#been thinking about this quote a lot lately

[ryin-silverfish]

Sorry for the very late reply: I stayed off Tumblr for like, a month or so. But this is a long reblog with a lot of interesting points I wanna respond to.

Honestly, the most common form of JCT doesn't stem from A Chinese Odyssey. It's inspired by the webnovel that's kinda a fanfiction to said movie, Biography of Wukong.

The predecessor to BMW, Asura Online, takes a lot more inspiration from the webnovel than its spiritual successor, and even tho BMW isn't trying to be a direct continuation of AO, I would argue that some of its themes and worldbuilding still slipped into BMW.

You mentioned not seeing JCT in the game according to my definition, and I feel like it's a matter of exposure. For someone who has Chinese as their first language, they are gonna to be 1) exposed to a shit ton of JTTW media, and 2) see a lot of interpretation about the novel proliferate that an English audience is completely unaware of.

BMW is not the most extreme or common form of JCT, but the general ideas are still recognizable. Like, just because it doesn't make all the gods evil, or all the yaoguais innocent victims, doesn't change the fact that the main narrative is still one of Oppressive, Conspiring Pantheon vs. Oppressed Yaoguais.

(Example: the lore entries' implication about Lingji and the Yellow Wind storyline is that Lingji is creating the weird stone Buddha heads and the Fuban yaoguai to 1) collect Lingyun, the "soul" equivalent, and 2) artificially create a threat so that he can rescue the Flowing Sands kingdom from it and convert them to Buddhism.)

(Instead, the Yellow Wind Demon became the rescuer and the kingdom started worshipping rats, which was why its people were all turned into rats.)

(Or, the most obvious one: the Western Heaven's genocide of the Yakshas in the Bull King family backstory.)

(As for Erlang: why do you think you find him inside a painting, which, according to the lore entries, is implied to be the result of him asking Maitreya for refuge from the Celestial Realm?)

And it's made even more jarring by the fact that the game wants to create a facsimile of the original novel through quoting its poetry and imitating the vernacular novel dialogue style, and make allusions to SWK's role as the Mind Monkey, without realizing how it conflicts with the Biography of Wukong-style interpretation.

You mention the lore entries, and that's actually my favorite part! Both the Ming-print style illustrations, and their simulation of the Zhiguai short story style.

But, again, there is a dissonance. The funny and strange Zhiguai-style entries are noticeably different in tone compared to the "main storyline" entries about major characters and backgrounds, which is written like modern short stories instead of a classical Chinese text translated into Mandarin.

And my problem is not that the adaptation is different, that it may want to change the allegory or reinterpret the themes for a modern audience.

It's the feeling that they want to have it both ways——be faithful to the novel (or at least create a facsimile of faithfulness), yet also stick to the Bio of Wukong style popular reading that proliferates in modern JTTW media for mass appeal.

And to me, the dissonance in the two narratives weakened the thematic coherence. Frankly, if it sticks to one or the other, I wouldn't have been writing these critiques: if it's a proper exploration of the original novel's allegorical themes, I'd be praising and loving it, and if it's JCT thorough and thorough, I'm just going to be like "Yeah, not for me" and leave it at that.

But it's this mixture of things I love and things that frustrate me that drives me to write and get down to the bottom of those conflicting feelings, which has little to do with JTTWR's original posts and his attitude towards adaptations.

Lastly: I'm very much coming from the perspective of a native speaker complaining about Chinese JTTW media and popular interpretations. My own opinions are not mainstream in the Chinese JTTW fandom either——JCT is so popular precisely bc it has mass appeal.

Just a thing to keep in mind.

I'm a Theravada Buddhist. I saw many people interpreting the story and meaning behind Black Myth Wukong, differently. But I hope the devs team didn't intend to insult Buddha Dhamma by recreating this new story and distort the meaning of Buddhahood or Enlightenment itself..

I don't know if they intended to insult Buddhism, but I can say that their presentation of Buddhism in the game is disrespectful.

@ryin-silverfish recently posted a wonderful essay on what's known as the "JTTW Conspiracy Theory," which is a method of interpreting the story by twisting details, making the heavenly hierarchy look evil. The game follows this method. I recommend that you read the essay:

I unknowingly ran into the JTTW Conspiracy Theory a couple of years ago. A Chinese article claimed that the Buddha lies in the novel. This is my rebuttal.

[solarmag1c]

been thinking about this quote a lot lately so i drew the manga panel. right now i feel like the defeated, but who knows what i will be tomorrow!

[emiliosandozsequence]

Why John? I wanted to die, but God took her instead.

Emilio Sandoz (The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell)

[snorpios]

And, in my heart I know the moment of my flight towards the blue shoulders of the law, I was flying for Chris, did love her, and was saving her from the professional mediocrity of white Datsuns, I was releasing her from bourgeoise captivity, maybe bringing her home to the scrubby plains of my drunk art and love. Oh, Chris!

Eileen Myles, Chelsea Girls

[nextstopwonderland]

I’ve been thinking about the first part of this clip a lot lately and then this quote from Bryan today made me think about it again:

“That's one of the things I haven't found something for, for that part of my brain, to use that creative part of my brain and coming up with things. I still, it's been over a month now since my last match, and I still wake up in the middle of the night and think of wrestling things. 'This is not useful. I wish I would have thought of this a few years ago.' That's been the part that's hard, but I anticipated it.”

“My brain is so focused on wrestling so much — like, I see things that apply to wrestling everywhere.”

My favorite parts of Bryan on Brie’s podcast were when he talks about always finding wrestling in things (and having to write it all down) & the candid way he spoke about depression

[mmikmmik]

Finally, God set out to create paradise, where people would be happy just by being there.

[spiderin-space]

Woomy…?

[maddisandy]

"But you died at my hands because I didn't love you."

Scar cusped Grian's cheeks in his hands; his eyes were filled with sympathy, filled with sorrow, filled with softness. "Grian I died and you grieved me. Yet here I am standing in front of you, alive, and you still grieve me. You do love me, you always loved me. I forgive you, and I always forgave you. Grief is love, and now its time to put your guilt to rest."

[whalesfall]

It has frequently been observed that terror can rule absolutely only over men who are isolated against each other and that, therefore, one of the primary concerns of all tyrannical government is to bring this isolation about. Isolation may be the beginning of terror; it certainly is its most fertile ground; it always is its result. This isolation is, as it were, pretotalitarian; its hallmark is impotence insofar as power always comes from men acting together, "acting in concert" (Burke) ; isolated men are powerless by definition.

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

[glownery]

wishing everyone who celebrates a happy easter and an even happier transgender day of visibility 🐣🪩🫶🪽

[averlym]

" just...come here. just sit here with me" (...that one scene from princess momonoke, click for better resolution)

[sadsongbird]

Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.

- C.S. Lewis, Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories

[mickraine]

Loud Bark by Mannequin Pussy

[ladysansa]

Dr. Colin Murray Parkes, Bereavement: Studies of Grief in Adult Life // WandaVision, 1x08, dir. Matt Shakman // Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov // Jaime Anderson

[enlitment]

[byanyan]

laira schmitt, with love, always. / emily berry, the numbers game / p.d / unknown / cowboyvamp