Danny: so you’re not mad

Tim: oh I am I’m just going to become the baby’s favourite first

CQL and Genre Intertextuality

I'm being bashed over the head with the "nhs's fan in CQL is made of xuantie/dark iron" thing again and @poorlittleyaoyao please understand that I am thinking of this constantly since you made that post talking about it because I'm just.

holding my head in my hands bc ye gods the cql show writers were genre savvy in ways that are hilarious but also make me feel like I've been hit upside the head with a waffle iron.

For those of us who are no longer damaged by the post or hadn't seen it (I don't actually know where it's gone bc the search feature doesn't work on this webbed site):

Xuantie/Dark Iron is a Jin Yong created metal that famously was used for the blade of the Dragon Slaying Sabre in the third novel of the Condor Trilogy, 倚天屠龍記/The Heavenly Sword and Dragon Saber.

The Heaven Reliant Sword 倚天劍 was created from Yang Guo and Xiao Longnv's Gentleman and Lady swords, whilst the Dragon Slaying Saber 屠龍刀 was created from Grandmaster Dugu Seeking-a-Loss's Dark Iron Sword.

Can we please all take a moment to appreciate how NHS's fan not his saber, NHS, from The Family With The Sabers, gets to shout about how his fan is made of xuantie. The most famous for being the metal that made up The Dragon Slaying Saber. His fan. Not his saber. his fan. dark iron. Dragon Slaying Saber. This is so funny I'm about to mcfucking lose it yet again while typing this.

Going back to Grandmaster Dugu Seeking-A-Loss (who appears in both Return of the Condor Heroes and Xiao Ao Jianghu) and his giant pet condor (sadly, only a ROCH feature) who might've been his one true soulmate for a second, this situation from episode 7, when the Yunmeng Siblings are leaving the Cloud Recesses:

Now, the subtitles here really DO NOT do this line justice because when I first saw it it took me FLAT THE FUCK OUT and I had to lie on the floor laughing for like, 80 seconds before I got my breath back.

Okay, what this line ACTUALLY says is "I am Dugu Qiubai (Grandmaster Dugu Seeking-A-Loss), what's wrong with seeking a match?"

Now, to understand this, we come to this backstory on Dugu Qiubai in XAJH:

“Senior master Dugu Seeking-A-Loss, who created this set of sword techniques, had a name ‘Seeking-A-Loss.’ He had been seeking a loss all his life and still couldn’t get one. Once the sword techniques were executed, he would become unmatched anywhere in the world. Why would he have to defend? If anyone could have forced him to draw his sword back and defend himself, the respectful master would have burst with joy and be delighted beyond measure.” Feng Qingyang said. “Dugu Seeking-A-Loss, Dugu Seeking-A-Loss,” Linghu Chong muttered as he imagined how the senior master had wandered about the Martial World, unmatched anywhere, with only his sword, and couldn’t even find a single one who was capable of forcing him into a defending stance. That was truly admirable.

from Chapter Ten of XAJH: Sword Training.

"If anyone could force him to draw his sword back to defend himself, the grandmaster would have burst with joy and be delighted beyond measure" DO YOU SEE WHY JC STARTED CALLING WWX SHAMELESS NOW. they're JUNIORS. WWX is calling himself "the greatest man of all, who'd sought the feeling of losing just ONCE being forced to defend himself just ONCE in a LIFETIME" and saying "LWJ might be my equal. my soulmate. the loss I was seeking my whole life."

All 15 years of it I'm sure, WWX.

I'm not going to get into finding martial arts manuals or a respected grandmaster who taught you incredible things in a cave bc 1) LHC and Feng Qingyang up there are sitting together, in a cave and LHC is being taught incredible things and 2) Duan Yu from Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils once found the magic finger lasers of ultra laser in a cave. In front of the statue of a goddess. (don't talk about the dancing goddess statue now, Tav. We don't have time for that in this post.)

Not kidding the intertextuality of CQL and how much it plays with and against the tropes of its genre, especially other wuxia tv adaptations as well as wuxia novels is insane. There's other ones I'm missing for certain and these were just the most funny to me, personally, but! just! oh my god! insane! insane! SO funny, so clever in so many ways

I've been reading Exodus lately and I've just gotten to the portions where God gives the first commands to the people via Moses (twice), and then goes on to give detailed instructions about the tabernacle and how it should be built, and I'm just... we think art is unimportant?? we think things only mean as much as their functionality?? we so easily fall into the trap of believing that beauty means nothing, that it's cheap and only worth whatever mindless distraction it brings, that it's barely more than a cheap sensual thrill, that buildings should just be practical and plain and cheap, that everything should be functional but ultimately disposable, that paintings and dresses and mugs and curtains and carpets are just pretty but have no real value, that beauty is fleeting and vain and therefore shouldn't be thought about too much, if even looked for at all... we fall into these traps so easily, and we forget that there are chapters upon chapters of painstakingly detailed plans to build one portable worship tent, and those plans have been handed down through thousands of years of human history, because beauty and art and skill in craft is important

im pretty sure i mentioned all these things before but its too late to start drawing anything and each time i see someone talk about totk i just get sad and frustrated again

literally by FAR the biggest problem about totk is that it REFUSES to connect to botw in any way beyond reusing the same map and character models, and even taking the things botw had established and ruin them entirely

ancient hero? BAM weird sonau dog thing that remains completely unexplained and out of nowhere eight heroine myster- BAM just some guy long gone sonau peopl- BAM here they are and they have zero connection to the ones of botw mystical dragons gracing the skies with their presence- BAM probably some dude who ate a magic pebble once strange mystical nature god you could rarely encounter in one specific spot and the area was made to feel utteraly unsettling but also divine- BAM now hes everywhere and only serves you as a shorthand for man pointing at cave the strange energy all shiekah tech was powered with with certain locations being ones where alot of it was concentrated including beneath hyrule castle clearly stating that somethings up with that- welp theres evil guy donw there but he has zero connection to all that lol

the whole shiekah tech thing, i just- WHY???? LIKE THAT??? there was so much stuff in botw that seemed deliberately placed that there IS more to it and now it all vanished and nothing of that mattered??? i saw a video of someone comparing certain places directly and on some where towers literally broke away tons of debris where just like .. sanded back down like nothing ever happened???; the fuking mechanism of how the towers and shrines and the pillars around the castle worked AND WHAT THE BOTW BOSS ARENA WAS ACTUALLY FOR?? its all gone and replaced with dirt; tHE ANCIENT FUCKING FURNANCES UTTERLY GONE AND REPLACED WITH ROCKS HUH???? so nothing of all that talk about their mystery and mechanism mattered???? the luminous stoens and its connection to spirits and how concentrated spiritual energy might have been what powered the tech- like you could connect things, and they made SENSE, so much sense that that seemed like it was intentionally setting up- only for it all to be just GONE?? to literally say lol it all vanished and that we shouldnt worry about it- like what the FUCK (and it also AGAIN doesnt make sense in itself bc WE SEE GUARDIAN PARTS in the towers, and some parts of them too are made of clearly shiekah tech stuff so it cant all have vanished- all their mystery doesnt matter bc idk it just works i guess lol and its not even called shiekah tech at any point either its just there and also not lol-)

(and even the smaller things like .. where the fuck does link live if everyone treats him like a goddamn stranger in the town you had to buy a house in botw for it to not be demolished and now that house is there but its not yours and noone knows you??? sth i personalyl found strange too that dumsda, the guy you help build an entire town, taburasa, had a very specific talking quirk i loved, and its all just gone in totk too, he talks like any other person all of the sudden

also at the end of botw finally being reunited with zelda and giving you the taste of being in the game WITH her at the same time in the intro to totk- WOOP away she goes! shes your pretty prize at the end and nothing more, what a way to disrespect her and her character..)

imagine if majoras mask didnt have the opening like it has and it otherwise stayed the same and they tried to tell you that its a direct sequel happening exactly where ocarina of time happened in the same world, zelda who?? ganondorf who??? things seem weird and off? lol dont worry about that :)) that would be weird and not make any sense at all now would it??

... sorry going on another rant again, ill just never be able to accept everything from botw didnt actually matter, and despite what some people might say, its pretty hard to ignore totk bc i LOVE botw, and as much as i hate it, they are connected in canon, even if it makes no sense

I made a lmk oc

Hey. Sprite analysis folks what the fuck does this mean

Somewhat inspired by this post

It's Sad Man in the Sand Week!

Bonus: Closeup of Obi-Wan's sand temple:

~~

PLEASE DO NOT REPOST, EDIT, TRANSLATE, OR OTHERWISE USE MY ART. To share, please reblog! Reblogs and comments greatly appreciated!!!

❀ You can see the rest of my art through the Masterpost pinned to the top of my blog!

if you're writing a charles fic, it must have some aspect of boyking. he must lean a little on the childgod side. he has to be revered a little bit, adored even. if people aren't talking about him like they wouldn't wash his feet and adorn it with perfume like mary magdalene washed and adorned jesus' feet, you're doing it wrong.

WHAT A STUD WHAT A STAR!!!!!!!!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HITOYA!!!!!!!!!!💜💜💜💜💜💜

Amane at the age of 4 saw a hole in Tsukasa's stomach. The mother also noticed that there was something wrong with her son and she also knew that her son was not behaving like he always did, he was different.

and professional exorcists noticed nothing. Tsukasa is consumed by this thing and they didn't notice anything, seriously? Are these supposed to be the 'defenders'? and 'exorcists' lmao. When Tsukasa fulfilled Kunshinge's wish, instead of doing something and helping the family, knowing that there was something wrong with this kid, he was afraid to do anything He allowed this tragedy to happen knowing that his mother was right. But being Minamoto's servant and protecting the 'Minamoto Princess' is what he does best.

:3 These oni sure look like they're lords of war or something (also random idea I had)

ik I'm kind of late to it, but I just watched the live action atla series!!! I've only watched the first so far, but I have some things to say!!!

(Also, please keep in mind it's been ages since I watched the cartoon, so any comparisons I make are based on my memory).

Okay, I'd just like to say I love the casting so far. Like, Katara and Sokka are so cartoon-accurate (is that a thing?), and while Aang does look like he's approximately 7 years old, his casting was also good.

The casting for Zuko was different than how I'd imagined him to look if he was a real person, but so far he seems good too :) although I am slightly concerned about his facial expressions because um.

Anyway!!! I love love love Katara so far, and though I wish she'd stand up to Sokka and his stupid patriarchal beliefs (I don't know how to explain how he acts at this point any better tbh) a bit more, she's so sweet and the way she immediately cares for Aang is just <3<3<3

I'm going to be honest, Aang flying at the beginning looked so unrealistic the cgi was not cgi-ing at that point I think (I also have no idea if that was actually cgi or smth else but let's ignore that!!! Hopefully you know what I mean). But I love how they did Katara's waterbending because, wow, that little sphere of water she made levitate after Aang told her how; I thought it looked so cool.

The firebending!!! I don't know how to describe it other than 'cool,' because it just looked so realistic and :O, you know what I mean???

The Avatar State looked amazing too!! Aang did look a bit strange (I think) when he was flying during it, but other than that, the way his markings lit up was just like the cartoon; it genuinely looked so powerful.

Anyway !!! I will probably also rant about the rest of the episodes when I get to those :)

as part of the whole Random People Given Airbending Plotline here's a real conversation that just happened

BUMI: Even though I'm Aang's son I've never really felt like part of the Air Nation.

TENZIN: [Putting a hand on his shoulder] Well, you are now.

ENDLESS LIST OF FAVORITE FILMS:

AFTERNOON DELIGHT (2013) dir. Joey Soloway

Jun Wu/Qi Rong "simulacrum" ;D

I had the last word, you know. But you weren’t there to respond.

Anyone have that post about "you ask for better female characters but you couldn't even handle Katara" because after two episodes of the live action, I feel like I need to send it to the writers.