#Xiaolin analysis

[the-mercurial-star-o-vesper]

Xiaolin Showdown time. Ye olde cartoon theories from ancient history.

The reason Jack Spicer is prolly so pale? ( I know the general fandom headcanon, but hear me out). Is probably because he's iron deficient.

And that works, because he was intended to be, and prolly still is let's be honest, the Xiaolin Dragon of Metal. He lacks Metal.

Therefore...

Jack Spicer fails his quests, because he is literally, and figuratively, Out of His Own Element.

[terrestrialnoob]

Xiaolin Showdown is weird for a lot of reasons, but lovable for more. But something fascinating to me is that only one main villain is actually evil. You've got: Jack Spicer, who just wants to be taken seriously and thinks world domination would give him that. Wuya, who is so lonely that even when she rules the world, she does everything she can to keep her one companion. Chase Young, who was manipulated into drinking evil soup and can't really stop without dying. And Hannibal Roy Bean, who is actually evil, tricked Chase into drinking the evil soup, and wants to cause death, chaos, and destruction.

[goldenheartstudios]

I wanna talk about the monks' fears

  Disclaimer: Spoilers for those who haven’t watched this show from 2003 (And if you actually didn’t watch it, then do it. Why are you here in the first place?)

  With that out of the way, it’s time to indulge into my hyperfixation once again

  You see, one thing that I really like about Xiaolin Showdown is its combination of simplicity and subtlety. There are some things that are as they’re shown, and there are other things that are actually more detailed than they seem and you can miss them on first watch

  As such, the show encourages you to go deeper, to think beyond what it’s shown in front of you and have your own interpretation on things

  And one thing that always left me think is episode 10 from season 2, where we get to see each of the monks’ fears, because what we see can be taken in a simple and literal way

  But you can also go deeper and break each fear into a core concept

  First, I wanna make note of the fact that each fear has something special to them. They have at least one thing that help them be different from each other, which is something more notable when you take them one by one to analyze

  And this is what I plan to do

1. Clay’s fear

  The thing that’s interesting about Clay’s fear is that it’s the only one about someone. If the others’ are represented through animals or objects, his is represented by not only a real person, by a relative as well

  You can also easily take his fear as it’s shown: he fears his grandma because he had a bad experience with her. You can put it as a simple trope of fearing your relative, which was most likely the intention (and honestly, she does look scary in her own way)

  But aside from that (and my personal feelings of relating to his fear), one thing that’s important to note is that children, just like adults, can subconsciously associate things with feelings. Sometimes their fear is straight forward: they fear it because it looks scary. But sometimes, their fear is associated with another emotion, but they’re not fully aware of this and they deem the “object” as scary instead of the real reason they were afraid in that situation

  To put it simply, it’s like conditioning: you get a bad emotion from a thing, so you learn to avoid the thing, without realizing that the problem is the emotion and not the thing itself

  And since these are supposed to be their deepest fears, it makes more sense that they’re associated with another feeling than just being scary

  With Clay’s fear, I would say that it’s related to the lack of control. The way he talks about her makes it seem that she was something he had to endure, which would make sense because if they visited her as a small child, then he had no choice than to accept her doting which was actually painful

  And it would make sense if his deepest fear is the lack of control, because one of Clay’s core traits is strength within self, which is affirmed by his feeling of relaxation and comfort. He’s someone who likes to chill and vibe in his own way, and when he has to do something he doesn’t like, we can feel him being awkward or uncomfortable, an example being the episode when he followed his father’s orders

  Yes, he can act with anger in unpleasant situations and stand up for himself, but as I stated before, it’s most likely that he endured the unpleasant visits to his grandma when he was young, when he didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. So, it makes more sense why his grandmother is the image of his fear of lack of control, because these were the moments when he lacked control in his life the most

  This fear of lack of control has its benefits, but also its downsides. On one hand, it helps him be focused on what he can do and how he can use the knowledge he has in order to be in control of situations. On the other hand, he has a subtle avoidance of things that he’s not certain about, and he can either become too set up in his comfort zone, or he’s too thrown off in situations that he’s not familiar of (for example, his stage fright)

  Which it’s interesting to think about. Clay is a character who has stable principles and he’s defined by strength, both internal and external, but his desire to maintain this sometimes leads him to a bigger passive role than he would want to. And if it goes to extreme, it could have an opposite effect and make him question his value and strength

  Just some food for thought

2. Kimiko’s fear

  One thing that’s worth noting on the spot is the doll’s appearance. It was probably meant to look like this to fit in with the creepy doll trope, but it also makes it different from others for another reason

  Unlike the others, this one makes you think on the spot, it makes you immediately have questions like “What happened? Why does it look like this?”. Its appearance alone tells a story, by hinting that there may be a different reason why she’s afraid of it, not just because it looks scary

  And from the looks of it, it seems that the doll got burned, which is even more interesting, considering the fact that fire is Kimiko’s element

  Now. I did see some people theorizing that Kimiko activated her powers and accidentally burned it, which I’m honestly 50/50 about this idea

  On one hand, it would immediately make a lot of sense why she’s so scared about it. She was a young kid who experienced a supernatural and dangerous event out of nowhere, and she possibly spent years in confusion about what happened until she got the revelation that she’s the Dragon of Fire

  But on the other hand, even if I read some good stories with this subject, I’m personally not into the idea of the monks showing their elements before they joined the temple. Them using their elements always felt like something gradual, like something that evolved and developed along with their skills and that at the beginning of the show they only had the potential and capability to use their element. Sure, maybe they showed an interest/drive to it, but that was never something that defined them

  My personal interpretation is that they were never defined by their element, their element was defined by them, if that makes sense

  Which is why I prefer to think that she accidentally burned the doll through other means, which would also make sense. Kids can easily do reckless things, and Kimiko showed in the past how her curiosity and experimentation can cause some issues, so it wouldn’t be a stretch to think that she wanted to try something out with fire and burned the doll as a result

  But this also leads to the question to what fear she’s associating the doll with, because it wouldn’t be danger, as he bravery is a strong element to her

  With that, I would say that she associates the doll with guilt. Another core trait of Kimiko is her compassion, as she easily offers her care and understanding to her friends. Yes, she can be hot headed and impulsive, but it’s very clear that helping others is in her best interest

  And as a result, she immediately feels guilty when she makes a mistake, when she’s hurting others, whether she’s mistreating someone or her ambition leads to problems instead of solutions

Deep inside, she’s afraid of regret, of doing things that could make things worse, and the doll is a representation of that: maybe it was the first time she did a mistake like this, and the first time she felt guilty because of it

  This fear of regret is interesting, because it can go in conflict with her bravery: she’s not afraid of danger, of taking risks herself, but this ambition and bravery can lead to her making things she would feel guilty of

  Her ambition is both her strength and her weakness, which is fascinating to me

3. Omi’s fear

  His fear seems to fall into the silly fear trope which, just like I stated with others, this was probably the reason. But what’s interesting about his fear is actually not the appearance

  Is that we can actually pinpoint where his fear is coming from

  I can explain by going back to episode 12 from season 1, when Omi fought Jack in a showdown over the Heart of Jong. This is when we see his first reaction to squirrels, which is not one of fear, is one of surprise, and he only reacts after the squirrel bites him

  And as showdown, he chooses one who’s squirrel themed while talking about them with respect

  Which doesn’t really make sense if he’s supposed to be terrified of them

  But after this episode we do see him be terrified of squirrels, starting from episode 3 from season 2, when Jack messed up with the monks by stopping time and such

  So, what changed? Why is he scared of squirrels now?

  Well, I’d say that the reason is in episode 12

  Omi is a brave and strong warrior, this is true. But because of his big ego strong confidence, there’s one thing that I can say for certain he’s afraid of: failure

  Failure is a sign of lack of skills, of imperfection and of possible danger brought upon others. Omi holds himself on a high regard and under big responsibility, so every time he experiences failure he gets a hit on his confidence, which is why he’s shown many times to be guilty when he’s failing at something

  And despite the fact that he lost other showdowns at the start of the show, in this episode he lost a showdown which had a Shen Gong Wu that almost brought destruction over all by being used to bring back Mala Mala Jong, a foe that made even Master Fung look terrified

  This showdown is the first time he felt this much of a failure, and his mind subconsciously associated the failure to something physical: squirrels. Then he subconsciously justified his fear over squirrels by exaggerating their features and this is how we got here

  This would mean that we got to see how the main character developed his fear, which it’s fascinating. We don’t get a reason in the episodes, but we get hints that help us come with an interpretation ourselves

  Omi’s fear progression is like the representation of the show itself, which it’s the reason why I find it this interesting

  But there’s one more that I personally find even more interesting

4. Raimundo’s fear

  Okay okay, there’s a reason why I left Raimundo to last and that reason is that he’s my favorite character of all time. This is not a secret and will never be, and every time I get the opportunity to talk about my boy I shine so brightly I could challenge the sun from Philippines

  And the first thing I wanna talk about his fear is how strange it looks. It doesn’t look like a person, it doesn’t look realistic and it barely resembles a jellyfish. It doesn’t look extra intimidating or scary, it actually looks cartoony

  And it makes my mind run wild, because what’s the reason it looks like this? Why is his fear so different from the others? Sure, you can come up with a meta explanation that the writing team wanted to keep things family friendly, they didn’t care much about how a jellyfish (or maybe a Man o’ War) looks, or they wanted to represent the kind of cryptid/ambiguous fear a child can have, but I’m not looking here for meta explanations

  I’m looking here for psychological interpretations, and my interpretation is this: it’s a direct proof that not the jellyfish matters, the idea around it does

  Maybe he encountered a jellyfish when he was young but he didn’t get to see it properly, or maybe he got to see it but subconsciously doesn’t focus on the jellyfish itself, but the thing that I want to be certain of is that he encountered one and got stung by it

  Why? Because it would be the first time he felt pain, the first time he felt fear

  And the thing that Raimundo fears the most, is vulnerability

  Maybe it’s because he learned to look tough in the time he explored the dangerous places from Rio, maybe it’s because of some desire to prove himself that he developed from a family with many siblings, or maybe it’s a combination of both. But what I’m certain of, and that he showed many times in the series, is that he’s afraid of vulnerability. He’s afraid of showing himself as vulnerable, being considered as such and other things related to it, which includes not being good enough

  Which is the reason why his fear is once again represented by a jellyfish in episode 8 from season 3

(Also holy hell I love this version so much, it looks so cool-)

  That episode dwelled more into his fear of not being good enough, which is what he overcame at the end. The fact that his self-esteem issues have been hinted at for many many episodes and we got them actually addressed is something that I’ll always admire and love about the show

  But another thing that’s been hinted at in the episode was his fear of admitting to it, which I would argue that it’s the reason why his fear of lack of competence grew this much in the first place

  Just like with Omi, I’d say that this fear of inadequacy started in episode 12 from season 1, with the Mala Mala Jong incident. He saw the rejection of being promoted to apprentice as being considered a failure, as not being good enough, and as this is a sign of vulnerability, his reaction was to hide it and run away

  And if before he was complaining but still doing tasks (in his own way), after this incident with Mala Mala Jong and Wuya we actually saw him slacking off more in season 2 by hiding dirty plates, dust and using Vlad to do the work for him. Only after this episode he got officially characterized as a slacker, which in episode 8 from season 3 we got it confirmed that it comes from his fear of not belonging in the team because he’s not good enough

  He was having this fear for so long, but he never showed it properly because he avoids showing vulnerability, so it got bottled up for many episodes till it finally got addressed and dealt with in episode 8 (also, Omi’s constant remarks and his team’s occasional distrust on him most likely didn’t help with his fear of inadequacy)

  And this is what’s interesting for me. Even if he resolved his fear of not being good enough, his core fear of vulnerability is still there, and it has the possibility of raising other fears in him, because he still has the habit of closing himself

  As long as he doesn’t learn how to open up in a healthy way, he will still form fears, he will still form worries, and they will still grow until he will not be able to hide them anymore

  His fears may take many forms, but they will still be rooted to the same idea, to the vague image of a jellyfish

  And I love this so much

  So yeah, these are my interpretations on the monks’ fears! Of course, you can have your own interpretation, as many of these things are more or less implied than confirmed. And I am curious about what you personally think! (I’m always eager to talk to someone about the show)

  And if you got to read till the end, here’s an image with Raimundo being made to do his work

  Look at him

  The little prick

[destiny-in-the-universe]

So.

I may have just binged Xiaolin Showdown- I’m not quite at the finish line yet, but I am screaming. First of all - the main four embody their elements so well!

Between Clay’s down to earth attitude, but at the same time - being a strong, hard-to-take-down opponent. As a dragon of earth, I was definitely in awe the entire time. I enjoy his character so much, and the Texan sayings he says? Count me in!

Kimiko? Her fiery attitude matches being the dragon of fire so well. She has a free-spirited energy, and can’t easily be tamed even by the wildest of evils. She has an immeasurable, headstrong way of directly taking things on. She’s grown more as a character, but because these characters are likely no older than 13 - they still have a lot more to learn.

Raimundo. Dragon of Wind. He’s the most unpredictable of all of them sometimes - he has an energy which cannot be tamed, and won’t be held down by anything (even if it almost became his door fall). Though in the end, he came back around- deciding he couldn’t abandon his friends…

And then there’s Omi. The Dragon of Water. With his strength, athleticism, and optimistic personality make him perfect for his element- his cheerful but bold attitude are a wonderful mix and I cannot wait to see more from him and the rest of the cast! Though I only got to episode 25, and I’m purring like an idiot- Omi’s characteristics are mirrored as if it were water. He almost seems to go with the flow, but in the end - like a tsunami - he will always protect the ones he cares about.

But now- I get to talk about what I was itching to focus on grrr.

Our villains…

Jack Spicer is certainly the kind of villain who serves as comic relief, but even then- he’s a genuine good fodder to the four monks that stand against him. At times, we’ll see him team up with them for a shady cause, and I find this almost charming. While he isn’t the most terrifying of villains, and he simply functions as the filler for the monks to handle, I’ve grown quite fond of his character!

but ho boy, then we have Wuya and can I just say- she might not have a physical form but even then - she makes for a great opponent. The episodes in which she gained physical form were done so well, and I found myself being drawn in more and more. Her cunning and trickery make her a hard enemy to beat- and I am curious to see where else this series takes us.

BUT there’s another character that has me frothing at the mouth: Chase Young.

Previously on the side of good, Chase Young turned evil on the promise of power and youth- he has his army of Fallen Warriors to guard him, and well, if the fact he’s immensely powerful. Not to mention, he’s incredibly strong and has been around for, say, a while (?). He’s already caught my interest and I can’t wait to see more of him… also his interest in Omi from episode 25 “The Evil Within” has my metaphorical tail wagging because holy- I’m already seeing the vision: Chase attempting to sway Omi onto the side of evil…

Also, the Fallen Warriors being cats while Chase Young has slitted golden eyes (and yes, I know that secretly the mf is reptilian-) is extremely ironic and I live for it- nonhuman Chase for the win because, well, that is what he is! I can’t wait to continue seeing more of his character-

Of course, this is hardly helping my case at all…

Xiaolin Showdown and Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja would be such an interesting crossover- like, I do have a couple ideas cooking in my mind but at the same time… I need to develop this a little more! And if it happens to be influenced by the whole First Ninja and Chase Young dynamic, no it isn’t - whatever do you mean /lh

My tail is wagging

More to come soon! Because mrrr- I am ever so slightly hyperfixated…

[narvana27]

Why Omi would be a bad shoku warrior:

Many might think that the best choice when it comes to picking a leader would be Omi. Why? I think it's because of the fact he's kinda like the main character. Kinda. Cuz in theory there's 4 main characters and that obviously is Omi, Rai, Kim and Clay, but Omi is the first one we see, the first episode is basically focused on him realizing he’s there as a subject of teaching and not the teacher, and he probably has the most episodes that are mainly about him. He has the biggest amount of showdowns and maybe even the most quotes. He's also so fixated about being a xiaolin monk, he often talks about his honor and how he loves to fight and generally how awesome he is. Even my older sister who didn’t watch the show when asked said that Omi became a leader. Just because it suits him, right? He's ambitious, focused on his goals, this reality is everything he knows, so isn't it enough, isn't he a perfect choice? Well, no, and I will prove why *fingers cracking*

#1. Omi is too self focused, narcissistic & egocentric:

Don’t say he's just confident. Being narcissistic is not the same as being confident. He's cocky, he makes fun of others (Raimundo) for their mistakes, he sees himself as the better person in everything and tends to bend what he knows is bad when he really wants to do it to fit his own fake narrative. He loves himself too much, just too much for this position. I saw a quote that said If you want to see if someone is a narcissist you have to listen to how they wish you a happy birthday or any other thing. If they make it somehow about themselves - they're narcissistic. Omi does this, and the example is how when the monks tried to corrupt Dojo with gifts to see if he knows who's gonna be wudai or shoku warrior they all gave him something... normal. Rai - A chain with letter “D”,  Kim - basket with fruits and for Clay it probably was a hat cuz I don't remember. Omi gave him a portrait of himself. Not of Dojo but of him. Narcissist 100%

#2.He wants to be better than everyone and is blinded by that:

Remember when everyone got those kind of wu that were only theirs and they were supposed to like work with that one individual element? The ones they put on their hands? 😅 xD Anyway, Bean Roy knew Omi and the other monks the shortest, since he was the last “big villain" that occurred on the show. And yet he knew that his ego is so big and so prone to suggestions, especially the ones that might make him “even better" than everyone else, that he did go to his head and just whispers "Hey, u know u can use everyone's wu and u will be like super powerful after that?". That's all, he literally didn’t do anything more than that. With Raimundo when he did the same thing - he tried psychological tricks to break him, he had to search for deep things in his mind to do that. But with Omi it was a couple of sentences. A couple of words to make him go and STEAL someone’s belongings to become more powerful just for the sake of it.

#3. His weird relation with Chase Young:

Now, I think that this is a valid and a solid reason on it own to not trust that boy and to not make him a leader. Because how do you imagine a shoku that lies to his friends about what he's doing in the main villain palace and he's there because he wants to SET HIM FREE from the Sphere of Yun that Jack Spicer put him in?! Like what?! He did that ONLY because he likes Chase. And there's no denial he does, because he does, let's be real. We might say “He's just naive and he sees good in everyone”, but that's not what happened there and it had nothing to do with that. He set him free just because. Cuz he likes him, he's for whatever reason almost smitten with Chase. And maybe it's because Chase is like a fallen angel - He was good but then chose to be bad and now Omi wants to make him good again because he was one of the trio that stopped Wuya back in the day and he would like to worship him as he does this with Dashi & Guan? Or maybe because Chase teases him? He's constantly talking to him, Omi knows he wants him by his side and he feels... Special? His ego is most definitely a huge part in this. 100% 

#4.He's naive:

Omi is the youngest as some sources claims, but we all can agree on that I think. He might be under the age of 13 or 14 at ABSOLUTE max. I mean they're all pretty young, but there's still a difference between like 18 I would give to Raimundo at the end of the show or 19 I would give Clay and that 13 of Omi. He's young and he does not know anything about the outside world besides the temple. Maybe that's also the reason why he's so naive, but we see that many times in the show that he wants to make bad people into good ones almost in the blink of an eye. He tried that with Jack a couple of times and he almost wanted to be some sort of friends with him??? When Jack decided to join them he absolutely trusted him, which is so weird to me considering how much resentment and grudge he has and holds towards Rai for his past betrayal. Even when he proved his worth their trust, even when there was no doubt he's changed and knows better now - he still had to clap his goddamn mouth about how Rai is worse than him and the rest and he still doesn’t know if he can trust him. Yeah, but at the same time you saw nothing wrong with Jack living with you under the same roof, doing the same with Katnappe and having this weird thing going on with Chase? That makes sense Omi xDD. So yeah, he was not a good choice for a shoku at all, I hope you also see that if u didn’t before 🙂🙃.

[grasshopperdoingdogpaddle]

That growth spurt. Omi has to reach so much higher now to point at Jermaine's heart.

This is why Omi should just join Chase already, those results speak for themselves.

[helipackjack]

I joke that Good Jack is essentially hide the pain Harold cause his smiles look really fake and forced sometimes but it really makes sense when you look at Jack as a whole and the self-sacrificial nature of his good side.

(more in reblog)

[bobauthorman]

Omi’s Journey

In Season 1, Omi fainted at being told the other Chosen Ones were to teach him, and not the other way around.

In Season 2, he became jealous and resentful at Jermaine reaching Wudai Warrior before him.

But in Season 3, he accepts Raimundo’s promotion to Shoku Warrior and leader with peace and humility.

[fullofsunsetwhispers]

I think the reason the monks turned into such jerks to Jack including Omi was because of Omi town I don't even like Omi and I wanted to beat Jack butt for it. Because it was such a slap in the face to. Omi who tried to help Jack so many times gave Jack the benefit of the doubt was kind to him and believe Jack could be good when no one else did or would have

I understand your frustration, anon. It can be classified as 'one of the most jerkish things Jack has ever done in the series'.

However, (looks at my imaginary list titled 'Jack Spicer did some things wrong but these jerkish acts are justified)

No, don't get me wrong, I am in Jack's protection squad but I am capable of seeing his flaws. Yes, that's a horrible thing to do to the only person that tried to help you (see mainly the Apprentice but more examples could be found throughout the series). Even for a little kid!me that was something unbelievable to happen but now I blame the poor writing of the 3rd season for it. (I gotta cope somehow ok)

I would like to move on to 'Let's justify Jack' part. Maybe 'justify' is a strong word. He took part in that manipulation so it should not be excused BUT I'd point out something that intrigues me a little bit.

In Omi Town after defeating Omi's Mother, monks realize she's in fact a robot. Omi makes a face and everyone rush at Spicer with anger evident on their own faces.

What's Jack's immediate reaction when he gets circled by dragons in training?

He curls up in fear and exclaims: 'THEY MADE ME DO IT!'

Then, he proceeds to tell everyone gathered how that village was made in the first place and we got a short flashback with HB making jackbots look like Omi's relatives of some sort.

Tbh It struck me HOW Jack delivered that story. Usually, (especially in s1 and mid-s2) Jack boasts about his evil plans. He makes sure his enemies KNOW what steps were made to fool them because Jack this way wants to show them how his mind is superior in comparison to theirs. He's proud of each evil deed committed throughout the process (presumably because it builds up his self-esteem which is already in shambles)

Anywho, mind that during his story about the origins of the 'Village of Omi's robotic clones', he's serious. No evil laugh, no belittling Omi for falling for that.

Does that look like a face of a proud evildoer to you? No. He's being honest, and frankly to say, even sad.

The last sentence he utters after the flashback makes me even more convinced about his honesty.

He bends down to be more on Omi's level. He looks straight into his eyes, his brows furrowed worryingly. It almost looks as if Jack felt sorry for the Cheeseball.

'We figured if we break up the dream team, we can take all the wu!'

for Jack it's simple logic, mind you. Additionally, no one among the Heylins even considered Omi might come back to the temple. Jack was more than certain Omi would stay with the fake parents. He never meant to hurt Omi directly. Who knows? Maybe after robbing the temple vault, he would re-program the parent bots to change their minds and let Omi be the monk again (but these are my speculations)

Let's settle on what the overall message sounded like.

'They made me do it'

'They made me build other robots'

'Hannibal bean then used Moby Morpher to make MY robots look like your relatives. If you had any.'

There is more accusation of Wuya and HB in Jack's voice. As I mentioned earlier Jack takes pride in whatever evil he's up to. He's building the brand, or whatever, so it is vital to him to give credit to himself (and optional partners in crime of course). Here we see/hear he DOESN'T WANT TO BE ASSOCIATED WITH THAT PLAN. By constantly repeating 'not me. they made me do ---something-' he withdraws himself, which has never happened earlier in the series. (ok maybe that time with the evil snowman but whatever - you get my point)

Was he trying to save his own butt by putting the blame on Wuya and Roy? Oh, yes, he's a coward. But I dare to assume deep down he wasn't feeling ok with that scheme 100%. The way I see it, Jack went into 'survival mode', that is, he decided to act what other Heylins expect him to do so they won't hurt him in any other way. (Mind you he got a black eye at the beginning of the episode and got slammed against furniture by Wuya and HB and Wuya directly threatened him) Was he laughing with other baddies and taunting Omi during his showdown? Yes, but in a more ' I'm in a bad position so I can have a little fun with them' kinda way. Raiding the temple is one of jack's fav activities (lol) and he feels ok with it so his partners -Wuya and HB no longer were the same oppressors but more like a means that would help him get safely to the wu vault.

If we take into consideration the statement 'Jack from season 3 is a laughing stock and everyone seems to push him around' - this one applies here too. I'm of the opinion Jack was against Wuya and HB's intentions toward Omi but ultimately Jack yielded to their persuasions. Why? He was afraid. Out of fear, we tend to agree to things we would NOT normally agree to. Wuya even without her powers wrecked the boy good so she could've broken some of his bones as well. And with HB's help, they could do even far worse things to Jack. Let's not accuse Jack on the basis he wanted to protect himself - Wuya and HB are more to blame in this one.

Jack was simply USED in that scheme and robbed of resources (robots). More importantly, he built the whole village himself - I bet Wuya and HB didn't help him in these preparations. Jack was valuable to them in that very episode only because he was more like a useful tool rather than an ally, which is sad. (but tbh these little smiles Wuya and Jack exchanged were kinda cute)

To sum up, Jack is not entirely responsible for playing with Omi's feelings. He was the pawn, who in fact did the majority of the dirty work BECAUSE he was being threatened. That sort of manipulation Omi was the victim of was totally unfair especially if we consider that Jack-Omi bond from the series as a whole. However, in that very scene, we see glimpses of regret in Jack's mannerisms.

As a side note, I would like to point out, even if 'Omi Town' hurts me very much for Jack's betrayal of Omi's trust, I would like to see this being expanded on. For example, they should have a one-on-one talk in which they have a little quarrel, mentioning all the bad things they did to each other so they could just... talk this through and find some katharsis in their shared pain or sth.

[gravity-what]

Starsfic: Nothing More than Home

[Well, anything home related instantly reminds me of Omi so:]

Title: Nothing More than Home

Fandom: Xiaolin Showdown

Characters: Omi, Chase Young, Dojo Kanojo Cho, Master Fung,

Relationships: Omi & Chase Young, Omi & Master Fung, Omi & Dojo Kanojo Cho

Tags: Character analysis, existential crisis, comfort in the enemy,

Summary: As much as Omi pretends everything is alright after the events of ‘Omi Town’ he cannot shake the devastation that his emotions were left in In the wake of everything that occurred. He starts to question what a ‘home’ truly is and what it means to have one. Is the temple really his ‘home’ or is it just the place he was raised? Perhaps some other perspectives can help him sort out these complicated feelings…

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

I would love to see a psycho analysis on Jack Spicer!!

Now that I'm getting back in the swing of things, don't count Jack out! I'm trying to alternate between redoing old ones and doing new ones. He's one I've wanted to do for a long, long while (as well as some of the other Xiaolin Showdown villains).

[yes-justice-seeking]

The CCP’s Psychological Warfare

Based on my observation and in my view, the CCP’s Psychological Warfare is part of its Info-Warfare waged mostly on the western social media to indoctrinate, mislead, and propagate in a very deceit and hard to detect way and the result is stunning. 

Let’s flash back to 2011 when the West wasn’t paying enough attention to the CCP’s eager to its global hegemony and so-called “rejuvenation” dream and the “corner overtaking”/弯道超车 strategy through the intellectual property infringement, Dr. Lu Xiaolin, a Chinese scientist in the US, published a paper saying “‘stealing’ great ideas, and applying them to a suitable and most desired situation... When one or more industries make breakthroughs in resolving their particular challenges or constraints, other industries could benefit by ‘stealing’ the best”, he even raised a question: “So why not steal more?” While readers at that time may have taken it as a joke, the article set the tone of the CCP’s intellectual property stealing strategy for the following decades. 

(https://twitter.com/expose_ccp2023V/status/1327297751248416771)

As for the “corner overtaking”/弯道超车 strategy that corresponds to Mr. Ren Zhengfei(Huawei’s CEO)’s famous quote: “as long as the money is in place, a no-talent will become a talent”, I think the brazen wolf-like stealing behaviors presented in the T-Mobile v. Huawei case made a good example of the strategy.

(https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/468069937)

https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2019/01/28/the-us-just-charged-huawei-with-stealing-a-t-mobile-robot-idea/?sh=3b61b0bb3484

As for other big favor the wife of Dr. Lu Xiaolin did for the CCP in the American territory, please refer to the blog below:

The CCP’s “Sink the Ship” Plan and The Thucydides Trap

A recent example comes from the joint-statement of Russia and China. While people may believe the statement that “ Russia needs a prosperous and stable China, and China needs a strong and successful Russia” is just a diplomatic cliché, 

(https://www.china-briefing.com/news/the-putin-xi-summit-their-joint-statement-and-analysis/)

an article published on a CCP mouthpiece website “红歌会”, dated April 18, 2023 gives the true meaning behind the words: no military aid to Russia is the only exception and China is doing everything else to help Russia. If you want to dismember and destroy Russia, you step on China’s bottom line.

(https://m.szhgh.com/Article/opinion/xuezhe/2023-04-18/325059.html)

https://twitter.com/expose_ccp2023V/status/1651767450315247617

Further explanation given by a CCP warrior on March 23, 2023 in a Twitter Space says that “China does not need to provide weapons to Russia, except raw materials. Russia’s own capacity is sufficient, as long as they keep their machines working. China provides Russia with production chain supply for military products and daily necessities...” It’s not an odd or personal opinion but the true voice of the CCP, I believe.  You may find the original voice from 2:39 of the video below:

https://rumble.com/v2h4hyk-exclusive-report-its-worse-than-you-think-the-ccps-weaponizing-the-west....html

If you still believe this is just a “co-incident”, please check another “co-incident” between the CCP warrior @cbl2008hx8964 (likely associated with @BL90942512 , a Twitter influencer doing many favors for the CCP )and Mr. Lu Shaye,  Chinese Ambassador to France:

https://twitter.com/expose_ccp2023V/status/1650520591458344960

As you can see, the important message is sent in a hilarious or cliché way, some times mixed with false information, so that you wouldn’t pay attention to it until you wake up and find it’s too late.

What I found disturbing is that the CCP may have started the Psychological Warfare in the West long time ago. Beside the effort to infiltrate into almost every pro-democracy or anti-CCP associations/groups, evidence shows that the CCP started to control who can go abroad long time ago, slowly changing the structure of the over-sea Chinese population to ensure the basis of the CCP's United Front. The CCP knew what kind of applicants can easily get their asylum application passed: Christians, Falun gong practitioners, Uyghurs, LGBT people, HongKongers, etc. and they developed a system and channels cross China and the western countries to send CCP warriors under those cloaks with all faked materials. Here is what I heard in Twitter Spaces: a man came to the US from Xinjiang in around 2020 and got his legal status very quickly via the asylum program. He said he was in prison in Xinjiang but he also revealed that he had constantly visited a Youtuber's live streaming shows while he was in China. To many people’s knowledge, for ordinary people, access western social media like YouTube or Twitter will risk being criminally charged in China but he seemed having no such problem and he was allegedly in prison. Further more, he quickly got a security guard job in the US. While having lots of time on Twitter, his account is associated with many CCP-proxy-acting people. So I am wondering his experience in a prison of Xinjiang was as a prisoner or a prison guard? Did he lie to the American authority? If he was able to access YouTube when he was in China, what may be his mission to the US? 

Due to the training mechanism of the PLA, Police and the Ministry of State Security(MSS) , their staff members or family members are believed to have better loyalty to the CCP but the lack of professional background becomes their major challenge to go abroad through the normal immigration process. I was shocked by the majority proportion of the PLA or China’s Police background people who chat in Twitter Spaces day and night.

How did they come to the western countries?

In the following videos, you will hear how the American asylum system is being abused( from 6:32):

https://rumble.com/v2h4hyk-exclusive-report-its-worse-than-you-think-the-ccps-weaponizing-the-west....html

In another video (I will make it available as soon as possible), you will hear Jinyi S.B.( @dbysjwlblthztms ), Chinese-American acting as the CCP’s wolf-warrior on Twitter, mostly in Twitter Spaces, big-mouthed how to fake as Fa Lungong practitioner and get the legal status in the America. As per her own introduction, she was born in a family of a high-ranking officer of the PLA, came to the US and managed to marry to an American man. Her husband passed away of an unnatural death few years after their marriage. She recently passed the SSA’s interview, receives a generous retirement income benefited from her dead husband and planned to use these benefits to trade a man from China to have a new marriage. She specified that she prefer a PLA soldier. All of these sound reasonable until you connect the dots and see a pattern of sending PLA warriors to the America and maximizing the abuse of the American systems and resources.

(https://twitter.com/dbysjwlblthztms/status/1651788333310447616)

Mr. David Clements once said in an interview that “in (American) universities, we got Confucius institutions. There is a reason why they use Confucius instead of Mao, because when you think of Confucius, you think of the fortune cookie, something that is innocent...” The result is that while the students and the authorities thought it was a pure language training, the students are being indoctrinated as to the wonders of the Communist China, a perfect result of the ideology warfare and of the psychological warfare.

Similar to this, I found many Twitter accounts appear to be pro-freedom advocates but their true cyber-behavior is to propagate the CCP’s wolf culture.  @Hydra_largHive, a Twitter account of which the profile bio says “ Liberate Hong Kong and fight against the CCP” liked a tweet posted “Those who offend our territorial waters fall into the sea. The US military broke into our South China Sea, when the helicopter landed, it rolled over and fell into the sea. Everyone forwarded and congratulated to each other!”

(https://twitter.com/xxf58112/status/1650110982381789186)

A music account, @xsh860510, who used Teresa Teng (Taiwanese singer) as its bio photo, actually propagates the PLA arts.

(https://twitter.com/xsh860510/status/1651531106750013440)

(https://twitter.com/xsh860510/status/1651218144994770947)

(https://twitter.com/xsh860510/status/1651166881208737793)

All is about the CCP’s cyber-warriors knew people usually check the account bio to find the standpoint and they fool people as always, plus, based on what I heard in Twitter Spaces, many of them use the false profile to fish real dissidents and collect their information to the CCP. For further information, you may click the blog below:

Twitter Spaces: A Window to Better Understand the CCP

One purpose of the CCP’s psychological warfare is to cover the true colors of the CCP’s agents, making it difficult for detectives to obtain evidence and meet the standards for prosecution. While foreign agent work is generally considered as the exclusive preserve of foreign nationals, the CCP tends to recruit/coerce/intimidate Chinese-Americans into this dirty work. From what I heard in Twitter Spaces, they believe that the US citizenship is the best shield of protection, because once they become US citizens, they will be entitled to all the privileges that the US government grants to their citizens and it’s almost realistically impossible to be deported. 

Coco Resch, aka Qin Xiaoying, is one of the very wild CCP agent-acting warriors on Twitter, calling to kill people and to show loyalty to Xi government. What she brags often in Twitter Spaces is “I am an American citizen!”

https://twitter.com/expose_ccp2023V/status/1572609204212609024 https://twitter.com/expose_ccp2023V/status/1572677612765585413 https://twitter.com/expose_ccp2023V/status/1573340425561280512

She was arrested on Dec. 4, 2022 for threatening a man in front of his house and live-streaming her threat. While she made real threats to people, other CCP warriors among her allies called her “crazy, with mental issues” to cover up the criminal nature of her actions. It reminds me of the assassination of Li Jinjin on March 14, 2022 by Xiaoning Zhang, in which case, in contrary to her “anti-CCP protester image”, she shouted out support for the CCP. Many CCP propagandists were spreading mental defect defense for her on Twitter and YouTube.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10624053/Chinese-student-accused-killing-activist-lawyer-yells-support-Chinese-Communist-Party.html

Whereas her “protest show” in the US against Beijing’s police was this:

https://twitter.com/wangbin1192008/status/1503496917464104962

Here is my discovery in Li Jinjin’s case:

https://rumble.com/vxqfsv-connect-the-dots-of-li-jinjins-assassination.html

Such a U-turn in position often happens to CCP agents, because it is their normal work to play a completely different face. In my experience, Coco Resch, aka Qin Xiaoying, Jinyi Song Brush and others, they all turned to their pro-CCP standing after they had approached me as “sympathy for dissidents”.

My exclusive video report:

https://rumble.com/v2r0d3x-the-ccps-even-more-wild-illegal-agents-activities-on-twitter.html

On May 28, 2023, Coco Resch had @5FpezFASUxCIGaB to release her medical document proving that she had been temporarily held in a mental health center for 72 hours after she was arrested for threatening a person near his house.  @5FpezFASUxCIGaB also announced her trip to Europe which means she is now in good mental condition. 

https://twitter.com/5FpezFASUxCIGaB/status/1662976481474285568/photo/1

Coco Resch also liked @5FpezFASUxCIGaB’s tweet releasing her message to him, saying “Team leader Gao/高组长, if there is anything you need me to shout out, just tell me, I promise to accomplish missions.”

https://twitter.com/5FpezFASUxCIGaB/status/1662982959484502016/photo/1

People may ask, why is she willing to disclose her alleged "mental disorder" medical file and promised to "accomplish missions"? Normal people wouldn’t do that. Here's the answer she posted by herself: she used the paper as a "certificate of insanity" and legal immunity for crimes like threatening and killing certain people that her boss may order her to eliminate.

https://twitter.com/USCitizencoco56/status/1668469068314099713

Coco Resch seems taking instructions from  @TreeNewbee2019

Click to enlarge the image

https://twitter.com/expose_ccp2023V/status/1668364461374074881

Who is  @TreeNewbee2019?

He asked my photo from Coco Resch and released it without my consent. It violated Twitter’s rules, and yet, Twitter didn’t give him any effective punishment. Please click the link below to watch my video and find further details.

https://rumble.com/v2r0d3x-the-ccps-even-more-wild-illegal-agents-activities-on-twitter.html

More important, the location that he gave in his profile is the address of the Public Security Bureau of Shanghai! Several indictment cases show that releasing personal information is a tactic often used by the CCP’s Transnational Police Operation Agents to intimidate dissidents and that is exactly what these CCP thugs did to me!

Click to enlarge the image

https://twitter.com/expose_ccp2023V/status/1668359203394580482

If we connect it with the fact that “at least one agent of China intelligence service on the payroll inside of Twitter”, we will know why  @TreeNewbee2019, representing the CCP’s police, didn’t get punished for his violation on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/AKA_RealDirty/status/1569775546242039808

While the PLA’s cyber wolf propagates a military invasion of Taiwan

(https://twitter.com/Chunyu_China/status/1645552244274892800)

 They also used the softer power, the United Front, to call a “peaceful reunification”. For your information, both @kw__ic3 and  @david76464134 have either served the PLA or born in a family of high ranking PLA officers and the latter is in Los-Angeles of USA.

(https://twitter.com/kw__ic3/status/1651988096576258048)

For those who joined in or plan to join in the CCP’s Belt and Road Initiative, they may hear that the CCP’s “Major Country Diplomacy” is to assume a greater leadership role for global affairs, but what they don’t understand is the CCP’s controlling culture: offering you what you need and use it to control, manipulate, slave and intimidate you, you will never be able to talk with them with dignity but listen to them which in their words:“你就是我的一条狗/you’re one of my dogs”:

https://twitter.com/expose_ccp2023V/status/1652672738824265729 

Why let an authoritarian regime to dominate the world is dangerous? Because they have no idea of respect, liberty, and the laws, what they mastered is to understand the human nature and developed a coercion strategy to control people. 

When the CCP was amazing the world with its 5G and smart-city technology, they totally ignored people’s fundamental rights to argue and defend themselves over any legal issue. An Australian man who lives in Nanjing jaywalked, caught by the city’s facial recognition system, got a fine to his WeChat. Moreover, within 20 seconds, his money for the fine came straight out, without asking his consent or whatsoever. See the video below from 5:38

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydPqKhgh9Mg&t=318s

The CCP’s  Psychological Warfare targets not only the Western people, but also the CCP members and people of China to strengthen their loyalty to the CCP. PUA, a seduction science or study of charisma is widely used by many MSS cyber operatives.  Coco Resch, aka Qin Xiaoying, Chinese-American in Florida, has been threatening oversea Chinese people to show loyalty to Beijing: “To all of the oversea anti-Xi traitors, you are all being caught...... Hope you can make a plea agreement with Xi Jinping government.” 

https://twitter.com/expose_ccp2023V/status/1526019570389114880

While she was acting as the CCP’s oversea police, she also claimed that she “was assisting” the FBI, that CBL( @BL90942512) is FBI’s "senior detective/高级探员" ，but in fact CBL’s Twitter activities are clearly in favor of the CCP, and that what she’s been doing is part of the co-operation between the FBI and the CCP, which is obvious non-sense.

https://twitter.com/expose_ccp2023V/status/1523377942469877761

https://twitter.com/expose_ccp2023V/status/1523112925140963328

If you think Coco Resch may be too stupid and that’s why she was bullshitting around, you’re wrong. In fact, many people who heard her conversation in Twitter Spaces concluded that her IQ is above the average.  So what made her to say things like “it’s impossible to ask CBL @BL90942512 to apologize to you, no way! You’re not only not entitled to ask his apology, you shall kneel down and beg his forgiveness! CBL is my spiritual leader, or soul mate, the one I love! I can hurt everyone just for him. I can break any promise or whatsoever, do anything for him.” See the video below from 1:35？

https://twitter.com/expose_ccp2023V/status/1562521003364093954

 On March 7, 2023, a video posted by CBL revealed that Cheng Binlin, aka 成斌麟 @cbl2008hx8964 admitted that the twitter account CBL @BL90942512 is his account and he used that Twitter account to create a fictional character on Twitter. 

https://twitter.com/BL90942512/status/1633265287968727041

Coco Resch made many private messages between her and CBL public, based on the information in the messages and what Yuan Jianbin revealed in the video below, as well as other evidence to prove the close relationship between Cheng Binlin and Yuan Jianbin, it’s reasonable to believe that they work as a team, used the CBL account PUA Coco Resch until she became a puppet to intimidate oversea Chinese people on the Internet while they walked away with impunity!

https://rumble.com/v2dmfn4-what-surfaced-after-guo-wenguis-arrest.html

Yuan Jianbin/袁建斌 (Left) and Cheng Binlin/成斌麟(Right)

As the CCP mastered human nature, they torture the political prisoners not only physically but psychologically. Even if the CCP may release some of them under the pressure of international human rights organizations, they are “smart” to develop all possible means to make them “socially dead/社会死亡”, or live in a miserable condition that is not better than death.

When the COVID19 initially broke out in Wuhan and the city was shutdown, the CCP did everything to cover up the unprecedented lethal pandemic and the rest of the world could hardly learn the truth from China’s government. Fang Bin was a whistleblower hero just like Dr. Li Wenliang, reported what happened in Wuhan with his camera but he disappeared from the public in February 2020.

He was recently released after 3 years in prison. His sentence was set in a secret trial. According to multiple sources on Twitter,

https://twitter.com/XIAOMIEHM/status/1653202497505222659

https://twitter.com/honglongtalking/status/1653987239096098818

he was escorted by Wuhan police to his son’s home in Beijing and then sent back to Wuhan by Beijing police. It seems that he is deemed as nuisance or burden and no local authority wants him within their jurisdiction. His sister in Wuhan must have been under the same pressure and wouldn’t willing to offer him shelter. Before his disappearance in February 2020, he was an entrepreneur and had a home in Wuhan, but the CCP made him a homeless person and no relatives are willing to take care of him. We don’t know what kind of torture Mr. Fang suffered in prison but we saw what the CCP is doing after his release: desperately isolating him from any social connection he may have, psychologically torturing him while he seems physically free, created a circumstance and push him to "socially die". By intimidating his relatives not to approach him, the CCP cut him off from his next-of-kin and other social connections. I believe the following tweet is the message that the CCP is trying to send out to intimidate other fighters: “Wake up, no matter Fang Bin/方斌, Xu Zhiyong/许志永, or Ding Jiaxi/丁家喜, their imprisonment will not cause any disturbance in the mainland of China. Even if their close family members, will not be proud of them, but be annoyed, ashamed and pissed off because of them”.

https://twitter.com/honglongtalking/status/1653987239096098818

Another Tweet said: “using a ‘soft knife’ to cut Fang Bin slowly... goes after his relatives and friends, similar to the factional struggle in the upper echelons of the CCP, starting with the target’s surrounding people and eventually making Fang Bin “socially dead”, very insidious!”

https://twitter.com/yiqieyiXiayi/status/1654117165715300353

I don’t know what distracted the West when the CCP started implementing its intellectual property theft strategy decades ago, here is what came to my attention: while we all admit that Hong Kong is no longer it was, particularly not a key international financial center any more, following the CCP's brutal suppression of Hong Kong Protests in 2019, many people didn't notice that the CCP has already aimed at “digital financial services”, crypto investments, restarting Hong Kong at a new level. AMTD Group @AMTDGroup is an example.  It follows only 4 accounts: its chairman Calvin Choi, Hong Kong SAR Government News, Hong Kong Govt Press Releases and NYSE that “connect to a world of opportunity”. Calvin Choi follows and is followed back by  Mario Nawfal  @MarioNawfal, Elon Musk’s buddy who is “host of Twitter’s Largest Spaces”. Beside hosting Twitter Spaces mostly on crypto investment, Nawfal also propagates in favor of Russia which “co-incidentally” consists with Elon Musk’s standing: “ a Russia-China alliance is inevitable. It will grow much stronger over time.” 

Click to enlarge the image

https://twitter.com/expose_ccp2023V/status/1653766842798710786

Like “Made-In-China” became the icon of low-quality, CCP’s hands in the crypto business does not seem a good omen. Beside the mafia-alike murder reports below, I saw people saying that the crypto market in China is full of scam and mafia extortion.

https://www.gnewswire.org/en/2023/05/09/chinese-couple-murdered-in-bali-hotel-25719

https://inf.news/en/world/89fffa3f9004195dd45d1b23b744e6da.html

CCP, Russia and Elon Musk: World Totalitarian Alliance in Construction?

(To be continued...)

[dragonofdarknesschaos]

Loniani-Nui, Eon's dragon partner and now a dragon spirit roaming in Planet of the Dragons was a princess protecting the Thousand Layers Mountain? What was the role and responsibilities of the princess? And does that means Kaila is a dragon too?

TL;DR:

Loniani-Nui is not a princess; she never protected the Thousand Layer Mountain.

She was at least in charge of protecting the balance of her world (the dragon world) along with the Xiaolin Order (who protects the rest of the world).

Outside of being Monk Eon's dragon partner, she might have acted as a priest and facilitated Dragon Bonding rites. Chase broke the rules and did it alone, so we don't know for sure.

While there is a strong resemblance between Princess Kaila and Loniani-Nui, in the event the two are mother and daughter, Kaila would be 1/4 dragon, and in my book, that's not enough to qualify or manifest powers.

We don't really know about Kaila, because canon never elaborated on her past. The only information we have about her is that she's ancient enough that she aided in Wuya's defeat and imprisonment (inside a spring inside a puzzle box). Wuya blames Kaila for the Heylin Witch's imprisonment, but that implies that Kaila was not physically present at the time of Wuya's defeat. Kaila was transformed into the monster that first emerges from the Thousand Layer Mountain likely sometime between helping Dashi and the Xiaolin Order (at the time) and shortly after Wuya's defeat and imprisonment. It is possible that Wuya cursed Kaila to turn into the initial monster form.

The only clues about Kaila's past that are concrete are the ruined backrooms of the palace/temple she gave the current generation of Monks, coupled with Barkey's interest in her whereabouts after he awakens in "Mi Temple, Mi Casa."

What I can gather from all of this is that, whenever Kaila was transformed into a monster, she was likely imprisoned by her own servants and disciples who did not recognize her, or the people from neighboring towns and villages. Barkey, who was tasked with guarding her, fell into despair after she was imprisoned and didn't take care of his duties as a Xiaolin Dragon Warrior. This is why he transformed into a tree at some point. But, this lapse in his duties allowed him to stay alive for over a thousand years, so... I guess it all shakes out?

I can't seem to find the episode that clearly shows the damaged portion of the palace/Temple, but it is from this scene where all the Monks hang out and talk strategy on this four poster... bed? Seating pedestal? Looking at this screen cap though, that clearly looks like a framed window. I remember another scene with bright daylight where the Monks rush into the chamber, and you can clearly see how much damage has been done to this part of the Temple; a great and fierce battle took place there long ago.

==========================

Loniani-Nui seemed to be a kind of two-spirit entity. She was both a dragon and a human. Now, Xiaolin Showdown established in season two's "Enter the Dragon" that dragons can shapeshift into any form they want; they generally look very scaly, unless Dojo is not adept at shapeshifting. There is also a long history of folklore and stories where dragons do shapeshift into various forms to help aid their goals with humans. As such, it is possible that Loniani-Nui was an adept shapeshifter dragon, and used this ability to get close to humans and aid her dragon kinfolk. While that is the simplest explanation, it doesn't expand well into the rest of canon's meta, but it does fit.

I like to believe that Loniani-Nui is half dragon AND half human. Don't worry about how that is; something, something goddess, something she was just born that way. Now, because she had her feet in both worlds, she could have been partially responsible for hooking Dashi--and the rest of the first generation of Xiaolin Dragon Warriors--up with dragon partners, allowing them to access the knowledge and power they needed to ascend to the rank of "Dragon Warrior." She was in charge of creating and maintaining balance for the world.

Loniani-Nui and Princess Kaila share a lot of physical similarities in their character designs, almost to the point that I think they might be mother and daughter. Upper eyelid shape, similar lips and mouths, similar body types, similar hair shapes, similar brow shapes. Because the flashbacks are all in this cool-to-warm purple gradient, it's impossible to tell if the two share color similarities too. Tonally, both have darker skin and dark eyes; Loniani-Nui seems to have lighter toned hair though.

It is possible that Nui and one of the Young brothers created life together, and that life was Kaila. There is no mention or allusion to the Xiaolin Dragons in-training needing to take a vow of chastity, but many fans headcanon that this is just unspoken (can't talk about sex on a kid's show). But that then implies that ALL of Loniani-Nui and Kaila's descendants would have to keep mating and producing the next would-be goddess to take on the mantle Nui created. Kaila being transformed into a monster and imprisoned means that she wasn't able to do that; the cycle was broken. Throws a wrench into everything, doesn't it?

It's better if the mantle is passed from the holder to someone they feel is worthy and powerful enough to wield it. In this regard, it doesn't matter if Kaila and Nui are related or not--Nui felt that Kaila was worthy, just as Kaila believes that Shadow is worthy. In short, keep the headcanons you want about any possible blood relations, just keep the power transferring headcanons separate.

Loniani-Nui was never referred to as a princess, even among dragons. If she was guarding or protecting anything, it was the homeland of her dragon kin (the Dragon Planet), or the balance of the world, as the Xiaolin Order does. While it is possible she could have been the acting guide for when a potential Dragon Warrior matched with a dragon, she was not present for Chase preforming the ritual against everyone's wishes. That doesn't mean anything. She was never meant to guard or be near the Thousand Layer Mountain.

Kaila was, and still is, a princess. She is referred to with that title throughout the series. It is possible that the Thousand Layer Mountain was just the homeland of her people, and she happened to live in the palace her whole life. There is no mention of an emperor, empress, king, or queen, so it is possible that she was a "Crown Princess" like Elena of Avalor, and had governing power over her people. We just don't know, because it's not relevant to the plot of XC.

If Kaila is even partially dragon, it's at least a quarter of her entire makeup, which, unless you're a Saiyan from the Dragonball franchise, doesn't give you enough access to the "super dragon powers" to qualify as a dragon.

I hope that fully answers your questions!

[goldenheartstudios]

I wanna talk about Xiaolin Showdown's iconic betrayal scene

  Disclaimer: I would have said that this post has spoilers for the show.. but does it still count if this is a cartoon from 2003? I dunno

  Anyway, time to indulge into my hyperfixation once again

  You see, there are shows that do something which can be seen as an interesting twist for that era. It can be seen as something special, iconic, recognizable, because of the way it was presented and the idea that it brought up

  Even if there were shows who did that idea before, the show can still make it into something special that can bring a twist to its episodic structure it showed from the start

  For me, Xiaolin Showdown brought that special twist with its introduction with Mala Mala Jong

  For a show that seemed like an episodic lesson-of-the-week kind of cartoon, it showed its attention and care for continuity by telling us that they kept track of which Shen Gong Wu belonged to which, and by providing us a cool looking villain that was defeated in an interesting way

  And, well, what made this thing even more special was the introduction to the first arc of the series that brought a full-on twist to its episodic style, being also the first arc that needed a short recap at the start of the episodes

  The betrayal arc

  Which is something that I want to analyze

  First of all, what makes it interesting is the fact that Raimundo, a protagonist, willingly sided with the bad guys. No mind control, no corruption, and not even possession

  It was his choice to join Wuya, which made it on more impactful when he chose to do the right thing in the end

  Secondly, his betrayal is also interesting because it seems that what led to it was something simple, but you can actually go deeper into it

  If you think about it, its possibility was hinted from episode 5, and what led to the betrayal is a series of circumstances and motives

  Let me explain

  At the beginning of the show, each monk got their special episode, where they get to fight their own showdown and show more about themselves. Omi got episode 1, Clay got episode 2, Kimiko got episode 3, and Rai got episode 5 (episode 4 showed a Shen Gong Wu that was useful in defeating Mala Mala Jong)

  In his episode, Raimundo showed a desire to be active, ingenuity, arrogance, bravery, and most importantly, his reaction to failure: irritation, frustration, crossing his arms, deflective/defensive behavior, and closing himself off from others

  He’s the kind of person who avoids showing vulnerability by keeping a lot of his emotions inside and showing tendencies of self-isolation, especially when he’s experiencing failure. One thing to keep in mind is that he later on showed determination of proving himself only after Fung went to talk to him, who he helped him redirect his frustration and energy to something productive

  In episode 8 we get to see more of his bravery, heroism and even self-sacrificial tendencies, by facing the Sapphire Dragon on his own in order for his friends to have a chance to escape

  And aside from hints of his kindness and care throughout every episode (up till episode 11 at least), episode 9 clearly showed his care & brotherly behavior from his worry that he had towards Omi being lost in New York

  Although, episode 11 showed him being annoyed at both Kimiko & Clay, and how his frustration can lead to him wanting to distance himself from others

  All of these are important elements for the season finale

  Now let’s go to episode 12. The monks having to run away with their Shen Gong Wu is a direct conflict with Raimundo’s traits & beliefs: he hates staying still, he has a tendency to be heroic, he doesn’t like to feel defeat from the enemy and most importantly, he has a strong desire to protect others

  So him staying away from an enemy that he only heard how strong he is, an enemy that was endangering Fung & the other people from the temple, was not an option in his mind

  And just like in episode 8, he went to face the enemy alone in a desire to protect

  And naturally, he was punished by this

  Honestly, I really like this moment. In other shows, the character could have been appreciated, praised or even rewarded for this act of bravery (My Hero Academia being an example of that), because this is an heroic act, right? Because the character went to face an enemy, when others were running away and trying to think of a way to defeat it while people were in danger

  Here, this was not rewarded. It was rightfully seen as reckless, because being a hero is not just about acting. It’s about doing the right thing, it’s about knowing when it’s the best to act on instinct, and when it’s the best to take a moment and think on how you can help

  Intention is not enough, as you can have the best intentions and still endanger the ones close to you

  Master Fung was right not to reward him for this

  And naturally, Rai doesn’t understand the reason at this moment of time. Because in his perspective, having the heart of a hero is enough, having the bravery to act in times of crisis and help others is enough. He still has yet to learn that you have to first think of a plan before acting, that a hero needs to be brave and wise

  This situation is understandable on both sides. Master Fung sees the flaw in Raimundo’s act and doesn’t reward him for it in order to prevent it to become a habit, and Rai doesn’t yet understand what he was missing in his action and sees this as being unappreciated, as being a failure

  And just like episode 5, he reacts to this failure like the last time: deflection, frustration, and isolating himself from others

  As he walks off, Omi tells the others to leave him be, as this is Rai’s journey for self-reflection

  Which frankly, was a mistake on the other’s (particularly Omi’s) part

  And we know this because of episode 5. Because, Rai only worked on learning and bettering himself after Fung went to talk to him, otherwise he would have still been closed off from others. This showed that Raimundo needs someone to talk to him about the situation in this state, to provide him direction or to give him support. The fact that no one went to talk to him probably led to his thoughts and frustration intensify, which was a factor to his betrayal

  Honestly, if the other monks went to him and had a conversation like Fung did in episode 5, maybe he would have striven to become better and prove himself 

  But I don’t say this to imply that the other monks are at fault for this. They didn’t know that this is what Rai needed, they didn’t even know how to handle this situation (as Rai seemed to reject them when they tried to support him), and Omi genuinely thought that he needed to reflect on his actions alone

  (And they did go to talk with Rain when he left frustrated in episode 18, possibly showing that they learned from this instance)

  I would also like to think that Fung was aware of Rai’s isolation tendencies, which is part of the reason why he asked him to stay when the other monks were getting their new training. He probably didn’t want Rai to be alienated from the group, and this could have been an opportunity to get him motivated to become better, by reaching to his competitive nature

  But to be honest, this was a mistake on Fung’s part. Raimundo saw this as mockery instead of encouragement, and Fung should have gone to him or intervened when Omi (unintentionally) insulted him

  But I could also see that in Fung’s point of view, him trying to reach out or talk to Rai could have made things worse, because unlike episode 5, Fung was the reason why he felt like this. So Rai would have either not listened to whatever he said, or he would have taken it as negative

  Only his friends could have done something in this situation, but Omi already butchered it up, so what was left for Fung to do was to give him space. After all, Raimundo was not obligated to stay if he didn’t want to

  If you think about it, Fung is an interesting character, for being defined by action and inaction. The feeling that he gives me is that he’s someone who tries and wants to help, but he’s unable to, either because of circumstances or by personal beliefs

  And we do see how Fung’s beliefs contribute to Rai’s betrayal. After Raimundo gets more annoyed because of Omi’s comment, he decides to leave this unpleasant situation and go to a familiar place that he sees as a positive one: Rio

  We see how his tendency to close himself off causes distress in him. He doesn’t know what to do with his feelings, and his choice is to stay in a place all alone while searching for something to help him relax, in this case being Rio’s sight

  And this is when Wuya comes in

  I do want to comment that it’s possible for this place to be a recurrence for Raimundo, where he goes to relax or take his mind off of things. This could explain why Wuya was able to find him that fast, since she did go inside his mind

  Now, this moment of temptation seems pretty straight forward: Wuya offers him stuff he likes, and he chooses to betray his friends for that stuff. But from all we’ve seen so far, I would say that there was more to this temptation for Rai

  First of all, he’s all alone. His friends are not beside him, and he didn’t get any direction for his feelings. And as we’ve seen in episode 11, it is possible for him to emotionally distance himself from his friends when he’s frustrated or annoyed, so it would make sense that right now he’s at odds with them

  Second, he’s in clear distress. At this moment, he’s in search of an escape, for something that will make him get away from this unpleasant situation. So the offer of getting things that make him happy is even more tempting for the kid’s mind

  And third, which is the most important fact, he’s in search of appreciation. All of this was caused by the feeling of being unappreciated, so Wuya offering him this and talking to him likes she sees something in him seems like a glimpse of appreciation, of understanding

  And because of circumstances, this was enough to make Raimundo side with her

  But this was not an immediate decision, not at all. I actually think this decision was made after he got the Reversing Mirror

  Now, I do want to comment on the fact that he didn’t change his outfit in the showdown, which could be interpreted that he sided with Wuya at that time. But I don’t think that’s the case

  You see, the beauty of this show is that it has a lot of details and subtlety that can be interpreted however you want, or if you see them they come off as a nice reward. The outfit change in showdowns is one of them

  My personal interpretation is that it depends on the person’s perspective. On some occasions, if the person thinks that they need a special outfit for the showdown (example being some showdowns that are related with cold weather), then they will change into something fitting with what they have in mind. But otherwise, they will change into Xiaolin robes if they think (or feel) they’re on Xiaolin’s side

  In this case, Raimundo keeping his casual clothes shows that he was not on Xiaolin’s side. I would like to believe that he was unsure on whose side to be, and he decided that he will choose at the end of the showdown

  And well, I think Omi’s comment after the showdown helped him make a choice. That choice being Wuya’s side

  I don’t want to make it seem that Omi is the cause of this, because this was a matter of circumstances. With all of the other factors and conflicted emotions he’s been through, Omi’s remark made him realize that, at this moment, he doesn’t want to go through the trouble of proving himself to the others, while getting more annoyed and frustrated in the process

  He wanted to take the easy route that offered him an easier life

  And this route was Wuya’s side

  So yeah, this betrayal may look simple, but it’s a cause of circumstances, mistakes and a kid’s unhealthy coping mechanism, that being his tendency to close himself off from others

  Also, I want to make it clear that you can have other interpretations for this! You can see this moment however you want, and it can be different from the way I see it, which it’s valid and great! And honestly, I don’t think the show planned it to be something deep in the first place haha

  The fact that I can personally interpret it as something like this is one of the reasons why I love this show so much, and it’s why I seem to get back to thinking about this cartoon from 2003 so often

  So yeah, this was my ramble about Rai’s betrayal

[worldismyne]

What Makes a Pilot?

I've been rewatching XS for and pouring over old posts in preparation for a project for the 20th anniversary and it seems the general sentiment is that the first episode isn't the greatest.

Which, I mean fair, not every show can be Gravity Falls. But I still think there's so many things this episode did right in terms of expectations and foreshadowing.

So, without further ado, let's dig into what the Journey of 1000 Miles really did well.

Character Introduction

It's easy to overlook, but it's no coincidence that we first meet Omi in the rain. The entire temple is covered in water in this scene, giving us great establishing shots as well as showing Omi's typical training routine.

He's alone.

When Master Fung asks him to come inside. He begins to respond with "As the Xiaolin Dragon of the Water-" and is promptly cut off to meet the new students joining the temple.

We don't get a lot of 1:1 time with the new students, mostly for time, but the character designers did a create job using visual storytelling to give us an idea of who these other kids are. Also, at this point in the episode, Omi thinks he's the Chosen 'One' and these are his students. To him, their just strangers, he's spends most of this ep trying to get them to act like him instead of trying to figure out who they are. All of this is set up for character-centric eps down the line where we explore who these three are underneath the tropes they've been assigned (Trendy Tech-girl, Class Clown, and Tank respectively). At the end of the episode, we find out these kids are 'chosen ones' as well, they just represent different elements. Which makes sense given one of the first things Omi told us was he was the Xiaolin Dragon of Water (not the Xiaolin Dragon).

[I do always wonder how MF was able to hide there were other dragon warriors for so long, but it was definitely made clear this information was deliberately withheld from him to spare his ego. Kinda makes you wonder if MF really doted on Omi when he was little.]

Last we get Jack, surrounded by a dark/artificial background we see him monologuing towards the light while encased in shadows. He had AI-robots yes, but they're behind him, not who he's talking to. We clearly get the feeling his ambitions are widely bigger than what he can accomplish (what with him being swallowed up by his own lair).

He is also alone.

Unlike Omi, his introduction to the Wu hunt is through one ghost-like threat to humanity. Not peers or even a mentor. For season 1, Jack is Omi's foil and we will see the season explore this idea of 'team vs self' as it relates to personal growth.

Villains/Stakes

Out of all the villains in this series, Wuya by far has the best introduction. From keeping her color palate the same throughout her appearances in this episode to having her represent the Heylin side as a whole. (This screenshot is from a flipped episode. But Dashi's introduced on the same side of the screen as the main characters from the opening, and Wuya's introduced on the same side of the screen as the bad guys).

This show's target demographic was for 6-14 year olds. So they really managed to cram a lot of information into 22 minutes.

We don't know anything about her plans, but we do know she's got a hell of a grudge from getting turned into a squid-ghost and that's really all you need for the majority of season 1.

The Formula

The showdowns were the gimmick of the show to get kids to watch. Much like Pokemon or Yugioh, there was a formula set up on how conflict was resolved over the McGuffins. Granted, the challenge they picked for this ep was probably just to justify the Mantis Flip Coin being remotely useful (which in later seasons it's not). We can casually look past the fact Jack can fly, to understand that the point of this scene is to show how Omi grew just after spending the afternoon with kids his own age (Jack's been stuck with a cryptic cryptid).

It's both the climax of the episode and gives payoff to all the little jokes and gags setup earlier in the episode. It's tight, fast passed, and info dumpy as all get out. But that's what it's meant for.

Final Thoughts

This episode wasn't designed to be compared to other episodes in the season. It was designed to be compared to other cartoons on the air at the time.

Most of the cartoons in 2003 were 'slice of life'/comedy shows. The major exceptions being Teen Titans and anime (Yugioh, Pokemon, Digimon, etc). This episode was an elevator pitch to younger kids.

Do you want to get invested in this story instead?

It's funny like it's competitors, but it also world builds, and it was pulling inspiration from shows geared at an older audience. It sets up an expectation of magical items and routine so it can take those expectations and subvert them.

This is basically a prologue. A teaser of what's to come.

But man does it get a lot done in one episode that some shows would take four to do.

[narvana27]

While writing my previous post about moment's when Jack Spicer was evil FOR REAL I thought about how stupid was the idea in "Time after Time" part 1 of monks being trapped in Jack's prison after Omi froze himself. It's suggesting that they wouldn't be able to fight JACK without Omi. Jack Spicer. The character that is the least harmful villain of the show, that was made a comic relief of the series with time, and who's ass was CONSTANTLY beaten by all of them. Now, suddenly, after Omi and Dojo are gone, they can't fight him! C'mon! I understand the part with Dojo, because without him they can't find more shen gong wu, and I understand that morals of Kim, Rai and Clay were probably out of place since one of their team mate just randomly disappeared, but let's not make a whore out of logic, ok? We see that after 80 years that took Omi and Dojo to un-froze themselves, Jack has improved his Jackrobots, cuz they were visibly different - they were bigger and had more deadly weapons in them, but that still aint a good explanation why Jack won.

Monks have powers! Like fire - easily would melt them, wind - crush them over anything, same with earth. Not to mention that they(monks) were crushing and destroying these robots with absolutely no effort even before they had their powers (example: the first episode ever). Soo... Yea, no excuse for that 🙄. And I would understand if show would give as a backup of this unbelievable story like: "Yea, Jack was working with Wuya and Chase or Wuya and Hannibal, so that's how they win over the monks and trapped them, but then Jack screws over his allies, and that's how he got so powerful". But there's nothing like this, so we have to believe that Jack just randomly winning over 3 good trained xiaolin monks that used to whoop his ass, all by himself, was a true situation.

(Ok, as I was watching this episode again I realized I forgot about the fact Jack build his place in Chase's palace, and then he had Wuya's stone...Monsters, idk how to call it by his side, so the theory about them working together could be true, but still- nothing like this was mentioned. So wtf?)

NOT TO MENTION that like - Okay, let's ASSUME that this would actually happen (which I proved wouldn't, but okay) - Why wouldn't they escape? Like why? Quoting Cardi B:  "What was the reason?!" Cuz I dont see it gurl. Jack's prison couldn't be built exactly in the way we saw it, that had to take a looot of time AND money. So building that big complex would be possible only AFTER Jack takes over the world.

So, if that's the case there HAD to be some unfinished hall's, walls, places that would let monks escape. I mean - again, they are smart, for sure smarter than Jack (which I love you bro but... you know) and they have powers. They would escape! Especially having vision above their head of Jack having control over the whole world? Gurl they would be running! Shitting, screaming, throwing up - doing EVERYTHING just to stop it and not letting it happen. I think the only excuse that was given was a line where Omi asked who got promoted to be shoku. And Kim said it was her, but she admitted that she didn't do a great job with this. I mean yes, technically as a leader making decisions was up to her, but the 3 of them still were making a team. It doesn't mean that Kim had to think about everything herself, and the boys just stood there waiting for her to come up with something and did completely nothing. And another point: They could easily escape just by fooling Jack somehow. Like, code to his safe with all of the wu was literally 1-2-3-, and he even left the note with it at the side of the safe, but somehow he was genius enough not to let them escape?

Yes, Jack is (as well as me tbh) this kind of someone who is slow and smart at the same time. He's building robots, and one time he even build a fucking time machine. But at the same time he needs to mark his shoes and belt to know how to put it on. So, if he's genius enough to catch the monks, he would (canonically) have to be stupid enough to let them escape. We can understand the villains there, I mean Wuya, Chase and Hannibal, who were chained or even locked in a cage (like Bean). But monks were just closed in one cell! But when Omi suddenly appears he menages to do it for them, motivates them in a split of a second and does the job just like that? Just because he's Omi? So if he's that great why didn't he become shoku then? I know, that was a long rant on some plot hole in a cartoon, but when I realized it, it just bothered me so much I had to make this long ass analysis cuz what the fuck is with this Omi glorification? Like stop it, it didn't make any sense, you are wrong for that XD