thestoryteller-thedreamer

[thestoryteller-thedreamer]

I'm trying to write on my current project, but my imagination keeps delivering visions of "Golden" from Kpop Demon Hunters, only it's S8 Lloyd growing out his hair to hide his regrowing Oni horns from the other ninja because he doesn't want them to know.

[thestoryteller-thedreamer]

You know how the ninja made a bet in Season 1 that whoever uncovered the Samurai's identity first would be the Green Ninja?

And you know how Lloyd was usually stuck on the Bounty with Nya during their missions?

What if he one day burst into her room (because he was a brat but also had no sense of privacy after being stuck at Darkley's) and caught her working on her mech/ armor/ weapons?

And Nya swears him to secrecy (probably blackmails him with one of the pranks she caught him setting up), but then he's captured by the Serpentine, and no one ever really thinks about it again.

Except Nya. Who occasionally smiles to herself, because even though Lloyd found out the Samurai's identity first, she discovered the Green Ninja's identity at the same moment.

[thestoryteller-thedreamer]

Unless, like me, you theorize that Nya forgot first, when she merged with the sea.

And even after she came back, there were still parts of her memory missing.

The first time post-Crystallized someone mentioned a Djinn around the ninja, Jay turned to Nya, to squeeze her hand and share their comforting smile because they survived, they made it, they were together. But Nya didn't react, didn't even blink at the word. She only gave Jay a weird look at his seemingly unprompted touch.

And Jay, realizing that she forgot, chose not to tell her. He decided to remember on his own, because he didn't want to make Nya relive that nightmare. Even though he was alone, even though he still had to drag himself out of nightmares most nights, he would protect Nya from their past.

Came across this clip today, and realised:

Nya and Jay were the only characters that remembered anything that happened during skybound.

Now that Jay has lost his memory, Nya is now the only one. 🩵

[thestoryteller-thedreamer]

Anyone else watch old seasons of Ninjago at 11 p.m. and cry into their pillow?

Just me?

[thestoryteller-thedreamer]

I kind of want S1 Wu back.

He was so quirky and out of pocket and delightful.

I miss him waking up the ninja with a gong and singing "Good morning."

I miss him fighting with nothing more than a pot of boiling tea.

I miss his excitement about Nya building him a seat on her mech so he could tag along.

I even miss his 3D mouth.

I don't think it would work for where the show's at now, and I'm sure you can come up with a million reasons that he's become more serious/ strict.

There was none of that end of the world doom and gloom we get now (even as a ghost, he's haunting the narrative). And I don't dislike that now. I just also miss the old version of him, too. He was strict before, but it was always in a humorous way, if that makes sense? Like randomly pulling Kai's hair or giving the ninja a riddle to solve to make them train?

He was just beating to his own drum back then and I love him so much for it.

[thestoryteller-thedreamer]

Time for the Ninjago ladies:

I was so disappointed in Crystallized when they didn’t get an awesome episode about the three of them bursting into the Crystal King’s headquarters. All we got was them almost dying in the monastery…

Anyway, sorry the lighting is a little rough. At some point I would love to start drawing digitally, but for now I’m making do with pencil and paper.

[thestoryteller-thedreamer]

Thinking about how Thunderfang is now a giant ghost dragon...

And ghosts can only be destroyed by water...

And the last time they had to fight a giant ghost creature, it wasn't anywhere near as big and Nya used every ounce of her True Potential to destroy it...

And how since then, the only other huge display of her power was in Seabound, when she fought Wojira...

Which has led to some theories about how the ninja would defeat Thunderfang...

*deep breath*

Nya better not merge with the freaking sea again.

[thestoryteller-thedreamer]

Toothless: He brings me fish and makes nice sand lines. I guess he can be my human.

Astrid: *exists*

Toothless to Hiccup: You didn't tell me she was part of the whole arrangement.

[thestoryteller-thedreamer]

Ninjago Music Headcanons

Jay: He's a musical kid. He will rap along to Hamilton, try to reach the high notes in Phantom of the Opera, and act out scenes from Wicked. You better believe he's made animatics for EPIC and is trying to convince Nya to get him tickets to Les Mis for his birthday. According to his parents, it was the cultural class in his homeschooling

Nya: She usually cares more about the message/ words than the beat, so if the lyrics match her mood, she'll be listening to it on repeat. Whatever fits the *vibes* she's going for, though she does tend to gravitate toward rap and Kpop. And also anything that will channel her feminine rage (usually when she's training and needs to channel her anger at the punching bag). She also obliged Jay and learned some of his favorite songs from musicals, so they could duet together.

Cole: Oldies from the 1960s-1970s. They remind him of his mom, who used to sing all the time before she died. Brown Eyed Girl, Ain't No Mountain High Enough, Dancing in the Moonlight, Good Morning Starshine... he's actually a good singer when the song fits his voice range, and the other ninja can occasionally convince him to sing for them on roadtrips.

Zane: Lo-fi. Apparently it covers up the faint whirr of his gears that accompanies everything he does. Usually played very quiet, barely audible even, but it makes for a nice accompaniment from time to time. He plays the same thirty songs on repeat, in order, starting from the beginning of the playlist, so he knows what to expect.

P.I.X.A.L.: She loves pop. Though she tells the others it's because she's still trying to figure out normal human behavior, they see her bobbing her head and singing the words to her reflection in the mirror. Zane took her to a Taylor Swift concert once and stood completely frozen the entire time, watching P.I.X.A.L. in utter surprise and awe as she sang all of the lyrics to every single song (she downloaded them into her memory bank, using up her vast but not unlimited storage space to get them all down).

Kai: Usually Imagine Dragons, but he also loves Bruno Mars and Benson Boone. They are the songs that he plays in the shower as the hot water runs down his back, washing away his grief and panic. Of course, his portable speaker has to be loud enough to be heard over the water, so all of the other ninja know he's having a bad day when "Beautiful Things" is blasting through the monastery. And yes, Kai cries every time it comes on (he's had his family taken away too many times to get numb to the lyrics, even when it's overplayed)

Lloyd: He goes along with anything and everything. Since the other ninja basically raised him, all of their musical tastes remind him of being younger. Even though he can never be a kid again, never relive a more carefree and naive life, listening to their music makes him feel safe. He's made a comfort playlist combining all of their different tastes, and easily jumps from musical to Benson Boone to pop to rap to oldies to Lo-fi. The only stuff he refuses to listen to is anything by NF because it tends to make him break down.

[thestoryteller-thedreamer]

One thing has been bothering me about Lloyd. Not necessarily in a bad way, I just want to see if anyone else has noticed it.

Outside of being a ninja, Lloyd doesn't have much of a personality.

We know he likes pillow mints, Fritz Donnegan, and the occasional video game... but not much else. If he didn't have the constant pressure of saving the world/ leading the team/ raising the next generation of ninja, I'm not quite sure what he'd want to be.

I could maybe see him being a teacher. Or an archaeologist/ historian with his mom. Maybe working at the Dairy Dragon or whatever is Ninjago's version of Starbucks. But nothing completely fits, you know? I think he would be a little lost without his job, as much as it adds to his trauma.

Which then makes me sad. Because the poor kid was even younger than the other (tween/ teenage) ninja when he was forced into saving the world. Even before then, he was stuck at Darkley's. Lloyd never got a chance to develop hobbies and passions, other than his destiny and loving his family, and with all of the chaos he's endured, he still hasn't had that chance.

I love Lloyd. He is the sweetest Green Bean, for sure. But every arc he gets is always about his terrible family/ trauma. The others get that arc, for sure, but their arcs tend to focus a least a bit more on their specific personality (Cole with Krag or becoming a ghost, Nya's misogyny bit, Jay trying to figure out how to propose, Kai helping Skylor break free from her dad's manipulation, Zane rebuilding himself and rediscovering his identity, P.I.X.A.L. talking sense into Milton Dyer, their individual True Potential episodes, even the terrible love triangle at least didn't step from their family history) Lloyd has sort of been boiled down to either the son of Garmadon or the savior of the world, and there is no in between.

Maybe this is just me. I totally could have missed or overlooked something. What do you think?

[thestoryteller-thedreamer]

The Live Action How to Train your Dragon was amazing.

Does it surpass the original for me? No. But I didn’t need it to. It was everything I wanted to see in a remake (minus a few scenes, but whatever) and I thought the directors and writers did a beautiful job honoring the original.

AND they fit in more foreshadowing for Hiccup’s mom, and utilized a bit of an arc from the tv series. So that was awesome!

Secretly hoping they make a second movie, but include Heather and Dagur because that would be awesome…

Anyway, watching it left me swirling with story potential, but when I sat down at the keyboard it all clogged up and now I don’t know what to do with it all.

And what’s this I’m hearing about a Ninjago x HTTYD fic?

[thestoryteller-thedreamer]

They once overheard someone use it at a restaurant, and the rest of the ninja had to hold Jay back from fighting the clueless guy.

Ninjago headcanon

It’s an unspoken rule among the ninja that NOBODY is allowed to use the adage “That’s the way the cookie crumbles.” It was said the first time Nya got taken by the Overlord in season 2, and it was said by Nya at the end of Seabound, and now, everyone is traumatized by it. 

[thestoryteller-thedreamer]

My contribution to the using AI to write debate:

As a writer that does not use AI for my stories (fanfiction and otherwise) I have a variety of reasons for this. It's bad for the environment, it feels inauthentic, and I love the experience of brainstorming and creating enough that I wouldn't want to replace it with something faster and easier.

My biggest reason, though, is scraping. I personally know an author who has had one of her books scraped without her permission. This is the reason I locked my fic on Ao3, because while I want to share my work, I also want to keep it safe. And I don't want to accidentally plagiarize someone else's work that they poured themself into by using AI.

I also don't use AI for any inspiration or ideas. Since AI was designed to learn from every interaction, this would essentially be scraping my own stories as they are being written. AI would be able to spit out any names, tropes, or world building I give it to someone else and allow them to take credit for it. And that's a risk I don't want to take.

If you use AI, that is entirely up to you. There are certainly pros and values to it, but like most things people create, we tend to use it for negative things. And I don't want to lose my writing to a machine.

If you are reading my fanfiction, or any other writing I pour out in the future, here is my promise that it is mine. Even at the potential loss of quality, I am choosing authenticity.

[thestoryteller-thedreamer]

Chapter four! And it’s time to bring Cole into the drama (only, I don’t think he’s going to be very helpful...) 

Summary of the whole fic: 

Jay, Nya, and, thanks to Decoded, Zane, are the only three people in all of Ninjago who still remember the events of Skybound. Yet all three of them have faced an extended amnesia arc.It's as if Skybound wants to be forgotten. Nadakhan is trying to erase himself from their memories and dividing them apart in the process because he will have his revenge. Someday, once Nya and Jay have both forgotten him and abandoned each other, he's coming back.And this time, Nadakhan isn't going to let Delara get away.

[thestoryteller-thedreamer]

I have lots of shorter fic ideas. Please let me know if any of them are decent/ worth pursuing/ etc (and I'm not quitting any of my other fics, but why have two currently ongoing when you could have more?)

Hamilton x Sons of Garmadon/ Hunted: Imagine "What'd I Miss" Lord Garmadon edition, Lloyd singing "Helpless," and Harumi playing the part of Aaron Burr

Rebel Queen Vania, roaming the Merged Lands with Benthomaar at her side and Hailmar babysitting the royal couple (probably a one shot where they run into Cole and get to meet his family, but who knows where this could go...)

Jay and Nya cleaning. Just a wholesome fluff fic about them cleaning together.

A Timebomb fic with Ekko finding Jinx after Arcane (or the scene where he tells her about the AU Powder and shows her that she still has the potential for good inside)

A different twist on Ninjago S3 from Kai's perspective, where everything seems normal, but there's like weird details that are off and the final chapter has a plot twist (sorry this one's so vague)

Create an OC who is very unlucky, so they are always in the wrong place at the wrong time when the villains attack Ninjago. They are repeatedly captured for miscellaneous reasons (hostage, information, to test booby traps), but Lloyd is also captured, so they get to bond in their shared cage.

I don't know. What do you all think? Any other suggestions for me?

[thestoryteller-thedreamer]

Nya: *knows what's going on since Zane asked for help checking his neural drive to make sure P.I.X.A.L. was comfortable*

Nya: *chooses not to explain to the guys and watches it all go down with popcorn*

Watching Ninjago with my mom and she asked who the girl robot inside of Zane's head was so I told her the full story.

Then she said, "So, do the others know he downloaded her into his head or do they just think he's crazy?"💀

Like Imagine😭

Zane: PIXAL can you spot any obstacles?

Jay: Is anyone gonna talk to him about that?

Cole: He just needs some time to grieve😔

Zane: *Chatting to PIXAL*

Lloyd: This is starting to become a problem...

Jay: Cole, you go deal with it.

Cole: Why me?

Kai: You're our mental support

Cole: Ugg

Cole: Hey buddy... Whatcha laughing about?

Zane: Oh, Cole! PIXAL just made the funniest joke about the bounty's wiring!

Cole: Sure buddy. Listen, you know Pixal isn't actually here, right?

Zane: Sure she is. She's a part of me.

Cole: Yeah, she'll always be a part of you.

Cole: *Puts his hand on Zane's shoulder and nods his head in commiseration*

Zane: Right. Cause she's in my head.

Cole: Okay bud, It's great that you wanna keep her memory alive but-

Zane: She is alive.

Cole: ...

Cole: Okay.

Cole, to others: I tried.

[thestoryteller-thedreamer]

This is definitely a sign. Go watch it.

Switching fandoms a little bit…

I’ve already watched KPop Demon Hunters twice, and I’m kind of losing my mind over it. The animation style, the songs, the message, the female friendships, the scene where the animated characters didn’t have makeup on (it’s the little things, guys)…

It might not have the absolute best storyline ever (but I’m a Ninjago fan, so when has that ever bothered me), and my only real struggle with it is that the main character is named Rumi and that name has been permanently ruined for me after you know who.

But it certainly wasn’t enough to kill my enjoyment of it. From “Soda Pop” (which is ridiculously catchy, even though I’m kind of scared to sing it for fear of losing my soul XD) to “Golden,” the songs pretty much could all work on their own without screaming movie scenes, but when paired with the visuals, they were even more gorgeous.

So anyway, sorry for the mini rant. Still decompressing…