Fang Xin Guoshi 🦋

Okay but like,

If there were 10 million demons ready for Armageddon in the first season, how is Hell severely understaffed by Season 2? I believe Neil stated somewhere that Ligur was probably the first demon in a long time to have been properly killed off completely (rather than just discorporated), and I'm certain Hell isn't very organized or motivational, but are they just...putting a ton of their people into punishments that occupy them or something? Where did the 10 million demons ready for Armageddon go in the couple years after the failed attempt? Or did Adam's meddling to avert it somehow disarm both sides in such a way?

Gabe and Beez both complained about the hassle it was to get their respective sides to stand down, but did that involve a lot of locking down and imprisoning/torturing some of them to make them unavailable? Did a bunch of demons just quit and leave? Are demons even allowed to quit (I'd assume not)? If so, are they being punished for wanting to quit or did they try leaving to the human world? Did they try fleeing to the stars in space?

It's hilarious that Shax is ready to bring out an entire army to get Gabriel in the bookshop and yet is challenged by the lack of just available staff, but also confusing to me, who thought Hell would certainly have those numbers - and otherwise I have no explanation as to why there wouldn't be many demons just available, even if not war-bound. I mean an excuse to leave their boring desk jobs and the shitty basement office for even a little while? Even if it was an underwhelming bookshop-raid, why wouldn't all the demons at least be curious?

I mean then again maybe both sides were lying about their numbers and all these questions are moot.

I'd argue that Jiang Cheng doesn't care much for his reputation after all these years, or at the very least he hasn't been afraid to have a hardass, why-are-you-LIKE-this-you-asshole reputation if it puts on a front of being uncaring, spiteful, and someone not to be messed with. Jiang Cheng has always put on confrontational facades, but he cares about his family at heart. He pretended to abandon Wei Wuxian during his defection to the Wens, but still considered Wei Wuxian part of his family in secret until things went south in a confrontation reveled to be complete happenstance. He loves and hates Wei Wuxian for different reasons but with equal ferocity and has a genuine right to both - he has the right to hate Wei Wuxian, but he also has the right to love him without needing to owe him or having peer pressure force him into it.

Jin Guangyao got under his skin by making the rightful assumption that Jiang Cheng was willing to abandon Wei Wuxian when things got hard and his reputation was at risk, because Jiang Cheng IS the person who will put up a front of abandoning, swearing revenge, hating people. But he was also the one INSISTING that Wei Wuxian HAD to be back at some point, a twisted mass of his desire to hate Wei Wuxian mixing with his real desire to have him back. He wants his brother back, he wants his family back, but Wei Wuxian is the only one he KNOWS can return, however tragic that is. He's the first to accuse Jin Guangyao of intentionally setting up Wei Wuxian during the ambush and getting Jin Ling's parents killed as a result - if he has someone else to blame other than Wei Wuxian, he's now ferociously defending his brother. Even Wei Wuxian admits that it really was just an accident; sure, Jin Guangyao pulled some strings, but he would have gotten into trouble eventually. But now Jiang Cheng NEEDS someone else to be at fault, because he doesn't want to hate Wei Wuxian anymore. He CAN'T hate Wei Wuxian, for all he wants to.

Not just because of the golden core revelation, but because he's finally maturing as a person and understanding why Wei Wuxian did what he did. He hates it, but now he understands Wei Wuxian a little better.

The book even compares his refusal to confess why he lost his golden core to why Wei Wuxian never told him about the transfer. In just a tiny little way, Jiang Cheng has become more like Wei Wuxian. In the end, he makes a very similar choice and will likely never admit what happened. This time, there's no third party who can force a confession of this tiny little incident. Wei Wuxian can live freely without the weight of that guilt still haunting their relationship, and for once Jiang Cheng's willing to sacrifice any self-satisfaction of saying "well ha actually I deserve this golden core after all I've done for you" to put the tragedy of the past in the past.

Imagine the teenage Jiang Cheng, or the one who was just rebuilding the Jiang Clan after the Sunshot Campaign. Would he have been able to let something like that go? If he and Wei Wuxian got into an argument about what was right and wrong, who owed who, would he have really been able to let it go? He'd already stomached Wei Wuxian’s legitimate, heartbreaking betrayal of his vow to stand with the Jiang Clan and Jiang Cheng no matter what. He was unwilling to see how his own pride had corrupted their relationship and was willing to sacrifice innocent Wens at first. It was Wei Wuxian who convinced him that doing the right thing was better than any reputation, and Jiang Cheng was the fool for abandoning HIM. While his pride couldn't stand it, he at least TRIED to make it work, for a period. Because his love for Wei Wuxian marginally outweighed his hatred.

He's spent all this time hating Wei Wuxian and clinging to the past betrayal and subsequent misfortunes rather than moving forward and trying to make the best of his life - more importantly, to teach Jin Ling to be better. In his own, prideful and stubborn way, letting go of the incident was his first step into changing and trying to forget the past and actually move on. Wei Wuxian doesn't want any trouble, and now neither does Jiang Cheng.

To be clear, this isn't to say Jiang Cheng has magically fixed as a person. He's still a stubborn hardass brandishing his whip whenever he gets pissed off, and Wei Wuxian will likely still never consider Lotus Pier his home - even if he now manages to visit with only a mild complaint from Jiang Cheng every five steps he takes. But it's progress. It's him saying "fine, we can stop bringing up past grudges and get along - only when we have to! You walk your damn path, I'll walk mine."

And maybe, one day, now that they aren't worried about pleasing or betraying the other, they can make steps to becoming friends again, and even becoming family.

For Jin Ling's sake, of course, why would he LIKE Wei Wuxian or anything, he's just that annoying guy clinging to Hanguang-jun I think.

Y'all wanna know also why JC can't tell WWX about distracting the Wens back then?

Because it means jackshit when later he leads a siege on him in an attempt to kill him and WWX ultimately dies as result (yknow we cant say 'kill' because see he just helped JGS....just brought the most resources...just helped them plan but since he failed in landing the final strike it cant be called 'killed')

Like if at that point in guanyin temple, if he were to even begin saying 'I saved you back then' whats that gonna do? because nice? Good job? He also participated in killing him afterwards?

Whatever weight that sacrifice had, was nullified by his every action afterwards.

There's a reason that him keeping quiet about is considered an indication of his character growth, because he had the clarity.

Okay but like,

In the beginning of the game, Nora (Estheim) is killed by a Skytank explosion behind her while she's kneeling to help Snow after saving his life.

There are those who hate on the scene for quickly killing her off, but like man that's a woman who just went on vacation with her son and ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time, who was brave enough to join the other Purge victims in trying to fight back because yes, she's a mom, but she'd rather go out fighting with the people actually willing to help keep them alive in this desperate situation where there own government and entire planet turned against them for no reason other than bad luck.

Snow failed to save her because he didn't manage to keep his grip on her; Nora was injured and she gave him her last request because she had given up at that point. Snow looks at his hand in the aftermath because letting Nora fall alone was his biggest mistake.

Some point out that Snow survived the exact same fall as Nora, but barring the fact that he's a 6 foot 7 inch man who is also a fit fighter and she is a mother who lives in a peaceful city, the idea is actually supposed to be that if Snow hadn't let her go and had shielded her body with his - MAYBE SHE WOULD HAVE SURVIVED.

We don't know, certainly, and Snow is definitely still injured after his fall and stumbles as he gets up. He's traumatized by all of the people who died under his command; NORA the gang is equipped to fight, but they've never fought in an actual war before, much less against their own government. But Nora is the one who died closest to him, to the point that she told him she had a son she wanted him to protect. He needs to keep going for Serah, but he and Gadot specifically go and check to make sure all the kids are okay - under the logic that if he instructs his crew to keep all of the kids safe, that'll keep Nora's son safe by default. He can't do any more than that for her, and it's killing him, but he has to shove it down because there are more people - especially the one he loves - relying on him to keep going.

And then he has to keep going. He uses Serah's wishes to give himself a reason to keep going. No time to process his guilt because he has to keep going.

But then, the beautiful scene in Palumpolum happens.

Hope is blasted by a Skytank explosion from behind as he's kneeling to end Snow's life, a direct parallel to how Nora DIED.

In that moment, Snow doesn't care that Hope is trying to kill him. This time, he doesn't hesitate to dive off the ledge after Hope to catch him and shield him with his body and make sure that Hope isn't falling out of his grip. The fall is brutal, Snow is nearly crippled from the damage, but Hope is ALIVE, and can you imagine how that makes Snow feel?

Sure, the drop was probably shorter than in the Hanging Edge, but beyond the regular reaction to Snow finally facing his guilt and acknowledging he was running, still picking himself up and dragging Hope up a ladder back to the apartment levels, I just love the parallels in that scene. Snow finally got to save Nora's son, and he's fully willing to face the consequences of his actions.

Then, Hope is able to come to terms with his own running and denial. He had admitted multiple times that killing Snow won't bring her back, but he needed to keep going. And Snow knew his optimistic attitude led people to their deaths and smiling even in horrible situations was awful from other (Hope's) perspectives, but he had to keep going.

Don't ever tell me that there aren't great character arcs, developments, and nuances in FF XIII.

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!)

Ahhhh it's so pretty tho

mdzs jp audio drama x MEDICOS + MDZS characters (幻鏡🪞 ver)

He wasn’t scared of falling. He had fallen many times over the years. But hitting the ground still hurt.

How wonderful it would be if there was someone there to catch him.

Adhd-autism dream couple

Fan coloring of beautiful original art by Marina Primalova

I haven't seen a lot of people talking about this, at least enough for me to confirm, but just to set the record straight - was Guzi's original father abusive towards him?

From the time we first meet him, Guzi is convinced that Qi Rong is his father, despite the utterly absurd things Qi Rong gets up to. The only reason he indulges Guzi for the most part is because he enjoys having someone who follows and relies on him completely, without a hint of deviance or disgust or aversion. Like most of his other foolish followers, Qi Rong proclaims he's the best and they believe every word, and he'll keep Guzi around until he happens to stop being useful. Guzi certainly knows some specific things are right and wrong, but so long as Qi Rong says it's fine, for the most part Guzi just goes along with it.

The whole time I was getting the vibe that Guzi's original father and the body Qi Rong possesses wasn't a good person. To some extent, he made Guzi unwaveringly faithful to him - even when it came him doing to bad things, to other people and/or to Guzi himself. It's implied that even things like forgetting to feed Guzi, neglecting his health, running off with no regard for whether Guzi can keep up, complaining and yelling at Guzi or referring to him as a pest of some kind before then praising Guzi for being a good boy every now and then, and so on and so forth are all things that Guzi is very used to or already very willing to put up with.

Guzi was young enough to be completely reliant upon his father, but it also seems like he didn't have a mother or any other influences until Xie Lian came along, and even with Xie Lian's better treatment, Guzi would always be following Qi Rong, defending his "father", and looking up to him because he was told to - as opposed to humble little Xie Lian who never brags about himself. In the end, it worked out for the best, but like Guzi went through some shit yo, what a lovely little messed up family.

Anyway I hope that Lang Qianqiu and/or Xie Lian are making sure Guzi gets raised right because Qi Rong managed to run across the one kid crazy enough to put up with him and this is our only chance to thereperize them both, but hoo boy we got some work to do. Hua Cheng should be turning that kid into a Xie Lian devotee is what I'm saying, get some practice before they get their own child

I CAN ONLY REBLOG GREAT ART SO FAST

The Humbling River

This is really cute tho

Finally here it is!

Yes I "Lionkinged" Dion and Terence.

Just imagine a moment in their later teen years on an excursion in the Greatwoods.

It's corny, yes, but seriously after everything they went through in the game? They -deserve to be silly normal dudes in love.

homura should have a gun

Buddy I've got some GREAT news for you