#ninjago crystallized spoilers

[figs-oliomedley]

Fuck you I’m right

[threemoonwatchers]

Garmadon in Crystalized part 2

[piereoglyphics]

hey guys its m again i made this myself

[angeldrawsstuffs]

I come bearing Survivalshipping

And also the poly version

Garmadon has two hands <3

[ninjacreature]

I just had a MASSIVE realization about Ronin's actions during The Island.

Looking at all of Ronin's other actions throughout the series, he always seems to have some kind of proper motivation. During Possession, it was paying a debt to free his cursed soul. During Skybound, he captured the ninja so his criminal slate could be cleared. By the time season 7 has rolled around, he has a pawn shop and he seems to have mostly settled down.

So what was his motivation during The Island? Money? That didn't make much sense to me at all. Sure, he likes cash, but what was he going to do with it? He'd been bounty hunting, he already had a source of income. He was turning things around in his life. So what changed? It didn't add up.

Unless, of course, we take these lines from Garmadon into consideration:

Upon being asked, during episode 20 of Crystallized, how he knew the Overlord would return, Garmadon answers this:

"I may have trouble understanding empathy, but anger and hatred are simple. I felt them growing all around me."

Judging by the fact that, despite seeming angry and hateful towards the ninja in the beginning of Crystallized, he later on defends them and makes the choice to help them, then the Overlord's influence on greater Ninjago realm could have gotten to him, too.

Ronin specifically tells Lloyd that not everyone can be a hero- that's the kind of thing that somebody angry and filled with hatred towards the world would say.

Notice how anger and hatred are not only the specific things he likely feels in the time before the Overlord makes his return, but also the specific things Garmadon points out as being symptoms of the Overlord's growing power. Maybe he wasn't directly targeted, sure, but Wu received a lot of newspaper clippings. Ronin wasn't the only one to be particularly crime-filled during that window of time.

Once the Overlord finished gaining his own vessel, his influence on Ninjago itself waned because he was more concentrated in a single location. It explains why so many Kryptarium prisoners were willing to follow Ronin when it came to helping the ninja- they weren't being powered by the growing anger and hatred anymore.

Sorry if this post seems stupid, I had an epiphany and I felt the need to make it. It seems logically sound to me, but I know not everybody will agree. I also haven't watched The Island in a while so bear with me please!

[chaoticfvckingdisaster]

"I do not know if there is anything after this life for beings such as you or I, but if there is, I will find you there. Goodbye my saint."

GHIS IS A CHILDRENS SHOW? OF LEGOS?

[fruitnoot]

Here’s an oni Lloyd sketch I did a little while ago after finishing Crystalized. I just think he should be able to be a little bit of a spooky villain

[coffeeisfortheresponsible]

Have you drawn any of the dragon forms before? I'm curious how a Kai or a Cole would look in your style 👀

this was super fun to do!!! and way out of my comfort zone in a good way if i’m being honest lol,, i never do full body poses but i love how this turned out! thanks for the request :)

i also just don’t know how to draw cole my b

@jalluzas this is also for you since you requested cole as well!!

[emerald-cloud23]

I genuinely enjoyed Crystalized. It was fun, there were references to old things that I loved seeing/hearing and I think it's good.

The only things I don't like about it is that Harumi was brought back, specifically that she was brought back to be like "do I have feelings for Lloyd or do I not? Oh well, time to serve the evilest being ever to help him destroy Lloyd!". When I watched s8 for the first time I didn't expect her to be the villain, she was written so well that I was a little surprised when she was revealed to be the villain. Then came s9 which.. also had her written well enough but I got seriously uncomfortable with her when she asked Garmadon to adopt her so he could forget about Lloyd. It still makes me uneasy to watch and I usually just skip that scene. And then she gets so scared of dying that she runs away from Garmadon until she sees a family in the same situation she was in many years ago. It takes her this long to see that what she's doing is just creating more people like her so she helps one (1) family to try and redeem herself before the building collapses and she dies. Heck, I wouldn't have been mad if they had brought her back to help the Overlord/Crystal King OR if she had been brought back to help the ninja. Not both. Not this "despite me manipulating and hating Lloyd I loved him so now I'll help someone destroy him" crap. And then that sudden switching sides in the final battle? Unnecessary. Just let her be evil and help the evil OR let her be good if you want to bring her back from the dead so badly. Both doesn't work and it ruins Lloyd in certain moments as well.

I wouldn't have multiple tags that mention her blocked so I can't see content of her if she hadn't been used by the plot like that. I just really don't like her after Crystalized. Before she was fine, even if that scene in s9 makes me uncomfortable.

But other than that, I enjoyed the season. Even that 'original ending' where Lloyd would've become the bad guy after defeating the Overlord/Crystal King? I would have loved to see that too (I do still like the ending we got, the only thing I dislike about it is once again Harumi).

[pixanefan]

"and P.I.X.A.L"

[oshawottarchive]

The Crystal council’s reactions to Devourer!Cole

Aspheera - both terrified and fascinated by him. She wants to try and get him on their side so that 1. He won’t be as much of a threat and 2. So that she could study him.

Pythor - Refuses to even look at him. He doesn’t want to be reminded of what he did to him.

Vangelis - Still a bit salty that he got dethroned by what he considers an animal. Also, he doesn’t wanna get smacked in the face with a snake tail again.

Mr. F - Doesn’t remember him, and has no idea what to think about him.

Harumi - Hates him with a burning passion, even more then she does Lloyd. Wants him destroyed and doesn’t appreciate a few of the others wanting to turn Cole to their team.

[figs-oliomedley]

It is EXTREMELY FUNNY how incredibly nerfed most of the Council of the CK is

-Pythor is a support class who goes down easy. His biggest strengths are his intelligence and his invisibility, but without an army, he doesn't put up much of a fight

-Vangellis similarly is extremely nerfed without the skull. He can fly, but everyone on the enemy team has a projectile, and he's not a super intimidating fighter

-The only reason Mister E is threatening is because none of the ninja ever beat him, and the only reason for that is because Zane is too sweet to kick an enemy while he's down (he had him completely frozen for like 5 seconds, if he threw E over the cliff it was OVER)

The only one who can hold her own without any allies is Aspheera. This walking bomb can blast the shit out of anything and anyone, army or no army.

Honestly, a more interesting team-up would've been Aspheera and Pythor. He's got the brains and she's got the brawn. Pythor finally puts his money where his mouth is and plans his grand revenge, with him commanding a section of Aspheera's army behind the scenes while she blasts her way through Ninjago City, and while the two megalomaniacs step on each other's metaphorical toes, they hate each other a little less than they hate the ninja.

I did not mention Harumi because she is literally just a dude (I forgot her)

[notmcubucky]

Yalls we have color

[strawberri-doggo]

Me looking back on the Survivalshippers that were writing fics before Crystalized based on one (1) scene in S10:

[theresistanceneverquits]

Screw it im gonna say this one thing -

The Garmadon that we see in SoG and onwards isn’t Lloyd’s father. He’s the embodiment of the evil in Garmadon (they lean towards Oni half in the show, whereas I firmly believe he’s the embodiment of the venom from the Great Devourer). He was born when Garmadon was bit and banished to the Cursed Realm at the end of s2.

Lloyd held hope that every version of his father would love him and had it thrown into his face in True Potential. Because this isn’t truly his father.

HOWEVER.

This new Garmadon is a new person, one who has every right to his own life as the og Garmadon did, and hence why he’s able to change once he accepts that his existence isn’t necessarily one of only evil. And he’s able to change.

[goldenheartstudios]

I wanna talk about Ninjago Crystalized

  Disclaimer 1: Spoilers if you haven’t watched that season yet

  Disclaimer 2: The things that I’ll focus on may not be relevant to you personally and that’s valid

  With that out of the way, I guess I should start with the reason of making this rant

  You see, it’s no secret that many fans don't have a positive opinion on this season, and that many people criticized it already. But personally, I’m neutral with this season, having things that I enjoyed or found nice, and things that I found annoying (but are more rooted with the problems in Ninjago series’ writing as as a whole)

  And, well, I actually didn’t plan to make a post about Crystalized. But I had in mind for a while to make a rant about my problems with Ninjago and how they come in relation with Dragons Rising (which I plan on doing this after that season ends of course), and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that Crystalized is a whole different topic on its own

  So I thought it’s better to put all of my feelings about this season separately, which I also noticed that are, uh, a little bit different from the majority of the reviews & rants that I read

  Starting off with the fact that I actually prefer the second part of Crystalized more than the first one

  Let me explain

  First of all, I find good things and bad things from both parts. Just because I personally like the second part more doesn’t meant that I don’t have issues with it

  But it’s a fact that my main issues are in the first part

  And I’m gonna start with the beginning

  The freaking timeskip

  In a past post about Seabound I was talking about how I wanted to see Kai grieving about Nya. Because, you know, she’s his sister, the whole reason why he became a ninja and why this show exists in the first place. And, you know, I also wanted to see how the others grieve, not just Jay, because she was part of the family, and I personally think that the show’s strongest point are the emotional moments

  So the fact that they made a timeskip of one year and focused more on Jay’s feelings about Nya than the others immediately dropped my expectations on the season to almost none

  Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against Jay. And yes, they did show that all of them are hurt and coping in different ways. But the thing that irks me is how they downplayed the others’ relationship with Nya in order to show that Jay is “the only one who still cares” about her being dead

  Yes, they were lovers, it makes sense he was this miserable. And yes, it makes sense for the others to grieve in different ways

  But it unnerves me how the execution was so weak and how they painfully downgraded the relationship between Kai & Nya in consequence

  I’ll admit my bias, their sibling relationship is my favorite thing from the series. But this show literally started with the bond they have for each other, and I personally don’t like how they seemingly made romantic love more important and valuable than family love. And I don’t mean just blood family, I mean the family created in the team as well

  Family bond is something beautiful and dear to me, and it bothers me how little focus was put into it throughout the time… in favor of plots that are not that great to put it lightly

  The sibling bond between Nya & Kai is very important, and if you think about it, it doesn’t make sense for Kai to have the kind of grief shown

  I don’t mind that he wanted to do something productive and teach kids how to defend themselves (even though it would make more sense for him to go back to his unhealthy coping mechanism of fighting, similarly like in season 4), and it could have been used as a parallelism to Jay’s decision on being stuck with the feeling of loss (if the writers were competent enough for this-), but him acting with shock at first in Seabound doesn’t make sense because we saw him reacting with loss before

  When Nya died in season 6 he was immediately devastated, and when Cole fell in season 10 he reacted with anger and anguish. The first reaction is an instinctive reaction, so Kai reacting in such a quiet manner doesn’t make sense and it only took focus from him when his freaking sister died. Was it that hard to make Jay & Kai cry together to reinforce their bond for Nya and with each other??

  Honestly, Kai’s a whole different subject on its own, so I’ll refrain myself from elaborating more on this problem than I did before

  And instead, we get to another different problem: the reviving Nya plot

  God, this one was so annoying

  Listen, I get that the mayor didn’t want to release Aspheera, and I get that the ninja decided to break in instead. I don’t have an issue with this

  The issue that I have is everything that happened afterwards

  First, let’s put this into perspective. A dangerous person escapes prison with a dangerous weapon because of a group of people. But these people saved the city a number of times in the past and they did this to bring back another person who sacrificed herself for the city. Objectively, these people are less of a threat than the dangerous person who escaped, and even if their actions are bad, their motives are understandable

  So, what should you do? If your answer is to focus on the escaped prisoner and possibly send the group of people after her in order for them to fix the mistake they made and keep the city safe, then congratulations you have a working brain

  Because this show imprisoned the ninja and let Aspheera, the dangerous one, be free and do whatever she wants

  This plot idea is hilarious for how stupid it is

  Like, who thought of this? Because there comes a point when you need imagination to think of something this bad. And the mayor being insufferable didn’t help either 

  Why in the hell was the mayor this against the ninjas? Just because the neon ninjas came in (which their whole existence is an annoying trope of useless rivalry), it doesn’t change the fact that the ninja did safe the city many times before from foes that threatened world destruction, and they try their best to protect others because no one else is able to face such danger

  If the mayor had such a big gripe against the ninjas for “causing trouble”, then he should freaking build better defenses. Stop relying on vigilantes and make a better system where there wouldn’t be need of their help

  Also, I want to briefly note that the way they wrote Aspheera was disappointing. I actually really liked her in season 11 for being a villain who has a twisted way of seeing promises: you can find a way to cheat through them, but you have to respect them. And the issue that she seemed to have the most was Wu breaking the promise he intended to make and sealing her away for many years

  But here she was reduced to a one-note villain who wants revenge. Great.

  Then we see the ninjas at the prison, which it wasn’t even entertaining. Their encounter with Ronin was irritating because the way he was written was, again, one-note without the personality traits that make me like him in the first place, and the ninjas being more punished was not enjoyable

  And after the ninjas escape, there comes the police chase. Which I can’t decide if this plot idea is more stupid than the previous one

  Because why the hell is the police more competent in chasing down the ninjas than the freaking villains? And why the hell are they focusing more on capturing the ninjas, when there are other confirmed escaped prisoners who are way more dangerous than the ones who have a reputation of protecting people?

  I mean this in the most lighthearted way possible, this is one of the reasons why I struggle to say that the writers of the show are competent

  I really dislike this prison plot. The more I think about it, the less it makes sense, and it doesn’t serve any other purpose than filling out time and building a fake challenge for the ninjas. And aside from genuine nice and funny moments, the first part is filled with this annoying plot

  But the second part has less of this plot, which makes it ten times better in comparison

  Now, I think the main reason why I don’t mind the second part that much is because I was watching it with no hopes or expectations, as they were all drained from the first part. And with that, I was able to turn off my brain and not think too much about the issues in this part

  They make Zane turn into the Ice Emperor as a joke? Ok. They bring back Overlord to be the main villain once again? Sure, why not. Nya getting her powers back plot was disappointing?  Didn’t expect anything more. Lloyd’s oni arc (and his arc in general) is all over the place? It wouldn’t be the first time. They make an obvious fake-out death at the end? That’s just a normal monday

  And lost potential is a tradition for Ninjago at this point, so I wasn’t that bothered at the many cool ideas from this part that could have been something great if the writers knew how to execute them and focus only on a few of them

  Now, I think I should talk about one of the reasons why people dislike the second part so much: the way they treated Harumi

  Which… uh… it didn’t bother me personally because…

  How do I put this lightly?

  I don’t really care for Harumi

  Now now now, let me explain. I don’t dislike her, but I don’t like her either. There are times when I enjoy her, especially when the fans do their own unhinged interpretation of her, but overall I don’t feel anything for Harumi for a couple of reasons

  First reason, her age confuses me. We see her as a child at the time The Great Devourer was defeated, and she seemed to be around the same age as kid Lloyd. And then there’s season 8, where she seems to be around the same age as Lloyd, maybe a little bit younger

  But the issue is, Lloyd did not age naturally, he aged up a good number of years with the Tomorrow's Tea

  So.. it doesn’t make sense for Harumi to be around the same age as him in the present if she was around the same age as him in the past, you know? And this confusion makes me feel conflicted about her

  Unless the ninjas stopped aging at a certain point, she should either be significantly younger than them, or she should have been a teenager when The Great Devourer attacked, which it wouldn’t make sense with her appearance shown at that time

  Honestly, the whole age subject is a mess in this show in general, especially since there are only three models to show the characters’ age: average, child and baby

  Another reason why I’m neutral towards Harumi is her motivation. I do like the concept of blaming the ninjas on failing to protect her family and admiring Garmadon for defeating The Great Devourer, but the thing that I don’t like is how the show made her somewhat in the right for her motivation on hating the ninjas

  I don’t like the idea of criticizing the ninjas for failing to protect everyone because here’s the thing: they’re vigilantes. They’re not officials, and they’re basically doing voluntarily work because there are no other people capable enough to do it

  I don’t mean that they should be allowed to play with people’s life or something like that, I mean that you can’t really blame them if they make mistakes or are not enough

  It’s like having a couple of people who do all the computer work in a building by choice. If they mess up something, you can’t hold it onto them, because the head of the building is at fault for relying on such few people who do all the computer work for free

  So the city’s system should be blamed for not having proper safety precautions and for relying on a group of few people to save them every time there’s a dangerous villain around, not the ninjas

  So aside from sometimes finding enjoyment in her unhinged personality, I personally don’t find her motivation that interesting

  Also, I want to mention that I dropped season 9 after the first 2-3 episodes (as I didn’t find it that interesting personally), and I’m aware that it’s an important season for Harumi’s characterization, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there are things that I talked about Harumi that are more developed or delved upon which I’m not aware of. And if that’s the case, then cool! I would be glad that the writers actually thought about this and addressed it!

  (I didn’t watch seasons 12 & 13 as well, so if there are things that I talked about that are explained in these seasons you can let me know!)

  One thing I would say about the Harumi from Crystalized tho. I expected for her to get a rushed redemption arc, but it’s still not nice that she got it, especially since there are people who are fans of her. I genuinely wish she had gotten more respect and a more satisfying conclusion

  Now, there are things that I genuinely liked from this season. Some character interaction moments, some funny dialogue, and the epilogue. It made me smile when people went to help build up the monastery, and Garmadon’s relationship with the plant was really sweet!

  I don’t have much of an impression about the ending since I turned off my brain at that time, but I wouldn’t say this season deserves to be called the worst season of all Ninjago. It has a lot of shallow and bad moments, yeah, but Ninjago is full of writing problems that are present in every season. As such, I personally don’t believe that there’s a worst season, only stronger and weaker ones

  So yeah, these are my thoughts about Crystalized! You may have a different opinion from mine, and that’s perfectly fine, since people focus on different things when it comes to watching shows

  Hopefully my next rant about Dragons Rising would not be this big… if I get in the mood to write it-