This is a little head cannon/What if Macaque had more original powers, a little more Starry Night dreamlike powers leaning into the more nurturing kind, you know, the moon and sun kind of powers? 🌙☀️
Maybe in the past, he was like a therapy friend to Wukong, someone he could really be himself with, vent, and tell his secrets without being judged in the safety of his own dreams. Someone he can truly trust, and that was Macaque.
Skip to Redemption Ark for Mac
Now he's a therapy friend to the whole MK team! (Against his will) They cuddle, pet, and vent to him with their problems. He's like one of Sandy's therapy cats, just bigger and grumpier.😾💕✨ he just has this way with people I guess
Okay, this is how it starts: Macaque and Wukong's first encounter was in a dream.
Wukong would not shut up about the pretty demon in his crazy dreams, often to his sworn brothers; he talked about all the fun and crazy adventures he'd have, the long meaningful conversations and jokes, and the occasionally moving pictures of otherworldly strong magical humans with sparkly eyes and spiky hair who wield giant weapons that shoots Fire called anime, and that this had been going on for a few months now.
This annoyed and concerned them; they think it's a demon trying to take over the Monkey King's mind or trying to brainwash him somehow, so Azure Lion and the Sworn Brothers all brainstormed together to devise a plan to somehow confront this tricky dream demon. Wukong doesn't want the fun dreams to end or scare off this other celestial monkey, so he decides to talk to his friend in his dreams. Wukong casually brings up the idea that the macaque should visit Flower Fruit and meet his sworn brothers! Macaque of course hesitates, not sure of the idea of traveling to an unknown island and meeting The Monkey King's questionable choice of sworn brothers, but of course, Wukong, sad and a bit offended, but he doesn't give up.
He decides to bring upon the Ultimate Weapon, begging and whining until Macaque crumbles and gives in, which eventually does. Mac reluctantly agrees to travel over to FFM in disguise, just to be safe he tells Wukong he'll be there. Within a month, Wukong couldn't be more excited; he was like a little kid waiting for Christmas day!
So this is what kinds of powers I think he should have.
😴 the first pic is crossing over to other people's dreams and making their experience life-like he has illusion magic so this makes sense to me. Wukong and macaque would prank the Brotherhood or play tags and hide and seek in their brother's dreams. 🌸The second pic is the soothing ability to calm one's nerves if they pet or cuddle him like a therapy cat,🐈 Wukong would groom him for hours to calm his nerves. now come copes with food🍑🍔🍭
🌸🎶I saved the best one for last the cute/sad little head Cannon I have
At the end of every dream Mac visits they would end it by dancing to music Mac would bring from the future laughing and stumbling while wukong slowly wakes up, wukong has always gone to bed early But now he goes even earlier to bed. Wukong always thought he was the luckiest monkey in the world he gets to have two Adventure and one of them is with his prettiest best friend Macaque 😚✨the monkey of his dreams.
🌸 Wukong couldn't truly dream of a world without his bestest friend🥰✨
949 notes
·
View notes
Look, he’s no idiot. He’s no cheater, either. He knows that it’s extraordinarily unwise to be sneaking around the dungeon of Decked Out when you’re not playing the game itself. But the thing is—the thing is, is that Bdubs dreams. And when Bdubs dreams, he can’t always control where he goes, and sometimes—sometimes that’s right into the heart of the dungeon.
Here’s the other thing: Bdubs sleeps a lot. More than most. Sunset to sunrise, he’s curled up under the covers of his bed, fast asleep and dreaming. Others—other people, they stay up all night, attract all the phantoms. Not Bdubs! He’s the only sane, rational person on this server. He sleeps. But the others—they stay up all night.
Recently, they’ve been staying up all night playing Decked Out.
Bdubs doesn’t know if Tango sleeps anymore. He certainly hopes Tango sleeps, but the man is too engrossed in his redstone for his own good sometimes. Maybe now that the game is done, is launched, is actively being played, he’ll take a nap or two. But right now, Bdubs is dreaming, and Tango is in the dungeon, and Bdubs, against his will, is here too.
Tango is not-quite-solid, ephemeral, and Bdubs gets the sense that if he were awake and standing where he is, he wouldn’t be able to see Tango at all. Tango doesn’t seem to see him, either, back turned as he approaches a ravager on the bank of the River of Souls.
Ghostlike, Tango presses his forehead against the (unknowing, unseeing) ravager’s, a smile on his face. The ravager slips through Tango’s form, leaving Tango pressed against its side, but he seems unfazed, patting affectionately at its flank with a hand. “Good job, Pumpkin,” he says, and Bdubs can hear the pride in his voice, the hint of a laugh. “Good job. You listened. I appreciate the effort.”
In his dreams, Bdubs can’t feel the chill of the dungeon; he’s toasty and warm under the blankets of the waiting room bed. (Okay, look, he may also be spending the night at Decked Out, but at least he’s sleeping—if he pays attention, he can hear the faint, unintelligible babble of voices in the waiting room, see the soft golden light through his eyelids. He flinches away from it, back into the dungeon, back into his sleep. The others may be content to spend the entire night waiting and dying to ravagers, but Bdubs needs his beauty sleep.) And—hey, what was he thinking about again?
Oh, right.
Bdubs can’t feel the chill of the dungeon, but a chill runs down his spine nonetheless as Tango looks at the ravager with cub’s blood on its teeth with affection and pride. And—okay, the whole point of the game is getting killed (or, preferably, not killed) by ravagers, they’d all signed up for this, they knew what they were in for—but did Tango have to look so… happy about it? So fond of the murderous beasts he’d wrangled for their entertainment? Did he have to look so—
Hm. Now that Bdubs is looking—
Tango’s ghostlike form doesn’t have a shadow, but it trails off towards the end, less him and more ghost, an echo of some sort, and the ghost tendrils stretch into the snow and the water and the stone of the walls. It’s almost like a spider’s web, Tango’s consciousness at the centre of it, flickering and ephemeral. Tango lets out a contented sigh, and Bdubs swears he hears the dungeon sigh too, and out of the water where Cub died the blood starts to drain, though Bdubs can’t tell where it’s draining to. It’s just—there, and then smaller, and then gone, and Tango swipes his tongue across his pointed canines, and Bdubs feels cold. Colder. The tendrils stretch long, and the more Bdubs looks, the more he sees, and he can’t quite tell anymore where the dungeon ends, and Tango begins, and hang on, is Tango a spider on his web or are those tightening more like puppet strings as Tango turns—
His eyes land on Bdubs, and he frowns, the smile slipping from his face. The dungeon feels darker than it did a second ago. Bdubs flinches back, because Tango shouldn’t be able to see him, even if he’s also not in his body right now—
“You shouldn’t be here,” Tango says. “Cheater.”
Bdubs opens his mouth to defend himself, but he doesn’t even get the chance before he’s gasping awake in bed, covered in a cold sweat, shooting straight upwards. The movement draws Scar’s attention, and he looks over, one eyebrow raised.
“You’re up late, Bdubs,” he comments, teasing.
It takes Bdubs a moment to find his words. “Hard to sleep with all this racket!” he grumbles, scowling as he pulls the covers back.
“Oh.” Scar blinks. “Do you want us to be quiet?”
“Yeah, we can quiet down for you man, if you need us to,” Jevin offers.
Bdubs shakes his head. “No, no, I’m up now.” In truth, he doesn’t think he could sleep again after that even if he wanted to.
And now that he’s thinking about that, he’s thinking about—
“Hello there,” Tango greets, dipping past Scar and into the room. He glances at Bdubs, and then just past him, not a hint of what just transpired on his face. He’s back in his body, solid and whole again, and he looks—fine. Frosty and blue, like he’s been all season, basically, at this point, but—fine. Tired, maybe, but they’re all tired. It’s the lack of sleep.
(Does Tango even need to sleep, anymore? Dungeons don’t need to sleep, after all. Ravagers don’t sleep. Do spiders sleep? Do—?)
Tango turns away from greeting Jevin to look at Bdubs, a grin on his face. “Bubbles, how you doing?”
Bdubs jumps, startled from his thoughts, and doesn’t get an answer in before Tango is distracted by Jevin once again. The two of them talk game mechanics, and Bdubs stares at Tango, trying to find any hint on his face, in his body language, of what exactly he is, but—
He’s too awake, darn it. If he’d still been sleeping, maybe he could have seen something, but it’s late, and he’s awake, and Tango looks as ordinary as ever.
“I saw you petting a ravager down there,” he says at last, and Scar gives Bdubs a weird look, but Tango doesn’t seem surprised. He just laughs, shaking his head.
“No, no, no, no. I was reprimanding them.”
“Yes, you were!”
“—for their vicious attacks—”
“You’re rooting against us!”
“—on my… friends, here.”
There’s a weird pause, a solid second or two where Tango seems to struggle to get the word friends out of his mouth, and when he does the tone is flat, insincere. Scar is still frowning at Bdubs. He doesn’t notice the way Tango’s expression flickers. Bdubs notices. Bdubs can’t tear his eyes away.
Hey, is it cold in here?
“I’m starting to learn something dark about you, with all the laughing and smiling you’ve been doing while we’re strugglin’!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tango says, then smiles, turning away to Scar, changing the topic of the conversation. They move on, teasing Grian for being AFK, and Bdubs—
God, Bdubs needs more sleep.
578 notes
·
View notes
(a very quick and unpolished thing i wrote on the bus home today)
Utena, Anthy, and a conversation about love. Around 500 words.
---
“I loved him,” Utena says. She feels vulnerable admitting it, staring at the ceiling rather than at Anthy curled up at her side. “Not… not in the way he tried to convince me I did. But…” she sighs at the feeling of Anthy's fingers moving gently up and down her arm. “But I did love him.”
Anthy is quiet, and Utena can tell she’s waiting for her to say the next thing, the logical conclusion to this line of thought. It’s the hardest part to admit to herself, let alone to someone else. Let alone to Anthy.
She takes a breath. “Sometimes I feel like I still do.” Anthy exhales against her shoulder.
“Love is,” Anthy starts, then stops. Utena feels her shake her head. “It’s not… enough, on its own. I loved him too. I still do. I think I always will.”
Utena squeezes Anthy’s hand in the dark, and for a while they simply listen to each other breathe. “I’m not sure I even know what love is,” Utena says. “I definitely didn’t, growing up. But I wanted it, more than anything. He knew that. He offered it to me, and he knew I would do anything to keep it.”
“Family,” Anthy whispers, her mouth still pressed against Utena’s shoulder.
“Yeah. Family.”
They’re both quiet for a while, aware of the weight of the conversation. The entirety of what used to be their world, all contained in that single word.
“Do you think…” Utena starts to ask, but hesitates. She doesn’t want to say the words, and doesn't want to hear Anthy’s answer.
“What is it?”
She shakes her head. “Nevermind. It doesn’t matter.”
“Everything matters,” Anthy says simply, but in a tone that tells Utena that she doesn’t have to say if she doesn’t want to.
She sighs. “I just mean, it doesn't change anything. It doesn’t make what he did… better. But I just wonder,” and she has wondered for years now, “I wonder if he loved us too. If any of it was real.”
Anthy wraps an arm Utena’s middle and touches her scar lightly. “He did,” Anthy says, confidently enough that Utena doesn’t question it. “It was as real as anything was in that place. But like I said, love is… It’s not an inherent good.”
“No,” Utena mumbles. “And he hurt us in spite of it.”
Anthy catches Utena’s eye for the first time since the conversation started. “He hurt us because of it, Utena.”
“Oh,” Utena breathes, turning her eyes back to the ceiling. She lets that revelation settle in her chest, but doesn’t know how to feel about it. She was right that it doesn’t make any of it better. She’s not sure whether or not it makes it worse.
55 notes
·
View notes