what-if-i-was-a-book

[what-if-i-was-a-book]

AAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!AHHHHHHHHH!!!!! AHHHH!!!! AAAAAAAAHAHHHAHHHHHH !!!!!!!! AHHHHHH WHAT THE FUCK AAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHH!!!!!! AHHHH!!! AAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!AHHHHHHHHH!!!!! AHHHH!!!! AAAAAAAAHAHHHAHHHHHH !!!!!!!! AHHHHHH WHAT THE FUCK AAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHH!!!!!! AHHHH!!! AAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!AHHHHHHHHH!!!!! AHHHH!!!! WHAT GHE FUCK AAAAAAAAHAHHHAHHHHHH !!!!!!!! AHHHHHH WHAT THE FUCK AAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHH!!!!!! AHHHH!!!

[what-if-i-was-a-book]

Ah? What do you mean mpreg is built into the setting of MDZS?

I mean exactly what I said. It's part of the setting. Mpreg is part of MDZS setting.

Or rather, mpreg is part of any and all xianxia or Chinese fantasy settings. Mpreg is not impossible... or even truly rare... in xianxia setting. There are at least three different regular ways for men to get pregnant in this kind of setting, even for low xianxia like MDZS.

Xianxia is Chinese fantasy. Cultivators cultivate until immortality. The upper level of cultivation, an immortal becomes a facet of reality and bends the world to their will. Some can even create an entirely new world wholesale. What's getting pregnant compared to that?

Sure, the setting of MDZS is low xianxia. But we know at the very least a lot of MDZS cultivators are at the Jindan stage. Do you know which stage comes right after the Jindan stage?

元婴 Yuanying. The common English translation for this stage is Nascent Soul. But its real meaning is nascent / origin child/baby/infant.

How does yuanying come about? Well, a cultivator at the end of Jindan stage will go through tribulation. If they pass through tribulation successfully, the jindan (golden core) in their belly will collapse and out comes a baby. This baby then takes over the task of the jindan, circulating the cultivator's chi and feeding off of it. The baby will grow alongside the cultivator's progress, eventually maturing and potentially becoming a separate person should the parent allows it.

(Game interface from a Chinese cultivation game)

This stage is very well documented in actual real-world ancient texts by Wu Liupai, dating back to the 16th century. It's not a modern concept made up for entertainment. It's part of actual real-world Daoist practices and beliefs.

...And xianxia is the brought up to eleventh fantasy version of real-world Daoism. Think about it.

So in truth, every single high-level Jindan stage cultivator in MDZS is just one stage and one successful tribulation away from getting preggo whether they want to or not. (Yes. Every single one of them. Not just Wei Ying or Lan Wangji, but also Jiang Cheng, Lan Qiren, Lan Xichen, Xiu Xingchen, Song Lan, Nie Mingjue... if he didn't die, etc... Not Jin Guangyao, though. He's too weak to get pregnant. Jin Zixuan, maybe)

You don't even have to be a cultivator or in a xianxia setting to get pregnant (whether you are male or female or whatever). Artificially induced pregnancy has been a thing in Chinese folklore since the Summer and Autumn period (BCE). Several different classics mention a fruit called 孕果 yunguo (Lit. Pregnant Fruit). This fruit bestows the ability to get pregnant to anyone who eats it, regardless of gender. Sexual activity with a man is still required, though. Can't make something out of nothing.

And the most famous and widely known in Chinese folklore: water from the River of Mother and Child 子母河. Anyone who drinks this water becomes pregnant, regardless of gender (or even species, actually). You know the most famous person who drank it? The monk Tan Sanzang... and his disciple Zhu Bajie (a male pig), and Sha Wujing (a male fish). It's been made into several TV series and movies. In one of those movie adaptations, Tang Sanzang even carried the pregnancy to term as he wasn't willing to terminate a life and saw this as an opportunity to experience the female side of life.

In the same story, Journey to the West, a rock was pregnant with Son Wukong and gave birth to him.

You have to remember this. Ancient Chinese didn't really think of pregnancy as a biological process requiring sperm and eggs like we do today. They thought of it as a concentration and condensation of qi (breath of the world) until the 'mother body' was saturated with fetal qi and gave birth.

Real-world folklore texts are chockful of such instances where things got pregnant with the breath of the world and gave birth. And that's just regular folklore, not the brought-up-to-eleven version that is xianxia.

[what-if-i-was-a-book]

A roundup of some of my longer posts

I'm an inconsistent tagger, but:

JGY (more than one tag could contain) | LXC (the best of men) | xiyao (a gentle warmth filling the deepest of needs)

long meta | short meta

[what-if-i-was-a-book]

stupid idea for a MDZS fanmade visual novel:

you play as jin zixuan. after a long series of various events and misunderstandings, you come to understand that your acquaintance jiang yanli, who you once wrote off as average, is in fact a perfect soul who you desperately want to marry. the only problem now is that she 1. is still convinced that you hate her, 2. probably hates your loser ass too, and 3. is surrounded by men and women who are far more qualified to date her than you are. #1 and #2 can hopefully be resolved eventually with enough time, effort, and apologies.....but #3 seems to render that impossible, since if you're not careful any one of these "more qualified" bachelor/ettes might snap her up first!!!!!

you immediately identifies wei wuxian as your biggest threat, because from your (jin zixuan's) pov, wei wuxian is jiang yanli's male childhood friend who she super dotes on. after seeing how close they are, you are initially almost ready to give up - except then you find out that lan wangji is gay and in love with wei wuxian, and thus realize that you can eliminate wei wuxian as a threat if wangxian get together. 

you then realize that this also applies to everyone else you see as a romantic threat. so, because you are a problem solver, you come up with a solution: before any of jiang yanli's friends can make a move on her, you will find a way to pair them all off with each other. that way, they will all be too busy dating each other and your path to yanli's heart will be (relatively) clear. 

so instead of being a dating sim, the objective of the visual novel is to help all the various side couples involving yanli's friends get together, so none of them can threaten xuanli. 

ideally, the game will let you freely choose which couples to push together, so there will be a wide variety of routes and endings.

("jiang yanli's friends" in this game is just the set that includes all the mdzs characters more commonly shipped with each other. jiang cheng is there, but he's yanli's brother so he's not a threat. so zixuan's strategy for him is just to keep him available on the side, so he can be paired up with whoever's left over after all the other matches have been made but is still a high enough threat.)

jin zixuan's threat assessments (accuracy not guaranteed):

extremely high:

wei wuxian

high:

nie mingjue (bc of his muscles)

lan xichen (bc he's popular)

wen qing (bc even straight girls would go lesbian for her)

medium:

wen ning (he seems too timid for dating)

nie huaisang (he seems more interested in hookups than dating)

jin guangyao (my own half-brother wouldnt betray me....right?)

low:

mianmian (she's my friend so she wouldn't betray me. also she seems interested in someone else (mr. mianmian))

lan wangji (gay, uninterested in women)

su minshan (too much of a hater)

jiang cheng (brother) 

conditions for victory:

wei wuxian must be paired with someone.

everyone from the high-risk group is paired off.

a maximum of 1 person from the medium-risk group is left unpaired; everyone else from the medium-risk group is paired off.

yanli approval score (explained below) is above a certain threshold.

you do not need to pair up anyone from the low-risk group in order to win; the low-risk group is there purely to help you. pairing off people in the high- and medium-risk group is necessary not because they are actually a threat to xuanli, but rather because jin zixuan will only feel secure enough to confess once almost all of his perceived romantic rivals have been removed.

some game notes:

throuples are allowed.

while wangxian is the most straightforward way to eliminate wei wuxian as a threat, the game also allows for other wei wuxian pairings. in other words, you as the player can betray lan wangji by pairing wei wuxian up with someone else instead - in which case the game is still winnable (ie. jin zixuan can still get together with jiang yanli, which is the victory condition), but you also unlock a special CG of lan wangji crying.

the achievement of the victory condition is decided not just by whether or not you successfully pair everyone else up, but also by a hidden metric called the yanli approval score. this is calculated by your interactions with wei wuxian, jiang cheng, and jiang yanli herself as the game continues: if you are kind to them, then the score goes up, and if you are rude to them, then the score goes down. if your yanli approval score is low enough upon the game's end, then yanli will still refuse to date zixuan even if you've successfully paired everyone else off.

notably, attempting to pair jiang cheng up with someone and then failing nets you a severe yanli approval score demerit, while successfully pairing up jiang cheng with someone nets you a high yanli approval score increase. interestingly, pairing chengxian together nets you the highest increase in yanli approval score.

if you get nielan together and then do not pair up jin guangyao with anyone, then the game gives you the option of putting in the hard work to help him network. it is highly recommended that you take this option, as if you do not, jin guangyao will expose to jiang yanli everything you as jin zixuan have done in the least flattering terms possible, which will make yanli unwilling to date zixuan and will net you a game over.

if you get xiyao together and then do not pair up nie mingjue with anyone, then the game gives you the option of putting in the hard work to find him a hobby. it is highly recommended that you take this option, as if you do not, nie huaisang will push jin zixuan into the traffic and you will get a game over.

if you intend on pairing up jiang cheng with anyone other than wei wuxian himself, then wei wuxian will run interference against you; a successful strategy therefore must include anti-wei-wuxian measures. this remains true even if you previously helped wangxian get together, because wei wuxian is an ungrateful bastard.

if you intend on pairing up jiang cheng with lan xichen, then both wei wuxian and lan wangji will run interference. because of this, the xicheng route is probably the hardest route involving jiang cheng in the entire game; to compensate for this, the xicheng route also has the second-most CGs (after wangxian).

if you get jin guangyao together with someone, then he will offer his assistance to you for the rest of the game. this translates into additional stats, intel, and information on who likes who the most, which will make the rest of your run easier.

if you get nie mingjue together with someone, then nie huaisang will offer his assistance to you for the rest of the game as well. nie huaisang offers the same assistance as jin guangyao above, but he also includes his own commentary and opinions.

you (as jin zixuan) cannot date anyone else. sorry zixuan x other shippers, this is a xuanli game.

[what-if-i-was-a-book]

If u want to write a story about a character that’s just you but hotter with a dark twisted backstory and magical powers and a pet falcon or something, I think u should just go ahead and do that. Who’s gonna stop you? The government?? Fuck the police.

[what-if-i-was-a-book]

[what-if-i-was-a-book]

You ever....[SHAKES WITH EMOTIONS]

You ever think about how...in both canon timelines, Yue Qingyuan thought that...his...his Xiao Jiu... That Shen Jiu...left him behind, rejected him. That Shen Jiu didn't think of him as the most significant person in his life even though to YQY, he is the most important person. That YQY lived and died feeling the person he loved the most, didn't love him back (or atleast not as much YQY loved him).

"Now go. Don't appear before me."

In PIDW, he died thinking even if he gave up his life, it will not be even important enough to SJ to make a difference. And yet, he embraced 10,000 cursed arrows because YQY's love and devotion to SJ cannot be measured in how much love he got back from SJ. YQY willingly threw away his life, believing his death in the will not matter a lot to SJ, and he didn't care. He loved his Xiao Jiu all the same.

"Shixiong, its Qingqiu."

In SVSSS, he lived on believing that "shen jiu" chose another person over him. That SJ is happier, much better without his memories of his Qi-ge. That SQQ wants to leave him behind. Choosing someone else who loves him better than YQY could, and left him behind along with the "forgotten past". And YQY...still loved his Xiao Jiu the same. Because...in the end, he will always be waiting for SJ. Even when he knows that waiting is in vain.

In PIDW, YQY willingly gave Xuan Su to SJ in the water prison. Do you.... [BREATH IN. BREATH OUT]...do you... Ever. Feel like dying after reading that part??? Coz I feel something tightly gripping me and suffocating me inside, when I think of how YQY cared SO LITTLE about himself. That even though his love was imperfect, it was PURELY UNCONDITIONAL.

In SVSSS, knowing fully well, that SQQ has decided to go with LBH, he still said that CQMS will always be open to him. Because he will NEVER let SQQ be without a home to return to. That's what a home is after all: a place, when you have nowhere else to go, they have to accept you.

He will always, ALWAYS, choose Shen Jiu. Even if Shen Jiu didn't choose him back. He will always be Shen Jiu 's home, even if the home is abandoned.

[what-if-i-was-a-book]

That weird feeling when you get jealous cause your crush is helping someone else fix a scarf and then you realise she's done it for you too

[what-if-i-was-a-book]

You’ve heard:

“Jude played kiss marry kill with Cardan’s whole friend group.”

But I raise you:

Jude played kiss marry kill with Cardan. Just Cardan.

[what-if-i-was-a-book]

At first I thought they were all beheaded but then I realised they're just lying down

[what-if-i-was-a-book]

The worst thing about the Lans only falling in love once is that they seem to fall in love with the most easily cancellable people, and if there is one thing the cultivation world likes to do, it's cancel people.

[what-if-i-was-a-book]

No matter who we are, where we're from, our skin color, gender identity, at the end of the day, we all are jin ling’s uncle

[what-if-i-was-a-book]

Wasn't feeling well so I spent five hours looking for soothing music. Found a fic about a character who was also not feeling well, and had to turn the music off cause I couldn't concentrate

[what-if-i-was-a-book]

TW: Pedophilia

Teenagers are rarely taught the reason why they can't consent to sex with adults.

And that's because teaching them that would completely unravel our coercion-based society.

It can be difficult to explain in detail the exact reason and all the specifics in a way that they will understand. But the simplest way to phrase it is that in some cases, even when someone agrees to something and even when they appear enthusiastic about it, there's too much of a power imbalance that it's no different than forcing them. Also, having power and being abusive doesn't require a conscious expectation to be obeyed.

Imagine a world in which every teenager understood that and was easily able to call out anyone who tried to convince them otherwise.

They'd know that there's no such thing as an employee consenting to working for a poverty wage, working in unsafe conditions, working long hours, or working without taking breaks. They'd know that there's no such thing as consenting to paying a bank overdraft fee. They'd know that there's no such thing as consenting to student loan debt. They'd know that there's no such thing as consenting to medical bills. They'd know that there's no such thing as consenting to generating profit for banks or landlords in order to have a place to live and being evicted or foreclosed when you lose your source of income. They'd know that there's no such thing as consenting to a police search. They'd know that there's no such thing as a child who's okay with their parents spanking them. They'd know that being dependent on someone does not mean that you can never criticize them. They'd know that if it's considered abusive to simply play along when someone obeys, then it has to be much more abusive to actively expect to be obeyed, which many adults do to them.

And people who benefit from a society based on coercion masquerading as freedom wouldn't like that.

So instead, teenagers are taught something dismissive. They're taught that what they want doesn't matter. They're taught that they're too young to know what love is. They're taught "it's the law". They're taught things that are insulting to their intelligence, which they'll naturally rebel against.

[what-if-i-was-a-book]

I want to study, but I also want to draw Mu Qing. Here's the solution.

[what-if-i-was-a-book]

How to fold a 3D paper star by 玖月手工

[what-if-i-was-a-book]

琴箫合璧 (x)