Haha man so fandom can be a really fun place where people go and have a great time analyzing and overanalyzing things (I know do it all the time) but one aspect that I’ve started to notice is that there will be elements in a piece of media that are pretty obvious or even blatantly clear, and yet the fandom at large seems to have tacitly agreed to never talk about.
Like just looking at one of my current fav shows, I’ve noticed this happening quite a bit in the Monkie Kid fandom in regard to the Six Eared Macaque, & in spite of his obvious status as the fandom’s favorite meow meow. Like besides all the fanart & analysis & aus that just WILL NOT address or even acknowledge this shadow monkey being a violently obsessive manipulator on screen, there’s tons of questions and imaginations about what his past is, and yet I’ve barely seen a soul note that you can just turn to og classic Journey to the West and see he’s most well-known for having run around in a Sun Wukong fursuit while insisting that he’s the one and only Monkey King (& also for taking over Flower-Fruit Mountain in Sun Wukong’s absence, being a cannibal, & fighting an enraged monkey king from earth to heaven to hell to Buddha before getting bonked to death). Like seriously people besides a lot of very interesting questions that can raise about identity and morality if you want to go with the Buddhist interpretation & true vs. false mind, you have to admit that him really hating Sun Wukong and yet wanting to literally be Sun Wukong that badly could make for some great storytelling. Or at least be really funny.
IDK, just kind of curious as to why currently very few people seem to even want to acknowledge the Six Eared Macaque’s JTTW background.
