#ninjago season 15 au

[monkieninja]

Nyad: – Why are there so many of you?

Nya: – I came for this idiot

Kai: – *what is the sense of life..*

– Nyad and Nya from original Ninjago.

But Kai from @gas1le AU. I can't stop drawing him

[beardedllamaoafwombat]

Art with Kai from @gas1le AU. I thought about this au long time so I decided draw this fanart.

[gas1le]

Выпустите ли вы продолжение "Выбор, который изменил всё"? Просто уж очень интересно, как остальные будет скучать по нему. Особенно было бы интересно увидеть, как скорбит Скайлор, ведь они вроде-как встречаются, а вроде-как и не вместе. И будет ли Кай спасён также, как и Ния с учётом того, что вода не его стихия?

Мне очень жаль, но я не собираюсь делать продолжение.

Я просто хотел сделать короткую историю о Кае, который жертвует собой, и о том, как другие реагируют на это.

[the-painted-siren]

Futzing around with some coloring and sketching to make some Ninjago concept art. Some of it is kinda old and janky but I still like them, so I decided to post them.

[differentdragonpeanutknight]

More from my Ninjago Reversed AU (I need to find a better name)

Heights and Ages today!

For today, I thought about taking apart the Ninja ages and heights for this journey, so let's do this.

To begin, I did my best to create what it would be a good portrayal of their ages, looking for any piece of info I could find. Here' s what we got:

From the Pilots to Legacy of the Green Ninja:

Nya is 12.

Kai is 14.

Jay is 13.

Zane is also 14.

Cole is 15.

Lloyd is 9 before jumping to 12 thanks to the Tomorrow Tea.

In Rebooted:

Nya is 13.

Kai and Zane are 15.

Jay is 14.

Cole is 16.

Lloyd is 13.

From Tournament of Elements to Possession:

Nya and Lloyd are 14.

Kai and Zane are 16.

Jay is 15.

Cole is 17.

Also Skylor is 15.

From Skybound to Hands of Time:

Nya and Lloyd are 15.

Kai and Zane are 17.

Jay and Skylor are 16.

Cole is 18.

During the Oni Trilogy:

Nya and Lloyd are 16.

Kai and Zane are 18.

Jay, Skylor and Harumi are 17.

Cole and Pixal are 19.

During all the way for the 11 Minute Era, except Crystalized:

Nya and Lloyd are 17.

Kai and Zane are 19.

Jay and Skylor are 18.

Cole and Pixal are 20.

In Crystalized:

Nya and Lloyd are 18.

Kai and Zane are 20.

Jay and Skylor are 19.

Cole and Pixal are 21.

And finally (although I'm not sure if I'll manage to go that far), Dragons Rising:

Nya and Lloyd are 21.

Kai and Zane are 23.

Jay and Skylor are 22.

Cole and Pixal are 24.

Arin and Sora are 15-16.

Wyldfyre is 13-14.

Euphrasia is 16-17.

Now, as for their heights, I'm going to update them during the seasons. So, as for now:

Nya is 1,51.

Kai is 1,60.

Jay is 1,57.

Zane is 1,62.

Cole is 1,65.

Lloyd is 1,32.

Here is a image with the main six for now!

That's it for today. Thanks for stopping by!

[destinysbounty]

Wake up babes, new chapter of Find Something Waiting just dropped!!!

(To everyone unfamiliar, the fic takes place in an AU where Aspheera trapped Zane in her staff instead of banishing him to the Never Realm, but the ninja continue to think he's dead until season 15)

Excerpt:

It takes longer than Skylor would like to admit for her to recognize the woman. But in her defense, it’s been a while since she's seen Pixal's human disguise.

Cole sheepishly waves at her from behind, gingerly stepping around a toolbox left abandoned on the floor. “Hey Pi—”

“I assume you are here because of the vengestone smugglers?” interrupts the woman, and through voice alone dismisses any doubts they may have had that this is actually Pixal.

“We could use your help,” Skylor offers. “Whatever these guys are planning, vengestone always spells trouble. We’re trying to get the team back together, and we can’t do it without you.”

“You could,” she says. “You’ve fought plenty of battles without me before.” There’s a lofty, dismissive air in her voice that says she’s already run this conversation through her simulators a thousand times and is quickly growing bored of it. 

Skylor knows better than to take her dismissiveness too personally. The only reason Pixal would ever run a conversation through her simulators to the point of monotony is if it’s an interaction she deeply, deeply cares about. So in an odd twist of irony, Pixal sounding like she doesn’t care is a surefire indicator that she actually cares a bit too much. 

Cole sighs. “Yeah, well, maybe we want you here.”

Finally, Pixal turns around to face him.

[xxbun-artxx]

I've been thinking about about how metal nya kinda breaks season 5 and 15

Don't know metal nya? Hi I am bun and here are the posts of metal nya for you to catch up

My hash: #ninjago metal nya

First drawing: 《Art here》

Second drawing: 《Art here》

Casual: 《Art here》

To kinda illustrate what I mean, in s5 nya has the arc of knowing that she's the next water master and using the water to defeat the gousts because they're weak to water.

Metal nya breaks:

-nya's power is metal not water, we don't have a way to defeat the goust like the finally

-nya's learning arc is none existent, in this au nya gets thier power around end of s3 and beginning of s4. And because they are more comfortable with metal then water they got the hang of it much quickly.

-the entirety of season of s15 is broken beyond belief

This is not to take in consideration of karlof's fate

And I've been thinking about what I can do about this because I'm thinking of writing a fic about it but I can't solve this issue so ama take it to you guys nya's biggest fans to help me with what you want to see from this au.

FYI changeing the water themeing of s15 is not an option, I love the concept of that season and I love bentho

Have a good day or night, hydrate or die

Bun, drowned

[anthroparis]

fic commissions sheet

I used to do trades but now I have ko-fi and paypal so!

HOW I WRITE

here are some examples of recent fics I've published if you want an idea of my style:

maxchela, angst, 404 words

gideon graves, angst, 1.2k words

bonsar, fluff, 1k words

I have written more fluff but I can't find it. and platonic fics, and smut but I'm not linking that here.

if you guys remember ye olde total drama fandom, I was tdfics. credibility! I also am currently the editor on a very popular fan season. you guys have probably heard of it if you follow me here.

WHAT I WRITE

for pairings:

fluff

angst, hurt/comfort, etc

any kind of au or trope you want*

smut**

platonic!

also:

character studies

x reader, self-insert, or selfship stuff*

OC stories

furry stuff

*given that it follows the guidelines

**given that both characters AND yourself are over 18 years of age and follows the guidelines

WHAT I DON'T WRITE

anything that involves pedophilia, incest, or graphic depictions of IPV

gratuitous amounts of gore

certain kinks (ask me about it)

rpf

anything bigoted

PRICING

500 words or less: $5

500-1k words: $10

1k - 1.5k words - $15

1.5k-2k words - $25

2k+ - ask

you can look up some references on what this amount would be like if you're not sure. the average one-shot (for me) is around 800 words. anything over around 1k requires more time and energy devoted to research, writing, and editing, which is why it's priced higher.

I'm up for negotiation based on what's up.

I only take PayPal. I have Ko-Fi as well, but that's also PayPal iirc

FANDOMS (??? I GUESS)

I made a carrd for it. here.

I still might be able to write something for a media I have never consumed, granted it:

is a movie

a short TV show/a specific episode(s) of a TV show

can be explained to me thoroughly

for example, if you wanted to request a ninjago fic, you could give me a few episodes to watch, and/or give me an explanation of everything I'd need to know (AKA free infodumping! bonus!)

I have the right to reject anything I can't or won't do.

anyway contact me through asks or DMs on this blog

[estellardreams]

Reminder: Despite mobians aging differently from humans, they're younger during Season 1 of the Sonic Ninjago AU.

Sonic is 14

Amy is 12

Knuckles is 15

Rouge is 17

Tails is 11

And Shadow is currently 14 (until he gets aged up during Season 2)

Also... Because I like this small moment, take this from one of the chapters:

“Welcome to Secured Electrical Grid-locked Abode. Or SEGA for short.”

“... That sounds stupid.”

[galaxyhanart]

I don’t know if someone have asked this but psychologically and physically Jay stayed as his kid self meanwhile in the prime impire but got a grow up similar to lloyd when the ninja got him out our had to grow in a normal human way after that?

Okay so this is where I'm definitely fudging things a little here, but Jay does age in Prime Empire! My personal HC for how the ages go in Ninjago is that by the time season 3 starts the main four + Nya are young adults while Lloyd has his weird age going on but his body is like 15-16ish (idk it's just weird to think that Jay Kai Cole Nya and Zane are teachers at a school if they aren't actual adults yet) and I'm sticking with that so by the time the Cabinet Man AU reaches the Prime Empire story in the timeline (after the events of season 5 and Day of the Departed) the ninja are in their 20s.

I'm kinda using Steven Universe logic for how the game works but Unagami ages by his state of mind, which is somewhat canon considering he was an adult in the game but became a child once he left and got taken back in by Milton Dyer. Jay ages naturally in the game, so Unagami just kind of ages with him as they felt so connected - until they hit their teens and Scott gets sucked in the game. Once Jay and Unagami have their falling out, Unagami ages much faster in his state of grief and anger - turning into the Unagami we know mostly in the show.

I hope this makes sense lmao I plan to make a post going much more in-depth about how the timeline of Cabinet Man AU works! But Jay's age doesn't work like Lloyd's did, he ages in the game so when the ninja and him meet they're all in their 20s + Lloyd's like 18 or so

[pepmint-art]

Do you have any AUs? I'm starving for Ninjago AU content

Thanks for asking, cuz I literally forgot about them! I'm more of the headcanon person cuz i can drop it here and forget...

BUT LET'S GO!

Green Rejection AU:

Basiclly Lloyd is older then other ninjas and also is regular collage student trying to live his best life, constantly refuse to be the green ninja. So ninjas stalkes him and persuade him to be green ninja. Bby just want to pay taxes and be happy with Brad.

Posts:

x , x , x , x , x , x , x

Time Kids Au:

Takes place after season 7, both Krux and Acronix actually get back to Ninjago but younger and without memories. Krux is something around 15-17 y.o and Acronix 10 years younger. They end up being adopted and taken care of by Mystake. Krux over time remembers everything and decide to live normal life and Acronix never gets back his full memory, just some pieces that seems like dreams.

Posts:

x , x

Brothers Swap Au:

Everything is the same expect that Garmadon and Wu swapped places. Now we have good Sensei Garmadon and evil bad boy Lord Wu.

Posts:

x , x , x , x , x , x

Meowmadon:

It originally was one time concept, but it's slowly turns into full time au.

Garmadon can shapeshift and his full time job is to be a cat.

Posts:

x , x , x

[monkieninja]

– Kai from @gas1le AU.

– Кай из @gas1le АУ.

– I love this AU.

– Я люблю, это АУ.

[cast-iron-bug]

Kinda fell off the face of the earth but I'm BACK!

nothing much but have some exploration sketches of Phyllis and her final design!

If you are interested in some of her character lore and personality, feel free to read under the cut!

Otherwise enjoy these few doodles 👍✨

EDIT!!!

I changed up the lore section to be Phyllis's backstory as my au lore is still under construction 🚧 so feel free to read under the cut to see the updates!

Phyllis has gone through a bit of development since I last shared her lore here and is now a finalized character!

Personality:

Phyllis is very street smart and has the attitude to match...on the outside, finding it easy to taunt others and make sarcastic remarks.

HOWEVER, she is also very introverted.

Since both her parents died by the time she was seven, the tribes being sealed away shortly after, Phyllis was left all alone to fend for herself in the surface world, growing up in complete isolation. In response to that, she developed some...unique habits that come off almost creepy to others (like her bone collections and how her home defenses are literal corpses) and is incapable of socializing properly.

So while she loves to throw out witty comebacks and sarcastic remarks in the moment, she can get pretty socially awkward and even dismissive/mean to those she has prolonged contact with. She just isn't used to being around people for long and is used to hiding away from them.

Despite this, if someone is persistent enough and SOMEHOW earns her trust, Phyllis will turn out to be pretty loyal. This is a difficult task to achieve but if done she is dedicated to protecting you, even becoming overprotective because she's terrified of loosing another person she cares about.

So ye! In summary, Phyllis sarcastic, witty and mayyybe even a little insane, all with a hint of social awkwardness.

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Lore:

Now in terms of lore aspects, Phyllis is a character that i have written straight into the Ninjago timeline, meaning key points of her life actually line up with the show. For example the is born during the first serpentine war and is a young adult(serpentine age slower) by the time the serpentine are released, her true adventures beginning with the start of this au. These adventures are also affected realtime by events happening in the show, such as the fall of Ninjago city in seasons 8 and 9, or the great flood in season 15.

So Phyllis is the daughter of Victor Vervain, a venomari archer, and Amelia Vespertine, a fangpyre Nobel woman.

The two had fled from the war, living on the run as Victor was deemed a traitor and Amelia now being hunted down. Victor left for moral reasons, having frown up near a human village and even befriended some as he grew up. He felt that it was wrong to be fighting against them, especially when the armies would raid innocent villages. The fact that no one would tell him why they were fighting in the first place only made Victor feel worse, and he inevitably left. Amelia left for similar reasons, since even as a higher up she could not justify the war.

Because they were on the run, Phyllis was raised very nomadic and most often within nature. Constant moving became the norm for her, but she didn't mind. Even with the lack of contact with other serpentine, the only consistency Phyllis seemed to need was her parents.

Having said that, you better believe they get separated.

Amelia is killed when Phyllis is 5. She died while defending Phyllis and Victor, giving them time to escape.

Victor actually ends up dying to an elemental master, the master of ice. He and Phyllis are out on a hunting trip, hunting deer.

Victor armed with his iconic bow 🏹 is aiming for a stag when a patrol of elemental masters are patrolling nearby. The master of ice catches sight of the venomari archer with arrow drawn and skewers him on sight with an icicle, killing him almost instantly.

This occurs literally RIGHT before, or even during when, the serpentine are sealed away, so from this point on that Phyllis is truly on her own and won't see another serpentine until she's an adult.

From this point until the serpentine are released from their tombs, Phyllis grows up in isolation. She is still quite nomadic, living in more dense, woodsy areas as often as possible.

She even learns dark magic, having found an old spell book deep in the woods. She teaches herself different forms of magic, takin to necromancy quite quickly.

She is practically a cryptid at this point, with only rare sightings... Especially since as a hybrid with her magically abilities, she wouldn't be identifiable as a commonly known serpentine

Despite this though, there are occasions where she will make deals or take on jobs with others to get by. This practice becomes at lot more common when the Serpentine are released and become a more frequent sight.

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The AU:

The au begins a good while after the serpentine are released, at the earliest after season four, when the Serpentine and humans are on relatively good terms.

You'll be seeing a lot more of them in Ninjago city, even a few in the police force! (I will elaborate of these characters in a future post!)

Because of Phyllis's paranormal connections, I do like the idea of this occurring in Ninjago city during season five, whilst the ninja are busy with Morro

Maybe a team of ragtag heroes hear of a mysterious masked figure who stole a powerful artifact. As they follow clues to track down this unknown villain, the find themselves in over their heads when they face her head on- their elemental powers rendered almost useless and the masked figure escaping.

When our heroes find out there are four of these artifacts in the series, a race to the second begins, both parties discovering more about the mysterious villain's plan along the way, and the true mastermind behind it all.

I won't spoil much last this point, as there are many elements I feel could be better portrayed in comic or written format! So that's all for now and feel free to ask questions about the au or characters, as I have many more to share and plenty of fun facts n details!

[impulsivefanwriter]

Ninjago Focus Season Shuffle Challenge!

Ayo fellow ninjago fans, I’ve got an AU challenge for you! Shuffle the focus ninja of any season (this is specifically for the WildBrain seasons, aka Season 11 onwards, but feel free to do this with prior seasons too if you feel inspired!) and see what happens. 

The WildBrain specific challenge is as follows: 

Original Focus Order:

Secrets of Forbidden Spinjitzu (Fire Chapter) = Kai

Secrets of Forbidden Spinjitzu (Ice Chapter) = Zane

Prime Empire = Jay

Master of The Mountain = Cole

The Island / Seabound = Nya

Crystalized = Lloyd

Take Seasons 11-15/16 (Secrets of Forbidden Spinjitzu Part 1 & 2, Prime Empire, Master of the Mountain, The Island/Seabound, and Crystalized) and change the focus ninja (you can also edit the season as you like to match, but try to keep some of the core elements/story beats). You can reply as a reblog (and if you rather post it yourself, please tag me! I’d love to see other ideas!) and include was much or little detail as you’d like. 

If you want, you can also change the season order a bit (and write how they affect each other), or keep it in the original order!

Have fun with it! And remember to add Crystalized spoiler tags if you add that season, which you don’t have to if you haven’t seen it yet!

[ninjago-sins]

My ninjago sin is that I agree with the anon that mentioned how Harumi and Morro should be treated more so the same, or at least not so differently. There are a lot of different reasons to hate and like these characters but imo the treatment harumi gets in comparison to other male characters like her feels like misogyny. I mean whether or not you think harumi was redeemed in Crystalized (which I don’t think she was) Garmadon wasn’t either and also had a hand in taunting Lloyd all season long, but you don’t hear people talk about that. Same thing with Misako actually. I just don’t think it makes any sense to have characters like Morro and Garmadon be acceptable to have aus where everything is fine and Lloyd can have some type of positive relationship with them but oh as soon as it’s a woman all hell breaks loose (especially when all of these characters have done a lot of wrong but have been shown to at least have a potential redemption)

Anyway, if DR actually did give Harumi a FULL redemption arc I’d be here for it

See, I don't entirely disagree with y'all on this, and I do think that there is a lot of fandom sexism thrown at harumi, but I just... they are not on the same level of redeemability.

My main reason being that we see morro offered redemption, and he takes it. No matter how poorly it's written, it's there.

We see Harumi offered redemption, and she flirts with the idea by saving some lives, she has a moment of realization, and then she immediately turns her back on it. I know season 9 and 15 aired years apart, but timeline wise, her pledging allegiance to the overlord happens the exact same day as her supposed change of heart. it's not like she was slowly lured back to evil, she took the first chance she got to get power back.

Both of these characters, in their original inception could possibly be redeemed. If things ended at season 9, I would be fine with 'everything is okay' harumi aus, but they didn't.

With all these other characters, it's about offering them redemption. With harumi, it's about offering her a second one, when she doubled down in the most insane way in rejecting her first one.

Everyone deserves a second chance. Not everyone deserves a third. At least not from you.

that's my two cents, but also, I think the fandom is against harumi EVER being redeemed as well. For that part specifically- sin

[basicallyjaywalker]

The timeline and history of Ninjago is weird and fluid: an essay

So recently I reblogged a post asking what people thought the length of the time skip between S2 and S3 was and it got me thinking about the weird chronology of this show.

Disclaimer: i have only seen up to S8 because I'm a hack and a fraud but I do still follow fandom and have seen enough clips I think to gain an understanding of how the ninja are portrayed and characterized in later seasons. I welcome and deeply appreciate those of you who are more caught up on the seasons adding to my points and pointing out where I'm wrong on this post! Who knows maybe in 15 years when I do catch up I'll make a follow up

Basically, the conclusion I have after years of thinking about this timeline way too much is this:

The time twins completely screwed up the timeline

Only slightly joking, but it does feel like the divide between S7 and S8 (coincidentally also when the design change took place) is when the writers had to retcon a lot of old ideas because the show was moving in a new direction spurred by an increase of popularity from the movie and by desires from the people supervising the shows creation.

My main points for this are as follows

The ninjas age

How old the country of Ninjago is

The depiction of the passing of time itself

So let's examine these one by one and let me tell you exactly what I think caused the chronological fluidity of this show

Wait... How old are the ninja?

The answer to this question depends on who you ask. Some people say they're in their late teens, that they're early adults, or that they've got to be hitting the mid 20s by now. Personally, I'm of the latter camp, but depending on which season someone is viewing, any of these can be true.

In the post I talked about at the start, I mentioned that S1-S4 felt like the ninja clearly grew older and matured as time went on. They went from blowing off training to play video games in S1 to dealing with the ramifications of trauma in various, independent, adult ways in S4. Yes, they can still be super immature and goofy, but let's be real adults are like that irl too. Now they seem to stall out on dramatic progression in S5-7, but they generally maintain the same level of maturity as before.

Now again, I have not watched the following seasons, but the general vibe I have gathered is the ninja seem to almost... Regress? They seem to go back to S1 levels of maturity. Teenagers! I mean Lloyd specifically seems to be more of a typical teenage boy archetype whereas beforenhe was portrayed as almost more mature than the ninja. Additionally, there's an interview wherein someone on the team confirms they're supposed to be teens (if anyone can find it I'll be forever in your debt).

This weird regression happens in the later seasons, and while I can't pinpoint where, to me it feels like a result of how they were portrayed in (you guessed it) the movie!

Small aside: I also haven't seen the movie but ik it's non canon and very typical Lego movie silly fun fluff. I like what I've seen and think the whole narrative is super cute. Plus movie aus are adorable. Moving on

Now I have no way of backing this up but I would be unsurprised if the movie brought more people to the Ninjago franchise as a whole and acted as a soft reboot after s8. We get the new redesigns, new garmadon brought back specifically to be able to mirror movie garm, and teenage ninjas including our favorite magical boy with daddy issues--Lloyd.

Basically, the ninjas almost have a parabola of maturation, starting off very young and dumb in s1, maturing into very adult people by S4, but slowly regressing after the rebrand to match the new style.

And funnily enough, none of this goes against an official canon. The ninjas ages are never stated, really, only implied. Really, they could still be in their mid twenties or early teens at any point. Even if you argued that they wouldn't be teachers or able to own stocks in a company or etc etc etc, you can also argue that the laws in Ninjago may not be the same, it may be through Wu or another adult, it could just be that they're the ninja and really no one is gonna question them on that. The canon itself is kinda wobbly which brings me to my next point:

HOW OLD IS NINJAGO?!?!

HOW IS NINJAGO THOUSANDS OF YEARS OLD HOW ARE THERE MULTIPLE GENERATIONS OF EMS HOW PLD ARE GARM AND WU HOW OLD ARE THE NINJA HOW OLD ARE THEIR PARENTS HOW OLD IS ANYONE WHAT THE HECK--

--Are all thoughts I've had when trying to piece together the timeline of this world because let's face it: it simultaneously seems to be very new and very old. "Long before time had a name...' HOW LONG WU. HOW LONG.

When I was watching S7 I specifically took note of when it was said that the Serpentine war was 40 years ago. It felt weirdly recent, as before when the serpentine were discussed and depicted they seemed to be an ancient race. So ancient, in fact, that it's mentioned in s1 that they're just "an old wives tale, meant to keep kids from poking their noses where they don't belong'

Now don't get me wrong, temporal perception is weird. Things that were 40 years ago can feel super old, I'm approaching 20 years old and things from when I was born feel like ages ago. Still, 40 years does not feel like enough for something as intense as an entire war to be forgotten. Ray and Maya fought in that war, so presumably Ed, Edna, and Lou all lived through it. Wu was literally present for the banishing of the Anacondrai generals, so how tf did it fade into obscurity?

Then there's the EMs themselves. In S4 Garmadon explains that they were the FSM "guardians" and that their powers are passed down through generations. This does give an answer to the origins of the ninjas powers except. No, wait, I have more questions now. Firstly, how many generations? We know Garmadon is the son of the FSM, so presumably if the first generation of EMs are contemporaries of the FSM, then we're on the third. Okay, that's less confusing. With three generations, we can explain how the EMs separated, the master of earth who was most definitely not Lily in a flashback in S4, and even the odd comment Nya makes in S5 about powers "skipping a generation" with people from the second generation not getting powers from their relatives while others do. We could possibly point to Zane as an example of this, as it could be possible that the master of ice seen inna flashback is his grandfather and Juliens father, with Julien having no shown elemental powers.

So with all of this in mind it makes complete sense that Ninjago is less than a century and a half old, allowing about 50 years for each generation.

So, I ask with great exhaustion, how the FUCK has all of it's RECENT HISTORY become LEGEND????

I would like to reiterate my point about the serpentine, but also see pirates (who had to have also been contemporaries to the FSM which begs the question WHY piracy in a barely established nation), the devourer and ouroborus (devourer specifically was around 60 so years ago to bite Garmadon, also how did the serpentine tribes just FORGET a whole city in 40 years or less between the war and being freed), the ideas of EMs as a whole???? (Specifically how did Kai, Nya, and Cole not know or at least have an idea Abt their powers bc it feels like they each had enough of a connection to an elemental parent for a MENTION to be made), etc etc etc

Now I will go on record and admit this point could just be explained by the fact that for a country that is say, 150-200 years old, things that happened 100 or even 50 years ago FEEL ancient, relatively speaking. Really most of my issues are just gripes of why and how and decisions made and could be picked apart easily. However, that idea, that things just FEEL ancient, despite being recent, brings me to what is going to be my favorite point

Tick Tock.

Throughout this incoherent ramble disguised as a coherent essay, I keep coming back to one excuse for each of my issues: nothing chronological is stated for certain (save for the Serpentine war date), merely implied. The ninjas ages are never stated, just implied over time. The actual age of Ninjago is never stated, just implied. Hell, NO ONE's ages are ever stated, just implied. Wu and Garmadon are simultaneously dad aged and ancient. Garmadon specifically is both an ancient demon lord and also the ex husband to a very private and very human museum curator and also the absent father to a boy who is simultaneously like 16 and 20 something.

Except, I get hung up on one thing the longer I think about it, which is that the show seemed to be a chronological passing of time at first.

I mentioned it again earlier when talking about the ninjas ages (can you tell that a lot of my confusion and frustration comes from that) but they do seem to age and mature over time. They have arcs and maturation that sticks. Lloyd does too. Id argue Nya does as well despite the fact that she's woefully overlooked by the writing a lot (I'll get to it in the love triangle essay) going from the "little sister" doing whatever she can to prove herself to a woman still fighting that omnipresent idea that she's lesser or different from her male teammates because of her gender. Hell, in s7 they specifically talk about how Wu is aging and will die someday soon--hed been time punched, but still.

The time skips add to this. Between s2 and s3 there seems to be a large leap-- new Ninjago city wasn't built in a day. So do S3 and s4 with the ninja splitting up and Jay having enough time to establish a hit tv show like... that had to take a few months at least???Same with s4 and s5 and steep wisdoms founding.

There's a strong sense of the passing of time that feels... Different when looking at the new seasons. I won't say the passage isn't there, just that it feels... Frozen? In the same way that a show like Pokemon is. The protagonists are the same age, despite the fact that their surroundings and lives change. They are constant even if their world is not. And that feels like the product of something completely different.

Ninjago will never end.

In the beginning, I think it was clear there were two seasons planned. Rise of the Serpentine and Legacy of the Green Ninja. S2 had a nice happy ending and a photo finish even!! Then we had S3, but it still felt like it was final. The loss of a friend, but the characters finding a sense of closure still. But then we had S4... Which left with a cliffhanger for S5. Which paved the way for S6. And after that... Well, Crystalized was what, S15? And now we have DR so who Knows when this franchise will truly end? Not to mention the seasons slowly getting longer and longer --

I think the crazy chronology we ended up with was the result of Many Cooks. As the franchise's fan base grew and the demand for more and more content grew with it, more writers came in and left. There was no more telling how long this series would go. We needed new villains to fight, new stories to tell, so came the retconning and, over time, the tighter chronology seen during those initial seasons faded because if we keep aging the ninja, how old would they be? Too old. We need to keep them at a place where the target demographic can look up to and relate to them.

Now don't get me wrong, I love Ninjago, I love how big this fan base is (I remember being on Quotev and Wattpad and Pinterest and YouTube in the S3 era SCOURING for any new fanfics or art or fan content, now I just scroll the Tumblr tags and find new stuff all the time) and I love that the series has lasted this long and continues to feed my autism fun colors and silly jokes and insane storylines to latch onto. These criticisms aren't meant to damn the show, hell they're pretty flimsy considering I'm not even halfway through the series relatively speaking and thus can't really use that as evidence for or against me. They're just a culmination of many thoughts I've had while watching the show and trying to build my own AU with OCs using as much of the canon as possible. I would LOVE to wake up someday and find someone has reblogged this rebutting all of my points.

As it stands though, ninjagos chronology is fucked. Why? Because what was initially a short, fun Lego show grew so massively popular that today we have a new Netflix spinoff? Continuation? Still being made today and so the writers had to change gears and make it so that could happen without the ninja becoming grandparents.

It is one thirty am and I have to wake up in 5 hours. Stay tuned for an even less coherent essay on why I hate the love triangle. Spoiler alert: none of it is nyas fault and my trait of evisceratinf the things I love w criticism is about to be set upon Jay my kin