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Thanks for answering!😊 What about a platonic friendship outside of the main group? For example I liked Cole's friendship with Karloff in season 4.

Aha... I have a really hot take on this one. Prepare yourself...

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... Cole and Vania.

Ok listen, I know this is a really controversial thing now post-DR, but the writers themselves have confirmed that this is platonic. Lots of people therefore use it as evidence that Cole is canonically gay.

Now, I'm of the opinion that these are Lego minifigs and you can see what you want into it, unless the writers have explicitly written them together e.g. Pixane. But, just for right now, let's just accept the possible premise that Cole is some flavor of open to liking girls.

If so, then I absolutely love Cole and Vania as a platonic friendship. Because Vania started as a Cole fangirl, but later came to respect him for him, as a flawed person but also as a really capable leader, not just a distant figure on a pedestal. And while Cole does seem to appreciate the attention, he doesn't appear to reciprocate her obvious crush on him. But, and this is important, he still respects her for her and supports her. As true friends do.

I think it's really important for little boys to have role models for how to treat girls that you're not into romantically. It's really possible to have friends of different genders and still respect one another deeply without romance coming into the picture. Yes, I'm biased because I have a little boy, but it's also a big part of why I encourage his interest in Ninjago. I think he needs these role models.

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What's your favorite dynamic between the ninja and characters not on the team? (i.e Side characters or allies)

Thank you for the ask <3

I don't know if Pixal counts as being on the team since she's mostly a side character even if she's Team Ninja. If not, then definitely Pixal and Zane. Let me count the ways:

Unlike many couples written for kid shows, they actually have a pretty healthy relationship dynamic, despite (or because of?) being not your neurotypical couple. I think a relationship like theirs is actually pretty rare in shows overall, come to think of it.

Their standing within the relationship is pretty much equal. Granted that in the old series, Pixal does swoop in to save the day quite a bit, but then as Samurai X she swoops in to save all the ninja, so it never feels like she's the capable one dominating the relationship with Zane.

The only time she showed frustration with Zane was the Detective Zane episode. I remember thinking how out of character it seemed for her to get angry with Zane.

But all was immediately forgiven when he disappeared and she promptly put on his hat and his accent.

And his pining for her in DR? *chef's kiss*

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Got a lot happening irl right now, so hit me with an ask. Remind me that escapism exists.

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Before the whimsy, there were horrors™

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Headcanon: Lloyd & Cole edition

There've been lots of posts about what's known as the RGB siblings - Kai, Lloyd and Nya. But what about Cole and Lloyd? They're often mentioned in the same breath only when people are asking "who was the best leader of the ninja?" But... how do they really relate to each other?

My headcanons:

Cole never actually wanted to be the leader of anything. When Wu was recruiting the ninja, he just became the de facto leader because he was the first one there, and everyone else looked to him to induct them into the team. But he never seriously thought that he, or any other one person, should be in charge.

When Lloyd was first brought into the group as a bratty kid, Cole was inclined to be amused. He had never thought that Garmadon's kid would join them, but then Lloyd was Master Wu's nephew too, so there must be something there.

Lloyd, on the other hand, found Cole intimidating at first, and he mostly tried to avoid him, aside from a few pranks to test his boundaries.

The moment Lloyd was revealed to be the legendary Green Ninja, everything fell into place for Cole. He understood that from then on, his place was to support Lloyd in everything he did.

Still, Lloyd looked up to Cole in his own way. He was always closest to Kai, whom he thought of as his big brother for the longest time, but Cole was something else. Garmadon used to be not just a father to Lloyd, but his teacher and mentor as well. While Uncle Wu now took that position, he found that he couldn't really talk to Wu the way he used to with his father. Kai was great, but he was the fun and protective big brother who didn't always understand - or want to understand - anything too deep. So, naturally, Cole became that mentor figure, always with a kind word for him.

It started with questions about leading the team, but soon he found himself approaching the Earth ninja to be the sounding board for his ideas, to talk things through, and sometimes for comfort. After he aged up and became closer to the other ninja in age, the relationship shifted in tone a little, but the core remained the same.

In the early days when Lloyd first took over leadership of the ninja, Cole did find him somewhat overbearing at times. He definitely did things in ways that Cole wouldn't have, sometimes. But that didn't mean Lloyd was wrong, or that Cole was always right, so he kept his peace.

Nowadays, Cole's gotten used to having Lloyd mostly in charge, though there are still times when he thinks Lloyd should rein himself in a little, such as that time in Shintaro when Lloyd was convinced that all princesses were bad news.

And while Lloyd is now pretty much comfortable in his own skin as the Green Ninja and any other role or accolade placed on him, he still feels just that little bit better, more confident, when Cole is around to nod at him approvingly.

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RGB my love

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what do you mean. WHAT DO YOU MEAN?? /pos

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I JUST REALIZED THAT HE MEME OF SENSEI WU GOING 'There´s something I haven´t told you yet' IS now the same for Lloyd! He didn't say he was the grandson of the FSM, he didn't say he was part dragon and now he doesn't say that he's part oni too! WHAT'S NEXT HUH

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Summary of S3 thoughts, spoilers included:

In as close to chronological order as I can remember - no, heck, just gonna write what comes to mind:

Aww nice, a Cole+Lloyd moment. I need to write a post on their relationship soon.

Little did I know that was the last time we would see Cole until the last episode of the season :/ for once one of the ninja got less screen time than Jay in DR. That's... not a good thing.

There really are too many ninja now. Hard to keep the stakes high when you constantly outnumber your opponents, to the point where it had to be lampshaded in the show itself.

Rapton's "hairpiece" - hah, nice one

Oh, finally some Sora and Arin backstory. But why didn't they do this earlier in the show? Oh, to have payoff at the point where they meet again. But to us viewers, we're getting this info for the first time, so it's hard to feel the emotions as deeply as how the writers evidently want us to feel.

Also the flashbacks stitched in with current events gets really annoying to follow after a while

ZANE AND PIXAL OMG

ZANE'S FACE

ZANE CONSTANTLY MENTIONING HOW MUCH HE MISSED PIXAL AND HOW GOOD IT IS TO BE BACK TOGETHER AGAIN Brent Miller killed it this season

PIXAL BEST GIRL

MORRO

Oh dear he's ferrying people across to the other side as penance for what he did

Ok the invisible monsters are pretty cool

Why do they keep making fun of Lobbo? This is really mean-spirited

The Dragonians are not at all like what I thought they'd be based on the sets

Oh, yeah that looks more like the sets, makes sense now

FUGI-DOVE

D-DARETH???

He's a shadow of himself though :(

Why are they wishing all this stuff on the Dragonians :( hope they can go back to normal when they turn good again

Every time "Rogue" appears in the season, I remember that one time someone asked Doc about him in S3 referring to him as Jay and Doc tried to be all mysterious with something like "what makes you think that's Jay?" Except, y'know, his face is on the box art, he clearly has lightning powers, he's blue and his clothes have the Ninjargon letter J all over them. Doc's response got posted to Reddit and the fandom pretty much collectively rolled their eyes and went "it's Jay."

All these dragons are much less cooler when they talk

Arin's parents are dead? I feel like Ras is not telling the whole truth. Maybe he killed them.

By the end of the season- oh, he didn't

Roby's decay got cured by... a fever?? I don't think that's how decay works

Jay, your hair is silly, please cut it and leave the samurai ponytail to Unagami

I feel like at some point we have to accept that Arin needs to develop a better moral compass. "But his parents-" yes, everyone in the post-Merge world appears to have lost someone, he's not that special

"Wu caused the Merge" - he caused helluva lot of grief for all of the ninja; they didn't go gallavanting with the enemy because of it

Moral of the story - never meet your idols

Thunderfang sure got defeated fast. They didn't even need to summon a source dragon?

HE ATE MORRO WHAAAAATTTT

That's all I can remember for now, at least until we rewatch it tomorrow!

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My brain started cooking up some potential Cole and Jay angst regarding the whole evil Jay thing. I don't have any specific scenarios figured out, but I had this realization that Cole is the only one of the main ninja (minus Jay I guess) who hasn't learned Rising Dragon. We've seen Jay use Shatterspin.

Basically what I'm getting at is imagine a fight between Cole and Jay where Jay uses Shatterspin and Cole can't really defend himself without Rising Dragon, so instead of fighting back he's trying to dodge and desperately trying to reason with Jay and get him to remember. Meanwhile Jay just continues to sink further and further into his own hatred or something like that.

This might also be a little bit of me coping since I feel like it's unlikely that Cole's gonna be going after Jay next season since it looks like it's just gonna be Kai and Nya going. If it were up to me I'd have it be Nya and Cole since they're the characters closest to Jay, but you know that's just me.

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I know I haven't been around for a while, but. Binge-watched Season 3 on release day. Have thoughts, which I will write up eventually. But mainly, wish we got more angst over Jay.

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3/5

Rox, Nokt, and Kur

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ocean blue how do you do

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Y'know, many of us hold nostalgia for our childhood, because they were the happiest time of our lives. They were happiest because we had fewer responsibilities then.

The ninja, though, hated being children. All of them.

Says a lot, really.

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It’s always at 3am that you tend to consider the unending pain the characters you fixate on suffer through.

Kai, straight from the beginning, has had to constantly sacrifice his self, his personality, his opinions, his morals, his power, everything that makes him him, up until the point where he had to sacrifice his body to its doom in the nether realm. To him, that is nothing compared to everything he has had to constantly sacrifice.

Lloyd has had to give up so much that was important to him. His family, his friends, his chance to grow up, his dreams, all for the sake of a title he never asked for. Yet was handed to him on a rusty silver platter from destiny. He has accepted the unending path of suffering he will always be subjugated too and has come to peace with it, because if he hadn’t, he would’ve fallen to his mental pain long ago.

Nya will always suffer through her self worth because in the end as much she tries to make her worth her own she has always based it on how useful she is, if she can do enough. Because if she can’t, what is the point of her existence? Even when she has reached a point of self confidence and surety, she will always feel guilt at not being able to protect the people she

Rgb siblings when will you get therapy is the true question. Even the other ninja God i should do this for them too