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May. 7th, 2019 09:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsThis 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.)
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.)
