mtzwrites

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some pages from R.F. Fox’s classic children’s novel, Deltarune. I remember being so scared of Susie when I was little

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Immportality must be tiring huh?

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MY OVARIES!!!!!!

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Shout-out to the 0.5 seconds where Ralsei makes direct eye contact with you as if to ask "are you possessing Susie too??"

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They/them pussy

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One thing I find unexpectedly fascinating about Monstrosity is that when you think about it, it'd really only work with Kai as the protagonist. And I don't just mean that because Rusty could only be awakened by a fire elemental, and without Rusty Kai would've died at the spooky death-siren lake - although that's definitely a part of the equation. What I mean is that Kai's specific personality was vital to not only his survival, but also to the retention of his humanity, and that likely wouldn't have been possible if almost any other character was swapped into his position.

Let me elaborate.

Although it's certainly true that not all timeskip scenarios were created equal, and that the Merge treated some people better than others (cough cough Cole), it's also worth noting that each character's experiences are heavily defined by their own unique personalities, strengths, and flaws. If you shuffled everyone around into different post-Merge outcomes, you'd have a vastly different story.

For example, Cole absolutely flourished in the Land of Lost Things, but not everyone would - Pixal in particular would really struggle there. She's normally someone who is always on her A-game so long as she has a goal to accomplish and a clear path towards doing so, and it's rare for her to face a lot of internal conflict over her motivations/ideals. But if you put her in a situation where she has to choose between leaving the Finders to reunite with her friends, or forsaking her friends to protect the Finders...I think that no matter which option she chose, she'd be deeply troubled by it, and would not cope with that conflict of interest nearly as well as Cole has.

Whereas Lloyd, if you placed him in the stasis pod instead of Pixal, would suffer just as greatly. As much as he struggled emotionally in his years of isolation in the monastery, I think it'd almost fuck him up even more to find out he slept through the Merge entirely - and has (in his eyes) failed to keep his team safe and intact. That they've had to fend for themselves without him around to do his job as the leader.

And so on and so forth. You get the general idea. (Honestly, it's kind of a fun thought exercise to explore how everyone would cope if they all got switched around into different scenarios. You should definitely try it!)

Of course, Monstrosity in particular is a fascinating case study of this. If you put any other ninja in this story, you'd get a drastically different one - and in a lot of fundamental ways, it just straight-up wouldn't work.

See, the core theme of the miniseries is about balancing ruthlessness and mercy, knowing when to fight and when to show compassion, and how to fight monsters without becoming a monster yourself. And honestly? Kai is arguably the only person on the team who could effectively navigate that balancing act.

On the one hand you have characters like Pixal, Nya, and Jay - characters who would most likely fall too far onto the ruthlessness side of things and lose themselves.

Pixal is a very determined person - as mentioned above, so long as she has a goal and an action plan, she isn't prone to giving up or losing hope. She will keep trudging along her chosen path until it is accomplished, never stopping to let anything slow her down. Sure, she'd definitely be haunted by her choices after the fact, but in the moment I don't think she'd ever let herself slow down long enough to introspect in that way. She's too busy getting back to her family to think deeply about the moral implications of her actions, or to reflect on who/what she's becoming. She'd definitely be haunted by her choices, sure, but that's not to imply she would ever meaningfully deconstruct or process those feelings at all. She is, of course, an alumni at the Zane Julien School of Processing Trauma.

Nya is similar to Pixal in a lot of ways, but she's also naturally a very ruthless person with a teensy bit of bloodlust to her (affectionate). She also has at least one canon instance of sacrificing her humanity to save her family. This isn't new to her. Daidan would tell her that she can't survive in a land of monsters without becoming a monster herself and she'd go "bet", then proceed to beat the shit out of anything that looks at her wrong. Not to mention that the weird death-siren lake would probably fuck her up in a lot of really complicated Seabound-related ways that I don't think she'll ever be ready or willing to unpack.

My placement of Jay on this side of the spectrum may face some scrutiny, but hear me out first. Although Jay acts very lighthearted and goofy in front of others, it's canon that this persona is a facade he wears to save face and hide how anxious he really feels. On some level, I would argue that Jay subconsciously self-sabotages whenever he's fighting in a group, deferring to the strength of others out of insecurity/codependency rather than trusting his own skill. But when he's on his own and has no audience left to perform for, we see Jay's full potential shine through - we see him be strong, and clever, and even a leader. And on rare occasions, usually when Nya or someone he loves is in danger, he can even be brutal. Jay would absolutely have an awful time in Monstrosity, don't get me wrong - but he'd also exhibit a level of competence and efficiency only ever seen during elimination seasons. And that same efficiency would be his downfall. Jay loves his family, he loves Nya, and he also really hates dying. I don't have a doubt in my mind that he would do whatever it takes to make it back to Nya, even if he's miserable the whole time.

Of course, that's not to say that the rest of the team has it any better. Just because Cole, Zane, and Lloyd tilt pretty far onto the "mercy" side of the spectrum, doesn't mean that's necessarily a good thing in this situation.

Cole is extremely community-oriented, and he is constantly making friends and forming meaningful connections everywhere he goes. With Chen's other prisoners, with Yang, with that not-so-random baby he found, with Krag, with the Upply, and now with the Finders. If Cole cannot find a community, he will create it. On the rare occasions that he is alone, it is usually a dire situation involving extremely poor mental health. When his isolation is self-inflicted, it's usually out of grief. And when circumstances forcibly isolate him....well, go rewatch DotD and MotO, and watch how Cole handles just a few hours of forced isolation from his family. I can't imagine he'd handle several weeks alone in the Land of Monsters without becoming completely unglued. Cole's biggest strength is his social sturdiness - not just as the rock his team relies on, but as the foundation upon which everyone he meets can cultivate a sense of community. But in isolation that strength becomes a double-edged sword, and I believe the brutal emptiness of the Land of Monsters would leave him in an even worse emotional state than Kai.

Zane is no stranger to being stranded in foreign realms, armed with nothing but the singular objective to return home. But I think he would be so paranoid about falling into old routines that he would overcompensate too far in the other direction, rendering him too soft to make it through the Land of Monsters in one piece. That's not to imply he was going to make it out in one piece to begin with, of course. This is Zane we're talking about. I'd be surprised if he goes three days without dying horribly in some way or another. Whether it's out of self-sacrifice or because he pulled punches where he shouldn't have and paid the price, that man is not lasting more than a week.

Lloyd...honestly, he's arguably the closest anyone gets to matching Kai's balance on this issue. The case could certainly be made that Lloyd would effectively replace Kai in Monstrosity...but idk, I personally don't buy it. If you ask me, I think he veers a bit too much into the "too afraid of being like his dad to let himself become a monster" spectrum. This would go one of two ways: 1) he goes the way of Zane and/or Cole, and over-softens himself out of paranoia; 2) he initially tries to over-soften himself, but everything gets to him until he eventually snaps and goes full Oni Mode. Personally, I've got my money on option 2.

The takeaway here isn't that any member of the team is inherently better or worse than the others, just that they all have particular strengths and weaknesses that serve them well in their given scenarios. But those scenarios would only work with them as the main character, and nowhere is that more apparent than with Monstrosity. Zane could never withstand Lloyd's years of isolation in the monastery, just like Jay would become an anxious mess if he had to be responsible for the Kragglings' civil war, just like Kai would absolutely have the worst time if he got stuck in the Administration, just like Nya would go stir-crazy in the Land of Lost Things.

Monstrosity is fundamentally a Kai storyline, down to its DNA. And I think that's part of why he comes across as so beautifully written in this miniseries. There is no aspect of it that you can separate from Kai without changing the fundamental core of the story itself. He's the only one on the team who could do something like this. The only one who could survive in the Land of Monsters without either dying horribly or losing himself along the way.

And idk, I just think that's neat.

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Lloyd braiding Soras hair

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Garmy in his jammies 🩷

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If the ninja ever rememeber season 6 i think Zane deserves one free swing on Ronin

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various wolfcat sketches.

The 2nd and 3rd are from some sort of high school au type thing, kinda akin to if Sora stayed in Imperium. But not really. Idk. I just find Jordana's outfit hard to draw </3

Bonus

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Impressed for a whole two seconds

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Our role models looked a lot different when we were kids

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EPIC the Musical Gods and Goddess Designs

(Will it be too late to make animatics or-)

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