I am not actually a frog person

tl;dr 4-6 years passing probably does work but serpentine ages and aging rates make my head hurt and i'm probably more in the 3-4 years passing club anyway (but probably at least a year going by between Crystallized and The Merge in the first place)

See I definitely think it's been at least 3 years thanks to Crossroads Carnival. The put up the tent to honor the ninja "every year" which implies two years at minimum, but "every year" feels more like an implication of this being the 3rd+ time it's happened. It could easily be somewhere in the 4-6 range based on that too, and it's definitely been a few years thanks to Sora, Arin, and Wyldfyre all going from short to long legs, but there's just one little problem that sticks out to me.

Spitz.

Cole: Yeah. I had no clue where I was. The Finders took me in. Sora: The Finders? (Fritz and Spitz pop up behind Sora.) Fritz: He means us! I'm Fritz. Spitz: Ssspitz here! You lose it, we find it. Hence, the Finders.

~~

Nya: So, if your theory about this place is right, then those kids are also lost? Forgotten? Cole: Yep. Each of them ended up here after running away from home.

To me, the dialogue implies that Fritz and Spitz were there before Cole was. It could just be saying the Finders as a group name were there before Cole was, which would imply at least two of the others were there before him (thus it could have just been Geo and Bonzle before Cole was there). Still, the phrasing seems to be implying Cole is the most recent addition to the Land of Lost Things. It wouldn't be that much of a problem chronologically...

...if it weren't for Skales Junior, Season 9, and (to some extent) Tommy Andreasen.

Even if we DO choose to ignore Andreasen's statements about the S3->S4 timeskip being longer than the S2->S3 timeskip (more specifically that the S3->S4 timeskip was the longest as of August 2016, post-Skybound and pre-DotD) and the statement about Junior having been born in the new village and not the tombs (February 2017), Skales's dialogue in "The Curse of the Golden Master" seems to imply that Junior was born/hatched more recently anyway.

Kai: Skales Jr.? Uh, you have a son? Skales: We've been busy since you left us. And we prefer to keep it that way.

Which not only begs the question of how much time passed between seasons, but also the question of how quickly Serpentine mature (and how old you thought Junior was in equivalent human years). Depending on your answer for the first question, the answer to the second changes.

And for a time, it was easy enough to say maybe a few years passed between S2 and S3 (I don't know what the general consensus is/was but I tended to say 2-3 years), and Serpentine matured somewhere from 2-4 (or maybe more) times faster than humans. Junior didn't change much in his Tournament of Elements appearance (assuming it wasn't just a chance to reuse a model instead of creating a new one(which it totally was)), so things seemed easy. Hands of Time also didn't see a model change, but the amount of time that passed from S4 to S7 is a bit up in the air anyway. What mattered was he was still a kid and there wasn't gonna be a need to change the model that wasn't gonna be on screen for more than 5 minutes.

And then a year went by in Ninjago to reach Season 8, and a week after the Bounty is destroyed we pick up in Season 9. And Season 9 has "The Gilded Path" and the following exchange.

Kai: Jay, we're still teenagers. Jay: Yeah, but grown-up teenagers.

I know it's probably supposed to be tongue-in-cheek and leaning on the fourth wall more than a statement to take seriously, but the fact of the matter still stands that Kai and Jay are "grown-up teenagers", with the implication being that Cole is one as well. The diction/cadence Jay uses doesn't necessarily imply that they have to be 18 or 19, but I'd only put them at 17 at the youngest here. (Zane is a robot and can't help us in this situation. Sorry buddy)

Assuming they're 19 as of Season 9, that means the trio was 18 in Season 7 (with the possibility of Jay being either almost 18 or almost 19 thanks to the early birthday present stuff). Seeing as all three of them have full-length minifigure legs during their Wu Recruitment in the pilot (and the expanded S8/S9 versions for Cole and Jay), then presumably they're at least teenagers at that point. (I recognize that the mid-length legs weren't a thing at this point, so theoretically there could be more nuance to their ages, but I have at least a little faith that Wu wouldn't purposefully seek out and recruit Actual Children.) Going on the furthest bounds, that would make the trio 13 (or maybe 14) in the pilots, leaving 4 or 5 years for all the events from the end of the pilots to the start of Season 7. It's certainly possible to have everything happen in that span of time depending on how much time you allot to each season's events and the passage of time between them, but it can get kind of tight. Plus it means Nya is kinda young during the pilots which is just so weird to think about.

But then Skales Junior makes things weird again, and in turn makes things weird for Spitz. Junior can't grow up at the same rate a human does, but he also can't grow up too fast.

Maybe it's just me, but it would feel strange for rapid aging to only get a snake to a young child stage and not a teenager or even a preteen stage. However, this does not seem to be the case with Skales Junior, and it would be logical to avoid the same to Spitz seeing as they're both Hypnobrai (or at the very least Spitz is a Hypnobrai hybrid and that phenotype shows prominently compared to someone like Clancee).

And it's not exactly easy to say that in a year (or less) Junior went from being born to being the human equivalent of something like a 10 year old, because by consensus Spitz would then be a young teenager and that really doesn't seem to be the case (unless the snake is just short, in which I feel your pain Spitz, people mistake you as being younger than you are). I sincerely doubt Spitz is supposed to be equivalent to a human somewhere from 14-16 years old. Even assuming Spitz only wound up in the Land of Lost Things fairly early in life (~3-5 human years, maybe?) then the snake would still wind up as a young teen.

In theory, the Serpentine could speed through the early development stages and a snake around one year old could be roughly equivalent to a young child. Possibly 6-8ish, but I have no idea how old Junior is supposed to be in S3. (I've seen some guess he's closer to 4 or 5, but he could also very well have been almost 10.) He definitely feels on the younger side there and older in S7, but he still has short legs and is probably equivalent to a 10 or 11 year old at MOST. Maybe after the initial spike, they level out and might only be a little faster than humans if there's a difference in the first place.

In a case like that, Spitz probably wouldn't be an issue. Assuming the little snake was about a year old when arriving in the Land of Lost Things (with The Merge happening shortly after arrival) and it's been 4-6 years since then, it's entirely possible for Spitz to have been equivalent to a 6 year old human upon arrival and is somewhere from 10-12 now, which would make short legs appropriate. (In theory the medium legs might also work, but the range of ages that use those legs is a bit up in the air.) Spitz could have also wound up there less than a year before The Merge and would be even younger, but that's also assuming my Serpentine-to-human age equivalence estimate is correct. Spitz also might very well have ended up in the Last of Lost Things longer before the Merge, maybe having lived there for a year before everything went sideways. We don't know.

There's also every possibility that Serpentine might only "spike" to the equivalent of a human 4 or 5 year old after a year. If not much time passed from the end of Spitz's "spike" and arrival in the Land of Lost Things and the Merge then it's entirely possible for the little snake to only be a human 8-11 now. But by that same logic, Spitz could again have wound up lost earlier

Keep in mind this is also actively ignoring creator statements and only considering in-show dialogue. If Andreasen's word about early timeskips is considered, then there's either even less time for Junior to grow up or there's not a lot of time between other seasons or for them to happen to begin with. There's also the statement from the Hagemans of how the ninja are supposed to be "eternal teenagers"(September 2017) and Andreasen's tweet how the ninja have "no specific ages"(December 2017). Granted, these were both tweets sent before the line in Season 9, but there's a difference between "the creators say they're supposed to be teenagers" and "characters in the show confirm they are teenagers".

And none of this is helped by Andreasen's other statements on the timeline.

[The rest of this is just me getting annoyed at the timeline but I do think it's important context as to why I have the thoughts I do about the merge timeskip. I shit you not I have a whiteboard in my room that was dedicated to me trying to figure out the timeline post-Seabound and a sequel in the form of an MSPaint file. I love this series but I would kill for whatever timeline the writers used as reference. if they even had one.]

[edit: I talked to a friend about this and another completely viable option is a spike into toddler age and then long/slow childhood.]

The Skales junior situation:

First, I feel like we need to consider the species. He is a snake. Cobra serpentine, which I believe is the species the hypnobrai are based on, are an egg-laying species of snakes. Now, unlike humans, when a snake hatches from an egg, they had already figure out simple things that takes us humans months. Things like; not choking on our food, walking and most motor functions. A baby snake could hypothetically survive own its own if its incubation was without issue, a human baby could not.

Where am I going with this? Skales Junior's egg could have been laid when they where in the thumbs, but hatched during the s2->s3 time skip. In real life, a snake eggs takes 2 to 3 months to hatch. Since in Ninjago Serpertine are a highly intelligent sentient species, lets say one of their eggs takes 2 to 3 years to hatch. When the kid actually hatches they would be no different than a 2-3 year old human toddler who is struggling to learn their words but has already figure out how to walk.

With this being said, I think maybe, Junior could have hatched 8-10 months before we saw him in s3, making him the equivalent of a toddler ages 3-5ish, and then he is just and older kid in s7. (also as a side note, WHEN in s7 does he appear again, I do NOT remember).

In rewards of s2->s3 time skip being shorter than s3->s4 all I have to say is... Tommy Andreasen, you, me, the nearest Waffle House. Catch these hands. <- As it is obligatory on the internet, that is a joke.

Now for Spitz and the Finders:

I feel that is way more likely Spitz egg is what got lost and not Spitz herself. Her egg could have been lost, forgotten about, hatched while in the Land of Lost Things, and has been under Geo's care ever since. She could have been 4-5 when the Merge happened/ Cole arrived, and be 9-10 now.

The "But we are teenagers" Kai dialog from s9: To be fair, as a guy in his early 20s who feels like a teenager, and is surrounded by a bunch of early 20s guys who also feel like teenagers... I just though that was the case here with Kai too. Meaning, they are young adults, early 20s, but being as their life is this Ninja business, no taxes, no worrying about mortgage, 'waiting to see what life throws at you' mentality, he just says they are teenagers.

There are so many "Grown" Things happening in the Oni trilogy that I just can't see Kai saying that and being serious. Nya (Kai's younger sister) gets engaged, Cole is considering adopting a baby, the overall more mature tone of the season. AND more importantly and why I don't think the og4 and Nya are teenagers this season (I place them to be 20-23 with Lloyd being 16), is that they actually perform like experienced Ninja in a way they just were not in seasons 4-7. Nothing against those seasons, I love s4-s7, but the Oni trilogy really shines when showcasing the team doing Ninja stuff.

And now, the timeline I use to not rip my hair. Let it be known that it according to it, 17 years have passed from the pilot to Dragons Risings s1, and that feels wrong to me. it feels too short, but to add more years feels too long, so anyways:

TIMELINE: 1st year + half - Pilot - S1 - S2 (One year gap) 3rd year: -S3 (6 month gap) 4th Year -S4 (3 month gap) -S5 -Skybound 5th year - DotD - S7 (One year gap) 7th year - S8 - S9 (6 months gap) Same year -s10 (6 months gap) 8th year -s11 -s12 -s13 (2/4 month Gap) 9th year -The Island (2 month gap) -s14/ Seabound 10th year -s15/ Crystalized (1 year gap) 11th Year -The Merge (6 year gap) 17th year -s16/ Dragons Rising s1

It was said that the Og4 where 14-20 during the pilots, I like to throw Nya there too, since she is paired with both Jay and Cole, this would make the Og4 + Nya somewhere between 31-37 In Dragons Rising s1.

Its safe to assume Lloyd is somewhere between 8-13 in s1, making him 25-30 in DRs1. Depending of y'alls headcannons.

serpentine having those similarities to real-world snakes and sort of "getting the jump" on where a human would be DEFINITELY helps and sorts that nicely. at the same time it does raise the question "where the heck was jr's egg this whole time in S1/S2" but that's just a result of not knowing what was gonna happen next (like with echo zane and the lighthouse)

In rewards of s2->s3 time skip being shorter than s3->s4 all I have to say is… Tommy Andreasen, you, me, the nearest Waffle House. Catch these hands.

i know this is a joke but mood. BIG big mood. there's a good handful of things he's said with the show that i think are dumb but this one is by FAR the most ridiculous. like, i get that the idea is "oh, the team's been split up for a while" but the team being split longer than it takes to build a skyscraper feels a little too far >:/

I feel that is way more likely Spitz egg is what got lost and not Spitz herself.

and that's entirely fair with the oni trilogy. like i get that it's for the marketing or whatever that they're forever teenagers (except dragons rising, they're just not allowed to say anything but we all agree they HAVE to be older now, there's no beating around the bush anymore) but it's a more serious storyline. i can maaaaybe see Nya still being a teenager but like at the tail end of it (19) if you didn't want to stray too far into adulthood but sometimes you just gotta ignore it B)

11 years (subtracting the mergeskip) honestly feels pretty reasonable? my friend and i have an established timeline in the form of a spreadsheet for a project we're working on (so we can also see how old everyone is at the start and end of each season and do a side-by-side to the others) and ours is shorter but we're trying to keep at least one teenager for that exchange in 89 ^^;

more generally though for pilot->DR1 i have the MSPaint monster. god i hope it's not compressed too hard.

Lloyd: That is hanging somewhere in my closet if you want it.

Sora: what?

Lloyd: oh, I'm also the golden master. I just prefer the green clothes.

Ras: Green Ninja is dangerous, but we also have to keep look out for the golden, even if he hadn't been seen in years.

Ras Gang: noods

Lloyd: that's still me, I'm allowed to change my clothes.

kai: do you think your golden power could work against shatterspin?

Kai: a traffic light. He refuses to tell anyone how he got it. He always gets wide eyed with a traumatic look every time someone asks.

Jay: Zane.

Nya: a charging plug. Like, the plug. Not the wire. She keeps in on her shelf and each of the metal rods on it has a small tint of red. No one asks. I lied Zane asked and he smiled the entire time, and than Nya had to hold him because he had a nightmare about it later.

Cole: a paper straw. He somehow won.

Zane: a samosa. He now has monthly dinners with them and taught them how to be 5 star chefs.

Zane, again: a gun.

Lloyd: a milk bottle. The milk was expired.

Pixal: herself. She is the weapon. She made Zane help her put guns and weapons and more built into her.

Bonus+

Wu: a street lamp. Those really tall ones too.

Garmadon: a spork. He lost, and it was his favourite spork that the other broke. It was on that day that everyone learnt not to touch anything he likes.

Skylor: a railing. She lowkey just ripped it off.

Morro: a tree. Please, don’t EVER ask questions.

Vania: a window, plus its frame. Cole ripped it off and handed it to her, she was completely baffled on what to do with it.

Benthomaar: a floaty. One of those baby ones.

Harumi: the front of a bus.

Echo: a bush. Like, a whole bush.

Misako: one of her incredibly special, one of a kind antiques.

Mystake: a fan. You choose what kinda fan.

2: What scene did you first put down?

3: What’s your favorite line of narration?

4: What’s your favorite line of dialogue?

5: What part was hardest to write?

6: What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?

7: Where did the title come from?

8: Did any real people or events inspire any part of it?

9: Were there any alternate versions of this fic?

10: Why did you choose this pairing for this particular story?

11: What do you like best about this fic?

12: What do you like least about this fic?

13: What music did you listen to, if any, to get in the mood for writing this story? Or if you didn’t listen to anything, what do you think readers should listen to to accompany us while reading?

14: Is there anything you wanted readers to learn from reading this fic?

How I think each of the ninja would dress Lloyd

Zane: Just wants Lloyd to feel as comfortable as possible, and it's basically Lloyd old outfit with a few fixes

Nya: Saw it on Pinterest and thought it was the cutest thing

Cole: He let Lloyd look at his clothes until they both had matching outfits

Kai: Just wanted a mini version of himself to hang out

Well everyone, it's once again that time year: The Annual Ninjago Reblog Rollcall!

This year was certainly...Ah, well, it was something. So this year, feel free to add anything to the reblog chain!