#the parallel had me dying

[eye-of-the-hawk]

Parallels ⛈

[juneviews]

#is it really love if he doesn't try to strangle you?

+

[arcticwaters]

something something reckless dangerous decisions something something confronting mortality

[catsafari25]

Sometimes there are really good nods to the films in the bionicle books, my favourite one I've noticed so far is this moment in The Darkness Below, which reverses the scene where Vakama rescues Matau from a deadly fall in Web of Shadows (and probably gave Vakama the idea later)

[imminent-danger-came]

LMK Story Motif

Tang: “The thing you need to understand about the old legends, is that the story is never finished. There maybe be no more pages left to turn, but there’s always more to the journey. “

(1x00 A Hero is Born)

-

Tang: “It’s nice to know someone is taking in all these stories—pearls of wisdom, DRIPPING from my lips.”

(1x00 A Hero is Born)

-

Mirror MK: “UGH, stop that! Listen- every time we get in trouble, we turn to Monkie King or our friends or SOMEONE. They tell us a story, and we find that smidge of motivation we need. Well! Now we’re on our own. It’s just you.”

(2x00 Revenge of the Spider Queen)

-

MK: “Wait! I am worthy, definitely worthy! I’m Monkie Kid! Basically the new Monkey King—might have heard of me? You know, the next chapter? I’m totally worthy!”

(2x01 Sleep Bug)

-

Totally Not Macaque (TNM): “Haha, what would you like to hear—the Hero suddenly remembered his beloved friend the Warrior? That they lived happily ever after?”

MK: “No! Nah no no no- well uh, yeah! Maybe. Um. Okay, I don’t know why I’m telling a complete stranger this but, I guess...I kind of feel like the Warrior in the story. A little. Is that dumb?

TNM: “I take that as a complement young man.”

TNM: “The tell-tale sign of a good story—that you resonate with it so personally. But I think maybe you missed the point.”

(2x07 Shadow Play)

-

Macaque: “Ah MK, you really are dense, aren’t you. Haha, you saw a story about a hero who got handed everything, who didn’t have to work for anything, and you thought you were the other guy? The second the hero got real power, he couldn’t care less about his friends. That’s you bud.”

(2x07 Shadow Play)

-

Tang: “Now, any chance at hope lies in the hands of a monkey, and a kid who wishes he was a monkey.”

MK: “Ugghhhh Mr. Tang! Would you quit it?

Pigsy: “You’ve been reading your diary out loud LITERALLY all day. You’re bumming everybody out!”

Tang: “Hey! It’s not a diary, I’m writing the next chapter!”

(3x01 On the Run)

-

Sun Wukong (SWK): “Okay! Gather round everyone, it’s Monkey King story time!”

(3x01 On the Run)

-

SWK: “Kid, why did you...?”

MK: “Uh, well yeah- I- I was trying to do you in- in the omelet story! Do the weird impulsive Monkey King thing and escape the bad guy!”

SWK: “Well, I mean- Ne Zha ain’t really a bad guy but, did you forget about the part where I got really hurt?”

(3x01 On the Run)

-

(3x05 Amnesia Rules)

-

(3x06 The First Ring)

-

Tang: “But...compared to the great monk, I’m not so...great.”

Pigsy: “You’re pretty great to me tang. Besides, you’re story ain’t over—not yet.”

(3x12 The Corrupted King)

-

Tang: “MK, from the moment you picked up the Monkey King’s staff, their stories became our stories. It’s our responsibility to write the final chapter, no matter the outcome. If we do this, we do it together.”

(3x13 Time to Be Warriors)

-

Tang: “The curious thing about legends is the way we can continue to be moved by the same stories. We’re comforted by familiar tales of friendship, courage, redemption. At times, the path of the hero might seem unclear, and the stories chaotic and directionless. Sometimes it may seem as though we’ve ended back where we began, but it’s clear to see how much we’ve grown on the journey—for although the story is over, there’s always room on the shelf for another.”

(3x14 Destiny Fulfilled)

-

MK: “I wasn’t really gonna slice ‘em and dice ‘em you know, I just- I just thought we looked cool and edgy! But like, what if this is the point in our heroes journey where things get a little bit...darker.”

(4x01 Familiar Tales)

-

MK: “You’re telling me that I’m holding THE Journey to the West legend in my hand right now?”

Azure Lion: “That and a great many other tales I’m sure."

(4x02 New Adventures)

-

MK: “Alright! Find our friends, defeat the curse, and get back to the good old fashioned story of the week!”

(4x03 The Great Tang Man)

-

Tang: “L-listen you! Stop holding onto the past, it’s time to go!”

“Aah! What did I say before—earthly connections can only weight you down? Well, I don’t believe it! Your time with your family was precious, and nothing will ever take that away. The memories we make with the ones we love—they’re what lift us up! Your time here is over, but that doesn’t mean your story is finished—you’re not being cast out or pulled down, you were being lifted up!”

“The next chapter is calling you to start a new adventure, it’s time to answer the call!”

(4x03 The Great Tang Man)

-

Tang: “That’s it! This Tang has had it! We’ve been through a bajillion chapters from Monkey King’s Journey to the West, and I feel like we’re no closer to finding Pigsy, Sandy, or Monkey King!””

(4x04 Pig Napped!)

-

Subodhi: “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!”

“Without question, you were not born from the stone as he was! Who or what you are, even I do not know the answer; but, of one thing I am certain, fate has plans for you—great plans, or foul? Time will tell.”

MK: “I- I can’t be! I’m just- I’m just MK!”

Subodhi: “The Monkie Kid?”

(4x06 Show Me the Monster) (Isn’t it so funny that he’s named MK? Like the initials of Monkey King? Haha. It’s so funny isn’t it? HAHAHA. YEAH. I’M HAVING A GREAT TIME. THIS IS SO FUN.)

-

Curse MK: “Hey no no I get it man—you want to get back to our monster of the week adventures, get back to our simple missions with Mei, mastering all of Monkey King’s powers and delivering noodles for Pigsy. Right?”

MK: “Yeah. Yeah actually, that’s exactly what I wanna-”

Curse MK: “-But we can’t. Not after all we’ve seen. All we know and all we don’t—*sigh*, right friend?

(4x07 Pitiful Creatures)(THE HERO’S JOURNEY INTENSIFIES. MK IS NOT RETURNING WITH THAT ELIXER)

-

MK: No matter what I do, it’s going to lead to pain. It’s like the Lady Bone Demon said—it doesn’t matter if I want to help people or NOT, everything I do it just- it just makes things worse!

Mei: “You’re all stuck up in your own head! None of this is your fault-”

MK: “It’s ALWAYS my fault! Ever since I picked up monkey king’s staff, I-”

(4x08 The Brotherhood)

-

Ne Zha: “We should have stood and fought till the end.”

MK: “We didn’t stand a chance against them, if we'd stayed, it wouldn’t of made a difference.”

Ne Zha: “So you’re just gonna stand aside and let Azure become the new Jade Emperor!?”

MK: “There’s only one person who ever stood against the Jade Emperor and lived to tell the tale.”

(4x10 The Jade Emperor)

-

Stories, Legends, and Tales.

[holdoncallfailed]

for some reason it just occurred to me to draw a somewhat tenuous parallel between lou reed/john cale and tom verlaine/richard hell in the sense that both cale and hell were forced out of their respective bands by their primary creative partner/best friend who then went on to become extremely lauded to the point that these two guys were both rendered as footnotes in the first chapters of reed's and verlaine's illustrious careers. so they were left behind then and then once again because reed and verlaine both died while cale and hell are still alive. to outlive the person who cast you out but who was nevertheless the foundation for everything in your life that came after...how do you live with that...well anyway i thought about it and now my night and possibly the rest of my week is ruined

[fourteenthz]

Btw I finished everything from 6.5 finally and my take is

[ovidiomedes]

very normal guy having a very normal time

[zaddyazula]

not even funny how hard i was crying yesterday like jesus christ

[dimensionzero]

anyway there is actually a couple things that niggled a bit at me from atsv but OVERALL very good very very good film

[xiphoid-processing]

"greatly resembled each other in face and mood" okay but hear me out

[daydreamerdrew]

The Hulk! (1978) #24

[imminent-danger-came]

i loved ur lmk fandomification rant, now i'm curious- who's your favorite (non-monkey!) lmk character (and any insights you want to share with the class? :eyes:)

Mei, Lady Bone Demon, and probably Azure!

But I could go on a long rant about any character in the show tbh, they're all my favorite character with the 3 I listed and MK being my "favorite favorites" (except maybe Jin and Yin, sorry guys. I do like their place as a sense of normalcy for MK, acting as the "monster of the week" antagonists in 4x01).

Little miss "I would watch my sword break 1000 times so long as I used it to protect the ones I care about" is my girly. Watched her best friend die in the A Hero is Born (AHIB) special and held onto that as a grudge all the way until 3x10. She just wants to see everyone make it out alive, but I doubt she's ready to pay the price required for that. No one in this show is. Mei watched Peng run away in 4x14 and wanted to kill that bird with her bear hands. She took everything Subodhi said to her in 4x09 so personally, like Subodhi probably knew she would, which allowed her to build off of MK's plan so they had a chance at succeeding. She's at her god damn limit. Her episodes (1x03, 3x02, & 4x05) are some of my favorites. She drives a motor cycle, she wears lipstick, she's a gamer, she wields a kick-ass sword, she's a dragon. In 3x12 she's willing to sacrifice Wukong for the sake of the world and more specifically MK. "Don't you realize you're hurting the people who care about you the most?" She's "fakin' it until she's makin' it". Literally what more could you ask for in a character.

Then you have LBD, who fights for a perfect world supposedly for mortal souls yet discards people the moment they no longer have a use to her. Ultimately I think she uses destiny as a crutch, as her way to cope with all of the suffering in the world. "I won't let you take my Destiny from me". You wonder how much it was about perfection and how much it was about her ability to change anything in the world she watched play the same tragedy over and over again. For the first 3 seasons she seems to be acting on destiny itself, she's the narrative our protagonists are running from. Then Embrace Your Destiny comes around, and you realize she was just as doomed by the narrative as anyone else. Doomed to a world of pain, unable to fix anything. The "to pain" scene is one of my favorite scenes, just in general. "Do you really still think the universe wants anything, from any of us?" "Don't you?" LBD and MK's foil is so fucking good. A delightful antagonist who they justify but don't victimize. Killed Spider Queen on screen. What more can I say.

Now Azure. Sweet Sweet Azure. The tragedy of Unckie Lion. Sincerely wanted to make the world a better place and was willing to sacrifice anything for it, just like LBD. I think about his scene with the Jade Emperor at least once a week. "How is it you come to stand before me today Azure, was there a point where you questioned it, or where you too oblivious in your own delusion to realize you were a mere piece in somebody else's game." Fucking insane. His abandonment issues are off the charts. He was gay for Wukong. He thought he could fix the world, and instead barely left it unbroken. He died with the power he couldn't use to change anything. He let himself become a pawn (continuing LMK's habit of manipulating royalty) thinking he could somehow avoid his fate. But the only way to win was to stop playing, and at every opportunity he had to stop he kept pushing. Moving forward. Just like LBD he was coping with the suffering of the world in his own way. It didn't work. Does it ever? Maybe MK will figure it out, maybe he'll leave the world better than he found it, but it's looking bleak. The 3 way foil between LBD, MK, and Azure haunts me.

And then maybe you realize every character in this show is just trying to cope with the world in their own way, and you stare at a wall for 3 hours about it.

Overall I think this image encapsulates it best:

[kyouka-supremacy]

Hey!! I really love your sskk/odazai parallels and I really believe these parallels are intentional!! Especially with moments like this “a mafia member who doesn’t kill, huh, you two are fighters just like us” and the whole beast novel!! like beast is FULL of parallels and anyone who don’t see it is just in denial!! Anyway after reading a lot of analysis i thought that maybe it’s not necessary that the parallels have to be between only two characters but maybe it’s between the four them, i always thought that the parallels are between oda/atsushi dazai/akutagawa but maybe it’s actually between them all?? this analysis—

https://linkspooky.tumblr.com/post/623629392218931200/a-mafia-member-who-doesnt-kill

—talks about the parallel between oda and akutagwa and it’s just sooo good I really recommend reading it!!

[Analysis link]

Yeaaaahh I agree with your take wholeheartedly Anon, parallels can be drawn between all the four of them and that's what makes it so interesting to compare them!!! For how I see them, I think they move more or less on a spectrum of this kind, with Dazai switching to Oda's place after Dark Era:

And thank you so much for the recommendation, that was such a good reading!!!! The Akutagawa / Oda parallels are really so compelling, particularly in the way they previously used to kill to demonstrate their own worth, because that's everything they thought they were good at- and then unlearning that through another person. Makes me wish they had more chances to interact in canon, but hey at least there's Beast (╥﹏╥) On my way to reread Beast brb

Tbh it makes so much more sense for Oda to not judge Dazai for what he did - killing, torturing, abusing children etc. - when you take into account that Oda himself doesn't have rigid good / evil moral principles and actually sees doing good as a choice rather than doing it because that's what is just. And Dazai knows it, and that's why he feels so accepted around Oda ;;;;;; Like he doesn't feel the need to try to act evil, he doesn't feel the need to try to act good, but he can just be and that's why he enjoys Oda's company so much.

One thing I find especially interesting is how Oda never tried to impose his moral principles to Dazai. It was always a “I do it like this, you do it like that”; Oda never held an ounce of bitterness or resentment towards Dazai for killing or mistreating orphans nor he judged him for that, although he acted the opposite. And that's exactly because Oda himself has a very relativistic view of morality; and that's why Dazai is so drawn to him, because he's fascinated as to why someone who shares his own ambiguous view of morality would still choose to do good. Even in his last moments, what Oda offered Dazai felt more like a suggestion rather than a last will; a “maybe you can be a little happier if you try doing this”. He wasn't trying to persuade Dazai to pursue a greater good, but rather suggestibg a solution to the emptiness he feels inside, because he's his friend and he loves him. And that's because Oda deeply understands Dazai - arguably even better than Dazai understands himself -, sees in what they're similar, and knows what would work for Dazai just like it did for himself. In fact the thing about Oda understanding Dazai and Akutagawa understanding Atsushi was so spot on like YES that's exactly what I've been saying!!!! Akutagawa is so deeply concerned in trying to understand Atsushi's actions and motivations he will go out of his way to directly interrogate him about them and I think that's beautiful.

Thank you again for asking, love you!!! 💕💕

[selfundiagnosed]

&&the mental gymnastics they do to sleep each night without a guilty conscience so they can convince themselves their disgusting behavior is justified toward you🤥

[curlycries]

just realized stede ran back to his old life because his old life was familiar, and after that traumatic death he witnessed (which he absolutely blamed himself for), his mind decided it would rather him feel nothing in a place that made sense than have to face what happened.

he would rather be numb than in pain, which is the very same thing edward chose.