#like we know that he has been loyal to LBD for centuries

[mint-is-here]

i love reading about the uncanny because the whole thing of it is everything seems fine, but there's just something that's not quite right, and i love it.

example, once of my favorite characterizations of The Mayor from LMK in fics is in Sunbreak. He looks like a normal human, but his smile is a bit too wide, the skin around it a bit too white because of how strechted it is. He moves a bit too stifly to be considered normal and there's just something not quite right about the way the talks. Sure, he looks human, but there's so many little details about him that makes he look just a bit off. Just enough to make you unsure if he actually is a human or something else.

[stressed-bird]

Unbound Shadow AU (continued)

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)