#this post feels short but after I wrote out the entire lore of bionicle in a tumblr post nothing I make feels long anymore

[haroldosaur]

Characters, body language, and (maybe) my favourite scene in the Halo series

hi everyone I’m back on my bullshit and infodumping about Halo again!! (Well, I say “again”. This may be the first time I’ve posted something like this to tumblr. In which case, ignore the ‘again’ part lmao)

So! Uuuuh there’s this scene in Halo 3 where Master Chief (you) rescues Cortana (your AI companion) from this hellhole-type location. You got separated at the end of the last game, and you’ve spend most of this game apart (and also you just fought through the hardest level in the dang game to get to her)

And yeah, it’s a bit goofy out of motion - green tin man rescues his vocaloid waifu, more at 11 - but bare with me here

There’s something real soft to me about the way Chief, who by this point is a legendary hero who’s saved the human race multiple times, gets down on his knees to get closer to Cortana and be more on her level. Considering the context (she’s been trapped here for a while, and the implications are that she’s had a REAL bad time of it), it’s this incredibly tender gesture from a guy who mostly just spends his days turning aliens into a fine pink mist.

The dialogue is really slick too - the talk of promises is a callback to what they say to each other at the of the previous game, when they get separated. Chief says something to the effect of “I’ll come back for you” to Cortana, and Cortana responds with: “Don’t make a girl a promise if you know you can’t keep it.” In the Halo 3 scene, Chief is almost bragging that he’s right - but it’s in a soft and vindicating way, countering Cortana’s despair that there may not be enough of her left to rescue. Like, “I’m here. You can trust me. You can rely on me. I said, didn’t I?”

And then, when Cortana hears his voice

she literally lights up

[not pictured: me, crying]

There are more callbacks in Cortana’s dialogue here - in a flashback/monologue at the start of the game, it’s revealed that she picked Chief as a partner because he was ‘lucky’ (”You had something no-one else had... luck”).

Chief then replies with his own callback to that opening monologue - a one-two punch in the feels that demonstrates how in snyc they are with each other.

(Also! The way he kinda dips his head and moves towards her as he says it? It creates that sense of when you’re focusing in on someone because they have your full attention. You know what I mean?)

There’s also the fact that when Cortana stands back up, Chief doesn’t immediately do the same; instead, there’s this brief moment where he just remains kneeling.

I wouldn’t say he’s in awe, or subservient, or anything, but it’s such a deep sign of respect - especially considering (and I’m reiterating here) that the Master Chief is essentially a god amongst men who blows shit up and kills aliens by the thousand and is the big saviour of the galaxy.

Then, when Cortana asks him if he has an escape plan, his response is: “Thought I’d try shooting my way out. Mix things up a little.”

Aside from being a pretty good deadpan joke from an FPS player character, it’s also?? so meaningful?? Because in Halo 1 and ESPECIALLY Halo 2 chief has this kinda underplayed, snarky sense of humour. He’s a man of few words but he DOES have words and he’s also capable of being funny every once in a while. But in Halo 3 (the game he mostly spends without Cortana, I might add), hes pretty damn deadpan, focusing on just getting the job done - and then, the second he’s back with her, he cracks a joke!!

OH, and there’s this other big where, after she gets back into his head via an AI chip, she tells him:

“Just keep your head down... there’s two of us in here now, remember?”

And that’s a callback to Halo 1, because in that game - after you get Cortana for what’s implied to be the first time, or at least the first time in a long while - pretty much the first thing she says to you after you get shot at is “Hey! Keep your head down! There’s two of us in here now!”

But when she says it in Halo 3, her voice is much softer, and it’s clear that rather than a direct statement, it’s this warm callback to their history mixed with her own relief that she’s back, she’s here again.

TLDR, I fucking love the mesh between the back-and-forth dialogue and these characters’ obvious care for one another, and the fact that he’s there to rescue her and he’s on his knees. like. it’s a wonderful little hybrid of olde-type chivalry and conventional friendship? Like the princess and the knight are also best friends?? And I just think that’s neat, and that they convey it so well in a 70-second cutscene.

[sepublic]

Does anyone ever have this happen to them, where... You start writing a fanfic based off of another series, or whatever.

But this fanfic... You end up making a bunch of OCs for it. You take a character who admittedly doesn’t have too much of a personality in the original canon content, and expand on them- Expand on them wildly, or outright reimagine them completely. And you do this to multiple other obscure characters from that series that barely anybody remembers, not even the creators and writers. 

You establish an intricate network of lore, world building, and in-universe systems. You have a deep, complex plot with plenty of character interaction and development, themes and narratives, and so forth, ALL within this one fanfic that was just meant to be a spin-off story, with enough room left so it could be hypothetically canon, or at least not contradict the current canon too much.

Eventually, what started off as this small, short little story you did for fun becomes its own thing. Its own world, with its own diverse cast of characters, factions, and so forth. There’s an intricate timeline of events, of increasing scale and relevance. One-off characters who were barely even named in the original series are suddenly reinvented into complex, fully three-dimensional people with their own backstories, motivations, and desires. They’re practically your own OCs at this point, if it weren’t for the names and appearance; And sometimes only one of the two!

You have your own fully-intricate storyline and premise laid out, with a beginning, middle, and conclusion. It’s all in place...

And then you remember this was supposed to be a one-off, spin-off fanfic that doesn’t directly contradict the canon of the series you were a fan of. At which point, seeing how other people make OCs, and considering the potential of total creative freedom...

...Why not just make it your own thing?

Sure, a few characters may have to be renamed, slightly redesigned, and so on and so forth. You’d probably have to change the lore a bit to not so blatantly mirror the original series you wrote about. But otherwise, this is basically your own original creation, right? So why not embrace the newfound independence for your WIP, let it be its own thing and establish its own name? And, since you’ve got a few other bare-bones WIPs, why not incorporate them in the new lore to fill out the gaps left by the original canon of the series you were a fan of?

That... That’s basically what’s happening with my Lloyd Montgomery Garmadon Trilogy.

For context; I like Lego Ninjago. Loved the theme growing up as a kid, and it was SUPER influential in making me the story-teller and artist I am today. It’s what initially inspired me to write, honestly, and it was by writing fanfics that I was able to complete a story of my own for the first time in my entire life! My first completed story was the first ‘installment’ in this trilogy, ~The Adventures of Lloyd Montgomery Garmadon~!

(Yeah, I was trying to be pretentious as a kid in adding those squiggles. Ordinarily I wouldn’t include them now, but they’re so nostalgic and something I’m so used to that I’ve decided to keep them in anyway. Sue me.)

And then my second completed story; The next installment of this trilogy, ~The Tales of Lloyd Montgomery Garmadon~! tToLMG is special to me in that it was supposed to be about the length of the first story... But then somewhere along the way, it became a little over 1,900 pages.

I don’t mean to brag, but at the same time... It IS something I’m proud of, and honestly, I’d say tToLMG is my Magnum Opus of sorts. It’s the story with the most time, character, emotion, planning, pain, and sweat and tears put into it. I’ve had my fingers ache typing that story, planning things out... I truly felt the thrill of writing with this one. I was triumphant when I finally finished it, and boy was I excited for ~The Chronicles of Lloyd Montgomery Garmadon~, the bigger and badder final installment, the conclusion to the prequel trilogy! And even THAT was nothing compared to the plans I had for hypothetical future waves and enemies for Ninjago, all tying back to previously-established lore and characters!

But then...

...WELL, things didn’t turn out so well. I guess I just lost my passion, my spark for writing, or something like that. I lost my flow and touch, I became frustrated, and I’ve since taken a multiple-year hiatus on it that’s lasted since late 2015. If we want to be technical, I did try rewriting tCoLMG from scratch, but I haven’t quite been satisfied with those attempts. I won’t deny that I came across my limits as a writer, and while I feel like I’ve improved, I’m still not quite ready to go back. I don’t think I’ll ever be, to be honest; The fact of the matter is, amidst me reimagining the story and characters, there’s just way too much to account for. PLUS, I already have other WIPs, like Bionicle: RaE.

But for now, I think it’s more or less official- The Lloyd Montgomery Garmadon trilogy, and my planned stories beyond those prequel fics, are now going to be their own independent series, separate from Ninjago. I still love Ninjago, don’t get me wrong, but clearly I have a different vision than Lego, and that’s perfectly fine. I mean, my version of Lloyd himself is a completely different character than the Lego version at this point, and HE’s the main character!

So, yeah- Just as a heads-up, for anyone who remembers or is curious about those last few art-pieces I posted, about T, Yelatem, and Arakchos... They were all originally part of a spin-off fanfic, but now they’re part of their own, separate, original series. I’m a little excited to how I’ll reimagine and restructure what I’ve planned, especially now that I feel like I’ve matured as a writer and person, and been exposed to other forms of media that have helped inspire me on a creative level!

As for what this new ‘series’ of mine will be called, I’m still figuring that out. I’ve got a few prototype names, such as Goldenchigo; What that means, I still don’t know, but it sounds cool and distinct so I like it! There’s also Golden Dream... or alternatively, Golden-Heart Dream. 

One thing is certain; I’ll probably, finally get back to exploring the concept of this original story I made for myself. And, hey, with plans sort of changing now that the LMG Trilogy is its own thing in its own universe, maybe I can talk about the plans I had for tCoLMG, even reveal some characters I never got to post or write about properly! I’ll probably do that AFTER I finish transcribing tToLMG to Ao3, though, and THAT’s going to take a while; And I don’t intend to do that until quite a while later, whenever that is!