#none of that kai/nya bullshit

[nyasyang]

"Nya remained calm."That line was much better. I can see you've been practising." "Thanks for noticing," Miss Demeanor BLUSHED before remembering who she was talking to."

OMG YURI CONFIRMED

[the-ninja-legacy-whip]

Sooo what do you think of the leader potential from the Ninjas? In season 5 we did get a glimpse of wveryone attempting to lead what did you think of those? And how would they be in your version/stories? If one of them Had to be in a leader position (maybe Ocs too (Jesse))

I actually talk a bit about their general Chain of Command here, and building off of that, I do generally think everyone is very capable of being a leader and have circumstances where they thrive in the role the most; they just also have certain things that may hold them back from being perfect leaders

Cole is a natural leader, but also doesn't like to be the leader, and will quietly slip out of the role if/when he can. So whenever someone else makes the move to step up (usually Kai or Lloyd), he has zero problems letting others take the lead . When your Element is the one of "foundation", ofc you're going to lean towards being more "supportive" in your role. Not that you can't be a supportive leader, but for Cole that's just extra pressure he doesn't want/need. A lot of his shortcomings in leadership come strictly from his insecurities with himself, and he's able to circumvent it by just not being in charge (but then he laments over what his role would be otherwise)

Lloyd is also a natural leader, but this is more out of a) being cajoled into the role, b) usually being right (but not always obviously), and c) being unable to handle anyone else's bullshit and thus takes matters into his own hands snksnksnk. Unlike the others, he was indirectly trained for this, along with being stupidly observant about everything courtesy of his mother, but his shortcomings are a) his youth + lack of life experience compared to the others, and b) being overly emotional (not his fault), in which he can be led to call bad shots or making snap decisions with none of his usual thought put into them. (Very evident in S8, ahahaaaaa)

While Zane and Nya would have no issues logically directing others out of a situation, their personalities are so...potent that it leaves little room for...flexibility. Obviously both can delegate and take others' input as needed (i.e. Student Council stuff), but they are not usually inclined to do so, which can lead to problems during a mission. As stated in my other post, they're better suited in advisory roles—allowing for their input to be heard and addressed but without having it completely overshadow everyone/everything else.

Kai has the makings a good leader as well, but only in the right circumstances. Like Cole, he doesn't necessarily like giving orders, and like Nya he doesn't always like taking them either, on top of him getting too cocky in his own abilities once he grows into them...but when no one else is making an effort, Kai's personal persistence won't let him stay down, and thus he takes matters into his own hands, like Lloyd. (But if Kai's the one calling the shots, then yes, things have hit a very, very low point in the way of morale).

Similar to Kai, Jay is only capable of being a leader when things are at their most dire. Otherwise, he has that tendency to overthink and try too hard, where otherwise if he's the last man standing he has to force himself to stop, breathe, reassess, and make a game plan as he goes (as demonstrated in both Skybound and Prime Empire). Plus, when the other ninja are around, he's kind of outclassed in the "hey everyone listen to me right now" department (which, y'know, may be part of why he yells a lot). It can be hard for him to rally people to listen to him, but once he does, like a inspiration strike of lightning, he is hard to look away from.

Jesse...definitely isn't leader material lol. He's even more built for support than Cole, and serves as a mediator between others rather than calling for people to follow *his* lead specifically. He struggled just to convince people to flee the city for an evacuation, after all. But, who knows, maybe a chance for him to redeem himself will come up at some point~

[ravenrambles6229]

kai_ninjago appreciation hours

k gamer we need to talk about kai and how he is consistently the family man of the ninja and arguably the most emotionally mature of them all when it comes to family

i love kai so much. hes not the brightest, but he is the most loving out of all the ninja, even if it’s in his own way.

first up, presumably taking care of nya for years on his own. like, im sure the neighbors helped out, but he has gone on record saying that they mostly grew up on their own. this kid got “abandoned” by his parents. but even then, he lit lanterns with nya on day of the departed. even though he didn’t know what happened to them, he chooses to believe that they wouldn’t leave them willingly. that they’re still worth remembering and loving.

when it’s revealed that zane is a robot, kai is the first one there. “you may be a robot, but you’re still our brother.” being a robot doesnt change anything, and kai is the first one to make sure zane knows it, but is also the one to later tell the others “we just have to give him time. i don’t know how i’d feel if somebody told me i was a robot.” Like, he empathizes with zane! he tells zane he still loves him, respects zane’s wish to be given space, and expresses empathy with him. in ninjago decoded, kai even reveals that he often forgets zane isn’t human. zane is, at this point, made of titanium. and yet all kai sees is zane

ok and then there’s his true potential. what even is there to say about that one? how he realizes his purpose is to protect his family. he’s there to protect lloyd. the one that once left lloyd, flaked out on him. he realizes that no, this kid is everything to him.

when lloyd was climbing the tower to fight the overlord, kai was right there, ready to protect him. “there’s only one green ninja.” this is no longer about him, it’s about lloyd’s destiny to save the world. and he would do everything to make sure lloyd makes it through that

now. kai gets a lot of flack for being not that smart. and dude really aint. his mouth is a pistol with which to shoot himself in the foot. but when it comes to family? He’s one of the most eloquent there. In titanium ninja, he’s the one to first coin “this isn’t about numbers, it’s about family.” something that resonated with zane strongly enough that he would fight the overlord despite all odds.

And then the funeral. it wasnt wu to speak. or cole or jay or even lloyd, but kai. his speech is genuinely like... really good?

“Everybody wondered what powered Zane, and I don’t think we’ll ever know, but I’d like to think it was brotherhood. Because he powered me. And he still powers me. Wherever you are Zane, you’ll always be one of us.”

this is coming from a dude that probably can’t do long division or tell you what a prepositional phrase is. what kai lacks in book smarts, and even in typical maturity (he’s still very much so a teenager) he makes up for with this insane emotional intelligence specifically regarding family.

in season 4, he’s the one we see visiting zane’s statue. he’s the one that supports lloyd in spite of his crush on skylor (even cole and jay got distracted by their own squabbling, even if they did the right thing in the end) he’s the one that took NONE of skylor’s bullshit once she revealed having ice powers.

and he was so deeply hurt by her betrayal! he felt genuinely betrayed! he really trusted her, even though he probably shouldnt have, seeing as she tried to turn him against lloyd. but just like lloyd with harumi, kai saw the good in her. and his loyalty changed skylor.

then season 5. lloyd just had to banish his father. so kai does what he did once already: steps up to be there. telling lloyd that he’ll be there for him. and he is. he’s the one to get through to lloyd on multiple occasions when he’s possessed by morro after all.

season 7. kai is so genuinely hurt when he thinks his dad betrayed them. but once he knows they’re on his side, he’s so, so, SO genuinely relieved, and later doesn’t hold it against them that he and nya grew up alone, even though he does have plenty of right to do so, or to at least still feel hurt by it. no. he’s just glad to have them back.

i don’t remember season 8 very clearly, but kai being the one to answer cole’s questions about babies is pretty fun.

season 9 puts them through the wringer. at first, kai is actually the one freaking out the most, he wants to go home so badly, they don’t know what happened to lloyd. but when wu and hope are lamenting being tied to fucking stakes and left to die, kai is the first one to comfort wu. to start joking around to lighten the mood, which the others then piggyback off of. it’s kai that’s there to try and comfort him first.

season 10, cole’s fall. you can tell how badly kai wants to go back for cole, even when all logic dictates that they’d die. personally, i like to imagine that he told zane that “this isn’t about logic, it’s about family” to which zane might say “this is about the innocent lives on our ship” to which kai just. looks down in sorrow.

but when lloyd returns, they’re all silent. none of them want to tell lloyd what happened. it’s kai that breaks the news. it’s kai (and jay of course) that comforts nya when she blames herself. it’s kai that later goes to nya when she’s alone to tell her that it’s not her fault, and to push her towards moving past what happened, at least long enough that they can make it through this to grieve cole later. the one to reinforce to nya that cole wouldnt hold what happened against her (by offering her the scythe)

it’s just... it’s so consistently a part of kai’s character. i don’t know the second series enough off the top of my head to really point to specific examples. which is like, on me of course.

but when he lost nya, he channeled that into becoming a DOJO INSTRUCTOR for YOUNG CHILDREN. He saw his sister disappear, and decided to protect the rest of the children of ninjago, in whatever way he could: by making sure they could defend themselves, even if he’s not able to do it for them. it’s... honestly remarkably touching and poignant.

but like, shit, man. dragons rising NAILED big brother kai. the way he picks up lloyd and spins him around. he’s overflowing with so much love for his family. there’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that he’d go through hell and high water for any of them. which is true of all the ninja, of course, but kai... he’s special

he’s the one that knows what to say. how to comfort someone. how to make someone feel loved. how to help someone grieve. even if he doesn’t always know how to handle that grief himself (see his time as the burning shogun)

the fact that he learned these skills from such a young age is tragic in its own right, but that he managed to turn his loss and strife into such a positive character trait is nothing short of amazing, and is such a sorely overlooked aspect to his character.

tl;dr - Kai is not only loyal to a fault, but also capable of comforting people and being there for them. He loves his family so much, and he’s one of the best at expressing that in the little ways and big ones.

(sidebar but shoutout to his VA. he’s the one that really makes kai come to life)

[endermaans]

so this is me, rating the freaking seasons of lego ninjago. here we go

---

Masters of Spinjitzu: 7/10

Good set up. It's short and easy to watch. Also, nostalgia. Not my favorite, but good.

Rise of the Serpentine: 8/10

a good start to the series. it has its bad points like every season does but, yknow. I enjoy the building found family dynamic but you cannot tell me that that one cole-centric episode was not queer-coded as fuck. Because it was and I am not taking criticism. overall good!

Legacy of the Green Ninia: 7.5/10

This would have been a good end to the show imo. I'm glad it wasn't, but I can't really say I'm a fan of Lloyd getting aged up. He deserved a proper childhood dammit! The ending was good, solid banger. Also, Garmadad. Yes.

Rebooted: 5.5/10

I'm taking off points because it was eight episodes. Also, Zane and PIXAL's romance subplot? Literally took like, three episodes. Not even an hour, man. Not terrible, ending-wise But stop giving Lloyd and Zane trauma, damn you!

Tournament of Elements: 2/10

HOW. HOW DID YOU FUCK UP THIS BADLY. I loathe this season, solely because its supposed to be Kai-centric, AND IT DOES HIM THE FUCKING W O R S T POSSIBLE WAY. Also, the Kai and Skylor romance subplot sucks. And you're gonna tell me we DON'T address what happens when Kai holds the staff?! Bullshit.

Possession: 9/10

I adore this season with every fiber of my being. The Kai and Lloyd dynamic? Banger. Morro as the villain? Banger. The ending? Banger. By far, one of the better seasons.

Skybound: 6/10

Weehhhhhhhh, not my favorite. Nadakhan is a good villain and genuinely intimidating, and there are moments where you do genuinely fear for the ninjas safety. Hate the ending. How do you just erase everything like that?! I could also just say: "THIS NEVER EVEN H A P P E N E D." and my point would still be made.

Day of the Departed: 8/10

Thoroughly enjoyed this! Love the Cole-centric stuff. Pretty good special. Also, Morro! I love him your honor.

Hands of Time: 7/10

Not bad. Acronix and Krux are good villains. Not my favorite, but good. How many secrets is Wu gonna keep from the ninja? WHO KNOWS ANYMORE!

Sons of Garmadon: 7.5/10

Mediocre at worst. Harumi is definitely not a villain I saw coming until it was too late. She's also very hateable! Good written villain. But, the plots a little shakey.

Hunted: 8.5/10

HOLY SHIT GIVE LLOYD A BREAK MAN. My boy has been through so much and now he's on the run. Oh God. Oh can somebody please give him a break!! in all seriousness, I enjoy this one more than the previous. Its just better for some reason idk! Maybe its the dragons.

March of the Oni: 7/10

Why was this so short????? Wtf???? Bro, no. Solid, but short as hell.

Secrets of the Forbidden Spinjitzu Scrolls: The Fire Chapter: 4.5/10

Character writing is shaky. Plot holds steady BUT NONE OF THIS WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF WU HAD JUST SAID SOMETHING.

The Ice Chapter: 7/10

Character writing is significantly better here. Plot still holds steady. Could be better, but at least it's not the Fire chapter.

Prime Empire: 7.5/10

Not the greatest in terms of plot writing. However, Unagami is a good villain. Redeemable. I like it. Good season. Not great, but good.

Master of the Mountain: 10/10

I'm biased, yeah. But can you blame me? Its just a really good season! And honestly, Cole-centric AND vague dnd-themes? You've won my heart. Also, Vania is a very well-written character. She's also not a love interest to Cole either!! I'm in love.

The Island: 8/10

A good special. Better if you watch it as the 40 min special. It's good set-up for Seabound. Its still not the greatest in terms of plot, though.

Seabound: 9/10

I cried. I will admit it, I cried during this season. It's such a good season, and the last episode just had me bawling. For this being pretty much the sole Nya-centric season, I hate that it just had her become the ocean at the end. I saw it coming- still cried. Also, if I had a nickle for every season of Ninjago that started with S and ended with -bound and killed off Nya in some way, I'd have two nickles. Which isn't a lot, but its weird that its happened twice right?

[kittydemon9000]

I want to know what happen to Kai in Voice Inside AU!

:)

SO Volcano explodes, Ninja panic, and once it’s safe enough they go back to look because of course they do. But when they look into the volcano....there’s a surprising lack of lava....and a very unconscious looking Kai in the middle with the Fangblade in hand.

They bring him aboard the Bounty and start speeding toward the nearest hospital since he hasn’t woken up yet and has some pretty bad looking burns.

Nya actually brings up how the reason Kai acted so “odd” was because of a sort of similar accident when he was a kid where he was in a coma for a week, which worries them a bit since Nya also points out how they still don’t know what caused the accident the first time(this is true since none of them, not even Voice, remember the circumstances of him being in Kai’s head. In fact, Voice doesn’t really remember anything from before being with Kai, and Kai doesn’t remember anything that happened that day)

Now, since Lloyd never got captured, Garmadon never joined them so they don’t have to get the Fangblades back again, so the ninja go to get the fourth one. Meanwhile Nya and Lloyd stay at the hospital to wait for Kai to wake up.

And eventually he does….but not until after Ninja Ball Run.

The money problems they were having? It was because they were trying to save as much as they could for Kai’s hospital bills. Sure getting the Bounty back helped, but only a bit. They were still scrambling to get the money, though Ed, Edna and Lou helped out when they realized what had happened

Meanwhile with Kai and Voice…..they’re having a hell of a time in his head. 

He’s finally remembering what exactly happened that day in the woods.

It’s a little muddy since it happened years ago, but Kai remembers just just playing in the clearing when he heard the sound of someone hitting the ground. He remembers going over to check it out, only to find a dirty, bruised, bleeding man with weird glowing eyes and flickering body.

He remembers going to help the man up, but the second he touched him, the world going black.

He remembers waking up in the hospital with no idea how he got there and with a voice in his head.

Kai then wakes up and, understandably, panics.

“Voice, what was that?!?”

“....Nolan.”

“Huh?”

“My name. It was Nolan....”

The newly named Nolan then goes to explain what exactly went on in the volcano. Before that point, the link the two of them shared wasn’t completely perfect. They were still two separate entities in a singular vessel, only Nolan’s consciousness was pushed into the back seat since it was Kai’s body.

“But how do you know all of this Voi- Nolan? How do you know how this link works??? and why now of all times????”

There’s a moment of silence.

“....Nolan?”

“I will admit....the truth....is not a happy one....”

Nolan then goes to explain everything he remembered in that not so little coma(had it been just Kai remembering, he probably only would’ve been out for a few minutes, but since Nolan was remembering basically his whole life it took a few months(only like....two and a half but still)).

Nolan was, or rather still is since he still has his powers, the Master of Knowledge. Their power sets always included some kind of seer ability, however his was much more powerful than any of his predecessors.

This power ended up catching the eyes of Chen and Clouse, because a seer who can navigate all possible futures? Of course they want that!

So they slowly started to befriend Nolan, isolating him from his friends, family and peers, twisting his world view, making him dependent on them, you know the usually gaslighty cultist bullshit(dw imma dunk on Chen later)

Now the reason Nolan was never wise to their schemes was for three reasons. 1) the 24 hour limit, 2) because of how young he was when they "took him in” his powers were still developing and navigating too many futures at once gave him major headaches, and 3) he trusted Chen, and because of that never saw any need to look at what Chen did when he wasn’t with him.

It was by complete accident he found out what they want to do to him.

You see, at some point Clouse found the magical crystal that could hold elemental power and Chen decided he’d rather have Nolan’s power for himself. After all, they knew that it was only inevitable for Nolan to find out what they actually doing. (He knew about the whole Anacondrai Cult thing, and was actually sort of friends with some of the guards and almost an older brother to Skylor, but not about the whole slave workforce in the basement or that they needed to steal elemental powers.)

He woke up the midnight of with a splitting headache, hundreds of thousands of horrible futures playing in his head, of him loosing his powers, of him getting banished, of him dying, of Skylor and hundreds of people he didn’t even know were on the island dying, in thousands of possible ways.

Through the storm or fear and terror he saw only a single future where he escaped.

A future with a young boy with spikey hair and freckles in the middle of the woods.

During the next few hours he followed that path religiously, taking in every single detail, every step, every word, all of it. It would be painful, but it was his only way out.

And he did.

He guessed “noodles” when Chen gave him a riddle he knew the answer of.

He spent exactly 7 minutes and 32 seconds looking for Skylor as they played hide n seek.

He allowed himself to trip on a loose stone he memorized the location of.

He held perfectly still as Clouse drew lines with some magic liquid in a pattern he could draw with his eyes closed.

He held his ground as Chen brought out that First Master cursed gem.

And just as Chen was about to take it....he ran.

He threw the guards at exactly the right angle.

He made every single turn at the exact second he was supposed to.

He let the guard exactly 10 feet and 2 inches behind him throw his spear which caught him in the side.

He barricaded Clouse’s spell room with the exact objects in the exact order he saw.

He grabbed the exact amount of ingredients for a single use, untraceable warp spell

He let Clouse hit him with exactly 3/4′s of the transfer spell.

And he let Kai, sweet, young, innocent Kai, take his hand, not knowing what the future would hold.

But, for once, he wasn’t worried.

(The reason the link solidified now was because Kai had reached his true potential and was surrounded by his element(roughly). The block that kept him from his powers opened, while also inadvertently opened Kai up to Nolan’s powers and Nolan himself. Now their link was like they were both sitting side by side with equal control of the wheel, albeit with Kai getting priority.)

((also also because I just came up with it now Kai’s true potential was his complete blind trust in Nolan. despite being together for years he always felt a bit antsy not knowing what Nolan was having him do. By blindly giving Nolan his trust without even hesitating, he got over his mental block))

[embretheworld]

Cole is pissed off at Wu, but honestly? He should be

Words: 4022 

Takes place after season 13

It had been a day or so since they left the Kingdom of Shintaro and the atmosphere was fun, not a care in the world and everyone's happy since they're going on another adventure, or it's supposed to be if it weren't for what happened. There's an unnormal veil of tension on the Bounty, no one knows why it's there but it just is and no one addresses it either. That's until someone finds the source of where it's coming from, why everyone's walking on eggshells for seemingly no reasons. Jay spots it, but he isn't afraid to point it out.

"You're angry for no reason, that's the problem, Cole! We just got back from a Kingdom most people don't get the chance to go to which you just so happened to save! How the hell are you mad?" Jay snaps at him, he's angry, and rightfully, or at least he thinks he is.

And Cole laughs, he fucking laughs and Jay isn't sure what to think about that. "I have every right to be angry right now Jay, I went to that Kingdom expecting a chance to relax but instead I come out only to know that I was lied to from day one. But of course, my feelings don't matter because we're ninja's we can't go soft, so I guess the fact that I'm angry that I've been lied to really doesn't matter to you, does it, Jay?" His voice is laced with venom, so much venom, and anger that Jay can't form a reply, he didn't mean for this to happen.

And this time, the boy sharply turns towards Lloyd, a fire never seen before in his eyes. "I'm soft, aren't I? Letting my emotions take over my reason of sense is wrong isn't, it Lloyd?" And Lloyd backed up, stretching his hands out in a defensive way shaking his head, Cole was feral at best right now. "Cole, you know that's not what I meant-"

"Bullshit, and you know that Lloyd, we all let you have your time to process your emotions so why can't I have mine? Or is it the fact that I'm not the Green Ninja? Is that the reason why I don't get time to process anything because I'm not the Green Ninja and just some ordinary ninja?!" With that, it starts a back and forth between him and Kai, along with some other ninja's joining in. Zane stands by watching, along with Nya while Lloyd is just shell shocked since the accusation hit him like a slap to the face, Cole wasn't wrong but at the same time he wasn't right either, he just had to ask for help.

Kai and Jay team up and yell at Cole who yells back in response, a fight like this wouldn't be unusual if it weren't for who was fighting it and why they were. It's like a hurricane, it's small at first, building up over time when the temperature is right until a huge storm arises from it, lightning stricks and burns everything in its path leaving disaster in its wake. It destroys anything it can reach until nothing's left in its path but there's a last attempt to survive the wreckage, but of course it's rare that you'll survive it.

"THE SENSEI I LOOKED UP TO LIED TO ME!" With that, the room went eerily quiet. Cole let out a deep, tired sigh, uncurling his fists only to curl them again, shaking like a leaf with anger. "Yeah," He said to no one in particular. "That's what I thought," Turning sharply on his heels he goes to exit but the door to Sensei Wu's room has opened, he's down the hall and now in the room.

"What is going on here?!" Sensei Wu practically yells and the room falls to silence. It's all peaceful for once in the storm since they're all at the end of it, the storm is gone but now that’s all left is the wreckage of it.

Everyone looks at each other, who's gonna say what happened first, they wonder, who's gonna snap back at him and who will defend him. The person who breaks the quietness, that tension, who brings the vicousness of storms raging onto the man is none other than the man who started brewing up the storm himself. Cole turns on his heels and a wave of destruction follows in his path.

"Do you know what it's like Sensei, huh? To have to figure out that your own father and Sensei lied to since day one lied to you about your own mother, and not even be able to process it because you have to save your own friends? And not to mention that the fact you still don't get to process any of it until even on the Bounty because no one will leave you alone about what happened? Yeah, I didn't think so,"

"Cole, your mother, Lilly-" Cole finds out that his mother's name sounds simply wrong coming out of his sensei's mouth now, it's wrong and he hates it, he hates it and someone like him shouldn't be saying her name after what he did.

"Your mother wanted the best for you, your mother wanted to hide things from you, your MOTHER wanted your own Sensei and dad to lie to you thinking that wouldn't mess you up. It's too late for that excuse Sensei- if that's what you even are at this point! Maybe Wu isn't even your real name!" Cole snaps, bitterness and anger building up in his minds. His fists are shaking along with him, he's red face a furious and no one wants to know what's going to happen next.

"Cole this is unacceptable behavior on-" Before Master Wu could finish his sentence Cole cut him off with a scream.

"IT'S UNACCEPTABLE BEHAVIOR THAT I WAS LIED TO BY YOU AND MY OWN FATHER!"

And with that, Cole does a sharp one-eighty and storms off towards he door, loudly slamming it out behind him leaving the room deafeningly quiet. And no one dared to move from their spots but instead starred towards the door with the same expression, shock, and confusion. But Sensei Wu breaks it by letting out an exasperated sigh and shakes his head. "I fear that this is the worst possible outcome that could have happened,"

And Lloyd slowly turned towards Wu, slack-mouthed and all-out surprised. "Sensei Wu?..." The Green Ninja's voice is quiet, faltering, and unsure; Sensei Wu responds by looking towards him. "What just happened?..."

"I fear the worst, I did not mean for this to happen, you can continue with whatever you were previously doing I will deal with this situation myself."

"But Sensei Wu! Was Cole really right, did you really lie to him like that because if he was I-" Sensei holds up a hand that instance shushes him. "I did it because I was told to, not because I wanted to,"

"So, what about Cole? Are we gonna ignore how he walked out and no one's gonna address that or will it just be me? Is no one gonna go after him?" Jay states with a bewildered expression still confused like the rest of them are. "That will not be needed, he needs time to clear his mind or else the reaction will be just the same if not worse,"

"But what if-" But Sensei Wu cuts him off before he can finish his sentence, Jay isn't surprised, he tends to rabble a lot when it comes to the safety of his friends. "He's not going to do that, continue with whatever you were previously doing, I will be in my room if you need me,"

Sensei Wu waves everyone off with a simple command and they continue to do with whatever they were doing before this whole situation started, and no one looks for Cole out of fear of setting him off even more.

-

When Cole enters the main room of the Bounty again no one in the Bounty bothers to approach him, but instead, avoid him. He looks different from what he looked like when he came back, more ruffed up- his hair is messier than usual, his clothes are slightly scuffed up and his knuckles are red- and less angry, but even with the fact he's less angry still deters the ninja. No one wants to talk about it, so no one talks about it and leaves Cole to his own devices. Or at least they were planning to until Lloyd decided not to.

Upon returning from where ever he was in the Bounty the first room he goes to is his room- or the room they all shared- and no one goes into the room for an hour, the first one to go into the room is Lloyd. He looks around the room and spots Cole who sitting on his bed with crossed arm, letting out a huff when he hears the door open. His bed is messy, sheets splayed unruly across the bed, his pillows pushed into corner of the bed; and Lloyd immediately knows that this will be harder than he thinks it will be.

In one swift motion he makes he's way to Cole's bed, sitting down beside the other ninja with a small awkward smile, he was never the best when it came to these kind of things, no one really was.

"Are you doing okay now?" And Lloyd immediately regrets saying that because after an outburst like that? There's no way you can be fine.

"What do you think?" Clipped and short. He's still mad.

"You're still mad, and for good reason, no one deserves to be lied to like that; not even you."

With that Cole goes silent, fists curled in on themselves and Lloyd knows that look of his, devastation and resentment, lips curled into a frown as his eyebrows are knitted together. "I'm gonna hug you, okay? If you don't want a hug just tell me."

So Lloyd pulls him into a hug and the effect is immediate, as a tsunami of emotions crash down onto the other ninja and he hugs him back, tightly. And Cole sobs into Lloyd's shoulder, not the 'I'm just kinda sad kind of sobs', the 'I'm frustrated with everything and I'm so tired of pretending that I'm okay kind of sobs'. As Lloyd holds his friend- no, big brother- in a hug, he notices that Cole is shaking like a leaf, muttering incoherent words under his breath which Lloyd can conclude to being 'sorry'; Lloyd just hugs him even tighter than before.

"It's fine Cole, you didn't do anything wrong," And the Black Ninja just shakes his head and continues to cry. But Lloyd doesn't hold it against him for denying that, he had done that before, he had been in this situation before, he had gone through so many things that he knows that this adventure- that going to that castle and finding out what they found out- was just the straw that broke the camel's back. But Lloyd silently promises Cole that he'll help him through it just like he helped him back then, he promises.

Soon enough, Cole's sob's quiet down until there's nothing left for him to cry, he swiftly pulls away from the hug, turning his body away from Lloyd and looks down at the ground. "'M sorry Lloyd,"

"It's fine Cole, nothing to be sorry about, I'm the Green Ninja, I'm sure I can afford to replace my shirt," Lloyd isn't sure if that's what Cole meant but it gets a laugh out of him and he's happy that he even managed that.

"I'm talking about what I said earlier," A small ache finds it's way in Lloyd's heart, he knows his brother didn't mean it, he knows that but it sill hurts.

"That's fine too, I don't mind," It's a lie, Cole knows that, he knows that damn well and wants to apologize if only Lloyd would let him- "B... But I-"

"Shush, I don't care, you were mad, you said something you regret we've all been there," And Lloyd isn't sure where he got all this knowledge in the first place but he doesn't question in the slightest, it's more helpful than he can ever express it to be.

"I doubt that..."

"Look," And finally Cole looks at him. "I don't care if you need to cry, I've cried in front of you before so there's no reason for me to judge you. You've helped me get through things I needed to get through so I'm going to help you, whether you want to talk about it or not I'll still be there."

"I... Thanks, I'm not good with," He motioned his hands as if to convey his words in thin air. "this, emotions aren't a thing I'm good at."

"Yeah... Emotions are like, really hard to express..." A pregnant pause follows what Lloyd said while the green ninja wracks hims mind around a solution to the problem, a thing he can say to make it all better, but he can't. The pause grows longer but so does the tension, and Cole goes to stand up but is stopped by a hand on his shoulder pulling him back down onto the bed. He gives the black ninja sheepish smile, which Cole returns back, he knows Lloyd is trying and he's glad that he is.

"You like drawing right?" Cole raises an eyebrow at him. "Yeah... And?" He trails off the end part of the word 'and' with a quirked brow.

"Can you teach me how to?" The way he say's it takes him back to when he was learning how to even do spinjitsu and would be so nervous to ask how to learn to do small tedious task out of fear that he might be rejected for it, his school teachers always used to criticize him for asking the simplest of questions like what the directions were again. He considers it for a moment, and for a moment Lloyd thinks he might say no but he doesn't.

With a shrug Cole say's "Sure," and jumps off the bed in which Lloyd follows in suite. No one bats an eye when Cole goes in the storage room to get out some paper's- since he isn't using his sketchbook especially when he's upset, he learned from past experience- and color pencils and goes back to their room. Neither does anyone bat an eyes when there's two new drawings on the fridge but if they did notice they didn't say a word.

-

That night Cole wakes up with his heart beat pounding in his ears and in a cold sweat. A nightmare, it wasn't like it was an infrequent thing for them to have especially after what happened to them in the past. But for him it was a thing he hated, he hated nightmares with the entirety of his being, they always poked something wrong with him and he despised it with the entirety of his being.

He wipes his sodden cheeks and quietly gets up out of bed  pads his way to the bathroom to wash off his face. The cold water splashing on his face makes him shiver if this was a year or so back he'd hate the feeling of water and cold and he'd probably flinch away from it, but he didn't, water was fine now, he wasn't a ghost anymore and it couldn't kill him any longer. Though sometimes he'd still have those dreams they were few and far between now thankfully.

Leaving the bathroom he swiftly and quickly made his way out onto the Bounty and sat on the back of it. Some people would say the silence of the night is eerie, no birds chirping, no sounds of the highway and cars passing by in the late of the night, just pure silence, but Cole would call this a gift after everything he had been through in the past week.

His breath is caught in his throat when he hears the door open behind him, blood running cold he wishes that some of them weren't light sleepers. The wooden floorboards don't creak under whoever's stepping on it like it used to with the old Bounty, it's not like he isn't thankful for it, he just isn't used to it still. Said person finds themselves sitting next to him, long lanky legs hanging over the Bounty's edge and he recognizes that person as Zane; what a surprise that he'd be the one to wake up right after he does.

A once peaceful silence is filled with thick tension, a tension thicker than the heat on a normal summer day and Cole once again hates it. He doesn't want to be tense, he wants to relax but Zane's presence won't allow it. Don't get him wrong, he doesn't hate his friend, he enjoy's his company just like he does with the other but right now he doesn't want to deal with it, and he's pretty sure Zane doesn't catch onto it when he turns his body away from him with folded arms.  

"Cole, are you... Okay? Ever since you came back from that trip of your's you've been unusually quiet," He leans slightly trying to get Cole to look at him but fails, cocking his head to the side with creased brows and crestfallen lips.  "I just... I don't know what to say,"

"That's fine," Zane nods in understanding. "Thanks,"

"...Would it be okay if I sit here and be quiet with you for a while?" Cole smiles, "That sounds nice,"

For once, the silence isn't deafening, for once the quiet is peaceful and welcomed, and for once, once in his life he's happy that it's quiet and not scared. There had been too many instances where the quiet scared him, whether it be in the middle of a battle or at the end of a fight, he was so used to someone cheering or shouting that they won, silence is deafening and it scares him. So used to hearing the sound of Jay playing video games in the background, or Zane cooking and most likely talking with Pixal about something, Kai training, Lloyd training or talking with Nya that he's used to the noise. This time he doesn't want noise, he wants silence and he's thankfully being given it.

"If you don't mind me asking, why are you up this late?" But sadly, Zane cuts through that silence he so desperately wanted to cling to. "I thought we agreed to being quiet?" He bitterly asks, he doesn't mean for it to come off as bitter but it does. He apologizes in his mind.

"Right, my apologizes," Goddamnit don't apologize. "Nah, it's fine Zane I understand,"

"Then if we agreed on not being silent anymore can you tell me why you are up this late?" Good point good point.

"Promise not to judge me or tell anyone else?"

"You have my sincerity," Cole knows that Zane doesn't break his promises but he still hesitates slightly."You know how I had to save the Kingdom of Shintaro?"

"How could I forget? The Geckles and Munce spoke very highly of you along with your mother, when it was all over." And that brings up memories.

The memories of him telling the others he's going to go nap and one Geckle and Munce hearing him saying that and offering a place to stay in their caves, he politely declined them. Or how surprised they were to realize that his mother was gone, and he was her son, and so many other things they wanted to offer him since he was his mother's son. Sure, he loved the attention, he didn't revel in it like Kai but he liked it but he just wanted to go to sleep like right now but he probably wouldn't be able to due to the nightmares he was having.

"Yeah, well they wanted me to stay there too help rebuild their kingdom and solve any future problems too," Which was terrifying for him, he wasn't his mom, he couldn't do that, just like he couldn't rule over the Geckles in Munce at once. He just couldn't stay, he had his friends, they needed him, and he needed them; he also needed some answers. "But you didn't,"

"Yeah, my mom did a lot and I'm not really sure if I can live up to it, after all, she did... A lot,"

"I don't understand?..." Thinking back on it, the only people who know of what happened in that cave are him, Sensei Wu, Vania, and the Upply group. The other's didn't know what he knew, they didn't know what he was lied about, they didn't know about his mother's story. Worst of all they have to be crushed by the fact that they had been lied to by they're own father and sensei, he had to, and he would always be.

"My mom made a mech, crafted two weapons, befriended both the Geckle and Munce, brought down the Griefbringer, found that place before anyone knew it existed and did who knows what else! I probably did half of that. Maybe not even half!" Yes, Zane knows that everyone knows the Geckles and Munce wouldn't shut up about it, and practically raved about her to anyone they could.

"But you're not your mother, you never will be," He knows that, and reminding will only make him feel worse than he already is. "Exactly! Tell me something I don't know!"

"That's not what I meant Cole,"

"Then what did you mean?"

"I meant that no one will ever be able to live up to a legacy, Morro tried that but failed to, no one will ever be able to do the same thing as someone else did since it's impossible to do exactly that." Touche, touche. But that still didn't help his situation, the situation that he'd never live up to his mother's legacy, they legacy he had to uphold that he might never be able to uphold. He probably wouldn't be able to hold a candle to her when it came to what she did. "Is it, really?"

"Unless you wish to go back in time and do those things yourself, then no, it is impossible, but yet again that didn't turn out well for anyone involved in it when it happened."

"You aren't that good with comforting people are you Zane?" The white ninja looks down at his feet and shakes his head, biting the inside of his metal cheek. "No," He answers.

"Comfort is not one of the things I'm particularly good at,"

"Alright," Cole suddenly gets up with a slight bounce in his step and Zane stares at him with his brow's nearing his hairline. "what'd you say I make some hot chocolate you reheat some cookie or something and we watch a movie because right now I just..." He sighs, he doesn't want to talk about his nightmares. "Want to watch some movies to get my mind off of everything that happened,"

Zane simply nods and gets up ignoring the other's ninja hand that was held out, with the roll of his eye's Cole goes to make hot chocolate and Zane goes to make cookies- even though he probably shouldn't. He puts on a random movie and waits for Zane to come and sit on the couch with cookies and they watch to movie, cookies, and hot chocolate to snack on and drink while they watch it.

Cole ends up falling asleep in the middle of the movie and when he wakes up the next morning in his bed even though he can swear he fell asleep one the couch. Did Zane really just-

He shakes his head and doesn't question the logistics of what happened that night and goes to eat breakfast feeling better than he did yesterday, that heavy feeling on his chest lifted slightly. It'll get better soon, he knows that, he just has to work on it.

[see]

ok since i'm not sulking anymore it's time to talk about my ns14 predictions! for every one of these i get right i'll commit an act of petty crime of my followers' choosing.

1) kai will turn evil

this one is one i've talked about in and out but if anyone wants i can talk about this one further. this one does lead into a follow up prediction, however

1a) kai will turn evil towards the end of the season OR kai's evilness will carry on into ns15 and possibly 16

the basic gist of this one is what's said, i don't have any actual evidence to this one but i will follow it up in my next point

2) two to three season arc

i have had this theory bubbling in my mind now and it's the one i'm most confident in i suppose. i think tannerfishes just made a video on this but i know that he just got out of the er, so he had to go through a life threatening experience and nearly see god to even be a fraction of the ninjago theorist i am. the gist of this one is that this story will span over multiple seasons, and i'm thinking three. the prevailing theory about the focus season order is that it'll go lloyd (14) - nya (15) - kai (16), and it makes perfect sense to me to have this story span to kai because a lot of the leaks pertain to him. the reason a lot of people think this is going to be a multi season story is because (the most damning leak imo), in response to whether or not vengestone will play a large part in 14, tommy replied "we like to play the long game". this seems to imply this will be a longer story.

3) nya will break up with jay OR she will distance herself from him in some way

this one isn't as much of a prediction as it is a hope. there were a few times when fans asked variations of "why hasn't nya said she loved jay?" and tommy replied variations of "keep watching and it'll probably be at some point in s14" so... i'm hoping this implies that she's not in love with him and it won't be some big "i DO love you!" moment bullshit. since it seems like this moment is going to be at the end of ns14 and nya's focus season is next, i would like a jaya break up to lead us into a sort of "nya finding herself" season

4) despite having a lloyd focus, it will not be largely lloyd based

again, not a leak based prediction, more of a hope. i'm operating under the assumption that this will be a three season story for this point, but it seems like s14 will be a prologue for this story and not really a story in its own. also, none of the story leaks (not set leaks, who gaf about that) have anything to do with lloyd

5) the bus will come back for a hageman era side character

NO evidence other than tommy saying that there will be a lot of callbacks. i'm thinking brad tudabone, i've seen echo zane, i genuinely can't say at this point. i'm crossing my fingers for anyone

6) skylor

come on. island theme? also tommy said skylor might be coming back "in the future". not very much evidence for this one, just putting it out there

[extreme-technicality]

does talking to an anon help about ninjago help? cuz I'm down

DHDKCKGSC YES IT DOES THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR OFFERING YOUR SERVICES

Okay now that I know I won’t be clogging people’s dashes buckle the fuck in my dude and I should stress that I literally would not be talking about this as much as I will be if I didn’t genuinely enjoy the show. I’m gonna go season by season and just Rant

S1 has the serpentine as the bbeg and like, as far as villains go they’re p lit. They’re early enough that they haven’t been done to hell, things are fresh, the characters and dynamics are being fleshed out, and all in all s1 is a pretty solid season. There’s some fuckery that gets brought up re: how the FUCK aging works and what the actual timeline of Ninjago is and how Wu and Garmadon fit into that timeline, fuckery that LITERALLY NEVER GETS RESOLVED IN A SATISFYING WAY BC ITS REVEALED IN A LATER SEASON (s8, dw we’ll get there lmao) THAT THE ONLY REASON THE FIRST SPINJITSU MASTER, WU, AND GARMADON LIVED AS LONG AS THEY DID IS CUZ THEYRE BASICALLY DEMIGODS AND ITS IMPLIED THAT LLOYD WILL ALSO LIVE FOR A LONG ASS TIME WHICH MEANS ONE DAY HES GONNA OUTLIVE ALL HIS FRIENDS AND EVERYONE HE EVER LOVED WHICH IS A FUN THING TO THINK ABOUT AT NIGHT But anyway I digress, s1 also coincidentally introduces Lloyd (he wasn’t in the pilot episodes that set up the rest of the series) and the existence of Evil Dad Garmadon.

S2 is where Garmadon starts acting a lot more Evil and a lot less Dad. He’s the main antagonist for that season, and I actually read somewhere that the show was originally slated to end after s2 which high key explains the fuckery of literally every single season after this lmaooooo. Much like s1, I really can’t find much to complain about, the first two seasons are pretty decent as far as I can remember

Season. Fucking. Three. Where the fuck do I start??? I hate season three for entirely personal reasons revolving around the STUPID GODDAMN ROMANCE WRITING. okay lemme back up and explain a thing first so, Jay is dating Nya and they’re fine, they’re going steady, aND THEN????? THE BEGINNING OF THE SEASON INTRODUCES BULLSHIT LOVE TRIANGLE FUCKERY FOR ZERO GODDAMN REASON, BITCH I HATE LOVE TRIANGLES AND I HATE THEM EVEN MORE WHEN THEYRE DONE FOR NO GODDAMN REASON!!! AND THEN. AS IF THAT WERENT ENOUGH. THEY SHOEHORNED A ROBOT ROMANCE BETWEEN ZANE AND PIXAL AND I KNOW I RANTED ABOUT THIS A LITTLE BIT WHEN I WAS ACTUALLY WATCHING BUT I DIDNT GO INTO ENOUGH DETAIL!!!! THEY MADE THE OTHER NINJA OOC IN ORDER TO PROP UP THEIR SHIP!!!!!! AND AT ONE POINT ZANE GOES “its like we were…made for each other” AND I HAD TO FUCUCJDHVE I HAD TO SCREAM INTO A PILLOW BRO, IM SO TIRED!!!! NO THE FUCK YOU WERENT!!!!!! YOU WERE MADE FOR YOU AND PIXAL WAS MADE FOR PIXAL AND IF YALLS WANNA BANG BOLTS THATS FINE BUT DONT IMPLY THAT EITHER OF YOU WERE MADE INCOMPLETE!!!! THATS AN INSULT TO YOUR MAKERS AND YOURSELVES, MOVE ON, PLEASE AND THANK YOU. anyway that season also killed Zane (for the first time, but not the last) (spoiler alert lmao) and like, not to be an emotional little shit but I did cry a bit at his funeral.

S4 is honestly one of my favorites, even though the romance crimes continue (the love triangle bullshit is continuing and honestly I maintain that Cole, Nya, and Jay should all have gotten together and in my personal canon they DID, and also Kai has a forced romance) the VILLAIN makes up for it imo. He’s campy!! He’s funny!! He’s a clown!! He’s serious enough that if he says “I’m gonna kill you” HE MEANS IT and that’s so fucking refreshing!!!! S4 is honestly 8/10 just for the villain alone, don’t like that it retconned the SHIT out of the elemental masters and how many different elements there are TO master but eh, it’s ninjago, shit is stupid.

S5 was…interesting? OH WAIT I FORGOT TO MENTION THAT S3 INTRODUCED A GARMADON WHO WAS A LOT LESS EVIL AND A LOT MORE DAD, HONESTLY I THOUGHT IT TOOK A LOT OF THE FLAVOR OUT BUT THATS JUST ME LMAOOO. anyway s5 killed Garmadon, and I was a little sad cuz I like him okay??? I just think he’s NEAT, he’s got big dad energy, he was teaching Lloyd some shit that just got DROPPED and literally was never brought up again which is honestly a theme in Ninjago. Ninjago drinking game: take a shot every time they introduce a plot point or ability and drop it at or before the end of the season. WHICH THEY ALSO DID IN S5 WITH A DIFFERENT POWER ACTUALLY, so all the ninja are masters of Spinjitsu right, well s5 introduced the concept of Airjitsu which only Spinjitsu masters can learn and it lets them FLY and they used that for seasons 5 and 6 and then they nEVER BROUGHT IT UP AGAIN EVEN THOUGH IT WOULDVE COME IN HANDY FOR S E V E R A L DIFFERENT SITUATIONS ACROSS THE SEASONS, ONE OF THEM WOULD BE FALLING TO THEIR DOOM AND MY ASS WOULD BE YELLING “YOU CAN FLY, DUMBASS” - anyway, they do that again later lmao it’s fine. But what’s low key NOT fine is they made Nya the WATER NINJA!!! Like I’m not mad she has powers, except I kinda am, she was doing just fine as Samurai X and honestly the only reason she has super special ninja powers is for plot reasons. Also Cole got turned into a ghost, but by s7 he’s????? No longer a ghost????????? And that’s NEVER addressed or reasoned away, so like. Cool lmao

S6 didn’t happen. Like, canonically, s6 ends with wish fuckery that undoes the entire season and none of the characters remember anything that happened except Jay and Nya because S6 is the season where they get back together so they remember all those events for???? Feelings reasons?????? Unclear, moving on. The actual bbeg for S6 was a djinn with a vaguely Spanish accent, and to this DAY I don’t know why they made him have a SPANISH accent. Djinn are Arabic, not Spanish!! They’re not central or South American, either!!!! Your villain design makes no sense, do better

S7 had MORE time fuckery, and retconned what happened to Kai and Nya’s parents and hmmmhmhmhmhmhm that makes me Upsetti Spaghetti :3 not just the retconning, but the fact that they LITERALLY brought them back oNLY TO NEVER MENTION THEM AGAIN!!!!!! LITERALLY!!!!!!!! Okay so at the VERY very beginning, like pilot episodes beginning, Kai talks about their dad like he died/left fairly recently, BUT s7 contradicts that and claims that both of their parents were essentially abducted when Kai and Nya were little kids, which makes me question what in the fresh fuck two little kids were doing for all those years alone. SETTING THAT ASIDE FOR A HOT SECOND, their parents were also apparently good friends of Wu’s and old war buddies (from the Serpentine wars, which is YET ANOTHER bit of the timeline that doesn’t quite add up but honestly I could make a whole other post about that shit). But if they were such good fucking friends, why didn’t Wu check in every now and again??? What the fuck was Wu doing that was so fucking important that he couldn’t have been assed to visit his friends ONCE in like TEN MOTHERFUCKING YEARS and realize “oh shit, they’re not here and there are two tiny children running around unsupervised…My Kids Now : )” LIKE????? WU YOU LOW KEY SHOULDA LOOKED OUT FOR YOUR FRIENDS’ KIDS BETTER, THEY COULDA DIED BRO!!! Uhhhh the time fuckery also results in Wu getting yeeted ahead in time a bit and the ninja gotta find him

Season. Eight. I have…mixed feelings about this one. The beginning absolutely SLAUGHTERED me, and not in a “this is so fucking funny” way. No, the beginning made me feel like I was being flayed alive with just about every episode because Ninjago was back on its forced romance bullshit and this time it was Lloyd’s turn on the chopping block. That hurt my soul cuz like, look at that mans color scheme, he’s CLEARLY alloaro, why are you forcing romance on my aro man, why would you hurt me like that, BUT ALSO BECAUSE HE AND THE GIRL HE WAS BEING SET UP WITH HAD A LITTLE HEART TO HEART REALLY EARLY ON AND IT WAS THE MOST QUEER CODED SHIT!!!! IT DEADASS READ AS A CONVERSATION BETWEEN AN OUT AND PROUD QUEER AND A CLOSETED QUEER AND THEY MADE!!! IT!!!!! STRAIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!! The only thing that kept me watching at first was wanting to find Wu, and then I started enjoying myself once Cole found a plot-relevant baby and had fatherhood thrust upon him. Everything went from “ehhhhh” to “holy shit this FUCKS” once it was revealed that Rumi (Lloyd’s love interest) wAS PLAYING HIM THE WHOLE TIME AND WAS EVIL AND HAD AN EVIL GIRLFRIEND!!!!!! LITERALLY IMPROVED EVERYTHING ABOUT THE SEASON FOR ME, I COULD EVEN FORGIVE THE WHOLE “let’s resurrect Garmadon, but as evil as possible” BULLSHIT!!!!!!

S9 is a continuation of s8, Garmadon is back and 1000% Evil, 10% Dad, but none of the Dad energies is directed at Lloyd - it’s all directed at Rumi, and honestly I could write a whole ass post on just RUMI cuz that’s honestly my DAUGHTER and I LOVE HER and I’m MAD SHE DIES AT THE END OF THIS SEASON!!!! SHE DESERVED THERAPY AND TO LIVE WITH HER GF AND MAYBE SOME CRIME. AS A TREAT. RUMI DESERVED BETTER AND LOW KEY IM GONNA WRITE A FIC ABOUT IT, BUT ANYWAY WHERE WAS I

Ah right, so s9 has the four major Ninja stuck in the original dimension with no way home, while Lloyd has no powers (cuz he almost died last season) and has to somehow lead a resistance against Garmadon (who has taken control of Ninjago City and is working on the rest of Ninjago). Actually, s9 is pretty cool. Like, the end of s8 and into s9 are low key my favorite episodes, and I kinda wanna rewatch them now -

S10 is a FUN one. Garmadon got got last season, but he didn’t DIE, so he’s in cold storage and now there’s Another Threat and he’s the only one who knows wtf they’re up against so they let him out and he works with them. The funny part is, he is still Very Much Evil and doesn’t quite Get emotions like he did when he was, uh, human lmao, sO HE WOKE UP EVERY DAY DURING THAT SEASON AND DECIDED TO CAUSE PROBLEMS ON PURPOSE. IT WAS THE FUNNIEST FUCKING SHIT. 1000000/10 MY FAVORITE GARMADON, he ended that season by literally fucking off into Ninjago and they never decided to track him down 😭😭😭😭😭and I’m so SAD about it dude

S11 has another Serpentine as the bbeg, though in the setup to that they retconned how the fucking Serpentine tribes and history work??? I think???? Also Wu was a good 150% angrier and generally Done with the ninja’s shit, which was honestly refreshing tho I’m not quite sure I liked what the refreshed view was, but whatever lmao. S11 also had the ninja get yeeted to the dimension farthest from Ninjago, and honestly - okay, so they didn’t all go at the same TIME, Zane left about a week or two before the others did but there was time dilation fuckery afoot which I’m not too mad about cuz low key it makes sense. What I AM mad about is that they didn’t play the angst up to its full POTENTIAL!!!!!! Zane was EVIL in the other dimension!!!! Okay so I’m Ninjago he was only gone for maybe a week or two, but DECADES had passed in the other one, and all that time Zane was alone and disconnected from everyone he knew and loved, with a staff that boosted his power while slowly corrupting him and Turning Him Evil to help him, and like???? The thought of Zane trying to find a way home, trying to get SOME sort of message back, while he has to use the staff more and more to help him survive the long, lonely decades, so that by the time his family DOES show up its too late??? BRO. B R O. THAT JUST HITS DIFFERENT, BUT NINJAGO DIDNT DO THAT!!! THEY MADE HIM EVIL DUE TO MEMORY WIPE!!!!!! MEMORY WIPE IS BABY SHIT COMPARED TO A LONG, SLOW CORRUPTION!!!!!!

S12 was alright. It went into Cole’s mom, touched on some of the adventures she had had, threatened another forced romance (this time on poor Cole, just leave my mans ALONE) but thankfully didn’t follow through this time, introduced cool new powers that honestly hasn’t been elaborated on since that’s the most recent season I think lmao

Anyway thanks for reading and letting me rant!!!! I have,,So Much More I could talk about, PLEASE ask me about Rumi, some of my headcanons re: Garmadon and Wu’s dynamic, the Serpentine, my top five times they butchered Kai’s character for Plot Reasons, or anything else I brought up here that you want me to elaborate on!!!

[ninja-go-to-therapy]

Nightmares

So I accidentally deleted this one, so I’m having to post it here again.

@badthingshappenbingo

Prompt: nightmares

Fandom: Ninjago

Character: Lloyd

Trigger Warnings: self harm, PTSD

Lloyd was tired. He was so, so tired, and he didn’t know how much longer he could go for. Every night, when he fell asleep, he was plagued with haunting nightmares. They weren’t always the same, but they were terrible every time. He’d been awake for too long, he knew it, he hadn’t slept in days, but he couldn’t, he wouldn’t go back to sleep. Not when he knew what was waiting for him if he did.

He dragged himself through his days, trying desperately not to let his exhaustion show. He was the leader, he was the Green Ninja, he was better than this. His friends, they’d think he wasn’t fit to be the leader, they’d think he was weak, they’d realize that, despite having grown so fast, he was still just a little kid on the inside.

He poured himself yet another cup of coffee, scalding his throat as he drank it. He’d never liked it, but it kept him awake, and right now, that was what he needed.

During training, he was sluggish. When the other ninja commented on it, he laughed it off as being a little tired. When Kai managed to deliver an incredibly harsh hit to his gut, he promised he’d sleep it off. But he was lying. He was lying, and he felt so incredibly awful about it that he ended up throwing up in the bathroom a little while later.

At least none of his friends had been around to see it.

Lloyd stared in the mirror. He rubbed at the bags under his eyes, wishing they would go away. It was the fault of his stupid nightmares, his stupid problems, so many things, most of which had been resolved already, dammit!

But they continued to haunt him, wrapping him in their cold embrace. He couldn’t really escape. Realistically, he’d have to sleep eventually, he couldn’t possibly go on like this.  But he wasn’t going to let that happen until he found a solution to his nightmares, so for the time being, this would have to work.

“Lloyd?” Cole called, rapping on the door a few times. “You okay in there?”

“Yeah, sorry,” he said, opening the door and exiting out into the hallway. The world spun around him. He gripped the wall for support, blinking rapidly to righten himself.

“Whoa, maybe you should lie down. You’re not looking so good...” Cole said, helping Lloyd to stand.

“No!”

At the strange look Cole gave him, he quickly continued. “I mean... I’m fine, really. I just got dizzy.” He was lying through his teeth.

“You were doing pretty awful at training earlier too... are you sick?”

“Wow, thanks for the compliment.”

“For real though, I can go get Zane, he’ll know what to do.”

Lloyd couldn’t come up with anything to say before Cole set off down the hall to get Zane. But if Zane was told that Lloyd might be sick, then he’d make him sleep, and he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He’d find a way to make him fall asleep, too, Zane was the ultimate caretaker.

Lloyd stared after Cole, hands shaking. Why was he shaking? He had no reason to be shaking. And why was he so jittery? Was it the coffee? It had to have been the coffee.

His vision blurred and the room tipped. He was only distantly aware of the ground hitting his shoulder — or was it the other way around? He couldn’t find it in him to care.

Dark spots danced across his vision, smearing out the colors. 

He could hear yelling, but it was from what must have been a thousand miles away. Maybe he would just close his eyes for a moment, and then he could go help. Yeah... that would work...

***

Darkness creeped in from what must have been everywhere. Wind blew harshly, too harshly, messing up his hair. Here, Lloyd felt small. He felt like a little kid again, back when he couldn’t do anything to defend himself and the bullies could do whatever they wanted.

The walls were closing in on him, but his body wouldn’t react. Panicked, Lloyd tried to cry for help, for someone, anyone, Kai, father!

But he was frozen in place, and there was a winter chill that didn’t belong. His skin was turning inside out, his head was pounding as his mind was rummaged around in, his body was being split in two, help!

He could hear Morro’s cold laugh echo through his skull.

“You—you’re supposed to be gone...” Lloyd choked out, a kind of mesmerizing terror gripping him that he hadn’t felt since their last encounter.

“You don’t learn, do you? I always get what I want. I may just have to teach you a little lesson to make sure that you don’t try something like that again.” the ghost said, plunging into Lloyd’s more recent memories. It was the utmost invasion of privacy, it was absolute torture, Morro was seeing things that Lloyd didn’t want anyone to see, ever. He was effortlessly learning secret after secret, again.

“The red one is awful annoying,” Morro said, coming back up after sufficiently violating Lloyd’s mind. “Do you think he’ll see it coming when I drown him?”

Lloyd’s heart stopped. “No! No, no, Morro, you can’t! Don’t hurt him, please!”

“Maybe you’re right,” Morro said, and that wasn’t right, that wasn’t right at all, oh god... “how do you think your little friends would feel if I drowned you? Their precious little leader, dead. I think that would just tear them apart, don’t you?”

It was no secret that the team just couldn’t stay together when they’d lost a member. After Zane, for months, it had just been too hard. Lloyd couldn’t make them go through it all again, he shouldn’t have made them go through it the first time, not when he could have defeated the Overlord the first time...

The world around him changed, and Morro’s laugh was carried away by a haunting breeze.

He was back atop that dreadful building, facing off against the Overlord. 

All at once, the darkness swallowed him whole. It was suffocating, it was deadly pressure and weightlessness all at once, he was going to die, he was going to fail, Ninjago would fall and it was all his fault!

He couldn’t do it, he wasn’t good enough, he was so sorry. Fire burned hot under his skin, it hurt like hell, but didn’t he deserve it? It was his fault that everyone, everywhere, was going to die.

He wouldn’t be able to save his father. His father was going to fall at the hands of the Overlord, just like Kai, and Cole, and Zane, and Jay, and Nya, and everyone else. His father was going to perish in the Cursed Realm — no, no that wasn’t right. No, no, his father wasn’t cursed, his father was, his father was, no, no, he could still save him, there was still a chance, please...

His heart was going to beat right out of his chest, and for the life of him, he couldn’t slow his breathing. 

His body was shaking, almost violently. He couldn’t begin to comprehend why, he just wanted to be left alone, it was all too much, why was it always him?

***

Lloyd snapped up, breathing harshly. His body was coated in sweat, which was as disgusting as it sounded. His breathing was uneven, and — oh, no. He was in the med bay, and there was Zane, Cole, and Kai.

Immediately, Lloyd tried to get up, hoping they’d let him leave. Unfortunately, they quickly stopped him from even trying to stand.

“You’re not going anywhere, bud.” Cole said, gently pushing him back onto the mattress. “You’ve got a fever.”

Lloyd shook his head. ���No, no, I’m fine, I promise!”

“Lloyd, what’s going on?” Kai asked, looking at him with such a protective instinct that for a moment, Lloyd forgot that anything was wrong.

“You know you can always confide in us, brother,” Zane said, placing a cold cloth on Lloyd’s forehead. Lloyd stared at his friends, swallowing. He wanted so badly to tell them, but he just… he couldn’t.

“I told you, I’m fine!”

“Bullshit!” Kai yelled, and Lloyd couldn’t help but flinch.

Cole shot Kai a look, but quickly turned his attention back to Lloyd. “We just want to help.”

His friends were the only people in the world who would be even remotely capable of understanding what he was going through, weren’t they? But they all had so much on their plates, they all had so much trauma of their own, who was he to add anything more to that?

“Can I please just have some time?” he finally whispered, playing with the blanket in between his fingers and refusing to meet their eyes.

A beat of silence, he could tell they were doing their unspoken communication thing.

“Whatever you need, brother,” Zane said.

Lloyd wanted to scream. He wanted to scream his throat raw, but all he could do was nod. His friends were there for him, and that was all that really mattered. Maybe one day, he could be okay again.

[codenamearcturus]

cool so bc kai and nya have basically adopted lloyd as a younger brother here's some shitty sibling headcannons based off True Actual bullshit my 2 younger siblings and i do (tag as green/flame and i'll fucking maul you):

the Most Absurd sibling deals fucking. ever. kai asks nya to take out the trash for him and nya brings up when she ran his patrol 3 months ago and when she bought him a sprite so kai ends up taking out the trash and doing the dishes for her

nya steals food from both of them near nonstop and half the time they dont even notice. mfer is stealthy

if u try to steal food from her tho? ur fucked say goodbye to ur hand

all of them r needlessly dramatic abt small injuries (esp lloyd) but nonchalant abt big injuries (SUPER esp lloyd). the rest of the team is gonna kill them

Conflict Escalation

kai: nya fuck off or i’ll kick you in the shins!

nya, dead fucking serious: try it and i’ll kill you

the endless contest to stack things on lloyd while he’s sleeping (usually goldfish) and its twin, stick things in kai’s hood while ur walking behind him

once fr christmas nya gave lloyd a nerf gun and accidentaly started the Great Nerf War on the bounty

lloyd shot everyone non fucking stop til kai snapped and got a nerf gun of his own to combat him

eventually it spread and all six of them got nerf guns. no one was safe. the whole bounty became a war zone for weeks

(finally zane stole and hid all the nerf guns to end it)

dead dad jokes like you would not fucking believe (at least between s4 and s7), which lloyd is so fucking grateful for cause kai and nya basically teach him tht coping w grief is 10% emotional shit and 90% jokes (zane and cole get in on it all the time too cause jays the only one that actually has 2 living parents)

kai listens to. the worst music and nya and lloyd will never let him live it down

lloyd: kai we are not letting you pick the music all you listen to is mumford and sons and that weird punk band

kai: what! no! just this morning i was listening to johnny cash!

nya: kai thats even worse

nya will do anything you dare her to do, no matter how gross. the most famous instant of this is when kai dared lloyd to drink lemon juice and while they were arguing about how much kai would pay lloyd if he did it, nya walked by and fucking downed the whole thing without even making a face. this is when everyone on the bounty realized just how fucking powerful Nya Goddamn Smith is

lloyd is The Baby Sibling and always will be. this is a blessing and a curse

on one hand he can get away with just about anything

on the other hand nya and kai do not give one fuck that he is the green ninja they can boss him around as much as they want and they dont have to do one (1) thing he says cause You’re the Baby, Lloyd

god the fucking. ultimate sibling attack where u karate chop ur sib in the stomach while they’re lying down and it’s instant death? yeah. thats fucking brutal with these three. none of them ever lie down w/ out their arms covering their stomach they know what’ll fucking happen

acting like a pretty tame insult was the saddest thing you ever heard (lloyd does this so much)

kai: lloyd you’re a dumbass

lloyd, sounding heartbroken: what about it??

in the same vein, the classic compliment/insult pair

kai: lloyd, i love you and you are very kind, but youre dumb as rocks

these three would literally kill for each other but also nya started throwing almonds at lloyd when he fell asleep on the couch during lego cake boss and threatened to knock him out herself if he didnt go up to sleep immediately and kai responded by throwing grapes at lloyd from the other side of the room

[woodswolf]

okay i really want to know, 5 things you'd change about ninjago

honestly the bigger question is 5 things i wouldn’t change about ninjago, but i suppose i’ll narrow down the top of my list of things that Need To Change

1. I’d fix the timeline so that it Actually Makes Sense and allows more room for exploration of other elements. Biggest thing is really to make the Serpentine War take place a long ass time ago with none of the ninjas’ parents being involved. By extension, I’d also end up changing the way the elemental powers work or carry from generation to generation (like one of my 50-some fleshed-out explanations of how the powers should work, instead of this arbitrary “and YOU get it from your parents, and YOU get it from your parents, and YOU’RE obviously adopted because your parents don’t have it, and YOU get it from your parents” etc. etc. etc. because honestly just no. No. That’s not good enough for me sorry. :P

2. More emphasis on the everyone’s relationships with other people, rather than just the core cast. I wanna see more of Kai and Nya bonding over remembering their parents. I wanna see more of Jay interacting with his parents. I want to learn who Cole’s mom is and see how that impacts Cole and Lou. I want literally anything to happen with Zane and Julien and Echo, because after S6 we are Incredibly Ripe for a discussion which I really want to see. Basically, I want to learn more about who these characters are, who they care for, and who they care about - unlike in canon Ninjago, where the team pretty much Exists as a singular entity that has no ties to any people in particular. TL;DR: I want a minor characters to exist for more than one episode sometimes.

3. No romance bullshit. Listen, back in S1 and S2, Jaya was cute. Now, though, after everything that happened in all the recent seasons? Sorry, no. It’s quite literally the opposite of a healthy relationship 90% of the time - the one example I can think of where they actually communicated with each other without all the other bullshit is TLR, but considering TLR is probably one of the best Ninjago episodes of all time, that pretty much shows the state they’ve been in. All the two of them ever do is try to kiss each other, even when they’re fighting almost constantly, which really isn’t a good way to figure out what’s wrong in your relationship to try and fix it. Basically, fuck the love triangle.

4. Fuck S3 in general. Sure, you can have a season with some of the same general ideas in its plot - I mean, if you can even find an overarching plot in S3 to imitate, which is a pretty fuckin hard task if I do say so myself - but the sudden genre switch from “mostly fantasy” to “mostly sci-fi” is a really fucking sudden transition, and it really doesn’t work well with the show’s strengths. The sad thing about S3 is that a lot of the concepts introduced in it are wonderful - Cyrus, Pixal, Hiroshi’s Labyrinth, Pythor’s return, the Serpentine underground city, etc. - but the plot is so unfocused and all over the place that it just comes off as complete bullshit. Hell, even the sudden genre switch could’ve felt more natural if the plot took a bit more time and cut out the love triangle bullshit. But it didn’t. So fuck S3.

5. General characterization cleanup. In the last few seasons, everybody’s really been coming off as pretty flat - Kai’s the impulsive one, Cole’s the sorta-serious one, Zane’s the smart one, Lloyd kinda exists, Nya doesn’t have character unless she’s arguing with someone, and Jay is a nightmare and makes me want to die. This one I’m going to split up into subcategories for each of the main characters because this is a huge problem.

Jay: He’s been so screamy and whiny all the time in recent seasons, and sure, he also was a little bit back in the earlier seasons, but the Hagemans have slowly turned him up to eleven over time. S6 was literally so bad at points that I could hardly sit through it. It’s gotten to the point where I can instantly tell that the Hagemans haven’t written the script for something if Jay doesn’t piss me off - and so far I’ve always been right, because I’ve been able to successfully predict it for Day of the Departed and S7, neither of which were/are written by them. It’s worth noting that both of them portray Jay a lot better and have a “normal” amount of focus on him, so it’s possible that S6 was only really especially bad because the camera was on him the entire time.

Cole and Lloyd: Back in the second half of S2 or so (though it only really became obvious in S3), Cole and Lloyd actually swapped a lot of their “personality” traits. Before the swap, Lloyd was more of the “foodie” character and Cole was the “default leader”, but around Child’s Play their traits actually got swapped around. Now, back in the olden days, all of the characters were more 3-dimensional, so it was really hard to tell - but as soon as S3 started it was very obvious that Cole was suddenly “goofy food-lover” and Lloyd was “default leader the team would be incompetent without”. I’d switch them back. #MakeLloydSillyAgain

Zane: Honestly, of all the Ninja, Zane’s the one that most pisses me off right now, even more so than Jay. While Jay’s just annoying and screamy, our current Zane is a completely different character than the one we had back in the early days of Ninjago. Both versions of Zane are smart, but while the old Zane was kind and understanding, the Zane we have now is very egotistical and occasionally quite mean-spirited. The easiest way to show the difference is by taking a look at the scene where new Zane asks for wishes from Nadakhan - new Zane tries to outsmart Nadakhan and gets punished for it. Old Zane probably would’ve wished for his friends to be freed. :/

Nya: I’m too tired to try to come up with reasons for this because honestly Nya’s character has always been treated like shit. One thing I’d definitely change doesn’t have anything to do with her - it’s that I’d have her independence be treated as an asset instead of a liability.

Kai: I don’t have much to say with him - of all the Ninja, his character has stayed the most consistent throughout the show. He’s impulsive and a bit rash at times, but he’s not stupid; and he’ll do anything he can to protect the people he cares about. In recent seasons, the writers have frequently ignored the “but he’s not stupid” part, but other than that he’s pretty much the same as he was at the beginning.

k so that’s 5, good job woods it only took you an hour to write all this shit