"You are tired of fighting. You try to forget that and keep going. You dream of quiet. Your love is where you heal. God knows you deserve to."
The Poet that wants to be a Soldier
"You convince yourself that pain is art because at least then you will always have something to create. You are tired of stumbling through life. You dream of a ground you can stand on. One day, you will dance. Your love is where you feel - without fear."
The King that wants to be a Poet
"You are tired of being steady. You dream of feeling alive. Not that you aren't, but, sometimes, it's hard to remember that there is a heart between your ribs. Your love is where you breathe. Come on, breathe. In. Out. It starts now"
Explanations:
Kai is someone who's been fighting his whole life, either to survive, protect or prove himself. He wanted to be the green ninja, to be a king, to have a reason for all the fighting.
Lloyd never chose to be the green ninja and carry the world on his shoulders, but now he just wants to be free from that responsability.
Nya may not seem a poet, but she's the only one that didn't had a role in destiny in the firsts seasons. She's an independent person who's always done what she wanted and gets angry when told what to do. She went from samurai x to ninja to the sea to samurai x again to ninja again. Nya is an always changing free spirit that just wants to fight along her brothers.
(I actually had the idea of the siblings as soldier poet king for a while but never did it, the tik tok trend gave me the inspiration, but since I'm always late for those, I'll post this here.
I promise I'm going to post my AUs but I'm waiting for my friend who's helping me write them because english is not my first language)
Question about your Au Eclipse, you said in others posts that you hc Kai being genderfluid or genderbent/fem. My question is, is Kai genderbent/fem in your story or you have other hc for your characters in this story specifically?
I hc Kai as genderfluid transfem and I sometimes genderbend him for design purposes (I'm very lesbian). But in eclipse we use he/him pronouns so it's more general for the fandom, same as Zane (I hc him as non binary with they/them).
Probably Harumi because I love mastermind/ manipulative female villains (gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss).
But I also like her for my own interpretation of her character (I'm going to ignore her characterization in crystalized because they destroyed her). Her motives behind her actions don't make sense and I think that's okay, she was a child who lost everything she knew in an instant and needed a reason to keep going so she chose revenge.
She chose to blame the ninja (maybe because she was angry that they celebrated the victory while she grieved) and specifically Lloyd thinking that if she took him out the rest of the team would crumble (I feel that most people think Lloyd is the heart of the team when in reality it's probably Cole or Kai).
To sum up I think Harumi's actions are more related to her feelings and obsession and don't have to make sense. And her redemption arc should be towards her realizing she's doing to other people what the ninja did to her, and not about falling in love with Lloyd wtf,
Anyway sorry for the rant and just to clarify this is just my interpretation of her, you don't have to agree. I know a lot of people don't like her and I understand why. You can have your opinion but please be respectful.
Here it is another song :D. I heard it and inmediately thought of them and somehow managed to do this.
I wanted to use Possession scenes for the chorus but I ended up using the 3 big events of the show. I also wanted to use canon things but I had to invent some because there aren't enough on the show and it's in chronological order so I couldn't add more dragons rising scenes.
More details:
For the final part I also had to invent them but the hugs are most of them after the fight of the season, which are, in order:
-Dragons rising (episode 2)
-Crystalized
-March of the Oni
-Possession
-Tournament (after the staff scene before the end)
-Rise of the snakes
-Rise of the snakes (after Kai's true potential episode)
As always there are a few details in some drawings, have fun looking for them :)
The other song, Daylight, had 44 drawings which some of them were repeated, so it was around 35 original drawings; this one had 55 all different drawings and it took me 2 weeks
The inspiration for this was the game Stray (that I finally played).
This is a hyperfixation that I don't know when it's going to end. I'll probably draw things from it as much as my motivation lets me but don't expect it to be a constant thing like Eclipse or On the road.
I love worldbuilding so there is a lot of details of this au already, feel free to ask questions.
The world is dark and very corrupted but the tone of the au is chill because the sibs dgaf about the world.
Worldbuilding details (my friend wrote this because this is complicated and I suck at writing) [very long text under the cut]:
The key element of this AU’s worldbuilding is a new biohazardous artificial plant which was originally genetically engineered by the scientist of the RGB’s city-state to fight the air pollution that plagued the region by attempting to reduce the amount of CO2 from the atmosphere (yes this is a biopunk universe :)). However, because they are an ugly reddish colour, have a bitter taste and are extremely nutrient-deficient and unhealthy, they have no natural predators and can spread like wildfire across both fertile plots and forests like weeds. On top of that, due to that nutrient deficiency, which stems from the slow absorption ability of their roots (not nearly enough to keep the heavy rate of photosynthesis), they evolved on their own to attach themselves to other living beings as parasites and basically invaded the entire area around the metropolis. With them being potentially lethal, this caused a massive problem that made the city panic; although they have plenty of weak points (like fire and a vulnerable immune system) and it takes them very long to get their roots to the rest of the body, their grip is so deep and strong that the only option is to remove the infected body part. So their special ability became a critical issue when the plants unexpectedly ended up liking animals better, and with them humans themselves, because they could carry them to other places and infest those too while still sucking the life out of them until they die (oopsie). Ultimately, with the lack of proper information on the parasites, and because the situation was handled very poorly overall, they ended up taking many people’s lives and made the most vulnerable species of the area (like cattle) go endangered or extinct, which in turn altered the balance of the ecosystem and the working class’ means of living :).
Sorry this chunk was so technical, we (@kaigoesbrr and I) are biology nerds, but basically the plants were so good at making more oxygen and so ass at getting what they needed to do so that they became parasites, and now they get what they need from plants and animals (and they like animals better, like humans, because they have more stuff and help them spread further). Then society collapsed :).
All of this caused a deep economic crisis that brought about high rates of poverty, and with it, a deep fear of the infested world outside the city walls. So this whole conundrum led to the city closing off to the lands around it, implementing absurd levels of security like a tight border control and a slower, more strict business traffic, and making a huge dark translucent dome that encapsulates the whole city to keep any potential smuggled plants from ever growing by blocking the natural sunlight. They even made a ditch around their walls (kind of like a moat) and burnt and bombed the fields and suburbs around them to make them extremely infertile. So yeah, this city-state is a terrible place to live, a gloomy prison where not even the sun and stars can be seen, but most the inhabitants never leave out of that paranoid terror and the heavy bureaucracy needed to just go outside and touch grass.
(haha with poor funding corrupt scientists who didn’t know what they were doing made a mess, shocker how that would backfire horribly).
However, the outside isn’t as bad as they make it out to be. In the end, the plants did clean the air as they were supposed to, and, as nature does, it did somewhat recover from the disaster to where human life is now sustainable again.
Taking advantage of their thick crust, trees were the least affected by the plague, and the other plants in the forest developed new natural defences against the parasites, which was yet another reason why they in turn became best at infecting animals. And many of the fungi, abundant in the now more humid forest (haha cooler air equals more rain), took advantage of their weak immune system (due to their fucking incompetent creators making a mess of the original plant’s DNA) and infected them (haha scammer get scammed). So basically, the fields and farmlands were lost to the people, but the forests are still intact. Also, even though one of the rivers around the city, the one which makes its ways under it and is therefore connected to the water supply and sewer systems, is trashed, the other, which is further away, is now perfectly healthy due to the city closing off and therefore leaving it alone for enough time. The real issue here lies within the actual government, which obviously does not want to expose how corrupt and lazy they are when dealing with problems and so they keep fueling the paranoia of their most vulnerable citizens since they are kids :). One way they do so is by manipulating the information their people get, claiming bullshit like “the current ecosystem is wild and polluted, it cannot offer our economy anything anymore!” and “the plants are dangerous and will kill you if you ever come into contact with them, and they have infected virtually every living thing around!”. Another is by not educating their population about “the Outside”, treating it like a sort of taboo. Therefore, they refuse to explain, or hush those who try to, the actual danger of the plants and how to deal with them (they do have many weaknesses, after all).
But the people in this world have yet another nasty problem. In this AU there are beings believed to be anthropomorphic demons due to their pointy ears, fangs, and sometimes strange behaviour. But in fact, these people are descendants of the dragons that once lived in these nations, but their origins were forgotten as the world gradually lost touch with its spirituality and ancestry, and now those who were once revered for their “godlike attributes” (yes, they kinda worshipped dragons, I mean, who wouldn’t) are today facing discrimination. However, even though they aren’t considered exactly “people”, the pure humans are still kind of afraid of them, so they usually choose the subtler kind of racism. In most governments, “Demons” get less job opportunities and are denied high positions, can be freely banned from any establishment, and face unmatched prejudice just for existing, especially those with a stronger blood relation with their ancestry. In the city, they are treated as less than even the robots (nindroids of all kinds), who are treated like any other respected social group by now because they have grown so advanced that most of them are just like humans in metal armour. In fact, many of them are mechanics, who are held in high esteem for making the many bionic implants for the humans.
And all of that combined made the RGB siblings (who are obviously demons, especially Lloyd), decide never to leave the Outside, where they grew up, to go live in the city.
When they were younger, Kai and Nya adopted Lloyd when they found him asleep in a box in the middle of nowhere, after having been abandoned themselves a few years earlier. This time, though, their dynamic in this AU is more of a team than Kai being a mom to them both like he always is, so even if Kai feels the most responsible for being the eldest sibling, they rely on each other almost equally. They fend off the plants that threaten them with fire (no they do not have powers, but Kai uses a fucking flamethrower because it’s Kai), and usually live on whatever they can find in the wild: mostly by making traps for game, fishing in the cleaner river and occasionally foraging edible plats (that’s more risky and they are more carnivorous anyway). Also, Nya routinely strolls through the ruins of the suburbs to collect scrap junk to turn as much of it as she can into useful trinkets, the rest of which she sells to Ed and Edna’s junkyard and their son, who is an amateur mechanic (wink wink but no shipping actually). Apart from that though, they usually sneak into the metropolis to cause a bit of mayhem here and there, which over time and on top of the fear over their species has earned them a reputation of People You Don't Wanna Mess With (or "Demons", more like). More than once they’ve even messed with a few of the gangs around town, which started sprouting up after the disaster, so overall their presence in the city is tolerated, but frowned upon. They manage to bypass the annoying border control thanks to the faulty assistant robot who raised them, named Echo (wink wink), who cannot perform any other social job (what he was made for) than to be the ferryman for those few people who decide to cross the wide moat and venture out into the Outside. They usually take a secret tunnel that a few smugglers managed to make, and the Guard do nothing because they do not give a fuck about demons anyway (in fact, only a few people know that their actual names aren’t Red, Blue and Green because nobody gives a fuck indeed). They do actually know a few people there, some of whom are also demons (like Mistake and Ronin), but especially as kids (which is when the story starts) they spend most of their time in the wild chilling and going on adventures :³.
(no the city and the plants are not named, we’re lazy :))
Anyway this is what I'll say for now. There's a lot more info, and hopefully drawings, coming. Hope you like this au because I love it for now ^^
(Btw let me know if you want me to make a post/reblog explaining the designs for the Rgb siblings and some info behind them)
More Cyberpunk au details + details of the RGB desings + earlier concept drawing
(Before that please let me know if you want more info on the au because I have a couple drawings planned but with school and stuff I can't draw much and Idk if I can stay motivated that long. So my next posts could be mostly au lore with maybe some sketches, tell me if you'd like that)
In general terms, to give the Cyberpunk aesthetic to all of their designs I try to avoid symmetry by adding belts or patterns to break it. And for the colors, I focused on darker hues and neon tones. This way, the designs have a “punk”/dystopian-ish vibe while representing the high-tech elements of their society (which is like Cyberpunk in a nutshell).
As for the young versions of RGB, each one has their own color palette: Kai's is Red and orange with shades of black; Nya's is Blue, pinkish red and light shades of gray; and Lloyd's is light Green and also dark blueish green. Kai and Nya get a few details (shoes, arm or jacket) of each other’s main color as a wink ;).
Kai's outfit is meant for moving around comfortably both in the city and outside, Nya's is like a mechanic uniform for tinkering, and Lloyd's is for running as fast as possible; he also has a puffy sleeve similar to Kai's (le wink again). All three of them have a letter of RGB in some part of their outfit and share a tech pattern, each positioned differently (Kai in his inside shirt, Lloyd in his sweatshirt and Nya in her leggins)
As for Kai's eye:
One day, when they were exploring around the danger zone of the outskirts of the city, Kai accidentally activated a trap set by one of the last survivors of the Outside that unexpectedly still lived there (a paranoid rancid sociopath). The violent trap had become infested with Red plants with time and made Kai get in contact with it too: it instantly dug its roots deep within his right eye socket and Kai was unable to pull it off. Since it was such a sensitive spot where the plant was sucking all the nutrients out of him, he was so weak that Nya had to slowly and painstakingly carry him back through the ruined suburbs to get help inside the city walls. After getting around the border control with the plant still stuck to Kai’s eye, all thanks to Echo’s help (who also carried the kid the rest of the way), they got to the doctor’s. Luckily, he was able to cure Kai, but he was forced to remove the affected area, which were his eye and part of the skin of his face; however, if he had waited any longer the plant's roots would have reached his brain and killed him.
Nya then started looking for a biomechanic while Kai rested with little Lloyd, who’d followed his sister all throughout the loaded trip back but could do nothing but keep her company due to his size. However, when the girl finally found one who agreed to make the prosthetic eye for them, a fellow demon named Ronin, he set them the condition to seek out a strange artifact for him as payment, giving them a total of eight years to find it. With no money and no choice, they were forced to accept, but Nya managed to get a picture of the prosthetic’s plans; this ensured that she’d be able to fix it and not depend on the guy too much, but four years later they were found out and their deadline was cut down to only another year.
In the end, Ronin will be Ronin, and the mysterious artifact was in fact a collectionist piece of
Garbage.
Apart from that incident though, as kids they don’t really spend that much time in the city, and they generally only come there to visit their friends/acquaintances and sell stuff Nya finds. For example, they do both of those things in Ed and Edna’s junkyard, where Nya trades her scraps for their more useful scraps while visiting their friend Jay. She and her siblings (who always need to stick together inside the city walls just in case) like telling stories about their adventures in the Outside to the oblivious inhabitants, so obviously Jay is no exception. The girl is very energetic and much more of a little unhinged rascal in this au, so her stories are usually really exciting and filled with funny acting for the little boy. Additionally, as they are both mechanics in the making, whenever the siblings come around his parent’s workshop, Nya and him show each other their latest creations and sometimes they even discuss how they could improve on their work.
But the one who most often talks to people, especially strangers, is Kai. Because even though they are feared as demons, the boy is much more chill and charismatic than his siblings, and is usually in charge of being the friendlier face (although he does like staring at the people who get scared of his dragon ears a little too hard hehe). In fact, they use that awkward fear to their own advantage: due to Lloyd’s much more obvious demon features (his ears are even pointier than the other two’s and his eyes are straight up red), he is often the distraction whenever they need to steal food, either in times of need or if they just wanna cause trouble. People just cannot stop staring nervously at the little boy, who is great at drawing the wrong kind of attention, and when the act is up, he’s so fast following his siblings that no one can ever catch him.
Overall, they don’t really give a single damn about society and think too many of them are just as parasitic as the plants in the Outside, so they don’t often bother as kids to get into the city. That, paired with the fact that they are just three tiny outcasts who somehow miraculously keep coming back from the “deadly” Outside, means that people in the city just tolerate and more or less respect them (out of being kinda spooked by them), so they tend to get away with their shenanigans without much repercussion.
But in the future, they do change their habits a little bit.
When it comes to their designs, they do keep the same purpose but with variations in their shapes. Kai still uses casual comfortable wear but his color palette changes a bit, with a more pinkish Red with blue highlights instead of orange, but he does keep the shades of black. His outfit now consists of a thin bodysuit cut at the chest and hips to make sort of a hexagonal fishnet pattern, trousers and boots, along with a ton of new accessories (more slutty in general).
Nya keeps the mechanic vibe but with more of the gray and blue colors and barely any red. She has huge trousers with bigger pockets and her tools attached under her belt, a sports bra (for the ladies ;)) and mech gloves. She keeps her goggles, which are a different color now.
Lloyd has a sports outfit similar to the previous one in the shorts and leggings. He keeps the puffy sleeve on his left arm, although it is now a standalone piece, and has bigger trainers. His color palette is black and white with neon/bright greens. He lost his arm in an accident with plants too: the affected area was on his upper arm so they had to remove the entire thing, and Jay made his prosthesis.
They all have more small details of their other siblings’ colors (for example Lloyd has the pins on his casual vest); also, and instead of having their respective RGB letters on a random part of their outfits they are now matching at the back of the three jackets. Some other details on them are the fire symbol in blue on Kai's bomber jacket and on Nya's military jacket, the label on the chest that reads "samurai", complete with its X on the arm sleeve.
Their more mature personalities make them live around more in the city, although practically nobody knows their true names still, while also not leaving behind the Outside or Echo (in fact, their expeditions tend to be longer now that they have more experience and overall strength and abilities).
Nya (still just known as “Blue”) actually works in her own workshop now, selling her works on her own. However, her stubborn, energetic and blunt personality has now matured into pure badass and she’s constantly looking for a fight, but nobody can touch her or at least seriously hurt her because she’s insanely strong.
Also, even if they do manage to actually harm her she has her brother Kai (“Red”) looking out for her, who can basically destroy anyone’s private life if they mess with any of their siblings through blackmail :). In fact, he’s usually seen hanging around in the Red district (they even mistake him for a prostitute sometimes lmao), which is where most of the juicy information is flung around, so he has no trouble getting sensitive information about anyone and anything in the city. In addition, he’s developed a calm and charismatic personality that lures people into their manipulative tactics to take advantage of virtually anyone he wants, but his temper can be frail sometimes, especially when his siblings are hurt in any way. But, when it comes to them, even though he is more protective of them as the older brother and can explode if they are treated badly, he still fully trusts them and their abilities and they all rely on and fiercely fight for each other like a team whenever necessary.
In contrast to his siblings, though, Lloyd tends to avoid conflict as much as he can: despite looking like a human neon sign with his jacket on, he always manages to scurry out of sight whenever he’s in trouble as the speedy, witty little monke he is. And the reason he gets caught up in so much drama is because he is extremely curious and, as they aren’t kids anymore, people now care about the demon trio’s meddling in their business quite a bit more.
In conclusion, as they grow, Kai, Nya and Lloyd become more intelligent and fleshed out in their own ways, and even though they still have no respect for society as a whole, they do keep some friends close to them. They love each other and Echo as the unique family they are, and always make sure they have each other’s backs no matter the situation.
I hc him as gay and asexual and I never liked his "canon" ships with Harumi (way too toxic) and Akita.
I was really about to make him a cute bf oc until someone mentioned Brad (his friend from Darkley's). So I only ship Greenflower (Lloyd x Brad) now and the fanart there is of them is really cute.
I tried to make Echo and Zane more robot-like since robots are pretty much treated like people regardless of their appereance. And Garmadon's design is from when the rgb are kids so he's younger (he's not an Oni in this au).
Characters details from within the story:
Echo
Echo is created by a younger Julien (like in his 30s) as a test run for his project to build himself an assistant to deal with his chronic disease, which, despite not being deadly per se, it could still leave him impaired in the long run and therefore he needed some sort of safe net just in case.
But sadly, the prototype's AI ends up being deficient for his purpose as he is not able to process neither human emotions nor their needs, so after much deliberation, Julien decides to set him free rather than letting him collect dust in his storage.
However, Echo could not fit into the city's human society either, as people would not accept his strange speech nor behavior. This eventually culminated in an assault by one of the problematic gangs that sprouted up after the crisis, where they thrashed the helpless robot relentlessly and even managed to damage his voice module. He then was trashed out to the Outside, and from there, mauled and hopeless, he wandered aimlessly and without a purpose in life for a long time.
But at one point through his senseless journey, he stumbled upon a couple of abandoned kids crying in the middle of the woods. Even though he did not understand what their tears meant, he was curious, so from then on he started acting as their guardian.
Thanks to them, slowly but surely he began to learn about human emotions and, as he could only do little beeps to communicate, he also figured out a way to communicate without words. Although sometimes he was still lacking as a caregiver, he worked hard to develop the necessary skills to look after their (newly discovered) basic human needs, like fishing and hunting. He even takes a third kid in after Kai and Nya find another lost boy in the woods and convince him to keep him.
As they grow, he also begins to teach them how to be self-sufficient, because he is painfully aware that he would never be capable of being a better parent due to his poor programming. It is in this context when, years later when Echo finds a potential job opportunity as the ferryman to the city, the RGB urge him to take the chance, knowing that he wants to work to feel more useful and wanting to have more solo adventures.
Even though he was reluctant to leave them behind, he is now the happiest he's ever been and still looks after his children whenever they need him (even going so far as to risk his job) out of his gratitude for granting him another chance in his doomed life.
Ronin
Currently retired, he used to be a renowned mercenary and bounty hunter in his youth. However, he gradually gained more and more enemies and got himself into more and more dangerous trouble (which is why he’s a full cyborg now), until eventually, battered and grown past the age of peak physical strength, he decided to quit to save his ass.
From then on, he started looking after the demon children around the most miserable parts of their struggling segregated neighborhood in exchange for minor treasure hunts; this is why he is now protected from his remaining enemies, as many of them grew up to become members of some of the local gangs (also as an added bonus Garmadon is a pretty ominous legend and people are kind of afraid of hurting demons because of him, but more on that later).
Although he lives rather isolated from the rest of society because of his (extensive) criminal record, he still manages to make ends meet with the treasures he got from all his exploits and the profits of the little side quests he tasks the children in exchange for his care.
No he’s not charity, he’s a wine uncle, but he is an asshole to everyone (especially humans) except the kids. In fact, even though he does not give out help for free, he always ends up rewarding them with his teachings and advice and about life on top of the food and shelter, so almost every child he's taken under his wing ends up becoming pretty competent to face the harsh society they live in.
And in particular, he grows to like the RGB a lot because he recognizes their wit and appreciates how cunning they can be, sometimes even negotiating with him and being capable enough to uno reverse his little tricks on the kids like they are equals (for example, Nya stealing her brother’s bionic eye blueprints to avoid being totally dependant on Ronin for maintenance).
In fact, later on when Nya introduces him to Jay (a human) to be his apprentice as a mechanic, she somehow convinces him despite his hate for his kind.
Bonus: when he meets Jay at first he’s irritated at him because he takes his fear and shyness as racism, but the kid is just intimidated by the sassy cyborg (don't worry, eventually he figures it out and the child grows on him, Jay is too cute).
(I will talk about Jay in my next post dw)
Zane (24NE)
He’s the successful final product of Julien’s project, a kind and refined assistance nindroid knowledgeable in human care. His role is very important to him, so when his father died he lost all purpose in life and, unable to deal with his grief on top of that existential crisis, he became depressed and stagnant, trapped in his own mind inside his creator’s abandoned home and slowly wasting away due to his mental stress and a lack of maintenance now that nobody could look after him.
And he stayed in that sorry state until the RGB found the house and, upon looting it for supplies, Nya stumbled upon the nindroid lying dormant next to Julien’s bed. When she wakes him up, his rusty voice module is damaged and he can’t speak properly (Julien is shit at making those apparently), so she repairs it as best as she can and as a result, he eventually becomes their friend.
Although they were wary at first, they understood his situation, and in the end they decided to help him by introducing him to Doctor Rashid (an oc) to learn more about biology and medicine.
Speaking of, I’ll talk more about Dr. Rashid in another future post but basically he’s an oc of mine I inserted in this au, a friend of Kai and Nya’s and sort of a parental figure.
Garmadon
He is an elusive red-eyed demon, the rarest of his kind, and a criminal brought to legendary status. Now vanished and rarely ever seen amongst the city shadows, he used to be an undefeatable wandering warrior. He would spread chaos everywhere he went and, along the way, he would mercilessly murder anyone opposed to the Demon’s Rights movement.
However, one day he disappeared suddenly from the face of the earth. But his legacy carries on to this day: he is feared universally, considered an antihero by his followers and a bloodthirsty criminal by the rest.
A few months after his disappearance, though, a human woman named Misako gave birth to a demon child with ominous red eyes. Soon, people started making the connection and his mother, who by that point had developed a deep hatred towards demons, was put under such public scrutiny that she ended up abandoning him on the Outside to leave behind the city and her trauma along with it.
Sadly for Garmadon, it was too late when he finally learned that he had a son. He’d left Misako pregnant without either of them knowing, and after he was gone she had been unable to reach him. For that reason, when he came back to the city years later and at last he found out, in the end he decided to let Lloyd be with his new family, as he he realized he had no right to take him in after being absent the entirety of his short life when he already had the two loving siblings looking after him.
After that, he turned back to his wandering, and he was barely ever seen again.
He lives in the city junkyard with his parents Ed and Edna, who work as tinkers and scrap sellers; he got his passion for engineering from them.
When he was a kid, he got extremely sick with a deadly disease that was very difficult to treat. In the shitty society that is the city, his parents could not afford the safest medicines to cure him, so they were forced to risk it and buy a cheaper version from a not so reliable seller.
Unfortunately, even though he did survive and recovered, the medicine was mixed with a drug that had an unexpected side effect: he began to lose feeling on one of his legs until eventually he lost control over it entirely.
Rather than having him to deal with an unresponsive leg, to help their son deal with his disability Ed and Edna decided to spend all the resources they could spare to build him a prosthesis and amputate the flesh, and, after a few months of tireless work, the family’s joint efforts were able to get him walking again.
As a silver lining to this traumatic incident, though, he discovered his passion for technology and realized his aspiration: he wanted to make bionic prosthesis to help other people forced to go through the same kind of situation as his. But his family did not have the proper technique nor the resources to teach him (it had been hard enough just to make a single rudimentary leg), so it was after meeting Nya and eventually telling her about his goal that he finally got the opportunity to learn from an expert. Although he was intimidated by Ronin at first, the two of them grew fond of each other almost like an uncle and his nephew (yes he's become a literal wine uncle).
To this day, the man is (secretly) very proud of his boy and thankful he got him doing something useful again after his retirement.
The anecdotes with these gangs happen when they are older:
Morro
He’s the leader (alive and in flesh) of one of the many, many city gangs; particularly one known for their violent tendencies. For the area’s criminal standards, they are in fact relatively tame, because at least they do not ever mess with other arguably more serious criminal activities like drug dealing or pimping. They do like, however, beating the shit out of people for barely any reason at all (most of the time, just to “assert dominance” lmao).
One time, this habit came back to bite them in the ass when Morro decided it would be a good idea to mess with Lloyd. Obviously, underestimating him and the RGB as a whole just for being weird Outsiders was a terrible mistake, because as soon his brother caught wind of the situation, the fool got to taste Kai’s vengeful fury :).
As a result of that encounter, both Morro and Kai got VERY badly beaten, but finally the RGB got famous for being Those People You Don’t Mess With.
Harumi
The leader of THE most dangerous of the city gangs, known as the Sons of Garmadon (le wink), a cult-like criminal organization whose ideology is basically “survival of the fittest”. In fact, she is so obsessed about demons that she even wears pointy ear accessories to mimic their ears.
The organization itself is almost like a mafia, being at the center of most of the worst shit that goes on in the city. Of course, she loves being the head of all this attention, and she prides herself in being the deadliest and most cunning gang leader of them all.
On one occasion, after learning about the RGB’s (aka the outsiders) reputation of being tough as shit and hard to get advantage of, she figured it would be best to form an alliance with them to expand her contacts and (secretly) keep them in check. However, upon arranging a meeting with their leader, Kai, he is able to discern her true intentions. For this reason, when she eventually oversteps their agreement to try to manipulate the group, he is ready to confront her, and the siblings end up beating the shit out of her, marking the first time the great boss Harumi has ever been beaten up badly (by our queen Nya) and defeated in her scheming :).
Brad (le Greenflawa cuz why not)
Since back when he was a kid, he's been part of a little group of orphans named the Darklys, who like to pull pranks and cause trouble in general.
However, back then it used to be a lot more harmful than it is today, as the children were not completely aware of the damage they were causing. In fact, Brad himself was still an entitled brat, so much so that the first time he met little Lloyd ("Green"), the first thing that came out of his mouth was "Outsider, bow before me!". But it was due to Lloyd's deadpan response (he's used to his brothers being crazy stupid) and the awkward relationship that grew from it that Brad eventually realized that his bratty attitude was not getting him anywhere, and that little gangs' pranks were actually harmful.
So by the time he gets older, his gang is reformed to a more tame biker gang who only really pull harmless pranks from time to time. Brad himself is a far calmer person, but he still holds on to some problematic aspirations:
At one point he became fixated on the idea of him and his gang to join the Sons of Garmadon out of oblivious admiration. It was so bad that only Green was able to convince him, and only after having a pretty serious argument with him about how vicious and deadly they could be and how wild their insane leader's influence had become. But the stubborn Brad was not completely convinced, until in the end, Green managed to get through to him by emphasizing how his life would be in constant danger if he joined the literal most dangerous criminals in town. Most importantly, he confessed just how important of a friend he was to him, to which Brad, insecure and doubting his words, quietly replied that he didn't even know his true name. Right before leaving, though, Green offhandedly revealed his name to him, and Brad, left speechless, became the first person in years to learn his real name.
Long story short, he realized he was being stupid and was rewarded with massive gay panic :)
May you bliss us with your angst ninja headcanons?
mainly kai pls
Sorry for the delay. You asked mostly for Kai's so I delivered. If anyone wants more hcs about the others I can work on it some time in the future (I also have more of Kai).
Now the hcs:
• All the ninja have PTSD from everything they’ve been through
• And abandonment issues
• Cole has an eating disorder and eats when he’s stressed, this is one of the reasons he is very insecure of his weight. People online poke at him for it
• Jay's terrified of losing his loved ones again because of him. That is another reason why he went absolutely crazy post Seabound, as he thinks it was his fault Nya had to resort to sacrificing herself
• He used to be bullied for living in a junkyard before becoming a ninja and that's why he was ashamed of it
• Zane always shoves down everything wrong that happens to him (e.g being the Ice Emperor for way too long to be ok about it) because he puts the team and their needs first.
• Nya has nightmares from the time she died in skybound but doesn't tell anyone.
• She had to keep her work and love life secret from her brother for fear that he would shut her down to protect her. Her fear persisted well into s1 and that's why she felt she had to hide Samurai X even from Kai
• Lloyd still admires his uncle despite his obsession with the green ninja (and all the neglect that came with it) because he's the only relative that actually took him in
• All of the ninja have at some point hidden an injury at least once. But Kai and Nya are the ones that do it more often (Nya specially when she was samurai X), and know how to treat mild wounds because of it.
• Kai and Nya do physical activities when they’re stressed or have emotions they don’t want to process. They can do their thing like Kai working in the forge and Nya doing mechanics but they usually train, however they can go on for hours (Kai has passed out a few times)
• Kai and Zane have a very poor sense of self. Zane’s comes from him not valuing his life and thinking he’s expendable since he can be rebuilt, ignoring all the trauma that comes from getting severely hurt or “dying”. Kai has problems seeing his worth as a human being because he’s never lived for himself; everything he does is for someone else and so he thinks his value resides in what he can do for other people.
• Kai is terrified of the idea of being alone, it’s his worst fear.
• He has THE WORST coping mechanisms and Zane is confused on how his body was able to go through all of them (Alcoholism, illegal fights, smoking…)
• Kai is an insomniac, he barely sleeps most nights and instead just waits until he passes out (He has very deep eyebags because of it but hides them with make up, covering his freckles too). He sometimes bumps into some other ninja at night since they all have fucked up sleep schedules.
• Lloyd also has a lot of problems sleeping because of nightmares and goes to Kai or Nya’s room where he feels safer (mostly into Kai’s). Sometimes they stay up at night chilling or they try to sleep. In those cases the nights with Lloyd are the ones where Kai sleeps the most because he feels safer too.
• Kai has chronic depression because of his fucked up childhood
• Lloyd thought he had depression too for a while but it turned out to be autistic burnout because of the stress of being the green ninja. But he can’t properly rest or heal from the burnout so he’s exhausted most of the time.
• When he’s stressed Kai forgets to eat and can go days with very little food because he’s used to it from being poor in his childhood.
• Genuinely forgot what it feels like to be a kid and have no responsibilities so it’s his personal mission to not let that happen to Lloyd. Kai would be devastated if Lloyd ended up like him.
• Kai sometimes feels insecure about his face scars and contemplates hiding them with make up.
• Kai’s touch starved but terrified of letting people in.
• He hides his negative emotions as anger and when the others try to reach out to him he pushes them away by getting angry at them until it's mutual and they leave him alone.
• Never told the others about what he did after Zane’s “death”. He fixed himself up, alone.
can u also give us fic recs? i wanna read your fic but it's long hdhwhsjs
wanna be in the right mindset
so do u have any?
Here are some fics that I really liked because I thought they were interesting. I loved the way the characters are written, most of them are Kai centered, angst (check the tags for any triggers) and short. Also these are some we used as reference for the characterization of the ninja in Eclipse.
(idk how many recs you wanted so I put a lot)
They turn the light on and it's burning up the sky by Sugarglider_s : very short and poetic Kai analisis angst fic. Absolutely love the way it's written and the interpretation of Kai's character.
Hello my old heart by Bemmiecake : this is a long unfinished fic centered around Kai in the timeskip between seasons 3 and 4. I had to add it because it is definitely one of my favourites, this fic has made me emotional multiple times. It's heartbreaking how Kai has to go through his awful coping mechanisms as the Red Shogun and how he ends up finding a sliver of hope in the process. It also features a well built oc!
What gets out comes around by fruitcasket : this one is Cole centric but explores some contradictions of his character mostly with his relationship with Kai, how despite being a kind soul he acts as a bully towards him quite often.
Too familiar by Maplebreeze : Oneshot about Kai realizing him and Lloyd had similar experiences. Basically RG brothers fluff with some hurt.
Alike, alone by fruitcasket : Morro possesses Kai fic but it’s focused on Kai and Morro’s interactions and similarities rather than actions. It does some character analisis and dives into their mentality.
All of the work, none of the money by ADHDplusCartonnmakesCHAOS : Fic about the ninja learning about Kai and Nya’s childhood. There are many fics exploring this theme but this one is my favourite so far, talking about the subtler things like how costly pads are when you're already short on money to eat.
Fight by Maplebreeze : It describes perfectly how Kai would lose himself to violence (as one of his awful coping mechanisms) again and again and again, to distract his heart from all of those close to him he couldn't save (up until Possessed)
Guilt by Cherry_dynamite : On this fic we finally get closure with Lloyd addressing the fact that he did not see Kai's survival guilt back in the slither pit.
Boiling Point by Salty_Pickle_Bones : It is about Kai and the team being wrecked by Nya's death. It shows just how lost Kai has become, how he's going down the alcoholic rabbit hole again.
Off the deep end by Kiss_The_Cook : Set in the first season when Lloyd is a kid living with the ninja. Kai refuses to get close to Lloyd, despite Lloyd admiring him, because he knows he and Lloyd will get attached to each other and Kai thinks it would be very bad for the kid to do so. Brothers fluff (and some angst), I love how Kai’s mentality is portrayed and of course little Lloyd.
Aftermath by Sugarglider_s : Fluff opposite oneshot. Not really related to the rest but I love it and made a comic about it -> link here.
Feel free to recommend any other fic you like. We are especially interested in those that analyze the characterization of the ninja in depth, more specifically any other character besides Kai (pls let us know, especially ones about Jay, we’re struggling with writing him).
Side note: I know there aren’t many Kai and Nya fics so recommend ones focused on them too pls.
As said above, this is a comic based on a fanfic written by @sugarglider-s (is not mine)
This is made by my interpretation of it and I highly recommend reading the fic, there's many details I can't add to a comic and the writing is beautiful. I hope I made it justice :)
Your art is so adorable, and that animation with Kai and Zane made me cry happy tears!
In your “Meet the Artist” piece, I saw that you also like Monkie Kid along with Ninjago. Just curious, have you drawn any crossover art of the two?
(To be honest, the two fandoms need a crossover…)
They definetly need a crossover!
Monkie kid is my second fav show and of course Mk, Mei and Red son are my favourites so I had to draw them interacting with the rgb siblings <3
(I'm still playing around their designs)
If Kai and Mk meet they would get along (tho there is a 70% chance Kai would adopt him)
I wanted to add what happens when you send me ideas for art: most of the time I add them to a list of future drawings I want to make (and even if I don't I usually re read yours messages so I won't forget). However it may take a lot of time for me to do them (depends on the idea) or I may never do them or how you'd expect. But I love when you send me ideas or messages <3
So sorry for the wait but here's the ninjago x monkie kid crossover. And I'd like to make more monkie kid art in the future :3
Takes place after crystallized, the ninja have recovered their powers and got back to the status quo.
Rumors start spreading on the Internet that Kai is actually useless because he's never defeated a supervillain on his own. Kai gets insecure about his worth to the rest of the team, acting more and more rashly out of the need to prove himself. However, everyone else thinks he's overreacting for attention, so in a mission with Lloyd and Nya, after trying too hard and messing up, they snap at him, thinking he just wants to regain his popularity disregarding people's safety.
Much later, Kai is injured on a solo mission and is saved by a mysterious woman (the villain) who secretly aims to manipulate him to turn against the ninja and Ninjago as a whole, taking advantage on his past hardships as a child and his current mixed feelings towards them. She uses dark magic (sort of like Clause) to take and amplify what little is left of the corruption from Chen's elements staff into a mask, to slowly make his own thoughts turn against them all, eroding him from inside out.
At first she convinces him to become a kind of vigilante, killing criminals who might have used him in the past under said mask as Akatora ("Red Tiger"), steadily growing more corrupted.
Once the ninja discover Akatora's true identity, they believe he's being forced to betray them and try to "save" him, which only angers Kai further for not realizing how badly they've treated him.
But when they realize that they're at fault, the team splits in two: Cole, Jay and Pixal can't see a way of saving Kai on time before he self-destructs and takes the entire city down with him; while Lloyd, Nya and Zane try to get him back at all costs.
At first, the villain didn't care which elemental master to use to get the ninja to destroy the city. But upon finding out more about Kai's past, she decides the Ninja are no good for him and wants to "save" him, to get him out of that toxic environment. She even confronts them more than once after taking him under her wing. However, later on she changes her mind...
I have many more details but this is all I'll say for now. I want to make it a realistic and morally grey season where neither the ninja nor Kai are the villain, because the ninja do love Kai, they just have to show it. Also Kai's corruption is going to be slow where you don't really know how of it is Kai's true intentions.
On the road:
This AU is set years after Kai and Nya's parent's disappearence. Despite still living at the blacksmith off Kai's odd jobs, the siblings are fairly neglected by the townspeople of Ignacia. After getting seriously beat up in a fight with some kids who had been passive-agressively bullying Kai for years, they go a little too far by almost killing him and threatening to do the same to Nya. Kai is forced to abandon the hope of their parents ever returning and leaves for Ninjago City with Nya, hoping for a better life.
After travelling for a while they stumble across Ronin. They somehow convince him to take them in for a while in his rudimentary shed and to teach Kai how to hunt and be more self-sufficient for the journey. In the meantime, Nya shows off her handiwork, making toys off scraps for Ronin to sell as thanks. When they decide to part ways, Ronin gives them a map, setting them on the right direction (he's no babysitter, but hey, he actually cared).
Days later, Nya finds a hungry and weary Lloyd along the way, lost after escaping Darkleys and looking for his uncle Wu. After some convincing from Nya, they agree to take him in and start travelling together, eventually bonding and becoming a found family.
The Au is mostly about their (fun) little adventures and Kai being an overstressed mom trying to keep their younger siblings alive and relatively out of trouble (but don't worry, he's actually enjoying it).
In the end, after having taken their shot in Ninjago, they find Wu and are taken in at the monastery. Yes, Wu is actually a good uncle here. They deserve it. Especially Kai.
Kai is 13, Nya 11 and Lloyd 9 (older than canon, no tomorrow's tea)
Found the audio on tik tok an inmediately thought of this (I got tired of tik tok so now I'm using Capcut for videos).
Cyra's powers are more about mind control than illusions so this scene won't happen in the au; 'though there is a similar one. (Cyra just casually switching the blame whenever it's convenient to manipulate Kai).
A drawing of the latest Eclipse chapter as promised.
I'm aware that the cut is weird but I didn't want to extend this comic too much; besides this is being done as a support/gift for the readers so they'll understand... and for those who want to know the context and what happens next, read the fic ;)
Extra:
*It will get worse
I feel the song Fire by The Score fits the evil Kai and Eclipse vibe, check it out :)
Btw we're planning more details for future chapters and I'm realizing the fic is really dark and it could potentially get worse and I was wondering if it's too much(?) Do you guys enjoy the dark and angsty stuff or should we tone it down a bit?
