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I know when I talk about Dan Feng most of what I say is regarding implications of implications, but based solely on canon information, one thing is incredibly clear: He was just so tired. tired of the life he never got to truly live, tired of watching people fight, watching them die. Tired of the world that expected him to accept it all. In the moments before he betrayed his entire homeland, his voice was weary. The heartbreaking thing is, he probably never expected to be reborn. He probably didn't want to. When he was imprisoned and tortured, he didn't even speak, let alone fight back. It seems like he was just waiting for the end.

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about ena's dream

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day at the beach with grandma sun and grandpa moon

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them. it's his grandpa

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Ty for the explanation!! This is so interesting, I definitely need to watch Lalody's videos!!

Hello it's me again with more questions 😼

These days the fact that the IPC was involved during dan feng's interrogation has been on my mind, as it is something I didn't know. Do you have any theories or ideas as to why they got involved? What could they have possibly gained from that?

Right, so, I should explain some complicated lore before I give my theories behind that.

So, when I refer to the IPC having been in Dan Feng's cell, I'm largely talking about the Intelligensia Guild. Which, technically, are separate entities...but largely not. Because they're an affiliation of the IPC.

Now, it's easy to realize that it's the Intelligensia Guild have a long and complicated history I can't get into now, full of backstabbing and stealing funds and the IPC. I would largely recommend going onto Youtube and watching LaLody's video on the Unknowable Domain several times in order to get an idea of the Intelligensia Guild's history and how a bunch of nerds destroyed the world. ...Though you'll have to watch it *several* times.

But you don't really need to get into their entire history of Academic Backstabbing for this, because the reason they were in Dan Feng's cell is simple. The IPC is just as invested in the secrets as the Preceptors.

Particularly how his immortality works.

Why do I assume this? Well, during Unknowable Domain we see that the Intelligensia Guild are studying Borison Immortality. Like, that's a thing they do. They work with the Borison a lot to try and figure out their immortality. So I imagine that they're doing something similar here.

For the most part I look to side-quest with Todd Riordan and his mentor, Scholar Bernini, as the best look into why the Intelligensia Guild got involved with this. As I believe that series of quests and the mysteries it unlocks are the best look into Intelligensia Guild's alliance with the Preceptors. In the end, it's all about immortality.

But as far as why the Preceptors are doing this? Well, they say it's to save their species from the curse of being unable to Propagate. And for the most part I believe them. It's likely half the reason that they turned to worship the Propagation. But, having met Taoran (the guy in charge of overseeing Dan Feng in his cell) and his gaslighting, I believe that it's largely just about establishing their own power over the High Elder. I believe they want to rebuild lost vidyadhara power, perhaps restore Long somehow. (There's a theory that the Propagation may have been split from the path of Permeance but YMMV).

Anyway, I'm sorry I don't have anything of more substance, as I'm not able to go diving into the readable material and restudy them and find hints at the moment. So this is mostly sharing my own thoughts on the matter.

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I'm actually really interested in the theories you mentioned about the fact that vidyadhara having no parents is bullshit, I've never heard anything about it and would love to hear more about it!!

Ms bluebell!! Share info about the preceptors and my life is yours

Seems I've been summoned. I wondered when this day would come and I would rise from the ashes of the Fire Emblem Fandom to the days of Honkai Star Rail lore hyper fixation. [Takes a breath and cracks knuckles] Strap in boys, because you are not ready for the goddamn Luofu Preceptors. There is SO MUCH. You have no idea what you're asking. Just one of them would take a five page paper to read. So I'll try to do a general summary without going too into it. I am going to be very frank with you, the Luofu Preceptors are dicks.

I know, shocking news, terrible and controversial and new take. No one ever has ever thought of this before. This take will send waves through the Star Rail Community I'm sure.

But on a serious level? It is very important to look at the Preceptors in the right lends. See, friends, the Preceptors aren't just a group of obviously corrupt politicians. They're also a set of abusive parents.

Specifically Dan Feng's abusive parents.

Let me explain.

In the vidyadhara there are no "parents" in the traditional sense. While the existence of a bellybutton on Lingsha's naval suggests they were a species that once gave some form of live birth, they are no long there. Long turned off their ability to breed at some point. And with all the many reincarnations (it's suggested Yubie, the incarnation of Imbibtor Lunae that founded the alliance between his court and the Luofu, was the nineth known incarnation) it seems the cultural idea of having parents was simply faded out. Vidyadhara do not have siblings. They do not have parents. They do not have families as we know them. They have teachers who take responsibility for them and that's it, as stated by Bailu, the current "High Elder" of the Luofu.

This notion is bullshit. I will explain why in another post since this is a post about the Preceptors and not vidyadhara culture. But please assume with good faith for now that I am right and this is bullshit because if asked I will explain in another post. For now, just keep in mind that the Preceptors are Dan Feng's abusive parents. They are the ones who raised Dan Feng until adulthood, and while Jing Yuan (one of the most trusted sources of information in the game) says that they're constantly opposing one another, Dan Feng himself seems to, despite himself, hold a level of trust in them that was undeserved.

He mentions briefly in Jingliu's stories that "the Preceptors said..." meaning that he DID trust them at least with this and there was some level of deception from them, the people who raised him, to him that lead to the ritual failing and Dan Feng being painted as a Sedition causer (a sedition is specifically a rebellious attack against a governmental body, meaning most of the Luofu believes that Imbibitor Lunae was actively rebelling against the Luofu itself. Which is ironic because Yubie was the one that formed the alliance with the Luofu). This suggests that the Preceptors betrayed Dan Feng during the "Sedition" and caused he and Yingxing's plan, whatever it was, to fail. This is further supported by 1) a Cloudhymn echo telling Dan Heng that he warned Dan Feng that enemies were waiting to betray him at Sedition. 2) The Preceptors were the ones that called for Jingliu to warn her about Dan Feng's "plans"...before things went wrong...while Jingliu was in confinement for being in danger of being marastruck... Evidence seems to suggest that they were not acting in good faith with the man they raised. It should further be noted that there was a purge of Dan Feng's supporters after the Sedition, many of them being forced into hatching rebirth.

At least 18 other Preceptors (assumingly ones loyal to Dan Feng) died during Sedition. It should also be noted that if you walk the Scalegorge Waterscape long enough and interact with enough eggs you will find one egg that is filled with vitriol for "those who betrayed his master" and hatred for those who set them up. Further, you will find a Preceptor from the Fanghu that was banished after suspecting the Preceptors of the Luofu were up to something and appealing to his High Elder to interfere and punish them (note that we cannot assume that Glaciator Marum is evil just because of this, we don't know her reasons for not pursuing justice and can only speculate). If you go even further you can find an egg with a memory of further Peceptor corruption, as this egg remembers being bribed by the Preceptors with political power if he helped overlook obvious experimentations on a vidyadhara egg. Now, the Preceptors themselves. Of the Luofu Preceptors we know of only a few thus far, all but one being strictly mentioned in readables, and they are:

Taoran

Sutuan

Xuepu

Fenghuan

Suguang

Shaoying

Now, Taoran is someone that the people strictly playing the game and cutscenes should know as he has now appeared in the story itself as an NPC. He is one of the main perpetrators behind Hoolay's escape and is the one that revealed the Preceptor's plans to convert non-vidyadhara into vidyadhara. Possibly having gotten the idea with Dan Feng's failed ritual with whatever he was trying to do with the "Sedition" of Imbibitor Lunae (of which I will remind everyone that the situation was not as simple as "revive Baiheng" as there seems to be many elements involved. This is not me downplaying his love of Baiheng as I fully believe Dan Heng would absolutely revive Trailblaizer or March 7th from the dead given a dream and half an idea it would work).

It should be noted that Bailu is likely an artificially made vidyadhara (specifically she is most likely the Bloomborn Scion) resulted from the experimentations done by Sanctus Medicus. Currently, Bailu is the only successful attempt out of many to make more vidyadhara by Sanctus Medicus, but her success sets a precedent for this plan.

It is likely why Taoran is so confident in his assertion that they can make more vidyadhara. There is clearly a plan in place there based on what Sanctus Medicus did in creating Bailu, and he's convinced that if he accomplishes his mission he can create more vidyadhara. It should be noted that Taoran, prior to 2.5, seems to have been trusted with the task of extracting the secrets they needed for whatever their plan is.

Why do I say "whatever their plan is" when it seems their plan is obvious? Because if we read Preceptor Assembly Chronicle Fragment we can see hints that their plan is in action long before Bailu could be made from the Bloomborn Scion. It was in action before Dan Feng's fate could even be decided! Anyway, getting back on topic, Taoran is the Preceptor seen in Dan Feng's cell in his MC trailer with Intelligensia Guild member Oppenheimer. Subsequent readings shows that Taoran was regularly allowed into Dan Feng's cells with researchers in order to torture him and try to find three pieces of information: The secrets of the Transmutation Arcanum, the secrets of the Orb of Abysm, and what seems to be referred to as a "Dragon Heart" which may or may not be a physical or metaphorical but we have to assume is an element in play.

Anyway, Dan Feng didn't tell Taoran shit, so he was tortured so badly he was sent into molting rebirth (which seems to be like hatching rebirth, but premature and not quite as complete). This, obviously, was not what the preceptors wanted. And so they tried to course correct.

See, the Preceptors need the information Dan Feng possessed from his past lives. It's too much to get into right here and this post is long enough, but just know that Dan Feng gets information from his past lives and the Preceptors want this information BAAAAAAAAAAAAAD. So they purposely fucked up his rebirth to make sure that Dan Feng's reincarnation wasn't complete. That's why everyone, even vidyadhara, call him Dan Feng. Because his reincarnation isn't compete. He IS Dan Feng, just deaged and with amnesia. (Don't @ me everyone, Dan Heng himself has admitted as of 2.6 that he is effectively Dan Feng. I'm being objective).

And the Preceptors wanted custody of him again. Because fucking up raising Dan Feng one time wasn't enough for them.

In An Appeal from the Vidyadhara we see Preceptor Shaoying (not in the meeting from the last reading) making appeals to try and have custody of Dan Heng.

This is a bad thing. My speculation is that the Preceptors were hoping to groom Dan Heng and raise him to be far more trusting of them than Dan Feng was (it should be noted that trusting them in the first place was most likely why Dan Feng's plan failed and I have reasons for believing this I can't go into now because this post is SO LONG) and make him more likely to share the secrets they need. We can see this in their experiments with both Bailu and with their constant attempts to play with experiments that will help them keep their own memories. They want his information so bad and they have to move fast to get it. They're not the only ones either, as Lingsha's mentor, who opposes the Preceptors, experimented on Dan Heng to insure he would have Dan Feng's memories. It's also just one reason why they seem to want him back on the throne so badly (there are other factors, not the least being that it's hard to explain Bailu to the other High Elders when Imbibitor Lunae is still running around. And also the fact that Sanctus Medicus specifically want her on the throne which cannot be a good thing even if it's just for the fact she's THEIR successful experiment). To give them a chance to interrogate him and get that information out.

It should be noted that it's specifically Taoran and his faction of Preceptors that want the High Elder system in place over a system of Preceptor Counsels. Like the one Preceptor Xuepu suggested (temporarily) in the Preceptor's meeting in the aftermath of the Sedition. Xuepu, who was one of Dan Feng's teachers, seems to be unaware of the full extent of what is going on but cannot assume to be innocent just because the other Preceptors oppose her ideas. Anyway, that is the lightest summary of the Preceptors plan I can make. There's a lot going on with them. So much. This was genuinely the lightest version of this I could make.

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Aaa I love this so much omg!! I've been having a dan feng fixation for months and it's so difficult to find people that know all this lore!! As an angst lover this is amazing, I'm definitely interested in other posts you'd make on the subject! Thanks for the food🫡

Ms bluebell!! Share info about the preceptors and my life is yours

Seems I've been summoned. I wondered when this day would come and I would rise from the ashes of the Fire Emblem Fandom to the days of Honkai Star Rail lore hyper fixation. [Takes a breath and cracks knuckles] Strap in boys, because you are not ready for the goddamn Luofu Preceptors. There is SO MUCH. You have no idea what you're asking. Just one of them would take a five page paper to read. So I'll try to do a general summary without going too into it. I am going to be very frank with you, the Luofu Preceptors are dicks.

I know, shocking news, terrible and controversial and new take. No one ever has ever thought of this before. This take will send waves through the Star Rail Community I'm sure.

But on a serious level? It is very important to look at the Preceptors in the right lends. See, friends, the Preceptors aren't just a group of obviously corrupt politicians. They're also a set of abusive parents.

Specifically Dan Feng's abusive parents.

Let me explain.

In the vidyadhara there are no "parents" in the traditional sense. While the existence of a bellybutton on Lingsha's naval suggests they were a species that once gave some form of live birth, they are no long there. Long turned off their ability to breed at some point. And with all the many reincarnations (it's suggested Yubie, the incarnation of Imbibtor Lunae that founded the alliance between his court and the Luofu, was the nineth known incarnation) it seems the cultural idea of having parents was simply faded out. Vidyadhara do not have siblings. They do not have parents. They do not have families as we know them. They have teachers who take responsibility for them and that's it, as stated by Bailu, the current "High Elder" of the Luofu.

This notion is bullshit. I will explain why in another post since this is a post about the Preceptors and not vidyadhara culture. But please assume with good faith for now that I am right and this is bullshit because if asked I will explain in another post. For now, just keep in mind that the Preceptors are Dan Feng's abusive parents. They are the ones who raised Dan Feng until adulthood, and while Jing Yuan (one of the most trusted sources of information in the game) says that they're constantly opposing one another, Dan Feng himself seems to, despite himself, hold a level of trust in them that was undeserved.

He mentions briefly in Jingliu's stories that "the Preceptors said..." meaning that he DID trust them at least with this and there was some level of deception from them, the people who raised him, to him that lead to the ritual failing and Dan Feng being painted as a Sedition causer (a sedition is specifically a rebellious attack against a governmental body, meaning most of the Luofu believes that Imbibitor Lunae was actively rebelling against the Luofu itself. Which is ironic because Yubie was the one that formed the alliance with the Luofu). This suggests that the Preceptors betrayed Dan Feng during the "Sedition" and caused he and Yingxing's plan, whatever it was, to fail. This is further supported by 1) a Cloudhymn echo telling Dan Heng that he warned Dan Feng that enemies were waiting to betray him at Sedition. 2) The Preceptors were the ones that called for Jingliu to warn her about Dan Feng's "plans"...before things went wrong...while Jingliu was in confinement for being in danger of being marastruck... Evidence seems to suggest that they were not acting in good faith with the man they raised. It should further be noted that there was a purge of Dan Feng's supporters after the Sedition, many of them being forced into hatching rebirth.

At least 18 other Preceptors (assumingly ones loyal to Dan Feng) died during Sedition. It should also be noted that if you walk the Scalegorge Waterscape long enough and interact with enough eggs you will find one egg that is filled with vitriol for "those who betrayed his master" and hatred for those who set them up. Further, you will find a Preceptor from the Fanghu that was banished after suspecting the Preceptors of the Luofu were up to something and appealing to his High Elder to interfere and punish them (note that we cannot assume that Glaciator Marum is evil just because of this, we don't know her reasons for not pursuing justice and can only speculate). If you go even further you can find an egg with a memory of further Peceptor corruption, as this egg remembers being bribed by the Preceptors with political power if he helped overlook obvious experimentations on a vidyadhara egg. Now, the Preceptors themselves. Of the Luofu Preceptors we know of only a few thus far, all but one being strictly mentioned in readables, and they are:

Taoran

Sutuan

Xuepu

Fenghuan

Suguang

Shaoying

Now, Taoran is someone that the people strictly playing the game and cutscenes should know as he has now appeared in the story itself as an NPC. He is one of the main perpetrators behind Hoolay's escape and is the one that revealed the Preceptor's plans to convert non-vidyadhara into vidyadhara. Possibly having gotten the idea with Dan Feng's failed ritual with whatever he was trying to do with the "Sedition" of Imbibitor Lunae (of which I will remind everyone that the situation was not as simple as "revive Baiheng" as there seems to be many elements involved. This is not me downplaying his love of Baiheng as I fully believe Dan Heng would absolutely revive Trailblaizer or March 7th from the dead given a dream and half an idea it would work).

It should be noted that Bailu is likely an artificially made vidyadhara (specifically she is most likely the Bloomborn Scion) resulted from the experimentations done by Sanctus Medicus. Currently, Bailu is the only successful attempt out of many to make more vidyadhara by Sanctus Medicus, but her success sets a precedent for this plan.

It is likely why Taoran is so confident in his assertion that they can make more vidyadhara. There is clearly a plan in place there based on what Sanctus Medicus did in creating Bailu, and he's convinced that if he accomplishes his mission he can create more vidyadhara. It should be noted that Taoran, prior to 2.5, seems to have been trusted with the task of extracting the secrets they needed for whatever their plan is.

Why do I say "whatever their plan is" when it seems their plan is obvious? Because if we read Preceptor Assembly Chronicle Fragment we can see hints that their plan is in action long before Bailu could be made from the Bloomborn Scion. It was in action before Dan Feng's fate could even be decided! Anyway, getting back on topic, Taoran is the Preceptor seen in Dan Feng's cell in his MC trailer with Intelligensia Guild member Oppenheimer. Subsequent readings shows that Taoran was regularly allowed into Dan Feng's cells with researchers in order to torture him and try to find three pieces of information: The secrets of the Transmutation Arcanum, the secrets of the Orb of Abysm, and what seems to be referred to as a "Dragon Heart" which may or may not be a physical or metaphorical but we have to assume is an element in play.

Anyway, Dan Feng didn't tell Taoran shit, so he was tortured so badly he was sent into molting rebirth (which seems to be like hatching rebirth, but premature and not quite as complete). This, obviously, was not what the preceptors wanted. And so they tried to course correct.

See, the Preceptors need the information Dan Feng possessed from his past lives. It's too much to get into right here and this post is long enough, but just know that Dan Feng gets information from his past lives and the Preceptors want this information BAAAAAAAAAAAAAD. So they purposely fucked up his rebirth to make sure that Dan Feng's reincarnation wasn't complete. That's why everyone, even vidyadhara, call him Dan Feng. Because his reincarnation isn't compete. He IS Dan Feng, just deaged and with amnesia. (Don't @ me everyone, Dan Heng himself has admitted as of 2.6 that he is effectively Dan Feng. I'm being objective).

And the Preceptors wanted custody of him again. Because fucking up raising Dan Feng one time wasn't enough for them.

In An Appeal from the Vidyadhara we see Preceptor Shaoying (not in the meeting from the last reading) making appeals to try and have custody of Dan Heng.

This is a bad thing. My speculation is that the Preceptors were hoping to groom Dan Heng and raise him to be far more trusting of them than Dan Feng was (it should be noted that trusting them in the first place was most likely why Dan Feng's plan failed and I have reasons for believing this I can't go into now because this post is SO LONG) and make him more likely to share the secrets they need. We can see this in their experiments with both Bailu and with their constant attempts to play with experiments that will help them keep their own memories. They want his information so bad and they have to move fast to get it. They're not the only ones either, as Lingsha's mentor, who opposes the Preceptors, experimented on Dan Heng to insure he would have Dan Feng's memories. It's also just one reason why they seem to want him back on the throne so badly (there are other factors, not the least being that it's hard to explain Bailu to the other High Elders when Imbibitor Lunae is still running around. And also the fact that Sanctus Medicus specifically want her on the throne which cannot be a good thing even if it's just for the fact she's THEIR successful experiment). To give them a chance to interrogate him and get that information out.

It should be noted that it's specifically Taoran and his faction of Preceptors that want the High Elder system in place over a system of Preceptor Counsels. Like the one Preceptor Xuepu suggested (temporarily) in the Preceptor's meeting in the aftermath of the Sedition. Xuepu, who was one of Dan Feng's teachers, seems to be unaware of the full extent of what is going on but cannot assume to be innocent just because the other Preceptors oppose her ideas. Anyway, that is the lightest summary of the Preceptors plan I can make. There's a lot going on with them. So much. This was genuinely the lightest version of this I could make.

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"One day I would like to thank Eiland personally for helping rediscover my shrine."

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Wtf.

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If you're reading this...

go write three sentences on your current writing project.

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Me after meeting Eiland for the first time🛐

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It’s actually really funny how many cultures have fox spirits and how many mostly consider them Complete Assholes, whether actively malicious or just dickheads that trick people

You’ve got the Kitsune that can be anywhere from incomprehensibly evil and powerful to doting mothers and good wives, 

You’ve got the Huli Jing in China which were believed to be entirely female and needed male energy to survive, and did so by corrupting high-level politicians- and the Jiuweihu, the big girls that took to leading souls away from Dharma,

You’ve got the Gumiho in Korea, who just straight up eat people’s livers or steal their life force,

In Scandinavia, specifically Finland, fox spirits were believed to be the cause of Aurora Borealis, revontulet, the “fox fire”, as well as just usually messing with people, and then also the Brunnmigi for the Norse which poisoned water because fuck you,

The Celts also attributed them to be wily little bastards that existed to make fools of hunters and apparently that’s where the word “Shenanigan” came from, originally being sionnachuighim, “I play the fox” in irish gaelic,

In Europe you’ve got Reynard the asshole baron, 

and from what I’ve seen a lot of native american tribes also just consider them dicks on the level of coyotes 

it’s like every human that sees one of these

is just like “wow, what an asshole”, it’s great

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WHY THE FUCK DID NOBODY TELL ME ABOUT THIS

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YOU THINK I’M JOKING BUT I’M DEAD SERIOUS