#lloyd my beloved child

[phoebepheebsphibs]

UPDATED AND REDESIGNED CHARACTER SHEETS FOR THE FUTURE AND A ROBOT CHARACTERS!!

The Future and a Robot is my original series that I plan to animate soon/eventually.

The series follows two kids — er, one kid and one robot — who by accident activate a strange device which portals them into a distant land of archaic culture, odd lore, and major historical events — the 90’s! The two meet a young boy and his family, and lodge with them until they can figure out how to return home… but that’s a story for another time. And now, to (re)introduce the main cast!

First up, Lloyd the Android!

Lloyd is… well, a robot. An android, to be specific (he gets very particular about that distinction)! Lloyd is sweet, goofy, incredibly innocent and unfortunately as naive as a newborn baby. Lloyd’s name is actually an acronym: Life-Like- Optimized Youth Droid. Designated as Julia’s companion and protector, Lloyd finds himself suddenly in a new (or rather, old) century with people that he comes to love just as much as his creator. However, what with being a highly advanced piece of technology, Lloyd is now made to keep his mechanical origins a secret. Only Julia, Harris and the Smith family know that he’s not actually a human. But can he keep up the charade?

Coming in hot — Julia Gonzales!

Meet Julia Gonzales, a preteen genius with some minor anger issues and misguided goals. But don’t let her salty demeanor fool you, she’s just a kid burdened with a heavy backstory… plus a silly android that she has to wrangle out of danger far more often than she’d like to. Julia prefers to maintain the edgy punk motif, but in reality she’s a chaotic and nerdy gamer with way too much time on her hands. She loves all things technology — programming, engineering, coding, building, inventing, etc. However, the 90’s prove to challenge her patience as she struggles to rediscover herself while also finding a way back home… After all, she still has a mission to finish.

Put your hands together for Harris Smith!

Harris Smith is a young lad who lives in the quiet and unassuming town of Westfield. However, his quiet life is upturned in the most fantastic of ways when he finds Julia and Lloyd! Instantly enamored and amazed, Harris convinces everyone to let the two quirky kids stay at the Smith home until they can find a way to send Julia and Lloyd back to the year 2485. Harris, a hickish boy with a mullet, very few friends, and an interest in computers, immediately befriends the time travelers and begins the start of his new life of adventure and amazement! Harris loves having Julia show him her cool futuristic tech, and he will often take the time to help teach Lloyd what being a human is like.

Last but never least, we present Imogen Love Davies!

Imogen Love is a sweet young girl who befriends Lloyd and the rest, though she and Lloyd are the closest of the group. She has no idea that Lloyd is an android, nor that he is absolutely 100% head-over-heels in love with her. Imogen is very artistic, she loves to draw and tries to inspire Lloyd just as much as he inspires her. She carries around a small fanny-pack-purse-thing that somehow always has whatever she needs inside. Drawing supplies? Check. Water? Check. A bungee cord? Why not. It’s Batman’s utility belt, Milo Murphy’s backpack, Wander’s hat, you get the idea. Imogen Love truly lives up to her name, showing kindness to everyone. And maybe a lil’ extra for a certain someone she’s quite fond of…

There are plenty more characters within the story — Mr. and Mrs. Smith, several kids from school, an antagonistic businesswoman and her faithful engineering partner, etc. Maybe I’ll share the rest some other day (like when I finish their turnarounds, lol), but for now I think a small taste is best and I cannot wait for the day when I get to introduce the rest of the story!!

[ren-cerati]

In another universe Wu said fuck your emo bullshit and saved my boy, and we got a Morro redemption arc and in day of the departed we unghosted him.

I just wanted my boys in fashion I love them both so much.

Lloyd doing his sailor moon anime style pose because he's special.

[marybeatriceofmodena]

What did Andrew Lloyd Webber do to make Patti Lupone upset? Sorry, saw your tags and i was curious

Oh.

Oh honey.

You sweet child.

Anyway, get ready for one of the most infamous showdowns in all musical theatre history, with the guy who writes the straightest musicals on Broadway (derogatory) and the one and only, the matriarch, the queen, two three-time Tony award winner Patti LuPone.

So, Andrew Lloyd Webber was basically kind of a boy genius in his prime - he met his future collaborator Tim Rice when they were 17 and 20 respectively, he wrote his first big hit, Jesus Christ Superstar, at 22, with Tim Rice writing the lyrics. And it was kind of a big deal at the time because the topic was controversial (you know, the Passion with rock music), but also because Broadway wasn't that far off from its golden age and let's just say the music and style were very different from, say, My Fair Lady. Or The Sound of Music. Or Funny Girl. It was basically the Rent/Hamilton of its time. (Yeah, Stephen Sondheim was around at that time, he worked on West Side Story which was revolutionary in of itself, but he's kind of an oddball in this case. You'll understand why later.)

Their real follow up (I'm not counting Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat for a variety of reasons) was a little musical called Evita, which you might know mainly because of a song called Don't Cry For Me Argentina. Or at least, your mom has probably heard it once at the very least. It's that song that's oversung from a musical while being out of context along with I Dreamed a Dream for Les Misérables. Or Memory from Cats.

Evita tells the story of Eva Peron, the wife of an Argentinian dictator, who basically screws her way to the top and ends up becoming the mistress of Juan Peron and the most beloved woman in her country through guile and deceit. Yes, I know the historical accuracy is very much debated but I know jackshit about Argentina's history except the bare basics so don't come at me. It was first produced in the West End in London, with Elaine Paige in the role, but because of Equity issues, she couldn't reprise her role for the Broadway production. So a Julliard graduate who was mostly starring in David Mamet plays got the part instead, and that was Patti LuPone.

Patti... did not have a good time during Evita, because the part is basically the kind of score where you can tell the composer is used to writing male parts, but most female singers have a two-octave range (yes, you got Julie Andrews who used to have a three-octave range, and many others, but they're exceptions), so she struggled a lot. That being said, if you listen to live recordings of her, you wouldn't be able to tell, and it got a lot easier later on. But she had this to say:

"Evita was the worst experience of my life. I was screaming my way through a part that could only have been written by a man who hates women. And I had no support from the producers, who wanted a star performance onstage but treated me as an unknown backstage. It was like Beirut, and I fought like a banshee."

This is from Patti's autobiography, which she wrote in 2007 - 8 years after shit with ALW went down. With all that said, she won a Tony Award for Evita, and she pretty much became a musical theatre household name from then on. She played Fantine in Les Misérables, Nancy in Oliver!, Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes. Meanwhile, ALW's next big hits were Cats (I'm not even kidding, Cats was a hit), and, you guessed it, The Phantom of the Opera, which he wrote in part to showcase his then wife Sarah Brightman's triple threat talents.

So, you need to understand before I continue that ALW, from my perspective, has always had a bit of an inferiority complex. He's basically associated to writing these commercially successful musicals that show a big spectacle but aren't ultimately substantial. I'm not sure I entirely agree with that, but I do think that if he didn't have Hal Prince, Maria Bjornson, Charles Hart and Gillian Lynne backing him up for Phantom, it would have probably been a Rocky Horror Picture Show knockoff people would have forgotten about pretty quickly. This is what I mean:

Yep, that was Phantom before any of the people I mentioned above (and Michael Crawford) were really involved.

Remember how I said Stephen Sondheim was an oddball? The thing with him is that his musicals weren't always commercially successful, but in general, in part thanks to being Leonard Bernstein's protégé, he was generally pretty well-respected and it was considered that his work was bringing musicals to a whole other level. Without Sondheim, you wouldn't have Jonathan Larson, and you wouldn't have Lin-Manuel Miranda. I am convinced ALW is resentful of that, and when you stop and think about it for more than 10 seconds, it's so obvious he REALLY wants to be Sondheim or at least command the same level of respect, but that's a story for another day.

So, after Phantom, ALW had other musicals that followed that either got a meh reception or outright flopped. Then there was Sunset Boulevard, which is based on the movie of the same name with Gloria Swanson. Despite all of her griefs for Evita, Patti LuPone agreed to partake in the musical as Norma Desmond, for its production in London, with the promise that she would transfer to Broadway once that production would open. And overall, after a string of flops, Sunset was actually doing pretty well.

HOWEVER. One day, while reading the gossip column of a newspaper, Patti found out that contrary to what she was promised, Glenn Close, who was meanwhile starring as Norma in the Los Angeles production, was to play Norma on Broadway. That was a complete surprise for her since no one on the production team had bothered to tell her it was happening - and keep in mind that for the news to come up the way it did in a gossip column, it probably would have necessitated a delay of a few weeks between the producers and the newspaper, which would have given them plenty of time to break the news to Patti. And Patti kind of needed the leg up because she was pretty bitter that a) Madonna was cast in the Evita adaptation instead of her; b) they actually lowered the key to fit Madonna's voice range, and she still had to expand her own to be able to sing the (lowered) score. And trust me, Patti is mad about it to this day.

So of course, she trashed her dressing room, the cast and crew weren't even mad about it because they were as shocked and angered as she was by the news. Patti sued Andrew Lloyd Webber for breach of contract, namely for 1 MILLION DOLLARS (yup, those are the real numbers), won, used the money she got from the lawsuit to get a swimming pool, which she called (and I SHIT YOU NOT) the Andrew Lloyd Webber Memorial Pool. Since then, Webber is dead to her, to the point rumor has it she had part of a building blocked during an event so she could get out of it without coming across Webber, because she hates him so flipping much she doesn't even want to be in the same building as the guy.

(There's also drama that happened with Faye Dunaway who was supposed to replace Glenn Close after she went from Los Angeles to Broadway, except they abruptly closed the show down after Close left, but that's a story for another day)

So with all the bad press, and with ALW forced to pay 1 million dollars for Patti's lawsuit, that led Sunset's productions to close earlier than expected. ALW has stayed around since, with... mitigated output, so to say. The lowest point for a lot of people is Love Never Dies, the sequel to Phantom, which some people love, and that's fine, but it didn't do well with either critics nor fans of the original show, which ALW is EXTREMELY BUTTHURT ABOUT. And like, there are so many stories I could tell about LND alone, but I will share my own crack theory about it, since it does relate to the ask.

Anyway, buckle up.

So. There have been jokes going around for years that the Phantom in LND is basically ALW's self-insert, where he displays to the world that he's totally not over Sarah Brightman leaving him (in part because making Phantom kinda ruined their marriage lmao), despite, you know, having married since. (Aaaaaakward.) So LND basically becomes this really uncomfortable therapy session where a man writes a self-insert musical about how his ex-wife made a big mistake of leaving a sensitive artistic soul such as himself. The characters from Phantom who appear in LND are all more or less unrecognizable as a result, and one who gets it worse (in my humble opinion) is Meg Giry, who was basically Christine's sweet and loyal ballerina friend who basically went into the Phantom's lair on her own to save her friend despite the danger. In LND, she's basically a bitter hag (because ALW hates women, guess Patti was right about that), who really likes the swim and even has a stripping vaudeville number about it, written in universe by the Phantom, no less.

For comparison, here's Don Juan Triumphant (the Phantom's opera in the original):

And here's Bathing Beauty (the vaudeville number):

Yeah, so... do you see why people hate LND already?

And that's not the only thing with Meg! She's also pining for the Phantom to pay attention to her and threatens to drown the Phantom and Christine's secret love child when he makes it clear that he's gonna love Christine for EVA AND EVA.

So, with everything we learned today about ALW, would someone like him view someone like Patti LuPone as some sort of crazy, bitter diva who's obsessed with him for whatever reason? Absolutely. Would he be petty enough to insert Patti LuPone into his self-insert musical, which gave us the version of Meg Giry we got in LND? Of course. Why does Meg love to swim so much and why does she drag Gustave out ostensibly for a swim? Is it a dig at Patti's Andrew Lloyd Webber Memorial Pool? Maybe.

I kind of hope we find out one day if that theory is true. And maybe start a kickstarter so Patti can add this painting from the 2004 movie in her collection.

Fun fact: during the process of casting for the 2004 movie adaptation of POTO, ALW allegedly suggested Patti LuPone to play Carlotta... only for Joel Schumacher to have to awkwardly remind him that they were not on speaking terms. The idea was therefore promptly dropped.

[evanescentdawn]

SKALES & PYTHORS ADVENTURES IN (deceiving & tricking) BABYSITTING CHILD ! >> I was so Real for this title !!!!!!!!!! my past self beloved <3

can imagine the entirety of this fic being 😭😭😭 just bby lloyd being like “🥺 friends?” meanwhile: Skales + Pythor r scheming and planning to drop his ass any second. Skales is thinly veiled with their act so not a fav with Lloyd jfjdjdjd.

skales & pythor’s adventures in (deceiving & tricking) babysitting child! 

“what the hell is this?” skales asks, looking at the offended thing wrapped in pythor’s body.

“a human child.”

“i can see that. why did you bring it here?”

“i believe,” pythor says, in that voice, eyes gleaming, “that he will be the key to our plans.”

“you believe?” skales echoes, disbelievingly, still standing by the door, not letting any one of them in. skales wonders how pythor had managed to lead a tribe of snakes once. it’s probably how the anacondrai met their demise.

[morroodle]

So recently I started a new, ninjago themed playthrough of my beloved Cult of the Lamb and it has led to some very funny things

Kai got that quest line thing where you make another follower eat poop 2 times then imprison them then kill them and it was targeted at Garmadon. Cannon.

They are friends :D

My wife <333 (she fits as Leshy so well!)

Yea that fits

Green cousins got drunk then Wu died of old age and they immediately started fighting. I broke them up and they fought again. Repeat 2 more times. This has got to be the most cannon thing that has happened

On one of my runs I ended up with the ax and a x2 attack speed buff and it was so overpowered cause I could hit hard as fast as I could click. The next run I ended up with 7 demons. This game is great!

Don't have pictures of it but I have begun breeding followers. Zane and Pixal made Minipix and then I bred Cole and Jay (I was NOT intending to keep the egg I just needed some yolks and they were compatible) but then they gave me my first golden egg so i made Joel the usher robot from the nightmare love triangle in season 3. Once I get a Geo I will be making the finder childeren :D also I had to wait a while to get Lloyd because I specifically wanted him to be the child of Garmadon and Misako and it took me forever to unlock the mating tent.

And finally: the event my followers (the ones who survived) my followers will forever remember as the great abaabandonment. I'm not actually sure what happened but i think the game might have somehow remained unpaused while I was eating dinner and looking at bedframes. I didn't notice when I got back until I got a notification that The Overlord (what I renamed The One Who Waits aka a follower who is supposed to be IMMORTAL) died. At that point I fucking booked it back and returned to find an absolute disaster

A total of 15 followers died. The only ones who survived were Wu and Garm, the ninja and Morro (aka the important ones). Wu, despite being a disciple, was dissenting. 2 followers had already dissented enough that they ran away and I got a notification that if I didn't fix things FAST then half of my remaining followers would also leave. There were so many corpses. I still haven't recovered. I am so sorry my babies.

I have a spreadsheet of all my followers and all the ninjago characters I plan to make into followers. Top half is good guys, bottom half is bad guys, green is alive and red is dead.

I'm waiting to do the serpentine until after I unlock the snake follower form but in order to do that I have to find all the lore and I have found none of it despite thoroughly beating the game ;-;

Anyway I'm having fun. I'll update with any future shenanigans.

[sepublic]

Confession: When I watched Ninjago S2, I didn’t know what hemorrhoids were (obviously, I was a child) so when Mother Doomsday called our beloved Green Ninja “Lloyd Hemorrhoid Garmadon” I was confused to what “Hemmroid” meant. So I assumed it was a nickname and it technically was, but then went further when writing my Lloyd Garmadon prequel set during his time at Darkley’s.

My assumption was that Hemmroid was a geek name, based on a fictional language from Star Farer. And while Lloyd was christened Hemmroid in fan solidarity, his friends were given their own strange names. I played this straight for a while in Lloyd and Doomsday’s interactions, never knowing.

I posted this whole bit on the Lego Messageboards without knowing and without anyone correcting me because they didn’t know, or they were moderators who either didn’t make the connection because they hadn’t watched the show, or couldn’t just explain it to me. Nor could they disapprove my post because I technically didn’t mention Hemorrhoids. And anyhow if it was deemed alright for the show, why not the Lego Messageboards???

[therealvinelle]

You mentioned Love never dies in one of your recent podcast episodes. I would love to hear if you have any more thoughts about that you would like to share here?

Oh little do you know.

@theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin and I first watched Love Never Dies when Andrew Lloyd Webber released musicals for COVID, it was instantly the most incredible thing either of us had ever seen and we watched it again as soon as Muffin came online the next day.

We have since rented it, rewatched it before the 48 hour rent period expired, and I think watched it a fifth time somehow though I don't recall the details for it. It's... very possible we watched it thrice that rent period. One of them was broadcast to the Rank Heresy discord server, so it did have a purpose, we just... also rewatched it...

Love Never Dies is the single funniest, most delightful, most entertaining and glorious musical we have ever seen. Everything about it, from the uncomfortable incest anthem, to TEN YEARS OOOOOOOOLD, to the nonsensical "Devil takes the hindmost!" leitmotif (thought I was having an English fail, but no, Muffin had no idea what that meant either), to the Phantom's great artistic vision being a Coney Island circus extravaganza where girls sing about swimsuits, to said extravaganza hemorrhaging money so Meg has to prostitute herself to keep the lights on, to Christine dying at the end and Ralph says to the child he raised, "Aight son, hope you like phantoms because you'll be living with one from now on. Kk bye", to ALW being so mad the ugly guy he projected on lost the girl that he wrote the whole thing in the first place (um actually Christine loved the Phantom so after the ending scene where she chose Raoul she actually ran back into the opera basement, made love to the Phantom, then ran back again to Ralph. It was a night of passion and the song about it will take ten minutes. Beneath a Moonless Sky, my beloved. Also Raoul is a stupid idiot who spent all his money and Christine regrets everything).

And yes, the above list was only going to be a few lines long but I couln't stop naming beautiful things I loved.

Oh my goodness, another thing I almost forgot (which is sayign something!): the Phantom finds out Christine and Raoul have a child, his immediate response is "Ah, yes, it would be a shame if something... happened... to that child..."

Proceeds to get the child on his own while his parents are distracted, only the child starts playing the piano... my god... the child is ten years old... MY GOD...

This is where we get the incest anthem, the Phantom drops the infanticide plans and starts serenading his son about the beauty underneath, a terrible intense impulse you must follow, and desires we deny ourselves, how his son will accept and embrace it, and... the lyrics are just so bad, alright, and the acting somehow made it worse. Watch at your own peril.

Wild fucking ride.

[ninjamelissajulien]

Notes on Wyldfyre's Voice Messages

out of EVERYONE in Dragons Rising, it's an interesting choice to have Wydfyre be the one to vent out her grief. And that's what this is.

Grief.

1: Why am I doing this?

The idea that Lloyd offered this idea, of sending voice messages [writing letters] to Kai [to the "deceased"] is a great coping method for younger children when dealing with loss. It's a hard idea to conceptualize when dealing with grief at a young age [since this is on LEGO Kids, its presumed for younger children]. "...why would I talk to someone who can't hear me?" parallels the idea of a child not understanding the idea of "the person you love is still around us, even if we can't see them." Its a way to talk without pressure, of getting everything off your chest without aiming it at a real person.

"I refuse to accept that you're trapped away from us and never coming back. I know you'll be back. You're probably on your way back right now." Again, another fascinating parallel to the loss/death of a loved one. In a personal connection - Last year (2023), I lost my grandmother to pneumonia after an 18 year battle with cancer. I was unable to see her before she died (long story), so, the last time I got to physically see her was between a half to a full year before she had died. While I was up at her house with my family, it felt like she was going to walk into the house at any time. I felt like I had no closure, even after the funeral/cremation. So, Wyldfyre waiting for Kai to come back is her way of saying she doesn't have closure. She's in denial. [Even though we all know our beloved Fire Ninja is coming back at some point].

"With you gone, no one understands me here." Kai was, honestly, the first one to really reach out and understand Wyldfyre from HER point of view. She grew up, literally, in the wild [Wyld]- so she is harsh, brash, crude, hot headed. Kai, at first, tried to teach her like how he was taught, but learned to adjust to her needs. He learned how to talk to her, how to connect with her, in a way that wasn't dehumanizing or insulting to how she was raised.

In relation to "Sora and Arin don't know what its like to lose a mentor like you"- Sora rejected her former mentor, seeing how La Rowe treated dragons, but Arin. Arin is stagnant. He's trapped in the rut of trying to find his family. He's dealing with loss, but he doesn't know how to grow from it.

2: So what now?

Wyldfyre is on Heatwave being taken to an unknown place and she is feeling excited and free again- only to be hit with the conflicting feelings of guilt, heartache, frustration, and sadness.

She's wondering about why she gets to enjoy the feeling of flight, the beautiful sky, the wind, etc while Kai is trapped. She doesn't know what's happened to him (like if he's okay other than being trapped), what he sees.

This is an interesting perspective into grief. Why should I get to enjoy this while the person I love (platonically) is suffering? Why do I get to see the sky while Kai is stuck?

Its interesting to note that Wyldfyre describes where she is as "peaceful". Right now, she's in a tumultuous state of mind, hence why Heatwave is taking her to a safer place.

"I feel bad looking at this beautiful sky and knowing that you might never get to see one again." This is such an excellent viewpoint of grief/survivor's guilt from a child's perspective. The pain in her voice of "It's not fair that you're gone, Kai."

"What did you do to deserve this? You were just trying to protect us." God, this is not only heartbreaking but, surprisingly realistic in terms of dealing with this kind of loss.

3: I am Rage

"where Fire Dragons come from all over... for a huge family celebration." Boy Lego really is making us and Wyldfyre suffer, huh. Its like each voice message resonates with a varying stage of grief.

1: Denial. 2: Depression/Despair. 3: Anger.

"Why did you leave us, Kai?" Lego, when I catch you Lego, when I catch you-

4: Desperate Measures

someone please send these to Vincent so he can respond to them as Kai :(

overall, I think this is one of the more interesting perspectives we've gotten in a long time. I do feel like they didn't fully capture Wyldfyre's nature, as she doesn't speak very eloquently. She's much more brash and blunt, but otherwise I think this is excellent!

[gigilvsdylan]

[Yellowstone Oneshot - Ryan]

Author’s Space

Hi there! I'm Giulia, and I'm Italian. This is my first time writing something in english, and the first time I write an Oneshot. This oneshot will be, obviously, entirely in English, but I want to let you know that my English isn't perfect. So…Please forgive me if there are any mistakes! Hope you enjoy it!

Grace Dutton was the youngest of all the Duttons, but unlike her siblings, she was the only one who had chosen to dedicate her life completely to the family ranch. It wasn't just a job - it was a true calling for her. You could say she was the pride of her father, John, who had always been incredibly attached to his land and his ranch, seeing in her the same deep, visceral love for that land that he himself felt. John was particularly proud of his daughter Grace, precisely because he recognized in her eyes that same spark of passion he had always had, saw how she fought tooth and nail to preserve and make the ranch prosper, just as he had done all his life. For years now, Grace had been begging her father to let her sleep with the other wranglers, since she was one of them in every way, but he, protective as always, didn't want to leave his little beloved daughter among those roughnecks, as he called them. "Dad, I can't go on like this," she told him one day, "working hard from dawn to dusk and then coming to sleep in my comfortable room while everyone else sleeps in their spartan quarters. It's not fair to all the other wranglers  who work just as hard as I do." She complained with a gentle smile, and her father, looking at her with eyes full of affection but also concern, sighed deeply. "Let's do this, honey. You can go sleep with them," he finally conceded, and Grace, happy as a child, stood on her tiptoes to give him a kiss on the cheek "but," he added in a serious tone, "you must tell me immediately if anyone tries to bother you. If you don't, I'll have to ask Rip to keep an eye on you, and you know how... protective he can be." She laughed heartily, knowing all too well the intimidating nature of her father's loyal right-hand man, and nodded vigorously. "Thank you, Daddy!" she exclaimed with genuine joy. After saying goodbye with another affectionate hug, she set off toward the field with determined steps, her heart light and her spirit ready to face another intense and tiring day of work at the ranch.

"Don't even think about it, Walker!" Rip said threateningly when he saw the new stable hand approach Grace and try to flirt with her. Let's say that Rip's threat wouldn't have made any difference anyway, since the girl had been infatuated with Ryan since the moment she met him, but Rip didn't care about this because first and foremost, he would always protect her, despite everything and everyone; and secondly, he didn't know about Grace's feelings for Ryan, so he would never have thought she might reject Walker. Grace approached Rip, who was about to mount his horse. "You know I can protect myself, right?" she asked him, smiling.

Grace's strong point was her smile, that sweet smile, warm and comforting. It had an extraordinary power over everyone. When Grace smiled, her soft cheeks reached up to the moon and her tender eyes lit up, making the whole room shine. Grace could put anyone in a good mood with that smile.

"I know, you're your father's daughter, but above all, you're Beth's sister, obviously you know how to protect yourself... But I'll keep doing it constantly, because I don't care if I'm rude to protect you, while you worry too much about using the right words, honey." Rip replied laughing, giving the girl a kiss on the cheek before mounting his horse. "When you get back, can we talk?" She asked, receiving a worried look from him, but he nodded. "Should I be worried though?" And she shook her head, so the cowboy could get to work.

"Alright, today Ryan, Grace, Lloyd, and Colby will go to pasture nine!" Rip ordered meanwhile. "While I, Walker, Ethan, Jake, and Jimmy will go to pasture eleven to fix the fence! To work!" Everyone nodded and got to work.

---

Ryan was galloping alongside Colby, while Lloyd was talking with Grace. He was like a second father to her. He was already working here when she was born and had watched her grow up. Many cowboy things had been taught to her by Lloyd himself! "Lloyd, I'm about to do something stupid..." Grace confessed. "Something stupid? Nothing you do can be stupid... you're the smartest person I know, it's impossible for you to do something stupid, my dear!" But Grace shook her head and smiled at the man. "You're too kind to me, Lloyd! And anyway, yes, I'm going to do something really stupid." At that, Lloyd shrugged and sighed. "Well, let's hear this stupid thing."

"I'm going to declare my feelings to the man I've always loved." Said the girl, still in a whisper so Ryan wouldn't hear her, but that didn't happen because Lloyd shouted: "If Rip finds out, there'll be trouble!"

The two guys who were a little ahead of them stopped and joined them. "Is Grace in trouble for the first time?" Said Colby, but both she and Lloyd shook their heads. "No, she's in love! Rip will surely kill the poor fellow!" He said laughing.

Men... so dramatic.

It's true, Rip is very protective of Grace, but only because he sees her as his little sister and will never allow anyone to hurt her, but that doesn't mean he would kill someone to protect her... maybe.

"You're in love? And who is it!?" Asked Colby curiously, while Ryan anxiously awaited the answer. "I'm not in love with anyone. Lloyd is making things up just to keep me out of trouble. Now we need to work or we'll really end up in trouble."

---

Once back at the ranch, Rip was waiting for his lovely Grace so they could talk. "I'm all ears," he said as soon as the girl reached him on horseback. All the other wranglers had returned to the bunkhouse, so they could talk freely. "I'm in love, Rip," she said abruptly. It was something she couldn't hold back anymore.

Let's say she's always been like this, never telling anyone what was happening to her, what she was feeling. It was her only flaw, keeping everything inside without talking to anyone about it.

"You are... please Grace tell me it's not Walker." She laughed at his comment. She loved him for this, for his irony and spontaneity. She adored her Rip. "No, it's not Walker. It's Ryan..." The girl instinctively lowered her gaze. "Hey, look at me." She did, and he smiled at her. "I like Ryan, but I won't go easy on him if he dares to make you suffer." She stopped him immediately. "He doesn't know anything, maybe it's better this way." "Why do you say that?" "Because I don't want to cause problems between us. Because then there will be consequences for the whole ranch too, and that's not what I want... for me, for you, for my father." He looked at her and nodded. "I think it's a big mistake, but it's your life and you have to decide, honey."

---

*1 week later*

A week had passed since the conversation that Colby, Ryan, Lloyd, and Grace had almost had in that field, and it was tormenting Ryan's mind. It had been months since he and Grace had grown closer, and the fact that she wouldn't confide in him made him feel bad. Actually, worse than bad, since he wanted to be the reason she always smiled. He wanted to be the one to comfort her when she was down, he wanted to be the one to protect her.

"Hey Ryan!" Said Grace when she saw him coming out of the stable with his horse ready to be saddled. "Good morning, beauty, how are you?" He loved calling her beauty because every time she would wrinkle her nose and smile, Ryan loved her smile, actually no. Ryan loved Grace! "I'm great!" "I can see that," he said, moving closer. "Are you very busy today or can you come with me?" Asked the girl with sweet puppy eyes. "I'm always available for you, Grace." She smiled. He made her feel good, made her happy, but the two didn't know the feeling was mutual. "Then prepare your horse, I'll take you somewhere." "At your command, Miss Dutton." He said and winked at her. Grace didn't respond and blushed, he noticed but pretended not to. He loved seeing her blush, but hated seeing her hide from embarrassment.

---

"We're here!" She exclaimed, dismounting from her horse, and Ryan did the same. Grace had organized a picnic on the summit of a hill near their ranch and not too far away. "Did you do all this?" He asked while sitting down, and she nodded. "Why?" She shrugged and didn't answer. "Let's eat now because we left too late, it'll be dark in a few hours." "And we'll have time to get back-" "Who said we're going back? I brought a tent, to sleep here... if that's not a problem for you." She interrupted him, and he shook his head. "No no, that's perfectly fine with me," he said laughing.

The hours flew by and it was now late night, with myriad stars covering the velvet sky like a sparkling blanket that seemed to want to protect and warm the earth beneath them. The two were lying on the fresh grass, and while Grace contemplated the magnificent celestial spectacle above them, Ryan couldn't help but admire the ethereal beauty of her profile illuminated by the silvery moonlight. She suddenly turned, catching his intense gaze, but he, instead of looking away as one might expect, firmly maintained eye contact. Caught off guard by that intensity, Grace returned to looking at the sky, but this time with a sweet smile lighting up her face. "Why can't you maintain eye contact with me, Grace?" He whispered to her in a velvety voice, sending cascades of shivers down her spine. "That's not true," she murmured weakly, her eyes still fixed on the dancing stars above them. "Liar," he replied, his voice deeper and more confident this time, as he moved even closer to her, so close that his warm breath gently caressed her cheek like an invisible caress.

Grace turned slowly toward him, as if drawn by an invisible magnetic force, and their eyes met in the darkness of the night, illuminated only by the silvery glow of the stars. "Ryan," she whispered, her heart pounding so hard in her chest that she feared he might hear it. "Yes, beauty?" he murmured in response, as his hand moved with infinite delicacy toward her face, his fingers barely grazing her soft skin as if he were touching the most precious of treasures. "It will be complicated, you know that, right?" Her voice trembled slightly as she spoke those words. He nodded slowly, moving even closer until their noses almost touched. "I don't like easy things," he whispered with a tender smile on his lips. Their faces were now so close that their breaths mingled in the night air, his lips a breath away from hers. Grace closed her eyes, her heart racing wildly, as he eliminated that minimal distance between them with infinite gentleness, brushing her lips in a kiss so delicate and reverent that he seemed to fear he might shatter her like the most fragile crystal.

[northpen]

Hello :) I'm a reader of Perfect Gardens after I saw my friends agonizing over how it rewired their brain chemistry and the inherent tragedy of being convinced to read a fic so good that was incomplete, you know how it is lol, so you know it's very much beloved! (It was honesty so funny, there was so much agony over it "what if it never updates again" "I will never forgive you for making me read an unfinished fic now I have to live with this" "you have to read unfinished fic its good for digestion") even if you leave it here, it will remain many people's favorite fic and rest assured, has permanently altered how they view and characterize these legos. And really!! Your interactions between the cast and child Lloyd's thought process is simply stellar. It's so beautifully complicated, and I love all the little details and descriptions, like the one you wrote for FSM, and the absolute plot twist shock when chapter 1 ended with what sounded like a game time loop. There are SO many good lines and OH- moments in here for the heavy thoughts and realizations the characters go through, I could spend the next 10 hours rereading to list them all. And the way I was slapping my forehead like oh duh when Garmadon revealed what he was doing. Your characterizations of everyone is really so so good and I especially love my cryptic legos, and I was hoping to check in with you to see how you feel about your own fic, if you need some positive engagement with the fic for motivation :D I don't know if you're stuck in editing purgatory where you're hovering over the post button but unsatisfied, in which case dw!! I'm sure its incredible, or if you're uninterested in the wip atm, which is also alright, and thank you for sharing what you had written!! but if you have any plans to revisit the fic in the future, well ;) recently, a lot of old names in the fandom have returned, so when I imagine you updating making it 3 out of 3, that would be the funniest thing ever from how much everyone would be yelling in the chat. just letting you know in case you want to throw your hat in the ring too for fun timing :) best wishes, and have a splendid day!

ahhh thanks so much for this super nice ask!!! my attention is been grabbed yet again by a sonic fanfic series i'm working on, but maybe i can revisit perfect gardens even if it's just to finish it quickly. i feel bad about leaving it 3/4 complete when i have the completed outline done. i will do my best!!

[xylomilo]

Ninja Headcannons

Cole

Any pronouns

Demiromantic Bisexual with male lean

Afro-Latino with a little bit of French from great-grandfather

NU Goth

Collects records

Short butterfly locs

Booba 🤲🤲🤲

Will eat anything and everything if it doesn’t leave his mouth

PTSD from the fall in March of the Oni 🥰

After DotD, the others (and him) kept forgetting Cole isn’t a ghost anymore so they kept hitting him and he kept bumping into walls for a while

His mother would make cake from him when younger, thus why he loves it so much

Releases stress by training, baking cakes, or listening to music

Likes to study the meaning behind song lyrics

Jay

Demi-Boy

He/They

Bisexual

3/4 Korean 1/4 White (Libber was half white half Korean)

Portable charger that never runs out

“BRO HIS HEART STOPPED BEATING” Jay: “Let me try” ELECTROCUTES HIM

Southern accent that faded away over time

Scene kid in high school

Mythology nerd

Everyone bullies him for being part white

Rise of the Brave Tangled Dragons fan

Refuses to download Twitter bc his fans scare the shit out of him

Audhd(?) (Autistic ADHD)

Kai

Trans

He/Him

Pansexual

Half Filipino Half Argentinian

Used to sacrifice a lot of things just to see Nya happy (cough cough Kenny McCormick cough cough)

Switched names with Nya one day and got hit by the transgender-fication ray

Constantly refers to Nya as “sis” because she used to be the only thing he had

Only good at forging magical weapons (the opposite of Karlof lmao)

Allergic to seafood but didn’t know until he was talking to the others like “yk it’s weird how fish makes my lips tingle” and they went 😟😟

Used to have nightmares the day his parents disappeared

Has accidentally made so many fires out the most random things

Every sea creature hates him

Dragons adore him and Oni loathe him

Lloyd

Trans, non-binary

He/They

Achillean AroAce spectrum

Vitiligo

Japanese with a bit of Chinese from grandma

AUTISTIC ADHD HAVER 🫵🫵🫵🫵

Has never seen any pictures of his grandmother, only heard vague stories

Lots of animals like him. Like a lot. Bro is followed by anything and everything when he goes to the park.

Seasonal allergies (FUCKING LOSER (im projecting))

Collector of books he will never read, physical and digital

Old dreamsmp fan- the others still make fun of him for it to this day

Sleeps in the most uncomfortable positions and places but is somehow fine

Lloyd wishes he had stayed in contact with Brad.

Had matching bracelets with Brad, but Lloyd doesn’t remember where he put it

Lloyd sometimes stalks Brad’s social media pages to see what he’s been up to, but is too scared to actually follow him back. When they do though, they find out Brad blocked them on everything the day after.

Post season 16, Lloyd became a pet sitter for a while. Imagine their surprise when the door opened and he was face-to-face with Brad. Lloyd quit the next day.

Nya

Trans

She/Her

Bisexual

Half Filipino Half Argentinian

Really observant

Knows what Kai did for her when they were younger and she feels awful about it

Can manipulate water in people but it’s hard to do

Couldn’t remember what her parents looked or sounded like until Season 7

Used to steal a lot when she was younger to help her brother

Every sea creature likes her

Dragons are terrified of her

Wakes up in a cold sweat when her older middle-child senses start tingling (Red Green Blue Ghost by beloved 🙏🙏)

Her and Morro got intense beef like fist fighting type (middle child stuff)

“Babe why is your mom hot” “Nya istfsm”

Zane

He/They/It

Pansexual

Vitiligo

African-American

AUTISTIC 🫵🫵

Used to overheat a lot pre season 4 but his ice powers cancelled it out

“Oh this media is nice” proceeds to research it for the next twelve hours (me)

JAZZ LIKER, GET HIS ASS

Gets treated like a brand new iPhone by Acronix 😭😭

Doesn’t need to charge, being near Jay Is enough 😭😭

Kenny McCormick by how many times he has died

“Don’t worry guys, I can fix this problem” pulls out gun

Wakes up in cold sweat “MY STUPID BITCH SENSES ARE TINGLING”

Their heart is made of ice, literally (their power core is made of blue crystal and chronosteel, which is how the old EM gave Zane their powers)

PIXAL

She/They/It

Unlabeled

African

Collects everything and anything

“Aw, this is too expensive!” … “Wait I’m rich.”

Only wears turtlenecks and plaid pants/skirts

Small rivalry with Nya because everything PIXAL creates, Nya has created before

A little bit insane

Zane: Would you still love me if I was a worm?

PIXAL: You already are

“Woah, they’re laser focused!” and PIXAL is listening to celebrity drama videos

Likes watching people argue on Samurai X’s gender/pronouns (thinks its funny)

Acts like schlatt sometimes

Has a habit of speaking in a monotone voice and is genuinely surprised when people think it’s being rude

Brutally honest 😭😭 Kai will say “does this make my ass look fat?” and PIXAL will respond with “the opposite, actually.”

[phoebepheebsphibs]

My son Lloyd

I love him so much

I wanted to draw facial expressions (and kids took all my pencils so I had to draw with my pen and lemme tell you the knowledge that all your mistakes are irreversible and stained in ink is devastating and terrifying as an artist)

[21st-century-ninja]

Fic rec week: Multichaps/Nya

Multichaps babey!!! multichaps my beloved the backbone of fanfiction and today's multichap moodboard is for Let Sleeping Dragons Lie by @the-painted-siren

"This will not do. I can't have a student of mine afraid of a creature that peacefully lives in the monastery." Cole's never been a fan of reptiles, majestic beasts notwithstanding. Though his bond with Rocky is something of a legend on the Bounty now, it doesn't mean their love for each other grew overnight. Or maybe it did.

Why you should read: One of my fav Cole characterizations ever, this one really captures that early-season feeling of Ninjago and is the classic boy-and-his-dragon story :D

Perfect Gardens by @northpen

Four days after the Oni invasion, Lloyd wakes up as a child with no memories past Child's Play. Dying has some strange side effects, doesn't it?

Why you should read: This fic seamlessly combines humor and angst so you'll be crying from laughter and then crying from crying one second later. Even Darkley's had fruity-pops.

you belong to me, my snow white queen, there's nowhere to run by @knowledgequeenabc

Nya remembers it all.

Why you should read: went off about this fic a couple weeks ago but sadklfhgdsk the Nya characterization go brr so hard especially as it's set post-s6

At Low Tide by @frozensoapbubble

A water dragon, living incarnation of the Endless Sea, saves the life of a young whale. The moment brings back memories – or rather, echoes of familiar words, fleeting images, shadows of sensations that the dragon had long thought forgotten. If only she could remember what they meant.

Why you should read: A really neat Nya post-s15 fic that has a very realistic (imo and as realistic as one can get with ninjago lol) take on Nya during her merge with the sea!!! The ending on this I especially enjoyed.

[lloydfrontera]

javier really is the beloved son of heaven. just when he was about to take the (palm) fruit of temptation from lloyd, the plot was like NO! MY BELOVED CHILD CANNOT LOSE TO THIS INTERLOPER!! and the bone dragon started to pull itself together to terrorize ppl.

ajsdhkakas oh noooo we could've had and adam and eve parallel it was so close!!!

lmaoooo javier is really the universe's favorite child, everything is just constantly bending in order to make sure he remains the most specialest boy ever <333

but also i do love how this scene just makes it so clear how lloyd is just such a positive influence in javier's life. like we joke that he's corrupting him (and in certain aspects he totally is) but mostly? he's just getting him to enjoy life! like we've talked about how javier now smiles and laughs and jokes more often and that's because of lloyd!

and in this case it's such a little thing, literally just a fruit that javier really likes but it's expensive and not so easy to get so he feels guilty about eating because it's such a waste of money. but lloyd points out to him that the money was already spent, the food is already there and if they don't eat it, everything will just go to waste so they may as well enjoy it.

and of course he's teasing him, that's how their relationship works, but on the inside lloyd genuinely wants him to enjoy himself. he knows that javier is a good person who wants to help others, that he would rather distribute food to people in need rather than buy expensive food for himself, and he likes that about him, he doesn't want him to change, but he also doesn't want him to miss out on something he enjoys if he doesn't have to.

lloyd knows what it's like to miss on stuff you want because you can't afford it, so he knows better than to let it pass if there's no need and now he's teaching javier the same thing!

KJSAHDKA SORRY FOR MAKING IT MUSHY THEY MUST MAKE ME VERY SOFT

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Bee with the heart-shaped mouse from your mood board laughing to herself so hard she snorts, Lloyd watching her from behind is annoyed thinking she knows he’s there and is laughing at him so he asks “what??” and she doesnt turn around to check who asked so she just says “hehe my mouse looks like an ass” and then looking up and seeing it’s Lloyd.

Bee is such a fun character, I love that your fics are more concerned with making the reader insert interesting three dimensional characters with rich personalities and inner-lives than making them stock Everyman characters. I’m always so annoyed when the only thing going for reader inserts is that they’re soooooo normal and uninteresting and not worth focusing on because I’m like, even if everyone is kind of average, we all have traits that seem extraordinary or at the very least admirable to ourselves and others, so why the hell would you waste space writing around a non-character that you hate writing as much as the reader hates reading. Your inserts are very good because, while characters like Bee and Peaches aren’t, like, duchesses or former child prodigies or beloved actresses or anything, and are in most ways extremely average, they feel like real people, people with hobbies, talents, loves, that, even if they aren’t explicitly detailed in the text, they’re so fleshed out that it’s easy to imagine what they’re doing when the fic isn’t covering them.

I appreciate all of that! I think every writer has their style, and when it comes to fanfics, I've heard an argument for both types of readers. I guess I just go where the story leads me. I might get a bit carried away even! Ahaha.

And yeah, Bumblebee going hehe butts would have Lloyd like I both agree and vehemently disagree lmaooo

[justanotherfangirlst]

    Today I had the honor of interviewing the amazing and talented Daniella Carter. You may know her best from her role from the hit tv show Ninjago, where she plays the part of Daniella Garmadon, older sister of Lloyd Garmadon and the Master of Dragons. But this talented actress as also starred in many romance and holiday movies as well as other tv series. I asked the readers in a poll what questions you would like this amazing actress to answer, and I took the top 10 questions and got her answers. Daniella is such a lovely person and she leaves you feeling loved and happy when she bids you farewell, at least I know I did. It's no wonder that she is one of the most beloved actresses out there. 

Q: Did you ever think that you would be part of a tv series that has lasted over ten years? A: Oh most definitely not, but I can't say that I'm not grateful for the amazing opportunity. We've become a family and I wouldn't have it any other way to be honest. The familial bonds between the characters as the show progresses is rooted in our feelings for each other in real life. 

Q: What's it like working with your husband on set? A: Oh it's a blast. I can't say that we don't make each other laugh after serious fights that our characters have in the show, just to lighten the mood. Funny story, we didn't even know that we would be working with each other. When my agent called me with the role, she told me to keep it to myself and not to tell anyone. Well, apparently so did Michael's agent. We came up with these lame excuses on why we would be gone for an hour or so, and we were both so shocked when we saw each other at the script reading! 

Q: Out of all the seasons, which one is your favorite? A: Oh goodness. All the seasons have been so wonderful, and it is really hard to pick just one. But if I had to pick just one, it would have to be Prime Empire. I loved the avatar costume that I got to wear while we were in the video game hunting down the three Keytanas. The extensions were kinda heavy though, [laughing]. As pretty as they were, it was pretty hard on my neck not gonna lie. I am so grateful that she doesn't have hair that long all the time. 

Q: Have there been any injuries on set? A: Well, there have been many bumps and bruises from accidents here and there. But the major injury that I know of is when I broke my ankle on set. We were filming The March of The Oni season and I had gotten tripped up in some of the cables that were running across the floor. The producers had moved some cameras around and I didn't lift my foot up enough. I only had a small fracture but it was still enough to be put into a cast. I had thought that the writers would have rewritten the script and Dani would have been off on some other adventure, but the writers and producers were so kind and let Dani stay in the season. We just had to redo one little scene where Dani's ankle is hurt. 

Q: What is the meaning behind your tattoo? A: The lotus? This was one of the symbols that was pitched for Daniella's gi. It may not have been chosen, but it is one of my favorites. It's simple but it means so much. I got this tattoo like a week before the 10 year anniversary. I've loved the other characters that I have played, and the ones that I am playing now, but Daniella will always be closest to my heart. She's been such a big part of my life and I don't think I'm ever gonna be ready for the series to end.

Q: Are you really knitting on set? A: Yes! I! Am! I've been knitting ever since I was a child, and when the producers said that we could give our character's one hobby, I jumped at the opportunity. Most of the things that I knit on set are gifts for the other cast members or something for myself. But every once and a while, I'll be working on something that I sell on my online store. One time, like way early in the series when I first started knitting on set, thought that it would be funny to mess up the scene on purpose, thinking that I would undo my work to start again. Boy, were they so wrong. I just kept on knitting, and that is where Dani's sass face came from to actually. The director saw the face that I gave them and asked if I could do that face on command. And the rest is history. 

Q: What are your future projects? A: I can't give away too many spoilers. I don't think the producers and writers would be to happy about that. But what I can say is that Michael and I are finally living a dream of ours and are going to co star in a holiday romance movie together. We've been wanting to star in a movie like that for so long, and working together on the Ninjago set as only reignited that dream. We also have a holiday special in the works as well, so stay tuned for that!

Q: What was your favorite moment working with your husband on set? A: There are so many moments that I will cherish but I think by all time favorite would have to be when we celebrated his birthday and we pushed his head into the cake. He looked so cute when he lifted his head and there was just chocolate cake everywhere. I'd show a picture, but I think I might get in trouble [laughs]

Q: We keep talking about you and your husband, but we all know that you two got married in between seasons. What was that like? A: Crazy for sure. It was in between the Hands of Time season and the Sons of Garmadon season. Well, the filming of it anyways. We had been planning during the Hands of Time season when we could, and the others helped a lot when we had a break. And then when we finished filming, the directors gave us some time in between and boy did we hit the ground at a dead sprint. Just task after task after task. I never want to plan another wedding, EVER. Granted, there won't be another wedding for me. Michael is my true love and I don't think I could be married to anyone else.

Q: What were your inspirations when figuring out how to play Daniella in Ninjago? A: I wanted a young woman, who no matter what life threw at her, she would bounce back. I didn't want her to be invincible, or didn't feel the pain of guilt and longing. But that she would use what she was going through to really fight for what was right, and for her family, friends and home. I didn't want Daniella to become this side character that was "too ladylike" or someone who was easily dismissed. I wanted someone who could speak her mind when she wanted to and not just give in to what everyone around her was saying if she didn't believe it was right. I wanted her to be the woman that I wanted to be as a kid. And I hope that she sparks inspiration into the young girls watching to be the best that they can be, no matter what anyone says. 

***********************************

Ah yes, another AU for Dani. XD Shoutout to @the-angel-creator ! Thank you for helping me come up with interview questions ^^

Daniella belongs to me Please do not use my art or character without my permission.

Pose that I used