Psst. Psst. Hey. Hey Fane. May I suggest: Zangst?
You can always suggest Zangst, Rins! Anyone can ask for anything 🤣🤣 I just gotta think of something, so this is entirely off the top of my head (then again, that's how I roll, most things are 😂) with a couple minor ideas thrown in that I am building on slowly.
In the OverKing AU, Zane is very much "conscious" just not in the way everyone is thinking. This isn't a case where he's stuck in his head and is forced to be asleep until the Overlord choses to interact with him.
Zane is very aware, he's very much awake, in a way. He's just trapped in his head, in something that's akin to a dreamlike state.
Zane is sealed away in the far corner of his mind,in a very real feeling dream. To him, nothing really is amiss. He's in the Monastery and he's with his brothers, going about their day to day lives because as far as he's concerned they're on a break. There's no big bad, no threat to Ninjago. They're still training, but it's just like every time they've vanquished some evil, they go back to their day to day lives.
And the thing is, everything feels so real that Zane is thoroughly tricked. The way his brothers act around him, nothing is amiss. The way the world feels, the way his senses function, it all seems so real. This is all due to Zane's own memory and the fact that it's basically eidetic. The Overlord is using what he can see in Zane's mind to create this sort of other reality for our Nindroid to exist in so he doesn't become a pest or start acting out against the Overlord himself and trying to force him out.
That doesn't mean Zane is completely unaware of the situation. Sometimes things bleed into his dream, pictures of the outside world, shouts from his friends that he can't place the source of, the oppressive sensation of cold and fear in his chest. On some days, the images of Cole and Lloyd flicker, changing from their usual happy selves into something much more haggard and stressed. But it's only for a brief second.
He also swears that one time he saw Cole's eyes go purple. Though as soon as these mirages disappear, all Zane is left with is a temporary feeling of unease.
Yet if he's dragged fully to the surface, memories flow in like a cascade. Everything that's taken place, that he's seen, that the Oveord has done comes back to him as if he'd never been absent. Zane can talk, but he's more of a spectre floating unseen close by to his own physical body. The only one who can hear him is the Overlord, and at the wave of a hand he can get forced back into his fake sense of security that is his dream.
A constant peace throughout Ninjago, his family all happy and all calm, nothing amiss. Nothing wrong. Just a good day. Who wouldn't want that? Why would anyone question something like that?
