If You Wanna Write About One Of The Idv Girls.......... Alice Deross And A Reader Who's Also A Journalist,

i got lazy

His salvation

Ok, Childe as a wuxia/xianxia trope. It's honestly a bit embarrassing how well this fits.

(blame @a-yarn-of-purple-prose for this post and if anyone here is a wuxia fan feel free to correct me, I'm new to the genre)

Wuxia is a Chinese martial arts fantasy genre you are all familiar with. An adjacent genre is called xianxia, "immortal heroes", it ramps all the fantasy elements up to eleven and skews tropes a bit (we'll get back to that).

A common trope is some kind of unorthodox school/sect or technique, allowing to achieve greater power without the usual decades of training. It could be straight-out evil or just revolving around chaos.

Such a martial school is usually called an evil/demonic sect (sect is more like a clan in that setting, not the modern concept of sect) and their techniques tend to drive practitioners to insanity. Either because they are inherently corrupting or because getting too much power without growing as a person is really not the best thing for your mental health. They are also often cast from hp points.

And then there's the archetype of a demonic sect heir. The best pupil or simply someone who has inherited a lost art. Proud, always greedy for more strength, often noble in some weird way.

*points to our calamity of a boy*

Common elements of such stories include:

Falling into some weird realm or meeting a weird person who teaches the hero a Forbidden Technique

Learning a technique too quickly through some sort of magic/alchemy/memory manipulation

Some people are so singular in their pursuit they become insane (走火入魔)

Ambition bad, loyalty and family good

Conflicting loyalties, generally a conflict between a chosen path and personal weaknesses/attachments (could be both ego and familal love, and this is more of a xianxia trope)

Fits like a horoscope so far but wait.

There's a very interesting case of Korean murim genre (their version of wuxia) where sects are less varied (I recommend this post for a basic introduction) and we get three paths:

Justice/Righteous/Orthodox/Light — theoretically they keep the Evil Faction at bay, and protect innocent people, but usually are corrupt to the core

Evil/Unorthodox/Dark — these try gaining as much power as possible and attempt ruling the whole world

Demonic Cult — usually dont take part in evil and justice battles, follow their own code of conduct based on their religion, value strength above all else.

(I'm sure there's a similar distinction in wuxia too, I just can't find it in the deluge of lore)

"Demonic" is closer to "pagan" or "heathen" than Christian idea of demonic here, their beliefs are often based on Zoroastrianism and worshipping a sacred flame. Do you remember all the Persian themes used for Khaenri'ah? And Surtalogi being the flame on Surtr's sword in Norse mythology. I also had the impression that Genshin gnostic references are based on the Zoroastrian-flavoured branch of Gnosticism.

In murim the trope of demonic sect heir is called "heavenly demon" (I believe, a more correct translation would be "supreme heathen"), they are utterly badass, live for the glory of battle, seem more like forces of nature and follow a very strict honour code often conflicting with normal human ethics.

(do I need to spell it out)

TvTropes also says this about Korean stories:

(do I need to spell it out pt.2)

I'm not sure why a Chinese studio would focus on the Korean version of this trope but I'm sure something like this exists in China as well or maybe there's a popular manhwa that inspired authors.

Xianxia extends the fantastic element further, focusing on Taoist concepts and practices and adding all kinds of magical realms (celestial, demonic, etc) and magical beings and making immortality achievable. I still need to read more about it but if I understand that right, demonic heir trope turns into a demon prince in this case. An actual visitor from the demon realm or a practitioner who achieved immortality through dubious means.

These are fae-coded in a way very similar to Childe and have a certain nonchalance towards things most humans would consider traumatic. They are simply not bothered by them, having a different set of morals or faring from a realm that is much worse.

Our boy isn't that (he's still very much human) but he's aesthetically coded like one, same as Scaramouche is yokai-coded, despite not being a yokai.

So. When people say Childe's arc is a reference to Journey to the West, it's not entirely untrue, JttW is the classic of xianxia genre and Childe does belong to the same genre. He, however, is not Sun Wukong but a different, darker trope.

This also explains why he has that "shonen anime protag but not quite" vibe. Shonen was heavily influenced by wuxia but this trope never quite made it to anime or maybe never became popular enough. It's not a deconstruction, it's a different story. Or perhaps a deconstruction of that different story.

Imagine trying to be General Mahamatra Cyno when your three closest friends are just:

- Forest Watcher "I don't know what you're talking about; Karkata is a dog" Tighnari

- Scribe "No, I didn't find this canned knowledge on my unauthorized research trip to the desert... I bought it on the black market like a reasonable person, duh" Alhaitham

- and Kshashrewar's "How I was I supposed to know seeking inspiration in King Deshret's ruins apparently qualifies as 'trespassing on forbidden territory' and creating a sentient suitcase to wield weapons for me is 'illicit research into mechanical lifeforms' all the sudden?!" Kaveh

Cyno: I see why none of you ever laugh at my puns. It's because I'm the joke to you, isn't it?

Saw this theory on twitter about Al’s possible colourblindness when he arrived in hell as a deer demon. I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Confort from a lil friend

Full piece I did for Sprout Rebirth zine!! I have a lot of fun making this and it was also really challenging bc 5 pAGES , hope y all like the result as much as I do

Also discovered I enjoy drawing wanderer´s hair a lot

scara hc: sad wet kitten scara was born after he met kazuha's friend's cat. how dare his boyfriend give another feline attention? why does kazuha allow that his fur on his clothes? kitten scara will sit in the rain until kazuha (who saw his theatrics from a window) shows up on their porch, crouches down and opens his arms wide. scara 1 - white cat 0

youre so right

Sick burn bro

its been.. So Long since ive posted, but finally i snagged some spare time to draw this...... on GOD

for context, this is mainly for a hc of mine where zhongli is actually long the permanence from hsr, and i know i sound crazy, but trust me, i have many thoughts and points of interest that make me very Happy to think abt so shush shushsushushushs