i’ve been OBSESSEDDDD with all the people drawing zeno referencing maria from silent hill because Personally i do NOT play about maria from silent hill and it just fits sooooo well. so here’s my take!!!
*Bruce didn't tell Dick that Jason was alive. Therefore he doesn't know that Jason is Red Hood*
*Nightwing tries to stop Red Hood and chases him until he corners him and pins him in an alley. He takes off his helmet and to his surprise, he looks just like Jason*
Nightwing: ...Jason? (looks at his face and notices his green eyes, Jason had blue eyes) ... no... you're not...
Red Hood: (Tries to free himself from Nightwing's grip, looks at him out of the corner of his eye) Do I look like your boyfriend?
Nightwing: No... my... late brother. I can't believe it... you could be his twin, your face, your voice... just the eyes and clothes are different
(Red Hood finally manages to break free and pushes Nightwing)
Red Hood: (Puts his helmet back on) My name is Red Hood. I don't look like a ghost, do I?
So like, that frog who looks like Ribbit is actually my oc who from a regular NPC became a separate, conscious AI that creates and controls the main characters' dreams.
They have no specific appearance, name, or gender, and in each character's dream they has a unique appearance. I usually refer to them as "Dream" or (I like this most) "Faker".
In this 'comic', Faker takes on the appearance of Jax's friend Ribbit just to make fun on him just because he is asshole and deserve to suffer.
Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation - Mo Xiang Tong Xiu
Or how to persist on keep on learning as an author.
On January 16th I finished MDZS; it took me a month-ish to read the entire series, and after nearly two weeks I think my thoughts have settled enough for me to give an opinion.
It wasn`t the first time I had tried to read this series. Around a year ago, having finished TGCF for the first time, I entered the danmei world wanting to know everything, and obviously, the next thing a girl does is to go straight for another MXTX`s work. And so MDZS it was. And around 130 in, I dnfed it. I am many things in this life, and one of them is a quitter. The story didn`t click for me, but I didn`t think it was bad either, so I put it aside for another time, and -surprisingly- that was actually true and I actually ended up reading it.
After volume 1, many things in my head: I still wasn`t connecting with the story, probably because a) how confusing the sects thing was for me, and b) how badly written it was. I know, I just said something big, let me explain. We all know that MXTX`s strong points are her characters, nearly all of them are fantastic -imo-. She started writing good characters right from the beginning of her career with Scum Villain, and got better and better over the books until the end of TGCF. Perfect! We love that, I think we all agree. But her writing itself, her “pluma” as we romantically say in Spanish… I had a very hard time with it. It’s not the worst either, let’s be honest, but I could tell she was a naïve writer; very good ideas, not so good execution. I once (or many times) read on Reddit that the fans weren’t very happy with the translation. I don’t know Chinese, I can’t tell you about the quality of the translation, but my issues with the writing were not something a translator might have done wrong. My biggest issue with it was repetition. For example, if I remember correctly, she explained twice why WWX was afraid of dogs, the exact same story. Once was enough. And don’t get me started on every time a character appears and she describes over and over again every aspect of their appearance. I understand what she was trying to do (letting the reader wonder or guess who that was, create tension, make us understand that WWX is obsessed with LWJ’s looks…) but again, not that well executed. And now that you think I’m the most annoying person ever, let me tell you that I’m both glad and surprised that this gets better with every volume. I wasn’t expecting much change over the series, but to my surprise, MXTX proved that she is constantly learning and evolving, and after volume 5, although some mistakes were still present, they were notably reduced. You got it, girl!!!!!! This leads me to the idea that the story didn’t go through an editor during the commercialisation process, which could’ve been nice.
Anyways, as I told you girls I was about to drop the story again, but then the drunk scene happened. Easy: I loved it. LWJ is the funniest guy around, WWX is, well, WWX. He’s my everything, ya’ know, and if that was going to be the dynamic between those two, I wanted to read more. So we are suddenly on volume two and oh lord that cought my attention. Something I love about MXTX is that she loves horror, but she doesn’t write horror; she hints it. We see this in Scum Villain, that is a whole horror story through the eyes of a blind af dude, and we see this also in TGCF. The whole thing, but the black water arc in specific. I remember reading that part when they are in that temple, SQX is blind and deaf, and they are getting suddlenly chased by a lot people and you don’t know what’s going on and everything is claustrophobic and dark and weird… chills.
So now she puts me up in this decrepit town, with this fog, and this ghosts, and this twisted love story… girl, in my restless dreams I see that town! It’s Silent Hill!! I ate that up I loved it. I also caught another reference to something else in volumes 3 or 4 that I remember thinking “I can’t believe she knows about this thing” but, unfortunately, I also thought “I’m not gonna write it down, I will remember”… well. I forgot.
Then we get to volumes 3 and 4. I love them, great background for our emo queen, etc, not much more to say, vol.4 was my fav, but then...ah, girls Imma be honest, I didn’t love the ending. It wasn’t bad though, but let me explain: MXTX has a very characteristic way of inserting second hand embarrasment in her stories. It’s her thing. But right at the end of MDZS she puts this type of humor in a moment where it took me out of the story completely, and that for me was a big issue ‘cause I lost interest at a very high point in the story and I couldn't reconnect. I don’t think it was a skill issue like those I mentioned before. In fact, I don’t even think it was a bad thing, just a personal preference. Not bad bad, I just didn’t enjoy the ending.
Now, even if I liked the story, the fact that the beginning and the ending weren’t much my thing had a big impact on my opinion. This is a story that won’t stay with me over time. It was alright, nothing crazy. But as I said in my Scum Villain review, I perfectly understand why this is such a fan favourite, it has -a thing-, a thingy-thing. I really get it.
I won’t forget to mention the importance of MDZS for the creation of TGCF. You can see it in SV too, but I think that this story walked so TGCF could run; MDZS explores the ideas that later would be better developed and structured in TGCF, and would make it the masterpiece that it is. The complexity of good and evil, consequences of gossip, innocence, loyalty... all these themes are established and developed in MDZS, and then polished, meticulously perfected, in TGCF. And though I can see some prototype ideas in Scum Villain, I don’t consider it to be in the same category as these other two. It is a completely separate story. But I can see clearly that MDZS and TGCF are the same story told at different stages of life.
And I'll add that she had to fail here to be better; a better writer, a better storyteller, and a better thinker. You need to fail to create good things, and MDZS is the proof that practise, failure, and revision make you a better artist. Keep learning, keep refining, and keep creating. Experience life, evolve and write again.
