Note 1: This is NOT a list of character skills, just a list of xianxia terms in Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (GDC) aka Mo Dao Zu Shi (MDZS) that are likely to come up in tags, so I might as well give a brief explanation of them.
Note 2: This is by no means a full list of what goes on in canon, just a primer I slapped together from reading the GDC book-- the novels published by Seven Seas have glossaries at the back-- and other xianxia novels and comics, and a bit of extra research to fill in some gaps. There are people who have done even deeper dives into the genre, like whoever runs the Immortal Mountain site. If I made a mistake somewhere or the official translations contradict anything I've already written, I'll make the necessary edits.
Note 3: I'm a Southeast Asian of Chinese descent living in a Southeast Asian country with close historical and cultural ties to China. Some of the Chinese culture prevalent in this region has changed over time and distance, but the roots are still the same, so I try to write what knowledge I do have in ways I understand them to make them more accessible.
Becoming sworn brothers is not as simple as saying so and expecting this relationship to be honored-- a formal ceremony with witnesses is required, though what exactly goes on in the ceremony differs from story to story.
However, they're not actually adopting each other, they're not writing each other's names into the family registries, or allowing the use of their last names. Rather, by swearing unending loyalty to each other, this can tie their political powers together and allow them to share resources without reprisal and while being on even footing-- it's a great way for two or more factions to show solidarity without marriage. The closest Western counterpart I can imagine for this is "brothers-in-arms", but they stand by each other even without war. A more modern term I can think of is "ride or die".
There's nothing stopping women from being sworn sisters, it's just that it's more common for men to do so. However, I have not seen male-female or NB sworn dynamics. Yet.
In modern media, people sometimes use the term to imply a homosexual relationship between the characters involved in the brotherhood/sisterhood, usually to skirt around censorship. This ends up making people who aren't familiar with the dynamics of sworn siblings think that the characters are actually related, which makes the implications of a romance between sound incestuous-- not unlike Uranus and Neptune being called cousins in an old EN dub of Sailor Moon.
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sworn siblings
However, they're not actually adopting each other, they're not writing each other's names into the family registries, or allowing the use of their last names. Rather, by swearing unending loyalty to each other, this can tie their political powers together and allow them to share resources without reprisal and while being on even footing-- it's a great way for two or more factions to show solidarity without marriage. The closest Western counterpart I can imagine for this is "brothers-in-arms", but they stand by each other even without war. A more modern term I can think of is "ride or die".
There's nothing stopping women from being sworn sisters, it's just that it's more common for men to do so. However, I have not seen male-female or NB sworn dynamics. Yet.
In modern media, people sometimes use the term to imply a homosexual relationship between the characters involved in the brotherhood/sisterhood, usually to skirt around censorship. This ends up making people who aren't familiar with the dynamics of sworn siblings think that the characters are actually related, which makes the implications of a romance between sound incestuous-- not unlike Uranus and Neptune being called cousins in an old EN dub of Sailor Moon.