#It Got Long but Zane just had a lot of emotions

[huyaoxiaozi]

@feilien | PLOTTED STARTER.

      The deal had gone better than Zane could have hoped for. While the Black Dragon Clan certainly held onto their position with fear and an ironclad grip, it also meant they could force people and suppliers alike into unfavorable terms. The Red Fox Clan’s terms were more reasonable and any retaliation would mostly be focused on him. Perhaps it was because he was riding the high of that success that it took him until he was packing up in his safe house outside of the city to notice he was not alone.

      Zane had been stuffing the few belongings he'd brought with him into a duffel bag when he sensed a presence. His muscles tensed, his mind racing as he ran through the exact locations of each blade he carried on him. It was the painfully familiar cologne that hit him next and his body made the connection before his mind did. His heart began to hammer hard against his ribs, dread and hope and fear churning in his stomach. The muscles in his throat slowly began to tense painfully and he fought to ground himself, already working to ease the panic of being caught off guard.

       Zane had known this day would come, sooner or later. He'd known they would cross paths and he knew it would likely be as enemies — but no amount of preparation could have stopped the clamor of emotion it invoked.

       His assailant moved to strike and Zane dodged the blade just in time, his muscle memory simply further confirming who it was before he ever saw his face. His hands shot out for Matt's wrists, twisting them hard enough to force him to drop the knives to the floor with a clatter. He heard Matt's voice in his head, explaining the various ways to disarm an opponent. He remembered them practicing until Zane had mastered it. Matt's dazzling smile when he had and how it had elicited a nervous, joyful flutter in his chest. The flashes of memory hurt, but he was too focused on the fight to linger on them just yet.

      It was easy enough to utilize his surprise and use his grip to shove Matt backwards into the opposing wall with a thud. A blade of his own slid smoothly into Zane's awaiting left hand as he held it to the tender skin of Matt's throat. He met the other's gaze — and Zane felt his stomach drop. That old familiar electricity that had always seemed to crackle between them was there, intense and vivid. More than anything, he instantly noticed that Matt had not known it was Zane he would be facing tonight. He could see it in those familiar dark eyes, in that face that he had once learned to read so well ... and perhaps still could. The fear of facing someone you had wronged was absent and he hated the tiny twinge of hope it ignited inside him.

      Regardless, a surge of unbidden rage swept through him — Clearly, Matt had been sent to kill him and he’d come to do so without hesitation. The words left Zane’s mouth before he could stop them, the serrated burn of his voice tense as he fought to keep his throat from closing up. ❝Oh, did you finally show up to finish the job? ❞ He knew that wasn't fair, but ... what had been done to him hadn't been fair, either.

[kindaasrikal]

Lloyd is the type to always overthink every action he has ever taken, and worries if it will affect the relationship or reputation he has. It’s always clouding his mind and he can never seem to forget any mistake, any bad deed, and negative actions he might done (or perceived to have done) and it always weighs him down. Lloyd has always been weak to his mind, and his mind affects his heart, so can you really blame him for feeling like he’s about to throw up and cry whenever he is near the person he has ‘wronged’?

Zane can never look at his body the same anymore. He remembers clear skin, smooth and soft that children enjoyed to hold hands with and elders teased him about. He remembers rusty old metal clinging to him as old as his existence, despite him mind and soul being much younger. Even when the skin peeled off to reveal said metal, that was still his body. It was his, and nothing can replace that. Yet as he keeps being destroyed, tampered with, hurt, and killed, his body is rebuilt over and over again. It is no longer his own body he stared at in the mirror, but a shell that his soul is forever stuck in. This is not his body. His arms were not that long, his hair was not that sleek, his skin not so shiny, and his mouth, so hard to move some days that he just wishes to sit in silence in front of a mirror, looking at everything wrong.

Nya has to be useful. If she is not someone others can use, others can depend and rely on, then what is she other than useless? She has to be good at what she does, she has to protect those who have always protected her, she must always stand tall and sure, even when she wants to wallow away in her brothers-mothers-fathers-lovers-arms. She cannot let her withering thoughts and weakened heart hold her hostage. And as she tries to escape from what she believes will make her useless, she falls deeper in to her insecurities, the shackles she has had on since young growing tighter.

Cole no longer wants to be someone seen. He feels the eyes of others digging into his skin as they wait for his wise words of wisdom, waiting for him to help, to always be a rock when he was always a pebble crumbling from the splashes of responsibility, of expectations warring their way through him. He wants to be free as a bird from the weighing eyes on his back.

Kai cannot live as his own person. He is not just ‘Kai’ but he is ‘Nya’ when he is protective. He is ‘Lloyd’ when he is fighting. He is ‘Cole’ when he is planning. He is ‘Zane’ when he is comforting. He is ‘Jay’ when he is talking. He is ‘Wu’ when he is teaching. He is ‘Garmadon’ when he is tired in grief. He is ‘Misako’ when he must find a way to fix everything. He is ‘Skylor’ when he teases. He is his parent’s child when he looks in the mirror and speaks with his voice. Kai is not just Kai. Kai is everyone he has ever met and cared for. And Kai’s worth is not in how he lives, but in how he sacrifices and changes. Kai is not a whole of who he once was anymore, and Kai cannot see his own worth when everyone else around him is so much more worthy then he has ever been. Kai will always sacrifice, over and over again, whether it be his life or a loved ones, whether it be something he wants or something he needs. He is more dependent than ever and cannot fix such an addicting emotion after being independent for so long.

Jay must always keep himself in check, making sure he is playing his part perfectly. He cannot make a mistake, he cannot be a shadow and he cannot be in the centre stage. He must be in the middle as he plays his role of something he isn’t. He is scared to be insignificant yet the eyes of judgement digging into him terrify him like nothing else. It scares him to think that one fatal mistake can ruin it all for him, set him back years of effort and of work of pretending to be someone he isn’t.

Bah i got lazy for a few but this is all i can throw at you lot for now

[toothlespoggers]

I got silly and infodumped again…

The fact that crystalised despite being the worst ninjago season by far- showed that for a long time now, possibly since season 11 has had his emotions turned off. Is crazy to me. Because I know Cole had a pretty okay moment with Zane about it and he ended up turning it back on in the same season or maybe even same episode I can’t fully recall. But I don’t know how mentally fucked these characters are or what- but I feel like no one stopped to think about that for enough time. Like Cole, he’s a very caring, affectionate, empathetic guy. Yet even he didn’t really seem to register the implications this had for Zane’s mental health. Zane is filled with so much emotional turmoil that he physically couldn’t bear to feel anymore. And this group of traumatised young adults were like- “oh haha Zane, that’s so quirky, that’s so silly of you, haha relatable anyway-“ Like duuuude I don’t know if this is the writers wanting to avoid actually discussing mental health in a “children’s” show or if these characters have had such little emotional awareness and support through their lives, almost dying everyday since they were teenagers that they are so desensitised to the horrors tm that they literally cannot tell when someone is basically holding a sign over their head saying “I NEED SERIOUS HELP.”

That kinda says a lot about Sensei wu, doesn’t it? I mean he’s great we Stan- but he did kinda adopt a bunch of struggling teenagers and burden them with saving the world and then allowed them to put themselves in harms way for years, without ever sitting them down and asking them if they were okay, emotionally? Like I don’t know if this happened and I didn’t see it or if it was implied to happen off screen but I really doubt wu was any sort of a support system for these guys that treated him like a father figure.  

Maybe it’s because this cycle of pain goes back to wu as well, because he’s not the most stable person in the world either, but idk it feels crazy to me that these people that were basically family. Just- never checked in on eachothers well being or looked out for each others mental issues.

I mean they never really got a break and when they did- hell the only reason season 11 happened was because wu, so obsessed with the ninja being in tip top condition urged them to do something, which led these idiots to unleashing Aspheera and then ended up with probably the worst fate you could wish upon a Lego, for Zane. Seriously the fact they turned the ice emperor thing into a joke is so tone deaf to me like if this happened to your friend. In real life, (just suspend disbelief for a second) you would be absolutely GUTTED. You’d probably feel SO BAD. And that person? Probably can’t function like a normal individual anymore. Probably needs serious therapy.  Not a joke.

I don’t hate wu, I never did. But I just think he’s been very irresponsible with the way he’s handled his students and while he’s wise in some aspects 70% of problems in the show could’ve been avoided if this old man valued communication.

And if this isn’t based on the characters flaws. And it’s Lego refusing to discuss mental illness and mental health. COME ON LEGO IT WOULD EDUCATE YOUR YOUNG AUDIENCE ON PTSD, ANXIETY AND HOW TO HEALTHILY DEAL WITH YOUR PROBLEMS. Because right now, if you wanna deal with issues the ninja way, YOU BURY THEM AND TAKE THEM TO THE GRAVE AND YOU NEVER COMPLAIN OR REST.

All I want is at least one episode where it’s not all about the current bad guy or plot and it’s just about the ninja actually confiding in one another and trying to help their friends out. Maybe Zane or Lloyd finally snap and have a full mental breakdown and the only way to deal with it is for them to actually talk about it and work it out. I’m sure you can make a compelling episode with that in mind. They’ve tried to address mental health in the show with Lloyds anxiety arc thing in DR they need to do better.

We need a scene in DR where Zane and Frohicky are at the monastery while the other ninja are doing stuff, (maybe I’ll work out the details more and write something on this) and something happens where all the pain and trauma and just, awfulness just builds up in Zane’s mind and he just. Has a moment where he cracks. And he stops working on whatever he’s working on. And Frohicky notices the shift in the air and suddenly his entire demeanour changes and he comes over concerned and Zane is standing there or kneeling and Frohicky puts his hand on his shoulder and asks. “Are you okay?” And Zane just doesn’t know how to respond. He tries to shake everything off but he can’t, he’s never been asked that before. And Frohicky starts babbling on trying to help him and offers to get him set up so he can rest, and Zane doesn’t have the strength to object or the will to say anything and he’s just like.

“I.. don’t know.” In a final response to the previous question. 

And it’s just a scene where Zane accepts Frohickys gesture of kindness. And while not everything is fixed obviously. You can slowly see the tension leaving him.

Because it matters if someone asks you if you’re okay. It reaches into the darkest place and offers a hand saying “I’ll listen.” And that could genuinely change someone’s life.

[destinygoldenstar]

I Analyzed The Ninjago Movie Instead Of Sleeping

I have real mixed feelings on this movie. But not for the reasons you might think from a fan of the TV show.

The movie didn’t NEED to be connected to the show. And it clearly wasn’t trying to.

It was meant to be an AU in a way.

(If you look at the behind the scenes one of their original rewrites was a plot of them going back in time to save Lloyd’s dad from becoming the villainous figure he is in the present day.)

So I can forgive the inaccuracy so long as it could stand on its own as a proper story.

It doesn’t do that.

If you DON’T compare it to the show:

You got a movie with SOME good jokes, amazing animation, (SERIOUSLY THIS MOVIE LOOKS BEAUTIFUL AND VISUALS ALONE ARE A CHEFS KISS TO ME) but is so strangely paced that it feels like the movie starts at the middle of the story and never shows the beginning, and feels like a completely different movie halfway through, and is also very choppily edited.

(I even double checked a clip of the movie just to prove my point there: When Lloyd uses all his dragon mech weapons on Garmadon, they play the exact same sound effect and explosion, just with different angles, SIX TIMES. FSM WAS THAT EDITOR HUNG OVER WHEN DOING THEIR JOB THAT DAY?! And that’s just one example I’ve got. I think this was the first time EVER when I was in a movie theater and I distinctly remember asking “What is wrong with the editing here? Who thought this was good editing?? Who thought this was appropriate in any way???” So I thank this movie for giving me such a memory and making me value good editing.)

You also got a world that isn’t very well fleshed out, characters that the movie chooses to not focus on except the main character and the main villain. And you got a movie that tells its audience it’s okay to forgive your parents that neglected you and are active terrorists even if they earned or done absolutely no redemption whatsoever.

I mean Garmadon in this movie BETRAYS them and leaves them to rot so he could terrorize the city again at the end. Then gets eaten by the cat. Then Lloyd forgives him. Idk what more you want me to say.

I’m not gonna act like Crystalized did it any better though. Pick your poison.

But then you got fans of the show. The people who watched the show since kids (that includes me). Who are naturally bias towards the shows lore and characterization…

OOOOOOHHH boy…

I don’t hate EVERY portrayal of the ninja in the movie as much as other people. I actually think there’s some good ideas for an AU version of these characters here. Problem is the movie never does anything with them.

Well, I say I don’t hate every portrayal, the one I truly cannot stand is Zane’s.

There’s just so much wrong with how they portrayed Zane that it just does not work. Not as an adaptation of the character. Not in any way that makes sense for this universe and is actually kinda insulting.

There’s no other robots in this city. (Like there are in the show) Why is Zane the only one and why is he in high school? Why would Wu ever pick a robot to be a ninja?

In the show the reason is pretty simple: Wu didn’t know at the time.

But everyone knows in the movie. What’s movie Wu’s excuse?

There’s also in terms of personality.

Keep in mind later seasons of the show have the same issues, so I’m talking about what it was at the time of the movie.

Zane’s whole robot identity is crucial to his character. The show introduced him as ‘the strange one’. As he couldn’t understand social cues, took things very seriously, didn’t share the same sense of humor as the rest of the team, had a hard time displaying his emotions, and bonded with things the others didn’t and excelled at certain areas like cooking.

He’s a character that connected to a lot of neurodivergent people in the audience who could relate to him. No he’s not intentional autistic rep, but one that definitely mattered to the people that headcannoned him as such.

(Also helps that they introduce other robot characters later that clearly don’t have the same characteristics he does. So really it depends on what you see.)

So the reveal that he was a robot was such a huge deal to not just the plot but to him as he finally got a concrete definition of what he is and who he is. And the show NEVER decides to say “You know, it would be so much better if you were a human!”

“Why can’t you just be normal?!”

That’s part of why I personally can’t stand fics that make Zane human. It just doesn’t feel right to me and misses the point of the character.

While I absolutely did not expect the movie to cover his… really heavy backstory with his inventor/father and how he outlived him, then got his memory and sense of identity wiped by him moments before death, which was meant to be an act of sympathy but would actually harm Zane’s mentality for the entire show…

The movie didn’t need to adapt that. For all we know, movie Zane could have a very happy backstory. And that would be fine. All I wanted was for the identity-seeking aspect of Zane’s character to matter in some way.

It didn’t.

The jokes they use for Zane in this movie are that of “Haha, he’s a robot. Isn’t it so funny that he doesn’t understand humanity very well?”

You know, something that in one episode of the show was portrayed as a BAD THING for people to think that of him! And that those people needed to learn to respect him for who he is!

And that’s the ONLY thing they do with him. Just robot jokes. Very stereotypical robot jokes.

Again, later seasons of the show are guilty of this too. So I will not act like the show is perfect.

For the reasons I listed, these are actually far more offensive and harmful than you think. Especially fans of the show watching the movie. Him being the only robot in this movie world makes me think even more that this actually is autistic coding… and that makes it so much worse.

Zane being a robot being equal to autism is its own discussion. And has its own problems on paper alone. Whether or not this is your headcanon of him, and whether or not you think this is good representation either way is up to your feelings and experiences. (Personally I think it’s better than some live action shows attempting this)

The others don’t even seem to trust or want to be around him that much. The others seem annoyed by him half the time. Like they’re only tolerating him because he’s on their team. Yeah they don’t say that but simple looks and gestures are enough to get that impression. And not once does anyone ever express Zane’s value in their team. That’s the ONE thing that would’ve had me forgive this all.

But there’s my rant. The others?

Jay is mostly fine. I think this personality for the movie is a neat AU concept. Yes show Jay is openly terrified of things and awkward, but if there’s something he wasn’t was SHY.

Movie Jay is a shy and nervous wreck. And you know what? For a high school AU, I think it works. It doesn’t erase Jay’s essence entirely. They at the very least kept the detail of his character that he’s a fast learner.

I appreciate that.

Cole is actually a REALLY interesting concept to me with the AU idea they gave.

On the surface it’s just ‘He’s a DJ and willingly old school’

But if you see the show, this is actually an ODD approach. Because show Cole has a very complicated relationship with music.

In the show, Cole’s parents thrived in singing and dancing. His father specifically was a performer that won several awards with his band ‘The Royal Blacksmiths’. After Cole’s mother passed away, his father proceeded to push his ideals and his passions onto his kid and pressuring him to become another version of him. It got stressful enough that Cole ran away from home and resented music, something that used to be a bond of family for them, and that’s where Wu found him and made him a ninja.

Throughout the show, Cole would open up to music again more, but it’s pretty gradual and a very subtle bit of character development for him throughout the show. He doesn’t need to say “I hate making music” to get the point across. He only starts the music route again whenever it has something to do with making a family member, blood or not, happy.

So movie Cole is interesting to me for that reason. Because at the start, he basically IS a mini Lou. His whole thing is music and it’s heavily reflected on his personality.

To the point where his element in the movie isn’t even animated or portrayed as earth like it’s supposed to, instead it’s… sound waves?

Weird choice. Interesting one though cause maybe that’s just how movie Cole functions.

So it’s “Oh, what if Cole DID follow in his fathers footsteps and DID want to become a musician?”

Very interesting approach for a completely different approach of character development.

But the problem? Just like the others, not utilized.

But I do think this was an interesting AU idea. Is it accurate to the show version of the character? No. But that’s kind of the point I think.

Then there’s the RGB siblings. This is where it gets kinda weird for me.

Thanks to the movie, a lot of my friends mistook Kai and Nya for being twins.

They are not twins in the show. Kai is older.

I don’t think that dents their characters too much in the movie so long as the same points were across. They’re the blood related brother and sister who raised themselves when their parents abandoned them, and climbed out of the ashes to protect each other, and found a new expansion on their family that didn’t have to be blood related to count.

These two, in different ways, are the support of the team and especially Lloyd. They’re usually the lancer characters that Lloyd goes to when he can.

I still say that about Nya even though originally, she was NOT a ninja, but rather was a Samurai with a mech of her own invention that acted as a Tuxedo Mask for the ninja. She didn’t become the water ninja until Season 5.

Which… I know the movie takes heavy inspiration from the first two seasons, the beginning, so for those who haven’t seen the show watching the movie… yikes I feel bad about the lack of a spoiler warning. Same goes for Zane being a robot.

But I think that’s also a factor into Kai, at the former half of this show, (again I’m talking pre-movie with this). He was the first character we were introduced to and we’re following in the show before Lloyd ever showed up. So naturally he’d be the one with the most attention to supporting the Green Ninja. Something that was very vital character development for him individually as well.

He’s the old school one. He’s the cool one. He’s the one who looks out for you even if you don’t want them to. He’s the one that will jump to anything without thinking. He’s also the one with the most value in tradition out of the ninja, as a blacksmith instead of a techie and as a traditional sword fighter rather than a fancy complicated weapon. He doesn’t get involved in tech willingly till he learns Twitter is a thing.

And in the movie, I think they took this characterization and said “Eh, give it to the girl instead.”

So most of show Kai’s character traits are now movie Nya’s. She’s the cool one with the most passion for traditional stories, she’s the one with arguably the most talks with Lloyd to calm him, and she’s pretty loud and brash in personality.

Not saying show Nya is not those things, she is. But the difference in the show was that Nya was HUGE on independence and doing her own thing. Being the only woman and a younger sibling in the main cast is actually a big deal to her. Not wanting to have her destiny be decided by the world or her brother as a damsel in distress or a sacrifice, she took to tech to invent her own ways of helping. Her own character.

Until destiny told her “Actually no, you can’t be the person you want to be. You have to stick to tradition that your mother had and be the water ninja.”

That’s… honestly a very brutally honest message that not a lot of people I see give credit for. Cause yes, expressing yourself and being your own person and being able to make your own fate is amazing… but it’s not always possible.

Sometimes you can’t be the person you want. Sometimes the world just will not let you. That doesn’t mean your identity is worthless, though. If you go with the flow, you can actually find that fate has plans for you that might not suck after all.

Basically a ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ messaging there.

It’s part of why Nya’s whole thing throughout the show is her starting as a damsel trying to reinvent herself and her stereotype, and ending as a willing sacrifice and death of her whole identity that she doesn’t regret because she’s embraced the flow of life and purpose. Even if she forgets herself in the realm of spirituality, her loves one’s never will.

…Until Crystalized undid ALL of that. BUT LETS NOT.

Movie Nya just really isn’t any of that. She’s basically just her brother.

Which… I’m actually fine with. The show has some bumps in the road in execution of her story anyway. And they want the only female of this team to not be a background character cause that’s look bad. I totally understand that. And her being a sibling to Kai makes me forgive it a whole lot more cause it does make sense.

But again, we don’t know what their lives are like or if they have similar backstories to theirs in the show at all.

But where does that leave Kai?

Well his whole character in the movie seems to basically be “I’m the loud one and a complete klutz and meathead.”

Basically TD Tyler.

It’s a personality in the movie that bled in the show post movie. While I personally think it was not THAT bad in the show, Secrets of the Forbidden Spinjitsu made me go “Okay. I understand now.”

As for movie Kai, that’s really about it.

It really was an early indicator of just giving Kai’s character traits to other characters. Before the show was visibly doing it.

Cause movie Lloyd is also basically just Kai but with a different backstory and context to situation. But honestly, I DO see what they were going for here.

As the ONLY ninja to get ANY focus, this version of Lloyd is well explained on what his life is.

In the show, he’s an abandoned child in an abusive boarding school who heavily idolizes his father, Lord Garmadon, and runs away to become a super villain. Only for Destiny to tell him not to, and we see his true colors and that he just wanted his family together and to love him. Something that was… hard. Considering who Garmadon is.

That is actually carried into the movie. Just cut out him running away. Here’s the difference.

Show Lloyd loves his dad and refuses to hurt him until he has to. While he is the Green Ninja, he didn’t resent himself being Garmadon’s son. What he resented was the destiny that took them apart.

Movie Lloyd HATES his dad for abandoning him, terrorizing the city, making said city cancel him for EXISTING, and he wants every excuse to shut this man out of his life forever.

That does make sense. And to the movie’s credit, the movie logic DOES work to make this version of Lloyd make sense.

It makes the movie pretty mean spirited and kinda unpleasant at times. But it works for the story.

I described Lloyd as ‘The Emo Child’. In the show. But that’s two words.

Emo. CHILD.

He’s still a kid. He’s still the youngest. He still has his own child-like wonder of the world and the aspirations that of a child would.

Yeah he’s a lot of angst. But he’s also a sweet kid who deserves hugs.

That’s not very apparent in movie Lloyd. Not that it needs to fit movie context.

But because we never see how the ninja in the movie got together, we have no idea why Lloyd even accepted being the Green Ninja in the first place. He even says in the movie that he’d give it up if it meant he didn’t have to be Garmadon’s son.

Movie Lloyd is the only ninja in this movie with an actual character arc. He resents his dad, tries to be rid of him, only to get consequences for it, goes on a quest to fix his mistake, bonds with his dad to learn he’s… sympathetic? I guess?? And in the end forgives his dad and chooses to let him in his life again.

Simple. Fine. It works on Lloyds end just fine. And I have to give credit for the movie making Lloyd resenting Garmadon more logical than Crystalized ever did.

It’s Garmadon’s end that just makes the whole thing a bad message in the end of ‘forgive your abusers.’

Yes he’s funny. That doesn’t undo his actions.

No it’s not undone in the show either, but at least you can buy the forgiveness there because every character knew that he had no choice.

In the show, Garmadon is the Oni Child of the FSM. Thus all it took was for another Oni creature, the Great Devourer, to trigger his blood and FORCE him into the evil role without his consent. It forced him to do nasty things to his loved ones and the land his dad created, and by the time he became his evil form, he was forcefully stripped away from all of his loved ones and a chance at normal life. So the only way he could ever get that back was to turn the world into his own image, thus having the world become him too. A monster.

The show made it abundantly clear that most of Garmadon’s evil deeds are either out of ambition for what he deems as helping the family, or not his fault at all due to snake venom influence.

I THINK the movie also has this because they do address him getting bit and becoming the creature he appears as in both versions.

Better than nothing I guess.

But then you get his ‘sympathetic backstory’ which is pretty much just a love story between him and Koko-

Yeah Lloyds moms name is actually different in both versions. And in role.

Misako abandoned her child to try and solve the destiny crisis, then returned to his life to help her kid out.

Koko remained a mother to her kid and supported him even when everyone hated him.

These are very different characters basically, and which one you prefer is up to you. Personally… I actually prefer the movie. I do think the mom was the one character that the movie actually improved upon. Especially with a very interesting story for her.

In the show, Misako is a researcher and just the fair maiden figure that Wu and Garmadon fell in love with. To which she chose Garmadon because of Wu’s letter that Garmadon forged his name on… it’s complicated.

In the movie, she was actually a fighter as well and took a part of the wars Garmadon was in. She enjoyed the thrill of the fight and fell in love with her opponent in a pretty cute montage.

But then they had a baby and her reality changed, realizing she could not raise her child on the battlefield. And when Garmadon refused to change his mind, she took Lloyd and left him behind. So she could be a mother.

Explains her actions in the movie all throughout very well and I never got lost when it came to her. She’s probably the one character in the movie I felt the most sorry for. She’s such a sweet parent and her interactions with Lloyd are probably the best parts of the movie. I wanna hug her.

But that’s all that’s shown of Garmadon. Apparently Garmadon was oppressed, but that’s told at the end and not shown or been significant at all.

They don’t hate you cause you look funky. They hate you cause YOU TERRORIZE THEIR CITY ON A DAILY BASIS AND SHOOT PEOPLE OUT OF A VOLCANO

Yeah show Garmadon did similar stuff, but again, WASNT HIS CHOICE.

Here, it’s absolutely his choice cause nothing indicated otherwise.

Garmadon doesn’t even PROCESS his kids existence or his own negligence three quarters of the time. And you expect me to buy a redemption from him?

You know, I’d be fine with it if he was just a one dimensional villain and the story of the movie was about Lloyd putting his energy away from a family that doesn’t care about him and more towards a surrogate one he has.

But no. You gotta have Lloyd forgive Garmadon and have Garmadon redeemed.

Cause that’s what the show did.

Even though this is supposed to be an AU not connected to the show so we can do whatever we want.

The most they do for Garmadon’s redemption is force him to be the mentor after Wu got yeeted off a bridge by a butterfly, have him go “Oh yeah, I DID shoot people out of a volcano!”, teach his son how to catch, and tell his son his backstory.

(Speaking if, Wu to me is basically the same. Just different voice actor delivery. I got nothing to say on him)

And then if that IS redemption, then he failed it. Because he offers Lloyd to be his general when they take over the city again, showing he’s learned nothing. Then when Lloyd says no, he steals their magic weapons and ditches them in a temple leaving them to DIE. Then he goes to terrorize the city again.

What redemption. /s

Again, this was all HIS choice. If it was not and if it was snake venom, they couldn’t at least give a visual cue or address it?

And now LLOYD has to apologize?

NO. LLOYD WAS RIGHT. THERES ABSOLUTELY NO REASON WHY HE SHOULD LET HIS DAD INTO HIS LIFE. THE DAD HIMSELF PROVED THAT.

It just paints an unintentional bad message of ‘you have to forgive your abusers’

I’m sorry but Lloyd doesn’t owe this Garmadon anything.

I do like Lloyd’s VA delivery though, and the speech about green being the color of life. I actually like the idea of Lloyds power being his heart. Yeah it’s not flashy powers like in the show, but for an AU, it’s a really cool idea and I wish they used it more.

I have mixed feelings on the celebrity casting. Did I expect the original voice actors? No. But this casting wasn’t awful.

Garmadon’s VA is amazing in this movie. Jackie Chan as Wu is very subjective I feel, love it or hate it. Nya and Jay’s were really good too. I think the only one that didn’t work for me was Kai’s VA. Just… why does this teenager sound like a 50 year old man??

But honestly, I think the thing that got to me the most about the movie was something I praised about the show not too long ago.

The bond between the ninja.

I talked about how the show is a master class at character dynamics. There is almost no point where the characters are just standing there in one big clunk. Someone is saying something, someone is making a comment, someone is doing something, and it’s usually there for others to see and react to. It’s a very small thing, but it keeps the scenes alive and fresh the whole time and helps the audience be sold on the characters bond.

They don’t wait for the scenes of “Okay it’s time for characters to interact”. They just do it all the time.

And guess what the movie did? They’re just there in one big chunk all the time. With “okay it’s time for characters to interact” bits.

It’s one thing to not explore the other ninja at all. It’s another to ignore their bond.

In the show, they’re a found family. They all had rough upbringings in life and find a new sense of purpose in each other.

That’s NEVER emphasized in the movie except for one speech at the end Lloyd makes. Mostly cause we don’t know the other ninjas lives, and we don’t know how they even got together. Cause as I said, the movie starts at the middle, and awkwardly cuts after Garmadon is forgiven to be the end. We don’t know what it is about THIS ninja team that we should care about. It’s not shown.

All were shown is them being a team by circumstance only. Then Lloyd pulls out the cat laser and the cat nearly kills them. Then they hate Lloyd for it and spend the rest of the movie making fun of Lloyd.

Which yeah they make fun of each other in the show too, but where it ended in the show was playful teasing in the middle of moments that showed they cared about each other. And when one bond between two or more of them was broken, you felt it.

Here? I don’t know that and there isn’t anything besides the high school montage to show they cared. Just some comments about “Oh it’s okay Lloyd, it’s just awkward that your dad is a terrorist”. And then they make fun of Lloyds expense.

It’s mean spirited. It makes me think they don’t like each other. And it’s not like they ever apologize for it. They’re just teammates because Wu said so. They’re just tolerating Lloyd cause Wu said so.

Honestly the bloopers for this movie show more personality and more of this bond than the entire movie does.

…OOF that took awhile. I don’t even know why I did this, I just didn’t feel like sleeping. Uh… you read this, congrats. Idk why you did.

[issuesdolly]

Jonathan Davis Protects You From Your Creepy Ex

Warning: Smut, foreplay, fingering, male/female sex, unprotected sex, p in v, finishing inside, edging. Mildly violent diaglogue (NOT IN A SEXUAL CONTEXT but in the dramatic context of the story where JD is confronting the ex-boyfriend).

#jonathandavis  #jonathan davis #korn #jon davis #fanfic #fanfiction #smut #fem reader #x reader #edging #edginganddenial #jondavis #romantic

Summary: You are Jonathan’s girlfriend. Your relationship has been going well for a long time. So far, it’s been you who has had to deal with jealousy/insecurity as so many people adore Jonathan. You & he trust each other, but for once, the shoe is on the other foot when your ex boyfriend reappears, trying to reconnect with you. Jonathan feels insecure and protective of you. You do your best to reassure Jonathan you didn’t intend to rekindle anything with your ex. At the same time, Jonathan spots your ex’s manipulative/stalkerish behavior before you do. Jon is not controlling of you, so he tries to stay out of it. When you and Jon realize your ex is aggressively creeping on you, you try to cut ties. Your ex won’t take a hint, so Jonathan has to step in.  

Preface: If you like pure NAUGHTY fanfics that get “straight to the point” (romance + sex with JD) feel free to check my others. I felt like there’s only so much I can do THOSE…I wanted to write something that includes more emotional/personal themes, although there’s DEFINITELY sex in this one haha. This fic was inspired by a moment in the Korn MTV Diary where JD talked about getting jealous/protective when his fiance got hit on/disrespected by a guy. My stories portray JD as super confident/sexy but in real life, he’s just a dude who can get insecure/protective of his girl as well. Wanted to explore that. This fanfic is also based on a true story from my life. Hope you enjoy it. 

Story: 

You and Jonathan are finishing dinner at one of your favorite out of the way Italian restaurants. He had reserved a private booth in the balcony wing, away from people so your dinner wasn’t disturbed. However, you knew when you went downstairs, some people were bound to spot Jonathan. Sure enough, as the two of you held hands and walked downstairs, some people spotted him out. You decided to take this moment to head to the bathroom and let him deal with the swarm.  

“I’ll be right back, sweetie, bathroom,” you said, giving him a kiss on the cheek. 

“Ok, sorry about this,” Jon whispered to you, returning your kiss with a quick one on your lips. 

On your way back from the bathroom, you decided to hang back by the barstools instead of awkwardly standing next to him. You’d basically just be in the way as people tried to get their picture with him or have him sign something. Suddenly you felt a tap on the shoulder. Turning around, you couldn’t believe your eyes. It was your ex-boyfriend, Zane. 

“Zane? Is that you?” you said in shock.

“HI!!” Zane said, as his eyes lit up. 

He took a step towards you like he wanted a hug, but you took a step back. The two of you stood awkwardly smiling for a moment. 

“Wow, didn’t expect to see you here,” you blurted out. 

“Yeah! Didn’t expect to see you either! How are you?” Zane asked. 

“I’ve been good. You… you look so different!,” you admitted. During your relationship, Zane drank constantly and always looked run down. Currently, he looks far healthier. 

“Right? Well, I’ve been sober for the last year,” Zane boasted. 

“Oh man, I’m so happy to hear that. Seriously. Proud of you,” you said. 

“Thank you. I’m doing a LOT better,” Zane continued. “So you’re…. Still with Jonathan huh?” 

“You know about all that?” you asked, surprised. 

“Yeah, I mean…. I don’t follow his music. NOT my thing. But, your name and face pops up online with him enough that I- uh…. Took notice. Wow. Being with a celebrity. That must be a huge adjustment for you,” Zane said. 

“Yeah! It’s a lot. But he’s well worth it,” you state proudly.

You looked over at Jonathan as he stood awkwardly, trying to wrap up the schmoozing. Jonathan stole a glance at you. His big smile faded as he saw this guy standing rather close to you. Your smile faded also. It was like you could read his mind: “who the fuck is that standing with you?” 

Zane looked over at Jon with a shitty smirk on his face, before putting a hand on your shoulder. You turned back at Zane, surprised he just touched you. 

“Well! Good for you. I’m sure whenever you manage to get him to yourself, you guys have a nice time,” Zane said in a chastising manner. 

“Jon makes plenty of time for the two of us,” you retorted, while stepping away from Zane’s grasp. 

“You know, I’d love to catch up with you more sometime,” Zane said, boldly. 

Out of nowhere, you felt Jonathan standing next to you. Jon’s eyes bore into Zane as he stood there, wordlessly. 

“Jon! This is Zane, my uh…..” you said, trying to spit out the words “ex-boyfriend.” 

“Zane… yeah, I remember you mentioned a Zane….hello Zane…..” Jon said in a low, monotone voice. 

“Hey dude, nice to meet you,” Zane said, disingenuously. 

Jonathan just wordlessly nodded his head. Neither Jon, nor Zane outstretched a hand for a civil handshake. 

Jonathan hates fake “nice to meet you” pleasantries and fakeness in general. Instead, Jon stood still, head slightly tilted, with a dead face. He was staring HARD at Zane. Looking at your ex, Jonathan immediately recalled everything you had told him about Zane. Your 2-year relationship had been full of Zane manipulating and gaslighting you. When you and Jon discussed past relationships, it was definitely a topic that had made you break down crying. Jonathan had comforted you as you recalled the bad memories and reassured you he would NEVER treat you how Zane had. 

Jonathan was doing his BEST to be civil. However, it was hard for him to hold back anger, standing in front of the man who hurt you. You put your hand into Jonathan’s and Jon turned to face you. He could feel your palms were cold and sweaty. This situation was awkward for everyone involved. 

“Listen, we need to get going, but it was nice seeing you, Zane,” you said. 

“Yeah you too,” Zane said. 

You and Jonathan walked out of the restaurant. Jonathan, on his way out, stole a glance back at Zane. Zane gave Jon another shitty smirk and sly hand-wave goodbye. Jon’s eyes flared and he let out a huff/sniff, turning back around and heading out the door with you. 

The car ride back with Jonathan was damned awkward. You decided to break the silence by just confronting the situation head on: 

“Well that was really awkward. I’m sorry about that, Jon, I really didn’t expect to run into him” you said. 

“Yeah, I gotta say I always pictured him as a massive douche. He definitely lived up to my mental image,” Jon said quietly. 

“He’s sober now at least, so… hopefully he’s getting his life on track,” you said, trying to diffuse the conversation. 

Jonathan was silent, breathing angrily. Jon was baffled that after everything Zane had done to you, you cared about his well-being. He felt that you were WAY too forgiving. 

Eventually Jon broke the silence. “Yeah well, I get it, I was a mess before I got sober. But…. people can only change so much,” Jon said, reflecting. 

The two of you got home and went inside. You went into the kitchen. You had skipped dessert at the restaurant and felt like having some yogurt or something. You were taking your time browsing the fridge when Jonathan slowly walked up behind you. He gently wrapped his hands around your waist and cradled your stomach through your dress. You were kind of taken aback, since he had been huffy and distant on the ride home. He gave you a gentle kiss on the cheek and held you close. 

You gladly accepted his embrace. “Whatcha looking for?” Jon said as he kissed your cheek and neck. “Ummmm… just… a little dessert…” you said slowly, getting lost in the sexy sensation of his tender kisses. He wrapped you closer in his arms and started giving you a slow, open mouth kiss on the neck. You melted in his arms. He always knew he could seduce you easily if he started nibbling and licking your ears and neck. He left slow kisses on your neck and moved them down your shoulder, pulling the hem of your dress down slightly so he could kiss and lick more of your shoulder. 

“DAMN!” you blurted out, genuinely surprised that Jonathan had suddenly launched into all this. Jon pulled you into him more and pressed his front against your backside, giving you a tight embrace and grinding into you. You lost your balance slightly, getting immediately turned on. 

“What’s all THIS?” you asked, with genuine curiosity. Jon didn’t usually randomly attack you with kisses/seduction like this. 

“Mmmm, I don’t know, you just look beautiful. I had to come get you,” Jon said in a low, sexy voice. 

“My god… well… I guess dessert can wait,” you said while giggling. 

“I’ve got some dessert for you,” Jon said in a dirty voice, before reaching up your dress and sliding his hands under it until he reached your pussy. He took two fingers and started slowly, tenderly, rubbing your clit through your panties. You were going insane. You moaned and let him continue at this for several minutes while he slowly rocked you in his arms.

You slowly turned to face him. His eyes looked absolutely NEEDY and overwhelmed with lust. You leaned in for a big kiss and he immediately returned it, hungrily. He pushed you forward, slipping his tongue into your mouth. The two of you lost your balance against the fridge door, which was still standing wide open. You felt yourself start to fall against the fridge shelves. 

“Ahhh!! Shit!” you giggled, as Jonathan gripped you and stopped you from falling backwards.

Jonathan started laughing also, realizing how klutzy this moment was. 

“Let’s take this somewhere else,” Jon said with a smirk, pulling you away from the fridge. You shut the door and speed-walked to the bedroom together as he touched you all over along the way. 

When you reached the room, Jon quickly faced you, kissing you deeply and hungrily. He picked you up by the thighs and off the ground. You wrapped your legs around his torso and moaned into his mouth. He carried you to the bed and gently placed you down, kissing down your body and wasting no time reaching up under your dress and sliding your panties off. You watched him in awe, confused by his sudden mood shift. He crushed your panties in his hand and gave you the dirtiest smirk, taking a moment to push them against his face and smell them. You loved how freaky he was and you both giggled. He tossed the panties away and started planting kisses on your legs, working his way up your thighs. Jon slowly crawled on top of you. You held his hair and lay underneath him, wondering why he had suddenly decided to make love to you like this. 

The truth was, the incident at the restaurant had left him feeling insecure. Maybe a bit possessive. Seeing your ex touch you and try to reconnect left him feeling desperate to do SOMETHING to pamper and satisfy you. To remind you how much he still wants you and perhaps, to STOP you from even THINKING about your ex. 

Jon locked eyes with you as he slowly took his lips off your mouth.

 “Mmmm..tell me what you want, baby,” he said in a quiet, sexy voice. 

You giggled, “Ha! Uh- I mean, YOU started this. I don’t know!!” you said. 

“Hmmmm… well let’s start here,” Jon said in a low, sweet voice. He pushed a hand between your legs and gently parted them, reaching under your dress and gently rubbing/fingering you. You shut your eyes and moaned as he massaged and teased inside your pussy while giving you a long, deep, open mouth kiss. He moved his kisses to your neck and ears while fingering you, leaving you WEAK. You just lay there LOVING it. Jon kept this up for a good long time until you felt like you were already getting close to coming. Jon slowly removed his fingers from you. He locked eyes with you, smiling, before licking his fingers clean. Your eyes lit up and you gave him a huge smile and giggle as you watched him.  

Jon knelt next to your face and whispered “you always taste so fucking food,” right into your ear. You moaned and started grabbing his waist, parting your legs more for him. You’d had MORE than enough foreplay and you REALLY needed him to fuck you now. He quickly sat up, unbuckling his pants and taking them off along with his boxers and whipping his T-shirt off while you removed your dress. He quickly climbed back on top of you and immediately pushed into you as the two of you moaned. You noticed he was being unusually slow and tender with his movement tonight. Slow, sensual, delicious, pumps into you. This was not some quick, fun, aggressive fuck. He was REALLY determined to make love to you for a long time tonight. It felt amazing, and although you still wondered WHY, your mind was clouding over with pleasure. 

You moaned louder and louder as he took his time, slowly pushing deep into you and making you feel as good as possible. He kept kissing you all over while gradually letting his pumps pick up speed. Jon was driving you CRAZY as he continued licking and love biting your neck and ears. Your pussy was quivering and you knew you were going to come extremely hard, and SOON. Jonathan pumped harder and faster in response to you as your moans increased. You were getting so close. He let out a groan of pleasure watching you. Out of nowhere, he spoke. 

“Baby… mmfff… baby, look at me!” he whispered.

Your eyes had been shut with pleasure, but you opened them to look at him. His eyes stared hard into yours. You smiled at him weakly while moaning, your orgasm approaching. 

“I love you,” Jon whispered solemnly while stroking your hair and pumping into you. 

You were a bit taken aback. You knew he loved you. But him saying it so solemnly like this, DURING sex, was unusual. But you weren’t going to question it. 

“I love you too Jon!” you said with a hazy smile on your face as your orgasm approached. 

His big, expressive eyes lit up with love/lust and he kissed you hard one more time before pumping nice and hard into you. His dick pressed against just the right spot inside you. 

“Ahhhh!!!…..  Fuuuu!!!” you cried out. He felt SOOO good. You couldn’t handle it and started coming VERY hard. You let out a scream/moan and started shaking, holding his neck and gripping his hair as he ground his dick into you. He moaned against your neck and kept licking and kissing you while you came. This was DEFINITELY the best orgasm you had with him in recent times. You kept coming, shaking in his arms as he left his dick deep inside you, slowly moving it in and out, letting you ride your climax hard. As you slowly came down and caught your breath, he looked right into your eyes again, still inside you.

“You’re so fucking beautiful baby,” Jon complimented as he stroked your hair. “I love watching you cum….so pretty” he whispered. 

Again, you were taken aback. Him telling you all this DURING sex was a bit unusual. But again, you didn’t question it. 

“You- fu…..You’re….the sexiest fuckin man alive,” you complimented in return while giggling. “Holy shit, I came so hard,” you said, still trying to catch your breath. 

“Mmmmff… GOOD,” Jon said with a beaming smile. “My turn,” he said, losing his composure and moaning against you. You yelped and moaned loudly as Jon picked up speed again. He began fucking you with incredible intensity. Again, you were stunned. It was like he was REALLY hungry for you tonight. He made loud, honest, unrestrained noises. You just watched him in awe before shutting your eyes again. His orgasm hit him FAST and he moaned LOUDLY. You felt his cum spurt inside you with a good deal of force as he whimpered and gasped. You felt the warm gush of it start to slowly leak out of you as he kept coming. 

As he finally finished, he gently leaned into you and kept kissing you AGAIN. He was REALLY into kissing you tonight. After some slow, tender post-climax kissing, he finally climbed off of you and flopped next to you in bed…. totally spent. As you both caught your breath, he turned towards you, pulling your naked body tightly against him. You felt weak and exhausted in his arms. This had definitely been a “love making” session. Not some kind of playful fuck. 

Jon pushed your damp hair out of your face and stroked your forehead before saying AGAIN, “I LOVE you,” in a solemn whisper. 

“I love you too,” you whispered, earnestly. “So much,” you continued, while nuzzling his face. The two of you were so tired, you gradually fell asleep in that position, listening to one another breathe. 

The following day you woke up VERY groggy. You opened your eyes and saw Jon in a deep sleep next to you in bed. Plenty of light was shining into the room and you guessed the two of you had slept in until at least the afternoon. You slowly rolled over and grabbed your phone, sitting up in bed. Sure enough, it was 3pm. You two always stayed up most of the night and slept in (kindred vampires) but he definitely kept you up even longer last night. Groaning and wiping your eyes, you crawled out of bed and threw on a nightgown (you were still naked). You crawled back into bed to relax and started checking stuff on your phone.  Pushing your matted hair out of your face, you remembered last night. You definitely needed a shower. 

Though you try to not obsess over social media, it always ends up being the first thing you check. You opened Instagram, seeing the sweet likes/comments on a recent picture of you and Jonathan that you had shared. It wasn’t an ego thing necessarily but you loved seeing well-wishes from people. Next, you opened Facebook. The first thing you noticed was a friend request….. From Zane. You were quite shocked. You looked over at Jonathan, who was still sleeping naked. His upper body was exposed and the blankets covered his lower half.  He looked sexy, adorable and peaceful in his deep sleep. You remembered just how amazing last night was. 

Then, you looked back at your phone. So much time had passed since you had been with Zane. His profile pic had a woman standing next to him in a cute, couple’s pose. You figured he was in a relationship. Assuming both you and he had moved on and there would be no weirdness, curiosity killed the cat. You hit ‘accept’ and looked at his page. He had new photos of him from the gym, and several with this woman. Scrolling his feed, there were updates about his sobriety and kudos from friends/family. Pictures of him traveling and hiking with friends. It did make you happy to see his life had improved. Maybe you WERE too forgiving, but you didn’t like to hang on to hate/grudges. 

Jonathan was pretty damn allergic to social media for a variety of reasons. Mainly, he doesn’t stand for internet bullying or the narcissistic side of social media. He’s also very aware of internet stalking. Jon grudgingly holds a few promotional social media accounts, mostly run by his management team. As you were scrolling through Zane’s pictures, Jonathan stirred beside you. He opened his eyes and looked at you. The two of you exchanged sleepy smiles. You were about to close your phone, but Jonathan was surprisingly energetic and quick to sit up in bed. He leaned in and gave you a big kiss on the mouth, leaving you no time to get rid of what was on your phone screen. His kiss was surprisingly passionate and you got lost in it. As Jonathan let you out of the kiss he nuzzled against your shoulder, sleepily moving his gaze towards your phone. 

“Oh shit,” was the only thought running through your head. If you rushed to shut off your phone screen or change the page, this would look even worse. Cringing, you allowed Jon to notice what was on your screen. Jonathan’s sleepy gaze slowly turned to realization, noticing who/what you were looking at. Before Jon could say anything, you confessed “I opened Facebook and Zane sent a friend request.” Jonathan slowly took his face off your shoulder, exhaling and tightening up… his demeanor changed from elated to pissed. He scooted away from you in bed and folded his arms, pulling up the blankets to cover his body.

“And let me guess, you accepted it?” Jon asked in a quiet voice.

“I was curious, I’m sorry,” you admitted. 

“Curious how the dick who stole 2 years of your life is doing? Fair enough,” Jon continued in a quiet, cold voice. 

“A LOT of time has passed. He- he seems like he’s changed a lot. AND he’s in a new relationship too! It’s just fucking FACEBOOK. I add a lot of people. You know that,” you said, lamely trying to defend yourself. 

“I gotta tell you…. Guys don’t do this unless they want something,” Jonathan said, shaking his head. 

“Want something?” you replied. 

“Yeah, I could tell,” Jonathan continued. “I saw it right away when he stood next to you last night. He wants a shot with you again,” Jon said, staring hard into your eyes. 

“Well he’s not gonna GET one, jeez!” you replied, truthfully. 

“I’m going to be real. As a dude. Take it or leave it, mkay?” Jonathan said while facing you and putting his hands on your lap. “Guys don’t want to be ‘buddies’ with their ex. Guys don’t usually want to be ‘FRIENDS’ with women in general! If you give Zane an inch, he’s gonna take a mile and keep trying. And YOU? You’ve ALWAYS been too nice with this dickwad,” Jon said, his eyes darkening. 

“Ok! I get it! Damn…. You’ve got thirsty women chasing you all the time and I have to just accept it and trust you! I got a friend request from a dude who’s ancient history in my mind and you’re freaking out?” you said, trying to brush off Jonathan’s concerns.  

Jon shook his head. He DID try to catch himself, realizing the hypocrisy of all of this. There’d been countless uncomfortable situations where Jonathan had to brush off attention from women. He knew how much trust it must take for you to be with him and not feel jealous/insecure. Jonathan slowly exhaled, shaking his head. 

“Yeah…. I hear you. It’s fucking ridiculous, me saying this. I trust you. You trust me…. I’m sorry…” Jonathan said, trying to cool off. 

There was heavy silence in the room. You could cut the tension with a knife. Jonathan eventually broke the silence: 

“I trust you. But… I don’t trust him,” Jon said. He turned to face you in bed again and you looked back into your eyes with concern. “AND, if he’s as into you as I THINK he still is, he’s probably going to message you… And if he’s as possessive as he WAS with you, he may even web-stalk you a bit,” Jonathan said in a serious tone. 

You sighed and shook your head, climbing out of bed. You didn’t know what to think about this side of Jonathan. The hypocrisy was pretty epic. You had to share him with the world and now he had this paranoid concern about ONE person. However, you thought about what he said. You HOPED he was wrong. You took a shower. Usually Jon would join you but he was still being cold. He just threw on some pajamas, and decided to brood in bed, watched TV, ignoring you. After your shower you got some food and climbed back into bed with him, hoping to cuddle up and watch something together. However, Jon was rigid, not thrilled to have you touching him. He didn't even break his gaze from the tv, as he stared at it looking pissed. You knew why. This Zane thing was still bothering the hell out of him. You decided to just take the hint and let him cool off. 

The atmosphere at home was now tense and depressing. You and Jon rarely have times like this where one of you truly doesn’t want to be around the other. But you could FEEL that Jonathan didn’t want to be around you right now. You couldn’t even IMAGINE what thoughts were going on in his head. This situation had never come up before. It was always Jonathan proving himself loyal to you after getting tested by various situations. Now, you could tell he was insecure, pissed and maybe even jealous. You decided to drive to a cafe and clear your head. Sitting down with your drink, you opened your phone, figuring you’ll text your best friend about this situation and ask for her advice. As you were doing that, your Facebook dinged with a message notification. It was Zane. You stomach dropped. 

Zane: “I’m glad to see you accepted my request! Like I said, I’d love to catch up.” 

You: “Yeah I’m glad to see you doing so well. I’m a bit busy at the moment though. Just out at a cafe.” 

Your aim was to try to end the conversation before it began. 

Zane: “Oh nice! Which cafe?” 

Reluctantly you replied: “The Starbucks on Oswell, St… they have the coziest atmosphere.”

Zane replied: “Oh yeah I’ve been there, that’s a good one. I’m actually nearby right now. Are you going to be hanging out there for a while?” 

You had a bad feeling…. It definitely sounded like he wanted to come join you. Your aim had been to hang out and read there for a few hours since the atmosphere at home with Jon SUCKED right now. You tried to craft a white lie so Zane didn’t come join you though. 

You replied: “Yeah  for awhile but I’m hanging with my friend, I promised her we’d catch up. Now isn't a good time, sorry.” 

Zane replied:  “Ah ok, but maybe we can hang out and catch up another time.” 

Your stomach dropped even more. Jon was right. He had immediately messaged you and asked to see you. You were firmly regretting adding him. You closed your phone and picked up a book to try to clear your head. 

After a long time had passed, you heard the cafe door open. You couldn’t believe it… Zane walked in and scanned the room…. And then gave you a big smile and wave. You nervously returned his smile and wave thinking “OH shit,” while also being more than a little creeped out. He sat down without you inviting him to. 

“Hey! Where’s your friend?” Zane asked. 

“Um… she had to take off. I was just hanging out,” you replied, lying. 

“Well I’m glad I caught you. I know you said it wasn't the greatest time...but I really wanted to see you,” Zane said. 

You were really uncomfortable by now. And if things with Jon were tense before, telling him about THIS would really suck. 

“Well I’m sorry, but I was actually about to head home,” you told Zane. “Maybe… another time?” you said. 

“What’s the rush to get home? Does Jon give you a curfew or something?” Zane said in an offensive tone. You REALLY didn’t like Zane badmouthing Jon’s character or implying that you are his lapdog. You tried to keep it civil. 

“I’m just hungry. I want to get back and have dinner with him,” you replied. 

“Ah.. does he make you cook it?” Zane said, continuing his aggressive, sarcastic questions. 

You were getting REALLY irritated and uncomfortable now. You just stared at Zane in amazement. 

“Tell you what, I’ll take you out to dinner and we can catch up. If Jon whines about it, you can blame me,” Zane said in a naughty tone. 

You were taken aback and felt your chest tighten. 

“Zane, aren’t you WITH someone?” you asked, inquiring about the women on his facebook. 

“Oh THAT, nah that’s over. I just haven’t taken down the pics yet. But seriously, I’d love to take you to dinner! Maybe a night away from Jon is just what you need! Come back to NORMAL life for a bit, see where that takes us, hmm???” Zane said in a flirty, aggressive tone. 

You realized now that you had to be blunt: 

“Zane, I’ve gotta be honest. You popping up like this has caused an issue between me and Jon. I’d appreciate it if you backed off,” you admitted. 

Zane looked PISSED but he tried to play it cool. 

“Oh, my bad. I didn’t realize he was that insecure…. But… what can you expect from a man who wears skirts? Alrighty. Well… I’m around if you wanna talk and hang, ok?” 

“I don’t think it’s a good idea… sorry,” you said, pissed off and eager to get away from Zane without responding to more of his taunts. You hurried out of the cafe and got in your car. 

Your hands were shaking on the drive back. When you got home, Jonathan was on the living room couch literally just staring at the wall. You walked in, flustered and shaken. Slowly entering the living room, you were perplexed seeing Jon just sitting there, catatonic. He looked up at you with a very lost expression. 

“Jon? Are you okay?” you asked, genuinely concerned. 

“Uh…. yeah. YEAH I’m ok,” Jon said (lying). The truth was, Jon had been sitting on the couch reflecting hard on what it might feel like to lose you if you reciprocated any of Zane’s feelings or attempts to reconnect. He couldn’t get it out of his head. At the same time, Jon had been sitting there feeling guilty for being so hard on you, knowing full well it’s hypocritical given the amount of attention he gets that YOU have to put up with. 

Jonathan focused his gaze on you. He knew immediately you weren’t okay either. 

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “You look scared or something. Was it me? I- I .. I’m sorry for acting so cold earlier… you didn’t deserve that,” Jon continued, getting off the couch and walking up to you to give you a hug. You couldn’t get any words out. You just let Jon hug you. Holding each other tightly, you both wanted to cry… but were not ready to admit all the reasons why.

As you held each other, all you could think was “I don’t want to lose his trust!” 

As he held you all Jon could think was “I don’t want to lose her.”  

As Jon slowly let you out of the hug, he looked at your eyes and could tell something was still wrong. 

“Seriously, are you ok?” Jon asked, concerned. You decided you HAD to tell him what just happened. 

“Well…. No. Jon, you were right. I went out to a cafe just to give you some space. And Zane messaged me right away like you said he might. I made the mistake of saying I was out… and he fucking showed up where I was, even after I said I was busy,” you admitted. 

Jon’s eyes darkened and his face sank. He let out an enraged sniff and took some quick steps away from you while shaking his head and gripping his hair, nervously tugging on it. He started rapidly pacing around the room and breathing faster. 

“I TOLD HIM I DIDN’T WANT HIM TO MEET ME. I told him he was causing problems for us. He- he was REALLY persistent. It took me by surprise. I’m SO sorry,” you said, half in tears. 

Jon paced some more while tugging harder on his hair and breathing faster. He put his hands on his hips and looked at you.

“MAN, that little FUCKER doesn’t waste ANY time, did he?” Jon said. 

“I really didn’t mean for any of this to happen,” you said apologetically. “But I was VERY blunt with him now, Jon! I told him he needs to back off!” 

Jon stood still, hands on his hips, still breathing hard and looking like he wanted to kick something. He wasn’t mad at you, necessarily. At least, he was trying not to be. But he WAS feeling like this guy was getting predatory…. Jon thought carefully before speaking again. 

“HOW did he just SHOW UP where you were? Tell me HONESTLY” Jon asked, with a very angry expression. 

“I made the mistake of saying which cafe it was in a text, after he kinda pried about where I was,” you told him, truthfully. 

“AFTER you said you were busy and didn’t want to meet him? And he STILL tracked down the address and showed up to the cafe?” Jon demanded, with his eyes BORING into yours. 

“YES,” you told Jon truthfully. 

Jon looked furious and ready to cry at the same time. “Is that REALLY how it went down??? Hmm?? He just TRACKED you down, you didn’t ask to see him??? TRUTH!” Jon demanded. 

“YES JON!!!! Read the fucking texts if you want!” you cried, pushing your phone forward towards him and stepping across the room next to him. 

Jon slumped his head forward and just stared at the ground, wincing his eyes and shaking his head at his own behavior. There was awkward silence as you left your phone outstretched waiting for him to look.  He looked back up at you, with an expression on his face like he was ready to cry. 

“I’m not gonna do that to you. I’m not gonna go through your fucking phone. I believe you, baby. I trust you,” Jon said, truthfully. You threw your phone onto the couch and rushed towards him, wrapping your arms around him in a big hug. Jon was rigid at first, not hugging you back, but within a few seconds, broke down crying and returned your hug. The two of you just held each other for a few minutes. 

You slowly let go of him. You looked at his eyes and he was trying to clear his throat and stop snuffling. You touched his face. “PLEASE. You have nothing to worry about. I hate him right now more than EVER. He was SO rude today! I’m NEVER going back to him, OK?” you said. Jon slowly nodded. He touched your face and stroked your hair. He looked at you lovingly and began feeling more protective than anything else. He realized whatever interaction you had with Zane had left you shaken up.  

Jon slowly exhaled and composed himself before speaking again: 

“I’m not gonna fucking tell you what to do about him. But…If he was aggressive enough to track you down at the cafe, I think you better take him off Facebook. He’s DEFINITELY going to keep messaging you and trying shit. And all that location tagging bullshit on those apps gives him a lot of chances to figure out where you are. Baby, he’s pushing HARD,” Jon warned. 

You sighed. The thought that Zane might actually be STALKING you seemed over the top. You hoped Jon was just being paranoid. You also had hoped Zane took the hint loud and clear at the cafe. You weren’t sure what to say. 

“I was really clear with him, Jon. I don’t think he’ll bother me again. If he does I’ll block him, ok?”

Jon didn’t like that answer, but he respected you and accepted it. “Ok. But be careful. I love you. I’m sorry … really fucking sorry for how I’ve been acting, baby,” he said, holding you again. 

–

The following night you and Jon went out to a restaurant/music hall. You were trying to get back on track and enjoy yourselves. The evening was going really well and after your meal you slow danced with him to some live music. The two of you held each other tight, and as you danced, Jon just stared at your eyes before giving you a big kiss. He nuzzled his face against your ear and said, “I’m a very lucky man,” over the music. Then, he held you tighter and you rested your head on his shoulder as the two of you continued dancing in a tight embrace. 

Later that evening, you ran into one of your friends at the music hall. The two of you were excited to see each other and decided it was a great photo-opp with the beautiful backdrop. You asked Jon to take a picture of the two of you and he gladly did. You posted it to your Facebook, tagging her. Again, Jon really disliked social media but he was aware you wanted to share the fun moment on your page. Facebook prompted you to tag the venue location and you hit ‘accept,’ without thinking too closely. 

The three of you spent a long time talking together at a bistro outside the venue, ordering some dessert. Eventually, Jon stepped away to go to the bathroom, and the three of you were preparing to part company. Your friend called it a night and gave you a hug goodbye. As you sat alone, waiting for Jon to come back, you felt a hand caress your shoulder and you looked up, smiling, expecting it to be Jon. 

It was Zane. You were in utter shock. “ZANE? What are you doing here?” 

“Surprise!” Zane said, as if you would be thrilled. You had no words. 

Without being invited, he sat down next to you. You scooted away from him. Before you could ask him what the hell he was doing there he said, “man this place is awesome huh? So, you out with friends or?” 

“I’m here with Jon,” you said, with an angry scowl. 

“Oh! I thought maybe you were having a girls night or something. So where is Mr. Universe? Left you all alone again?” Zane said in his smug tone. 

“He’s coming right back,” you said. “And Zane…. I really… don’t think we should hang out. At all. I really… I really think you should go,” you admitted with as much courage as you could put into your voice. 

“Hmmm.. is that what YOU want? You want me to go? Or is that what he wants?” Zane asked. 

“That’s what I want. ME. I want you to go,” you said, slowly standing up and backing away from him. You were feeling genuinely irked at this point. How did he find you? Why was he being so aggressive?

Jon was walking out to the bistros and saw Zane next to you. He froze and watched as Zane started to stand up and take steps towards you. He watched you taking steps away from him with a nervous expression on your face. Your body language was quite clear. You were frightened. 

“Well, I’ll go. But only if that’s what YOU want. But I gotta tell you, I don’t think that’s what you REALLY want,” Zane continued in an ominous tone as he stepped next to you and tried to stroke his hand across your face and play with your hair.  

Jonathan took slow steps towards the bistro, doing his best to restrain himself as he watched the whole thing going down. You pushed Zane’s hand away from your face, saying “what are you DOING?” as you felt genuine disgust. 

Jonathan slowly stepped next to you, pushing his arm between you and Zane and gently pushing you behind his body. You DID feel intimidated by Zane and you fully accepted/appreciated Jon stepping between the two of you. You reached out and held Jonathan. Jonathan put his arm around you, taking slow backwards steps with his arm firmly around you while maintaining a wordless death stare at Zane. 

“HEY man, how ya doing?” Zane said to Jon in a sarcastic tone. 

“Me? I’m fucking SWELL, Zane. What brings you here tonight?” Jon said in a low, ominous voice. 

“Ah… just looked like an awesome venue. It’s wild, I just keep running into her,” Zane said, pointing to you. “It’s like fate or something,” Zane said in an unhinged, condescending tone. 

“YEAH MAN! Fucken serendipity, innit?” Jon said, boring his eyes into Zane’s. “Wouldn’t have anything to do with a picture of her here with a location tagged or nothing!” Jon said, calling Zane’s bluff. 

“PFT, damn, man, are you always this paranoid or is it like a bad cocktail of your meds?” Zane retorted. 

You were freaking out. You did NOT want this fight to happen. But… you had to admit, watching Jon put a stop to this was pretty damn satisfying. Zane had MORE than creeped you out at this point and you really REALLY wanted him to leave you alone for good. You tried to step in: 

“Please, Jon, let’s just go,” you said, holding Jon and trying to make him take a step back from Zane. Then you turned to Zane: 

“Zane, please, I think it’s for the best if we REALLY go our separate ways,” you continued, sternly. 

“Wow, he’s got you well trained!” Zane continued. Jon forced you to let go of him and took several steps forward towards Zane. He was THIS close to beating Zane’s ass. 

Jon stared Zane down and spoke calmly one more time. 

“SHE is free to do what the FUCK she wants. I don’t make her do ANYTHING. But I’ve got some free advice for YOU. YOU aren’t free to STALK her and not take NO for an answer. If you think you’re gonna keep that up, you’ve got another thing coming!” Jon growled. 

Zane chuckled:

“DUDE, you scare me about as much as a field of petunias. You don’t even WANNA know what I think of you,” Zane said. 

Jon’s eyes turned black. He was THIS close to losing his shit. 

“Think what the fuck you want about me. I’ve cut open bodies in the morgue for a living. I know EXACTLY where to make to right incisions depending on which of your FUCKIN organs I feel like removing first,” Jon growled before giving Zane a single, HARD shove backwards. Jon’s statement DID catch Zane off guard for a moment. Zane stumbled back before catching his balance and taking steps forward to shove Jonathan in return. 

“STOP!” you screamed. The scream caught the attention of a bouncer, who apparently had already had his eye on the situation. As the bouncer walked up, ready to break up whatever was going on, you gripped Jon’s hand and pulled him away as hard as you could.

“JON!! Please, let’s go now,” you begged. Jon did his best to restrain himself and turn on his heel, following you and wrapping an arm around you. His eyes were still black with rage. The bouncer stood next to Zane as Zane tried to throw one final insult: 

“Yeah that’s right, GO HOME. You get cranky past your bedtime, get some rest man!” Zane shouted. 

Jon pulled away from you one last time. “YEAH I’ll do that man, SWEET fuckin dreams of that first Y shaped incision before pulling open your FUCKING CHEST CAVITY!” Jon screamed in the blood-curdling voice. He put his arms back around you and held you as you speed-walked away and into the car. 

The ride back was silent, except for the two of you both breathing really hard. You realized you HAD been stalked, and you grabbed your phone out of your purse, opening facebook and blocking Zane. Halfway through the drive, you looked at Jon. He was driving very carefully but his eyes looked absolutely FILLED with fury. You couldn’t take it anymore and started sobbing. Jon looked at you while trying to keep driving. He didn’t know what to do. “Baby? BABY! I’m— I’m sorry,  I … don’t fuckin know what to say … I….. SHIT…. “ Jon said, half in rage and half in tears. 

At the first opportunity, Jon pulled over in a parking lot. He turned the car off and unbuckled his seatbelt to reach across the car and hold you. You held him and cried, holding him tightly. You sobbed onto his shoulder. “I didn’t mean to be an asshole! I didn’t mean to embarrass you! It’s just, when I walked out and saw him, you looked scared, like you were trying to back away from him and he was pushing you into a corner! I LOST MY SHIT!” Jon said, apologetically. 

You let go of Jon and looked at his face in the dim light of the parking lot. 

“He WAS, Jon! He was creeping the hell out of me! I had told him to go away already and he wasn’t taking my word for it! I- I’m REALLY GLAD you did what you did! I’m glad you were there!” you admitted while crying. Jon shook and cried some more while holding you… however, he was still shaking/crying more with rage….. thinking about anyone treating you like that. 

“If he doesn’t fuck off … I swear to god.. I SWEAR TO GOD,” Jon said with his teeth gritted, while holding you. 

“I blocked him! He better fuck off. I’ll…. I’ll get a fucking restraining order if I had to Jon! I swear, I HATE THIS, this is a nightmare!” you said, holding him. The two of you just held each other tightly for a few more minutes. Eventually, the two of you composed yourselves and drove home. 

You were both emotionally spent when you got back. All you could do was change for bed, climb in, and hold each other tight. You were shaking and trying to compose yourself. You felt so comforted and safe in his arms. Eventually your snuffling stopped and you fell hard asleep against Jonathan. However, Jon stayed up for ages, unable to sleep. There was way too much adrenaline pumping in him still. But he was happy to just hold you in his arms while you slept. Eventually, he fell asleep also. 

In the end, you did not ever hear from Zane again. Perhaps that confrontation at the music venue REALLY got through to him. Although, you often wondered if Jon did something you were unaware of to further “make his point,” to Zane. You decided to never inquire. 

----

Side note: I have a TikTok & Youtube where I make sexy/funny JD thirst traps/naughty joke Korn-related comedy edits if y'all are interested. I include myself in several vids, I'm openly a pervy/dorky lady haha. My accounts are not for clout/promotion. I'm just way into him and if you stumbled THIS far into sexy JD stuff you might enjoy my vids.

Link to my Tiktok:

Link to a funny/sexy JD Stich I made:

Link to my Youtube:

More stories to come. Feel free to leave story theme requests/ideas in the comments or DM me :)

[emper1on]

ro'meave brother hcs

garroth

- as a teen he would often have to pose for paintings because o'khasisian painters would find his perfect darling face just amazing for paintings. he was basically a model

- he has a very subtle but always active magicks that softens the emotions of people around him, which will calm them down or make them easier to work with, though it doesn't work on everyone ( ex. zane )

- although he loves his mother and his mother clearly loves him, he was her least favorite kid and he could tell. whether it was because he looked like garte or just because he was the oldest he doesn't know

- sometimes he thought about dying his hair black but looking at his reflection for too long and seeing garte in himself made him sick. so he avoided dying it because he didn't want to have to see his own reflection. looking at himself became easier when he ended up getting scars on his face

-he surprisingly has an incredibly week immune system, mostly because as a kid he was rarely allowed to be outside because he had to learn how to be a lord.

- he's known he's probably bisexual since his time at the o'khasis guard academy but he was too busy to think about that

zane

-he's blind in one eye because of an accident caused by garroth when they were really little. neither of them really remember it so there's no bad blood ( over that specific thing at least )

- he thinks it would be easier to make garte respect him if he didn't look like zianna.

- surprisingly before he went down his dark path he was incredibly devote to irene. sometimes he would pray that she could came down and take away all his family's pain

- he wasn't actually born evil like whatever the fuck jess was trying to say when mentioning him as a child. he developed a lot of emotional and mental issues because of how garte treated him and his mother. he was actually a pretty normal child aside from the mental issues that went unchecked and untreated.

- he just wants his family back

vylad

- undeniably zianna's favorite son but gartes most hated.

- he was the only son zianna ever took to meat hyria ( zianna and hyria are friends )

- he actually knows some witchcraft from hyria and he has a few owl familiars that he can see through the eyes of

- he's not actually emotionless as a shadow knight, only shadow knights who's souls and minds have degraded are emotionless. cutting out his emotions and not letting himself feel was his way of coping with everything. shadow knights are Not reliable narrators when it comes to emotions

- he once had a crush on a boy and he got so nervous talking to the boy he ran away everytime he saw him

- he died tragically young, barely an adult

[chronic-reveries]

MCD Headcanons:

-Laurance and garroth are 100% Malechi and Levins father figures

This isn’t even a HC imo but malechi is laurances adopted son and levin is garroths and that’s all there is to it honestly

- Travis is flirty completely by accident.

Due to his isolation from the village for their own safety, Travis had to find other ways to spend his time. Eventually, he started reading various books from his mother’s old collection as well as from various townspeople and the occasional abandoned ship. Most of these novels just so happened to be romance novels and as such he began to start speaking like the dialogue in the books he read. He obviously knew the townspeople didn’t speak like his books had, but they were the closest thing he had to an outside perspective given the cursed seas and the demon warlock kept him there. So it’s no surprise that he used the same flirtatious personality he had developed upon meeting both Aphmau and Laurance. Later along the line he just kept it up because it was funny to him. (Later season 2 goes against this and I’m well aware but I just try to think the best of Travis)

-the jury of the nine willingly surrender themselves to memory suppression magicks

In s2 ep34 Katelyn says “he wasn’t even supposed to keep his memory of Abby, but he did and look where that got him.” I’d like to think that this implies that most jury members allowed Zane to use memory suppression on them that also makes it so members aren’t emotional so that they aren’t vulnerable. Unlike most members Jeffory did not undergo this process as it’s not entirely mandatory but Zane likely strongly suggested it. However because he knew Abby would be utterly alone without him, Jeffory refused to allow his memories to be repressed. Other than Jeffory, all other jury members did undergo this process but it only lasts as long as they are a member of the jury. Hence why Katelyn slowly became more and more emotional post losing her position.

- Janus the Silver Death uses They/He pronouns

When Katelyn talks about Janus in season 2 episode 79 she fluctuates between they and he pronouns. There was a fluctuation between the two and I’m not sure if it was on purpose or not as like a writers choice, but it happened enough times for me to conclude that Janus uses They/He pronouns <3

-Katelyn and Ivy dated

In season 2 episode 91 ivy says “did you miss me love?” And while she says things like darling to anyone using specifically love stuck out?? Idk? But if they dated it was definitely for a short span and with a messy breakup that was likely caused by ivy taking things way too far. She also further added onto this behavior post breakup.

-Lo is the descendant of Kul’Zak or Menphia

I know Lucinda looks a lot like Menphia in a lot of ways, but honestly with Lo accompanying Aph to the Tu’Lah region and it all lining up the way it did it makes sense? Honestly though I don’t feel like he aligns with her title of the fury which is where kul’zak comes in. His title was that of the wanderer and honestly I could fully see Lo meeting that title, but that’s just about all I can say for him. Maybe there was more we never knew? Maybe his defense of his girls was representative of his “fury” but honestly it’s up for debate. I definitely believe he was tied to one of the relics though in some way shape or form.

Finished my MCD rewatch and heres everything I made HC’s for from season 1 to season 3 🎀

(I don’t make these often but I wanted to write these ones down)

[basilibino]

Season 8 was like 6 years ago(I feel old) and I know ppl have differing opinions on the Mr Echo thing (but it was intended, made it to storyboard and blocked animation and then dropped, soooo) but. I can see his recruitment p easily tbh. Bc the whole reason Dr J was in that lighthouse was because he was resurrected, forced there, and ordered to build Skulkin vehicles by Samukai. But Samukai in the flashback we see has already been deposed as leader of the Skulkin/Underworld. Which means the orders to do so most likely came from Garmadon.

And since Mr. E is one of the head honchos, he's likely an early arrival to the team, so I don't think Harumi has a whole lot figured out at this point, she's just got her Trauma and some Bad Influence Friends and an obsession with Lord Garmadon. So. Like. Plausible deniability road trip that she's just visiting important markers of Ninjago's recent past, all of which involve Lord Garmadon in some meaningful way; its sightseeing, its cathartic, and it gives her time to develop her dream Motorcycle Gang/Resurrection Cult. She's not looking for anyone at the Lighthouse, but she is looking for vehicle blueprints so she can be the Koolest leader on the block. But oops she looks in the basement and there's an Echo.

And she's flipping out bc??? A Ninja???? In the Lighthouse basement??? I mean it makes sense that it would be this one but???

Except this rusty old robot has no idea what she's talking about with this Ninja stuff, he's just waiting for his dad to come back.

And Harumi pauses.

Because how long has he been waiting? He's not sure, he had no proper way to measure time in the basement, and he doesn't have the best view of his clockwork heartpiece. But it was after his father saw a strange ship docking; Echo was worried it was the People who had locked up his father in the first place, but instead his dad sounded happy when he saw whoever was out there. It could have been a front, though, as clearly it was never safe to let Echo back out. Then Dr J popped down briefly, while everyone above was resting, to tell Echo he was desperately needed elsewhere, that it wasn't safe to bring Echo, but that he'd be back in no time.

And the pieces are fitting together for Harumi. And she's like. Your dad's dead, bro.

And he's like. What? Did he die doing what was needed of him?

And she's like. Oh, no. He died a few years later.

And he's like. Why didn't he come back for me????

And she's like. Probably because they kept him away.

And he's like. Who's they?

And she's like. The Ninja I was talking about earlier.

And it surely can't be hard in universe to find pictures of Zane and Dr J post s2-pre s3, so she pulls one up and shows Echo who is freaking out bc why is that one kind of like him and Harumi explains that that was the droid his father created first, that he became a Ninja, and that hes probably the one who took their father away and kept echo waiting for years.

But Echo has doubts, shocked as he is abt a new older brother, he wants to believe the good in the situation so he's unsure. But Harumi mentions that the Ninja's failures to uphold more than their self preservation/interests has led to uncountable losses and devastation in Ninjago time and time again, before delving into her own story. And she seems so kind, and so hurt, and I do think there's a genuine connection btwn these two that forms from this shared emotional torment that they decide came from the Ninja, and now Echo is more receptive.

And then Harumi gets to start her Garmadon pitch because wait! If Echo was made here, then that could only have happened because of Lord Garmadon. And she reiterates that he's the reason she and her city could have even survived The Great Devourer. And maybe Echo's family-by-creation left, maybe they were untrustworthy and lacking, but that's OK bc if you look at it all a certain way, Garmadon is more of a father to Echo than Dr J was. And Echo is a vulnerable, overwhelmed mess who just found out his dad fucked off for years without him and also died, and also he has a brother??? Who their dad clearly seems to have favored??? Did they even know about Echo??? Did they delight in their life free of him???

Basically. Kinda Spinel-core but getting abandoned and left completely alone does that to you. Especially when the first person to find you after being abandoned is a deeply hurt and misguided teen who is probably kinda desperate for someone, anyone else to see the Ninja the way she sees them.

[heyimcelery]

Okay so I watched all of Ninjago Dragons Rising s2p2! I've got so many thoughts and I'm dumping them all here in a long list. SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

to start: Cole!! He's a family man! He's got a boyfriend and they hold hands and they care for their kids and Bonzle so obviously came out to them and omg I wanted to cry. The joy of acceptance. I mean come one she kept saying how alone she felt, they're found family, she was repeating that she chose he town name and identity and the villains were insistent that she wants a person but just a spell like come on

But there's more than that, I have questions I have concerns!! Like wtf happend on Coles quest?? With Sensei Wu??? Like he disappeared and turned up again and said he would explain but never did.

Cole also came back from that in his bolder form so did he figure out he could do it on his own then? Is that what he learned on his quest?? If so it's gonna be a little awkward when he tried to explain that to his bf Geo.

With part 2 I really want to see the whole gang meet them and talk and catch up on everything. Like cole has been missing since the merge and no one this season cared. At all. They hadn't seen him in ages- didn't even know if he was alive until drs1 but nope no worries or concerns. Not even a question of what he was up to.

When he came through the portal Zane wasn't worried or confused at all, just oh? You need some help?? Sure let's beat these bad guys and not worry or show emotions! Is a tearful reunion for my fav character too much to ask?? Cuz he clearly deserves it. :(

And then into both Zane and Coke this season!! Love them!! They've always been my fav duo (gonna have to start shipping geo/Cole/Zane as poly now) it was so fun to see them going around together with Bonzle. They had some great moments and I'm praying we get more in the next part.

On the other hand it was a shame they got such small roles- just seperated from the others as a way to help Bonzle. It means they didn't have the same lessons or knowledge the others got which is totally unfair!! They have a lot to catch up on. They also never got a chance to be part of the main battle

It's dumb but I was kinda hoping for Cole to show off his stronger powers (he always seems to get new powers every other season but that's a discussion for another day). Like sure he could use his robotic mech suit but that's been done before! He can do his boulder thing now (unless somehow he still thinks he can't which means he kept up that form for several days on his quest) and when he made that giant mid hut to protect his family!! I want to see him do that again! Let me man go ape shit to protect Bonzle.

And on another note, Geo my beloved, you should get a chance to shine with your powers. A chance to show off or at least have a talk about them with Cole.

Next up WyldFyre. I was worried they would make her the annoying comic relief cuz if her injury but her talks about losing loved ones and dragon culture and her home were really sweet and it was great to see some development so driven by battles. I love those too don't get me wrong but like I needed to see this side of her. And I adore her relationship with Kai, being besties/mentors/dad for her works so great for both characters.

I will be first to admit that

Kai wasn't really my favourite. If you couldn't tell I love Cole followed by Zane. Always have and likely always will. I suppose that early Kai reminded me too much of some guys form my class and they turned into shitheads and I've always struggled to reconcile Kai's image form theirs. He was always a little too brash, hotheaded, and too often written as stupid to fall into my good graces.

And yet this season I adored him. Of course I've never hated him but like this season made me see what all his fans (many many fans) see in him.

I thought Kai being the first to master such a new, difficult and crucial skill was incredibly satisfying. Form all the way back to season 1 he's been the butt of jokes- having to learn he's not the centre of the universe and sometimes it's others like Lloyd who are the chosen ones. That's all great but him now getting a starting role, his ability being fueled by thoughts of his family, by his childhood and by protecting is friends was just too good to ignore him. Love this form of his character more than any other I've seen.

And now Kai is trapped :(

I'm glad he's got Bonzle with him tho so hopefully they can have each other's backs (she's meant to be a POWERFUL spell after all) they'll need each other if they're trapped with those other 4 guys. If they can apparently demolish everything then I'm rather worried for the duo. Tbh I'm sure they'll survive just fine, probably making jokes at Cole's expense all the while.

On a side note, I found it super cute how WyldFyre was willing to protect and go down with Kai. Besties I'm telling ya

Now Jay. I've never thought too hard about him I know he's one of the favs of the fandom but like Kai I was never so besotted with him. Still a great guy and omg I feel so bad. One of his worst fears was always being alone and now stuck, confused, forced to hide such a fundamental part of himself.

On the other hand he's got a gun now so that's fun!!

And you can't talk about him without mentioning Nya. He worst fears being him forgetting hurts my soul. And she was so sure it could never be true that she snapped out of her nightmare state!! She's going to break when she finds out.

She's already grieving her own brother, we saw her break down into WyldFyre (more proof she's an honorary sibling by now) but now knowing what's happening with Jay, I'm saying the angst is going to be overpowering. It's a greek tragedy fr

Part 2 is going to be rough. Jay only had a single scene but it's already a sign for the worst to come.

Speaking of things being rough, Lloyd is going THROUGH IT!! give this poor guy a break. I do appreciate that we physically get to see the effects of all his trauma- that everything that's happened has real consequences for his character and the story but I can't help but feel bad.

I've also suffered from anxiety for most of my life so to see it in a character like that feels really personal to me. Hope he gets a little break though, god knows he deserves it.

Have to say it's pretty funny that Lloyd's had so much Oni trauma that he forgot that he's part dragon too. Yes ninjas dragons can do spinjitsu why are you surprised at this point

The animation this season has been incredible, the fights were beautiful the angles so interesting and dynamic and I could go on for hours about how much I love it. It's always great when kids -and even animation in general is treated with respect. It doesn't dumb it's ideas and stories and characters for the sake of it's younger audience, and that makes it so much better for me who is definitely out of the age range.

I have my more points to make but I've been adding stuff in and off for ages so I'll probably go through this all later. Thanks for reading, please I want to know your own thoughts too I love discussing that kinda stuff!!

<3

[acesgarden]

NINJAGO HEADCANON TIME ‼️

I- am shamelessly on a Ninjago fixation again (I blame my irl friends- they’re not gonna see this anyway sooooooooo) yippe. Some of these headcanons are ones Ive see and whole heartedly agree with, and some are just random ones i’ve come up with throughout the years so uh yeah don’t mind that some have more then others haha. I’ll probably post smaller ones (and like a another one specifically for DR headcanons :DDDDD

They are in no coherent order🧍‍♂️

This is long I apologize 😂

Masterlist

Lloyd

• He/They and Panro Ace.

• None of the ninja are not queer and three(?) of them are ace to me (I am projecting.) Lloyd is ace, for I cannot see the words Lloyd and s3x working in the same sentence. In general just idea cannot be fathomed by me. If you do, cool! (We don’t shame headcanons around here!!)

• He is trans masc as well I love trans masc Lloyd headcanons.

• Getting this out the way. I am a s u c k e r for the oni dragon feature headcanons. 👏💳👏💳👏

• He has horns, starting on his forehead following the curve of his head, the horns aren’t to long and are pretty smooth, starting off as his skin color before transitioning into a black color with a green sheen.

• The horns are a mix of dragon shape with oni coloring.

• Lloyd has pointy ears and they do reflect his emotions.

• Like they’re sitting pointed high when he’s really happy, excited, nervous (?) and tend to droop when he’s sad or upset. Though they are typically in a neutral middle.

• Yes he has a tail but he does hide it when in public.

• Does have shape shifting! Just not to the extent of a full blood Oni, he could change into other people or animals but it’s much harder and required complete focus. So it’s better for him to take small characteristics or changes (like his face, hiding scars, etc), or to hide some Oni and Dragon features if he so wishes.

• He can purr, but is very embarrassed by it so other than around the ninja he tries his best to keep it down.

• Short compared to the ninja, like the second shortest, around 5’6”.

• Trust issues, kinda funky to new people like he’s not mean but he isn’t gonna be all buddy buddy and friendly (I blame Harumi & his childhood.)

• Especially after seasons 8-10, absolutely does not trust anybody besides his family.

• Absolutely did not like the new changes of horns and a tail, etc when they manifested. Dreaded it and himself at one point. Took a lot of care, and work, and love (and probably a lot of therapy) for him to feel comfortable again.

• There are days in which he still feels awful but he knows he can go straight over to the ninja when he starts feeling like that.

• Through he did not mind his fangs since he did have them since birth. When they started growing it was not an uncommon occurrence to find him staring into the bathroom mirror as he’d gently poke the tips of his fangs.

• There are some times, rare times, where you’ll still catch him doing it.

• His fangs are not as typically long as a regular onis, but longer that a normal humans canines.

• His nail are in a similar fashion, they grow pointy and a faster than the rest of the ninja, so he often has to file them down at least one or twice a week.(?)

• Even now has the biggest sweet tooth, when he was younger he’d steal some of Cole’s sweets but now they’ve been baking together for a while. He’s gotten pretty good

• Lloyd, like his father, both like shiny stuff or things with nice sounds. Think like dice! some are shiny while others just make the best sound when clunked together. Leads me to my next thing.

• HE HAS PIERCINGS, I firmly believe he had his ears pierced at least once, with like gold studs but will change them out to other gold esk earrings every so often.

• The rest of the ninja have bought them a set of earrings that match each ninja. Quartz studs from Zane. Like a vertical bar hoop earings from Cole, Kai went a little extra and got him a gold lobe to conch chained earring which a dangling piece of chain with a red jewel, Mismatch blue studs from Jay, and Raindrop earrings from Nya.

• He gets constantly reminded ans (lovingly) made fun of his Prime Empire avatar.

• The next few are gonna be angst and possibly a bit darker, so be warned when proceeding.

• Lloyd has had and still has a lot going on, mentally and emotionally.

• You’ve seen the amount of trauma and shit he’s been through.

• When he first found out about being the green ninja he was young, a kid, so he found it exciting imagining himself like that. He felt very important and wanted to do anything and everything to achieve that faster. Kids are oblivious like that. After getting hit with Tommorow’s Tea it finally dawned on him.

• Lloyd got what he wanted but being the Green Ninja was not the simple obstacle to overcome.

• The weight of the responsibility and power was to heavy at first. So he put himself through the training, every morning to night he trained. it got bad at one point because he’d rarely leave, even to eat.

• It was an issue that had an intervention for, he wasn’t allowed to train without someone knowing or supervising for awhile.

• He broke down during the intervention, because he wanted to be ready and to strong enough, etc. But he never did through out the training. That night was a movie night where Lloyd got to watch all his favorite moviess.

• He struggled with getting into better eating habits after awhile of the non-stop training. The others were always patient with him though.

• Lloyd felt he had a lot to uphold and maintain especially as words were used like “chosen one” and “destiny” to describe his role.

• After awhile he started having a harder time expressing his emotions, but the Ninja caught on quick enough and did help him reverse that thinking and process. Sometimes it’s still hard.

• There are times where Lloyd blanks out to his own thoughts and he struggles to come out of them.

• Has anxiety and has had anxiety and panic attacks more then once. Knows the routine on how to deal with them.

• The first time he had a panic attack he was alone and it scared him. But he was to afraid to tell anyone.

• Sensei Wu was the first to find out and talked to Lloyd about it, he got the rest of the team involved after getting a plan and everything set up to help Lloyd.

• Probably has (undiagnosed) ADHD, notable hyperfixations were Sharks, Space (due to a comic book series), The history of Ninjago/the Ninja, and his current Hyperfixation is Plants/botany.

• To lighten the mood, RGB SIBLINGS.

•I am a firm believer in them.

• Lloyd intended to make matching bracelets for him, Kai and Nya but while making them decided to do it for all the ninja so now they all have needed bracelets consisting of a green, light blue, blue, red, black, and white bead.

• They (Kai and Nya) were the first people he saw as family besides Sensei Wu. Then they adopted him very much was like “Yes, he is our little brother. Whatcha gonna do about it?”

• Lloyd started copying both of them because he really looked up to them. Took their sides in arguments but took Nya’s when it was an argument between the two of them.

• Lloyd often let Nya paint his nails and sometimes practice makeup on him.

• He also got roped up into most of Kai’s pranks, he loves it though.

• Rgb siblings have a very good relationship and they are the closest out of any sibling esk relationship Lloyd has with the Ninja.

Nya

• She/They and Bisexual (fem leaning)

• I see a lot of the Ninja as Bi in some aspect (again i’m projecting.)

• Genderqueer but def more feminine leaning.

• Nya and Jay keep their half of the Yin Yang medallion on themselves 99% of the time.

• Nya is in fact taller then jay and is only an inch taller then Lloyd standing at 5’7”.

• Nya and Cole are best friends.

• They work out together go on jogs and help spot each other, etc.

• NYA IS B U F F, Can easily pick up Jay and carry him around.

• Both cringe looking back at the “Cole is my perfect match” thing.

• Has a spice tolerance because of Kai but not at the same level as him.

• P.i.x.a.l. and Nya like to work on stuff together, just like they’ll ask for tiny bits of advice or suggestions. It’s best described as parallel play? but they’re doing very similar things but on their own.

• Can not cook for shit, has burnt food more times then she can count.

• Messy clean room, tbh this can go for all ninja except Kai weirdly enough, his room is by far the most organized out of them all, still can be messy but overall clean.

• Skates, known longboards, regular skateboards and skates, she and Lloyd do it a lot.

•Knows how to ride a motorbike and is very proud of it. That thing is like her child.

• Also post becoming one with the sea she’s grown wayyyy more interested in the ocean and relating topics like preservation, marine biology, how the ocean works and how land is made, etc.

• Side effect from becoming one with the sea is she constantly smells like sea salt

• She also has markings left over in swirly shapes, and her eyes glow a faint blue in the dark.

• Subconsciously understands (aquatic) animals like they make their noises and subconsciously Nya’s brain translates it.

• The monastery has since also been made to follow proper recycling procedures.

• Goes out to help with any kind of beach clean ups, sometimes will drag the rest of the team to help.

• Likes pretty much every and all kinda of music. You name is she’s listen to it. While working on her Samurai X suit she’s find random music to play.

• One of the three (Jay, Her, and Cole) coffee addicts of the monastery, the others either don’t drink coffee (P.i.x.a.l. and Zane), drink tea (Lloyd and Sensei Wu), or drink Redbull (Kai.)

• Feels like she needs to prove her worth 24/7. Especially in early seasons. But she’s learned that she’s loved no matter her worth and that she’s important to the team, but there are times she struggles.

• Back to Nya and Jay, I feel like they’d have date nights once a week.

• It takes a variety of forms, like movie dates, all day dates, or simply staying over in each others rooms to cuddle.

• Or stargazing dates or long rides on Nya’s motorbike.

• I feel they’re 100% comfortable and honest with each other even if they don’t want to. Especially in the later seasons.

• They’ve had a few breakdowns together, relatively no one knows bout this as they take extra care into keeping it private. Unless the other was genuinely concerned then they might get Sensei Wu involved but that is the farthest they’ll go.

• Double dates with Kai and Skylor.

• Nya has two victims when she wants to experiment with stuff. Jay and Lloyd, at this point they have become accustomed to it.

• Couple times the entire ninja crew fell for the skincare ‘dates’ now it’s a once a month thing.

• SHES A GOOD INVENTOR, There’s like 4 (Nya, Jay, Zane, and P.i.x.a.l.) of them now, so sometimes with bigger projects they’ll get together to help out.

• Jaya kiss each other a lot, from pecks, to showering each other in kisses, forehead, nose, butterfly, hand kisses. They’re adorable.

• THEY BOTH ARE SO TICKLISH TO THE POINT THEYLL GET ALL GIGGLY WHEN THEY GET PEPPERED IN KISSES.

• Sometimes while they’ll out they’ll spot a pretty person and point them out and giggle about it to each other.

• Wears claw clips and has noticed Jay keeps an extra one on his at all times.

• They absolutely dance and play in the rain.

• If one of them gets sick because of it they feel bad and will stick with them 100% through it even if they end up catching it.

• They are so silly I love them hehehe.

• Saw this short comic and now it’s my person headcannon Nya for the samurai x idea from Lloyd.

• Daddy’s girl.

Jay

• He/Him and Bisexual (fem leaning)

•Jay is trans, ftm. Another one where I really like the trans headcanon. <333

• Second person in the group to have ADHD. Though he’s known about it for longer and takes medication to help but also has his own routine to help incase he forgets to take his meds.

• When he was younger his main hyper fixation was inventing and now it’s just carried over into regular interests. There are times where it’ll seep back into his brain for a short while but it hasn’t been as big as it was when he was younger.

• Loved building things with his dad ‼️ was bonding moments for them. He still has some of the trinkets they’ve made together. They’re his prized possessions.

• Learned to sew from his mom, which was useful ashe took his stuffed bear, Mister Cuddlywomp, around with his everywhere and he’d either get dirty or ripped so Edna taught Jay to see so he could repair the stuffed bear whenever.

• Had a hyperfixation on video games, birds, and Dinosaurs. His current hyperfixation is back to inventing.

• Rambles a lot and everybody listens, especially Nya. Lloyd on the other hand jumps in and they end up rambling together for hours.

• He also collects stuff, Crow collecting random stuff Jay and Dragon loving shiny Lloyd. They show off their collections to each other atleast once a week.

• He has sensitive ears and can get overwhelmed easily by loud noises. So he caries a pair of headphones on him at all times.

• Lloyd and Jay are very close and definitely hang out a lot whether it’s a parallel play thing (like Nya and p.i.x.a.l.) or it’s talking about their hyperfixations, or their collections, etc.

• Oh yeah, he’s definitely the shortest ninja I wanna say around 5’4”-5’5”.

• Has lightning looking scars from his first few attempts at his power. Can be a bit subconscious about them but then remembers this one time a kid said he looked badass from the scars.

• Again I love him and Nyas relationship because they’re so comfortable with each other.

• He’s the little spoon and loves when Nya plays with his hair.

• Cuddler, enough said.

• Power has gone out multiple times because he’s been jumpscared. So now everybody’s agreed to just not scare him. He’s vulnerable to pranks, no body is.

• Which, Jay has started 2 prank war before, which isn’t a lot but it’s weird it’s happened twice.

• Can’t skate, Nya has tried many times and all failed.

• I feel he definitely has some scaring especially because he’s always be scraped or have bandages on him as a kid.

• Rom com enthusiast ‼️

• Really wants to learn more about his biological parents, especially after that whole thing in Sky bound, I feel like it was just a one up thing and I would’ve loved to see him get to learn about them from Sensei Wu in canon. So after Skybound ended he begged Sensei Wu to tell him about his bio parents. He would’ve said yes and told him as much as he could remember.

• Nervous laughs when he feels awkward.

• Fidgets a lot with his fingers, or random items he has on hand.

• Bit of an artist, says he can’t draw, proceeds to make the most detailed and analyzed sketch of a invention he’s working on and says “I know it’s messy and I was a bit lazy with it sorry.”

• Likes to cloud gaze when he doesn’t have training. He finds it calming and satisfying to watch the clouds slowly pass by. Has almost fallen asleep out there.

• Jay sometimes feel likes he’s the useless member of the team, Kai is pretty useful with his knowledge of weapons, Zane could cook remarkably, Nya has made multiple vehicles and even a secret base as well as repair the bounty, Cole is a good baker and super strong (+ plus he has connections due to his fathers status) and pixel is an major knowledge source for them.

• He will sit in his room thinking about how he could become more useful, one time Nya found him like this and he spent the rest of the night crying to her. Apologizing for ever making her feel this way before.

• I feel they would’ve talk to each other about it more after Jay calmed down and how Nya felt during that time. It made them grow closer and understand each other better.

• Jay always makes sure to include everyone since then. No matter what’s going on.

• Has a stuffed animal collections and they hall have names and elaborate personalities and backstories. Many of them are friends with Lloyd’s stuffed animals.

• He’s a sweetheart overall, possibly writes poetry for Nya, or atleast has attempted it.

• Sharper cainines the left over from when he was a snake.

Kai

• He/They and Bisexual

• Kai is a demi-boy or bigender I can’t really decide because they both fit him.

•Massive spice tolerance, will and can drown his food in black pepper regardless of if it needs it or not. You can smell it.

• He’s a decent cook but has formally been banned from cooking from now on due to an incident where he almost set the kitchen on fire.

• Street smart.

• Avide romance enjoyer, Jays the only one who knows and has it used as blackmail.

• Jay gives him book recs.

• Average height, 5’8” in reality he’s 5’7”.

• He’s really warm to the touch, so he’s like a personal heater when it gets cold out.

• Kai and Skylor love each other a lot. But they were on and off for awhile. Eventually they made it official.

• Visits the Noodle house a lot to flirt with Skylor which she just ends up making him help her.

• Talks shit with Nya in Spanish.

• Attempted to teach Lloyd Spanish, only picked up little things.

• Kai has scars and burn marks from working in his family black smith. He got more the first time he used his powers, he no longer has finger prints.

• The only normal one, has no side effects from being turned into or being related to anything.

• Mama’s boy (cried over the song Mama’s boy)

• Kai has a mild hydrophobia, because he almost drowned as a kid. Nya helped pull him out and that was the first experience of her using her elemental powers whether she knew it or not.

• Kept having nightmares especially after and during Seabound.

• When his sister became the sea he’d stare out at the ocean, it was his two biggest fears combined but he still wanted to be near for Nya.

• He definitely had multiple breakdowns about and overall cried a lot. He was terrified.

• Actually really good with kids, loves them to death.

• Theater kid, even just a tiny bit. Don’t ask.

• Redbull drinker, but will drink other energy drinks if there’s none in the house.

• Scared to lose his power do sometimes he’ll wake up suddenly and try to light his hand to make sure he still has it,

• Could be 25° outside he could wear shorts and a t-shirt and be fine. Despite that he hates it.

Cole

• He/Him and Gay.

• Cole is the only cis person out of the Ninja but he does feel fem from time to time so you can see him experimenting with his styles and tends to keep his hair longer.

• Very good baker! Experiments with different recipes and stuff. Lloyd likes to help with whatever he can however he can.

• The tallest of the ninja at 6’1”

• After reverting from being a ghost he had a hard time adjusting back to being human.

• He had to adjust to eating and drinking again. Zane often would help him but he would forget at times.

• Mild hydrophobia, forgets he can touch water again.

• Forgets he can’t become invisible or pass through stuff.

• Sometimes has phantom feelings of being a ghost still, no physical altercations occurred really.

• He can still see ghost though, freaks him out a bunch but he’s made a few ghost friends.

• Loves music and has a vinyl and cd collections. Cole is very proud of it.

• He eventually began to enjoy dancing, using it to train along with other various forms of martial arts.

• He’s the Dad of the group.

• When he is stressed he bakes late at night, he’s scared a few of his teammates when they came to get water or smth late at night.

• Can kinda like feel the group like tremors, earthquakes, tsunamis, etc. Pretty useful and he often uses it when the city doesn’t pick up on stuff.

• He’s scared of being abandoned.

Zane

• He/They/It and Asexual

• I saw this once and I agree, they very obviously feel emotions, like love, heartbreak, happiness, sadness, hurt, etc. But I do not think when they were built their creators had them being sexually active in mind, I do not think they were built with any of those parts at all. And being asexual doesn’t mean you can’t love someone you absolutely can be attracted romantically to anyone just you don’t or barely feel sexual attraction. I’m stating this because of the fact they are Nindroids.

• Zane is nonbinary because i’m nonbinary and I say so.

• Zane and p.i.x.a.l. are dating but they aren’t the typically publicly affectionate kind, they’re obviously a couple but leave affectionate for private.

• Also the mom of the group.

• Most people are banned from using the kitchen except him and Cole. As well as kai if he has either of the two’s supervision.

• One of the more organized people, he’s more organized than Kai. Everything must be in place.

• He also follows recipes to a T. Not a simple mistake in his cooking.

• Can withstand the cold, he’s cold to the touch. Even if he is metal he’s colder than what it typically gets like.

• He’s like an info machine, they ask him lots of questions which can get very annoying at times. They don’t mean for it to be rude, they just want him to show off how much knowledge he holds.

• Second tallest of the ninja at 5’11”

• Let’s the team vent to him and help them find solutions or ways to help at all.

• Likes books but has only really read a few that he truely enjoyed.

Pixel

• Any pronouns and Asexual

• I saw this once and I agree, they very obviously feel emotions, like love, heartbreak, happiness, sadness, hurt, etc. But I do not think when they were built their creators had them being sexually active in mind, I do not think they were built with any of those parts at all. And being asexual doesn’t mean you can’t love someone you absolutely can be attracted romantically to anyone just you don’t or barely feel sexual attraction. I’m stating this because of the fact they are Nindroids.

• Pixel is a demi-girl.

• P.i.x.a.l. is also 5’11”

• Also someone the team vents to.

• Super cool badass but also the biggest softie, While Zane and her aren’t as affectionate, if you’re sneaky and lucky enough you’ll find them cuddling or out watching movies.

• P.i.x.a.l. is very good with kids, finding them really adorable.

[amour393]

ok. dragons rising part 2 thoughts

these will be in no particular order but I'll try to stay somewhat organized XD

spoilers ahead!

(this ah. got long)

Characters

Lloyd: As sad as I get when I think about Lloyd growing up, I love what they're doing with him. Seeing the parallels between him and Wu is so poetic and I LOVE the dynamic with Lloyd and Arin. Lloyd is kind and strong and wise and he has been treated so well in dragons rising

Arin: Speaking of, Arin is absolutely amazing. He is precious and adorable and I love him. Sweet polite boy I love you so much you have never done anything wrong ever and I love you

Sora: Sora is fine, I like her but I'm not like obsessed with her character like I am with Arin. I love Sora but I'm never super jazzed about her. Her arc in part 2 was alright but I wish it had more buildup. I think with a few more moments here and there of her trying to use her powers without Riyu would have made the payoff much better. And I know they were trying to go for a "resistance never quits" moment with her speech at the end but. Idk it just didn't hit the same

Zane: Zane I love you. I feel you I also am BROKEN over Pixal being gone. Literally everything about Zane in part 2 was perfect. I love him so much and he loves pixal so much it makes me unwell. Also. Zane Day is now an international holiday

Nya: I love Nya's dynamic with Sora and how she gets to be like. The first positive female influence in Sora's life. Especially because Nya didn't have that as a kid or uh ever so I love that. HOWEVER!!! Oh my goodness gracious give Nya feelings. She has emotions. She has trauma. What are we doing guys. I'll go episode by episode later but I am incredibly salty at how Nya was treated in episode 14. and also. OH MY WORD. WHAT ABOUT JAY. You have said his name TWICE and Cole looked more distraught than you!!! You care about this boy more than almost anyone else in the world!!!!!!!! Why aren't you acting like it???????????? I see you with a lightning dragon but that's like the most we get.

Kai: oh Kai I absolutely love how they are treating you and i also hate it. It's like with Jay gone they were like haha let's make Kai stupid so he'll be the new comic relief! However I love teacher Kai. He is my favorite, the growth, the development, the parallels! Yes! Kai is an accomplished ninja!! He's been a ninja for over 10 years at this point!! He has learned so much and grown so so much since then and I love him so much.

Wyldfyre: I'm about to make a lot of people really mad but I absolutely despise Wyldfyre. I love the concept of Kai having a kid to train (and all of them each having a next-gen kid to train) but Wyldfyre was not the right fit and I just disliked her more every time she was on screen, which was really upsetting because every time it switched back to her and Kai I was already annoyed and I don't want to be upset when Kai's onscreen but she is just so intolerable it made it hard to enjoy Kai, which is so so sad because I absolutely love Kai! Wyldfyre is selfish, arrogant, irritatingly reckless, petty, and INCREDIBLY rude and disrespectful to Kai. I don't care if she was raised in the wilderness. Kai spent all of part 2 trying to help her be better and the most of a character arc we got from her was her. Not acting like a jerk. Which we should not have to be proud of!! Not being a jerk is expected!! That's not a character arc that's just being a decent human being!! I think Wyldfyre's character could have worked in theory if she had literally any likable characteristics but she just doesn't. I don't think I have ever disliked a ninjago character this much which is such a bummer. It fills me with rage every time they compare her to Kai. Sure, in the early seasons Kai was kind of reckless and a bit self-absorbed. But not nearly to this extent, and Kai was still likable. The things about Wyldfyre they try to play off as humor aren't funny, they're just annoying or gross. I'm not opposed to the concept of Kai adopting a feral child, but if the feral child is like this then I don't want it. Replacing Wyldfyre with Skylor or a new character that is actually likable would have made Dragons Rising SO much better.

Cole: on a MUCH more positive note, I literally don't think they could have done Cole any more perfect. I am SO GLAD HE'S BACK I MISSED HIM SO MUCH. Cole being thrown into the Land of Lost Things is absolutely heartbreaking and says so much about his character. Cole, who had an entire character arc over fear of being forgotten ending up in the Land of Lost Things? I AM BROKEN. Dad Cole is back and better than ever. He found a bunch of children and immediately adopted them? Perfection. Could not be better. He actively chooses to remain in the Land of Lost Things to protect them?????? Amazing so in character it hurts and I love him so much. A lot of this season made me remember how much I love Cole. I spent this entire season freaking out over Jay that I forget how much I love Cole and this season did not fail to remind me. His first line being "NO ONE TOUCHES THESE CHILDREN!!!!!" is amazing and perfect and so in character. I cannot applaud what they did with Cole enough. Well done. I am very curious to see where Wu is leading him, can't wait to see him in season 2. I will die mad he didn't get to see Zane or Kai or Lloyd but ITS FINE IM FINE

Geo: I would throw him in with the other characters but oh my gosh. Geo's existence is absolutely perfect. The symbolism?? The metaphors?? Absolutely perfect. Him being a hybrid of two peoples who have a reputation for hating each other being the Master of Fusion, of bringing two things that don't belong together? I am destroyed. It occurs to me that when they first met Geo was probably like "yeah, I'm half geckle half munce and I was exiled from my people since they hate each other and they will never reconcile their differences" and Cole was like "Well that sucks but I have some good news for you" but then Geo couldn't even leave to try to find Shintaro. I am depressed. I love love love Geo based on his symbolism alone, not to mention the fact that his powers are genuinely super cool.

Other Characters: when i tell you I lost my BLOODY MIND when gulch showed up it is a vast understatement. I freaked out I screamed it was amazing. It was so fun seeing Gulch again. This is the dragons rising I love, new characters doing important things and running into old characters we know and love. Frohicky is fun I love him. Lobbo has never done anything wrong and I'm so proud of him for winning the Zane lookalike contest. Slay king. Jordana is uh there I guess, she's boring so far. I will give thoughts on Arrokore when I talk about episode 14

Villains: Beatrix is incredibly boring and I am SO glad she's not gonna be the actual villain. Lord Ras is much more interesting and compelling (is Chima the Wyldness????? Because he is definitely from Chima and the writers are COWARDS for saying anything different). This is the first time we've had a Ninjago plot genuinely stretch across more than one season and I am sooooo relieved that Beatrix isn't actually the big bad. I'm really excited to meet Ras' master. I'm not going to lie I literally forgot about Rapton and had to come back and talk about him. I cannot emphasize how neutral I am about him. He is a Guy and that is the extent of my feelings. Same with LaRow I keep forgetting about her

Speaking of villains! That brings us to the Administration. I absolutely love it. The concept of the Administration is so interesting and I cannot WAIT to learn more about them and see more of them. There's something so interesting and also poetic about an organization of micromanagers being part of the same realm as the Realm of Madness that just. hnng. The Administration is totally sick and i can't wait to see more of them. Which leads us to...

Jay: Hm. Ah. Where do I begin. When I tell you I screamed, I lost my freaking mind it is not an understatement. I think I've watched those same 20 seconds like 30 times at least and I need those five lines tattooed on my brain. I have so many emotions. It breaks my heart. I'm elated. This is everything I've wanted. I'm so mad that's all there was. It makes perfect sense. Why would they do this. There's something that destroys me so much about Jay- sweet, kind, fun, creative, quirky, genuine Jay- in an organization of micromanagers. He is passive-aggressive and sassy and degrading and mean and I LOVE HIM. It is so inherently not who Jay is (except for being sassy I'm so glad he's a little brat) and I think that's great. It makes me SO excited to see what they do with him in season 2. If they don't do him justice I will RIOT. This has the potential to be one of my favorite plot points in all of ninjago history if they do it right, but if they do it wrong I will be broken. He looks so good in this animation, I absolutely LOVE IT. He is beautiful and sassy and it BREAKS ME that they don't know he's there. They were so close and they missed him. No one knows Jay is there. I am destroyed. He's a manager!! He's working his way up in the world!! I am so proud of him. He would buy himself a worlds best boss mug. Everyone loves him and they hate him. I might make a whole other post just on how I need that reunion to go but. I miss him so much. So much. I don't know how long I can wait without them knowing he's there. Go find your brother. You know where everyone else is now GO FIND YOUR BROTHER!!!!

Episodes

11. Temple of the Dragon Cores - Solid episode? It makes me curious about the lore. Surely either the Wyldness or the Garden are Chima there's no way Chima is separate. There are literally snail people and giant trees. If that's not Chima core idk what is. Rapton is there I guess. The guardian thing was cool. Lloyd dropping random earth-shattering facts is such a Wu thing to do I am LIVING for it.

12. Gangs of the Sea - When I say I spent this whole episode wishing for Bentho I'm not joking. I freaking miss him why didn't they mention him it would have been so easy!! Arin you are so cute and I love you.

13. Wyldly Inappropriate - This episode filled me with so much rage solely because of Wyldfyre. I'm sorry Wyldfyre truthers I am happy for you but oh my word it's just painful. She is so arrogant and just straight up unkind I hate her so much. This episode would have been so much better with Skylor instead. Or literally anyone but Wyldfyre.

14. The Last Djinn - Ok as a skybound truther I have So Many Emotions about this episode. How did Nya know this was a place of the djinn and she was just? Fine? Ok. Arrokore is fine as a character but i absolutely hate what it did to the Djinn. Having a character who has lost their whole society is fascinating! I would have preferred if they made him more of a Ronin-type recluse, where he's extremely paranoid and distrusting instead of just straight-up depressed. All of the experience we have with Djinn is that they are extremely powerful and evil and crazy and dangerous. Switching from Nadakhan to Arrokore was such a hard shift that as a fan it was so hard to be able to enjoy Arrokore as a character. That's not the main thing I'm upset about, overall he's likable and he's fine, I just think he could have been a lot cooler. My main issue with this episode is Nya. Is she just perfectly fine? GIVE HER EMOTIONS OH MY GOSH. SHE HAS TRAUMA YOU COWARDS SHOW IT!!!!!! Literally one of THE most traumatizing times in her life was directly tied to a Djinn and she runs into one and she's just. Fine? There was pretty much NOTHING that alluded to Nya having any sort of history with the Djinn except maybe a little bit of salt when she's talking about their showmanship. A Djinn kidnapped and tortured the love of her life. A Djinn almost destroyed her entire home. A Djinn captured her and caused her own possession. A Djinn killed her (more or less). You want to look me in the eyes and tell me she's going to run into a Djinn and just be perfectly fine? Absolutely not. They could have done this SO much better. Show the trauma. Show the distrust. Show me Nya jumping in front of Sora, show me the fear running through her. Give me Sora asking how Nya knows so much about the Djinn and Nya just can't bring herself to answer. Or she does! And we get a moment of "the only other person who remembers is Jay, and he..." [ACTUALLY SAD MOMENT THAT GENUINELY SHOWS THAT NYA HAS EMOTIONS AND ACTUALLY CARES ABOUT HER LITERAL FIANCÉ WHO SHE LITERALLY GAVE UP HER LIFE FOR] and maybe Sora comforts her! A "we'll find him, Nya" moment. Just a moment. Nya left and Jay fell apart and I hate how Nya is shown to be perfectly fine when Jay has been gone for years. We could have had a little arc of Nya overcoming trauma and distrust and learning that not all Djinn are the same! Okay, fine, we didn't get that. But how dare they let Nya start wishing. Wishes got her killed. Wishes caused the most traumatic weeks of her life. Wishes almost killed the love of her life. You want to tell me that she's just totally fine firing off a few wishes? SHE DIED. GIRLY DIED AND SHE'S JUST MAKING WISHES LIKE IT'S NOTHING? We could have had a moment of Arrokore saying they have to wish for it and Nya being like "NO Sora you can't trust him, they're all the same" and then Arrokore proves himself! Even so, Nya should not have let Sora make a wish without protesting, and she CERTAINLY would not have made one herself. As a skybound stan this episode made me so sad. It was genuinely a good episode but I am so so broken up over what could and should have been. Zane did put a picture of Pixal on a broom though so this episode gets points for that

15. They Call It Doom - YOU'RE TELLING ME THE ADMINISTRATION JUST CASUALLY ALSO SHOOTS BLUE LIGHTNING. FINE OKAY THAT'S GREAT. I already shared my Nya and Arrokore and whatnot thoughts but still. I'm still salty. Anyway this episode's ending was glorious. Teacher Kai you will always be famous I'm so sorry this is the trainee you got stuck with. NO ONE TOUCHES THESE CHILDREN lives in my head rent free and his powerup is so so cool. Baby Serpentine. yes.

16. Land of Lost Things - so you're telling me that Cole has adopted stray children who have run away from home because they felt unwanted and unloved. no I'm totally fine I'm SO normal about cole and his character and the respect he got and the sacrifice of him staying there to protect these kids. I am so broken but its fine I'm fine everything is fine

17. The Administration - See aforementioned thoughts on Jay. The Administration is so cool I love them and I am stoked to see more of them. It's giving men in black tbh. They are so cool. When they follow the directions and find Zane and they're like oh hi Zane! we didn't even know you were here! A) peak comedy and B) when he said "who did you think was going to be here?" THAT WAS DIRECTLY TO US THEY WERE TALKING ABOUT JAY AND IM SO MAD AT THEM FOR IT NOT ACTUALLY THOUGH. Also I don't remember which episode Zane Day and Gulch was in but every moment of that was both perfection and also the peak of comedy. The music when Jay walks on screen destroyed me it was so so good. He is a tired office worker the headcanons were RIGHT. Cannot get over that. I love the look of the Administration, the style, it all looks so good. The concept of a whole organization with an entire division assigned to realm reassignment is fascinating. I want to see Kai's teaching in this episode is great and the parallels between him and Wu were amazing. At the end of the day Jay was here and that gave me enough serotonin to last me a good long while.

18. Absolute Power - I'm not gonna lie this was hard to enjoy because I just wanted to see more of Jay but it was a solid episode. I wanna know what Beatrix' sister's elemental power was. Ras is very cool I am so glad he's going to have a bigger role. Nya and Cole's relationship in this episode is everything to me. They are So Siblings and also Best Friends I love them so so much.

19. We Are All Dragons - good for the Imperium kids starting the revolution, but Rapton being the traitor made no sense. It's like they tried to pull a Kallus in Rebels but there was not nearly enough buildup for this to make sense. I really couldn't care less about Rapton so I'm not mad about this it just didn't make that much thematic sense lolll. I did really like Sora's moment with her parents and rejecting them in favor of the found family, but her speech didn't make sense. It would have hit so much more if she actually explained what ~being a dragon~ means but she really just went WE ARE ALL DRAGONS!! and everyone went YEAH!!!!!!!!!! like girlie uh what does that mean. I liked the parallels but Lloyd's moment was better.

20. The Power Within - I still don't understand why Beatrix wanted to uh. destroy the universe but pop off. I'm not gonna lie I literally cheered when Wyldfyre got sucked into a mergequake. Kai's reaction was in theory great but i am still salty it was over Wyldfyre, this child has been absolutely horrible to you Kai what are you doing. I don't understand how everyone is perfectly fine when everyone comes back from the merge quakes when Beatrix literally went through one of them. I loved Sora's showdown with her parents and I can't wait to see what's up with Ras. I will DIE MAD THERE'S NO MURAL ON THE WALL but WHATEVER.

Returning Characters

I want Pixal back so bad. I'm very optimistic she'll be here in season 2 and I cannot wait for her to be back. I'm hoping that she'll come save Zane from, idk, sensing his signal or something.

SKYLOR. OH MY GOODNESS BRING BACK SKYLOR. I need her back so bad it's unreal

I want Vania back. I want fugidove back. WHERE IS GARMADON. WHERE IS HE. WE HAVENT EVEN MENTIONED HIM WHERE IS HE.

I miss Ed and Edna and Lou and Cyrus Borg and Scott and the elemental masters (WHERES KARLOFF I MISS HIM SO MUCH) and BENTHO and yeah. i miss them

SO, I have a lot of thoughts as you can see and this probably isn't all of them. I want all of everyone's thoughts please send me asks send me messages I just want to scream

AND BRING BACK JAY

[ilkkawhat]

I can't believe it's almost been a year since AW2 was released. It really changed my life. For better or for worse? Who can say, but I've been having fun.

lol it's so surreal to me that it's been less than a year that I bought and played Alan Wake 2 (one month past release, in November) purely on a whim because I saw people on the silent hill subreddit talking about it and someone even made a meme about "friendship ended with silent hill now alan wake is my new best friend" and I kid you not within just a few days my life just...changed entirely.

I have a lot of depression and anxiety and somewhere in 2023 things just...went wrong and I stopped creating. stopped giffing, never thought I'd write again and drawing lmao forget it, that shit's been hard for me to do ever since a very discouraging experience back when I was maybe like, 11 or 12. stopped going on tumblr, had given up on discord a long time before then and became a miserable ghost doing nothing but burying myself in work in what i will admit is a toxic, overwhelming and stressful environment. I still played games, still watched shows but nothing was like. Sticking with me, I guess? Not like to obsession levels and minus some good vacations I was just...empty.

And playing Alan Wake 2 for the first time was a legit terrifying experience for me--not on the levels of the first time I played Silent Hill 2 maybe (legit locked myself in my room and put on my lamp in the middle of the day cause of the sound of footsteps behind me in that game lol and my dishwasher at the time sounded like that one chugging sound in the apartments) but the dread I was feeling as I got legitimately lost in the woods of Cauldron Lake and turned around in Coffee World (having basically explored it all before triggering the parts where the enemies spawn in) and the basement of Valhalla Nursing Home was thrilling and I was excited to be playing something that was so disturbing and mind bending and emotional, too. Not even knowing the story of Alan and Alice, my heart broke during Alice's final tape. Not knowing Alan's character outside of what I saw in the second game, his "fuck it" moment where he went back into the Dark Place felt so heroic. I felt an odd sense of nostalgia watching the Koskela brothers commercials, like I had known them my whole life. Alex Casey (both the FBI agent and fictional detective) is my favorite kind of wise-cracking guy who has a heart of gold, the old guy who I wish could be my dad. Tom Zane was that mysterious wild card that you know under the surface has something sinister, unsettling esp with his manipulation of Alan but is just so fascinating to watch. Of course I saw so much of my obsessive self in Rose with her shrine for Alan. Saga's time in the dark place felt so real to me, I cried and still cry every time I read that note from her mom at that part of the game (I know you can read it sooner but it packs a bigger punch with Saga's fight to get out of her own mind.) All of the characters quickly stole my heart and ran with it and maybe it was over a few days, maybe it was all at once the floodgates just...opened within me.

I started writing again. First with a character that I never thought I'd write for again because at the time, even just thinking about him legit hurt me. Then I started scheming up fics for Alan. Then I started giffing even from self-captured gameplay footage that I don't think I've ever done before. Then I started drawing in my Alan Wake journal--a journal which, I had not done since the peak of my CSI obsession during my teenage years and even then it wasn't to the extent of what that journal is now (which admittedly, has not been filled out in quite a number of weeks and maybe that's partially cause I tend to journalize myself on here too) And then one day I couldn't contain it anymore. I started sharing again. I don't talk to anybody really like, ever outside of these asks and occasional replies but I truly never thought I'd be part of a fandom again. I worried I'd fuck it all up again (still worry about that) for myself, or others. Or both. But all the kind messages, the kind tags, the awesome people I've started following because of Alan Wake, I wouldn't give any of that up.

And of course things branched off, crushing so hard on him I got obsessed with Ilkka. I played some of Remedy's other games (still working my way through Max Payne 2 and Quantum Break very very slowly) and went back to the first Alan Wake, of course which if I had known about earlier or had an Xbox I'm sure I would have loved it back then as much as I do now. Hell I even platinumed that and Alan Wake 2 and as someone who is notorious for not finishing games other than like. The Legend of Zelda series and playing some other endless games...think it says something that I've managed to beat and complete (I always do the rhymes, stashes, lunch boxes, every playthrough) Alan Wake 2 almost 10 times now.

I was happy. I'm still, for the most part when I'm not at work, happy. Call it what you want, a delusion brought on by a distraction of obsession, a dangerous escape threatening the part of me that is still rooted in reality in the way that like, what if I become too crazy about it where it blinds me to certain things or experiences or chases people away from me because I'm too weird about it (a very real thing that has happened before)

But damn with all of that...I'm having fun with it too.

[gaybae1021]

Y’all quite liked the Zianna Garrance comic I made. We’ll have more Zianna bein’ a good mom. Enjoy reading and also comic!

Hypothetical season 3 episode where Garroth and Zane sneak into O'Khasis and accidentally reunite with their mom. There’s a lot of emotions, and Garroth overhears his mom crying in her room one night. He sits beside her and she finally shares everything.

Word count: 1k

Garroth gently pushed open the door to his mother’s room. Zianna was sitting on the floor at the foot of her bed. The moonlight coming through the windows defined her silhouette. The muffled crying sounds he had heard walking by were clear now. He felt very ill-equipped to help, but still approached her.

“Mum, are you alright?” he asked softly.

“Garroth!” She jolted slightly, turning away and wiping her eyes. She turned back and tried to give him a comforting smile. “I thought you were asleep already.” Her voice was thick.

Closer now, Garroth saw Zianna was cradling a knapsack in her lap.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Hm, oh this? It’s nothing.” she answered. 

Garroth looked at her, unconvinced. He sat beside her on the floor, taking one of her hands in his. She sighed defeatedly.

“When I first had you, everything was perfect.” she began. “ You were this pudgy little thing with a head full of blonde curls. You cried for the first time and I loved you instantly. Every little thing, both the good and the bad days, just made me love you even more. You were such a happy baby, my little ray of sunshine.

“Your father adored you. We knew you’d grow up to look just like him. I saw the fierce pride in his eyes every-time he looked at you. As you got older, he began preparing you. You couldn’t have been more than five before you were at his side for every event. I stayed quiet for a bit. If this was how Garte chose to spend his time with you, it wasn’t my place to argue.”

Her expression darkened. “But I saw you changing. You were so quiet, so afraid to make mistakes. I told Garte to ease up on you, but it didn’t help. You stopped playing with your toys, stopped talking to me, or to anyone. I could see your light fading.

“Zuzu was the last bit of respite we had. Funny, considering how sick I got carrying him. Garte was afraid for me, he took time away from his duties to look for solutions. And you were practically glued to my side. You were worried, but also so excited to be a big brother. Zuzu was so different from you. He was quiet, and a bit cranky at times. But you didn’t care. You would lay on the floor with him and play for hours. I would read him stories and you would do the silly voices for me. And when Zuzu fell asleep, you’d curl up next to me and I’d run my fingers through your hair until you dozed off as well. And for just a bit, everything was right.

“But eventually, things went back to how they were before. I still had Zuzu, once he was sure I would recover, Garte made it clear that he had no regard for Zane. But he kept you close as always. I kept pushing, stealing whatever time I could get with you. It seemed the more I tried to reach out to you, the more your father kept you away from me. He said you couldn’t get distracted. All the while, the time I could get with you became less and less. You grew up, and I could see our distance in the way you looked at me.

“I disobeyed whenever I thought I could get away with it, tried to help in whatever ways I could, tried to keep that happy little boy I knew was still in their alight. And then…that day. I saw you shatter, and I couldn’t do anything for you. I have never felt like such a failure.” Her voice quavered, and Garroth squeezed her hand reassuringly. She smiled slightly.

“I had felt so lost for so long on the right thing to do.” she continued, “But after that day I was set: I was going to get you out. Get us all out. I didn’t know when, or how, but it was all I could think about. I wouldn’t let this place hurt us anymore. 

“It was a slow process, getting everything in order without raising suspicion. I had contacts more fond of me than Garte, people who might have kept us hidden. We could start over, just a normal life.”

She removed her hand from Garroth’s, opening the knapsack and pulling items out one at a time. 

“I packed this for the night we’d leave. Everything I thought we’d need. Clothes, money, fake documents.” She laid those items on the floor.

“Books for Zane, to keep him occupied.” She set down a small stack of bound books. Rummaging through the bag again, she laughed softly, before pulling out a stuffed bear.

“It’s so embarrassing. By the time I started packing, I didn’t know what things you liked anymore. But you were always enamored with your stuffed toys as a baby, it was all I could think of at the time.” She handed the toy to him. Garroth took it, his eyes starting to sting. But this was about his mom, so he took a deep breath, calming himself before setting down the toy with the other items.

“It’s terrible,” she continued, “but I was fearful that you would refuse to leave with us. I couldn’t be sure how you would react, being under Garte’s thumb for so long. But even if it was a risk, I wouldn’t give up on you.

“I kept waiting for a safe time to leave. But it never came. Deep down, I was afraid. Our lives weren’t happy but at least they were familiar. And what would happen to you boys if we were found? So I just kept waiting. 

“I never would have predicted that you’d be able to get out all by yourself. After that, my plans just fell apart. I couldn’t go after you and risk giving you away. And with Garte getting into Zane’s head, I couldn’t leave him either.

“Again, I was trapped, watching our family get torn apart. And again, I helped in whatever ways I could, for all the good it ended up doing.”

[ravenrambles6229]

kai_ninjago appreciation hours

k gamer we need to talk about kai and how he is consistently the family man of the ninja and arguably the most emotionally mature of them all when it comes to family

i love kai so much. hes not the brightest, but he is the most loving out of all the ninja, even if it’s in his own way.

first up, presumably taking care of nya for years on his own. like, im sure the neighbors helped out, but he has gone on record saying that they mostly grew up on their own. this kid got “abandoned” by his parents. but even then, he lit lanterns with nya on day of the departed. even though he didn’t know what happened to them, he chooses to believe that they wouldn’t leave them willingly. that they’re still worth remembering and loving.

when it’s revealed that zane is a robot, kai is the first one there. “you may be a robot, but you’re still our brother.” being a robot doesnt change anything, and kai is the first one to make sure zane knows it, but is also the one to later tell the others “we just have to give him time. i don’t know how i’d feel if somebody told me i was a robot.” Like, he empathizes with zane! he tells zane he still loves him, respects zane’s wish to be given space, and expresses empathy with him. in ninjago decoded, kai even reveals that he often forgets zane isn’t human. zane is, at this point, made of titanium. and yet all kai sees is zane

ok and then there’s his true potential. what even is there to say about that one? how he realizes his purpose is to protect his family. he’s there to protect lloyd. the one that once left lloyd, flaked out on him. he realizes that no, this kid is everything to him.

when lloyd was climbing the tower to fight the overlord, kai was right there, ready to protect him. “there’s only one green ninja.” this is no longer about him, it’s about lloyd’s destiny to save the world. and he would do everything to make sure lloyd makes it through that

now. kai gets a lot of flack for being not that smart. and dude really aint. his mouth is a pistol with which to shoot himself in the foot. but when it comes to family? He’s one of the most eloquent there. In titanium ninja, he’s the one to first coin “this isn’t about numbers, it’s about family.” something that resonated with zane strongly enough that he would fight the overlord despite all odds.

And then the funeral. it wasnt wu to speak. or cole or jay or even lloyd, but kai. his speech is genuinely like... really good?

“Everybody wondered what powered Zane, and I don’t think we’ll ever know, but I’d like to think it was brotherhood. Because he powered me. And he still powers me. Wherever you are Zane, you’ll always be one of us.”

this is coming from a dude that probably can’t do long division or tell you what a prepositional phrase is. what kai lacks in book smarts, and even in typical maturity (he’s still very much so a teenager) he makes up for with this insane emotional intelligence specifically regarding family.

in season 4, he’s the one we see visiting zane’s statue. he’s the one that supports lloyd in spite of his crush on skylor (even cole and jay got distracted by their own squabbling, even if they did the right thing in the end) he’s the one that took NONE of skylor’s bullshit once she revealed having ice powers.

and he was so deeply hurt by her betrayal! he felt genuinely betrayed! he really trusted her, even though he probably shouldnt have, seeing as she tried to turn him against lloyd. but just like lloyd with harumi, kai saw the good in her. and his loyalty changed skylor.

then season 5. lloyd just had to banish his father. so kai does what he did once already: steps up to be there. telling lloyd that he’ll be there for him. and he is. he’s the one to get through to lloyd on multiple occasions when he’s possessed by morro after all.

season 7. kai is so genuinely hurt when he thinks his dad betrayed them. but once he knows they’re on his side, he’s so, so, SO genuinely relieved, and later doesn’t hold it against them that he and nya grew up alone, even though he does have plenty of right to do so, or to at least still feel hurt by it. no. he’s just glad to have them back.

i don’t remember season 8 very clearly, but kai being the one to answer cole’s questions about babies is pretty fun.

season 9 puts them through the wringer. at first, kai is actually the one freaking out the most, he wants to go home so badly, they don’t know what happened to lloyd. but when wu and hope are lamenting being tied to fucking stakes and left to die, kai is the first one to comfort wu. to start joking around to lighten the mood, which the others then piggyback off of. it’s kai that’s there to try and comfort him first.

season 10, cole’s fall. you can tell how badly kai wants to go back for cole, even when all logic dictates that they’d die. personally, i like to imagine that he told zane that “this isn’t about logic, it’s about family” to which zane might say “this is about the innocent lives on our ship” to which kai just. looks down in sorrow.

but when lloyd returns, they’re all silent. none of them want to tell lloyd what happened. it’s kai that breaks the news. it’s kai (and jay of course) that comforts nya when she blames herself. it’s kai that later goes to nya when she’s alone to tell her that it’s not her fault, and to push her towards moving past what happened, at least long enough that they can make it through this to grieve cole later. the one to reinforce to nya that cole wouldnt hold what happened against her (by offering her the scythe)

it’s just... it’s so consistently a part of kai’s character. i don’t know the second series enough off the top of my head to really point to specific examples. which is like, on me of course.

but when he lost nya, he channeled that into becoming a DOJO INSTRUCTOR for YOUNG CHILDREN. He saw his sister disappear, and decided to protect the rest of the children of ninjago, in whatever way he could: by making sure they could defend themselves, even if he’s not able to do it for them. it’s... honestly remarkably touching and poignant.

but like, shit, man. dragons rising NAILED big brother kai. the way he picks up lloyd and spins him around. he’s overflowing with so much love for his family. there’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that he’d go through hell and high water for any of them. which is true of all the ninja, of course, but kai... he’s special

he’s the one that knows what to say. how to comfort someone. how to make someone feel loved. how to help someone grieve. even if he doesn’t always know how to handle that grief himself (see his time as the burning shogun)

the fact that he learned these skills from such a young age is tragic in its own right, but that he managed to turn his loss and strife into such a positive character trait is nothing short of amazing, and is such a sorely overlooked aspect to his character.

tl;dr - Kai is not only loyal to a fault, but also capable of comforting people and being there for them. He loves his family so much, and he’s one of the best at expressing that in the little ways and big ones.

(sidebar but shoutout to his VA. he’s the one that really makes kai come to life)

[idkwhyimhere5462]

So the interesting thing about the Wildbrain Ninjago series was that they had to pick up the scraps from Wil Film. They already had developed characters and concrete settings, so they had to go back on somethings.

Character development: Since they already had developed characters, they had to undevelop them, if you know what I mean. You can’t just keep developing a character forever, you gotta stop somewhere. Another thing you can do is undevelop them, aka, traumatize them so they need to work through the emotions to it all. They gave the poor ninja even less reasons to sleep at night and I want to go through all of them.

Kai - So, he was a completely developed character. He had gotten through that he had to rely on other people for help sometimes and that he can’t always be the best. They had to mess him up so bad, that he didn’t even feel his power anymore and he had to watch it wreck havoc on the city he swore to protect.

Zane - Whoo, there’s a lot to get into here. They probably did him the dirtiest and didn’t even redevelop him in the show. He got redeveloped in “The Quest for Lost Powers” which happens all the way after Crystalized. His whole thing was feeling different than the other people and wanting to show others he was just as human as they were. (I’m not gonna get into the autistic coding here.) There was also the identity crisis he had. This guy was so confident in himself that they had to put him through hell for sixty years. He was taken away from all his family and friends, stripped of his memory, identity, and freewill, manipulated to hurt hundreds of people, destroy an entire valley’s ecosystem, and just expected to back to his normal life after that.

Jay - I don’t have much to say here to be honest. It was kinda just Skybound with a new context. His friends get picked off one by one until it’s just him. It was still traumatic, but there really isn’t anything new here.

Cole - He was never really a developed character to be honest. The most he had was when he felt useless as a team member while he was a ghost. It didn’t last long though. There was also the true potential episode where he fixed his relationship with his dad so when Master of the Mountain comes around they didn’t really have to undevelop him. This season was long time coming. It gave him some closure with his mother and helped him through his insecurities. I love this season.

Anyways, I wanted to talk about how they had to retraumatize them all to give them room for more character development.

[aberooski]

Can you imagine if Syrus' friends are just as confused as the audience regarding the fact that Syrus never snapped or became evil?

Imagine them being like, "Are you sure you don't want to go apeshit now?" quite a lot of times and Syrus always shrugging like, "Nah, not right now."

Even Zane would be a bit on the edge by the time Syrus is in charge of his recovery.

Honestly Syrus had every right to snap at some point over Zane's treatment of him. Zane treated him so bad for so long that he suffers debilitating anxiety and extremely low self-esteem and self worth. But he never held a single thing against Zane. Honestly no one did for more than a single episode for the purpose of the episodic narrative.

Syrus looks up to Zane so much that he believes everything Zane says about him is right and that he has every right to treat him as poorly as he does. He adores his brother, he loves him and idolizes him and tries so hard to make him proud and after meeting Jaden and start to gain a little more confidence and learn to believe in himself, try to prove Zane wrong.

But no matter what people still see him as being in Zane's shadow. They tackle that in episode 4 season 2: "Sad But Truesdale" one of my favorite episodes btw lol which is really the only time we see him even remotely snap or get confrontational and stand up for himself, or at least it's the first time we see that.

But the thing is, at that point he and Zane have.... sort of made amends, namely Zane telling Sy he proved him wrong about saying Sy didn't belong at Duel Academy and saying he loves him before sacrificing himself to protect him from Camula back in episode 32, but being in season 2, Zane is about to go dark himself. which therein lies the reignited of the big issue.

Because after all of that progress they made, when Zane goes dark he reverts back to not caring about Syrus but even worse than before. Even back in season 1 they try to give you hints that he might actually care about Syrus a little bit not that I believe it for a second, but now he truly doesn't care at all. Not just not caring about Syrus but not caring about anyone. But it really comes to a head in episode 95, when Syrus duels Zane to try and remind him of who he used to be, but also to prove to Zane that he's strong enough to face him and strong enough to be a true duelist. Which only serves to land him in the hospital with Zane just writing him off as weak and just as worthless and weak as he had always said he was before. Just pure emotional whiplash for Sy to deal with after the progress they started making in season 1. I literally wrote an entire one shot about it that episode fucks me up so much and makes me so mad and upset But then there's even more whiplash in season 3 because Zane comes back and protects him in Dark World and helps him work through his conflicting feelings about Jaden, and then after basically bestowing Sy unto Jay:

"You can’t leave Syrus! 😢 He needs a big brother! 😭"

"He's got one. 😌"

LITERALLY SCREAMING CRYING THROWING UP EVERYWHERE STOP I CAN'T

and telling Syrus he's proud of him he says literally nothing to Sy in the sub and I hate that just dies right in front of him.

Boom. More trauma.

And then they back pedal on his death and he's alive again in season 4 and Sy dedicates so much time and effort and attention and love hinto being his caretaker. When he has every right not to. Syrus is too good to be Zane's brother. Zane doesn't deserve him.

I know I've been blabbing on here and, but listen Sy's my favorite ever I have a lot to say akaksk 😂 Syrus had every right to snap at some point, that's my whole point, and the whole point of this whole ask I'm sorry for the whole dissertation happening here akksksk

Syrus needed to have his

Moment at some point. He deserved to get frustrated with Zane, to hold him accountable for everything he said and did to him. I hate that no one ever held anything against Zane and just gave him a pass for his abusive behavior. Syrus can if he wants to, that's his right and his choice but the others shouldn't have allowed it to continue happening and not call him out on it more than the one time Jay did in episode 8 and then just dropped it.

I know if I were his friend I would be very surprised he hadn't snapped ever. I think they all should be surprised, but also at the same time it's just not the type of person Sy is. He gets into arguments and is confrontational with people sometimes it's Hassleberry 9 times out of 10 lol but generally speaking he's very timid and is just content with his situation because Zane has beaten him down so much over the years. If anything they would be more surprised if he did snap or go dark, but I think if he did it would open their eyes to how they contributed to the problem by not actually holding Zane accountable for his actions.

But for the sake of this scenario, I think they might even encourage him to just let loose because holding all that stuff in isn't healthy, but he'd say no even though he definitely would want to deep down.

A real:

Kind of moment if you will. That's what they'd be trying to get him to do, but Syrus not allowing himself to let those feelings out and just having them pile up and fester while putting on the facade that he's okay and isn't angry about everything Zane put him through... yeah I think everyone should be worried and surprised that he hasn't snapped at that point and Zane should be very nervous about Sy taking the role as his caretaker. Because when he finally does snap? All I can say is yikes and good luck because when he finally does allow himself to snap in this scenario I think he would reach a really low spot because he's already there. He would just sink even lower.

They're gonna need all hands on deck to bring him back from that eruption of emotion and pain. Because letting the floodgates open to release that much hurt, I can tell you, not for the same reasons but from being hurt by people before, it's extremely difficult to close those gates again.

And one last point to that end, you know who I think would be integral to saving Sy from that? Chazz. Because he also has horrible and intense older sibling trauma and pain that he's trying to heal from himself, and it's not even all that different from his in some ways. He can understand Syrus's feelings better than anyone, and really sympathize with him and having someone who can even remotely understand his hurt would help Sy so much when he finally does snap. It would be double special too because they never really mixed all that well, but as shitty of a thing to relate to is, this they have in common. And I'd love to see them not like... trauma bond, but trauma bond if you know what I mean aksksk like kinda actually be friends. Because Jaden loves his bestie, but he and the others could only help so much because they know what he's been through, but don't really understand.

Chazz does.

Me currently typing this out: