mxystarry

[mxystarry]

i dont think i should bring the thing how garmadon checked the all questions in that disney princess assesment but nvm

[mxystarry]

Spooky

Wyldfyre wakes up for no reason. 

Heatwave is still healing. His breathing is less strained than before, and his wound is looking much better after Kai’s stupid, begrudgingly-cool rock trick. 

Speaking of Kai, he’s awake, sitting, watching the dragon core glow. It illuminates his face in the dark like a fire, but without the cool flickering. It’s steady and uncomfortable, artificial, not a natural living, breathing thing like fire is. 

“Kai?” She rubs her eyes with her wrist until she sees sparks and colours behind her eyes and then squints when he doesn’t respond. It’s weird that he’s awake. Weirder still that he didn’t respond to her. Maybe she missed it. 

”Kai?” she tries again.

When he doesn’t respond the second time either. She feels a bit grouchy. Offended. Annoyed. She knows he’s awake, she can see the light from the dragon cores reflecting off the eye, almost white. She stands, giving him the courtesy of grunting and grumbling so he knows she’s awake and annoyed. She gives heatwave a pat and he responds with a low grumbling of acknowledgement back. At least someone isn’t ignoring her. 

“Kai.” She says. Nothing still. So she speaks louder and with more growl. “Hey. Kai—“ 

It happens so fast she doesn’t see it.

One second he’s looking at the dragon core and the next his head has snapped to look at her, but it’s not Kai; His eyes are white. 

His name catches in her throat. They’re empty. They’re too-wide. There’s no hint of pupils or anything else. There was no hint of feeling or a dragon—person. The hairs on the back of her arms, her back, her neck all stand on end. 

Then he blinks, and it’s gone. 

“Sorry,” says just Kai.” Were you saying something?” 

Wyldfyre doesn’t know when her arms came up, posed, ready to fight. 

Wylfyre was very awake now. 

“Wyldfyre?” 

“You were just…” She hears herself. Unsure, feeble. Very not-dragon. Kai’s looking at her. He looks like Kai. His eyes are brown with that warmth she’s gotten so used to seeing coming from them. He looks stupid. His hair is fluffy and soft. He looks soft. There’s no sign of what she had been so sure had been staring at her a moment before. It was so brief she couldn’t even be sure she had seen it. 

“Nevermind.” Wyldfyre forces her hands down and clenches them at her side. “I’m probably just sleepy,” is what she tells him, to make sure he knows she’s still more dragon-ish than him. “Why are you awake like a weirdo?” 

“Oh, hah,” Kai says. “Just thinking.” 

She’s squinting at him. “You do that?”

When Kai smiles. And it’s annoying, warm and soft. “Sometimes.” 

“Gross,” she says, crossing her arms. 

“It’s quiet here,” Kai says. It’s out-of-pocket. It’s not really relevant. When he says it, he sounds different.

”Whatever,” Wyldfyre says, turning away. “I’m going back to sleep.” 

“Okay,” Kai says to her back as she goes. “G’night.” 

Heatwave rumbles as Wyldfyre crawls under his arm. She pretends to get comfy and risks a glance back. 

Kai’s back to staring at the dragon core. His hair is over his eyes, blocking them from her view. But Wyldfyre thinks she still sees white between the strands.

[mxystarry]

Little Vinny 😭

which one is better, bald or hairy? 🤔

[mxystarry]

please witness its power

[mxystarry]

all important names & mentions of them in TMA

NAMES (alphabetical order)

agnes montague: mag 8, mag 59, mag 67, mag 89, mag 139, mag 145, mag 161

antonio blake/oliver banks: mag 11, mag 32, mag 42, mag 121, mag 168

angela: mag 14, mag 199

arthur nolan: mag 32, mag 55, mag 67, mag 139, mag 145, mag 169, mag 171

anatomy class: mag 34, mag 107, mag 109

annabelle cane: mag 69, mag 123, mag 136, mag 146, mag 147, mag 148, mag 155, mag 158, mag 164, mag 166, mag 167, mag 172, mag 180, mag 181, mag 194, mag 195, mag 196, mag 197, mag 198, mag 199

adelard dekker: mag 77, mag 78, mag 113, mag 126, mag 130, mag 134, mag 137, mag 149, mag 154, mag 156, mag 157, mag 159, mag 167

breekon & hope: mag 2, mag 20, mag 35, mag 37, mag 44, mag 54, mag 61, mag 78, mag 83, mag 93, mag 96, mag 99, mag 101, mag 119, mag 128, mag 180

basira hussain: mag 43, mag 50, mag 72, mag 73, mag 88, mag 92… so on

callum brodie: mag 73, mag 143, mag 173

daniel rawlings: mag 1, mag 54, mag 119

diego molina: mag 12, mag 43, mag 67, mag 139, mag 145

daisy: mag 43, mag 60, mag 91… so on

denniken: mag 24, mag 44

edwin burroughs: mag 8, mag 19, mag 20

eric delano: mag 85, mag 111, mag 137, mag 154, mag 158, mag 167

emma harvey: mag 154, mag 167

gerard keay: mag 4, mag 12, mag 35, mag 48, mag 60, mag 101, mag 102, mag 104, mag 107, mag 109, mag 111, mag 137, mag 154

georgie barker: mag 28, mag 63, mag 94, mag 121, mag 145, mag 149, mag 157… so on

gregor orsinov: mag 24, mag 44, mag 97

helen richardson: mag 47, mag 101, mag 115, mag 131, mag 143, mag 146, mag 157, mag 158, mag 164, mag 165, mag 174, mag 177, mag 183, mag 187, mag 188, mag 195, mag 199

jurgen leitner: mag 4, mag 17, mag 35, mag 46, mag 70, mag 80, mag 92, mag 111, mag 115, mag 158, mag 161, mag 165, mag 167

jane prentiss: mag 6, mag 22, mag 31, mag 32, mag 37, mag 39, mag 40, mag 41, mag 55, mag 152, mag 181, mag 186

julia montauk: mag 9, mag 36, mag 107, mag 109, mag 111, mag 143, mag 153, mag 158, mag 176, mag 177

jared hopworth: mag 17, mag 49, mag 90, mag 131, mag 160, mag 171

john amherst: mag 35, mag 55, mag 68, mag 157, mag 184

jack barnabas my beloved: mag 67, mag 89, mag 139 

jude perry: mag 67, mag 87, mag 88, mag 89, mag 139, mag 160, mag 169, mag 171

joseph grimaldi: mag 104, mag 119

lukas family: mag 13, mag 17, mag 33, mag 57, mag 66, mag 92, mag 100, mag 101, mag 108, mag 111, mag 120, mag 122, mag 123, mag 126, mag 134, mag 138, mag 139, mag 142, mag 144, mag 151, mag 154, mag 155, mag 156, mag 157, mag 158, mag 159, mag 160, mag 165, mag 174, mag 175, mag 185, mag 192

mary keay: mag 4, mag 62, mag 111, mag 137, mag 154, mag 167

michael crew: mag 4, mag 17, mag 46, mag 75, mag 91, mag 160

maxwell rayner: mag 7, mag 9, mag 52, mag 72, mag 98, mag 135, mag 140, mag 143, mag 158, mag 159, mag 160

mikaele salesa: mag 14, mag 38, mag 45, mag 66, mag 115, mag 141, mag 159, mag 167, mag 180, mag 181, mag 195, mag 196

michael: mag 26, mag 41, mag 47, mag 48, mag 74, mag 78, mag 79, mag 99, mag 101, mag 146, mag 154, mag 167, mag 187, mag 188, mag 198

melanie king: mag 28, mag 63, mag 76, mag 84, mag 85, mag 86, mag 88, and many many times after that

manuela dominguez: mag 57, mag 105, mag 135, mag 143, mag 152

natalie ennis: mag 25, mag 73, mag 108, mag 143

nikola orsinov: mag 83, mag 87, mag 89, mag 97, mag 101, mag 118, mag 119, mag 128, mag 165

neil lagorio: mag 110, mag 136

raymond fielding: mag 8, mag 59, mag 139, mag 196

robert montauk: mag 9, mag 52, mag 107, mag 109, mag 143

robert smirke: mag 26, mag 35, mag 50, mag 63, mag 80, mag 104, mag 111, mag 137, mag 160, mag 183, mag 195

sarah baldwin: mag 1, mag 28, mag 96, mag 119 

simon fairchild: mag 21, mag 51, mag 57, mag 106, mag 111, mag 124, mag 151, mag 159, mag 174, mag 175, mag 200

sarah carpenter: mag 27, mag 167

sebastian skinner: mag 87

timothy hodge: mag 6, mag 26

trevor herbert: mag 10, mag 36, mag 56, mag 107, mag 109, mag 111, mag 153, mag 158, mag 176, mag 177

toby carlisle: mag 18, mag 130

tom haan: mag 30, mag 72, mag 130

[mxystarry]

favorite picture to ever exist

[mxystarry]

finally reading the fma manga and ed is the protagonist of all time. he’s the softest lil guy. he’s a rabid raccoon. he is the scourge of the military. everyone wants to adopt him. he’s a pacifist. he bites. he gets giddily happy at the birth of a child. his speech is punctuated with sarcastic hearts. he’s a generational talent. he will walk directly into a trap eyes open head empty. he is a foul mouthed little rat. he makes friends everywhere he goes. he’ll dig up any grave and turn over any stone and kick anyone’s ass to get his brother back. he refuses to believe his brother cares about him the same way. he makes this face:

[mxystarry]

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.

[mxystarry]

I've seen people's headcanon that Joxter was a bad father for “abandoning” Snufkin, but I think it's too often forgotten that Joxter and Snufkin aren't human. Joxter is a mumurik and Snufkin is half mumrik and half mymble.

I think mumriks are a species that behave a bit like birds or other animals who look after their children until they're able to live on their own, then leave to let their children live their own lives.

It's a species that prefers to live alone. So I think Snufkin understands 100% why his father left, and he doesn't blame him at all.

[mxystarry]

monstrosity did good and enough for a plot twist i guess but naww kai is now that moth for me

[mxystarry]

“If you think sparing children is weak, then you have no idea what real strength is.”

Because the first time Kai ever learnt what true strength was, was through protecting a child.

The first time he ever found himself, was through protecting Lloyd as a child.

To spare a child more suffering is something I think Kai understands far more than anyone else.

[mxystarry]

Currently holding space for that one face Cole did in the older seasons whenever he’s surprised

Like, man what a cutie, so very confused. Absolutely shooketh.

[mxystarry]

well this was not a coincidence that i saw her in my dream especially 😔😔😔

[mxystarry]

i wanna get out there but i don't try

[mxystarry]

oh fucc...

[mxystarry]

Oh yeah baby, animations.

The idea of Harry being like “Kim look at this” and never showing it to him is so funny to me idk why

[mxystarry]

Garmadon with his pj's,, I love his pink pj's 🥹🩷