#it happened with Macaque it's apparently happening in s4 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

imminent-danger-came · 10 months

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Hi there! Anon sent reeling by S1E6 again! And I would just like to say that your response to my ask made me So Normal. Especially you bringing up S2E6, which is why I’m currently setting up a lawn chair here on the brink of insanity, because apparently I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.

Because yes, you’re completely right about S2E6 demonstrating this cycle of pushing others away while pushing themselves towards greatness and accidentally leaving pain in their wake that MK and SWK have managed to stick themselves in, but ALSO now I can’t stop thinking about how we get Shadow Play IMMEDIATELY afterwards.

Like… how much do you think Macaque had seen? Obviously he could see MK getting too caught up in his own head (*cough* and trauma *cough*) and shutting out his friends, but… how much had he seen seen, you know?

And now I also can’t stop thinking about how immediately after Shadow Play, we get To Catch a Leaf. Which is obviously an incredible episode in its own right, but it’s also the first episode since Minor Scale where MK is surrounded by his friends and he lets them help him. Because in S2E6, Mei and Sandy are with him, but he’s not really with them. He’s focused on getting stronger, to the point where he ignores them telling him exactly how to do so. And in the beginning of Shadow Play, we learn that he’s been further isolating himself off screen and blowing off activities with them so that he could focus on ‘[being] ready’.

But then To Catch a Leaf happens. And it starts off with MK surrounded by the others, having recently done something fun (curses aside) with Mei, and it’s not a big deal. He’s not stressing about getting stronger or being ready, he’s just… there with them. Present and in the moment, at least as much as he can be, and it’s fine. He’s fine, and more importantly he seems to be letting them in and being a bit more open with them.

And this carries on into 72 Transformations! Because obviously he still hasn’t told them The Thing, but he does go from ignoring/avoiding them while trying to get more powerful to calling them all up so that he can involve them. Figure at least some things out, together. And it drives me insane because he was getting better! He may very well have worked his way up to telling the others about LBD! But then she came a-knocking with more trauma, and it blasts him two steps back and it’s just… AHHH! He was SO CLOSE!!!

Also, side note: Do you think MK believes he has a body count? And I don’t even mean the nebulous potential casualties from all the recent disasters that MK blames himself for, I’m talking about Spider Queen specifically. Because MK isn’t an idiot. If he didn’t know she was dead (or whatever getting sucked into the furnace counts as) immediately after the sewers, he would have put two and two together after Destiny Fulfilled. And considering this is the guy who blames himself for DBK getting out despite knowing that SWK was right next to him in bird form the entire time, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that he probably thinks it’s his fault. So… do you think it’s possible he sees himself as a murderer? Or, like, murderer adjacent? And if he does, how much more layered and messed up do you think that’d make the potential ‘Wukong reveals he killed Macaque’ moment?

Sorry for the long ask, the monkey show has changed me for better and worse. I will never be the same. *reclines on my lawn chair, gazing out over the precipice of madness with a thousand yard stare*

One: never apologize for a long ask, especially when it has so much good stuff in it! Two: I KNOW RIGHT. The monkey show really does change you for the better or for the worst. I'm still reeling from s4 and it's been 4 months, and then the s4 special came in and permanently altered my brain chemistry once again. I have a house next to this abyss.

ANYWAYS.

The back and forth of MK's character is one of my favorite things about lmk (of which I have many)! He takes 2 steps forward and then 4 steps back, and I think that's a testament to what getting better can look like—it's not linear. Sometimes, it's not even moving forward, and that's hard.

I think a great example of this "2 steps forward and then 4 steps back" phenomenon is MK's growth in Revenge of the Spider Queen:

MK starts believing in himself, smiling at that face in the mirror. It's not a strong belief, not yet, but it's a start. You can even see him making this attempt to improve in 2x01:

(this got a little long so everything else under the cut!)

MK: "Ah! Ugh, come on MK you can do this! Self-confidence! That's Monkey King 101!"

"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)

MK's even trying to mimic Monkey King here, the person he thinks he should be:

But then, as you've mentioned, LBD and 2x05 comes along.

And it's funny, because now we know MK did become more like Monkey King, just like he wanted, but it's in all the wrong ways.

((Kind of a side note: We also know that Monkey King couldn't have "picked the wrong successor", because there honestly wasn't another option for a successor to begin with. MK grappling with like, 3 levels of Wukong lies is what makes s2 so delicious to watch))

And then we have 2x06, and THEN 2x07, and I'm sure that's exactly why Macaque stepped in! He saw MK going down the same path Wukong did. The drive to become stronger, pushing his friends away—Macaque in Shadow Play knows exactly what he's talking about:

Macaque: "Well, with ol' Monkey King not around I thought someone should teach you a lesson! 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)

("Everything I did was for us!" "You did it for yourself!" *head in my hands .png*)

Wukong leaves. That's what he does, and that's what he did to MK in both Revenge of the Spider Queen (leaving MK to fight Spider Queen and her mech alone) and 2x01.

And honestly, MK in s2 is simply doing his best to pick up the pieces, to be Monkie Kid alone, without SWK or even his friends. But it doesn't really work—hiding LBD's return from his friends didn't save them in 2x10, and it didn't stop the Lady Bone Demon, just like Wukong hiding LBD's return from MK didn't protect MK from any of it.

This pattern, of walking in Wukong's footsteps and making the same mistakes, keeps repeating itself.

MK's 2x08 parallel to Wukong in 3x10 is another good example of that.

MK's terrifying of hurting the people he cares about, so he leaves. He runs off, and this only hurts his friends further. ("Can't you see you're hurting the people who care about you the most?" and "I can’t risk hurting the people I care about—the one’s I have left.".)

And so, tying this all back to the s4 special, we're starting to see MK take 2 steps forward again:

MK: "You ever wish things will just stay like this, like they are right now?" Sun Wukong: "Pssshhkk, where's the fun in that?" Tang: "Uh um, Monkey King, we need to have a serious conversation about your idea of fun."

Mei: "At least we fixed something for a change, instead of destroying it!" MK: "Yeah! So long as we leave the world in better shape than we found it, then it's all good right?"

(4x14 Better Than We Found It)

And I'm waiting for the eventual 4 steps back.

Because well..."At least we fixed something for a change, instead of destroying it"...it's not that they didn't fix anything, but plenty was broken:

Flower fruit mountain was destroyed. Azure died. Whoever orchestrated all of this is still out there.

So, MK's current answer to "doing what you think is right" leading "to pain" might just not hold up. Because well, MK can try, that's for sure, but all that effort might still not make it a net positive, you know?

I think MK will blame himself for Azure's death, for SURE tough. He might have residual guilt about Spider Queen and everyone else harmed along the way, but Azure is the one I'm certain on. MK feeling like he's a "murder adjacent" and that compounding with the "Wukong Murdered Macaque" reveal and being "just like Wukong"...OH BABY. IT'S ALL COMING TOGETHER.

Like,

MK: "I just- I just want to be me. To be MK!" Curse MK: "Yeah well...we all know exactly where that leads." LBD Voice Over: "To pain."

(4x07 Pitiful Creatures)

Identity and destiny are very much intertwined in this show, and MK doing what he thinks is right and being himself leads to pain. That's exactly what happened to Azure—he took the Jade Emperor's throne to try and make the world a better place, but all he managed to do was barely fix what he himself had broken.

MK: "Yeah well...I'm kinda always the one getting the world in trouble to begin with so..."

(4x01 Familiar Tales)

All it's going to take is one antagonist speech towards MK that hits a little too close to home, and everything else is going to come crashing down.

I am very much getting geared up for my s5 lego tragedy, thank you very much!

#legitimately SO ill over it #Like MK is going to go full harbinger of chaos. I don't see any other way this will shake down #*sobbing* IT'S ALWAYS TO PAIN #MK tries SO hard to have positive character development but he always gets struck down #this is probably my favorite ask ever thank you anon #it seems like you enjoyed the monkey show. I'm glad we're all enjoyin' it #brb I am gonna go and rewatch 2x08 because I can #one of my favorite episodes #Like. Sandy accidentally destroying the bear mountain DRIVES ME INSANE. INSANE. HOW COULD THEY DO THAT TO ME.#Like Sandy's answer to ''to pain'' was very similar to MK's. He was choosing not to fight so he couldn't hurt anyone #But that didn't work out!#And this is imp's continuing adventures of going insane over Sandy and MK parallels #''I AM a monster! That's what the world wants me to be—so that's what I'm gonna give 'em!''#Okay jan #Thanks #This will have no implications down the line #lmk meta #lmk #lego monkie kid #monkie kid #asks #lmk MK

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sketching-shark · 11 months

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What do you think? Did the S4 Special do enough to redeem Wukong in your eyes? Is the Shadowpeach reconciliation believable? I'm on the fence about it.

Monkie Kid spoilers and some grumbling (& edits to said grumbling) below

I haven't actually watched the special anon! Both because I figured I'd wait until the English dub came out and also because I wanted to wait and hear back from people in the fandom who's opinion I trust as to whether it's a good watch or if it's yet another "and here's even more scenes of MK getting traumatized & even more reasons why the Monkey King sucks entire" kind of plot for big chunks of the story. Gotta say though I am feeling kind of wary about everything given that from what admittedly little I heard MK and SWK's relationship had deteriorated to the point where the monkie kid literally asks if the monkey king is a villain and apparently it's now been fully revealed that Macaque never did anything wrong ever and SWK truly was just a selfish jerk that entire time. So. awesome. Really does make SWK's whole treating his apparent bfff forever in the other seasons with either contempt or rage even more heinous!

Fully aware that I'm likely missing a lot of context here and I'm already primed to be leery of the SWK and LEMH drama both because of the whole "that's his evil twin" deal in the og classic (yes yes I know they've veered widely from that but come on why is everyone so hellbent on pretending the true and false monkey king arc doesn't exist) but also because Flying Bark has been dragging it out for so long & honestly to the detriment of like literally every other relationship the monkey king had or has. Honestly it's gotten to the point where I'm really wondering if they decided to write SWK as such a massive failure and in many ways a genuinely terrible teacher so that LEMH could look more benign in comparison even with the stuff he pulled...plus from what I understand we still have no idea why SWK killed LEMH or even if he killed LEMH, and STILL have no idea what happened to the og pilgrims! I hear that this show's trying to do something about how you can't change your past mistakes but you can be better in the future, but that's kind of hard to do when you won't even say what exactly those past mistakes were!

EDIT: so I have since learned that Sun Wukong and Qi Xiaotian apparently spend most of this special together in an actually good way AND that there was some genuine reason given for why the Monkey King did the things he did so still have to see it myself but awesome if true! I suppose the lesson for me here is don't base impressions only on what tumblr tags bring up lmao

#anon answered #monkey critical #though in all honestly it is kind of funny how apparently the monkey king is now the evil twin in this equation lmao #also you would THINK that macaque hating sun wukong because he thinks swk killed him would come up at some point #but apparently not?

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icy-watch · 6 days

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Good lord, Icy. What have you been drinking and where can I get some?? I mean, when you start analyzing the wood?? Hello??? And you mention the Underworld??? 😭 Okay those meanings are kind of insane, maybe hold onto them. Interpretive freedom and all. Is it too late to convince you this has nothing to do with Wukong (as if all of LMK hasn't already had to do with him) and is just a reference to the opening theme lyrics Familiar Tales, New Adventures? XD I referenced it before because I knew it was sneaky enough heh. Last episode, Mac dragged in the Not-Mayor like your street cat bringing dead things into the house, this episode he is the house cat caught 10 seconds before disaster tied up in a ball of yarn. Kidding kidding, but true as well. Remember the "tied up in his own shadows and chains?" Yeah, weird. So apparently (and keep in mind, sometimes flashbacks can be biased!) that bit really did happen and Wukong was there to see it. It's not just everyone they've fought against, it seems to be...a memory almost, wouldn't you say, Icy? Macaque tied up like that, the tear/blood drop I promised you? The especially evident "Monkey, no violence!" you hear after? Tripitaka and the fillet??? Also Wukong's face when seeing his friend <3 <3 <3 and his instinctive yell when hearing Tripitaka OOOH 👀 omg. I'm all over that. Does it still bother him? I mean with how often the headband dug into his head, how much it hurt, oh he's got lasting issues. Rip </3 your turn to get trauma triggered. Oh yeah, also the translation. Mac here says, "You're nothing!" Like, I think I said it reflected what he told MK in The Winning Side. As a theory for what he told Wukong. "Your staff's gone, your power and freedom's gone. You're not the Monkey King, you're nothing!" if he found him with the pilgrims. But his line and Nezha's are taken from previous episodes, so are they meant to be parallels of the further/not recent past or, just chosen from there? We're pretty split on how Mac reacted tbh, and the Chinese dub has him say "You abandoned me!" which changes the meaning entirely. And falls in line with Shadow Play. The new characters' lines are pretty solidly from the past so eh. Maybe both. I talk a lot about the monkeys (and I'll probably refer to them as shadowpeach for convenience's sake when speaking of their scenes together despite it being a ship name, their duo name is eclipse/sundial duo but we're all just too used to the former.) anyways, this is meant to say that this season, for the sake of a certain someone in your note's favorite antagonist, I will be rewatching s4 to sort them out :P I think its worth the effort, what with fandom repeatedly being extra weird with your fav, I get it, so may as well explain what the heck might be going on.

Little teenage Icy went thru a witch phase to try and curse people. I learned about different woods and stuff. My tarot knowledge came out of this time in my life too.

Miiiiiiight be a little too late lol.

Oh, that's interesting. Memories. Hmmmm...

#thanks for asking!#qua #nonnie

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