#ninjago critical

[imminent-danger-came]

Crazy that when lmk first released all the people comparing it to ninjago did so negatively

Early lmk easily blows early ninjago out of the water

(<- barely holding in the rage of a hot burning star)

Hahahah yeah. Hahahahahahahah yeah. Yeah. N*njago is better than lmk. Hahaha. Yeah. That is a take I can be normal about. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Hauhahahuhuhauhuahh. People can enjoy what they enjoy and do whatever they want forever. Ahaha. Sobs.

Bits aside, watching the amount of n*njago I did made me greatly appreciate lmk s1. Lmk s1 is a masterpiece compared to anything n*njago has to offer, I'm not quite sure why this is even a discussion. 1x09 is SO good ("The old you would have leveled this whole mountain range to stop me! But you're scared of hurting some kid? Pathetic!" *DIES DIES DIES DIES*). Sigh. Anon I don't get it

[star-ocean-peahen]

when ninjago called this a kimono 😔

I found this cheongsam from Etsy that looks almost exactly like it and is OBVIOUSLY the actual inspiration for the design

[cable-salamdr]

They should let me into the writers room fr look at what beauty I can create (Based off of this post)

Thank you @its-virgo-season and @user-without-a-cool-acronym for these fantastic tags that enabled inspired me even further

[skierisa]

dont mind about the weird shadows on their faces and table, i'm still figuring it out and by now it's just a test i swear

i've been doing this since april when will i finish it aaaaaaaaa

[taddymason]

So, I think as a fandom it would be better if we understood that in Jaya it's not that one of them loves one more than the other, but that one of them is more selfish than the other.

I wish this aspect was acknowledged more and not interpreted as "Nya doesn't need Jay or loves him as much as he loves her" but rather both characters have different priorities. Nya is a protective person, she is much more selfless in her actions, when Lloyd asks her to stay at the tournament, she does it because she knows she is needed, she knows Lloyd needs her and counts on her and of course no matter when she wants to go find Jay, she will always be there for her little brother like it happened in S9 and all the show tbh. And also because the tournament was a priority for the team at that time.

Now I'm not saying that Jay isn't capable of selfless sacrifices but I think there's a reason why this happens to a lesser extent with strangers and with MUCH more consistency with those she loves. And I'm not even talking about Nya. Jay dropped absolutely EVERYTHING without telling anyone in S7 to go save his parents, or in S6 the guy said "fuck the low profile" and summoned a dragon in the middle of the street in S6 to go see Ed in case he died.

Jay is much more prone to ignoring the greater good and putting absolutely everything aside for his close circle of loved ones (I actually love this about him a lot and it sets him apart from the team as one with the most questionable morals). One of Jay’s themes is family, again, and it’s not limited to Nya, but to his parents and how he always rushes in to save them without thinking, or how when Wu was in danger in S7 the guy jumped off the bounty against Lloyd’s orders to fight a mysterious stranger. I could go on, but it’s important that this aspect isn’t limited to Nya, but that Jay always puts his close circle of loved ones over the greater good. If you asked Jay to stay and complete a mission instead of going to save a loved one (be it Nya, his parents, or anyone on the team), the guy would do whatever he wanted, sorry.

And instead, Nya, from her role as a zamurai, has the theme of protecting, of taking care of others. Not only as a warrior, because she is genuinely kind supporting others like Lloyd or Sora. Nya SHOULD be allowed to be more selfish but ever since she was a child she's had to accept a very harsh reality where you can't afford to be "selfish", she's been forced to accept roles that people put on her, ever since s5 she was accepting something she didn't want for the greater good of becoming the water ninja. Of course she loves her family but she's also more analytical than Jay (who's going to react in the most impulsive/explosive way when you corner him) in order to know where she's most in need.

And even in S2 you can see how she puts aside her mourning for Kai (and the righteous anger she would have with Ras and Cinder) and tries to calm Wyldfyre at every opportunity.

To sum it all up, it's not just that Nya and Jay have very different ways of expressing affection to their loved ones (I beg you to stop using "I love you" as evidence because Nya hasn't said it to Kai either and I think we all know how much she loves him) but they also handle things very differently in complicated situations.

I think if the roles had been reversed in DR, would Jay have gone to look for Nya after she lost the tournament? Tbh yeah, most likely, but that doesn't mean he loves her more than she loves him. It's just that Jay is generally a more selfish person who will react more impulsively before thinking about the pros and cons or doing what is asked of him for the greater good. It's notable that the greatest act of love Nya does for him (which is sacrificing her humanity in s14) is not only for him, but also to save Ninjago. Again, getting into the subject of the sacrifices she makes to protect others, accepting decisions she doesn't really want to make.

[kindaasrikal]

Garmadon and Morro, and their unused dumbassery in the departed realm, part 5:

Part 4 - Part 6

*arguing with someone, maybe Chen*

Morro: yeah? Well why don’t you go SUCK MY-

Garmadon: *covers his mouth* he didn’t mean that.

Garmadon: Well, he did, and I share the sentiment, but in a more dignified manner.

Morro: Garmadon, what’s that.

Garmadon: what is what?

Morro: *pointing at the very fast flying object hurtling towards them.* that.

Garmadon: *turns around uninterestedly to see.* hm?-

Garmadon: *look up to see his father flying full speed ahead on top of a dragon, standing with a sign saying “WELCOME SON AND GRAND CHILD, WORDS WILL BE SHARED IN THE NEXT FEW SECONDS, BE PREPARED.” In bold.*

Garmadon: *blinks up at it*

Garmadon: *picks Morro up and makes a run for it* all of our mistakes hurtling towards us, child.

Morro:…why, is your father, the First Spinjitzu master, chasing us?

Garmadon: It’s punishment in the form of torture.

Fsm: *wishes to smother them* YOU CANNOT RUN, MY CHILDREN.

Garmadon: Morro, dear child, genuinely, what is wrong with you.

Morro: *standing being half alive half not (literally half alive half dead one side of his form has a body the other does not. You can see his insides.), glowing pink, and tied to a tree as he floats upwards. He has the most blank expression known to man.* I blame Wu, and only Wu.

Garmadon: He is not even dead.

Morro: yet.

Garmadon:….what did you do-

Garmadon: Morro.

Morro: mmshshh *laying face down on the ground, just cause he can*

Garmadon: No- Morro.

Morro: what? *muffled by the grass.*

Garmadon: Child, you had a bowl cut?

Morro: *shoots up* WHERE WHAT WHY HOW-

Morro: *having just entered the Departed realm, bumping into Garmadon for the first time since the other was chained up*

Garmadon: Morro, what a pleasure.

Morro: *jumps.* Garmadon, I see you made it out of-

Garmadon: *raises an eyebrow.*

Morro:

Morro:

Morro: ah

Morro: what…are you wearing?

Garmadon, who traded his clothes with Lloyd right before he left, as a last minute gift before they never see each other again: *scowls* it’s better than what you’re wearing.

Morro: I DIED IN THIS?-

Guys please im losing ideas i gotta scrounge up the worst ones imaginable in my head.

Anyways the Fsm defo jumped Garm and Morro, bullied them, and smothered them in love. He’s been lonely for the past few years. No i do not take criticism this is definitely the fsm.

I miss Morro. And Sensei Garmadon. I rlly want smth on these two.

[agenericplaceholdername]

Why Nya and Jay Can Remember Skybound

By the time Jay makes his final wish in Skybound, the realm crystal and Zane’s falcon have been destroyed, PIXAL has been deleted, Lloyd is an old man, large chunks of land have been ripped out of the ground and are poised to fall back onto Ninjago, and Nya is dead. Those last two parts are most important for Jay, the only character with a wish remaining (if you ignore all the Ninja replacements, who never made wishes and conveniently left after the real Ninja returned). Thus, Jay makes his final wish: “I wish you had taken my hand, and no one ever found that teapot in the first place.”

After Jay makes his wish, time is reversed and the Ninja return to where they were in the first episode of the season. The paparazzi is about to find the Ninja and all of them but Nya use airjitzu to hide from the helicopters. Jay asks Nya to take his hand, which she originally rejected, on the basis that, “I can stick up for myself” and “I'm a ninja, and I'm nobody's girl.” However, after Jay’s final wish, Nya uses airjitzu, which she learned over the course of Skybound, and takes Jay’s hand.

While they remember the events of the season: 

“I remember! I remember it all!” – Nya, The Way Back

“Me too!” – Jay, The Way Back

They don’t care how they do:

“But how?” – Jay, The Way Back

“Who cares.” – Nya, The Way Back

I, on the other hand, do care, and that’s what this post will explain. The other Ninja experience some deja vu, but aside from a subtle reference to Skybound in season 8 and a mural depicting the events of the season, indicating that Master Wu (or at least the painters of the monastery) was told, only Jay and Nya actually remember what happened.* Functionally, Skybound is an alternate timeline that never occurred.

This is not the first time Ninjago has dealt with alternate timelines! In Season 2, the Ninja time travel to the past and create an alternate timeline where Nya is kidnapped later on by the Ninja disguised as skeletons, Lord Garmadon from the future fights Kai at the fire temple, and the Ninja use the golden weapons to send the Mega Weapon into space. This timeline is erased when the Mega Weapon is destroyed, with series creator Tommy Andreasen confirming that the only change that the alternate timeline left is that the Mega Weapon ended up in space – the pilots still happened as depicted in 2011. At the end of the episode, the original four ninja remember the events of the episode, along with Garmadon, Nya, and Wu, but not Lloyd, who was not present. Wrong Place, Wrong Time’s time travel is extremely confusing, largely because Lloyd doesn’t just not remember the time travel but also doesn’t remember the Mega Weapon at all.

If the logic of Wrong Place, Wrong Time holds, then only those present for Jay’s last wish should remember it.** That means Jay and Nadakhan, obviously, but also the rest of the Ninja, but crucially, not Nya, since she was dead at the time. Now, perhaps the rest of the Ninja don’t remember, since the wish was between just Jay and Nadakhan, but that still doesn’t explain why Nya remembers Skybound.

Now, perhaps you could explain Nya’s memory as Jay’s wish was about her – Jay wanted Nya to take his hand. And this would work, except that Jay’s wish was also about Clouse. While he’s not named directly, Nadakhan ensures Clouse never finds the Teapot of Tyrahn in the first place.*** Now, if Clouse had remembered Skybound since the wish was about him, then it would have been very straightforward – Clouse would remember that Nadakhan tricked him into wishing it all away and stopped searching for the teapot. Clouse is instead chased off by angry citizens of the Village of Stiix while still searching for the teapot. You could argue that Clouse remembered Skybound but was arrogant enough to keep searching, but there’s zero evidence of this, so while this theory isn’t necessarily wrong, I think there’s another, better explanation that covers why Nya remembers Skybound but Clouse didn’t (Clouse also never mentions this in the Dark Island Trilogy).

The most logical explanation why Nya remembers Skybound is, based on the rules of wishes established in Skybound, love. And no, I’m not talking about how Jay “wished from the heart” so Nya ended up remembering Skybound.**** I find it hard to believe that Jay’s true, heartfelt intention was to make sure that he and Nya remembered events that never occurred. Instead, let’s look at what Jay wanted. He wanted Nya to take his hand and Clouse to not find the teapot. The second half is easy, since Nadakhan is more than capable of altering the actions of others with his wishes – after Jay’s first wish, the mailman comes out of nowhere, and so does Nya after Jay’s second wish.

Theoretically, Nadakhan could override Nya’s free will and have her take Jay’s hand – except for two problems. First, on a metatextual level, this would run totally counter to Nya’s entire message in Skybound, as muddled as it is. Having Nya take Jay’s hand because of a wish would not only undermine the entire point of Jay’s growth over the season (Jay goes from saying “Maybe a wish is what it takes! Maybe this is how she falls for me” in Public Enemy Number One to asking Nya, “Well, what do you want?” in The Last Resort) but also utterly obliterate Nya’s agency, the exact thing she spent the season fighting for. Now, can Ninjago have totally contradictory messages? Of course! Skybound is a case study in mixed messaging on this very issue! But there’s a second, in-universe reason why Nadakhan can’t make Nya take Jay’s hand, and it’s not for the reason that Tommy Andreasen gives, which is that Nya is dead, and Nadakhan can’t control the dead. Nadakhan is more than capable of making dead people do things, since he literally brings Delara back to life earlier on, and he is capable of doing multiple things in one wish, by making Lloyd both older and wiser.

The reason is that you can’t wish for love! This is one of the first things Nadakhan says (“You can’t wish for love, death, or more wishes” – Nadakhan, Infamous). Nya makes it very clear that the reason she won't take Jay's hand is because she doesn’t, or refuses to, love Jay at the start of Skybound. Having her take Jay’s hand because of a wish would mean he wished for love.

However, right before Nya dies, after the whole plot of Skybound has happened, Nya does love Jay, so Nadakhan is not magically making Nya fall in love. Instead, Nya takes Jay’s hand of her own agency, but this can only happen because Nadakhan ensures that Nya remembers the events of Skybound, so that the love that was created naturally, not as a result of wishes, does not go away, and he fulfills Jay’s wish.

Thus, Jay remembers Skybound because he made the wish, Nya remembers Skybound because she needs to to love Jay to take his hand, and Clouse, the other Ninja, and the rest of Ninjago don’t remember it because it never happened.

——————————————————————————————————

*And technically Zane if you include Ninjago: Decoded

**The same time travel logic sort of holds in Lost in Time, where the Ninja in the present are aware of the changing timeline after having been present for the Iron Doom's time travel. That being said, they are also still affected by the changes in the past (Zane reverts to his pre-rebuilt state when Ninjago's advanced technology is undone).

***It would have been very easy to twist that wish into no one having ever found the teapot, that is, Captain Soto would never have found the teapot, but whatever.

****I think it’s possible that Nadakhan didn’t twist Jay’s wish because it was from the heart, but that’s totally unrelated and not based on any actual evidence. The Ninjago wiki seems to think this: "Nadakhan, being hit with the venom and with Jay’s wish being pure, has no choice but to grant it" [emphasis mine].

[peachi-blossom]

More shows that have a better color palette than Hazbin Hotel

[fandomsnrambles]

Fucking sobbing at this meme i made some time ago 😭

[olivescales3]

And then people will dare to say that Garmadon had any kind of duality about his son. LMAO

Rewatching Chima— The Artifact, as an episode, shows how much of a filthy hypocrite Fluminox is.

I might write a small essay about this later, but in summary:

Sir Fangar used Tormak's weakness (his protectiveness of Li'ella) to extort him; as Fluminox' student, Sir Fangar KNEW that the Artifact would've exploded, and messing with his opponents by making them lose their map to the Fire Wings was an extremely intelligent strategy

The 'romance' and 'marriage' thing was all a bluff to distract Laval and the Fire Tribes, while angering Tormak

Tormak, out of his paternal instincts, agreed to steal the Artifact and was subsequently punished for it

HOWEVER, ON THIS SAME EPISODE, Fluminox 'mourns' his sabotage in the name of his son, saying that ONLY TORMAK WOULD UNDERSTAND HIS PAIN, yet he immediately started whining when Tormak made a TRUE sacrifice for his daughter (Fluminox is a cunning colonialist but that's another issue)

THERE WAS AN ENTIRE SCENE ABOUT TORMAK'S PAST WITH LI'ELLA, MEANWHILE FLUMINOX BARELY HAD ANY SCENES ABOUT TREATING FLINX RIGHT!!!!! Tormak cried because of Li'ella's kidnapping while Fluminox did nothing for Flinx when he ran away!!!!

People really missed out on Chima ugh

[imminent-danger-came]

I don't understand the lego ninjago movie

[writer-room]

Obsessed with Lloyd never mentioning his grandfather is the First Spinjitsu Master, apparently to the point even Arin didn't seem to know, because "eh, it never came up". Cause like, yeah, sure, my grandfather is God, what of it? Normal day for me. Shit happens. My dad is also evil, you wanna talk about that? I sure don't.

It's also funny from a character arc perspective. Here's itty bitty baby first season Lloyd, loudly proclaiming he's the son of Garmadon, and probably also making sure everyone knows he's God part 3 electric boogaloo. And then one Tomorrow's Tea and a few more years later and he's doing everything physically possible to NOT care about his heritage. In fact he'd probably rather his parentage was literally anyone else. Dude could care so less he forgets about it most of the time. King behavior.

[itsabouttimex2]

Anyways does anyone know what the name of this phenomenon is where fans say “the thing you are criticizing is just a little itty-bitty baby show unless you like it and then it is a literary masterpiece behind comprehension”

[quotidianish]

If nobody got me I know ice themed characters got me

[spinjitsuburst]

watching secrets of the forbidden spinjitzu while i get some stuff done and i like to think wu's overly harsh vibe at the beginning of the season is him trying to reclaim SOME sense of authority after his ninja literally had to raiSE HIM FROM A CHILD GFDHKJGKJ

[nyaskitten]

And if I said most of Garmadon’s designs ranged from okay to awful, what then?