaliation. People with the sort of petty cruelty and pride of Wen Chao can tolerate nothing less than being laughed at.

Don't get me wrong, it was effective. It achieved his goals in the moment perfectly: he did save LWJ and JZX and Mianmian - by redirecting Wen Chao's anger, attention and the rage of a wounded pride onto himself. By so far eclipsing and outshining their defiance that they were nearly forgotten in the aftermath.

You can argue 'till the cows come home about the hypotheticals of what might have happened if he'd done nothing (do they all just die? does Wen Chao's plan that appears to be both cruel and stupid somehow work and only Mianmian gets the axe? seems unlikely), or perhaps if he'd merely stood with LWJ and JZX instead of wildly outshining them (do all three sects get annihilated as punishment instead of just the Jiang, making the Sunshot Campaign an impossibility?). I'm certainly not arguing that Wei Wuxian was inherently wrong for saving them, both in the specific action or in the possible outcomes.

But the truth is: Wei Wuxian did make himself a target, and even in-text he does not quite seem to realize the gravity of it, or at least avoids acknowledging it.

As Jiang Cheng slowly walked over, propping Wei WuXian up, they happened to hear the 'without any food' part of the conversation. Wei WuXian, "Jiang Cheng, there's a piece of cooked meat here. You want to eat it?"

Jiang Cheng, "Get lost! You really haven't learned your lesson, have you? Just what situation do you think we're in? You don't know how much I want to sew your lips together."

-- Ch. 53, ExR translation

This interaction pretty much sums up the entire 'evil summer camp' arc of the story. Throughout, it's been Jiang Cheng worrying about the Wens and Wei Wuxian largely dismissing the seriousness of the situation, and it continues right on through their return to Lotus Pier. (Though of course Wei Wuxian also frequently deflects from serious situations with humor in general.)

That's why when people insist that Jiang Cheng's displacement of blame to Wei Wuxian is completely, wholly, and totally irrational, and Wei Wuxian never did a single thing wrong, well... they were in a situation with no winning solutions. But Wei Wuxian did hold Wen Chao hostage at sword-point and go out of his way to humiliate him.

Which leads us to the famous Blame Wei Wuxian For Everything scene:

Holding him on the ground, Jiang Cheng continued to roar, "Why did you save Lan WangJi?! Why did you have to speak up?! How many times have I told you not to stir up trouble! Not to strike! Do you really want to play the hero so much?! Have you seen what happened when you played the hero?! Huh?! Are you happy now?!

[...]

In his heart, Jiang Cheng knew clearly that back in the cave of the Xuanwu of Slaughter at Dusk-Creek Mountain, even if Wei WuXian hadn't saved Lan WangJi, the Wen Sect would have found some reason to come over sooner or later. But he had always felt that, if the whole thing with Wei WuXian didn't happen, maybe it wouldn't have been so soon, maybe there would've been some way to turn things around.

It was this torturing thought that filled his heart with hatred and wrath. Unable to be let out, they cut up his innards.

People are certainly free to not really like 'don't be a hero' as a character's guiding philosophy, even if I personally find his approach realistic and refreshingly pragmatic. And it's exactly the amount of doubt involved, the ambiguity of it all, the endless what-ifs and maybes, that makes it so incredibly painful. What makes it tragic and compelling is that nobody is completely wrong or completely right; there are no winners here. That sometimes doing the right thing isn't enough to save you.

Anyway, all I'm saying is that I find it's not entirely illogical to feel like 'publicly humiliating and then threatening the life of tyrannical dictator's son' could in fact lead said son to hate and target them in particular, if only to accelerate the timeline. (As always, the real question is 'wtf were the adults doing this whole time, why weren't they more prepared' but that's not really the point right now.)

It almost goes without saying that Wei Wuxian was never the core problem - that was always the Wens. And even Jiang Cheng himself, in the midst of this extreme reaction, doesn't actually say they wouldn't have attacked, or that Wei Wuxian was morally wrong, or not a hero. Only that it wasn't worth it, that he didn't want to pay the price, that he'd rather people he doesn't care about die than the people he loves.

Even in this scene, as harsh as his words and actions are, his thoughts are actually a lot more nuanced than a lot of fandom seems to give him credit for. In the midst of that sort of extreme loss, I just can't blame him for feeling that way.

'Do the right thing, no matter the consequences' sounds great until losing everything and everyone you love are the consequences of someone else's right thing.

The collateral damage did not get to choose.

#thinking too much about jiang cheng yet again

[rebuketheviolent]

you fell victim to one of history’s classic blunders:

tortoise of slaughter

#txt

[lanbichenbunny]

Wei Ying’s Crafty Tricks

I’m just reading the tortoise of slaughter chapter again and it seems Wei Ying always loved a crafty trick.

To drawn the tortoise’s attention away from Jiang Cheng, he writes a spell on his hand in blood, slaps it to the floor to make a massive burst of fire come from the ground.

I don’t know a lot about spiritual cultivation spells, but I’m fairly certain that wouldn’t have been in any books he was taught from.

I think he just creatively made it up on the spot. Wei Ying just loves pushing the boundary of spiritual cultivation and it often proves very useful, no matter how often he’s told off for it.

#mdzs #the untamed #mxtx fandom #the grandmaster of demonic cultivation #mdzs fandom

[handeaux]

In 1872, Cincinnati Ground To A Halt As The City’s Horses Succumbed To A Virus

It sounds like something out of a science fiction movie. For nearly three weeks in the autumn of 1872, Cincinnati was paralyzed by a virus with no known cure.

Humans were not susceptible to this virus. It only affected horses, but the entire operation of Cincinnati life and business depended primarily on horses. When the city’s horses were incapacitated, Cincinnati screeched into paralysis.

The strange episode began one evening in October when Dan Rice’s circus rolled into town. Four of the horses showed symptoms of some sort of respiratory illness and were taken to veterinarian George W. Bowler for treatment. Dr. Bowler readily identified the affliction as the “Canadian horse disease” that was then infesting the northern tier of states but doubted it would spread beyond his stable on Ninth Street.

Alas, Dr. Bowler’s optimism was unfounded and the next few days found cases throughout the downtown area. Journalists struggled to name the disease. “Epizooty” was a common label, but newspaper reports invoked “equine influenza” or “hippo-typhoid-laryngitis” or “epiglottic catarrh” or “epizootic influenza” and even “hipporhinorrheaeirthus”! Whatever they called it, the disease would hobble a city absolutely dependent on horse power to operate at all.

Josiah “Si” Keck, presiding at the Board of Aldermen, introduced a resolution to draft squads of men for duty at the city’s firehouses. With the horses out of commission, only manpower could replace horsepower to haul the heavy steam-powered fire engines of the day. Thankfully, only a few minor fires were reported during the height of the contagion.

According to the Cincinnati Enquirer [11 November 1872], other horse-dependent companies tried different alternatives:

“The United States Express Company has prepared to follow the example of the Eastern Companies. All of their horses, twenty-two in number, being completely disabled, they will at once substitute steers, and the streets of this city will show the curious spectacle of express wagons drawn by the propelling force of a farmer’s haycart.”

Historian Alvin F. Harlow, writing in the Bulletin of the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio [April 1951], noted that the bovine substitutes were simply not cut out for jobs readily accomplished by horses:

“The oxen, with great, wild, pathetic eyes, slobbering, swaying slowly through the streets, were a strange spectacle to city folk, and were followed by crowds of children for a day or two, until the novelty wore off. But as agencies of traction, they were a disappointment. Not all of them were well broken to the yoke; few men in town knew how to drive them, and as they are—with the possible exception of the tortoise and the two-toed sloth—the slowest walkers in the whole zoological category, they did not accomplish much in a day, according to city standards.”

Just think of an entire city operating on the capable talents of horses, now immobilized by an unseen microbe. Garbage piled up as the city’s sanitation wagons stood idle. “Garbage” back then meant kitchen and table scraps which, even in the chill of autumn, ripened malodorously in unattended cans. The situation was even worse at the city’s slaughterhouses. Even though the butchers had stopped working – there were no wagons available to deliver the slaughtered pork and beef – there were likewise no wagons to dispose of the offal and trimmings. The stench was indescribable.

Cincinnati’s streetcars were horsedrawn in 1872. It would be a decade before electrical trolleys debuted. The entire commuter system of the city shut down and the Cincinnati workforce, from C-suite executives to the lowliest laborers, had to hoof it. Harlow describes an exhausting scene:

“Towards dusk each evening the great trek homeward began, and from then until 9 P.M. the streets were thronged with business men, clerks, bookkeepers, warehouse and factory workers, trudging wearily. To reach their work again at 7 or 7:30 next morning, when most people's day began, soon proved too much for some of them, and they took to sleeping in their places of business; which in turn became less and less necessary, as those businesses were compelled to shut down for lack of transportation.”

Even funerals were affected. Teams of undertakers pulled hearses to the depot of the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton railroad, whose tracks ran along the front of Spring Grove Cemetery. Mourners followed along on foot until the hearse was loaded on the train, then rode out for the burial. Other cemeteries put interments on hold for the duration.

The city faced the serious prospect of starvation. Food arrived in the city by rail and by river, but there were no carts to carry it from the wharf or the depot. Fresh vegetables rotted down by the river while families went hungry just a few blocks north. Farmers from the suburbs refused to bring their crops into Cincinnati for fear that their own draft animals would succumb to the dread epizooty.

As humans attempted to fill the horse’s role, every wheelbarrow in the city was drafted into use and some sold for astronomical sums. Even so, as noted by Harlow, human power had its very fragile limits:

“If the load was very heavy, as for instance, hogsheads of tobacco, massive machinery or an iron safe of a ton weight, ropes were also attached to each side of the wagon and passed over the shoulders of two files of straining men, while three or four others, their feet striving for toeholds in earth or cobbles, pushed against the wagon's tail until shoulder-bones threatened to wear through the flesh.”

Among the worst effects of the pandemic was the inability to dispose of dead horses. Horses died in Cincinnati at the rate of twenty or thirty a day at the height of the disease in November 1872, and there was nothing available to haul the carcasses out to the reduction plants, where they might be turned into soap fat or fertilizer. Alderman Si Keck, who owned one of these “stink factories,” found a partial solution by renting a small steam-powered truck from one of the city’s pork-packing plants but could still handle only a few of the equine corpses.

By the end of November, new cases and fatalities had diminished considerably. As December opened, the city was almost back to normal, with a new appreciation of the four-legged residents who truly powered our city.

Only one case of a human contracting the epizooty was recorded in 1872. Joseph Einstein was a well-known dealer when Cincinnati’s Fifth Street was the largest horse market in the United States. Einstein spent weeks, around the clock, nursing his stock and developed symptoms remarkably similar to those afflicting his horses. Several local doctors confirmed that he had somehow succumbed to the dread epizooty.

Just as mysteriously as it appeared, the epizooty vanished, and never visited Cincinnati to that degree ever again.

#epizooty #cincinnati horses #cincinnati transportation

[yinyangbuns]

i know this can be seen as somewhat controversial but i get really sad reading fics sometimes (usually time reversal fics) when the author will basically just sum up the grand total of wwx’s usefulness in his demonic cultivation

like idk, the man is canonically a genius is he not?? and he was able to go head to head w/ lan wangji at 15 with his golden core, and since usually in the time travel fics he keeps his core suffice to say he would be pretty impressive, not to mention his whole inventor’s shtick

but constantly his only feature noted is the resentful energy! grrrr!!

give the guy some credit!!!

#mdzs #wwx #wei wuxian #bamf wwx rights #i could be a little biased but i feel like my bias has backing in canon #don’t get me wrong wwx is about as dense as a rock but you can’t tell me in his right mind and with the experience of a past life he wouldnt #wouldn’t be an excellent strategist #hell the talismans are so very rarely brought up sometimes!!! #i’m not actually upset i’m just dramatic btw nothing against jiang cheng he’s very capable and didn’t deserve obscurity #but usually all the credit gets just like piled onto him #which he does deserve some don’t get me wrong i just feel like it detracts from wwx’s character to take away some of those key accomplishmen #accomplishments #like i read a fic where jiang cheng was the one to defeat the tortoise of slaughter #i didn’t trust myself to write xuanyu correctly #but anyways yeah that’s my point i guess

[admirableadmiranda]

Under appreciated wx thing: when asked about that murderous tortoise wwx says the monster is dead all thanks to lwj, while lwj says the same about wwx. They are so utterly endearing, I can't 😭

It's so adorable! They both immediately credit the win to the other without hesitation. And I don't doubt that they completely believe it. Wei Wuxian thinks that Lan Wangji holding onto a bunch of bow strings performing a sect technique for six hours straight on a broken leg is how they won. Lan Wangji thinks Wei Wuxian willingly going into the shell of a man-eating beast that could easily (and almost does) swallow him alive and once caught keeping himself from passing out and being swallowed for six hours desperately holding onto the hilt of a sword is how they won. They are both right.

I won't lie, I like to joke that this is the only argument they ever have once they get married, who's actually responsible for killing the Xuanwu of Slaughter. They will continue to insist that the other is the reason it succeeded for the rest of their lives. And it will be the most adorable argument every time.

Thanks for the ask!

#mdzs #wangxian #xuanwu of slaughter #wei wuxian #lan wangji #asks #anon #anon asks #please keep sending me happy Wangxian asks #I am loving them

[mousieta]

Review: Love Between Fairy and Devil

Year: 2022 Country: China Platform: iQiyi; Viki

Love Between Fairy and Devil is right up there with Love and Redemption for xianxia dramas. It is literally everything I love about them coupled with gorgeous visuals that made my kid-raised-on-80s-fantasy heart soar. Admittedly, it took a handful of episodes for me to fall in love . But as The Untamed took me 14 eps – thank you Tortoise of Slaughter – I try to give C-Dramas a while before I pull the plug. Also, I turn a blind eye to how women lead’s characters are drawn early on because its often going to toe my line of too-gratingly hyper-feminined sexist. (If China could skip the innocent idiot trop at the beginning of every xianxia I would be eternally grateful)

Alright, caveats done, once we got over those hurdles, I fell hard and fast. Something about pained-stoic-overlord-of-evil having to submit to their thematic opposite is just catnip to me. So, by the time the Devil is bound and determined to secure the Fairy’s happiness For Reasons, I was hooked.

The story is fairly straight forward: imprisoned Devil and is tied to Fairy and together they have to save the world.

A lot of the show’s charm lays in its actors. I’ve had a soft spot for Dylan Wang since Meteor Garden. He is not the worlds best actor though he has definitely displayed some growth and more expressive range as the Devil, Dongfang Qing Cang. He also has that alchemical ‘it’ factor: an ability to render what should be, on paper, an unlikable character as sympathetic and a touch self-aware. There is a layer he adds to would could easily become a flat, uninteresting, and toxic character.

Esther Yu was good enough as the fairy though I feel she may have largely been constrained by the demands on women characters and I don’t think her voice actress did her any favors either. I did enjoy her eventual character growth, however.

As always, I am a sucker for equal and complimentary powerful OTPs, where each pushes the other and neither over-shadows the other. I also so much prefer a forthright admission of love and care to annoying love triangle shennanigans which I feel this drama delivered well. We can’t completely avoid a love-triangle and I recognize their purpose in storytelling, I just appreciate when the writers know their use and place within a story.

I think what sets this show apart is its handling of trauma and recovery, of how it shows the fallout of abuse, especially that taken from the hands of a mis-guided parent I love that while Fairy is obviously the catalyst for Devil’s healing, she is not his savior. Healing is something that generates from within him. Definitely check out @dangermousie​ who has written some great meta. (spoilers for the whole show obv but def check out their tag when you’re done)

Ultimately, this show is solidly one of my favorite of the year. The acting is captivating, the directing and cinematography beautiful and the writing thoughtful. It hits on all levels and overcomes its flaws with how well it gets right the important things. I suspect this show will wind up having a high rewatch value as well.

#love between fairy and devil #dylan wang #esther yu #mousie watches cdrama #reviews 2022

[jaimebluesq]

Fic Stats Game

Thank you @fortune-maiden for tagging me! This is going to be fun :D

rules: give us the links to your fic with the most hits, second most kudos, third most comments, fourth most bookmarks, fifth most words, and fic with the fewest words.

(For simplicity's sake, I am choosing to only count completed fics... of which I have 95 in the MDZS/Untamed fandom, wtf?!)

1 - Most Hits - Think Outside the Shell - Yep, I am completely unsurprised that my first Nie Sect Murder Tortoise fic is #1. It seems to have scratched an itch many people had :D For those who haven't heart of/read it, it's a simple gen fic where, during the Wen indoctrination camp's trip to fight the tortoise of slaughter, NHS tames the xuanwu because apparently he already has one at home ;) This began my fun cracky series and will forever hold a special place in my heart.

2 - 2nd Most Kudos - When Fate Opens a Window, Let Us Fly Through It - I check my stats semi-regularly so technically this doesn't surprise me because of that, but it *does* surprise me how well-liked this fic was! It's NieLan, the first of my "Lan Ribbon Marriage" series. The plot? NMJ & LXC are teenagers and in love with each other but too married to their duties to do anything about it. They wake up in the middle of the night to find LXC's ribbon wrapped around both their wrists, and when LQR enters, NMJ finds out this is the first step of the Lan sect's marriage rites! The secret is that NHS & LWJ teamed up to tie them to each other and have them found out by LQR. It's cute and fun, and was a blast to write - and the series is complete with WangXian and SangHui follow-ups :D

3 - 3rd Most Comments - This category is the reason I chose to only include completed fics, because works in progress tend to get a lot of comments in general with people wanting to encourage the author to continue the story. So the answer is therefore... He's No Bully, He's My Friend - I adore this story and it's special to me, a modern day AU where NHS is homeless and comes across a pit bull that he befriends, and the dog turns out to be a cursed JC (It's SangCheng, but the shipping is minimal at the end after JC becomes human again, so if you prefer gen fic, you might enjoy this one). But this story in particular has a reason that it got so many comments - because the wonderful @takonxmz asked to podfic the story, and many people found their way to it through their recording (which is amazing and I totally recommend if you have an hour or so!!! There is art too!!!).

4 - 4th Most Bookmarks - I'm going to choose the list in my stats because those numbers include both public and private bookmarks (we can see how many there are, we just can't see who bookmarked the private ones) - Think Outside the Shell - My only surprise is that this one wasn't higher on the list! But a SangCheng, a SangYao, and (*checks eyesight*) a WangXian fic all came out ahead of it.

5 - 5th Most Words - I'd Rather Share With You - This is the WangSang fic I wrote for the 2 Cakes fest last year! NHS' first year at Gusu and a storm hits, damaging several homes of Lan disciples, who are all assigned visiting disciples' quarters to share - and LWJ is assigned to room with NHS. It's sweet and they're young and soft (and also petty, and definitely don't get along at first) and, yeah, it's a fun fic. (It's a good thing this tag came out now - later this month, I will have a 50k fic coming out that will skew all the stats lol)

Bonus - Fewest Words - Technically, my 3 lowest word counts aren't fics at all - they're the AO3 entries I did to show off my fanart for the RBB fest this year. So the lowest word count of an actual fic is... The Perfect Spiritual Pet - This is just a cute little gen fic where the One Braincell Trio create an array to find NHS the perfect spiritual pet in the hopes of getting NMJ off his case. They don't know what the animal is, but it's cute, lazy, and perfect for NHS (it's a 3-toed sloth).

So, I shall tag... @gekidasa @roseclaw @thebiscuiteternal @eastofakkala and anyone else who'd like to participate!

#tag game