I have a friend and she told me about this guy she dated who basically drank ONLY Dr Pepper. like he always had one. if he gave you a ride, you know for sure that he had a 12 pack on the floor of his car (in the backseat on the right so he could reach it while driving) and there was also a 12 pack in his fridge and maybe a couple extras in the garage. sometime he'd get the weird variants of dr pepper or whatever but there was a 100% guarantee this guy had regular dr pepper with him at all times. at home or at school or at work, sipping dr pepper. like im sure he drank water when he was working out and stuff so he wasnt TOO nuts about dr pepper, but also drinking a little bit of dr pepper at breakfast wasn't off the table. he'd bring his own dr pepper to restaurants sometimes just in case they didnt carry it, just pulling a 20oz out of his jacket or backpack or whatever and cracking it open like it was the most normal thing in the world. and my friend who was dating him said that he was otherwise a completely normal guy, wasnt obsessed with the brand or tried to get others to drink it, and he'd be fine if he went a while without dr pepper (like going on vacation/camping/whatever) but i guess he just really really liked dr pepper and never really suffered any ill effects from drinking it nearly all day, every day. no adverse health effects, no diabetes, no kidney stones. anyway my friend is pretty sure that the dr pepper is responsible for why his cum tasted as sweet as the middle of an oreo and i dont have any reason to doubt it
I just got into the Lego Monkie Kid fandom recently, and I must ask. How do you feel about the Wukong/Macaque shipping? I've seen a lot of people say it's inappropriate because they're commonly interpreted as brothers. But others say it's okay cause it's not set in stone and lmk has changed some details on the original story, including Wukong & Mac's relationship.
I will be frank and say that Sun Wukong x Liu'er Mihou (Six-Eared Macaque) shipping grosses me the hell out, and it is one of the biggest reasons I'm hesitant in involving myself with the Lego Monkie Kid fandom, due to its domination of the fandom.
This will be a long post, so here's a bulleted TLDR:
I feel it is unfair to consider LMK independent from JTTW, given just how much LMK draws from JTTW.
I feel that the fandom's earnestness to detach LMK from JTTW does not consider how LMK is a Chinese piece of media and is thus insensitive of JTTW's place in Chinese culture.
JTTW functions as a Buddhist allegory. Within this, Six-Eared Macaque represents Sun Wukong's flaws and strife, and is literally created from him. Therefore sharing the same DNA while being two separate people, functionally siblings. Which is what has led Chinese popular culture to commonly interpret these two as such.
That being said, even if LMK makes them beyond a shadow of a doubt not siblings, I still think it's gross to ship people who were siblings in the source material. Shipping is not the only way to interact with media.
Why It's Important to Consider JTTW in Relation to LMK
While Lego Monkie Kid has changed details in the original story, I do not think it's fair to consider it as independent from Journey to the West. As a Chinese person, I feel the fandom's earnestness to separate JTTW from LMK is insensitive at best.
Journey to the West is one of the 四大名著 [Four Classical Novels of China]. Not only that, it is arguably the most accessible of the four, and as such, it occupies a very special place in Chinese culture. JTTW is a story everyone grows up with, whether it be the actual text, adaptations, or even just a bedtime story from a family member. Nearly everyone can name the main pilgrims, notable antagonists, chapter titles, and weapon names. The story is basically a backdrop to everyday life due to how much it's casually referenced, whether it be in pop culture or even food names. As such, much of the story is considered general knowledge.
Changing details and rewriting parts of JTTW for an adaptation is expected because everyone's already so intimately familiar with the original story. It doesn't make an adaptation any less of an adaptation. With the case of LMK, I don't think you can reasonably consider it independent of JTTW. Not only are the majority of the cast lifted directly from JTTW, but Qi Xiaotian makes a point to directly quote chapter titles in the literal first and second episodes. If you want to call LMK anything, it's honestly a fan continuation.
Similar to how I've spoken on my discomfort regarding people using the Arthur Waley names for the pilgrims, I'm uncomfortable with people detaching LMK from JTTW because it feels like an avoidance of the original Chinese culture and context. LMK was originally produced with a Chinese audience in mind. As such, the target audience would have gone into LMK with the cultural context JTTW holds. Detaching JTTW is insensitive to the original intent of the producers, insensitive to the fact that LMK was produced for an audience that isn't just white westerners, and insensitive to JTTW. Therefore I think it is disrespectful to consider LMK without considering JTTW.
It will take time to understand Journey to the West, especially if you're not a fan who grew up with the story. However, I believe that if you're interacting with media from a culture not your own, you hold a responsibility to take measures in order to interact with said media and its culture respectfully. If creators are going to share an important part of their culture with you, then it is common decency and courtesy to interact responsibly. It's better to expend the effort to familiarize yourself with JTTW than to act insensitively, watering down its significance for the sake of digestibility.
Sun Wukong and Six-Eared Macaque within JTTW
Before going into my JTTW-grounded reasons for being uncomfortable with Sun Wukong x Six-Eared Macaque, I'd like to make a point in bringing up how JTTW is, at its core, a very Buddhist story and that you cannot, in good faith, separate the religious aspects from this story. JTTW is often read as a Buddhist allegory, and as with any allegory, thoughtful analysis and interpretation is a must.
(Chapter 58- Photos from my copy of 西游记 and screenshots from Vol. 3 of Anthony C. Yu's translation)
Please note the title of Chapter 58 uses the wording 二心 for "two minds" and that these are the same characters for 二心, the Buddhist concept of double-mindedness referenced in the screenshots below.
(Screenshots of Anthony C. Yu's JTTW footnotes regarding the Buddhist thought behind Six-Eared Macaque, provided by my friend @uwukong -who has xyr own post with further reading on interpretation of Six-Eared Macaque functionally being Sun Wukong's brother)
It is commonly accepted that Six-Eared Macaque was literally created from Sun Wukong and is a personification of his strife, his flaws, and the things generally holding him back from the true path to enlightenment. Some adaptations go as far as to depict Sun Wukong in genuine pain when killing Six-Eared Macaque since the act of killing Six-Eared is actually hurting a part of himself.
While "sibling" may not be the completely technically correct term for their relationship, Six-Eared Macaque shares DNA with Sun Wukong, since he was created from Sun Wukong. However, as a separate person with identical genetics, Six-Eared Macaque is functionally his sibling. If you have to pull the "technically it's not incest" card, then I don't really think there's ground to stand on. The "grey area" this ship resides in is too thoroughly debunked by the text.
That being said, even if LMK decides to change Sun Wukong and Six-Eared Macaque to be explicitly, unequivocally, undoubtedly unrelated, I still find it really uncomfortable to ship characters who were brothers in the source material.
Please don't go through such lengths to ignore the original text and its significant Buddhist context just to justify a ship. There are other ways to interact with media other than shipping.
I'm a gay Chinese man and I too want to see more gay rep in Chinese media, but let me tell you, the monkey brothers are not a healthy place to look for them.
if you listen closely you can actually hear corn grow, it sounds like real slow static and it’s due to the cell walls’ fibers breaking so the cell can grow
Forgive my sceptism, but why would a bird with a supposedly wide wingspan hop around in the snow in the first place when tree branches would suffice in the beginning?
“In 1901, Harvard was a man’s world. But an astronomer named Edward Charles Pickering broke that rule. He assembled a team of women to map and classify the types of stars. One of them provided the key to our understanding of the substance of the stars. And another devised a way for us to calculate the size of the universe.”
COSMOS: A Spacetime Odyssey (2014) written by Ann Druyan and Steven Soter
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