#dynasti's text posts

[dynastithestugoprimosfan]

WOW

I just saw Wicked last night AND IT WAS GOOD

[zhoudadudugongjin]

Tang Fan: How you can sit there calmly eating noodles when we are in this horrible trouble, I can’t make out! You seem to me to be perfectly heartless.

Wang Zhi: Well, I can’t eat noodles in an agitated manner. The broth would probably get on my cuffs. One should always eat noodles quite calmly. It is the only way to eat them.

Tang Fan: I say it’s perfectly heartless your eating noodles at all, under the circumstances!

[99simproblems]

I accidently posted the full version of this in the middle of the night.

I'm never editing on mobile again.

[aquamarinebling]

does anyone have book recommendations w: robot characters (specifically lead or major supporting)? I was looking at Barnes & Nobels for like 20 minutes yesterday and found nothin :( and the only books w/ robots I can find usually have them as a side or bg character!!

[jian-06xi]

I love listening to classical guzheng and pretending I'm Chinese royalty who is doing their Tang Dynasty self care routine. To top it off, I get to eat black rice for dinner, so IMMEDIATELY I am a monarch of some sort.

[part-time-deranged]

Rip Anne Boleyn

[kipperlillycopperkettle]

reading a biography of the entire romanov dynasty and my fave part so far (i'm not very far in yet) is the three false dmitris. my fave is the third guy bc like. he saw this crash and burn for TWO other guys and went. yeah no i can do it tho. it'll work for me (spoiler alert: it did not)

[rad-roche]

Have you ever seen the halo gravity traction device? Specifically a video of a kid rotating in it? Maybe you'll like it more than the medieval rack

i hadn't, but now i have! god medical science is remarkable. i think if given the choice, i would still pick the medieval rack, mostly so i could lie down if i'm being honest. a slight mangling, a nice lie down and some pleasant small talk with a stranger in a profession i have no understanding of verges on spa day territory for me. in this hypothetical scenario the physio doing this is a legit medieval executioner on an off day and i'm asking them questions because i find the topic of torture as public entertainment through history absolutely fascinating. and i get to be on a torture rack! huzzah!

[biancabelairs]

having the first several weeks of mercedes' aew run be her cutting long promos and doing commentary and never getting in the ring sure is a choice

[ejsuperstar]

This game was my childhood wdym it's still £15 it was on the ps3

[dynastithestugoprimosfan]

JUST WATCHED STUGO

IT WAS SO GOOD AHHHHH

[more-than-a-blogger]

ADAM COLE I AM IN YOUR WALLS

[darkbluetennessee]

the moment in the last great american dynasty performance from eras tour when "rebecca" stops on the steps of the folkore cabin next to taylor as she sings "and then it was bought by me" is A Lot

[ray-elgatodormido]

Lü Bu gets divorced. A 3K dream sequence.

Bro. Bro I just had the weirdest fuckin dream I had in a while. Buckle up folks. Note: Everyone had their DW9 appearances. And the dialogue is more along the lines of. Also my POV is omniscient, I am literally the camera.

The Dream took place at a well known ski resort where I live. It was winter and the 3K cast were all on a ski vacation, with armor, and their weapons, and horses. So anyway, Lü Bu was just running around in the cafeteria lodge for some reason with ski paddles and his halberd, he came across Diao Chan who was looking very sad. She wanted to buy herself something but she forgot her wallet. So Lü Bu, being the gentleman he is, gave her his wallet and went on his way. When he got outside he came across his wife, Lady Yan (OG, Not my Oc) with Lü Lingqi by her side. She looked like a carbon copy of her daughter while also looking like Elsa for some reason. Anyway she looked at Lü Bu and said “I am divorcing you.” Before she leaves with her daughter, on Red Hare.

Lü Bu was super devastated, for she took the kid and the horse in the divorce. So he was walking away sadly up the massive mountain people ski down from and went inside his lodge that also housed his entire family. He sat down and his father asked him what’s wrong, to which Lü Bu replied “Lady Yan divorced me and she took the kids (horse included)” The his father said “Don’t worry son we’ll ask Cao Cao and he’ll get you married to someone who will strengthen our friendship.” Because apparently Lü Bu is part of Wei now(?)

So the wedding arrives and they’re getting married at what I think is Cao Cao’s lodge because they switched locations and Cao Cao was just chilling there. Lü Bu was getting married to Lady Yan (my Oc aka Merah this time if you’re familiar with her.) and she looked at him with murderous intent, as expected from her. Shit happened at the banquet and Lü Bu and Lady Yan drank too much and passed out. And when they woke up they were at a Korean BBQ place just snoozing on the table with the grill.

Then the scene just changed to a trial all of a sudden. Apparently Cao Pi was murdered but he was on the witness stand as well. Idk who resurrected him but anyway. I don’t remember who the Judge was but the Prosecution was lead by Gan Ning and the Defence was lead by Cai Wenji and the Accused/Defendant was none other than Lü Bu. Idk how that happened. Gan Ning did a dance and all of a sudden the autopsy report was apparently updated, which lead to nowhere. And the murderer was revealed to be Red Hare, because he was sad to be taken away in the divorce proceedings(?). Red Hare also became a human. Btw.

The End (I woke up)

I don’t remember my dreams often, but when I do, I remember a lot when they’re weird as shit. I’d whip out some drawings if I had the time.

[part-time-deranged]

Cromwell destroying monestaries in Wolf Hall cause hes convinced the monks r having gay sex in there? Takes one to know one

[ryin-silverfish]

So You Want to Read More about Chinese Mythos: a rough list of primary sources

"How/Where can I learn more about Chinese mythology?" is a question I saw a lot on other sites, back when I was venturing outside of Shenmo novel booksphere and into IRL folk religions + general mythos, but had rarely found satisfying answers.

As such, this is my attempt at writing something past me will find useful.

(Built into it is the assumption that you can read Chinese, which I only realized after writing the post. I try to amend for it by adding links to existing translations, as well as links to digitalized Chinese versions when there doesn't seem to be one.)

The thing about all mythologies and legends is that they are 1) complicated, and 2) are products of their times. As such, it is very important to specify the "when" and "wheres" and "what are you looking for" when answering a question as broad as this.

-Do you want one or more "books with an overarching story"?

In that case, Journey to the West and Investiture of the Gods (Fengshen Yanyi) serve as good starting points, made more accessible for general readers by the fact that they both had English translations——Anthony C. Yu's JTTW translation is very good, Gu Zhizhong's FSYY one, not so much.

Crucially, they are both Ming vernacular novels. Though they are fictional works that are not on the same level of "seriousness" as actual religious scriptures, these books still took inspiration from the popular religion of their times, at a point where the blending of the Three Teachings (Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism) had become truly mainstream.

And for FSYY specifically, the book had a huge influence on subsequent popular worship because of its "pantheon-building" aspect, to the point of some Daoists actually putting characters from the novel into their temples.

(Vernacular novels + operas being a medium for the spread of popular worship and popular fictional characters eventually being worshipped IRL is a thing in Ming-Qing China. Meir Shahar has a paper that goes into detail about the relationship between the two.)

After that, if you want to read other Shenmo novels, works that are much less well-written but may be more reflective of Ming folk religions at the time, check out Journey to the North/South/East (named as such bc of what basically amounted to a Ming print house marketing strategy) too.

-Do you want to know about the priestly Daoist side of things, the "how the deities are organized and worshipped in a somewhat more formal setting" vs "how the stories are told"?

Though I won't recommend diving straight into the entire Daozang or Yunji Qiqian or some other books compiled in the Daoist text collections, I can think of a few "list of gods/immortals" type works, like Liexian Zhuan and Zhenling Weiye Tu.

Also, though it is much closer to the folk religion side than the organized Daoist side, the Yuan-Ming era Grand Compendium of the Three Religions' Deities, aka Sanjiao Soushen Daquan, is invaluable in understanding the origins and evolutions of certain popular deities.

(A quirk of historical Daoist scriptures is that they often come up with giant lists of gods that have never appeared in other prior texts, or enjoy any actual worship in temples.)

(The "organized/folk" divide is itself a dubious one, seeing how both state religion and "priestly" Daoism had channels to incorporate popular deities and practices into their systems. But if you are just looking at written materials, I feel like there is still a noticeable difference.)

Lastly, if you want to know more about Daoist immortal-hood and how to attain it: Ge Hong's Baopuzi (N & S. dynasty) and Zhonglv Chuandao Ji (late Tang/Five Dynasties) are both texts about external and internal alchemy with English translations.

-Do you want something older, more ancient, from Warring States and Qin-Han Era China?

Classics of Mountains and Seas, aka Shanhai Jing, is the way to go. It also reads like a bestiary-slash-fantastical cookbook, full of strange beasts, plants, kingdoms of unusual humanoids, and the occasional half-man, half-beast gods.

A later work, the Han-dynasty Huai Nan Zi, is an even denser read, being a collection of essays, but it's also where a lot of ancient legends like "Nvwa patches the sky" and "Chang'e steals the elixir of immortality" can be first found in bits and pieces.

Shenyi Jing might or might not be a Northern-Southern dynasties work masquerading as a Han one. It was written in a style that emulated the Classics of Mountains and Seas, and had some neat fantastic beasts and additional descriptions of gods/beasts mentioned in the previous 2 works.

-Do you have too much time on your hands, a willingness to get through lot of classical Chinese, and an obsession over yaoguais and ghosts?

Then it's time to flip open the encyclopedic folklore compendiums——Soushen Ji (N/S dynasty), You Yang Za Zu (Tang), Taiping Guangji (early Song), Yijian Zhi (Southern Song)...

Okay, to be honest, you probably can't read all of them from start to finish. I can't either. These aren't purely folklore compendiums, but giant encyclopedias collecting matters ranging from history and biography to medicine and geography, with specific sections on yaoguais, ghosts and "strange things that happened to someone".

As such, I recommend you only check the relevant sections and use the Full Text Search function well.

Pu Songling's Strange Tales from a Chinese Studios, aka Liaozhai Zhiyi, is in a similar vein, but a lot more entertaining and readable. Together with Yuewei Caotang Biji and Zi Buyu, they formed the "Big Three" of Qing dynasty folktale compendiums, all of which featured a lot of stories about fox spirits and ghosts.

Lastly...

The Yuan-Ming Zajus (a sort of folk opera) get an honorable mention. Apart from JTTW Zaju, an early, pre-novel version of the story that has very different characterization of SWK, there are also a few plays centered around Erlang (specifically, Zhao Erlang) and Nezha, such as "Erlang Drunkenly Shot the Demon-locking Mirror". Sadly, none of these had an English translation.

Because of the fragmented nature of Chinese mythos, you can always find some tidbits scattered inside history books like Zuo Zhuan or poetry collections like Qu Yuan's Chuci. Since they aren't really about mythology overall and are too numerous to cite, I do not include them in this post, but if you wanna go down even deeper in this already gigantic rabbit hole, it's a good thing to keep in mind.