#ninjago extinction

[juniperjellyfish]

Happy last day of pride everyone! Here’s an unedited sneak peak at Extinction Part Two

(REMEMBER, THIS IS UNEDITED)

“Kai, hurry up!” I pound the door and hear the rush of water go silent.

“Relax, Cole,” his muffled voice comes over the shuffling of clothes. He opens the door and lets me in.

I bite my tongue and hold back a gasp of shock as he stands there in gray sweats, towel in hand… and no shirt.

“You good?” He backs up and wrings out his shoulder length hair, dripping it into the bathtub.

I watch as he bends over and brushes his hair off with the towel. Averting my eyes, I grab my toothbrush and mutter a weak, “Yes.”

I put toothpaste on it, wet it, and start brushing my teeth as Kai continues talking.

“Ya know, with how many times we’ve rebuilt this place, you think we would’ve put in another bathroom.” He stands and flips his hair over his back like a model, sending a hot flutter through my chest.

I nod in agreement and force myself to look away.

“Wanna go a few rounds in Lava Zombie 2?” He leans into me casually and the heat from his skin makes my heart stop.

I spit out the toothpaste and wipe off my mouth with a tissue, “Oh, I- I- I should get some sleep. I have patrols with Zane in the morning.”

“That’s okay buddy.” He gives me that oh-so charming smile of his, “I get if you don’t want to lose your winning streak.” Kai cracks his knuckles and laughs with a hint of pettiness on his tongue.

“Ha ha, HairGel. You know you’ll never beat me.”

He tilts his head and smirks, looking me up and down. The way he bites his lip makes it seem as if I’m the size of an ant and he towers over me. “You’re probably right. Also,-“ he slicks his hair back and leans in closer to the mirror, “-you mind if I crash in your room tonight? Lloyd kinda took over my bed and that kid kicks like no other.”

“You know I snore right?” Where did that come from? Of course I want him to stay in my room!

He flexes his arms and smiles into his reflection. “Yeah, but I don’t feel like being a third wheel to Nya and Jay or Zane and Pix, plus Lloyd’s room smells overwhelmingly like candy.”

“Okay!” I purse my lips from my burst of excitement, “You can stay with me no-problem.”

“Thanks!” He puts his arm up on my shoulder and I stare at the floor, “I’ll just take your hammock.”

I clear my throat, “O-okay, do you need any blankets?” Of course he doesn’t! He never uses them! He’s the master of fire! He’s always hot!

Literally and figuratively.

Shut up.

“Ha!” He waved his hand at me, “The Master of Fire doesn’t need blankets!”

“Alright then, I’ll see you in a second.” I step out of the bathroom and glance back, admiring Kai’s dark golden skin, the small drops of water that roll down his back, the way his muscles flex when he moves, and…

Snap out of it, Cole!

I shake my head and walk silently into my room, images of him swim through my brain, making my cheeks burn.

I slide the door shut behind me and walk over to the window sill, basking in the warm pink and orange light that bleeds into the clouds like watercolors on paper.

Stepping back, my heart pounds in my ears while I slide open a black dresser drawer and pull out a woven hammock.

The thumping of the blood in my head drowns out the thoughts of Kai, at least until my door opens and artificial, yellow lights spill in, casting his perfect shadow across the floor.

“That was fast.” I laugh quietly, trying to hide the edge on my voice.

Kai walks over to me and takes one end of the hammock from me, “All I needed to do was brush my hair.”

We hang the hammock on the hooks in the walls and he hops in, swinging back and forth about waist high on me.

He puts his hands behind his head and speaks softly, “Thanks again, man.”

“Yeah,” I sit on the edge of my bed, “No problem.” Laying down, I close my eyes and pull a blanket over myself. My heart twists in my chest with an addicting pain.

This stupid crush is only getting worse.

If I made a move on him now, would he accept it?

Probably not, I doubt he even knows I don’t like girls like he does.

There’s always a chance that he would accept an advance, though… right?

The thought of me taking Kai’s hand and pulling him onto the bed with me explodes in my brain with a flash of color. The way I’d pull him under me and watch the steam rise off his body…

Nope!

My eyes snap open.

Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Stop it Cole, you’re being creepy. You can’t do this. Nope. Nope. Nope.

I roll over and face the wall away from Kai, burying my head in my hair.

Maybe some day.

“Hey, Cole…”

I turn back the other way, “Yeah?”

“I have a question to ask you.”

[jjdrawsoccasionally]

Here’s a very quick drawing of my favorite (/derogatory) oc, 8-Bit!

[ex0toxin]

ice emperor moment

[blogquestionmark]

One of my main criticisms for ninjago is the absolute 0 existence of eastern dragon despite the whole franchise being inspired from (the white people perception on) japanese culture and the dragons actually in the show but ONLY in drawings, the closest thing were strombringer and the ghost dragons.

Honestly if dragon rising would feature them, they better have some huge lore on why they only appear on drawings/murals

[sayijo]

What happened to all the smeltshippers

[nerdyenby]

@jalluzas-ferney asked me to elaborate on Sora and Arin having dragon and oni imagery respectively, it’s not my own observation but something I’ve seen tossed around a lot so I wanted to take a step back and start from the beginning

Sora

named herself after a dragon

has an elemental power, which come from dragons (I think, dragons have elemental powers, at the very least)

has great compassion and sympathy for dragons and always has, even from a young age

was taken advantage of by Imperium, used as a resource rather than a living thing, just like the dragons kept there

had that whole “we are all dragons” speech, which deserves its own bullet point methinks

is an engineer who’s whole passion is making things, and dragons are associated with creation

Arin

the oni are a mystery, nearly extinct and their history lost; Arin has many unanswered questions about his past, most importantly: what happened to his parents? He lost his family. He doesn’t know what happened to them or if they’re even still out there, just like we the audience have no clue what happened to the remaining oni

he lost everything and everyone he knew in the Merge, mourning what was lost while Sora found new opportunities. The oni are associated with destruction, and Arin feels the loss of the worlds that once were more keenly than any of our other main characters

after most of the oni died in the war against the dragons, the survivors fled to explore the other realms with the goal of conquering them. It is known that at least one of the oni did not attempt to follow through on this plan, instead “falling in love with the other worlds.” After Arin lost his family, he made the crossroads his home, exploring and embracing all the other cultures he encountered even before joining the ninja

while Arin is an absolute sweetheart, he also has a fair share of darker traits. He is a thoroughly good person, but is not above manipulation or violence. He also has an obsessive side (this is not me villainizing my boy, im just saying he’s shown to experience anger and a lack of regard for villain’s lives that we don’t see very often in ninjago)

his gi has horns

the oni notably do not have elemental powers, something that sets Arin apart from the rest of the main cast

[stealingyourspins]

(Click for better quality)

Ninjago Mermaid AU- Lloyd.

Species: Megalodon. Chosen because he’s the FSM’s grandson and being so made me want to make him an extinct species.

He’s 1/4th Mer 3/4th human. He Barbie: A Mermaid Tale style figured out he’s part mer when turning into a 33ft tall behemoth of a shark merfolk while swimming. He’s slowly figuring out who he is and how to transition between being both a merfolk and human.

(Non transparent version under the cut)

[parachutingkitten]

Thoughts on the entire Serpentine species being entombed? It always rubbed me the wrong way, especially since it led to the Anacondrai being doomed to extinction, and makes Pythor a canonical genocide survivor. In fact it really bothers me how the narrative doesn’t really explore how fucked up and disproportionate of a response that is. It feels like S4 kinda explored the idea that the Serpentine were victims as well, but it feels like there’s no real apology from humanity and all of the blame is shifted onto Chen, even though Chen couldn’t have dictated every decision humanity made.

Thoughts on imprisoning an entire race of people after war? Um, I'd say I'm anti. Feel pretty secure in that assessment.

I feel like it's not a secret that ninjago bungled the whole serpentine thing hard. Like they try and make some commentary on it in season 3 when they do the flip but... nah. Ninjago does not have the depth to tackle that subject. Shrugging before ignoring it forever was probably better than them trying to address it head on, honestly.

I will point out, while they do pin the start of the tensions on Chen, the entombing of everyone at the end of the war is on the EMs. They did that. To add a wrinkle into things, seems like magical entombment is a standard serpentine punishment? Idk. This stuff is wild.

[wyrmswears]

Alr here comes the "long" ask ig

Thanks to you bringing back my wolf children/werewolves/wolves brainrot, my brain brained a weird lore in my brain about your inhuman thundersnow au.

Remenber this guy? Well yeah, he was the EM of lightning before Libber (also her dad), during the Serpentine War he used his raijū form to fight, even if he was one of the less powerful lightning EM ever seen (based off the color of his lightning being yellow, yellow lightning is less hotter than blue lightning) he took many serpetine down and in general it was like brining a crazy new weapon to the war that suddenly gives certain side a great advantage, ya know, war stuff.

After the war finished, despite him being a good guy. Raijūs started to be seen as horrible bloodthirsty creatures just because of what he did during the war, which wasn't too different to what other EM did is just that he did it as a wolf, even Garmadon thanks to the Great Devouerer venom did worse.

Anyway, people started to get paranoid about raijūs and this caused to some people dedicate most of their time to hunt them down, not all hunters did it because they were corcened or smth but because they simply wanted to have fun killing an exotic species, or simply capturing them for who knows what (maybe using them for taxidermy?? spooky experiments??? biological weapons??? idk)

Slowly the individuals of this species were less and less, until there was only one left, Libber. Her father died and she almost did too, in and the rest is history she leaving Jay with the walkers, etc...

One more species that got extinct thanks to humans.

(this is not my last ask 👹.)

yo this idea is dark af... hell yeah im using it, with some amendments. be warned i also used this ask as an opportunity to do some lore dumping

READ MORE BECAUSE IT GOT LONG

first of all, not all other raijū are gonna be extinct, but their population numbers have dwindled and most of them now avoid interacting with humans. i think it'd be interesting to have the gang meet other raijū at some point so i want to keep the opportunity open :D since they stop interacting with humans though, they are thought to be extinct and aren't really common knowledge among jay's generation.

both raijū and dragon will share this stigma of being dangerous bloodthirsty creatures, given that wu and garmadon also fight in the serpentine war (oni kinda have the stigma engrained in their identity in the ninjago series already ghsghsh and aren't really present in ninjago to most people's knowledge). dragons get off slightly easier however, being considered noble creatures in other legends, but raijū don't have the same reputation and are easier to hunt than dragons so they suffer a greater impact. this stigma is the cause for cole's fear of dragons in s1!

raijū don't make great taxidermy (their corpses eventually dissolve into lightning; full raijū aren't so much comprised of your typical things like flesh and bone), but i can imagine some being captured as living batteriess, although they only have enough power for about a single household, so it would work on a more individual basis than imperium's dragon energy scheme...

i've been having the idea that libber's dad isn't a wolf for his raijū form, but instead a snow leopard! you see, there's not a lot of mythology on raijū recorded online so i'm trying to fit in actual mythos where i can, and raijū aren't limited to a wolf/dog form, but have many four-legged animal forms recorded. i also like the idea of jay and libber's raijū forms looking similar, despite them not looking that similar for two canids, so related raijū in my au don't often have similar animal forms. libber's parents take the form of a snow leopard (in reference to ice who later takes a guardian role of sorts in place of libber's actual father) and a japanese serow.

furthermore, i mentioned this idea in the tags of one of my past posts but for raijū that are elemental masters of lightning, they often die when their child inherits their element. raijū are creatures made of lightning, but for those born with the element of lightning, they don't develop their own lightning because the element more than compensates for the power they need, so when the element is suddenly removed... yeah. so libber's dad is dead Before the main impact of the serpentine war, but perhaps her mother is killed as a result?

jay doesn't have the issue of dying when he loses his element like the bajillion times they do in the series because he's half human! it does mean that the first few times he loses his powers (including contact with vengestone), it feels Extra bad to him because it's literally part of his life-force taken away (i imagine lloyd has a similar effect but by nature of his element instead of his blood), but the longer he is without his power, the more chance his natural lightning has to develop, so by crystallised he can function pretty well without them :]

[legokingfisher]

The lineup 💪 (about half my Ninjago ocs, as of dragons rising) from left to right, Two-Worlds (she/her), Chloe (she/her), Alcyo (he/him), and Elapis (he/they).

a lil more abt them vv

Two-Worlds is a hent (speculative etymological ninjagan term for amphicyonids, aka bear-dogs… google em, they’re pretty cool and not extinct in the Ninjago universe in my mind palace/hc zone) hailing from my friend’s fan-realm called Creatura. She’s not actually supposed to be in a humanoid form, it was artificially induced via magic. Her true form is much larger and much more quadrupedal like other creaturans (who just look like oversized, strangely colored but otherwise normal animals). She prefers this form though because she was raised in Ninjago around exclusively humans and got some body dysmorphia out of it… and as for why she’s a cowboy, it’s because she felt like it. She’s been wandering the merged lands searching for her scattered friends and family.

—

Chloe is a Fangpyre serpentine, and she looks pretty lizard-y because for some reason Fangpyre are more monitor lizard-ish than snake-ish in my head. She’s got special interests in pop culture and history, particularly human pop culture and ways in which human and serpentine history interact. Girlie is like a walking archive. Since the merge she’s been wanting to digitize and transcribe what remains of non-digitized archives and libraries, as the merge has made her all the more aware of how often natural disasters can destroy physical/recorded history. She’s pretty thrilled that Lloyd’s letting her digitize/transcribe scrolls in the monastery.

—

Alcyo is a master of an element i Made The Fuck Up for fun: mist. It’s a running gag that ppl (including him way back when) hear there’s elements of smoke and mist and go “…what’s the difference?” lmao. He’s no fighter, but still wanted help/training to use his element, and that’s how he knew Ash. He’s a geosciences guy like me and has been freaking out over . Well. Everything (lol he inspired that post) since the merge. He’s been getting together with ppl like him from across the merged realms (that is, geosci, eco, etc ppl who are as alarmed as he is) in order to document all the shit going on with the planet now as well as try to plan remediation efforts. I imagine governments have been a bit hesitant to work with a rogue group of jittery sleep deprived scientists but they (Alcyo’s ppl) try. I imagine they are the ones making the new maps and shit like that as well. He just wants to go back to his old day jobs and see Ash again. Sorry buddy, you can only have one of those back lmao

—

Elapis is a hypnobrai who’s been friends with Chloe since childhood. They’re significantly more jaded and pessimistic than she is but they’ve always appreciated her encouragement to pursue music. He probably knows how to play quite a few instruments but he’s usually That Asshole With A Guitar in my brain lmao. He likes learning about other peoples as much as Chloe does though (albeit through music scenes rather than reading) which is why the two became friends. He doesn’t know where she’s gone since the merge and hopes he can see her again one day. He’s found her siblings but not her, and it’s been pretty frustrating. Other than that, they’ve passed the time by jamming with all sorts of people at the Crossroads. Arin and Sora might have seen them around, performing.

[secretly-an-automaton]

Sorting Ninjago seasons by Magnus Archives fear entities!

*Vague spoilers for both Ninjago (Masters of Spinjitzu, specifically) and TMA will ensue, there’s descriptions for the fear entities under the cut if you haven’t seen TMA as well as reasoning for my classifications

- Rise of the Snakes: 🪱 Corruption

- Legacy of the Green Ninja: 🔦 Dark

- Rebooted: 🎭 Stranger

- Tournament of Elements: 🕸️ Web

- Possession: 🪦 End

- Skybound: 🌫️ Lonely

- Hands of Time: 🌀 Spiral

- Sons of Garmadon: 🔥 Desolation

- Hunted: 🐺 Hunt

- March of the Oni: ☣️ Extinction

- Secrets of the Forbidden Spinjitzu:🔪 Slaughter

- Prime Empire: 👁️ Eye

- Master of the Mountain: ⚰️ Buried

- Seabound: ☁️ Vast

- Crystallized: 🦷 Flesh

Explanations for entities and classifications below

The tl:dr is that the entities are manifestations of different common fears/phobias:

🎭 Stranger (uncanniness, not knowing, dolls)

🕸️ Web (arachnophobia, being manipulated, controlled)

👁️ Eye (eyes, being watched, exposed, judged, knowing too much)

☁️ Vast (large open spaces, falling, the ocean, giant creatures, space)

⚰️ Buried (claustrophobia, suffocating, drowning, being trapped)

🐺 Hunt (predators, being hunted, chased, prey)

🦷 Flesh (body horror, being consumed, dysmorphia, blood, cannibalism)

🔦 Dark (darkness, what lies in the dark)

🌫️ Lonely (loneliness, abandonment)

🪱 Corruption (bugs, infestation, rot, toxic relationships, trypophobia)

🔪 Slaughter (unpredictable or meaningless violence, war, weapons)

🌀 Spiral (insanity, madness, gaslighting)

🪦 End (death)

☣️ Extinction (cataclysmic disaster, world ending threats, mass extinction)

🔥 Desolation (burning, loss, pain, destruction)

Reasoning:

- Rise of the Snakes: 🪱 the catalyst of all of the “plague” to enter Ninjago (aka the overlord), opening a can of worms, Lloyd forms toxic dependencies on people (Pythor) out of necessity

- Legacy of the Green Ninja: 🔦 the Overlord’s whole intent is to spread darkness

- Rebooted: 🎭 lots of human-shaped but not actually human antagonists

- Tournament of Elements: 🕸️ the entire thing was a ploy, Skylor was manipulating them the whole time, no one trusts each other

- Possession: 🪦 …ghosts

- Skybound: 🌫️ team gets separated and Jay and Nya have to go on alone

- Hands of Time: 🌀 time travel fuckery in general idk man I can’t really remember this season. gonna be honest, this one was my throwaway

- Sons of Garmadon: 🔥 the Royal Palace is destroyed and the main antagonist’s primary motivator hinges on loss and destruction

- Hunted: 🐺 do I really need to explain this one

- March of the Oni: ☣️ pretty much all of the seasons have a world-ending threat but idk this one felt especially… world-ending-y?

- Secrets of the Forbidden Spinjitzu: 🔪 senseless violence pretty much summarizes both arcs

- Prime Empire: 👁️ technology, being watched, y’know…

- Master of the Mountain: ⚰️ they are. literally buried. in a mountain.

- Seabound: ☁️ vastness of the ocean etc. etc.

- Crystallized: 🦷 body horrorest season. kinda corruption also but s1 is definitely not flesh so it is what it is-

[juniperjellyfish]

GUESS WHOS BACK AFTER MONTHS OF BURNOUT???????

ME

AHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH

[sokoda]

Monsters that are thought to be extinct everywhere else still roam the jungles of Primeval's Eye. Always be on your guard, or the deadliest predator in all of Ninjago will come for you.

The first MoC for my latest #Ninjago - A Shift in The Balance update is:

The Jungle Grundle!

I had built a Grundle MoC years ago, so it was really fun to go back and build a new version with newer pieces and techniques.

All pieces used exist in these colors.

[askthatoneanacondraikaiguy]

I'm curious, how would the first meeting with Aspheera go? Like seeing an Anacondrai with fire powers? Would it go the same way or there will be some teensy winsy changes?

(oh wow this got long)

There's a lotta potential for changes. Specifically based on her own opinion of Anacondrai, which, we never see. So I'm gonna speculate;

Because Aspheera's a Hypnobrai and disrupted the rulership of a Hypnobrai kingdom and you don't see other Serpentine species in Mamba's kingdom or around it in these flashbacks, that the tribe unification hasn't happened yet; which makes sense, since Wu and Garmadon are kids at this point and the five tribes allying with each other and working together during the Serpentine War is notably later in their lives.

There's also the fact that Anacondrai live in more tropical areas (think Chen's island) instead of the Hypnobrai who we see living by upland conifer forests.

I actually looked a bit deeper into conifer trees to find some kind of explanation for why this is the case (because I'm a weirdo who likes to find solid explanations for random lore in my fantasy/sci-fi media) why lead to me discovering Walchian Conifers. They're an extinct species of conifer trees that are believed to have "closely followed, rather than predated the abrupt climate change" in Pennsylvania. They basically showed up and spread when the wet seasons got shorter.

(Sorry for the history/worldbuilding ramble, I am. very excitable)

But, to answer my own question; Aspheera probably wouldn't have a lot of actual exposure to Anacondrai, especially since they've been historically characterized as militaristic and war hungry, which is the opposite of what King Mamba V was pushing for. She would however know of them and probably be able to recognize the Anacondrai in her tomb. But I can imagine that Aspheera would find the Anacondrai admirable because of them being characterized as greedy, war-mongering, and difficult to defeat. (Admittedly, the greedy thing is partly because as Anacondrai get bigger, they have to eat more, and sustaining an army is already difficult enough for humans) . They took what they felt they deserved, or at least that's how Aspheera would see them, and she probably in a way found them aspirational. She wanted to create her own massive empire, after all.

So when she comes out of her thousand-year entombment to see a gaggle of humans (which she almost definitely perceives as weak, stupid, and/or deceiving) with one lone Anacondrai, she most likely applies her own personal experiences onto what she sees as something where these humans are either using this Anacondrai to get into her tomb or that this Anacondrai is tricking them somehow, like she did to Wu and Garmadon. Aspheera is not a generous thinker.

When she sees that Kai is not only a Serpentine like herself but also one that's a fire elemental? That is incredibly intriguing. Serpentine being elemental masters is a novel concept in modern day Ninjago, it was likely a distant dream in Aspheera's time.

Most likely, instead of trying to take Kai's elemental power, she first offers for him (and the Anacondrai Tribe as a whole, not knowing Pythor's the only one left) to 'ditch these humans', help her find the Deceiver, and to join her in her rise to power afterwards.

Whether or not she takes Kai's fire (at least now) would wholly depend on whether Kai would think to play into her assumption (and pull a Chen Trick 2.0) or to continue trying to fight her like he does in the show.

Either way, it's a lot harder to drag an unconscious 20-something-feet snake man out of a booby-trapped tomb than a normal human man.

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

Something I wish a Miraculous reboot does (if there ever is one) is having seasonal villains like Ninjago or Kirby.

Those series kept their main villains (Dedede and Garmadon) till their used all their history potential at the time and decided to redeem them and change them for other stronger and iconic villains or just become a second show for the main new attraction (for example Dedede in the dark matter trilogy being replaced by said evil race and Garmadon in rise of the snakes being replaced by the Serpentine and Pythor) yet Ladybug has been reusing Hawkmoth for way to long (he should have been defeated in 3 seasons like Garmadon or how dedede only had 3 main antagonistic roles till he became a hero) this Can also help the world building like the previous two (for example Ninjago made the serpentine which tied with Master Chen and the cursed realm which tied with Morro which tied with Nadakhan which tied to master Chen right hand man. Or how the dream fountain connected with the ancients which tied with the nova comets which connect with Haltman which connects with Magolor which connects with the ancients. This kind of things make the world more grounded and make feel useful for the old viewers for giving attention in previous seasons).

And is not that hard,I can give 3 villain concepts to replace Hawkmoth for a pair of seasons each.

1-a bunch of evil Kwamis which caused the creation of all miraculous for selfish wishes escaped from their imprisonment made by the good kwamis and order of the miraculous.

2-a mercenary organization tries to get the miraculous using high technology able to manipulate the miraculous Powers.

3-undead hunters which got a sinister fate in hands of miraculous users have been hunting down miraculous users for revenge.

Now let’s connect all:the undead hunters were created by the most evil kwami which got trapped by both Good and Evil kwamis for wanting extinction of existence,the evil kwamis once had plagg as their second in command till he betrayed them after seeing he’s been using the power of destruction wrong,the criminal organization is using the same material the miraculous are made of to power their machines but the leader of that organization also gave the peacock and Butterfly miraculous to Gabriel in the past so Gabriel asks them to get the miraculous till the reveal to Gabriel of Adrien being car noir which undoes the deal but the leader of the mercenary organization becomes pals with the leader of the evil kwamis making a parallel with plagg and Adrien and making a stronger connection between cat noir and the villain and at the end the leaders of the undead hunters were the victims of old creation and Destruction users (which worked with the evil miraculouses) at the time plagg was evil which was also the time Tikki redeemed plagg.

I just expanded the world of miraculous by making them their Pure evil villain,their ancient enemy villain them and modern villain which also connects into the first villain Hawkmoth. Which is more than astruc ever did in 4 seasons!!! And that’s just Some of the ideas I have without including the Minor recurring villains Rhino,Electro,Vulture,Sandman and Scorpion style or the new villains created by the old villains. There’s so much ground yet so little use to it

It's clear to almost everyone in the fandom that Gabriel has long overstayed his welcome as a villain. To the show's credit, the writers have at least tried to introduce other antagonistic characters (Nathalie, Lila, Chloe, Felix, and Tomoe), but all of them are connected to Gabriel in some way or another, and it's painfully obvious that the show prioritizes the "Akuma of the week" formula over focusing on any of those other antagonists.

Also, the ideas you came up with sound really interesting, anon.

[reisakumaproducer]

Never Trust a Snake - A Lloyd Character Study Fic

Summary: A long time ago, Lloyd learned to never trust a snake. Unfortunately, that lesson did not stick with him when he met the Jade Princess

When Lloyd was a young boy, he met a snake named Pythor. He was the general of the almost extinct Anacondrai. He carried himself with dignity around Lloyd. He held his head high, he spoke with confidence -  he was the perfect henchman to help the young evil mastermind achieve his villainy. An experienced Serpentine general who was willing to do whatever Lloyd pleased.

It was obvious by the skeletons scattered around the tomb that Pythor wasn’t trustworthy. Perhaps Lloyd should have realized Pythor’s glances towards the map sticking out of his pocket sooner, or the forced happy tone of his voice when talking with him. It wasn’t the first time a snake betrayed Lloyd, but it was the first time one had offered to be his friend.

For how long was Lloyd running around Darkley’s alone? Brad was the closest friend he had, but even Brad would ignore him in the hallways or play viscous pranks on him. Pythor was different. He hugged Lloyd. He listened to him. He was willing to be seen with him. He held Lloyd’s hand as they walked back from Jamanakai village, their bellies full with all the candy they stole. Pythor’s hands were cold, but it was the most warmth Lloyd had felt up until this point. 

Lloyd should have learned his lesson, but he was lucky. He met the ninja, and while Pythor didn’t fulfill Lloyd’s desire for friendship, he managed to find others who did. Growing up as the Green Ninja meant saving the world, but it also led to getting your hair ruffled by Kai, geeking out over Fritz Donnegan with Jay, or coming home to experience Zane’s cooking. It meant finally having a mother to give you hugs and an uncle to read you bedtime stories. The best part of all was finally having his father in his life. The young boy who met Pythor back in the tombs would have killed to experience what the Green Ninja had now.

Who wouldn’t want to be the Green Ninja? Who wouldn’t want to have incredible power and ride on a dragon, with all eyes on Ninjago on you? Who wouldn’t want to be on Master Chen’s Island, witnessing the boy you considered your brother point a weapon at you and claim your powers should’ve been his all along? Or to have a vengeful spirit possess you, their jealousy clouding your brain because they finally got the Green Ninja gi all to themselves! Isn’t it every boy’s dream to someday fight their father to save the world? At least Lloyd was lucky his father was purified after the final battle, but he wasn’t lucky enough to have his father still standing beside him after the Second Serpentine War.

Then Lloyd met the Jade Princess Harumi. She carried herself with dignity, befitting of her royal status. Her shoulders and back were straight, but her voice was soft. She hung her head low, only keeping it high in public when all eyes in Ninjago were on her. No one could see her discomfort aside from Lloyd. He could hear his ninja teasing him about his feelings for her, but Lloyd didn’t realize what made him so drawn to the princess. Was it her gold jewelry that sparkled in the daylight? Her magnificent cape that made her appear regal? 

He realized it was her witty comeback when she saved him from falling. It was her soft smile she had as she walked the streets of Ninjago, or the gentle words of reassurance she gave the children as she handed them food. Lloyd enjoyed seeing children smile upon receiving fruits from her. Their faces were glowing, just like the princess herself. The lights from the hanging lanterns illuminated the princess as she escorted Lloyd to a bridge over a canal. He felt relief when Harumi discussed how being a princess is not as wonderful as people think it is. 

For a split second, Harumi grabbed onto Lloyd's hand as they walked along the canal. Her hand was cold, but Lloyd did not notice. He felt warmth around him, from the lanterns hanging over the canal to the fires the poor lit to keep themselves warm. There was warmth from the children running around, rejuvenated from the food Harumi provided for them. Lloyd wanted to believe Harumi was warm too.

Harumi didn’t have scales or could turn invisible. She didn’t try to steal Lloyd’s map to the Oni mask or force herself to sound cheerful around him. She had a natural soothing voice. It could soothe the baby Cole found. It could soothe Lloyd. He loved that about her. He loved how she stayed close to him as they traversed through Primeval’s Eye, sometimes burying her face against his shoulder when she got startled. He loved how she tended to his wounded arm, protecting him when he was supposed to be protecting her. She wasn’t a snake. She wasn’t Pythor.

Harumi was like Lloyd, and that is why he wanted to trust her. She understood being forced into a position of power with little to no choice. She understood the pain of losing your family. She inflicted that same pain on Lloyd, mocking him as she forced him to watch the Colossus destroy Destiny's Bounty and kill his friends. He should have learned his lesson with his Pythor. Perhaps Harumi didn’t snatch the map because Lloyd was already willing to lead her to the Oni Temple regardless. 

After Emperor Garmadon’s defeat, Lloyd stood by the remains of a collapsed building. His younger self would’ve loved the friends and family he had now, but Lloyd was still the young boy awakening serpentine tombs, who failed to learn to never trust a snake.