So. Mateo’s the one who starts Cooper on his “What would Wheelie do?” mindset. Mateo who lost Z-Blob. Mateo who lost Z-Blob and for several episodes straight could only dreamcraft bad Z-Blob rip offs.
Call Mateo a “bad friend” for getting Cooper hooked on the “what would Wheelie do” mindset if you want, sure, but I genuinely would not be surprised if Mateo’s just trying to help Cooper cope but by giving Cooper his own bad coping mechanisms
Ok, so disclaimer before i get yapping: most of this is based off of quick wikipedia/article scrolls and posts by @/journeytothewestresearch and content that already exists in Lego Monkie Kid that my brain then took and through together for au content so it all should as au canon or at least with a heavy grain of salt.
Anyways
As immortal as the Monkey King may seem he was once a part of the same reincarnation cycle as others. In fact this almost straight up confirmed by the Jade Emperor and Buddha in Journey to the West when they each mention something about Monkey King's past lives/reincarnation:
Jade Emperor: "...he has only recently acquired the form of a human being"
Buddha: "You are merely a beast who has just attained human form in this incarnation"
So Monkey King having once been a part of Karmic laws and reincarnation is entirely possible if not fact but then who could've been one of Monkey King's past lives?
Well it's a stretch but I believe that Yu the Great could have possibly been one of these past lives; but why?
Yu the Great is known for "the first successful state efforts at flood control" and it is said in some iterations that he used to wield Ruyi Jingu Bang (Monkey King's staff) to set or measure the depths during flood(s). Why would wielding the staff be such an important connection, especially since MK can wield the staff and he clearly isn't Monkey King.
When Monkey King originally gets the staff from Ao Guang it's claimed that before Monkey King had come to take the staff as his own said staff had emitted a heavenly light days prior thus suggesting that the Monkey King was fated to own Ruyi Jingu Bang. Additionally a similar thing can be seen when MK sees the staff for the first time; it calls out to him and if recent events of MK and Monkey King both coming from the same birth stone is anything to go off of then these monkey bros seem to have a "blood" deep connection. So with that said it seems that our dear staff prefers to be wielded by people with connections to Wukong which brings me back around to Yu the Great, who also wielded this staff. Wouldn't it make just a bit too much sense for the staff to be wielded by the past life of Monkey King if it already seems to have a liking to be wielded by those of the same "blood"?
Timeline wise it would also work as Yu the Great and his history with the staff would fit in nicely just before Ao Guang acquisition of the staff and Monkey King's birth.
As two added bonuses both Yu the Great and Monkey King are depicted as being born from some type of stone but they're also legendary hero-kings. How about that? He just couldn't stay away from that type of lifestyle.
So that's one past life Monkey King could've possibly had but it wouldn't be me if I didn't have more to say:
(r lore below)
Second Past Life for Monkey King // Arcanus (oc):
so in r we have Qi Wukong who is the current reincarnation of the Monkey King, and then we have the Monkey King, and then before that we have Yu the Great. Three lives accounted for but I have one more planned, and an important one at that: Arcanus.
Due to Arcanus having existed so long ago his real name has been lost to time/unpronounceable with the modern languages (so we'll call him Arcanus for now).
Arcanus was a sun god, having been in charge of it and its domain but most importantly he was the person who created r Wukong's sword: Daylight. Arcanus created Daylight as a gift for the goddess Jiutian Xuannu when the young goddess defended one of his temples from an demon attack thus starting the sword on it's journey to eventually end up in the hands of his future self to use the sword to it's fullest.
But what happened to our little sun god?
Well here's where the speculation and au lore come in.
As seen in LMK it's possible for the Jade Emperor to pass and give his role onto someone else as seen from Azure taking over the Jade Emperor role so could you technically theorize there is or has been a lineage of Jade Emperors? And perhaps even a lineage of other gods too? other gods of Justice before Erlang, or other gods of children before Nezha?
and if r nezha reincarnated does that universe is just now lacking a god of children ? Not necessarily, especially since gods can in fact die (as seen by a number of ways most important of all celestialite, which specifically stated to be made from the bones of dead celestials) So gods/celestials can die, but again does that mean it's one and done we had one god of children and then he died? Not if there's a lineage of other gods of children that came before Nezha and evidently after Nezha
So Arcanus was the sun god before the current sun god, in the way that there was/is probably going to be another god of children since Nezha got reincarnated
Speaking of Nezha, the LMK version of him mentions in season 4 that the Jade Emperor has a/certain duties that Azure does not know the extent of but what if one of these duties of the Jade Emperor is the lineages of gods? what if every time a new Jade Emperor passes through it's their duty to wipe out the lineage of past gods that severed the past Jade Emperor ?
Off the walls speculation sure BUT it's actually kind of in line with the whole idea of enlightenment bc there's the whole thing of trying to reach enlightenment so if a Jade Emperor failed at helping the people reach enlightenment then everyone else under their commanded must have failed too, right?
(additionally it is said that the current Jade Emperor took like 40 million years to get to where he is/is 40 million years old but a) time is weird and b) how do we know that couldn't just be talking about the lineage thing? )
And that is what happened to Arcanus. The Jade Emperor before our current one passed and a new one took charge; killing the old gods to allow new ones to take their place.
All except a few that weren't killed for reasons but would be lucky if they even remember a smidgen of the past lineage of gods.
Posts/articles referenced:
Yu the Great & Monkey King connections
I see some of the peeps in the tags list (mainly the 'Gibbs' list) on my last fic aren't showing up as actually tagged
I don't know whether it's the mobile app playing up again tho, cause they were fine when I posted it on the PC earlier today...
If any of you that are on my tag list aren't getting tag notifs, or they're not appearing then lemme know and I'll try to re-tag you on the mobile app (if I can)
I can only apologise. The Tumblr mobile app isn't the greatest at all.
if they really are going to push the “Dream Keepers keep the balance in the dream world between nightmares and dreams because both are needed”
THEN wouldn’t it be neat to see an act with Lunia and Beau and Lunia trying to get Beau to accept his nightmare side because OBVIOUSLY HE CANT NOT SLEEP FOR FOREVER