#Post-Seabound

[cyclondoojay]

dk why, just traumas i suppose

"just... not that KID anymore..."

honestly, i like it

if you want, it can have any meaning you like <3

[don't mind the shadow pls]

[roseverdict]

ooPS I ACCIDENTALLY TOOK THAT ONE CRACK AU IDEA WHERE KAI IS EVERY INHUMAN THING THE OTHER NINJA WIND UP AS AT ONCE AND I MADE IT ANGST

join me and cry. also no beta i just cranked this nightmare sequence out over the course of the day lol

unrelated but i write in a notes app that doesn't allow bolding or italicing so i just do markup so i know what to do later and copypasting right into tumblr automatically formatted it??? fuckin wild man

~

"We just have to give him time. I dunno how I would feel if I was told I was a robot." "You mean a nindroid." "…yeah, whatever."

Kai and Jay, S1E7, Tick Tock

After the day he'd had, Kai was ready for a nice, restful night of sleep to take him the moment his head hit the pillow.

So, of course, the moment he collapsed into bed is the moment alarms go off, making him lurch forward and nearly fall off the bed.

Kai stumbles to his feet and flails blindly ahead of himself, managing to catch his balance by leaning on Zane.

Zane chuckles and lets him stay there a moment to regain his bearings. "This never gets any easier, does it?"

Kai blinks blearily at him "Whuh?"

"I said, 'Still feeling the taste of video game defeat?'" Zane calls over the blaring of the alarms.

"Maybe a little," Kai huffs good-naturedly. "Come on, let's go catch up to the others."

Zane nods, and the two of them rush out of the bunkroom to do exactly that.

Almost before Kai knows it, the monastery gives way to a snowy forest. He's lost track of the others, but he follows tracks left in the snow for what feels like forever-!

He's inside a tree.

It doesn't look like the inside of a tree. He doesn't know if he even saw the outside before entering, but in some part of his mind, he knows that this tiny little lab-shed is in a tree.

The eerie familiarity of the place gives him the creeps.

Kai wants to turn around and leave, maybe he can wait for the others to get here before investigating-

His hands move without his consent, one uncovering a blue sheet of paper with silvery designs on it, the other leaning heavily on a scepter of some kind.

His own face stares blankly up at him from the page.

As if in a trance, something in Kai's chest opens and there are switches and wires and golden snow that grows faster than he can leap back in shock and his insides feel like they're full to bursting with dark ice and he's about to EXPLODE-

Kai reels back in surprise from-

-the Fangpyre skeleton laid out in the bridge of the Bounty.

This is a completely natural order of events, save for the fact that his finger feels somewhat sore.

Kai shrugs and heads out. There's been Serpentine activity spotted at Megamonster Amusement Park lately, after all, and if that's not something for the Ninja, then he doesn't know what is.

He runs across Jay on his way out and snorts. "Who are you looking to impress, buddy? The snakes?"

"The Sea," says Jay.

Kai cleans out his ear. "What was that?"

"Hey, let a guy finish!" Jay snaps lightheartedly. "It's Nya, if you must know."

Kai knows he can trust Jay with his sister, no matter what happens, on some implicit level he can barely understand. Instead of saying this outright, however, he just smiles. "Break a leg, buddy."

Jay nods and scurries off, and Kai turns to follow when he notices a sickly-green tinge to his skin.

"What?"

He hurries to a mirror to find scales growing in over his skin, and even jutting out oddly from the panels in his chest and arm.

Even as he watches, however, the scales ripple and spread outward, soon turning as blue as the sky. His hair bleaches white, and as he grabs his toothbrush to pull back his lips- are those fangs?!- his reflection scowls at him.

"Hey, dummy!"

Kai yelps as his own words (when, when did he say this?!) are turned back onto him with more venom than he'd thought he was capable of.

"Yeah, I'm talking to you," snarls his reflection. "Would you get your head on straight and start doing your job?"

"My…my job?" breathes Kai.

(wrong wrong wrong something is very wrong)

"You know, protecting your family?" his double drawls. "That thing you claim is the reason you became a ninja in the first place? The fate of the world kinda rests on it!"

Kai shakes his head- he doesn't know what is going on here but he doesn't like it- and bolts outside, ignoring his double's enraged protests.

(Something tells him that if he stayed behind, he'd just get a fist to the face for his trouble.)

He's at the amusement park in a flash, a stupid little electric-blue tail poking out under his gi no matter how much he adjusts it. Eventually he gives up and glances around the deserted park for any sign of movement.

"Hey, Kai! Over here!" Cole calls, waving him over to the haunted house attraction.

Kai is quick to run over. "You find anything?"

"I think so. I saw something purple run in here," Cole explains. "I'd bet you money that it's Pythor looking for that scroll Master Wu told us about."

Kai nods. "You call the others. I'm getting a head start."

Neither of them state the obvious fact that he can't still be inside at sunup, or else.

"Got it," says Cole.

As Kai rushes inside, he swears he can hear Cole say something like, "It's so easy to be forgotten."

However, he's already inside, and the doors slam shut behind him before he can ask.

Nervously, he sneaks through the endless sprawling halls in search of the snake he's chasing. The entire place is dead as the grave, and it's just as quiet.

Then Kai finds the room.

There is no Pythor here, nor is there any scroll, but the moment he steps inside, it is as though the world around him solidifies.

Ironically enough, it feels as though the old man's ghost in the middle of the room is the source of the solidity.

"How did you get here, child?" asks the ghost shortly.

"The front door," answers Kai. He frowns. "You're not Pythor."

The old man lifts an eyebrow, stroking his pitch-dark beard. "Oh? I highly doubt thoughts of Pythor, of all people, would lead your consciousness to my little corner of reality. Not since you ninja fixed up this place and returned it to its status as a tourist attraction for me, anyway."

None of the old man's words make any sense.

"Ah, I see the illusion still has you," the old man says, as if he's piecing something together. "I suppose I will leave you to it, then. However, if anything follows you to the waking world, let it be this: A sword sharpened too often soon wears away into nothing. Just as a blade requires cleaning to retain its shine, so, too, does a warrior require time to reflect."

"What's that even supposed to mean?" demands Kai.

"If you remember after this, you will know," instructs the old man. "Now leave me. Your illusion has not yet run its course, and you are running low on time."

"You keep saying illusion-?" Kai tries.

"It's not really an illusion, but to say its name would mean cutting it off abruptly, and your mind is not yet finished," the man huffs impatiently. "Now leave me!"

There's a power in the words that had been missing the first time, and Kai is flung from the oddly-solid room and into nothingness.

The amusement park is completely gone at this point, leaving only a swirling mass of undead greens that rise up and blow past Kai without slowing his fall.

He crash-lands face-first on some kind of wood paneling, and he peels himself up and off it just in time to leap away from a spray of water.

Kai can't afford to be touched by water anymore.

There's a creaking sound as the ramshackle village around him is warped and twisted, and Kai barely has the presence of mind to leap to a miraculously-untouched portion of wooden deck.

Before him stands the Preeminent.

Behind the Preeminent stands a titan made of stone.

Off to the side, a sea serpent he knows implicitly to be Wojira races closer.

Lloyd and Nya are hidden away in one of the untouched alcoves nearby, and they frantically gesture him closer.

"You'll never be enough!" says Lloyd worriedly.

"How much more can you endure?!" adds Nya, reaching out her hand as if begging him to take it.

Kai tries to run to them, only for a rock crackling with purple energy to come crashing down, sending all three of them plummeting into the sea.

Kai feels like he should have poofed out of being the moment the water touched him, but instead, he finds himself adrift in the endless sea.

Emperor Garmadon's voice slithers into his ears as if the man is right behind him. "You're no ninja. You're barely even a half-rate elemental. How you could have ever thought you could be fit for the title of the Green Ninja is beyond me. Look at yourself. Can you even recognize your own face?"

Kai shakes his head furiously. So what if he has-

-mechanical wiring that's being shorted out from this much time underwater?

-cold blood that's only getting colder, a mind that's only getting drowsier, the longer he stays down here?

-a ghost's inability to touch water, all the while being surrounded by it?

-the weight of a prophecy dragging him down beneath the waves, lower and lower and lower-?

Wait.

Some part of Kai's mind sluggishly rebels, screaming at the top of its tiny lungs that nothing about this situation is real.

When Kai opens his mouth to shoot back a snarky comment at Emperor Garmadon, however, the sea just rushes inside of him, overtaking his every cell, his every breath-

The endless sea shoots into him-

-and rejects him.

Smoke bubbles out from the panels in his body, the scales sprouted along his arms are flung away with his fake skin as the water tears him to shreds from the inside out, agonizingly, viciously, the green light of the Preeminent grows and grows above the surface until it's all he can see-!

Kai opens his mouth and SCREAMS-!

-and then his alarm went off, and the nightmare was pushed back with each round of beeps.

Kai snapped awake, his skin clammy, his breathing loud, and his heart threatening to beat right out of his chest.

It took him a second, but he eventually sighed and slouched forward, burying his head in his hands.

It was coming up on the one-year anniversary of Kalmaar's attack on Ninjago City and Nya's subsequent sacrifice.

"It should have been me," said Kai brokenly, thinking about everything his siblings had given up and none of it at once.

Were he at the monastery, someone would be there for him to talk to.

But he wasn't. He wasn't at the monastery, and he hadn't been for months. He was in his room at his little dojo.

"It should have been me," Kai moaned, pulling his knees up and digging them into his suspiciously-wet eyes.

Were he at the monastery, he'd worry that someone could see him break down.

But he wasn't.

He wasn't, because Nya never could be again, and he felt a lot like the protagonist in that one dystopia series Nya had gotten into back when they both lived at the smithy. After everything the main character had gone through, her sister, the whole reason she'd done any of it, was just gone.

Nya was gone.

After all of them spent years flirting with death, the only friend he'd known since childhood was gone.

His voice was thick, but he couldn't bring himself to care. Not anymore.

"Why couldn't it have been me?"

[waterghostype]

volume cw (i tried lowering it but jic. also loud swearing)

[destinysbounty]

This parallel occurred to me right as I was going to bed and it has haunted me all night.

[purpleleafsyt]

The Ocean

[marsipain]

She feels complete, engulfed by her lover’s warm body, lips and the sea which has become a part of her.

She is gripping her lover by the waist. Is it out if love? Or out of fear for losing her to the endless sea once more?

[berryblu-arts]

@hollsmemes HIII HELLO!!!! WAVING BACK AT YOU o/!!!

sdfhsgdahg sorry to drag your ask onto another blog but!!! i have brought you doodles!!

closeups:

Kai´s first dentist appointment + hc he is a menace to pens (that guy is *not* sitting still through team meetings fdhkjhdsjfnmghf) + i just wanted to draw this one tbh

also v important RGB sibs hc doodle (i draw mouths too small to showcase fangs U_U)

[gravyhoney]

Totally logged on to make a post and then did one billion other things and closed the app.

ANYWAYS!!

Consider, version of Crystallized opening (the part where they bring Nya back specifically) but she doesn’t regain her memories and genuinely believed she’s always been the ocean. A version of Nya that- as far as she knows- was forcibly separated from herself and shoved into an uncomfortable physical form, surrounded by unfamiliar people who keep calling her a name she doesn’t recognize nor does she want.

[rainofthetwilight]

wait guys why are we shipping euphrasia and vania again????

euphrasia is probably around sora and arin's age, right? like 15 or 16? and vania would've been around atleast 18 in season 13 for her to be coronated as queen, and even if she wasn't that age, with the amount of time passing from then till dr would make her in her 20s (whether early or mid) by now so uh...yknow???

[cyanide-sippy-cup]

Thinking about how Ninjago S2 is probably one of my favorite pieces of television I've ever watched. It flows so well off of season 1 and allows those arcs to spread and grow.

It gave us the Mega Weapon, the Stone Army, the Overlord, lore for the Destiny's Bounty, let us actually meet Zane's dad, Misako, cured Garmadon, gave Lloyd his best arc (which the movie pretty much pulled from and the show still does), still is the Overlord's best defeat,

The characters actually have interesting dynamics with each and every one of each other that allows them to truly feel like a found family with history (and both Jay AND Kai get to react to things that happen to Nya, not just her Yin),

We got one of my favorite 3D-animated fights of all time,

And let's be honest, the show peaked right here (in a positive way).

[bolidoly]

It's a littel comic I had, also English it's not my first language :)

[emi1ll]

[mxshmxsh]

Guys an AU where jay becomes one with the storm instead of Nya becoming one with the ocean

[waterghostype]

me when the elements

[destinysbounty]

A common question that has plagued fans for a long time now is how and why Wojira passed the element of water onto Nyad, considering they were enemies at the time. Personally, I think there are two different yet equally possible answers here:

Someone once pointed out that in Wu's scroll depicting the Battle of Nine Days, Wojira's eyes are red - which would likely only be the case if she was being controlled (her eyes return to blue once Kalmaar's control is lifted). It could be possible that Wojira was once a far more benevolent being before some unknown force took control of her, and during that time Nyad inherited power from her.

In Bentho's story about the legend of Nyad, she is depicted as being struck by the Amulets upon touching them - perhaps this was what caused her to acquire that power. Yes, technically it looks more like she touched the Storm Amulet, whereas water is more closely aligned with the Wave Amulet. However, I think it's worth noting that the Storm Elements don't seem to operate strictly under the standard conditions of most others. In this case there seems to be some kind of overlap. Although the elements passed on from Wojira are water and wind, she also has dominion over lightning as well, with "Storm" encompassing both of the latter two. Which suggests that may be a degree of overlap between the elements of storm. If so, then it's still entirely plausible that being struck by the Amulets could have given her the elemental power of water (and perhaps this overlap also explains why Jay was able to command wind that one time in s1?? I dunno. That's a theory post for another day)

This is potentially corroborated by the fact that we don't see her wield the element of water until after this striking incident. Within the context of this particular animation sequence, her being struck and her becoming one with the sea are depicted within immediate proximity of each other.

If true, the second possibly would also resolve another big question involving Nyad and her element: that is, how the line of succession was able to progress even after she had become one with the sea. According to Nya, it was her power that kept her chained to the ocean, and by losing her power she severed her connection to it. By that logic, wouldn't the same be true for Nyad? If she's still connected to the sea, then logic should dictate that she should still be the master of water. But if her power left her and moved on to someone else, then she should have been restored just as Nya was in Crystalized.

But if we consider the idea that elemental power may be passed down through other means, it becomes possible that someone else may have acquired water the same way Nyad did, and that second person ended up passing the element down through the ages.

(But if that answer isn't satisfying, have another: according to the Overlord, elemental powers seem to possess some degree of semi-sentience, as they are able to "choose a new champion". Perhaps Nyad's elemental power left her to pick someone new, but at that point she'd been merged with the sea for so long that her spirit remained chained to it anyway.)

[colesstar]

i think i need to be put on a ninjago ban.

Basically there was a tour bus and my first thought was “oh my gosh its like in ninjago seabound where dareth was on the tour bus” and then it started POURING and i FULLY expected purple lightning to come from the sky