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#these nerds 🥺
lgbtlunaverse · 5 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:
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Bichen in the drama:
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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:
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And baxia in the drama:
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????????
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
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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!
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See? only one cutting blade!
This, to me looks a lot like a tang dynasty hengdao
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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!
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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:
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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.
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I mean, come on, look at it!
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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!
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This is much easier. with that flare at the tip?
Oh baby that's a niuweidao, all the way!
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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.
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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
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(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
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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.
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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)
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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"
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Which piqued my interest because this diagram classifying different tpye of Dao:
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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.
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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.
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I mean look at it! Incredibly imposing. Would make for a great Baxia imo. (@ upcoming mdzs manga and mobile game: take notes!)
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nerdycanible1 · 2 months
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I feel like when Tenzin was younger, he couldn't control his temper and it made him even more mad. Katara couldn't get through to him all before Aang said he'd give it a try.
He sat Tenzin down, listen to all his anger before he admitted that he's angry because Air Nomads are calm and surreal. "How could I be an Air Nomad when I can't even keep my temper under control?!"
Aang gave him a soft smile before telling him a story about his youth. "Well, if a certain Waterbender didn't explode, I'd still probably be in that iceberg. And if I was still in that iceberg than I wouldn't be here now, with a certain explosive Airbender."
Tenzin blushed before he hugged his father, feeling somewhat happy about his story. 🥺
Just thoughts I had :P
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willowser · 9 months
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getting to a point with nerd bakugou where you're not even playing games online together anymore, you're just — chatting, all day 🥺
and you've gotten close enough that you'll send him a mirror selfie and even if your phone is mostly covering your face, he's ZOOMING IN ON THAT BABY and over-analyzing the hell out of it 🥺 trying to figure out what you look like 🥺 and every single photo he sends in return is assessed for a minimum of 20 minutes, because he wants to make sure his reflection isn't showing anything or his body doesn't look weird, that his posture is right 🥺
and the first time you send something back like, "you look nice today 😊🩷", even though he's just showing off his shirt from a movie you both like — he's having to put his phone down on his desk and put his hands over his face because he feels so airbruqoabdka about you !!!!!
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missingexaltation · 2 years
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Steve and Eddie making fun of each other through each other's hobbies like:
"Aww what's wrong baby boy? You look a bit down, do you want me to take you to the park so you can run around outside in the fresh air and throw your ball around?"
Vs
"Aww babe, do you need me to get your dice so you can roleplay out your feelings instead of talking through them?"
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moonchild-in-blue · 3 months
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He said NEW and HISTORICAL
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You dork 😭
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flambo19 · 1 year
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Thinking about Shulk and baby Nikol makes me 🥺
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chandralia · 1 year
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we’ve gotten a lot of bkdk things this past year, which is great and has been extremely insane and fun,, but I feel like Bakugo coming back might actually knock me out
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fizzytoo · 2 years
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perpetually sleepy girl, tatiana 🫶🏽
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thefrogdalorian · 5 months
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I just laid out all my Mando comics and !!!! I need a second.... they look so pretty finally all together 🥹
A year and a half of collecting them, it's been so much fun. I'll miss it! 🤍
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stellaluna33 · 17 days
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Husband found me crying about being a lonely nerd who can't make friends, and he was so sweet and listened to me and talked with me about it (but not too much!), and then he said, "I'm making you a taco. You'll feel better." 🖤 So now I am eating a taco, and it's not going to solve ALL of my problems, but I do feel full of both love and tacos now, and maybe the world's not all bad.
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ghostlypanda · 2 years
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reasons to watch rise: "wait... why did i just... change? what are we even dressing up for?"
please support rise of the tmnt by watching the show and movie over on netflix!! 🙏💙
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willowser · 5 months
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alright alright i know i just clowned him BUT there is something so endearing about bakugou being a little fucking nerd and getting his nerdy things 🥺 continuing on the shoes thing—imagine him hearing about the re-release on his super small all might media forum and he's like 😤 fuck yeah 😤 WHAT A LOSER 🥺🥺🥺🥺 and then he's waiting up, refreshing his phone for when they drop so he can buy them before they sell out 🥺 and he gets a pair and he's soooo 😤😤😤 let's goooooooo 😤😤 bc he remembers being a kid 🥺 seeing them advertised and thinking how badly he wanted these stupid shoes !!! 🥺 and now he can finally get them !!! 🥺 and they come in the mail and they fit and he's so !!! 🥺 thrilled 🥺 bye i'm eating him alive
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ckret2 · 2 months
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Okay, weird compliment: I love how obvious it is that you're familiar with Geometric Literature™, which is a weird-ass niche. You've directly referenced Flatland, of course, but you also give the vibes of someone who knows Sagan style science education and might have read Orphans of Chaos. Usually I read stories with a geometric component and they're kind of reinventing the wheel - Which isn't bad or anything! But you are Part of the Literary Tradition, instead of just writing the literature.
Oh thank you!! I have not read Orphans of Chaos, but that's something I'll have to look into now. Love me a good sci-fi/mythology blend.
When I was in college I took a course on the history of science by a dude with a Nobel in physics—not a class to teach science itself but to teach about how philosophers, mathematicians, and eventually scientists conceptualized the idea of what science is—and that's shaped how I've interacted with science and math ever since. (We also talked about cryptography some! All I remember now is the RSA algorithm lol.)
When I'm writing about the cosmology of the multiverse or Bill's backstory, I'm thinking about how math & science were explored in that class and about physics courses I've taken that discussed how major physics discoveries were made in the 19th and 20th centuries and about Flatland and Plato's Cave and old-old-school pre-Lovecraft cosmic horror, and all that together goes into it.
(If you haven't read it already, you might be interested in Machineries of Empire by Yoon Ha Lee! It's not quite geometric literature, but it's mathematical literature, and I really enjoyed the ideas it put forth.)
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echos-girlfriend · 1 year
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gunsatthaphan · 1 year
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tul has a point 🤷🏼‍♀️
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dinosaurqueenmab · 1 year
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Simpatico needs more recognition. Like, Percy and Stormy are just two peas in a pod. Two scientific peas that are also nerds.
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