#but tripitaka... bud... what is wrong with you | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sketching-shark · 4 years ago

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LMK fandom: Oh, what do we do about this guy who has nothing but hurt Xiaotian, tried to replace Sun Wukong and his crew, hurt Tripitaka and ordered servants to cannibalize a monkey? Oh I know! We’ll turn him into our little meow meow~ he’s so innocent and Sun Wukong is obviously the villain!

What doesn’t help is this idea is perpetuated by multiple fan fic writers and artists for some reason. Especially some aus they make that turn SWK into a bastard for the sake of the story rather than considering cultural context and thinking they should be respectful.

And almost everyone lets them get away with it just because the art or fanfic is good and they get so popular that no one can point what is actually wrong without feeling like they’re going to get attacked.

I'm starting to feel like my blog is the one anons go to specifically to vent their frustrations about the Six Eared Macaque in his lego monkey show form & the associated fandom lmao. But I guess this makes sense, as I’ve had fun quasi-dragging him before & will in fact use this anon submission as an opportunity to have my own, to put it academically, bitch fest about not just this fandom's favorite protagonist-traumatizing meow meow, but about the way villains are often treated in not just fanon, but increasingly in canon works as well. But same policy as with the last anon; I'll post my opinions below the cut, and as fandoms love to say, don’t like don't read if you don't want to see me dunking on the six eared simian & common fandom tendencies towards villains.

Oh man I would say where would you even begin with this but anon you’ve pretty much started yourself with my main gripe with a lot of ways that the Six-Eared Macaque is portrayed in fandom; there seems to be this unspoken agreement that his acts of violence towards Sun Wukong, Qi Xioatian, and Qi Xioatian’s loved ones are either to be framed as somewhat or totally justified, to be immediately forgiven/excused, or to simply & completely be ignored. Like friends maybe this is just me not seeing the proper posts but while the fandom is inundated with art and fanfics of Macaque as a generally decent individual & a true member of team good guy, I have yet to see one person address the fact that this monkey literally kidnapped & mind-controlled Xiaotian’s best friend and father figures & forced them to brutalize Xiaotian while ol’ Six Ear looked on and laughed (X_X). Like this kind of fandom villain treatment is definitely not something that’s solely at work for Monkie Kid, but it is kind of nutty how fandoms will swing between yelling that people should be allowed to like villains without even mild critique, and then will just flat-out not address the villainous behavior, and will even bend over backwards to frame even characters who committed genocide as just poor innocent widdle victims who need a hug. At its worst, I’ve even seen tons of people in a fandom get really angry at other people who don’t like a villain, and will even start accusing those people of hating real-life mentally disabled or abused individuals all because they don’t like the fandom’s favorite literal war criminal. The Monkie Kid fandom is FAR more chill & better than a lot of other fandoms I’ve come across in that regard, but that is an exceedingly low bar, & the tendency to woobify certain kinds of villains-- as with Macaque and the extreme emphasis on his bad boy/sad boy thing--is very much at work.

I’ve also talked before about a kind of monoculturalization of certain character interpretations and story beats in fandoms, and one of the more popular ones that seems to be applied to Macaque a lot is the “hero actually bad, villain actually good” cliche, as observable from the general fandom assumption that Mr. Six-Ears he wasn’t even slightly lying or remembering things through a rose-tinted or skewed lens when he gave his version of his and Sun Wukong’s past. Like at this point it seems the possibility that people WILL NOT even consider is that Sun Wukong never did & still doesn't care that much about the Six Eared Macaque (in JTTW they weren’t sworn brothers & in Monkie Kid the only thing the monkey king really said to Macaque before attacking him was a pretty contemptuous "Aren't you ever going to get sick of living under my shadow?," & responds to his "beloved friend" getting blown up with "You did good, bud" to Qi Xiaotian, who did the exploding), or that their original fight may in fact have mostly been instigated by Macaque. After all, to repeat what this anon summarized & what I've said before about their original JTTW context (& in an example of the things that do feel like it's often lost in translation) is that the Six Ear Macaque was a villain not just because he beat up the Tang Monk, but because he wanted to take over Sun Wukong's entire life and identity so he could have all that glory, prestige, and power for himself. To quote the macaque himself from the Anthony C. Yu translation, "I struck the T'ang monk and I took the luggage...precisely because I want to go to the West all by myself to ask Buddha for the scriptures. When I deliver them to the Land of the East, it will be my success and no one else's. Those people of the South Jambudvipa Continent will honor me then as their patriarch and my fame will last for all posterity." And in order to do this, the Six Eared Macaque had apparently made Sun Wukong's "little ones," his monkey family, his captives through either trickery or force, and gotten a number of them to take on the appearance of Tang Sanzang and the other pilgrims. It's also made clear that in very direct contrast to Sun Wukong, he doesn't care about these monkeys beyond how they might serve him. In fact, after Sha Wujing kills the monkey posing as him the Six Eared Macaque not only all but immediately replaces him with another, but also "told his little ones to have the dead monkey skinned. Then his meat was taken to be fried and served as food along with coconut and grape wines." So this monkey is not only willing to risk the lives of a lot of other monkeys for his own personal benefit, but is also a literal cannibal. And yes yes, I know a lot of people have argued that Monkie Kid shouldn't be considered a direct sequel to JTTW & that's fair enough (for example, Sun Wukong probably shouldn't be smashing anyone into a meat patty in a children's cartoon lol). And of course, it needs to be noted that there are a buttload of really out there & really cursed pieces of media based on JTTW & that were created in China. Yet the above description is the oft-ignored in the west original facet of the Six Eared Macaque's character. And it is this selfishness, entitlement, and treatment of other individuals as tools for his own self-serving ends that is, from where I’m standing, still very much present in Monkie Kid. Like besides repeatedly going out of his way to physically and psychologically traumatize Xioatian, with the last episode Macaque seemed to be going right back to his manipulative ways. I’ve seen people frame their last conversation as Macaque softening to Xioatian a little bit, but personally that read a lot more like that common tactic among abusers where even after they’ve hurt you they’ll dangle something you want or need over your head (in Macaque’s case, the promise of desperately needed training and information about a serious looming threat), with the implication that you’ll only get it if you do what they want you to, such as, in this case, Xioatian going back to Macaque as his student even after having been so terribly hurt by this monkey, which would give Macaque power over Xiaotian and probably Sun Wukong as a result. And it is this violence and manipulation that it seems the fandom at large has tacitly decided shouldn’t even be addressed, instead leaning more towards a (and this is an exaggeration) “Six-Eared Macaque my poor meow meow Sun Wukong has always been bad & has always been wrong about literally everything” reading.

And while it is the case that I am not Chinese and feel that as such it would be best left to someone who actually comes from that background to provide more context into how common interpretations of the Six Eared Macaque from China may clash really badly with the stuff the western fandom creates, it also must be noted that, as much as we all want to have fun in fandom & in spite of all the out-there versions of JTTW from China, we westerners should recognize that there is a very long and very ugly history of western countries stripping other cultures’ important religious and literary works for parts & mashing them into their own thing while implying or even insisting that what they present provides a true understanding of the original piece. And while I trust most individuals in regards to Monkie Kid are able to step back and think “this is a lego cartoon and not a set guide for how I should understand JTTW” (especially given the insistence that JTTW and Monkie Kid should be considered there own separate works) there does nevertheless seem to be something of a tendency to take the conclusions people come to, for example, about Sun Wukong’s characteristic in his lego form & then assume that’s just reflective to Sun Wukong as a totality. I imagine a good portion of this is due to people not reading JTTW & especially to not having easy access to solid information or answers about JTTW’s many different facets (like geez awhile ago I was trying to get a clear answer on what is considered the most accurate translation of the names of Sun Wukong’s six sworn brothers & got like 5 different responses lmao), but that tendency to take a western fandom interpretation & run with it instead of doing any background research or questioning said interpretation is still very much at play. As such, & as made prominent in the way people have been interpreting the dynamic between Sun Wukong and the Six Eared Macaque in the lego monkey show, tbh it does seem kind of shitty for western creators & audience to sometimes go really out of their way to ignore all of this original cultural & narrative context for the sake of Angst (TM) in Macaque's favor, demonizing Sun Wukong, and shipping the monkey king with his evil twin (X_X).

And speaking of which, even beyond the potential inherent creepiness & revulsion that can be inspired by this specific ship given common interpretations of the og classic's original meaning (again, it's my understanding, given both summaries of translated Chinese academic texts I've been kindly provided with, my own reading of the Anthony C. Yu translation of JTTW, & vents from a number of Chinese people I've seen on this site, that the Six-Eared Macaque is commonly interpreted in China as having originated from Sun Wukong himself as a living embodiment of his worst traits, hence why only Buddha can tell the difference between them & why the monkey king is much more slow to violence after he kills the macaque), I'd argue that in the face of all the uwu poor widdle meow meow portrayals lego show Macaque is, especially if you include JTTW's events, still in the role of “Sun Wukong but worse” as he is very much a violent & selfish creep. Like he was basically running around in JTTW wearing a Sun Wukong fursuit, but there he had the sole reason of wanting to replace Sun Wukong wholesale so he could have all the good things in the monkey king's life without actually having to work as hard for them. But if you combine that with Macaque now claiming that he used to be best friend with Sun Wukong in his pre-journey days (something that's made funny from a JTTW context given that that status actually belongs to the Demon Bull King lol), his original violence has now blown into this centuries long and really unhealthy obsession with the monkey king. Like he's apparently gone from wanting to literally be Sun Wukong to being so obsessed with getting revenge on Sun Wukong that he's got basically nothing else going on in his life. Like he's only appeared in two episodes but...does he have any friends? Any family? A career or even a hobby that DOESN'T center the monkey king? Anything at all outside of his "get revenge on and/or kill Sun Wukong/use his successor as my personal punching bag” thing? Like dude! That is extremely creepy and extremely bad for everyone all around! As I’ve said before, this seeming refusal to see beyond the past or to do something that doesn’t involve Sun Wukong in some capacity is a trait that makes Macaque an interesting and somewhat tragic villain--he even seems to be working as Sun Wukong’s reflection in a mirror darkly, with lego show Sun Wukong pretty clearly not being able to heal from his own past which is hinted to be defined by one loss after another, and with Monkie Kid even kind of having these two characters somewhat follow their JTTW characterizations in that in the latter half of the journey Sun Wukong often gets sad & starts crying in the face of what seems insurmountable odds (& Monkie Kid Sun Wukong does seem to be hiding some serious depression behind a cheerful facade), whereas the Six-Eared Macaque retains a worse version of Sun Wukong’s pre-journey characteristic of getting pissed and lashing out if things don’t go his way--but it’s also what would make any current friendship or romantic relationship between these monkeys horrific. Although to be fair even the fandom seems to recognize this in an unconscious way, in that a lot of the art & fanfic seems to swing erratically between them kissing & screaming at each other in yet another example of bog-standard fandom adulation of romanticized toxic relationships lol.

At the end of the day, of course, this is nothing new. You'll find versions of this dynamic across a ton of fandoms and now even canonical work. And as such, I can only look at this kind of popularized relationship dynamic with a kind of resigned weariness whenever it pops up, & my frustrated question with the popularity of this kind of pairing is the exact same one that I have for a multitude of blatantly toxic villain/hero ships, given common fandom discourse & the tendency to either ignore or justify the villain's actions & demonize the hero: if you're THAT convinced that everything is the hero's fault, if you believe THAT much that the hero is the one in the wrong for the villain's pain and their subsequent actions, then why are you so set on them not only becoming a romantic pair, but framing this get-together as a good thing? Like I know we contain multitudes but that's waaay too many contradictions for me to wrap my head around. And it definitely doesn’t help that one branch of underlying reasoning behind this kind of pairing seems to be the ever-present “you break it, you fix it” mentality, where the assumption is that if you’re in a failing, abusive, and/or generally toxic relationship (platonically or romantically), if you put in enough time and effort & attempts to compromise, you’ll be able to restore/have the relationship you dreamed of, even with someone who hurt you really badly. And this assumption isn’t limited to fandom: I’d even argue that it’s everywhere in the culture, hence why a lot of people feel like they “failed” if they have to get a divorce or make the choice to leave an unhealthy friendship. Personally, I feel like people could really benefit from more stories about how it is not only the case that the people you hurt don’t owe you their forgiveness & you can still become a better and happier person without the one you hurt in your life, & that while it can be really hard it can also be a good thing to leave a relationship, even if it’s one that once meant a lot to you.

But in all honestly, from my own perspective this kind of pairing is starting to read far less like enemies to lovers and far more like a horrible fantasy where you can pull whatever shit you want, even on the people you "love," & never be held accountable for your terrible behavior or even have to consider that maybe you were in the wrong. It's another facet that makes me larf every time I see people insist that fandom is an inherently "transformative" or "progressive" form of storytelling like friends you are literally just taking status quo toxic monogamy & rebranding it as somehow beneficial & romantic (X_X).

But as to anon’s last frustration, it is hard to know what is the appropriate response with this kind of thing...like for my own part I’m keeping my frustrations to my blog & now increasingly to posts that you would have to click on the “read more” button to see what I have to say, but I totally get the hesitation to give even a mild critique to big names in a fandom. Like I've now seen it happen repeatedly where someone who has a big name in a fandom will make something that's kind of shitty for one reason or another, someone will message them with some version of "hey, that's kind of shitty, you shouldn't do that," and the typical response is either to blatantly ignore the issue completely, or more popularly to make a giant crying circus that seems deliberately geared towards stoking emotions on both sides of the, for example, fiction does/doesn't affect reality issue so that something that didn't even have to be that big a deal gets blown out of all proportion, with the big name often framing what often started out as a very mild critique into a long crying jag about how the initial response to their kind of shitty thing was so mean/cruel and they're just a poor innocent & that YOU'RE the true racist/sexist/bigot etc. if you don't agree with their opinion. It must of course be noted that there have also been numerous instances of people taking it too far the other way & sending not just big names but smaller creators literal deaths threats over stuff like innocuous ships which like holy hell bells people that’s a horrible thing to do. But for the big names at least, the end result of all this fighting is usually that once the dust has settled they have more attention/fame/money/power in the fandom than before, and with anyone who might have a problem with their stuff feeling afraid to voice their opinion lest they be swarmed by that person's fans. In that way fandom does often seem to increasingly be geared towards presenting an “official” fandom perspective about various facets of a piece of media instead of allowing for a multitude of interpretations, and with criticism, no matter its shape or form or how genuinely warranted it may be, being hounded out of existence. I feel like a lot of this could be made less bad if there wasn’t this constant assumption & even drive to think that a different interpretation of or criticism of your favorite work of fiction or your fanwork isn’t a direct claim that you are a thoroughly loathsome individual (& maybe also if people cultivated an enjoyment of learning things about important works from a culture outside their own, even if what you learn clashes with your own initial understandings), but I guess we’ll see if that ever happens.

So these are my general thinks about the Six Eared Macaque’s current fandom meow meow status & some of my bigger gripes with fandom tendencies as a whole. I stand by my idea that the most interesting & beneficial route for Macaque moving forward would be a kind of “redemption without forgiveness from the ones you hurt” arc--as I think was done pretty excellently with the character Grace in Infinity Train--and if for no other reason than gosh dern this monkey really needs to cultivate some sort of identity beyond his “Sun Wukong but worse” persona.

#lmk macaque #monkie kid macaque #6 eared macaque #monkie kid #lmk sun wukong #qi xiaotian #lmk monkey king #sun wukong #monkey king #journey to the west #jttw #fandom criticism #lmk

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skellebonez · 4 years ago

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SO, remember that thing you wrote a while back, about Monkey King and Mk time traveling back to the JTTW time period?

Link to said thing: https://skellebonez.tumblr.com/post/647766968590581760/18-for-present-wukong-and-mk-to-accidentally-time

THIS? RIGHT WELL, I HAVE HAD IT OPEN IN MY TABS FOR A REALLY LONG TIME AND WOULD LIKE TO GIVE YOU AN OPENING TO CONTINUE WITH IT IF YOU'D LIKE: PROMPTS 34 and 41

So. Time travel is funky. This is set post-Special, immediately pre-season 2. But has spoilers for events up to S2E7. For reasons. Side bar: sometimes time travel comes with some fun side effects. Fun for the viewer. Less fun for the people experiencing them.

Truth be told, I forgot they were even here./Can you teach me how to do that?

"Won't this cause some kind of... I-I dunno, time paradox?" MK asked in a harsh whisper as they followed the traveling group at the back of the line. "Or is this gonna be some kind of 'you changed one thing and now two timelines exist' kind of deal?"

"I genuinely have no idea," Wukong said with a sigh, digging at the uncomfortable but familiar feeling in his ear and trying to keep his voice down as much as possible. He was honestly surprised that it had taken MK this long to ask this particular question, but then again... they had other things to worry about. "I don't remember this, but that may not even matter. I've around for centuries, Bud, but even I have no idea how thing works for us."

"That is not a comforting sentence."

It had been a little over two days since the mentor and student had found themselves thrown backwards in time a few centuries away from home. And Sun Wukong could tell that MK was starting to get more and more frustrated as time had gone on. To be fair, they had made little progress. And there was... another reason... multiple other reasons. But most importantly, there wasn't exactly a power source they could plug the machine into that would give them enough juice to send them home, at least not unless they chance by a demon with lightning powers that Wukong didn't remember. No, instead they had to wait until they hit a storm.

One that was more than another two days walk away.

The young man did his best to not let it show, however. Most likely because of who they were traveling with.

His younger self lead the group, pointedly not looking back at them and keeping a watchful eye for demons that the elder Wukong knew would not come. He dared not bring this knowledge up, though, not knowing if MK had a point about that paradox. He didn't seem to trust the completely, but there was someone else he trusted.

Behind him was his former Master. The monk Tripitaka, Tang Sanzang himself, on the back of the horse formed dragon Bai Long Ma. Bai Long Ma had said nothing, as they were wont to do, and seemed to mostly ignore the two of them unless they were loud. Mast- Sanzang. He had insisted that the elder Wukong and MK call him Sanzang. Probably to help differentiate who was speaking to him if he could not see the two immortal monkeys, and also because MK kept trying to figure out which title to use for the monk and he took pity on him. Sanzang, after a hour's long explanation and from proof via MK's phone and knowledge of past adventures none should know of (and one very interesting game of staff trading between the two monkeys for a moment where the younger Wukong realized it was indeed the same staff).

Sanzang had not mentioned his crying when they met. Neither had his younger self. Or MK.

Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing took up the rear. Wujing had not said much to the two of them, but he was nice enough. Suspicious of them, but nice. He put more faith in Sanzang and younger Wukong (perhaps he should call him something else in his head) than his companion.

Bajie didn't trust them as far as he could throw them, that was clear from the way he kept glancing back at the duo with daggers in his eyes. He was immediately unhappy with their new travel companions and... Wukong realized with a sad jolt that he actually missed that. At the time he only found Bajie's contrary nature to his own to be frustrating but now... now he hadn't heard that in 500 years and he could see that while it may have been misguided at times (many times) it was born of a sense of self preservation and a want to protest Sanzang.

Even if he contradicted himself at times as well.

"You two doing ok back there, older me and Kid?" Younger Wukong called back suddenly.

"Yup, just. Hanging." MK yelled back, tone as terse and done as it had been for the last day. "Not like I can do anything else." The second bit was muttered under his breathe, most likely in the hopes even his mentor couldn't hear him. He was wrong.

Wukong felt... bad. Because he was the primary source of this rotten mood.

The staff digging into his ear for the first time in centuries was a reminder of that. An agreement between himself and his student to not bring up any undue suspicion and questions that would take time they may not have to get back home. They'd agreed that the group would also call him Kid, since MK wasn't as fond of the others calling him Bud for some reason, and the name was just... a smidgen to close to Monkey King to not raise similar questions. It was also a reminder that Wukong had let slip in a follow up conversation, away from prying ears, about why this may or may not be really necessary that he had planned to leave the next day in present time.

MK hadn't been happy since. Not with him at least.

"Bajie, remember to ask them how they are doing from time to time. Please?" Sanzang insisted in front of them.

"Truth be told, I forgot they were even here," Bajie lied.

Bajie glowered down at Wukong, throwing the fruit and wrapped rice packages in his general direction and not caring whether he caught it or not. There was a soft and disappointed cry of his name from Sanzang from the other side of the camp.

"Master and the stupid Monkey may trust you," he snorted, ignoring the call and looking between Wukong and MK. "But I don't. If you even so much as set one little toe out of like I will re-"

"Rend our souls asunder with your mighty 9 Toothed Rake, yeah," MK sighed as he used some of the water from his cup to wash the berries thrown at him. "You're Zhu Ganglie, Zhu Bajie, Tiānpéng Yuánshuài, commander-in-chief of 80,000 Heavenly Navy Soldiers. You will kick our asses. We know."

For a whole second Zhu Bajie looked genuinely surprised and... kind of impressed.

Then he scoffed again and made his way back to the group of five and watched them from the edges of his vision with less suspicion and more curiosity than before.

"Mei was right when she said he was kind of like Pigsy," MK noted, popping a berry into his mouth.

"When was that?" Wukong asked, doing much the same.

His student froze, looking down at his hands for a moment as if trying to remember something. "... not important. Let's just eat and get some rest, like Sanzang told us to."

It didn't take a Great Sage to realize something was wrong.

Wukong said nothing.

"Kid, we told you to stay back with Master!" Wujing shouted as MK peaked his head around the rock he and the monk were taking shelter behind.

"I know!" MK snapped, growling as he ducked back down and presumably curled in on himself. "ARGH I feel useless!"

Wukong winced at his tone, feeling bad. MK wasn't useless, to be fair, but without his staff and no backup weapons he was fighting up a creek without a paddle as it were.

"You're not useless, and you're protecting Tripitaka!" He shouted, letting out a yelp as he narrowly avoided a hit from a demon that should not even be here. Or, some kind of time anomaly mockery of a large demon. An enormous smoke or shadow creature that was far too familiar for his own liking. Not the same, something possibly cobbled together from time itself.

"Wow, uh, future me you're not doing so hot!" Younger Wukong said with a raise of his eyebrow as he blocked a strike with much more ease. "Aren't I supposed to get better with age? Like a handsome fine wine?"

"I'm a bit RUSTY ok!?" He snapped, slicing off one of the shadow creature's cloth tassels to watch it flicker away. "Haven't been many demons to fight!"

He heard a scoff from behind the rock before he felt the giant fist punch him into it. And through it. A Wukong sized hole between student and old master. He realized too late that he had lost his grip on his staff as it flew into the air above them.

"Alright, that's enough!"MK shouted, and before Wukong could even move to stop him the Monkie Kid had jumped into the rock and reached up.

"KID DO YOU HAVE A DEATH WISH!?" Bajie shouted in horror as he made to rush back and tackle him out of the way. He hadn't moved fast enough either.

None of them had, before MK caught the staff as if it was as light as a feather and twirled it around himself before extending it and launching himself at the shadow creature with a scream of rage and frustration and landing what would have been the killing blow had it not clearly been something not living in the first place.

It dissipated much as the piece cut off before it did, leaving MK to... give a confused yelp and fall into a heap on the ground. The staff fell to his side as he clutched his head and yelled in pain from a source Wukong could not see.

"Kid!" Wukong screamed, moving faster than he had during the entire fight to his student's side. "Kid, shit, MK! What happened?"

"MK?" Sanzang and his younger self asked softly in tandem as Wujing and Bajie watched on, all moving closer. But not too close, giving the two room to move.

MK didn't answer. He sat up, holding his head in his hands as he breathed deeply and tried to keep from screaming again before everything just... stopped.

His sat on his knees, hand hanging limply at his sides as his true sight shone in his eyes and he looked on forward blankly.

"What's... who is he?" Younger Wukong asked slowly as he turned to his older self. "What is he?"

"The Hero and the Warrior were like the Sun and the Moon..." MK muttered softly all of a sudden, just loud enough for the group surrounding him. His voice was slurred, almost like he was in a trance. "Their light a protective glow shining upon the world..."

"MK, where did you-" Wukong tried to ask instead of answering his younger self as he slowly stepped forward, cautiously, but MK continued on as if he had not heard him at all.

"Together there was nothing that could stop the two of them. Either in the Celestial Realms... or on Earth. As time went on, the Hero attained power beyond comprehension. As the Hero's light grew so too did his shadow and soon the Warrior was cast in that shadow. In the darkness, the Warrior was forgotten by the Hero..."

MK immediately slumped forward as he fell unconscious.

"MK!"

"His name is MK... and he's the Monkie Kid... My successor," Wukong finished as he laid a fresh cold wet cloth over his student's forehead. After he had collapsed it became obvious something was seriously wrong with MK, high fever burning him up quickly. They were only just close enough to a town for him to grab him and the staff and rush off with barely a shouted back explanation of "find us at the inn" to the rest of their group. "We thought that... keeping that a secret might prevent any kind of... weird time travel... stuff."

Wukong sighed. His explanation was weak even to his own ears. Excuses. Ways to make things easier for him.

He felt worse than he had just the day before.

His student laid unconscious still, fever burning even after the medicine from the town doctor had been given to him with water carefully. The only thing Wukong could think of was the staff. MK wasn't invincible like he was, maybe contact with it had caused a reaction from the time travel that couldn't affect the immortal.

"Why would you need a successor, Wukong?" Sanzang asked after they sat in silence for a moment.

Bajie handed Wukong the mortar and pestle he had been working with to prepare more medicine, something to add to tea when MK woke up. The pig demon had not questioned him once since they arrived, only grabbed what Wukong was trying to mix poorly himself and listened.

Bai Long Ma had changed into a human form, one he had rarely seen, and sat beside Wujing. They both also listened.

His younger self looked at MK in a mix of wonder and confusion and horror and Wukong could not blame him. The idea of a successor... he must have known himself what that meant even if no one else did.

"I hope I don't have to tell you," he said softly. He didn't look away from MK, even as Sanzang laid a comforting hand on his back. "And I don't want to risk what telling you might do..."

No one questioned him after that.

When Bajie prepared the next bowl of medicine for MK, Wukong took a chance he never had with the demon he once considered like his brother.

"Can you teach me how to do that? Properly?"

Bajie did.

"Monkey King?" Came the hoarse rasp of MK's voice ringing through the room, and Wukong shot up from where he was watching the stars in an instant.

"I'm here, MK," He said softly, still soft, not wanting to hurt his student in case hie head ached. "How do you feel?"

"Dead, but only from the neck up," MK groaned out, and Wukong let out a relieved sigh. He wasn't sick enough to not joke around at least. "Where are we?"

"The town we need to be in," Wukong answered, quickly working on adding the medicine into some now (sadly) cold tea. He had hoped MK would wake much sooner. "Storm is tonight... you've been asleep for a whole day. Hopefully getting you home with this medicine in you will make you feel better, you uh... you weren't doing so great before-"

"What happened to Macaque?" MK asked suddenly, looking for all the world like he had no idea why he would even ask that question to begin with. "Not the battle your younger you had. Before that. In the story. Sun and Moon. Please, I... I want to know. Just... just tell me something, for once."

Wukong froze, fur bristling and stiff and this was not the conversation he wanted to have with his student right now. This is not the conversation he should be able to physically have with his student right now because MK should have no way of knowing anything like this at all. But he had. He'd recited the story he'd heard before word for word from... Macaque.

This was not the time for easy outs. Not anymore.

"I've made a lot of mistake, MK," He started, lifting his student's head onto his lap to help him sit up for the drink. "And a lot of them are ones I didn't think you would have to know about. But Macaque... it's complicated, I know that now. I didn't back then."

MK sipped the tea but said nothing, only made a face at the taste of the medicine.

"We were friends, once. Back on Mount Huaguo before I went to the Celestial Realm, he became immortal in... other ways to my own. I was trapped for 500 years under a mountain without him, no one came to see me so... I guess he was never able to find me. Or he waited thinking I would eventually come back," Wukong tried not to think about how that meant he could have had trust in his friend and not for other reasons he had assumed for so long. "You know the story of the White Bone Spirit from our journey? How Bajie got me banished?"

Wukong couldn't help but chuckle. Oh, he'd been so mad at Bajie for so long for that. He still was, in many ways. But given what happened to him later on in the journey Wukong couldn't hold a grudge.

"Yeah you-" MK coughed a little, probably from not talking for a whole day and a sore throat. "You went back to Mount Huaguo."

"And to Macaque," Wukong continued. "For the first time in 500 years."

"I bet he was angry."

"No..." Wukong disagreed, shaking his head and thinking back. "No, he... wasn't. Not at first. He was ecstatic I came back. The Hero and Warrior of Mount Huaguo back together again, just like old times. But it wasn't like old times. I was already different, I knew how I treated others including the monkeys on my mountain hadn't been the best. And when Bajie came to bring me back... I couldn't help but wanting to leave back to the journey. Part of it was to get the fillet off, but part of it was because... I realized I cared for the others. I wanted to see the journey through with them."

"Macaque thought you were abandoning him," MK said after a moment, eyes widening. "That's why he took on your identity. He wanted... revenge? For you to have no reason to leave again?"

"I think he just wanted what we used to have," Wukong said with a frown. "I've been running from him for so long... over another 500 years. I've made so many mistakes in my life MK, but I think not trying to get him to come with us or trying to properly explain what I was doing... may have been the worst."

"... The warrior was never forgotten by the Hero after all," MK said softly before drifting back to sleep.

"No," Wukong agreed, though he knew he was not heard. "No, the Hero never forgot. The Hero never will, not completely. Even if it hurts."

The storm came on schedule. The machine was charged.

Over the day they came back their memories of the trip back in time faded into a distant thought, one that both mentor and student soon forgot to fear the loss of.

By the next day they had forgotten. Time had fixed itself.

But not completely.

The Hero never forgot completely, after all. There was something telling him in the back of his mind to check more on his student. He remembered a hand on his back that should not have been there. He knew how to mix something he never had before.

Neither did the Warrior, uninvolved in this adventure as he may be. He had plans.

And the one between them, with no title to himself, didn't completely forget either. He recalled feeling warm and safe. His head was on someone's lap. There were berries and someone not unlike one of his father figures.

The memories of what happened lingered, quiet, uncalled but emotions still there.

A short time later the one between felt that a play he went to was strangely familiar to him and needed to rush out before his head began to ache in memories he didn't recall.

"So um... what happened to him? The Warrior?"

The answer was somewhere in the back of his mind. If only he could remember.

#monkie kid #lego monkie kid #spoilers #gen fic #time travel fic #mk #qi xiaotian #sun wukong #monkey king #six eared macaque #(mentioned)#Tripitaka #tang sanzang #zhu bajie #sha wujing #bai long ma #prompt fill #LONG AS HELL

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skellebonez · 4 years ago

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So apparently in JTTW, Baije kept trying to get the monk to say the thing that would activate the torture headband? According to a post I just saw anyway. So I'd like to prompt something where Monkie Kid era Monkey King and Pigsy are arguing, and Monkey King brings that up, because it's kind of /messed up/. Preferably with prompts 25 or 47 because those seem vaguely fluffy and I don't want it to end /sad/ plz?

There are multiple times in the book (though it happened more often early on) where Zhu Bajie took full advantage of how much Tripitaka trusted him and made Wukong’s day miserable because of it, he isn’t the middle brother for nothing! The two have a better relationship as the book goes on, but as an eldest sibling I can tell you... even if you're on good terms later, sometimes you still remember the ways they used to mess with you... also I went overboard. Very overboard. This is really long.

"You have until the count of three to remove your arms from my person, or so help me…!"/ “Tell me what you want me to do."

Things had been going so well... at least as well as could be expected given they had only really seen each other twice after 500 years of Sun Wukong vanishing.

Their first meeting, their initial reunion, wasn't so much a meeting and more "hey I'm here to help MK fight because things are actually really bad and I totally don't already know who two of you are" and then lots of saving the world without the time to talk to or call out his once elder brother before he ran off. Their second meeting was not long after, Wukong coming to check up on MK at the shop and "oh yeah uh I kinda know your boss Bud". Which. Nice job revealing his secret Wukong.

That was a very interesting conversation, explaining to MK that he was indeed The Zhu Bajie from the stories and yes Tang knew and no only Tang knew and no he did not want to talk about why this was kept secret. Then it devolved into MK insisting the two of them needed to hang out together and then questions about Sandy and then how it was so cool that his dad was friends with his mentor. The at first befuddled and then completely shocked expression on Wukong's face as he finally put two and two together made agreeing to MK's insistence so much easier.

Easier than being pogo'd to Flower Fruit Mountain and then being stuck there as MK ran off to do "hero stuff" with Mei, anyway. At first it was awkward, being shown around the mountain by a man who he had spent years of his life with and was clearly trying to not look uncomfortable at the time lost between them.

Then the monkeys attacked. Well. Less attacked, more jumped on Pigsy in sheer excitement. It only took a few seconds for Wukong to cackle and pull them off him with the care of a roughhouseing father. Some of them were just little ones barely new to the world (he didn't miss how much more careful Wukong was with them), but Pigsy recognized a few of the elder ones from the time he had come here to bring Wukong back after the... WBS and Wood Wolf... event.

He also didn't expect any of them to actually remember him or to see Wukong acting so positively parental in comparison to how he acted the last time he was here. It was strange, he knew the Monkey King could be caring and that he had changed on their journey and must have become different over their time apart, but this was a side he had never truely thought he would see from him ever before. And he couldn't help but chuckle a bit at that.

It was like a tension line was finally let slack. They didn't simply slide back into banter, but they were much more relaxed. Wukong pointed out where he had been training MK, showed him to where his house stood (Pigsy wondered if he ever tried to rebuild the palace that had burnt down long before he visited all those years ago, but did not dare to bring that up either). The house was much more modern than he had expected, even having full internet access and TV and a kitchen.

He would never tell anyone about the passionate 1 hour conversation they had about cooking when he realized Wukong picked it up as a hobby. No one will ever know their debate/rant on how to properly prepare dough for steaming and how so many people do it wrong.

At some point they ate a lunch Wukong had prepared, much better than Pigsy expected, and that's probably when it went downhill.

He'd made an offhanded joke about people who use too much seasoning. Wukong joked back, asking if his underseasoned cooking was up to Pigsy's standards. Pigsy had shoved the monkey on old reflex, not hard and not nearly enough to move him, saying if he wanted him to compliment his cooking he could have just asked like a good big brother.

That had started a friendly wrestling match, not unlike ones they had had before and that drew a crowed of monkeys excited to watch. That wrestling match turned more violent before Pigsy had realized it and somehow, some way, they started actually fighting. He yelled about how Wukong had no right to just make MK his sucessor. Wukong yelled about how he chose MK because he was the most qualified and capable person he found. Pigsy shot back that he barely knew him before training him and if he had even bothered to try knowing him he would have known he was Pigsy's kid and he was a shitty mentor. Wukong screamed at that, scaring off most of their audience with the volume, picking Pigsy up off the ground entirely with his arms pinned down.

"You take that back right now, Bajie!" Wukong hissed out in a dangerous tone, one Pigsy didn't give a single damn about heeding in his anger.

"You have until the count of three to remove your arms from my person, or so help me...!" Pigsy fought against Wukong's hold, scrambling for any kind of purchase he could get with his feet dangling off the ground.

"Or what, Bajie? What!? Are you going to find another fillet and tell MK the sutra for it this time!? Are you going to make him not trust me like you did Tripitaka!? ARE YOU!?"

The words made Pigsy stop, but it was Wukong's tone that made him try to turn back to look at him. He'd sounded angry before but now he sounded... genuinely upset. Not angry upset. Sad upset. "I wouldn't do that."

"You did before." Damn it. He really was sad upset...

"Yeah... Yeah, I did." Pigsy admitted with only slight hesitation as he looked at the ground beneath him. "I'm sorry. About how I acted back then. I made everything harder than needed. I made Master hurt you and you didn't deserve it. More often than I'd like to admit..." There was a beat of silence before he decided to take a chace with a question that would probably upset Wukong more. But he had to ask. "How... how painful was it?"

The two of them didn't move for a while, Pigsy just hanging limply until Wukong slowly leaned down and set his feet back on ground. His grip losened slighly, but he didn't let Pigsy go as he rested his forehead against the back of Pigsy's head with a sigh. "Very. Very painful. It... the way it... Bajie, I don't want to-"

"You don't have to," Pigsy interrupted, raising one of his arms now that he could move to grab and squeeze his wrist. "If 'very' is all you want to say, I get it. I'm sorry."

"You already said that."

"And I'll say it again because I mean it." Pigsy pulled away, Wukong’s grip weakened enough for him to without even the smallest fight, and turned around to face him.

He reached up, Wukong giving him an odd confused look as he placed his hands over and around his forehead. Realization dawned quickly and he tensed as Pigsy felt the almost imperceptible scars hidden under his well groomed fur. For the band to have been impactful enough to leave marks at all, let alone after all this time... some didn't feel like cuts or stretches, more like burns almost.

"I'm sorry too," Wukong said suddenly. "For being an ass. I wasn't exactly the greatest travel companion myself at times. And for... for disappearing."

"I already forgave ya for the stuff on the journey long ago," Pigsy said as he pulled his hands back and crossed his arms. "Couldn't sit right with myself if I held a grudge for what you did after the shit I pulled. But I appreciate the apology for up and vanishing. And uh, I'm sorry for calling you a shitty mentor."

"You better be!" Wukong chuckled, standing up straight with an awkward crooked smile. "But, you know, I could stand to be a better teacher. You weren't wrong when I said I don’t know enough about MK."

"I could tell you a few things," Pigsy offered. "Nothing personal, just like how we met and what his job is like. To make up for the. Everything."

"Hmn..." Wukong made a point to rub his chin in thought, clearly about to do something Pigsy wondered if they would both regret. "On one condition."

"Tell me what you want me to do," Pigsy sighed out, fully resigned for whatever the Monkey King was going to ask.

"Cook me dinner."

... that... was not what he expected at all. "That's it?"

"That's it!"

That wasn't near enough to make up for anything in Pigsy's mind... but if that’s what Wukong wanted he supposed that was a start.

#im rereading the book and rewatching osps videos #i added in enough references to a particular story i think #i know it 99.99% unlikely the fillet left any marks #let me have this for one fill #pigsy #monkey king #sun wukong #monkie kid #lego monkie kid #prompt fill

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