#i was going to recomend some xianxia if you're curious but like | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

trashcanwithsprinkles · 8 months ago

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Ive seenyou mention wuxia a few times now and i wonder what that is. Would you mind explaining it to me?

not the most qualified person to explain this as i'm not, in fact, from china; but i've read a couple of wuxia so here goes:

wuxia is a genre of fiction from china specifically, about martial artists in ancient china. i don't think a specific time period is like required? obviously some dynasties are more popular but idk how it goes in that front. it just has to be Not Today and probably Too Long Ago. like pre industral revolution i think. again idk if that's a requirement, but most i've seen are from around the same relative murky pre-electricity era.

xianxia is a subgenre of wuxia that's specifically more fantasy-like, and it's not just martial arts, but also spiritual powers and cultivation (which i have no fucking clue how to explain without two hours and three tangents other than chinese magic system. if you've ever heard of chi/qi as an energy, it appears there). so like- genshin is by all accounts a xianxia, it just doesn't use the more common specific xianxia terms like cultivation. some of those are very weird to translate and probably not common for the average non-wuxia reader, so it makes sense why they're going for alternatives.

chongyun and xingqiu and xianyun are very much straight out of a xianxia. xianyun's entire story quest was the closest genshin has gotten to a straight xianxia plot so far. i highly reccomend ashikai's video on unnecessary visions if you want more info on why genshin is a xianxia hahah

cyanide narwhal has some talk of some stuff from xianxia, but that's mostly because well- fucking liyue, that's how it works there. the whole light energy striking down someone who's getting powerful and giving them godhood if they survive the strike is, while not exactly like that, something that happens in some xianxia as well. like the way adepti work in general is just very xianxia. ashikai does a much better job explaining it than i do tbh but yeah

TL;DR: wuxia is chinese martial arts fiction in ancient china, and xianxia is a wuxia subgenre with more magic elements. also genshin is a xianxia

#i was going to recomend some xianxia if you're curious but like #genuinely don't know which one is a good starting point #like i'm tempted to say just dive headfirst into mdzs like most of us did but like #is mdzs the best place to start if you know nothing? unsure #genuinely #given how it's made to feel more lighthearted and formatted more like it's a fucking videogame #svsss might be a good launching pad #but tbf it's been a while since i read it #also it has unskippable sex scenes (i think??) so like- if you don't want to read that you're kind of out of luck there #not that mdzs doesn't have that either but they're not literally Plot Relevant. like the plot does not hinge on their horizontal tango #there's probably a good wuxia to start out there but i can't really remember right now #like mdzs is the easiest to recomend bc it's trial by fire and you're going to come out of the other end knowing like 80% of it all #plus it's not nearly as traumatizing as some of the other options #and it's so easily accessible it's almost funny #like take your pick: novel. live action. animation. audio drama. comic #it's fucking everywhere and the fandom is fucking huge so that's a giant plus #but that doesn't change the fact that idk if you can watch a couple episodes to get a feel for the wuxia genre. like would that work??#so i guess i'll leave that to everyone else to comment with any recomendations if they have a good one #for like an introductory work #or just decide mdzs is just the easiest point of entry. that can always be it. i mean we all made it anyway

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