Yes! Yes! Yes!!!! They Both Support Each Other So Much!!! Gosh I Love This Ship So Much!!!

Yes! Yes! Yes!!!! They both support each other so much!!! Gosh I love this ship so much!!! 😍

It matters where you are 🩵

@the-ninjago-historian @only-lonely-stars

Saw a kid watching Dragon's Rising on my flight. It was cool to see another Ninjago fan in the wild. So I decided to sketch him a quick Zane. When we landed, I asked him who his favorite character was. It was really awesome to talk with another fan even though we didn't really know each other.

So, from one fan to another, thanks for talking with me about Ninjago, and enjoy the rest of Dragon's Rising buddy!

Thank you so much! I can't wait to read "Orange is the New Black"! I've been so busy with work and my business that I haven't been able to read much lately. 😕 I've seen so many of your writing posts, and all your stories look so interesting! I'm really looking forward to just sitting down and reading through all the great Ninjago Fan Fics I've been watching from afar.

Have a wonderful day my friend!

God Bless!

-Nexu

I'd love to hear about your WIP "Finding Balance"!

Of course!

This one is for the Ninjago Fic Fest. I was so happy to find an Echo prompt so I could put my own spin on his story!

It's honesty kinda weird how the story developed. The prompt was just to have Echo explore Ninjago and learn more about himself along the way. But then I realized that to get to Ninjago, he had to get off the island first. So I had to write that bit, and then the middle went in a different direction than I had originally planned.

Like, the complete opposite direction.

The original idea was that Echo wanted some alone time after being rescued by his new family. (Imagine living alone for years, and then all of sudden, you're in a crowded monastery with people around every corner. You might want a break from it after a while.)

But time alone is not at all what I ended up writing for Echo.

I was about to rework the middle bit to better fit the theme I had originally intended when I realized that just because the themes I had going were completely opposite each other, didn't mean they couldn't exist together.

It's awfully interesting that the prompt involved Echo discovering more about himself on his adventures because that's what happened to me while writing.

I love to spend time alone. I feel like I can truly be myself. And a lot of my hobbies are single person activities.

But at the same time, I love spending time with other people! Going to get ice cream with friends, or seeing people at church, or talking and joking with my coworkers, I love it!

I didn't realize how much I loved it until I spent a little too much time alone and ended up feeling really sad and lonely.

And then, on the flipside, if I'm around people for too long, I get mentally drained.

I realized it was all about finding that balance. Hence, the title of the story.

Just like me, Echo is going to have to find that balance in this story.

Luckily, he has his big bro Zane to help him out with that. 😊

Broke through a little writers block on "The Lighthouse" via mentioning a spider web. I was like, yeah, there's a spider web in the corner, and then the transition from one scene to the next became clear. What even is writing? 🕷🕸🤷‍♀️

Finding Balance

Chapter 1 : Multiple Suprise Visitors

(For @ninjago-fic-fest)

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2

Summary: After he is retrieved from the lighthouse by his brother and new friends, Echo must adjust to his new life. Even though his new home and family are amazing, it's still so different from what he's used to. Maybe a walk in the city will help clear his mind.

Chapter 1

Multiple Suprise Visitors

Zane was scrubbing at a particularly stubborn dark spot on one of the lighthouse windows. He scowled at the mark and pressed with the rag a little harder. The mark still didn’t budge. He decided to give up with the rag and started scraping with his fingernails. After a couple of passes, the mark was gone.

Zane stood back to admire his handy work when there was a loud thumping sound from downstairs.

“Thump, thump!”

He paused; certain his audio receptors were glitching. His only other companion, a small cleaning robot named Ty-Dee, was in the far corner of the room dusting away some cobwebs. What could possibly be making noise downstairs?

The noise sounded again.

“Thump, thump!”

It sounded a bit like someone knocking on a door.

But that wasn’t possible of course.

Nobody else had been on the island for years. Not since the day his father left.

And he had disappeared years ago.

Zane remembered it very vividly.

It was like any other normal day. He had worked on inventions with his dad, had some lunch, gone downstairs to his room to work on his own personal invention, and then went to sleep. But when Zane awoke the next morning, his father had vanished.

He hadn’t left a note behind explaining where he was going or anything.

Just like that, gone.

And from then on it had just been him and Ty-Dee.

The sound came again, louder this time, “THUMP, THUMP, THUMP!”

That was definitely, a knock at the door.

Someone was here, Zane thought. Someone who could finally get him off this rocky island of solitude. Someone was here to rescue him!

Had his father returned? He barely dared to hope.

Zane raced down the stairs, two steps at a time; Ty-Dee rolling along after him, clunking down the stairs one by one. Upon reaching the bottom, Zane bolted toward the front door.

And then he paused, his hand clutching the door knob mid turn.

As excited as he was at the prospect of seeing people again Zane also found he felt a bit nervous. He hadn’t seen a human being in years. His mind started to wander. Who was on the other side of that door? Were they really here to rescue him? Or had they stumbled upon the island by accident? Would they be friendly? He certainly hoped so.

Only one way to find out.

Zane slowly opened the door, just a tiny bit, “Hello?”

“Oh good, Echo you’re here!” an excited voice responded.

Zane jumped a little at the sudden exclamation, but then opened the door a little wider to see who had spoken. A young man dressed in blue, greeted him with a small wave, smiling warmly. There were five other colorfully clad humans standing behind him on the wide stone steps that led up to the lighthouse door.

One of the blue stranger’s companions, a girl with dark wavy hair, must have noticed Zane’s caution and stepped forward.

“It’s okay Echo,” the young woman said gently, “We’ve come to take you home.”

Zane looked back and forth between her and the first stranger. They were both smiling at him. But their eyes were darting back and forth and they both shifted from foot to foot. They almost looked as nervous as he was.

Examining the two closer, he felt a strange sense of Deja Vu.

But then in a blink the feeling was gone. Odd.

No matter, Zane was much more interested in the name the girl had called him. “Echo”? Who was that? He opened the door a bit wider.

“Echo?”, Zane asked, finally stepping out of the lighthouse. “I’m sorry, but no one by that name lives here.” And then, not at all eager to be left behind he added, “But, um, maybe I can help you find who you’re looking for?”

The blue stranger looked confused for a second before the girl elbowed him in the ribs and whispered something Zane couldn’t quite catch.

But before he could begin to wonder what she had said, a movement from behind her caught his eye.

One of their companions was coming closer, traversing the last couple of steps. The young outsiders who had first greeted him stepped to either side, creating a space on the last step for the new arrival.

Now, he and this third stranger were standing face to face.

He was clad in white, and a bit taller than the first two strangers. He had short cropped hair and a confused look on his face.

And he wasn’t human.

The stranger was mechanical.

Zane had never thought he would see another human being ever again. Let alone an android like himself.

But this wasn’t just any android…

Zane’s eyes widened even further as he realized that the other android looked just like him.

It was like looking in a mirror. The shape of the face, the cropped pieces of curly wire for his hair, the lines down his cheeks where the sheets of thin metal had been welded together. The only differences being that this android was a shiny silver, instead of the brass and copper of his own rusting metallic skin. He was a bit taller as well, and his eyes were a brilliant blue in contrast to his hazel. But other than that, they were exactly alike.

Zane took a step back in surprise.

After a few more flabbergasted seconds he finally worked up the courage to ask,

“Who are you?”

The other android blinked twice, as if confused as well, before he answered, “I am Zane. I was built to protect those who cannot protect themselves,”

A heavy silence hung in the air.

Until, finally, Zane found his voice again.

“But I am Zane,” he replied.

The silence again, was thick.

And then another thought occurred to him. If this looked like him, then did that mean…

“Do you know Dr.—”

“Julian. Yes,” the stranger finished, “He was the one who made me. He was my father,”

And then the visitor’s eyes were shimmering with oily tears. Zane hadn’t quite expected that.

And then, the stranger leapt forward and wrapped his arms around him.

He jerked back in surprise, but the stranger who looked like him only pulled him closer.

And suddenly, the pieces fell into place.

If father had built this other android…

“A-are you, my brother?”, Zane whispered.

“I think so,” the stranger replied through his tears.

He had a brother?

Why had father never told him?

Zane felt his own eyes wet with tears.

Finally, after all this time. Someone had come for him.

His brother had come for him.

Now both androids were sobbing as they slumped to the ground.

They clung to each other like their lives depended on it.

“I’m so glad I found you,” the taller of the two whispered.

Zane only hugged his brother tighter.

After a minute or so, he pulled away still holding tight to his new brother’s hand, his smile wider than he ever thought it could go. The taller Zane smiled back, wiping away his tears with a baggy, white sleeve.

A large man dressed in black approached the two. The sleeves of his gi looked to have been ripped off, his muscly arms on full display. Zane thought he looked rather intimidating, but his voice was soft when he spoke.

“Are we ready to go Zane?” he asked.

The two androids turned and spoke in unison.

“I think so,”

“Yes please,”

They looked back at each other in surprise and then started to laugh.

“This could get a little confusing,” the stranger in red chuckled. His hair was spiked almost straight up from his head in a way that Zane thought looked rather silly.

“So, what should we do about this brother?”, the silver android asked, ruffling the other’s curly copper hair. “Do you want a nickname?”

Zane thought for a moment.

He wasn’t quite sure what he wanted to do.

He was Zane. He had always been Zane. He had stated that matter a factly not two minutes earlier.

But with the sudden appearance of his brother, he wasn’t so sure if the name was really his anymore.

Nobody had called him “Zane” in years. There hadn’t been anyone around to call him by any name actually. He admittedly had started to feel a bit disconnected from it.

Maybe a nickname would be nice.

Suddenly he remembered the name the stranger in blue had called him earlier.

Echo.

There was the strange feeling of Déjà Vu again. Weird.

He thought he rather liked the sound of that name though.

He wasn’t sure why, but he felt connected to it somehow. He had no memory of it that he could think of, but at the same time it felt familiar. Like when you wake up from a dream and can only remember the feeling of it but not any of the details.

“Oh, but …you don’t have to decide right now or anything. Or we can keep calling you Zane if that’s what you want, or um…” his brother spoke up again, stumbling over his words.

“Actually, a nickname sounds nice,” Zane interjected.

Maybe “Zane” could be his middle name, he thought with a smile. He wasn’t sure he wanted to let go of the name completely. It was what his father called him after all.

“How about Echo?”

I'd love to hear about your WIP "Finding Balance"!

Of course!

This one is for the Ninjago Fic Fest. I was so happy to find an Echo prompt so I could put my own spin on his story!

It's honesty kinda weird how the story developed. The prompt was just to have Echo explore Ninjago and learn more about himself along the way. But then I realized that to get to Ninjago, he had to get off the island first. So I had to write that bit, and then the middle went in a different direction than I had originally planned.

Like, the complete opposite direction.

The original idea was that Echo wanted some alone time after being rescued by his new family. (Imagine living alone for years, and then all of sudden, you're in a crowded monastery with people around every corner. You might want a break from it after a while.)

But time alone is not at all what I ended up writing for Echo.

I was about to rework the middle bit to better fit the theme I had originally intended when I realized that just because the themes I had going were completely opposite each other, didn't mean they couldn't exist together.

It's awfully interesting that the prompt involved Echo discovering more about himself on his adventures because that's what happened to me while writing.

I love to spend time alone. I feel like I can truly be myself. And a lot of my hobbies are single person activities.

But at the same time, I love spending time with other people! Going to get ice cream with friends, or seeing people at church, or talking and joking with my coworkers, I love it!

I didn't realize how much I loved it until I spent a little too much time alone and ended up feeling really sad and lonely.

And then, on the flipside, if I'm around people for too long, I get mentally drained.

I realized it was all about finding that balance. Hence, the title of the story.

Just like me, Echo is going to have to find that balance in this story.

Luckily, he has his big bro Zane to help him out with that. 😊