#the weaver girl and the cowherd

[py-dreamer]

....

I'm going to be honest y'all

I am just so tired rn

the reason these stickers look half-assed

is because they kinda are half assed.

I have my bloomin finals tomorrow and have barely studied cause I've been 1) preocupied by this for a project and 2) I've been sick and absent for the past week.

So nothing to say about these guys umm...

God, my body just feels so drained I partially couldn't give a flying f*ck about my results but I am also vibrating with anxiety.

You get me?

Um so myths here are:

peaches of immortality

the weaver girl and the cowherd

the jade rabbit on the moon

iron fan (pre marriage)

jttw pilgrims sans wukong cause I drew him before

Pangu (creator of the universe I think)

Dbk (sans the pupils cause Idk where to put them and sh!t)

Wait, quick rant:

There's the myth of Pangu and how he spent like 50 000 years holding the heavens and earth apart and his body parts became the earth

MORE SPECIFICALLY, his left eye became the sun.

Easy to keep track of right?

Well in the myth of Chang'E and Hou'Yi, Hou'Yi is sent to shoot the 10 suns, all of whom are the literal sons of the Jade Emperor who all decided to show up at the same time.

SO IS THE SUN A BLOODY EYE OR A CELESTIAL MAN WHO WAS SHOT DOWN

DID PANGU HAVE 10 EYES?

WHERE DID PANGU'S EYE GO THEN?

I've just been bit frazzled by this...

(click photo for less sh!tty quality)

[bakedbeanchan]

Sokka and Yue reuniting in the spirit world

[fei-ren-zai]

Art for Qixi (七夕) 2021

source: FRZ weibo

[allgirlsareprincesses]

Star Lovers in Folk Tales: A Primer

Adapted from my Winter 2022 Twitter thread

One common variation of animal spouse tales is the star husband or star bride. In this case, the lover is a celestial creature from the otherworld of the sky. Sometimes they fall to earth, and other times they beckon a mortal to join them.

Star husband tales are common to North American indigenous cultures, often featuring pairs of maidens who long for more than mortal lovers and so are whisked into the sky to marry star husbands.

In these tales, the mortal brides are compelled to dig, either to find roots or other food on earth, or to escape the sky world. In either case, the digging is a transgressive act, one that triggers the bride’s passage from one world to another.

Another star husband tale comes from Korea, merged with another animal husband tale in which he is banished from the sky by his father, the King of the Stars, cursed to live as a frog in a pond until he can marry the most beautiful woman on Earth.

In this tale we find motifs of the frog consuming all the water and fish in the pond, and the bride cutting away (rather violently) the frog’s animal skin to reveal a handsome man. The happy couple then returns to the sky, and two new stars appear in the heavens.

Star brides have much more in common with swan maidens. Many myths compare the sky to a body of water, and in some tales, celestial beings are actually aquatic creatures as well. These brides are often captured by a mortal hunter or held captive by a mother goddess.

Like the mortal wives of star husbands, star brides often come in groups, like the Pleiades in a South African tale who send their husband on a hunt from which he never returns. Similarly, a group of 10 Hungarian star brides take mortal husbands only to lose them in a war.

In all of these stories, the fall to earth is a kind of death, whereas the ascension is a rebirth or even the achievement of immortality. Water, hunting, and agriculture are prominent in these stories, indicating the importance of celestial patterns to human subsistence.

Obedience or defiance to parental figures is another major theme in star lover tales. While it is defiance that opens the path to the otherworld, the lovers are often punished for it until they show obedience to the parent.

Lastly, while not every star couple gets a Happily Ever After, they usually leave some eternal mark on the earth or sky. The tears of separated star lovers sometimes form fresh springs or even monsoons, bringing new life to the earth.

Sources:

In Search of the Swan Maiden: A Narrative on Folklore and Gender by Barbara Fass Leavy

[ssum-thinginthewayshemoves]

Birthday Boy ❤️

[pharawee]

1 year has passed.

[stiltonbasket]

nie zhuyan makes soaps on the regular after moving to Gusu to marry a-yu? A lot of them go towards various people or groups in Gusu (family members/friends, the baoshi, etc.) though he sells some of the special ones.

I forgot that Nie Zhuyan actually learned how to make soap at some point, so when I came back to this ask, I thought he was making...soaps.

[satoruhour]

i love chinese folklore sm

[day-night-darlix]

starcross wishes you a very happy tanabata!

[wyllzel]

human x more-than-human relationships are SO FASCINATING!!!

[dorothygale123]

In honor of the death anniversary of Saint Valentine, where we celebrate his decapitation by giving the same fate to flowers and forgetful boyfriends, we shall be looking at one of the most famous love stories in Chinese mythology. Today, we look at the story of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl.

Now, as with all stories that have already been covered by Red from OSP, I recommend watching her video because she's funny and her chibis are adorable. However there will be new information in this post, so feel free to enjoy both.

The version Red covers begins with the 7 daughters of the Jade Emperor and Xiwangmu sneaking down to the mortal realm for some sisterly skinny dipping, only for Zhinu to have her clothes stolen by a passing herdsman, Niulang. She thinks he's super cute and this theft of her clothes is very endearing, so she decides to stay and marry him while her sisters go back home. This displays a very common myth structure where a man finds a magical lady bathing, takes her clothes, and then marries her. Western myths often have this is often an animal bride, but in Asia the bride is likely to be a celestial maiden who is physically unable to return to heaven without the aid of her special raiment.

This is not the only version of the myth, though. One of my sources claims that Zhinu's father decided she'd been doing such a good job that she deserved a break and actually picked some random cowherd, in this story called Chen Li, to be her husband. His expectation was that she would have a short time of wedded bliss and then come back up to heaven to do her job again. Unfortunately Zhinu was unwilling to just abandon her loving husband and 2 children just to do more work, what a surprise.

In both versions, Zhinu's refusal to return pisses off her parents, who just drag her back up te heaven anyway. Naturally, her husband has some objections about it. However, since he's a mortal he can't really, you know, do anything about it, but he ends up getting help from a very unlikely place. Those who've watch Red's video may remember Niulang's "super intelligent ox he's had this whole time, don't even worry about it." Well, this magic ox has a bit of a backstory. It's actually a divine spirit, the Ox Star, that was being punished for some crime by laboring for humanity and was currently under the care of Niulang/Chen Li. In some tellings the ox was even the one who directed his master to the pool where the divine maidens were bathing and told him to steal their clothes, so you could say he's more than a little invested in their relationship. The ox's punishment was conveniently almost over, so he told Chen Li to wait until he died and take his skin and wear it as a cloak, and then he would be able to see his wife again. Chen Li did so and, taking his 2 kids with him, flies up to heaven to go get their mom back.

Unsurprisingly Zhinu's parents didn't take too kindly to this breech of their daughter's forever grounding, so they cut in between the lovers. Some versions say that Xiwangmu cleaved the sky with her hairpin, while others say the Jade Emperor threw a silver scarf down. Either way, the Milky Way was formed to keep the couple separated. This made Zhinu so sad that she would cry, causing soft rains. Eventually, her parents felt kinda bad for, you know, ripping apart this loving family and forever denying their daughter her husband and children, so they decided to let them meet for a whole day every year! On that day, magpies would fly up and make a bridge over the Milky Way so that the family could be together again.

Then they'd be separated again til next year.

Thanks mom and dad.

Sh*tpost Masterlist

[arcxnumvitae]

Of course move in day would fall on the day of the Q.ixi Festivial

[lotus-soup-pot]

The cowherd and the weaver girl

The Chinese festival Palm mentioned in episode 4 Qi Xi Jie, also known as Chinese Valentine's Day, is also celebrated in Japan as Tanabata matsuri 七夕祭り on the 7th of July.

The Japanese version differs a bit from the story Palm has told:

The weaver girl 織姫 (symbolizing the star Vega) is the daughter of the Heaven Emperor 天帝 and was known for her beautiful weaving and her diligence. Since the cowherd 彦星 (symbolizing the star Altair) was also known for his hardworking nature, the Emperor allowed their marriage. Happily enjoying their married life the weaver girl and the cowherd started to neglect their respective work. Enraged after hearing complains from every one the emperor drew a river through the sky 天の川 (symbolizing the milky way) and separated them. After seeing his daughter grieving every day, the emperor allowed them to meet once a year, on the 7th of July. A bridge of magpies makes it possible to cross the river. However, if it rains on the day, the water level rises and the weaver girl can't cross the river and meet the cowherd. The rain 催涙雨 symbolises the tears the weaver girl and the cowherd shed.

On the 7th of July, you write your wish on a piece of paper and hang it on a small bamboo branch and eat cold noodles called そうめん Somen.

With how often Never let me go is referring to the legend of the weaver girl and the cowherd, e.g. the beach scene, I highly suspect that there is some kind of separation between Palm and Nueng, probably because Nueng drives Palm away to protect him, and then once a year they will meet at the beach, their safe zone, where they are just Palm and Nueng.

[burningthegallows]

tell us about the lltg fic! very curious and interested we need more fic in this fandom

seriously! im so parched for fic! it’s been so long since I’ve seen a het couple I care about. coming out the other side to see 17 fics on ao3… smh. I’m not the best writer and I don’t love doing it—but sometimes you just gotta write the fic if you wanna read it.

anyway, i love the persuasion trope of lovers parted and then reunited and stronger for it. the bitterness is very bitter until suddenly it’s all sweet. but between autumn ballad (which i had a very mixed reaction to) and lltg, i realized why the chinese form of this trope always irks me so much: all the healing happens off screen.

I would love to watch 5 years of pining. two lovers separated but trying to find a way back to one another?? Healing and hurting and forgiving and the relapsing on your forgiveness and hating yourself for willing to take him back. Yeah, I love a breakup/makeup story.

Especially when, at the end, it feels like there’s something to be salvaged from the wreckage of the hurt.

Genuinely, I think forgiveness is one of the more complicated and arduous mental odysseys, but I also think that just means we need more stories that explore the concept.

[ozfi]

i got that injured animal swag