The Untamed / Mo Dao Zu Shi (MDZS) fandom starter kit
Useful links, where to watch, some meta commentary, and other things that will hopefully get you started in this fandom.
written by Caroline aka avawtsn in 2021, last reviewed and ported into website format 24.12.08
table of contents
- getting started: recommended reading and references ← you are here
- canon and adaptations
- the Untamed / CQL / the "web series"
- the Untamed Special Edition
- the Untamed movies / Fatal Journey and the Living Dead
- Founder of Diabolism / MDZS animated series / donghua / anime
- Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation / MDZS comic / manhua / manga
- Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, the original MDZS novel
- MDZS audio drama
- selected fic recs
- cast on social media
Getting started: recommended reading and references
Primers for before you get watching/reading, if you need basic overview of plot before/while getting started, and other explanatory prep/preparatory explanations
- Aja Romano's Vox article: The Untamed, streaming on Netflix, ripped my heart out and fed it to me. I can’t get enough.
- Silvia Reads Books: So, You Want To Get Into MO DAO ZU SHI (MDZS)/The Untamed…
- Brownbetty: A light overview of some Chinese-media fandoms (includes overviews of other series and books, including the author of MDZS’ other novels)
- Skygiants: MDZS plot overview/review (refers solely to the book but much applies to the show)
- Immortal Mountain Blog: general Xianxia novel notes by a westerner, including a handy glossary
References and further reading as you watch/read
- Jill Corbie's Spoiler-Free Untamed Cheat Sheet, including character names, sects, and pictures
- The Untamed clans, with slight annotations
- The Untamed Name Acronyms - Cast and Characters (another doc of mine)
- MDZS fandom wiki to look up characters (useful for checking faces but tends to contain spoilers further down the page, like spouses/family, alive/dead status, etc)
- Tumblr user hunxi-guilai's meta on historical/cultural worldbuilding, specific moments, themes, and characters
AvenueX’s Hotpot.tv drama explainer videos(hotpot.tv is no longer active, but eps 17-19 were about the Untamed and about, respectively, all the multiple names people have, geography and where places are today, and the names of weapons. If anyone should find if these videos were reuploaded anywhere else, please let me know!)
Post-watch bonuses
- After each episode, I highly recommend the tumblr howpeacefulislwj for some shippy and hilarious commentary and appreciation. You can do this as you go through your first watch-through, it’s not spoilery for upcoming content.
- After you watch all 50 episodes, tumblr user canary3d’s Restless Rewatch commentary is…*chef’s kiss* levels of good. It’s Extremely Good, hilarious, and worth your time. But it’s spoilery for future content and full series arcs, hence you should not dive in until you’ve completed all the content. Also, it’s a work in progress, currently up to episode 10, part 1.
Plus!
- Tumblr user hunxi guilai will get you caught up on some beautiful meta thoughts, all kinds of stuff you missed in the language, names, clan mottos, you name it.
- And Untamed heritage posts will also get you caught up on fandom memes, and there are a lot of them, and they keep coming everyday. The fandom really is an active and rich one and will keep you busy for many years if you're happy here.