Steve: You Said You Put A Cat In A Box And Buried It.

As someone who’s Chinese w/ a degree in social science + (art) history regarding East Asia I’m always super intrigued and interested to how others interpret changes in new titles on older religious texts- but I will ask in particular if you have any personal ties to Buddhism/Taoism/Confucianism (and Chinese culture) when you find yourself interpreting BM:W’s change in allegorical use of Buddhism as contemporary political adherence! BM:W’s religious and soul mechanics follows their previous game without much overt linking between the two.

Overthrowing Gods in East Asian media is a very common trope in videos specifically due to player involvement (contrast to books where you are separate as the audience) and often is used as an allegory for the system/recent events we exist in. In such it does shift a lot from the original text in base but I think it’s not supposed to relay the same allegory due to the time period in which the writers exist! Wukong’s story changing to him still being chained by the principles that envelop life is far more relatable to late-stage capitalist environments viewers and artists exist in- as such he fulfils the contemporary variant of his original role in JTTW!

I think the change in purpose the Buddhist mythos serves in this game is decisive by nature due to inherent bias present in the original text as a religious piece, and such is core to the allegory. However I don’t think BM:W is supposed to relay that allegory, I think it is supposed to branch off on its own as an alternate contemporary extension of the foundation JTTW set out (plus with the 2 DLC’s on the way, there is plenty of time to extend the universe in game to validate a shift in religious purpose compared to the cut 7 chapters planned during development). And such i think attributing it to the CCP can be a bit of a touchy statement (especially if one doesn’t have long standing ties to East Asian culture or Regional religious practice!) and can accidentally play into sinophobic phrasing and attitudes.

Buddhism as a practice and way of life has a very different presence in writers centuries ago compared to now, as well as how we use religion in audience-involved stories. And such I find it an interesting shift regarding a game made with an international and widely multi-religious audience (that isn’t consuming it as a psycho-socio poem compared to a much smaller and more culturally homogenous readerbase. I think the friction caused by thematic changes is more due to how the game relays the physical journey so closely with reusing characters and having to shift them according to the foundational changes- if it was closer to other written “sequels” that created characters connected to the original cast through descending from them etc, the changes wouldn’t grate on completed arcs or how we compare the experience to wukong’s parallel one

No, I do not have any direct personal cultural connection to Buddhism, Daoism, or Confucianism. I live in Asia, though, and beyond my research of JTTW, I do study religion here (with more of an emphasis on folk religion as it pertains to the Great Sage). My negative view of Black Myth: Wukong is colored by my deep love for the original story. In general, I don't like adaptations.

Thank you for your explanation of the game.

I’ve noticed souvenirs and stamps with Charles face today. Im really hoping bank notes won’t change soon.

But when I was young I was truly affected by the things my mom would say when she was angry

loved the age where you could look up paranormal stuff and have no gage of what’s real/fake so you’re just like “oh my god …. a ghost caught on tape and no one is talking about this”

当然啦 只要发作起来就不可能只是外貌羞耻 而是对于整个人的存在价值和意义都完全否定 （之后还会装无辜说你怎么可能不自信 呵呵 我小学初中的经历记得清清楚楚 现在才慢慢学会听了也不往心里去）

给翻看旧帖的自己：千万不要再回国。记得这次回国回家的遭遇有多难受。身体+精神+work受到多少影响。

完全可以看到ckh的台风从哪里学来的哎

看到最后懂了《哥哥》描述的那种欣慰的感觉

Uniqlo covent garden（今年4月新开的店）也有跟tfl的联名捏 旁边还可以diy T恤&帆布袋

paperchase和tfl联名出的东西也太可爱了吧

红楼梦 确实写到男同性行为和女同恋爱关系

西游记 李碧华和中岛敦都有看出端倪

三国演义 同人发展得太蓬勃了 我很羡慕

水浒传 过于厌女以至于男性角色心理分析一定很有趣

new favorite tweet

跨越97的修复版还是重制版我就很不喜欢，字幕大而俗艳，talk部分的英文翻译还都没有了（不记得talk有没有删减）

刺绣 茶点（抹茶✌️）

paperchase和tfl联名出的东西也太可爱了吧