@akita747 (sorry this took so long)

Doodlarambla 4

Jay!

Hell yeah! The lightning ninja. Established early on as someone who literally cannot stop talking, the comic relief, the creative, scrappy guy all about reaching new heights! When we see his flashback sequence in s9, the concept that they stick with is the idea that Jay is a dreamer. He’s pretty ambitious always trying to craft something that will take him above and beyond (as in he was literally trying to make a flying machine), and his element helps symbolise it. He’s into being flashy like lightning, and tries to climb higher (relating to the sky). This ambition does lead to him having a lot of insecurities though, and he has some interesting ways of dealing with them but I’ll elaborate later.

Jay’s backstory when it’s told in s1, is the most straight forward. I mean, he’s the only ninja with both of his parents on regular speaking terms, although he grew up on a junkyard, it’s pretty mundane and he has an air of normalcy about him, which he seems to be trying to escape. He does really mundane stuff, like poetry and comic book reading (compared to Cole who abandoned art school to go mountain climbing shirtless). I kinda hc Jay having gone to public school and immediately getting bullied because he was raised in a junkyard and his parents are weird, bc those insecurities have gotta come from somewhere. He’s pretty impressionable too, getting fixated on video games and Cliff Gordon (and those also probably influenced his uhh outlook on women and romance).

Jay has a lot of insecurities. I’ve mentioned his upbringing but also his low self esteem is the crux of his true potential episode. Jay’s over the top bravado is him trying desperately to make others like him, almost to the point that he didn’t even tell anyone about the real problems he had (being a snake). The s3-4 love triangle plot follows the same themes; Jay feeling insecure and threatened by Cole, only to reveal that secretly he missed being Cole’s best friend and he hadn’t even confronted those feelings until s4. Again in s6, Nadakhan straight up says that Jay makes jokes to hide his deeper insecurities. And yeah I thinks it’s understandable why he would be a little insecure considering he’s living with shirtless mountain climber Cole, actually gets btiches Kai, literally computer for brain Zane, badass Samurai x Nya, and grandson of god chosen one Lloyd. On top of that, Jay is the most panicky ninja and the main comic relief of the team.

I think his greatest strength is his tenacity to succeed even when he’s at a low. As a junkyard boy, he learned to scrap together quick solutions out of barely anything as shown in Hunted, and when all his friends were captured in s6, he scrapped together a new team, and even after quitting the ninja he was able to make it big and score a job as a tv host. Nadakhan’s characterisation is supposed to parallel Jay in that, like Jay, Nadakhan also relies on what resources he had, and his own wits. Jay’s “fake it til you make it” personality has its use in how he doesn’t stop trying and can find ways to make the most out of his situation. He kinda embodies the message of Lego, being able to build his way to a solution. He’s a dreamer, with his head in the clouds, which makes sense because that’s usually where lightning is.

Although after all that’s happened to Jay, I have sort of a theory/headcanon to do with his perception of reality. Because Jay, since the start, already has some association with not being completely honest. I think Jay having some sort of detachment with reality is really interesting and it’s only briefly touched upon in the show. But yknow especially after s6 I think he should because a) Jay literally learned that season that he was adopted, and whilst he still loves his parents dearly, that’s still gonna shake him to find out that he doesn’t know a lot about his past and heritage, b) everyone he loves keep dying and undying again and again and at that point I think death would be even ever so slightly desensitised c) Jay literally bent reality to his will. He is one of the only two people who remember things that never happened, and all the tragedy that happened in his life was erased and promptly ignored. He never tells the other ninja. He’s never seen going back to Cliff Gordon’s house. We don’t see him go back for Echo. He isn’t shown to try to look for his mother.

(Crystalised part 1 spoilers)

Ninjago, intentionally or not, does play around with Jay and reality and his sanity in s9 and Crystalised. In s9, whilst Jay knows what’s going on, he just loses any semblance of self preservation and gives up with even the idea of being stressed about a situation so hopeless, and is weirdly at peace with it all. (Spoilers here) In Crystalised, Jay believes Nya is in cups of water and decides to become a hermit, cutting himself off from the world and kinda losing it. Jay tends to lose his grip on reality/lose faith in his situation and I think it might be because he’s been through a lot of things that have already made him question his life (s6). Also being separated fro Nya, who he not only loves but also is the only one who can possibly understand what he went through in s6, may have played a role in this.

It’s a shame Prime Empire didn’t really use this, since Prime Empire had all the pieces to have an escapism themed arc for Jay, which I think would’ve made sense since I think Jay could’ve used escapism to cope with his hardships, even before s6, even being a ninja is an escape from his boring junkyard life). Prime Empire provides a fun, totally harmless (not) adventure than you can physically use to run away from reality. Jay was popular there, and the most skilled there and it was supposed to be his season. I mean it would have been cool if the reason why half of Ninjago entered prime empire is because they’re also traumatised and want to leave too (just last season they were attacked by fire snakes and eldritch horrors). But they don’t really explore it that much so there’s some missed potential there (one day, I’ll rewrite this season).

Although we can see, ever since s6, some of Jay’s insecurities are alleviated. It might just be the writer change, but post 7 Jay seems to be a lot goofier that pre 7 Jay, (the uwuification), and I’m interpreting that as him no longer feeling like he needs to fake bravado in front of everyone else. And that’s nice. Jay has some really good developement, and is a really enjoyable character to watch because he’s just so endearing in my opinion. In conclusion, I like Jay’s arc and his consistent character traits and his character development, and he’s just a really interesting character.

Can you do Nya for the doodle/ramble? :o

Nya!!

DISCLAIMER: sorry sorry sorry this is so dang late, I have been sitting on this essay for like 2 months and I feel really bad about it. I just had so many passionate thoughts about Nya until school and work and assignments meant I lost flow and I probably won’t finish it. Tbf I did write lots so Oop lol. I’m just gonna post it unfinished like this so take away what you will :)

Awww hell yeah! So in the last post of this series, I said that Cole is probably the best written character, but i think Nya is the most interesting, and Cole’s only higher because sometimes Nya falls into kinda sexist cliches sometimes. But for the most point Nya is such an inspiring character who goes through so much strife. Honestly I think that her writing is actually a really good commentary on modern day misogyny, which is unexpected since this is just a Lego show marketed to mainly boys, and even if it wasn’t, Nya’s arc hits so much harder than you’d expect. But either way, regardless of the societal analysis, Nya is generally a really strong character who gets a lot of development simply bc was more of a side character who basically fought her way into the plot.

So the main themes of Nya is her struggle with destiny, whether she has free will or choices or if she just has to do what other expect her to. Like so many of her arcs are her struggling against what other people have told her to be or what she tells her self she has to be.

First of all, her time as samurai x and how she initially kept it a secret. In s1, in like, the first episode, we see Nya training on the training course trying to beat Kai’s score, wishing she had a dragon, and generally trying to tag along with the guys despite not being included in their team. Maybe you could argue she always wanted to be a ninja, to prove that she could do that too. However it never really caught on (until much later), and she ended up abandoning that idea in favour of becoming something else; samurai x.

I’ve always thought it was weird that she kept samurai x a secret when there wasn’t really any consequence to it when everyone found out. I think that maybe she felt a little bitter about not being included with the ninja so she decided not to share in what she got up to. Also I bet she just kept it up because the guys’ annoyance at not knowing who she was, would’ve been actually hilarious. But also she may have kept it a secret because no one could tell her how to be if no one knew it was her. Samurai X was her way of having freedom and independency, and her way of proving that she was useful, most importantly, in her own way on her own. She wanted the power to make her own choice and in order to do so, she didn’t even risk letting other people in the know in case they took it from her.

Short mention of s2 but the scene where we see Nya get corrupted is actually so horrific and invasive but it completely fits Nya’s narrative of getting her choices taken away as she’s corrupted by the dark matter. Ooh, quick s2 rewrite concept but the dark matter doesn’t immediately make you evil, but it only builds upon already dark feelings present, and in Nya’s case its her struggle with being alone, presently the fact that she was captured and overall how she gets singled out for not being a ninja or how she has to work harder to be seen alongside everyone else. With both her and Kai, they both seem to equate their worth and right to be in the family with how much they can contribute, and Nya especially puts a lot of pressure on herself, to be just as good or even better than the other ninja.

Now s3. S3… is a mixed bag. Bc it’s notorious for having a god awful love triangle that arose out of nothing but then if you think hard about it, everything after the set up kinda makes sense. Jay and Nya have kinda a strained relationship, where if we view s1 and s2 skeptically, their feelings aren’t really justified further than “jay likes girls and Nya is girl” and “Nya happens to like the colour blue”. It feels very forced hetero 2011 writing because it kinda was, but at least s3 is consistent. If you’re generous and are invested in making the most of a Lego show’s writing, then you’ll be happy to know that all of that accidentally works really well. Because we can assume that jay and Nya were quite young and it’s very common for kids/teens to just get into relationships in only name, for the pure reasoning of “we are guy and girl who hang out sometimes” Nya and jay being in a loveless, one sided relationship where neither are on the same page is pretty realistic actually, and the show tells us that Nya isn’t as invested as jay is and how there seems to be a fundamental imbalance of affection between them. Whilst I hate that Nya changes her whole mind as soon as the computer tells her to, it kinda works in that its consistent with Nya’s incredibly surface level reasoning for attraction. Her mind set is basically: if she was told a guy liked her, then she’s supposed to like them back right? That’s just what you do! Compulsive romance is so real and it’s how I personally see Nya in s3. Also it links in either s3’s theme of relying too much on technology, with Nya being swayed because of it.

Now the actual love triangle links back in with Nya and choice. She’s forced to pick between Jay and Cole but even if she does pick one, she’ll let the other down, or they might not accept it. It looks like she has a choice but there are no good options. And when she feels like she’s fighting against the grain, just like when she gave up from being a ninja, she too retreats from the conflict, avoiding giving an answer that she knows wouldn’t be accepted. She just lets them duke it out until they’ve forgotten about her and any relationship she had or could’ve wanted. By not picking a side, both sides left her after s3 and she just accepts it.

…or maybe I’m looking into to it too much as a way of coping with awful love triangles.

Quick note about s4, bc Nya kinda just kicks ass that season and I honestly don’t have too much to say. She’s just very cool. I will say that’s it’s interesting that she stayed home with wu Lloyd etc when the rest of the team dispersed. You could say she again was left behind. She stayed rebuilding the bounty, which may have been in tribute to zane considering he found the bounty. You could say zane brought the family together and found them a home, so when he died, Nya tried to fix it by remaking their home. Im gonna make a separate post about this actually.

Okay s5 is where we really get going and tbh, this season should’ve been more officially Nya. Because she’s actually becoming a ninja. I think with Nya interpretations, people usually see Nya being a ninja as a bad thing, something that was again forced upon her, which is true. I’ll talk about this again when we get to crystalized. But idk if this is a hot take but I think ninja Nya is a good thing, if you interpret samurai x as being a last resort because she didn’t become a ninja. It’s her learning to not give up, to keep at it, which is how she unlocks her true potential. That she’s just as valuable, in fact, uniquely valuable on the team. Idk I think it’s nice if you look at samurai x being her giving up on trying to be a part of the ninja. Her arc of needing to be perfect at what she does, without allowing herself to be messy or vulnerable or confront what makes her weak because she always thought that if she was a ninja, she’d be the weak link, and confronting why she hadn’t become a ninja makes her vulnerable. And her facing that fear and realising she’s more than she gives herself credit for is so so so good. Nya actually has such a low self esteem and tbh you can’t blame her when it looks like she has to fight tooth and claw to be as good as everyone else, but I’d bet on her being the strongest ninja, in some ways stronger than the green ninja. It’s very fitting that she wears the green gi in s5’s finale, because when the ghosts realise she isn’t the green ninja, they’re actually more terrified. Because she is something more feared than the green ninja. The water ninja. One of the only elements that the fsm couldn’t control. She single handedly drowned the preeminent (and destroyed an 1/8 of the universe but shhh).

And then we get to s6, which is only really good because Nya. Because even when she figures out she’s super op, society hasn’t. We get the whole news stuff in the first episode where the ninja deal with their acquired fame (nice acknowledgment of the rest of the world tbh), and we’re highlighted of how, whilst Nya took down a literal eldritch monster in the last season, she’s still only known for the love triangle, and it feels a little meta because I bet that’s what a lot of fans knew her for too (and I say this because unfortunately 13 ye old me was that, but I’ve rewatched since). We see Nya having to face everyone else’s expectations of her and the media doesn’t see her as anything but the girl ninja and she’s just told to accept that. And even when she’s trying to go against the grain, the fact that she’s only doing it to prove or disprove someone else still means she’s technically still controlled by something else. This is how I interpret the (admittedly mess of) the romance plot. Nya has and does love Jay, but she’s scared of that being all there is to her, that doing what the media expects her to means giving in to it, and losing her sense of independence. She basically can’t do what she wants because she’s holding herself to standard in response to other standards placed on her. It’s like a form of toxic masculinity but for feminism, where women feel like they have to be tough and never vulnerable because they’re trying to fight against being defined by those traits of vulnerability. Nya and Dogshank in particular, have a very specific relationship, they’re on opposite sides but play exactly the same roles, women who fought against the grain and did what was not traditionally expected of them, but in they’re fight to do so they ended up sacrificing their own freedoms anyways (Nya stops herself from getting close to the others in her need to be independent, Dogshank traded her life to be Nadakhan’s pirate just so she could win at something once). And say what you will about s6 but Nya’s death scene will always be the saddest thing, because we truly see Nya just give up her life. She’s so resigned to her fate, finally giving up on changing it and tells Jay that she never wanted to be apart of their boys club anyways. The reference of the “boys’ club” comes up 3 other times in the show: when Nya reasons why she became samurai x - she felt excluded in the group, when Nya is corrupted with dark matter and the guys fight her - Kai quipping that the “club” just became boys only and when the love matcher machine in s3 describes Nya as an independent self confident young woman who refuses to be part of a boy’s club. The evolution of the use of the quote, going from the reason Nya felt excluded, to Nya being defined by it and lastly as an acceptance of her own death, sums up what I mean, Nya internalising that “othering” and just growing to accept it. Nya then says that she guesses it’s true, the greatest love stories end in tragedy, which I think shows how she’s been told and sold so many expectations of how she wouldn’t end up happy, and it further shows how she’s given up. And the resolution of the plot isn’t perfect but I actually do like how Jay essentially bent time and space to show her that it doesn’t have to be true. Metaphorically, Jay erasing the timeline feels like he’s erasing the proposed bad end Nya’s predicted of herself. S6 is definitely flawed but I do like the theme of inevitability and the defiance of that with Nya in particular.

~~~

Yeah sorry friends that’s where I stopped. But I’ll paste my little planning stage so you guys know what I would’ve started writing about?? Anyways Nya good!!

Intro- hell yeahhh - good writing altjough ppl don’t think so

- boys club - choices

- Samurai x inventing her own identity but in retaliation

- Water ninja - child of destiny

- S6 choosing her own fate - crystalise

- S11 powers significant + seabound

- Crystalised

- Tidbits such a cool narrative but like s567 could’ve been even cooler

Conc honestly I get emotional bc she’s actually so cool man

For the doodle/rant thing, Cole

Cole!!! (Sorry this took a while)

God I love Cole so freaking much man! He’s my closely second favourite after Zane. He’s just a good guy, with a side of silly and an edge of trauma. I think his writing is the best in terms of the main characters, (although I think Nya has the most interesting), which is probably bc his backstory is the most realistic and easy to write. But I think Cole is really under-appreciated when it comes to his writing and stuff. But at the same time I’m probably gonna be biased because I just love this character.

Okay to start off, Cole is actually one of the more moral characters, like Zane, he loves by a motto given to him by his departed parent: “to always stand up to those who are cruel and unjust”. In the show, he proves that he cares so much for others, such as with Karlof in Chen’s noodle factory where he decided he was going to get everyone to escape. And trying to befriend Yang’s students and Yang himself. And befriending Krag. And the entirety of MotM. Cole is also one of the strongest ninja, physically, he was introduced climbing a mountain and he introduced himself to Kai as being fearless (mostly). In the first episode of s1, Cole nearly one the skill contest between the ninja, having beat Zane ( I think?), and nearly beating Kai before Kai set everything on fire. Jay acknowledges Cole would’ve and should’ve won their duel in the tournament in s4, had he not have let Jay win.

But in contrast to Cole generally being and kind, strong guy, he seems to have a lower esteem than what you’d expect. His reaction to grief and difficulty is to run and hide himself away from the world, as seen in s4 when he became a lumberjack after Zane died and when we know Cole became a mountain climber after running away from home and his grief over his mother. His most prominent arcs involve him losing faith in himself: in s5 he thought being a ghost made him less of a ninja, in DotD he thought he was gonna disappear without anyone remembering him, in s11 Cole blames himself for losing the tea, and s13 is about Cole feeling like he can’t measure up to his mother. I’m literally gonna start crying. Cole is an unspoken treasure, unable to see his own worth, like a geode with the crystals on the inside.

And we can fault a lot of it to his backstory. Cole’s parents were a successful musician and performer: Lou, and the dearly missed elemental master of earth: Lilly. It’s unknown if Lou knew Lilly was a ninja because he seemed so against ninjas as a whole in s1, (although I think Lilly being a ninja is a retcon that took effect in s4) but either Lilly abandoned the life of a ninja when she started a family, kept it a secret from Lou, or Lou knew but hid it from Cole, who didn’t seem to know about it when he joined the ninja. Either way, both make sense and fit with Cole’s theme of hiding away. Both Lou and Lilly had given Cole expectations to live up to: Lou with his strict expectations of being a performer, and Lilly asking Cole to promise to be a good person. In the one scene we see Cole and Lilly interacting, Cole is scared that he’s disappointed her by getting into a fight, but it turns out she’s proud of him for being who he is and defending children from bullies. With Cole losing Lilly, he carries this harsh standard that he needs to live in a way that makes her proud, and Lou also feels like he needs to raise Cole to be the best he can be, which is why Lou is harsh in training Cole to be a performer, because that’s all Lou knows. The pressure of everything was too much for Cole and he ended up running away from it all, and climbing a mountain. In his own way he’s still trying to climb to the top and prove himself, but at the same time he’s trying to bury his grief and trauma under other things, such as how Lou is burying his grief with performance. Joining the ninja, Cole starts to heal, he has a way of self improvement that is monitored so that it’s safer, and more importantly he has a family, a safety net that can support him. He’s a ninja and he takes pride in it, but this life comes right into conflict with the life he was hiding from, his father’s. In Cole’s true potential, his disconnect from his father held him back, forcing him to first shun who he was in front of his dad, and lead him to nearly committing crimes because he had no faith in himself winning and he didn’t even want to try. But he decides to anyways, and he does actually succeed. And he’s not proving himself to his father but he’s proving himself to himself. His true potential isn’t just about his daddy issues but also his self esteem in general. Whilst his true potential was achieved this episode, Cole’s inclination to run still resurfaces in other arcs. He associates attention with negativity, as seen when he gets unwanted attention from Nya costing his friendship with Jay and pushing him to run into the woods and be a lumberjack. And he always ends up giving up something in order to help someone else, like giving jay the Jade blade, or grabbing the scroll in Yang’s temple, nearly not making it through the rift because of Yang, falling off of the bounty, helping people in s10 etc etc.

Cole imo has really balanced writing that gives him just enough spotlight to answer our questions about him, and when he isn’t the main focus, he usually has a good b-plot where he receives really good character or he gets good comedy bits which are just enjoyable to watch (like rocky danger buff). It’s easier to actually develop Cole bc as I mentioned, his backstory is the least outlandish. He has kinda a high pressure childhood and his mother died. Unlike every other ninja who’s parents have been missing at some point, Cole knows everything about his parents, his expectations of their status don’t change during the show so he has the most time to develop his current mental state (unlike for example Zane, who’s father kept flip flopping his mortality in a way that doesn’t give Zane enough time to showcase his emotions at each stage of that process, at least not to the extent Cole has). Also because Cole usually gets plots that are not usually connected to the main storyline, his plots always focus mainly on his character development. In a way, being a less important character actually gives characters more of a spotlight. Also they never shove Cole into any romance which is a bonus bc Ninjago romances are honestly horrendously set up. I mean… other than that one time.

Which is how I’ll segue into talking about my few criticisms with Cole’s writing. Bc every character can be improved. First of all, as I mentioned, I can’t talk about Cole without the love triangle. I actually don’t hate about it as much as I used to, since the love triangle did end up setting up the cool development we got in s4. And if you read behind the lines you can almost pretend it was in character, I just tell myself that Cole was only taking part in the drama because he was pissed at Jay assuming he was straight. But the canon is that Nya suddenly had a crush on Cole bc a buzzfeed quiz told her to, and Cole suddenly reciprocated bc that’s apparently what you do. Istg none of the romantic feelings make sense or are justified in the show outside of “that woman looks like she’d be a good gf” which is cringe. So like I just squint when it comes to that and say that Cole and Nya are suffering from peer pressure and allonormativity/compulsive heterosexuality.

Another specific nitpick of Cole’s character is the complete fake out death he had in s10. Like writer’s set up stakes that make the death dramatic but then didn’t stick to their rules which just kinda invalidate the stakes of the season in general. Like we see the cloud immediately turn citizens to stone but for some reason Cole can nap through it fine. The writers put no effort in justifying Cole’s survival of not just the Oni cloud but like surviving falling from that height. I mean ig legos are built different, but if they are, then why is everyone so worried yknow? And it could’ve been simple, we could’ve been shown that Cole somehow saved himself with his powers, maybe being an earth elemental means he doesn’t take damage when he hits the earth? Idk. It was just a cheap death and it didn’t have any impact other than make Nya sad for 1.5 seconds and loosely set up survivalshipping. Yeah

Other than that, I don’t think I have any other specific Cole criticisms. His dad could be involved more ig. Idk.

All in all Cole is a top tier character

Ooh, maybe Morro for the doodle and opinions game thing lol 👀

Morro

Ahhh shadow the hedgehog! I mean, Morro. I’ll be honest tho, this guy has some wasted potential both in universe and as a writing standpoint. I love a good edgy parallel main character and he definitely has an interesting backstory and I wish we got more of him. Idk this is an unpopular opinion but s5 isn’t my favourite (although as I say that, I watched the first 3 episodes this morning and really enjoyed it lol) since it’s a little all over the place. But he’s still very interesting so I’ll get into it. (Note after drawing him and over analysing him for like an hour, I like him even more than I did when I started writing this lol)

(Ps: currently as of this post, I have no more suggestions so feel free to spam my inbox bc I like writing essays on legos and also drawing)

Morro is actually an orphan (or abandoned idk) which is big sad, and Wu finds him when he’s pretty young and he looks pretty experienced in foraging bins for trash which suggests he’s been alone for a while. Although it’s interesting he, as an orphan child, decided he specifically wanted to climb that huge ass mountain to find rubbish. Maybe he’s always been ambitious and decided “yep I can climb a mountain” or maybe he caused trouble in a village somewhere and had to run away, and decided the mountain was a safe, quiet bet. Either I love how Wu found a child and was like “yeah I’ll teach it to kill”. I don’t think Wu should’ve been allowed to have a child actually. But I’ve noticed, in Ghost Story, Wu talked about how when the fsm died he said he’d leave a message to find his tomb and Wu never found it. Kinda sounds like Wu has daddy issues. And so this arc is now about generational trauma. I think the fsm, yknow as an escapee of war himself, probably raised Wu and Garmadon quite strictly and Wu probably grew up with a lot of pressure, first as practically a demigod, and second as one who bares the duty of stopping/saving his brother from evil. So what does a man who was raised as a warrior at a young age do when he sees a young child? Try and raise it in the only way he knew how. Wu also having to deal with Garmadon leaving and also getting ghosted by Misako at the same time so I think Morro’s company would’ve been nice. The discovery of Morro’s elemental power is interesting because we know that wind was one of the elements, the fsm hadn’t mastered, so wu may have never even encountered it. Also since a lot of the elemental masters are shown to be fighters, it might mean that the EMs typically take up some sort of fighting job in general. Could that mean Morro’s parents may have died or got lost to combat? Maybe that’s why he had his powers so young. The more you think about it, the more tragic it gets. I think, with how much of a good omen Morro seemed to be, Wu probably expected he was the green ninja. Morro definitely would’ve had some hero complex, he came in, made his master’s life a lot less lonely, he’s gonna save the world and help Wu fix things with his family. And when he’s not that, he ends up doing a lot of unnecessary and concerning things to prove himself. He gets a little loopy (and honestly it would’ve been sick if they leaned into that in the present plot actually). Morro ends up leaving to go find the Fsm’s tomb and mannn you can tell how brutally militant the fsm and Wu’s relationship was when the former literally makes visiting his grave a test of honour for his son (Ik he also was hiding the realm Crystal but yeah). And Morro leaves. Which is such a L, especially for Wu considering Wu’s father left him with barely a hint of where he died, Garmadon left him to train far away, Misako also, like everyone leaves Wu. Maybe that’s why Wu didn’t go after him. Not only did Wu tell Morro about the green ninja but also about the fsm’s tomb which lead him to his death, so yeah it makes sense why Wu would be so secretive. Because not only did the prophecy push Morro over the edge, if Wu never talked about his father Morro may not have died.

Morro has a really cool intro to the series, from the VA change of the night guard, to Lloyd screaming off screen, and then the fight at the monastery in the dark, his aesthetic, pathetic fallacy (cool weather sets the mood) and his theme, it’s very cool. I do wish though, we got more of a visualisation of Lloyd and Morro fighting for control it could even have tied back to Garmadon and his evilisation yknow? Also Morro unfortunately has a redemption at death arc which is generally disappointing. He changes his mind about all his bitterness without really any reasoning. Wu doesn’t do anything in the season really until at the very last moment, and it just comes out of nowhere. Like s5 is not on my rewrite list but if I could change anything, one of those things would be giving Morro internal conflict. Make Morro feel Lloyd’s love for his family, make Morro briefly doubt what he’s doing and miss Wu. And mannn I wish Wu played more of a role in this season, in regards to Morro. Like Wu never got to see his own father’s tomb.

I get it though, there’s a lot happening with wu already since he’s trying Nya. I do like how he’s reluctant to tell Nya about her powers especially in the season where the villain is a villain because Wu said too much. Morro and Nya also have a few parallels, both are unable to handle failure and struggle to adapt when their life changes. It’s cool because we get to see Nya succeed where Morro didn’t (and that’s why she’s allowed to wear green). I think honestly this season should’ve had more Kai development considering Kai and Morro basically have the same plot, and it would’ve really wrapped up the staff scene in s4. Like maybe with Kai telling Morro of how he avoided being like him, how Kai chose to protect others instead of trying to earn a title that he didn’t need. Maybe that would have then played into Morro’s redemption later on.

Also how come Morro got sent the cursed realm? Well I have a theory but this is basically Ninjago speed run angst percentage. So to go to the cursed realm ya got to get cursed. So what if Morro managed to curse himself? Like his swore he’d find the tomb or else he’d go to the cursed realm and him making a verbal oath actually held weight because spooky superstition. Maybe he dabbled in dark magic to help him on his quest. Idk I just think it’s poetic that Morro’s downfall is himself. Although I wish I knew why he ended up being the preeminent’s lackey. Hmm here’s a suggestion, the preeminent, in true eldritch horror fashion, is like a goddess, like the compelling call of destiny, that has dubbed Morro as her own “chosen one”, which is why he has the highest status of all the ghosts. I just need the preeminent to be creepy.

All in all I think Morro has a really good set up I just wish we got more of a learning arc for him, just to back up his redemption. Villains like the overlord, or the Oni don’t need character development because they only need to be strong, and villains like Chen and Nadakhan don’t need development because they can just be incredibly smart from the get go. But villains that have shifting moralities need to get justification on why that is the case and with Morro and Harumi, imo I think Ninjago drops the ball, and their final moments of not being awful feel very rushed. Also I love Morro aesthetic and think he should be even more insane actually, have him be weirdly connected to the preeminent and also have him be almost delusional in his quest for power because it would be spicy. But in general, Morro is super interesting and that’s why I think fanon is more popular, because people like to lean in and see if they can push Morro where the writers didn’t (although it’s more likely fanon Morro is just popular because he’s emo). Also a note about DotD, I actually love that special mostly for the villain interactions because it’s just gorgeous. Now that Morro is over his intensely huge drama Queen arc, when placed next to the other he’s kinda chill and love the fact when he shows up he scares the life out of the other ninja, but he’s actually pretty civil and other than he can’t help himself from acting villainous. But he has a sense of honour and yknow he probably would’ve made for a great ninja.

Here’s a random hc to close this off, Morro actually loved pirates and would’ve had the time of his life if he was around for s6.

But that’s it for now! Morro good.

talk/doodle about hatsune miku for the art/opinions thing

Hatsune Miku???

Oh wow… my favourite Ninjago character… ig I can work with this…

Happy belated birthday Hatsune Miku

Hatsune miku is a vocaloid (a vocal synthesiser) created by Crypton Future Media and she is used to sing (and feature as a character) in songs (usually in Japanese) created by various artists that own her software. She is a widespread internet sensation, globally famous making cameos in various other mediums, like comics, anime and lady gaga concerts.

If you’d rather not delve in the horrors of EC (which is murder and everything that’s worse than murder) then just skip this paragraph. Miku tends to be given character of a sentient doll constantly in an existential crisis and severe daddy issues. One of her roles is Maria Moonlit (which could be counted as her first appearance (or her last), if we’re counting song wise in chronological order. Idk? who’s counting amirite?). Maria Moonlit is an orphan born near the beginning of time, got struck by lightning and chosen to be the prophet and figure head to a technologically advanced medieval civilisation. She supposedly had the power to hear the voices of the gods who claimed to be her parents. However, the gods were evil and trapped somewhere and wanted to be born into human vessels, so she made up a lie to trick the people into starting a project to create magic twin babies to house the gods. This turns into an incredibly convoluted science experiment which involved serial killers, cloning, incest????, the government being overthrown, dragons and the entire city exploding and all technology being lost as the world is thrust into the dark ages. Maria lives the sad life of wondering who she is and wondering whether she’s just been used like a plaything to the gods, and technically she was, because she was a doll wound up like clockwork to repeat her miserable life forever (literally, there’s time travel shanigannery). We can assume she’s a doll because she’s the reincarnation of one that has been sent back in time. Okay Ik that was entirely crazy but that’s only the first part of evillious. Miku’s two most prominent parts in the series however, is trans lesbian servant girl Michaela, who got assassinated in the name of a jealous betrothed of a man with a one sided crush on her and became a tree - and licensed doctor by day, drug supplier mafia member by night, Margarita, who is unable to sleep because she’s secretly a doll and her husband only married her because she was rich and he likes gambling and sleeping around, so she released an airborne toxin killing a whole town whilst calling herself the sleep princess. The first girl, Michaela, is part of the more well known section of the series, the story of evil. She was originally a tree spirit in the form of a bird, who became a human in order to become close to a depressed peasant girl who was ostracised from her village due to her ancestry to a certain clan. She learns the joys of being human, hanging out with her friend, falling in love with said friend, but eventually her otherworldly beauty causes conflict and the continent goes to war, which ended in the genocide of a country and Michaela stabbed and left in a well. The other girl, Margarita, is a pretty significant character in the series due to the fact that the series is structured around the biblical seven deadly sins, with her story being Sloth (Michaela is a side character of Pride’s story). Margarita may seem like an odd choice for sloth as part of her story follows how she is unable to sleep, and instead works hard to develop her gift to her loved ones (but gift in the German meaning of the word check below image). But sloth also means lacking devotion or care, and Margarita by the end of it, despite once vowing she’d always her husband, couldn’t give a damn about him in the end, describing herself again like “a plaything, broken from the start” and eventually she gives up on everything. All these Miku characters all have the same things in common (other than being screwed over by men), which is their relationship with inhumanity and artificiality, which is kinda meta given how Hatsune Miku is an artificial singer made for the amusement of others. But at least she’s not about to poison anyone because of it.

I’ve spoken too much evillious, so let me info dump about a much more palatable Miku related thing. That was a pun because it’s Colourful Palette. Or Colour Stage? Uhh Project Sekai. Yeah. A rhythm game (that’s free), that revolves around the concept of different genres of hatsune Miku that come from magic other worlds and are really good therapists. There are five storylines of different music groups that have really strong feelings tm that their emotions spawned whole other worlds that are inhabited by vocaloids, who want to help the main characters, discover what their feelings are so they can write songs about it. Yeahhh… Miku comes in five different flavours! School, idol, street, catgirl clown and depressed! ALSO EVILLIOUS DID A CROSS OVER WITH THE GAME SO THE POISON LADY IS HERE ALSO. The songs used in the rhythm game consists of a lot of iconic vocaloid songs as well as songs specifically commissioned for the game, sung by both vocaloids and the real life voice actors, which is very fun. Hatsune Miku, due to coming in different forms in this game, kinda works like a character from a multiverse story (like spider verse or the incredibly convoluted branch of the undertale fandom), and it seems like Miku is kinda just born from emotions and music, which makes her way more cryptid/deity like than the game presents her to be. Miku is just an entity yknow? I haven’t finished the main storylines of the game yet, but they’re good and also the vocaloid side plots are cool. For example the School world Miku tries her hardest to act like a mentor figure to the humans, whilst Luka (another vocaloid) who is more of a mentor figure to Miku looks on. I think in the fandom, the theme park theatre storyline and the emo shut ins storyline are more popular (because they are the embodiment of the “nothing in life matters” millennial vs gen z meme), and can we talk about depressed Miku because she’s literally born out of somebody’s mommy issues and depression but she’s really sweet. The whole “Miku’s personality is based around the feelings that are put into her songs” are again in reference to how the character of Miku works.

To round off this ramble about Miku I’m going to talk about some of my favourite Miku songs. I’m more of a kagamine Len listener, especially when I was younger and first discovered vocaloid but these are my Miku picks.

Miku by Anamanaguchi: yeah so this chiptune song is about Miku herself and it’s pretty iconic. A lot of vocaloid songs are kinda vague, but this one seems to describe who and what Miku is in a way that makes her seem mysterious, like an interesting technological phenomenon which checks out. She mentions how “anyone can find her” and that people can “play me break me” referring to how she’s easily found on the internet and she can be used to make songs. The ending of the song seems to take a more sinister turn where Miku seems to want to make you stay forever (in like a ddlc Monika way). It does make sense in a way, since Miku is a program that relies on other people’s interest to stay alive and relevant, and in a sense, people’s dedication/addiction to Miku is what keeps her going. She’s like one of those spooky maybe??sentient AIs.

The Disappearance of Hatsune Miku by cosMo: so this is a song depicting what happens to Miku when no one likes her. Specifically this is supposedly about that one time in 2007 when suddenly, Miku disappeared from the search engines, and every time someone tried to look her up, the search results came up blank. She became incredibly popular in a short amount of time that allegedly people searched her so much that Google and yahoo blocked the search, because it looked like spam. The incident upset people so much they created a fan made character, that later was recognised as an official derivative of Miku, based on their boredom. There’s also a conspiracy on whether this was actually a motivated attack on Miku’s popularity due to an anti Miku campaign lead by an advertising agency that influenced the Japanese music industry but idk there are a lot of stories on the internet. Evidently the problem is fixed. The song came out around that time and is about Miku lamenting the fact that she’s getting shut down, and all she wants to do is sing before she dies. Yeah. The song is notorious, not just for its background but also for its incredibly fast paced rap?? part that gets as fast as 240bpm, and I think the fact that’s is almost impossible for a human to sing it, works well with Miku’s struggle with the fact that’s she’s not human.

Okay that’s a lot of talking so here are some quick recommendations:

The maiden of the tree ~ Millennium Wiegenlied ~ by Akuno-P: this is the evillious song about Michaela the spirit turned human lesbian. Very boppy!

Patchwork staccato by toa: I like this one for the actual music it’s a bop. There’s a few interpretations of the song but generally it’s about relationship problems, be it one sided love or a toxic relationship that’s hard to break away from.

Kagerou Daze by Jin: more of a rock song, which is part of a wider vocaloid series (The Kagerou Project) and it’s about a boy who keeps living through the same day over and over again because his friend keeps dying no matter where he takes her. It’s a time travel trauma loop! The song ends when the boy realises to break the cycle, he has to die instead, and m the last verse of the song reveals the girl is also trapped in the same loop. Fun! The actual story is a little different but I don’t need another incredibly complex and convoluted vocaloid series to cry about so I didn’t get into it. Also the animation for it is so cool

Anything from the Night ∞ Series by Hitoshizuku-P x Yama△: a series consisting of four songs sung by eight vocaloids (ofc Hatsune Miku is included), which tell the tale of a group of actors who get trapped repeating the same play of a manor in the woods forever which also becomes real life because someone lost the last page of the script (and also someone perhaps died??). The songs all tell the same story from different perspectives and end differently (but usually either Miku or everyone else dies). There’s a novel about it. It’s confusing spooky and good music. I also feel like I’ve listed way too many dark songs oops.

Aww man I can’t talk about “all phone zombies lead to Rome” by manbo-p because it’s a gumi song, not Miku. It was going to be the one not tragic song on this list! Oh well you should totally listen/watch it, it’s hilarious and also educational.

Well yeah that’s it! My tastes in Miku songs are a little intense but yeah!

(Sorry it took so long @birdbound I just moved house and then procrastinating writing this. I drew kid Kai tho so you can’t be too mad

Kai!!! It’s him! The big man! Love to see it! I feel like I’ve talked about him a lot recently so I’m not sure what to say without repeating points. I think people tend to feel really strongly about this character and honestly I have a few mixed opinions on his portrayal in the show (although I think I tend to disagree with a bunch of people’s opinions about him too, so maybe I’m just weird).

Also look!!! I got his core set! This is actually my first Ninjago set ever (because I stopped collecting Lego before I decided Ninjago will take all my brain space). I love the evo sets because they just put dorky stories in the instructions which was really fun, look how happy he is. I actually drew Kai in his evo gi because yes.

Anyways…

So one of Kai’s main defining character traits is that he’s a little rugged, a little mean and I don’t mean this in a bad way I just mean that like in the pilots when they’re first establishing the characters everyone has like they’re defining thing. Cole is the buff commanding one (and his main gimmick in the pilots is about subverting that trait with his fear of dragons), Jay is the one who talks too much (which is again subverted when he loses his voice) and Zane is just doesn’t understand social cues. And Kai is defined as someone who struggles working in a team because he literally doesn’t care about anyone there, which I think is understandable, he’s under a lot of stress. But he is the one to take offence and do things on his own terms.

Yknow how Kai has main character vibes? Although after the pilots he doesn’t even do that much? I think Kai actually has lancer vibes but because the actual main character arrived late and was having a villain arc, Kai kinda fills that role without Lloyd. What happens when the lancer character hasn’t yet found the hero character? Well since they’re supposed to contrasting parallel to the hero, they have the potential to have just as much main character energy.

Also all the other ninja have major side character energy that Kai just doesn’t yknow? I think this is a more prominent reason as to why Kai is seen as the main character. Because he doesn’t have side character energy like everyone else. All of the other ninja’s true potential episodes aren’t related to the main plot but just other personal things to those Ninja (Cole and Zane’s backstories and Jay’s love life), but Kai’s was also the resolution to the “who’s the green ninja” arc, which was prominent to the whole season and the green ninja stuff in general is significant throughout the whole show.

But yeah Kai had major bad boy lancer energy and as of the team dynamic he’s usually takes the more headstrong role. He’s not afraid to criticise the actions of the team (s8, s11), tends to have a habit of going off on his own and not working/communicating with the team (pilots, s1 kinda, s7), also his absolute outwards confidence (s3 when he went on that date and was just showing off, s6, s9 when he said he was the looks of the team, s12 kinda). Although he’s not a total paragon like Lloyd or Zane, he provides a much needed second opinion to the team and makes things more interesting. And it means that his softer side is just that much more endearing.

I’d argue that Kai has two central themes in his arcs and character growth: destiny/being a hero/power and family/general care:

- In the pilots he’s motivated to save his family, whilst learning to work with others

- s1 he has to learn to not obsess over destiny and instead learn to be a good mentor figure to Lloyd

- S4 he literally had to compete in a power contest and also his complex about the green ninja is back

- S5 he has to save Lloyd who had officially reached baby bro status

- S6 his father is foreshadowed

- S7 his parents. They exist.

- S9 isn’t much but he empathises with dragons

- S11 he loses his powers (another power complex

These are really interesting and I kinda wish they got developed better but we’ll get to my gripes later.

Something that’s funny is that, every time Kai isn’t having a power complex, he’s given a gimmick for the season and everytime the gimmick is that he sucks at something fr. s3 he doesn’t get technology, s4 he can’t skate, s5 can’t swim, s12 sucks at video games. Hes not even a good blacksmith like s10 was about him being like “oh no the world is relying on my awful blacksmith skills” (Although he perseveres). He’s like, the anti-Jay. Can get bitches and has zero talents. I mean this affectionately and I love him for it but man whenever the writers don’t know what to do with him they make him suck at the core theme of the season. I mean I guess it’s cuz he’s goofy like that. Kinda a himbo who only knows swords and we should all appreciate him for that. I’ll come back to this too.

So here’s where the takes get slightly more critical but I think it’s safe to say that Kai is kinda undeveloped. He has main characters energy but not actually that much focus in the first two seasons, and whilst we get everyone’s backstories in s1, we don’t for Kai, we don’t even get to discuss his parentlessness at all. Whilst he has the green ninja prophecy and goes into that more prominently than everyone else, he still shares it with the rest of the cast.

In s4, I still believe that it’s a Kai season as much as s3 is a Zane season, but it’s more like he’s the camera into the world, rather than having arcs. I think it’s because everyone else feels like they’re side characters doing side arcs that aren’t inherent to the main plot. So Kai feels like a main character because he doesn’t do side plots. Maybe it might be the fact that the main arc Kai had was Skylor and imo the romance was not amazingly written. Like all he did was heart eyes at her until she stopped being evil. Idk they just weren’t that compelling to me. Also I don’t think they really address Kai in regards to the consequences of the last season, not in the same way as Jay and Cole. And also the green ninja thing felt very spontaneous, I thought that arc ended 2 seasons ago?

In s5 he has the whole Lloyd brother thing and the snowboarding scene and him jumping into water for Lloyd was good I just think they really could have and should have done more with his character in s5. Especially since Morro, his evil parallel, was right there.

And then s7. Ughhhhh. Most people say this is the worst season and they are right. Yes we finally get the parents. For some reason Kai wants to kill them at first but that doesn’t really have a deeper meaning beyond Kai being fooled easily and jumps to conclusions. They could’ve dived into maybe Kai resents his parents a little bc he has trauma of them leaving or something and that’s why, but they don’t. The time twins are also annoying, like every other villain is either incredibly plot relevant (the overlord gives us fsm lore, Morro gives us wu lore, Chen gave us elemental masters worldbuilding) or are fun (pythor manipulates children, Chen takes over the world via elaborate roller derby competitions, Nadakhan relies on wordplay and managed to uproot the city), and the time twins are neither. They’re just random elementals who think they’re better than everyone else because of a saying to do with their powers and their goal is to destroy technology?? I don’t think Kai really goes through an arc or character develops and neither does anyone else (apart from maybe Lloyd?).

I don’t even remember if Kai got anything in s9 other than his one how to train a dragon tm moment, although he gets a little focus in s10 with the weapons. And then in s11 he definitely does get an arc, it just feels kinda unnecessary especially when all it took to get his powers back was just to try really hard? Like had he not already tried before? And then in the rest of the wildbrain era, he mostly takes a back seat.

Idk he has a really good set up and all the themes that link to him are there, but his writing never fully sees it through. S7 is the biggest let down because it has the perfect villains to parallel Kai, as in power hungry, self appointed tyrants when Kai himself has struggled with a power complex and thinking he deserves a high ranking title. I’d really like for Kai’s parentlessness to be brought up a lot more as an established reason why he does the things he does in s1-4 especially since he does briefly talk about it in s5 and it sets up his s7 arc. It would also be nice if Kai got more of an arc about how he coped with Zane’s death in s4, since whilst we can see Cole and Jay leaving because they could probably tear the place down if they were together any longer but Kai still had Nya and Lloyd so it would be really interesting to explore how much pain he felt that he decided to leave them, and again we could go on to the parallels Kai shares with his parents and how he too briefly becomes an absent figure in his family’s life. Also would be cool if Kai had more of a connection with Morro on their similar stories in s5. And for god’s sake make s7 make sense it was supposed to be the finale of Ninjago and it was lame. Brief thoughts about the rewrite I’m planning but it would be cool if Krux, in his way of controlling the situation, actually partially raised Kai and Nya (as in visits on holidays). Then he has a personal connection and is a much creepier villain, holding more control and power over the situation. And maybe his goal is to change the timeline due to trying avert some sort of destiny prophecy thing, just to tie in that theme Kai has. Idk idk.

Also with the fact that Kai tends to be not good at a lot of things like technology or swimming, whilst it’s just a comedic gag and not plot significant, I think it would hit better and feel less mean if it was in contrast to Kai usually being skilled. Like take the fact that he nearly beat Cole in the first episode but reference that Kai is independently one of the strongest fighters on the team. Let’s say he’s the best swordsman, the best at offensively utilising his powers (albeit not great at damage control) and has the constitution to take damage and continue fighting. He probably trained the hardest because he was fuelled by firstly, saving Nya in the pilots and then wanting to be the green ninja, and even when the team splits up, he continues training and fighting (red shogun). Then him facing adversity in incredibly mundane areas is funny because “Kai? One of the most proficient ninja, master over fire and expert with the blade, doesn’t know how to swim?”. It also makes s11’s arc better set up, as Kai losing his powers is even more about his loss of identity, he literally attaches his skill and power to his sense of worth.

Okay I’m not gonna make a big deal about this next paragraph but since this is all my opinion, I do want to elaborate on why I said that I tend to disagree with other fans when I’m talking about Kai, because (Crystalised p1 spoilers) I actually like how he was portrayed in the first episode. He had a really mature reaction and functional (not entirely healthy but functional and work in progress) coping mechanism in relation to loss. Sure it would’ve been nice if we got more of a focus on what went down with him, but I think there wasn’t a lot of time to do so since the plot moved really fast. I think people kinda expected Kai to just be angry and angry only but I really enjoy seeing him in a different light, because it still feels in character to me. Also I think sometimes Kai gets simplified down in to angry overprotective brother when he’s actually a really chill bro who even in s1 isn’t even that amazing at the concept of “looking after child”. People act like he raised Nya when they’re almost the same age and he talks about Nya as if they mutually had each other instead of Kai being in charge. Like Nya probably beat up his bullies tbh. Kai hasn’t ever been overprotective of Nya as seen when he’s supportive of her being samurai x and also of Jay and Nya for the most part(pilots don’t count because he just had a normal reaction when your family gets kidnapped, and idk what Wu’s teas are on tbh but I reject that one ep). And also Kai was the one to lose Lloyd in s1 when he got captured by snakes. Only really after Garmadon died did Kai step up and make a big deal out of the brother figure business for Lloyd. Overall sometimes imo ppl play up his backstory the angst but then ignore interesting arcs for him, or the integrity for other characters or even take it out on the writers and stuff, and like if that’s how you like your eggs then sure. It does kinda annoy me if I think a character is being misinterpreted but that’s kinda just my personal beef ig.

All around, Kai is a pretty solid character with just enough interesting points for people to dig their teeth into. He definitely deserved better than s7 but oh well. I love the mini figure I got for him tho he looks so dorky and I keep fidgeting with him cuz he’s on my desk

The Overlord lmao (for doodles/character discussion thingy)

The Overlord

Ooh what to talk about.

The overlord, in my opinion is… kinda boring. I mean he’s is and is intended to be really simple - the literal personification of everything bad in the world. Whilst this is kinda not great for world building reasons, the overlord is supposed to be more of a allegorical, symbolic abstract plot device and in the writer’s defence, they didn’t think they’d get renewed after s2 and thought that “the good must have evil” backstory was enough context for the world’s backstory. Disclaimer: I have yet to see crystalised part 2 so if idk if this ramble will become less or more relevant after that (also no spoilers about that pls)

The overlord is a pretty good symbolic plot device - he’s a ghostly manifestation of any issue that a viewer could see themselves facing and the story is about overcoming that problem and pushing through - hence “Ninja never quit”. Tbh in that sense, he’s a really good foil for the moral of s2. I think (although I’m no professional) good villains are those that specifically challenge the message of the story. So for example, if the story’s message is love wins, then the villain is written in a way that tries to disprove that idea and tries to say something else like “actually no, manipulating others while not caring about them at all is more effective”. So in Ninjago, the message is “No matter how hard life gets, always push forward and don’t give up! Ninja never quit” and s1 is all about the ninja pushing forward past what was holding them back, and gaining their true potential. S2 is all about how no matter what Garmadon throws at the ninja, no matter what challenges Lloyd faces in training for the hardest day of his life, they push through it and succeed. It’s literally the lyrics of the weekend whip. Meanwhile, the Overlord and Garmadon’s arc follow an antithesis of this: Garmadon has had to struggle all his life and eventually succumbs to his hardships and to the Overlord. His goal is, instead improving himself, but to bring the rest of Ninjago down and recreate it in his own image; make everyone evil and miserable like he is. That’s also the overlord’s power - to corrupt everyone in Ninjago and make them evil. These two characters try to bring the worst out of people in a show that says be your best self. So thematically the overlord is pretty cool. He’s the scary big bad that can be a metaphor for any looming, seemingly insurmountable problem we face in our day to day lives that threatens to turn us and the world for the worse.

However, whilst that’s a great concept, the in universe lore feels really unfinished. The overlord is literally a cloud of purple smoke that came out of nowhere and has decided that it wants to become a dragon and make people angry. The overlord doesn’t really have a past other than “he had to exist because balance bla bla” and he just pops in the second half of s2 as a device to ramp up the stakes of the villain (and save Garmadon from being held accountable). Tbh it’s been like a few months since I watched s2 so I might not be remembering the pacing exactly right but s2 was paced kinda weirdly and I wish the overlord had a lot more set up. Like simply knowing his existence earlier on would be nice. It would also be nice if he was a bit more… developed. Like what if the overlord is less of a sentient being and more like a disease that made people think worse, kinda like the scrolls of forbidden spinjitzu. Or maybe he is sentient and we touch upon his greed to take over more and more of the fsm’s territory. I mean I do like the theory and the overlord is part of the fsm master, since the fsm master was part Oni and dragon and the overlord is an evil spirit dragon. But that would mean that at some point the fsm master was a fully good person if he somehow severed his connection to whatever darkness the overlord is and Yknow I’m not too convinced just because I don’t think it should be that easy idk. Maybe at some point the fsm somehow severed all his connection to the Oni and dragons and became as mundane as an ordinary human, which is why he was able to die. Idk there’s definitely a lot of opportunity to explore the overlord and the fsm and I’m sure if they are the same person it only amplifies that metaphor about being a better you/worse you. Also the generational trauma of guys becoming evil…

It really would’ve been nice if they set the overlord up earlier in the season, since he’s supposed to be this mountain of a threat, I feel like that fear factor isn’t as effective when we don’t even know who is are why he’s showing up now of all times. Like maybe he’s someone even wu and Garmadon are terrified of because of his rivalry with their dad. Maybe Garmadon, every episode, hears whispers of the overlord, tempting him to become worse and worse whilst Lloyd is forced to watch from the other side of the battle field as his dad falls further away from being saved. These would not only add a really ominous and scary note at the end of all those fun quirky filler episodes at the start of s2 but increase the tension and add a sense of progression in the story. Idk the overlord is a little plain and I think he could’ve been spicier.

He’s not the most entertaining villain to watch, which is fine, as evil personified ig he doesn’t need that much of a personality. He’s got some oddly hilarious moments tho:

Not the overlord being self conscious about his appearance. He saw cryptor bullying mindroid and knew he wouldn’t survive. Overlord ashamed to be shorter than mindroid.

At this point I actually forgot he was in s3?? S3 was kinda a humbly mess anyways (and this post is ridiculously long), but I think something to mention is that, at the end of s3, the overlord actually won. If the overlord, from a writing perspective, exists to turn the protagonists into their worse selves, then he succeeded. He split the ninja up, and they quit. Even if he didn’t win, they still lost. And they should’ve totally gone with that angle yknow. I think the overlord could’ve been terrifying, I mean he controlled the whole city. Aesthetic wise the spider imagery is very fitting and I can tell it’s only gonna get better with the new season.

That is FINALLY all I have to say on the overlord. Sorry to have overloaded (ithinkimfunny) you with ramble but that’s just what happens. Not my favourite villain and I think he’s a little underdeveloped but he’s got his quirks and fulfils what he needs to.

Okay here’s a game, over the next few days y’all can give me a Ninjago character and I’ll give you a cheap doodle and a long ramble about what I think about them

In s4 Nya was trying to rebuild the bounty. Zane found the bounty originally. Zane kinda made the ninja a family. When Zane died, the group stopped being a family. In s4 Nya was trying to rebuild the bounty. Trying to rebuild the family.

The only reason Kai doesn’t breath fire is because he’s asthmatic