#my journey thru the monkey and the monk

[ladyzerodark]

Somewhat messy sketches and a preview image

Drew some Wukong and other folks and things are getting a bit out of control and I have a story in mind with other Pantheons/Angels/Demons showing up because i have like 0 self control lol

Still figuring out Wujing, Bajie and Erlang's designs and I'm looking for inspiration for other characters (Six Eared Macaque, whom I'm calling Six, and Wukong are pretty set in stone. Haaaaa jokes)

@sketching-shark hope it's okay to tag you

[jttw-monkeybusiness]

Hi again! I was wondering who would have the guts to even confess to one another or even know how to confess the other, would the Monkey King be confident to do it?

(Also have a good day and time too!)

Hello again! Wukong would be the one to uhh..' confess' his feelings/crush/fascination to her until he proposes. Sophie however says first that she loves him. So I had this idea that Wukong would 'confess' his feelings first by asking if Sophie would want to live at Mount Huaguo with him and his people. In a way that was his first 'confession' tho he didn't say the part about "to live with him." more like "I guess I can make one exception and let you stay with my people at Mount Huaguo after this journey is over. If you decide to stay and not return to your boring lifestyle..." He would give a side-eye to see her reaction while his ego would burst when he sees that Sophie is thinking about it as a second option. Is this a confession? Maybe? But for Sophie obviously is not a confession so she won't think about in that way. More of a friend wanting to help a friend and their friendship will go deeper after this talk! Wukong's second (and a little bit more obvious) confession would be his rejection of his Buddhahood of becoming a monk in order to have a chance to marry Sophie. He won't say this reason but Buddha is an all-knowing god so he knows the monkey's reason. So luckily Wukong doesn't have to explain, much to the gang's disappointment. Obviously he doesn't expect Sophie to say yes when he's planning to propose but he wants to have a chance and hey..if she says no then they will have this amazing friendship. Sophie for a good reason, doesn't have any idea of his reasoning until Wukong explains after the proposal. And finally, obviously, Wukong's proposal will be an obvious confession tho he won't say he loves Sophie, much to her small disappointment. She tho understands that expressing his feelings thru words is difficult for Wukong. So as I explained Sophie will be the one that says "I love you." first out of these two and it will be on their wedding day. It would shock Wukong a bit but as a champ, he will get his shit together and say it back to her.

[ayliamc]

Italia

Day 9 - Comedy of Errors

Steps walked: 26,411

Flights climbed: 15

Vehicles ridden: 2

Points of interest visited: I don’t even know anymore.

Ancient things spotted: too many

Too much of a good thing. All good things. Pick your favorite aphorism. Today was a bust.

The disappointment started when we woke up before sunrise to pop down to the Ponte Vecchio (just downstairs) to see the sunrise. Yesterday would have been a perfect day. Instead today was totally overcast so we got a Timelapse of a whole bunch o’ nothin’, and a few pictures on the bridge before it swarmed with people.

It pained me to leave Firenze. Especially as the walk to the train station took place before people had woken, when the streets were mostly empty, just how I like it. I didn’t want to tear my eyes away from the past, from Leonardo’s world, the wellspring of the art mouth. But alas.

We made it early to the train station to find our train delayed. It gave Dan enough time to find us vegan croissants for the ride. I’m counting this as a win. Another win: our seats were not next to each other. BUT. We gambled and sat together and no one came to us angrily demanding we move. Another win. The journey into Roma was uneventful. We arrived and made the exhausting journey with luggage in tow to our stay, about a twenty minute walk from the train station.

The apartment wasn’t ready for us, but they let us drop our luggage off, able to return after 3. Our first stop was the crypt of the Capuchin Monks. When Dan first told me about the crypts decorated with the capuchin bones, my mind immediately went to the monkeys and I thought, “Those poor monkeys!” To which Dan responded “I’m sure they had their consent,” referring of course to the monks. The confusion comes from the fact that there are both monkeys AND monks called Capuchin. The monks were named first. We didn’t get to see the catacombs when we were in Paris so I was all for seeing some bones. Welp. Right off the bat they took our money and told me I couldn’t have bare shoulders. I had nothing to cover my shoulders on me because it was a hot and sunny afternoon. They charged me a euro for a paper gown to cover up. This is a loss. And put me in a real sour mood. As you can see.

Especially considering the first thing we saw was a mutilated tortured body on a crucifix. But my shoulders are too inappropriate. They talk about it being a holy place and I can hear anyone arguing in their favor that it’s a way to be respectful blah blah blah. My being respectful is paying admission to learn about your culture without shouting “everything you believe is a lie!” Bare shoulders and bare knees being covered isn’t a sign of respect. It’s a sign of control.

They also make you walk thru a museum before you get to the cool stuff, and give you some audio guide which I bailed on immediately because it was some insufferable two-person-play about who gives a shit. Not me. Which is why I bailed. The museum also wasn’t interesting. It was a lot of religious artefacts that weren’t by any artists I’m interested in. So we sort of walked quickly thru to get to the crypts. Of course they take away the most important part of visiting a cool place: taking pictures. If you have no pictures, did it even happen? If you have no pictures, were you even there?

Yes, we were there.

We left in record time and decided to get lunch to stave off any more potential grumpiness. There was a vegan restaurant super close to the next thing we wanted to visit, the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa.

Vegan restaurant had no openings for people sans reservations. Another loss. Followed by a little win! Twenty paces back we had passed by a vegetarian Indian restaurant so we grabbed lunch there after some difficulty in deciphering the Italian/hindi menu. A little spicy but pretty good.

Then we looked up the super nearby Ecstasy, available to view for free at the Santa Maria della Vittoria… closed. Opens at 3:30. Hours away. Another loss. We toyed with killing time since we were so close to the church and so so tired of walking, and we meandered thru a nearby park and sat down but ultimately decided to head back to the room. We tried taking a route past both the Villa Medici and the Keats-Shelley house, two nearby buildings that had housed — you guessed it — the Medicis and the poet Keats (but not either of the Shelleys though I’m sure they all spent plenty of time there, and apparently Mary’s desk is there. You know, the one in which she kept Percy’s calcified heart?) but we didn’t even and instead trudged back to the room. ‘Twas literally a trudge. We were both so tired, our feet and legs hurting. We have logged like three marathons worth of miles in the last week. We are feeling it.

We tried three times to pick up a few groceries — namely bread — for breakfast and long story short we were unsuccessful. The slightly longer version involves bread that was behind an unmanned counter that I fetched [against the rules] and subsequently tried to pay for being snatched out of my hand and angrily thrown away while a woman yelled at me in Italian.

Empty handed, we collapsed on the bed at our apartment and took an angry nap while I obsessed over the unpleasant interaction with that woman, even in sleep. (I have a condition. In which I obsess. I was born this way.)

Dan made me a cup of tea and he had a cup of coffee as we braced ourselves to try to salvage the day. We had reservations for a vegan restaurant that has cats, the Romeow Cat Bistrot. It was high on my list in Roma but regrettably far from our accommodations. (An hour walk!) So we found a few points of interest semi-along the way and headed out, our legs and feet only mildly rested.

First stop: the Mouth of Truth. Closed for the night.

Second stop: Circus Maximus. Closed. For an event next weekend.

Third stop: Aventine Hill. Dark. The sun has set. Shitty views of the city. There’s a keyhole that you can look thru for a great view. The line was about a hundred people deep and moving slowly. But because everything else we had planned to see was closed, we got in line to kill time and maybe get a good view after all, even if it was dark. Dan grabbed a beer while we waited, I waved away a bunch of cigarette smoke from the people in line ahead of us, we moved up about 50 spaces in half an hour, and then decided to bail. We had enough time to get to the cat bistrot in time for the reservations we had to make two weeks ago, and there was no chance of getting to the keyhole in time. Another bust.

A quick aside here to address the things we’ve encountered during our numerous walks thru Roma:

- These drivers are the craziest drivers in all of Italia. We haven’t gotten hit, but it is a true battle of wills. Who wants to go more? You? Or the driver? Or that other driver? Let’s find out and godspeed.

- Firenze felt like an old city. This feels like a modern city filled with old shit. Everywhere you look: ruins. What the hell is that ruin? Don’t know. It’s clearly not that important. It’s not even on Google maps.

- Seriously with the ruins tho. Our host in Venezia excitedly told us about an old wall, “the first wall” I dunno what he said, right next to the train station. Sure enough there it was. No signs, nothing. Barely even worth looking at. Dan felt mildly obligated because our Venetian host was so nice but I was too tired to take the few steps in that direction. No regrets. We’ve walked by like a hundred other 2,000 year old things that are just by the side of the road. Or two hundred buildings that are 1,000 years old with AC window units, clearly apartments now. Anyway it’s like… enough.

We made it to Romeow before they opened at 8, which was also the time for our reservation, and joined the small, growing crowd of people waiting to be let in. There’s been a lot of joking about how Roma is ruined after the day we’ve had, much to Dan’s particular chagrin as he not only has such fond memories of visiting this city in the past, but I had no initial interest in coming here so the pressure is on. So it was easy to joke about walking home without dinner and call the whole day a wash when they were ten minutes late to let us in. But we could see some sleepy cats in the window. They let us in two at a time thru a two-door system to prevent any critters from escaping, and we were seated upstairs. Only one cat joined us on the second level; a little black rascal who played a little bit but otherwise stretched out luxuriously on one of the many cat lounge areas set up. They have a strict “no flash” policy and seem to care a lot about the welfare of the cats. Lots of toys, perches, and escapes from unwanted attention. Booklets on every table reminding patrons not to pick up the cats or wake them and to let the cats set the tone of any interactions.

The cats all seemed super chill. I wish they’d come over to us, tho. We got to pet two of them. A black one and a white one. Both friendly but mostly uninterested. The food was good.

I managed to convince Dan to take the metro home because it was such a straightforward journey. We even managed to snag a baguette on the way! But we did get yelled at about a tomato and she wouldn’t let us buy it because we hadn’t weighed it. What the hell, Roma? It shouldn’t be this hard to buy groceries. Anyway, the metro was easy and fast — once we got the tickets, which was as complicated and frustrating as Italia’s track record might suggest. But it worked out. We made it home after breaking our daily step count record and I even killed a mosquito before bed.

Let’s see what tomorrow brings.

[afropuffsartstudios]

List of All my 2023 Reads

[ ] The Girl from the Sea by Molly Knox Ostertag

[ ] Penguins Love Color by Sarah Aspinall

[ ] The Bugabees: Friends With Food Allergies by Amy Recob

[ ] A Bad Case of Stripes by David Shannon

[ ] Stop Monkeying Around by Christine Swift, et. al.

[ ] Hidden Figures: The True Story of Four Black Women and the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly, et. al.

[ ] The Potty Book for Girls by Alyssa Satin Capucilli, et. al.

[ ] Hop on Pop by Dr. Seuss

[ ] Creepy Carrots! by Aaron Reynolds, et. al.

[ ] Creepy Pair of Underwear! Aaron Reynolds, et. al

[ ] Creepy Crayon! by Aaron Reynolds, et. al

[ ] Nickelodeon Blue's Clues & You Learning Series by Phidal Publishing

[ ] Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts by Rebecca Hall, et. al.

[ ] The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

[ ] A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

[ ] The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Anderson, et. al.

[ ] Stay Out of the Basement by R. L. Stine

[ ] Stuck on Murder by Lucy Lawrence

[ ] Barbie Dolls by Nathan Sommer

[ ] Welcome to Dead House by R. L. Stine

[ ] What Is The Constitution? by Patricia Brennan Demuth, et. al.

[ ] Barbie My First Pony by Mona Miller, et. al.

[ ] The Black Queen by Jumata Emill

[ ] The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

[ ] Stinetinglers by R. L. Stine

[ ] A Journey to the New World: The Diary of Remember Patience Whipple, Mayflower, 1620 by Kathryn Lasky

[ ] Stuart Little by E. B. White

[ ] Monster Blood by R. L. Stine

[ ] Make a TikTok Every Day: 365 Prompts for Attention-Grabbing TikTok by Dave Jorgensen

[ ] Richard Scarry's Best Little Word Book Ever!

[ ] Obeying the Law by Kirsten Chang

[ ] Shrek! by William Steig

[ ] The Complete Tales and Poems of Winnie-the-Pooh (1-4) by A. A. Milne

[ ] Last But Not Leashed by Eileen Brady

[ ] Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

[ ] The House on Pooh Corner by A. A. Milne

[ ] Police Station by Amy McDonald

[ ] What a Desi Girl Wants by Sabina Khan

[ ] The Great Patty Caper by Erica David

[ ] The Amazing SpongeBobini by Steve Banks

[ ] What Were the Twin Towers? by Jim O'Connor

[ ] A Christmas Candy Killer by Christina Romeril

[ ] The Supermarket Mystery by Richard Scarry

[ ] Postman Pig and His Busy Neighbors by Richard Scarry

[ ] How to Catch a Witch by Alice Walstead

[ ] Monsters Unmasked! (Scooby-Doo) by Nicole Johnson

[ ] Alice's Adventures In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

[ ] The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

[ ] The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories by P.D.James

[ ] Hooked in Murder by Betty Hechtman

[ ] Here Comes the Body by Maria DiRico

[ ] The Banned Bookshop of Maggie Banks by Shauna Robinson

[ ] Gossip Girl (#1) by Cecily von Ziegesar

[ ] The Great Banned Books Bake Sale by Aya Khalil et al.

[ ] How to Catch Santa Claus by Alice Walstead

[ ] Indigo and Ida by Heather Murphy Capps

[ ] The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells

[ ] Killer Christmas by John Hall

[ ] Charlotte's Web by E. B. White

[ ] Queen Bee by Amalie Howard

[ ] The Between by Tananarive Due

[ ] James and Giant Peach by Roald Dahl et al

[ ] This Book is Banned by Raj Haldar

[ ] Cinderella Is Dead by Kalynn Bayron

[ ] The Nutcracker: The Original Holiday Classic by E. T. A. Hoffmann

[ ] The Christmas Murder Games by Alexandra Benedict

[ ] Kismat Connection by Ananya Devarajan

[ ] The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier

[ ] The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

[ ] The Chocolate Sundae Mystery by Gertrude Chandler Warner

[ ] Finding My Dance by Ria Thundercloud et al

[ ] Halloween Cupckaes Murder by Carlene O' Connor et al

[ ] Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie et al.

[ ] Slime Doesn't Pay by R. L. Stine

[ ] Drive Thru by Erica David

[ ] The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict by Trenton Lee Stewart

[ ] Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story by Kevin Noble Maillard

[ ] What Was the Underground Railroad? by Yona Zeldis McDonough et al

[ ] Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

[ ] Peppa Loves to Bake by Eone

[ ] Where Do We Go From Here : Chaos or Community? by Martin Luther King Jr

[ ] The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

[ ] Halloween at Creepy Castle by Alison Inches et al

[ ] The Christmas Story: Experience the magic of the first Christmas by D. K. Publishing

[ ] ABCs of Kindness at Christmas by Patricia Hegarty et al

[ ] Apple and Pumpkin: The Battle for the Best Fall Treat Is On! by Jeffery Burton

[ ] Winter: A Solstice Story by Kelsey E. Gross et al

[ ] What was the Holocaust? by Gail Herman et al

[ ] Barbie in a Christmas Carol by Mary Man-Kong

[ ] Franklin's Christmas Gift by Paulette Bourgeois et al

[ ] Unicorn Christmas by Diana Murray et al

[ ] Dino-Christmas by Lisa Wheeler et al

[ ] NPR: The First Forty Years

[ ] A Nancy Drew Christmas by Carolyn Keene

[ ] The Christmas Swap by Talia Samuels

[ ] History Smashers: Christopher Columbus and the Taino People by Kate Messner et al

[ ] The Teacher March! by Sandra Neil Wallace

[ ] Christmas Is Here! by Charles M. Schulz

[ ] Mermaid Day by Diana Murray et al

[ ] Four Found Dead by Natalie D. Richards

[ ] Love In Winter Wonderland by Abiola Bello

[ ] The Picture House Murders by Fiona Veitch Smith

[ ] Plankton's Christmas Surprise! by John Cabell et al

[ ] Dashing Through the Snow by Debbie Macomber

[ ] History Smashers: The Mayflower by Kate Messner

[ ] Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx

[ ] Miles and Miles of Reptiles by Tish Rabe et al

[ ] Christmas in Camelot by Mary Pope Osborne

[ladyzerodark]

[ladyzerodark]

The Monkey and the Monk reading update:

Just finished chapter 19!

I knew I was going to love the guys when they joined up and I was not disappointed!

Bajie and Wukong's dynamic is probably the most fun for me, as it reminds me of some of my own friendships (in that we tease each other). And Sha Wujing is so sweet, I want to protect this man.

Tripitaka is... not gonna lie kinda annoying at times? I mean I get where he's coming from when it comes to Wukong, since like me, he appears very introverted, and Wukong very much is....not; and that can be A LOT for an introvert to handle. I suppose he needs to be harsh at times because he is the Master and Wukong is the unruly disciple, but I kinda agree with Wukong that he whines far too much. (The fact that Wukong in this book calls him a namby pamby just... I had to reread it a few times because I found it so funny)

Also I need more of Guanyin, dammit, she's fantastic and her dynamic with Wukong is just as enjoyable as his and Bajie's.

I'm kinda bummed that some stories are missing, but I'll look them up after I finish reading this. I have a few links saved somewhere...

Anyway, I think when I finish I'm gonna try my hand at drawing my own versions of the disciples (MAYBE Xuanzang and other characters if I feel like it). I'll need to hunt for references so I don't mess anything up.

[ladyzerodark]

And with that my journey through The Monkey and the Monk has reached an end.

The ending was satisfying and I'm glad Tripitaka finally listened to Wukong lol. And now I have a bit of a better idea about the Six Eared Macaque and his story, though I'm hopeful the full version can give me some more insight to this guy (I get the idea that he's Wukong's darker half or a representation of it. Kinda seemed like he worshipped Wukong to the point where he wanted to be him, personally)

Anyway, I am so glad I read this and I'm looking forward to starting the full Journey to the West, hopefully within the next week (things have been surprisingly busy).

So many stories that weren't included that were referenced in this abridged version, I need to read those! So many characters, just barely touched on.

But for now, time to draw.

[ladyzerodark]

First Progress update:

Not sure if I'm going to read more tonight (it's been a day and I'm tired), but I am on chapter 11 of The Monkey and the Monk. I've decided to read at least 5 chapters a night, mostly due to the last few days being busy for me.

Thus far, I noted a lot of info I was not aware of, mostly in regards to the past of certain characters, and I'm enjoying a lot of the characters other than the main crew. Guanyin and Erlang are two of my favorites thus far (aside from Wukong who I want to give the biggest of hugs to).

I also have issues with how the Heavenly Court handled the whole issue with Wukong but it might be because I don't understand etiquette of that time period. Didn't seem like Wukong did anything really wrong aside from being a tad greedy and prideful. Again, it may just be not understanding or I'm missing some context.

Or because I'm biased. That's more likely.

Haven't gotten to the start of the true Journey, but I am very excited to see everyone interact. This is fun!