#I guess we'll just have to wait and see

[pompomqt]

Journey to the West Chapter 30

In this chapter of Journey to the West with @journeythroughjourneytothewest we finally get to see the dragon horse shine! For what might be the first and last time. So let's get into it shall we?

So we start this chapter with checking in on Sandy and seeing how he's fairing with the whole 'being captured' thing. Luckily he's not currently being killed or beaten yet so that's something at least. Instead the demon is to busy pondering what they are doing back here after he already let Tripitaka go. The Demon concludes that his wife must have sent a letter with Tripitaka to the kingdom, so he goes to violently confront her about it.

So the demon starts yelling at the princess that she's ungrateful for all he does for her since she wants to go home and such. And the Princess is terrified by this behavior and denies sending any letter. And the Demon tells her he has a witness to it, and so they go to ask Sandy about it. Thankfully Sandy, unlike Pigsy does have two brain cells to rub together, so when he see's the monster dragging his wife out by the hair in a horrifying display of domestic violence and threatening her with a blade, he decides to cover for the girl.

So when the monster asks Sandy if the Princess sent a letter back home, Sandy lies and says that while they were here Tripitaka just happened to see her and remembered her. So when they made it to the Princesses kingdom Tripitaka was able to recognize her portrait and tell the king about it, so that's why they are here. A letter had nothing to do about it.

Luckily the demon immediately believes him, and starts acting all sweet to his wife again. And the wife instantly believes him! Learn to watch for red flags kids. Anyways but at least the princess uses this opportunity to have Sandy untied and just locked up instead so that's something I guess. Unfortunately the Demon decides that he should pay his father in law a little visit after all, which the princess is of course strongly against on account of her husband being a terrifying demon and all. However with a little shapeshifting magic, that excuse goes right out the window as the demon transforms into a perfectly handsome human man. So after his wife warns him not to become so drunk he reveals his true appearance, the demon flies off.

So the Demon arrives at the palace and introduces himself as the king's third Son in Law. The King's minister's figure that this must be the demon that kidnapped the princess but... they can't really keep him out anyways, so might as well invite him in anyways and spare everyone the hassle. Unfortunately once they invite him in, pretty much everyone in the place is fooled by his human disguise. So the King questions the demon on who he is and where he comes from, and also why he married his daughter without permission.

The demon of course starts spinning a tale about how he found the princess getting attacked by a tiger so he swooped in and saved her. And since she never told him that she was a princess, he married her and they've been living together for thirteen years. He says that he was going to kill the tiger, but his wife convinced him to spare it. However that tiger evidently became a spirit through self cultivation, and killed the Tang Monk Pilgrimage and stole their travel documents. And gasp! Look the tiger demon is right there disguised as a monk! And with that the Demon wraps Tripitaka in the illusion of a tiger.

So the palace guards immediately go in for that attack and try and kill Tripitaka, but luckily even with Sandy and Pigsy down for the count, he still has all those celestial gods on his side, so they protect him. Also man, I hope those gods have been getting paid overtime since Sun Wukong left, they seem to be doing a lot more work now that he's gone then they had to do previously. Anyways, since killing Tripitaka isn't working, they decide to just lock him up instead.

With the 'Tiger Demon' dealt with for the time being the King throws a banquet to thank his new son in law. After the party winds down and everyone retires for the night, the Demon does exactly what his wife tells him to do, and drinks some alcohol and reverts to his true form. He then proceeds to eat one of the serving girls while the rest run away to hide.

Meanwhile the rumor that the Tang Monk is actually a monster has spread far enough to even reach the ears of a horse. So the dragon horse hears about how Tripitaka has been imprisoned, but all of Tripitaka's usual rescuers are gone. And so for the very first time this entire journey- the horse decides to try and do something useful to save Tripitaka. Shocking I know. So the horse reverts to his true form a dragon, and takes to the skies to scope the place out.

So the Dragon Prince manages to find the demon, who is currently drinking wine and still eating that attendant he killed earlier. So the Dragon decides to see if he can defeat this demon in order to rescue Tripitaka. So the Dragon transforms himself into a palace maiden and approaches the Demon on the excuse of being a wine server. The Demon allows it, so the Dragon does a little trick called 'Magic of Water Restriction, which enables him to pour the wine to overfill the glass by half an inch without spilling. He also ups the anti and proceeds to fill the cup until it is about thirteen inches overfilled. The Demon is amused by this party trick and asks the Dragon if they can sing. So the Dragon picks a little tune and does so. Next the Demon asks if they know how to dance. The Dragon says they can, but it won't look as nice since they are empty handed, in response the demon hands them their own sword. So, so far, everything is going according to Keikaku.

So the Dragon performs a beautiful sword dance until they spot their opening when the demon is distracted and takes a swing at them. Unfortunately the Demon dodges their first strike, and is now ready for them. So the Dragon returns to his true form and takes this fight to the air. Unfortunately the dragon doesn't do any better against the demon then Pigsy and Sandy did. Before to long the Dragon tries hurling the sword at them only for the demon to catch it and uno reverse the attack. Throwing a candelabrum at the dragon and injuring his leg. Knowing this is a fight they can't win, the Dragon does a strategic retreat into a nearby moat and hides there until the demon leaves. After that, the Dragon leaves the moat in order to return to the stables and turns back into a horse to mope. A for effort Dragon Horse, better luck next time.

Meanwhile Pigsy has finally woken up from his nap in the bushes and decides he should probably return to Tripitaka in order to figure out a new plan for rescuing Sandy. So Pigsy returns to the palace but doesn't see Tripitaka anywhere, he does however find their horse- soaking wet with an injured leg. At first Pigsy assumes that someone must have robbed Tripitaka and wounded the horse in the process- until the horse decides to speak up for themselves. This greatly surprises Pigsy, enough so that he tries to make a run for it, before the horse grabs him by his teeth to hold him back.

Then the horse proceeds to completely lay into Pigsy saying how it's all his fault for boasting about his abilities despite not having the power to actually defeat the demon. He also tells him about the trouble Tripitaka has gotten himself into, as well as his own failed attempt at fighting the demon. Pigsy's response to all this is basically 'Welp, that all sucks, anyways, you should just go home to the ocean and I'll just go home to my own kidnapped wife and we can forget all about this questing business.

The horse however isn't willing to give up so easily, and tearfully says that the best way to fix this will be to bring 'That Person' back into the fold. The person in question of course being Sun Wukong, who without a doubt actually is capable of subduing the demon and rescuing Tripitaka. Pigsy on the other hand isn't to enthused about this plan, him and Monkey didn't exactly part on good terms. After all, it was Pigsy's fault for goading Tripitaka into kicking Monkey out of the group in the first place. Monkey definitely hates him now and will probably hit him if he see's him- which would kill Pigsy.

The Horse suggests that instead of telling Monkey that Tripitaka is in danger, just tell him that their master just misses him, and when Monkey comes and see's the trouble, he'll just defeat the demon no problem. Pigsy finally agree's to go, but says that if he fails to convince Monkey to return, that he won't be coming back either.

So Pigsy makes his way to Flower Fruit Mountain and see's Sun Wukong ruling over all his monkey subjects, which Pigsy thinks is a pretty good deal, way better then being a monk. Anyways, Pigsy tries to blend in with the crowd, only for Monkey to spot him and call him out for being suspicious immediately. So all the little monkeys immediately push him to the front for Monkey to evaluate him.

Anyways, Monkey recognizes him as Pigsy and asks why he isn't with Tripitaka. He questions if Pigsy has been banished to, and requests to see his letter of banishment. Pigsy denies that he has been banished and just says that he's here because Tripitaka just missed him and wants to invite him back. Monkey however isn't buying it after all on the day he banished him, Tripitaka swore to heaven that he would never take him as a disciple again. Pigsy insists that it's true that Tripitaka misses him and says that once when Tripitaka was riding the horse he called out 'disciple' only for Sand and Pigsy not to respond. And that Tripitaka then proceeded to say that only Monkey was smart and alert enough to answer when called. He says that Tripitaka then sent Pigsy to bring Monkey back, so would he please come for the sake of him having traveled all this way?

Monkey however isn't in a rush to go back, so instead he invites Pigsy on a grand tour of Flower Fruit Mountain, and Pigsy had no way to refuse. Pigsy is very impressed by Sun Wukong's home, so the two of them waste away the day just hanging out and eating fruit. Before to long though Pigsy decides he should probably try and persuade Wukong to come with him again before it's to late. So Pigsy tries to tell him that he shouldn't keep their master waiting but Monkey is just like 'alright then, we'll part ways here. See you.' When Pigsy asks if Wukong isn't coming with him Wukong says 'Nah, I got a great thing going here, why become a monk? Anyways, tell Tripitaka to lose my number.'

Not seeing anyway to convince him, Pigsy takes his leave. Monkey however is a bit suspicious of what Pigsy will say behind his back, so he has two little monkey's secretly follow him. And sure enough once he's a couple miles away, Pigsy starts cursing him out. So Monkey gets offended had has his monkey's seize him and drag him back to the cave to explain his poor manners.

Current Sun Wukong Stats: Names/Titles: Monkey, The Stone Monkey, The Handsome Monkey King, Sun Wukong (Monkey awakened to the void), Bimawen (Banhorseplague), The Great Sage Equal To Heaven and Pilgrim Sun. Immortality: 5 + 94,000 years. Weapon: The Compliant Golden Hooped Rod Abilities: 72 Transformations, Cloud-Somersault, Ability to transform his individual hairs, super strength, Ability to Summon Wind, Water restriction charm, and the ability to change into a huge war form, ability to duplicate his staff, ability to immobilize others, the ability to put others to sleep, and the Fiery eyes and Diamond Pupils, intimidating horses, churning large bodies of water, sleeplessness, seizing the wind, enhanced smell, discerning good and evil within a thousand miles, Spirit Summoning, lock picking, and object transformation. Demon Kill Count: 5+ Unknown Number of Minions Human Kill Count: 1006 God's Defeated: 19 + Unknown number Defeats: 3 Crime List: Robbery, Murder, Mass Murder, Arson, Theft, Coercion, Threatening a Government Official, Resisting Arrest, Assault, Forgery, Employee Theft, False Imprisonment, Impersonating a Government Official, Treason, attempted murder, failure to control or report a dangerous fire, desecrating a corpse, breaking and entering, trespassing, violating Tree Law and looting corpses. Cry Count: 4 Mountains Trapped Under: 1

Current Tang Sanzang stats: Names/Titles: River Float, Xuanzang, Tang Sanzang, Tripitaka Abilities: Curing Blindness, making branches point a certain direction (allegedly), reciting sutras, pretty privilege, memorization and Heart Sutra. Cry Count: 16 Tight Fillet Spell Uses: 27 Paralyzed by fear: 5 Bandit Problems: 2 Kidnapped by demons: 3 Falling Off Horses: 6

Current Bai Long Ma Stats: Names/Titles: Bai Long Ma (White Dragon Horse), Prince of the Western Ocean, and third prince jade dragon of the dragon king Aorun Abilities: Transforming into a human, a water snake, and a horse, eating a horse in one bite, flight, Magic of Water Restriction, Singing, and Sword Dancing. Cry Count: 1 Crime List: Arson, and Grave Disobedience. Contributions to the plot: 2

Current Zhu Wuneng Stats: Names/Titles: The Marshal of the Heavenly Reeds, Zhu Wuneng (Pig who is aware of ability), Zhu Ganglie, Pigsy, Idiot and Eight Rules. Weapon: Rake Abilities: 36 Transformations, parting water, fighting underwater, cloud soaring and size enhancement Demon Kill Count/Kill steals: 1 Failed Flirtation/romances Attempts: 3 Cry Count: 1 Crime List: Sexual Harassment, Murder, Kidnapping and arson.

Current Sha Wujing Stats: Names/Titles: The Curtain-Raising General, Sha Wujing (Sand Aware of Purity), Sandy and Sha Monk Weapon: Monster Taming Staff Abilities: Fighting underwater and Cloud soaring. Kidnapped by Demons: 1 Crime List: Breaking a Crystal Cup, murder, and desecration of a human corpse.

[fangaminghell]

Having Eliza exist as Flynn's temporary gf is gonna bite me in the back cause if I do find a canon character to ship Flynn with I am going to be so torn on what to do. Cause Eliza doesn't fit the plot at all, so it would be hard to find a reason for a poly. And I'm already getting emotionally attached, so this will only end in disaster.

[fionnaskyborn]

ah fuck me running lads the "can a monster be loved" paradox strikes again only this time it came knocking at my door and hit me square in the face personally

[m4rrison]

this is how that arc went right.?

[genericpuff]

i made this post 4 years ago and boy howdy has capitalism dug up even lower lows since then

brace yourself past me, you haven't even experienced NFT's and AI yet

god knows what future me is laughing at present me about rn

[slocumjoe]

Anyway do you ever think about how piper is given weight in the main plot only to be shoved into a ditch to make way for Nick Valentine Synth Detective, who has large presence in the main plot + a personal quest + a whole ass DLC

[atlaslovesedm]

foreshadowing is a storytelling device used to hint at events that are yet to happen in a narrative

[fiepige]

Who did Hobie make watches for?

Going through the movie and pausing at every scene with Hobie to look for more details for the 100th time and I just wanted to share something I noticed:

We know that Hobie made a watch for Gwen but not everyone in the new spider-gang are wearing watches made by Hobie in the end as far as I can tell:

We see Pav wearing a watch, it's a bit hard to see in detail (especially since he isn't wearing one in his own dimension to compare it to) but I'm assuming that Hobie made this one since it doesn't look at smooth as the spider-society watches. Also:

Pav's watch doesn't appear to have the lines around it like Hobie's does when he's wearing his HQ watch.

It's kinda hard to tell if Noir is even wearing a watch due to his coat but since we didn't see him at the society when the other members of the old spider gang (Peter B. and Penni) showed up I'm assuming he maybe wasn't even part of the spider-society (or maybe he just didn't want to help stop Miles from preventing his canon event). So my guess is Hobie made a watch for him too.

Both Ham and Margo appear to be wearing HQ watches (which means that maybe Noir is too since Ham apparently was a member of HQ even though he didn't show up earlier so maybe it's the same with Noir, what do you guys think?)

This makes me wonder if Hobie didn't have the time/resources to make more watches since I feel like them wearing HQ watches might be a disadvantage as Miguel might be able to track them (though maybe Hobie has disabled the tracking in their watches, it wouldn't suprise me if that was the case.)

Hobie is obviously wearing a watch he made since he ditched his old one when he left HQ.

I honestly couldn't get a close enough look at Peni to tell which watch she's wearing lol.

Peter B appears to still be wearing his HQ watch but it's kinda hard to tell for sure, it just looks kinda smooth to me.

But a cute detail I noticed is that Hobie might have made a day-pass for MayDay! It could also just be the one from HQ BUT she's not wearing it in the scene where Gwen shows up:

(To the left we see that she's only wearing a bracelet when she's home, to the right we see her wearing a day-pass at spider HQ)

It could just be the lighting but it looks like the one she's wearing at the end is a lighter shade of blue than the one from HQ)

So until we're told otherwise I headcanon that Hobie made a special day-pass for MayDay (which is super adorable if you ask me <3)

[yellowduckieumbrella]

Found this update about Sabrina/Romania and the floor final on reddit. I do like the stipulation that Jordan will keep her medal, but I'm worried about setting a precedent for allowing scores for routines from competitions that are already over? (Even though in my heart I truly feel that Sabrina should have been the one on the podium to begin with, especially with that bogus neutral deduction that nobody can explain). This feels like this is only happening because Nadia fucking Comaneci is advocating for it, and I'm not sure I like the precedent of legends of the sport throwing their weight around to influence the FIG either (especially with what we know is going on with FRG with Catalina Ponor and Daniela Silivas harassing Ana and her coaches). Like imagine if the Karolyis had the ability to throw their weight around with the FIG while they were still active? Or if in the future Simone or Khorkina or Boginskaya could just step in and protest a score for an athlete. Plenty of people have also already talked about how Jordan's first individual Olympic medal (an incredible accomplishment!!) is so controversial and how awful the situation is for her and Ana, but all of that still stands.... what an absolute shitshow

[killjoy-prince]

Trying on the cosplays imma wear to a con in a month and getting excited that ill be cosplaying said characters in a month

[fridayyy-13th]

ah great. yearning hours again.

[vanlegion]

I don't buy it.

I mean, if Bernie legit flat out said " This is a retcon; we're throwing it all out," staring at the screen like Steve from the Office, then. . . obviously, okay he's saying it is. But I just don't buy it, if it's all being based on what was in the teaser for S19. In order for Seasons 15-18 to be Epsilon Simulations, that would imply Epsilon would need to know information he could not possibly have: Knowledge of the AI Gods Knowledge of Huggins Knowledge of Dylan Andrews Knowledge of Kaikaina's deepest regret/fear from her early childhood Knowledge of Tucker's fear of being a shit leader Knowledge of how the other Alien Temples actually work - not just their function but how they'd actually work on the planet Knowledge of both sides of the war on Chorus and every single inhabitant's motivation, feelings, flaws, speech patterns And so much fucking more between interpersonal thoughts, memories of people he's never touched, locations he'd never been to, etcetera. Like, No. There's no fucking way you can run a simulation on data you DO NOT POSSESS. Or at least, not without it being very unbelievable. Unless they're trying to just say all this shit was made up, which frankly would be such a dick move to do. Not to mention, as someone else also pointed out, that Red Team finally got some awesome story beats and arcs for all their people. Finally got some movement on some much needed interpersonal developments. Like, the way I took the teaser, it felt and sounded more like Church(Epsilon) was saying how he was going over the big fight we didn't get to see, and how he was trying to make sure everyone would live - and that THAT was what was causing him problems. Like there would have to be some kind of sacrifice somewhere, and the only way to keep everyone else alive was for himself to be that sacrifice... AND then, on top of all that... Once he does, and the events we witness do come to pass, perhaps the change is that maybe there's a moment here and there that plays out just slightly differently or we see like, missing moments during 15-17... like Retconning to add in moments/tweek moments...instead of flat out trying to rewrite/rid all that development and emotional journeying we all did. I dunno. I want to have faith and be hopeful for S19, but to just think that everything we got from 15-17 (not counting 18 atm since it's not full out and also very different) could be hand-waved? I REALLY do not want S19 of Red vs Blue to do to it's series as a whole what Trollhunters: Attack of the Titans did to it's legacy.

[ddenji]

i need more than 2 panels of asa in a chapter. like fujimoto is just teasing at this point... he knows she's beloved and he's keeping her from us. i need more girlfail content!!!!

[aromanticasterisms]

oh man no wonder i'm missing my little guys recently. we haven't seen kaeya in almost a year

[solradguy]

One last thing before I go to bed:

Sol's still mad (win quote against Asuka)

[theirloveisgross]

eloise bridgerton is aromantic. in this essay i will-