#cultivation theories

[wolfcubx2]

Mother's kiss

Hi, this idea I wanted to put out there. One I would be very happy to see it written if at all possible. My idea goes like this- at some point during the cloud releases study arc Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian end up working together on a night hunt. The hunt itself is simple as the just need to convince the ghost, a mother who died before she was able to give birth to move on. The problem is she stayed because she was worried her children wouldn't be able to reincarnate properly because they were never born. In convincing her to move on Wei Wuxian Unknowingly agrees to protect her child, allowing her to cast a very specific spell. One that if he takes in the essence (or dna) of another will result in pregnancy and certain necessary body modification. And this being mdzs him and Lan Wangji end up kissing accidentally and activating the spell. This is based on the idea that a person's golden core in given the time and enough information can make changes to the body, and while usually adding a completely new set of organs is some what impossible, this spell and or curse relys on the spiritual memory of the caster. Which would make it some what well know in the cultivation world at least by healers. And because it affects the golden core Wei Wuxian ends up collapsing a few hours after it's activation. In my mind the time it would take to properly make such changes would be 2-3 days, of which he would be absolutely exhausted and some what pained but not unconscious. It would also be a process the Healers could not interfere with with out risking qi deviation on his part. And of course Wei Wuxian be Wei Wuxian would what to keep the child even if he was offered another option, which is somewhat unlikely considering the Lan sect rules. As for Lan Wangji as soon as he realized what happened and what spell it was he seems like the type to try an take responsibility, especially since Wei Wuxian would be absolutely sure madame yu was going to either kill him or kick him out after this.

[boarloved-art]

ig ooomfie said i should draw xuanli and i kinda went crazy abt them whoopsydoodle

[moretheta]

can i just say: i've come to terms w/ the fact that the hxh succession war fandom on tumblr is teeny-tiny in comparison to other shonen.... and i'm actually super super okay with it because basically everyone here is so damn cool. we may be few but we are mighty etc. i've had more positive interactions w/ fellow readers in the past few weeks than i've had in literal years of being in other fandoms. y'all are awesome and the engagement is top tier.

and to literally everyone else who is posting succession war stuff, no matter how obscure, know that i love you and you are soosososooo appreciated! makes me smile every time

[lewstherintelescope]

okay wait absolute crackpot idea right now

but lemme lay out some quotes real quick

“So the night will reign, for the choice of honor is life . . .”

“Three of sixteen ruled, but now the Broken One reigns.”

To separate the power from those who are attached to the Physical Realm… that should frighten you. It is not so terrible a thing for part of me to despise you. But for the power of a god to? Dangerous. For all of us.

....what if the Night was broken into the Unmade, reassembles herself through Ba-Ado-Mishram, and takes the Roshards?

perhaps the Night of Sorrows is actually the Night bearing Odium's sorrows....

[theellipelli]

Hello, how are you doing?? Quick question, do you have anything in mind of why/how Yanqing's hair and eyes(?) glow? And how he can literally float?

unfortunately having glowing eyes and being able to float are kinda common traits among the xianzhou playables so i do not think they say much about yanqing alone. s' just spiritual energy, innit

[lewiscarrolatemybrain]

One more time

A Positive Change Arc -- often called a Hero's Journey -- is one possible shape a story can take. It is not the only or the best character arc, it's just one option. In a Positive Change Arc, the protagonist begins the story believing the Thematic Lie, and must learn and embrace the Thematic Truth over the course of their journey.

TGCF and MDZS are not Positive-Change Arcs. They are Flat Arcs.

(I have not read SVSSS)

A Flat-Arc is a story where the protagonist begins already knowing the Thematic Truth, while the world around them believes the lie. In a Flat Arc, the protagonist will have their knowledge of the Truth challenged and tested, they will be tempted by the Lie, and they will ultimately use their conviction to inspire the world around them to also embrace the Truth.

Flat Arc characters do not need to learn the Thematic Truth. They already know it. They may be seduced by the lie, they may falter, but they will always rally back to the Truth in the end.

(If they ARE successfully converted to the lie, then that isn't a Flat Arc anymore, it's a Corruption Arc, and it's usually a tragedy.)

"But Xie Lian and Wei Wuxian learned--" Nothing they learned impacted the Thematic Truth. Did they learn things? Yes! That's how Being A Person works. Both of them DID change and grow as people from the start of the series to the end. But neither of them learned anything that impacted the Thematic Truth. Because they already knew it.

Xie Lian was already kind, he already wanted to help people, he already believed that common people should be protected and uplifted. His suffering at the hands of BWX did not teach him any deep or important lessons. He already knew the Truth. BWX tried to tempt him to embrace the lie -- that people are undeserving, that you should never do anything for anyone who won't grovel with gratitude, that caring for other people is a waste -- and failed, because Xie Lian knew the truth and even when he was at his lowest he was searching for confirmation that he was right. Xie Lian only needed one single act of kindness to reassure himself that he was right and BWX was wrong. He did not learn anything new, he reaffirmed what he already knew and understood.

Wei Wuxian is good, and righteous, and morally upright. He is a character who does the right thing regardless of the consequences he might face. The sects collectively wanted to destroy him because he refused to bow to them, not because he ever at any point actually did anything wrong. Even the vengefulness he showed while actively at war is narratively justified, and it's key that the sects did not care about the desecration of bodies while it served them. He did not learn any valuable or important lessons when the Sects raided the Burial Mounds. The fact that Lan Sizhui exists at all is proof for us as the audience that everything Wei Wuxian did was worth it. All of it mattered, and all of it was the right choice, because a-Yuan is alive. He doesn't come back to life having learned anything new, he already understood the Truth.

Obviously neither of them are Omnipotent. They learn that there's dudes in love with them, they solve the mysteries of their respective true Big Bads, they uncover some other stuff. But the Thematic Truth, the core theme of the story, is not a lesson either of them needs to learn. It is a lesson they teach others by refusing to bend to the Lie the rest of the world believes.

[iman-92]

not to sound all 48 laws of power lol but letting people think you’re a little less smart than you are is truly a cheat code.

i don’t even mean acting dumb but for example letting people tell you things that you already know (and not pointing out that you already know it lol) and letting them enjoy that moment of feeling like they taught you something (as long as they aren’t condescending about it) goes a long way in creating positive relationships. you don’t lose anything but the way the brain/subconscious works, that person is inclined to like you a bit more bc of that positive association where you made them feel smart lol. i do that with senior colleagues all the time 🤠

in other ways, people like smart people as long as you don’t make them feel like you’re smarter than them lol. i mean intelligence is fairly subjective but either way, after school age there aren’t any real prizes in society for being the smartest person in the room. intelligence is associated with superiority and it’s implied that if you’re smarter than me then you’re better than me. not true but we know facts and feelings aren’t the same. behaving as though you’re the smartest person in every room just means that groups of people will have a strong desire to gather to take you down a peg.

i also feel like it’s generally just better for people to underestimate you. when people are shady or liars and you let on that you’re not an idiot, they just get better at lying to you. why give someone that advantage?

anyway! it’s interesting the games we play in life. idk much about chess but I think it wouldn’t be unreasonable to compare social interactions with a long game of chess. it’s actually very smart to know when to not be smart.

[creature-wizard]

do you have any suggestions for people who react to any criticism/debunking of alter programming/ramcoa/etc with yelling about the grey faction and false memory syndrome foundation? there's a lot of legitimately horrible denial that abuse exists and insisting that anyone who might remember something later that they didn't previously is obviously lying or manipulated and that's the only explanation going on with those groups and that's... obviously not good. but what do you say to people who insist that anyone criticizing alter programming/ramcoa is just parroting their talking points? is there anything to say or are those people just too dedicated to a conspiracy because they feel it legitimizes their trauma to be reasoned with?

Personally, I have avoided getting into arguments over the credibility of the Grey Faction and the False Memory Syndrome Foundation by simply not relying on them, and instead showing people instances of New Agers "remembering" past lives that took place in times and events that very obviously never existed because they're based on pseudohistory made up by racists.

For anyone who isn't aware: RAMCOA, which stands for "Ritual Abuse, Mind Control, & Organized Abuse" is not an innocent catch-all term for religious abuse, institutional abuse, sex trafficking, etc. It was coined by conspiracy theorists to try and make far right conspiracy theories sound respectable within legitimate psychiatry. For more information, see this post.

[aella081]

My sister has gotten back into reading mdzs and it's gotten to the point where I'm either straight up lying to her or giving half truths. Like she just got to the part where wwx was thrown into to burial mounds and she's like "did wwx get his core dissolved? It never says if it did" and I'm like "...it didn't get dissolved..."

[wolfcubx2]

For the sake of a child.

This is a mdzs plot idea based on the idea that aYuan get sick the day of Jin Ling 100 day celebration and thus stops Wei Wuxian from leaving. Instead he send Wen Ning with his gift and a handful of letters one for his shijie, one for Jiang Cheng, and one for Lan Wangji. Wen Ning still runs into the Jins at qilong (did I spell that right) pass, but no one dies. Instead he passes the letters and gift on to Jin Zuxuan? And rushes back to the burial mounds to warn the others. As soon as Lan Wangji gets from Jin Zuxuan who also tells him what happened at the pass and reads his letter which tells him aYuan is sick, he also rushes there where he catches Wei Wuxian arguing with Wen Qing. She's trying to stop him from doing something stupid and not knowing Lan Wangji is there ends up mentioning his lack of a golden core. After that Lan Wangji makes his presence know and after a bit of drama they end up coming up with a plan that will both strengthen the barrier around the mountain and potentially purify the tainted yin (resentment ). This plan basically ends with some of the most powerful and aware spirits in the mounds, ones that have been watching Wei Wuxian since the first time he entered the mounds chosing him as something of a successer because of his actions. Plus he ends up with a silver core, which is based in Yin energy. As for the barrier it works on the 8 symbol concept in Buddhism with there being six post on the edge of the mounds one in the center and Wei Wuxian as the control piece hence the new core. The barrier itself uses the resentment and and wills of the spirits around, it doesn't actually control them more gives them a job the can do to Chanel their resentment until they're able to move on. Because of this it's semi sentient and extremely sensitive to negative emotions or dangers and no one who is either can enter, unless otherwise instructed by Wei Wuxian. So people like Jiang Cheng (because he envys Wei Wuxian) and Lan Xichen (because by this point he thought Wei Wuxian was evil and couldn't trust hid brother) even if they don't mean to cause harm can't. semi sentient burial mounds in a multiple powerful creatures and cultivators died there and their resentful souls made a half conscious team, my theory on the mounds (based on the novel and comic) is that it was an extremely powerful and pure spiritual vein and there was a war over it, all the death and greed turn the blank or pure energy into resentment.

[ceaselessims]

okay but what if the fears are not acting on desires per say, but giving people what they desire in order to feed on the fear that takes them when their wish is fulfilled?

the dark twist that every power/fear comes with a price, whether that is material/wealth power, social power, political power, etc ???

perhaps the fear is more potent and delicious when it is cultivated, when the person is so fearful of the power they once desired so much, as it destroys them

[endawn]

WAIT that’s actually a cool concept

[daisywords]

wish I could get (and stay) in the zone with writing like I can with drawing

[cloyingcadaver]

x

[oh-dameron]

... Oh shit what if Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan saved Wen Qing?

Seriously. The Jin took Wen Ning prisoner and definitely, totally, burned him to ash. The Jin took Xue Yang prisoner and 100% followed through with their agreement to execute him. There's better than 50% odds that famously-skilled doctor Wen Qing was alive in a dungeon somewhere for the events at Nightless City and the first seige of the Burial Mounds.

Which is, y'know, fucking tragic, because WWX never even considers it.

But Xiao Xingchen comes down from Baoshen Sanren's mountain only a year or so later-not explicitly for any reason to with with his martial sister's son, but boy howdy I'm sure he'd be interested to hear all about it, and those dreadful Wen dogs that he died trying to protect. Just how many of those super Ghost General-style fierce corpses were in the army of Wen demonic cultivators, anyway? That's so fascinating!

And when they caught up to Xue Yang he was very particular about taking him to Koi Tower to face justice. Probably not connected at all to the fate of the leaders of the Wen remnants.

But later, when Xue Yang razes the monastery and takes Song Lan's eyes they return to Baoshen Sanren's mountain and she transfers Xiao Xingchen's eyes to Song Lan.

Baoshen Sanren's mountain, to which you very famously cannot return. In a scheme that we have we have seen play out beat-for-beat with Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng. And the person who did that transfer was not Baoshen Sanren. And we don't hear that story from Xiao Xingchen or Song Lan: it's just what everyone says. It is a rumour, in the book about not believing rumours.

Wei Wuxian never has an opportunity to speak to Xiao Xingchen, and the conversation with Song Lan is... short. He's not in a great headspace, obviously, and if Xiao Xingchen and Wen Qing did the ol' Baoshen Sanren switcheroo on him he might not even know there's anything to tell. We see Xiao Xingchen almost exclusively through A'Qing's empathy, and while he tells a story about Cangse Sanren he's got no reason to share anything about a jailbreak with his teenage ward, particularly not one he's sworn to secrecy about.

There's no way for Wei Wuxian to learn this information. Until, eventually, news reaches the tiny village in Qishan, or Dongying, or actually-Baoshen Sanren's-mountain (hey, Wen Qing has never left that mountain, maybe she's allowed in) or wherever Wen Qing has been living her life that the Yiling Patriarch and the Ghost General are back from the dead and everyone is cool with them now.

I can see why it's not part of the story: there's really only so many times you can pull the "character who died tragically is actually still alive" card before it gets ridiculous and the deaths stop having the appropriate emotional impact, and I think using it on Wen Yuan was the right choice. But as far as I can tell, this is still canon-compliant so you can pry secretlyalive!Wen Qing from my cold, dead hands.

[brasideios]

The Portmanteau Theory

Whenever I see someone getting angry and upset about someone else’s interpretation of a piece of media, I wish that I could pass this idea on to them to think about:

Any piece of media, in English studies terms, is a text. A painting is a text. An advertisement is a text. A novel is a text. A fanfic is a text. A video game is a text. Anything that carries messages, stories, meanings is a text.

There was a theorist, Mikhael Bahktin (a personal fave of mine) who developed the idea of the portmanteau as a way of conceptualising how a creator and viewer approach a text.

Basically, people think of a text like a portmanteau (suitcase/trunk).

They think that a creator of a text has a series of messages or meanings that they can put into a text which the viewer of that text can then take out of the portmanteau complete.

In this view, a text would be something fixed; it can reach the viewer complete with its messages unadulterated - and this would mean that there’s a correct meaning that is easily taken from that text and it is always the same, and exactly what the author intended.

However, Bahktin (if I remember correctly) emphasised that this view of texts is false, because a text in reality isn’t a portmanteau.

An author doesn’t control the meanings they may insert into their text - one of the instances in which the phrase, the author is dead (another theorist said this - Deridas, I think?) is actually true.

A creator has ideas of their own about what they want to say, but they can’t foresee how the viewer of the text is going to understand what they see.

The most obvious example I can think of is romance writers who inadvertently write abusive relationships as romantic, or with glaring misogyny throughout. (I have been watching a long list of reviews of Colleen Hoover’s books - and good gods).

Consequently - without a portmanteau in which to convey fixed meanings, a text is always and forever open to interpretation, and there is no correct interpretation of that text, only multiple interpretations. As many interpretations as there are readers.

To get upset because your interpretation of any given text isn’t agreed with by everyone who engages with it means that you’re viewing that text as a portmanteau - but it isn’t.

That’s just not how texts work.

That’s the beauty of texts - and it seems to me, the source of a lot of fandom angst.