#im queueing this late so if you see any mistakes please let me know lol

[davids-cartoon-corkboard]

White Bone Spirit’s plan to “rip the memory of [Sun Wukong] from this world” means she’s definitely tampered with Macaque’s memories, as well as others’ memories about Macaque. Qi Xiaotian doesn’t recognize him as one of the villains SWK and company fought on the Journey despite being a major SWK fanboy and seeing him in the golden vision of truth back in “A Hero is Born!”. At first I had thought Macaque’s story just wasn’t well-known in-universe, but his debut episode contradicts this.

He was nervous when he introduced himself to QXT as the Six-Eared Macaque... he thought QXT would react negatively! Enough people know about him being a villain that he expects them to panic or become hostile when they realize who he is. That is, enough people used to know about him before WBS started meddling.

Many folks suspect Macaque lied or twisted the truth in “Shadow Play”, since he is a villain. Others thought Macaque was being honest because SWK was kind of a bastard before his character development on the Journey, so having SWK’s past wrongdoings come back to bite him would highlight that hey, this Super Cool Celebrity Warrior is fundamentally A Person With Flaws. It’s good to look up to him, sure, but it’s not good to idolize him. I think the second option is more likely, with the caveat that what Macaque thinks is the truth isn’t what actually happened.

-----

As for what did happen, Journey to the West itself offers clues. To quickly summarize: If SWK and company successfully help the monk Tripitaka fetch scriptures from the west and bring them to the east, their past misdeeds will be forgiven and they will be rewarded with positions in Heaven. But in chapter 56, SWK unnecessarily killed some bandits, so Tripitaka rejected him and sent him away.

In chapter 57, SWK went to the Bodhisattva Guanyin to tell on his master... while “SWK” attacked the other members of the Journey and planned to replace them with impostors so he could take the Heavenly reward all for himself. Sha Wujing went to the Bodhisattva Guanyin to explain the situation and ask for help, and she told him SWK couldn’t have done those things, since he'd been by her side for the past few days. Sha Wujing and SWK left to go discover the truth.

In chapter 58, they found “SWK”, and he and SWK immediately began fighting. They looked and sounded exactly alike and were evenly matched to the point that no one could tell them apart... so they went to the Buddha himself for help. He explained that the false SWK was a six-eared macaque. The six-eared macaque panicked at being discovered and tried to run, but the Buddha trapped him and revealed his true form. SWK used this opportunity to kill the six-eared macaque. And... that’s the end of that storyline. On to the next adventure!

Taking the text at face value, the six-eared macaque is... Some Guy. He and SWK didn’t know each other personally and had no shared past, he just saw an opportunity to get something good for himself and failed to take it. This gives us half of Lego Monkie Kid Macaque’s backstory; he certainly isn’t Some Guy, but that he disguised himself as QXT to attack SWK and then mocked SWK for not seeing through the illusion suggests he did impersonate SWK and attack his allies during the Journey.

“Seriously? You fell for that?!”

Since Journey to the West is an allegory for enlightenment, we can look at the text- and the shadow play- through an allegorical lens to understand LMK Macaque’s motivation. JttW Macaque represents SWK’s “dark side”, the violent, selfish, deceptive part of himself he needs to overcome before he can continue on the Journey.

And suddenly Macaque’s shadow schtick makes a whole lot more sense.

---

Every goddamn line of the play supports the idea that Macaque is a part of SWK that got separated from him somehow.

Obviously Macaque was referring to SWK when he talked about “the hero” and himself when he talked about “the warrior”, but he gestured at SWK’s silhouette when he said “[the play] follows the tragic tale of a legendary warrior...” (SWK is the hero and the warrior... but Macaque is the warrior and not the hero.)

“...[T]hose who bring light into this world inevitably bring darkness to those they hold dear.” (SWK “brought” Macaque to the other Journey members.)

“Like light, heroes bring warmth, hope, and friendship. But they also give life to the darkness.” (SWK “gave life” to Macaque.)

“The hero and the warrior were like the sun and the moon; their light a protective glow shining upon the world. Together, there was nothing that could stop the two of them, either in the celestial realms or on earth.” (The moon reflects the sun, Macaque reflects SWK. Macaque also considers (or considered...) himself a protector. Macaque was present for/part of SWK’s ruckus in the celestial realms.)

“The hero attained power beyond comprehension. As the hero’s light grew, so too did his shadow. And soon, the warrior was cast in that shadow.”

(SWK, this blinding light, looms over Macaque menacingly. SWK “cast out” or “cast away” Macaque.)

“In the darkness, the warrior was forgotten by the hero.” (Oh? Forgotten? Wow I wonder how SWK could have forgotten such a dear friend it sure is a mystery.)

-----

Three of QXT’s clones became markedly different over a short period of time, and their reappearance in “This is the End!” means they didn’t stop existing just because QXT poofed them. It’s not a stretch to guess that one of SWK’s clones also became markedly different over a longer period of time and gained a certain amount of permanence.

SWK mostly uses his clones for combat, which explains why Macaque’s lessons to QXT boiled down to “hit stuff really hard”.

“...[Y]ou don’t use a weapon, you are a weapon!” in that context is... disconcerting. It’s not surprising that SWK would consider his clones to be merely weapons, since he can just poof them away when he’s done with them and, well, they are him. Maybe it was odd that this particular clone was The-Violent-Selfish-Deceptive-Parts-Of-SWK rather than SWK-As-A-Whole like all the rest, but he was always good in a fight! SWK had to protect his monkey subjects, after all! And beat up those underworld guys who tried to kidnap him, and also beat up those guys in the celestial realm who disrespected him, and then beat up the guys from the celestial realm who tried to arrest him for that, and then beat up the army from the celestial realm who tried to arrest him for eating a bunch of magic immortality food he wasn’t supposed to eat, and THEN beat up the rest of the celestial army as he escapes from being arrested, and THEN-

He got pinned underneath a mountain for five hundred years with only iron pellets to eat and molten copper to drink, and no visits from anyone. And when Tripitaka finally got him out, he put a magic fillet on SWK’s head that would give him a massive headache whenever Tripitaka felt like he was acting too violently. And sometimes Zhu Bajie would persuade Tripitaka that SWK deserved it even when he didn’t because Zhu Bajie was kind of a little shit.

In a situation like that, it’s only natural SWK wanted to avoid summoning his unusually rowdy clone for fear of him acting out and SWK taking the blame for it, so proto-Macaque was probably floating around in SWK’s subconscious being cranky that he couldn’t Do A Violence for a while until something happened to detach Macaque from SWK.

WBS appeared in chapter 27 of JttW, where she disguised herself as a human three times trying to get close enough to Tripitaka to eat him. But each time, SWK saw through the disguise and destroyed her body, only successfully killing her the third time. Because of Zhu Bajie’s persuasion, Tripitaka didn’t believe SWK when he said the “humans” were a spirit in disguise, so he rejected SWK as a disciple altogether and sent him away, though this rift was mended some chapters later.

LMK SWK clearly didn’t succeed in killing WBS, meaning there’s a space in the narrative between her appearance in chapter 27 and Macaque’s appearance in chapter 57 for her to meddle using her Creepy Ghost Whispers.

She whispered tear it out and crush it tear it out and burn it to SWK because this weapon was too dangerous to use, he ought to get rid of it before it backfired and that monk saw fit to crush his skull with the fillet. She reached deeper and whispered run before he smothers you break free from him and live to what would become Macaque, and trusted his own violent-selfish-deceptive nature would take care of the rest.

Sun Wukong reached into his chest and cracked and coughed and clutched and pulled and tore Six-Eared Macaque tried to breathe and coughed and cracked and kicked and thrashed and tore

and there it was 

and there he was

They fought. Macaque lost. He ran.

White Bone Spirit made them forget. But sooner or later, they will remember.

Macaque will spiral for a bit, Not-A-Person-Just-A-Weapon-Made-For-Violence is a terrible thing to think of yourself. But eventually he will realize what he was is not who he is, and let go of his obsession with SWK so he can truly start to figure out who he is! He’ll probably never be a perfect uwu cinnamon roll, but he’s not doomed to be evil forever, either.

It may a while to convince SWK of that, however...

-----

Red Son

Sha Wujing

Zhu Bajie, Tripitaka, and Ao Lie

#lego monkie kid #monkie kid #monkie kid theory #lmk six eared macaque #lmk sun wukong #lmk white bone spirit #lmk lady bone demon #hmmmmm this got kind of edgy #ask to tag #im queueing this late so if you see any mistakes please let me know lol

[the-bjd-community-confess]

More Divaz confos

Mod: Round two of these, previously: link. There’s some interesting customer reviews in this batch (5 and 8) which may be useful to readers.

1.Vic3mage "the secret bjdivaz vip group is just pictures of boxes coming in and going out". Yeah, between the bitching about d0llshe, asking people to post on doa for them, dunking on ex-customers, posting pics of random doll parts that they can't identify which doll they're supposed to go with, whining about how little money they make, whining when ppl e-mail them, whining. Yeah, other than that it's just boxes, and alpacas u can buy off amazon anyway lol.

~Anonymous

2.The butthurt users crying and guilttripping under every Divaz confession who have never been seen before elsewhere on this blog are extremely unsuspicious and unproblematic and definitely unconnected to Divaz and unbiased in every possible way

/s

~Anonymous

3.idk shit abt bjd1vas but v1cemage i can absolutely tell you the shit about ch0o is 100% accurate, fucker's got a long, long history of being an awful little man that stretches well beyond his involvement in the doll community. between the two i'd still trust bjd1vas over ch00 ch00 the fool any day!

~Anonymous

4.The Z3st and Div4s thing is really silly and both entities were being shady but did they really have to take the DZ waiting room down with them? :( He had even made a separate thread about it......

~Anonymous 

5. RE: BJD Divaz

I’ve been a customer of BJD Divaz since they first started, when it was only run by Chart3rline. I even contacted other BJD companies trying to persuade them to work with Divaz as their US representative. Most declined because they didnt like D's commission fee, but I was able to persuade a few of them.

I asked them to purchase a doll off DOA because I couldnt afford the asking price, and while they did, I found out later that instead of agreeing to purchase the seller's price, they negotiated the price to be lower. This significantly cheaper price was not passed down to me. I paid the full price +the commission fee based on that full price. I am disappointed I was not told this. This is when I stopped viewing them as a "friend" and instead, as a business. I dont hold this against them, it’s context to what Im going to say later.

I’ve stopped purchasing from D after my recent order from them. This company usually takes 3 or less months to make a doll. I’ve ordered the doll from D and it took 11 months. They let me know it arrived to them in March and that it will be shipped soon, except it only shipped on July, and only after I sent them several "reminder" emails. Before people in the comments try to put the blame on me for not sending a reminder soon, please keep in mind that I acknowledged the email in March and confirmed everything and they keep stressing to not send them emails because they are busy, I’ve emailed once every month since. I’ve since switched to ACBJD and Ive been happy with communication and the dolls ordered. I imagine ACBJD gets the same amount of emails, but they dont berate their customers if they email more than once.

I regret when people wanted a D0llshe, but not deal with him, I always recommended D. I would warn people of ordering directly and instead go through D. They assured buyers they would be handling communication and all the efforts so they wouldnt worry, except they didn’t. A person that I’ve recommended D to, who surpassed 2 years, keeps messaging me for help because D wouldnt reply to their emails. She is respectful, sweet and a timid person, not a Karen. This person, emailed D without a reply so would email a week later, only to be told that their email would be pushed down to the bottom if emailed again. No response, so she goes to FB and IG, who both tell her to email because they arent the person running orders. Finally got a response that they would get their refund, after D0llshe sends D's payment, but minus the PP fees. 3 months later and theres no refund, only a promise of them getting it later. Why is the customer missing out on fees when they have no doll? Customer emails d0llshe and he says he cant offer refund, because they didn’t order through them, which is understandable, but when all options are out for a customer, do you blame them for chargebacks?

If anyone files a chargeback, D will be blacklisting them from every company they rep, as in blacklisting you from buying direct from those companies. I urge everyone who has negative experiences with D to email the companies they rep instead of venting on confession blogs, and writing your experiences on social media. Make it count and send letters to the companies they represent, and please provide proof because they will try to make you out to be a liar.

Speaking of, they made vague posts on cl0ver singing for charging paypal fees, and that they offer guarantees as an official dealer, except when offering refunds, to non delivered products I might add, they are keeping the fees, and offered no help with d0llshe, even before they ended their dealership with them. Someone on DOA was told to not email them unless the wait time surpassed 1.5 years. They are even so petty that they post screenshots with the full name and address (dox) of the customer on purpose and then delete it out a day later as if they just realized their "mistake".

Before you try to make excuses for them about the fires, keep in mind, I am dealing with a business. The lower price negotiation with the DOA sale, I am in no way obligated to give them a pass or treat them as a friend when they made it clear that our relationship is strictly business. Their issues, are not my issues. D0lk got dragged for not shipping in time, others, including artisans, got dragged for being so late with communication and sending back refunds for cancelled orders. Why does D get to be exempt?

The supporters are the worst part of this, because of instead of being honest so D can improve, they support them for being "real". For example, look how micemage words it, to make it seem like this criticism is from one person, when there are people on addicts who didn’t have good experience. Check the bjd dealers tag here, you will see the supporters in the comments going off on any and all criticism of D. Some have sane comments, but the majority are cult like and try to identify the person venting as if it’s one person. Addicts deletes threads with criticism asking people to instead direct it to their feedback group; which lets be honest, no one is going to do because its "not that bad", and most dont want to join a new group, which is mostly dead.

This is my first and last confession on D, I’ve emailed each company they rep and told them my experience as well as contacting the 3 month wait company, with screenshots of my order, how they handled it, and the excuse they used to put blame on the company for being so late (package arrived march to D, 4 months to be shipped is on D, not the company). I’m not using company or order details because I know they are petty enough to try to identify me and publicly shame me like they have to others. This and the threat of suing is why not many people like to go public with their experience. They just keep feedback neutral, move on and never deal with again.

~Anonymous

6. Listen, I can't take you seriously in regards to BJD!vas because you're posting on a confession blog. If you were serious, you would have posted in buyer beware groups, DoA reviews or the board to get things resolved, or you would have made a complaint to the BBB. And your language makes you come off more as someone with an agenda rather than someone who is trying to warn people. If shipping is the issue, stop buying with standard shipping and pay the extra price for express shipping. I saw one of you complain that it sat with them for 20 days; that's probably because you're not the only one and they more than likely have a queue to check and then ship out. Do mistakes happen? Yes, because we're human. I've been in this hobby for a few years now and it seems like most people know you're going to have to wait, sometimes even outside the expected wait time. And shipping something as big as a doll is a timely endeavor. I shouldn't have to say that.

My point is simply to stop complaining on an confession board and either take it to the places previously mentioned. Posting here behind the anonymous mask makes you sound like a petulant child who didn't get their way right away.

~Anonymous

7.My only issue with BJD Divaz is how I never get any updates. Every email, they tell me to join their facebook page for status updates. I dont have a FB and I dont want to create one. I bought my doll through their website, updates should be posted on their website, or they could send me an email. That isnt asking much.

~Anonymous

8. Since there seems to be a lot of either "completely negative everything sucks" or "everything was sunshine and rainbows" confessions about bjd!vaz I thought I'd chime in with a neutral review.

PROS

-They were always polite and professional in their emails, and gave me very detailed answers to my questions.

-I got exactly what I ordered, so no mix ups or missing parts or anything like that.

-I think them being forthcoming about personal issues (only one person on staff, illness, the flooding isue etc.) on social media is good, since it keeps customers updated as to why there might be delays.

-If you live in the US their shipping is very reasonable.

CONS

-Reply times were varied. Sometimes it could take over a week, sometimes a couple hours.

-My order took about 10mo which, when comparing to other people who ordered through the same company around the same time, was about 3x as long as if I bought it direct and 2x as long if I had gone through a different dealer. I get some of the waiting time is out of their control, but it was kind of ridiculous.

-They dont necessarily ship the same day they send you a tracking number. I wish they said something like, "Here's your tracking number, our pickup is Xday so it should start moving after that" just so I could be aware.

All in all no major complaints. I got my doll and all that. Their lone employee is clearly overwhelmed. I hope they hire another person, if only to give the one a break.

Truthfully, I most likely won't buy through them again. I'd rather pay the international shipping and go direct, than deal with the extensive wait time. I'd still recommend them to someone looking for a very long layaway, though. I paid in full, but if I had a 12mo layaway I would've never known they weren't ready to ship my doll until month 10.

~Anonymous

#BJD #ABJD #BJD Confessions #TrueBJDConfessions #BJD Dealers