#timo rambles

[coleseyebrows]

Ninja Ethnicity HC's

Kai and Nya - Vietnamese. And there's only one reason for that. Nya's original dress in s1 wasn't a cheongsam or a kimono/yukuta. It looked more like an ao dai, a type of Vietnamese clothing. But them also being Chinese checks out for me. Maybe they're mixed, their dad is vietnamese and their mom is chinese or something along those lines.

Jay - Early on in the series I assumed he was white bc Ed and Edna are so insanely white coded. Like they even have northern midwest accents, and you don't get much whiter than that. But once he was revealed to be adopted, I started liking the idea of him being mixed white and persian. For some reason I got it in my head that Cliff Gordon looks like Freddie Mercury - like in terms of face shape, nose, and mustache. And Freddie was Parsi, so I got it in my head that Cliff was a similar ethnicity and Libber was white, but I don't know what ethnicity for her specifically. Either way, I think Jay is pretty white passing, given the fact he never questioned that Ed and Edna were his birth parents. Though, it would be SO funny if Jay never looked like either of them, but still didn't question his roots. That's definitely something he'd do.

Cole - I've always seen Cole as Maori, even when I was a kid. I'm not entirely sure where I got the idea. The only thing that's changed is that now I sort of see him as mixed Maori and Indian, with Lilly being Maori and Lou being Indian.

Zane - I like the headcanon of Zane being really racially/ethnically ambiguous because Dr. Julien just saw features that he liked, threw em in a blender, and bam, you get Zane. He wasn't thinking any particular group when he made him, but he does look a bit like Julien himself, notably in the shape of his nose and the shape of his eyes.

Lloyd - Lloyd is difficult for me. He's kinda just always been this vague, yellow and green blob in my mind. I suppose I've always seen him as, at the very least, half Japanese. Misako is a Japanese name, after all. Garmadon's harder to pin down, though. Ofc, garmadon's not a name from anywhere, it's made up. But Wu is a Chinese surname (I think) iirc. So maybe he's half japanese, half chinese? I'm not sure.

[coleseyebrows]

So I'm sitting here thinking about rewriting Ninjago from bottom to top, as a sort of retrospective, and as I do, I have been thinking nonstop about how to recharacterize cole, or at least make his characterization consistent.

Like early in the series, ofc, he was actually snappier than he is now, more sarcastic, more witty, more blunt. And in that original context, there was nothing deeper, but now... Well he have the understanding that he went to train as a ninja very soon after his mother died, couldn't have been more than a year, right? And now, he's much softer, more gentle, and more interested in being altruistic than being perceived as tough.

This pretty much leads me to believe that, with that added context, this was a front for his grief. And considering he knew none of the ninja early on, and kept a lot of stuff to himself... that checks out to me. I mean it also kinda lines up with that little line about how grief takes many forms, some sing and dance, and some climb mountains. He may very well have just wanted to appear fine. Normal, even. Like that meme "PFFT could a depressed person do THIS?" *free solos a mountain*

So I think the angle I should take is one where Cole is more distant, stoic, and prickly. Not necessarily an awful, evil dude, but yk. A grief stricken kid who wants people to stay at arms length. Until he truly befriends them, then it's all ok again

[coleseyebrows]

Something I headcanon for Zane in the early seasons is that Dr. Julien designed his skin with cuttlefish in mind, that's to say it has a mechanism that allows the pigment within it to shift. It was meant to mimic the way human skin gets lighter in the winter and darker in the summer. But if Zane was hit hard enough, the pigment could be damaged, causing it to have a permanently lighter color, resulting in something we would look at and call vitiligo.

This means that Zane's hands, feet, and legs turned white by the end of season one, and Zane just thought nothing of it because he already knew of the condition and assumed that's what he had, too.

[coleseyebrows]

Does anyone else stop and think about how the art they consume influences their perception of different characters and thus the way they draw them. Because like. I still draw Lloyd with red eyes because Erraday drew Lloyd with red eyes, even though it's not canon anymore, and the way I draw mouths is a direct result of me studying his work. It doesn't look the same anymore because I've developed my own way of drawing, but I learned to do it the way I do specifically because of his art. I use blocky shapes when doing my sketches, and especially when doing portraits, because I used to look at Baekim's art while I drew, and that was the style they had - sharp lines, defined shapes. When I was a kid, I was so inspired by ProNastya's work that it's like 90% of the reason I took up semi-realism as my style of choice. And I can still sometimes spot those influences in the way that I draw, what I choose to draw, and in my process. It's honestly kinda emotional because NONE of those artists are openly active anymore. It's a drag path. Rant over

[coleseyebrows]

You know, if ninjago does come to a rightful end, and doesn't just keep going bc LEGO wants the money it makes them, I think the only acceptable way for it to end is slowly, sweetly, in a way that will rip my heart out.

Specifically, I want whatever huge enemy they have to face to be defeated, and there's rejoicing and celebration, but then it slowly transitions forward to a closeup of Lloyd's hand writing on parchment (he's writing all of the Ninja's escapades down for documentation, and so he does not forget.) The frame pans up to the window, and he looks out it to see the ninjas' kids chasing each other around in the courtyard of the monastery of spinjitzu. He puts his stuff down, and goes out to see them. By this time, all of the original ninja (except for zane) are middle aged, and their ninja-ing days are behind them. Some of them may not even have their powers anymore, and might have passed them on to their kids. And, while the kids are playing, fighting, etc., in the courtyard, and the ninja come up to greet lloyd and talk to him, maybe it's been some time since they saw him, and then lloyd says something wise and profound, along the lines of "as long as there's something worth fighting for, there will always be a need for a ninja" and then it fades to black.

Basically I want something bittersweet that will make me cry, that's genuinely all I want, thank you good night.