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Xianxia Encompassing the World! (Xianxia Rec Discussion and Idea thread)

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So, taking inspiration from the Swallowed Stars and 40K millenium
Was thinking what a good idea to make scifi xianxia but more fresh
So the answer is to make it even less grounded. Literally.

Instead of humans being superhuman fighters they cultivate to be starship cores.
So instead of the usual QI condensation or planet level or whatever nonsense you split them based on their starship max size/complexity: shuttle, corvette, frigate, destroyer etc
Stuff like cargo ships are huge but they're not that complex for example so they have very low cultivation requirement

The reason for this is I was raking through my old notes and fiction I wrote as a child and managed to find them somehow
The primary inspiration was Homeworld and Nexus: Jupiter Incident
I want giant starships but I also want to cut down number of important characters
Alternate classification is like military rank
Lieutenant, Captain, Major, etc
With highest rank being Grand Admiral or Lord Admiral (Unless I get into silly territory like Star Admiral)
 
Now I'm imagining a Star Trek episode where the ship's drive is a temperamental cultivator and all the engineers are trying to manage him.

"So, the pirates said that your mother is a hamster and your breath smells of elderberries."

"They're seeking death!"

"Bridge to engineering, we need more speed."

"We're pushing him as hard as we can captain, if we take it much further he's going to blow!"
 
Yeah but in my mind the cultivator is also the captain

Funny idea for 'dual cultivation' is basically a navigator + WSO combo, one handling the maneuver and the other handling the weapons. So it doesn't really have the sexual overtone, but it does have strong potential for shipping.

It's not uncommon theme with Mecha (i.e. Gunbuster). So this time I can apply it into a Starship.

Multi-crew starship and battlestations substitute for cultivation 'formation array' where teamwork between huge number of weak cultivator is extremely important, and although they're inferior to proper single or dual crew starship, they're much easier to procure if you have money to shell out.
 
TriGayatri said:
Swallowed Stars is unironically fresh because the unashamed Nationalism and HFY. In a genre where emperor, nation states, race and species are nothing more than stepping stones for ultimate power and godhood, identity politics feels more real and humane.

Those are very much modern people train of thoughts and mindset. Even other xianxia set in semi-real or pseudo-historical setting doesn't have these elements. You'd only see such thing in works set in Chinese warring States, Qin dynasty, or three kingdoms era.

Also, Xianxia always have the thick late stage capitalism brainrot built into the plot. Again, this makes more sense in Swallowed Stars because, duh.
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I'm gonna have to disagree I've been reading star odyssey and Putside of time and realized that even the best authors don't give a fuck about realism in contrast to glazing the fuck out of humanity. Xianxia as a whole for some reason tends to be horribly humanocentric. Or maybe it's just a Chinese thing. Remember reading one story where one of the enemy races was a super arrogant race full of asshats that were characterized by their blonde hair and blue eyes. As compared to the black eyes and hair of humanity. Of course it couldn't be too on the nose so they had goks blood as well. But let's be fr. Man I hate Novela like this especially because they tend to be painfully hypocritical. Like what star odyssey did to desolate God. And Lu yin doesn't give af. At least he's not a hypocrite he knows he's a rabid racist

Edit:sorry for double posting I had thought I got a reply looking at the similar conversations had a few days ago
 
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Not to get political on main, but outsiders being evil is quite easy to write and once again they're often writing under such horrible conditions that ease of writing is a priority.
 
Behemoth. said:
Xianxia as a whole for some reason tends to be horribly humanocentric. Or maybe it's just a Chinese thing. Remember reading one story where one of the enemy races was a super arrogant race full of asshats that were characterized by their blonde hair and blue eyes. As compared to the black eyes and hair of humanity. Of course it couldn't be too on the nose so they had goks blood as well.
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It is very much Chinese sense of race superiority. There isn't really much if any Chinese teen literature that doesn't have it in some form. We might call it racist, but that's what the audience want, plus government approval and sometimes outright support can helps a lot alleviating author worries.

If you ignore Chinese-centric POV, Swallowed Stars feel a lot more cookie cutter HFY once they go to space. If Luo Feng was a White American and absolutely nothing else changed, his freedom spiel would be praised. People mocked him because IRL China politics, which should never belong in fiction unless it's explicitly set in modern real Earth.
 
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The "humano-centricity" is frankly baked into the genre, actually even inherited by the folklore in this case. There's a reason every powerful spirit beast or demon eventually gets the ability to take a human form: because the human form is supposed to be copied from a divine form, so every single type of being starts to be able to shift into that form as it climbs the ladder.

Then you have a Chinese sense of race superiority adding onto that even further.
 
ZeroXSEED said:
It is very much Chinese sense of race superiority. There isn't really much if any Chinese teen literature that doesn't have it in some form. We might call it racist, but that's what the audience want, plus government approval and sometimes outright support can helps a lot alleviating author worries.

If you ignore Chinese-centric POV, Swallowed Stars feel a lot more cookie cutter HFY once they go to space. If Luo Feng was a White American and absolutely nothing else changed, his freedom spiel would be praised. People mocked him because IRL China politics, which should never belong in fiction unless it's explicitly set in modern real Earth.
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I'm gonna have to disagree with you on the white American part. Western fiction tends to put a lid on our own language in our novels. At least it's not as bad as the shit I've seen from China. There was one novel I saw on reddit where the Mc was reincarnated as a nazi and supported their plans. Third Reich or something. Do you think that shit would pass here. I personally don't like HFY. That's not too say I like space elves gaping humanities asshole or anything but creating a vast array of races just for humanity to be the super special secret master race with x special qualities feels like we are trying and failing to suck ourselves off. It just reads bad. I'll make a bold claim here and say most HFY stories are kinda shit. Some are good but most nahh.

reignonyrparade said:
The "humano-centricity" is frankly baked into the genre, actually even inherited by the folklore in this case. There's a reason every powerful spirit beast or demon eventually gets the ability to take a human form: because the human form is supposed to be copied from a divine form, so every single type of being starts to be able to shift into that form as it climbs the ladder.

Then you have a Chinese sense of race superiority adding onto that even further.
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That's one thing I hate what's the point of spirit beasts if they just stay in human form all the time..I especially hated this with DD. Lan xuanyu is not human. He's like 1/8 th human if that His mom and grandma were spirit beasts. His dad had dragon blood and his grandpa was 1/4 plant. But somehow he's still considered human and he does save the spirit beasts while also making sure they never rebel against humanity. It's just uninteresting and makes the universe feel small. Like ofc humanity is gonna win. And then there's the insults. Like a MC will say all cool "you're just a dog or cat" to some super divine wolf or tiger. And then the spirit beast will get all offended and feel bad when they could just say you're the descendant of shit singing monkeys. But at least they could hide the smell with their fur. You can't even do that you hairless maggot looking ****. Or something like that. It's like no one is allowed to talk back. But this has turned into a rant. Outside time is still good that's why I'm over 1000 chapters in. I just hate that aspect of the story
 
Behemoth. said:
That's one thing I hate what's the point of spirit beasts if they just stay in human form all the time..I especially hated this with DD. Lan xuanyu is not human. He's like 1/8 th human if that His mom and grandma were spirit beasts. His dad had dragon blood and his grandpa was 1/4 plant. But somehow he's still considered human and he does save the spirit beasts while also making sure they never rebel against humanity. It's just uninteresting and makes the universe feel small. Like ofc humanity is gonna win. And then there's the insults. Like a MC will say all cool "you're just a dog or cat" to some super divine wolf or tiger. And then the spirit beast will get all offended and feel bad when they could just say you're the descendant of shit singing monkeys. But at least they could hide the smell with their fur. You can't even do that you hairless maggot looking ****. Or something like that. It's like no one is allowed to talk back. But this has turned into a rant. Outside time is still good that's why I'm over 1000 chapters in. I just hate that aspect of the story
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Actually sounds like ordinary folklore. With the exception of examples in the primitive communal system (for example, among the Australian aborigines, where the characters are most often animals), traditional mythology tells either about people or about human-like entities (the Olympians, Devas, and the children of Danu do not differ from people externally and mentally) . And outside the Euro-American space, anthropocentrism is much more pronounced in fantasy (either people are literally masters of the situation, or non-humans are so mysterious and inaccessible that they are difficult to describe).
In fact, I knew one critic who argued that Western fiction spent too much time on non-human characters.
 
reignonyrparade said:
Well, they could if that were true in setting, but generally it's not. In the folklore xianxia has built these ideas off of, humanity was created as is.
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That reminds me of castle of black iron I think that was the story. Where the Chinese were like the original humans or descended upon earth and white and black people evolved from monkeys and thusvwere inferior.

TriGayatri said:
I mean I get mad about these aspects too but if it gets to this point it's time to give up on entire Chinese teen literature.
Because from what I see Xianxia is on the lighter spectrum of "fuck yeah China bros"
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True enough there was another one albeit it wasn't xianxia where a Chinese dude reincarnated in old America to continue slavery. This shit was translated. I mean they really dgaf about anyone else. Crazy work.

Comrade Future said:
Actually sounds like ordinary folklore. With the exception of examples in the primitive communal system (for example, among the Australian aborigines, where the characters are most often animals), traditional mythology tells either about people or about human-like entities (the Olympians, Devas, and the children of Danu do not differ from people externally and mentally) . And outside the Euro-American space, anthropocentrism is much more pronounced in fantasy (either people are literally masters of the situation, or non-humans are so mysterious and inaccessible that they are difficult to describe).
In fact, I knew one critic who argued that Western fiction spent too much time on non-human characters.
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Weird I feel like if you are trying to create a diverse world with other races and the like those races should pose an actual threat. They should be different enough and have alternative cultures for awarded sense of realism and diversity. Some should help humans others should hate them rather than it being everyone vs humanity for reasons. This is why I like Defiance of the fall, it feels more real. And while humanity is a dominant force it doesn't read like humanity is a divine race like most xianxia
 
Behemoth. said:
True enough there was another one albeit it wasn't xianxia where a Chinese dude reincarnated in old America to continue slavery. This shit was translated. I mean they really dgaf about anyone else. Crazy work.
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The novel authors doesn't care. Their market is entirely domestic and that's why they're so nationalistic. No one in the west would bother trying to make faithful official translation/localization of a novel with 1 chapter/day schedule. At least not with physical release.

When thy got adapted then suddenly the international market matters. Manhua is more subtle and donghuas are subtler still.
You would see alot, and I mean a LOT of changes from novel to comic to animation format.
Not Xianxia, but as an example, "Kill the Dragon" novel is extremely racist and misogynistic. The manhua removed the misogyny (though it maintains "no female character" nature) as well as removing blatant racism and toning down China jingoism.
 
Tbf, webnovels as a medium tend to have a real racism issue. Maybe there is something more odious about the Chinese doing it wrt everyone else, but if any Korean webnovel ever mentions Japan you're probably in for the ol' racism power hour. Same with Japanese novels, though examples IMO tend to be a little more "Japan #1, cultural & culinary superpower" than "every other country is subhuman" (which is not to say there aren't notable examples)
 
kinglugia said:
Do you mean non-human humanoid characters, or outright inhuman beings?
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I think he's irritated by both. Quote:
In Asian films we do not meet Batman, hobbits, mutant spiders and talking teddy bears. For some strange reason, the directors there are still interested in people and the relationships between them.
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How dramas about love between celestial beings, demons, and magical foxes really fit in there, I don't know.


Behemoth. said:
Weird I feel like if you are trying to create a diverse world with other races and the like those races should pose an actual threat.
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Well, usually these are some kind of harbingers of people, spiritual forces of nature, or inhabitants of some unexplored regions.
 
kinglugia said:
Don't forget about North Korea too. Because IIRC they only have antagonistic attitude towards said cuntry.
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I mean, of course they are antagonistic about North Korea. And if there's ever a case where "we're better" is justified, it's in talking about North Korea. And the bad blood towards Japan is also somewhat understandable, given Japan did some right horrifying shit back in WW2.
 
Behemoth. said:
That reminds me of castle of black iron I think that was the story. Where the Chinese were like the original humans or descended upon earth and white and black people evolved from monkeys and thusvwere inferior.
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"Top Tier Providence, Secretly Cultivate for a Thousand Years" did that as well.
After billions of years on Earth, the race had already changed many times. Because the Chinese were Connate Humans brought by Zhen Yuanzi. Even if the Earth encountered any danger, they wouldn't be wiped out.

Han Jue had deduced that the Chinese were not born on Earth. Zhen Yuanzi had specially introduced them. When he chose Earth, it was still dominated by dinosaurs. Zhen Yuanzi had no choice but to destroy the dinosaurs. The arrival of the Connate Human Race brought providence and promoted the evolution of the Earth's original humans, which created white and black people.

The evolution of any species was long, spanning tens of millions of years, or even hundreds of millions of years. With the help of the Connate Humans' spells, Earth's Human Race developed quickly and was evolved from the apes.
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NMR-3 said:
Tbf, webnovels as a medium tend to have a real racism issue. Maybe there is something more odious about the Chinese doing it wrt everyone else, but if any Korean webnovel ever mentions Japan you're probably in for the ol' racism power hour. Same with Japanese novels, though examples IMO tend to be a little more "Japan #1, cultural & culinary superpower" than "every other country is subhuman" (which is not to say there aren't notable examples)
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Oh No, Japan can be as bad. They're just usually not as blunt. Usually.
Remember we almost have anime adaptation of fucking Nanking "War hero" Isekai. Yes, that Nanking.
kinglugia said:
Don't forget about North Korea too. Because IIRC they only have antagonistic attitude towards said cuntry.
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BurnNote said:
I mean, of course they are antagonistic about North Korea. And if there's ever a case where "we're better" is justified, it's in talking about North Korea.
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Meanwhile Manajer Kim was very, very heavy on "Both are absolutely fucking awful during the cold war, South Korea just washed their hands better using American Dollar"

YLAB works are very, very, very critical about South Korea political, economic, and societal problem, and although the protagonists are always South Koreans, they're not portrayed as morally or racially better than the Japanese or Chinese.
 
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