#monkey critical

[sketching-shark]

I saw your post about how you say that western interpretations of swk are just taking his goofy side and not much his violent side, but didn't you say before that western interpretations were just taking his violent side without understanding his character fully? and that he was more than just an evil/violent monkey? you said it with lmk for example, when they show in the past that wukong just wanted the powers for ambition and became ''evil'' and you said it wasn't right they interpret him like just a violent monkey

Im confused here

Complaining below, so if you (understandably lol) don't want to read all of that feel free to ignore.

My apologies for the confusion anon! And I will admit that I don't remember exactly what I wrote in this regard, though I do remember spending more time than I should have whining about both the goofiness and solely destructive aspects of SWK's character being given prominence in a lot of western interpretations lol. Maybe it was a combination of the two & me complaining of the prevalence of the "destructive meathead" interpretation of SWK? That IS a pretty common personality given to this monkey in western interpretations (see Netflix's The New Legends of Monkey & The Monkey King for example), and is a combination of goofiness & violence that shunts the "intelligent" part of "intelligent stone monkey" into the background.

THAT SAID, I am aware that I'm EXTREMELY picky in terms of Sun Wukong representations, and that it would be completely false to pretend there aren't a ton of Chinese presentations of the Monkey King that don't lean heavily towards a goofy and/or destructive characterization. Hell, I have heard and seen some pretty nasty examples of the Monkey King interpreted through the grimdark genre that ended with me hoping I manage to forget about them posthaste. And when it comes to children's media it makes sense that there would be a focus on the silly side of SWK's character. As I've said many a time before, it's not like you'd want to expose kids to a monkey running around smashing people's heads into meat patties.

I guess a lot of my personal frustrations come from the way there's a bit of a monoculturalization in the ways that western interpretations tend to lean heavily on the silly and violent sides of SWK's character while doing away with a lot of his intelligence, attempts to resolve matters through less violent means, and cutting out a lot of the actually pretty understandable reasons and contexts for why SWK does what he does in the classic. To give an example, one of the things that I find really interesting about SWK in JTTW is how he is undoubtedly a very violent monkey, BUT he's a very violent monkey in a world where many of the major power players, from the yaoguai kings to the Jade Emperor himself, are just as (if not more) violent as him. So you do for example have yaoguai like the Brotherhood of Lion Camel Ridge and the Demon Bull King being vicious man-eaters, with the Brotherhood in particular being described as living in a charnel house of human gore; the Tang Emperor, who Tang Sanzang is sworn brothers with, is literally described as a man who killed countless people to get his power, and we do actually see a lot of their ghosts his tour of Diyu; and the Jade Emperor, besides meeting out such vicious punishments as having Bai Longma hung in the sky and whipped 300 times before he was to be executed for accidentally burning some pearls, basically ordered the genocide of the Mt. Huaguoshan monkeys because Sun Wukong wouldn't surrender after stealing a bunch of immortality-granting treats that were grown/made, i.e. stuff that could all be replaced. So while SWK is definitely a vicious and frequently remorseless and ruthless monkey, this is taking place in a world where so is every other leader to a greater or lesser extent; Sun Wukong's just the most brutally honest about it. And the Monkey King seems fully aware of this and respond accordingly; his very first kill, in fact, was that of the Demon King of Confusion, who had kidnapped a lot of the children of the Mt. Huaguoshan troop. As is, you don't see SWK starting a lot of fights (he even often gives his opponents the chance to strike the first blow), but he sure is willing to escalate to get his way! Not to mention how it's ever-more painfully obvious that Tang Sanzang, who is always preaching nonviolence and compassion, would have been killed and eaten from the very start of his journey if he didn't have an ultraviolent monkey and multiple deities guarding his every step. And that dynamic does as such raise such disturbing and disturbingly relevant questions as: what chance does empathy and nonviolence have of surviving under these circumstances? What would it truly take to create a world were nonviolence and compassion are the rule of law? Can any ruler truly justify their violence based on higher purposes, or are we always dealing with a situation where might makes right? How do we persuade others, even those who can and have wield horrific violence, of the necessity of nonviolence? And does violence ultimately have a place in a world where acts of destruction take generations to heal, if they do heal at all?

IN CONCLUSION, I personally think that there's a lot of really interesting and important questions that the Monkey King and his story in Xiyouji raise, and while I am more understanding now as to why a lot of retellings don't even try to tackle half of them, I do find if frustrating that there seems like a real reluctance to even make the attempt. So you do end up with a lot of simplified versions of SWK, with a good chunk of them falling into the silly monkey, violent monkey, or silly violent monkey sides.

Like as far as lmk goes I'm kind of sad and pretty frustrated that even though they keep hinting at deeper or more understandable reasons for why their SWK is such a mess, Flying Bark now has a history of showing everyone and their mother yelling at SWK for being stupid and destructive and then going out of their way to show this monkey being stupid and destructive, and then basically waiting until the last possible second before suddenly pulling an increasingly unconvincing "maybe he doesn't suck THAT much" conclusion. Like...it's now been revealed that this dude, besides never even having a monkey yaoguai family he loved and was protecting, literally though it was a good idea to instigate a war against heaven with a grand total of 4 other guys even though that was clearly doomed to failure (vs. book SWK who was stuck waging a clearly defensive war against heaven with the entirely of his hundreds of allies and their troops), & even though it was definitely inadvertently he played a massive hand in almost exploding the entire universe with the Samadhi fire debacle. And that's to say nothing of how it increasingly seems like lego SWK is the worst Monkey King shifu out there. Could be that a lot of this is because the stakes are so much higher in Monkie Kid than they are in other stories where SWK has a tudi--as with Liu Chenxiang (who wanted the ability to fight his uncle Erlang Shen so he could free his mother Sansheng Mu) or Li Yunxiang (who was being targeted by powerful yaoguai and dragons for being Li Nezha's reincarnation & needed someone to protect him & help him control his abilities until he was ready to stand on his own), and certainly the unnamed Indian prince in the og classic (who was impressed with SWK & wanted to learn martial arts skills under him & who's life was never in danger)--but its genuinely disheartening how much Qi Xiaotian has now suffered specifically because of his shifu-tudi relationship to Sun Wukong. That's a reality that isn't even partially true in these other cases. It's the kind of thing that drives you to ask if the ever-more traumatized monkie boy would ultimately have had a happier life if the Monkey King never became part of it :(

Anyway, I hope that clears things up anon! If anything, just keep in mind that the Monkey King's character in the og classic is rich and varied enough to act as the baseline for a vast variety of interpretations and retellings, and that a lot of my complaining is about feeling that a particular retelling is going too far in its flanderization. People have come up with all sorts of characterizations for this monkey for literally centuries--and they range from a irresponsible and foolish demon to a honest and diligent holy being--but it does pay to remember what an important literary and religious figure he is, and what sorts of interesting and relevant possibilities he offers.

[shesnake]

“Monkey Man” was shot and completed in 2021, and Netflix soon after acquired the rights for around $30 million, but it’s been on the shelf for three years and they‘ve all of a sudden decided to get rid of it? What gives? It turns out, according to an in-the-know source, that it was the portrayal of a fictional right-wing Hindu Nationalist character in the film that worried Netflix about their future dealings in India. And even though they had paid more than twice the production cost, they decided to give the film back to the producers, which is what caused the long delay. Universal and Peele eventually took a particular liking to the film, so much so that they suggested possible editing changes and delayed the release until what they thought would be the right date. It’s as simple as that. In the end, it was all about politics and optics for the streaming giant, especially since India has become the current top growth market for Netflix. Co-Founder Reed Hastings has mentioned that a majority of the service's next 100 million subscribers would most likely come from India.

Universal/Jordan Peele's "suggested possible editing changes" in question:

[fluffyartbl0g]

JUST KEEP RUNNING AWAY FROM EVERY ENCOUNTER IM SURE IT WONT BE SUSPICIOUS!!!!!

Time Travel/Speedrun AU masterlist

[acidicwerewolf]

Zolu is canon. Doesn't necessarily have to be romantic, but their lives are so intertwined you just can't separate them. Doesn't matter what you ship or what you don't, or what you think of the characters, you can't separate them without changing some of the things fundamental to their characters.

[oddthesungod]

sorry i had to do this

[almacambiondaughterofsaleos]

If You Are Disappointed With What A Shit Show Helluva Boss Has Become Here Are Top 5 Shows To Get On Instead

Lacakdaisy

2. Villainous/Villanos

3. Monkey Wrench

4. Metal Family

5. Murder Drones

[theoddest1]

Throwback to when Zeurel, creator of Monkey Wrench, made vague posts about Viv.

This was one of the last responses to her that I found long ago.

[Nice irony, Viv. Almost understood why people don'ttrust anything coming out of your mouth. The only thing wrong is that, in this case, you're FULLY aware of your actions and refuse to shine the light on yourself.]

Here's Zeurel in recent times regarding anything tied to Viv

Here is Zeurel during Viv being exposed for being buddy buddy with Raph, one of her animators/story board artists who has a rape fetish

[alliekitaguchi]

I just know in my heart that when laura told travis she was gonna be portraying the raven queen, he grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her like a maraca and yelled TELL ME EVERYTHING

[sketching-shark]

Unfortunately for plot-related convenience MK has been retconned into a fake fan (;_;)

I'm sorry but lmk not being clear on what MK knows about monkey king is sooo frustrating. He's some how his biggest fan who knows so much until the story requires him to have never known anything and it's like... why did you set him up as a monkey king fan it then just decide "actually he doesn't know shit" bro grew up to adulthood hearing stories and somehow knows Jack shit about the guy he supposedly fanboys over.

[highlysusceptibletodisaster]

luffy (and in addition his crew) is an anarchist in the sense that i want everyone to be as free as they want

kidd and his crew are anarchists in the way that the government turned its back on my people and therefore it should not exist

law is an anarchist bc he hates the celestial dragons

[mostredactedbracket]

BIGGEST RISK TO NATIONAL SECURITY BRACKET FINAL ROUND

Ed Elric- child soldier uncovers national conspiracy and aids rebellion/government takeover

Jester Lavorre- involved in several wars on the side of herself and her friends, started a cult, tricked fairytale tricksters

Monkey D Luffy- pirate captain tries to find world government's biggest secret and exposes/stops all their bullshit along the way

[sketching-shark]

Hello! I hope your week has been fine. I've seen some of your Journey to the South stuff. Very neat! I'd like to ask, just as their (baby?) sister have the power to curse immortals to death, what powers did you give Luohou and Qidou? Qidou has a giant inkbrush and Luohou some kind of sun imagery in the back. What do those mean? Are those related to their powers? What personality did you give them?

Also, I hope you don't mind if I insert some LMK ideas (because I know you don't like the show's direction of SWK) but I have a thought that the Macaque character might be more palatable and makes sense as JTTW's sequal character if the character was originally a separate character from the SEM, just a monkey demon with extraordinary hearing who was friends with SWK, who was killed during SWK's journey, something SWK realized too late, then was revived but as a price, SAM'S soul latched onto his and sort of fused together, so now he's being possessed by the monkey that tried to usurp his old friend's life, while his body is slowly changing and his identity is mixing with SAM'S memories and feelings.

Just a ramble of idea here. You may ignore it if you aren't interested. Have a good month, eat your fruits and vegetables at least once a week!

AUGH so sorry that I've taken so long to get to this question @angstandhappiness (X_X). Part of it is me still finalizing Quidou and Luohou's whole deal! I'm honestly happy that you're interested in what I'm planning for those guys, though I do want to note that Quidou is the one with the mirror behind him and Luohou is the one with the giant paintbrush. I'll try to get some more sketches out for them soon :D

OUGH some of the asks I've gotten (yours included) have offered some really neat ideas on what could be done with Monkie Kid as it now stands! tbh a good deal of my disappointment with the route Flying Bark took with Macaque was the way they just wholesale threw away everything about his devious and terrifying evil twin self from the og classic in order to make him this angsty oc Shadow the Hedgehog clone, but honestly this suggestions seems like a pretty cool way to let og LEMH have a chance to shine in all his vicious and manipulative glory! As is WOW the scenario you've proposed presents a very interesting body-snatcher-ish chance to really get into how kind of creepy and honestly damaging to literally everyone Macaque's obsession with Sun Wukong is. Like it really lays on how Macaque has nothing defining his life or identity except what happens between him and the Monkey King, which does present a perfect opportunity for og LEMH to come in and be like "okay you clearly have nothing else going on let's try to murder/replace this guy again >:D"

[septembermonologues]

ashley constantly reminds us that Mister is a chonkers but its still like. haunting. to see him right next to orym.

[mangyraccooon]

Guys I’ve cracked the code on Dragons parentage

The hair is the same!

[nightmarebunnyking]

I also dislike/hate when people say macaque is the better mentor for mk,when he only had one good life lesson,I also hate when people just call wukong a horrible mentor and ignore all his good lessons in s1/2 and rest of the seasons,that help mk grow and develop.

Those lessons help mk to learn how to control his powers and are great life lessons,wukong may not be the best mentor but you can't say macaque is better,when it only one example of a good lessons from s4

I hate seeing comments like

"Wukong sucks as a mentor,mk should choose macaque as his mentor then wukong"

"Wukong still terrible mentor,he sucks"

Wukong knows his student,he praised mk,when he tried his best,even helped him when he was struggling,wukong handles things,when mk can't.

Wukong has great mentor traits,I hate when people ignore that.People who say wukong a horrible mentor after s5 are ignorant.

Rant over

[vivika-ka]

Tik Tok One Piece fans are so fucking boring, losing their shit over ships.

“uuuh it’s not okay to ship Luffy with anyone, he is aroace.” (What the fuck kind of clownery is this take, btw)

“those characters never even interacted for more than 3 seconds, you have no business making fanart of them together.”

“any sanji x male ship is awful and illogical.”

“shipping luffy with anyone is illegal.”

“if I ever like any Lawlu content, shoot me in the head.”

Like, did they ever learn how to have fun? It’s fanfiction for a reason. It’s a headcanon for a reason.

Also, they’re out there being straight up homophobic at times, and showing how uneducated they are when it comes to Asexuality and Aromanticism…

It’s embarrassing how they’re riding moral purity so fucking hard under the guise of “social justice.”

And by the gods, it’s so god damn enraging that artists engaging in their hobbies, trying to have a good time while building their own space with people that share the same interests, are getting harassed by people that can’t do the bare minimum of separating fanfiction from the source material and separating fiction from reality.