My roommate and I have started watching #TheUntamed and I thought I would chronicle this experience! POPULACE OF WIZARD CHINA: the dread necromancer hath been vanquished! the people rejoice!

Meanwhile, a Beautiful Elven Gentleman in a Wedding Dress & Tiara: *clings to goth necromancer on a cliff side, not rejoicing* Darling please! Think of our deposits for the flowers and the string quartet!

An Angry Man in a purple cape, like a grape with good cheekbones: I can’t support your lifestyle! BEAUTIFUL ELF: do you mean me! ANGRY GRAPE: I mean raising the dead & wearing eyeliner 24/7 I MUST throw you off this cliff! NECROMANCER: welp

NECROMANCER: got raised from dead. Huh. There is a bunch of teens in wedding dresses running around fighting demons. I have no idea what’s going on! SARAH: I find that very relatable, mr necromancer.

Leader of the Wedding Dress Teens: this goth dude is running around wearing a mask & waving demonic flags. Seems pretty clear what’s going on... we must be compassionate to the mentally unwell. #TheUntamed

WEDDING DRESS TEENS: yesss our hero comes to defend us from demons! BEAUTIFUL ELF: floats over a rooftop playing a magical stringed instrument SARAH: gives a whole new meaning to air guitar. NECROMANCER: Uh oh. He’s probably still mad about the deposits. #TheUntamed

NECROMANCER: books it, leaving behind a trail of devastation, on a little donkey. SARAH: he is very chipper for a necromancer.

It emerges one Wedding Dress Teen, who I thought had simply chosen ivory for his special day, is from a whole other magic clan. Can’t believe the magic clans are color coded, and we were simultaneously introduced to Ice White Wedding Dress Clan and Cream & Gold Overtones Clan!

Young Mr Ivory & Gold: ticks off even sweet Boy Snow White, leader of the Wedding Dress Teens NECROMANCER: ur a brat and nobody likes u. ANGRY GRAPE: I love my small gilded nephew! Who are you? NECROMANCER: uh... I’m a mysterious masked man with no luck, obviously! #TheUntamed

NECROMANCER: teen drama plus an evil animated statue. The donkey cannot solve this problem. Let me summon a ghost general with flowing locks & also flowing chains. SARAH: as a lifelong Jacob Marley in A Christmas Carol fan, the ghost is instantly my fave character. #TheUntamed

ANGRY GRAPE: well well if it isn’t the gay Miss Havisham of Magic China. BEAUTIFUL ELF: don’t let him tell you a story with a cliffhanger ending, kids. WEDDING DRESS TEENS: ... adults are makin things v awkward #theUntamed

ANGRY GRAPE (Jiang Cheng): the ghost general... the eyeliner aesthetic... I’m beginning to darkly suspect that this man is... BEAUTIFUL ELF (Lan Zhan): My betrothed! NECROMANCER (Wei Wuxian): You’re not mad about the deposits? ELF: I am ready to elope! NECROMANCER: I may swoon.

NECROMANCER: Sometimes I wish I was back in high school. (Flashback commences after flashforward because this show likes to keep you GUESSING.) 3 siblings on their way to summer camp! SARAH: Oh the angry purple guy is his BROTHER? I get the cliff thing now. I have siblings.

To recap the 3 teen siblings on their way to summer camp: Necromancer (Wei Wuxian), Furious Stylishly Purple Sibling (Jiang Cheng) & their sister who is a Sweetheart Obsessed w/Soup. (Yanli.) JC: Please don’t get us in trouble at camp. WW: No way! brb getting summer camp booze.

JC: Love my brother but wow is he a rule-breakin rascal. BEAUTIFUL ELF (Lan Zhan): did someone say rules? I love rules more than even my sparkling forehead ribbon. #theUntamed

WEI WUXIAN: Well swordfought by moonlight. Are you an immovable object, sexy? What a coincidence, I’m an unstoppable force. LAN ZHAN: you are doing CRIMES on my ROOF! SARAH: Ah, tale as old as time. #theUntamed

I will make a note here that ‘Lan Zhan’ is a familiar name that as far as I understand it only those close to him should use. Our future necromancer has instantly started using it so much it is clear if Roommate and I drank every time he said it, we would Die.

Also at summer camp. Lan Zhan’s Hot Older Brother, Magical Bachelor #1 (Lan Xichen) A Youth of Humble Origins & Dimples (Meng Yao) and a Fluttering Fellow with a Fan & a Canary (Nie Huisang). I’m always into the non-combatants in a martial society, so Fan Boy may be my #2 fave.

There appears to be a Sexy Magical Bachelors List somewhere in this world? I Respect whoever made it and I Suspect my main man with the fan.

SARAH: What a fun group, I would hate for anything bad to happen to them! LAN XICHEN/#1 BACHELOR: who is responsible for recent evil doings? CLAN BUILT ON LAVA MOUNTAIN: mwhaha! Mwhaha! Who can say?

CLAN EYELINER: go spy on the do-gooders at summer camp and take your feeble invalid brother with u! BEAUTIFUL SPY/WEN QING: sigh, ok. SARAH, a lifelong Secret Garden/Colin Craven obsessive: Feeble invalid?! Oh my god... it’s the GHOST GENERAL!

SARAH: When I realised a genius had combined Chained Ghost with Invalid Gentleman of Evil Aristocrat Family I went and lay down with the kitten on the rug and thanked the archetype god. Ghost General/Wen Ning/MY MAN! be welcome to the narrative.

CLAN LAVA MOUNTAIN SPIKE THRONE: we have hired a pretty sociopath to go collect a magic mcguffin. PRETTY SOCIOPATH (Xue Yang): You’re making a terrible decision, for which I thank you! SARAH: oh, the shit is about to hit Nie Huaisang’s fan. #TheUntamed

So, I feel I have tweeted some CHARACTER & SETTING INTRODUCTIONS! More names that may be necessary—2 characters of the future, Angelically Considerate Boy Snow White (Lan Sizhui) & Ivory & Gold Brat (Jin Ling).

To be clear: I refer to Magic/Wizard China the same way I would to Magic/Wizard England or Magic Sexy France or Celtic Magic Ireland/Eire in media—fiction where people are flying around with powers but in a distinct cultural setting!

& the colour coding of clans is useful as colour coding (of hogwarts houses, etc) is in media with big casts, though the white and gold DID deceive mine eye! Memo in this context: white is for mourning so Lan Zhan is the goth & Wei Wuxian w/his red accessories the blushing bride!

Anyway! Having made introductions, I pause this to go think about the right way to balance parody with respect, which I hope to do in future! In any case I‘m definitely enjoying #theUntamed, which after puzzling me for 2 episodes is bringing the epic and multi-layered characters!

I shall also be thinking about: Everybody in Magic Summer School Having a Crush, whether sacred sparkling headband-touching is the new pigtail-pulling, and How It All Came to This (the necromantic cliff edge). And I shall be thinking about the Ghost General...