#i say wuxia/xianxia/xuanhuan BECAUSE | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

hunxi-after-hours · 2 years ago

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Hi hunxi! In your post the other day about The Way Spring Arrives, you said in the tags that you’d put it on a list of required reading for people interested in danmei. I’m curious, is there anything else you’d recommend for people who want to learn more about the culture/context surrounding danmei? Thanks!!

oh goodness, I suppose I did say that somewhat flippantly but I do want to take a moment and reiterate that I am not qualified in the slightest to make a list of required reading, nor do I think that required reading is a thing that should necessarily exist, since we should all read whatever we'd like in our own free time; there is no moral directive on what someone should or should not read, we're all just here to have a good time!!

but! for those so inclined, I... don't think I have so much a reading list as a series of reading thought exercises?

first of all, some academic articles that I found deeply worthwhile:

Jin Feng's 2009 paper: “Addicted to Beauty: Consuming and Producing Web-based Chinese ‘Danmei’ Fiction at Jinjiang”

Tian Xiaofei's 2015 paper: “Slashing Three Kingdoms: A Case Study in Fan Production on the Chinese Web.”

Xi Tian's 2020 paper: “Homosexualizing Boys Love in China: Reflexivity, Genre Transformation, and Cultural Interaction”

Xi Tian's 2021 paper: “More than Conformity or Resistance: Chinese “Boys’ Love” Fandom in the Age of Internet Censorship”

Yang Ling & Xu Yanrui's 2017 paper: “The love that dare not speak its name: The fate of Chinese danmei communities in the 2014 anti-porn campaign”

Yang Ling & Xu Yanrui's 2013 paper, “Forbidden love: incest, generational conflict, and the erotics of power in Chinese BL fiction”

The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories ed. Yu Chen and Regina Kanyu Wang. I've already gushed about this elsewhere, so I shall leave this be for now

this is by no means a comprehensive list, merely the ones that have really stuck with me for various reasons. I compile a table of contents of my research booklets here, and @dulharpa has been kind enough to share their immense resources here

I'd like to stop short of compiling a list of danmei novels for people to read because folks have different genre and narrative tastes than I do. instead, I think what might be more interesting and customizable would be a kind of reading challenge, paired with thought exercises:

read works by three (or more!) danmei authors

what recurring themes, character traits, narrative tropes, or cultural aspects to you observe across works by different authors? what differences do you notice? do you think these similarities/differences are hallmarks of the genre, coincidental stylistic choices, authorial interests, or wider cultural trends? how do different authors address certain issues, or avoid them altogether? how do these choices affect the content and style of the text, as well as your perception of and/or response to these texts?

read two different danmei novels by the same author (if you can wrangle it, try to read novels in different genres)

what recurring themes, character traits, narrative tropes, or thematic commonalities do you observe across an author’s works? how do the different narrative or genre contexts of each novel affect characters and themes in each work? do you observe changes in an author’s perspective, views, or opinions on common themes and/or social issues from novel to novel?

read a danmei novel that is not wuxia, xianxia, or xuanhuan

how do aspects of worldbuilding differ across genres? what new aspects of culture, character, or language do you observe in a different genre setting? how much character or worldbuilding do you think is attributable to genre convention, and how much isn’t? what do you think readers find attractive about wuxia/xianxia/xuanhuan settings? what do you think readers find attractive about other genres?

read a danmei novel set in modern day China

how do the emotional and narrative stakes of novels change depending on time period? what were you surprised by? what similarities or resonances did you recognize between the text and your own life? how does the fabric of the setting in this novel differ from novels set in other time periods and settings? in what ways do class and power factor into character conflicts and relationships? how do these differ from the way class and power are addressed in historical novels? what is the role of tradition and history in this novel? do you find the text more realistic because it’s set in modern day? why or why not? how important do you think “realism” is to the text and the readers? why might this be? how important is “realism” to your reading experience? why might this be?

read a webnovel that was not serialized on JJWXC

there are many other Chinese internet literature platforms, such as 长佩文学 and 奇点文学网. explore one (or more!) of these literature platforms and note any observations about differences, similarities, or things you’re surprised by. how does this inform your understanding of the larger scope of Chinese web literature? in what ways are literature and genre organized differently from what you’re familiar with? compare and contrast your experience reading a non-JJWXC novel with a JJWXC novel. what was the same? what was different? do you think these similarities/differences are influenced by the different audiences of these websites or larger societal trends in media and culture, or something else entirely?

read a webnovel by a danmei author that is not danmei (i.e. 言情 / heterosexual romance, 无CP / no romance)

what similarities do you observe between this novel and a danmei novel written by the same author? what differences do you observe? how do narrative reflections of gender and character dynamics differ? what other themes, issues, or narrative aspects do you notice coming to the forefront when the focus has shifted away from male/male romance? what were you surprised by? what weren’t you surprised by? has your perception of the author’s views on gender/gender dynamics changed? if so, how? if not, why do you think this is?

read a danmei novel with 2+ adaptations into other forms of media (e.g. audiodrama, donghua, manhua, live action)

what do you think about this novel generates wider media attention and interest? how do the characters and narrative change from text to adaptation? why do you think this happened? how did the popularization via adaptation affect the original text, if at all? how did you come to discover this text, and how many platforms did it have to jump to get to you? why do you think this text received attention on the platform you first heard of it? in what ways beyond the content of the text itself did this novel draw wider attention?

read a danmei novel with no adaptations in other forms of media

why do you think this novel hasn’t been chosen for adaptation yet? in what ways would this novel be challenging to adapt? what medium do you think this novel would be best suited for? how would an adaptation of this novel change your perspective and experience of this text? what would you hope to see in an adaptation of this novel?

read a traditionally published work of Chinese speculative fiction

how does a traditionally published work of Chinese fiction differ stylistically and narratively from the web literature you’ve read? what does the wider field of Chinese speculative fiction look like? how do the imaginations and concerns of Chinese authors manifest in their worldbuilding, setting, characters, themes, and conflicts? how do subgenres of Chinese speculative fiction resemble and differ from genres you’re more familiar with? what did you like about this work? what puts you off about this work? did this work raise any questions or themes that you haven’t thought about before? what aspects of the novel seem rooted in contemporary Chinese society, and which themes seem more universal? if reading in translation, did you identify any moments where context was lost between languages? were there footnotes in the translation, and if so, how did they affect your reading experience? if not, did you ever wish there were footnotes? what kind of additional context did you wish you had? how do you think the translation influenced your reading experience? how high-profile is this work of Chinese speculative fiction, and why do you think this is?

read a novel written by a Chinese diaspora author

how do characters, themes, settings, and worldbuilding differ from the perspective of a diaspora writer? what aspects feel the same? how does translation on linguistic, cultural, or metafictional levels factor into the text? what is the role of tradition and reception in the narrative? what other influences can you spot in the text? what Chinese work would you put this text in conversation with, and why? how are different cultures portrayed in diaspora works vs. non-diaspora works? based on this text, have cultural values shifted in diasporic reception? what is the relationship presented in the text between identity and nationhood, tradition and ownership?

okay I had way too much fun coming up with those discussion questions, but I genuinely do think that these are interesting thought and reading experiments to pursue! I think there’s a lot you can learn about danmei, internet literature, and the wider cultural context of these phenomena simply by taking some time to sit back and reflect on these texts, or observing Chinese fandom interactions (there can of course be a language barrier in doing so, but I’ve learned so much from 弹幕 culture and I heartily encourage other people to do so).

and seriously, if anyone ends up trying this reading challenge, please let me know how it goes!! I’m still pushing myself to read outside of my comfort zone (a lot of these challenges are ones I’ve posed to myself), and would love to hear if other folks have thoughts on their reading journeys

#hunxi book tag #hunxi thinks about danmei and gender #心怀杂念字数无量

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melongumi · 5 years ago

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so here’s a thought,,,, later when i have the brain for it, let’s brainstorm a wuxia/xianxia/xuanhuan au for tortall?

also, let’s see if that one set of fancasts is still around --

#tamora pierce my heart #hope y'all liked this visual depiction of yesterday's Mental Journey #update: cannot find #maybe op deleted #or maybe tumblr just ain't functional after all #i say wuxia/xianxia/xuanhuan BECAUSE #like. Beka's books are more wuxia.#whereas daine's might be full xuanhuan? tbh i'm not sure where that line is #better research more

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olderthannetfic · 3 years ago

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i’ve been going through your’s (and others’) posts about americentrism in fandom, particularly about the rising popularity of east asian media - cdrama, mostly, but anime and kpop too - in english-speaking circles. but i couldn’t find much on fic-based racism for kpop, so when i saw you’re a fan of BTS and did extensive research, i hope you can give me some insight:

(this is a fanfic-specific question) what are your views on if xianxia AUs of kpop or anime are racist; or if it’s not a binary, what are the pitfalls?

see, i’m confused (esp. w/ kpop, which is mostly an rpf genre) because of:

1) the thorny real world political situation between s.korea and china— the chinese gvt’s bans and accusations of historical cultural theft; racism from both sides about idol nationality,

2) the historical racism from The West (‘all asian cultures are the same’) which manifest particularly strongly with the recent cdrama and donghua boom - fans calling donghua ‘anime’ or manhua ‘manga’

3) the confusion of terminology from korean-to-english and chinese-to-english, neither culture having had the wide reach of anime.

i’m sure lots of examples of those come to mind.

coming back to xianxia— the genre is so steeped in chinese culture, language, and aesthetic history that i worry about casual racism especially in kpop rpf, which is the fandom i’m thinking of making xianxia AUs for. people already confuse hanfu/hanbok, and korean shamanism is less known than japanese shintoism or chinese taoism, and afa i can find, the concept of ‘xian’ only exists in taoism.

obviously european-based fantasy AUs for kpop and anime (and cdrama, but i didn’t check AO3 for those) exist, but high-fantasy-as-descended-from-tolkien is a) familiar to english-speaking fandom, b) versatile enough by virtue of being depicted a long time and thus experimented upon, that c) is able to exist, more or less, separately from its european roots. so there is less chance of someone shouting ‘racist!’ or ‘cultural erasure!’ when a BTS fic is a D&D-style fantasy.

but xianxia is a new genre to lots of western fans. wuxia/xianxia/xuanhuan is poorly translated into english as a whole, and its core concepts are difficult to translate, and i worry about misappropriation or appearing as if i believe the sinosphere to be an undifferentiated and interchangable cultural blob if i put kpop groups into wuxia/xianxia AUs.

(s.korea does have wuxia/xianxia novels, but reddit tells me those use a lot of hanja, so obviously borrowing exists in wider culture, and china also has media that’s distinctly japanese, e.g. 阴阳师, as well as manga that are set elsewhere, e.g. Akatsuki no Yona, and Magi, but those are original IPs)

for context, i’m 2nd-gen chinese diaspora and can read the language but did not grow up immersed in the culture. i can find mandarin material on my own and to some extent i can spot the cultural symbols, but reading up on korean and japanese culture in mandarin has an upsettingly high chance of coming across han-supremacist texts. ...so, apologies for the essay, and ...thoughts?

Hoooo boy, this is already long and it's going to get longer... RIP everyone's dash. This is a rare time that I really wish Tumblr would let me do nested readmores like Dreamwidth does, but it won't, so everyone will just have to deal.

I think the very, very short version of what I have to say is that 2nd-gen Chinese diaspora are exactly who cares about this so deeply you can't get a word of fic out while everybody else is blundering happily along, doing whatever offensive, dumbass thing they like. (Or else wallowing in equally useless US white guilt while writing only things that are "correct" according to one specific BNF's primer or something, and still getting everything hilariously wrong.)

I will trust fandom to figure out when xianxia AUs are racist at the point fandom can reliably tell that The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity is not fucking xianxia, and its protagonists are not "cultivators".

Or, even better, at the point that fanfic for every historical/fantasy setting from Les Mis to The Untamed stops being modern coffee shop and college AUs that are blatantly American coffee shops and colleges.

[Insert rant here about Korean coffee shops and their magnificence vs. the anemic, boring-ass coffee shop culture found in BTS fanfics. WE HAVE YOUTUBE FOOD BLOGGERS, PEOPLE! YOU CAN DO BETTER THAN THIS!]

----POINT ONE: Chinese government = bag of dicks----

The current mainland government being asshats is not a reason to do anything. Period. Historical cultural theft? By Korea from China??? Are you fucking kidding me? Korea was a tiny satellite being stepped on by the might of one of the most powerful empires in history. Korea was certainly influenced by China, and from there, the influence made its way to Japan, but neighboring countries experiencing cultural exchange is not "theft". Why are you listening to the Chinese government anyway? That's like listening to Trump.

As for people being racist about idols, like fans within South Korea not liking group members who are not South Korean, that's sad, but it's not the fault of other fans who aren't assholes. Why should it dictate what fanfic AUs someone writes?

It's commonplace and perfectly fine that the fantasy genre traditions in the sinosphere have been influenced heavily by China just as folklore itself has been influenced by Chinese folklore. Should you, a Chinese-American or Chinese-Canadian or whatever not be allowed to write Marvel AUs or enjoy Disney princesses beyond Mulan because that would make you too "white" or something? Come on!

I'm not saying there's zero potential for offense here, but it's going to mostly be about the execution and/or just be in the eye of the beholder.

----POINT TWO: Loanwords----

#2 there is especially pointless. I'm all for teaching fans what the Chinese words for things are, but you know what the word manhua is?

漫画

You know what the word manhwa is?

Well, okay, between Korean not using hanja much and various historical factors, it's apparently 漫畵, but still.

You know what Japanese manga is? YOU GUESSED IT:

漫画

I'm not saying we should entirely conflate these or fail to give China credit for the comics that come from there, but this extreme preciousness about creating two new loan words makes me roll my eyes. If someone calls it "Chinese manga" or something, they are not some racist monster.

This reminds me of weebs getting their panties in a bunch over how ~manga~ is a sacred category that is different from "comics", a word which means "not Japanese"... meanwhile like 50% of the manga I own are from publishers who stamp "comics" all over the spines of every volume. Manga/manhua/manhwa in their original contexts are cognates that just mean comics, from the US to Belgium to East Asia.

If you want to see this in action, go to the English-language article on "comics". Click the sidebar links to Japanese, Chinese, and Korean and see what you find.

Chinese 'donghua' isn't a cognate with the Japanese and Korean words because... uh... those are just "animation"--a loanword from English! But 'donghua' too is just a word that means all animation, regardless of origin, in its original context.

Now, that doesn't mean we can't make more specific loan words that mean something slightly different from the original form of the word. Those languages do it with English all the time. But being extremely precious about these words instead of addressing larger issues of dumbassery about Asia is not actually that woke, and it's certainly not helpful.

----POINT THREE pt. 1: There is no default----

Now we get to the real meat of the argument, and nonnie... oh my god... Where do I start?

First of all, you have made the most elementary Western dumbass mistake, which is treating the West as a default. I was going to say "white" dumbass mistake, but then I finished reading your ask. Wow, you're giving off big White Guilt energy right now, nonnie. I feel like maybe you need more... like... other Chinese diaspora kpop nerds to hang out with or something? This feels like you're getting all of your input from the most fear-mongering, dutyfic-writing, debbie downer parts of fandom. But anyway...

There is no default.

English-speaking fans are more familiar with Tolkien, so a Tolkien AU erases less South Koreanness than an Untamed one? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME???

Yeah, playing it "safe" by making everything as generically US as possible is fandom's usual move, and it's less likely to get you yelled at, but that's only because the form of racism--or really cultural hegemony--it represents is so pervasive that it's impossible to pick a target and most of the yellers are guilty of this one themselves.

Let me give you an analogy from vidding that I've been thinking of writing meta about for a while:

A lot of vidders in the narrow Vividcon type vidding space, which traces its roots to Escapade slash con and back to ye olde Media Fandom vidding and Kandy Fong, are concerned about using kpop to vid cdramas. Is this insensitive? Is it conflating cultures?

But...

Not only is using Panic at the Disco to vid any source neutral, but so is using ABBA.

I have never, never, never seen a single English-speaking vidder treat ABBA as anything other than a universally-available default that is part of all of "our" culture and available for any use. And I agree that ABBA is generally treated like that by myopic United States culture.

Yet ABBA's choice to sing in English is no different from BTS' recent all-English songs. It was a calculated move to win Eurovision and to be competitive in an international market, and not just an international market of native English speakers but a European market that was receptive to English as a lingua franca.

I don't have any fandom friends from Sweden (well, that I know of), but I cannot help but imagine that how Swedish people see their most famous music group of all time and how Americans view yet another famous pop group singing in English is... somewhat different.

Yes, things like the movie Mamma Mia! have let us complacently think of ABBA as "ours", but half the Korean shit I like turns out to have Korean-Americans involved in its making, and ABBA is not American at all.

[See also: all those times Greek anons have sent me asks saying that no, actually, they're not cool with their mythology and culture being "everyone's" when their modern people are erased and hated.]

This myopia is a combination of seeing white faces and thinking "default" with thinking that appropriation from or erasure of European cultures is 100% neutral and fine.

So yes, nonnie, you would be safer writing a Western high fantasy AU than an Asian-but-not-Korean one, but only because the fans around you are both ignorant and racist.

----POINT THREE pt. 2: Research is fun----

I want to get back to this quote specifically:

b) versatile enough by virtue of being depicted a long time and thus experimented upon, that c) is able to exist, more or less, separately from its european roots.

Like I said above, I think c is straight up bullshit. Looking out at a sea of Western-flavor AUs does make people feel like Asianness is being erased, and some European things appear divorced from roots to one white Western person yet not to another.

But b is also worthy of digging into because it is simply untrue that xianxia is new or hasn't been experimented upon.

I know you meant within an English-speaking Western context, and you're right, but think about it: If you wanted to write your xianxia AU "right" or if you wanted to expand beyond an Untamed AU to a more general xianxia one, how would you do it? (I know you didn't specify Untamed, but that's what lots of n00bs are writing.) It's pretty obvious, isn't it?

You look to Chinese writers.

Not only can you just consume more xianxia canons, but you can also look up the many primers explaining genre tropes and their origins in Chinese folklore, other genres, traditional medicine and religion, etc.

I was familiar with a lot of East Asian stuff before I watched The Untamed, but I wasn't familiar specifically with xianxia, and I was a little lost at first. I looked up general info, and it was very helpful. (I think my biggest confusion was the core transfer, which was cleared up by finding out that cores aren't usually a literal physical organ like that, and that's just a MDZS bit of worldbuilding. It seems like cores are more commonly treated how I'd expect from traditional Asian medicine, martial arts, etc.)

I didn't do this because I wanted to do some guilt-ridden ass-covering. I did it because I'm a nerd and I was interested.

Research is fun!

Or at least, it can be if you treat it as such. If you look shit up because you're curious, it will inevitably influence your writing, but I don't think you should have to pass some high bar of Correct Woke Knowledge because that kind of gatekeeping means far less fic, and what does get written may still sound "wrong" to lots of readers. There is no magic pill to level up your cultural competency like you're a cultivator who needs to fight a boss battle.

There is no Woke Seal Of Approval that will guarantee your fic is perfect and can offend no one.

There is no such thing as "safe".

I'm not saying you should go be racist on purpose or that you should never incorporate feedback into your next fic, but ultimately, making art is about taking chances and not endlessly revising old work or stressing about every single viewer response.

----POINT THREE pt. 3: Taking up space----

Honestly, the vibe I'm getting is that you are afraid to take up space. Why do I, a white girl, feel perfectly entitled to write about Asian things? I'm sure some lurkers will be going "LOL, because you're a racist bitch", but the way I see it is that I'm willing to assert my right to an opinion.

You, as Chinese diaspora or just as a human who likes both kpop and xianxia, have a right to an opinion.

Are you "authentically" mainland Chinese? No. You're authentically yourself. If xianxia speaks to you, then it's a perfectly acceptable type of AU for you to write. As an Asian diaspora person, you know perfectly well that different parts of Asia are different. If someone else assumes you're conflating them, maybe that just shows their own lack of knowledge and desire to lord it over you.

In the US, we conflate our locally oppressed minority issues, which include Asians, with our stealing native culture issues. But our Native population is relatively small and their cultural output relatively easy to drown out on a global scale. Overall US culture can easily pretend American Indians are all dead and gone. Our history of slavery means that most black people here don't have a direct link back to a specific African culture, and the culture white entertainers steal from is that created by black entertainers here. These are the contexts cultural appropriation discourse springs from and is most applicable to. (And I still think we go overboard on cultural appropriation discourse and misuse it to make art more boring, e.g. by whining about non-US rap even when it is respectful, but at least some form of it makes sense in this original context.)

But East Asian cultures are a very different matter. South Korea isn't the biggest or most powerful, but kpop is media made primarily by and for an ethnic majority speaking a majority language in a geographical region where they're top dog. Yes, some idiots can't tell the difference between China, Japan, and Korea, but these are places with their own geographical territories, languages that are not endangered, and healthy media industries. Idols already get to celebrate their own culture just fine.

I'm not saying put zero thought into all this, but from the sound of things, you're currently putting in way too much.

Your Chinese heritage is not in danger from you getting it wrong. It has all the other Chinese people behind it. South Korea, while less powerful, is still a pretty powerful global culture, and you're certainly not getting it wronger than a bunch of white girls writing coffee shop AUs.

Basically, if you silence yourself, you're decreasing diversity and joy, not serving cultural sensitivity.

----YOUR ACTUAL QUESTION----

Okay, your actual question was about the pitfalls and how to do it better instead of worse. This is exactly the right question to be asking.

I honestly think the main thing you need to do is tag it 'xianxia AU'. Having that tag demonstrates that you understand that you are picking a specific genre. If people assume you don't know what xianxia is or that you don't understand it's not Korean, that's on them.

The second thing I would do is lay out a few rules in an author's note if you feel you can't make them clear enough in the fic. You don't need to be tediously didactic about it. I'm thinking of something equivalent to those notes on a/b/o that are like "In my a/b/o, betas have [specific thing] and aren't just regular humans". But if your fic makes it clear how the world works, then you don't need to do this.

If you want to adapt the principles of xianxia to an ancient-but-fantasy Korean setting, go for it. If you want to set your fic in ancient fantasy China, go for it. Your research process would look slightly different in each case.

In terms of research, I'm still thinking about this bit:

people already confuse hanfu/hanbok, and korean shamanism is less known than japanese shintoism or chinese taoism, and afa i can find, the concept of ‘xian’ only exists in taoism.

Here's the thing: a person who can tell a Tang Dynasty outfit from a Ming Dynasty one probably won't confuse either with a Korean outfit. Someone who knows fuckall will have a hard time with swathes of historical Asian dress. The same thing is true of European historical dress.

Refusal to treat live humans as having multiple cultures is the problem. Period.

Someone saying 'hanbok' when they mean 'hanfu' or having trouble distinguishing styles of "historical" outfits as interpreted through modern and possibly fantasy media is a red herring. It might be a symptom of genuinely conflating the cultures or it might be a slip of the tongue.

It's super interesting to me that you mention shamanism because I'm actually researching it right now for an original book I'm writing. I want sources on Korean shamanism, and I'm not finding much that's easily accessible in English. I haven't looked at journal articles yet though, and that's where I expect the better info is. For the moment, I'm rereading The Catalpa Bow because I found my old copy in a box. It's about Japanese shamanism. Not Shinto: shamanism. In fact, the first chapter makes a big deal about how dumb Western scholarship insists on treating "Shinto" and "Buddhism" as two entirely separate strata of Japanese religion, but to look at shamanism, you need to accept that it's a huge mishmash of syncretic folk religion that is both/neither and that different areas of Japan have completely different forms.

Shamanism itself probably ultimately derives from a Siberian origin, coming down to Northern China through Mongolia. This flavor of Tungusic shamanism shows up in all of China, Japan, and Korea. It's the flavor that usually starts with a mysterious illness, possibly lasting years, and a near death experience cured by initiation, dedication to a god or gods, and routine spirit possession. Honestly, the best sources I've found in English tend to be random Youtube videos and podcasts by people who've been initiated in the modern day.

Sidebar: the most interesting thing I found was a Korean-American lady who'd finally gotten initiated to cure her long term mental illness. She lives and works in NYC... Apparently, many of the clients for Korean shamans there are Russian because there aren't any Siberian shamans to be found, and the Russians are like "Close enough, I guess". It makes sense, but it was a very "WHOA!" moment for me.

Sure, xianxia principles are a little tricky to explain if someone knows nothing about any principles of Chinese esoteric thought, traditional medicine, mythology, etc. But...

There's no inherent reality to xianxia any more than there is to what counts as a/b/o or high fantasy. It's a genre of fiction. It's fantasy worldbuilding by specific artists.

Yes, it is steeped in Chinese culture. Yes, there are plenty of ways to go so far outside of what the genre is normally that you really can't use the term anymore.

But if a bunch of Chinese authors decide to add some element that becomes a big trend in xianxia, that's now also part of the genre.

It's not like saying "The historical record only shows X in the Tang Dynasty and not Y" where reality is hard to know, but at least it exists. Xianxia is a set of genre conventions people made up. Sure, 'xian' is a Taoist thing, but... like... you don't honestly think that the for funsies adventure novel version is exactly the same as the religious/esoteric/folkloric version that existed prior to these novels being a thing, do you? Tolkien ripoffs are not exactly the same as European mythology despite being heavily derived from it.

If you want to do fantasy worldbuilding, you start by looking up real mythology/history/culture and seeing what other people do, but then you... you know... make shit up.

You synthesize from other sources. You make a version that is cool and fun and meaningful to you.

The debbie downer side of fandom focuses way too much on things like xianxia as expressions of some unified Chinese authenticness and way too little on them as individual writers' creativity.

It's a subtle, but I think very real, form of erasure. Chinese culture did not spontaneously manifest xianxia. Specific writers who wanted to write a rip-roaring adventure tale made up cool shit they thought an audience would enjoy. It's like those posts talking about "historical costume" vs. "fashion" and how the former can erase individual agency and creativity.

You're an individual, creative person wanting to write a Chinese-flavor fantasy AU about some Korean singers. I think you should go for it.

#I feel like I have lots more rambling on this #but oh god I need lunch

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nyerus · 4 years ago

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Hello! I have a question. There seems to be a difference between what Xie Lian looks like in Chinese and Western fandom. I read the book in Chinese first so I get confused sometimes. People think because he is a martial god he is supposed to be big, but I can tell you that's not true. In wuxia and xianxia people like martial artists are very lean even though they are strong. Because fighting comes from qi, not muscles. That's why they can jump great distances and walk on water. So on Chinese fanart XL is drawn more slender. Also technically his body is still a 17 year old correct? So why do people think XL is big? Sorry for my English.

Hello i asked before. Also Huahua is described in the original Chinese as tall and broad as well. Honestly, it seems some people don't understand Chinese martial arts culture when they read. I look at art on weibo a lot more because so. Again, sorry for my English!

Hi there anon! Thank you so much for giving your perspective! And your English was perfect, no worries! :o

I think the main reason is what you already said. For a lot of Westerners, especially younger people, MXTX works like TGCF are their first foray into the genre. Not only into danmei, but into xianxia/wuxia/xuanhuan. So they aren't able to reconcile their preconceived notions with what is the actual depiction (or what they personally want it to be), based on their new and limited understanding of the world mechanics. I think in many cases it's as simple as "character strong, so character should have muscles" but indeed, it ignores how and why they are so powerful: their qi, cultivation, etc. (Personally, I think this does a disservice to XL in particular, as he is renowned for his mastery of these. He is underestimated because of how he looks, but packs quite the punch.) Since there aren't good equivalents in Western stories (apart from just magic), it causes a bit of a cultural divide.

A part of it also has to do with Western masculinity standards and that many people in Western fandom see a male character not adhering to those standards and get confused or even offended. Without realizing that these are not universal standards, or were not historical standards. In pretty much every c-novel I've read, or c-drama I've watched, many males are considered ideally handsome while being described as elegant, slender, etc. Some of my fave Chinese actors are this way as well lol. There is also a lot to do with some folks wanting to be subversive in their personal portrayals of XL, which... that's a whole can of worms itself. I think that would also be beyond the scope of this post. Suffice it to say, even Fei Tian portrays his male characters the same way as other danmei authors. So that’s another thing.

And also yes, XL is indeed stuck at 17 years lol. With what it implies, I was always under the impression that XL would forever look the same as how he ascended. (Because other gods also seem to be this way.) Even when he is hurt/etc he always heals back to that state eventually. I think also a lot of people assume, since he's known for doing hard labor and such as a result of busking, he would become more muscular? But that never made sense to me because if one wants to assume that, then one also has to keep in mind that he's more often than not starving, and there's no way he's building muscles like that. It's hard enough to build muscles on a full belly, even for men! It's also confusing because characters like MQ -- who are also martial gods -- don't typically get the same treatment in art. He's almost always depicted as a prettyboy, even though he and XL have almost the same body type. XL is actually shorter than him, and XL is referred to as a prettyboy himself in the story in various places LOL! And yeah, it's then doubly confusing to see people *downplay* HC's hard-earned physique on the other hand. :/

As you said, XL’s body type is actually described in the novel directly. Plus both his manhua and donghua portrayals follow that. Same goes for HC as well. So.... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Anyhoo, I hope this helped, anon! It's a messy matter in western fandom, and personally, I like to keep my nose out of it. I enjoy good art when I see it on places like twitter or tumblr, and either mute or block depictions that I really do not like! It’s all about curation~ But yes, some of my favorite artworks are from weibo too! ❤

#anon #asks

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skullsandwineglasses · 3 years ago

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The Legends (2019) - Halfway Review (first 30 episodes)

So far, this is a drama that I skim-watched, and I have only watched the first half. I keep hearing how the second half is even worse and goes downhill, so I’m bracing myself for it. But here are my thoughts about what worked for me and what didn’t.

[SPOILERS AHEAD]

Plot Summary (this is kinda long, so skip to the next section if you’ve already watched it)

I actually really like the premise of the plot and think it’s different from your typical xianxia/wuxia/xuanhuan romance drama. The plot opens with a naive and innocent girl, Lu Zhao yao, who lives in a remote mountain forest with her grandfather. Their ancestral duty is to guard the seal of the Demon King’s son. Lu Zhao yao, our bubbly FL, is lonely. She wants a companion because it has always just been her and her grandfather in this empty and lonely mountain forest.

One day, Luo Mingxuan from the Immortal sect breaks into cave in the forest and attempts to attack the Demon King’s son, but the son escapes and Luo Mingxuan is injured. The FL finds him, heals him, and falls for him. Luo Mingxuan is intrigued by her too. He tells her to be a good person and to be a keeper of peace of harmony in the world. He leaves, and she is determined to be a good person who saves people and helps the weak.

Meanwhile, the Demon King’s son is bullied by the villagers and is soon captured by the Immortal sect who wants to execute to prevent him from becoming a harbinger of evil. Zhao yao saves him as her first good deed, defeats all the sect leaders, and proves herself to be far more superior than any of them. She is unbeatable, and therefore makes an enemy out of all of them.

The Demon King’s son cares for her wounds, and she teaches him to stand up for himself and protect himself. She names him Mo Qing. She tells him her dream of wanting to build her own sect to help keep the peace in the world. He takes in everything she says with rapt attention. But she then tells him that she needs to leave him to find Luo Mingxuan, the person who inspired her to be a good person. She tells Mo Qing not to wait for her because she won’t come back. Mo Qing watches her leaves. Despite her telling him to start a new life, he never leaves the encampment that they’ve created because he has nowhere else to go.

A month later, Zhao yao returns to the encampment, bloodied and jaded. When Zhao yao had gone to the Immortal sect to find Luo Mingxuan, he chained her up, tortured her, and forced her to reveal the location of the Demon King’s son. She refused to surrender because she’s adamant that she did the right thing in protecting an innocent boy who did no wrong. Luo Mingxuan says that she’s going down the path of evil and prepares to kill her. Her grandfather shows up to save her, but is killed by Luo Mingxuan. She then realizes that everything that Luo Mingxuan had said about being a good person and upholding peace and justice is a lie. Out of spite, she reasons that if everyone thinks she’s an evil person, then she’ll show them what it means to be truly devil and despicable. She sets out to become the most evil person they have yet to see. She’s hellbent on revenge, and no longer believes in love and in the goodness of people. I just love her petty attitude because I can relate to it so much. You think this is bad? Okay, I’ll show you bad.

For the next 5 years, she builds her fearsome sect. She recruits a group of loyal followers, and is now known as a cruel and devilish conqueror. Mo Qing stays by her side as a quiet guard and gatekeeper of the sect’s entrance, watching her from the sidelines. On the day when Zhao yao tries to take the Wan Jun Sword, she tries to take advantage of his feelings for her and tells him to distract the people from the Immortal sect so that she can take the sword. But the sword instead calls out for him and wants him as its master. This causes the cave to collapse, and Zhao yao is buried in the rubbles, her last words accusing Mo Qing of betraying her.

We then have another time skip of 5 years. Zhao yao is resurrected when her body comes into the contact with the blood of Qin Zhiyan, a disciple from the Immortal sect. Their bodies are now connected; whenever Zhiyan is hurt or injured, the same injuries are manifested on Zhao yao’s body. To other people, they both have Zhiyan’s face, and only Zhiyan can see Zhao yao’s true face. Zhiyan’s personality is the exact opposite of our FL. Zhiyan is meek, clumsy, kind, and not clever, which means that Zhao yao becomes the bossy half of this blood-connected duo. Zhao yao is determined to return to her sect and get revenge on Mo Qing whom she not only mistakenly thinks killed and betrayed her 5 years ago, but whom has now taken over as the leader of her sect. She wants to reclaim her position and restore her clan to its prior glory as a sect to be feared.

Pacing

All of this happened within the first 4 opening episodes. To be honest, the first 2 episodes were slow. Episodes 3 and 4 were when the deaths, time skips, and Zhao yao’s rise and fall happened.

Despite a slow first 2 episodes, the drama overall had a strong opening. We got to see a reversal of power dynamics where the FL is evil and powerful, while the ML is the quiet and demure “damsel in distress” who secretly crushes on the FL. It’s different from the usual underdog storyline.

But after Zhao yao’s “death”, the plot slows down. The power dynamics reverts back to what we typically see in xianxia dramas: the ML becomes the almighty powerful sect leader, while the FL has lost her powers and her identity, and has to now pretend to want to be his disciple in order to slowly regain her power so that she can kill him and get her revenge.

From episode 5 onwards, the FL’s arc is about how she and Zhiyan have to pretend to be the same person. This means that sometimes one of them has to hide (usually Zhiyan) so that no one sees both of them. However, this also means that we see more of the actress who plays Zhiyan than Bai Lu. While the second lead actress is good and is able to pull off playing both roles, I didn’t choose to watch the drama because of her. I had just started to get used to Bai Lu as the FL, and now suddenly, I’m forced to see the face of another actress as the FL. I imagine that this is when the drama loses most of its audience. It really tests your patience. In the comment section of these episodes, I saw a lot of people asking when the FL gets her face back because if the switch doesn’t happen soon, they’ll drop the drama.

I was also *this* close to dropping the drama. It felt the Bai Lu barely had any screen time, and the SFL had very little chemistry with Xu Kai (which I guess was the point). And speaking of screen time, Xu Kai only appears for like 10 minutes per episode.

The leads also felt very removed from all the plotting and scheming that was happening amongst the sects around them. So not even 10 episodes into the drama, the plot felt like a drag.

When you realize that Zhao yao won’t get her face back anytime soon, you begin to wonder how the romance between her and Mo Qing will progress. Will he fall for her personality even though she has Zhiyan’s face? Does this mean that he’ll fall in love with both Zhiyan and Zhao yao because he thinks they’re the same person and doesn’t know that there’s 2 of them? Is this going to turn into some kind of moral/philosophical dilemma about what is means to love someone’s soul? Is this going to turn into some messed up love triangle?

Thankfully, Mo Qing figures out what’s happening pretty soon (around episode 11), so he knows that Zhao yao and Zhiyan are distinct people. We don’t really see his thought process for how he is able to figure things out, but we just assume that he’s able to put the clues together. It seems that at first, he might have assumed that they inhabit the same body (like a Stephanie Meyer’s The Host kind of situation), where Zhao yao takes over at night, but then soon he figures out that Zhao yao is actually just invisible during the day, and appears at night with Zhiyan’s face. But then he gives Zhao yao her old necklace, which allows him to see her in her true form during the day and night, even though she doesn’t know it.

The Good

This brings to me to talk about what I do like about the drama. Both the ML and FL are clever people. They’re able to see through people’s schemes and are always one step ahead. We also see that Zhao yao, the fearless conqueror/demonness, has met her match, which makes their interactions really cute to watch. Zhao yao used to be his hero that he could only admire from afar. She was the haughty sect leader that he could barely talk to because she her attention was always occupied by other things. But now, he’s her superior and the one giving out orders, while she has to put on an act to please him because she’s now his disciple. But at the same time, she keeps trying to kill him, and he knows it, and he’s always amused by her attempts because it’s a reminder that Zhao yao has really come back to him. He simultaneously enjoys and is hurt by her hate for him. Talk about being masochistic.

I’m also a sucker for reincarnation/ghost plots. While Zhao yao isn’t exactly reincarnated (but more like reawakened), and she isn’t exactly a ghost but is invisible, the way that the plot plays out is similar. Both the ML and FL metaphorically have a new life: he’s a sect leader when he was once someone who was bullied and persecuted and couldn’t protect himself, and she’s now just a disciple who needs his help from time to time. It’s always funny when he respectfully refers to Zhao yao in the third person to other people as the previous sect leader, even though she’s in the same room with them. And it’s also funny how she calls him that weird ugly kid, her first nickname for him when they first met, whenever he’s not in the room with her. The way they talk about each other in reference to their “previous life” is such as contrast from how they currently treat other when face to face.

The invisibility plot point is also fun, especially in episode 21 when he follows her around town. It’s also the first time when we’re explicitly shown what he sees from his point of view. Zhao yao is like a hologram, and with a bit of magic and concentration, Mo Qing is able to lift the invisible “mask” that covers her to see her in her true form. Zhao yao is always startled when Mo Qing seems to be looking right at her.

But between episodes 12 and 20, the plot stagnates. It’s not until episode 21 when it picks up again because all the subplots and backstories finally start to come together. And so far, episodes 21-30 have been good. The leads are finally getting involved with the larger plot. They actually make things happen. There are important consequences to their actions and decisions. Zhao yao still doesn’t get her face back, but everyone finally knows that there are two of them, so Zhao yao and Zhiyan don’t have to keep playing the hiding/switching game. Luo mingxuan finally wakes up from his slumber, so the original villain of the drama has returned. It turns out that Jiang Wu is just a manifestation of Qin Qianxuan’s lust for Zhao yao. Lu Shiqi, a teenager(?) raised by Zhao yao, reppears again for the first time since episode 4. Mo Qing’s inner demon is starting to come out. Zhao yao finally finds out that Mo Qing already knew that she had come back from the dead and that she is invisible during the day all along. She also finally starts to accept that he has feelings for her and her for him (That line in episode 30 though: “If you fight, I’ll be your sword, if you retreat, I’ll be your shield”). The plot is finally getting good. But I’m just worried about how it’s going to be handled from here since I keep hearing how weak the second half is.

I also like Zhao yao and Zhiyan’s relationship. Yes, they’re blood-bonded so they’re forced to look out for each other, but I just really like how wholesome their relationship is and how much they do care for one another. They have to share their secrets with each other because it’s them against the world. They’re a unit, and their survival depends on them cooperating and trusting each other.

The Meh

The villains haven’t really been a threat to the leads, and they’re not that interesting tbh. I always skip the scenes when they’re scheming (which are a lot of scenes), and I’m still able to follow the gist. Like I already mentioned, up until episode 21, the leads felt so removed from what was happening in the other sects. Despite being a sect leader, it doesn’t feel like Mo Qing really does much besides interact with the FL, and the FL doesn’t do much besides stir up antics. She doesn’t actively try to figure out how to get her face back. She just thinks that if she gets Zhiyan to do more good deeds in her name, then she’ll wrack up more underworld credits, and she’ll be able to buy the pill that will help her restore her powers. But it’s also a little odd that her credit count is increasing so slowly when she’s done a lot to help Zhiyan.

Mo Qing and Zhao yao have a really cute romantic arc, but Mo Qing is a very typically ML who unconditionally loves the FL and sacrifices everything for her. He doesn’t really stand out from the other xianxia MLs, and his character isn’t given much to work with (especially with so little screen time). Compare him with Sifeng from Love and Redemption or Ye Hua from Eternal Love who had to express so much pain and suffering. Maybe the angst just hasn’t happened yet in this drama.

Mo Qing’s love and devotion to Zhao yao was also a little hard to believe at first. They only really interacted with each other closely for a handful of scenes over a period of a few days, but I guess when you take into consideration that he was abused and abandoned as a child, and then bullied and nearly executed, then the fact that Zhao yao was the first person to care for him, be his friend, and give him a name, it’s no wonder that he’d go to the ends of the earth for her.

There is a very little character development, and the world building stagnated after the first few episodes. I guess we start to see some growth in Zhao yao and Zhiyan in the 20s episodes, where Zhao yao learns to be more caring and tender, and Zhiyan learns to be a bit more confrontational, but for the most part, it feels like things are happening to them and they’re just reacting to it. Zhao yao may seem assertive, but she doesn’t cause things to happen. Her being invisible does hinder her agency and makes her more of an observer in the drama. It feels like she’s been laying low for so long now, so I’m looking forward to seeing what she does in the next episodes now that Luo Mingxuan has awakened.

I remember when this drama first came out in 2019, I had just finished Fuyao a few months prior, so I didn’t want to watch what seemed like a second-rate version of Fuyao. But this drama has a completely different premise, so I guess it goes to show not to judge a drama by its name.

I also wasn’t in the mood to watch a drama where the leads are my age. I’m still getting used to the idea of people my age on screen, while I’m watching them at home, still having no idea what I want to do with my life.

In terms of plot, it’s hard to compare Fuyao and Zhao yao since they’re so different. Fuyao works her way to becoming a powerful general, while Zhao yao starts as a powerful general and then loses everything.

Overall halfway impression

People say that you should watch this drama for the romance between the leads, and while yes, the romance is watchable, I don’t know if that’s enough to carry you through this drama since the romance progresses very slowly. The leads only have a few scenes together in each episode, so you’re skipping most of it. Essentially, this is a very skimmable drama. I’m hoping that I’ll skim less as the leads become more involved in the sect politics, and I wonder if I’ll still be invested in the romance when Zhao yao and Mo Qing officially get together. Stay tuned.

Update: So I’m on episode 35 now, and it seems like a good place to end things. Is this where things start to go downhill because they’re going to drag it out to 55 episodes?

#the legends #招摇 #zhao yao #bai lu #xu kai #许凯 #白鹿 #cdrama #cdramanet #cdrama impressions #cdrama review

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donghuanewbsunite · 5 years ago

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Glossary

This is just a short glossary of words and terms you might run into while watching donghua or reading web novels and manhua. Keep in mind I’m only a casual fan and don’t know chinese myself. This is just the basic of the basics that I’ve picked up from my time reading novels, manhua, and watching donghua.

!!This glossary is under construction!!

General:

Donghua - Chinese animation

Manhua - Chinese comics

Gege / Ge - Affectionate term for ‘elder brother’

Xiong / Xiong-zhang - Respectful term for ‘elder brother’

Jiejie / Jie - Affectionate term for ‘elder sister’

Didi / Di - Affectionate term for ‘younger brother’

Meimei / mei - Affectionate term for ‘younger sister’

Er - Affectionate suffix sometimes given to children or close friends

Salute – When a character in a Chinese novel salutes the author usually means they're putting their fist in their palm rather than a straight hand to their forehead. Depending on if you're reading a modern or martial arts novel, the palm will either be curled over the fist or set straight out.

Slang:

Coughing blood – There are two meanings to this saying. 1)An expression used to show how angry or emotionally distressed a character is. 2) The character is literally coughing up blood to signify internal injuries. You can generally tell which is which based off of the context of the situation.

Fuck your mom – A phrase that essentially means 'fuck you'. The reasons this is used is to prevent 'fuck' from being censored [1]

Your sister – Short for 'I fuck your sister'. It has essentially the same meaning as 'fuck you' [1]

Gnawing on melon seeds – Watching a good show [2]

Papapa – The sound of skin slapping... because... y'know... 👀

Didn't know whether they should laugh or cry – An expression to show conflicting emotions

Pretend to be a pig to eat the tiger – To hide one's real strength in order to mount a sneak attack

Face – When face is mentioned, other than meaning your actual face, authors actually referring to a characters reputation, dignity, pride, and shame. [3]

When a character thickens their face or has a thick face it means they're getting ready to or are acting shameless.

When a character is humiliated, ashamed, or embarrassed, or doing something inappropriate we say this person is losing face, meaning something like losing dignity. [3]

If you do something in order to not impair someone's fame, we say you are saving face for him, meaning maintaining somebody's dignity/pride.

Face slapping – When someone is humiliated. A face slapping moment is typically reserved for villians or unlikable characters to experience

Drinking vinegar – Used to describe a jealous character

Let's compare notes – Characters in more action based novels may use this term to ask for a friendly match with someone

Tears streamed down his face – Used to either show distress of happiness

To have eyes, but fail to recognize Mt. Tai – To be ignorant or arrogant; to fail to recognize someone or something of great status [4]

The time it takes an incense stick to burn – A poetic way of referring to a short timespan. Depending on the author, generally either 5 minutes or 30 minutes [4].

Gnashing Teeth – Displaying extreme anger or frustration [4]

Sucking in a breath of cold air – A reaction caused by shock or surprise [4]

With a flick of a sleeve – A flourish of a long sleeve; a gesture often done in a moment of passion or simply to add emphasis to a statement [4]

The Seven Orifices / The Seven Apertures – The seven apertures of the human head (2 eyes, 2 ears, 2 nostrils, 1 mouth) [4]

Netizen – Users of the internet

Keyboard 'Hero' – Basically a troll

White Lotus – An innocent, cute, and kind character

Jade-like – Common descriptor for anything refined/elegant/beautiful; an unblemished, creamy white color when referring to skin/women [4]

A frog in a well – To be ignorant/narrow-minded; to have a myopic perspective [4]

Black Belly – Two-faced; outwardly king but inwardly evil or manipulative [4]

A teacher for a day, a father for life – A student should revere and respect someone who was willing to mentor them, even if they could only teach for a short period of time... Similarly, a teacher should nurture and cherish their students as they would their own children. [4]

Genres:

YY (YiYin / 意淫) Novel – YY novels are your typical Chinese webnovels filled with tropes like arrogant young masters who don't recognize Mt. Tai, old grandpa teacher, alchemy, auctions, tournaments, faceslapping, OP MC, and so on. You can consider YY novels as fast food. They're very fun/delicious and addicting, but not exactly quality stuff [5]. The term was first used as a joke as it is is similar to another word meaning masturbate (手淫), but eventually it just stuck because people couldn't find a better way to describe the genre [6]. Overall the word basically means 'mental masturbation'.

Wuxia - Literally means “Martial Heroes”. Fictional stories about regular humans who can achieve supernatural fighting ability through Chinese martial arts training and internal energy cultivation. Themes of chivalry, tragedy, revenge & romance are common. [7]

Xianxia - Literally means “Immortal Heroes”. Fictional stories featuring magic, demons, ghosts, immortals, and a great deal of Chinese folklore/mythology. Protagonists (usually) attempt to cultivate to Immortality, seeking eternal life and the pinnacle of strength. Heavily inspired by Daoism. [7]

Xuanhuan – Literally means 'Mysterious Fantasy'. A broad genre of fictional stories which remixes Chinese folklore / mythology with foreign elements and settings. [7]

[Xuanhuan and Xianxia novels may sometimes seem similar on the surface. Look for the presence of Daoist elements (the Dao, Tin and Yang, Immortals, ect...) in the novel to easily distinguish the two – if they aren't present, then it's probably a Xuanhuan novel.]

Kehuan – Science fiction

Qihuan – Magical fiction, usually refers to novels that are set in a western culture background. It usually has kings, dragons, knights, magic, ect... [6]

Sites:

(Sometimes you'll see characters talking about or using apps or sites so I thought's I'd also list them)

QQ Chat – An instant messaging and multimedia service provided by Tencent.

Baidu – Much like Google, Baidu is the name of a company, but when most people talk about it they are actually talking about the search engine and other internet related services it provides.

Lofter – A social media site similar to Tumblr.

Weibo – A social media site similar to Twitter and Facebook.

WeChat – A social media, messaging, and mobile payment app developed by Tencent.

Bilibili – A video sharing website similar to YouTube. It also host comics and games.

JJWXC (JinJiang) -

Fantasy and Historic Terms:

Gongzi - A honorific used when addressing noble sons

Shixiong - Older disciple brother

Shijie - Older disciple sister

Shidi - Younger disciple brother

Shimei - Younger disciple sister

Laoshi - Teacher

Shizun / Shifu - Teacher/Master

Shishu - Elder martial uncle (Disciples call other male masters ‘uncle’)

Shibo - Younger martial uncle (Same as above)

Qi – The natural energy that exist in all things

Sources:

[1] https://re-library.com/glossary-of-common-chinese-slangs-gaming-and-acgn-terms/

[2] https://forum.novelupdates.com/threads/chinese-slang-words.49990/

[3] https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/thick-skinned-cheeky.3199240/

[4] https://www.wuxiaworld.com/page/chinese-idiom-glossary

[5] http://novelfull.com/the-kings-avatar/chapter-983-happys-fanclub.html

[6] https://www.reddit.com/r/LightNovels/comments/36q51h/as_a_chinese_id_like_to_talk_about_those_chinese/

[7] https://immortalmountain.wordpress.com/glossary/wuxia-xianxia-xuanhuan-terms/

#Glossary #WIP #Under Construction #Chinese #Xianxia terms #Xianxia #ameture #List #wuxia #xuanhuan

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writing-frenzy · 6 years ago

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Wuxia/Xianxia/Xuanhuan BL story ideas for anyone who wants them.

This is basically a dumping place for the said genres, because after reading so many, I just couldn’t help but think them up, even if I will never write them. But others might like them, so I thought why not? (though if anyone ever does write something, or has seen anything similar elsewhere, please tell me so I can read them.)

Warning: ideas got long, and some themes maybe sensitive: ie: Violence, Murder, Child abandonment, fighting, torture all that good stuff you find in these genres

First Idea: the things a Good Teacher can alter

So, basically, MC was a guy from our world, who ended up dying and being reborn into another one... centuries before a certain book he read even takes place. Needless to say, he doesn’t remember it. (after all, one can only read about so many stallion protags and their harem fun times before they all kind of bleed together into one mash up.)

But on the other hand, being able to literally do magic and all is still very much a thing he would like, so why the hell not become a cultivator? So he joins a sect, manages to pass it’s entrance trial by the grit of his teeth and becomes an outer disciple of one of the Peak Lords, learning all he needs to from his senior brothers and sisters. Everything should be great, right?

Well, here is the thing: it is hard as heck; Turns out, he has a constitution that makes cultivating near impossible for him. Getting out of the first stages of Qi Refining and forming his Golden Core took forever it seems, and when he finally made it to the Immortal stage, he feels as if he had been run over by a bus after he was rung out of all his energy. it’s like whatever a normal person has to do to make it, it takes him not two, not even three, but a hundred times more to accomplish. But hey, he has a thirty-ish young body for all the years he’s really been alive and he still has magic, so it could have been worst.

(though if one wants to give him a golden finger of sorts; he has an absolutely insane pain tolerance :D things that would cause even the most mighty of Martial Heros to fall would be like, ‘huh, is something poking me?’. or chronic pain is also a thing if you want to be mean :) )

Only... Now that he has time for the actual world, he notices how his Sect’s state of affairs seem to be on the decline, with less and less people there now, most of them moving on to bigger and better things, bigger and better Sects and Clans. How the politics in his own Sect seem to be going to bigger and higher stakes, and how disagreements and feuds even end up almost destroying everything, a few Peak lords even dying from it.

These reasons all combined end up making MC one of the very few Immortals Golden Core Cultivators in the sect. It is because of this, that he ends up becoming a Peak Lord.

And Irony of Ironies, he is actually pretty damn good at it. (My idea is that in a previous life, MC was a Teacher or an Office worker, or maybe even both.)

Now, MC does not have want one would usually consider a golden finger, he is not the one who gets good things in life; in fact, he usually suffers and gets little to no reward from it... The same, on the other hand, can not be said for his disciples.

Disciple 1: ends up being the long lost son of an extremely wealthy family, who dies in the original novel for tragic backstory/emotional motive/character development for a novel character, only for MC to have saved them, then kept them because oh, high constitution for cultivation + bad idea for a grieving child this pretty to go to an orphanage. (glaring at them slavers out of the corners of his eye)

MC: Hey, I know it sucks what just happened, take as long as you need to recover. and hey, if you feel up to it, after you decide what to do, you can even join my sect and learn cool things.

D1: *sees things he can learn* ... I will never be so helpless again.

*Years later*

Wandering Clan: Young Master! You are well and alive! and they have been treating you well, even letting you learn Cultivation? Truly a noble sect, worthy of our loyalty!

MC’s Sect: + 1 business division, + a bunch to treasury

Disciple 2: Sibling to one of the Harem members, had thought she had been left for dead/slavers in the original novel by their sister and had been a tough, regularly appearing villain for a while until the protag has her see the error of her ways and became a harem member as well. Only once more, does MC save her from her situation, ending up getting him her gratitude and has her actually look really close at her situation and helps her look into the mystery of it all even as he takes her as his student.

MC: yeah, I’m only hearing about this second hand, and even I can see the holes in the story couldn’t even cover a hobo’s modesty. There is obviously more to this tale then meets the eye.

D2: ... *sparkles as she learns more on how to be a detective, Cultivation style*

*Years later*

Big Name Clan head: Ah, once again you have solved such a terrible crime and even this time shown how I have been framed! Truly a noble lady such as yourself have wishes? Please let me reward you!

MC’s Sect: + 1 Big Backer, + 1 to fame + a bunch more disciples for other Peaks

Disciple 3: the actual main villain of the series, he joins his sect when, during a night hunt, one of the Sect’s Elders watches him actually manage to kill the monster due to luck and a bit of skill; unfortunately he has some sort of dark inheritance + abusive teachers and fellow students in his sect who made him disillusioned with the lighter path and chased him into darkness... only here, MC strikes again, with him finding this poor abandoned child first, saving them from getting injured and taking them home to be well cared for and properly coached through the troubles of life.

MC: Crap, damn it, oh fuck that is more blood spilling then I am comfortable with, hang on little guy I will have this treated soon.

D3:... No one has ever cared for me so much. *Childish hero worship + instant loyalty.*

*Years Later*

Fangirls and boys: AHHHH D3 is just so cool, he is so awesome, so handsome!

MC’s Sect: +1 for fame, plus a bunch of more disciples for the sect.

Disciple 4: Female Canon Fodder, originally in the novel to act parallel to the Female Lead and make her look one hundred times better in comparison in looks, personality and even morals. But here is still insecure teenage girl who, before she could be blacken and disillusioned, wants more in her life then to be an ornamental vase for a future wealthy husband, finds out that MC’s Sect not only takes women, but also actually trains them in ways of Martial arts/Cultivation/Pill Refining/Whatever? (Sign her the fuck up.)

MC: oh, you want to learn? Sure, let’s start. *is a great teacher who actually teaches equally*

D4: *is a wide-eyed sponge* I will follow.

*Years Later*

D4′s Clan: Ah, yes, that great girl is indeed a daughter of our clan, bringing glory and honor to our names, with men lining up only in hopes she will but glance at them.

MC’s Sect: + a Big Backer, + Fame, + more followers

Disciple 5: The Hidden Boss; the illegitimate son of a family (from wife or husband, whichever you desire), was outcast from them all without ever knowing why, not even allowed to learn his family’s martial arts and abilities even though he was incredibly talented and skilled at everything else he learned. In the original novel, he at first seemed like a helpful NPC family member of Protag/Harem member who would explain or even help the Protag and his harem, them all unknowing that he was in fact causing 30% of their problems. But here, MC notices Hidden Boss’s potential, sees how these people just seem to be wasting talent and goes;

MC: Hey, I can take him in!

Those who actually care about the kid: *sees all his other ducklings and the good rumors of his teachings.* sure, better with you then here.

Those who don’t care about the kid. *Sees the funny, ‘weak’ Peak Lord of a dying sect who is pretty far away from them* sure, as long as he’s not here.

*Year’s Later:

D5: *very successful, powerful, strong, and wealthy* Hello.

D5′s Clan: *sweats*

MC’s Sect: + 1 Fame, + Money, + Honor, + a whole bunch more.

Disciple 6: Female character who was basically created solely for the need to give the Protag character, emotional, and background development in the story, and then die in the most fan pissing off way imaginable. yeah, you know what I’m talking about, a girl giving only one dimension to her structure, who has a profound effect on the main character for how little time they were together, and then just killed off before we even get the chance to even learn more! Only here, instead of staying wherever she was before, she either gets picked up by MC early on on one of his recruitment drives or hears of the sect’s growing fame and awesome female disciples and decides she wants more (like she deserves)

MC: oh, you’re pretty good at that! I can see real talent for you here; would you like to learn more?

D6: Yes please! ^_^

*Years Later*

D6: *A Noble Empress, eyes cutting just like her sword arts, her elemental affinity working in twine with it as she delivers a finishing blow to her monsterous foe* Huh, I’m pretty sure these are some prime ingredients for Cultivation, I must be careful to preserve and dismantle effectively!

MC’s Sect: + Fame, + Fortune, + a crap ton of good things.

Whatever order you want them to come in, it’s up to you, just have fun with it.

But yeah, these are not the only changes from the original novel; for example, MC’s sect should have been destroyed/abandoned/deserted, only a footnote because of some obscure fact that needed to be know. (example: This monster is so terrible, it destroyed three sects! or MC’s Sect is the only one who knew of a technique to cure this poison; either find a survivor/search the ruins) Only for luck, the MC, and his lucky students to have saved it all in the end.

Note: To makes things more interesting, I think it would be funny if there were more Reincarnations/Transmigrators closer to the story line, but in shock of the differences to add to the comedy value.

Idea Two: The System messed up, like a boss!

Now, how this idea starts out is a bit different: it’s just a bit before the MC dies, showing that they have been a normal guy before they had found themselves held captive by some obsessed stalker/killer for a long time, who has made it to where if they MC ever tried to harm them in any way or form, it would just end up guaranteeing his own death.

And after enduring this literal hell for what feels like years now, here are MC’s thoughts on the matter.

MC: Okay then. *proceeds to rip his tormentor's own throat out with his teeth*

(Now, it is up to the writer if they want to hide this dark history or not, maybe hinting here and there about it.)

Cue them suddenly being connected to the system!

MC: ... what?

System: Hiiii~ I’m-

ERROR!

*Suddenly cut off, MC goes through one hell of a disorienting experience, only to wake up in some child’s body.

MC: What

Child’s Soul that still barely remains in the body: Please, I just want to see what’s beyond these walls, just once.

*sudden mindwammy of memories of the slavery this child has gone through, the torture from their masters, the cruelty of bystanders that just stand by.*

What the child’s words in a way mean: (I want to see one good thing, just one about this world, before I die.)

MC:... Okay then. *proceeds to rip out their current body’s Master’s throat, due to surprise, his soul not be the one that is enslaved, and a strange sort of energy*

(And maybe here it could be hinted about what happened if one wants to hide the MC’s past, about how this wasn’t the first time he’s tasted blood on his teeth or ripped out a person’s throat.)

This in the end erases the remaining slave binds on him, and makes it easy to escape the mansion he is being held in. Even better, it seems the place is also being raided by some group, so it’s even easier for MC to be lost in the confusion. When he is finally far enough away, when the distance finally feels just enough, the MC lets himself fall to the ground, right next to a shrub of some sorts before he finally takes a breath and fully taking in his surroundings.

Only to lose it as he finally takes in the scenery: a pretty jade like valley of some sorts, soft hills of green turned darker and yet still shining in the moonlight from a full moon and the stars all around them. You know those pictures of places with no light pollution on islands and such? This is what he see in this moment.

And both souls are in complete awe of it.

Child Soul: so beautiful... I never knew it (the world) could be so beautiful.

MC: I forgot it could be.

Child Soul: ... Thank you! Thank you so much! *smiles and passes on to bigger and better things.

It is after this bit of peace and quiet, that finally the system comes back.

System: Ah, sorry, technical difficulties, did not expect that; Anyways, I am the System, to help you in your role for your next life!

MC: ...Role?

System: Yes! You are the “Villainous Boss’ of -insert story name here-! I am the ‘Like a Boss’ System, ensuring one will act as a truly terrifying villain!

MC: *thinking* You said the VB of that story, aren’t they -insert villian’s name-?

System: Yes!

MC: The young Master who fell from the mountains and ended up following dark paths and murky unknowns?

System: Yes.

MC: the Villain who was dark haired and eyed, who’s skin was pale as jade was said to be, and could make man and woman go mad over his charm?

System:... Yes?

MC:... I think there has been a mistake.

1:Considering that this was a child who was sold into slavery very young, to a point they don’t even know about parents, has dealt with the hell that is slavery to cruel masters, and would have in fact died just now if MC didn’t make a way through. {2} actually does have a name, and isn’t the same at all as the Villain. {3} the Body does not in anyway have dark hair or eyes, and the skin is not pale as jade (not to mention charm, unless someone is weak for poor orphaned waifs).

Yeah, a mistake has been made.

System: ah.... oh dear; maybe you do a switch a roo?

only, turns out that they find that would be impossible as well, because not only are they way before the story line even starts, MC’s constitution is very... Strange. (Basically, because MC could be classified as a Vengeful spirit, if only for the way he died, but due to him already getting said revenge, and even helping another soul pass on to the pure lands, he has a very high, very good constitution for Cultivation... both righteous and demonic. and his body needs to maintain an about equal level between the both of them, otherwise it gets out of wack and could cause most painful death.)

So, MC has to maintain tasks from the system, acting like a boss, and do certain things (like joining certain sects, to betraying a comrade, to even slaughtering a group of people sadistically ); luckily, he doesn’t actually have to be a villain, but he does have to act like it, which gives ideas.

MC: Okay, I will be the red herring Villain! The, it’s so obvious it just can’t be them kind of guy!

System: DX ... why not, it might work.

And hilariously enough, it does :D I imagine MC would act like a combination between Ichimaru Gin from Bleach and Murkuro from KHR, clever, twisting, manipulative, and yet surprisingly playful and cruel when one least expects it. (that he has loyal fanatical followers with yandere tendencies goes without saying, though he has no idea; He has high intelligence, can understand emotions and motives, but does at times not realize just how much people have actually bonded with him himself.)

Examples of his relationships.

Twins he found: the famous mirrored twins, one going down the path of darkness and cruelty, even as one heads for the path of good and light; maybe in the original story they had been separated, or a distance was placed between them due to misunderstandings and jealousy. MC had gotten a get one and get the other free tag a longs, finding them when they were young and hadn’t yet joined a sect, only ending up bonding with them. Though he is admittedly worried about betrayal and being put down from them in the future, he still bonds and helps them as much as he can.

Though-

Twin 1: MC! MC! I’ve gotten even better in my Demonic cultivation!

Twin 2: shhhh, not so loud! But anyways, I have gone even farther levels in my out Righteous Cultivation.

MC: ... That’s nice?

They are like his most trusted advisors/Inner circle members (of course he would have one, any good villian would :D ) completely willing to do what must be done for their brother in arms and most trusted friend. (the one who had been there for them at their lowest, the one who was able to keep them all together, sacrificing what he needed, adding so many scars to his one body just to spare them. They are the ones who best know about the man he is, for they were the ones who saw how he was forged, turning his words, his looks, and even his smiles into the terrifying weapons they are today. He is the one who showed them you can be bathed in darkness and still be ever so good, something they will help with as much as they can.

His First Disciple: Now, MC does take his teaching duties seriously, whether he is an elder in the sect or even a peak lord (though I would think it would be awesome if he was a Librarian), so he would be very attentive with his pupil, even if he teases and gently picks on them, messing with them as they grow older. MC originally took this kid because he remembers them from the novel as the one who helps the protagonist, who was thought to be an enemy only to be the secret ally. So he is pretty sure the kid will betray him eventually, especially since he let’s them in on all his shady practices and dealings with demonic cultivatior and/or actually demon folk. And with them being a complete Kuudere, it seems that way..

Only...

1st D: I will follow my Master to the end of my days. and if my death could be of service to him, I will have died with a light heart.

MC: wtf no! No dying for me!

The kid turns completely and utterly into his proud minion, happily doing what ever his dear Master asks of him. (after all, who was it that pulled him from the darkness, who showed him such care and attention, always there with a kind word and a joke whenever he was troubled? There was no one but him who wanted him, not during these long years, only for him to be pick specifically? ha, he will follow all his days, just as long as he can remain at his side.)

Very powerful Demon Lord (not king): Someone MC met while still young and unattached to a sect thought; hey, let’s get my consorting with darkness task down! After all, this guy was a well known villain in the series, a troublemaker through and through, who betrayed and sacrificed his minions and others like pawns. Once again, MC thinks he’s going to get betrayed eventually, but hey, the guy ain’t all bad and he’s pretty friendly even! though...

Demon Lord that is in fact in control of a very terrifying and large territory: Sir, would you like me to take your coat? maybe even a drink? *orders a very expensive and luxury wine.*

MC: *eyes him suspiciously, but nods* I am willing.

why they insist on waiting hand and foot on him always weirds them out. (For the Half-demon, half-human, it only makes sense; this person is their benefactor, so overwhelmingly powerful, just being near them strengths them, who he has picked him up even while he was a weakling and saw promise, made a gamble on that promise and even to this day still profits. Who is honestly even more terrifying then the demon King in DL’s eyes, and desires to please him all the more, so that he too can always serve this higher life form in his eyes.)

And these are just some examples, mostly all of them would probably be the inner circle I said he had XD

But wait, you might ask; what about those tasks you mentioned, how could betraying a comrade or slaughtering a group of people sadistically be good? here we go :D

betraying a comrade:

MC: okay, so, this guy is embezzling funds, this asshole is abusing his students, and this.. one...

System: ...?

MC:... “This one is raping their own Disciples, huh?” is said ever so softly, their eyes half-lidded even as they stare at the profile picture of the filth. “When they go on their next mission, make sure I am one of their backups, hmmm? I haven’t had the chance to push anyone off a cliff yet, have I?”

Answer: In a big sect, everyone should be your comrade; that you are betraying their expectations, their values, or even ratting them out all make it up. (and cold-hearted murder always works for the scum of the earth too!)

slaughtering a group of people sadistically:

System: so, we have a group of Demonic cultivators consorting with slave dealers, we have some criminals over here doing despicable things there, and we have traitors over here, what do you want to do?

MC: how about all of them?

Answer: what about those no one would miss :D

Notes: I would find it so funny if the MC was actually an animal magnet; like, birds will happily eat from his hand, deer will sleep right next to him, guardian beasts will want to protect him and keep him safe because god damn it, hasn’t this poor soul been through enough?! (be cool if this was one of the reasons why the sect leader actually trusts him; he has a bond with a guardian beast that can maybe read the soul or something, which MC has no clue about, so thinks nothing about how this beast keeps wanting to cuddle him.

but you want to know what? Out of everything, with all the the MC is doing? All they truly want in life is peace and rest, maybe even a shoulder to rest his weary head upon when life gets to much. (but thanks to the system and it’s tasks, he will never be able to truly have it.)

huh, this got pretty long.... eh, I had more ideas, but I think I’ll leave it here for now. If anyone wants more Wuxia/Xianxia/Xuanhuan , I might make a part two!

#Wuxia #Xianxia #Xuanhuan #story ideas #fantasy #I thought these were cool

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