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ninja-knox-ur-sox-off · 17 days

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Alright, I’ve been sitting on this for a while and I think i’ve managed to sort out my thoughts so it’s not just agonized internal screaming. Time to finally talk about Monkie Kid Season 5.

Quick Disclaimers before we get started: please keep in mind i’m probably gonna be a little negative here. I’m not going after the animators or the writers or anything of the sort, I just need to get this out and slapping it on my blog just makes sense so people have the option to ignore it. Yes, I’m still grateful we still have the show, yes I’m still happy we have the same VA’s, don’t come at me. I’m not gonna get too salty cause I’ve gotten most of that out methinks and too much salt is bad for ya health, but I still do wanna talk about it and I’m still gonna be at least a little salty. If you’re not interested in hearing anything negative about the future of season five please don’t feel obligated to read. And please DO NOT take this as an invitation to bash on the new studio or anyone else in the replies, I really don’t wanna see that, go make your own post if you want to do that. I’m going to keep it under the cut so it’s easy to scroll past.

Welp, if you’re here to read, buckle up and here we go!

To start off, let's get the big personal bias thing out of the way: I strongly dislike puppet animation.

I say ‘strongly dislike’ and not hate because, while I hate most puppet animation, there is Bluey which is the best puppet animation can offer. I didn’t even know it was puppet animation for a while because of how beautifully it’s animated, so, puppet animation does have potential, I’m not gonna deny that. However, I hate that it is always used to replace 2D animation. It’s the cheaper, faster option and I can’t even begin to count the amount of shows that have started off with the plans for being 2D before being ultimately scrapped in favor of either puppet animation or 3D. Monkie Kid was the outlier in all that for me. It was 2D and it felt right. It was gorgeous and good for my brain to look at, it made me excited for animation and for art. It really was so incredibly special to me in a way it just can’t be anymore without Flying Bark’s animation. I probably won’t stop watching but, because of my dislike of puppet animation, it might be a bit of a struggle to get my brain to focus on it the way it used to, (we’ll see.) Absolutely no shade to Wildbrain (the new animation studio) they have worked miracles in the short time that they’ve had, they’ve managed to very closely replicate the style of monkie kid, and they are excellent at what they do, but when things are rushed (LEGO, [derogatory]) it makes it very hard to maintain a high standard, especially when we have something like Flying Bark’s animation to compare it to. And listen, please don’t tell me it looks similar to Flying Bark’s animation, please don’t send me shots and tell me but look how close it is! This one’s gorgeous! Because, at least to me… it’s not.

I’m the kind of person who sits in a room and I see a picture is crooked while no one else in the room notices. It could be off by centimeters but I still notice. It hurts my brain to look at and I go a bit insane until I can get up and straighten it, which usually makes people laugh and honestly yeah it’s kinda funny, but I really can’t stand things looking off, and, despite Wildbrain’s valiant attempt and excellent replication of the style, everything in the trailer we got looks off to me. From the framing, to the animation, to the design of the new characters; from the perspective to the coloring, everything is off and my ‘PLEASE LET ME STRAIGHTEN THE PICTURE’ brain hurts looking at it. I’m not trying to rag on the animation, I know they’re doing their best. Off things just hurt my brain to look at.

That’s why I loved Flying Bark’s animation so much. From Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to Monkie Kid to Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, Flying Bark’s animation has scratched that itch in my brain that has desperately wanted things to look right. Everything is just so shaped!!! AAA!!!

Now, there are episodes of monkie kid that I’m not as big of a fan of. Impossible Delivery is one of them. I’m not a fan of how some scenes are drawn in it, so I tend to avoid it a lot. And that was done by Flying Bark so, this new animation for Monkie Kid is really doing a number on me.

…that being said: I still aint’ about that ‘flying bark started out awkward too’

Once again, ABSOLUTELY NO SHADE TO WILDBRAIN, (or anyone who’s said this at any point, I ain’t coming for your kneecaps,) they have done a SPECTACULAR job replicating Flying Bark’s style in the time that they have and I’m sure LEGO has been putting them through the wringer and rushing them through stuff (which I’ll complain about in a minute) but that’s the thing… They replicated Flying Bark’s Style. Style and animation are two completely separate things. This same drama was used by critics to bash the crap out of ROTTMNT when it first came out; they kept saying the animation was ugly, but it wasn’t, the animation was gorgeous, it was the style that they disliked because, most shows right now start off clunky and a little ugly and that’s just how it is. (Also the promotional material for Rise dragged it through the mud. I will always be salty about that.)

The pilot of monkie kid’s style wasn't all the way there, I’m not gonna deny that. The crew at flying bark were still figuring things out how to draw lego, BUT. The perspective, the framing, and the animation were all on point and just as gorgeous as the rest of the series. When I hear the argument that Flying Bark wasn’t great at first either it makes me want to tear my hair out because it WAS great. IT WAS ABSOLUTELY GREAT, FROM THE BEGINNING, THEIR ANIMATION HAS BEEN GORGEOUS IN MONKIE KID SINCE DAY ONE. The style is what was off. With this new animation we have the opposite experience. Instead of an awkward style with a god tier animation, we have a pretty excellent replication of a good style with an animation form I personally am not a very big fan of. It’s jarring. And even though I’m sure wildbrain will indeed get into their own groove, it will likely never be as earth shattering as Flying Bark because Flying Bark is Flying Bark and what they did was possible because of 2D.

Onto yelling at lego here we go: 'Be grateful it wasn’t canceled'

I’ma be real, this one bugs me the most.

The animation industry right now sucks. There’s no denying it. We have incredible artists left and right being messed over by studios and companies, entirely completed series being deleted, artists being ripped off, overworked and underpaid, outsourcing in every way they can, the disrespect of A/I, and 2D animation especially being dragged through the mud, even with groundbreaking 2D+3D movies like Spider-Verse and award winning movies like The Boy and the Heron, proving 2D is far from dead. Shows are being canceled before their second or third seasons, ideas are being recycled, so many people have watched their favorite things end too soon, and I’m one of them. Bro I was into DRAGON BOOSTER as a kid. Do you know that show? Probably not. It was canceled after one season YEARS ago and ended on a cliffhanger that makes me hurt to this day and I was a kid back then. (Incredible show btw you should give it a watch.) This cancellation thing isn’t new. I got on board with Rise only to see it sniped because Nickelodeon is stupid. Legend of Korra got messed over by Nickelodeon too. I have experienced cancellation/rushed endings before and it sucks. And it fills me with rage to see the bar is so low, that we should all just be okay with what happened because ‘at least it wasn’t canceled.’ I’m not mad at the people saying this, I’m just upset that this is what the reality of animation is. Heck I'm allowed to be upset about it.

And, let’s be real for a second here… Monkie Kid is LEGO’s product for China. It’s making them money. Canceling monkie kid would be shooti ng themselves in the foot more than anything else. LEGO is not hurting for money. Ninjago ran for FIFTEEN seasons and is still running today in this soft-reboot with even better animation than before. LEGO has the means. They don’t need to rush animators to finish things or underpay people. Flying Bark is in big demand right now because more and more people are noticing how good their stuff is. I’m willing to bet their schedule is packed, (they’re working on the ATLA movie which I have mixed emotions about but at least the animation’s gonna be BANGER and last I heard a stranger things animated series??) and when you’re in that high of demand you have to raise your prices, that’s just how that works. But even with that, given enough patience, time, and proper pay, I have no doubt they could have done Monkie Kid as well. We know Lego was pushing them way too hard to animate Monkie Kid and that animation is INSANE and not cheap. LEGO can afford that. But they decided it wasn’t worth that.

Okay don’t quote me on that last bit. I really didn’t want to start going off about conspiracy theories but I admit I get really frustrated when I hear the ‘at least it wasn’t canceled’ thing because I know there’s more going on behind the scenes, people just aren’t transparent about it. Studios and companies right now don’t really care about the quality of things, it’s the artists and the writers and the creators that care about the quality. There are other 2D studios out there but LEGO chose to go with puppet animation because it's faster and cheaper. I am always going to be upset about that. Am I grateful Monkie Kid wasn’t canceled? Sure. But at the same time I don’t want to feel grateful for the bare minimum. I’m angry at the state of the animation industry that no one in the higher-ups of these industries seem to respect 2D animators or 2D animation in general, that no one seems to understand how much skill it takes to animate and how worth investing in it is. And seeing people tell others upset by this that they should be grateful they have anything at all just rubs me the wrong way.

And the audacity to change the animation is ridiculous to me because a huge part of the audience for LMK is here because of the animation. It’s not like Ninjago, which started off with low budget 3D and slowly got better and better over time with a few dips here and there. We started off with one of the best 2D animated shows of all time, (in my monkey obsessed opinion,) animated the way it was to draw in an audience, and suddenly for no reason at all and no prior warning we’ve dropped down to what every pilot of every puppet animation children show looks like these days. It feels like a crummy thing to do. Yes, I’m aware we’re lucky we still have a show, yes I’m grateful we still have the same VA’s and the same writers. But this is a big and abrupt change and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t suck.

Okay, onto my biggest concern: how the writing of the show will pair with this new animation.

With all due respect and love to the writers, Monkie Kid is awful when it comes to biased narration in their storytelling. It has relied so so heavily on visual storytelling to fill in the gaps and tell us what’s actually going on while the dialogue is lying to our face. If you’re not looking, it can lead you to woefully misunderstand the characters and what is happening. It’s a style of writing that I’m not a super big fan of, BUT I, for the most part (aside from fandom craziness,) enjoyed it! Because the animation helped it hold up. What made the storytelling work was the nuance and incredible detail in Flying Bark’s animation. You could analyze every expression, every style difference in flashbacks, and it would tell you so much; I am a SUCKER for that kind of stuff--drawing expressions and emotions is something I love so much--and Flying Bark served it to me on a silver platter with a golden spoon and crystal clear mountain water. The scope of what Flying Bark was able to do… I just don’t know if it can be replicated in puppet animation and that scares me a bit storytelling wise. Because I don’t want to be stressed out by Monkie Kid and unreliable narrators have a habit of stressing me out. It’s not to bad as long as it’s resolved later, but Monkie Kid has a habit of blowing over things, especially in regards to the lies told about Wukong and the only thing that tells us something different happened are the visuals, which stresses me out cause it results in INTENSE fandom bashing my favorite monkey and it’s really hard to avoid. (This is why I stepped back so far from interacting with the fandom.) I don’t want something that brought me comfort in my darkest times to be twisted into something I no longer want to see.

Is this the worst possible thing to have happened? No, of course not. It’s definitely not all that awesome either. For me it’s like eating at a gourmet restaurant having their insane mac n cheese every day for years and then suddenly you’re served KD from the dollar store and told you should be grateful because it could be worse, all the while the restaurant keeps its gourmet title. There’s nothing wrong with KD but bro I want my mac n cheese--

The fact that there was no prior warning is what really makes all this feel so sucky. I know this isn’t the end of monkie kid, but the animation is one of the biggest things that made the show unique, it’s what drew so many incredible artists in, it’s what inspired me to create and make friends and keep living. The animation provided nuance to the characters when the writing sometimes fell flat. It gave insights and information that worked well with the face-paced storytelling and brought the incredible voice acting to life. It’s not really going to be the same without it.

There is ofc more than just the animation that made monkie kid great. The voice actors, the SOUNDTRACK, the sound effects are all off the charts insanely high quality but man. It’s not complete without it. There’s a big ol’ gaping hole in the show and in my heart and as much as I love the show, that’s really rough. Because it’s not as though this makes things better. The quality didn’t drop because people wanted it to be easier for animators to animate, Wildbrain I’m sure is having a time meeting LEGO’s crazy deadlines right now, just like Flying Bark did. There was so much reused animation in season 4 because of how hard LEGO was riding animators' tails and pushing them to get things out faster and faster and I was more than alright with the reused animation so the animators could catch a break. But instead of backing off and being respectful of the time it takes to animate, LEGO dropped Flying Bark like a hot potato and immediately went to the cheaper, faster puppet animation. (JUST A THEORY/VENT DON’T QUOTE ME.) It’s not like there aren’t other 2D animation studios out there but they picked the puppet. And that SUCKS. I would have been okay waiting another year for monkie kid easy because Flying Bark is WORTH IT. I understand how long things take and that if I want a high quality product its going to take skill and time. It hurts me to watch animators having it rough because no one else seems to get that.

Alright in conclusion: We’ve only seen a few seconds of the trailer.

It’s hard to judge what the entire show will look like based off of that little. It could be incomplete, Wildbrain could get better, they could find their groove, I ain’t gonna rag on the animation because it’s giving you exactly the quality--maybe even higher--expected of what it is. It’s puppet animation. I dunno what to tell you man. But it’s not about that for me. For me it’s about 2D. It’s about some of the greatest animation I’ve ever seen being replaced when it didn’t need to be and that sucks. Flying Bark gave us the world and we didn’t lose that for any reason other than money and greed and impatience. That is so discouraging and upsetting. It is something else to go from every frame leaving me breathless and staring and in awe over the quality of the animation to Puppet Animation. The change hurts. Honestly, I never thought I would be as devastated as I am. I’ve processed a bit but I think it’s always going to suck because of how important monkie kid has become to me. I miss flying bark so much already. I’m still going to try and watch the show, but we’ll see how my brain does with the puppet animation. Don’t go ragging on the animators, guys, they’re doing their best and I gotta respect em.

I do wish we’d gotten more time to mourn flying bark’s absence. I wish people had gotten a heads up when season 4 had ended so they could have time to adjust and then get ready for the new style, because watching everyone hype themselves up for flying barks’ animation only to be told they're gone by a trailer kiiiinda sucks. But I digress.

I do find it funny it took changing animation studios for us to finally get a trailer and poster on time before the eps drop. So in a way, I appreciate that much of a warning at least. Better than nothing! And we’ve always wanted a trailer out first lol HGLKJSDF

I ain’t even gonna pretend I ain’t spoiled as HECK by flying bark’s animation. Honestly without it, I don’t know if I’d be as attached to the characters as I am. Real talk, I don’t know if I ever would have even watched Monkie Kid without it. I’m gonna miss flying bark with all I have in me and it's going to make rewatching and enjoying the show hard because of all this. I’m going to miss the time when every part of this show was a comfort to my brain and soul. Flying Bark's energy is unmatched, they bring a life to things that I haven’t seen anywhere else and I’m always gonna be grateful for the time I had with them animating Monkie Kid.

This is it. No more more Flying Bark monkie kid. The end. And that’s going to sting for a while. And probably keep stinging throughout the new season because… well… I love monkie kid. So seeing it become something else is going to hurt, especially if you hold it so close to your heart.

These new animators are doing their best and we can’t fault em for that. It ain’t their fault the animation industry is what it is. It’s great we still have the show going when so many other things have gotten canceled but the fact the bar is so low can hurt like heck too.

We’re gonna miss flying bark for a long time. It’s so goofy that something as simple as animation could have burrowed so deep into our hearts but it has and that’s truly wondrous and the magic of storytelling. I love shows. I love movies. I love what monkie kid was, and I hope I can learn to be okay with what it will be now. (Even with my ‘STRAIGHTEN THE PICTURE’ brain screaming at me lol.) Wishing you all the best, don’t make fun of the animation needlessly or go after the animators, be kind to them and to each other. If you wanna be salty don't send it to me just make ur own post thanks ima drop this and then go try some positivity lol. Until next time! I’ll see you in Monkie Kid season 5

Knox out

#aint no way im putting this in the main tag #knox rambles #comeback kid #monkie kid salt #salt #not sure how to tag this ITS A LONG ONE BOYS #i had 3k worth of thoghts built up #you can see where i get more RAAA emotions lol #its out we good #i think that'll be it for me for salt about the animation change #unless the season comes out and its wild #salt about writing may show up now that flying barks outta here we'll see i like to keep things light but eh #HOPE Y'ALL HAVING AS A GOOD A DAY AS U CAN #boi did i ramble HDJFJJGG #i do watch puppet animation shows from time to time but i have always wondered what they would look like in 2D gods #the three caballeros show is one of em i desperately wanted 2d of |;A;/#okay im outta here gotta get ready to go getting out of rhe house this evening PEACE #it is a bit of a vent so #vent #hdjfjjgg ALRIGHT SKIDADDLIN

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thedemonscrawler · 9 months

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When the dust settles

You know how the AO3 tag is "I wrote this instead of sleeping"? Yeah, well, I literally went to bed and then wrote a 1.5k oneshot instead of falling asleep the other night 8'D

Set in the same continuity as my recently posted oneshot Charade, where Sun and Eclipse are forced to work together and have developed a begrudging camaraderie over it.

This is much later in the timeline where Sun and Eclipse have gone from Enemies to Friends That Are Still Enemies to I Think We're Just Friends Now. Killcode (who was not nice) had the star and was defeated, Eclipse had the star briefly but was talked out of changing things (which he didn't even really want to do by this point), everyone is tired and came back from the final showdown and passed out.

-----

He comes online to an empty room.

He's an animatronic, so there's no wait for his eyes to adjust to the darkness around him, and so it's his sluggish processor that delays recognition. Dimmed lights strung over the walls, a playhouse meant for children on the floor. The surface under his cheek and hand gives slightly when he presses on it, fabric made colorless without light.

The Daycare. He was in the Daycare, curled up on one of the couches.

A shudder runs through his frame and he curls tighter under the piece of fabric covering his body. Blankets weren't the smartest thing to toss over a robot, given the risk of overheating, yet the fabric doesn't feel like a blanket, and his internal temperature isn't in the red.

It's green– but green only meant 'not running hot', and he isn't. He feels cold.

Shaking fingers run over the edge of the cloth, trying to ground or distract himself. The fabric feels soft and slippery, like the satin of the Daycare Attendant’s ribbons. Raised edging outlines a design in some material that doesn't catch, yet has enough lift to be felt.

His cape. That's right, he'd made a cape with the star’s power. He'd been wearing it when he'd followed the Daycare Attendants home, too tired and stressed to think about anything, and he'd gone to sleep still wrapped up in it.

He's still tired and stressed, but he's not asleep anymore.

Soft static crackles in his chest, and dim golden eyes peep out into the dark room. The dark, empty room. That hadn't bothered him so much when he was asleep, but it does now that he's awake and aware. The longer he sits here curled under his cape, the more tense he becomes, until to his exhausted horror a chirp escapes him.

Like a bird trapped in a cage. Like a lost child calling for help.

Disgust wells up in his chest and he sits up, and almost immediately regrets it when something like nausea washes through him. He'd only held the star for a couple of hours at most, yet there hasn't been nearly enough time for his systems to recover from both that and the considerable strain of the ordeal preceding it. The cold settles over the disgust, smothering it, seeping into his limbs, and he shudders again, clutching the cape tightly around his shoulders.

No good. He's still too cold.

Another chirp rises in his throat, though this one he's able to swallow back down. He knows what he wants– who he wants. A habit of mutual comfort and cooperation couldn't be forgotten in only twelve hours, even if the situation was different now, and with a shaky exhale he forces himself to his feet. One hand holds the cape close at his throat, the other presses against the wall for balance as he slowly makes his way to the door at the side of the room.

He knows this is Sun's room; it isn't as if the Daycare has gone through any kind of massive renovations in the past six or so months, so this has to be Sun's room. However, when he pokes the flat disk of his head in past the doorframe, all he sees are two furry lumps curled up on the recharge pad. At the sound of the door the lumps sprout heads, then paws, and his exhausted mind only barely reacts in time to close the door before Sun's cats escape. He stares at the painted wood in fuzzy incomprehension, hearing a couple of plaintive mews and scratching before silence returns.

Another shudder persists as a faint shivering, and his gaze slowly drops to the floor. The cold knots in his chest and the base of his throat, emotions that he's too tired to sort through, only feeling their painful tug at his core. Sun… wasn't here?

No, no. Don't panic, think. This was Sun's home, he'd followed the Daycare Attendant back here. Sun had been here when he fell asleep, so if he wasn't in his room then…

Slowly he turns around, staring at the dark mouth of the tunnel across the room. Belatedly he realizes that it makes sense, that Sun would want to stay near the brother he hasn't seen in months, rather than sleep alone. It was a similar feeling as to why he was shuffling back the way he'd come, focused despite the haze settling over his mind and the cold wracking his body.

(Something must be malfunctioning. It wasn't normal for an animatronic to get cold, let alone feel like they were freezing. The cape helps, but only just.)

The tunnel presents its own challenge. Carefully, slowly, he manages to get down to his knees without disaster– but the tunnel itself is narrow, too narrow for his rays, and they knock against the curved ceiling painfully. Crawling without accidentally catching the cape is a challenge, too, one that he fails so that his hand catches and he overbalances, hitting the plastic with a muffled thud.

It doesn't exactly hurt; his right hand aches, of course, but it already ached. What's new is the ache in his shoulder and hip, and he lays where he is for several minutes, venting hard, trying to fight back the exhaustion that drags at him to just go back to sleep where he is no matter how cold and alone he might be.

"Eclipse?"

It takes him another handful of seconds to realize someone has spoken, voice suitability quiet for the late hour. He doesn't recognize it exactly, but it's proof that there's someone at the other end of the tunnel, and that's all the encouragement he needs to scramble onward, until he emerges in Moon's room.

It's even darker in here than the main room, given the lack of any windows or doors, though the walls are covered in fake stars. The converted arcade cabinet is on, and its screen adds a little light. While he sits on the floor collecting his bearings, the same quiet voice speaks up, and this time he recognizes it.

"Oh, good. For a moment we thought you had passed out," says the Computer.

He huffs quietly, drawing his cape a little tighter around his shaking shoulders. His vocalizer feels raw somehow, and it's a struggle to keep his voice between a whisper and inaudible. "Not… yet. Though the tunnel has.. never been that tempting.. before."

The Computer’s screen flickers briefly. "Why are you awake?"

"Something's malfunctioning, temperature regulation is off… don't think it's serious. Maybe." He brings a hand up to cover his face. "Just… don't want to be alone.. right now."

"...understood." His head feels like it's full of mush, but the Computer almost sounds nice. Maybe he's in worse shape than he thinks if Moon’s Computer is pitying him. "We'll run a scan while you're asleep."

"Thank you." And he means it.

It's a small mercy that Moon's bed is more of a nest of pillows on the floor rather than anything he'd have to stand up to get onto. As expected both Daycare animatronics are curled up together, colors faded by darkness so that the only way to really tell them apart was Sun's rays and Moon’s hat, and he spends a long moment just staring at them. Something pricks at him under the cold, a different kind of pain settling in his core.

He doesn't belong here. Not in this room, not in the Daycare, not in the Pizzaplex. Hell, considering he's a backup, he doesn't even really belong in this world anymore. He doesn't regret giving up the star, exactly, but the uncertainty of what he's supposed to do with himself is just as agonizing now as it was earlier.

A soft sound catches his attention, movement and bells. One of the disk-shaped heads rises out of the pillows, rays drooping with exhaustion as Sun peers around for the source of the voices. Shivering at the mouth of the tunnel with his cape around his shoulders, he's impossible to miss even in the near-darkness.

"Clip?" Sun's voice is as rough as his own. After a moment or two the Daycare Attendant holds out a hand, offering. Inviting. "C'mere."

It's a little embarrassing to literally crawl over to his counterpart but he's too tired to care. All he seeks is the warmth the other brings, the contact and comfort of not being alone. Sun turns so that he's on his back and able to hold both Moon and his counterpart close, and in the darkness Moon doesn't look as much like Killcode, so it's easier to wrap his arms around the other, burying his face in Sun’s neck.

"Feel better?" asks the quiet warble from near his head, and in response he just nods and offers a soft chirp. He's finally warm again.

Though, after a moment of thought he shifts a little, letting go long enough to grab the edge of his cape and try to drape it over the three of them. It… seemed right to share, even if Moon probably wasn't getting more than a corner.

Maybe he doesn't belong here, but there's a space carved out for him anyway.

Sleep claims him again soon after.

#fanfiction #the sun and moon show #five nights at freddys #fnaf #there's a half a story built around this universe but atm im clearly just using it as a place to get Sun and Eclipse to cuddle #Sun & Eclipse #fucking fight me #I NEED them to go through the long difficult process of building a workable relationship and becoming friends #fanfic

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