Genderqueer, Dyslexic, and just a little bit odd. I'm 90% on mobile. So generally don't tag outside of trigger warnings. If you need something labeled moving forward I'll do my best to help you out. (I blog a lot about cute animals, trans stuff, religious abuse in the Christain faith, and Neurodivergence so if any of that isn't your cup of tea this may not be the blog for you)
It’s always kind of been a bullshit “symptoms syndrome,” “go away shut up ‘diagnosis’” to me, which was NOT helped by there being no treatment ever offered other than “exercise and improve your mental health you’re just lazy and depressed and anxious and feeling exertion makes you more anxious (saying ‘exertion/exercise intolerance’ makes you go to hell for real) go to therapy” so like. actually seeing solid well researched evidence that no I’m not just a pathetic stupid clumsy weak person with no distress tolerance as I’ve very much internalized…. I am undone.
Guess I’m back for another rec, you know I’m there when I get minimum two bromance dudes and historical and OOMPH if you liked The Blood of Youth this might be up your lane!! Slightly similar main character premise but super good, the trope never gets old!!
TL;DR
- Stupid disciple + his (unknowing) shifu - Enemy bros “where is my shixiong’s remains?!” + “defeat me and find out” vibes who have to work together and form their deep friendship and get past misunderstanding and mystery blah blah love it - All-powerful legendary swordsman losing all his powers and becoming a legendary physician - Everything is about dead shixiong we don’t even know how the man looks like - Investigations and jianghu shenanigans, cases!!! - Uwu puppy dog and good in martial arts disciple and his sickly, ex-legendary and still cool shifu who doesn’t know he’s a shifu LMAO - Yes uwu bromance, especially cuz shifu is DYING and he is WEAK and he gonna spit out blood and faint everywhere as they find cure for him
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AIRING DEETS
Total episodes: 40
Premiered on: July 23
VIP ends: August 18
Can be watched from iQiyi
Airing schedule: 6 episodes on the first day, 2 episodes everyday after for 6 days, then 8 episodes a week except for the last week, that has 6 episodes with finale
SUMMARY
Ten years ago, Li Xiangyi who was master of Sigu Sect, challenged Di Feisheng, master of the Jinyuan Alliance, to a fight on the seas, where they both end up critically hurt as Li Xiangyi tries to find out where his shixiong’s (Shan Gu Dao) corpse and bones went - his sect was attacked on the same day, and when he returns to the sect, critically injured, he sees some of his deputies blaming him for the attack, and instead of going in, he disappears after that.
Ten years later, Li Xiangyi is now Li Lianhua (Lotus Li LMAO) and he’s an eccentric but skilled doctor who has his eyes on earning money. By chance, he meets Fang Duobing (Fang Many Illness LMAO), a young, aspiring detective who’s super skilled in martial arts, but he’s been unable to enrol in Bai Chuan Yuan (the past Sigu Sect), a sort-of sect that plays an enforcer role in the pugilistic world and helps to solve cases, arrest wrongdoers, and the like. Fang Duobing’s dream is to get in, but as he’s the only son of two powerful people who’ve been refusing to let him be part of Bai Chuan Yuan, he’s failed the test 3 times despite being the most-skilled one there. On his third try, however, he tells the four masters of Bai Chuan Yuan that his shifu is Li Xiangyi, a Li Xiangyi who used to be a part of Bai Chuan Yuan and is still greatly missed by the four masters. They agree to it, but only if FDB solve three cases with arrests.
His first case leads him to meet LXY who’s now known as Li Lianhua, and their meeting doesn’t go off to a great start; FDB is idealistic and a rich, wealthy young master at heart who’s never suffered much hardship, and LLH drugs him after and scolds him for being too trusting of people and being too obvious, going around with two servants. LLH leaves him with parting words, only to meet him again later at the scene of the crime.
They solve cases together from there; LLH is still looking for his shixiong’s body ten years later, and decides to solve cases with FDB as a guise to get closer to the truth, making use of FDB slightly. Later, Di Feisheng recognises him, and the three of them are forced to become allies/friends to uncover a greater conspiracy. The clock is ticking for them as well, as Li Xiangyi was poisoned and injured ten years ago, and was given only ten more years to live. The story begins in the year that he’s meant to die.
*Fang Duobing met Li Xiangyi when he was young and still sickly, and Li Xiangyi encouraged him, and Fang Duobing held onto his every word and suffered a lot to become healthy again and as skilled as he is today, all because Li Xiangyi said those words to him that year ;-;
WHY YOU SHOULD WATCH
(1) Fight scenes are GREAT
- Water water water
- All female sect?!
(2) Bromance, subtle for now, but greater later I assume - ZENG SHUNXI’S FACE HE SO PUPPY BLURBLUR AND SMILING?! AND CHENG YI SMIRKING?! Like Fang Duobing is just wagging his tail and running after a person he doesn’t know is truly his shifu as he claims LOL
(3) Shifu Li Xiangyi not knowing he was shifu to Fang Duobing
(4) Li Xiangyi being the reason for Fang Duobing to EXIST but Li Xiangyi ain’t around anymore (not) and he sad and Li Xiangyi can’t tell him who he is UWUUUU
(5) Familiar faces hehe if you are a SNGX/The Blood of Youth and SHL fan
Xiaoge returns from the mountain, with a basket of foraged goods, fresh and unusual and most of them only familiar from previous years, when he would do the same at camp, and hand them silently over to Pangzi, by the fire. But this time they are home, and they have weekly deliveries to Xilaiman, and no one is at risk of ever being hungry.
But they’re delicious, delicate herbs that no one has learned to cultivate, vegetables that bruise and wilt and cannot be transported by truck, but can be carried down the mountain, wrapped in rush leaves to cushion them from each other. Unique flavors and textures and aromas, and the air of quiet satisfaction around their friend.
Pangzi washes them in the cold of the spring, doesn’t let treated water touch them, and cooks the most delicious, fragrant broths, marinades chickens with the herbs, roasts the roots to eat with their skins still covered in ash, dipped in salt and still steaming.
Xiaoge never takes a basket out with him, too bulky, perhaps, for the way he likes to fly through the forest and over the rocks, but he always returns with one. Sometimes woven from the rushes that grow anywhere water pools, sometimes from the palm shaped fronds of a tree fern. Sewn, sometimes, with cord made from the twined vines of climbing plants. Always strong, and neat and beautiful, subtle decorations woven in, chevron and plait and braid.
Wu Xie hangs them to dry on the north wall of the courtyard, their green leaves turning golden in the sunshine, and they use them for harvesting the garden, for collecting the eggs, as fish baskets and crab traps and just because they’re beautiful doesn’t mean they’re not useful, so they use them until they break apart. Because after all, Xiaoge is always making more.
So Jake Wyatt, one of the creators of My Adventures with Superman, seems to have confirmed that Meryl Stryfe was indeed inspiration for their characterization of Lois Lane.
I love an iconic tenacious short girl chasing a humanoid superpower.
there isn’t a “kill all the ____” that will fix the problems of the world, because,
1. you probably can’t. 2. if you did, more of them would probably come into existence, or 3. other people would come to fit the same social position. 4. There isn’t a group of Fundamentally Bad Evil People that Cause All The Problems, because 5. Harm isn’t caused by a type of person. everyone causes harm and an effective system of addressing harm has to contend with that. 6. you will end up expanding the definition of ____ to include whoever else you want to kill anyway. which will suck. 7. Destruction without building will leave nothing behind. New harms will arise. Old harms will continue. Because there is nothing to replace them. There is nothing Helpful being done. a better world isn’t created by just getting rid of all the bad stuff and calling it a day. you have to actually make something that meets peoples needs. 8. structures of power and harm sometimes maintain themselves even if no one intends them to or purposefully wants them to. 9. systems of power will end up finding a scapegoat. they will convince you that some marginalized group are the real ____ and you should focus on them. and in your zeal and blood thirst you, or at least some of your allies, will fall for it. And you will commit atrocities. 10. The world that is created can only come from the world that is.
And look, whatever group you are thinking of – yes I mean them too. Pedophiles, rapists, murderers, sociopaths, nazis, billionaires, cops, you name it. Harm and oppression is far too complicated to ever be solved with Finding The Right Group To Kill.
And there are lots of really great arguments to be made about why eliminationist rhetoric is ethically bad, or historically questionable, etc. I am open to that being added on and talked about too.
But my point is that It Will Not Accomplish Your Desired Results. You Will Have Committed Atrocities and You Will Have Failed At Achieving Your Initial Goal.
People say that you can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs, but I say that it’s amazing how many eggs you can break without making an omelet.
“The end justifies the means. But what if there never is an end? All we have is means.”
-Ursula K. Le Guin
religious argument for your unpleasant aunt: look, god himself tried to kill all the bad people off in one big flood, but there were bad people again in like one generation. why do you think your favorite political party is going to do better.
Lately I've been reading "Drawdown", by Paul Hawken et al, a comprehensive set of strategies for tackling the climate crisis. Your Cambrian Wildwoods post reminded me of one of the solutions - Silvopasture, from the Latin for 'Forest Grazing'.
Essentially it means proposing to farmers that a portion of land be forested and that their animals freely graze there. It can be extremely flexible - planting trees in existing pasture, thinning down woodland to allow for forage growth, using trees as natural fencing, and more.
It's got good potential for carbon capture, and also for saving farmers money in feed and fertiliser, creating better conditions for livestock by keeping them in the shade, and potentially providing secondary income sources in fruit, nuts, etc.
What do you think of it as a potential avenue for Welsh farming? The focus in "Drawdown" is on cattle farming, but I don't see any reason not to trial it with sheep - especially since it could be spun as a hybrid of both aspects of traditional culture...
("Drawdown" also emphasises peer-to-peer uptake through word-of-mouth, rather than being pushed by outsiders.)
Oh, yes - it’s basically what they did at Pontbren. That was a farmer-led initiative - one of the big expenses with sheep farming is having to bring them into barns over the winter and supply all feed, but traditionally they’d have stayed out all year. So these farmers got together and went, “How do we ethically and sustainably reduce this expense?”
What they realised is that they were paying for (a) the government-enforced decision post-WW2 to swap to high-yield breeds of sheep that weren’t suited to the Welsh climate and topography (i.e. wet as fuck and mostly vertical), and (b) the decline of traditional hedgerow management and shelterbelts. And so the dream was born.
They contacted the Woodland Trust purely to act in an advisory capacity - they wanted to know which trees would be best, and where. They could take much land out of production, but the beauty of hedgerows and shelterbelts is that they’re linear features that replace your fences. That was how environmentalists got on board - we were invited, and we remembered that. We were therefore allowed to do a couple of experiments as it progressed, such as testing the infiltration rates of rain into groundwater rather than run-off and comparing it between hedgerow fields and fence fields. Meanwhile, the farmers replaced their stock with native breeds - I believe mostly Welsh Mountain Sheep, which look amazing:
Ain’t no rain getting in THAT.
Anyway, a few strategically placed shelterbelts and hedgerows later and:
The sheep can now safely stay out all year round, excepting storms
The sheep are actually healthier and have higher welfare standards
Floods have reduced thanks to higher infiltration rates
Soil erosion is reduced so the fields and river are healthier
The farmers have saved money
The farmers are now making extra money, because they started a tree nursery and sell trees as a side project
So yes! Silvipasture is actually a huge tool for the future that we need to be embracing, as is agroforestry for arable farming, and the frustrating/hopeful part of it is, these are tools we used to use. This isn’t new knowledge - it’s forgotten knowledge that we need to reclaim. But even aside from the immediate benefits, it also has massive implications for resilience in a world with a warming climate, and we need to do it faster.
Writer friends, tell me how many WIPs and how many UFOs you have. I have 2 WIPs and [redacted] UFOs (jk it’s around 16 across my three main fandoms)
[image ID: Tweet from bylambd on 7/5/23 reading: in the knitting community there is a distinction between wips (something you’re actively working on) and UFOs (unfinished objects, something is unfinished but in hibernation), and i think fic writers should adopt this distinction as well /End ID]
When September and October are nearing and you’re planning an event: google “Rosh Hashanah *year*” and *Yom Kippur *year*” and then, and I cannot stress this enough, don’t plan your event on those days. In fact, don’t plan any events starting sundown the night before. Those are the three most important days of the Jewish calendar, and, once again, I cannot stress enough how much this little bit of forethought and kindness will make every Jew you know cry tears of joy.
in 2023, the night before Rosh Hashanah is Thursday evening, September 14.
I think so much of the outlook over fandom would change if many people treated it like it is: a goddamn hobby.
A fandom group is no better nor more revolutionary than a knitting club. It can replicate any real world biases and discriminations and it can also be used to raise money/group people towards causes. It can foster connections that will turn to actual real political action or it can just be a gathering of people who don’t know much about each other outside of it.
It can be lovely to experience when you’re surrounded by a lovely group and it can be hell when the group is full of cattiness and pettiness . It can be inclusive or it can be exclusive when you’re surrounded by bigotry.
Because it’s a group of people - it’s going to have problems. And when there’s a conflict or people are pointing shit out, it needs to be solved so its members aren’t spit out in the sake of “avoiding drama”. Because it’s a group of people, it’s not automatically changing the world in a blaze of self grandeur. Because it’s a group of people with a common hobby, it can impact its members lives for the better and give them a space to express themselves.
Fandom is a goddamn knitting club. It’s not this inherent great, subversive force of good nor this den of evil that’s traumatisizing the children. Chill out.
I would point out that some of the worst online conflicts have occurred in knitting groups, and also, women were knitting in front of the guillotines in the French Revolution.
I think the OP vastly underrates the potential for revolution in fandom and in knitting groups :)
Aight, I woke up with no patience today so here we go.
With this post I am NOT saying knitting groups are some peaceful places where no conflict happens or that a gathering of people can’t be a force of good. I say that, explicitly, multiple times in the post. Please do read.
What I meant with the original comparisom is: nobody, ABSOLUTELY NOBODY joins a knitting group expecting to solve imperialism. You do because it’s a fun hobby. That’s it.
Can this group of people who came togheter for a hobby end up organising to solve a problem in their community? For sure. Is this expected or required? Fuck no. Do people look at the grandmas knitting in the corner and go ‘damn, nona, why aren’t you solving world hunger instead of discussing patterns’? NO. Because IT’S A HOBBY. It’d be silly and plain performative to expect otherwise.
I cannot stress this enough as a Latin American person from the Global South: y'all first worlders are obsessed with consumer activism and the idea that you, individual, can solve the problem’s aches on your own. You’re constantly thinking about the big fucking picture and it constantly shows how many of yall don’t have a tradition of collectivism and local activism. And because you don’t know how the fuck people do activism, you think activism it’s some kind of funky identity that must show in everything you consume, including fandom. You think changing the world is some painful, glorious thing and your hobbies should reflect that. They don’t.
Let me tell you the secret to activism. Find a concrete, small material need in your community, find a group of people who also wanna solve it. Then try. It won’t be glorious, it won’t be easy. It’s slow, steady, boring material help. Ant work.
Sometimes it’s difficult to balance the work with everyday life so you may bow out for a bit then come back. That’s how it goes.
I’m not underestimating the power of change (or chaos) a group of people can have. It’s collectives, groups of people, united to solve concrete material problems what helps. I’m just saying: nobody expects fandom to solve, idk, lead poisoning just as nobody expects a knitting group to solve british neocolonisation.
First humans ever to leave the solar system suddenly drop out of communications and the ship can’t be found with any equipment. After one month of no contact their home countries start reluctantly holding funerals for the space heroes only for them all to turn up, healthy, well fed and extremely disoriented, in the middle of Tokyo, talking about alien abduction. Turns out that aliens found the poor humans straying out of their solar system, presumably lost, and took them to Alien Wildlife Rehabilitation before dumping them back in the middle of their native habitat.
I literally just googled “city with the highest population”
I’ll bet they have cool new tattoos that turn out to be tracking devices too. Just in case these spirited individuals try to make another break for it.
… do the tats make them stupid popular, like that time scientists gave birds tracker anklets and it accidentally made them ultra fuckable
Let’s say yes. Those alien scientists are learning so much, and none of it is accurate.
