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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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tearlessrain · 1 month

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please help me- i used to be pretty smart but i’m having so much trouble grasping the concept of diegetic vs non-diegetic bdsm!

gfkjldghfd okay first of all I'm sorry for the confusion, if you're not finding anything on the phrase it's because I made it up and absolutely nobody but me ever uses it, but I haven't found a better way to express what I'm trying to say so I keep using it. but now you've given me an excuse to ramble on about some shit that is only relevant to me and my deeply inefficient way of talking and by god I'm going to take it.

SO. the way diegetic and non-diegetic are normally used is to talk about music and sound design in movies/tv shows. in case you aren't familiar with that concept, here's a rundown:

diegetic sound is sound that happens within the world of the movie/show and can be acknowledged by the characters, like a song playing on the stereo during a driving scene, or sung on stage in Phantom of the Opera. it's also most other sounds that happen in a movie, like the sounds of traffic in a city scene, or a thunderclap, or a marching band passing by. or one of the three stock horse sounds they use in every movie with a horse in it even though horses don't really vocalize much in real life, but that's beside the point, the horse is supposed to be actually making that noise within the movie's world and the characters can hear it whinnying.

non-diegetic sound is any sound that doesn't exist in the world of the movie/show and can't be perceived by the characters. this includes things like laugh tracks and most soundtrack music. when Duel of Fates plays in Star Wars during the lightsaber fight for dramatic effect, that's non-diegetic. it exists to the audience, but the characters don't know their fight is being backed by sick ass music and, sadly, can't hear it.

the lines can get blurry between the two, you've probably seen the film trope where the clearly non-diegetic music in the title sequence fades out to the same music, now diegetic and playing from the character's car stereo. and then there are things like Phantom of the Opera as mentioned above, where the soundtrack is also part of the plot, but Phantom of the Opera does also have segments of non-diegetic music: the Phantom probably does not have an entire orchestra and some guy with an electric guitar hiding down in his sewer just waiting for someone to break into song, but both of those show up in the songs they sing down there.

now, on to how I apply this to bdsm in fiction.

if I'm referring to diegetic bdsm what I mean is that the bdsm is acknowledged for what it is in-world. the characters themselves are roleplaying whatever scenarios their scenes involve and are operating with knowledge of real life rules/safety practices. if there's cnc depicted, it will be apparent at some point, usually right away, that both characters actually are fully consenting and it's all just a planned scene, and you'll often see on-screen negotiation and aftercare, and elements of the story may involve the kink community wherever the characters are. Love and Leashes is a great example of this, 50 Shades and Bonding are terrible examples of this, but they all feature characters that know they're doing bdsm and are intentional about it.

if I'm talking about non-diegetic bdsm, I'm referring to a story that portrays certain kinks without the direct acknowledgement that the characters are doing bdsm. this would be something like Captive Prince, or Phantom of the Opera again, or the vast majority of bodice ripper type stories where an innocent woman is kidnapped by a pirate king or something and totally doesn't want to be ravished but then it turns out he's so cool and sexy and good at ravishing that she decides she's into it and becomes his pirate consort or whatever it is that happens at the end of those books. the characters don't know they're playing out a cnc or D/s fantasy, and in-universe it's often straight up noncon or dubcon rather than cnc at all. the thing about entirely non-diegetic bdsm is that it's almost always Problematic™ in some way if you're not willing to meet the story where it's at, but as long as you're not judging it by the standards of diegetic bdsm, it's just providing the reader the same thing that a partner in a scene would: the illusion of whatever risk or taboo floats your boat, sometimes to extremes that can't be replicated in real life due to safety, practicality, physics, the law, vampires not being real, etc. it's consensual by default because it's already pretend; the characters are vehicles for the story and not actually people who can be hurt, and the reader chose to pick up the book and is aware that nothing in it is real, so it's all good.

this difference is where people tend to get hung up in the discourse, from what I've observed. which is why I started using this phrasing, because I think it's very crucial to be able to differentiate which one you're talking about if you try to have a conversation with someone about the portrayal of bdsm in media. it would also, frankly, be useful for tagging, because sometimes when you're in the mood for non-diegetic bodice ripper shit you'd call the police over in real life, it can get really annoying to read paragraphs of negotiation and check-ins that break the illusion of the scene and so on, and the opposite can be jarring too.

it's very possible to blur these together the same way Phantom of the Opera blurs its diegetic and non-diegetic music as well. this leaves you even more open to being misunderstood by people reading in bad faith, but it can also be really fun to play with. @not-poignant writes fantastic fanfic, novels, and original serials on ao3 that pull this off really well, if you're okay with some dark shit in your fiction I would highly recommend their work. some of it does get really fucking dark in places though, just like. be advised. read the tags and all that.

but yeah, spontaneous writer plug aside, that's what I mean.

#I found their original stuff while I was researching various waterhorses and their folklore for no reason #because one of the characters in their original work happens to be an each uisge #and then it turned out it ALSO included a lot of figures from welsh folklore in general #so yknow if you happen to have my incredibly specific hyperfixations you'll love it but even if you don't it's great #I didn't mean to bring up phantom of the opera so much it just happens to be very relevant to a lot of my talking points #I haven't actually seen it in years

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clown-owo · 11 months

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been replaying the Portal series I think this is where its heading

#i haven't drawn in like. half a month. which listen i know i don't post much here but i do draw a lot #i have another blog. but also sometimes i just don't post things. i draw for myself #just got burnt out from working on an animation final 😔#so anyway. eased myself back in with a silly comic about portal #my irl saw my shitty sketch and thought glados was painting chell which is very funny to me.#chelldos #but like. unrequited. glados is obsessed with chell. chell is not having a good time #portal #chell #GlaDOS #GlaD0S #my art #og post #1k #5k #10k #20k #edit: i made this post almost a year ago and it haunts me. theres a typo. chell is out of character.#because i couldn't come up with a good reason for her to be there in the first place #and this was a shitty ms paint replicating drawing that i did just to get back into drawing #i didn't think it would gain much attention #i was Wrong #anyway someone in the comments said this is what happens when you speedrun thats an infintely better setup for the punchline #EDIT 2: ok i fixed it fuck you

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canisalbus · 7 months

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✦ Milk and Honey ✦

#I've been going through some of the pieces from the past few months #the oldest of these are from... late may early july I think? felt like making a little compilation to get a better overall picture #fixation has been strong this is just a fraction of them all #gay catholic dog era #own art #own characters #CanisAlbus #art #artists on tumblr #Vasco #Machete #anthro #sighthound #dogs #canine #animals #I think my personal favorites this far are the body heat piece and the bathtub scene #but their composition didn't work with this format so I left them out

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asavt · 10 days

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Once upon a time a small rat walked into my web...

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lazylittledragon · 27 days

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mombin pt 2 because we're committed now

(part 1 is here)

#stranger things #platonic stobin #steve harrington #robin buckley #mombin™#cw pregnancy #i fought with the bathroom lighting for so long #the warm light just didn't work and i couldn't figure it out #also psst i put high res crisp versions of these up for my patronis

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inkskinned · 10 months

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so one of the things that's so horrifying about birth control is that you have to, like, navigate this incredibly personal choice about your body and yet also face the epitome of misogyny. like, someone in the comments will say it wasn't that bad for me, and you'll be utterly silenced. like, everyone treats birth control like something that's super dirty. like, you have no fucking information or control over this thing because certain powerful people find it icky.

first it was the oral contraceptives. you went on those young, mostly for reasons unrelated to birth control - even your dermatologist suggested them to control your acne. the list of side effects was longer than your arm, and you just stared at it, horrified.

it made you so mentally ill, but you just heard that this was adulthood. that, yes, there are of course side effects, what did you expect. one day you looked up yasmin makes me depressed because surely this was far too intense, and you discovered that over 12,000 lawsuits had been successfully filed against the brand. it remains commonly prescribed on the open market. you switched brands a few times before oral contraceptives stopped being in any way effective. your doctor just, like, shrugged and said you could try a different brand again.

and the thing is that you're a feminist. you know from your own experience that birth control can be lifesaving, and that even when used for birth control - it is necessary healthcare. you have seen it save so many people from such bad situations, yourself included. it is critical that any person has access to birth control, and you would never suggest that we just get rid of all of it.

you were a little skeeved out by the implant (heard too many bad stories about it) and figured - okay, iud. it was some of the worst pain you've ever fucking experienced, and you did it with a small number of tylenol in your system (3), like you were getting your bikini line waxed instead of something practically sewn into your body.

and what's wild is that because sometimes it isn't a painful insertion process, it is vanishingly rare to find a doctor that will actually numb the area. while your doctor was talking to you about which brand to choose, you were thinking about the other ways you've been injured in your life. you thought about how you had a suspicious mole frozen off - something so small and easy - and how they'd numbed a huge area. you thought about when you broke your wrist and didn't actually notice, because you'd thought it was a sprain.

your understanding of pain is that how the human body responds to injury doesn't always relate to the actual pain tolerance of the person - it's more about how lucky that person is physically. maybe they broke it in a perfect way. maybe they happened to get hurt in a place without a lot of nerve endings. some people can handle a broken femur but crumble under a sore tooth. there's no true way to predict how "much" something actually hurts.

in no other situation would it be appropriate for doctors to ignore pain. just because someone can break their wrist and not feel it doesn't mean no one should receive pain meds for a broken wrist. it just means that particular person was lucky about it. it should not define treatment.

in the comments of videos about IUDs, literally thousands of people report agony. blinding, nauseating, soul-crushing agony. they say things like i had 2 kids and this was the worst thing i ever experienced or i literally have a tattoo on my ribs and it felt like a tickle. this thing almost killed me or would rather run into traffic than ever feel that again.

so it's either true that every single person who reports severe pain is exaggerating. or it's true that it's far more likely you will experience pain, rather than "just a pinch." and yet - there's nothing fucking been done about it. it kind of feels like a shrug is layered on top of everything - since technically it's elective, isn't it kind of your fault for agreeing to select it? stop being fearmongering. stop being defensive.

you fucking needed yours. you are almost weirdly protective of it. yours was so important for your physical and mental health. it helped you off hormonal birth control and even started helping some of your symptoms. it still fucking hurt for no fucking reason.

once while recovering from surgery, they offered you like 15 days of vicodin. you only took 2 of them. you've been offered oxy for tonsillitis. you turned down opioids while recovering from your wisdom tooth extraction. everything else has the option. you fucking drove yourself home after it, shocked and quietly weeping, feeling like something very bad had just happened. the nurse that held your hand during the experience looked down at you, tears in her eyes, and said - i know. this is cruelty in action.

and it's fucked up because the conversation is never just "hey, so the way we are doing this is fucking barbaric and doctors should be required to offer serious pain meds" - it's usually something around the lines of "well, it didn't kill you, did it?"

you just found out that removing that little bitch will hurt just as bad. a little pinch like how oral contraceptives have "some" serious symptoms. like your life and pain are expendable or not really important. like maybe we are all hysterical about it?

hysteria comes from the latin word for uterus, which is great!

you stand here at a crossroads. like - this thing is so important. did they really have to make it so fucking dangerous. and why is it that if you make a complaint, you're told - i didn't even want you to have this in the first place. we're told be careful what you wish for. we're told that it's our fault for wanting something so illict; we could simply choose not to need medication. that maybe if we don't like the scraps, we should get ready to starve.

we have been saying for so long - "i'm not asking you to remove the option, i'm asking you to reconsider the risk." this entire time we hear: well, this is what you wanted, isn't it?