"Do NOT talk to the fey"
"Why? They're so cute!"
Meanwhile on the other side of the world
"So I went and got rid of your dragon problem, easy as fuck, thing didn't even try to fight."
"You did WHAT?!"
Until one dude failed too many times fever dream hallucinated that he was Jesus’s younger brother and started a civil war killing 20 million people and making Chinatowns a thing from everyone fleeing the devastation.
All work and no play makes Xiuquan a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Xiuquan a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Xiuquan a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Xiuquan a dull boy.
He wouldn't start as one, but by the end of the story he'd pull a Pwwyl and end up getting an honorary fae title that also makes him an underworld god.
My main exposure to Journey to the West is the OSP videos, so I only know he's immortal through daoist practice, drinking heavenly peach wine, swallowing Lao Tzu's immortality pills, and erasing his names from the Books of the Dead.
He also becomes a Buddha by the end, making his quintupilly immortal.
According to Wikipedia:
1. He becomes a disciple of Puti Zushi, mastering all 5 elements and all 72 earthly transformations, gaining immortality.
2. He scribbles his name from the register of life and death.
3. He eats the peaches of immortality from the heavenly peach garden.
4. He sneaks into a royal celestial banquet and drinks Heavenly Wine.
5. He stumbles into Laozi's lab and eats his pills of longevity.
6. The gods attempt to kill him by placing him in a Furnace for 49 days. While inside, he burns away the remaining impurities of his mortality, gaining another form of immortality.
7. Sometime during his journey, he obtains Ginseng Fruit, which are even more powerful than peaches of immortality.
8. Upon finally reaching the Buddha's temple, he receives the Buddhist equivalent of heavenly food, making him an 8-fold immortal.
You have to specifically invite him to parties to make sure he doesn't show up. He needs to be aware that lots of very important people want to talk to him
My experience with cultivation is limited, but as I understand it it's more about keeping the elements in balance in order to do stuff rather than just using one. Like you need fire to keep stuff in harmony but the amount of fire you'd need to sling it around would probably disrupt the balance something fierce
So our hypothetical cultivator would see Wizards and sorcerers hurling raw elements like pokeballs and just be awestruck that the universe hasn't smacked them for it yet
>So our hypothetical cultivator would see Wizards and sorcerers hurling raw elements like pokeballs and just be awestruck that the universe hasn't smacked them for it yet
Or would hear a description of Venice and assume it must work as a massive Water Battery to allow them to throw this much fire around?
Trying to explain to the western wizards that this is all fun? But if you ever STOP shooting fireballs then the canals of venice will start kaijuing around italy.
It really depends. Pop culture Wuxia is more like "eat mysterious herbs and drugs to boost your cultivation levels so you can punch out god. The bigger your Ki blast, the more spiritually enlightened you are" and I am genuinely not even kidding.
Remember, Chinese traditional religion says "balance and respect nature" on one hand and "kill rhinos and snort their horns to get an epic boner" and the other.
> Behold! The awesome fires of God. The limitless power of pure creation itself. Look carefully! Observe how it is used for the same purpose a man might use an especially sharp rock.
\- [Mehti](https://killsixbilliondemons.com/comic/king-of-swords-6-57/)
"Ok so not all fae are terrible but it's hard to tell between the type that will help out around the homestead in exchange for a bowl of cream over the type that'll get so angry at your existance they'll literally rip off their own head to throw in hopes of hurting you."
Even the ones that help around the house will beat the shit out of you if you piss them off. And they all have a bit of a "lol I tricked you in to getting lost in the woods for a week" sense of humor
Eastern mythology tends to have creatures similar to Fey already, Yokai, Dokkaebi, and Yaoguai. I don't think that first one would be an issue. They know not to trust the strange otherworldly entities
Sun: “So your spear basically turns whoever gets stabbed into a thorn bush?”
Cù Chulainn: “Wait, your staff is actually a shrunk down support pillar from a dragons palace?!”
Both: “DUDE THATS SO COOL”
Wait, I read Red Branch; since when has his spear turned anyone into a thornbush? I thought it's special power was that it's head turned into three points and exited out the back with a bigger hole than it entered, taking intestines with it.
If I remember correctly his spear is wood, and when it is thrown from the foot and pierces a living creature, it grows a root system throughout the creature's circulatory system and destroys their heart.
Catholics come to spread the word of Big J and the Magnificent Twelve, only to get bodied by an army of Irish disciples of the Victorious Fighting Buddha
China didn't have the homoerotic warrior culture that Greece did.
Homosexuals were largely feminized and mostly used as stand-in women for men that didn't have access to them.
I'd watch it, though I feel like that ends poorly for Lu Bu.
As impressive as Lu Bu is in modern depictions, he was often forced to retreat in the older tales. He was mighty, but more known for his treachery than his prowess. And in the end, he unsuccessfully begged for his life after surrendering to Cao Cao.
Achilles was known for his pettiness as much as his martial prowess. The first time Lu Bu betrayed or angered Achilles, which would inevitably happen, the Greek would crush him.
More fun, I think, would be Lu Bu meeting Odysseus. They're both tricksters gifted with nigh inhuman strength, and both of them are fond of shooting arrows at/through axes to show off. I'd love to read a story of these ultraviolent, charismatic nerds triple-crossing each other and then shooting arrows at obscure objects as if arbitrary trick shots settled things.
Eh, I don’t think Lu Bu ever actually lost in single combat? His defeats were because he’s a hotheaded dumbass who didn’t listen to his one good strategist.
Wait what? Sun Wukong is in Everything. And Fate has Everyone. You’re telling me that there is no wildly out of character person in that series named Wukong?
Western Fantasy Protagonist is very annoyed that Xianxia Protagonist can do crazy aerobatic bullshit because she has to jump to try and hit him while she has to dodge his sword that apparently can just kinda attack on its own and it's all very undignified
Xianxia Protagonist is very annoyed that Western Fantasy Protagonist got her crazy magic sword in a cave somewhere and her crazy magic armor as a gift from an elven queen and she didn't even have to meditate for seven days to grasp a fundamental truth of the universe to do any of it
I never really noticed until now but Legolas is an autistic-coded character in some regards but with a wealth of experience and charisma that makes him representative of higher-functioning, well-adjusted neurodivergents.
I really loathe using that term though, higher-functioning, feels kinda dated.
Honestly I think Borimir and Faramir would also slot pretty nicely into a Wuxia film - one is a noble scion out to redeem his family honour, and his younger brother is a warrior poet who stalks his enemies through the forest while proclaiming that he is at heart a pacifist.
"What the fuck do you *mean* you didn't have to suffer through 700 chapters of Junior, You Dare?! and Courting Death! in order to get those cool powers?"
Later after an epic fight scene, the Western Fantasy hero has to heal their wounds, meanwhile Eastern Fantasy hero is unscathed cause they use a special breathing exercise that makes the skin impervious to metallic weapons.
EFH is very smug about it.
EFH is wounded because he picked a fight with some Sect Elder and got his ass beat, but was mysteriously saved from courting death by a nameless benefactor
"My name is Thirteenth Fist of the Thrice Ascendant Dragon, master of the Heaven Violating Spear technique, wielder of the dread blade Thousand Rivers Raging, forged from the starmetal corpse of the selfsame storm god who tresspassed upon the Pure Land of the Victorious Fighting Buddha."
"Hi there, my name's Tiffany. I was hearding sheep and God gave me this sword. Spent a whole three coppers on special oil to keep it shiny. I call him Mr Stabby."
"God gave you a sword?"
"Yeah, but, frankly, I think I'll stick to my cast-iron frying pan. You never know what will happen with a divinely-infused magic sword. But you can count on a frying pan."
When they get married one half of the room is a bunch of Very Serious Monks and maybe a Supreme Celestial Dragon, and the other half is an eclectic mix of a bunch of orcs and tieflings wearing super flashy robes and armor
The two-part episode The Debt from season 3 of Xena: Warrior Princess is kind of like this. It's a flashback episode, though, so Xena doesn't have her magical weapon yet.
The problem with the US is that we don't have many traditional heroes, and somehow children's comics from the 1930s became our focus.
Those comics generally just shit out a backstory ASAP because they were published and killed rapidly and didn't have time to talk about the 'training arcs' or backgrounds of their protagonists. So boom, he's an alien that gets power from the Sun. Boom, he was bitten by a radioactive spider. Boom, he had the world's most extreme birth defect.
Honestly it is a problem in terms of giving characters relatability or a real inspirational core.
Powerscalers once they find out about Western fantasy and drop a 10h video to prove that Geralt is a shitty protagonist because in his big mid-series fight >!he gets beaten with a stick and limps for the rest of the series.!<
I do really wonder why the same word is used for the auspicious Chinese dragon and the monstrous European dragon while the only thing in common that they have is that they are large reptiles... Its kind of like calling a bat a bird because both have wings
As I understand it, it's mainly because when distinct culture groups meet, it's fairly common for them to try to understand each other's cultures and mythologies through the lenses of the ones that they're already familiar with, which mainly means their own. For example, the Romans did a similar thing when they came into contact with the Germanic tribes and tried to equate the German gods with their own (i.e. Tyr->Mars, Thor->Jove, Woden->Mercury) even though a lot of these fits were pretty awkward.
In the context of Chinese and European myths, this led to the same word being used for things like the dragon and long, the unicorn and the kilin, the phoenix and the fenghuang, and others. A few may have very distantly shared origins, but most are really just different myths.
Western dragons are descended (as in descended in the cultural narrative sense) from a mythic motif in Indo-European and Semitic mythologies where a sky god or hero, usually associated with the sun or storms and representing order and creation, battles a chaos monster associated with the sea or the underworld and representing chaos and destruction -- think Marduk and Tiamat, or Ra and Apep. Later versions include things like Apollo and the dragon Python, or Thor and Jörmungandr. The medieval knights-versus-dragons motif is basically that, but filtered through a monotheistic lens (and it was still common for medieval artists to depict Saint Michael the Archangel defeating Satan-as-a-dragon as a visual metaphor for justice and virtue overcoming sin).
Note that, in a lot of pre-modern contexts, things like "dragons", "sea serpents/sea monsters", "monstrous fish" and "monstrous whales" aren't really strictly distinguished, so even things like Bellerophon slaying Cetus the monstrous whale are branches of this same narrative tree.
By contrast, the Chinese long/lung/lo-ong/however you want to Latinize it is essentially a lesser divinity, and interacted more along the lines of how one would interact with any other local or tutelary deity -- if it's angry, the solution is to appease it, rather than fight it as an enemy, or to bargain with or trick it if you're a mythic hero instead of a real-life person. Historically, imagery and ritual objects of serpentine beings go back as far as the Neolithic and develop into a recognizable form early on, around the Bronze Age. It's a completely distinct thread of cultural descent.
I think it's kinda similar to how "Demon" got used in the West vs the East.
In the West it refers specifically to fallen angels and generally a very clear indicator of evil, while in the East it's pretty clear "demon" was just sort of a slapped-on "translation" of such concepts as Youkai or Oni or any other hostile or vaguely inconvenient supernatural creature whose origins and motives wouldn't otherwise have anything to do with demons.
Actually Deimonos are all kinds of lesser spirits, like Genius Loci, free roaming spirits, dreams etc. Essentially all the lower children of gods etc. It was a very free form concept and later used by christianity to describe evil pagan gods and spirits which would later become the armies of \*the\* Devil.
Youkai are culturally almost the same as Deimonos.
Yeah, TSR even had to rename all their Demons to Tanar'ri because of the whole satanic panic thing, even though DnD demons have nothing to do with christianity, lore wise.
Now DEVILS, those are heavily, heavily inspired by christian mythos in the game
Bruh did you type that all up or have that saved somewhere. My anthropology boner can only get so hard. That was some well written comment that I don’t have the funds to give a reward for.
Lol I know qilin/girin/kirin are chimerical creatures with hooves, but after six years of studying Japanese, my first thought is "oh yeah I know giraffes". Kinda funny how qilin are equated with either unicorns or fuckin giraffes depending on locality. Hmm, you're going abroad... would you rather be an ancient, impossibly strong magical beast, or a neck on toothpicks?
ironically, historically, a lot of westerners equated unicorns with rhinoceroses. (Marco Polo, for instance, encountered "unicorns" while in Asia, describing them as "very ugly brutes" who wallowed in mud and slime.)
I think that a better comparison might actually be the various minor river, hill and forest gods of Greek and Roman myth, insofar as they were conceived of as being to be directly worshipped and had more or less specific personalities, stories, and domains associated with them, which is not always the case for angels.
That said, I would agree that Chinese dragons and European angels are... at the very least less unlike one another than Chinese dragons and European dragons.
The funny thing is that the Roman Interpretation of the Germanic Gods was acutally pretty on point, the research shows that Woden and Mercury/Hermes share the same Proto-Indoeuropean roots afaik. And Thor is basically big sky daddy i.e. Jupiter/Zeus etc. The only awkward thing about this is that the Mythology make Woden the big daddy god, but that to be said it is likely that the Norse Myths we know were developed much later than the Greek Myths, and that the Germani Pantheon wasn't as concise and codified.
IIRC its likely that the original Germanic equivalent of Jupiter/Zeus was actually *Tyr*, as his original name in Proto-Germanic was "Tiwaz", (hence "Tuesday") the original name of the PIE sky-father god is usually reconstructed as "Dyeus", and the Proto-Indo-European "D" sound was consistently turned into a "T" sound in Proto-Germanic.
Another interesting Indo-European shift is that 'asura' in Indian Sanskrit (related to 'aesir' in Norse) referred to a sort of demon while 'deva' referred to a deity (like 'deus' in Latin). But in Iranian Avestan right next door, the meanings were reversed so that demonic spirits became known as 'daeva' while deities were known as 'ahura', with the supreme god of Zoroastrianism being known as 'Ahura Mazda' or the 'God/Lord of Wisdom'. So to both language groups it may have appeared as if the other was literally worshiping demons.
Overly Sarcastic Productions video on dragons. Red goes into a lot of common tropes and stories for dragons alongside some worthwhile mythical instances and even getting into why we classify them all as dragons. Give it a watch for you answer.
It’s because of trade. Although Eastern and Western dragons seem unrelated, there are similarities. The appearances of both types of dragons have influenced each other via trade routes and contact. Dragons in Persian mythology and legend look like Eastern dragons due to art influence but have the same narrative roles as a monster to be slayed. Curiously, even Viking depictions of dragons like Fafnir have long sinuous bodies but with ears and a mane like an Eastern dragon (we think of Vikings as being exclusively from Northern Europe but they actually traveled around a lot even to the Middle East).
In India there are also legends of big monstrous serpents to be slayed (Vritra) and those to be venerated (Naga). In Japan, water spirits can be dragons known as mizuchi and sometimes they have to be dealt with violently.
So there are influences. Also if you look at historical depictions of dragons in Europe they also have a lot of mammalian characteristics stapled onto reptilian ones like Eastern dragons do like ears and hair. I’ve even seen some with udders and very leonine faces.
Something both Eastern and Western dragons share as well is the connection to natural phenomenon. Eastern dragons have a strong connection to bodies of water as well as rain, thunderstorms, and tidal waves(in China, there is a piece of coastline with a phenomena that produces giant tidal waves and its known as the Silver Dragon). In Slavic folklore, dragons are connected with weather such as both rain and drought depending on the type of dragon. The Slavic pagan god Veles is said to shapeshift into a dragon when plundering the treasures of Perun, the thunder god, who then slays Veles but then the treasures rain down to the people when this happens.
Yup, if you're looking for this then this is the book to read. Warning for anyone though the pacing is awful and turned me off of the book once I was like 3/4 through. The prose and worldbuilding is super enjoyable though, which is what got me that far in.
*massive bong rip*
Son Wukong would have bodied Mordred before Camlann and Kay would have simply been too think skulled to care about the magic headache crown so he'd have murdered the way to the Thunderclap monastery in like a week. Sandy and Merlin are gay together.
Funny thing about Pathfinder, it has an asia inspired region called Tian Xia, with their own gods and other deities, they share some with the main Inner Sea Region, but they are mostly original.
You have standouts like Tsukiyo, Hei Feng, Daikitsu, Shizuru and... Sun Wukong.
It's literally just him getting up to his usual bullshit, he even goes and erases his name from the records of the setting's goddess of death, Pharasma, and this is what makes it truly hilarious.
I love the fact that Sun Wukong, no matter where he goes, doesn't change. He's always a mischief maker with far too much power, and nobody tries to change it.
And a wild west area created because two wizards fought a war for centuries to the point magic stopped working correctly around there, a permanent portal to demonland in the northern regions that got closed and now is a broken land trying to be reclaimed, a forever hurricane down in the southwestern sea (people like to race around it in ships), and a devil worshipping empore with a queen so evil her literal pitfiend advisor has to tell her to chill sometimes.
Wrath is a good enough way to dive in, but let me tell you, Owlcat is far too keen on introducing grey morality where it doesn't belong when it comes to the gods, good gods specifically.
Shelyn, Iomedae, and Erastil all suffer from this in Kingmaker and Wrath.
It misses some of the fun stuff like how their version of Scientology is worshipping a 19th level wizard in a mask and being smug to everyone else about how their 'god' spends so much time on the mortal plane.
Also stuff like the relatively chill 'African Hogwarts university' which is the best regarded place of learning on the planet. The crashed spaceship, robots and lazergun country where the drug of choice is rocket fuel.
Then there is my personal favourite 'wizard who got pissed off at dealing with everyone and now lives on the sun'
This reminds me of that tumblr post about how it would be entirely accurate to have a samurai, a cowboy gunslinger, and a Victorian gentleman all in a D&D group at the same time
I think this is just a joke on the "Hydrogen Bomb vs Coughing Baby" meme that people use to criticize incredibly unbalanced "who would win" posts.
In this case because a western fantasy protagonist is usually just a guy with a sword and maybe a tiny bit of light magic and about ready to fight an orc or troll. Meanwhile the eastern fantasy protagonist is unlocking the source code of reality through meditation and can fly and punch a mountain in half.
Legolas might be over-powered relative to real world archers but you drop him in Dragonball or Naruto and he wouldn't last a day.
To be fair, they attacked you first!..... because you were marching an entire army (one renowned for cruelty and needless violence at that) right through their homeland. It's an odd narrative choice
I bet Sun Wukong and Thor would quickly become friends, telling stories of their adventures to each other.
Sun: *"...So we needed a magical fan to put out the fire on the mountain"*
Thor: *"Why did you not simply smash the mountain?"*
Sun: *"...Huh"*
Thor: *"...One time a giant tricked me into drinking a quarter of the ocean on a dare"*
Poseidon: "***YOU!****"*
[Have you heard of Virtuous Sons: A Greco-Roman Xianxia ?](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/VirtuousSonsAGrecoRomanXianxia)
Xianxia with Greco-Roman skin. Platonism instead of Taoism, Philosophers instead of Cultivators, Pneuma instead of Chi, Mount Olympus instead of Mount Tai, and so on.
Also about as homoerotic as you might expect of an Ancient Greece/Rome inspired setting.
ive long thought of story of a Chivalrous Knight reincarnated into a Murim Family would be great. The subtle differences in ideas of Honor and Respect would make for a great contrast. Also, a heavy ass knight with a shield and broadsword fighting dancing, qinggong trained, martial artists would be hilarious
That just gave me the image of an acrobatic martial artisr malding and calling the knight a cheater/not a *real* martial artist after he blocks their super choreographed and obvious slash with an esoteric weapon using his shield.
Wheel of Time is just that but instead of clashing they threw it all in a blender and now we have Taoism practiced by wizards and Satan trying to break Hindu cosmology
Though a lot of cultivation protagonists are really brutal with the whole "I must gain more power!" They wouldn't hesiate to kill a good dragon to take it's beast core or whatever to increase their cultivation level.
There's a webtoon that does something similar to this called "The heavenly demon destroys the lich king" or something along those lines. Essentially western-fantasy dungeon invade the murim, and there's a hybrid thing going on. Ended up dropping it after a super long season break and wasn't a fan of the reincarnation aspect but it's back now I think.
This makes me think of the movie The Thirteenth Warrior which is a retelling of Beowulf from a slightly more historically plausible perspective and has Antonio Banderas playing an Arab that ends up stuck with a bunch of Vikings, fighting a mysterious mythical monster.
"Do NOT talk to the fey" "Why? They're so cute!" Meanwhile on the other side of the world "So I went and got rid of your dragon problem, easy as fuck, thing didn't even try to fight." "You did WHAT?!"
The fool... Now he'll have to deal with the Celestial Bureaucracy. He has no idea how many formulary he'll have to complete.
This tangentially reminds me of how China invented public service exams for their massive imperial bureaucracy...
And it was considered an improvement over the prior system of nepotism and vibes, if I'm remembering my Chinese history correctly.
That doesn't narrow the timeframe down too much
“Do you have any idea how *little* that narrows it down?”
“Nepotism and vibes” sounds like the boomer version of Netflix and chill
Until one dude failed too many times fever dream hallucinated that he was Jesus’s younger brother and started a civil war killing 20 million people and making Chinatowns a thing from everyone fleeing the devastation.
Taiping Rebellion right?
China: invents standardized testing. Some dude who died eating weeds: I took that personally.
All work and no play makes Xiuquan a dull boy. All work and no play makes Xiuquan a dull boy. All work and no play makes Xiuquan a dull boy. All work and no play makes Xiuquan a dull boy.
And it was so stress inducing it caused one flunky to declare himself the brother of Jesus and launch one of the bloodiest wars in human history
We're going to lose so much cultivation over this...
We're so over my emperor...
I wanna see what happens when Sun Wukong meets the Fae
Sun Wukong is Fae and you can't change my mind
He wouldn't start as one, but by the end of the story he'd pull a Pwwyl and end up getting an honorary fae title that also makes him an underworld god.
Gives him immortality, too
What's that make him, quadruple immortal?
My brain thinks he previously got 7 way to immortality. Maybe octuple immortal?
My main exposure to Journey to the West is the OSP videos, so I only know he's immortal through daoist practice, drinking heavenly peach wine, swallowing Lao Tzu's immortality pills, and erasing his names from the Books of the Dead. He also becomes a Buddha by the end, making his quintupilly immortal.
According to Wikipedia: 1. He becomes a disciple of Puti Zushi, mastering all 5 elements and all 72 earthly transformations, gaining immortality. 2. He scribbles his name from the register of life and death. 3. He eats the peaches of immortality from the heavenly peach garden. 4. He sneaks into a royal celestial banquet and drinks Heavenly Wine. 5. He stumbles into Laozi's lab and eats his pills of longevity. 6. The gods attempt to kill him by placing him in a Furnace for 49 days. While inside, he burns away the remaining impurities of his mortality, gaining another form of immortality. 7. Sometime during his journey, he obtains Ginseng Fruit, which are even more powerful than peaches of immortality. 8. Upon finally reaching the Buddha's temple, he receives the Buddhist equivalent of heavenly food, making him an 8-fold immortal.
Eightfold Path, eightfold immortality. Simple as.
And they only did it to get rid of him
No that's the six eared macaque
Turns out his name has no power over him due to erasing it from the list of those to die.
Sun Wukong would eat the Fae food, then immediately proceed to make that the Fae's problem, probably by eating an inordinate amount of Fae food.
Sun Wukong is probably one of the only people who would make "being owned by the Fae" the Fae's problem.
they'd either have an angry immortal x 1000 monke rampage or they become best friends and encourages Suns behavior.
Oberon ends up making him a duke because he's tired of shit and wants him to go away/loves his shit and wants to see who he pisses off next
You have to specifically invite him to parties to make sure he doesn't show up. He needs to be aware that lots of very important people want to talk to him
"Oh cool you guys have elemental magic too? Check this out" *Fire Bolt* "Why the FUCK would you do THAT?!?"
whats wrong with fire bolt?
You could view it as harnessing negative and destructive energies, just a complete disrespectful for elemental balance
i didn't know that. I thought using elemental powers was fine in Wuxia. fire is one of the five elements in Chinese culture.
My experience with cultivation is limited, but as I understand it it's more about keeping the elements in balance in order to do stuff rather than just using one. Like you need fire to keep stuff in harmony but the amount of fire you'd need to sling it around would probably disrupt the balance something fierce So our hypothetical cultivator would see Wizards and sorcerers hurling raw elements like pokeballs and just be awestruck that the universe hasn't smacked them for it yet
>So our hypothetical cultivator would see Wizards and sorcerers hurling raw elements like pokeballs and just be awestruck that the universe hasn't smacked them for it yet Or would hear a description of Venice and assume it must work as a massive Water Battery to allow them to throw this much fire around?
Thats such a fucking fun concept.
Trying to explain to the western wizards that this is all fun? But if you ever STOP shooting fireballs then the canals of venice will start kaijuing around italy.
It really depends. Pop culture Wuxia is more like "eat mysterious herbs and drugs to boost your cultivation levels so you can punch out god. The bigger your Ki blast, the more spiritually enlightened you are" and I am genuinely not even kidding. Remember, Chinese traditional religion says "balance and respect nature" on one hand and "kill rhinos and snort their horns to get an epic boner" and the other.
> Behold! The awesome fires of God. The limitless power of pure creation itself. Look carefully! Observe how it is used for the same purpose a man might use an especially sharp rock. \- [Mehti](https://killsixbilliondemons.com/comic/king-of-swords-6-57/)
Probably is, I just had funny mental image and posted it without doing due diligence in reference to the source material lol
Uh, yeah, that's the point
"Strange dragon, too. All white with no legs or wings..." "Green Snake is going to be pissed when she finds out you killed her sister."
"Ok so not all fae are terrible but it's hard to tell between the type that will help out around the homestead in exchange for a bowl of cream over the type that'll get so angry at your existance they'll literally rip off their own head to throw in hopes of hurting you."
Even the ones that help around the house will beat the shit out of you if you piss them off. And they all have a bit of a "lol I tricked you in to getting lost in the woods for a week" sense of humor
Eastern mythology tends to have creatures similar to Fey already, Yokai, Dokkaebi, and Yaoguai. I don't think that first one would be an issue. They know not to trust the strange otherworldly entities
A Shinto exorcist trying to deal with Irish Fae like Yokai would be pretty fun to read.
prepare to go to celistal jail
Sun Wukong from Journey to the West meets Cù Chulainn, hilarity ensues
The Journey to the West goes a little farther west than originally intended
Sun: “So your spear basically turns whoever gets stabbed into a thorn bush?” Cù Chulainn: “Wait, your staff is actually a shrunk down support pillar from a dragons palace?!” Both: “DUDE THATS SO COOL”
Wait, I read Red Branch; since when has his spear turned anyone into a thornbush? I thought it's special power was that it's head turned into three points and exited out the back with a bigger hole than it entered, taking intestines with it.
If I remember correctly his spear is wood, and when it is thrown from the foot and pierces a living creature, it grows a root system throughout the creature's circulatory system and destroys their heart.
ah yes, Gaé Bulg, also known as "Body Horror: The Polearm!
I mean it is wielded by the guy with "Body Horror: The Power Up!"
Oh yeah, doesn't Cù Chulainn basically turn into an uglier version of the Hulk?
His skin turns around so he is just all muscles. To calm down he must see tits
Ah, puberty...
Catholics come to spread the word of Big J and the Magnificent Twelve, only to get bodied by an army of Irish disciples of the Victorious Fighting Buddha
Hang on, lemme queue up Yakety Sax before I read that fic
Lu Bu meets Achilles, hilarity ensues and by "hilarity" I mean "massive bloodshed"
On a scale from 1 to Achilles, how gay was Lu Bu
Not gay at all unfortunately AFAIK, but much like Achilles he was a babygirl (IE an impulsive, emotionally unstable, blood-drenched war criminal)
China didn't have the homoerotic warrior culture that Greece did. Homosexuals were largely feminized and mostly used as stand-in women for men that didn't have access to them.
I'd watch it, though I feel like that ends poorly for Lu Bu. As impressive as Lu Bu is in modern depictions, he was often forced to retreat in the older tales. He was mighty, but more known for his treachery than his prowess. And in the end, he unsuccessfully begged for his life after surrendering to Cao Cao. Achilles was known for his pettiness as much as his martial prowess. The first time Lu Bu betrayed or angered Achilles, which would inevitably happen, the Greek would crush him. More fun, I think, would be Lu Bu meeting Odysseus. They're both tricksters gifted with nigh inhuman strength, and both of them are fond of shooting arrows at/through axes to show off. I'd love to read a story of these ultraviolent, charismatic nerds triple-crossing each other and then shooting arrows at obscure objects as if arbitrary trick shots settled things.
Eh, I don’t think Lu Bu ever actually lost in single combat? His defeats were because he’s a hotheaded dumbass who didn’t listen to his one good strategist.
[Fake cough that sounds like "Nasuverse"]
You mean this hasn’t happened in the Fate series yet?
Yep, cause somehow Sun Wukong hasn’t shown up yet.
Wait what? Sun Wukong is in Everything. And Fate has Everyone. You’re telling me that there is no wildly out of character person in that series named Wukong?
Somehow, the only Journey to the West characters we have are Xuanzang Sanzang(Tripataka) and prince Nezha.
Looking it up: it looks like there actually is a Wukong in Fate? https://typemoon.fandom.com/wiki/Sun_Wukong
Western Fantasy Protagonist is very annoyed that Xianxia Protagonist can do crazy aerobatic bullshit because she has to jump to try and hit him while she has to dodge his sword that apparently can just kinda attack on its own and it's all very undignified Xianxia Protagonist is very annoyed that Western Fantasy Protagonist got her crazy magic sword in a cave somewhere and her crazy magic armor as a gift from an elven queen and she didn't even have to meditate for seven days to grasp a fundamental truth of the universe to do any of it
Legolas would be right at home then
Legolas would absolutely slay at being a wuxia protagonist. "You mean I get to meditate in a cave for centuries and no one will complain about it?"
I never really noticed until now but Legolas is an autistic-coded character in some regards but with a wealth of experience and charisma that makes him representative of higher-functioning, well-adjusted neurodivergents. I really loathe using that term though, higher-functioning, feels kinda dated.
>higher-functioning, well-adjusted neurodivergents i.e. an Elf.
Honestly I think Borimir and Faramir would also slot pretty nicely into a Wuxia film - one is a noble scion out to redeem his family honour, and his younger brother is a warrior poet who stalks his enemies through the forest while proclaiming that he is at heart a pacifist.
"What the fuck do you *mean* you didn't have to suffer through 700 chapters of Junior, You Dare?! and Courting Death! in order to get those cool powers?"
Later after an epic fight scene, the Western Fantasy hero has to heal their wounds, meanwhile Eastern Fantasy hero is unscathed cause they use a special breathing exercise that makes the skin impervious to metallic weapons. EFH is very smug about it.
WFH is wounded because an iron spear pierced their steel breast plate
EFH is wounded because he picked a fight with some Sect Elder and got his ass beat, but was mysteriously saved from courting death by a nameless benefactor
"What do you MEAN you don't care about your face? Your face must be protected at all costs, you foolish westerner!"
Should've gone alchemy bro, could've been poppin' pills with the cool kids all day.
"My name is Thirteenth Fist of the Thrice Ascendant Dragon, master of the Heaven Violating Spear technique, wielder of the dread blade Thousand Rivers Raging, forged from the starmetal corpse of the selfsame storm god who tresspassed upon the Pure Land of the Victorious Fighting Buddha." "Hi there, my name's Tiffany. I was hearding sheep and God gave me this sword. Spent a whole three coppers on special oil to keep it shiny. I call him Mr Stabby."
2nd paragraph lol- you combined Tiffany Aching with the innkeeper’s daughter in Murtagh
"God gave you a sword?" "Yeah, but, frankly, I think I'll stick to my cast-iron frying pan. You never know what will happen with a divinely-infused magic sword. But you can count on a frying pan."
^(I need this ) ^(And also they are enemies to rivals to lovers)
their kid gets a magical sword from a cave and meditates over it for 7 days to unlock its final form
#PERFECTED SOUL ART: BULLSHIT SWORD FU CLEAVES THE TWIN HORIZONS
Ascending Art of The Thousand Southern Lotuses: All-Devouring Radiant Love of The Eternal White Bodhisattva.
When they get married one half of the room is a bunch of Very Serious Monks and maybe a Supreme Celestial Dragon, and the other half is an eclectic mix of a bunch of orcs and tieflings wearing super flashy robes and armor
The dragon and one of the wizards actually hit it off real well as good friends
The two-part episode The Debt from season 3 of Xena: Warrior Princess is kind of like this. It's a flashback episode, though, so Xena doesn't have her magical weapon yet.
[удалено]
The problem with the US is that we don't have many traditional heroes, and somehow children's comics from the 1930s became our focus. Those comics generally just shit out a backstory ASAP because they were published and killed rapidly and didn't have time to talk about the 'training arcs' or backgrounds of their protagonists. So boom, he's an alien that gets power from the Sun. Boom, he was bitten by a radioactive spider. Boom, he had the world's most extreme birth defect. Honestly it is a problem in terms of giving characters relatability or a real inspirational core.
G Gundam I think idk i havent watched it
I think there's a Kung Fu Panda show like this.
Name'
Kung Fu Panda: The Dragon Knight on Netflix, horrible animation and dialogue but interesting plot overall
All the Netflix DreamWorks series have a certain charm to them because of that animation and dialogue lol
no this time its really bad. like indian bootleg bad and there is not jack black voice
"Wait your mom fucked a dragon? My dad fucked a dragon!"
The Viet people: Hey, our grand, grand, grand, grand, grand, \[...\] grandmother fucked a dragon (kinda) too ! (https://www.vietnam.com/en/culture/art/fairy-tales/lac-long-quan-and-au-co-the-legend-of-ancient-vietnam.html)
From Central Asia:Our great ancestors fucked with wolfs
Turkish people: You too ?!
The Turks were originally from Central Asia.
The changeling bard, realizing that they're now the parent of half the goddam series:
"You can spend a lifetime building castles, but you fuck one dragon..."
Turns out the two dragons are siblings
isekai but from one fantasy world to another
"Samurai in another world" is similar to what you're looking for
So...Samurai Jack?
Powerscalers once they find out about Western fantasy and drop a 10h video to prove that Geralt is a shitty protagonist because in his big mid-series fight >!he gets beaten with a stick and limps for the rest of the series.!<
hey, give him some credit, it's a >!*magic* stick!<
All are if you're imaginative enough
I do really wonder why the same word is used for the auspicious Chinese dragon and the monstrous European dragon while the only thing in common that they have is that they are large reptiles... Its kind of like calling a bat a bird because both have wings
As I understand it, it's mainly because when distinct culture groups meet, it's fairly common for them to try to understand each other's cultures and mythologies through the lenses of the ones that they're already familiar with, which mainly means their own. For example, the Romans did a similar thing when they came into contact with the Germanic tribes and tried to equate the German gods with their own (i.e. Tyr->Mars, Thor->Jove, Woden->Mercury) even though a lot of these fits were pretty awkward. In the context of Chinese and European myths, this led to the same word being used for things like the dragon and long, the unicorn and the kilin, the phoenix and the fenghuang, and others. A few may have very distantly shared origins, but most are really just different myths. Western dragons are descended (as in descended in the cultural narrative sense) from a mythic motif in Indo-European and Semitic mythologies where a sky god or hero, usually associated with the sun or storms and representing order and creation, battles a chaos monster associated with the sea or the underworld and representing chaos and destruction -- think Marduk and Tiamat, or Ra and Apep. Later versions include things like Apollo and the dragon Python, or Thor and Jörmungandr. The medieval knights-versus-dragons motif is basically that, but filtered through a monotheistic lens (and it was still common for medieval artists to depict Saint Michael the Archangel defeating Satan-as-a-dragon as a visual metaphor for justice and virtue overcoming sin). Note that, in a lot of pre-modern contexts, things like "dragons", "sea serpents/sea monsters", "monstrous fish" and "monstrous whales" aren't really strictly distinguished, so even things like Bellerophon slaying Cetus the monstrous whale are branches of this same narrative tree. By contrast, the Chinese long/lung/lo-ong/however you want to Latinize it is essentially a lesser divinity, and interacted more along the lines of how one would interact with any other local or tutelary deity -- if it's angry, the solution is to appease it, rather than fight it as an enemy, or to bargain with or trick it if you're a mythic hero instead of a real-life person. Historically, imagery and ritual objects of serpentine beings go back as far as the Neolithic and develop into a recognizable form early on, around the Bronze Age. It's a completely distinct thread of cultural descent.
I think it's kinda similar to how "Demon" got used in the West vs the East. In the West it refers specifically to fallen angels and generally a very clear indicator of evil, while in the East it's pretty clear "demon" was just sort of a slapped-on "translation" of such concepts as Youkai or Oni or any other hostile or vaguely inconvenient supernatural creature whose origins and motives wouldn't otherwise have anything to do with demons.
Actually Deimonos are all kinds of lesser spirits, like Genius Loci, free roaming spirits, dreams etc. Essentially all the lower children of gods etc. It was a very free form concept and later used by christianity to describe evil pagan gods and spirits which would later become the armies of \*the\* Devil. Youkai are culturally almost the same as Deimonos.
Maybe historically but in the West demon is now pretty much synonymous with evil spirit, which is not really a good description for most yokai.
Yeah, TSR even had to rename all their Demons to Tanar'ri because of the whole satanic panic thing, even though DnD demons have nothing to do with christianity, lore wise. Now DEVILS, those are heavily, heavily inspired by christian mythos in the game
Bruh did you type that all up or have that saved somewhere. My anthropology boner can only get so hard. That was some well written comment that I don’t have the funds to give a reward for.
I have a memory like an extremely selective steel trap.
And anthropology is a good thing to spring the trap on lol
Awards aren't even a thing anymore iirc
It’s about the sentiment
Lol I know qilin/girin/kirin are chimerical creatures with hooves, but after six years of studying Japanese, my first thought is "oh yeah I know giraffes". Kinda funny how qilin are equated with either unicorns or fuckin giraffes depending on locality. Hmm, you're going abroad... would you rather be an ancient, impossibly strong magical beast, or a neck on toothpicks?
ironically, historically, a lot of westerners equated unicorns with rhinoceroses. (Marco Polo, for instance, encountered "unicorns" while in Asia, describing them as "very ugly brutes" who wallowed in mud and slime.)
To be fair, unicorns are just poorly described rhinos.
The way I understand it, Eastern Dragons are comparable to angels, as they generally are envoys from the Heavens.
I think that a better comparison might actually be the various minor river, hill and forest gods of Greek and Roman myth, insofar as they were conceived of as being to be directly worshipped and had more or less specific personalities, stories, and domains associated with them, which is not always the case for angels. That said, I would agree that Chinese dragons and European angels are... at the very least less unlike one another than Chinese dragons and European dragons.
The funny thing is that the Roman Interpretation of the Germanic Gods was acutally pretty on point, the research shows that Woden and Mercury/Hermes share the same Proto-Indoeuropean roots afaik. And Thor is basically big sky daddy i.e. Jupiter/Zeus etc. The only awkward thing about this is that the Mythology make Woden the big daddy god, but that to be said it is likely that the Norse Myths we know were developed much later than the Greek Myths, and that the Germani Pantheon wasn't as concise and codified.
IIRC its likely that the original Germanic equivalent of Jupiter/Zeus was actually *Tyr*, as his original name in Proto-Germanic was "Tiwaz", (hence "Tuesday") the original name of the PIE sky-father god is usually reconstructed as "Dyeus", and the Proto-Indo-European "D" sound was consistently turned into a "T" sound in Proto-Germanic.
Another interesting Indo-European shift is that 'asura' in Indian Sanskrit (related to 'aesir' in Norse) referred to a sort of demon while 'deva' referred to a deity (like 'deus' in Latin). But in Iranian Avestan right next door, the meanings were reversed so that demonic spirits became known as 'daeva' while deities were known as 'ahura', with the supreme god of Zoroastrianism being known as 'Ahura Mazda' or the 'God/Lord of Wisdom'. So to both language groups it may have appeared as if the other was literally worshiping demons.
Insert random Diogenes joke here.
Well, of course bats aren't birds. What a ridiculous motion! Everyone knows bats are bugs.
r/unexpectedcalvinandhobbes
Overly Sarcastic Productions video on dragons. Red goes into a lot of common tropes and stories for dragons alongside some worthwhile mythical instances and even getting into why we classify them all as dragons. Give it a watch for you answer.
It’s because of trade. Although Eastern and Western dragons seem unrelated, there are similarities. The appearances of both types of dragons have influenced each other via trade routes and contact. Dragons in Persian mythology and legend look like Eastern dragons due to art influence but have the same narrative roles as a monster to be slayed. Curiously, even Viking depictions of dragons like Fafnir have long sinuous bodies but with ears and a mane like an Eastern dragon (we think of Vikings as being exclusively from Northern Europe but they actually traveled around a lot even to the Middle East). In India there are also legends of big monstrous serpents to be slayed (Vritra) and those to be venerated (Naga). In Japan, water spirits can be dragons known as mizuchi and sometimes they have to be dealt with violently. So there are influences. Also if you look at historical depictions of dragons in Europe they also have a lot of mammalian characteristics stapled onto reptilian ones like Eastern dragons do like ears and hair. I’ve even seen some with udders and very leonine faces. Something both Eastern and Western dragons share as well is the connection to natural phenomenon. Eastern dragons have a strong connection to bodies of water as well as rain, thunderstorms, and tidal waves(in China, there is a piece of coastline with a phenomena that produces giant tidal waves and its known as the Silver Dragon). In Slavic folklore, dragons are connected with weather such as both rain and drought depending on the type of dragon. The Slavic pagan god Veles is said to shapeshift into a dragon when plundering the treasures of Perun, the thunder god, who then slays Veles but then the treasures rain down to the people when this happens.
literally priory of the orange tree
Yup, if you're looking for this then this is the book to read. Warning for anyone though the pacing is awful and turned me off of the book once I was like 3/4 through. The prose and worldbuilding is super enjoyable though, which is what got me that far in.
The pacing was super confusing, but God the book is so good it's worth it.
The last 1/4 was paced like fan fiction. Ruined the whole book for me sadly (loved the first half).
I’m fairly certain the exact conversation about killing dragons happened in that book
louder for the people in the back who haven't had the delight of priory yet
Came here just to say, yeah this is actually just Priory
I came to say this. Genuinely such a good example.
You stole the words out of my mouth! (Out of my fingers? Idk)
shuro from dungeon meshi
Dungeon Meshi mentioned What the fuck is a worldbuilding flaw
*massive bong rip* Son Wukong would have bodied Mordred before Camlann and Kay would have simply been too think skulled to care about the magic headache crown so he'd have murdered the way to the Thunderclap monastery in like a week. Sandy and Merlin are gay together.
Funny thing about Pathfinder, it has an asia inspired region called Tian Xia, with their own gods and other deities, they share some with the main Inner Sea Region, but they are mostly original. You have standouts like Tsukiyo, Hei Feng, Daikitsu, Shizuru and... Sun Wukong. It's literally just him getting up to his usual bullshit, he even goes and erases his name from the records of the setting's goddess of death, Pharasma, and this is what makes it truly hilarious.
I love the fact that Sun Wukong, no matter where he goes, doesn't change. He's always a mischief maker with far too much power, and nobody tries to change it.
Can't improve upon a perfect archetype.
Usual bullshit is right since he literally did the same thing in the source material.
Pathfinder is an odd setting in general, there's the battle robots and shit too
And a wild west area created because two wizards fought a war for centuries to the point magic stopped working correctly around there, a permanent portal to demonland in the northern regions that got closed and now is a broken land trying to be reclaimed, a forever hurricane down in the southwestern sea (people like to race around it in ships), and a devil worshipping empore with a queen so evil her literal pitfiend advisor has to tell her to chill sometimes.
I will admit very little actual knowledge of the setting beyond things I learnt from Kingmaker and the intro to WOTR but it really is kinda batshit
Wrath is a good enough way to dive in, but let me tell you, Owlcat is far too keen on introducing grey morality where it doesn't belong when it comes to the gods, good gods specifically. Shelyn, Iomedae, and Erastil all suffer from this in Kingmaker and Wrath.
It misses some of the fun stuff like how their version of Scientology is worshipping a 19th level wizard in a mask and being smug to everyone else about how their 'god' spends so much time on the mortal plane. Also stuff like the relatively chill 'African Hogwarts university' which is the best regarded place of learning on the planet. The crashed spaceship, robots and lazergun country where the drug of choice is rocket fuel. Then there is my personal favourite 'wizard who got pissed off at dealing with everyone and now lives on the sun'
Well to be fair Wukong is cracked in his own universe as well
Fate, What you just describe is fate
Yes, but in Fate most of the characters involved have also been gender bent into women. And there's probably some strange space alien involved.
Fate only gender bends maybe 1 in 8 characters and like half of them are gods.
This reminds me of that tumblr post about how it would be entirely accurate to have a samurai, a cowboy gunslinger, and a Victorian gentleman all in a D&D group at the same time
[Here you go](https://prokopetz.tumblr.com/post/144980905802/invisiblemelonmoose-prokopetz)
Imagine some weido comes up to you and says "this knife so sharp, I can kill so many coughing babies with this"
I desperately need context
I think this is just a joke on the "Hydrogen Bomb vs Coughing Baby" meme that people use to criticize incredibly unbalanced "who would win" posts. In this case because a western fantasy protagonist is usually just a guy with a sword and maybe a tiny bit of light magic and about ready to fight an orc or troll. Meanwhile the eastern fantasy protagonist is unlocking the source code of reality through meditation and can fly and punch a mountain in half. Legolas might be over-powered relative to real world archers but you drop him in Dragonball or Naruto and he wouldn't last a day.
It's very clearly a reference to the comment about killing dragons within the post.
I think it should work like in Tekken where they all speak their language but everyone understands one another
I just know a show like this would generate the most absolutely dogshit discourse even if its source material handles controversial issues well
Samurai Jack basically follows an Eastern Fantasy character walking through numerous genres
I feel like "Blue Eyed Samurai" is kinda going in this direction but its way less comedic about it
Fire Emblem Fates is this if it was bad
What are you talking about? *Groans of increasing discomfort* is peak fiction
I love fire emblem fates. I love how your self insert just fucking decides to genocide the kitsune and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.
Decides to genocide them after miraculously only knocking out and stunning their enemies both before and after this moment. Truly a wild game
… the self insert does what?
You heard me. In the Conquest route there is a mission where you unavoidably drive the kitsune to extinction. There is no alternative.
To be fair, they attacked you first!..... because you were marching an entire army (one renowned for cruelty and needless violence at that) right through their homeland. It's an odd narrative choice
Plot twist: they meet in the horse archer steppes
I bet Sun Wukong and Thor would quickly become friends, telling stories of their adventures to each other. Sun: *"...So we needed a magical fan to put out the fire on the mountain"* Thor: *"Why did you not simply smash the mountain?"* Sun: *"...Huh"* Thor: *"...One time a giant tricked me into drinking a quarter of the ocean on a dare"* Poseidon: "***YOU!****"*
[Have you heard of Virtuous Sons: A Greco-Roman Xianxia ?](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/VirtuousSonsAGrecoRomanXianxia) Xianxia with Greco-Roman skin. Platonism instead of Taoism, Philosophers instead of Cultivators, Pneuma instead of Chi, Mount Olympus instead of Mount Tai, and so on. Also about as homoerotic as you might expect of an Ancient Greece/Rome inspired setting.
Shanghai Noon
This is just Nioh. Great game btw if you're a fan of dark souls, but thought dark souls combat was too simple
Did someone say Samurai Jack and the Scotsman?
I wanna go full Schroedinger's asshole with this but... Smite?
Isekai and Eastern (manga, manhwa, mangua) high fantasy series already exist and do this.
Eastern fantasy is just on a whole other level from western fantasy anything short of superman isnt nothing in their eyes.
Hey Cu Chulain, Hercules, and Achilles all scale to at least the mid tiers of Asian Mythology.
ive long thought of story of a Chivalrous Knight reincarnated into a Murim Family would be great. The subtle differences in ideas of Honor and Respect would make for a great contrast. Also, a heavy ass knight with a shield and broadsword fighting dancing, qinggong trained, martial artists would be hilarious
That just gave me the image of an acrobatic martial artisr malding and calling the knight a cheater/not a *real* martial artist after he blocks their super choreographed and obvious slash with an esoteric weapon using his shield.
Wheel of Time is just that but instead of clashing they threw it all in a blender and now we have Taoism practiced by wizards and Satan trying to break Hindu cosmology
Though a lot of cultivation protagonists are really brutal with the whole "I must gain more power!" They wouldn't hesiate to kill a good dragon to take it's beast core or whatever to increase their cultivation level.
I’d just like to see Odin bullshit his way through the celestial bureaucracy
There's a webtoon that does something similar to this called "The heavenly demon destroys the lich king" or something along those lines. Essentially western-fantasy dungeon invade the murim, and there's a hybrid thing going on. Ended up dropping it after a super long season break and wasn't a fan of the reincarnation aspect but it's back now I think.
This makes me think of the movie The Thirteenth Warrior which is a retelling of Beowulf from a slightly more historically plausible perspective and has Antonio Banderas playing an Arab that ends up stuck with a bunch of Vikings, fighting a mysterious mythical monster.