#i imagine that can be a bit frustrating tbh and as any guy traumatized by being cheated on (even more on his case) he would be | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sketching-shark · 3 years

Note

LMK fandom: Oh, what do we do about this guy who has nothing but hurt Xiaotian, tried to replace Sun Wukong and his crew, hurt Tripitaka and ordered servants to cannibalize a monkey? Oh I know! We’ll turn him into our little meow meow~ he’s so innocent and Sun Wukong is obviously the villain!

What doesn’t help is this idea is perpetuated by multiple fan fic writers and artists for some reason. Especially some aus they make that turn SWK into a bastard for the sake of the story rather than considering cultural context and thinking they should be respectful.

And almost everyone lets them get away with it just because the art or fanfic is good and they get so popular that no one can point what is actually wrong without feeling like they’re going to get attacked.

I'm starting to feel like my blog is the one anons go to specifically to vent their frustrations about the Six Eared Macaque in his lego monkey show form & the associated fandom lmao. But I guess this makes sense, as I’ve had fun quasi-dragging him before & will in fact use this anon submission as an opportunity to have my own, to put it academically, bitch fest about not just this fandom's favorite protagonist-traumatizing meow meow, but about the way villains are often treated in not just fanon, but increasingly in canon works as well. But same policy as with the last anon; I'll post my opinions below the cut, and as fandoms love to say, don’t like don't read if you don't want to see me dunking on the six eared simian & common fandom tendencies towards villains.

Oh man I would say where would you even begin with this but anon you’ve pretty much started yourself with my main gripe with a lot of ways that the Six-Eared Macaque is portrayed in fandom; there seems to be this unspoken agreement that his acts of violence towards Sun Wukong, Qi Xioatian, and Qi Xioatian’s loved ones are either to be framed as somewhat or totally justified, to be immediately forgiven/excused, or to simply & completely be ignored. Like friends maybe this is just me not seeing the proper posts but while the fandom is inundated with art and fanfics of Macaque as a generally decent individual & a true member of team good guy, I have yet to see one person address the fact that this monkey literally kidnapped & mind-controlled Xiaotian’s best friend and father figures & forced them to brutalize Xiaotian while ol’ Six Ear looked on and laughed (X_X). Like this kind of fandom villain treatment is definitely not something that’s solely at work for Monkie Kid, but it is kind of nutty how fandoms will swing between yelling that people should be allowed to like villains without even mild critique, and then will just flat-out not address the villainous behavior, and will even bend over backwards to frame even characters who committed genocide as just poor innocent widdle victims who need a hug. At its worst, I’ve even seen tons of people in a fandom get really angry at other people who don’t like a villain, and will even start accusing those people of hating real-life mentally disabled or abused individuals all because they don’t like the fandom’s favorite literal war criminal. The Monkie Kid fandom is FAR more chill & better than a lot of other fandoms I’ve come across in that regard, but that is an exceedingly low bar, & the tendency to woobify certain kinds of villains-- as with Macaque and the extreme emphasis on his bad boy/sad boy thing--is very much at work.

I’ve also talked before about a kind of monoculturalization of certain character interpretations and story beats in fandoms, and one of the more popular ones that seems to be applied to Macaque a lot is the “hero actually bad, villain actually good” cliche, as observable from the general fandom assumption that Mr. Six-Ears he wasn’t even slightly lying or remembering things through a rose-tinted or skewed lens when he gave his version of his and Sun Wukong’s past. Like at this point it seems the possibility that people WILL NOT even consider is that Sun Wukong never did & still doesn't care that much about the Six Eared Macaque (in JTTW they weren’t sworn brothers & in Monkie Kid the only thing the monkey king really said to Macaque before attacking him was a pretty contemptuous "Aren't you ever going to get sick of living under my shadow?," & responds to his "beloved friend" getting blown up with "You did good, bud" to Qi Xiaotian, who did the exploding), or that their original fight may in fact have mostly been instigated by Macaque. After all, to repeat what this anon summarized & what I've said before about their original JTTW context (& in an example of the things that do feel like it's often lost in translation) is that the Six Ear Macaque was a villain not just because he beat up the Tang Monk, but because he wanted to take over Sun Wukong's entire life and identity so he could have all that glory, prestige, and power for himself. To quote the macaque himself from the Anthony C. Yu translation, "I struck the T'ang monk and I took the luggage...precisely because I want to go to the West all by myself to ask Buddha for the scriptures. When I deliver them to the Land of the East, it will be my success and no one else's. Those people of the South Jambudvipa Continent will honor me then as their patriarch and my fame will last for all posterity." And in order to do this, the Six Eared Macaque had apparently made Sun Wukong's "little ones," his monkey family, his captives through either trickery or force, and gotten a number of them to take on the appearance of Tang Sanzang and the other pilgrims. It's also made clear that in very direct contrast to Sun Wukong, he doesn't care about these monkeys beyond how they might serve him. In fact, after Sha Wujing kills the monkey posing as him the Six Eared Macaque not only all but immediately replaces him with another, but also "told his little ones to have the dead monkey skinned. Then his meat was taken to be fried and served as food along with coconut and grape wines." So this monkey is not only willing to risk the lives of a lot of other monkeys for his own personal benefit, but is also a literal cannibal. And yes yes, I know a lot of people have argued that Monkie Kid shouldn't be considered a direct sequel to JTTW & that's fair enough (for example, Sun Wukong probably shouldn't be smashing anyone into a meat patty in a children's cartoon lol). And of course, it needs to be noted that there are a buttload of really out there & really cursed pieces of media based on JTTW & that were created in China. Yet the above description is the oft-ignored in the west original facet of the Six Eared Macaque's character. And it is this selfishness, entitlement, and treatment of other individuals as tools for his own self-serving ends that is, from where I’m standing, still very much present in Monkie Kid. Like besides repeatedly going out of his way to physically and psychologically traumatize Xioatian, with the last episode Macaque seemed to be going right back to his manipulative ways. I’ve seen people frame their last conversation as Macaque softening to Xioatian a little bit, but personally that read a lot more like that common tactic among abusers where even after they’ve hurt you they’ll dangle something you want or need over your head (in Macaque’s case, the promise of desperately needed training and information about a serious looming threat), with the implication that you’ll only get it if you do what they want you to, such as, in this case, Xioatian going back to Macaque as his student even after having been so terribly hurt by this monkey, which would give Macaque power over Xiaotian and probably Sun Wukong as a result. And it is this violence and manipulation that it seems the fandom at large has tacitly decided shouldn’t even be addressed, instead leaning more towards a (and this is an exaggeration) “Six-Eared Macaque my poor meow meow Sun Wukong has always been bad & has always been wrong about literally everything” reading.

And while it is the case that I am not Chinese and feel that as such it would be best left to someone who actually comes from that background to provide more context into how common interpretations of the Six Eared Macaque from China may clash really badly with the stuff the western fandom creates, it also must be noted that, as much as we all want to have fun in fandom & in spite of all the out-there versions of JTTW from China, we westerners should recognize that there is a very long and very ugly history of western countries stripping other cultures’ important religious and literary works for parts & mashing them into their own thing while implying or even insisting that what they present provides a true understanding of the original piece. And while I trust most individuals in regards to Monkie Kid are able to step back and think “this is a lego cartoon and not a set guide for how I should understand JTTW” (especially given the insistence that JTTW and Monkie Kid should be considered there own separate works) there does nevertheless seem to be something of a tendency to take the conclusions people come to, for example, about Sun Wukong’s characteristic in his lego form & then assume that’s just reflective to Sun Wukong as a totality. I imagine a good portion of this is due to people not reading JTTW & especially to not having easy access to solid information or answers about JTTW’s many different facets (like geez awhile ago I was trying to get a clear answer on what is considered the most accurate translation of the names of Sun Wukong’s six sworn brothers & got like 5 different responses lmao), but that tendency to take a western fandom interpretation & run with it instead of doing any background research or questioning said interpretation is still very much at play. As such, & as made prominent in the way people have been interpreting the dynamic between Sun Wukong and the Six Eared Macaque in the lego monkey show, tbh it does seem kind of shitty for western creators & audience to sometimes go really out of their way to ignore all of this original cultural & narrative context for the sake of Angst (TM) in Macaque's favor, demonizing Sun Wukong, and shipping the monkey king with his evil twin (X_X).

And speaking of which, even beyond the potential inherent creepiness & revulsion that can be inspired by this specific ship given common interpretations of the og classic's original meaning (again, it's my understanding, given both summaries of translated Chinese academic texts I've been kindly provided with, my own reading of the Anthony C. Yu translation of JTTW, & vents from a number of Chinese people I've seen on this site, that the Six-Eared Macaque is commonly interpreted in China as having originated from Sun Wukong himself as a living embodiment of his worst traits, hence why only Buddha can tell the difference between them & why the monkey king is much more slow to violence after he kills the macaque), I'd argue that in the face of all the uwu poor widdle meow meow portrayals lego show Macaque is, especially if you include JTTW's events, still in the role of “Sun Wukong but worse” as he is very much a violent & selfish creep. Like he was basically running around in JTTW wearing a Sun Wukong fursuit, but there he had the sole reason of wanting to replace Sun Wukong wholesale so he could have all the good things in the monkey king's life without actually having to work as hard for them. But if you combine that with Macaque now claiming that he used to be best friend with Sun Wukong in his pre-journey days (something that's made funny from a JTTW context given that that status actually belongs to the Demon Bull King lol), his original violence has now blown into this centuries long and really unhealthy obsession with the monkey king. Like he's apparently gone from wanting to literally be Sun Wukong to being so obsessed with getting revenge on Sun Wukong that he's got basically nothing else going on in his life. Like he's only appeared in two episodes but...does he have any friends? Any family? A career or even a hobby that DOESN'T center the monkey king? Anything at all outside of his "get revenge on and/or kill Sun Wukong/use his successor as my personal punching bag” thing? Like dude! That is extremely creepy and extremely bad for everyone all around! As I’ve said before, this seeming refusal to see beyond the past or to do something that doesn’t involve Sun Wukong in some capacity is a trait that makes Macaque an interesting and somewhat tragic villain--he even seems to be working as Sun Wukong’s reflection in a mirror darkly, with lego show Sun Wukong pretty clearly not being able to heal from his own past which is hinted to be defined by one loss after another, and with Monkie Kid even kind of having these two characters somewhat follow their JTTW characterizations in that in the latter half of the journey Sun Wukong often gets sad & starts crying in the face of what seems insurmountable odds (& Monkie Kid Sun Wukong does seem to be hiding some serious depression behind a cheerful facade), whereas the Six-Eared Macaque retains a worse version of Sun Wukong’s pre-journey characteristic of getting pissed and lashing out if things don’t go his way--but it’s also what would make any current friendship or romantic relationship between these monkeys horrific. Although to be fair even the fandom seems to recognize this in an unconscious way, in that a lot of the art & fanfic seems to swing erratically between them kissing & screaming at each other in yet another example of bog-standard fandom adulation of romanticized toxic relationships lol.

At the end of the day, of course, this is nothing new. You'll find versions of this dynamic across a ton of fandoms and now even canonical work. And as such, I can only look at this kind of popularized relationship dynamic with a kind of resigned weariness whenever it pops up, & my frustrated question with the popularity of this kind of pairing is the exact same one that I have for a multitude of blatantly toxic villain/hero ships, given common fandom discourse & the tendency to either ignore or justify the villain's actions & demonize the hero: if you're THAT convinced that everything is the hero's fault, if you believe THAT much that the hero is the one in the wrong for the villain's pain and their subsequent actions, then why are you so set on them not only becoming a romantic pair, but framing this get-together as a good thing? Like I know we contain multitudes but that's waaay too many contradictions for me to wrap my head around. And it definitely doesn’t help that one branch of underlying reasoning behind this kind of pairing seems to be the ever-present “you break it, you fix it” mentality, where the assumption is that if you’re in a failing, abusive, and/or generally toxic relationship (platonically or romantically), if you put in enough time and effort & attempts to compromise, you’ll be able to restore/have the relationship you dreamed of, even with someone who hurt you really badly. And this assumption isn’t limited to fandom: I’d even argue that it’s everywhere in the culture, hence why a lot of people feel like they “failed” if they have to get a divorce or make the choice to leave an unhealthy friendship. Personally, I feel like people could really benefit from more stories about how it is not only the case that the people you hurt don’t owe you their forgiveness & you can still become a better and happier person without the one you hurt in your life, & that while it can be really hard it can also be a good thing to leave a relationship, even if it’s one that once meant a lot to you.

But in all honestly, from my own perspective this kind of pairing is starting to read far less like enemies to lovers and far more like a horrible fantasy where you can pull whatever shit you want, even on the people you "love," & never be held accountable for your terrible behavior or even have to consider that maybe you were in the wrong. It's another facet that makes me larf every time I see people insist that fandom is an inherently "transformative" or "progressive" form of storytelling like friends you are literally just taking status quo toxic monogamy & rebranding it as somehow beneficial & romantic (X_X).

But as to anon’s last frustration, it is hard to know what is the appropriate response with this kind of thing...like for my own part I’m keeping my frustrations to my blog & now increasingly to posts that you would have to click on the “read more” button to see what I have to say, but I totally get the hesitation to give even a mild critique to big names in a fandom. Like I've now seen it happen repeatedly where someone who has a big name in a fandom will make something that's kind of shitty for one reason or another, someone will message them with some version of "hey, that's kind of shitty, you shouldn't do that," and the typical response is either to blatantly ignore the issue completely, or more popularly to make a giant crying circus that seems deliberately geared towards stoking emotions on both sides of the, for example, fiction does/doesn't affect reality issue so that something that didn't even have to be that big a deal gets blown out of all proportion, with the big name often framing what often started out as a very mild critique into a long crying jag about how the initial response to their kind of shitty thing was so mean/cruel and they're just a poor innocent & that YOU'RE the true racist/sexist/bigot etc. if you don't agree with their opinion. It must of course be noted that there have also been numerous instances of people taking it too far the other way & sending not just big names but smaller creators literal deaths threats over stuff like innocuous ships which like holy hell bells people that’s a horrible thing to do. But for the big names at least, the end result of all this fighting is usually that once the dust has settled they have more attention/fame/money/power in the fandom than before, and with anyone who might have a problem with their stuff feeling afraid to voice their opinion lest they be swarmed by that person's fans. In that way fandom does often seem to increasingly be geared towards presenting an “official” fandom perspective about various facets of a piece of media instead of allowing for a multitude of interpretations, and with criticism, no matter its shape or form or how genuinely warranted it may be, being hounded out of existence. I feel like a lot of this could be made less bad if there wasn’t this constant assumption & even drive to think that a different interpretation of or criticism of your favorite work of fiction or your fanwork isn’t a direct claim that you are a thoroughly loathsome individual (& maybe also if people cultivated an enjoyment of learning things about important works from a culture outside their own, even if what you learn clashes with your own initial understandings), but I guess we’ll see if that ever happens.

So these are my general thinks about the Six Eared Macaque’s current fandom meow meow status & some of my bigger gripes with fandom tendencies as a whole. I stand by my idea that the most interesting & beneficial route for Macaque moving forward would be a kind of “redemption without forgiveness from the ones you hurt” arc--as I think was done pretty excellently with the character Grace in Infinity Train--and if for no other reason than gosh dern this monkey really needs to cultivate some sort of identity beyond his “Sun Wukong but worse” persona.

#lmk macaque #monkie kid macaque #6 eared macaque #monkie kid #lmk sun wukong #qi xiaotian #lmk monkey king #sun wukong #monkey king #journey to the west #jttw #fandom criticism #lmk

112 notes · View notes

ichayalovesyou · 3 years

Text

Unexpected: Shipping Spones

and how I think it went down subtextually

Preface: I do not think they’re relationship would’ve really kicked into something more than platonic until Mirror, Mirror (I think that’s when Bones realizes he’s physically attracted to Spock but we’ll get into that later)

Miri

“Aww, you do care!” 😊😳😑

Dagger of The Mind

“Wow, I’m seeing something about you that you haven’t even told Jim... that’s kinda, really fucked up and freaky, but also elegant and beautiful?”🤔

The Conscience of A King

“Crap, okay, Jim is acting weird, guess we have to rely on eachother.” 🙄😤😑😏

The Galileo 7

“Wow, you’re an asshole but I’m also learning about your redeeming qualities?? And also I really, really don’t want to see you die?????” 🙄😒😳

*Space Seed

This isn’t a very Spones-y episode I just think it revealed to us, or even to Bones, that he finds dangerous, intense, confident men attractive. Bones’s love language is jokes and threats punctuated by genuine earnesty and he was ABSOLUTELY low-key flirting with Khan with the knife at his throat.

Return of The Archons

I don’t think Bones was aware of it while it was happening because of Landru but it’s heavily implied Spock tried to mind meld with him. I think it left a subconscious impression on Bones, and a very conscious impression on Spock that he does actually care about him. He sounds so frustrated when he says he can’t break Bones out of it 🥺

Operation: Annihilate!

I mean this one kinda speaks for itself, it is a miserable time for the Triumpverant and Bones is so, so, high empathy. To see Kirk on the verge of bursting in to tears (and he probably did tbh we just didn’t see) for the entire ordeal and seeing Spock in enough pain to show it must’ve really, really shook him. Then on top of that he has to deal with needlessly blinding Spock while testing the cure. I honestly think 90% of the time he seems like he’s teasing Spock about his differing biology, it’s that he’s actually way more angry at himself. Angry for not being able to be certain Spock is really okay and nothing’s wrong, because half the time he wouldn’t know what to look for. He cares about Spock so much that getting to a point where he doesn’t know what to do for him when something could be done, scares the fuck out of him.

Mirror, Mirror

Now this is where the steamier aspect begins. I think Bones is so absolutely hellbent on saving Mirror!Spock because he’s a bit traumatized and just cannot deal with the prospect of any Spock dying on his watch. Even if it means being trapped in a dimension where he’d have to break his hypocritical oath or die upholding it. He’s rewarded with a very intimidating, very sexy mind meld. It’s been established that Mind Melds are two way windows, Bones can experience everything Mirror!Spock is, and I think he’s surprised and intrigued by what he finds out about what’s going on under that Vulcan veneer of calm. (I also headcanon that Spones are already a relationship in the Mirror timeline but I think my point would still stand even if Bones didn’t find out they were a thing in an alternate universe).

At this point, I think Bones starts legitimately wondering if he’s missing out with what Kirk & Spock have by being so closed off with Prime!Spock. (yes I love McSpirk too, I could never pick one ship and poly rep is where it’s at! I also can’t imagine Kirk and Spock ever going without one another, they’re bond is so much deeper than friendship.)

Amok Time

It checks so many goddamn boxes!

“Wait?! Vulcans go into heat?? It’s called what?!” Playing into both his fear that he won’t be able to save Spock if something goes horribly wrong, and let’s be real, Pon Farr, as like a concept is 🔥 even if it doesn’t make a ton of sense lmao.

You’re asking me to come along to this super sacred private occasion of yours?? With your other choice being your current lover? Okay! 😳

“No! No no no no I am not going to lose either of you! Not to-fucking-day! Time to risk a diplomatic incident by faking my dearest friend’s death and traumatizing the guy I now realize I have a major tsundere-style crush on!”

“Wow, I just saw Spock emote, god I wish I could get you to smile like that. I’m just gonna pretend to not know what you guys mean by ‘minding the store’. It’s not like a thank you for breaking you out of Plok’tow and preventing you from killing the man we you love is in order or anything.” 🙄😏

Journey to Babel

I mean, everything he does for Spock’s sake this episode. Also talk about unlocking your closed-off friend’s tragic backstory! I mean, experimental medicine, alien surgery, caving with no real argument on one of Kirk’s hair brained life threatening schemes?! That’s love!

Also: prying for cute/embarassing information about your crush/SO from their parents is On Brand (Bones always wants The Drama 😆) COME ON “A teddy bear???!!??”

Also also: I’m sure there’s some serious fringe benefits to having your attractive friends confined to sickbay so that neither of them accidentally bleed to death.

Bread and Circuses

I feel as though it’s in Bones’ nature to interrogate and goad Spock about his feelings, not because he thinks Spock doesn’t have any, but he wants to see how deep they go. I think this comes from the vibe that I get from Bones that he has Imposter Syndrome and projects it onto his close relationships in times of stress. They’re both trapped in a cell together and deeply scared for Kirk. I think he’s asking:

“Do you really love Jim as much as I think you do?”

“Do I actually care about/feel attracted to you? Or do I just think I do because Jim does?”

“Am I actually capable of love? Or capable of being loved?”

“Are there really warm, decent feelings in there for me too?”

The Immunity Syndrome

This the episode I just saw all the way through for the first time (I’m watching TOS all the way through for the first time in general) and if this episode doesn’t confirm for Spock & Bones that they love each other, it sure as hell does for me.

Bones is unusually worried (even for him, we all know he gets hella agitated when Spock is hurt) when Spock feels the Intrepid die.

It feels to me that it’s not that Bones doesn’t believe Spock about what happened, he just doesn’t want it to be true. Because what does that mean Spock just went through? What does that mean for any single person to experience so much death in a single instant? He barely has the heart to deal with one at a time!

That and they keep throwing themselves in each other’s way in the professional Who Gets To Die for Science contest. We good good shit like “... good luck Spock” & “Shut up Spock we’re rescuing you!!!”

Spones is such a weird, nuanced ship that can be as painfully prickly as it is overwhelmingly, mind-bogglingly tender. It’s like the odd-couple done right. I definitely ship it to slowly increasing degrees after Miri (and not before) it’s definitely got slow burn energy. It’s not as mutual soft boy energy as their respective relationships with Kirk. They’re loving AND combative which is what makes the Triumverate so refreshing and compelling, whether you ship any of it or not. I’m not saying Bones (and Spock) don’t have their shit to work on with each other, but the work is what matters.

Anyway, Spones is good. I just wanted to get these thoughts off my chest.

72 notes · View notes