#how lloyd was able to grow up with support all around him in spite of the struggles he faced

[thepeanutbutterwizard]

Ninjago/Avatar au Pt6

The second half of Book 2 (hopefully)

(Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5)

So Garm finally reads the letter from Wu. It starts off as a normal pseudo-journal entry, but after it mentions finding the Garms old armor, but no body, it turns into more of a normal letter. Wu says that he’s missed his brother since he was banished, and that he hopes that they’ll be able to see eachother again soon if Garm is alive, and ends with Wu saying that he normally burns the letters he writes to Garm, so that no-one else finds them, but that he feels hopeful that this one could actually get to him. It’s touching stuff.

Lloyd picks up earthbending almost immediately, unlike Aang. The element Lloyd is going to struggle to learn is fire (if you don’t count his airbending being self-taught. He picked up airbending really, really fast, but bc he’s been making stuff up and trying to do what Maya did with her waterbending [Maya’s had decades to hone her style tho, not just three-ish years, but he’s like someone learning ballet only from YouTube, for only a couple of months] since there are no more airbenders [or so they think, bc none of them saw Morro airbend at the North Pole]), and I’ll get into why that is when it comes up. They haven’t had Garm start to teach Lloyd any firebending bc they’re trying to go in the order as much as they can, but Garm has finally convinced Kai to learn more than just the basics, and he picks it up really quickly.

Meanwhile, Morro is taking care of an injured Wu (and accidentally making him suffer through poorly-made tea). Now, Morro is onboard with Wu wanting to leave the Fire Nation behind; unlike Zuko, Morro isn’t trying to win back the favor of some distant parent, the only family he’s ever known is Wu, and he’s not about to abandon Wu for a bunch of people who would probably kill him as soon as they could no matter what he did for them, and Harumi made it clear that no-one in the Fire Nation is going to be extending them any mercy.

Once Wu wakes up, Morro does yell at him for doing something as stupid as taking a hit from a well-trained firebender to protect a stranger (Wu hadn’t gotten around to telling Morro ‘hey, you know that guy with the big burn scar who’s traveling with the Avatar? That’s my dead-but-not-really-dead older brother. Pls stop trying to stab him’, and Morro wasn’t there when Garm revealed his identity in the North Pole), until Wu tells him that Garm is his brother. This leads to Morro yelling out ‘You mean to tell me that the Avatar is my cousin?!?!’ And that how Wu learns that Lloyd is Garms son (’wait, what?’ ‘Have you really gone this long without noticing that the Avatar calls your brother his dad?’ ‘I’ve had a lot on my mind, give me a break!’), and now he thinks that Garm and Maya are married with three kids, one of whom is the Avatar.

They make their way to Ba Sing Se, with the help of the White Lotus. Wu isn’t the leader of them (he isn’t super old in this au, imagine what he looked like in S9, with the mustache), but he is a fairly respected member. I still haven’t come up with a Jet character who would work, and I am open to suggestions. If I do find a good character, they will definitely throw hands with Morro (mb Shade? Just cut out the romance subplot in S1 and pick a couple of EM’s to be the other freedom fighters?). And yes, Wu does get his tea shop in the upper ring (Steep Wisdom), and Morro tries to be happy and supportive, but even though he is fine leaving the Fire Nation with Wu, it does still feel like he wasted years of his life, both in chasing the Avatar and just trying to prove himself to everyone back in the Palace, so he’s pretty grumpy.

Now back to Team Avatar: at Maya and Garms insistence the kids have been picking out their little mini-vacations. They know that they only have a limited amount of time before the comet arrives, but Garm and Maya want these kids to be able to be, y’know, kids, at least a little bit, in spite of the fact that they’re growing up in a war-torn world. Kai want’s to check out that glacier-spring place by the desert, it’s kinda underwhelming, but they get fruity drinks out of it. This whole time Kai and Cole have been getting closer to each other. Kai feels a little guilty, like he’s betraying Zane’s memory, but talking to Maya and Garm about it does help him start to feel better, and it helps his over-protectiveness start to abate a little.

Jay wants to pick a really cool mini-vacation to impress Nya, and he asks the people who are in the glacier place if there’s any place around those parts, and ends up learning that about a year ago some lady showed up saying something about a huge spirit library in the desert that she was looking for. They never saw her again after that, and figure that she must have died out in the desert. When pressed (and payed) one of the artistically inclined staff members roughly recreated the sketch of the library, and vaguely remembered the area on the map she said she was going to search, and with that Jay has his mini-vacation picked out.

They set off and find the library. Cole chooses to stay outside with Ultra (who can’t fit inside) bc he thinks they’ll be safer if the only earthbender stays outside incase something goes wrong, and if they need to get out of there fast he’d only slow them down with his legs. Everybody else heads into the library and meet Wan Chi Tong (did I spell that right? I’m too lazy to check), who agrees to let them use the library if they 1) don’t intend to use the contents of the library against anyone else and 2) contribute something to his library.

Lloyd and Nya both use their wanted posters (they both thought they were awesome [Lloyd bc he’s 13 and Nya bc you can’t convince me that Nya wouldn’t be thrilled to have a wanted poster bc she’s been fucking with a tyrannical regime] and incredibly accurate considering the art had to have been done by someone using other people’s descriptions, and they totally intend on framing and hanging at least a few of their posters up in their rooms when all this is over), Kai has a copy of a poem that Zane wrote for him, Garm has his brothers letter (he doesn’t want to give it up, but he has nothing else), Jay has a blueprint from one of his inventions, and Maya has a copy of a story in a series that Koko had brought back to the South Pole over the years. Wan Chi Tong comments that about a year ago a researcher had arrived and had offered him another part of the the same series. He mentions that they should be careful, as she never left, and has been primarily researching the Avatar.

Everyone has an idea of who this mysterious researcher could be (except Jay), but they decide to be cautious all the same, just incase she isn’t who they think she is. They all start discreetly searching for anything that could be used to help them fight the Fire Nation, and they end up finding and empty placard saying something about ‘the Darkest Day in Fire Nation History’, but when they go to check part of the section on Fire Nation (that library was enormous, y’all cannot tell me that Zhao was able to destroy absolutely everything that the library had on the Fire Nation. It could only have been the last few decades/mb centuries of Fire Nation history), as well as a campsite that was full of scrolls having to do with the Avatar and different bending techniques (and a few misc scrolls about random things like cooking, engineering, etc). As they’re poking around the campsite, who else comes around the corner but Koko!

She has her nose buried in a scroll as she’s walking, so she doesn’t notice them all until Lloyd happily calls out ‘Mom!’, and goes in for a hug. Koko drops the scroll and has a happy reunion with her son and husband, as well as with Maya, Kai, and Nya, and she and Jay are introduced to each other. Koko explains that she’s been able to stay in the library so long was bc she managed to get the fox assistants to like her enough to start bringing her food and water. She also explains that she’s been doing nonstop research into the Avatar State, the Air Nomads and airbending, and the Fire Nation (though she’s really quiet about that part so they don’t catch Wan Chi Tongs attention and ire) and shows them that planetarium thing and that she discovered the eclipse. (How did she make it out to the library without a flying companion or something? SHe’s just that much of a badass.)

Koko had been saving up supplies and charting a course out of the desert, and planning to leave the library as soon as she could, but now that they’ve showed up with Ultra she can just grab her things and go. Someone, probably Jay, gets a little too vocal about how they have a chance to beat the Fire Nation, and cue Wan Chi Tong sinking the library and trying to add them to his ‘collection of specimen’. Garm and Koko are a dynamic duo, with Garm distraction the angry spirit while Koko gathers all of her scrolls and supplies together while Maya gets the kids to the exit.

Meanwhile, Cole is holding up the library, and trying to help Ultra fend off the sandbenders that showed up to capture and sell the dragon. Cole is able to put up a bit more of a fight than Toph was (meaning that he was able to get one or two good hits in) bc being in the desert doesn’t impair his vision (the sand does tank his mobility just as much as it would anyone with prosthetic legs tho), but he isn’t able to stop them or even hold them off long enough for everyone else to get out. Cole, despite being initially afraid of the large dragon, had quickly grown to be one of Ultras favorite people in their group (like, third favorite. Kai will never admit that he’s jealous), and is pretty upset that he wasn’t able to save him. More on Ultra later.

So Lloyd is really upset about losing his companion, just as much as Aang was. He doesn’t act out (for lack of a better word) as intensely as Aang, since Ultra wasn’t the last thing he had left of his people like Appa was for Aang, but Lloyd is still rightfully pissed off. He takes off shakily on his glider, leaving everyone behind before trying to search for Ultra and the sandbenders, ignoring his families protests. Koko starts working on getting them out of the desert using the route she had plotted out (using the sun and shadows to orient them and get started in the right direction), and starts planing out how long her food and water (she had the good sense to bring those from the library) will last between all of them. The answer is: not long enough.

Kai (and mb Jay too) is the one who has the bright idea to drink the cactus juice, bc while Kai, like Sokka, (and Jay tbh) is smart enough to know that drinking a strange liquid out of an unfamiliar plant is a bad idea,but the fact that it is a stupid idea doesn’t stop him. Wait, y’know what? Jay definitely tries the cactus juice, but instead of acting as out-of-it and inebriated as Kai does, he acts like he does in S9, weirdly chill and disconnected from reality. He’s still tripping balls, but he’s reacting to it differently from Kai. Cole just ends up carrying Kai piggy-back, even though the sand makes it harder for him to move (he’s crushing, and he’s the only one [adults included] whose physically strong enough to carry him for long periods of time) (also Kai awkwardly and drunkenly flirts with him. Everyone pretends not to notice for Coles sake) and everyone else takes turns holding onto Jays wrist and leading him through the desert or else he would have wandered off and died.

Lloyd gets back to them, landing hard in the sand, holding back tears bc even though he’s upset and could use a good cry he knows that they need to conserve as much water as they can. He’s got his family there to comfort him (even if Kai and Jay are kinda incapacitated atm), which does help him a bit, but he’s still rightfully upset. They find the abandoned sandbender skipper thing, find the vulturewasp hive, and come across the sandbenders. Cole is able to pinpoint the sandbender (no idea who this guy would be, Ninjago character wise) who lead the others to take Ultra via his voice bc Cole a) was trained in a myriad of performing arts thanks to his father, primarily singing b) has perfect pitch and c) never forgets a voice bc of that.

Lloyd goes full Avatar State, but is comforted and calmed down by his parents while everyone else books it. The sandbenders tell them that they sold Ultra to some guys who were going to take him to Ba Sing Se, and then they take them out of the desert (with the sandbenders getting the Death Glare from all of Team Avatar the whole way. Koko totally punches the sandbender who lead the others to steal Ultra once they’re out of the desert.)

They make their way to Ba Sing Se on foot, with Lloyd trying to get a handle on his emotions (and worrying everyone in the process), and they run into a family with an expecting mother/wife (I am also taking suggestions for who these characters could be. I’m pretty tired while typing this so I can’t think of anyone) and try and get on a ferry to Ba Sing Se. Cole, whose father is well known and wealthy, uses that fact, his double amputee status (he ‘accidentally’ slips out of one of his prosthetics. Kai catches him before he hits the ground), and his acting skills to get them tickets without passports.

And we get best girl Pixal back! She helps Team Avatar help the pregnant family go through the Serpents Pass, and it goes pretty similar to cannon, except instead of a situation where Sokka is overprotective of Suki, Jay picks up on how much Pixal likes Nya, and sees that Nya, his crush, reciprocates those feelings, and gets a bit passive-aggressive w/everyone, but Pixal especially. It doesn’t last long, bc Jay is a hormonal teenager who realizes he’s being a dick fairly quickly, but it does help fizzle his crush on Nya a bit (sorry again to any hardcore Jaya shippers who were hoping for that in this au, but it’s really not my cup of tea).

They also help deliver the couples baby, but Maya and Koko are the ones helping take care of that. Team Avatar get to the outer wall, just to see a huge Fire Nation drill heading closer and closer to the wall, ready to start tearing through it...

[celticnoise]

This was not a vintage week for many in the Scottish media; indeed, looking back on it in years to come, there should be an element of shame to it. The press exists to educate and inform. It does not exist to disseminate PR and spin. Yet that has become its function.

The story which broke in The Times this week was a case of spin over substance if ever I’ve seen one. It is still generating heat over on the Sevco forums, in spite of being wholly discredited. This is to be expect. There are so few brain cells rattling around on most of their fan sites that, collectively, they couldn’t power a hamster’s wheel to turn. The blame doesn’t lie with the gormless fools who bought into this nonsense, it lies with the people who published it.

It’s also the fault of the media outlets which ran shrieking into the daylight with this story, claiming that it fully vindicated Rangers. There are more of them than, in future, they will admit to. So many of them wanted this to be true that they couldn’t wait to get it into print. It’s spectacular, and rapid, unravelling has forced many onto the back foot. They can deflect all they want. It would have taken no time at all to check the facts. They didn’t bother.

Other outlets were more circumspect. They actually went out and asked experts for their view, and those experts were almost unanimous in blowing the story to smithereens. The Sun’s writer tried hard to get the expert they spoke to on the record confirming some of the story, but he stuck to his guns admirably and dismissed all of it as fantasy land stuff.

Before long, most of the outlets which had initially trumpeted this tale, which had Rangers as the innocent party unfairly maligned by the taxman, were changing their tune. But the shame is theirs for ever trying to push such a demented narrative in the first place.

Rangers, the victims? In what parallel universe is that even remotely true? Even if the taxman had screwed up his initial estimate – monumentally screwed it up – the facts of what that club was up to do not change one bit.

They put tens of millions of pounds into the EBT scheme over the years … that’s a fact which no-one disputes. They did it so as to gain a football advantage. They hid documentation. They lied when challenged about this. Their behaviour was corrupt. It was fraudulent. The raw numbers are not the issue here and they never were … that club was cheating both the football authorities and the taxpayer. The idea that they were victims is offensive.

HMRC’s intervention surprised the Hell out of a lot of the press corps; they held it as an article of faith that they could get away with this nonsense because the tax man rarely comments on individual cases. But when large swathes of the media are misconstruing events – some of them very deliberately – and casting their organisation in a negative light, of course they were going to respond to set the record straight, and only absolute mugs would have thought otherwise.

Their public slap-down of the story has pretty much killed it off. But there will still be a lot of hysteria surrounding it, with people like McCoist making noise in the newspapers about how the taxman has murdered a Scottish institution, which to me is strange language when you consider that these folk have spent such a long time telling us the club isn’t actually dead.

There has been no “miscalculation” on the part of the Hector’s organisation. These people aren’t in the least bit interested in the over-emotional wailing and whining from Scotland. They deal in cold hard numbers and the risk-reward analysis of this situation was as straightforward as any they will ever do. There was no profit to arguing the points BDO made regarding the bill and the penalties; the taxpayer will not see a penny either way, and to have spent more chasing this down would have been counter to what the Revenue sees as its role.

They didn’t make a “mistake” of any sort; they simply chose not to enter into legal proceedings which would have cost time and money to no benefit at all. If you or I were in a similar position, we would make exactly the same decision. This should not be complicated for even the dumbest patron of the Ibrox crowd. But daft ideas grow like weeds over there.

As a consequence, some are finding this difficult to accept. Their paranoia and hate was stoked by this news and once off and running it is impossible to call some of these Peepul back to the land of the rational and sane, land they aren’t terribly familiar with anyway.

Take our old friend, Chris Graham, who is as howling at the moon over this as he ever was, claiming this was not a mistake but part of an agenda. These people live in perpetual terror of the Unseen Fenian Hand, crediting our club with the ability to move governments and agencies at will. That this is clearly foam-spitting lunacy hardly needs pointing out to rational people; if we were half as dangerous as they think they’d have no club to follow right now.

As I’ve said, I don’t mind them their fantasies and drifts into irrationality. If they want to buy beanstalk beans from any peddler who passes their way that’s up to them. But the media should not be in on the act. The media should be a voice of reason. Instead, many in the press corps ran with it and went hog-wild trying to present it as proof of the Grand Conspiracy.

We should not be terribly surprised. This is the media that has, for years, denied that which we all know; that Rangers died in 2012 and that the club currently playing out of Ibrox has a history that stretches back a mere seven years. The toxic lie they deny this reality with – the Survival Lie – is second only to the original Victim Lie; Scottish football could not afford to have another of their dangerous myths foisted onto it. It was important this story be killed.

There are places, of course, like the mad-hatter’s galleries of the Ibrox fan forums, where this will never really die, of course. In those places it will fester like something stinking left in a corner to rot. It has already entered the folklore, creating with it another stab-in-the-back dark fantasy to go with all the others.

Even HMRC’s statement is viewed with the suspicion of the paranoid; “If they don’t comment on individual cases, why are they doing it here?” You try not to dwell on it. If you produced the evidence that HRMC has, in fact, commented on individual cases dozens, if not hundreds, of times they would find a way to twist this in their minds.

They believe only what they want to, and truth and facts and rationality be damned. It sooths them to imagine a world where none of this had happened, where the disaster that struck them in 2012 never took place. They believe our club would be languishing in their shadows right now … but this is the biggest denial of reality of them all.

Their European knock-out that year proved how vulnerable they were. The bank which had financed them had been taken over by a less tolerant one, and part of the takeover conditions they imposed on Murray were that they would get the last of the money they were due before rubber stamping any deal. Whyte bought them for a quid, but he took that debt on and getting Lloyds out of the picture was the reason he went to Ticketus.

Lloyds wanted out. They wanted no more to do with a spendthrift club which resisted all calls for fiscal sanity. It is telling that no high street bank has gone near Ibrox since.

Rangers was finished as a major force the second the bank was gone. That’s the reality. That’s what none of their fans has ever been willing to face. The club they supported, and which they regarded as a superpower, was built on debt. It was never a sustainable operation. Their “success” was all built on sand. It was destined to come tumbling down.

Even if administration had never come, their future was living in our shadow. They’d have had to start cutting in the summer of the following year, and those cuts would have been extreme and lasting. Their ability to challenge us would have been seriously impaired at best, if not outright routed.

Their fans want to believe that the Unseen Hand did it, or HRMC did it, or Lloyds did it or Scottish football did it; the truth is, their club was on the brink since at least 2008 and the banking crisis, when Murray’s backers were no longer able, or willing, to fund the madness. I know this because I wrote my first article on their coming downfall – The End Of Rangers? – in 2009. Phil had been writing about it before that. Paul Brennan at CQN frequently blogged on the same subject. If you were clear-headed and looked at the landscape you could see it coming.

None of us knew, then, about EBT’s. All we knew is that Murray had been over indulged by the bank and that the bank was no longer in a position to prop him up. His empire was crumbling and it was obvious that any further spending at Ibrox would entail enormous risks. The appetite for such risks was no longer to be found on the Square Mile.

It is not difficult to see the same fate befalling Sevco.

Their club is built on exactly the same unstable foundations. They are not long for this world unless those in charge put the brakes on quick. One year without European Group Stage football will be catastrophic. Administration would be a certainty. There are no guarantees that they’d emerge from it; indeed, I reckon the odds are probably against it, faced, as they are, with Ashley’s demands and other issues.

This has been a dismal week for those of us who want to see integrity in Scottish journalism, and yet it has not been without hope. This story was fed to a newspaper for a reason, and far from providing the distraction someone had hoped, it has everyone asking the same question; “why now?” What is in the air over there that they would promote this?

Everyone’s now waiting for the other shoe to drop. Everyone’s waiting for the hard rain to start to fall. We know something big lies behind this story … it’s a matter of being patient now as the dominos start to tumble. All eyes on the big picture, folks. All eyes on Ibrox for the next chapter in the Banter Years.

As Warren Zevon one wrote, “Just when I thought it was safe to be bored … trouble waiting to happen.”

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