asingularshieldmaiden

[asingularshieldmaiden]

the 公子 and 先生 IS THIS FLIRTING??? playfully calling each other by formal names when they were saying 三弟 (sandi) and 二哥 (erge) two minutes ago

[asingularshieldmaiden]

[asingularshieldmaiden]

> read library book

> it's good

Thank you library

[asingularshieldmaiden]

Too many rich people buying medieval castles and then renovating the interior to look like a completely normal 21st century house. Sorry but if you're going to live in a castle you need to commit to the bit. If I lived in a castle I would restore it just enough to be barely liveable and pretend I was a poor but prideful nobleman in his crumbling estate, still clinging to the last vestiges of his family's fading name.

[asingularshieldmaiden]

sad reality of the fanfic-to-published work economy is that the weirdest people are willing to do it. that's why there's now hundreds of shitty no plot cishet hate-to-love enemies-to-lovers books that are ex reylo fanfic. and it's not even good. that's because the people who wrote book-quality steve/bucky and kirk/spock fic are too normal to think to themselves "i should get this porn published". they're too busy working in local government offices

[asingularshieldmaiden]

Jiang Cheng: The reason l have always felt so outcast from the other sect leaders is because apparently they are all in polyamorous relationship

and I didn't fucking know.

[asingularshieldmaiden]

People on here are all “be gay, do crimes” right up until comrade Su She “steals” the Lan cultivation techniques and brings them to the people and then it’s all ohhh but xianxia copyright violations

[asingularshieldmaiden]

Tag yourself as this list of “bad art” features, according to a twitter fascist

[asingularshieldmaiden]

The Estates of the Realm + Demonic Cultivation = what are you saying bro

Recently there was a post utilising the political concepts of the left and right wing in the context of mdzs. This essay will not be discussing that! I was inspired though about how well meaning but misguided politics shape how people view and mdzs.

I will be discussing how the estates of the realm system in the context of the French Revolution and the idea of dismantling the first two estates in favour of the third estate + mdzs = bad analysis. Unfortunately for all of you IM a mega history and politics nerd so get ready for a lengthy, poorly grammared and structured, passionate fandom analysis into how eurocentric views of cultivation, informed by European relationships between institutional religion and state power, shape how some individuals view demonic cultivation.

For context, the first estate was the clergy (with religion upholding the monarchical claim for the divine right to rule), the second estate was the nobility, and the third estate was literally everyone else so the absolute majority. this 'estates of the realm' is a context specific to Christian Europe (especially the French state in the way im using it). The claim in the French Revolution was that the first and second estates needed to be dismantled in order to favour the power of the majority.

Some People I think view cultivation in the context of the first estate as a religion, as in it upholds the power of the sect system (which you could view as the second estate) and the sect leader (in this allegory, a monarch). this is an inherently Eurocentric view of cultivation as an organised religion like in European Christendom, instead of as a 'religion' (taoism) with deeply individual philosophy, physical practice from philosophy, and in the context of mdzs, a magic system (I actually dont know very much about pre-modern Chinese history beyond a few books so this is not a historic analysis im not analysing the role of taoism in Real Life ancient china don't @ me bro).

Ok. we have established that cultivation is seen as a organised religion like in Feudal Europe. The early modern period (C15 to approximately Napoleon) saw a increase in secularisation caused by colonialism, capitalism, and industrialism, and increased interest in the natural sciences (or natural philosophy, as it was known) and more! (all these factors are interconnected also). This increase in secularisation undermined the first estate specifically and therefore the second estate also. if people don't believe in (at the very least, your interpretation of) god, why should they believe that (your interpretation of) god placed u in power to rule - divine right to rule was in shambles! Basically a lot of monarchs started going shit shit shit how do we justify our sovereignty over people and territory now (aside - this struggle for state legitimacy is where we get modern political theory and studies from!).

Going on from that allegory of cultivation as the religious power behind the invented ancient Chinese estates of the realm system, Some people see cultivation as a tool of oppression in the cultivation world. This essay going somewhere else though - I actually am not doing an analysis of whether or not cultivation is the root behind the power of the sect system bc obviously it is. Instead, I am pointing out how the perception of cultivation in the western mdzs fandom is often tainted by eurocentric views and experiences of institutionalised religion which has implications for interpreting the text and therefore fandom culture.

Aside - while cultivation does uphold sect power, i do think it is important to note that in the mdzs system there are varying levels of hcs as to the role of sects in non-cultivation society. Some people believe sect leaders are effectively feudal lords, whereas others place sects on a different plane of political (and sometimes even physical) existence - the jianghu as specifically only governance over matters relating to the jianghu. While cql implies some level of the former, it is unclear which interpretation is The Most Correct, and changes depending on which version of mdzs one subscribes to primarily.

Ok. we have established that Some People view cultivation as institutionalised religion in the context of misguided placement of the estates of the realm system on ancient fantasy china. Now we have moved passed the context, my primary point is that this makes some individuals view demonic cultivation as a good thing through its ability to dismantle institutions sect power. I actually believe that the statement "demonic cultivation is a threat to sect power" is correct otherwise jgs wouldn't have cared so much about gaining it as leverage over others and the jianghu wouldn't have cared so much about destroying the one who uses it. DC is a weapon! DC actually does threaten the power of sects because it is so powerful! Where the issues come in is the personal aspect of demonic cultivation as a corruption of the tao.

I believe that some individuals take the statement "dc is a threat to sect power" and push it to "equalising force through its lack of need for a core", which WWX therefore has a right to teach to non-cultivators (as the absolute majority, or the third estate - helping them to rise up against the minority first and second estates). Basically demonic cultivation turns into secularisation. Wei Wuxian transforms politically into the ultimate revolutionary and leads the non-cultivators against their cultivator oppressors.

However, the issue comes in through the fact that demonic cultivation is NOT secular (its not science bro) and instead is a form of cultivation, just a bad form. demonic cultivation's specific textual characteristic is that it is being bad for both the individual practicing it and the owners of the bodies being used. This textual characteristic is because individuals who are using demonic cultivation are not cultivating the way (the tao) to enlightenment (this is a massive oversimplification of taoism in general and mdzs pls read other essays about taoism and its role in xianxia, wuxia and mdzs). If cultivation is religion, dc is not secularism, so it can't operate as an allegory for secularism and personally I can't think it can be used in the same "equalising" manner that secularism was used for in Europe.

I am about to hit the hornets nest yet again. Personally, I think this belief manifests in weird opinions and tropes like The Poor Tortured Demonic Cultivators and Wwx's Magical School of Demonic Cultivation. I argue that headcanons are based on a misguided view of cultivation specifically shaped by European history!

In conclusion, the jianghu is not european christendom, cultivation is not institutional catholicism, demonic cultivation is not the equalising guillotine, and Wei Wuxian is not a secular radical revolutionary guiding the masses thank you for coming to my ted talk.

[asingularshieldmaiden]

Jiang Cheng is right wing because he travelled across time and space to the French Revolution and sat on the right side of the national assembly. he also read Edmund burke before time travelling back to feudal cultivation world china. wwx on the other hand went to the 1840s and read capital and the manifesto. he also is a postcolonialist and believes in intersectional forms of oppression.

[asingularshieldmaiden]

you ever see a famous 20-something woman and think that she’s very pretty but also you know in your heart she has the potential to age into the most etherial gilf known to lesbianism. but you also know that because of her social standing and the current cultural landscape she’s going to get loads of plastic surgery and botox and you will be robbed of ever getting to witness her maximum divine gilfyness potential. it’s just so sad. why must I be doomed to watch these women poorly taxidermy their youth

[asingularshieldmaiden]

Jiang Cheng is right wing because he travelled across time and space to the French Revolution and sat on the right side of the national assembly. he also read Edmund burke before time travelling back to feudal cultivation world china. wwx on the other hand went to the 1840s and read capital and the manifesto. he also is a postcolonialist and believes in intersectional forms of oppression.

[asingularshieldmaiden]

Love the fact that jiang cheng gets the hysterical woman treatment both in the book and the fandom regardless of the fact that all of his actions are extremely reasonable actions that normal people do when faced with the plot

[asingularshieldmaiden]

average jiang cheng anti: actually all jiang cheng stans are Conservatives because uhhhhhhh i don't like them

[asingularshieldmaiden]

Lovingly tending my quaint garden (block list full of jc antis)

[asingularshieldmaiden]

[asingularshieldmaiden]

I'm not really a HanLuke shipper but I can imagine them hooking up early in their friendship & then Han later after various revelations having a personal crisis over whether or not it's weird to have sex with both halves of a set of twins