#aos season five

[maidenofthecloud]

Warning spoiler: I am going to publish my theories that have spoilers of season five of Lego Monkie Kid for those who have not seen it

There is a scene in the episode "Strings That Bind" that caught my attention and it is when Monkey King is placing the origami figure of Ao Lie in its place.

At first we see him happy probably remembering the pilgrims but then... his expression changes

And then we see him with one eyebrow raised, making an expression almost like doubt 🤨

as if he were realizing something is missing, something doesn't make sense but we don't know what it is.

This could be due to his earlier conversation with Macaque but This happens right after he was folding Ao Lie's origami figure

so i think he was just reminding the pilgrims, especially of Ao Lie

by the way an unimportant detail but in this scene we can see the origami figures of the pilgrims they all seem to be straight but curiously the orgami figure of ao lie is not

It's silly but I think it could mean that unlike the rest Ao Lie is alive

Although maybe I'm just overanalyzing, what do you think?

[oh-three]

As much as I love AOS and Talbot's S5 arc, I will never forgive the writers for robbing us of the rest of the team finding out about what happened to him.

Like??? Half of everyone was rogue running their own mission, they weren't even on base when his programming got activated, much less when the Zephyr brought him and Coulson back.

I want to see everyone's pity, everyone's horror when they realize what happened to him while they were in the future. I wish everyone got to see how broken up he was when Coulson and Mack stopped him from kidnapping Robin. How did they explain it to them? Did they show them the camera footage? What did they say??

[etrevil]

Absolutely living for these bsd and jjk wings

These four songs are just bangers that deserve their spots 😭 (with lyrics that are knives in the guts)

[rainbow-beanie]

One instance of wukong being taught about enduring pain through punishment, and two times where he attempted to use those teachings in the future

One, the circlet: as most of you know, the circlet had been gifted to Tripitaka by bodhesattva quanyin in order to quell wukong’s violent tendencies through putting the golden circlet around his head and inciting a sutra that caused it to tighten around wuking’s head, causing wukong to feel like his head was about to explode, and in one instance the circlet had actually tightened around his head for so long that wukong’s head looked like a gourd. Look up what a gourd is and you’ll quickly realize how painful that must’ve been for him.

Two: after the journey it had been explained somewhere, or at least hinted that wukong had hid himself away on flower fruit mountain for five hundred years, possibly after imprisoning dbk underneath a mountain. And wukong had felt so bad after doing so that he thought he would use one of the most important lesson his master had taught him isolating himself from the world, knowing that doing so would give him the most pain, since being a monkey means that he’s very social, so isolation seemed to be the most fitting punishment for him. Now did he do this intentionally or subconsciously? I’ll leave it up to interpretation.

Three: sat either during or after the journey, after wukong had accidentally let a piece of the samadhi fire escape and finding its way into ao lie. Five hundred years later in the present, wukong thought up a plan where he would have the samadhi fire that had passed on to mei from her great great a million times grandfather ao lie, and put it inside him during a ritual that would have sent the samadhi fire into him, leaving him to experience the same sheering pain that his longest brother had experienced. that has been theorized to have killed him. Something that would have left wukong feeling absolutely broken with guilt, knowing that his recklessness had made him lose one of his closest friends.

And unfortunately because of the actions of macaque (and by extension lbd) wukong had been too late to stop the samadhi fire to consume mei from the inside, the same thing that had happened to ao lie.

The thing to take from this is the circlet had unintentionally made wukong think that punishing himself by putting himself through extreme pain is the only way for him to ever have even the slightest chance of being forgiven. Even if said mistake wasn’t entirely his fault.

[soulful-roses]

Hiiiiii :3

[penfxx]

everyday i wish they made a full tv series of of star trek AOS

[tennis-kittens]

AO 2024 • Doubles • R1 • Miscellaneous

[daria1611]

Just finished watching season 5 of AOS.. SCREAMING SOBBING CRYING THROWING MYSELF AGAINST THE WALL. i need help

[the-master-of-games]

wowie I wonder who this could be!

[maidenofthecloud]

Warning spoiler: I am going to publish my theories that have spoilers of season five of Lego Monkie Kid for those who have not seen it

ao lie is alive

It's not said that he died in the show, although to be fair it's not explicitly said that the pilgrims died, but we know that the monkie kid gang are the reincarnations of the pilgrims so it is implied that they died at some point in the past

That would mean that Mei is her reincarnation but i don't really think so because when the monkie kid gang are trapped in the memory scroll

tang takes the role of Tripitaka, pigsy takes the role of zhu bajie and sandy being Sha Wujing

but mei doesn't start acting like ao lie, no, she talking with him, they literally have a conversation.

This brings me to the next questions what happened to ao lie

Sun Wukong doesn't even seem to know where he is

Here's a crazy idea: So but what if Ao Lie managed to escape the cycle and is currently in the chaos space

Maybe Ao Lie tried to tell Sun Wukong and escape with him, but couldn't or something went very wrong

It's not enough proof to say that Ao Lie is alive somewhere but I can dream.

what do you think?

[all-that-jazz-93]

Okay so Fitz is my favorite character, but I actually don't have strong opinions about The Devil Complex

[rudikawhy]

Spoiler for S05 E22

I mean I knew that "Fitz" was gonna die in this episode and still it hurt like hell. I also knew that Coulson wouldn't be saved and I still cried.

Now I try to imagine what it's must have been like for people watching back then when nobody knew what would be coming next. When people had to wait ONE YEAR to learn how the story continues, if Fitz will be there, what about Deke, how does May get back on board, and so on and so on.

[ashboy-3]

Y’all like don’t understand with how much I love this show. It’s like my top 3

You’re the illuminati spy. - Ao no Exorcist: Shimane Illuminati-hen - Episode 3

[die-auster]

Some "if Yue is alive and went travelling with the Gaang" designs

With a ton of text about cultural inspiration.

The main book 2 look

I wanted to show cultural differences between the tribes, so Yue's look is sort of Mongolian. There were Mongolian-styled hats in the Northern tribe, and Yue's dress under the coat looked like a Mongolian deel (thanks @atlaculture for all these posts about clothes and everything else!), so it's not much against the canon information.

So she's wearing a deel again with a second layer - there are chinese actors on photos as far as I know; I hope it's okay. One-shoulder silhouette refers to later Aang's clothes because Yue is still kind of a spiritual person (she wasn't a fighter, so I want her to have some other useful talent – not a bender or healer like Katara or a non-bender warrior like Suki). Violet, pink and white were originally her colors, no changes here. Three blue characters would be too much for a group of five, and total white is not practical at all. I like to think that violet color shows high rank in the Avatar universe; in the original series it was only worn by princess Yue, Kanna, the chief Hakoda's mother, and by king Bumi.

Yue's boots here are mongolian gutals/gutuls (the collage is already big, but I used them again for one of Book 3-looks).

Her hair become simpler – just two braids and a hairpiece, to match her previous decorated hairdo. I guess if she's travelling with the Gaang she's not that much of a Moon Spirit anymore (maybe she returned the part of the moon spirit that saved her and was healed other way?), so I decided to forego the moon-referring part. Also it will be easier to do by herself since she has no servants now... The headdress I took from modern Mongolian dancers; the front part is crescent-moon-shaped.

The Ba Sing Se dress

I fell in love with this Ao Dai dress, it's simple, long and elegant. But... it's mostly Vietnamese… and I'm afraid that it's modern and not historically accurate. Also it does not really go together with other Ba Sing Se dresses :( because I did not want to just copy-paste some background look. But there is at least one dress with a tail, thigh high slits and a standing collar on the dress underneath, so... I guess my choice is not that bad? The tail makes her look more royal. The fan is the same which Toph and Katara had. For the palette I chose Yue's white color with EK greens and warm yellow/ochre to match Katara and Toph. The hairdo is copied from the series; I chose one with the tassel on the right, to refer the NWT/Korean accessories.

The Fire Nation disguise

A confession – I don't like FN clothes. I wasn't sure if I would be able to do it properly, so I almost copied that attire (left one) – asymmetry, as a Thai touch, which again matches Aang's Invasion Buddhist-like clothes. The palette keeps Yue's signature white, with some pink of a warmer shade, as they wear it in the Fire Nation. And the "royal" long skirt, 'cause she's still not a fighter. The look is simplified so I could not keep zigzag ornament on her longyi skirt, therefore I moved it onto the top part.

I used Thai dancers jewelry and... flip flops? idk how they are called in Southeast Asia (don't like Sokka and Katara's FN shoes at all, why the design is so complicated?).

For covering her hair I used a turban, inspired by Myanmar turbans; a white one, so if some hair will show, it won't be too noticeable. Also Yue could still be easily recognised on screen/page by her white head. The long end of the fabric on her right resembles burmese hairstyle silhouette.

The Invasion-and-till-finale look

For her dress I used a deel (again); the sleeveless jacket is an hommage to her original design and has some Korean vibes, like Toph's Ba Sing Se dress (at least I hope so). Katara and Sokka's season 1 looks have Korean influence, so I guess it's okay. Gutals are from her Book 2 main look. I have a soft spot for them.

My favorite thing is her hair :)))) It's a mix of Inuit/Mongolian braids and a hairpiece, also from the Book 2 look. This time there will be more braids. Two on the front – I wanted to keep them from her original hairdo, but now they are braided together (I saw this on the Alaskan Inuit/Eskimo women photos). On the back there are five, inspired by a Mongolian hairdo for young unmarried girls, who wore multiple braids. I decided to make five, because Alaskian Inuit language uses this amount for counting and with two front braids it'll make seven, which is a lucky Mongolian number. And in theory a limited number should be easier to animate.

The post-canon noble look

After the final battle I thought Yue will come back to Agna Qel'a and become a more active political figure. I chose a white kuspuk (blue color is still for Katara and Sokka), showing that she is ready to lead her tribe after this journey, not the passive perfect princess she was before. "She is associated in canon with the masculine yang of the yin and yang and the moon which, in most Inuit and Eskimo cultures, is considered masculine as well. While white kuspuks are associated with men and specifically family patriarchs, a feminine kuspuk in white makes plenty of sense for Yue's character" – @mostly-mundane-atla helped me a lot with the cultural meaning of the clothes (I am so grateful!). Also it's an hommage to her total-white Moon Spirit look. And I changed her hair again to Greenland updo with two tied braids on the front – more complicated than the simple braids she wore during the journey. It looks formal.

NWT is less Inuit-inspired and has a strong Mongolian touch (to make them look more "modern"? dunno) but I guess the formal wear for the spiritual princess could refer to older traditions. Which should be the same with SWT, 'cause SWT was originally a part of NWT – or so I heard. For example, Kuruk, the NWT Avatar who lived about 400 years ago, has nothing Mongolian in his look.

All the looks are simplified to match the style of the original cartoon. I know there should be more details and embroidery, but my goal here was to draw something (at least theoretically) applicable for animation. And no Hahn's betrothal necklace of course.

Also I want to mention here other great Yue designs, since they are the inspiration behind the overall idea of the post – the moon looks and "Yue joins the Gaang" outfits by amazingly talented @chiptrillino.

P.S.: an important note

This is my first attempt ever to design outfits that could fit the world of A:tLA. I am not Asian or ingenious, not an expert in their cultures or costume history at all, not a professional character designer. I am just a fan who tried to create designs with respect to real cultures and people. Nothing here was supposed to be offensive in any way. If something still is – please inform me so I could fix it as soon as possible.

I hope, as a fan, I have the right to draw fanarts looking for an inspiration in the cultures that inspired the original cartoon.

If you see mistakes in my post, be it in drawings or a text, also feel free to tell me. I will deeply appreciate it.

[kaivenom]

Our first and last dance, i suppose

Summary: After messing with the universe and changing the timeline for last time, the universe it's ending and you only want to do one hing before that.

Paring: Five Hargreeves x reader

Warning: angst, fluff, drinking, the end of the world, it's short.

A/N: in this imagine you both went back in time so you have the same age and bodies, but imagine the bodies are 18 years old.

Masterlist

(Imagine Ed Sheeran's song "Perfect" playing on the backrgound)

All the family was celebrating Luther and Sloane's wedding, you were happy for them. The music was playing on the background and you were letting yourself get loosen up a little, you were a little drunk too. After the wild season you had and plus the end of the world happening, you needed to forget everything.

You got again to the bar, jumping a little to sit, this young adult body it's still new. Five was next to you, sipping some glass of alcohol.

"I'm taking what he is taking."

"Are you sure?" his eyes were soft when he looks at you, you loved that.

"I am only sure about two things, i want to continue drinking and i want to dance... with you."

"We would figure out how to restart the universe, i promise." he put his hand on yours kindly.

"I don't care, i only want a free night, away from everything... just with you."

"Then we should dance."

He went to the dance floor, interconneting his hand with yours. The music was slow, your bodies started to bounce at the rythm. You lean yourself on his chest and he put his hand on your waist.

"This it's beautifull, we should have done this a long time ao."

"Yeah, we should have, but i am a little stupid and unconventional... you know that."

"I know, and you had Dolores."

"Dolores was good but the time on the Comission with you were the best, even though i hate the Comission."

"I wish we could have more time."

"I will find the way, i promise."

"I think we could make pretty awesome ghosts."

"I am not letting that happen."

The song continued playing but you didn't care, there was only Five's hearbeat and the slowly swing of your bodies. His hands were cold but the alcohol didn't let you care about it. You both were drunk but the moment was vividly on your minds and hearts. He placed little kisses on your forehead from time to time. The perfect moment before disaster, you couldn't wish for nothing more.

[itsabouttimex2]

I've seen people say that Mei's samadhi fire arc was rushed, I never really thought about it that much, but I wanted to ask more LMK fans about their opinion on it. I can't stop pondering about it sometimes.

The Samadhi Fire Arc

Honestly, in my opinion? The Samadhi Fire plot is probably the least rushed arc in all of Monkie Kid.

Season Four to me is rushed because they try to squeeze in lore about the Pilgrims, MK’s heritage, Pigsy’s feelings on being an adoptive father, the Monkie Crew’s feeling on their ancestors/forebearers, the Brotherhood, the Ink Scroll, and then try to set up for Season Five while they’re at it.

Season Five to me is rushed because they try to squeeze in Xiangliu, Nüwa, and Li Jing and flesh all three out with very little time to spread between another fetch quest (this makes four in total through only five seasons) while also trying to give attention to Mei, Tang, Pigsy, Sandy, Red Son and MK while not even having a special to help take some burden off of the 100-minute crunch the writing team unfortunately has to deal with.

However…

Because the writers set up the Lady Bone Demon beforehand, she’s not given too much direct attention in this season until near the end, instead getting occasional appearances throughout by interacting with Macaque and then Wukong and to some degree infecting both with her power.

Which means that we get a full ten episodes plus a special for essentially only two things- the Samadhi Fire foremost, with the Lady Bone Demon in the background until about the special, from my recollection.

This means Mei does get her fair share of character development throughout Season Three, which you would think might allow us to see her perspective and thoughts on the world around her. We do get to see a little more of her desire to “live up” to her ancestors very early on, but it’s addressed quickly and then entirely dropped.

Like, this was a heavily Mei-centric season! We should’ve gotten some thoughts and backstory and personal views and whatnot, but the Samadhi Fire basically took full control over any narrative that could’ve allowed the story to delve deeper into, well, Mei.

But it feels kinda like Mei herself is… secondary to the power inside of her at times, where she’s very much just an unlucky and draconic vessel.

Now this wouldn’t have been such a big deal if we had gotten something beyond the already seen “Mei wants to live up to her family’s expectations without comprising her moral values and self-identity”, but, uh… they dealt with that in the first season and resolved it pretty neatly. Her conflict with Ao Guang is just retreading water in the same way, when it would’ve been nice to have a deviation of some kind.

On a more positive note, one of the best things the season gives us is learning how she’s come to view Sun Wukong in the form of a tearful rant about his actions and the impact they’ve had on her and her friends.

That only matters to her for a few minutes, unfortunately, but it’s a highlight of the season, and I wish it hadn’t been dropped so quickly.

Now, her not being allowed to interact with him or Macaque past the third season in regards to the ways they’ve continuously endangered and hurt her is a horrible letdown that severely undermines the character growth of all three, which is part of the reason I think some people call it rushed.

Mei’s possession of the Samadhi Fire is dropped until season five, so it feels ultimately unimportant. Red Son; in spite of being fundamental to Mei’s mastery of his power, gets shelved from season four the next time we see him. Sun Wukong’s recklessness and threadbare “planning” is essentially forgotten about, because the next two seasons just find new shit for people to scream at him about. All of Macaque’s… everything, really, goes entirely ignored by the characters, narrative, and story.

And obviously that’s not exactly satisfying from a watcher’s perspective, because it feels like everything just has a strangely neat bow tied onto it in spite of there being lots of messy business in the past that still needs to be addressed, but just isn’t because there’s they’ve decided to write another “the world is going to end plot” instead of taking a breath and working through existing issues instead of circumventing older ones as irrelevant.

I think people are disappointed when they look backwards that these plot points or emotional beats were dropped and left unaddressed or only resolved with a heavy dose of “secretly all alongs”. For example…

Red Son somehow tracks Mei down without any real explanation. (No biggie, probably some kind of tech or magic. Him getting there isn’t as important as what he’s doing, so it can be ignored.) He decides to train her. For some reason he's good at teaching people to control themselves, even though he was barely able to control himself in seasons prior? Off-screen character development is never exactly satisfying, at least to me.

Throughout all of this interaction, he never once expresses the slightest of desire to reclaim or recreate the Fire for himself, and is content with Mei having it. Red even openly declares that the power is “hers” at the climax of the story.

(I could get into how fans treat Red Son + Samadhi Fire ((plus pandering from the writers)) in comparison to Mei, but that’s a rant for some other time…)

With his encouragement, Mei harnesses the Samadhi Fire and helps defeat LBD! This has a lot of longstanding implications for her place in the story and her role as a parallel force to MK! How exciting!

Sike! The Samadhi Fire is fucking gone, only one mention of it in the season, where an omniscient old man inside a hell scroll tells us that it’s gone.

Sike! Mei secretly all along still has the Samadhi Fire and also secretly all along has an insecurity complex over thinking she lost it but all of this is handled in about a minute.

Red Son secretly all along wanted to learn where the Samadhi Fire came from and is trying to recreate it...? When he's seen and felt how dangerous and uncontrollable it is and home of this was established before??

So, when you build up all these things for a full season and then drop most of them the fourth and wait until the fifth to resolve them, I think it left a very jarring impact on viewers who came to view the season as “rushed”… but only in hindsight.

It’s not a flaw I would attribute until I’m on the fifth season and thinking “this should’ve been addressed in an earlier season.”

Now, personally, there are some plot points I’m not really a fan of, like, again, the “macguffin fetch quest” nature of the Samadhi Fire rings. Normally I wouldn’t mind but again, this is Monkie Kid’s third macguffin hunt in total, and we get a fourth in Season Five. (Spider Venom Cure ingredients, LBD’s Mech Building, Samadhi Fire Rings, Power Stones)

Though I think the City of Lanterns is a cute bit of worldbuilding, like with most Monkie Kid worldbuilding it’s basically “Look at this cool thing! Enjoy it now, because we’re never coming back or addressing it again!” like they did with the Team Hideout, the Cloud and the Weather Station. “Look at this cool place! Okay we’re done showcasing a potential Lego set, change the backdrop!”

Or another is Sun Wukong just being… magically immune to it once he gets possessed?

Like, the whole reason he had to set out on this fetch quest was because the Lady Bone Demon was distinctly NOT immune to it? And he also was NOT immune to it? Because the Samadhi Fire is a wildly dangerous all-consuming fire that could destroy all of existence, but apparently all it takes to be totally unaffected by it is powerful person + possession by another powerful person? But again I guess the world-building and power systems of Monkie Kid have always been patchy and thin but it’s still frustrating AUGHHH

But I personally don’t think it’s “rushed” until it’s revealed later on that actually, “There’s more to the story!” when a lot of the story we have is just kinda… left hanging.

TLDR for anyone who skipped down here: It’s only rushed in hindsight. If someone theoretically stopped watching after Season Three I don’t think it would be called “rushed”.