Rant about shadowpeach (WARNING! Mac slander)
I'm sure you've all heard this time and time again but you know what screw it I'm tossing my 2 cents into the ring
I think my bias for Wukong definitely has a part in this but I will try to be as neutral as possible which is impossible. My personal opinions will absolutely shine through but it is just that: a personal opinion
I love my trio of gay monkeys, I really do.
Is Macaque a good character? Yes
I do think he's a genuinely interesting character, with cool mystery ,interesting backstory, cool powers, he's fun to watch, has a kickass theme song and aesthetic and I can see why a lot of fans attach themselves to them.
Do I love seeing him with Wukong? Yes
Their banter is fun, past shadowpeach can be sweet as sugar (or spicy, I don't judge) and their angst is real yummy.
What I don't like is when the angst is all Wukong's fault. And everyone and their grandma will harp on the Monkey king and just ignore all of Mac's bullsh!t. Especially in fanfics.
Like don't get me wrong, keep writing that good stuff! But like...jeez
The amount of smack that the golden monkey goes through in this fandom is like...yikes.
Look, I know we're all hung up about the bloody murder thing.
(Personally I'm on the theory that Wukong didn't actually kill Mac, if they were really that close he wouldn't have acted so casual upon their battle after he murdered him, but I digress)
And Wukong should be called out on that BUT.
Mac also isn't blameless here.
(If you like toxic shadowpeach, fine. But this is for peeps who think that Wukong is the only toxic one and Mac was just a victim.)
Take it from this perspective:
The two were really close during the brotherhood era. Wukong kept doing stupid things to gain power and getting them in trouble and in the final battle did something astronomically stupid and they all lost.
Then they all ditch him...leading to his imprisonment (five phases mountain) and torture (furnace and also being fed iron pellets and hot mercury)
Fair, Mac probably shouldn't have been trapped too but he visited once out of 500 years, had a fight and never came back by the looks of it.
He assigns himself the role of the warrior who always stood by his king's side.
And then ditched him in his time of need.
Mans really failed at his own self proclaimed job.
Fine, he probably should've taken a break, none of them were in the right state of mind and Wukong was being very bratty.
BUT
IF HE TRULY VALUED THEIR RELATIONSHIP (from the looks of his lil gay play, he did) HE WOULD'VE Y'KNOW. COME BACK AND TALK?!?!
If he really valued their relationship, outside of calling him a coward and LEAVING, never to visit again. Would that not be a perfect opportunity to communicate?
Like, my dude. He's stuck in the rock. He can't run. Could you not find the roots of the problem and solved it?
But lets say "He was too busy taking care of flower fruit mountain"
(despite him literally EATING one of the monkeys in JTTW, but that was JTTW and I don't think its canon in Lmk. But still, interesting to note.)
I'm sure his subjects were worried about their king? Did he never answer them? If he really valued their bond, could he not have I dunno, shadow portaled some monkeys to see their king or like put time aside to communicate and update the monkeys?
But lets say "He was too traumatized from the burning of his home and was too angry"
500 gosh dang years seems like a long time to take a break.
I feel like at that point, he should've let go of Wukong
BUT NOOOO HE DOESN'T NOW DOES HE.
We establish that their relationship is kinda wrecked.
They don't communicate.
He ditched Wukong for 500 years.
But when he see's the pilgrims decides that Wukong ditched him and the brotherhood..?
So by his logic, Wukong has abandoned ffm the brotherhood and him, after they ditched him under a mountain for 500 years, never visited, never talked, never tried to rebuild their relationship.
Sees the circlet being used, sees the pilgrims not trusting him, sees him go on this journey unwillingly, not allowed to leave the monk unprotected, and comes to the conclusion that Wukong is a traitor...?
But plans to free him because he's being abused and forced to do it?
Pick a lane my dude. Did he abandon you or not?
BUT THEN.
He impersonates him, destroys what little trust the group had
WHILE TRIPITAKA STILL HAD EASY ACCESS TO THE FILLET MIND YOU
hurts Wukong multiple times, till he gets banished. And tries to kill Tripitaka as he still had the bloody circlet?!
This isn't sad lover getting revenge at being abandoned.
This is bitter jealous ex getting petty revenge and still expecting to get back together like this.
Also he says he watched as the pilgrims tortured him with the fillet. If he watched them, he'd know that Wukong is also obligated to fight and most of the time he does kill them, despite the pacifist monk.
He's required to PROTECT THE MONK AT ALL COST.
So tell me...
WHAT THE HELL WAS HIS PLAN?!
He does realize that like this was mandated by heaven right? And there'd be huge consequences to killing the monk right?
So basically:
Mac: yea so my plan is to impersonate you and commit crimes you didn't do, get you in trouble and inadvertently hurt you severely, traumatize you even more then kill the monk so we can go back to flower fruit mountain like we wanted to right?
Even though there will probably be astronomical consequences for you, me probably the rest of the monkeys for letting me kill this monk on the trip mandated by heaven. By failing to protect him, redeeming yourself and also losing a close friend heaven might probably put you under another mountain again probably forever this time, and I will probably use my powers to get out scotch free and we'd all blame you even though I killed him.
But you're still to blame for abandoning me, the brotherhood and your subjects even though I never visited you after our fight, calling you a coward, immediately leaving never to come back and update you on what happened. Its your fault the mountain is like this even though I never asked you for help or advice or even contacted you to let you know our home was destroyed.
Meanwhile I'm the victim and you never valued our friendship.
.
.
.
This idiot-
In summary, he abandons his king, accused him for ditching them all comes back claiming to help him by antagonizing him, hurting him and puts himself in a position where he kinda has to do something?
Because Mac was set on killing the monk.
Everyone acts like he just visited, said something mean and Wukong played the stab game bit too hard.
But he tried to kill him and wouldn't back off?
Seriously what did he expect Wukong to do?
The fandom acts like he was given a pass to not die when he's already broken off the relationship and put Wukong in an impossible situation where Mac wouldn't freaking leave or let go about killing the monk.
I'm not saying that Wukong should've killed Mac on the spot. But I just wish that everyone stops acting like he was being such an asshole and killing him out of nowhere.
(for someone with six ears and is meant to be all hearing he sure is bad at listening)
Then he gets revived by the lady bone demon and let me check:
steals all of Mk's powers
tries to kill the kid despite having no bad blood with him
antagonizes Tang, ridiculing him and calling Wukong a coward despite ditching him under a mountain
makes a copy of the TEA van to kidnap and traumatize Mk even more
Traumatizes Mk AGAIN in the shadow play and steals his friends souls
Hold Mei and Sandy hostage for the rings and tries to squeeze the life out of them
Shooting the airship down (OOOHHHH WUUUKOOOONG this ape is down bad.)
Chokes Mei and uses her as a hostage again for the samadhi fire ritual
Immediately leaves after Mei's firey outburst
Wants to leave possessed Wukong to the clutches of LBD
never gives Mk the full story in the ink scroll that he tried to kill Sanzang or how he never came back.
NEVER APOLOGIZES
I don't even think Macaque has apologized for any of his bullsh!t.
Some of his acts were necessary but he just makes it uneccessarily cruel and revels in their pain
And the fandom makes them all buddy buddy at the end, excuse all his actions and collectively hate Wukong?
Yes he does help Mk in fighting possessed Wukong but like LBD's reign would end the world as he knew it. What else could he do? DBK would probably do it in his position.
But he never apologizes to any of the cast.
I've seen fics where he does apologize which is good.
But he also never apologizes to monkey king?
But that will be in pt2. Yes there will be a goddamn pt2 cause I've not even scratched the surface when it comes to fanfics.
But I will take this chance to share a fic that does tackle this issue really well:
Fractured Pieces make a mosaic by @furornocturna
Cause this fic is genuinely so good I am vibrating at the seams, its one of my favs (also furornoctura's writing is good in general)
One of the only fics I've seen where the characters all call out Mac being a jackass and in an interesting way.
One day I will make some fanart for this but till then this will do
Their writing is so yummy go check it out
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Sometimes I think about making an IEYTD tier list on my personal experience with the levels, but I think if I were to do that I’d have to make three separate lists. One for aesthetics/narrative, one for mechanics/puzzles, and one for completionism.
Like, Party Crasher? 10/10 story and setting, the environment is beautiful and the characters are so well done, but it’s one of the only levels you can get soft locked in.
Deep dive? Stressful and frustrating thanks to the constant flooding that can still happen even after your sub’s breeched, but has really easy achievements to figure out and is a great one to speedrun
First Class? Absolutely GORGEOUS. I fucking love all the small designs and the solutions are all pretty easy to find, but hidden enough you’re getting the satisfaction of solving the puzzles. But the achievements are a fucking nightmare because two of them rely on a stun grenade that’s really hard to finesse the timing of, you only have three of them, and one of them can only be finished in the last 5 seconds of the level, so if it slips your mind you have to redo the whole thing from the beginning of one of the longest levels in the first game.
Rising Phoenix is another one that’s fantastic narratively, but having two achievements related to charging the battery makes it so you have to redo the level multiple times, which is frustrating if you’re just trying to figure them all out and know there’s something with the banana and something with the cattle prod, but can’t do both. And having it be so you can only take down the sawblades with the prod and or the battery (as far as I’ve seen) and charging the battery with the prod makes it to you have no alternative to stop the blades when the game ENCOURAGES you to try that is irritating.
Blind spot is ingenious, driving is clever, the setting is beautiful, and I never felt truly stuck on a puzzle that wasn’t due to a lack of observation on my part, buuut it’s the only part of the game that makes me so motion sick I can’t do more than one speedrun attempt in a row, and tbh the knife in the gearshift did not feel intuitive or hinted at at all, especially when the steering tool looks a lot more like it could undo the screws.
Winter break is really pretty and cozy, and the achievements are really easy to find and speed run, but you spend half the level hunched over like shrimp with a high, screaming whir in your ear.
Some of the robot trophies would penalize the levels in IEYTD 3 because unlike the film trophies in IEYTD 2, they’re not hidden in an intuitive way, they’re just tucked into a tiny tiny corner that goes beyond being observant and straight into “how were you supposed to see that?” Particularly in Hot Water and Cold Shoulder where I honestly still couldn’t see them after watching a guide, I had to trust in the TK to highlight over them.
Cold Shoulder is wonderful design wise, making you feel cold and isolated even down to seeing your breath and the confrontation with Prism is just chef’s kiss, and the achievements are very direct in what you need to do and where to keep an eye out for them for the most part, but if you are near-sighted and can’t get your headset to focus on the Kanji for the mountains you are fucked. I spent seven hours on that level for two days because I couldn’t see the text and was blind firing by the end of it because all I had was “west” and “same level” so I was firing at the wrong mountain for ages.
That last one’s likely heavily influenced by bias from the nightmare that was trying to finish that level, I can admit that, but to try and rank them all on “what’s good and what’s bad” when they all have really strong strong suits and really weak weak points.
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