#tltr

oh ho ho have i watched it. i have watched it alright. not only have i watched it but just yesterday i made my UNDERGRADS watch it (okay just one clip of xiao yuliang, bc i was teaching them about wirework) (bc i also made them watch house of flying daggers, yes it was my favorite day in film class: wuxia day!). NB however that surprisingly little of this is actually wirework—it's just xiao yuliang flipping himself around like a little pancake, bc that's what he DOES.

[yes this guy is huang junjie, not xiao yuliang; but they both play the same character, xiaoge. yes we all know it makes no sense. shhhhh just roll with it, don’t fight it, it’ll be easier if you just accept that your favorite characters will never ever be played by the same actors, except for all the times when they are. why? because of c-ent. go home, c-ent, you’re drunk. also because it’s funnier this way.]

FORTUNATELY you don’t need me to explain bc smarter people than i have already made beautiful guides to watching dmbj. the main thing to remember is that you literally can’t do it wrong bc the entire franchise is, as we say in the american south, a dog’s breakfast. everything is made up and the points don’t matter. you can start with any of the dramas and it still won’t make sense, but that’s okay because that’s what fandom wikis and tumblr and all of us are for.

it’s all because of this guy, 南派三叔 = nanpai sanshu = npss, whose real name is 徐磊, Xu Lei. he never finishes anything he starts unless they force him to, probably by threatening to take away his alcohol. so if you read any of the novels, please don’t expect them to have endings, because half the time they just sort of. stop. (i’m still upset about sha hai. i will always be upset about sha hai. i'm in THERAPY about sha hai.) (and i suppose you could in theory read the novels, in order, first, before watching the dramas? i know exactly one (1) person who did this but they have an exquisitely nerdy doctorate and i really don’t advise it for the faint of heart, you’re gonna suffer through a lot of fart jokes and really super gross insects. sadly i know this because i too have read the novels, because i also have a doctorate and apparently way too much fucking time on my hands. which is why it’s 1 am and i’m answering another ask instead of grading the last half dozen papers on antigone and the popol vuh, okay where were we.) RIGHT, so—definitely read @foxofninetales’s wonderful guide to “possible entry points to dmbj” (or @laireshi’s guide to the novels, if those still interest you.) @laireshi also has an excellent guide to starting with ultimate note, which i think is a fine drama to start with! the cast is great. (just be prepared for a cliffhanger) (which can be resolved, anomalously, by reading the novel). @thelaithlyworm also has a good guide here, and @dramas-vs-novels has a guide to all the major characters. and you will love all of the characters, very quickly, with a degree of intensity that can and probably should alarm you. you will especially love the iron triangle. these idiots. them. yes.

so you can try to be logical about it!…OR you can do what i did, which was, knowing absolutely fucking nothing, just faceplant into reboot (because ofc i was obsessed with zhu yilong, who was my gateway drug, just like 99% of western dmbj rookies who fell in love with guardian), and then stare in horror as dmbj devoured my brain over the next two years and i couldn’t think about anything or anyone but xiaoge. you know. like that. isn’t fandom great.

just think, someday soon you’ll even be able to appreciate this absolutely idiotic in-joke. there are about a squillion more where this one came from, too.

but the main thing is, nonny: whatever you do, have fun! lost tomb is completely unhinged and that’s the best thing about it. it is also, as i repeatedly warn my students, the star wars of china, and you will never ever reach the end of its vast expanses. not least because npss keeps starting and not finishing things.

Liu Sang: But don't you hate yourself.

But instead of making that part of the plot holiness I like to imagine sitcom-style hijinks where Erjing is constantly engaging in Shenanigans to avoid meeting Sanshu face to face. Making up excuses, hiding behind flowerpots, convincing Ershu that this one gathering of the Wu Family really needs to be a masquerade party for Reasons