THREE KINGDOMS OF BADASS

[tongari]

Hegemons always resent heaven, because only hell awaits us at the end of our path. - Guo Jia to Cao Cao
The Ravages of Time ((火鳳燎原) or as I like to call it, THREE KINGDOMS OF BADASS, is a Hong Kong comic based on the Romance of Three Kingdoms. It is full of (hundreds of) characters (spanning multiple, sprawling storylines) who can beat up entire

Comments

[skitty_kitty]

Wait, Mr Gaiman tweeted something you did? Was it the Inception crossover? Because you deserve it, that'd be freaking awesome! :D

[tongari]

I think a lot of people spammed him with the link and he got fed up lolololol

Then again it is better than the alternative. I would be EXTREMELY MORTIFIED if he had linked to any of my posts celebrating gay daimyos of the Sengoku period instead

[skitty_kitty]

Lmao! Well...I'd possibly agree were I in your shoes for the latter, but that's very awesome that he tweeted you! ;D Your art deserves the recognition, plus hell yeah Inception/Sandman crossover, how could he not be all over that? :D

[tongari]

I don't know his stance on fanarts, but am aware quite a number of other creators seem kind of against it (I think George RR Martin, although I could be mistaken). So I can imagine it would be v. annoying to have lots of people spam you with links to something you didn't like or approve of really xD;

[equivalent_t]

What, I'm still not done angsting over Sun Ce's death! Gah, are we in the proper year in which Guo Jia is supposed to die? He's pretty much in the top three of my favourite strategist characters in RoT, and although he died young I was hoping for more screentime!

(Also : you know, this series should win some sort of Fangirl Recognition Award for having canon yaoi and look completely natural doing it. Although I'm not sure if I want to call it yaoi.)

P.S. I stopped reading RoT online when it's licensed in my country; the translation is absolutely lovely and makes it completely worth the wait to go home and read. Which is once a year. This means I'm awfully behind on it compared to nearly everyone I know online, however.

[tongari]

I am not in the proper mood for Guo Jia to die okay ;_;

Well honestly it just seems like one of RoT's tricks to up the suspense in an otherwise boring battle. Am pretty sure GJ's death is going to be very, very remarkable, and there's just not been enough build-up recently for that. Also as I've complained before there really needs to be more GJ-CC interaction to explain why his death upset Cao Cao so much..

Ahaha wait is this about Meng. I've actually seen reviews on forums by people who go like, "So I'm very straight and totally don't understand why Huo likes Meng even though he KNOWS Meng is a guy.. but.. it's still really very touching"

But my issue with that is I think of Meng as a girl really. And so does everyone else, to the extent that I wonder if Meng thinks of himself as a girl orz

[equivalent_t]

Ah, good to hear that. At least CM tends to build up GJ's plots quite a fair bit in advance before he does anything (JX, on the other hand...), so I guess I should expect him to live through the battle

[tongari]

Haha I think the Chinese fans suffer from the same denial too.. The English translation is pretty clear but you tend to forget this especially when Meng is in disguise and enemies refer to him/her as "that bitch!". And well Meng doesn't seem to mind having to dress up... Also I feel Huo and Meng's relationship is somehow very different from the uh heavenly bromance between Zhou Yu and Sun Ce.

But ultimately I think of Meng as a kickass female assassin because I think that's what s/he would want, orz

I'm pretty sure there should be simplified translations, but they only import the originals for some reason.. From the size of the Chinese book section in Kino, I'm guessing people here do read traditional script, just not my friends? (I am a hopeless case of whitewash orz)

[sinistera]

I want in on this badassery.
/dls translations

Will I need a helmet?

[tongari]

Hahaha I forgot to mention the first few books are a lot of BADASS ACTION!! tied together with evil scheming bastards. But after realizing that fans liked the evil scheming bastards Chen Mou toned down the action.

Also I remember them being somewhat crude?? But this trend dies down, resurfacing only about two hundred chapters later with Lu Meng

You may need a character guide / Ro3K reference to keep track of the names :D; But I will also try to be a reliable guide!

[sinistera]

Is it safe to assume that everyone's gay, and then work my way up from there?

[tongari]

Yes, although some of them don't realize it orz. Character relationships I really enjoy are:

LiaoYuan Huo / Xiao Meng / Sima Yi
The handicapped warriors as a whole
Xiao Meng / Lu Bu
Lu Bu / Zhang Liao
Sun Ce / Zhou Yu
Jia Xu / Guo Jia
The entire Wei army / Cao Cao
The Peach Garden bros
Zhang Liao vs Zhang Fei

Also this may break your brain since everyone who is gay for Cao Cao is pretty terrifying to look at

[dmjewelle]

I've heard of Ravages of Time, never was curious enough to read it, but congratulations on the Gaiman RT! You do deserve it! :)

[tongari]

Yea it is pretty long and the first few books so crazy, I think that discourages a lot of people from picking it up :(

But you should anywayyyy it is pretty awesome :D

Thanks for the kind words! Still attempting to hide under my bed from shame though orz

[lacewood]

Is Ravages of Time still ongoing? Any end in sight? I'd consider getting into it one day (I think this will work much better than actually reading Three Kingdoms, which will KILL ME) but man, it's SO LONG. XD

[tongari]

To quote someone else "30 books and Sun Ce still hasn't died yet??" Chen Mou says by the time it ends he should already be in hospital from the stress.

(I'm not sure how many books it is by now but it took us 300+ chapters to get to the battle of Guandu, or, it is still a long way to Red Cliff)

Haha you should read it <3 <3 <3 it is IMHO more rewarding than Romance of 3K. It is the only long-running series of all time where I actually still care about the characters after years and years of reading. I only read in English so I guess that's why I survived!! Sometimes banananess is a blessing

[lacewood]

... Okay, I think I know how people trying to get into One Piece feel. omg. XD But um, perhaps ONE DAY I will try and brave this (anyway, there seem to be scanlations up on Mangafox)

Now I wonder if the version sold in Singapore is a SG version with simplified or not. Hm.