#warring states

Chinese hanfu photoshoot by 何也, inspired by Nina Ricci's Spring 1990 Couture outfit.

in chronological order:

Warring States Period long story short, the PM is sleeping with the Empress Dowager, and he wants to extracate himself before her son (future Emperor Qin Shi Huang) gets old enough to find out. the PM finds her a suitable replacement, and the replacement is attached to a guy named Lao Ai. They pluck his beard and pass him off as a eunuch so he can sneak into the palace. Bing bang boom everyone's happy. This goes terribly wrong later, since Lao Ai tries to replace the emperor with his own kids and stages a failed coup. rest in pieces buddy...

it's very likely that Lao Ai was a ficticious character invented by Sima Qian, who will be appearing on this list later.

Qin Dynasty

Zhao Gao helped the first emperor of China conquer an empire, and administer it efficiently with his legal knowledge, but he also made the second emperor into a puppet, and weakened the empire for his own political gain. Max points of complexity, but you'd get more loyalty out of a coffee club punch card.

Before launching his soft coup, he decided to test the waters by bring in a deer and gaslighted the emperor by calling it a horse. the officials who were loyal to him called it a horse, and he executed the rest.

Han Dynasty Jiru, male favourite of Emperor Gaozu (Liu Bang), the peasant scoundrel who became the founder of the Han Dynasty. look, if the emperor has a harem of hundreds of women and you manage to catch his attention, you max out in style points. simple as. for most of chinese history it was fairly common for high-ranking men, especially eunuchs, to wear make up like powder and rouge, but i decided to give Jiru some women's huadia as well, cause he's a baddie.

Jiru gets a bad rap for alledgely distracting the emperor from his duties, but lets be real, history is written by civil officials who have no shortage of professional jealousy and gender/sexuality related prejudice towards eunuchs, since they were the personal attendants of royalty and could exert a lot of influence. plus Liu Bang was already pissing in the hats of confucian scholars, most of the poor work ethic is on HIM. Jiru should get credit for making him marginally less of a troglodite.

all in all he didn't try any court intrigue so extra points for loyalty and complexity. free my man >:( he's just a Han dynasty Monica Lewinsky who got slutshamed by jealous coworkers >:(

Han Dynasty

meet the father of east asian history, sima qian. half the people on this list can owe their placement here thanks to his extremely though history books "records of the grand historian"

- UZUMAKI

A very spiritual clan who honors both spirits of the lands and some gods, they often reference the sage, sea and spirits.

Ex. "Seas and spirits" / "By the sage" / Spirits guide us." / "Seas help me." / "Currents guide my hand"

Some of their more colorful curses invoke shinigami, but those are primarily saved for enemies. It's considered bad luck to so much as mention the shinigami, bringing their attention to both you and whoever you're directing their name towards, so it's seen as a "I hate you so fucking much I'm gonna set the death gods on BOTH our asses" thing

- UCHIHA

They worship Amaterasu and often invoke her name / reference her as "our lady" in most of their swears

Ex. "Lady preserve us" / "By our lady's grace" / "Lady save me from idiots like you"

- SENJU

A clan that mostly references spirits and the sage.

Ex. "Sage help me" / "Spirits save us"

They will make occasional, off-putting insults usually involving trees, such as "I hope the trees eat you", or "The mulch will savor the taste of your flesh."

- HATAKE

Another very spiritual clan, who prefer to honor the spirits of the land over any single god— though they do make occasional reference to Kaguya-Hime, who they recognize as the moon goddess and usually refer to as either simply the moon or by her full title

Ex. "Spirits preserve us" / "Sage help me" / "By the moon and sage and all that is sacred in this world"

They also make lots of references to storms and thunder, usually in vows. A common vow of truth they'll make goes along the lines of, "May the lightning leave my veins if I lie"

- NARA

More invoking of the sage and spirits. They will also sometimes reference the shadows as if it were a god to invoke.

Ex. "Shadows guide us" / "Sage help me" / "Spirits save us."

Much like the Senju, they occasionally make off-putting references to the woods, such as "I hope the paths eat you" or, "I look forward to the day you get lost in the woods."

By modern times, with Konoha having become a melting pot of clans and cultures, a lot of the more "traditional" curses and names to swear by have dissapeared over time.

Now adays it seems that swearing by the Sage's name has won out as the most common name to invoke, which makes sense as he was the most universal figure in most clan's mythos. Though you'll still occasionally see more creative swears being used by more traditional clans, such as the Uchiha, who still primarily swear by Amaterasu's name

Till they all died, anyways.

For hidwell on ig, character design c0mm of his oc Dawn

Won't explain everything to force yall to go check out his work, but the basic inspos are tang dynasty attire (for thematic reasons of flourishing and prosperity) married with celestial bodies (divinity) and flora + bird motifs (tie back to life and prospering theme)

For ryooolu on ig, of their oc Yelan and their friend's oc Cian

This set of OCs is more warring states based (peep the cut of the robe + yelan's fan), but obvs with a fantasy xianxia gufeng flair lol (the hair + complex guan + porcelain markings)

And character design c0mm for ruomengs of their ocs Zhang lingyuan and Zhongli Wanjun

These ocs are xianxia setting in the wei-jin dynasties, and now it's no longer artfight season lol but you can find them and more info abt them under ruomengs' artfight profile :D

Hideyoshi's mummified body was apparently dug up when Emperor Meiji wanted to restore the shrine he was buried in, and then it crumbled from the exposure and poor handling.

Toyokuni Shrine was reestablished at a new site in 1880, several hundred meters down the hillside. A new mausoleum was also constructed at the summit of the hill. During the construction process, the naturally mummified remains of Hideyoshi were discovered in a seated position facing towards the west, the direction of the Buddha Amida’s Pure Land paradise. The fragile remains were reinterred in the new monument, a five-storied pagoda designed by the famed architect Ito Chuta (1867–1954) in 1898.

After the fall of Osaka, the shrine Hideyoshi was buried in was almost demolished, but eventually the Tokugawa shogunate agreed to leave it be neglected until it becomes ruined naturally.

In the Meiji era, the emperor then wanted to restore the shrine, and in the process of preparing the construction they dug up a massive jar which contained a mummy believed to be Hideyoshi's body.

Had it been discovered in modern day, I'm sure they would have been able to handle the body better to preserve it. At the time, they probably didn't know how and the mummified body fell apart. The pieces were then gathered up in a box, and reburied.

I wonder if the government can allow scientists to still do autopsy on these remains in the future. I mean, I just think this is insane that nobody had ever been given the permission (or maybe nobody even bothered to ask) to examine the body. I remember there was a big fuss many many years ago over discoveries made based on DNA testing on Hideyoshi's blood thumbprint left on a letter, and this whole time we actually had his whole body stored up in a box?

With modern technology, people were sometimes still able to identify disease from mummified remains. There were theories that Hideyoshi went insane in his last years because of some kind of illness, so maybe if they examine the body they can figure it out. Or maybe if there's enough data, maybe doctors and forensics can identify whether or not he was really impotent and put to rest the rumours of Hideyori being not actually his son.