☆

: meow

[forgotten-ouroboros]

JTTW content hehe, funn.

[tuima11]

Thinking of like

The pilgrims handling babies but also babies of their species

Wujing doesn't really count but I think he would be surprised if he met kiddos who are fish demons in a "why do I think they are cute"

Bajie will deny it but baby pigs are DELIGHTFUL to him, they tippy tap even if they are demon piglets so it's like extra cute

Ao lie PANICS at baby dragons same with Tripitaka, these two have never had to interact with a toddler

Wukong is the chillest about baby monkeys, like mom crying because the kid won't stop screaming and wukong just pops him on his shoulder and makes the kiddo burp and calm down to the joy of the mother

(dunno I am sleepy and thinking of pilgrims)

Honestly this begs some VERY interesting questions about "how much do you identify with the species whose body type you are in?" and dysmorphia and baked-in instincts and allll sorts of other fascinating topics re: the nature of yaoguai and especially yaoguai like Bajie and Wujing who started out as something different. And does it also apply to shapeshifting? Like, if Wukong is shapeshifted into a bird does he instinctively find baby birds cuter than he would otherwise??

I have no answers but many questions.

Okay, and some speculation. :D F'rinstance, since (most) fish notably do not have the instinct to care for their young, I think Wujing would be exempt from automatically finding the babies cute, but he might be able to, e.g., decide that that fish demon is ugly by fish demon standards whereas this one here is very appealing and quite the catch. (hehehe). (...sorry). And this would be a challenge for him to articulate; he never learned that specific colors and a particularly spiny set of fins are Good, he just vibes that.

Bajie is thrown into some confusion over how freaking cute he thinks piglets are, especially since I HC him as having the most dysmorphia, but is sort of reassured when Tripitaka also goes into raptures about the lil' round bellies and the tippy-tap toes. Piglets are just cute. Okay. HEY, then how come no one finds me cute, huh? Only answer: the ladies DO find me charming but are too modest to say so.

(All the other pilgrims: "No. Wrong takeaway entirely.")

I think you are 100% right that both Ao Lie and Tripitaka panic upon being presented with babies. Tripitaka for the obvious reasons: he has no idea what to do, it's so fragile, what if he drops it, what if it cries and everyone thinks he did something wrong, what is that smell. Ao Lie's got a different reason to be wary: he knows baby dragons are ferociously protected by their parents and so if there is a dragon baby here, Mama is not far away and will probably eviscerate you for standing too close.

Wukong of course is great with monkey babies and is hugely in demand as a babysitter on Mt Huaguo. He unfortunately makes the mistake of assuming he'll ALSO be great with human babies. They look pretty similar, they laugh when he pulls faces at them, anyway he is brilliant and will figure it out.

He drops the poor kid TWICE because he can't understand why they aren't able to hang on to him on their own.

[yamada-ryo]

"Don't you dare" <- normal. expected phrase

"Do not you dare" <- ???

[tadcsalt]

Trolls’s biggest problem is that it was written to be a niche movie aimed at weird analytical queers with actual media literacy and it accidentally blew tf up and hit the mainstream and a bunch of people who have never had a second thought about anything got into it

[smolderingmemorycreates]

Monkey King

Anyone want me to do Macaque next?

[eaglesorrowgorge]

this is so funny alsdkfjlgkj like three days ago, zhen yuan was ready to boil wukong alive in oil. and now we have zhen yuan liking him so much that he wanted wukong to stay for another five or six days. not the whole group necessarily, just wukong

[eaglesorrowgorge]

cute wukong book moment: everyone else going to sleep after they were on the run all night, but wukong still having the energy to play in the trees instead

[thechildbesuffering]

feelin like sun wukong the way i see through illusions (ai slop)

[mad-not-disappointed]

yeah, let's just ignore the fact that the song was made by a black man and ignore all the racist shit going on with Gooseworx and the crew, and twist this entire narrative to make it seem like people who criticize this choice are transphobic.

and sure, Jax is not white. but her VA is and so is Gooseworx. this entire story was written by a white woman. so i don't think you can use the excuse of "actually Jax is asian!" especially when that fact was only revealed at the end of the series. not to mention, people of color can be racist too.

and if we're talking about transphobic stereotypes and propaganda about trans people being predators, maybe we should address the fact that Jax sexually harasses Gangle? “you think trans people being associated with children is wrong!” no one said that, but y'all seem to think it's okay for said trans character to canonically be a misogynist and a sex offender?

[sunandmoonseisai]

I think gummigoo was killed off because he's too much of a chad and made jax look worse in comparison. He's a big, strong, kind man who love his family and respect women, but still has an angsty side that made you want to comfort him. Imagine keeping the scenes pomni simping for chudjax's toxic ass when this yummygummy is right there 🤤

[blogfamousturtlecollector]

Jax gave Gangle her name, as soon as she got into the circus, immediately depriving her of her choice, literally from the first minutes of acquaintance insulted, humiliated, blackmailed, made her feel like an inferior person, took advantage of the fact that she could not stand up for herself, intimidated, never apologized or felt guilty, and literally was not against taking advantage of her sexually.

Gangle in the finale: grieving for him :/

[fhazel27]

Jax choking Pomni was just an intrusive thought, he didn’t really want to do it!!!!1!!1… well excuse me I was confused because he shot Ragatha six times

[timeturner-jay]

You know what exhausts me the most about the typical LMK fanon characterisation of Sun Wukong that has unfortunately bled even into people's perception of regular JttW?

The fact that they characterise him as a clueless himbo with random cool superpowers.

If you've only watched LMK and don't know the source material, I guess I can't blame you for having that idea, because that show really does do him so dirty - they stole nearly all his positive traits and gave them to the Six-Eared Macaque instead, after all. And for MK, the abilities he inherited from Wukong really do work like superpowers, so I get why you'd think it's like that.

But Wukong worked for them. His spells (not powers!) are the result of intense study and spiritual cultivation. He's extremely clever and learned all this magic and philosophy in record time, but he did still have to sit down and spend years learning it all. He's a scholar. He became an immortal sage because he became such a masterful practicioner of Daoist magic. Not only that, he's also a master of ancient Chinese medicine and can cure pretty much any ailment. The guy is a certified doctor! He's a big fan of clever wordplay too, and by "wordplay", I mean Chinese poetry and philosophy. He has a lot of sage wisdom and advice for all his silly quirks, and he can weave very beautiful and poignant quotes on the spot.

Above all, from among the four Celestial Primates (to which the Six-Eared Macaque also belongs), Sun Wukong's designation is "the Intelligent Stone Monkey". Out of the four, he's specifically noted for his intelligence. He's smarter than any of them. It's what sets him apart. If he has a "superpower" at all, it's his astounding intellect. He's a genius. He's so much smarter than Macaque could ever be, because it's literally his defining trait.

So yes. That's why this himbo-characterisation that has been bleeding into every other JttW-fandom space feels so deeply exhausting. It misunderstands and misrepresents Sun Wukong on such a frustratingly fundamental level. Every time I see takes like "Sun Wukong is the physically strong one, while Macaque is the one who is smart and good at magic, which Wukong kinda sucks at teehee", I die a little inside. I'm not even going to touch much on the fact that LMK gave Six-Ear a much bigger role than he ever should've had (he's a very evil and obsessive two-bit villain in the books who only shows up for a single arc and was never a part of Wukong's life before or after that), because that's a whole other can of worms, but by putting him so front and center and giving him most of Wukong's good qualities (leaving Wukong himself with pretty much nothing in exchange), LMK really has done irreparable damage to the way a lot of people perceive the Handsome Monkey King. Which is a very backwards way to treat the mythological figure whose fame and popularity you're basing your whole franchise around, if you ask me.

[peachycarnival]

Shout it out louder!!!

[koriiluv]

When the gang pulls up 😮‍💨

[tadc-crit]

We got:

Suicide victim #1 (pushed to suicide via being ignored and gaslit by The Rabbit)

Suicide victim #2 (pushed to suicide via being isolated by The Rabbit and gaslit when she tried to confront her. All because she told them that she killed her mom)

Nonbinary person who tries to call out the abuser but always gets shut down, and is barely allowed to have any scenes to aerself, and mostly just exists for the development of an ironically also ignored character. The finale has them exclusively speak like an AI therapist.

Bubble canonicaly likes scaring children and semi-canonically would say slurs if he was allowed! Isn't that funny? Isn't that funny? Isn't that funny? Isn't that

The Rabbit (serial abuser who pushed two people to suicide, almost pushed two MORE people to suicide [Ragatha and Gangle], harasses non-men for fun, fantasizes about killing and sexually harassing people, and doesn't get any repercussions until she commits suicide. Though even then she feels no guilt towards abusing anyone other than her friends, plus potentially killing her mom)

Main character that we somehow know next to nothing about (except that she likes Jax) (she'd do anything for Jax) (she tolerates the others but she'd DIIIIIEEEE for Jax)

Plural system in which the host lobotomizes himself to remove his traumatized (because he ate them/forced them to fuse) misanthropic sibling. The sibling gets no personality besides being misanthropic and isn't allowed to say anything once the host forces them out.

Silly Old Guy that has memory issues and possibly Fantasy Dementia but who cares, he's a Silly Old Guy! Except for when he's useful, of course. It's really nice when he's useful, otherwise the only good he does is be funny.

Abuse victim that was forced into a vow of silence by The Rabbit and thus not allowed to grieve a person she cared about. She was also abused by her mother but that's only relevant because The Rabbit was ALSO abused by HIS mother. Also don't let her get mad at The Rabbit it's not allowed

Fish

Abuse victim that gets very little help from the people around her that actively witness her abuse. The best she gets is a relationship with the extremely underdeveloped non-binary person. To be fair, they're a good partner, albeit still weirdly passive about the abuser that keeps harassing xyr girlfriend for the most part. Also she's bipolar coded but who cares about that, right?

Suicide victim #3 (technically #4 thanks to The Rabbit). We know nothing about her except that she's an entomologist and the Silly Old Man's dead(n't) wife.

The only unproblematic man in the entire show. He debuts and dies in episode 2, gets brought back in episode 4 with questionable amnesia, then is dropped. He deals with a lot of existentialism but we're not gonna think about that too hard because that's BOOOORINGG

Anyways that's it. Thanks for watching these guys (especially The Rabbit) run around for three years!

[citybin]

Immortality be damned

[thecinnamoncheese]

So I just learned that monkeys (as with most animals) raise their hackles when they are distressed or hostile, but pigs raise their hackles when they are happy and excited

Which has EXCELLENT potential for a communication breakdown between Wukong and Bajie in my eyes

[superkat500]

Wukong, thoroughly pissed, hackles raised, ready to kill his brother: you wanna say that shit again?

Bajie, inexplicably convinced that everything’s fine and Wukong finally thinks he’s funny: You Bet Your Ass I Do

[thecinnamoncheese]

You understand my vision