#Lani Akana

[regaliasonata]

Ollie: I was a cute baby right?

Lani: Gremlin from the pits of hell is what you were.

[itmethanh]

Dr. Lani Akana as the Yellow Maiasaura Dino Fury Ranger — commissioned by @softlytowardthesun

[augment-techs]

What if: what if Lani Akana became the blue ranger with Amelia, in DF episode 1, instead of Ollie? (And what if she was still Ollie’s mom, so Ollie now becomes the side character??)

*quietly manifests something soft*

It would be a shift in the status quo, because it would have to be; to go along with the plotting for CF.

As much as she would probably hate the idea of being away from her son and her work; Lani wants to help the world.

But also she wants to be able to help these kids.

It just happens to be a bonus that she would get to meet Solon very quickly and take the first step into a relationship for the first time since Lani became pregnant with Ollie.

Javi and Amelia would be able to recognize that there was something underneath their friendship, because there would be these knowing glances Lani tossed their way.

Fern would be strung into the Ranger orbit more quickly, because a Blue can always sense an Orange better when they're more in tune with the people around them, not stuck in their own head, with low self-esteem and the need to be right.

Ollie would go to work for Cranston Techs, and much like Grace, Billy would be able to spot a Ranger the first time Lani stepped into the offices even if Ollie wasn't brought into the secret.

It would give Ollie to chance for a father figure, in a quiet, professional kind of setting; but not like with his teacher, because Billy has knowledge of neurodivergence and esteem issues; he would send Ollie to a staff psychologist the first time he got in an explosive argument with a colleague.

There would be a weird kind of tug-of-war inside Lani, noticing when she's home how much more confidence Ollie seemed to have with a decrease in arrogance; happiness for her son growing, a sadness for not being the one to know what he needed.

Lani's existence in the team would be an interesting commodity. Femme Blues are rare, so when Amelia gets the Red from Zayto, there is a kind of peacefulness on the ship, even if they are stuck across the galaxy with a senior Blue in Billy on the ship along with them.

Zayto turns evil because of Zedd; we get our Violet Ranger and we don't get all the Zords wiped out. We get Aiyon becoming more pro-active with Billy being another kind of useful parenting figure.

Lani, Billy, and Solon make AWESOME mentors.

And as such, they get in contact with Earth much earlier in the game, because they think ahead. Billy's boyfriends, Matt and Skull, are asked to get in contact with Ollie through Cranston Tech and Promethea. They send out SOS programs so Heckyl and Tarrick can lend a hand against the enemy.

Aiyon keeps calling back when he feels lonely, or when Javi loses his arm, or when they get into another and another and another fight with Zayto. Which would be an inconvenience if Ollie wasn't staying at the Skullovitch house because Lani insisted he not be alone in case of a catastrophe.

Honestly, I could just see this whole thing playing out more softly with Lani around; not definitive steps taken. Just...niceness.

Relationships: Lani Akana/Solon; Javi Garcia/Amelia Jones; Izzy Garcia/Fern; Aiyon/Ollie Akana; Billy Cranston/Eugene Skullovitch/Matt Cook. Additional Tags: Scalie Lani; Hypercompetent Girlboss Central; Ollie is Gay and Figures it Out Much Sooner; Orange and Blue Ranger Relationship Fun; Aiyon gets so many parents; Lani rips the Warden a New One.

[incorrectpowerrangersquotes]

Lani: Hope I didn't ice your game, man. Ollie: Mom, no one my age says those words in that order.

[makiruz]

Having watch 1 episode of Power Rangers Dino Fury (season 1 finale) I have decided that Lani Akana is my favorite Dino Fury character

[regaliasonata]

Will she pass on her hat to Javi during the ceremony🤔

Lani stares into Ollie's soul and knows her future son-in-law is stood right behind her

[lordkingsmith]

Lani Akana through the closed door: Ollie? It’s dinner time come down stairs

Ollie, breathlessly: hold on mom, I’m-playing video games

Lani:

Lani, amused: hi Jack

Jack Rose, sheepishly: hi Mrs Akana

Lani: when you two are done, Jack you’re invited to dinner too

[magiclovingdragon]

Honestly the most unbelievable part of dino fury is them trying to make out that Ollie would suddenly sideline his mom as soon as he enters a relationship

[skyland2703]

New Dino Fury Theory.

Courtesy @cupcakes-are-ours

Warden B*tchass and Lani Akana were married. Then Lani realised she was gay.

They took divorce.

Javi and Ollie are bio brothers.

[regaliasonata]

Ollie: Got you a new laptop for Mother’s Day!

Lani: I know that’s right! After all I didn’t go through twelve hours of labor just to raise a brokie.

Ollie: Yea-Wait what?

[softlytowardthesun]

I have so many thoughts on Ollie's arc and I'm going to seize the chance to express them. He became a major comfort character for me really quickly and it kind of broke my heart to learn that I'm one of like, five people on Power Rangers Tumblr who likes him. Anyway, my ramblings are below the cut:

Ollie Akana has been the perpetual new kid all his life, bouncing around the world with his archaeologist mom. He's had a happy life with a loving mother and he can indulge his passion for learning, but his social skills leave a lot to be desired. He's never been able to form lasting connections with anybody his own age, so he does what a lot of kids in this situation do; he latches onto the authority figures. People who represent everything he wants to be: steady, confident, and knowledgeable. In time, he began to miss the forest for the trees, and he started to arrogantly believe that he was better, smarter than the other kids who were more adept at socializing. What need does he have for lasting friendships? He's just going to leave for another country in a few months when Dr. Akana's work calls them somewhere else. He's got a mom who loves him deeply and a whole world to explore and learn from, and as far as he's concerned, that will be all he needs. Until Pine Ridge, a trigger-happy ghost hunter, and three seasons of television for character growth.

As an overall good guy with bad social skills and a serious problem of pride, he's basically the Power Ranger version of Fitzwilliam Darcy from Pride and Prejudice. And Amelia Jones is his Lizzie Bennet: she's turned off by his behavior, doesn't put up with the lines he crosses, and in time he realizes that she's right. He puts in the work to be a better person, and eventually proves himself worthy of this spitfire woman. Ollie learning humility, opening up to new ideas and perspectives, and getting better at gauging the wants and needs of others all resonated strongly with my autistic self.

And then Zedd enters his life.

Zedd's first appearance is in "Old Foes", an episode that starts with an exploration of Ollie's view on life. His brash know-it-all streak clashes with his friends' Halloween fun when he tries to out-logic all the scary things they talk about. That's something I can relate to: if I can figure out what [insert frightening thing here] is and how it works, then I have power over it and it can't scare me anymore. A new monster of the week with a goofy radiator mask? Just snark at it, morph, kick its ass, and save the day. Solon has to save him from his own recklessness, and after learning the full extent of what Zedd represents, Ollie is humbled. Backed into a corner, Ollie makes a very unwise choice. He breaks the compliance collar on Zedd, wagering that the resurrected warmonger be more angry at the monster that put him under mind control, buying Ollie the time he needs to rescue his friends. It works for the short term, but it also means that Ollie is indirectly responsible for sending one of the most dangerous Ranger villains of all time back into the fray. This comes back to bite him hard in season two and especially in Cosmic Fury.

When Zedd returns to Earth in "Love Hate", he targets Ollie for a brainwashing scheme, specifically to punish him for the "Radiator Face" jab. "Ranger gets brainwashed" is a really common recurring plot for this show. It happens at least once nearly every season, so the audience has been trained not to expect much of it. What matters is 1.) Ollie and Amelia's will they/won't they screwball comedy is resolved, and 2.) Ollie now has insider information about Zedd's plan, and the season's storyline moves on to its next major beat: the rediscovery of Rafkon. But Zedd being Zedd, he's still hung up on Ollie's insult and has to punish Ollie again to soothe his own ego in episode one of Cosmic Fury.

Part of what makes the Bitter Blue storyline feel so different from other Evil Ranger arcs is that the audience, writers, and the actor have had two seasons of television to get to know Ollie, and they have a clearer idea of what "Ollie but evil" would be like. Usually, Evil Rangers are blank slates. The team usually doesn't have any connection with them until the dramatic identity reveal, and it usually isn't someone that they already know very well. The Mighty Morphin' team met Tommy roughly an hour before Rita decided to screw up his life. Long-lost siblings like Andros and Karone or Dana and Ryan have lived very different lives and are basically strangers to each other now. The Evil Ranger the audience knew best before his fall into villainy is probably Trent from Dino Thunder, and even then, "Trent" and "White Ranger" are functionally two different characters in a Jekyll/Hyde relationship. There's nothing to be found of the sweet and shy artist in the relentless agent of destruction he turns into when he morphs, unless you count using the sword as a pen to draw up laser arrows. With Ollie, the "mysterious new enemy" trope is not in play at all. Zedd wants the team to know that their friend belongs to him now. Honestly, I'm surprised Zedd didn't put a radiator on Ollie's new faceplate like he did with this season's foot soldiers, just to rub more salt in the wound.

The fundamental tragedy of Ollie's situation in Cosmic Fury is that his character growth has been stolen from him. Zedd chose Ollie to be his attack dog for suitably petty reasons, but Ollie already has the sort of character flaws that work perfectly for a trainee supervillain. He's prideful, ambitious, has trouble working collaboratively, and it sure is convenient for Zedd that out of the Dino Fury team, Ollie's the one most qualified to help build a machine to turn Zedd into a capital-G God. It's the quintessential narcissistic parent situation: "I don't love you, but I love what I see of myself in you. You, being the child (or in this case, mind control victim), don't know the difference and will accept this as normal". Ollie is back to being the self-important and isolated teacher's pet. He knows he won't be making friends (especially when it's made clear that the spell on him is power of love-proof), so he'll strive to impress the steady authority figure.

As you've already discussed, parent/child relationships are a core theme in Dino and Cosmic Fury. Obviously, Amelia's parents are the main villains, and the power of love redeems them when they finally recognize each other. While it wasn't planned (Santaura's actress, Siobhan Marshall, was pregnant during filming and they decided to write it in), it's really fitting that their redemption and happy ending sees them welcoming a new baby: their symbolic rebirth goes hand in hand with a literal birth. Javi has the classic "I want my dad to understand/be proud of me" character trajectory we've seen with Justin, Ryan, Wes, Trent, Mack, RJ, Scott, Lauren, Preston, Devon, and several others that aren't at the top of my head. In "Stitched Up", Izzy is implied to have gone through something similar with her mom, having been recruited to be her "little model" as a kid before her mom came around to her daughter's more butch sensibilities and affirmed that she loved her no matter what. Zayto's flashback to his mom's words of wisdom are the bedrock of his character. And we can't forget Solon - one of the best Ranger mentors in years, a cyborg dinosaur with the personality of a loving grandmother. Even our first guest character, Mick Kanic, is tied in with the parenthood theme, seeing how he looked after Brody during the decade he spent as Space Cinderella on the set of Galaxy Warriors.

So it's very relevant that it's Lani Akana who figures out how the brainwashing works and gives the Rangers the piece of information they need to restore Ollie. Once the Blue Ranger goes away, Ollie Akana comes home. The bad dad figure is overcome through the insight of one of the show's all-time best mothers (plus a few lawyer jokes, because it wouldn't be Power Rangers without a hearty helping of wacky nonsense).

Zedd's evil mentorship of Ollie gets a really smart payoff in the finale. In "Love Hate", the restored Ollie can provide the team with insider information about Zedd's plan; this time, Ollie gives the insight to Zedd himself. From his time as Zedd's general/house pet/pupil, Ollie understands how Zedd sees the world, and is able to get across Zayto's ultimatum in a way that Zedd will -- reluctantly -- agree to.

Frankly, I think it was brilliant to leave Zedd on Nibyro, the "psychological horror for kids" planet. By basically every metric, Zedd should consider this a happy ending. His enemies (including a Morphin' Master!) lay dead at his feet, he rules as emperor of all he sees, and he's even been reunited with the one true love of his life. But in his flayed brain, that isn't enough, and he's going to torment himself by bickering with the Rita Repulsa illusion. Still, the Nibyro spirit asserts that it releases people who have good hearts. It helped Zayto and Aiyon when they made peace with their 65 million year old feelings of survivor's guilt, and it suggests that if Zedd can have a similar moment of growth where he genuinely connects with Rita, the power of love may be the key to his redemption.

One last side note: if Ollie and Amelia are Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet, does that make Zedd and Rita the counterparts to Mr. Wickham and Lydia? Like Wickham, Zedd is the villain who serves as the obstacle for the formation of the couple, uses psychological manipulation to get what he wants (real-world emotional blackmail or mysterious blue goo that turns people evil), and his ultimate punishment is marriage to a shrill, immature woman-child.

Thank you for coming to my Zedd Talk.

I rewatched Cosmic Fury recently and something dawned on me: I don't think Zedd knows Ollie's name. He only ever calls him "child", "boy", or "BOOOOOY". Some of the other villains address him by name, but never Zedd.

hey anon! you've stumbled onto some head canons I've held in for a while! just a disclaimer 🙈

I think there is something so cool behind that dialogue choice because it happened so frequently and consistently that we can definitely draw some character intentions from it. This provides such a fun contrast between Zedd and Zordon as mentors to a human ranger team.

Zordon will always catch flack from me for creating a team of child soldiers 😂 but in narrative, he's shown to be a very caring father-figure. He imparts wisdom and concern for his team. Between him and Alpha, there's a functional nuclear family. Whereas Zedd is running a dysfunctional content house with this new adoptive son he doesn't know what to do with.

It's a toss up whether Zedd genuinely did not know Ollie's name, despite knowing his other lackeys and henchmen, or whether he called Ollie by diminutive names intentionally. Heck, even Rita knew the name of the evil ranger she created. Either way, it could speak towards a power play. It's Zedd's way to impose a power hierarchy between them even though he actually treated Ollie really well.

We also know that throughout the seasons, Ollie is mostly raised by single mother/amazing genius, Lani Akana. Lord Zedd fills this spot for a father figure in Ollie's life and even though he was brainwashed to be evil, we still saw Ollie vying for Zedd's approval and trying so hard to make him proud. Even when Ollie failed, Zedd says he sees potential in Ollie and encourages him to embrace his inner darkness. All of that dynamic rounds out at the end where good!Ollie makes his plea with Zedd to not release the Zedd Wave and Zedd eventually concedes.

(Also that scene where Ollie provides Zedd with Zayto's location. Zedd tells Scrozzle to "give the boy his present" like okay Zedd you definitely prepared that WELL beforehand. He is 100% someone who shoves gifts at their child as a form of parenting.)

It was just incredibly fun to see despite only catching glimpses of their dynamic.

[augment-techs]

WHUMP ASK GAME: “I saw you lying next to me” + OllAiyon? Possibly with some Javelia?

Title: take this in and don't talk about it Rating: T Relationships: Ollie Akana/Aiyon; Javi Garcia/Amelia Jones; Izzy Garcia/Fern; Billy Cranston & Lani Akana (not like THAT). Additional Tags: Mind Control; Lot of talk about Rafkonian Fashion; Food Poisoning; After Action Injury Description; Autistic!Ollie; Protective!Aiyon; Ollie Akana Needs a Hug; mention of Bullying; implied attempted sexual assault; Zedd being Gross to Ollie to get on Billy's Nerves; Stimming. Summary: Here's the truth of the matter: Ollie never meant to go evil, not with Zedd being a master manipulator and spell caster, but goddamn if he didn't delight in cutting loose, being less all in his own head and not having the instinct to straighten creases in his clothes or count the number of birds on powerlines five times until he felt comfortable in his own skin. Then he woke up, and there was Aiyon blocking Ollie shooting or mowing down Javi and Amelia clutching each other behind him, Fern making her way to them in the distance and Izzy and Zayto nowhere in sight. Half of Aiyon's helmet was blown off and there was blood streaming down into his face... Amelia must have been spitting curses at him, but Ollie couldn't hear it over the ringing in his ears and the hideous headache attacking him from the base of his neck to behind his eyes.

[incorrectpowerrangersquotes]

Solon: So Doctor Akana, you've spent years studying prehistoric ruins and artifacts?

Lani: Our travels now are somewhat different from my normal excavations. I would prefer lengthier studies...and fewer explosions.

Solon: Hell, I think you've spoken for scientists everywhere, Doc.

[mat2modblog]

Solon, you’re a cyborg, not a robot.

Why does media always get those mixed up? Terminator being a notable example, a robot with flesh and blood? That’s a completely artificial cyborg (or just artificial cyborg for short), not a robot.

“Androids” #20, #17 and #18? Cyborgs. Cell and #21 are artificial cyborgs.

[erniesbrainfreeze]

“my mom can take care of herself”

[braveandsnipe]

alright, warden has been in like five of the eight episodes, when is queen lani akana coming back?