#I like Misakos flaws I like thinking about her as a character

[grumpy-zane]

((Saw some misako stuff I disagree with and now Im going to talk about her as a character because I do find her interestinf.

As we know, both Lloyds parents were freaking absent for one reason or another, but I think what Ive taken away from, at least s2, is that Misako isn't afraid to do things that dont 'allign with the good guys' so to speak. She devotes her life to her hobby/job, she always has it seems. She had alterior motives when convincing garmadon to take off his helmet. She does what she must to get what she wants.

If anything it gives an interesting perspective on how she navigates the world. Yes, people miss her when she's gone, yes Lloyd was without her as a kid, but her mind was in one place doing something she was familiar with. I find that far more interesting to acknowledge than write off as her bring a bad person.

'Why did she leave Lloyd at Darklys' easy. Lloyd wanted to be like his dad, and Misako knew that if lloyd were to be 'good', he would fall in line with the green ninja prophecy.

'That doesnt make her a good mom' no maybe not, but in her mind it was a battle of 'Do I let my kid fall into this prophecy and train all his life to kill his dad' vs 'Do I let my kid be a delinquent and stal enough time for me to find a way out of this destiny'. Her intentions were good, and she ultimately failed. It just so happens that the aftermath turned out good, but I am willing to bet that she expected Garmadon to die at Lloyds hands.

After s2 she is still doing her job, and she isn't around. Lloyd has Wu and the other ninja to be there for him, and she doesn't have to be around for Lloyd because of this. Maybe Lloyd is sad that she isn't around, but we must remeber that Garmadon also wasn't around after s2. He was training kids how to fight without fighting.

Yeah. God forbid female characters have flaws am I right? (sarcastic) ))

#What time is it haha #I like Misakos flaws I like thinking about her as a character #I like to think that shes always been hard to get ahold of #I mean Wu was writing her letters and stuff b4 she chose garmadon #As sweet of a gesture that is. It makes me think that alwaus been an absent person #Ninjago

[spicyicymeloncat]

I don’t know if I’ve already shared this and if I had, sorry, but consider: past morally questionable Misako (I’ll preface this with: this is not a Misako slander post. I like her and just because I hc her as a flawed person doesn’t mean I think she’s bad as a character).

Misako but she herself was raised by Darkley’s boarding school (or associated groups). Her love of research and questing originated from being tasked missions to steal magical artefacts. Her interest in the spinjitzu bros was originally a mission to glean information about the elemental alliance and spinjitzu from them, which is why she was quick to accept the letter and why she was fine with having an evil partner.

But over time, her relationship with Garmadon changed her perspective. She saw how he struggled against his own evil, and how he still strive to be a hero in spite of it. They bonded, finding that they had shared experiences and she began to see more in the world and even became excited to start a family with him. He helped her learn to be good. And so when he succumbed to evil, Misako fights to return the favour.

Misako accepted that on her own she didn’t have the skills to look after Lloyd, she might not have even had a good parental relationship herself, and so turned to the people she knew, Darkley’s, as it was essentially the only connection she really had. It’s not the greatest option but she lived through it so (Ik it’s a boarding school for boys but idk maybe there’s another school somewhere else, or Misako is trans idk).

#i think the explorer’s guild are connected to Darkley’s also #nefarious thief’s and evil education institute makes sense #Misako has barely anything to her character so I can do what I want #sorry this post is worded so sappily idk how to write it lol #speaking Misako I recently rewatched s2 #and like #i am more of a Misako apologist in recent times bc of the writing potential #but man it is brutal in s2 #where she literally appears right after Lloyd explains he’s never known the love of a parent #and then later on in the season Lloyd’s like ‘so how did you meet him’ and she’s like ‘who? Wu ❤️❤️❤️’ #and he’s like ‘no my dad…’ #like L #L #and when she goes to steal the helm Garmadon is sitting there going through a crisis over having to fight Lloyd and she’s like #‘what’s cookin good look in’ #ashkskdkdld #maybe she’s justified in her decisions but she goes about it with absolutely no ability to read the room #ninjago #ninjago misako #ninjago headcanons

[zkoh001]

"If you think it is my husband you should fear, you are nothing more than a fool."

Im dubbing this the tigermom au, where Misako had a legit reason to leave Lloyd, and it was to put fear of god in the hearts of destinies writers the moment they hear the Garmadon name. (In the meanwhile getting stuck in a time loop/trap)

Honestly I just feel like she COULD be a really cool character, if her abandoning Lloyd with no fair explanation didn't weigh her down. She pretty effortlessly rizzed both sons of god, and is one of the few non EMs shown doing spinjitzu. Also was quite good at it, if we can believe Wu. Tho I think she could do a bit more sass. (She was sassy like twice, and I live for it. Also sassy Lloyd, but that doesn't belong here)

Here are a few scattered ideas:

° When she hears the prophecy, she realises the only way to save her family is to rewrite destiny. Good thing she knows where to do that

° Using her archeology/history background she begins looking for ways to move amongst realms

° She leaves Lloyd at Darkleys (only for a few weeks, she swears) temporarily. Why Darkleys? Well, he probably would be safer with his father idolized rather than despised (see the movie for example)

° I'm not sure of the deets, maybe Travelers tea or some other method, but she leaves for Cloud Kingdom (or perhaps Time blades shenanigans, but honestly, I want her to punch Fenwicks jaw trough his skull.)

° Not looking for a nice chitchat with the people who broke her family, she wreaks havoc amongst the denizens of CK, looking for two specific scrolls

° Eventually they kick her out with joined efforts, and she returns dejected. The worst she expected was Lloyd starting a Garmadon cult amongst the students, not her son all grown up, hanging out with a bunch of teens in pajamas.

° I want to make her showing up more impactful. I want Wu and the ninja to be surprised, I want her to be devastated when she puts two amd two together (she doesn't know about tomorrows tea, so it seems even worse). I want her to mourn the time lost, but still be determined to make it up somehow.

° Note, that while it's not nearly as bad, she still had the attitude, of fighting her way out of her problems over trying to raise Lloyd into not killing his dad. This could be a character flaw to explore, and it could make Lloyd more drawn to her, since her attitude is quite a bit similar to Kai's

Sidenote, I know that sounds like Maya over again, but it does't need it to be similar really. I like to actually make Ray and Mayas kidnapping make sense, with Krux knocking them out with the tea, kidnapping them, and THEN forcing them to stay with the "I know where your babies live" threat.

So while Maya was kidnapped, Misako would have left willingly, albeit, for longer than she meant to.

But let's get to the mom part shall we?

° Honestly, outside of making Misako more interesting, this is a bit self indulgent, because I think Lloyd should have a healthy outlet, since trauma dumping Akita is not really an option now

° Lloyd would be conflicted, not being able to hate her, but still, she was never there

° "You don't have to forgive me"

"It's okay, you didn't mean to..."

"But it still hurts doesn't it? You can let it out"

° I know, it's harder to manage more characters, but I want her to BE there for her son, also let's scrap Wusako, I wanna make her love Garmadon, to the very end, even if it's tragic.

° She won't leave when going gets tough, and she would offer her own fighting skills to help too

Just some fun extras:

° She showed up to the Monastery after some rumors about demigods living there, to examine the place. The spinjitzu brothers found her, she used some incredibly stupid pickup line with fingerguns, and procedeed to steal both their hearts

° She's got rizz that literally only works on these two.

° The spinjitzu brothers would stare down any EM who dares question her presence, and she fucking knows it.

° Will watch with a shit eating grin as Wu lectures, and Garmadon threatens the poor sap

° Since Maya is the overenthusiastic mom, I will make Misako the bad influence mom, who makes her son do dumb shit kids his age should do (and 100% joins in, cause, whose gonna tell her she can't?)

° Lloyd inherited his grandfathers hair, his father's eyes, and his mom's face.

° I just find it funny if Lloyd showed up to CK, and everyone was hostile/angry towards him. And Lloyd being Lloyd would assume it's about his dad, since it always is. Except not now.

° "YOU! I know who you are! You are that woman's son!"

° "...Yeah, he is my fa- wait, what?"

° "Hey, look, looks like your mom made quite a mess for ya"

° " Which only means even more people hate me so thanks MOM."

° Lloyd is the house cat, if he doses off on you, you are not allowed to get up/disturb him (I like to think it started when he was little, but since he is still the youngest mentally, it stuck). The ninja (and his family) strictly enforce this, even on random visitors who fall under the cat-curse. This is not even really Misako related just Cat Lloyd? Cat Lloyd.

° ... Also, I think he should have a ponytail. (Seriously, that hair would be realistically such a hassle while fighting. Pull that hair back, so you can SEE you dingbat)

Just... I mean, Lloyd and Garmadon are already cat coded according to the fanbase, why not give them a feral wildcat mom/wife? She will hiss at anyone who messes with them, don't worry.

#ninjago #misako #wu #garmadon #spinjitzu brothers #tigermom au #essay #or maybe she passed in time cause of time blade shenanigans #someone in the reblogs gave me the ck idea #and i like it #cause then she can punch those assholes in the face #also garmacat family i guess #ponytail lloyd supermacy #I apparently can't write an essay without relapsing to HoT in some shape or form. #but it's okay #i accepted my fate #thanks for reading! #if you're still her this is off topic #but the ninjago fandom is feral #you guys interact with my shitposts more then other fandoms with my fully rebdered art #lookin at you #undertale fandom cough cough

[whataphantasia]

ok it's nighttime where i am which makes it PERFECT to go on about my

✨post-crystallized ninjago brain ramble and non-critical retrospective✨

because. ninjago do be making my brain go !! and i need to yell abt it to myself to my blog void b4 i go onto dragons rising and stuff. i talked abt this on discord but only 2 ppl following me are in that server so wtv (hi btw X3)

i want to preface this by saying i dont interact with the ninjago fandom at all, and i know near nothing about behind-the-scenes things or stuff said by production. this is all my thoughts babeyy (which means im going to sound absolutely clueless and talk abt things that hav probably already been resolved. wtv) none of this is supposed to be critical thinking LOL pls dont attack me. i sound complainey but i dont hate the show, this is how i show love for media <3

really the most pressing thing to me was. being really frustrated about garmadon’s whole arc at the end of tournament of elements. yknow when misako finds out about the letter. i feel like they didn’t really go into depth about RESOLVING that whole thing, like showing the repercussions and thoughts of all parties involved after the fact? how does this affect their family? i suppose misako and lloyd talked about it during day of the departed, kind of? but. my needy ass just goes “IT WASN’T ENOUGH.” really, i don’t really like character death or sacrifice as the resolution to a conflict or arc unless it’s done really well, and. is this supposed to feel unsatisfying?! because it is to me!!

yes. i know it’s a kids show. its super likely something's going over my head right now, but. it really made me think again because misako and garmadon didn’t really even talk after harumi revived his oni side, and especially after all the interactions lloyd and garmadon had during crystallized. seriously, someone rec me fics that explore misako and garmadon talking post tournament of elements please JDKWNFJSND. and really i didn’t hate the resolution of tournament of elements... this is my single major nitpick about it LOL

continuing with that thought, like. lloyd has lost his dad multiple times... this isn’t fair to him!!! give bro a break!!! (silly) (i know its fiction LOL) honestly why doesn’t he have WORSE trust issues after considering his mom and harumi and all the other people who’ve abandoned slash betrayed him?! and yeah misako really is the least terrible offender here, and i’m not blaming her— but ya can’t ignore that it DID affect him. this is why i was really excited for the prospect of a corruption arc for him during crystallized, however brief. he deserves it! let him destroy a few buildings, maybe kill a guy! let him fulfill his rise of the serpentine dreams, but for real this time! again REC ME FICS RAGHH

...though yes. i know he’s developed really far to the point he’d never hurt people like that, and tbh you could say he was never really evil in the first place but. you gotta understand that the corruption arc is one of my FAVORITE tropes. i’ll do anything for em... it’s my fatal flaw...

heck like. this is why i was really excited for the ice emperor because i KNEW that was zane the moment i saw him LMAO. he’s my favorite character how can i not tell. but in the end he just lost his memories and was being manipulated by some other bad guy... same thing goes for possession, lloyd wasn’t the bad guy, it was morro possessing him... its not the same </3 let them be lead astray even WITH their past memories and relationships and feelings... i need the angst... (you can tell im insane because im saying this about a lego show)

anyways point is. i like corruption arcs. and i WILL write fic about the ice emperor gaining more agency no matter how out of character and detached from the original message it is. (even sillier connotation)

okay thats the end of me nitpicking for now, i think. i mean i have a lot of qualms... esp about wu characterization in the new animation studio half, but. thats one thing i know that has been talked abt AT LENGTH. and idk if this is an unpopular opinion but i liked all da seasons for different reasons, they all appeal to my different happy little facets of media i enjoy :) im still fresh off of watching the show again for the first time in forever so this opinion will probably change, who knows.

really im just happy to have gone thru the whole main series! including wu's teas! not including dragons rising tho. ill get around to that after this. and maybe look into more production and behind the scenes stuff, and the games and supplementary content too. i love consuming content 🥰

anyway... uhm. can you tell zane is my favorite. because i said it explicitly some sentences ago. god he is so. ykwhat heres a screenshot bc i dont want to write this all out again

thanks for listening bye :3

ninjago... my favorite piece of inherently kind of problematic but overall very fun and well meaning media (esp in the later seasons compared to the earlier ones)... kisses it

#ph_ninjago #ph_ramb #a REALLY long ramb. im being so fr

[nonbinarykai]

Ok since two people asked

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

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

Why I don’t like Lloyd

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

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

I think this is mostly for two reasons:

1. His screen time

2. His “character arcs”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lloyds character arcs honestly kinda suck

Im going to be honest with you

Lloyds kinda an ass

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

The same can’t be said about Lloyd

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This scene would have worked if

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

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

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

To quote what I said in my Nya anayalsis awhile back

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

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

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

But since we’re already on this topic

Hurting Lloyd doesn’t make him a good character

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

There atleast 3 reasons writers make there characters suffer

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

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

3. If the story is a tragedy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How I would rewrite him

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

But not in the way you think

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#ninjago #kai smith #ninjago kai #sorry this post is way less structured then my other ones

[vioyume]

My sleep deprived ass talks about Ninjago

I just recently re-awaken my 12 year old self by catching up to the newer seasons of Ninjago (I stopped watching after season 10, picked it back up at season 11) except for the Sea Bound season. I still have yet to watch it when writing this.

I’m just gonna ramble about the show in general. This is not a fancy essay.

Firstly, the writers for this show did not need to make it this heavy on character and world building. They could have leave it at just fighting Lord Garmadon every season and just cancel it after three seasons or so and sell their toys. They didn’t even need to make Zane a nindroid either, but here we are with one of the coolest characters ever (pun unintentional).

The only other Lego show I watched is Monkey Kid. I did watch only one episode of Nexo Knights I think, but that was because I was stuck in a hotel room, and I don’t remember anything from it.

I appreciate the balance of having characters sharing their time in the spotlight, but then have a conclusion for them instead of just forgetting about them. (Garmadon getting killed off, Ronin getting arrested, the surphanteen staying underground [I think? Season 11 made it confusing for me], etc)

Pixel being a permanent character, is a good addition to the show. Her being a voice in Zane’s head was a good idea to slowly move her into the main cast (Though I forgot how her and Zane were kidnapped during season 4). With Nya being the water Ninja, I guess someone else had to be Samurai X.

While we’re on the topic of Pixel, Zane’s death was probably the biggest thing to happen in the show. I never manage to watch Ninjago on television, but I assume some kids out there were probably sad or confused to what happened to him. And they gotta wait a couple more months to see what had happened to him, and see him redesigned. At first I was ify about it, but it makes sense to me now. When Zane does some of his robotic stuff, children will most likely be confused on why some normal person is able to do that. By making him have an android body, it leaves the writers not having to repetitively explain why he can do some android thing, but also let new viewers know “Ok, he’s the ninja robot”. (Same reason for the redesigns after the movie came out, I have neutral feelings on the movie, I didn’t bother rewatching it)

And I guess, aging Lloyd up, was maybe a reason to not let the ninjas look like baby sitters, and let Lego have a cool ass set and not a funny looking child as the green ninja.

Btw, the voice acting for the background children in the show is something that I never really liked personally.

My favourite season of the whole series is Possession. Because one: spooky ghost shit, two: My man Lloyd gets possessed, and it’s not just some ghost floating around. Whenever I watch show with a monster of some kind, they never do the thing they’re suppose to do (ghost possessing people, vampires drinking blood/turning people into them [just do what adventure time did with drinking red if you want to keep it pg],etc. btw I’m still waiting for a game/show with a cool ass vampire character), three: Nya being the water ninja, four: The best theme song remix, five: Cole becoming a ghost and they let him stay that way for another season, and six: Morro.

I like to mention that progressively, Master Wu begins to show more flaws over each season. Like regretting Morro, hiding his past with that one snake that I forgot the name of, letting his age get the better of himself. He has become more than just a teacher.

While it has been a bit since I watched the show, how did Misako and Garmadon fall in love? I remember him becoming evil at a young age, and where was Misako when Lloyd was the evil wanna be? Boy, that was a funny thing to remember about Lloyd.

I pay no attention to the romance in the show besides Jay and Nya, so I feel like it’s not my place to talk about if it’s good or bad.

And how the hell does time and age work in this show? Wu and Garmadon’s father was the first master and found the city of Ninjago, I think. Do they progress very quickly in that world? And is Zane like very old now because of season 11? And who was the previous ice master???? Zane’s an enigma.

What happened after season 10 as well? Production wise, because each episode before has a 22 minute run while they cut that for the newer seasons. I also remember being very confused on which seasons was which because I didn’t have the wiki back then, they have a weird consistency of episodes. A regular season would have about 10-13 episodes, while season 3 had 8, 10 had 4, 11 had 30, and the rest have 16 which I’m assuming is now the new normal amount. It was something I found very odd.

In the end, Ninjago is a very nice little show that I will definitely come back to when I’m bored, and when the finale comes, I hope it gets a proper ending. It may not be perfect, I don’t think we’ll ever get a show like it anytime soon. If there was a show like it, it may have been not able to take it self off the ground because of modern cartoon standards. If Ninjago aired now it probably get canceled after season 3 and we’ll all be sad and have to theorized what the hell happened to Zane.

So I’ll end this by saying, Zane and Cole are my favourite characters. And why do the writers keep torturing poor Zane?! I want another Jay or Kai based season. I don’t really want to count season 12 as it.

I know nothing about how the fan base acts either, but I’m sure your all nice people. :)

Edit: I rewatched the first two seasons, and now know why Misako left. But did she have to leave him at a boarding school of all places? He has a reliable uncle, was Lloyd always acting like a brat, and so she had no choice but to leave him there?

#ninjago #text #long post #zane julien #lloyd garmadon #master wu #rambles #vio.txt

[ninjas-and-coffee]

WU SUCKS but not the reason you think

I'd like to preface by saying Wu has made a lot of mistakes and should be held accountable. But like the main arguments against Wu be like.

1: Morro

2: Traumatizing kids

3: Keeping secrets

4: Mot treating his nephew like is damn nephew.

5: Flirting with his brothers wife.

And the thing about that needs talked about. 1:Morro. First off getting kids hopes is not cool. It can be detrimental to development depending on the age of the child. BUT. Not a single soul told Morro to train tirelessly for 60+ years after his death to take revenge and be the green ninja. Absolutly no one. Wu had compassion for his failings and wanted to show Morro he could still he great without being the green ninja. But the little brat ran tf off and got trapped and died. And he got cursed, how- we dont know. But its implied that it's either intentional entrapment or you have to be a terrible person, guess which category he probably falls into. Mind you Wu also told our OGs that they could also be the green ninja and none of them went off the rails to settle some invisible score. Morro made his choices and he made shit ones. Wu was an influence but not the problem. Morro is unstable, dramatic, and holds grudges Wu didnt cause that.

2: the traumatic experiences the nina go through are also not exactly his fault. He didnt just pick them off the streets. THERE WAS A PROPHECY. Ok? Yall with me. Fate isnt uncontrolled by anyone the ninja needed to be trained to help Lloyd fight the Overlord. That wasnt his decision. And yall act like the ninja couldn't leave whenever they wanted to. He didnt gaslight them or belittle them in anyway that wasnt for teaching. Please bring me receipts if you think otherwise. I do admit he could help a little more, be more clear, but when has a old magic teacher character ever been straightforward. With that logic fuck Dumbledore, and Gandalf, and any wise old teacher that goes to find chosen one who once again are chosen by fate not the master himself. Yall literally cant blame Wu for Child's Play and you cant blame Wu for their experience with Nadakhan either. The enemies that go out of there way to attack the ninja are not a direct cause if Wu himself. Usually. It be like blaming Garmadon for Chen. Yes they had history but it's still not his fault

3: Secrets. I will admit there is next to no reason for keeping secrets from the ninja. Considering history always has kind of score to settle. But considering his age and the apparent imprisonment or death of his past enemies there no way to predict every problem that comes back to screw him over. The Time Twins for example. Yes they came back for Wu. But he did remove their powers and separated them over 20+ years ago. They were not exactly threats to his new students now were they? Again with Aspheera, who was literally locked in a tomb why take the time to educate the ninja on a problem he had no idea was going to come back for him. Same with Morro to a more confusing degree. MORRO DIED. How was he to prepare the ninja for that? Yes please tell me how they were supposed to prepare for a dead guy. I'll wait.........k. he should be more forthcoming with the ninja, about things he knows could harm them, like the Serpentine after Lloyds released them, Chen, the Overlord, the effects of Travelers Tea, Tomorrow's Tea, Oni, Etc. But most of the time the ninja go and do it first then wonder why Wu didn't warn them.

4: His nephew. Wow his parenting sucks. Morro is not his damn child let's start there. Comparing their relationship is unfair. Wu cared for Morro the way he cares for Kai and Nya. He never accentuates a paternal relationship with then. Cause they are students, students he has to train with he intent to send them out onto dangerous battle fields and mind games. He was alone so yes it looks different but it's also a leap to just assume that Wu viewed Morro as his own despite treating him the exact same way as his 6 other students. Now back to Lloyd. Why didnt he get his nephew from Darkleys where it was known he ran away from multiple times? I DONT KNOW. No one does. That is a bad move I can only theorize about. Maybe Misako said something about staying away, maybe he wasnt kept in the loop about his nephews whereabouts due to idk KICKING HIS FATHER INTO HELL. C'mon yall. Now in the later seasons my best guess is that he doesnt know how to differentiate his nephew from the chosen one side and the goofy child side. Hes never had a child and his early relations with Lloyd were scarce and when Lloyd came to live with him. It's not due to some familial obligation, destiny literally called for it. Putting some definite strain on their relationship. I'm not excusing it he should try better, but he'd have to build a relationship from nothing and most people know their immediate family upon birth or during childhood which is not the case here. Wu treats his nephew more like a vessel of power than a person which isnt cool but knowing that the kid might not come back after every fight is a good damper on happy relationships is it not?

5: Misako. Good lord I don't have to explain this one. No excuse. It shouldn't be happening. BUT. After Garmadons death she was a free woman as gross as it is. It's more a flaw on her than it is him she chose to have a baby with one brother and still try to get with the other. And I know it takes two to tango but dont get mad at the idiot that the cheater is cheating with. Be mad at the cheater. The thing people really dont get about love triangles. The "other guy" brings on the questions/options but the person who cant choose or screws with both parties is the one in the wrong. Lloyd seems ok with it. Because Tommy said so. I dont particular give two shits about his take on the show half the time. If Lloyd were actively against it the Wu would probably stop. If the Fsm family acted like a normal ass family we probably wouldnt be here. But their priorities are a little screwy compared to typical nuclear families. Not an excuse just some perspective

NOW, why he is a bad character despite all of those arguments. he chooses to train soldiers rather than care for impressionable teens. Yes the situation called for it but the pressure could he alleviated if he decided to actually help before the world was on fire. He chooses to teach by experience than be upfront. Which works sometimes but not when actual lives are at stake. His trial by fire teaching works but the possiblity it could go wrong is to big to be brushed aside. His seemingly unreachable vault of empathy is hard to swallow. He rarely actually feels things for other people, his lack of enthusiasm when they pull through something hurts to watch. His lack of empathy about raising his nephew to attempt to kill his father is frightening. The pride he demonstrates by choosing not to disclose his past until it's too late is dangerous. He doesnt directly put down the ninja unless he has to and its more implied than anything and is on his students and this fandom for taking it so harshly. He trusts them a lot because he doesnt see them as kids anymore. They are warriors and it was necesary. He should have more compassion. He should be more straight forward, he should try to act like a person and not some ethereal being of elsewhere that doesn't have time to appease feelings or care about people until after hes wronged them. His values are off kilter sometimes which is whatever until it starts to hurt people

But yall need to stop blaming him for other people actions. Morro was a mess to begin with. His problems are in the past because he took care of them already. Misako came onto him. (He should have resisted but he didnt start shit she did). He needs to try to be an uncle alongside being a teacher. He needs to act like a fucking person more than the infinite cache of wisdom and unforeseen unused power that he acts like. And also it's a kids show. How many children think the way yall do?, we're teens/YAs we're reading into things. A LOT which makes everything more complicated. Comments rebuttals open. There's a collection of little mistakes hes made along the way that dont fit into these categories but these are the main reasons I know people hate him and the little things add fuel to the fire. I will legit talk about anything Except for the morro thing I am so tired of seeing it Morro made his choices hes a fucking Villain Wu didnt make him that way being a bitter asshole did that. Thanks for reading!! :3

#ninjago #coffee speaks #lloyd garmadon #fuckin misako #Wu ninjago #discourse #ranting #tw: negative #replies will be on my second account of there are any #trust me i hate him too #morro #tw: aldultery #not art

[odetteandfriends]

Since I know no one would ask me here are my 🔥 opinions on Ninjago

- The franchise needs to be a better job at making things culturally accurate instead of adding random things for aesthetics.

- I hope the writers actually give the characters ages JUST to shut the fandom up

- Harumi was just as sympathetic in her actions as Morro. Also I don't think she should've died. That way she could face real consequences for her actions and a true redemption arc

- In fact it would've been kinda cool of Garmadon solidified her as his heiress by giving her part of his power (like Zane did with Pixal) which would've been a neat touch to her being a foil to Lloyd.

- Nya should've remained as Samurai X & Skylor should've been the main female ninja

- There should be a storyline or character pointing out Misako's flaws as a parent + her past with Wu and Garmadon so she'd have more character development

- Speaking of which I don't hate Misako she's just...kind of there

- Making Cole gay wouldn't increase the quality of how the romantic subplots are written and I'm sad people can act like a Lily Orchard over a headcanon

- Furthermore the fandom can be really sexist at times just to push Cole (or any of the ninja) as LGBT which isn't fair seeing how canon often writes the main women

- The canon romantic subplots aren't garbage just needed better writing and the female characters to have more relevancy

- Polyninja > Greenflame

- You know what on Greenflame I don't hate the pairing but I do kinda find some of its stans and the antis to be irritating. Let people ship who they wanna ship and vice versa no need to blacklisting or instigating fights

- The movie is fine. No really, it's fine.

- Season 13 was one of the best it as to me it looks like the writers addressed complaints of the previous seasons and managed to make a focus season that actually has the focus ninja do something without the plot swerving over to Lloyd. Plus Vania is Best Gorl

- There should be another maybe two or three girl members of the team I don't care about "It's for boys you dumb SJW"

- Ninjago was a better Bionicle reboot than the actual Bionicle reboot

- There should be a crossover with Hidden Side or Monkie Kid

- Season 6 wasn't bad and it had one of the coolest suits

- There should be miniepisodes or a focus season on the other Elemental Masters

- The ninjago should do more actual ninja with real life historical accuracy

- Or, introduce more ninja characters not necessarily with powers but more accurate to historical ninjas

- Aspheera was a good villain

- There should be another Good Oni character and an evil Dragon character

- I feel like I need to do an entire makeover of my OC Odette because she's kinda a flat character at this point with no official design

#Ninjago #Unpopular Opinions #Fandom Discourse #Meme #Flamebait #Personal #Feel Free To Comment

[senseiwu]

I'm also of the opinion that Wu and Misako get way too much flak from the fandom, both for things that aren't really issues that fandom blows way out of proportion, things that are actually flaws or bad choices that are taken to the extreme by the fandom, or things that are just bad writing for cheap drama on the part of the show (like the love triangle. Seriously, I can think of several different plot points that would have stirred up drama between the Garmabros that don't involve Wu having feelings for his brother's wife which is the one thing I legitimately dislike about him and ignore for my own personal head cannon world). So your blog is often a breath of fresh air for me

I'm glad to provide that breath of fresh air :)

I personally feel like Wu's feelings for her died a long time ago, back when they were young. I don't see either of them liking each other now - their closeness comes from their friendship. I don't know how anything they've done can be seen as romantic.

They're genuinely great characters, and I don't know why they get so much hate. As you said, a lot of the things they've done get drawn out or exaggerated by the fandom.

Lloyd has forgiven Misako; he loves her a lot.

Wu cares a lot about his students, and vice versa. They even said in s11 that they're a family.

People are just... harsh.

#asks #thank you this made me happy to see :)

[vedj-f-bekuesu]

At this point I’m just watching the seasons to keep the momentum going after two great (and one flawed but still okay) seasons. With Friday being a Bank Holiday, I might get the rest of the pre-11 stuff wrapped up by the weekend. But enough of the future, how about the season I watched, Sons of Garmadon?

It had a lot to live up to based on its reputation, and I’m happy to report that it delivers on what it sets out to do. Issues with the season are fairly minor tribbles, but that’s something I can cover in the notes.

-Hoo boy, let’s get this out of the way; the movie did fucking wonders for Lloyd Garmadon. Spending like five seasons stuck to his blander “chosen one must learn” characterisation, this season gives him a very long overdue overhaul into a more modern chosen one protagonist who is way more entertaining to watch. Bonus points for having a look I can take seriously now...yeah, sorry, but the Anakin hairpiece with the strange approach to voice commitment never did for me, even as it became the norm for what I was viewing.  -To be honest, his teammates get some good material here too. Some more than others (Zane especially has a really good little arc where he gets to show his more calculating side. Cole’s arc is okay but I don’t feel it quite nails the landing as well), but they all get chance to banter and have character moments, which is mainly what I come into shows for as opposed to straight up development constantly. Shout outs to Jay who has small moments, but important ones that do really good for his character (I could go into why Lloyd and Jay make the most sense as leads...probably after my season watching is done). I also like the callback to a character moment he had in season 3. Also this finally feels like the writers are sticking to characterisation, this season mostly keeping what Hands of Time did with them. Not so much design-wise, but I’ve made it clear many times that I prefer the new designs to old. Also, I get to throw in Pixal as a main character now since she’s clearly on the team full time. She’s good here too. -The dynamics get their own section just because I want to restate how I prefer the dynamic between Jay and Lloyd compared to Kai and Lloyd so far. Seriously, Jay seems to step up to bat for Lloyd more than Kai at this point. And yet no-one really seems to be interested in it within the fandom. -There wasn’t really much in the way of side characters this season (I am aware that next season will change that). Misako was good for what little material she had, Wu was fun and actually became a solid character in his own right once he became a toddler, Dareth is solid and really gets to show his alternative way of helping out, and the police commissioner...eh, better than season 6 but I’m still not big on him.  -I can sum up Harumi in one sentence; Skylor but done better on every count (and also evil). She’s engaging when she’s acting as the more humble Princess figure, and she’s nicely hammy when she’s unleashing her evil side. I can see why people would be into Lloyrumi with such a investing act (for the record, I’m not). This all being said, those who say that Harumi had a point are missing one important detail; as much destruction has been caused with the ninjas’ close call; what alternative is there? I don’t see anyone else stepping up to save Ninjago so it would have probably fully fallen a long time ago. And even with the Great Devourer, Lord Garmadon was channelling his good side to deliver a finishing blow, he still needed the ninja there.  -We have three other villains and two of them are enjoyable. Ultra-Violet is committed to her crazy shtick and amusing, and Killow is definitely different to how I thought he’d be, but it’s a lot more enjoyable (especially when Garry Chalk is channelling every bit of his Sonic Underground Robotnik voice he can. Kind of like how Clancee was Ian James Corlett channelling a lot of his scrub monkey third class). Mr E can go rust though.  -Unlike the other seasons which people cite as dark, this one feels like it does actually go there. It’s not completely a dark season, mostly the end of Jade Princess and scenes between Game of Masks and Big Trouble, Little Ninjago. It was still pretty fun and light-ish hearted outside of that. -Weirdly enough, most of my quibbles are on the technical side. People cite this season as having the best animation...but I don’t really see it. In terms of visuals it’s a step up, but the actual animation doesn’t feel that different to Hands of Time. They learned to use flashier graphics everywhere. Which is probably why the intro is the way it is, and I’m sorry but this is probably my least favourite intro. I can’t appreciate the spectacle when focusing on anything is difficult to achieve. On top of that, there were still some glaring graphical fuck-ups (like when Cole is shown with the other ninja in a scene where he was captured, or when Lloyd was shown with green eyes in a shot despite being drained of power at that point), which aren’t really any different to the ones Prime Empire has.  -The pacing of the season wasn’t entirely smooth, but unlike other seasons it’s not like one set issue. It’s more like a concertina effect; it was very quick at first, then slows down, then speeds up again, then slows down, then finally hits an even tempo about halfway through. This is why I didn’t mention the likes of Hutchins, the parents or the Mechanic before; because of the pace, you don’t really get enough time to really get attached to them (doesn’t help that the Mechanic has Alan Marriott doing the voice in his cameo, and man does it not fit compared to Skybound. I’m glad when the Mechanic got more substantial stuff they went back to his original VA, that voice is so fun).  -My other big thing is actually the complete continuity snarl that’s Harumi’s backstory makes. They’ve thrown in so many random events over the seasons but because of the sheer vagueness of the timescales it doesn’t really break suspension of disbelief. But Harumi’s turn to darkness is clearly during the ending of season 1, which we have a much more tangible sense of time for. Harumi seems like she’s about 8-10 then, the ninja seem like they were 14-15 then, Harumi seems like she’s 15-18 now but the showrunner still insist that the ninja are teenagers? How does that work, the most generous allowance for time is five years, and that would barely make them still teenagers in season 8. Certainly don’t believe they could be teenagers as of the most recent seasons. -On a completely different tangent, can we talk about the toilet humour? Yeah, it’s not like it’s never been there (there’s been poop jokes, fart jokes, halitosis jokes, and who can forget that one utterly cringe scene in S3?), but Hands of Time and Sons of Garmadon do it in a way that just comes off as really weird compared to earlier toilet humour. Like, there’s the implication by Jay in season 7 that Kai has issues with constipation, Cole’s truth tea dose forces him to say that he pees in the pool, and then there’s Kai, right to Harumi’s face, all but saying that Jay has issues with peeing himself. Her reaction to it is fucking hilarious, but it’s still weird, even though knowing Vincent Tong he would totally do that. 

Overall, this was a great season, and it’s clear to see how this became such a draw to the series (meaning in hindsight, LEGO’s method of dealing with the new style was pretty much a winner). The issues I have don’t stop the quality being across the board. Aside from Possession, I think this may be a favourite season from the pre-11 stuff. 

Next time, we effectively get the second part to this story. Yep, it ended in a cliffhanger so we’ve hardly wrapped it up here. Time to see how the OG ninja and newer recruits handle themselves alone in Hunted. 

#ninjago #ns8 #VEDJ-F talks #vedj-f reviews #cole cannot sing sorry

[see]

📃💔 💎 💢for either or both!!!!

THANK YOU fuck yes it's time. thank you :)

📃: what's the plot of your hyperfix?

ninjago is a kid's lego promotional tv show about six ninja who do lego flips, they're the saviors of the world that is called ninjago and they do different shit each season but usually it's something along the lines of saving the world.

ok so gossip girl. the main gist is that there's a group of really really rich kids living in the upper east side of manhattan and their lives are documented by a mysterious blog called gossip girl. drama through and through, these kids consistently hate each other most of the time also georgina's... there.

💔: tell us about your LEAST favorite character and why you don't like them.

in ninjago, my least favorite character is misako. she abandoned her kid (lloyd) at a young age and only came back in his life to cheat on his dad with his uncle. she's consistently useless and most of her lines sound very patronizing towards lloyd and legitimately she's trash. season two was starting out so strong then she was introduced and it went WAY downhill. die misako die

my least faves are a bit inconsistent in gg but i gotta say jenny. she's constantly striving for popularity and pushing down everyone in her life and she literally started drug dealing just to piss off her dad. i could talk more about her but she's just cringe cringe cringe she's written horribly awfully

💎: any fun facts you want to share?

i don't know too many fun facts about ninjago surprisingly but ninjago shares a lot of english voice actors with both death note and gintama. another fun fact is that lloyd's new voice actor (s8+) is a professional singer but he said that he'd never sing in the show as lloyd so what's the point anymore

my favorite fun facts about glee are all more or less about chace crawford because i think he's an interesting creature to study. penn badgley said in an interview that it was the most fun to shoot with chace because they would crack jokes on set together all the time, chace also went on to say that he had no clue who gossip girl was until the filming of the final episode, and he went onto play another rich douchebag type character in the 100th episode of glee. also before they were set on dan, eric and nate were candidates to be gossip girl

💢: what do you not like about your hyperfix/what would you change?

with ninjago, i've made sort of a brand for myself pointing out the flaws of ninjago, but overall the worst problem i have with it is how similar characters are written. it comes off the worst with cole and kai where you literally cannot differentiate between the two of their lines because they're written way too similarly and it's just sad to see.

gossip girl... a lot, but mostly chuck's character in s1/early s2. he's a character who pulls a total 180 but the first season does absolutely nothing towards his change towards the good side and it's sad to see. i really think the writers did chuck dirty where they portrayed him one way for a good chunk of season 1 and then decided "nah we're gonna have him be the good guy now" and pulled the rug out from under the viewers and it's so sloppy and lazy, and especially annoying when chuck is a character that gets a lot of screentime and emotional focus later on. they could've done him so much better and it pisses me off

#thanks again 😭😭😭 #naorekoz #ask #long post #/

[spicyicymeloncat]

So about this!

I think people are getting a little too competitive with their favourite old person and I think I’m contributing to that with this post. This post is only one piece of a complicated picture.

Because I do still think Garmadon has pretty privilege and angst privilege and and I think it causes biases. Mainly it means he is exempt from being wrongfully villainised.

Bc my problem with oldlego antis is when people mischaracterise characters to be abusive parents or queerphobic and act like canon supports that bc I personally don’t enjoy that, and this generally happens to older characters and Garmadon is exempt from that purely bc he’s more attractive or funnier or “he can’t cause pain because he’s the one in pain!”.

But just because Garmadon is unfairly exempt from being mischaracterised doesn’t mean we suggest mischaracterising him to even the scales. There’s a few notions going around that “didn’t they forget Garmadon actually the villain” and imo it’s a wild oversimplification of his character just to win an argument, and that’s the exact same thing that Wu antis do.

I just wanna put out there that I am personally more neutral on this wu Misako anti stan debate bc ngl I think it’s everyone is wrong (imo imo).

I can see why people don’t wu or Misako bc in the show they do do a lot of silly things, or have barely any writing to them. Like to me, Misako is literally only enjoyable if you rewrite her character and I respect that some people don’t care enough to do that. It’s hard to enjoy a character who’s spends most of her screen time gazing lovingly into the eyes of her husband’s brother or just being there. And Wu is just a flawed character in general, he is continuously making mistakes and misjudgements, and whilst that’s kinda what I like about him, I can see why others don’t care for it.

And I can see why Garmadon is popular outside of appearance bias. As a sensei he does seem to be the respected teacher, there are so many moments where Wu looks up to him even before he reformed, and his whole villain arc was always juxtaposed with his role as a father. To simplify Garmadon as “well he was a villain” is just a little unfair.

I also just don’t like a lot of people’s fanon interpretations of Misako mainly bc I think people find way to excuse her leaving Lloyd and then characterise her as yet another angst factory this time mom edition. Personally I find that boring and I want to complicate her relationship with Lloyd, not because I hate her, but bc I want to take advantage of the groundwork’s in the relationship to make a more unique plot. And I also want her to commit arson.

Like I think my point is, there’s many valid reasons to have any opinion on these old people, and it only annoys me when your love/hate is based on or furthers mischaracterisation of a character. And it’s understandable why people do like different characters, and I think we can disagree on this and still get along yknow?

#ninjago #yeah #idk why but my tumblr keeps being laggy when I type it’s rlly annoying #discourse #like I’ll be honest I’m not crazy about canon Misako personally #buttttt that’s just my personal opinion

[falconfriend]

guess who's got some spicy Opinions about Misako

I’ve felt a little robbed of a really cool character since the moment Misako got a creepy love triangle. And I think the movie is trying to fix that, but…

Having Koko/Misako be “the ex-Mrs. Garmadon” takes away a lot of potential weirdness - but she’s so young, I somehow feel like that already did away with the “flirting with her brother-in-law” problem because it really, really shouldn’t happen now. They didn’t have to change ANYTHING to do away with the “flirting with her brother-in-law” problem, just…. don’t write them flirting into the movie. They can be platonic acquaintances of the same age. Who would imagine.

And then her description goes on to say she’s unafraid to stand up to Garmadon, which concerns me? Not about the idea that she can stand up to her ex-husband, but the implication that he’s mistreated her. TV-Garmadon’s made some bad choices, but I always got the impression that their relationship was kind and loving. The movie seems really into the “shitty husband, shitty dad” angle, but he was essentially possessed. That’s….. super different? Just in that his evil never seemed to be directed at her. He was possessed and struggling against evil and he lost, but I don’t think he ever did anything cruel to her in the process except leaving.

When she sees him again for the first time in years to essentially seduce him into giving her the helmet, it’s like it’s not him talking at all, he hardly sees his wife when he talks to her. And she knows this, and she knows he’s still in there somewhere. She’s so crucial to driving home the theme that often “bad people” are good people caught up in and manipulated by bad things. If he was canonically abusive, I’d think the movie was taking a step forward, but as far as I’m aware he’s…. really not? Not even “he’s abusive but I excuse that because he’s possessed,” because I wouldn’t, but he’s just not cruel to her as far as I’m aware? I’m still on season 4, so who knows, maybe stuff’s revealed that I don’t know about.

Idk I’m just upset that the movie seems poised to make her a “strong female character!! strong single mom!!” archetype, instead of making her the awesome nuanced character that the show missed out on. There’s so much foundation there - she’s a strong character who is fighting to get her husband back and who’s lost sight of why and keeps fighting anyway, she believes she can just drop everything and abandon her son and the moment she “fixes it” everything’ll be alright, she thinks she's strong enough to somehow defeat an entire prophecy, she’s bad at empathy and bad at attachment and bad at reading the consequences of her actions but it’s all so clearly motivated by a strong sense of what’s right and a strong sense of love for her family… her character is strong, but gloriously flawed and messy.

Idk, I just… yeah, they messed up Misako in the show, but I really don’t feel like the movie reducing her to a positive “strong female character!!” trope is the way to fix it.

#ninjago #lego ninjago: masters of spinjitzu #lego ninjago movie #cinemajago #misako #mine

[vedj-f-bekuesu]

Arr, me mateys! I may have work to do in the day, but I consider myself a wee fast crewman! They even ran out of work to give me so I finished the day with long hours to spare. And since I got the time, ye bet I decided to use it to explore new depths of Ninjago with Skybound!

Okay, I won’t do that for the whole post. But honestly, I thought Skybound was...decent, but does have some drawbacks from how ambitious it was. Let’s just go through it.

-Jay...hmm. Two minds about him. His arc at the start of the season (lasting about halfway) was clearly intentional and setup for his later redemption, and his character after that point is the best kind of Jay. And the reason for said start of season funk does make sense (unlike Home). On the other hand, yeah, the first half is pretty much Jay at his worst with bits sprinkled in to remind you that they still remember his good side. It’s not like giving him that sort of flaw is bad, but it pretty much dominated his entire character for that duration so at some point you just want to punch the little git. Also his parent arc is a bit undercooked, but he’s got plenty elsewhere so that doesn’t really bother me, especially when Ed and Edna ultimately get to have the crucial pep talk.  -Nya has a similar problem to be honest, although part of hers was also fabricated by Dareth being an absolute dick at the start (despite his moment in season 4). After that, it was fine for her up until she starts the whole fucking thing by being stubborn in such a perilous situation. And then halfway through they calm it down and make her realise she’s taken it somewhat overboard. Once that halfway point crosses it’s a lot easier to get behind the both of them, but mileage may vary on how much you can stand before then. I did like the lunchtime scene though.  -Zane doesn’t get much this season, but I did like his sass, it was a good check. Otherwise, not much happening with him aside from one scene that people immortalise due to how out of character it was for him, but since that has zero consequences I just brush that off as a one time gag. Pixal had like two scenes but they were both great scenes for her.  -Lloyd had more going for him this seasons than prior ones at least (even Possession), but he was still on the more bland side. I think every character got an attitude increase in this season though. Seriously, even the one-scene characters. But let me tell you; Lloyd Garmadon is no Rex Fury, that’s for sure.  -Cole and Kai...I think were on some substance or other during this arc, at least at the start. -Kai has Project Arcturus’ issue of playing his vain side up to the point where it’s actively jeopardising the mission (and actually could be considered as much responsible for starting the whole thing as Nya), but at least this time they reign it in to turn it into something of a clever tactic. And of course this is all absent when he’s freed from the Sword of Souls because Kai typically gets characterised into two modes at this point in the show. -Cole has a similar thing. I mean, eating tools...what? It’s mostly comedic and not that detrimental to begin with (aside from him straight up ditching Jay at the theme park. Not out of spite or anything, just because the plot wanted an extra minute I guess). Then Kai gets trapped and suddenly his character is all about being Jay’s best friend, which in of itself is fine until it again gets way heavy-handed about it. I’m assuming that the writers just wanted any potential remnants of Cole and Nya as a pair to just die (hence why he has no reaction to Jay revealing things about the caves despite Jay’s worry over it, and why this is the season he starts really taking potshots at Nya), but surely Versus was enough on its own combined with Jay and Nya’s arc in this season? Plus the ghost thing is almost entirely wasted this season, only serving a point where his invisibility comes into play (oh, and I guess a threat when he walks the plank).  -Despite the much bigger cast of characters, they don’t really get to do that much. The standouts are easily Soto (who’s just funny throughout), Dareth (who despite having a really bad start with being a misogynist for no reason, gets much better when he comes in second time) and Ronin (who I guess was still a writer darling at this point). Anyone else? You might get a moment for some of them (mainly Misako and Echo Zane), but eh. It’s a shame because Jay set up the ninja replacements like it would be this shining moment for them, but not really, and they just end up as fight fodder. And being a gag for hating Jay for being annoying despite him not doing anything to at least a couple of them. Also because of my other LEGO interests, every time I see Ronin whistle for the R.E.X, I expect the Rexcelsior to just come down and crush everything. That would have been a bad time for Kai and Nya.  -One thing I didn't mention in Possession is how the villain and lackey dynamics are developing into something actually worth investing in (beyond the tension between Pythor and Skales), and Skybound takes it even further. This is the first season where the villains are just as investing as the heroes, and I like how its a slow burn from Nadakhan and his crew having comradery, to Flintlocke slowly realising that Jay was telling the truth, to him and Dogshanks playing key roles in the final confrontation. -Speaking of which, Nadakhan was an interesting villain. I don’t like him as much as Morro, but he’s still got plenty to him. What I find most interesting is how the Jay seasons like to play parallels with the villains, what with Nadakhan being a reflection of Jay’s romance thing and Jay using his abandonment to find a way to connect to Unagami. Also the fact that he doesn’t even seem to care that much about doing evil in Ninjago at first. He does evil stuff, and they’d certainly need to find a way to fix Wu and Misako’s situation, but it’s just as a means to get home. Once he finds out that home is just about to die? He loses the plot entirely, and that’s fun to see.  -Ironically, the interactions I liked best this season were the more understated ones. For example Jay and Zane’s conversation early on (which doubles as foreshadowing to Zane’s demise) was really nice for characters who don’t usually get time to speak to each other one on one, and I wish more of the interaction in the season felt as natural as that in the first half. As a bonus, it wasn’t even wiped out at the end so that conversation still happened! -Yeah, plot. The story was interesting once we got to the Sky Pirates, not quite as engaging as Possession but it was clearly aiming at more individual dynamics than looking at the whole group and it definitely managed to balance that with the actual story and giving the villain perspective. The framing arc was less interesting, if only because even for this show everyone suddenly turning on the ninja without giving them more chance to defend themselves is laughable at this point. And as for the ending...eh, I’m ambivalent on it. Jay and Nya’s arcs remain no matter what so at least that stuff stuck around (by design). But you do lose the existence of the other Sky Pirates who made a good chunk of the good stuff. I guess the other biggest thing you lose is all the scenes where Cole reaffirms that he is Jay’s best friend, but he can do that in future seasons and not just drop it because they’ve settled the score on the love triangle...right? -Once again, it felt like a pretty dry season in terms of tone. I think this is a running theme. -At least the annoying slow-mo seems to finally giving way. It was used twice. One was random, the other was thematically appropriate. 

Overall, this season can be described as “heavy-handed”, moreso than any other story-heavy season so far. When it’s in this mode, it’s pretty annoying even if not terrible. But it still has elements to keep it going, and ends up in a pretty good place. Definitely comes down to individual taste on how much of said elements you can stomach, so I’m not surprised it has a marmite reputation. Out of the non-Possession story-heavy seasons I’ve seen so far this is the better one, but it’s still below S1 and S2 for me. 

Next time, I will not be doing a season. The writers seems to want to end Cole’s ghost arc and that’s exactly what they’ll do in Day of the Departed.

#ninjago #ns6 #VEDJ-F talks #vedj-f reviews #for the record I've always like ninjas more than pirates #ns12 spoilers