#kind of sucks that macaque's whole deal is about being defined primarily by his relationship to a guy he despises

[sketching-shark]

Not gonna lie I miss lmk Liu'er Mihou being an absolute arse, it does feel weird that in s4 that he's like... chill and helpful all of a sudden??? Idk not sure if it's the writers' intentions but I feel like they are sweeping his actions under the rug. I'll never rly forget on how they treated the scene with him forcing shifu tang start the ritual.

AWEGRFDS well to be fair anon he definitely did have a reason to work with team monkie at the end of season 3 to free himself permanently from the Lady Bone Demon if nothing else, but yeah I definitely know what you mean about it increasingly feeling like he's been shoved into the "immediate good guy" trope instead of getting to be a fun antagonist. My guess is that Flying Bark saw how mega popular in the fandom the shadow simian is no matter how much he beat up Qi Xiaotian or threatened others (like gosh dern I have seen basically 0 art, fic, or analysis about him threatening to kill Long Xiaojiao & everyone else if Tang Shifu didn't start the ceremony early) & so decided to lean into that by giving him an insta-domestication arc and really doubling down on his past of being bffs forever with Sun Wukong, even if it does feel like whiplash given how much SWK didn't seem to care about him like at all in basically the entirely of seasons 1-3 (X_X). And that's just one reason why personally I'm increasingly disliking that writing choice; besides my general distaste for insta-redemption arcs, it really feels like Macaque is now going to be forever defined primarily by his violent obsession with Sun Wukong, all while Macaque's declarations about Sun Wukong being a terrible teacher & horrible person (even if inadvertently) keep getting validated in a number of ways not only by the Monkey King's actions in the present but also because of the hints at whatever happened between him and Macaque being mainly SWK's fault :(