Mari-The-Daydreamer

we see in the movie that despite the fact that she's been a ninja for just as long as the guys have, she's still heavily linked to being "the girl." anyway this headcanon starts post movie, in the event that all of the ninja reveal their identities in solidarity to Lloyd. She's even more associated with being "the girl ninja" than before- now the girls in her class are asking her what it's like to hang with the ninja, not what it's like to BE one of the ninja. She gets tired of it very quickly, even though the others try to help her shut it down multiple times (especially Kai and Lloyd)

So she starts working on the samurai x armor in secret. once shes finished with it she starts going out by herself and dealing with miscellaneous crime through the city. she says she's at an after school club every time she does it, and eventually samurai x becomes known throughout the city. No one knows who they are. of course, Nya is still the water ninja and still hangs around the others. shes samurai X on her own time to keep people from getting suspicious

On one hand, Nya is ecstatic about it. she feels like she can finally be known for herself. and on the other, the ninja are all really really confused about the new person coming up and "stealing" their thunder. Kai is frustrated most of all because it feels like Samurai X is more popular than Nya is, especially when people start making things with their likeness, which they never really did with Nya normally. (they didn't do it with Jay or Zane either, which frustrates him further because his friends have been saving the city longer!! they should be popular too instead of this jerk)

eventually Nya gets revealed as Samurai X to the others somehow. they (read: mostly kai) end up cornering her after a fight and ask who she is and then she takes off her helmet and shows herself and Kai feels really bad about being really antagonistic towards Samurai X and they say she can keep being the Samurai AND be the water ninja if that's what she wants to do.

idk how it would resolve, but she probably decides that public opinion ain't shit and while she enjoyed her time as samurai x she realized she was missing saving people with her friends. she ever doesn't fully drop the samurai x position, but she does hand it over to Pixal whenever she comes along in the movieverse because i think movie Pixal would be fun

I think I might have finally processed season four!

Bonus:

Titles

Here's a piece about an interesting parallel between Kai and Nya that I found: how they react to titles.

Nya:

She hates depending on other people and is always trying to be as independent as possible, so she firmly rejects any label or title she's given. And even if she doesn’t necessarily hate most of them, she still wants to be more than that. She refuses to fit into a box when she's actually so much more. She wants to be perceived as her full self and not only the parts of her that are convenient for other people.

Kai:

Kai's self-esteem is very fragile, so when he gets a title that tells him he's valuable, he latches onto it. He craves validation and a label marking him as "good enough" is perfect for that. I believe this is also one of the reasons he was so obsessed with the Green Ninja.

Kai also uses those titles as a shield, a façade to hide his true emotions. Even if they might not be entirely true, he will adapt to fit into each specific box. After all, if he shows people exactly what they believe, they won't bother looking deeper and so they won't notice the weakness and ugliness beneath the mask.

Although as a final note I have to mention that a lot of Nya's titles are demeaning because of misogyny while all of Kai's are empowering.

First post, kinda nervous!!! I recently finished all my designs for the main 6 ninja so I figured it would be a good place to start ❤️