#but see the big difference comes that as a show for kids Ninjago doesn’t take itself too seriously

[seaglassdinosaur]

I’m gonna make a controversial statement

Ninjago is the Supernatural of cartoons

[nonbinarykai]

Ok since two people asked

Why Lloyd is my least favorite ninja and how I rewrite him

Notes:// you know the rodeo by now, long post so it’s going to be under a read more, and I’m not gonna tag this with Lloyd because of the criticisms I have against his character, if you don’t want to hear Lloyd be critiqued then don’t reas the post

Why I don’t like Lloyd

Maybe it’s because I’m a Kai kinnie or maybe it’s because I have a bias agaisnt the younger sibling but Lloyd has never really been a favorite of mine

He was enjoyable in s1 but after that he kinda lost all personality for me and I stopped enjoying him

I think this is mostly for two reasons:

1. His screen time

2. His “character arcs”

I’ll go ahead and knock out his screentime here because it pretty much speaks for himself

Lloyd takes up so much screentime in the show that it’s actually jarring, he’s the character with the most seasons, having s1-2, s4, s8-11, and finally s14 ((the island special)). Which I think makes lloyds writing flaws all the more noticable

A big reason, albeit a bit of a petty one, for why I don’t like him is because he constant hyjacks other characters plots and makes them about him, this happened with Kai in both s4 and s11

Even if he’s not the main focus of a season, he always has a side plot focusing on him like in s3 and s12

The writers need to include Lloyd in other seasons is making it harder for the other main characters to actually have enough screentime to grow and develop on there own

And as a side effect of this, Lloyd gets to become the most important character in every season he is, taking roles from other characters who needed them

My best example is Cole being leader, he was set up and established as leader in the pilots and s1, and he did pretty good in it! Cole being a leader is a interesting concept that I would have loved to see been developed

But after Lloyd grew up they threw that plot point into the trash so they could have the mystical green ninja be leader even though throughout s1-7 he hardly actually talks to the main cast and him being leader doesn’t add any interesting dynamic like cole and kais rivalry despite Kai being a sort of right hand man to Coles leadership.

And in s1-s7 especially everything literally revolves around Lloyd to the point where his existence is more important than everyone else’s, and everyone’s motivations are to protect him.

Again I understand he is important, he’s the green ninja, but you have to let your other characters grow and develop, Lloyd is not the only main character in your show

Like for fuck sakes I don’t need 3 arcs about Lloyd and his dad, can I finally have another Kai season

Lloyds character arcs honestly kinda suck

Im going to be honest with you

Lloyds kinda an ass

The reason I like jay more then Lloyd even though jay has been way more mean spirited then Lloyd throughout the entire series is because you can atleast make the argument that jay doesn’t know when his jokes can hurt. And the show doesn’t portray jay as in the right, he gets what he deserves for some of the meanier things he says.

The same can’t be said about Lloyd

Lloyd says things to the other ninja that is honestly so mean spirited it’s jarring to hear it from him

Best example being when Lloyd told Kai to get over his shit when Kai was grieving in s4

But what makes it so frustrating is that the show always portrays Lloyd like he’s in the right which is why a lot of his character arcs feel flat or uninteresting

The only time this doesn’t apply is in s2 and in s3, in s2 the show paints Lloyd as being unfair to Misako when he RIGHTFULLY gets mad at her for abandoning him, I’ll get back to this later

The second time in s3 is when he’s traveling with Garmadon and having to be taught to balance his powers, which is actually one part of s3 I really liked, it was nice to see these two bond and have Garmadon teach Lloyd something that wu would other wise not teach him. And it’s a real shame the season cut it short AGAIN

The biggest example of the show making Lloyd seem in the right no matter what is in s4, Lloyds whole arc there was to learn how to view things from a different perspective and appreciate the things others have done for him. And this is would work if the show decided to do the same.

Again back to that scene with Lloyd and Kai in s4, the show treats Lloyd as if he’s in the right and it’s never addressed after this. Even though this is supposed to be the beginning of lloyds arc where he’s supposed to learn to view things from a different perspective

This scene would have worked if

1. The show didn’t paint him in the right for this, either by having Lloyd apologize or having the show acknowledged how it might have hurt Kai

2. If the plot Lloyd has remained a side plot instead of taking up the entire focus

Seriously, s4 could have been the ONE season where you can have a Lloyd side plot thats not forced and yet they fucked it up and made it the entire focus of the season thanks a lot.

To quote what I said in my Nya anayalsis awhile back

“I’m not upset that he has a flaw, just that it’s not recognized as one”

Lloyd would work way better as a character if the show just let him have consequences for his actions

Ever since he grew up and got the green ninja role he’s been treated like he can’t do no wrong which is clearly not true

But since we’re already on this topic

Hurting Lloyd doesn’t make him a good character

I feel like Tommy ((and sometimes the fandom)) really misunderstand what the use of suffering for in a story

There atleast 3 reasons writers make there characters suffer

1. To undergo a arc and realize where they have been wrong or to give a character a lot more depth to expand upon

2. If the story is a fallen hero one and the character suffers because of his Huberius

3. If the story is a tragedy

Ninjago is neither a fallen hero story or a tragedy and his pain doesn’t develop him as a character

A lot of writers don’t understand that suffering isn’t what makes a character good, it’s what pushes them to become good, you can’t just throw a character at the wall and expect them to instantly be a well written fleshed out character

A lot of the suffering Lloyd has to endure is mostly for no reason and it’s really mean spirited because it adds nothing to the plot, it’s just there to hurt him

Let’s bring up s11 as an example, Lloyd didn’t HAVE to fight the ice emperor from a writing standpoint, if anything it should have been kais battle because his lose of power and Zane going evil would have been a perfect reflection of s4 and tie it up after it ended kais character a bit open ended

But no let’s have Lloyd do it instead because haha isn’t trauma COOL and HIP

Now to be clear, I’m not saying that all of your stories have to end on a happy ending or anything like that, if your a writer then your allowed to do whatever you want with your personal writing

What I am saying is that ninjago is an actual SHOW made by PROFESSIONAL writers and they can’t understand the concept of a story structure

And the lack of actually addressing his trauma is really bringing down Lloyd as a character

Because it comes to a point where you understand why Lloyd is sometimes mean or distrustful of other people and it’s frustrating because you know that it’s flaws of him that are never going to be fixed because there writers want there trauma baby

How I would rewrite him

I’ve seen a lot of people suggest Lloyd become a villain in a future season and you know what, I sort of agree

But not in the way you think

I feel like it would be way more compelling if Lloyd was a villain but is still a ninja, instead of Lloyd switching sides, the show is switching perspectives

More or less I want Lloyd to be a reflection of the “true” villain, which is how wu ((and subsequently Lloyd)) put small Victories as more important then the ninjas life, passion, and desire, and how there black and white thinking of good and evil ends up to a lot of problems because there’s a lot of grey area there choosing to ignore

I want Lloyd to start of being loyal to wu’s philosophy and the protagonist, for random example let’s say Kai, sudden turn on these ideas in order to look outside the box to find if there truly is a better way to protect people without harming himself

I want Lloyd to be upset over what he thinks is a turn to the dark side when in reality, it would make his motivations make sense and not make his turn to “villainy” be out of character.

And over the course of the season he starts to realize how wus and subsequently his leadership has hurt the others and himself, and have him reflect on if all the pain they suffer through just to clean up wus mistakes is really worth it like wu says, or if there’s a better way like kai says

As for Lloyds actual character himself, I’d like for his flaws to be more noticeable

Have Lloyd be a gifted kid who gets praise when he doesn’t deserve it but still kinda acts like a brat because he’s still mentally like 10

Have him be a control freak who follows the rules way to strictly and is all serious when they have to do missions

Have his idealization of wu be realized and critiqued because honestly wu sucks ass

Would this make his character less like able? Maybe, but then he’d actually have depth and something to improve on

He can still have his s3 and s4 arcs, it’s just now they’re more important because he’s actually learning to be better

AND BEFORE ANYONE SAYS IM PURPOSEFULLY MAKING LLOYD WORSE SO THAT KAI LOOKS BETTER

ILL HAVE YOU KNOW AWHILE BACK I MADE A POST SAYING THE EXACT SAME THING ABOUT KAI AND HIS FLAWS SO THERE (/hj /lh)

[dragonsaph]

Kaleb (OC) Bio

Information

Species: Human Affiliation: Ninja (temporary) Homeworld/-land: Ninjago Occupation: - Village Konia (home)                     - Ninja (temporary) Weapon: - Glaive (main)                 - Old Broom (training) Element/ Essence: Wind Status: Alive Family: Unnamend Parents

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“I won’t stop searching for my family... Even if it means my death!"       - about his desire

Kaleb lived with his parents on a farm in the village Konia until it was attacked. After he met Jay in the woods and used his elemental power, the Ninja convinced him to stay with him and the others until they find Kaleb’s parents.

---

History

Early life Kaleb was born and raised in the Village Konia, where his parents owned a farm. Few years later, they discovered that Kaleb has elemental powers - Wind, just like his great-grandfather. But even after more years, Kaleb’s powers remained weak. Kaleb likes to train since he wants to join the selfclaimed village-guards. For that he uses a broom and a scarecrow as dummy. He also owns a glaive, just for emergencies.

Now After Lord Garmadon was defeated, it still happens that some Skeletons are walking around Ninjago. But one day, a big group escaped from the Underworld, leaving nothing but chaos. One evening they attacked Konia. The Guards of the village were too weak. Kaleb also couldn’t stand a chance, since he still don’t know how to correctly use his powers. He got knocked down. After regaining consciousness, he found himself in the heavy damaged village, no villager anywhere. Kaleb followed a trace, left by the skeletons but lost it deep within the woods. There he soon met Jay who got separated from his team and now was fighting some snakes. Kaleb helped him, being able to use his powers. Shortly after that, the other Ninjas arrived and Jay told them what happened. The Team insisted on taking him to Sensei Wu. Maybe he knows something about the skeletons.

With that, Kaleb’s adventure began.

Appearance

Kaleb has long, black hair and usually wears a turquoise gi with a leather chest protection. During a mission, he also wears a black cloth over his lower face. His civilian outfit is a simple, slightly oversized turquoise jacket with grey pants while wearing his hair in a ponytail. Even though he works out a lot, he doesn’t have that much visible muscles.

Personality

Kaleb is more of a calm person most of the time. He likes to help out others since he grew up always helping on his parents’ farm. He’s also very caring in front of kids and elderly people. He still struggles a bit when it’s about teamwork with the Ninja since he never really worked in a group at home. And when in the heat of a battle, it can happen that he loses control of his temper and attacks furiously until he is being (sometimes forcefully) stopped. Kaleb is a loyal friend who can be trusted. He also doesn’t care crying or showing emotions in front of others. But if he’s angry/ mad, he prefers to be alone. When he notices that one of his friends is feeling down, he would silently try to cheer them up or distract them with small actions, like bringing them a soda.

Weapons and Abilities

Abilities Wind: Kaleb is the descendant of a Wind User. He can create gusts of wind and use them in different ways. Like pushing enemies away or creating a small twister. He also is able to create a small blast when jumping up with his glaive, allowing him to make a double jump in the air. But he isn’t able to levitate like his great-grandfather was. Kaleb’s powers also come in handy when doing some chores. Isn’t able to do Spinjitsu.

Weapons Glaive: He bought this glaive from his savings so he can protect the farm in case of an emergency. It’s made of a simple wooden staff and metal blade. But combined with the Wind element it is a pretty good weapon.

----

Trivia:

- Bad at mathematics - Sees Cole as a big brother - Kai was the one who forged Kaleb’s glaive     - but they haven’t met since the commission and weapon were delivered

Do NOT use WITHOUT permission!!!

[lloydskywalkers]

any port in a storm

Pixal and Lloyd and the evolving nature of friendship, as highlighted by the regular burning down of your city. 

(desperately trying to break through writer’s block and classes again, this was supposed to be under 2k and it is...very much not hdfjkgh but! i’ve been meaning to write for Pixal and Lloyd for a while so here are a whole bunch of feelings about the two of them and s8)

Pixal meets — truly meets — Lloyd Garmadon shortly after his brother’s been blown to pieces.

She says truly, because if you ask her, Pixal will tell you she met Lloyd Garmadon at exactly 8:48 in the evening outside his father’s monastery, moments before a horde of nindroids led there by Pixal herself descended upon them.

But Lloyd argues that since they said about two words total to each other, it doesn’t really count as meeting, and by the time Pixal’s spending the better part of her day with him running high and low around Ninjago City, she’s learned that it’s easier not to press the point.

Lloyd can be stubborn, like that.

She’d first learned that when she’d met him, just after they’d lost Zane. That loss hadn’t lasted long, especially for Pixal, but the immediate aftermath of it had been devastating. She’d watched with blank eyes as the team had fractured, splitting at the seams as they all fled their separate ways, too heartsore and dizzy with grief to do much otherwise.

All of them had fled, save Lloyd. She hadn’t paid him much attention before that point, the surprisingly small bearer of the Golden Power. Of course, he wasn’t the bearer of that power anymore, but his eyes alone had shown the experience of it. There’d been a brief, lost look that had crossed his face as the others had mentioned leaving, before it had been swept under a mask of stubborn, determined blankness. He wouldn’t be leaving. Someone had to stay behind and watch out for things, he’d claimed, even as the loss had bled through his voice.

Pixal hadn’t quite grasped the concept of empathy at that point, but she’d felt something dangerously close to it.

At any rate, the only interaction they’d had alone was brief. In fact, the only one Pixal can truly remember — and her memory never fails — is the quick exchange they’d had in the hospital lobby directly after the battle. The hospital was for Mr. Borg, and for the ninja’s minor injuries.

There was nothing any hospital on earth could do for Zane.

Pixal had found herself next to Lloyd in the waiting room, trying to distract herself from those thoughts while Lloyd stared at the stark white tiling with dull eyes.

“They never mentioned what your power was,” she’d asked him, almost absently. Collecting data, processing information — anything she could do to distract from the crushing grief.

“Oh.” Lloyd had blinked, startling back into awareness. He’d suddenly looked painfully young. “It’s, ah, I guess it’s just green, now.”

It had been Pixal’s turn to blink. “Green.”

“Yeah.” Lloyd had bit his lip, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly, two habits he’ll never quite lose. “I mean — it’s more than that, but it’s like — energy, I guess, is the best way to put it?”

“Interesting,” Pixal had remarked.

“Yeah.”

They’d stared at each other in silence after that, before they’d both been called off to other errands — and then they were having Zane’s funeral and then Pixal was making realizations she never got to tell anyone, and that had been that in her early introductions to Lloyd Garmadon. Quiet, awkward, and possessing an incredible power he hardly even knew the name of.

Looking back, Pixal figures her introduction hadn’t gone much better.

They’d continued as passing acquaintances as time went on, separated by danger and the confines of Zane’s head, and Pixal had figured that’s all they’d ever be. But then their Sensei goes missing and, despite Pixal’s increasing disappearances on Zane as she rebuilds her own body, she’s been given the role of watching out for Ninjago city along with Lloyd.

She quickly learns that quiet is not a term fit for Lloyd Garmadon when you’re trapped alone with him.

************

“How is there not a single station playing actual music?” Lloyd seethes, flicking through the channels almost manically. “It’s two am, who’s gonna be listening to your stupid commercial for toothpaste now, are you kidding me?”

“Statistically speaking, this is the prime time for long-distance driving near Ninjago City,” Pixal supplies, her voice a hint scratchy where it comes through the his car’s radio speakers. “Or, if you factor in the construction in the east district, there could still be traffic from late-night bars.”

Lloyd groans, thunking his head against the steering wheel as another ad screeches through the small space. “Wonderful.”

“Your vocal tones suggest you find it otherwise.”

“Dont trust ‘em, my vocal tones are traitors.” As if to solidify his point, Lloyd’s voice cracks in the middle of his sentence, shooting up an octave higher. Lloyd goes bright red, and thunks his head against the steering wheel again.

Taking pity on him, Pixal aims for reassurance. “It is normal for your voice to break, Lloyd. It shouldn’t last too long.” She pauses, momentarily scanning through another article. “On second thought, this one suggests it could also take two to three years for your voice to stabilize.”

Lloyd gives a strangled moan. “End me.”

“Unfortunately, that would defeat the purpose of why I’m here in the first place.”

Lloyd tilts his head, cracking an eye open as he glances at the camera feed he knows she’s watching him from. “Unfortunately, huh,” he muses. “So you’re saying if Zane hadn’t made you promise to look out for me, you would end me?”

“That — no, that is not — of course I wouldn’t end you,” Pixal backtracks. An odd feeling flickers through her, almost as if she’s lost her place, floundering.

Or embarrassed might be more accurate, she thinks wryly. She briefly considers projecting a a glaring face at Lloyd from the monitor. This is his fault. She rarely stuttered before Lloyd started teasing her at all hours of the morning.

“I mean, you wouldn’t be the first,” Lloyd continues, conversationally. “And if we’re being honest, I’d definitely rather you be the one to off me, instead of like, random bad guy number eighty-five—”

“I know you think you are funny,” Pixal cuts over him. “But casually planning for your death is something Kai listed I was not to let you do. Also, it is not nearly as funny as you think it is.”

“Ouch,” Lloyd mutters, though he looks chastised. “Never mind, you just took me out in one sentence.”

Chastised might be the wrong term.

Pixal studies him through the monitor, then sighs. “I am, however, honored you think highly enough of me to offer the right to murder you,” she gives in.

She’s rewarded as Lloyd breaks into a bright grin.

He still looks painfully young these days, but it’s less obvious. His voice is pitching lower and he wears his hair different, and he’s gained a whip-like tendency to quip at people, as Pixal’s experienced firsthand. Kai calls it sass in grumbling but fond tones, and Nya calls it snark somewhere between the fourth book series she’s sent for Pixal to try.

The ninja have been kind like that, sharing the interests they have in an attempt to make her feel…well, more human, she supposes. Less confined to a voice in a computer. Of course, Pixal isn’t confined to a voice in a computer anymore, but they don’t know that yet. She’ll tell them someday soon, she promises herself. Any day now.

In the meantime, it’s easy enough to keep up with Lloyd by lurking in his car radio, as he spends half his time in there anyways.

************

“You’d think we’d have found their hideout by now,” Lloyd notes, as they wait in a darkened alleyway again. It gives them an excellent view of the major highways, so if the rumored biker gang does show up, they won’t miss it.

If they show up being the key point.

“Whoever their leader is, they certainly know how to keep a low profile,” Pixal answers, closing out another dead end police report in frustration.

“It’s weird,” Lloyd says, propping the notebook he’s sketching in on his knee as he squints at the paper. “Normally the boss types aren’t this quiet. They like to show off, y’know? Make a big scene, dramatic speeches and all.”

“Are you referring to the villains, or yourselves?”

“Touché,” Lloyd snorts. “But still, you gotta admit it’s weird they haven’t even made any demands. What’s their end game here, elaborate advertising for motorcycle design?”

“I would hope not,” Pixal says. “Their color coordination is lacking.”

Lloyd fights back a smile, his pencil scratching as he shifts his notebook again. “I don’t know, I kinda like the punk look.”

“I noticed that, when you tried to redecorate the car.”

“Hey, skulls are cool.”

“They are also conspicuous, especially when they come in acid green colors.”

“Everyone’s a critic,” Lloyd sighs, making a face as he scrubs the eraser across the paper. Pixal tries to tilt the camera further, to see what he’s drawing tonight, but the angle he’s holding it at remains just out of sight.

She could probably guess what he’s drawing, if she tried. The notebook is one they’ve been steadily working their way through on these late-night patrols, the pages filled with little hangman games and Lloyd’s sketches of animals and his teammates. He’s drawn her a few times from memory, and she’s been tempted to ask him to draw her in the new Samurai X armor more than once.

Soon, she tells herself.

“What are you drawing?” she finally asks, curiosity getting the better of her.

Lloyd’s cheeks tinge pink, and he quickly plasters the notebook to his chest, hiding it entirely from view. “Nothing.”

Pixal waits, letting the silence fill with her judgement. “Lloyd, I have seen your drawings before.”

He doesn’t reply, and Pixal tries again. “It gets boring, being stuck with the car monitors for eyes.”

“I know you can hack other cameras,” Lloyd mutters, but he sighs, relenting as he turns the notebook over. Pixal’s eyes rake over the detailed sketch — it’s a comical little thing of her and Lloyd, jammed together on a tiny lifeboat in the middle of a darkening ocean. She can spot the smudges where he’s redrawn her head several times, and the numerous attempts he’s made at his own hair. Pixal studies Lloyd’s portrayal of himself, which is noticeably lacking in facial features. While Lloyd draws the others plenty, it’s a rare occasion that he draws himself, and she can’t help but be curious.

“I thought you were drawing the others again,” she admits.

“They’re on the ship,” Lloyd says, absently. “I’ll draw them when they remember to pull us back in.”

There’s nothing bitter in his tone to suggest it has any bearing on their actual lives, but the lost expressions Lloyd ends up giving their tiny caricatures feel familiar nonetheless.

“Zane has assured me they will be back as soon as they can,” Pixal speaks ups quietly.

Lloyd finally looks up fully, and flashes the monitor a smile. “I know,” he says. “So we better have this thing busted by the time they do, or they’ll never let us run a city on our own again.”

“If only we were truly running the city,” Pixal grumbles. “I could do a better job in two days than the current leaders could do in a year.”

“I’d vote for you,” Lloyd says, sincerely.

It’s a sweet gesture, but Pixal is unable to resist. “You don’t know how to vote.”

“Yes I do, it’s not hard!”

“Really? Then why are you not currently registered in the Ninjago voting system?”

Lloyd makes a strangled noise. “That’s a thing?”

She’s unable to keep the smugness from her voice. “I make my point.” Lloyd scowls, and scribbles a mustache on his drawing of her in revenge.

Pixal thinks it looks nice nonetheless.

************

She can’t really hold it against Lloyd for talking as much as he does, considering she does the same. It gets dull, sitting on patrol for hours on end, and there are only so many hours of light reading they can do before the silence begins to drive them both insane.

Pixal finds herself talking about more useless things with Lloyd than she has in her existence, pointless conversations in circles with each other. She also finds she doesn’t entirely mind. She’s become quite good at quipping back and forth with him, at least. It’s different than the kind of talk she has with Zane, lacking in the depth of feeling with the love they share. Her exchanges with Lloyd are lighter, though that’s not to say they’re less sincere.

For example, Zane hasn’t tried to teach her how to redesign a gi in poor lighting in the early hours of the morning because he’s bored out of his mind, that’s for sure.

“I’m teaching you how to sew,” Lloyd corrects, wincing as he accidentally stabs himself with the needle. “And I’m not redesigning the whole thing, I’m just adding some designs to spice it up.”

“I did not know you were allowed to wear colors other than green,” Pixal comments.

Lloyd pauses, squinting at the monitor. “You’re teasing me,” he finally says. “You’re making fun of how much green this gi has in it.”

“I would never,” Pixal replies, her tone flat and even. “The intricacies of your human humor evade me—”

“Human humor, nice—”

“—unlike the unusually bright shade of green you’ve chosen will fail to evade any eyes of your enemies.”

“I knew you were making fun of me!” Lloyd accuses, then flinches as he stabs his finger again trying to point at her. “And bright colors are our thing. Being subtle is, uh…not. Usually.”

Pixal is losing the battle to laugh at his expression by the minute. “I am shocked.”

Lloyd glares at the monitor, shifting his sewing to rest on his knees as he slouches in the car seat. “How’d you even get so good at sarcasm, anyways,” he mutters. “Zane still doesn’t get it half the time.”

“Perhaps it is part of my glowing personality,” Pixal says. Lloyd gives a huff of laughter, relenting.

“Fair enough,” he says, shifting in his seat again. “Fine, you win. The green is probably too bright, but that’s not the point. I’m gonna show you how to do a backstitch."

Pixal falls quiet, letting Lloyd gesture with the needle as he explains. There are a hundred, a thousand tutorials she could pull up online, digitized knowledge instantly learned on all the countless types of stitches she could use, sorted and categorized in neat columns of use and effectiveness. All of them more detailed, more easily understood than Lloyd’s absent rambling and unsteady hands as he struggles with the end of a knot.

Not one of them will care whether or not Pixal learns the odd way Zane likes to loop his stitches, or will quietly add which stitches knit skin back together quickest.

So Pixal ignores her programming, and does her best to follow Lloyd’s rambling instructions, watching as his scarred fingers tug another thread of dull gold through the green mess of fabric, the city quiet around them.

“You never did tell me where you learned how to sew,” Pixal says, as Lloyd starts up a new thread of black on the other side of the gi. “Was that something the others taught you in training?”

“They’d have to know how to be able to teach it,” Lloyd snickers. “And, uh, no. I taught myself to back at Darkley’s.”

“Oh,” Pixal falters. She’s heard about Darkley’s, both from Zane and the legal reports she’s read online. Neither gave a positive impression of the place. Her mind is suddenly filled with images of a younger Lloyd trying to give himself stitches, and her heart twists.

Lloyd starts, seemingly having picked up on her train of thought. “I mean, I did it for fun, mostly. I like sewing,” he explains. “It’s useful. You can pull things back together, and fix ‘em.”

Pixal is quiet, but she hopes Lloyd takes her silence as agreement with his motive. She likes to think he knows her well enough for that, by now.

************

Pixal finds, somewhere during their fourth month alone, that she’s glad the team elected to stick her and Lloyd together. Not because she doesn’t want to be with Zane — there’s never a moment she doesn’t miss him, and with every day that passes her resolve to keep her secret from him grows weaker, as the longing for actual connection grows stronger.

But there are conversations she can have with Lloyd that she can never have with Zane, and the dangerous thing about spending time with Lloyd, Pixal finds, is that they’re more similar than she’s realized.

“Sometimes I think I’m jealous,” Lloyd whispers to her one night. It’s one of the bad ones, the ones where their enemies struck too sudden to stop, and the mission ends in the hospital. “I think I’m jealous of Zane, and I hate myself for it.”

Pixal is quiet, trying to pick apart the tone of his voice in the words he’s just spoken, and factors in the victims they’ve just left behind at the hospital. She finds herself no closer to an answer.

“Is it the metal skin part?” she finally asks, though she knows that’s wrong. “The, what was it, technical immortality?”

“No,” Lloyd shakes his head. “I’m not afraid of dying,” he says emphatically, his fingers fluttering at over the steering wheel, tapping incessantly with unspent energy. “I don’t want to, but that’s — it’s not what I’m scared of. I’m more scared of how I go out.”

He swallows, and his fingers move to dance over the woven bracelet on his wrist instead, twisting at the tiny beads and tracing senseless designs in constant, steady movement. It’s a motion he does often, and it had puzzled Pixal at first. She’d decided to write it off as an odd tick, a way to spend excess energy.

Now, she recognizes the desperate kind of reassurance that movement gives. She understands too well the need to remind yourself that you can move — that your body will obey you and you alone.

Pixal thinks back to the other factors in tonight’s accident, of the way the drugged man’s eyes had cleared when they’d finally turned him over to the police, the way he’d sworn he’d never do such a thing in his right mind. She thinks of the way the first victim had thrown themselves over their companion.

That victim hadn’t made it to the hospital.

“Ah,” Pixal says, quietly.

She’s silent again, and she thinks back to when she’d met him, the very first time. She recalls the way her programming had rebelled against her in favor of the Overlord, corrupting her body and forcing it against her, twisting everything she was and wanted to be into something different.

She thinks back again, to the searing-hot anger, the terror, the despair as she was torn apart, piece by piece like a machine, burning out at the whims of another. Her end purposeless, her demise belonging to someone else, just like every other part of her.

She thinks of the last glimpse she’d caught of Zane, bright and beautiful as a supernova. Burning with the terrible brilliance of his own, determined choice. Terrible, because the death of something always is. Beautiful, because it was his own. Zane died, not a machine, not a weapon, not a tool of anyone or anything, but as himself. Zane died to save the ones he loves. Pixal could’ve died for spare parts.

Never again, she promises herself. If she goes out, she goes out on her own terms. This time, they choose the end of their own destiny themselves.

In hindsight, it’s the kind of promise they’re both too young to make, but neither of them have ever seen themselves as such, and promises like that are easy.

“Love can be terrible, sometimes,” Lloyd murmurs. Pixal watches him scrub at the blood on his uniform, and thinks how ironically well-timed it is that he finished the stitching on his new gi this morning. “Sometimes I forget how ugly it can be.”

************

The end of their nighttime stakeouts begins with a break-in at Mr. Borg’s tower. Lloyd argues that she should get to call it her father’s tower, if she wants, but the ninja aren’t the only ones Pixal’s hiding herself from.

And then Lloyd gets very tense at the thought of fathers very fast, and they never finish the conversation.

They stay at the edge of the bridge long after the parachute, emblazoned with the unmistakable visage of Lloyd’s father, disappears from sight. Pixal wonders if it’s burned into Lloyd’s eyes, like the way she’s read black spots linger in humans’ vision after they’ve looked at something too bright. The way Lloyd stares at the river, his shoulders tense and his teeth worrying at his lip, she thinks she might be right.

They’re waiting on the report from the commissioner —they’re waiting for anything, anyone who can offer them any explanation of what’s going on. Pixal’s reminded of how much she loathes this kind of waiting.

“It could be—” Lloyd begins, then breaks off, his voice wavering. He swallows, and Pixal can see the way his fists clench tightly from the cameras they’ve put in his car. There’s a fierce part of her that longs to reveal herself, to meet his eyes herself and offer some semblance of comfort. But there’s a time and place for things, and Pixal isn’t ready.

“It could be anything,” Lloyd finally continues, his voice small. “It could — it doesn’t mean anything. It could mean nothing, right?”

Pixal is silent, her mind racing. She’s run the calculations over and over in her head already, scouring the internet for anything related to the bikers. She’s been foolish, she realizes — they both have. Letting the gang go unnamed for so long, thinking nothing of it. Now, with the name flashing vibrant across Pixal’s vision, a part of her wants to let them go nameless just a bit longer.

Before she can answer, Lloyds phone goes off with a sharp ping, just as Pixal’s sensors alert her to the message from the commissioner. Lloyd snatches for his phone like it’s on fire, and Pixal’s already scanning the message frantically, as if she can salvage this if she’s fast enough, save Lloyd from this one pain.

Lloyd’s gotten much better at reading quickly though, these days.

She can pinpoint the moment he reaches the last paragraph, because his breath hitches. There’s a long, pressing pause of silence, Lloyd’s hands trembling as they clutch weakly at his phone. Then it’s punctured by a reedy, wheezing gasp, and Pixal’s suddenly wishing she’d revealed herself after all.

Instead, all she has is her voice as Lloyd crumples, crouching over in visible distress. Pixal’s mind races, recalling everything Zane’s ever told her about his team, the way their panic manifests in different shades. Lloyd’s is quiet but desperate, rapid breathes that stutter as his eyes slide more and more into a frightening kind of blankness.

“Lloyd, please, listen to my voice,” she begs, trying to reach him in the only way she can. “Please, you have to breathe—”

“He’s gone,” Lloyd rasps, unhearing of her words. “He’s s’posed to be gone, it’s supposed to be over, I’m supposed to be done—”

Pixal fights back the sense of overwhelming helplessness. She knows loss. She knows how to finish his sentence. He’s supposed to be done grieving, done mourning, done clinging to false scraps of hope that his father isn’t lost forever only to be met with heartbreak.

And now, to be met with the possibility of something so much worse.

“We’ll stop them,” she tells him, unflinching. “We won’t let it happen.”

Lloyd’s eyes are a vivid green where they stare at her through the monitor, almost ghostly in the misting light reflecting from the river.

He’s silent, but Pixal is, too.

Pixal remembers the way her head had spun when she’d first picked up the traces of Zane in the system, how the world had rushed then steadied, flooding with color as she’d realized he might not be lost after all. She remembers the surging, overwhelming flood of joy, that someone she’d thought she lost might live after all. She remembers being so happy, at even the smallest chance to get him back, because the voice was Zane’s, without a doubt.

She watches the color seep from Lloyd’s expression as his shoulders shudder, the words from the commissioner’s message almost echoing through the air. Watches the terror as the both of them fill the silence.

Will we?  

The radio scratches, as if echoing Pixal’s anxiety. Love can be terrible, sometimes. She’s underestimated how it also be so cruel.

************

She’s also, apparently, underestimated how the universe on the whole could be so cruel.

She should’ve revealed herself to them from day one. That way, when Harumi’s corrupted programming suddenly ravages through her like an electric shock, she could be reassured they’d at least be familiar with the person they were fighting.

Instead, she doesn’t even get to scream. Pixal’s only able to force out a desperate, broken warning before she’s lost again, drowning in her own body as she’s forced under. Furious panic grips her as she screams without lungs, bashing herself against the overwhelming helplessness that’s taken over her.

Not again, not again, not again—

Her limbs creak and jolt against her will, lashing out at the people she cares most about, and Pixal can’t even rage back in her own voice. She’s sworn, she’s promised herself she’d never let anyone do this to her again — she’s sworn she’d die before she let someone reach into her head and snatch control away, and yet here she is, frozen as her body’s used to target her friends.

If she could cry, she might.

There’s not much more to say than that. She breaks free, her body her own once again, but by then it’s too late.

************

If Pixal had the same gift of foresight that Zane did, maybe she would have seen it coming. Maybe she’d have remembered how similar her and Lloyd are, and that this kind of pained desperation always yields impulsiveness and mistakes.

She doesn’t, though. She barely even manages to do what she’s trying to, which is convincing Lloyd to join the others while they celebrate their victory. Their off-key singing is something he normally wouldn’t hesitate to join in on, she thinks, and she hates Harumi a little more.

Maybe she’ll try his mother next. The expression on Lloyd’s face screams unapproachable, and remains fixedly sullen.

Almost to her surprise, he meets her eyes as she draws near— it’s odd, being able to meet his back — and his own eyes are dark, from despair over Harumi or despair over his father, Pixal isn’t sure. She’s thinking it might be both, when his eyebrows crease, and a flicker of concern cuts through them instead.

“You good?”

It takes her a moment to realize why he’s asking, but the answer is obvious. Her head tilts downward, and she watches as her fingers curl and uncurl. Her movements, her choices. She lets out an even breath.

“As I can be,” she replies. Lloyd nods, and his eyes are understanding. His lips twist in a scowl.

“She shouldn’t have done that to you. That was a low blow.”

Pixal’s mouth curves into a humorless smile. “That it was. She’s rather good at those, isn’t she.”

Lloyd’s eyes shadow again, and he looks away, crossing his arms. “This isn’t supposed to be about me,” he mutters.

“Yes, it is,” Pixal counters. “It is why I came over here, in the first place. She hurt—”

“All of us, and who’s fault is that,” Lloyd snaps, his arms crossing tighter.

“I would hope you know it’s hers,” she says, holding firm.

Lloyd looks away again, biting his lip, and Pixal shifts anxiously, rolling her wrists. The sensation of control sliding away still haunts her, worse than it had the first time. She should be better than this, she tells herself hotly. She’s lived without a body long enough that losing it so briefly shouldn’t effect her this much.

Curse her programming, she thinks, tapping agitatedly at the banister. She knew she should have reinforce it sooner.

“Hey, um.” Lloyd is looking at her again, hesitant. He twists at his bracelet, and his eyes lose a fraction of that darkness. “Kai made this for me, after Morro,” he says. “I kept shredding the sleeves of my uniform, so he told me to mess with this instead, when I needed to remember that…that I was in control.”

He shrugs, hesitant. “We could make you one too, if you wanted. It helps, having something.”

Pixal lets out a steady breath, despite not actually needing to. The action is grounding, she’s found. “I would like that.”

Lloyd gives her a ghost of a smile in return. “Soon as this is over, then.”

There’s a heavy weight to his words, and Pixal’s eyes narrow.

“Lloyd,” she says. He looks at her, his eyes dark. “Don’t do anything foolish.”

He’s quiet, not meeting her eyes, and this is where Pixal should stop him. This is when she should see the end of the road they’ve been on since they started this, and force him to turn before it’s too late.

“I know what I’m doing.”

She doesn’t.

************

Lloyd is battered and bleeding by the time they drag him onto the ship, a gruesome portrait of cruelty. Pixal is frozen as she watches him writhe in Kai’s hold, his screams cracked and wet as he thrashes erratically like a broken thing.

Nya is already barking orders before they’ve even gotten Lloyd fully on the ship, and Zane is running scans with a horrified, wavering focus. Pixal follows Cole as he carries Lloyd to the medbay with a blank numbness, the rush of wind streaming past the Bounty sails thunderously loud in her ears.

This isn’t Lloyd, she thinks, staring at his crumpled form. Lloyd isn’t this battered, broken shell of a person. Lloyd isn’t hazy eyes that fail to recognize them and frantic murmuring through bloody lips. Lloyd is bright-eyed and gentle and would rather die before he screams the way he does when Cole moves him to the table.

Lloyd is her friend, and this is where that promise they made has led them. She knows why Lloyd set out for the prison, hot on the collapse of his own star. She also knows he wouldn’t have chosen to burn out like this.

Cole calls out for Zane, his voice ringing in panic as Lloyd screeches in pain again. Pixal thinks of quiet words in the safety of his car, and she feels sick. This is the ugliness of love, the terrible, hideous side of it.

And Lloyd would hate it, if he could see himself, if he were any semblance of lucid. He’d hate to know just how much better he was at breaking himself than Morro ever was.

Zane is gentle as he pushes past her, but Pixal can feel the tremble in his hands. He’s every bit as rattled as she is, if not more so — Zane’s heart is larger and softer than hers has ever been, and he cares about each and every one of them with a painful intensity. It’s a cruel thing, to have to pull those same people back together with your own hands.

Kai’s eyes are streaming as he clutches at Lloyd’s wrists, pinning him in place. Zane’s hands waver again over one of the jagged wounds near Lloyd’s ribcage, the green of his uniform already dyed dark in blood, soaking over the careful stitches Pixal watched him put in himself.

Pixal finally finds her footing, reminding herself of the solid wood beneath her feet. She recalls the steady, smooth stitch Lloyd’s scarred fingers traced out for her.

“Here.” She takes the needle from Zane’s hands, squeezing his briefly before letting go. “I can do it.”

She sets the needle against Lloyd’s skin and wonders what kind of stitch it’d take to pull your heart back together.  

************

Pixal cannot cry. It’s one of the features Mr. Borg spent hours debating, weighing the pros and cons of giving her the ability before he was truly sure how rust-proof she was. He’d never gotten the chance to, as the Overlord had interrupted him, then Pixal had lost any body to give the ability to cry to, which had eliminated the need entirely.

She cannot cry, but she can hurt, and the rain that streams through her hair, dripping down her forehead spotting raindrops on her cheeks, could be tears if she pretended.

She doesn’t, though, because tears are a waste of water and overall useless in the grand scheme of things. She doubts they’d have helped her fare any better in the battle with Colossi, either.

Tears won’t bring anyone back.

Lloyd cries anyways. She can’t see him, but she can hear it in his voice, the way it wavers and breaks over the radio, nasally tones pronounced.

He’s barely able to gasp a few coordinates to her before he cuts the radio off abruptly. Pixal’s spent enough time with him to envision his scarred fingers snapping it off with a particular desperation, green sparking from his hands in distress.

She reminds herself those sparks are gone, now, bled away into nothing like the vivid green of Lloyd’s eyes had. The thought makes her sadder than she’d expected. She had a joke, about his eyes, she had wanted to make. Now that she has a body, and her own set of glowing green eyes, she’d — there was something he would’ve laughed at, she thought —

It doesn’t matter, now. Neither of them are likely to laugh anytime soon.

The coordinates blink brightly in her vision, and she’s almost surprised she managed to key them in. She’s running on autopilot, she supposes. It could be ironic — she’s been so desperate for control, it’s been so important that she’s the one feeling. Now, she’d give anything not to feel at all.

She lets out a shaky breath, dispelling the mist in her vision left from the rain. She leans forward, just over the edge of the building she’s crouched on, and her loose hair falls forward, silvery and synthetic and horribly tangled. Irritated, she reaches for another hair tie, and her hands falter around her wrist.

Lloyd had promised her a bracelet there. But he’d promised Kai would make the bracelet, hadn’t he, and Kai couldn’t make the bracelet if he was dead, could he.

Pixal blinks, her breath hitching. She’s been so numb to the pain of Zane’s loss, it hasn’t yet occurred to her that she’s losing Kai, too. And Jay, and Cole, and—

She sucks in the same shuddery kind of breath she’s seen Lloyd do, and carefully fists her hand in the area of her uniform above her chest. Her fingers dig in tightly, clutching in a hopeless attempt to feel some sort of comfort she knows she’ll never find.

But perhaps, for these few seconds, she can pretend the action is holding her together.

************

“It was inevitable,” Pixal tells Lloyd blankly, as he rasps out his third apology in the dark cover of their small hideout. “That one of us would fall, eventually. It had nothing to do with you.”

Lloyd swallows thickly. “It could’ve — it should’ve been—”

He doesn’t finish, but he doesn’t need to. Pixal’s hand shoots out, clamping tightly around his wrist, and there’s a beat of gratitude that she doesn’t need to rely on her voice alone anymore.

“Don’t.” Her voice is strung tighter than the tension in their shoulders. “You cannot change anything. You can’t, Lloyd, and you should not wish to — to change it that way.”

Lloyd jerks his hand free, wiping miserably at his eyes. He sets it back down within her reach, though, and if Pixal were any different, she’d take it.

But Pixal isn’t that different from Lloyd at all in the end, and neither of them reach for the other’s hand, no matter how desperately they crave the contact. Fear is more familiar, and it’s easier to give into it than it is the clawing need for comfort in your chest, after all.

“Still,” Lloyd finally whispers. “Still.”

Pixal swallows. She doesn’t disagree. If one of them had to fall, she knows she gladly would have taken it upon herself. She knows the others care for her, certainly, but she also knows her place in the grand scheme of things. They were six before she came along, and even now she’s kept far too many secrets to be fully counted among them.

She listens to Lloyd’s quiet, cracked voice, and she wonders if he’s thinking that they were five before he came along, younger than Pixal got to know him as.

Now they’re three, hollow and heartbroken. Though counting herself as one whole feels like cheating, right now.

Pixal squeezes her eyes shut, and wonders what it’s like to cry. Perhaps it helps, though Lloyd doesn’t look any less miserable.

************

“I was thinking,” Lloyd tells her, during one of the precious few quiet moments they have while trying to overthrow Garmadon and Harumi. Pixal’s turning the tiny tea flower he’d given her over in her hands, a part of her mind already marking articles about flower-pressing, another part wondering if it’s already too late to save the blossom. “About that promise we made, before all this.”

Pixal finally tucks the flower into the pocket of her uniform, pressed close to her chest. If anything, it can be a reminder of the lives that are safe — the life that’s coming back to her, if she has to drag him back from another realm herself. “And?”

Lloyd’s hands twist together. “Maybe we should focus more on staying alive.”

Pixal coughs out a laugh, breathless and startled. Lloyd wrinkles his nose at her, but his eyes are amused, even with their light lost. “I mean, the emphasis would be on keeping everyone else alive, but it’s kinda hard to do that if we’re dead, so…yeah. Priorities.”

“Staying alive should always be a priority,” Pixal corrects him, but she tugs the edge of his armor out of place with a smile.

“Why didn’t you teach me how to graffiti?” she nods at the designs on the green leather. “Or was this another Darkley’s tradition.”

“This is a refined art, called whatever I had on me that showed up on dark green,” Lloyd grumbles, fixing his armor. “I’ll teach it to you when we get out of this.”

“Another reason why staying alive would be a more productive focus,” Pixal points out. “I’ve heard teaching is easier when you’re alive.”

“And I’ve heard you’re a real riot,” Lloyd mutters. “It’s a promise, okay? I promise to teach you how to do cool armor design if you promise not to disappear into another realm on me.”

Pixal nods, adjusting her own armor tighter as screams ring out from a street nearby. “A promise, then.”

She keeps both the promise and the flower, the tiny blossom dried and faded by the time she’s escaped from the prison, heart racing with leftover adrenaline as Zane sweeps her into his arms. She clutches back every bit as tight, listening to his breathless laughter as cheers rise from the streets behind them, the smoke drifting across the early morning sky above them pale against the lightening blue. Pixal buries her face in his shoulder and breathes, tucking the moment away in her heart where it won’t fade. There’s a future stretching out before her, and she’s got the limbs to walk her path on her own, but all she wants right now is the steady ground beneath her feet and the bright laughter of what she’s managed to keep.  

Lloyd meets them shortly after, his own promise kept as he tears his gaze from his father, handing him off to the authorities before sprinting for the others. Pixal barely snags a moment alone with him, and even then no one’s particularly keen on letting him out of their sights.

He meets her eyes as they pick their way through the wrecked streets, the city more alive around them than it’s been in weeks. In the dark of the early morning, Pixal’s eyes glow a bright green, reflecting oddly in the windows they pass. It’s always been her preferred color, in contrast to Zane’s bright blue. Lloyd glances at her, his own eerily green eyes glowing back. He bites his lip, but it’s to hold back real laughter this time.

“My eyes were green first,” she tells him.

“Sue me,” he shoots back, before Kai’s throwing an arm over his shoulders again, tucking Lloyd neatly in between him and Nya. Pixal smothers a laugh at the look on his face, and tightens her own arm further where it’s linked firmly in Zane’s.  

It’s going to be an easy promise to keep, she thinks.  

[parachutingkitten]

Season 5 Analysis

STANDARD DISCLAIMER: I am going to be applying the concept of criticism to a TV show you presumably love and adore as much as I do. If you do not want your idea that the show is immaculate to be challenged, I would not advise reading past this point.

Additional Disclaimer: This includes criticism of Nya’s arc, so if you’re the type of person to get catty about this subject, turn back now.

Mood for this season: It’s spoopy time.

You don’t need to, but if you are interested, and haven’t seen my analysis of past seasons, you can find those here:

Pilot - Season 1 - Season 2 - Season 3 - Season 4

You can also find all of these, and future installments, on my blog using the tag #analysis 

Hey everyone! I’m still doing these things! Let’s see, when was my last one? Over two years ago...? Yikes, I owe y’all an apology. I really didn’t mean to put these off that long. Anyway, get ready to hate me, cuz although (for the most part) this seems to be the fandom favorite season… I think it’s overhyped. I know, don’t kill me. I’ll explain myself. I don’t think it’s bad or anything, it’s very well structured, but I definitely wouldn’t rank it among my favorites. First, for a little context, I am making a one second of every ninjago episode video right now, so I’ve been binging the series and all it’s shorts back to back, so I think I’ll have a bit more to say about connective tissue between seasons, and hopefully you guys can look forward to more of these analyses between now and the new year when I’m releasing that video. I’m also officially a film major now so… sorry if I come of as extra pretentious or get too deep. Anyway, let’s jump into the thick of it, shall we? 

Plot

This is probably the area I have the fewest number of complaints about. This season has a breakneck pace and it keeps everyone busy. I think that’s why people like it. Everyone’s favorite has something to do. Which brings me to the question… which ninja’s season is this? Lloyd is on a lot of the promotional stuff, but he’s possessed and out of the picture for over half the season, so that can’t be right. Cole turns into a ghost, and the season is a ghost season, but that can’t be right cuz I don’t know that I’ve ever heard anyone claim it was his. Nya reaches her true potential, maybe it’s hers? Well, she does have a large b-plot, but she is consistently not a part of the a-plot. Kai has a whole thing with being protective of Lloyd, he has his fear of water, maybe it’s just another Kai season? Thing is, it’s no one’s. It is an ensemble season, and I think that’s a healthy thing for ninjago to keep doing. The more we label certain seasons for certain ninja, the more complaining we’ll get about who’s turn it is for screen time that we’ll miss out on telling a good story. Also, If the season is focused on a ninja you don’t like, you are less likely to like the season (see my next analysis for that can of worms). Again, this season tells it’s story really well. Morro directly ties into the ending of last season, and Nya’s getting water powers was foreshadowed the season before. That’s some cool connective tissue to start. The opening episode establishes the three different things the ninja will be looking for, and for once they’re actual tools instead of a series of weapons, blades, masks, whatever. I like that. Jay has some really good humor, Zane has his speech changes, Kai has his irrational fears and protective instincts, Cole has his ghost angst, Lloyd has to deal with his father’s passing, Nya is a new water ninja, Wu has a shop to run and a student to reconnect with, even Ronin has an arc about developing morals and gaining friends. There’s the mystery about how to deal with the ghosts, what the rules are, there’s the leader subplot, the ninja’s money situation, and lore of the different realms, they even worked in Skylor and Borg, there’s a lot of cool stuff going on. This is a tightly woven script that manages to include a lot of new concepts that you get pretty quick. I don’t feel like there’s even that much fat to cut. The opening is a little slow and strange, and the cloud kingdom episode feels a little unnecessary, but I do like the idea of visiting a different realm early in the season so the audience isn’t caught off guard in the climax. Again, the plot all works for me, it’s the other stuff I find myself pretty meh on.

Characters

Ronin

I’m pretty sure Ronin is the only new (non villain) character introduced. I like him a lot. Ninjago needed a true wildcard to shake things up and be unpredictable. I also think he’s pretty nicely woven into the action of the plot. I think his introduction is a bit strange. Like, the ninja already know him, but we’ve never seen him before? Just the way they talk about him sounds like they’re quickly recapping who this guy is for those who missed previous episodes. It’s fine if the ninja already know him but either 1) Introduce or foreshadow him a season earlier or 2) Introduce their dynamic to the audience before it becomes plot relevant. Maybe the ninja are grumbling about him being a nuisance while tea shenanigans are going on or something. Or maybe you have a scene of him stealing the scroll and making snarky remarks about the ninja while he does it. Idk. just something so his sudden plot relevance isn’t out of nowhere. Also, I don’t hate his and Nya’s dynamic, but I know a lot of people love it, and I’m just not totally here for it. Is he supposed to be a father figure for her? Mentor? Frienemy? Just plain friend? (love interest???) it’s not super clear and I could have used some clarification. I also like his use and tie to the next season, so overall, well integrated character.

Nya

I’m adding in Nya here cuz she goes through a major character change, and how she’s handled is one of the things that rubs me the wrong way about the season. A lot of people will probably disagree and/or hate me for this section of the analysis so… here we go! The thing she has to get past to reach her true potential is fear of failure (supposedly) and the solution to that is to just… not care as much? First of all, I know this isn’t supper important, but the fun thing about the ninjago elements is that every elemental master matched up personality wise with their element. Jay is the energetic master of lightning, Kai is the hothead master of fire, Zane is the calm and calculating master of ice, Cole is the strong and dependable master of earth, Lloyd is the literal child master of energy. This especially goes for all the new season 4 masters. So what qualities are often associated with water personalities? Well, serenity, control, flexibility, elegance, patience… calm. You know, like a Zane type character (the element directly adjacent to hers). These are things that Nya isn’t - or at the very least don’t define her. (there’s also something to be said about water and its ties to more feminine qualities, which Nya has been actively shown to reject, but I won’t go into that rant here.) She was designed as the fire master’s sister, and when you try to fit a fire personality into a water shaped character mold… it doesn’t exactly mesh well. It doesn’t make sense. But, like I said, whatever. Maybe that’s the point? Like she has to change her personality to be more in tune with water? Sure. But let’s talk about this fear of failure thing. Because that’s the stated thing that dialogue tells us she needs to overcome. But when has Nya ever been afraid of failure? Fear of failure means avoiding doing something because of fear. Nya is ridiculously persistent, always has been (you know, fire personality). She tries training when no one tells her to, she makes her own alter ego to try and be a hero and save the people who would constantly tell her she wasn’t ready. Wu says she only wants things that come easy, but that’s never been her character before now, she has carried the team with her tech, research, and covert ops that no one forced her to do, all things which are not easy. Fear of failure is usually characterized by what if questions. If Nya is so afraid of failure, why don’t we hear her saying stuff like “but what if I’m not strong enough, what if I can’t save them in time, or worse, what if I lose control of my power and end up hurting people?” Cole shows much more of a fear of failure this season surrounding his insecurity about being a ghost. He wants to sit out from missions because he’s not sure he’ll be able to do it - he’s afraid of failure. But whatever, the writing isn’t clear at expressing her true setbacks, but she does display a real problem that a lot of people have and I think could have been well done if set up correctly. She shows an undying persistence that gets her too close, and makes her increasingly incapable. She lets her frustration hinder her progress (again, fire personality trait), and I think that’s interesting because I don’t think ninjago has done this character arc yet. The supposed solution to this problem is that she just needs to… care less? And yes, I kind of see where they were going with this, we sometimes cloud our natural potential by thinking about it too much, but saying “you need to stop caring” is the absolute wrong way to word it. Caring is not her problem, the problem is her control over the emotions that come from her caring. Caring is a good thing, and teaching kids that if you’re ambivalent about your problems, they’ll go away is not a good message. What she needs to do is take a step back. She needs to take a break, stop to think, and look at the big picture instead of hyper focusing on the roadblock directly in front of her. The usual and much better wording of the moral I think they were going for is “stop overthinking things”. Teaching kids to look at a problem from a different angle and give themselves time to cool down is a great thing. And just think of it, in the climax she could have this ah-ha moment where she steps back and looks at the bigger picture - the whole town, surrounded by the ocean - and gets the idea to sink the preeminent into the water, you could even easily tie that back into the bucket exercise, and that’s what triggers her true potential rather than the current… I’m honestly not sure what. Random flashbacks and the end of the season approaching quickly. Alternatively, you could tie it more directly into samurai x, and make her struggle with letting go of the past and allowing yourself to give up something good in your life to progress to something better. Anyway, I don’t think this was a bad decision long term, she needed to be solidified on the team as a full fledged ninja, I just think this season doesn’t handle the transition that well. Anyway, whatever, I’ll be waiting for your hate comments in the notes.

Romance

Um… there’s none this season? Like there’s a few Wusako moments that are still as weird as they were in season 2, but they’re really not prevalent. There’s also the Jay seeing the future thing which has some weird implications next season (again, some interesting connective tissue between seasons), but that’s about it. Maybe that’s part of why I don’t love this season? Like where’s the pixane? Lol, I’m kidding. But maybe that’s why a lot of people do like it. If you don’t like the canon ships… this is a nice little safe haven for you. Rare for a majority of the series.

Villains

So Morro is a good idea… in theory. I know he’s the fandom’s favorite edgy boy, but idk I think the brand of angsty teen they ended up with was more of an angsty 13 year old than 17 year old. His voice is really grating and I always want to yell at him to just… go get some cough drops. Stop throat screaming, use your diaphragm man! Also, everyone goes on about his last minute redemption, but as far as season 5 goes, he has like half a second of a change of heart. Literally, when Wu comes over and he’s drowning, he’s still being a persistent little idiot like “you never cared about me nooooo!” and it’s only at the last possible second that gives him the crystal, and even that he does it kind of saltily. The preeminent is pretty cool, I like her concept, her design, all that. All the other ghosts are fine I guess. Nothing super memorable out of them, although their aesthetic, especially when there’s a bunch of them swarming around is pretty cool. One last thing was I never understood how Morro “becoming the green ninja” worked and what exactly it was that… did for him? Like he didn’t actually get the power of energy, right? I don’t remember him using it. Did just him defeating Lloyd make him the green ninja? How does that transfer work? And why did he need it to take over the world or realms or whatever? Like I get that it’s supposed to give him more power and what not but idk, it wasn’t super clear. That’s a minor thing though.

Climax

Pretty cool. I like the ATMOSPHERE. Green light is a hard thing to use and justify correctly, but it works really well here, especially with the dark kinda gray blue sky complimenting it. When the preeminent starts walking into the ocean, it’s genuinely terrifying, but you understand exactly how it works and why she’s strong enough to do it. Nya’s true potential is again a little out of left field and could have had some better motivation put behind it. Like what is it Nya learned in that instant? To not be afraid to protect people? She’s… been doing that. Idk. I’ve hit on that enough for now. Overall, there was good variety. I like the green ninja fake out, I like the realm hopping, I even like the little Garmadon visit and Lloyd getting the robe. I feel like we didn’t need a part one and two, you could have had different titles. I mean come on. But hey, now we know, if Pix had only been there, the whole climax would have been wrapped up in like 10 minutes apparently. Pix for the win.

Humor

Really good. Like I’m surprised how much I laughed. Jay wasn’t annoying humor, it was good stuff, there were some good running gags, there’s a solid fourth wall joke about who the lead ninja is at the beginning of the season. Overall, I am pretty impressed. My favorite joke was perhaps the bit where Jay is sarcastically positive, the voice acting is just really solid. Then again, there’s also the whole Borg scene where he roasts half the ninja, that’s solid stuff right there. There’s just some really solid character interaction this season and the humor feels a lot more natural and less forced.

Drama

Okay, we’ve got a lot this season. Y’all know how I feel about Nya’s arc by now. It does not work for me. Ronin’s relationship with her is alright, but kind of comes out of nowhere. Ronin’s solo plot about kinda working for the ghosts works. Cole’s ghost angst works for the most part, although I wish he would have actually skipped a mission and then gone in to help save his friends once they can’t do it without him. That was probably the most solid drama of the season. The other main thing we have this season is Kai’s whole… fear/protective streak. This also doesn’t really work for me. Like, I get that Lloyd and Kai are friends and stuff, like his whole true potential was centered around Lloyd. But like, why does it have to be framed so weirdly? Sometimes in trying to make it seem like Kai is protective of him, it seems like the other ninja just like… don’t care about him? Not all the time, but there are some weird vibes. Also, it doesn’t really go anywhere. No one learns anything about themselves from this subplot, nothing comes of it, there isn’t really a payoff. Also, Kai has yet another irrational fear, this time of water, which really comes right the hell out of nowhere. They try to explain it away like “Oh, Kai feels powerless and so water can get to him” but like… what? That’s the exact situation he was in at the end of season 2 and he seemed perfectly content to literally swim across the ocean (which um… what do you mean the sworn protector of ninjago can’t swim?). Where is this coming from?! Again, it doesn’t really go anywhere, there’s not a point where he has to learn to confront it or he grows because of it. It’s just pointless stuff added cuz the writers like giving Kai vague trails to try and develop him. The cloud kingdom is kinda cool. That last minute twist about them working with Morro is… stupid and unnecessary though. 

Spotlight Episode

I really like the Spinjitzu master tomb episode. Some cool riddles, I like the first two rooms a lot. I do think the third room is a bit strange. Like, the clue was “don’t look ahead” and the solution was to look beneath them, which is the exact same solution as the previous room. Like, you already have magic ice that shows the future, why not play into that? Don’t look ahead could maybe mean don’t look to the future, the opposite of that being the past. Maybe they have to draw on their past adventures to solve it somehow? Learning from the past is a good lesson, right? But overall, I really like it. Some real solid humor this episode. This episode has the sarcastic Jay optimism, Kai totally stalling for time, Zane dealing a pretty sick burn on Cole, just a lot of fun stuff. I like it. It just has great energy and nothing feels like it’s drawn out for too long.

Misc

The aesthetic this season… can be inconsistent, but the main ghost vibe displayed in the opening theme is really solid and I really like it

Speaking of the opening, Ghost wip is great and the opening in on par with last season’s (which is my fav) for sure

Ice age references… okay.

Chima references…. OKAY...

Okay, but like Deepstone can… kill ghosts? Or not? Is it just something ghosts can touch? It’s supposed to be like water in weapon form, right? Like that’s how I understood it when they first introduced it. Wouldn’t the deepstone bars kill Ghoultar then? And then like, Cole’s bike is made of deepstone. He uses it as a weapon. Wouldn’t it kill him? It kills other ghosts when they touch it. How… how does it work?! I need answers!!!

The captain of the steam boat says they’re going as fast as possible, but later Ronin comes in and cranks it up like twice as fast… that always bothered me like, why would he lie about that? Who is this captain and why is he so chill about everyone’s lives?! And then later Wu cranks it up yet again, like the ship had slowed down to it’s previous speed. What the hell is happening with the controls of this ship???

So pissed that the nasty CGI nightmare cloud monster that chases the ninja is named Nimbus. Totally forgot about that. I have an OC with a cat named Nimbus… I promise, there is not going to be a stupid twist bout the cat being the monster thing in Mists of Fate. That would be very stupid.

I was all excited that season 13 gave us minecart chases, but I totally forgot season 5 gave us one first. I really like the return to the caves of despair btw, good reuse of a known location.

How many times this season did we do the: 

Kai: Oh, I don’t like water, I can’t do it uwu  Cole: ...You serious?

Thanks for reading! And if you got this far… I don’t know. I would love to hear your thoughts if you have any! These are just my opinions, so don’t think too much of it if you disagree.

-Kitten

[valiantly-onward]

The Serpentine War Ch. 8

Here’s chapter eight! It’s my finals week, so I’ve been posting a little less. In that vein, good luck to everyone on their finals!

Chapter 8: Home

The journey to Lorin’s hometown took many days, even on dragonback. Ray was getting tired of needing a ride, but Wu had not even begun to explain how to create Elemental dragons. When Ray asked Lei about it, she just laughed. So he sulkily rode behind her throughout the trip.

They were a strange flock of oversized geese, flying in a practiced V formation. Ray couldn’t get a good look at the other dragons, and he had no idea whether Maya was behind or in front of him. He didn’t like not knowing where she was - it made him feel a little disoriented, like he’d lost his sense of direction. Realizing he cared was more worrisome than the worry itself. He didn’t like how reliant he’d become on her simple presence.

The final leg of the journey came to a close on this bright, early morning. Sam Pale, the long-haired Master of Light, tended to get up with the sun, and Lorin saluted that “eagerness” by forcing them all to follow Sam’s example. Ray was quickly learning the hierarchy of the Alliance. Supposedly, they were all equals under Wu’s command, but it was obvious that respect went a long way with these guys. And their small group seemed to respect Lorin - at least, enough to get up early.

Ray was sore from the long days of flying. He didn’t mention this to Lei, but he was relieved when the head of the dragon formation dipped down through the clouds. Ray held onto Lei as they dropped. He threw a shout of joy to the wind as it rushed him toward the ground.

Most of the trip, they’d been flying over high, rocky hills. Now, those hills parted to reveal a village. From above, Ray saw it was bigger than Jamanakai. The houses were spread out amongst small plots of turned-up soil. Ray immediately wondered how they would defend such a place. There was no centralized area, and the low stone buildings didn’t seem to follow any kind of pattern. The only advantage was the hills. They’d be able to see the Serpentine coming for miles.

Of course, that same logic had failed in Jamanakai Village. But that was mostly Ray’s fault.

They landed. Every dragon vanished in a puff of Elemental energy. Villagers began emerging from the closest houses. A few kids shouted in delight and raced toward them. Many adults immediately approached Lorin, who tipped back his silver helmet and shook their hands, speaking in low tones.

Sam Pale lifted a long leg as the kids swerved between him and the Master of Lightning. “Oi, Master of Earth! What are we up to first?”

Didn’t the guy ever rest? They’d just arrived! They needed a break.

Lorin glanced back. “First things first. C’mon, all.”

The eight of them continued further into the village. Maya appeared beside Ray, and though they didn’t speak, Ray was quietly happy she was there. Deep in the village, they found an actual road; it blended so well into the dusty ground, Ray had missed it. Lorin led them to one of the houses near the road - a happy stone building with curved red roofs and no plot of land.

A dark-haired woman stood in the doorway. She started toward them purposefully. Ray thought for a moment she was carrying something beneath her coat, except -

“Alliance, this is my wife, Hanna,” Lorin said proudly. He leaned down, a hand on his wife’s belly. “And our soon-to-be son.”

“Daughter,” Hanna corrected. She kissed Lorin’s scruffy cheek and turned to the rest of them with a smile. “The one who’s right gets to name her.”

“Him.” Lorin nodded to Hanna. “We need to set up defenses and find lodging.”

“Then some of you better come with me,” Hanna replied. “This way.”

She strode around the back side of the house. Ray looked at Lorin. “You’re gonna have a kid?”

Lorin raised his eyebrows in response. “Yes. Is that so surprising?”

“No, just…” Ray paused. “Don’t you - I mean we - lose our powers if we have kids? Aren’t you afraid of that?” Wu had described it to him after Ray asked how Fire could’ve skipped a generation in his family. Upon reaching young adulthood, Masters aged slowly, as long as they had their powers. Children nearly always meant losing those powers, plus the slow aging. Already, a life without powers sounded like a half-life to Ray.

Lorin chuckled. “It has to happen sometime. I just hope the baby comes after all this is over.”

He seemed to deem the conversation ended. He directed Sam Pale and Vivian to go with him to the edge of the town, and the rest of them to follow Hanna.

“I can’t believe he’s not worried,” Ray said as soon as Lorin was out of earshot.

Lei shot him a quizzical look. “You don’t think love is worth it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe?”

“Then you’re not in the best company. Everyone here has someone.” Lei jabbed a thumb at the blonde woman jogging after Lorin. “Vivian, for example. She got married real spontaneous when Wu called for us. She keeps going on and on about how she might not get a honeymoon if the war doesn’t end soon. If I ever meet Cliff Gordon, I might slap him, just for how many times I’ve had to hear his name.”

This made Ray laugh out loud. Maya strode up next to him, cocking her head at Lei. “What about you?”

Lei scoffed. “Can’t anything be private around here? If we win this war, maybe I’ll talk. If we don’t, it won’t matter, because we’ll all be dead.”

“Comforting,” Ray commented.

They went to find Hanna.

She showed them empty rooms inside the house. There weren’t many, so Maya and Lei would get the extra beds, while Ray and Asher, the Master of Smoke, were relegated the old couch in the main room. Just a hunch, but Ray was certain the couch wouldn’t fit two.

Unsurprisingly, Asher set his sleeping roll on the couch. He was small, colorful man in poofy pants and a fez. He looked a little different from Ray’s brand of Ninjagoan, but not uncommon, especially in Ninjago City.

He looked apologetically at Ray. “I am the smaller man. I don’t believe you would fit comfortably.”

Ray raised his hands in surrender, feeling a little guilty about his self-pity. But he did always have the rottenest luck. “You take it, man. I’m gonna head outside.”

Asher nodded to him. Ray pushed open the back door and found Maya outside. She was leaning against a tumble of boulders, glaring at the horizon.

“The bed’s that bad, huh?” Ray asked.

“It’s fine,” Maya said shortly. “Hanna is sweet.”

“Yeah, she is.” Ray rubbed the shoulder of his chest plate. He felt the grooves of the dragon engraving under his fingers. “Wanna go find Lorin?”

Maya’s gaze seemed far away. “I don’t like how it went down at Jamanakai Village. It wasn’t much of a fight. I even lost to a Venomari.”

“Venomari?”

Maya looked at him. “Yes. The Venomari tribe.”

“Ah, right,” Ray replied seriously. “Those are the blue ones.”

Maya rolled her eyes. “Alright, you need a crash course in Serpentine tribes.” She sat down on the boulder. “Come here.”

“Right now?”

“Right now.”

Ray sat down. Maya leaned over in the dirt and began drawing methodically. She was really good, actually. Just by watching, Ray saw that her hand knew all the right places to put the strokes.

After she finished with a rough image of five different snakes, she sat up.

“Looks good,” Ray noted.

Maya glanced at him, like she didn’t know quite how to respond. “Thanks. Now, look. This one is called a Hypnobrai. Those are the blue ones. Don’t look them in the eye or they’ll hypnotize you.”

“Okay.”

Maya tapped the second image with a stick, the two-headed snake. “Fangpyre. Red. Their venom changes people into Serpentine.”

“Gross.”

“Yeah. The big black ones, Constrictai. Strong, can choke you to death. And Venomari. If they bite you, the venom is deadly, but usually they’ll just spray your eyes and make you hallucinate.”

Ray pulled one knee up to his chest. “So the moral here is to stay away from snakes. Why did I agree to go to war again?”

A smile reached across Maya’s face. So small. Ray’s chest exploded with uproarious victory.

He offered a hand to her and she took it, pulling herself up. “And the Anacondrai?” he asked.

“The power of invisibility” Maya held his gaze for a long moment before releasing his hand. “The most dangerous tribe of them all.”

Ray nodded. “All the more reason to train, right?”

“Now,” Maya said. “You’re learning.”

~~~

The days spun into weeks. For the first time, Ray felt like he was really part of the Alliance. It helped that his powers seemed to obey him better each day. He now knew what to look for inside himself, the feeling that guided each spurt of power.

Every day, after their sentry duty in the hills, Ray and Maya would go to the boulders to train together. This, if nothing else, felt familiar, grounding. Sometimes, if Lorin wasn’t busy, he would come to watch and offer pointers.

Ray liked Lorin. The guy treated both him and Maya with respect, and he seemed like a steady, dependable guy. Ray admired that.

The Master of Light, on the other hand, was a little less steady. Sam Pale’s untidy habit of manipulating light to turn himself invisible was funny until Ray was on the receiving end of the joke.

That left the Masters of Lightning and Smoke, neither of whom Ray knew what to make of. Vivian was loudly annoying and Asher was quietly annoying, so it was a back-and-forth. Maya seemed to get along fine with both, which Ray didn’t understand.

On the third week, Ray left Hanna’s house in the afternoon and met up with Maya and Vivian at the base of the hills.

Here, a few lonely trees clustered close together, shaking in the breeze. Vivian smiled up at a branch where a bluejay had perched. It whistled and she whistled back.

“Oh,” she sighed. “I love bluejays. They’re such smart, handsome little things.”

Neither of them replied, because this was Vivian, and she cared very little if anyone replied so long as she knew they were listening. She was a willowy woman with long, curly blonde hair. Vivian had mass. Not in the physical sense; she just seemed to take up a lot of space. A balance between dreamy and so very present, she was contradictory in a way that made Ray’s head hurt. 

“Okay,” Ray said. The trees were designated as the split spot, and they would go each to a different section of the hills. Get the high ground and keep watch. “See you guys in a few hours.”

They split: Vivian sauntering like the lovable fool she was, Maya in ninja-mode like the Master-Wu-student she was, and Ray walking, like a normal person. Red didn’t help him stay concealed in the rocks, but it was better than the blues the ladies wore.

Ray kept his sword sheathed - he’d learned that lesson, it was far too easy to get distracted even in simple exercises. He would watch. He would wait for the attack, surely coming any day now.

All reports from the Echo Canyons said the Serpentine had posted themselves in Jamanakai and seemed to be staying there. That made everyone, including Ray, feel uncomfortable. If the Jamanakai snakes weren’t moving, that meant they were confident the remainder of the Anacondrai would pass the Mountain of A Million Steps.

Ray skimmed the hills for an hour or more, then took a post near the top. He sat down against a rock where he could easily see the surrounding horizon - the Mountain of A Million Steps rising in the distance, the sun glaring off the opposing hillsides, the ocean of rocky terrain that separated this green village from the Sea of Sand.

He heard something.

Ray jumped up immediately, staying low against the rock. Behind it, hissing hurried past, like leaves against a sidewalk. It took Ray a moment to separate the sound into voices.

“...this way.”

He peered around the rock. There was a flash of red, then a softer green. Fangpyre. Venomari. Serpentine.

Two of them. Both had legs instead of tails, but they were still quick, small. The Fangpyre had just one flat head, swirling white across its scales.

They hadn’t seen him yet. They seemed to be heading toward the ridge above the town. Ray kept himself hidden behind the boulders and followed them.

When they got to the ridge, the two snakes laid flat on their scaly bellies, stretching long necks above the rocks. The whole village strung out below them. And to the north, a dagger-split in the rocky hills. The pass the Serpentine needed.

The Venomari ducked back down. “Andulus, I can’t see any Masters.”

“They’re there,” the Fangpyre replied. “Quiet.”

Unbidden, the Fanpyre suddenly jerked its head back. Fortunately, Ray was able to pull himself behind his boulder in time. Three counts of silence. When he peered back around, the snakes were surveying the village again.

“I’m tired of this,” the Venomari said. “It’s not worth it to attack such a small village.”

“We’ll be ruling them all soon enough, Lysss.”

“Yes.” The Venomari’s small crown flared. “But I thought this was about warning the humans, not ruling them.”

The Fanpyre stretched his neck a little. “If they will not listen, we must ensure they don’t bring destruction upon themselves.”

“Why do we care?” the Venomari hissed. “The humans can destroy themselves if they want.”

“Don’t let General Acidicus hear you talking like that.”

“What about your general? Kandoras? He could put a stop to this.”

The Fangpyre snorted, though it sounded more like a muffled hiss. “He will not undermine Arcturus. Now, hush this traitorous talk.”

The Venomari fell silent. Ray laid a hand on his katana hilt. These creatures were armed, but only with small knives, and they were small themselves. After facing the Anacondrai, this would be a piece of cake.

He waited for them to start talking again, for distraction, but they didn’t. Ray got tired of waiting.

He attacked.

The Serpentine rolled away from each other. The Fangpyre was on his feet, whipping out his knife. Ray disarmed him in a moment with one well-placed strike. His blade hovered near the Fangpyre’s long red neck. Then he looked at the Venomari on his other side.

“See, this is what I’m talking about!” the Venomari said, gesturing to Ray. He hadn’t even drawn his knife. “No respect.”

“Are you scouts?” Ray asked.

The Fangpyre sneered in response.

Ray decided not to press it. “You’re coming with me down to the village. The Masters will love to meet you.”

“You presume to take us prisoner?” the Fangpyre snapped, though his slitted pupils darted warily to the blade. “A measly human with a sword?”

Ray raised his hand. It took a few seconds, but his fingers burst into flames. The Venomari, who’d finally started going for his knife, scrambled back.

Ray smiled at the Fangpyre in the firelight. “Let’s get moving.”

~~~

Striding back into a village with two prisoner Serpentine was a good way to get people to hate you.

The villagers wanted nothing to do with the snakes. It took a lot of convincing for one of Lorin’s villager friends to let them lock the Serpentine in his basement. Even then, everyone gave the house a wide berth, and the owner of the house constantly glared daggers at Ray.

Ray meant to return to the hills for duty with Vivian and Maya, but Lorin kept him. They stood in front of the house. Lorin scratched his black beard thoughtfully.

“I don’t like this,” he grumbled.

“They can’t report back now,” Ray reminded him. “No intelligence. That’s good, right?”

“I suppose. But this means they’re scouting out this area. They will come through here. Perhaps in the next few days. Did you hear them say anything?”

“I -” Ray cut off when he saw Maya approaching. Their shift must’ve ended already.

She got to them, wide-eyed. “I heard you caught Serpentine.”

Ray jerked his head toward the big house. “They’re in there.”

“Are they scouts?”

“We think so.” Ray looked at Lorin. “Although one of them…”

Ray tried to recall exactly what the Serpentine had said. It seemed like the Venomari was against attacking the village. But that couldn’t be right.

“The Fangpyre didn’t like what the Venomari was saying,” he remembered. “He sounded like he was going against their generals, talking about how he didn’t want to fight. And - destruction? They said we’re going to destroy ourselves.”

Lorin’s brow deepened. Maya, on the other hand, caught her breath. “He said he didn’t want to fight?”

“Uh, I think so. But -”

“Ray, do you know what this means?”

“What?” he asked.

She shoved his shoulder. “The Serpentine are willing to compromise! They might negotiate with us!”

“Negotiate?” Ray threw a hand to the air. “We watched them nearly destroy an entire village, and you want to negotiate with them? They’re monsters!”

“They’re people,” Maya retorted. “Some of them don’t want to fight.” She paused to watch him, and added, “You’re just scared.”

“I’m not -” Ray stopped himself. Turned away, his hands linked behind his head. Turned back. “You’re right. Okay? I am scared. Is that such a bad thing?”

Maya didn’t reply for a moment. Her eyes were dark. “No,” she said at last. “But it doesn’t change what we have to do.”

At this, Lorin looked up. He frowned at Maya. “What would that be?”

“It’s obvious.” She stepped back to address them both. “We have to convince Master Wu to go to the Serpentine Generals and negotiate for peace.”

@greenygreenland

[thepeanutbutterwizard]

Ninjago/Avatar au Pt6

The second half of Book 2 (hopefully)

(Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5)

So Garm finally reads the letter from Wu. It starts off as a normal pseudo-journal entry, but after it mentions finding the Garms old armor, but no body, it turns into more of a normal letter. Wu says that he’s missed his brother since he was banished, and that he hopes that they’ll be able to see eachother again soon if Garm is alive, and ends with Wu saying that he normally burns the letters he writes to Garm, so that no-one else finds them, but that he feels hopeful that this one could actually get to him. It’s touching stuff.

Lloyd picks up earthbending almost immediately, unlike Aang. The element Lloyd is going to struggle to learn is fire (if you don’t count his airbending being self-taught. He picked up airbending really, really fast, but bc he’s been making stuff up and trying to do what Maya did with her waterbending [Maya’s had decades to hone her style tho, not just three-ish years, but he’s like someone learning ballet only from YouTube, for only a couple of months] since there are no more airbenders [or so they think, bc none of them saw Morro airbend at the North Pole]), and I’ll get into why that is when it comes up. They haven’t had Garm start to teach Lloyd any firebending bc they’re trying to go in the order as much as they can, but Garm has finally convinced Kai to learn more than just the basics, and he picks it up really quickly.

Meanwhile, Morro is taking care of an injured Wu (and accidentally making him suffer through poorly-made tea). Now, Morro is onboard with Wu wanting to leave the Fire Nation behind; unlike Zuko, Morro isn’t trying to win back the favor of some distant parent, the only family he’s ever known is Wu, and he’s not about to abandon Wu for a bunch of people who would probably kill him as soon as they could no matter what he did for them, and Harumi made it clear that no-one in the Fire Nation is going to be extending them any mercy.

Once Wu wakes up, Morro does yell at him for doing something as stupid as taking a hit from a well-trained firebender to protect a stranger (Wu hadn’t gotten around to telling Morro ‘hey, you know that guy with the big burn scar who’s traveling with the Avatar? That’s my dead-but-not-really-dead older brother. Pls stop trying to stab him’, and Morro wasn’t there when Garm revealed his identity in the North Pole), until Wu tells him that Garm is his brother. This leads to Morro yelling out ‘You mean to tell me that the Avatar is my cousin?!?!’ And that how Wu learns that Lloyd is Garms son (’wait, what?’ ‘Have you really gone this long without noticing that the Avatar calls your brother his dad?’ ‘I’ve had a lot on my mind, give me a break!’), and now he thinks that Garm and Maya are married with three kids, one of whom is the Avatar.

They make their way to Ba Sing Se, with the help of the White Lotus. Wu isn’t the leader of them (he isn’t super old in this au, imagine what he looked like in S9, with the mustache), but he is a fairly respected member. I still haven’t come up with a Jet character who would work, and I am open to suggestions. If I do find a good character, they will definitely throw hands with Morro (mb Shade? Just cut out the romance subplot in S1 and pick a couple of EM’s to be the other freedom fighters?). And yes, Wu does get his tea shop in the upper ring (Steep Wisdom), and Morro tries to be happy and supportive, but even though he is fine leaving the Fire Nation with Wu, it does still feel like he wasted years of his life, both in chasing the Avatar and just trying to prove himself to everyone back in the Palace, so he’s pretty grumpy.

Now back to Team Avatar: at Maya and Garms insistence the kids have been picking out their little mini-vacations. They know that they only have a limited amount of time before the comet arrives, but Garm and Maya want these kids to be able to be, y’know, kids, at least a little bit, in spite of the fact that they’re growing up in a war-torn world. Kai want’s to check out that glacier-spring place by the desert, it’s kinda underwhelming, but they get fruity drinks out of it. This whole time Kai and Cole have been getting closer to each other. Kai feels a little guilty, like he’s betraying Zane’s memory, but talking to Maya and Garm about it does help him start to feel better, and it helps his over-protectiveness start to abate a little.

Jay wants to pick a really cool mini-vacation to impress Nya, and he asks the people who are in the glacier place if there’s any place around those parts, and ends up learning that about a year ago some lady showed up saying something about a huge spirit library in the desert that she was looking for. They never saw her again after that, and figure that she must have died out in the desert. When pressed (and payed) one of the artistically inclined staff members roughly recreated the sketch of the library, and vaguely remembered the area on the map she said she was going to search, and with that Jay has his mini-vacation picked out.

They set off and find the library. Cole chooses to stay outside with Ultra (who can’t fit inside) bc he thinks they’ll be safer if the only earthbender stays outside incase something goes wrong, and if they need to get out of there fast he’d only slow them down with his legs. Everybody else heads into the library and meet Wan Chi Tong (did I spell that right? I’m too lazy to check), who agrees to let them use the library if they 1) don’t intend to use the contents of the library against anyone else and 2) contribute something to his library.

Lloyd and Nya both use their wanted posters (they both thought they were awesome [Lloyd bc he’s 13 and Nya bc you can’t convince me that Nya wouldn’t be thrilled to have a wanted poster bc she’s been fucking with a tyrannical regime] and incredibly accurate considering the art had to have been done by someone using other people’s descriptions, and they totally intend on framing and hanging at least a few of their posters up in their rooms when all this is over), Kai has a copy of a poem that Zane wrote for him, Garm has his brothers letter (he doesn’t want to give it up, but he has nothing else), Jay has a blueprint from one of his inventions, and Maya has a copy of a story in a series that Koko had brought back to the South Pole over the years. Wan Chi Tong comments that about a year ago a researcher had arrived and had offered him another part of the the same series. He mentions that they should be careful, as she never left, and has been primarily researching the Avatar.

Everyone has an idea of who this mysterious researcher could be (except Jay), but they decide to be cautious all the same, just incase she isn’t who they think she is. They all start discreetly searching for anything that could be used to help them fight the Fire Nation, and they end up finding and empty placard saying something about ‘the Darkest Day in Fire Nation History’, but when they go to check part of the section on Fire Nation (that library was enormous, y’all cannot tell me that Zhao was able to destroy absolutely everything that the library had on the Fire Nation. It could only have been the last few decades/mb centuries of Fire Nation history), as well as a campsite that was full of scrolls having to do with the Avatar and different bending techniques (and a few misc scrolls about random things like cooking, engineering, etc). As they’re poking around the campsite, who else comes around the corner but Koko!

She has her nose buried in a scroll as she’s walking, so she doesn’t notice them all until Lloyd happily calls out ‘Mom!’, and goes in for a hug. Koko drops the scroll and has a happy reunion with her son and husband, as well as with Maya, Kai, and Nya, and she and Jay are introduced to each other. Koko explains that she’s been able to stay in the library so long was bc she managed to get the fox assistants to like her enough to start bringing her food and water. She also explains that she’s been doing nonstop research into the Avatar State, the Air Nomads and airbending, and the Fire Nation (though she’s really quiet about that part so they don’t catch Wan Chi Tongs attention and ire) and shows them that planetarium thing and that she discovered the eclipse. (How did she make it out to the library without a flying companion or something? SHe’s just that much of a badass.)

Koko had been saving up supplies and charting a course out of the desert, and planning to leave the library as soon as she could, but now that they’ve showed up with Ultra she can just grab her things and go. Someone, probably Jay, gets a little too vocal about how they have a chance to beat the Fire Nation, and cue Wan Chi Tong sinking the library and trying to add them to his ‘collection of specimen’. Garm and Koko are a dynamic duo, with Garm distraction the angry spirit while Koko gathers all of her scrolls and supplies together while Maya gets the kids to the exit.

Meanwhile, Cole is holding up the library, and trying to help Ultra fend off the sandbenders that showed up to capture and sell the dragon. Cole is able to put up a bit more of a fight than Toph was (meaning that he was able to get one or two good hits in) bc being in the desert doesn’t impair his vision (the sand does tank his mobility just as much as it would anyone with prosthetic legs tho), but he isn’t able to stop them or even hold them off long enough for everyone else to get out. Cole, despite being initially afraid of the large dragon, had quickly grown to be one of Ultras favorite people in their group (like, third favorite. Kai will never admit that he’s jealous), and is pretty upset that he wasn’t able to save him. More on Ultra later.

So Lloyd is really upset about losing his companion, just as much as Aang was. He doesn’t act out (for lack of a better word) as intensely as Aang, since Ultra wasn’t the last thing he had left of his people like Appa was for Aang, but Lloyd is still rightfully pissed off. He takes off shakily on his glider, leaving everyone behind before trying to search for Ultra and the sandbenders, ignoring his families protests. Koko starts working on getting them out of the desert using the route she had plotted out (using the sun and shadows to orient them and get started in the right direction), and starts planing out how long her food and water (she had the good sense to bring those from the library) will last between all of them. The answer is: not long enough.

Kai (and mb Jay too) is the one who has the bright idea to drink the cactus juice, bc while Kai, like Sokka, (and Jay tbh) is smart enough to know that drinking a strange liquid out of an unfamiliar plant is a bad idea,but the fact that it is a stupid idea doesn’t stop him. Wait, y’know what? Jay definitely tries the cactus juice, but instead of acting as out-of-it and inebriated as Kai does, he acts like he does in S9, weirdly chill and disconnected from reality. He’s still tripping balls, but he’s reacting to it differently from Kai. Cole just ends up carrying Kai piggy-back, even though the sand makes it harder for him to move (he’s crushing, and he’s the only one [adults included] whose physically strong enough to carry him for long periods of time) (also Kai awkwardly and drunkenly flirts with him. Everyone pretends not to notice for Coles sake) and everyone else takes turns holding onto Jays wrist and leading him through the desert or else he would have wandered off and died.

Lloyd gets back to them, landing hard in the sand, holding back tears bc even though he’s upset and could use a good cry he knows that they need to conserve as much water as they can. He’s got his family there to comfort him (even if Kai and Jay are kinda incapacitated atm), which does help him a bit, but he’s still rightfully upset. They find the abandoned sandbender skipper thing, find the vulturewasp hive, and come across the sandbenders. Cole is able to pinpoint the sandbender (no idea who this guy would be, Ninjago character wise) who lead the others to take Ultra via his voice bc Cole a) was trained in a myriad of performing arts thanks to his father, primarily singing b) has perfect pitch and c) never forgets a voice bc of that.

Lloyd goes full Avatar State, but is comforted and calmed down by his parents while everyone else books it. The sandbenders tell them that they sold Ultra to some guys who were going to take him to Ba Sing Se, and then they take them out of the desert (with the sandbenders getting the Death Glare from all of Team Avatar the whole way. Koko totally punches the sandbender who lead the others to steal Ultra once they’re out of the desert.)

They make their way to Ba Sing Se on foot, with Lloyd trying to get a handle on his emotions (and worrying everyone in the process), and they run into a family with an expecting mother/wife (I am also taking suggestions for who these characters could be. I’m pretty tired while typing this so I can’t think of anyone) and try and get on a ferry to Ba Sing Se. Cole, whose father is well known and wealthy, uses that fact, his double amputee status (he ‘accidentally’ slips out of one of his prosthetics. Kai catches him before he hits the ground), and his acting skills to get them tickets without passports.

And we get best girl Pixal back! She helps Team Avatar help the pregnant family go through the Serpents Pass, and it goes pretty similar to cannon, except instead of a situation where Sokka is overprotective of Suki, Jay picks up on how much Pixal likes Nya, and sees that Nya, his crush, reciprocates those feelings, and gets a bit passive-aggressive w/everyone, but Pixal especially. It doesn’t last long, bc Jay is a hormonal teenager who realizes he’s being a dick fairly quickly, but it does help fizzle his crush on Nya a bit (sorry again to any hardcore Jaya shippers who were hoping for that in this au, but it’s really not my cup of tea).

They also help deliver the couples baby, but Maya and Koko are the ones helping take care of that. Team Avatar get to the outer wall, just to see a huge Fire Nation drill heading closer and closer to the wall, ready to start tearing through it...

[vedj-f-bekuesu]

Hey, I’ve finally gotten another step in my Ninjago watch!

Before I go through the season, there are some reasons why it’s taken so long to get to Possession.

1. Mum’s course I mentioned before is due to be handed in by tomorrow, so it’s been a bit hands on deck for her. Naturally, this means I’m being pulled in more to help.  2. The reason I started this was because I wasn’t able do my own work so had a lot of time to use up. Well, in the past week, it went from “oh you can’t work from home” to “you could but your smart card is at work and we won’t let you in so you’ll have to reject it” to “actually we can totally Indiana Jones it, here’s some WARs”, so I’m actually working again, so this will probably be a lot slower to go through. 3. Honestly, Tournament of Elements took a bit of wind out the sails. I mean, it was such a slog to go through, I was hesitant to do that again in a hurry if Possession ended up being a rinse and repeat of that.

But today, I’ve finally gotten through the season and...it’s serendipitous that this features the Elemental Master of Wind because this really was a second wind. I said that perhaps with it parring down the cast to a central focus that it would improve the quality over Tournament of Elements and that seems to have been the case. Let’s go through the points.

-I have barely anything bad to say about the characterisation of any character, main or side. Like, this season was mostly on point. I guess the main ninja were a touch on the mean-spirited side at the start, but this get smoothed out by the plot advancing. Jay could also get a little obnoxious at the start, but this was balanced out by him sassing out Wu for his absolute failure to disclose Morro’s existence anyway. -Of course the standout character is Nya, what with her whole sideplot and ending up a water-based BAMF in the ending. -The events of the Dark Island part of season 2 makes Kai’s fear of water and inability to swim jarring at first (because he swims just fine there), but I guess this was a change brought on by Rebooted’s soft reboot.  -Even Lloyd has his moments even though at this point his character feels fairly weak since the show is pretty much just interested in his status as this really powerful hero. But his moment to reconcile his grief with his dad is done nicely, and makes a better sendoff than season 4′s.  -Ronin’s good but that one moment was pretty uncomfortable. Thankfully due to circumstances it didn’t actually happen which prevents it from pushing it over. -But can I talk about the fact the show seems to expect you to have seen media outside of the show to understand his debut? When the ninja talk about Ronin as an old annoyance, I was like “man, you really think I played Shadow of Ronin, huh”. It would have been a shaky assumption in 2015 because the 3DS wasn’t exactly a big hit. But five years later, when the 3DS is nigh obsolete and I haven’t used mine in ages? It doesn’t help that the game is actually technically non-canon, only happening in vague.  -Morro is probably the best villain of the old stuff so far. I don’t care if he’s this edgy teenage bad boy that younger fans tend to veer to, his biggest strength is that despite him being another conqueror and having a lot of power, he still comes off as very human. He still has attitude quirks (like being a bit casual in places), he treats his minions different to any other villain so far, he makes mistakes and has slip-ups, and the conflict felt more like an actual to-and-fro as opposed to one side completely dominating over the other requiring some deus-ex to balance it (even season 1 had this issue, lest we forget how the ninja failed to secure a single thing in their fetch quest). Thus, when Morro is faced with his mortality and finally sees what Wu was trying to teach him, it feels like that would be a natural conclusion to his arc. -So Kai and LLoyd’s dynamic is good, it’s a callback to Kai’s development from season 1 where he got over himself and dedicated himself to looking after Lloyd (I mean, the episode itself fell a bit like an asspull, but S2 and S3 stuck it as a recurring theme), but what surprised me is that there’s actually relatively little of it in the season. There’s a bit at the beginning, then it tapers off until like the third to last episode. The way people talked about it made it seem like this big recurring arc but it’s not.  -Kai and Nya get surprisingly little throughout Nya’s actual training arc. You’d think Nya training to be the water ninja would be a bigger deal for Kai. They remember to give us a good dollop of it in the finale though.  -Can I take an aside to talk about Kai and Cole’s dynamic again? After S1 had such a good thing between them, I thought it was going to drop off entirely. S2 seemed to make good on that...but then S3 brought it back, albeit a bit more reserved. Even S4 had the same level. Why bring it up now? Because S5 turns it up to the point where it was one of the dominating dynamics outside of all four ninja together. And yet I have never heard this referred to by anyone. What, if two characters aren’t explicitly honed in on for interaction (ie Cole and Jay’s whole drama thing, Cole and Zane in S4/S8...I can’t think of any I’ve seen that don’t involve Cole yet), then it’s just pushed to the wayside? No wonder S13 seems to have decided that it finally needs to be addressed after the last two joint seasons focused on Jay and Nya then Kai and Nya.  -Speaking of, Jay and Zane actually get a cute dynamic going, albeit not as pronounced. Jay and Nya is surprising neglected, only getting some visual cues in the ending. Then again, I guess that’s what the next season is for.  -This season is not actually dark to be honest. There’s a couple of points where it drifts into that territory, but one moment is the climax which is typical for a kids show, and the other I guess is Cole’s thing (although the next episode took the edge out of that). That being said, kudos to them for sticking out the change to the status quo so it isn’t just a one season gimmick.  -Season 5 really said “That green ninja jealousy from S4 was shit so we’re just going to ignore it”. While I still have an issue with it as above, this is a relief. -Pacing here is fine, I have no issues with for once. 

So overall, Possession is a pretty good season, I can see why so many consider it one of, if not, the best. My only real beef with it is that the secondary dynamics (outside of the four ninja but within the general team) end up surprisingly underutilised. Otherwise, the only other barrier it has with me is just my preference for more light-hearted affair than this season’s fairly middling (but not dark) tone, but it’s so competently done that it still manages to outpace seasons that do hit that tone.

I would have to see S11 again to see how I’d stack it up to this, but my current season ranks are as follows;

S12>S11>=S5>S1>S2>S4>S3

So, next time I watch again, it’ll be one of the more marmite seasons in the pack; Skybound. One of the coolest season names, but can it continue Possession’s quality?

For now though, I have a whole thing lined up gushing about Prime Empire’s thematic roots because Prime Empire is amazing. And also I’ll have a (probable) season finale to watch and S13 leaks to look for. 

[dorizardthewizard]

TLNM musings, part 2

Okay, here I ramble about problems with the movie. Ended up adding more stuff since I first wrote this :’P

Screentime and characterisation of the other ninja:

One of the biggest complaints from fans... they're all introduced individually with very different personalities, they’re told they each have a special element they control, making you feel like they should each get some moment to shine and affect the plot of the movie, but then none of that happens. Ultimately you could take out all the ninja and the story would be the same, you don't even necessarily need them for Lloyd's character since his journey of reconnecting with his father and bringing his family together can still work without them. It's so sad because if you read and watch extra material, you can tell thought went into their personalities, but we never get to see this as they're all just lumped together, mostly there to support Lloyd's development.

For someone who hasn't seen the show, it must feel a bit off seeing characters with distinguished personalities and no payoff for it; take Zane for example. Imagine not knowing anything about the characters and seeing one of them is a robot, for some reason? You wonder why he's a robot, what significance that has for the plot and why it's important for his character (I mean they missed a big opportunity to develop Zane from always trying to fit in and seem like a “normal teenager” to accepting that he's different but that that doesn't mean he's less valid), but then this really specific characteristic is never expanded on except for comedy purposes. People probably thought “oh, guess it makes more sense in the show”, but this just detaches viewers and makes them feel like they're missing something if they haven't seen the show beforehand.

Sigh, still gotta give the crew credit for fitting in a load of little subtle details about the ninja, I had to rewatch it a couple of times because there were things I didn’t notice at first, like Kai sliding down a bannister in the Temple of Fragile Foundations and falling off :’D

Group dynamic:

Another thing that bothered me is that the movie isn't that good at making you care about them as a team. They're already established as friends but I wish there were more material showing us how much they care about each other. The Kai hug scene was 10/10 but then when Chen and the other cheerleaders started picking on Lloyd, nobody said or did anything? In merchandise it said Kai is a hothead who isn't afraid to speak up or stand up to people, then show it in the movie! Him and Nya should have been on the verge of tackling that guy to the floor! Ok, I can see Lloyd asking them not to get into fights as it makes people hate him even more and he probably feels guilty if one of the ninja gets into trouble because of him. This would still have given more emotional connection between the characters but we're never shown it, except in the novelisation where Cole tries to block Lloyd from his locker so he doesn't see the insult written on it, I think. But again, we shouldn't have to read/ watch extra material for that.

Instead of moments showcasing the ninja’s friendship and close bonds, we got the opposite- everyone turned on Lloyd incredibly quickly for one mistake. Sure, it was a pretty big one and resulted in Garmadon taking over the city and their mechs being wrecked, but Lloyd was the only one doing anything about Garmadon at the time and he didn't exactly know what the consequences of using the ultimate weapon were; it's not like he knew it could potentially hurt his friends. In fact, how did the ninja know he used it anyway? That would mean they already knew about it and what it could do, yet Lloyd was not told? In which case, how can they blame him?? Damn it Wu, why couldn't you just tell Lloyd that using the weapon would unleash a cat that could destroy the city, instead of vaguely saying the weapon can be dangerous in the wrong hands. That's taking too many pages from TV Wu's book!

Honestly, it's like the ninja were just one character either shunning Lloyd or supporting him, depending on what the plot needed :/ That scene where they're talking with Garmadon while carrying him through the jungle really rubbed me the wrong way because first, no one seemed to care that Lloyd is so snippy because he's been forced to work with the man who made his life hell, and second they joke about Lloyd with that very same person and imply they don't respect Lloyd as leader, as Jay says he doesn't usually want to listen to him when he's talking? What??

 Lloyd and Garmadon’s relationship:

I mentioned this in part 1, but they really didn’t execute this well- I feel like they had so much fun playing up Garmadon being the worst dad in the world that they forgot to give him redeemable qualities. It took me a second viewing to realise his relationship with Lloyd was actually pretty messed up, because they played off his despicableness as comedic and glossed over it by suddenly giving him a flashback to make it seem like he’s sorry. They wanted to go for the father-and-son-have-issues-but-reconnect story, and had Lloyd say “I wish we didn’t have to fight all the time” in his emotional ending, but that’s a line usually present in a daddy-issue story where both have a part to blame and there's issues with communication. In this, though? Lloyd did nothing wrong! It was just Garmadon being trash, and there wasn't even a particular scene of him recognising and apologising for his actions- not the bit about driving Misako away, but how he treated Lloyd after.

The message is all mucked up - hoping to find some good in neglectful parents is just gonna get you hurt, and in a story like this it would make more sense for the protagonist to realise they don't need validation from this guy, shouldn't feel like they have to keep connected with toxic relatives just because they're family, and that they should focus on the friends and family who actually love them (although, whether Lloyd's friends were even portrayed as liking him is a different story). I mean, Koko could just teach him to throw and catch! Does he have to have two parents just for that?

 Tone and humour:

I think another main reason this movie didn't do as well was its more childish tone and dialogue; unlike the previous two movies, it was marketed at younger children. One of the main reasons TLM and LB were so successful is because of the self-aware jokes that could actually be enjoyed by adults too, while in this movie I may have properly laughed only a couple of times. Plus, in its effort to connect with kid's humour it just got cringy in some parts, like the Ultimate Weapon compilation. It would have been funny if it was ironic, like Amazing World of Gumball style, but it just didn't come across like that, so I can see why many jokes fell flat for older audiences.

People probably had different expectations for the overall tone as well- everyone loved the previous LEGO movies because of their constant barrage of action, witty jokes and a ton of references. This was never the selling point of Ninjago, but TLNM didn’t manage to capture the show’s dramatic style and deep lore-driven plot either.

The writers:

Okay last thing. This movie had three directors, six producers, six screenwriters and seven people working on the story. Compared to most animated movies, that's a lot, and its shows. It feels like they had a few different ideas and themes and couldn't quite patch them together, with vague messages like “looking at things from a different point of view” being thrown in as well to try and link it up. I guess at the end of the day, this is a father-son story, and that makes it very difficult to fit in a power-of-friendship plot at the same time, but still. Also, the shifting plot and ideas is really clear in the trailers, I mean half the stuff there wasn't even in the movie, it's as if the entire story was changed!

 Final verdict? I think an overall theme with this movie is that the writers wanted to overhaul Ninjago to introduce it to new viewers, but also wanted to keep the fans happy so shoehorned in lots of elements from the show without giving them enough development. This just disappoints fans and alienates general audiences, which is a problem since Ninjago doesn’t have a huge following already backing it up like LEGO Batman did, and could have been the pilot for more original LEGO lines making it to the big screen. It was a technically amazing movie, with beautiful animation and visuals, an epic soundtrack and stunning voice acting, but it was also such a waste of potential.

 The only other thing we can do is think about how it could have gone differently, so here's some of my ideas :'D

NOT using the deleted time travel plot. I know that after being disappointed in a movie you welcome any alternative, but giant mechs were already a big deviation from the ninja theme; flinging in time travel as well would be too much for non-show watchers. Plus, I thought we were all complaining about how time travel in Ninjago always just messes things up :'P

Also not following the show closer. We have over 10 seasons of the show, the whole point of a movie is giving a fresh take; using a giant snake or the Overlord possessing Garmadon again would just be boring.

Delete the first act? One of the best parts of the secret high school heroes trope is seeing how they juggle both lives, if you're gonna drop it after half an hour there's not much point of it being there.

Could instead just have Garmadon attacking again, the last invasion attempt being ages ago. Maybe the ninja rediscover a rich history of elemental masters protecting Ninjago when Wu decides to get a new team together to fight the new threat?

Make it about learning master building instead so they build their mechs at the end, and then gain elements in a sequel?

Or don't mention anything about elements and have every ninja individually go through an obstacle to obtain an elemental weapon, then they all lose them but don't know they're not necessary, so it's actually a surprise that the power is inside them? Everyone gets a sort of true potential moment?

Ninja having to warm up to Garmadon's son, so we have a plot of Lloyd slowly gaining their respect and becoming leader?

Higher stakes at the end, make the Shark Army more threatening and have them turn on Garmadon using Meowthra, so there's still an intense climax of the ninja fighting the army before Lloyd reaches Meowthra and gets his emotional ending?

Get rid of the live action sequence, or make it fit the message of the story more?

Feel free to add any ideas/ thoughts!

[tornadoofcreation]

Lloyd Heacanons Pt. 2

~I don’t think there’s anything too bad in here, but trigger warning for slight mentions of anxiety~

These also got really long, oops sorry

* He gets stomachaches and headaches when he’s stressed.

* He gets very, very upset with himself when he fails in a mission and makes a mistake.

* He has a bad habit of skipping meals and sometimes goes a full day without having a single proper meal

* Despite this, he’s not picky at all when it comes to food. Maybe it’s because he lived on the streets for a while and took what he could get or maybe it’s just because he’s Lloyd, but he will eat literally anything. Ketchup and bananas? Sure. Peanut butter and cheese sandwich? Sure. Everyone, save Cole, is high key disgusted by it

* He also loves pineapple on pizza, much to Kai and Zane’s disdain

* When Zane died, Lloyd blamed himself because if he had just been a bit stronger and better, maybe when he had defeated the overlord, he would’ve stayed dead.

* Because of this, he started obsessively training and completely neglecting his human needs. It got to the point where Garmadon would literally sit on the edge of Lloyd’s bed all night to make sure he actually slept and didn’t wake up at some ungodly hour to train

* Okay that got a bit too angsty for me, so, Lloyd’s favorite color is yellow and he likes wearing pastels. He owns a lot of light greens, blues and yellows

* He also loves doodling on his jeans and shoes. His jeans are almost all ripped up and covered in sharpie doodles. He has one pair of white converse that he uses as a canvas

* He loves strawberry marshmallows and strawberry milk. Obviously, his favorite ice cream is strawberry

* He talks to himself a lot

* He visits the Ninjago orphanage a lot, just to talk to the kids, and make friends with them. When he turns 18, though, he’s planning on adopting all of them. Every. Last. One.

* He chews on his sleeves when he’s stressed

* He also bites his nails until they bleed. To get him out of the habit, the other ninja (mostly Kai) put bandaids on all of his fingers so he can’t access his nails

* He was once so tired in a press conference that he said “hi, I’m Energy, master of Lloyd” and it’s become a Ninjago-wide meme

* He loves lizards. They’re so cute and have the sweetest faces. He also likes frogs.

* He also really likes sharks

* Because of his dragon side, he’s sort of cold blooded. It’s not full, but if it’s very cold outside, Lloyd needs to keep extra warm to regulate his body temperature and maintain homeostasis

* He has these horrible side effects of getting possessed where he’ll get really dizzy, pass out, start shivering uncontrollably, get pain flashes or start vomiting blood. The effects just randomly show up and it’s very scary for Lloyd and everyone around him when it happens. (Not my personal headcanons, based of an ask that @lindsey-chr-not-found received (sorry for tagging I just wanted to give credit))

* He had to get his passport illegally meddled with because his birthdate looked very suspicious

* After the whole possession fiasco, Lloyd always kisses his mom before every mission, because when he was possessed by Morro, Lloyd feared for his life and all he could think was that he was going to die here, and the last thing he did was refuse to kiss his mom goodbye

* He’s prone to panic attacks

* He always keeps some type of fidget with him. When he has to give public speeches, he likes to play with it to make him feel more comfortable

* The ninja eventually got him a spinny fidget ring that he wears all the time. It helps him so much

* This is more of a garmadon HC, but he knows that Lloyd tends to bottle up his own fears and pain to be strong for others. Because of this, garmadon makes sure to ask Lloyd how he’s feeling every single night, just to encourage Lloyd to open up and give room for him to talk if somethings wrong

* Lloyd goes on runs a lot. He likes to clear his mind and take a moment to breathe

* He likes listening to others talk. He’s not great with social interactions and people. He prefers to listen than to talk

* However, he really has a way with words, and the fact that he’s a pretty quiet person makes the words that he does say very impactful

* He need glasses, but he doesn’t like wearing them. he usually only wears them when he’s around the house or needs to read. He wears them during interviews, because it’s really embarrassing when he spends like 5 whole minutes squinting trying to read the question

* Wearing them makes him look so much older though

* After season 9, he started growing his hair out more and changing small things about his appearing because after everything that just happened, he hates when he looks in the mirror and sees an almost carbon copy of his father

* Lloyd got highlights in his hair because the most apparent difference between him and his father is that Lloyd’s hair is lighter, so he went and got highlights to exaggerate that differences

* As a side effect of the whole “master of energy” thing, Lloyd’s powers can leave him drained of energy very easily. After the whole ‘losing powers’ situation is s9, his powers seem to be different and he’s prone to fainting when he overuses them. Wu told him that he needs to be very careful because if he’s in a situation like he was in season 8, when he fought garmadon, it could sap his energy completely and leave him in a coma.

* He likes putting colorful bandaids on his injuries

* Speaking of injuries, he has a scar right above his heart from the battle with garmadon in true potential. He absolutely hates the scar.

* He is victim to all kinds of nicknames about his hair. The ninja are very creative when it comes to these nicknames, but their favorites are “blondie,” “Rapunzal,” And “Goldilocks”

* Jay and Lloyd like to enthusiastically re-enact starfarer scenes for the others. It started when the power was out, so jay and Lloyd decided to entertain everyone else by performing the entire starfarer movie. After that, it kinda became a thing.

* Little Lloyd used to make blanket forts on the bounty when he was sad, so now all the ninjas, after a particularly difficult battle, will make a blanket fort and just enjoy each other’s company,

* Sometimes they’ll sit in the fort and make up stupid games, or they’ll play video games, or they’ll talk, but sometimes, they just sit in silence and drink in the fact that all of them are okay, and they’re all alive.

* His favorite partners for missions are either Kai, Nya or Cole. Kai and Nya because they’re his siblings and they know each other’s fighting style and where they need to cover each other. (Kai And Nya always cover Lloyd’s left side, bc his left leg still is weak from the time he broke it in season 2). He likes working with Cole as well, because Lloyd has a tendency to panic and overthink, and Cole is so grounded and chill and his strategies are simple and practical.

* He struggles a lot with finding his worth when he is not the green ninja. Lloyd struggles with the fact that his friends only care about him because of his important title and everything.

* That was something his father helped him with a lot. Finding Lloyd’s strengths and all the things that make Lloyd wonderful and lovable. Not the green ninja. Garmadon reminded him a lot that the child he loved and cherished was not the green ninja, but Lloyd.

* Finding his own worth without relying on his powers, title, and family is something Lloyd is working very hard on.

* As soon as Ray and Maya were brought back after season 7, Kai and Nya dragged Lloyd to them and just kinda announced to them that Lloyd was their new son. Both ray and Maya adore him.

* The reason the ultra dragon liked him so much was not because he was the green ninja, but because of the dragon in him. They also connected with Lloyd the same way Firstborn connected to the FSM. They sensed purity and kindness in Lloyd’s soul

* He knows all the small hiding places on the bounty. Whenever he gets overwhelmed or needs to have a breakdown without messing up his “perfect” façade, he goes to those spots and hides.

* Misako and Wu tore down Garmadon’s monastery after season four when the ninja were gone for a week to follow a lead. When Lloyd got back and saw that his father’s monastery had been torn down by his own mother and uncle, he cried for hours on end.

* He was furious and refused to speak to his mother for a few days because this monastery was a such a big part of the legacy of peace garmadon tried so desperately to leave behind. He even sacrificed himself for this legacy, and his own mom, garmadon’s wife who should know how important this was better than anyone, tore down a big part of this legacy to build a tea shop.

* When the tea shop was built, the ninja had sleeping quarters in the shop. Lloyd; however, literally took his blanket and slept outside for the first two weeks. (The others begged him to stop when he caught a fever after sleeping in the rain)

* When the ultra dragon was still around, when Lloyd was feeling sad or lonely, he wold go and sleep in the dragon keep with them. All four heads would nuzzle around him and comfort him until he fell asleep.

* Lloyd and the other ninja burst into musical numbers all the time. If one of them starts a number, the rest are literally legally obligated to join in.

* The first few days after Lloyd aged up were hard for Wu because he looked so much like garmadon

* His anxiety can be really horrible, especially after Morro, and to help with it and make sure it doesn’t get in the way of doing his job, Lloyd takes medication for it.

* Lloyd has a tendency to overwork himself because he constantly feels he needs to prove that he is good enough. Wu sometimes finds this very concerning, because 1) overworking yourself isn’t good for you, but more importantly, in some way, Lloyd’s need to constantly be working and proving his worth reminds Wu a bit of Morro.

* Of course it’s very different. Morro wanted to prove he is the best, while Lloyd wants to prove that he is good enough and worth loving and caring about

* It is so incredibly hard for Lloyd to resist the forbidden scroll’s power, because he has always struggled with self worth, and this scroll gives him power that makes him so important and useful

* After season 2, when Lloyd was receiving awards for destroying the overlord, an alarming amount of new mothers approached Lloyd, telling him they named their baby Lloyd. It kinda freaked Lloyd out, to be honest

* Lloyd’s puppy eyes can convince anyone of anything. Whenever the ninja need to convince Wu of something, they send Lloyd.

* Lloyd knows what places on the bounty each ninja visits most often, so after a hard battle or if one of his siblings is having a bad day, he’ll stick little post it notes with nice messages in all of those places.

* He ends every note with “I love you so much. Love, Lloyd” and a little heart

* After the Morro incident, every single day, Wu would find a new note on his teapot, telling him what an amazing teacher he was, or how much he meant to the ninja.

* After skybound, Lloyd could tell that Jay was hiding something and that he was acting different, so he left a note every day on all of jay’s inventions and the video game console

* He left some for Cole on the refrigerator after he became a ghost

* For Nya and Kai it’s whenever they’re having a bad day. Sometimes Lloyd leaves them on random days, just to remind his big brother and sister how much they mean to him

* For Zane it’s on bad days as well

* After season 8/9 the others started doing it for him. The day after garmadon was defeated, Lloyd woke up to little notes on all of his belongings, from his sword, to his towel to his comics. He kept every single on of them.

[midnightcrypt]

aight here it is for the 2 ppl who asked to read it

before you read it just know i mean NO hate towards ninjago i own a few of the sets and have watched every single episode im just >:( at the way lego is handling things 

EDIT: there is an iron fan minifigure i am a fool but theres still no tang 

Lego is quite a well known successful company, correct? I’m here today to say that two high schoolers talking in a discord DM were discussing potential marketing ideas that would very likely work far better than any recent choice the company has made regarding their themes as well as their original animated series’. We also spoke about several problems with their advertising and set problems only to name a few of the many issues that we talked about, which is why I’m going to be writing about the main glaring flaws that we spoke about. 

So the first major problem would be the Ninjago problem. Ninjago: master of spinjitzu has been a popular theme for quite some time now since the original shorts were first released in early 2011. While it has been quite a success for Lego it’s also bound to be part of their downfall, the show has been airing for 12 seasons, soon to be 13, which has been the cause of the death for quite a few other themes. One example would be Nexo Knights, this show had a similar animation style to ninjago along with a color coded cast of characters with a fairly simple premise with a plot that began to get more in depth with the lore of the universe as the seasons passed. Nexo Knights however was never able to make it past it’s 4th season due to Ninjago’s popularity taking away from it. Nexo Knights had gotten sets for it’s 5th season as well as a trailer, but the 5th season was cancelled while still in production, seemingly late in production due to trailers and sets already being released. But why would it be cancelled so late into its production? When it would likely have been a better choice to finish up and release it instead of wasting all that money on the sets and the show. This also happened with Legends of Chima and the Bionicle series, two themes that were snuffed out by Ninjago’s fame and eventually were forgotten by most everyone. Lego keeps trying to start new themes that all will eventually be killed by Ninjago and it’s popularity, the best option would be to simply end the show. Ninjago has had a great run and is a staple in many people’s lives and childhoods but all good things must come to an end, and in the end this show falling might be the only way to have any other themes succeed. 

The best idea I have for Ninjago’s end would be to finish production on season 13, but for season 14 give us an actual ending. Give Garmadon his final redemption and even bring back the overlord for one final battle with all of the characters at the end of it all. Use the original theme song and just give the fans what they want. Lego doesn’t need to take the sets off of shelves or retire the theme until they stop making money off of it, they could even do a final wave and make more Ninjago Legacy sets. That way they would be able to make new sets that fans will certainly like while giving the other original series a chance to succeed. 

One of the themes that has recently been introduced is Monkie kid, this theme is fairly new at the time but is set up for failure, Lego has been giving us hardly any information on the actual content’s wide release as well as having all of the sets be incredibly expensive. This is a bad idea for so many reasons, not only will this drive genuine fans away from buying more than one set but it will also drive away any parents of kids who enjoy the content. What person would opt to buy something that’s $45 instead of one of the much cheaper other sets from a different theme. They’re only setting this new theme up for failure by doing this. Another thing about these sets is that two of the major characters aren’t included in any of the eight current sets, these two characters that happen to be fan favorites. Many fans of the themes with animated content only tend to buy the sets with their favorite character for the minifigure alone, excluding these characters is only hurting this theme’s sales. While no Lego wouldn’t have known about these characters being favorites among fans before the release, why would you leave two major characters out in the first place. 

Another big problem among Lego’s animated series would be the release dates, or lack thereof. Lego tends to be fairly quiet when it comes to announcing when their shows will be released as well as releasing them everywhere but where Lego is based. A prime example is Ninjago. Lego will air the new seasons in places outside of where the main community of fans are months before the season will release in those places. This causes fans to pirate the show, which only hurts the ratings and view time of the official release. For the show that seems to make Lego the most money they sure don’t seem to care much about it. The best course of action would be to have all versions be released at the same time, with a set release date that would be revealed soon after the first trailer is dropped. This would make sure people know when and where it’ll be released. 

Another issue with the newer themes is the amount of vehicles. There are so many jets, mechs, cars, and bikes in the newer sets, which is honestly really confusing considering that the location based sets always look so much nicer that the vehicle ones. For example the Hidden Side and Unikitty! themes have so much of a nicer look not just on a display but also just the individual sets, both of these themes are mostly location/landscape based with most of their sets, while yes they of course do have vehicles this doesn’t make up the majority of their sets. Both of these themes look far nicer and likely would be doing so much better if Lego actually advertised for either of these themes instead of letting them remain in the shadows and cancelling unikitty not that long ago. 

One idea for an original theme that would likely do a very good job even without a movie or series would be to just do a Legacy theme, this theme would bring back many of the original themes that people who are now adults grew up with. People have been asking for something like this for quite some time now and I’m not sure why Lego hasn’t listened to the demand yet. This theme would bring back a lot of old fans back into lego or introduce new fans to something they never got to experience. One of the biggest themes that people have been asking for would be the space theme, this was teased back in the original lego movie with a few sets being centered around it with the character these sets were centered around having a few references to things that only people who owned the original sets would get. It would be a really good choice to bring back not only the space theme but a few of the other old themes to bring back old fans as well as bring in some new ones. 

In conclusion Lego needs to step up and make some better choices for their advertising, set design, and how they treat their themes if they want any of their properties to succeed, as well as just making some decisions as a whole considering the fact that 2 kids managed to come up with these ideas and point out a lot of really glaring flaws that apparently Lego can’t manage to see. So Lego if you’d like to come forth and start making some good choices and be an actually competent company who knows what they’re doing then prove it.

[that-was-anticlimactic]

Ninjago The Good Place AU Headcanons:

Okay so after yesterday, I decided to write headcanons because I wanted to and it sounded like fun so since you guys helped me out / seemed interested… @cakeking-cole @aeonthedimensionalgirl @darcpython @gayvoidprince (I hope these are worth ysince I’m tagging people oof)

“The Good Place”

It has been designed by Wu, who is the architect

Everyone in the town aside from the four humans (five if you include Lloyd… still trying to figure him out…) are demons, or idk Cloud Kingdomists or something? Like the Master Writer is the Judge, you know? oo or what about The First Spinjitzu Master as the Judge??

On the topic of soulmates, yes everyone has a soulmate there, but, it’s more of a friendship soulmate thing and a you have your legit soulmate here too, you just have to… find them over time… you’ll know

I still haven’t decided legit soulmates… I can’t figure out what ships to use whoops... like... do I want to go Bruise or Glacier or Techno or Opposite or Lava or Plasma or jinxdybwgeycfkubgewlu

lol this section is short haha

Kai

Kai is Eleanor in the AU

He was not the best person. He was conceited, rude, he treated everyone poorly and he blamed a lot of it on the fact that his parents left him and his sister. He was not a good person. And that’s why he ended up in The Bad Place. He was even trashy to his sister and friends.

He died at a restaurant with his friends and sister. He had just been super rude to the waiter and then choked on their appetizer and died.

So, Kai, like Eleanor, was told he was in The Good Place and that he was remarkable. But, it was the wrong Kai Smith.

The Kai Smith he was supposed to be this incredible Rehabilitation therapist who worked with people who needed a lot of help. He volunteered and went on mission trips and donated all of his money to charities... you know all that good stuff to make the real Kai Smith feel so much less than.

Kai was platonically paired with Zane, who he didn’t always like since he was so serious.

He told Zane about him not belonging in The Good Place and ended up asking him for help and to teach him how to be a good person

He hates the lessons at first, like despises them. Kai is more of a go out and do person rather than sit and listen so it takes some time to get used to it and to absorb and enjoy it.

Kai honestly hated Cole for awhile, not going to lie. He thought that Cole was so stuck-up and was a real, well, in Good Place language, a bench.

He ended up meeting the real him though and they got along fine afterwards.

He disliked Jay for awhile too, but they ended up becoming real great bros.

The others help improve Kai by teaching him how to be kind and selfless and understanding and empathetic and how to stop living in the past.

Kai ended up figuring out that they were in The Bad Place.

He also ended up confessing to Wu about him not actually belonging there.

He also helped Jay get the courage to confess.

The first night there, Kai ended up doing some stupid things like stealing all of the shrimp and calling Cole and some others name and that provided for the chaos sequence the next morning.

Kai was always loyal, it was one of his few redeeming qualities, and through it all, once he befriends the ninja, he stays loyal to them and would protect them with his life.

He actually still runs the Balcksmith shop, but since he hates his parents for leaving him and Nya and is a bad blacksmith, he makes terrible weapons and sells them at a super high price.

Some torture methods for Kai include: making him feel less, making him feel like he doesn’t belong, putting him in situations where he does things he hates like swimming or a fancy dinner where he has to be the happy welcomer or something

Zane

Zane is Chidi.

Zane isn’t an indecisive ethics professor. He is a teacher, though. Zane teaches science like physics and chemistry and such.

He has a super good moral compass and cares about others a lot and does study some ethics in his spare time.

The problem with Zane, though, and the reason he ended up in The Bad Place is that he is way too serious! He takes life much too seriously and doesn’t ever have fun. He could go weeks without smiling or laughing or taking a break because he believes that life is too important and serious to be take lightly. He tries too hard to be this perfect human being.

His intensity and seriousness often drive people away from him because they don’t like being around him.

He actually died from a heart attack from worrying too much about trivial things and being too serious and such in the staff room at his school.

Like I mentioned, Zane is Kai’s platonic soulmate.

Zane was so excited to meet Kai and like... have a friend, and then he learned that Kai didn’t belong there and was like are you kidding me?

Because he didn’t want to be in this situation, but he didn’t want to not help

He ended up deciding to help, and did the best he could to teach Kai and eventually Cole and Jay about ethics.

he didn’t teach ethics in school, like I mentioned, but he knows enough about them and can do research and study and make a good course, and he knows how to teach since he was a teacher.

The others help Zane become a better person by teaching him how to loosen up and see life less as this perfect systematic thing and more as a, yeah being a good person is important, but so is having fun and being weird and accepting that you can’t always be perfect

Zane also clicks with Cole rather well

Some torture methods include: having to keep Kai and eventually Jay’s secret, having students who don’t always listen to him, being pushed out of his comfort zone and being too all out, etc...

Cole

Cole is Tahani- hear me out!

I’m not saying Cole is this rich model that raises money for charity and is super conceited and arrogant

It’s more of... you know Tahani’s bad relationship with her family? That’s Cole’s relationship with his dad.

Lou expects a lot out of Cole. Lou is also relatively rich, and ever since this big injury that prevents him from dancing, he expects Cole to exactly like him.

He sends Cole to Marty Oppenheimers, makes him dance a trash ton, never lets him have a break, and always compares him to literally everyone.

Like. Dancing and performing is his job.

Because of this, Cole feels like he has to be a dancer and that he has to be this amazing guy who can do the triple tiger sashay and literally anything, He feels like he has to host fancy parties and be sophisticated and such.

Cole actually dies by practicing the Triple Tiger Sashay. He was doing his weekly update on how it’s going for his dad, when he messes up and hits his head on a rock, and in his dazed stance, he ends up stumbling in the middle of the street and gets hit by a car.

He is in the Bad Place because he is never truly himself. He hides his true self and is a completely different person on the outside than he is on the inside. He never ever thought for himself. He is super fake all of the time to literally everyone because he isn’t himself. He is literally the most fake person on the planet and people can tell. Like, most of the people he hangs out with are super snobby dancers and trash, so they expect that from him, but like Zane, Kai, and Jay can tell how fake he’s being, even though he doesn’t want to be fake. He’s not trying to. So, like Tahani, everything good he did kind of had the wrong motivation behind it. He wasn’t good because he wanted to be, he was good because he felt like he had to.

Heck, the first night, Wu had him throw a big welcome party. Wu was like “we just know how much you love hosting parties” and Cole on the inside was like ‘ohh great’

Plus, he hates his house. Wu gave him this huge mansion because that’s what “he” wanted, when really it’s what his dad would have wanted

His platonic soulmate is Jay, which sucks because Jay doesn’t talk for awhile and Cole talks to himself a lot when he’s alone, and living with Jay is essentially being alone.

He and Jay actually torture each other a lot, but then they end up becoming the best friends

Cole isn’t the biggest fan of Kai for awhile because he’s trying so hard to stick to his reputation and being this sophisticated, fancy person his dad wanted and Kai tries changing that once he realizes what Cole is doing and is like no stop and Cole’s like but I need toooooo

But they end up liking each other

The others help Cole by showing him how to be himself. They teach him how to have his own thoughts and that he doesn’t have to be anything for anyone but himself. That he doesn’t have to be fake and they essentially show him who he is.

Heck, Kai, Zane, and Jay are the ones who teach him how to climb trees and help him discover his love for the outdoors!

They also helped him come to terms with his sexuality and being gay!!!

Cole was the last one to get ethics lessons with Zane. He was also the last one to find out Jay wasn’t a monk and that’s what made him learn about the classes and asked to be a part of them because he felt like he needed to learn

Torture methods include: forcing him to be what he was forced to be on Earth, having certain citizens recognize him as Lou’s son, being forced to host and throw big parties and events because that’s what he had to do on Earth so he must love it here, etc...

Jay

Jay is Jason

No, I’m not saying Jay is on the dumber side and does illegal things. I personally believe Jay is incredibly intelligent but I won’t get into that now.

When Jay gets there, Wu comes out and is like ‘Jianyu, come on in’ and Jay is like ‘??’ so he says nothing and then Wu says stuff about how he was a Buddhist Monk who took a vow of silence at the age of eight and would he like to keep it and Jay panics because uhh his name isn’t Jianyu, it’s Jay Walker and nods.

Jay likes talking. A lot. It calms him down, it keeps him sane, it helps him destress and connect since he is a more extroverted person, so not being able to talk is- get this- torture.

Jay on Earth wasn’t a terrible person. He worked with his parents at the junk yard while he had an engineering internship in the city nearby. He invented a lot and he was good at it.

What put him in the Bad Place, though, was that he was super conceited and condescending. He knows he’s smart and he knows he’s a good inventor, but he likes to rub that in. He is a rather arrogant person. He doesn’t always mean to be, but he is.

He also belittles people based on their intelligence and speaks to them like they’re dumb, treating them kind of like they’re stupid. Sometimes it;s intentional, sometimes it’s not.

It actually becomes a big problem with his relationship with Cole once he starts speaking. Cole went to a dance school and never really got a proper education so he wasn’t always the smartest person, and Jay does that to Cole more than he realizes until Kai calls bullshirt.

Then Jay realized and flipped he felt so bad

Anyways, Jay died from an electrical accident on an invention he was showing off at his internship that he had been bragging about to some of the others interns.

Jay hits it off with kai really well, he and Cole fight a lot and struggle to get a long at first because, well, we all know how they used to treat each other on the show, and he and Zane like talking to each other.

Jay is actually really freaked out about not belonging in The Good Place. He didn’t think he was a rotten person who deserved to be in The Bad Place, and so the constant wondering what happened to make the, think he was Jianyu and whether he belonged in The Good or Bad Place was- get this- torture.

When he found out about Zane’s classes, he was kind of unsure about it, especially since he was like Kai and had trouble sitting and listening instead of doing, but he ended up agreeing and he loved it! He learned a lot!

Plus, he enjoyed learning from Zane.

He actually did leave Kai notes saying that he didn’t belong here and ended up asking him for help because Kai definitely drunkenly told Jay about not belonging.

And Kai helped give him the courage to confess along with him.

The others help him by teaching him how to be more understanding, more caring, more open, less overreacting. He is also taught how to loosen up, since he tended to panic at the drop of a hat, and they helped him see the brighter side of things, making him even more of a positive thinking person, because he did think positively, he just... also panicked a lot.

Jay definitely thinks he deserves a Medium Place.

Torture methods include: not being able to speak for awhile, Cole always talking to him, wondering where he truly belongs, etc...

Others

okay so Wu is Michael, the architect, like I said. he hates humans for awhile, but then ends up legit learning from them and liking them in the end

Garmadon is Shawn, the Bad Place leader guy. He hates humans, especially the four and wants them in The Bad Place.

Pixal is Janet. She knows everything and with every reboot Wu puts her through, she becomes more human, much like the Good Janet in the show. Also, to call for her, just say Pixal.

I saw someone say Harumi is Bad Janet and I love that ?? So much?? I’d say she’s either Bad Janet or like, Trevor. I like that.

Skylor honestly seems like a Mindy St. Claire who lives in The Medium Place type, you know? She helps them out and stuff.

I think I might stick with The First Spinjitzu Master as the Judge...

Lloyd was a tricky one. Like, he doesn’t fit in with the four humans, so I was thinking, maybe Lloyd as Vicky? Like he pretends to be the Real Kai Smith? And then instead of staying an evil demon the whole time, he ends up joining the group as a good guy. Maybe? Anyone else have ideas?

Nya is also tricky. I think she doesn’t die. She was the person who tried making Kai a better person. Like, she tried really hard. And (SEASON THREE SPOILERS) she would be the person Garmadon selects to be in the testing neighborhood to make Kai angry because that’s not fair and they have to wipe her memory because Kai really wants her to get to The Good Place and needs to prove that she can improve with the others (END SPOILERS)

What if Dareth was Derek? hA

anyways, that’s all for now! I’m super tired! I hope you guys like these, and that they don’t suck! Does anyone agree? Disagree? Etc... (sorry I am so tired but FSM I forking love this show so much guys)

[aweebwrites]

Papa Wu Pt.2

(This one is for my discord pals! UwU I love you guys!)

__________________

Part 1

__________________

After everything that has happened with Lloyd suddenly aging up, the Dark Island incident where Nya and Morro got corrupted (He almost blew them all off the Garmatron and it was a loooong drop. Thankfully, corrupted Zane iced him over on accident when trying to attack Kai.) And of course, the Overlord. But now that was all over and they were all hanging out in Garmadon's newly built Monastery.

Lloyd arrived after attending a formal party thanking him for saving Ninjago exhausted. Conversing with that many people wore him down. He was just glad to be home. He smiled once he noticed Morro, Kai and Nya spending time with the Ultra Dragon. He landed before them, making the golden dragon disappear right after.

"Guys, hey." He says with a smile, walking over to them.

He frowned once none of them acknowledged him.

"Did I... Do something wrong?..." He asked, confused.

"Did you hear something?" Kai asked, pointedly ignoring Lloyd.

"Nope." Nya says, feeding Rocky's head a toad and liver.

"Did you here something Better Lloyd?" Morro asked Wisp's head as he nudged him.

"Guys, come on-"

"I don't think he does." Nya spoke up. "Better Lloyd actually remembers we exist and takes time out to visit us, not to just come back and go straight to bed." She says pointedly.

"I've been-"

"Better Lloyd knows just how much we want the best for him and appreciates our efforts for him to take a break, not sneak off." Kai huffed.

"I'm sorr-"

"And let's not forget Better Lloyd knows better than to flaunt his powers like some kind of rodeo clown. He knows being the golden ninja is a big responsibility that should be taken seriously." Morro says, looking at Lloyd with narrowed eyes.

"Ok, alright. I get it. I messed up." Lloyd sighed as they all stood before him with crossed arms. "But I promise to take a few days off and not sneak out and not show off my powers, ok?" He says and all three siblings looked at each other before nodding, satisfied.

"Now. dinner's ready." Nya says, ushering him in, her brother's following behind her.

_________

"What are you doing?" Kai asked, walking over to his older brother from where he was seated at an opened window, scrolling through his phone.

"I have a new idea for a vehicle so I'm trying to find heavy duty hydraulic jacks." Morro says, glancing over at Kai as he walked over.

"Sounds heavy." Kai says, glancing at his phone as he scrolled through Jungle.com. "Wait!" He yelled, startling Morro and almost making him fall out the window.

"Dude!" He hissed at him, heart pounding a mile a minute.

Sure he can use his wind to catch himself but that doesn't erase initial shock!

"But check out those slippers! They're-"

"Not what I need." Morro says irritably as he got up and started walking away.

"But Oreo!" Kai called after him.

"I thought I told you not to call me that?!" He says with a glare over his shoulder.

"I dare you to buy the slippers." Kai says, smirking when Morro stopped in his tracks. "... Then give them to Pops. In person."

"Why would I-"

"Chicken." He smirked and Morro tensed.

"Fine. But when I do it, you have to do a dare. And you can't say no." Morro says with narrowed eyes.

"Deal." Kai says with a grin.

Morro only smirked as he turned away.

"... I have a feeling I just lost that bargain." Kai says after a moment, a feeling of dread washing over him.

___________

"Hey papa." Nya says as she walked in on him and Garmadon having a conversation.

"Yes, what is it Nya?" Wu asked her as she walked over.

I was wondering if I can get a new gi colour." She says and both brothers rose a brow.

"Why is that? Maroon is a good colour for you." Wu says, intrigued.

"Well, I like it and all but I feel like all it says is 'Kai's sister', not water ninja." She says with a wince, rubbing her arm.

"... Well. If that is how you feel, I am open for suggestions." Wu nods and Nya blinked, not expecting him to agree in any way or form.

"I... Didn't expect to get this far." She says with a nervous laugh. "Can I... Think of something then get back to you?" She asked sheepishly.

"Certainly." Wu says, smiling at his daughter who beamed.

"Thanks Papa! See you later Uncle!" She called back as she ran off.

"I never knew they'd be a day." Garmadon says to his brother with a smile.

"They're all wonderful children. There are an unstoppable force when they decide to put their heads together but every moment is worth it." Wu says fondly, picking up his cup of tea and taking a sip.

"I'm glad. They're close to Lloyd too. I'm just glad he had someone to watch out for him, no matter how late in his life." Garmadon sighed and Wu placed his hand on his shoulder.

"He understands that you could not be there brother." Wu told him firmly and Garmadon have a weary smile.

"Well-"

"If Nya's getting a gi change, so am I!" Morro yelled, tucking and rolling once he came through the open window, a gust of wind following him. "Here it is." He says, placing down a detailed sketch of his gi now but with different themes.

"... Cole is already the black ninja Morro." Wu pointed out.

"I wouldn't be all black. You're missing the greens." He says, gesturing to them. "Nya had two colours before so I can take off that." He says and Wu looked at it closely.

Then again, despite his gi being a darker green than Lloyd's he kept being mistaken for him with his hood on and it never stops irritating him...

"Very well. We'll use this colour scheme for your next gi." Wu agrees and Morro grinned.

"Thank you papa." He says, giving him a hug before turning to leave.

"And next time, use the door! And tell Kai and the others 'no' when you see them." He called after him.

"Will do." He smirked before leaving the brothers alone again.

Garmadon couldn't help but chuckle then.

"Spirited, aren't they?" He smiled.

"Understatement brother." Wu chuckled.

____________

Jay looked both ways in the hall before heading towards the back where Nya was planning the new blueprints to recreate the Destiny's Bounty. He only has one shot at this. Kai and Morro were busy playing video games with Lloyd as Cole and Zane took sides so he only had 10 minutes or so until one of them notice he's missing. He walked quickly ahead, toward the exit. He was going to make it!

He grunted once he walked straight into someone's chest. He blinked then looked up, the colour leaving his face as cold green eyes looked down at him.

"And where... Do you think you're going? Hmm?" Morro asked, crossing his arms.

"Um... Definitely nowhere near Nya?" Jay squeaked, backing up.

Morro flicked his finger at him and Jay yelled as he was thrown back, grunting as he hit the wall. He groaned then rubbed his head, looking up. He felt even more terrified once Morro wasn't there. He swallowed. He had no chance.

Not when Nya's brother was a freaking ghost.

__________

"Papa." Wu turned around to look at his eldest son from here he stood at the door, his hands behind his back.

"What can I do for you son?" He asked as he walked towards him.

"Nothing really. I just..." He says, trailing off before holding out a package for him. "I got this for you." He says, holding out a package and Wu blinked then took it.

"Thank you son." He says with a smile and Morro returned it albeit...

Forced.

"Go ahead. Open it." Morro urged and Wu set it down on a table then opened the box carefully.

He blinked once he looked at what was inside. They certainly were creative.

"Ah. New slippers. Thank you so-" Wu cut himself off when he turned back to his son- but found no son there. "... I suppose he was in a rush." He says then looked back to the slippers and felt them.

Soft.

_______________

"Hey Zane, where did you get your nails done?" Cole asked him, genuinely curious as he walked into the room.

That shade of blue was a good look on him.

"Nya and Morro did them just now. I rather like them." He says, looking them over.

Each of his index fingers were painted black and held a snowflake done in white, glittery polish. Cole took his hand and whistled low as he got a closer look.

"Any chance they'd do mine?" He asked.

"If you're quick enough. After Morro finishes Lloyd's, Nya will be doing his hair." Zane told him and Cole wasted no time heading up to their room, following the smell of nail polish

He walked in to see Morro concentrating as he applied a golden pattern of some sort to Lloyd's black index nails, his own nails a darker green colour, the index black with the symbol for wind in grey.

"Oh, Cole. You here to get your nails done too?" Nya asked, looking over her medium blue one, a light blur water drop pattern on her black painted index fingers.

"Yeah. I saw Zane's and got jealous." He says as he sat.

"You came just in time. I was about to see how much trouble I can get in for streaking my hair like Morro." Kai says, holding up red hair dye that matched well with his red and black nails.

"Let me know when it goes down." Cole grinned as he sat before Nya at her request.

She immediately reached for the brown nail polish amongst the several she had before her.

"How did you guys get so good at nail paint?" Cole asked as Nya perfectly applied the first coat to his nails.

"Well, our pops played the roll of both mom and dad so when I got interested in painting my nails as a kid, he let me practise on him. Morro is shit at painting them but he can make patterns professionally." Nya says, dipping the brush in the polish again.

"Sensei Wu must have been a rad dad." Cole hummed, giving his fingers a wiggle before she began painting them again.

"The best." All three siblings agreed before grinning.

"All done. If you smudge that dragon I will strangle you with my charger wire." Morro threatened Lloyd as he looked over the tiny dragon on his fingers.

"Wouldn't plan on it." Lloyd grinned at him.

"Wanna get your hair streaked with us Lloyd?" Kai asked, holding up the green hair dye.

"Eh, why not?" Lloyd shrugged and Kai grinned deviously.

_______________

The next day, everyone gathered for breakfast.

"Lloyd... What- what did you did to your hair?" He asked him.

"Do you like it?" He asked, fliddling with the lock of hair dyed green.

"I think it looks good on him." Nya says, wrapping a hand around his neck with a grin on her face, her own hair holding a streak of blue.

"It's a sibling thing, you guys wouldn't understand." Kai says, boasting his hot red streak of hair proudly.

"Just to make things clear, they're the amateurs. I'm the original." Morro says with a smirk, his cheek in his hand and he usual green streak of hair brighter.

"Nice nails Sensei Garmadon!" Jay called out and Garmadon looked at his black and white nails.

"Thank you. Nya did them for me." He says with a smile her way.

"What's all the commotion?" Wu asked as he walked in.

"No commotion Sensei. Only hair and nail appreciation." Zane says with a smile.

"I have one question for you though Sensei." Cole says seriously and Wu looked at him curiously.

"Go ahead." He consented and Cole took a deep breath.

"WHAT ARE THOSE???!!!" He yelled, pointing out his bread slippers and near hysteric laughter ensued from the younger generation.

"Oh. They my slippers. Morro got them for me. They're rather comfortable." He says with a proud smile once their laugher withered a little.

"You- you like them?" Kai says, surprised.

"Yes. They're rather creative and comfortable. They're good on the back as well." Wu says as he walked over to the stove to set on some tea.

"Huh. Talk about a twist." Kai says and Morro smirked.

"Speaking of. There's still a bet you have to do..." He says and Kai swallowed before putting on a brave face.

"Name it. I can do whatever." He smirked at his brother.

"Good. Because I dare you..." All eyes were on them now, curious, anxious even. "To... Be my slave for the rest of your life." He says and everyone gasped at that.

"Isn't that a little extreme Morro?" Garmadon pointed out and he sighed.

"Fine. I dare you to go an entire week without hair gel then." Morro rectified and Kai was the only one left gasping.

"Actually! I'd rather be your slave!" Kai yelled.

"Nope. Too late. No more hair gel starting tomorrow." Morro says dismissively and Kai slouched.

"Actually, now that I think about it, that's pretty good." Jay says to Cole who nodded.

"It would be most amusing." Zane agrees.

"Don't worry cuz. You'll live." Lloyd grinned and Kai groaned, placing his head on the table.

_____________________

(Hey! So this was done in a shorts format but my inner dankness spilled in this fic. Oops. But I have a lot of fun with this! I hope you guys liked it!)

[vylad243]

Morro and Harumi Headcanons.

Might include spoilers? Maybe? I don't know what you've seen.

There may or may not be over a hundred:

• Morro called Harumi 'Jade' instead of 'Princess'

• Harumi calls him 'Breeze' in return

• Morro and Harumi's friendship started because of their hatred of the FSM

• Morro helped reconnect Harumi with her parents when she died

• Morro braids Harumi's hair

• Harumi taught Morro how to dance

• Following a certain theory that I might post soon, Morro and Harumi visit Ninjago to make sure everyone is okay.

• Morro and Harumi greet the bounty every time her op ass dies

• Harumi likes to see how far she can step before she pisses Morro off

• Harumi tries to convince Morro and the FSM to fight all the time

• Harumi will use Morro as a "Date" for dances and parties and such whenever she gets the chance

• Harumi and Morro are constantly sassing each other

• Harumi likes Morro's elemental dragon and she tries to talk him into always having it out.

• Harumi once tried to get Morro to visit his parents in the departed realm but when he kept refusing she gave up, not wanting to push him.

• Morro once called Harumi his cousin and she freaked out, forgetting he was adopted by Wu, he hasn't done it since.

• Harumi called Morro 'Sour Green' once.

• It bothered Morro because there is a colour called 'Lime Green'

• Harumi will walk up to Morro with random rocks and ask him to identify if because he was once a miner and probably knew a lot about rocks

• Harumi found out Morro really like Amethysts and likes to say his favorite colour is purple, which he never denys 🤔

• Harumi likes to watch Morro's and the FSM's arguements and will occasionally eat popcorn during these

• Harumi is a bit afraid of how Powerful Morro is compared to the Ninja

• Morro showed Harumi all the best places in the departed realm and also showed her how to look upon other realms

• Harumi clings to Morro like a bat whenever they past the Great Devourer in the departed realm, the snake is surprisingly chill

• Morro has slight PDST from the cursed realm and Harumi feels useless whenever she watches him slightly freak out when it's mentioned

• Harumi learnt Morro likes hugs.

• She recently learnt only she can hug him.

• No matter how mad Morro gets at Harumi, he'll never let her suffer alone and will always be there when she needs someone

• Harumi hates that she can't help Morro in return though because he doesn't tell her anything, but she doesn't know that just her presence helps him

• Morro strongly recommends avoiding Harumi's adoptive parents in case they snap at her and he knows she's not emotionally prepared for that

• Harumi thinks Morro should get a service dog if they ever permanently stay in Ninjago

• He disagrees with her about that.

• Harumi and Morro get into alot of arguements about his safety once she found out he was actually allergic to a common metal found in alot in caves, hell if I know what it's called.

• Harumi feels like she's become a little too protective over Morro until she remembers the dumb shit he pulls

• Morro think that he's under protective of Harumi

• Morro tried his hardest to hide the fact he's half blind from her, the scar is so close to his eye, and how he moves his head, he feels like she already know, but she hasn't yelled at him yet so he's unsure (My headcanon hiiissssss)

• Harumi likes to call Morro 'Mini-god' and the Bounty 'Big God'

• It really gets him mad, but he loves her to much to say anything about it.

• Harumi likes Horror movies, but won't watch them, mention them, or talk about any near Morro because they scare him to no ends.

• It makes her really curious of what's in the Cursed Realm though.

• Morro likes puns.

• Harumi doesn't

• Morro can sing

• Harumi is mad he never does sing

• Morro can speak so many different languages it's ridiculous. He can speak Oni and Dragon too.

• Harumi want him to teach her, but she hasn't convinced him to yet. In reality she just wants to understand what he's saying half the time.

• Harumi and Morro insult each other every chance they get

• They don't do well separated

• English actually isn't his native language, he just learnt it at such a young age from Wu

• Morro is short and Harumi makes fun of it every chance she gets

• Harumi's favorite colour is actually yellow

• Harumi comes up with the craziest nicknames for him and he can't come up with any good ones, her personal favorite that he gave her was Onyx, but she really likes Jade too.

• Morro insults her in different languages

• Harumi doesnt like the second largest snake either

• Each time Harumi sees Morro cry she tries to cheer him up by saying "It's okay my life sucked too."

• He will passive aggressively say that she died when she was older then fourteen and she'll just hug him.

• Harumi and Morro's favorite spot is the waterfall in the departed realm despite Morro's anxiety with water

• Morro has heterochromia eyes, one green and the other is silver

• Harumi has pretty sky blue eyes

• Harumi and Morro like to insult Misko, the FSM, and Wu.

• They're both pretty socially awkward

• Harumi has tried to get Morro to tie back his hair

• Morro will stay up all night just to watch Harumi and make sure she's doing okay and not having any nightmares while she sleeps

• Harumi loves to sleep

• Harumi doesn't like fire to much, and ironically, Morro doesn't like water

• Harumi likes to lean against Morro

• They actually ignored each other's existence at first

• The first person Harumi saw in the departed realm was a childhood friend of her's

• The first person Morro saw was the FSM

• Yes they immediately got into an arguement

• Morro makes jokes about how Harumi took his plan, but little does he know his plan was the base to Harumi's plan, just different objectives, and outcomes, and boring stuff like that.

• Morro hates sleeping

• Harumi wonders if she would of been sent to the cursed realm despite redeeming herself, she also wonders that about Morro when he died again

• Morro hasn't told anyone that destroying the Cursed Realm was a stupid plan and that all realms use each other as pillars

• He also never said 'I told you so' when Djinjago was destroyed when the Cursed Realm fallen (Is that how you spell it)

• Harumi and Morro usually greet all those who pass into the departed.

• Morro has called the head writer in Cloud Kingdom stupid on multiple occasions

• Morro might be one of the only characters in Ninjago who doesn't have his destiny being written out by the people in Cloud Kingdom (I say this is a might, I'm not sure, but I'm sprinkling some theory juice in here)

• So technically he did prove destiny wrong since he gets to write his own now. (If the above is true)

• Harumi likes it when Morro does her hair

• Morro refuses to let Harumi touch his hair.

• Harumi is a bit jealous of Morro's powers, but that's only because she felt she could save her parents' life if she had them

• Morro would of most likely given Harumi his powers

• Harumi and Morro actually don't talk about Lloyd that much

• Harumi has tried to show Morro how technology works, but he's beyond that stuff.

• He thinks it's stupid, but doesnt care enough to turn back time to make technology never exist

• Morro actually finds a bit of pride being the first ever elemental master that was a villian, he thinks it's nice that it proves you don't have to become what others think you're going to be.

• Harumi thinks it's funny that Morro is kidna cheesy, but she excuses it because of his young age.

• Morro doesn't like being the youngest villian though

• Harumi thinks it's stupid that Wu puts so much pressure on kids

• Morro, despite having huge advantages against the ninja, liked to be fair and give then easier chances to beat him. (Like seriously, dude. You could of just phased through the FSM's shit. You didn't have to play by the rules)

• Harumi doesn't like The Overlord

• Morro questions how when The Overlord died he was sent to the departed realm instead of the Cursed Realm

• Morro never went to school and is purely self-taught, besides the things Wu taught him

• Harumi feel bad about everything she did

• Morro honestly couldn't care less about what he did

• Moror can play a guitar

• Harumi likes to visit Ninjago, she doesn't like how she has to hide everytime she does it though

• Harumi is afraid of what the FSM will do to her and Morro if they keep fighting with him

• Harumi really likes pearls

• Morro wanted to be a doctor when he was younger

• Harumi wanted to be like the Ninja until the Great Devourer Incident

• Morro made Harumi pet the Great Devourer once. He doesn't regret making her do that

• Morro's favorite flower is a lily

• Harumi's is either a Carnation or Devil's Paintbrush

• Morro is slightly irritated that the FSM made a giant snake that consumes everything in it's path and didn't take precautions to make sure it didn't do exactly what it did.

• Harumi will sometimes just agree with whatever Morro says

• Morro used to like the rain

• Harumi likes mysteries

• Morro once asked Harumi if her adoptive parents had kids, would the baby be the ruler because it's actual blood or if Harumi would because's she's the eldest and she was adopted at such a young age

• Harumi didn't know how to answer and said she believed the baby would

• Morro actually likes cuddles, he's just very selective

• Morro used to be friends with that Grundle he threw a stick at. He named it Honey.

• He never told Wu about his very dangerous pet

• Harumi likes sea creatures and the ocean. Again, mysteries

• Morro likes to read and used the read every chance he got

• Harumi asked Morro what it was like being Wu's student and he just pointed to the Great Devourer and walked away. She still doesn't know what that means

• Morro, despite accepting he's Wu's adoptive child, will fight anyone who says he's Wu's son.

• Harumi made one joke about how Morro should of used the water from his second death to help him survive his first death.

• He just responded with "That's not how boiling works"

• Morro likes to stargaze

• Harumi and Morro can both draw

• Harumi and Morro both don't like the idea of the other talking to other people, afraid they're gonna loose their best friend

• Harumi likes to pick grass from the Departed Realm and watch it fade away

• Harumi wants to learn how to play the piano

--------

And I'm gonna stop now, I need to save some hcs in case I need some more for later xD

[lloydskywalkers]

flicker

Been wanting to write something about this ever since the Ice Chapter premiered, I just couldn’t get it to come together in my head. I’m not sure if I love the result? But I do love Kai and I do love this dumb ninja family, so here it is anyways.  

Spoilers for season 11 btw!! (but not until the end, it jumps all over the series)

Kai’s always liked fire. He likes the way it dances, flickering back and forth and lighting up the dark. He likes the different colors it burns, how warm it feels when you get close. Fire’s a source of destruction, of course, he knows that — but it’s never been that way for him. Heat like that can be useful, he thinks. Heat like that can be used to heal, not to burn, people just have trouble seeing it that way, sometimes.

A lot of this is just a metaphor for himself, and yeah, Kai’s aware of that.

Kai runs hot — always has, always will.

It’s not a normal kind of hot, either, the kind of hot where he’s always moving too much, like the woman down the street claims. Kai runs unusually hot, and that’s not just him being dramatic, either. Kai runs hot enough to fool thermometers and doctors and Nya’s hand when she runs it over his forehead. He runs hot enough to radiate heat, enough that Nya’s calling him a furnace as soon as she learns what that is.

It’s not something he, personally, notices much. Kai lives in the forge — if he was always overheated, he’d be dead by now. Kai just runs at a temperate different than anyone else does, that’s all. It doesn’t bother him.

He has, of course, worried about it bothering Nya, but fortunately that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

“Kai?”

Kai drags sleep-heavy eyelids open, blinking in the dim light that filters from the half-patched holes in the roof of their tiny home. At first, he’s confused to why Nya’s tiny voice is waking him this early in the morning. The shop doesn’t open for another couple hours, and he’s pretty sure the forge isn’t burning down — he did remember to extinguish everything before he closed up, right?

Nya interrupts his flow of thought, tip-toeing across the creaking floor of their home. Her hair falls oddly, the fringe from the cut he’d wrangled it into sticking up all over her forehead. She stops at his bed, barely coming up to his eye-level as she stares at him with wide, dark eyes.

“Kai,” she hisses, this time more insistent.

Kai blinks again, runs a hand over his face, and sighs. “Wha’issit, Nya?”

Nya leans closer, bringing the threadbare edge of her blanket tighter across her shoulders. “I’m cold,” she whispers, sounding very much upset with the fact.

“Oh,” Kai says, awareness filtering back in as his heart sinks. Winter is coming on faster this year, and for all that Kai’s been good about saving up, they really can’t afford to have the heat on just yet. He’d been hoping that the forge alone would keep them warm until then, but apparently not.

He bites his lip, a familiar ache settling in his chest. Nya deserves better — way better, and Kai can’t give her it, and he’s trying his best but ever since their parents—

Nya seems to have finally lost patience with him, as she’s pushing at his arm.

“Move,” she grunts, shoving at his arm with tiny fingers. “C’mon, you big lug—“

“Nya, what—?” Kai moves his arm for her, confused — and she promptly crawls up into the space it was occupying, hauling herself into his bed as she clambers over his legs and—

“Oof, Nya, that’s my stomach—“

Nya ignores him, finally shoving him over enough that there’s a small space for her in his bed. She quickly burrows beneath the blankets, pressing herself up against him and shoving her freezing toes against his leg. Kai flinches back with a high-pitched yelp, fully awake now.

“Nya!” he hisses, rubbing his leg. “You’re freezing!”

“Duh,” Nya sniffs, shoving her face into his side. “Tha’s why I’m here.”

Kai frowns at her, fully prepared for a long lecture about where you stick your freezing toes, when she nuzzles her forehead into his chest, sighing contentedly as her shivers subside.

“Nice an’ toasty,” she murmurs, hugging his arm like he’s a particularly tough teddy bear.

Kai stares at her, his mouth still half-open even though the words have long left him. He finally sighs, shaking his head before laying it back onto his pillow, the hint of smile on his lips as he watches Nya’s full one.

He might not be able to afford heating right now, but at least he can do this, he thinks, wrapping his other arm around her so his little sister is pulled close.

*****************

It takes a few years, but Kai eventually learns that his proclivity to run hot is not, in fact, just a freak hiccup of his body. No, it’s due to something a whole lot cooler — or warmer, haha, since he’s the Master of Fire now, you know.

Well, he’s always been the Master of Fire, he guesses. He just didn’t know, unlike the rest of his…teammates? Partners? Kai watches the others out of the corner of his eyes, narrowing them shrewdly. Sensei Wu’s other chosen ninja are nice, of course — sure, they did a whole of of unnecessary showing off, in Kai’s opinion, but they don’t seem like they’re awful people. Just a little odd (a lot odd, in some cases), but so is Kai, as Nya’s told him.

Nya.

The reminder burns hot in his chest, and not in the nice way. Nya, his little sister, the one person on earth he cares most about, the person he’d sworn he’d die before letting anything bad happen to her—

Well. Something bad’s definitely happened to her, and Kai’s still alive.

Looks like he’ll have to make it up to her another way, he thinks hollowly, pulling his travel blanket tighter around himself as he leans back against one of the trees that line their campsite. Another way like kicking Garmadon’s charred, evil as—

“Hey, you’re the fire ninja, right?”

Kai looks up. The lightning ninja’s in front of him — Jay, right, because the earth ninja’s always calling him bluejay. He’s a good foot shorter than Kai, and a whole lot scrawnier, and Kai wouldn’t even consider him a threat if he didn’t know what he could do. Right now, though, the lightning ninja just looks tired. The fire from earlier’s long burned out, and his complexion looks paler than usual under the moonlight.

“Yeah,” Kai finally says. “That’s me.”

“Oh good,” Jay says, a grin pulling at his freckles. “I mean, I already knew that, but you know, just double-checking.”

Kai stares at him, about to ask what on earth he would need to double-check for, when Jay’s suddenly left his line of view and is sitting down next to him, leaning up against Kai’s tree with him.

“It’s pretty cold out tonight, huh?” Jay says, ignoring Kai’s stare as he pulls his travel blanket around himself, letting out a shiver. “Kinda wasn’t expecting it to get this cold, with how warm it was earlier when we had to haul Sensei around, but then I should know better. I grew up in the desert, you know? Well — kinda, I mean. I grew up outside of Ninjago City, on the edge of the desert, so it’d get super hot in the day, but then it’d get freezing when the sun went down—“

Kai continues to stare at him, momentarily lost for words. He’s on the verge of asking where Jay manages to keep all the air he has for chattering in him, because he’s a shrimp, when Jay suddenly scoots closer, his eyes lighting up.

“Hey, you’re like, really warm!” Jay informs him in delight. “Kinda like a thermos, or something.”

Kai blinks, then frowns. “I’m the Master of Fire,” he says, stiffly. “It’s a thing.”

“Well, yeah, I figured,” Jay says, seemingly unruffled by the go away vibe Kai is attempting to give off. “That’s why I came over to you in the first place, but I wasn’t sure, you know? ‘Cause Zane’s ice, and he’s always freezing, but Cole is earth and he’s definitely not made of rock, big softy.”

Jay has a fond look on his face as he talks about the others, and it leaves Kai with a weird kind of ache in his chest. Almost as if he wants to be part of that, whatever camaraderie the others have formed before he got there.

“Well,” Kai says, awkwardly. “I’m definitely warm.”

“Oh, yeah,” Jay agrees, somehow scooting closer. “It’s great.”

Kai eyes him narrowly. Jay has yet to explain why he’s decided to pile up next to Kai, by Kai’s tree, but he’s starting to get a sneaking suspicion.

“Hey,” Jay’s tone changes. His voice is suddenly serious, and Kai is almost taken about at the change in levity. “We’re gonna get your sister back, you know that, right?”

Kai blinks at him, words twisting in his chest, then looks down. “Yeah,” he whispers. “I know.”

They will, if it’s the last thing Kai ever does—

“I’m serious,” Jay says, his voice sincere. “We’re all in this together, right? And ninja look out for each other, which definitely includes their sisters.”

Kai looks back up at him, and Jay gives him a bright smile.

“Word of a ninja,” he says. “We’ll get her back.”

Kai looks at him for a moment longer, then looks back at the smoldering embers left from their fire earlier, suddenly blinking rapidly. There’s a thick kind of lump in his throat, the annoying kind that makes his eyes smart.

It’s just — it’s been a while since someone’s reassured him like that, much less cared enough to. A long time since someone’s sounded like they care about Nya �� like they care about him.

Maybe this team thing really is worth a try, Kai thinks, staring up at the few stars visible in the clouded night sky.

He finally closes his eyes, exhaling. Then drags them back open, feeling more at peace. “Thanks, Jay.”

There’s no reply, just a sudden weight as Jay’s head drops onto his shoulder. Kai’s brows draw into a glare, and he’s about to pull away and chew him out before there’s a soft, quiet snore. Kai’s eyebrows shoot up instead.

He’s already asleep — are you kidding me?

Kai gapes at him, the uninvited blue barnacle that’s using his shoulder as a pillow. He should shake him off. He really should, they aren’t that close yet.

But…

Jay looks remarkably peaceful snoring into his shoulder, and he doesn’t look as pale as he did earlier either, color flooding the spaces between his freckles. He’s long stopped shivering, too, and the grip he has on his blanket isn’t so white-knuckled.

And he did go out of his way to comfort Kai.

And Kai did use the word yet.

Kai finally sighs, shaking his head in defeat. “G’nite, Jay,” he yawns.

*****************

Kai’s fire gets a whole lot brighter after that, a whole lot quicker.

He also manages to pick up family members like it’s bargain day at the adoption grocery store, but by the time they’re a team of five instead of four, and Kai’s got a brand new baby brother to smother so Nya gets a break, he can’t find it in himself to mind. His fire has purpose now, something to burn hotter for, and he learns to find pride in that.

And then he fails, like he always does, and his fire falters.

Zane’s loss leaves him cold as the ice that lined the city was, and for a while, Kai loses himself. He tears himself from the others and wanders far enough that not even Lloyd or Nya can bring him back, and he tells himself he’s fine with that.

It’s only by the time they get Zane back, that Kai’s finally able to admit that isolating himself from everyone was a bit of a terrible idea.

Like, completely without foresight, pretty stupid, bit of a terrible idea.

“Lloyd, wait—“

“Just gotta check up with my dad, I’ll be right back, keep an eye on Zane!”

Kai sighs, running a hand over his face as he watches Lloyd scurry off. He bites back a curse. Darn it. Lloyd’s grown more in his absence, enough that Kai can’t read him like he could before he left (yet, just give him a week).

This doesn’t mean Kai’s at a loss — this is Lloyd, duh. But this does mean that Kai has no idea what’s going on in his little brother’s head right now, and that’s something Kai wants to know, because as much as he’d made a mistake in isolating himself, that mistake had nothing on the one he just made down in Chen’s ceremonial chamber.

Idiot, Kai curses himself again as he kicks at the ground, slowly making his way back across the courtyard to Zane. How had he messed up that badly? Lloyd had just lost the sheltered kind of wariness toward him too, the one he’d picked up after Kai had shot him down when he’d first tried to get the team back together, and now Kai’s gone and — and what, terrified him, or something?

Or something, Kai thinks glumly as he finally catches sight of Zane. Hopefully Zane doesn’t chew him out too, because he’s gotten enough of an earful from Nya.

Zane glances up at him from the step he’s sitting on as he draws near, his new eyes glinting in the sun pouring across the courtyard in front of Chen’s palace. He looks different than he did before, all silvery and metallic, but it’s still Zane, with his kind eyes and little half-smiles and even voice, and Kai’s missed him so much his eyes almost start watering all over again.

“Hey, bud,” Kai says, trying to inject cheer into his voice. It’s less difficult than he’d thought — despite the other events of the day, the joy at regaining Zane has yet to fade. “How you holding up?”

The corner of Zane’s mouth quirks up, and he jerks his shoulder in a little shrug. “I have yet to fall to pieces, so I am holding up well, I suppose.”

Kai knows it’s a joke, he does. But the image of Zane falling apart hits a little too close to home, and he cringes. Zane’s eyes widen briefly, realization clicking, and he ducks his head.

“Ah, forgive me,” he murmurs. “I guess that’s…too soon.”

“No, no, it’s—“ Kai bites his lip. It’s not fine, because in what world is Zane having died ever going to be fine, but for right now, standing on the edge of at least one victory with the sun shining… “It’s fine,” he says. “I’m glad you’re not falling to pieces. They did an okay job of putting you back together, then.”

Zane shrugs again. “As best that I could ask for,” he says. A shadow crosses his face. “It’s not the work of my father, but it allowed me to return to you. That is what matters.”

“Oh,” Kai says, blinking. He hadn’t even thought of that. He also doesn’t know how to begin approaching that one.

“I’m not complaining, of course,” Zane continues. “But I am—“ he rubs the edge of his wrist. “Still getting used to it,” he mutters. “The metal isn’t holding up to the cold like it used to. The joints feel frozen.”

Kai makes a sympathetic noise. “It’s might just be ‘cause you went without your powers so long,” he suggests. “Mine felt a little out of control for a second when I got them back, and you went way longer without them than I did.”

Zane tilts his head, considering this. “That would make sense,” he says. He rubs at his wrist again, a brief expression of pain crossing his face. Kai moves before he’s thinking, sitting next to Zane on the steps.

“Want help defrosting?” he offers. Zane eyes him, then lets him take his wrist. A flicker of relief crosses his face as Kai feels for the frozen spots in his arm, melting what he can with his powers and leaving the rest to his own warmth.

It’s a lot, compared to Zane, who’s cold as always. Kai’s hand tightens briefly around Zane’s arm, and he takes a shuddering breath. Zane is solid and alive beneath him, and the cold shiver of the blast that destroyed the Overlord he’s feeling is only in his head—

“Kai.” Zane’s looking at him, his eyes gentle. “I am alright.”

Kai’s lips tighten. “Yeah,” he says, thickly. “But you weren’t.”

Zane looks away, his eyes flashing. “I don’t regret what I did,” he says, stiffly. Something in Kai’s chest goes tight. “I can’t,” Zane continues, looking at Kai as if imploring him. “I can’t regret it, Kai. I am the only one who could have accomplished what I did. And if any of you had been lost, there would be no coming back. I am not going to apologize for keeping my family safe.”

They’re all too similar, Kai thinks, with a hopeless sort of despair. How is he supposed to argue with that?

“I-I get that,” he finally breathes, his grip on Zane’s wrist relaxing a bit. “But that doesn’t mean you’re expendable,” he murmurs. “You don’t have to take those hits.”

“I’m machine, Kai,” Zane says. “I can take hits you cannot—“

“That doesn’t mean you should,” Kai says, fiercely. “Why does somebody have to take the hits, anyways? Why can’t we just — dodge them, or something? Why can’t we all get out fine?”

Zane’s eyes widen, and Kai ducks his head briefly to hide the emotion he knows is swimming in his. Darn it.

He feels Zane tug his wrist from his grasp, only to immediately take his hand instead, squeezing.

“Next time,” Zane says, slowly. “We’ll try. All of us getting out fine, that is.”

Kai snorts, lightly knocking his head against Zane’s shoulder as the fire drains from him. “Next time,” he groans. “You really gotta give the universe that opening, huh.”

Zane smiles, a full one. “Would you prefer our lives be boring?”

Kai looks at him, and shakes his head with a tiny laugh. “Depends on your definition of boring,” he says, but he takes Zane’s wrist again, thawing out the last of the frozen spots with a flash of warmth. Zane lifts his wrist, rotating it twice and looking pleased.

“That is better,” he exhales in relief. “Thank you, Kai.”

“Anytime,” Kai grins. “Just make it up to me by never falling apart again.”

*****************

With most of its light taken, Kai’s fire burns lesser than it usually does, and he’s never been more infuriated with the fact.

Lloyd is half-frozen by the time they pull him from the Caves of Despair, blue-lipped and shivering, and Kai is tempted to push his slowly-returning powers to the max and light him a fire on the beach here and now.

But he can see Sensei bringing the ship around even now, and he knows that as soon as he could even get a fire started, they’d have to move Lloyd again. So he pulls Lloyd closer, his arm loped around his shoulders — too bony, too thin, too cold to be his brother’s — and hopes that he’s at least running warm, today.

Lloyd shudders, but he leans closer into Kai as they limp their way to the ship, and Kai figures that’s the best he can ask for right now.

Or it was, until they hit the deck and Lloyd’s suddenly going boneless, the last strength he’d been using to walk vanishing. Kai barely manages to catch him before he hits the ground, and then things go chaotic for a moment. Misako is gasping and Jay is giving a panicked little yelping sound, Zane sounds like he’s trying run a diagnosis and Nya looks like she’s crying and Sensei is trying to grab Lloyd away from him which Kai is not having, no thank you, Lloyd is staying with him and anyone else can keep their hands off—

Kai probably overreacts, a bit.

But Lloyd’s been in Morro’s grasp for weeks.

“S’not your fault,” Lloyd manages to get out between wracking shivers, once they’ve brought him belowdeck. There’s not much on board but a pathetic excuse for a couch they’re using as an even more pathetic excuse as a sickbed, and even though they’ve smothered him in the few blankets they have, they’re still on the ocean, Lloyd is still in a soaked gi, and some boats just don’t believe in proper heating systems.

Nya hushes him gently, working at the outer layer of his gi that’s stuck to his skin. She’s trying to get to his wrist, Kai thinks, because he can see the awful purpling of skin beneath where the fabric’s torn.

Lloyd looks down, damp strands of blond — blond, not black, Kai’s never appreciated the color more — hair hanging in his face as he wrings the edge of his gi out with trembling fingers, watching as the river water puddles on the floor. Kai swallows. The water that’s dripping from his elbow has turned a rusty, reddish color, as if it’s run into half-dried wounds somewhere beneath Lloyd’s gi.

If, Kai realizes with a sick swoop, is probably an incorrect term.

Nya gives a muttered curse, fussing over a spot near his neck. “This might be infected,” she murmurs, her voice tight. “It’s hard to tell with the bruising, but this cut down here definitely is, so…”

Nya trails off. Lloyd says nothing, his eyes hollow as he stares at the floor, and Kai feels something painful close down on his chest. Weeks. There are weeks of wounds and bruises on his brother, and Kai knows too well which ones he put there himself—

Nya’s hand falters as she reaches the clasp on his gi that stretches over his chest, and her face goes white for some reason. She swallows, her jaw working before she shakes her head.

“I’m not sure how much we can do for him here,” she says, her voice tight. “But I’ll get Zane. He may be able to help.”

She squeezes Lloyd’s shoulder before she goes, her expression set and strong in comparison to Lloyd’s hazy gaze.

Kai catches her dashing at her eyes as she goes, though, and he knows he isn’t the only one blaming himself.

Brushing those thoughts off, Kai scoots his seat closer to Lloyd, taking up his hand where Nya left it. The least he can do is wrap the scrapes, he thinks, as he watches Lloyd carefully. His lips are still tinged blue, and the hand Kai is wrapping is far too pale to be his little brother’s. He’s too cold, Kai thinks again, with a fiery burst of anger. He’s too thin to hold in heat right now, gaunt and wasted away as Morro’s left him. His face is ashy white and his cheekbones too pronounced and FSM, if Morro’s gone and killed the last of Lloyd’s baby fat with this—

Lloyd shivers violently, his teeth clacking on a plaintive, pained whimper, and Kai tears himself from the hot rage building in his gut.

“You okay?” he asks quickly, before realizing that’s a stupid question. “I can go grab you another blanket, and — there might a spare hoodie somewhere, so you aren’t stuck in that—“

Kai moves to stand, figuring he’ll send Cole in to keep watch while he’s gone, because he’s not leaving Lloyd alone for another second, when Lloyd’s hand suddenly latches around his wrist, cold fingers holding tight.

“S-stay,” Lloyd manages. “Please?”

Kai blinks, his heart twisting even as he frowns. As if he’d ever be able to say no to that.

“You’re freezing,” he tries. “You gotta get warm, Lloyd, I’m just gonna grab—“

“You’re warm,” Lloyd rasps, his eyes panicked. “You’re — I haven’t — it’s just been — him and me, for so long, and—“

Lloyd stutters over the words, as if speaking itself is unfamiliar, and frustration flashes across his expression. His fingers skirt the edge of his forehead, as if reassuring himself he’s the only one in it. Then his fingernails start digging in tight, and Kai’s sliding onto the couch next to him, hastily tugging his hand away.

“Okay,” he says, quickly. “I’ll stay. I’m staying.”

Lloyd’s shoulders sag in relief, even as another shudder wracks him, and Kai moves closer on the couch, pulling Lloyd to him. Lloyd leans into him with a soft noise of relief, wincing briefly as his arm shifts before settling. Kai’s briefly debating the wisdom of starting a fire on a tiny wooden ship in the middle of open sea, when Lloyd speaks up.

“Thanks for — saving me,” he whispers, his voice cracked and ragged in the quiet of the cabin.

Kai bites his lip. “I didn’t do much,” he mutters, angry at himself. “You still got dropped in the river. You still spent weeks—“

“S’fine, Kai,” Lloyd’s quiet voice interrupts him. A ghost of a smile crosses his face. “I liked how you t-tricked him with the Realm Crystal. Was funny.”

“Oh yeah.” Kai blinks, remembering the low fire he’d been able to draw up to heat the crystal with. “Hey, you like that, just wait until I get a clear shot at his face.”

Lloyd gives a shivering snort, burying his face more firmly into Kai’s side. Kai wants to argue that he should go for the blanket — Kai took a swim in the river too, and he’s not dry himself at the moment, even if he’s not chattering his teeth apart like Lloyd is.

But Lloyd seems to disagree, clearly finding some sort of comfort from him. His shivers begin to ebb, the awful tightness in his shoulders relaxing as he slumps against Kai, his face hidden in his gi. Kai adjusts his hold, pulling Lloyd closer with both arms, as if he can will the heat from the fire in his veins to cross over to Lloyd through osmosis.

Lloyd gives a shuddery breath, his fingers wrapping tight around the edge of Kai’s gi. “I don’ wanna go to the museum alone anymore,” he whispers, his voice thick.

Kai’s arms tighten more, his eyes burning. “You’re not going anywhere alone,” he says, his voice raw. “Ever again. You got that? I’m not letting you go, ever.”

Lloyd makes a snuffled noise of what might be amusement. “Gotta lemme go eventually,” he mumbles.

Kai shakes his head, even though he knows Lloyd can’t see the gesture. As if. He presses his head against the top of Lloyd’s, damp hair tickling his face as he assures himself that he’s there.

He’s failed to protect Lloyd one too many times, now. If something like this happens again, someone’s gonna die.

“Good luck getting rid of me, runt,” he murmurs.

*****************

Kai’s fire is tested, again and again, but the biggest test doesn’t even come down to fighting — it comes down to the forge, right back where he started, and the irony isn’t lost on him.

At least the FSM had the foresight to chose one blacksmith for his ninja, he thinks sourly, after realizing how close they’d all come to dying horribly.

Some of them much closer than others.

He spends the first few hours after the battle’s won in a panic, latching onto Lloyd much like he did when he still barely came up to his knee (Lloyd will argue that him growing several feet taller didn’t change anything, but Lloyd is an ungrateful brat, so). The image of his little brother lying motionless on the monastery stone, cold and sightless and gone, is still too fresh, and with all that Lloyd’s been through recently, and all that Kai’s had to stand back and watch, he’s not planning on detaching anytime soon.

But Lloyd isn’t the only one he’d almost lost — Cole had been lost too, for a minute there, and that reminder scrapes in his throat like sandpaper. Lloyd must notice, because he gently pushes Kai away, assuring him that he’s fine, he’s good now, and Nya’s got an eye on him anyways.

“I think Cole could use you, too,” Lloyd finishes, his eyes concerned.

Kai, more worn out than he’d thought he could be after a day, simply nods, squeezing Lloyd’s arm briefly before getting to his feet. He trudges through the monastery, picking his way over fallen beams and rubble. It doesn’t take him long to find Cole — none of them are eager to wander very far, preferring to stay close to each other.

So they can remind themselves they’re all alive, Kai thinks, something tight in his chest unwinding as he spots Cole, leaning against the edge of the wall that holds their paintings, eyes fluttering as he basks in the waning sun. Kai halts just at the edge of the wall, studying Cole briefly, before Cole speaks up.

“How’s Lloyd?”

Cole’s voice is quiet, but he doesn’t sound as wrecked as Kai does. “He’s alright,” Kai says, moving forward and sitting cross-legged on the stone next to Cole. “Kinda shaken up, I think, but he’s a tough little green machine.”

“Thank FSM for that,” Cole murmurs, leaning his head back against the wall. Kai nods, then frowns.

“Where’d the others get off to?” It’s odd that they’d leave Cole alone — Jay’s been an especially clingy barnacle, his face pinched and concerned as he’d stuck to Cole after the battle. Zane hadn’t been much better, flitting between Cole and Lloyd like an anxious, manic sort of nurse.

“Jay busted his ankle during the battle,” Cole sighs. “He would’ve gotten away with it if Zane hadn’t caught him limping, so they’re patching that up in the monastery.”

“Ah,” Kai says, internally wincing. He hadn’t even noticed Jay’d been hurt. He’d been so focused on—

“I’m fine, you know,” Cole says, his eyes still closed where he leans against the wall. “In case you were thinking of going off like a mother hen, too.”

Kai narrows his eyes at him briefly. Cole has been claiming he’s fine ever since he sprung from his vehicle like a big smug hero, but it doesn’t take a genius to spot the ugly bruising that’s spanning the back of his neck and shoulders, the haunted look that still lingers on his face.

But Cole looks as exhausted as he is, so Kai swallows the sharp retort he’s forming.

“Please. Me, a mother hen?” he snorts instead. “Have you met me?”

Cole laughs at that, a real, warm laugh that sounds like Cole again, and Kai feels rather pleased with himself. Cole’s expression tightens briefly, and he shifts, a hissing escaping his teeth as he rubs his left shoulder.

“Cole,” Kai says.

“Yeah, I know,” Cole grumbles, sounding resigned. “Let me have my dignity for five more minutes, alright?”

Kai chews on the inside of his cheek, glaring at him. Cole’s eyes are still closed, but he seems to sense the stare he’s getting, because he sighs, his head dropping as he scrubs at his eyes.

“I just…there’s sun out here,” he finally murmurs. “You can’t feel it as well inside.”

Kai frowns at that, confused. “What do you need the sun for?”

Cole looks up, the reddening sunlight glinting in his dark eyes, and it suddenly hits Kai. Oh. He’s just a moron, then. Of course Cole wants to see the sun, he just fell into a death cloud of eternal darkness.

“Oh,” he says lamely, probably sounding like an idiot.

Cole shakes his head, his eyes going haunted again. “I didn’t…think I’d see it again,” he exhales on a ghost of a laugh. “It was so dark, you know? I didn’t — I wasn’t giving up, but I…it was…”

Cole trails off, his expression shadowing. “It was cold,” he murmurs, flexing his hand and watching the veins shift. “It was so cold. Like I’d never be warm again, like I was—“

Cole swallows, his jaw working, and Kai is pretty useless right now, but at least Cole’s given him something. Cole’s hand fists in on itself again, tight and rigid, and Kai grabs for it with a huff, forcing his fingers to relax.

“You’re gonna break something, stop that,” he chides.

Cole goes tense, but he doesn’t pull away, watching as Kai drags his fingers back open, until Cole looks slightly more relaxed. Kai moves to pull his hand away, but he shifts closer to Cole, so his arm is bumping his. This would work a lot better if Cole had kept up the sleeveless tradition, Kai think sourly as he brings the fire in his veins up a few degrees hotter, but something in Cole’s expression fractures and eases out all the same, and he leans heavier against Kai.

Good enough, Kai figures.

Cole’s eyes flutter, the stress lines in his forehead easing out before his eyebrows furrow briefly. “You aren’t running a fever, are you?”

“Nah,” Kai shakes his head. “That’s just me, remember? Too hot to handle."

Cole snorts. “Always a hothead,” he murmurs, but he sounds infinitely grateful for the fact, and Kai feels a flare of pride burst in his chest.

“Rock for brains,” Kai shoots back, but it comes out disgustingly fond.

*****************

Irony’s always been a big player in Kai’s life, but it doesn’t get really cruel until they’re in a realm of perpetual cold, where fire is desperately needed and would really come in handy, and his fire is gone.

It hadn’t hit him, at first. Sure, Aspheera dangling him in the middle of the tomb like a rag doll and forcibly tearing the fire out of him hadn’t been fun — had hurt like heck, actually, he thinks as he rubs a hand across his chest. But he’d been able to get up and walk it off.

It wasn’t until he tried to call up his powers to save someone from the fire snakes that he met a horrible, gaping emptiness in his chest, immediately followed by a blistering cold that cut him to the core.

That same cold cuts him even now, like it has this whole fantastic experience. It doesn’t matter how many layers he’s got on, or how high he had cranked the heat, Kai still feels cold. He feels cold even under the sweltering heat of Aspheera’s ugly fire-snake zombies — mummies — whatever they are, and he definitely feels cold now that they’re wandering though frozen wastelands.

Though this is more of a deathly freezing, Kai thinks bitterly, his arms quaking from shivers where he’s wrapped them around himself.

He hisses through his teeth, watching his breath mist up in the air in front of him. They’re lucky to have found the villagers, he knows that. They’d probably be dead if they hadn’t, and isn’t that a pleasant thought. But even walking through the small village leaves him feeling half-dead, and the look on the faces of the villagers isn’t a whole lot better. They’re freezing too, have probably been freezing for decades, and that makes Kai’s chest hurt in a way the loss of his powers doesn’t.

And they’re not the only ones, Kai thinks with a pang, as he shifts his way into their tent. The others don’t look as bad as they did earlier, shivering next to him through the forests, but it’s still bad. Jay’s constantly hopping from foot to foot, his freckles standing out with definition against the white of his face. Cole seems slightly less bothered at first glance, but it’s easy to see the constant fear he’s holding back if you know him, the way he keeps looking to the sky in search of the sun.

Nya’s stubbornly fighting back shivers, but her stubbornness is matched by her frustration at her powers, and she’s fighting a losing battle. (Kai can sympathize.) And Lloyd — Lloyd is doing his absolute best to hold them all together like he has been this whole thing, eyebrows set in the determined kind of stubbornness he gets with his leader face, but ninety percent of the sentences he gets out are punctuated by his teeth chattering, and his arms are wrapped around himself so tightly Kai wonders if he’s going to snap in half.

The absence of Zane is biting as usual, and Kai’s trying not to think about it too hard. Bad memories, and all that.

They’re gonna get him back sooner this time — they will.

And they could probably do it a lot faster if Kai’s stupid powers would work—

But they won’t, Kai thinks, blinking back frustration. He’s lost his — no, he hasn’t just lost his powers. He’s lost his fire, his heat, the one thing he’s always been able to do right even when he was messing everything else up.

Kai’s got nothing. He can’t help these people, he can’t help his family, and he can’t even help himself. He’s useless.

The wave of completely crippling despair that keeps trying to drown him is not helping, either.

Kai huddles tighter in on himself where he sits on the constructed bench, biting his lip in an attempt to get his teeth to stop chattering. Not — definitely not to hold back tears, or anything. That’s not — he’s useless, but he’s not—

Nya suddenly materializes in front of him, kicking lightly at his leg with her foot.

“Scoot over,” she orders. Kai blinks at her, then complies, shifting over and wincing as he does. Even moving hurts in this cold.

Instead of keeping her distance, like he’d expected, Nya shoves herself right into his personal space, knocking their elbows together and shoving his over until she’s tucked against him, the end of her ponytail just tickling the edge of his chin.

Kai’s about to ask her what she’s doing — not that he minds, but they’re in front of the villagers right now — but then Lloyd’s barging his way against his other side, scooting in close and muttering something about Nya being a space hog. Nya sticks her tongue out at him from where she’s taken over Kai’s right arm, and Lloyd makes a face at her from where he’s wrapped around his left.

“Guys, what—“

As if being sibling-sandwiched wasn’t enough, Cole and Jay are suddenly there, coming in for the kill as well apparently, and there really is not enough room on this bench—

“Guys, for real.” Kai’s voice comes almost muffled from where he’s smothered on all sides by his family, now unable to move for an entirely different reason. He manages to shift slightly, but Lloyd’s got a death grip on his arm — the urchin — and doesn’t let him get any further.

Kai goes limp, exhaling.

“Guys, I’m not…” he trails off, biting his lip. His jaw clenches tightly, and he blows a shuddery breath out. “I’m not gonna warm you up this time. I don’t have any heat left.”

Jay snorts. “So?”

Kai blinks at him, and Cole shakes his head from where he’s plastered at Kai’s back. “Not the point,” he sighs.

“It’s never just ‘cause the heat, you know,” Lloyd says, quietly. “We like you for you. There’s a personality in there, too.”

“S’just our turn to warm you up,” Nya says. “That’s all. Fair’s fair, right?”

Oh. Words are escaping Kai at the moment, along with any other ability to make sounds come out. He really does have to blink back emotion this time, because it’s so cold any kind of moisture that sneaks its way out is going to freeze almost immediately.

But it’s also not quite as cold, all squished up by the others like this, and the blistering cold in Kai’s chest doesn’t ache so badly.

He might not have his fire, but he doesn’t really have nothing. He’s got his family. And that’s enough warmth to keep him going for now.

[eloquenceassassinated]

Hey! I was wondering if I could get a "DVD commentary" of Grass Whistle chapter three from "Really, should he be surprised that the guy who raised Zane turned out to be pretty awesome?" to "Technology has progressed in leaps and bounds since I last remembered it." I loved this part so much! Or, if you're feeling like sharing, commentary on the whole chapter, because it's amazing.

LOOK EVERYBODY SOMEBODY ASKED ABOUT MY BABY *COUGH*

FF.net is being a bother and not letting me upload any new documents to Grass Whistle, so in lieu of that, I’m going to take advantage of my little Ninjago writing kick to answer this lovely little ask!

VERY LONG RAMBLING BELOW THE CUT

Funny story - a big part of my journey into stanning Dr. Julien was the realization that everything that made Zane my favorite ninja is, in some way, all thanks to his dad. Lloyd is making a similar discovery here - Zane, who is a fantastic ninja and a great big brother and always willing to do the right thing, is an apple that hasn’t fallen far from his metaphorical tree.

Man, oh man, do I love the line “you were made to protect those who cannot protect themselves”. This post by @drjulien will only make you love it more. As far as headcanons go, I teeter on the edge between “DR.JULIEN TOTALLY KNEW HE WAS CREATING THE NEXT ICE NINJA HE KNOWS MORE THAN WE THINK HE DOES ILLUMINATI CONFIRMED” and “Dr. Julien found a weird power source that accidentally created the next ice ninja because science”. I write in such a way that I never show favoritism towards one or the other. Whether Julien knew that Zane would be the next ice ninja or not, it was Zane’s choice to pursue that path in the end. Dr. Julien is so proud of his son. So freaking proud.

On top of being a proud dad, Dr. Julien is also a kooky dad.

yes i know the gif is from the movie but it’s funny so fight me

Lloyd is a big kid, and he still pouts like one. My friend Candaru summed up best his frustration in this fic: “He wants to help and be noticed by the adults but he also doesn’t wanna fight his dad!!” It’s humiliating to him to sit on the sidelines when he’s supposed to be the green ninja, the most powerful one of the bunch. Dr. Julien understands his feelings of being ostracized, but he’s also heard how Misako and Wu address Lloyd (especially in the conversation in the Bridge the chapter before). He’s a robotics engineer. He knows that the central mechanism of a machine needs to be protected in order to run fewer risks of damage. He can see the wisdom in protecting the most important component in saving Ninjago - but that doesn’t stop him from feeling for this boy.

Okay, but bragging time - the reveal of the red mech was my favorite segment of this chapter to write. If you watch the show, you’ll see that one of the Stone Army’s war tanks has the caterpillar treads on these back legs that act like they’re on a spring mechanism. Lloyd’s been in “danger alert mode” for so long that as soon as he hears a sound similar to those “legs”, he’s ready to spring into action to protect Dr. Julien.But it turns out to be Nya. I always ask myself the filler questions when writing fanfiction: “Okay, but how did that thing get there?” In the show, Nya’s mech was ready for the boys in the back of the driller vehicle, and Dr. Julien and Lloyd were working on the latter, so obviously they would have seen the former at some point. The red mech looks like it’s of a different make than the driller, and kind of has that “Nya” flair - I don’t know how else to describe it - so I figured that she just built it herself, and the boys built a compartment into the driller vehicle just to be ready for her. So I wrote that in.

It’s been a long-standing headcanon of mine that Dr. Julien became good friends with (and unofficial Science Dad to) Jay and Nya after the Overlord was defeated, fostering their love of machines with his own. This is his first introduction to just how freaking talented Nya is. And boy, is he impressed. Lloyd is still a little kid and loves cool looking machines that can beat up bad guys. On the other hand, Dr. Julien is an old nerd who is BLOWN AWAY that someone as young as Nya could show so much expertise as to create something more flexible, sturdy, and powerful than his Juggernaut in such a limited time, with so few resources. 

Nya, for her part, idolizes Dr. Julien a little bit. She’s built enough machines herself to be able to grasp just how much genius had to go into building Zane, especially with a lower level of technology than is now available. I imagine she hadn’t really known how to approach him (and probably reasoned that it wasn’t as important as saving Ninjago), but the fact that he recognized her talent first is more than she could ask beyond her wildest dreams. senpai noticed me, etc., etc. lol

And yes, Dr. Julien is definitely serious when he says he wants to learn about new technology from Nya. He’d been cooped up in a workshop in a tree for several decades…and then he was dead for a little while…and then he was cooped up in a prison for who knows how much longer. Technology would have been marching on for a long time without him. He’s come to terms with this by now, so it’s not so much a matter of what he’s lost as it is navigating the possibilities in this exciting new world.I imagine he picked up Borg tech pretty fast too after this. A big part of working with technology is constantly learning; I have that on authority from my dad, a computer programmer. Dr. Julien knows this, and he’s too humble to try to get around the system. If these young people have something to teach him, he’s all for learning it, and as quickly as possible.

Lloyd, for his part, is just enjoying the banter. I imagine that he’s used to being talked around, pushed away, or put down by adults. To see some healthy, friendly interaction between a new adult and one of his friends is calming and reassuring, as well as just a lot of fun. Because they’re nerds. He’s categorizing Dr. Julien in whole new ways every time he sees how the doc treats one of his friends, and this one is another positive mark.

Thanks again for sending this ask! If anyone is interested in my fic, the first chapter is here! If anyone is wondering what this “DVD commentary” stuff is, this post should clear it up for you. Feel free to spread the fun and answer asks about your own fics!