#s6 isn't the Best season but my God if it doesn't have it's just completely stand out moments

[that-was-anticlimactic]

thinking about ninjago s6,,, specifically nadakhan and his relationship with his crew.

i just think it’s so interesting and also think it’s bull crap that he never cared for nor wanted them. first of all, jay was also under the assumption that he didn’t actually care about delara which he very obviously does, as we can see in ep10. and jay was also just trying to escape and was using any advantage he had—his voice was his biggest advantage at the time. but it was around the time jay came to the conclusion that nadakhan didn’t care about delara when he told flintlocke that nadakhan was just using him…

see, in ep2 after retrieving the realm crystal, nadakhan spends the night having fun with his crew and they all seem genuinely happy to be there! clancee himself states multiple times that he has no reason to wish for anything and that he best fits in with and feels welcomed with the crew. they’re singing and dancing and having fun… and when nadakhan says he’s going home, he invites them all with. he had every intention of bringing them with him not as servants or underlings but friends…

i can’t help but wonder what would have been different had delara not been dead. had the cursed realm not been destroyed, thus destroying djinjago in response.

because the thing is: it’s after he gets the sword and swears revenge when nadakhan begins hiding things from his crew. it’s then when he becomes more and more desperate. the further the season goes, the more jay pisses him off and thwarts him, the angrier and more desperate he becomes. you could call it a corruption of power, the things we do / give up for love, or even recklessness due to strong emotions.

when it comes to the crew’s betrayals, i really think jay planting the seed is what did it. flintlocke was already upset that nadakhan wasn’t sharing plans with him

clancee and dogshank are the ones hard to believe

nadakhan would’ve kept his crew around had the desperation not grown as terribly as audrey two and consumed him, had clancee not whispered to jay where the venom was. i honestly believe jay thought he was speaking the truth. if s6 emphasizes anything, it's that words are powerful. jay used his words to win in the end and to plant the seeds that eventually overtook and defeated nadakhan.

nadakhan seemed to have lost faith in his friends and that was his biggest downfall and that is what made him lose everything in the end. like yes, he's the villain and tbh i'm glad jay and the ninja won, but gosh if it doesn't just break my heart as i watch him slowly lose faith in his friends/team throughout s6 and how they probably wouldn't have even become proper villains had delara not died,,,

[isca-rambles]

6x01 Oh god why am I barreling right into S6. I know this is going to be so difficult to watch through properly. I wanted to put it off but maybe just sitting through it is for the best and then I can try and get anything else done with my freetime.

This plan really makes no sense. Surely you'd do this heist while the attack on Tim and Lucy is happening? Not after it's over? And literally anyone could've seen that from outside the big glass windows. And all this just to grab some cash? I just...idk. I feel like there was a bigger plan before the break and the strike, and they had to adjust it and it just all fell a bit flat. I don't blame that person at SDCC who asked what happened to the guy in the car from the finale. I'd forget too probably. God poor Lucy looks so beat up. I need some comfort/care fic and stat. I mean really her and Tim should be a lot more beat up than they are. Lucy was being strangled. By god they look good together though in the shop. They belong in that car together so much. Even when they're not 'together' together.

Celina, my sweetie. You really do need another TO to fill in those Nolan gaps. Aaron, my love. Precious angel. Oh my sweeties. And the start of Lucy spiralling. Their personal communication issues leaking into their work. God I love Lucy but she is absolutely deflecting her insecurity and uncertainty onto Tim. And he definitely does have issues with her taking the detectives exam, whether he is aware of it or not, but this is definitely Lucy's problem. I do feel so much for her though because I'm exactly the same. I will spiral and spiral and I will get so defensive and deflective. And I hate it, but brains are always easy to manage, even if you know you're the one to blame. So yes, this is all on Lucy this episode, but I still feel for her. Why is Aaron back before being cleared by the department psychologist? I know it's part of the storyline, but everyone else has been cleared before they return, not during. Ugh. Blair. God, there's going to be so much Ughing this season. You thought you had a clear shot? Really? Now Nyla, that's a clean shot. Oh Tim, honey. You were never going to find the right thing to say. I'm sorry. Again, I feel so sorry for Tim and he doesn't do anything wrong this episode, but I just also feel so sorry for Lucy. It's like watching myself and I hate it. Also though, look. The officers securing the scene were the ones who failed. This isn't Lucy's fault. Not entirely anyway. Oh Tim, he's trying so hard. But a bit of S1 Bradford would've probably been a lot better for her in this situation than supportive boyfriend Bradford. But also, okay, why are there sprinklers on the sidewalk? Isn't LA just constantly in a drought? I feel for Harper but honestly I'm just thinking of how little support Lucy got later this season during her own shoot moment. And I know they were all involved at the scene so they couldn't talk to her about it or be there with her, but it still hurts how alone she was. They couldn't have given us just a few seconds of comforting looks or quiet words? I need more fix-it fics where they do that. Where they want to help support her but they're being bound by the law and IA so they can't. But after he survives? 100% I need them being there for her, not just Tim. God, Lucy's face when the music starts playing and when Aaron laughs. Just wanting the ground to swallow her up completely. She's still spiralling and now she's got more spirals on top of those spirals and everything is turning in every direction and there's no peace in her head. She's in constant fight or flight. And unfortunately the fight is against herself and Tim. The little bounce with the baby, Tim's soft smile. I'm clinging to these tiny moments we get. Wesley do not laugh she is struggling. And it wasn't entirely her fault. What if they'd gotten there a few minutes later? This is the responding officers' fault for not securing the scene properly. No I'm not overly defensive of Lucy, you are. God, can someone just give Lucy a hug please? A Lucy hug? Oh Tim. I'm sorry. All I can say is sorry. She doesn't mean it. The self-doubt and anxiety and broken sense of worth is just too overwhelming sometimes. Seriously though, Nolan. You don't mess with curses. You should've learned from saying the Q-word in the shop way back when. Ugh. Monica. God, just ugh-city now. Aaron, sweet angel. Lucy, sweetie. Please. God this hurts to watch. She's still so deep in her own denial, in her insecurity and uncertainty. She's scared and worried and she doesn't want to fail. And she's scared about UC. She won't admit it but she is.

And as much as I want Tim to fight and refuse to walk away, I fully support him walking away at this point. He can't win tonight, no matter what he says. It's for the best he get some space. And maybe for the best for Lucy too, even though it'll probably send her into a different spiral and make her double down. Agggh, god, it's so relatable and it hurts. And the fact they don't delve into it at all in S6 or work on her own MH issues, even though they allow Tim to start working on his once he reaches his rock bottom. I know it's a short season and the strike. I just hope we get even a percent of Lucy getting help in S7. She's all about therapy and she mentions it in other seasons, but I really do feel like she probably started slipping in her own self-care in the lead up to S6.

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Hi again! So I found what you mentioned about Kurt's defense mechanism and this need to feel superior really interesting. I think it's an interesting flaw of his - for sure a flaw imo, but an understandable one given the circumstances. I also think it feeds into Glee's general underdog obsession and simultaneous martyr and superiority complexes but to stay with Kurt, I just wish I saw more discussion around it.

How do you think this aspect of his character evolves over the years? Would he ever grow out of it when he doesn't depend so much on it for survival? How does it affect some of his relationships with the high school top dogs, like Finn, Puck, Quinn or Santana? I think there's a lot to unpack with that last bit lol so no worries if you don't feel like getting into it and just focus on Kurt.

Ah okay so this is such a wonderful question thank you!! It has taken me... a while to answer, so thank you for your patience <3

Very good point about the general underdog/martyr/superiority complex themes, because those are definitely all things that I think are applied to Kurt throughout the show and definitely tie in a lot with this specific aspect of his character.

I'm going to put this under a cut, because I did get a bit long and rambly. I hope this answers the questions you were asking and is an interesting read for anybody else who may want to take the time to have a look!

I agree it definitely is a flaw. Like I love Kurt with my whole entire heart, but the boy has flaws, and this is a big one if not the biggest. Because I think it comes out in different ways too: you have the "one day you will all work for me" moments, of course, but then you also have things like snapping at waitstaff (my beloathed) which I think is interesting because it's that superior attitude even though he really doesn't have a need to be defensive in moments like that and yet he is. I feel like it's still a defense mechanism in those case, but it's more out of habit; it's less actually thinking he's better than them, and more that he needs to feel like he is? Again, not a good trait, but it is what it is. For better or for worse my boy just has a way of thinking he's the best thing since sliced bread, and while I of course agree to an extent (lol), he shouldn't be acting on it as much as he does some of the time.

I do think it evolves over the years. Honestly I don't think he'd ever completely grow out of it, but he definitely would get better about it, and I think we do see that in canon. Season 4 and season 6 in particular I think were big times for him in terms of growth in that respect.

In S4 we see him dealing with the aftermath of his rejection from NYADA, he's stuck in Lima working at the coffee shop while everybody else in his life seems to be moving on and succeeding. He moves to NY and thinks things might be getting back on track but then his relationship with Blaine falls apart and things are kind of a mess all over again. He spent so much of his teen years telling himself one he got out of Lima things would be great and he could have everything he wanted, but it's not going that way at all. It's a lot, and I think that even though he gets the Vogue internship and eventually gets into NYADA and eventually gets back together with Blaine, it's still gotta knock him down a peg and make him realize that maybe he isn't god's gift to the world. And it doesn't completely rid him of the habit either, of course; later this season we see the beloved Hummelberry Truth Time scene and Kurt feeling the need to kind of put Rachel in her place (although in fairness, I don't think in that moment he was trying to say he's better than Rachel, but that she's not better than him - so it's not quite the same, but I think it still comes from the same place of needing to assert himself and his worth).

Then S6 starts off with breakup #2; he's at a breaking point, he doesn't know what to do but whatever he's doing now isn't working. Everybody else is finding success and leaving and Kurt just still feels like he's stuck and things are falling apart. I don't think he really meant to break up with Blaine when he did it, I think it just sort of happened, and it happened because he was feeling so lost and he really hadn't expected that in NYC. He goes to therapy and he works on himself and I think that admitting that he needed help was probably a huge step for him, because when you are proud and stubborn and have spent your whole life thinking that you can take on the whole world on your own, it's hard to admit that maybe you need someone to help you out sometimes, but he does that. He does that and it's what lets him come back to Lima to find Blaine and tell him that he wants him, to be vulnerable, and when Blaine turns out to have (seemingly) moved on Kurt is obviously a wreck about it but he accepts it and he tries to deal with it. He doesn't act like it's just a matter of time before Blaine wants him back, or like he's better than Dave and that Blaine should want him instead, or anything like that, and I think looking at how he handles Blaine and Dave's relationship actually says a lot about how much Kurt has grown over the seasons - both because of the Blaine aspect and because of the Dave aspect. There are so many reasons for this in particular to trigger a defensive response from him; his feelings for Blaine not being reciprocated, his history with Dave, the fact that Blaine knows about that history and still chose and continues to choose Dave, any blame Kurt puts on himself for the whole situation. There is so much there, and Kurt is a better person than I because honestly I don't think I would have handled things quite as well as him if I were in that situation.

As far as how it affects his friendships with some of the other members of the New Directions, it definitely does in the earlier seasons, though I'll admit it's not something I'd given too much thought to before you asked. It's got to be quite complicated for him, because yeah he thinks he's better than everyone, but he also doesn't and that's why he thinks he is. Which sounds contradictory, but it's not; because like I said in the original post, this is a defense mechanism, he's acting like he's better than everyone else because he needs to believe that, since everyone treats him like he's worthless. It's like he needs to overcompensate for how the world sees him, and of course it's hard to not internalize that too even if he is trying hard to not believe it.

I think that becoming friends with them would come with a lot of conflicting feelings. On one hand it feels like a betrayal to himself to admit that the people who treated him like shit are maybe decent people worth befriending (and by extension, if they're good people, did they have a point when they made him feel worthless?), and on the other hand all he's ever wanted is to be accepted and feel validated, and having the most popular people in school accept him is something that he never in a million years could have imagined happening (especially someone like Puck, who literally used to throw him in dumpsters - I don't think we ever really see any of the girls directly bullying him beyond maybe a comment from Santana, but she directs those at everyone so I don't think it's really notable here). So it's just this constant fighting with himself between trying to fit in and belong with them, and then pulling back and putting up walls and acting like he's above them all the moment he senses something not going in his favour. He's always kind of fit in more with the girls in general anyway, but I think this is probably another reason that he usually tries to go with the girls' group when they team up, because he's better at fitting in with them and feels more comfortable there, and they haven't been as mean to him as the guys have been so it's less work for him to get past those feelings to be able to meet them on a similar level I feel like there are probably specific examples I could use to make a better point, but I can't think of any off the top of my head, and I know myself well enough that if I wait to answer this until I have some good examples then I'll just never answer it, and I've already taken too long to answer this, so we're gonna have to deal with no examples unfortunately. Like I said, it's not something I've put a lot of thought into before, but I do think it's a really interesting point and on my next rewatch I might make more of a point to try to pay attention to that.

I think that's all I have to say for the time being, or at least, all that I'm able to say in a somewhat coherent way. Sorry for taking so long on this, I've sat down to answer it several times and have never felt like I've been able to get it quite right, and I'm still not totally convinced I've expressed everything exactly how I would have wanted to, but I think I'm happy enough with it to post at least haha and I would love to hear your thoughts on it if you have any you'd like to share (though no pressure of course)!