#i basically used almost no reference for lloyd

[starastarship]

Thoughts on Indigo park chapter 1

Spoiler warning under the cut!

Alright guys so today I played Indigo park chapter 1 with my friend @theroseofazrael. And I wanted to give my thoughts on it along the way basically! Warning again spoilers for chapter 1!

Right of the bat I wanna say that this is coming from somone who watched it first and someone who played it after. So you could say I have at least 2 things to go off by

Putting this in multiple parts

Part 1: entrance

So the beginning. first of all intro cutscene was really well made and amazing to look at! Getting right put into the game, meeting Rambly for the first time was nice! (Also fun fact I did the math around the 2920 days guest absents and it's 8 years!) I liked him alot! He is cute and sweet! Love his animations and I hope he doesn't turn out evil (or at least not the AI) So we open the door with a simple puzzle and I am glad it is really just like a kind of walking simulator! Going in we are getting our critter cuff, and I was so sure in the playthrough I watched that there was one of the mascots inside the shop!

with the critter cuff around our wrist we now walk into the park and when I first saw the statue I immediatly thought "Is this a disney reference"! I liked it! going throught the tunnel and it collapses behind us. I would say I actually kinda liked that! I find it sometimes a bit more realistic if something old collapses right behind someone than it already having collapsed! Also the tunnel kinda reminded me a bit of a tunnel from my favorite theme park which I found funny!

also on a side note: I love how Rambly still tries to make this abandoned theme park sound more like that it is under construction. Deniel is a river in egypt!

part 2: The train ride

While it still plays a bit in the tunnel I put it with the train ride! Walking through the que line really helps the feeling of This was really a theme park! And while I didn't see it on my playthrough (at least I think I missed it) on SHB I saw like the tail feathers of Mollie already giving an uneasy feeling but was also a bit foreshadowing in a sense. Anyways when I was in the call with my friend, Rambly told me I would be too old for this ride and I literally said "well fuck you then". This was also still at the time where I did not realize Azra was not watching my stream, because my game crashed at the beginning and I booted it up again but forgot to stream it at the time (I honestly believe it has nothing to do with the game and more about me having too much stuff open at the time!)

Anyways we load up onto the train and off we go on our first ride! This was a very sweet introduction to the cast, and felt natural for a theme park! Meeting Mollie first I loved that introduction. I like her opimistic character as they talked (which I found also really cool that Rambly interacted with the cast during the ride!) What I didn't noticed until a bit later, down there was a door where you could see Mollie "spying" on us! I just saw how the door closed but it gave me the impression that she stalked us during the entire ride or she was like "looking around" and basically found out there is someone!

Then we get to Finleys underwater space and the entire time I was looking around if I could find Mollie somewhere again (I unfortunatley didn't see her anywhere). But then Finley say "you know me for 100 years" and Imma get this right off the bat, Mollie later on says this! I go deeper in this later on!

Then we get to a really destroyed place which thinking about it is weird! Every other place was ok looking, almost in tip top shape but this one was quiet literally ruined! It is open for alot of theories I believe, since this one was probably Salems place! it is up to you guys what this was! So off we go to repair the electricity finding a Mollie animatronic! It says one last thing about Rambly hurt Llloyd! Now this one gives me the impression that Rambly is more evil but also later on with Lloyd there is a scene that plays out. And I believe that there is more to the cuff/ the system in the park than we thought

Anyways we boot up the train again and carrie on! Next and last one is Lloyd. Here we see the first time the total distaste for Lloyd from our Raccoon! now considering how Rambly and Lloyd interact, this might be just his AI programm but throught the game, expecially the collectables, it is more to believe that this dislike isn't really programmed! So maybe that part, wasn't meant to be in a annoyed way? only time will tell! But also I knew this one from tik tok but at the end of this interaction, looking to the left shows Mollie like literally by our side coming from the courtains! I will talk about a thought when we get there!

Going out we are at the gift shop of the ride. And here I noticed that in one of the cameras we can see Molluie running after the train! We see multiple empty trains in those photos and then one in the middle with Mollie running! I believe that would have been our photo! considering all other photos are empty seats, it makes the most sense. And with mollie always popping up during the ride now and then! Now this one is more a theorie but I imagine that this photo was taken during Salems part! Maybe Mollie was chasing us, the train was just faster, and when it broke down and we went out to fix it, maybe she caught up! Then she saw we weren't there and maybe thought we ran ahead? this is really just what I have thought about this than really being a theory! Anyways i was pointing the picture out to Azra and here I noticed how stupid I was

I noticed after they told me, there was no stream, that I forgot to stream it! These entire first minutes, they did not see what I saw while I stupidly pointed out things you can only see! oTL anyways moving on to part 3!

part 3: the central area and Lloyds theater

Putting these 2 together cause I find them rather short in a way! First of going down the stairs and seeing the entire area + working and I believe opperating ferris wheel! I told to Azra that as a kid or even now that I would have gone there! I just hope they also have rollercoaster tbh! I like the adrenalin! I found the fountain actually really funny, being able to rotate like this while spitting water! Noone was save against the water! we also get to the information kiosk and to the collectables! I found it nice that we got more info about them through Rambley and expecially through our protagonist which there is one thing!

At the beginning Rambly tells us that we are a new comer/ are not in the guest data base, but looking at the descriptions it is made very clear we were in this park multiple times! I believe either, children weren't like allowed to be in the guest data base because well they were children! or because we aged and with age faces change, the face recognition didn't pick up on us!

And another thing. As I said before Rambly seems to really dislike Lloyd and with the plushies, expecially the last one we get (and old cartoon version of Lloyd) it says that Lloyd was the most popular one apperantly! or at least the company was more focused on the Lion than the Raccoon! So I believe the resentment shows that Rambly is a bit more sentient than it looks like!

Moving on, Rambly wants to bring us to the Jetstream junction but unfortunatly we need a key! And that key was in Lloyds theater. getting acess to it, we go inside! seeing the theater was really pretty! and on stage we see a sleeping Lloyd who wakes up and running away. now I wanna adress that because I feel like that they aren't really out to hurt us! after the key and getting through the section (where even if I know nothing would happen, I still anticipated it) only then when we tried to go, did he really came close enough to grab us! and that one time in the middle where he was squished under a box! And honestly i think it was also because he was like put into a croner and didn't see another way!

Here is also a funny thing because technically speaking you can get this anytime when you turn around away from the backstage area we see again Mollie! Some had it at the beginning I had it after the area and honestly I feel like it is more impactful when it is after the area!Anyways we got the key and off to Mollies place!

part 4: Jetstream junction

Now this place was really fun! We go up to rooftop racing adn are greeted with rumble having fallen onto the ride destroying it! Now I felt it was unfair we only get to ride one thing so far in the entire park! Anyways we go downstairs again and to the landing pad! or rather we should go there but off to the side is a little drinking area with an arcade machine! We can play it and it is a typical oldschool platformer! This is also where we meet Salem for the first time basically! Many also belive that this has more story relevence than it looks like. Also we get like a pixalated Ramblyberry but I think that is more an easter egg than it being exactly "canon".

Anyways we now enter the landing pad which is like a really REALLY big playground area! and we got a interesting puzzle here! simple to understand. We have blocks and need to figure out the the right combination! Easy to understand thanks to the purple block and the purple star besides it! So power goes out and we walk through the entire playground, finding all shapes and the colors to it! And guess what Mollie is with us! She is often very cose to us but never really attacks us! until after we solved the puzzle! We get our first chase in the game and the only one in chapter 1!

I died only 2 times! first time I was not expecting her to come from the front and second time I didn't knew where to jump! but overall I liked the chase! it was easy to follow and had only one moment that I thought "ARE YOU FUCKING ME?! an it is the collectable during the chase! it's not hard to see but dang I held to step back one time to get it and my adrenaline was so high holy shit!

And the ending was wow. So like I felt like with the head off it felt different than I saw on SHB. Maybe it was becuase of the pure adrenaline but I felt like they fixed the timing of when it happens! Cause with Mike I felt like the timing of the head or the distance of the jump too was weird! but maybe it was always like this. And during all of this me and Azra just went "damn she is bleeding alot" not exactly listening to Rambly saying anything about the park and stuff! But it does make me wonder what happened to the staff and expecially WHY WAS THERE FRESH LOOKING BLOOD ON BOTH MOLLIE AND LLOYD?!

Anyways we leave and soon make our way to Ocean Odyssey and I notice that is Nordic themed ! (loves it!) and after seeing a big Finley coming out there ends chapter 1!

Finally thoughts

I really enjoyed it! I don't play often horror games... actually rewrite that I never played horror games and this was my first time! gameplay wise, there were a few nitpicky things but that was their first game and for that alone this deserves a major Star because it is really good! and story wise, it got me hooked! we got enough information for anticipation withouthaving all to much said, only leaving us wondering!

Anyways can't wait for chapter 2 and see ya!

#indigo park #rambly the racoon #me rambling about this amazing game already!

[sea-jello]

anyone make this joke yet

(click for quality)

#IM ACTUALLY??? KIND OF PROUD?? OF MORRO??? #THIS WAS MY SECOND TIME ACTUALLY DIGITALLY DRAWING #INSTEAD OF SCRIBBLE MEMES #at this point just don’t look at lloyd #look at morro #lloyd looks janky as fuck 💀💀 #it is what it is #i have two options for morros hand and i spent SO LONG trying to decide #i basically used almost no reference for lloyd #can you tell 💀💀 #i used SO MANY for morro tho #really in a drawy mood today huh #it’s 3am #ninjago #lego ninjago #morro ninjago #ninjago morro #morro wu #lloyd garmadon #lloyd ninjago #ninjago lloyd #lloyd montgomery garmadon #ninjago memes #ninjago art #greencousins #green cousins #jellos scribbles

[skrimbloz]

Ninjago Eye Studies

Some of these eyes were harder to draw than I thought they’d be oh my GOD.

I think Im pretty happy with what I did for them tho !!

Some lil details/headcanons on my Ninjago designs I wanna detail:

- Kai freckles real (also not related to the artwork bc duh it’s just the eyes BUT TOOTH GAP KAI!!!!!!!!!!!!! I DIDNT MAKE IT THAT OBVIOUS IN MY LAST DRAWING BUT ITS LIKE MY FAV DETAILING ON MY HC FOR HIS FACE)

- Jay has hetreochromia but I think in the way thats kinda hard to notice unless your really looking at him. Totttalllllyyyy wasn’t using Awsten Knight’s eyes as a reference nuhh uhhhhhh

- Lloyd has dark ass eye bags. For an elemental master of energy dudes pretty damn TIRED.

- Yes I gave Cole an almost monobrow. He could pull it off 100%

Don’t rlly have much to note on Zane’s I think its a pretty basic Zane design ;-;

#lego ninjago #ninjago #ninjago fanart #robinzart

[lackadaisycats]

I’m so sorry if you’ve already answered this somewhere, but how do you design your characters?

I’ve been trying to make an OC from the prohibition era and it turns out there’s basically nothing to work with for men’s outfits, so I’m curious how you made this many that look unique and fitting to the characters

There is so much to work with, though! You will tend to find more of a focus on variety in women's fashion, but there is still quite a lot of menswear to ogle too. I suppose it's just a matter of searching out ideas and inspiration in the rights corners. Here are a few suggestions:

Old Clothing Catalogues -

Collections from Sears-Roebuck and other popular clothing retailers are pretty easy to find compiled into relatively inexpensive books, or just floating online.

A fair bit of it is in the public domain now.

--Here's an entire 1922 catalogue of stuff to flip through.

-----------------

Contemporary Artwork -

Some phenomenal illustrators were working in this field amidst the "Golden Age of Illustration" and featured prominently on the covers of magazines and on the ads inside. There was a lot of emphasis on fashion.

Collier's and The Saturday Evening Post are a couple of the more prominent and easily searchable resources. The costuming on the cover art always has a lot of personality.

There's Rockwell, of course, and it's almost impossible to go wrong with J. C. Leyendecker. He's probably best known for his Arrow Collar ad art, but even his sock ads are like…

There were numerous other amazing and influential illustrators working at the time too. Here's a list of some of them. Here's a bonus Henry Raleigh featuring some of his fabulously-dressed people.

-----------------

Blogs and Articles -

There are so many of them! If you want historical accuracy, be wary of write-ups pulling all of their references from film and television. There's nothing wrong with using those for inspiration if you aren't too concerned with historicity, but there are some pretty comprehensive and well-researched things out there with more of an eye on actual fashion history too:

--Gentleman's Gazette - What Men Really Wore in the 1920s

--The Fashionisto - 1920s Men's Fashion

-----------------

Digital Collections -

There are numerous digital historic image collections stemming from universities, museums, libraries, and the government that are free to peruse too.

--The Metropolitan Museum has a searchable catalog of exhibits that includes fashion and photos

--Here's some things from the New York Public Library

-----------------

Photos at Large -

If you aren't sure where to start, image searching for any of Hollywood's early celebrities will typically turn up a bevy of production stills and promotional photography featuring a variety of fashions. Here's a random Getty images search for Harold Lloyd. A lot of standard 3 piece suits, but a lot of stuff with added character too.

Photography was generally quite accessible by the 1920s, though, and you can find a lot of authentic photos of people from all walks of life, out in the wild wearing all sorts of clothes.

This is by no means the limit to the resources available, but hopefully it'll provide some leaping-off points for designing looks for your characters!

[idkwhyimhere5462]

So if anyone here has talked to me for more than 10 seconds (which I don’t think anyone has), you would know I’m OBSESSED with the “Never Meet Your Heroes” troupe. Because of my obsession, I love Arin living and training under the Ninja. Like, this guy’s been a fan of the Ninja for years, he’s spent years attempting their main move, he knows tons about them, his goal before training under them was to build a monastery to replicate them. The problem is, the Ninja were only celebrities for a very short time and aren’t really in the public eye. I imagine they’re very private considering that anything could possible be used against them.

With very little Arin has of their personal lives and personalities, he pieces them together. He imagines them to be flawless and puts them up on a pedestal, as everyone does with people they can see but never meet. He sees Kai as confident and cocky, Lloyd as in control and fearless, Nya as calm and collected, Jay as someone who just laughs in the face of danger, Cole as serious and solid, and he probably sees Zane as just an emotionless robot (we sees that’s the general public’s view on him in the Zane Day episode and Arin probably shared it).

He finally meets them and realizes they’re not all he imagined. Kai’s self-worth is below the floor and he had his other… problem (I’m an alcoholic Kai headcannoner, what you gonna do?), Lloyd had no idea what to do half the time, Nya’s closed off and is terrible at being bad at things, Jay has tons of anxiety and basically hates himself, Cole is riddled with self-doubt, and Zane’s all sorts of messed up (you can refer to almost any Zane post of mine for that one). He’s finds himself almost disappointed. He knows he shouldn’t be, these are people after all, people have problems. He’s having the time of his life training and learning how to be a ninja, but sometimes, in the back of his mind, he wishes he never met them so he could still see them as his flawless heroes.

#ninjago #zane julien #zane ninjago #cole brookstone #cole ninjago #ninjago dragons rising #kai smith #kai ninjago #nya ninjago #nya smith #lloyd montgomery garmadon #lloyd ninjago #lloyd garmadon #jay walker #jay ninjago #ninjago arin #tw alchoholism #I am obsessed with stuff like this #it’s all I can think about sometimes

[ninja-knox-ur-sox-off]

Sorry for the random asks, I just get random thoughts.

If the Wobbly Hearts AU Ninja were in a band AU who would be doing/playing what?

-froginninjago

bro ur asks are fun so this works out HGLKSJDF

Okay, i had to think a bit hard on this one but here we go

Jay - Lead Guitar: Bro has some wild speed which would be dope for shredding amazing for finger picking, this, ofc, is in reference to his elemental power of lightning. I'd think he can play several different types of guitars ranging from a standard electric to the banjo. He also likes to be front and centre a lot of the time and absolutely thrives off of attention so guitar solos would really give him a chance to shine. I imagine he'd play with a speed similar to this guy though likely not with that type of guitar

Kai - Bass guitar/backup vocalist: I'd actually give Kai the bass cause it's criminally underrated (like kai in the show it feels like sometimes) and it kinda lends itself to the fact his character ends up being more of a supporting role (specifically to Lloyd in the show) in the background rather than the main protagonist. He's extremely skilled in a way that not a lot of people notice, an avid bass defender and hype man and only slightly annoyed that Jay has more fans than him. He likely posts lots of bass shredding vids online

Cole - Drums: I mean come on you had to have seen this coming. I know it almost feels basic to put him but it fits so WELL. He's the one who keeps the team on track in the show and on beat in the band. He's so steady and consistent that it kinda blends together and you forget he's there sometimes. He's the one band member who can go out in public and not a single person will recognize him and he's cool with that. He has an amazing voice and could easily be a lead singer but he's content where he is. He's wildly skilled on the drums and I imagine people would start taking notice in him when he has like a drum solo that happens and its kinda like how Jay is crazy on the guitar he'd be outrageous like this dude

Lloyd - Lead Vocals/drums: Lloyd's currently learning drums from Cole and he's having a lot of fun with them. (a nod to my hc of Cole teaching Lloyd how to lead in the show.) He has the best voice out of the group with an INSANE range in his vocals. He can go from more like straight up angelic sounding to like hardcore screaming and so he's pretty versatile. (A nod to his oni/dragon sides.) He doesn't enjoy singing as much as he does drumming but he's good at it so he doesn't mind being the lead. Though he's not a huge fan of his fans. They're a little crazy. If you want to see him smile ask him to play the drums for you, he gets really winded and is always grinning with his hair a complete mess afterwards. He gets a lot of dopamine from da drums. He also enjoys helping Nya out with writing their lyrics

Nya - Stage Manager(previous)/Backup Guitarist/Second Lead Vocal/Songwriter: Nya is pretty versatile in what she can do. She knows the basics of base, is a pretty solid contender for lead guitar, she's also learning drums from Cole alongside Lloyd. She used to handle the behind the scenes stuff at some point before she actually joined the band. Her ability to both carve out her own place and easily fill in for the other's if they need to tap out lends itself to her element power of water something something. I kinda think of Walk Off the Earth with their two lead vocalists and how their voices blend together really well and the harmonies are really nice for how Nya and Lloyd would sound together. She also has a huge hand in writing the bands songs obviously. Kai did a lot of the lyrics for a while but he's not the most creative person. The whole band kinda has a hand in writing and its a group effort but Nya's usually the one leading it

Pixal - Stage Manager (current): I'm thinking Pixal used to be like, a solo act for a while or something? I dunno I actually couldn't get many ideas for her. But a soloist songwriter and maybe singer and she eventually retired from that and runs things behind the scenes for the band, booking stuff, getting transport, she's great at her job and the whole band loves and appreciates her, Kai regularly dramatically falls across her lap to ask "What would we do without you?" when she hands him a juice box after a set. She also handles the technology (with some assistance from Nya and sometimes Zane) and any more digital sounds they want added to their music

Zane - oh screw it, it's gotta be violin doesn't it??: come on just listen to his Falcon Chase song what else would he play??? All his songs in this show are literally strings!!! Cello, viola, violin, fiddle. i imagine he's classically trained in a lot of the bow + stringed instruments. I'm thinking Lindsey Stirling type playing probably or something. It lends itself to his controlled but emotional?? way of dealing with stuff? You can get a wide range of emotion from these types of instruments and he knows how to pull at your heartstrings (get it cause strings instrument--[gets hit with a chair])

Am i well versed enough in music to know if all these instruments would work well together? No, no i am not. But the concepts are cool and I guess i can be a lil silly goofy with it

#asks #knox rambles #froginninjago #LEGO Ninjago Wobbly Hearts AU #LEGO Ninjago #Ninjago #ngl this would be a really fun AU on its own #i dunno if you were expecting a response this long i certainly wasn't what a fun thing #wowee anyway wooo i looked up and like an hour has passed whoops #i thought about this for far too long #you can tell i kinda ran out of steam at Zane a bit i'm more rambly #WELP OKAY TIME TO POST AND YUP OKAY

[destinysbounty]

HELLO i am in your inbox because your post about ninjago cycles made me drop my phone, ive literally been thinking about this idea forever!

around when i watched s8, i literally started reading the entire show as one big time loop because of all the repetition and cycles in the show. i dont know if that phrasing holds true, but i think the idea itself holds up

i think what really drives the entire cycle of the show is the need for balance. i interpret ninjago the place as created by fsm to be a reflection of his worldviews: dragon vs oni; good vs evil; light vs dark. the fact that the overlord keeps coming back, and his descendants will have to keep fighting him is a part of a larger system put in place (accidentally or purposefully) by fsm. when one person is defeated, a power vaccuum appears that HAS to be filled, usually by a new villain

basically, balance is the mechanism by which all these cycles come to pass. its kind of a law of physics in ninjago, good will always win, but evil can never really lose. everyone has to keep repeating history, personal and global because the world literally will bend itself in order to achieve that balance.

(i hope this makes sense i wrote it very quickly lmao) thank you sooooo much for bringing up cycle symbolism in the show,,,, once you start looking for it its everywhere!

(Here's the cycle post in reference)

Thank you for sending this ask! I apologize for the belated response, but I wanted to wait to respond until I had the chance to get ahold of some screenshots that would be relevant to this discussion. With that out of the way, let's get into the meat of the issue!

First off, you are absolutely right! I think the circle motif represents a few key themes: balance, as you mentioned; recursion; and inheritance. And all of those things, in a way, tie back into the show's interpretation of destiny and the way fate is baked into almost every aspect of the story.

Balance is the most obvious interpretation, of course, and perhaps the most compelling. Like, not just because the circle is by design an incredibly balanced shape, simultaneously having infinite sides yet at the same time only one. But also because there are so many instances of circles appearing in the way in which the balance between light and dark is visually represented within the series - especially with regard to the creation mythology.

(On an unrelated note, I think it's actually kind of a cool detail how the FSM is represented as a grey being - not Oni of darkness, not dragon of light, but something in between. The child of both worlds.)

The world was created by the FSM, and while I can't remember if it was ever outright stated, I think there's enough evidence to at least assume spinjitzu was used alongside the Golden Weapons to create Ninjago (I'm happy to elaborate on this if asked!)

On this note of balance, I also think it's worth noting the attention drawn to the splitting of circles. As seen above, with the creation of the Dark Island, but also with the Battle Between Brothers! Now, I'm definitely overthinking this, but bear with me for a sec.

The Monastery of Spinjitzu is, quite iconically, arguably circular in shape. Well, it's really more of a hexagon, but you get my drift. And the sons of the FSM, each representing light and dark, were friends for a long time. But when Garmadon finally succumbed to the venom's influence and was banished to the Underworld, a crevice was torn into the ground, splitting that circle - and likewise splitting the two brothers in the process.

And again! The Lloyd v Garmadon fight in sesaon 8! Despite loving each other very deeply, they have both been forced into conflict by the forces of destiny time and again. Lloyd knows the drill at this point. "I've saved you once, I'll save you again." The fight itself takes place in a circular structure - the Kryptarium Prison panopticon. Lloyd enters this fight assuming the established cycle of fighting and redeeming his father will be reinforced. But when Lloyd is thrown through the wall, thereby breaking through the prison's circular structure, so too is this cycle broken as well (and with it like half the bones in Lloyd's body as well as his heart).

And of course, we can't forget the most iconic example - when the FSM created the Dark Island, banishing the Overlord and his Stone Army for the protection of the world he created, the circular continent was split in two. The destruction of the circle.

The destruction of the circle is also how the Oni are introduced in Mystake's story - the dragon creates a circle, and the Oni destroys it.

So to recap: a circle is balance, balance is stability and unity, and the dissolution of the circle is the loss of stability.

That in itself is a cycle - creating something, destroying it, creating it again.

Kinda like the show itself, in a constant loop of the world facing ruin and building itself back up again and again. Like how the Overlord can never truly be defeated, dying and coming back like the ebb and flow of the tide. Like the snake eating its own tail, a cycle feeding itself endlessly. Like how a circle has infinite sides.

That's interesting enough as it is, right? Just wait! It goes deeper!

As mentioned before, the FSM arguably created Ninjago to some extent using spinjitzu. Spinjitzu, which is both a martial art and a lifestyle that utilizes circular motion to create a tornado around the user. The quintessential example of the circle motif. Spinjitzu is quite literally the foundation of the show's identity and worldbuilding. This show is, on both a narrative and a meta level, built on the concept of circles. And according to the Core shorts, one of its principle values includes balance.

Which, in the end, boils back to what you were saying about how cycles are a law of reality in Ninjago. I agree!

If I have my lore right and Ninjago was created through spinjitzu in some degree or another, then that means it was created through circular motion. The world was made spinning. The world was made as one big cycle. So to some extent, I do definitely think that good and evil must constantly fight. If the world isn't constantly repeating itself, if this cycle of recursion ever stops, then the world will stop spinning. And what happens when the world stops spinning?

Chaos, as I'm sure you can imagine.

Although, we also have to consider that the Overlord said "there will be peace in the dark". Now, since he is a villain and also the embodiment of darkness itself we should take his words with a grain of salt, but it definitely raises the question of what it would look like if darkness or light truly did prevail over the other, or if such a thing is even possible in the first place. Will there be peace in the dark? Or does the Overlord have an arguably more compelling motivation - that is, as an immortal being incapable of death, locked in an eternal limbo between victory and defeat, he knows that the only way this deathless hell will end is if the balance is destroyed and the universe falls to pieces. Maybe that's what the Overlord means by 'peace in the dark'. That theory has a lot of holes in it, of course, but I'm certainly intrigued by what that would mean for the Overlord's character. This might also hint at the origins of Darkley's, but that's a weird little tinfoil-hat tangent that we're not gonna worry about right now.

Now, I mentioned earlier that there are three main themes that the circle motif draws on: balance, recursion, and inheritance. And those three themes all tie into destiny somehow. So far, we've talked about balance and recursion - how history must keep repeating itself, how the whole world must remain in eternal conflict between light and dark or else the circle will dissolve and chaos will reign. But what about inheritance?

This is the fun part, but also a bit obvious. First, inheritance comes through elemental powers - not only because powers are passed on from person to person, as well as the legacies of those powers, but also because the elements of creation all tie back to the Green Ninja. They all manifest in him, and while the other ninja are capable of wielding those powers independently they all tie back to Lloyd in the end. Like convection cells but instead of circulating wind currents it's magical powers.

And, of course, I'm not the first person to comment on how elemental powers can be seen as a metaphor for generational trauma, and how each character inherits the legacy and loss of prior generations vicariously through their powers. Other people have elaborated on this idea far more eloquently than I ever could. But it's still worth mentioning in this discussion, so here we are.

And!! Then you've got things like the Yin-Yang Eclipse (which, imo, didn't look much like the Yin-Yang symbol at all. It looked more like a funky Z if you ask me). With Yang telling Cole to "close the circle" - the curse of the Airjitzu Temple requires that someone always remain behind as the master of the house. Yang needed Cole to take his place as the temple's new prisoner. He needed Cole to complete the cycle of inheritance. He needed Cole to close the circle.

And that right there is the base essence of this show, isn't it? Closing the circle. Completing the cycle. The sins of the father laid upon the son. History repeating itself. Repetition and recursion.

This all pertains to destiny in ways I hope are quite apparent at this point. The scholars in the Cloud Kingdom write destiny. They choose what happens. They designed the Prophecy of the Green Ninja. Perhaps they're doing all this, perhaps they're putting the ninja through all this trauma and suffering, perhaps they're creating this history and this world to be endlessly recursive, in an effort to maintain the balance and protect the universe from spiraling out of control. Or maybe they're just doing it to get their sick kicks. Who knows? We've only seen the Cloud Kingdom for like one whole episode so at this point who's to say.

But a bit more blatantly to the point, according to Lloyd in 2.12 "Return of the Overlord" the below images show the symbol for destiny. And what do you see??? Circles!!!!!!!! Circles as unity! Circles as balance! And in the latter image, circles represented through colors, which denote their roles in destiny and likewise the powers they inherited from their ancestors! It's circles all the way down!!!!

Oh and before I go, here's some food for thought. The Overlord once said that "destruction comes from the eternal struggle between light and dark." And Oni have the power of destruction. Garmadon, once he's reached his true potential, is powered by conflict. "It's the fight that fuels him." Which does seem to corroborate with what we know about the Overlord himself - as Misako said, "where there is light, there must also be darkness." Conflict creates darkness, and darkness creates conflict, just as light creates shadow.

God, I'm losing my mind over this. Balance is the struggle between light and dark. Destruction is a byproduct of this struggle. Destruction causes darkness. Darkness plays a pivotal role in the existence of the balance. The balance is creating itself. The cycle ultimately cycles back in on its own self. We've come full circle. It's the freakin' ouroboros! The snake eating its own tail! Endless consumption with infinite return! Circular motion causing its own endless perpetuity!! It's a fight you can never truly win but also can't lose, because the existence of conflict creates conflict, and without conflict there cannot be peace! You cannot escape from the cycle because you are the cycle!

So, to conclude:

Thanks again for the ask! <3 God I sure hope this rant made at least a teensy bit of sense.

#overly convoluted 15-season toy commercial my beloved #ninjago #long post #ask #destiny post

[thisurlwasnttakenbutnowitis]

Every Epic Rap Battle of History Ranked, Part 2

Part 1

57. Genghis Khan vs Easter Bunny

Winner: Easter Bunny

Best line: "The Great Wall couldn't keep you out of China. Watch me rub my foot for luck and stick it right up your vagina!"

Okay, okay, this is probably higher than it has any right to be, but damn it, I just love this pairing. You have a historical warlord famous for his brutality battling with a peaceful holiday icon for kids and I think the contrast is hilarious. It's nothing spectacular, but this has to be my favorite of season 1's "two completely random characters with no relation" battles.

56. Wonder Woman vs Stevie Wonder

Winner: Wonder Woman

Best line: "My rhymes are signed, sealed, and delivered on time. You're a bald has-been, I'm in my Amazon Prime!"

While I was always aware of Stevie Wonder's music, this battle actually made me look into it and appreciate it more. I love the touch of how Stevie's music style in this is a mix of his own as well as that of his actor, T-Pain. Also the quote above might just be one of my favorite lines in ERB history - I LOVE when a line can manage to mix in wordplay that relates to both rappers. Mwah, chef's kiss.

55. Master Chief vs Leonidas

Winner: Master Chief

Best line: "300 asses need a kickin'. Give more teebags than Lipton."

We're in the section of the list of good battles with nothing to really complain about, but also with nothing spectacular so there's not really much to say. I'm not a Halo guy so some of the references went over my head - I didn't get "You're the solider they need you to be" until looking it up just now, and yeah, that's a pretty funny line that I didn't appreciate when I was younger. It was also a good call to have Lloyd still be the voice of Leonidas but cast an actual muscular man to be the body actor; we definitely didn't need another Hulk Hogan muscle suit situation.

54. Goku vs Superman 

Winner: Goku

Best line: "There's only one way that this battle's gonna end: One more Superman who's never gonna walk again."

Ray William Johnson was a great casting choice for Goku; he brings a lively and memorable performance to the show. Although I didn't think Goku was quite so angry? Idk, I'm also not a Dragon Ball guy (forgive me for being such an uncultured swine and not knowing a lot of these series). Lloyd's Superman is pretty basic by comparison; it gets the job done, but it's like Sinatra vs Mercury where it gets overshadowed hard by the other performer.

53. Barack Obama vs Mitt Romney

Winner: Mitt Romney

Best line: "Republicans need a puppet and you fit. Got their hand so far up your rear, call you Mitt."

Man, remember when we thought Mitt Romney was the worst the Republican party could throw at us? Simpler times, man. Simpler times. This battle is the most-viewed in ERB history, which I think is kinda weird since I feel like people were way more into the 2016 and 2020 elections overall. But this was also the first election battle, and when ERB was still a relatively new series, so maybe it was the novelty of it at the time. Or maybe because Obama and Romney were both more well-liked than Trump, Clinton, and Biden. I dunno, I'm getting off-track here.

I thought for years that this battle was pretty well-balanced in terms of not showing favoritism to one side, though I thought Romney's line "I'm not gonna let this battle be dictated by facts" was a pretty biased writing choice. But it turns out that that's almost a direct quote from Romney himself, so uhh. I also love how both opponents break down into slinging childish insults at each other by the end, it really goes to show that it's not glorifying either candidate. And that's proven true by the iconic scene of Abe Lincoln coming down and bitchslapping them both. Classic.

The real Obama is known to have seen this battle too and apparently liked it given that he invited Peter and the actor who played Obama here to the White House, so that's neat.

52. John Wick vs John Rambo vs John McClane

Winner: John McClane

Best line: "And lighten up, Wick, with your brooding saga. How 'bout a little hakuna matata, Baba Yaga?"

This is the first and so far only battle that's a three-way fight from the start, so that really ensures that all three characters are given ample time to all diss each other. I like it! The highlight here is definitely Lloyd's McClane, he's a delight to watch, and he perfectly captures how McClane is the lighthearted everyman of the group. Zach's John Wick is no slouch either, capturing the cool seriousness of the character. Where this battle falls flat though, and the only reason it's not in A, is Peter's Rambo. It's trying to be funny and it's just… not really funny. It's the kind of Sylvester Stallone impression that would get a chuckle out of you if your high school friend did it in the halls, but it just feels out of place in a professional production like this.

I love the subtle ways the backing track changes between characters too, with McClane getting some sleigh bells added in for his part, Wick getting a deep synth noise, and Rambo getting some somber strings. Really nice stuff.

51. Artists vs TMNT 

Winner: TMNT

Best line: "Uh, Dona-tell me who you are again, dude, 'Cause I don't Gattamelata clue what you do."

My only complaint about this battle is that it's just too damn short. This would be a pretty short battle even by 1-on-1 standards, but when you have 8 separate characters, each one barely gets anything to say. But what's here is great. Rhett and Link and Smosh is a good pairing that gives a lot of energy to the artists, and the turtle suit that the team managed to make for the TMNT is great. When the only negative I can think of for a battle is that I wish there was more of it, you know it's a good battle.

A TIER

50. George Carlin vs Richard Pryor 

Winner: Joan Rivers

Best line: "Now there's seven words you can't say on a TV set. But this is the pissin' fuckin' cuntin' internet!"

I'm realizing now how much work this entire thing is given how much I've written so far and we're only just now cracking the top 50. Still not even halfway there, damn. But anyway, this is a great tribute to a whole bunch of legendary comedians. It's a whole lot of fun to watch, and every performer captures the larger-than-life personalities on display. Lloyd's Robin Williams is a particular highlight. The only downside is Bill Cosby's part, it's not really funny and kinda just kills the pace. But it's thankfully short so it's not enough to ruin it.

49. Mario Bros vs Wright Bros

Winner: Wright Bros

Best line: "You might fly like a hawk, but you fight like a kitty!"

This was the first guest appearance of Rhett and Link and also the first 2-on-2 battle, and I think it does a really good job. Mario and Luigi are played absolutely nothing like their actual characters, but it's so far off that it's honestly hilarious.

48. David Copperfield vs Harry Houdini 

Winner: David Copperfield 

Best line: "My grand illusions make your parlor tricks irrelevant. The foot of Lady Liberty is stomping on your elephant."

Now THIS is a magician vs magician battle that actually lives up to the idea visually, eat your heart out, Gandalf vs Dumbledore. While Houdini is definitely the more interesting person to watch in this battle with all of the stunts he performs while rapping, I can't help but like Peter's silky smooth Copperfield voice, it's gotta be one of my favorite voices he's done.

47. Eastern Philosophers vs Western Philosophers

Winner: Eastern Philosophers

Best line: "You tried to plant a new German psyche, but you just grew hate, me no Third Reichy!"

This is a very smartly-written battle, as it should be given the subject matter. Every philosopher gets a chance to sum up what they're all about, and the contrasts work perfectly - Lao Tzu's philosophy of letting life take you through its natural course vs Nietzsche saying you need to take control and fight for the life you want, and Confucius's teaching of respecting authority vs Voltaire's challenging of authority. …Socrates vs Sun Tzu doesn't really have a direct contrast like that, but hey, that's okay. You can tell a lot of research went into this one, and it's really worth looking into the meanings of the lyrics because some of it will definitely go over your head if you're not super into philosophy.

46. Blackbeard vs Al Capone

Winner: Al Capone

Best line: "You spent time in Alcatraz, I'm sure you were fine, if you dropped the soap as little as you drop dope rhymes."

Both Peter and Lloyd were clearly having fun with this one, they're both in their element when they're playing characters with big personalities and fun voices to imitate. The lyrics are great and dense too; this was the first battle of season 3 besides Vader vs Hitler 3, and I think season 3 is really when the series started hitting its stride with rappers' verses becoming longer and more packed with deeper meanings.

I only have two minor criticisms with this battle - first, Blackbeard's beard looks way too nice and clean, and it's especially apparent when Capone has a line about how dirty it is. Second, this video was sponsored by Assassin's Creed IV, which is all well and good, but forcing in a line about Edward Kenway and having him physically appear in the background really destroys my suspension of disbelief and dates the video hardcore. But neither of these things are enough to ruin an otherwise very good battle.

45. Rick Grimes vs Walter White

Winner: Walter White 

Best line: "Ask Gus, you don't wanna face off against me."

Okay, so, confession time: I have not watched either of the shows that are represented in this battle (Breaking Bad is on my to-watch list though). And oops, this vid's got a lot of spoilers for both series. Ah well. Despite not knowing a whole lot about either universe, I still think this battle is a lot of fun to watch. I particularly love the detail of a zombie crossing into Walt's side and getting distracted by meth - touches like that to tie the worlds of the two rappers together are always a treat.

44. Darth Vader vs Hitler

Winner: Hitler

Best line: "You stink, Vader. Your style smells something sour. You need to wash up, dog. Here, step in my shower."

Here we go. While Lennon vs O'Reilly might have come first, I think we can all agree that this is the real start of ERB. This is what made the series into a viral sensation and it's not hard to see why. The novelty of seeing a historical figure battle his fictional equivalent in a rap battle of all things was something unseen up until that point, and it helps that the lyrics were incredibly clever to boot - in addition to the iconic quote above, who could forget "So many dudes been with your mom, who even knows if I'm your father". I'm sure Disney would like everyone to forget that the Stormtroopers were named after Hitler's troops, but this battle stands as an eternal reminder of that fact.

43. Mr. T vs Mr. Rogers

Winner: Mr. Rogers

Best line: "I'll say this once, Laurence. I hope it's understood: Get right back in your van and get the fuck out of my neighborhood."

Peter's acting here is pretty similar to how he portrayed Bob Ross, but his portrayal of Mr. Rogers easily wins in my mind for how much more savage the insults are. Even though Rogers definitely steals the show here, Mr. T also manages to be very entertaining. It's hilarious how he's screaming at Rogers the whole time while Rogers consistently keeps his cool while hurling passive-aggressive lines.

Also, whew! We're officially halfway done with this list!

42. Jacques Cousteau vs Steve Irwin

Winner: Steve Irwin

Best line: "I'm a wild man, you're a subdued sub dude. The only crocs you could handle are some slip-on shoes!"

This battle's an interesting role reversal - usually it's Lloyd portraying the grumpy character and Peter portraying the lively one. But it goes to show that the two of them have the acting chops to go either way. Especially Lloyd, he's really entertaining when he can let his silliness out. I love how in the part where Steve is pointing to Jacques and talking about him like he's a wild animal, you can tell Peter is holding in laughter.

41. Tony Hawk vs Wayne Gretzky

Winner: Wayne Gretzky

Best line: "You and I have so many world records between us. 184, that's plenty of 'em… and I set 183 of 'em!"

This is a very slept-on battle, being the lowest-viewed of any of the pre-hiatus battles (though 18 million views still certainly ain't bad). I still remember my first time watching this battle as someone who didn't really know anything about Wayne Gretzky aside from "he was a hockey player", my jaw fucking dropped at that world records line. Absolutely killer setup and execution.

40. Jack the Ripper vs Hannibal Lecter

Winner: Hannibal Lecter

Best line: "I don't mind that you're naughty, Jack. I hate that you're sloppy."

I can't imagine that this one was particularly easy to write for given the very little we know about Jack the Ripper. I was gonna say, "Oh this battle was made before we knew his true identity", but apparently it's still not really agreed upon who he really was and the mystery gets "solved" again and again every few years. Anyway, Lloyd is great as Hannibal, his faces and mannerisms are perfect, and Dan Bull provides an interesting interpretation of the type of person Jack may have been. I love that Jack spends his entire first verse purely hyping himself up and Hannibal calls him out on being a narcissist, it's something that kinda shocks you as a viewer cause it's something you probably don't even notice on the first viewing, and you're also not expecting the video itself to point it out. It really sells the "Hannibal is one step ahead" kind of vibe.

39. Vlad the Impaler vs Count Dracula

Winner: Vlad the Impaler

Best line: "Imagine forests of corpses dripping on a buffet. You call that a nightmare? I call that a Tuesday."

Vlad the Impaler is probably the single most cold, brutal character ERB has ever had, and Lloyd gets some truly bone-chilling line deliveries in as him. Peter's Dracula is great too, the whole thing of a killer with class being disgusted by a killer who's just trying to be vicious actually makes it quite similar to Jack the Ripper vs Hannibal now that I think about it.

38. Babe Ruth vs Lance Armstrong

Winner: Babe Ruth

Best line: "So c'mon, little buddy, don't look so pissed. With all that blood and attitude, you're like a menstrual cyclist."

Like Hawk vs Gretzky, this is another athlete vs athlete video, and you'd expect the odds to immediately be stacked against Armstrong by virtue of the fact that you have a known cheater going up against an athlete with integrity. But Armstrong actually manages to put up a damn good rebuttal, taking shots at Ruth's personal life instead. I still think Ruth won, but both rappers actually manage to knock it out of the park, pun entirely intended.

Also unrelated to the battle itself but I've always thought the face Lloyd makes in the thumbnail of this one makes him look like James Rolfe.

37. James Bond vs Austin Powers

Winner: James Bond (modern)

Best line: "After 24 films, I'm still reaching new heights. Your third movie died, guess you only live twice."

I've always kinda wondered why Peter was cast as Austin Powers in this, I think Lloyd looks a lot more like Mike Myers. I guess they didn't want to have a battle where Peter is completely excluded while Lloyd gets to play two characters. That being said, Peter does nail the Austin Powers impression, so it's all good. This battle's a really cool concept, a character rapping against their own parody version, and then an earlier version of the character comes in and disses on their modern version. The battle does basically cease to be about Austin Powers at that point, but I think it works because neither version of Bond considers him a serious opponent.

This battle is loaded with great lines too - in addition to the quote above, we also have "I'm licensed to kill, you couldn't get a learner's permit", "Spell my name, all the ladies wanna B on D, any sex appeal you might have is beyond me", "I only need one round, golden gun", and "I don't need a Q to break your balls". Brilliantly clever writing.

I will say that the background effects for modern Bond, while they definitely do look cool, are a bit too much to the point of being distracting. Maybe it was a deliberate choice to contrast with classic Bond though, as a way to convey that the modern Bond films are a lot more about flashy spectacle than the more grounded stories the early films had, I dunno. 

36. Mozart vs Skrillex

Winner: Skrillex

Best line: "I attack, you decay, can't sustain my releases! Sidechain, Wolfgang! Bangarang you to pieces!"

This battle is everything that Bieber vs Beethoven should have been - a battle between a modern musician and a classical one that actually gives the modern one a fighting chance. Plus it actually changes the background music to match the style of whoever's rapping! This battle is great, no real notes here. Mozart's line about "in two more months the world will forget about your Skrill-excrement" has aged pretty well too given how Skrillex's star has definitely faded since this video's release.

This battle is also notable for being the only one where a real person that was portrayed in an ERB has actually performed it themselves! Skrillex, obviously, not Mozart. The real Skrillex actually came out as a surprise guest appearance in a live performance of the song and helped Lloyd finish it out. I admit, I didn't really know what Skrillex actually looked like, but seeing him side-by-side with Lloyd in costume, yeah, the team nailed his look.

35. Ragnar Lodbrok vs Richard the Lionheart

Winner: Ragnar Lodbrok

Best line: "Your son killed your ex, your ex killed your wife. I'm the Lion King, man, but that's a messed-up circle of life."

This is what I love about ERB, man. I had never even heard of either of these historical figures before this battle, but I watched it, loved the song, got curious what all the lyrics meant, did research on both men, and then went back and rewatched the video with the new knowledge to catch all the references. ERB is truly at its best when it's making learning fun.

Interestingly, the reason this battle was even made in the first place was because the mobile game that sponsored it reached out to Peter and Lloyd and asked if they would make a battle between two of the historical figures in their game in exchange for the sponsorship. Given that the battle was effectively made as an ad for a mobile game, it's shocking how good it turned out. You'd really never know that's how it came to be just looking at the end product.

34. Darth Vader vs Hitler 2

Winner: Darth Vader

Best line: "Roar like Chewbacca, the voice of Mufasa, I'm on the leader of your limp-dicked Luftwaffe!"

And here we go, the second of the Vader vs Hitler trilogy is easily the best one. I feel like it struck the perfect balance - it was bigger and more epic than the first while not feeling fatigued on the idea like the third. Season 2 kicked off with this and you could immediately tell the jump in production quality from season 1. This video had an intro and everything, continuing off from Hitler being frozen in carbonite from the first battle. It's great, what else can I say?

33. Cleopatra vs Marilyn Monroe

Winner: Marilyn Monroe 

Best line: "You still got no children after your third marriage. You lost so many babies, we should call you Miss Carriage!"

This was the first battle where neither Peter nor Lloyd play one of the rappers, even though it is not the first female-on-female battle (but we don't talk about Gaga vs Palin). But both performers do a stellar job; I love how Marilyn's demeanor goes from the giggling flirtiness we know her for to becoming increasingly pissed off and hysterical as Cleopatra hurls more and more insults at her (Marilyn's "Translate this into hieroglyphs: Your sandy vagina has a seven-year itch" would have won best line were it not for the sheer brutality of the Miss Carriage line). And getting a professional dancer to portray Cleopatra was a great choice; she's still one of the most visually interesting rappers to have ever been on the series. And no, I don't just mean that in an ogling way.

Also, I think this is the only battle where the same person starts it and closes it out? Which does lead to Cleopatra feeling like she doesn't get as much screen time, but it's certainly not a dealbreaker.

32. Moses vs Santa Claus

Winner: Moses

Best line: "It takes nine reindeers to haul your fat ass. You took the Christ out of Christmas and just added more mass."

This battle was definitely meant to be a stand-in for Jesus vs Santa; that was the matchup we all really wanted to see. But someone somewhere must have gotten cold feet about dissing a figure that millions worship, so Jesus got swapped out for someone Jesus-adjacent. Hey, I'm a Christian, and I know I still would have found a Jesus rap battle hilarious.

But whatever, even though it's not exactly what we wanted, what we did get was still great. The fact that they actually managed to get motherfucking Snoop Dogg as a guest star because he happened to be using the same studio as ERB at the time still blows my mind; I don't think any guest star is ever gonna top that. And they certainly had some fun with having him on board - I love that they managed to make jokes referencing him while still being appropriate for Moses, like "smoking all that burning bush", or "so much drama in the IsraeL B.C.". This is a battle that just always puts a smile on my face.

31. Nikola Tesla vs Thomas Edison

Winner: Nikola Tesla

Best line: "I don't alternate my flow, I diss you directly!"

I love how this battle really leans into how we now perceive Tesla and Edison, with Tesla being a hero for the people and Edison as the greedy villain who kept him down. Good stuff. Don't really have a whole lot to say about this one, it's just a good battle with two very memorable personalities, and Peter's Tesla voice is very pleasant to listen to. And of course, the electric synth in the background track was a must.

30. JRR Tolkien vs George RR Martin

Winner: George RR Martin 

Best line: "All your bad guys die and your good guys survive. We can tell what's gonna happen by page and age five!"

All right, so, I ain't the most well-versed in the fantasy genre, but I still really like this one. The underlying argument between the two men here is something I've seen time and time again on the internet - "happy endings are boring and predictable" versus "eschewing happy endings just for the sake of it isn't automatically good". It makes for good battle fodder. Also I just love Lloyd's performance here - it's so loud and boisterous, and his "No he didn't!" is A+.

Okay folks, click here for the third and final part as we rank the best of the best!

#epic rap battles of history #erb

[lloyd-the-green-gremlin]

*deep sigh*

Okay, I'm ready.

What order to watch Lego Ninjago media in?

—CRONOLOGICALLY

Khm.. Sorry, the little gremlin living inside my head and eating up my brain said that...

I will give you my toughts and to summarise them:

Imo this is totally up to what you enjoy and have the patience to endure. I watched from start to finish - almost, i will get to that - and just finished Dragon's Rising. But you don't have to do that of course. I will describe each "etap" of seasons, so you can choose and decide what is best for your viewing experience.

The older seasons AKA pre-movie:

This is from S1 to S7, before they got rebooted. These seasons lay down the basics, in lore and about the characters. You get info on elemental powers, FSM, the multive- i mean the different verses. They vary in quality, but i can say my fav ninjago episodes and seasons come from this era. But if you dont want to look at the crusty ass animation and just wanna get to the later seasons (for some reason, idk i can't look into your head), then watch:

S1 - Rise of the Snakes

S2 - Legacy of the Green Ninja

S3 - Rebooted

S5 - Possession

BONUS : S6 - Skybound

Although a lot of people shit on Hands of Time, personally i love it, but the story got cut in half and basicly never gets reference, you can cut that from the watchlist. (also guys. lets be real, the Chen season is way too overrated and was not half as good as yall make it out to be)

Or just watch a lore video and skip the juicy stuff

Post-movie , visual reboot, Lloyd begins puberty and finally gets a haircut:

From S8 to S13. Okay . the post-movie has a lot of misses. The simplified a lot of the characters, changed up stuff, overall very eh meh. I recomment you watch

S8 - Sons of Garmadon

S9 - Hunted

S11 - Secrets of the Forbidden Spinjitzu (the first part is eh but it has some fun lore stuff later)

S12 - Prime Empire

S13 - Master of the Mountain

I will warn you that this is where they did the "10 minute episodes" for a while, and that wasn't a very nice viewing experience. Also the Oni season could have been really good, they just had some writing issues, so imo its overall skippable.

The "miniseries" or "why do you keep abandoning your cool storylines":

so we got to The Island and Skybound, the are interconnected and really good seasons, Nya focused and have cool sets and figures. Go watch them.

Then theres ...ugh...Crystalized.. the one season i half watched-half skipped. Why must they drag my girl Harumi's corpse up from the grave and cut in half a nicely written thing that could have given us a possible Morro comeback? Doc, why. so, Imo its skippable and doesent really get brought up later either. It does some fun stuff with Lloyd, but the way they took his dad's characterisation is icky. To me.

NEW GEN! Dragons, references, and being confusing about key lore again:

I am of course yapping about Dragon's Rising. We have two seasons so far, and the writng, the cast and the designs are peak. I would recommend watching it fully, very enjoyable.

OVERALL SUMMARY:

If you are picky about your content and want to limit what you wathc, the abobe is my recommendation. But really, you only get the good thing if you watch it from start to finish. (but really, just skip Crystalised-)

If you do wanna eat it whole, you should watch the first two seasons to get lore and characters down, then watch the movie - that actually has little to do with the plot, but it will only such you in further. Also a lot of people write early seasons ninjago with the movie crossovers. Then watch the rest of the seasons, and then the movie again, pre-S8. Then finish the og series and watch the movie again.

Oh yeah, there's shorts! I recommend that you either watch them as they follow the series, or do a recap of them every few seasons, OR! watch them after you finish the main series to get recapped on old stuff, then plunge into Dragon's Rising.

DR could be enjoyed without previous ninjago knowledge, bit in my opinion , its best consumed with prior and intimate knowledge of the characters!

To close this unstoppable wordshitting ive been up to: Ninjago has lots and lots of content and if you get bored watching something, feel free to skip the hell away. I know the fandom loves deep lore theories, but even we dont understand half the shit we yap about.

Remember, the first rule of Fight Club Ninjago is #1 - Have fun and be yourself :)

ALSO READ FANFICTON ITS RLY GOOD -

#eddie talks #yepps #rambles on #szófosás if you will #lego ninjago #ninjago #recommendation #eddie's asks #asks #feel free to send me asks i love yapping

[neversummerdecker]

Songs I Associate with Theo Decker

I think about this stuff a lot. (tw: brief reference to attempted suicide)

1. For No One by The Beatles 

Why? This song pretty much tells the story of Pippa and Theo’s relationship/friendship. “ You want her, you need her/ And yet you don't believe her/ When she says her love is dead/ You think she needs you”

Theo’s attachment to Pippa is unreciprocated. He thinks he needs her (in reality, he projects the loss of his mother onto her, as one of his connections to Audrey and the incident) and kind of deludes himself into thinking she feels the same way. Pippa, however, has to be away from him in order to heal.

2. Lost Weekend by Lloyd Cole and the Commotions

Lyrics: “It took a lost weekend in a hotel in Amsterdam/ Twenty-four gone years to conclude in tears.” Basically when Theo takes the pills in Amsterdam, so this one is sorta obvious. After all the years of trying to find direction and be happy after Audrey’s death, that’s how he feels it’s going to end.

3. Hard Feelings by Lorde

Lyrics:  “Cause I remember the rush when forever was us/ Before all of the winds of regret and mistrust/ Now we sit in your car and our love is a ghost”

This is a boreo song through and through, specifically when they meet again as adults and Theo finds out about Boris stealing the painting. The “rush” of their adolescent years contrasted against the “winds of regret and mistrust” of the present day. 

4. Bloodbuzz Ohio by The National 

Lyrics: “I still owe money to the money, to the money I owe/I never thought about love when I thought about home.” I don’t really have any specific reasons here, just the idea of not feeling loved or at home anywhere after Audrey’s death, and always feeling burdened with something.

5. Pictures of You by The Cure 

Lyrics:  “I've been looking so long at these pictures of you/ That I almost believe that they're real.” Originally, I’m assuming this was written in reference to a romantic relationship, but in a Goldfinch context, you can apply it to Theo’s inability to move on from not only Audrey, but from who he was when she passed away.

Miscellaneous songs based on vibes alone: Authority by The Church; Heart It Races by Architecture in Helsinki; Epiphany by Taylor Swift; Sight of You by Pale Saints; Pale Blue Eyes by The Velvet Underground; Bye Bye Bye by *NSYNC :D

#the goldfinch #tgf #the goldfinch meta #donna tartt #the goldfinch analysis #literature #theo decker #boris pavlikovsky #pippa blackwell #boreo

[roseverdict]

The Ebb and Flow of the Times

oOPSIE I WROTE POST-SEABOUND ANGST ABOUT THE TIMESKIP

there are at least 2 different outside-ninjago references in here. one i did on purpose but the other just kinda happened, ljashfjkask

It's been two months, and Kai is once again standing on a beach.

It's been four months, and Zane cannot function at maximum capacity.

It's been six months, and Jay isn't as relaxed as he'd make himself believe.

It's been eight months, and Lloyd just wants to blend in.

It's been ten months, but the Sea doesn't know what it's been ten months since.

It's been a year, and Cole needs something to motivate him.

Luckily, there's a news broadcast on that's about to give him one of the best motivators in the world: spite.

(or, how in the HECK did we get from the s14 ninja team to the beginning of crystalized?)

~

It’s been two months.

Kai never goes out in uniform to do this, and he makes sure the others can’t hear him when he leaves, but…here he is again.

It hurts, and yet he keeps coming back for more.

“Hi, Nya.”

There’s a quiet thump as he plops down on the sand, and he leans forward to let the waves lap against his hand as though they were strands of hair that could be ruffled.

“It’s the two-month anniversary today,” he says to the sea. “Mom and Dad have been super clingy, y’know. It took a hot second for the news to make it all the way back home, but-”

There’s a heat in his throat that is most definitely not his fire, and he swallows before trying to continue. “It’s almost everything we could have wanted when they first left. Mom insists on making my bed, even when I already did, and Dad’s basically evicted Zane from the kitchen at this point. You’d think it was hilarious if you saw it.”

The tide slowly drifts up the shore as he speaks, and the sea reaches all the way around Kai’s back now.

“It’s just...there’s just the three of us,” Kai croaks. “Sure, the others bring it up to nine, but...”

Nine isn’t four.

Kai and Lloyd and Jay and Zane and Cole and Pixal and Wu and Mom and Dad aren’t Kai and Nya and Mom and Dad.

Kai forces down the steadily-thickening lump in his throat, but before he can continue, he hears a new voice a short ways away. For a moment, his insomnia-addled mind thinks it’s Nya.

It’s not.

“Hi, Miss Nya.”

Kai glances in the direction of the voice to see a kid in purple down the shoreline.

“I wish you were still here,” says the boy. “The other ninja are trying to keep it together, but whenever I see ‘em in the news, it’s like they’re all nindroids.”

With a jolt, Kai realizes he recognizes this kid. It’s hard for a moment to figure out where he’s seen him before, but then the kid pulls a piece of purple fabric out of his pocket and grips it tight.

“You said my hood looked legit back in the hospital, remember?” asks Li’l Nelson, one of the paperboys who’d played hot potato with the pendant and dragged Kai from the river during one of the fights against Kalimaar, the one who’d alerted Pixal and Wu to the ninjas’ pyramid predicament, the one who’d gotten the Grant-A-Wish Foundation to contact the ninja for a visit. “You and the other ninja were trying to get away from the crazy fangirls and stop a bad guy from doing something evil, and when we were rushing down the hall, you asked if I made it myself.”

Kai realizes what Li’l Nelson is going to do mere moments before he does it.

Li’l Nelson walks into the water and bends down, putting his hands beneath the waves. He sniffles and forces out a “Please come back, Miss Nya. Please remember us.”

Kai lurches to his feet and stumbles over, only his ninja training keeping him from sloshing as loudly as humanly possible. “Woah, kid, what are you doing?”

Nelson glances up in surprise, and as Kai gets closer, he can see redness in and around them that speak of crying as much as Kai himself. “Wh-?”

Kai pulls his hood down and unzips his hoodie, showing that he’s not some weirdo who approaches kids for some reason, just the ninja of fire in his civvies. “You should keep that. You worked hard on it.”

Nelson sniffles again. “But...she hasn’t come back. There...there has to be a way, but she hasn’t come back. What if she just needs to see that we miss her?”

“If it were that easy, she’d be back already,” Kai says wearily as he comes to a stop. “Don’t tell anyone, but this isn’t exactly my only time coming down here.”

Nelson swallows and nods, bringing the now-soaked handmade hood up to his chest like a stuffed toy.

Kai realizes he has to give some sort of Sage Ninja Wisdom to Nelson now, or else risk breaking down into an emotional mess in front of someone who looks up to him.

He sits back down in the water- his pants are already ruined, anyway- so that he’s not standing over the kid. “Look, it looks hopeless. Believe me, I get it. But...we thought we lost Zane after the fight with the Digital Overlord, right? And then he came back to us, titanium and better than ever. And, and we thought Cole was gonna be stuck a ghost for the rest of forever, and then the Day of the Departed happened and he got his body back! And Master Wu was lost in time, but he’s back, and even though Garmadon died and got resurrected evil Lloyd still got a little while with his dad and no prophecy or venom or anything beforehand, and then we lost Zane again but we still got him back from a whole other realm-”

Kai’s not sure who he’s trying to convince anymore.

“-we just, we gotta have hope, right?” Kai finishes weakly, staring off into the horizon. “I mean, this can’t just be...it.”

There’s a splash, and then Nelson is hugging him for all he’s worth.

Kai takes a shaky breath, and then-

(The seawater drifts all around, even pouring hot and wet down his cheeks.)

-they’re both sobbing.

The waves that wash around them grow cold, the way the water Nya would use to snap Kai out of a temper tantrum with would be.

A distant part of Kai’s mind, a part that’s distanced so far away from the rest that it feels emotion as if through a thick fog, makes the spontaneous realization that Nelson and his friend knew CPR. Therefore, even with the six ninja protecting the city, children still learn CPR.

And now there are only five.

The world is now that much more dangerous, and children, maybe even children with siblings like Kai had Nya, already learn CPR.

“Maybe I could start a self-defense class,” says Kai quietly once both he and Nelson have run out of tears to cry. “This...this hurts. Nobody else should have to feel like this.”

Nelson nods, his voice hoarse as he says, “That’d be neat. My friend Antonia and I would definitely go.”

Kai snorts thickly and stands up, pulling Nelson to his feet and clapping a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll hold you to that, kid. I’d better see you in that hood, too, got it?”

“Got it,” says Nelson with a wobbly grin.

Kai pastes on one of his trademark smirks. “Good.”

~

It has been four months.

Nya has been the sea for four entire months.

Kai left a month ago, citing that “The world is only getting more dangerous. I’m gonna spread around some self-defense skills. See you later, I guess.”

Cole left just a few weeks ago, citing that “I’m gonna go look around for some more leads. Maybe that monastery me and Jay went to will let me back in for research if I’m alone. I’ll be back soon, I promise.”

Now, here he is a month after that, and Zane can barely function.

The logical course of action is to remove whatever is reducing his capability to be an efficient ninja.

Unfortunately, the others do not see it his way.

“Zane, you can’t just turn off your emotions!” protests Jay for the 17th time in the past seven days.

“Of course I can,” Zane says for the 17th time in the past seven days, gesturing to the open panel on his arm. “It was actually a fairly simple procedure-”

“But our emotions make us human, Zane!”

“Then it is a good thing I am instead a nindroid,” says Zane simply.

Jay makes a noise with a waveform not entirely dissimilar to that of the noise produced by an oboe with a broken reed, but relents and stomps back into the monastery.

For now.

Zane finishes his chores for the day in record time and heads inside just a few short minutes after Jay, intending to go to his room and connect himself to the monastery’s computer systems. Doing so will boost his computing power and allow him access to the furthest corners of the internet, thereby preventing any leads from hiding from him.

However, he is soon set upon by Pixal.

“Zane, please, you cannot continue on like this,” she insists as he walks down the hall.

Zane blinks, then turns to her. For a moment, her eyes widen and her cheeks pull up at the corners.

“But I see no obstructions in the hall.”

Pixal’s face immediately drops back into her previous expression. “Zane.”

“Pixal,” says Zane in response. He turns to her to better continue the conversation. “Believe me, this is not the optimal mode of operation my creator had in mind when he first powered me on, but to remain as I was would have made me...”

As he searches for the right terminology, Pixal cuts in, “A grieving young man missing one of his closest and dearest friends with all his heart?”

“...a suboptimal ninja and an inefficient researcher,” Zane decides on. “Like this, I can function.”

“You have not laughed or cried in 33 days, 10 hours, 27 minutes, and 42 seconds!” Pixal shouts.

“Exactly,” says Zane. “Such displays would cause me to lose any time-sensitive leads about reversing what has happened and making things the way they should be again, and we cannot afford to lose such.”

“Zane...” says Pixal, her cheeks pulling up in the middle and her eyebrows forming a tent-like shape. “...you are going to have to deal with all these emotions sooner or later. If you put it off for longer, it will only result in a more intense overload later on.”

“That is merely speculation,” Zane says, already turning to continue on his way.

“No, it is not.”

Zane looks at Pixal again. “It...is not?”

“How do you think I was able to keep myself together before the day of your memorial all those years ago?” asks Pixal. “Why else would I have nearly shorted out when you asked if we were compatible? My design was based and expanded on yours. You were able to recover from the overload of joy upon realizing the world had not ended and your youngest brother had gotten his father back. Compared to that, finding out that the one you love does not have to stay dead, while intense, is nowhere near as emotionally draining. The fact that I nearly shorted out was caused solely by the fact that my joy came as the rest of my unprocessed emotions finished loading, and I was only like that for a handful of days. You have been at this for a month!”

“And I will continue until such time as I no longer need to,” Zane informs her.

“And what if that time never comes?” Pixal demands. “What if you stay like this forever because there is no way to fix this?! What if the time does come, but you have been repressing every emotion for so long that when the time comes to begin feeling again, all you can do is scream?!”

There is a moment of silence.

Zane locks eyes with her and states, “...then that is a risk I will have to take.”

There is another moment of silence.

Pixal’s face sets into a new expression, somewhere between the cheeks pulling up in the middle and the expression she’s worn for the entire conversation. “I cannot watch you do this to yourself.”

She turns and strides away stiffly, her hands clenched into fists.

Zane stands there for a moment more, then turns and heads into his room, closing the door behind him.

~

It’s been six months.

Jay hums to himself and trails his hands along the surface of the water as he sails. Zane definitely had the right idea, honestly. It may have taken a few months to get it, but once he had…

Jay smiles and looks up from the sea. “Hey, Nya, look! It’s the warehouse we found Zane’s dad in! And then Echo!”

The water rushes playfully around his hands in response.

“Haha, I know!” Jay beams and starts steering again, bringing his boat in closer. “Thanks for keeping the starteeth off of me on the way here, too. Those things still give me nightmares!”

The waves whisper and giggle.

Jay starts humming again as he beaches the boat, and he keeps humming as he gets out, stretches, and drags it up and onto the rocky shore.

He keeps humming as he props open the lighthouse door.

He keeps humming as he starts carting in the supplies he’s brought.

He keeps humming as the sun goes down, and he keeps humming as the moon rises.

Once he’s gotten everything inside and shut the door, Jay turns to the wall. “Now, let me see...eenie, meenie, miney...”

There is a lamp on the wall that is tilted ever-so-slighty.

“You!” laughs Jay. He gives the lamp an experimental tug, and just as smoothly as it had in the aborted timeline, the wall opens up to reveal a way down into the secret basement.

Jay happily makes his way down in relative silence, only the crashing of the waves from outside breaking it.

“Hey, is anybody down here?” asks Jay, because ‘lost his freaking mind all over again’ or not, he has enough common sense to know that calling for a stranger by name will more than likely freak them out, Cole. They can’t all go on an adventure, come back empty-handed, and head back out!

There is no response. There’s not even any quiet shuffling, like there had been the time he and Nya had come to hide from Nadakhan.

For the first time in the past few days, Jay’s smile slips. “Seriously, is anybody here?”

Still, there is nothing.

Jay frowns in earnest now, then he scours the basement.

There is no one.

He heads back upstairs and inspects the lamp that doubles as a switch for the secret basement.

Aside from where his hand had gone, it is covered in a thick coating of dust.

Jay grimaces and wipes his hand on his pants, then shrugs. Previously, there had been several things that had prevented him and Nya from coming back here. First there had been too much going on, then the Time Twins had attacked, then the whole thing with the Sons of Garmadon, and then by that point it would have hurt too much to come back and look Echo in the face and say they’d made him wait to leave on purpose.

Of course, Nya is the sea now, and nothing else matters anymore, so of course it would be just his luck that Echo would be gone.

Jay hopes Echo is out seeing the world for himself, and then he heads up to the highest room in the lighthouse tower.

Out this far from civilization, the sky is filled to overflowing with glimmering pinpricks of light, and one part of the sky in particular has a milky swathe cut through it of nothing but stars.

The stars reflect in the ocean, and they look just like the faint freckles that dotted Nya’s human face.

Jay smiles, picks up a blank canvas, and begins to paint the sea.

~

It’s been eight months.

Lloyd’s shirt and jeans are tight and constricting, or maybe that’s just nerves.

His palms are clammy, too, actually.

Definitely nerves, then.

A door opens, and a black-haired, middle-aged man walks into view. “So, kid, are you the applicant for the open job listing I posted online yesterday?”

“Yes, sir,” says Lloyd, standing up.

“Good to meet you. My name’s James Papadokalis, but you can call me Jimmy.” Jimmy holds out his hand for Lloyd to shake, and he does so after subtly wiping it dry. “Now, I gotta tell you, you got a resume a mile long, but tell me: what makes you think you’d be a good window washer?”

The man’s tone is light, so Lloyd knows in his head that it’s not supposed to be an accusatory question. Still, he has to swallow the childish urge to snap at him. “W-well, sir, I’m physically fit enough to get into any nooks or crannies that would otherwise get missed, and I don’t have to worry about falling several stories and hurting myself. Plus, I don’t have any outside obligations that could prevent me from making it to my shifts on time.”

That last part makes Jimmy blink. “You don’t? But I thought-”

“With all due respect, sir, I think I’d do better as a window washer than anything else,” Lloyd says, trying to respectfully cut him off before he can say it.

Jimmy stands there for a moment, seemingly dumbfounded.

The expression is startlingly like the one Uncle Wu had worn when Lloyd had finally told him what he’d been planning for the past few months.

Unlike Uncle Wu, however, Jimmy seems to shake it off and smiles. “Well, alright then. Sounds like you’ve got open availability, then?”

Lloyd nods. “Yes, sir.”

“Alright,” says Jimmy. “Now, I know the national minimum wage has been all over the news lately, but I was thinking this job could net you, oh, say, two, two and a half times that? That sound good to you?”

Now it’s Lloyd’s turn to be struck dumb. “But the listing only said one and a quarter-?”

“With all due respect, kid, your previous job apparently took and took and took for multiple years,” says Jimmy soberly. “It’s about dam-ng time somebody gave something back to you. Gave you some leverage, y’know?”

The simple statement shouldn’t have Lloyd’s face screwing up into a hot, wet, ball, but it does, and his face is.

“Aw, c’mon, kid,” Jimmy says, reaching over and squeezing his shoulders.

Lloyd is quick to shove his reaction down with a ruthless efficiency, and he smiles and pats Jimmy’s hand in a signal for him to let go. “It’s fine.”

“It really isn’t,” says Jimmy, holding up a printout of the page of Lloyd’s resume displaying his birthday and the alterations made for the Tomorrow’s Tea.

Lloyd stubbornly does not look at the page.

Jimmy lets the paper fall, and he steps back. “Well, I’d say the job is yours if you want it. When would you be willing to start?”

Lloyd does some quick mental math in his head. If today is Friday, then… “I’d be good for Monday.”

“Sounds like a plan,” says Jimmy. “Welcome to So Clean Window Washers, kid.”

Lloyd’s chest aches hollowly.

He smiles. “Thank you.”

~

It has been ten months.

Or at least, that is what the land-dwellers say.

Ten months since what? The Sea does not know.

Perhaps it could find out?

It winds small tendrils of its awareness into the land-dwellers’ purification devices and looks around.

All that is visible in one place is a dweller with yellow head-fins and green scales. His face is moist and his voice quiet enough that the Sea cannot make out the words, but they seem to be murmuring some sort of mantra. He almost looks like Green Dweller On The Mountain, but as this green dweller is not on the mountain, it is probably not the same person. Other people go outside their homes, but Green Dweller On The Mountain hasn’t left the mountain in all the Sea’s time watching him, so this can’t be him.

Still, so long as he remains by the water, he should be fine.

The thought that this yellow-and-green creature is fine is satisfactory to the Sea, and it turns its attention to someplace else.

The Painter comes to mind, and the Sea quickly flashes away to watch him. Today he seems to be painting a sunset with dark clouds and a smile. If the Sea focuses enough of its attention on his work, it almost looks like the face of another land-dweller-

Pain lances through the Sea, and it quickly shoots away to avoid splashing the Painter or his work. The last time it had done that, the Painter had laughed until he cried, then cried until he laughed, and the idea of seeing him do that again was...distasteful.

Well, this is more than mildly frustrating, thinks the Sea. How is it supposed to watch the land-dwellers if it can’t even enjoy watching the Painter?

Annoyance flickers through the Sea like something hot and un-Sea-like, but it is quickly tempered by the sight of the land-dwellers’ city once more on the horizon. Perhaps some of its other favorite dwellers to watch would be easier to handle?

Ooh! That would be fun!

The Sea searches for a moment, its awareness reaching and reaching until it can locate the rest of its favorite Dwellers. Spiky Dweller is where he always is, so the Sea saves him for last. The Chilly Dweller On The Mountain is working with Warrior and Teacher, and Solid Dweller and Researcher are off somewhere across the continent for some reason, only now heading back to the Mountain.

Huh. Weird.

Well, if the rest of the Sea’s favorite Dwellers are scattered all over the land, maybe it will check in on Spiky first after all.

The decision made, the Sea winds and twists through the land-dwellers’ water tubes until it can finally take a good look at Spiky’s masterpiece.

The building really is quite nice, as far as the Sea can tell. Spiky often has many tiny dwellers come to visit him here, and from what the Sea has seen so far, he teaches them how to keep themselves safe.

...even if the zeal with which he does so is somewhat off-putting. Is it normal for teaching land-dwellers to urge their young charges to tear their opponents limb-from-limb?

Spiky freezes in place, and the Sea realizes that he’s spotted the droplet hanging from the water tube that it is using to watch.

It quickly retreats to the sea for which it is named.

Perhaps it is not a smart idea to continue to watch the land-dwellers like this.

The Sea does not know if it can stop.

...it does not know if it even wants to.

~

It’s been a year.

Cole sighs as he works on whatever mech they’re trying to fix. It wouldn’t be taking so long, except the rest of the ninja had been drifting away one by one.

Cole gets it. Really, he does. He did the same thing at first.

The world doesn’t need Cole to drift away, though. The world needs him to be there to save it, and he came back for good just a few days ago to do just that.

“This was the scene last night,” says Gayle Gossip’s voice, cutting through his thoughts instead of providing a helpful drone to let his mind wander, “where a vengestone smuggling operation was thwarted by a group of heroes calling themselves ‘The New Ninja.’”

“What?” Cole gasps, turning to face the monitor.

“Newly-elected mayor, Ulysses Norville Trustible issued this statement earlier today,” Gayle continues.

The news story cuts to a video feed of the mayor- and seriously, how had Cole missed that there had been an election already???- who is sitting at his desk with his cat. “It’s been a year since anyone’s even seen the ninja, and frankly, whenever they do show up, they cause millions in property damage!”

Cole makes an affronted face at that.

“So I say, it’s about time we had some new heroes!” declares the mayor. His cat chooses this moment to plant its butt between the mayor and the camera, but he shoos it away to finish, “Maybe these guys will be less destructive!”

Cole turns off the news feed, invigorated by spite. It’s a welcome feeling, and it gets him through the horrifying realization that Zane had turned off his emotions, snapping Master Wu out of his sleeplessness-addled obsession, and the preparations to find the others and bring them back into the fold.

~

A year after Nya sacrifices herself for the good of the world, Li’l Nelson sees a “CLOSED” sign on the door of Kai’s dojo and smiles.

It’s about time he took a break. All of his students could tell he was running on fumes for weeks.

~

Pixal watches as Cole, Zane, and Kai start sparring, and while Zane does not smile, there is a lightness in his shoulders that she last saw 12 months, 2 days, 17 hours, 12 minutes, and 39 seconds ago.

~

A no-longer-functioning gizmo in an old lighthouse watches impassively as the painter who’d taken up residence there over the past few months leaves with his friends.

~

Jimmy sees a request for time off from his newest employee.

“About damn time. Hope he gets to do something great.”

He stamps it with a big, green “APPROVED.”

~

“Nya...do I know that name? I think I do...”

#ninjago #rosie writes #post-seabound #minor crystalized spoilers #kai smith #lil nelson #zane julien #pixal borg #jay walker #lloyd garmadon #minor oc #nya smith #(aka The Sea) #cole brookstone #haha betcha thought you'd seen the last of ME #Angst #tiny absolute MINISCULE smidge of comfort right at the end #Post-Seabound #pre-crystalized #Time Skips #Canonical Character Death #if this even counts as a fully-fledged death #look man. i rambled at my 60-smth coworker about plastic ninjas for a solid 10 minutes yesterday #i CLEARLY have some emotions to work out while we're waiting for crystalized 13+ #no beta we die like half the cast #there is exactly One swear word and it comes from lloyd's boss #like. right at the end. it's p tame tho #i lied it's One and a Half but they are both lloyd's boss and also p tame tho #crossposted to ao3

[residentdormouse]

Fic Rec Tag

Rules: Recommend us 3 of YOUR fics: 1 that is “most popular” and 2 that are “hidden gems!” Then tag some folks.

Tagged by @wordspin-shares

Alright - so again, this will probably be one of the saddest responses you'll get for this as I only have 3 posted works (and one of them is a 500 word drabble). My long chapter fics are both for The Stand, and written because its a small fandom. There was nothing featuring Glen as a main character, so guess I'm writing now. (All stories are posted to AO3.)

Arguably* Most Popular: Just Keep Diving Down.

Fandom: The Stand

WIP / 31 out of 36 / 155,777 words

Hits: 454 / Kudos: 10 / Comments: 60

Pairings: Glen Bateman/OC, Harold Lauder/OC, Nick Andros/OC, Stu Redman/Fran Goldsmith, (some scenes of Lloyd Henreid/OC & Lloyd Henreid/Randall Flagg)

Warnings: Major Character Death / Violence / Language / Drug Use / Some Smut (marked in chapter to avoid if not wanted) / referenced sexual assult.

Second story in a Two Story Series. This is picking up where Spiral left off. While Spiral was an OC insert of canon, this is an original storyline with an original setting and a fair amount of original characters. I basically just picked my favorite characters up from canon, and brought them to a world I made up.

*While it's stats look better, they are deceiving. The comments are only me and @anths-girl going back and forth 😂. It has an extra two kudos, but Diving's are almost all guest accounts. Hense the arguable.

Gem (by default): Something Like a Spiral

Fandom: the Stand

Complete Fic / 33 Chapters / 101,101 words

Hits: 390 / Kudos: 8 / Comments: 13

Pairings: Glen Bateman/OC, Stu Redman/Fran Goldsmith, (references to Lloyd Henreid/Randall Flagg)

Warnings: Violence / Language / Drug Use / Some Smut (marked in chapter to avoid if not wanted) / referenced sexual assult.

*OC insert story to the canon storyline.

Hayden wakes up in a world she doesn't remember, along with just about everything else in her life. With the Captain Trips virus already wiping out ~99.9% of the worlds population, she is left to figure out who she was, who she is, and where she stands in this post apocalyptic world.

Drabble: Even in Death

Fandom: Stranger Things

This was a drabble written for the Hellfire Haunts Halloween prompt list. It's only a 500 word Gen fic based on the prompt of Eddie being a ghost.

Tagging: @asirensrage, @anniesocsandgeneralstore, @chickensarentcheap, @mrsmungus, @themaradaniels

#sorry for the multiple edits #my child hit post before I was done 😬

[vedj-f-bekuesu]

Ninjago Ships: My Personal Ranking of Them

I had the urge to write out a list of Ninjago ships and give my opinion on them. I could use the tier maker things for this, but I wanted to actually make this comprehensive and give myself a reference for my views.

For the sake of simplicity, this list will just cover the monogamous ships. Bring in polyamory and it would become a whole lot longer, plus there’s not really any ship of that sort I’m fond of so it’d be kinda samey.

Also this is under a read more since the list is so long.

LET’S FSM-ING GO

Ships that I really like and actively ship.

Lava - I was hesitant on even checking out Ninjago until I saw these two bounce off each other in the movie video game and realised I'd misjudged it. But they genuinely have one of my favourite dynamics in the movie and the show. It was present prior to March of the Oni, in fact it was pretty nice in the original run before the Elements batch tried to write it out (although Possession was a peak). Since March of the Oni, it has become so lit (pun intended), there’s good material for it in every season since, even the one where Cole was deep in the mountain for most of it.

Pixane - What can I say, it's a cute couple who have had solid writing throughout. It's more impressive since it managed to make the "hey lets bring in a love interest and make it on sight" thing actually work for Zane's bigger humanity arc in Rebooted and only went up from there.

Jaya - What can I say, it's a cute couple who...have certainly had it rough at times. I think it was actually done pretty sweet in the original run (bar minor writing flaws here and there), got derailed in the Elements batch but rerailed thanks to season 7 and the movie forcing their hand. Nowadays it's fine.

Okay I Guess

Ships I don’t feel super strongly about, but there’s stuff I like about them.

Scruff - I can't think of that much dynamic between them outside of season 7 because they haven’t appeared together in events that weren’t erased outside of that, but I -get- it. I would not be opposed if they got more interaction in Crystalised.

Techno - Hey, they were consistently the best written characters in the early seasons so I keep a little bit of fondness for this one. Plus they just generally gel together thanks to their respective talents, actually have had a few moments to bond (especially early on), and who can forget the surprise gift that was "Sweatin' at the Goldies"?

JetFaith - Like Scruff, only even more limited since it only applies when the group turn on the Iron Baron. Still, I did find the idea kinda cute. That being said, it was a miracle we got Faith in March of the Oni, and I doubt we'll see either of them again.

Samurai - Nya and Pixal are pretty cordial, I can see them confiding in each other given their roles and linked history with the Samurai X identity.

Llokita - Hey, someone for Lloyd to actually talk to. I have no idea what the show plans for Akita, but what was shown was some fun banter and no big moves out the gate, and that's good. There is the whole ambiguity with ages of both of them, but I’m assuming the show considers them similar age to write them the way they did.

Glacier - Fun fact, when I first broached the show fandom at all, the fandom indicated that this was the show's equivalent to the movie's Lava. Then I actually watched the show and realised that Lava was the show's answer to Lava. I can only think of two big moments for Cole and Zane, both being prison escapes basically. Otherwise? Neat on paper, but eh.

Gemstone - Before seeing Master of the Mountain, I thought it was weird Plundar was paired with Cole out of all the Upply. Having now seen it a few days ago, I see where it came from. Not super strong on it, but could be cool. I think Plundar would need more development though.

Nightshade - This is almost entirely theoretical. Toxikita and Chamille sounds like a pair that could be really fun...too bad they didn't even really interact in Tournament of Elements and Chamille was also absent for Hunted (heavily implied to be evil, even). Not sure we'll see them again either.

Meh

Ships I’m indifferent to. There’s a lot of these.

Amberphoenix – Like others, it’s neat conceptually, but I don’t recall Nya and Skylor having too many interactions in Hunted. Then again I didn’t find Hunted overall memorable so that doesn’t help.

Opposite – Definitely not in the early seasons, even with Kai’s reaction to Zane’s death. Post-Movie seasons got them to work together on more occasions, but to me they come off like friends who really like ribbing each other when they get the chance. I don’t know if people seeing this are old enough to be in the workplace, but there’s always those two guys in any office I’ve worked in. Think that, but with ninja.

Wusako – Don’t actively root for it, but I don’t mind it in the same way others seem to have a problem with it. Guess it depends on how willing you are to accept messier situations like that.

Royalamber/Sunrise/Cherry/whotheheckknows – Basically crackshipping since Skylor and Vania have never met (although Vania seemed keen on the events of the Tournament of Elements). I just find it hilarious that this exists. That being said, there isn’t nothing in common (they have shared trauma over asshole fathers for instance), but when I look at them, I see Skylor becoming more like a big sister to Vania more than anything.

Eyepatch – I get why this one would be appealing since they’re both conniving rat-men with baggage. However, I don’t think they’d get along at all if they actually met. Ronin is a thief who wants to make a living, and Clutch wants glory through the artefacts more than anything, those seem like contrasting goals. Also I don’t think Ronin would appreciate Clutch kind of dooming Nya to die considering his previous rogue mentor role to her. That, and I am far more biased to Clutch material in City instead of Ninjago, sorry.

Copper – I just don’t get this one to be honest. Like, I can’t even remember scenes with Dareth and Cyrus together, let alone with chemistry.

Bluewire – I mean, them helping out each other has been cute for the few moments it happened, but it didn’t feel like there was anything there romantically.

Firewall - I mean...I guess I remember that scene in season 3? It was the funniest part of the worst episode of Rebooted at least. But nah, Kai and Pixal give me the same vibes as Zane and Kai except as more distant co-workers.

StolenData -  This is basically AmberPhoenix but with even less interaction between Skylor and Pixal. I don’t have anything else for it.

Thinkfast - ...This is a thing? I’m more stumped than anything.

Spell - Really, this would be abuse since it's clear that Master Chen is a power-hungry tyrant who gives no shits about anyone, let alone Clouse. But Clouse is a thoroughly loathsome individual so it's a match lol.

Nah Ta

This category is for two kinds of ships; ships I don’t like, and ships that I want as strictly platonic as that dynamic is really good.

Plasma – This has even less to work with than most ninja ships, with one bit where Jay was off his head and the proposal practice. Otherwise, Kai has taken so many opportunities to dig into Jay, and I’m pretty sure the feeling’s mutual.

Hope - I see this more as Faith being the cool aunt to Wu before he fully ages up, but I'm not super opposed to it I guess. The one factor that brings it below the line is that Faith's interactions with him were mostly while he wasn't his full self, so I don't know how it would work in normal parameters anyway.

Braincell – Honestly, not sure why, but these two make me want a really strong friendship from the fact they’re clearly the level-headed of the ninja (with Pixal holding both their braincells when they’re in antics), but don’t really want it pushed further. Dunno what’s up with that.

Conia – This a nice platonic ship, subverting the love on first sight cliché by both making it not love at all and still developing a strong friendship between them. Keep it that way.

Entombed – Aspheera is at least a thousand years Pythor’s senior. While this doesn’t toll on romance necessarily since Pythor is clearly an adult, I don’t think he’d see her as anything other than an ancestral figure given how well she’s known in Serpentine history.

Dayle – Dareth has been kind of a creeper to Gayle in the past. There’s been more genuine moments, but I’d not rather not.

Future – In canon, absolutely not. This gets its own entry here because the fanon for it isn’t actually that terrible? It basically runs off the fact that Acronix was far more sympathetic than Krux (manipulated by Master Chen, frozen in time so he wasn’t stewing in this pre-meditated plan for 40 years, less involved in the plan once freed) and pushes it into an outright redemption. I mean, Morro had something like that with his realisation of his deed in the final moments of Possession, so it’s not impossible, but again this is just for the fanon side. In canon Acronix hasn’t shown remorse and is pretty much dead.

Jadestorm – Speaking of Morro, what I mentioned above is why I don’t get this ship. If Morro was still his Green Ninja-loathing self I could totally see it, but he had turned around by the end of Day of the Departed, before Harumi entered the picture. And if Harumi didn’t repent in life, what makes anyone think she would do that in death either? The more likely case is that Morro would try to make Harumi see that she’s wasting her time, and she would just lash out because she cannot let it go (even when her blame is mislaid as far as she presents it).

Geode/Bruise – The one ninja ship I genuinely don’t like. It’s kind of not fair to it, but it still represents terrible writing for me. They’re at each other’s throats for a season due to an utter contrivance, then they bury the hatchet, which is fine...but then Jay brings it up again in the middle of Possession despite the love triangle not being an issue any more, and then Skybound spends its time course correcting even though the issue has long passed, and the event is erased on Cole’s side anyway. Just deciding to simplify it, calling them best friends and very occasionally calling back to it (as the show has done) is fine for me.

Kailor – Oh boy. If Pixane is “hey lets bring in a love interest and make it on sight” done right, this is that same idea but done wrong. I’ve mentioned in the past how the writing of it in Tournament of Elements was flawed and with no decent chemistry or dynamic, so there’s that. Which is really bad when that’s been basically the only season that bothered to try and justify it.

But I think there’s another issue, one that uniquely affects this ship more than any other ship post-movie; they haven’t bothered to establish how it even works in this version of Ninjago. The redesigns brought personality shifts with it. Most were pretty minor. But with Kai, as I’ve also said before, he had a massive issue with his personality shifting wildly between seasons, and what they decided on for him for Sons of Garmadon onwards is so much different to his personality in Tournament of Elements. With other ships, they got a chance to re-establish the dynamics and demonstrate how they still work (Jay and Nya just having a bit of an adjustment, Pixal having a new physical form which gives room to change her dynamic with Zane). Kai gets to interact with Skylor once to show brief concern when she’s powered down, and then they hug at the end, the show doesn’t bother to show how the newer Kai actually has a dynamic with Skylor. It’s no wonder every interaction they’ve had from Hunted onwards has been so off. Did you see that wink in March of the Oni? How did that come off as so awkward?

I mean, I guess they could try and say that they’ve been talking to each other offscreen to make it seem like the relationship has been ongoing as opposed to Kai literally never visiting her or trying to get in contact despite having the opportunities to do so. It’d still be terribly clunky, but at least I wouldn’t have to call it doomed to fail.

Garsako – Garmadon got with her until false pretences technically, and while he was nice for like two seasons, what has Misako had to live with outside of that time? A corrupted soul turned warlord who will have to kill her son to rule? I’d say no thanks.

Llorumi – Harumi deceived Lloyd, tortured him physically and mentally, tried to kill him and showed zero remorse for her actions. Even if she somehow came back to life and became good, it wouldn’t fix that load of nonsense. No.

Conya – Man, I may lay into Geode for being bad writing, but I am not letting the OG contrived ship off the hook at all. A machine tells Nya he’d be her best match and she goes with it despite not having any romantic spark with him prior? That’s not how people work. And then Cole pursues it heavily for a season before just dropping it? Can you say contrivance? And they didn’t even have any romantic chemistry for the brief time they were pursuing it.

Oh, but what’s been even more hilarious than the initial writing is how much this ship has been razed to the ground and sunk. There have been tweets from Tommy stating that Cole actually wasn’t interested in Nya when he pursued her, he was just confused because of her showing affection (which...what?). Then Skybound amped up his misogyny for Nya’s arc that season, further pushing them apart (sure, that was wiped, but Nya remembers it...or did before she became water). And if that wasn’t enough, Cole’s much later rant about her not having water powers directly to her face was hilariously vicious, especially since this was one episode after Firemaker, where Cole went out of his way to support her brother through the same issue!

Actually I have one more point to make, and it may rub some people the wrong way (especially on Twitter and Reddit lol); I think Cole is a lock for being gay. I don’t think it’s a fun headcanon, I don’t think he’s ambiguously bi or acearo or any other orientation. I genuinely think they are intentionally writing him as a man who only loves other men. The question is how this end up on screen. So yeah, this ship really doesn’t work for me.

Ninja/Villain Ships – If any of the villains were given a dating Catwoman dynamic, maybe, but Ninjago has never gone there, so for me it’s an outright no to any of these.

Lloyd/Other Ninja Ships - Honestly, I don't particularly care about this debate. I mean, if someone were to try and claim that Lloyd and another ninja were a romantic thing in an earlier season, I'd probably be like "that's fucked up". If someone were doing it with their current versions? The continuity on that is so confusing on that I just elect not to think about it. No, the reason I don't go for them is that all of the ninja just come off as older sibling figures, especially when the legacy of the Green Ninja exists. Even in later seasons where Lloyd is older, he’s singled out as needing looking over (for example, the power scene in Big Trouble, Little Ninjago).

Bizarre Copy Ships of Any Kind - They were meat puppets, so no.

Disguise Ships - A disguise doesn't change the person permanently what.

Incest Ships - DO I NEED TO EXPLAIN THIS ONE

So yeah, that’s a list of ships in Ninjago ordered on how much I like them. I don’t have much of an outro for this one. Soz.

#ninjago #ninjago ships #VEDJ-F talks #I'm not tagging all these ships I'm not that insane

[twistedtummies2]

In general, but you may include kinks if you so desire.

This is in regards to my previous Ask/Answer, which requested my thoughts on Andrew Lloyd Webber's "CATS" musical. I will be referring specifically to the musical here, NOT to the God-awfully horrendous movie that I swear I still have a hard time believing exists half the time because WOW that was amazingly bad on so many levels. 'XD As far as kinks go...in regards to the play ITSELF, I have no interest there at all. Theatre is even harder to sell to me there than live-action cinema or TV. So I guess it's a good thing you weren't necessarily asking on that front. LOL As for the show in general: I actually might go into slightly more detail in the future on CATS, but I'll give you my very basic bare bones feelings here regardless. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I BELIEVE THAT CATS...is okay. It is perfectly okay. It is one of the most "okay" musicals that has ever existed. The thing about CATS is it is a spectacle, above all else. There is almost no plot, and the characters are extremely simplistic. This is because the show is basically a musical adaptation of a book of poems, with the poems being turned into the majority of the songs in the play: there really isn't much in the way of a true story or much character development, as a result. It's basically a bunch of kitty-cats singing and dancing with only the barest elements of an over-arching plotline to sort of tie things together. That's not necessarily a bad thing, mind you - spectacle can be very good when used properly - but for me, CATS feels more like a much longer version of stuff you would see at a theme park or on a cruise ship than anything else. It's a fun ride with great songs, but it's best taken sparingly: there's just not much there in terms of true substance. HOWEVER, the songs are absolutely great, in my opinion - some of my favorite songs from musicals, in general, are in the show - and the stagecraft of it can be really inventive and fun, so I can't act like it has no merits. I guess I just prefer shows that have a little more meat to them, in some way, shape, or form. That doesn't mean it has to be super complex or super dark (again, my favorite musical is Seussical, of all things), but I guess I expect it to have...you know...a flipping PLOT. XD

#ask #answer #q&a #musicals #musical theatre #broadway #west end #andrew lloyd webber #cats

[nonbinary-morro]

hello im back to invade your inbox /hj

some of your morro hcs? 👀

im not picky ofc, id just love to hear more about them!

aaa hello!! hi!! sorry it took me soo long to answer XP

This goes without saying but my dude is small, tineyy, just about an inch on Lloyd and will remind him of that fact (until lloyd outgrown them lol)

During their time as a ghost they didn't use any pronouns, and hated being referred to in any way. before that they just used whatever people thought they were (my guy be a gnc motherfucker from day 1) and didn't dwell too much on it despite a lingering discomfort that they couldn't quite identify, settling on they/them way later on

I also love the idea of xe/xem or x/x neopronouns Morro, i feel it adds just that bit extra onto any hypothetical redemption arcs and the process of pathing xyr own path/identity (plus i read a rlly cool fic (Marks in the dirt by Mattecat) and its soso good)

Their would-be classpect is a Prince of Breath (though im eh abt the class since in basically reconsidering the classes for most of my au classpects)

This one may be a bit far-fetched but i like the idea that they were the first elemental master of wind? like, all the separate elements took time to manifest into separate hosts, and wind being one of the last to appear? (also contributing to the fact that it and water weren't as researched and documented on) plus like,, iirc we don't explicitly SEE a previous wind master in HoT, and like,, just imagine a young Morro, with an established idea of all the pre-existing elements and their masters, suddenly developing something entirely new. Maybe that's why they don't live with their parents anymore-afraid of what they didn't understand, why they felt the need to hide it, and why they were so quick to weaponize it when things went south.

On a fluffier note, they love fidgeting/stimming with their wind!! swooping in around their fingers and up their arms, making it brush their clothes against their body/through their hair rhythmically. when they're in an especially happy mood, they'll start to unconsciously float really high while doing it :DD it also makes for many breezy happy hand flapping.

Loves cats, and would always try to bring strays into the monastery, and trying to feed them ( the same way Wu did to Morro when they first met :0)

Was closest to Bansha out of all other ghost acquaintances, her acting as an almost sister-figure to them, and too the ninjas surprise took her passing pretty hard :(

When not greasy as fuck, their hair is actually really fluffy, almost wispy at ends, and their bangs curl just the slightest bit into their face

asdfgsafs thats all i can think of rn

#thank you for the ask!! #i had allota fun answering it! #most of these are incredibly self indulgent but i hope you like? #ninjago morro #morro wu #ninjago #lego ninjago #nonbinary headcanons #nonbinary morro #lem0n rambles #lem0n answers stuff

[twh-news]

Loki’s production designer on the Modernist inspiration behind the show’s stunning visuals | The Art Newspaper

By Helen Stoilas

Kasra Farahani explains why the Time Variance Authority waiting room looks so much like the Breuer building, and how the inside of a Fabergé egg became an alien train carriage.

Fans of Modernist design can find a lot to appreciate in Loki, the television series starring Tom Hiddleston recently released by Marvel Studios on the streaming channel Disney+. The stunning production is clearly influenced by Brutalist and Neo-Futurist architecture, as well as Soviet Socialist art and sculpture. Visual references can be seen from the very first episode, in which the magic-wielding god of mischief is apprehended by a universe-spanning police force known as the Time Variance Authority for “crimes against the Sacred Timeline” (stay with us).

One early scene, for example, was filmed on a custom-built set that bears a striking resemblance to the lobby of the Marcel Breuer building in New York which once housed the Whitney Museum—and now houses the Frick—while another was shot on location in the Neo-Futurist Atlanta Marriott Marquis hotel, designed by the architect John C. Portman, Jr (with some monumental statues later edited into the soaring atrium). The Art Newspaper spoke to the series’ production designer, Kasra Farahani, about his inspirations for the look of the show.

The Art Newspaper: Loki's director, Kate Herron has called this series a love letter to sci-fi and you see a lot of visual homages to films like Brazil, A Clockwork Orange and Blade Runner. But there's also a clear influence of Modernist design on the look of the series overall. You studied industrial design early in your career. Were there specific examples of Modernist architecture and design that you were looking at when you started working on the series?

Kasra Farahani: So many, everyone from Frank Lloyd Wright to Breuer, to Mies van der Rohe to Paul Rudolph—you have a shot in the John Portman building—to Oscar Niemeyer. And then a lot of Eastern European, Soviet-influenced Modernism played a big part in it as well. I can honestly tell you that my first and foremost inspiration was Modernism. Part of that is because the TVA (Time Variance Authority) is a bureaucracy and I think, archetypically, so much of what we know a bureaucracy to be is that post-war, highly funded institutional look. And there's a lot of different versions of that, whether it's the Washington, DC version, like the Hoover building, or whether it's what we had in Los Angeles, where I grew up, where there's a huge amount of post-war architecture built for the population boom. Like the elementary school, middle school and high school that I went to were all mid-century Modernist.

I was also looking a lot at Brutalism and the Modernism in former Soviet states, that are heavily influenced by Socialism and Soviet architecture, and where scale is such a big driving force of the design.

The size of some of the buildings in the show are kind of overwhelming. I know that some filming was done in the Atlanta Marriott Marquis, with that huge soaring atrium. You just completely get dwarfed by that kind of architecture.

Yeah, that's right. That one we used for the TVA archives because we couldn't justify building a big set, but once I scouted it, I saw that we could bring in these massive Time-Keeper sculptures at the scale you would typically only see in an exterior, which is a fantastical thing. The TVA sets themselves, which were almost entirely full 360-degree sets, were very much designed as an intentional paradox between the stoic, large-scale Brutalism form language, and the surfacing and palette and whimsical patterning, which is very much taken from American mid-century Modern. Those two things create these spaces that feel at once super intimidating and then uncomfortably inviting and warm at the same time.

That’s kind of the irony of a lot of Modernism, Brutalism especially, it had these utopian ideals of creating affordable social housing, but then a lot of the people found it really oppressive to live in.

Yeah. Modernism has been that way the whole time—it was designed to be super cheap and utilitarian and routinely it ends up being the most expensive kind of architecture. Another thing readers may be curious to know about is the TBA expanse, which is essentially the view outside some windows.

That futuristic cityscape you can see….

Yeah. They had very strange and unique parameters to try to design that. The TVA exists outside of the physical world—so there's no weather, there's no roofs, there's no difference between interior and exterior, there's not necessarily even gravity in the way that we know it. But there are these meandering colonnades that we took a lot of inspiration from Brasilia—and obviously a lot of the super cities that were drawn in comics. But also there's some really beautiful conceptual sketches that Frank Lloyd Wright did of a version Los Angeles in the early 20th century that had Roman-like colonnades and plazas and a lot of that fed into what the TVA expanse is.

You mentioned all the sets you built for Loki, especially for the TVA. There's two that where used a lot. The Time Theater, where so much of kind of Loki’s personal story gets told, and looks like its straight out of the Barbican in London, with these huge colour-coded directional numbers on the walls. And then there's the Miss Minutes waiting room with those circular lights that looks almost exactly like the lobby of the Breuer building in New York—to the point where I reached out to the museum to ask if you’d filmed there. You even got the silver-tipped light bulbs right.

We were very inspired by that, but it's different in some very subtle, but for me, very important ways. Number one, the size of the bulbs is much smaller, they were manipulated to create eyeballs, basically. Another important difference is that in the Breuer building, they have these dishes hanging in space, whereas in ours, they're negative space, there's a solid ceiling. It creates a matrix of eyeballs peering down, like the always-watching Time-Keepers. And maybe the most important difference is that the ceiling is slammed down—you know the cheapest apartment you can go into has an eight-foot ceiling, this is six inches shorter than that, and our actor is about six-foot-three. The idea was to create a sort of trash compactor feeling in this claustrophobic space with this matrix of eyes, watching as all of this is happening.

The time theater was for me very inspired by Pier Luigi Nervi.

I liked that waffle coffered ceiling you have in that room.

Thanks. We were very happy with it, and it created this kind of forest of light columns which helps set the neo-noirish, interrogative nature of the space. And the unnecessarily large super graphics that you mentioned are a very Paul Rudolph sort of a thing, he did that in his building too, and I love that.

For me, it’s very important not to reference a set design from other films, that why I reference architecture, painting, photography, these other art forms, more than anything else, because inevitably when you’re working in archetypes, there’s a lot of overlap.

And as Loki goes into different times and locations, you get a completely different design environment in those places. There’s a scene on a train car, that has a very Art Deco look.

That was inspired by the inside of a Fabergé egg, Art Deco meets Alien.

And when you finally meet the Time-Keepers in the most recent episode, it’s like they're in a pre-Colombian pyramid or a ziggurat.

I was looking at Indian stepwells, this almost fractal quality with these descending stairs going into one another—but we imagined them going out every direction, with an Escher-like quality, like they are tessellating themselves to infinity.

I read on Twitter that you literally bought a bowling alley from Omaha and brought it to Atlanta to create Loki's Palace in the Void in the last episode, which is this crazy, surreal, amusement park, junk yard-like place.

We bought the floor of a bowling alley, everything else we built. That was a lot of fun because the script gave us a lot of runway. The proposal was to do this bowling alley because essentially everything in the Void has been discarded from time, and more things fall into it and accumulate and so you end up with these strata. I liked the idea of like a bowling alley that's been smashed over your knee or something. The net effect is when you first enter, you have all these lane lines pointing down at this throne, which was supposed to be stolen from a mall Santa. And then there's these crazy alien plants that are growing through it that have taken parasitic hold of the place. In many ways, I think its a narrative microcosm of the Void itself, which is like a salad bar of these disparate aberrations slammed together. Things like the bowling alley all have these micro-narratives that we in the art department have come up with to help flush out the design and make them specific. For example, there's portraits on the wall of like bowler of the month, and they’re not quite human. It's not in the episode, but those things are important for us in the art department.

At the very end of the most recent episode, we get a glimpse into this city that Loki and Sylvie (played by Sophia Di Martino) are walking into. Can tell us anything about what inspired those scenes, what we're about to see?

You can call me back in a week. All I can say is that the TVA is definitely the visual and narrative anchor of the story, but there's a lot of great worlds to see. And I think what people are responding to is the breadth of the visual variety of the show. And episode six won't be any different. It's really cool, and maybe some of my favorite stuff.

#loki #loki series #production design #set design #tom hiddleston #Kasra Farahani #article #the art newspaper