#and I love how in the new year special dbk is like 'yeah it's not tell your mum about this'

[istopaskingmemate]

dude I just watched osp new jttw vid and omg priness iron fan or Immort Iron Fan I guess is such a girl boss at the end. standing up to her horrible ex-husband, working to better herself and succeeding not to mention having a somewhat mutually positive relationship with the monkey king. Complete girl boss. I can't believe lmk deprived us of girl boss pif. like whyyyyy

we could have an angry villain bull ex-husband and chill girlboss ex-wife that only tolerates each other presents for the sake of their son whom they love dearly but instead, they gave us a loving villain couple who are somewhat emotionally abusive to their son.

[fluffypotatey]

Hello again! I hope you don't mind. What's your opinion on Azure Lion, and the Brotherhood? You said they were a toxic group, can you explain how and why? I am very dense. Also have you watched the newest Monkey King movie? What do you think of it? Are there any part of JTTW or Sun Wukong's story you'd like to see be made into a movie that doesn't get much attention? Not LMK verse of course. I'd like to see Ao Lie, the White Dragon Horse's story get expanded on, especially when the group encounter the Dragon family during their journey. What about you? What's your opnion on LBD's host, or Bai He as the fans are calling her? Would you like an interaction between her and SWK? Have a good month!

ok imma save your brotherhood question for last because once i start with them and swk's relationship with them, i will not stop.

anyway,

no, i haven't seen the new Monkey King movie yet T^T i hope to see it soon when i have free time, but uni's began, so i will be busy with assignments T^T goodbye summer vacation :'(

as for what jttw story i'd like to see more of? hmmmmm, idk, though tbh i am very new with any jttw interpretation (my introduction to this story was through OSP, and after seeing the sun&moon poll i decided to check out lmk), so my personal information is still small compared to the people who grew up with the many stories and variations of Journey to the West and its characters.

however, i kind of wanna say Sha Wujing/Sandy? mostly because he does seem like an interesting character (2nd strongest out of the companions if i'm remembering right), and is fairly clever with his fighting (which might be why he gets along with swk a lot). idk, it would be fun to get some background on how he acquired his skull necklace (pretty sure they were enemies of his???? or something idk) and his own motivations for redemption, not to mention he does become a Bodhisattva just like swk and Tripitaka (pretty Pigsy/Zhu Baije doesn't???), so that would be fun to touch on!

moving on now....i actually do like how the fandom just adopted :BD's host and we all affectionately call her Bai He! it's sweet and i like that we all kind of want to see her own recovery of being possessed for like months (or a year idk lmk timeline is weird and funky and no i am not annoyed-) i am a big fan of the "Macky adopts previously possessed child out of solidarity but also she latched onto him first and wouldn't let go so he's kind of stuck with her now :)" it's very fanon but, eh, i'm a sucker for "reluctant dad to protect the smol" characters (prob another reason why i love Pigsy and swk so much lmao).

ALSO, i think her interactions with swk would be so funny (for me) and awkward (for swk) because she's like "thanks for saving the world and me!" and swk like "MHM! uh yeah, sure, np kiddo" bc he did almost kill her (tho he really did try to find a way to not do that) but also Bai He might not even be mad at him for that. (maybe i want her to attempt to befriend him, but swk is just so nervous and feeling a tad guilty so he avoids her but she's a persistent little fucker, maybe i want to a lot, sue me)

idk what her role is now in the show tbh. she could be sidelined now, and we only get cameos of her (s3 ending & s4 special) for the time being just showing her slow recovery (lmk has been doing a "minor/background character development happening behind the scenes" for awhile (DBK fam) so i wouldn't be surprised if we see that with her). but it's possible that she could grow to have some role in s5 or s6 (maybe she's got some leftover LBD powers bc post-possession symptoms, maybe Mr. Hoodie Man wants to use her too bc she was such a great host for LBD, maybe she saw something plot relevant while possessed concerning MK and wants to warn him or his friend??? WHO KNOWS???)

ok.....Brotherhood™️ what are my thoughts on them......

this post is already long as is, and i have class in 30 minutes, oh boy let's go >:3

sO, let try and summarize my thoughts of them before delving in: i think that narratively, the Brotherhood are a great way for establishing who Sun Wukong was pre-jttw as well as giving us access to his history with Macky (THANK FUCKING GOD I WAS SO DESPERATE FOR THEIR BACKSTORY).

the Brotherhood is also a great way to showcase MK's growing similarities with swk and the narrative parallels the two characters have for each other. we already knew swk was trying to mentor MK is a way that was different from how swk lived his life before because, we he's shown, he really does regret his past actions, and wants MK to be a better version, believes MK can be this better version of him. and you can see him trying, but also he fails to really explain WHY his teaching methods are slow and vague sooooooo, uh oh :)

anyway, character-wise.....the Brotherhood is written to be both sympathetic and dislikable. the sympathetic aspect comes with Azure and his Cause™️ because that shows you that "wait a minute...he really did want to do good, but lost sight of it and the harm he was doing along the way." you're supposed to sympathize with him, you're supposed to feel confused about his shaky relationship with swk because "Azure only wanted to do good, yet swk ruined it" <- this is some excellent unreliable narrator shit i love about this show btw

HOWEVER! Azure is not an archetype character (lmk doesn't really do archetypes. okay, they do, BUT it's more of deconstruction of the archetype than really using an archetype, you feel me?) he is a character who is deeply flawed. he is idealistic and vain (yes, yes he is vain bc have you seen this lion????) Azure built up swk on a pedestal of what a true role model king should look like (nevermind that swk's kingdom was on a island and his subjects were just monkeys, meaning his reign was fairly small compared to Heaven, therefore more manageable BUT I DIGRESS)

basically, Azure placed so much admiration and all his ideal onto swk, who was frankly a lot younger than the celestial lion being that he would have only recently met him post-Havoc & he was only about 500-600 years old by then (maybe????), and saw the monkey more as a perfect weapon to use to defeat the Jade Emperor and start a new, "more compassionate" era.

ok, and this is just me speaking, but, Azure, honey, if you really wanted to help restart Heaven into helping out the poor humans, instead of the very flawed bureaucracy you argued against.....maybe, don't continue on with a monarchy????? idk, maybe it's the Western influence talking but Azure, if you hate the celestial lords and emperor so much, maybe create a system that DOESN'T favor the lords and emperor????? break the whole system apart and create something new???? course you didn't think that far (which was eloquently shown in the special) so i'm honestly not surprised that your mission failed so many times

anyway, the dislikable aspect! Peng is a wonderful character for this section! so, when meeting Azure, you may come to a couple conclusions: wow a pretty lion! is he trustworthy? well, he seems to really want to help out.....damn he's got quite the silvertongue there, very convincing and great orator....you seem very upset about whatever swk did to you, huh? but meeting Peng you get: ooooh pretty bird man! oh, they're kind of a bitch, aren't they? yeah, still a bitch (and depending on the viewer, bitch can be affectionate or derogatory)

but yeah, so Peng, one of Azure's brother trio who worked with him in the Celestial Court and views him as the leader of the Brotherhood rather than swk (actually, none of the brotherhood members even consider swk their leader, except Azure and maybe Macky (but that might be bc Macky does not fucking care about the brotherhood member BUT swk) bc the rest view swk as their prized weapon)

Peng is really the character that starts to make you reconsider Azure's trustworthiness because my god is this bird the most condescending and bitchiest of friends. they are that toxic friend, okay? it was because of Peng that i clocked in "oh, ok, this is high school toxicity 101, got it" lol

anyway, Peng does not really seem to care that much for...the Cause™️ like Azure and Yellow Tusk do. rather, they seem to just stick around mostly because Azure and Yellow Tusk are their brothers and that's it. i guess props for staying loyal??? but still, Peng is the character that gives us the first crack into Azure's worthy crusade because their character will resort to violence first, turns on anyone who slightly disagrees with Azure's methods (*cough cough* Mac *cough cough*) or, hm, let's say....surrenders to the Jade Emperor, is missing for 500 years, then miraculously is freed and is working with a Buddhist monk?

so yeah, uh running out of time but to sum up: Azure and the brotherhood were never really "friends" they were colleagues who though they all had a common goal to defeat Heaven but their loyalty was built on ideals and pedestals and flaky attitudes which was why Mac was never comfortable around them, why DBK stopped interacting with them after the war, and WHY swk was so easily pointed as a traitor and a villain by the Camelhead Trio.

*jazz hands* and there you go, i would say more but i have class!

[vegalocity]

Peachtea/TripSun angst idea. Nobody knew Wukong would disappear for 500 years so they're mourning until Xiaotian starts training with him. Tang composes himself to wait a little longer but Wukong just ignores all the signs. Until he gets into an argument with Tang and Tang ends up snapping "Why did you disappear for 500 years?!"

Okay so here’s the thing, I can only get behind the whole ‘The other Pilgrims ALL thought Wukong was dead and are PISSED at him now’ stuff, only, and I mean ONLY if Wukong either thought they all didn’t want to hear from him again anyway, or if he thought they were dead too.

....I mean my only contributions to all those ‘Reunion with Baije and Wujing’ posts were both ‘Wukong thought they were dead too’ so CLEARLY thats my read on the whole thing. I sincerely can’t see him just... NOT telling people he cared that much about that he was gonna bounce for that long to be alone on FFM, so if he knew they were alive he would have told them. 

And then you know someone spotted that little shrine with the origami figures in the Special and I was there like:

 So like, lets do something we’ll both enjoy here then because all of those reunion fics are almost exclusively centered around the trio, and we oh so rarely see Sanzang (whether he is Tang or not) get involved. 

So like first off, assuming LMK is on a sci fi alternate earth instead of being in the future, there’s still a solid nine hundred or so years between the end of the Pilgrimage and the supposed time Wukong disappeared for Monkie Kid timeline (JTTW is set in like the 600s or so if i remember correctly, might be wrong about the exacts tho) so lets assume those nine hundred years were uneventful.

So yeah, idk the hows, the hows don’t matter. What DOES matter is Wukong somehow loses contact with the others and is somehow convinced they were all killed, had his last stand against DBK and then went off travelling for a century to come to terms with his brothers and his precious, darling, beloved Master all perishing due to his inability to protect them.

and meanwhile for the others he was just... GONE. Like he’d vanished off the face of the earth, And the last the three of them ever saw of him was the staff rooted into the mountain that now kept the Bull King below. Just in case maybe the tree of them would periodically head off to Flower Fruit Mountain and check in with the monkeys that could still talk, but after about a century it was clear. If he WAS still alive, he wasn’t coming back. And the idea that he’d purposefully leave all of them behind just for the hope that he WAS still alive would do his memory a disservice. 

So when Wukong returns to FFM wouldn’t it be great if he like, JUST missed that last visit? Like DAYS after Sanzang, Baije and Wujing had been there for the final time to hold an impromptu funeral for their dead friend on his homeland and finally accept that he was gone, Wukong returns to the mountain and builds his little shrine for his dead friends... the Monkeys all look at eachother awkwardly and shrug, assuming this will be settled soon enough, surely it’ll be solved before too long.

And then another 400 years of kingly depression naps and the others falling in and out of contact with eachother as they adapt to the ever changing world around them later, Xiaotian snatches the staff from the bull family.

And... Look... It’s been a ROUGH 500 years on Sanzang now called simply Tang. He’d only recently tracked down Baije-now-called-Pigsy in the past... what Ten years? and was only tangentially aware of what Wujing-now-called-Sandy was up to. And... Look... LOOK. It’s ridiculous that he’s still hung up over losing Wukong as much as he is. He’s Well FUCKING aware it’s ridiculous. He should know better, he quite LITERALLY reached immortality through enlightenment. He KNOWS he should know better. 

So why-... Why can’t he say his real name without his gut still twisting into knots? He still tells the stories because telling them behind a wall of detachment, pretending he wasn’t there on the action for most of them helps in some small way, but why does he have to always call him ‘the Monkey King’? What a question, he knows why. He gave his heart away when he was still mortal, and so mortal his heart will forever stay. Dead and returned to the stone with the impulsive monkey he’d given it to.

And then It’s not dead. Because he’s not dead. and honestly at first it’s just shock, it’s just reeling with the sheer tidal wave of feelings he had to spend hours meditating just to sort through. The three of them meet up after Xiaotian and Xiaojiao have turned in for the night to discuss what the FUCK just happened, and all three of them come away with different conclusions. 

Baije is furious and will refuse to seek out Wukong unless its to tell him off for letting the three of them belive him dead, Wujing is sad and would like to see Wukong again to simply ask why he’d decided to cut the three of them out of his life like that, but doesn’t want to do it alone. And he’s...conflicted.

He wants this to be a joyous discovery. he wants to be so relieved and euphoric at his monkey still being there, having ALWAYS been there, that he wouldn’t be able to stop smiling for days on end. But he can’t. It’s all so... messy inside and he’s going to need to keep his distance if he wants to be able to approach Wukong with a level head. This was why attachments such as these were foolish he should have known better all those years ago but it was centuries too late now, and this confliction is what he has to suffer through as the result... wanting to laugh and cry and scream all at once because Wukong is ALIVE, he’d spent SO long in mourning for him, and HOW DARE HE ignore them all and let them assume the worst?!

So he hides behind that Scholar Tang persona while he sorts through his emotions. And it works for the most part. 

And then New Years happens.

And... Look, Wukong’s been THROUGH it in the last 500 years. He’s done everything he could to just... GET OVER the loss of his love His Master and His brothers. he went through all the damn stages of grief, 

Spent that first decade in denial poking around everywhere he could to see if any of them-ANY of them were in hiding somewhere, spent another three decades wandering the world and starting fights with other cultures divine warriors (and that Aphrodite chick was DEFINITELY hitting on him the entire time, extolling about how rarely she got to use her ‘Aria form’ whatever that meant) to work through his rage without actually getting himself in trouble with his own heavenly court. Spent another twenty years or so looking through as many underworlds as he could find, no matter how many of them really wanted to test just HOW immortal he was (Answer: Too Immortal for any of them) to see if ANYONE had anything he could work with, and always coming up empty. eventually crossed the ocean to the other landmass because he was tired of looking at all of these places and seeing either memories or wasted time looking for bargaining chips, and spent a decade or so deciding he hated Mexico and went back to China. and then spent another thirty years just procrastinating returning home to his mountain.

When he returns to flower fruit mountain its as though he’d never left. His monkeys greet him with excitement but he’s standing on the shores of his home he hasn’t seen in a century and... feels nothing. Like his ability to feel anything for anything beyond the people he’s lost is gone. He makes a little shrine that spends most of its time on a shelf that's difficult to be able to look at full on without craning your neck weirdly and if any of his subjects notice that he takes a bit too much care in folding the little paper figure of the monk as he sets the four figures up along the edge of the little thing none of them judge him over it. He’s rarely got the energy for tears anymore, but when he does it’s usually when that little figure catches his eye.

By the time Xiaotian crashes into his life he’s... getting better. At least he thinks he is. having the loud excitable boy in his life is helping chase the shadows away a little bit (though when they return oh how they scream) and he hears some stories of his friends on training days and... geez sometimes he’ll tell this or that story and Wukong will be so THOUROUGHLY reminded of someone that it just... hurts.

And then New Years happens.

And he finally sees him again -- And he finally meets Xiaotian’s friends

And he still doesn’t know how to feel it’s all SO MUCH -- And they feel familiar so he gives them all a quick glance with golden eyes

And he can only do the one thing that feels safe right now -- And oh... that makes sense. How lucky they all found eachother again after reincarnating.

Sanzang hides behind the Tang persona and lies with an energy that could only be harvested from the sheer maelstrom of emotions fighting for dominance -- and Wukong leaves before he says something incriminating because now he knows and he can’t Un-know.

He should have known better but its centuries too late. And it doesn’t even matter that he doesn’t know how to feel about this whole thing he HAS to keep seeing him, he can NOT let him vanish again -- This was a mistake, this was a mistake, he cannot face them all and see lack of recognition, he cannot have his brothers treating him only as Xiaotian’s mentor he can NOT handle looking at him and seeing a stranger.

He needs to at least TALK to him -- He can’t stay away

Wukong doesn’t start out hanging out at the Noodle Shop on down time, that’d be too much too quick, especially since Baije-.. Since Pigsy is clearly still pretty steamed for the whole ‘letting Xiaotian into the world of magic and monsters’ stuff. But he’ll often shapeshift and keep an eye on things like that... No he is NOT eavesdropping on the reincarnations of those three out of the ridiculous desperate desire to feel close to them again. Because he’d rather just love him miss them from afar than be treated as a stranger.

But of course Tang notices when he does. Every time. And every time he wants to say something but his throat feels too tight. That first day he’d fallen on the persona because it was all he felt he COULD do but now the very idea that he’d have to pretend to be someone else just to be able to speak to his monkey not his not anymore Him was completely out of the question. Tang’s actually surprised with himself the first time he finds his voice. 

The conversations come quickly, neither of them quite content to ignore the other now that its become obvious. The conversations are mostly stilted, awkward. Wukong seems both unable to help himself from talking to him, but unwilling to LOOK at him. Tang’s best guess is that he somehow doesn’t recognize him, Had he really changed that much in the time they’d been apart? Had he really lost so much affection for his old master that he could no longer recognize him beneath a slight change in appearance? That might be the reason the Hurt finally starts to win in the eternal standoff between Joy and Sorrow in how this whole thing makes him feel. 

And maybe it’s something simple, maybe Wukong is just barely starting to lower his guard a bit. Maybe just sharing a space with the man who once was the love of his life his master was finally starting to chalk over the rough edges his long since broken heart would constantly stab into him with. and he just SAYS something. Something probably innocuous, something he’d said a million times on the Journey alone. And to Tang it just... feels like he’s mocking him, like he’d known this whole time and had just been playing with his emotions in a way he wouldn’t have tolerated back then- so why should he tolerate it now?

 And the first words out of his own mouth are “Bad Monkey!” and Wukong freezes as Tang begins to lecture him

How he’d spent a solid third of his time immortal in mourning over him, how he’d been the one to tell Baije and Wujing that it would be a disgrace to his memory to believe him alive and instead that he’d chosen to cut the lot of them out of his life, despite how much HE’D wanted to believe it too. How hurt he was to find out that not only he HAD been ignoring them for so long but also that he’d apparently had apparently not even recognized any of them when they HAD all seen each other again! How much he’d missed him, how happy he’d still been to see him again. 

Yes, yes, pathetic, emotional baldy always bursting into tears at the simplest of things nothing’s changed etcetera etcetera- He hadn’t been lying on new years when he said he had a million questions, but all he really wanted to know was why? Why did he cut them out of his life, why did he shut HIM out? Why did you disappear for 500 years Wukong?

And Wukong reaches out, his hand is- shaking? and removes the glasses from right off his face--normal glass obviously, Baije had insisted they completed the scholarly look and annoyed him into compliance--

“You’re-” he hesitates, looks, almost afraid? “You’re not a reincarnation..?”

Oh... 

Well now they both looked the part of fools.

Two sobbing fools clutching to eachother in the alleyway behind Pigsy’s shop, and oh MAN did they have some things to talk about, because Wukong was DEFINITELY coming back with him to his apartment for the night and then first thing in the morning he was going to visit his brothers to internalize that THEY weren’t reincarnations either and then he was going to have to explain where he’d been for that first century while they were all still looking for him to THEM too. 

And yes he should have known better than to get attached to him in this way in the first place, it was disgraceful, the sheer misery it had brought alone was proof enough of that. But Wukong was nuzzling into his shoulder, and pressing those strange feeling monkey kisses across his cheeks and jaw,  and his breath was hitching with pure relief and joy and it was for him-

And fuck it, he just didn’t care.