Listen... I have ravaged the tags and aus and blogs of so many people and eventually made my own to satisfy my insatiable hunger for more monkie family content—ahem
This is very summarized, there’s lots of small details I’m not including for the sake of getting it all laid down and on the board /lh
We (Stressed) believe in keeping the trend going about monkies being born in mystical ways.
There’s Sun Wukong, who I am electing to have in this au born from a rock—yes—but it was a rock that over many hundreds of years was collecting magic in it that one day during a storm was hit by a bolt of lightning which is why it cracked in half and surrendered the stone egg that a monkie promptly escaped from with some pre-existing celestial magic properties (Heaven created its own problem /lh)
And you know I am 100% behind the headcanon that Macaque was born from a hurricane/storm and the remnants of said heaven-sent storm (his canonical title from somewhere of “Great Sage of the Informing Winds” only further sold me on this hc)
Meaning of course that MK must have his own mystic monkie origins—and you are right
MK was born of a crystal-encased rock that was initially infused with the magic of swk, swallowed by accident by Macaque, and promptly left for a few many years to soak up the shadow and demonic-celestial magic of Macaque’s dead body that was 6 feet under
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But this isn’t a face-hugger situation where he bursted from mac’s chest—no, what happened os that Macaque was casually revived by Lady Bone Demon and sent on his way by her... and after a day or so of being alive and having something in his throat, he takes a moment to try and cough it out and nearly coughs his lungs out in the process but successfully spits out a crystal (rock)
And has the incredible idea of... breaking it. See what happens because this sussy little thing was in his chest and he needs answers
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But once the rock is broken, out of it seeps shadow magic (that could easily be recognized as like mac’s not but exactly his) that materializes and coalesces into a baby monkey demon
Macaque is watching this happen with deep confusion (and a lot of denial)
But he can’t escape fatherhood as baby mk has seen him and already instinctively recognized their similarity and is clinging to the older demon like a... well, a baby monkey—
So several attempts to leave the child behind later (from walking away (baby mk hitches a ride in mac’s shadow for this) to handing it away to a human village to be raised (baby mk learns the word Ma from this and shadow teleported to mac’s location for this)) eventually Macaque gives the child a chance
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So now Mac has a child... but what do you do after?
The answer is no one knows and Macaque just puts his new demon infant in the shadow of his scarf close to him and feeds him (names him eventually Xiaotian, Qi (firstname, surname) mangoes (it’s tragic he doesn’t love plums too but at least it wasn’t peaches, mac would’ve never coped nor recovered) regularly and they travel the ancient world as it modernizes
The shadow demon no longer really chasing after the Sun anymore, he now has a child he has to look after and he gives him the unconditional attention he deserves (mac is projecting but it’s helping him cope and if spite to be better to xiaotian than swk was to him is what he needs to become a better man, you go girl i guess)
And 200 years have passed more or less, 200 years of Macaque bringing what is now essentially a child and not really a small baby demon anymore with him as they roam the land and live a nomadic life. A life is that is promptly shut down after Macaque wanders close to the territory of the Iron Bull clan and is met by Princess Iron Fan that looks at the two monkies and calls out that Mac has no clue how to be rearing a child
She’s right, and the demon has to eventually concede to her point, to which she gives the demon a deal (because that was her intention this entire time, she sensed a powerful demon nearby and sought to make an ally of them since... well, her husband’s land is being nipped at and eaten up by opportunistic rival demons since he got sealed under a mountain a few years ago and she can only defend so much land alone while also having child red son under her care
Discovering the powerful demon is the six-eared macaque (who she does know of since her husband and swk were bond-brothers before they disowned each other and swk always had the other monkey close by) who also has a little demon child only made it easier for her to make a deal on the spot that would help them both
Macaque gets a safe territory and new home (she suspects the demon monkies have drifted apart since there’s no swk in sight and mac probably lived on flower fruit but ffm is of course owned by swk) AND a safe place to rear his own demon spawn
And she gets a competent and strong demon as an ally to help her defend the Iron Bull clan’s territory)
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Macaque agrees and Iron Fan is now technically his Land Lady as he stays in her territory semi-permanently (this does make Red Son and Mk now childhood friends—they’re something else and their friendship looks so dysfunctional but is actually reasonably functional.
I mean, red son is a literal hothead and mk has been a wild feral child and is raised by Macaque—mk can be snide and a little shit and biting with his words but still a good empathetic person that understands what red son says and what he means)
(Example being like in the season 3 episode where red son is yelling at mk if he wants milk and an extra blanket in what sounds like a sarcastic tone but is actually a genuine tone since he does get mk that milk and extra blanket)
They have nicknames for each other—Red Son calling mk well.. “Monkie Kid” and “Monkie Boy” and “Pebble Brain” (MK has taken the Monkie Kid nickname in stride)
MK calls Red Son many things from “Sparks” and “Firecracker” to “Hot Head”, he does still use Red’s name—his name isn’t long enough to warrant the constant use of a nicknames unless to be teasing
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And that’s the pre-episode 1 content because... it goes somewhere it does- >:3
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At the end, we have established a baseline for this AU now:
- MK is the child of Shadowpeach, Raised only by Macaque (and SWK is unaware of his existence, likewise MK is unaware he has a second dad)
- Princess Iron Fan and Macaque are proper allies (friends even? neither care to elaborate beyond “ally”)
- MK and Red Son are childhood friends (this is indeed set up for Spicynoodles, may become Chimerashipping eventually)
- Macaque is semi-redeemed (the monkie animosity is still there but he’s not trying to be actively antagonistic nor helpful to LBD’s plans, his sharp anger tempered by parenthood, very open to proper “redemption” under the right conditions)
LMK Soulmate AU, (at the moment still shadowpeach centric)
Rewatching Overly Sarcastic Productions’ Journey To The West Part 1 because I will never be able to survive reading the actual non-summarized text to figure out what the heck I’m doing with this au and the monkies—since I am nothing if not thorough and determined
...to detail where their relationship began and how it implodes and gruesomely ends
(Nothing is set in stone, I am not above scrapping whole concepts until I get it right, assume everything as non-canon until it’s canon /lh)
What we’ve got is:
Basic world building, soulmates exist and many types of bonds exist—from pain-sharing to telepathy to even the mundane like soul-markings
(Little known knowledge of soulmates in-world being that these bonds can be suppressed or ignored into non-existence—if you wanted to live and exist without a soulmate, it’s your funeral my guy)
Meaning it’s very easy for some to find their other half, others meanwhile have the vaguely trail to follow and very few of those others have the determination to see it through to the end... or at least, that’s how it was during the times of rampant demons long before a certain monkey began to protect humans and ward the demons away from them
Shadowpeach’s specific bond is emotion-sharing
(because as much as I am a fan of angst and the painful possibility of Sun Wukong feeling how it feels to die and looking down to see the body of Macaque and that he killed him... have you seen how many fights this monkie gets into? I’m not mean enough to put Macaque through that)
No, they share something arguably more personal and hurtful. Feeling and knowing exactly what the other feels... up until they don’t—no, can’t, by way of others’ interferences with the demon monkies
Where shadowpeach first met face to face, it was on Mountain of Heart and Mind in the Cave of the Slanting Moon and Three Stars (yes im still watching the osp video as i write this)—the place where SWK first became immortal via his teacher-not-teacher and we do not address why Macaque is under the tutelage of this very illegal class from the immortal sage, it’s non-important (for you to know now anyways)
All that needs to be known is that the two monkey demons are now in close proximity and apparently the illegal immortality class lasts like 10 years so—needless to say after about 3,650 days the monkies are not dumb enough to not have realized at this point their emotion-sharing bond
Sun Wukong is more overtly thrilled and over the moon than Macaque about this but it’s not a problem, swk now can tell everything that he’s feeling is what Macaque is feeling and the other is nothing if not also glad at this development—there is no worry...
They fight demons, take riches, become heroes in their own rights, Mac gets kidnapped back to Flower Fruit Mountain and helps in militarizing the monkey population, normal stuff- happy monkey stuff even, all done side by side
Except there’s a lot of worries. Since as we know, Wukong is going to fight heaven eventually by way of his actions and Macaque is going to have a lot of feelings about that and the celestial war it’ll bring to FFM
Feelings that SWK does nip at the bud of as much as he can when he can, attempts to calm and reassure his fretful mate that everything will work out alright and that if anything else...
Macaque will never be alone and always have him as long as their bond remains
Yeah, im not angry or bitter about LMK Season 4 (which i haven’t watched yet but do know a few things about—) decimating my headcanons about the other Demon Kings and that all the other Kings are dead
Totally normal about this knowledge, absolutely. (And not bitter about all my struggle to research and design the demon kings for myself for a lmk project i had—not at all) /lh
A world (Lego Monkie Kid world) where Macaque isn’t unhinged about Wukong?
And he just... copes with the break up (his murder) with denial and pretending swk doesn’t exist?
That he’s fine and didn’t need him anyways and he’s okay and—
Probably not because you’re not a maniac like I am /lh
I elaborate after the read more <3
This is the prelude to the newest au my no-impulse-control brain has cooked up—entirely because I listened to The Crane Wives too much for too long and have too much thinking time-
An AU i made for 100% self indulgent reasons that were to draw a happy, teacher macaque in my sketchbook who is not a bundle of angst
(But it became a trojan horse, there’s always angst.)
The biggest change however is what Macaque decided to do after he unearthed himself from his shallow grave—the key to Lady Bone Demon’s tomb in his hand, the slightly frayed but well-loved scarf cape he died in bundled around him and showing its age...
He sits there and thinks as he bears two items corresponding to two major people—the scarf of the demon who’d felt like a storm (but it wasn’t a bad storm, after all... Macaque himself was born of a violent storm, it’s only natural he’d call someone a storm and mean it as a good thing) and his everything yet is the reason he was 6 feet under
And the key of the demon that brought him back to the world of the living... though no demon that bears a celestial face as part of their disguise is likely to be good news
In any other world, the shadow demon would’ve dropped the celestial-faced demon’s key to the dirt and pursued the celestial-monkie demon—
But not in this one, where he opts against vengeance or anger...
Against giving the monkie king the satisfaction that his shadow still chases after him
The shadow monkey fully rises from his grave and unwinds the once-beloved gift from himself and drops it back into his former grave.
A metaphor, he thinks it, a very fitting one (he’s a theatre kid, of course everything he does he adds perceived symbolism to):
This shallow hole once the grave of the Six-Eared Macaque, now just a grave for everything he ever felt about the Monkey King... any love, friendship, or kinship between them dying with himself but unlike Macaque, those feelings aren’t leaving the Underworld.
A new life with a new direction... the Key his object to keep close and reminder of who he’s here for
(And with it, he goes to where it urges him to go... a budding town that grows bigger by the year)
Girl help I’ve been rotting and have now constructed the skeleton of a soulmate au in my brain for… well, sun wukong and macaque specifically but others will eventually be added
Its been mainly me thinking “what if through their bond they could feel each other’s emotions” and then coming up with ideas for making it make sense
Like how maybe the golden fillet swk wears blocks off his connection to mac, a “mercy” of the gods since they don’t know which variety of bond the monkey demon has and one of them can be pain sharing and they aren’t taking that gamble
So swk is having the time of his life and mac can feel it all—but macaque in turn is increasingly feeling more and more upset and sad and lonely… and swk doesn’t even seem to care (he doesn’t know but Mac doesn’t know that)
Something something, the way i could make them fall apart so painfully and cruelly.
If you thought i’d leave you hanging and not elaborate on some details i left vague on Act 1, well you’re not going to be left hanging
1. MK was absolutely created during/after SWK killed Macaque
I stated that part of mk’s mystic monkie birth was his crystal-encased pebble growing in the remnants of Macaque, and it what it says on the tin
MK’s pebble was siphoning the shadow magic leaking from Macaque’s body and Mac’s own magic (since I personally headcanon for reasons that Macaque’s shadow magic isn’t all just from him like how SWK’s magic isn’t all just from him and he (swk) found other sources to gain more power and during swk’s imprisonment mac went on his own journey and got a big power boost to his magic and what it could do)
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2. MK learned the word Ma and absolutely called Macaque that multiple times and this is more on what led to Macaque accepting baby Mk as his
Shortly after shadow-teleporting to Macaque’s location, baby MK just screeched and wailed out “MA!”—kept it up until Macaque went to investigate who’s child was disturbing the peace and saw it was the baby he kept trying to ditch and discovered after a brief game of peek-a-boo that he’s “ma” is conflicted
Because he didn’t ask for this creature, doesn’t want it, but it clings and grasps for him even as he has turned it away and even gave it a much better option for parents in the humans he left the infant at—but it chooses him, only wants him...
And it’s a mix of him wanting to be wanted and projecting himself on this child who’s always reaching for someone who doesn’t want it that sways him to decide to keep the infant instead of getting rid of it. Macaque works in strange ways, but it works out for the most part
(As MK grows up Mac definitely tries to get him out of calling him Ma, or even Baba, and just call him Macaque but after the Iron Bull Clan’s deal MK calls Mac Baba more often—he only calls Macaque Ma in very stressful and painful situations)
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3. Lady Bone Demon in all this?
Oh she knows. If she didn’t know at first when she revived the Six-Eared Macaque, she definitely did afterwards via her eyes and ears in the mortal realm The Mayor.
Where Macaque sees a child and now his son, LBD sees a tool she could use to keep her wayward and treacherous champion obedient and faithful though it’s still much too early still to seize that tool, she needs her champion to be thoroughly attached and loving of it after all
She’s worked MK into her plans since the day Macaque accepted the demon spawn as his to rear.
We have established Macaque decided to “go with” Lady Bone Demon over Sun Wukong.
Now we see what happens after that decision /lh
(Yeah, i AM unhinged and inspired about this au, and i could be talking at a wall and still be just as passionate)
(Formerly called a loyal shadow au)
It has been 500 years since Macaque has seen the world (since his death)
(I went ballistic at 12am one night when I realized the monkies had pseudo-canonical ages on their pokemon trainer cards—Swk at 5k years and Mac at 4.5k... I cried trying to make sense of this because of the timeline of events and had to resign myself to the conclusion that Mac and Swk’s age discrepancy is because Mac has been dead for 500 years... another party of why i cried was their pseudo-canonical pokemon teams but that’s an issue for another day. Even though I do already have a pokemon au plotline mostly figured out /srs)
But back on topic, Macaque has been gone for 500 years and the world has progressed a long way... long enough to start having and making noisy machines that nip at the bud of any ideas Mac had involving living among humans
So he turns his attention below the earth... to below where the key calls him to go... calls him to her tomb. Except he doesn’t go that far.
Macaque just finds himself a nice, secluded, and well hidden cave and makes THAT his home that he stays in—the racket of humanity dulled by the distance and many meters of solid stone and earth between his sensitive ears and them, but not dulled enough that he is once again cemented in the silence of death
It’s a pretty nice existence, Macaque slowly leaving his demon den and interacting with the growing city above him and trying to figure out where to carve his place into the world (he’s always been the king’s shadow, the demon being the one to give the wandering demon a home and purpose, a duty and direction in life)
(And now, he can see what LBD is doing—she’s trying to slot herself into that space, the sun that brought light to his world. But what she is, is a poor imitation and too late—macaque won’t fall into that type of dynamic again, not if he can avoid it. What he knows he DOESN’T need is another Sun Wukong in his life—not another sun, not another demon that takes his life and makes it have meaning)
(He doesn’t need someone else to give his life meaning, he’s determined with his second chance at life to give BE the one that gives HIS life meaning (even as the key snarls at him that his new life isn’t his to own, not his to command, that there is no such thing as do-overs, that he HAD his life to command and he gave it to someone else and now he is selfishly taking the life he got given for himself than using it for its intended purpose) )
The place Macaque eventually carves into the world for himself... is as a passive demon just hibernating in his shadows and watching (and ignoring the key’s whispers), after all... he doesn’t have anything against humanity (only against ONE human but he doesn’t matter, NEITHER of them matter, he shouldn’t care and thus he doesn’t care)... and anyways, his days of being a Warrior are behind him... with humanity (over the course of long centuries) being able to contest demons for territory and demons shrinking away into the shadows and crevasses of the world
Macaque watches the remains of the ancient world he belongs to melt away... and he doesn’t cling to that ancient world, keeping an open mind and changing with the city that has gained the name of Megapolis—invests into his interests and passions that before he’d never given much time to
Man goes full teacher and theatre volunteer mode—he didn’t spend his hibernation doing nothing, he just hoarded weapons and tools and decided to spend his time mastering them because when you get to live forever, you need something to keep busy that’s not your own mind—so he teaches basic things like self-defense to humans and other demons alike, but has a large array of other classes he could do if asked to
(He doesn’t mess with the movie or show industry—partly because he’s really passionate about the traditional arts, also partly because he is NOT going to let himself get cast as his ex even if he would be able to do the best imitation of him) ((the thought of impersonating wukong... it brings him sour memories. And also he has no interest in making his presence known to the world))
The only people that need to know he exists is the people that watch his shows and take his classes. Period. No one else.
By this point, he’s fully moved out of his little cave and among humans—he sometimes glamours himself, sometimes he doesn’t, but he is always mindful to keep his magical presence small—you wouldn’t really find him if you weren’t looking for him specifically
This means that no, neither Princess Iron Fan or Red Son find Macaque, man is mingled into the sauce of humans and demons in Megapolis and keeping his presence small enough that he pops up on the demon magic radar as another small fry and not a demon in the same power class as Sun Wukong
The “The Moon Will Sing” inspiration for a lot of this is the lyrics “I could have been anyone, Anyone else / Before you made the choice for me”—a lot of this au could be figured out from listening to the song and imagining it as Macaque dialogue
Am I making a reflection on the observation that Macaque has made his life just REVOLVE around Sun Wukong like how the Moon revolves the Earth? Yes.
And i say that this mess of a man gets to find his own life purpose and find what HE wants to do and not have SWK and what he will think or feel about those choices as a factor
(He really could’ve been anything, since he has a talent for story telling and theatre, can be an effective teacher, and his a powerful demon in his own right)
(And yet... when his wild heroic king wanted someone he could battle side by side with, someone he would be unstoppable with... that is what Macaque became, Macaque made himself the Warrior to his king’s Hero)
Oh and the way that Macaque is holding LBD hostage is that he has made her tomb’s key a necklace and wears it all the time so even her thrall, The Mayor, is actually unable to get a hold of the key to try to give it to someone else—and she knows the shadow demon included her voice in the muffling seal he made for his ears to survive living in the big city that is Megapolis so she can’t even yell or threaten him to give the key to her thrall
She is being held hostage and the Mayor can’t do anything about it
(Yes, i do believe that in Season 2’s Shadow Play, a good reason for how The Mayor was able to overtake Macaque was because LBD was free and thus he had access to her full well of magic to power himself up (and as we know, LBD is powerful enough to possess Sun Wukong and the Mayor himself was able to go toe-to-toe with SWK... while his Lady is free from her tomb) )
(—But here LBD is still caged up, so Mayor has a lot less of her magic to work with, and Macaque has been allowed back into tip-top shape and could Punt the Mayor (since we never do see the Mayor fight SWK while his Lady was still in her box so... free headcanon real estate) so no—Macaque is not letting his hostage go, she is staying right where she is and she can’t do a thing about it) (yet)
