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dorothygale123 · 5 months

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I just watched Yang Jian, soooo.... we're talking about that today.

More specifically these a-holes:

Buckle up.

Known as the 4 Heavenly kings, the 4 Diamond Kings of Heaven, or Fēng Tiáo Yǔ Shùn (風調雨順; lit. 'Good climate'), these guys play a pretty big part in the Buddhist religion. They are often depicted on doorways, two on each side, and like many other groups of 4 in Chinese myth are linked with the cardinal directions.

Mo Li Hung/Duōwén Tiānwáng/Vessavana/Bishamon-ten: Protector of the North and ruler of rain, as shown by his fancy umbrella, the Umbrella of Chaos. Opening it turns the skies pitch dark, and turning it upside down causes massive storms. (Fun fact: also one of the Japanese Shichi-fujin/7 Gods of Fortune)

Mo Li Ching/Zēngzhǎng Tiānwáng/Virūlhaka/Zōchō-ten: Protector of the South and a god of plant life and growth. He has a super special sword, Blue Cloud, that can cause massive black winds and turn into a bunch of spears that turn people to dust.

Mo Li Hai/Chíguó Tiānwáng/Dhatarattha/Jikoku-ten: Protector of the East and god of music. As a result, his main weapon is his sick guitar that can mess up nature and cause all sorts of weird crap to happen.

Mo Li Shou/Guăngmù Tiānwáng/Virūpakkha/Kōmoku-ten: Protector of the East and an all-seeing deity that watches over everything. His tools are a magic bag and the goodest little guy Hua-hu Tiao, a white mink. His shoulder-buddy can also be a snake or dragon, depending on the version, but I like the fluffer.

Now, these guys have important jobs and are well respected in their own rights and stuff, but their most famous Chinese myth seems to be that time they got their asses kicked by Erlang Shen.

Okay, I guess that isn't entirely accurate as he and Nezha were mainly helping some guy named Huang Tianhua, but still. (Also don't expect any info on that Tianhua guy, I got nothing)

Anyways, the story starts when some guys pray for help in battle and for some reason the 4 brothers decide it's totally worth it to go down to the mortal realm themselves along with 1,000 celestial soldiers to kick some ass. Mo-li Shou sends his little floofer to go around and eat the opposing army's soldiers while the big boys kicked butt, but unfortunately one of the soldiers Hua-hu Tiao ate was Erlang Shen, here called by his other name Yang Jian. Erlang doesn't like that very much, so he rips his way out of Hua-hu, killing it, then transforms himself to look like it and sneaks back to his 'master,' waiting for the moment to strike.

Back at the plot, Nezha manages to break the 4 kings' divine weapons, making an opening for Tianhua to kill 3 of them, leaving only Mo-li Shou. Turning to his trusty fur-buddy to bail him out, Shou tries to sic Hua-hu at them, but surprise! That's actually Erlang Shen who bites his hand clean off. The ensuing agony gives Tianhua the distraction he needs to un-alive the last brother and win the day.

And then I guess they got out of the underworld on good behavior or something, because they continued to be important gods in the pantheon for many centuries to come.

￣\( ´-｀)/￣

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#mythology sh*tposting #chinese mythology #investiture of the gods #journey to the west #chinese myth character inspo #new gods yang jian #yang erlang #yang jian #erlang #erlang shen #4 heavenly kings #new gods #new gods nezha reborn #nezha #lego monkie kid #lmk

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my-apollo-gies · 4 years

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Apollo: What would you say if a guy tried to flirt with you? Because, like, really, 90% of guys are cute, but I'd never know how to speak to one-"

Artemis: The AUDACITY.

#greek mythology #incorrect greek gods #greek gods #incorrect greek mythology #apollo #artemis #try and tell me apollo knows how to speak to boys because youd be wrong #twin archers #shitpost #sh*tpost #apollon #help ive forgotten how to tag stuff its been like a day

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onlymollygibson · 6 years

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In my queue right now: Vikings, Little House On the Prarie, Star Wars, Greek mythology sh*tpost, Venice

#If I call it eclectic tastes instead of mood whiplash does that make it okay #sorry not sorry

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dorothygale123 · 6 months

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I'd say I'm becoming a nerd, but that ship sailed a long time ago. I guess I'm just expanding my nerdiness to other areas.

Anyway, MORE MYTHOLOGY!

So in Journey to the West, the Buddha explains that there are 4 'spiritual primates' that don't fit into any categories for immortals or types of creatures. Fans of Lego Monkie Kid are likely familiar with 2, the Stone Monkey Sun Wukong and the Six Eared Macaque. The other 2, the Long-armed Gibbon and the Red-Buttocked Baboon are a lot more obscure. They only get a brief mention in JttW because the focus of the chapter they appear in is Macaque, but the idea of a set of super powerful Immortal monkeys is just too fun to pass up, you know? So I've been thunking my thinker.

What if each primate was associated with a different realm (mortal, heavenly, lunar, and underworld) and element? I know the 4 elements (earth, water, wind, fire) are a western idea rooted in alchemy and eastern mythology has 5 elements (earth, water, fire, metal, wood), but there aren't 5 monkeys and this is just a thought experiment and not me trying to force western ideas onto eastern culture.

Got it? Good.

Now, Sun Wukong is very solidly earth because he's, you know, a rock. No surprise there. He was also born in the mortal realm and spent most of his life there, so we'll call him the celestial primate of the mortal realm while we're at it.

The Six-Eared Macaque is another easy one. A lot of LMK fannon associates him with wind, inferring that his heightened hearing has something to do with wind magic. He's also very closely tied to the moon because of the line in "Shadow Play" where he directly compares the Warrior (himself) to the moon. So Macaque is the celestial primate of wind and the Lunar realm.

Now here's where we get a bit more speculative and start using information creatively. There are 2 monkeys, realms, and elements left I want to use, so let's start with the monkeys so everyone has a baseline understanding.

The Long Armed Gibbon (Gibs, from now on) is described as being able to "seize the sun and moon, shorten a thousand mountains, distinguish auspicious from inauspicious, and manipulate planets and stars."

The Red Buttocked Baboon (Babs for short) has "knowledge of yin and yang, understands human affairs, is adept I'd daily life and can avoid death and lengthen its life."

Starting with the realms because they seem easiest to assign, I would give Gibs the Heavenly realm because of its ability to move around celestial objects like the sun, moon, planets, and stars. This leaves the Underworld to Babs, which I think fits nicely because their "knowledge of yin and yang" and "understand[ing] of human affairs" would make them a good assistant to the 10 Kings of the Underworld.

Next comes the 2 remaining elements, water and fire, which are a bit tricky because it could go both ways.

Gibs could be fire because the sun and stars are giant balls of burning plasma, but also water because the sky/heavens are often associated with an ocean or other bodies of water in several different mythologies. For example, in Egyptian mythology, Ra sailed his boat through the sky every day, while in early Abrahamic belief the sky was a huge dome with water on the other side, and rain happened when floodgates were opened to let the water through. In Chinese myth specifically, the Milky Way is often depicted as a river that is sailed through by various deities.

Babs could fit with fire as well because underworlds and hell-adjacent places are often shown to have fires to torment and punish the sinful dead, no surprise there. But there is surprisingly a lot of water symbolism in the realm of the dead as well. For example, some people may be familiar with the Japanese idea of the Sanzu River, very similar in concept to the Greek River Styx, as well as the Chinese Huang Quan/Yellow springs.

Personally I would pair Babs with fire because he has red in his name, making him the celestial primate of fire and the Underworld.

That leaves Gibs to be the celestial primate of water and the Heavenly realm.

I feel pretty good about this, but if anyone else has other ideas I'd love to hear them.

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dorothygale123 · 6 months

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For today's mythology sh*tposting, I'd like to give some inspiration to the fanfic writers out there by giving you an antagonist that has a beef with a certain monkey.

Way back when, there was a goddess called the Old Mother of the Waters/Shui-mu Niang-niang who was notorious for causing floods. The other gods kept trying to catch her, but she always slithered out and kept being a problem. What was heaven to do?

Call their OTHER recurring problem and have HIM deal with her! So good old Sun Wukong went down to deal with the Old Mother, but even though catching up to her was no problem (this is Sun Wukong we're talking about) he couldn’t stop her from slipping away again. Naturally this got him very frustrated, so he went to HIS go to solution:

Guanyin!

So he motors over to her palace in the Southern Seas and they hatch a plan.

Now, the Old Mother was getting pretty hungry. This running from the law business takes it out of you at that age, you know? So she decides to take a little break at a food stall and get something to eat.

JUST AS PLANNED!

For you see, the owner of that stall was Guanyin herself and the food the Old Mother just ate were actually really heavy iron chains that very painfully revert to their true form! Unfortunately for the Old Mother, she was already halfway done with her meal by the time this happened, so she was stuck with iron in her gut and chains coming out of her mouth (honestly I'd just be thankful they weren't coming out the other end...).

So with the flood lady all tied up Sun Wukong drags her to a well at the foot of a mountain in Hsu-i Hsien and locked her up tight, where I'm sure she'll NEVER cause anyone problems EVER AGAIN. There's no way this ancient and powerful goddess of primordial oceans is sitting there, steaming while she waits for escape and dreams of monkey leather boots. Nope, she'll stay there forever, just like the Demon Bull King!

..... oh. OH NO.

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#lego monkie kid #lmk #sun wukong #journey to the west #chinese mythology #chinese myths and legends #old mother of the waters #jttw inspo character ideas #chinese myth character inspo #fanfic ideas #possible future villain #lmk guanyin #guanyin #mythology sh*tposting #the monkey king netflix #monkey king hero is back #monkey king reborn #mythology #mythology and folklore

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dorothygale123 · 6 months

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Okay, so I was reading up on Chinese mythology here and found something amazing.

Way, WAAAAAAY back in the day there were 5 emperors, the Yellow Emperor, the Red Emperor, the Green Emperor, the Black Emperor, and the White Emperor who were really important to the foundations of the world and stuff. Some people may know the Yellow Emperor as the first emperor of China, but I'm here to talk about his half-brother the Red Emperor, or the Fiery Emperor. He's described as having "the head of an ox and the body of a human being" and is known for having "taught mankind how to control and make constructive use of fire through forging."

Now, who do we know from LMK that's associated with oxen/BULLS and FIRE? The Demon Bull Family! Specifically DBK and Red Son. Now, I have not found ANY evidence to support the idea that DBK and the Red Emperor have ANY connection, BUT I do think it is a really cool idea that maybe DBK is descended from the Red Emperor somehow and that's how Red Son ended up inheriting really strong fire powers: being the descendent of the primordial god of fire will do that to you. Red Son could also be the reincarnation of the Red Emperor or something, and the Samadhi Fire was a power from his last life that he USED to have control over but once he got reborn into a little baby body went COMPLETELY haywire.

Also, as one last bit of irony, due to being an agricultural diety and helping the common folk improve their lives through better farming practices, the Red Emperor gained the epithet "The Divine Peasant." It's just too perfect, I had to share

BTW, the book is available at Barnes & Noble

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dorothygale123 · 5 months

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You are a fisherman.

You're just sailing around, doing fishermen things like casting nets and getting sunburned when you see something odd on the horizon. It's a small raft. Poorly made, too. Gosh, and is that a monkey on it? Who put that poor monkey on a raft and set it adrift?! So of course you go over to help the poor thing. It's what any decent person would do, after all.

Except.

This is no ordinary monkey.

The second it's close enough, the crazy thing jumps you, steals your clothes, gets back on it's raft and goes about it's merry way.

You learn a valuable lesson about leaving suspicious monkeys well enough alone.

So goes the tale of the poor fisherman Sun Wukong robbed on his way to civilization for the first time.

Sorry I haven't posted in a few days, I was sick and felt like crap. But I got to the section of my book with Wukong in it and was all like "Monkey time!" I won't go over his full origin here because several other, more knowledgeable people have already done so (I recommend OSP's JttW videos), but there were two tidbits I wanted to share. The first was the story of that unlucky fisherman, and the second was something that happened during his little bet with Buddha.

You see, we all know that Wukong tried to jump out of Buddha's hand and wrote his name on the 'pillars of the universe' to prove it, only for those pillars to turn out to be Buddha's fingers. However, my source claimed that the finger Wukong specifically wrote on was Buddha's MIDDLE finger.

Feel free to use your imagination as to how the almighty and merciful Buddha showed this cocky little monkey exactly where he wrote that. The way I'm thinking definitely isn't canon, but it sure is funny.

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#mythology sh*tposting #sun wukong #chinese mythology #journey to the west #lego monkie kid #lmk #monkey king hero is back #monkey king reborn #oh monkey you bastard #that fisherman had some explaining to do to his wife when he got home #I'm not sure she believed him #do i believe the buddha flipped off monkey?#yes i do #chinese folklore #mythology

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dorothygale123 · 5 months

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Since I've made a lot of mythology sh*tposts, I decided to make a masterlist for anyone who wants to skip around quickly.

The 5 Emperors

Red Son and the Red Emperor

Xing Tian, the headless giant

Red Emperor 2, the Reddening

Chiyou causes problems

Yellow Emperor makes a corpse drum (yes, really)

My fellow nerd and I have a lot to say about weeds

Dragons

The dragon princess and the dumbest in laws ever

The Dragon Kings who don't do anything

Ao Qin shows us why we shouldn't give in to peer pressure

Moving branches on the dragon family tree

China has a dragon problem

The Sun and Moon

The very similar stories of Hou Yi and Shen I

Erlang Shen killed the suns too

Why the 10 Suns were being jerks

The 12 Moons

Ancient Chinese Alice in Wonderland

More fun stuff about the 10 suns

Does Hou Yi have a backstory?

A dramatic retelling of the 10 suns myth

Earth and Sky

Eggs come up a lot, actually

Nuwa cleans up a big mess-

-But there was still more for Yu to clean later

Why is the sky all the way up there?

Sun Wukong

The 4 Spiritual Primates + 4 Elements

The Old Mother of Waters gets some bad takeout

Sun Wukong's first crime (they grow up so fast)

A more dramatic telling of how Monkey became Monkey King

The Underworld

The Chinese underworld is very judgy

But it also has a wholesome grandma who feeds you

Kuan Yin

Kuan Yin, Goddess of Mercy

Kuan Yin 2, Electric Boogaloo

Kuan Yin 3, This Time It's Personal

Rulers of the Cosmos

Xiwangmu, the Jade Emperor, and Nuwa

The Jade Emperor is someone's OC

Possible line of succession for the rulers of the cosmos

Was the Jade Emperor in charge for Wukong's entire life?

Shangdi and the void where his characterization used to be

How the Jade Emperor got his badass wife

Miscellaneous

Si-Men Bau is a genius

The very heterosexual fox and his 'drinking buddy'

This fox had one job and he decided to create footbinding instead

Seriously, what are the 8 trigrams?

Erlang Shen plays Sidekick while th 4 kings get their asses whooped

The 5 members of the 4 Guardian Beasts

The 5th Element isn't just an old movie

The cow can jump over the moon, but not the Milky Way

Cute figures I don't need got my research blood pumping

Dragon Ball Parallels

And I needed 2 posts to geek out appropriately

More info on some cool critters that happen to have adorable minis

Bulma Briefs, Great Tang Monk

Tien Shinhan, Lord of Sichuan

Yamcha, River Spirit of the Desert and Puar the Dragon Horse

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dorothygale123 · 2 months

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So, I'm pretty sure I said I'd get around to Penglai at some point or another, and today is the day!

This place was mentioned in New Gods: Yang Jian near the start of the movie and is portrayed as the city of the gods, similar to Asgard or Olympus in Norse and Greek mythology. It even seems to be in the sky, which would align more with the Court of Heaven than Penglai.

Penglai was actually one of 5 magic islands that roamed around the eastern ocean on the backs of giant turtles. These islands were paradises and home to immortals. Legend has it that one of those immortals was out fishing one day and somehow managed to hook an island turtle and tangle up another. How he accidentally snared two massive, ISLAND-SIZED TURTLES I'll never know, but it was bad news for the people LIVING on that island. However, in some legends one of the turtles (named Ao) was killed by Nuwa when she repaired the sky. I like to think that the fishing line killed one and Nuwa killed the other

Either way, two of the turtles end up dead and the populations of immortals on them get displaced. They all move to the remaining three islands: Fanglu, Yingzhou, and Penglai. Of the three, Penglai is the most famous.

Honestly I think that lion turtles from Avatar: The Last Airbender are more similar to the mythological Penglai than the city of the same name in Yang Jian. I would be genuinely surprised to hear that the creative team took no inspiration from this myth when creating lion turtles.

That being said, I'm in no way disparaging Light Chaser Studios and the team behind New Gods: Yang Jian for how they portrayed this location in their film. It looks gorgeous. (Though it would have been awesome if it were on a massive flying turtle)

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#mythology sh*tposting #chinese mythology #nuwa #nuwa repairs the sky #penglai #new gods yang jian #yang jian #mythology #avatar the last airbender #atla #lion turtle #lmk #lego monkie kid

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dorothygale123 · 3 months

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Some more about the 10 suns, because I think they're pretty neat. Today is mostly gonna be cool details that I didn't go into before.

So, I don't think I've mentioned where the suns hung out when they weren't doing their jobs, and that's a shame because it's pretty cool.

See, there's this massive tree called Fusang that grew in the Tang Valley. It's so big that it has an entire palace in it's branches. Talk about a fancy tree house, right? And, of course, it has immortality giving fruit like 80% of all other magic trees in ancient China (seriously, with all these immortality fruits, it's a wonder the 10 Kings of the Underworld have jobs anymore).

Anyway, they all lived in the tree, but how they took turns being in the sky varies by telling. Some stories have their mother Xihe carry them across in a chariot pulled by dragons, but sometimes they just climb the tree and sit at the top all day. One myth says that the suns were actually carried around by magic crows that Xihe blinded to keep them from taking her sons down to the mortal realm, so instead they decided to take the crows to the top of the tree and cause Problems. Whoops.

Last but not least, the last sun. See, all the myths with these guys mention that one stays in the sky, which makes sense because we kinda need at least one of them. They were only a problem because they all decided to party together. But it also makes sense that the last sun would be pretty nervous about coming out again after all 9 of his brothers either got sniped by Hou Yi or Shen I, or smashed with a mountain by Erlang Shen. That's when someone or something decided to have roosters crow at sunrise, to tell him to get his butt up there and do his job.

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#mythology sh*tposting #chinese mythology #erlang shen #hou yi #shen i #the 10 suns #fusang #xihe #mythology #lmk

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dorothygale123 · 5 months

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More monkeys, because I said so.

People know Sun Wukong as the Monkey King, a relatively impressive title that feels like there's a story behind it, and there is.... kind of.

You see, Wukong, back then just Shihou (Stone Monkey) was chilling with his monkey friends and they all decided to follow their river up to a waterfall and they said that whoever went in first would be king. Shihou went in first, so they made him king. Not very impressive, is it? This is compounded by the fact that it's never explained WHY the monkeys did this, and why going into the waterfall was important or impressive enough to make whoever did it their king. However, with our creative licenses in hand, we can turn this meh story into an epic tale worthy of the Monkey King!

Yesterday we discussed the idea of Wukong living during the reign of two rulers of the cosmos, first Di Jun and then the Jade Emperor. Couple that with the headcannon I had that the reason Di Jun stepped down from the throne was because of the fiasco with the 10 suns, and that means that those suckers were in the sky causing problems during Wukong's lifetime.

I've never really gone into detail about what the 10 suns partying did to the ground, mostly because it was implied, but I'm gonna be a bit more specific here because it's relevant. You see, having 10 suns meant everything was 10 times as bright, 10 times as hot, and always miserable. Crops withered, people died, and rivers and lakes dried up. This happened everywhere, including Flower Fruit Mountain (Monkey's home), so one can assume that the monkeys there wouldn't be too happy about it and want to find a way to not die in the sun and heat. Perhaps after their favorite river dried up, someone suggested following it to the source and see if there was water there. Perhaps someone led these thirsty and dying monkeys to a big, magical waterfall near the top of the mountain that still gushed with water in spite of the heat of the suns. Perhaps, with most monkeys too weak from heat exhaustion and dehydration, they were hesitant to jump through this massive waterfall to find out what was on the other side, and decided whoever was brave enough to do so and save their people should be made their king. Perhaps the only one brave and strong enough was the Stone Monkey, Sun Wukong.

He bursts through the waterfall, finds a cool cave with food and water inside, and parts the waters for the other monkeys to get in and rest their weary bodies. The other monkeys are so grateful to him that they stay true to their word and make him their king in return for saving all their lives from the horror of the 10 suns.

See? Isn't that better? An epic tale where Wukong goes against the odds to save his tribe in the face of peril! A lot more compelling than the monkeys just randomly deciding to go up to a waterfall and say whoever jumps in first gets to be the king, isn’t it?

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#mythology sh*tposting #sun wukong #chinese mythology #journey to the west #lmk #lego monkie kid #monkey king hero is back #monkey king reborn #jade emperor #the 10 suns #dijun #flower fruit mountain #water curtain cave #lmk sun wukong #jttw inspo character ideas

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dorothygale123 · 6 months

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Space Did Something Cool

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So, not only are eclipses really cool, they also come up a lot in JttW adjacent Fandom, like LMK, for various reasons. One is because if Sun Wukong's non-cannonical children from the ancient fanfic that counts as literature, Journey to the South. They are Yuebei Xing (Lunar Apogee), Jidu (South/Descending Lunar Node), and Luohou (North/Ascending Lunar Node). I've known about these characters and these terms for a couple months, but I didn't quite grasp what things like the nodes were until I saw this. Red has a knack for explaining things, so I recommend giving this a watch if you're confused. Or if you aren't. Watch more of her content, is what I'm saying.

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dorothygale123 · 2 months

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I haven't talked about Dragon Ball recently, so why not?

As we have established, Bulma is Tripitaka and Oolong is obviously Pigsy/Zhu Baijie, and Goku is famously Sun Wukong, so what about Sandy/Sha Wujing and the dragon horse/Bai Long Ma/Ao Lie?

Behold, Sha Wujing, former celestial General and fierce warrior!

I kid, I kid. Yamcha was actually Goku's rival when he was introduced even if he was never actually a threat. It is ironic that he was a desert bandit when Sha Wujing was a river spirit, though. Which just leaves Puar to be Ao Lie, as he's just there to be cute and sell plushies.

BEHOLD, THE GREAT COMOANIONS!

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#mythology sh*tposting #dragon ball #yamcha #puar #journey to the west #jttw #sha wujing #ao lie #bai longma

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dorothygale123 · 3 months

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Raise your hand if you've heard of the 4 Guardian Beasts before. Anyone? If you don't, it's cool. That's what learning is for!

Now, anime fans like myself may be more than a little familiar with these guys as they've shown up in more than a few properties (ex. Fushigi Yuugi) but the concept, like many things in Asian culture, was originally Chinese. Also called the 4 Symbols, the 4 Gods, and the 4 Cardinal Creatures in English, the 4 Guardian Beasts are very popular in East Asia. We'll be calling them by their Chinese name, the Sixiang, because it's much shorter than any of their English titles because it's shorter. Do excuse me if I call the beasts themselves by their Japanese names, as it's what I know them best by.

The Sixiang are an astrological concept, with each one governing a portion of the sky. Each of these 4 sections had 7 constellations consisting of parts of the beast that when looked at together shows the beast as a whole. Pretty different from Greek constellations, huh? Anyways, these 28 total constellations were very important to Chinese cosmology as each one was seen as housing a different part of the Heavens, where the gods did their business. Let's take a closer look, shall we?

Azure Dragon/Canglong/Seiryuu, Guardian of the East

Fun fact: back in ye olden days azure was used to describe a shade of green, so while there are many depictions of Seiryuu as a blue dragon a lot of really ancient art paints him green. Surprisingly, he's associates with the element of wood rather than water. His constellations house the Heavenly Gates and several parts of the Jade Emperor's palace (including the stables where a certain naughty monkey did a stint). He's generally seen as the most important member of the group as a result.

White Tiger/Baihu/Byakko, Guardian of the West

As the name suggests, Byakko is a massive white tiger that rules over all other beasts with a terrifying roar. He's said to be in tune with all 5 elements (water, fire, earth, wood, metal) but is most associated with metal. He carries the 'essence of heroes' and means business. His constellations mostly have to do with the Heavenly army, with the prison, garrison, and granary all falling under his purview.

Vermillion Bird/Zhuque/Duzaku, Guardian of the South

Often confused with a Phoenix, Suzaku is actually a distinct creature. The fact that Eastern and Western Phoenix's are very different in concept doesn't help matters, especially since cultural osmosis has led to the Eastern Phoenix becoming more and more similar to it's Western counterpart. Suzaku himself is very similar to a Western Phoenix, being associated with fire and elixirs of immortality. His constellations are very functional, housing heavenly the wells, wardrobes, kitchens, and other such things.

Black Turtle/Xuanwu/Genbu, Guardian of the North

Now I say turtle, but Genbu is a bit more of a dual creature. Sometimes they're 2 animals, a turtle with a serpent on it's back, and others it's a turtle with a long snake-like neck. Sometimes it goes full chimera and is a turtle with a snake for a tail, head included. No matter which way you slice it though, Genbu is some mix of snake and turtle. Naturally, it gets associated with the element of water. Sometimes it's even credited as once having been the turtle that carried the floating city of Penglai (which I'll get to eventually). Genbu's constellations seem to be wealth-based, as it presides over the temples, treasury, and non-military granary.

Okay, so I know I said 4 beasts, but the Sixiang are sometimes shown with a 5th member that takes it's place in the center of the group. Occasionally it's a yellow dragon to represent the Yellow Emperor, but personally I prefer when it's the qilin/kirin, the Chinese Unicorn. Now it's called a unicorn, but like many Chinese creatures it's a bit of a chimera. With the head of a ram, the hooves of a horse, legs of a wolf, body of a deer, scales of a snake, tail of an ox, and horns of a dragon. Calm and intelligent, it is often seen as a symbol of nobility and scholars. Another fun fact: the Japanese word for giraffe is kirin because of their remarkable resemblance to the mythical beast.

This was a bit of a long one, but I had fun! What about you guys?

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#mythology sh*tposting #chinese mythology #chinese dragons #the 4 guardian beasts #sixiang #canglong #seiryuu #baihu #byakko #zhuque #suzaku #xuanwu #genbu #qilin #kirin

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dorothygale123 · 3 months

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I think I've mentioned Nuwa repairing the sky before, but I don't thinks I've ever gone into the myth so we're doing that today.

The story begins with two other gods entirely, as they are the ones who cause the problem in the first place. One of them was Gonggong, a water deity. Sources vary on who he was fighting (some say it was Zhuanxu, the Black Emperor), but he is most commonly said to have fought the fire god Zhurong. No matter who he ends up fighting, Gonggong loses and is a very poor sport about it. He throws a temper tantrum and winds up running headfirst into Mount Buzhou and breaks it.

Unfortunately, that mountain is in charge of holding up the sky and breaking it has dire consequences. The sky starts to tilt and crack while water goes everywhere. Nuwa notices the situation and goes to do something about it. First, she goes and kills a giant turtle (possibly one of the ones carrying the mythological mountains of Penglai, Fangzhang, and Yingzhou) and cut off its legs to make new pillars su support the falling sky. However, that still wasn't enough, so she grabbed a passing black dragon an killed it to use as a pillar to hold up the sky in the middle (I like to think she smacked it on the ground like a Looney Toon). Some say that this pillar-dragon would later become the Ruyi Jingu Bang, the legendary weapon of Sun Wukong. Now that the sky was propped up, Nuwa had to deal with all the cracks that had formed. She scoured riverbeds for over 30,000 stones in 5 colors (possibly the colors associated with the 5 elements) and melted them so she could glue the sky back together.

Now, the book doesn't say she went and gave the two knuckleheads that caused this problem an ass-whooping, but I certainly would have. Then again, Gonggong supposedly died when he broke Mount Buzhou with his thick head, so it'd be a whole trip down to the underworld just to give that idiot a piece of her mind....

Anyways, the sky was no longer falling so Chicken Little could presumably find some new to stress over.

However, there was still lasting damage from the incident. First, the sky was tilted. This was the explanation for the Earth's slight tilt on it's axis that causes the seasons in real life. Another unfortunate consequence is that while Nuwa stopped MORE water from coming out, she couldn't exactly do anything about the water that was already there.....

TO BE CONTINUED......

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dorothygale123 · 3 months

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Today we're gonna be doing some creative interpretation of the myth of the 10 suns (like we did with Sun Wukong becoming the Monkey King a while ago), start to finish, and I'm gonna try to include as many elements from different sources as I can.

So to begin with, the 10 suns are just sick and tired of their mother, Xihe, smothering them. She's too overprotective and refuses to let more than one of them outside at a time, and even then only with her direct supervision on a very set course. So they decide to indulge in a little teen rebellion and all go up into the sky before their mother comes to collect them one morning and immediately decide that teen rebellion is the best and they're never coming down.

Their parents, Xihe and the current ruler of the cosmos Di Jun, try everything in their power to convince them to come down because they're causing the mortals on Earth to suffer, but they don't care and keep partying up in the sky. Eventually, Di Jun thinks that if an authority figure can't convince his sons to come down, maybe a friend will, so he calls up Hou Yi. Hou Yi, being the caretaker of the suns and the god of Riyue Mountain, is the obvious choice. He knows the 10 suns very well and is a good friend to all of them. Surely nothing could go wrong if he was in charge!

Except....

When Hou Yi goes down to the mortal realm to scope out the situation it's bad. Like, really bad. He meets up with a mortal man, Shen I, who had been tasked by the human emperor to deal with the suns with his bow and arrow (somehow), and the ypung demigod Erlang Shen who is pissed beyond reason that his mother died in the heat of the extra suns. The three of them go along to try and talk the suns down, with Hou Yi giving Shen I some very helpful archery tips and becoming good friends with both younger men. He convinces them to let him try to talk it out first, which they reluctantly agree to.

They eventually reach the suns and Hou Yi tells them about all the horrible things happening down on earth because of their behavior, but they refuse to listen. Enraged at his mother's killers being apathetic to the situation they created, Erlang starts throwing mountains at them. He manages to hit a few, but most fly up too high out of his reach and refuse to come back down. This leaves Hou Yi and Shen I no choice but to take their bows and shoot down suns until only one remained in the sky.

With the crisis solved, Hou Yi leaves his mortal friends and goes back to the Heavenly Court, where Di Jun and Xihe are furious. Hou Yi tries to explain the situation, but they're too beside themselves in grief and rage to listen. So, instead of sharing the blame with his two friends, Hou Yi takes all the blame for the incident himself and is punished alone. They strip him of his immortality and banish him to the mortal world. His wife, Chang'e, tries to intercede and have them reconsider but is only sentenced to join her husband in his punishment for her troubles.

Down on earth, Hou Yi is horrified and wracked with guilt that his beloved Chang'e has been reduced to a mortal doing menial tasks and condemned to an eventual death, so he decides to do something about it. He travels all the way to Kunlun and the court of Xiwangmu and explains his situation. She feels really bad for him and wants to help how she can, but she only has one pill of immortality left. The other one had been scooped up by this mortal kid named Shen I, and he was long gone by now. By the time Hou Yi found him, he would have already taken the pill. Disappointed but not hopeless, Hou Yi takes the remaining pill and returns home.

Back at the house, he tells Chang'e the situation and insists she take the pill but she refuses. She's his wife and any life she lives, mortal or otherwise, will be at his side and nowhere else. Hou Yi does his best to try and convince her, but she's stubborn and eventually they decide to put the matter to rest until a later date.

They end up making a life in the mortal realm, with Hou Yi becoming a well respected figure in their community for his archery skills. He takes on several apprentices, including a young man named Feng Meng. He accidently lets it slip to his disciple that there's a pill of immortality in his house, and Feng Meng gets a very dastardly idea. Waiting until Hou Yi was gone, Feng Meng attacked Chang'e when she was alone and demanded the pill. Struck with the choice of regaining her divinity and being separated from her beloved husband for eternity or allowing her killer to become a god, Chang'e takes the pill herself and smites Feng Meng in all her divine glory.

However, she is now unable to stay in the mortal world. Going to find her husband, she explains what happens and they have a tearful goodbye before she ascends into the heavens once more. However, she was unwilling to rejoin the divine court that had banished her husband in the first place, even if Di Jun had stepped down in shame for his sons' actions. So she goes to the moon instead, wanting to be just that little bit closer to her beloved.

This isn't quite the end, though. You see, Erlang and Shen I had been having their own adventures in the intervening years and had become gods themselves. Finding out what had happened to their friend and his wife, they were horrified, especially Shen I who had walked off with the pill of immortality that would have allowed Hou Yi and Chang'e to stay together. He feels even worse because his wife had ended up stealing the pill anyway! (Then she turned into a toad) Both of them end up swearing to assist Chang'e in any way they can in honor of their friend who protected them from Heavenly punishment and was doomed to a mortal life in their stead.

SUCH DRAMA! I love it! What about you guys?

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