I have some thoughts re: Kayne / godhood (spoilers for intermezzo)
I don't think Kayne respects any of the other gods. He definitely doesn't respect the King in Yellow, he knocked him over the head w/ an oversized mallet to give him amnesia and stuck him in Arthur's head and reduced the Dreamlands to "a lawless waste" for a laugh. He also destroyed his city for the hell of it. He doesn't fucking care. He's rude to John, ignores him, says 'Arthur' when referring to both of them. I thought I noticed this undercurrent of quiet animosity, but felt vindicated during 40 + Intermezzo b/c he was suddenly soooooo loud! Ignoring & talking over John? Check. Telling him he's not special like Arthur? Check. Saying he'll torture him worse than Arthur just because he can? Check. My theory is it's b/c John's still a god, technically. Like the whole, choosing your own name + path... you'd think would be something Kayne could sympathize with (as much as Kayne can feel sympathy), but...........no. He knows John is easier to manipulate w/ fear (he can send him back to the Dark World w/ a snap of his fingers), and saves his faux sympathy for Arthur.
I think this is b/c he likes humans. Sure, he also likes killing them, but I don't think those impulses are mutually exclusive. Kayne's the most "human" of the gods we've met. He talks like a human, makes pop culture references, looks passingly human, etc. I think he envies them, in a way? They have a freedom I think he lacks as a god, even though they are confined to one timeline. We still don't fully understand how gods work, but from his description alone it sounds like he thinks of them as limited. They have incredible power compared to mortals, they exist outside the piano... but are confined to a single key. Which sounds to me like their path is predetermined and they're not intended to develop free will. Kayne's an anomaly b/c he does, or tries to.
He wants to put humans in an antfarm, perhaps as a demonstration of his free will. That's all Carcosa was, right? An antfarm. He wanted to play godzilla, smash the ants. Arthur's another ant in a different farm, and he watched his entire life play out across several verses to try to figure him out. What makes him unique is he dies in every other verse. Kayne can't figure out what makes this Arthur so special that he survives when all the others don't, but it implies he did something right with his free will, that this version is an "anomaly" like Kayne. He respects that, b/c it means this version of Arthur has done the same thing he has: taken control of their narrative. Even Kayne choosing his own name is an example of that. Becoming Kayne, rejecting the title Nyarlathotep and all the baggage that comes with it, the expectation to be what his father wants, a messenger for the outer gods (although he may still want that, I expect whatever his intentions are re: the Black Stone, they're his, not Azathoth's).
Arthur is usually a mirror for character's to see their humanity reflected, but instead of seeing his humanity (b/c he has none), Kayne looks at Arthur and sees himself. Which... surprised me? He seems so confident in his godhood, I thought he just viewed Arthur as his fave toy or human, like even in the S4 finale I found it hilarious how he kept going: "why can't you all just be more like Arthur???" apropo of.....nothing, but he didn't treat him like someone he identified with, so it caught me off-guard when he compared himself to Arthur, but that's big for a god! and I think it supports my thesis he envies humans for their freedom. Their roles aren't as "established" as a god's. Humans have free will, something he had to kill every other version of himself to gain. Even then, I think absorbing his alts (???) or whatever he did after killing them to become more powerful fucked him up, may have driven him mad if he wasn't already when he started this exercise in defending-himself-from-ever-getting-deleted, like he doesn't sound okay when he's talking to himself.
TLDR: Kayne thinks Arthur's special b/c he lived, when all the other Arthur's in Kayne's Arthur-Killing-Experiment died! (: Kayne can't figure out why, but he likes not knowing why. He likes humanity b/c of their freedom, b/c he's a chaos god who wants as much freedom as possible. And he's aware gods are fallible, they can be deleted, which takes all the romance out of godhood. Kayne's the most powerful god we've met b/c he's taken steps to emulate humanity's free will, the thing that makes Arthur "special," but what makes Arthur "hard to see" is probably his humanity. As much as Kayne likes humanity, I don't think it's something he can truly understand, which is why he enjoys sticking humans full of pins and trying.
I think it's neat Malevolent prizes humanity over godhood. Even gods seem to value humanity over godhood. John wants to become human. Yellow wants acceptance from a human. I think Kayne holds humans in higher esteem than gods. Those who look down on humans or try to 'ascend' and leave behind their humanity, like Larson, are clearly in the wrong. It's not seen as a weakness to be human, and even the parts of humanity that are usually written off as a weakness (our rage, grief, violence, desperation, etc...) are viewed as strengths in Malevolent, and I fucking love that about this show.
Anyway, I'll, uhh, shut up now.
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More info for my fsm lives au!
In the first few thousand years of Ninjago's existence, the First Spinjitzu Master was relatively involved with humanity's development. Not in a 'so this is how you make a vaccine' sort of way, but they would help out when crops failed and would travel around Ninjago giving out random bits of advice, all while trying not to interfere with humanity's progress.
(He did have a brief stint as the emperor of Central Ninjago as a young adult, but that was an accident)
Fsm did slip up occasionally with the whole 'let humanity progress naturally' things though, so every now and then a random human would be 'blessed' with the knowledge of how photosynthesis works.
After all, they may of been a child when they created humans but he was also from a much more ancient and advanced realm then Ninjago, so he had much more information about how the world then humans, and even Merlopians, did at the time. I'm talking like they knew clouds were made of water, hygiene was important and prevented sickness, and that stars were made of plasma. Essentially, science was a much more developed field back in the first realm so Fsm knew stuff that a fledgling civilization wouldn't.
Sorry for getting a bit off track there. But basically all this means that some 10-20 thousand years ago (I haven't worked out a timeline yet) the average Ninjagon citizen was a bit more involved in the Fsm's life then modern day citizens.
But over the thousands of years of humanity's existence he has slowly pulled away from them and (once he was sure the humans wouldn't die out due to lack of knowledge) left them largely to their own devices. This means that much of Fsm's life has been reduced to myth and legend in the eyes of Ninjago's citizens (there are exceptions, though, like the monks at the library of Domu). However, he was still a public figure.
Granted most of the legends are essentially fact, however, some key information has been forgotten - such as Nyad, and the Very Important Fact of Fsm not being human.
What this means is when the First Spinjitzu Master suddenly drops of the map a number of decades before Lloyd is born, the humans fear the worst: that he's dead (the Serpentine know better but that's another story). Wu and Garmadon only make the rumours of their father's demise worse by telling humanity the truth; that he's most likely in the Departed Realm. Unfortunately, both brothers have inherited their father's habit of forgetting to tell people things. As a result, they accidentally forgot to mention that their father going to the Departed Realm to visit their friends (the OG elemental masters) is a relatively regular thing, and that they can leave at any time.
Soon after this announcement, the rumour that the First Spinjitzu Master is buried in a tomb filled with ancient artifacts and unimaginable treasures makes it's way through the villages and cities of Ninjago. The tomb in question is actually just a storage facility for all the magical and potentially dangerous items Fsm didn't want in the monastery when raising kids.
All in all, the average Ninjagon citizen doesn't know that the Fsm is alive and well (doesn't stop them from praying to him though). So the ninja, including Lloyd, are incredibly surprised when Fsm shows up to congratulate them on their victory some time after the overlord is defeated.
And, just to add to the potential comedy, Misako - who knew quite a bit about the First Spinjitzu Master as a result of her research and from being married to their son - didn't even know Fsm was alive until he showed up a few days after Lloyd was born to meet his grandson. She fainted.
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You get no summary as to what this is about. It's around 2k words, but it only took me like 30 minutes to write so. it's. it's a bit confusing. but it's cute and happy!!!
“I don’t even know where to start,” Chloe whined, slamming her forehead against the library table. Jake winced involuntarily at the noise, but Chloe didn’t even seem to notice what she’d done. “She’s just so pretty, Jake. Have you seen her? Those eyes—”
“Yes,” Jake replied, an odd mix between bemused and annoyed. He had homework he was happy to ignore just to listen to Chloe’s excessive rantings on her most recent crush (there’d been three this week—she was struggling with the whole ‘not being in love with Brooke anymore’ thing), but it was still homework that he’d have to do later if he didn’t finish it now. “We get it, she’s hot and you want to fuck her, but did I factor this right?”
She barely glanced over his paper before giving him a half-hearted thumbs up and continuing on with, “I just want to be able to talk to her, you know? Be confident and tell her she’s the most gorgeous person I’ve ever seen.”
“Then do that,” Rich seethed. He was even more impatient than Jake, sitting red-faced with his arms crossed over his chest, staring directly at his computer with a familiar fiery gaze Jake was accustomed to being on the receiving end of. Jake’s heart did a flip.
“Shut up. You never confess to your crushes," Chloe shot back.
“Because I’m busy writing reports for my stupid research class, and I’d prefer if I could do it in silence.”
Jake leaned forward on his elbows and propped his chin on the heel of his hand, just close enough so he could feel the edges of Rich and Chloe’s argument like electricity in the air. They were both pissy today—Chloe because she was upset about her crush, and Rich because he had a three thousand word report due that night that he’d totally forgotten about until two days ago. Though Jake would usually have little patience when it came to Rich’s moods (uncommon now that he was unsquipped—most of the time it was either dorky ramblings or hesitant dad jokes), he was well enough adapted to Rich’s behaviors to know that hadn’t meant to put it off, really, it was just a thing that happened sometimes. He knew Rich had seen it in the color-coded agenda Jake had made for him, it simply didn’t register that it was real. Rich spent the past two days busting his ass off and Jake understood why he wanted silence so he could get it over with.
“No,” Chloe shot back, “You’re a coward. And I am too. I’m usually so confident, this genuinely hurts. I don’t know what to do with myself.”
Rich tilted his head back to cast a glance up at the sky, probably a prayer of some sort, before he closed his computer and turned to Chloe, expression cold. Jake watched his every movement.
“Five minutes,” Rich spat, “Five minutes, and then you shut up for the rest of the period and let me work. Deal?”
Chloe stuck out her hand and shook his. Rich set a timer on his phone and immediately Chloe was off. The color of this girl’s eyes (Jake wasn’t sure of her name, he’d been too busy watching Rich bite his lip while he focused to catch it), her hair, the way she made her feel.
“I can’t even think when I'm around her," Chloe sighed, borderline wistful, “My stomach gets in knots and everything gets fuzzy and warm. It’s like I’m melting inside, and not in a horny way. I want to take her away to some perfect place where she can never get hurt and teach her how to paint and feed her cherries. How am I supposed to talk to her when my brain is literal mush whenever she gets too close?!"
Rich laughed for the first time all day. Jake frowned.
“I don’t get it,” Jake said slowly, trying to decode Chloe’s words even as he was speaking, “Aren’t you doing that now?”
Chloe and Rich immediately turned to him, surprised by not only his sudden contribution to their previously exclusive conversation but also by his hesitance. Jake wasn’t hesitant. Jake always knew what he was talking about.
Even now, he was sure of himself. He knew Chloe was talking through that feeling now—Rich was sitting right next to her, and Rich was practically the embodiment of that feeling. He walked into the room and overwhelmed everyone with a giddy, sunshine feeling that made their vision blur and their heart beat too fast. It was a Rich thing, he brought it everywhere he went. Even when he walked in with a too-big sweatpants and oily hair after weeks of either studying or laying on his bed, staring up at the ceiling and convincing himself he was worth more than the persona he used to present, Rich ignited butterflies in everyone he met. Every single day.
Chloe didn’t make the connection to the Rich Effect (as Jake had dubbed it), though. She shot to her feet, eyes wide and panicked.
“She’s here?!!?” she whisper-yelled, spinning in circles and scanning the library for her mystery crush, “Where?! Why didn’t you tell me—”
“What? No, calm down, I was talking about Rich.”
If Jake’s earlier statement had confused them, this broke them. Chloe sat down, her back rigid and eyes narrowed. Rich simply tilted his head slightly to the right, an innocent show of curiosity. Even that was enough to make the room flush pink, and somehow Chloe seemed perfectly fine talking through that, he didn’t see why this new girl was any different.
“Rich?” she echoed, “I don’t have a crush on Rich? It’s fine to talk around him?”
“Yeah, obviously. But he’s got the whole Rich thing, y’know?”
They did, indeed, not know. Jake looked between the two of them, searching for any flash of recognition, but he was met with empty stares and questioning looks. Rich made a small, confused sound.
“Like, Rich-walks-in-a-room-and-everything-lights-up? That thing? The butterflies? C’mon, you have to know what I’m talking about, he’s been doing it since the fire.”
Jake’s nerves somehow coalesced into an awkward, stunted laugh made just to fill the silence that followed his observation. Rich seemed weirdly flustered, as if he’d somehow been unaware that every single person he met was enthralled by the sound of his lisp or the way he fidgeted with the hem of his sleeves whenever he got nervous. This was normal—Jake knew it was normal. Everyone felt that, everyone knew it, it was just such a fact of life it remained unspoken amongst the masses.
“…no,” Chloe said as if she was explaining some foreign concept to a toddler, “Most people do not get butterflies at the sight of Rich. No offense.”
Rich shook his head as he muttered ‘none taken.’ He was studying Jake with the same lost expression Chloe was, lips parted, and it was only when Rich’s cheeks flushed a cute pink that Jake realized maybe he’d fucked up.
Rich clearly had no idea what he was talking about. Even worse, Chloe had no idea what he was talking about. Not only was Rich not purposefully torturing the entire population with his inexplicable ability to turn everything into gold whenever he smiled, but apparently his accidental magic only affected Jake.
A phenomenon most would describe as a crush.
Jake did not have a crush. He was straight, Rich was his best friend, and he’d never risk ruining that. But Chloe was slowly coming to the same realization he had and he watched the exclamation form on her lips before he had the chance to stop her.
“You like him?!”
Jake didn’t have time to form a defense before Rich was falling out of his chair, face red and eyes bulging. He popped back up almost immediately and screeched, “WHAT?!”
“No!!! Stop! I don’t! Slow down! It’s normal, okay?! Stop looking at me like that, Jesus. I’m not—I’m talking to you right now, aren’t I?! It’s clearly not the same. Just—the normal amount, you know? Don’t you give everyone butterflies? C’mon, it can’t just be me.”
Maybe it was just him, come to think of it. He didn’t remember many other people getting tongue-tied around Rich, or blushing simply when he entered the room. The only reason Jake could keep his cool around Rich was because he’d spent months adapting to this constant glow-y feeling. The first few weeks after meeting post-fire Rich, Jake had practiced talking in the mirror just to make sure he hadn’t had a stroke in his sleep and lost the ability to speak or something. Other people… didn’t seem to have that reaction. They didn’t act like Rich was made of pure sunshine, or his voice a melody, his eyes entrancing, his lips—
Jake searched Rich’s face for an answer, eyes darting from place to place helplessly. From his eyes to his eyebrows to his cheeks to his freckles to his hair. He was met with curiosity and excitement and tension—something that terrified him more than anything.
He didn’t think Rich would say no, not when he was looking at Jake like this. Like he was afraid to be happy, unbelieving that things could possibly go the way he wanted them to. Jake could ask Rich to kiss him right now and… and he might get that. He might like that.
“The normal amount,” Jake repeated, his voice trembling. Too fast. He was straight ten minutes ago, this was way too fucking fast.
“The normal amount is no amount, Jacob,” Chloe said. Unlike Rich, she didn’t sound afraid to be happy. She looked excited. She was finally free from Jake’s lingering attraction. She could go off and date this new girl without wondering if her ex-boyfriend would be okay with it. Because he had a crush on his best friend. Apparently. Fuck. No—
“Okay?! Then I don’t feel it any amount! It’s only sometimes—well, most of the time—but there’s no way—how can you look at him and not—?”
Chloe had the audacity to laugh at him, elated and unbridled. That, of all things, should’ve had Jake’s heart melting into his lungs.
But instead, it was Rich’s small, “Jake…?” that made the sky turn pink.
“Don’t. I don’t like you, okay? I don’t. It’s—”
Jake would kiss him if Rich asked him to. But, because this was post-fire Rich instead of pre-fire Rich, Rich didn’t say a word, didn't lean forward and offer Jake the sweet relief of letting all this built-up excitement out into a kiss. Rich sat back down, mouth clamped shut and eyes trained carefully on the table in front of him.
“Okay,” he murmured, his face flushed, “Sorry. Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“Go out to dinner with me.”
Rich refused to look up. Still staring at the table, he whispered, “What?”
“I don’t know?! Apparently, not everyone thinks you’re the most beautiful person to walk the planet?! And I mean, if I get to keep you all to myself, then fuck me if I don't. So. Dinner. I don’t know what’s happening right now, but I’m not a fucking coward. I’ll go for it. You’re pretty, you make everything warm and happy, and I think I really fucking like that feeling, so.”
“You’re straight.”
“Maybe not?” Jake offered, his voice small and on the verge of cracking.
Rich’s hands clenched the edge of the table. Jake, disoriented and desperate, reached out and threaded their fingers together just to loosen his grip.
“Please?” he whispered, “I think—I think I really like you.”
“Okay,” Rich replied.
“No, I’m serious. I—”
“I know you are. But I’m sure I like you. A lot. Why don’t you go fuck around a little and experiment a bit before you decide to go and break my heart?”
“Oh, shit,” Chloe said. Jake shooed her off with his free hand, not even bothering to look at her. His full attention was on Rich and his trembling hands.
“I don’t wanna experiment. I want to go out to dinner with you.”
Rich shrugged. Jake made a small sound of frustration.
“C’mon, you can’t—I like you! I have all the feelings people get when they like someone. Hell, I probably have more, considering I literally cannot see anyone else whenever you so much as brush up against me. I was raised to be fucking president of Model UN and the archery team, Rich. My brain never managed to compute that liking guys—liking you—could even be an option. But it is an option, and I like you, and now that I know it I don’t think I will physically be able to handle being in the same room and not kissing you. Dinner. Please. One date. Then you can decide I’m a slut who just wants to experiment.”
Rich squeezed Jake’s hand, tight and unwavering. When he looked up, all Jake could think about was how grateful he was Rich hadn’t done it earlier. He already knew he was fucked—just from Chloe’s confusion, from Rich’s embarrassment—but damn. Damn. Jake wished he was more poetic. He’d trained himself to write succinct essays and informative contentions, not stanzas about the exact shade of gold the perfect mix between green and brown could make.
“One date.”
“And when I prove you wrong, we can go out on another.”
Rich let out an awkward laugh that sounded somewhere between pained and excited.
“Sure,” he said, “Then we can go on another.”
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