This is the waiting-for-update degeneracy period, so here's something I need to get off my chest.
The way people have been talking about Domains have been really nettling me. Particularly, the myopic focus on the visual aesthetics. People seem to not grok what Domain being the foundation for a Way means.
As illuminated by Ling Qi's recent cultivation penalty, Domain determines what concept of person Ling Qi wants to be. Her base Domain is focused the concept of Home; that is to say, a person that can fulfill the purpose of a home. For Ling Qi, a Home is defensive at its core. Thus, she passively prevents and alleviates harm from acting on her family and close friends simply by existing. Thus, she impedes her progress towards conceptual purity when she attacks her family and friends.
In other words, when talking about Domains and arts, the focus should be on how the arts alters Ling Qi's beliefs of who a person that defends her family should be. When the slotting Argent Mirror came up, the modifications to Ling Qi's Domain were of Ling Qi's character: the Argent Mirror insight was "Be Honest to Yourself and Thus-"
There was no indication, at all, of a small meditation pool at the center of Ling Qi's mountain peak home or of a massive reflective moat guarding Ling Qi's mountain peak home.
I hypothesize that the fixation on visuals is based on the cool Domain fight between Shenhua and Suzhen — which really was pretty impressive. For all I am intensely irritated by the landslide decision to slot in Argent Mirror, the imagery of an imperturbable peak surrounded by a moat reflecting the truth of Ling Qi's enemies is nice. And it's fun to bandy around what world image would be the most awesome to fight with.
However, the discussion around what arts fit Ling Qi's Domain rarely seems to directly confront the fact that art/Domain compatibility lies in how easily the art's theme is congruent with "I am a person who defends her family."
Harmony of Dancing Winds, for example, was singled out as Domain Bait: the Art (Perception Edition) in the post-update discussion because its concept "I see connections between me and others" simply modifies Ling Qi's Domain statement into "I am a person who defends her family, and I do that by keeping tabs on them." The two concepts are easily related.
Similarly, Imperturbable Manor's Hearth is another Domain Bait Art. It's concept of "I defend people from spiritual malady" modifies Ling Qi's Domain statement it I "I am a person who defends her family, especially from spiritual maladies." IHM's theme is literally a more nuanced take on Ling Qi's Domain concept.
Posters already know all of this, I'm sure. But discussion of arts and Domains invariably center around the mechanics and imagery of the art. It's all "Argent Mirror is about Honesty and self-knowledge is good for cultivation!" or "Let's workshop the imagery of the Domain made from slotting in Ling Qi's core combat arts!"
Talk about Domain acts as if Ling Qi's Home is a physical place, a thing with substance, where she can put stuff or create as a physical location. But that's wrong: the Home is nothing but a metaphor for an idea that Ling Qi can increasingly symbolically realize as she incrementally becomes a natural phenomenon.
tl;dr The Home concept is a metaphor for "Ling Qi is a person who defends her family." Slotting an art into Domain modifies what kind of person Ling Qi thinks does that.
