More Drawing Break Sketches Hehe

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.

System Possession AU - Masterpost

Howdy Howdy! System Possession is a SVSSS AU born by accident and fueled by brainrot and quick sketches! The AU started because I drew a few pages for @fairsweetlonging System reveal au, and then started going insane about potential system possession with friends.

-The story-

1 - [System Reveal]

The peak lords first notice the system.

2 - [Possession]

The system has taken over!

3 - [First Mission]

Liu Qingge wants answers...

4 - [Mission Complete!]

However, he may not like them.

5 - [Are these roles fixed?]

Yue Qingyuan has a chat with the System.

6 - [Liu Qingge Extra]

These missions cause qi-deviations, Mu Qingfang listens to his shixiong while he checks on him.

7 - [The Plan]

Shang Qinghua comes up with a plan for dealing with the System.

8 - [He's just worried.]

Lou Binghe is worried about his Shizun so he asks for help!

9 - [The room]

Shizun is in his room, reading a bad book about his friend's suffering.

10 - [ -Mu Qingfang- Is a good character!]

Mu Qingfang has a conversation with the System.

11 - [Disciple's Extra]

Moving many disciples is already difficult, even worse if they are too worried to move!

12 - [Mu Qingfang Extra]

Mu Qingfang just completed his first mission! Be nice to him.

13 - [This defective System]

Shang Qinghua's System makes an appearance.

14 - [The Meng Mo Intervention]

Shen Qingqiu may not be in his room for much longer!

15 - [The Breaking Point - Part 1]

Yue Qingyuan comes to a realization during a mission.

16 - [The Breaking Point - Part 2]

wtf zhangmen-shixiong, that's scary.

17 - [Missing file]

System Error.

18 - [10%]

Shang Qinghua would like to know what's going on?

19 - [9%]

[loading...]

-Extras -

[BLINK MOTHERFUCKER]

[Animatic]

[Survey!]

[User01's System]

[Despacito]

[System! Binghe]

[Mobei-Jun and the System]

[Breaking Point Adbridged]

happy ace pride week everyone! I made an ace pride ring!

the black section is obsidian and jet, the gray is white bronze, silver leaf, and metorite, the white section is inlaid with howlite, bello opal, and crushed mother of pearl, and then the purple is amethyst and bello opal!

It has a tungsten carbide ring core in a size 7.5

DM me if you want tk buy, its 120$ USD!

here's also some more pice btw

Floofles

tumblr, name my cat

y e s

this is the vibeeeee

STOP TALKING TRASH ABOUT GREEK GODS

Athena is WISE

Hephaestus is PRODUCTIVE

Dionysus is a PANSEXUAL ICON

Demeter is GENEROUS

Zeus

Aphrodite is BADASS

Hades is EFFICIENT

No I’m not attracted to you. Quit your evil putting your finger under my chin to make me look up at you. I know I’m your nemesis and all but we really need to set some boundaries when you’ve got me tied up like this.

ok but...........NEW AU TIMES!!!!!!!!

AU where Deku's original quirk was the ability to see/talk to/interact with dead people. They found out because a few months after Izuku was diagnosed as being quirkless, the Midoriya and Bakugou households' were having lunch together only for him to greet the Dark-Skinned woman with sharp red eye's just like Auntie Mitzuki standing in the corner smiling at them, with tears slipping down her elderly face.

Not even 30 mins later of Izuku talking to one Jasmine Bakugou, Mitsuki is receiving a phone call and told her mother passed away almost an hour ago.

tears are shed, but the adults know the boy had not been lying for the simple fact he had never seen Mitsuki's mother a day in his life. She had just left not a week ago after her mother had fallen ill, and came back for the sole fact that she knew her mother wanted to be left alone.

this leads to years of Izuku and Katsuki growing up wanting to be the worlds best Detective/Hero duo the world has ever seen, but they never change the fact that Izuku is labled quirkless. this saves his life seeing as he learns the darkest secret he and his best friend will ever know. AU may spit out the best hero's.... but they also train the worlds worst villain's.

Que Dekusquad really being plugs from of the unknown class 1V and Shinso being apart of 1a... Izuku is in GenEd, and finds out after he sees a grape headed boy, and the child tells him he was killed apart of the first exercise from the villains class about 20 years ago, and he's stuck around until his murderers are caught..... Aizawa-Sensei, Midnight-Sensei, Present Mic-Sensei, and a man named Oboro.... or what they WERE known as X-Out, Enchantress, Ear-Splitter, and Thunder-Clap aka Kurogiri

You know what fantasy stories don't use enough? Different measuring scales, and confusion caused by them. Because before the metric system, practically every place and culture had their own measures for weights, lengths and distances. It would be fun to add that into a story for added realistic cultural confusion.

The average dwarf is four or five feet tall, but not in human measures. Yeah they're still shorter than humans but the dwarf foot (and the namesake measure of length) is bigger in proportion to their body. "Is that in dwarf feet or human feet?" is a common question to hear on construction sites, wherever human carpenters and dwarf masons are working together.

A dedicated local Common Misconception Historian has a pet peeve about the whole "princess Featherblade was only 12 years old when she led the attack on Marshland Halls" -myth, because the historical recordings on the human side are off. While she was remarkably young, that myth came about back in the day when humans were still trying to apply "dog years" to elves, and in an elven life span, 120 years is not a direct equivalent to a 12-year-old human.

A whole culture whose smallest unit of weight loosely translates to "about as much as an apple", and varies from region to region depending on the size of local apples. These people are famed for their alchemists, whose uncanny ability to simply measure their ingredients by heart, making their recipes essentially impossible to replicate. This famed skill is a matter of survivor bias - the ones that don't have that knack ten to explode into fine mist.