(no subject)

[skygiants]

This Sunday was my only weekend day this month that was even partially free, and I intended to do all kinds of useful things with it, but instead I tripped and fell into reading all 100+ chapters of the gay wuxia web novel Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation. SOMETIMES THESE THINGS HAPPEN.

The plot: in backstory-land, Wei WuXian was a smug and annoying but good-hearted young prodigy with a promising future as the foster son of a leading sect of magical demon-fighting warriors and a couple of adopted siblings that he loved very much. Lan WangJi was his frenemy, an intensely stoic lawful good young prodigy in the same class at demon-fighting school, and together they had various demon-fighting adventures and a lot of UST!

Then at some point there was a war, and various terrible things happened, and instead of going down standard magical demon-fighting routes Wei WuXian decided to invent dark zombie magic, and Lan WangJi was like "I suspect this will end poorly?" and Wei WuXian was like "EH IT'LL BE FINE."

Unfortunately: it ended poorly! Many people died! Including -- at the hands of an army led by his adopted brother -- Wei WuXian, who at the time the story begins has been dead for thirteen years and is posthumously known throughout the land as a legendarily evil zombie master, which is why a depressed queer lad decides to commit the most goth suicide possible and invite Wei WuXian's demonic undead spirit to possess his body and get revenge on his behalf!

WEI WUXIAN, NOW AN UNDEAD SPIRIT IN A BRAND NEW BODY: ... well, this is awkward ... since I don't really want to get revenge on anybody .... and being considered a demonic spirit is honestly kind of insulting ......

Inevitably, Wei WuXian bumps into Lan WangJi in fairly short order --

WEI WUXIAN: well, since I'm now a universally hated figure, it's probably a good idea my old pal doesn't know who I really am! maybe I should just be as flirtatious and annoying as possible so he'll send me away again before he figures it out!
LAN WANGJI, WHO MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE SPENT THE PAST THIRTEEN YEARS IN DEEP GAY MOURNING: [loud silence]

-- and they end up on a long road trip together to investigate sinister demonic happenings that may all be part of a complex conspiracy, while also working through a series of flashbacks highlighting the ramifications of the choices they made in the past and what that means for the people they are in the present.

In my absolute favorite aspect of the plot, they also end up mentoring a collection of earnest but hapless teen trainees who keep accidentally stumbling into their monster investigation, including Wei WuXian's sulky nephew Jin Ling, and every one of these interactions is gold:

WEI WUXIAN: Yep. Congratulations. You're under corpse poisoning.
JIN LING: How is that something to congratulate someone for?!
WEI WUXIAN: It's another life experience. It'd be a conversation starter when you grow older.

There is definitely a version of this story that's a shonen manga from Jin Ling's POV, in which he's the hotheaded teen protagonist with a dog sidekick, and Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi are the ambiguously codependent adults with a mysteriously tragic backstory a la Mustang and Hawkeye who occasionally bail him and his Trainee Rivals out of trouble, and the dramatic reveal that the weird gay uncle Jin Ling has come to know and trust is in fact possessed by the undead spirit of his even weirder, even gayer zombie-summoning murder uncle who's widely blamed for the death of Jin Ling's parents becomes a major plot point two-thirds of the way in! I really enjoyed this version of the story but I might have liked that version even better, I'm so fond of bratty Jin Ling.

(For clarification, the body that Wei WuXian has been invited to possess is also Jin Ling's uncle. Jin Ling has no parents, but he is vastly overburdened with uncles.)

I also like: all the very intense wuxia loyalty stuff; the extreme competence that's largely on display by everyone except the teens, who are teens and can be forgiven; the sibling dynamics and the relationship between Wei WuXian and his adopted brother, which makes it through some classic pitfalls only to fall apart in more interesting ways later on; Wei WuXian's very endearing zombie general friend; the 2.5 female characters who get to do interesting things besides "be an angry mom"; the way the pacing of the flashbacks and the contrast of the backstory with the present-story emphasizes opportunities for growth and change; relatedly, the moments when current!Wei WuXian looks at his smug teen zombie master past self and is like "wow, I was such an edgelord"

Caveats: in a vast sea of dudes, there are 2.5 female characters who get to do interesting things besides "be an angry mom"; the first few chapters involve some moderately cringy queerphobic stuff that gets much better after the intro arc; the romance in the main novel itself mostly avoids Classic Yaoi Dynamics and is very much a partnership of equals, but there's some sexy bonus materials at the end that lean into the uke/seme stuff quite a bit more, so heads-up on that score if that is not your jam as it is not really mine ....

The novel has also been turned into an animated series that recently finished its first season, which I've seen the first episode of -- it's very pretty, but I'm curious to see how it goes, since apparently it dumps the flashbacks all at once, which will probably make for a very different story experience! (And also, due to censorship, I expect will probably be at least a little less gay. Plausibly deniable gay only.)

Comments

[sovay]

and the dramatic reveal that the weird gay uncle Jin Ling has come to know and trust is in fact possessed by the undead spirit of his even weirder zombie-summoning murder uncle who's widely blamed for the death of Jin Ling's parents becomes a major plot point two-thirds of the way in! I really enjoyed this version of the story but I might have liked that version even better

I feel like you never get to see that story from the perspective of the weird gay uncle, so I'm for the original!

[edit] Why are there so many angry moms? Does it have something to do with the superabundance of uncles?

[skygiants]

Wei WuXian is a great weird gay uncle, he's so simultaneously encouraging and embarrassing! Like a hot Uncle Iroh!

I think it has more to do with the fact that there are so few women overall; many characters do have moms who appear in backstory but there just aren't that many women around in the present day to replace them. I can think of maybe one woman who actually survives to the end of the story. She's fine and happy though!

[sovay]

Like a hot Uncle Iroh!

I DON'T HAVE THE TIME TO READ 100+ CHAPTERS OF A GAY WUXIA WEB NOVEL.

I can think of maybe one woman who actually survives to the end of the story. She's fine and happy though!

Oh, good!

(Are there lesbians in this universe or just gay uncles?)

[skygiants]

YEAH THAT'S WHAT I THOUGHT TOO

AND THEN

(Alas, a plethora of gay uncles but absolutely no gay aunts! All those moms were just not having enough daughters. But there is a cranky female doctor who could very easily be a lesbian if there were just, like, any other women in her field of orbit to potentially pair her up with.)

[viridian5]

It's hard to be a lesbian in an area that barely has any women.

[superborb]

Hello I don't know you and this comment is a year late, but this post was just linked to me, and I just have to point out that the drama totally adds in lesbian lovers! Which maybe you knew already because, again, a year late, but just in case!

[skygiants]

Hi! :D Yes, I have now seen the drama and was very stoked about our respectable lesbian elders, an excellent (if all-too-brief) addition to an excellent narrative.

[melannen]

>>Like a hot Uncle Iroh!

>I DON'T HAVE THE TIME TO READ 100+ CHAPTERS OF A GAY WUXIA WEB NOVEL.

+1!!!

[skygiants]

IT'S BASICALLY JUST A LONG FANFIC, IT'S FINE

[melannen]

I don't have time to read 100+ chapters of fanfic either, I have a bunch of them saved up in my ' read later '. :p ( uncle Iroh has tempted me into it before though.)

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

[larryhammer]

++1

[alias_sqbr]

Oh my gosh he is totally a hot uncle Iroh.

[skygiants]

Zuko would accidentally wander into a corpse fort graveyard and get trapped in a wall.

[coffeeandink]

My personal analogy for Wei Wuxian is that he's a brilliant research scientist tragically coopted by the military industrial complex before he has a chance to discover his vocation as a teacher. Fortunately, he gets reincarnated/forced to possess someone as an unvengeful ghost.

[skygiants]

IT'S TRUE. He's so gifted at imparting valuable life lessons to the youth! (Having just watched the first episode of the anime, I'd forgotten how much of the opening is him watching the baby Lan trainees implement the techniques he invented and be alternately proud and concerned.)

[coffeeandink]

Him simultaneously teaching and trolling Jin Ling and the baby Lans in the ghost city arc is one of my favorite things.

[skygiants]

GHOST CITY ARC BEST ARC!!! I love everything about it, from Wei WuXian force-feeding children terrible healing porridge to Competitive Ghost Description to the baby disciples judging Our Heroes for not having a dramatic enough parting scene.

[coffeeandink]

This is my favorite of the author's works so far, though I suspect The Heavenly Official's Blessing may replace it when more is translated. I do recommend that, and also her first novel, The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System, which doesn't have worldbuilding as good or a romance as convincing, but which does have an incredibly sarcastic POV character commenting on all the xianxia novel tropes.

[skygiants]

Yeah, I have ... definitely come to terms with the fact that I am definitely going to be reading the others the next time I have a chunk of time to spend .... though I will probably try and wait for a while until more of The Heavenly Official's Blessing is translated first!

[alias_sqbr]

I'm so glad you enjoyed it and I got to read your thoughts!

The animated series is indeed much less explictly gay, but they are clearly being as gay as they can possibly get away with, and you can mostly imagine the gayer stuff happening just offscreen.

Also there are remarkably slashy ads with Lan Wangji promoting the deliciousness of the official GDC branded flavours of Cornetto, which is...an experience.

[skygiants]

I am REAL curious what they're gonna do when they hit the end and the Dramatic Final Confrontations that in the novel are, like, 50% battle, 25% relationship gossip, 25% distracting the enemy with your relationship gossip -

[alias_sqbr]

Same! One advantage of doing all the flashbacks early is that it avoided, say, the points where fake dating is a significant part of the plot. But they got through all those flashbacks in season 1 so I am very curious about how things will go in season 2. And yeah, the final confrontation would lose a lot of it's charm without Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji in the background angsting about their sex life and snuggling distractingly.

[skygiants]

I still cannot believe there was actually straight-up a scene where the villain's like "oh your boyfriend isn't here yet for the fight scene? ... wait what do you mean you don't think you're dating? okay now I'm just confused and tired??"

[brownbetty]

Coming in 8 months late with starbucks: the super weird thing was that that the dramtatic final battle was missing both the terrifying super-powered corpse-monster, and the relationship gossip, since for whatever reason the show had vetoed a) explicit raising the dead, and b) explicit gay. So at one point WWX attacks with a ... scary cloud? That prompts fear? Because what are his dark powers for if not raising the dead? The show would rather you didn't ask.

[skygiants]

And yet somehow it still took like 5 whole episodes to get through despite the fact that none of the most interesting things actually happened! That was the part that was most inexplicable, to me ....

[brownbetty]

I feel like they took so much out they felt that they had to put something of equivalent size in? I dunno, I also felt that the separation plot at the end was a fascinating decision, because it was like "they're parted forever... or like some number of days or something? ANYWAY." I can see how they needed to create some kind of moment that felt like closure in lieu of romantic declarations and uncomfortable sex, but if you wanted to pretend this wasn't a romance, you'd put in WWX return to Lotus Pier and reconciliation with his brother. BUT NOPE. Music video and then off-screen reconciliation! INTERESTING CHOICE.

[skygiants]

It feels like the cdrama equivalent of the ubiquitous kdrama 'we got an unexpected extension, so now we're going to tease the possibility of a Forever Parting when the heroine goes to study fancy cappucino in Italy for two years' except those are almost always the result of a production change and generate actual plot ...

[coffeeandink]

I mean, given the CGI, I'm pretty grateful they skimped on the superpowerful corpse monster.

Also: replacing thr explicit gay love confessions with additional attention to the plausibly denial gay of the villain and the love interest's brother is ... an interesting choice.

[brownbetty]

Aw, you could do the corpse-monster with makeup! (I mean. Not that Wen Ning's makeup was great or anything.)

That final scene was kind of devoted to making sure we understood exactly what a woobie everyone in that temple except Su She was. Fuck Su She. Does he have inner pain? Probably, but no one cares!

[kaberett]

Oh no I've opened it in tabs

[skygiants]

THAT'S HOW IT GETS YOU (I'd love to see your reaction if you end up reading it! :D)

[inkstone]

OMG! So a friend I follow on twitter started posting fanart from this series about a year ago and I was like, "Huh, this seems like a change of pace from the series you usually like but I'm glad you're liking it." I hadn't realized the gay was canon, hahaha.

I'm also mad because I now need to read this because "hot uncle iroh" is such a great pitch.

[skygiants]

The gay is overwhelmingly canon! Also: YOU'RE WELCOME, please report back if you do >:D

[larryhammer]

Haven't gotten to this one, mainly because the last I'd checked the translation, it wasn't finished yet. *adds to list*

[skygiants]

It is definitely finished now except for a couple chapters of bonus extras!

[lacewood]

"Hot Uncle Iroh" is UNQUESTIONABLY the best pitch I've seen for this series so far *thumbs up*

It's somewhere on my list of things to check out one far away day, maybe this means I should move it up the hypothetical list /shifty eyes

[skygiants]

I would encourage that >.> STRIKE WHILE THE IRON IS HOT by which I mean while I still remember what happened so I can best appreciate your reactions if you read it...

[schneefink]

I heard about Wei Wuxiang and Wan Langji, but somehow not the teenage apprentice necromancers *moves it up the list*

[skygiants]

THEY'RE SO CUTE. They meet a ghost and then they're all so emotionally affected by the ghost's sad story that they immediately insist on attempting to hold a funeral, badly, in a stranger's front yard!

[themadpoker]

Oh man, this is the only one of mxtx's novels I haven't started yet! Mostly because I'm a wimp and saw it tagged as horror. This is an excellent sales pitch though, I might have to go ahead and try it anyways.

[trascendenza]

Hmmm, this sounds both delightful and relevant to my interests! *adds to list* :)