THE CHARIOT

i love brothers doomed by the narrative

'Oh no, the great Sun Wukong has been felled by these mighty sons and daughter of Huaguoshan! O' merciful celestial, save me!'

He's such a big ham about the babies.

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I've heard that Wukong has a heart of gold (literally), as well as iron lungs, and a metal spine from being in Lao Tzu's furnace and eating molten Copper from Guan Yin and was wondering if this is true.

Monkey states that in ch. 34:

When old Monkey caused great disturbance in the Celestial Palace five hundred years ago and was refined for forty-nine days in the eight trigram brazier of Laozi, the process in fact gave me a heart strong as gold and viscera hardy as silver, a bronze head and an iron back, fiery eyes and diamond pupils (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 2, p. 131).

The legend of his adamantine body predates the 1592 JTTW. For instance, Sun claims the following in the early-Ming zaju play:

I plundered Laozi’s gold Pill of Immortality, and have endured so many alchemical transformations that my muscles are brass, my bones iron, my eyes fire, my pupils gold, my asshole lead and my prick is pewter (Ning, 1986, p. 142). 

Another example comes from the 13th-century JTTW. He is referred to as the the “Bronze-Headed, Iron-Browed King of the Eighty-Four Thousand Monkeys of the Purple Cloud Grotto on the Mountain of Flowers and Fruits” (Wivell, 1994, p. 1182). And the story ends with the Tang Emperor Taizong enfeoffing him as the “Great Sage Steel Muscles and Iron Bones” (Wivell, 1994, p. 1207).

Sources:

Ning, C. Y. (1986). Comic Elements in the Xiyouji Zaju (UMI No. 8612591) [Doctoral Dissertation, University of Michigan]. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global.

Wivell, C.S. (1994). The Story of How the Monk Tripitaka of the Great Country of T’ang Brought Back the Sūtras. In V. Mair (Ed.), The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature (pp. 1181-1207). New York: Columbia University Press.

Wu, C., & Yu, A. C. (2012). The Journey to the West (Vols. 1-4) (Rev. ed.). Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press.

That was nearly fifty years ago, and I have never seen indigo again.

A personal piece in between commissions. See: “Altered States” by Oliver Sacks.

CLOWNS CLOWNSSSSSSSSSS

omg guys its caine digital circus...

Another banger from the "we can always tell" crowd 💀

(for those who don't get it: the picture is of MatPat, a cis man)

*chucks this post at you from across the street*

here have some more text post memes!

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