Bozocore

Let me introduce you to... a typical Ninjago season :

Lloyd gets kidnapped at least once

Cole adopts some traumatized kids / creatures he found in a forgotten, lonely place

Jay becomes the leader of a cult or something

Zane "dies" for the 182737492th time

Nya kicks something (or someone)

Kai runs straight into the danger powered with raw confidence and survives only by pure luck

New outfits for everyone

The animation had another glow up

Jay and Cole are paired for a mission but they have the worst influence on each other's dumbness and mess up so bad you wonder why they're still allowed to work together

Kai tries to show off but miserably fails

Lloyd thinks he's Steven Universe and tries to redeem a villain

Jay spends 99% of his screentime uncontrollably yelling

Wu reveals crazy family lore he was hiding since forever

Kai gets rejected by Skylor

Cole wants cake. Now.

Lloyd gets more daddy issues than he already had (you didn't know it was even possible)

Star Wars reference

Wth is Garmadon doing this time ?

Nya is constantly on the verge of committing murder

Kai bullies Jay

Pixal somehow manages to stay calm

Lloyd is still in his angsty teenage era except he's now a grown adult

Zane is silly, the worst things possible happen to him, then he's silly again

There's another plot hole but the lore is so crazy already no one is gonna care

Shout out to Ninjago City citizen still living here knowing their lives are in constant danger every single second they stay in this place

Nya and Jay keeps being the only healthy stable romance in the whole show

Dareth unexpectedly ends up being useful

Lloyd do the thing with his eyes when it's getting serious (you instantly start screaming)

Kai says "fiyah"

"Yep so I saw [a main character] falling of a rock so they're definitely dead." "But maybe they..." - "NOPE. THEY'RE DEAD" - "aww ok" (they are, in fact, alive)

The team yells "ninja, go !" at least once

Characters are listening to music. It's The Weekend Whip by The Fold.

Why does someone has to stay behind and why is it Zane.

"You know I'm very old I'm gonna die soon" has said Wu every single day of the past 100 years of his life

Nya builds crazy vehicles again

This is a found family trope and they want you to know it

You spotted a pride flag in the background of a 0.5 seconds action scene and you already know the homophobic fans are going to lose their minds over it again

Snakes. Snakes everywhere.

A villain has the most brutal death on screen and you wonder how th this got approved for a kid show, until the show itself makes a joke about it

"Gasp ! Are we... Gonna lose our powers ???" (no they won't)

Jay's parents are in danger

Crazy plot twist happens and you suddenly realize it's been foreshadowed every single season in the previous 10 seasons but you never paid attention to it until now

Something that happened in a previous season gets referenced and you nostalgia cry about it for a whole episode

"Omg, was that the last and final season of Ninjago ???" (no it wasn't, nothing can end this show, we'll all die way before it does, now get ready for the next arc because it's probably gonna last ten more years)

academic bias is so funny because you’ll be reading about the same historical event and one person is like “Despite the troubles that befell his homeland and near constant criticism of the court King Blorbo remained strong in the face of adversity” and the other one is like “after letting his people carry the brunt of his cringefail decisions Blorbo the Shitface refused to listen to any reason and continued to be a warmongering piece of shit. Also he was ugly.”

Who wants to overthink legos with me? No? Too bad, here goes

Okay so do you ever think about how the circle is (accidentally) a recurring motif in Ninjago? A running list of examples:

Ouroboros, the snake eating its own tail, which is commonly represented in a circular shape and represents infinity with endless return. Thats how they defeat the Great Devourer, actually, by getting it to bite its own tail

The original shape of Ninjago before the FSM pangea'd it

Spinjitzu is essentially the process of weaponizing circular motion. Airjitzu is similar, and even creates a sphere of air/light around the user

In the earlier seasons, Lloyd's main attack involved creating balls of energy

The light from portals - time vortex, Traveler's Tea, the Blind Man's Eye, the Realm Crystal - tend to resemble vortexes

Dragons often have to spin in order to traverse realms

All the circle imagery in the Temple of Light

Jay and Nya's yin-yang badges

Yang's whole "close the circle" shtick

The dust circle that swirled around the ninja at the end of Skybound when Jay said his final wish and all of time was undone

Zane's old house is circular/cylindrical, and the camera spiral-zoomed on him when his memories returned

The architecture on Chen's island

The Celestial Clock

Flower petals circling around Lloyd when he met the FSM

In that flashback when Mystake was telling the story of the Oni and the Dragon, with the FSM creating a circular yin-yang symbol to represent the combining of both light and dark

This is a bit of a stretch, but Zane's notably circular power core

Kryptarium is a panopticon style, which is circular in design. On that note, the s8 Lloyd v Garmadon fight happening at Kryptarium. Lloyd was familiar with the usual procedure of saving Garm, only for that typical cycle of saving and losing his father as Garmadon throws him through the wall and out of the prison

Lots of fights actually have the camera pan in circles around the fighters

That little hand paint collage they all made at the end of season 10

The spiraling bioluminescence surrounding the FSM's corpse

Actually, lets take it a step further. Cycles of violence. Sins of the father. History repeating itself. Harumi and Loyd's backstories causing, opposing, and reflecting one another, with her ending where Lloyd began and vice versa. The inheritance of elemental power, something endlessly recursive. Generational trauma.

Not to mention theres a heavy emphasis on either breaking cycles or perpetuating them. Lloyd saying "I wont let it do to me what it did to you." Harumi saying "i want you to feel the emptiness i feel." Morro saying "I make my own destiny." The Overlord possessing the Great Devourer so it would bite Garmadon. Lloyd wanting to be like his father but then being a hero instead. Nya quoting her mother in her final moments. Again i repeat. Generational trauma.

Theres just. This overwhelming sense of recursion and cycles throughout the entire series, and im mad bc im like 90% sure the writers didnt do that intentionally. Im not smart enough to put it into words but if i think about this for too long im gonna start biting things

Ninjago One-Shot: The Stranger and His Pendant

Prompt from @hereliestheempireofdeath :  zane and the original master of ice

(Okay so I LOVE this prompt!!! This is one of the biggest mysteries of the show, so I’m glad you gave me the chance to explore it! This is all theory, so this is how I think this transition went down! THANK YOU FOR THE PROMPT!!!!)

___________________________________________________________

Parts of the Birchwood Forest used to be green. Can you believe that? Snow-white birch trees and the greenest grass you could ever imagine. Snow covered the Birchwood Forest in the north, but in the south it was paradise. It was the southern part of the Birchwood Forest where Doctor Julien built his house. 

For decades he lived in his paradise with the son he built. He rarely left his house, and never got visitors. 

Until the old man with the white hair. 

Dr. Julien has no idea how the stranger found their home. However, his son, Zane, was curious enough to ask his father to let the man stay. Julien bended to his son’s will, and the tired old man spent a night in the tree home. 

During their dinner, the old man grew very curious of Zane after discovering he was not of the flesh and rather of the machine. He questioned Zane in many unusual ways, asking him what he thought of himself and what his purpose was. When the man heard Zane tell him that he was built to protect those who could not protect themselves, he nodded to himself, as if satisfied with that response. 

In the middle of the night, Zane awoke with the sound of the door above them opening and closing. The robot checked to see if his Father ha awoken, and he had not. Finally, he looked to where the stranger had his cot set up, but it was empty. The only thing that remained was the white and blue pendant that he had worn around his neck. 

Connecting the dots in his head, Zane unplugged the large and heavy cord that connected to the generator to his chest, launched to his feet, grabbed the necklace from the cot and dashed up the stairs after him. 

The night was chillier than usual, and Zane immediately stepped into the heavy dew on the grass. In the harsh moonlight from above, Zane saw the old man limping into the shadows in the distance.

“Sir!” Zane called out as he dashed after the man. His white pants got more and more damp with each step, but the pendant in his hand was far more important than his clothes. 

The old man did not seem to hear Zane when he called out first. It didn’t take long for Zane to catch up to the stranger, and the closer he got, the more he realized how weakened the man was. He was clutching trees as he moved forward with dear life, as if he was about to fall over. 

“Sir!” Zane called again, and this time the stranger heard him. He turned to the android before collapsing onto the ground. 

“No!” Zane yelled. He rushed forward and caught the elder just before he hit the ground. 

His breaths were heavy and his pale blue eyes were starting to lose its vibrant hue. “Z…Zane?” The man panted. 

“You are not safe out here!” Zane warned the man. “You are very ill and need medical attention-“ 

Zane was interrupted with hoarse laughter from the man he cradled. “No, my boy, my time has come.” 

His words didn’t process well in Zane’s head.  “Time…for what?” 

Their eyes connected, and the world seemed to slow to a crawl. “It is time for me to go on.” 

That made more sense. “Well, sir, if you are leaving, you forgot your pendant.” Zane lifted the necklace so the man could see. 

“Aaah,” the man groaned warmly. “That pendant is no longer mine. It belongs to someone else now.” 

Zane raised his eyebrows. “Who? I can bring it to them.”

The hoarse laughter started again, this time ending in coughing. “The pendant belongs to you, Zane. One day you will understand.” 

Zane furrowed his eyebrows. “But…where will you go?” 

With a deep sigh, the old man looked into the sky. “I do not know, young android. But I will find out soon.” 

Zane followed his gaze to the stars. The thousands of dots in the sky have always made Zane feel minuscule, and now even more so than ever. 

“I will miss you sir,” Zane looked down to the elder. The old man smiled, his many wrinkles crumping up with age. “And I with you. But first-“ 

The man took the metallic part of the pendant into his boney wrinkled hands. He shut his eyes, and took a deep breath. As he exhaled, the pendant began to glow a vivid ice blue hue, illuminating both the old man and Zane’s faces. The man opened his eyes, and Zane gasped a little when he saw that they were no longer blue, but light brown. 

“Take this, and promise- to always use your heart and to never forget who you are.” 

Zane’s eyes fixed on the glowing piece of metal. “I- I promise.” 

“Good.” The man relaxed, and Zane could feel his breaths turn into shudders. “I can finally rest….” 

The final breath was like a gust of cool wind as it left his mouth. Zane slowly slipped the pendant out of the stranger’s hands and into his. 

On cue, Zane flinched back when the body in him broke apart into a cold white substance. With a yelp, Zane scampered backwards before freezing, his eyes wide with shock.

The man had turned into snow. 

Still panting with shock, Zane began to make out huge flakes of snow as they fell from a cloudless sky. The temperature dropped within seconds, and it wasn’t even a minute before the gorgeous green grass was covered in a thin layer of fresh snow. 

“Impossible,” Zane breathed as before his eyes the world transformed from a gorgeous green forest to a winter wonderland. The snow that was once the old man vanished within the newly fallen snow.

It took about thirty minutes for Zane to return back to the tree home because he was walking slowly through the forest, taking in the majesty of the transformation. The grass was long gone now as the snow depth moved from inches to feet.

When Zane finally returned to the tree home, he found his Father still asleep, but shuddering in the new freezing temperatures. Zane woke his father and quickly told him the events that just transpired, including the glowing pendant Zane held in his hands. Doctor Julien, as curious as ever, ushered Zane to chop a tree down to make some firewood and to bring it to him quickly as Julien experimented on the blue metal.

Within a few minutes, a small fire kept the small working space of the tree home toasty warm as Doctor Julien toyed with the metal. Zane, with his power cord plugged back into his chest, watched from a far as the Tinkerer tinkered with the piece.

“It’s incredibly powerful, that’s for sure,” the middle-aged man muttered to himself. “My own devices can’t even register how powerful it is.”

Zane leaned forward, craning his neck. “What can it do?”

The doctor shook his head. “I…I do not know. It’s some sort of…power source.”

Suddenly, the tinkerer turned to Zane. “Zane, the old man – he said it was for you?” Zane nodded.

Father looked from the pendant to the robot, then back to the pendant. “Maybe…” he slipped the fabric free from the metal, leaving behind a metal circle. He approached Zane, his face glowing from the blue metal in his hands, and unplugged the robot, revealing the ‘outlet’ for where Zane plugs the cord into his chest. Julien moved to put the metal in, but froze when he realized that the  metal circle had to be in two pieces with a hole in the middle in order to fit the design of the outlet.  

“It won’t fit,” Zane’s father sighed. He extended the piece to Zane to examine. Taking it delicately, he looked it over before looking his chest over. Then, with a deep breath, he copied what the old man had done earlier and shut his eyes, taking in a deep breath.

The metal piece began to glow. Doctor Julien’s eyes widened as the piece grew blinding to look at. After a few seconds of a pure white light, the glow died down and two pieces fell back into Zane’s hands, the exact size for his outlet.

Zane opened his eyes and smiled at the metal. “Will that work, Father?”

Not comprehending what just occurred, Julien nodded slowly before slipping the metal into place. Pressing a button, the small teeth that kept the wire in place before now folded onto the metal, keeping it in place.

Zane gasped, as if he had been choking on air. “Zane! Are you okay?” Julien grabbed at the robot’s arms and stared into his son’s eyes. The gray metal acting as his pupils shimmered before turning a vibrant blue. Zane continued to take a few deep breaths before calming down and relaxing. Julien sat down next to his son. “Zane! What happened?”

The robot looked forward with his glimmering blue eyes, like the world was new to him again. “I…I don’t know. I feel different, but I can’t explain it.”

“You don’t have to, Zane.” Julien responded. They both flinched as the last piece of firewood collapsed into the flames with a thud, sending out sparks.

Julien closed Zane’s chest and hugged his son’s shoulder for a moment, admiring the weak sunlight as it shone through the open door above them. “One thing is for sure,” the middle aged man continued.

Zane looked over, curious. “And what would that be?”

Julien chuckled. “If this winter lasts for a while, we are going to need a lot of firewood.”

It does

Even the publishers can't resist emperor-posting

technoo!!... as a chain because I can't put more than 10 in one post.

bEFORE WE HIT THE LAUNDROMAT

I FINISHED DECODING THE NINJIGMA MAZE AND I'M WAY TOO PROUD OF MYSELF BUT I DON'T CARE

(each colored section corresponds to one of the ninja: kai, jay, cole, zane, or nya. or the freaking walls. i'm on mobile so i don't have many colors to use rip me)

The original text reads as follows:

you h1ve uncovered the prophecy of the green n9nj1J the prophecy h1s been bur9ed deep w9|th9n zanes

3o459 as 9t ha | b55n bur95d | deep wit8in th5 3o4e o6 1ll t|8in7sJ for th5 proph5c|y o6 th5 gre5n

nin|j1 is th5 p|roph5cy o6 | lif5J it exp5n4s farth5r than th5 gre5n |ninja9 farth5r

than 1ll th5 re1lms o6 th5 known univ5rs5J t8is is but th5

st5p o6 an in6inite |sta9rway your| journ5|y

you re1l9ze | b57ins on3|e

Or, if you're not up for parsing All Of That Nonsense:

You have uncovered the prophecy of the green ninja. The prophecy has been buried deep within Zane's code, as it ha[s] been buried deep within the code of all things, for the prophecy of the green ninja is the prophecy of life. It exp[a]nds farther than the green ninja, farther than all the realms of the known universe. This is but the step of an infinite stairway your journey you realize begins once.

(brackets used where a letter was missing or typo-ed, even after deciphering)

@ the hagemans: WHAT DOES IT MEAN

Chapter 6 of "The Phantom Ninja" found in Cole: Ninja of Earth by Greg Farshtey

Guys for the sake of Opposite Shipping I must know

WHICH BOOK IS THIS PASSAGE FROM!!!??

Zane gets called a mom friend because y'all love to woobify him a lot but honestly i think if you put him in charge of a child he would not know what to do with it. like he would take the responsibility seriously and keep the kid out of trouble but otherwise he would have no idea what to do. Zane babysitting activities consist of sitting quietly in a room and not leaving his line of sight until your guardians (or the other ninja) get back. And snacks if you get hungry but you're not allowed to help make them you have to sit there and watch