We were asked a series of questions pertaining to Wei Wuxian’s cultivation that were fairly interesting. We’ve decided to sum up the contents of our reply here. (This reply occurred over a series of messages so I’ve rearranged the answers and questions it to the best that I can)
What would be the most appropriate form to address Wei Wuxian’s cultivation? Should it be called the “devil/monster path 魔道 (Mó dào)” or the “ghost path / 鬼道 (Guǐ dào)? And how does that apply in the context of the book? (妖魔鬼怪 (yāo mó guǐ guài) was the term that Lan Qiren used describe the various creatures in the novel)
If he’s not using the “devil/monster path/ 魔道”, then how does 邪魔歪道 (xié mó wāi dào]) and 邪门歪道 (xié mén wāi dào) come into play? This phrase has been used by various characters (ie. Jin Zixuan) to describe his mode of cultivation.
To answer question 1, you’d need to revert back to Chapter 13 of the novel.
This was in chapter 13:
"我问你，妖魔鬼怪，是不是同一种东西 / “I’ll ask you this; are yao, mo, gui, guai the same thing?”
”
魏无羡笑道：“不是。” / Wei Wuxian smiled as he replied, “‘No, they aren’t.”
“为何不是？如何区分” / “How are they different? How can they be differentiated?”
“妖者非人之活物所化；魔者生人所化；鬼者死者所化；怪者非人之死物所化.” / “Yao are created from non-human living beings; Mo are created from humans; Gui are created from the deceased; Guai are created from dead non-humans. ”
This exchange occurred when Lan Qiren questions Wei Wuxian on the classification of monsters, of which the book establishes that 魔 (Mo - devil/monster) from living (humans), and 鬼 (Gui - ghost) from the deceased (humans). Hence, based on this definition, as he’s only shown to animate the dead (humans) in the novel, it’s quite safe to say that he’s practicing 鬼道. (Ghost path.) C-fans have an additional meta that Wei Wuxian himself is a living person, so in terms of classification, he can only be classified as someone who is a “魔 (Mo - devil/monster)” (from a living person), practicing the “ghost” path. (ie. resurrecting the dead). To confirm this theory, “魔道 - devil/monster path” has only been mentioned once in the novel, “鬼道.- Ghost path” has been used 12 times. Wei Wuxian himself has also addressed that he “修鬼道” (cultivates the ghost path).
(As a note, 妖魔鬼怪 itself is a general idiom that refers to all beings that are seen to be evil. MXTX takes the idiom apart in the context of this novel)
Onto Question 2 (You might need to understand Chinese to fully appreciate this but I’ll try to explain it anyway).
邪魔歪道 itself is a common idiom which traditionally means to “stray from the traditional (or orthodox) path” [baidu dictionary definition] but it could also mean demonic/evil ways. This phrase is also commonly used in Buddhism teaching. “魔” in modern Buddhism loosely refers to Mara, a demon that claims lives and obstructs good deeds. The other term 邪门歪道 is a synonym of the former but without the religious connotations.
So here something that’s very interesting - this manner of which interpretation is used seems to depend on what the user is thinking. In Chapter 7 (footnote 7) Wei Wuxian has interestingly referred to his type of cultivation as “the cultivation method that he practiced in the past.” Also, in Chapter 14, when questioned by Lan Qiren, Wei Wuxian brings up the idea of a “fourth” source of power (ie. ghost path); and he questions as to why resentful energy can’t be used as a reservoir of power. From this, we can actually infer that Wei Wuxian feels that it is a source of unorthodox power, but not necessarily evil.
Contrarily, it’s obvious that the rest of the characters deem that his methods are downright evil. So hence, they would interpret idiom as demonic/evil ways.
Interestingly though, it seems like 邪魔歪道 were used by people in the “orthodox” clans - Jiang Cheng, Jin Ling, Jin Zixuan, etc. On the other hand, 邪门歪道 was used by Xue Yang and WWX. In the same way that 邪魔歪道 is more closely linked to religious teachings, the unorthodox is deemed as “evil”, hence the term 邪魔歪道 becomes a more fitting term used by those in the orthodox camp.
Level 1: Prophecy proclaims that no man can kill villain; killed by woman.
Level 2: Prophecy proclaims that no weapon can harm villain; pushed down stairs and dies.
Level 3: Prophecy proclaims that villain will be brought low by no mortal hand; kicked to death by angry mob.
Level 4: Prophecy proclaims that no power on Earth shall be villain’s undoing; fatally distracted by sun in eyes.
Level 5: Prophecy proclaims that only power of laughter can defeat villain; beat up by clown.
Level **: Prophecy claims that villain cannot be killed by man nor beast, at day or night, or inside or outside. He is killed in a doorway at sunset by a half-man, half-lion
(this is actual Hindu myth)
Level ???: Prophecy claims that hero cannot be killed during the day or night, nor indoors or outdoors, neither riding nor walking, not clothed and not naked, nor by any weapon lawfully made. He is killed at dusk, wrapped in a net with one foot on a cauldron and one on a goat and with a spear forged for a year during the hours when everyone is at mass.
(actual Welsh myth!)
what i’m getting from this is that rules-lawyering is an ancient and honorable tradition
I found myself having, not exactly an argument recently, but a highly opinionated conversation with someone who did not believe my assertion that once upon a time there were official Hello Kitty vibrators. With the aid of the Wayback Machine, I found this article, and thought the world at large might enjoy it too…
Hey eBay I get that you were going for “fakes” and I’m sure that this initiative is going to greatly improve the experience your users have or whatever. But. That did not stop me from doing a double take and going “did eBay invent a new slur???”
I’m not a fag or a dyke. I’m some secret other 3rd thing. A worse thing. A F*ke.
Wake up hoes new slur just dropped.
For when you are gay, nonbinary, and about to get beaten up.
For when you are gay,
nonbinary, and about
to get beaten up.
Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.
this is really important so i’m posting it here because it’ll probably get removed and the original poster may be banned, but this is literal documentation and proof that terfs and transphobes are directly connected to the far-right and have roots in racism, homophobia, misogyny, and antisemitism. it really is all part of the same oppressive system, so there is no disconnecting transphobia from conservatism. there is no such thing as a progressive transphobe as much as they may want you to believe. it has nothing to do with biology or protecting women or children, none of it is founded in science or logic, it is purely hatred and and attempt to justify bigotry.
[Transcription:
I got radicalized into the far-right on TikTok. Well, technically I didn’t, but an account that I made did, and this is a graph of what that looked like. I just published this study, and I’ll link it in the comments, but I’ll also break it down right now, here.
So I wanted to examine whether or not transphobia is a gateway prejudice that leads to like, broader far-right radicalization. It’s been pretty clear for a while now that the far-right is transphobic, but we wanted to see whether being transphobic alone was enough to lead you to the far right.
So I made a brand new TikTok account and followed 14 creators known to post transphobic content. Then I started scrolling my ‘For You’ page, and I started exclusively engaging with transphobic content, and I documented the main narratives of the more than 400 videos recommended to me. We also double-blind coded this, meaning that another researcher also watched every video and coded the narratives, and then if we ever disagreed, more researchers would come in and perform a tie-breaker. Once we removed sponsored videos and videos that had been taken down before they could be double-coded, we were left with 360 videos.
Of the 360 total videos, 103 were homophobic or anti-trans, 42 were misogynistic, 29 contained racist narratives or white supremacist messaging, and 14 endorsed violence. Obviously, TikTok didn’t just like give us neo-nazi content immediately. I actually didn’t get my first Nazi symbol until video 141. But the more I interacted with transphobic content, the more I was fed not only more transphobic content, but also homophobia and misogyny and racism and antisemitism. So I didn’t actually have to interact with racist content to be fed white supremacist content, I just had to engage with transphobic content.
What you see in this graph is the TikTok algorithm starting off with a normal feed — memes, recipes, whatever — and then going “OHH, you’re transphobic! Have you tried hating the gays? What about women?”
So, it appears that transphobia can radicalize a TikTokker.
Around video 400, you’ll notice an interesting spike in far-right figures, hate symbols, antisemitism and calls to violence. That’s when I reached fascist TikTok and set my phone on fire. 400 videos might sound like a lot, but if a user watches each video for an average of 20 seconds, they would end up watching 400 videos in just over 2 hours. So, a user could basically download the app at breakfast and be fed the overtly white supremacist, neo-nazi content before lunch.
I’m going to emphasise a point here that a lot of replies seem to be missing: she only ever engaged with transphobic content.
There’s been studies looking into online radicalisation that have worked by engaging whatever the algorithm puts in front of you and seeing how quickly it falls into the deep end—this is not that.
This was a study where she only engaged with videos containing TERF ideas and transphobia, and TikTok started mixing in homophobia, misogyny, white supremacy and nazism on a “users who like A may enjoy X, Y and Z, also” basis, even as she continued to only engage with the content explicitly about transphobia.
Which is to say that if a person joins TikTok to connect with TERF activists and influencers, they’re going to find themselves surrounded by all of the aforementioned in the span of hours.
Because despite the image TERFs like to put out, their closest friends when it comes to taking action, are homophobes, misogynists, and fascists. Enough so that TikTok recognises them as sharing interests within hours.
Remember in 1993 when Jurassic Park was like…the end all, be all of special effects?
not gonna lie that still looks intimately real
I’m still somewhat convinced that someone sold their soul to create the special effects in Jurassic Park because that shit is over 20 years old and it still really, really holds up, better than the stuff in a lot of current movies, even.
Fucking witchcraft, man.
fucking look at this shit though
Literally see this post flying around with a few different responses added to the bottom each time so I’ll say it for this one myself:
THEY ACTUALLY BUILT A GIANT MASSIVELY DETAILED FUCKING ANIMATRONIC T-REX FOR ALL OF THIS THAT’S WHY THE EFFECTS ARE SO GOOD. CAUSE IT AIN’T CGI. AND IT AIN’T GUY IN A COSTUME. IT’S A BIG FUCKING ROBOT DINOSAUR. AND EVERY PART IS DESIGNED TO MOVE. IT COST LIKE HALF THE BUDGET OF THE FILM.
amazing
And they had the film it in small increments, especially in the outdoor scenes, because the rain fall kept soaking into the ‘skin’ of the rex and would slow down and mess up its movements. So they would stop filming and have a crew out there drying off this massive, fake dinosaur, and then they’d start filming again until it was too wet. Repeat until the end of the scene.
They used animatronics and detailed costumes for most if not all of the dinosaurs in the first movie.
The triceratops for instance, was also animatronic.
One of my favorite anecdotes I’ve read on tumblr is how the t-rex robot from Jurassic park would malfunction while it was drying out. How did it malfunction, you might wonder?
Motherfucker randomly started moving.
So apparently if you were on the jp set you would sometimes hear people screaming bloody murder even though they were all well aware that it was a giant animatronic puppet and wouldn’t actually, you know, eat them.
Did not know this, had to reblog for awesome movie history insights.
So, I knew about the animatronics bit but I did not know the raptors were guys in suits and the malfunctioning t-rex sounds terrifying.
And i just googled malfunctioning t-rexand was not disappointed. Apparently in order to put the skin on over the steel frame a guy had to crawl inside thet-rex while it was turned on and glue the skin down. And if somebody turned the t-rex off or the power went out the guy in the t-rex stood a very real chance of getting mangled and killed by the hydraulics.
So of course, the power goes out.
And this guy is still in there gluing the skin down.
Apparently the way to survive getting sheered to death by huge sheets of metal while you’re inside a giant t-rex robot is to curl into a ball and hope for the best.
And this guy hoped for the best and got it.
Some other people on stage pried open the t-rex jaws and glue guy crawled out of its mouth and was totally okay.
This is getting better and better.
I think they only had like 6 minutes of CGI
I’m just waiting for the T-Rex to come to life and leave its stand.
The thing about this that gets my special effects nerd going is the fact that EVERY single dinosaur was sculpted by artists based on the current existent archeological evidence of the time.
Even better than that, this movie ADVANCED our best understanding of dinosaurs at the time. They were blowing out a budget bigger than anything Hollywood had ever seen, and along with employing almost the last hurrah of incredible physical FX, they had a bank of those newfangled digital SFX computers. Nobody’d ever really created convincing dinosaurs in a movie before. It’d all been stop-motion animation, and even when the models were exquisitely crafted, you could just tell there was something OFF about them. Spielberg wanted THE BEST DINOSAURS EVER, and he figured on using the cutting edge of digital modeling and animation technology to build them for him.
So they got hold of some of the best paleontologists they could find and said, “We want you guys to take this tech that your labs could pretty much never afford and use it to build us the most realistic, accurate dinosaur models the world has ever seen.”
The paleontologists knew an opportunity when it bit them in the ass. They plugged in everything they knew about dinosaurs, all the skeletons and their best guesses about soft tissue and all that. And when they’d created those dinosaur models, they had the computer start moving them as they realistically would with anatomy like that. One guy took a look at those walking t-rexes and velociraptors (really utahraptors, but whatevs, fam), and he said, “Wait a minute, I’ve seen movement like that before.”
He called up film of a chicken walking. Everyone in the room said, “Holy shit.”
Prior to 1989, the idea that birds were descended from dinosaurs existed–we knew about archaeopteryx, we knew there was some minor connection there–but the idea that DINOSAURS LIVE IN THE MODERN WORLD AND THEY ARE CALLED BIRDS was not pre-eminent. Jurassic Park changed our scientific understanding of dinosaurs.
That paleontologists’d be Kevin Padian. Who is awesome.
