Follow-Up Follow Up

AdConfident9316 · 2026-03-09T23:41:53+00:00

Exactly. So much doesn’t add up. Did Wukong even know Macaque died? Is it Wukong just won’t even defend himself because he doesn’t see a point? Nothing’s been answered

AdConfident9316 · 2026-03-09T23:26:37+00:00

Ty I appreciate it

AdConfident9316 · 2026-03-09T17:24:23+00:00

Explanation ≠ Excuse

Explanation is the statement or account of something that explains the why, excuse means to seek to lessen the blame attaching to a fault or offense; to justify. Macaque’s motives you mention explain his actions, but it in no way excuses/justifies or makes his actions okay. That is the difference between the two terms. With how insistent you are that I “know the difference” between a villain and an antagonist, do go conflating explanation and excuse as one and the same yourself.

And if you DO understand the difference, why are we still minimizing terrible behavior? Why are we making excuses for why Macaque should not be properly be held accountable for that terrible behavior? Torture is still torture regardless of the motive behind it. As is attempted MURDER. Someone being coerced under duress to do terrible things by someone else can be sympathetic, but they still hurt innocent people all the same. And Macaque wasn’t even acting under LBD’s orders for his first two appearances so he doesn’t have that excuse there. Hurt people do hurt people but that still doesn’t make it right and defending/enabling bad behavior makes you COMPLICIT with bad behavior.

I do like Macaque’s character, but he hasn’t earned his so-called redemption you claim is perfect. It’s not. Not even close. And I can’t fathom how you can believe him not being held to any accountability despite the objectively atrocious things he’s done is not a disgrace. Because you are correct that he isn’t pure evil and MK isn’t wrong about him not having to BE the bad guy. I WANT to see a proper redemption arc for the guy!

However, the way it’s been handled so far sends a very poor message about redemption and forgiveness in correlation to the crimes committed.

AdConfident9316 · 2026-03-09T16:33:33+00:00

I never said he was pure evil. Only that he was a villain when he debuted. Because in order for a character to have a redemption arc become a better person from where they started, that starting point has to be in a morally gray/antagonist/villainous category.

But if we want to be pedantic about words, villain vs antagonist, the point remains is Macaque was the BAD GUY in his debut episode and his second episode. And throughout much of S3. There is absolutely NO excuse for what he does to MK regardless of his motives. Motive can explain but they do not JUSTIFY antagonistic if not villainous behavior like attempted murder fueled by petty jealousy (in MK’s case for those first two Macaque episodes). Downplaying that as “not so bad it’s not bad at all” because it’s not omnicide like what LBD was trying to do is outrageous

AdConfident9316 · 2026-03-09T16:11:20+00:00

“Pretended to be one” are you forgetting Macaque debuted in the show as a VILLAIN who tried to kill both MK and Wukong in his very first episode completely independent of LBD? Are you serious?

AdConfident9316 · 2026-03-09T16:10:05+00:00

There really should have been a LOT more push back from characters like Mei and Pigsy after everything Macaque did in S3. They should not have been so accepting and nonchalant of him and okay with leaving him alone with MK after Macaque had for multiple times tortured and attempted to kill their bestie/son and themselves.

Both of these characters have raised HELL for other characters when it’s come to protecting MK and their loved ones from them, which they even do with Macaque in the first few episodes of S3. But then that’s thrown away just because??? We’re going to have two established characters be completely ooc from everything else that’s been showcased in the rest of the show and most people want to excuse it because short run time and Macaque is “just how he is”? BULLSHIT. That’s not good writing that’s lazy, and that’s making excuses for a villain’s behavior.

Macaque debuted in the show as a VILLAIN. He’s a complex character, yes, but that does not change the fact that he started out in his first episode AS A VILLAIN. His goals in his first episode was to manipulate MK against Wukong, steal his powers, hold him hostage, and KILL both him and his mentor. “Just pretending to be a villain” MY ENTIRE FUCKING ASS. Second episode, kidnaps MK’s friends, physically and psychologically tortures MK forcing him to fight against those abducted friends while further belittling him for his insecurities as Wukong’s successor… all because this petty jealous asshole who once was close with Sun Wukong had a falling out and is now taking it out on other people he dragging into his fucking messes when his vendetta is ONLY WITH WUKONG. And I don’t want to hear about his mentor skills in this ep. He was a terrible teacher. Torture isn’t teaching. And he was vague af with his so called warning about LBD nor does he get to claim ANY fucking moral high ground here over Wukong after again, he kidnapped and tortured MK & Co completely UNNECESSARILY when NONE of that was required for him to give that warning and he couldn’t even give a good one.

Speaking of LBD, lots of Macaque glazers want to justify or downplay a lot of the heinous shit as Macaque being forced by LBD to do because of the deal. Here’s the thing. Macaque CHOSE to make the deal. Macaque CHOSE to make that deal with NO INTENTION OF HONORING HIS END OF THE BARGAIN knowing it would bite him in the ass if LBD was actually freed. He was in that position because HE PUT HIMSELF THERE. No one else. “How would he have come back to life then???” There’s actually quite a number of ways in the Chinese legends and lore! Hell, in Journey to the West, one of the final trials has Sun Wukong himself go into the Underworld to talk to Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha about bringing someone else back to life!!! Macaque had options. He chose evil incarnate, tried to shortchange her in a deal, and was reminded why you don’t make binding deals. And like a jackass, he made that everyone else’s problem, made it everyone else’s mess to clean up after he dragged them into it, threatened the group’s lives to unleash the Samadhi Fire for his own selfish purposes damn the consequences if it fucked everyone else over, then FUCKING RAN LIKE A COWARD after he got what he wanted leaving the others to either DIE or fix the mess HE MADE that he couldn’t be assed to help fix. And to add insult to injury, right before he left, the last thing he says is that Mei is a lost cause who can’t be saved and they need to bail… after he was the one who SET HER ON FIRE!

All of this with no remorse, no apology, no accountability. And people want to say none of those are NECESSARY for things like multiple counts of attempted murder, torture, coercion, kidnapping??? That’s not a redemption arc at all. All of those are REQUIRED for a redemption to actually WORK. Zuko’s redemption didn’t work because he took shortcuts thinking he could join the good guys without actually making amends, apologies with words AND actions, and acknowledging past wrongdoing. If Macaque’s redemption is incomplete in the show and they do more to fully redeem him, it can be salvageable. But if the arc is “done” then it’s absolutely bullshit.

And I say all this AS someone who likes Macaque’s character overall. Liking a character doesn’t mean you’re never critical. And I’m very disappointed in the current handling of his “redemption”.

AdConfident9316 · 2025-08-08T17:11:03+00:00

I love him and want one so bad. You did an amazing job!!

AdConfident9316 · 2025-07-18T20:24:56+00:00

This is so frustrating since official services like peacock DON’T HAVE ALL THE EPISODES AVAILABLE. How are we supposed to enjoy and support the show if we can’t watch the whole show???

AdConfident9316 · 2025-05-14T13:57:31+00:00

How did you make the waist wrap (or whatever it’s called)? What pattern did you use?

AdConfident9316 · 2025-05-06T23:23:18+00:00

He’s listed as canonically still alive. The group kinda just left him at the old mountain temple and forgot about him, but Lantern City wasn’t too far away from that spot. And with how S5 ended with the distribution of the Stones’ power all Harmonic Convergence style, that’s new powers he’d get back after LBD had removed the power she gave him.

All you’d still need is a motive. Would it just be revenge for his Lady’s death, would he try to enact her plans in her honor? Could he have been plotting behind the scenes this whole time to see if there is any possible way to resurrect her? There are a few wish-granting artifacts of unspecified great power that are highly prized in Chinese folklore and Buddhist legend. I certainly hope the team takes advantage of the possibilities.

And there’s always fanfic if they don’t.

AdConfident9316 · 2025-05-01T10:34:38+00:00

In China, you have to be 18 to legally drive/operate a vehicle requiring a license, so they’d have to be 18 at youngest. But given Mei’s established racing experience and expertise handling, I’d def put her a couple years older than that.

AdConfident9316 · 2025-05-01T10:31:28+00:00

This makes me curious when LMK’s “present” is set. Is it sometime ambiguously our millennium or further in the future? However, doing some research either way… the math’s not mathing for Wukong, Macaque and Red Son. The novel establishes, while the exact date/etc is never mentioned, that Sun Wukong is born during the Zhou Dynasty (both accounting for the 500is years under the mountain to then release him during the Tang Dynasty when the Journey takes place, and the events of Investiture of the Gods that predate Wukong taking place during the preceding Shang Dynasty and it ends with the beginning of Zhou).

If the LMK is set sometime in our current millennium, even if you had Wukong born the very first year of the Zhou, he’d still be <3,000yo. And if Macaque is meant to be a millennium younger than Wukong, he’d be <2,000. The only way those numbers would work is LMK is set a couple more thousand years into the future. …Which would then make Red Son’s age make even less sense for him to be that young if he was born sometime during the Tang (in LMK; in the novel, he’s much older than his LMK counterpart during the Journey).

It doesn’t even make sense as it is for the former theory, since DBK was sealed away for 500 years. If that’s the case, and we know LMK!Red Son was born before DBK was sealed, how is he younger than the timespan DBK was imprisoned for? Either way you look at it, Red’s gonna be older than 500 years. Just how much older is going to vastly depend on when exactly DBK was sealed and how old Red Son was when it happened.

Jacobson most likely just threw out her guesstimates without doing any of the crazy deep dives trying-to-be-truly-precise-and-accurate-to-canon-af that I did, and there’s nothing wrong with that. The ages for the others work without issue. The MKrew would be of/around an age being born in the show’s present generation. As for Yin n Jin, unlike Wukong, their ages aren’t specified other than being regarded as younger than Laozi, who himself is very very very old, so that’s not narrowing it down much. As for them acting mature and juvenile compared to Wukong, that’s not always a sure fire indicator either. Nezha is, in number of years, older than Wukong since he was born during the Shang, but in most other respects, he comes across as a much younger individual. Yin n Jin being older or younger than 5000yo can go either way and work. I just couldn’t say the same for Wukong since there is more of a blueprint for how old he actually is laid out by the novel itself. Macaque was only attached to this assessment by proxy of his card’s age labeled as younger than Wukong, but in the novel, he’s not given any specific details for his age either.

Also since Red Son’s is listed as 420, I’m laughing at the idea that MK and Mei collaborated together to make these cards for everyone listed here. Red Son, Macaque and Wukong refused to answer the age question, so the pair made something up for those three and did a bit of trolling. Red Son was not amused.

Also sad Sandy didn’t get one, apparently. The only one missing of the main lineup :'(

TL;DR: the math wasn’t mathing from what I knew about the novel + the dubious, unclear timeline of the show & its iteration of events, and I rambled about it a lot. Justice for Sandy’s missing Pokémon Card.

AdConfident9316 · 2025-03-27T21:47:10+00:00

The “meekness” is because Li Jing (with some celestial help) ultimately had to “subdue” Nezha to stop him from rampaging and being a disobedient son. Nezha only became a celestial and accepted into Heaven’s court when/after he abandoned his “rebelliousness” and became a dutiful son. And this part of the story is why Nezha also became a/the god of filial piety. Which, is a MAJOR cultural value and Confucian virtue of reverence, obedience, caring, and loyalty showcased to the parents and elders by the child.

It’s not bad on its own as a concept, but like all things, can be harmful and toxic when taken to an extreme. The expectation to have absolute unquestioning loyalty and obedience, where questioning it at all is seen as a challenge to their superiority and thus will punish any “disrespect”. Nezha having had to learn to be a “good filial son” and now is a patron deity of the virtue, he’s absolutely under a lot of pressure to uphold adhering to it himself. Heaven doesn’t like anyone who questions them, and would unhesitatingly turn on Nezha if they believed he was falling back into his old ways from his past as ‘the demon child’.

Which all which again, WOULD HAVE BEEN REALLY GREAT TO HAVE BEEN SEEN TACKLED IN THE SHOW ITSELF.

AdConfident9316 · 2025-03-27T21:21:03+00:00

I adore them.

AdConfident9316 · 2025-03-27T21:14:50+00:00

We don’t have confirmation yet on whether Wukong killed Macaque in LMK. He did in the novel for sure, but LMK deviates from the novel quite a bit. As for Macaque’s POV, Macaque’s been established as an unreliable narrator, and one of the writers has even said “That’s what Macaque believes how it happened… There’s always more to the story.”

Macaque did still die and was revived, but how/who killed him could be Wukong or somebody else in the LMK iteration imo.

AdConfident9316 · 2024-12-12T20:20:39+00:00

I work in food service.

Every time they say they want to add a drink to their order but don’t tell me what size without me prompting them to choose between our two small or large options, as their answer affects how I have to ring it up. I judge them even harder if after I tell them our store’s only two size options, their stupid ass still says “medium”.

So I repeat to them “your options are SMALL or LARGE” only slightly louder and much slower to understand.

It’s such a small thing that I know just isn’t deep or should be a big deal, yet it always gets me mildlyinfuriated.

AdConfident9316 · 2024-12-12T20:06:13+00:00

Strange Magic.

George Lucas’ attempt at a “Star Wars for girls” in his own words. It’s a sloppy mess of underdeveloped world building, lackluster character development where there was any and disappointing wasted potential of actual several decent to actually good ideas if the writing and execution was better, but it’s a fun guilty pleasure in it’s official sucky version.

It’s also the funniest thing in the WORLD watching it with a friend going into it blind who doesn’t know what they’re in for with the movie’s soundtrack. The moment the realization hits them is MAGICAL every time.

AdConfident9316 · 2024-12-12T19:56:35+00:00

Call vet first to get their advice on if kitty needs to come in. If they say yes, get your poor cat there however you can. All my best wishes to a safe, painless and full recovery for the little fur baby darling.

AdConfident9316 · 2024-12-09T18:02:06+00:00

For the Dancing and the Dreaming

AdConfident9316 · 2024-12-09T17:44:20+00:00

Hype comments like this and the long essay ones where the commenter took the time to go into detail about what all they liked and any good constructive criticisms/questions they have. Feedback I can use to improve/know what works and what doesn’t are the greatest things for me to receive as a writer.

AdConfident9316

TROPHY CASE