#mt. huaguoshan troop

[sketching-shark]

While there's unfortunately no English subtitles, you can watch a Peking opera version of Havoc in Heaven free on youtube here:

Between the acrobatics, incredible costumes and makeup, and clear fun that the actors are having in their roles, it's definitely worth a watch!

[journeythroughjourneytothewest]

Chapter 3 Recap: Four Seas and a Thousand Mountains all bow to submit; From Ninefold Darkness ten species’ names are removed

We are now not very far into the story, but Chapter Three has given us some of Sun Wukong’s most (in)famous acts in very rapid succession! We begin with an account of how the Monkey King turned the Mt. Huaguoshan troop into a proper army and “practiced daily with the little monkeys the art of war.” Yet after some time Sun Wukong becomes disturbed at the thought that the bamboo spears and wooden swords the monkeys were armed with wouldn’t stand a chance against actual “sharp swords and fine halberds,” something that leaves all the monkeys alarmed and wondering where they might get such things. At this, four older members of the troop, “two female monkeys with red buttocks and two bareback gibbons,” come forward to tell the “Great King” he should get such weapons from the king of the Aolai Country, “who has numberless men and soldiers in his city, and there are bound to be all kinds of metalworks there.” Delighted at this idea and making the trip of two hundred miles to Aolai Country in no time at all, Sun Wukong uses his magic to steal the entire armory. And so the Mt. Huaguoshan troop, who are forty-seven thousand strong, became very well armed indeed!

Impressed by the assembly of well-armed and well-trained monkeys, the yaoguai kings of seventy-two caves all come to pay homage to the Monkey King, and even start bringing him annual tributes and joining his army. In this manner Mt. Huaguoshan becomes “as strong as an iron bucket or a city of metal.” Yet while the Monkey King does enjoy the ever-growing impregnability of his beloved mountain home and the strength gathered by his beloved family, he becomes deeply unsatisfied with the scimitar he took from the Monstrous King of Havoc. Coming forward again, the four elder monkeys suggest that he use his vast magical powers to visit the Dragon King of the Easter Ocean, and there request a new weapon. Sun Wukong is quick to make the trip, and is greeted with honor by the Dragon King Aoguang. The Dragon King then offers the Monkey King one weapon after another, each of which Sun Wukong rejects for being “too light.” Aoguang is left “completely unnerved” at witnessing how the monkey easily wields even a halberd weighing seven thousand two hundred pounds, and even though he protests that he has nothing heavier to offer Sun Wukong, the monkey insists he look some more, stating that he’ll give the dragon a “good price” for an acceptable weapon.

It is here that the dragon mother and her daughter suggest Aoguang show the Monkey King “that piece of rare magic iron by which the depth of the Heavenly River is fixed,” hoping that one way or another offering it to Sun Wukong will get the monkey off their collective back. Yet to everyone’s surprise, the Monkey King is able to lift this pole using all his might, and to his pleasure discovers that this metal responds to his request to become shorter and thinner at his command. When he finally gets it to the size he wants, he examines it and “found a golden hoop at each end, with solid black iron in between. Immediately adjacent to one of the hoops was the inscription, ‘The Compliant Golden-Hooped Rod. Weight: thirteen thousand five hundred pounds.” And so the Monkey King is now armed with his famous staff.

Aoguang and all his subjects are left shaking in fear seeing how Sun Wukong displayed his might as he mock fought with the staff throughout their court. They are left more fearful still when the monkey proclaims he must also have the “material apparel” to go with his new weapon, even threatening to “try the iron” on the Dragon King if he doesn’t give him something suitable. Aoguang is forced to summon his three brothers Aoqin, Aoshun, and Aorun, each of them also a dragon king of an ocean, in the hopes they might have what the simian wants. They are left outraged at the monkey’s audacity and theft, but ultimately decide that, as it would be suicidal to go against the Monkey King armed with his new “piece of iron,” that they will “assemble an outfit for him and get him out of this place. We can then present a formal complaint to Heaven, and Heaven will send its own punishment.” All agree to this plan, and thus give Sun Wukong an outfit composed of “cloud-treading shoes the color of lotus root,” a “cuirass of chain-mail made of yellow gold,” and “a cap with erect phoenix plumes, made of red gold.” Sun Wukong takes his new outfit and his new staff and leaves with a “Sorry to have bothered you!” to the dragons, something that leaves them even more enraged and eager to tell Heaven about the monkey’s misdeeds.

Sun Wukong, for his own part, is left “beaming broadly” at the praise the monkeys heap upon him at seeing his new finery, and gives them a playful demonstration on the extent to which his new weapon can grow and shrink. Soon after he performs “magic of cosmic imitation” and takes on his war form for the first time, a figure “ten thousand feet tall, with a head like the Tai Mountain and a chest like a rugged peak, eyes like lightning and a mouth like a blood bowl, and teeth like swords and halberds. The rod in his hand was of such a size that its top reached the thirty-third Heaven and its bottom the eighteenth layer of Hell.” All the yaoguai and their kings who see this are left terrified, their fear compelling them to continue paying their respects.

At this time, all the assembled yaoguai have a “great banquet of a hundred delicacies,” and “the cups were filled to overflowing.” At this feast the Monkey King “made the four old monkeys mighty commanders of his troops by appointing the two female monkeys with red buttocks as marshals Ma and Liu, and the two bareback gibbons as generals Beng and Ba. The four mighty commanders, moreover, were entrusted with all matters concerning fortification, pitching, camps, reward, and punishment.” This achieved and the absolute security of Mt. Huaguoshan and his family seeming assured, the Monkey King not only proceeds to travel all over the world making good friends wherever he goes, but also “entered into fraternal alliance with six other monarchs: the Bull Monster King, the Dragon Monster King, the Garuda Monster King, the Giant Lynx King, the Macaque King, and the Orangutan King.” For a long time this fraternal order of seven spend their days discussing civil and military arts while not overlooking a single pleasure, from exchanging wine cups to song and dance.

After another banquet at Mt. Huaguoshan some time after the fraternal order is formed and during which everyone becomes “thoroughly drunk,” the Monkey King sinks into a deep slumber only for his soul to be dragged to hell. Yet Sun Wukong fiercely “protests” this, first making the case to his jailers that he shouldn’t be there because he successfully trained to be an immortal, and when that doesn’t work he pulls out his treasure and “reduced [them] to hash.” Sending bull and horse-headed demons fleeing in every direction, the Monkey King fights his way to the Palace of Darkness and demands under pain of “a drubbing” that the Ten Kings of the Underworld bring out the register of birth and death and let him see if his death was a mistake. Sure enough, he finds himself as “Soul 1350…Sun Wukong…Heaven-born Stone Monkey. Age: three hundred and forty-two years. A good end.” Yet good or not, the Monkey King refuses to accept any form of death, instead forcing hell’s judges to get him a brush soaked in heavy ink so that he can cross out his own name and the name of every other monkey on the ledger. This accomplished, Sun Wukong declares that he’s truly no longer the subject of death and fights his way back out of the Region of Darkness. The Ten Kings, for their own part, could do nothing except “report the incident to Heaven.”

Waking and realizing that his escapades in hell were “all a dream,” Sun Wukong, the mighty commanders, the various other monkeys, and soon enough the six sworn brothers nevertheless are all “delighted about the cancellation of the names,” believing that “those fellows,” the ministers of death, “have no hold over us now.” And indeed, “from that time onward there were many mountain monkeys who did not grow old, for their names were not registered in the Underworld.”

Yet even as the yaoguai celebrate, the Great Benevolent Sage of Heaven, the Celestial Jade Emperor of the Most Venerable Deva, is presented with more and more complaints about Sun Wukong’s various crimes and exploits. Hearing about the terror the Monkey King inflicted on the Dragon Kings, the Jade Emperor declares that he will send his generals out to arrest the unruly culprit. Right after, the Jade Emperor also receives the complaint from underworld on how Sun Wukong is upsetting the very wheel of transmigration, “for birth and death are eliminated in each kind of monkey,” and as such there is now another request for the Jade Emperor to “send forth your divine army and subdue this monster.”

The Jade Emperor, now faced with more understanding of the power this monkey holds, asks which of his divine generals will take on the task of capturing Sun Wukong. Yet the Long-Life Spirit of the Planet Venus steps forward and offers an alternative: that the Jade Emperor, instead of going to war with the Monkey King, summon the simian to Heaven and give him “some kind of official duties. His name will be recorded in the Register and we can control him here.” If he obeys then Heaven will gain another immortal, and if he doesn’t than he can be arrested without any military might needed. The Jade Emperor is “highly pleased” at this idea, and delegates the Gold Star of Venus to inform Sun Wukong of this new (and somewhat dubious) honor. The Monkey King receives the Gold Star politely, is delighted at the offer of a place among the deities, and agrees to go to Heaven. This chapter ends with Sun Wukong instructing his four mighty commanders to “Be diligent in teaching and drilling the young ones. Let me go up to Heaven to take a look and see whether I can have you all brought up there too to live with me.”

Whether Heaven will become a monkey paradise or not is a question that will have to wait for the next chapter.

[sketching-shark]

Saw the expression meme. How about 2 7 11 and 15 for Wukong and his kids? You can decide who gets what expression between them. :3

Incredibly sketchy, but here's the immediate Sun family in all their expression-filled glory! From top to bottom we've got Sun Wukong, Luohou, Yuebei Xing, and Jidu. And thanks for the request anon; this is messy, but it was very fun :3

[sketching-shark]

do you think the rest of Huaguo (or at least the marshals and generals) have any opinions on their king's "love" life lol

I'm going to be honest anon (and I'm aware this makes me something of an outlier in the jttw-adjacent fandom dsfaewdq) but given how completely and sometimes aggressively uninterested in romance or sex jttw-canon Sun Wukong is I've come to imagine that the Mt. Huaguoshan troop would regard any of the people pining after him with either a "damn that sucks :(" or a "lmao get bent loser >:D" attitude depending on how much they like said piner (X_X). With all the shit that's gone down too I could also see them feeling pretty protective over the Monkey King. That's their communal grandpa, not your love interest!

Getting more into it though, while I unfortunately haven't gotten a chance to see it myself I have heard that the similarly canonically aroace 1996 SWK actually does have a pretty great scene between him and I think one of the spider women yaoguai about how he doesn't return her affections but he still hopes to be her friend, and that this works out well. I could easily see the Mt. Huaguoshan troop having witnessed a number of scenes like that themselves! SWK can be a refreshingly blunt character about what he wants and what he doesn't, and given the multitude of friends and allies that the Monkey King makes wherever he goes I could see him having gotten pretty good at being charismatic, reading people, and at times turning them down gently. That said, I do like the idea that he's usually completely blind to anything but the most explicit forms of flirtation or proclamations of romantic affection, which is something that can be very upset-making until or unless things are cleared up. His marshals and generals have likely gotten pretty good at subtly telling him when he's being flirted with so that he can respond accordingly haha.

All that said, I also do wonder the extent to which perhaps especially the marshals and generals Ma, Liu, Beng, and Ba have a lot of reason to worry about how some of the ultimately tragically messy semi-situationships SWK gets involved in with powerful gods and yaoguai will affect the overall stability of Mt. Huaguoshan. Like of course nothing blatant ever happens with Niu Mowang or Erlang Shen for example, but given how the former appears to have just fucked off after the war with heaven was over and didn't concern himself with what happened to the surviving members of the Monkey King's family while the latter was a major player in getting their king captured and mass murdering half of them AND burning their home to ash & then likewise not concerning himself with what happened afterwards, well you can see how that would stir a lot of bitter feelings towards them among the Mt. Huagoshan troop and maybe even some of the monkeys wondering if these guys would have been so vicious and/or uncaring if they didn't feel snubbed by SWK. They'd probably at least initially formulate a lot of hatred towards Zhu Bajie as well for his role in convincing Tang Sanzang to mistrust the Monkey King numerous times during the journey and occasionally getting him an extra round of headband torture time. And also for them having heard him insult SWK when he though he was out of earshot lol.

So overall I imagine that while the Mt. Huaguoshan troop usually sees their king's nonexistent love life as a point of least concern, when it comes to the intense friendships/rivalries/hatreds/situationships he keeps forming with these ultra-powerful figures it's along the lines of:

"My king you have terrible taste in men."

"I do what now?"

"Never mind."

[journeythroughjourneytothewest]

Oh this so so adorable @offishwhite​!!! I love how calm the color scheme is, how curious the monkeys look, and how happy the Monkey King is! It really is a fun composition for this scene. This really is a great design for Sun Wukong too; its always a delight when people give a nod to his opera makeup from Uproar in Heaven.

Late to the party but here's sun wukong showing off his new fit to the huaguoshan monkeys in chapter 3 @journeythroughjourneytothewest

This swk design is based more so on a combination of the 1999 animated series and 1961 havoc in heaven movie rather than the book description just because I love those adaptations a lot :)

[sketching-shark]

Just started the 2010 Journey to the West adaptation and honestly good for the writers to have a little Sun Wukong get immediately adopted by the Mt. Huaguoshan troop's leading couple <3

@kaijufluffs

[sketching-shark]

If you could reboot LMK how would you do it

WAUGH I could go on at length about this but I guess my main changes would be

A) LOWER THE GOSH DERN STAKES/ LET SUN WUKONG SHOULDER MORE OF THE BURDEN IN A COMPETENT MANNER

Said before that my favorite season of Monkie Kid was the first one mainly because its lower stakes and lighter tone meant that an episode's concern could be wrapped up in a satisfying manner in a 10-minute time period. But given Everything that's happened since then, the now routine world-exploding stakes of the past few seasons seasons are really starting to grate not just because it means one horrific trauma after another for MK and his allies but because the reasons that they happen end up re-enforcing the idea that Sun Wukong--even though he does obviously run around like mad trying to do everything he can to make things better once things have gotten to a really bad point and even though he doesn't ever intend for things to get as horrible as they do--is a genuinely terrible mentor, leader, and friend and an overall bad influence in MK's life. As such, I think that doing a more low-stakes monster-of-the-week formula with a focus on MK & co. with Sun Wukong mostly in the background doing other things but with a decent presence in the foreground to sincerely help when things got tougher for the Monkie Kid could create a good balance between keeping the spotlight on Qi Xiaotian and his allies in their adventures while still letting Sun Wukong be a caring and competent shifu.

B) LESS MYSTERY-MONGERING PLEASE

There's been much fun made of those who act like a plot not revealing all of its mysteries from the first makes for a bad story, and for very good reason. HOWEVER, in Monkie Kid's case I think that it could really benefit from answering some of its big questions earlier on so that characters could deal with them and move forward in their development. For example, I'd love to see an arc that's all about why the Demon Bull King and Sun Wukong had their big battle in the first place and what the ongoing consequences of it are. This could give them a real chance to confront how it's still negatively affecting them and their relationships in the present (Sun Wukong with his refusal to even try to forge new friendships & tendency to push people away, the Demon Bull King with taking out his anger on everyone and everything, even his own son) and maybe even let them ultimately move forward knowing that they can't be sworn brothers again but they can be better and happier people. I'd also love to see an arc that's focused on Sun Wukong telling Qi Xiaotian flat-out what happened to the other pilgrims that resulted in their deaths and the failure of the westward journey, and also that if he doesn't want to be the Monkie Kid any more with that information then he doesn't have to. tbh I think it would be great if MK's hero worship was shattered BUT ALSO came with the reality that if he didn't want to fight yaoguai any more then it wouldn't mean all of reality would explode because he actually could depend on Sun Wukong to keep the situation from getting that bad. So then Qi Xiaotian does go back to his normal life for awhile, but is still irrevocably changed by the knowledge that there's all this danger out there that the Monkey King is confronting alone. I think this kind of arc could conclude with a really neat reflection of the "we are all capable of being Sun Wukong" idea with MK, the whole monkie crew, and others ultimately coming together to help save the Monkey King and each other with some issue in a refutation of the idea that you have to suffer and die to atone and also be a "it takes the world to save the world" sort of story.

C) MORE MONKEYS. MORE ALLIES. MORE FRIENDS.

Fore sure I'd make at least some members of the og classic's Mt. Huaguoshan troop along with Sun Wukong's og sworn brotherhood be characters in legoland. There's a number of really cool things you could do with them, but personally I'd make it so that their presence and role in the narrative acts as something of a response to the yaoguai battles in the og classic. I think it would be cool if for at least a few episodes an issue isn't solved by beating the yaoguai in question but by finding some creative alternative to the issue at hand that would also show the moral grayness of other characters as well as let MK & Sun Wukong himself flex some of the Monkey King's less utilized abilities and powers. For example, maybe the monkie crew responds to a call for help about ferocious storms at a sea port. And when they get there, they discover that this is the work of the Dragon Flood King, one of the Monkey King's former sworn brothers. And once this is revealed, then we have to deal with the situation where one of the big reasons the Dragon Flood King is doing this is because back before he met Sun Wukong he was kicked out of the dragon king family for being "ugly"/deformed in some way (I did see a post suggesting that this is a headcanon in China), and now that the warlord days are over he's been surviving by doing a version of what Ao Guang did for centuries in creating a weather-based protection racket where humans are forced to give him offerings or else he causes floods. And besides the interesting issues this could open up with Long Xiaojiao and her own family, then we ultimately don't solve this by beating the Dragon Flood King until he disintegrates, but by Sun Wukong and MK acting as mediators between the dragon and a few rain and storm gods so that the Dragon Flood King ultimately finds a new home in a desert oasis that the monkie crew helps him create.

Also I think it would be cool if MK got more friends in the form of some of the youngsters from the Mt. Huaguoshan monkey yaoguai troop.

Just a few sketchy thoughts! I honestly do think that there's so many cool and interesting things one could do with Monkie Kid's premise.

[sketching-shark]

PLEASE I NEED TO KNOW—

How were the Huagou monkeys doing when SWK returned? And what happened to them, their home, after SWK became a Buddha (the other too?)

OKAY @sunny-days-and-warm-mournings so the story actually ends pretty much right after the pilgrims complete the journey and receive their new religious designations, so there's no word on what happens to the Mt. Huaguoshan troop afterwards. From what little I know of the 17th century fan sequel Journey to the South, however, one imagination is that Sun Wukong went back to live with them presumably as their guardian and king, and even had at least three kids (Quidou, Luohou, and Yuebei Xingjun).

In Journey to the West itself, however, the Mt. Huaguoshan monkey yao go through one tragedy after another. The first time we see what happened to the troop was right after Sun Wukong returns home after being banished for the first time from the pilgrim group. Here he sees the devastation that the war with heaven left in its wake even 500 years later, which basically left Flower-Fruit Mountain a withered and barren wasteland since Erlang Shen and his sworn brothers had burned it "to total ruin" after Sun Wukong was captured.

While he's grieving the state of his home, a few little monkeys run out and after excitedly greeting SWK tell him that in addition to living in a wasteland they're also being relentlessly hunted by humans. SWK furthermore learns that between the heaven's fire, migration to hopefully more fecund lands, starvation, and the hunters, the Mt. Huaguoshan troop was reduced to "no more than a thousand" from a population of 47,000 monkeys in Mt. Huaguoshan's heyday.

The monkeys beg SWK "'to take care of us,'" and the Monkey King starts this by slaughtering about a thousand of the hunters persecuting his "little ones," along with their horses. He then tells the monkeys to strip the human corpses of their clothes and weapons before dumping the bodies in a lake so that they can "ward off the cold" and start up military drills to learn how to protect themselves again. He also orders the horse corpses to be stripped of their hides to be made into boots and for their meat to be cured for consumption. After this, Sun Wukong "gathered together more fiends and beasts by the day, and he stored up all kinds of foodstuff...As he enjoyed wide friendship and great power, he had no trouble in borrowing some sweet, divine water from the Dragon Kings of the Four Oceans to wash his mountain and make it green again. He next planted elms and willows in front, pines and cedars in the back; peach, pear, date, and plum--he had them all. He then settled down to enjoy life without a care."

Soon after Sun Wukong restores Mt. Huaguoshan to something close to its former fecundity and violently ensures the safety of his "little ones" for a time, of course, he's called back to the pilgrimage. The monkeys beg him not to go, but Sun Wukong tells them: "Little ones, watch what you are saying. My accompaniment of the Tang Monk is no private matter, for Heaven and Earth know that Sun Wukong is his disciple [and therefore he's compelled to resume the journey]...You all must take good care of our property and don't fail to plant to willows and the pines in due seasons. Wait till I finish accompanying the Tang Monk and taking the scriptures back to the Land of the East. After that merit is achieved, I'll return to enjoy the joys to nature with you." So SWK does leave the monkeys in much better shape with both lots of food and the means to protect themselves, and seems sincere in his promise to to come back.

BUT NO ONE EXPECTS THE SIX-EARED MACAQUE. The second time SWK returns to Mt. Huaguoshan he finds an imposter on his throne who he describes as having "take[n] my descendants [the monkeys] captive," and indeed before they meet Xiyouji made it abundantly clear that LEMH doesn't care about the Mt. Huaguoshan monkeys outside of how he can use them as tools to achieve his own journey. Hell, after Sha Wujing kills the monkey that was impersonating him, LEMH instructs the others to "have the dead monkey skinned. Then his meat was taken to be fried and served as food along with coconut and grape wines. After their meal, that Pilgrim selected another monkey monster who knew transformation to change into a Sha Monk. He again gave them instructions on how to go to the West..."

So yes, not many fun times for the Mt. Huaguoshan monkeys after the war with heaven. Even so, their love for Sun Wukong and Sun Wukong's love for them is consistent.

[sketching-shark]

PREV TAGS FROM @lavaflowe BECAUSE OW BUT ALSO LMAOOOOO

i’m not dead i’m just working on a comic (NOT THIS ONE HAHAHA) and i’m the slowest man alive

[sketching-shark]

I say we gotta put LEMH back into the dirt. He gotta go

Im tire of him being v feminized and being treated as uwu poor meow meow

He doesn’t even actually have a name yet the name that describes him gets treated as such benevolence?? W a c k

Im hating on his moon symbolism, mf doesn’t deserve one of swk parents to represent him

awegrrstghsfds man you guys are really dunking on lego show LEMH on my blog today. But yeah anon the uwufication of the Six-Eared Macaque was kind of funny at first but personally now I just see it as increasingly annoying and depressing. First because YEAH for as much as people keep saying that Monkie Kid gave him more of a character it's still a character fundamentally driven by his violent obsession with Sun Wukong to the point where there's little about him that isn't based on his dealings with the Monkey King, & now there's basically 0 sign that he'll get to cultivate a personality outside of that (X_X).

Also definitely sucks that so much of the sympathy & background the shadow simian's been given is a direct result of the show itself characterizing SWK with increasingly frequency as a selfish destructive idiot who ruins the lives of everyone around him & fandom running with that. I've said before that one of my favorite things about og classic SWK is how blunt he is about the reasons behind his actions, and how even when he's being ultra-violent you can usually understand why he's acting that way. In Xiyouji the whole REASON SWK went after LEMH as furiously as he did was because this monkey not only badly hurt his loved ones in both the pilgrimage and the Mt. Huaguoshan monkey yaoguai troop, but was aiming to murder-replace the Monkey King so he could have all the glory of that identity for himself. But in Monkie Kid? Well it turns out that LEMH defended his bff SWK to the end only to be betrayed by a Monkey King who just completely sucks now I guess! And yes yes I know they keep saying we don't have the full story but come on it's been 4 seasons and we've only ever gotten LEMH's perspective all while SWK either runs around blundering into one catastrophe after another or gets taken out of the story. Definitely does seem at times like as a direct result both canon and fanon is gunning to replace SWK with LEMH so I guess congratulations to Monkie Kid LEMH for achieving what Xiyouji LEMH couldn't lmao.

And yeah I know I know things will probably get cleared up in one way or another what with skewed perspectives more of the story to tell etc. but as it stands it's kind of nuts just how much of the current hatred for SWK is based on the understanding pushed by the show itself that he's absolutely in the wrong for whatever went down between him and LEMH, all while LEMH is I guess forever defined by a guy he despises. Fully aware that things are open to change, but personally I see this as the worst end for both characters (X_X)

[sketching-shark]

do you have any theories about Rumble and Savage? How do you think they could appear on the show?

Like but I would love to hear your theories/ideas on Rumble and savagehear your theories/ideas on Rumble and savage

I'd like to hear your theories/ideas on Rumble and Savage.

asdgearfwd WELL @maidenofthecloud I know these guys were only invented to sell toys and That's It, but honestly before realizing the discrepancies between the lego sets and the show itself I had been looking forward to seeing Rumble and Savage in Monkie Kid! I was excited for Macaque to fully embrace the og classic Six-Eared Macaque role and be a terrifying villain, and getting some henchmonkeys/minions/horrible little skull sons seemed to potentially be part of that. Rumble and Savage could have been a neat callback to JTTW itself too, as there LEMH used the monkeys of Mt. Huaguoshan as his personal tools to achieve his aims, and what better way to signal this descent into villainy in legoland than to show Macaque being willing to bring other yao into existence specifically to be the means to his ends? I also imagined these skull simians to potentially be a signal that not only were we going to get to see more monkey yaoguai (maybe even some members of the Mt. Huaguoshan troop), but that LEMH would later down the line get to grow outside of his violent obsession with Sun Wukong. Having some more monkey yaoguai who were tied to him but then maybe started to grow some agency and resentments of their own seemed to signal that LEMH would have to deal with the consequences of his own misdeeds instead of always getting to blame everything on Sun Wukong, and the potential character growth for both him and the skull simians seemed like a cool thing to explore. Plus @ar-blackshaw came up with this really cool theory that Rumble and Savage were potentially tied to the Red Python Demon, which got me excited that we would get to see that giant snake at some point. Oh well! As is I like the idea that you came up with the other day, so that's what happens in the version of Monkie Kid that eixsts in my mind haha.

[journeythroughjourneytothewest]

Chapter 6 Recap: Guanyin, attending the banquet, inquires into the cause; the Little Sage, exerting his power, subdues the Great Sage

Providing a break from the war between Heaven and yaoguai, this chapter begins by recounting how the Bodhisattva Guanyin had arrived in Heaven for the peach banquet only to find the whole place largely deserted and no peaches to be had. Talking with a few gods who are still present, Guanyin manages to get an audience with an enraged Jade Emperor, and hears all about the Monkey King’s various crimes and exploits that prompted the Jade Emperor’s massive escalation. Hearing this, Guanyin orders her disciple Hui’an/Prince Moksa to go down to Flower-Fruit Mountain at once so that he can bring back “a factual report.” Moksa receives this from his father Devaraja Li until all conversation is broken up by “The Great Sage, leading his band of monkey monsters…shouting for battle outside.” Moksa tells Devaraja Li that he’ll battle the monkey if allowed, and his father agrees.

Old Monkey and Moksa engage in a “magnificent battle” until after “fifty or sixty rounds” an exhausted Moksa is forced to flee. Shocked at seeing his son so defeated, Devaraja Li writes to request further assistance from the Jade Emperor to capture the Monkey King. Agreeing to transport the request, Moksa is able to give his report on the situation to both Guanyin and the Jade Emperor, the latter of which laughs at the idea that one monkey monster could require this much effort to subdue. Guanyin then recommends that the Jade Emperor summon his nephew, Erlang Shen, to capture Sun Wukong. The Jade Emperor immediately does so.

Erlang Shen and his sworn brothers, the Six Brothers of Plum Mountain, are “delighted and willing” to obey, gathering their weapons and heading to Mt. Huaguoshan in “a violent magic wind.” After arranging themselves in such a way where Sun Wukong has little hope of victory or escape, Erlang Shen and his sworn brothers head to the Water-Curtain Cave, where the Little Sage first insults Sun Wukong for his audacity, the Monkey King calls him a “little boy,” and the fight between the two sages is on!

Erlang Shen and Sun Wukong battle for “more than three hundred rounds, but the result still could not be determined.” Unable to score a victory the “traditional” way, the Little Sage uses magic to take on a “green-faced, saber-toothed” war form “a hundred thousand feet tall," and Sun Wukong does the same. Yet seeing these warring behemoths and their beloved king in such a monstrous form “terrified” and “appalled” the marshals Ma and Liu and the generals Beng and Ba so completely that they entirely lose the ability to both lead their troops and fight. Seeing their prey in such confusion, the deities, led by the Six Brothers of Plum Mountain, go after the Mt. Huaguoshan simians with arrows, falcons, and dogs. They capture two or three thousand of their monkey foes. The rest “scattered in all directions,” and Heaven thus scores a complete victory over the yaoguai.

Sun Wukong, upon seeing his monkeys so thoroughly defeated, loses his will to keep fighting with Erlang Shen in their war forms “which imitated Heaven and Earth.” He flees with the Little Sage hot at his heels. Barred from running any further by the Six Brothers of Plum Mountain, the Monkey King escapes detection by transforming himself into a little sparrow, but Erlang Shen, using “his phoenix eye,” spots Sun Wukong and chases after him in the form of a sparrow hawk. The two then act as hunter and prey in a multitude of animal forms: Sun Wukong changes himself into a cormorant, Erlang Shen into a huge ocean crane; the Great Sage transforms himself into a small fish, the Little Sage hunts him as a fish hawk; Sun Wukong wriggles away as a water snake, Erlang Shen chases the monkey as a scarlet-topped gray crane. This ends when the Monkey King changes himself into a spotted bustard, which Erlang Shen, knowing that his beast “is the basest and most promiscuous of birds, mating indiscriminately with phoenixes, hawks, or crows," refuses to approach. He elects instead to revert to his true form and shoots the monkey with an arrow.

Though he’s sent tumbling down a mountain slope, Sun Wukong nevertheless “took advantage of this opportunity” and hides himself in the form of a little temple. Erlang Shen immediately knows it’s the monkey though, and the Great Sage leaps up and “disappeared again into the air” so thoroughly that not even the Little Sage can find him. Swiftly mounting the clouds and rising up to where Devaraja Li is, Erlang Shen recounts his duel of transformations with the simian and the monkey’s mysterious disappearance. Now knowing the situation, Devaraja Li uses an imp-reflecting mirror to reveal that the Monkey King escaped the Heaven’s net and is now heading for Erlang Shen’s home at the River of Libations.

The Great Sage, upon reaching Erlang Shen’s home, transforms himself into a duplicate of the Little Sage so perfect that “the demon magistrates could not tell that he was not the real Erlang.” The real Erlang Shen soon crashes in, and Sun Wukong, revealing his true form, engages the Little Sage in combat once again. The fight from Erlang Shen’s temple all the way back to Flower-Fruit Mountain, shouting insults at each other all the way.

While all this chaos is going on, the Jade Emperor is left wondering yet again why he hasn’t gotten any reports on how the battle is faring. Guanyin suggests that the two of them go to see for themselves what's happening, to which the Jade Emperor agrees. Calling for his imperial carriage, the Jade Emperor, his entourage, and Guanyin go to see the situation below, and find that while Erlang Shen and his brothers have managed to surround the Monkey King, they haven’t been able to capture him. To rectify this situation, Guanyin suggests that she thrown down her immaculate vase so that the Monkey King will be knocked down. Yet Laozi, noting that her vase is made of porcelain and susceptible to breaking, instead throws down his diamond snare right on top of Sun Wukong’s head. Engaged in “a bitter struggle with the Seven Sages,” the Monkey King didn’t see this surprise attack coming and is knocked to his feet before further being held there by Erlang Shen’s “small hound,” which bites him on the calf. Sun Wukong attempts to get up, but “the Seven Sages all pounced on him and pinned him down. They bound him with ropes and punctured his breastbone with a knife, so that he could transform no further.”

Their victory now complete, the deities began the process of retiring their troops and offering congratulations to each other. Erlang Shen further tells his sworn brothers that while he makes a report to the Jade Emperor of his success they are to “make a thorough search of the mountain here. After you have cleaned it out, got back to the River of Libations. When I have our deeds recorded and received our rewards, I shall return to celebrate with you.” And when he receives news of the Monkey King’s defeat, the Jade Emperor gives the order for him to be taken “to the monster execution block, where he was to be cut to small pieces.”

Whether this is the painful and disgraced end of Sun Wukong or not will have to wait for the next chapter.

[journeythroughjourneytothewest]

Another lovely series of quotations and observations from @loyaltykask! Many thanks for sending these over

Chapter 28

@journeythroughjourneytothewest

HE MAKES A POEM AFTER SEEING HIS HOME. HE WROTE A POEM AGAINST ERLANG

He never thought his mountain would be punished. He having a HARD day

We don't see a lot of takes of Erlang's side of the story and I wish more people were able to see him as a complex character. He is such a hero and yes the monkeys didn't deserve to be hunted down but the Nine Gernations punishment wasn't out of place in the time period and the crime that Wukong committed against heaven.

These poor monkeys deadass lost their weapons in the fight and how hunters after them. This day goes from bad to worse

So Wukong lost more than half his monkeys (who now were confirmed them all to be demons, not just monkeys) that 47,000 of them lost to almost more than 1,000. And saying that it has ONLY been in the last 2 years, the 2 years being around the time Wukong has been on the journey (it's been like a year and a few months at this point) is only a greater insult to injury than Wukong has been free this whole time and his monkeys were going through even more hardships without his knowledge

The ones that were dead were eaten and the ones that are alive were forced into entertainment. At least his Marshalls and Generals are still alive at this point

His monkeys HAVE heard that he was on the journey and were actaully wondering why he was back. Very interesting that they were so understanding of the duty that was placed on him. Love that honestly but also his family agrees that they were happy to see Wukogn back. They wanted to celebrate! They said they wanted to have fun with him again!

This is the.... what third poem that talks IN GREAT DETAIL about how Wukong brutally murders his enemies? Like damn, they want me to feel for these hunters. Listen rip to their widowed wives but hey they messed with the wrong mountain. A 1000 men dead in one go DAMN

Already Wukong going back into old habits Sanzang scolded him for killing 3 people and Wukong comes back killing 1000 for the sake of protecting what he considers his. I wonder if he really felt nothing or else he just letting his anger get the best of him refusing to think as those dead as 'people' but just prey that got in the way

Look at THEM

Oh now he missing Wukong, yeah he better

Love that Wujing like "he aint going to come back until he eats first" LIKE DAMN CALL HIM OUT

I'm not sure what this Yellow Robe's logic is AT ALL but like OKAY IF YOU WANNA HAVE HIM SUBMIT BEFORE EATING HIM DAMN

Wukong has his "Grandpa Sun" insurance while Bajie has his "Honorable Father"

Gilf vs Dilf

THAT SOME MISTAKE BAJIE

[sketching-shark]

I say For every emo lemh, we make 1 punk swk.

Thats how we restore the balance

LOL well in all honesty @birbs-n-cats it could be quite fitting to make the Monkey King a punk given his drive to live authentically as himself and his fierce love for those he cares about & the way he often moves against figures of authority. Double bonus that this would make him even more of the opposite of the Six-Eared Macaque, given that going with the og classic I feel like a hedonistic politician LEMH would be most fitting given that this is literally the monkey who lied about who he is to gain a position of power & forced the Mt. Huaguoshan troop to throw a feast for him that starred the fried flesh of one of their comrades as the central dish (X_X).

[journeythroughjourneytothewest]

Chapter 28 Recap: At Flower-Fruit Mountain a pack of fiends hold assembly; At the Black Pine Forest Tripitaka meets demons

This chapter begins with Sun Wukong feeling regret and nostalgia upon viewing the Great Eastern Ocean, for he hadn’t seen this area in five hundred years. He leaps over this ocean with a single bound, and soon arrives at Mt. Huaguoshan. Yet though it was named for its flowers and fruits, the Monkey King finds that now it didn’t even have plants “while the mist and smoke seemed completely extinguished: cliffs and plateaus had collapsed and the trees had dried and withered.” Readers are informed that after Sun Wukong had been captured and brought to heaven, “this mountain was burned to total ruin by the Illustrious Sage, Erlang God, who was leading the Seven Bond-Brothers of Plum Mountain.” Seeing the eco-catastrophe that had been inflicted on his beloved home, Sun Wukong becomes even more grief stricken. A poem he composes suggests the Monkey King hadn’t thought the heavens would have done anything to Mt. Huaguoshan in retaliation for his war against them, but that now he believes that “It must be for evil deeds in former times/That I should this day suffer so much pain.”

As Sun Wukong is giving voice to his grief, a group of small monkeys suddenly leap out of the remaining vegetation and kowtow before him. The Monkey Kings asks them why they were hiding themselves instead of “having a little fun,” for he hadn’t seen “even the shadow of one of you” since he returned to Mt. Huaguoshan. Every monkey starts weeping when they hear this questions. They then go on to tell Sun Wukong how ever since the Monkey King was taken captive, they had been relentlessly hunted by humans, with none of them able to “withstand those sharp arrows and strong bows, those yellow hawks and wicked hounds, those ensnaring nets and sickle-shaped spears!” As such, “none of us dares come out to play.” The monkeys of Mt. Huaguoshan now spend their lives hiding in caves, only emerging to snatch a few mouthfuls of grass or to get a sip of water. The monkeys then beg “our Father Great Sage” to take care of them.

Sun Wukong is very distressed upon hearing this. He then asks how many monkeys are left on Flower-Fruit Mountain and learns that there’s no more than a thousand left from an original population of forty-seven thousand. The monkeys recount how half of that number were burned to death when Erlang Shen set fire to the mountain. A half of that half then left in search of food because Mt. Huaguoshan’s environment was all but completely destroyed; there were no flowers and fruits to be had in the past five hundred years. And then the last two years saw the monkeys’ numbers dwindle by another half because of the hunters. They also let the Monkey King know that the hunters go after the monkeys not only to kill them to be “skinned and boned, cooked with sauce and steamed with vinegar, fried with oil, and sauteed with salt,” but to catch them alive so that they could be forced to “perform every kind of trick to entertain humans.”

Enraged, Sun Wukong asks who is in charge of the Water-Curtain Cave now, and learns that the marshals Ma and Liu and the generals Peng and Ba are the current leaders of the Mt. Huaguoshan troop. The Monkey King tells the little monkeys to report to them at once that he has returned. Ma, Liu, Peng, and Ba thus know to expect Sun Wukong, but they are surprised to see him as they “heard recently that you had regained your life so that you could protect the Tang Monk on his journey to the Western Heaven to acquire scriptures.” Sun Wukong tells all the assembled monkeys that Tang Sanzang is “wholly ignorant of who is worthy and who is foolish,” and that he had been given a formal letter of banishment from the westward pilgrimage. The monkeys are delighted with this news. They go on to ask the Monkey King “What do you want to be a monk for?” before then telling him he should lead them “to have a few years’ fun. They also call for coconut wine to be brought out “for the reception of Father. Sun Wukong, however, has different plans.

Asking Ma and Liu how often the hunters come to Mt. Huaguoshan to attack the monkeys, the Monkey King learns that they “are here every day to make trouble.” He then orders the monkeys to collect the rocks “that have been burned to small pieces,” and then to pile them in groups of thirty or sixty pieces up on the mountain. The little monkeys leap into action to do so. After they finish, Sun Wukong tells the “little ones” to “go hide in the cave. Let old Monkey exercise his magic.” It isn’t long before Sun Wukong spots “over a thousand men and horses approaching from the southern half of the mountain. Beating drums and striking gongs, they were holding spears and swords, leading hawks and hounds…they appeared to be most ferocious indeed.” They are, however, no match for a “terribly angry” Monkey King. “Making the magic sign with his fingers and reciting a spell, he drew in a breath facing the southwest and blew it out. At once a violent wind arose…that blew up and scattered those rock pieces in every direction.” In this way “those thousand-odd hunters and horses” are killed; “The rocks broke their dark heads to pieces.”

At the sight of this carnage, Sun Wukong “clapped his hands and roared with laughter.” He goes on to berate Tang Sanzang’s advice to refrain from perpetuating violence, for through it “it was the merest trifle to finish off all those hunters” and save the remaining monkeys. The Monkey King then tells the little monkeys to come out and to “strip the dead hunters of their clothes” so that they can wash out the bloodstains and wear them to keep warm. He also tells them to push the human corpses into a deep mountain lake, but to make sure to collect the horses’ corpses for their hides and their meat as well as the hunters’ weapons and their banners. He uses these to make himself “a large banner of many colors,” upon which he writes “The Flower-Fruit Mountain Rebuilt, the Water-Curtain Cave Restored—Great Sage, Equal to Heaven.” In the proceeding days, Sun Wukong gathers more allies in the forms of “fiends and beasts,” as well as stores up all kinds of foodstuff. He also borrows “some sweet, divine water from the Dragon Kings of the Four Oceans to wash his mountain and make it green again. He next planted elms and willows in front, pines and cedars in the back; peach, pear, date, and plum—he had them all. He then settled down to enjoy life without a care.”

Meanwhile, the rest of the pilgrims, traveling ever onwards, soon find themselves in a large pine forest. Tang Sanzang is worried that they won’t be able to continue because the path is overgrown, and that they might “run into some friends or monstrous beasts.” Zhu Bajie, however, uses his muckrake to clean a path through the forest. Soon enough, however, Tripitaka gets really hungry, and asks Zhu Bajie to get him some vegetarian food. The former marshal agrees to do so, but even after he walks out of the pine forest and ten miles beyond that he can’t find a single household. He soon decides to take a nap to “while away another hour or so” before he goes back to the rest of the pilgrims. And so, finding a good patch of grass, Zhu Bajie soon falls into “a deep, snoring slumber.”

In the meantime, Tang Sanzag is becoming more and more restless, anxious, and in all likelihood irritated as to how long it’s taking Zhu Bajie to return from his food trip. Tripitaka finally asks Sha Wuing why it’s taking so long for Zhu Wuneng to return, to which the sand monk states that when the pig yaoguai “sees how many families there are in this region of the West who love to feed monks, he’s not going to worry about you, is he, especially when he has so large a stomach!” Tang Sanzang agrees, but also wonders where they’re going to meet back up with Zhu Bajie, as it’s getting late and they had better leave the forest before it does so. Sha Wujing tells Tripitaka not to worry, and offers to go search for their swinish companion as well as for shelter. Tang Sanzang agrees to this plan, and is thus left alone.

Soon becoming weary, fatigued, and depressed, Tripitaka decides to take a walk in the forest, and soon becomes hopelessly lost. Yet it also doesn’t take him long to stumble upon a “bejeweled pagoda, whose golden dome was gleaming in the rays of the setting sun.” Noting again his vow to “burn incense in every temple, to worship Buddha when I saw an image of Buddha, and to sweep a pagoda if I came upon a pagoda,” Tang Sanzang decides to walk to the structure and see if he can ask for lodging for the night. Yet no sooner does he walk inside the pagoda when he finds “a monster asleep on a stone couch,” which the text tells us is a very powerful yaoguai. Tripitaka “retreated in horror,” but the yaoguai orders his “little ones” to chase down and capture the monk. Tang Sanzang tries to flee, but he’s soon caught and hauled back. The yaoguai demands Tripitaka tells him who he is, and the monk gives a true account of who he is. The yaoguai “roared with laughter” upon hearing this, for Tang Sanzang is “exactly the person I want to eat.” On the yaoguai’s orders, Tripitaka is tied to a pillar. The old yaoguai, “grasping his scimitar,” then interrogates Tang Sanzang further about who’s accompanying him on the westward pilgrimage. The monk informs the monster that his party is made up of Zhu Bajie, Sha Wujing, and a white horse. The old yaoguai says that this is true luck, as the four of them are “enough for a meal.” He also decides to wait for the rest of the pilgrims to come for him, as “Business at one’s own door is easier to do.”

Elsewhere, Sha Wujing, after searching high and low, finally finds Zhu Bajie talking in his sleep. After some arguing, the two then head back into the forest, only to find that “their master was nowhere to be seen.” This incites the sand monk to berate the former marshal, stating that it’s his fault the party got split up and Tang Sanzang likely captured by a yaoguai. Zhu Bajie, however, but laughs, stating that the forest “is a pure, lovely place and it definitely cannot harbor a monster.” The pig yaoguai guesses that “that old priest cannot sit still and has gone sightseeing somewhere.” And so they set off in search of their shifu, Bai Longma in tow.

It isn’t long before they spot beams of golden light coming from the pagoda, with Zhu Bajie declaring that Tang Sanzang must have walked to it and that they will surely be treated to a vegetarian meal. Sha Wujing, however, is more suspicious, and recommends that they be cautious when approaching. Sure enough, when they get close they find that the pagoda is actually the Casserole Mountain, Current-Moon Cave, thus showing itself to not be a monastery but rather the “cave-dwelling of a monster.” Zhu Bajie tells Sha Wujing to guard the horse and luggage, and goes to confront the yaoguai in the cave by himself. The master of this cave, now named as the Yellow Robe Demon, is pleased to learn of this, and goes out to battle with Sha Wuing and Zhu Bajie.

The pilgrims demand their shifu back. The Yellow Robe Demon laughingly admits that he does have the Tang Monk in his custody, and that he was “just preparing some buns filled with human flesh for him to enjoy,” and that they’re welcome to such foodstuff as well. Zhu Bajie “would have gone inside immediately if Sha Monk had not pulled him back.” Right after the pig yaoguai realized he was being deceived, he begins a battle with the Yellow Robe Demon, the two of them using magic to fight in midair. Sha Wujing also joins in, but even though they clash “for scores of times…a decision could not be reached.” And it is here where the chapter ends.

[sketching-shark]

idk if youre still doing the sexuality/gender/brotp/notp/etc ask game but if you are, how about the great sun wukong himself?

AUGH haha given my interests I suppose this was just a matter of time before I got this ask. I hope I do the Qitian Dasheng justice!

Sexuality Headcanon: aroace Gender Headcanon: trans man (I've found @antidotefortheawkward's arguments in this regard to be pretty convincing & pretty fitting with the Monkey King's extraordinary efforts to transform himself into the being HE wants to be) A ship I have with said character: I don't really ship him with anyone. As it is, he seems to have precisely 0% interest in romance in the og classic & many retellings. A BROTP I have with said character: Of course I have to say Sun Wukong and the pilgrim group! But also the Monkey King and the other six yaoguai kings/sages (especially the Demon Bull King) from his pre-journey days! I know these BROTPs represent two almost diametrically opposed parts of SWK's life, but I think they're both very important for the makeup of his character. A NOTP I have with said character: lots of people pairing him with Tang Sanzang or the Six Eared Macaque and for me it's hard to tell what's worse (X_X). Because in one it's like "that's his entire tudi who frequently treats him like shit" & the other is like "that's his entire evil twin who literally tried to murder-replace him." A random headcanon: The Monkey King takes his duties as both the king and communal grandpa of Mt. Huaguoshan very seriously, which means that every day there's a hours-long mandated "play with yeye" time in which SWK monkeys around with any of his "little ones" who feel like it. He especially likes interacting with the very young and very old members of the Mt. Huaguoshan monkey yaoguai troop. General Opinion over said character: one of the coolest guys ever! He's a king he's a scholar he's a doctor he's a warlord he's a warrior he's a protector he's a buddha he's a monkey he's selfish and selfless and caring and cruel and powerful and vulnerable and always tries so hard to do the best he can he's an amalgamation of all the paradoxes that go into making a human mind and definitely a being who deserves to be respected the world over.