Chapter 6 will explore magic more deeply than before, so I need to do some thinking. Even if I skip drafting all the magic-related parts, I'll need to have something worked out by the second half.
Also, I keep on having information crises on Japanese religion. Since the division between Buddhism and Shinto is so unclear, I keep getting paranoid over whether it's okay to have a shrine to Benzaiten or not. I really don't care who the shrine is for at this point, but I need to decide. It's convenient to have to be to Benzaiten because that's how it was written in the novella version, plus I've already done some research on her. But then I could always make it to Inari or something.
Anyways, skipping over a lot of such details, I managed to get Chapter 6 roughly drafted.
Message to YT: What the...??? Your last line was completely unplanned. You run wild, wild, wild. But on the other hand, it's perfect, in ways that I cannot yet fully fathom. It's exactly what I need to help set up for the second half.
1 comment:
Sounds like you gotta do a little research. Look up Benzaiten on the Japanese Wikipedia (install the rikaichan plugin for Firefox and stop using IE :P). From the last draft you let me read, I remember water and snakes. Benzaiten originally came from Hinduism (Sarasvati - river goddess) through Buddhism to Japan, where the earliest sculptures were made during the Nara period. Apparently she wasn't very popular during the Heian period, but during the middle ages she became very popular as she was syncretized (if that's a word) with two other kami (Ukajin, agriculture and snakes and such, and Ichikishimahime (is that not an AWESOME name)/Sayoribime, second daughter of Susanoo's sword and Amaterasu or something like that -wasn't sure what was going on there) and became a popular deity to enshrine. So yes, Benzaiten is indeed present in many shrines in the middle ages. All the stuff with good fortune and washing money though came later, after the period you're writing in, and is really based on a pun on the "zai" in her name.
But that's not research...that's just Wikipedia. :) Sounds like fun!
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