Reader Appreciation

Hey I went to Finishing Your Wips island. Yeah nobody knew you there :/

Given all the context provided to us by various flashbacks throughout the series, I think Cole's true potential scene has a lot more complexity to it than at first glance.

The first time you watch it, it's pretty standard. He had a difficult relationship with his dad, but after making amends he was able to let go of the thing holding him back and move forward. It's a simple but sweet story, and it's a wholesome lil episode overall.

But THEN we watch all his flashbacks in seasons 8, 13, and the Core shorts, providing us SO much more information about his family history. And when we consider the fact that Lily's death played a major role in his and his father's strained relationship, his true potential starts to take on a new dimension. Let me explain.

First, the flashback from Core. For those of you who haven't seen Core, there's a scene where Cole is feeling overwhelmed so he tries to, as he puts it, "find balance", and ends up conjuring a fond memory of his mom in order to calm down.

This is such a short sequence, barely even 30 seconds long, but also tells us a LOT.

Given his age and appearance, we can assume that Cole is pretty young here. Considering how his mom is up and about and seemingly pretty healthy in this memory, this also likely takes place sometime before she got sick

We can also conclude that dancing was a significant part of not just Lou and Lily's relationship, but their household overall. And given Cole's little smile as he watches them dance, he seems to have genuinely enjoyed it as well. This evidence is corroborated by other instances throughout the series where Cole is more than happy to dance or whistle, maybe even sing if he feels comfortable enough to do so. So he does genuinely enjoy this sort of thing

This would suggest that Cole didn't always have the belligerent attitude towards performing arts like he did in "The Royal Blacksmiths", nor does he carry such an attitude after that episode. As early as season 2 we see him dancing as he fights bad guys and whistling as he helps repair the Bounty. He's had instances of stagefright, yes (the Snake Jaguar incident is the first one that comes to mind), but after making amends with his father he's never shown a dislike for that sorta thing. It's not the dancing he hates, it's the fear of judgment

(On a related note, Cole's insecurity about other people's approval seems to be reflected in his arc during the Ice Chapter, where he became paranoid that everyone hated him for losing the Traveler's Tea and went to extreme lengths to fix his mistake. Or how, in the Character Encyclopedia, it mentions that Cole gets easily distracted by tiny mistakes, and how he tends to fatalize over all his screwups until they end up distracting him. Needless to say, Cole is afraid of letting people down. Residual anxiety from the Triple Tiger Sashay Incident, perhaps? Which, if you really want to be punched in the gut, could also come from Cole being insecure about his inability to save his mother.)

Now let's look at the next flashback in the chronological order: the bedroom scene from season 13.

This scene doesn't tell us quite as much, but we do get clued into a few details regarding Cole's relationship with his mother

In the beginning of the scene, Lou is leading Cole down a hallway and into Lily's room. And when Cole finally sees her, he is wary at first, even turning to his father for confirmation and reassurance. Then, at Lou's encouragement, he approaches her with excitement and relief. Given his reaction, he probably hasn't seen her in a while. Either because he wasn't able to enter her room since she's been so sick, or because she's spent all of her time in either a hospital, hospice center, or some other kind of care facility

Let's go back to that thing about Lou, actually. This quick and quiet interaction between him and Cole suggests that on some level, they do have a functioning and loving relationship at this point. Lou is at this point attentive to his son's emotional needs. Keep this in mind going forward

"I want you to promise me, Cole, that you will always stand up to those who are cruel and unjust." This right here is where we see Cole's motivation for becoming a ninja. He'd gotten into a fight at school in an attempt to stop a bully, and instead of berating her son for fighting, she told him that she was proud of him for doing the right thing even if he got in trouble

This does seem to fall in line with what other few details we have about her character - she's a strong, powerful warrior who was capable of defeating Grief Bringer on her own, and seems to be a somewhat pragmatic, no-nonsense individual who says it like it is - a trait Cole seems to have inherited from her. (Example - when Cole said he didn't want her to be sick anymore, she replied with, "I know. But we don't always get what we want.")

Note that he's still pretty young in this scene. While it's hard to tell specific age, he's probably anywhere between 7 and 10. I'd hazard to guess that this memory occurred relatively early on in his mother's illness

Next up: the flashback in season 8, wherein we see the extended version of Cole's first encounter with Wu

One important thing to note here is that he said he 'just' lost someone, meaning that Lily's death must have happened fairly recently, even though we first see her illness back when Cole was much younger

This means that Lily's illness wasn't a quick thing. It likely lasted for a significant chunk of his childhood, watching his mom slowly spiral into a sickness he can't protect or save her from, with him and his father growing increasingly estranged as it happens

Lou is never home, always out performing. Cole interprets this as his father not caring, but we can easily interpret this as Lou's own attempts to cope. Remember that Lou was once quite supportive and very in-tune with his son's emotional needs? By now, Lou has become a far more distant, estranged, borderline neglectful person in Cole's life due to his inability to grieve in a healthy way

Let's bring back that point in the previous flashback about Lily being a pragmatic, no-nonsense person. "With her gone, I guess it's up to me to be the responsible one." In the wake of his mother's death and father's increasing absence, Cole had to step up and take responsibility. He was trying to take up the space in their family she had once filled.

By the time Cole's true potential episode comes up, I would argue his mother's death is still relatively recent. And all of the interactions between Lou and Cole really have an extra lil flavor when you take that into consideration

So what does all this add up to? Well...

What's the main conflict between Lou and Cole in "The Royal Blacksmiths"? Lou wants Cole to become a performer, a dancer like him. When discovering Cole's a ninja he says, "...I'm not going to wait around to watch you make a mockery of our family's legacy."

We already know that dancing was a major part of their family dynamic, and in particular Lou and Lily's dynamic. To Lou, performance is a family matter.

While we don't have any hard evidence of this, the Triple Tiger Sashay Incident doesn't strike me as something Lily was present for. If that's true, then she'd probably already fallen ill by that point (meaning Lily's illness began at least by the time Cole was 7). And if THAT's true, then we can conclude the following:

Lou, confronted with the impending reality of his wife's death, began clinging to dance and performance as a coping mechanism and likely projected this onto his son. He clung to it as a way to hold onto her, and started to go a bit overboard with it. Hence why he began pushing Cole too far.

Remember, Cole did and still does enjoy dancing. But Lou's actions, all the pressure and judgment, pushed Cole away from something he loved doing. Something that, as we know from the Core shorts, he canonically associates with his mother.

In a way, being a dancer was Lou's coping mechanism, and being a ninja was Cole's. Both of them consumed with something that reminded them of Lily. When Cole and Lou make amends, there's so much more weight behind it than just Lou apologizing for pushing Cole too hard. It's about Lou recognizing how unhealthy his own coping mechanisms have been, and how his own grief has hurt his son. And it's about Cole remembering that when he's not facing pressure and judgment, he actually DOES love dancing.

Over time, as the series progresses, he sheds his serious and responsible persona and begins to loosen up a bit - he's healing. Now that he and his father have made amends and laid to rest all the contention between them, they're both able to heal and move forward.

It's like Jay said - "I think I know why Cole is so closed-off. It's because twinkle-toes here couldn't deliver the goods. Is that why you ran away?"

He may not be in denial like his father, but he can be a bit closed-off sometimes, and is quick to running from his grief instead of facing it. That's why he never vocalized his frustrations with Jay over the love triangle until season 4, just committing to the pettiness of the rivalry instead of being open about his feelings. And it's exactly what he did when Zane died, too - he left the team and ran off to be a lumberjack.

With this in mind, I'd be willing to bet that his distaste for dancing not only came from his father's pressure, but also an attempt to run away from his problems again. This time, by shutting out something that reminds him of his family.

His relationship with his father was holding him back, yes - just as much as his grief for his mother.

Now, let's fast-forward a few seasons to the Day of the Departed special. Cole's ghostly curse has caused him to begin fading from existence, and while he sets out on a quest to remedy the situation, his father waits back home, worried about his absence.

"Cole? Cole? Where are you? My son was going to meet me before the show to light a lantern."

And since Day of the Departed lanterns are lit to commemorate the dead, I am 200% sure that lantern Lou'd been holding was going to be for Lily. He and his son were going to meet up and remember her together. That detail may have been pretty insignificant to the plot, but it feels kinda huge to Cole as a character. I really doubt this is something he and his dad would've done back in season 1, showing that both of them are finally able to confront the truth of Lily's death in a healthy and supportive way. Not only that, but it suggests a closeness between them that simply hadn't been there pre-reconciliation. Not only have Cole and Lou healed in their own rights, but their relationship has healed as well.

Anyway, this was all a very long-winded way of saying that I love Cole Ninjago, and the more I learn about his past the more I want to CRY.

Pls I need ur c!Tommy takes ur the only one I trust to like him without reducing him to someone who has no narrative agency outside of being a victim

THANK YOU <33 this post is probably messy because half of it was copied directly from Fey-posting on twt but here’s a perhaps controversial take about c!tommy + being seventeen !!

because i see a lot of people either de-ageing him (making him seem 12/13) or acting as if he’s older than 17 / as if his age doesn’t matter. i think both are interesting because in my mind ? c!tommy is the EPITOME of a mentally ill / traumatised seventeen year old. his age plays such a huge part in why he acts Like That lol.

just like c!wilbur’s age sort of ,, puts him in the mindset of governance and the naive belief that “others are corrupted by power, not me though, i’m mature / old enough to handle the responsibility well”, and just like c!dream being twenty is so representative of the twenty-year-old belief of “i can change the world MY way, it’s my responsibility, i alone can carry and change the world” — c!tommy’s worldview is SO indicative of his age.

everything about canon c!tommy reminds me of being sixteen/seventeen and struggling with unsavoury truths along with the horror of trauma — that teenager feeling of the whole world being against you, desperately looking for an older figure to look up to but being viciously independent at the same time, being destroyed when said older figure turns out not to be as good as you thought they were ,,, c!tommy idolises c!wilbur to an unhealthy amount, to the point when he realises how bad c!wilbur is for him, he still struggles to abandon him. there’s something about realising your older brother / role model / person you’ve hero-worshipped for years and wanted to be just like is Shitty that reminds me of being sixteen and realising that the older adults in your life aren’t as infallible as you thought.

being seventeen and believing that you can change the whole world while also hating the world for taking your childhood/enjoyment away from you, that black and white morality because anything else makes your life/trauma so much harder to deal with ,, maybe i just knew too many people at seventeen with this kind of trauma but c!tommy reminds me SO much of me when i was a few years younger ? same world view, same struggle between believing you can change everything and the ‘i’m just sixteen, why the fuck should i’ mentality.

that sort of struggle when everything is falling apart around you, and you want to be the one holding yourself together so you do stupid, childish things (grief, steal, just like you used to when you were happy / free to be a kid) but you also sort of resent people for making you want to be the strong one.

everything about c!tommy screams ‘seventeen’ — a young adult, becoming disillusioned to the world around him, desperately trying to avoid realising black-and-white morality isn’t so black-and-white at all, trying to shoulder the world but wishing you could rewind time to be unburdened by the changing people / world around you.

he’s definitely not a ‘kid’ (12/13), and i still wouldn’t class exile as child abuse, because the dynamic there was different, but it also doesn’t feel right to completely disregard the fact that c!tommy is still ,, seventeen. sixteen, at the time when most of his major arcs were happening. his relationship with c!wilbur, his obsession over the disks, his trauma, the way he views morality + evil, his selflessness vs self centred view of conflict ,, all of it screams ‘teenager’.

he’s just a teenager who was thrust very suddenly into a game of war + politics that escalated way out of his understanding, and he’s still trying to make sense of it all. he doesn’t have all the puzzle pieces and for the first time he’s really aware of that fact, and he’s realised the people he looks up to don’t have all the pieces either. c!tommy is loud mouthed and crude because teenagers often are — but in the same way, teenagers are often just beginning to understand how fucked-up the world can be, and i think c!tommy’s arcs with the revival + las nevadas + wilbur’s short story show him on this journey.

fave minecraft wood type?

oak

spruce

birch

jungle

acacia

dark oak

mangrove

cherry

crimson

warped

none/see results

funniest thing about any scooby doo remake is when they make fred a mean jock when in reality he’s a mom friend

I forgot to post this ages ago so im doing it now:

Man, that flashback episode really reminded me of all the things I hate about Zoox and Devo.

(Which speaks to the McElroys bc I'm pretty sure I am supposed to, if not hate, at least dislike these aspects of their characters)

For Zoox - It's mostly just that he's very callous and easily offended? Which to be fair to him, he's basically a toddler so it's pretty understandable. Just sometimes it rubs me the wrong way, like when he was talking to Hermine about Finneas' lantern and being offended when she tries to keep, what is ostensibly, the corpse of her friend that, to him, is just a lantern with no meaning ascribed to it other than it is his.

My main problem is that this characterisation seems mostly incidental and is framed as positive and at other times he seems rather willing to give things to other people - not a greedy guy for the most part which made the whole thing seem a bit weird to me, but it could just have been a tonal disparity.

Devo is just an asshole. He constantly explodes at people and blames them for things that aren't really their fault (example: Finneas, the sallow) and doesn't provide any constructive feedback alongside his complaints of other people (again: sallow). He's also kind of a hypocrite in that he gets easily offended at things and also seems surprised at people being hostile to him despite his poor treatment of them (see: the bar fight, enlisting the biggest baby). He doesn't really apologise and when he does I feel as if it's often about the wrong thing, just the wrong time or he makes the situation more about him. The apologising thing might just be something he learned from the church, though.

On the subject of the church I feel a large disconnect between the story Devo is telling and the story we are seeing (specifically the lantern room), but I think that might just be due to Travis and Griffin not really discussing it properly between them. I got the impression the lantern memory was worse in Travis's mind than it turned out to be, it was still bad, don't get me wrong, but Guidance was being kind of a good teacher the entire time (as in: there were no threats or punishments, just gentle encouragement - it was a discussion). Which isn't to say I like her - she's a gaslighting, lovebombing bitch. (Specifically: when they talked to her for their contract)

I honestly have no complaints about Amber. She's a well-written, well rounded character who is consistent in both her flaws and her strengths. She's a badass woman who lived through the apocalypse, I don't know what to tell you.

I'm not going to lie: I really don't like Devo. And I really preferred the scientist over him. (He was fun. Hope he shows up again)

But also Devo is somehow my favourite of the three and I'm excited to see how Devo manages his anger issues (which he's acknowledged he has! love that for him) and further develop as a character. As well as potential for seeing what the Church/Hand Of Benevolence is really like (I want them to be really shitty).

All of this to say that a lot of people like this exist and props to Travis and Clint in making me have lots of conflicting feelings about Devo and Zoox

Gabriel overhears Ladybug saying "my Lady" to an akuma or smthn and concludes that she is Chat Noir

(Alya): "Chat Noir, what would you say would be your first defining trait?" (Chat Noir): "My special, one of a kind, trademarked phrase of 'my lady.' " (Felix): "I'm gonna to steal that. In fact, Lila, you look wonderful, my lady." (Lila): "Stop mocking me, kitty. Or else, I'll have to throw you in a trash can." (Gabriel): "Felix is Chat Noir? And Lila is Ladybug? Even though this makes no sense, I've likely found their identities. They'll pay for deceiving me."

New fic prompt: how many ways Gabriel can overhear someone say “my Lady” and conclude that they’re CN.

He has this sparkle about him