#squeb's ocs

So!

[Slaps roof of oc]

Reena is my oldest oc, first spawning into existence when I was but a mere 11 years of age

She is very special to me

She is also a horrible little bastard

Reena is a thief for hire with a stage name that has changed at least 3 times. It's either Phantom or Fox or some ninjago-brand villain pun name that I can't quite remember. It's been a while.

She functions as a minor/recurring antagonist that steals weird macguffins for shadowy figures for fun and for profit

She doesn't take most things very seriously, she's just here for for a good time, yknow? Crime gets her out the house and gives her a chance to stretch her abilities

She is the self-proclaimed "master of illusion", whether these powers stem from elemental abilities or if its more of a sorcery deal (ala Clouse) is a mystery

And like any self-respecting individual with illusion powers, she abuses the hell out of them, heavily reliant on disorienting and distracting opponents so she can slip out of trouble and snag whatever her prize is. She's fast, sure, she's stealthy, but a fighter? She is not

But what she is, is very, very irritating to deal with. The ninja have had run-ins with her a few times and they collectively conclude that she is insufferable. Not to say all their encounters are adversarial, or at least from Reena's perspective anyway. Honestly she quite likes the ninja. They save Ninjago like, all the time, and if Ninjago is consumed by giant snakes or darkness or ghosts then what? Nothing good probably

Speaking of canon characters, Ronin is also familiar with her. Reena used to be a kind of apprentice of his towards the beginning of her criminal career. And by apprentice I mean she helped Ronin steal things and Ronin gave her a very small cut of the profits. Apparently, she thought she deserved a bigger cut for some reason and ditched him not long after. Sometimes their paths cross when they're both off on quests to steal things. There's no hard feelings though, they just both like to bully each other

Anyway backstory

Also a subject of ambiguity and frequent change, the tldr of the original edition is she lived in ninjago city with her parents and little brother but then her parents got lowkey killed by the great devourer and I guess bc I was 11 and didn't think about the fact they'd qualify for adoption, this led the vastly unqualified Reena to start stealing things so they could get by. And then gradually expanding her enterprises into bigger things

Yknow, classic backstory

(When I was 11 Rebooted had only just aired so actually Harumi stole Reena's backstory- (This is a joke))

More recent versions of her backstory find her parents just. Straight up absent for most of her life for unknown reasons. She's part of a kinda thieves guild thing, and an additional part of her motivation for stealing is bragging rights. Still gotta look out for her little brother though. Vaguely.

So uh. Yeah.

Wish I had some old drawings of her to show but yknow

So. Harlow is a time elemental

Originally she was idk maybe 12? Small child basically and the whole thing going on was "What would a kid do if they could actually mess with time?" The answer is a lot of dumb stuff and unintentionally becoming something of a Problem, by causing problems bla bla bla ninja had to go deal with that, Harlow learns not to be so irresponsible etc etc

Of course with the introduction of the hands of time I figured I might as well tie in Harlow's backstory and she ended up as like... Krux's long since abandoned kid or something. Not an orphan, just living with her mum and all that and having the dormant time powers get triggered by the temporal anomaly Acronix fell out of, which then started the irresponsible time travel arc

Anyway that is... Largely irrelevant to the iteration in the drawing. So! What's the deal with her?

Still a master of time, still... Probably Krux's kid, (hence the similar fashion sense) but with the added twist of

A. She's an adult (somewhere between 19-23)

B. Now get this: Also from a parallel timeline in which the time twins successfully defeated the elemental alliance, overthrew the monarchy and instated themselves as the new rulers

Yeah.

So Harlow's living the high life with pretty much everything she could ask for, probably got a sibling or cousin or something. Still kind of childish and irresponsible and absolutely down for abusing her time powers (I think she's got rewind and pause which... I'm not entirely sure were Krux's powerset but sure, why not)

And it's all going great until in the main timeline the Iron Doom rips a hole in the space time continuum and really starts messing things up. I mean, really starts messing things up. Like kind of fracturing... Everything? And causing things, places and people from other timelines to get pulled into the main timeline

Like Harlow

So that's a thing. And since the time twins were deadset on halting technological progress where she was from, its a real culture shock for poor Harlow, who has never seen a car or a TV or a phone before. It's a bit like an off-brand edition of watching Acronix experience the wonders of the modern world.

It's also a little awkward since the news reports are talking about the time twins getting their asses kicked and- hey! That's her dad! And her uncle! What the heck?! What happened?? What's going on??

I don't think I ever properly established what happened after that point other than the vague she probably runs into Reena (see previous post) who was working at the history museum at the time and Harlow immediately becomes emotionally attached to this horrible rat bastard, which Reena is none too thrilled with.

They end up on some kind of adventure to figure out what Harlow's deal is and how to get her home or get revenge or whatever it was she was on about, involving copious amounts of time travel fuelled by the energy of the temporal anomalies (Which can be helpfully located using borgtech. This is apparently a normal feature for a phone to have)

Can't imagine the ninja were too thrilled to have thought they dealt with the whole time travel thing only to immediately get decked by some other time travelling maniac shrieking at them for incomprehensible reasons while one of the history museum janitors(???) just kind of. Watches from a safe distance.

..

So that was a bit of a ramble, but that tends to happen when you ask me about ocs unfortunately

Hopefully that was... Something of a vague explanation? Crash course in Harlow history? Sure was something