another rant about inumaki's speech (hi, hello I'm a teacher and used to teach primary which is all about learning letters/sounds/blends/basic words)
inumaki had to have learned his cursed words in a VERY secluded environment. I would also venture to say the inumaki clan is probably very well versed in phonics and morphology. they have to be, especially while trying to learn how to speak or teach their children how to speak.
my best guess on how he actually learned to speak is honestly pretty simple: he had to enunciate really, really slowly.
take the word "cat" (after letters, which even for him would have been pretty straightforward - there's no harm in just letters, you start with one syllable words.) he would've had to learn, even from just simple words like cat, to sound out words slowly. breaking down each letter to the point it barely sounded like a word. saying each sound with a pause, and if he knew the word was a safe word he could fully blend it together.
however with cursed words- he would do the same thing BUT he couldn't blend the word together fully unless it was a controlled environment.
I use the word "twist" as an example all the time, but it's a harder word to master so it's a good example. with twist he would've already had to learn letter blends (tw, qu, cr, etc...) he would genuinely have to sound this word out agonizingly slow when he was learning it as to not hurt himself or others. but when it came time to practice it, he most definitely failed to blend the whole word together on numerous occasions.
kids find it pretty easy to know what a letter/letter blend sounds like, but to put words together is actually very hard.
(things get REALLY complicated in 3,2,1...)
THIS BEING SAID- there's a big difference between encoding and decoding words. encoding words is using your knowledge of letter sounds to sound out words. decoding is blending these sounds together to form the word, and thus being a fluent reader. decoding (even though it seems silly, but I promise there's a science to it) helps a reader/speaker understand what they're reading. if you don't understand the word and how to say it, 9/10 you don't understand the meaning.
inumaki is probably a VERY GOOD speller because all he knows is encoding. while he can read, it's probably a bit behind because of his lack of decoding skills (not like he can help it though- his clan probably didn't even teach him certain words). he's probably a very slow reader (nothing wrong with that tho, I am too!) because he only knows how to encode words (sound out letter by letter) rather than decode them (blend the word together).
thank you for coming to my insane ted talk
@inumakis-boo @inumakisser idk if yall will enjoy this lmao but just some thoughts
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Eldritch Abomination MK Theory
OKAY. @the-punning-ubus
I just want to say reading these tags are SO validating, because I have my little "MK was an eldritch abomination thing pre-hatching from stone" theory and seeing someone else come to pretty much the same conclusion feels good.
I've been meaning to write a proper theory post on this for a while, so now is as good of a time as any!
Obviously we have Wukong's "Not just anyone can wield my staff, but you did" from A Hero is Born and "The staff's just a big 'ol stick bud! It takes someone special to wield it" from 3x03, but there's also something in 1x09 Macaque:
Macaque: "Your staff kinda gives you away dude, not just anyone can wield that thing."
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Macaque: "Ohohoh no, can't you hold the magic staff anymore? Well, you know what that means—there really isn't anything special about you. You're just a kid with a heavy stick."
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The sweet irony of "There really isn't anything special about you. You're just a kid with a heavy stick!" followed immediately by MK lifting the staff again is not lost on me.
So, from s1 it was pretty obvious that Wukong didn't "give" MK any form of power, but we knew that already with MK being a monkey demon and all. I just think it's particularly intriguing that all of this was laid out in the same episode where MK proclaims "I am the weapon!". In all honestly, he probably was/is.
One of the main questions coming out of s4 is "why was MK created?"—Monkey King's stone was used to form another, but for what purpose? To what end? What reason was MK at the center of all these stories?
Well, here's my current theory:
MK was something in a past life, and that something needed to be contained—and so, to put a stop to past life eldritch abomination MK, he was then sealed away in the stone.
I think this scene in particular raises some alarm bells:
The stone cracks open, bursts with light, and then it closes—like something was put inside it. The scene could of course just be an aesthetic choice, or chosen to be this way for another reason we don't know yet, but it just feels so deliberate. A ball of light appearing from the stone, then another ball of light in the mystery woman's hands being revealed to hold a monkey, and then the stone reforming around the ball of light. I just can't help but feel there's something there.
Next I want to discuss the two key things that make me feel this theory has merit:
1.) MK has made a habit of breaking out of things he shouldn't be able to (the calabash in 1x05, the trigram furnace in 2x00, the scroll in 4x07, Destiny itself in 3x14) and the stone would be no exception.
2.) Every antagonist in this show has been sealed away in some form, then being released to resume their plans from before being sealed. Here's a list:
DBK was sealed under the mountain, and after being released continued his plan of world domination.
Spider Queen was metaphorically trapped in her fallen empire, and after being given the chance to rule the above world once again, immediately takes it.
The Lady Bone Demon was imprisoned in her tomb, and after being released prematurely (before learning the error of her ways), she continued her plan to destroy the world and create a new one.
Azure Lion was imprisoned in the scroll, and upon being released (by an unknown 3rd party), immediately worked to free his friends and then end the Jade Emperor's reign.
Now, I love foils, so MK breaking out of the stone he was sealed in, yet coming out an actually changed being unlike everyone else in this show, would be DELICIOUS:
Lady Bone Demon: ”No backup and no weapon? So, you’re plan is to fist fight a child?”
Sun Wukong: “We both know that’s not what you are.”
(3x11 This Imperfect World)
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Lady Bone Demon: "STOP! Have you forgotten? Destroy me and you destroy the host! Have you become so desperate to end me that you would sacrifice this blameless innocent child?"
Sun Wukong: "You're giving me no choice! All the time you spent locked away, and you haven't changed a bit! I'm going to finish you, like I should have done a long time ago! I told you—you should have stayed buried."
(3x11 This Imperfect World)
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Subodhi: "I have not brought you to your master. Although this is the stone from which Sun Wukong once sprung, it appears overtime, it was used to form another. A simple creature, with no past, no family, and no name. There is a reason you were at the center of these stories—a reason you can harness the power of the Monkey King himself!"
(4x06 Show Me the Monster)
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(If you want extra fodder for this, please see this parallels post :3)
So, if MK were to hatch out of the stone—where *he* was sealed away—and he actually came out of it a "blameless innocent child" with "no past, no family, and no name", it would work exceedingly well. Wukong's not above giving people second chances, but if you use that second chance to try and destroy the world, you force his hand.
(Side note: it could also be the case that the stone was used to "reset" whatever MK was in his past life, and Wukong was originally meant to destroy whatever came out of the stone—which could be the reason he stayed at Flower Fruit Mountain for hundreds of years. However, when an child came out, a new being without a past or the memories of what it was before—Wukong choose to let it go. He choose to let it live a normal life—or even ensuring it could live a normal life—and it then found it's way to Pigsy. This definitely gets into real crack theory territory, but I did want to bring it up.)
Now, none of this is even mentioning the suspiciously MK shaped figure in the mural from 3x13:
Now, the figure in this mural is only shown when MK is also on screen, which is framing that drives me insane. Perhaps this is when they first caught MK's past life, then finally able to subdue him and seal him in the stone.
And so, if MK really was this terrible chaos driven abomination in his past life, what does that mean ✨thematically✨?
Well,
Sun Wukong: “Point is, mistakes happen, but so long as you leave the world in better shape than you found it, then it’s all good. Right?”
(4x01 Familiar Tales)
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SWK: “ENOUGH! I’ve never let anyone dictate my destiny in the past, and I’m not about to start now. None of us are! We can’t change who we were yesterday or in a past life, or a hundred life times ago! We live with the choices we’ve made, for what matter is the choices we make RIGHT NOW! Only we decide who we are and what we do with the power we have.”
(4x07 Pitiful Creatures)
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MK can't change who he was in a past life. He can't change that the roads all lead to pain. But you know what he can do? He can try. He can try and get a little bit better every day. He can try and help people. He can try and make the world better than he found it.
Maybe in a past life, MK caused just as must chaos and destruction as Wukong did in his past. Maybe he caused even more problems then he has as the Monkie Kid. But that also doesn't undo the good he's doing now.
Anyways, that's my "MK was an eldritch abomination thing pre-hatching from stone" theory. Hope you enjoyed
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