Cultivating Dragons - About Us

Unlock the Magic of Chinese Fantasy, C-Dramas, and Cultivation Storytelling

Welcome to Cultivating Dragons, a dedicated home for Western fans, readers, and writers who want to understand Chinese fantasy more deeply — and for gloriously overinvested drama watchers who have discovered that one innocent episode can somehow lead to seventeen browser tabs about Daoism, flower symbolism, historical titles, and whether immortals have ever considered communicating properly.

If you love Chinese historical and fantasy dramas such as The Untamed, Word of Honor, Love Between Fairy and Devil, Till the End of the Moon, Fangs of Fortune, or any series in which someone suffers beautifully in embroidered robes while making appalling life choices, you are in the right place.

Cultivating Dragons explores the worlds behind those stories: the genres, tropes, symbols, cultivation systems, character arcs, mythology, philosophy, history, cultural context, and storytelling structures that make Wuxia, Xianxia, Xuanhuan, and other forms of Chinese fantasy so compelling.

And if you are a writer hoping to create your own Chinese-inspired fantasy with greater depth, respect, cultural awareness, and narrative power, even better.

This is where your cultivation journey begins.

Why Cultivating Dragons Exists

Cultivating Dragons exists to help Western readers, viewers, and writers engage with Chinese fantasy in a way that is curious, respectful, practical, and creatively alive.

My aim is to:

• celebrate the brilliance, complexity, and occasional magnificent absurdity of Chinese fantasy and C-drama storytelling;

• explore the cultural, historical, philosophical, artistic, and literary traditions that help shape these stories;

• distinguish between traditional cultural material, historical practice, modern genre conventions, and creative invention;

• help Western writers build Chinese-inspired fantasy worlds with greater care, coherence, and confidence;

• create practical resources for writers trying to understand names, sects, clans, cultivation systems, archetypes, tropes, realms, immortals, demons, dragons, prophecies, artefacts, titles, techniques, and all the other delightful complications that make these genres so addictive.

You will not generally find shallow “Top Ten Handsome Immortal Men Who Definitely Need Therapy” lists here.

Well.

Not unless they come with character analysis, cultural context, three thousand words of discussion, and quite possibly a downloadable worksheet.

What you will find are detailed guides, thoughtful reviews, research-informed cultural explainers, practical writing tools, original worldbuilding, and the occasional affectionate complaint about people sleeping on stone beds as though spines are optional.

What You’ll Find Here

For Fans of Chinese Dramas and Fantasy

Cultivating Dragons offers story-focused reviews, genre explainers, cultural commentary, and deep dives into the symbols, relationships, tropes, power structures, narrative conventions, and recurring themes that shape Chinese fantasy storytelling.

Go East Review: A Splendid Romp through Ancient China

If you have ever wondered why sects matter, why names carry so much weight, why immortals behave so badly despite allegedly having thousands of years to develop emotional maturity, or why possession of one jade token can apparently ruin everybody’s week, this blog is here to help.

C-dramas are often a doorway rather than the final destination.

A single scene can raise questions about filial duty, cultivation, reincarnation, marriage customs, historical titles, symbolism, Daoist concepts, mythology, poetry, colour, plants, calligraphy, architecture, traditional medicine, or some obscure cultural reference that the subtitles cheerfully gallop past as though everyone watching already has a degree in Chinese Studies.

Those questions are frequently where my research begins.

For Fantasy Writers and Worldbuilders

For writers, Cultivating Dragons provides practical guides to building richer and more coherent Chinese-inspired fantasy worlds.

You will find resources exploring Wuxia, Xianxia, Xuanhuan, and related Chinese fantasy genres; naming characters, sects, clans, artefacts, cultivation techniques, locations, titles, and realms; designing cultivation systems; developing archetypes; working with tropes; constructing fictional societies; and creating worlds that feel more intentional than “generic medieval fantasy, but everybody has robes and there is jade lying about”.

Chinese Fantasy Archetypes – Wuxia, Xianxia, and Xuanhuan

The goal is not to copy Chinese stories or flatten Chinese culture into fantasy furniture.

Nor is it to suggest that Western writers can read a few xianxia novels, acquire an alarming quantity of moon imagery, and declare themselves culturally enlightened.

The goal is to understand more of the structures, ideas, traditions, themes, symbols, philosophies, and storytelling conventions beneath the surface — and then use that understanding to create something thoughtful, imaginative, and respectful.

For Readers Who Enjoy Original Fantasy

You will also find material from my own Chinese-inspired fantasy universe, Mortal Redemption.

It includes characters, realms, mythology, political structures, original scenes, naming systems, demons, devils, immortals, dragons, cultivation concepts, lore, and worldbuilding experiments.

Dragon Tales: The Magical Rainshade Dragon – Part One

Mortal Redemption is part creative playground, part developing fictional universe, part demonstration of the worldbuilding ideas discussed elsewhere on the site, and part evidence that giving a writer a spreadsheet and a dragon problem is how civilisation gets complicated.

My Story: From Late-Night Binge to Full-Scale Creative Relapse

It began, as many dangerous things do, with a late-night curiosity click on The Untamed.

One drama became several.

Several became dozens.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped merely watching and started analysing.

Why were the sects structured that way?

Why did names, titles, and forms of address matter so much?

Why did cultivation stories treat power, immortality, fate, family, obligation, honour, and sacrifice differently from much of the Western fantasy I had grown up reading?

Why did flowers, colours, weapons, musical instruments, celestial objects, and seemingly innocuous pieces of jade carry so much narrative weight?

And why, after centuries of cultivation, had nobody apparently unlocked the secret technique known as having a sensible conversation?

I came to Chinese fantasy with an existing background in fantasy writing and university-level creative-writing study.

While completing my science degree in Australia, I also studied creative writing, including a subject in Writing for Children and Young Adults. For the major fiction assessment, I developed the opening of a planned post-apocalyptic YA trilogy set on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.

The first book was tentatively titled The Boy Who Could, to be followed by The Teenager Who Would and The Young Man Who Did.

I received a High Distinction for the course and was invited to submit my work to the university’s biannual creative-writing magazine.

That formal study became part of a much longer interest in fiction craft. Over the years I have continued studying fantasy writing, worldbuilding, character development, plot, structure, genre, and the rather mysterious business of getting the enormous cinematic production occurring inside a writer’s head onto an actual page.

Chinese fantasy did not create my interest in writing.

It gave that interest an unexpected new direction.

Since discovering Chinese dramas and fantasy, I have watched well over 100 Chinese dramas and built Cultivating Dragons into a growing collection of guides, cultural explorations, writing resources, reviews, genre studies, symbolism articles, naming material, worldbuilding tools, and original fiction.

What began as late-night viewing became a full creative revival.

Possibly an obsession.

But a useful obsession, which is generally how writers justify these things.

How I Research Cultivating Dragons

I approach Chinese fantasy as a Western writer and independent researcher, not as someone claiming insider authority over Chinese culture.

That distinction matters to me.

My knowledge does not come only from watching C-dramas or reading Wuxia and Xianxia fiction.

Those are important sources for understanding modern genre conventions and storytelling practice, but they are only one part of the picture.

I also read academic and other serious research relating to Chinese history, culture, literature, philosophy, mythology, religion, popular media, and fantasy storytelling. I maintain search alerts so that I can find newly published research relevant to subjects I explore on Cultivating Dragons.

Some individual works generate astonishing amounts of scholarship.

The Untamed and the wider Mo Dao Zu Shi phenomenon, for example, can lead into research concerning adaptation, censorship, gender, fandom, traditional culture, mythology, queer interpretation, literary convention, modern media, and Chinese popular culture.

It is rather like the Asian cousin of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: what appears to outsiders to be “a television programme people like rather a lot” turns out to have attracted academics armed with footnotes.

I have rarely encountered a promising research rabbit hole I was unwilling to enter.

Occasionally I emerge several days later wondering why I now know quite so much about historical hair ornaments.

Beyond Fantasy Fiction

My reading also ranges more broadly across Chinese history and culture.

I read books about Chinese history, traditional culture, brush painting, calligraphy, plants, symbolism, mythology, and other subjects that help me understand the cultural vocabulary from which fantasy writers and drama creators can draw.

I also read Chinese classical works available to me in English translation, including writers and thinkers such as Sun Tzu and Confucius, while continuing to explore other translated Chinese literature and historical material.

None of that makes me a Sinologist, historian, or scholar of Chinese Studies.

I do not claim those credentials.

It does, however, mean that when I write about something like cultivation, naming, flower symbolism, filial relationships, demons, celestial hierarchies, or Daoist ideas, I try to look beyond “this appeared in three dramas, therefore it must be ancient Chinese tradition”.

Because that way lies nonsense.

Learning Mandarin

I am also learning Mandarin.

Slowly.

Very slowly.

With regular reminders that apparently four tones were considered an entirely reasonable number.

I am not a fluent Mandarin speaker and do not present myself as one. Much of the Chinese material I currently use therefore remains dependent on translations and translated scholarship.

But learning the language helps me better understand Chinese characters, names, terminology, transliteration, linguistic relationships, and some of the choices that inevitably change when material passes into English.

It also helps me recognise when apparently simple English translations may be concealing something considerably more complicated underneath.

Culture, Genre Convention, and Creative Invention Are Not the Same Thing

One principle sits beneath much of Cultivating Dragons:

Chinese cultural tradition, historical practice, modern fantasy convention, C-drama convention, and a writer’s own invention are not interchangeable.

They influence one another.

They overlap.

But they are not the same thing.

A trope appearing repeatedly in xianxia web fiction is not automatically an ancient Daoist belief.

Something common in a historical drama may be shaped by modern television convention rather than historical practice.

A Western translation may simplify a concept that carries several layers of meaning in Chinese.

And occasionally something confidently repeated across English-language fantasy forums turns out to be a fact with roughly the structural integrity of a wet dumpling.

So when possible, I try to distinguish between three broad layers.

1. Chinese History, Culture, Philosophy, and Traditional Sources

What historical evidence, classical literature, philosophy, folklore, mythology, traditional art, religion, and modern scholarship can tell us.

2. Modern Genre and Media Conventions

What Wuxia, Xianxia, Xuanhuan, web fiction, novels, television dramas, donghua, games, and other modern Chinese fantasy forms commonly do.

3. Creative Application

How writers might take inspiration from those foundations to build something new — including where I have done exactly that inside Mortal Redemption.

That distinction is important because respectful inspiration requires more than copying visual motifs.

Understanding where an idea comes from gives writers considerably more creative freedom than merely reproducing its surface appearance.

Why This Matters

Chinese fantasy is extraordinarily rich, layered, and rewarding.

It can also be difficult for Western viewers and writers to approach without context.

These genres draw upon histories, philosophies, myths, narrative traditions, artistic languages, religious ideas, social structures, cultural assumptions, and literary conventions that are not always explained on screen or translated neatly into English.

That is part of the magic.

It is also part of the challenge.

Western writers in particular need to approach Chinese-inspired fantasy with care.

It is not enough to add jade, robes, swords, sects, bamboo forests, immortals, and one suspiciously dramatic mountain.

The strongest work requires curiosity, humility, research, structural understanding, and a willingness to ask why certain storytelling traditions work before borrowing their most obvious decorative features.

Cultivating Dragons exists to help with that process.

This is a place for people who want to go deeper: fans who want more than passive viewing, readers fascinated by Chinese fantasy, writers looking for better tools, and curious people who have begun to suspect there is considerably more happening beneath the hairpins, blood-spitting, immortal politics, celestial bureaucracy, and emotionally catastrophic flute music.

Wuxia vs Xianxia: Key Differences Explained (+ Comparison Table & FAQs)

A Bit About Me

I am Gillian: an Australian living in the UK, a Chinese-fantasy writer and researcher, a dietitian by profession, and a lifelong fantasy nerd by temperament and possibly constitutional defect.

My professional life is very different from Cultivating Dragons, although perhaps not quite as unrelated as it first appears.

Science trained me to ask questions, look for evidence, examine systems, distinguish plausible explanations from unsupported claims, and become deeply suspicious when somebody says “everyone knows” without providing a source.

Dietetics also involves taking complicated information and explaining it in ways ordinary humans can actually use.

Apparently I have simply redirected that tendency towards cultivation systems, celestial bureaucracy, naming conventions, Chinese flowers, fantasy taxonomy, and determining whether fictional immortality mechanisms have adequate internal logic.

Outside the realms of dragons, dramas, research papers, and unfortunate fictional emperors, I am a gardener, baker, DIY enthusiast, sewing experimenter, coffee drinker, and someone who has spent more time than is probably sensible wondering whether composting counts as a valid cultivation path.

I write Cultivating Dragons openly as a Western fan, writer, and independent researcher.

I am not Chinese.

I do not claim to speak for Chinese culture.

My aim is to keep learning, research carefully, acknowledge where my knowledge is limited, distinguish evidence from interpretation, and create resources that help other Western fans and writers approach Chinese fantasy with greater respect, understanding, curiosity, and creative confidence.

I cheer for Vegemite, believe fibre is chronically underrated, and remain convinced that half the problems in fantasy fiction could be improved through better communication, more legumes, and considerably fewer cursed artefacts.

Join the Cultivation Journey

Whether you are here as a C-drama fan, fantasy writer, worldbuilding enthusiast, Chinese-fantasy reader, cultural-history rabbit-hole enthusiast, or someone who simply clicked one innocent link and now has fifteen tabs open about cultivation ranks, welcome.

If you are new to Wuxia, Xianxia, Xuanhuan, or Chinese fantasy more broadly, start with the genre guides:

Xianxia to Qihuan and Beyond: Explore Chinese Fantasy

If you are building characters, sects, clans, techniques, artefacts, titles, landscapes, or realms, explore the Nailing the Names series:

Nailing the Names: How to Master Wuxia and Xianxia Naming Conventions – Part 1

Read the C-drama reviews and cultural explainers if you want to understand more of the stories behind the spectacle.

Explore the worldbuilding resources if you are writing your own fantasy.

Or wander into Mortal Redemption if you enjoy original lore, dragons, immortals, demons, devils, celestial politics, inconvenient prophecies, and the sort of worldbuilding that begins sensibly and then breeds in the cupboards.

However you arrived here, I hope Cultivating Dragons gives you something useful to take away — a new idea, a better question, a cultural connection you had not noticed before, or the beginning of a fictional world of your own.

Let’s cultivate stories worth remembering.

Gillian
Dragon Gardener. Genre Guide. Research-Rabbit-Hole Dweller. Coffee-Fuelled Keeper of Plot Twists.