why is the sims so addictive but only for a short amount of time??? like all u do is play the sims u don’t sleep u don’t eat it’s like you’re on drugs for around two days and then forget about it for the next whole year
God creating Adam and Eve then fucking off for the rest of the eternity like
I’ve made a list of over 35 of Sun Wukong’s various names and titles from Journey to the West (Xiyouji, 西遊記, 1592). It also covers common insults directed at him by assorted characters.
ASFSGREAFSD okay okay sorry to compare the lego show and the og classic again but honestly in context this screenshot and Azure Lion’s whole thing about what a great king and leader Sun Wukong was is extremely funny given that here those aren’t monkey yaoguai making up the Monkey King’s “subjects,” but just regular monkeys. Like Monkie Kid Sun Wukong hasn’t ever really been a king of anything; he’s more like an animal caretaker that got in over his head when he went against the entirety of heaven after an actual heavenly warrior who’s seen for himself how that system works told him it was a super good idea to lead the charge. This is akin to 4-star general going to an eccentric zookeeper and being like “woah dude you should TOTALLY try and make yourself president. I can tell from how good you are at giving chimpanzees the food they like that you’re definitely the right man for the job.”
This is a public service announcement reminding JTTW fans to not treat the work as modern fiction. The novel was not the product of a singular author; instead, it’s the culmination of a centuries-old story cycle informed by history, folklore, and religious mythology. It’s important to remember this when discussing events from the standard 1592 narrative.
Case in point is the battle between Sun Wukong and Erlang. A friend of a friend claims with all their heart that the Monkey King would win in a one-on-one battle. They cite the fact that Erlang requires help from other Buddho-Daoist deities to finish the job. But this ignores the religious history underlying the conflict. I explained the following to my acquaintance:
I hate to break it to you [name of person], but Erlang would win a million times out of a million. This is tied to religious mythology. Erlang was originally a hunting deity in Sichuan during the Han (202 BCE-220 CE), but after receiving royal patronage during the Later Shu (934-965) and Song (960-1279), his cult grew to absorb the mythos of other divine heroes. This included the story of Yang Youji, an ape-sniping archer, leading to Erlang’s association with quelling primate demons. See here for a broader discussion.
This is exemplified by a 13th-century album leaf painting. The deity (right) oversees spirit-soldiers binding and threatening an ape demon (left).
Erlang was connected to the JTTW story cycle at some point, leading to a late-Yuan or early-Ming zaju play called The God Erlang Captures the Great Sage Equaling Heaven (二郎神鎖齊天大聖). In addition, The Precious Scroll of Erlang (二郎寳卷, 1562), a holy text that predates the 1592 JTTW by decades, states that the deity defeats Monkey and tosses him under Tai Mountain.
So it doesn’t matter how equal their battle starts off in JTTW, or that other deities join the fray, Erlang ultimately wins because that is what history and religion expects him to do.
And as I previously mentioned, Erlang has royal patronage. This means he was considered an established god in dynastic China. Sun Wukong, on the other hand, never received this badge of legitimacy. This was no doubt because he’s famous for rebelling against the Jade Emperor, the highest authority. No human monarch in their right mind would publicly support that. Therefore, you can look at the Erlang-Sun Wukong confrontation as an established deity submitting a demon.
I’m sad to say that my acquaintance immediately ignored everything I said and continued debating the subject based on the standard narrative. That’s when I left the conversation. It’s clear that they don’t respect the novel; it’s nothing more than fodder for battleboarding.
I understand their mindset, though. I love Sun Wukong more than just about anyone. I too once believed that he was the toughest, the strongest, and the fastest. But learning more about the novel and its multifaceted influences has opened my eyes. I now have a deeper appreciation for Monkey and his character arc. Sure, he’s a badass, but he’s not an omnipotent deity in the story. There is a reason that the Buddha so easily defeats him.
In closing, please remember that JTTW did not develop in a vacuum. It may be widely viewed around the world as “fiction,” but it’s more of a cultural encyclopedia of history, folklore, and religious mythology. Realizing this and learning more about it ultimately helps explain why certain things happen in the tale.
Thinking a lot about how all of the characters in The Amazing Digital Circus *authentically* look like they were designed in that really specific era of CG where people weren’t entirely sure what they were doing with CG but by GOD they were DOING it. Like. “Characters made to show off THE AMAZING POWERS OF THREE DIMENSIONS” type stuff. You could plonk any of the designs down in a surreal semi-plotless art short or tech demo, you know?
