#post day of the departed

[xzcopycat]

He just can’t catch a break

[umblrspectrum]

this has been on my todo list for actual goddamn months. do you know how long i've been waiting to draw this fucking t

[charlesemersonwinchesteriii]

if Crozier had a nickel for every time someone close to him kept a mortal wound secret from him he'd have two nickels which isn't a lot but it's definitely enough to give him some very specific trauma for the rest of his life

[temeyes]

stsg dood from last night

[daddario]

I absolutely love talking about Judaism, Jewish history, and Jewish culture, but every time someone comes up to me and is like hey you’re Jewish, can I ask you something? I have micro panic attack while waiting for the follow up sentence.

[orangeejuice]

Analyzing Cole's Reflection (or lack thereof)

This is a bit of an analysis regarding the topic of Cole's reflection in Season 5, which I find really fascinating, especially considering how it was explained in canon (particularly how it was written to be completely insignificant). Despite this, I personally haven't seen it talked about much, even though it has really interesting implications. While I do believe this is in part due to odd/sloppy writing, I also think there's quite a bit to see beneath the surface here, as I'll discuss under the cut below.

As we know, in Season 5, Episode 8, "Grave Danger," the ninja are going through the ice labyrinth in the tomb of the First Spinjitzu master. Within the ice, the ninja are able to see reflections of their future selves. This scene is actually quite important, as it becomes pretty relevant in Season 6 (Skybound), due to Jay seeing himself with Nya in his reflection.

However, what I find to be the most notable in this scene is that Cole does not see any reflection whatsoever. This causes him quite a bit of distress and confusion, although this is quickly interrupted by Morro attacking the ninja. Kai seems to bring up the possibility that the lack of reflection is because Cole is a ghost, but this is quickly shot down by Zane stating that ghosts cast reflections.

Upon first viewing this scene, it's pretty easy to have many different interpretations of why Cole doesn't see his reflection. I personally interpreted it as Cole quite literally not having a future, therefore not having a reflection, which felt quite relevant due to him becoming a ghost only four episodes prior.

Yet, in Season 6, Episode 1, "Infamous," we get our "answer." Cole finds out he can turn invisible and concludes that he couldn't see his reflection because "he can disappear." Thus, this plot thread (or whatever you want to call it) regarding Cole's reflection is entirely dropped, seemingly confirming that this explaination is true.

My issue with this is that not only is it boring, but it just doesn't make sense. For reference, this is what the other ninja's reflections look like.

As we can see, these reflections clearly are not meant to be their near futures, judging by the visible aging on Kai, Jay, and Nya (Zane being the exception, of course). If Cole's reflection really isn't visible because his future self is quite literally invisible, that implies that either his reflection is somehow the exception (by showing his near future), or that for whatever reason, his future self would have a reason to be invisible. Frankly, neither of these explainations are plausible, which is why I really dislike invisibility being the actual explaination. It's entirely possible that Cole only believes this to be the case as a way to cope with the otherwise bleak implication about his future. I prefer to interpret it this way opposed to it being written to genuinely be true.

However, it's also important to note that these future reflections don't seem to be set in stone. In particular (and forgive me if I am misinterpreting this), Jay's future seen in the reflection seems to have been entirely avoided by his final wish at the end of Skybound erasing the majority of the events in that season and thus changing the future from that point. In particular, him gaining the eyepatch during the events of Skybound leads not only us as the viewers, but Jay himself to connect this to the reflection he saw in Season 5.

It's also important to note that Jay's final wish would most likely not change the future reflections of the other ninja, just his own. However, as stated earlier, if it's possible for Jay to change his own future reflection, than perhaps the same logic can extend to the others as well.

With Cole in particular, I genuinely wonder if his lack of reflection was actually supposed to be relevant again in Day of the Departed but was cut for time. As much as I love DotD, it was clearly trying to shove as much content as possible into just 44 minutes. Unfortunately, the story ends up being condensed quite a bit as a result and I think it could've really used at least another 22 minutes, especially if it included stuff like this connection. But this post isn't meant to be about my thoughts on DotD's pacing and content, really, so I'll move on.

My thoughts on this are that perhaps Cole altered his future by going through the rift on the Day of Departed and becoming human once more, rather than fading or becoming stuck and forgotten in Airjitzu temple. I actually really do like this explanation, because it makes sense. Cole fading or being forgotten in a "bad" future are entirely plausible reasons for his lack of reflection in the ice.

Either way, I think it's quite a shame that it wasn't explored more. Obviously Ninjago is a show meant for kids and exploring a character's feelings regarding their possible lack of a future can be a little dark (although I don't personally see it as being too dark for Ninjago). Cole's fear and resignation (at least until his friends get to the Airjitzu temple) of fading away is completely well founded, because of this small scene in Season 5 and it adds even more motivation for him to go "settle his debt" with Master Yang.

On the other hand, it's not explored much in fan content either from what I can see, and I think that it's a huge missed opportunity. Like, can you imagine how scared Cole must've been when he started fading away and "ghosting out," meanwhile the fact he didn't have a reflection of his future self lingered in the back of his mind? Especially if he was coping with this fear by concluding it was due to his invisibility. Even with the events of DotD, I can imagine Cole still worrying about it in the present. After all, for all he knows, that future could still come to pass.

Overall, I found this scene and how it was handled super interesting and I would really love to see it brought up more in fan content (I might even write my own fic relating to this at some point).

Either way, I'd also be curious to see if anyone else has thoughts about this. I may have missed something that the writers/creators have stated regarding this, so if that's the case, you can let me know as well.

[ourstaturestouchtheskies]

Illustration of a cemetery from World's Best Music – Helen Kendrik Johnson // the 1 – Taylor Swift // loml – Taylor Swift

[boyblundering]

happy day of the departed (but I'm one day late)

[yardsards]

i needed to express a sentiment in the creative stylings of @dunmeshiminimumwage

[kindaasrikal]

If Morro ever came back, the relationship between him and the ninja would be very complicated.

Morro, a few years back in canon, came down to ninjago to destroy it all. He came back and proceeded to possess Lloyd for the max amount of a month, and fought all the ninja multiple times leaving them almost dead. He also ended up losing, and at the end of it all it was only then that he realised it was all for naught. He could’ve gone back to Wu, but he didn’t. He chose the harder route and is now reaping what he sowed. It was at the end that he had a change of heart. Later, on the DotD, he ended up coming back and helping Wu and the ninja. Not because he’s a good person, but because he wanted to. At this point, Morro did not care for harming others nor all of Ninjago, his vengeful nature was thrown out the window.

Out of guilt and for the sake of having some form of peace, he helped the ninja by helping them remember Cole. And that was that, he immediately began leaving and was never heard from again.

Lloyd no longer is all that affected by Morro in the current time, as seen from how he casually brings him up and said to Harumi how Morro wasn’t the worst villain he ever faced. That does not mean he no longer has the trauma or the memories, but it does mean it wouldn’t leave him a crying mess if he saw Morro again.

However, he and the ninja would still be very tense and aggressive if they ever saw Morro again. They would hesitate to attack, mainly because its unlikely Morro is attacking them at that moment and because they recall the DotD. They would hear him out, maybe even ask him for help if the situation calls for it. They would not get along with him though.

Lloyd would actively avoid him, but if he ever did come across Morro they would be stuck in a tense silence, and Lloyd would be very argumentative when it came to him.

Kai would avoid him too, but if they were ever in the same room best believe those two are fighting.

Cole or Zane wouldn’t avoid him, but they wouldn’t acknowledge him either. And when they do, they’d be very uncaring? Ig? Like, monotonous, i suppose.

Nya wouldn’t avoid him, but she would always argue and cuss him out.

Jay is the one who avoids him and also never is actually stuck in a situation with him unless someone else is there.

Morro would also argue with all of them if they do, and actively avoid them all. He would start and participate in arguments too, just like them.

Their personalities and traumas would clash, and to be perfectly honest, forgiveness is not on the table when such an old would is opened back up.

However, i DO think second chances or at the very least becoming friendly with each other is on the table. Through a long journey of self sacrifice and talking because they have no other choice and through understanding they are no longer the same people. And because of Wu.

Let’s be honest if Wu (alive or in his weird orb ghost form) was there they would be a lot more cordial with each other.

But yeah, it would take a LOT to get the ninja and Morro to actually get along, but i do think it’s possible. It would start off as a huge mess for a long time, and it would probably get worse too, but eventually they would get along due to the situation they are likely to be forced into.

Like in a battle, or someone sacrifices themselves for the other, or they get into one of those cliche situations where two of them are stuck in a room or smth together and they have to talk it out or they’ll go insane, or they have an argument that no can stop or they can’t just run away from and end up spilling how they actually feel and shi.

I am TELLING YOU. It would take all those cliches to make them get along.

OH LIKE HOW ZUKO DID WITH THE GAANG THATS HOW.

It would take Morro proving himself to have changed for any of them to get along. But knowing this guy he wouldn’t try and it would happen by accident.

I’m using Garmadon and Harumi as examples as they both were horrible people who hurt Lloyd and the ninja a bunch, but they gave them both a second chance and Lloyd (somewhat) forgave them both after they changed and proved it. I think it is possible the same could happen with Morro, because they’ve done this multiple times. With Harumi, Garmadon, Pythor (still became evil again tho), Skylor, Pixal, and so on.

Another reason why is because each of those characters had a unique connection with another ninja or someone in their group. Skylor with Kai, Pixal with Zane, and the other three with Lloyd. Who does Morro have a relationship with? Wu. I find it likely that with Wu supporting Morro the same way those three did with their ‘villains’ the others would be just a tad more willing to at the very least hear him out.

So pretty much the relationship between Morro and the ninja is like a married couple about to divorce because they were in a shi situation and Wu is the marriage councillor who’s doing his best.

Sorry i was just thinking about how they could actually get along man and i trailed off on to this, forgive me 🙏

[twoheadedoddity]

John Gaius and the Gospel of John

Ok. Here we go. I've spent the last little bit annotating my copies of tlt in detail, and I've been focusing a lot on the biblical references— especially John's confession chapters in NtN. I'm essentially cross-referencing the verses alluded to in the chapter titles with the actual content of the chapters, and recording some thoughts/observations. Not entirely groundbreaking, but I want to be thorough.

I'm building off of posts by @todd-queen here and here; go read these posts because they exploded my brain. The cipher. wow.

Please bear with me and if you read nothing else, read the entry for the final chapter.

Side note: I'm mostly using the New Revised Standard Version (the one I'm most familiar with) and sometimes the New International Version.

John 20:8

"Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed." (NRSV)

This is the big one—as has been previously pointed out, the fact that Muir got this verse to fit as the first numbers of the cipher AND be so relevant melts my brain. Immediately, connotations of Harrow breaking into the tomb at 10 (the first person to ever so do), seeing Alecto, and wanting to live. She saw and believed.

This chapter consists of John setting up the context for the cryo project, the Earth dying, all that. The main link is how the verse fits with Harrow's story.

John 5:20

"The Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing; and he will show him greater works than these, so that you will be astonished." (NRSV)

John and his crew are trying to buy time amid the projects getting shut down. Their power gets shut down anyway, and miraculously, the bodies that John touches don't decay. This verse speaks to both the first pieces of John's powers and foreshadows the more drastic "miracles" that will come later.

John 15:23

"Whoever hates me hates my Father also." (NRSV)

The crew realizes the link between John, his eyes changing, and the intact corpses. They try to experiment to see if anything will bring about changes in the bodies. Nothing does. He names them Titania and Ulysses. He moves the corpses' hands from across the room for the first time. Not really much to link the content of the verse to the content of the chapter here if you ask me?

John 5:18

"For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God." (NIV)

The crew wrestles with the implications of what John can do—in a way, the idea that John could be chosen in some capacity, or that John can now play at being God. This is also the chapter where they decide to stream on the internet; so, you could maybe say that the verse foreshadows the ways they'll be targeted due to John's actions.

John 8:1

"While Jesus went to the Mount of Olives." (NRSV)

The verse, in context, comes right before Jesus demonstrates to a group how none of them are without sin, and shows mercy/forgiveness to a woman that others were wanting punished.

As for Jod—his little necromancy twitch streamer gig starts to take off. People start coming to him for help or healing or miracles. His words, he's "playing Jesus." Obvious parallels to the sections (such as the above verse and those that follow it) where Jesus is teaching folks and performing miracles. Interestingly, Cristabel intervenes, telling John he's wearing himself too thin and that he's making the same mistakes as Jesus by never turning people down. So John sets a limit to one hour of miracles a day.

The cult really gets going. The authorities turn up. The choice is get taken down or do something drastic. John chooses something drastic—COW WALL. Cow wall scares everyone into leaving the cult alone for a bit. I think, in a lot of ways, this is the chapter that was foreshadowed by the previous chapter's verse, if we really want to draw parallels that far?

John 19:18

"There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus between them." (NRSV)

John mostly talks about the politics of the FTL program—more funding stuff, the way cryo was dropped, the inconcistencies with the program, the trillionaires rushing ahead with stuff. I'll be honest, I only vaguely grasp the corporate-funding-technology-science-and-capitalism side of John's story. But I don't think there's any link here.

John 5:1

"Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals." (NIV)

^ He goes up for a festival (the KJV uses the word feast, so I keep rotating that word in my brain too) and in the next verses encounters sick people in a pool. He heals one of them.

John faces no consequences for Cow Wall and other crimes. If nothing else, his influence grows. He and his crew have a barbeque and talk about their plans.

At the barbeque, big bright lights go off in my brain that point to the word feast in the KJV. This literally isn't anything. Like I don't think it's a very meaningful connection to make here. But my brain keeps going "I connected the dots!" I didn't connect shit "I connected them!!"

John gets approached by an important organization and he agrees to help them. So now he's remotely controlling the corpse of a big world leader to fool the world into thinking he's alive, in exchange for a lot of money and a city-destroying weapon. Great. Comparison between Jesus' miracles of healing and John's necromantic reanimation "miracles."

"Could you give him a permanent pulse? Could you make it so he bleeds if he gets hurt? Could you fix any current degradation to his corpse? Could he talk, if we wanted him to?" (NtN 271-272). This is a quote that @/todd-queen pulled from the text, and it fits really well.

John 3:20

"For all that do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed." (NRSV)

More FTL stuff. The nomination for that. John finds out that the plans that were progressing for FTL and the evacuations were dubious at best—just trying to make it look like progress. John is furious, and decides to lean into the necromancer-cult-leader-twitch-streamer act even more, gaining even more sway.

I think something could be said for the verse—being all about evildoers hiding and preventing their deeds from being exposed—can be linked to the trillionaires lying and covering up the ways they are interfering with the FTL project/evacuation plans. And how John tries to expose them. I'd be able to give a more concrete argument if I understood the FTL plotline better but for some reason I struggle so bad with it.

@/todd-queen also links it with this quote, about how John and his crew hide the nuke, intending to never let it see the light of day. Which is also a good connection imo. "We kept laughing that it came with a manual. I think we were scared of what would happen if we stopped laughing. We pulled up the floor and put a safe beneath the lino and swore we were never going to use it." (NtN 279).

John 9:22

"His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders, who already had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue." (NIV)

John grows in power. People come to join. It becomes an international sort of crisis. The first violent exchange occurs, and John uses the energy burst from the deaths to commit atrocities. One could link the verse to the various authorities coming after John and arresting anyone trying to join his cult. John certainly would. I hate him so much.

John 1:20

"He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, 'I am not the Messiah.'" (NRSV)

The chapter where everything goes to shit. FTL accelerating their escape attempt to mere days and then hours away. The attempted coup with G1deon and the nuke. John's crew is convinced this is the end; Cassiopeia and Nigella getting married. John reveals that he also has the corpse puppet ready to start a nuclear armageddon, as a backup threat to prevent FTL. Everything goes to shit at the cult compound. Cristabel shoots herself to make John figure out how to work with the soul. Everyone kills everyone else and John starts the apocalypse. Becomes God using the collective souls of the population and that of the earth. Obtains perfect lyctorhood with the earth, creating Alecto. The order of events for the actual nuclear apocalypse are unclear, because John is self-contradicting and a liar.

The actual contents of the chapter are... a lot. All over the place. But it's the most raw and visceral part of John's confession, which kind of fits nicely with this particular verse—given that it's from the section about John's (the Baptist, like, from-the-bible John) confession.

While I haven't covered the alternate ARC chapter numbers, I need to point out that this chapter is John 1:9 in the ARC. "The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world." (NIV). Seems pretty fitting for the chapter where he becomes God and begins the process that will become the resurrection, right?

John 5:4

This verse doesn't exist in the NSRV and many other versions, because in recent translations scholars think this verse wasn't part of the original. It is:

"From time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease they had." (NIV)

The first connection, of course, is John picking and choosing who to bring back. Healing, resurrection. Yeah.

In this chapter John answers some of Harrow's questions. It's hard to tell which bits he lies about, exactly, but Harrow knows that he's full of shit. She decides to find the truth, and find God—probably not John in the end because he's a horrid lying sham—and walks into the River.

Right. Ok. Now back to this verse not being accepted as part of the bible anymore. On one hand, many of the Christian sources explaining its removal talk about how older, more accurate manuscripts do not contain this verse, so it's more accurate for more recent translations to remove it. Interesting. A chapter where Jod is clearly falsifying information being named after a verse that is supposedly not genuine. Tamsyn Muir your game is incredible.

Please direct your attention to this reddit post. The verse could also have been removed to focus attention on Jesus' healing power rather than having an angel also be doing the same thing. The post puts it better than I can, go read it, but essentially: John is trying to focus the attention on himself—the idea that he's the source of the world's power.

Choosing John 5:4 for this final chapter of John's confessional was very, very deliberate. I would like to shake Tamsyn Muir's hand and also ask her oh so many questions.

Final thoughts: I definitely that the main purpose for the choices behind most of the verses were primarily to fit with the cipher. But, where possible, Muir would have wanted them to fit somewhat with the contents of the chapter.

However, where things were very, very deliberate, were the first and last of these chapters—20:8 and 5:4. There is no doubt in my mind that these verses were handpicked for how incredibly relevant they are.

A lot of what I've pointed out has been pointed out by other people as I've mentioned throughout this post. I'm glad to be bringing it all together and freaking out over it, even though I doubt I'm the first to do so.

[bri-cheeses]

If Barty was American and lived in America I just know that he’d be The Most Annoying Person on the Fourth of July. This man is water skiing with an American flag stuck into the back of his life jacket. He wakes Evan up by blasting Sweet Home Alabama in his ear. He watches Top Gun every year, no exception. He has a pair of matching shirt and pants that are the American flag. He’s playing Born in the U.S.A. and God Bless The U.S.A. on repeat. He’s accidentally setting trees on fire from setting off his own fireworks

[lrsamantha]

I’ve held the cold close,

like winter does its white, a shroud

to keep what was broken,

unspoken, inside—

no trembling hands reaching for mine,

no warm intrusion, no pulse but my own

[leafdragon16]

DPL DOODLE PAGE!!

It appears I have been sucked back into Legoland which means binging my favorite AUs

Awesome AU and character designs belong to @ask-the-departed-lords / @prime-pulse !

Closeups under the cut

[boytransmission]

to kinda-answer your question about cross tattoos in gay porn: for one, i'm a lesbian, so not entirely the same thing as a gay guy, and i also am out to my family and friends, AND i also don't shoot porn, but i have a cross tattoo and a lot of gay people i know have similar ones, including those who are more into the sex scene. i'd say that to me and many others it's just an aesthetic thing that has ties to our memories growing up christian in eastern europe. more a cultural than religious thing. me and my 2 friends got cross tattoos when we were already grown out, out and not in the church

That seems to be how it usually goes yeah, like i vaguely mentioned in the tags i know of a lot of people who are into gothic art/music/fashion/etc and had that as a reason for getting a cross, and a hell of a lot of queer, non-christian american southerners i knew when i lived down there also get crosses for that same like cultural purpose. I’m all for yanking that shit back (and sometimes it’s not a negative association, or even some resonance with the mythos without the faith/belief) like how so many southern/otherwise rural queers are openly bastardizing and perverting a lot of imagery associated with americana. It’s delicious stuff to me. I’ve definitely thought of integrating some into pieces i’ve wanted. That’s why i wonder my little questions about why that tattoo’s there, but ultimately i’ll never know and, better yet, it’s not my business to know, especially w strangers

[slutpoppers]