#but I just want to say I would really like to see Lloyd get corrupted with the Shatterspin gong or whatever

[makotoismyson]

I’ve only seen the first two episodes of dragons rising season two and so far Lloyd has collapsed from exhaustion, had panic attacks, and experienced a dissociative episode. Even the show knows this boy is traumatized beyond belief at this point.

[mislamicpearl]

I really hope Arin's betrayal arc isn't resolved in one season. I want it to be a series long thing.

I want him to slowly become more and more unwittingly corrupted by Ras until he actually starts believing the things he says rather than just needing him to find his parents. I want there to be multiple run-ins between him and the ninja - namely Sora and Lloyd - where he'd have the chance to go back to them but due to Ras's manipulations plus more revelations shattering his image of Lloyd and the ninja, he chooses to go back to Ras each time. I want him to have his own journey that we actually see (unlike with Jay) that would mirror Sora's journey with Lloyd, but fuel him with opposing ideas about what the right thing to do is and where true strength lies.

I want him to run into other people who think they have been wronged by the ninja and for his hero-worship of them to dwindle further away as he hears other biased perspectives. I want him to drop warnings to Sora whenever they happen to cross paths because even though he hasn't forgiven her he still thinks she'd be better off leaving Lloyd, but then get even more bitter and angry towards her when she defends him, and then saying hurtful things to her in retaliation, about how blessed she is to have so much natural talent AND to have found a family to belong to, how nice it is to not care about her own parents. Of how the Merge gave her everything while taking everything away from him.

And I want him to be given opportunities, near the end of the series (or by season 5 at least if they make it that far), to see the difference between Lloyd and Ras, how Lloyd doesn't give up even when he'd like to, how he tries so hard to save everyone and do the right thing despite what might happen to the people he cares about, and how much of a heavy weight being the green ninja actually is. I want him to hear the full story of what happened to Garmadon, how Lloyd had to say goodbye to his own father for the greater good of Ninjago. I want him to start missing Sora and remembering how much she meant to him, how they were all the other had after the merge, and I want him to realize (perhaps through talking to someone who knew her before like Jordana or her parents) how truly lonely she'd been before she met him. I want him to see that she values him as the most important person and best friend in her life, and that even if Lloyd has to put the world first, there's someone else who would put nothing in front of having him back with her.

I want him to be pushed so far into the dark side that he sees what he's risking by crossing the line and is horrified by it, and only has one more chance to hesitate... and then finally decide to turn back, where Lloyd and Sora are waiting with open arms.

[theresistanceneverquits]

List of small Garmadon details/moments in canon that I feel define his character, in approximate timeline order:

Garmadon attempted to be the voice of reason and didn’t want to disobey their father (“Never Trust a Human”)

When Wu’s sword was lost over the wall, Garmadon acted as the responsible older sibling to retrieve it (“Rise of the Snakes”)

His father and brother both speak of a “darkness” in Garmadon while he’s a teen, but this refers mostly to mood swings and impulsivity, and Garmadon felt as if there was nothing truly wrong with him (The Curse of the Cat-Eye Jewel)

“I know what it is to feel rejected by my father.” (The Curse of the Cat-Eye Jewel)

He is enthusiastic about traveling the world moreso than finding a “cure” (The Maze of the Sphinx)

Wu is uncertain whether Garmadon really is different, or if it is merely a placebo effect: “We can’t seem to agree on anything lately. Then again, Garmadon and I have never agreed on much!” (The Maze of the Sphinx)

“We make a great team!” “Yeah!” Garmadon agreed, but a flash of doubt clouded his brain. Does he really mean it? Wu hadn’t looked at me the same ever since that dumb snake bit me. And as for being a team…he’s always trying to tell me what to do. How is that teamwork?” (The Maze of the Sphinx)

Garmadon looks into a magic mirror and sees his future form, as well as “two figures in silhouette next to the terrifying figure, with their backs turned to him. One looked like a kid[…] Is my father right? Is there really evil inside me?[…] A feeling of utter loneliness and despair swept over him.” (The Maze of the Sphinx)

Had intrusive thoughts to abandon Wu in the maze, but went back for him after realizing those thoughts would lead to that horrible future (The Maze of the Sphinx)

“Somehow, he felt in his bones that he could not escape his destiny.” He gives up a wish to cure himself by saving their new ally, but keeps up the facade that he thinks he’s fine even though he now has doubts. “Besides, I keep telling you, I don’t need saving.” (The Maze of the Sphinx)

“I did the right thing, he told himself. That’s all that matters.” (The Maze of the Sphinx)

“Maybe I do need that tea. I just hope… I hope that when we find it, it’s not too late.” (The Maze of the Sphinx)

“I know he thanked me, but did he say anything about how good it was of me to save him? I mean, he and Father are convinced I’m turning evil. Would an evil guy bravely save his brother from plummeting into a deep abyss? Why doesn’t anybody give me credit for the non-evil stuff that I do?” (The Chroma’s Clutches)

Wu’s thoughts: “On that day in the monastery, years ago, when I lost my katana, I was too afraid to retrieve it. But Garmadon jumped over the wall to get it for me, and got bitten by the snake that may have infected him with evil, as Father expects. I often wonder what would have happened if I had been the one to get bitten that day…” (The Chroma’s Clutches)

Only Garmadon hears the hopeless voice of the Chroma in his head: “There is no hope[…] All is lost. There is no point in continuing your journey, because nothing will change[…] Nothing will change. You are who you are, Garmadon. Deep in his bones, Garmadon knew the Chroma was right. When he wasn’t pretending everything was fine, he could feel the evil inside him, like a poisonous ball in the pit of his stomach. No tea was going to cure him. He knew it. Wu had hope, but why? What was the point of—” (The Chroma’s Clutches)

Garmadon didn’t want to sign the letter Wu had written for Misako, only doing so when his eyes turned red and the Venom took over (“Spellbound”)

He left his training with Chen to help lead the Elemental Masters against the Serpentine War (“Spellbound”)

Garmadon resisted giving into the Venom for centuries before he caved and attempted to steal the Golden Weapons (“Battle Between Brothers”)

“I never wanted [Lloyd] to [be like me]” (“The Royal Blacksmiths”)

Garmadon, once corrupted, is happy to overtake the world, but all those thoughts leave his mind as soon as Lloyd is at risk (“The Royal Blacksmiths,” “The Green Ninja”)

Lloyd: “I’m gonna do everything in my power to stop you.” Garmadon: “I wouldn’t have it any other way[…] You're a good boy. Soon, you'll be a great man. Although we're now on opposite sides, I'm still very proud of you.” (“All of Nothing”)

“Lloyd doesn't want to fight—uh, I mean, so Lloyd doesn't want to fight? [Laughs]” (“The Last Hope”)

Became a pacifist and a teacher (“The Art of the Silent Fist”)

Takes responsibility for his harmful actions (“The Greatest Fear of All,” “The Corridor of Elders”)

“I yearned to make the world in my image. I never realized I already had, in you.” (“The Corridor of Elders”)

Oni Garmadon does not recognize his predecessor’s human form, and has zero memory of those times, but he remembers being married to Misako (“The Fall”/“Big Trouble, Little Ninjago”)

“People ask me: ‘Do you think Lord Garmadon is disappointed in Lloyd, like would he have wanted to see a chip off the old block?’ Well, I think Lloyd could very well have gone that route. We may never really know the exact nature of the disappointment that shaped Garmadon’s path. But I think that no matter what, even—even—in his most deranged state, Lord Garmadon still has abiding affection for his son. And you know that he would trade it all away if he had to safeguard Lloyd. So I think that there’s always going to be the embers of deep affection for his son, no matter what.” (Mark Oliver, “NINJAGO ZANE INTERVIEWS GARMADON part 2/3”)

Garmadon misremembers the incident of when he was bitten. Out of guilt and the weight of his fate being seemingly meaningless, he wishes that Wu had warned him of crossing the wall and he had simply acted defiantly. Regardless, he feels he was “destined for evil” (Garmadon #4)

The Overlord orchestrated the Great Devourer biting Garmadon so he could be the perfect puppet for the Overlord (“Dragon Form”)

[llannasvsp]

Dragons Rising Season 2, Episode 3: Beyond the Phantasm Cave

We are baaaack!! Honestly, I like spreading out my rewatch because I binged all 10 in one sitting. Spreading out my rewatch makes the excitement last longer. Not that I'm running out of excitement. I will never get over this season and it's not even done AGH. ANYWAY. On to the episode!

So, Cinder is Link from Zelda?

You feel the gong what?

Jordana and Cinder beef so real.

Awh, Kai. Glad they didn't forget his anger issues.

Arin is definitely not okay.

LLOYD MEDITATED ALL DAY AGHHH POOR GUY.

Lloyd has every right to be upset and frustrated right now.

Little source dragons!

OH MY GOSH the Netflix subtitles tell us which source dragon symbols correspond with the element!???!?

LIFE SYMBNOL CLAIMS LLOYD EVEROYNE. LIFE SYMBOL. DID ANYONE KNOW THIS?!?! YHHELLO. THIS IS MY FIRST TIME LEARNING OF THIS SO THIS IS A GENUIINE REACTION OH. MYGOSH.

Soooo Strength is a hater.

"He is no ordinary mortal". Okayyy so are we going to talk about him literally having Dragon heritage???

LEVITATING LLOYD CLIP!

Once again, Sam is literally serving. He portrays anxiety so well.

KAI + WYLDFYRE CLIP!

I am literally obsessed with this moment between them. Wyldfyre doesn't want to be left out. Kai wants her to stay safe and be okay. He's so kind and gentle with her. I love them.

I gotta admit, I'm an elemental mech hater.

"Would Master Wu take us on a mission based off of half understood dreams?" Oh he absolutely would.

KAI ASKING FROHICKY TO WATCH OVER WYLDFYRE RAGH.

I don't know how I feel about the Cloud Kingdom having a motor buuuut okay.

They really decided that this was the episode to upload clips from.

I love this moment because it addresses that Lloyd is doubting himself, it acknowledges that Lloyd and Nya have been through way too much stuff, and it shows us that Lloyd does not want to put Arin and Sora through something horrific. He doesn't want them to experience "the horrors" too young like he did.

Kai being mad that Wyldfyre stowed away but not in like an angry way but in a "I don't want you getting hurt" way is just sooooo.

Sora is so right to be concerned. I would be too if I were her.

I get what Sora was trying to do with the grappling hooks, but I also feel like this isn't going to bode well for Arin. She made his thing something "cooler" because their elemental powers are involved.

EWWW TENTACLES.

AGHH Arin and Sora complete each other my hearrrt.

Okayyy so visions.

Arin: Fear of letting his parents down. Guilt that he "replaced" them with the ninja.

Sora: Something to do with Imperium?? I don't really understand hers I'm gonna be so honest.

Lloyd: Being an inadequate teacher. Leading everyone to their destruction. "You will never be good enough." Dang.

Nya: Jay not remembering her.

Wyldfyre: The wasting thing that's talked about later.

KAI: WE DON'T FREAKING GET TO SEE IT. LET US SEE IT.

I feel like we just need to remember all of their fears because it's absolutely going to be important to all of them later.

"I know the real Jay could never forget me." Oh, honey. Don't say that.

Egalt is ugly.

GRRR THIS EPISODE IS AMAZING.

I think we didn't see Kai's vision because they're going to bring it back later. I know some people are saying that it was of a corrupted version of himself, and honestly, I'd say that's a very likely assumption, given his history. He used to have a lust for power, and maybe he still does, it's just more subdued. If anything were to happen to him (pretend we haven't seen ep10 yet), he could likely succumb to that temptation for power.

ALSO I'm such a Lloyd "life" truther, so learning that it was the LIFE DRAGON who claimed him?!??!? Yes. I'm so excited to expand more on that.

[vulpinmusings]

My speculations on Indigo Park

I'm putting this post under a read-more in case it finds someone who hasn't played Indigo Park yet and wants to experience it blind.

(BTW, it's free and takes about an hour to finish so just go play it. The horror value's kinda tame overall, but trigger warning for blood splatter at the end.)

Why Rambley doesn't recognize Ed/the Player: The collectables notes make it obvious that our Character, Ed, used to be a regular guest at Indigo Park as a kid. Yet, when Rambley goes to register them at the beginning he says he doesn't recognize Ed's face. I've seen speculation that this might be due either to Ed's age or the facial data database being wiped or corrupted after the park's closure. However, I think there's another possibility.

The Rambley AI Guide was a relatively new addition to the Park. Indigo Park is essentially Disneyland; it's been around for a long time and I rather doubt that the technology for a sentient AI park guide was available on opening day. Rambley mostly appears on modern-looking flat-screens, but in the queue for the railroad he pops up on small CRTS, so technology has advanced over the park's life time. I suspect that Rambley as an AI was implemented a short time before whatever caused the park to be shut down, and the reason that Ed's face isn't already in the system is because Ed just never went to the Park during the time between Rambley's implementation and the closure.

Rambley needs Ed just to move around. Rambley claims he'd been stuck in the entrance area since the closure. That might imply that as an AI guide he's not permitted to move around inside the Park unless he's attached to a guest, and he has to stick close to them. He's probably linked to the Critter Cuff we wear, which would explain why he insists we get it and doesn't just override the turnstile or something. He still needs cameras to see us and TVs to communicate, but it's the Critter Cuff that determines which devices he's able to use at a given moment.

There are other AI Guides. Rambley's limitations in where in the park he can be seems inconvenient for an AI that's meant to assist all the park's guests. Perhaps during normal operations he was less limited because every guest had a Critter Cuff on, but that might have put too much strain on his processing if he was the only AI avatar. Ergo, some or all of the other Indigo characters could have been used as AI guides as well; either a guest would be assigned to one character through the whole park or the others would take over for Rambley in their themed areas while the raccoon managed the main street. Due to the sudden closure, the other AIs may be stuck in certain sections of the Park like Rambley was stuck at the entrance, and we'll interact with them and/or free them as part of the efforts to fix the place up.

The "mascots" are unrelated to the AI. But Rambley believes they are linked. The official music video for Rambely Review has garnered a lot of speculation for how different Rambley's perception of how the Mollie Macaw chase ended is to what we saw in the game. I'm not 100% sold on the idea that Rambley flat out doesn't know that the Mollie mascot got killed. His decision to drop his act and acknowledge the park's decayed state is because he sees how freaked out Ed is by the Mollie chase, and he seems to glance down toward Mollie's severed head when he trails off without describing the mascots. HOWEVER, I don't think he sees Mollie as being truly dead. He's possibly come to the conclusion (or rationalization) that the AI guides, based on the actual characters, are stuck inside the feral fleshy mascots and the mascot's death has led to Mollie's AI being liberated. This idea will stick with him until such time as we encounter an AI character before dealing with the associated mascot (likely Lloyd).

Salem is central to the park's closure. All we really know about Salem the Skunk is what we see in the Rambley's Rush arcade game, where Salem uses a potion to turn Mollie into a boss for us to fight. This reflects real world events, although whether Salem instigated the disaster due to over-committing to their characterization or was merely a catalyst that unwittingly turned the already dubious new mascots into outright dangers remains to be seen.

Rambley's disdain for Lloyd is unwarranted. Collectables commentary indicates that Lloyd's popularity may have been eclipsing Rambley's, and that ticks Rambley off. That's not the fault of the Lloyd(s) we're going to interact with, however. That's on Indigo's marketing for emphasizing Lloyd so much. And who knows, maybe there were plans for other retro-style plushies, but the Park got shut down before those could come out. Either way, while Lloydford L. Lion may be a bit of an arrogant overdramatic actor, the AI Guide version of him isn't going to come across as deserving Rambley's vitriol, and that's going to be the cause of one chapter's main conflict.

[sunnylighter]

ay. so a bit ago i was rereading your story "grass is always greener" and i've been wondering. with how often SJ visits Lil'Lloyd, dose King Movie Skales know about there being another ninjago? also. has he met show Garmudon? if so what dose he think of him?

i know it probably won't happen, but i just have this scene in my head of show skales and movie skales talking and movie skales asks "way couldn't i have your garmudon instead of mine?" and show skales just looks at him, then says "you can have him, so long as i don't get yours" (at this point i don't know if show skales has even seen garmudon since he's been cured from the devourers venom.)

also. do you plan on having sensei garmudon use his power at all? for literally anything?. asking cuz i don't remember even once seeing him use it in the show after he's cured.

also also. wondering. do you know anyone could talk to about a ninjago au idea i have? wondering cuz i've had this idea in my head for about a month and i really want to talk about it with someone to bounce ideas off of who actually knows ninjago and likes talking about it.

i hope you have a good day/night ^_^ (hope don't mind the long ask)

King Skales and Queen Selma know SJ has a lot of friends now, and some have similar names to each other, but they're unsure if SJ is exaggerating or not when he tells them about traveling to parallel worlds. For the sake of their own sanity, they tell themselves he just has an active imagination, and ignore that there were several extra but similar-looking Ninja at the battle against Golden Master Chen. More Ninja just means he's extra safe when he's out with his friends.

SJ: Hey, wanna trade?

Junior: I'll do you one better, why not take both.

I think Sensei G is avoiding using his powers due to a fear using them will corrupt him again, or something, or he considers them part of his vow to not touch another weapon. However, as with his vow of pacifism, he would likely be motivated to break that vow if properly motivated, and one of the Lloyds was in danger.

Sure, my brain is starting to shift off a Batfam obsession into a Sonic the Hedgehog obsession (not sure yet if it will stick or a passing interest), but I still like Ninjago and would be happy to talk about it.

[lloyd283]

When rifting, notma has another fit, so she rests whilst every but claire cares for her because she's trying to locate where brooklynn's ended up.

Call the shots:

Well, after the events of the corrupted cometh, Penn zero and sashi kobayashi are back in action, with boone on mechanics after focusing on tech based studies at school. Brooklynn just rifts through the gate before it picks up a speedster in a familiar superhero reality to them. Therefore, with little information, she joins the mission, in which only Penn is in hero form. Sashi's got her power from the sequel series, and brooklynn's Chrome Prosthetic is a multi-tool/weapon. (Even an arm cannon) who was it: It's A-Train and thrull as he's finally worn out and needs help to stop thrull this time, who's developed a power axe from entering the reality.

A fight breaks out with Penn providing muscle and calling the shots, sashi being herself and brooklynn bringing range whilst A-Train and the heroes of the reality join him to help our trio. The combined force break the axe and defeat thrull in that massive strike, so after re-indroductions, our team return with A-Train. Unfortunately, A-Train has to run through the reality gate as his reality believes he's dead, and Penn with sashi are needed by singularity to appear at paris and booze asks who'll protect the realities to which June del toro arrives with her power fists to do their job if Penn says so, and he does with boone accompanying her, setting the missions beforehand.

So, why have I attached Breathe by the prodigy with it's iconic sound here? Well, brooklynn is able to access O.A servers and view footage from Lloyd's life, after we learned from mouth and one flashback in Ep1. We see new POVs as we see Lloyd's past more, starting with Gerald Wolfe leaking nemesis to the public in 1993 (hey, if someone like him would leak something of that magnitude, you'd do the same.). We see a video where brooklynn and Lloyd's doing a video about a challenge to steal a fake crown jewels with real security and upon being caught, they get a water bucket, which they both embrace during as friends, even seeing her ALS ice bucket video in which Lloyd casually says it's not that cold (brooklynn was howling at this.) Then we get worrying video now as during that tea party Fiasco whilst Lloyd uses the restroom after the dropped scone and getting a pardon with a security guard by the toilets seeing black smoke with embers before it attacks and pulls him in, no damage apart from a temporary arm cast from the sheer force. Next we return to kind heartwarming memorises with him and brooklynn curling up with her parents as she finds them enough of a gift- a side of brooklynn's past we've hardly seen, as if Lloyd brought the best caring side of her, that she slowly let grow during the show. We also see fun facts with Lloyd, but they're always in the first tense like he personally was present then, which defies the laws of life itself! (It always got lots of views and likes, so she loved each time he had a new one). In 2018, she sees cctv that matches the tea party incident with audio suggesting it could be an emotionally charged attack that's highly unpredictable as well as Lloyd's passed away lover, confirming to her why when she brought up cait, he got angry for once, saying "poor Lloyd". She even wants to hold him tight like how friendly they did before camp and Lloyd's emotional pain. What finally she says really kicks things up, as the location is unknown and footage is seen of a pristine place in which Lloyd does magic, giving to something off screen before collapsing. Blockbuster panics as he's exherting his powers when others won't know what he's done, as well as hinting that Lloyd's lost a lot more than just his lover.....

A distressed brooklynn is force rifted away as claire arrives to a quiet scene and a computer glow.....

[sp0il-my-night]

Lego Movie GCBC AU and Headcanons!

Human AU, some messed up content ahead, 18+! Things are trigger warned and I will TW in tags.

-Good Cop's name is Graham "Good Cop" Copp

and Bad Cop's is Blake "Bad Cop" Copp

-Blake gets more frustrated because of his foggy memory when he switches, it can make his outbursts worse (hence his love of throwing chairs and kicking things)

-Blake also loves black coffee, like 3 spoons full of instant coffee ground, no milk, no sugar. Graham has 7 sugar cubes and cream in his coffee.

-Blake struggles to let Graham be in control even though Graham is the "host" because he is their defense mechanism

-technically canon Bad Cop/Good Cop has DID

-Graham developed DID is because he was bullied as a child. He was very joyful and very obviously "going to end up gay" and he was flamboyant and his peers bullied him for it (TW SA) until he got sexually assaulted really badly by an older boy in his secondary school and that triggered it for him.

-GC (Graham) being erased in this AU happens as Lord Business drugs him and forces him into electroshock therapy. The man is fucking loaded and can do what he wants to whoever he wants, which is why Graham technically comes back (scribble cop) but he isn't the same person he was before, he is fucked UP but still the kind, lovely person he was

-they have some facial scarring post-torture

- Lord Business feeds into Blake's substance abuse issues

-GCBC have a clicky jaw because when Blake was fronting on a drug bust, he got his jaw broken by being hit in the face with an old TV, Blake broke the guy's arm in 2 different places and broke his nose whilst arresting him and then put a cigarette out on the guy's neck just to prove that he is the boss

-they also have a huge scar across their hip where he was stabbed and it nicked the bone

- he is a Catholic

— Blake being a horrible sinner and choking a guy out with his rosary. The rosary breaks and the beads scatter across the floor, when he falls back and "switches", Graham starts crying and saying his Hail Marys, desperately trying to scoop up the beads.

-Blake has killed at least once and Lord Business has paid to hide the evidence and shit, super corrupt police force

-Kragle is a drug in this universe btw

-President Business (Charles Bennett-Lloyd) also sexually abuses Graham and uses his religion against him to control him. He knows about his past, knows how to push his buttons.

-good cop is more skilled with a gun than bad cop (good cop is fantastic at non lethal shots and he has a steady hand and good aim. Bad Cop is good at more main-body shots and lethal fire but he is also less self-controlled)

-Ma Cop (Móirín Copp) would be the only person to ever see Blake cry... I like to think Ma cop would be super close to Blake but Blake would struggle to talk to her because he feels so much guilt for everything

-Blake is an insomniac and has a habit of self harming when he is anxious and scratches at his palms until they bleed

- Good Cop being a very terrifying angry person

He is so calm and collected on the surface... Still smiling with that cute glimmer in his eyes but there is a sense of something sinister, deeply unnerving.

"I am gonna give you one last chance to tell me what you did to that girl, buddy, ok?"

"I said I am not saying shit."

"Then I am going to make sure you get put away for a long, long time. You know what they do to guys like you in there? You're as good as dead. I wonder if they will do to you what you did to her..."

"Quit smilin' man- you- you're freaking me the fuck out."

[switches] "THEN TELL ME WHAT THE FUCK YOU DID OR I WILL RIP YOUR TEETH OUT ONE BY ONE YOU PIECE OF SHIT."

You'd rather have violent Bad Cop in your face than an angry Good Cop because he is fucking terrifying!!

-Graham dealing with an abduction case... The kid being found dead and finding DNA on the corpse, Graham is left to question the guy Graham's fists are clenched, white knuckled clenched. He reads out the lists of injuries to the man whose DNA they found on the girl. "So? She was begging for it. It wasn't on me." And Graham stands up, cleans his glasses on his shirt and smiles.

"Are you a religious man, sir?"

"No, why?"

"God has a special place in hell for people like you. They are gonna pass you around like you are nothing, you're going to be put under watch because the second they find out what you did you're going to be gasping with a hole in your neck the size of my fist."

The guy gets let go, Graham is furious, so he hunts him down

Blake fucks his shit up BAD, Graham messes him up so severely he is sick and convulsing. They leave him for dead, he gets found and hospitalised but kills himself whist being treated because what happened was so bad.

Somehow, all the CCTV in the city wasn't working that night...

"I have a lot of respect for your work, Graham."

"Thank you, Sir."

"If you do that again, I don't think I will be able to stop myself from putting you in line, understood?"

"Y-yessir."

-No one believes Graham is capable of such things. The friendly neighborhood police officer who stops to pet dogs, buys ice creams for random people and helps Grandma's cross the road could never... could he?

-Graham getting worse with being terrifying after one horrible night with President Bennett-Lloyd...

Him terrifying some kid being held on minor drug charges... Making the guy so scared he pisses his pants and has a panic attack. Graham leaning forward, his 6'4 frame looming over this 5'5 14 year old who got caught with weed

"How would yer mammy and daddy feel if they knew what you did? If they knew their little boy had been doing drugs, that he is going to ruin his future, end up on the streets, will most likely end up bleeding out on the pavement at age 25 because he just couldn't follow the law?

And when yer daddy ends up turning to alcohol, beating yer mammy senseless because you were stupid enough to use drugs, and when he inevitably dies, potentially killing a family because he couldn't take it anymore, crashes whilst drunk. Who is to blame? Don't cry, buddy. This was all your fault, no use crying now."

"P-please let me c-call my m-mom-"

"Why? Because this may be the last time you ever talk to her?"

"Plea-please stop sir I w-wanna go home I want my mom!"

"Too bad."

Offering the kid a cup of water, the kid drinking it with shaking hands all whilst Graham just smiles, staring dead-eyes at him over the top of his glasses.

Graham goes home that night, walking right to the bathroom and throws up. He hadn't slept at all after President Bennett-Lloyd had raped him the night prior and he took it all out on that poor kid. He showers, sat on the floor just whilst the water runs over him, he then gets into bed and cuddles his plushie and cries his heart out.

I will post more of this stuff if people like hearing it! If you like it please let me know... <3

[kitsunekris]

Okay so a bit ago I saw someone who did a similar post and because I have several aus which is probably going to be hell for all of us to keep track of without me saying which of Au is which. I'm going to explain some of the aus and if you want we can start an ask blog for some. However, I'm not going to make another Tumblr account just for that. But I am fully willing to do it. However, I will be doing one at a time/ one a day. Put the ask in a comment below the picture or pictures of characters from that world while saying whatever it is for whichever character. Plus I will also say where we would start for The ask blog if we ever get there (I also might not post very often because right now I'm in the last few weeks of school so I'm probably not exactly going to post much during school and not as much after, which is also why I stopped doing the Ninjago art challenge. I'm probably going to pick it up again later on and redo the first two pictures I did, but to do less drawings and much longer time in between each one because that's just what works for me and my potentially having ADHD (Not diagnosed))

Now I'm just going to put all the AUS under keep reading. I'm also going to focus on my series AU for this

2. Kind of similar to au 1 the difference mostly since in this au while Betty is around, she isn't dead. However her twin is. Betty lost her arm on a mission so now has a robotic arm. She's also the reason why Morro gets a second chance in this AU. It's someone implied at one point that Kai gouged out one of Betty's eyes. Betty didn't make herself a bionic eye though because her magical hurt to regenerate certain body parts because of the way that her arm was injured, she had to get it amputated and her arm couldn't regenerate from the amputated spot. Betty is the master of glitches and basically all of my use unless she doesn't exist. She's also implied to be bi but is in a lesbian relationship. If I was doing an ask blog with this one. What would happen would be we start at around the episode. Never trust a snake specifically after the events of it, but maybe before the following episode, Betty would arrive as a result of Sensei Wu needing to leave the ninja for a bit because there's something that needs his attention so he left Betty as a substitute Sensei (keep in mind Betty's been a ninja for a pretty long time basically ever since she was 5 years old and has been training for probably longer than that!). Also, Betty to protect Lloyd, became shadow Fox AKA basically she took on a whole secret identity to protect her brother. Kind of like how Nya did (no, I did not. Basically make a master of glitches. Gave her the personality of Nya and called it a day, didn't do that but they are very similar either way)

1. Now au 1 is basically just a big old conglomeration and a bunch of random things I like. I'm probably not going to show this one much but when I do it's going to be confusing and chaotic so probably not much of it. And what is there to show is Lloyd has two older siblings. Both of them are dead. One of them possesses an animatronic while the other possessed with whatever the f*** you call the corrupted me from. We deleted you. So yeah I don't really know what to say for this outside of that. Also potentially revive Morro AU. I'm just not doing an ask blog for this one to be honest

3. Daughter of the Wind (know I'm just going to put this one into bullet points)

- Morro has a daughter who's the master of wind after him instead of Euphrasia (no, I don't hate her. I made this of you before I learned about her existence)

- Morro didn't die in the caves of despair. Well kind of. Essentially what happened was he was there looking for something and on his way out got attacked by some of the skeleton dudes that we see there a bit in the original pilot episodes, his body was dropped in one of the caverns leaving moro's daughter confused as to where the hell her dad went but at least she had her Kitsune Friend, Luna, to keep her safe

- Kristen was basically raised by Luna after this, especially since Kristen was probably only 8 years old when her father up in disappeared.

- We would start near the beginning of the tournament of elements, specifically a bit before the tournament of elements would begin. So essentially for this we start what would basically be a few days before the first episode of season 4

4. Son of the Wind

- kind of similar to the previous Au but instead of Moro having a daughter named Kristen, Moro has a son named nuvu!

- This one is still mostly in development. Plus I have a few other variants of daughter of the Wind and son of the Wind, especially as seen by the pictures and stuff I was doing earlier, So, This one is still mostly in development so I'm not sure what we're really going to be doing with this one outside of probably similar to daughter of the Wind. However, Moro has a son who's the master of ghosts with the sub element of Wind instead of a daughter whose whole element is wind like her dad

- If ask blog happens starts at around the same time that the daughter of the one day you would start at probably after that or maybe closer to season 5 since I like to think that there's about at least a year time skip between season 4 and 5.

5. Now this one is more of a idea that I got that. I'm not sure if I'm going to turn into a full-blown at you yet, but cyborg Zane.

- basically just Ninjago but for the first Three seasons Zane is a cyborg not a robot.

- He is the son of Dr. Julian who is injured in an accident. Dr. Julian saved his life by turning him into a cyborg

- when Zane dies at the end of season 4, his human half really does die. However, his soul becomes trapped in the robotic parts on his body, specifically the part of his upper body and part of his head (which is mostly around the area of the left arm and that side of the head, I'll draw a whole design for this later so you know what I mean)

- We would start around the time Zane would wake up in the tournament of elements, It would mostly just be focusing on Zane as he attempts to figure out what happened to him and come to terms with the fact he's dead with the majority of the time after is basically just Cole or you guys threw the add-on bodies dragging Zane places because dude has no robotic parts along his legs. only really had some his upper body. (To say Imight also include Zane having siblings, but I'm not sure about that yet. I will update you of that changes though)

I will likely all make posts about some of these sporadically throughout the day. Since today my school has a field trip that I'm not going on because we needed to pay a thing and my family just doesn't have the money to go. So I'll likely make sporadic posts about some of these they use throughout the day. Keep in mind none of these are going to be in a very realistic style as none of my art is realistic, But I'm still going to draw them in my own style and do my best to get the general idea down! See you then!

Kitsune, out

[spicyicymeloncat]

The Overlord lmao (for doodles/character discussion thingy)

The Overlord

Ooh what to talk about.

The overlord, in my opinion is… kinda boring. I mean he’s is and is intended to be really simple - the literal personification of everything bad in the world. Whilst this is kinda not great for world building reasons, the overlord is supposed to be more of a allegorical, symbolic abstract plot device and in the writer’s defence, they didn’t think they’d get renewed after s2 and thought that “the good must have evil” backstory was enough context for the world’s backstory. Disclaimer: I have yet to see crystalised part 2 so if idk if this ramble will become less or more relevant after that (also no spoilers about that pls)

The overlord is a pretty good symbolic plot device - he’s a ghostly manifestation of any issue that a viewer could see themselves facing and the story is about overcoming that problem and pushing through - hence “Ninja never quit”. Tbh in that sense, he’s a really good foil for the moral of s2. I think (although I’m no professional) good villains are those that specifically challenge the message of the story. So for example, if the story’s message is love wins, then the villain is written in a way that tries to disprove that idea and tries to say something else like “actually no, manipulating others while not caring about them at all is more effective”. So in Ninjago, the message is “No matter how hard life gets, always push forward and don’t give up! Ninja never quit” and s1 is all about the ninja pushing forward past what was holding them back, and gaining their true potential. S2 is all about how no matter what Garmadon throws at the ninja, no matter what challenges Lloyd faces in training for the hardest day of his life, they push through it and succeed. It’s literally the lyrics of the weekend whip. Meanwhile, the Overlord and Garmadon’s arc follow an antithesis of this: Garmadon has had to struggle all his life and eventually succumbs to his hardships and to the Overlord. His goal is, instead improving himself, but to bring the rest of Ninjago down and recreate it in his own image; make everyone evil and miserable like he is. That’s also the overlord’s power - to corrupt everyone in Ninjago and make them evil. These two characters try to bring the worst out of people in a show that says be your best self. So thematically the overlord is pretty cool. He’s the scary big bad that can be a metaphor for any looming, seemingly insurmountable problem we face in our day to day lives that threatens to turn us and the world for the worse.

However, whilst that’s a great concept, the in universe lore feels really unfinished. The overlord is literally a cloud of purple smoke that came out of nowhere and has decided that it wants to become a dragon and make people angry. The overlord doesn’t really have a past other than “he had to exist because balance bla bla” and he just pops in the second half of s2 as a device to ramp up the stakes of the villain (and save Garmadon from being held accountable). Tbh it’s been like a few months since I watched s2 so I might not be remembering the pacing exactly right but s2 was paced kinda weirdly and I wish the overlord had a lot more set up. Like simply knowing his existence earlier on would be nice. It would also be nice if he was a bit more… developed. Like what if the overlord is less of a sentient being and more like a disease that made people think worse, kinda like the scrolls of forbidden spinjitzu. Or maybe he is sentient and we touch upon his greed to take over more and more of the fsm’s territory. I mean I do like the theory and the overlord is part of the fsm master, since the fsm master was part Oni and dragon and the overlord is an evil spirit dragon. But that would mean that at some point the fsm master was a fully good person if he somehow severed his connection to whatever darkness the overlord is and Yknow I’m not too convinced just because I don’t think it should be that easy idk. Maybe at some point the fsm somehow severed all his connection to the Oni and dragons and became as mundane as an ordinary human, which is why he was able to die. Idk there’s definitely a lot of opportunity to explore the overlord and the fsm and I’m sure if they are the same person it only amplifies that metaphor about being a better you/worse you. Also the generational trauma of guys becoming evil…

It really would’ve been nice if they set the overlord up earlier in the season, since he’s supposed to be this mountain of a threat, I feel like that fear factor isn’t as effective when we don’t even know who is are why he’s showing up now of all times. Like maybe he’s someone even wu and Garmadon are terrified of because of his rivalry with their dad. Maybe Garmadon, every episode, hears whispers of the overlord, tempting him to become worse and worse whilst Lloyd is forced to watch from the other side of the battle field as his dad falls further away from being saved. These would not only add a really ominous and scary note at the end of all those fun quirky filler episodes at the start of s2 but increase the tension and add a sense of progression in the story. Idk the overlord is a little plain and I think he could’ve been spicier.

He’s not the most entertaining villain to watch, which is fine, as evil personified ig he doesn’t need that much of a personality. He’s got some oddly hilarious moments tho:

Not the overlord being self conscious about his appearance. He saw cryptor bullying mindroid and knew he wouldn’t survive. Overlord ashamed to be shorter than mindroid.

At this point I actually forgot he was in s3?? S3 was kinda a humbly mess anyways (and this post is ridiculously long), but I think something to mention is that, at the end of s3, the overlord actually won. If the overlord, from a writing perspective, exists to turn the protagonists into their worse selves, then he succeeded. He split the ninja up, and they quit. Even if he didn’t win, they still lost. And they should’ve totally gone with that angle yknow. I think the overlord could’ve been terrifying, I mean he controlled the whole city. Aesthetic wise the spider imagery is very fitting and I can tell it’s only gonna get better with the new season.

That is FINALLY all I have to say on the overlord. Sorry to have overloaded (ithinkimfunny) you with ramble but that’s just what happens. Not my favourite villain and I think he’s a little underdeveloped but he’s got his quirks and fulfils what he needs to.

[misculenica]

Guilt, Pride, and a little Bitterness on the Side

Long post - evaluation/exploration of Solas and a more negative-leaning take of his character. (coming from a diehard solavellan fan)

Something I've not really seen in the DA fandom, is the fact that, regardless of approval level/romance, Solas must just really hate Inky.

Allow me to explain, my dear lovelies:

Looking at it from Solas' pov; his plan for the orb at the beginning of the game goes to hell real fast. Hundreds, if not thousands of people die (horrifically, painfully, screaming) because of a situation He created.

But it's not just his fuck up/miscalculation - it's Inky's. The one survivor of the explosion, the one who foiled the plan to tear down the veil, the one who stole his power (we can consider it was an accident/coincidence, and Solas probably recognises it as that, but damn. If it were me in his shoes, I would be rather malcontent about that).

Yes, we may also consider this is a lucky break for Solas - he has another option laid out before him, and all he has to do is make himself appear useful and relatively harmless to keep close by for the eventual snatcheroo of the foci.

There's a messed up connection between Solas and the Inquisitor there - every death, every ounce of suffering and heartbreak is both of your faults. You're bound in blood, as it were - for an catastrophic event neither of you anticipated.

I imagine he has a great deal of guilt over this throughout the game - he's fucked over the world again - and he's got some random person caught in the middle, someone he's forced into a position of power (someone who is either a horrible person ready to take power, or a perfectly fine person who is likely to do horrific things that will tear them apart inside and out). He's corrupted you, essentially. He's not only harmed/killed countless people. He's made you the one responsible, he's making you into a puppet, puppeteer, and a monster. -- Again, from his perspective, he fully expects that power corrupts absolutely - he's hurting you on multiple levels.

Additionally, we're going to have to look at this on a broader level to get a grasp on the scale of this.

The events of the Conclave - tearing open the veil, causing rifts across Thedas - it's damaging the world and the Fade (sending animals into a frenzy, bringing demons through, making whole areas uninhabitable). Physical beings are being put in mortal peril, but we have to consider that so are spirits.

We know Solas favours the Fade/Spirits to the waking world and mortal beings. He outright states it on several occasions.

And we know that the Breach and the rifts force spirits and demons through, and drive them insane as a result (even Cole appears to have panic attacks over the rifts on occasion).

Allow me to put it more tangibly;

Wisdom, Solas' friend.

I think that chapter of the story is what highlights his bitterness/guilt the best - if not his entire character.

All I can ever think during this scene is this; if Inky hadn't been at the Conclave, his friend wouldn't have died. If Solas hadn't given his orb to Corypheus, his friend wouldn't have died.

It's his fault she's gone, and it's your fault too.

I'm always reminded of this scene at the end of the game when I think of Solas and his mentality. In this scene, he's- well- this man is fucked up.

He says 'it is not your fault' and you can tell he's meaning it's his. But I can still see it in there; he wants to blame Inky, he wants it not to be his fault, and the voice acting really convinces me of that (bless you Gareth David Lloyd). But he can't, because it all comes down to him and his countless mistakes (and terrible luck, like seriously, I think the universe has a personal grudge against this man).

That expression says guilt, shame, regret, bitterness. This is a man whose every effort has proved in vain- all the suffering, death and irreparable destruction. Everything he's done to you, it's all his fault - because he thought he was the smartest guy in the room, he's the only one who can fix everything because he's so prideful and experienced.

Now consider if you were his friend, if you were his goddamn vhenan. It cuts real deep.

Solas is a man who's been tested time and time again, and every time he's been found wanting.

He's a complex, compelling character (that I love absolutely), and he's objectively a terrible fucking person, and he knows it. Everything he touches burns, everything he tries to fix he makes worse, any advice he offers eventually turns bitter, and he knows it.

I'll leave you with this;

[21st-century-ninja]

📝 ayo can I get some uhhhhh fuckin lloyd+morro cousin content maybe ? congrats on 888 homie!!!

aaah thanks Tavia!! 😍 This turned movieverse like halfway through outlining it aka the less problematic morro and lloyd relationship whoops so it was a fun time figuring out Morro's characterization there- I definitely was inspired heavily by @precious-cosmos's Skytoucher Morro for this one :D Hope you enjoy!

888 followers celebration! 🎉

Adventurous Stuff

setting: movieverse characters: Morro and Lloyd wc: 888 words other tags: swearing, piercings

“Should you really be doing that over the kitchen sink?”

Morro lazes one eye open. Lloyd stands opposite him, eyebrows pulled into a little frown and arms crossed over his chest. He’s looking at Morro, but not exactly; his eyes focus on Morro’s ear and the scrap of gauze he holds over it.

“Where else would I be doing it?” Morro returns. The stove clock tells him it’s been long enough, so he removes the gauze. Lloyd crowds in his space.

“It looks red. Are you using a real cleaning solution? Because I think I read somewhere that saltwater can be bad for piercings.”

“It’s red because I just did it last night.” Morro tosses the gauze in the trash. He rolls his eyes at Lloyd’s huff behind him. “Relax, kid. I’ve done this hundreds of times before. You’re such a rule stickler, jeez.”

“I’m a year younger than you,” Lloyd retorts like he always does. “And I don’t think making sure you’re treating it the right way is me being a rule stickler.”

“Sorry, you’re right. Clearly, the stick’s somewhere else.”

With his back turned to him, Morro can’t see Lloyd’s face, but he can feel his baby cousin’s frustrated fuming. Morro smirks. He drops into one of the kitchen chairs and kicks his feet up onto the opposite one. “What’s with all the interrogation anyway? Usually it takes you until midmorning before you develop the holier-than-thou complex.”

Lloyd is silent behind him. It’s a weighty silence, much too weighty for a dumb jab. Morro frowns to himself. Then, a lightbulb goes off in his head. He swivels around quickly. “Wait a minute. It’s because you want one.”

Lloyd’s ears flush bright red. “No! No, I don’t. What are you talking about? Of course I don’t want one.”

Morro cackles. Lloyd’s neck and face heat too. “Stop laughing.”

Morro laughs a little bit more just to piss him off. “You know what? Sure. I’ll pierce you, kid. It’s about time you did something adventurous.”

"I do adventurous stuff!"

Morro levels a look at him. "Really. Name one rebellious thing you've done. In the past year."

Lloyd's mouth opens. A couple of seconds later, he closes it with an angry little click.

"That's what I thought," Morro says smugly. "Come on. Live a little."

Lloyd’s face wars with itself. “What if it gets infected?” he finally asks, but his half-hearted argument isn’t fooling anyone.

Morro rolls his eyes. “Your mom’s a nurse, dipshit. You’ll be fine.” He kicks back from the table and grabs his backpack, which he left by the door when he came in the previous night. Aunt Misako’s nice enough -or dumb enough- to let him crash at her home when he isn’t able to return to his own place. He’d ask her about why she did it if he wasn’t too afraid concerned about her stopping.

Lloyd peers over his shoulder as he sets out his supplies. “You just happened to have needles with you?”

Morro rolls his eyes again. “What part of “I did this last night” didn’t register with you? The party last night was a blow, but I got to pierce some people and make a quick buck, so at least it wasn’t a total waste of my time.” He takes two needles and hunts down some studs to go with them. “Speaking of which- normally I’d charge you for this. Blame it on my good samaritan heart though, because I’d rather just see you corrupted.”

“I think you’re literally the only person who’s ever thought that,” Lloyd mumbles.

“That’s because I’m the only one who knows the real you, cuz, in all your goody-two-shoes, loser glory.”

Lloyd mumbles something about “the real him” under his breath; Morro isn’t paying close attention anymore. He sterilizes the area and arranges his materials, wiping down Lloyd’s ear lobe too. Once he’s all ready, he poises the needle over his ear. “Want me to count down for you? Hold your hand too?”

“Just do it already, jerk.”

“Oh, is that how it is?” Without warning, Morro pops the needle through the skin. But Lloyd barely flinches. When Morro glances at his face, Lloyd’s staring straight ahead, the only indicator of his pain being the way he bites the corner of his lip.

He took that… actually well. Morro pauses, ignoring Lloyd’s whining about the needle dangling in his ear. It’s not like most people who get piercings break down into blubbering messes at the pain, but he was definitely expecting a bigger reaction. Lloyd, his wimpy, nervous wreck of a cousin, just took the needle like a vet.

Morro is a tiny bit impressed despite himself. He finishes the piercing and repeats the process on the other side. Swiping open the camera app, he holds up his phone. “Done. Wanna see?”

Lloyd stares at his face. He tilts his head this way and that. “It looks…”

“Good? Of course it does.”

But Lloyd doesn’t snap back. He just nods, eyes wide, and passes the phone back. “Yeah, it does. Thank you.”

His sincerity makes Morro’s skin crawl. Awkwardly, he slaps Lloyd’s shoulder. “Don’t mention it.”

“Okay.” Suddenly, Lloyd’s eyes light up. "Oh! Something rebellious! I remember! I told my mom I got organic fruit at the store, but it really wasn't!"

“Oh my god.”

[kittydemon9000]

Au where Kai just, dosen`t tell anyone that lloyd is the green ninja, because he wants him to have a childhood

okay so this is probably meant to be a serious-ish au, but all I'm seeing is the crack possibilities such as

Kai making sure Lloyd is never in the presence of all the weapons, but like to a ridiculous degree

Kai also making sure Lloyd maintains a good relationship with his dad, mostly through letters and such, so that if the secret does get out neither will want to fight

Convincing Wu to start training Lloyd but at a reasonable amount where he can still go out and mess around like a kid

Kai maybe even sending some of his own letters to try and peacefully resolve the issue

Kai also continuing to squabble with the others about who the Green Ninja is, but the whole time he’s terrified someone will figure it out

when Lloyd’s powers inevitably come in nobody making the connection of Lloyd being the Green Ninja despite the fact his powers are literally green

And the funniest part is I can see Kai keeping up this charade for a long time. Like, almost the whole series long time

And even better is how it will impact the series as a whole.

S2 wouldn’t even happen

S3 sort of happens only this time not as crazy with the tech, no Overlord messing with the tech, and no Zane Death. Maybe sometime after a later adventure Zane gives part of his Core to Pixal, only he doesn’t just take out half and finds a way so he can still function perfectly fine without it.

ToE would be hilarious, especially with Kai being so protective of Lloyd during the matches and the other EMs being concerned why a literal child is here

Morro would also be a mix of funny and the barest amount of plot. This time around Kai would be sent to deal with the break in and then get possessed, but when Morro’s in his head and says he wants to be the Green Ninja Kai is like “oh actually? awesome, sure you can have it” and Morro’s just like “.....what?”

Where the tiniest amount of plot could come in would be if Morro could see Kai’s memories he’d learn that Kai knows Lloyd was the actual Green Ninja, either he would go and try to fight him, much to everyone’s confusion. the only good part is that since the Ninja are always together whenever Morro proclaims he’s here to fight the Green Ninja so none of them know he’s talking specifically about Lloyd.

OR Kai would be able to convince him to keep it secret and quiet, saying that no one would really question him being the Green Ninja since the title was never officially claimed yet. The worst that would happen that way would be the other ninja fighting him for the title, which he agrees is better than them trying to kill/defeat him. Kai would also probably adopt him as another little brother(despite Morro being a lot older than he is, which he’s constantly griping about(he loves it but would never say that out loud)

or maybe a combination of both since I’m a sucker for Big Bro Kai

SoG would be....interesting, since I’m pretty sure Lloyd is around the same age as Harumi(so about 15), and would then be a teenager at this point. I’m debating what exactly her exact goal would be this time around since Garmadon isn’t dead, so probably just trying to get in his favor.

She decides the best way to do that would be to kill the ninja. But it doesn't stop there, her plan also includes turning Lloyd to the side of evil through some....less than consensual methods.

Now, Garmadon has no real issues with that first part. He’s been trying to do that for literally years. That second one? No way, not on your life.

My reasoning for that is because while he does want Lloyd to join him on the dark side, he wants Lloyd to chose that, not be forced to by getting corrupted like he was so long ago

So once again the ninja and Garmadon team up to save Lloyd.

And then they(-Nya and Morro if he’s here, +Tiny Wu and Garmadon) get sent to the First Realm :D

Lloyd has a very bad time since he is The One To Catch and can’t even leave the base. The rebellion is still headed by Lloyd this time, but it’s less because of anyone pushing him more He Really Wants His Family Back And No One Seems To Have Any Idea Of What We Need To Do So I Guess I’ll Do It Myself

Meanwhile in the First Realm they’re having....a time. 

Garmadon does not have a fun time with either Dragons and Hunters, but he does grow to tolerate the ninja a bit more, and he actually gets along with Kai this time around, partially thanks to the letters they exchanged and sharing stories about Lloyd.

They find their way back, defeat Harumi, only this time she’s able to escape and is now responsible for summoning the Overlord.

Yay.

Stone army gets released, evacuation happens, and they set out across the ocean. I’m also just going to have Misako just. Not exist in this universe. I don’t really see her fitting in this turn of events so yeah she’s just gone. Maybe she died on an expedition and they ask another museum person about the giant warrior but yeah. Besides it would give away the secret too soon

Anyway, the sail and do find the lighthouse, only unfortunately Dr.Julien is now dead, which hits Zane pretty hard, but they do find Echo this time and decide to bring him along. Zane has a fun time teaching his little brother.

They reach the island, start trying to find the temple, BUT I'm making a change

This is because as we saw in both S2 and 5, the ninja’s power’s are reliant on Lloyd. Now, because I want them to actually have powers before this, they’re going to start developing theirs around the same time as Lloyd started developing his. How this ties in to the need for the temple is that they will need to give up their own powers so Lloyd can unlock the Golden Power, however they’re still get the element swords

Once they reach the temple, they all notice how there’s spots for all four of the elements, as well as a spot for the supposed Green Ninja, which confuses them since “isn’t one of us supposed to be the Green Ninja???”

They start arguing, especially Kai and Morro who’re having a silent argument, before Morro finally snaps and is like “It’s because he’s the Green Ninja!”

Now finally, finally, Lloyd’s destiny is revealed, with a lot of mixed reactions from everyone.

The ninja are shocked beyond belief and just a little bit salty Kai kept this from them

Wu is a little mad Kai kept this secret and also wondering how he missed it

Garmadon is shocked and a little horrified he was going to have to fight his son, but also a little greatful Kai kept it a secret, and also now understands why he was trying to make relations more amiable

And Lloyd. 

Lloyd is left absolutely reeling.

But they don’t really have time for this right now, so they do the thing, fight the warriors, head back to their base and then Lloyd has his breakdown

He runs off and when Kai goes to comfort him he asks how long he knew, to which Kai says “since the volcano” and then starts to explain that he did it so Lloyd could still have his childhood. They eventually make up, start getting used to using swords instead of their regular powers and unfortunately Nya still gets captured.

They go to confront the Overlord and Harumi but Canon Still Happens, only this time there is no Garmadon Fighting For Control and Lloyd still get beat.

But they comfort him and Kai brings up how “You may be the savior of the world, but that doesn’t mean you have to do it alone” and together they start heading back to the main land

And yeah, from there canon goes as normal, only they’re that much happier when Garmadon gets healed since Lloyd doesn't;t have to fight his dad anymore :DDD

[pthalomars]

Synopsis of Jay's Empire AU⚡⚡

[[Made by me and @culturalmochi ]]

The way it starts out is that Jay goes on a solo mission, finds the hard drive for Prime Empire, and gets trapped in the game.

Nobody knows where he went, so the ninja are desperately trying to find him.

Time in game moves a lot faster than in real life, so a few weeks for the ninja is a few months (close to a year) inside of the game.

Jay met Scott and he showed him the ropes of the game, but tried to subtly warn him about Unagami. Jay spent a lot of time leveling up and grinding so he could get high stats, but later found out that he wasn't able to leave or communicate with the outside world. Enter Unagami.

Unagami tells Jay that he sees potential in him, and that he's impressed with his progress through the game. They begin to have a sort of mentor/mentee kind of relationship.

Once again, time moves much faster in game. So jay starts to miss the real world and tells Unagami that he misses his friends. Unagami tells Jay, "if they were really your friends, they would have come back for you by now, wouldn't they?"

Later on, Jay is approached by none other than the ninja! His dearest friends finally coming back to rescue him and bring him home!

But as he spends more time with them, something feels... wrong. It turns out they're NPC's, and in his mission objective list, it says he has to "discard" them. So he does, and they crumble into little pixelated cubes. He levels up.

This repeats several times, each time the ninja dupes become more rude, indifferent, hateful. At some point they become so far removed from their true counterparts that the only thing in common they share is their appearances.

Then comes the time where Unagami is ready to open the game to the rest of the world. He brings Jay to help him spread the word by broadcasting an advertisement for Prime Empire.

That's when the ninja find out where Jay has been this whole time.

So the real gang enters Prime Empire and find Jay, who looks displeased to see them even if he tries to hide it.

Everyone is so happy to see him and to bring him out of the game, surrounding him with hugs and tears of joy.

But then Jay checks his objectives. "Discard the ninja". It's the same as it's always been, so he goes along with it.

But as Jay journeys with his friends through the game, he slowly comes to the realization that they aren't NPC's.. they're his real friends.

Scott, when he was first sucked in by the game, leveled up really fast and eventually gained the attention of Unagami. Unagami said he saw "great potential" in him and gave him access to the coding of the game. For Scott, this means he can essentially influence and change parts of the game, but not always by his own free will. With him being connected to the coding, that includes his thoughts, emotions, memories, trauma, etc. this connection also gave Unagami a way to keep track of where Scott was and what he was doing at all times. 

so eventually, Unagami wants to bring empire to the physical world, but he needs help getting the world out. he tells Scott his plan and Scott is like "actually, fuck this :)" and escapes from Unagami. in order to keep him from tracking his every move, Scott cuts off his own connection to the game's code. He hunkers down in his hideout and tries to plot a way to a)escape and b)prevent Unagami from taking over the real world. 

so finally, Jay enters the game! Scott finds him running away from red visors and picks him up and takes him to his hideout. Scott explains the general rules of the game, gives him tips on how to survive, glitches, cheats, all of it. but he tries to warn him about Unagami and Jay is too enraptured with the thrall of the game to pay any mind to Scott's warnings. Jay starts leveling up and progressing, very similar to how Scott did, and gained the same kind of attention from Unagami. he saw great potential in him. at that point, Scott says that Jay can't come to the hideout anymore, and Jay asks why. Scott says "i already told you, but you didn't listen to me." and so Jay goes to Unagami. Unagami promises him steep advantages in the game, protection, etc and Jay is going along with it because, to him, its still just a game. the gravity of the situation hasn't quite hit him yet. he doesn't know that he's trapped. 

so now, Jay and Unagami have a sort of mentor/mentee kind of relationship, and Jay very much fits into the role of the teachers pet. the red visors are **VERY** protective of him and will often accompany him wherever he goes unless he tells them to leave (sometimes they listen, sometimes they dont). There is one red visor who is particularly close to Jay. she goes with him everywhere and is the most protective of him compared to the other RV's. Jay tries to talk with her sometimes, and one day he asks her what her name is. her voice glitches out a lot, like something is corrupted in her code. she repeats "four o-oh four-r-r AA e-rror-r four o-o-oh four-r AA" and Jay is like "hmm.. rora? can i call you rora?" and she just nods at him. (Rora becomes important later!!)

so anyways, going back to how Unagami has adopted Jay as his mentee, Jay has the same kind of access to the game's coding that Scott does. including the influence of his memories and past traumas. this manifests in several ways, but one of which is how the NPC clones of the ninja interact with him. Jay has a lot of issues with self esteem and often fears that nobody really cares about him, finds him annoying, etc. so with each iteration of the ninja dupes, they become meaner and meaner until the only resemblance they share to their irl counterparts is their physical appearance. 

Jay (not realizing that Unagami is the one creating the dupes) goes to Unagami to vent about how he misses his friends and wishes they could join him in the game. Unagami tells Jay "if they were really your friends, they would have come for you by now. They probably forgot about you. but it's not you ever needed them anyways. here, you are powerful, loved by everybody, adored by the masses. in here, you are important." gotta love that gaslight gatekeep gameboss moment. eventually, Unagami is ready to bring prime empire to the physical world once he's seen Jay get to the same point that Scott was at. Unagami says that he needs Jays help to deliver the message, and that crossing the line between digital and physical means that Jay can go back to the real world while still maintaining the same power and reputation he has in the game. Jay agrees and works with Unagami to make an advertisement. 

this is the advertisement script: 

[Do you want to join Prime Empire?

“What is Prime Empire?” it’s a fully immersive, futuristic video game experience! Using the latest virtual emulation technology, players are quite literally part of the game. Customize your avatar, meet other players, level up, and compete in tournaments!

“But how do I join?” The answer is simple, silly! Prime Empire can be found in your arcades, in your consoles, even on your phones! You would have to live under a rock to not find your way in.

“How do I win?” Your quest is to seek out the legendary Keytanas. But be warned, there are challenges that you will face. Deadly forests, dangerous races, and more! Will you rise above the rest and claim your rightful victory?

Join today, but don’t delay! Only the first 100 players will get a chance to meet yours truly (winks). In the Super Star Rocking Jay event, I will teach you the ropes of the game, along with exclusive tips that will give you an advantage over other players!

Do you have what it takes? Prove your worth and become part of Prime Empire!] 

however, Scott has caught wind of the ad, and so he hacks into the broadcast and tries to warn everybody to "STAY OUT OF PRIME EMPIRE!!" but once again, his warnings fall on deaf ears. 

however, now the ninja know where Jay has been all this time! they manage to be part of the 1st 100 players in the game and go to the super star rocking Jay event. Kai, Nya, Lloyd, Cole, pixal and zane all get in the game. but due to their own coding, pixal and zane despawn and get plopped back in the real world within the first 10mins of the game. They spend a lot of time outside of prime empire trying to find ways to re-enter the game.

so now we finally get to when the (remaining) ninja meet up with Jay, and he is disappointed at best when he sees them. but when they surround him with love and hugs and tears of joy, it throws him off guard. all of the NPC's were never this kind to him. He checks his objective menu and a new notification shows up. "discard the ninja". same as it's always been. part of the objective has always been to "not let the ninja know that you know they are fakes." but after all of this time, Jay has grown tired and so he doesn't really bother trying to keep up appearances. he won't flat out say that he thinks they're fakes, but his demeanor is completely off. 

the ninja make it to okino and they start going through the forest, the cliffs, and finally the maze of the red dragon. throughout this time, there are several little moments that lead Jay to believe that these might be his real friends. he tries to write them off, but it keeps nagging at him. in the canon scene where Unagami pauses the game and talks to okino, its the same except its Jay that Unagami talks to. "just wanted to check in with you, everything is still going according to plan, correct?" Jay responds with "yes, but these ones are different. none of the other clones have acted so.. so close to my real friends." Unagami scoffs "these ones are just as fake as the others. make sure you complete your objective. we are very close to bridging the gap, and I wouldn't want anybody to hold you back from being at my side when we cross over." Jay agrees and the game resumes. 

Jay has the perfect opportunity to let his friends perish at the hands of the dragon, but something in him screams at him to help them win. he points out the scale on the back of the dragon, they defeat it, and Jay gets the dragon summon. instead of keeping it, he gives it to Cole. "i figure you guys will probably need it more than me. I've got higher stats, i can take care of myself." (that dragon summon becomes important later) so ANYWAY now its time for the speedway 5billion. but they don't have enough credits so they have to get some extra money. the gang goes to the dance battle, but! theres also a karaoke battle they have to participate in. Jay and Cole sing Everybody Wants To Rule The World by Tears for Fears (this song is also important later!) and they win the contest and get enough credits to enter the race. however... 

by this point in time, Jay is pretty sure that this group is his **real** friends, and he doesn't feel like he can go through with his objective anymore. besides, would clones really dance with him? sing his favorite songs with him? watch out for him when danger approaches? smile at him with such kindness and sincerity? clones wouldnt, but his real friends would. once again, his connection to the code means that Unagami is able to track him, and also take peeks into his mind. Unagami senses this realization and pauses the game again to confront him. "Jay, you must not let these clones cloud your judgement. you still have a mission to complete." Jay says "Unagami, these aren't dupes! they're really my friends, and they came back for me! i can't just "discard" them like you want me to. I won't!" "you WILL if you ever want to leave this digital space. if you will not join me in bridging the gap, then you will be left in here for all of eternity. the choice is yours, Jay walker." and with that, the game resumes. 

the ninja are all talking and they realize that Jay has gone silent. "Jay? you good?" Kai asks. Jay snaps out of it and reassures them that he's fine. but thats when he sees *him*. in the crowd of NPC's bustling about the city, he sees nadakhan. staring at him with that evil, calculated grin and begins approaching them. Jay's eyes go wide and his stomach drops. "are you sure you're okay?" Lloyd asks. "we.. we need to get out of here. we need to leave *now*" Jay says with a quiet, wavering voice. Just as he moves to flee, Nya gasps.

It was the scene of Nya dying. She was cradled in Jay's arms, muttering her last words before going completely limp. The master of lightning shook with broken sobs, clinging to his friend as if holding her tight enough could bring her back. That was the day that Jay Walker had lost everything.

And now, that moment was set on an infinite loop, broadcasted on every screen in the capital city of Prime Empire.

Jay was frozen, unable to do anything but succumb to his rising panic.

Nya was in a similar state, feeling the sharp pains of her chest that came from her old wound. She remembered dying, the pain and vulnerability. Now her final moments were in full display.

The rest of them gazed in horror and confusion, unable to comprehend what was going on. Jay thinks he heard Kai yelling, maybe he was asking why his sister was dying over and over again. Cole sounded like he was trying to warn everyone about the approaching assailants. Those of which looked like clones of the Misfortune's crew, including their tyrannical captain.

It was all too much. Jay felt his digital blood freeze in his veins, his air cutting off entirely, and his vision slowly turning to static.

Nadakhan. Nya. Tiger widow venom. Kai. Nadhakan. Nya. Zane. Cole. Nya. Lloyd. Nadakhan. Nya. Nya. Nya. N-

Jay's friends tried to reach for him, to help him, but then it happened.

An explosion of lightning burst from Jay's body, flooding through the city with blue and white pixelated sparks. And once the wave had passed, the city went dark. The screens that were looping that wretched day were now idle. The Misfortune's crew were nowhere to be seen. Jay had fallen unconscious. 

"What are you guys doing here?" Scott asked, his face contorted in concern.

"Scott, it- its Jay. He had this weird power surge and he-" Lloyd stuttered before him and his friends were roughly yanked inside of Scott's hideout.

Cole was carrying Jay's limp body, and followed Scott's instructions to lay him on the workbench. But not before he had thrown all of his tools and blueprints on the ground in a rush.

"What did you say? About a power surge?"

"It was-" Lloyd started again

"It was like he exploded," Kai cut in, "we've never seen his element act like that."

"The city, it went dark." Nya added.

"And there was something going on with the city screens, they were showing-" said Cole.

"My sister dying! Over and over again! That's not part of the game, right?!"

"Guys guys! Chill the fuck out, one at a time." Scott demanded. They all went quiet before Nya spoke up.

"The screens showed one of Jay's memories. One of his most traumatic ones. NPC's started changing into people that.. are related to that memory. They started attacking us from all sides. Jay had gone into a panic attack before he surged. That wave of power blew out the whole city's power and everything went dark. After that he passed out."

Scott looked at her with a look of dread.

"This is worse than I thought.."

"What do you mean worse? Scott, what's wrong with Jay?" Cole asked. Scott sighed.

"He's.. he's become part of the game."

"Like an NPC?" Lloyd said.

"No, not an NPC. His memories, his soul, his life force- it's bleeding into the coding of the game. His emotions and memories are able to affect the behavior of the game. Environments, NPCs, everything."

"How do you know all of that, Scott?" Nya interjected.

"Because he's just like me."

"What??" The ninja said in unison.

"When I first came into the game, Unagami wanted me to bring Prime Empire to the real world. To break out of this digital prison and conquer the rest of the physical world. I agreed to help him because I didn't see any other way out of this hellscape. He granted me access to the code. So I'm just as connected to Prime Empire as Jay is. My memories are there too.

But the thing is, is that I've cut myself off of the code. It's the only way I could hide from Unagami, since I had abandoned ship and didn't want to help him anymore. I'm a threat because I can affect the code.

But if I don't connect to it, I stay hidden.

But Jay, his connection is so strong by this point. Everything he does changes the game.

He's gonna be okay, for now, but I can't guarantee the same for all of you." Scott finished, his eyes sunken and tired.

"Wh- what are we supposed to do then? How can we get Jay out of here?" Kai asked.

"Beat the game. As far as I know, there's no other way out of here."

They all looked at each other, faces grim but determined.

"Well we can't leave here without Jay, can we stay here until he wakes up?" Said Nya.

"Absolutely not." Scott replied.

"What? Why??" Cole butted in.

"The longer you guys stay here, with h i m, the more danger all of us are in. Jay is part of the coding, Unagami can find him. And that means he can find u s."

"Well how do we wake him up? There's gotta be some way!" Lloyd pleaded.

Scott looked at Jay's unconscious form.

"Fuck, okay, let me try something." 

so Scott does the only thing he can think of that might work. he reconnects himself to the game's code in order to "plug in" to Jay and wake him up. when he plugs in, Scott sees Jay in a dark, endless room. he's crouched on the ground, sobbing and shaking

But thrashing from his body is manifestations of his trauma, like a horrible amalgamation that is distorting his physical form and its. Horrifying.

Scott looks at him and tries to approach him without getting hurt

He gets to him and he makes contact with his shoulder and then the surge of energy happens and he gets unplugged and shot across the room, and Jay wakes up with a start, chest heaving and his eyes still wet with tears. Cole is there right next to Jay, and Jay clings onto him like a lifeline. Kai wraps his arms around Jay too and they hold him and comfort him as best they can. Lloyd and Nya go over to Scott to see if he's okay. he groans and sits up, Lloyd and Nya help him stand. "what happened? what was that??" Nya asks. "I woke him up. but its not safe anymore. you guys have to get him out of here, or else Unagami is gonna show up and if he does.. well its safe to assume it'll be game over for all of us." 

"we still have to win the highway 5billion and get the second keytana." Cole says, "and we need cars." Scott sighs at this, "i've got cars you can use, i won't be using them very much anymore anyways." "what does that mean?" Kai asks. "did you not hear me? its game over. you guys have to get Jay out of here." Scott says. "Scott, you know the game better than anyone, we need your help. will you race with us?" Nya pleads. Scott is about to reject when he looks at Jay. Jay is looking at him with a look that breaks his heart. "fine. I'll race with you guys." 

so they fix up the cars and enter the SW5B and Scott is like "i guess if we're going in, i might as well get a new look." so he customizes his avatar (if u check my post with his redesign, thats the avatar he has, the glowing parts of his outfit change colors!) and they start the race! Scott doesn't have his own car, instead he's jumping from vehicle to vehicle and taking out the other drivers so that the ninja can win. he uses his baseball bat as a melee weapon but it can also shoot lasers! Kai still gets that loot box upgrade and has the running mech, and just like in canon, Cole and Kai get cubed. so does Scott, he gets run over lol. now its just Jay, Nya, and Lloyd and they make their way to the temple of madness.

then we have the fight. in canon its Lloyd and harumi, but in this au, Jay enters the arena instead. he gets in and the game picks his fighter. expecting it to be someone he's fought before, he prepares himself. but nothing could have prepared him for who he saw standing in front of him. it was echo zane. 

Nya stares in horror and Lloyd is confused. "who is that? that can't be zane, right? why would he be part of the game?" Lloyd asks. Nya can't say anything, and neither can Jay. Jay wants to give up, he cant fight echo. someone who helped him in the most dire of times, only to be left alone on that island for the rest of eternity. Jay had never gone back for him, and that guilt he felt had just kicked into high gear having to look echo in the eyes. but then echo starts attacking him, and Jay has to defend himself. Jay wins, and sees echo disappear after the final blow. the walls of the arena disappear and Jay falls to his knees. Lloyd and Nya move in immediately to help him up. "seriously, what the hell is going on?? why aren't you guys saying anything??" Lloyd demands. "we can't talk about it right now, Lloyd. we'll have to tell you later." Nya says quietly. her voice is tight and dies in her throat. Lloyd gets the hint and doesn't push it any further. 

so the three of them make it through the sushi restaurant and make it to the gate with the 3 keytanas. Jay, Lloyd, and Nya go to put in the blades and they open the gate. standing in front of them is none other than Unagami. "Jay, you have disappointed me. you were so important, so valued, and you have thrown that away for the sake of your so-called 'friends'. thankfully, there is still a place for you." Unagami says. "i don't WANT a place with you! you've hurt me, you've hurt my friends, you've hurt so many innocent people. all of those cubes? those are REAL PEOPLE! i can't let you do this Unagami. I won't let you get away with this." Jay says defiantly. Unagami sighs, "i was hoping it would not come to this. but if you chose to act this way, you will face the consequences. you will help me bridge this gap, whether you like it or not." and Unagami holds out his hands. an intense blue beam of light bursts from his palms and hits Jay square in the chest. the light is absorbed by his body and his form begins to glitch and spasm violently. mochi and i have called this the Blue Screen of Death. (tw for mild(?) body horror) Jay is overcome by the blue and his body begins to grow and distort, all the while he's screaming and his cries are glitched out and staticky. Lloyd and Nya watch, frozen in fear as their friend begins to grow to massive size, writhing in agony. Jay thrashes and knocks into both of them, sending them off the side of the platform and cubing them. the last two energy cubes join the gate and Jay crawls through. 

(with this scene, in the background, the lorde version of everybody wants to rule the world would be playing, just as a nice parallel to the song from earlier at the karaoke battle)

MEANWHILE, as pixal and zane attempted to find ways to get back into the game, find milton dyer, etc, zane gets captured by the mechanic. everything goes the same as it does in canon where the mechanic hooks zane up to the gate. 

and now, we get a look at where everybody who got cubed resides. Scott, when he was cubed, was greeted by Unagami personally. he criticized him for his actions and expressed his disappointment before ultimately locking him inside of a digital cell. Scott figured that this was how the rest of his life would be, trapped in a cage with no way out and no way to die. but then! Rora shows up. that corruption in her system from the beginning? that was her beginning to break away from her coding and becoming more of a person. she saw what happened to Jay, and she wants to help him. she breaks Scott out and they agree to work together to save Jay. but they're gonna need all the help they can get. together, Scott and rora free the ninja and all of the other cubed players and they make it through the portal. 

and thats where they see Jay, now as tall as the skyscrapers in ninjago city and wreaking havoc on the entire area. 

everyone looks up at him in utter horror and see just how corrupted he's become. he's wailing in pain as he drives his guitar down on building after building. thrashing and flailing, causing the structures around him to crumble and collapse. "how the fuck are we gonna fix this?!" Nya cries. "i can help." Unagami approaches them. everyone gets into fighting stances, ready to beat Unagami into the pavement. "i did not realize that corrupting him would turn out like this. i know how to fix him, but i need your help." "why should we help YOU?" Kai growls. "if you want to save your city and your friend from complete destruction, you *will* help me." and so Unagami explains that if they can lure Jay back through the portal, Unagami can undo his corruption and fix Jays "coding" 

so now the ninja are trying to figure out how to get Jay's attention and bring him back through the portal. it seems like nothing is working, and then Cole gets an idea. he starts singing the lyrics to everybody wants to rule the world. it seems to get Jay's attention, so he keeps singing.

the others hear him and they join in. now they have Jay's attention, and he's closing in on them. that dragon summon from earlier? now thats when that comes in handy. Cole calls the digidragon and rides it so that Jay cant crush him while he lures him back to the portal. low and behold, they manage to get Jay through the portal, Unagami purifies his "coding" and they return to the physical world once again. Unagami gets to have his talk with milton and all of the npcs+pcs that want to come out do, and the others stay in the game. the city is in shambles, the portal closes, and zane+pixal+wu reunite with the others. 

the car ride home is very quiet. everyone is exhausted, Jay is asleep and leaning on Cole's shoulder. they have a lot to talk about, but for now, they just want to sleep through the night. they make it home, go to their separate rooms, and go to bed.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand thats pretty much all of it!! theres a little epilogue that has snippets of what Scott, racer 7, okino, and rora do now that they're outside of the game, but thats just kinda there lol.

[goldenavenger02]

my pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand

5 times Zane took care of the team and 1 time the team took care of Zane

•••

1;

"You three are brothers now, and will become stronger together. But for now, you must get acquainted with each other." Sensei's words rang in Zane's head as he made his way into the kitchen of the monastery.

While Jay had been somewhat easy to get introduced to, with his passion for robotics and his tendency to talk, they had become close very quickly.

Cole, however, was a bit harder to speak to; Zane could tell that Cole was a good person, as he was extremely loyal to Sensei even though he had just started his training under him, but he was also closed off to Jay and Zane.

And while he didn't know why, Zane had a feeling it was more so due to some sort of pain in his past, and not him viewing himself and Jay as lower than him.

Which is why Zane was now in the kitchen; he could never quite place exactly why, but he always felt at peace when he was cooking. Something about making something out of nothing was soothing to him.

But before he had decided what exactly he was going to make, that's when Cole came in, a look of longing across his face.

"Hello, Cole," Zane greeted, offering him a smile, but it faded when Cole stiffened, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you."

"It's alright, just startled me," Cole insisted, the look of longing came back before he asked, "are you making anything specific?"

"I have not decided. Do you have a request?" Zane asked, trying to read Cole's face.

"Can you make cake? Vanilla cake?"

"Absolutely," Zane smiled, going to grab the ingredients before asking, his back turned to Cole, "are we celebrating something, or is it just cake?"

He heard Cole take in a deep breath, almost as if he was trying to avoid crying, which didn't make much sense, since from what he knew, cake was never for sad things.

Zane turned around to see Cole staring at the counter before he responded.

"Yeah, it's��" he swallowed before locking eyes with Zane, "it would have been my mom's birthday. She passed away a few months ago."

"I am sorry for your loss, Cole." Zane spoke softly, unsure of how best to comfort someone he didn't know very well.

The room went quiet for a few moments, and Zane busied himself with grabbing the rest of the cooking supplies when Cole spoke up again, his voice cracking slightly from the tears.

"Can I help?"

Zane nodded, allowing Cole behind the counter before Zane got to work on the dry ingredients, watching as Cole started working on the wet ingredients.

And when Zane tripped over his own foot, resulting in Cole being covered in flour head to toe, he couldn't stop himself from laughing when Cole did, although he didn't fully understand exactly what was so funny.

2;

"Come on, you stupid hunk of junk!" Nya's shout rang through the Bounty, startling everyone that was aboard.

"How long has she been working on the thruster?" Zane asked, wondering just how long she had gone without food, sleep and water.

"Since yesterday afternoon, I can't pry her away from it." Jay explained, which led Zane to nod before making his way to the control room.

Nya was hunched over the thruster controls, screwdriver in her left hand and a screw hanging out of her mouth, her eyebrows scrunched in anger as she continued to twist the wrench with her right around a bolt.

"Nya?" Zane spoke softly, not wanting to provoke her, before gently putting his hand on her shoulder, "perhaps you should take a break. Jay said that you have been working on it since yesterday."

"I've gotta work on this," she shook her head after taking the screw out of her mouth, "we don't know when we'll have to make a getaway from...whatever Lord Garmadon is planning."

Zane nodded; since Garmadon had disappeared after the destruction of the golden weapons, they had all braced themselves for an attack, even Lloyd who had just started learning the full extent of his powers was getting ready for whatever his dad was going to throw at them.

"I understand your reasoning perfectly, but you are human, Nya. You will get burnt out if you work yourself too hard," he stopped to gently take the wrench out of her hand so she would look at him, "and if we have any chance at stopping Garmadon, we are going to need Samurai X."

Luckily, Nya nodded, and put up her tools, before wiping at her brow with her arm. "Thanks, Zane."

"You're welcome." Zane couldn't help but smile as he watched Nya make her way towards her quarters, and that's when he turned back to the thruster, and started to get to work with schematics pulled up in front of him.

"You will fly again, my friend."

3;

Despite the fact that it was called "The Dark Island", Zane had actually found the perfect place to sit on the beach and watch the sunrise, which was hidden by large rocks, even though he could see the ocean perfectly.

He knew that the others would wake up soon, and they would start working towards the final battle yet again, but for a brief moment, everything was peaceful.

Until he heard the footsteps.

Zane immediately drew his weapon, hearing the slight rustle of sand get louder and louder, until finally, he stood and yelled, ready to attack until the supposed assailant screamed, energy at both of their hands.

Zane immediately sheathed the weapon and took a deep breath, watching as Lloyd did the same, his hand against his chest. "You scared me, Lloyd."

"Likewise," Lloyd took a deep breath before raising an eyebrow, "what're you doing?"

"I'm watching the sunrise, it looks beautiful from here," Zane explained, sitting back down and watching Lloyd's face fall, "although, I could ask you the same thing."

"I just needed some time for myself," Lloyd told him, sitting next to Zane before letting out a sigh, "I don't think I'm ready."

"To fight your father?," Zane offered, resulting in a nod from Lloyd, "You have every reason to be upset about this situation. I just reunited with my father, and I can confidently say that I would be very distraught if we were on opposite sides."

"My entire life, I've lost people. My father got banished, my mother went to work on her research and left me at Darkley's, even my uncle didn't take me in for a long time," Zane watched as Lloyd took in a shaky breath before wiping his face against his sleeve, "I don't wanna lose him again."

"Again?" Zane asked softly, as to avoid provoking Lloyd.

"My dad has been the only one to come back for me. When I got taken by the Serpentine, he left whatever evil place he was in to come save me, and I know you guys came for me too, but…"

"You're scared of being abandoned again after you fulfill the prophecy." Zane spoke aloud as it clicked in his head, and when Lloyd nodded, he could feel his heart break slightly.

"I don't want to be alone again."

Zane nodded, before gently laying his hand on Lloyd's shoulder and he saw the tear streaks on Lloyd's cheeks. "You won't be alone again, because you have me and the others. We are your brothers, and even if you didn't have elemental abilities, we would still be your brothers."

Zane didn't prepare himself adquitally for the hug that Lloyd gave him, and he could feel his circuits and gears tightening under his grasp.

But hearing Lloyd's soft voice whisper, "thank you, Zane," made it all worth it, and he couldn't stop himself from returning the hug.

4;

"No sign of Chen or any of his warriors." PIXAL affirmed with a smile, which led Zane to repeat the message to Kai.

Now that he had been freed, he was fully able to explore exactly what his new body could do, and while he remembered big events clearly and flashes of small things, his memory was still foggy.

But he remembered his friends, and that was the biggest thing that mattered to him.

"Any sign of Skylor?" Kai begged, and Zane had no choice but to shake his head no, seeing the look of anguish on Kai's face grow more prominent.

"Let's keep looking. They couldn't have gotten off the island." Kai insisted, Zane following closely behind, watching as Kai's face went from anger to worry.

"You seem distraught, Kai. About more than Skylor," Zane reached forward and gently set his hand on Kai's shoulder, watching as he turned back to meet his eyes, "do you want to talk about it?"

Kai let out a sigh before turning back to the path and continued to walk, "I feel terrible for what happened. I had to trick Lloyd in order to get the staff from Chen, and then I almost hurt Lloyd and Skylor with the staff. Now she's missing, and...I feel like that's on me."

"No one blames you for that, Kai. Chen is the one who took her, not you." Zane reasoned softly.

"But I allowed myself to be corrupted by the staff. We all know how bad losing power is for Lloyd, and I allowed the power to consume me, to say things to him that...that I haven't believed in a long time."

"As soon as we get back, you two should talk and get everything out in the open," Zane stopped once again to put his hand on Kai's shoulder, "if we are going to fight as one, and stop Chen, we cannot have any harsh feelings towards each other."

"You're right," Kai nodded, before letting out another sigh, "I just hope Lloyd doesn't hate me."

"I think that would be impossible, Kai," Zane insisted, and when Kai turned to raise an eyebrow at him, he continued, "I do not remember everything, and my memories are still foggy, but I remember just how much Lloyd and you have bonded over the years. I have a feeling that after you two talk, he will forgive you."

Kai smiled, which made Zane's emotion levels spike with happiness, before the two continued walking deeper and deeper into Chen's island.

5;

Zane couldn't shake the feeling that he was missing something, like there was a gap in his memory drive, even if PIXAL insisted that there wasn't one.

So he was awake in the bridge, trying to double check; he really did trust PIXAL, but something had happened to his memories, and after the whole situation with his memory switch in the first place, something about forgetting just scared him.

But as he continued to go through his internal hard drive, and his memory drive, it seemed as though PIXAL was correct, and there was no gap.

As he went to close the files, that's when PIXAL popped up in his vision.

"Zane, there is someone in the general proximity of the bridge. Proceed with caution."

Zane straightened his back as he closed the files, even though the only sound he could hear was a slight sniffling that sounded a lot like crying, and grabbed one of the spare katanas that was out, turning slowly to see if he could scope out who was in the room, but that's when Jay turned the corner, a pint of ice cream in his hand that he almost threw at Zane when he screamed.

"What the heck are you doing up, Zane?!" Jay screeched as Zane set the katana on the table and approached him, "You're going to give me a heart attack if you're that quiet!"

"I'm sorry, I was just…" Zane trailed off before making eye contact with Jay, who now had the spoon from the pint of ice cream, that looked like it was Cole's ice cream, in his mouth; the tear streaks barely visible against Jay's cheeks, however, that's what Zane noticed, "What are you doing up at this hour?"

"Could ask you the same thing," Jay responded before sticking another spoonful in his mouth, "couldn't sleep, got hungry, and Cole's name isn't on his ice cream."

"I heard someone crying." Zane asked softly, watching as Jay nearly choked on a chunk of cookie dough before sputtering.

"Maybe it was Lloyd, you know he curls up under the wheel when he doesn't want anyone to know he's crying."

"Lloyd was snoring when I left our room, I would have seen him," he watched as Jay's body deflated slightly and he put the ice cream down on the console before sitting down, which led Zane to put his hand on his shoulder, "do you want to talk about it?"

"I'm just working through some things, things that...you wouldn't remember."

Zane swallowed as he made the connection that Jay knew exactly why he had a gap in his memory that PIXAL couldn't detect, but instead of freaking out, he sat next to Jay, and put his hand on his shoulder. "Maybe not, but I am willing to listen, even if you wanna erase this conversation afterwards."

"Nah, I'm not gonna do that," Jay wiped his hand across his face before taking a shaky breath and turning back to Zane, "You remember when we were trying to get to Stiix because of reports of Clouse being there?"

"Yes, that's when you and Nya resumed dating." Zane affirmed, watching as Jay's face fell slightly.

"Yeah, that's… not exactly what happened…"

6;

'Remember when I put Kai's clothes in with yours, and you had to dress up as the pink ninja? Remember?' The blonde boy pleaded, green eyes full of tears.

He had no idea what this liar was talking about, let alone who he was. Vex insisted he was some sort of liar or traitor, but there was something about the way…

'No.'

He had no idea who this was.

•••

Zane tried to shake the memory away as he made his way to his room, looking over at the photo on his dresser.

The picture that they had taken after finishing the mural on the monastery wall; where Kai was holding onto Nya and Lloyd and Nya was holding onto Jay and Jay was holding onto Cole and Lloyd was holding onto him and he was holding onto PIXAL.

And they were all happy; even though the Oni almost killed them all, there was a large gash next to Lloyd's eye and Cole looked like he had been through the underworld and back, they were happy.

Zane was anything but happy now.

When they returned from the Never-Realm, and they shared weary smiles and hugs with Master Wu and PIXAL, despite the frostbite, Lloyd's obvious concussion and the burns on Kai's hands that would definitely scar, they were happy.

The feeling in Zane's gut was not going away anytime soon. Watching as PIXAL stitched the cut on the back of Lloyd's head, applied bandages to Kai's hands, and treated the frostbite wasn't helping with that either.

Zane didn't deserve to feel happy after nearly killing the others. After nearly killing Lloyd.

While the others were eating dinner, courtesy of Nya, Zane was sitting outside on the steps of the monastery; he didn't need to eat, and even if he did, he didn't think he could stomach it.

'You were built to protect those who cannot protect themselves. You failed your purpose. Both as a ninja, and as yourself.'

Despite all that had happened with his memories, Zane was starting to consider asking Jay to wipe the archive of the Never-Realm. Maybe he wouldn't feel as bad then.

"Hey," a voice interrupted his thoughts, and he lifted his head to see Lloyd smiling at him, although it was more of a sympathetic smile than a genuine one, "mind if I sit here?"

"You're not supposed to be outside, or on stairs for that matter, without supervision," Zane reasoned, but still moved so Lloyd could sit beside him, "you still have a concussion."

"Well, you're here, so I'm being supervised," Lloyd reasoned while sitting, and Zane couldn't deny that logic, and the company was more welcome than the deafening silence, "besides, I need a break from Kai and Master Wu breathing down my neck."

Zane nodded as Lloyd adjusted to get comfortable; he had noticed how understandably protective both of them had grown since they had gotten back, and how Lloyd had insisted immediately that the concussion was Vex's fault, refusing to look Zane in the eye.

"So, are you leaving?" Lloyd's voice cracked, which jolted something in Zane's system as he nearly stood with the shock.

"No, no, I'm not leaving," he insisted, unable to ignore the relief on Lloyd's face as he spoke, "why would you ask that?"

"Because the last time you left the monastery at night, you found my treehouse," Lloyd kicked at a pebble before looking at Zane, "and when the Hypnobri burned down the old monastery-"

But Lloyd's voice cut out as the scene played out in his head.

'Flames, trapped dragons, no more training equipment, no home, nowhere to go, alone, everyone accusing him of causing this, insisting that it was a teaching moment, being ignored, seeing the falcon, following it, the feeling of being alone again.'

"I left because I saw the falcon, and you weren't even there." Zane tried to convince Lloyd that it hadn't been the guilt, feeling like he had screwed up, feeling like he was alone.

"You're right, I was busy being a brat," Lloyd reasoned before looking back at Zane, "but I know as well as anyone what guilt is, and you felt it then, like you feel it now."

Zane swallowed; did everyone know? Was he terrible at hiding this? Had they planned to send Lloyd out?

"I hurt people. A lot of people," Zane swallowed, knowing that there were tears in his eyes, "I hurt you."

"That was Vex-" Lloyd tried to insist, but Zane shook his head, unable to look at Lloyd and instead looked up at the glittering stars.

"You don't have to lie to me, Lloyd. They were my hands, I was the one who…" he couldn't even finish his sentence without choking on the emotions on his throat.

He felt Lloyd's hand on his shoulder, he couldn't look at him, but he couldn't reach over and pull his hand off either, 'what if I freeze him? What if I hurt him again?'

"You know, Master Wu has a saying for things like this, "we cannot change the past, but we can affect the future"," Lloyd quoted, leading Zane to swallow harshly as his master's words rang true in his head, "but I get it. Feeling like you hurt people because it was your hands."

'Morro.'

"Lloyd, I didn't-" Zane started, finally managing to look at Lloyd, but he was cut off by childlike wonder spreading across his face.

"A shooting star! Quick, make a wish!" Lloyd begged, and Zane wiped at his tears before closing his eyes, pretending to make a wish before turning back to Lloyd.

"What did you wish for?" He asked, fully indulging Lloyd at this point, who was standing up. 'Lloyd deserves this, after everything.'

"That you'll come back inside with me and the others," Lloyd held out his hand to Zane, making his head throb with worry.

'You'll hurt him, you'll hurt him, you'll hurt-' "You're not going to hurt me, Zane."

Zane took Lloyd's hand, and allowed him to lead him to the living room.

For the first time since they got back from the Never-Realm, as Cole and Kai went head to head in their video game, as Nya and Jay snuggled on the couch, as he sat in between Lloyd and PIXAL, things felt right again.

He let PIXAL hold his hand, he let Cole high five him, he let Jay give him a fist bump, he hit the empty bag of chips away from Lloyd's head. Even as Master Wu pulled Lloyd away from the TV due to the concussion and Cole took his spot, he still felt calm. Relaxed even. Maybe now, they could all start to heal together.

[ice-emperor-zane]

Just A Small Glitch In His Code chapter 10 is up!!!!! Chapter 1 is here, and chapter 10 is also readable below

She didn’t want to admit to them that she was absolutely seething, the sort of anger that lost all sense of direction and could consume anyone in the general vicinity within its fiery rage if not dealt with. She guessed she may have accidentally implied it to them anyway though. I mean it was true, she was, at Wu, for whatever the first spinjitzu master *that* was. Not that she’d listened to most of it but it was definitely uncalled for. And at Lloyd, for giving up on Zane so easily, at Zane, for hiding all this from everyone, and well, she was mad at herself, she supposed.

It wasn’t like she blamed any of them entirely, she knew they all were dealing with their own things. So, she decided it was better to go and be on her own rather than just make herself more annoyed, more productive of her to get in touch with Kai, and maybe even give a quick warning of the situation to Cole, though he was already returning from Shintaro in a short few days.

She sat cross-legged on the cold wooden steps of the monastery courtyard, her head leant against one of it’s pillars. It was especially cold this time of year, and a gust of wind rustled through her wiry hair, reminding her fondly and all too horribly of how she and Zane joked about someday engineering hairpieces for themselves that worked like wind-chimes. The glimpse of sky she could see beyond the monastery walls had a hint of red, it must have been a lovely sunset, and she must’ve missed most of it with everything going on.

Everything that just happened, it all felt so rushed. She hadn’t had time to think too much about anything, right from knocking Zane out to trying to have a civil conversation with the Overlord. She supposed she’d have to rushedly send those messages to Kai and Cole too now.

She halfheartedly went to get her phone out of her pocket, paused, and sighed. She couldn’t quite get why, but she just really didn’t feel like it; what would she even say? She found herself instead contemplating whether it was worth the energy to climb up onto the roof of the monastery or step outside its doors onto the winding stairs that twist all the way down the mountain, see if there was anything left of that sunset. If only just to be just a little further away from everything that had just happened.

Usually she would have decided not to, a voice in her mind would have screamed otherwise. She had learnt from the others that distancing themselves over grief for Nya had split up the group, they were no longer as close in every sense of the word, when it could just as easily have brought them all together. She needed to text the others, and she knew that.

But, she supposed that if she didn’t know what to say and didn’t know how they’d help, it could wait a short while. So, she got up and prepared to scale the monastery walls.

”Uh, Pix?” Lloyd stared at her confusedly from the doorway.

“Oh, hey” she replied, jumping down from her position about a quarter of the way up the wall as though it was a regular thing to be doing.

“Okay, not even gonna ask about that-” he gestured to the wall she had just been climbing “Anyway, do you wanna go inside to send the messages? Its freezing out here.” His arms were crossed as though shivering.

“Good point. I’d say we should send it from the base itself because of the internet connection being second-to-none, but,” she paused “I don’t know about you but I don’t know whether I want to go back down there today.”

“True, let’s just go into the living room.”

They sat on the couch, the LEDs in Pixal’s eyes along with the ‘game over’ prime empire screen on the tv and Lloyd’s phone with the ‘new message’ tab open on the table in front of them were now the only light sources in the room.

“So….what do we say?” Lloyd asked

“Hey guys! I know you’re going batshit with grief over Nya but Zane got corrupted by the Overlord, and he’s basically in a coma, and the virus is corrupting Pixal too now, so, how’ve you been?” She replied, a more sarcastic and panicked reply than her usual self.

“It’s usually Jay who does that” Lloyd replied with a small laugh, “I suppose its the best idea we’ve got though.”

“Yeah..” she responded halfheartedly, and they sat in silence for a moment, both clearly trying to think of a better idea, and not coming up with much.

“Should I make us some cocoa, or something? She did a slight smile at Lloyd.

“That’d be great, thanks.” He replied, and she stood up and began to walk to the kitchen.

“Wait Pix- first, I’ve gotta say it,” he began, and turned his head to face her behind the couch. “I’m sorry you had to hear all that stuff from Wu. You know it as well as I do that it’s not your fault, I think he does sort of know that too, maybe, he’s just not been thinking too clearly in recent years y’know. Don’t take it to heart, alright?”

“Thanks Lloyd, and don’t worry” she responded with a convincing smile. “You want marshmallows in your cocoa?”

“Is that even a question?” He replied, returning the smile.